Assassin's Quest

"Not yet," I admitted. The days were warmer, but the wind that blew past us now still brought the threat of ice on the higher mountain peaks. If I thought about it, I could feel the cold on my cheeks, but the Skill road bade me ignore it. The road was steadily climbing now. Even so, I seemed to walk effortlessly on its surface. My eyes told me that we were going uphill, but I strode along as easily as if it were down.

Another pinch from Kettle. "Think about the problem," she bade me curtly. "And do not be deceived. Your body labors and is cold. Simply because you are not constantly aware of it does not mean you can ignore it. Pace yourself."

Her words seemed both foolish and wise. I realized that by hanging on to my arm, she was not only supporting herself but was forcing me to walk more slowly. I shortened and slowed my stride to match hers. "The others seem to take no harm from it," I observed to her.

"True. But they are neither old nor Skill-sensitive. They will ache tonight, and tomorrow they will slow their pace. This road was built with the assumption that those who used it would be either unaware of its more subtle influences, or trained in how to manage them."

"How do you know so much about it?" I demanded.

"Do you want to know about me, or about this road?" she snapped angrily.

"Both, actually," I told her.

She didn't answer that. After a time she asked me, "Do you know your nursery rhymes?"

I don't know why it made me so angry. "I don't know!" I retorted. "I don't recall my earliest childhood, when most children learn them. I suppose you could say I learned stable rhymes instead. Shall I recite for you the fifteen points of a good horse?"

"Recite for me instead `Six Wisemen Went to Jhaampe Town'!" she snarled. "In my days, children were not only taught their learning rhymes, they knew what they meant. This is the hill in the poem, you ignorant pup! The one no wise man goes up and expects to come down again!"

A shiver walked down my spine. There have been a few times in my life when I have recognized some symbolic truth in a way that stripped it down to its most frightening bones. This was one. Kettle had brought to the forefront of my mind a thing I had known for days. "The Wisemen were Skilled ones, weren't they?" I asked softly. "Six, and five, and four … coteries, and the remains of coteries …" My mind skipped up the stair of logic, substituting intuition for most of the steps. "So that's what became of the Skilled ones, the old one we could not find. When Galen's coterie did not work well, and Verity needed more help to defend Buck, Verity and I sought for older Skilled ones, folk who had been trained by Solicity before Galen became Skillmaster," I explained to Kettle. "We could find few records of names. And they had all either died, or disappeared. We suspected treachery."

Kettle snorted. "Treachery would be nothing new to coteries. But what more commonly happened is that as people grew in the Skill, they became more and more attuned to it. Eventually the Skill called them. If one were strong enough in the Skill, one could survive the trip up this road. But if she were not, she perished."

"And if one succeeded?" I asked.

Kettle gave me a sidelong glance, but said nothing.

"What is at the end of this road? Who built it, and where does it lead?"

"Verity," she said quietly at last. "It leads to Verity. You and I need know no more than that."

"But you know more than that!" I accused her. "As do I. It leads to the source of all Skill as well."

Her glance became worried, then opaque. "I know nothing," she told me sourly. Then, as conscience smote her, "There is much I suspect, and many half-truths have I heard. Legends, prophecies, rumors. Those are what I know."

"And how do you know them?" I pressed.

She turned to regard me levelly. "Because I am fated to do so. Even as you are."

And not another word on the subject would she say. Instead, she set up hypothetical game boards and demanded to know what moves I would make, given a black, red, or white stone. I tried to focus on the tasks, knowing that she gave them to me to keep my mind my own. But ignoring the Skill-force of that road was rather like ignoring a strong wind or a current of icy water. I could choose not to pay attention to it, but that did not make it stop. In the midst of puzzling out game strategy, I would wonder at the pattern of my own thoughts and believe them – not my own at all, but those of another whom I had somehow tapped. While I could keep the game puzzle in front of me, it did not stop the gallery of voices whispering in the back of my mind.