Assassin's Quest

"Ask me again in twenty years. These things are so much easier when one looks back." The sideways glance he gave me told me he would say no more on that topic. I tried a new tack.

"So you came, all that way, so that the Six Duchies would not fall to the Red-Ships."

He gave me an odd look, then grinned as if astonished. "Is that how you see it? That we do all this to save your Six Duchies?" When I nodded, he shook his head. "Fitz, Fitz. I came to save the world. The Six Duchies falling to the Red-Ships is but the first pebble in the avalanche." He took another deep breath. "I know the Red-Ships seem disaster enough to you, but the misery they make to your folk is no more than a pimple on the world's buttocks. Were that all, were it simply one set of barbarians seizing land from another, it would be no more than the ordinary working of the world. No. They are the first stain of poison spreading in a stream. Fitz, do I dare tell you this? If we fail, the spread is fast. Forging takes root as a custom, nay, as an amusement for the high ones. Look at Regal and his `King's Justice.' He has succumbed to it already. He pleasures his body with drugs and deadens his soul with his savage amusements. Aye, and spreads the disease to those around him, until they take no satisfaction in a contest of skill that draws no blood, until games are only amusing if lives are wagered on the outcome. The very coinage of life becomes debased. Slavery spreads, for if it is accepted to take a man's life for amusement, then how much wiser to take it for profit?"

His voice had grown in strength and passion as he spoke. Now he caught his breath suddenly and leaned forward over his knees. I set a hand on his shoulder, but he only shook his head.

After a moment, he straightened. "I declare, talking to you is more wearying than hiking. Take me at my word, Fitz. As bad as the Red-Ships are, they are amateurs and experimenters. I have seen visions of what the world becomes in the cycle when they prosper. I vow it shall not be this cycle."

He heaved himself to his feet with a sigh and crooked out his arm. I took it and we resumed our walking. He had given me much to think about, and I spoke little. I took advantage of the gentling countryside to walk alongside the road rather than upon it. The Fool did not complain of the uneven ground.

As the road plunged ever deeper into the valley, the day warmed and the foliage increased. By evening, the terrain had mellowed so much that we were able to pitch the tent, not only off the road, but quite a distance from the road. Before bedtime, I showed Kettle my solution to her game, and she nodded as if well pleased. She immediately began to set out a new puzzle. I stopped her.

"I do not think I will need that tonight. I am looking forward to truly sleeping."

"Are you? Then you shouldn't look forward to waking up again."

I looked shocked.

She resumed setting out her pieces. "You are one against three, and those three a coterie," she observed more gently. "And possibly those three are four. If Regal's brothers could Skill, he most likely has some ability. With the aid of the others, he could learn to lend his strength to them." She leaned closer to me and lowered her voice, although the others were all busy with camp chores. "You know it is possible to kill with the Skill. Would he wish to do less than that to you?"

"But if I sleep off the road," I began.

"The force of the road is like the wind that blows alike on all. The ill wishes of a coterie are like an arrow that targets only you. Besides, there is no way you can sleep and not worry about the woman and the child. And every time you think of them, it is possible the coterie sees them through your eyes. You must crowd them out of your mind."

I bent my head over the gamecloth.

I awoke the next morning to the pattering of rain on the tent skins. I lay for a time listening to it, grateful that it was not snow but dreading a day of walking in rain. I sensed the others waking up around me with a keenness I had not had in days. I felt almost as if I had rested. Across the tent, Starling observed sleepily, "We walked from winter to spring yesterday."

Next to me the Fool shifted, scratched and muttered, "Typical minstrel. Exaggerate everything."

"I see you are feeling better," Starling retorted.

Nighteyes thrust his head into the tent, a bloody rabbit dangling in his jaws. The hunting is better, too.

The Fool sat up in his blankets. "Is he offering to share that?"

My kill is your kill, little brother.

Somehow it stung to hear him call the Fool "brother." Especially when you've already eaten two this morning? I asked him sarcastically.

No one forced you to lie in bed all dawn.

I was silent a moment. I have not been much companion to you lately, I apologized.

I understand. It is no longer just we two. Now we are pack.

You are right, I told him humbly. But this evening, I intend to hunt with you.