Assassin's Quest

Starling slapped me, hard. My head snapped on my neck with the force of her blow. I looked at her in astonishment, blood pooling in my mouth where my teeth had cut my cheek. She lifted her clenched fist again, and I realized she had not slapped me. I stepped back hastily, catching her wrist as her fist went by. "Stop it!" I cried angrily.

"You … stop it!" she panted. "And make her stop it, too!" She gestured angrily to where the Fool perched still upon his stone, frozen in artful mime of a statue. He did not breathe nor blink. But as I watched he slowly toppled over, falling like a stone.

I expected him to change it to a handspring in midfall, to come flashing to his feet as he so often had when he amused King Shrewd's court. Instead he measured his length in the meadow grass and lay still.

For a moment I stood stunned. Then I raced to his side. I seized the Fool under the arms and dragged him away from both the black circle and the black stone he had climbed upon. Some instinct made me take him into shade and lean him back against the trunk of alive oak. "Get water!" I snapped at Starling, and her scolding and fluttering ceased. She ran back to the loaded jeppas and got a waterskin.

I put my fingers alongside his throat and found his life pulsing steadily there. His eyes were only half-closed and he lay like a man stunned. I called his name and patted at his cheek until Starling returned with the water. I unstoppered the skin and let a cold stream of it spatter down over his face. For a time there was no response. Then he gasped, snorted out water, and sat up abruptly. His eyes were blank. Then his gaze met mine and he grinned wildly. "Such a folk and such a day! It was the announcing of Realder's dragon, and he had promised he would fly me …" He frowned suddenly and looked about in confusion. "It fades, like a dream it fades, leaving less than its shadow behind …"

Kettle and Kettricken were suddenly with us as well. Starling tattled out all that had happened while I helped the Fool to drink some water. When she was finished, Kettricken looked grave, but it was Kettle who lashed out at us. "The White Prophet and the Catalyst!" she cried in disgust. "Rather name them as they are, the Fool and the Idiot. Of all the careless, foolish things to do! He has no training at all, how is he to protect himself from the coterie?"

"Do you know what happened?" I demanded, cutting into her tirade.

"I … well, of course not. But I can surmise. The stone he clambered on must be a Skill-stone, the same stuff as the road and the pillars. And somehow this time the road seized you both with its power instead of just you."

"Did you know it could happen?" I didn't wait for her reply. "Why didn't you warn us?"

"I didn't know!" she retorted, and then added guiltily, "I only suspected, and I never thought either of you would be so foolish as to …"

"Never mind!" the Fool cut in. Abruptly he laughed and stood up, pushing away my arm. "Oh, this! This is such as I have not felt in years, not since I was a child. The certainty, the power of it. Kettle! Would you hear a White Prophet speak? Then hearken to this, and be glad as I am glad. We are not only where we must be, we are when we must be. All junctures coincide, we draw closer and closer to the center of the web. You and I." He clasped my head suddenly between his two hands and placed his brow against mine. "We are even who we must be!" He freed me suddenly and spun away. He launched the handspring I had expected earlier, came to his feet, curtsied deeply and laughed aloud again, exultantly. We all gawked at him.

"You are in great danger!" Kettle told him severely.

"I know," he replied, almost sincerely, and then added, "As I said. Exactly where we need to be." He paused, then asked me suddenly, "Did you see my crown? Wasn't it magnificent? I wonder if I shall be able to carve it from memory?"

"I saw the rooster crown," I said slowly. "But what to make of any of this, I do not know."

"You don't?" He cocked his head at me, then smiled pityingly. "Oh, Fitzy-fitz, I would explain it if I could. It is not that I wish to keep secrets, but these secrets defy telling in mere words. They are more than half a feeling, a grasping of rightness. Can you trust me in this?"

"You are alive again," I said wonderingly. I had not seen such light in his eyes since the days when he had made King Shrewd bellow with laughter.

"Yes," he said gently. "And when we have finished, I promise that you will be, also."

The three women stood glaring and excluded. When I looked at the outrage on Starling's face, the rebuke in Kettle's and the exasperation in Kettricken's, I suddenly had to grin. Behind me the Fool chuckled. And try as we might, we could not explain to their satisfaction exactly what had happened. Nevertheless, we wasted quite some time in attempting it.