Assassin's Quest

He leaned forward so that his forehead rested against the dragon. His endless chipping stopped. After a time, he spoke in a thick voice. "I should have you stand here and talk to me while I work, Fitz. Just when I think I am past any great feelings at all, you stir them in me." He lifted his face to regard me. His tears had cut two paths through the gray rock dust. "What choice do I have?"

"Simply leave the dragon. Let us go back to the Six Duchies, and rally the folk, and fight the Red-Ships with sword and Skill, as we did before. Perhaps …"

"Perhaps we would all be dead before we even reached Jhaampe. Is that a better end for my queen? No. I shall carry her back to Buckkeep, and clean the coasts, and she shall reign long and well as Queen. There. That is what I choose to give her."

"And an heir?" I asked bitterly.

He shrugged wearily and took up his chisel again. "You know what must be. Your daughter will be raised as heir."

"NO! Threaten me with that again, and regardless of the risk, I will Skill to Burrich to flee with her."

"You cannot Skill to Burrich," Verity observed mildly. He appeared to be measuring for the dragon's toe. "Chivalry closed his mind to the Skill years ago, to keep him from being used against Chivalry. As the Fool was used against you."

Another small mystery laid to rest. For all the good it did me. "Verity, please. I beg you. Do not do this thing to me. Far better I should be consumed in the dragon as well. I offer you that. Take my life and feed it to the dragon. I will give you anything you ask of me. But promise me that my daughter will not be sacrificed to the Farseer throne."

"I cannot make you that promise," he said heavily.

"If you bore any feelings at all for me anymore," I began, but he interrupted me.

"Cannot you understand, no matter how often you are told? I have feelings. But I have put them into the dragon."

I managed to stand up. I limped away. There was nothing more to say to him. King or man, uncle or friend, I seemed to have lost all knowledge of who he was. When I Skilled toward him, I found only his walls. When I quested toward him with the Wit, I found his life flickering between himself and the stone dragon. And of late, it seemed to burn brighter within the dragon, not Verity.

There was no one else in camp and the fire was nearly out. I flung more wood on it, and then sat eating dried meat beside it. The pig was nearly gone. We'd have to hunt again soon. Or rather, Nighteyes and Kettricken should hunt again. She seemed to bring meat down easily for him. My self-pity was losing its savor, but I could think of no better solution than to wish I had some brandy to drown it in. At last, with few other interesting alternatives, I went to bed.

I slept, after a fashion. Dragons plagued my dreams and Kettle's game took on odd meanings as I tried to decide if a red stone was powerful enough to capture Molly. My dreams were rambling and incoherent, and I broke often to the surface of my sleep, to stare at the dark inside the tent. I quested out once to where Nighteyes prowled near a small fire while Starling and the Fool slept turn and turn about. They had moved their sentry post to the brow of a hill where they could command a good view of the winding Skill road below them. I should have walked out and joined them. Instead I rolled over and dipped into my dreams again. I dreamed of Regal's troops coming, not by dozens or scores, but hundreds of gold-and-brown troops pouring into the quarry, to corner us against the vertical black walls and kill us all.

I awoke in the morning to the cold poke of a wolf's nose. You need to hunt, he told me seriously, and I agreed with him. As I emerged from my tent, I saw Kettricken just coming down from the dais. Dawn was breaking, her fires were needed no longer. She could sleep, but up by the dragon, the endless clinking and scraping went on. Our eyes met as I stood up. She glanced at Nighteyes.

"Going hunting?" she asked us both. The wolf gave a slow wag to his tail. "I'll fetch my bow," she announced, and vanished into her tent. We waited. She came out wearing a cleaner jerkin and carrying her bow. I refused to look at Girl-on-a-Dragon as we passed her. As we passed the pillar, I observed, "Had we the folk to do it, we should put two on guard here, and two overlooking the road."

Kettricken nodded to that. "It is odd. I know they are coming to kill us, and I see small way for us to escape that fate. Yet we still go out to hunt for meat, as if eating were the most important thing."

It is. Eating is living.

"Still, to live, one must eat," Kettricken echoed Nighteyes' thought.

We saw no game truly worthy of her bow. The wolf ran down a rabbit, and she brought down one brightly colored fowl. We ended up tickling for trout and by midday had more than enough fish to feed us, at least for that day. I cleaned them on the bank of the stream, and then asked Kettricken if she would mind if I stayed to wash myself.