Assassin's Quest

"In truth, it might be a kindness to us all," she replied, and I smiled, not at her teasing, but that she was still able to do so. In a short time I heard her splashing upstream from me, while Nighteyes dozed on the creek bank, his belly full of fish guts.

As we passed Girl-on-a-Dragon on the way back to camp, we found the Fool curled up on the dais beside her, sound asleep.

Kettricken woke him, and scolded him for the fresh chisel marks about the dragon's tail. He professed no regrets, but only stated that Starling had said she would keep watch until evening, and he would really prefer to sleep here. We insisted he return to camp with us.

We were talking amongst ourselves as we returned to the tent. Kettricken it was who stopped us suddenly. "Hush!" she cried out. And then, "Listen!"

We froze where we were. I half expected to hear Starling crying a warning to us. I strained my ears, but heard nothing save the wind in the quarry and distant bird sounds. It took a moment for me to grasp the importance of that. "Verity!" I exclaimed. I shoved our fish into the Fool's hands and began to run. Kettricken passed me.

I had feared to find them both dead, attacked by Regal's coterie in our absence. What I found was almost as strange. Verity and Kettle stood, side by side, staring at their dragon. He shone black and glistening as good flint in the afternoon sunlight. The great beast was complete. Every scale, every wrinkle, every claw was impeccable in its detail. "He surpasses every dragon we saw in the stone garden," I declared. I had walked about him twice, and with every step I took, the wonder of him increased. Wit-life burned powerfully in him now, stronger than it did in either Verity or Kettle. It was almost shocking that his sides did not bellow with breath, that he did not twitch in his sleep. I glanced to Verity, and despite the anger I still harbored, I had to smile.

"He is perfect," I said quietly.

"I have failed," he said without hope. Beside him, Kettle nodded miserably. The lines in her face had gone deeper. She looked every bit of two hundred years old. So did Verity.

"But he is finished, my lord," Kettricken said quietly. "Is not this what you said you must do? Finish the dragon?"

Verity shook his head slowly. "The carving is finished. But the dragon is not completed." He looked around at us, watching him, and I could see how he struggled to make the words hold his meaning. "I have put all I am into him. Everything save enough to keep my heart beating and the breath flowing in my body. As has Kettle. That, too, we could give. But it would still not be enough."

He walked forward slowly, to lean against his dragon. He pillowed his face on his thin arms. All about him, where his body rested against the stone, an aura of color rippled on the dragon's skin. Turquoise, edged with silver, the scales flashed uncertainly in the sunlight. I could feel the ebbing of his Skill into the dragon. It seeped from Verity into the stone as ink soaks into a page.

"King Verity," I said softly, warningly.

With a groan, he stood free of his creation. "Do not fear, Fitz. I will not let him take too much. I will not give up my life to him without reason." He lifted his head and looked around at us all. "Strange," he said softly. "I wonder if this is what it feels like to be Forged. To be able to recall what one once felt, but unable to feel it anymore. My loves, my fears, my sorrows. All have gone into the dragon. Nothing have I held back. Yet it is not enough. Not enough."

"My lord Verity." Kettle's old voice was cracked. All hope had run out of it. "You will have to take FitzChivalry. There is no other way." Her eyes, once so shiny, looked like dry black pebbles as she looked at me. "You offered it," she reminded me. "All your life."

I nodded my head. "If you would not take my child," I added quietly. I drew a breath deep into my lungs. Life. Now. Now was all the life I had, all the time I could truly give up. "My king. I no longer seek any bargain of any kind. If you must have my life so that the dragon may fly, I offer it."

Verity swayed slightly where he stood. He stared at me. "Almost, you make me feel again. But." He lifted a silver finger and pointed it accusingly. Not at me, but at Kettle. His command was as solid as the stone of his dragon as he said, "No. I have told you that. No. You will not speak of it to him again. I forbid it." Slowly he sank down to his knees, then sat flat beside his dragon. "Damn this carris seed," he said in a low voice. "It always leaves you, just when you need its strength most. Damn stuff."

"You should rest now," I said stupidly. In reality, there was nothing else he could do. That was how carris seed left one. Empty and exhausted. I knew that only too well.