Fool’s Quest

I shook my head. I spoke Chalcedean. “They won’t return. Half lie dead in that camp. The one you have left can’t hear or see you. Any that fled have run into the Buck troops by now. Or if they made it to Salter’s Deep, they found that the ship has been moved. Would you like to live? Tell me about the captives you took from my home.”

I stood up. I set the point of Verity’s sword in the soft spot just below his sternum. I leaned on it, not hard enough to make it penetrate the fur and wool he wore but hard enough to hurt. He kicked his feet wildly and yelled a bit. Then, abruptly, he went limp in the snow and glared at me. He folded his lips stubbornly.

I was unimpressed. “If you won’t talk to me, you’re useless. I’ll finish you now, and go after Hogen.”

The crow cawed loudly overhead and then suddenly swooped down to perch on my shoulder. She cocked her head and stared down at my captive with one bright black eye. “Red snow!” she rejoiced.

I smiled and tipped my head toward her. “I think she may be hungry. Shall we give her a finger to start with?”

Motley sidled closer to my head. “Eye! Eye! Eye!” she suggested rapturously.

I tried not to show how unnerving that was for me. I had not taken my weight off the sword. The tip of it was slowly and inexorably nudging its way through the layers of clothing that protected him. I watched the corners of his eyes and the set of his mouth. I saw him swallow, and in the instant before he tried to roll out from under it, I kicked him as hard as I could just where his ribs ended in the softness of his belly. The sword sank through clothing and into flesh. I did not let it go too deep. “Don’t.” My word was a pleasant warning.

I leaned over him, Verity’s sword still in his wound, and made a suggestion. “Now. Start at the very beginning. Tell me how you were hired and for what. As long as you are talking, I won’t hurt you. When you stop talking, I will hurt you. A lot. Begin.”

I watched his eyes. His glance darted once to the camp. Once to the crow. He had nothing. He licked his chapped lips and spoke slowly. I knew he was trying to gain time for himself. I had no objections.

“It began with a message. Almost a year ago. A pale messenger came to me. We were surprised. We could not decide how he knew where to find our camp. But he had found us. He came with an offer of a great deal of gold if I would perform a service for people who called themselves the Servants. They were from a distant country. I asked how these faraway people had heard of me, and he told me that I had figured in many prophecies in their religion. He said they had seen my future, and over and over they had seen that if I did as they willed, not only did great good come to them, but I achieved the power that I had rightfully earned. In their prophecies I was a figure of change. If I did what they asked, I would change the future of the world.”

He paused. Obviously, he had been flattered by such claims and perhaps expected that I would be impressed. He waited. I stared at him. Perhaps I jiggled the sword a tiny bit.

He grunted breathlessly. I smiled at him and he resumed. “He assured me that helping them with their task would put me on the path to glory and power. The path. They spoke so often of ‘the path.’ He came with funds, asking me to bring a picked force of men and come with him to a port in the Pirate Isles. There he had an army of soothsayers and visionaries, ones who could guide us to success because they could foretell what would be our best tactic. They could pick ‘the one path of many’ that would best lead us to success. And he hinted then that they had with them a very special person, one who could make it impossible for us to be seen or tracked.”

I heard the sounds of a hatchet working on firewood. The lad had finally found a tool. The crow had moved to perch in a tree over my captive. She cawed at him derisively.

“And you believed that?”

He looked at me almost defiantly. “It was true. They showed us when we traveled to the Pirate Isles. He made one of my men forget where the door to the room was. He made another forget his own name. They put food on the table, hid it from us, and then revealed it again. We were amazed. They had a ship and a crew there. They gave us the gold they had promised us just for coming to speak with them. They promised that if we helped them find the Unexpected Son, they would give us more gold, much more.” He scowled darkly.

“Only one part I disliked. The one who bargained with us in the Pirate Isles was a woman. We had not expected that. The messenger they sent first was a man. Then when we were shown the man who could do the magic, he was a soft and pudgy creature, one who quivered and cowered at the woman’s commands. This made no sense to us. Why would a man of such power not do as he wished in the world?”

I wondered that myself but did not speak.

“I am cold,” he said into my silence. “As you said, I am old. And I have not eaten since yesterday.”