Fool’s Quest

In this dream, everything stank. I was in a terrible place. Animals walked about without their skins. They looked like the hanging deer in the cooling sheds, after the carcasses had bled and when the hunters stripped the hides from the meat. I do not know how I knew that, for I had never seen hunters ride to the hunt, nor deer hung to bleed before skinning. The animals were dark red and purple and pink with glistening white muscles. The worst was around their staring eyes. They could not blink.

In the streets the men and women were wearing the animals’ skins. It was so clearly wrong and yet all the folk there in Wortletree thought it the most normal thing in the world. I did not want to be there. On the water, a great seabird with broad white wings called for us to hurry. They made me go.

—Dream Journal of Bee Farseer

That night, I slept not at all. I argued with myself and then took out Bee’s book. I paged through it slowly, marveling at her illustrations and strange fancies. But not even that could distract me. Chade was right. The headstrong boy I had been would have been on his way a month ago. I reminded myself of the times when I had given in to such impulses. The first time, I’d ended up in Regal’s dungeons. The second time, Regal’s Skill-coterie had nearly killed me. I could afford no mistakes this time. I well knew it would be my last. So I inventoried my resources. My Skill was restored. My body was hardened, my weapons ready. Spring would soon break. I had seen to all at Buckkeep Castle as well as I could. I would settle my affairs at Withywoods and depart.

The next day I announced that I would return to Withywoods for a visit. No one objected. Nettle filled two panniers with gifts and tokens for the servingfolk. Perseverance would go with me, for I judged he should visit his mother and perhaps remain there.

Our travel day dawned blue and clear. I had invited the Fool to join me. He had refused. I’d expected that. What surprised me was the quiet anger in his voice as he said, “While you dither and dally, I must make ready for my journey back to Clerres. When you said you could not go with me because of Bee, I understood. When you said she was stolen, and you could not leave until she was rescued, I understood. But they destroyed our child and still you do nothing.”

He waited for a response from me, and I think my silence only made his anger deeper. “I do not understand you anymore,” he said quietly. “They destroyed our child. I lie awake and plan vengeance. I push my body to grow strong. Daily I strive for endurance. I am ready the moment that you say we are going to leave here and undertake our journey. And finally you propose a journey to me. To Withywoods.” His tone was one of disgust.

I told him the truth. “I am not convinced that your health would allow you to journey back to Clerres, let alone take the vengeance you desire. You are not ready, Fool.” I did not add that he might never be.

“Yet with you or without you, it is something I must do. I have no choice. And so I make my own plans.”

“We always have choices, even when all of them seem bad.”

“I have only one path,” he insisted. He shook his head, then reached to smooth down the cloud of pale hair that stood up around his face. His voice changed. “Fitz, I have begun to have dreams again. As I did when I was a child.”

“We all have dreams.”

“No. Not everyone has these sorts of dreams. These dreams are to ordinary dreams as drinking wine is to smelling it! They are unmistakably significant.”

“Are they from the dragon blood? I remember that you told me you had dragon-dreams. Of hunting and flying.”

He dismissed my question with a wave of his long-fingered hand. “No. Those were different. These are . . . Fitz, I know what lies ahead of us. In glimpses. We must be on our way. I dream of the Wolf from the West.”

He watched me carefully as he spoke. The words rang familiarly in my ears but I could not place where I had heard them before. It was my turn to shake my head. “I must go, Fool. There are things there that must be settled.”

He folded his lips. “With you or without you, old friend. With you or without you.”