Fool’s Quest

I doubted that. I knew Chade too well to think there was any door in Buckkeep Castle he could not open. But that did not mean that the Fool would have access to a key. Unless Chade’s former apprentice knew of one. But even if they got past the locked gate, the Fool had not the Skill to enter a pillar.

Please, just ask the gaolers if they saw him down there. I hesitated, not wishing to add what I knew I must. And please discover if any of your Skill-users are missing. An apprentice or a talented Solo. Anyone who might be restless and willing to be persuaded to try an experiment.

I felt her distress at the notion. There may be a few, she admitted reluctantly. Skilled folk tend to be odd in some ways. I will try to discover if any are missing. But it is late and most castle folk are abed by now. I may not know until tomorrow.

I hope to set out by first light tomorrow. Skill to me if there is any news.

I will. I could feel her thinking separately from me. It was almost a whisper in my mind as she said, Do you remember when you were a wolf and came to me in my dreams?

Her feelings for me as she had known me then blew like a breeze through our shared thoughts. I had been mysterious and powerful, almost a romantic image in her imagination of me. I felt a pang of loss that I had become so ordinary to her. I remember. Her Skill had first manifested in her ability to manipulate dreams, her own and those of others. I remembered her glass tower. Her gown of butterflies.

And I remember Shadow Wolf. I knew that he would have to hunt down those who attacked his pack. I knew you would become him again, when you had been alone long enough. A pause in our communication, as if she thought of things too personal to share with me. I could feel her resignation to what I would do. It hurt me. Then, shocking me, I wish I had known her better. I wish I’d given her more time. I always thought there would be more time for us to be sisters. Her blast of sudden fury hit me like a spray of fire. I wish I could go with you and help you kill them!

Skill-silence. I was stunned. Had I forgotten this was the woman who had stood up to Tintaglia when she was little more than a girl? When her mind engaged mine again, her polished control reminded me of her great-grandfather.

Riddle will know what must be prepared for your journey. I will put him to that task. And I will prepare Dutiful to accept your decision.

And with that thought she left me, drifting away from my thoughts like the scented vapors of an extinguished candle in a cold room. I gathered my feet under me and stood slowly. I held the book protectively, as I had not held my daughter. I thought a moment longer and then stooped and blindly chose my candles. I blew out my lights and in the dark, I sniffed one of the unlit candles. Honeysuckle. A long-ago summer day. Molly gathering the white-and-pink blossoms, as busy as her bees in collecting the blossoms that would scent the wax. A memory to hold.

I returned to my den. I put another log on my fire. I would not sleep in this dark before dawn. I kindled fresh candles and took up my old pack. It held my treasures, the things I would not be parted from. I added Molly’s candles and Bee’s journal. As I put her little journal in beside her book of dreams, I felt I joined two halves of her life. She had lived by day as my child, and by night as dreamer of dreams. I did not want to name her a White Prophet. I did not want to mark her as more the Fool’s than mine. I had not told the Fool she kept a dream journal. I knew he would want to hear me read it, would want to possess it as much as I did. These things were all I had left of my child, and I wanted to keep them to myself.