Fool’s Quest

Lant abruptly heaved himself away from me. He sat facing away from me in the snow. His shoulders shook but he made not a sound.

“Let me up!”

I pushed myself up off the noisy sack and wiped my sleeve across my eyes. I heaved myself into a sitting position. The struggling lump in the snow beneath me was wrapped in a butterfly’s wing. Perseverance abruptly pushed one corner of the Elderling cloak aside and stared up at me. “What happened? Where am I?” An instant later there was an explosion of black feathers slapping me, and an indignant Motley fled skyward.

“Stupidity happened!” I shouted. Except that I had no breath to shout, so it came out as a gasp. I floundered to my feet and looked around me. Yes. I was where I had expected to be. Loose, fresh snow had smoothed the rumpled tracks Nettle’s coterie had left. Around me was the open circle of what had once been a market pavilion, and we had tumbled from one face of the lone standing pillar that centered it. Dark mountain forest glowered at us from all directions. Beneath me, I felt the distant humming of what I thought of as the Skill-road. Constructed long ago by Elderlings, it thrummed with the memories of those who had trodden it. Moss and grass always seemed reluctant to invade its surfaces. The forest leaned in over the decorative stonework that edged the plaza. I set my walls against the muttering of stone-memories.

I glanced at the sky. Night would soon be falling, it was very cold, and I was unexpectedly saddled with two idiots. I felt vaguely ill in a way I could not define. Not dizzy or feverish. I felt as if I had just arisen from my bed after a long illness. Well, I had, without preparation, towed two unSkilled ones through a pillar, and the simmering memories of the Skill-road besieged my walls. I decided I was lucky that I felt only weak. And they were fortunate to be sane and alive. If they were.

“Lant? How do you feel?”

He dragged in a long breath. “Like the morning after a night of drinking bad ale.”

I turned and glared at Perseverance. “How did you do that?”

He looked surprised I would ask. “I hid under the cloak near the stone. You know how it conceals things that are beneath it. Then, at the last moment, I jumped up and caught hold of you. And here I am.” He stood straight suddenly and met my gaze. He seemed totally unaffected by the passage. He draped the butterfly cloak around his shoulders. “I followed to serve you as I vowed to do. To avenge my Lady Bee, whose colors I wear.”

I wanted to stamp and shout, to call them every demeaning and damning term I knew. They looked at me like puppies and suddenly I could not muster the energy. The cold that squeezed me was not a cold that had patience with human frailty. I looked down at both of them. “Lant. Get up. There’s a tent in that bag. Make camp over there, under those trees where the snow is shallower. I’m going to get a fire going.”

They stared at me, then exchanged astonished glances. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lant stand. He stumbled two steps sideways and then reached up to hold his head in his hands. The Skill-portal journey had not been easy for him. His own fault. My anger at how they had complicated my life drowned any sympathy I might have felt. Perseverance, wrapped in layers of butterfly wings, looked less affected. I walked away from them, pulling my clothing closer. I’d worn the gaudy Farseer cloak over the plain one and was suddenly glad to have it. I found a dead and hanging branch, shook it cautiously to rid it and the branches right above it of loose snow, and then began to break pieces off of it. I returned to find them struggling to erect the small tent I’d been reluctant to bring. Now I was glad of it. I ignored their efforts as I scraped clear an area of the cobbles of the old market and set about my fire-making. I was rusty at this skill, light-headed from our passage, and the longer I struggled, the colder and stiffer my hands became. I panted and sniffled as I worked, for the cold does that to a man. I felt my lips dry and tried to remember not to lick them, as I knew they would immediately crack. Night was coming on and the cold was squeezing me harder. Patience was hard to find. I should have brought a fire-pot.

A spark caught and lingered, and then another, and finally a tiny trickle of smoke rose from my tinder. “Go get wood,” I told the two watching me struggle. “There’s a hatchet in my pack. Don’t dump it out on the snow, reach inside to find it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Perseverance said huffily.

“You’ve not proved that today,” I told him, and he went.

Lant lingered a moment longer. “I told my father you’d refused me. He told me it wasn’t your decision to make. That I should find a way. So I did.”

That sounded like Chade. “We’ll need a lot of wood to last through the night, and the light is nearly gone,” I pointed out. Lant stamped away.