Fool’s Quest

That was true. I had almost thought of a response when I heard a muffled shriek. It burst suddenly louder and was followed by the sound of a wild struggle over by the Skill-pillar. Lant had the presence of mind to seize a flaming stick from the fire. I reached the pillar first but when Lant lifted the brand I shouted, “Get back! Don’t touch the Fool and don’t let him touch you!” And in the next breath, I told him, “Drag Spark over by the fire. Wake Per. Get water heating.”

Spark was twitching and yelping like a dog having a bad dream, but her eyes were open. I feared for her. Many years ago, I’d seen what a trip through a Skill-portal could do to unprepared minds. Regal had driven many of his young Skill-apprentices mad when he had attempted to send a small army through a pillar. Spark was unSkilled and had just experienced her third trip through a Skill-portal in less than a day. I was angry at the Fool for risking the youngster, and heartsick that I would be helpless to aid her. I feared even more for the Fool. I prayed that the uneven light of the burning branch tricked my eyes, for it looked to me as if his left hand was unevenly silvered with Skill.

He lay on his back, staring up at me and panting. His blind eyes were wide and the torchlight danced in their golden depths. The skirts he wore were flung wide around him, like a collapsed tent.

I heard Per’s sleepy voice raised in query, and Lant shouting at him to build up the fire, pack the pot with snow, get it melting, and bring a blanket for him to put around Spark. I’d let them create and manage that chaos. They were doing as much for Spark as I knew to do. Keep her warm and try to get food into her. I moved carefully to the Fool’s right side, away from the dangerously silvered hand. “Fool,” I said in as even a voice as I could muster. “Fool, can you hear me? Can you speak to me?”

“The dragon!” His words shuddered on a gasp. “Is the dragon coming?”

I lifted my eyes to the night sky. I saw nothing except stars frozen and twinkling in the darkness. “There is no dragon that I can see.”

“It chased us. And we ran, with Spark gripping my hand and dragging me through the streets. They were crowded with Elderlings laughing and talking, and we ran and ran, we ran right through all of them. Spark shouted they weren’t real, that only the dragon was. But one of them was real, I think. One Elderling. I felt that arrow.” He paused, panting for breath.

“Were you hit? Was Spark?”

“I don’t know.” With his right hand, he plucked at the loose fabric of the shoulder of his blouse. “I felt it, as if someone had seized me hard for just a moment and then let go. Spark kept running, dragging me along, and I tried to keep up. Then she shouted, ‘The pillar!’ and I slapped it. And here we are. Oh, here we are, Fitz. Don’t be angry at me. Please don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry,” I lied. “I’m terrified for both of you.” That was rock-hard truth. I spoke carefully. “Fool, it looks as if you have Skill on your left hand. As Verity did when he carved the dragons. I’m going to help you stand and walk you to the fire. Don’t touch yourself with that hand and don’t touch me.” The failing light of the torch licked along his brightly shining fingers. I’d never discovered precisely where Verity had obtained so much of the raw magic. My king had coated both his hands in it, the better to shape a dragon from stone. The raw Skill had penetrated his flesh and stolen the focus of his mind. By the time we found him, he had scarcely recognized his queen. Kettricken had wept to see him so, but all he had cared for at that moment was to carve his dragon.

“Yes,” he said, and his smile was beatific and frightening in the torchlight. He held his silvered fingers up, and I shrank back from them. “That much I managed. Against all odds. I brought a glove with me, in the wild hope I might succeed. It’s in the pocket of my skirt.”

“Right or left side?”

“Right,” he said and feebly patted there.

I did not want to touch his garments. I didn’t know how he had gotten raw Skill on his left hand but I feared it might be spattered elsewhere. I thrust the base of my branch, which now had but a single dancing flame on it, into the snow and found the edge of a white glove peeking from a pocket concealed in the voluminous skirts. I tugged it free. “Put your right hand on my wrist so you can feel what I’m doing. I’m holding the glove open. Oh, Fool, be so careful. I don’t want that stuff on me.”

“If you could feel it as I do, you would,” he said. “It burns so sweetly.”

“Fool, I beg you, be careful of me.”

“I will. As I so seldom have before. Hold the glove wide, Fitz.”

And I did. “Don’t let your left hand touch the outside of it. Don’t touch your left hand with your right.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

I muttered a small curse that expressed my doubt about that, and he appalled me by laughing. “Give me the glove,” he added. “I can do it myself.”