Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, #3)

by Robin Hobb

Then I saw the dragon. I halted in my tracks and lifted my arms out in a sudden gesture for both stillness and silence that all seemed to recognize. All of my companions’ gazes followed mine. Starling gasped and the hackles on the wolf stood up. We stared at it, as unmoving as it was. Golden and green, he sprawled under the trees in their dappled shade. He was far enough off the trail that I could only see patches of him through the trees, but those were impressive enough. His immense head, as long as a horse’s body, rested deep in the moss. His single eye that I could see was closed. A great crest of feather-scales, rainbow-hued, lay lax about his throat. Similar tufts above each eye looked almost comical, save that there could be nothing comical about a creature so immense and so strange. I saw a scaled shoulder, and winding between two trees, a length of tail. Old leaves were heaped about it like a sort of nest.

I turned hastily, and like flocking birds, the others mimed my gesture. Yet again we halted, silently transfixed, to stare at a sleeping dragon. This one sprawled in the deep shade of evergreen trees. Like the first, she nestled deep in moss and forest debris. But there the resemblance ended. Her long sinuous tail was coiled and wrapped around her like a garland, and her smoothly scaled hide shone a rich, coppery brown. I could see wings folded tight to her narrow body. Her long neck was craned over her back like a sleeping goose’s and the shape of her head was birdlike also, even to a hawklike beak. From the creature’s brow spiraled up a shining horn, wickedly sharp at the tip. The four limbs folded beneath her put me more in mind of a hind than a lizard. To call both these creatures dragons seemed a contradiction, yet I had no other word for beings such as these.

loam,

heraldry,

It was a thing they could do to me, so they did it. I had always believed, perhaps childishly, that if you followed the rules, you would be protected, that things like that would not happen to you. Afterward, I felt…tricked. Foolish. Gullible, that I had thought ideals could protect me. Honor and courtesy and justice…they are not real, Fitz. We all pretend to them, and hold them up like shields. But they guard only against folk who carry the same shields. Against those who have discarded them, they are no shields at all, but only additional weapons to use against their victims.”

slatternly,

But once you have been forced, it is…different. Ever after. I say to myself, Well, I know that it can happen to me at any time. So this way, at least I decide with whom and when. There will never be children for me, and hence there will never be a permanent man. So why should not I take my pick of what I can have? You made me question that for a time, you know. Until Moonseye. Moonseye proved me right again. And from Moonseye I came to Jhaampe, knowing that I was free to do whatever I must do to assure my own survival. For there will be no man and no children to look after me when I am old.”

“Sometimes I think it were better had they Forged me…” “No. Never say that. Never.” I feared to touch her, but she turned suddenly and burrowed her face against me. I put an arm around her and found her trembling. I felt compelled to confess my stupidity. “I did not understand. When you said Burl’s soldiers had raped some of the women…I did not know you had suffered that.” “Oh.” Her voice was very small. “I had thought you deemed it unimportant. I have heard it said in Farrow that rape bothers only virgins and wives. I thought perhaps you felt that to one such as I, it was no more than my due.” “Starling!” I felt an irrational flash of anger that she could have believed me so heartless. Then I thought back. I had seen the bruises on her face. Why had not I guessed? I had never even spoken to her of how Burl had broken her fingers. I had assumed she had know...

“I do not confuse what was done to you with who you are,” I offered. “When I look at you, I see Starling Birdsong the minstrel.” She nodded her face against me, and I knew it was as I surmised. She and I shared that fear. We would not live as victims. I said no more than that, but only sat there. It came to me again that even if we found Verity, even if by some miracle his return would shift the tides of war and make us victors, for some the victory would come far too late. Mine had been a long and weary road, but I still dared to believe that at the end of it there might be a life of my own choosing. Starling had not even that. No matter how far inland she might flee, she would never escape the war. I held her closer and felt her pain bleed over into me. After a time, her trembling stilled. “It’s full dark,” I said at last. “We had best go back to the camp.” She sighed, but she straightened up. She took my hand. I started to lead her back to camp, but she tugged back on my hand. “Be with me,” she said simply. “Just for here and just for now. With gentleness and friendship. To take the…other away. Give me that much of yourself.”

I wanted her. I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust. She was warm and alive and it would have been sweet and simple human comfort. If I could have been with her, and somehow arisen from it unchanged in how I thought of myself and what I felt for Molly, I would have done so. But what I felt for Molly was not something that was only for when we were together. I had given Molly that claim to me; I could not rescind it simply because we were apart for a time. I did not think there were words that could make Starling understand that in choosing Molly I was not rejecting her.

“You are going to tell her, aren’t you?” Starling relentlessly asked me the one question I was hiding from. “I don’t know,” I said grimly. “Oh,” she said. Then after a time, she added, “When a man says that, it usually means, ‘No, I won’t, but from time to time, I’ll toy with the idea, so I can pretend I eventually intend to do it.’ ” “Would you please shut up?” There was no strength in my words. Starling followed me silently. After a time, she observed, “I don’t know who to pity. You, or her.”

There are a number of old “White Prophecies” that relate to the betrayal of the Catalyst. White Colum says of this event, “By his love is he betrayed, and his love betrayed also.” A lesser known scribe and prophet, Gant the White, goes into more detail. “The heart of the Catalyst is bared to a trusted one. All confidence is given, and all confidence betrayed. The child of the Catalyst is given into his enemies’ hands by one whose love and loyalty are above question.” The other prophecies are more oblique, but in each case the inference is that the Catalyst is betrayed by one who has his implicit trust.

She lifted her eyes to meet mine. She tried to put faith into her gaze and voice as she said, “Yes, we will.” I heard only courage.

We had torn down and moved our camp so often, it no longer took any thought. We moved as a unit, almost as a single creature. Like a coterie, I thought to myself. Like a pack, Nighteyes corrected me. He came to push his head against my hand. I paused and scratched his ears and throat thoroughly. He closed his eyes and laid back his ears in pleasure.

Ah! He fell over on his side, then rolled to his back so I could scratch his belly. He bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. You live in the now and refuse to think of what may come. But I, I find I can think of little else save what may come to be. These times have been good for me, my brother. Living with others, hunting together, sharing meat. But the howling bitch had it aright last night. Cubs are needed to make a pack. And your cub… I cannot think of that just now. I must think only of what I must do today to survive, and all I must do before I can hope to go home.

“Did I? Fitz, I can recall little of what I said immediately afterward. I only recall the feeling, and how swiftly it faded. Briefly, I was connected to everything. Part of it all. It was wonderful, like feeling a surge of love or glimpsing something perfectly beautiful or…” He struggled for words. “The Skill is like that,”

imperiously

She sucked on her teeth for a moment, frowned at me, nearly spoke, and then shook her head briskly at herself. She did not let go of my arm.

Somewhere above the trees, a full moon sailed. Light from her crept and snaked down in silvery spills through the newly leafed branches to illuminate our way. For a time we simply traveled together through the pleasantly open woods. The wolf’s senses supplemented mine. The night was alive with the smells of growing things and the calls of tiny frogs and night insects. The night air had a crisper bite to it than the day did. We found a game trail and followed it. The Fool kept pace with us, saying not a word. I breathed in deeply and then sighed it out. Despite everything else, I heard myself say, This is good. Yes. It is. I shall miss it. I knew he was thinking of what Starling had said the night before. Let us not think of tomorrows that may never come. Let us just hunt, I suggested, and we did.

Fear can be a powerful spur to the mind.

She set her hand to my shoulder, and for one eerie moment, it was Shrewd’s hand on my shoulder, drawing Skill-strength from me. Then she gave me a reassuring little pat. I closed my eyes, felt the Fool’s brow under my hand. I dropped my Skill walls. The Skill river flowed, full to floodtime, and I fell into it. A moment to gain orientation. I knew an instant of terror as I sensed Will and Burl at the very edges of my perception. They were in great agitation about something. I recoiled from them as if I had brushed a hot stove, and narrowed my focus. The Fool, the Fool, only the Fool. I sought for him, I almost found him. Oh, he was passing strange, and surpassing strange. He darted and eluded me, like a bright gold carp in a weedy pool, like the motes that dance before one’s eyes after being dazzled by the sun. As well to clutch at the moon’s reflection in a still midnight pond as to seek a grip on that bright mind. I knew his beauty and his power in the briefest flashes of insight. In a moment I understood and marveled at all that he was, and in the next I had forgotten that understanding. Then, with an insight worthy of the stone game, I knew what to do. Rather than attempt to seize him, I surrounded him. I made no effort to invade or capture, but simply to encompass all that I saw of him and hold it separate from harm. It reminded me of when I had first been learning to Skill. Often Verity had done this for me, helping me contain myself when the current of the Skill thr...

I suddenly felt a cool clasping of my wrist. “Stop it,” he begged gently. “Please,” he added, and it smote me that he thought he needed that word.

“Perhaps I learned by listening instead of asking personal questions all the time,” she snapped at him. “Now, you are going to drink this,” she added, as if she regarded the topic as settled. If I had not been so anxious, it would have been humorous to see the Fool so deftly quelled.

The Fool lowered his mug of tea. “It is a hard thing to explain, my queen. Like two ruffians bursting into your bedchamber, dragging you from your bed and shaking you, all the while calling you by another’s name. And when they discovered I was not the Fitz, they were very angry with me. Then came the earthquake and I was dropped. Down several flights of stairs. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

The Fool caught my eye, glanced meaningfully down at himself. “Green manhood? I really should have showed her,” he said quietly. And despite everything, despite even the glowering of my queen, I burst out laughing.

The wit is held in much disdain. In many areas it is regarded as a perversion, with tales told of Witted ones coupling with beasts to gain this magic, or offering blood sacrifice of human children to gain the gift of the tongues of beasts and birds. Some tale-tellers speak of bargains struck with ancient demons of the earth. In truth, I believe the Wit is as natural a magic as a man can claim. It is the Wit that lets a flock of birds in flight suddenly wheel as one, or a school of fingerlings hold place together in a swiftly flowing stream. It is also the Wit that sends a mother to her child’s bedside just as the babe is awakening. I believe it is at the heart of all wordless communication, and that all humans possess some small aptitude for it, recognized or not.

Continuous hardship makes for monotony and days that run together in the telling.

riposted

The leaves opened on the deciduous trees that flanked the road, and the hills about us greened almost overnight.

There is no more slippery task than to refrain from thinking of something.

sward

We were well pleased with ourselves, for we brought, not rabbit, but a cloven-hoofed creature rather like a small kid, but with a silkier hide.

shrugged my shoulders at her silently. I had refused to think of it the whole time we had been hunting. Instead of going away, the feelings had only built up. The misery I suddenly felt was overwhelming. Yes, and the anger, too. I was furious at the Fool for telling me. I forced myself to consider it.

It is amazing how different a thing appears when you know it is the last one you will have. Every leaf on every limb stood out, in a multitude of greens. Birds sang challenges to one another, or winged by in flashes of color. The smells of the cooking meat, of the earth itself, even the sound of Nighteyes cracking a bone between his jaws were all suddenly unique and precious things. How many days like this had I walked through blindly, intent only on having a mug of ale when I got to town or what horse must be taken for shoeing today? Long ago, in Buckkeep, the Fool had warned me that I should live each day as if it were significant, as if every day the fate of the world depended on my actions. Now I suddenly grasped what he had been trying to tell me. Now, when the days left to me had dwindled to where I might count them.

Death is always at the edge of now. Nighteyes’ thought was gentle. Death stalks us, and he is ever sure of his kill. It is not a thing to dwell on, but it is something we all know, in our guts and bones. All save humans.

There are legends, among the Mountain folk, of an ancient race, much gifted with magic and knowing many things now lost to men forever. These tales are in many ways similar to the tales of elves and Old Ones that are told in the Six Duchies. In some cases, the tales are so similar as to be obviously the same story adapted by different folk. The most obvious example of this would be the tale of the Flying Chair of the Widow’s Son. Among the Mountain folk, that Buck tale becomes the Flying Sled of the Orphan Boy. Who can tell which telling was first? The folk of the Mountain Kingdom will tell you that that ancient race is responsible for some of the more peculiar monuments that one may chance upon in their forests. They are also credited with lesser achievements, such as some of the games of strategy that Mountain children still play, and for a very peculiar wind instrument, powered not by a man’s lungs, but by breath trapped in an inflated bladder. Tales are also told of ancient cities far back in the mountains that were once the dwelling of these beings. But nowhere in all their literature, spoken or written, have I found any account of how these people ceased to be.

disconsolately

asperity.

Someone had carved, in heartbreaking detail, a mired dragon. The thing’s wings were half spread and its half-lidded eyes were rolled up in agony. A human rider, a young woman, bestrode it. She clutched the undulant neck and leaned her cheek against it. Her face was a mask of agony, her mouth open and the lines of her face taut, the muscles of her throat standing out like cords. Both the girl and the dragon had been worked in detailed colors and lines. I could see the woman’s eyelashes, the individual hairs on her golden head, the fine green scales about the dragon’s eyes, even the droplets of saliva that clung to the dragon’s writhing lips. But where the dragon’s mighty feet and lashing tail should have been, there was only puddled black stone, as if the two had landed in a tar pit and been unable to escape it.

It was another dragon. This one was the size of a ship. It was all of black stone, and it sprawled sleeping upon the block of stone it was emerging from. Chips and chunks and grindings of rock dust surrounded the ground around the block. Even from a distance, it impressed me. Despite its sleep, every line of the creature spoke of both strength and nobility. The wings folded alongside it were like furled sails while the arch of the powerful neck put me in mind of a battle charger. I had looked at it for some moments before I saw the small gray figure that sprawled alongside it. I stared at him and tried to decide if the flickering life I sensed came from him or the stone dragon.

And now she stood before her husband and her king, and he fumbled to recall her and of the dead child said only “Oh.” I felt shamed for this doddering old man who peered at the Queen and smiled so wearily.

lambent

As I followed, I ran my eyes down the blade that had been Hod’s pride. I wondered what had possessed Verity to take such a kingly weapon and turn it into a rock-carving tool. The edges were turned and notched from the misuse, the tip no more pointed than a spoon. The sword was much like the man, I reflected, and followed them down to the camp.

privation.

peened

“I do not think any of that coterie would willingly sacrifice himself.” Kettle smiled bitterly. “I did not say he was willingly sent. Nor did I say he knew what his fellows intended. It is like the game of stones, FitzChivalry. One plays each stone to best advantage in the game. The object is to win, not to hoard one’s stones.”

Early in our resistance to the Red Ships, before anyone in the Six Duchies had begun to call it a war, King Shrewd and Prince Verity realized that the task facing them was overwhelming. No individual man, no matter how Skilled, could stand alone to fend the Red Ships from our coasts. King Shrewd summoned before him Galen, the Skillmaster, and directed him to create for Verity a coterie to aid the prince’s efforts. Galen resisted this idea, especially when he found that one of those he must train was a royal bastard. The Skillmaster declared that none of the students presented to him were worthy of training. But King Shrewd insisted, telling him to make the best of them that he could. When Galen grudgingly gave in, he created the coterie that bore his name. It soon became apparent to Prince Verity that the coterie, while internally cohesive, did not work well with the prince at all. By then Galen had died, leaving Buckkeep with no successor to the post of Skillmaster. In desperation, Verity sought for others trained in the Skill who might come to his aid. Although there had been no coteries created in the peaceful years of King Shrewd’s reign, Verity reasoned that there might still live men and women trained for coteries before that. Had not the longevity of coterie members always been legendary? Perhaps he could find one who would either help him, or be able to train others in the Skill. But Prince Verity’s efforts in this area availed him nothing. Those he could identify ...

“Well, to work the stone, you know. When this power is on my hands, the stone must obey the Skill. Extraordinary stone. Like the Witness Stones in Buck, did you know that? Only they are not nearly as pure as what is here. Of course, hands are poor tools for working stone. But once you have cut away all the excess, down to where the dragon waits, then he can be awakened with your touch. I draw my hands over the stone, and I recall to it the dragon. And all that is not dragon shivers away in shards and chips. Very slowly, of course. It took a whole day just to reveal his eyes.”

“Verity told me he can shape rock with his fingers because of the Skill on them,” I told her. “Is your tongue hinged in the middle so that it flaps at both ends? You talk too much!” Kettle rebuked me. “Perhaps I would not talk too much if you spoke a bit more,” I replied. “Rock is not alive.” She looked at me. “You know that, do you? Well, what is the point of my talking when you already know everything?” She attacked her food as if it had done her a personal wrong.

He was watching Kettricken, her face still puffy from weeping, as she dished up food for herself and Verity. Her worn and stained clothing, her rough hair and chapped hands and the simple, homely task she performed for her husband should have made her seem like any woman. But I looked at her and saw perhaps the strongest queen that Buckkeep had ever known.