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

by Robin Hobb

distended.

“No. The Elderlings are dragons. Those carved creatures back in the stone garden. Those are the Elderlings. King Wisdom was able to wake them in his time, to rouse them and recruit them to his cause. They came to life for him. But now they either sleep too deeply or they are dead. Verity spent much of his strength trying to rouse them in every way he could think of. And when he could not, he decided that he would have to make his own Elderling, and quicken it, and use it to fight the Red Ships.” I sat stunned. I thought of the Wit-life both the wolf and I had sensed crawling through those stones. With a sudden pang, I remembered the trapped anguish of the girl on a dragon statue in this very quarry. Living stone, trapped and flightless forever. I shuddered. It was a different kind of dungeon. “How is it done?” The Fool shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think Verity himself knows. He blunders toward it, blind and groping. He shapes the stone, and gives it his memories. And when it is finished, it will come to life. I suppose.” “Do you hear what you are saying?” I asked him. “Stone is going to rise and defend the Six Duchies from the Red Ships.

Recalling dreams is so hard. One must seize them as soon as one awakes, and quickly repeat them to oneself, to harden the details. Otherwise they fade so quickly.”

“I think they are like my kind. Rare, but not mythical. Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings?”

“This conversation goes in circles. I am tired of riddles and guesses and beliefs. I want to know what is real. I want to know why we came all this way, and what it is we must do.”

She had clambered up onto the block of stone that mired the dragon, and reached up to lay a hand on the girl’s leg.

“I just wanted to lie beside him,” she said quietly. “To hold him. And to be held. To be held, Fitz. To feel…not safe. I know none of us are safe. But to feel valued. Loved. I did not expect more than that. But he would not. He said he could not touch me.

She lifted her hands to cover her face, and her silent sliding tears suddenly became sobs. She spoke through them. “You…and your Skill. And him. You speak so easily of knowing what he feels. Of love. But I…I don’t have that. I am only…I need to feel it, Fitz. I need to feel his arms about me, to be close to him. To believe he loves me. As I love him. After I have failed him in so many ways. How can I believe…when he refuses to even…” I put my arms about her and drew her head down on my shoulder, while Nighteyes leaned up against both of us and keened softly. “He loves you,” I told her. “He does. But fate has laid this burden upon both of you. It must be borne.” “Sacrifice,” she breathed, and I did not know if she named her child or defined her life. She continued to weep, and I held her, soothing her hair and telling her it would get better, it had to be better someday, there would be a life for them when all this was over, and children, children growing up safe from Red Ships or Regal’s evil ambitions. In time I felt her quiet, and realized it was Wit as much as words I had been giving her. The feeling I had for her had mingled with the wolf’s and joined us. Gentler than a Skill-bond, more warm and natural, I held her in my heart as much as in my arms. Nighteyes pressed up against her, telling her he would guard her, that his meat would ever be her meat, that she need fear nothing that had teeth, for we were pack, and always would be. It was she who finally broke the embr...

For a time he watched me silently. Then he stooped, and with his right hand, picked up a piece of firewood. I knew I should rebuke him, but instead I watched, as curious as he. After a moment, he tucked the wood into the fire and straightened. “Quiet and lovely,” he told me. “Some forty years of growing, winter and summer, storm and fair weather. And before that, it was borne as a nut by another tree. And so the thread goes back, over and over. I do not think I need fear much from natural things, only those that have been wrought by man. Then the threads go raveling out. But trees, I think, will be pleasant to touch.”

“Kettle has not to live with this. I do. I must discover the limits it places on me. The sooner I find what I can and cannot do with my right hand, the better.” He grinned wickedly, and made a suggestive gesture toward himself. I shook my head at him, but could not keep from laughing. He joined his laughter with my own. “Ah, Fitz,” he said quietly a moment later. “You do not know how much it means to me that I can still make you laugh. If I can stir you to laughter, I can laugh myself.” “It surprises me that you can still jest at all,” I replied. “When you can either laugh or cry, you might as well laugh,” he replied. Abruptly he asked, “I heard you leave the tent earlier. Then, while you were gone…I could feel something of what happened. Where did you go? There was much I did not understand.”

I refused to rise to the bait. After a moment, he asked me, “What is it you know about Kettle that I do not?” I looked at him uncomfortably. “About as much as I know about you that she does not.” “Ah. That was well spoken. Those words could have been stolen from me,” he conceded. “Do you wonder why the coterie had not tried to attack us again?” he asked next. “Is this your night to ask unfortunate questions?” I demanded. “Of late, I have no other kinds.”

If I touch those memories at all, they seethe and burn within me like a poison I cannot be rid of. I have felt Regal’s very being inside my own. Hatred for you squirms through him like maggots through rotting meat.” He shook his head, sickened at recalling it. “The man is mad. He ascribes to you every evil ambition he can imagine. Your Wit he regards with loathing, and terror. He cannot conceive that what you do, you do for Verity. In his mind, you have devoted your life to injuring him since you came to Buckkeep. He believes that both Verity and you have come to these Mountains not to wake the Elderlings to defend Buck, but to find some Skill-treasure or power to use against him. He believes he has no choice but to act first, to find whatever it is you seek and turn it against you. To that, he bends all his resources and determination.”

“You would not ask that, if you knew what you were asking.” I thought I did know, but I refrained from saying it. Instead, I let silence bid him think it through. Dawn was graying the sky, and I had just returned from walking a circuit of our camp when next he spoke.

To Regal, every other person in the world was a tool or a threat. All threats must be destroyed. He had probably never considered that all I wanted from him was to be left alone.

Nowhere is there mention of who raised the Witness Stones that stand on the hill near Buckkeep. They may very well predate the actual building of Buckkeep Castle itself. Their supposed power seems to have little to do with the worship of Eda or El, but folk believe in it with the same fierce religious fervor. Even those who profess to doubt the existence of any gods at all would still hesitate to give false oath before the Witness Stones. Black and weathered those tall stones stand. If ever they bore inscriptions of any kind, wind and water have erased them.

“I think this is a foolish idea,” I called after him. “Exactly,” he replied with a grin, and would say no more until we approached the great statue.

quiescent

It was cold, hard stone. I held my breath, daring myself, then quested toward the stone. It felt unlike any questing I had ever done before. There was no beating heart, no rush of breath, nor any other physical sign of life to guide me. There was only my Wit-sense of life, trapped and desperate. For a moment it eluded me; then I brushed against it, and it quested back to me. It sought the feel of wind on skin, the warm pumping of blood, oh, the scents of the summer day, the sensation of my clothing against my skin, any and all that was part of the experience of living it hungered for. I snatched my hand back, frightened by the intensity of its reaching. Almost I thought it might draw me in to join it there.

How could you be so vicious?” “We meant no harm. We did not know…” “Ignorance is always the excuse used by the cruelly curious!” Kettle snarled. My own temper suddenly rose to match hers. “Don’t rebuke me with my ignorance, woman, when all you have done is refuse to lift it for me. You hint and warn and give us ominous words, but you refuse to speak anything that might help us. And when we make mistakes, you rail at us, saying we should have known better. How? How can we know better when the one who does refuses to share her knowledge with us?”

I don’t know. “I don’t know anything,” I said aloud, bitterly. “I’m blundering in the dark, hurting everyone I care about in the process.” “I dare not interfere,” Kettle shouted at me. “What if some word of mine set you on the wrong course? What of all the prophecies then? You must find your own way, Catalyst.”

I turned and walked away from them both. As I headed back to camp with the Fool, I said over my shoulder, “Maybe that is why you are here. Maybe you were called here, with a part to play. Maybe it is lifting our ignorance so we can fulfill this bedamned prophecy of yours. And maybe keeping your silence is how you will thwart it. But,” and I halted to fling the words savagely over my shoulder, “I think you keep silent for reasons of your own. Because you are ashamed!” I turned away from the stricken look on her face. I covered my shame to have spoken to her so with my anger. It gave me new strength of purpose. I was suddenly determined that I was going to start making everyone behave as they should. It was the sort of childish resolution that often got me into trouble, but once my heart had seized hold of it, my anger gripped it tight.

“I’ll be all right, Fitz,” he said wanly. “You were right. I should not have touched her. But I did. And I shall never be able to forget it.” “What happened?” I demanded. He shook his head. “I can’t talk about it just yet,” he said quietly. I shot to my feet, head slapping against the tent roof and nearly bringing the whole structure down around me. “No one in this whole company can talk about anything!” I declared furiously. “Except me. And I intend to talk about everything.”

‘And the one who loves him best shall betray him most foully.’ My own prophecy. I have known that since my eleventh year. Chade, I had told myself, when he was willing to take your child. Chade was your betrayer.” He shook his head sadly. “But it was me. It was me.” He got slowly to his feet. “I am sorry. So sorry.”

“I tried to stay away,” he said quietly. “Starling told me what you were doing. She told me all that was said while I was gone. I know I should wait, that what you do is vital. But…I cannot.” He suddenly had trouble meeting my eyes. “I betrayed you,” he whispered softly. “I am the Betrayer.” Linked as we were, I knew the depth of his feelings. I tried to reach through that, to make him feel what I felt. He had been used against me, yes, but it was no doing of his own. But I could not reach him. His shame, guilt, and remorse stood between us, and blocked him from my forgiveness. Blocked him, too, from forgiving himself.

“All this guilt and shame and remorse you carry, Kestrel. Don’t you see? That is what they burned you with. And you have added to it, all these years. The wall is of your own making. Take it down. Forgive yourself. Come out.” I caught at the Fool’s wrist and held him beside me. Somewhere I felt Nighteyes as well. They were back within their own minds, but I could reach them easily. I drew strength from them, carefully, slowly. I drew their strength and love and turned it against Kettle, trying to force it into her through that tiny chink in her armor. Tears began to trickle down her seamed cheeks. “I can’t. That is the hardest part. I can’t. They burned me to punish me. But it was not enough. It would never be enough. I can never forgive myself.” Skill was starting to seep from her as she reached to me, trying to make me understand. She reached, to clasp my hand between both of hers. Her pain flowed through that clasp to me. “Who could forgive you then?” I found myself asking.

squidgy

I see her, I know her. And she knew you, through and through. Lightning and thunder, your mother called you, for while your temper flashed and was gone, Gull could carry a grudge for weeks. But not against you, Kestrel. Never against you, and not for years. She loved you, more than either of you loved Stanchion. As you loved her. And she would have forgiven you. She would never have wished this on you. I…don’t know. Yes, you do. Look at her. Look at you. Forgive yourself. And let the part of her within you live again. Let yourself live again. She is within me? Most certainly. I see her, I feel her. It must be so. What do you feel? Cautiously. Only love. See for yourself. I took her deep inside her mind, to the places and memories she had denied to herself. It was not the burn-walls her coterie had imposed on her that had hurt her most. It was the ones she had put up between herself and the memory of what she had lost in a moment of fury.

I fell silent, waiting. Kestrel was in a part of her memories she had denied for longer than other folk lived. A place of fresh wind and girlish laughter,

And the wolf. Now, he is a wonder. Almost, I can still sense him.” A very strange smile touched his face. I felt him groping out for Nighteyes. He had not the strength to truly use the Skill or the Wit on his own. But it was unnerving to feel him try. Nighteyes let his tail rise and fall in one slow wag. I’m sleepy. Rest then, my brother. I set my hand to the thick fur of his shoulder. He was life and strength and friendship I could trust. He gave one more slow wag to his tail and lowered his head again. I looked back to the Fool and gave a nod toward Verity’s dragon.

The OutIslanders have always raided the coastline of the Six Duchies. The founder of the Farseer monarchy was, in fact, no more than a raider grown weary of the sea life. Taker’s crew overwhelmed the original builders of the wooden fort at the mouth of the Buck River and made it their own. Over a number of generations, the black stone walls of Buckkeep Castle replaced it, and the OutIslander raiders became residents and monarch. Trade and raiding and piracy have all existed simultaneously between the Six Duchies and the OutIslands. But the commencement of the Red Ship raids marked a change in this abrasive and profitable interchange. Both the savagery and destruction of the raids were unprecedented. Some attributed it to the rise to power in the OutIslands of a ferocious chieftain who espoused a bloody religion of vengeance. The most savage of his followers became Raiders and crew for his Red Ships. Other OutIslanders, never before united under one leader, were coerced into swearing fealty to him, under threat of Forging for those and their families who refused him. He and his raiders brought their vicious hatred to the shores of the Six Duchies. If he ever had any intent beyond killing, raping, and destroying, he never made it known. His name was Kebal Rawbread.

“Let me help you,” I begged again. Something about the work drew me. Before, when Verity had been scraping at the stone with his sword, the dragon had seemed an admirable work of stone-carving. But now there was a shimmering of Skill to him as both Verity and Kettle employed their powers. It was immensely attractive, in the way that a sparkling creek glimpsed through trees draws the eye, or the smell of fresh-baked bread wakes hunger. I longed to put hands on, and help shape this powerful creature. The sight of their working awakened a Skill hunger in me such as I had never known.

“No. I wish to rest, with you beside me. If you would, my queen.” It was no more than the bones of his affection, but she seized on it. “I would, my lord.” It hurt me to see her content with so little. She is not content, Fitz, nor am I unaware of her pain. I give her what I can. What it is safe for me to give her.

curlicues,

It took a moment, but as each bee took flight, it unerringly sought out Red-beard.

There is nothing like being treated like a child to provoke one to act that way.

I went from bright sunlight to cool dappling shade. I stepped away from the tall black pillar and onto deeply grassed earth. The air was heavy with moisture and plant smells. Branches that had been beaded with leaf buds the last time I had been here were now lush with foliage. A chorus of insects and frogs greeted me. The forest around me swarmed with life. After the empty silence of the quarry, it was almost overwhelming. I stood for a time, just adjusting to it.

I was soon soaked to the knee. It was not that there was water underfoot, but that the riotous growth of grasses and reeds that I waded through were laden with moisture. Overhead twining vines and hanging leaves dripped. I did not mind. It seemed refreshing after the bare stone and dust of the quarry. What had been a rudimentary pathway the last time we were here was now a narrow corridor through leaning, sprawling plant life. I came to a shallow gurgling stream, and took a handful of peppery cress from it to nibble as I walked. I promised I would take some back to camp with me come nightfall, and then recalled myself to my mission. Dragons. Where were the dragons? They had not moved, though greenery grew taller around them than it had been. I spotted a lightning-blasted stump I remembered, and from there found Realder’s dragon. I had already decided he might be the most promising one to start with, for I had definitely felt a strong Wit-life in him. As if it could make some difference, I took a few minutes to clear him of vines and wet, clinging grasses. As I did so, one thing struck me. The way the sleeping creature was sprawled upon the earth followed the contour of the ground beneath him. It did not look like a statue carved and then set in place here. It looked like a living creature that had flung itself down to rest and never moved again.

I walked slowly about Realder’s dragon, trying to decide how to begin. From the wedge-shaped reptilian head to the barbed tail, this was one stone dragon that was all of the stuff of legend. I reached an admiring hand to run it over the gleaming scales. I could sense the Wit curling lazily through it like smoke. I willed myself to believe in the life in it. Could any artist have contrived so perfect a rendering? There were knobs of bone at the apex of its wings, similar to those on a gander. I did not doubt that it could clout a man down with it. The barbs of its tail were still sharp and nasty. I could imagine it lashing through rigging or rowers, shearing, slicing, snagging. “Realder,” I cried aloud to it. “Realder!”

As darkness fell, insects came out. Stinging, biting, swarming insects by the hundreds, and always the one who insisted on humming right by my ear.

loam.

By midsummer of that final year, the Six Duchies situation had become desperate. Buckkeep Castle, so long avoided by the Raiders, came under sudden siege from them. They had possessed Antler Island and its watchtowers since midwinter. Forge, the first village to fall victim to the scourge that took its name, had long since become a watering stop for Red Ships. There had been for some time rumors of OutIsland sailing ships anchoring off Scrim Island, including several sightings of the elusive “White Ship.” For most of the spring, no ships had made passage either into or out of Buck Harbor. This strangle of trade was felt not just in Buck, but in every trade village on the Buck, Bear, and Vin Rivers. The Red Ships had become a sudden reality to the merchants and lords of Tilth and Farrow. But at the high point of summer, the Red Ships came to Buckkeep Town. The Red Ships came in the dead of night after several weeks of deceptive quiet. The fighting was the savage defense of a cornered folk, but they were also a starved and beggared folk. Almost every wooden structure of the town was burned to the ground. It is estimated that only one-quarter of the town’s residents were able to flee up the steep hills to Buckkeep Castle. Although Lord Bright had endeavored to refortify and supply the castle, the weeks of strangulation had taken their toll. The deep wells of Buckkeep Castle assured them a good supply of fresh water, but all other things were in scarce supply. Catapults and ot...

scree

petulantly.

When all the records are compared, it becomes plain that no more than twenty Red Ships actually ventured inland as far as Turlake, and only twelve proceeded past Turlake to menace the villages adjoining Tradeford. The minstrels would have us believe there were scores of ships, and literally hundreds of Raiders upon their decks. In song, the banks of the Buck and Vin Rivers were red with flames and blood that summer. They are not to be faulted for this. The misery and terror of those days should never be forgotten. If a minstrel must embroider the truth to help us recall it fully, then let her, and let no one say she has lied. Truth is often much larger than facts.

Take my memories of my mother, and the feelings that went with them. I do not want to know them at all. Take the ache in my throat when I think of Molly, take all the sharp-edged, bright-colored days I recall with her. Take their brilliance and leave me but the shadows of what I saw and felt. Let me recall them without cutting myself on their sharpness. Take my days and nights in Regal’s dungeons. It is enough to know what was done to me. Take it to keep, and let me stop feeling my face against that stone floor, hearing the sound of my nose breaking, smelling and tasting my own blood. Take my hurt that I never knew my father, take my hours of staring up at his portrait when the great hall was empty and I could do so alone. Take my—

—memories of that tower-top, of the bare windswept Queen’s Garden and Galen standing over me. Take that image of Molly going so willingly to Burrich’s arms. Take it and quench it and seal it away where it can never sear me again. Take—

“No.” She spoke quietly. “Not surprised.” She cast about for something to say. “At least you know she is safe and cared for,” she offered. I knew that. It shamed me that I could find so little comfort in it. Putting it into the dragon had helped in the same way that cutting off an infected limb helped. Being rid of it was not the same as being healed of it. The empty place inside me itched. Perhaps I wanted to hurt. I watched her from the shade of my arm. “Fitz,” she said quietly. “I asked you once, for yourself. In gentleness and friendship. To chase a memory away.” She looked away from me, at the sunlight glinting on the stream. “Now I offer that,” she said humbly. “But I don’t love you,” I said honestly. And instantly knew that it was the worst thing I could have said just then. Starling sighed and set her harp aside. “I know that. You know that. But it was not a thing that had to be said just now.” “And I know that. Now. It is just that I don’t want any lies, spoken or unspoken…” She leaned over me and stopped my mouth with hers. After a time she lifted her face a little. “I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them.” “Starling,” I began. “You know you will just say the wrong thing,” she told me. “So why don’t you be quiet for a time? Don’t make this complicated. Stop thinking, just for a while.” Actually, it was quite a while. When I awoke, ...

Six Duchies troops poured into Blue Lake and took ship for the farther side and the Mountain Kingdom on the very days that the Red Ships were beating their way up the Vin River to Tradeford. Tradeford had never been a fortified city. Although word of the ships’ coming preceded them by fast messenger, the news was greeted with general disdain. What menace were twelve ships of barbarians to such a great city as Tradeford? The City Guard was alerted, and some of the dockside merchants took steps to remove their goods from warehouses close to the water, but the general attitude was that if they did manage to get as far up the river as Tradeford, archers would easily pick off the Raiders before they could do any real damage. The general consensus was that the ships must be bringing some offer of treaty to the King of the Six Duchies. There was much discussion as to how much of the Coastal Duchies they would ask ceded to them, and the possible value of reopening trade with the OutIslands themselves, not to mention restoring the trade flow down the Buck River. This is but one more example of the errors that can be made when one thinks one knows what the enemy desires, and acts upon it. The folk of Tradeford ascribed to the Red Ships the same desire for prosperity and plenty that they themselves felt. To base their estimation of the Red Ships on that motive was a grievous mistake.

Then, like a sudden wind, the great scaled body drew air into its lungs. His eyes, when he opened them, were black and shining, the eyes of a Farseer, and I knew Verity looked out of them. He lifted his great head upon his sinuous neck. He stretched like a cat, bowing and rolling reptilian shoulders and spreading claws. As he drew his clawed feet back, his talons scored the black stone deeply. Suddenly, like a sail catching the wind, his immense wings unfurled. He rattled them, a hawk settling his plumage, and refolded them sleek to his body. His tail gave a single lash, stirring rock dust and grit into the air. The great head turned, his eyes demanding we be as pleased with this new self as he was. Verity-as-Dragon strode forward to present himself to his queen. The head he bent to her dwarfed her. I saw her whole reflection in one gleaming black eye. Then he dipped a shoulder to her, bidding her mount.

Kettricken lifted an arm in farewell to us. She shouted something, but the words were lost to me in the wind of the dragon’s opening wings. Once, twice, thrice he flapped them, as if getting the feel of them. Rock dust and grit flew stingingly against my face and Nighteyes pressed close against my leg. The dragon crouched as he gathered his great legs under him. The wide turquoise wings beat again and he sprang up suddenly. It was not a graceful launch, and he wobbled a bit as he took flight. I saw Starling clutch desperately at Kettricken, but Kettricken leaned forward against his neck, shouting her encouragement. In four beats, his wings carried him half the length of the quarry. He lifted, circling over the hills and trees that surrounded the quarry. I saw him dip his wings and turn to inspect the Skill road that led to the quarry. Then his wings began to beat steadily, carrying him higher and higher. His belly was a bluish white, like a lizard’s. I squinted to see him against the summer sky. Then, like a blue and silver arrow, he was gone, speeding toward Buck. Long after he was gone from sight, I stared after him.