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“It’s all connected. When you save any part of the world, you’ve saved the whole world. In fact, that’s the only way it can be done.”
Do you keep your vowed loyalty to the Farseers or do you save the world for me?”
“What is it?” I asked with dread, already knowing. “This time, on Aslevjal.” A terrified smile trembled at the corners of his mouth. “It is my turn to die.”
“I’ve no heart left to give to any girl,” he informed me soberly. Nonetheless, from his descriptions of several of them, it seemed to me that even if he did not have the heart, he still had an eye for them. And so I silently blessed Starling and prayed for a swift healing for my lad.
“I’m hungry.” “No you aren’t. You just want to eat,”
There’s still a tapestry rolled up under my bed that I haven’t had the courage to tell anyone about. I think it’s ruined. And I suspect it was priceless.” “Don’t worry. I’ve got one you can have.” He looked puzzled at my lopsided smile.
And it was not so much that he had his way with her, as that she had hers with him.
“A man with nothing to lose,” he said at one point, “is often in the best position to sacrifice himself for the gain of others.”
One man armed with the right word may do what an army of swordsmen cannot. —Mountain Proverb
And I blinked and saw myself at fifteen, plunged into intrigue far beyond my ability to manage.
In the beginning of the world, there were the Old Blood folk and the beasts of the fields, the fish in the water and the birds of the sky. All lived together in balance if not in harmony.
By daylight, it was easier to shelve those fears.
I wanted to restore my friendship with the Fool, but how could I, knowing that he was but one of the man’s façades? It was, I reflected sourly, like being friends with a puppeteer’s puppet and trying to ignore the man who gave it speech and made it dance.
“When I think of you now, I do not even know how to name you to myself. You are not Lord Golden to me. You never truly were. Yet you are not the Fool anymore, either.”
“You said once that I might call you ‘Beloved,’ if I no longer wished to call you ‘Fool.’ ” I took a breath. “Beloved, I have missed your company.”
“Don’t you think that might cause some talk about the keep?” I let his comment pass for I had no answer to it. He had spoken to me in the Fool’s mocking voice. Even as it soothed my heart, I had to wonder if it was a sham for my benefit. Did he show me what I wished to see, or what he was?
“Then, good night, Fool.” I opened the door and went out into the corridor. “Good night, beloved,” he said from his fireside chair. I shut the door softly behind myself.
I used to doubt the Fool when he told me that all of time was a great circuit, and that we are ever doomed to repeat what has been done before. But the older I get, the more I see it is so. I thought then that he meant one great circle entrapped all of us. Instead, I think we are born into our circuits. Like a colt on the end of a training line, we trot in the circular path ordained for us. We go faster, we slow down, we halt on command, and we begin again. And each time we think the circle is something new.
In each cycle, we may correct old errors, but I think we make as many new ones. Yet what is our alternative? To commit the same old errors again? Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.
