Thick had fallen asleep sitting on the ground, his head bowed heavily onto his chest. He moaned lightly as I gently shook him to wakefulness and helped him to his feet. “I want to go home,” he muttered as he tottered down the road beside me.
“Me, too,” I told him. And yet it was not Buckkeep that came to my mind, but a meadow overlooking the sea, and a girl in bright red skirts who beckoned me. A time, rather than a place. No road led there anymore.
Chapter 12
Cousins
The very next day, we were told that all the issues regarding the Prince’s killing Icefyre had been resolved. We would return to Zylig to accept the Hetgurd’s terms, and then depart for Aslevjal and our dragon hunt. I wondered briefly if the sudden plans for sailing had anything to do with the night scene I had witnessed, but then watched the releasing of a bird that carried tidings of our departure, and decided that the news had doubtless been borne to us on the same wings.
The ensuing bustle spared me an uncomfortable interview with the Prince, but plunged me into misery of a different sort. Thick was completely opposed to getting back onto a ship. It was useless to tell him that this was the only way he would eventually get home. In moments like that, I glimpsed the limits of his mind and logic.
Thick had developed since he had come to us, becoming not only more free with his words but more sophisticated in how he used them. He was like a plant finally granted sunlight as he revealed more understanding and potential than I had suspected from the shuffling half-wit servant in Chade’s tower. And yet, he would always carry his differences with him. Sometimes he became a frightened and rebellious child, and at such times, reasoning with him did us no good. In the end, Chade resorted to a strong soporific the night before we were to sail, which required me to keep a vigil on his dreams all that night. They were uneasy ones that I soothed as best I could. It filled me with misgivings that Nettle did not come to help me, even though in another sense I was glad she did not.
Thick was still soddenly asleep when we loaded him into a handcart to transport him to the ship the next day. I felt a fool trundling him over the bumpy roads and down to the docks, but Web walked alongside me and talked as casually as if this were an everyday occurrence.
Our departure seemed to be more of an event than our arrival. Two ships awaited us. I noticed that the entire Six Duchies contingent was loaded on the Boar ship as before. The Narcheska and Peottre and the few folk accompanying them embarked onto a smaller, older vessel, flying a banner with a narwhal on it. The Great Mother came down to see her off and to offer a blessing to her. I understand there was other ceremony as well but I saw little of it, for Thick began to stir restlessly in his bunk and I judged it best to stay close by him lest he awake and decide to get off the ship.
I sat by his bunk in the tiny cabin allotted to us and tried to Skill peace and security into his dreams. The movement of the waves and the sound of the ship leaked in despite my best efforts. With a start and a cry he came awake and sat up, staring around the cabin with eyes both wild and groggy. “It’s a bad dream!” he wailed. “No,” I had to tell him. “It’s real. But I promise I’ll keep you safe, Thick. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that! No one can promise that on a boat!” he accused me. I had put my arm around him comfortingly when he first sat up. Now he flung himself away from me. He huddled back into his blankets, rolled to face the wall, and began to sob uncontrollably.
“Thick,” I began helplessly. Never had I felt so cruel, never so wrong in anything I had ever done. “Go away!” Despite my walls, the Skill-command in his words snapped my head back on my spine. I found myself on my feet, groping toward the door of the minuscule cabin we’d share with the Wit coterie. I forced myself to halt.
“Is there anyone you want to be with you?” I asked hopelessly.
“No! You all hate me! You all trick me and poison me and make me go on the ocean to kill me. Go away!” I was glad enough to do so, for his Skill pushed at me like a strong, cold wind. As I went out of the low cabin door, I stood upright too soon and slammed the top of my head into the doorjamb. The jolt was enough to dizzy me as I staggered the rest of the way onto the deck. Thick’s cruel laugh was like a second blow. I soon learned it was not an accident. Perhaps the first one had been, but in the days of our journey, Thick managed enough Skill-stumbles for me that any thought of coincidence soon vanished. If I was aware of him, I could sometimes counter it, but if he saw me first, I’d only know of it when I felt the boat seem to lurch under me. I’d try to catch my balance, and instead stumble to the deck or walk into a railing. But at that time, I dismissed it as my own clumsiness.
I went to find Chade and Dutiful. We had a greater degree of privacy on that journey than we had previously had on all our travels. Peottre and the Narcheska and her guards were on the other vessel. The Boar clansmen who operated our vessel seemed little interested in how we socialized, and fewer pretenses were needed. So it was that I went directly to the Prince’s cabin and knocked. Chade admitted me. I found them both well settled, including a meal set out on a table. It was Outislander fare, but at least there was plenty of it. The wine with it was of a decent quality, and I was pleased when a nod from Dutiful invited me to join them. “How is Thick?” he asked without preamble. It was a relief, almost, to give a detailed report on that, for I had dreaded that he would immediately demand that I explain Nettle. I detailed the small man’s discomfort and unhappiness and ended up with “Regardless of his Skill-strength, I do not see how we can force him to continue. With every ship we embark on, he dislikes me more and becomes more intractable. We risk stirring an enmity in him that we can never quell, one that will make him set his Skill against all our endeavors. If it can safely be done, I propose that we leave him on Zylig while we go on to Aslevjal.”
Chade set his glass down with a thud. “You know it can’t be done, so why ask it?” I knew his irritation masked his own guilt and regret when he added, “I swear, I never thought it would be so hard on him. Is there no way to make him understand the importance of what we do?”
“The Prince might be able to convey it to him. Thick is so angry with me right now, I don’t think he’ll truly hear anything I say.”
“He isn’t the only one who is angry with you,” Dutiful observed coolly. The calmness with which he addressed me warned me that his anger had gone very deep indeed. He controlled it now as a man controls his blade. Waiting for an opening.