The next day, both Riddle and Web walked with Thick and me. I am sure that Riddle was assigned the task by Chade, but I think Web came for me. To this day, I wonder what Thick told him to make him think it necessary that he attend me. I walked in a silent black despair, through an endless torment of bright ice and gently blowing snow. Riddle and Thick walked ahead of us, speaking little. Web came right behind me, and said not a word all day. Summer had regained its grip and the wind that sculpted the dunes into fantastic forms was gentle and almost warm. I remember that Web’s bird circled over us twice, crying forlornly, and then went back to the sea. The presence of his Wit-beast reminded me savagely of the absence of mine, and sent me into a fresh pit of mourning. I did not sob but the tears ran down my face in a steady flow.
Emotion can be more exhausting than physical endeavor. By the time Peottre announced that we would set our tents, I no longer cared about anything. I was without volition as I stood and watched them put up the tents. Vaguely, I remember that Peottre apologized to Chade because his “courage rations” had so incapacitated me. Chade accepted the apology in an offhand way, replying that I had always had an unpredictable temperament and been prone to abusing herbs. I knew why he said such words, yet they struck to my heart like a dagger. I could not bring myself to eat the bowl of porridge that Web eventually brought me. I went to my blankets while everyone else was still awake. I did not sleep, but stared up at the shadows of the tent’s recesses and tried to imagine why my father had ever lain with my mother. It seemed an evil thing they had done. I heard Web playing his little instrument for Thick outside the tent, and I suddenly missed the funny little man’s Skill-music. Eventually, I must have slept, and heavily.
When I awoke, it was late in the day. All around me were the tousled pallets of the men-at-arms, empty. I wondered why they had not wakened me and why we had not struck camp and begun our day’s march. I crawled shivering from my blankets, grimaced at the robe I still wore, and hastily pulled on my coat and outer trousers. I stuffed the robe into my pack, still wondering at the silence of the camp. I dreaded that some threat of the weather had forced us to delay our journey.
I emerged from the tent into a steady sweep of mild wind, laden with tiny crystals of snow swept down from the bulging shoulder of glacier that loomed over us. Around me, the camp seemed almost deserted. Web was tending a kettle of food on a tripod over a tiny fire in a clay pot. The pot was settling into the snow as its heat melted the ice around it. “Ah, you’re awake,” Web said with a welcoming smile. “I trust you’re feeling better.”
“I… yes, I am,” I replied, somewhat surprised to find it was true. The unreasoning blackness of yesterday’s mood had lifted. I did not feel cheery; the loss of my Skill still weighted me heavily and the task before us daunted me, but the deep despair that had led me to wishing to end my life had lifted. Slowly, a dull anger began to rise in me. I hated Peottre for what he had put me through. I knew that Chade’s strategy with the man required me to refrain from any vengeance, but I refused to believe that those “rations” held an ordinary amount of elfbark that his comrades could consume without devastating effects. I’d been deliberately poisoned. Again. I hoped that sometime before I returned to the Six Duchies, fate would afford me the chance to even things with Peottre. All my training as an assassin forbade me the luxury of vengeance. Ever since King Shrewd had first made me his, I had been taught that my talents were used at the will of the Crown, not at my personal judgment or for private vengeance. Once or twice I’d strayed outside those guidelines, with devastating results. I reminded myself of that several times as I surveyed the area around me.
Our camp was pitched on a gentle slope of snow. Not far away, a ridge of black rock broke jaggedly through the snow’s crust. Above me towered a steep mountain. It was like a cup with a piece broken out of its lip. Here and there, black stone outcropped from the snow crust. Its bowl cupped ice and snow, a frozen cascade that sloped down toward us. We were camped on the final, flattest spread of the spill.
“You’re very quiet,” Web observed gently. “Are you in pain?”
“No. Thank you for your concern. I’ve just been given a great deal to think about.”
“And your Skill Magic has been stolen from you.”
At the glance I gave him, he held up a fending hand. “No one else has deciphered that secret. Thick was the one who accidentally explained it to me. He was quite distressed for you. Annoyed by you too, but worried for you. Last night, he tried to explain to me that it wasn’t just your bleak mood and constant talking and fidgeting that alarmed him, but that you were gone from his mind. He told me a story from when he was small. His mother let go of his hand one night on a crowded street during a fair. He was lost for hours, and he could not find her, not with his eyes or his mind. From the way he told his tale, I think she abandoned him, and then thought better of it later that night and came back for him. But he took a long time to explain to me that he knew his mother was there, but she wouldn’t let him touch her thoughts. With you, he says, you are just gone. As if you were dead, as his mother is dead now. And yet you walk around and he sees you. You frighten him, now.”
“Like a Forged One I must seem to him.”
Web winced sympathetically. I knew then that he had experienced the chilling presence of Forged Ones, for he said, “No, my friend. I feel you still, with my Wit. You have not lost that magic.”
“And yet what use is it to me, without a partner?” I asked the question bitterly.
He was silent for a moment, then spoke resignedly. “And that is yet another thing I could teach you, if ever you have the time to sit and learn.”
There seemed little I could say to that. So I asked a question. “Why haven’t we moved on yet today?” He gave me a quizzical look, then smiled. “We are here, my friend. This is as close a camping site as we shall find. Peottre says the dragon used to be hazily visible in the ice near here. Prince Dutiful and Chade and the others are following Peottre and the Narcheska up to the dragon. The Hetgurd witnesses have gone with them. Up there.” He pointed.
The glacier’s polished and sculpted surface was deceptive. Where it appeared smooth and continuous, there were actually many falls and rises in its surface. Now, as I watched, our people emerged in a long line like a trail of ants higher on the icy hillside. I spotted Peottre in his furs leading them, with the Narcheska at his heels. Everyone was there, following Peottre up the hillside immediately above us. Only Web and I had remained in camp. I commented on that.
“I didn’t want you to wake alone. Riddle said you had spoken of ending your own life.” He shook his head sternly. “I believed better of you. And yet, having seen your black mood yesterday, I did not want to take the chance.”
“I would not kill myself. That was a passing madness, the herb’s toxin speaking rather than any true thought of mine,” I excused myself. In truth, looking back on the wild words I had uttered the night before, I was ashamed that I had even spoken such a thought aloud. Suicide has always been deemed a coward’s act in the Six Duchies.
“And why would you use such an herb, knowing it would affect you so?” he asked severely. I bit my tongue, wishing that I knew what Chade had said of my debilitation. “I’ve used it in the past, for great pain or weariness,” I said quietly. “This time, the dose was far stronger than I thought.” Web sighed in a great breath. “I see,” he said, and no more than that, but his disapproval was strong. I ate the congealing mass in the kettle. It was Outislander food, stinking of oily fish. They made a soup from sticky dry cubes of cooked fish mashed with oil to bind it. Heated with snow water, it made a greasy chowder. Despite the foul flavor, I felt more myself after I had eaten it. There was still a strange absence all around me. It was more than Thick’s music silenced. I had grown accustomed to threads of awareness that extended to Dutiful, Chade, the Fool, and Nettle. I had been torn free of that web of contact.