I heaved myself to my feet. “Have you a cloak I can use?” I asked Burrich.
He ignored me, looking only at Chade. “Is this like what you did the night Shrewd died? Whatever you treated the candles with, it did not behave as reliably as you had expected. What do we risk here?”
But Chade's enthusiasm for an immediate test of his wonderful powder had already grown beyond all caution. He was like a boy with an untested kite or boat. “This isn't like that at all. That was a fine measurement, and it had to be done in more haste than I liked. Have you any idea what was involved in treating all those candles and the firewood supply for that evening, with no one the wiser? No one has ever appreciated that, no, nor any of the other wonders I've worked for the Farseer reign. But even so, this is different. It will happen on a much larger scale, and I am free to use as much of the powder as we think necessary. There will be no half-measures this time.”
Burrich shook his head at me as I freed my arm from its binding and carefully threaded my left hand into my shirtsleeve. It was sore, but I could use it. Carefully. The prospect that the dragon might be slain tonight had fired me. A calm part of me knew that all I had was the Pale Woman's word that she would release the Fool as soon as Icefyre was dead. It was scarcely reliable, and yet it was the only chance I had. And if Chade's powder did slay the beast, but did not win the Fool's release, then a second dose of it, used alongside the dragon's body, might very well open up a passageway into her realm under the ice. I kept that thought to myself for now.
“What are the dangers?” Dutiful asked, but Chade waved a dismissive hand.
“I made extensive tests of it. I dug holes on the beach, built fires in the bottom of them, and when it was burning well, put in the box of powder and retreated. When the powder burst, it created a pit on the beach, the size proportionate to the amount of powder in the sealed container. Why should ice and snow be any different? Oh, I'll grant you that they are heavier and thicker, but that is why we'll use a larger container of powder. Now as for the fire--”
“Easily done,” I said. My mind was already racing. I had found Chade's cloak. I settled it around my shoulders. “A container of some kind, a large cooking pot. That kettle we use for stew and melting snow for water. That will do. Kindling to start a small fire in the bottom of it, and then the Fool's burning oil. He had it with his tent, so it will be there still. I will crawl down the excavated tunnel, get the fire going, and then put in the powder and crawl out. Hastily.” Chade and I grinned at one another. I was already infected with his enthusiasm.
Chade nodded, then knit his brows. “But the kettle's not big enough to hold the whole cask. Ah, let me think, let me think. I have it. Several layers of cured leather under the kettle. When you have the fire going well in the kettle, tip it over onto the leather. It will contain it well enough for the short time it will take. Then thrust the cask into the fire. And come out of the tunnel. Quickly.” He grinned at me as if it were all a fine jest. Peottre looked alarmed, the Narcheska confused. Burrich was scowling, his face gone black as a thundercloud. Prince Dutiful looked torn between a boy's desire to make things happen and a monarch's need to consider all decisions carefully. When he spoke, I knew which side had won.
“I should do it, not Fi--Tom Badgerlock. His arm is all but useless. And I said I would do it. It's my task.”
“No. You're the heir to the Farseer throne. We can't risk you!” Chade forbade it.
“Ah! Then you admit there is a risk!” Burrich growled as I dragged Chade's boots on to my feet. They were too big for me. I had never realized the skinny old man had such long feet.
My mind churned with plans. “I need the kettle, the oil from the Fool's supplies, kindling and tinder, a tinderbox, two treated hides. And the keg of powder.”
“And a lantern. You'll need light to see what you're doing down there in the dark. I'll bring the lantern.” Dutiful had ignored Chade's warning.
“No. No lantern. Well. Perhaps a small one. We go now and we go silently. If the rest of your Witted coterie gets wind of what we're up to...well. We just don't need that to happen.” As I had struggled with the boots, I had realized I'd need someone to help me. My shoulder was still twinging at the slightest demand on it. The Prince would be that person. I'd send Dutiful out of the tunnel as soon as I had the fire started. He could stand beside me on the edge of the pit while we waited for the powder to burst. Surely that would be enough to fulfill his word as a Farseer that he would take the dragon's head.
“Witted coterie!” Burrich exploded.
I felt impatient. I spoke as I sorted through Chade's and Dutiful's clothing. I took Chade's fur hat. “Yes. The circle of Witted ones who serve the Farseer King. Did you think the Skill was the only magic that could be employed that way? Ask Swift about it. He's close to being a member of it. And despite Web's betrayal of our plan, I do not think it a bad idea.” Then, as Burrich stared at me, both dumbfounded and insulted, I reminded Chade, “Send Longwick to gather those supplies himself. He's tight-lipped and loyal; he won't let a rumor start.”
“I'll go with him,” Dutiful said. He did not wait for anyone to agree, but snatched up his cloak. He paused briefly near Elliania. His eyes did not meet hers but he offered, “I give you my word. If I can find clean death for your mother and sister, it will be theirs.” Then he was gone.
“The Farseer Prince uses magic?” Peottre demanded as he stared after him.
Chade hastily devised a lie. “That was not what Tom said. The Prince has a circle of friends here who can use the Wit, what is sometimes called Old Blood Magic in the Six Duchies. They came with him to help him.”
“Magic is dirty stuff,” Peottre opined. “At least a sword is honest and a man sees his death coming. Magic is the way the Pale Woman has enchained our folk and shamed us of them. Magic is how she binds us still, to do her low tasks.”
Burrich nodded slowly to his words. “Would that the magic of the sword could be worked on her. It is never fitting that a strong man falls to guile, especially the guile of an evil and ambitious woman.” I know he thought of my father then, and how Queen Desire had plotted his death. I do not know what Peottre made of his words.
The Narwhal Clan kaempra stood slowly, as if some thought were uncurling uncomfortably in his mind. He nodded, as if to himself. Beside him, the Narcheska stood. “Please tell Prince Dutiful that I said farewell,” she said quietly, to no one in particular.
“And I,” Peottre said in his deep voice. “I am grieved that it came down to this. Would that there had been a better path for all of us.” They left slowly, Peottre moving as if heavily burdened. Dutiful returned quickly, carrying some of the supplies for our mission. A few moments later, Longwick brought the rest. He stood after he had been relieved of the objects. Plainly, he wished to ask questions, but no explanations were offered to him before Chade dismissed him with thanks. The man looked worried. Obviously Dutiful and I were preparing some sort of foray. Little or no explanation of my return had been offered to anyone. Yet, like any good soldier, Longwick accepted the lack of explanation as reasonable and returned to his post outside the tent.
There was some little delay, for Chade had decided that a fire on hides over ice might not burn hot enough to set off his powder. Chade experimented with the kettle to see how large a container of powder would fit into it. This demanded a hasty comparison of packed items to find a container that would both fit within the kettle and sufficiently seal in the powder. At last he settled on a small crock with a pottery stopper that had been full of tea herbs. I suspected the tea was one of his special blends from the way he grumbled over dumping it out. That done, he opened the cask I had carried from the beach and carefully transferred a coarse powder from it into the crock. He did this well away from the tiny candle fire, tamping the powder down with his fingers and muttering to himself as he worked. “It's a little damp,” he grumbled as he turned back to me with the sealed crock. “But, well, the flask that we put in your hearth was a bit damp inside too, and it still worked. Not that I had expected it to blow up like it did, but, well, that is how we learn these things, I suppose. Now, keep this well away from kettle fire until it is going very well, as hot as you judge you can get it. Then put this into the kettle, centered, so it doesn't extinguish the fire. Then get out as quickly as you can.”
These directions were for me. To the Prince he said, “You are to get out as soon as the fire is started in the kettle. Don't wait for Fitz to put the powder in, get out and away and wait for him well back from the excavation edge. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, yes,” Dutiful replied impatiently. He was packing our fire-making supplies into a sack.
“Promise me, then. Promise me that you'll leave as soon as he starts the fire in the kettle.”
“I said I would kill the dragon. I should stay at least to see the powder go into the kettle.”
“He'll leave before the powder goes into the kettle,” I told Chade as I took the sealed crock. “I promise you that. Let's go, Dutiful. We don't have much of the night left.”
As we moved toward the door flap, Burrich stood. “Want me to carry some of that?” he asked me.
I looked at him blankly for a moment. Then I understood him and said, “You aren't going, Burrich. Wait here for us. I won't be long.”
He didn't sit down. “We need to talk. You and I. About many things.”
“And we will. For a long time. There is much I wish to say to you, also. But as it has kept this many years, so it will keep until this task is done. And then we will have time to sit down together. Privately.” I emphasized the last word.
“Young men are so confident that there will always be more time, later.” He made this observation to Chade. Burrich reached over casually to take part of Dutiful's armload. “Old men know better. We remember all the times when we thought there would be more time, and there wasn't. All the things I thought I would say to your father, someday, remain in my heart, unsaid. Let's go.”
I sighed. Dutiful was still standing there with his jaw slightly ajar. I shrugged at him. “There's no use arguing with Burrich. It's like arguing with your mother. Let's go.”
We left the tent and moved quietly into the darkness. We moved as silently as Witted ones can, even when one of them won't admit he's Witted. Burrich set a hand lightly on my good shoulder. It was his only concession to his failing vision and I made no comment on it. I glanced back once to see Chade standing in the tent flap in his night robe, peering after us. He seemed embarrassed to have been caught at it; he let the flap drop down into place. But now I knew that he was worried, and I tried not to wonder how well he had tested his exploding powder. Longwick too stared after us.
The path to the excavation was uphill. It had not impressed me as a difficult climb, but the events of the last few days were making themselves felt to me. Now it seemed difficult, and I was blowing by the time we reached the ramp that led down into the pit. We stopped there, and I took the oil from Burrich, wincing a little at the weight of it.
“Wait for us here.”
“You needn't worry I'll follow you. I know my vision is gone, and I won't put you in danger by going with you. But I'd have at least a word or two with you before you go. Alone, if you don't mind.”
“Burrich. Every moment that I dally, the Fool may lose more of himelf to the dragon.”
“Son, you know in your heart that we're too late to save him. But I know also that you must go on and do this.” He turned his head, not looking at the Prince, but “seeing” him. At a pleading look from me, Dutiful retreated several steps to give us the privacy Burrich sought. He still lowered his voice. “I'm here to bring you and Swift home. I promised Nettle I'd bring her brother home, safe and sound, that I'd kill a dragon to do it if I had to, and that everything would be as it used to be. In some ways, she's still a child, believing that Papa will always be able to keep her safe. I'd like her to go on believing that, at least for a time.”
I wasn't sure what he was asking me, but I was in too much of a hurry to quibble. “I'll do my best to let her keep that,” I assured him. “Burrich, I have to go.”
“I know you do. But...you know that we both believed you were dead. Molly and I. And that we only acted as we did in that belief. You know that?”
“Of course I do. Perhaps we'll talk about it later.” I suddenly knew, by both the anger and pain that his words woke in me, that I wanted to talk about it never. That I did not want even to think of talking about it with him. Yet I drew a breath and said the words I'd told myself so often. “You were the better man for her. I slept well at night, knowing that you were there for her and Nettle. And afterward...I didn't come back. Because I never wanted you to feel that, that--”
“That I'd betrayed you,” he finished quietly for me.
“Burrich, the sun will be coming up soon. I have to go.”
“Listen to me!” he said, suddenly fierce. “Listen to me, and let me say this. These words have been choking me since I was first told what I'd done. I'm sorry, Fitz. I'm sorry for all I took from you, without knowing I had taken it. I'm sorry for the years I can't give back to you. But--but I can't be sorry I made Molly my wife, or for the children and life we had together. Have. I can't be. Because I was the better man for her. Just as Chivalry was better for Patience, when all unknowing he took her from me.” He sighed suddenly, heavily. “Eda and El. What a strange, cruel spiral we've danced.”
My mouth was full of ashes. There was nothing to say.
Very, very softly, he asked me, “Are you going to come back and take her from me? Will you take her from our home, from our children? Because I know that you can. She always kept a place in her heart for the wild boy she loved. I...I never tried to change that. How could I? I loved him, too.”