Thick skidded to a sudden halt and cocked his head as if listening. “Skill scrolls, Chade says, bring the Skill scrolls.” He paused, frowning as he paid attention to Chade's Skilling. “But not yet! Don't go home yet, not until he has a good way to explain it. But soon. Nettle is getting tired of all the messages. You could do it better.”
I had given Chade much to think about, and to my relief, he excused himself from our Skilling to do just that. Dutiful attempted to explain to me how Nettle had persuaded Icefyre to present his head to the Narcheska, but Thick was too excited to permit our conversation. And I sensed restlessness from the Prince that told me he had better ways to pass his time than lingering with me. I sent him off with a stern warning to be circumspect, which I am sure he ignored.
I came back to full awareness to find the Fool nodding wearily to the Black Man's long explanation of something. It was the most foreign babbling I had ever heard, with not a single word that I recognized. Thick insisted on reporting how he had spent his time with the Black Man, with many descriptions of food, of Chade being angry and upset, and of a wonderful sliding place he had discovered not far away. I looked at his round face, beaming with contentment. He was a wonderful man. He accepted, with equanimity, that I had returned, that the Fool was no longer dead, and that soon we would be back home without going on a boat. His joy at sliding on snow was equal to his joy at my return. I envied his easy acquiescence to change and the future.
As he prattled, I tried to decipher what the future held for me. We would go back to Buckkeep and I'd have the task of transporting the Skill library there. Already I dreaded how many trips through the pillars that would entail. Yet that task became simple when I thought of what would follow. I had to introduce myself to Nettle. And reveal to Molly that I lived. Such a wave of longing swept through me at that thought that it near took my breath away. In restoring the full range of memories of her, the Fool had swept my heart back in time to that moment when I first knew I had lost her. The anguish was as fresh, and my love for her as strong. I dreaded the thought of our first meeting, and all the explaining I must do. I dreaded facing her grief for her husband, but I knew I must. Burrich had cared for my daughter when I had “died.” Could I do less for his little sons? And yet, it was not going to be easy. None of it was going to be easy. Yet, with an odd sideways tilt of my heart, I realized I was anticipating it, that I believed that beyond the sorrow we would share at Burrich's death, there might eventually be something else. I felt shallow and greedy even as I thought of it, but nonetheless, it was there. It seemed years since I had looked ahead and seen opportunities and possibilities. I suddenly knew that I wanted change and life and the dangers of attempting to win Molly's love again.
Thick shook me by the shoulder. “So?” he asked me delightedly. “So, you want to go now?”
“Yes,” I found myself saying, and then discovered that I had been smiling and nodding to his descriptions of sliding on the snow. I'd volunteered to go sliding with him. His delight was too great for me to crush it, and it suddenly came to me that I truly had nothing better to do at the moment. The Fool could do with rest and he seemed to be enjoying his talk with the Black Man. So we bundled up and went outside again. I had planned to slide with him once or twice, just enough to content him, but the slope he had found was as long and sweeping as an otter slide and just as inviting. Thick's use of it over the last few days had polished it smooth. We slid on our bellies and then together, on top of my cloak, whooping like children, heedless of how wet and cold we got.
It was play, pure and simple. Play that I'd had no time for, that I had dismissed as unnecessary and an interruption to all the practical tasks of a well-ordered life. When had I lost sight of taking simple pleasure for the sake of pleasure? I forgot myself in it and came back to the world with a start when I heard my name being called. I had just come to the end of the slide, and as I turned to the Fool's voice, Thick crashed into me from behind. I went flying and landed, mostly unhurt, with Thick on top of me. We floundered to our feet to find the Fool watching us with amusement and fondness that was hard to look upon. Regret and wistfulness were there also. “You should try it,” I told him, half-embarrassed to be caught cavorting like a boy in the first snow of the year. I stood and helped Thick to his feet. He was grinning despite his tumble.
“My back,” the Fool said quietly, and I nodded, feeling suddenly subdued. I knew it was more than his newly healed back, more than the stiffness of half-healed hurts. His experience had scarred and stiffened more than his body. I wondered how long it would be before his spirit regained its flexibility.
“You'll heal,” I assured us both as I walked up to him. I wished I had been more certain.
“Prilkop has made food for us,” he told me. “I've come to tell you it's ready. We shouted from the door, but you didn't hear us.” He paused. “The walk down looked easy. It wasn't. Now I dread the walk up again.”
“It's steep,” I agreed as we started back. At the mention of food, Thick had broken into a trot and preceded us. “Prilkop?”
“The Black Man's name.” The Fool trudged along beside me as we headed back to the steep cliffside trail. He was breathless. “It took him a moment or two to recall it. It has been long since he had anyone to speak with, and longer still since he has spoken our native tongue.”
“You both seemed to be enjoying it,” I said, and hoped I did not sound jealous.
“Yes,” he agreed. He almost smiled. “It has been so long since he was home that when I told him my childhood memories, he could only marvel at how many things had changed. We both wonder what things are like there now.”
“Well, I suppose he could go home now if he wished. I mean, he has no vision to keep him here anymore. Does he?”
“No.” We walked a bit in silence and then the Fool said quietly, “Fitz, home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.” He set his hand on my arm and I halted. “Let me breathe,” he begged, and then defeated our pause by speaking. “You are the one who should go home,” he told me earnestly. “While you still can. While there are people there who will know you and rejoice in your return. Not just Buckkeep. Molly. And Patience.”
“I know. I intend to.” I looked at him puzzled, surprised that he had thought I would not.
His face went almost blank with astonishment. “You will? You are?”
“Of course.”
“You mean it, don't you?” His eyes searched my face. Almost, I saw a shadow of disappointment there. But then he seized one of my hands in both of his and said, “I am glad for you, Fitz. Truly glad. You had said you would, but you seemed hesitant. I thought perhaps you would change your mind.”
“What else would I do?”
He hesitated a moment, as if he would say something. Then he seemed to change his mind. He gave a small snort. “Go find a cave to live in alone for the next decade or so.”
“Why would I do that? Retreat from life, and there is no opportunity for anything to get better...Oh.”
And then I was rewarded by the slow spread of his old smile across his face. “Help me up the path,” he said, and I was glad to do so. He leaned more heavily on my arm than I had expected him to. When we reached Prilkop's cavern, I made him sit down. “Spirits? Brandy?” I asked of Prilkop, and when the Fool had weakly translated my words, the Black Man shook his head. He came closer to the Fool and bent down to look into his face. He touched the Fool's forehead and then shook his head.
“I will make a tea. For this, a helpful tea.”
We ate together and passed the evening telling stories. The Fool and Prilkop seemed to have slaked some of their thirst for conversing in their own tongue. I made up a pallet for the Fool and insisted he lie down near the fire. I tried to tell Prilkop the full tale of how we had come to Aslevjal. He listened intently, nodding, his brow furrowed. From time to time, the Fool would offer a brief explanation to Prilkop of some part of our tale that he did not understand. Mostly he lay still, eyes closed, listening. When he did break into my telling, it was strange to hear how the Fool pieced out our life tale for him, for he made it seem as if always the goal had been to awaken and restore true dragons to the world. I suppose that for him, it had been that. But it was peculiar to see my own life in that light.
It became very late and Thick had dozed off long before Prilkop bade us good night. I knew an odd moment of awkwardness when I spread my blankets separately from the Fool's. There was plenty of bedding here; no need to share anymore. But I had slept beside him for so many nights that I wondered if he would want the comfort of me close by to guard him from his night terrors, but I could not find a way to ask him. Instead, I propped my head on my arm and watched him sleep. His face was slack with exhaustion, yet pain still furrowed his brow. I knew that after all he had been through, he would need time apart from me, time alone with himself to discover once again who he was. Yet, selfishly, I did not want him to grow apart from me again. Not only my love for Molly but my boyish fondness and closeness to the Fool had been rejuvenated, as well. To be the best of friends again, making nothing of one another's differences, to enjoy the days and face hardships optimistically; he represented all that to me, and I vowed I would not let that carelessly slip from my grip again. He and Molly would round out my life to what it should have been. And Patience, I thought with wonder. I would reclaim her too, and never heed the cost.
Perhaps it was that Thick slept close by me, or perhaps it was that for the first time since I'd ventured into the Pale Woman's realm, I slept deeply enough to dream my own dreams. In either case, Nettle found me. Or perhaps I found her. I found myself in an evening place. It was a place I almost remembered, yet it had changed so much that I was not certain of it. Banks of flowers glowed luminously in the dimness. Somewhere, a fountain played, a muted splashing. The evening fragrances of blossoms wafted and blended on the night breeze.
Nettle was sitting on a stone bench, alone. She leaned her head against the wall behind her and stared up at the night sky. I winced when I saw her. Her beautiful hair had been shorn down to her scalp. It was the oldest sign of mourning in the Six Duchies, and not often practiced among women. I came and sat on the paving stones in front of her in my wolf guise. She stirred and looked down at me.
“You know that my father is dead?”
“Yes. I am sorry.”
Her fingers toyed with a fold of her dark skirt. “Were you there?” she asked at last.
“When he died, no. When he took the injury that would kill him, yes.”
A little silence spun out between us. “Why do I feel so awkward asking this, as if it is improper for me to be curious? I know that the Prince thinks it more appropriate to speak all around it and say only that my father was a hero and fought well. But that is not enough for me. I want to know how he died...was hurt. I want...I need to know every detail. Because they dumped his body in the sea and I will never see him again, dead or alive. Do you know how that feels? Just to be told that your father is dead, and that is all?”
“I know exactly how it feels,” I said. “So was it done to me, also.”
“But, eventually, they told you?”
“They told me the lie that they told everyone. No. I was never told how he truly died.”
“I am sorry,” she said, and meant it. She turned her head and looked at me curiously. “You've changed, Shadow Wolf. You...ring. You...like a bell when it is struck. What is the word?”
“Resonate,” I suggested, and she nodded.
“I feel you more clearly. Almost as if you were real.”
“I am real.”
“I mean, real, here.”
I wished that I were. “How much of it do you want to know?” I asked her.
She lifted her chin. “All. Everything. He was my father.”
“That he was,” I was forced to agree. I steeled myself. It was time. Then another thought came to me and I asked her, “Where are you now? When you are awake?”
She sighed. “As you see. In the Queen's Garden, at Buckkeep Castle,” she said forlornly. “The Queen allowed me to go home for three days. She apologized to me and to my mother, but said it was as much time as she could spare me now for my mourning. Ever since I learned to dream true, not even my nights have belonged to me. Always I am at the call of the Farseer throne, expected to give my entire life to it.”
I phrased it carefully. “In that, you are your father's child.”
She blazed up at me suddenly, lighting the garden with her wrath. “He gave his life for them! And what did he get in return? Nothing. Well, some estate, now that he is dead, some Withywoods place I've never heard of. What do I care for land and a title? Lady Nettle, they call me now, as if I were a noble's daughter. And Lady Thornbush they call me, behind my back, simply because I speak my mind in honest words. I care nothing for what they think of me. As soon as I can, I will leave this court and go home. To my real home, the house my father built and its barns and pastures. They can take Withywoods and tear it stone from stone for all I care. I'd rather have my father.”
“So would I. But all the same, you have more right to Withywoods than anyone else. Your father served Prince Chivalry, and that estate was one of his favorites. It is almost as if you are Chivalry's heir, that you receive it.” And I was sure that was what Patience had intended. She could count the months and years on her fingers, and know that Molly's child was mine. The old woman had done her best to see something of her grandfather's lands passed on to Nettle. It warmed my heart that she had done so. I suddenly knew why Patience had waited until after Burrich's death to see the land go to Nettle. It was because she had respected his claim to Nettle's paternity and would do nothing to make anyone else question it. Now the lands would appear a thing that Burrich had earned for his family rather than an inheritance passed on to a grandchild. The subtleties of my eccentric stepmother would always delight me.