Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (90 page)

She swept from the room, with Rosemary
practically trotting at her heels. The child gave us many a
backward glance. As soon as the door curtain fell behind them, I
was at the King's side. My king, it is time, I told him gently. I
shall keep watch here as you go. Is there anything special you
wished to take with you?

He swallowed, then focused his eyes on me. No.
No, there is nothing here for me. Nothing to leave behind, and
nothing to stay for. He closed his eyes, spoke softly. I have
changed my mind, Fitz. I think I shall stay here, and die in my own
bed this night.

The Fool and I were both struck dumb for an
instant.

Ah, no! the Fool cried softly, while I said, My
king, you are but tired.

And the only thing I shall get is more tired.
There was a strange lucidity in his eyes. The boy King I had
touched briefly when we Skilled together looked out at me from that
painracked body. My body fails me. My son has become a serpent.
Regal knows his brother lives. He knows the crown he wears is not
rightfully his. I did not think he would ... I thought at the last,
he would think better .... Tears welled in his ancient eyes. I had
thought to save my king from a disloyal Prince. I should have known
there was no saving a father from the betrayal of a son. He reached
a hand toward me, a hand gone from a muscled sword holder to a
gaunt and yellowed claw. I would say farewell to Verity. I would
have him know, from me, that I did not countenance any of this. Let
me at least keep that much faith with the son who kept faith with
me. He pointed to a spot by his feet. Come, Fitz. Take me to
him.

There was no refusing that command. I did not
hesitate. I came and knelt before him. The Fool stood behind him,
tears cutting gray paths through the black-and-white paint on his
face. No, he whispered urgently. My king, rise, let us go into
hiding. There you may think this through. You need not decide this
now.

Shrewd paid him no mind. I felt Shrewd's hand
settle on my shoulder. I opened my strength to him, sorrowfully
surprised that I had at last learned how to do that at will. We
plunged together into the black Skill river. We turned in that
current as I waited for him to give us direction. Instead, he
suddenly embraced me. Son of my son, blood of my blood. In my own
way, I have loved you.

My king.

My young assassin. What have I made of you? How
have I twisted my own flesh? You do not know how young you still
are. Chivalry's son, it is not too late to grow straight again.
Lift up your head. See beyond all this.

I had spent my life becoming what he wished me
to be. These words now filled me with confusion and questions there
was no time to answer. I could feel his strength fading.

Verity, I whispered to remind him.

I felt him reach out, and steadied that reaching
for him. I felt the brush of Verity's presence, and then a sudden
dwindling of the King. I groped after him as one would dive after a
drowning man in deep water. I seized his consciousness, held it to
me, but it was like gripping a shadow. He was a boy in my arms,
frightened and struggling against he knew not what.

Then he was gone.

Like a bubble popping.

I had thought I had glimpsed the frailty of life
when I held the dead child in my arms. Now I knew it. Here, and
then not here. Even a snuffed candle may leave a trailing wisp of
smoke. My king was simply gone.

But I was not alone.

I think every child has flipped over the dead
bird found in the woods, only to be shocked and terrified by the
busy workings of the maggots on the underside. Fleas cluster
thickest and ticks grow fattest on a dying dog. Justin and Serene,
like sucking leeches forsaking a dying fish, rose and tried to
fasten to me. Here, the source of their increased strength and the
King's slow failing. Here the mist that had clouded his mind and
filled his days with weariness. Galen, their master, had made
Verity his target. But he had missed his kill, and instead met his
own death. How long these had been fastened to the King, how long
they had sucked Skill strength from him, I would never know. They
would have been privy to all he Skilled through me to Verity. Much
was suddenly made clear to me, but it was all too late. They closed
on me, and I had no concept of how to evade them. I felt them
fasten to me, knew they were drawing off my strength now, and that
with no reason to refrain from it, they would kill me in
moments.

Verity, I cried out, but I was already too
weakened. I would never reach him.

Off him, curs! A familiar snarl, and then
Nighteyes repelled through me. I did not think it would work, but
as before, he forced the Wit weapon upon them through the channel
the Skill had opened. The Wit and the Skill were two different
things, as unlike as reading and singing, or swimming and riding a
horse. Yet when they were linked to me by the Skill, they must have
been vulnerable to this other magic. I felt them repulsed from me,
but there were two of them to withstand the impact of Nighteyes'
attack. It would not defeat them both.

Up and run! Flee those you cannot
fight!

I found it a wise suggestion. Fear drove me back
into my own body and I slammed the guards of my mind closed to
their Skill touch. When I could, I opened my eyes. I lay on the
floor of the King's study, gasping, while above me the Fool had
thrown his body across the King's and was wildly weeping. I felt
the creeping tendrils of the Skill sense groping after me. I
withdrew deep into myself, shielded frantically in the way Verity
had taught me. And still I felt their presence, like ghostly
fingers plucking at my clothes, trailing down my skin. It filled me
with revulsion.

You've killed him, you've killed him! You've
killed my king, you rotten traitor! the Fool shrieked at
me.

No! It was not I! I could barely gasp out the
words.

To my horror Wallace stood in the door, taking
in the whole scene with wild eyes. Then he lifted his glance and
screamed aloud in horror. He dropped the armful of wood he had
brought. Both the Fool and I turned our heads.

Standing in the door of the King's bedchamber
was the Pocked Man. Even knowing it was Chade, I still knew one
moment of hair-raising terror. He was dressed in tattered grave
clothes, smeared with earth and mildew. His long gray hair hung in
filthy locks about his face, and he had smeared his skin with ash
that the livid scars might stand out the better. He lifted a slow
hand to point at Wallace. The man screamed, and then fled shrieking
down the halls. His yammering for the guards echoed through the
Keep.

What goes on here? Chade demanded as soon as
Wallace had fled. He crossed to his brother in a single stride,
laid long thin fingers across the King's throat. I knew what he
would find. I clambered painfully to my feet.

He's dead. I DID NOT KILL HIM! My shout cut
across the Fool's rising wail. The Skill fingers plucked at me
insistently. I go to kill those who did. Take the Fool to safety.
Have you the Queen?

Chade's eyes were very wide. He stared at me as
if he had never seen me before. All the candles in the room went
suddenly to sputtering blue. It seemed only fitting. Get her to
safety, I ordered my master. And see the Fool goes with her. If he
stays here, he's dead. Regal will let no one live who has been in
this room tonight.

No! I will not leave him! The Fool's eyes were
wide and empty as a mad thing.

Take him however you can, Chade! His life
depends on it! I grabbed the Fool by the shoulders and shook him
savagely. His head whipped back and forth on his thin neck. Go with
Chade and be silent. Be silent, if you want your king's death
avenged. For that is what I go to do. A sudden tremor ran over me
and the world rocked, black at the edges. Elfbark! I gasped. I need
elfbark from you. Then flee! I thrust the Fool into Chade's arms,
and the old man took him in his ropy grasp. It was like watching
him taken into the arms of death. They left the room, Chade
propelling the weeping Fool along. After a moment I heard the
barest grating of stone on stone. I knew they were gone.

I sank to my knees, then could not keep from
toppling. I fetched up against my dead king's lap. His cooling hand
fell from the chair arm to rest atop my head.

A stupid time for tears, I said aloud to the
empty room. But that did not stop them. Blackness swirled at the
edge of my vision. The ghostly Skill fingers plucked at my walls,
scraping at the mortar, trying every stone. I pushed at them, but
they came right back. The way Chade had looked at me, I suddenly
doubted that he would be back. Still. I took a breath.

Nighteyes. Guide them to the fox's den. I showed
him the shed they would emerge from and where they must go. It was
all I could manage.

My brother?

Guide them, my heart! I pushed him feebly away,
and felt him go. Still the foolish tears tracked down my face. I
reached to steady myself. My hand fell at the King's waist. I
opened my eyes, forced my vision to clear. His knife. Not some
jeweled dagger, but the simple knife that every man carries at his
waist, for the simple day-to-day tasks he does. I took a breath,
then pulled it from its sheath. I held it in my lap and looked at
it. An honest blade, honed thin from years of use. A handle of
antler, probably carved once, but worn smooth with the grip of his
hand. I ran my fingers lightly over it, and they found what my eyes
could no longer read. Hod's sign. The weaponsmaster had made this
for her king. And he had used it well.

A memory tickled at the back of my mind. We are
tools, Chade had told me. I was the tool he had forged for the
King. The King had looked at me, and wondered, What have I made of
you? I did not need to wonder. I was the King's assassin. In more
ways than one. But I would see that I served him as I had been
intended, one last time.

Someone crouched beside me. Chade. I turned my
head slowly to look at him. Carris seed, he told me. No time to
prepare elfbark. Come. Let me take you into hiding as
well.

No. I took the small cake of carris seed
compressed with honey. I put the whole thing in my mouth and
chewed, grinding the seed between my back teeth to release the full
strength. I swallowed. Go, I bid him. I have a task, and so have
you. Burrich is waiting. The alarm will be raised soon. Get the
Queen away quickly, while you have a chance of getting ahead of the
hunt. I will keep them busy.

He released me. Good-bye, boy, he said gruffly,
and stooped to kiss me on the forehead. It was farewell. He didn't
expect to see me alive again.

That made two of us.

He left me there, and before even I heard the
grate of stone on stone, I felt the working of the carris seed. I
had had the seed before, at Springfest when everyone does. A tiny
pinch of it sprinkled across the top of a sugar cake brings a merry
giddiness to the heart. Burrich had warned me that some dishonest
horse traders fed their charges carris oil on their grain, for the
purpose of winning a race, or to make a sick horse show well at an
auction. He had also warned me that a horse so treated was often
never the same beast again. If he survived. I knew Chade had used
it, on occasion, and I had seen him drop like a stone when the
effects wore off. Yet I did not hesitate. Perhaps, I conceded
briefly, perhaps Burrich was right about me. The ecstasy of the
Skill, or the frantic flush and heat of the hunt. Did I taunt
self-destruction, or did I desire it? I did not worry about it for
long. The carris seed took me. My strength was as the strength of
ten, and my heart soared like an eagle. I sprang to my feet. I
started for the door, then turned back.

I knelt before my dead king. I lifted his knife,
held it before my brow as I swore to him, This blade shall take
your vengeance. I kissed his hand and left him there before the
fire.

If I had thought the candles spitting blue
sparks were unnerving, then the blue glow of the torches in the
hall were otherworldly. It was like looking down through still deep
water. I sprinted down the hall, giggling to myself. Below, I could
hear a clamor, with Wallace's voice raised shrill above the rest.
Blue flames and the Pocked Man, he was yammering. Not as much time
had passed as I had thought, and now time waited for me. Light as
the wind I darted down the hall. I found a door that would open and
slipped within. I waited. They took forever to come up the stairs,
even longer to go past my door. I let them reach the King's
chamber, and when I heard the shouts of alarm begin, I sprang from
my hiding place and dashed down the stairs.

Someone shouted after me as I fled, but no one
gave chase. I was to the bottom of the stairs before I heard
someone finally give the order to catch me. I laughed aloud. As if
they could! Buckkeep Castle was a warren of back ways and servants'
passages for a boy who had grown up there. I knew where I was
going, but I didn't go there directly. Like a fox I ran, appearing
briefly in the Great Hall, dashing across the cobbles of the
washing courts, terrifying Cook with my frantic dash through her
kitchens. And always, always, the pale Skill fingers plucked and
fingered me, not knowing at all that I was coming, coming, my
dears, coming to find you.

Galen, born and raised in Farrow, had always
hated the sea. He feared it, I think, and so his chamber had been
on the side of the Keep that faced the mountains. After he had
died, I had heard it had become a shrine to him. Serene had taken
over his bedchamber, but kept his sitting room as a gathering place
for the coterie. I had never visited his rooms, but I knew the way.
I took the steps up like an arrow in flight, whisked down the hall
past a couple in a heated embrace and stopped at a heavy door
banded with iron. But a thick door that is not properly barred is
no barrier at all, and in moments this one swung open to my
touch.