Fool's Fate (42 page)

    “I've hot tea waiting for you,” he called down. His voice carried through the ceaseless hushing of the wind. That was all he said. Then he made a gesture toward his tent and turned his steps that way.

    “Do you know him? Who is that?” Arkon Bloodblade demanded. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword.

    “I've known him for a long time,” Chade replied heavily. “But how he came to be here, or why, I've no idea.”

    The Prince was trying not to gape after him. He sent me a glance but I looked hastily at the ground.

    Was that Lord Golden? It was a genuine question from Dutiful. The change in the man's appearance was enough that he was uncertain.

    No. Nor is it the Fool. But they are facets of whoever that is.

    Stop being dramatic. This last from Chade, grumbled in annoyance to both of us. Aloud, he said, “He is no threat to us. I will deal with him. Guardsmen, remain here and assist with the unloading of the cargo. I want it all carried up above the tideline, and well secured against damp.”

    So neatly Chade banished me. He'd keep me separated from the Fool until he discovered what was going on. I thought of ignoring the order and following him up to the Fool's tent. Then Riddle gave me a nudge. “Looks like you'd better be ready to help them.”

    Thick was coming ashore in the boat with the Wit coterie. He had a white-knuckled grip on the side of the boat and his eyes were clenched tightly shut. Web had a hand lightly on his shoulder, but Thick was hunched against his touch. I sighed and went to take charge of him. Another small boat was putting out from the ship, bearing the warriors of the Hetgurd.

    Evening was falling before all the cargo was removed from the ship and canvas securely roped over it. I'd had a quick look at the small casks that Chade had loaded at the last minute. They were not brandy. One was leaking a powdery substance. With both dread and anticipation, I recognized Chade's experimental powder for creating explosions. Was this why he had not more strenuously objected when the Hetgurd had deprived us of our manpower? How did he intend to use this stuff?

    I pondered that as our temporary home took shape. Longwick was a good commander. He kept our small force, Wit coterie and guardsmen alike, in steady motion. He chose a location on the highest clear ground the hill offered us, with a clear view of the surrounding area. Our tents were set up in tidy rows, a waste pit was dug, and the beach scoured for driftwood. Water was fetched from an icy stream of snowmelt that flowed from the glacier and past our camp. Hest, the youngest guard at about twenty, was put on general watch and Drub, a grizzled warrior muscled like a bear, was given the cooking duties. Deft and Churry were told to sleep now to relieve Hest later. Riddle was assigned to be at the Prince's convenience, shadowing him wherever he went. And as I expected, I was assigned to keep watch over the Prince's man, Thick. The Wit coterie members, nominally under Longwick's command now, were given lesser chores about the camp before he let them disperse to explore the beach. It was a strange experience for some of them, I am sure, especially for a young noble like Civil, but to his credit the lad did his work willingly and ceded Longwick the respect his position demanded. Several times I saw him cast a disapproving gaze toward the Fool's colorful tent, but he kept his reservations to himself. Chade and the Prince had accepted the Fool's hospitality, along with the Narcheska, Peottre Blackwater, and Arkon Bloodblade.

    Thick chose to sit miserably hunched in the tent he would share with Web, Swift, and me. Not far away, our cook fire burned and Drub tended the simmering kettle that held our evening's porridge. I had set a smaller pot at the edge of the fire to heat water for tea. I foresaw that soon fuel would be a problem on this treeless island. I paced restlessly outside the tent, waiting for the kettle to boil, feeling like a tethered dog while the others roamed.

    The Hetgurd warriors had set up their shelters in a separate row from ours, and brought ashore their own supplies. Each man had pitched his own small tent. I spied on them surreptitiously. These were not young warriors, but seasoned veterans. I did not know their names. I had been told that for this duty, their own names did not matter, but only their clan membership, and that was proclaimed in their tattoos. The Bear, hulking and dark as his namesake, seemed to be their leader. The Owl was a thinner, older man: their poet and bard. A Raven was as dark haired as his bird mentor, and as bright eyed. The Seal was a short, heavyset man who was missing two fingers from his left hand. There was a Fox who was the youngest of the group. He seemed petulant and unhappy at being on Aslevjal. The Eagle was a tall, rangy man of middle years. He was their watchman tonight, standing and keeping guard while the others sat cross-legged about their fire, eating and talking quietly. He caught me staring at him and returned my gaze expressionlessly.

    I sensed no animosity from any of them. They had a duty to see that we adhered to the rules the Hetgurd had set for us, yet they did not seem opposed to our task. Rather they were like men awaiting some contest of champions. On the ship, they had mingled freely with us, and their poet had struck up an amusingly competitive friendship with Cockle. Now that we were ashore, they might set stiffer boundaries, but I doubted those would last more than a night or two. There were too few of us, and the landscape was too bleak.

    Two slightly grander tents had been set up alongside the Fool's colorful one. The Narcheska and Peottre would share one, and Chade and the Prince had the other. I had seen little of any of them since we landed. The Fool had welcomed them to his tent, but I did not know what had passed there. Not so much as a Skill-hint had Chade or the Prince sent me. I'd helped to set up the larger tents beside the Fool's, but the low murmur of conversation from inside that structure had been as tantalizing and insubstantial as the wafting scent of spice tea.

    Now, as evening asserted a slow dominance over the land, the Fool and Dutiful's Wit coterie were all on board the ship, enjoying the farewell meal with Arkon Bloodblade. Neither he nor his Boar warriors would be staying with us. I wished I knew the logic of that. Was he disassociating the Boar Clan from a foolish Narwhal endeavor, or was it simply a matter of granting Peottre command of the quest? I scowled and kicked at the cold soil. There was too much I didn't know. I wanted to scout the area at least but Thick had steadfastly refused to reboard the boat, even when tempted with a sumptuous meal, remaining on the island to share our plain rations and useless sentry duty. Scuffing footsteps on the near-frozen earth turned my head. Riddle gave us a wide wave and a big smile as he approached.

    “Exciting place, this. If you like snow, grass, and sand.” He crouched down by the fire and held his hands out to it.

    “I thought you'd gone back to the ship for the night, with the Prince.”

    “No. He dismissed me, saying he'd have no need of me there. And I was just as happy to stay. Standing about watching others eat is not my idea of entertainment. What occupies you this evening?”

    “The usual. Keeping Thick company. I'm making him tea right now.”

    Riddle spoke quietly. “If you'd like, I can stay here and make his tea when the water boils. Might give you a chance to stretch your legs and explore a bit.”

    I received the offer with gratitude. Turning to our tent, I asked, “Would you mind if I took a short walk, Thick? Riddle will make the tea for you.”

    The little man pulled a blanket closer around his shoulders. “Don't care,” he replied sullenly. He was hoarse from coughing.

    “Well, then. If you're sure you don't want to come? If you got up and moved around a bit, you'd soon feel warmer. Truly, it isn't that cold here, Thick.”

    “Nnph.” He turned his face away from me. Riddle nodded commiseration to me and, with a toss of his head, bade me leave.

    As I walked away, I heard him say, “Come on, Thick, buck up. Play us a tune on your whistle. That'll keep the dark at bay.”

    To my surprise, Thick took his suggestion. As I walked slowly away, I heard the tentative sounds of Thick's Mothersong. I literally felt Thick's attention focus on it, and felt an easing in the Skilled hostility he had been sending me. It was like putting down a heavy pack. Even though the tune was frequently broken as Thick stopped to catch his breath, I hoped that his interest in playing indicated he was recovering. I wished I could likewise soften the discomfort I felt hovering between the Fool and me. Not a word had we spoken, nor even stood within a speaking distance, and yet I felt his outrage like a cold wind on my skin. I wished he had stayed ashore tonight in his tent; it would have been a good time for quiet words with him. But he had been invited to share the farewell meal aboard the ship. I wondered who had issued the invitation: the Prince, because he was intrigued, or Chade because he wished to keep the tawny man where he could watch him.

    I walked the beach in the deepening twilight, and found it much as Chade's spy had reported it. The tide was retreating, baring more of the beach. Barnacle-encrusted pilings leaned at odd angles in a double row projecting from the swallowing water, hinting at a one-time dock. At some time, there had been stone cottages along the shore, but they had been tumbled into ruin. Knee-high walls remained, in a row like tooth sockets in an empty skull. The rest of the stone walls were scattered both inside and around the structures. I frowned. The destruction was too complete. Had this little settlement been raided by someone intent on not just killing the inhabitants but on making it uninhabitable? It was as if someone had tried to obliterate it.

    I climbed the low bluff above the shingle of the beach. A rocky meadow of tufty grasses greeted me, shadows creeping up from the roots as the color left the day. There were no trees, only tough and twisted bushes scattered through it. It might be summer, but the glacier crouching above us breathed winter year-round. I waded through the ungrazed grasses, the seed heads whispering against my leggings. Then, without warning, I came to the edge of a quarry. Had it been any darker, I would probably have tumbled right into it and taken a bad fall. I stood on the edge and looked down. A few feet down, the sod sides gave way to black stone walls, thinly veined with silver. A shiver ran over me. Memory stone had been mined here, just as it had in the immense quarry in the mountains where Verity's dragon had been carved from the stuff. The water that had collected in the bottom of the quarry was a second, starless night sky below me. Two large stones, the clean angles of their lines proclaiming the handiwork of men, were bare islands jutting from the water.

    I backed slowly away from the edge and walked back to the camp. I wanted to speak to Chade and the Prince, but felt a greater urge to discuss this with the Fool. Standing at the edge of the bluff, I looked out over the bay at the Tusker rocking gently at anchor, the landing boats clustered around her. Tomorrow, she would depart, taking Arkon Bloodblade back to Zylig. The rest of us would remain here and begin our search for the dragon frozen beneath the glacier. The waves lapping methodically at the beach should have been soothing. Instead, the sea seemed relentless, intent on slowly devouring the land. I had never felt that way about it before.

    A large animal breached briefly near the shore. I froze, trying to make out what it was. It vanished beneath the next wave, and was again bared as the wave retreated. In the moments it was exposed, it was perfectly motionless. I squinted at it, but it was a black shape against black water, and I could make out nothing save that it was as large as a small whale. I scowled at the idea of a creature that large in shallow water. It should not be this close to shore, unless it was dead and washed up by the tide. My Wit-sense told me that a low level of life still lurked in it, in a fuzzy, unfocused way. Yet I did not sense the defeat or resignation of a dying creature.

    I stood on the beach, and watched as the falling waves gradually revealed not only the amorphous shape of a large animal, but several large black blocks of stone, gleaming wet in the moonlight. I forgot all else as the waves slowly lost their grasp on the shore and fell back. The creature that was gradually exposed was familiar in an eerie way. Once one has seen a supine dragon, one never forgets it. My heart began to beat faster. Could this be the answer to our riddle?

    I think I've found your dragon, Dutiful. Make an excuse to come on deck and look toward the shore. It's being exposed as the tide retreats. There's a stone dragon here, in the tide zone.

    My Skilling had not been confined to Dutiful. It reached Chade, as well. In a short time, Dutiful and the rest of the dinner gathering came out onto the deck. They stared toward shore, but I doubted they could see the creature as clearly as I did, for the lantern light on the ship now silhouetted it for me. And in that extra light, and with the retreat of the waves, I saw my error. What had appeared to be a dragon were actually several huge blocks of stone, set close together but not quite touching one another. I saw his head on his front paws, his neck and shoulders, three segments of back and hind legs, and then a number of dwindling sections of tail. Fused together, they would have formed a dragon. Exposed on the wet sand, they reminded me of a child's puzzle blocks.

    Is this our dragon? Did she want the stone head taken back to her home hearth? I asked.

    Linked to Dutiful, I saw him point and ask a similar question of Peottre. But it was Arkon Bloodblade who laughed and shook his head. My link with Dutiful conveyed Bloodblade's answer as clearly as if I stood on the deck beside them. “No, no, what you see there was one of the Pale Woman's follies. She had her slaves quarrying stone here. She insisted that only the black stone from this island could be ballast for her white ships. It looks as if some slaves were put to carving it, too. For what, we'll probably never--”

    “It's late.” Peottre's voice cut in abruptly. “And you sail with the morning tide, brother. Let us have one more good night of sleep on board, in beds, before we face the hardship of the island tomorrow. I recommend an early bed for you, too, Prince Dutiful. Tomorrow we must start early on the trail to where the true dragon is said to await us. It will be an arduous trip. Rest is wisest for all of us.”