The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool’s Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate. Robin Hobb

won’t work. Don’t you remember what it was like? It took all my strength to hold you together in that passage, and we were tightly linked. I might be able to hold the boy together through the journey, or you, but not both of you. I do not know if I could even pull the Fool in with me. Our Skill-link is old and thin. I might lose you all.

      You don’t have to choose. I cannot go with you. I’m too tired, my brother. But I will stay here and hold them back for as long as I can, while you escape.

      ‘No,’ I groaned, even as the Fool suddenly said, ‘The pillar. You said the boy was Skilling. Could not you –?’

      ‘No!’ I cried out. ‘I will not leave Nighteyes to die alone! How can you suggest it?’

      ‘Alone?’ The Fool looked puzzled. A very odd smile twisted his mouth. ‘But he will not be alone. I will be here with him. And,’ he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, ‘I will die before I allow them to kill him.’

      Ah, that would be so much better. Every hackle on Nighteyes’ body was standing as he watched the advancing line of men and horses, but his eyes glinted merriment at me.

      ‘Send the lad down to us!’ a tall man shouted. We ignored him.

      ‘Do you think that makes it better for me?’ I demanded of him. They were mad, both of them. ‘I might be able to go through the pillar. I might even be able to drag the boy through, though I wonder if his mind would come through intact. But I doubt that I can take you with me, Fool. And Nighteyes refuses to go.’

      ‘Go where?’ Dutiful demanded. He tried to shake off my grip and I twisted his arm tighter. He subsided.

      ‘For the last time, will you yield?’ the tall horseman shouted up at us.

      ‘I seek to reason with him!’ Lord Golden called back. ‘Give me time, man!’ He put a note of panic in his voice.

      ‘My friend.’ The Fool set his hand on my shoulder. He pushed me softly, backwards towards the stone. I gave ground and took Dutiful with me. The Fool’s eyes never left mine. He spoke softly and carefully, as if we were alone and had all the time in the world. ‘I know I can’t go with you. It grieves me that the wolf will not. But I still tell you that you must go and take the boy. Don’t you understand? This is what you were born for, why you have stayed alive despite all the odds against you all these years. Why I have forced you to stay alive, despite all that was done to you. There must be a Farseer heir. If you keep him alive and restore him to Buckkeep, that is all that matters. We keep the future on the path I have set for it, even if it must go on without me. But if we fail, if he dies …’

      ‘What are you talking about?’ the Prince demanded angrily.

      The Fool’s voice faded. He stared down the hill at the steadily advancing men, but his gaze seemed to go farther than that. My back was nearly touching the monolith. Dutiful was suddenly quiescent in my grip, as if spelled by the Fool’s soft voice. ‘If we all die here,’ he said faintly, ‘then … it ends. For us. But he is not the only change we have wrought … time must seek to flow as it always has, washing all obstacles away … So … fate finds her. In all times, fate battles against a Farseer surviving. Here and now, we guard Dutiful. But if we all fall, if Nettle becomes the lone focus of that battle …’ He blinked his eyes a number of times, then he drew a ragged breath before he turned back to me. He seemed to be returning from a far journey. He spoke softly, breaking ill tidings to me gently. ‘I can find no future in which Nettle survives after the Prince has died.’ His face went sallow and his eyes were old as he admitted, ‘There are not even any swift, kind ends for her.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘If you care anything at all for me, do this thing. Take the boy. Keep him alive.’

      Every hair on my body stood up in horror. ‘But –’ I choked. All the sacrifices I had made to keep her safe? All for nothing? My mind completed the picture. Burrich, Molly and their sons would stand beside her, would fall with her. I could not get my breath.

      ‘Please go,’ the Fool begged me.

      I could not tell what the boy made of our talk. He was a weight I grasped, firmly immobilizing him as my mind raced furiously. I knew there was no escape from this maze fate had set us. The wolf formed my thought for me. If you stay, we all still die. If the boy does not die, the Witted take him, and use him to their own ends. Dying would be kinder. You cannot save us, but you can save the boy.

      I cannot leave you here. We cannot end like this, you and I. Tears blinded me just when I needed to see most clearly.

      We not only can, we must. The pack does not die if the cub survives. Be a wolf, my brother. Things are clearer so. Leave us to fight while you save the cub. Save Nettle, too. Live well, for both of us, and someday, tell Nettle tales of me.

      And then there was no more time. ‘Too late now!’ a man shouted up at us. The line of men and horses had curved to surround us. ‘Send us the lad, and we’ll end you quick! If not –’ And he laughed aloud.

      Don’t fear for us. I’ll force them to kill us quickly.

      The Fool rolled his shoulders. He lifted his sword in a two-handed grip. He swung it once, experimentally. ‘Go quickly, Beloved.’ Poised, he looked more a dancer than a warrior.

      I could either draw my sword or keep a grip on the Prince. The standing stone was right behind me. I gave it one hasty glance over my shoulder. I could not identify the wind-eroded symbol carved in this face of it. Wherever it took me would have to be good enough. I did not recognize my voice as I demanded of the world, ‘How can the hardest thing I have ever done in my life also be the most cowardly?’

      ‘What are you doing?’ the boy demanded. He sensed something was about to happen, and though he could not have guessed what it was, he began to struggle wildly. ‘Help me!’ he cried to the encircling Piebalds. ‘Free me now!’

      The thunder of charging horses was his answer.

      Inspiration struck me. As I tightened my grip on the struggling boy, I spoke to the Fool. ‘I’ll come back. I’ll take him through and come back.’

      ‘Don’t risk the Prince!’ The Fool was horrified. ‘Stay with him and guard him. If you came back for us and were killed, he’d be alone in … wherever. Go! Now!’ The last smile he gave me was his old Fool’s smile, tremulous and yet mocking the world’s ability to hurt him. There was a wildness in his golden eyes that was not fear of death, but acceptance of it. I could not bear to look at it. The closing circle of horsemen engulfed us. The Fool swung his sword and it cut a gleaming arc in the blue day. Then a Piebald charged between us, swinging his blade and yelling. I dragged the Prince back with me.

      I caught a last glimpse of the Fool standing over the wolf, a sword in his hands. It was the first time I had ever seen him hold a weapon as if he actually intended to use it. I heard the clash of metal on metal and the wolf’s rising snarl as he sprang for a horseman’s leg.

      The Prince yelled wildly, a wordless cry of fury that was more cat than human. A rider charged straight at us, blade lifted high. But the towering black stone was at my back. ‘I’ll return!’ I promised them. Then I tightened one arm around Dutiful, clasping him to my chest. I spoke right by his ear. ‘Hold tight to who you are!’ It was the only warning I could give him. Then I twisted, and pressed my hand against the stone’s graven symbol.

       TWENTY-THREE The Beach

      The Skill is infinitely large, and yet intimately small. It is as large as the world and the sky above it, and as small as a man’s secret heart. The way the Skill flows means that one can ride it, or experience its passage, or encompass the whole of it within one’s self. The same sense of immediacy pervades all.

      This is why, to master the Skill, one must first master the self.

      Hailfire, Skillmaster to Queen Frugal

      I