Fool's Fate (64 page)

    Up we went. The stair wound narrow, and I wondered what madman had carved it. Had there once been a natural feature that someone had ordered into a stairway, or was all of this a sculptor's icy fancy? We went up. At one time, the walls had been decorated with bas-relief ice carvings, but they had been defaced, probably deliberately. All that was left were bits of legs or a hand in a fist, and once a woman's lips and chin. I grew to hate the unevenness of my gait, one foot booted and one in an ice-coated sock. When we stopped to rest, I let the Fool sit down. He leaned against the wall, and I thought that he dozed. When I saw the tears creeping down his cheeks, I roused him. “There's no good in those. Get up. We're moving on now.”

    My voice was kinder than my words. He nodded to them and hauled himself to his feet. We continued our climb. Like an unending nightmare, the winding steps went on and on. The pale globes could not light every corner of the twisting steps. Every shade of blue and white that could be expressed took a turn. It was a cold and wearying beauty that we traversed. We climbed more slowly, and then rested together, and went on. It seemed that eventually we must break out of the ice, that it could not go on much longer. Then we came to a level gallery carved in the ice. And the dragon.

    A thick layer of ice remained between him and us. We saw him through the distortion and haze, yet even so, he was breathtaking. We walked slowly the length of the gallery, paralleling Icefyre. He was bigger than two ships. His wings were folded to his sides and his tail curled back around him. His head was turned back on his long neck, coiled away from us. We gazed at him in awe. The Fool's aching heart was in his eyes. The immense sense of the dragon's life almost overwhelmed my Wit. Never had I been so close to a natural living creature of such great size. Then we came to a crudely bored tunnel that wormed through the ice toward the dragon's breast. I stooped and peered into it. It ended in the darkness of the black dragon. I took a breath. “Lend me your Elderling lantern,” I asked the Fool.

    “Are you going in there?”

    I nodded slowly, unable to say why I must.

    “I'll come with you, then.”

    “There isn't room. Stay here and rest. I'll tell you what I find.”

    He looked torn between weariness and curiosity. Then the Fool lowered his pack to the floor and opened it. As he gave me the lantern-box, he said, “I have two more pieces of bread. Shall we eat them now?”

    “Go ahead. I'll have mine when I come back.” Even the mention of food made my mouth suddenly water. Thick came suddenly into my mind. Had he Skilled to Chade and Dutiful, or did he sit woefully awaiting our return? Had he remained safe on the sled, or had it too followed us down in the crush of snow? I pushed the useless questions away. The Fool handed me the little box and I opened it, releasing its peculiar green light.

    “Don't be long,” he cautioned me as I entered the tunnel. “I want to know what you find there.”

    The tunnel was not tall enough to stand in. I crawled along it, pushing the box of light before me. The blue light of the gallery faded behind me and soon I traveled only in a pale green light that echoed weirdly in the mirroring ice. The reek of dragon slowly grew until I tasted him as much as smelled him. It strongly recalled the stink of garter snakes when as a curious boy I had captured and handled them. The tunnel became narrower as I went, as if whoever had dug it had been so intent on reaching the dragon that they could not be bothered to keep it a uniform size.

    It ended in a wall of dragon, tiled with gleaming black scales, the smallest as large as my spread hand. A neat row of tools rested on a roll of leather on the ice floor before it. Various blades, mallets, drills, and metal picks were there. Two tools, blades broken or blunted, had been discarded. I held the Elderling light closer to the dragon, my gorge rising as I confirmed my suspicion. Someone had crawled along this tunnel to the beast's side, and then attempted to burrow into his heart.

    It looked as if his plated scales had defeated the attacks. Some of them were scored, but it looked as if none of the metal implements had managed to penetrate the flesh beneath. A sort of metal wedge was still in place, driven under the overlapping black scales to lift them and create a vulnerable place. I held the light closer. The lifted scales revealed a second layer of creamy scales beneath them, overlapping in a pattern perpendicular to the first layer. A pick like an ice pick had been shoved in under one creamy scale. It had penetrated the leathery hide beneath, but no blood or fluid flowed. I judged that it had been like driving a blade into a horse's hoof. Nonetheless, the sneaking cruelty of such an attack disgusted me.

    The dragon lived. Someone had burrowed in here like a maggot, trying to hack a way into his heart while he was held immobile.

    I appreciated the density of his natural armor when it took all my strength to pull the pick from his flesh. I had to hammer sideways at the wedge to get it out of him. The instant it fell free, the scales in that area rippled and writhed and closed up. For a moment, my Wit-sense of his life surged. Then, just as abruptly, it vanished. The scaled wall of flesh before me might have been something pieced together from metal. I hesitated, and then boldly ran a hand over the layered scales. I could not even get a fingernail under the ridged edge of one, so tightly did they clamp, one over another. They were cold too, cold as the ice that encased him.

    I gathered the evil tools into their roll of leather and took them with me as I retreated. I had to crawl backward; there was no room to turn around. By the time I reached the gallery, I was sweating, and the reptilian stink of dragon was making me ill.

    I found the Fool sound asleep at the end of the gallery closest to the dragon's hidden head. He was seated, his knees drawn up to his chest and his golden head drooped over them. His loosened hair veiled his face. Exhaustion had overcome his curiosity. I sat down on the floor by him and leaned back against the icy wall. In his sleep, he muttered something and shifted closer to lean his weight against me. I sighed and let him be. I wondered why the dragon's assailant hadn't chosen to tunnel into the wall here, closer to the creature's head. Had he feared that even vised in ice, the dragon would have found a way to defend himself?

    I looked up at the icy ceiling above me. It was a deep bottomless blue, like staring into deep water. Somewhere up there, I promised myself, Prince Dutiful dug alongside his Wit coterie. I wondered what thickness of ice separated him from us. How long would the Fool and I have to sit here before we heard and then saw the progress of their shovels? An age, I decided. I could hear no sound of shovels or voice, saw no flawing of ice giving way to their efforts. They might as well have been on the other side of the world.

    I shifted closer to the Fool. His body trapped my warmth on that side of me. I was so terribly tired and hungry. With one of my new weapons, I chiseled a bit of ice from the wall and sucked on it for water. I put the Elderling light-box back in the Fool's pack. I found the piece of bread he had left me and ate it. It was very good and very small. Then I rested my head on top of the Fool's and closed my eyes for a moment. I suppose we slept.

    My own shivering wakened me. I felt as if my bones were trying to rattle themselves out of their sockets. It hurt to unfold myself. The Fool slowly slid down to lie on the ice as I beat my arms and stamped my feet, trying to find feeling in them again. I knelt beside him and pawed at him with hands that were too stiff to work well. He was an awful color. When he groaned softly, I sighed with relief. “Get up,” I told him. I kept my voice down, cursing us for having slept so foolishly in such an exposed place. If anyone had come up those stairs, they would have found us unaware and cornered. “Come on. We have to move. We still have to find a way out of here.”

    He whimpered and curled up more tightly. I prodded at him, feeling both anger and despair. “We can't give up now. Get up, Fool. We have to go on.”

    “Please.” He breathed the word. “A quiet death. A slide into it.”

    “No. Get up.”

    He opened his eyes. Something in my face must have told him I would not leave him in peace. He unfolded himself, as stiff and wooden as the puppets he had once carved. He held his hands up before him and looked at them stupidly. “I can't feel them.”

    “Get up and moving. They'll come back to life.”

    He sighed. “It was such a good dream. I dreamed that we both died here and it was all over. There was nothing more we could do, and everyone agreed that we had tried and it wasn't really our fault. They spoke kindly of us.” He opened his eyes wider. “How did you stand up?”

    “I don't know. Just do it.” I did not feel patient.

    “I'm trying.”

    As he made his efforts, I told him what I had discovered at the end of the tunnel. I showed him the tools I had taken, and he shuddered. With every word I spoke, he came back to himself a bit more. Finally, he got to his feet and took a few shuffling steps. We were both shaking with the cold but I had recovered some feeling in my hands. I chafed his roughly, despite his gasps of protest at the pain. When he could open and close his hands again, I handed him a knife. He clutched it awkwardly, but nodded when I told him to keep it ready.

    “Once we get down the stairs,” I said, blithely ignoring how difficult that might be, “we're going to have to follow the main corridor. It's our only hope now.”

    “Fitz,” he began earnestly, and then at my look, he stopped. I knew he had been going to tell me how hopeless it was. I took a long farewell look at the dragon. He was dormant again, beyond the reach of my Wit to detect his life. Why, I silently asked him. Why are you here and why must Elliania have your head? Then I turned my back on him, and the Fool followed me as we began our long descent of the stairs.

    It was, if anything, more miserable than the ascent had been. We were still tired, hungry, and cold. I lost count of how many times I slipped and fell. The Fool, bereft of his usual grace, stumbled alongside me. I kept expecting that we would encounter someone coming up to torment the dragon, but the stairway remained blue, cold, and silent, and completely indifferent to our suffering. When we grew thirsty, we chipped bits of ice from the wall to suck on. It was the only creature comfort we could offer ourselves.

    Eventually we reached the bottom. It seemed almost sudden when we turned that part of the spiral that exposed the waiting corridor to us. Breath bated, we crept down to peer around the last corner. I sensed no one, but our discovery of the Forged Ones in the dungeons had reminded me that there were dangers my Wit could not make me aware of. But the passageway was wide and empty and silent. “Let's go,” I whispered.

    “It won't lead us out.” The Fool spoke in a normal tone. There was an unhealthy duskiness to the gold of his skin, as if life were already retreating from him, and his voice was dead. “This hall leads to her. It has to. If we follow it, we are going to our deaths. Not that we have many alternatives. As you pointed out before, sometimes all your choices are evil.”

    I sighed. “What do you suggest then? Go back down to the water's edge and hope someone comes with a boat and we can kill him before he kills us? Or go back to the Forged Ones and give ourselves to them? Or go all the way back to the ice fissures and the dark?”

    “I think--” he began uncertainly, and then stiffened. I whirled to see what he pointed at behind me. “The Black Man!” he gasped.

    It was he, the same person Thick and I had glimpsed before. He stood at a turning in the wide corridor before us, his hands crossed on his chest as if he were waiting for us to notice him. He was dressed all in black: tunic and trousers and boots. His long hair was as black as his eyes and skin, as if he had been made of all one substance and clad in it, too. And as before, he made no impression on my Wit. For just a moment, he stood and stared at us. Then he turned and swiftly strode away. “Wait!” the Fool cried after him and sprang to the chase. I do not know where he found the energy or agility to run. I only know that I thudded after him, my numb feet shocking me each time they jolted on the icy floor. The Black Man glanced back at us, and then fled. He seemed to run without effort, and yet he did not outdistance us. His feet made no sound.

    The Fool ran fleetly for a time and I pounded along behind him. Then his last burst of energy left him, and he suddenly lagged. Still the Black Man did not outdistance us. He remained ahead of us, in sight but unreachable, a taunting phantom. Despite the deep breaths I took as I staggered along beside the Fool, I caught no scent of him.

    “He's not real! He's magic, a trick of some kind.” I gasped the words to the Fool, wanting to believe them.

    “No. He's important.” The Fool's breath was ragged and he more stumbled than ran now. He caught at my sleeve and leaned on me briefly, then forced himself up and on. “I've never felt such significance in a man. Please. Help me, Fitz. We have to follow him. He wants us to follow him. Don't you see that?”

    I saw nothing save that we could not catch him. We went panting and reeling after him, never catching up yet never losing sight of him. The corridors where he led us grew wider and more elaborate. Vines and blossoms decorated the frozen lintels of the arched entryways we passed. The Black Man did not look to left or right, and gave us no time to do so. We passed a garlanded basin of ice that cupped a sculpted fountain, an arched spray of water trapped in stillness. We traversed the spacious and elegant corridors of a magnificent palace of ice, and saw not a soul nor felt a breath of warmth.

    We slowed to a lurching walk, interspersed with a few charging steps to keep him in sight each time the Black Man turned a corner. Neither of us had breath for questions. I do not think the Fool thought of anything except catching him. Useless for me to ask why. Even if I'd formed the question, the Fool would not have answered it. My mouth was dry, my heart thundering in my ears, and still we pursued him. He seemed to be sure of himself as he threaded the warren of passageways. I wondered where we were going and why.