Assassin’s Fate

‘I can see nothing in there except the flame of the lamp,’ he complained. He groped to find the tunnel’s mouth and then clambered spryly over the wall. ‘I’m handing you a sword,’ I told him. I did a slow bend to pick it up and passed it through to him. The blade had not been improved by the use we’d made of it. The ceiling groaned behind me. I spared a backwards glance. A large section of it was sagging.

‘Don’t wait for me. Touch the wall and go down the steps to the bottom. I’ll be right behind you.’ The Fool nodded grimly and turned away from me to venture off into a darkness he could not see.

We’d need a torch. I began my limping circuit of the wall, passing Spark’s pack, next to my firepot harness on the steps. I’d get them on my way back. I edged on, gimping from wall to table. At last, I seized a chair and used it as a bulky cane. The deeper I went into the room, the more my eyes stung. By the time I reached the cells and the crude mattress there I knew I’d made a bad decision. Bits of ceiling were flaking and floating in the air.

I dragged the thin mattress onto the chair. Scraping the chair over the floor, I began my journey back. My eyes were closed to slits, and to take a deep breath invited a coughing fit. A piece of ceiling the size of a pony collapsed onto the upper stairs. I looked up at it in time to see another section giving way. As it came down, I threw up my arm to shield my face from the wash of heat. The smoke in the room billowed toward me. I pushed the chair frantically toward the opening in the wall, all thoughts of a torch abandoned. With a groan, a beam fell almost beside me, charred and glowing along its length. A flame leapt up as if rejoicing in its freedom and ran along the fallen timber. Another followed. Paragon’s words came back to me. In water and fire, in wind and darkness. Not swiftly. Was this my time to die? As if to confirm that thought, a big piece of ceiling fell. The gust of hot wind knocked me over, chair and all. I sprawled on the floor, temporarily blinded and disoriented. I rubbed my sleeve over my eyes. Which way was the opening to the tunnel?

‘Fitz? Where are you? Fitz?’

The Fool? I closed my stinging eyes and dragged myself over the cinder-littered floor toward his voice. I bumped into the table, and called, ‘Fool?’

‘Here! This way!’

I reached the wall. I felt his hands plucking at the back of my shirt and hauled myself up and into the opening. With him pulling and me clawing, I tumbled through into cooler air. He followed me more gracefully. ‘What were you doing?’ he demanded.

‘I wanted a torch.’

‘You nearly became one.’

I opened my eyes, wiped them on my sleeve, rubbed them, and opened them again. The scarlet light from the fire in the dungeons behind us gave an unearthly illumination to the worked stone walls and the arched ceiling above us.

‘Up you go,’ the Fool said. He dragged my arm across his shoulder and stood up. Together we stumbled to where I could put one hand on the wall. I lurched down a step, then two.

‘Your legs are wet.’

‘There’s water at the bottom of the steps. And barnacles on the walls, too. And the tide’s coming in, Fitz.’

We both knew what that meant. I let the cold dread creep into me and then asked him, ‘Do you think they’ll hurt Bee? The Whites who ran ahead.’

He was panting with the effort of helping me descend another step. ‘I don’t think they can. They’re no match for Spark or Lant. For that matter, I don’t think Per would let any harm befall her.’

‘A moment,’ I said, and leaned on the wall to cough smoke from my lungs. When I could draw a full breath, I straightened up. ‘Let’s go,’ I told him. With every step we lurched down, the red light from the burning dungeon room offered less illumination.

‘Da?’ Bee’s small voice floated up to me from the darkness. Both the Fool and I startled. I peered down the steps into a well of increasing darkness. A feeble light glimmered down there.

‘Bee? I’m here, with the Fool.’ To him, I said, ‘Leave me. Go to her,’ and he started down the steps.

The light became a dying torch. It bobbed as she reached the bottom of the steps. The light was reflected in standing water around her ankles. She raised her voice in an anxious shout. ‘Da, Per broke through the door! Per said we would wait for everyone else. But the prisoners ran up to us, all wet from the tunnel. They were angry. If Per had not been there with his sword— I tried to turn their minds, but I could not.’ She paused for breath.

‘Per threatened them with the sword, and they ran away. Then Spark came, and Lant. Per told them what happened, and Spark ran after them to kill them. Lant told us to stay where we were and went after Spark. Da, those Whites will run right back to Clerres and tell where we are. I came to warn you: they will come in force and kill us all! Per stayed to guard the door. He’ll stop them there if he can.’