Assassin’s Fate

I opened my eyes wide and strained to see something, anything. But still there was nothing. I firmed my will to iron and reached out again, groping. The water was definitely warmer. I strained my arms in that direction as far as I could. I felt the slash in my leg straining with my reaching. Warmer yet. My fingertips brushed something I recognized at once. The side of my pack. Just a little more. I strained, dragged my fingertips down the sturdy fabric, seeking something to grip. Instead, I felt it overbalance and slip away from me. With a muffled ‘tunk’ it fell down one step. Hopelessly out of my reach now.

And that sound, the noise of something solid and dense made me recall what had weighted my pack. One of Chade’s firepots was in there. With the heavy tube of dragon-Silver.

And the Elderling fire-brick.

I wondered which side of the brick was now up. I wondered if Chade’s firepot could explode under water. The brick could not set fire to it. Was mere heat enough to set it off?

What happened to dragon-Silver when it was heated?

Probably nothing.

Some time passed. A lot of time, or a little time. In the dark, degrees of pain, hunger and thirst were more potent measures than time. Occasionally I shifted, to put the pressure of the edges of the steps in different uncomfortable parts of my body. I scratched my neck where it itched. I crossed my arms on my chest; I uncrossed my arms. I thought of Bee, of the Fool. Had they escaped? Had they reached the ship safely? Perhaps they were even now on their way home. I yearned after them, and then rebuked myself. I did not want them here in the dark with me. Much as I might claim to disbelieve the Fool’s dream, his prediction had been too powerful. I thought of Bee’s illustration in her book. The blue buck stood on one pan of the scale, the tiny bee on the other. And below it, in her careful script, the words of the red-toothed woman were written. ‘A worthy exchange.’

It was.

My thoughts wandered. I hoped Nettle’s child was growing well. Riddle would be a good father. I hoped Lant and Spark and Per would understand my decision. I thought of Molly and wished I could have died in bed with her beside me.

The Skill was stealing my body’s paltry reserves, trying to heal the broken parts while rebuilding the strength I had pushed into the Fool. But my body had nothing left to fuel a renewal. I felt like a lamp flame dancing on the last of a wick. I wanted to sleep but was too uncomfortable. Eventually, I knew sleep would take me whether I willed it or not. Possibly I was already asleep in this total darkness. Maybe I was already dead.

I preferred the boredom to this self-pity. And the water to the left of you is warmer now. Don’t you smell it, even with your pitiful nose?

I reached over my head and as far to the left as I could in the darkness. My hand touched water. And it was much warmer than standing water inside a dank tunnel should have been. I strained again, reaching, and the water grew surprisingly hot. The fire-brick was a powerful magic.

As I drew my hand back, my pack exploded.

I was not completely blind, for I knew an instant of gleaming silver light. Water splashed over me, hot enough to scald. I tried to wipe it from my face but it clung, searing and burning, to both my hands and to my face; it was not water. It sank into me like liquid poured into dry sand, permeating me. And my body sucked it in as if it had always craved this magical stuff. One side of my face, my chest and left arm and both hands it coated, and then it spread as if it were something alive, seeking to envelop me. I screamed, but not in pain. It was an ecstasy too large for my body to contain. Four times I gave voice to an experience no human was ever meant to have. Then I lay back, panting and weeping. I could feel it soaking and changing me. Claiming and trapping me.

I tried again to wipe it from my eyes. It had gone into my mouth when I screamed and up my nose. The burning pleasure of it was so excruciating that it was a new kind of pain. I rubbed my eyes and tried to blink it away and saw instead a new world in the dark cavern. The gleaming splashes of Silver that had erupted had spattered the fallen stonework that pinned me. I also understood what the Fool had tried to explain to me back in Buckkeep Castle when he spoke of seeing as a dragon might. I saw warmth, on the spattered silver and splashed water. I watched it fade as the water cooled.

Darkness flowed back in around me. The Silver continued to explore me. I lay still, beyond pleasure, beyond pain. Beyond time. I closed my eyes. I let go.

Fitz. Do something.

I realized I was still breathing. And with that thought, awareness of my body triggered a rush of all the pains. ‘Do what?’ I spoke the words in a dry whisper.