Assassin’s Fate

I collapsed and sat where I was, heedless of the protest of the sword-slash across my thigh. I dared myself to look at it. It was sealed with Silver as if I’d patched myself with tar. I prodded it and winced. Under the patch, my body toiled on with its repairs. My vision was marginally clearer. My palms were silver. I stared at them. My hands were skeletal, bones and bulging veins and tendons. All gleaming as if cast in Silver. I’d eaten myself to make repairs. My clothing hung on me.

I rose and tried to walk on. The ground was uneven and tufts of grass caught at my dragging feet. I stepped on a flattened thistle and fell over. It was hard to see the tiny pale thorns I picked out of the sole of my bony foot with my silver fingers. I could feel what I could not see, the Silver giving me a sensitivity that my hands had never possessed. I looked at my hands in the sunlight. They glittered, gleaming and bright. It was either more Silver than Verity had ever possessed or a much finer quality than he had used. The coating on Verity’s hands had reminded me of thick mud; mine looked as if I wore elegant silver gloves that clung to every line and fold of my hands. I reinspected the places where the Silver had struck. Had the blast so shredded my clothing or had the Silver splashed and eaten it? Silver gleamed on part of my chest, in splotches on my legs. I knew it coated more than half my face. I wondered what it looked like. My eyes? I pushed the thought away.

Straggling among the grass were long, crawling threads of clover, both leaves and purple blossoms. Molly had used the flowers to flavour warmed honey and teas. I gathered a handful and put them in my mouth. A faint trace of sweetness and moisture. They helped but not enough.

I managed to stagger upright and stood unsteady on my feet, trying to decide where I was. I was on one of the rolling hills behind the town, I thought. Below me were the ruins of Clerres Castle. I stared. It was castle no longer, but only mounded rubble scattered across the end of the peninsula. Bee’s fire had not done that. A slow recognition worked into me. The dragons had come. Heeby and Tintaglia. This was the vengeance they had said they would take. Men would have needed months to topple this stronghold so thoroughly, and men tended to keep and exploit what they conquered. Dragon-acid had eaten the walls, melting stone and dissolving wood. It looked like a dropped cake. I saw two figures moving over the rubble and spotted another man along the shore, pushing a barrow down what had been the road. It was littered with the wreckage of the buildings that had lined it. So few people. I wondered how many were buried under the falling rubble. Were my people among them? Where was Paragon?

Not in the harbour, nor anchored outside it. Paragon was gone. There were no large ships there. Not one. No barrows full of goods moved on the docks, no one strolled the streets of the markets and warehouse areas. All the structures lacked roofs and the walls leaned drunkenly against each other. There was, however, plenty of wreckage sloshing around the pilings of the docks, and many masts of smaller vessels sticking up above the retreating waves.

In the distant sky, something sparkled. Wings of red and blue. Tintaglia and Heeby, finished with their destruction and winging home. And beneath them, a sailing ship. Paragon? I dared to hope. But it was leaving. Leaving me here.

At the edge of the harbour below, a ship was putting on sail. I stared at her. No mistaking that stern and house. It was the liveship Vivacia. Departing. Without me.

‘Bee!’ I shouted her name, and then, ‘Fool! Don’t go! Wait!’ Stupid. Stupid, stupid. I drew a deep breath, gathered my strength and reached out with the Skill. Bee! Bee, tell them you hear me, tell them to turn back. I’m here, come back! I felt no sense of her, not even the rush and rip of the Skill-current. Was my magic as damaged as the rest of me? I tried again, pushing hard, wordlessly trying for a touch.

A wave of vertigo sat me down on the grassy turf. Had she heard me? Were her walls up? I watched the ship, hoping to see the sails change, to see it tack and turn. Was she even on the ship?

Did she still exist for me to Skill to?

If she lived, she had not heard me. The ship moved slowly and gracefully away. Leaving me. I stood, shaking with hunger and tormented by thirst, and watched the ship grow smaller. What did I do now? A rising tide of despair threatened to engulf me. I needed to know what had happened and there was no one to tell me. What should I do?

First you live, stupid. Eat something besides clover. And drink. Find water.

The wolf in me lived ever in the now.