Fool’s Quest

 . . . but the island is surrounded by a magic, so that only those who have been there can return there. No stranger can find his way. Yet, rarely, pale children are born, and without ever having been there, they recall the path, and so they importune their parents until they are taken there, to grow slowly old and wise.

On that island, in a castle built of giants’ bones, lives a white seer, surrounded by her servants. She has predicted every possible end of the world, and her servants write down every word she utters, scribing it with bird’s-blood ink onto parchment made from sea-serpent hide. It is said that her servants are fed on the flesh and blood of sea serpents, so that they may remember pasts far beyond their own births, and these, too, they record.

If a stranger wishes to go there, he must find for a guide one born there, and he must be sure to take with him four gifts: one of copper, one of silver, one of gold, and one made from the bone of a man. And those of copper and gold cannot be simple coins, but must be rare jewelry, made by the cleverest of smiths. With these tokens, each in a pouch of black silk tied with a white ribbon, the traveler must approach the guide and speak the following charm: “With copper I buy your speaking, with silver I buy your thoughts, with gold I buy your memories, and with a bone I bind your body so that you must accompany me on a journey to the land of your birth.” Then that one will take from the seeker the four pouches and speak to him and remember true and guide him to his birth-home.

But even then, the traveler’s way may not be easy, for while the guide is bound to take him to Clerrestry, nothing can bind him to take him by the straightest road, nor to speak to him in plain talk.

—An Outislander minstrel’s tale, recorded by Chade

I twitched awake to a soft tapping. I was dressed, on the bed. Light through the shutters on my window told me it was day. I rubbed my face, trying to wake myself, and then wished I hadn’t. The puckering seam on my brow was sore now. The tapping came again.

“Ash?” I called softly, and then realized it was coming from the hidden door rather than the one that gave onto the corridor. “Fool?” I queried, and in response heard “Motley, Motley, Motley.” Ah. The crow. I triggered the door and, as it swung open, she hopped out into my room.

“Food, food, food?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I’ve nothing here for you.”

“Fly. Fly, fly, fly!”

“Let me look at you first.”

She hopped closer to me and I went down on one knee to inspect her. The ink seemed to be lasting. I could not see any white on her. “I’ll let you out, for I know you must ache to fly. But if you are wise you will avoid your own kind.”