Fool’s Quest

So let us speak of forgetfulness. We all recall episodes of forgetfulness. We have missed a meeting with a friend, burned the bread, or set down an object and forgotten where we put it. That is the forgetting we are aware of.

There is another kind, one we seldom think about. Until I mention the phase of the moon, chances are that it is not in your thoughts. It is pushed aside by the food you are eating, or the path you are walking upon. Your mind is not fixed upon the moon, and so for that moment you have forgotten it. Or, perhaps it is better to say, you are not remembering that bit of information at this time.

If I enter the room as you are fastening your shoe, I can say, “There will be a lovely moon tonight,” and then you will call it to mind. But before I call it forth for you, you have forgotten the moon.

One can swiftly understand that for most moments of our lives, we have forgotten almost all of the world around us, except for what currently claims our interest.

The talent of the part-Whites is most often to be able to glimpse the future in dreams. There are a rare few who can find a future that is but a breath away, a future in which a chosen person will not be remembering that which we wish to hide from him. Those rare few can persuade this person to remain in that non-remembering state. And thus one with that rare talent can render an event or person almost invisible, almost forgotten. We have records of part-Whites who could do this and hold it for a single person. We have records of some few who could cause up to six persons to continue forgetting something. But in the young student Vindeliar, I believe we have found a truly extraordinary talent. Even at seven years old, he can master the minds of twelve of my students and cause them to forget hunger. And so I ask that he be given over to me, to train specifically in that capacity.

— From the Servants’ Archives, Lingstra Dwalia

I was better. Everyone told me so, even Shun. I was not sure they were right, but it was too much trouble to argue with them. My skin had finished peeling and I no longer had a fever. I did not tremble and I could walk without staggering. But it was harder to listen to people, especially if more than one person was talking at once.

The traveling had become harder. And there was more tension between Dwalia and Ellik. We had to cross a river and they wasted most of an evening arguing about where. It was the first time I’d seen conflict between them. They had a map, and they stood not at our fire nor at the Chalcedeans’ but between the two and pointed and argued. There was a ferry at one village. Dwalia argued it would be too hard for Vindeliar. “Not only must he keep anyone else waiting to cross from recalling us, he must fog the ferrymen. Not once, but three times before we have all the sleighs and horses across.”

There was a bridge that Dwalia favored, but to reach it we would have to travel through a large town. “It is the perfect place for an ambush,” Ellik objected. “And if he cannot fog the ferry workers, how can he fog a city?”