Murtagh

He watched what was happening as if viewing it from a great distance, as if nothing he saw could affect him or Thorn and, thus, was of no real consequence. Even his own actions felt as if they belonged to another person: a stranger without a name who wore his face but contained nothing of his self.

The boars drummed across the beaten ground, a wall of snarling, snorting animal flesh, intent on trampling a path through those blocking their way.

A shock of impact: blood and heat and the smell of viscera.

He killed his boar, as Bachel did hers.

Afterward, Bachel reclined on her litter and had Murtagh sit at her feet while her warriors tended the wounded and dressed the slain beasts. A circle of broken mushrooms surrounded them, and the air was heavy with the earthen scent.

Murtagh stared unblinking at the sky beyond the high mountain peaks, at the pale emptiness that beckoned, impossible and unreachable.

Cold fingers slid between his neck and shoulder and rested there. In a low voice that seemed to match the scent of the mushrooms, the witch said, “Can you imagine, Kingkiller, what it was like to be blessed with the full force of Azlagûr’s dreams while still a child? What the power of those visions might do to you? How they might change you?…How lonely you would feel when you could see what others could not? When every moment was a waking dream? Can you imagine?”

He turned to her. The witch’s expression was distant and contemplative, a mood he had not seen in her before. She sipped from her dented goblet. Blood lay splattered in jagged coins across her dress, same as with his hands and jerkin.

“I believe you can, Kingkiller. My mother…she could not. Her dreams drew her away from her people to Nal Gorgoth, but she grew jealous when Azlagûr spoke to me and the Draumar knew I was to be their new Speaker. Their mehtra. Such a blessed thing. Yet my own flesh found it unbearable. Her resentment maddened her, and she turned against me, and in time, I had no choice but to strike her down.”

Another sip. “Do you judge me for it, Kingkiller? No, I think not. You would have killed Morzan had you the chance. You understand my decision, I believe. Something of it, at least. And when the time of black smoke arrives, you will understand better still.”

Her words struck a false note with Murtagh, but he struggled to think why. Would he have killed Morzan?…Yes. But there was more to it than that, and the touch of Bachel’s cold fingers made him want to dash her hand away and flee her presence.

He looked back at the patch of sky cupped between the snowbound peaks.

“I am not the only Speaker, you know, Kingkiller. There have been countless others before me, stretching back to the beginning of time. Nor am I the only one now in the land. Wherever the black smoke rises, there you will find the Draumar.”

That drew his attention back to her. She lifted a dark eyebrow. “Oh yes, Kingkiller. The Draumar have been part of the warp and weft of the world far more than you realize. Nor has it come about by happenstance. Why else do you think a Speaker sat in the Hall of the Soothsayer, whispering visions of what might be into the ears of the elves? Long has the will of Azlagûr shaped the course of events.”

She drained her goblet. “I will tell you this, Kingkiller. There are places deep underground where Azlagûr’s dreams become reality. It is true. Specters acquire substance, and the roots of the mountains seem to move, and it is difficult to know your way. Someday you shall see.”

Soon afterward, Bachel stood and collected herself, and she spoke no more of such things. Then they hoisted their kills onto litters, and the cultists dragged them back to Nal Gorgoth while Murtagh and Bachel rode on Thorn.

***

It was night, and Murtagh found himself staring into the dark mirror of water that filled the bucket in his cell. He did not recognize the bearded visage that looked back at him from the still surface.

An urge came upon him, and his lips moved as he attempted to speak his true name. The words were familiar upon his tongue, but they no longer rang true, and he felt a hollow despair as he realized he had again become a stranger to himself.

Anger flared, and he dashed the water aside, scattering the reflection in a thousand different directions.

The anger passed. Then he knelt and wet his hands in the water that remained in the bucket, and he washed them over and over. It seemed to him that the boar’s blood still clung to his skin, and so he scrubbed until the skin was red and raw, and yet the blood never seemed to lift free.

He sat kneeling before the bucket, staring at the scratches on his hands, and he wished…He wasn’t sure what he wished, only that it would somehow relieve the burning in his chest.

***