LITMIR.BIZ

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Your body may rebel, but you know that you need the food. Recall how we had to press food on Verity when he Skilled.’

      The neutrality in his voice was almost painful. I realized then that he had hoped I would insist that I did trust him. It would not have been true, and I would not lie to him. I rummaged about in my mind for something else to give him. I spoke the words without thinking. ‘Chade, I do love you. It’s just that –’

      He turned to me almost abruptly. ‘Stop, boy. Say no more.’ His voice was almost pleading as he said, ‘That’s enough for me.’ He set his hand to my shoulder and squeezed nearly painfully. ‘I won’t ask of you that which you can’t give. You are what life has made you. And what I made you, Eda be merciful. Now pay attention to me. Eat something. Force yourself if you must.’

      It would have been useless to tell him that the sight and smell of the food was enough to make me gag. I took a breath, and quaffed down the beef broth, not breathing until it was gone. The fruit in cream felt slimy in my mouth, the fish reeked and the bread near choked me, but I forced myself to swallow it half-chewed. I took a deep breath, and the wine followed it down. When I set the cup down, my stomach churned and my head reeled. The wine was a more potent vintage than I had thought. I lifted my eyes to Chade’s. His mouth hung ajar in dismay. ‘I didn’t mean like that,’ he muttered.

      I lifted a hand at him in a gesture of futility. I feared to open my mouth to reply.

      ‘You’d best go to bed,’ he suggested humbly.

      I nodded in reply and levered myself to my feet. He opened the door for me, gave me a candle and then stood at the top of the passage holding a light until my path carried me out of his view. My room seemed impossibly distant, but eventually I arrived at the entry. Queasy as I was, I extinguished my light before I approached and carefully peered through the peephole before I triggered the access to my dark room. No candle burned there tonight. It didn’t matter. I stumbled into the stuffy darkness and thrust the door shut behind me. A few steps carried me to my bed and I dropped onto it. I was too hot and my clothes bound me uncomfortably, but I was too tired to do anything about it. The black was so absolute I could not tell if my eyes were open or shut. At least the lights under my eyelids had been quenched. I stared up into the darkness and longed for the cool peace of the forest.

      The thick walls of the room muffled all sound, and sealed me off from the night. It was like being sealed in a tomb. I closed my eyes to the blackness and listened to my headache thump with the beat of my heart. My stomach gurgled unhappily. I drew a deep breath, and ‘Forest,’ I said quietly to myself. ‘Night. Trees. Meadow.’ I reached for the comforting familiarity of the natural world. I painted in the details for myself. A light wind stirring in the treetops. Stars flickering through rags of moving clouds. Coolness, and the rich scents of the earth. Tension eased away from me, taking my pain with it. I drifted with my imagination. The packed earth of a game trail beneath my feet, and I was moving softly through darkness, following my companion.

      She went more quietly than night itself, each step sure and swift. Try as I might, I could not keep up with her. I could not even catch a glimpse of her. I knew of her passage by her scent hanging in the night air, or by the still-rustling bushes just ahead of me. My cat followed her, but I was not swift enough. ‘Wait!’ I called to them.

      Wait? She mocked me. Wait for you to ruin the night’s hunting? No. I shall not wait. You shall make haste, and do so silently. Have you learned nothing of me? Lightfoot am I and Nightfriend and Shadowstalker. Be you so, and come, come, come to share the night with me.

      I hurried after her, drunk with the night and her presence, drawn as irresistibly as a moth is drawn to a candle. Her eyes were green, I knew, for she had told me, and her long tresses were black. I longed to touch her, but she was elusive and taunting, always ahead of me, never revealing herself to my eyes let alone my touch. I could only run after her through the night, the breath rasping in my chest as she flew before me. I did not complain. I would prove myself worthy of her and win her.

      But my heart was thundering and my breath burning in my lungs. I crested the top of a hill and stopped for breath. Before me spread the vista of the river valley. The moon hovered round and yellow. Had we come so far, in one night’s hunting? Far below me, the walls of Galeton were a dark huddle of stone on the riverbank. A few isolated lights still shone yellow in the windows of the keep. I wondered who burned candles while the rest of the household slumbered.

      Do you long to sleep, in a stuffy room mounded with blankets? Is that how you would squander a night such as this? Save sleep for when the sunlight can warm you, save sleep for when the game is hidden in den or burrow. Hunt now, my clumsy one. Hunt with me! Prove yourself. Learn to be one with me, think as I do, move as I do, or lose me forever.

      I started to go after her. My thoughts snagged on something, delaying me. There was something I must do, right now. Something I must tell someone, right now. Startled, I halted where I stood. The thought divided me. Part of me had to go, had to hunt at her heels before she left me behind. But another part of me stood still. I must tell him now. Right now. I peeled myself free, separating while holding onto the knowledge I had gained. It flickered in my grasp, threatening to become the nonsense of a fading dream. I gripped the thought, letting all else fade. Hold it. Say it out loud. Cling to the word, cling tight to the thought. Don’t let it go, don’t let it melt away with the dream.

      ‘Galeton!’

      I said the word aloud, sitting upright in my bed in the stifling darkness. My shirt stuck to me with sweat and the Skill-headache had returned with clanging bells attached to it. It didn’t matter. I lurched from my bed and began a patting search of the invisible walls. ‘Galeton,’ I said aloud, lest the word slip from my grasp. ‘Prince Dutiful hunts near Galeton.’

       FOURTEEN Laurel

      There is a certain black stone, often finely veined with white or silver threading, that was extensively used by the Elderlings in their construction. At least one quarry for this stone exists in the wild lands beyond the Mountain Kingdom, but it is almost certain that other sources for it exist, for it is difficult even to imagine how it might otherwise have been used in such large constructions in so many far-flung locations. It was used, not only in the construction of their buildings, but also in the monoliths they raised at certain crossroads. Due to several odd qualities of the roads that the Elderlings constructed, it can be deduced that a ground or gravelled form of the stone was also instrumental in their creation. Wherever the Elderlings built, this stone was a favoured instrument, and even in the places that they seemed to have visited only sporadically, monuments of this stone are found. A close scrutiny of the Witness Stones of Buckkeep will convince the examiner that, although defaced by harsh weather or perhaps intentionally vandalized by men in ages past, the stone is of the same type. Some have suggested that the Witness Stones of Buckkeep and other ‘oath stones’ throughout the Six Duchies were originally raised by the Elderlings for a very different purpose.

      I awoke in Chade’s great four-poster bed in the tower chamber. I knew a few moments of disorientation before deciding this was not another dream. I was truly awake. I did not recall going to sleep, only sitting down on the side of the bed for a few moments. I was still dressed in yesterday’s clothing.

      I sat up cautiously: the hammers and anvils in my head had subsided to a monotonous drumming. The room appeared empty, but someone had been there recently. Washwater steamed near the hearth, and a small covered dish of porridge kept warm near it. As soon as I discovered these items, I put them to good use. My stomach was still reluctant to accept food, but I ate stoically, knowing it was for the best. I washed, put on a kettle for tea and then wandered down to the worktable. A large map of Buck was unfurled across it. The corners were weighted with a mortar and two pestles and a teacup. An inverted wineglass rested on the map itself. When I lifted it, I found Galeton underneath it. It was on a tributary of the Buck River, northwest of Buck and on the other side of the river from Buckkeep. I had never been there. I tried to recall what I knew of Galeton and swiftly did so. Absolutely nothing.

      My

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