they hopped down from the lip of the forest onto the road surface. Starling's only comment, to herself, was that at least here the snow was shallower and the walking better. She did not even ask herself why the snow should be shallower on the road, but only hurried after the trailing line of jeppas. I was still standing on the road, looking about me, some minutes later when Kettle stepped out of the trees and onto the road's surface. She, too, halted. For an instant, she seemed startled and muttered something.
'Did you say Skill-wrought?' I demanded of her.
Her eyes jumped to me as if she had been unaware of me standing right there before her. She glared. For a moment she didn't speak. Then, 'I said `Hell-rot!' ' she declared. 'Near twisted my ankle jumping down. These mountain boots are no stiffer than socks.' She turned away from me and trudged off after the others. I followed her. For some reason, I felt as if I were wading in water, save without the resistance of water. It is a difficult sensation to describe. As if something flowed uphill around me and hurried me along with its current.
It seeks a way to escape containment, the wolf observed again sourly. I glanced up to find him trotting along beside me, but on the lip of the forest rather than on the smooth road surface. You'd be wiser to travel up here, with me.
I thought about it. I seem to be all right. Walking is easier here. Smoother.
Yes, and fire makes you warmer, right up until the time it burns you.
I had no reply to that. Instead I walked alongside Kettle for a way. After days of traveling single file on the narrow trail, this seemed easier and more companionable. We walked all the rest of the afternoon on the ancient road. It climbed ever upward, but always angling across the faces of the hills, so that the going was never too steep. The only things that ever marred the smooth coat of snow on its surface were occasional dead branches dropped from trees above, and most of these were decaying into sawdust. Not once did I see any animal tracks, either on the road or crossing it.
Not even a sniff of any game, Nighteyes confirmed woefully. I shall have to range this night to find fresh meat for myself.
You could go now, I suggested.
I trust you not alone upon this road, he informed me sternly.
What could harm me? Kettle is right here beside me, so I would not be alone.
She is as bad as you are, Nighteyes insisted stubbornly. But despite my questions, he could not explain to me what he meant.
Yet as afternoon deepened into evening, I began to have notions of my own. Time and again, I caught my mind drifting in vivid daydreams, musings so engrossing that coming out of them was like waking with a start. And like many a dream, they popped like bubbles, leaving me with almost no recall of what I had been thinking. Patience giving military commands as if she were Queen of the Six Duchies. Burrich bathing a baby and humming as he did so. Two people I did not know, setting charred stones upon one another as they rebuilt a house. Foolish, bright-colored images they seemed, but edged so vividly that almost I believed my own musings. The easy walking on the road that had seemed so pleasant at first began to seem an involuntary hurrying, as if a current urged me on independent of my own will. Yet I could not have been hurrying much, for Kettle kept pace with me all the afternoon. Kettle broke in often on my thoughts, to ask me trivial questions, to draw my attention to a bird overhead, or to ask if my back was bothering me. I endeavored to answer, but moments later I could not recall what we had been talking about. I could not blame her for frowning at me, so muddle-witted was I, but neither could I seem to find a remedy for my absent mind. We passed a fallen log across the road. I thought of something odd about it, and intended to mention it to Kettle, but the thought fled before I could master it. So caught up was I in nothing at all that when the Fool hailed me, I startled. I peered ahead, but could not even see the jeppas anymore. Then, 'FitzChivalry! ' he shouted again, and I turned around, to find I had walked past not only him, but our whole expedition. Kettle at my side muttered to herself as she turned back.
The others had halted and were already unloading the jeppas. 'Surely you don't mean to pitch the tent in the center of the road?' Kettle asked in alarm.
Starling and the Fool looked up from where they were stretching out the goat leather shape of the yurt. 'Fear ye the hurrying throngs and carts?' the Fool asked sarcastically.
'It's flat and level. Last night, I had a root or a rock under my bedding,' Starling added.
Kettle ignored them and spoke to Kettricken. 'And we'd be in full view for anyone who stepped onto this road for quite a way in both directions. I think we should move off and camp under the trees.'
Kettricken glanced about. 'It's nearly dark, Kettle. And I do not think we have a great deal to fear from pursuit. I think …'
I flinched when the Fool took my arm and walked me to the edge of the road. 'Climb up,' he told me gruffly when we got to the edge of the forest. I did, scrambling up to stand once more on forest moss. Once I was there, I yawned, feeling my ears pop. Almost right away, I felt more alert. I glanced back to the road where Starling and Kettricken were gathering up the yurt hides to move them. Kettle was already dragging the poles off the road. 'So, we've decided to camp off the road,' I observed stupidly.
'Are you all right?' the Fool asked me anxiously.
'Of course. My back is no worse than usual,' I added, thinking he referred to that.
'You were standing there, staring off up the road, paying no heed to anyone. Kettle says you've been like that most of the afternoon.'
'I've been a bit muddled,' I admitted. I dragged off my mitten to touch my own face. 'I don't think I'm getting a fever. But it was like that… bright-edged fever thoughts.'
'Kettle says she thinks it's the road. She said that you said it was Skill-wrought.'
'She said I said? No. I thought that was what she said when we came onto it. That it was Skill-wrought.'
'What is `Skill-wrought'?' the Fool asked me.
'Shaped by the Skill,' I replied, then added, 'I suppose. I've never heard of the Skill used to make or shape something.' I looked wondering back at the road. It flowed so smoothly through the forest, a pure white ribbon, vanishing off under the trees. It drew the eye, and almost I could see what lay beyond the next fold of the forested hillside.
'Fitz!'
I jerked my attention back to the Fool in annoyance. 'What?' I demanded.
He was shivering. 'You've just been standing there, staring off down the road since I left you. I thought you'd gone to get firewood, until I looked up and saw you standing here still. What is the matter?'
I blinked my eyes slowly. I had been walking in a city, looking at the bright yellow and red fruit heaped high in the market stalls. But even as I groped after that dream, it was gone, leaving only a confusion of color and scent in my mind. 'I don't know. Perhaps I am feverish. Or just very weary. I'll go get the wood.'
'I'm going with you,' the Fool announced.
By my knee, Nighteyes whined anxiously. I looked down at him. 'What's the matter?' I asked him aloud.
He looked up at me, the fur between his eyes ridged with worry. You do not seem to hear me. And your thoughts are not … thoughts.
I'll be all right. The Fool is with me. Go and hunt. I can feel your hunger.
And I feel yours, he answered ominously.
He left then, but reluctantly. I followed the Fool into the woods, but did little more than carry the wood he picked up and handed to me. I felt as if I could not quite wake up. 'Have you ever been studying something tremendously interesting, only to suddenly look up and realize hours have passed? That is how I feel just now.'
The Fool handed me another stick of wood. 'You are frightening me,' he informed me quietly. 'You speak much as King Shrewd did in the days he was weakening.'
'But he was drugged then, against pain,' I pointed out. 'And I am not.'
'That is what is frightening,' he told me.
We walked together back to camp. We had been so slow that Kettle and Starling had gathered some fuel and got a small fire going already. The light of it illuminated the dome-shaped tent and the folk moving around it. The jeppas were shadows drifting nearby as they browsed. As we piled our wood by the fire for later use, Kettle looked up from her cooking.
'How are you feeling?' she demanded.
'Better, somewhat,' I told her.
