Fool's Fate (Tawny Man #3)

Two guards moved efficiently, careful not to touch the dragon-stone as they unshackled the hapless wretch. One glanced at their queen, and at a nod from her, he cut and disjointed one of the man's arms from his shoulder as neatly as if he were preparing a fowl for the pot. He did not look as he tossed it in Kebal Rawbread's direction. I wished I had not. The mad king lunged the length of his chain, seized the flopping, bloody arm and fell upon it as hungrily as a dog on a joint of fresh meat. He was a noisy eater. I turned aside, sickened.

But a worse sight awaited me. My guards tightened their grips on me, and a third man stepped up to seize my head by my warrior's tail and grip me tight. The Fool's guards moved forward with him. He did not resist. His face looked like that of a man near bled to death, as if he could no longer feel horror or pain, only the encroachment of death. They shackled him, ankle and wrist, to the dragon. By standing in a half-crouch, knees and elbows held out, the Fool could avoid contact with the thirsty stone. It was a posture that was a torment in itself, and one that no man could hold for long. Sooner or later, he must tire, and when he did, he must fall against the dragon and yield something of himself to it.

The Fool faced a slow death by Forging.

“No,” I breathed as the reality seeped into me, and then, “NO!” I roared at the Pale Woman. I twisted my head to look up at her, heedless of the hair torn from my head. “Anything!” I promised her. “Anything you want from me, if you let him go!”

She leaned back on her furs. “How tedious. You capitulate much too easily, FitzChivalry Farseer. You didn't even wait to witness the demonstration. Well. I shall not deny myself that pleasure. Dret! Introduce him to my dragon.”

The named guard stepped forward, drawing his sword. “No!” I roared, twisting helplessly against my guards as Dret set the point of his blade to the small of the Fool's back and urged him against the stone dragon.

He held him there for only an instant. The Fool did not scream. Perhaps it did not cause pain to his body. But as the man took back his sword, the Fool recoiled from the stone as a hand does from a hot ember. He leaned against the brief length of his chains, trembling but soundless. On the dragon's skin, I saw for an instant the outline of my friend's body as the dragon drank in his memories and emotions. Then his silhouette faded into the stone.

I wondered what the Fool had lost in that brief kiss of stone. A summer's day from his childhood, a moment of watching King Shrewd and Chade talking by the firelight of the hearth in the old King's room? Had it been some moment he and I had shared, now snatched from him and gone forever? He would know such things had happened, but Forging would erase their significance to him. Our friendship and all we had meant to one another slowly would be erased from his mind before he died. When he died, he would not even have memories of having been loved to ease his passage. I lifted my eyes to the Pale Woman. I think she drank in my misery as the dragon had sucked down the Fool's stolen moments.

“What do you want of me?” I asked her. “What?”

She spoke calmly. “Only that you take the easiest path and play the most likely role in the days to come. It will not be difficult for you, FitzChivalry. In almost every future I have foreseen, you accede to my request. Do your prince's bidding, do Chade's bidding, do the Narcheska's bidding. And mine. Take Icefyre's head. That is all. Think of the good you will do. Chade will be pleased, and your queen will win her alliance with the Out Islands. You'll be a hero in their eyes. Dutiful and the Narcheska can consummate their love for one another. I ask nothing difficult of you, only that you do what so many of your friends hope you will do.”

“Don't kill Icefyre!” the Fool's low-voiced cry begged me.

The Pale Woman sighed, as exasperated as if interrupted by an ill-mannered child. “Dret. He wishes to kiss the dragon again. Assist him.”

“Please!” I shouted as the man again slowly drew his sword. I pulled my head free of my captor's grip to bow it in subservience before her. “Please don't! I'll kill Icefyre. I will.”

“Of course you will,” she agreed sweetly as the tip of the sword sank into the Fool's back.

He resisted, even as fresh blood soaked his shirt. “Fitz! She has the Narcheska's mother and sister captive here. We saw them, Fitz. They are Forged! Elliania and Peottre do her will to buy their deaths!” And then, the Fool screamed wordlessly as he surrendered to the sword's bite and sagged against the dragon. He twitched all over and the press of the guardsman's blade seemed to hold him there for an eternity. I would have covered my eyes if my hands had been free. I did shut my eyes tightly against the unbearable sight. When the scream ceased and I opened my eyes, my friend's body was outlined in silver on the dragon. More precious than blood, the experiences that made him who he was seeped away into the soulless stone. The Fool stood, muscles taut, straining against his chains to avoid contact with the stone. I heard the gasp of his breath, and prayed he would not speak again, but he did. “She showed them to me! To show me what she could do to me. You can't save me, Fitz! But don't make it all for nothing. Don't do her—”