“Like a Forged One I must seem to him.”
Web winced sympathetically. I knew then that he had experienced the chilling presence of Forged Ones, for he said, “No, my friend. I feel you still, with my Wit. You have not lost that magic.”
“And yet what use is it to me, without a partner?” I asked the question bitterly.
He was silent for a moment, then spoke resignedly. “And that is yet another thing I could teach you, if ever you have the time to sit and learn.”
There seemed little I could say to that. So I asked a question. “Why haven't we moved on yet today?”
He gave me a quizzical look, then smiled. “We are here, my friend. This is as close a camping site as we shall find. Peottre says the dragon used to be hazily visible in the ice near here. Prince Dutiful and Chade and the others are following Peottre and the Narcheska up to the dragon. The Hetgurd witnesses have gone with them. Up there.” He pointed.
The glacier's polished and sculpted surface was deceptive. Where it appeared smooth and continuous, there were actually many falls and rises in its surface. Now, as I watched, our people emerged in a long line like a trail of ants higher on the icy hillside. I spotted Peottre in his furs leading them, with the Narcheska at his heels. Everyone was there, following Peottre up the hillside immediately above us. Only Web and I had remained in camp. I commented on that.
“I didn't want you to wake alone. Riddle said you had spoken of ending your own life.” He shook his head sternly. “I believed better of you. And yet, having seen your black mood yesterday, I did not want to take the chance.”
“I would not kill myself. That was a passing madness, the herb's toxin speaking rather than any true thought of mine,” I excused myself. In truth, looking back on the wild words I had uttered the night before, I was ashamed that I had even spoken such a thought aloud. Suicide has always been deemed a coward's act in the Six Duchies.
“And why would you use such an herb, knowing it would affect you so?” he asked severely.
I bit my tongue, wishing that I knew what Chade had said of my debilitation. “I've used it in the past, for great pain or weariness,” I said quietly. “This time, the dose was far stronger than I thought.”
Web sighed in a great breath. “I see,” he said, and no more than that, but his disapproval was strong.
I ate the congealing mass in the kettle. It was Outislander food, stinking of oily fish. They made a soup from sticky dry cubes of cooked fish mashed with oil to bind it. Heated with snow water, it made a greasy chowder. Despite the foul flavor, I felt more myself after I had eaten it. There was still a strange absence all around me. It was more than Thick's music silenced. I had grown accustomed to threads of awareness that extended to Dutiful, Chade, the Fool, and Nettle. I had been torn free of that web of contact.
Web watched me eat, and then clean the kettle. I banked the tiny fire in the clay pot with small hope it would survive. Then, “Shall we join them?” he invited me, and I nodded grimly.
Peottre had marked a trail with bright scraps of red fabric on sticks driven into the snow both to the left and right. Web and I followed the meandering path up the face of the glacier. At first, we spoke little. Then, as we walked, Web began to speak to me, and finally, I listened.
“You asked what the use of the Wit is, when you do not have a companion. I understand that you mourn your wolf still, and that is only fitting. I'd think less of you if you rushed into another bonding simply for the sake of assuaging your own loneliness. That is not the Old Blood way, any more than a widowed man should wed someone simply to provide a mother for his bereaved children and someone to warm his bed. So, you are right to wait. But in the meantime, you should not turn your back on your magic.
“You speak little to the rest of us Witted ones. Those who do not know you share our magic think you avoid us because you despise it, Swift included. Even if you do not wish to let them know you too are Old Blood, I think you should correct that impression. I do not understand, fully, why you keep both your magics a secret. The Queen has said she will no longer allow persecution of the Witted, and I have seen that you fall under her protection in any case. And if you have the Farseer magic, the Skill, as I believe you do, well, that has always been an honorable and well-regarded magic in the Six Duchies. Why cloak that you serve your queen and prince with it?”
I pretended that I was too winded to answer immediately. The climb was steep and steady, but I was not that taxed by it. Finally, I surrendered to his silence. “I'd be giving away too many pieces of who I am. Someone will put them all together, look at me, and say, The Witted Bastard lives. The killer of King Shrewd, the ungrateful bastard who turned on the old man who sheltered him. I do not think our queen's policy of tolerance toward the Witted is ready for that yet.”