“It's the dragon,” Chade said darkly.
“We think,” Dutiful amended wearily. He sat down on the edge of his pallet and bent over to drag off his boots. “We can't be sure. We try to Skill to Thick, and it seems as if he is there, but he just ignores us.”
I delivered the news I had carried all day like a stone. “I've had no indication that I'm recovering. My Skill is gone.”
The Prince nodded heavily, unsurprised. “I reach for you, and it's like you are not there at all. It's a strange sensation.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “It makes me realize that for most of my life, you have been there. A tiny presence in the corner of my mind. Did you know that?”
“I feared that,” I admitted. “Chade and I discussed it. He said that you had had strange dreams when you were small, dreams of a wolf and a man.”
For an instant, Dutiful looked startled. Then a slow smile dawned on his face. “Was that you? And Nighteyes?” He suddenly took a deep breath and looked aside from me. “They were some of the best dreams I ever had. Sometimes at night, when I was young, I would try to have the same dreams when I was falling asleep. I never had the same dream twice, but sometimes I'd have a new one. Hm. Even then, you were teaching me to Skill, how to reach out and find you. And Nighteyes. Oh, Eda, Fitz, how you must miss him! In those dreams, you were one creature. Did you know that?”
Sudden tears ambushed me. I turned and brushed at my face before they could fall. “I suspected so. Nettle sees me so, still, as a wolf-man.”
“Then you went into her dreams, too?”
Was there a note of jealousy in the Prince's voice? “Not intentionally. For either of you. I never imagined that I was teaching either of you to Skill. Nettle, I sometimes deliberately looked in on, trying to see Burrich and Molly. Because I loved them, and I missed them. And because Nettle was my daughter.”
“And me?”
For that solitary instant, I was glad my Skill was gone. I never wanted the Prince to know the role I had played in his conception. Verity might have used my body to get him, but he was still my king's son. Not mine. Not mine in any way, save the way his mind had called to mine. Aloud, I said, “You were Verity's son. I did not consciously seek you out, and I was not aware of your sharing my dreams. Not until much later.”
I glanced at Chade and was surprised to see that he was barely following our conversation. He seemed to be looking into a distance and not seeing what was before his eyes. “Chade?” I asked him worriedly. “Are you all right?”
He drew a sudden breath, as if I'd wakened him. “I think it is the dragon that is fascinating Thick. I was trying to get his attention, but his music is strong and all-consuming. Neither the Prince nor I can sense the dragon with the Skill. Yet, when I reach after Thick with the Skill, I can sense something there. But it's odd . . . it's like seeing the shadow of a man, but not the man himself. I cannot tell anything about him, other than that he's there. Dutiful says that from time to time his Wit catches a whiff of Icefyre, only to have him vanish like a scent when the wind changes.”
I stood still for a moment and sent my Wit questing. After a time, I came back to them. “He's there. And then he isn't. I can't tell if it's something that he is doing deliberately, some sort of Wit-camouflage, or if, as Web suggested, he's very close to death.”
I glanced at Dutiful, but his thoughts had followed a different track. I wondered if he had heard what Chade and I had said at all. “I'm going to try to Skill to Nettle tonight,” he announced suddenly. “We need a real link with Buckkeep and she's our only hope of one. I also think that if any one of us can distract Thick from the dragon, if that is what is fascinating him, then she can. Even if it isn't the dragon, she may be our best chance of reaching him.”
I was stunned. I didn't want him to try this. I did. “Do you think you can reach her?”
“Perhaps. It would be a lot easier to do if I actually knew her.” The emphasis he placed on those last words made it plain it was my fault that he didn't. I think he had heard my reluctance in my question, and been stung by it. I swallowed that, and let him speak on. “I only brushed minds with her that one time, and that was through you. Reaching her on my own is going to be difficult.”
Anxiety gnawed at me. I knew I should not ask the question of him, but I did. “If you do, what will you tell her?”
He stared at me bleakly before replying, “The truth. I know it's a novel idea, but I thought that at least one Farseer should try it.”