And so the days ticked by.
I would not have admitted it to anyone, but my newfound dread of the Prince’s quest to Aslevjal Island was behind my renewed dedication to teaching him to Skill. No matter how I counted the days to our spring sailing, there were never enough of them. I now concurred with Chade that the Prince must have a coterie, one with at least a basic working knowledge of their magic. And so I applied myself to developing our Skill talents, with varying degrees of success. Chade’s Skill level slowly increased at our morning lessons. He was very dissatisfied with his progress, and that made it more difficult for him to focus. I could not get him to relax, no matter how I tried to force him into a calm and empty state. Dutiful seemed to find my arguments with my elderly student amusing while Thick was elaborately bored by them. Neither attitude helped Chade to be less irascible with me. My kindly and patient teacher, I discovered, was a terrible student, headstrong and insubordinate. I finally succeeded in opening him to the Skill after four days of unrelenting effort. At his first awareness of the Skill current, he rushed headlong into it. I had no choice but to go after him. Sternly forbidding Dutiful and Thick to follow, I plunged into the Skill.
I do not like to recall that mishap. It was not just that Chade was unfurling in the Skill. It was that there was so much of him to unfurl. Every moment of all his years of life streamed away from him. After struggling for a time to gather him in, I realized that the Skill was not shredding him. Rather, the old man was sending out seeking threads of himself. Like the roots of a thirsty plant, he spread himself in every direction, heedless of the way the Skill current tore and scattered his filaments. Even as I gathered the bits of him, he was glorying in the wild rush of connection. At length I tore him from the cataract of the Skill, powered as much by my great anger as by any magic. When at last we came back to our bodies, I found mine under the great table, trembling and twitching at the edge of a convulsion.
“You stupid, stubborn old bastard!” I gasped at him. I had not the strength to shout. Chade himself was sprawled in his chair. As his eyelids fluttered and he came to awareness of himself, he muttered only, “Magnificent. Magnificent.” And then he dropped his head down onto the table and sank into a deathly sound sleep from which there was no rousing him.
Dutiful and Thick hauled me out from under the table and back into my chair. Dutiful poured me a brimming glass of wine with shaking hands while Thick stood regarding me with his round little eyes very wide. When I had drunk half the wine, Dutiful said in an abashed voice, “That was the most frightening thing I’ve ever witnessed. Was that what it was like when you came in after me?”
I was too shaken and angry with both Chade and myself to admit to the Prince that I didn’t know. “Let it be a lesson to the two of you as well,” I scolded. “Any one of us who commits such a foolish act risks all of us. Well do I understand now why the Skillmasters of old might put a pain barrier between the Skill and a willful student.”
The Prince looked shocked. “You would not do such a thing to Lord Chade?” His tone was as if I had proposed clapping the Queen in irons for her own good.
“No,” I admitted grudgingly. I rose shakily and circled the table. I nudged the snoring old man, and then prodded him. His eyes opened to slits. He smiled at me, head still on the table. “Ah. There you are, my boy.” His smile grew fatuously wider. “Did you see me? Did you see me fly?” And then, I was not sure if his eyes rolled up or his lids closed, but he was gone again, as exhausted as a child after a day at a fair. I despaired that he seemed to have carried away no sensation at all of tragedy narrowly averted. It was an hour before he awoke, and then for all his apologies, there was a gleam in his eye that filled me with trepidation. Even after he promised me to make no wild experiments on his own, I privately impressed on Thick that if he sensed Chade Skilling, he must contact me at once. Thick’s earnest assent was a bare comfort to me; such promises did not usually stay long in his mind.
The next morning was to bring me no greater serenity. Exhorting Chade to do nothing this time, save witness as best he could, I attempted to guide Dutiful in borrowing Thick’s strength to increase his own use of the Skill. Although they all had experienced in my healing what their joined strength could do, none of the three could really explain how they had tapped it or what had happened. It seemed to me that Dutiful at least needed to be able to reliably draw on Thick’s power. So I set them a simple exercise, or so I thought.
Alone, Dutiful could reach Chade’s mind only as the barest whisper. He could make Chade aware of his efforts, but not of the message he sought to convey. I was not sure if this indicated that Chade was still too closed to the Skill, or if Dutiful could not sufficiently target him. I wanted to see if by tapping Thick’s strength, Dutiful could make Chade hear him. “Prince Verity told me that a coterie member or Solo used in such a fashion was referred to as a King’s Man. So. Thick will be serving as King’s Man to Dutiful. Shall we try this?” I asked them.