Royal Assassin

"No! I will not leave him!" The Fool's eyes were wide and empty as a mad thing.

"Take him however you can, Chade! His life depends on it!" I grabbed the Fool by the shoulders and shook him savagely. His head whipped back and forth on his thin neck. "Go with Chade and be silent. Be silent, if you want your king's death avenged. For that is what I go to do." A sudden tremor ran over me and the world rocked, black at the edges. "Elfbark!" I gasped. "I need elfbark from you. Then flee!" I thrust the Fool into Chade's arms, and the old man took him in his ropy grasp. It was like watching him taken into the arms of death. They left the room, Chade propelling the weeping Fool along. After a moment I heard the barest grating of stone on stone. I knew they were gone.

I sank to my knees, then could not keep from toppling. I fetched up against my dead king's lap. His cooling hand fell from the chair arm to rest atop my head.

"A stupid time for tears," I said aloud to the empty room. But that did not stop them. Blackness swirled at the edge of my vision. The ghostly Skill fingers plucked at my walls, scraping at the mortar, trying every stone. I pushed at them, but they came right back. The way Chade had looked at me, I suddenly doubted that he would be back. Still. I took a breath.

Nighteyes. Guide them to the fox's den. I showed him the shed they would emerge from and where they must go. It was all I could manage.

My brother?

Guide them, my heart! I pushed him feebly away, and felt him go. Still the foolish tears tracked down my face. I reached to steady myself. My hand fell at the King's waist. I opened my eyes, forced my vision to clear. His knife. Not some jeweled dagger, but the simple knife that every man carries at his waist, for the simple day-to-day tasks he does. I took a breath, then pulled it from its sheath. I held it in my lap and looked at it. An honest blade, honed thin from years of use. A handle of antler, probably carved once, but worn smooth with the grip of his hand. I ran my fingers lightly over it, and they found what my eyes could no longer read. Hod's sign. The weaponsmaster had made this for her king. And he had used it well.

A memory tickled at the back of my mind. "We are tools," Chade had told me. I was the tool he had forged for the King. The King had looked at me, and wondered, What have I made of you? I did not need to wonder. I was the King's assassin. In more ways than one. But I would see that I served him as I had been intended, one last time.

Someone crouched beside me. Chade. I turned my head slowly to look at him. "Carris seed," he told me. "No time to prepare elfbark. Come. Let me take you into hiding as well."

"No." I took the small cake of carris seed compressed with honey. I put the whole thing in my mouth and chewed, grinding the seed between my back teeth to release the full strength. I swallowed. "Go," I bid him. "I have a task, and so have you. Burrich is waiting. The alarm will be raised soon. Get the Queen away quickly, while you have a chance of getting ahead of the hunt. I will keep them busy."

He released me. "Good-bye, boy," he said gruffly, and stooped to kiss me on the forehead. It was farewell. He didn't expect to see me alive again.

That made two of us.

He left me there, and before even I heard the grate of stone on stone, I felt the working of the carris seed. I had had the seed before, at Springfest when everyone does. A tiny pinch of it sprinkled across the top of a sugar cake brings a merry giddiness to the heart. Burrich had warned me that some dishonest horse traders fed their charges carris oil on their grain, for the purpose of wi

I knelt before my dead king. I lifted his knife, held it before my brow as I swore to him, "This blade shall take your vengeance." I kissed his hand and left him there before the fire.

If I had thought the candles spitting blue sparks were u

Someone shouted after me as I fled, but no one gave chase. I was to the bottom of the stairs before I heard someone finally give the order to catch me. I laughed aloud. As if they could! Buckkeep Castle was a warren of back ways and servants' passages for a boy who had grown up there. I knew where I was going, but I didn't go there directly. Like a fox I ran, appearing briefly in the Great Hall, dashing across the cobbles of the washing courts, terrifying Cook with my frantic dash through her kitchens. And always, always, the pale Skill fingers plucked and fingered me, not knowing at all that I was coming, coming, my dears, coming to find you.

Galen, born and raised in Farrow, had always hated the sea. He feared it, I think, and so his chamber had been on the side of the Keep that faced the mountains. After he had died, I had heard it had become a shrine to him. Serene had taken over his bedchamber, but kept his sitting room as a gathering place for the coterie. I had never visited his rooms, but I knew the way. I took the steps up like an arrow in flight, whisked down the hall past a couple in a heated embrace and stopped at a heavy door banded with iron. But a thick door that is not properly barred is no barrier at all, and in moments this one swung open to my touch.

There was a semicircle of chairs set up around a tall table. A fat candle burned in the center of it. For focus, I imagined. Only two of the chairs were occupied. Justin and Serene sat side by side, hands clasped, eyes closed, heads lolled back in the throes of Skilling. No Will. I had hoped to find him here as well.

For the barest instant I looked at their faces. Perspiration gleamed on them, and I was flattered that they put so much effort to breaking down my walls. Their mouths twitched in small smiles, resisting the ecstasy of the Skill user, focusing on the object rather than on the pleasure of the pursuit. I did not hesitate. "Surprise!" I said softly. I jerked Serene's head back and pulled the King's blade across her exposed throat. She jerked once, and I let her fall to the floor. There was a remarkable amount of blood.

Justin leaped to his feet with a shriek and I braced myself for his onslaught. He fooled me, though. He fled squealing down the hall and I followed, knife in hand. He sounded just like a pig, and he was incredibly fast. No fox tricks for Justin, he favored the most direct route to the Great Hall, shrieking all the way. I laughed as I ran. Even now it seems to me incredible to recall that, but I ca