Robin Hobb - Assassin’s Fate

‘Here. Sit at the table. I’ll request food.’

I had little choice but to sit. The struggle to keep the Elderling voices out of my mind had sapped my physical energy. Under the guise of settling myself, I made sure of the little blade Riddle had given me, hidden along the waist of my trousers. If I needed to I could draw it and possibly manage to cut soft butter with it. I tried to summon anger that might waken some strength in my wearied body, but I found only fear that made my knees even more uncertain of their function. Rapskal’s outward friendliness did not calm my wariness of him. His temperament, I judged, was uneven. And yet he was astute. He alone had seemed to realize we were not being completely honest with the good people of Kelsingra. But was I dealing with a ruthless military leader who would do whatever was necessary to defend Kelsingra, or a melancholy youth concerned with his dragon’s dreams?

He joined me at the table, having pressed the flower ornament by the door. ‘How does that work?’ I asked him, hoping to take his measure a bit more. ‘Pressing that flower?’

‘I’ve no idea. It just does. Down in the kitchens a similar emblem glows and hums. One for each room.’ He dismissed my question with a shrug. ‘There is so much we don’t know. It was only six months ago that we discovered those chambers were meant to be a kitchen. There is a basin there that fills with hot or cold water. But no ovens or hearth. So it’s a peculiar kitchen. Not that my mother ever had an oven, or even a kitchen that I remember.’

For a moment, he fell morosely silent. Away from the Skill-tumult of the streets, I wanted to hear more of his dragon’s dream. But I also had to warn the others before they walked into the chamber. I did not trust this Rapskal, not at all. Was his dragon dream a far-fetched ploy to get into our rooms? I waited three breaths and then said, ‘Your dragon had a dream about Clerres?’

He jolted back to awareness of me. ‘Clerres, yes! That was a name she recalled. So it was a true dream then, one based in her ancestral dragon memories!’ He sounded delighted.

‘I’m confused. Ancestral dragon memories?’

He smiled and propped his chin on his fist. ‘It’s not a secret any longer. When a serpent transforms into a dragon, it awakens with the memories of its dragon ancestors. It knows where to hunt, where to nest, it recalls names and events from its ancestral line. Or so it should.

‘Our dragons were sea serpents too long, and spent too short a time in their cocoons. They emerged with fragmented memories. My Heeby recalls almost nothing of her ancestry. But sometimes when she sleeps memories come to her. I hope this means that as she grows she may recall more of her ancestors’ lives.’ His eyes went wide and for a moment they gleamed. Tears? From this ruthless man? He spoke softly in a wounded voice. ‘I love her as she is. I always have and I always will. But to recall her ancestry would mean so much to her.’ His gaze met mine and I saw a stricken parent. ‘Am I heartless that I long for this, too? That I think she would be better … No! She is too wondrous as she is for anything to make her better! Why do I want this so? Am I faithless?’

The worst that can happen to an assassin is to find common ground with his target. But I knew that question too well. How often had I lain awake beside Molly, wondering if I were a monster because I wished my daughter were as able as other children? For an instant, it was as if our hearts pumped the same blood. Then Chade’s training whispered to me, ‘There it is. The chink in his armour.’

I had my own mission to think of. And the Fool. I needed information and perhaps this boy-general had it. I spoke gently, and leaned toward him as if entranced with his tale. I warmed my voice with false kindness. ‘How wondrous then that she dreamed of the Servants and Clerres! I take it neither you nor she have visited that far place?’ Feed him some bits of my information to see what he might betray. Above all, maintain a calm demeanour. Pretend this was a social visit rather than a mutual assessment of strengths.

My ploy worked. His face lit with joy. ‘Never! Those are real places then, real names? It must be a true memory she recalled, not a yearning dream!’ His chest rose and fell with excitement. His eyes that had been so guarded were suddenly wide and open. I felt something go out from him. It was neither the Skill nor the Wit. A peculiar blending of the two? Was that what bonded keeper and dragon? I knew then that he had kept his walls up while we spoke, but now he opened to Heeby and shared with her that her dreams were true recollections. Somewhere in Kelsingra, a dragon trumpeted in joy. The distant caw of a crow echoed it, or had I imagined that?

I nudged him with words. ‘Clerres is real, as are the Servants. I have little other information to share with you, I fear. Our journey carries us toward the unknown.’

‘For vengeance,’ he queried me quietly.

‘For vengeance,’ I confirmed.

His brow creased, and for a moment he looked almost human. ‘Then perhaps we should join you. For what Heeby recalled of that place was dark and distressing. She hates and fears it in equal measures.’

‘What does she recall?’ I asked gently.

He scowled. ‘Little detail. There was treachery and betrayal. A trust violated. Dragons died. Or were, perhaps, slaughtered.’ He stared at the wall as if seeing something at a great distance and then snapped his eyes back to me. ‘It isn’t clear to her. And so it is all the more disturbing.’

‘Would the other dragons recall what she does not?’

He shook his head. ‘It is as I have told you. All the dragons of Kelsingra emerged from their cocoons with incomplete memories.’

Tintaglia. And IceFyre. I held my features still. Neither of those dragons had been members of the Kelsingra brood. Tintaglia had hatched years before the Kelsingra dragons and had believed herself the sole surviving dragon in the world. My personal experiences with her had been exceedingly unpleasant. She had tormented Nettle, invading her dreams and threatening her. And me. All in her pursuit to have us unearth IceFyre for her. That truly ancient dragon had chosen to immerse himself in a glacier when he believed himself the last dragon in the world. The Fool and I had broken him free of that ice and restored him to the world. His recall of what befell the other dragons should be intact. And from what I knew of him, my chances of learning from him were very small.

General Rapskal was still musing on his dragon. ‘My Heeby is different to the other dragons. Always smaller, stunted some would say, and I do fear that she may never grow as large as the others. She seldom speaks, and when she does, it’s almost exclusively to me. She shows no interest in making a mating flight.’ He paused and then said, ‘She is younger than the others, both as a serpent and now as a dragon. We believe she was of the last surviving dragon generation before the final cataclysm took them all. Once, when dragons were many, dragon eggs hatched yearly into serpents. The serpents within then quickly made their way into the sea. There they would remain, swimming and eating, following the migrations of the fish until they were large enough to return to the Rain Wild River and travel up it to the cocooning beach near Trehaug. So it was, once. Many of the dragons have ancestral memories of helping serpents to form and enter their cocoons. And the following summer, the dragons would emerge from those cocoons, strong and fully-formed, ready to take flight for their first hunts.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘It was not so for our dragons. They … got lost. They remained as serpents far too long, for some great disaster changed the coast and the river so greatly that they could no longer find their way to their cocooning beaches. Heeby and I believe that several generations of serpents were caught in that disaster. Trapped in the sea for far longer than they should have been.’