Fool's Errand

Page 139

Here. She is here. She is always here, with me.
After my love's deep throaty voice, Cat's thought in my mind was a reedy purr. I was fond of her, but to have her thoughts touch mine when I was longing instead for my love was almost intolerable. Gently I put her aside from me. I tried to ignore her injured protest that I should do so.
“Here,” I breathed. “I know she is close. But where?”
Closer than you know. But you shall never know me as long as you set the cat aside. Open to the cat. Be the cat. Prove yourself tome.
Cat flowed soundlessly away from me. I could not see where she had gone. She was night flowing into night, and it was like trying to discern the water you had poured into a stream. I drew a soundless breath and poised myself to follow, not just with my feet but with my heart. I pushed fear aside and opened myself to the cat.
Cat was back suddenly, easing out of the darkness to become a richer shadow. She pressed close against my legs. Hunted.
“Yes. We hunt, we hunt for the woman, my love.” No. We are hunted. Something scents us, something follows CatandBoy through the night. Up. Climb.
She suited her words to her thoughts, flowing up the oak tree. Tree to tree. He cannot track us up here. Follow tree to tree. I knew that was what she was doing, and she expected me to follow. I tried. I flung myself at the oak, but the trunk was too large for me to shinny up and yet not coarse enough for my clawless fingers to find purchase. For an instant, I clung, but I could not climb. I slid back, nails bending and clothing snagging as the tree refused me. I could hear the predator coming now. It was a new sensation, one I did not like, to be hunted thus. I'd find a better tree. I turned and ran, sacrificing stealth for speed, but finding neither.
I chose to go uphill. Some predators, such as bears, could not run well on an uphill slope. If it was a bear, I could outdistance him. I could not think what else it might be that dared to hunt us. Another oak, younger and with lower branches, beckoned me. I ran, I leapt and caught the lowest branch. But even as I pulled myself up, my pursuer reached the bottom of the tree below me. And I had chosen foolishly. There were no other trees close by that I could leap to. The few that touched branches with mine were slender, unreliable things. I was treed.
Snarling, I looked down at my stalker. I looked into my own eyes looking into my own eyes looking into my own eyes
I sat bolt upright, flung from sleep. Sweat sheathed me and my mouth was dry as dust. I rolled out of bed and stood, disoriented. Where was the window, where was the door? And then I recalled that I was not in my own cottage, but in a strange room. I blundered through the darkness to a washstand. I lifted the pitcher there and drank the tepid water in it. I dipped my hand in what little was left and rubbed it around on my face. Work, mind, I bade my struggling brain. It came to me. Nighteyes had Prince Dutiful treed somewhere in the hills behind Galeton. While I had slept, my wolf had found the Prince. But I feared that the Prince had discovered us, as well. How much did he know of the Skill? Was he aware that we had been linked? Then all wondering was pushed aside. As the lowering storm is suddenly loosed by a bolt of lightning, so did the flash of light that seemed to fill my eyes herald the clanging of the Skillheadache that dropped me to my knees. And I had not a scrap of elfbark with me.
But the Fool might.
It was the only thought that could have brought me to my feet again. My groping hands found the door and I c-a, stumbled out into his chamber. The only light came from a small nest of dying coals in the hearth and the uncertain light of the night torches burning on the grounds outside the open window. I staggered toward his bed. “Fool?” I called out softly, hoarsely. “Fool, Nighteyes has Dutiful treed. And...”
The words died on my lips. The dream had forced the earlier events of the night from my mind. What if that huddled shape beneath the blankets were not one body but two? An arm flung back a coverlet to reveal only one form occupying the great bed. He rolled to face me and then sat up. Concern furrowed his brow. “Fitz? Are you hurt?”
I sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, set one hand to each side of my head and pushed, trying to hold my skull together. “No. Yes. It's the Skill, but we haven't time for that. I know where the Prince is. I dreamed him. He was nighthunting with a cat in the hills behind Galeton. Then something was hunting us, and the cat went up one tree and I ... the Prince went up another. And then he looked down and he saw Nighteyes under the tree. The wolf has him treed somewhere in those hills. If we go now, we can take him.”
“No we can't. Use your common sense.”
“I can't. My head is cracking like an eggshell.” I hunched forward, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. “Why can't we go get him?” I asked piteously.