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“I'll go with him,” Dutiful said. He did not wait for anyone to agree, but snatched up his cloak. He paused briefly near Elliania. His eyes did not meet hers but he offered, “I give you my word. If I can find clean death for your mother and sister, it will be theirs.” Then he was gone.

“The Farseer Prince uses magic?” Peottre demanded as he stared after him.Advertisement

Chade hastily devised a lie. “That was not what Tom said. The Prince has a circle of friends here who can use the Wit, what is sometimes called Old Blood Magic in the Six Duchies. They came with him to help him.”

“Magic is dirty stuff,” Peottre opined. “At least a sword is honest and a man sees his death coming. Magic is the way the Pale Woman has enchained our folk and shamed us of them. Magic is how she binds us still, to do her low tasks.”

Burrich nodded slowly to his words. “Would that the magic of the sword could be worked on her. It is never fitting that a strong man falls to guile, especially the guile of an evil and ambitious woman.” I know he thought of my father then, and how Queen Desire had plotted his death. I do not know what Peottre made of his words.

The Narwhal Clan kaempra stood slowly, as if some thought were uncurling uncomfortably in his mind. He nodded, as if to himself. Beside him, the Narcheska stood. “Please tell Prince Dutiful that I said farewell,” she said quietly, to no one in particular.

“And I,” Peottre said in his deep voice. “I am grieved that it came down to this. Would that there had been a better path for all of us.” They left slowly, Peottre moving as if heavily burdened. Dutiful returned quickly, carrying some of the supplies for our mission. A few moments later, Longwick brought the rest. He stood after he had been relieved of the objects. Plainly, he wished to ask questions, but no explanations were offered to him before Chade dismissed him with thanks. The man looked worried. Obviously Dutiful and I were preparing some sort of foray. Little or no explanation of my return had been offered to anyone. Yet, like any good soldier, Longwick accepted the lack of explanation as reasonable and returned to his post outside the tent.

There was some little delay, for Chade had decided that a fire on hides over ice might not burn hot enough to set off his powder. Chade experimented with the kettle to see how large a container of powder would fit into it. This demanded a hasty comparison of packed items to find a container that would both fit within the kettle and sufficiently seal in the powder. At last he settled on a small crock with a pottery stopper that had been full of tea herbs. I suspected the tea was one of his special blends from the way he grumbled over dumping it out. That done, he opened the cask I had carried from the beach and carefully transferred a coarse powder from it into the crock. He did this well away from the tiny candle fire, tamping the powder down with his fingers and muttering to himself as he worked. “It's a little damp,” he grumbled as he turned back to me with the sealed crock. “But, well, the flask that we put in your hearth was a bit damp inside too, and it still worked. Not that I had expected it to blow up like it did, but, well, that is how we learn these things, I suppose. Now, keep this well away from kettle fire until it is going very well, as hot as you judge you can get it. Then put this into the kettle, centered, so it doesn't extinguish the fire. Then get out as quickly as you can.”

These directions were for me. To the Prince he said, “You are to get out as soon as the fire is started in the kettle. Don't wait for Fitz to put the powder in, get out and away and wait for him well back from the excavation edge. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, yes,” Dutiful replied impatiently. He was packing our fire-making supplies into a sack.

“Promise me, then. Promise me that you'll leave as soon as he starts the fire in the kettle.”

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“I said I would kill the dragon. I should stay at least to see the powder go into the kettle.”

“He'll leave before the powder goes into the kettle,” I told Chade as I took the sealed crock. “I promise you that. Let's go, Dutiful. We don't have much of the night left.”

As we moved toward the door flap, Burrich stood. “Want me to carry some of that?” he asked me.

I looked at him blankly for a moment. Then I understood him and said, “You aren't going, Burrich. Wait here for us. I won't be long.”

He didn't sit down. “We need to talk. You and I. About many things.”

“And we will. For a long time. There is much I wish to say to you, also. But as it has kept this many years, so it will keep until this task is done. And then we will have time to sit down together. Privately.” I emphasized the last word. pqdm.com