He almost smiled. “This, from the man who spent over a decade being dead. Perhaps I should follow your example. Find a quiet cottage and live like a hermit for a decade or two. Then come back as someone else.”
I chuckled. “Then, in a decade, I could come ferret you out. Of course, I'll be an old man by then.”
“And I shall not,” he pointed out quietly. He met my eyes as he said it and his face was solemn.
It was an unsettling thought, and I was just as glad to leave it. I did not want to think too deeply on such things. There would be enough difficult things for me to face when I went back. Burrich's death. Swift. Nettle. Hap. Eventually, Molly, Burrich's widow. Her now fatherless little boys. Complications I didn't want and had no idea how to deal with. It was far easier not to think about them. I pushed them aside, and probably succeeded better than the Fool at walling myself off from the world that awaited my return, for I was practiced at it. For the next two days, we lived as wolves, in the now. We had meat and water and the weather continued fair. Rabbits were plentiful and we still had dry travelers' bread in my pack, so we ate well enough. The Fool continued to heal, and though he did not laugh, there were times when he seemed almost relaxed. I was accustomed to his need for privacy, but now there was a dullness to his avoidance of me that saddened me. My efforts at banter woke no like response from him. He did not scowl or ignore them. He had always been so quick to find humor in even the most dismal circumstances that I felt that even in his presence, I missed him. Even so, he grew stronger and moved with less caution. I told myself that he was getting better and that there was nothing more to desire. Even so, I began to feel restless, and when he said one morning, “I am strong enough, now,” I did not argue with him.
There was little enough to prepare for us to leave. I tried to take down his Elderling tent, but he shook his head, almost wildly, and then said hoarsely, “No. Leave it. Leave it.” That surprised me. True, he had not slept in it since the nightmare, preferring to sleep between me and the fire, but I had thought he would want it. Nonetheless, I did not argue with him. In fact, as I gave it a last glance, and saw how the dragons and serpents on the fine fabric rippled in the light breeze, I found I could think only of his peeled skin on the ice. I shuddered and turned away from it.
In passing, I picked up the Rooster Crown from the ground. It had returned to its wooden state, if indeed it had ever been otherwise save in my imagination. The silvery gray feathers stood up in their stiff row around the circlet. It still seemed to whisper and buzz in my hand. I held it out to him and asked, “What of this? A circle of jesters. Do you want it still? Shall we leave it on top of the pillar, to remember she who once wore it?”
He gave me an odd look, and then said softly, “I told you. I did not want it for myself. It was for a bargain I struck, long ago.” He looked at me very carefully and nodded very slightly as he said, “And I think it is time that I honored it.”
And so we did not go straight to the pillar, but walked again down that fading path under the overarching trees, past the creek and back to the Stone Garden. It was as long a hike as I recalled, and little stinging midges found us once we had entered the shade. The Fool made no comment at them, but only pressed on. Birds flitted overhead, moving shadows that crossed our path. The forest teemed with life.
I recalled my wonder the first time I had glimpsed the stone dragons hidden in their sleep under the trees. I had been terrified, literally awestruck by them. Even though I had walked amongst them several times since then, and even seen them called to life and flight to battle the Red Ships for us, I still found them no less astounding. I quested ahead of us with my Wit-sense, and found them, dark green pools of waiting life beneath the shadowing trees.
This was the resting place of all the carved dragons that had awakened to defend the Six Duchies from the Red Ships. Here we had found them, here we had wakened them with blood, Wit, and Skill, and here they had returned when the year of battle was over. Dragons I had called them and called them still, from long habit, but not all of them took that shape. Some spoke of other fancies or of heraldic beasts of legend. Vines draped the immense figures of carved stone, and the winged boar had a cap of last year's leaves on his head. They were stone to the eye and alive to my Wit-touch, gleaming with color and detail. I could sense the life that teemed deep within the stone, but could not rouse it.
I walked amongst them with more knowledge now than when I had first discovered them here, and even fancied I could tell which ones had been worked by Elderling hands and which were the work of Six Duchies Skill coteries. The Winged Buck was a Six Duchies dragon and no mistake. Those that were more dragonlike in form, I now suspected were the Elderlings' work. I went first, of course, to Verity-as-Dragon. I did not torment myself with trying to rouse him from whatever stone dream held him. I did take off my shirt and dust the forest debris from his scaled brow and muscled back and folded wings. Buck blue he gleamed in the dappling sunlight after I had polished the length of he who had been my king. After all I had endured lately, the sleeping creature looked peaceful to me now. I hoped he truly was.
