A deep enthusiasm suddenly kindled in the Prince’s eyes. ‘We have to find out.’

‘No. We don’t.’ I took a breath. ‘In fact, I think we should be very careful to avoid finding out.’

He stared at me in consternation. ‘But why? Don’t you remember what it felt like? How wonderful it was?’

I remembered only too well, especially now that we spoke of it together. I shook my head, and suddenly wished I’d kept the figurine hidden. The sight of her was pulling all the memories back into my mind, just as a familiar perfume or the few notes of a song will suddenly recall all of an evening’s foolishness. ‘Yes. It was wonderful. And it was dangerous. I didn’t want to come back from there, Dutiful. Neither did you. She made us.’

‘She? It wasn’t a she. It was like… like a father. Strong and safe. Caring.’

‘I don’t think it was either of those things,’ I said unwillingly. ‘I think that we each shaped it into what we wanted it to be.’

‘You think we each made it up?’

‘No. No, I think we encountered something that was bigger than we could grasp. And we set it into a familiar shape so that we could behold it. So that our minds could encompass it.’

‘What makes you think that? Something you read in the Skill-scrolls?’

I answered reluctantly. ‘No. I’ve found nothing in the Skill-scrolls about anything like that. I just think that because… because I do.’

He stared at me and I shrugged hopelessly, because I had no better explanation for the boy or myself. Only a stirring anticipation at the memory of the creature we had encountered, backed by an ominous dread.

The mantel door scraping open saved me. Thick entered, sneezing. He wore the whistle outside his shirt. The contrast between the shiny paint on the whistle and the ragged, grimy garment suddenly made me see him anew. I was appalled. His lank hair was flat to his head, and the flesh that showed through his rent garments was grimy. Suddenly I perceived him as Dutiful did, and realized that the Prince’s abhorrence went past the man’s physical deformity and mental limits. Dutiful literally drew back as Thick came closer, his nose wrinkling. My years with the wolf had led me to accept that certain things smelled certain ways. But the reek of Thick’s unwashed body was not simply a part of him as intrinsic as the ferret’s musk. It could be changed, and it would have to be changed if I expected the Prince to work with him.

For now, ‘Thick, would you sit here?’ I invited him, and drew out the chair farthest from the Prince. Thick looked at me suspiciously. Then he dragged it out, looked at the seat as if there might be some trick to it, and then plopped down into it. He began to scratch at something behind his left ear. When I glanced at Dutiful, he seemed transfixed with a horrified fascination. ‘Well. Here we all are,’ I announced, and then wondered what I was going to do with them.

Thick’s eyes wandered to me. ‘That girl’s crying again,’ he informed me, as if it were my fault.

‘Well. I’ll attend to that later, I told him firmly as my heart gave a lurch.

‘What girl?’ The Prince demanded instantly.

‘It’s nothing to worry about.’ Thick, let’s not talk about the girl just now. We’re here to do lessons.

Slowly, Thick stopped scratching. He dropped his hand to the tabletop and stared at me earnestly. ‘Why you do that? Talk in my head like that?’

‘To see if I could make you hear me.’

He sniffed thoughtfully. ‘I heard you.’ Dogstink.

Don’t do that to me.

‘Are you Skilling to each other?’ the Prince asked with earnest curiosity.

‘Yes.’

‘Then why can’t I hear it?’

‘Because we are selecting only one another to Skill to.’

Dutiful’s brow furrowed. ‘How did he learn to do that when I cannot?’

‘I don’t know,’ I had to admit. ‘Thick seems to have developed his Skill-abilities on his own. I don’t really know all he can and can’t do with them.’

‘Can he stop making that music all the time?’

I unfolded my own Skill-awareness. I hadn’t realized that I had been straining Thick’s thoughts free of the music that surrounded them. I turned to him now. ‘Thick, can you stop making the music? Can you think only the thoughts to me, without the music?’

He looked at me blankly. ‘Music?’

‘Your mother-song. Can you make it be quiet?’

He considered this for a time, chewing on his fat little tongue. ‘No,’ he decided abruptly.

‘Why can’t you stop the music?’ the Prince demanded. He had been sitting quietly. I suspected he had been trying to sort through the music and see if he could pick out Thick and me Skilling to one another. He sounded frustrated. Frustrated, and jealous.

Thick looked at him, a look both dull and uncaring. ‘I don’t want to.’ He looked away from the Prince and went back to scratching behind his ear.

Dutiful looked shocked. He took a breath. ‘And if, as your prince, I command it?’ There was suppressed fury in his voice.

Thick looked at him. Then he swung his gaze to me. His tongue thrust out a bit farther as he pondered something. Then he asked me, ‘Both students here?’

I had not expected that from Thick. I hadn’t expected him to hold tenaciously to that idea, let alone apply it. It gave me both new hopes and new fears. ‘Both students here,’ I confirmed for him. He sagged back in his chair and crossed his stubby arms on his chest.

‘And I am the teacher,’ I continued. ‘And students obey the teacher. ‘Thick. Can you stop your music?’

He looked at me for a time. ‘Don’t want to,’ he said, but in a different tone.

‘Perhaps not. But I am the teacher and you are the student. The student obeys the teacher.’

‘Students obey, like servants?’ He stood up to go.

It was hopeless but I tried anyway. ‘Students obey like students. So that they can learn. So that everyone can learn. If Thick obeys, then Thick is still a student. If Thick won’t obey, then Thick is not a student. Then we send Thick away, to be a servant instead.’

He stood for a time, silent. I could not tell if he was thinking. I could not tell if he had understood what I said at all. Dutiful sat slumped in his chair, chin sunk to his chest and arms crossed, glowering. He plainly hoped that Thick would leave. But after a moment, the little man sat down again. ‘Stop the music,’ he said. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and squinting at me, said, ‘There.’

I had not realized how his steady Skilling had been battering my walls. In the stillness that followed, I felt an immense sense of relief. It was like the pause in the storm, when suddenly the winds cease howling and silence flows in. I gave a great sigh of relief and Dutiful suddenly sat up straight. He rubbed at his ears, looking puzzled, then looked at me. ‘All of that was him?’

I nodded slowly, still recovering myself.

A great uncertainty dawned over Dutiful's face. ‘But I thought… I thought that was the Skill itself. The great river you speak about…’ He looked at Thick again, but his attitude towards the little man had changed. It wasn’t respect, but it was wariness, which often precedes respect.

Then, like a sudden curtain of rain, the music swept to life again around my thoughts, separating me from Dutiful like hunters fogged from one another by mist. I glanced at Thick. His face had fallen back into its normal lax lines. The realization came to me that Skilling was to him, the natural state. Not Skilling was what required his effort. And where had he learned that?:

Did your mother talk to you, like this?

No.

Then how did you learn to do this?

He frowned. She sang to me. We sang together. And she made the bad boys not see me.

Excitement filled me. Thick. Where is your mother? Do you have brothers or—

‘Stop that! It isn’t fair!’ The Prince sounded as petulant as a child.

It startled me from my thoughts. ‘What isn’t fair?’