‘Fair?’ He squinted at me suspiciously. Very cautiously, I lowered my guard and tried to sense what he was feeling. I needn’t have bothered. It was obvious. All his life, he had been mocked and teased. He was sure this was more of it.
‘I could give you money for the things you do for me.’
‘Money?’
‘Coins.’ I had a few loose in my pouch. I lifted it and jingled it at him.
‘No. No coins. I don’t want coins. He hit Thick, take the coins. Hit Thick, take the coins.’ As he repeated himself, he mimed the motion, swinging a meaty fist on his short arm.
‘Who does?’
He narrowed his eyes at me, then shook his head stubbornly. ‘Someone. You don’t know. I didn’t tell no one. Hit Thick, take the coins.’ He swung again, obviously caught up in remembered anger. His breath was beginning to come more quickly.
I tried to cut through it. ‘Thick. Who hits you?’
‘Hit Thick, take the coins.’ He swung again, tongue and lower lip out now, eyes squinted nearly shut. I let the punch spend itself on the empty air, then stepped in. I set my hands on his shoulders, intending to calm him so I could speak to him. Instead he yelled loud, a wild wordless cry and sprang back from me. At the same moment, DON’T SEE ME! DON’T HURT ME!
I winced from the impact and recoiled. ‘Thick. Don’t hurt me!’ I retorted. Then, catching my breath, I added, ‘That doesn’t always work, does it? Some people don’t feel you push them away with that. But there are other ways, ways that I could stop them.’
So. Some of his fellow servants were either completely immune to his Skill-touch, or sensed it only enough to be angered by it. Interesting. As strongly Skilled as he was, I would have thought he could impose his will on almost anyone. I should tell Chade about this. I set the thought aside for later. His blow on top of the Skill-headache from earlier made me feel as if blood were running down the backs of my eyes. I forced my words past a slamming red pain in my skull. ‘I can make them stop, Thick. I will make them stop.’
‘What? Stop what?’ he demanded suspiciously. ‘Stop Thick?’
‘No. The others. I will make them stop hitting Thick and taking his coins.’
‘Humph.’ He blew out his breath in a disbelieving snort. ‘He said, “get a sweet”. But then he took the coins. Hit Thick, take the coin.’
‘Thick.’ It was hard to break in past his fixation. ‘Listen to me. If I make them stop hitting you, if I make them not take your sweets, will you stop hating me?’
He stood, saying nothing, but scowling. I decided that the two ideas were not connecting. I made it simpler. ‘Thick. I can make them stop bothering you.’
He made his ‘humph’ again. Then, ‘You don’t know. I didn’t tell you.’ He dumped the rest of the firewood from his hod willy-nilly into the box and stumped off. When he was gone, I sank down for a time, clutching my head. It was all I could do to stagger over to the abandoned scrolls and put them on the bedside table. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and then lay down just for a moment. My head sank into the cool pillow. I fell asleep.
EIGHT
Ambitions
‘Thus every magic has its space in the spectrum of magic, and together they make up the great circle of power. All magical lore is encompassed in the circle, from the skills of the humble hedge-wizard with his charms, the scryer with his bowl or crystal, the bestial magic of the Wit and the celestial magic of the Skill, and all the homely magics of hearth and heart. All can be placed as I have shown them, in a great spectrum, and it must be clear to any eye that a common thread runs through all of them.
But that is not to say that any user can or should attempt to master the full circle of magic. Such a wide sweep of the art is not given to any mortal, and with good reason. No one is meant to be master of all powers. A Skill-user may expand his expertise to scrying, and there have been tales of beast-magickers who had mastered some of the fire- magic- and water-finding skills of the hedge-wizards. As illustrated by the chart, each of these lesser arcs of magic are adjacent to the greater magics, and thus a mage can expand his powers to include these minor skills as well. But to have larger ambitions than these is a great error. For one who augurs through a crystal to attempt to master the bringing of fire is a mistake. These magics are not neighbouring magics, and the strains of supporting their differences may bring discord to his mind. For a Skill-user to demean himself with the beast-magic of the Wit is to invite the decay and debasement of his higher magic. Such a vile ambition should be condemned.’
— Treeknee’s translation of The Circle of Magic by Skillmaster Oklef
Looking back, I suspect that I learned more at Dutiful’s first Skill lesson than he did. Fear and respect were what I learned. I had dared to set myself up as a teacher of something that I barely grasped myself. And so my days and nights became fuller than I had ever expected, for I must be both student and teacher, yet could not surrender my other roles as Lord Golden’s servant or Hap’s father or the Farseer’s spy.
As winter shortened the days, my lessons with Dutiful began in the black of the morning. Usually we left Verity’s tower before the true dawn lightened the sky. Both the boy and Chade were eager for us to press on, but I was determined to err on the side of caution after our near disaster.
In the same spirit, I had procrastinated against Chade’s demands that I at least evaluate Thick’s Skill-ability. I need not have bothered. Thick was as reluctant to have any contact with me as I was to reach him. Thrice, Chade had arranged for Thick to meet me in his chambers. Each time, the half-wit had not been there at the appointed hour. Nor had I lingered, hoping my wayward student was merely late. I arrived, noted his absence, and left. Each time, Thick had told Chade that he had ‘forgotten’ the appointment, but he could not hide his apprehension and distaste from Chade.
‘What did you do to him, to create such aversion?’ Chade bad demanded of me. To which I had been able to honestly reply that I had done nothing. I knew of no reason that the half-wit would dread me. I was only glad that he did.
My lesson times with Dutiful were the exact opposite of that. The boy greeted me warmly and eagerly every time he arrived, and anticipated his lessons with eagerness. It amazed me. Sometimes I wondered wistfully what it would have been like if Prince Verity had been my first Skill-instructor. Would I have responded as readily as his son did to me. My own memories of Skillmaster Caleb’s lessons were painful in the extreme. I had seen no wisdom in emulating his set routines and mental exercises designed to prepare a student to Skill. In truth, Dutiful seemed not to need any of them. For the Prince, Skilling was an effortless spilling of his soul. I soon wondered if I had not benefited from my own early struggle to master the Skill. I had had to force my way out past my own walls; Dutiful could not seem to find any boundaries. He was as prone to share his upset stomach with me as he was to convey his thoughts. When he opened himself, it was as if he opened the floodgate to all of the scattered and wafting thought in the world. Standing witness and guard in his mind, it near overwhelmed me. It frightened and fascinated him, and both emotions kept him from achieving full concentration on what he was attempting. Worse, when he Skilled out to me, it was as if he tried to thread a needle with a rope. Verity had once told me that being Skilled to by my father Chivalry was like being trampled by a horse: he barged in, dropped his information, and fled. So it was with Dutiful.
‘If he can master his talent, he will swiftly exceed his teacher,’ I complained to Chade one very late night when he chanced to visit his old chambers. I sat at our old compounding table, surrounded by a welter of Skill-scrolls. ‘I felt almost relief when I started teaching him Kettle’s Stone game. He found it difficult to grasp at first, though he seems to be catching on to it now. I hope it will slow him down, and help him learn to look for deeper patterns in his magic. All else seems to come to him so easily. He Skills as a hound pup instinctively puts his nose to a trail. As if he is remembering how to do it, rather than being taught.’