One of the tall doors of the chamber stood ajar. A shallow spill of snow and ice had been vomited out into the hall. At the sight of it, my heart stood still. Perhaps my quest would be thwarted here, the entire immense chamber collapsed and full of ice. The spilled snow was a ramp into the room; the days and nights that had passed since its collapse had seized the snow and ice in an icy grip and stilled it. Only the top third of the entry remained clear. I climbed up the fall of ice and peered into the chamber. For a moment I stood in awe in the muted bluish light.
The centre of the chamber ceiling had given way. Snow and ice had collapsed into it from above, filling the middle of the room but cascading to shallowness at the edges. Light came from a few remaining globes and peered out uncertainly from beneath the fall of ice. I wondered how long those unnatural lanterns would continue to burn. Was their magic that of the Pale Woman, or were those, too, remnants of an Elderling occupation of this place?
I went cautious as a rat exploring a new room, creeping around the perimeter of the walls where the fall of ice was shallowest. I clambered up and down over chunks and drifts of ice, fearing that I would eventually find my way blocked. But I finally reached the throne end of the room and could see what remained of the Pale Woman's great hall.
The crush of falling ice had spared that end of the chamber, its rush depleted. The wave of avalanching ice had stopped short of her throne. It was overturned and broken, but I suspected that had happened when the stone dragon had stirred to life. He seemed to have made his exit through the middle of the chamber's ceiling rather than from this end. The remains of two men protruded from the avalanche. Perhaps those were the fighters Dutiful had battled, or perhaps they had merely been in the dragon's way as he charged off to do battle. Of the Pale Woman, there was no sign. I hoped that she had shared their fate.
The fallen and muted light globes lit this area uncertainly. All was ice and blue shadow. I circled the toppled throne and tried to remember exactly where the Fool had been chained to the dragon. In retrospect, it seemed impossible that the dragon had been as immense as I recalled him. I looked in vain for fallen shackles or my friend's body. At last, I climbed up on icy rubble and from that vantage studied the room.
Almost immediately, I glimpsed a swirl of familiar colours and shapes. My belly churned as I slowly clambered down and walked over to it. I stood staring down at it, unable to feel any grief, only burning horror and disbelief- The overlay of frost could not disguise it. At length, I went to my knees, but I do not recall if I knelt to sec it better or if my shaking legs simply gave out under me.
Dragons and serpents tangled and tumbled in the discarded folds of it. Scarlet frost outlined it. I did not need to touch it; I could not have brought myself to touch it, but it needed no touch to know that it was frozen solidly into the floor of the chamber. As body warmth had departed it, it had sunk into the ice and become one with it.
They had flayed the tattooed skin from his back.
I knelt beside it like a man in prayer. Doubtless it had been a slow and careful skinning to take it off intact- Despite the way it had wrinkled as it fell, I knew it was one continuous flap of skin, his entire back. To take it off like that would not have been easy. I did not want to imagine how they had restrained him, or who had lovingly wielded the blade. A second thought displaced that horrid image. This would not have been how she vindictively ended his life when she realized that I had defied her and wakened the dragon. Rather, she had done this to amuse herself, at her leisure, probably beginning the slow lifting of skin from flesh almost as soon as I had been taken from the room. Flung to one side, the wrinkled layer of skin was frozen to the floor like a dirty shirt cast aside. I could not stop staring at it. I could not keep myself from imagining every slow moment of his death. This was what he had foreseen; this was the end he had dreaded to face. How many times had I assured him that I would give up my life before I saw his torn from him? Yet here I knelt, alive.
Some time later, I came back to myself. I had not fainted and I do not know where my thoughts had gone, only that I seemed to awaken from a time of utter blackness. I rose stiffly. I would not try to free her grisly trophy and bear it off with me. That was no part of my Fool. It was the cruel mark she had put upon him, his daily reminder that eventually he must come to her and yield back to her what she had etched upon his skin. So let it lie there, frozen forever. With ever-darkening hatred of her and ever-deepening grief, I knew with sudden certainty where I would find my friend's body.
As I stood, I caught sight of a curved sheen of grey. It was not far from where his skin lay upon the floor. I knelt beside it and brushed a layer of frost away to reveal a blood-smeared shard of the carved Rooster Crown. A single gem winked up from a carved bird's eye. That I did take with me. That had belonged to him and me, and I would not leave it behind.
I left the demolished room and threaded my way through corridors as frozen as my heart. In all directions, the halls looked the same, and I could not focus my mind to recall how I had been dragged to her, let alone the location of the dungeon where they had confined me. I knew now, with certainty, where I had to go. I needed to find my way back to the first corridor the Fool and I had entered.
I know it took me more than the rest of the night. I wandered unI'll I was past weariness. The cold nudged at me and my ears strained after imagined sounds. I saw no sign of any living creature. Eventually, when my eyes ached from remaining open, I decided to rest. I set my pack down in the corner of a small room where firewood had been stored. I put my back to the corner and sat on my pack. I clutched my sword in my hand as I drooped my head over my knees. I dozed fitfully unI'll nightmares awoke me and drove me on again.
Eventually, I found her bedchamber, her frozen braziers draped with icicles. The lights burned brightly there and I could see the whole chamber, the carved wardrobes of rich wood, and the elegant table that held her mirror and brushes, her sparkling jewellery gleaming on a silvery tree. Someone, perhaps, had plundered as he fled, for one of the wardrobes stood open, and garments trailed from it across the floor. I wondered how they had missed taking the jewels. The sleek furs of her bed were hoared with frost. I did not linger there. I did not want to gaze at the empty shackles affixed to the wall across from her bed, nor on the bloody stains they framed on the icy wall.
Beyond her bedchamber, another door gaped. I glanced in as I passed, then halted and went back to it. There was a table in the middle of the room, and scroll-racks lined the walls. They were neatly filled, the scrolls rolled and tied in the Six Duchies fashion. I walked over to them, knowing what I had found, but feeling oddly emotionless about it. I pulled out a scroll at random and opened it. Yes. It was by Master Treeknee. This one had to do with rules of conduct for candidates in training. It strictly forbade the playing of pranks that involved the use of Skill. I let it fall to the icy floor and chose another at random. This was newer, and I recognized Solicity's rounded hand and sloping letters. The words squirmed before my tearing eyes, and I let it fall to join its fellow. I lifted my gaze to look around the room. Here was the missing Skill library of Buckkeep Castle, surreptitiously sold away by Regal to finance his lush lifestyle at Tradeford. Traders who were agents for the Pale Woman and Kebal Rawbread had bought from the youngest prince the knowledge of the Farseer magic. Our inheritance had come north, to the Outislandets and eventually to this room. Here the Pale Woman had learned how to turn our own magic against us, and here she had studied how to make a stone dragon. Chade would have given his eyeteeth for a single afternoon in this room. It was a treasure trove of lost knowledge. It would not buy what I most desired, a chance to do things differently. I shook my head and turned and left it there.