"Of course. My back is no worse than usual," I added, thinking he referred to that.

"You were standing there, staring off up the road, paying no heed to anyone. Kettle says you've been like that most of the afternoon."

"I've been a bit muddled," I admitted. I dragged off my mitten to touch my own face. "I don't think I'm getting a fever. But it was like that… bright-edged fever thoughts."

"Kettle says she thinks it's the road. She said that you said it was Skill-wrought."

"She said I said? No. I thought that was what she said when we came onto it. That it was Skill-wrought."

"What is 'Skill-wrought'?" the Fool asked me.

"Shaped by the Skill," I replied, then added, "I suppose. I've never heard of the Skill used to make or shape something." I looked wondering back at the road. It flowed so smoothly through the forest, a pure white ribbon, vanishing off under the trees. It drew the eye, and almost I could see what lay beyond the next fold of the forested hillside.

"Fitz!"

I jerked my attention back to the Fool in annoyance. "What?" I demanded.

He was shivering. "You've just been standing there, staring off down the road since I left you. I thought you'd gone to get firewood, until I looked up and saw you standing here still. What is the matter?"

I blinked my eyes slowly. I had been walking in a city, looking at the bright yellow and red fruit heaped high in the market stalls. But even as I groped after that dream, it was gone, leaving only a confusion of color and scent in my mind. "I don't know. Perhaps I am feverish. Or just very weary. I'll go get the wood."

"I'm going with you," the Fool announced.

By my knee, Nighteyes whined anxiously. I looked down at him. "What's the matter?" I asked him aloud.

He looked up at me, the fur between his eyes ridged with worry. You do not seem to hear me. And your thoughts are not… thoughts.

I'll be all right. The Fool is with me. Go and hunt. I can feel your hunger.

And I feel yours, he answered ominously.

He left then, but reluctantly. I followed the Fool into the woods, but did little more than carry the wood he picked up and handed to me. I felt as if I could not quite wake up. "Have you ever been studying something tremendously interesting, only to suddenly look up and realize hours have passed? That is how I feel just now."

The Fool handed me another stick of wood. "You are frightening me," he informed me quietly. "You speak much as King Shrewd did in the days he was weakening."

"But he was drugged then, against pain," I pointed out. "And I am not."

"That is what is frightening," he told me.

We walked together back to camp. We had been so slow that Kettle and Starling had gathered some fuel and got a small fire going already. The light of it illuminated the dome-shaped tent and the folk moving around it. The jeppas were shadows drifting nearby as they browsed. As we piled our wood by the fire for later use, Kettle looked up from her cooking.

"How are you feeling?" she demanded.

"Better, somewhat," I told her.

I glanced about for any chores that needed doing, but camp had been set without me. Kettricken was inside the tent, poring over the map by candlelight. Kettle stirred porridge by the fire while, strange to say, the Fool and Starling conversed quietly. I stood still, trying to recall something I'd meant to do, something I'd been in the middle of doing. The road. I wanted another look at the road. I turned and walked toward it.

"FitzChivalry!"

I turned, startled at the sharpness in Kettle's call. "What is it?"

"Where are you going?" she asked. She paused, as if surprised by her own question. "I mean, is Nighteyes about? I haven't seen him for a bit."

"He went to hunt. He'll be back." I started toward the road again.

"Usually he's made his kill and come back by now," she continued.

I paused. "There's not much game near the road, he said. So he's had to go farther." I turned away again.

"Now, there's a thing that seems odd," she went on. "There's no sign of human traffic on the road. And yet the animals avoid it still. Doesn't game usually follow whatever path is easiest?"

I called back to her, "Some animals do. Others prefer to keep to cover."

"Go and get him, girl!" I heard Kettle tell someone sharply.

"Fitz!" I heard Starling call, but it was the Fool who caught up with me and took me by the arm.

"Come back to the tent," he urged me, tugging at my arm.

"I just want to have another look at the road."

"It's dark. You'll see nothing now. Wait until morning, when we're traveling on it again. For now, come back to the tent."

I went with him, but told him irritably, "You're the one who is acting strange, Fool."

"You'd not say that, had you seen the look on your face but a moment ago."

The rations that night were much the same as they had been since we left Jhaampe: thick grain porridge with some chopped dried apple in it, some dried meat, and tea. It was filling, but not exciting. It did nothing to distract me from the intent way the others watched me. I finally set down my tea mug and demanded, "What?"

No one said anything at first. Then Kettricken said, bluntly, "Fitz, you don't have a watch tonight. I want you to stay in the tent and sleep."

"I'm fine, I can stand a watch," I began to object, but it was my queen who ordered, "I tell you to stay within the tent tonight."

For a moment I fought my tongue. Then I bowed my head. "As you command. I am, perhaps, overly tired."

"No. It is more than that, FitzChivalry. You scarcely ate tonight, and unless one of us forces you to speak you do nothing save gaze off into the distance. What distracts you?"

I tried to find an answer to Kettricken's blunt question. "I do not know. Exactly. At least, it is a difficult thing to explain." The only sound was the tiny crackling of the fire. All eyes were on me. "When one is trained to Skill," I went on more slowly, "one becomes aware that the magic itself has a danger to it. It attracts the attention of the user. When one is using the Skill to do a thing, one must focus one's attention tightly on the intent and refuse to be distracted by the pulling of the Skill. If the Skill user loses that focus, if he gives in to the Skill itself, he can become lost in it. Absorbed by it." I lifted my eyes from the fire and looked around at their faces. Everyone was still save for Kettle, who was nodding ever so slightly.

"Today, since we found the road, I have felt something that is almost like the pull of the Skill. I have not attempted to Skill; actually, for some days, I have blocked the Skill from myself as much as I can, for I have feared that Regal's coterie may try to break into my mind and do me harm. But despite that, I have felt as if the Skill were luring me. Like a music I can almost hear, or a very faint scent of game. I catch myself straining after it, trying to decide what calls me…"

I snapped my gaze back to Kettle, saw the distant hunger in her eves. "Is it because the road is Skill-wrought?"

A flash of anger crossed her face. She looked down to her old hands curled in her lap. She gave a sigh of exasperation. "It might. The old legends that I have heard say that when a thing is Skill-wrought, it can be dangerous to some folk. Not to ordinary people, but to those who have an aptitude for the Skill but have not been trained in it. Or to those whose training is not advanced far enough for them to know how to be wary."

"I have never heard of any legends about Skill-wrought things." I turned to the Fool and Starling. "Have either of you?"

Both shook their heads slowly.

"It seems to me," I said carefully to Kettle, "that someone as well-read as the Fool should have come across such legends. And certainly a trained minstrel should have heard something about them." I continued to look at her levelly.