“Do that. But we all know that there is no assurance the pillar has not toppled, and we cannot know if there are people there or if it is deserted. The Killdeer Coterie has offered to risk their lives to rescue Lady Bee.”

I turned and bowed gravely to the six strangers. “I thank you.” And I did, but I also hated them a little for being able to do what I could not. Then I told them of the pillar as last I had seen it, a pillar standing in what might have been a market-circle at some ancient time. Any town that had once existed there was long gone. The last time I had seen it, it had been surrounded by forest with no sign of human occupation. It would be cold in the Mountains in the winter. They nodded. Their leader, Springfoot, knit her brow and listened earnestly, and then formed her coterie up as if it were a military patrol. Left hands on the shoulder of the Skill-user before them, and right hands holding bared blades, they advanced to the Skill-stone and then looked to Nettle.

She nodded gravely. I watched what I had never seen before: a line of Skill-users swallowed one after another by the black stone. The appearance of the pillar never altered. The coterie simply walked into stone and was gone. When the last of them had vanished I lowered my face into my hands and breathed into the darkness I cupped, imagining a thousand possibilities.

“Fitz.”

I looked up. Nettle’s expression was strange. I saw her swallow and then she spoke again.

“Springfoot has Skilled to me. They found no one. Only the plaza as you described it. Unbroken snow. No tracks leading away from the pillar. No one is there.”

I stared at her. “They must have gone on from there! Blowing snow must have covered their tracks.”

Nettle closed her eyes. I watched the lines of her brow deepen as she Skilled. She shook her head slowly, then met my gaze again. “Springfoot does not think so. She reports it is a calm, clear evening there. The snow is not fresh. There are rabbit tracks across the surface. Leaf litter, pine needles. All the signs that there has not been fresh snow or wind. Fitz. Springfoot does not think they ever emerged from the pillar.”

I spoke without breath.

“Did they not sense her at all? In the passage?”

She shook her head slowly as she Skilled to them.

“When Chade and I were delayed, Dutiful found us in the pillar. Cannot they …?”

She lifted her hands, gloved fingers spread. “They are trying, Da. But they sense nothing there. Even to Skill back to me is a challenge, like shouting over the rush of a river. The Skill-current fountains there, they say, and is hard to navigate.”

Riddle put his arm around her, shoring her up. I stood alone. Very alone. A trained coterie was barely able to function. An untrained woman had led a following there; what chance could they possibly have had? “Then … she is gone?”

“They will keep trying.” But I had uttered the unthinkable aloud. Gone. Lost in the Skill-current.

Nettle spoke on. The coterie had supplies for five days and would have to remain for at least three days before using the pillar to return. This particular coterie was as talented with weapons as with Skill. She dared to hope that perhaps Dwalia and the others would still emerge from the pillar; that they were only delayed and not lost. I’d had that experience. I knew it could happen. She reminded me that the old tales were full of instances of folk who had accidentally entered a stone and then emerged months or even years later, untouched by the time that had passed. Her words meant as much to me as the sound of water flowing over icy stones. I’d not had luck that good in a very long time.

After a while, I had become aware that she had stopped speaking. She was silent. Tears, silver in the last light of the day, were tracking down her face. Riddle stood beside her and wept unashamed. No one was talking. There was nothing to say.

We stood and we waited. Nettle Skilled. I attempted to Skill, without result. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her and Riddle guided her off to a sturdy tent and a warm meal. I sat down, put my back to the cold stone, and waited. I spent the night staring into the dark.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Family

This is a true account of exactly what happened, penned by Scribe Simmer as told to me by the minstrel Drum, a man unlettered but sworn to speak only truth.

Kitney Moss, accused of the murder of his young wife, was dragged to the Witness Stones near Buckkeep Castle on the fifteenth day after Springfest. He did not go willingly. The brother of his wife, Hardy the tinker, had demanded that Kitney meet him there, to duel with staves and fists for the truth of the matter. Hardy judged Kitney had strangled Weaver in a drunken rage. Kitney admitted to his drunkenness that evening but insisted that he had found Weaver dead when he returned to their cottage, and had fainted from grief, only to wake to their son’s terrified screams when the boy found his dead mother.