How to describe it? “I think we would … become part of it. I’ve felt it, once or twice. It doesn’t hurt, Per. In fact, that’s the danger of the Skill to young users. That it feels as if it might be good to let go and tatter away and merge with it.”

“Merge with what?” His brow was furrowed. Lant’s face was pale.

“The Skill-current. I don’t know what else to call it.”

“Maybe merge with Bee?”

I took a breath. “Highly unlikely, boy. And I don’t want to speak of that, please. You can stay here if you wish. I can try to Skill to Dutiful and ask him to send a Skill-user through the pillar to take you back to Buckkeep. But you’d be here for at least two days, I think. In the cold, with little food, and a possible visit from a bear. Still, if you choose that, well, it’s your choice. I’m afraid I can’t stay here with you until they come for you. I have to go after the Fool and Spark as quickly as I can.” Too much time had already passed. I was now as eager to go was I was fearful.

Per hesitated. Lant spoke. “You could just as easily be lost going back to Buck as you might going forward to Kelsingra. I don’t really want to make either journey, but I’ll follow you, Fitz.”

“I’ll go with you, too,” Per said. “How do we do it?”

We lined up at the pillar. I’d attached a hasty strap to each of my crude sacks. One was slung over my shoulder. Per wore his overstuffed pack and gripped my left hand. Lant rested a hand on my right shoulder and had the strap of the largest bag over his shoulder. In his right hand, he had his sword at the ready. I took a moment to myself. I’d never been trained to take others through a pillar with me, though I’d done it before, under duress. I loosed my Wit and made myself aware of both of them, their shapes and their smell, and then groped toward them with my Skill. Neither had any talent for that magic that I could detect, but almost all people have some small spark of it. I could not make either of them aware of my reaching, but I did my best to enfold them in it. I gave them no warning, no chance to hesitate. I gripped my sword in my right hand and pressed my bared knuckles against the cold stone of the pillar.

Blackness. Points of moving lights that were not stars. Per before me, swearing his loyalty. Lant staring at me, his lips folded tight. I held tight to my awareness of them. I wrapped them in myself.

Daylight blasted us. Cold seized me and suddenly I knew that I had to stay on my feet, drop Per’s hand, and protect us.

“’Ware!” someone shouted as I sprang clear of Per and leveled my blade. My sun-dazzled eyes adjusted to the Fool sprawled at my feet and Spark fighting her way clear of the entanglement of the butterfly cloak. We had gone from a fading evening to the brilliant shine of a sunny winter day. Time lost, but even more unsettling, we seemed to have arrived only moments after the Fool and Spark had. I felt Per jostle into me as he got to his feet. He then staggered sideways, retching. Before I could look back to see how Lant had fared, I heard a roar.

I spun, or tried to, bringing my sword up to the ready. Even before my eyes found the great green dragon charging toward us, my Wit-sense reeled from the size and presence of the creature. He was coming toward us as fast as the wind blowing. I heard the clash of his silver claws on the stone street. His front legs reached, seized ground, and flung him forward. His hide was rippled with silver like water stains on fabric. This was no charging cow, but a powerful, angry creature. His roar struck me again, a sound with an edge of strange Skill and Wit. “Intruders!”

I was no Burrich, to drop a stone dragon to its knees with the power of my Wit. I did not lift my voice but I set myself firmly before his charge and held my sword firm. That was the challenge I flung at him, my defiance, an animal-to-animal declaration, yet I was shocked to see him suddenly brace his front feet, claws screaming on the black stone as he slid to a halt. His tail lashed, a powerful limb that could probably have toppled trees. He threw his head back, jaws opened wide. There were bright flares of color inside his open mouth, shocking orange edging to flaring red. Poison, such colors warn in a lizard or frog. He drew a great breath and I saw the sacs inside the sides of his mouth swell. I dreaded what I knew might follow, something I’d only heard tales about: a pale mist of venom that dissolved flesh and ate bones and pitted stones. But as he drew in the air, something changed in the dragon’s stance. I could not read it. Anger? Puzzlement? He stood, a stiff ruff of silver spines erecting to stand out around his neck like a thorny mane. He breathed out, a hot exhalation of meaty stench, and then drew in more air, slowly wagging his head on his sinuous neck. He was taking our scent.