I heard Dutiful’s footfall on the stair outside the door, and there was no time to ponder such things anymore. He shut the door firmly behind him and came to the table. I sighed silently. His posture plainly said that he had not completely forgiven me. The first words out of his mouth were “I don’t want to learn the Skill with a half-wit as my partner. There must be someone else.” Then he stared at me. “What happened to you?”
“I got in a fight.” I made the reply short, to let him know that was as much as I would say. “And as far as Thick working with you on the Skill, I know of no other suitable candidates. He’s our only choice.”
“Oh, he can’t be. Have you made an organized search for ones?”
“No.”
Then, before I could say anything further, he picked up the little figurine from the table. The chain dangled from it. “What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s yours. You found it on that beach where we encountered an Other. Don’t you remember it?”
“No.” He stared at it with dread. Then, unwillingly, “Yes. Yes, I do.” He swayed in his chair, looking at it. “It’s Elliania, isn’t it? What does it mean, Tom? That I found it there, before I’d ever even met her?”
“What?” I held out my hand for it, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead he just sat, staring at it. I got up and walked around the table. When I looked at the small face and the coils of black hair, and bared breasts and the black, black eyes, I suddenly saw he was right. It was Elliania. Not as she was now, but as she would be, when she was a woman grown. The blue ornament carved in the woman’s hair was identical to the one that the Narcheska had worn. I drew a deep breath. “I don’t know what it means.”
The Prince spoke as a man does when he dreams. He looked down into the doll’s face. “That place where we were, that beach . . . it was like a vortex. Like a whirlpool that draws magic to itself. All sorts of magic.” He closed his eyes for an instant. He still clutched the carved figurine in his hand. “I nearly died there, didn’t I? The Skill sucked me in and pulled me to pieces. But you came after me and . . . someone helped you. Someone—” He groped helplessly for a word. “Someone great. Someone bigger than the sky.”
It was not how I would have expressed it, but I knew what he meant. I suddenly recognized how reluctant I had been to discuss the events on the beach or even think about them. There was a nimbus around the hours we had spent there, a light that obscured rather than illuminated. It filled me with dread. It was why I hadn’t shown the feathers to the Fool or discussed them with anyone. They were a vulnerability. They were a door to the unknown. When I picked them up, I had set something larger in motion, something that was beyond anyone’s controlling. Even now, my mind cringed away, as if by refusing to remember, I could undo those events.
“What was that? Who was that, that we encountered there?”
“I don’t know,” I said shortly.
A deep enthusiasm suddenly kindled in the Prince’s eyes. “We have to find out.”
“No. We don’t.” I took a breath. “In fact, I think we should be very careful to avoid finding out.”
He stared at me in consternation. “But why? Don’t you remember what it felt like? How wonderful it was?”
I remembered only too well, especially now that we spoke of it together. I shook my head, and suddenly wished I’d kept the figurine hidden. The sight of her was pulling all the memories back into my mind, just as a familiar perfume or the few notes of a song will suddenly recall all of an evening’s foolishness. “Yes. It was wonderful. And it was dangerous. I didn’t want to come back from there, Dutiful. Neither did you. She made us.”
“She? It wasn’t a she. It was like . . . like a father. Strong and safe. Caring.”
“I don’t think it was either of those things,” I said unwillingly. “I think that we each shaped it into what we wanted it to be.”
“You think we made it all up to ourselves?”
“No. No, I think we encountered something that was bigger than we could grasp. And so we set it into a familiar shape, so we could behold it. So our minds could encompass it.”
“What makes you think that? Something you read in the Skill scrolls?”
I answered reluctantly. “No. I’ve found nothing in the Skill scrolls about anything like that. I just think that because . . . because I do.”
He stared at me and I shrugged hopelessly, because I had no better explanation for the boy or myself. Only a stirring anticipation at the memory of the creature we had encountered, backed by an ominous dread.
