The Tawny Man 3 - Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb
Language: eng
Format: epub

It is said that at one time there was a seer or oracle who resided on Aslevjal Island. This tale seems to be very old. Some tell it that there was only one, and she lived for many generations, but remained young, raven haired and black eyed. Others say that there was a mothershouse of oracles, with a Great Mother who passed on her seer's duties to her elder daughter in turn, so that a succession of oracles served there. All speak of them as having lived beyond their Great Mother's day. There remains no living witness to the truth of this tale. It was said that the seer lived within the glacier and emerged only to accept offerings that visitors brought to Icefyre. If a seeker of truth brought animals to sacrifice, the seer would do the bloodletting and then fling the entrails into the air and let them fall smoking to the ice. The future of the visitor was spelled out in the curling of the guts. After the reading, in the name of the dragon, she would claim the sacrificed animal.

— COCKLE'S COLLECTED OUTISLANDER TALES

The door was nearly invisible. The Fool had passed it before I perceived what it was and halted him with a touch to his shoulder. Either the door was made of ice, or was so thickly coated with ice that its original material was unseen. The hinges were vague bulges in the wall, and I saw no sort of handle or lock. It baffled me. There was a narrow slit in the door at about waist height. I stooped to peer into it, and was shocked to see a ragged and battered man crouched in the far corner of a cell. He stared in my direction, mute and expressionless. I staggered back from the sight with an inarticulate cry.

“What?” the Fool whispered and stooped to look in himself. He remained crouched by the door, his face a 1mask of horror. Then, “We have to let them out. Somehow.”

I shook my head wildly, and then found my tongue. “No, Fool. Trust me, please. They're Forged. However heartless it seems to leave them in there, it would be a danger and a cruelty to let them loose. They'd turn on us, for our cloak or for sport. We don't dare let them out.”

He stared up at me incredulously. Then he said quietly, “You didn't see them all, did you? Riddle is in there. And Hest.”

I didn't want to look. I had to. Heart thundering, breath coming fast, I crept to the door and peered in.

The inside of the cell was dimly lit with the same blue glow as the corridors. I let my eyes adjust to the light until I could see the entire cell. The room was a cavity chopped into the glacier. The floor was crusted with waste. There were five Forged Ones inside, and nothing else. Four of them had taken positions in defensible corners, backs to the walls. Hest, weakened with injuries, sprawled on the floor in the center of the cell.

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