Golden Fool by Robin Hobb & Stephen Youll

Author:Robin Hobb & Stephen Youll
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Retail, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 0006486029
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2003-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

chapter XIV

SCROLLS

Owan, a fisherman, lived on the rune island called Fedois. His wife’s mothers’ house was of wood and stone, and stood well above the tide line, for tides can run both exceedingly high and very low in that place. It was a good place. There were clams on the beach to the north, and enough pasturage below the glacier that his wife could keep three goats of her own in a flock of many, even though she was a younger daughter. She bore for them two sons and a daughter, and all helped him fish. They had enough and it should have been enough for him. But it was not.

From Fedois, on a clear day, a keen-eyed man can see Aslevjal with its glacier glinting blue beneath the azure sky. Now all know that when the lowest tide of the winter season comes, a boat can venture under the glacier’s skirts and find a way to the heart of the island. There, as all know, the dragon sleeps with a hoard of treasure scattered about him. Some say a bold man can go there and ask a favor of Icefyre as he sleeps locked in the glacier’s cold, and some say it is only a man both greedy and foolish who would do such a thing. For it is told that Icefyre will give such a man not only what he asks, but what he deserves, and that is not always good luck and gold. To visit Icefyre by that path, a man must go swift, waiting for the tide to lower away from the ice, and then darting under it as soon as his boat will slide between the water and the icy roof. Once in that cold sapphire place, he must count the beats of his own pulse, for if he tarries too long, the tide will return to grind him and his boat between water and ice. And that is not the worst thing that can befall a man who ventures there. Few are there who tell the tale of visiting that place, and even fewer are truthful men.

Owan knew this well, for his mother had told him, and so had his wife and his wife’s mother. “No call have you to go begging at the dragon’s door,” they warned him. “For you will get no better of Icefyre than would an impudent beggar that came to our own door.” Even his younger son knew this was so, and he was a lad of only six winters. But his older son had seventeen years, and his heart and his loins burned hot for Gedrena, daughter of Sindre of the Linsfall mothers. She was a rich bride, high above choosing the son of a fisherman for her mate. So his older son buzzed in Owan’s ear like a gnat by night, whining and humming that if they had the courage to visit Icefyre, they both could be the richer for it.

— OUTISLANDER SCROLL, “ICEFYRE’S LAIR”

The following morning, the Outislanders departed, sailing with the dawn tide.

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