Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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After in-milieu commentary warning of the dangers of travel through the Skill-pillars that might have been useful to characters earlier, “Marking Time” opens with Fitz searching for an outlet for his emotions, taking training alongside his new guard unit to find it. Foxglove reluctantly allows it, giving Fitz some warning, but he persists and regrets it. Afterward, he is confronted by Burrich’s son Steady, who rebukes Fitz for letting his despair flow out into the world, and as Fitz follows the younger man’s direction, the pair discuss Chade’s situation and what led up to it, as well as Steady’s own regrets regarding Bee. The risks Chade had taken are explicated, and Steady asks Fitz for the particularly strong Outislander elfbark. Fitz provides it, and after Steady takes his leave, he reviews Bee’s writings that he has brought with him, recognizing her power for prophecy as he does so.

The next days pass unpleasantly for Fitz, who finds himself caught between hope for Bee and fear for her. He works to navigate his restored identity as a prince of the realm, and he calls on Chade, finding him responsive but largely absent. Steady intervenes as Fitz presses his mentor, glossing the retrieval and analysis of information from where it had been sequestered. It is cold comfort, and Fitz soothes himself with thoughts of murder.

Fitz continues to wait for news and to check on the Fool, whom Spark / Ash attends. Fitz finds himself recalling his and the Fool’s shared youth, and the Fool reports some improvement. Ash reports Chade’s decline, and the three confer about what will become of Ash if Chade dies. The Fool presses Fitz to go to Clerres, and he demurs, citing his ongoing instability in the Skill and his continuing expectation of news of Bee. The Fool avers that Bee will accompany them both to the destruction of Clerres, will indeed conduct them thither, which Fitz rejects. The Fool then advises Fitz about what they will face, and Fitz begins to question whether he can enact the destruction for which the Fool has called. A discussion of logistics ensues, and Fitz asks Ash to help him with his own stitches as a means of forestalling more talk.

More time passes, and Fitz continues to work to regain his combat skills. At length, Thick and Lant return with soldiers who will be discommended, and Thick reports mistreatment at their hands. Lant receives direction and correction, and Perseverance, who had accompanied the group from Buckkeep, is taken aside to give report. Fitz accepts the boy’s report and commends him to the care of one of the senior stable staff, offering a final set of instructions to him.

The present chapter is slightly longer than normal, some twenty-five pages in the edition I have of the novel. I am reminded once again that I need to take a look at a cohesive print-run of the Elderlings novels to see if there is some pattern of chapter-length at work in them and, if there is, what significance that pattern has for the corpus. It remains among my scholarly somedays, things to which I look with some yearning even as I question whether I ought to maintain any pretense of scholarship, being as many years out of academe as I am. But then, given what all is happening in and to academe as I sit and write this, perhaps my small works here and in a few other places–yes, I do still have some stuff going on, about which I expect to write more later–are among what will be regarded as the last vestiges of what might have been a tradition. Or maybe they will be sparks from which some new flame is kindled to warm the heart and light the mind, but I am probably unreasonably vain to think such thoughts and write them where others are apt to see them.

As often before, I find myself reading with no small degree of affect. I expect this is something deliberately constructed, of course; the Eight Deadly Words being a thing, its inverse would be seen as desirable, and “relatability” is something that many readers look for in what they read. While I dislike the term–I don’t know why, but something about it strikes me as insipid, although I recognize it is my own taste at work and not something “wrong” with the word itself–I acknowledge that readers are far from wrong to look to see themselves reflected in what they read, and I acknowledge that so much is true for other media, as well. Representation matters, of course, and people should see themselves represented in the media available to them, just as they well ought to see and be led to empathize with those different from themselves. And while I am fortunate not to have been in the position of waiting for news of my own daughter as she languishes in captivity, I have been anxious to learn how my daughter has fared and impatient with the delay in news reaching me, chafing at my inability to do anything in the moment to make things better for her and chastising myself for my failures with her. And I find, like Fitz, that there is some use in knowing that others have done as much and more; even if it is not a comfort–and it is not; that others feel poorly does not make a poor feeling rich–it is good to have a reminder that others have done things and thus that we can also do them.

There is much to do, ever and always. Having the reminder that what needs doing can be done, one of the many things that a good read offers, is thus a welcome thing.

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