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

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Complaints from Chade regarding the slow progress of research into the memory cubes retrieved from Aslevjal open “Surprises.” As the chapter, proper, begins, Fitz steels himself against the task presenting itself to him, Nighteyes offering wry comments within as Fitz make preparations to draw off and dissuade pursuit of Bee. Per and Spark join him, to his annoyance, and Spark makes some adjustments to his plans before helping Per to help Fitz away. Pursuit finds them and begins to engage but is caught in the trap Fitz and Spark had set up.

Fitz is slowly brought back to Bee, with whom he confers again as efforts to effect escape form Clerres continue. She glosses her treatment, and Fitz conveys what news he can before he dozes off. He wakes to find himself in communion with Bee and appreciative of her strength in the Skill. Work to effect escape continues, and there is more conversation among Fitz, Bee, and teh Fool, turning to prophecies and Catalysts. Bee is attacked by a released prisoner, and the prisoner is killed, to Prilkop’s sorrow. Kill totals are wryly calculated, and Fitz finds himself unable to assist the escape efforts.

At length, an opening is made into a secret tunnel, and Perseverance and Bee proceed therein. Work to widen the opening continues, and Spark joins those moving ahead. As the opening is widened further, Fitz sends the rest ahead. The Fool rejoins him, and the pair proceed, only to be told that their situation worsens. Fitz determines to proceed onward, and he is spurred by an explosion behind him.

As often happens, the prefatory materials attract some attention. It is remarked at a number of points in the Tawny Man and Fitz and the Fool trilogies that Chade had been reckless in his study of the Skill once it was made open to him, in part because he had been denied it due to his bastardy, in part out of a desire to mitigate the damage age and his particular lifestyle had done to his body, and in part because he was prone to obsession, particularly as regarded the acquisition of knowledge. The second part is perhaps the most germane to the circumstances of the chapter; Fitz comments that his body is sapping its strength to heal his wounds, repeating a process that has been at work in him since he had been ineptly healed decades before. (Chade had soon after attempted such healing on himself, if with less error due to calmer circumstances.) There is a useful warning against rushing headlong into knowledge not fully explored in the example, even as Chade’s complaints betray an eagerness to thus rush–but he is not wrong that those with greater experience and breadth of knowledge might do better to accurately classify and identify materials than apprentices, who are by their very nature less informed than they might be. There is a tension in place, to be sure, and one that memory suggests Hobb treats elsewhere; I remember Fitz noting that not all knowledge should be written due to the perils of misunderstanding and misuse. I suppose it’s something of another scholarly someday, yet another in a growing litany of them.

I do find Fitz’s comments about his life as the Fool’s Catalyst a bit amusing. The quip that “Sometimes [the Fool] is very sure a dream will come true….And then I make it not true” (642) did get a laugh out of me as I sat at my desk rereading and typing. It’s an oversimplification of events, of course–Fitz often enough acts in such ways as ensure the Fool’s visions come to pass–but I can recognize a father’s attempt at levity with his daughter for what it is easily enough, and I appreciate it.

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