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

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Part of a letter from Prilkop to the Fool precedes “Furnich.” The chapter opens with Fitz recalling what the Fool told him of his earlier escape from Clerres and attempting to follow along with it. The path laid out, Fitz proceeds, his progress traced and the difficulties he faces reported as he addresses them. Motley rejoins him early in his progress, Nighteyes approving of the crow, although all three acknowledge that there will be no full bond among them.

One night, as he rests, Fitz assesses himself through the Skill, noting changes to his abilities since being splattered with Silver. He reaches out through the magic and is overwhelmed by it, even as he notices again the presence of larger entities within its flow. The experience leaves him puzzling over it and himself.

Fitz’s progress continues, and his condition deteriorates. Nighteyes remarks on the presence of worms in him, and Fitz struggles to move onward. He notes additional changes in himself as he presses ahead, and he steals to survive as he does so. At length, he comes to a port and plies his magics to secure a berth on a ship headed where he wants it to go. The passage on the ship is unpleasant for him, and Fitz finds himself in mind of Verity as he goes.

Arriving at last in Furnich, Fitz disembarks and makes for a Skill-pillar that has been reported to him. The presence of Skill-stone in the area hinders him, as the memories the stones exude tell of betrayal and despair. Motley warns him of others as he struggles onward, and he comes under attack–not out of his attackers’ need, but out of their boredom. Exercising his magics, Fitz kills them, although he is astonished at his ability to do so. He takes what he can from them and presses onward, at length finding the Skill-pillar and entering into it with the crow.

As is often the case, the prefatory materials of the chapter attract my attention. The comments about the limited survival of the contents of the library at Clerres bring to mind once again the Cotton Library and lamentation for what has been lost, both what is known to have been lost and what is no longer known. The confirmation in those comments of the rapacious attempted genocide of dragons by the Servants and the effects of the same is perhaps a bit on the nose; again, there is something cartoonish in the evil of Clerres on display, and I am struck again by it.

Further, the seeming assumption by Prilkop of primacy for White Prophets over others and of himself over the survivors of Clerres–“Our Servants,” he writes, and “I assumed the care of the few remaining Whites” (731)–stands out. While it is the case that he is the seniormost among them, Prilkop is also very much a relic of a time that seems no longer to exist, and he asserts a pride of place that the ill-gotten “longevity of the Four” (731) implies is a danger. It is something of a trope that the long-lived and precognitive tend towards evil; they get bored and crave stimulation, or they become fixated on their visions and blind to the possibility that they may be in error. It happened in Clerres already; Prilkop seems positioned to repeat the error, or at least to reiterate the sytems that conduce to the error.

So much said, the comment that “Many [of the refugees from Clerres] have ceased dreaming” (731) is suggestive. Whether this is an opening for potential further development in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus of competing centers of power (not that I expect Hobb to explore that kind of thing; I make no such demands, even as I can see possibilities) or simply a nod towards verisimilitude in that things go on even when others do not look on, I am unsure. But I can see that there are things that could be done with it, given Marvell’s “world enough and time.”

As to the main chapter: It is with some interest that I note Fitz’s comment early on that he has left open a leadership position that Prilkop might fill (731). He does have something of a tendency to play kingmaker across his career as an assassin; for but two examples, early in his training, Chade makes explicit reference to Fitz of possible changes in leadership, and Fitz’s actions secure Dutiful’s succession. That Fitz does such a thing again is telling; he may not be Prilkop’s friend, but it is clear that he does, as averred, respect him.

I note, too, that the chapter, proper, reinforces the depravity of Clerres. In Furnich, the memories of the Elderlings fleeing Kelsingra and its cataclysm bespeak the planning of the Servants, who lay in wait to eliminate the refugees of that city. If it is the case that Prilkop was unaware of such planning–and it seems to be so, given his presented nostalgic idealism and the reported timing of his journey to Aslevjal–then it calls into question how good a leader Prilkop can be of even so small a group as he has taken into his care; he seems blinded by his hope no less than were the Servants by their greed. If it is the case that Clerres might well rise again, it seems it will be on a shaky foundation.

If.

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