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The final chapter of the Fitz and the Fool novels, “The Mountains,” is preceded by a brief note about the Skill-roads penned by Fitz. The chapter itself opens with Nettle and Kettricken conferring about their respective next steps as those who had been gathered to attend on Fitz’s passing make their departures. Bee remarks about the various groups heading out, and she departs with Kettricken, Integrity, Hap, Motley, Spark, and Perseverance for Jhaampe after bidding Nettle farewell. Bee’s thoughts turn to mundane matters as the party around her proceeds at ease. Following the Skill-road out of the quarry, Bee is startled by Perseverance’s assertion that they are being followed, at which Kettricken smiles. Notes about the author and about the typeface conclude the text.

The present chapter is not the first to be titled “The Mountains”; there is another such, following Kettricken proceeding through the mountains with Fitz and others in attendance, in Assassin’s Quest. As before, it might be of interest to read the chapters against one another, although it would be a short read, given the brevity of the present, final chapter.

As might be expected, the present chapter resolves a few of the points not previously addressed, although it leaves those resolutions somewhat open. The characters’ next destinations are clear, and there is little if any suggestion that they will not arrive, but those arrivals are not presented. In the novel as in life, there is not a definitive ending–and, from a commercial standpoint, leaving the (tantalizing) possibility of sequels open is a useful thing. I do not think I am alone in hoping to continue to follow the Farseers.

As far as the rereading goes: there are other Realm of the Elderlings materials to treat, including possibly some that I do not have copies of in my possession. Reading them, if they’re there and I can get them, will be a pleasure. I’ll definitely return to those I have, doing for them what I have already done (and will possibly improve upon?) for the main narrative line; I’ll also take up the Soldier Son novels, about which there’s not a lot written that I know of. More scholarly somedays will follow, I have no doubt; I’ve already been sitting on several for a while, now, and it may be nice to revisit them.

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The penultimate chapter of the novel, “Lies and Truths,” follows comments from Bee regarding Fitz’s friendship with the Fool. The chapter, proper, opens with Bee complaining to Nettle of those attending on Fitz’s death, and his continued deterioration is rehearsed. Nettle opines on royal responsibilities and commiserates with Bee about the demands thereof, offering advice about how to negotiate matters.

Bee’s continued attendance on her father is reported, as is a gloss of what Nettle is able to tell her of the process of stone-carving and -quickening. Bee’s continued misgivings are noted and set aside.

Fitz continues to linger, and those attending on him offer such aid as they can, giving memories to him to put into the stone. Not all succeed, and Bee watches as the Fool sorrows at proceedings. She plots to give of herself to the stone in the night, but the Fool interdicts her. She recalls her earlier lie to him about Fitz’s words and recants it. The commotion surrounding the recantation rouses the camp, as well as Fitz, who reaches out to the Fool. The Fool reciprocates, and the two go into the carved stone wolf. The carving rouses, commends Bee, and bounds into the distance, leaving Bee, Nettle, and the rest behind.

As has so often been the case, the prefatory materials in the chapter attract attention. Of note to my eye is Bee’s complaint about the Fool’s names (837): “It is a ridiculous name, but perhaps if my name were Beloved, I would consider Fool an improvement. Whatever were his parents thinking? Did they truly imagine everyone he ever encountered would wish to call him Beloved?” Some might point out some irony in a character named Bee ridiculing another’s name, there being no few ways to make cruel jokes about the name. Some might point out, too, that Bee has a bastard and a stinging plant in her immediate family, as well as a complex question for an in-law; neither “fool” nor “beloved” seem so strange against “fitz,” “nettle,” and “riddle.” Some might further point out that the propensity towards emblematic names in the Six Duchies generally and among the Farseers in particular makes Fool entirely apt for a jester and Beloved suitable for a child. (Regarding the parental comment: as a parent, I certainly find myself expecting that others will recognized the excellence of my child, and as someone who has been a teacher, I find I am far from alone in having such expectations, even if mine are more justified than others’ may be.) Perhaps some kind of translation convention is at issue; Amanda is a common enough name, she who must be loved (with an admittedly interesting set of connotations for those who know their Latin), and Tesoro, treasure or treasured, is not too unusual a surname in more than a few places. Perhaps it is a teenage girl reeling at the loss of her father and lashing out. Perhaps it is more than one thing; several fit, and there is room enough for many.

As far as the chapter itself goes, as befits being near to the end not only of a novel and not only of one trilogy, but of a multi-series narrative arc, much is resolved. There is something backhandedly messianic about it, of course, the unification and immortalization of a trinity, and it occurs to me that Freudian reading might well apply to the interactions among the principals of the chapter’s actions: Fitz, Nighteyes, and the Fool. They map reasonably neatly onto the superego, id, and ego, respectively…and it occurs to me that such a reading would, itself, make for yet another of the many scholarly somedays my rereading has pointed out. In any event, the dream voiced long ago comes true for Fitz and Nighteyes, and their story and the Fool’s is finally fully resolved, no ragged partings left for any of them as before.

But the present chapter is not the last one; there is yet another, so not all can be resolved yet–if ever, in the fiction as in life.

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An excerpt from Bee’s journals precedes “Time.” The chapter begins with Fitz reflecting on lessons Burrich had taught him after his resurrection. Fitz’s continued deterioration is noted, and the parasites with which he is infested present themselves openly. Fitz briefly entertains possibilities of healing and return to Buckkeep, but the memory of the messenger from the Fool he had burned asserts itself as specific physical symptoms manifest, to Fitz’s shock.

Fitz’s routine in the stone-quarry receives some explication, along with his ongoing deterioration. His isolation from Nighteyes tells upon him, and he works on carving his effigy without hope. Amid his efforts, he sleeps fitfully, waking uneasily at the sound of approaching voices. Nighteyes returns to him, then, and the Fool finds him, followed by Bee, Perseverance, Lant, Spark, Kettricken, and Motley. The new arrivals work to tend to Fitz, thinking initially to take him to Buckkeep, but Fitz sets that notion aside in favor of his work on the stone. Almost without realizing it, he resumes the work.

Fitz recognizes in himself what is happening and explains to those who had not seen it before what will take place. He fades in and out of lucidity among his work and the attentions paid him by the rest, and Bee speaks to him of her desire to write down the tale of his days. Fitz agrees, relating his memories to her as he lets them pass into the stone, beginning with his delivery to Verity at Moonseye. Days pass as he does so, tended by others as he empties himself more and more into the stone and his body deteriorates further and further under the influence of the parasites that besiege him. Some days later, Nettle and her Skill-coterie arrive, and after the Skillmistress rebukes the members of Dutiful’s court that she can, she has her physician examine Fitz. The examination concludes that Fitz’s condition is terminal, and Fitz makes a series of pronouncements for how he wants his affairs settled. Kettricken offers to take on much of the work involved in effecting that settlement. Later, the Fool confers with him more privately along the same lines, offering to put his own memories into the stone, but Fitz refuses him.

Fitz continues his work. Kettricken makes a point to tend to him, and she laughs sadly at their conversation, recalling her attempt to kill him and noting the changes the pair of them had wrought across nations before kissing Fitz. She notes her desire to visit Verity nearby and asks Fitz to await her return, to which he agrees.

Later, Fitz complains to the Fool of his situation, the recent arrival of Dutiful, his sons, and his coterie at the quarry, and he notes the impatience of the king. The increasing interior emptiness of his filling the stone with himself and the degradation of his body by the parasites tell on Fitz, and the Fool notes his difficulties with Bee. What Fitz has put of the Fool into the stone receives remark, and what the pair are to each other receives attention. At the Fool’s touch, Fitz is taken by knowledge of the other, but the importance of it does not reach him.

Fitz wakes later in blood and pain, seeing through bleary eyes those gathered around him to watch. He and the wolf confer about what must happen, and Fitz tries to release himself into the carved stone, but he cannot do so.

That the present chapter should parallel the experience of Verity years before is a sensible thing; Fitz is doing very much the same thing his uncle did, and struggling more with it despite many more years of life and its concomitant depth of experience. Some of that difficulty may be ascribed to the parasites ravaging Fitz’s body; Verity did not have that particular problem as he carved his dragon. Some of it, too, may be ascribed to the relative lack of aid Fitz has in accomplishing his task; while Kettricken and the Fool, who had also tended Verity in his efforts, and the others with them tend to his body, and Kettricken offers memories worth preserving in the present chapter as she had in the past, Verity benefited from the Skilled assistance of Kestrel, while Fitz actively pushes against the Skilled near him giving much if any of themselves for his work. It is not without reason that he does so, of course; he has not been so close to them as would suggest spending an eternity with them as a fused being, for one, and they have their own lives to live and others depending upon them. Nor does he have the broader exigency under which Verity operated; his passage into the stone will not save the Six Duchies, but only preserve himself and Nighteyes. But even with such differences noted and others identifiable, Fitz is following his uncle; it might well be wondered how many of the other Farseers will do so in some dimly glimpsed future of the milieu.

Kettricken’s comments in the present chapter also attract attention. That Fitz “never did” see her, at which she smiles sadly (819), that she tends to him with such care as she does, that she is struck as she is by his retention of the fox pin she had given him long ago, that she reminisces with him as she does, all suggest that there might have been some kind of romance between them, had matters been different. As it is, there is love between them, something clear throughout most of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus, one borne of shared suffering and mutual love of Verity, and there is some suggestion that the pair of them are reasonably of an age. It is one of the might-have-beens that pervade any long-term narrative–and, indeed, many lives in the readerly world. Had Fitz been legitimated, had he been legitimate, had but a few things fallen otherwise than they did…but the Realm of the Elderlings novels rely in large part on small bits of history happening instead of others, and had such things taken place as would have needed to, even so late as the Tawny Man trilogy, what else would not have been possible in the later works? And, yes, “it’s just a story,” but it’s also the case that such concerns obtain in the readerly world; the “might-have-been” is sometimes entertaining but not necessarily the best use of mental effort.

As a final note (for now, at least), the present chapter answers the question posed earlier (notably here, here, and here) about who the in-milieu author is. For the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, it remains Fitz (with some interpolations of other sources); for the Fitz and the Fool novels, it is Bee throughout, with the Fitz-centered narration being presumably Bee’s records made as her father carves the Skill-stone and pours his memories into it. I’m not sure at this point, having not been as good at keeping notes as would have allowed me to be so, how that affects the reading; maybe I will look back on more than five hundred chapters of writing again and find out.

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An extraction from Revel‘s papers, clearly a directive from Fitz, precedes “A Wolf’s Heart.” The chapter, proper, begins with Bee remarking on her continued visits with Thick and their effects on her daily life. She contrives to give gifts to her new friend until Spark, disguised, takes her aside and advises her against the continued practice. Bee’s public routines continue, although Nettle and Riddle also take her aside to discuss the matter with her in reasonable privacy. When, amid their conversation, Bee lowers her Skill-walls, Nighteyes finds her, having sought her to inform her of Fitz’s situation and to bid Kettricken farewell. Bee relates the information to Nettle and Riddle, and while they are uncertain, Riddle advises proceeding as if Bee’s report is accurate, and they call upon Kettricken.

There is some concern noted as the trio make for Kettricken, the older woman’s condition noted. Bee recalls having met Kettricken previously, and the older woman’s austerity receives remark as she greets her visitors. Nighteyes’s influence on Bee becomes clear quickly, not least due to a stated preference for ginger cakes, and comments from the wolf convince Kettricken of the situation, even as Bee is somewhat embarrassed by other comments not voiced. Fitz’s situation is compared to that of a messenger from the Fool who had reached him, and although Nettle continues to question whether Bee speaks truth, Kettricken purposes to go to Fitz in haste. Nettle attempts to intercede, and Bee finds herself dismissed.

Bee stalks through the castle, making her own plans, and finds herself accompanied by Spark again as the calls upon Lord Chance. When Bee rehearses to him what she has learned, Lord Chance immediately makes his own plans to proceed. After some discussion, Spark bids Bee maintain a charade of obedience until it comes time to depart.

As I started to reread the present chapter, I was taken again by my failure to appropriately index things. I really, really should have been better as I went along about identifying characters in place in particular chapters and passages; had I to do this again, it is one of the things I would add to it. Perhaps as I move into the next phase of the rereading series–which will probably take on the Soldier Son novels rather than the “peripheral” works in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus–I will take up doing so. With more than five hundred entries already made, however, going back and updating / correcting what I’ve done so far seems a daunting task. That does not mean it’s not worth doing, of course, but it’s far easier to start out and stay right than to start wrong and get right later.

More directly to the present chapter: I find a parallel between Bee’s nighttime visits to Thick and Fitz’s to Chade decades prior. Both are conducted clandestinely (to an extent), and both leave the young Farseer in question sleep-deprived and stumbling about. Bee’s are less successful, however, being done outside structures of authority (Chade having undertaken to train Fitz at Shrewd’s direction) and by less adept participants. Too, Buckkeep seems less willing to accept internal espionage under Dutiful than it had been under Shrewd or even Kettricken. But it is not to be expected, despite fantasy literature’s seeming preference for cultural stasis, that a court would not change over time.

Even amid such changes, however, certain points of continuity remain. The lupine appreciation both for ginger-cakes and the sensory pleasures of the now are present in the current chapter as they have been through much of the Realm of the Elderlings novels. Kettricken’s insistence on doing what she feels needs to be done, regardless of the consequences to her, is, as well. So, too, is the Fool’s fine disregard for the demands of others. And, curiously, Spark’s willingness to go along with it all despite her knowledge that it will cost her much to do so speaks to a persistent portrayal of Buckkeep covert agents as all too ready to go rogue…which is something that only occurs to me now, and which probably ought to receive more attention than I have given it.

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Remarks from Chade regarding Skill-pillars in the Six Duchies preface “The Quarry.” As the chapter opens, Fitz attempts to reorient himself after his journey through the Skill-pillar from Furnich. Conferring with Nighteyes, Fitz realizes he is back at the Skill-quarry where Verity had carved his dragon. Nighteyes asks Fitz if he remembers anything of his passage through the pillars, during which he encountered Shrewd, Verity, and Chade, and he reports to Fitz that something is amiss in his body. Fitz determines that he must send a message to Buckkeep, for which he must strengthen himself. He undertakes to do so, surprising himself with what the Skill permits him to achieve in doing so.

Fitz wakes the next morning and assesses his location, recalling his prior sojourn in the area. As he considers what to do next, Nighteyes urges him to begin work on his own stone-carving. Motley takes herself off to Buckkeep via the Skill-pillars, leaving Fitz and Nighteyes to confer. Nighteyes again urges stone-carving, and Fitz asks him after his current existence. Nighteyes points out that Fitz carries parasites, and the effects of them in him begin to show themselves.

Fitz begins to survey stones in the area, still conferring with Nighteyes. As the pair reflect on their first meeting, Fitz feels the memory of it pass into the Skill-stone he touches, and he lifts his hand to find a small piece of it shaped. Nighteyes again urges Fitz to begin the work of carving the stone, although Fitz resists, hoping yet to return to his family at Buckkeep. He rests, only to wake in the night to find the wolf has left him again.

The present chapter is not the first to have the title it does, sharing it with a chapter in Assassin’s Quest. As with previous coincidences of chapters, I wonder about reading them against each other; the present chapter makes the comparison easier than many of the other examples I might find, given how much it calls back explicitly to the earlier time Fitz spent in the quarry. Indeed, Fitz repeatedly visits the campsite he had shared with Kettricken, Kettle, the Fool, and Starling, and he pores over the memories of his time there–if perhaps with less vagueness and confusion than afflicted him when he had approached and inhabited the place earlier. Changes to the location are noted; changes to the characters receive some attention, as well. Changes to the readers are more difficult to attest; I may have been reading the novels across a span of years, but some readers will be taking in the whole Realm of the Elderlings corpus at a crack, and their experiences will be different than mine. And even my rereading, going slowly as it does, will show some alterations…about which I should probably do some more thinking that I yet have.

I wonder, too, if I ought to make something of the porcupine that presents itself in the chapter. Hobb does mention, in the present chapter and elsewhere in the Fitz-centric novels, that Nighteyes finds himself drawn to the creatures, but whether this is “merely” a character quirk or something more substantial is not immediately clear to me. It does seem to be the case that the prevalence of the creature suggests a non-European-ish setting for the novels, since, while there are porcupines in the Old World, they are not in the parts of Europe towards which the Six Duchies and Mountain Kingdom motion; at the same time, the porcupines of the New World do inhabit areas to which those fictional nation-states compare. And the symbolism of the animals themselves might be at play; Fitz, after all, is himself somewhat prickly and self-isolating, and Nighteyes does rather cling to him. So there’s another scholarly someday to be addressed, perhaps.

There is more to do with the novel, to be certain. Even in my rereading, this is still the case; there are yet four chapters and nearly fifty pages to address. I am presently at work on one paper that takes it up to some extent; I know there are many others yet that can be written. How many of them are mine to write, I do not know, but I expect I’ll be at work on at least a few of them, even as this series ends and I move on in my rereading to other things, yet.

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Another excerpt from Bee’s journals precedes “A Princess of the Farseers.” As the chapter begins, Bee reflects glumly on her new status as a royal. The passage from Kelsingra to Buckkeep is glossed, Bee noting complaints about the necessities of royal travel as she rehearses events. A reunion with a maid from Withywoods prompts emotional release, and Bee begins to be integrated into the courts. She and Shun are initially polite but cool after their shared experiences, and Bee finds herself beset by duties and tutors and the sniping of pampered court ladies that she adeptly addresses to Shun’s relief.

Bee begins to settle into routines, one of which is with Beloved, now masquerading as Lord Chance. Some of them also touch on the Skill, in which Bee remains untutored and therefore of some vexation as her thoughts leak out at night. Reunions with Hap and others do ease her, however, even as she continues to struggle with the changes and comes to better and better understandings of a father she has mourned. Bee does take some opportunities to act out, struggling for reconnection and earning some rebuke.

One evening, Bee finds herself wandering the halls of the keep and stumbles upon Thick. From him, she begins to find a new friend and to learn more of the Skill. It is, for her, a strange taste of normalcy she had lacked.

The present chapter reads as sort of a passing thing, one intended primarily to move action along to its next point of importance rather than to do anything on its own. For the most part; there are some rather pointed goings-on that might well be read as toothing-stones from which another series might be constructed. The exchange in the present chapter between Bee and Violet over Shun is one such; Bee even remarks upon being certain to come into conflict with Violet again (780). While, in effect, a bit of petty sniping, it is one that serves a useful purpose–Bee is to be commended not only for taking up for one who had helped her, but also for rebuking scorn unearned–and it is one that gestures towards ways in which Bee is being set up to succeed the Fool. Speaking uncomfortable truths to adjust behavior is a function of the character-type the Fool has been by the in-milieu time of the present chapter, and Bee seems well positioned to keep on doing that very thing.

I note, too, that the present chapter does much to address the tension surrounding how Bee is and should be treated. While her numerical age is not entirely clear from the narrative, and her growth has been noted to have proceeded at a strange pace, Bee is somewhat ambiguously a child. She is not an adult, certainly, but given her experiences and her nature, she is not a child as other children are; she knows too much and too well, and much of it unpleasantly. As with the Fool, she crosses a number of categories, multidimensionally liminal, and how others must react to her is uncertain. Given the presence of the Skilled, however, with whom she might be able to share more (and “might” does a lot of work, here), those around Bee might (and, again, “might” does a lot of work, here) well be expected to understand her position better. She has responsibilities to those around her, certainly, but they also do to her, and it seems to me as I read the chapter again that the latter could use more attention.

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An excerpt from Bee’s journals about reading Fitz’s writings and him destroying many of them precedes “Up the River.” Bee and her companions depart Bingtown in haste aboard the Vivacia, exploiting a loophole in Trader laws to allow themselves cover for executing their intentions. Joined by the Kendry, the Vivacia proceeds to and up the Rain Wild, Bee glossing the transit and the sights she notes along the way, as well as relating in summary the reports of events she makes to those who ask about how she has fared. Beloved attempts again to reconcile with her, to less effect than he might have hoped.

The Vivacia reaches Trehaug and ties up alongside Tarman for a hurried transfer of supplies and crew. Bee is welcomed aboard the old barge and watches events. The Kendry joins the other two liveships, and both are stripped of as much as the Tarman could take on while the ships’ captains confer. All watch as the Vivacia imbibed shipped Silver and begins to transform; the Kendry does, as well, even as a delegation from the Rain Wild Traders approaches and attempts to interdict the ships’ transformation into dragons, finding no success.

Later, Leftrin notes changes in the Tarman as Bee laments the barge’s slow up-river progress. Beloved lays out some of his understanding to Bee as they proceed, and they arrive at length in Kelsingra. There, they are met by Skill-users from Buckkeep, one of whom doses Bee against the Skill at work in the city. Skill-work that had been going on is related, and it is determined over Beloved’s objections that a Skill-pillar trip is in order to get Bee back to Buckkeep.

As often, the prefatory comments attract attention. In the present case, Bee’s assertion that she means to collect and write down Fitz’s accounts helps to address a question I noted earlier that the texts present: who is the author (within the milieu; outside it, of course, the answer is obvious)? It’s not a total answer, however. While it can be posited that Bee herself does a lot of the writing that constitutes the Farseer, Tawny Man, and Fitz and the Fool novels, and no few components of the prefatory materials are themselves cited as deriving from elsewhere (about which some previous comments are here), not all of them seem accessible. And there are some other factors at work, I think, but that is something only clear from the vantage of rereading; I think I’ll address those factors as they come up. For now, it will be enough to say that a partial answer is posited, but a full one to the question of “Who is doing the writing, really?” is not in evidence…at least not yet.

In the chapter itself, I think there is more for me to say about how the Traders mimic or emerge from the experience of the early United States. Some geographical cues are present, although they are only a few and serve primarily to reinforce ideas already present rather than to introduce new ones–fittingly enough, given how late in the novel the present chapter is. Legalistic notes are more evident, I think, with the reference to fines and the peculiar loophole at work in Trader law reported as being at work. In the chapter, the comment is made that, if a ship is underway when the local legislature passes a law, that ship cannot be held in violation of that law; this would seem to be a somewhat merciful thing, an acknowledgment that promulgation of a law has to be part of a law’s enactment and enforcement. This brings to mind the idea of “free, prior, and informed consent,” one applied in international law and by treaty especially to indigenous peoples and groups…something with which the United States has had some decided difficulty but which, as with so much else, is held out as an aspirational best practice. As in other chapters, then, the Traders are held out as something like a refinement of the early United States, albeit not with one-to-one correspondences in place, in the present chapter.

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Testimony from a Skilled apprentice written at Nettle‘s direction prefaces “Bingtown.” As the chapter begins, Bee wakes, assessing herself and the injuries she has sustained. She also nurses her dislike of Beloved, Amber, and the Fool, regarding each as a distinct person and not wanting much to do with any of them. Perseverance tends to her, urging her to make use of the limited time to experience liveships, since they will all transform. He also urges her to use the Skill to heal her own body: “You can’t make it unhappen, but you don’t have to carry around what they did to you. Don’t give them that power over you” (748). Bee reluctantly agrees and slowly begins to restore her body, working a little at a time to minimize others’ comments.

As the Vivacia continues away from Clerres, Bee finds herself more attuned to the liveship and the family that strides her decks. The liveship refuses to return to Divvytown in her haste to transform, and those who wish to make the return are allowed to do so, though they must bear the news of Kennitsson’s death. Bee undergoes a change, her skin darkening somewhat, as the voyage continues.

Bee finds herself obliged to address ennui and listlessness as she is, in effect, a passenger on the liveship. Beloved attempts to connect to her, and Bee rebuffs the efforts.

At length, the Vivacia arrives in Bingtown, where there is much upset. The pending end of the liveships has thrown the Traders into something like panic, but Bee, Perseverance, and Spark are delighted to find Lant awaiting them. He relates how he had escaped Clerres and arrived in Bingtown. Soon after, Althea conducts the group to the Vestrit home, where Ronica welcomes them. The older woman relates such tidings as she has, noting the brewing political difficulty among the Traders and having a small meal served to her guests. Bee is taken by the service, and she is gratified by the gift of clothing made to her. When her identity as a Farseer and the child of FitzChivalry is noted, Ronica exults, reporting developments in Kelsingra, to which Bee and her party will travel and from which they will return to the Six Duchies…by Skill-pillar, with which Bee is uncomfortably familiar.

The present chapter is not the first portion of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus to be titled “Bingtown”; there are three chapters in the Liveship Traders series with the title (here, here, and here), and there are many others in it and the Rain Wilds Chronicles that have the town in their title along with some other words. There is a small project, I think, in reading the chapters against one another; I recall making similar claims about other sets of chapters sharing titles. Contrasting length, reading level, characters present, rhetorical devices at work, and the like could prove interesting; for those involved in teaching literature, it might also well serve as a useful and possibly manageable student exercise. If I pretend for a moment that I’m going to be back at the front of a classroom, obliged to come up with some assignment for my students in a class on Hobb (single-author seminars happen!), it’s something I might well do. Even if it is not the case that I will be so, perhaps someone reading this is; I commend the exercise to you (but I would like citation for it, please).

As often, the prefatory materials compel some attention from me. This time, the notion of following what amount to being road-signs making things easier…it’s obvious, really, in retrospect, but it only can be so if the signs can be read. Use of the Skill-pillars has been…challenging throughout the Realm of the Elderlings corpus; much of that use has been unknowing or in desperation. That there were runes and sigils on the Skill-pillars was only revealed later in the novels, and even then, the focus of the narrative has been on characters not fully trained in the use of the Skill; indeed, Fitz was born into and raised up in a time when knowledge of the magic was waning, and his training (by Galen, at least) was conducted only with great reluctance. It is not to be wondered at that he and others like him would use the Skill poorly, nor is it to be wondered at that a campaign to divest of Skill knowledge would leave gaps into which many might fall. What is obvious to those accustomed to a thing is hardly so to those not taught; the prefatory materials on the present chapter serve as a reminder of it, of the need to check assumptions made.

In the chapter, proper, I find Perseverance’s comments to Bee about healing of interest. (Clearly, since I quote him.) It is tempting to read the comment as somewhat naïve, to think only a child could assert that the removal of a physical mark is enough to reject the power of whoever made it. In context, however, it reads differently; the quote from Perseverance comes as he has discussed his own Skilled healing and the erasure of an injury done him in Bee’s defense. He speaks from experience; while he has not endured what Bee has endured, he is far from sheltered and untouched, so that it is not in ignorance that he comments as he does. And he does not say it is an easy thing to do, either; his commentary explicitly cites the help he has had in arriving where he is, and the very fact that he thinks to make the comparison to Bee bespeaks the degree to which the injury, while not even showing a scar from the Skill of the healing, remains with him. Moving forward from what has been done is a process, and it is one that few can do alone, but it can be done with time and care and aid…perhaps a bit cliché, but not untrue.

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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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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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Comments from Bee’s journal about her journal and her reaction to the Fool reading it preface “Vivacia‘s Voyage.” The chapter follows Bee and her companions as the Vivacia bears them away from the ruin of Clerres, the liveship communing with her briefly. More survivors of the dragons’ attack, including Althea, are recovered, and Bee marks the shift in how others relate to the Fool-as-Amber. She also muses on her own multiplicity of names and identities.

As the voyage continues, Perseverance tends to Bee, and she spends much time sleeping. This occasions concern among her companions, but Bee is reticent in discussing what befell her. Perseverance relates as much of his own story and Fitz’s to her as he can, and Bee is comforted by the knowledge of her father’s love.

Later, the liveship summons Bee to her foredeck, where Brashen and Althea watch their son suffer. After some discussion, Bee works another Skill-healing on their son, mending many of his injuries. Amber arrives at the foredeck with warnings, and Bee reluctantly accedes to them. As she begins to recover from the experience, Amber and the liveship argue briefly, and Amber later confers with Bee about her abilities. Bee turns the conversation to the love between Fitz and the Fool, and the Fool attempts to turn it to her training as a White Prophet. Bee vents her resentment at the Fool, lying to him about Fitz’s words.

I do note with some pride having gotten to half a thousand entries in my rereading series. I do not expect at this point that nearly so many remain–but I have as much expectation about the days I have lived and will live, so I suppose that’s not something out of line. In both cases, there is still a fair bit for me to do, and I do look forward to getting at least some of it done. (Not that I expect something to happen that would prevent it, mind, but the possibility always exists.) There are many somedays.

Part of me wants to find the way time moves in the present chapter to be overly rushed. Some of that, much of it, is simply that I want to spend more time with the characters, my affective-reading self being as it is; I’ve spent a long time with Hobb’s work, invested much in it (though not so much as some, certainly), and it’s a familiar comfort that I don’t think I’m entirely out of line for wanting to keep hold of for a little longer. In terms of narrative structure, however, it makes sense; the voyage away from Clerres is not, itself, a focal point, but simply transit between focal points, a hastening towards a denouement over which there is no need to linger. It needs done, and there are a few items of interest along the way, but this is an instance where the destination matters far more than the journey. (That I have gotten sucked into rereading at length as I have written this is also a factor; I know what carries me away.)

To continue on with the affective reading: I’ve commented more than once about the ways in which my experiences correspond with Fitz’s, particularly as regards his interactions with Bee, and I find that the present chapter shows Bee growing in some ways I see my own daughter moving. She’s not got much trouble with people trying to stand in loco parentis with her, which is good, but she does have a way with words, and when she decides she will be sharp with them, I find swiftly where I am quite tender, indeed.

Then again, if I cannot be tender with my daughter…

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