Copyright
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Copyright © Robin Hobb 1996
Cover illustration © Jackie Morris
Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007562268
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007383443
Version: 2018-10-25
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue
One: Siltbay
Two: The Homecoming
Three: Renewing Ties
Four: Dilemmas
Five: Gambit
Six: Forged Ones
Seven: Encounters
Eight: The Queen Awakes
Nine: Guards and Bonds
Ten: Fool’s Errand
Eleven: Lone Wolves
Twelve: Tasks
Thirteen: Hunting
Fourteen: Winterfest
Fifteen: Secrets
Sixteen: Verity’s Ships
Seventeen: Interludes
Eighteen: Elderlings
Nineteen: Messages
Twenty: Mishaps
Twenty-One: Dark Days
Twenty-Two: Burrich
Twenty-Three: Threats
Twenty-Four: Neatbay
Twenty-Five: Buckkeep
Twenty-Six: Skilling
Twenty-Seven: Conspiracy
Twenty-Eight: Treasons and Traitors
Twenty-Nine: Escapes and Captures
Thirty: Dungeons
Thirty-One: Torture
Thirty-Two: Execution
Thirty-Three: Wolf Days
Epilogue
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Map
PROLOGUE
Dreams and Awakenings
Why is it forbidden to write down specific knowledge of the magics? Perhaps because we all fear that such knowledge would fall into the hands of one not worthy to use it. Certainly there has always been a system of apprenticeship to ensure that the understanding of magic is passed only to those trained and judged worthy of such knowledge. While this seems a laudable attempt to protect us from unworthy practitioners of arcane lore, it ignores the fact that the magics are not derived from this specific knowledge. The predilection for a certain type of magic is either inborn or lacking. For instance, the ability for the magics known as the Skill is tied closely to blood relationship to the royal Farseer line, though it may also occur as a ‘wild strain’ amongst folk whose ancestors came from both the Inland tribes and the Outislanders. One trained in the Skill is able to reach out to another’s mind, no matter how distant, and know what he is thinking. Those who are strongly Skilled can influence that thinking, or have converse with that person. For the conducting of a battle, or the gathering of information, it is a most useful tool.
Folklore tells of an even older magic, much despised now, known as the Wit. Few will admit a talent for this magic, hence it is always said to be the province of the folk in the next valley, or the ones who live on the other side of the far ridge. I suspect it was once the natural magic of those who lived on the land as hunters rather than as settled folk; a magic for those who felt kinship with the wild beasts of the woods. The Wit, it is said, gave one the ability to speak the tongues of the beasts. It was also warned that those who practised the Wit too long or too well became whatever beast they had bonded to. But this may be only legend.
There are the Hedge magics, though I have never been able to determine the source of this name, which are both verified and suspect, including palm reading, water gazing, the interpretation of crystal reflections, and a host of other skills that attempt to predict the future. In a separate unnamed category are the magics that cause physical effects, such as invisibility, levitation, giving motion or life to inanimate objects – all the magics of the old legends, from the Flying Chair of the Widow’s Son to the North Wind’s bewitched tablecloth. I know of no people who claim these magics as their own. They seem to be solely the stuff of legend, ascribed to folk living in ancient times or distant places, or beings of mythical or near mythical reputation: dragons, giants, the Elderlings, the Others, pecksies.
I pause to clean my pen. My writing wanders from spidery to blobbish on this poor paper. But I will not use good parchment for these words; not yet. I am not sure they should be written. I ask myself, why put this to paper at all? Will not this knowledge be passed down by word of mouth to those who are worthy? Perhaps. But perhaps not. What we take for granted now, the knowing of these things, may be a wonder and a mystery someday to our descendants.
There is very little in any of the libraries on magic. I work laboriously, tracing a thread of knowledge through a patchwork quilt of information. I find scattered references, passing allusions, but that is all. I have gathered it, over these last few years, and stored it in my head, always intending to commit my knowledge to paper. I will put down what I know from my own experience, as well as what I have ferreted out. Perhaps to provide answers for some other poor fool, in times to come, who might find himself as battered by the warring of the magics within him as I have been.
