“Like what?”
“In so bare a room, with so little care for it? I’ve seen winter-quarter tents that were homier than this room. It’s as if you’ve never expected to stay here more than a night or two longer.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never given it much thought.”
There was a silence for a bit. “You should,” he said unwillingly. “And you should think about how often you’re hurt, or sick.”
“This, what happened tonight, this couldn’t be helped.”
“You knew what it would do to you, but you went ahead with it anyway,” he pointed out.
“I had to.” I watched him pour steaming water over the elfbark in the pot.
“Did you? It seemed to me the Fool had a pretty convincing argument against it. Yet you went ahead. You and King Shrewd, both of you.”
“So.”
“I know a bit about the Skill,” Burrich said quietly. “I was king’s man to Chivalry. Not often, and it did not leave me as bad as you are now, save for once or twice. But I’ve felt the excitement of it, the-” He groped for words, sighed. “The completion of it. The oneness with the world. Chivalry once spoke to me about it. A man can get addicted, he said. So that he looks for excuses to Skill, and then finally he is absorbed into it.” He added after a moment, “It is not unlike the rush of battle, in some ways. The sense of moving unhampered by time, of being a force more powerful than life itself.”
“As I cannot Skill alone, I daresay it is not a danger to me.”
“You offer yourself very often to those who can.” Bluntly spoken. “As often as you willingly plunge yourself into dangerous situations that offer that same kind of excitement. In a battle, you go into a frenzy. Is that what happens to you when you Skill?”