A Kingdom Besieged by Raymond E. Feist

knew the night predators to be even more dangerous than those who hunted in the day.
    This piece of knowledge wasn’t something she had inherited; this was from experience. There had been a bitter fight the night after she had consumed her mother. The night hunter had been upon her before she had even known she was under attack. Only a slight misjudgment on his part had saved her, for rather than snap her neck the hunter had bitten deep into her shoulder. She used the scant instant she had gained to reach up with her left hand and use her claws to good effect. She had forced him to release his bite, then spun while yanking his head back until it had been her fangs ripping out his throat.
    She had gained a great deal of knowledge on how to hunt in these mountains from him. And her night vision was now ex ceptional. She had used her new abilities to good advantage, but even so, the amount of prey was scant. Now she looked down upon a possible feast.
    It depended on how able these three were likely to be at protecting themselves. She had learned almost at forfeit of her life that there was a gulf between knowledge and experience. By consuming the Archivist’s knowledge, she knew a great deal more than any her age among the People should know, but as far as experience was concerned she still was a child. The Child, as she thought of herself.
    But although she lacked experience, she possessed cunning. She was sure she could master all three of these pitiful fugitives if she planned . . . Planned? she thought. Until that moment her existence had been mostly in the moment, with some part of her consciousness knowing she needed to move east, to get away from the advancing darkness. She wished she could trap a flyer, for if she could consume one, she might gain the blessing of flight; her essence was still forming, and with flight she would be able to hunt better, move faster, and reconnoitre more efficiently. Unfortunately, flyers had been rare and when she had seen them they had been far too high to attract their attention. Besides, she had considered at last, any flyer bold enough to attack her directly would probably be both experienced and powerful.
    Glancing around, she saw the shadows deepen, dark maroon and purple shades slipping into black, while the brilliance of the red, yellow, and orange rocks faded to grey before her eyes. There was something tickling at the edge of her mind, a pleasant feeling at witnessing this otherwise prosaic event. After a moment she connected it to a concept; it was nice to look at; it was . . . pretty? Yes, that was the concept. It made her feel better to look at something pretty.
    She waited, and when the sun was low in the west the three fugitives came out from their hiding place. She instantly recognized the robes of the last to emerge: another Archivist. She smiled. Scampering above them for a dozen yards, she leapt upon the first in line, breaking his neck before he could react, then wheeled and ripped out the throat of the second.
    The Archivist crouched, seeing the futility of running from a more powerful opponent, and backed away. What was he doing? she wondered. Then she laughed. ‘You think that if hunger has driven me to a frenzy, I may devour these two while you make your escape?’
    The Archivist said, ‘Yes, that would be logical.’
    She tapped the side of her head. ‘I know things, too. I have devoured one of your class.’
    The Archivist stood, drawing himself up to his full height. He was about the size she had been days before; now she towered over him by two heads. ‘Why do you not attack?’
    She moved towards him purposefully. ‘Tell me about the difference between knowledge and experience.’
    ‘Knowledge is abstracted,’ he answered, ‘learned from any number of sources. Experience is that which we encounter in our own right, as life brings it, and from which we process knowledge that can be gained no other way.’
    ‘Which is better?’
    ‘Knowledge,’ said