The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

by Patrick Rothfuss

“I just don’t understand what you see in her,” Sim said carefully. “I know she’s charming. Fascinating and all of that. But she seems rather” —he hesitated—“cruel.” I nodded. “She is.” Simmon watched me expectantly, and finally said, “What? No defense for her?” “No. Cruel is a good word for her. But I think you are saying cruel and thinking something else. Denna is not wicked, or mean, or spiteful. She is cruel.”

“A hind is a female deer. A wild deer. Do you know how much good it does you to chase a wild thing? None. It works against you. It startles the hind away. All you can do is stay gently where you are, and hope in time that the hind will come to you.” Sim nodded, but I could tell he didn’t really understand.

I came to the conclusion that he had finally learned his lesson and was keeping a safe distance from me. I was wrong, of course. Perfectly and completely wrong. Ambrose had merely learned to bide his time. He did manage to get his revenge, and when it came, I was caught flatfooted and forced to leave the University. But that, as they say, is a story for another day.

THAT SHOULD DO FOR NOW, I imagine,” Kvothe said, gesturing for Chronicler to lay down his pen. “We have all the groundwork now. A foundation of story to build upon.”

Bast closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself. “You just don’t understand what’s going on,” he said, speaking to himself as much as Chronicler. “That’s why I came, to explain. I’ve been waiting for months for someone to come. Anyone. Even old enemies come to settle scores would be better than him wasting away like this. But you’re better than I’d hoped for. You’re perfect.”

“You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” Chronicler relaxed a bit, sensing familiar ground. “That’s basic psychology. You dress a beggar in fine clothes, people treat him like a noble, and he lives up to their expectations.”

“That’s only the smallest piece of it,” Bast said. “The truth is deeper than that. It’s . . .” Bast floundered for a moment. “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

Think of what he said today. People saw him as a hero, and he played the part. He wore it like a mask but eventually he believed it. It became the truth. But now . . .” he trailed off. “Now people see him as an innkeeper,” Chronicler said. “No,” Bast said softly. “People saw him as an innkeeper a year ago. He took off the mask when they walked out the door. Now he sees himself as an innkeeper, and a failed innkeeper at that. You saw what he was like when Cob and the rest came in tonight. You saw that thin shadow of a man behind the bar tonight. It used to be an act. . . .”

“But you’re perfect. You can help him remember what it was like. I haven’t seen him so lively in months. I know you can do it.”

“Started a memoir,” Bast said. “He was so excited, talked about it for days. Wondering where he should begin his story. After his first night’s writing he was like his old self again. He looked three feet taller with lightning on his shoulders.”

Bast gave an emphatic nod. “Exactly. That’s why I came to talk to you. Because I know best. You need to keep him from focusing on the dark things. If not . . .” Bast shrugged and repeated the motion of crumpling and throwing away a piece of paper. “But I’m collecting the story of his life. The real story.” Chronicler made a helpless gesture. “Without the dark parts it’s just some silly f—” Chronicler froze halfway through the word, eyes darting nervously to the side. Bast grinned like a child catching a priest midcurse. “Go on,” he urged. His eyes were delighted, and hard, and terrible. “Say it.” “Like some silly faerie story,” Chronicler finished, his voice thin and pale as paper.

“You know nothing of the Fae, if you think our stories lack their darker sides. But all that aside, this is a faerie story, because you are gathering it for me.”

“I know you can’t get him to leave them out,” Bast said. “But you can hurry him along. You can help him dwell on the good things: his adventures, the women, the fighting, his travels, his music. . . .” Bast stopped abruptly. “Well . . . not the music. Don’t ask about that, or why he doesn’t do magic anymore.”

Now you do. Focus on the heroics, his cleverness.” He waved his hands. “That sort of thing.” “It’s really not my place to be steering him one way or another,” Chronicler said stiffly. “I’m a recorder. I’m just here for the story. The story’s the important thing, after all.” “Piss on your story,” Bast said sharply. “You’ll do what I say, or I’ll break you like a kindling stick.” Chronicler froze. “So you’re saying I work for you?” “I’m saying you belong to me.” Bast’s face was deadly serious. “Down to the marrow of your bones. I drew you here to serve my purpose. You have eaten at my table, and I have saved your life.” He pointed at Chronicler’s naked chest. “Three ways I own you. That makes you wholly mine. An instrument of my desire. You will do as I say.”

Bast leaned forward, bringing his face close to Chronicler’s. The scribe panicked and tried to scrabble sideways out of the bed, but Bast took hold of his shoulder and held him fast. “Hear my words, manling,” he hissed. “Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.” The tendons in Bast’s hand creaked as he tightened his grip on the circle of iron. “Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied.”

Bast bent to pick up the iron ring by its broken cord, knotting it together again with quick fingers. “Listen, there’s no reason we can’t be friends,” he said matter-of-factly as he turned and held the necklace out to Chronicler. His eyes were a human blue again, his smile warm and charming. “There’s no reason we can’t all get what we want. You get your story. He gets to tell it. You get to know the truth. He gets to remember who he really is. Everyone wins, and we all go our separate ways, pleased as peaches.”

The question seemed to catch Bast unprepared. He stood still and awkward for a moment, all his fluid grace gone. For a moment it looked as if he might burst into tears. “What do I want? I just want my Reshi back.” His voice was quiet and lost. “I want him back the way he was.”

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the thick stone walls of the empty taproom and in the flat, grey metal of the sword that hung behind the bar. It was in the dim candlelight that filled an upstairs room with dancing shadows. It was in the mad pattern of a crumpled memoir that lay fallen and unforgotten atop the desk. And it was in the hands of the man who sat there, pointedly ignoring the pages he had written and discarded long ago.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.