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

by Patrick Rothfuss

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.

IT WAS WELL PAST midnight by the time Kote made it back to Newarre with Chronicler’s limp body slung across his lacerated shoulders.

“I can tell the whole thing in one breath.” He cleared his throat. “‘I trouped, traveled, loved, lost, trusted and was betrayed.’ Write that down and burn it for all the good it will do you.”

A real story takes time to prepare.”

I learned to love the feel of good words.

Have you ever been annoyed and amused with yourself at the same time? It’s an interesting feeling, to say the very least.

The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

this is the man who counseled kings and walked old roads with nothing but his wit to guide him. This is the man whose name has become both praise and curse at the University.

A clever, thoughtless person is one of the most terrifying things there is.

If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day.

I would pass over the whole of that evening, in fact. I would spare you the burden of any of it if one piece were not necessary to the story. It is vital. It is the hinge upon which the story pivots like an opening door. In some ways, this is where the story begins.

Only then did his composure break. And even with no one there to see, he hid his face in his hands and wept quietly, his body wracked with wave on wave of heavy, silent sobs.

First is the door of sleep.

Second is the door of forgetting.

Third is the door of madness.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.

Encanis, the swallowing darkness. No matter where he walked, shadows hid his face, and scorpions that stung him died of the corruption they had touched.

he knew all demons feared two things, cold iron and clean fire.

So it was that Encanis passed from the world, and with him went Tehlu who was Menda. Both of them burned to ash in the pit in Atur.

Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”

Emotions by their very nature are not reasonable things.

I am no longer the Lanre you knew. Mine is a new and terrible name. I am Haliax and no door can bar my passing. All is lost to me, no Lyra, no sweet escape of sleep, no blissful forgetfulness, even madness is beyond me. Death itself is an open doorway to my power.

The Chandrian were real. Haliax was real. If the story Skarpi had told was true, then Lanre and Haliax were the same person. The Chandrian had killed my parents, my whole troupe. Why?

The Chandrian had enemies. If I could find them, they would help me. I had no idea who the singers or the Sithe were, but everyone knew that the Amyr were church knights, the strong right hand of the Aturan Empire.

I’ve always had a fondness for taverns. It comes from growing up on the road, I think. A tavern is a safe place, a refuge of sorts. I felt very comfortable just then, and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be a bad life, owning a place like this.

Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.

Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.

Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet.

anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.

That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

Nevertheless, I wasn’t terribly put out by Elodin’s refusal. Storybook magic or no, I was not eager to study under a man whose first set of lessons had left me with three broken ribs, a mild concussion, and a dislocated shoulder.

“I will admit,” he said, “that I am not sure how to approach the next part of the story.”

“There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.”

Pride is a foolish thing, but it is a powerful force.

“Sometimes my mouth just starts talking and it takes my mind a little bit to catch up.”

Denna was barely a dozen feet away when she looked up and saw me. Her expression brightened, as if someone had lit a candle inside her and she was glowing from its light.

“Etiquette is a set of rules people use so they can be rude to each other in public.

In time, that tiny room at Anker’s came to be more of a home to me than anywhere else in the world.

“Come now,” she teased. “How could I forget the red-haired boy who left me for the University?”

“Beer dulls a memory, brand sets it burning, but wine is the best for a sore heart’s yearning.”

It’s amazing how much easier it is to think productively when your belly is full.

A group of people brutally killed. Blue fire. Oddness . . . Chandrian. Less than a day ago the Chandrian were in Trebon.

It was a narrow room with a narrow bed. A woman lay on it, fully clothed, one arm wrapped in a bandage. Her head was turned toward the window, so I could only see her profile. Still I recognized her. Denna.

Rubbing at my eyes, I looked down again and saw the thing move closer to the fire. It was black, scaled, massive. It grunted again like thunder, then bobbed its head and breathed another great gout of billowing blue fire. It was a dragon.

“Moteth?” she muttered around a mouthful of sleep,

I slung the travelsack over my shoulder and cinched it tight across my back. Then I thumbed on my sympathy lamp, picked up the hatchet, and began to run. I had a dragon to kill.

LOOKING DOWN I SAW the draccus pinned beneath the great wrought-iron wheel. It lay motionless and dark in front of the church, and despite the necessity of it all, I felt a pang of regret for killing the poor beast.

But there in that room was the first time I actually felt like any sort of hero. If you are looking for a reason for the man I would eventually become, if you are looking for a beginning, look there.

“But it depends on how you look at it, really. I prefer to think of it as a story that’s waiting for an appropriately uplifting sequel.”

My lute hit the cobblestones bowl first and made a splintering noise.