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

by Patrick Rothfuss

A Silence of Three Parts

Name of the Wind: Kvothe is hiding AND waiting for something, someone or WORD of it. Bast knows. Bastas, son of Remmen, Prince of Twilight and the Telwyth Mael. Kvothe EXPECTED the scrael and killed 5. Alone. He knew killed someone in a magical way, shattered stoned none can mend. Folly over the bar. Is that the same sword Caesura? "If there is one thing I will not abide, it is the folly of a willful pride.”" Calling himself Kote and seeming hopeless and magic-less. He can use the arts of the stage to appear older, more frail etc. Rothfuss can be seen to be doing the same by his art. He WANTS us the believe Kvothe magic-less and hopeless. Why? Is K. baiting a trap. -kills 5 scrael -breaks Strawberry wine by losing control across the room/bar. I think we are Rothfuss' audience but also Kvothe's. This is no 1st person omniscient narrative yet somehow R. and K. together weave what they WANT us to see in the present at the inn. I think we're SUPPOSED to trip over his Edema Ruh heritage and think him lucky and chosen but not special. His musical gift, intellect, will and mind are EXTRAORDINARY. K. has a friggin faerie watching over/learning from/tied to him. I think Bast is bound but would stay out of curiosity even if he were not. Skarpi SENT Chronicler TO Kvothe...knowing already where to send him. Was he found? Or was there already an elaborate plan in place to communicate at the right time? Why Skarpi? Why near the Earl of Badyn-Brint. Why does it seem Skarpi sent him from somewhere else and then is meeting him in BB? Rothfuss TELLS us the villains are the Chandrian. Blue fire. Shadowy man. Man with no eyes. Our present is "not even two years" since...he killed A King and faked? his death. Summary by R. via Chronicler "K had gone looking for his heart’s desire. He had to trick a demon to get it. But once it rested in his hand, he was forced to fight an angel to keep it." Later Chronicler says KILLED an angel(the Knights? His teacher?) Summary by K. a little later "“‘ I trouped, traveled, loved, lost(what?), trusted(whom?) and was betrayed.’" SHE= Names= Kingkiller. Kote. Kvothe. The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree. My first mentor called me E’lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller." PARENTS: Arliden. Arl. And Lackless, his mother is wounded personally by the rhyme he chanted which snuck in the notion of the box without a key and calls her Lady. The Ruh are tied to Greystones or Waystones

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 ONE OF those perfect autumn days so common in stories and so rare in the real world. The weather was warm and dry, ideal for ripening a field of wheat or corn. On both sides of the road the trees were changing color. Tall poplars had gone a buttery yellow while the shrubby sumac encroaching on the road was tinged a violent red. Only the old oaks seemed reluctant to give up the summer, and their leaves remained an even mingling of gold and green.

A breeze tussled through the trees, sending poplar leaves spinning like golden coins down onto the rutted dirt road. It was a beautiful day.

In fact, the innkeeper himself seemed rather sickly. Not exactly unhealthy, but hollow. Wan. Like a plant that’s been moved into the wrong sort of soil and, lacking something vital, has begun to wilt.

The wood was a dark charcoal color with a black grain, heavy as a sheet of iron. Three dark pegs were set above a word chiseled into the wood. “Folly,” Graham read. “Odd name for a sword.”

There was a long moment of silence like a tribute given to the dead.

For the first time in a long while there was no silence in the Waystone Inn. Or if there was, it was too faint to be noticed, or too well hidden.

Then, when the time for songs came and everyone had sung their favorites and still wanted more, Kote led them from behind the bar, clapping to keep a beat. With the fire shining in his hair, he sang “Tinker Tanner,” more verses than anyone had heard before, and no one minded in the least.

He smiled proudly and tapped a finger to his nose. “Then I heard you sing, and I knew it was you. I heard you in Imre once. Cried my eyes out afterward. I never heard anything like that before or since. Broke my heart.”

“I knew it couldn’t be you. But I thought it was. Even though. But who else has your hair?” He shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to clear it. “I saw the place in Imre where you killed him. By the fountain. The cobblestones are all shathered.” He frowned and concentrated on the word. “Shattered. They say no one can mend them.”

Kote straightened. “Listen three times, Bast.” Bast blinked once and nodded.

“I hear you three times, Reshi,” Bast replied formally.

All the scars were smooth and silver except one.

The fire flickered and died. Sleep met him like a lover in an empty bed.

“‘Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they’re too strong and won’t let go. Autumn . . .’” He looked around at the changing leaves on the trees. “‘Autumn’s the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.’”

“How odd to watch a mortal kindle Then to dwindle day by day. Knowing their bright souls are tinder And the wind will have its way. Would I could my own fire lend. What does your flickering portend?”

I’m not here because of the price on your head.”

I left that name behind me long ago.” He gave the innkeeper a significant look. “I expect you know something of that yourself. . . .”

“You thought,” Kote said derisively, dropping all pretense of a smile. “I very much doubt it. Otherwise, you might have thought,” he bit off the word, “of how much danger you were putting me in by coming here.” Chronicler’s face grew red. “I’d heard that Kvothe was fearless,” he said hotly. The innkeeper shrugged. “Only priests and fools are fearless, and I’ve never been on the best of terms with God.”

“—and I am not what I was,”

Old enemies don’t try to settle scores.

Chronicler’s words stuck in his suddenly dry throat as the room grew unnaturally quiet. Kote stood with his back to the room, a stillness in his body and a terrible silence clenched between his teeth.

Eight inches away a bottle shattered.

suddenly realized what a dangerous game he was playing. So this is the difference between telling a story and being in one, he thought numbly, the fear.

Kote turned. “What can any of them know about her?” he asked softly. Chronicler’s breath stopped when he saw Kote’s face. The placid innkeeper’s expression was like a shattered mask.

The story told of how Kvothe had gone looking for his heart’s desire. He had to trick a demon to get it. But once it rested in his hand, he was forced to fight an angel to keep it.

This is the face of a man who has killed an angel.

“‘I trouped, traveled, loved, lost, trusted and was betrayed.’

“You are Kvothe.” The man who called himself Kote looked up from behind his bottles. A full-lipped smile played about his mouth. A spark was kindling behind his eyes. He seemed taller. “Yes, I suppose I am,” Kvothe said, and

his voice had iron in it.

Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.”

Little did I know how cunningly I was being taught.

I was a curious child: quick with questions and eager to learn.

But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.”

She taught me I should never do anything in private that I didn’t want talked about in public, and cautioned me to not talk in my sleep.

And then there was Abenthy, my first real teacher. He taught me more than all the others set end to end. If not for him, I would never have become the man I am today. I ask that you not hold it against him. He meant well.

It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.

“I’ll turn you into butter on a summer day. I’ll turn you into a poet with the soul of a priest. I’ll fill you with lemon custard and push you out a window.” He spat. “Bastards.”

It struck me as very sad, this old man all alone on the road with no one to talk to but his donkeys. It’s hard for us Edema Ruh, but at least we had each other. This man had no one.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was looking for the name of the wind.

He spoke gently, laughed often, and never exercised his wit at the expense of others.

By his second day in our troupe I was making a habit of riding in his wagon. I would ask him questions and he would answer. Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father’s wagon.

He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places.

“What’s the difference?” I asked, sensing it was expected of me. “Well,” he said. “That might take a bit of explaining. . . .” “I’ve got nothing but time.” Abenthy gave me an appraising look. I’d been waiting for it. It was the look that said, “You don’t sound as young as you look.” I hoped he’d come to grips with it fairly soon. It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.

At his mention of the Arcanum, I bristled with two dozen new questions. Not so many, you might think, but when you added them to the half-hundred questions I carried with me wherever I went, I was stretched nearly to bursting.

“Do they teach acting at the University?” I asked. Abenthy shook his head, slightly amused by the question. “Many things, but not that.” I looked over at Abenthy and saw him watching me, his eyes danced. “Could you teach me some of those other things?” I asked. He smiled, and it was as easy as that.

More important, I learned to do without.

Abenthy started to call me Red and I called him Ben, first in retaliation, then in friendship.

This was levels beyond the simple memorization I had practiced for the stage. My mind was learning to work in different ways, becoming stronger. It felt the same way your body feels after a day of splitting wood, or swimming, or sex. You feel exhausted, languorous, and almost godlike. This feeling was similar, except it was my intellect that was weary and expanded, languid and latently powerful. I could feel my mind starting to awaken.