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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“I don’t tend to sleep through the night anyway,” Denna said. “So that shouldn’t be a problem.” “You have trouble sleeping?” “I have dreams,” she said in a tone of voice that made it clear that was all she had to say on the subject.

Nightmares about some past horrors

“Why don’t you just tell me?” Denna said, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t try to tease me into some sort of sudden burst of understanding like you’re my schoolmaster.”

“It would make more sense if what they really wanted was to get rid of all knowledge of the thing. Like Old King Celon when he thought his regent was going to expose him for treason. Killed the fellow’s whole family and burned down their estate to make sure no word got out or evidence was left for anyone to find.”

“Clean sweep.” I sat stunned. Not so much by what Denna had said, which was, of course, better than my own guess. I was remembering what had happened to my own troupe. Someone’s parents have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs. They hadn’t just killed my parents. They killed everyone who had been close enough to hear even a part of the song.

“The Chandrian,” I said firmly. “I want to know why they were here. Do they control the draccus?”

“I think you want it to be connected,” she said gently. “But this fellow’s been dead a long while. You said so yourself. And remember the doorframe and the water trough at the farm?” She bent down and rapped a knuckle against one of the logs from the ruined cabin. It made a solid sound. “And look at the crossbow—the metal isn’t rusted away. They weren’t here.”

She’s convinced and defending the hypothesis. she knows

When you broke the pump handle yesterday they went dull green, muddy. And when the swineherd made that comment about the Ruh they went dark for just a moment. I thought it was just the light, but now I can see it’s not.”

But not the color.” She gave a faint smile. “They’re pale now. Like green frost. You must be terribly afraid.”

“With nothing but my good singing voice and your manly bravado?”

“I don’t gamble with the lives of people I care for.” She listened to me, her expression somber. Then the grin blossomed back onto her face. “I like your manly bravado,” she said. “Do it some more.”

Sweet Talk

“You have the sweetest face,” she said, looking at me dreamily. “It’s like the perfect kitchen.”

“Everything matches and the sugar bowl is right where it should be.”

“I stopped breathing for two minutes and died. Sometimes I wonder if this all isn’t some sort of mistake, if I should be dead. But if it isn’t a mistake I have to be here for a reason. But if there is a reason, I don’t know what that reason is.”

We will discover that having passed once thru the doors of death she came back changed, enhanced with someone else's spirit, memories or powers. Lyra's naming namely I think.

“You’re important with your green eyes looking at me like I mean something. It’s okay that you have better things to do. It’s enough that I get you sometimes.

“I know you don’t think of me . . .” She trailed off.

“You don’t think of me like that. That’s fine.

“You’re so gentle. You never push. . . .”

“You could, you know, push more. Just a little.”

precious. I had never held a woman before. After a few moments my back began to ache with the pressure of supporting her weight and my own. My leg started to go numb. Her hair tickled my nose. Still, I didn’t move for fear of ruining this, the most wonderful moment of my life.

She curled snugly along the inside of my body, so easy and natural, as if she had been designed to fit there.

As I lay there, I realized I had been wrong before, this was the most wonderful moment of my life.

“I’ve got you,” she said dreamily.

“Will you be my dark-eyed Prince Gallant

“I will,” I said,

The closeness of her filled me with a crackling energy, a low warmth, a gentle thrumming hum. I lay awake savoring it,

I felt a pang of regret as I watched it go about the business of crushing out the scattered fires. It was a magnificent animal. I hated to kill it even more than I hated to waste upward of sixty talents worth of ophalum. But there was no denying what would happen if events were left to run their course. I didn’t want the deaths of innocents on my conscience.

Hmmm

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.

A ton of wrought iron fell. If anyone had been watching, they would have noticed that the wheel fell faster than gravity could account for. They would have noticed that it fell at an angle, almost as if it were drawn to the draccus. Almost as if Tehlu himself steered it toward the beast with a vengeful hand. But there was no one there to see the truth of things. And there was no God guiding it. Only me.

Denna was nowhere to be seen. Making a quick search of the area, I found all my scattered possessions where I’d left them.

She didn’t take anything. In her delirium we learned she underestimates his affection for her. So likely she didn't understand why she found herself alone upon waking. Unsure, she left his things either as retribution or in case he came back for them.

Trebon. I leave where I’m not wanted. The rest I can make up as I go. Did she think I had abandoned her?

“It was a big fancy pot,”

three feet off the ground.

“It had all sorts of writings and pictures on it. Really fancy. I haven’t ever seen colors like that. And some of the paints were shiny like silver and gold.” “Pictures of what?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice calm. “People,” she said. “Mostly people. There was a woman holding a broken sword, and a man next to a dead tree, and another man with a...

The Chandrian. It was a vase showing the Chandrian and their signs.

“There was one with no face, just a hood with nothing inside. There was a mirror by his feet and there was a bunch of moons over him. You know, full moon, half moon, sliver moon.” She looked down, thinking. “And there was a woman. . . .” She blushed. “With some of her clothes off.”

Felurian? Could the Chandrian be hidden in plain sight by PR? AFTER ALL hadn't she already made one cloak of darkness? Before Kvothe's? They are all races or Faerie only, DUH!

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.

I’d remembered the shape of her eyes, but not the weight of them. Their darkness, but not their depth. Her closeness pressed the breath out of my chest, as if I’d suddenly been thrust deep underwater.

“I don’t generally go in for serial stories,” she said, her expression momentarily serious and unreadable. Then she shrugged and gave me a hint of a wry smile. “But I’ve certainly changed my mind about these things before. Maybe you’ll convince me otherwise.”

But later she said she knew he was safe because he—” Wil hesitated significantly. “—met with her as she was heading back to the burning farm. It does not fit. Why would she hunt for him if she knew he was safe?”

Lies are hard to keep straight when you have something to hide.

“She was just making an excuse to spend time with him,” he said as if it were plain as day.

The sound reminded me of the terrible noise my father’s lute had made, crushed beneath my body in a soot-streaked alley in Tarbean. I bent to pick it up and it made a noise like a wounded animal. Ambrose half-turned to look back at me and I saw flickers of amusement play across his face. I opened my mouth to howl, to cry, to curse him. But something other tore from my throat, a word I did not know and could not remember. Then all I could hear was the sound of the wind. It roared into the courtyard like a sudden storm.

It was Elodin who spoke. “I move that Kvothe be raised to the rank of Re’lar.” “All in favor?” All hands save Hemme’s were raised in a single motion. “Kvothe is raised to Re’lar with Elodin as sponsor on the fifth of Fallow. Meeting adjourned.”

“Do you know what Re’lar means?” he asked me conversationally. “It translates as ‘speaker,’” I said. “Do you know what it means?” he stressed the word. “Not really,” I admitted. Elodin drew a deep breath. “Once upon a time, there was a University. It was built in the dead ruins of an older University. It wasn’t very big, perhaps fifty people in all. But it was the best University for miles and miles, so people came and learned and left. There was a small group of people who gathered there. People whose knowledge went beyond mathematics and grammar and rhetoric. “They started a smaller group inside the University. They called it the Arcanum and it was a very small, very secret thing. They had a ranking system among themselves, and your rise through those ranks was due to prowess and nothing else. One entered this group by proving they could see things for what they really were. They became E’lir, which means see-er. How do you think they became Re’lar?” He looked at me expectantly. “By speaking.” He laughed. “Right!” He stopped and turned to face me. “But speaking what?” His eyes were bright

and sharp. “Words?” “Names,” he said excitedly. “Names are the shape of the world, and a man who can speak them is on the road to power. Back in the beginning, the Arcanum was a small collection of men who understood things. Men who knew powerful names. They taught a few students, slowly, carefully encouraging them toward power and wisdom. And magic. Real magic.” He looked around at the buildings and milling students. “In those days the Arcanum was a strong brandy. Now it is well-watered wine.” I waited until I was sure he was finished. “Master Elodin, what happened yesterday?” I held my breath and hoped beyond hope for an intelligible answer. He gave me a quizzical look. “You called the name of the wind,”

But the sleeping mind is more powerful. It sees deeply to the heart of things. It is the part of us that dreams. It remembers everything.

Your sleeping mind does. It already knows many things that your waking mind does not.”

Elodin laughed. “Oh no. No no. You don’t aim for small secrets do you?”

There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will.