The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)

by Patrick Rothfuss

She smelled faintly of wildflowers. But beneath that she smelled like autumn leaves. Like the dark smell of her own hair, like road dust and the air before a summer storm.

The wood was the color of dark coffee, of freshly turned earth. The curve of the bowl was perfect as a woman’s hip. It was hushed echo and bright string and thrum. My lute. My tangible soul.

Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.

Simmon looked as flabbergasted as we all felt. “What the hell was that?” he demanded. Manet chuckled into his beard and leaned back in his chair, cradling his mug to his chest. “That,” he said smugly, “is just one more thing I understand that you pups don’t. Take note. Take heed.”

Suffice to say she was impressive, though obviously still learning. She struck a few bad notes, but didn’t flinch or cringe away from them. As they say, a jeweler knows the uncut gem. And I am. And she was. And so.

My shrug was so nonchalant it would make a cat jealous.

“You are,” she said easily. “You are my shady willow on a sunny day.” “You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.” “That’s good,” she said. “You are unexpected cake on a rainy afternoon.” “You’re the poultice that draws the poison from my heart,” I said. “Hmm.” Denna looked uncertain. “I don’t know about that one. A heart full of poison isn’t an appealing thought.” “Yeah,” I admitted. “That sounded better before I actually said it.” “That’s what happens when you mix your metaphors,” she said. A pause. “Did you get my note?”

You are worth more than salt or the moon on a long night of walking. You are sweet wine in my mouth, a song in my throat, and laughter in my heart.”

I will buy you dinner and spend hours waxing rhapsodic over the vast landscape of wonder that is you.”

Master Dal picked up his wide clay cup and held it in the air. “To not getting burned alive by superstitious folk,” he said. I smiled despite my discomfiture and raised my wooden mug. “A fine tradition.”

We were both silent in our thoughts for a while. I closed my eyes and tried to listen for the name of the wind.

A cat does not think of stretching, it stretches. But a tree does not even do this. A tree simply sways without the effort of moving itself. That is how she moved.

“Songs choose their hour and their own season. When your tune’s tin, there is a reason. The tone of a tune is your heart’s mettle, and there’s no clear water from a muddy well. All you can do is let the silt settle, or you’ll sound sour as a broken bell.”

I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing.

The summer dusk was in her eyes

a sort of twilight blue. They were fascinating.

“I do not jest,” she said. “I swear this by my flower and the ever-moving moon. I swear it by salt and stone and sky. I swear this singing and laughing, by the sound of my own name.” She kissed me again, pressing her lips to mine tenderly. “I will do this thing.”

No. Our people and theirs are as different as water and alcohol. In equal glasses they look the same. Both liquid. Both clear. Both wet, after a fashion. But one will burn, the other will not. This has nothing to do with temperament or timing. These two things behave differently because they are profoundly, fundamentally not the same.

It was only faint starlight, but at that moment it seemed bright as a curtain of burning diamonds.

“I swear it on the doors of stone. I am telling you three thousand times. There is nothing in my world or yours more dangerous than the Cthaeh.”

It is easier to understand if you think of it in terms of music. Sometimes a man enjoys a symphony. Elsetimes he finds a jig more suited to his taste. The same holds true for lovemaking. One type is suited to the deep cushions of a twilight forest glade. Another comes quite naturally tangled in the sheets of narrow beds upstairs in inns. Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.

“Then Rethe held the ribbon aloft for a long moment, waiting as the wind pulled first one way, then another. Then Rethe loosed it, the silk twisting through the air, rising and falling on the breeze. The ribbon twisted in the wind, wove its way through the trees, and pressed itself firmly against Aethe’s chest. “It read: Aethe, near my heart. Without vanity, the ribbon. Without duty, the wind. Without blood, the victory.”

“Aethe lived forty years after that, and it is said he never killed again. In the years that followed, he was often heard to say, ‘I won the only duel I ever lost.’

As I lolled in her grip, stupefied, she struck me again. This time her hand caught more of my nose. The pain of it was amazing, as if someone had driven a sliver of ice directly into my brain.

What other option did I have, now that words had failed me? What do any of us have when words fail us?

Seven names have been remembered, the names of the seven traitors. Remember them and know them by their seven signs: Cyphus bears the blue flame. Stercus is in thrall of iron. Ferule chill and dark of eye. Usnea lives in nothing but decay. Grey Dalcenti never speaks. Pale Alenta brings the blight. Last there is the lord of seven: Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane. Alaxel bears the shadow’s hame.”

If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.”

“Is there anything we can do for you?” he asked at last. “Remember it was bandits who took them,” I said as I turned to leave. “And remember it was one of the Edema Ruh who brought them back.”

“They say a nobleman can piss on half o’ Severen from up here,” the dockman said conversationally. I tucked the ring into a pocket of my shaed. A memento then. “Those are the lazy ones,” I replied. “The ones I’ve met can piss a lot farther than that.”

“Now instead of roses they give gold, and in the giving they grow sudden bold.”

I laid a gentling hand on her arm. “You must forgive these men of mercenary thought. These poor, rich men who, seeing that you can’t be caught, attempt to buy a thing they know cannot be bought.”

There were gaps and breaks in our conversation, silences that stretched too long, silences that were short but terrifyingly deep.