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

by Patrick Rothfuss

I suppose it should come as no surprise that I have a particular fondness for women with music running through them.

I looked up and realized how close she was standing. Her hand was cool in mine. She stared at me with huge, dark eyes. One eyebrow slightly raised. Not arch, or playful even, just gently curious. My stomach felt suddenly strange and weak. “I’ve what?” she asked. I realized I had no idea what I had been about to say. I thought of saying, I have no idea what I was going to say. Then I realized that would be a stupid thing to say. So I didn’t say anything.

Once her eyes weren’t fixed on mine, I regained a small piece of my wits.

“It is a lovely name,” he said politely. “And it suits you.” “It does,” she agreed. “It is like having a flower in my heart.” She gave Elodin a serious look. “If your name is getting too heavy, you should have Kvothe give you a new one.” Elodin nodded again and took a bite of his cinnas. As he chewed, he turned to look at me. By the light of the moon, I saw his eyes. They were cool, thoughtful, and perfectly, utterly sane.

“I swear on my name and my power. I swear it by the ever-moving moon.”

“Very well,” Lorren said. “Tomes only.” “Tombs is for feckless tits who can’t chew their own food,” Elodin said dismissively. “My boy’s a Re’lar. He has the feck of twenty men! He needs to explore the Stacks and discover all manner of useless things.”

It was only then I realized I didn’t know the name of Elodin’s class. I leafed through the ledger until I spotted Elodin’s name, then ran my finger back to where the title of the class was listed in fresh dark ink: “Introduction to Not Being a Stupid Jackass.” I sighed and penned my name in the single blank space beneath.

“I trust I will not be troubled by a horde of pregnant women waving iron pendants and cursing your name?” “I’ll take steps to avoid that, Master Kilvin.”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a river stone, smooth and dark. “Describe the precise shape of this. Tell me of the weight and pressure that forged it from sand and sediment. Tell me how the light reflects from it. Tell me how the world pulls at the mass of it, how the wind cups it as it moves through the air. Tell me how the traces of its iron will feel the calling of a loden-stone. All of these things and a hundred thousand more make up the name of this stone.”

“My point is this. In each of us there is a mind we use for all our waking deeds. But there is another mind as well, a sleeping mind. It is so powerful that the sleeping mind of an eight-year-old can accomplish in one second what the waking minds of seven members of the Arcanum could not in fifteen minutes.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Your sleeping mind is wide and wild enough to hold the names of things. This I know because sometimes this knowledge bubbles to the surface. Inyssa has spoken the name of iron. Her waking mind does not know it, but her sleeping mind is wiser. Something deep inside Fela understands the name of stone.” Elodin pointed at me. “Kvothe has called the wind. If we are to believe the writings of those long dead, his is the traditional path. The wind was the name aspiring namers sought and caught when things were studied here so long ago.”

“I want each of you to think on what name you would like to find. It should be a small name. Something simple: iron or fire, wind or water, wood or stone. It should be something you feel an affinity toward.”

He finished the last title and took a step back, nodding to himself. There were twenty books in all. He drew stars next to three of them, underlined two others, and drew a sad face next to the last one on the list.

The air was heavy with the smell of leather and dust, of old parchment and binding glue. It smelled of secrets.

The second was some rather bad poetry, but it was short, and I forced my way through by gritting my teeth and occasionally closing one eye so as not to damage the entirety of my brain.

And, of course, there was the four-plate door. The secret at the heart of the city.

More important, one of the few things I knew about the Chandrian was that they worked to viciously repress any knowledge of their own existence. They’d killed my troupe because my father had been writing a song about them. In Trebon they’d destroyed an entire wedding party because some of the guests had seen pictures of them on a piece of ancient pottery.

I spent entire afternoons in the reading holes, missing meals and neglecting my friends. More than once I was the last student out of the Archives before the scrivs locked the doors for the night. I would have slept there if such things were allowed.

Too close to home.

“You can divide infinity an infinite number of times, and the resulting pieces will still be infinitely large,” Uresh said in his odd Lenatti accent. “But if you divide a non-infinite number an infinite number of times the resulting pieces are non-infinitely small. Since they are non-infinitely small, but there are an infinite number of them, if you add them back together, their sum is infinite. This implies any number is, in fact, infinite.” “Wow,” Elodin said after a long pause. He leveled a serious finger at the Lenatti man. “Uresh. Your next assignment is to have sex. If you do not know how to do this, see me after class.”

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.

“There exists between them something tenuous and delicate. They can both feel it. Like static in the air. Faint as frost.” He looked me full in the face. His dark eyes serious. “Now. What do you do?” I looked back at him, utterly lost. If there was one thing I knew less about than naming, it was courting women. “There are three paths here,” Elodin said to the class. He held up one finger. “First. Our young lovers can try to express what they feel. They can try to play the half-heard song their hearts are singing.” Elodin paused for effect. “This is the path of the honest fool, and it will go badly. This thing between you is too tremulous for talk. It is a spark so faint that even the most careful breath might snuff it out.” Master Namer shook his head. “Even if you are clever and have a way with words, you are doomed in this. Because while your mouths might speak the same language, your hearts do not.” He looked at me intently. “This is an issue of translation.” Elodin held up two fingers. “The second path is more careful. You talk of small things. The weather. A familiar play. You spend time in company. You hold hands. In doing so you slowly learn the secret meanings of each other’s words. This way, when the time comes you can speak with subtle meaning underneath your words, so there is understanding on both sides.” Elodin made a sweeping gesture toward me. “Then there is the third path. The path of Kvothe.” He strode to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, facing Fela. “Y...

I smiled at her. A real smile. The expression felt odd on my face and I wondered how long I’d been scowling without knowing it. “You’re helping just by being here,” I said honestly. “Just seeing you does wonders for my mood.”

“Truth be told, I’d prefer a bit of a distraction to a sympathetic ear.” “That I can provide,” she said, taking hold of my arm. “Lord knows you’ve done the same for me often enough in the past.” I fell into step alongside her. “Have I?” “Endlessly,” she said. “It’s easy to forget when you’re around.” She stopped walking for a moment and I had to stop too, as she’d linked her arm in mine. “That’s not right. I mean to say when you’re around, it’s easy to forget.” “Forget what?” “Everything,” she said, and for a moment her voice wasn’t quite as playful. “All the bad parts of my life. Who I am. It’s nice to be able to take a vacation from myself every once in a while. You help with that. You’re my safe harbor in an endless, stormy sea.” I chuckled. “Am I?” “You are,” she said easily. “You are my shady willow on a sunny day.” “You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.”

“And look!” She pressed the velvet where the neck would rest, twisted her fingers, and a lid popped up, revealing a hidden space underneath. She grinned again. “This was my idea, too. It’s like a secret pocket.”

Kvothe is singlehandedly the reason I am obsessed with hidden pockets in clothing.

I ran my hands over the lid again, feeling increasingly sick to my stomach. I couldn’t think of a word to say. How could I tell her someone had stolen my lute after she’d gone through all the work of having this beautiful gift made for me? Denna grinned excitedly. “Let’s see how your lute fits!” She gestured, and the man behind the counter brought out my lute and set it in the case. It fit snugly as a glove. I began to cry.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s obviously not,” Denna said, her eyes starting to brim with tears. “When you didn’t show up, I didn’t know what to do. I looked for you everywhere last night. I knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer.” She looked down at her feet. “I can never find you when I go looking.”

“You are my bright penny by the roadside. 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.” Denna’s cheeks flushed, but I rolled on, unconcerned. “You are too good for me,” I said. “You are a luxury I cannot afford. Despite this, I insist you come with me today. I will buy you dinner and spend hours waxing rhapsodic over the vast landscape of wonder that is you.” I stood and pulled her to her feet. “I will play you music. I will sing you songs. For the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the world cannot touch us.” I cocked my head, making it a question. Denna’s mouth curved. “That sounds nice,” she said. “I’d like to get away from the world for the space of an afternoon.”

This.

I hit the final chord but instead of the thunderous applause I expected, there was only an echoing quiet. I looked up and saw four tall men standing in front of the hearth. The shoulders of their heavy cloaks were wet with melted snow. Their faces were grim.

Horsemen.

“Not fame,” Kvothe said grimly. “Perspective. You go rummaging around in other people’s lives. You hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things. But you don’t.” He looked hard at the scribe. “When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”

“All the truth in the world is held in stories, you know.”

“It would have been better if you’d been guilty in a quiet way, rather than be innocent so loud.”

“Caution suits an arcanist. Assurance suits a namer. Fear does not suit either. It does not suit you.”

“This is a good place for a namer. Tell me why.” I looked around. “Wide wind, strong water, old stone.”

I am no stranger to hunger. I know the countless hollow shapes it takes inside you. This particular hunger wasn’t a terrible one.

“There are two types of power: inherent and granted,” Alveron said, letting me know the topic of today’s conversation. “Inherent power you possess as a part of yourself. Granted power is lent or given by other people.” He looked sideways at me. I nodded. Seeing my agreement, the Maer continued. “Inherent power is an obvious thing. Strength of body.” He patted my supporting arm. “Strength of mind. Strength of personality. All these things lie within a person. They define us. They determine our limits.” “Not entirely, your grace,” I protested gently. “A man can always improve himself.” “They limit us,” the Maer said firmly. “A man with one hand will never wrestle in the roundings. A man with one leg will never run as quickly as a man with two.” “An Adem warrior with only one hand might be more deadly than a common warrior with two, your grace,” I pointed out. “Despite his deficiency.” “True, true,” the Maer said crossly. “We can improve ourselves, exercise our bodies, educate our minds, groom ourselves carefully.” He ran a hand down his immaculate salt-and-pepper beard. “For even appearance is a type of power. But there are always limits.

We entered the shadow of the trellis tunnel where hundreds of deep red petals blossomed in the shade of leaf and arch. The smell was sweet and tremulous. I brushed a hand across one of the deep red blooms. It was unspeakably soft. I thought of Denna.

That’s another problem with power. If you possess too much, people don’t dare point out your mistakes. Power can be a terrible thing.”

“I swear it on my name and my power. I swear it by my good left hand. I swear it by the ever-moving moon.”

“Gather round and listen well, For I’ve a tale of tragedy to tell. I sing of subtle shadow spread Across a land, and of the man Who turned his hand toward a purpose few could bear. Fair Lanre: stripped of wife, of life, of pride Still never from his purpose swayed. Who fought the tide, and fell, and was betrayed.”

🎼 “Our hero of songs and of stories untold He fought not for glory, nor silver, nor gold He killed for the hands that held his heart For Lyra, who loved him, till death did them part Lyra’s tears washed the blood off his sword She called out the name of the one she adored The shackles of death that held him then broke Once more with his love, Lanre awoke But Death is a tyrant who won't be denied Lyra she faded, she paled and she died Her fate left unknown to we who remain Its consequence etched in misery and pain Unable to die, to forget or to sleep Lanre was driven to madness and grief Myr Tariniel burned by his hand A mercy to people of that wretched land Selitos roared and he clawed at his eyes Frenzied by pride, he cursed the skies Lanre you traitor, cursed by the name May you live always in shadow and shame! Our hero of songs and stories untold Now wanders these roads, alone in the cold He dreams of the hands that held his heart Of Lyra, who loved him till death did them part”

I can’t help but feel that if I’d said the right thing at that moment, everything would have turned out differently. But even now, after years of thinking, I can’t imagine what I could have said that might have made things right.

At this point in the story I’m tempted to lie. To say I spoke these things in an uncontrollable rage. That I was overwhelmed with grief at the memory of my murdered family. I’m tempted to say I tasted plum and nutmeg. Then I would have some excuse…. But they were my words. In the end, I was the one who said those things. Only me.

I opened a bottle of wine, thinking it might loosen the secret inside me. Give me some fingerhold I could use to pry it up. I drank until the room spun and the nib of the pen was crusted with dry ink. Hours later the blank sheet still stared at me, and I beat my fist against the desk in fury and frustration, striking it so hard my hand bled. That is how heavy a secret can become. It can make blood flow easier than ink.

I’d started a second bottle of wine by the time I read that young Netalia Lackless had run away with a troupe of traveling performers. Her parents had disowned her, of course, leaving Meluan the only heir to the Lackless lands. That explained Meluan’s hatred of the Ruh, and made me doubly glad I hadn’t made my Edema blood public here in Severen.

🤔

Now that I was watching more closely, I spotted the marks of infatuation on Dedan. The way he said Hespe’s name. The coarse jokes he made when talking to her. Every few minutes he would find an excuse to glance in her direction. Always under some pretext: a stretch, an idle glance at the road, a gesture to the trees around us. Despite this, Dedan remained oblivious to the sporadic courtship Hespe was paying him in return. At times it was amusing to watch, like a well-orchestrated Modegan tragedy. At times I wanted to strangle them both.

nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.

Dedan looked back at me. “You’ve already heard it then. You could have stopped me if you didn’t—” “I’m just guessing,” I said quickly. “I hate not hearing the ending of a story.”

Irony!

“Attractive as some things are, you have to weigh your risks. How badly do you want it, how badly are you willing to be burned?” I spread the fire and soon the deep dark of night settled into the clearing. I lay on my back, looked at the stars, and thought of Denna.

Tempi shook his head. “No. Laugh is different.” He stepped close and used two fingers to tap my chest over my heart. “Smile?” He ran his finger down my left arm. “Angry?” He tapped my heart again. He made a scared expression, a confused one, and poked his lip out in a ridiculous pout. Each time he tapped my chest. “But laugh?” He pressed the flat of his hand against my stomach. “Here lives laugh.” He ran his finger straight up to my mouth and spread his fingers. “Push back laugh is not good. Not healthy.” “Also cry?” I asked. I traced an imaginary tear down my cheek with one finger. “Also cry.” He put his hand on his own belly. “Ha ha ha,” he said, pressing in with his hand to show me the motion of his stomach. Then his expression changed to sad. “Huh huh huh,” he heaved with exaggerated sobs, pressing his stomach again. “Same place. Not healthy to push down.”

“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

I was still irritated by how clumsy I was. I hate nothing so much as doing a thing badly.

The little boy looked around brightly, not sure what to make of this new situation. Bast turned to face Kvothe, the baby held stiffly in front of himself. The child’s expression slowly shifted from curious to uncertain to unhappy. Finally he began to make a soft, anxious noise. He looked as if he were thinking about whether or not he wanted to cry, and was slowly starting to realize that, yes, as a matter of fact, he probably did.