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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“If you’ve got no grain, they’ll take your goat. They’ll take your firewood and your coat. If you’ve a cat, they’ll take your mouse. And in the end, they’ll take your house.”

“The poorer you are, the more your pride is worth. I know the feeling. I never could have asked a friend for money. I would have starved first.”

Hespe’s mouth went firm. She didn’t scowl exactly, but it looked like she was getting all the pieces of a scowl together in one place, just in case she needed them in a hurry.

Tempi turned to me again. “I do not understand this man,” he said. “Is he attempting to buy sex with me? Or does he wish to fight?”

Tempi looked back toward the big man. “If you wish to fight, now stop pauncing around.” The Adem made a broad gesture to the rest of the room. “Go find others to fight with you. Bring enough women to feel safe. Good?”

I was no stranger to bar fights. You’d think they’d be rare in a place like the University, but liquor is the great leveler. After six or seven solid drinks, there is very little difference between a miller on the outs with his wife and a young alchemist who’s done poorly on his exams. They’re both equally eager to skin their knuckles on someone else’s teeth.

He calmed himself a little. Caution. “But only doing is not the Lethani. First knowing, then doing. That is the Lethani.” I thought on this for a moment. “So being polite is the Lethani?” “Not polite. Not kind. Not good. Not duty. The Lethani is none of these. Each moment. Each choice. All different.” He gave me a penetrating look. “Do you understand?” “No.” Happiness. Approval. Tempi got to his feet, nodding. “It is good you know you do not. Good that you say. That is also of the Lethani.”

One arm found her slender waist, and I bent to kiss her with a terrible hunger. I howled inside my own mind. I have been beaten and whipped, starved and stabbed. But my mind is my own, no matter what becomes of this body or the world around. I threw myself against the bars of an intangible cage made of moonlight and desire.

A tense stillness settled inside of me, the sort of silence that comes before a thunderclap. I felt the air begin to crystallize around me. I felt cold. Detachedly, I gathered up the pieces of my mind and fit them all together. I was Kvothe the trouper, Edema Ruh born. I was Kvothe the student, Re’lar under Elodin. I was Kvothe the musician. I was Kvothe. I stood above Felurian. I felt as if this was the only time in my life I had been fully awake. Everything looked clear and sharp, as if I was seeing with a new set of eyes. As if I wasn’t bothering with my eyes at all, and was looking at the world directly with my mind. The sleeping mind, some piece of me realized faintly. No longer sleeping, I thought and smiled. I looked at Felurian, and in that moment I understood her down to the bottoms of her feet. She was of the Fae. She did not worry over right or wrong. She was a creature of pure desire, much like a child. A child does not concern itself with consequence, neither does a sudden storm. Felurian resembled both, and neither. She was ancient and innocent and powerful and proud. Was this the way Elodin saw the world? Was this the magic he spoke of? Not secrets or tricks, but Taborlin the Great magic. Always there, but beyond my seeing until now? It was beautiful.

Then I began to feel a fading. A forgetting. I realized the name of the wind no longer filled my mouth, and when I looked around I saw nothing but empty air. I tried to remain outwardly calm, but as these things left me I felt like a lute whose strings were being cut. My heart clenched with a loss I hadn’t felt since my parents died. I could see a slight shimmer in the air around Felurian, some shred of her power returning. I ignored it as I struggled frantically to keep some part of what I had learned. But it was like trying to hold a handful of sand. If you have ever dreamed of flying, then come awake, dismayed to realize you had lost the trick of it, you have some inkling how I felt.

“Flashing moon silver, midnight blue her eyes The lids were subtle-colored butterflies. Her hair swayed, a dark scythe swinging Through the trees with the wind singing. Felurian! O Lady Fair, Blessed be your forest glade. Your breath is light upon the air. Your hair is shadow-dappled shade.”

I turned my eyes to my lute again and chose notes like raindrops licking the leaves of trees. “She danced in dancing shadows candle cast She held my eyes, my face, my form, full fast. Her smile a snare ten times as strong As legendary faerie song. O Lady Fair! Felurian, Your kiss is honeysuckle sweet. I pity any other man Unknown to you and incomplete.”

Distant thunder doesn’t drub the ears, you feel it prowling through your chest. The quiet of her voice moved through me in that distant-thunder way.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

It was no type of tree I had ever seen before, and I approached it slowly. It resembled a vast spreading willow, with broader leaves of a darker green. The tree had deep, hanging foliage scattered with pale, powder-blue blossoms.

“What can you tell me of the Amyr?” “Kyxxs,” the Cthaeh spat an irritated noise. “What is this? Why so guarded? Why the games? Ask me of the Chandrian and have done.” I stood, stunned and silent. “Surprised? Why should you be? Goodness boy, you’re like a clear pool. I can see ten feet through you, and you’re barely three feet deep.”

I need to know,” I said, trying to force some strength back into my voice. “Need?” Cthaeh asked skeptically. “Why this sudden need? The masters at the University might know the answers you’re looking for. But they wouldn’t tell you even if you did ask, which you won’t. You’re too proud for that. Too clever to ask for help. Too mindful of your reputation.”

“Are you going to try to kill the Chandrian?” The voice sounded fascinated, almost taken aback. “Track and kill them all yourself? My word, how will you manage it? Haliax has been alive five thousand years. Five thousand years and not one second’s sleep.

“That’s the price you pay for civilization though.” “What price?” I asked. “Arrogance,” the Cthaeh said. “You assume you know everything. You laughed at faeries until you saw one. Small wonder all your civilized neighbors dismiss the Chandrian as well. You’d have to leave your precious corners far behind before you found someone who might take you seriously. You wouldn’t have a hope until you made it to the Stormwal.”

Kvothe ventures over the Stormwal at some point?

“The Maer, however, is quite the extraordinary man. He’s already come close to them, though he doesn’t realize it. Stick by the Maer and he will lead you to their door.” The Cthaeh gave a thin, dry chuckle. “Blood, bracken, and bone, I wish you creatures had the wit to appreciate me. Whatever else you might forget, remember what I just said. Eventually you’ll get the joke. I guarantee. You’ll laugh when the time comes.”

Could the Cthaeh’s joke be that the Amyr’s “door” is in fact, the “Doors of Stone, in which they are trapped?

The Cthaeh seemed to take it as a signal. “That’s right, I suppose you don’t need me to tell you what he looks like. You’ve seen him just a day or three ago.” Realization thundered into me. The leader of the bandits. The graceful man in chain mail. Cinder. He was the one who had spoken to me when I was a child. The man with the terrible smile and the sword like winter ice.

“Two days ago he used his walking stick. That was new. Welts the size of your thumb under her clothes. Bruises down to the bone. She’s trembling on the floor with blood in her mouth and you know what she thinks before the black? You. She thinks of you. You thought of her too, I’m guessing. In between the swimming and strawberries and the rest.”

Hmmm…characters with walking sticks…

“It is a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life. Just like every other man. Lusting after her, full of sweet words, then just walking away. Leaving her alone. Good thing she’s used to it by now, isn’t it? Otherwise you might have hurt her. Otherwise you just might have broken that poor girl’s heart.”

“It is the luxury of looking backward. You can do it forever, and it is useless.

“Come now, I saw her kick,” Vashet said dismissively. “It was not so hard as that.” I heard her sigh. “Still, if you need someone to look at them and make sure they are still intact.…” I chuckled slightly. It was a mistake. Unbelievable pain uncoiled in my groin, radiating down to my knee and up to my sternum. Nausea rolled over me, and I opened my eyes to steady myself. “She will grow out of it,” Vashet said. “I should hope so,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s a noxious habit.” “That is not what I meant,” Vashet said. “I mean she will grow taller. Hopefully then she will distribute her attentions more evenly across the body. Right now she attacks the groin too regularly. It makes her easy to predict and defend against.” She gave me a pointed look. “To anyone with a shred of wit.”

If I say she slapped me, you will take the wrong impression. This wasn’t the dramatic slap of the sort you see on a stage. Neither was it the offended, stinging slap a lady-in-waiting makes against the smooth skin of a too-familiar nobleman. It wasn’t even the more professional slap of a serving girl defending herself from the unwelcome attention of a grabby drunk. No. This was hardly any sort of slap at all. A slap is made with the fingers or the palm. It stings or startles. Vashet struck me with her open hand, but behind that was the strength of her arm. Behind that was her shoulder. Behind that was the complex machinery of her pivoting hips, her strong legs braced against the ground, and the ground itself beneath her. It was like the whole of creation striking me through the flat of her hand, and the only reason it didn’t cripple me is that even in the middle of her fury, Vashet was always perfectly in control.

Words cannot always do the work we need them to. Music is there for when words fail us.

You know I am well and truly angry, so you are in the grip of fear. “This means I cannot trust any word you say, as it comes from fear. You are clever, and charming, and a liar. I know you can bend the world with your words. So I will not listen.”

I began with “In the Village Smithy.” I did not sing, worried Vashet would be offended if I went that far. But even without the words, it is a song that sounds like weeping. It is music that speaks of empty rooms and a chill bed and the loss of love.

Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.

I had called the name of the wind in the grip of a terrible anger before, in Imre after Ambrose had broken my lute. And I had called it in terror and fury to defend myself against Felurian. But this time the knowledge of it hadn’t come to me borne on the back of some strong emotion. I had slipped into it gently, the way you must reach out to catch a gently floating thistle seed.

No wonder Elodin had such a tough time with thistle seeds.

And there it was. Like the name of an old friend that had simply slipped my mind for a moment. I looked out among the branches and I saw the wind. I spoke the long name of it gently, and the wind grew gentle. I breathed it out as a whisper, and for the first time since I had come to Haert the wind went quiet and utterly still. In this place of endless wind, it seemed as if the world were suddenly holding its breath. The unceasing dance of the sword tree slowed, then stopped. As if it were resting. As if it had decided to let me go. I stepped away from the tree and began to walk slowly toward Shehyn, bringing nothing with me. As I walked, I raised my left hand and drew my open palm across the razor edge of a hanging leaf. I came to stand before Shehyn, stopping the polite distance from her. I stood, my face an impassive mask. I stood, utterly silent, perfectly still. I extended my left hand, bloody palm up, and closed it into a fist. The gesture meant willing. There was more blood than I’d expected, and it pressed between my fingers to run down the back of my hand. After a long moment, Shehyn nodded. I relaxed, and only then did the wind return.

“Seriously, it’s like you stepped out of a storybook.” I gestured: gracious flattering understated affectionate acceptance. Vashet reached out and flicked my ear hard with a finger. “Ow!” I burst out laughing. “Fine. But don’t you dare accuse me of melodrama. You people are one great unending dramatic gesture. The quiet. The bloodred clothes. The hidden language. Secrets and mysteries. It’s like your lives are one giant dumbshow.” I met her eye. “And I do mean that in all its various clever implications.”

“I have some power. Others are more powerful.” “Is that why you seek the Ketan? To gain power?” “No. I seek from curiosity. I seek the knowing of things.” “Knowing is a type of power,”

“But there are bad things in the world. Old things in the shape of men. And there are a handful worse than all the rest. They walk the world freely and do terrible things.” I felt hope rising within me. “I have also heard them called the Chandrian,” I said. Shehyn nodded. “I have heard this too. But Rhinta is a better word.” Shehyn gave me a long look and fell back into Ademic. “Given what Tempi has told me of your reaction, I think that you have met such a one before.” “Yes.” “Will you meet such a one again?” “Yes.” The certainty in my own voice surprised me. “With purpose?” “Yes.” “What purpose?” “To kill him.” “Such things are not easily killed.” I nodded.

“It has been so many years since I had to explain such things to my poet king.”

“I’m not concussed, Bast,” Kvothe said, irritated. “I’ve got four broken ribs, a ringing in my ears, and a loose tooth. I have a few minor scalp wounds that look more serious than they really are. My nose is bloody but not broken, and tomorrow I will be a vast tapestry of bruises.”

There was a moment of silence. “So,” Chronicler said. “Subjunctive mood.” “At best,” Kvothe said, “it is a pointless thing. It needlessly complicates the language. It offends me.” “Oh, come now,” Chronicler said, sounding slightly offended. “The subjunctive is the heart of the hypothetical. In the right hands …” He broke off as Bast stormed back into the room, scowling and carrying a small wooden box.

“I think she rues the truth. A trouper’s tongue has gotten her to bed more quickly than her sister.”

“A wise man is careful to stay on the good side of his servants,” he said. “Even the boy that brings your dinner can carry a grudge, and there are a thousand invisible revenges available to the lowest of them.

“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.”

“Well, well,” he said, shuffling through the sheaf of papers in front of him. “I didn’t think we’d have to deal with your type of trouble again.” He gave me an insincere smile. “I’d heard you were dead.” “I heard you wear a red lace corset,” I said matter-of-factly. “But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.”

Deoch told me he hadn’t so much as glimpsed Denna’s shadow in a year. But even looking for her and not finding her was comforting in a way. In some ways that seemed to be the heart of our relationship.

“To name a thing you must understand it entire. A stone or a piece of wind is difficult enough. A person …” He trailed off significantly.

I have a vast weakness for secret things.

No story can move a thousand miles by word of mouth and keep its shape.