The Wise Man's Fear tkc-2, page 101
part #2 of The Kingkiller Chronicle Series
Vashet seemed surprised by the question. She pursed her mouth and looked up at the sky for a long moment before shrugging. “How many people have I spoken with since then? How many have I sparred with? How many times have I eaten, or practiced my Ketan? Who counts such things?”
“And most Adem think this way?” I asked, glad to finally have the chance to ask these questions. “That sex is not an intimate thing?”
“Of course it is intimate,” Vashet said. “Anything that brings two people close together is intimate. A conversation, a kiss, a whisper. Even fighting is intimate. But we are not strange about our sex. We do not feel shame about it. We do not feel it important to keep someone else’s sex all to ourselves, like a miser hoarding gold.” She shook her head. “More than any other, this strangeness in your thinking sets you barbarians apart.”
“But what of romance then?” I asked, slightly indignant. “What of love?”
Vashet laughed again then, loud and long and vastly amused. Half of Haert must have heard it, and it echoed back to us from the distant hills.
“You barbarians,” she said, wiping moisture from her eyes. “I had forgotten how backward you are. My poet king was the same way. It took him a long, miserable time before he realized the truth of things: There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE
Caesura
The next day I woke somewhat blearily. I hadn’t drunk that much, but my body was no longer used to such things, and so I felt each drink three times that morning. I straggled to the baths, dunked myself in the hottest pool I could stand, then scrubbed the vaguely gritty feeling away as best I could.
I was heading back to the dining hall when Vashet and Shehyn found me in the hallway. Vashet gestured for me to follow, and I fell in step behind them. I hardly felt up for training or a formal conversation, but refusing didn’t seem like a realistic option.
We wound our way through several hallways, eventually emerging near the center of the school. Passing through a courtyard we approached a small, square building that Shehyn unlocked with a small iron key: the first locked door I had seen in all of Haert.
The three of us moved into a small windowless entryway. Vashet closed the outside door and the room grew black as pitch, cutting off the sound of the persistent wind. Then Shehyn opened the inner door. Warm light from a half-dozen candles greeted us. At first it seemed odd they had been left to burn in an empty room. . . .
Then I saw what hung on the walls. Swords gleamed in the candlelight, dozens of them covering the walls. They were all of them naked, their scabbards hanging underneath them.
There were no ritual trappings of the sort you might find in a Tehlin church. No tapestries or paintings. Just the swords themselves. Still, it was obvious that this was an important place. There was a tension in the air of the sort you might feel in the Archives or an old graveyard.
Shehyn turned to Vashet. “Choose.”
Vashet looked startled by this, almost stricken. She started to make a gesture, but Shehyn held up a hand before she could protest.
“He is your student,” Shehyn said. Refusal. “You have brought him into the school. It is your choice.”
Vashet looked from Shehyn, to me, to the dozens of gleaming swords. They were all slender and deadly, each subtly different from the others. Some were curved, some longer or thicker than others. Some showed signs of much use, while some few resembled Vashet’s, with worn hilts and unmarked blades of grey burnished metal.
Slowly, Vashet moved to the right-hand wall. She picked up a sword, hefted it, and put it back. Then she lifted a different one, gripped it, and held it out to me.
I took hold of it. It was light and thin as a whisper.
“Maiden Combs Her Hair,” Vashet said.
I obeyed, feeling somewhat self-conscious, as Shehyn was watching. But before I made it halfway through the sweeping movement, Vashet was already shaking her head. She took the sword back from me and returned it to the wall.
After another minute she handed me a second sword. It had worn etching running down the blade, like a crawling ivy. At Vashet’s request, I made Heron Falling. I swept high and lunged low, sword flickering. Vashet raised an eyebrow to me, questioning.
I shook my head. “The point is too heavy for me.”
Vashet didn’t seem particularly surprised and returned that sword to the wall as well.
So things continued. Vashet hefted swords and rejected most without a word. She set three more in my hands, asked for various pieces of the Ketan, then returned them to the wall without asking my opinion.
Vashet moved more slowly as she made her way along the second wall. She handed me a sword slightly curved like Penthe’s, and my breath caught when I saw the blade was the same flawless, burnished grey as Vashet’s. I took it carefully, but the grip wasn’t right for my fingers. When I handed it back, I saw relief written plainly on her face.
As she progressed along the wall, occasionally Vashet would steal a glance at Shehyn. At those moments, she looked very little like my confident, swaggering teacher and very much like a young woman desperately hoping for a word of advice. Shehyn remained impassive.
Eventually Vashet came to the third wall, moving slower and slower. She handled almost every sword now, taking a long time before setting them back in their places.
Then, slowly, she laid her hand on another sword with a blade of burnished grey. She lifted it off the wall, gripped it, and seemed to age ten years.
Vashet avoided looking at Shehyn, and handed me the sword. The guard of this one extended out slightly, curving to give a hint of protection to the hand. It was nothing like a full hand guard. Anything that bulky would render half the Ketan useless. But it looked as if it would give my fingers an extra bit of shelter, and that was appealing to me.
The warm grip settled into my palm as smoothly as the neck of my lute.
Before she could ask, I made Maiden Combs Her Hair. It felt like stretching after a long stiff sleep. I eased into Twelve Stones, and for the smallest of moments I felt graceful as Penthe looked when she fought. I made Heron Falling and it was sweet and simple as a kiss.
Vashet held out her hand to take it back from me. I didn’t want to give it up, but I did. I knew this was the worst possible time and place for me to make a scene.
Holding the sword, Vashet turned to Shehyn. “This is the one for him,” she said. And for the first time since I’d known my teacher, it was as if all the laughing had been pressed out of her. Her voice was thin and dry.
Shehyn nodded. “I agree. You have done well to find it.”
Vashet’s relief was palpable, though her face still looked somewhat stricken. “It will perhaps offset his name,” she said. She held the sword out to Shehyn.
Shehyn gestured: Refusal. “No. Your student. Your choice. Your responsibility.”
Vashet took the scabbard from the wall and sheathed the sword. Then she turned and held it out to me. “This is named Saicere.”
“Caesura?” I asked, startled by the name. Wasn’t that what Sim had called the break in the line of Eld Vintic verse? Was I being given a poet’s sword?
“Saicere,” she said softly, as if it were the name of God. She stepped back, and I felt the weight of it settle back into my hands.
Sensing something was expected of me, I drew it from its sheath. The faint ring of leather and metal seemed a whisper of its name: Saicere. It felt light in my hand. The blade was flawless. I slid it back into its sheath and the sound was different. It sounded like the breaking of a line. It said: Caesura.
Shehyn opened the inner door, and we left as we came. Silently and with respect.
The rest of the day was quite the opposite of exciting. With a dogged and humorless persistence, Vashet taught me how to care for my sword. How to clean and oil my sword. How to dismantle and reassemble my sword. How to strap the scabbard to my shoulder or hip. How the slightly enlarged guard would alter a few of the grips and motions of the Ketan.
The sword was not mine. The sword belonged to the school. To Ademre. I would return it when I was no longer able to fight.
While I normally have little tolerance for hearing the same thing over and over again, I let Vashet ramble. The least I could do was let her repeat herself a bit when she was plainly anxious and trying to settle her mind.
Around the fifteenth repetition, I asked what I should do if the sword broke. Not the hilt or the guard, but the blade itself. Should I still bring it back?
Vashet gave me a look of dismay so raw it verged on horror. She didn’t answer, and I made a point of not asking any more questions for the rest of the morning.
After lunch Vashet took me back to Magwyn’s cave. My teacher’s mood seemed somewhat improved, but she was still far from her regular gregarious self.
“Magwyn will be giving you Saicere’s story,” she said. “You must memorize it.”
“Its story?” I asked.
Vashet shrugged. “In Ademic it is Atas. It is the history of your sword. Everyone who has carried it. What they have done. It is something you must know.”
We reached the top of the path and stood before Magwyn’s door. Vashet gave me a serious look. “You must be on your best behavior and be very polite.”
“I will,” I said.
“Magwyn is an important person, and you must attend closely to what she says.”
“I will,” I said.
Vashet knocked on the door and escorted me in.
Magwyn sat at the same table as before. For all I could tell, she was copying the same book. She smiled when she saw Vashet, then noticed me and let her face slide into the familiar Adem impassivity.
“Magwyn,” Vashet said. Profoundly polite entreaty. “This one needs the Atas of his sword.”
“Which sword did you find for him?” Magwyn asked, her face wrinkling even further as she squinted to see.
“Saicere,” Vashet said.
Magwyn gave a laugh that was almost a cackle. She got down off her chair. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said, and disappeared through a door that led back into the cliff.
Vashet let herself out, and I stood there feeling awkward, like one of those terrible dreams when you’re on stage and can’t remember what to say, or even what part you were meaning to play.
Magwyn returned, carrying a thick book bound in brown leather. At a gesture from her, we took seats in chairs facing each other. Hers was a deeply cushioned leather chair. Mine was not. I sat with Caesura across my knees. Partly because it seemed appropriate, and partly because I was fond of the feel of it beneath my hand.
She opened the book, the binding crackling as she spread it open on her lap. She flipped pages for a moment until she found the place she was looking for. “First came Chael,” she read. “Who shaped me in fire for an unknown purpose. He carried me then cast me aside.”
Magwyn looked up, unable to gesture as her hands were both occupied by the large book. “Well?” she demanded.
“What would you like me to do?” I asked politely. I couldn’t gesture due to my bandages. We made a fine pair of half-mutes.
“Repeat it back,” she said, irritated. “You need to learn them all.”
“First came Chael,” I said. “Who shaped me in fire for an unknown purpose. He carried me then cast me aside.”
She nodded and continued. “Next came Etaine . . .”
I repeated it. We continued this way for perhaps a half hour. Owner after owner. Name after name. Loyalties declaimed and enemies killed.
At first the names and places were tantalizing. Then, as it continued, the list began to depress me, as nearly each piece ended with the death of the owner. They were not peaceful deaths either. Some died in wars, some in duels. Many were merely “killed by” or “slain by,” giving no clue as to the circumstances. After thirty of these, I had heard nothing resembling, “Passed from this world peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by fat grandchildren.”
Then the list stopped being depressing and became simply boring instead.
“Next came Finol of the clear and shining eye,” I repeated attentively. “Much beloved of Dulcen. She herself slew two daruna, then was killed by gremmen at the Drossen Tor.”
I cleared my throat before Magwyn could recite another passage. “If I may ask,” I said. “How many have carried Caesura over the years?”
“Saicere,” she corrected me sharply. “Do not presume to meddle with her name. It means to break, to catch, and to fly.”
I looked down at the sheathed sword across my lap. I felt the weight of it, the chill of the metal under my fingers. A small sliver of the smooth grey blade was visible above the top of the sheath.
How can I say this so you can understand? Saicere was a fine name. It was thin and bright and dangerous. It fit the sword like a glove fits a hand.
But it wasn’t the perfect name. This sword’s name was Caesura. This sword was the jarring break in a line of perfect verse. It was the broken breath. It was smooth and swift and sharp and deadly. The name didn’t fit like a glove. It fit like skin. More than that. It was bone and muscle and movement. Those things are the hand. And Caesura was the sword. It was the both the name and the thing itself.
I can’t tell you how I knew this. But I knew it.
Besides, if I was to be a namer, I decided I could damn well choose the name of my own sword.
I looked up at Magwyn. “It is a good name,” I agreed politely, deciding to keep my opinion to myself until I was well gone from Ademre. “I am only wondering how many owners there have been entirely. That is something I should know as well.”
Magwyn gave me a sour look that said she knew I was patronizing her. But she flipped ahead several pages in her book. Then a few more.
Then a few more.
“Two hundred and thirty-six,” she said. “You will be the two hundred thirty-seventh.” She flipped back to the beginning of the list. “Let us begin again.” She drew a breath and said. “First came Chael, who shaped me in fire for an unknown purpose. He carried me then cast me aside.”
I fought down the urge to sigh. Even with my trouper’s knack for learning lines it would take long, weary days setting them all to memory.
Then I realized what this truly meant. If each owner had kept Caesura for ten years, and it had never sat idle for longer than a day or two, that meant Caesura was, at a very conservative estimate, more than two thousand years old.
I received my next surprise three hours later when I tried to excuse myself for supper. As I stood to leave Magwyn explained I was to remain with her until I learned all of Caesura’s story by heart. Someone would bring us our meals, and there was a room nearby where I could sleep.
First came Chael . . .
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
The First Stone
I spent the next three days with Magwyn. It wasn’t bad, especially considering my left hand was still healing, so my ability to talk and fight was rather limited.
I like to think I did rather well. It would have been easier for me to memorize an entire play than this. A play fits together like a jigsaw. Dialogue moves back and forth. There is a shape to a story.
But what I learned from Magwyn was merely a long string of unfamiliar names and unconnected events. It was a laundry list masquerading as a story.
Still, I learned it all by heart. It was late in the evening of the third day when I recited it back flawlessly to Magwyn. The hardest part was not singing it as I recited. Music carries words over miles and into hearts and memories. Committing Caesura’s history to memory had been much easier when I’d started fitting it to the tune of an old Vintish ballad in my head.
The next morning Magwyn demanded I recite it again. After I made it through a second time, she scribbled a note to Shehyn, sealed it in wax, and shooed me out of her cave.
“We had not expected Magwyn to be finished with you for several days yet,” Shehyn said, reading the note. “Vashet took a trip to Feant and will not be back for at least two days.”
That meant I had memorized the Atas twice as quickly as their best estimate. I felt more than a little pride in that.
Shehyn glanced at my left hand and gave the barest frown. “When did you have your dressings removed?” she asked.
“I could not find you at first,” I said. “So I went to visit Daeln. He said it has healed quite nicely.” I flexed my newly unbandaged left hand and gestured joyful relief. “There is hardly any stiffness in the skin, and he reassures me even that will fade soon with proper care.”
I looked at Shehyn, expecting to see some gesture of approval or satisfaction. Instead I saw exasperated irritation.
“Have I done something wrong?” I asked. Confused regret. Apology.
Shehyn motioned to my hand. “It could have been a convenient excuse to postpone your stone trial,” she said. Irritated resignation. “Now we must go ahead with it today, Vashet or no.”
I felt a familiar anxiety settle back onto me, like a dark bird clenching its claws deep into the muscles of my neck and shoulders. I’d thought the tedium of memorization had been the last of it, but apparently the final shoe was yet to drop. I didn’t like the sound of the term “stone trial,” either.
“Return here after midday meal.” Shehyn said. Dismissal. “Go. I have much to prepare before then.”
I went looking for Penthe. With Vashet gone, she was the only one I knew well enough to ask about the upcoming trial.
But she wasn’t in her house, the school, or the baths. Eventually I gave up, stretched, and rehearsed my Ketan, first with Caesura, then without. Then I made my way to the baths and scrubbed away three days of sitting and doing nothing.
Shehyn was waiting for me when I returned after lunch, holding her carved wooden sword. She looked at my empty hands and made an exasperated gesture. “Where is your dueling sword?”
