The Wise Man's Fear tkc-2, page 116
part #2 of The Kingkiller Chronicle Series
There was the sound of a bolt being thrown and a lock turning. The door cracked open and a single pale blue eye peered out at me. I grinned.
The door swung open slowly. Devi stood in the doorway, staring blankly at me, her arms at her sides.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “What?” I said. “No witty banter?”
“I don’t do business on the landing,” she said automatically. Her voice was absolutely without inflection. “You’ll have to come inside.”
I waited, but she didn’t step out of the doorway. I could smell cinnamon and honey wafting out from the room behind her.
“Devi?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
“You’re a . . .” She trailed off, still staring at me. Her voice was flat and emotionless. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“In this and many other things, I aim to disappoint,” I said.
“I was sure he’d done it,” Devi continued. “His father’s barony is called the Pirate Isles. I was sure he’d done it because we’d set fire to his rooms. I was the one that actually set the fire, but he couldn’t know that. You were the only one he saw. You and that Cealdish fellow.”
Devi looked up at me, blinking in the light. The pixie-faced gaelet had always been fair-skinned, but this was the first time I’d ever seen her look pale. “You’re taller,” she said. “I’d almost forgotten how tall you are.”
“I almost forgot how pretty you are,” I said. “But I couldn’t quite manage it.”
Devi continued to stand in the doorway, pale and staring. Concerned, I stepped forward and laid my hand lightly on her arm. She didn’t pull away as I half-expected. She simply looked down at my hand.
“I’m waiting for a quip here,” I teased gently. “You’re usually quicker than this.”
“I don’t think I can match wits with you right now,” she said.
“I never suspected you could match wits with me,” I said. “But I do like a little banter now and then.”
Devi gave a ghost of a smile, a little color coming back to her cheeks. “You’re a horse’s ass,” she said.
“That’s more like it,” I said encouragingly as I drew her out of the doorway into the bright autumn afternoon. “I knew you had it in you.”
The two of us walked to a nearby inn, and with the help of a short beer and long lunch, Devi recovered from the shock of seeing me alive. Soon she was her usual sharp-tongued self again, and we bantered back and forth over mugs of spiced cider.
Afterward we strolled back to her rooms behind the butcher shop, where Devi discovered she’d forgotten to lock her door.
“Merciful Tehlu,” she said, once we were inside, looking around frantically. “That’s a first.”
Looking around, I saw that little had changed in her rooms since I’d last seen them, though her second set of bookshelves was almost half full. I looked over the titles as Devi searched the other rooms to make sure nothing was missing.
“Anything you’d like to borrow?” she asked, as she came back into the room.
“Actually,” I said, “I have something for you.”
I set my travelsack on her desk and rooted around until I found a flat rectangular package wrapped in oilskin and tied with twine. I moved my travelsack onto the floor and put the package on the desk, nudging it toward her.
Devi approached the desk wearing a dubious expression, then sat down and unwrapped the parcel. Inside was the copy of Celum Tinture I’d stolen from Caudicus’ library. Not a particularly rare book, but a useful resource for an alchemist exiled from the Archives. Not that I knew anything about alchemy, of course.
Devi looked down at it. “And what’s this for?” she asked.
I laughed. “It’s a present.”
She eyed me narrowly. “If you think this will get you an extension on your loan. . . .”
I shook my head. “I just thought you’d like it,” I said. “As for the loan . . .” I brought out my purse and counted nine thick talents onto her desk.
“Well then,” Devi said, mildly surprised. “It looks like someone had a profitable trip.” She looked up at me. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until after you’ve paid tuition?”
“Already taken care of,” I said.
Devi made no move to take the money. “I wouldn’t want to leave you penniless at the start of the new term,” she said.
I hefted my purse in one hand. It clinked with a delightful fullness that was almost musical.
Devi brought out a key and unlocked a drawer at the bottom of her desk. One by one she brought out my copy of Rhetoric and Logic, my talent pipes, my sympathy lamp, and Denna’s ring.
She piled them neatly on her desk, but still didn’t reach for the coins. “You still have two months before your year and a day is up,” she said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to wait?”
Puzzled, I looked down at the money on the table, then around at Devi’s rooms. Realization came to me like a flower unfurling in my head. “This isn’t about the money at all, is it?” I said, amazed it had taken me this long to figure it out.
Devi cocked her head to the side.
I gestured at the bookshelves, the large velvet-curtained bed, at Devi herself. I’d never noticed before, but while her clothes weren’t fancy, the cut and cloth were fine as any noble’s.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with money,” I repeated. I looked at her books. Her collection had to be worth five hundred talents if it was worth a penny. “You use the money as bait. You lend it out to desperate folks who might be useful to you, then hope they can’t pay you back. Your real business is favors.”
Devi chuckled a bit. “Money is nice,” she said, her eyes glittering. “But the world is full of things that people would never sell. Favors and obligation are worth far, far more.”
I looked down at the nine talents gleaming on her desk. “You don’t have a minimum loan amount, do you?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “You just told me that so I’d be forced to borrow more. You were hoping I’d dig myself a hole too deep and not be able to pay you back.”
Devi smiled brightly. “Welcome to the game,” she said as she began to pick up the coins. “Thanks for playing.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR
Sword and Shaed
With my purse full to bursting and Alveron’s letter of credit assuring my tuition, my winter term was carefree as a walk in the garden.
It was strange not having to live like a miser. I had clothes that fit me and could afford to have them laundered. I could have coffee or chocolate whenever I wanted. I no longer needed to toil endlessly in the Fishery and could spend time tinkering simply to satisfy my curiosity or pursue projects simply for the joy of it.
After almost a year away, it took me a while to settle back into the University. It felt odd not wearing a sword after all this time. But such things were frowned on here, and I knew it would cause more trouble than it was worth.
At first I left Caesura in my rooms. But I knew better than anyone how easy it would be to break in and steal it. The drop bar would only keep away a very genteel thief. A more pragmatic one could simply break my window and be gone in less than a minute. Since the sword was quite literally irreplaceable, and I’d made promises to keep it safe, it wasn’t long before I moved it to a hiding place in the Underthing.
My shaed was easier to keep at hand, as I was able to change its shape with a little work. These days it only rarely billowed on its own. More commonly it refused to move as much as the gusting wind seemed to demand. You’d think people would notice such things, but they didn’t. Even Wilem and Simmon, who teased me about my fondness for it, never marked my cloak as anything more than an exceptionally versatile piece of clothing.
In fact, Elodin was the only one to notice anything out of the ordinary about it. “What’s this?” he exclaimed when we crossed paths in a small courtyard outside Mains. “How did you come to be enshaedn?”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked.
“Your cloak, boy. Your turning cape. How in God’s sweet grace did you tumble onto a shaed?” He mistook my surprise for ignorance. “Don’t you know what you’re wearing?”
“I know what it is,” I said. “I’m just surprised that you do.”
He gave me an insulted look. “I wouldn’t be much of a namer if I couldn’t spot a faerie cloak a dozen feet away.” He took a corner of it between his fingers. “Oh, that’s just lovely. Here’s a piece of old magic man rarely lays a finger on.”
“It’s new magic, actually,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
When it became obvious my explanation involved a long story, Elodin led us into a small, cozy pub I’d never seen before. I hesitate to call it a pub at all, actually. It wasn’t full of chattering students and the smell of beer. It was dim and quiet with a low ceiling and scattered clusters of deep, comfortable chairs. It smelled of leather and old wine.
We sat near a warm radiator and sipped mulled cider while I told him the whole story of my unintentional trip into the Fae. It was a wonderful relief. I hadn’t been able to tell anyone yet for fear of being laughed out of the University.
Elodin proved to be a surprisingly attentive audience and was especially interested in the fight Felurian and I had had when she had tried to bend me to her will. After I’d finished the story, he peppered me with questions. Could I remember what I’d said to call the wind? How had it felt? The strange wakefulness I described, was it more like being drunk, or more like going into shock?
I answered as best I could, and eventually he leaned back in his chair, nodding to himself. “It’s a good sign when a student goes chasing the wind and catches it,” he said approvingly. “That’s twice you’ve called it now. It can only get easier.”
“Three times, actually,” I said. “I found it again when I was off in Ademre.”
He laughed. “You chased it to the edge of the map!” he said, making a broad motion with his splayed left hand. Stunned, I realized it was Adem hand-talk for amazed respect. “How did it feel? Do you think you could find its name again if you had need of it?”
I concentrated, trying to nudge my mind into Spinning Leaf. It had been a month and a thousand miles since I’d tried, and it was hard to tip my mind into that strange, tumbling emptiness.
Eventually I managed it. I looked around the small room, hoping to see the name of the wind like a familiar friend. But there was nothing there except dust motes swirling in a beam of sunlight that slanted through a window.
“Well?” Elodin asked. “Could you call it if you needed to?”
I hesitated. “Maybe.”
Elodin nodded as if he understood. “But probably not if someone were to ask you to?”
I nodded, more than a little disappointed.
“Don’t be discouraged. It will give us something to work toward.” He grinned happily and clapped me on the back. “But I think there’s more to your story than you realize. You called more than the wind. From what you’ve said, I believe you called Felurian’s name itself.”
I thought back. My memories of my time in the Fae were oddly patchy, none more than my confrontation with Felurian, which had an odd, almost dreamlike quality to it. When I tried to remember it in detail, it almost seemed as if it had happened to another person. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“It’s more than possible,” he assured me. “I doubt a creature as old and powerful as Felurian could be subdued with nothing more than wind. Not to belittle your accomplishment,” he hurried to add. “Calling the wind is more than one student in a thousand ever manages. But calling the name of a living thing, let alone one of the Fae . . .” He raised his eyebrows at me. “That’s a horse of a different color.”
“Why would a person’s name be so much different?” I asked, then answered my own question. “The complexity.”
“Exactly,” he said. My understanding seemed to excite him. “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 couldn’t claim to understand Felurian,” I said.
“Some part of you did,” he insisted. “Your sleeping mind. A rare thing indeed. If you’d known how difficult it was, you never would have stood a chance of doing it.”
Since poverty no longer forced me to work endless hours in the Fishery, I was free to study more broadly than ever before. I continued my usual classes in sympathy, medicine, and artificing, then added chemistry, herbology, and comparative female anatomy.
My curiosity had been pricked by my encounter with the Lockless box, and I attempted to learn something about Yllish story knots. But I quickly discovered most books on Yll were historical, not linguistic, and gave no information as to how I might actually read a knot.
So I scoured the Dead Ledgers and discovered a single shelf of disused books concerning Yll in one of the unpleasant, low-ceilinged sections of the lower basements. Then, while looking for a place to sit and read, I discovered a small room tucked behind a piece of jutting shelving.
It wasn’t a reading hole as I suspected. Inside were hundreds of large wooden spools wound about with knotted string. They weren’t books, precisely, but they were the Yllish equivalent. A thin layer of dust covered everything, and I doubted anyone had been in the room for decades.
I have a vast weakness for secret things. But I quickly found that reading the knots was impossible without first understanding Yllish. There were no classes on the subject, and asking around revealed none of Master Linguist’s gillers knew more than a scattering of words.
I wasn’t terribly surprised, considering Yll had been nearly ground to dust under the iron boots of the Aturan Empire. The piece that remained today was populated mostly by sheep. And if you stood in the middle of the country, you could throw a stone across the border. Still, it was a disappointing end to my search.
Then, several days later, Master Linguist summoned me to his office. He’d heard that I’d been making inquiries, and he happened to speak Yllish rather well. He offered to tutor me personally, and I gladly took him up on his offer.
Since I’d come to the University, I’d only seen Master Linguist during admissions interviews and when I was brought up on the horns for disciplinary reasons. Acting as Chancellor, he was rather grim and formal. But when he wasn’t sitting in the Chancellor’s chair, Master Herma was a surprisingly deft and gentle teacher. He was witty with a surprisingly irreverent sense of humor. The first time he told me a dirty joke, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
Elodin wasn’t teaching a class this term, but I began to study naming privately under his direction. It went more smoothly now that I understood there was a method to his madness.
Count Threpe was overjoyed to find me alive and threw a resurrection party where I was proudly displayed to the local nobility. I had a suit of clothes tailored specifically for the event, and in a fit of nostalgia I chose to have them done in the colors my old troupe had worn: the green and grey of Lord Greyfallow’s men.
After the party, over a bottle of wine in his sitting room, I told Threpe of my adventures. I left off the story of Felurian, as I knew he wouldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t tell him half of what I’d done in the Maer’s service. Consequently, Threpe thought Alveron had been quite generous in rewarding me. I didn’t argue the point.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FIVE
Stories
Ambrose had been blessedly absent during the winter term, but when spring arrived he came back to roost like some sort of hateful, migratory bird. By no coincidence, the day after he returned, I skipped all my classes and spent the entire day making myself a new gram.
As soon as the snow melted and the ground grew firm again, I resumed my practice of the Ketan. Remembering how odd it had looked when I’d first seen it, I did this in the privacy of the forest north of the University.
With spring term came a new round of admissions. I showed up for my interview with a profound hangover and fumbled a few questions. My tuition was set at eighteen talents and five, earning me four talents and change from the Bursar.
Sales of the Bloodless had slackened over the winter, as there were fewer merchants visiting the University. But once snows melted and roads grew dry, the handful that had accumulated in the Stocks sold quickly, bringing me another six talents.
I was unused to having so much money at my disposal, and I’ll admit I went a little mad with it. I owned six suits of clothes that fit me and had all the paper I could use. I bought fine, dark ink from Arueh and purchased my own set of engraving tools. I had two pairs of shoes. Two.
I found an ancient, ragged Yllish dictum buried in a bookstore in Imre. Full of drawings of knots, the bookstore owner thought it was a sailor’s journal and I bought it for a mere talent and a half. Not long after I bought a copy of The Heroborica, then added a copy of Termigus Techina I could use as a reference while designing schema in the privacy of my own room.
I bought dinner for my friends. Auri had new dresses and bright ribbons for her hair. All this and still money in my purse. How odd. How wonderful.
Toward the middle of the term I began to hear familiar stories. Stories about a certain red-haired adventurer who had spent the night with Felurian. Stories of a dashing young arcanist with all the powers of Taborlin the Great. It had taken months, but my exploits in Vintas had finally passed their way from mouth to ear all the long miles back to the University.
It may be true that when I finally became aware of these stories I lengthened my shaed a bit and wore it more often than before. It might also be the case that I spent a shameful amount of time in alehouses over the next several span, lurking quietly, listening to stories. I might even have gone so far as to offer a suggestion or two.
I was young, after all, and it was only natural for me to delight in my notoriety. I thought it would fade in time. Why shouldn’t I revel a bit in the sidelong glances my fellow students made? Why not enjoy it while it lasted?
