Kingkiller Chronicle [01] The Name of the Wind
Page 1
THE NAME OF THE WIND
THE NAME OF THE WIND
THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE DAY ONE
PATRICK ROTHFUSS
DAW BOOKS, INC.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM
SHEILA E. GILBERT
PUBLISHERS
http://www.dawbooks.com
Copyright © 2007 by Patrick Rothfuss
All rights reserved.
Jacket art by Donato.
DAW Books Collectors No. 1396.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Maps by Nathan Taylor www.king-sheep.com
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
ISBN: 1-101-14716-4
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
To my mother, who taught me to love books and opened the door to Narnia, Pern, and Middle Earth.
And to my father, who taught me that if I was going to do something, I should take my time and do it right.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
A Silence of Three Parts
CHAPTER ONE
A Place for Demons
CHAPTER TWO
A Beautiful Day
CHAPTER THREE
Wood and Word
CHAPTER FOUR
Halfway to Newarre
CHAPTER FIVE
Notes
CHAPTER SIX
The Price of Remembering
CHAPTER SEVEN
Of Beginnings and the Names of Things
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thieves, Heretics, and Whores
CHAPTER NINE
Riding in the Wagon with Ben
CHAPTER TEN
Alar and Several Stones
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Binding of Iron
CHAPTER TWELVE
Puzzle Pieces Fitting
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Interlude—Flesh with Blood Beneath
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Name of the Wind
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Distractions and Farewells
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hope
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Interlude—Autumn
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Roads to Safe Places
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Fingers and Strings
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bloody Hands Into Stinging Fists
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Basement, Bread and Bucket
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A Time for Demons
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Burning Wheel
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Shadows Themselves
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Interlude—Eager for Reasons
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lanre Turned
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
His Eyes Unveiled
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tehlu’s Watchful Eye
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Doors of My Mind
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Broken Binding
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Nature of Nobility
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Coppers, Cobblers and Crowds
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A Sea of Stars
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Yet to Learn
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A Parting of Ways
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Less Talents
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bright-Eyed
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sympathy in the Mains
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Enough Rope
CHAPTER FORTY
On the Horns
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Friend’s Blood
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Bloodless
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Flickering Way
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The Burning Glass
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Interlude—Some Tavern Tale
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Ever-Changing Wind
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Barbs
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Interlude—A Silence of a Different Kind
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The Nature of Wild Things
CHAPTER FIFTY
Negotiations
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Tar and Tin
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Burning
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Slow Circles
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
A Place to Burn
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Flame and Thunder
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Patrons, Maids and Metheglin
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Interlude—The Parts that Form Us
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Names for Beginning
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
All This Knowing
CHAPTER SIXTY
Fortune
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Jackass, Jackass
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Leaves
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Walking and Talking
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Nine in the Fire
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Spark
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Volatile
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
A Matter of Hands
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
The Ever-Changing Wind
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Wind or Women’s Fancy
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Signs
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Strange Attraction
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Borrorill
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Pegs
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Waystone
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Interlude—Obedience
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Bluffs
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Poison
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Sweet Talk
CHAPTER EIGHTY
Touching Iron
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Pride
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Ash and Elm…
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Return
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
A Sudden Storm
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
Hands Against Me
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
The Fire Itself
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Winter
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
Interlude—Looking
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
A Pleasant Afternoon
CHAPTER NINETY
Half-Built Houses
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
Worthy of Pursuit
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
The Music that Plays
EPILOGUE
A Silence of Three Parts
Acknowledgments
To…
…all the readers of my early drafts. You are legion, too many to name, but not too many to love. I kept writing because of your encouragement. I kept improving because of your criticism. If not for you, I would not have won…
…the Writers of the Future contest. If not for their workshop, I would never have met my wonderful anthology-mates from volume 18 or…
…Kevin J. Anderson. If not for his advice, I would never have ended up with…
…Matt Bialer, the best of agents. If not for his guidance, I would never have sold the book to…
…Betsy Wolheim, beloved editor and president of DAW. If not for her, you would not be holding this book. A similar book, perhaps, but this book would not exist.
And, lastly, to Mr. Bohage, my high school history teacher. In 1989 I told him I’d mention him in my first novel. I keep my promises.
PROLOGUE
A Silence of Three Parts
IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.
The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.
Inside the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of troubling news. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint.
The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already gleamed in the lamplight.
The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing many things.
The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.
CHAPTER ONE
A Place for Demons
IT WAS FELLING NIGHT, and the usual crowd had gathered at the Waystone Inn. Five wasn’t much of a crowd, but five was as many as the Waystone ever saw these days, times being what they were.
Old Cob was filling his role as storyteller and advice dispensary. The men at the bar sipped their drinks and listened. In the back room a young innkeeper stood out of sight behind the door, smiling as he listened to the details of a familiar story.
“When he awoke, Taborlin the Great found himself locked in a high tower. They had taken his sword and stripped him of his tools: key, coin, and candle were all gone. But that weren’t even the worst of it, you see…” Cob paused for effect, “…cause the lamps on the wall were burning blue!”
Graham, Jake, and Shep nodded to themselves. The three friends had grown up together, listening to Cob’s stories and ignoring his advice.
Cob peered closely at the newer, more attentive member of his small audience, the smith’s prentice. “Do you know what that meant, boy?” Everyone called the smith’s prentice “boy” despite the fact that he was a hand taller than anyone there. Small towns being what they are, he would most likely remain “boy” until his beard filled out or he bloodied someone’s nose over the matter.
The boy gave a slow nod. “The Chandrian.”
“That’s right,” Cob said approvingly. “The Chandrian. Everyone knows that blue fire is one of their signs. Now he was—”
“But how’d they find him?” the boy interrupted. “And why din’t they kill him when they had the chance?”
“Hush now, you’ll get all the answers before the end,” Jake said. “Just let him tell it.”
“No need for all that, Jake,” Graham said. “Boy’s just curious. Drink your drink.”
“I drank me drink already,” Jake grumbled. “I need t’nother but the innkeep’s still skinning rats in the back room.” He raised his voice and knocked his empty mug hollowly on the top of the mahogany bar. “Hoy! We’re thirsty men in here!”
The innkeeper appeared with five bowls of stew and two warm, round loaves of bread. He pulled more beer for Jake, Shep, and Old Cob, moving with an air of bustling efficiency.
The story was set aside while the men tended to their dinners. Old Cob tucked away his bowl of stew with the predatory efficiency of a lifetime bachelor. The others were still blowing steam off their bowls when he finished the last of his loaf and returned to his story.
“Now Taborlin needed to escape, but when he looked around, he saw his cell had no door. No windows. All around him was nothing but smooth, hard stone. It was a cell no man had ever escaped.
“But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command. He said to the stone: ‘Break!’ and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air. He stepped to the edge, looked down, and without a second thought he stepped out into the open air….”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “He didn’t!”
Cob nodded seriously. “So Taborlin fell, but he did not despair. For he knew the name of the wind, and so the wind obeyed him. He spoke to the wind and it cradled and caressed him. It bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet softly as a mother’s kiss.
“And when he got to the ground and felt his side where they’d stabbed him, he saw that it weren’t hardly a scratch. Now maybe it was just a piece of luck,” Cob tapped the side of his nose knowingly. “Or maybe it had something to do with the amulet he was wearing under his shirt.”
“What amulet?” the boy asked eagerly through a mouthful of stew.
Old Cob leaned back on his stool, glad for the chance to elaborate. “A few days earlier, Taborlin had met a tinker on the road. And even though Taborlin didn’t have much to eat, he shared his dinner with the old man.”
“Right sensible thing to do,” Graham said quietly to the boy. “Everyone knows: ‘A tinker pays for kindness twice.’”
“No no,” Jake grumbled. “Get it right: ‘A tinker’s advice pays kindness twice.’”
The innkeeper spoke up for the first time that night. “Actually, you’re missing more than half,” he said, standing in the doorway behind the bar.
“A tinker’s debt is always paid:
Once for any simple trade.
Twice for freely-given aid.
Thrice for any insult made.”
The men at the bar seemed almost surprised to see Kote standing there. They’d been coming to the Waystone every Felling night for months and Kote had never interjected anything of his own before. Not that you could expect anything else, really. He’d only been in town for a year or so. He was still a stranger. The smith’s prentice had lived here since he was eleven, and he was still referred to as “that Rannish boy,” as if Rannish were some foreign country and not a town less than thirty miles away.
“Just something I heard once,” Kote said to fill th
e silence, obviously embarrassed.
Old Cob nodded before he cleared his throat and launched back into the story. “Now this amulet was worth a whole bucket of gold nobles, but on account of Taborlin’s kindness, the tinker sold it to him for nothing but an iron penny, a copper penny, and a silver penny. It was black as a winter night and cold as ice to touch, but so long as it was round his neck, Taborlin would be safe from the harm of evil things. Demons and such.”
“I’d give a good piece for such a thing these days,” Shep said darkly. He had drunk most and talked least over the course of the evening. Everyone knew that something bad had happened out on his farm last Cendling night, but since they were good friends they knew better than to press him for the details. At least not this early in the evening, not as sober as they were.
“Aye, who wouldn’t?” Old Cob said judiciously, taking a long drink.
“I din’t know the Chandrian were demons,” the boy said. “I’d heard—”
“They ain’t demons,” Jake said firmly. “They were the first six people to refuse Tehlu’s choice of the path, and he cursed them to wander the corners—”
“Are you telling this story, Jacob Walker?” Cob said sharply. “Cause if you are, I’ll just let you get on with it.”
The two men glared at each other for a long moment. Eventually Jake looked away, muttering something that could, conceivably, have been an apology.
Cob turned back to the boy. “That’s the mystery of the Chandrian,” he explained. “Where do they come from? Where do they go after they’ve done their bloody deeds? Are they men who sold their souls? Demons? Spirits? No one knows.” Cob shot Jake a profoundly disdainful look. “Though every half-wit claims he knows….”
The story fell further into bickering at this point, about the nature of the Chandrian, the signs that showed their presence to the wary, and whether the amulet would protect Taborlin from bandits, or mad dogs, or falling off a horse. Things were getting heated when the front door banged open.
Jake looked over. “It’s about time you got in, Carter. Tell this damn fool the difference between a demon and a dog. Everybody kn—” Jake stopped midsentence and rushed to the door. “God’s body, what happened to you?”
Carter stepped into the light, his face pale and smeared with blood. He clutched an old saddle blanket to his chest. It was an odd, awkward shape, as if it were wrapped around a tangle of kindling sticks.