Kingkiller Chronicle [01] The Name of the Wind

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Kingkiller Chronicle [01] The Name of the Wind Page 79

by Patrick Rothfuss


  Bast’s eyes were now the pale blue-white of lightning, his voice tight and fierce. “And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I’ll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.”

  Bast leaned closer until their faces were mere inches apart, his eyes gone white as opal, white as a full-bellied moon. “You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons.” Bast smiled a terrible smile. “There is only my kind.” Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

  Bast pushed himself away from Chronicler and took several steps back from the bed. Standing at the edge of the candle’s flickering light, he opened his hand and the circle of iron fell to the wooden floor, ringing dully. After a moment, Bast drew a slow, deep breath. He ran his hands through his hair.

  Chronicler remained where he was, pale and sweating.

  Bast bent to pick up the iron ring by its broken cord, knotting it together again with quick fingers. “Listen, there’s no reason we can’t be friends,” he said matter-of-factly as he turned and held the necklace out to Chronicler. His eyes were a human blue again, his smile warm and charming. “There’s no reason we can’t all get what we want. You get your story. He gets to tell it. You get to know the truth. He gets to remember who he really is. Everyone wins, and we all go our separate ways, pleased as peaches.”

  Chronicler reached out to take hold of the cord, his hand trembling slightly. “What do you get?” he asked, his voice a dry whisper. “What do you want out of this?”

  The question seemed to catch Bast unprepared. He stood still and awkward for a moment, all his fluid grace gone. For a moment it looked as if he might burst into tears. “What do I want? I just want my Reshi back.” His voice was quiet and lost. “I want him back the way he was.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Bast scrubbed at his face with both hands and swallowed hard. “I’ve been gone too long,” he said abruptly, walking to the window and opening it. He paused with one leg over the sill and looked back at Chronicler. “Can I bring you anything before you go to sleep? A nightcap? More blankets?”

  Chronicler shook his head numbly and Bast waved as he stepped the rest of the way out the window, closing it gently behind him.

  EPILOGUE

  A Silence of Three Parts

  IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

  The first part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been horses stabled in the barn they would have stamped and champed and broken it to pieces. If there had been a crowd of guests, even a handful of guests bedded down for the night, their restless breathing and mingled snores would have gently thawed the silence like a warm spring wind. 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 man huddled in his deep, sweet-smelling bed. Motionless, waiting for sleep, he lay wide-eyed in the dark. In doing this he added a small, frightened silence to the larger, hollow one. They made an alloy of sorts, a harmony.

  The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the thick stone walls of the empty taproom and in the flat, grey metal of the sword that hung behind the bar. It was in the dim candlelight that filled an upstairs room with dancing shadows. It was in the mad pattern of a crumpled memoir that lay fallen and un-forgotten atop the desk. And it was in the hands of the man who sat there, pointedly ignoring the pages he had written and discarded long ago.

  The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the weary calm 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.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Maps

  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

  CHAP
TER 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

 

 

 


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