Amyr name of the wind

PATRICK ROTHFUSS

US.A. $24.95 CAN. $31.00

THE NAME OF THE W I N D

The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One

PATRICK ROTHFUSS My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "quothe." Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. IVe had more names than anyone has a right to.

The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it's spoken, can mean The Flame, The Thunder, or The Broken Tree.

"The Flame" is obvious if you've ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple of hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it's unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.

"The Thunder" I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.

I've never thought of "The Broken Tree" as very significant. Although in retrospect, I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.

My first mentor called me E'lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six'String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant "to know."

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

(continued on back flap)

(continued from front flap) I have stolen princesses back from sleeping

barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins the tale of Kvothe—from his child' hood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe as a notorious magician, an accom* plished thief, a masterful musician, and an infamous assassin. But THE NAME OF THE WIND is so much more—for the story it tells reveals the truth behind Kvothe's legend.

Patrick Rothfuss currently lives in central Wisconsin where he teaches at the local university. In his free time Pat writes a satirical humor column, practices civil disobedience, and dabbles in alchemy. He loves words, laughs often, and refuses to dance. THE NAME OF THE WIND is his first novel. There will be more.

www.nameofthewind.com

Jacket painting by Donato Jacket designed by G-Force Design Photo by Jamie Rothfuss

http://www.nameofthewind.com
Advance quotes for THE NAME OF THE W f l » :

"THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous."

—Terry Brooks, 22-time New York Times bestselling author

"THE NAME OF THE WIND has everything fantasy readers like, magic and mysteries and ancient evil, but it's also humorous and terrifying and completely believable. As with all the very best books in our field, it's not the fantasy trappings (wonderful as they are) that make this novel so good, but what the author has to say about true, common things, about ambition and failure, art, love, and loss." —Tad Williams

New York Times bestselling author of Shadowmarch, Otherland, and Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

"Hail Patrick Rothfuss! A new giant is striding the land. THE NAME OF THE WIND is an astonishing novel that just happens to be the writer's first. The bestsellers' lists and the award ballots are beckoning toward Rothfuss, and readers will be clamoring for more of the riveting life story of Kvothe. Bravo, I say! Bravo!" —Robert J. Sawyer,

Hugo Award-winning author of Rollback

"Patrick Rothfuss gives us a fabulous debut, standing firmly on the main stage of the fantasy genre and needing no warm-up act. Jordan and Goodkind must be looking nervously over their shoulders!"

—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Hunters of Dune

"THE NAME OF THE WIND is a rare find these days, fit for lovers of fantasy and newcomers to the genre alike. It fires the imagination and stirs the heart. In Pat Rothfuss's sure hands, the reader will experience a journey to the very heights of fantasy. I for one never wanted to come back down."

—Sean Williams, New York Times bestselling author of The Blood Debt

ISBN 13: 978-0-7564-0407-9

52495>

9"780756"404079

THE NAME OF THE WIND

THE N A M E OF THE W I N D

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

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. Book designed by Elizabeth Glover.

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.

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 sup- port of the author's rights is appreciated.

w First Hardcover Printing, April 2007.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES —MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

http://www.king-sheep.com
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.

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.

Ê â

v>Vie four Corners of CiviUiArtoti

•- •

C E Â L D T

' Ralien

"™"l'|^Ly|(JjMiu^^r p~*'

Hallowfcll

COMMONWEALTH The University ** i m r c

The Cenîhe Sea

PROLOGUE

A Silence of Three Parts

IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a si-lence 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 hand- ful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversa- tion 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 si- lence 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 ma- hogany 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 appropri- ate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside it- self. 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 Way-stone Inn. Five wasn't much of a crowd, but five was as many as the Way- stone 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 audi- ence, 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."

4 Patrick Rothfuss

"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 fin- ished 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 with- out 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 some- thing 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 Name of the Wind 5

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 for-

eign country and not a town less than thirty miles away.

"Just something I heard once," Kote said to fill the silence, obviously em-

barrassed.

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.

6 Patrick Rothfuss

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.

His friends jumped off their stools and hurried over at the sight of him. "I'm fine," he said as he made his slow way into the common room. His eyes were wild around the edges, like a skittish horse. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

He dropped the bundled blanket onto the nearest table where it knocked hard against the wood, as if it were full of stones. His clothes were criss- crossed with long, straight cuts. His grey shirt hung in loose tatters except where it was stuck to his body, stained a dark, sullen red.

Graham tried to ease him into a chair. "Mother of God. Sit down, Carter. What happened to you? Sit down."

Carter shook his head stubbornly. "I told you, I'm fine. I'm not hurt that bad."

"How many were there?" Graham said. "One," Carter said. "But it's not what you think—"

"Goddammit. I told you, Carter," Old Cob burst out with the sort of frightened anger only relatives and close friends can muster. "I told you for months now. You can't go out alone. Not even as far as Baedn. It ain't safe." Jake laid a hand on the old man's arm, quieting him.

"Just take a sit," Graham said, still trying to steer Carter into a chair. "Let's get that shirt off you and get you cleaned up."

Carter shook his head. "I'm fine. I got cut up a little, but the blood is mostly Nelly's. It jumped on her. Killed her about two miles outside town, past the Oldstone Bridge."

A moment of serious silence followed the news. The smith's prentice laid

The Name of the Wind 7

a sympathetic hand on Carter's shoulder. "Damn. That's hard. She was gen- tle as a lamb, too. Never tried to bite or kick when you brought her in for shoes. Best horse in town. Damn. I'm . . ." He trailed off. "Damn. I don't know what to say." He looked around helplessly.

Cob finally managed to free himself from Jake. "I told you," he repeated, shaking a finger in Carter's direction. "There's folks out lately that would kill you for a pair of pennies, let alone a horse and cart. What are you going to do now? Pull it yourself?"

There was a moment of uncomfortable quiet. Jake and Cob glared at each other while the rest seemed at a loss for words, unsure of how to comfort their friend.

The innkeeper moved carefully through the silence. Arms full, he stepped nimbly around Shep and began to arrange some items on a nearby table: a bowl of hot water, shears, some clean linen, a few glass bottles, needle and gut.

"This never would have happened if he'd listened to me in the first place," Old Cob muttered. Jake tried to quiet him, but Cob brushed him aside. "I'm just tellin' the truth. It's a damn shame about Nelly, but he better listen now or he'll end up dead. You don't get lucky twice with those sort of men."

Carter's mouth made a thin line. He reached out and pulled the edge of the bloody blanket. Whatever was inside flipped over once and snagged on the cloth. Carter tugged harder and there was a clatter like a bag of flat river stones upended onto the tabletop.

It was a spider as large as a 'wagon wheel, black as slate. The smith's prentice jumped backward and hit a table, knocking it over

and almost falling to the ground himself. Cob's face went slack. Graham, Shep, and Jake made wordless, startled sounds and moved away, raising their hands to their faces. Carter took a step backward that was almost like a nerv- ous twitch. Silence filled the room like a cold sweat.

The innkeeper frowned. "They can't have made it this far west yet," he said softly.

If not for the silence, it is unlikely anyone would have heard him. But they did. Their eyes pulled away from the thing on the table to stare mutely at the red-haired man.

Jake found his voice first. "You know what this is?" The innkeeper's eyes were distant. "Scrael," he said distractedly. "I'd

thought the mountains—" "Scrael?" Jake broke in. "Blackened body of God, Kote. You've seen these

things before?"

8 Patrick Rothfuss

"What?" The red-haired innkeeper looked up sharply, as if suddenly re- membering where he was. "Oh. No. No, of course not." Seeing that he was the only one within arm's length of the dark thing, he took a measured step away. "Just something I heard." They stared at him. "Do you remember the trader that came through about two span ago?"

They all nodded. "Bastard tried to charge me ten pennies for a half-pound of salt," Cob said reflexively, repeating the complaint for perhaps the hun- dredth time.

"Wish I'd bought some," Jake mumbled. Graham nodded a silent agreement.

"He was a filthy shim," Cob spat, seeming to find comfort in the familiar words. "I might pay two in a tight time, but ten is robbery."

"Not if there are more of those on the road," Shep said darkly.

All eyes went back to the thing on the table. "He told me he'd heard of them over near Melcombe," Kote said quickly,

watching everyone's faces as they studied the thing on the table. "I thought he was just trying to drive up his prices."

"What else did he say?" Carter asked. The innkeeper looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "I didn't

get the whole story. He was only in town for a couple hours."

"I don't like spiders," the smith's prentice said. He remained on the other side of a table some fifteen feet away. "Cover it up."

"It's not a spider," Jake said. "It's got no eyes." "It's got no mouth either," Carter pointed out. "How does it eat?" " What does it eat?" Shep said darkly. The innkeeper continued to eye the thing curiously. He leaned closer,

stretching out a hand. Everyone edged even farther away from the table. "Careful," Carter said. "Its feet are sharp like knives." "More like razors," Kote said. His long fingers brushed the scrael's black,

featureless body. "It's smooth and hard, like pottery." "Don't go messing with it," the smith's prentice said. Moving carefully, the innkeeper took one of the long, smooth legs and

tried to break it with both hands like a stick. "Not pottery," he amended. He set it against the edge of the table and leaned his weight against it. It broke with a sharp crack. "More like stone." He looked up at Carter. "How did it get all these cracks?" He pointed at the thin fractures that crazed the smooth black surface of the body.

"Nelly fell on it," Carter said. "It jumped out of a tree and started to climb

The Name of the Wind 9

all over her, cutting her up with its feet. It moved so fast. I didn't even know what was going on." Carter finally sank into the chair at Graham's urging. "She got tangled in her harness and fell on it, broke some of its legs. Then it came after me, got on me, crawling all over." He crossed his arms in front of his bloody chest and shuddered. "I managed to get it off me and stomped it hard as I could. Then it got on me again. . . . " He trailed off, his face ashen.

The innkeeper nodded to himself as he continued to prod the thing. "There's no blood. No organs. It's just grey inside." He poked it with a fin- ger. "Like a mushroom."

"Great Tehlu, just leave it alone," the smith's prentice begged. "Sometimes spiders twitch after you kill them."

"Listen to yourselves," Cob said scathingly. "Spiders don't get big as pigs. You know what this is." He looked around, making eye contact with each of them. "It's a demon."

They looked at the broken thing. "Oh, come on now," Jake said, dis- agreeing mostly out of habit. "It's not like . . . " He made an inarticulate ges- ture. "It can't just . . ."

Everyone knew what he was thinking. Certainly there were demons in the world. But they were like Tehlu's angels. They were like heroes and kings. They belonged in stories. They belonged out there. Taborlin the Great called up fire and lightning to destroy demons. Tehlu broke them in his hands and sent them howling into the nameless void. Your childhood friend didn't stomp one to death on the road to Baedn-Bryt. It was ridiculous.

Kote ran his hand through his red hair, then broke the silence. "There's one way to tell for sure," he said, reaching into his pocket. "Iron or fire." He brought out a bulging leather purse.

"And the name of God," Graham pointed out. "Demons fear three things: cold iron, clean fire, and the holy name of God."

The innkeeper's mouth pressed itself into a straight line that was not quite a frown. "Of course," he said as he emptied his purse onto the table then fin- gered through the jumbled coins: heavy silver talents and thin silver bits, cop- per jots, broken ha'pennies, and iron drabs. "Does anyone have a shim?"

"Just use a drab," Jake said. "That's good iron." "I don't want good iron," the innkeeper said. "A drab has too much car-

bon in it. It's almost steel."

"He's right," the smith's prentice said. "Except it's not carbon. You use coke to make steel. Coke and lime."

The innkeeper nodded deferentially to the boy. "You'd know best, young

1O Patrick Rothfuss

master. It's your business after all." His long fingers finally found a shim in the pile of coins. He held it up. "Here we are."

"What will it do?" Jake asked. "Iron kills demons," Cob's voice was uncertain, "but this one's already

dead. It might not do anything."

"One way to find out." The innkeeper met each of their eyes briefly, as if measuring them. Then he turned purposefully back to the table, and they edged farther away

Kote pressed the iron shim to the black side of the creature, and there was a short, sharp crackling sound, like a pine log snapping in a hot fire. Every- one startled, then relaxed when the black thing remained motionless. Cob and the others exchanged shaky smiles, like boys spooked by a ghost story. Their smiles went sour as the room filled with the sweet, acrid smell of rot- ting flowers and burning hair.

The innkeeper pressed the shim onto the table with a sharp click. "Well," he said, brushing his hands against his apron. "I guess that settles that. What do we do now?"

Hours later, the innkeeper stood in the doorway of the Waystone and let his eyes relax to the darkness. Footprints of lamplight from the inn's windows fell across the dirt road and the doors of the smithy across the way. It was not a large road, or well traveled. It didn't seem to lead anywhere, as some roads do. The innkeeper drew a deep breath of autumn air and looked around rest- lessly, as if waiting for something to happen.

He called himself Kote. He had chosen the name carefully when he came to this place. He had taken a new name for most of the usual reasons, and for a few unusual ones as well, not the least of which was the fact that names were important to him.

Looking up, he saw a thousand stars glittering in the deep velvet of a night with no moon. He knew them all, their stories and their names. He knew them in a familiar way, the way he knew his own hands.

Looking down, Kote sighed without knowing it and went back inside. He locked the door and shuttered the wide windows of the inn, as if to distance himself from the stars and all their varied names.

He swept the floor methodically, catching all the corners. He washed the tables and the bar, moving with a patient efficiency. At the end of an hour's

The Name of the Wind II

work, the water in his bucket was still clean enough for a lady to wash her hands in.

Finally, he pulled a stool behind the bar and began to polish the vast array of bottles nestled between the two huge barrels. He wasn't nearly as crisp and efficient about this chore as he had been with the others, and it soon became obvious the polishing was only an excuse to touch and hold. He even hummed a little, although he did not realize it, and would have stopped him- self if he had known.

As he turned the bottles in his long, graceful hands the familiar motion eased a few tired lines from his face, making him seem younger, certainly not yet thirty. Not even near thirty. Young for an innkeeper. Young for a man with so many tired lines remaining on his face.

Kote came to the top of the stairs and opened the door. His room was aus- tere, almost monkish. There was a black stone fireplace in the center of the room, a pair of chairs, and a small desk. The only other furniture was a nar- row bed with a large, dark chest at its foot. Nothing decorated the walls or covered the wooden floor.

There were footsteps in the hall, and a young man stepped into the room carrying a bowl of stew that steamed and smelled of pepper. He was dark and charming, with a quick smile and cunning eyes. "You haven't been this late in weeks," he said as he handed over the bowl. "There must have been good stories tonight, Reshi."

Reshi was another of the innkeeper's names, a nickname almost. The sound of it tugged one corner of his mouth into a wry smile as he sank into the deep chair in front of the fire. "So, -what did you learn today, Bast?"

"Today, master, I learned why great lovers have better eyesight than great scholars."

"And why is that, Bast?" Kote asked, amusement touching the edges of his voice.

Bast closed the door and returned to sit in the second chair, turning it to face his teacher and the fire. He moved with a strange delicacy and grace, as if he were close to dancing. "Well Reshi, all the rich books are found inside where the light is bad. But lovely girls tend to be out in the sunshine and therefore much easier to study without risk of injuring one's eyes."

Kote nodded. "But an exceptionally clever student could take a book out-

12 Patrick Rothfuss

side, thus bettering himself without fear of lessening his much-loved faculty of sight."

"I thought the same thing, Reshi. Being, of course, an exceptionally clever student."

"Of course." "But when I found a place in the sun where I could read, a beautiful girl

came along and kept me from doing anything of the sort," Bast finished with a flourish.

Kote sighed. "Am I correct in assuming you didn't manage to read any of Celum Tinture today?"

Bast managed to look somewhat ashamed. Looking into the fire, Kote tried to assume a stern face and failed. "Ah

Bast, I hope she was lovely as a warm wind in the shade. I'm a bad teacher to say it, but I'm glad. I don't feel up to a long bout of lessons right now." There was a moment of silence. "Carter was attacked by a scraeling tonight."

Bast's easy smile fell away like a cracked mask, leaving his face stricken and pale. "The scrael?" He came halfway to his feet as if he would bolt from the room, then gave an embarrassed frown and forced himself back down into his chair. "How do you know? Who found his body?"

"He's still alive, Bast. He brought it back. There was only one." "There's no such thing as one scraeling," Bast said flatly. "You know that." "I know," Kote said. "The fact remains there was only one." "And he killed it?" Bast said. "It couldn't have been a scraeling. Maybe—" "Bast, it was one of the scrael. I saw it." Kote gave him a serious look. "He

was lucky, that's all. Even so he was badly hurt. Forty-eight stitches. I used up nearly all my gut." Kote picked up his bowl of stew. "If anyone asks, tell them my grandfather was a caravan guard who taught me how to clean and stitch a wound. They were too shocked to ask about it tonight, but tomorrow some of them might get curious. I don't want that." He blew into his bowl, raising a cloud of steam around his face.

"What did you do with the body?"

" / didn't do anything with it," Kote said pointedly. "J am just an innkeeper. This sort of thing is quite beyond me."

"Reshi, you can't just let them muddle through this on their own." Kote sighed. "They took it to the priest. He did all the right things for all

the wrong reasons."

Bast opened his mouth, but Kote continued before he could say anything. "Yes, I made sure the pit was deep enough. Yes, I made sure there was rowan

The Name of the Wind 13

wood in the fire. Yes, I made sure it burned long and hot before they buried it. And yes, I made sure that no one kept a piece of it as a souvenir." He scowled, his eyebrows drawing together. "I'm not an idiot, you know."