One by one they crossed, and one by one Tehlu struck them down with the hammer. But after each man or woman fell, Tehlu knelt and spoke to them, giving them new names and healing some of their hurt.
Many of the men and women had demons hiding inside them that fled screaming when the hammer touched them. These people Tehlu spoke with a while longer, but he always embraced them in the end, and they were all grateful. Some of them danced for the joy of being free of such terrible things living inside them.
In the end, seven stayed on the other side of the line. Tehlu asked them three times if they would cross, and three times they refused. After the third asking Tehlu sprang across the line and he struck each of them a great blow, driving them to the ground.
But not all were men. When Tehlu struck the fourth, there was the sound of quenching iron and the smell of burning leather. For the fourth man had not been a man at all, but a demon wearing a man’s skin. When it was revealed, Tehlu grabbed the demon and broke it in his hands, cursing its name and sending it back to the outer darkness that is the home of its kind.
The remaining three let themselves be struck down. None of them were demons, though demons fled the bodies of some who fell. After he was done, Tehlu did not speak to the six who did not cross, nor did he kneel to embrace them and ease their wounds.
The next day, Tehlu set off to finish what he had begun. He walked from town to town, offering each village he met the same choice he had given before. Always the results were the same, some crossed, some stayed, some were not men at all but demons, and those he destroyed.
But there was one demon who eluded Tehlu. Encanis, whose face was all in shadow. Encanis, whose voice was like a knife in the minds of men.
Wherever Tehlu stopped to offer men the choice of path, Encanis had been there just before, killing crops and poisoning wells. Encanis, setting men to murder one another and stealing children from their beds at night.
At the end of seven years, Tehlu’s feet had carried him all through the world. He had driven out the demons that plagued us. All but one. Encanis ran free and did the work of a thousand demons, destroying and despoiling wherever he went.
So Tehlu chased and Encanis fled. Soon Tehlu was a span of days behind the demon, then two days, then half a day. Finally he was so close he felt the chill of Encanis’ passing and could spy places where he had set his hands and feet, for they were marked with a cold, black frost.
Knowing he was pursued, Encanis came to a great city. The Lord of Demons called forth his power and the city was brought to ruin. He did this hoping Tehlu would delay so he could make his escape, but the Walking God paused only to appoint priests who cared for the people of the ruined town.
For six days Encanis fled, and six great cities he destroyed. But on the seventh day, Tehlu drew near before Encanis could bring his power to bear and the seventh city was saved. That is why seven is a lucky number, and why we celebrate on Caenin.
Encanis was now hard pressed and bent his whole thought upon escape. But on the eighth day Tehlu did not pause to sleep or eat. And thus it was that at the end of Felling Tehlu caught Encanis. He leaped on the demon and struck him with his forge hammer. Encanis fell like a stone, but Tehlu’s hammer shattered and lay in the dust of the road.
Tehlu carried the demon’s limp body all through the long night, and on the morning of the ninth day he came to the city of Atur. When men saw Tehlu carrying the demon’s senseless form, they thought Encanis dead. But Tehlu knew that such a thing was not easily done. No simple blade or blow could kill him. No cell of bars could keep him safe within.
So Tehlu carried Encanis to the smithy. He called for iron, and people brought all they owned. Though he had taken no rest nor a morsel of food, all through the ninth day Tehlu labored. While ten men worked the bellows, Tehlu forged the great iron wheel.
All night he worked, and when the first light of the tenth morning touched him, Tehlu struck the wheel one final time and it was finished. Wrought all of black iron, the wheel stood taller than a man. It had six spokes, each thicker than a hammer’s haft, and its rim was a handspan across. It weighed as much as forty men, and was cold to the touch. The sound of its name was terrible, and none could speak it.
Tehlu gathered the people who were watching and chose a priest among them. Then he set them to dig a great pit in the center of the town, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep.
With the sun rising Tehlu laid the body of the demon on the wheel. At the first touch of iron, Encanis began to stir in his sleep. But Tehlu chained him tightly to the wheel, hammering the links together, sealing them tighter than any lock.
Then Tehlu stepped back, and all saw Encanis shift again, as if disturbed by an unpleasant dream. Then he shook and came awake entirely. Encanis strained against the chains, his body arching upward as he pulled against them. Where the iron touched his skin it felt like knives and needles and nails, like the searing pain of frost, like the sting of a hundred biting flies. Encanis thrashed on the wheel and began to howl as the iron burned and bit and froze him.
To Tehlu the sound was like a sweet music. He lay down on the ground beside the wheel and slept a deep sleep, for he was very tired.
When he awoke, it was evening of the tenth day. Encanis was still bound to the wheel, but he no longer howled and fought like a trapped animal. Tehlu bent and with great effort lifted one edge of the wheel and set it leaning against a tree that grew nearby. As soon as he came close, Encanis cursed him in languages no one knew, scratching and biting.
“You brought this on yourself,” Tehlu said.
That night there was a celebration. Tehlu sent men to cut a dozen evergreens and use them to kindle a bonfire in the bottom of the deep pit they had dug.
All night the townsfolk danced and sang around the burning fire. They knew the last and most dangerous of the world’s demons was finally caught.
And all night Encanis hung from his wheel and watched them, motionless as a snake.
When the morning of the eleventh day came, Tehlu went to Encanis a third and final time. The demon looked worn and feral. His skin was sallow and his bones pressed tight against his skin. But his power still lay around him like a dark mantle, hiding his face in shadow.
“Encanis,” Tehlu said. “This is your last chance to speak. Do it, for I know it is within your power.”
“Lord Tehlu, I am not Encanis.” For that brief moment the demon’s voice was pitiful, and all who heard it were moved to sorrow. But then there was a sound like quenching iron, and the wheel rung like an iron bell. Encanis’ body arched painfully at the sound then hung limply from his wrists as the ringing of the wheel faded.
“Try no tricks, dark one. Speak no lies,” Tehlu said sternly, his eyes as dark and hard as the iron of the wheel.
“What then?” Encanis hissed, his voice like the rasp of stone on stone. “What? Rack and shatter you, what do you want of me?”
“Your road is very short, Encanis. But you may still choose a side on which to travel.”
Encanis laughed. “You will give me the same choice you give the cattle? Yes then, I will cross to your side of the path, I regret and rep—”
The wheel rung again, like a great bell tolling long and deep. Encanis threw his body tight against the chains again and the sound of his scream shook the earth and shattered stones for half a mile in each direction.
When the sounds of wheel and scream had faded, Encanis hung panting and shaking from his chains. “I told you to speak no lie, Encanis,” Tehlu said, pitiless.
“My path then!” Encanis shrieked. “I do not regret! If I had my choice again, I would only change how fast I ran. Your people are like cattle my kind feed on! Bite and break you, if you gave me half an hour I would do such things that these wretched gawping peasants would go mad with fear. I would drink their children’s blood and bathe in women’s tears.” He might have said more, but his breath was short as he strained against the chains that held him.
“So,” Tehlu s
aid, and stepped close to the wheel. For a moment it seemed like he would embrace Encanis, but he was merely reaching for the iron spokes of the wheel. Then, straining, Tehlu lifted the wheel above his head. He carried it, arms upstretched, toward the pit, and threw Encanis in.
Through the long hours of night, a dozen evergreens had fed the fire. The flames had died in the early morning, leaving a deep bed of sullen coals that glimmered when the wind brushed them.
The wheel struck flat, with Encanis on top. There was an explosion of spark and ash as it landed and sank inches deep into the hot coals. Encanis was held over the coals by the iron that bound and burned and bit at him.
Though he was held away from the fire itself, the heat was so intense that Encanis’ clothes charred black and began to crumble without bursting into flame. The demon thrashed against his bonds, settling the wheel more firmly into the coals. Encanis screamed, because he knew that even demons can die from fire or iron. And though he was powerful, he was bound and burning. He felt the metal of the wheel grow hot beneath him, blackening the flesh of his arms and legs. Encanis screamed, and even as his skin began to smoke and char, his face was still hidden in a shadow that rose from him like a tongue of darkening flame.
Then Encanis grew silent, and the only sound was the hiss of sweat and blood as they fell from the demon’s straining limbs. For a long moment everything was still. Encanis strained against the chains that held him to the wheel, and it seemed that he would strain until his muscles tore themselves from bone and sinew both.
Then there was a sharp sound like a bell breaking and the demon’s arm jerked free of the wheel. Links of chain, now glowing red from the heat of the fire, flew upward to land smoking at the feet of those who stood above. The only sound was the sudden, wild laughter of Encanis, like breaking glass.
In a moment the demon’s second hand was free, but before he could do more, Tehlu flung himself into the pit and landed with such force that the iron rang with it. Tehlu grabbed the hands of the demon and pressed them back against the wheel.
Encanis screamed in fury and in disbelief, for though he was forced back onto the burning wheel, and though he felt the strength of Tehlu was greater than chains he had broken, he saw Tehlu was burning in the flames.
“Fool!” he wailed. “You will die here with me. Let me go and live. Let me go and I will trouble you no further.” And the wheel did not ring out, for Encanis was truly frightened.
“No,” said Tehlu. “Your punishment is death. You will serve it.”
“Fool! Madling!” Encanis thrashed to no avail. “You are burning in the flames with me, you will die as I do!”
“To ash all things return, so too this flesh will burn. But I am Tehlu. Son of myself. Father of myself. I was before, and I will be after. If I am a sacrifice then it is to myself alone. And if I am needed and called in the proper ways then I will come again to judge and punish.”
So Tehlu held him to the burning wheel, and none of the demon’s threats or screaming moved him the least part of an inch. So it was that Encanis passed from the world, and with him went Tehlu who was Menda. Both of them burned to ash in the pit in Atur. That is why the Tehlin priests wear robes of ashen grey. And that is how we know Tehlu cares for us, and watches us, and keeps us safe from—
Trapis broke off his story as Jaspin began to howl and thrash against his restraints. I slid softly back into unconsciousness as soon as I no longer had the story to hold my attention.
After that, I began to harbor a suspicion that never entirely left me. Was Trapis a Tehlin priest? His robe was tattered and dirty, but it might have been the proper grey long ago. Parts of his story had been awkward and stumbling, but some were stately and grand, as if he had been reciting them from some half-forgotten memory. Of sermons? Of his readings from the Book of the Path?
I never asked. And though I stopped by his basement frequently in the months that followed, I never heard Trapis tell another story again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Shadows Themselves
THROUGH ALL MY TIME in Tarbean, I continued to learn, though most of the lessons were painful and unpleasant.
I learned how to beg. It was a very practical application of acting with a very difficult audience. I did it well, but Waterside money was tight and an empty begging bowl meant a cold, hungry night.
Through dangerous trial and error I discovered the proper way to slit a purse and pick a pocket. I was especially good at the latter. Locks and latches of all kinds soon gave up their secrets to me. My nimble fingers were put to a use my parents or Abenthy never would have guessed.
I learned to run from anyone with an unnaturally white smile. Denner resin slowly bleaches your teeth, so if a sweet-eater lives long enough for their teeth to grow fully white, chances are they have already sold everything they have worth selling. Tarbean is full of dangerous people, but none as dangerous as a sweet-eater filled with the desperate craving for more resin. They will kill you for a pair of pennies.
I learned how to lash together makeshift shoes out of rags. Real shoes became a thing of dreams for me. The first two years it seemed like my feet were always cold, or cut, or both. But by the third year my feet were like old leather and I could run barefoot for hours over the rough stones of the city and not feel it at all.
I learned not to expect help from anyone. In the bad parts of Tarbean a call for help attracts predators like the smell of blood on the wind. I was sleeping on the rooftops, snugged tightly into my secret place where three roofs met. I awoke from a deep sleep to the sound of harsh laughter and pounding feet in the alley below me.
The slapping footsteps stopped and more laughter followed the sound of ripping cloth. Slipping to the edge of the roof, I looked down to the alley below. I saw several large boys, almost men. They were dressed as I was, rags and dirt. There may have been five, maybe six of them. They moved in and out of the shadows like shadows themselves. Their chests heaved from their run and I could hear their breath from the roof above.
The object of the chase was in the middle of the alley: a young boy, eight years old at the most. One of the older boys was holding him down. The young boy’s bare skin shone pale in the moonlight. There was another sound of ripping cloth, and the boy gave a soft cry that ended in a choked sob.
The others watched and talked in low urgent tones with each other, wearing hard, hungry smiles.
I’d been chased before at night, several times. I’d been caught too, months ago. Looking down, I was surprised to find a heavy red roof tile in my hand, ready to throw.
Then I paused, looking back to my secret place. I had a rag blanket and a half a loaf of bread there. My rainy-day money was hidden here, eight iron pennies I had hoarded for when my luck turned bad. And most valuable of all, Ben’s book. I was safe here. Even if I hit one of them, the rest would be on the roof in two minutes. Then, even if I got away, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go.
I set down the tile. I went back to what had become my home, and curled myself into the shelter of the niche underneath the overhanging roof. I twisted my blanket in my hands and clenched my teeth, trying to shut out the low rumble of conversation punctuated by coarse laughter and quiet, hopeless sobbing from below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Interlude—Eager for Reasons
KVOTHE GESTURED FOR CHRONICLER to set down his pen and stretched, lacing his fingers together above his head. “It’s been a long time since I remembered that,” he said. “If you are eager to find the reason I became the Kvothe they tell stories about, you could look there, I suppose.”
Chronicler’s forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean, exactly?”
Kvothe paused for a long moment, looking down at his hands. “Do you know how many times I’ve been beaten over the course of my life?”
Chronicler shook his head.
Looking up, Kvothe grinned and tossed his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “Neither do I. You’d think that sort of thing would stick in a person’s min
d. You’d think I would remember how many bones I’ve had broken. You’d think I’d remember the stitches and bandages.” He shook his head. “I don’t. I remember that young boy sobbing in the dark. Clear as a bell after all these years.”
Chronicler frowned. “You said yourself that there was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have,” Kvothe said seriously, “and I didn’t. I made my choice and I regret it to this day. Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”
Kvothe pushed himself away from the table. “That’s enough of Tarbean’s darker side, I imagine.” He came to his feet and gave a great stretch, arms over his head.
“Why, Reshi?” The words poured out of Bast in a sudden gush. “Why did you stay there when it was so awful?”
Kvothe nodded to himself, as if he had been expecting the question. “Where else was there for me to go, Bast? Everyone I knew was dead.”
“Not everyone,” Bast insisted. “There was Abenthy. You could have gone to him.”
“Hallowfell was hundreds of miles away, Bast,” Kvothe said wearily as he wandered to the other side of the room and moved behind the bar. “Hundreds of miles without my father’s maps to guide me. Hundreds of miles without wagons to ride or sleep in. Without help of any sort, or money, or shoes. Not an impossible journey, I suppose. But for a young child, still numb with the shock of losing his parents….”
Kvothe shook his head. “No. In Tarbean at least I could beg or steal. I’d managed to survive in the forest for a summer, barely. But over the winter?” He shook his head. “I would have starved or frozen to death.”
Standing at the bar, Kvothe filled his mug and began to add pinches of spice from several small containers, then walked toward the great stone fireplace, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You’re right, of course. Anywhere would have been better than Tarbean.”
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