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