I had only the vaguest of ideas as to what any of the machines might have done. I had no guess at all as to why they had lain here for uncounted centuries, deep underground. There didn’t seem—
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
Interlude—Looking
The sound of heavy boots on the wooden landing startled the men sitting in the Waystone Inn. Kvothe bolted to his feet midsentence and was halfway to the bar before the front door opened and the first of the Felling night crowd made their way inside.
“You’ve got hungry men here, Kote!” Cob called out as he opened the door. Shep, Jake, and Graham followed him inside.
“We might have a little something in the back,” Kote said. “I could run and fetch it straightaway, unless you’d like drinks first.” There was a chorus of friendly assent as the men settled onto their stools at the bar. The exchange had a well-worn feel, comfortable as old shoes.
Chronicler stared at the red-haired man behind the bar. There was nothing left of Kvothe in him. It was just an innkeeper: friendly, servile, and so unassuming as to almost be invisible.
Jake took a long drink before noticing Chronicler sitting at the far end of the room. “Well, look at you, Kote! A new customer. Hell, we’re lucky to have got any seats at all.”
Shep chuckled. Cob swiveled his stool around and peered at where Chronicler sat next to Bast, pen still poised over his paper. “Is he a scribe or sommat?”
“He is,” Kote said quickly. “Came into town late last night.”
Cob squinted toward them. “What’s he writing?”
Kote lowered his voice a bit, drawing the attention of the customers away from the guest and back to his side of the bar. “Remember that trip Bast made to Baedn?” They nodded attentively. “Well, turns out he had a scare with the pox, and he’s been feeling his years a bit since then. He thought he’d best get his will writ down while he had the chance.”
“Sense enough in that, these days,” Shep said darkly. He drank off the last of his beer and knocked the empty mug down. “I’ll do another of those.”
“Whatsoever monies I have saved at the time of my death shall go to the Widow Sage,” Bast said loudly across the room. “To help in raising and dowering her three daughters, as they are soon to be of marriaging age.” He gave Chronicler a troubled look. “Is ‘marriaging’ a word?”
“Little Katie certainly has grown up a bit this last year, hasn’t she?” Graham mused. The others nodded in agreement.
“To my employer, I leave my best pair of boots,” Bast continued magnanimously. “And whatsoever of my pants he finds fit him.”
“Boy does have a fine pair of boots,” Cob said to Kote. “Always thought so.”
“I leave it to Pater Leoden to distribute the remainder of my worldly goods among the parish, as, being an immoral soul, I will have no further need of them.”
“You mean, immortal, don’t you?” Chronicler asked uncertainly.
Bast shrugged. “That’s all I can think of for now.” Chronicler nodded and quickly shuffled the paper, pens, and ink into his flat leather satchel.
“Come on over then,” Cob called to him. “Don’t be a stranger.” Chronicler froze, then made his way slowly toward the bar. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Devan,” he said, then looked stricken and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Carverson. Devan Carverson.”
Cob made introductions all around, then turned back to the newcomer. “Which way you from, Devan?” Cob asked.
“Off past Abbott’s Ford.”
“Any news from that way?”
Chronicler shifted uncomfortably in his seat while Kote eyed him darkly from the other side of the bar. “Well … the roads are rather bad… .”
This sparked a chorus of familiar complaints, and Chronicler relaxed. While they were still grousing, the door opened and the smith’s prentice came in, boyish and broad-shouldered with the smell of coalsmoke in his hair. A long rod of iron rested on his shoulder as he held the door open for Carter.
“You look a fool, boy,” Carter groused as he made his way slowly through the door, walking with the stiff care of the recently injured. “You keep hauling that around, and folk’ll start talking about you like they do Crazy Martin. You’ll be that crazy boy from Rannish. You want to listen to that for the next fifty years?”
The smith’s prentice shifted his grip on the iron bar selfconsciously. “Let ’em talk,” he mumbled with a hint of defiance. “Since I went out and took care of Nelly I’ve been having dreams about that spider thing.” He shook his head. “Hell, I’d think you’d be carrying one in each hand. That thing could’ve killed you.”
Carter ignored him, his expression stiff as he walked gingerly toward the bar.
“Good to see you up and about, Carter,” Shep called out, raising his mug. “I thought we might not see you out of bed for another day or two.”
“Take more than a few stitches to keep me down,” Carter said.
Bast made a show of offering up his stool to the injured man, then quietly took a seat as far from the smith’s prentice as possible. There was a warm murmur of welcome from everyone.
The innkeeper ducked into the back room and emerged a few minutes later carrying a tray loaded with hot bread and steaming bowls of stew.
Everyone was listening to Chronicler. “… if I remember right, Kvothe was off in Severen when it happened. He was walking home—”
“It weren’t Severen,” Old Cob said. “It was off by the University.”
“Could have been,” Chronicler conceded. “Anyway, he was walking home late at night and some bandits jumped him in an alleyway.”
“It was broad daylight,” Cob said testily. “In the middle of town. All manner of folk were around to see it.”
Chronicler shook his head stubbornly. “I remember an alley. Anyway, the bandits surprised Kvothe. They wanted his horse,” he paused and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Wait, that’s not right. He wouldn’t have his horse in an alley. Maybe he was on the road to Severen.”
“I told you, it weren’t Severen!” Cob demanded, slapping his hand down on the bar, plainly irritated. “Tehlu anyway, just stop. You’ve got it all mixed up.”
Chronicler flushed in embarrassment. “I only heard it once, years ago.”
Shooting Chronicler a dark look, Kote clattered the tray down loudly onto the bar and the story was momentarily forgotten. Old Cob ate so quickly he almost choked himself, and washed it down with a long swallow of beer.
“Seeing as how you’re still working on your dinner there,” he said none too casually to Chronicler as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Would you mind terrible if I picked up the story? Just so’s the boy can hear it?”
“If you’re sure you know it… .” Chronicler said hesitantly.
“Of course I know it,” Cob said as he spun his stool around to face more of his audience. “Alright. Way back when Kvothe was just a pup, he went to the University. But he didn’t live in the University proper, you see, on account of the fact that he was just ordinary folk. He couldn’t afford all the fancy living that went on there.”
“How come?” the smith’s prentice asked. “You said before that Kvothe was so smart they paid him to stay even though he was just ten years old. They gave him a purse full of gold, and a diamond big as his thumb knuckle, and a brand new horse with a new saddle and tack and new shoes and a full bag of oats and everything.”
Cob gave a conciliatory nod. “True, that’s true. But this was a year or two after Kvothe had got all that. And you see, he’d gave a lot of that gold to some poor folk whose houses had all burned down.”
“Burned down during their wedding,” Graham interjected.
Cob nodded. “And Kvothe had to eat, and rent a room, and buy more oats for his horse. So his gold was all used up by then. So he—”
“What about the diamond?” the boy insisted.
Old Cob gave the barest of frowns. “If you’ve got to know, he
gave that diamond to a special friend of his. A special lady friend. But that’s a whole different story than the one I’m telling now.” He glared at the boy, who dropped his eyes contritely and spooned up a mouthful of stew.
Cob continued, “Since Kvothe couldn’t afford all that rich living in the University, he stayed in the town nextby instead, place called Amary.” He shot Chronicler a pointed look. “Kvothe had a room in a inn where he got to stay there for free because the widow who owned the place took a shine to him, and he did chores to help earn his keep.”
“He played music there too,” Jake added. “He was all sorts of clever with his lute.”
“Get your dinner into your gob and let me finish my say, Jacob,” Old Cob snapped. “Everyone knows Kvothe was clever with a lute. That’s why the widow had taken such a shine to him in the first place, and playing music every night was part of his chores.”
Cob took a quick drink and continued. “So one day Kvothe was out running errands for the widow, when a fellow pulls out a knife and tells Kvothe if he doesn’t hand over the widow’s money, he’ll spill Kvothe’s guts all over the street.” Cob pointed an imaginary knife at the boy and gave him a menacing look. “Now you’ve got to remember, this is back when Kvothe was just a pup. He ain’t got no sword, and even if he did, he ain’t learned to fight proper from the Adem yet.”
“So what did Kvothe do?” the smith’s prentice asked.
“Well,” Cob leaned back. “It was the middle of the day, and they were smack in the middle of Amary’s town square. Kvothe was about to call for the constable, but he always had his eyes wide open, you see. And so he noticed that this fellow had white, white teeth… .”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “He was a sweet-eater?”
Cob nodded. “And even worse, the fellow was starting to sweat like a hard-run horse, his eyes were wild, and his hands …” Cob widened his own eyes and held out his hands, making them tremble. “So Kvothe knew the fellow had the hunger something fierce, and that meant he’d stab his own mum for a bent penny.” Cob took another long drink, drawing out the tension.
“Whatever did he do?” Bast burst out anxiously from the far end of the bar, wringing his hands dramatically. The innkeeper glared at his student.
Cob continued, “Well, first he hesitates, and the man comes closer with the knife and Kvothe can see the fellow ain’t going to ask again. So Kvothe uses a dark magic that he found locked away in a secret book in the University. He speaks three terrible, secret words and calls up a demon—”
“A demon?” the prentice’s voice was almost a yelp. “Was it like the one …”
Cob shook his head, slowly. “Oh no, this one weren’t spiderly at all. It was worse. This one was made all of shadows, and when it landed on the fellow it bit him on the chest, right over his heart, and it drank all the blood out of him like you’d suck the juice out of a plum.”
“Blackened hands, Cob,” Carter said, his voice thick with reproach. “You’re going to give the boy nightmares. He’ll be carrying around that damn iron stick for a year with all your nonsense stuffed in his head.”
“That’s not how I heard it,” Graham said slowly. “I heard there was a woman trapped in a burning house, and Kvothe called up a demon to protect him from the fire. Then he ran inside and pulled the lady out of the fire and she wasn’t burned at all.”
“Listen to yourselves,” Jake said, disgusted. “You’re like kids at Midwinter. ‘Demons stole my doll.’ ‘Demons spilled the milk.’ Kvothe didn’t meddle with demons. He was at the University learning all manner of names, right? The fellow came at him with a knife and he called out fire and lightning, just like Taborlin the Great.”
“It was a demon, Jake,” Cob said angrily. “Otherwise the story don’t make a lick of sense. It was a demon he called up, and it drank up the fellow’s blood, and everyone who saw was powerful shook up by it. Someone told a priest, then the priests went to the constable, and the constable went and pulled him out of the widow’s inn that night. Then they slapped him into jail for consorting with dark forces and such.”
“Folk probably just saw the fire and thought it was a demon,” Jake persisted. “You know how folk are.”
“No I don’t, Jacob,” Cob snapped, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back against the bar. “Why don’t you tell me how folk are? Why don’t you just go ahead and tell this whole damn story while …”
Cob stopped at the sound of heavy boots clumping on the wooden landing outside. After a pause, someone fumbled with the latch.
Everyone turned around to look at the door, curious, as all the regular customers were already there. “Two new faces in one day,” Graham said gently, knowing he was touching on a delicate subject. “Looks like your dry spell might be over, Kote.”
“Roads must be getting better,” Shep said into his drink, a hint of relief in his voice. “About time we got a touch of luck.”
The latch clicked and the door swung slowly open, moving in a slow arc until it struck the wall. A man stood outside in the dark, as if deciding whether or not to come in.
“Welcome to the Waystone,” the innkeeper called out from behind the bar. “What can we do for you?”
The man stepped into the light and the farmers’ excitement was smothered by the sight of the piecemeal leather armor and heavy sword that marked a mercenary. A lone mercenary was never reassuring, even in the best of times. Everyone knew that the difference between an unemployed mercenary and a highwayman was mostly one of timing.
What’s more, it was obvious this mercenary had fallen on hard times. Brownburr clung thick to the bottoms of his pants and the rough leather of his boot’s laces. His shirt was fine linen dyed a deep, royal blue, but mud-spattered and bramble-torn. His hair was a greasy snarl. His eyes were dark and sunken, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He moved a few steps farther into the inn, leaving the door open behind him.
“Looks like you’ve been on the road a while,” Kvothe said cheerily. “Would you like a drink or some dinner?” When the mercenary made no reply, he added, “None of us would blame you if you wanted to catch a bit of sleep first, either. It looks like you’ve had a rough couple days.” Kvothe glanced at Bast, who slid off his stool and went to close the inn’s front door.
After slowly looking over everyone sitting at the bar, the mercenary moved to the empty space between Chronicler and Old Cob. Kvothe gave his best innkeeper’s smile as the mercenary leaned heavily against the bar and mumbled something.
Across the room, Bast froze with his hand on the door handle.
“Beg your pardon?” Kvothe asked, leaning forward.
The mercenary looked up, his eyes meeting Kvothe’s then sweeping back and forth behind the bar. His eyes moved sluggishly, as if he had been addled by a blow to the head. “Aethin tseh cthystoi scthaiven vei.”
Kvothe leaned forward, “I’m sorry, what was that again?” When nothing was forthcoming from the mercenary, he looked around at the other men at the bar. “Did anyone catch that?”
Chronicler was looking the mercenary over, eyeing the man’s armor, the empty quiver of arrows, his fine blue linen shirt. The scribe’s stare was intense, but the mercenary didn’t seem to notice.
“It’s Siaru,” Cob said knowingly. “Funny. He don’t look like a shim.”
Shep laughed, shaking his head. “Naw. He’s drunk. My uncle used to talk like that.” He nudged Graham with an elbow. “You remember my Uncle Tam? God, I’ve never known a man who drank like that.”
Bast made a frantic, covert gesture from where he stood near the door, but Kvothe was busy trying to catch the mercenary’s eye. “Speak Aturan?” Kvothe asked slowly. “What do you want?”
The mercenary’s eyes rested momentarily on the innkeeper. “Avoi—” he began, then closed his eyes and tilted his head, as if listening. He opened his eyes again. “I … want …” he began, his voice slow and thick. “I … look …” He trailed off, his gaze wandering aimlessly around the roo
m, his eyes unfocused.
“I know him,” Chronicler said.
Everyone turned to look at the scribe. “What?” Shep asked.
Chronicler’s expression was angry. “This fellow and four of his friends robbed me about five days ago. I didn’t recognize him at first. He was cleanshaven then, but it’s him.”
Behind the man’s back, Bast made a more urgent gesture, trying to catch his masters attention, but Kvothe was intent on the befuddled man. “Are you sure?”
Chronicler gave a hard, humorless laugh. “He’s wearing my shirt. Ruined it too. Cost me a whole talent. I never even got a chance to wear it.”
“Was he like this before?”
Chronicler shook his head. “Not at all. He was almost genteel as highwaymen go. I had him pegged as a low-ranking officer before he deserted.”
Bast gave up signaling. “Reshi!” He called out, a hint of desperation in his voice.
“Just a moment, Bast,” Kvothe said as he tried to catch the stupefied mercenary’s attention. He waved a hand in front of the man’s face, snapped his fingers. “Hello?”
The man’s eyes followed Kvothe’s moving hand, but seemed oblivious to everything being said around him. “I … am … look …” he said slowly. “I look—”
“What?” Cob demanded testily. “What are you looking for?”
“Looking …” the mercenary echoed vaguely.
“I imagine he’s looking to give me my horse back,” Chronicler said calmly as he took a half step closer to the man and grabbed the hilt of his sword. With a sudden motion he yanked it free, or rather, he tried to. Instead of sliding easily free it of its scabbard, it came halfway out and stuck.
“No!” Bast cried from across the room.
The mercenary stared vaguely at Chronicler, but made no attempt to stop him. Standing awkwardly, still gripping the hilt of the man’s sword, the scribe tugged harder and the sword pulled slowly free. The broad blade was mottled with dried blood and rust.
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