The Wise Man's Fear

  I smiled. “Fela has agreed to help me search the Archives for the schema.” I gestured toward the two of them. “If the two of you care to join us, it will mean long, grueling hours in close contact with the most beautiful woman this side of the Omethi River.”

  “I might be able to spare some time,” Wilem said casually.

  Simmon grinned.

  Thus began our search of the Archives.

  Surprisingly, it was fun at first, almost like a game. The four of us would scatter to different sections of the Archives then return and comb through the books as a group. We spent hours chatting and joking, enjoying the challenge and one another’s company.

  But as hours turned into days of fruitless searching, the excitement burned away, leaving only a grim determination. Wil and Sim continued to watch over me at night, protecting me with their Alar. Night after night they lost sleep, making them sullen and irritable. I cut my sleep down to five hours a night to make things easier for them.

  Under ordinary circumstances, five hours of sleep would be a great plenty for me, but I was still recovering from my injuries. What’s more, I needed to constantly maintain the Alar that kept me safe. It was mentally exhausting.

  On the third day of our search I nodded off while studying my metallurgy. I only dozed for half a minute before my head lolled, startling me awake. But the icy fear followed me for the rest of the day. If Ambrose had attacked at that moment, I could have been killed.

  So, even though I couldn’t afford it, I began dipping into my thinning purse to buy coffee. Many of the inns and cafes near the University catered to noble tastes, so it was readily available, but coffee is never cheap. Nahlrout would have been less expensive, but it had harsher side effects that I didn’t want to risk.

  In between bouts of research, we set about confirming my suspicions that Ambrose was responsible for the attacks. In this, if nothing else, we were lucky. Wil watched Ambrose return to his room after his rhetoric lecture, and at the same time I was forced to stave off binder’s chills. Fela watched him finish a late lunch and return to his rooms, and a quarter hour later I felt a sweaty prickle of heat along my back and arms.

  Later that evening I watched him head back to his rooms in the Golden Pony after his shift in the Archives. Not long after, I felt the faint pressure in both my shoulders that let me know he was trying to stab me. After the shoulders, there followed several other prods in a more personal area.

  Wil and Sim agreed that it couldn’t be coincidence: it was Ambrose. Best of all, it let us know that whatever Ambrose was using against me, he kept it in his rooms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kindling

  THE ATTACKS WEREN’T PARTICULARLY frequent, but they came with no warning.

  On the fifth day after we started searching for the schema, when Ambrose must have been feeling particularly cussed or bored, there were eight of them: one as I was waking up in Wilem’s room, two during lunch, two while I was studying physiognomy in the Medica, then three in quick succession while I was coldsmithing iron in the Fishery.

  The next day there were no attacks at all. In some ways that was worse. Nothing but hours of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  So I learned to maintain an iron-hard Alar as I ate and bathed, as I attended class and had conversations with my teachers and friends. I even maintained it while dueling in Adept Sympathy. On the seventh day of our search, this distraction and my general exhaustion led to my first defeat at the hands of two of my classmates, ending my perfect string of undefeated duels.

  I could say that I was too weary to care, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.

  On the ninth day of our search Wilem, Simmon, and I were combing through books in our reading hole when the door opened and Fela slipped inside. She was carrying a single book instead of her usual armload. She was breathing heavily.

  “I’ve got it,” she said, her eyes bright. Her voice so excited it was almost fierce. “I found a copy.” She thrust the book out at us so we could read the gold leaf on the thick leather spine: Facci-Moen ve Scrivani.

  We had learned about the Scrivani early in our search. It was an extensive collection of schemata by a long-dead Artificer named Surthur. Twelve thick volumes of detailed diagrams and descriptions. When we found the index, we had thought our search was nearly finished, as it listed “Diagrames Detaling the Construction of a Marvelous Five-Gramme, proven most Effectatious in the Preventing of Maleficent Sympathe.” Location: volume nine, page eighty-two.

  We tracked down eight versions of the Scrivani in the Archives, but we never found the whole set. Volumes seven, nine, and eleven were always missing, no doubt tucked away in Kilvin’s private library.

  We’d spent two entire days searching before finally giving up on the Scrivani . But now Fela had found it, not just a piece to the puzzle, but the whole thing.

  “Is it the right one?” Simmon asked, his voice a mixture of excitement and disbelief.

  Fela slowly removed her hand from the lower binding, revealing in bright gold: 9.

  I scrambled up out of my chair, almost knocking it over in my rush to get to her. But she smiled and held the book high over her head. “First you have to promise me dinner,” she said.

  I laughed and reached for the book. “Once this is over, I’ll take everyone to dinner.”

  She sighed. “And you have to tell me I’m the best scriv ever.”

  “You’re the best scriv ever,” I said. “You’re twice as good as Wil could ever be, even if he had a dozen hands and a hundred extra eyes.”

  “Ick.” She handed me the book. “Here you go.”

  I hurried to the table and cracked the book open.

  “The pages will be missing, or something like that,” Simmon said in a low voice to Wil. “It can’t be this easy after all this time. I know something’s going to spike our wheel.”

  I stopped turning pages and rubbed my eyes. I squinted at the writing.

  “I knew it,” Sim said, he leaned his chair back on two legs, covering his tired eyes with his hands. “Let me guess, it’s got the grey rot. Or bookworm, or both.”

  Fela stepped close and looked over my shoulder.“Oh no!” she said mournfully. “I didn’t even look. I was so excited.” She looked up at us. “Do any of you read Eld Vintic?”

  “I read the chittering gibberish you people call Aturan,” Wilem said sourly. “I consider myself sufficiently multilingual.”

  “Only a smattering,” I said. “A few dozen words.”

  “I can,” Sim said.

  “Really?” I felt hope rising in my chest again. “When did you pick that up?”

  Sim scooted his chair across the floor until he could look at the book. “My first term as an E’lir I heard some Eld Vintic poetry. I studied it for three terms with the Chancellor.”

  “I’ve never cared for poetry,” I said.

  “Your loss,” Sim said absently as he turned a few pages. “Eld Vintic poetry is thunderous. It pounds at you.”

  “What’s the meter like?” I asked, curious despite myself.

  “I don’t know anything about meter,” Simmon said distractedly as he ran a finger down the page in front of him. “It’s like this:Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur

  Long-lost in ledger all hope forgotten.

  Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer

  Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding

  Breathless her breast her high blood rising

  To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty.

  “That sort of thing,” Simmon said absently, his eyes still scanning the pages in front of him.

  I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there.

  No, it was almost as if up until that point, he’d just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his
shirt. This time when she looked, she actually saw him.

  Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful, irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn’t notice it herself. It wasn’t dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost too fast for you to see. But still, you know it’s there, down where you can’t see, kindling.

  “Who read you Eld Vintic poetry?” Wil asked. Fela blinked and turned back to the book.

  “Puppet,” Sim said. “The first time I met him.”

  “Puppet!” Wil looked as if he would tear out his own hair. “God pound me, why haven’t we gone to him about this? If there’s an Aturan translation of this book he’ll know where it is!”

  “I’ve thought the same thing a hundred times these last few days,” Simmon said. “But he hasn’t been doing well lately. He wouldn’t be much help.”

  “And Puppet knows what’s on the restricted list,” Fela said. “I doubt he’d just hand something like that over.”

  “Does everyone know this Puppet person except for me?” I asked.

  “Scrivs do,” Wilem said.

  “I think I can piece most of this together,” Simmon said, turning to look in my direction. “Does this diagram make any sense to you? It’s perfect nonsense to me.”

  “Those are the runes.” I pointed. “Clear as day. And those are metallurgical symbols.” I looked closer. “The rest . . . I don’t know. Maybe abbreviations. We can probably work them out as we go along.”

  I smiled and turned to Fela. “Congratulations, you’re still the best scriv ever.”

  With Simmon’s help, it took me two days to decipher the diagrams in the Scrivani. Rather, it took us one day to decipher and one day to double and triple check our work.

  Once I knew how to construct my gram, I began to play a strange sort of hide-and-seek with Ambrose. I needed the entirety of my concentration free while I worked on the sygaldry for the gram. That meant letting my guard down. So I could only work on the gram when I was certain Ambrose was otherwise occupied.

  The gram was delicate work, small engraving with no margin for error. And it didn’t help that I was forced to steal the time in bits and pieces. Half an hour while Ambrose was drinking coffee with a young woman in a public café. Forty minutes when he was attending a symbolic logic lecture. A full hour and a half while he was working at the front desk in the Archives.

  When I couldn’t work on my gram, I labored on my pet project. In some ways I was fortunate Kilvin had charged me with making something worthy of a Re’lar. It gave me the perfect excuse for all the time I spent in the Fishery.

  The rest of the time I spent lounging in the common room of the Golden Pony. I needed to establish myself as a regular customer there. Things would seem less suspicious that way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Stolen

  EVERY NIGHT I RETIRED to my tiny garret room in Anker’s. Then I would lock the door, climb out the window, and slip into either Wil or Sim’s room, depending on who was keeping first watch over me that night.

  Bad as things were, I knew they would become infinitely worse if Ambrose realized I was the one who had broken into his rooms. While my injuries were healing, they were still more than enough to incriminate me. So I worked hard to keep up the appearance of normality.

  Thus it was that late one night, I trudged into Anker’s with all the nimble vigor of a shamble-man. I made a weak attempt at small talk with Anker’s new serving girl, then grabbed half a loaf of bread before disappearing up the stairs.

  A minute later I was back in the taproom. I was covered in a panicked sweat, my heart was thundering in my ears.

  The girl looked up. “You change your mind about that drink then?” she smiled.

  I shook my head so quickly my hair whipped around my face. “Did I leave my lute down here last night after I finished playing?” I asked frantically.

  She shook her head. “You carried it off, same as always. Remember I asked if you needed a bit of string to hold the case together?”

  I darted back up the steps, quick as a fish. Then was back again in less than a minute. “Are you sure?” I asked, breathing hard. “Could you look behind the bar, just to be sure?”

  She looked, but the lute wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the pantry either. Or the kitchen.

  I climbed the stairs and opened the door to my tiny room. There weren’t many places a lute case could fit in a room that size. It wasn’t under the bed. It wasn’t leaning on the wall next to my small desk. It wasn’t behind the door.

  The lute case was too large to fit in the old trunk by the foot of the bed. But I looked anyway. It wasn’t in the trunk. I looked under the bed again, just to be sure. It wasn’t under the bed.

  Then I looked at the window. At the simple latch I kept well-oiled so I could trip it while standing on the roof outside.

  I looked behind the door again. The lute wasn’t behind the door. Then I sat on the bed. If I had been weary before, then I was something else entirely now. I felt like I was made of wet paper. I felt like I could barely breathe, like someone had stolen my heart out of my chest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  More Than Salt

  “TODAY,” ELODIN SAID BRIGHTLY, “we will talk about things that cannot be talked about. Specifically, we will discuss why some things cannot be discussed.”

  I sighed and set down my pencil. Every day I hoped this class would be the one where Elodin actually taught us something. Every day I brought a hardback and one of my few precious pieces of paper, ready to take advantage of the moment of clarity. Every day some part of me expected Elodin to laugh and admit he’d just been testing our resolve with his endless nonsense.

  And every day I was disappointed.

  “The majority of important things cannot be said outright,” Elodin said. “They cannot be made explicit. They can only be implied.” He looked out at his handful of students in the otherwise empty lecture hall. “Name something that cannot be explained.” He pointed at Uresh. “Go.”

  Uresh considered for a moment. “Humor. If you explain a joke, it isn’t a joke.”

  Elodin nodded, then pointed at Fenton.

  “Naming?” Fenton asked.

  “That is a cheap answer, Re’lar,” Elodin said with a hint of reproach. “But you correctly anticipate the theme of my lecture, so we will let it slide.” He pointed at me.

  “There isn’t anything that can’t be explained,” I said firmly. “If something can be understood, it can be explained. A person might not be able to do a good job of explaining it. But that just means it’s hard, not that it’s impossible.”

  Elodin held up a finger. “Not hard or impossible. Merely pointless. Some things can only be inferred.” He gave me an infuriating smile. “By the way, your answer should have been ‘music.’”

  “Music explains itself,” I said. “It is the road, and it is the map that shows the road. It is both together.”

  “But can you explain how music works?” Elodin asked.

  “Of course,” I said. Though I wasn’t sure of any such thing.

  “Can you explain how music works without using music?”

  That brought me up short. While I was trying to think of a response, Elodin turned to Fela.

  “Love?” she asked.

  Elodin raised an eyebrow as if mildly scandalized by this, then nodded approvingly.

  “Hold on a moment,” I said. “We’re not done. I don’t know if I could explain music without using it, but that’s beside the point. That’s not explanation, it’s translation.”

  Elodin’s face lit up. “That’s it exactly!” he said. “Translation. All explicit knowledge is translated knowledge, and all translation is imperfect.”

  “So all explicit knowledge is im
perfect?” I asked. “Tell Master Brandeur geometry is subjective. I’d love to watch that discussion.”

  “Not all knowledge,” Elodin admitted. “But most.”

  “Prove it,” I said.

  “You can’t prove nonexistence,” Uresh interjected in a matter-of-fact way. He sounded exasperated. “Flawed logic.”

  I ground my teeth at that. It was flawed logic. I never would have made that mistake if I’d been better rested. “Demonstrate it then,” I said.

  “Fine, fine.” Elodin walked over to where Fela sat. “We’ll use Fela’s example.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, motioning me to follow.

  I came reluctantly to my feet as well and Elodin arranged the two of us so we stood facing each other in profile to the class. “Here we have two lovely young people,” he said. “Their eyes meet across the room.”

  Elodin pushed my shoulder and I stumbled forward half a step. “He says hello. She says hello. She smiles. He shifts uneasily from foot to foot.” I stopped doing just that and there was a faint murmur of laughter from the others.

  “There is something ephemeral in the air,” Elodin said, moving to stand behind Fela. He put his hands on her shoulders, leaning close to her ear. “She loves the lines of him,” he said softly. “She is curious about the shape of his mouth. She wonders if this could be the one, if she could unclasp the secret pieces of her heart to him.” Fela looked down, her cheeks flushing a bright scarlet.

  Elodin stalked around to stand behind me. “Kvothe looks at her, and for the first time he understands the impulse that first drove men to paint. To sculpt. To sing.”

  He circled us again, eventually standing between us like a priest about to perform a wedding. “There exists between them something tenuous and delicate. They can both feel it. Like static in the air. Faint as frost.”