The Wise Man's Fear

  Bast nodded eagerly at this, looking back at Kvothe.

  Kvothe looked at both of them for a moment, then smiled and chuckled low in his chest. “Oh,” he said fondly. “You’re both so young.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX

  Returning

  AFTER MY ENCOUNTER WITH the Cthaeh, it was a long time before I was my right self again.

  I slept a great deal, but only fitfully as I was endlessly set upon by terrible dreams. Some of them were vivid and impossible to forget. These were mostly of my mother, my father, my troupe. Worse were the ones where I woke weeping with no memory of what I’d dreamed, only an aching chest and an emptiness in my head like the bloody gap left by a missing tooth.

  The first time I awoke like this, Felurian was there, watching me. Her expression was so gentle and worried that I expected her to murmur softly to me and stroke my hair, as Auri had done in my room months ago.

  But Felurian did nothing of the sort. “are you well?” she asked.

  I had no answer for this. I was blurry with memory, confusion, and grief. Not trusting myself to speak without bursting into tears again, I merely shook my head.

  Felurian bent down and kissed me on the corner of my mouth, looked at me for a long moment, and sat back up. Then she went to the pool and brought me back a drink of water in her cupped hands.

  Over the following days Felurian did not press me with questions or try to draw me out. She occasionally tried to tell me stories, but I couldn’t focus on them, so they made less sense than ever. Some parts made me weep uncontrollably, though the stories themselves had nothing in them that was sad.

  Once I woke to find her gone, only to have her return hours later carrying a strange green fruit bigger than my head. She smiled shyly and handed it to me, showing me how to peel off the thin leathery skin to reveal the orange meat inside. Pulpy and tangy-sweet, it pulled apart in spiraling segments.

  We ate these silently, until nothing was left but a round, hard, slippery seed. It was dark brown and so big I could not close my hand around it. With a slight flourish, Felurian cracked this open against a rock and showed me that the inside was dry, like a roasted nut. We ate this too. It tasted dark and peppery, vaguely reminiscent of smoked salmon.

  Nestled inside that was another seed, white as bone and the size of a marble. This Felurian gave to me. It was candy-sweet and slightly gummy, like a caramel.

  One time she left me alone for endless hours, only to return with two brown birds, one carefully cupped in each hand. They were smaller than sparrows, with striking, leaf-green eyes. She set them down next to where I lay on the cushions, and when she whistled, they began to sing. Not snippets of birdsong, they sang an actual song. Four verses with a chorus between. First they sang together, then in a simple harmony.

  Once I woke and she gave me a drink in a leather cup. It smelled of violets and tasted of nothing at all, but it was clear and warm and clean in my mouth, like I was drinking summer sunlight.

  Another time she gave me a smooth red stone that was warm in my hand. After several hours it hatched like an egg, revealing a creature like a tiny squirrel that chittered angrily at me before running away.

  Once I woke and she was not nearby. Looking around I saw her sitting on the edge of the water, arms wrapped around her knees. I could barely hear the gentle song of her sobbing quietly to herself.

  I slept and I woke. She gave me a ring made from a leaf, a cluster of golden berries, a flower that opened and closed at the stroking of a finger....

  And once, when I startled awake with my face wet and my chest aching, she reached out to lay her hand on top of mine. The gesture was so tentative, her expression so anxious, you would think she had never touched a man before. As if she was worried I might break or burn or bite. Her cool hand lay on mine for a moment, gentle as a moth. She squeezed my hand softly, waited, then pulled away.

  It struck me as odd at the time. But I was too clouded with confusion and grief to think clearly. Only now, looking back, do I realize the truth of things. With all the awkwardness of a young lover, she was trying to comfort me, and she didn’t have the slightest idea how.

  Still, all things mend with time. My dreams receded. My appetite returned. I grew clearheaded enough to banter with Felurian a bit. Shortly after that, I recovered enough to flirt. When this happened, her relief was palpable, as if she couldn’t relate to a creature that did not want to kiss her.

  Last came my curiosity, the surest sign I was my own true self again. “I never asked you how went your final workings with the shaed,” I said.

  Her face lit. “it is done!” I could see the pride in her eyes. She took my hand and pulled me to the edge of the pavilion. “the iron was not an easy thing, but it is done.” She started forward, then stopped herself. “can you find it?”

  I took a long, careful look around. Even though she’d taught me what to look for, it was a long moment before I spotted a subtle depth in the darkness of a nearby tree. I reached out and drew my shaed from the concealing shadow.

  Felurian skipped to my side, laughing as if I had just won a game. She caught me around the neck and kissed me with the wildness of a dozen children.

  She had never let me wear the shaed before, and I marveled as she spread it over my naked shoulders. It was nearly weightless and softer than the richest velvet. It felt like wearing a warm breeze, the same breeze that had brushed me in the darkened forest glade where Felurian had taken me to gather the shadows.

  I thought of going to the forest pool to see how I looked in the water’s reflection, but Felurian threw herself onto me. Bearing me to the ground, she landed astride me, my shaed spread beneath us like a thick blanket. She gathered the edges of it around us, then kissed my chest, my neck. Her tongue was hot against my skin.

  “this way,” she said against my ear, “whenever your shaed wraps you, you will think of me. when it touches you it will seem like my touch.” She moved slowly against me, rubbing the length of her naked body along mine. “through all the other women you will remember Felurian, and you will return.”

  After that I knew my time in the Fae was drawing to a close. The Cthaeh’s words stuck in my mind like burrs, goading me out into the world. The fact that I had been within a stone’s throw of the man who had killed my parents and not realized it left a bitter taste in my mouth that even Felurian’s kisses could not erase. And what the Cthaeh had said of Denna kept playing over and over in my head.

  Eventually I awoke and knew the time had come. I rose, put my travelsack in order, and dressed for the first time in ages. The feeling of clothes against my skin felt odd after all this time. How long had I been gone? I brushed my fingers through my beard and shrugged the thought away. Guessing was pointless when I would know the answer soon enough.

  Turning, I saw Felurian standing in the center of the pavilion, her expression sad. For a moment I thought she might protest my leaving, but she did nothing of the sort. Moving to my side, she fastened the shaed around my shoulders, reminding me of a mother dressing her child against the cold. Even the butterflies that followed her seemed melancholy.

  She led me through the forest for hours until we came to a pair of tall greystones. She drew up the hood of my shaed and bid me close my eyes. Then she led me in a brief circle and I felt a subtle change in the air. When I opened my eyes I could tell this forest was not the same one I had been walking through a moment before. The strange tension in the air was gone. This was the mortal world.

  I turned to Felurian. “My lady,” I said. “I have nothing to give you before I go.”

  “except your promise to return.” Her voice was lily soft, with a whisper of a warning.

  I smiled. “I mean I have nothing to leave you with, lady.”

  “except remembrance.” She leaned close.

  Closing my eyes, I bid her farewell with few words and many kisses.

  Then I left. I would like to say I did not look back, but that would not be the truth. The sight of h
er almost broke my heart. She seemed so very small beside the huge grey stones. I almost went back to give one final kiss, one last good-bye.

  But I knew if I went back, I would never manage to leave again. Somehow I kept walking.

  When I looked back the second time, she was gone.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

  Fire

  I CAME TO THE PENNYSWORTH Inn long after the sun had set. The huge inn’s windows swelled with lamplight and there were a dozen horses tethered outside, champing into their feed bags. The door was open, casting a slant square of light into the dark street.

  But something was wrong. There was none of the pleasant rousing clamor that should be coming from a busy inn at night. Not a whisper. Not a word.

  Anxious, I crept closer. Every faerie tale I’d ever heard was running through my head. Had I been gone years? Decades?

  Or was it more ordinary trouble? Had there been more bandits than we thought? Had they returned to find their camp destroyed, then come here to make trouble?

  I slid close to a window, peered inside, and saw the truth.

  There were forty or fifty people in the inn. They sat at tables and benches and lined up at the bar. Every eye was pointed at the hearth.

  Marten sat there, taking a long drink. “I couldn’t look away,” he continued. “I didn’t want to. Then Kvothe stepped in front of me, blocking the sight of her, and for a second I was free of her spell. I was covered in a sweat so thick and cold it felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water over me. I tried to pull him back, but he shook me off and ran to her.” Marten’s expression was lined with regret.

  “How come she didn’t get the Adem and the big one too?” asked a man with a hawkish face sitting nearby on the corner of the hearth. He drummed his fingers on a battered fiddle case. “If you’d really seen her, you all would have run off after her.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the room.

  Tempi spoke up from a nearby table, his blood-red shirt making him easy to spot. “When I was growing, I train to have control.” He held up a hand and made a tight fist to illustrate his point. “Hurt. Hungry. Thirsty. Tired.” He shook his fist after each of these to show his mastery over it. “Women.” The faintest of smiles touched his face and he shook his fist again, but with none of the firmness he had used before. A murmur of laughter ran through the room. “I say this. If Kvothe did not go, I may.”

  Marten nodded. “As for our other friend ...” He cleared his throat and gestured across the room. “Hespe convinced him to stay.” There was more laughter at this. After a moment of searching I spied where Dedan and Hespe sat. Dedan seemed to be fighting down a furious blush. Hespe rested a hand possessively on his leg. She smiled a private, satisfied smile.

  “The next day we looked for him,” Marten said, regaining the room’s attention. “We followed his trail through the woods. We found his sword half a mile from the pool. No doubt he lost it in his haste to catch her. His cloak hung from a branch not far from there.”

  Marten lifted up the threadbare cloak I had bought from the tinker. It looked like it had been savaged by a mad dog. “It was caught on a branch. He must have torn free rather than lose sight of her.” He idly fingered the ripped edges. “If it had been made of stronger stuff he might still be with us here tonight.”

  I know my cue when I hear it. I stepped through the doorway and felt everyone turn to look at me. “I have found a better cloak since,” I said. “Made by Felurian’s own hand. And I have a story too. One you will be telling your children’s children.” I smiled.

  There was a moment of silence, then an uproar as everyone began to speak at once.

  My companions stared at me in stunned disbelief. Dedan was the first to recover, and after making his way to where I stood, surprised me with a rough, one-armed embrace. Only then did I notice one of his arms was hanging from his neck in a splint.

  I gave it a questioning look. “Did you run into trouble?” I asked while the room buzzed chaotically around us.

  Dedan shook his head. “Hespe,” he said simply. “She didn’t take too kindly to the thought of me running off after that faerie woman. She sort of... convinced me to stay.”

  “She broke your arm?” I remembered my parting glimpse of Hespe holding him to the ground.

  The big man looked down at his feet. “A bit. She sort of held onto it while I tried to twist away.” He gave a slightly sheepish smile. “I guess you could say we broke it together.”

  I clapped him on his good shoulder and laughed. “That’s sweet. Truly touching.” I would have continued, but the room had quieted. Everyone was watching us, watching me.

  As I looked at the crowd of people, I felt suddenly disoriented. How can I explain... ?

  I’ve already told you I don’t know how much time I spent in the Fae. But it had been a long, long while. I had lived there so long, that the strangeness of it had faded. I’d grown comfortable there.

  Now that I was back in the mortal world, this crowded taproom seemed strange to me. How odd to be indoors, rather than under the naked sky. The thick-timbered wooden benches and tables looked so primitive and rough. The lamplight seemed unnaturally bright and harsh to my eyes.

  I’d had no company but Felurian for ages, and the people around me seemed strange by comparison. The whites of their eyes were startling. They smelled like sweat and horses and bitter iron. Their voices were hard and sharp. Their postures stiff and awkward.

  But that only scratches the bare surface of it. I felt out of place in my own skin. It was profoundly irritating to be wearing clothes again, and I wanted nothing more than to be comfortably naked. My boots felt like a prison. On my long walk to the Pennysworth, I’d had to constantly fight the urge to remove them.

  Looking at the faces around me, I saw a young woman of no more than twenty. She had a sweet face and clear blue eyes. She had a perfect mouth for kissing. I took half a step towards her, fully intending to catch her up in my arms and . . .

  I stopped suddenly, just as I began to reach out with one hand to caress the side of her neck, and my head spun with something very close to vertigo. Things were different here. The man sitting beside the woman was obviously her husband. That was important, wasn’t it? It seemed a very vague and distant fact. Why wasn’t I already kissing this woman? Why wasn’t I naked, eating violets, and playing music underneath the open sky?

  Looking around the room again, everything seemed terribly ridiculous. These people sitting on their benches, wearing layers on layers of clothing, eating with knives and forks. It all struck me as so pointless and contrived. It was incredibly funny. It was like they were playing a game and didn’t even realize it. It was like a joke I’d never understood before.

  And so I laughed. It wasn’t loud or particularly long, but it was high and wild and full of strange delight. It was no human laugh, and it moved through the crowd like wind among the wheat. Those near enough to hear it shifted in their seats, some looking at me with curiosity, some with fear. Some shivered and refused to meet my eye.

  Seeing their reaction shook me, and I made an effort to get a grip on myself. I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes. The moment of strange disorientation passed, though my boots still felt hard and heavy on my feet.

  When I opened my eyes again, I saw Hespe looking up at me. She spoke hesitantly. “Kvothe,” she said hesitantly. “You look . . . well.”

  I smiled wide. “I am.”

  “We thought you were . . . lost.”

  “You thought I was gone,” I corrected gently as I made my way to the fireplace where Marten stood. “Dead in Felurian’s arms or wandering the forest, mad and broken with desire.” I looked at them each in turn. “Isn’t that right?”

  I felt the whole room’s eyes on me and decided to make the most of the situation. “Come now, I am Kvothe. I am Edema Ruh born. I have studied at the University and can call down lightning like Taborlin the Great. Did you really think Felurian would be the death of me?”
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  “She would be,” said a rough voice from the edge of the hearth. “If you had ever so much as seen her shadow.”

  I turned to see the hawk-faced fiddler. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “You should beg the pardon of everyone here,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “I don’t know what you hope to gain from this, but I don’t believe the lot of you saw Felurian, not for a second.”

  I met his eyes. “I did more than see her, friend.”

  “If that were true, then you’d be mad now, or dead. And while I’ll admit you might be mad, it’s not from any faerie charm.” The room chuckled at this. “No one has seen her in a score of years. The fair folk have left this place behind, and you’re no Taborlin, no matter what your friends say. I’m guessin’ you’re just a clever storyteller hopin’ to make a name for himself.”

  That struck uncomfortably close to the mark, and I could see some of the crowd eyeing me skeptically.

  Before I could say anything Dedan burst in. “What about his beard then? When he ran off three nights ago his face was smooth as a baby’s ass.”

  “So you say,” the fiddler replied. “I was going to keep quiet even though I didn’t believe half what you told us about those bandits or him calling the lightning. But I thought to myself, ‘Their friend probably died and they want folks to remember him with a proud story or two.’ ”

  He looked down his broken nose to where Dedan sat. “But really, this has gone too far. It’s not wise to tell lies about the fair folk. I don’t appreciate strangers coming here and spinning my friends’ heads full of nonsense. Be quiet, the lot of you. We’ve heard enough out of you tonight.”

  Having said his piece, the fiddler opened the battered case that sat next to him and drew out his instrument. The mood of the room had grown vaguely hostile by this point, and more than a few people eyed me resentfully.