The Wise Man's Fear

guttery. He’d even taken Taborlin’s cloak of no particular color, but he warc—sorry. But —achhm. Hespe, would you be a darling and pass me the skin?”

Hespe tossed Marten the waterskin and he took a deep drink. “That’s better.” He cleared his throat. “Where was I again?”

We had been in the Eld for twelve days, and things had fallen into a steady rhythm. Marten had changed our standing wager to reflect our growing skill. First to ten to one, then fifteen to one, which was the same arrangement he had with Dedan and Hespe.

My understanding of the Adem hand-language was growing, and as a result, Tempi was becoming something other than a frustrating blank page of a man. As I learned to read his body language, he was slowly being colored in around the edges.

He was thoughtful and gentle. Dedan rubbed him the wrong way. He loved jokes, though many of mine fell flat, and the ones he tried to tell invariably made no sense in translation.

This isn’t to say things were perfect between us. I still offended Tempi occasionally, making social gaffes I couldn’t understand even after the fact. Every day I continued to follow him in his strange dance, and every day he pointedly ignored me.

“Now Taborlin needed to escape,” Marten said, continuing his story. “But when he looked around his cave, he saw no door. No windows. All around him was nothing but smooth, hard stone.

“But Taborlin the Great knew the names of all things, so all things were his to command. He said to the stone: ‘break!’ and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air.

“Taborlin made his way out of the caves, into the castle, and finally to the doors of the royal hall itself. The doors were barred against him, so he said, ‘burn!’ and they burst into flame and were soon nothing more than fine grey ash.

“Taborlin stepped into the hall and saw King Scyphus sitting there with fifty guards. The king said, ‘Capture him!’ But the guards had just seen the doors burn to ash, so they moved closer, but none of them came too close, if you know what I mean.

“King Scyphus said, ‘Cowards! I will battle Taborlin with wizardry and best him!’ He was afraid of Taborlin too, but he hid it well. Besides, Scyphus had his staff, and Taborlin had none.

“Then Taborlin said, ‘If you’re so brave, give me my staff before we duel.’

“ ‘Certainly,’ Scyphus said, even though he didn’t really mean to give it back, you see. ‘It’s right next to you in that chest there.’ ”

Marten looked around at us conspiratorially. “You see, Scyphus knew the chest was locked and had only one key. And that key was right in his pocket. So Taborlin went over to the chest, but it was locked. Then Scyphus laughed and so did a few of the guards.

“That made Taborlin angry. And before any of them could do anything he struck the top of the chest with his hand and shouted, ‘Edro!’ The chest sprung open and he grabbed his cloak of no particular color, wrapping it around himself.”

Marten cleared his throat again. “Excuse me,” he said, and paused to take another long drink.

Hespe turned to Dedan. “What color do you think Taborlin’s cloak was?”

Dedan’s forehead creased a bit, almost like the beginning of a scowl. “What do you mean? It’s no particular color, just like it says.”

Hespe’s mouth went flat. “I know that. But when you think of it in your head, what does it look like? You have to picture it as looking like something, don’t you?”

Dedan looked thoughtful for a moment. “I always pictured it as kind of shimmery,” he said. “Like the cobblestones outside a tallow-works after a hard rain.”

“I always thought of it as a dirty grey,” she said. “Sort of washed out from his being on the road all the time.”

“That makes good sense,” Dedan said, and I watched Hespe’s face go gentle again.

“White,” Tempi volunteered. “I think white. No color.”

“I always thought of it as kind of a pale sky-blue,” Marten admitted, shrugging. “I know that doesn’t make any sense. That’s just how I picture it.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Sometimes I think of it like a quilt,” I said. “Made entirely out of patchwork, a bunch of different colored rags and scraps. But most of the time I think of it as dark. Like it really is a color, but it’s too dark for anyone to see.”

When I was younger, stories of Taborlin had left me wide-eyed with wonder. Now that I knew the truth about magic, I enjoyed them on a different level, somewhere between nostalgia and amusement.

But I held a special place in my heart for Taborlin’s cloak of no particular color. His staff held much of his power. His sword was deadly. His key, coin, and candle were valuable tools. But the cloak was at the heart of Taborlin. It was a disguise when he needed it, helped him hide when he was in trouble. It protected him. From rain. From arrows. From fire.

He could hide things in it, and it had many pockets full of wonderful things. A knife. A toy for a child. A flower for a lady. Whatever Taborlin needed was somewhere in his cloak of no particular color. These stories are what made me beg my mother for my first cloak when I was young. . . .

I drew my own cloak around me. My nasty, tatty, faded cloak the tinker had traded me. On one of our trips into Crosson for supplies, I’d picked up some spare cloth and sewn a few clumsy pockets into the inside. But it was still a poor replacement for my rich burgundy cloak, or the lovely black and green one Fela had made for me.

Marten cleared his throat again and launched back into his story. “So Taborlin struck the trunk with his hand and shouted. ‘Edro!’ The lid of the chest popped open, and he grabbed his cloak of no particular color and his staff. He called forth great barbs of lightning and killed twenty guards. Then he called forth a sheet of fire and killed another twenty. Those that were left threw down their swords and cried for mercy.

“Then Taborlin gathered up the rest of his things from the chest. He took out his key and coin and tucked them safe away. Lastly he brought out his copper sword, Skyaldrin, and belted—”

“What?” Dedan interrupted, laughing. “You tit. Taborlin’s sword wasn’t copper.”

“Shut up, Den,” Marten snapped, nettled at the interruption. “It was so copper.”

“You shut up,” Dedan replied. “Who’s ever heard of a copper sword? Copper wouldn’t hold an edge. It’d be like trying to kill someone with a big penny.”

Hespe laughed at that. “It was probably a silver sword, don’t you think, Marten?”

“It was a copper sword,” Marten insisted.

“Maybe it was early on in his career,” Dedan said in a loud whisper to Hespe. “All he could afford was a copper sword.”

Marten shot the two of them an angry look. “Copper, damn you. If you don’t like it, you can just guess at the ending.” He folded his arms in front of himself.

“Fine,” Dedan said. “Kvothe can give us one. He might be a pup, but he knows how to tell a proper story. Copper sword my ass.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’d like to hear the end of Marten’s.”

“Oh go ahead,” the old tracker said bitterly. “I’m in no mood to finish now. And I’d rather listen to you than hear that donkey he-yaw his way through one of his.”

Nightly stories had been one of the few times we could sit as a group without falling into petty bickering. Now, even they were becoming tense. What’s more, the others were beginning to count on me for the evening’s entertainment. Hoping to put an end to the trend, I’d put a lot of thought into what story I was going to tell tonight.

“Once upon a time,” I began. “There was a little boy born in a little town. He was perfect, or so his mother thought. But one thing was different about him. He had a gold screw in his belly button. Just the head of it peeping out.

“Now his mother was simply glad he had all his fingers and toes to count with. But as the boy grew up he realized not everyone had screws in their belly buttons, let alone gold ones. He asked his mother what it was for, but she didn’t know. Next he asked his father, but his father didn’t know. He asked his grandparents, but they didn’t know either.