The Wise Man's Fear

“The apothecary is close friends with Carceret’s mother,” Vashet said. “And I would not have her looking after your hands for a weight of gold.” She nodded her head at the nearby house. “Daeln, on the other hand, is who I would come to if I needed mending.”

She knocked on the door. “You may be a member of the school, but do not forget that I am still your teacher. In all things, I know what is best.”

Later, my hand tightly bandaged, Vashet and I sat with Shehyn. We were in a room I’d never seen before, smaller than the rooms where we had discussed the Lethani. There was a small, messy writing desk, some flowers in a vase, and several comfortably cushioned chairs. Along one wall was a picture of three birds in flight against a sunset sky, not painted, but composed of thousands of pieces of bright enameled tile. I suspected we might be in the equivalent of Shehyn’s study.

“How is your hand?” Shehyn said.

“Fine,” I said. “It is a shallow cut. Daeln has the smallest stitches I have ever seen. He is quite remarkable.”

She nodded. Approval.

I held up my left hand, wrapped in clean white linen. “The hard part will be keeping this hand idle for four days. I already feel as if it were my tongue that were cut, and not my hand.”

Shehyn gave a slight smile at this, startling me. The familiarity of the expression was a great compliment. “You performed quite well today. Everyone is speaking of it.”

“I expect the few that saw have better things to speak about,” I said modestly.

Amused disbelief. “That may be true, but those who watched from hiding will doubtless say what they have seen. Celean herself will have already told a hundred people unless I miss my guess. By tomorrow everyone will expect your stride to shake the ground as if you were Aethe himself come back to visit us.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I kept quiet. A rarity for me. But as I’ve said, I had been learning.

“There is something I have been waiting to speak to you about,” Shehyn said. Guarded curiosity. “After Tempi brought you here, he told me the long story of your time together,” she said. “Of your search for the bandits.”

I nodded.

“Is it true that you made blood magic to destroy some men, then called lightning to destroy the rest?”

Vashet looked up at this, glancing back and forth between us. I had grown so used to speaking Aturan with her that it was odd to see the expressionless Adem impassivity covering her face. Still, I could tell she was surprised. She hadn’t known.

I thought of trying to offer an explanation for my actions, then decided against it. “Yes.”

“You are powerful then.”

I had never thought of it in those terms before. “I have some power. Others are more powerful.”

“Is that why you seek the Ketan? To gain power?”

“No. I seek from curiosity. I seek the knowing of things.”

“Knowing is a type of power,” Shehyn pointed out, then seemed to change the subject. “Tempi told me there was a Rhinta among the bandits as their leader.”

“Rhinta?” I asked respectfully.

“A bad thing. A man who is more than a man, yet less than a man.”

“A demon?” I asked, using the Aturan word without thinking.

“Not a demon,” Shehyn said, switching easily to Aturan. “There are no such things as demons. Your priests tell stories of demons to frighten you.” She met my eye briefly, gesturing a graceful: Apologetic honesty and serious import. “But there are bad things in the world. Old things in the shape of men. And there are a handful worse than all the rest. They walk the world freely and do terrible things.”

I felt hope rising within me. “I have also heard them called the Chandrian,” I said.

Shehyn nodded. “I have heard this too. But Rhinta is a better word.” Shehyn gave me a long look and fell back into Ademic. “Given what Tempi has told me of your reaction, I think that you have met such a one before.”

“Yes.”

“Will you meet such a one again?”

“Yes.” The certainty in my own voice surprised me.

“With purpose?”

“Yes.”

“What purpose?”

“To kill him.”

“Such things are not easily killed.”

I nodded.

“Will you use what Tempi has taught you to do this?”

“I will use all things to that purpose.” I unconsciously began to gesture absolute, but the bandage on my hand stopped me. I frowned at it.

“That is good,” Shehyn said. “Your Ketan will not be enough. It is poor for one as old as you are. Good for a barbarian. Good for one with as little training as you have had, but still poor overall.”

I fought hard to keep the eagerness out of my voice, wishing I could use my hand to indicate how important the question was to me. “Shehyn, I have a great desire to know more of these Rhinta.”

Shehyn was quiet for a long moment. “I will consider this,” she said at last, making a gesture I thought might be trepidation. “Such things are not spoken of lightly.”

I kept my face impassive, and forced my bandaged hand to say profound respectful desire. “I thank you for considering it, Shehyn. Anything you could tell me of them I would value more than a weight of gold.”

Vashet gestured firm discomfort, then polite desire, difference. Two span ago I couldn’t have understood, but now I realized she wanted to move the conversation onto a different subject.

So I bit my tongue and let it go. I knew enough about the Adem by this point to realize that pushing the issue was the worst thing to do if I wanted to learn more. In the Commonwealth I could have pressed the point, teased and wheedled it out of the person I was talking to. That wouldn’t work here. Stillness and silence were the only things that would work. I had to be patient and let Shehyn return to the subject in her own time.

“I was saying,” Shehyn continued. Reluctant confession. “Your Ketan is poor. But were you to train yourself in proper fashion for a year, you would be Tempi’s equal.”

“You flatter me.”

“I do not. I tell you your weaknesses. You learn quickly. That leads to rash behavior, and rashness is not of the Lethani. Vashet is not alone in thinking there is something troubling about your spirit.”

Shehyn gave me a long look. For over a minute she stared at me. Then she gave an eloquent shrug and glanced at Vashet, favoring the younger woman with a ghost of a smile. “Still,” whimsical musing, “if I have ever met someone without a single shadow on their heart, it was surely a child too young for speaking.” She pushed herself out of her chair and brushed off her shirt with both hands. “Come. Let us go and have a name for you.”

Shehyn led the three of us up the side of a steep, rocky hill.

None of us had spoken since we had left the school. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but it didn’t seem proper to ask. It would have seemed irreverent, like a groom blurting out, “What comes next?” halfway through his own wedding.

We came to a grassy ledge with a leaning tree clutching tight to the bare face of a cliff. Beside the tree was a thick wooden door, one of the hidden Adem homes.

Shehyn knocked and opened the door herself. Inside it wasn’t cavelike at all. The stone walls were finished, and the floor was smooth wood. It was much larger than I’d expected, too, with a high ceiling and six doors leading