The Name of the Wind

Chronicler blanched. “But ... the earl.”

Kote waved a hand dismissively

“No one needs three days,” Chronicler said firmly. “I interviewed Oren Velciter. Oren Velciter, mind you. He’s eighty years old, and done two hundred years worth of living. Five hundred, if you count the lies. He sought me out,” Chronicler said with particular emphasis. “He only took two days.”

“That is my offer,” the innkeeper said simply. “I’ll do this properly or not at all.”

“Wait!” Chronicler brightened suddenly. “I’ve been thinking about this all backward,” he said, shaking his head at his own foolishness. “I’ll just visit the earl, then come back. You can have all the time you like then. I could even bring Skarpi back with me.”

Kote gave Chronicler a look of profound disdain. “What gives you the slightest impression that I would be here when you came back?” he asked incredulously “For that matter, what makes you think you’re free to simply walk out of here, knowing what you know?”

Chronicler went very still. “Are—” He swallowed and started again. “Are you saying that—”

“The story will take three days,” Kote interrupted. “Starting tomorrow. That is what I am saying.”

Chronicler closed his eyes and ran his hand over his face. The earl would be furious, of course. No telling what it might take to get back in his good graces. Still ... “If that’s the only way that I can get it, I accept.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” The innkeeper relaxed into a half smile. “Come now, is three days really so unusual?”

Chronicler’s serious expression returned. “Three days is quite unusual. But then again—” Some of the self- importance seemed to leak out of him. “Then again,” he made a gesture as if to show how useless words were. “You are Kvothe.”

The man who called himself Kote looked up from behind his bottles. A full-lipped smile played about his mouth. A spark was kindling behind his eyes. He seemed taller.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Kvothe said, and his voice had iron in it.

CHAPTER SEVEN Of Beginnings and the Names of Things

Sunlight poured into the Waystone. It was a cool, fresh light, fitted for beginnings. It brushed past the miller as he set his water-wheel turning for the day. It lit the forge the smith was rekindling after four days of cold metal work. It touched draft horses hitched to wagons and sickle blades glittering sharp and ready at the beginning of an autumn day

Inside the Waystone, the light fell across Chronicler’s face and touched a beginning there, a blank page waiting the first words of a story. The light flowed across the bar, scattered a thousand tiny rainbow beginnings from the colored bottles, and climbed the wall toward the sword, as if searching for one final beginning.

But when the light touched the sword there were no beginnings to be seen. In fact, the light the sword reflected was dull, burnished, and ages old. Looking at it, Chronicler remembered that though it was the beginning of a day, it was also late autumn and growing colder. The sword shone with the knowledge that dawn was a small beginning compared to the ending of a season: the ending of a year.

Chronicler pulled his eyes away from the sword, aware that Kvothe had said something, but not knowing what. “I beg your pardon?”

“How do people normally go about relating their stories?” Kvothe asked.

Chronicler shrugged. “Most simply tell me what they remember. Later, I record events in the proper order, remove the unnecessary pieces, clarify, simplify, that sort of thing.”

Kvothe frowned. “I don’t think that will do.”

Chronicler gave him a shy smile. “Storytellers are always different. They prefer their stories be left alone. But they also prefer an attentive audience. I usually listen and record later. I have a nearly perfect memory.”

“Nearly perfect doesn’t quite suit me.” Kvothe pressed a finger against his lips. “How fast can you write?”

Chronicler gave a knowing smile. “Faster than a man can talk.”

Kvothe raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to see that.”

Chronicler opened his satchel. He brought out a stack of fine, white paper and a bottle of ink. After arranging them carefully, he dipped a pen and looked expectantly at Kvothe.

Kvothe sat forward in his chair and spoke quickly, “I am. We are. She is. He was. They will be.” Chronicler’s pen danced and scratched down the page as Kvothe watched it. “I, Chronicler do hereby avow that I can neither read nor write. Supine. Irreverent. Jackdaw. Quartz. Lacquer. Eggoliant. Lhin ta Lu soren hea. ‘There was a young widow from Faeton, whose morals were hard as a rock. She went to confession, for her true obsession—’” Kvothe leaned farther forward to watch as Chronicler wrote. “Interesting—oh, you may stop.”

Chronicler smiled again and wiped his pen on a piece of cloth. The page in front of him held a single line of incomprehensible symbols. “Some sort of cipher?” Kvothe wondered aloud. “Very neatly done, too. I’ll bet you don’t spoil many pages.” He turned the sheet to look at the writing more carefully.

“I never spoil pages,” Chronicler said haughtily.

Kvothe nodded without looking up.

“What does ‘eggoliant’ mean?” Chronicler asked.

“Hmmm? Oh, nothing. I made it up. I wanted to see if an unfamiliar word would slow you down.” He stretched, and pulled his chair closer to Chronicler’s. “As soon as you show me how to read this, we can begin.”

Chronicler looked doubtful. “It’s a very complex—” Seeing Kvothe frown, he sighed. “I’ll try.”

Chronicler drew a deep breath and began to write a line of symbols as he spoke. “There are around fifty different sounds we use to speak. I’ve given each of them a symbol consisting of one or two pen strokes. It’s all sound. I could conceivably transcribe a language I don’t even understand.” He pointed. “These are different vowel sounds.”

“All vertical lines,” Kvothe said, looking intently at the page.

Chronicler paused, thrown off his stride. “Well ... yes.”

“The consonants would be horizontal then? And they would combine like this?” Taking the pen, Kvothe made a few marks of his own on the page. “Clever. You’d never need more than two or three for a word.”

Chronicler watched Kvothe quietly

Kvothe didn’t notice, his attention on the paper. “If this is ‘am’ then these must be the ah sounds,” he motioned to a group of characters Chronicler had penned. “Ah, ay, aeh, auh. That would make these the ohs” Kvothe nodded to himself and pressed the pen back into Chronicler’s hand. “Show me the consonants.”

Chronicler penned them down numbly, reciting the sounds as he wrote. After a moment, Kvothe took the pen and completed the list himself, asking the dumbfounded Chronicler to correct him if he made a mistake.

Chronicler watched and listened as Kvothe completed the list. From beginning to end the whole process took about fifteen minutes. He made no mistakes.

“Wonderfully efficient system,” Kvothe said appreciatively. “Very logical. Did you design it yourself?”

Chronicler took a long moment before he spoke, staring at the rows of characters on the page in front of Kvothe. Finally, disregarding Kvothe’s question, Chronicler asked, “Did you really learn Tenia in a day?”

Kvothe gave a faint smile and looked down at the table. “That’s an old story I’d almost forgotten. It took a day and a half, actually. A day and a half with no sleep. Why do you ask?”

“I heard about it at the University. I never really believed it.” He looked down at the page of his cipher in Kvothe’s neat handwriting. “All of it?”

Kvothe looked puzzled. “What?”

“Did you learn the whole language?”