It was only then that I realized what they were. Some were filled with liquid and wicking, much like ordinary lamps, but most of them were utterly unfamiliar. One contained nothing but a boiling grey smoke that flickered sporadically. Another sphere contained a wick hanging in empty air from a silver wire, burning with a motionless white flame despite its apparent lack of fuel.
Two hanging side by side were twins save that one had a blue flame and the other was a hot-forge-orange. Some were small as plums, others large as melons. One held what looked like a piece of black coal and a piece of white chalk, and where the two pieces were pressed together, an angry red flame burned outward in all directions.
Kilvin let me look for a long while before he moved closer. “Among the Cealdar there are legends of ever- burning lamps. I believe that such a thing was once within the scope of our craft. Ten years I have been looking. I have made many lamps, some of them very good, very long burning.” He looked at me. “But none of them ever- burning.”
He walked down the line to point at one of the hanging spheres. “Do you know this one, E’lir Kvothe?” It held nothing but a knob of greenish-greyish wax that was burning with a greenish-greyish tongue of flame. I shook my head.
“Hmmm. You should. White lithium salt. I thought of it three span before you came to us. It is good so far, twenty-four days and I expect many more.” He looked at me. “Your guessing this thing surprised me, as it took me ten years to think of it. Your second guess, sodium oil, was not as good. I tried it years ago. Eleven days.”
He moved all the way to the end of the row, pointing at the empty sphere with the motionless white flame. “Seventy days,” he said proudly. “I do not hope that this will be the one, for hoping is a foolish game. But if it burns six more days it will be my best lamp in these ten years.”
He watched it for a while, his expression oddly soft. “But I do not hope,” he said resolutely. “I make new lamps and take my measurements. That is the only way to make progress.”
Wordlessly he led me back down to the floor of the workshop. Once there, he turned to me. “Hands,” he said in a peremptory way. He held out his own huge hands expectantly.
Not knowing what he wanted, I raised my hands in front of me. He took them in his own, his touch surprisingly gentle. He turned them over, looking at them carefully. “You have Cealdar hands,” he said in a grudging compliment. He held his own up for me to see. They were thick-fingered, with wide palms. He made two fists that looked more like mauls than balled hands. “I had many years before these hands could learn to be Cealdar hands. You are lucky. You will work here.” Only by the quizzical tilting of his head did he make the gruff grumble of a statement into an invitation.
“Oh, yes. I mean, thank you, sir. I’m honored that you wo—”
He cut me off with an impatient gesture. “Come to me if you have any thoughts on the ever-burning lamp. If your head is as clever as your hands look....”What might have been a smile was hidden by his thick beard, but a grin shone in his dark eyes as he hesitated teasingly, almost playfully. “If,” he repeated, holding up a finger, its tip as large as the ball of a hammer’s head. “Then me and mine will show you things.”
“You need to figure out who you’re going to suck up to,” Simmon said. “A master has to sponsor you to Re’lar. So you should pick one and stick to him like shit on his shoe.”
“Lovely,” Sovoy said dryly.
Sovoy, Wilem, Simmon and I were sitting at an out of the way table in the back of Anker’s, isolated from the Felling-night crowd that filled the room with a low roar of conversation. My stitches had come out two days earlier and we were celebrating my first full span in the Arcanum.
We were none of us particularly drunk. But then again, none of us were particularly sober, either. Our exact positioning between those two points is a matter of pointless conjecture, and I will waste no time on it.
“I simply concentrate on being brilliant,” Sovoy said. “Then wait for the masters to realize it.”
“How did that work out with Mandrag?” Wilem said with a rare smile.
Sovoy gave Wilem a dark look. “Mandrag is a horse’s ass.”
“That explains why you threatened him with your riding crop,” Wilem said.
I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. “Did you really?”
“They’re not telling the whole story,” Sovoy said, affronted. “He passed me over for promotion in favor of another student. He was keeping me back so he could use me as indentured labor, rather than raise me to Re’lar.”
“And you threatened him with your crop.”
“We had an argument,” Sovoy said calmly. “And I happened to have my crop in my hand.”
“You waved it at him,” Wilem said.
“I’d been riding!” Sovoy said hotly “If I’d been whoring before class and waved a corset at him, no one would have thought twice about it!”
There was a moment of silence at our table.
“I’m thinking twice about it right now,” Simmon said before bursting into laughter with Wilem.
Sovoy fought down a smile as he turned to face me. “Sim is right about one thing. You should concentrate your efforts on one subject. Otherwise you’ll end up like Manet, the eternal E’lir.” He stood and straightened his clothes. “Now, how do I look?”
Sovoy wasn’t fashionably dressed in the strictest sense, as he clung to the Modegan styles rather than the local ones. But there was no denying that he cut quite a figure in the muted colors of his fine silks and suedes.
“What does it matter?” Wilem asked. “Are you trying to set up a tryst with Sim?”
Sovoy smiled. “Unfortunately, I must leave you. I have an engagement with a lady, and I doubt our rounds win bring us to this side of town tonight.”
“You didn’t tell us you had a date,” Sim protested. “We can’t play corners with just three.”
It was something of a concession that Sovoy was here with us at all. He’d sniffed a bit at Wil and Sim’s choice of taverns. Anker’s was low-class enough so that the drinks were cheap, but high-class enough so that you didn’t have to worry about someone picking a fight or throwing up on you. I liked it.
“You are good friends and good company,” Sovoy said. “But none of you are female, nor, with the possible exception of Simmon, are you lovely.” Sovoy winked at him. “Honestly, who among you wouldn’t throw the others over if there was a lady waiting?”
We murmured a grudging agreement. Sovoy smiled; his teeth were very white and straight. “I’ll send the girl over with more drinks,” he said as he turned to go. “To ease the bitter sting of my departure.”
“He’s not a bad sort,” I mused after he left. “For nobility.”
Wilem nodded. “It’s like he knows he’s better than you, but doesn’t look down on you for it because he knows it’s not your fault.”
“So who are you going to cozy up to?” Sim asked, resting his elbows on the table. “I’m guessing not Hemme.”
“Or Lorren,” I said bitterly. “Damn Ambrose twelve ways. I would have loved to work in the Archives.”
“Brandeur’s out too,” Sim said. “If Hemme has a grudge, Brandeur helps him carry it.”
“How about the Chancellor?” Wilem asked. “Linguistics? You already speak Siaru, even if your accent is barbaric.”
I shook my head. “What about Mandrag? I’ve got a lot of experience with chemistry. It’d be a small step into alchemy.”
Simmon laughed. “Everyone thinks chemistry and alchemy are so similar, but they’re really not. They’re not even related. They just happen to live in the same house.”
Wilem gave a slow nod. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”
“Besides,” Simmon said. “Mandrag brought in about twenty new E’lir last term. I heard him complaining about how crowded things were.”
“You’ve got a long haul if you go through Medica,” Wilem said. “Arwyl is stubborn as pig iron. There is no bending him.” He made a gesture with his hand as if chopping something into sections while he spoke. “Six terms E’lir. Eight terms Re’lar. Ten terms El’the.”
“At least,” Simmon added. “Mola’s been a Re’lar with him for almost three years now.”
I tried to think of how I could come up with six years’ worth of tuition. “I might not have the patience for
