The Wise Man's Fear Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE - Apple and Elderberry

  CHAPTER TWO - Holly

  CHAPTER THREE - Luck

  CHAPTER FOUR - Tar and Tin

  CHAPTER FIVE - The Eolian

  CHAPTER SIX - Love

  CHAPTER SEVEN - Admissions

  CHAPTER EIGHT - Questions

  CHAPTER NINE - A Civil Tongue

  CHAPTER TEN - Being Treasured

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - Haven

  CHAPTER TWELVE - The Sleeping Mind

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Hunt

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Hidden City

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Interesting Fact

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Unspoken Fear

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Interlude—Parts

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Wine and Blood

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - Gentlemen and Thieves

  CHAPTER TWENTY - The Fickle Wind

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Piecework

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Slipping

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Principles

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Clinks

  CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE - Wrongful Apprehension

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Trust

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Pressure

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Kindling

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Stolen

  CHAPTER THIRTY - More Than Salt

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - The Crucible

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Blood and Ash

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Fire

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Baubles

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Secrets

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - All This Knowing

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - A Piece of Fire

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Kernels of Truth

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Contradictions

  CHAPTER FORTY - Puppet

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - The Greater Good

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - Penance

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - Without Word or Warning

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - The Catch

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - Consortation

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - Interlude—A Bit of Fiddle

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - Interlude—The Hempen Verse

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - A Significant Absence

  CHAPTER FORTY- NINE - The Ignorant Edema

  CHAPTER FIFTY - Chasing the Wind

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - All Wise Men Fear

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO - A Brief Journey

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - The Sheer

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR - The Messenger

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - Grace

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX - Power

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN - A Handful of Iron

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT - Courting

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE - Purpose

  CHAPTER SIXTY - Wisdom’s Tool

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE - Deadnettle

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO - Crisis

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE - The Gilded Cage

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR - Flight

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE - A Beautiful Game

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX - Within Easy Reach

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN - Telling Faces

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT - The Cost of a Loaf

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE - Such Madness

  CHAPTER SEVENTY - Clinging

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE - Interlude—The Thrice-locked Chest

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO - Horses

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE - Blood and Ink

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR - Rumors

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE - The Players

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX - Tinder

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN - Pennysworth

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT - Another Road, Another Forest

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE - Signs

  CHAPTER EIGHTY - Tone

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE - The Jealous Moon

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO - Barbarians

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE - Lack of Sight

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR - The Edge of the Map

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE - Interlude—Fences

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX - The Broken Road

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN - The Lethani

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT - Listening

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE - Losing the Light

  CHAPTER NINETY - To Sing a Song About

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE - Flame, Thunder, Broken Tree

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO - Taborlin the Great

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE - Mercenaries All

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR - Over Rock and Root

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE - Chased

  CHAPTER NINETY-SIX - The Fire Itself

  CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN - Blood and Bitter Rue

  CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT - The Lay of Felurian

  CHAPTER NINETY-NINE - Magic of a Different Kind

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED - Shaed

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE - Close Enough to Touch

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO - The Ever-Moving Moon

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE - Close Enough to Touch

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR - The Cthaeh

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE - Interlude—A Certain Sweetness

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX - Returning

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN - Fire

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT - Quick

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE - Barbarians and Madmen

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN - Beauty and Branch

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN - A Liar and a Thief

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE - The Hammer

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN - Barbarian Tongue

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN - His Sharp and Single Arrow

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN - Storm and Stone

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN - Height

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN - Barbarian Cunning

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN - Purpose

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN - Hands

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY - Kindness

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE - When Words Fail

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO - Leaving

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE - The Spinning Leaf

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR - Of Names

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE - Caesura

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX - The First Stone

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN - Anger

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT - Names

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE - Interlude—Din of Whispering

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY - Wine and Water

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE - Black by Moonlight

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO - The Broken Circle

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE - Dreams

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR - The Road to Levinshir

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE - Homecoming

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX - Interlude—Close to Forgetting

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN - Questions

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT - Notes

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE - Lockless

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY - Just Rewards

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE - A Journey to Return

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO - Home

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE - Bloodless

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR - Sword and Shaed

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FIVE - Stories

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX - Failures

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVEN - Debts

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT - The Stories of Stones

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-NINE - Tangled

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY - Folly

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIF
TY-ONE - Locks

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-TWO - Elderberry

  EPILOGUE

  The Kingkiller Chronicle:

  Day One: THE NAME OF THE WIND

  Day Two: THE WISE MAN’S FEAR

  For more about The Kingkiller Chronicle visit www.patrickrothfuss.com

  Copyright © 2011 by Patrick Rothfuss

  eISBN : 978-1-101-48640-5

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1540.

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  To my patient fans, for reading the blog and telling me what they really want is an excellent book, even if it takes a little longer.

  To my clever beta readers, for their invaluable help and toleration of my paranoid secrecy.

  To my fabulous agent, for keeping the wolves from the door in more ways than one.

  To my wise editor, for giving me the time and space to write a book that fills me with pride.

  To my loving family, for supporting me and reminding me that leaving the house every once in a while is a good thing.

  To my understanding girlfriend, for not leaving me when the stress of endless revision made me frothy and monstrous.

  To my sweet baby, for loving his daddy even though I have to go away and write all the time. Even when we’re having a really great time. Even when we’re talking about ducks.

  PROLOGUE

  A Silence of Three Parts

  DAWN WAS COMING. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

  The most obvious part was a vast, echoing quiet made by things that were lacking. If there had been a storm, raindrops would have tapped and pattered against the selas vines behind the inn. Thunder would have muttered and rumbled and chased the silence down the road like fallen autumn leaves. If there had been travelers stirring in their rooms they would have stretched and grumbled the silence away like fraying, half-forgotten dreams. If there had been music . . . but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

  Inside the Waystone a dark-haired man eased the back door closed behind himself. Moving through the perfect dark, he crept through the kitchen, across the taproom, and down the basement stairs. With the ease of long experience, he avoided loose boards that might groan or sigh beneath his weight. Each slow step made only the barest tep against the floor. In doing this he added his small, furtive silence to the larger echoing one. They made an amalgam of sorts, a counterpoint.

  The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened long enough you might begin to feel it in the chill of the window glass and the smooth plaster walls of the innkeeper’s room. It was in the dark chest that lay at the foot of a hard and narrow bed. And it was in the hands of the man who lay there, motionless, watching for the first pale hint of dawn’s coming light.

  The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he lay with the resigned air of one who has long ago abandoned any hope of sleep.

  The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, holding the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great riversmooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Apple and Elderberry

  BAST SLOUCHED AGAINST THE long stretch of mahogany bar, bored. Looking around the empty room, he sighed and rummaged around until he found a clean linen cloth. Then, with a resigned look, he began to polish a section of the bar.

  After a moment Bast leaned forward and squinted at some half-seen speck. He scratched at it and frowned at the oily smudge his finger made. He leaned closer, fogged the bar with his breath, and buffed it briskly. Then he paused, exhaled hard against the wood, and wrote an obscene word in the fog.

  Tossing aside the cloth, Bast made his way through the empty tables and chairs to the wide windows of the inn. He stood there for a long moment, looking at the dirt road running through the center of the town.

  Bast gave another sigh and began to pace the room. He moved with the casual grace of a dancer and the perfect nonchalance of a cat. But when he ran his hands through his dark hair the gesture was restless. His blue eyes prowled the room endlessly, as if searching for a way out. As if searching for something he hadn’t seen a hundred times before.

  But there was nothing new. Empty tables and chairs. Empty stools at the bar. Two huge barrels loomed on the counter behind the bar, one for whiskey, one for beer. Between the barrels stood a vast panoply of bottles: all colors and shapes. Above the bottles hung a sword.

  Bast’s eyes fell back onto the bottles. He focused on them for a long, speculative moment, then moved back behind the bar and brought out a heavy clay mug.

  Drawing a deep breath, he pointed a finger at the first bottle in the bottom row and began to chant as he counted down the line.

  Maple. Maypole.

  Catch and carry.

  Ash and Ember.

  Elderberry.

  He finished the chant while pointing at a squat green bottle. He twisted out the cork, took a speculative sip, then made a sour face and shuddered. He quickly set the bottle down and picked up a curving red one instead. He sipped this one as well, rubbed his wet lips together thoughtfully, then nodded and splashed a generous portion into his mug.

  He pointed at the next bottle and started counting again:Woolen. Woman.

  Moon at night.

  Willow. Window.

  Candlelight.

  This time it was a clear bottle with a pale yellow liquor inside. Bast yanked the cork and added a long pour to the mug without bothering to taste it first. Setting the bottle aside, he picked up the mug and swirled it dramatically before taking a mouthful. He smiled a brilliant smile and flicked the new bottle with his finger, making it chime lightly before he began his singsong chant again:Barrel. Barley.

  Stone and stave.

  Wind and water—

  A floorboard creaked, and Bast looked up, smiling brightly. “Good morning, Reshi.”

  The red-haired innkeeper stood at the bottom of the stairs. He brushed his long-fingered hands over the clean apron and full-length sleeves he wore. “Is our guest awake yet?”

  Bast shook his head. “Not a rustle or a peep.”

  “He’s had a hard couple of days,” Kote said. “It’s probably catching up with him.” He hesitated, then lifted his head and sniffed. “Have you been drinking?” The question was more curious than accusatory.

  “No,” Bast said.

  The innkeeper raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve been tasting,” Bast said, emphasizing the word. “Tasting comes before drinking.”

  “Ah,” the innkeeper said. “So you were getting ready to drink then?”

  “Tiny Gods, yes,” Bast said. “To great excess. What the hell else is there to do?” Bast brought his mug up from underneath the bar and looked into it. “I was hoping for elderberry, but I got some sort of melon.” He swirled the mug speculatively. “Plus something spicy.” He took another sip and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Cinnamon?” he asked, looking at the ranks of bottles. “Do we even have any more elderberry?”

  “It’s in there somewhere,” the innk
eeper said, not bothering to look at the bottles. “Stop a moment and listen, Bast. We need to talk about what you did last night.”

  Bast went very still. “What did I do, Reshi?”

  “You stopped that creature from the Mael,” Kote said.

  “Oh.” Bast relaxed, making a dismissive gesture. “I just slowed it down, Reshi. That’s all.”

  Kote shook his head. “You realized it wasn’t just some madman.You tried to warn us. If you hadn’t been so quick on your feet . . .”

  Bast frowned. “I wasn’t so quick, Reshi. It got Shep.” He looked down at the well scrubbed floorboards near the bar. “I liked Shep.”

  “Everyone else will think the smith’s prentice saved us,” Kote said. “And that’s probably for the best. But I know the truth. If not for you, it would have slaughtered everyone here.”

  “Oh Reshi, that’s just not true,” Bast said. “You would have killed it like a chicken. I just got it first.”

  The innkeeper shrugged the comment away. “Last night has me thinking,” he said. “Wondering what we could do to make things a bit safer around here. Have you ever heard the ‘White Riders’ Hunt’?”

  Bast smiled. “It was our song before it was yours, Reshi.” He drew a breath and sang in a sweet tenor:Rode they horses white as snow.

  Silver blade and white horn bow.

  Wore they fresh and supple boughs,

  Red and green upon their brows.

  The innkeeper nodded. “Exactly the verse I was thinking of. Do you think you could take care of it while I get things ready here?”

  Bast nodded enthusiastically and practically bolted, pausing by the kitchen door. “You won’t start without me?” he asked anxiously.

  “We’ll start as soon as our guest is fed and ready,” Kote said. Then, seeing the expression on his student’s face, he relented a little. “For all that, I imagine you have an hour or two.”