The Name of the Wind

Kote ignored the unspoken question. “I read your book years ago. The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus. Quite the eye-opener for a young man with his head full of stories.” Looking down he began moving the white cloth along the grain of the bar again. “I’ll admit, I was disappointed to learn that dragons didn’t exist. That’s a hard lesson for a boy to learn.”

Chronicler smiled. “Honestly I was a little disappointed myself. I went looking for a legend and found a lizard. A fascinating lizard, but a lizard just the same.”

“And now you’re here,” Kote said. “Have you come to prove that I don’t exist?”

Chronicler laughed nervously. “No. You see, we heard a rumor—”

“ ‘We?’ ” Kote interrupted.

“I’ve been traveling with an old friend of yours. Skarpi.”

“Taken you under his wing, has he?” Kote said to himself. “How about that? Skarpi’s apprentice.”

“More of a colleague, really.”

Kote nodded, still expressionless. “I might have guessed he would be the first to find me. Rumormongers, both of you.”

Chronicler’s smile grew sour, and he swallowed the first words that came to his lips. He struggled for a moment to recapture his calm demeanor.

“So what can I do for you?” Kote set aside the clean linen cloth and gave his best innkeeper’s smile. “Something to eat or drink? A room for the night?”

Chronicler hesitated.

“I have it all right here.” Kote gestured expansively behind the bar. “Old wine, smooth and pale? Honey mead? Dark ale? Sweet fruit liquor! Plum? Cherry? Green apple? Blackberry?” Kote pointed out the bottles in turn. “Come now, surely you must want something?” As he spoke, his smile widened, showing too many teeth for a friendly innkeeper’s grin. At the same time his eyes grew cold, and hard, and angry.

Chronicler dropped his gaze. “I’d thought that—”

“You thought,” Kote said derisively, dropping all pretense of a smile. “I very much doubt it. Otherwise, you might have thought,” he bit off the word, “of how much danger you were putting me in by coming here.”

Chronicler’s face grew red. “I’d heard that Kvothe was fearless,” he said hotly.

The innkeeper shrugged. “Only priests and fools are fearless, and I’ve never been on the best of terms with God.”

Chronicler frowned, aware that he was being baited. “Listen,” he continued calmly, “I was extraordinarily careful. No one except Skarpi knew I was coming. I didn’t mention you to anyone. I didn’t expect to actually find you.”

“Imagine my relief,” Kote said sarcastically.

Obviously disheartened, Chronicler spoke, “I’ll be the first to admit that my coming here may have been a mistake.” He paused, giving Kote the opportunity to contradict him. Kote didn’t. Chronicler gave a small, tight sigh and continued, “But what’s done is done. Won’t you even consider ...”

Kote shook his head. “It was a long time ago—”

“Not even two years,” Chronicler protested.

“—and I am not what I was,” Kote continued without pausing.

“And what was that, exactly?”

“Kvothe,” he said simply, refusing to be drawn any further into an explanation. “Now I am Kote. I tend to my inn. That means beer is three shims and a private room costs copper.” He began polishing the bar again with a fierce intensity. “As you said, ‘done is done.’ The stories will take care of themselves.”

“But—”

Kote looked up, and for a second Chronicler saw past the anger that lay glittering on the surface of his eyes. For a moment he saw the pain underneath, raw and bloody, like a wound too deep for healing. Then Kote looked away and only the anger remained. “What could you possibly offer me that is worth the price of remembering?”

“Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Kote shook his head, stuck between amusement and exasperation. “That’s the whole point. People don’t look for you when you’re dead. Old enemies don’t try to settle scores. People don’t come asking you for stories,” he said acidly

Chronicler refused to back down. “Other people say you’re a myth.”

“I am a myth,” Kote said easily, making an extravagant gesture. “A very special kind of myth that creates itself. The best lies about me are the ones / told.”

“They say you never existed,” Chronicler corrected gently.

Kote shrugged nonchalantly, his smile fading an imperceptible amount.

Sensing weakness, Chronicler continued. “Some stories paint you as little more than a red-handed killer.”

“I’m that too.” Kote turned to polish the counter behind the bar. He shrugged again, not as easily as before. “I’ve killed men and things that were more than men. Every one of them deserved it.”

Chronicler shook his head slowly. “The stories are saying ‘assassin’ not ‘hero.’ Kvothe the Arcane and Kvothe Kingkiller are two very different men.”

Kote stopped polishing the bar and turned his back to the room. He nodded once without looking up.

“Some are even saying that there is a new Chandrian. A fresh terror in the night. His hair as red as the blood he spills.”