The Name of the Wind

“He’s not right, Master,” Simmon said, his voice shrill with worry. “He’s gone all dumb. He won’t say a thing.” While I heard the words, knew they had meaning, even knew the meanings that belonged to them, I couldn’t pull any sense from them.

“I think he struck his head,” Wilem said. “He looks at you, but nothing is there. His eyes are like a dog’s eyes.”

“Kvothe?” Elodin repeated. When I didn’t respond or look up from my lute he reached forward and gently tipped my chin up until I met his eye. “Kvothe.”

I blinked.

He looked at me. His dark eyes steadied me somewhat. Slowed the storm inside me. “Aerlevsedi,” he said. “Say it.”

“What?” Simmon said somewhere in the distant background. “Wind?”

“Aerlevsedi,” Elodin repeated patiently, his dark eyes intent upon my face.

“Aerlevsedi,” I said numbly.

Elodin closed his eyes briefly, peacefully. As if he were trying to catch a faint strain of music wafting gently on a breeze. Unable to see his eyes, I began to drift. I looked back down toward the broken lute in my hands, but before my gaze wandered too far he caught my chin again, tilting my face up.

His eyes caught mine. The numbness faded, but the storm still turned inside my head. Then Elodin’s eyes changed. He stopped looking toward me and looked into me. That is the only way I can describe it. He looked deep into me, not into my eyes, but through my eyes. His gaze went into me and settled solidly in my chest, as if he had both his hands inside me, feeling the shape of my lungs, the movement of my heart, the heat of my anger, the pattern of the storm that thundered inside me.

He leaned forward and his lips brushed my ear. I felt his breath. He spoke ... and the storm stilled. I found a place to land.

There is a game all children try at some time or another. You fling out your arms and spin round and round, watching as the world blurs. First you are disoriented, but if you continue to spin long enough the world resolves itself, and you are no longer dizzy as you spin with the world blurring around you.

Then you stop and the world lurches into regular shape. The dizziness strikes you like a thunderclap, everything lurches, moves. The world tilts around you.

That is what happened when Elodin stilled the storm in my head. Suddenly, violently dizzy I cried out and raised my hands to keep myself from falling sideways, falling upward, falling inward. I felt arms catch me as my feet tangled in the stool and I began to topple to the floor.

It was terrifying, but it faded. By the time I recovered, Elodin was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE Hands Against Me

Simmon and Wilem took me to my room at Anker’s where I fell into bed and spent eighteen hours behind the doors of sleep. When I woke the next day I felt surprisingly good, considering I had slept in my clothes and my bladder felt stretched to the size of a sweetmelon.

Fortune smiled on me, giving me enough time for a meal and a bath before one of Jamison’s errand boys tracked me down. I was needed in the Masters’ Hall. I was due to be on the horns in half an hour.

Ambrose and I stood before the masters’ table. He had accused me of malfeasance. In retaliation I had accused him of theft, destruction of property, and Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum. After my previous experience on the horns I had familiarized myself with the Rerum Codex, the University’s official rules. I had read them twice to be certain of how things were done around here. I knew them like the backs of my hands.

Unfortunately, this meant I knew exactly how much trouble I was in. The charge of malfeasance was a serious one. If they found me guilty of intentionally harming Ambrose, I would be whipped and expelled from the University.

There was little doubt that I had hurt Ambrose. He was bruised and limping. A garish red abrasion colored his forehead. He wore a sling as well, but I was fairly certain that was merely a piece of drama he had added on his own.

The trouble was, I didn’t have the slightest idea what had really happened. I hadn’t had the opportunity to speak with anyone. Not even to thank Elodin for helping me yesterday in Kilvin’s shop.

The masters allowed each of us to speak our piece. Ambrose was on his best behavior, which meant he was very polite when he spoke at all. After a while, I began to suspect that his sluggishness might be from a too-liberal dose of painkiller. By the glaze in his eyes, my guess was laudanum.

“Let’s deal with the grievances in order of their severity,” the Chancellor said after we had related our sides of the story.

Master Hemme made a gesture, and the Chancellor nodded for him to speak. “We should pare the charges down before we vote,” Hemme said. “E’lir Kvothe’s complaints are redundant. You cannot charge a student with both theft and destruction of the same property, it is either one or the other.”

“Why do you say that, Master?” I asked politely.