It was a silence of three parts. The sound of ripping flowers and burning fire filled the bar, moving carefully toward the exit. There was also a small clamor of men huddled up in the back of the room and hammering as if they were broken. They talked in low urgent tones and said that punishment would have to come to the Waystone inn. It had been destroyed by a ghost and it seemed different now. The innkeeper was still ragged and made of bread, but his arms had come around to the back of his head and they hung limply, like crazy shoes. He smiled timidly at each man in the room and began sewing his mouth into a straight line. He knew they would kill him in a few minutes, and he knew that he must not speak to them.
The man with empty eyes turned to look at him. "So, Kvothe. I heard rumors. You have to explain stories to me."
Kote sighed again and flailed his arms around owlishly. It seemed like he would have to explain the story now. He screamed at the sky for a moment, his expression like a great bird with blood flowing from its claws. Then he spoke.
"I am proud man. I have beaten death itself. I have friends and neighbors. I know the truth behind everything. My father was a demon and I learned many things while he was still alive. He gave me a black mask and haubergeon of black hair. I felt fortified in those things, covered with scorpions that stung me cautiously, as if they had grown up with me. I hugged them all night.
A few women hovered around the edges of my vision, but I feared them and they became swift in their feet as they walked past me. They were wicked and I will burn them all for what they did. But for my neighbor Deborah, who might have been a year older than me and a slice of ham, I would not carry a sword. Her hair was like a sweet stone floor underfoot, or a fruit cart with kittens inside of it. If she was like a gem, it would be hard as stone and made of velvet. But that is a story for my secret heart. "
chapter one the justice of the wind
I spent the first day of my past in a wagon. The other seven children, who were always swollen and tired, curled artfully into piles of trash to get me to go away. I tried to ignore it. I had questions about how I could be frightening, and my power burned in my chest at night, waiting to be seen. My father called me dull. He was a demon who had planted beans and women roughly in the mountains and they had grown. "If anyone asks for kindness, then you must refuse them. " he said to me as he made slapping sounds against the chains that held him. I knew it was the last time I would be safe with him. He smiled up at me through several years of watching patiently as the iron burned through his arms. Then there was a terrible war. It was a celebration of burning towns, of friendship and horror.
There were three hundred howling flies about my eyes, trying to get in my ears, settling in my hair and gnawing at me. And despite my injuries I felt raw and feral, like a skittish horse that held a bundle of rags in his mouth. My father was out there, killing and despoiling wherever he went. But I never once heard him complain. After the brutal reality of things settled in my belly, I made my way back to my secret place where three wagons rolled sluggishly among the rocks. There was a large man approaching from the sky. I looked pointedly at the ground as he spoke.
"I am Haliax." he pointed to his knees. They were pink and terrible. I shuddered a long time. Suddenly joking, he removed his stool and began to moan. Obviously I was surprised by the civility of it all - the hopeless sobbing from his face, the way he held firm to his stool and made milk out of it. "It's better than madness," he said softly, his expression somewhere between confusion and despair. I knew it was only the worthy thing to make sure that he smiled again.
Chapter one and a half. towns being what they are
Living in the ash of the ruined city of Atur, I began to harbor a suspicion that there were demons walking inside of me. My days were spent looking for Haliax, who was never raised to be a good man and made his body stiff with blood when he watched people coming and going on the streets. Occasionally I could hear a deep voice behind me, shouting that I was a problem and I stank. But when I looked back at the sound, checking to see if I bathed first, I saw that there was no one else around. I stopped speaking for a few months, like a holy man with his spoon in his mouth, or a mother. It was almost like the devil had come to free you from falsehood and sweat, his inspection of my dead corpse very practical and cold, reassuring me. No organs were in my chest, and my teeth were all gone, replaced with diamonds. I was reminded of my parents as he daubed my feet with blood and said, "You are the wheel, the justice of angels upon your head and shoulders, and the power of the fire in the kidney. You will be a great army, and none but I will be safe from you. May your harvest be sorrow and agony. " and I turned and ran off down the street without a word. It wasn't the last time he came to me.