The Waystone Inn sat immersed in three silences – the silence of everybody inside being asleep, the silence of extreme cleanliness caused by an innkeeper without a girlfriend or hobby and with very few actual customers, and the ever-present silence of deep and profound suicidal depression, which may explain the customer thing.

Kote the innkeeper woke early, performed several meticulous olde fashioned innkeeper tasks like churning butter and reaving squires, and then entered the big downstairs room where his guest the Chronicler already sat, ready with ink and paper to take down another 1,200 pages of Kvothe's story. After hearty omelets all round, Kvothe began –

"Wait," exclaimed Bast, skidding cheerfully down the banister with a bottle of rum in one hand and a cheerful grin cheerily plastered on his extremely wickedly handsome young cheerful face, "I want to hear the story too!"

"Is that – sugar brandy?" asked Kvothe.

"It's Captain Morgan. Oh, I mean, sure! Ye Olde Sugar Brande. Die ZuckerBrandi. Wizard, uh – Ye Olde Mage Tonick - uh. Want some?"

" Well, it's only five in the morning and besides, we haven't introduced this kind of liquor into the story yet, Bast. I'd leave it alone."

"It's mostly gone anyway, Reshi, I got up about ten minutes ago. Anyway, let me just fix myself a couple of hearty omelets and we'll all gather round and listen to you telling your story, which is amazing by the way!" He sidled closer. "Uh, how do you feel about catering school now?"

"Very passionate indeed." Kvothe raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Catering is – also good. It's great actually. I just thought – since you have such a strong wizarding background – never mind."

Kvote sighed, looking suddenly old. Then he grinned, looking suddenly young and handsome. "Ready for more of my wacky misdeeds, Chronicler?"

"If you don't mind telling them."

Kvothe looked suddenly old and tired. "I'm just not sure anymore. What's the use of telling this story? -Hah!" he barked immediately, causing Chronicler to spill ink down his front, "I shall tell it anyway!" His eyes glowed a sexy green color and he looked suddenly young and handsome.

"Wow, Reshi," said Bast, coming back with a platter of hearty omelets, "Have you been working out?"

"Let's just get started," said Kvothe.

I have already told you how I consorted with Felurian, Queen of the Fae; defeated bandits with lightning called out of the sky; and called the true name of the wind. I even managed to keep Ambrose Jakis, the snobbish Duke's son who tried constantly to undermine me, at arm's length by continually undoing his wicked plots against me, and the lovely Denna seemed as close to me as she ever did to anyone. And at last I had plenty of gold in my pocket, and under my bed, and in my satchel.

One day when my two best friends, my fellow students Wilhem and Simmon, stopped by my rooms to assist me with a small project, they happened to sit down on the enormous piles of gold that filled my room. "Ouch," said Simmon, bounding up, "What the fuck is all this shit?"

"That be gold, mon," declared Wilhelm in his comical foreign accent, "that be the lot of sweet gold mon."

"Of course, " I said proudly, swirling my cloak of shadows around my strong slender martial-arts frame, "It's a long time since I had only two iron drabs to rub together."

"What the fuck," declared Simmon, "Pray whyfore are you keeping all this here gold in yer room, O friend of mine?"

"Mon, your accent harshin' me, mon. Give it up, mon," Wil admonished him.

"Oh, very well. But really old chap," – Simmon turned to me, "I suppose it must be the bally truth – I dare say it's because you're one of the Edema Ruh and all that sort of thing, but begging your pardon my dearest chap, have you never heard of banks? And all that sort of thing?"

I stared at him. Of course I knew what banks were. Wasn't my tuition paid from the Duke's accounts using letters of credit? Then I looked down at the piles of gold covering the floor of the room. I also remembered the chambermaid's new diamond-embroidered pinafore. "Tehlu anyway," I swore, "You mean I shouldn't leave it around like this?" I smiled an embarrassed smile. "I stuffed it under the mattress for a while, but it got so uncomfortable…."

My friends burst into unrestrained laughter, rolling around on the pile of gold. "All right, all right," I said. "Kvothe the Bloodless has his weaknesses." When they'd stopped laughing enough to sit up, they agreed to take me to a respectable bank and find a safe home for all my riches. Needless to say, I was uncomfortable with having my treasure out of my -

INTERLUDE

"AARGH!" said Chronicler feelingly, flinging himself off the chair to writhe pathetically on the gleaming polished spotless teak floor of the inn.

"What's the matter?" squeaked Bast, "What's wrong?"

"It's writer's cramp." Kvothe prodded Chronicler with a boot. "Oh get up. I've had worse. I've got four broken ribs and appendicitis and a severed carotid artery right now. And I'm dancing a jig. Look. - Oh, now I've got to mop the teak again."

"But it hurts," said Chronicler, sitting up. "It hurts so bad. I can't go on."

Before either of his handsome charismatic companions could grab him by the collar and terrorize him with their charisma and handsomeness, Chronicler sighed, flexed his hand, and sat back down. "Oh well. I guess I shouldn't complain. It's not every day you get to write the story of Kvothe the Bloodless."

"Damn right", said Kvothe, "And I have hair."

"Am I bald?" Chronicler asked.

"I think so. I don't remember your description."

"I'm sort of a main character. I could be devilishly handsome."

Bast slapped him hard enough to fall back onto the polished gleaming teak inn floor and smear it a bit. "I'm devilishly handsome! How dare you!"

"That's enough, Bast. I think he's probably just not handsome. Or… maybe middle-aged handsome."

"He can't be bald and handsome, who is he, Brian E-"

Kvothe held up a hand, "That will be enough pop culture references out of you."

"Can I get up now?" asked Chronicler. The other two shrugged.

Kvothe continued:

With the bulk of my fortune safely invested with Ducker Brothers Happy Hour Banking Guild of Bankers –

INTERLUDE

"What?!"

"I told you not to interrupt."

" 'Ducker Brothers Happy Hour Banking Guild of Bankers?!' "

"Chronicler, if you interrupt again I will kill you."

"You tell him, Reshi!"

Kvothe continued:

With the bulk of my fortune safely invested with Ducker Brothers Happy Hour Banking Guild of Bankers, my first thought was to celebrate my newfound financial savvy by making a small purchase – several small purchases, in fact. In addition to clothes, cheese, and lute strings, I bought a small nosegay of silk flowers Denna might like, and went at once to look for her in the shady alley she frequented.

My spirits fell quickly when I couldn't trace her, and the innkeeper of the Spotted Dog told me she'd left, as usual, at a run just ahead of a large angry man who thought she owed him "favors". I knew her mysterious patron was looking after her, but I felt only worse, knowing that he beat her bloody on a regular basis. But at least she was safe.

Imagine my absolute shock and disbelief when I opened a body bag at the Medica to begin dissecting a fresh corpse and found Denna staring sightlessly up at me, and also leering at me, as her broken jaw wouldn't stay in place. Her skull had also been smashed in, I discovered on further examination. How shocking! That bastard of a patron – I knew he often beat her and he'd struck me as extremely violent and dangerous, but how could I imagine that someone who liked to beat her savagely, was her principal source of financial support, always knew how to find her, and was violent as well as creepy and controlling, would actually go so far as to hurt her?

I'd always assumed he beat her on a mattress or something, maybe with a referee and a team of physicians in attendance. I myself always made sure my own battles didn't knock out any teeth or ruin my good looks or my green eyes which change color depending on my mood. Only attractive colors. But it was true I might not have understood her situation – just this school term alone I'd broken every single bone in my body at least twice, and survived three fires, a flood, and smallpox, with nothing but a few attractively placed scars. But Denna, beautiful Denna, had both died and become as ugly as only someone with half their face smashed in can be. Bitter tears sprang to my beautiful eyes as I realized I still knew nothing about women.

INTERLUDE

Bast cried into a lace embroidered handkerchief with one arm round Kvothe's shoulders. "It's… so … sad" he sobbed. "I can't stand it!"

"Aw," said Kvothe, patting his arm, "That's so sweet of y-"

"That you were so tragically ignorant! You could have helped her anytime – nothing could have been clearer than that she was in as much danger as a woman can be – you basically knew she would die – and yet you did nothing!" He broke down, "It's all your fault. That must haunt you SO MUCH…." He hid his face in Kvothe's shirt.

"Er," said the innkeeper, " I guess it is bad in retrospect, huh?"

"Snork," sobbed Bast.

"Yeah," said Chronicler, "Tehlu. I mean, you have a real problem," he held up a placating hand. "I wasn't going to say anything. But it's like – she was already being beaten. People getting beaten in a relationship can just die – they say the wrong thing, push him a little too far – and you knew she had no one to turn to." He sighed. "It's so sad that you were essentially entirely responsible for her gruesome death."

"You killed her," muttered Bast sympathetically.

"She died horribly."

"I don't care," said Kvothe. "Heart O'Stone."

"Heart Of Gold," said Bast.

"What?"

"It's not 'Heart Of Stone', Reshi, it's 'Heart Of Gold.'"

"Huh?" asked Chronicler

"The Neil Young song," explained Bast.

"Well, he still killed her," said Chronicler loudly

"Goddammit, Bast –"

"And she was raped too. And in a bad relationship from the beginning. God yer dumb."

"It goes, 'Searchin' for a heart of gold – ' "

"All right, fine," announced Kvothe. "I'll kill myself.'

"Reshi, no!"

"Look," said Chronicler, "Let's just finish this book, okay?"

"I want death," said Kvothe.

"Or how about you be a good fellow and make lunch?" Chronicler suggested cleverly.

Kvothe gently detached Bast and sighed heavily, looking much older and grayer than his years. "I guess. . . I could whip up a quiche . . . with mushrooms . . . and kill myself later."

"That's the spirit, Reshi!"

"I like quiche," agreed Chronicler.

Kvothe rolled his shoulders back and flexed his well-defined-but-not-overdone muscles, looking suddenly very young and handsome.

"Oh," said Chronicler, "Can I also get a Pellegrino and a small salad?"

"Coming right up, sir," said Kote and disappeared into the kitchen, bustling visibly.

Chronicler met Bast's glare. "What? I'm hungry."

"I would kill you…"

"Uh huh?"

"But he's so happy…"

"Ah."

"Except for being suicidal."

Chronicler nodded slowly. "Hey," he said, "Do you hear a silence of three parts?"

"It's three separate silences," Kote yelled from the kitchen, "Help yourself to one if you can't wait for the quiche that long."

Chronicler looked at Bast, "Try the muffins," the faen suggested, "They're good too."