Once, not that much time ago, there was a refugee whom all others believed dead. He had killed an Adem warrior named Caracet and the baron of Dalonir's men who had pursued him because of a murder. He was a murderer. He had murdered his last best friend Wilem by not being able to protect him when Caracet attacked. He had killed the love of his life with his very own hands.
Still there was one thing to do. One last thing, the man had to do until he could rest his head to sleep eternally. The man called Kingkiller sneaked aboard a ship headed to Yll. There was a place on that island he needed to find. A place that others were looking for as well. A place formerly known as castle Valaritas.
Yll is a mountainous island and it was quite a mount for the man, even though he did not need sleep. The dry temperature, sparse vegetation and relentless sun made it difficult to find water or safe footing on the brittle reddish rock. From above, from the walls of the abandoned castle, the man must have resembled an ant trying to climb a sand slope.
He felt as if eyes saw his ascent, but he saw nobody.
Finally he reached the foot of the enormous castle ruin, situated on the very edge of an volcano's caldera. A large opening gaped in the walls of the ruin signifying an entrance, where no road led. The man hesitated. The stones were unlike the kind that covered the slopes of the mountain. Maybe people had carried them up here from far away. Or maybe there had been an other fortress close by. Stealing stones from abandoned buildings had been quite popular, when the ancient Yllish empire broke.
He unsheathed his sword and entered, murderer that he was. There was a glamour that broke when he did so and an angel that descended from the sky.
"Auri." I said surprised, as Auri folded her white wings behind her back.
"Hello Kvothe." She smiled happily at me. "I thought I was never to see you again."
"I thought you were dead," I croaked with a voice hoarse from lack of speaking. "I thought Encarnis killed you."
"He did," said Auri, smile diminishing, then returning as she said, "It was a fairy tale. Like in The angel, surely you know hat story, don't you?"
"And Thelu pressed the dead child to his heart, and wings were given him so that he could fly," I quoted. "Of course. You are alive."
I laughed and tried to gather her in my arms, but she retreated with a sad smile. A stone fell down one of the walls and I shuddered, making an involuntary grip to Folly.
"You need not fear," said Auri, "As long as I am here you are safe. Follow me, there's an old garden some walls ahead."
I followed her to the empty court in the middle of the castle, noticing every now and then signs that the castle was indeed inhabited by somebody. As we passed one of the rooms I spotted two candles on a table, that looked as if somebody had carried it up here. One candle was black and an other white. Dread filled me. I had seen these two candles once, on a drawing that burned down at Anker's. The Chandrian were using this place.
I stuffed the candles into my pockets. Maybe I could use them to make an emergency wax mommet. That was nonsense of course, but I hadn't time to reconsider, as Auri called out for me from outside. Fear rushed through me like a waterfall. I sped ahead, regardless of the sounds I caused.
"Auri!"
She was there, next to an old greystone that formed the centre of the inner court. She turned around at me with a look of surprise on her face.
"Kvothe?"
"You have to leave," I gasped, "there are bad, very bad people living in this place."
"Do you mean the Seven?" she asked, "You needn't worry about them. As long as I'm here they won't draw close. Thelu send me to guard you."
"Guard me in what way," I said, retreating a step from her as I recalled something, "He spoke to me as well and said the angles cannot enter this castle."
Auri gave a big smile that was not like Auri at all. Her eyes turned dark and chill and then her wings fell off and she morphed into an naked woman standing in front of me, with a sword in her hand.
"Caught me, stupid human," Ferule said and attacked.
She was a formidable sword fighter, driving me across the garden with her pure skill. My power was nothing against her knowledge. She laughed joyfully, as I failed to protect me with Folly and yielded a wound on my arm. "Blood," I called out to it, but it didn't close. I remembered Elodin and called the name of fire to burn it shut, but again it wouldn't work.
"That is because I have a magic sword," sneered Ferule and made me retreat against the dry water basin in the middle of the garden. It disappeared into a dark pit, what might have formerly been some kind of cistern, as there was a water furrow leading towards it.
"How did you know my name?" I asked, trying to stall time.
"Oh," said Ferule, making an other pace towards me. I noticed her foot nails were black and bent like some kind of claws. "I know it from Encarnis of course, whom you freed. He called me. Said to me to guard this place. Said to me that I should kill you."
She slashed at me again. I fell over the water furrow. "Fire!" I shouted at her, sending her hair to burst into flame. "Water." Ferule countered, and the flames extinguished. "Who are you to think you can beat Ferule Demonblood in naming? Water."
Where I was standing, the rock exploded beneath my feet as small fissures filled with water expanded with her will. The ground shook and I threw myself down. Then the movement ceased, Ferule wearing an annoyed expression. "Damn it," she said. "There's not enough of it. I'll have to toss you down there manually."
She pointed to the cistern, then leapt at me again. "It's a very long fall down there, Rhinta" she said, severing one of the sinews in my sword hand, "I know of course that I can't kill you permantently. I lied to you before."
As Folly fell out of my grip, she kicked me against the chest, sending me backwards into the basin and towards the dark hole in it. Her claws tore my shirt and seized blood. I couldn't use the Tael-shriek against her as I had lost music. I had lost sympathy as well. And the Ketan. There was naming, but she was obviously more skilled in it than me. But I was Edema Ruh, one of the finest actors on earth.
"Wait," I said, "I'll go down there deliberately." I turned my back to her and started to walk towards the pit, hoping that she would follow me instead of attacking me from behind. As I approached the pit I saw some strange carvings on the greystone that towered next to it. I ran my fingers above them. As my hand touched the stone, it gave a dark tuned note.
Both Ferule and me startled.
"What was that?" asked Ferule, "show me that ring on your hand."
The Lackless ring, of course. I hoped I hadn't tripped off anything accidentally and went to stand directly next to the pit. "I'm going down with all I have," I said, drawing one of Haliax' candles out of my pocket and waving them at her.
"No, wait," shouted Ferule, but it was to late already.
"Fire," I said, lighting the black candle and letting it fall. It went down quite a long way. She had not lied to me about that. I stepped into the air. Ferule was to far away to catch me, but she called the name of the wind and it steadied me one last moment she needed to secure me.
Then we were struggling bare handedly at the edge of the pit, just as I had planned. Ferule's sword lay abandoned some feet away. She wouldn't need it though. I was a broken tree that that hardly needed any punching to topple over. But as I fell, I grabbed her leg and on my hand there was Ambrose's iron ring.
"Surprise," I said calmly, as the iron burned into her skin and she hissed involuntarily. It was not enough to give her any real damage, mind you. But it was enough to unbalance her. I threw all my weight on her leg and pulled towards the pit. And Ferule fell. A long way down.
Then there was a silence.
I picked Folly from the ground and tried to do something to my bleeding wound. Like whispering the name of blood, encouraging the blood to dry faster and applying a bandage, when this didn't work. Then I followed the water furrow out of the castle. It was a rather broad water furrow, hewn into the mountain itself, to broad to exist solely for feeding the water basin in the garden. From my lessons with Elxa Dal I knew though, that if you accelerate water fast enough, it can cut through a stone like a hot knife through butter. Thus I had my suspicions. An other reason for leaving the castle was that one of the Chandrian might come through that greystone any minute.
I wasn't a child anymore, I thought (Damn it, I mean this man following the water furrow thought!). As he followed the water furrow, he cast one last glance to the castle. From above, the outline of its towers were visible, as well as some tower ruins further to the south. In fact, one of the peaks the mountain edge was having seemed to be a huge heap of collapsed stones. The broken tower indeed. Had the man been interested in such things he would have dug out the remains of Myr Tariniel beneath the castle ruin. But he wasn't and thus he walked on and discovered the lake.
The water furrow lead him right to an artificial lake in the eastern slope of the mountain. There was another huge greystone blocking the path of the lake's water into the furrow and further downwards. The man had finally found what he had come for. He approached the greystone, little pictures of men and animals painted on the smooth stone and the stone walls some other people seemed to have erected to ensure noting escaped from the other side of the stone. On these walls was da diffrent kind of script, the same markings as in the castle's courtyard. The man wasn't able to read them, but his fingers could partially. They warned and cursed the man who should try to break the wall and pass through the stone. He doubted though that anyone could pass through it, (whether it led to the Fae or somewhere else) because this greystone was flawed. There was a hole in it in the middle of the story knots, big enough for a man to stick his hand in. The man tore the stone ring from his finger. It was soaked in his blood.
He spoke a name and the white candle in his hand was ignited. The fire separated at his will and formed a ring of fire on his right hand. Te candle's light changed drawing all light around it to the wick. Some areas in the scripture lit up in its darkness. A fraction of the stone retreated, forming a circle the likes of which might be the perfect place for a ring. The man bend down and placed his stone ring there, but nothing happened. He waited. He waited until the night began, with a flawless moon staring down at the efforts of a lone man.
But he still waited. It was a special night. He had picked it carefully and he had picked the things to bring with him careful as well. As the moon was obscured by some sort of shadow until it was totally dark but for the stars, the man hurried away and shouted a name.
"Valeritas!" There was a crack, and then there was a gush trickling out of the hole in the greystone and then there was a thunder as the water of the lake poured down into the water furrow, destroying the greystone that had barred its path beyond repair.
The man closed his eyes, tracing the path the water would take in his mind. It would go down and gather speed. It would reach the water basin and flow into the pit. Then it would fall a long way down, hitting the end of the pit with the relentless force of an hot knife cutting through butter. Then, more water would come down, but it wouldn't have a way to retreat. Down there, it was the solid heart of the mountain itself. It would explode from the inside.
The last droplets of water left the lake into the water furrow. Then there was a deafening bang that shook the whole mountain. Stones and dust were catapulted into the air, as the water sought its way. The ground shook as if it wouldn't stop anymore. But it did. And as everything subsided, a whole portion of mount Valaritas was no more. The man had to climb down to examine the huge portal the explosion had exposed. It was a double door of stone, two giant doors, fitting near seamlessly together.
A rivulet of water dropped beneath them into the depth and it was slowly forcing them open. The doors shook, then began to tilt slowly outside. It was dark in there, dark and wet. Water touched the man's boots and trousers as he carefully entered the treshold. It wasn't cold. It was warm; and as warmth is the lowest form energy can take, it would no doubt become more difficult further inside.
But the man didn't hesitate. He entered with a grim expression and empty hands but for a small wooden chest he had recently fashioned. It would suffice to carry Death from his prison.
As the man reappeared some time later from the doors, wooden chest pressed to his heart, he wasn't the same anymore. For Death had chosen the man's name as a thing tight held in keeping and consumed it.
Author's note: I stole the name of the fairytale The angel from Hans Christian Anderson. Kvothe does not quote it correctly, though. And the technique I described to be used by Kvothe to uncover the doors of stone was last practised by the Romans in Las Médulas for gold mining. Of course, in contrast to them the Chandrian had magic to do all the digging... If you are wondering what castle Valeritas looks like in my fantasy, look for Qasr Al-Azraq, a jordanian desert fortress built in the early 4th centuary.
