One more major spoiler alert: From one end to the other, this chapter is nothing but rampant fan speculation. Some of that speculation is almost certainly correct, meaning this chapter probably contains some spoilers for Doors of Stone (though much of it, of course, is utter nonsense). Don't say I didn't warn you.
CHAPTER FIVE
Seven
I woke to full darkness. Awareness returned slowly, in painful jolts. It was not the faultless, fragile awareness of my sleeping mind, such as I had known after Denna died. It was simply an awareness of where I was, and what had happened, and what I had done.
Above all, I was aware of pain. My hand ached as though nails had been pounded through it, as though all twenty-seven bones were breaking. I held it out before me in the darkness. It dangled limply at the end of my wrist. I couldn't move it at all. I cradled it against my chest and curled into a ball. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain, and tried very hard to think of nothing.
I drifted for a while. My thoughts twirled like a leaf in the wind, never settling. I wondered idly how long I had slept. It might have been hours, or even days. I was weak with hunger, dizzy with it, but that didn't bother me. Hunger was an old companion of mine. I could ignore it. Thirst, though ... It was the thirst that woke me fully in the end.
My body craved water. My skull pounded. Regretfully, I cracked my eyes open and glanced around. I knew we were near a river, but I couldn't remember where it was. I felt foggy, heavy, thick.
Denna was sprawled in the road beside the scattered remains of the Chandrian's fire. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was sallow, her body stiff and lifeless.
She couldn't be dead, I thought blankly. Not now. Not after everything.
I crawled to her side and leaned over her. My heart was suddenly thundering in my chest. I could hardly breathe.
She exhaled, and I nearly fainted with relief. Whatever else might come, whatever price I'd paid, I had done this. I had carried her from the doors of death.
The triumph that slammed through me faded as quickly as it had come. Why hadn't she woken? I touched her face with my uninjured hand. "Denna?" I rasped.
I shook her lightly. She didn't stir. I started to tremble.
"No. Please, no," I whispered.
"Let her sleep, Kvothe. She is simply weary. She will wake soon enough."
My aching body failed me as I turned towards the voice, and I fell heavily onto my side.
Haliax waited at the edge of the road, a careful distance from me.
Seeing him was an almost physical shock. I had recognized him instantly, of course, by the tilt and timbre of his voice. I heard it in my nightmares. I knew it better even than I knew my father's. Were it not for that voice, however, I would not have recognized him at all, for the shadows around his face had fallen.
It had never occurred to me to wonder what the man called Haliax looked like beneath his cloak of shadows. To tell the truth, I had never really even thought of him as a man at all. If I had stopped to consider it, I might have guessed he was old and withered, warped and scarred.
But Haliax, who was once called Lanre, who was a hero of men, was none of these things. He seemed young, barely a decade older than me. He was dark and beautiful. He had full lips and wide cheekbones. Black curls framed deep, slanted eyes. His face was strong and solemn, the sort men would follow into war.
He watched me intently from the far side of the road. "I see the surprise in your face. Did you think it was impossible for me to lift my veil?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "You are correct, of course. This face is only an illusion, a glamour. A shadow of what was. Still, it is more true to me than my hame."
He took a cautious step forward. He approached me the way a hunter might approach a wounded animal. "It wearies me to show myself to you in this way. I do not enjoy it. I do it as a gift to you, a gesture of my good will."
A dismal noise escaped my throat, a snort of disbelief followed by a whimper of pain. He froze. It was a perfect, unnatural stillness, the stillness of stone. In that moment he might have been a statue, and not a man at all.
To be honest, he cut a striking figure in that moment, well worthy of a statue. He wore armor wrought of giant scales. The sword at his waist was pure black steel. His cloak was lined with red silk, pinned together by a ruby-studded brooch that nestled in the hollow of his throat.
That was odd. He was dressed for ceremony, not for battle. I puzzled over this for a moment, then dismissed it. What did it matter whether he killed me wearing silk or wool?
Still, I could not understand why he was being so cautious, so seemly. Surely he had only returned here to kill me, to seek vengeance for Cinder's death. But if that were the case, then why ...
A reason came to me, unbidden. Unbearable. I shoved it down. No, not that. Better to die. I would rather ... I wanted ...
I lay back against the ground, my astonishment at his sudden appearance and puzzling manner dimming quickly in the face of my agony and thirst. He took another step towards me, then another. I watched him approach with an increasingly mild, incoherent curiosity.
He knelt at my side. "You are not yourself," he said. I could hear concern in his voice, but his face was a wooden mask.
The stillness of his features reminded me of the Adem. It made sense, of course. What purpose could facial expressions serve for a man who face was hidden by shadows? I blinked up at him, briefly fascinated. I wondered how long it had taken him to lose that shred of humanity within him, the desire to distort his face to express his feelings.
The pain in my hand swelled again, shooting up my arm and tightening my chest. My mind drifted once more, and I found myself gazing at the intricate gold knotwork in his brooch. My eyes circled it lazily. I felt his gaze on me. Heavy, grave. I didn't like it. I looked away.
"I need to speak with you, Kvothe. I need you to focus." Haliax pressed a gauntleted hand against my shoulder and my body spasmed, betraying my disgust. Part of me wanted to crawl away from him, to escape, but the larger part simply couldn't find the will. I was just so weary of it all, weary unto death.
I rolled my head to the side so that I wouldn't have to look into his eyes. Leave me in peace, I thought. Leave me to Denna, to my thirst and my pain. Leave me to die.
But he persisted. "Your mind wanders, Kvothe. It mustn't. You must focus, you must return to me." He shook me. "Kvothe? Kvothe."
He seized my jaw in a sudden burst of fury. He yanked upwards, forcing me to my knees. I struggled against his bruising grip, but he gave no ground. "Be still," he commanded. He looked into my eyes, and his gaze was a fist around my heart. I sat frozen, utterly transfixed. I felt suddenly that he knew me, down to my blood and bones.
"You are thirsty," he declared. He untied a waterskin from his belt and shoved it towards me. "Drink."
His words moved in me like thunder, an inescapable command. My will was suddenly not my own. I seized the waterskin between my knees and wrenched the plug away. I upended it over my lips and gulped the water down. It spilled over the rim and splashed onto my shirt. I didn't care. I didn't care that it was warm and tasted of leather. I didn't care if it was poisoned. I didn't care if my stomach cramped. I needed it, like I needed to breathe.
Haliax's expression darkened as he watched me drink.
"This broken creature before me," he spat suddenly, "this is not Kvothe. This is not the son whose blood holds the key to lockless door. This is not my final hope." His face betrayed nothing, but his voice was bitter with fury. "This is the Singers' doing. What curse have they laid upon you, that they have laid you so low?"
I lowered the waterskin and blinked at him numbly. Then I stared down at my aching hand.
His brow creased into the tiniest frown. "Your hand?" he said. He grabbed my wrist. I cried out in protest and tried to pull away. He gripped me harder and cuffed the side of my head, like a father admonishing a wayward child. I sat upright, rigid with shock. "I told you to be still," he snapped.
He turned my palm over. I couldn't feel his touch. He kneaded my palm and joustled my fingers. My hand flopped uselessly in his grip, unresponsive. He shook his head.
"Why this?" he murmured. His eyes were suddenly bright and curious. He gave me a considering look, then unclasped the brooch at his throat and jammed it through the center of my palm. I didn't even flinch.
He returned the brooch to his throat. "An injured hand?" he wondered aloud. "How is that your sign?"
I said nothing. I didn't have to. His eyes lit up with sudden understanding. "Ah. Your lute. You cannot play it like this, yes?"
I choked back a sob as I tugged my hand away. He was right, of course. I would never play again.
My greatest fear, realized. Tears welled up behind my eyes. My throat closed. My body shook with the effort it took not to howl at his feet.
"The singer whose sign is silence," Haliax said. He nodded. "You will carry the bitterness of that irony with you through all the millenia you live, Seventh."
Seventh. I stiffened. I had realized by then, of course, what I was. What I had become. But I denied it all the same, as if my denial meant something, as if by denying it now I could undo what I had done.
I stared at him, my expression stricken. "I am not -" I whispered hoarsely, then stopped. He waited, patient as a priest.
"I am not one of the Chandrian," I said finally. "I am nothing like you." But my voice sounded small, petulant, even to me.
Haliax cocked his head to the side. "You are a Shaper, are you not? Did you not destroy my brother, and bring your lover back from death? Shaping may not define us, Kvothe, but it is the source of our power. It is the tie that binds you to me, that binds us to this world. Surely you know this, having seen into Cinder's mind."
I shook my head in childish protest.
His jaw clenched. "Willful ignorance does not become you," he said shortly. "You act like some villager's get, some swineherder's swill, closing your eyes to the truth because you do not like the look of it. This sudden cowardice is a disgrace to your blood. At least your mother-"
He cut off abruptly. He shifted, then stilled. I watched with morbid fascination as he arranged his features once more into a careful mask. I wondered what fury, what torment, hid behind that perfect semblance of calm. We stared at each other in silence for a long moment.
When he spoke again, his voice held no hint of anger. "What did you think we were, Kvothe? Demons? Fae? Surely you know better. We are older than the Fae. We created it."
His words shocked me out of my stupor. "No, you didn't." I said. "You are Lanre. You fought with the Namers. You defied Iax. You helped bind him behind the doors of stone."
His eyes widened a fraction. He rocked back on his heels, blinking at me owlishly. There was a long pause.
"Ah," he said finally. His expression became distant. "Ah. I see."
He stood and strode away. He paused at the edge of the road, a statue once again. The only movement was the careful sweep of his palm across the pommel of his sword.
"I thought you already knew the truth," he said slowly, "but it seems I still have secrets left to tell." His voice was so quiet that I could hardly say I'd heard him speak at all. And yet each word fell heavy on my heart, like a hammer striking iron.
He turned and walked towards me again. He had none of Cinder's grace. He moved stiffly, as if he were an old man. Which, I suppose, he was.
He lowered himself onto a log and held his hand out over the spent coals. He muttered a binding, and the fire danced merrily once more. It brought me up short. I thought of sympathy as ordinary, commonplace magic. Watching the Lord of the Seven use it was a bit like watching him weed a garden, or sweep a floor. It just didn't seem right.
Haliax looked up at me, and there was nothing common about his gaze. The flames danced in his eyes, unknowable and ancient. "Come here, Kvothe. Still and listen, and learn the truth that others die for telling."
I stumbled to my feet and walked towards him without hesitation. I sat at Denna's side and placed my hand in hers. Then I looked up at the man who had ordered my parents' death, the man I had hunted for five long years.
"Tell me," I said, and he smiled. It was the first true expression I had seen on his face.
"The first thing you must understand," he said, "is that I am not simply Lanre. If you still believe that to be the case, then you never heard your father's song in full.
"Yes, I am Lanre, but I am also Iax. Or at least I bear some shadow of his name, and some shadow of his power. The small fraction of him that remains within this world, that is not imprisoned beyond the doors of stone, lies within me. The story of how that came to be so ... well, that is a long story, and perhaps it is one for another day. Suffice to say that Lanre had no power to name, to shape. He was a swordsman only, a soldier." He fingered the brooch at his throat. It was an absent, unconscious gesture, strangely tender. The tight anger in his voice faded. "A fool."
Softly he recited,
"Upon his road our pilgrim finds
the Cthaeh, knower of man's mind.
Though begs he of her healing flower,
she sets him on the path to power.
For tender mem'ry will endure,
The journey to the lockless door ..."
He looked over at me and shrugged apologetically. "That particular poet did not have your father's gift for words. That was doubly true after Cinder cut out her tongue."
He looked down at me, and his gaze was hard. "This is what you do not understand, Kvothe. Hear my words, and know them to be true. The Seven are the shapers, the sons and daughters of Iax.
"You have heard stories of the Creation War. You know some of what we wrought in those days, for good and ill. I admit that we were sometimes careless with our power, unwise. We were only men, and men are weak.
"But look what we created, Kvothe. We created the Fae, a world where all was possible, where all was perfect. We created creatures to inhabit that world, the perfect beings. They were everything we could never be. They were beautiful and proud, powerful and free. They were eternally true to themselves. They lived unburdened by fear of consequence."
His voice was raw with emotion. "We did not start the Creation War. We would have lived in the Fae in peace, far from the eyes of men, if the Namers had let us." His gestured angrily at the fire, the forest, the whole world. "Why live in this mortal world at all? What is there here to love? There is no beauty to this place. It has no symmetry, no grace, no reason. It is ugly and hateful and cruel. Its very existence offends me."
Hateful and cruel, I thought. Yes, the world was all these things, and worse. I knew that better than most. I knew it because of him.
I stared down at Denna, and fought back the urge to cry. It was his fault, I thought bitterly. His fault that I hated so deeply. His fault that my life, such as it was, had been violent and empty and hungry and cold. It was his fault that I was sitting here now. That I had made this choice.
His fault.
I sat bolt upright. For the first time, I understood.
This is what he'd wanted.
"You -" I started, then stopped. I could hardly bear to think the words, much less speak them.
It took all my courage to meet his eyes. "You let me live," I said. "The day you ... the day my family ..." I faltered.
"Ah," Haliax hissed softly. "Now, finally, there is honesty between us. Yes, Kvothe. I let you live, the day your family died. And I did more than that. Far more. I watched you struggle to survive, alone in the woods. I watched you cut your teeth on the other street orphans in that cesspool of humanity they call a city. I watched you cheat your way into the University, watched you grow into your power. And when the time was right, I ordered Cinder to offer your lover a writ of patronage."
Seeing my astonishment, he explained. "I led Cinder to Denna, that she might lead you to me. That her death might force you to claim the power that is your birthright. Her song was never truly a threat to us, Kvothe. Indeed, it was of my own devising."
He looked down at her, his expression soft. "To tell you the truth," he admitted, "I've looked forward to hearing it for some time. I've always harbored a somewhat childish desire to take my narrative back. The Singers made such admirable work of it, you see, when they invented the Tehlin church."
His smile soured. "All the mortals of this world, worshipping Tehlu and his angels as gods. What folly."
I stared at him in confusion, utterly lost. "She didn't recognize him," I said.
"I beg your pardon?" he said politely.
"Denna. She didn't recognize him. Here, by the fire. When he ..."
"That is no great mystery. Would you have recognized me before this night?"
I blinked and straightened. "Oh."
He nodded. "Cinder's talent for glamourie far exceeded my own. It is a Fae magic, and he was more Fae than man. Of course, none of us could ever truly be called either." He shrugged. "Cinder enjoyed a high appointment in the Maer's court for many years. I believe you even met him, during your time there. He went by the name of Bredon."
"Bredon?" I choked. Bredon was Master Ash, was Cinder? I shook my head violently. No. That was impossible. I would have known, I would have realized.
I felt cold. Could I have played tak with Denna's torturer, with my parent's killer, and not known him? Could I have considered him a friend?
Haliax pressed on, ignoring my stricken expression. "Cinder's influence in Vintas contributed much to our cause. Though it was a challenge at times to keep his ... appetites ... hidden." He gave me a disapproving look. "You will forgive me if I do not thank you for your rather dramatic solution to that particular problem. I would not have bothered to kill the girl if I had known your thirst for vengeance would suffice to force your hand. I was rather fond of Cinder, you know, in spite of his little cruelties. He had a poet's sensibilities, and a rather extraordinary talent for strategy."
I swallowed against the bile in my throat. It was all too much. I was not sure anymore that I wanted to know these things. And yet curiosity still burned in me, hot and vicious. No, I did not want to know. But I needed to.
I tried to make sense of Haliax's words, but I couldn't. It was like trying to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. "I don't understand," I said finally. "I was just a child. A trouper. I was no one. Why single me out, why draw me in?" I cradled my head in my hand. "What was the point of it all?" I whispered.
He made a frustrated gesture. "You still do not know your own importance. You inherited all the cleverness of your blood. All the arrogance. All the power. And yet none of the knowledge." He pressed his fingers to his temple. "Your mother is to blame for your ignorance," he said shortly. "She never even told you her name."
I looked up, furious. "Laurian," I snarled. "Her name was Laurian." I searched his face for some sign of remorse, of pity. I found none.
His lip curled into a sneer. "Laurian. A trouper's name, worn by a woman who could have been queen. It was not her birth name. It was not even worthy of her."
I picked up a stick and poked angrily at the fire. It stung me deeply to learn that he knew more of my mother's family than I did. It stung me to hear him speak of her so fondly, he who had ordered her death. "What does it matter what name she was born with?" I muttered. "It never mattered to her."
"What does it matter?" he hissed. I saw in his eyes the desire I had seen so many times before, in the eyes of city guards and street orphans and rich lordlings alike. The desire to strike, to hurt, to maim. I leaned away. "You foolish. Ignorant. Child. Have you not yet realized? It is the only important thing about you."
His fists clenched and unclenched, just once. Then he became a statue once more. Perfectly still, perfectly calm. This time, he did not move for several minutes. I fought the insane urge to wave a hand in front of his face, so distant and lifeless was his expression.
He moved again, and I startled. He looked down at me with empty eyes. "I do not blame you for your ignorance, Kvothe," he said formally. "Blame is petty. It is a mortal weakness, and mortals are fools."
A pause. "What I meant to say is that you do not understand how essential you are to our cause. The ancient knowledge has scattered over the centuries. The ancient bloodlines have thinned. There has been only one other like you, these long years. One other who gave us cause to hope." His eyes flicked over me, and he smiled faintly. "Your cousin, truth be told, though like you he denounces his name. Those changing eyes, green as grass, they always give your blood away ..."
He sighed heavily. "I discovered Elodin too late. He was already Chancellor at the University by the time we met. Young, yet still too old. Too soft, too ... pure. Still, I had some hope of converting him to our cause. He had such extraordinary power. Greater than your own, or at least more predictable.
"He had the power to shape, even the knowledge of it, but he denied himself the pleasure of its use. He was enamored of the namers, just like the rest of you. I attempted to force his hand. I killed his lover, as I killed yours. She was a student of his, if I recall correctly. A pretty girl, naive. I gave him the chance to save her. I explained what must be done. But he refused. He was too clever, too proud, too selfish by half. He knew the price, and he would not pay."
He shook his head. His expression was almost wistful, as if he were recalling a friend long out of touch. "I have heard it said that her death drove him mad. The ones who say that do not understand. It was the choice that drove him mad. The choice to let her die, when she might have lived."
I stared dumbly at my hands. I couldn't think of anything to say.
He looked over at me. "I even lost my faith in you, for a time," he said. "All those years you lived in that seaside city ... You were hardly more than an animal, hiding on rooftops, hiding behind the doors of your mind. If the Singers hadn't placed Skarpi in your path ..."
His laughter was a dry rattle. "They were fools to do it, of course. I do not believe they would have dared, if they had known who your mother was." He paused, reconsidering. "Then again, perhaps they would have tried anyway. It is quite boring, you know, all this endless living. Sometimes I think our hearts yearn for conflict, just to pass the centuries."
His eyes wandered the forest. "I suppose it is no surprise they tried to win you to their cause. Illien has always felt a kinship with your kind, for all the obvious reasons." He shook his head. "He is a romantic at heart. I think he found it poetic to imagine that a son of the Ruh might discover the Singer's power within himself and use it seek justice against the ones who had wronged him.
"In this, he overestimated your sense of justice, and underestimated your sense of vengeance." He eyed me sternly. "That is the trouble with believing in faerie stories, Kvothe. You are constantly disappointed."
He fell silent. I watched the fire, and said nothing.
In a horrible way, the silence was almost companionable. I had been driven to seek this man, this creature, for almost as long as I could remember. But my anger towards him had flared blue-white this night and faded fast, leaving me raw and hollow.
Haliax watched me, still as stone, head cocked slightly to the side. The wind picked up, and I listened as it whispered through the trees. Once, I could have played that sound on my lute. No longer.
I shuddered. The silence surrounding us suddenly seemed too deep to me, as unnatural as Haliax's stillness. I couldn't stand it. I opened my mouth and asked the first question that came to my head, simply for something to say.
"What is your curse?"
He stared at me. "Have you not guessed?" he said stiffly. He sounded hurt that I had asked. "The doors of the mind are forever closed to me. I cannot die, nor sleep, nor forget, nor seek solace in madness."
"Oh." I stared at my useless left hand and wondered which was worse - to be awake for all eternity, or to never play music again.
I was reminded of my own tiredness, my own pain. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Denna and wait for her to wake. I lay back against the ground. My eyes fell shut.
"Kvothe." Haliax's voice was apologetic, almost tender. "There is one more thing we must discuss."
I shook my head wearily. Gods no, let me sleep.
"I will let you sleep," he said, "after you have heard your assignment."
My eyes snapped back open. "My what?"
"Your assignment," he repeated. "You have taken Cinder's place. He was assigned a task. I am passing it on to you."
I sat up. "What task?" I said warily.
"Assassinate the king of Vintas."
I blinked up at him. Surely he was not serious. "God's body," I breathed. "What for?"
He smiled faintly at my expression. "Cinder enjoyed playing politics in the Maer's court. Exacerbating the tenuous political situation in Vintas was one of his many hobbies, one of the few I approved of. You know something of his business with the tax collectors, of course. But that was merely a passing fancy. He did more, far more. He killed Alaitis. He would have killed Ariel, too, had she not gone into hiding."
His voice was suddenly cold. "That was a distasteful business, what he did to that child. If I had known of it before her disappearance, I would have put a stop to it." He stared at the fire for a moment, then sighed deeply. "Well, it does not matter now. I suppose it must suffice that I did not tell him when you found her."
"What?" I said stupidly.
"The princess," he said. "Your lost girl. The girl with the sunlight hair." He gave me an intent look. "You truly didn't know?"
I was driven speechless. I shook my head numbly. "How curious," he said idly. Then he waved it away with a simple gesture, as if the idea that Auri was a runaway princess - a princess! Kist and crayle - was merely a passing fancy. "Well, that is beside the point. The point is that a change in the balance of power serves our interests. It places a particular parcel of the Lackless lands back in the possession of Meluan Lackless."
I gave him a blank look. "And that matters because ... ?"
"It matters because the Lackless lands hold the lockless door, and the lockless door holds Iax." He looked at me, and he smiled widely for the first time. "And now I hold the Lackless heir, and the Lackless heir holds the key."
For the first time since I saw Haliax standing in the road, I was well and truly afraid.
"No," I whispered.
"No?"
"I will not do it. I will not open the door."
Haliax laughed then, incredulous. "After all you have seen, are you truly still under the delusion that you have a choice?"
He stood. Then he whispered my name.
"Maedre."
I folded in half. The pain I had felt before was nothing compared to this. His fist punched through my chest, tangled my intestines, rearranged my guts. I was broken, I was shattered, I was a thousand tiny pieces scattered all across the world. My limbs jerked wildly. I screamed and screamed.
He released me after a minute, or perhaps it was an eternity. I sagged into the dirt, gasping for air.
"The pain is just a warning," he said softly. "I can compel you, if I must. Now stand."
I knew instantly that I must obey. Still, I tried to resist. The urge only grew stronger. It pounded at me like waves against a rocky shore. stand stand STAND STAND STAND. I staggered drunkenly to my feet and was immediately filled with the most intense pleasure. I fell to my knees, and vomited.
"Do you understand?" Haliax asked. And I did.
He knelt again and placed something across my knees. Cinder's sword, white-grey and vicious and cold to the touch. It was stained with Denna's blood. He rested a hand upon my shoulder. "Your life is mine now, your purpose ours. You will do this, whether you will it or not. You will do it before this span has passed. You will do it with this sword. You will do it in Imre, in the courtyard by the fountain, by the husk of the building they once called the Eolian. You will do it when the King comes to the city to retrieve his daughter, who has been lost but will yet be found. And you will stand with your brothers and sisters when you do, so that the torches on the street burn blue and the folk of your miserable city gag on the stench of our rot. You will do this so that all may bear witness to our power, and remember why we are feared above all others. And in so doing, you will serve our purpose.
"Do you understand, Kvothe?"
I shook in his grip, and said nothing.
"Do you understand?" he said again.
A wave of compulsion. Please him. "Yes," I whispered. The pleasure came again, sweet and hateful.
"Then all is well between us," he said, and withdrew his hand.
I did not wait to see if, or how, he left me. I stumbled back to Denna's side. I straightened her limbs and brushed the dirt off of her skirts. I ran my uninjured fingers through the dark tangles of her hair. I clutched her to me, and willed her to wake.
I did not look at Cinder's sword. I did not caress it, or swing it, or weigh it in my fist. I did not need to do these things to know its name was Folly.