The Name of the Wind (78 page)

“It's really not my place to be steering him one way or another,” Chronicler said stiffly. “I'm a recorder. I'm just here for the story. The story's the important thing, after all.”

“Piss on your story,” Bast said sharply. “You'll do what I say, or I'll break you like a kindling stick.”

Chronicler froze. “So you're saying I work for you?”

“I'm saying you belong to me.” Bast's face was deadly serious. “Down to the marrow of your bones. I drew you here to serve my purpose. You have eaten at my table, and I have saved your life.” He pointed at Chronicler's naked chest. “Three ways I own you. That makes you wholly mine. An instrument of my desire. You will do as I say.”

Chronicler's chin lifted a bit, his expression hardening. “I will do as I see fit,” he said, slowly raising a hand to the piece of metal that lay against his naked chest.

Bast's eyes flickered down, then up again. “You think I'm playing at some game?” His expression was incredulous. “You think iron will keep you safe?” Bast leaned forward, slapped Chronicler's hand away, and grabbed the circle of dark metal before the scribe could move. Immediately Bast's arm stiffened and his eyes clenched shut in a grimace of pain. When he reopened them they were solid blue, the color of deep water or the darkening sky.

Bast leaned forward, bringing his face close to Chronicler's. The scribe panicked and tried to scrabble sideways out of the bed, but Bast took hold of his shoulder and held him fast. “Hear my words, manling,” he hissed. “Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.” The tendons in Bast's hand creaked as he tightened his grip on the circle of iron. “Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied.”

As he spoke, Bast's eyes grew paler, until they were the pure blue of a clear noontime sky. “I swear by all the salt in me: if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery. I swear by stone and oak and elm: I'll make a game of you. I'll follow you unseen and smother any spark of joy you find. You'll never know a woman's touch, a breath of rest, a moment's peace of mind.”

Bast's eyes were now the pale blue-white of lightning, his voice tight and fierce. “And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.”

Bast leaned closer until their faces were mere inches apart, his eyes gone white as opal, white as a full-bellied moon. “You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons.” Bast smiled a terrible smile. “There is only my kind.” Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

Bast pushed himself away from Chronicler and took several steps back from the bed. Standing at the edge of the candle's flickering light, he opened his hand and the circle of iron fell to the wooden floor, ringing dully. After a moment, Bast drew a slow, deep breath. He ran his hands through his hair.

Chronicler remained where he was, pale and sweating.

Bast bent to pick up the iron ring by its broken cord, knotting it together again with quick fingers. “Listen, there's no reason we can't be friends,” he said matter-of-factly as he turned and held the necklace out to Chronicler. His eyes were a human blue again, his smile warm and charming. “There's no reason we can't all get what we want. You get your story. He gets to tell it. You get to know the truth. He gets to remember who he really is. Everyone wins, and we all go our separate ways, pleased as peaches.”

Chronicler reached out to take hold of the cord, his hand trembling slightly. “What do you get?” he asked, his voice a dry whisper. “What do you want out of this?”

The question seemed to catch Bast unprepared. He stood still and awkward for a moment, all his fluid grace gone. For a moment it looked as if he might burst into tears. “What do I want? I just want my Reshi back.” His voice was quiet and lost. “I want him back the way he was.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Bast scrubbed at his face with both hands and swallowed hard. “I've been gone too long,” he said abruptly, walking to the window and opening it. He paused with one leg over the sill and looked back at Chronicler. “Can I bring you anything before you go to sleep? A nightcap? More blankets?”

Chronicler shook his head numbly and Bast waved as he stepped the rest of the way out the window, closing it gently behind him.

I
T WAS NIGHT AGAIN.
The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The first part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been horses stabled in the barn they would have stamped and champed and broken it to pieces. If there had been a crowd of guests, even a handful of guests bedded down for the night, their restless breathing and mingled snores would have gently thawed the silence like a warm spring wind. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Inside the Waystone a man huddled in his deep, sweet-smelling bed. Motionless, waiting for sleep, he lay wide-eyed in the dark. In doing this he added a small, frightened silence to the larger, hollow one. They made an alloy of sorts, a harmony.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the thick stone walls of the empty taproom and in the flat, grey metal of the sword that hung behind the bar. It was in the dim candlelight that filled an upstairs room with dancing shadows. It was in the mad pattern of a crumpled memoir that lay fallen and un-forgotten atop the desk. And it was in the hands of the man who sat there, pointedly ignoring the pages he had written and discarded long ago.

The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the weary calm that comes from knowing many things.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn's ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.