Hemme offered one up with an exaggerated graciousness. As the student brought it up to me, Hemme smiled in genuine amusement, certain that the more grandiose my preparations were, the greater my embarrassment would be in the end.
I took advantage of this slight delay to look over what equipment I had to work with. A brazier sat off to one side of the stage, and a quick rifling of the drawers in the worktable revealed chalk, a prism, sulfur matches, an enlarging glass, some candles, and a few oddly-shaped blocks of metal. I took three of the candles and left the rest.
I took Master Hemme’s hair from the student and recognized him as Basil, the boy Hemme had browbeat yesterday. “Thank you, Basil. Would you bring that brazier over here and get it burning as quickly as you can?” As he brought it closer I was delighted to see that it was equipped with a small bellows. While he poured alcohol onto the coal and struck a spark to it, I addressed the class.
“The concepts of sympathy are not entirely easy to grasp. But underneath everything there remain three simple laws.”
“First is the Doctrine of Correspondence which says, ‘similarity enhances sympathy.’ Second is the Principle of Consanguinity, which says, ‘a piece of a thing can represent the whole of a thing.’ Third is the Law of Conservation, which says ‘energy cannot be destroyed nor created.’ Correspondence, Consanguinity, and Conservation. The three C’s.”
I paused and listened to the sound of a half hundred pens scratching down my words. Beside me, Basil pumped industriously at the bellows. I realized I could grow to enjoy this.
“Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense yet. The demonstration should make everything abundantly clear.” Looking down, I saw the brazier was warming nicely. I thanked Basil and hung a shallow metal pan above the coals and dropped two of the candles in to melt.
I set a third candle in a holder on the table and used one of the sulfur matches in the drawer to set it alight. Next, I moved the pan off the heat and poured its now-melted contents carefully onto the table, forming a fist-sized blob of soft wax. I looked back up at the students.
“In sympathy, most of what you are doing is redirecting energy. Sympathetic links are how the energy travels.” I pulled out the wicking and began kneading the wax into a roughly human-shaped doll. “The first law I mentioned, ‘Similarity enhances sympathy,’ simply means that the more things resemble each other, the stronger the sympathetic link between them will be.”
I held the crude doll up for the class to inspect. “This,” I said, “is Master Hemme.” Laughter muttered back and forth across the hall. “Actually, this is my sympathetic representation of Master Hemme. Would anyone like to take a guess as to why it is not a very good one?”
There was a moment of silence. I let it stretch out for a while, a cold audience. Hemme had traumatized them yesterday and they were slow in responding. Finally, from the back of the room, a student said, “It’s the wrong size?”
I nodded and continued to look around the room.
“He isn’t made of wax either.”
I nodded. “It does bear some small resemblance to him, in general shape and proportion. Nevertheless, it is a very poor sympathetic representation. Because of that, any sympathetic link based off it would be rather weak. Perhaps two percent efficiency. How could we improve it?”
There was another silence, shorter than the first. “You could make it bigger,” someone suggested. I nodded and waited. Other voices called out, “You could carve Master Hemme’s face on it.” “Paint it.” “Give it a little robe.” Everyone laughed.
I held up my hand for quiet and was surprised by how quickly it fell. “Practicality aside, assume you did all these things. A six-foot, fully-clothed, masterfully carved Master Hemme stands beside me.” I gestured. “Even with all that effort the best you might hope for is ten or fifteen percent sympathetic link. Not very good, not very good at all.
“This brings me to the second law, Consanguinity. An easy way of thinking of it is, ‘once together, always together.’ Due to Master Hemme’s generosity I have one of his hairs.” I held it up, and ceremoniously stuck it to the head of the doll. “And as easy as this, we have a sympathetic link that will work at thirty to thirty-five percent.”
I had been watching Hemme. While at first he had seemed a little wary, he had lapsed back into a self-satisfied smirk. He knew that without the appropriate binding and properly focused Alar, all the wax and hair in the world wouldn’t do one whit of good.
Sure that he had taken me for a fool, I gestured to the candle and asked him, “With your permission, Master?” He made a magnanimous wave of compliance and settled back into his chair, folding his arms in front of him, confident in his safety.
Of course I did know the binding. I’d told him so. And Ben had taught me about the Alar, the riding-crop belief, back when I was twelve.
But I didn’t bother with either. I put the doll’s foot into the candle flame, which guttered and smoked.
There was a tense, held-breath quiet as everyone stretched in their seats to get a look at Master Hemme.
Hemme shrugged, feigning astonishment. But his eyes had the look of a jaw trap about to close. A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth, and he began to rise from his seat. “I feel nothing. Wh—”
“Exactly.” I said, cracking my voice like a whip, startling the students’ attentions back to me. “And why is that?” I looked expectantly at the lecture hall.
“Because of the third law that I had mentioned, Conservation. ‘Energy cannot be destroyed or created, merely lost or found.’ If I were to hold a candle underneath our esteemed teacher’s foot, very little would occur. And since only about thirty percent of the heat is getting through, we do not even get that small result.”
I paused to let them think for a moment. “This is the prime problem in sympathy. Where do we get the energy? Here, however, the answer is simple.”
I blew out the candle and relit it from the brazier. Muttering the few necessary words underneath my breath. “By adding a second sympathetic link between the candle and a more substantial fire….” I broke my mind into two pieces, one binding Hemme and the doll together, the other connecting the candle and the brazier. “We get the desired effect.”
I casually moved the foot of the wax doll into the space about an inch above the candle’s wick, which is actually the hottest part of the flame.
There was a startled exclamation from where Hemme was sitting.
Without looking in his direction I continued speaking to the class in the driest of tones. “And it appears that this time we are successful.” The class laughed.
I blew out the candle. “This is also a good example of the power that a clever sympathist commands. Imagine what would happen if I were to throw this doll into the fire itself?” I held it over the brazier.
As if on cue, Hemme stormed onto the stage. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that he was favoring his left leg slightly.
“It appears that Master Hemme wishes to resume your instruction at this point.” Laughter rippled through the room, louder this time. “I thank you all: students and friends. And thus my humble lecture ends.”
At this point I used one of the tricks of the stage. There is a certain inflection of voice and body language that signals a crowd to applaud. I cannot explain how exactly it is done, but it had its intended effect. I nodded my head to them and turned to face Hemme amidst applause which, though far from deafening, was probably more than any he had ever received.
As he took the last few steps toward me I almost backed away. His face was a fearsome red and a vein pulsed at his temple as if it were about to explode.
For my own part, my stage training helped me maintain my composure, I returned his gaze levelly and held out my hand for him to shake. It was with no small amount of satisfaction that I watched him give a quick glance to the still applauding class, swallow, and shake my hand.
His handshake was painfully tight. It might have gotten worse if
I hadn’t made a slight gesture over the brazier with the wax doll. His face went from its livid red to an ashen white more quickly than I would have believed possible. His grip underwent a similar transformation and I regained my hand.
With another nod toward the seated students, I left the lecture hall without a backward glance.
CHAPTER FORTY
On the Horns
AFTER HEMME DISMISSED HIS class, news of what I had done spread through the University like wildfire. I guessed from the student’s reactions that Master Hemme was not particularly well loved. As I sat on a stone bench outside the Mews, passing students smiled in my direction. Others waved or gave laughing thumbs-up.
While I enjoyed the notoriety, a cold anxiety was slowly growing in my gut. I’d made an enemy of one of the nine masters. I needed to know how much trouble I was in.
Dinner in the Mess was brown bread with butter, stew, and beans. Manet was there, his wild hair making him look like a great white wolf. Simmon and Sovoy groused idly about the food, making grim speculations as to what manner of meat was in the stew. To me, less than a span away from the streets of Tarbean, it was a marvelous meal indeed.
Nevertheless, I was rapidly losing my appetite in the face of what I was hearing from my friends.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Sovoy said. “You’ve got a great weighty pair on you. I’ll never call that into question. But still…” he gestured with his spoon. “They’re going to string you up for this.”
“If he’s lucky,” Simmon said. “I mean, we are talking about malfeasance here, aren’t we?”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “I gave him a little bit of a hotfoot, that’s all.”
“Any harmful sympathy falls under malfeasance.” Manet pointed at me with his piece of bread, his wild, grizzled eyebrows arching seriously over his nose. “You’ve got to pick your battles, boy. Keep your head down around the masters. They can make your life a real hell once you get into their bad books.”
“He started it,” I said sullenly though a mouthful of beans.
A young boy jogged up to the table, breathless. “You’re Kvothe?” He asked, looking me over.
I nodded, my stomach suddenly turning over.
“They want you in the Masters’ Hall.”
“Where is it?” I asked. “I’ve only been here a couple of days.”
“Can one of you show him?” the boy asked, looking around at the table. “I’ve got to go tell Jamison I found him.”
“I’ll do it,” Simmon said pushing away his bowl. “I’m not hungry anyway.”
Jamison’s runner boy took off, and Simmon started to get to his feet.
“Hold on,” I said, pointing to my tray with my spoon. “I’m not finished here.”
Simmon’s expression was anxious. “I can’t believe you’re eating,” he said. “I can’t eat. How can you eat?”
“I’m hungry,” I said. “I don’t know what’s waiting in the Masters’ Hall, but I’m guessing I’d rather have a full stomach for it.”
“You’re going on the horns,” Manet said. “It’s the only reason they’d call you there at this time of night.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I didn’t want to advertise my ignorance to everyone in the room. “They can wait until I’m done.” I took another bite of stew.
Simmon returned to his seat and poked idly at his food. Truth be told, I wasn’t really hungry anymore, but it galled me to be pulled away from a meal after all the times I’d been hungry in Tarbean.
When Simmon and I finally got to our feet, the normal clamor in the Mess quieted as folk watched us leave. They knew where I was headed.
Outside, Simmon put his hands in his pockets and headed roughly in the direction of Hollows. “All kidding aside, you’re in a good bit of trouble, you know.”
“I was hoping Hemme would be embarrassed and keep quiet about it,” I admitted. “Do they expel many students?” I tried to make it sound like a joke.
“There hasn’t been anyone this term,” Sim said with his shy, blue-eyed smile. “But it’s only the second day of classes. You might set some sort of record.”
“This isn’t funny,” I said, but found myself wearing a grin regardless. Simmon could always make me smile, no matter what was going on.
Sim led the way, and we reached Hollows far too soon for my liking. Simmon raised a hand in a hesitant farewell as I opened the door and made my way inside.
I was met by Jamison. He oversaw everything that wasn’t under direct control of the masters: the kitchens, the laundry, the stables, the stockrooms. He was nervous and birdlike. A man with the body of a sparrow and the eyes of a hawk.
Jamison escorted me into a large windowless room with a familiar crescent-shaped table. The Chancellor sat at the center, as he had during admissions. The only real difference was that this table was not elevated, and the seated masters were close to eye level with me.
The eyes I met were not friendly. Jamison escorted me to the front of the crescent table. Seeing it from this angle made me understand the references to being “on the horns.” Jamison retreated to a smaller table of his own, dipping a pen.
The Chancellor steepled his fingers and spoke without preamble. “On the fourth of Caitelyn, Hemme called the masters together.” Jamison’s pen scratched across a piece of paper, occasionally dipping back into the inkwell at the top of the desk. The Chancellor continued formally, “Are all the masters present?”
“Master Physicker,” said Arwyl.
“Master Archivist,” said Lorren, his face impassive as ever.
“Master Arithmetician,” Brandeur said, cracking his knuckles absently.
“Master Artificer,” grumbled Kilvin without looking up from the tabletop.
“Master Alchemist,” said Mandrag.
“Master Rhetorician,” Hemme’s face was fierce and red.
“Master Sympathist,” said Elxa Dal.
“Master Namer.” Elodin actually smiled at me. Not just a perfunctory curling of the lips, but a warm, toothy grin. I drew a bit of a shaky breath, relieved that at least one person present didn’t seem eager to hang me up by my thumbs.
“And Master Linguist,” said the Chancellor. “All eight…” He frowned. “Sorry. Strike that. All nine masters are present. Present your grievance, Master Hemme.”
Hemme did not hesitate. “Today, first-term student Kvothe, not of the Arcanum, did perform sympathetic bindings on me with malicious intent.”
“Two grievances are recorded against Kvothe by Master Hemme,” The Chancellor said sternly, not taking his eyes away from me. “First grievance, unauthorized use of sympathy. What is the proper discipline for this, Master Archivist?”
“For unauthorized use of sympathy leading to injury, the offending student will be bound and whipped a number of times, not less than two nor more than ten, singly, across the back.” Lorren said it as if reading off directions for a recipe.
“Number of lashes sought?” The Chancellor looked at Hemme.
Hemme paused to consider. “Five.”
I felt the blood drain from my face and I forced myself to take a slow, deep breath through my nose to calm myself.
“Does any master object to this?” The Chancellor looked around the table, but all mouths were silent, all eyes were stern. “The second grievance: malfeasance. Master Archivist?”
“Four to fifteen single lashes and expulsion from the University.” Lorren said in a level voice.
“Lashes sought?
Hemme stared directly at me. “Eight.”
Thirteen lashes and expulsion. A cold sweat swept over me and I felt nausea in the pit of my stomach. I had known fear before. In Tarbean it was never far away. Fear kept you alive. But I had never before felt such a desperate helplessness. A fear not just for my body being hurt, but for my entire life being ruined. I began to get light-headed.
“Do you understand these grievances set against you?” The Chancellor a
sked sternly.
I took a deep breath. “Not exactly, sir.” I hated the way my voiced sounded, tremulous and weak.
The Chancellor held up a hand and Jamison lifted his pen from the paper. “It is against the laws of the University for a student who is not a member of the Arcanum to use sympathy without permission from a master.”
His expression darkened. “And it is always, always, expressly forbidden to cause harm with sympathy, especially to a master. A few hundred years ago arcanists were hunted down and burned for things of that sort. We do not tolerate that sort of behavior here.”
I heard a hard edge creep into the Chancellor’s voice, only then did I sense how truly angry he was. He took a deep breath. “Now, do you understand?”
I nodded shakily.
He made another motion to Jamison, who set his pen back to the paper. “Do you, Kvothe, understand these grievances set against you?”
“Yes, sir.” I said, as steadily as I could. Everything seemed too bright, and my legs were trembling slightly. I tried to force them to be still, but it only seemed to make them shake all the more.
“Do you have anything to say in your defense?” the Chancellor asked curtly.
I just wanted to leave. I felt the stares of the masters bearing down on me. My hands were wet and cold. I probably would have shaken my head and slunk from the room had the Chancellor not spoken again.
“Well?” The Chancellor repeated testily. “No defense?”
The words struck a chord in me. They were the same words that Ben had used a hundred times as he drilled me endlessly in argument. His words came back, admonishing me: What? No defense? Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!
I took another deep breath, closed my eyes and concentrated. After a long moment, I felt the cool impassivity of the Heart of Stone surround me. My trembling stopped.