“You weren’t doing Taborlin before,” Simmon admitted.
“Oh.” Puppet seemed a little put out. “How was I this time? The last time, I mean. Was it a good Taborlin?”
“Pretty good,” Simmon said.
Puppet looked at Wilem.
“I liked the robe,” Wil said. “But I always imagined Taborlin with a gentle voice.”
“Oh.” He finally looked at me. “Hello.”
“Hello,” I said in my politest tone.
“I don’t know you.” A pause. “Who are you?”
“I am Kvothe.”
“You seem so certain of it,” he said, looking at me intently. Another pause. “They call me Puppet.”
“Who is ‘they?’ ”
“Who are they?” he corrected, raising a finger.
I smiled. “Who are they then?”
“Who were they then?”
“Who are they now?” I clarified, my smile growing wider.
Puppet mirrored my smile in a distracted way and made a vague gesture with one hand. “You know, them. People.” He continued to stare at me the same way I might examine an interesting stone or a type of leaf I’d never seen before.
“What do you call yourself?” I asked.
He seemed a little surprised, and his eyes focused onto me in a more ordinary way. “That would be telling, I suspect,” he said with a touch of reproach. He glanced at the silent Wilem and Simmon. “You should come in now.” He turned and walked inside.
The room wasn’t particularly large. But it seemed bizarrely out of place, nestled in the belly of the Archives. There was a deep padded chair, a large wooden table, and a pair of doorways leading into other rooms.
Books were everywhere, overflowing shelves and bookcases. They were piled on the floor, scattered across tables and stacked on chairs. A pair of drawn curtains against one wall surprised me. My mind struggled with the impression that there must be a window behind them, despite the fact that I knew we were deep underground.
The room was lit with lamps and candles, long tapers and thick dripping pillars of wax. Each tongue of flame filled me with vague anxiety as I thought of open fire in a building filled with hundreds of thousands of precious books.
And there were puppets. They hung from shelves and pegs on walls. They lay crumpled in corners and under chairs. Some were in the process of being built or repaired, scattered among tools across the tabletop. There were shelves full of figurines, each cleverly carved and painted in the shape of a person.
On his way to his table, Puppet shrugged out of the black robe and let it fall carelessly to the floor. He was dressed plainly underneath, wrinkled white shirt, wrinkled dark pants, and mismatched socks much mended in the heel. I realized he was older than I’d thought. His face was smooth and unlined, but his hair was pure white and thin on top.
Puppet cleared a chair for me, carefully removing a small string puppet from the seat and finding it a place on a nearby shelf. He then took a seat at the table, leaving Wilem and Simmon standing. To their credit, they didn’t seem terribly disconcerted.
Digging a little in the clutter on the table he brought out an irregularly shaped piece of wood and a small knife. He took another long, searching look at my face, then began to methodically whittle, curls of wood falling onto the tabletop.
Oddly enough, I had no desire to ask anyone what was going on. When you ask as many questions as I do, you learn when they are appropriate.
Besides, I knew what the answers would be. Puppet was one of the talented, not-quite-sane people who had found a niche for themselves at the University.
Arcanum training does unnatural things to students’ minds. The most notable of these unnatural things is the ability to do what most people call magic and we call sympathy, sygaldry, alchemy, naming, and the like.
Some minds take to it easily, others have difficulty. The worst of these go mad and end up in Haven. But most minds don’t shatter when subjected to the stress of the Arcanum, they simply crack a little. Sometimes these cracks showed in small ways: facial tics, stuttering. Other students heard voices, grew forgetful, went blind, went dumb. . . . Sometimes it was only for an hour or a day. Sometimes it was forever.
I guessed Puppet was a student who had cracked years ago. Like Auri, he seemed to have found a place for himself, though I marveled at the fact that Lorren let him live down here.
“Does he always look like this?” Puppet asked Wilem and Simmon. A small drift of pale wood shavings had gathered around his hands.
“Mostly,” Wilem said.
“Like what?” Simmon asked.
“Like he’s just thought through his next three moves in a game of tirani and figured out how he’s going to beat you.” Puppet took another long look at my face and shaved another thin strip of wood away. “It’s rather irritating, really.”
Wilem barked a laugh. “That’s his thinking face, Puppet. He wears it a lot, but not all the time.”
“What’s tirani?” Simmon asked.
“A thinker,” Puppet mused. “What are you thinking now?”
“I’m thinking you must be a very careful watcher of people, Puppet,” I said politely.
Puppet snorted without looking up. “What use is care? What good is watching for that matter? People are forever watching things. They should be seeing. I see the things I look at. I am a see-er.”
He looked at the piece of wood in his hand, then to my face. Apparently satisfied, he folded his hands over the top of his carving, but not before I glimpsed my own profile cunningly wrought in wood. “Do you know what you have been, what you are not, and what you will be?” He asked.
It sounded like a riddle. “No.”
“A see-er,” he said with certainty. “Because that is what E’lir means.”
“Kvothe is actually a Re’lar,” Simmon said respectfully.
Puppet sniffed disparagingly. “Hardly,” he said, looking at me closely. “You might be a see-er eventually, but not yet. Now you are a look-er. You’ll be a true E’lir at some point. If you learn to relax.” He held out the carved wooden face. “What do you see here?”
It was no longer an irregular piece of wood. My features, locked in serious contemplation, stared out of the wood grain. I leaned forward to get a closer look.
Puppet laughed and threw up his hands. “Too late!” he exclaimed, looking childlike for a moment. “You looked too hard and didn’t see enough. Too much looking can get in the way of seeing, you see?”
Puppet set the carved face on the tabletop so it seemed to be staring at one of the recumbent puppets. “See little wooden Kvothe? See him looking? So intent. So dedicated. He’ll look for a hundred years, but will he ever see what is in front of him?” Puppet settled back in his seat, his eyes wandering the room in a contented way.
“E’lir means see-er?” Simmon asked. “Do the other ranks mean things too?”
“As a student with full access to the Archives, I imagine you can find that out for yourself,” Puppet said. His attention focused on a puppet on the table in front of him. He lowered it to the floor carefully to avoid tangling its strings. It was a perfect miniature of a grey-robed Tehlin priest.
“Would you have any advice as to where he could start looking?” I asked, playing a hunch.
“Renfalque’s Dictum.” Under Puppet’s direction, the Tehlin puppet raised himself from the floor and moved each of his limbs as if he were stretching after a long sleep.
“I’m not familiar with that one.”
Puppet responded in a distracted voice. “It’s on the second floor in the southeast corner. Second row, second rack, third shelf, right-hand side, red leather binding.” The miniature Tehlin priest walked slowly around Puppet’s feet. Clutched tightly in one hand was a tiny replica of the Book of the Path, perfectly fashioned, right down to the tiny spoked wheel painted on the cover.
The three of us watched Puppet pull the strings of the little priest, making it walk back and forth before finally coming t
o sit on one of Puppet’s stocking-clad feet.
Wilem cleared his throat respectfully. “Puppet?”
“Yes?” Puppet replied without looking up from his feet. “You have a question. Or rather, Kvothe has a question and you’re thinking of asking it for him. He is sitting slightly forward in his seat. There is a furrow between his brows and a pursing of the lips that gives it away. Let him ask me. It might do him good.”
I froze in place, catching myself doing each of the things he had mentioned. Puppet continued to work the strings of his little Tehlin. It made a careful, fearful search of the area around his feet, brandishing the book in front of itself before stepping around table legs and peering into Puppet’s abandoned shoes. Its movements were uncanny, and it distracted me to the point where I forgot I was uncomfortable and felt myself relax.
“I was wondering about the Amyr, actually.” My eyes remained on the scene unfolding at Puppet’s feet. Another marionette had joined the show, a young girl in a peasant dress. She approached the Tehlin and held out a hand as if trying to give him something. No, she was asking him a question. The Tehlin turned his back on her. She laid a timid hand on his arm. He took a haughty step away. “I was wondering who disbanded them. Emperor Nalto or the church.”
“Still looking,” he admonished more gently then before. “You need to go chase the wind for a while, you are too serious. It will lead you into trouble.” The Tehlin suddenly turned on the girl. Trembling with rage, it menaced her with the book. She took a startled step backward and stumbled to her knees. “The church disbanded them of course. Only an edict from the pontifex had the ability to affect them.” The Tehlin struck the girl with the book. Once, twice, driving her to the ground, where she lay terribly still. “Nalto couldn’t have told them to cross to the other side of the street.”
Some slight motion drew Puppet’s eye. “Oh dear me,” he said, cocking his head toward Wilem. “See what I see. The head bows slightly. The jaw clenches, but the eyes aren’t fixed on anything, aiming the irritation inward. If I were the sort of person who judged by looking, I’d guess Wilem had just lost a bet. Don’t you know the church frowns on gambling?” At Puppet’s feet, the priest brandished the book upward at Wilem.
The Tehlin brought its hands together and turned away from the crumpled woman. It took a stately step or two away and bowed its head as if praying.
I managed to pull my attention away from the tableau and look up at our host. “Puppet?” I asked, “Have you read the Lights of History by Feltemi Reis?”
I saw Simmon give Wilem an anxious look, but Puppet didn’t seem to find anything odd about the question. The Tehlin at his feet stood and started to dance and caper about. “Yes.”
“Why would Reis say the Apura Prolycia Amyr was Emperor Nalto’s sixty-third decree?”
“Reis wouldn’t say any such thing,” Puppet said without looking up from the marionette at his feet. “That’s pure nonsense.”
“But we found a copy of Lights that said exactly that,” I pointed out.
Puppet shrugged, watching the Tehlin dance at his feet.
“It could be a transcription mistake,” Wilem mused. “Depending on the edition of the book, the church itself might be responsible for changing that piece of information. Emperor Nalto is history’s favorite whipping boy. It could be the church trying to distance itself from the Amyr. They did some terrible things toward the end.”
“Clever clever,” Puppet said. At his feet the Tehlin made a sweeping bow in Wilem’s direction.
I was struck by a sudden idea. “Puppet,” I asked. “Do you know what is behind the locked door on the floor above this one? The large stone door?”
The Tehlin stopped dancing and Puppet looked up. He gave me a long, stern look. His eyes were serious and clear. “I don’t think the four-plate door should be of any concern to a student. Do you?”
I felt myself flush. “No sir.” I looked away from his eyes.
The tension of the moment was broken by the distant sound of the belling tower. Simmon cursed softly. “I’m late,” he said. “I’m sorry Puppet, I’ve got to go.”
Puppet stood and hung the Tehlin on the wall. “It’s time I got back to my reading, regardless,” he said. He moved to the padded chair, sat, and opened a book. “Bring this one back some time.” He gestured in my direction without looking up from his book. “I have some more work to do on him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Greater Good
I LOOKED UP AT SIMMON and whispered, “Ivare enim euge.”
Sim gave a despairing sigh. “You are supposed to be studying your physiognomy.”
It had been a full span since we had set fire to Ambrose’s rooms, and winter was finally showing its teeth, covering the University with knee-deep drifts of blowing snow. As was always the case when the weather turned inclement, the Archives were full to the brim with industrious students.
Since all the reading holes were occupied, Simmon and I had been forced to bring our books to Tomes. The high-ceilinged, windowless room was more than half full today, but still quiet as a crypt. All the dark stone and muted whispers made the place slightly eerie, making it obvious why students referred to it as Tombs.
“I am studying my physiognomy,” I protested softly. “I was looking at some of Gibea’s diagrams. Look what I found.” I held out a book for him to see.
“Gibea?” Simmon whispered, horrified. “I swear the only reason you study with me is so you can interrupt.” He pulled away from the book I was offering him.
“It’s nothing grotesque,” I protested. “Just . . . here. Just look at what it says here.” Simmon shoved the book away, and my temper flared. “Careful!” I hissed. “This is one of his originals. I found it behind some other books, buried in Dead Ledgers. Lorren will cut off my thumbs if anything happens to it.”
Sim recoiled from the book as if it were red-hot. “An original? Merciful Tehlu, it’s probably written on human skin. Get it away from me!”
I almost joked about how human skin probably wouldn’t take ink, but decided against it when I saw the expression on Sim’s face. Still, my expression must have given me away.
“You’re perverse,” he spat, his voice almost rising to unacceptable levels. “God’s mother, don’t you know he cut apart living men to watch their organs work? I refuse to look at anything that monster was responsible for.”
I set the book down. “You might as well give up studying medicine then,” I said as gently as possible. “Gibea’s research on the human body was the most thorough ever done. His journals are the backbone of modern physic.”
Simmon’s face stayed hard and he leaned forward so he could speak softly and still be heard. “When the Amyr moved against the duke, they found the bones of twenty thousand people. Great pits of bones and ashes. Women and children. Twenty thousand!” Simmon sputtered a bit before he could continue. “And those are just the ones they found.”
I let him calm himself a bit before I said, “Gibea wrote twenty-three volumes concerning the machinery of the body,” I pointed out as gently as I could. “When the Amyr moved against him, part of his estate burned, four of those volumes and all his notes were lost. Ask Master Arwyl what he would give to have those volumes whole again.”
Simmon brought his hand down hard on the tabletop, causing several students to look in our direction. “Dammit!” he hissed. “I grew up thirty miles from Gibea! From my father’s hills you can see the ruins on a cloudless day!”
That stilled me. If Sim’s family lands were that close, his ancestors must have been fealty-bound to Gibea. That meant they might have been forced to help him gather subjects for his experiments. Some of his family might have ended up in the pits of bone and ash themselves.
I waited a long while before I whispered again, “I didn’t know.”
He regained most of his composure. “We don’t talk about it,” he said stiffly, brushing the hair out of his eyes.
We bent to our studies, and it
was an hour before Simmon spoke again. “What did you find?” he asked too casually, as if not wanting to admit his curiosity.
“Here on the inner leaf,” I whispered excitedly. I opened the cover and Sim’s face twisted unconsciously as he looked down at the page, as if the book smelled of death.
“. . . spilled it all over.” I heard a voice as a pair of older students strolled into the hall. By their rich clothes I could tell they were both nobility, and while they weren’t shouting, they weren’t making any effort to be quiet, either. “Anisat made him clear up the mess before he let him wash off. He’ll smell like urea for a span of days.”
“What’s here to see?” Simmon asked, looking down at the page. “It’s just his name and the dates.”
“Not the middle, look up at the top. Around the edges of the page.” I pointed at the decorative scrollwork. “Right there.”
“I’d wager a drab the little pug poisons himself before the term’s through,” the other one said, “Were we ever that stupid?”
“I still don’t see anything,” Simmon said softly, making a baffled gesture with both his elbows on the table. “It’s pretty enough if you like that sort of thing, but I’ve never been a great fan of illuminated texts.”
“We could head to the Twopenny.” The conversation continued several tables away, drawing annoyed looks from surrounding students. “They’ve got a girl there who plays the pipes, I swear you’ve never seen anything like her before. And Linten says if you’ve got a bit of silver she . . .” His voice dropped conspiratorially.
“She what?” I asked, butting into their conversation as rudely as possible. I didn’t need to shout. In the Tomes a normal speaking voice carries the whole room. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”
The two of them gave me affronted looks, but didn’t reply.
“What are you doing?” Sim hissed at me, embarrassed.
“I’m trying to shut them up,” I said.
“Just ignore them,” he said. “Here, I’m looking at your damn book. Show me what you want me to see.”