The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) (12 page)

By the time the circle of moonlight had left the copper pot behind, every bit of anger had been leached out of the tallow. As neat a factoring as ever hand of man had managed.

Then Auri took the kettle off to Tree and set it in the moving water of the chill well. Cricket-quick the tallow cooled to form a flat white disk two fingers thick.

Auri carefully lifted the disk of tallow off the surface and poured the golden water underneath away, noting idly that it held a hint of sleep and all the apples too. That was a pity. But it could not be helped, such was the way of things sometimes.

The bead of wax was seething. Now that the anger had been factored free, Auri realized it was much fiercer stuff than she had thought. It was fury, thunderous with untimely death. It was a mother’s rage for cubs now left alone.

Auri was glad the bead already dangled from a thread. She would be loath to touch it with her hands.

Slow and quiet, Auri tucked the bead into a thick glass jar and sealed it with a tight, tight lid. This she carried off to Boundary. Oh so careful she carried it. Oh so careful she placed it on a high stone shelf. Behind the glass. It would be safest there.

In Mantle, Auri’s third and final fire had fallen into ash. She swept it up again. These ashes filled the cracked clay cup to brimming.

She rinsed her sooty hands. She rinsed her face and feet.

All was ready. Auri grinned and sat down on the warm stone floor with all her tools arrayed around her. On the outside she was all composed, but inside she was fairly dancing at the thought of her new soap.

She set the kettle on the iron tripod. Underneath she slid the spirit lamp so that the hot, bright flame could kiss the copper bottom of the kettle.

First there was her perfect disk of clean white tallow. It was strong and sharp and lovely as the moon. Part of her, some wicked, restless piece, wanted to break the disk to bits so it would melt the faster. So she could have her soap the sooner. So she could wash herself and brush her hair and finally set herself to rights after so long. . . .

But no. She set the tallow gently in the kettle, careful not to give offense. She left it in its pure and perfect circle. Patience and propriety. It was the only graceful thing to do.

Next came the ashes. She set the cracked clay cup atop a squat glass jar. She poured the clear, clean water over them. It filtered through the ash and drip, tick, trickled through the crack in the cup’s bottom. It was the smoky red of blood and mud and honey.

When the final drips had fallen, Auri held the jar of cinderwash aloft and saw it was as fine as any she had ever made. It was a sunset dusky red. Stately and graceful, it was a changing thing. But underneath it all, the liquid held a blush of wantonness. It held all the proper things the wood had brought and many caustic lies besides.

In some ways this would be enough. The tallow and the cinderwash would make a serviceable soap. But there would be no apples in it. Nothing sweet or kind. It would be hard and chill as chalk. It would resemble bathing with an indifferent brick.

So yes, in some ways, these would be enough for soap. But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were
enough?

Sitting on the warm, smooth floor of Mantle, Auri shivered at the thought of moving through a joyless world like that. Nothing perfect. Nothing beautiful and true. Oh no. She was too wise to live that way. Auri looked around and smiled at all her luxury. She had a perfect loving leaf and lavender. She wore her favorite dress. Her name was Auri, and it was a shining piece of gold inside her all the time.

So she twisted off the silver stopper from the ice-blue jar, and poured the perfume in among the well-ground nutmeg powder. The smell of selas flower filled the room, so sweet and light against the prickle sting of nutmeg.

Auri smiled and stirred the two together with a kindling stick, then poured the thick, wet, pulpy mass into the linen sack she’d set inside a wide-mouthed jar. She used two sticks to twist the ends of the sack, and her makeshift wringer squeezed the fabric tight until it oozed a thick, dark oily liquid that spattered down into the jar. It was barely a slow trickle. Just a spoonful of the liquid. Two spoonfuls. Three.

She turned the sticks, her mouth a line of concentration. The linen twisted tighter. The dark liquid welled up, gathered, dripped. Dripped again.

Despite herself, Auri wished she had a proper press. It was so wasteful otherwise. She strained against the sticks, shifting her grip and giving them another half a turn. She grit her teeth, her knuckles going white. Another drip. Three more. Ten.

Auri’s arms began to tremble, and despite herself she glanced toward the iron-bound door that led to Boundary.

She looked away. She was a wicked thing, but she was not so bad as that. Idle wishing was mere fancy. It was another thing entirely to bend the world toward her own desires.

Finally her shaking arms could bear no more. She sighed, relaxed, and pulled the sticks free, upending the linen sack into a shallow pan. No longer a dark, pulpy mass, the nutmeg pomace now looked pale and crumbly.

Auri lifted up the glass and eyed the viscous liquid, clear as amber. It was lovely, lovely, lovely. It was like nothing that she’d ever seen before. It was thick with secrets and sea foam. It was prickle-rich with mystery. It was full of musk and whispers and tetradecanoic acid.

It was so fine a thing she dearly wished for more of it. The jar hardly held a palmful. She glanced over at the pan and thought of squeezing out the pomace with her hands to gather up a few more precious drops. . . .

But reaching out, Auri found that she was oddly loathe to touch the gritty mass with her own naked skin. She paused and tipped her head to look more closely at the pale, grey, crumbling pomace and her stomach pulled into a knot at what she saw.

It was full of screaming. Days of endless dark red screaming. It had been hidden by the mysteries before, but now the selas-sweet had stolen those away, and Auri saw the screaming clear as day.

Auri lifted up the jar and eyed the amber byne. But no. It was just as she had seen before. There was no screaming hidden there among the mysteries and musk. It was still a perfect thing.

Auri drew a long and shaky breath at that. And setting down the jar, she gently lay the linen sack and both her twisting sticks inside the shallow tin pan beside the horrid pomace. She handled them as little as she could, with nothing but her fingertips, as if they had been poisoned.

She did not want it near her. No bit of it. She knew already. She knew of red. She’d had enough of screaming.

Sweating slightly, Auri lifted up the pan with both her hands and turned to face the doorway. Then she stopped before she took a single step toward well-ordered Port. She could not keep this there. Who knew what chaos it would bring? Screaming was no kind of kindly neighbor.

Auri turned toward the hallway then. She took a step, then stopped, not knowing where she’d go. To Billows where the wind would carry screaming all throughout the Underthing? To Tree where it would smolder like a coal, so near her pots and pans and precious peas. . . .

But no. No no.

So Auri turned a final time. She turned to face the third way out of Mantle. She turned toward the iron-bound door and brought the linen bag to Boundary.

Returning, Auri rinsed her face. She rinsed her hands and feet.

She took one step toward the tripod and the copper pot, then stopped. She went back to her basin. She rinsed her face. She rinsed her hands and feet.

More than anything she wanted soap. To sit and finish what she had begun. She was so close. But first she stepped off hurriedly to Port to make herself quite sure of things. She smoothed the blanket with both hands. She touched the flat grey stone. She moved the hollybottle back where it belonged. She touched the leather book, then opened up the cover to make sure certain its pages were still all uncut. They were. But glancing back toward the shelf she saw the stone had gone all out of joint. She tried to slide it back to proper true but couldn’t see the shape of it and couldn’t tell the way of things and if it was a place where it was right. The honey too. She wanted honey but she mustn’t. . . .

She rubbed her eyes. Then forced herself to stop and look down at her hands. She hurried back to Mantle. She rinsed her face. She rinsed her hands and feet.

She felt the panic rising in her then. She knew. She knew how quickly things could break. You did the things you could. You tended to the world for the world’s sake. You hoped you would be safe. But still she knew. It could come crashing down and there was nothing you could do. And yes. She knew she wasn’t right. She knew her everything was canted wrong. She knew her head was all unkilter. She knew she wasn’t true inside. She knew.

Her breath was coming harder now. Her heart a hammer in her chest. The light was brighter and she heard the sound of things that normally she couldn’t hear. A keening of the world all out of place. A howl of everything all turned from true. . . .

Auri looked around the room, all startle sweat and fear. She was tangle and cut-string. Even here. She could see traces. Mantle was all eggshell. Even her most perfect place. Her bed was almost not her bed. Her perfect leaf so frail. Her box of stone so far away. Her lavender no help at all and growing pale. . . .

She looked down at her shaking hands. Was she all full of screaming now? Again? No. No no. It wasn’t her. Not just. It was all everything. All everything unravelding and thin and tatter. She could not even stand. The light was jagged, scraping like a knife against her teeth. And underneath it was the hollow dark. The nameless empty everything was clawing at the fraying edges of the walls. Even Foxen wasn’t even nearly. The stones were strange. The air. She went looking for her name and couldn’t even find it flickering. She was just hollow in. Everything was. Everything was everything. Everything was everything else. Even here in her most perfect place. She needed. Please she needed please. . . .

But there. Against the wall she saw the brazen gear was all unchanged. It was too full of love. Nothing could shift it. Nothing could turn it from itself. When all the world was palimpsest, it was a perfect palindrome. Inviolate.

It was all the way across the room. So far she feared she could not reach it. Not with the stones below her gone so rough. Not hollow as she was. But when she moved a bit she saw it was not hard at all. It was downhill. The proud, bright brazen gear was true enough, it pressed down hard against the thin frayed tatter world and made a dent.