The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) (13 page)

Then she was touching it. It was so smooth and warm along its face. And all asweat breathless desperate Auri pressed her forehead up against its cool. She took hold of it with both her hands. The sharpness of its edges on her palms was like a calming knife. She clung to it at first, like someone in a shipwreck grips the stone of shore. But all the world around her was still storm. All tumbledown. All crumble pale and ache. And so, with shaking arms she strained against it. She pulled to turn the gear upon its narrow ledge of rock. She spun it widdershins. The breaking way.

It tipped from tooth to tooth. She spun the brazen gear and only then did Auri understand the fearsome weight of it. It was a fulcrum thing. It was a pin. A pivot. It shifted, tilted, but truthfully it only
seemed
to turn. In truth, it stayed. It staid. In truth the whole world spun.

One final weighty tip and now the space left by the missing tooth was turned straight down. And as the edges of the gear grit hard into the stone Auri felt the whole world jar around her. It ticked. Clicked. Fit. Fixed. Trembling, she looked around and saw that everything was fine. Her bed was just her bed. All of everything in Mantle: fine. Nothing was nothing else. Nothing was anything it shouldn’t be.

Auri sat down hard upon the floor. So sudden-full of sweet relief she gasped. She laughed and gathered up the gear and held it to her chest. She kissed it. She closed her eyes and wept.

ALL TO HER DESIRE

SETT
ING FULCRUM BACK
upon his narrow ledge, Auri wiped her smudgy tears away from his sweet brazen face. Then she walked over to the kettle and was pleased to see the tallow was all melted. It smelled of hot, of hearth, of earth, of breath. She bent and puffed the yellow flame away.

Then to her basin. Auri rinsed her face. She rinsed her hands and feet.

She sat herself beside the kettle on the warm stone floor. Soon now. Close. She grinned, and for the space of one long breath she almost didn’t mind how tangle-haired and smudged she had become.

Auri stirred the tallow with a slender stick. She drew a calming breath. She took the jar of cinderwash and poured it slowly in among the tallow. The mix went cloudy all at once, white tinged with just a hint of pink. She grinned her proudest grin and stirred and stirred again.

She gathered up the amber byne, all prickling quick and petal kind. She poured it in the kettle too, and all the room was filled with musk and mystery and bear. She stirred and selas filled the air.

Her face intent, once more she stirred. Once more. She felt the mix grow thick. She stopped and set aside the slender stick.

She took a breath and let it out. She went and rinsed her face and hands and feet. Two by two, she gathered up her tools and took them back where they belonged. Back to Tree and Port and Clinks she carried bottles, lamps, and pans.

When all of this was done, Auri took the now-cool copper pot and carried it to Port. She tipped the kettle, reached inside, and lifted out a smooth, curved dome of pale, sweet soap.

She used the flat edge of the petal plate to slice the dome of soap. She cut it into cakes, each one a different size, a different shape. Each to each, and all to her desire. It felt wicked and delicious, but given that the soap was hers, this tiny willfulness could do no harm.

She indulged herself from time to time. It helped remind her she was truly free.

As she worked, Auri saw the soap was not true white. It was the palest pink, the color of fresh cream with just a single drop of blood. Auri lifted up a cake, and moving oh so careful, she brought it to her face and touched it lightly with her tongue.

She grinned at its perfection. It was kissing soap. Soft but firm. Mysterious but sweet. There was nothing like it in all Temerant. Nothing below the earth or underneath the sky.

Auri couldn’t wait a moment more. She skipped off to her basin. She washed her face and hands and feet. She laughed. She laughed so sweet and loud and long it sounded like a bell, a harp, a song.

She went to Clinks. She washed herself. She brushed her hair. She laughed and leapt.

She hurried home. She went to bed. And all alone, she smiled and slept.

THE GRACEFUL WAY TO MOVE

THE SIXTH DAY
Auri woke, her name unfurling like a flower in her heart.

Foxen felt it too and fairly burst with light when she first wetted him. It was a waxing day. A day for making.

She laughed at that before she even left her bed. The day had come too late, but she could hardly care. Her soap was sweet as any ever was. Besides, there was a dignity to doing things in your own time.

But that thought sobered her somewhat. His visit would not wait. He would be here, soon. Tomorrow. And she still had nothing good enough to share. She had no perfect gift to give.

There were three ways out of Mantle. . . . But no.

She washed her face and hands and feet. She brushed her hair until it was a golden cloud. She took a drink and donned her favorite dress. She didn’t dally. Today was going to be a busy day.

First came the disposition of her new and perfect soap. She had made seven cakes. One was by her basin, safe in Mantle. One she’d washed with yesterday in Clinks. The largest four she carried off to Bakery to cure. The smallest, sweetest one she tucked into the bottom of her cedar box so she would never have to go without again. That was a lesson firmly learned. Oh yes.

She paused, one hand inside her cedar box. Would he like a cake of kissing soap? It was quite fine. He never would have seen its like before. . . .

But no. She flushed before she’d even finished thinking it. It would be altogether too improper. Besides, it was not right for him. The mysteries might fit, but he had much of oak about him. Willow too, and he was absolutely
not
a selas sort.

She shut the lid of her sweet cedar box, but getting to her feet, Auri felt the room go bright and tip around her. Staggering, she took two steps and sat down on the bed before she fell. She felt the fear rise up in her. Her eyes darted round the room, all startlement. Was this . . . ?

No. This was a simpler thing, her stomach was an empty drum again. She had forgotten to tend herself.

So when her head stopped spinning, it was off to Tree. But on a whim, for company, she brought along brash Fulcrum. He had seen so little of the Underthing. And heavy as he was, it really was the least that she could do for all his help.

Pans were nearly all the fruit that Tree could offer up. But only nearly. She brought out a tin pot and filled it with fresh water. She lit the spirit lamp with her penultimate match. Then she climbed onto the counter and reached with both hands to fetch down her jar. The dried peas rolled inside, tinkling playfully against the glass.

She worked the baling top and poured peas into her tiny hand until they filled her cupped palm. Her hand was not that large. It was not so very many peas, but it was half of what she had. She tipped them into the pot where they plinked into the warming water. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Auri shrugged and poured the other half into the pot as well.

She set the empty bottle on the countertop and looked around. The burner’s flickerlight and Foxen’s green-blue glow both showed the bareness of the shelves. She sighed and put it from her mind. Today there would be soup. Tomorrow he would visit. And after that . . .

Well, after that she would do her best. That was the only way. You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride.

Could she bring honeycomb to share with him tomorrow? It was the loveliest of things. He had too little sweetness in his life. That was the truth.

She thought on this while boiling bubbles danced her peas about the pot. Auri idly stroked brash Fulcrum’s face, and after a long while of musing she decided, yes, the honeycomb might work if nothing else presented.

She stirred the soup a bit and added salt. She wished the butter wasn’t full of knives. A little fat in this would be a true delight. A little fat would suit it to a T.

After her lovely soup, Auri headed back to Mantle. With Fulcrum keeping company she could hardly make her way through Vaults or Veneret. So she took the long way round and went by way of Pickering instead.

Belly warm and with a guest besides, she took her time along the close-fit square stone tunnels. She was nearly back to Doubton, Fulcrum heavy in her arms, when she felt a gentle crickling underfoot and stopped.

Looking down, she saw a scattering of leaves upon the floor. It didn’t make a bit of sense to find them here. There was no wind in Pickering. No water here. She looked around, but couldn’t see a speckle of bird dropping. She sniffed the air but didn’t smell a bit of musk or piss.

But there was nothing threatening either. Nothing knotted up about the place. No skew or wrongness here. But not nothing neither. It was half a thing. A mystery.

Curious, Auri set Fulcrum gently down upon the floor and lifted up the leaf. It looked familiar. She hunted round and found a handful of them scattered near an open doorway. She picked these up and when they wrangled up together in her hand she understood.

Excited, she took Fulcrum back to Mantle. Before she left she kissed his face and set him comfortably to rights upon his stony ledge, gap down of course. Then she skipped to Port and lifted up the silver bowl. She held the crickling leaf she carried up against the twining leaves engraved around the edge. It was the same.

She shook her head, unsure of what they might portend. Still, there was only one way to tell. Taking up the silver bowl, Auri scurried back to Pickering, then through the doorway where she’d found the clustered leaves. Over a stone tumble. Around a fallen beam.

She did not know if she had ever been to this piece of Pickering before. But it was still simplicity itself to find her way. Here and there, a leaf or two would dot the floor like breadcrumbs.

Finally she came to the bottom of a narrow shaft that led straight up. An ancient chimney from the days before? A tunnel for escape? A well?

It was narrow and steep, but Auri was a tiny thing. And even carrying the silver bowl she climbed it quickly as a squirrel. At the top she found a plank of wood, already partially askew. She pushed it easily aside and clambered out into a basement room.

The room was dusty and disused, full of shelves. Barrels stacked in corners. Shelves jammed full with bundles, kegs, and crates. In among the smell of dust she caught a whiff of street and sweat and grass. Looking round she saw a window high up in the wall, and on the floor below some broken glass.

It was a tidy place, save for a scattering of leaves blown down in some forgotten storm. There were sacks of corn and barley flour. Winter apples. Waxed packages stuffed tight with figs and dates.

Auri walked around the room, her hands behind her back. She stepped lightly as a dancer on a drum. Kegs of molasses. Jars of strawberry preserve. Some squash had tumbled from their burlap bundle just beside the door. She shooed them back inside and pulled the drawstring tight.

Eventually she bent to look more closely at a lower shelf. A single leaf had come to rest atop a small clay crock. Moving carefully, she lifted up the leaf, removed the crock, and put the silver bowl down in its place. She lay the leaf back down inside the bowl.

She allowed herself a single longing look around the room, no more. Then Auri headed back the way she came. Only back in the familiar dark of Pickering did she draw an easy breath. Then eagerly she brushed the dust from her new treasure. If the picture was to be believed, the crock held olives. They were lovely.

The olives went to Tree. They looked a little lonely on their shelf. But lonely was a long sight better than naught but empty echo, salt, and butter full of knives. Better by a long road.

Next she checked on things in Port. The ice-blue bottle wasn’t entirely at home. It huddled on the lowest, leftest shelf upon the eastern wall. Auri touched it gently, doing her best to reassure. He liked bottles. Might this be a seemly gift?

She picked it up and turned it in her hands. But no. Not this bottle. Grave. Graven. Not named for someone else.

Maybe some other bottle? That felt nearly right. Not quite, but nearly.

She thought about the vanity in Tumbrel. Yesterday it had seemed squared and true. But she was more than slightly tattered then. Not at her best. Perhaps there was a bottle mixed among the rest. Something wrong or lost or out of place.

If nothing else it was a place to start. So Auri gathered up the warm, sweet weight of Fulcrum in her arms. And because he hadn’t seen them yet, she took the slightly longer way through Van and Forth and Lucient before she headed down to Wains.