The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) (7 page)

She slowly closed the heavy door behind her. She checked the latch to make herself most certain sure. Stepping back into the Underthing, the stones should have been sweet beneath her feet. But they were not. They were mere stones. The air seemed strange and strained. Something was wrong.

She stopped and listened at the door again. She listened closer, then opened up the door a crack to peer inside. Nothing. She closed the door and checked the latch. She leaned her weight against the door and tried to sigh but could not find the breath for it inside her chest. Something was wrong. She had forgotten something.

Auri ran back to Rubric, heart stuttering as she turned wrong. Then wrong again. But then she found the valve again. She went down on her knees to make herself most certain sure she’d turned it open and not closed. She put both hands upon the pipe and felt the tremble of the water running through.

Not that then. But still. Had she moved carefully enough? Had she left a smudge upon the floor? Auri sprinted back to Tenance and put her ear against the door. Nothing. She opened the door and lifted Foxen high so that his light shone down onto the dust. Nothing.

By now her skin was all asheen with sweat. She closed the heavy door. She checked the latch and leaned her slender weight against it, pressing with her hands and forehead. She tried to breathe more deeply but her heart was stiff and tight inside her chest. There was something wrong about the air. The door refused to sit right in its frame. She pressed against it with both palms. She checked the latch. Foxen’s light seemed suddenly too thin. Had she moved carefully enough? No. She knew. She listened, then opened up the door and looked again. Nothing. But simply seeing did not help. She knew that seeming wasn’t hardly half of things. Something was wrong. She tried, but she could simply not unclench. She could not catch her breath. The stones beneath her feet were nothing like her stones. She needed to get somewhere safe.

Despite the stones, the strangeness in the air, Auri started walking back to Mantle. She took the safest way, but even so her steps were slow. And even so, she sometimes had to stop and close her eyes and merely breathe. And even so, the breathing hardly helped. How could it when the air itself had gone untrue?

The angles were all wrong in Pickering but she didn’t realize how lost she had become until she looked around and found herself in Scaperling. She did not know how she had come to be so out of place, but there was no denying where she was. The damp was all around. The smell of rot. The grit under her feet. The way the walls were leering. She turned and turned again but could not find her place.

She tried to push ahead. She knew that if she walked and turned and walked eventually she must leave grim, gritty Scaperling behind. She would come out into a friendly place. Or at least a place that did not twist and cramp and loom all round her.

So she walked and turned and looked around, hoping beyond hope for a glimpse of the familiar. Hoping that the stones might slowly start to belong underneath her feet. But no. The hammer of her heart told her to run. She needed her safe place. She needed to get back to Mantle. But where was the way of it? Even if she knew the way, the air was growing tight and dizzy all around her. Though she was loath to touch them, Auri stretched her hand to lean against the sharp unkindness of the wall.

Slow steps. A turn. She smiled to see things open up ahead of her. Finally. Her chest began to loosen up when finally she saw the end of Scaperling ahead. She took two steps before she realized what way it offered out. She stopped. No. No no. The tangle of unwelcome tunnel opened up ahead. But it opened out into the vast and empty quiet of Black Door.

Auri did not even turn around. She merely took step after slow and sliding step back the same way she had come. It was hard. The wall caught at her hand and worried it, scraping skin off of her knuckles. The damp tight knot of Scaperling did not want her back inside. But Black Door did. The wide and welcome path to Black Door stretched before her like a dark black open mouth. A maw. A maul.

Step after step she forced her way backward into Scaperling. She did not dare to let the way to Black Door out of sight. She did not dare let it behind her, all unseen. Unseemly. All unseamed.

Finally she backed around a corner and sank trembling to the floor. She needed everything to not come all apart around her. She needed to get back to Mantle. She needed her most perfect place. There the stones were safe under her feet. There everything was sweet and proper true.

She was dizzy and askant and slant. She shook and could not bring herself to stand, so she folded herself in and sat crosslegged upon the floor.

She sat there for a long and silent while. She closed her eyes. She closed her mouth. She covered Foxen with her hand. All small she sat. All still. The grubby dank of Scaperling got in her hair, made it hang heavy. She let her tangleness fall all around her in a curtain. It made a tiny space inside. It was a small space just for her.

Auri opened up her eyes and looked into this tiny private place. She saw brave Foxen bravely shining in the shelter of her hands. She uncovered him, and even though his light was thin and thready, the sight of him in this small space made Auri smile. She felt around inside herself for her true perfect name and though it took a long and lonesome moment, finally she felt it there. It was shivery and scant. Scared. Skint. But just around the edges it was still scintillant. It was still hers. It shone.

Moving slowly, Auri stood and made her slow way out of Scaperling. The air was thick and shuddersome. The walls were full of spite. The stones begrudged her every step. All everything was snarling allapart. But even so she found her way to Pickering, the walls were merely sullen there. Then she made her way to Dunnings.

Then Auri finally felt the stones of Mantle underneath her feet. She lightly stepped inside her oh most perfect place. She washed her face and hands and feet. It helped. She sat for a long moment in her perfect chair. She enjoyed her perfect leaf. She breathed the lovely ordinary air. Her skin no longer felt stretched tight. Her heart grew buttery and warm. Foxen was fulsome again, even effulgent.

Auri went to Van and brushed her hair until the damp and tangle were all gone. She drew a breath and sighed it out. Her name was sweet inside her chest. All things were in their proper place again. She grinned.

BEAUTIFUL AND BROKEN

AFTER
TAKING A
MOMENT
for her leisure, Auri got a drink of water from the pool in Mote, then headed back down to gather up the brazen gear. It was patient as three stones, but still, it deserved to find its proper place as much as anyone.

For lack of any better ideas, Auri carried it down to Wains. Perhaps it belonged there. Or better yet, perhaps the brazen thing might hint to her of what the tiny hidden wrongness was that kept the sitting room from ringing sweetly as a bell.

Or perhaps she might see the gear in a better light down there. Especially with the place so new and nearly perfect. It was as good a place as any, she supposed.

So down she went, to proper, rich, wood-paneled Wains. Then into her new sitting room. She sat the brazen gear upon the couch and curled up close beside it, tucking her feet underneath herself.

It wasn’t any more content. Auri sighed and cocked her head at it. Poor thing. To be so lovely and so lost. To be all answerful with all that knowing trapped inside. To be beautiful and broken. Auri nodded and lay her hand gently on the gear’s smooth face consolingly.

Perhaps Throughbottom? Why hadn’t she thought of that before? True, when she thought of love and answers, the ancient wreckage in the cavern hardly sprang to mind. But maybe that was just the point. Perhaps some long-dead hulking mechanata was in desperate need of nine bright teeth and love in its abandoned heart?

Auri ran one finger down its side, her skin snagging a little on the jagged edge where its tenth tooth was torn away.

That’s when it struck her like a thunderclap. She knew exactly what was wrong. Of course. She leapt up to her feet, grinning excitedly. She pulled the corner of the carpet up, rolling it until she saw the button laying there, content.

Her hands flew to her pockets, looking for . . . Yes.

Auri set the tarnished buckle down beside the button. She nudged it closer. Turned it. There. She trembled slightly as she put the carpet back in place. She smoothed it flat with both her hands.

She came to her feet and there was a click inside her like a key inside a lock. The room was perfect as a circle now. Like a bell. Like the moon when it was perfect full.

Auri laughed in delight, and every piece of the laughing was a tiny bird come tumbling out to fly around the room.

She stood in the center of the room and spun in a circle to see it all. And when her eyes passed over the ring on the table, she saw it no longer belonged here. It was free to go as it pleased. It sang golden all through itself, and the amber it held was gentle as an autumn afternoon.

Brimming with joy, Auri danced. Her bare feet white against the moss-soft darkness of the carpet.

Her heart tumbling happily within her, Auri gathered up the brazen gear again, smiling as her hands closed around it. She was barely halfway back to Mantle when she heard a hint of music.

Auri went as motionless as stone. Silent as the stillness in a heart. It couldn’t be. Not yet. She had days and days. She wasn’t nearly—

She heard again. Faint. A sound that could have been the chime of glass on glass, that might have been a bird, but that might also be the distant singing of a tight-stretched string.

He was here! Days early and her half-smudged and empty-handed both. But even so, her heart stepped sideways in her chest at the thought of seeing him again.

Auri sprinted back to Mantle faster than a rabbit with a wolf behind. She took the fastest way, even though it went through Faceling with its damp and fear and the horrid smell of hot flowers hanging in the air.

Back in Mantle, she set the brass gear up above the fireplace. Then Auri washed her face and hands and feet. She shucked herself and donned her favorite dress.

Then, quivering with nervous excitement, she hurried into Port and eyed the shelves. Not the bone, of course. Not the book either. Not yet. She put two fingers on the crystal, picked it up, turned it over. She breathed, tasting the air. She put it down again.

She shifted foot to foot and glanced into Mantle. Her perfect yellow leaf was almost right. The brazen gear was sullen now, and much too proud. He had enough of that.

There was her newfound ring of autumn gold. That was fine enough, surely. And it suited him, twice bright. But as a gift it was . . . foreboding. She did not wish to hint at him of demons.

Then she spied the small jar, mouth open. Her eyes flicked over to the other shelf with its scattering of holly berry, bright as blood upon the cloth. Excitement welled up in her chest. She grinned.

She grabbed the berries and funneled them into the tiny bottle. They fit perfectly. Of course. They were dutiful and true. Hollybottle. To keep him safe. An early visit. Music.

It was more makeshift than she liked. Barely proper. But truth be told
he
was the early one. It was sufficient for an early visit. She darted out the door, her feet tap tapping all the way through Grimsby, then down Oars, and finally up to Trip Beneath.

Auri paused there, underneath the heavy drainage grate. Her heart hammered as she tried to listen. Nothing. Had she really heard? Was he waiting? Had she dithered until he had grown bored and left?

She put Foxen in his tiny box, then worked the hidden catch and pushed against the heavy iron bars above with trembling arms. The grate swung wide, and Auri clambered up to Applecourt, sheltered by the hedges there. She went still. Listened. No voices. Good. No light in the windows. Good.

The moon was looking into Applecourt. Not a good moon. Auri looked out from the safety of the hedge, peering at the sky. No clouds. She closed her eyes and listened again. Nothing.

She took a deep breath and darted through the open grass to stand beneath the sheltering branches of Lady Larbor. There she stopped to breathe, going still as steading. After looking round again, she scampered up the twisty branches. It was tricky with the hollybottle in one hand. She slipped a little, rough bark scritching at the bottoms of her feet.

Then she was On Top Of Things. She could see everything and forever. All of Temerant spooled endlessly away beneath her feet. It was so nice she almost didn’t care about the moon.

She could see the prickly chimbleys of Crucible, and winged Mews all full of flickerlight. To the east she spied the silver line of the Old Stone Road cutting gully-deep into the forest, off to Stonebridge, over the river, and away away away. . . .

But he wasn’t here. There wasn’t anything. Just warm tar under her feet. And chimbleys. And the sharpness of the moon.

Auri clutched the hollybottle in her hand. She looked around and stepped into the shadow of a bricktree chimbley so the moon couldn’t watch her.

She held her breath and listened. He wasn’t here. But maybe. Maybe if she waited.

She looked around. The wind huffed by and swirled her hair around her face. She brushed it back, frowning. He wasn’t here. Of course he wasn’t. He wasn’t coming till the seventh day. She knew. She knew the way of things.

Auri stood there motionless, her hands close to her chest. She held the hollybottle. Her eyes flicked about the moonswept rooftops.

She sat cross-legged on the tin, in the shadow of brickery.

She looked around. She waited.