The Wise Man's Fear

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE Interlude—The Thrice-locked Chest

Kvothe raised his hand, motioning Chronicler to stop. The scribe wiped the nib of his pen on a nearby cloth and rolled his shoulder stiffly. Wordlessly, Kvothe brought out a worn deck of cards and began to deal them around the table. Bast picked up his cards and looked them over curiously.

Chronicler frowned. “What—”

Footsteps sounded on the wooden landing outside, and the door to the Waystone Inn opened, revealing a bald, thick-bodied man wearing an embroidered jacket.

“Mayor Lant!” the innkeeper said, putting down his cards and getting to his feet. “What can I do for you? A drink? A bite to eat?”

“A glass of wine would be quite welcome,” the mayor said as he moved into the room. “Do you have any red Gremsby in?”

The innkeeper shook his head. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “The roads, you know. It’s hard to keep things in stock.”

The mayor nodded. “I’ll take anything red then,” he said. “But I won’t pay more than a penny for it, mind you.”

“Of course not, sir,” the innkeeper said solicitously, wringing his hands a bit. “Anything to eat?”

“No,” the bald man said. “I’m actually here to make use of the scribe. I thought I’d wait until things quieted down a bit, so we could have some privacy.” He looked around the empty room. “I don’t imagine you’d mind my borrowing the place for half an hour, would you?”

“Not at all.” The innkeeper smiled ingratiatingly. He made a shooing motion to Bast.

“But I had a full board!” Bast protested, waving his cards.

The innkeeper frowned at his assistant, then headed back into the kitchen.

The mayor removed his jacket and laid it across the back of a chair while Bast gathered up the rest of the cards, grumbling.

The innkeeper brought out a glass of red wine, then locked the front door with a large brass key. “I’ll take the boy upstairs with me,” he said to the mayor, “to give you some privacy.”

“That’s exceedingly kind of you,” the mayor said as he sat across from Chronicler. “I’ll give a shout when I’m finished.”

The innkeeper nodded and herded Bast out of the common room and up the stairs. Kvothe opened the door to his room and gestured Bast inside.

“I wonder what old Lant wants to keep secret,” Kvothe said as soon as the door was closed behind them. “I hope he’s not too long about it.”

“He’s got two children by the Widow Creel,” Bast said matter-of-factly.

Kvothe raised an eyebrow at that. “Really?”

Bast shrugged. “Everyone in town knows.”

Kvothe humphed at this as he settled down into a large upholstered chair. “What are we going to do with ourselves for half an hour?” he asked.

“It’s been ages since we’ve had lessons.” Bast pulled a wooden chair away from the small desk and sat on the edge of it. “You could teach me something.”

“Lessons,” Kvothe mused. “You could read Celum Tinture.”

“Reshi,” Bast said imploringly. “It’s so boring. I don’t mind lessons, but do they need to be book lessons?”

Bast’s tone wrung a smile from Kvothe. “A puzzle lesson then?” Bast’s face broke into a grin. “Very well, let me think for a second.” He tapped his fingers against his lips and let his eyes wander the room. It wasn’t long before they were drawn to the foot of the bed where the dark chest lay.

He made a casual gesture. “How would you open my chest if you had a mind to?”

Bast’s expression grew slightly apprehensive. “Your thrice-locked chest, Reshi?”

Kvothe looked at his student, then laughter bubbled up out of him. “My what?” he asked incredulously.

Bast blushed and looked down. “That’s just how I think of it,” he mumbled.

“As names go . . .” Kvothe hesitated, a smile playing around his mouth. “Well, it’s a little storybook, don’t you think?”

“You’re the one who made the thing, Reshi,” Bast said sullenly. “Three locks and fancy wood and all that. It’s not my fault if it sounds storybook.”

Kvothe leaned forward and rested an apologetic hand on Bast’s knee. “It’s a fine name, Bast. Just caught me off my guard is all.” He leaned back again. “So. How would you attempt to plunder the thrice-locked chest of Kvothe the Bloodless?”

Bast smiled. “You sound like a pirate when you say it that way, Reshi.” He gave the chest a speculative look from across the room. “I suppose asking you for the keys is out of the question?” he asked at last.

“Correct,” Kvothe said. “For our purposes, assume I have lost the keys. Better yet, assume I am dead, and you are now free to pry into all my secret things.”

“That’s a little grim, Reshi,” Bast reproached gently.

“Life is a little grim, Bast,” Kvothe said without any hint of laughter in his voice. “You’d best start getting used to it.” He waved a hand toward the chest. “Go on, I’m curious to see how you go about cracking this little chestnut.”

Bast gave him a flat look. “Puns are worse than book lessons, Reshi,” he said, walking over to the chest. He nudged it idly with his foot, then bent and looked at the two separate lock plates, one dark iron, the other bright copper. Bast prodded the rounded lid with a finger, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t say as I care for this wood, Reshi. And the iron lock is positively unfair.”

“What a useful lesson this has already been,” Kvothe said dryly. “You’ve deduced a universal truth: things are usually unfair.”

“There aren’t any hinges, either!” Bast exclaimed, looking at the back of the chest. “How can you have a lid without any hinges?”

“That did take me a while to work out,” Kvothe admitted with a touch of pride.

Bast got down on his hands and knees and looked into the copper keyhole. He lifted one hand and pressed it flat against the copper plate. Then he closed his eyes and went very still, as if he were listening.

After a moment of this, he leaned forward and breathed against the lock. When nothing happened, his mouth began to move. While his words were spoken too softly to hear, they carried an undeniable tone of entreaty.

After a long moment of this, Bast sat back on his haunches, frowning. Then he grinned playfully, reached out with a hand, and knocked on the lid of the chest. It made barely any noise at all, as if he were rapping his knuckle against a stone.

“Out of curiosity,” Kvothe asked. “What would you do if something knocked back?”

Bast came to his feet, left the room, and returned a moment later with an assortment of tools. He got to one knee and, using a piece of bent wire, fiddled with the copper lock for several long minutes. Eventually he began to curse under his breath. When he shifted position to get a different angle, his hand brushed the dull iron faceplate of the lock and he jerked back, hissing and spitting.

Getting back to his feet, Bast threw down the wire and brought out a long prybar of bright metal. He tried to work the thin end of it under the lid, but couldn’t gain any purchase in the hair-thin seam. After a few minutes he abandoned this as well.

Next, Bast tried to tip the chest on its side to examine the bottom, but his best efforts only managed to slide it an inch or so across the floor. “How much does this weigh, Reshi?” Bast exclaimed, looking rather exasperated. “Three hundred pounds?”

“Over four hundred when it’s empty,” Kvothe said. “Remember the trouble we had getting it up the stairs?”

Sighing, Bast examined the chest for another long moment, his expression fierce. Then he extracted a hatchet from his bundle of tools. It wasn’t the rough, wedge-headed hatchet they used to cut kindling behind the inn. It was slender and menacing, all forged of a single piece of metal. The shape of its blade was vaguely reminiscent of a leaf.

He tossed the weapon lightly in his palm, as if testing its weight. “This is where I would go next, Reshi. If I were genuinely interested in getting inside.” He gave his teacher a curious look. “But if you’d rather I not. . . .”

Kvothe made a helpless gesture. “Don’t look to me, Bast. I’m dead. Do as you will.”

Bast grinned and brought the hatchet down on the rounded peak of the chest. There was a strange, soft, ringing noise, like a padded bell being struck in a distant room.

Bast paused, then rained a flurry of angry blows down on the top of the chest. First swinging wildly with one hand, then using both hands in great overhand chopping motions, as if he were splitting wood.

The bright, leaf-shaped blade refused to bite into the wood, each blow turning aside as if Bast were attempting to chop apart a great, seamless block of stone.

Eventually Bast stopped, breathing hard, and bent to look at the top of the chest, running his hand over the surface before turning his attention to the hatchet’s blade. He sighed. “You do good work, Reshi.”

Kvothe smiled and tipped an imaginary hat.

Bast gave the chest a long look. “I’d try to set fire to it, but I know Roah doesn’t burn. I’d have better luck getting it hot enough so the copper lock would melt. But to do that, I’d need to get the whole thing to sit face down in a forge fire.” He looked at the chest, large as a gentleman’s traveling trunk. “But it would have to be a bigger forge than the one we have here in town. And I don’t even know how hot copper needs to be in order to melt.”

“Information such as that,” Kvothe said, “would doubtless be the subject of a book lesson.”

“And I expect you’ve taken precautions against that sort of thing.”

“I have,” Kvothe admitted. “But it was a good idea. It shows lateral thinking.”

“And acid?” Bast said. “I know we have some potent stuff downstairs. . . .”

“Formic is useless against Roah.” Kvothe said. “As is the muriatic. You might have some luck with Aqua Regius. But the wood is quite thick, and we don’t have much on hand.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the wood, Reshi. I was thinking of the locks again. With enough acid I could eat clean through them.”

“You’re assuming they are copper and iron all the way through,” Kvothe said. “Even if they were, it would take a great deal of acid, and you would have to worry about the acid itself spilling into the chest, ruining whatever’s inside. The same is true with the fire, of course.”

Bast looked at the chest for another long moment, stroking his lips thoughtfully. “That’s all I have, Reshi. I’ll need to think on it some more.”

Kvothe nodded. Looking somewhat disheartened, Bast gathered up his tools and carried them away. When he returned, he pushed the chest from the other side, sliding it back a fraction of an inch until it was square with the foot of the bed again.

“It was a good attempt, Bast,” Kvothe reassured him. “Very methodical. You went about it just as I would have.”

“Hullo?” the mayor’s voice came hollowly up from the room below. “I’m finished.”

Bast hopped up and hurried to the door, pushing his chair back under the desk. The sudden motion disturbed one of the crumpled sheets of paper resting there, causing it to tumble to the floor where it bounced and rolled beneath the chair.

Bast paused, then bent to pick it up.

“No,” Kvothe said grimly. “Leave it.” Bast stopped with his hand outstretched, then stood and left the room.

Kvothe followed, closing the door behind them.