CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Less Talents
I SPENT THE NIGHT sleeping outside the city limits of Imre in a soft bed of heather. The next day I woke late, washed in a nearby stream, and made my way west to the University.
As I walked, I watched the horizon for the largest building in the University. From Ben’s descriptions I knew what it would look like: featureless, grey, and square as a block. Larger than four granaries stacked together. No windows, no decorations, and only one set of great stone doors. Ten times ten thousand books. The Archives.
I had come to the University for many reasons, but that was at the heart of it. The Archives held answers, and I had many, many questions. First and foremost, I wanted to know the truth about the Chandrian and the Amyr. I needed to know how much of Skarpi’s story was the truth.
When the road crossed the Omethi River, there was an old stone bridge. I don’t doubt that you know the type. It was one of those ancient, mammoth pieces of architecture scattered throughout the world, so old and solidly built that they have become part of the landscape, not a soul wondering who built them, or why. This one was particularly impressive, over two hundred feet long and wide enough for two wagons to pass each other, it stretched over the canyon the Omethi had carved into the rock. When I reached the crest of the bridge I saw the Archives for the first time in my life, rising like some great greystone over the trees to the west.
The University lay at the heart of a small city. Though truthfully, I hesitate to call it a city at all. It was nothing like Tarbean with its twisting alleys and garbage smell. It was more of a town, with wide roads and clean air. Lawns and gardens were spaced between small houses and shops.
But since this town had grown up to serve the peculiar needs of the University, a careful observer could note small differences in the services the town provided. For instance, there were two glassblowers, three fully stocked apothecaries, two binderies, four booksellers, two brothels, and a truly disproportionate number of taverns. One of them had a large wooden sign nailed to its door proclaiming, NO SYMPATHY! I wondered what non-arcane visitors might think of the warning.
The University itself consisted of about fifteen buildings that bore little resemblance to each other. Mews had a circular central hub with eight wings radiating in each direction so it looked like a compass rose. Hollows was simple and square, with stained glass windows showing Teccam in a classic pose: standing barefoot in the mouth of his cave, speaking to a group of students. Mains was the most distinctive building of the lot: it covered nearly an acre and a half and looked like it had been cobbled together from a number of smaller, mismatched buildings.
As I approached the Archives, its grey, windowless surface reminded me of an immense greystone. It was hard to believe after all the years of waiting that I was finally there. I circled around it until I found the entrance, a massive pair of stone doors standing wide open. Over them, chiseled deep into the stone, were the words Vorfelan Rhinata Morie. I didn’t recognize the language. It wasn’t Siaru…maybe Yllish, or Temic. Yet another question I needed answers for.
Through the stone doors was a small antechamber with a more ordinary set of wooden doors inside. I tugged them open and felt cool, dry air brush past me. The walls were bare grey stone, lit with the distinctive unwavering reddish light of sympathy lamps. There was a large wooden desk with several large, ledger-type books lying open atop it.
At the desk sat a young man who looked to be a full-blooded Ceald, with the characteristic ruddy complexion and dark hair and eyes.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice thick with the harsh burr a Siaru accent makes.
“I’m here for the Archives,” I said stupidly. My stomach was dancing with butterflies. My palms were sweaty.
He looked me over, obviously wondering at my age. “Are you a student?”
“Soon,” I said. “I haven’t been through admissions yet.”
“You’ll need to do that first,” he said seriously. “I can’t let anyone in unless they’re in the book.” He gestured at the ledgers on the desk in front of him.
The butterflies died. I didn’t bother to hide my disappointment. “Are you sure I can’t look around just for a couple of minutes? I’ve come an awfully long way….” I looked at the two sets of double doors leading out of the room, one labeled TOMES the other STACKS. Behind the desk a smaller door was labeled SCRIVS ONLY.
His expression softened somewhat. “I cannot. There would be trouble.” He looked me over again. “Are you really going through admissions?” his skepticism was obvious even through his thick accent.
I nodded. “I just came here first.” I said looking around the empty room, eyeing the closed doors, trying to think of some way to persuade him to let me in.
He spoke before I could think of anything. “If you’re really going, you should hurry. Today is the last day. Sometimes they don’t go much longer than noon.”
My heart beat hard and quick in my chest. I’d assumed they would run all day. “Where are they?”
“Hollows.” He gestured toward the outer door. “Down, then left. Short building with…color-windows. Two big…trees out front.” He paused. “Maple? Is that the word for a tree?”
I nodded and hurried outside, soon I was pelting down the road.
Two hours later I was in Hollows, fighting down a sour stomach and climbing up onto the stage of an empty theater. The room was dark except for the wide circle of light that held the masters’ table. I walked to stand at the edge of the light and waited. Slowly the nine masters stopped talking among themselves and turned to look at me.
They sat at a huge, crescent-shaped table. It was raised, so even seated they were looking down on me. They were serious-looking men, ranging in age from mature to ancient.
There was a long moment of silence before the man sitting at the center of the crescent motioned me forward. I guessed he was the Chancellor. “Come up where we can see you. That’s right. Hello. Now, what’s your name, boy?”
“Kvothe, sir.”
“And why are you here?”
I looked him in the eye. “I want to attend the University. I want to be an arcanist.” I looked around at each of them. Some seemed amused. None looked particularly surprised.
“You are aware,” the Chancellor said. “That the University is for continuing one’s education. Not beginning it?”
“Yes, Chancellor. I know.”
“Very well,” he said. “May I have your letter of introduction?”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m afraid I don’t have one, sir. Is it absolutely necessary?”
“It is customary to have a sponsor,” he explained. “Preferably an arcanist. Their letter tells us what you know. Your areas of excellence and weakness.”
“The arcanist I learned from was named Abenthy, sir. But he never gave me a letter of introduction. Might I tell you myself?”
The Chancellor nodded gravely, “Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing that you actually have studied with an arcanist without proof of some kind. Do you have anything that can corroborate your story? Any other correspondence?”
“He gave me a book before we parted ways, sir. He inscribed it to me and signed his name.”
The Chancellor smiled. “That should do nicely. Do you have it with you?”
“No.” I let some honest bitterness creep into my voice. “I had to pawn it in Tarbean.”
Sitting to the left of the Chancellor, Master Rhetorician Hemme made a disgusted noise at my comment, earning him an irritated look from the Chancellor. “Come, Herma,” Hemme said, slapping his hand on the table. “The boy is obviously lying. I have important matters to attend to this afternoon.”
The Chancellor gave him a vastly irritated look. “I have not given you leave to speak, Master Hemme.” The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before Hemme looked away, scowling.
The Chancellor turned back to me, then his eye caught some movement from one of the other masters. “Yes, Master Lorren?”
The tall, thin master looked at me passively. “What was the book called?”
“Rhetoric and Logic, sir.”
“And where did you pawn it?”
“The Broken Binding, on Seaward Square.”
Lorren turned to look at the Chancellor. “I will be leaving for Tarbean tomorrow to fetch necessary materials for the upcoming term. If it is there I will bring it back. The matter of the boy’s claim can be settled then.”
The Chancellor gave a small nod. “Thank you, Master Lorren.” He settled himself back into his chair and folded his hands in front of himself. “Very well, then. What would Abenthy’s letter tell us, if he had written it?”
I took a good breath. “He would say that I knew by heart the first ninety sympathetic bindings. That I could double-distill, perform titration, calcify, sublimate, and precipitate solution. That I am well versed in history, argument, grammars, medicine, and geometry.”
The Chancellor did his best to not look amused. “That’s quite a list. Are you sure you didn’t leave anything out?”
I paused. “He probably would have also mentioned my age, sir.”
“How old are you, boy?”
“Kvothe, sir.”
A smile tugged at the Chancellor’s face. “Kvothe.”
“Fifteen, sir.” There was a rustle as the masters each took some small action, exchanged glances, raised eyebrows, shook their heads. Hemme rolled his eyes skyward.
Only the Chancellor did nothing. “How exactly would he have mentioned your age?”
I gave a thin sliver of a smile. “He would have urged you to ignore it.”
There was a breath of silence. The Chancellor drew a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. “Very well. We have a few questions for you. Would you like to begin, Master Brandeur?” He made a gesture toward one end of the crescent table.
I turned to face Brandeur. Portly and balding, he was the University’s Master Arithmetician. “How many grains are in thirteen ounces?”
“Six thousand two hundred and forty,” I said immediately.
He raised his eyebrows a little. “If I had fifty silver talents and converted them to Vintish coin and back, how much would I have if the Cealdim took four percent each time?”
I started the ponderous conversion between currencies, then smiled as I realized it was unnecessary. “Forty-six talents and eight drabs, if he’s honest. Forty-six even if he’s not.”
He nodded again, looking at me more closely. “You have a triangle,” he said slowly. “One side is seven feet. Another side, three feet. One angle is sixty degrees. How long is the other side?”
“Is the angle between the two sides?” He nodded. I closed my eyes for the space of half a breath, then opened them again. “Six feet six inches. Dead even.”
He made a hmmmpfh noise and looked surprised. “Good enough. Master Arwyl?”
Arwyl asked his question before I had time to turn and to face him. “What are the medicinal properties of hellebore?”
“Anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, mild sedative, mild analgesic. Blood purifier.” I said, looking up at the grandfatherly, spectacled old man. “Toxic if used excessively. Dangerous for women who are with child.”
“Name the component structures that comprise the hand.”
I named all twenty-seven bones, alphabetically. Then the muscles from largest to smallest. I listed them quickly, matter-of-factly, pointing out their locations on my own upraised hand.
The speed and accuracy of my answers impressed them. Some of them hid it, others wore it openly on their faces. The truth was, I needed to impress them. I knew from my previous discussions with Ben that you needed money or brains to get into the University. The more of one you had, the less of the other you needed.
So I was cheating. I had snuck into Hollows through a back entrance, acting the part of an errand boy. Then I’d picked two locks and spent more than an hour watching other students’ interviews. I heard hundreds of questions and thousands of answers.
I also heard how high the other students’ tuitions were set. The lowest had been four talents and six jots, but most were double that. One student had been charged over thirty talents for his tuition. It would be easier for me to get a piece of the moon than that much money.
I had two copper jots in my pocket and no way to get a bent penny more. So I needed to impress them. More than that. I needed to confound them with my intelligence. To dazzle them.
I finished listing the muscles of the hand and started in on the ligatures when Arwyl waved me into silence and asked his next question. “When do you bleed a patient?”
The question brought me up short. “When I want him to die?” I asked dubiously.
He nodded, mostly to himself. “Master Lorren?”
Master Lorren was pale and seemed unnaturally tall even while sitting. “Who was the first declared king of Tarvintas?”
“Posthumously? Feyda Calanthis. Otherwise it would be his brother, Jarvis.”
“Why did the Aturan Empire collapse?”
I paused, taken aback by the scope of the question. None of the other students had been asked anything so broad as this. “Well sir,” I said slowly to give myself a moment or two to organize my thoughts. “Partly because Lord Nalto was an inept egomaniac. Partly because the church went into upheaval and denounced the Order Amyr who were a large part of the strength of Atur. Partly because the military was fighting three different wars of conquest at the same time, and high taxes fomented rebellion in lands already inside the empire.”
I watched the master’s expression, hoping he would give some sign when he had heard enough. “They also debased their currency, undercut the universality of the iron law, and antagonized the Adem.” I shrugged. “But of course it’s more complicated than that.”
Master Lorren’s expression remained unchanged, but he nodded. “Who was the greatest man who ever lived?”
Another unfamiliar question. I thought for a minute. “Illien.”
Master Lorren blinked once, expressionless. “Master Mandrag?”
Mandrag was clean-shaven and smooth-faced, with hands stained a half hundred different colors and seemed to be made all of knuckle and bone. “If you needed phosphorus where would you get it?”
His tone sounded for a moment so much like Abenthy’s that I forgot myself and spoke without thinking. “An apothecary?” One of the masters on the other side of the table chuckled and I bit my too-quick tongue.
He gave me a faint smile, and I drew a faint breath. “Barring access to an apothecary.”
“I could render it from urine,” I said quickly. “Given a kiln and enough time.”
“How much would you need to gain two ounces pure?” He cracked his knuckles absentmindedly.
I paused to consider, as this was a new question too. “At least forty gallons, Master Mandrag, depending on the quality of the material.”
There was a long pause as he cracked his knuckles one at a time. “What are the three most important rules of the chemist?”
This I knew from Ben. “Label clearly. Measure twice. Eat elsewhere.”
He nodded, still wearing the faint smile. “Master Kilvin?”
Kilvin was Cealdish, his thick shoulders and bristling black beard reminded me of a bear. “Right,” he grumbled, folding his thick hands in front of him. “How would you make an ever-burning lamp?”
Each of the other eight masters made some sort of exasperated noise or gesture.
“What?” Kilvin demanded, looking around at them, irritated. “It is my question. The asking is mine.” He turned his attention back to me. “So. How would you make it?”
“Well,” I said slowly. “I would probably start with a pendulum of some sort. Then I would bind it to—”
“Kraem. No. Not like this.” Kilvin growled out a couple words and pounded his fist on the table, each thump as his hand came down was accompanied by a staccato burst of reddish light that welled up from his hand. “No sympathy. I do not want an ever-glowing lamp. I want an ever-burning one.” He looked at me again showing his teeth, as if he were going to eat me.
“Lithium salt?” I asked without thinking, then backpedaled. “No, a sodium oil that burned in an enclosed…no, damn.” I mumbled my way to a stop. The other applicants hadn’t had to deal with questions like these.
He cut me off with a short sideways gesture of his hand. “Enough. We will talk later. Elxa Dal.”
It took me a moment to remember that Elxa Dal was the next master. I turned to him. He looked like the archetypal sinister magician that seems to be a requirement in so many bad Aturan plays. Severe dark eyes, lean face, short black beard. For all that, his expression was friendly enough. “What are the words for the first parallel kinetic binding?”
I rattled them off glibly.
He didn’t seem surprised. “What was the binding that Master Kilvin used just a moment ago?”
“Capacatorial Kinetic Luminosity.”
“What is the synodic period?”
I looked at him oddly. “Of the moon?” The question seemed a little out of sync with the other two.
He nodded.
“Seventy-two and a third days, sir. Give or take a bit.”
He shrugged and gave a wry smile, as if he’d expected to catch me with the last question. “Master Hemme?”
Hemme looked at me over steepled fingers. “How much mercury would it take to reduce two gills of white sulfur?” he asked pompously, as if I’d already given the wrong answer.
One of the things I’d learned during my hour of quiet observation was this: Master Hemme was the king-high bastard of the lot. He took delight in student’s discomfort and did everything he could to badger and unsettle them. He had a fondness for trick questions.
Luckily, this was one I had watched him use on other students. You see, you can’t reduce white sulfur with mercury. “Well,” I drew the word out, pretending to think it through. Hemme’s smug smile grew wider by the second. “Assuming you mean red sulfur, it would be about forty-one ounces. Sir.” I smiled a sharp smile at him. All teeth.
“Name the nine prime fallacies,” he snapped.
“Simplification. Generalization. Circularity. Reduction. Analogy. False causality. Semantism. Irrelevancy….” I paused, not being able to remember the formal name of the last one. Ben and I had called it Nalt, after Emperor Nalto. It galled me, not being able to recall its real name, as I had read it in Rhetoric and Logic just a few days ago.
My irritation must have shown on my face. Hemme glowered at me as I paused, saying. “So you don’t know everything after all?” He leaned back into his seat with a satisfied expression.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I had anything to learn,” I said bitingly before I managed to get my tongue under control again. From the other side of the table, Kilvin gave a deep chuckle.
Hemme opened his mouth, but the Chancellor silenced him with a look before he could say anything else. “Now then,” the Chancellor began, “I think—”
“I too would ask some questions,” the man to the Chancellor’s right said. He had an accent that I couldn’t quite place. Or perhaps it was that his voice held a certain resonance. When he spoke, everyone at the desk stirred slightly, then grew still, like leaves touched by the wind.
“Master Namer,” the Chancellor said with equal parts deference and trepidation.
Elodin was younger than the others by at least a dozen years. Clean-shaven with deep eyes. Medium height, medium build, there was nothing particularly striking about him, except for the way he sat at the table, one moment watching something intently, the next minute bored and letting his attention wander among the high beams of the ceiling above. He was almost like a child who had been forced to sit down with adults.
I felt Master Elodin look at me. Actually felt it, I suppressed a shiver. “Soheketh ka Siaru krema’teth tu?” he asked. How well do you speak Siaru?
“Rieusa, ta krelar deala tu.” Not very well, thank you.
He lifted a hand, his index finger pointing upward. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I paused for a moment, which was more consideration than the question seemed to warrant. “At least one,” I said. “Probably no more than six.”
He broke into a broad smile and brought his other hand up from underneath the table, it had two fingers upright. He waved them back and forth for the other masters to see, nodding his head from side to side in an absent, childish way. Then he lowered his hands to the table in front of him, and grew suddenly serious. “Do you know the seven words that will make a woman love you?”
I looked at him, trying to decide if there was more to the question. When nothing more was forthcoming, I answered simply, “No.”
“They exist.” He reassured me, and sat back with a look of contentment. “Master Linguist?” He nodded to the Chancellor.
“That seems to cover most of academia,” the Chancellor said almost to himself. I had the impression that something had unsettled him, but he was too composed for me to tell exactly what. “You will forgive me if I ask a few things of a less scholarly nature?”
Having no real choice, I nodded.
He gave me a long look that seemed to stretch several minutes. “Why didn’t Abenthy send a letter of recommendation with you?”
I hesitated. Not all traveling entertainers are as respectable as our troupe, so, understandably, not everyone respected them. But I doubted that lying was the best course of action. “He left my troupe three years ago. I haven’t seen him since.”
I saw each of the masters look at me. I could almost hear them doing the mental arithmetic, calculating my age backward.
“Oh come now,” Hemme said disgustedly and moved as if he would stand.
The Chancellor gave him a dark look, silencing him. “Why do you wish to attend the University?”
I stood dumbfounded. It was the one question I was completely unprepared for. What could I say? Ten thousand books. Your Archives. I used to have dreams of reading there when I was young. True, but too childish. I want revenge against the Chandrian. Too dramatic. To become so powerful that no one will ever be able to hurt me again. Too frightening.
I looked up to the Chancellor and realized I’d been quiet for a long while. Unable to think of anything else, I shrugged and said, “I don’t know, sir. I guess I’ll have to learn that too.”
The Chancellor’s eyes had taken on a curious look by this point but he pushed it aside as he said, “Is there anything else you would like to say?” He had asked the question of the other applicants, but none of them had taken advantage of it. It seemed almost rhetorical, a ritual before the masters discussed the applicant’s tuition.
“Yes, please,” I said, surprising him. “I have a favor to ask beyond mere admission.” I took a deep breath, letting their attention settle on me. “It has taken me nearly three years to get here. I may seem young, but I belong here as much, if not more, than some rich lordling who can’t tell salt from cyanide by tasting it.”
I paused. “However, at this moment I have two jots in my purse and nowhere in the world to get more than that. I have nothing worth selling that I haven’t already sold.
“Admit me for more than two jots and I will not be able to attend. Admit me for less and I will be here every day, while every night I will do what it takes to stay alive while I study here. I will sleep in alleys and stables, wash dishes for kitchen scraps, beg pennies to buy pens. I will do whatever it takes.” I said the last words fiercely, almost snarling them.
“But admit me free, and give me three talents so I can live and buy what I need to learn properly, and I will be a student the likes of which you have never seen before.”
There was a half-breath of silence, followed by a thunderclap of a laugh from Kilvin. “HA!” he roared. “If one student in ten had half his fire I’d teach with a whip and chair instead of chalk and slate.” He brought his hand down hard on the table in front of him.
This sparked everyone to begin talking at the same time in their own varied tones. The Chancellor made a little wave in my direction and I took the chance to seat myself in the chair that stood at the edge of the circle of light.
The discussion seemed to go on for quite a long while. But even two or three minutes would have seemed like an eternity, sitting there while a group of old men debated my future. There was no actual shouting, but a fair amount of hand waving, most of it by Master Hemme, who seemed to have taken the same dislike of me that I had for him.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have understood what they were saying, but even my finely tuned eavesdropper’s ears couldn’t quite make out what was being said.
Their talking died down suddenly, and then the Chancellor looked in my direction, motioning me forward.
“Let it be recorded,” he said formally, “that Kvothe, son of—” He paused and then looked at me inquiringly.
“Arliden,” I supplied. The name sounded strange to me after all these years. Master Lorren turned to look in my direction, blinking once.
“…son of Arliden, is admitted into the University for the continuance of his education on the forty-third of Caitelyn. His admission into the Arcanum contingent upon proof that he has mastered the basic principles of sympathy. Official sponsor being one Kilvin, Master Artificer. His tuition shall be set at the rate of less three talents.”
I felt a great dark weight settle inside me. Three talents might as well be all the money in the world for any hope I had in earning it before the term began. Working in kitchens, running errands for pennies, I might be able to save that much in a year, if I was lucky.
I held a desperate hope that I could cutpurse that much in time. But I knew the thought to be just that, desperate. People with that sort of money generally knew better than to leave it hanging in a purse.
I didn’t realize that the masters had left the table until one of them approached me. I looked up to see the Master Archivist approaching me.
Lorren was taller than I would have guessed, over six and a half feet. His long face and hands made him look almost stretched. When he saw he had my attention, he asked, “Did you say your father’s name was Arliden?”
He asked it very calmly, with no hint of regret or apology in his voice. It suddenly made me very angry, that he should stifle my ambitions of getting into the University then come over and ask about my dead father as easy as saying good morning.
“Yes.” I said tightly.
“Arliden the bard?”
My father always thought of himself as a trouper. He never called himself bard or minstrel. Hearing him referred to in that way irritated me even more, if that were possible. I didn’t deign to reply, merely nodded once, sharply.
If he thought my response terse he didn’t show it. “I was wondering which troupe he performed in.”
My thin restraint burst. “Oh, you were wondering,” I said with every bit of venom my troupe-sharpened tongue could muster. “Well maybe you can wonder a while longer. I’m stuck in ignorance now. I think you can abide a while with a little piece of it yourself. When I come back after earning my three talents, maybe then you can ask me again.” I gave him a fierce look, as if hoping to burn him with my eyes.
His reaction was minimal, it wasn’t until later that I found getting any reaction from Master Lorren was about as likely as seeing a stone pillar wink.
He looked vaguely puzzled at first, then slightly taken aback, then, as I glared up at him, he gave a faint, thin smile and mutely handed me a piece of paper.
I unfolded and read it. It read: “Kvothe. Spring term. Tuition: -3. Tln.” Less three talents. Of course.
Relief flooded me. As if it were a great wave that swept my legs from beneath me, I sat suddenly on the floor and wept.