The Doors of Stone

Songs, salt, and honey

Spring term ended with my friends and I celebrating my abysmal tuition (and coinciding cut of the spoils) with an unforgettable night of lavish revelry. Denna had headed north to Analin, and, instead of disappearing like a black cat into shadow, she let me know where she was going. It was little more than a gift of smoke into my bare hands, but, I now could call the name of the wind, after all. I trusted in my ability to set out and find her if needed, given this solid bearing, and my now considerable success with adventure.

My tuition (and, given my arrangement with the bursar, quite a lot more) was being funded entirely by Alveron. I half wondered if his "lady wife" Meluan knew of this arrangement. Unbidden, a verse I once heard rose to mind: Seven things has lady Lackless, hidden underneath her black dress.
A surprisingly venomous eloquence has Lady Lackless, I thought, remembering her first and final letter to me. I wondered for a moment if that would ever make its way into one of the Lackless rhymes, before realizing she was more appropriately called Lady Alveron now. Either way, I decided it was no use dwelling on things that couldn't be helped - my reputation in Severen being one of them.

Auri's benefit from the Maer's excess coin healed my smarting pride considerably. To my relief, she accepted several gifts of new clothing and shoes. Perhaps due to our more frequent rooftop feasts, Auri was becoming stronger and healthier than I had ever seen her. Her once wispy hair was becoming more voluminous and vibrant - it absolutely shined in the summer heat.  When the setting sun reflected on her thick golden locks, they looked almost as red as mine. Auri for her part also made sure to bring me a wide variety of mysterious and marvelous gifts. A belt buckle. A handmade candle. A heavy brass gear. She hinted of greater surprises still, but had been too coy to share them with me all at once. "Or else they would get crowded and sticky and take up too much space for fun to fit in there, too," she has explained.
"Oh?" I replied, a wry smile cracking across my face. "Even if the surprise in question is a new song?" I had written one just for her the previous night, after making sure her supplies of salt, honey and beeswax were adequate. Auri was was adept at candle making, and delighted in my sincere appreciation of her craftsmanship. These three ingredients in particular struck me as nicely balanced, and as such, inspired quite a few clever refrains as I made the walk back from town to the university. I knew Auri was the perfect first audience for it.

Auri laughed her sweet girlish laugh, but shook her head with renewed seriousness.
"ESPECIALLY if it's a new song. Musical surprises might seem slippery enough, but they can get stuck, too." I suddenly remembered Denna's song. My disastrous first reaction to it. The fact that Denna was likely out there right now, singing her song to audiences from all over Analin.
Then I remembered the song I made about Ambrose that led to our disastrous clash.
And finally. I remembered my parents, and my father's secret song about Lanre that lead to their deaths.

No. 
I didn't doubt for a moment how sticky a new song could be.

But I sung her the new song anyway. A song about honey was sticky enough on its own, I reasoned, leaving no space for tricky stickiness to sneak in. Auri cautiously agreed at first, but before long was delightedly clapping along. As I played and her bright hair shone in the waning light, I realized that in many ways, Auri had become my favorite audience. We Ruh always feel most at home on the stage. My stage training had kicked in more times than I could count, helping me through particularly perilous acts in the epic drama thus far known as the Life of Kvothe. But there was something about Auri that transcended the experience of playing for a crowd. Even the appreciative nods of my fellow musicians, and the roaring applause of the crowd at the Aolean could not match the experience of playing for Auri. It was like the silence between the notes I played was not empty at all, and, filled with her playfulness, created an alloy of sorts. An alloy of joy, and truth, and sunshine. It was one of the best things between us. I'd like to think she remembers it that way, too.  I'd have gone so far as to hope she did, but even at that young age, I knew - hoping leads to naught but folly.

Ambrose, for all our enmity, took the news of my miraculous survival from the shipwreck with surprising grace.
Apparently, once the news reached the more affluent side of town, he prowled the university grounds to confirm the reports with his own eyes. He found me near the courtyard, enjoying lunch with Wil and Sim only a few days after admissions.
"We have unwelcome company," warned Wil, who first spotted Ambrose over my shoulder. I knew from no more than the look on his face exactly who he meant. I turned around (to muttered protests from both Wil and Sim) waving at Ambrose cheerfully. But instead of the smoke I half expected to pour from his ears... there was a look in his eyes that surprised me to a cold attention. More was going on there than his usual tired tricks. Hatred? Nothing new there. Anger? Obviously. No less than my own for him. But there was something else there, too. Something close to... triumph?
Just as I was searching for more hints in his expression, he turned and quickly moved away; almost at a run. Sim and Wil were relieved to the point of laughter, and I joined them. After months in the Maer's court reading every little gesture, glance and word of the nobility, and then months in Ademre, reading the hand talk and stone faces of the Adem, I had become perhaps too accustomed to searching for hidden meanings... but surely, there were none to be found in the shallow pool of horse piss that is Ambrose Jakis.