The Name of the Wind: Chapter 73–Epilogue

A bristling fox is better than a deranged, half-shod idiot.

“If you hold it like this, your thumb is safe. The down side is that you lose a lot of the mobility in your wrist.”

I nodded in the direction of the scattered pigs that were meandering through the trees.

“Oi heard they had some trouble up on Mauthen farm,” I said, keeping my information as vague and inoffensive as possible.

“Man wants his daughter tae have a fine house wit a view, that’s all tae the good,” Schiem conceded.

I pointed to a tall hill obscuring my view of the northern bluffs.

But there are more sinister things you can do with a mommet.

“It would make more sense if what they really wanted was to get rid of all knowledge of the thing. Like Old King Celon when he thought his regent was going to expose him for treason. Killed the fellow’s whole family and burned down their estate to make sure no word got out or evidence was left for anyone to find.”

I’d had a long, grueling day, riding sixty miles and walking a half dozen more.

It grunted again like thunder, then bobbed its head and breathed another great gout of billowing blue fire.

“It’s Goddamn huge,” Denna said with a tinge of hysteria in her voice.

“You mean that that thing down there,” she groped for words, her mouth working silently for a moment, “is going to try and tup our campfire?”

It now wandered to where a half-charred log lay smoldering in the grass.

The creature was a scientific marvel, and they had burned and buried it like trash.

“It’s about as serious as a frostburn,” Bast said disparagingly.

“It’s a type of galvanic force,” I said, then hesitated.

“Back before modern mining people probably hunted them for their iron. Even nowadays I’m guessing an alchemist would pay a pretty penny for the scales or bones. Organic iron is a real rarity. They could probably do all sorts of things with it.”

I was hoping that Denna would be impressed by my ingenuity, but she seemed distracted by the scene below.

“We can go tell the constable that he needs to deputize about a dozen men with bows to come kill a drug-crazed big- as-a-house dragon-chicken.”

She was highly distractible and prone to
larking off in her own direction if she saw something interest-
ing.

I washed up a little, then moved a discreet distance away and listened to her sing several rather racy songs.

But that was just the amount required to make a human girl euphoric and energetic.

After gathering a small mountain of firewood, her mania was fading, leaving her in a content, almost dreamy lethargy.

...and ran toward the distant light of the city. I knew the draccus could move faster than me, but I hoped it would be slowed by the trees, or disoriented. If I made it to the town first I could warn them, get them ready.... But as the road emerged from the trees, I could see the fires were...

...get them ready.... But as the road emerged from the trees, I could see the fires were brighter, wilder. Houses were burning. I could hear the draccus’ near-constant bellowing punctuated by shouting and high-pitched screams.

Several nearby houses and shops were staved in like rotten barrels, most of them burning fitfully.

I have no doubt it was the quickest, most slapdash heat-eater ever created.

The flames had dimmed, and in most places had subsided to sullen coals.

Almost as if Tehlu himself steered it toward the beast with a vengeful hand.

If they considered me some sort of hero or holy man, it gave me useful leverage.

“We should have lunch one of these days,” I said blithely, arching one eyebrow ever so slightly, asking, is this Master Ash?

Water flared up around statuary nymphs being chased by a satyr.

“Re’lar Ambrose does raise an interesting point. How does a student who came to us destitute come by such money?”

They had a ranking system among themselves, and your rise through those ranks was due to prowess and nothing else.

“I... I don’t follow you,” Chronicler said, disconcerted.

The wide, humorless smile reappeared, made macabre by the blood running down his face.

There was the gristly sound of bones cracking.

After hours of speculation, the story finally began to coalesce.

The door had been locked, of course, but locked doors have never proved much of a hindrance to me.

“A very quiet, circumspect crusade where each side was sure they were protecting the immortal soul of the Archives. They would steal books that had already been cataloged in each other’s systems. They would hide books from each other, or confuse their order on the shelves.”