can make a thing seem other than it is.
They could make a white shirt seem like
it was blue. Or a torn shirt seem like it
was whole. Most of the folk have at least
a scrap of this art. Enough to hide
themselves from mortal eyes. If their hair
was all of silver-white, their glammourie
could make it look as black as night.”
Kostrel’s face was lost in wonder yet
again. But it was not the gormless, gaping
wonder of before. It was a thoughtful
wonder. A clever wonder, curious and
hungry. It was the sort of wonder that
would steer a boy toward a question that
started with a how.
Bast could see the shape of these things
moving in the boy’s dark eyes. His damn
clever eyes. Too clever by half. Soon
those vague wonderings would start to
crystallize into questions like “How do
they make their glammourie? ” or even worse. “How might a young boy break
it?”
And what then, with a question like that
hanging in the air? Nothing good would
come of it. To break a promise fairly
made and lie outright was retrograde to
his desire. Even worse to do it in this
place. Far easier to tell the truth, then
make sure something happened to the boy
…
But honestly, he liked the boy. He
wasn’t dull, or easy. He wasn’t mean or
low. He pushed back. He was funny and
grim and hungry and more alive than any
three other people in the town all put
together. He was bright as broken glass
and sharp enough to cut himself. And
Bast too, apparently.
Bast rubbed his face. This never used
to happen. He had never been in conflict
with his own desire before he came here.
He hated it. It was so simply singular
before. Want and have. See and take. Run
and chase. Thirst and slake. And if he
were thwarted in pursuit of his desire …
what of it? That was simply the way of
things. The desire itself was still his, it
was still pure.
It wasn’t like that now. Now his desires
grew complicated. They constantly
conflicted with each other. He felt
endlessly turned against himself. Nothing
was simple anymore, he was pulled so
many ways …
“Bast?” Kostrel said, his head cocked
to the side, concern plain on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s the
matter?”
Bast smiled an honest smile. He was a
curious boy. Of course. That was the
way. That was the narrow road between
desires. “I was just thinking. Grammarie
is much harder to explain. I can’t say I
understand it all that well myself.”
“Just do your best,” Kostrel said
kindly. “Whatever you tell me will be
more than I know.”
No, he couldn’t kill this boy. That
would be too hard a thing.
“Grammarie is changing a thing,” Bast
said, making an inarticulate gesture.
“Making it into something different than
what it is.”
“Like turning lead into gold?” Kostrel
asked. “Is that how they make faerie
gold?”
Bast made a point of smiling at the
question. “Good guess, but that’s
glammourie. It’s easy, but it doesn’t last.
That’s why people who take faerie gold
end up with pockets full of stones or
acorns in the morning.”
“Could they turn gravel into gold?”
Kostrel asked. “If they really wanted
to?”
“It’s not that sort of change,” Bast said,
though he still smiled and nodded at the
question. “That’s too big. Grammarie is
about … shifting. It’s about making
something into more of what it already
is.”
Kostrel’s face twisted with confusion.
Bast took a deep breath and let it out
through his nose. “Let me try something
else. What have you got in your
pockets?”
Kostrel rummaged about and held out
his hands. There was a brass button, a
scrap of paper, a stub of pencil, a small
folding knife … and a stone with a hole in it. Of course.
Bast slowly passed his hand over the
collection
of
oddments,
eventually
stopping above the knife. It wasn’t
particularly fine or fancy, just a piece of
smooth wood the size of a finger with a
groove where a short, hinged blade was
tucked away.
Bast picked it up delicately between
two fingers and set it down on the ground
between them. “What’s this?”
Kostrel stuffed the rest of his
belongings into his pocket. “It’s my
knife.”
“That’s it?” Bast asked.
The boy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“What else could it be?”
Bast brought out his own knife. It was a
little larger, and instead of wood, it was
carved from a piece of antler, polished
and beautiful. Bast opened it, and the
bright blade shone in the sun.
He laid his knife next to the boy’s.
“Would you trade your knife for mine?”
Kostrel eyed the knife jealously. But
even so, there wasn’t a hint of hesitation
before he shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s mine,” the boy said, his
face clouding over.
“Mine’s better,” Bast said matter-of-
factly.
Kostrel reached out and picked up his
knife, closing his hand around it
possessively. His face was sullen as a
storm. “My da gave me this,” he said.
“Before he took the king’s coin and went
to be a soldier and save us from the
rebels.” He looked up at Bast, as if
daring him to say a single word contrary
to that.
Bast didn’t look away from him, just
nodded seriously. “So it’s more than just
a knife.” he said. “It’s special to you.”
Still clutching the knife, Kostrel
nodded, blinking rapidly.
“For you, it’s the best knife.”
Another nod.
“It’s more important than other knives.
And that’s not just a seeming, ” Bast said.
“It’s something the knife is. ”
There was a flicker of understanding in
Kostrel’s eyes.
Bast nodded. “That’s grammarie. Now
imagine if someone could take a knife
and make it be more of what a knife is.
Make it into the best knife. Not just for
them, but for anyone. ” Bast picked up his
own knife and closed it. “If they were
really skilled, they could do it with
something other than a knife. They could
make a fire that was more of what a fire
&nb
sp; is. Hungrier. Hotter. Someone truly
powerful could do even more. They
could take a shadow …” He trailed off
gently, leaving an open space in the
empty air.
Kostrel drew a breath and leapt to fill it
with a question. “Like Felurian!’ he said.
“Is that what she did to make Kvothe’s
shadow cloak?”
Bast nodded seriously, glad for the
question, hating that it had to be that
question. “It seems likely to me. What
does a shadow do? It conceals, it
protects. Kvothe’s cloak of shadows
does the same, but more.”
Kostrel
was
nodding
along
in
understanding, and Bast pushed on
quickly, eager to leave this particular
subject behind. “Think of Felurian
herself …”
The boy grinned, he seemed to have no
trouble doing that.
“A woman can be a thing of beauty,”
Bast said slowly. “She can be a focus of
desire. Felurian is that. Like the knife.
The most beautiful. The focus of the most
desire. For everyone …” Bast let his
statement trail off gently yet again.
Kostrel’s
eyes
were
far
away,
obviously giving the matter his full
deliberation. Bast gave him time for it,
and after a moment another question
bubbled out of the boy. “Couldn’t it be
merely glammourie?” he asked.
“Ah,” said Bast, smiling. “But what is
the difference between being beautiful
and seeming beautiful?”
“Well …” Kostrel stalled for a
moment, then rallied. “One is real and
the other isn’t.” He sounded certain, but
it wasn’t reflected in his expression.
“One would be fake. You could tell the
difference, couldn’t you?”
Bast let the question sail by. It was
close, but not quite. “What’s the
difference between a shirt that looks
white and a shirt that is white?” he
countered.
“A woman isn’t the same as a shirt,”
Kostrel said with vast disdain. “You’d
know if you touched her. If she looked all
soft and rosy like Emberlee, but her hair
felt like a horse’s tail, you’d know it
wasn’t real.”
“Glammourie isn’t just for fooling
eyes,” Bast said. “It’s for everything.
Faerie gold feels heavy. And a
glamoured pig would smell like roses
when you kissed it.”
Kostrel reeled visibly at that. The shift
from Emberlee to a glamoured pig
obviously left him feeling more than
slightly appalled. Bast waited a moment
for him to recover.
“Wouldn’t it be harder to glamour a
pig?” he asked at last.
“You’re
clever,”
Bast
said
encouragingly. “You’re exactly right.
And glamouring a pretty girl to be more
pretty wouldn’t be much work at all. It’s
like putting icing on a cake.”
Kostrel rubbed his cheek thoughtfully.
“Can you use glammourie and grammarie
at the same time?”
Bast was more genuinely impressed
this time. “That’s what I’ve heard.”
Kostrel nodded to himself. “That’s
what Felurian must do,” he said. “Like
cream on icing on cake.”
“I think so,” Bast said. “The one I met
…” He stopped abruptly, his mouth
snapped shut.
“You’ve met one of the Fae?”
Bast grinned like a beartrap. “Yes.”
This time Kostrel felt the hook and line
both. But it was too late. “You bastard!”
“I am,” Bast admitted happily.
“You tricked me into asking that.”
“I did,” Bast said. “It was a question
related to this subject, and I answered it
fully and without equivocation.”
Kostrel got to his feet and stormed off,
only to come back a moment later. “Give
me my penny,” he demanded.
Bast reached into his pocket and pulled
out a copper penny. “Where’s does
Emberlee take her bath?”
Kostrel glowered furiously, then said,
“Out past Oldstone bridge, up toward the
hills about half a mile. There’s a little
hollow with an elm tree.”
“And when?”
“After lunch on the Boggan farm. After
she finishes the washing up and hangs the
laundry.”
Bast tossed him the penny, still grinning
like mad.
“I hope your dick falls off,” the boy
said venomously before stomping back
down the hill.
Bast couldn’t help but laugh. He tried to
do it quietly to spare the boy’s feelings
but didn’t meet with much success.
Kostrel turned at the bottom of the hill,
and shouted, “And you still owe me a
book!”
Bast
stopped
laughing
then
as
something jogged loose in his memory.
He panicked for a moment when he
realized Celum Tinture wasn’t in its
usual spot.
Then he remembered leaving the book
in the tree on top of the bluff and relaxed.
The clear sky showed no sign of rain. It
was safe enough. Besides, it was nearly
and hurried down the hill, not wanting to
be late.
Bast sprinted most of the way to the little
dell, and by the time he arrived he was
sweating like a hard-run horse. His shirt
stuck to him unpleasantly, so as he
walked down the sloping bank to the
water, he pulled it off and used it to mop
the sweat from his face.
A long, flat jut of stone pushed out into
Littlecreek there, forming one side of a
calm pool where the stream turned back
on itself. A stand of willow trees
overhung the water, making it private and
shady. The shoreline was overgrown
with thick bushes, and the water was
smooth and calm and clear.
Bare-chested, Bast walked out onto the
rough jut of stone. Dressed, his face and
hands made him look rather lean, but
shirtless his wide shoulders were
surprising, more what you might expect
to see on a field hand, rather than a
shiftless sort that did little more than
lounge around an empty inn all day.
Once he was out of the shadow of the
willows, Bast knelt to dunk his shirt in
the pool. Then he wrung it over his head,
shivering a bit at the chill of it. He
rubbed his chest and arms briskly,
shaking drops of water from his face.
He set the shirt aside, grabbed the lip of
stone at
the edge of the pool, then took a
deep breath and dunked his head. The
motion made the muscles across his back
and shoulders flex. A moment later he
pulled his head out, gasping slightly and
shaking water from his hair.
Bast stood then, slicking back his hair
with both hands. Water streamed down
his chest, making runnels in the dark hair,
trailing down across the flat plane of his
stomach.
He shook himself off a bit, then stepped
over to dark niche made by a jagged
shelf of overhanging rock. He felt around
for a moment before pulling out a knob of
butter-colored soap.
He knelt at the edge of the water again,
dunking his shirt several times, then
scrubbing it with the soap. It took a
while, as he had no washing board, and
he obviously didn’t want to chafe his
shirt against the rough stones. He soaped
and rinsed the shirt several times,
wringing it out with his hands, making the
muscles in his arms and shoulders tense
and twine. He did a thorough job, though
by the time he was finished, he was
completely soaked and spattered with
lather.
Bast spread his shirt out on a sunny
stone to dry. He started to undo his pants,
then stopped and tipped his head on one
side, trying to jog loose water from his
ear.
It might be because of the water in his
ear that Bast didn’t hear the excited
twittering coming from the bushes that
grew along the shore. A sound that could,
conceivably, be sparrows chattering
among the branches. A flock of
sparrows. Several flocks, perhaps.
And if Bast didn’t see the bushes
moving either? Or note that in among the
hanging foliage of the willow branches
there were colors normally not found in
trees? Sometimes a pale pink, sometimes
blushing
red.
Sometimes
an
ill-
considered yellow or a cornflower blue.
And while it’s true that dresses might
come in those colors … well … so did
birds. Finches and jays. And besides, it
was fairly common knowledge among the
young women of the town that the dark
young man who worked at the inn was
woefully nearsighted.
The sparrows twittered in the bushes as
Bast worked at the drawstring of his
pants again. The knot apparently giving
him some trouble. He fumbled with it for
a while, then grew frustrated and gave a
great, catlike stretch, arms arching over
his head, his body bending like a bow.
Finally he managed to work the knot