The Name of the Wind Read Online Free PDF

had been a month ago. Their color seemed duller. They were less sea-foam, less green-grass than they had been. Now they were like riverweed, like the bottom of a green glass bottle. And his hair had been bright before, the color of flame. Now it seemed—red. Just red-hair color, really.
    Kote drew back the cloth and looked underneath. The wood was a dark charcoal color with a black grain, heavy as a sheet of iron. Three dark pegs were set above a word chiseled into the wood.
    “Folly,” Graham read. “Odd name for a sword.”
    Kote nodded, his face carefully blank. “How much do I owe you?” he asked quietly.
    Graham thought for a moment. “After what ye’ve given me to cover the cost of the wood…” There was a cunning glimmer in the man’s eye. “Around one and three.”
    Kote handed over two talents. “Keep the rest. It’s difficult wood to work with.”
    “That it is,” Graham said with some satisfaction. “Like stone under the saw. Try a chisel, like iron. Then, after all the shouting was done, I couldn’t char it.”
    “I noticed that,” Kote said with a flicker of curiosity, running a finger along the darker groove the letters made in the wood. “How did you manage it?”
    “Well,” Graham said smugly, “after wasting half a day, I took it over to the smithy. Me and the boy managed to sear it with a hot iron. Took us better than two hours to get it black. Not a wisp of smoke, but it made a stink like old leather and clover. Damnedest thing. What sort of wood don’t burn?”
    Graham waited a minute, but the innkeeper gave no signs of having heard. “Where would’e like me to hang it then?”
    Kote roused himself enough to look around the room. “You can leave that to me, I think. I haven’t quite decided where to put it.”
    Graham left a handful of iron nails and bid the innkeeper good day. Kote remained at the bar, idly running his hands over the wood and the word. Before too long Bast came out of the kitchen and looked over his teacher’s shoulder.
    There was a long moment of silence like a tribute given to the dead.
    Eventually, Bast spoke up. “May I ask a question, Reshi?”
    Kote smiled gently. “Always, Bast.”
    “A troublesome question?”
    “Those tend to be the only worthwhile kind.”
    They remained staring at the object on the bar for another silent moment, as if trying to commit it to memory. Folly.
    Bast struggled for a moment, opening his mouth, then closing it with a frustrated look, then repeating the process.
    “Out with it,” Kote said finally.
    “What were you thinking?” Bast said with an odd mixture of confusion and concern.
    Kote was a long while in answering. “I tend to think too much, Bast. My greatest successes came from decisions I made when I stopped thinking and simply did what felt right. Even if there was no good explanation for what I did.” He smiled wistfully. “Even if there were very good reasons for me not to do what I did.”
    Bast ran a hand along the side of his face. “So you’re trying to avoid second-guessing yourself?”
    Kote hesitated. “You could say that,” he admitted.
    “ I could say that, Reshi,” Bast said smugly. “You, on the other hand, would complicate things needlessly.”
    Kote shrugged and turned his eyes back to the mounting board. “Nothing to do but find a place for it, I suppose.”
    “Out here?” Bast’s expression was horrified.
    Kote grinned wickedly, a measure of vitality coming back into his face. “Of course,” he said, seeming to savor Bast’s reaction. He looked speculatively at the walls and pursed his lips. “Where did you put it, anyway?”
    “In my room,” Bast admitted. “Under my bed.”
    Kote nodded distractedly, still looking at the walls. “Go get it then.” He made a small shooing gesture with one hand, and Bast hurried off, looking unhappy.
    The bar was decorated with glittering bottles, and Kote was standing on the now-vacant counter between the two heavy oak barrels when Bast