The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss Page B

my father said he’d never known a man to run a better still.
    By his second day in our troupe I was making a habit of riding in his wagon. I would ask him questions and he would answer. Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father’s wagon.
    He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him.
    Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist.
    He gave me a thoughtful look. “Have you ever known an arcanist?”
    â€œWe paid one to mend a cracked axle on the road once.” I paused to think. “He was heading inland with a caravan of fish.”
    Abenthy made a dismissive gesture. “No, no, boy. I’m talking about arcanists. Not some poor chill-charmer who works his way back and forth across caravan routes, trying to keep fresh meat from rotting.”
    â€œWhat’s the difference?” I asked, sensing it was expected of me.
    â€œWell,” he said. “That might take a bit of explaining….”
    â€œI’ve got nothing but time.”
    Abenthy gave me an appraising look. I’d been waiting for it. It was the look that said, “You don’t sound as young as you look.” I hoped he’d come to grips with it fairly soon. It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.
    He took a deep breath. “Just because someone knows a trick or two doesn’t mean they’re an arcanist. They might know how to set a bone or read Eld Vintic. Maybe they even know a little sympathy. But—”
    â€œSympathy?” I interrupted as politely as possible.
    â€œYou’d probably call it magic,” Abenthy said reluctantly. “It’s not, really.” He shrugged. “But even knowing sympathy doesn’t make you an arcanist. A true arcanist has worked his way through the Arcanum at the University.”
    At his mention of the Arcanum, I bristled with two dozen new questions. Not so many, you might think, but when you added them to the half-hundred questions I carried with me wherever I went, I was stretched nearly to bursting. Only through a severe effort of will did I remain silent, waiting for Abenthy to continue on his own.
    Abenthy, however, noticed my reaction. “So, you’ve heard about the Arcanum, have you?” He seemed amused. “Tell me what you’ve heard, then.”
    This small prompt was all the excuse I needed. “I heard from a boy in Temper Glen that if your arm’s cut off they can sew it back on at the University. Can they really? Some stories say Taborlin the Great went there to learn the names of all things. There’s a library with a thousand books. Are there really that many?”
    He answered the last question, the others having rushed by too quickly for him to respond. “More than a thousand, actually. Ten times ten thousand books. More than that. More books than you could ever read.” Abenthy’s voice grew vaguely wistful.
    More books than I could read? Somehow I doubted that.
    Ben continued. “The people you see riding with caravans—charmers who keep food from spoiling, dowsers, fortune-tellers, toad eaters—aren’t real arcanists any more than all traveling performers are Edema Ruh. They might know a little alchemy, a little sympathy, a little medicine.” He shook his head. “But they’re not arcanists.
    â€œA lot of people pretend to be. They wear robes and put on airs to take advantage of the ignorant and gullible. But here’s how you tell a true arcanist.”
    Abenthy pulled a fine chain over his head and handed it to me. It was the first time I had ever seen an Arcanum guilder. It looked rather unimpressive,