He looked at the piece of wood in his hand, then to my face. Apparently satisfied, he folded his hands over the top of his carving, but not before I glimpsed my own profile cunningly wrought in wood. “Do you know what you have been, what you are not, and what you will be?” He asked.
It sounded like a riddle. “No.”
“A see-er,” he said with certainty. “Because that is what E’lir means.”
“Kvothe is actually a Re’lar,” Simmon said respectfully.
Puppet sniffed disparagingly. “Hardly,” he said, looking at me closely. “You might be a see-er eventually, but not yet. Now you are a look-er. You’ll be a true E’lir at some point. If you learn to relax.” He held out the carved wooden face. “What do you see here?”
It was no longer an irregular piece of wood. My features, locked in serious contemplation, stared out of the wood grain. I leaned forward to get a closer look.
Puppet laughed and threw up his hands. “Too late!” he exclaimed, looking childlike for a moment. “You looked too hard and didn’t see enough. Too much looking can get in the way of seeing, you see?”
Puppet set the carved face on the tabletop so it seemed to be staring at one of the recumbent puppets. “See little wooden Kvothe? See him looking? So intent. So dedicated. He’ll look for a hundred years, but will he ever see what is in front of him?” Puppet settled back in his seat, his eyes wandering the room in a contented way.
“E’lir means see-er?” Simmon asked. “Do the other ranks mean things too?”
“As a student with full access to the Archives, I imagine you can find that out for yourself,” Puppet said. His attention focused on a puppet on the table in front of him. He lowered it to the floor carefully to avoid tangling its strings. It was a perfect miniature of a grey-robed Tehlin priest.
“Would you have any advice as to where he could start looking?” I asked, playing a hunch.
“Renfalque’s Dictum.” Under Puppet’s direction, the Tehlin puppet raised himself from the floor and moved each of his limbs as if he were stretching after a long sleep.
“I’m not familiar with that one.”
Puppet responded in a distracted voice. “It’s on the second floor in the southeast corner. Second row, second rack, third shelf, right-hand side, red leather binding.” The miniature Tehlin priest walked slowly around Puppet’s feet. Clutched tightly in one hand was a tiny replica of the Book of the Path, perfectly fashioned, right down to the tiny spoked wheel painted on the cover.
The three of us watched Puppet pull the strings of the little priest, making it walk back and forth before finally coming to sit on one of Puppet’s stocking-clad feet.
Wilem cleared his throat respectfully. “Puppet?”
“Yes?” Puppet replied without looking up from his feet. “You have a question. Or rather, Kvothe has a question and you’re thinking of asking it for him. He is sitting slightly forward in his seat. There is a furrow between his brows and a pursing of the lips that gives it away. Let him ask me. It might do him good.”
I froze in place, catching myself doing each of the things he had mentioned. Puppet continued to work the strings of his little Tehlin. It made a careful, fearful search of the area around his feet, brandishing the book in front of itself before stepping around table legs and peering into Puppet’s abandoned shoes. Its movements were uncanny, and it distracted me to the point where I forgot I was uncomfortable and felt myself relax.
“I was wondering about the Amyr, actually.” My eyes remained on the scene unfolding at Puppet’s feet. Another marionette had joined the show, a young girl in a peasant dress. She approached the Tehlin and held out a hand as if trying to give him something. No, she was asking him a question. The Tehlin turned his back on her. She laid a timid hand on his arm. He took a haughty step away. “I was wondering who disbanded them. Emperor Nalto or the church.”
“Still looking,” he admonished more gently then before. “You need to go chase the wind for a while, you are too serious. It will lead you into trouble.” The Tehlin suddenly turned on the girl. Trembling with rage, it menaced her with the book. She took a startled step backward and stumbled to her knees. “The church disbanded them of course. Only an edict from the pontifex had the ability to affect them.” The Tehlin struck the girl with the book. Once, twice, driving her to the ground, where she lay terribly still. “Nalto couldn’t have told them to cross to the other side of the street.”
Some slight motion drew Puppet’s eye. “Oh dear me,” he said, cocking his head toward Wilem. “See what I see. The head bows slightly. The jaw clenches, but the eyes aren’t fixed on anything, aiming the irritation inward. If I were the sort of person who judged by looking, I’d guess Wilem had just lost a bet. Don’t you know the church frowns on gambling?” At Puppet’s feet, the priest brandished the book upward at Wilem.
The Tehlin brought its hands together and turned away from the crumpled woman. It took a stately step or two away and bowed its head as if praying.
I managed to pull my attention away from the tableau and look up at our host. “Puppet?” I asked, “Have you read the Lights of History by Feltemi Reis?”
I saw Simmon give Wilem an anxious look, but Puppet didn’t seem to find anything odd about the question. The Tehlin at his feet stood and started to dance and caper about. “Yes.”
“Why would Reis say the Apura Prolycia Amyr was Emperor Nalto’s sixty-third decree?”
“Reis wouldn’t say any such thing,” Puppet said without looking up from the marionette at his feet. “That’s pure nonsense.”
“But we found a copy of Lights that said exactly that,” I pointed out.
Puppet shrugged, watching the Tehlin dance at his feet.
“It could be a transcription mistake,” Wilem mused. “Depending on the edition of the book, the church itself might be responsible for changing that piece of information. Emperor Nalto is history’s favorite whipping boy. It could be the church trying to distance itself from the Amyr. They did some terrible things toward the end.”
“Clever clever,” Puppet said. At his feet the Tehlin made a sweeping bow in Wilem’s direction.
I was struck by a sudden idea. “Puppet,” I asked. “Do you know what is behind the locked door on the floor above this one? The large stone door?”
The Tehlin stopped dancing and Puppet looked up. He gave me a long, stern look. His eyes were serious and clear. “I don’t think the four-plate door should be of any concern to a student. Do you?”
I felt myself flush. “No sir.” I looked away from his eyes.
The tension of the moment was broken by the distant sound of the belling tower. Simmon cursed softly. “I’m late,” he said. “I’m sorry Puppet, I’ve got to go.”
Puppet stood and hung the Tehlin on the wall. “It’s time I got back to my reading, regardless,” he said. He moved to the padded chair, sat, and opened a book. “Bring this one back some time.” He gestured in my direction without looking up from his book. “I have some more work to do on him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Greater Good
I looked up at Simmon and whispered, “Ivare enim euge.”
Sim gave a despairing sigh. “You are supposed to be studying your physiognomy.”
It had been a full span since we had set fire to Ambrose’s rooms, and winter was finally showing its teeth, covering the University with knee-deep drifts of blowing snow. As was always the case when the weather turned inclement, the Archives were full to the brim with industrious students.
Since all the reading holes were occupied, Simmon and I had been forced to bring our books to Tomes. The high-ceilinged, windowless room was more than half full today, but still quiet as a crypt. All the dark stone and muted whispers made the place slightly eerie, making it obvious why students referred to it as Tombs.