Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind

“They’re harvesting Goddamn ophalum here,” I said. “I’m an idiot for not seeing it sooner.”

Denna started to say something, but I cut her off. “Don’t talk. Keep eating. As much as you can stomach.”

She nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. She chewed, choked a little, and swallowed the charcoal with another mouthful of water. She ate a dozen mouthfuls in quick succession, then rinsed her mouth out again.

“What’s ophalum?” she asked softly.

“A drug. Those are denner trees. You just had a whole mouthful of denner resin.” I sat down next to her. My hands were shaking. I lay them flat against my legs to hide it.

She was quiet at that. Everyone knew about denner resin. In Tarbean the knackers had to come for the stiff bodies of sweet-eaters that overdosed in the Dockside alleys and doorways.

“How much did you swallow?” I asked.

“I was just chewing it, like toffee.” Her face went pale again. “There’s still some stuck in my teeth.”

I touched the waterskin. “Keep rinsing.” She swished the water from cheek to cheek before spitting and repeating the process. I tried to guess at how much of the drug she’d gotten into her system, but there were too many variables, I didn’t know how much she had swallowed, how refined this resin was, if the farmers had taken any steps to filter or purify it.

Her mouth worked as her tongue felt around her teeth. “Okay, I’m clean.”

I forced a laugh. “You’re anything but clean,” I said. “Your mouth is all black. You look like a kid that’s been playing in the coal bin.”

“You aren’t much better,” she said. “You look like a chimney sweep.” She reached out to touch my bare shoulder. I must have torn my shirt against the rocks in my rush to get the waterskin. She gave a wan smile that didn’t touch her frightened eyes at all. “Why do I have a belly full of coals?”

“Charcoal is like a chemical sponge,” I said. “It soaks up drugs and poisons.”

She brightened a little. “All of them?”

I considered lying, then thought better of it. “Most. You got it into you pretty quickly. It will soak up a lot of what you swallowed.”

“How much?”

“About six parts in ten,” I said. “Hopefully a little more. How do you feel?”

“Scared,” she said. “Shaky. But other than that, no different.” She shifted nervously where she sat and put her hand on the sticky disk of resin I’d knocked away from her earlier. She flicked it away and wiped her hand nervously on her pants. “How long will it be before we know?”

“I don’t know how much they refined it,” I said. “If it’s still raw, it will take longer to work its way into your system. Which is good, as the effects will be spread out over a longer period of time.”

I felt for her pulse in her neck. It was racing, which didn’t tell me anything. Mine was racing too. “Look up here.” I gestured with my raised hand and watched her eyes. Her pupils were sluggish responding to the light. I lay my hand on her head and under the pretext of lifting her eyelid a little, I pressed my finger against the bruise on her temple, hard. She didn’t flinch or show the least hint that it pained her.

“I thought I was imagining it before,” Denna said, looking up at me. “But your eyes really do change color. Normally they’re bright green with a ring of gold around the inside. . . .”

“I got them from my mother,” I said.

“But I’ve been watching. When you broke the pump handle yesterday they went dull green, muddy. And when the swineherd made that comment about the Ruh they went dark for just a moment. I thought it was just the light, but now I can see it’s not.”

“I’m surprised you noticed,” I said. “The only other person to ever point it out was an old teacher of mine. And he was an arcanist, which means it’s pretty much his job to notice things.”

“Well, it’s my job to notice things about you.” She cocked her head a bit. “People probably are distracted by your hair. It’s so bright. It’s pretty. . . . pretty distracting. And your face is really expressive. You’re always in control of it, even the way your eyes behave. But not the color.” She gave a faint smile. “They’re pale now. Like green frost. You must be terribly afraid.”

“I’m guessing it’s old-fashioned lust,” I said in my roughest tones. “It’s not often a beautiful girl lets me get this close to her.”

“You always tell me the most beautiful lies,” she said, looking away from me and down to her hands. “Am I going to die?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Absolutely not.”

“Could . . .” she looked up at me and smiled again, her eyes wet but not overflowing. “Could you just say it out loud for me?”

“You aren’t going to die,” I said, getting to my feet. “Come on, let’s see if our lizard friend is gone yet.”

I wanted to keep her moving around and distracted, so we each had another little drink and headed back to the lookout. The draccus lay sleeping in the sun.

I took the opportunity to stuff the blanket and the dried meat into my travelsack. “I felt guilty about stealing from the dead before,” I said. “But now . . .”

“At least now we know why he was hiding in the middle of nowhere with a crossbow and a lookout and all that,” Denna said. “A minor mystery solved.”

I started to fasten up my travelsack then, as an afterthought, packed the crossbow bolts as well.

“What are those for?” she asked.

“They’re worth something,” I said. “I’m in debt to a dangerous person. I could use every penny . . .” I trailed off, my mind working.

Denna looked at me, and I could see her mind jumping to the same conclusion. “Do you know how much that much resin would be worth?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said thinking about the thirty pans, each with a wafer of black, sticky resin congealed in the bottom, big as a dinner plate. “I’m guessing a lot. An awful lot.”

Denna shifted back and forth on her feet. “Kvothe, I don’t know how I feel about this. I’ve seen girls get hooked on this stuff. I need money.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t even have a second set of clothes right now.” She looked worried. “But I don’t know if I need it this badly.”

“I’m thinking of apothecaries,” I said quickly. “They’d refine it into medicine. It’s a powerful painkiller. The price won’t be nearly as good as if we went to the other sort of people, but still, half a loaf. . . .”

Denna smiled broadly. “I’d love half a loaf. Especially since my cryptic prick of a patron seems to have disappeared.”

We headed back down into the canyon. This time as I emerged from the narrow passageway, I saw the evaporating pans in a different light. Now each of them was the equivalent of a heavy coin in my pocket. Next term’s tuition, new clothes, freedom from my debt with Devi. . . .

I saw Denna looking at the trays with the same fascination, though hers was somewhat more glassy-eyed than mine. “I could live comfortably for a year off this,” she said. “And not be beholden to anyone.”

I went to the tool shed and grabbed a scraper for each of us. At the end of a few minutes work we had combined all of the black, sticky pieces into a single wad the size of a sweetmelon.

She shivered a bit, then looked at me, smiling. Her cheeks were flushed. “I suddenly feel really good.” She crossed her arms across her chest, rubbing her hands up and down. “Really, really good. I don’t think it’s just the thought of all that money.”

“It’s the resin,” I said. “It’s a good sign that it’s taken this long to hit you. I’d have been worried if it had happened sooner.” I gave her a serious look. “Now listen. You need to let me know if you feel any heaviness in your chest, or have any trouble breathing. So long as neither of those things happens, you should be fine.”