Patrick Rothfuss - The Slow Regard of Silent Things

No proper gift nor nothing yet to share. It simply wouldn’t do. So Auri gathered herself in and climbed up slowly to her feet.

There were three ways out of Mantle. The hallway was dark. The doorway was dark. The door was dark and closed and empty and nothing.

So, without friends or light to guide her, Auri made her slow and careful way out through the hallway, trekking toward Tree.

She went through Candlebear, her fingers brushing the wall lightly so she could find her way. She took the long way round, as Vaults was far too dangerous without a light. Then halfway through Pickering she stopped and turned around for fear that she would find The Black Twelve ahead. The air above as dark and still and chill as the pool below. She could not bear the thought of that today.

That meant there was no way for her but damp and moldy Scaperling instead. And if that weren’t enough, the only proper way through Dunnings was unnecessarily narrow and all athwart with webs. They got in her hair, which made her sticky and cross.

But eventually she found her way to Tree. The tiny tickling sound of running water in the cold well came to greet her, and it was only then that she remembered how hungry she was. She found her few remaining matches on the shelf and lit her spirit lamp. The sudden brightness of it hurt her eyes, and even after she recovered, the yellow jumping flame made everything look strange and anxious.

She put the five remaining matches in her pocket and took a drink of water from the cold well. The shelves looked more empty than usual in the odd, jittery light. She rinsed her hands and face and feet in the icy water. Then she sat down on the floor and ate the turnip in small bites. Then she ate her last remaining fig. Her tiny face was grave. The smell of nutmeg prickled in the air.

All flickerling and sticky with web, Auri made her way to Bakery. It wasn’t oveny today. It was hunkered down and sullen, like a forgotten kiln.

She passed the mellow pipes and turned and turned again before she made her way to the little bricky niche so perfect for her hoard of soap to season in. Not hot, but dry. And—

There was no soap. Her soap was gone.

But no. It was the shifting light from the spirit lamp, tricking her. All odd and yellow. It threw shadows everywhere. It changed the Underthing. It couldn’t be trusted. This was obviously a different little bricky niche, empty as anything.

She turned around and followed her own footsteps back to Emberling. Then she went back, counting turns. Left and right. Left then left then right.

No. This was Bakery. This was her niche. But there was nothing there. No burlap sack. No careful cakes of perfect summer soap. Even in the low red radiant of that place Auri felt ice in her belly. Was someone in her Underthing? Was someone moving things about? Rucking up the smoothness of all her long, hard years of work?

All watery and loose inside she searched about, peering around corners and shining her lamp into shadows. Barely ten feet away, she found her burlap sack torn to tatters. Underneath the scent of her sweet cinnas soap was the smell of musk and piss. There was a tuft of fur where some small climbing beast had rubbed itself against a jutting brick.

Auri stood. All tangle-haired and sticky. Her tiny face was stunned at first, numb in the flickerling yellow. Then her mouth grew furious. Her eyes went hard. Some thing had eaten all her perfect soap.

Reaching out, she took the tuft of fur between her fingers. The gesture was so tight with rage she feared she’d snap and crack the world in two. Eight cakes. An entire winter’s worth of soap. Some thing had eaten all the perfect soap she’d made. It dared come here, into the proper place for soap, and eat it all .

She stamped her foot. She hoped the greedy thing shit for a week. She hoped it shit its awful self inside-out and backward, then fell into a crack and lost its name and died alone and hollow-empty in the angry dark.

She threw the tuft of fur down on the floor. She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but they snagged up in her tangleness. For a second her hard eyes went all brimful, but she blinked them back.

Hot from Bakery, and all asweat with rage and the unrightness of it all, Auri turned and stormed away, her bare feet slapping angrily against the stone.

Heading back to Mantle, Auri took the shorter way. All draggled and smirched she took a moment to dunk herself in the pool at the bottom of The Silver Twelve and felt a little better for it. It was no kind of proper bath. A dip. A rinse. And chilly. But better than nothing, if only just. The moon peered faintly through the grate above. But she was kind and distant, so Auri didn’t mind.

Getting out of the water, she shook herself and rubbed her damp skin with her hands. She couldn’t think of going back to Bakery to dry. Not today. She eyed the moonlight peering in the grates above and had just begun to squeeze the water from her hair when she heard it. A tiny splashing. A tiny mewling squeak. The sound of distress.

She dashed around in a long moment of panic. Sometimes a lost thing found its way down to the bottom of The Twelve and fell into the pool while drinking.

It took a breathless time to find it. Her damned awful flickerlight seemed to shed more shadow than it burned away. And echoes came from everywhere, scattered by the pipes and water in The Silver Twelve, so ears were hardly any help at all.

Finally she found it. A tiny thing, mewling and paddling weakly. It was the next thing to a baby, barely old enough to be out on its own. Auri took hold of a hanging brace and leaned out long across the water, one leg lifting up for balance while her other arm went out above her head. She stretched like a dancer. Her hand described a gentle arc and dipped into the pool, gently scooping the tiny draggled thing up. . . .

And it bit her. It sunk its teeth into the meaty bit between her finger and her thumb.

Auri blinked and pulled herself back to the edge, cupping the small skunk gently in her hand. It struggled, and she was forced to grip it tighter than she liked. If it fell into the pool again, it might gasp and drown before she found and fetched it out.

Once both her feet were back upon the stone, Auri made a cage for the tiny skunk with both her hands against her chest. With no hands left to hold her lamp, Auri trusted to the moonlight as she scurried up Old Ironways. It squirmed and scratched at her chest, fighting to be free, biting her a second time on the tip-pad of her smallest finger.

But by then she’d reached the nearest grate. She lifted up her hand and nudged the poor lost thing outside. Out of the Underthing and back toward its proper nighttime place of mothers, bins, and cobblestones.

Auri made her way back to the bottom of The Silver Twelve and ducked her throbbing hand into the pool. It stung quite badly, but truthfully, it was her feelings that were worst hurt. It had been a mortal age since anything had been so rude to her.

Her name hung dark and heavy in her chest as Auri dragged her dress on over her head. It didn’t fit her properly today. It felt like everything was leering at her in the yellow light. Her hair was dreadful.

Auri walked back to Mantle, taking the long way around to avoid Van so she wouldn’t have to see herself in her mirror. Coming into Port, she saw that nearly everything was wrong. Of course. It was just that sort of day.

She set the lamp on the table harder than she needed to, making the flame jump high. Then she did her best to set the place to rights. Hollybottle close beside the folded secrets of the all uncut octavo book? No. By itself on the farthest edge of secondshelf. The resin wanted its own space. The brimful jar of dark blue laurel fruit moved back onto the corner table. The tiny stone figurine perched high upon the wine rack, as if it were so much better than the rest of them.