Patrick Rothfuss - The Slow Regard of Silent Things

From Port she brought his fine teacup. She brought the leather book, uncut, unread, and utterly unknown. She brought the small stone figurine. All three of these she set upon the shelf beside his bed so he would have some beauty of his own.

And just like that, she had a gift for him: a safe place he could stay.

As much as she might want to stop and bask, she needed to keep moving. Three was the rule today. She needed two gifts more.

Auri went back to Port and eyed the shelves with her best maker’s eye. And since it was a making day, and with the wind so fair upon her back, she thought on what it was that he might need.

It was a different way of thinking. Even though she was not wanting for herself, she knew this sort of thing was dangerous.

She eyed the hollybottle, it teased at her, but she knew it wasn’t right for him. Not quite. It was an unexpected visit gift. The honeycomb . . . almost. She reached out to touch two fingers to the jar of laurel fruit. She lifted up the jar and held it to the light. It’s true that he was somewhat lacking laurels.

It clicked together then. Of course. She smiled a bit. What better to keep rage at bay? Besides, it was the third part of a thing she’d already begun. A candle. A candle would be just the thing for him.

She stopped then, all of a sudden, the jar still in her hand. She held her breath and thought about the hard realities of time. A candle meant melting. And melding. Most of all it meant a mold. She felt her whole face frowning at the thought of something dipped for him. It wasn’t right at all, he was not one for dribs and drabs.

No. A mold. It was the only way to make a candle fine enough for him.

And that meant Boundary.

She didn’t hardly hesitate at all. For herself she would not dare, but this was simply how it had to be. Didn’t he deserve a few fine things? After all that he had done, didn’t he deserve a fine and princely gift?

Of course he did. So Auri strode to Mantle. So Auri opened wide the iron-bound door. So Auri entered Boundary.

It was a clean and quiet place.

There was a workbench. It was dark and smooth and hard as stone. There were mountings on the sides. A vice. A set of floating rings. A burner stand. There were taps and faucets, well-arrayed: all steel and brass and iron.

There were shelves here, all mounted on one wall. Crowded with vast and varied tools of the craft. Acids and reagents in their stoppered glasses. Sulfonium inside a jar of stone. Racks of powders, salts and earths and herbs. Oils and unguents. Fourteen waters. Twicelime. Camphor. All perfect. All true. All gathered and factored and stored in the most proper ways.

There were tools here. Alembics and retorts. A fine wide wickless burner. Coils of copper tubing. Crucibles and tongs and boiling baths. There were sieves and filters and copper knives. There was a fine grinder and a gleaming clean screw press.

There were the stone shelves too. The careful shelves. Bottles hunkered there behind the thick, thick glass. These bottles were not tidy like the other shelves. They were not labeled. They were muttly. One held screaming. Another, fury. There were many bottles there, and those two were nowhere near the worst.

Auri set the jar of laurel fruit atop the workbench. She was a small thing. Urchin small. Most things did not fit her. Most tables were too tall. This one was not.

This room used to belong to her. But no. This room belonged to someone once. Now it didn’t. It wasn’t. It was a none place. It was an empty sheet of nothing that could not belong. It was not for her.

Auri opened a drawer in the workbench and brought out a circtangular brass mold. The sort that would suit a candle well.

Her expression grave, Auri eyed the laurel fruit. It was every bit as reverent as one might expect, but it was prideful too. And held a hint of north wind’s chill. That needed to be tempered. And . . . yes. There was a thread of anger running through it too. She sighed. That would not do at all.

She narrowed her eyes at it and danced the numbers through her head. Glancing back and forth between the mold and the jar of fruit, she saw the wax it bore would not be near enough. Not for an entire candle. Not for a proper candle. Not for him.

Auri left and returned with the honeycomb. Moving in a businesslike fashion, she lay it in the press and screwed the handle down until the honey poured into the clear, clean jar below. It was the work of half a minute.

Leaving it to drip, she lit the nearby wickless and spun the ringstand so that it held a crucible at the proper height. She opened up the press, lifted out the flat sheet of beeswax, and folded it in quarters before setting it in the crucible. There was not a lot of it, perhaps as much as she could cup in both her hands. But once she’d rendered down the laurel fruit, it would be enough to fill the mold.

Auri eyed the melting wax and nodded. It was a drowsy thing. All autumn sweetness, diligence, and due reward. The bells were not unwelcome either. There was nothing in it that she did not want for him.

Honey and laurel might have been enough if this were a simple poet’s candle. But he was no mere poet. She needed something more.

A pinch of camphor would have been ideal. Just a pinch, a spark, a hint of something volatile. But she had no camphor, and there was no sense in wishing. So she fetched a daub of perfect pitch instead from Port. For binding, and to keep his heart hearty against the coming winter.

Auri stirred the beeswax with a slender glass rod. She smiled. It was a rare joy working with the proper tools. What luxury. Waiting for the resin to dissolve, Auri whistled as she stirred, and grinned. That would be her secret. There would be her whistle in the candle too.

She stepped into Mantle then, and eyed her perfect lavender in the grey glass jar. She lifted out a sprig of it. Then two. Then Auri felt the hot shame rise in her chest. This was no time for thrift. He was never stingy with his help. Didn’t he deserve sweet dreams?

Auri set her jaw and pulled fully half the lavender from out the jar. She could be a greedy, greedy thing at times.

Back into Boundary. Auri poured the laurel fruit into the grinder. In three breaths’ time it was minced tidily and fine. Then she stopped, staring at the mass of half-pulped fruit.

She knew the proper way for laurel. She knew the patient way of things. Grind and boil the waxy fruit. Sieve off the dottle. Boil again and clarify and cool to separate the wax. Even with the proper tools it would be hours of work. Hours and hours.

But he was coming soon. She knew. She knew she had no time for it.

And even if she had all day. There would be principles inside the wax that were not right for him. He was plum full of anger and despair. And pride . . . well, he had that in a sure and certain surfeit.

There were ways to factor those things out. She knew them all. She knew the turning circles of the calcinate. She could sublime and draw. She could isolate a non-exclusionary principle as well as any who had ever turned their hand to work the craft.

But this was not a time for begging favors from the moon. Not now. She could not rush and neither could she be delayed. Some things were simply too important.

It was just as Mandrag said: Nine tenths of alchemy was chemistry. And nine tenths of chemistry was waiting.

The other piece? That slender tenth part of a tenth? The heart of alchemy was something Auri had learned long ago. She’d studied it before she came to understand the true shape of the world. Before she knew the key to being small.

Oh yes. She’d learned her craft. She knew its hidden roads and secrets. All the subtle, sweet, and coaxing ways that made one skilled within the art. So many different ways. Some folk inscribed, described. There were symbols. Signifiers. Byne and binding. Formulae. Machineries of maths . . .