The Name of the Wind

Denna and Kvothe go to the Mauthen farm, where the wedding occurred, to uncover information regarding the massacre. They also plan to locate Denna’s patron, whom they refer to as “Master Ash” because Denna doesn’t want to reveal his real name.

During Kvothe’s questioning about the wedding and their ensuing conversation, Denna observes how Kvothe eats his apple whole, including the core. She tells him of a childhood game in which you think of a letter and twist the apple’s stem. If it stays on, you think of a letter and twist again. When the steam breaks off, the letter you’ve thought of is the person you’re going to marry. Kvothe quips, “Looks like I’m destined to be loveless,” to which Denna replies, “There you go with seven words again” (515).

The barn at the farm is now ashes, and the 26 bodies of the wedding-goers are gone. Kvothe notices that the wood at the farmhouse is hollow and brittle and the iron hand pump has rusted through—which reminds him of the wagon wheel back at his parents’ camp. He asks Denna if she knows the children’s song about the Chandrian. She sings the chorus to herself. They both think the Chandrian are involved.

Denna and Kvothe being their futile search for Master Ash. They also spend more time getting to know one another, but present-day Kote is hesitant to say too much, as these are private matters.

Kvothe and Denna encounter a man with half a dozen sows, an old boar, and piglets. The man, Schiem, has a very thick valley accent, and Kvothe copies it when he speaks to him, easing his suspicion. Kvothe gets some information out of the man by offering to buy a pig and sharing the meal with the shepherd.

The man is willing to talk about how the Mauthens are “bastards.” Schiem shares that old Mauthen found bones in the foundation of a new house he was building for his daughter and didn’t stop digging. He found barrow stones, then a sealed-up stone room, and told people he would reveal what he found inside it at the wedding. Schiem says there are strange things in the woods north of here, and when Kvothe expresses doubt, Schiem says he saw blue flame two nights ago.

After Schiem leaves them, Kvothe tells Denna to look at the house, then at the bluff behind it: The rock on the bluff is dark, and the stones on the house are gray. He explains that what the local people think are barrows are not; the stones for the house were imported from far away, which proves his reasoning. He theorizes that instead, there is an old hill fort here.

Atop the hill, the two get a beautiful view of the countryside, but there’s another hill with a better view. They determine to camp on that northern hill to see if anything strange is happening and whether Master Ash is nearby, based on the appearance of his fire.

Atop the hill, in which greystones form a huge arch, Kvothe and Denna see blue light in the distance. Kvothe theorizes that Mauthen found something in his stone room and gossiped about it, so the Chandrian showed up to steal it. Denna disagrees, proposing that the Chandrian could have appeared at any time. She continues, offering that Kvothe’s theory would only make sense if the Chandrian wanted to get rid those attending the wedding who knew of Mauthen’s alleged secret discovery.

During Denna’s night watch, Kvothe awakes from a dream to see Denna motioning him to be quiet. He listens and hears branches breaking. They climb onto a waystone, although Kvothe has trouble getting up and hits the rock. Then they see a big animal, like a lizard, that’s 6 feet high at the shoulder and 15 feet long. The creature emits a blue flame, and they realize that it’s “a dragon” (544).

Kote pauses in his story, expecting disbelief. When he doesn’t get it, he’s disappointed, considering that the Chronicler is “the great debunker” (545). Chronicler reminds him that he was only getting the story under the condition that he does not interrupt or change a word. Kote grumbles: “Have you ever heard the expression white mutiny?” (545). Bast says he will express disbelief if Kote wants. Kote sighs, says there’s nothing as nauseating as “pure obedience” (545), and continues his story.

Denna begins to panic, but Kvothe assures her the dragon is an herbivore, “like a big cow” (546), and eats whole trees. Kvothe has learned this information from The Mating Habits of the Common Draccus, written by Chronicler, and informs Denna that it uses fire in a mating display. Denna wants to know if it’s attracted to the campfire.

They watch the dragon roll around on the burning logs, then eat them. It lies down on the coals and settles in. Denna remarks on the dragon’s behavior, and Kvothe says dragons are rare because people tend to kill them, and they don’t reproduce quickly. He guesses the one they are looking at is 200 years old. Kvothe watches Denna fall asleep.

After awakening and climbing off the waystone, Kvothe shows Denna the loden-stone, and the two find a dragon scale made of iron. Denna puts the dragon scale and the loden-stone together. In the distance they see something smoldering and decide to investigate.

In the early afternoon, they find the source of the smoke in a valley tucked into bluffs. The draccus has gone on a rampage here. They find a ruined cabin and a dead farmer with a crossbow. Denna thinks the draccus is the cause; Kvothe maintains they are shy, but Denna suggests this one is rabid. When the draccus returns, they run into a crevice, and Denna climbs a ladder she finds inside to put distance between them and the draccus’s fire.

The ladder leads them to an overlook where they can see the draccus moving away. Kvothe thinks it looks sick. They notice that it is eating a certain tree that grows in rows in the middle of forest. They go back down the ladder and head to a box canyon that has natural supplies for making edibles like syrup. Denna takes a bite of the sap.

Suddenly, Kvothe realizes what it is and forces Denna to spit it out. He runs up the ladder to get water so that she can rinse the poison out, then forces her to eat charcoal to soak up the substance. He tells her that a dead man has been harvesting compounds from denner trees, and that the draccus is acting so oddly because it has become addicted. As Denna starts to feel the drug’s euphoric effects, Kvothe realizes they will have to kill the drug-addicted draccus before the denner trees run out and it seeks civilization.

The draccus is cavorting and charges an oak tree to bring it down. Kvothe wonders how they are going to kill it, and Denna says they should lure it over the side of a cliff by building a fire and hanging it from a branch. Eventually the draccus leaves. After some deliberation, they decide they will have to poison the draccus. They need to kill the dragon and get back to Trebon where Denna can get medical help if she needs it.

They go back to the greystone hill as Denna’s mania escalates. Kvothe estimates how much resin they’ll need to kill the draccus, with help from Denna, and creates balls of the stuff to feed it. After, Denna begins to come down from her mania and enter delirium. She says she’s having a little trouble breathing, so Kvothe listens to her heart, confirming for himself that she’s fine. He burns some of the resin in their fire, hoping to attract the draccus. Denna, in her delirium, rambles about her lungs not being strong when she was an infant and about the seven words Kvothe spoke to her. He helps her up onto the stones, and she tells him she realizes he doesn’t think of her “like that” (576). Despite this, she invites him to put his arms around her: “You’re so gentle. You never push” (576). She tells him that it’s okay if he pushes just a little.

As they lie there, Denna admits that she knows for certain Ash didn’t die at the farm. He gave her the bruises, saying that people would be suspicious if she was the only one who survived, but he did ask her permission to do so. Kvothe tells her that she doesn’t need such a patron and assures her that she has other options. Denna asks Kvothe to be her Prince Gallant. He says he will, but she has fallen asleep.

The draccus returns, advancing on the bucket full of resin Kvothe has put out as bait. It eats the whole thing. As before, it rolls in the fire until the flames extinguish, then eats the wood. Kvothe can see the denner starting to affect the animal. Then, in the distance, he sees the firelight of the harvest festival. The dragon is taking too long to die, and Kvothe fears to put down more resin because if the creature turns around, it will see the fire in the town.

Sure enough, the draccus turns and starts to run down the hillside. Kvothe unsuccessfully tries to wake Denna, so he puts her down between the arch of the greystones before running after the creature: “I had a dragon to kill” (582).

When he gets to Trebon, houses are burning and the draccus is roaring. When Kvothe finds it, the draccus is rolling in the wreckage of a house. The citizens are trying to put out fires. Kvothe jumps across the rooftops, almost falling off, until he gets to the roof of the town hall. There, he uses a burning shingle and a binding; he quenches the shingle in a cistern to put out the fires in the town. He has at least bought the townspeople time. Then he uses the shingle again to burn a single oak tree, which attracts the draccus. Using a triple binding on the scale, the loden-stone, and a giant iron wheel attached to a church wall, he draws the wheel to collapse onto the creature.

The draccus is dead. Kvothe feels a pang for the beast, but the roof shifts beneath him and disintegrates. He grabs at an oak tree but strikes his head and blacks out.

Kvothe, bandaged and injured, awakes in an inn in Trebon. In the common room, he asks about his “cousin,” but Denna hasn’t returned to the town. When the innkeeper is rude, Kvothe uses sympathy to make a coin bubble and char on the surface of the bar, then tells the man to get him the food and drink he asked for: “Or I will burn this place down around your ears and dance among the ashes and your charred, sticky bones” (590). After, Kvothe returns to get Denna, but she is not at the greystone hill, even though all his possessions are still there. His mood is black as he leaves Denna a note, the food and water, and blankets under one of the stones.

After his return to the inn, the mayor and constable rush Kvothe into a private room to give him the news that all injuries were minor. They buried the demon that destroyed the Mauthen farm and found Kvothe unconscious on top of the iron wheel that killed the demon. Kvothe’s miraculous recovery and the hole in the bar downstairs convinced them that he slayed the draccus. Kvothe tells them that, to ensure their safety, he needs to know what Mauthen dug up on Barrow Hill.

The following day, a 13-year-old girl named Nina tells him that Mauthen dug up a big fancy pot, about 3 feet high, with writing and pictures of people on it. Kvothe deduces from her description that the vase shows the Chandrian and their signs.

Nina is afraid that something will come after her because of what she saw. Kvothe gives the girl a piece of his sympathy lamp, a disc with sygaldry on one side, and tells her it is a charm to keep her safe: “[T]here in that room was the first time I actually felt like any sort of hero” (597).

In the common room that evening, Kvothe can tell that his recovery has impressed the townspeople. The innkeeper says he can’t charge Kvothe after his assistance in saving the town. Kvothe goes to the docks and gets on a barge going south, asking about Denna. He surmises that she shipped downriver.

Kvothe returns to Imre and goes straight to Devi’s, where he unloads the loden-stone and one talent to wipe out his recent debt. He returns to the University and realizes he will pay for his absence come admissions time. Wil and Sim heard of someone attacking a student in an alley and worried about Kvothe’s safety. Kvothe gives them the real explanation, though he doesn’t mention the Chandrian. After reassuring his friends, Kvothe quietly worries about Denna’s disappearance.