The Statue of Seventeen Arms

The Statue of Seventeen Arms

A ficlet for the Kingkiller Chronicles series. This story does not align with any particular chapter or place in the books. It is one short night in Kvothe's many, applicable to any place where he journeys alone in the woods, warily, and with his lute. I only wanted to practice the author's writing style and bring to life a tiny idea. Enjoy!

Kvothe stopped at a sudden clearing in the trees, hands gripping an elm trunk, peering around it carefully. He swept a trained eye across the area, taking slow, steady breaths of the cool, fresh air. The clearing was nicely fenced by shading elms on three sides with a clear brook glistening along the fourth. In the middle was a huge, well-worn and cracked slab of white stone. The slab had a hole cut into it, exposing a pit of earth below. Beside it were logs of wood, stacked as if waiting patiently for the sparking tinders of the next traveler. Behind the fire pit was a tall statue carved from the same worn, white stone, depicting a seated woman in a fine dress, with seventeen long and shapely arms arranged in different positions all around her. Delicate nails tipped the ends of fingers that had somehow escaped the wearing forces of rain and wind and time. She looked down at the pit before her, her head slightly bowed, her face gentle and welcoming. There was a divot in the stone also, and rusty stains, as if a metal altar had been built there, but stolen or weathered away long ago.

Kvothe studied her, but did not recognize the statue from any song or story he knew.

He took a small step. Surely he had seen something else... there! In smudges, barely visible, were messages in ash, wiped with careful precision on the tree trunks of the clearing. They were symbols he recognized from his travels. They spoke of a peaceful, safe place to rest for the night. He breathed easily and walked to the firepit.

He laid his lute case and pack down carefully, stacked the proffered wood in the firepit, and lit it with the aid of the heat of the setting sun on his arms. The fire flared up, faster and hotter than he had expected, and he leaned back a bit. The flames caught the statue's eyes, and they danced with reds and yellows and blues. As the sky darkened to night, birds slowly receded into quiet reveries, and Kvothe was happy to let his mind wander and his feet rest.

It was only after a bit of moon peeked out above that his stomach protested its long day, and he pulled some bland sustenance from his pack. Chewing slowly, he noticed the patterns of fireplay on the statue's arms. Light licked along the wrists and palms, and he saw that each hand displayed a different sign. By coincidence, most likely, two hands were in positions of Atemnic expression: polite beckoning and vehement disappointment. He chuckled to himself. This was a statue in the Small Kingdoms, a fractured collection of tiny cultures and faiths, whose vast peculiarities and artistic intent he could only begin to guess at.

The woman seemed as good an audience as any. At least it would not gesture rudely at him, though he might have paid to see such an intimidating wall of expression. Seventeen hands, seventeen crude and vulgar signs. It would be enlightening. He only knew of thirteen. Kvothe gently pulled his lute from his case and positioned it.

“Good evening, lady,” he said politely. The statue did not reply, though the moon seemed to shed a skirt of its cloud. He strummed the lute, tuning it carefully, his eyes closed in concentration. The warmth of the fire put a little life back into his bones, and he settled on a song.

Opening his eyes, he smiled. “You will enjoy this one, lady. It is Smooth Stone By The Water.” Kvothe positioned his fingers and plucked a string.

One of the statue's hands twitched.

Kvothe blinked. He plucked the string again.

The polite beckoning hand splayed its fingers and let out a gentle, velvety light, like a white ball of cotton infused with moonbeams. As soon as the note ended, so too did the statue's motion, and the light disappeared.

Kvothe struck a five-note chord, and five of the hands moved, each sending out a different colored light. Though each light was separated by inches, they seemed to touch and mingle, blending flavors between themselves, before disappearing.

Kvothe sat up eagerly. Someone had found a way – he had no inkling how, yet – to make a stone statue react to musical input, then transmit an appropriate wavelength of light. He strummed two chords in quick succession, and was rewarded with a patchwork of lights, as harmonic and natural-looking as his lute notes sounded.

“You should have told me of your power!” chided Kvothe. “I would have brought my lute out hours ago!”

He played a line, then two, then burst into furious song. It took a few minutes for his fingers to pick up speed enough so that the statue engaged sixteen of its hands; each signing out an expression of light and color to match each note he played. No matter how hard and fast he played, the seventeenth hand did not concede. Determined, Kvothe kept up the pace and stood, walking to the statue, scanning the arms for marks of sygaldry or unknown runes. The closer he approached, the more the arms moved. By the time he stood just before the woman, the top of his head at her knees, the entire lengths of her arms were moving in an intricate dance. Bright arcs of color and light flowed out from her stony skin, emanating and weaving a tapestry of sorts. It wavered in the air around them, ever changing, as his music was, a cloth of light-music-air.

Kvothe was transfixed. His mind whirled, grabbing desperately at this tapestry, as if it were a language. He had never thought of music as literal color, and here it was, at his disposal. He played minor chords and noted the changes in hue. He played major chords, and triplets, and even tapped his thumbs against the flute to add another layer of sound. Soon he found himself stamping his feet, and the statue replied in kind. A steely gray light poured from her own feet, mottled with black and white speckles.

Only then did he realize he had not yet sung...

Kvothe tilted his head and sang a note that clashed with his lute. The statue's throat seemed to go molten, wavered, quivered, then in a rush, red light poured up and out of the woman's opening mouth, and Kvothe stood in shock at the look of his own voice.

It ended as soon as he drew a breath. He hastily sang out again, up and down the scale, with words in many languages as well as gibberish. The statue's voice – his voice – poured out into the light tapestry and filled in holes he hadn't even realized were there. He drew closer and closer to the statue, played harder and faster, sang til he was hoarse, watched the fire caress the woman's face, and drank in the display like a man finding an oasis after sixteen nights in the desert.

Only then, just then, did he see a flicker from the seventeenth hand. By the saving graces of all the whispering senses in the depths of his animal mind, he jumped back just as the hand crashed down, holding a blade he hadn't seen before, and stabbed through the fracturing tapestry into the divot in the stone below.

Before he could register what had happened, the fire behind him roared, and he realized how cleverly it was placed. Anyone who jumped back to get away from the statue was doomed to burn. Lithely, he turned and threw himself to the side, narrowly missing the firepit and nearly smashing his lute on the ground. He sprawled and rolled, carefully, then sprang up a good distance from the statue.

It had returned to its original position, polite beckoning, vehement disappointment, and all.

Shaking and coughing, Kvothe set his lute down and watched the statue. It did not move. Slowly, he crept forward and grabbed his pack and lute case. The statue still did not move. He fought the urge to curse it aloud. Whatever power the stone held, it was sound-related, and he would not add to it. Without a glance back to the rust-colored stains or a care to extinguish the fire, he shouldered his burdens and moved on through the woods. The sound-light tapestry burned deep in his mind, and he wondered how many had died there, entranced and blinded by their own voices and talents, and to what purpose.

Inspired by my synesthesia and a day's worth of overdosing on music. Thank you for reading!