Read The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) for Free Online Page A

not like it, the other options were all worse.
    She eyed the floor, covered with a fine layer of dust except for a set of heavy bootprints, black smudges scuffing through the grey dust on the floor. The bootprints told a story. They entered from the other door, moved from a table to a nearby shelf, then made a line to the doorway where she stood.
    Auri glared at the spot where they crossed the threshold. As they left the dusty floor of Tenance the bootprints became invisible. They were from long ago. But even now the sight made her heart thump. Her skin was all hot prickle, indignant at the thought of them. A second set of bootprints told the story in reverse. They returned to Tenance from the Underthing. They moved to tables, shelf, and out the other door. They made a circle of sorts. A circuit.
    They were not new bootprints. Still, they told a story Auri did not love. They told a story she did not want to see repeated.
    She drew a breath to calm herself. There was no time for this. They would be coming, all hard boots and arrogance and not one bit of proper knowledge of this place. A cold sweat swept the prickle heat all off her skin. She drew another calming breath and focused.
    Her expression fierce, Auri took a deep breath and crossed the threshold into Tenance. She placed her small white foot inside the black print of a boot. Her foot was small enough that this was no hard thing. Even so, she moved with slow deliberation. Her second step brought little more than her toes in contact with the floor. Her feet fit easily inside the bootprints, making no marks of their own.
    Thus she moved, one delicate step at a time. First to a shelf, she eyed containers before picking up a heavy bottle with a ground glass stopper. Next she took a brush and felt the bristles with her finger. Then she made her way back to the door, her steps as slow and graceful as a fawn’s.
    She closed the door behind her. Then, breathing out a sigh of deep relief, she ran herself to Rubric.
    Even moving quickly, it took an hour to find the proper place. Rubric’s round brick tunnels ran the length and breadth of Underthing, miles and miles of passages, twisting up and down and doubling back, taking the pipes where they needed to go.
    Just as she was fearing she might never find it, just when she’d begun to fear it might not be in Rubric after all, Auri heard a sound like angry snakes and rain. If not for that, it might have taken her all day to track it down. She followed the noise until she could smell damp upon the air.
    Finally, turning a corner, she saw water bursting like a fountain from a cracked iron pipe. The spray had wet the bricks for twenty feet in each direction, and the other pipes were dripping with it too. The tiny brass pipes for pressed air didn’t mind in the least. And the fat black pisspipe thought the whole thing rather funny. But the steampipe was not best pleased. Its thick wrapping was soaked straight through, and it was grumbling and steaming, filling the tunnel with a musty hothouse damp.
    From where she stood, Auri eyed the dark line of the broken black iron pipe, carefully tracing it through the others. Foxen held high, she walked away from the leak, following the dark pipe backward.

    After ten minutes and a quick detour through Tenners, Auri found the valve, a small wheel barely big enough for both her hands. Setting down her brush and bottle, she gripped it tight and twisted. Nothing. So she brought the handkerchief out of her pocket, wrapped it round the wheel, and tried again, her teeth bared with the effort. After a long moment, the ungreased age of it gave way, and it grudgingly let itself be spun.
    She gathered up her tools and headed back. There was no sound of snakes. The spray had stopped, but the entire tunnel was still sodden. The air hung wet and heavy, making her hair stick and cling to her face.
    Auri sighed. It was just as Master Mandrag said so many years ago. She walked back where the tunnel floor was