the heavily traumatized kvothe, alive but all alone, spends three years in the slums of the city of tarbean as a beggar and pickpocket. he is nudged out of this life by hearing a storyteller recount a story of how the hero lanre became a renegade after the death of his beloved wife, went over to the evil forces he had fought and destroyed the cities with whose protection he was charged—and then changed his name and became himself the fearsome lord haliax of the chandrian. before kvothe can ask more, the storyteller is arrested by the dominant church on charges of heresy.