kvothe's father, the famous bard arliden, starts composing what was to be the greatest of his works—a ballad of the ancient tragic hero lanre. for this composition, arliden starts collecting all the various tales of the mythical chandrian and tries to get at the kernel of truth behind them—without explaining how this is related to lanre. this inquiry turns out to have fatal consequences. when the troupe makes camp, kvothe's mother sends him to gather sage in the surrounding woods. upon returning, he finds his parents and all members of his troupe dead, and the all-too-real chandrian seated around the campfire, which has turned blue. evidently, they disliked arliden's researches and came to silence him and everybody else with whom he might have shared his findings. the eleven-year-old kvothe is on the point of being killed by the chandrian named cinder when their leader, lord haliax, pressures them to depart due to the approach of some mysterious enemies of theirs.