Others' Island (spoilers all books incl RWC)

[Farseer]

That was how he murdered the entire crew by poisoning the soup with the block of wizardwood.

Yes, Kennit did poison the members of Igrot's crew by boiling the wizardwood from Paragon in with some soup but...

My memory may be a bit fuzzy but isn't Kennit's wizardwood charm from the Paragon? Wasn't it one of the larger chunks that resulted from Kennit chopping Paragon's face?

...no, to my understanding, it wasn't the same piece which Kennit had used for the making of his charm and therefore the charm was not of Paragon. A nice thought though, and it would be much easier to understand the quickening process if it were !

Firstly, the charm didn't seem to share any of Paragon's traits, many of which would have been fully established by the time his face was hacked by Kennit. It certainly didn't seem to share any of the love or understanding that Paragon felt for Kennit. It felt the opposite, if anything. Neither did it appear at any stage to have any kind of connection to either the Greater or the Lesser of Paragon's dragons.

It was a pact made between Kennit and Paragon that Paragon should be destroyed to take with him all memory of what Kennit had endured. This would not be true if Kennit had kept a piece of Paragon's wizardwood with him. Such an object would have been a vulnerability to Kennit and his secrets. If it got into the hands of someone else, Kennit could not be sure that his secrets would remain secrets.

In SOM we are told by Kennit that it "cost him an inordinate amount of coin to commission it. Not everyone who could carve wizardwood would, even if they had the balls to steal some...". Also, "The pirate had paid him an exorbitant advance months ago, and waited until the artist had sent him a messenger to say that he had obtained some of the precious and jealously-guarded wood."

From this, my understanding is that the artist sourced the wizardwood himself and, once he had, he sent a message to notify Kennit so that Kennit was able to sit for the crafting of his face to be done and also the spell against enchantments to be worked. It was only after the charm had been completed that Kennit was finally able to persue his dream of visiting the island of the Others. I think if he'd still had a piece of Paragon, he would have possibly considered commissioning the carving of the charm much earlier than he had, so that he could receive the Other's prophecy earlier.