Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  The governess led him toward the Oathgate building. Navani watched with worry. “He’s young to be going.”

  “I know,” Dalinar said. “But I owe him this. He feels terrified to be left behind again in a palace while…” He left it unsaid.

  Navani knew there was more. Things Dalinar had said about how he’d been angry when younger, and had prevented Adolin and Renarin from spending time with him when they wanted to. Well, the child should be safe. And he really did deserve more time with Dalinar.

  She held his hand for a season, then let him go. He tramped up the slope toward the Oathgate as a half dozen anxious scribes scurried over to ask him questions.

  Navani composed herself, then went to say farewell to her daughter, who would also be going on the expeditionary force. She spotted the queen arriving via palanquin. Curiously, Jasnah—who often took extra care not to seem weak—almost always used a palanquin these days. And Taravangian, who truly needed one, refused the distinctive treatment.

  Taravangian seemed weaker while walking—while Jasnah seemed stronger when carried. More confident, in control. Which is exactly how each of them wishes to appear, Navani thought as the porters lowered Jasnah’s palanquin and she emerged. Though her havah, her hair, and her makeup were immaculate, Jasnah wore little in the way of ornamentation. She wanted to be seen as regal—but not excessive.

  “No Wit?” Navani asked.

  “He promised to meet me in Azir,” Jasnah said. “He vanishes sometimes, and won’t grace my questions with answers. Not even mocking ones.”

  “There is something odd about that one, Jasnah.”

  “You have no idea, Mother.”

  The two of them stood facing one another, until finally Jasnah reached forward. What followed was the most awkward hug Navani had ever been part of, both of them making the proper motions, but unenthusiastic at the same time.

  Jasnah pulled back. She was regal. Technically they were both of a similar rank, yet there had always been something about Jasnah. Dalinar was a big rock of a man that you wanted to prod until you found out what kind of crystals were inside. Jasnah … well, Jasnah was just … unknowable.

  “Storms,” Jasnah said under her breath. “Mother, are we really so awkward that we embrace like teenagers meeting a boy for the first time?”

  “I don’t want to ruin your image,” Navani said.

  “A woman can hug her mother, can’t she? My reputation won’t come crashing down because I showed affection.” Still, she didn’t lean in for another. Instead she took Navani’s hand. “I apologize. I haven’t had much time for family lately. I always told myself that when I finished my travels, I’d work diligently to be available to you all. I recognize that family relations need attendant time to…” Jasnah took a deep breath, then pressed her safehand against her forehead. “I sound like a historical treatise, not a person, don’t I?”

  “You have a lot of pressure on you, dear,” Navani said.

  “Pressure that I asked for and welcome,” Jasnah said. “The quickest changes in history often happen during times of strife, and these are important moments. But you’re important too. To me. Thank you. For always being you, despite the rise of kingdoms and the fall of peoples. I don’t think you can understand how much your constant strength means to me.”

  What an unusual exchange. Yet Navani found herself smiling. She squeezed Jasnah’s hand, and that moment together—seeing through the mask—became more precious than a hundred awkward embraces.

  “Watch little Gav for me,” Navani said. “I don’t know what I think of him going with Dalinar.”

  “Boys younger than him go on campaign.”

  “To locations not so near the battlefront,” Navani said. It was a fine distinction that many of their allies misunderstood. But these days, with Fused who could fly, anywhere could become a battlefront.

  “I’ll make sure he keeps well away from the fighting,” Jasnah promised.

  Navani nodded. “Your uncle feels that he failed Adolin and Renarin as children by spending so long in the field, and so little of it with them when they were young. He intends to make up for it now. I don’t dislike the sentiment, but … just keep an eye on them both for me, please.”

  Jasnah retreated to her palanquin, and Navani stepped back. The banners continued to applaud as Dalinar’s best soldiers arranged themselves with him, the queen, and Taravangian. Though the chill air sliced through her shawl, Navani was determined to stay and watch until she had word via spanreed that they’d arrived in Azir.

  As she waited, Sebarial wandered past. The portly, bearded man had taken to wearing clothing that was more appropriate to his overall look: something reminiscent of a Thaylen merchant’s clothing, with trousers and a vest under a long Alethi officer’s coat, meant to be left unbuttoned. Navani wasn’t certain if Palona was to credit for the transformation, or if Adolin had finally gotten to the highprince—but it was a marked improvement on the takama ensemble Sebarial had once favored.

  Most of the highprinces were out in the field on Dalinar’s orders. It was Alethi tradition: being a leader was essentially the same as being a general. If a king went to war, highprinces would go with him. That was so ingrained in them that it was hard to remember that other cultures—like both the Azish and the Thaylens—did it differently.

  Not many of the original highprinces remained. They’d been forced to replace Vamah, Thanadal, and—most recently—Sadeas with distant scions loyal to Dalinar and Jasnah. But building a reputation and a princedom in exile was a difficult task. Roion’s son struggled for precisely that reason.

  They had three they could count on. Aladar, Sebarial, and Hatham. Bethab and his wife had fallen into line, which left Ruthar the lone holdout of hostility—the last remnant of Sadeas’s faction against Dalinar. Navani picked out the man with his retinue preparing to leave with Dalinar’s force.

  Ruthar would present a problem, but if Navani were to guess, Jasnah would find a way to deal with him soon. Her daughter hated loose ends. Hopefully whatever Jasnah did wouldn’t be too dramatic.

  Sebarial was staying behind to help administer the tower. And he offered his own set of difficulties. “So,” he said to Navani. “We taking bets on how long it takes Taravangian to knife us in the back?”

  “Hush,” Navani said.

  “Thing is,” Sebarial said, “I kind of respect the old goof. If I manage to live as long as him, I can imagine throwing up my hands and trying to take over the world. I mean … at that point, what do you have to lose?”

  “Your integrity.”

  “Integrity doesn’t stop men from killing, Brightness,” Sebarial said. “It just makes them use different justifications.”

  “Glib, but meaningless,” Navani said. “Do you really want to draw a moral equivalency between wholesale conquest and resisting the Voidbringer invasion? Do you genuinely believe that a man of integrity is the same as a murderer?”

  He chuckled. “You have me there, Brightness. You seem to have discovered my one great weakness: actually listening to anything I say. You might be the only person in all of Roshar who takes me seriously.”

  Light rose in a ring around the Oathgate platform, swirling into the air. A scribe stood nearby at her workstation, waiting for spanreed confirmation of the army’s arrival.

  “I’m not the only one who takes you seriously, Turinad,” Navani told Sebarial. “There’s at least one more.”

  “If she took me seriously, Brightness, I’d be a married man.” He sighed. “I can’t decide if she thinks me unworthy of her, or if somehow she’s decided a highprince shouldn’t marry someone of her station. When I try to get it out of her, the response is never clear.”

  “Could be neither option,” Navani said.

  “If that’s the case, I’m at a complete loss.”

  The scribe changed the flag outside her workstation. Green for a successful transfer, with a red flag underneath, meaning people were still leaving the other platform and it wasn’t
ready for another transfer yet.

  Another use for banners, Navani thought. They could at times be more effective than a spanreed. You could look down from the twentieth floor and see a flag much more quickly than you could write out a question and receive a response.

  Reputations were banners also. Jasnah had crafted a distinctive persona. People halfway around the world knew about her. Dalinar had done the same thing. Not as deliberately, but with equal effect.

  But what banner did Navani want to fly? She turned with Sebarial and walked toward the tower. She’d originally come to the Shattered Plains to chase something new. A different life, one that she wanted rather than one she thought she should want. Yet here she found herself doing the same things as before. Running a kingdom for a man who was too grand to be contained by simple day-to-day tasks.

  The love she felt for this man was different, true. Deeper. And there was certainly a fulfilling satisfaction to bringing order to the chaos of a newly born kingdom like Urithiru. It presented unique challenges both logistical and political.

  Was it selfish to want something more? This was what she seemed to be good at doing, and it was where the Almighty had placed her. She was one of the most powerful women in the world. Why would she think she deserved more?

  Together with Sebarial, she entered the tower by its broad front gates. The temperature change was immediate, though with these broad gates standing open all day, the inner foyer should have been as cold as the plateau outside.

  “You want me to return to the warcamps, I assume?” Sebarial asked. “I still have some interests working in the area.”

  “Yes. By the time my husband returns, I want those camps fully under our control again.”

  “You know,” Sebarial said, “some wouldn’t trust me with such a duty. My vices align well with the delights offered by the region.”

  “We’ll see. Of course, if you fail to bring order to the warcamps, then I’ll need to impose martial law. Tragic, wouldn’t you say? Closing down all of those entrepreneurs? Destroying the single place that is under Alethi rule, but which also offers an escape from the strict oversight of the Radiants?

  “If only someone with precisely the right mindset would watch the warcamps and make sure they become safe for travelers, and that the nearby lumber operations are proceeding without interruption. Someone who could see the need for law, while also understanding that it’s not a terrible thing to be a little more relaxed. To let good Alethi citizens live their lives safely—but without being under my husband’s direct glare.”

  Sebarial laughed. “How much do you suppose I can pocket before Dalinar would find my thieving too blatant?”

  “Stay under five percent,” Navani said.

  “Four and nine-tenths it is,” Sebarial said, bowing to her. “I’ll be practically respectable, Brightness. Perhaps Palona will finally see that I can be useful, if given the proper motivation.”

  “Turi?” Navani said.

  “Yes, Brightness?” he asked, rising from the flowery bow.

  “If a man takes nothing in his life seriously, it makes a woman wonder. What is she? Another joke? Another whim?”

  “Surely she knows her value to me, Brightness.”

  “Surely there is no problem in making it clear.” Navani patted him on the arm. “It is difficult not to question your value to someone who seems to value nothing. Sincerity might not come easily for you, but when she finds it in you, she’ll value it even more for the scarcity.”

  “Yes … All right. Thank you.”

  He waddled off, and Navani watched him go with genuine fondness. That was incredible, considering her former opinion of the man. But he’d stood with them, whether through intent or accident, when most others had refused. Beyond that, she’d found he could be trusted to get things done.

  Like everyone, deep down he wanted to be useful. Humans were orderly beings. They liked to see lots of straight lines, if only so—in some cases—they could be the one drawing curves. And if a tool seemed broken at first glance, perhaps you were simply applying it to the wrong task.

  Once in the tower, Navani took a palanquin inward, attended by Brightness Anesa, who brought various reports for Navani to inspect. Navani passed over the sanitation figures, instead reading up on water distribution through the tower, as well as reports of foot traffic in the stairwells.

  There were more random fights and arguments in Urithiru than there had been in Dalinar’s warcamp. Part of that was the diverse population, but she suspected that keeping everyone in relatively tight confines was a culprit as well. Dalinar wanted to post more guard patrols, but if she could divert traffic flow to keep people from jostling one another …

  She had some ideas mapped out by the time her palanquin reached the atrium at the far eastern edge of the tower. She stepped out into one of the city’s most dynamic locations: a place where a vast corridor stretched tens and tens of floors upward, almost to the roof. While lifts ran up and down the large artery that led inward to the atrium—and there were a multitude more stairwells—this was the sole place one could catch a lift all the way to the top floor.

  Stretching along the eastern wall was an enormous window, hundreds of feet tall. The tiers of Urithiru weren’t full circles—most were closer to half-circles, with the flat side aligned here at the atrium. So you could look all the way up, or stare out toward the Origin.

  As one of the brighter sections of the tower, and with its many lifts, the area bustled with traffic. That made it all the more remarkable that the atrium—of all places—had hidden an architectural mystery. Navani crossed the circular chamber to the far wall, just to the left side of the window. A few days back, one of her scribes had noted an oddity here: a small division in the rock, too straight to be a crack.

  With Dalinar’s permission, a Stoneward had been called in to shape the rock into an opening—they could make stone soft to their touch. Navani’s morning report had indicated she should come see the results, but this was the first time she’d been able to pull away. Badali, a Stoneward, guarded the door. He was an affable older man with a powdery beard and smiling eyes. He bowed to her as she stepped through his newly made door.

  Falilar, the engineer, was already inside measuring what they’d discovered: a large room hidden entirely in the stone.

  “Brightness,” Brightness Anesa said, walking alongside her. “What was the purpose of sealing off an entire room like this?”

  Navani shook her head. This wasn’t the only room they’d found in the tower with apparently no entrances. This one was particularly significant though, for it had a large picture window along the rear wall, which let in the sunlight.

  Standing in front of that window was an odd structure: a tall stone model of the tower. She’d read about it in the report, but as she approached, she was still surprised by its intricacy. The thing was a good fifteen feet tall, and was divided in two—the halves pulled apart—to give a cross section of the tower. At this scale, floors weren’t even an inch tall, but everything she saw about them was reproduced in intricate detail. At least, as much as was allowed at that scale.

  Falilar joined her beside it, holding a notebook full of figures. “What do you make of it, Brightness?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Why put this here, but then seal it off?” She bent over, noting that the crystal pillar room—along with the two library rooms nearby—was represented in the model.

  Falilar used a small reed to point. “See here? This room itself is reproduced, with a tiny representation of this very model. But there is an open door leading in, where there wasn’t one in the real tower.”

  “So the rooms were sealed off before the Radiants left?”

  “Or,” Falilar said, “they could open and close some other way. When the tower was abandoned, some were already closed, others open.”

  “That would explain a lot.” They’d found so many rooms with actual doors—or, the remnants of ones rotted away—that she hadn’t considere
d that there might be other mechanisms on undiscovered rooms. A clearly biased approach. She glanced at the wall they’d come in through. “Did that Stoneward discover any mechanism for such an opening?”

  “There was a gemstone embedded in the stone,” Falilar said. “I had him get it out for us to inspect. I intend to have him see if perhaps the rock was somehow intended to slide open to the sides there. If so, it would be a remarkable mechanism.”

  Navani made a mental note to have one of the Windrunners fly out to do a close inspection of the mountains that Urithiru was built into. Perhaps windows like this one would reveal other hidden rooms, with equally mysterious contents.

  “I’ll do a thorough inspection of this model,” Falilar said. “It might yield secrets.”

  “Thank you. I, unfortunately, have some sanitation reports to read.”

  “If you get a chance, stop by the library and talk to my nephew,” Falilar said. “He’s made some improvements on his device.”

  Navani nodded and started back toward her palanquin, trusting Falilar to send her whatever he discovered. As she was climbing into the palanquin, she saw Isabi—one of her younger scholars—rush into the room, holding a blinking red light.

  The mysterious spanreed. The one she’d received weeks ago from the unknown person who was so angry about fabrials. It was the first time they had tried to contact her since that day.

  Sanitation reports would wait.

  Other Shards I cannot identify, and are hidden to me. I fear that their influence encroaches upon my world, yet I am locked into a strange inability because of the opposed powers I hold.

  “Hold it steady!” Falilar said. It had been years since Navani had seen the old white-bearded engineer this animated. “Put it here on the table. Isabi, you have the scale, yes? Hurry, hurry. Set it up like we practiced!”

  The small swarm of ardents and scholars fussed around Navani, settling the spanreed into its board and preparing standard violet ink. They’d carried it out and set it up in a guard post near the perimeter of the tower. Kalami stood next to Navani, her arms folded. Hair streaked with grey, the scribe had an increasingly worrisome leanness to her these days.