“It just ended,” Rlain said.
Together they took the most direct route toward the Edgedancer clinic at the center of the market. Unfortunately, a number of people had crowded here, and that slowed Kaladin and Rlain’s progress.
They eventually shoved through to the front, calls of “Brightlord Stormblessed” making people turn around. At the center of the mess though, they found something horrifying: two Edgedancers lying on the ground. An ordinary non-Radiant nurse was yelling at people to give them space.
Kaladin left Teft with Rlain and scrambled over to kneel before one of the unconscious Radiants, a vaguely familiar Edgedancer woman, short, with dyed hair. “What happened?” he asked the nurse, who seemed to recognize Kaladin immediately.
“They both suddenly dropped, Brightlord! I’m afraid Lorain hit her head; there’s bleeding. I evacuated the clinic immediately, in case the unconsciousness was caused by leaking dazewater.”
“Quick thinking,” Kaladin said. The Edgedancers seemed more deeply unconscious than Teft. No quivering eyes. No muscle spasms.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” the nurse asked.
“Something similar just happened to my friend. Another Radiant.”
“Not you though?”
I always live, Kaladin thought, a bitter thought echoing from long ago. So I can keep suffering.
He pushed that aside. “The best thing I can think of to do is go to my father. He’s the most experienced surgeon I know. Treat these for shock and bandage that head wound. I’ll send you word if I discover anything.”
The nurse nodded and Kaladin left her, helping Rlain lift Teft as they pushed through the crowd.
“Why don’t you Lash him again?” Rlain said.
“I can’t. My Lashings don’t seem to work.”
“What, just on Teft?” Rlain asked. “Or at all?”
Storms, that was a stupid thing to have not checked. Kaladin set down Teft’s legs and took his sphere pouch from his pocket, kneeling as he tried to infuse the ground.
It didn’t work. He frowned, then tried a different Lashing—the type that made things stick to other objects. Not a gravitational Lashing, but a Full Lashing. The one Lopen loved to use to stick people to walls.
That Full Lashing worked. When he touched his boot to that patch of stone, it stuck in place. He reclaimed the Light without any problems. So … Adhesion worked but Gravitation didn’t?
“I have no idea what is going on,” Kaladin said to Rlain.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” Rlain said. “You losing some of your powers? Three Radiants all fainting? People don’t have strokes in groups, do they?”
“No,” Kaladin said as the two of them began jogging, carrying Teft between them. “There’s more, Rlain. I feel something pressing against my mind. I thought it was my illness. But if you say you can hear something odd…”
What did it mean? Was this … this like the fabrial the Fused had used on him in Hearthstone? It felt eerily similar in many ways.
They headed toward the grand staircase. It was wide and tall, and led up the first ten floors. It would be a faster climb than using the lifts. However, as they neared the steps, a scream echoed from one of the nearby tunnels.
Kaladin and Rlain froze at the intersection. Sphere lanterns lined the tunnels here, and the strata spiraled, making it seem as if—in looking down a tunnel—you were looking at the inside of a nut threaded for a screw. An agitated group was forming at the other side.
“I’ll check,” Rlain said. “You keep going with Teft?”
Kaladin nodded, not wanting to speak and waste Stormlight. He took Teft toward the steps as Rlain jogged off. The people Kaladin passed didn’t seem to sense anything wrong; they only looked curiously at Kaladin and his burden. Some saluted, others bowed, but Radiants were common enough in these halls that most simply stepped aside.
He was halfway up the first flight of the grand staircase when Rlain came running up at a sprint. People gave way for him, even made superstitious gestures when they saw him.
“Thank the storms I can wear warform around you people now,” he said, reaching Kaladin. He was puffing from the run, but didn’t seem exhausted. “I’d hate to try to make that run in dullform. Someone found a Stoneward unconscious in the hallway. Something is striking at the Radiants specifically. One of the Unmade?”
“It feels like that fabrial I found in Hearthstone,” Kaladin said. “But it’s obviously on a much grander scale, and more powerful, if it’s knocking out Radiants. The one I faced must have been some kind of prototype.”
“What do we do?”
“My mother has my spanreed to Dalinar’s scribes, so the clinic is probably still our best course for now.”
The other flights passed in a flash, though Rlain had drawn three different exhaustionspren—like jets of dust—by the time they reached the sixth floor. He waved Kaladin ahead. They’d meet up at the clinic.
Kaladin sucked in another breath of Stormlight and redoubled his efforts, dashing through the hallway, Teft across his shoulders. He shoved past the people waiting outside the clinic—that was another oddity, since it was after hours—and pushed through the door.
The waiting room was lit with spheres and crowded with worried people. When Kaladin’s mother saw him, she immediately began clearing room for him to pass.
“Lirin!” she shouted. “Another one!”
Kaladin jogged down the hall to the first exam room, where a Radiant—in an Aladar uniform—lay on the exam table. He recognized her. Another Stoneward.
Lirin looked up from examining her pupils. “Sudden unconsciousness?” he asked.
“I thought it might be a stroke at first,” Kaladin said, carefully unslinging Teft and settling him on the floor. A quick check told Kaladin that his friend was still breathing, and his heartbeat was still regular, though his face was spasming. As if he was dreaming.
“We found others too,” Kaladin said. “Different orders. All unconscious.”
“I have two of this one’s squires in the other room,” Lirin said, nodding to the prone Stoneward. “Her friends and family hauled her up here in a big mess. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get people not to move an injured person. Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be a neck injury.”
“It’s striking only Radiants,” Kaladin said.
“Not you though?”
“Something’s happening to me,” Kaladin said, feeling exhaustion hit him now that his Stormlight was running out. “My powers are inhibited and…”
He trailed off as he felt something new tugging on him. New, but familiar at the same time.
Syl? he thought, throwing himself to his feet, sweat spraying from his skin. “Syl!” he shouted.
“Son, a surgeon must be calm during—”
“Storm off with the lectures for once, Father!” Kaladin shouted. “Syl!”
… here … He felt her voice. He tried to concentrate on that feeling, and he sensed something tugging on his soul. It was as if … as if someone was using his mind like a proffered arm to help them climb out of a pit.
Syl exploded into sight in front of him in the shape of a small woman, growling softly, her teeth clenched.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know! I was in the winehouse, and then … Teft! What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know,” Kaladin said. “Do you see Phendorana?”
“No. Not anywhere. My mind feels cloudy. Is this what it feels like to be sleepy? I think I’m sleepy.” She scrunched up her face. “I hate it.”
Rlain arrived, huffing, trailed by Kaladin’s mother, who peeked around him, appearing worried.
“Kal,” Rlain said. “I passed people in the hall who were shouting warnings. There are Fused in the tower. It’s another raid.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this via spanreed?” Kaladin asked.
“They don’t work,” his mother said. “We tried to write to Brightness Navani the moment these
Radiants arrived. You activate the reed, but nothing happens. It just falls over.”
Kaladin felt cold. He pushed past Rlain and walked down the hall to the living room of his family’s quarters. It had a window out into the evening sky. The sun had set, though fading sunlight painted the sky, so he could see the hundreds of flying figures—trailing long clothing and infused with Voidlight—descending upon the tower.
“You were wrong, Rlain,” Kaladin said. “It’s not a raid. This is an invasion.”
* * *
Several of the women clustered around Red, who was breathing, but unconscious. Navani let the others deal with the Lightweaver. She reread the lines the phantom spren had written.
The Sibling. The third Bondsmith spren. Not dead after all, not even asleep. But why spend over a year saying nothing? Why let everyone think you were dead?
Navani picked up the pen, which had fallen to the paper. Twisting the gemstone did nothing; the fabrial was lifeless.
The enemy, the Sibling had written. They are doing something to me.…
Navani rushed to her spanreed satchel, which was usually watched by one of her scribes’ wards. It had leather sheaths for each reed, positioned in a row so that the ruby was visible through a slit in the leather. A dozen of her most important spanreeds.
None of them were blinking. Indeed, the two she pulled out gave no response when she twisted the rubies. They were as dead as the one on the table. She glanced at Red lying on the floor. Kalami was checking his eyes; she was an officer’s daughter, and had been taught field medicine. She’d already sent one of the girls to run for an Edgedancer.
An attack. With no spanreeds to communicate? Storms, it would be chaos.
Navani stood up. If it was going to be chaos, then someone had to fight it. “Soldiers, I need you in here! Spanreeds aren’t working. Who is the fastest runner among you?”
The scribes gaped at her, and all three of her soldiers—the ones who had been watching the captive in the other chamber—stepped in. The men looked at one another, then one of the soldiers raised his hand. “I’m probably fastest, Brightness.”
“All right,” Navani said, dashing to the table and pulling out a sheet of paper. “I need you to run to the first floor—use the stairs, not the lifts—and get to the scouting office near the second sector. You know it, the place where we’re organizing the mapping of the Plains? Good. Have them mobilize every runner they have.
“They are to send someone to each of the tower’s seven garrisons with a copy of this message. Every remaining runner, and all the scribes in the office, are to meet me on the second floor at the maps room. It’s the largest secure place I can think of right now.”
“Um, yes, Brightness.”
“Warn them to move quickly!” Navani said. “I have reason to believe that a dangerous attack is coming.” She scribbled some instructions on the paper—commanding the seven garrisons to deploy according to one of the predefined plans, then adding her current authentication phrase. She ripped off the paper and thrust it at the soldier, who took off at a dash.
Then she wrote it again and sent it with her second-fastest man—telling him to use a different route. Once he was off, she sent the last soldier to the Windrunners. There should be about twenty of them—four full knights and their squires—remaining in the tower.
“But Brightness,” the guard said, taking the note she handed him, “you’ll be unguarded.”
“I’ll manage,” she said. “Go!”
He hesitated, perhaps trying to determine if Dalinar would be angrier at him for abandoning Navani or for disobeying her. Finally he dashed away.
Storms, she thought, looking at the fallen Red. What if they can do to other Radiants what they did to Red? How did they pick him out? She got a sick feeling in her stomach, a premonition. What if whatever had happened to him hadn’t been targeted, but was instead a side effect of whatever was happening to the spanreeds?
“Gather our things,” she said to the scribes. “We’re moving to the map room.”
“Red—” Kalami began.
“We have to leave him. Leave a note saying where we went.”
She stepped into the smaller room. The prisoner, Dabbid, had pulled off his chair, and was now huddled on the floor. The manacles on his legs clanked as he shifted.
“The spren of the tower spoke to you,” Navani said to him. “It had you place the spanreed gem for me. How did you know what to do?”
The man only looked at the floor.
“Listen to me,” Navani said—keeping her distance just in case, but also trying to make her voice sound calm, reassuring. “I’m not angry at you; I understand why you did what you did, but something terrible is happening, and spanreeds aren’t working. I need to know how to contact the spren.”
The man stared at her, wide eyed. Storms, she wasn’t sure he was capable of understanding. Something was clearly wrong with him.
The man moved, the chains clanking, and Navani jumped despite herself. He didn’t move toward her though. He shifted and stood, then reached out to touch the wall. He rested his hand against the stone there, which was marked by strata lines. And … and a vein of crystal?
Navani moved closer. Yes, running through the strata was a fine garnet vein. She’d noted similar veins; in some rooms they were nearly invisible, perfectly mimicking the waving strata. In others they stood out starkly, straight and bold, running from floor to ceiling.
“The spren of the tower,” Navani said. “She talked to you through these veins of garnet?”
The captive nodded.
“Thank you,” Navani said.
He tapped his wrists together. Bridge Four.
Navani tossed him the key to his manacles. “We’re going to the map room on the second floor. We must move quickly. Join us, if you wish.”
She hurried back to the others. There was a vein of garnet in the map room. She’d see what she could do with it once she arrived.
* * *
Kaladin stared at his surgery knives.
Syl couldn’t form a Shardblade. Something was wrong with his powers; he wasn’t certain that Stormlight would even heal him any longer. However, that wasn’t what made him stop and stare at the knives.
Six little pieces of steel in a row. The scalpel of a surgeon was a very different thing from a soldier’s knife. A surgeon’s knife could be a subtle thing, meant to cause as little harm as possible. A delicate contradiction. Like Kaladin himself.
He reached out to touch one of them, and his hand didn’t shake as he’d feared it would. The knife—glowing in the spherelight as if it were aflame—was cold to his touch. A part of him had expected it to be angry, but this tool didn’t care how he used it. It had been designed to heal, but could kill as efficiently. Like Kaladin himself.
Outside the surgery room, people screamed amid writhing fearspren. The Fused were landing on the balconies of this level, and the cries of the terrified echoed through the halls of Urithiru. Kaladin had sent Rlain to hide in the living quarters of the clinic—he didn’t know how the Fused would react to finding a listener here, wearing an Alethi uniform.
Kaladin delayed. He should go hide too. Wait it out. That was what his father wanted.
Instead, Kaladin’s fingers wrapped around the knife, and he turned toward the screams. He was needed. Life before death. This was what he did.
Yet as he walked toward the door, he found himself laden by a terrible weight. His feet were as if in chains, and his clothing could have been made of lead. He reached the doorway, and found himself panting in a cold sweat.
It had been going so well.
He felt so tired all of a sudden. Why couldn’t he just rest for a little while?
No. He had to march out there and fight. He was Kaladin Stormblessed. They were depending on him. They needed him. He’d had a short leave. But now … now he needed to …
What if one of them dies because they were expecting your help, but you’ve frozen up again. What if the
y died like Tien? What if he froze like when Elhokar died? What if …
What if …
“Kaladin?”
Syl’s voice shook him awake. He found himself sitting beside the surgery room doorway, his back up against the wall, clutching the knife in front of him and trembling.
“Kaladin?” Syl asked again. She stepped forward on the floor. “I went to warn Queen Navani, as you asked. But I couldn’t get too far away from you, for some reason. I found some messengers though, and they said that they had orders from the queen—so she seems to know about the invasion already.”
He nodded.
“Kaladin, they’re everywhere,” Syl said. “The messenger said a big force came up from the caverns and took the heart pillar room. The enemy has the Oathgates running. They’re bringing in troops, and … Kaladin, what’s wrong with you?”
“Cold sweats,” he muttered. “Emotional detachment. Insensibility, accompanied by hyper-recall of traumatic moments.” Someone shouted out on the balcony and he jumped, brandishing the knife. “Severe anxiety…”
Footsteps in the hallway made Kaladin grip the knife harder in a sweaty hand. No Fused appeared, however. It was just his father carrying a bloodred sphere for light. He halted upon seeing Kaladin, then moved with exaggerated calmness, smiling in a friendly way. Storms. If his father put on that face, things really were bad.
“Put down the knife, son,” Lirin said softly. “It’s all right. You aren’t needed.”
“I’m well, Father,” Kaladin said. “I just … wasn’t quite ready to take up the fight so soon. That’s it.”
“Put down the knife and we’ll plan.”
“I need to resist.”
“Resist what?” Lirin said. “Together Laral, your mother, and I got our people into their rooms. The invading parshmen aren’t here to kill; nobody was hurt except for that fool Jam, who found a spear somehow.”
“Has the queen surrendered?” Kaladin asked.
Lirin didn’t reply, though his eyes were still on the knife.
“No,” Syl said. “At least, she was sending out orders. But Kaladin … they can’t fight for long. There are Fused among the enemy, and Regals, and … and almost every Shardbearer is out in the field. Every Surgebinder in the tower has been knocked unconscious.”
Rhythm of War (9781429952040) Page 61
