Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  “That sounds normal to me. Healthy. You’re dealing with the loss when you never really did so before. Now that you’re coming fully back to yourself, you’re finally confronting things you’ve been ignoring.”

  “You just told me not to think about it though,” Syl said. “Will that actually help?”

  Kaladin winced. No, it wouldn’t. He’d tried. “Distractions can be helpful. Doing something, reminding yourself there’s a lot out there that’s wonderful. But … you do have to think about these things eventually, I guess.” He filled the syringe again. “You shouldn’t ask me about this sort of problem. I’m … not the best at dealing with them myself.”

  “I feel like I shouldn’t have to deal with them,” Syl said. “I’m a spren, not a human. If I’m thinking like this, doesn’t it mean I’m broken?”

  “It means you’re alive,” Kaladin said. “I’d be more worried if you didn’t feel loss.”

  “Maybe it’s because you humans created us.”

  “Or it’s because you’re a little piece of divinity, like you always say.” Kaladin shrugged. “If there is a god, then I think we could find him in the way we care about one another. Humans thinking about the wind, and honor, might have given you shape from formless power—but you’re your own person now. As I’m my own person, though my parents gave me shape.”

  She smiled at that, and walked across the shelf wearing the form of a woman in a havah. “A person,” she said. “I like thinking like that. Being like that. A lot of the other honorspren, they talk about what we were made to be, what we must do. I talked like that once. I was wrong.”

  “A lot of humans are the same,” he said, leaning down so he was eye level with her. “I guess we both need to remember that whatever’s happening in our heads, whatever it was that created us, we get to choose. That’s what makes us people, Syl.”

  She smiled, then her havah bled from a light white-blue to a deeper blue color, striking and distinct, like it was made of real cloth.

  “You’re getting better at that,” he said. “The colors are more vibrant this time.”

  She held up her arms. “I think the closer I get to your world, the more I can become, the more I can change.”

  She seemed to like that idea and sat, making her dress fade from one shade of blue to another, and then to a green. Kaladin finished giving Teft the syringe of water, then held it up. The sides of the metal had fingerprints in them, sunken into the surface. This device had been Soulcast into metal after first being formed from wax—the fingerprints were a telltale sign.

  “You can become more things,” he said. “Like a syringe maybe? We talked about you becoming other tools.”

  “I think I could do it,” she said. “If I could manifest as a Blade right now, I could change shape to be like that. I think … you imagining it, me believing it, we could do even more. It—”

  She cut off as a faint scraping sounded outside, from near the doorway. Immediately Kaladin reached for his scalpel. Syl came alert, zipping up into the air around him as a ribbon of light. Kaladin crept toward the door. He’d covered up the gemstone in the wall on this side with a piece of cloth. He didn’t know if his light would shine out or not, but wasn’t taking any chances.

  But he could hear. Someone was out there, their boots scraping stone. Were they inspecting the door?

  He made a snap decision, slipping his hand under the cloth and pressing it against the stone, commanding it to open. The rocks began to split. Kaladin prepared to leap out and attack the singer on the other side.

  But it wasn’t a singer.

  It was Dabbid.

  The unassuming bridgeman wore street clothing, and he stepped away from the door as it opened. He saw Kaladin and nodded to him, as if this were all completely expected.

  “Dabbid?” Kaladin said. Other than Rlain, Dabbid was the only original bridgeman who hadn’t manifested Windrunner powers. So it made sense he was awake. But how had he found his way here?

  Dabbid held up a pot with something liquid inside. Kaladin gave it a sniff. “Broth?” he asked. “How did you know?”

  Dabbid pointed at the line of crystal on the wall, where the tower spren’s light began to twinkle. Surprising; along with being mute, the man didn’t often volunteer information.

  Holding the pot awkwardly, Dabbid tapped his wrists together. Bridge Four.

  “I am so glad to see you,” Kaladin said, leading him into the room. “How did you get broth? Never mind. Here, come sit by Teft.” Dabbid was one of the first men Kaladin had saved when he’d started administering medical aid to the bridgemen. While Dabbid’s physical wounds had healed, his battle shock was the strongest Kaladin had ever seen.

  Regardless, he was a wonderful sight. Kaladin had been worrying about leaving Teft. If Kaladin died on a mission, that would be a death sentence for Teft too. Unless someone else knew about him.

  He got Dabbid situated, then showed him the use of the syringe and had him start feeding Teft. Kaladin felt bad, putting the mute bridgeman to work as soon as he arrived, but—by Syl’s internal clock—night would soon arrive. Kaladin needed to get moving.

  “I’ll explain more when I return,” Kaladin promised. “Dabbid, can you get this door open? In case you need to fetch more food and water.”

  Dabbid walked over and put his hand on the door’s gemstone; it opened for him as easily as it did for Kaladin. That was somewhat worrisome. Kaladin touched the wall garnet. “Tower spren?” he asked.

  Yes.

  “Is there a way I can lock these doors, so they can’t be opened by just anyone?”

  It was once possible to attune them to individuals. These days, I must simply leave a given door so it can be opened by anyone, or lock it so none can open it.

  Well, it was good to know that—in a pinch—he should be able to ask the Sibling to lock the door. For now, it was enough that Dabbid could get in and out.

  Kaladin nodded to Syl, left one gemstone to give Dabbid light, then slipped out.

  * * *

  Navani had asked Kaladin to observe the Oathgates up close as they were activated. To see if he could figure out why they functioned when other fabrials did not.

  Unfortunately, Kaladin doubted he’d be able to get all the way down to the Oathgate plateau by sneaking through the hallways of the tower. He had made it to an out-of-the-way monastery on the fourth floor, yes, but that was a long way from the highly populated first two floors. Even if humans weren’t confined to quarters, Kaladin couldn’t saunter along without getting stopped. Kaladin Stormblessed drew attention.

  Instead, he wanted to try climbing along the outside of the tower. Before he’d learned to fly, he’d stuck rocks to the chasm wall and climbed them. He figured he could do something similar now. The enemy had plainly ordered the Heavenly Ones to stay inside, and few people went out on the balconies.

  So he made his way onto a balcony on the tenth floor right as dusk was arriving. He’d tied a sack to his belt, and in it he’d stuffed the four scrub brushes he’d gotten from the monastery. Earlier, he’d cut the bristles free with his scalpel, leaving them flat on the front but with a curved handle for holding.

  Kaladin couldn’t paint his hands with a Full Lashing to stick them to things. Lopen kept sticking his clothing or hair to the floor, but a Radiant’s skin seemed immune to the power. Perhaps Kaladin could have rigged some gloves that worked, but the brush handholds seemed sturdier.

  He leaned out of the balcony and checked to see if anyone was watching. It was growing dark already. He doubted anyone would be able to see him in the gloom, so long as he didn’t draw in too much Stormlight. By keeping it mostly in the brushes attached to the wall, he wouldn’t glow so much that he risked being spotted. At least, the risk of that felt far less than the risk of sneaking through the occupied floors.

  Best to try it first in a way that wasn’t dangerous. Kaladin took out one of the brushes and infused it with Stormlight, then pressed the flat side against a pillar on th
e balcony. With it affixed in place, he was able to hang his entire weight on it—dangling free—without it pulling off or the handle breaking.

  “Good enough,” he said, recovering the Stormlight from the Lashing. He took off his socks, but replaced his boots. He scanned the air for Heavenly Ones one last time, then stepped over the side of the balcony and balanced on the little ledge outside. He looked down toward the stones far below, but they were lost in the evening darkness. He felt as if he were standing on the edge of eternity.

  He’d always liked being up high. Even before becoming Radiant, he’d felt a certain kinship with the open sky. Standing here, part of him wanted to jump, to feel the rushing wind. It wasn’t some suicidal tendency, not this time. It was the call of something beautiful.

  “Are you scared?” Syl said.

  “No,” Kaladin said. “The opposite. I’ve gotten so accustomed to leaping from high places that I’m not nearly as worried about this as I probably should be.”

  He infused two of the brushes, then moved to the far left side of the balcony. Here the stone wall made a straight “path” toward the ground between balconies. Kaladin took a deep breath and swung out and slammed one brush against the stone, then the other.

  He found footholds on the stone, but they were slippery. Once, there had been a great deal of ornamentation on the rock out here—but years of highstorms had smoothed some of that out. Perhaps Lift could have climbed it without help, but Kaladin was glad he had Stormlight. He infused the toes of his boots through his feet, then stuck them to the wall too.

  He started toward the ground, unsticking one limb, moving it, then sticking it back. Syl walked through the air beside him, as if striding down invisible steps. Kaladin found the descent more difficult than he’d anticipated. He had to rely a great deal on his upper-body strength, as it was difficult to get the boots to stick right, with just the toes.

  He’d release one brush from the wall, then slide it into place while holding on with only one hand, then move his feet before moving the other. Though Radiant, he was sweating from exertion by the time he reached the fifth floor. He decided to take a break, and—after having Syl check to make sure it was empty—he moved over and swung onto a balcony. He settled down, breathing deeply, a few spiky coldspren moving across the balcony rail toward him, like friendly cremlings.

  Syl darted into the hallway to make sure nobody was near. Fortunately, the increasingly cold tower—and the desire for subterfuge—seemed to have convinced most of the invading singers to take quarters far inward. So long as he stayed away from patrols, he should be safe.

  He sat with his back to the balcony railing, feeling his muscles burn. As a soldier, then a bridgeman, he’d grown accustomed to the sensation of overexerted muscles. He almost felt cheated these days, because Stormlight’s healing made the feeling rare. Indeed, after he sat for a minute, the sensation was completely gone.

  Once Syl returned, he resumed his climb. As he did, a couple of windspren drew near: little lines of light that looped about him. As he descended toward the fourth floor, they would occasionally show faces at him—or the outlines of figures—before giggling and flitting off.

  Syl watched them with fondness. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but didn’t dare speak, lest someone inside hear voices coming in through a window. He took care to press his handholds into place quietly.

  Kaladin hit a snag as he reached the fourth floor. Syl noticed first, becoming a ribbon and making the glyph for “stop” in the air beside him. He froze, then heard it. Voices.

  He nodded to Syl, who went to investigate. He felt her concern through the bond; when Syl was a Blade, they had a direct mental connection—but when she was not in that shape, the connection was softer. They’d been practicing on sending words to one another, but they tended to be vague impressions.

  This time, he got a sense of some distinct words.… singers … with spyglasses … third-floor balcony … looking up …

  Kaladin hung in place, silent as he could be. He could hear them below and to the left, on a balcony. They had spyglasses? Why?

  To watch the sky, he thought, trying to project the idea to Syl. For Windrunner scouts. They won’t want to use the Oathgate until they’re certain nobody is watching.

  Syl returned, and Kaladin started to feel his muscles burning again. He wiped his sweaty brow on his sleeve, then carefully—his teeth gritted—drew in Stormlight to release one of his brush handholds. His skin started to release luminescent smoke, but before the light became too obvious, he re-Lashed the brush and stretched out, attaching it to the rock as far to his right as he could reach.

  He moved to the side, away from the occupied balcony. He could climb across the next balcony over. As he moved, he heard the singers chatting in Alethi—femalen voices he thought, though some singer forms made gender difficult to distinguish from the voice. Judging by the conversation, they were indeed watching for Windrunners. They did Oathgate transfers at night deliberately—when flying Radiants would be starkly visible, glowing in the night sky.

  Kaladin crossed over two balconies to his right, then continued down another open flat corridor of stone. He was on the northern part of the tower, and had moved west to get away from the scouts. Syl kept checking the nearby balconies as Kaladin continued his methodical pace. Unfortunately, soon after he’d passed the third floor, a dark light flashed from the Oathgates. It was tinged violet like Voidlight, but was brighter than a Voidlight sphere.

  Kaladin took a moment to rest, hanging on but not moving. “Syl,” he whispered. “Go check on those scouts on the balcony. Tell me if they’re still watching the sky.”

  She zipped off, then returned a moment later.

  “They’re packing up their things,” she whispered. “Looks like they’re leaving.”

  That was what he’d feared. The enemy would use the Oathgates as infrequently as possible, as moving singer troops in and out of the tower would expose them to spying eyes. If the scouts were packing up, it was a fairly solid indication that the Oathgates wouldn’t be used again tonight. Kaladin had been too slow.

  But the gate had flashed with Voidlight. So he knew they’d done something to the fabrial. He’d have to try again tomorrow; he’d moved slower than he’d intended today, but he felt good about the process. A little more practice, and he could probably get down fast enough. But would getting close to the Oathgates tell him anything about what had been done to them? He didn’t feel he knew enough about fabrials.

  For now, he started climbing back up to see how much more difficult it was. This was slower, but the footholds with his boots were more helpful. As he ascended, he found a fierce pride in the effort. The changes to the tower had tried to keep him confined to the ground, but the sky was his. He’d found a way to scale her again, if in a less impressive way. If he …

  Kaladin paused, hanging from his handholds, as something struck him. Something that he felt profoundly stupid for having not seen immediately.

  “The scouts on the balcony,” he whispered to Syl as she darted in to see why he’d stopped. “What would they have done if they’d spotted Windrunners in the sky?”

  “They’d have told the others to stop the transfer,” Syl said, “so the fact that the Oathgate glowed the wrong color wouldn’t give away the truth.”

  “How?” Kaladin asked. “How did they contact the Oathgate operators? Did you see flags or anything?”

  “No,” Syl said. “They were just sitting there writing in the dark. They must have been using … a spanreed.”

  One that worked in the tower. Navani was trying to figure out how the enemy was operating fabrials. What if he could hand her one? Surely that would lead to more valuable information than he would get by observing the Oathgates.

  Syl zipped over to the balcony the scouts had been using. “I can see them!” she said. “They’ve packed up, and they’re leaving, but they’re just ahead.”

  Follow, Kaladin sent her mentally, then moved as
quickly as he could in that direction. He might have missed the night’s transfer, but there was still a way he could help.

  And it involved stealing that spanreed.

  But how can we not, in searching, wish for a specific result? What scientist goes into a project without a hope for what they will find?

  —From Rhythm of War, page 6 undertext

  Venli inspected the large model of the tower. Such an intricate construction, a masterwork of sculpting, bathed in violet moonlight through the window. What had it been used for by the Radiants of old, all those years ago? Was this a forgotten art piece, or something more? She’d heard several Voidspren saying that perhaps it was a scale model for the spren to live in, but—for all its intricacy—it didn’t have things like furniture or doors.

  She walked around it, passing through the middle, where it was split to show a cross section. For some reason, seeing it in miniature highlighted how impossibly vast the tower was. Even reconstructed like this, it was twice Venli’s height.

  She shook her head and left the model behind, moving among the fallen Radiants, each of whom lay silent on the floor of this large chamber. According to Raboniel’s request, Venli had found a place to keep them all together. She’d wanted them on the ground floor, close enough to the basement rooms to be sent for, but that region of the tower was quite well occupied. So rather than go to the trouble of kicking people out of a chamber to use, Venli had appropriated this newly discovered—and empty—one. It had only one entrance, so it was easy to guard, and the window provided natural light.

  There were around fifty of them in total. Perhaps with such low numbers, Raboniel’s forces could have taken this place even if the Radiants had fought. Perhaps not. There was something about these modern Radiants. The Fused seemed to be constantly surprised by them. Everyone had expected impotence, inexperience. Roshar had gone centuries without the Radiant bond. These had no masters to train them; they had to discover everything on their own. How did they do so well?

  Timbre pulsed her thoughts on the matter. Sometimes ignorance was an advantage, as you weren’t limited by the expectations of the past. Perhaps that was it. Or perhaps it was something else. New, younger spren, enthusiastic—pitted against weary old Fused souls.