Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  You have no idea the power that awaits you, Venli, Ulim said to the Rhythm of Craving. In the old days, forms of power were reserved for the most special. The most valuable. They were strong, capable of amazing feats.

  “Then how did we ever lose?” she asked.

  Bah, it was a fluke. We couldn’t break the last Herald, and the humans found some way to pin the whole Oathpact on him. So we got stuck on Braize. Eventually the Unmade decided to start a war without us. That turned out to be exceedingly stupid. In the past, Odium granted forms of power, but Ba-Ado-Mishram thought she could do it. Ended up handing out forms of power as easily as Fused give each other titles, Connected herself to the entire singer species. Became a little god. Too little.

  “I … don’t understand.”

  I’ll bet you don’t. Basically, everyone relied way too much on an oversized spren. Trouble is, spren can get stuck in gemstones, and the humans figured this out. End result: Ba-Ado-Mishram got a really cramped prison, and everyone’s souls got seriously messed up.

  It will take something big to restore the minds of the singers around the world. So we’re going to prime the pump, so to speak, with your people. Get them into stormform and pull the big storm over from Shadesmar. Odium thinks it will work, and considering he’s anything but a little god, we are going to do what he says. It’s better than the alternative, which generally involves a lot of pain and the occasional flavorful dismemberment.

  Venli nodded to some listeners passing by. Members of another family; she could tell by the colors of the bands on their braids and the type of gemstone bits in the men’s beards. Venli deliberately hummed one of the weak old rhythms for them to hear, but these newcomers didn’t give her a second glance despite her importance.

  Patience, Ulim said. Once the Return arrives, you will be proclaimed as the one who initiated it—and you will be given everything you deserve as the most important of all listeners.

  “You say my ancestors were traitors,” Venli whispered. “But you need us. If they hadn’t split off, you wouldn’t have us to use in your plot. You should bless what they did.”

  They got lucky. Doesn’t mean they weren’t traitors.

  “Perhaps they knew what Ba-Ado-Mishram was going to do, and so they attuned Wisdom, not Betrayal, in their actions.”

  She knew the name, of course. As a keeper of songs, she knew the names of all nine Unmade—who were among the gods her people swore to never follow again. But the more she talked with Ulim, the less regard she gave the songs. The old listeners had memorized the wrong things. How could they retain the names of the Unmade, but forget something as simple as how to adopt workform?

  Anyway, who cares what your ancestors did? Ulim said. We need to prepare your people for forms of power, then get them to summon Odium’s storm. Everything will take care of itself after that.

  “That might be harder than you think, spren,” Venli said to Derision. She quieted her voice as another group of listeners passed. The city was so packed these days, you could barely find any peace to think.

  Forms of power, Venli. The ability to reshape the world. Strength beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed of having.

  She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her robe as she reached the heart of the city. She hadn’t realized she was coming this way, to her family’s home. She stepped inside, and found her mother picking apart a rug she had woven. Jaxlim glanced up at Venli, jumping.

  “It’s only me,” Venli said to Peace.

  “I got it wrong again,” Jaxlim said, huddling over her rug. “Wrong every time…”

  Venli tried to attune Indifference, one of the new rhythms, but she couldn’t find it. Not here, not with her mother. She instead settled down on the floor, cross-legged, like she’d sat as a child when learning the songs.

  “Mother?” Venli asked to Praise. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Why can’t I do anything right anymore?”

  “Mother, can you tell me the first song?” Venli whispered.

  Jaxlim kept picking at the rug.

  “You know it,” Venli said. “Days we sing. Days we once knew? Days of—”

  “Days of pain,” Jaxlim said, to the Rhythm of Memories. “Days of loss. Days of glory.”

  Venli nodded as Jaxlim continued. This song was more of a chant, the original recitation of her people leaving the war. Leaving their gods. Striking out on their own.

  This is painful to hear, Ulim noted. Your people had no idea what they were doing.

  Venli ignored him, listening, feeling the Rhythm of Memories. Feeling … like herself. This had all been about finding a way to help her mother, hadn’t it? At the start?

  No, she admitted. That’s what you told yourself. But you want more. You’ve always wanted more.

  She knew forms changed the way a person thought. But was she in a new form now? Ulim had been dodgy in explaining it. Evidently she had a normal spren in her gemheart to give her workform—but Ulim was there too, crowding in. And he could speak to her, even hear what she was thinking.

  You single-handedly delivered warform to your people, Ulim whispered. Once you give them additional forms, they will revere you. Worship you.

  She wanted that respect. She wanted it so badly. But she forced herself to listen to what her ancestors had done, four hundred of them striking out alone, wearing dullform.

  The fools were inbred, then, Ulim said. No wonder …

  “These people created us,” she whispered. Her mother continued singing, and didn’t seem to have heard the interruption. “They were not fools. They were heroes. Their primary teaching, preserved in everything we do, is to never let our gods rule us again. To never take up forms of power. To never serve Odium.”

  Then don’t serve him, Ulim said. Deal with him. You have something he needs—you can approach him from a place of power. Your ancestors were lowly things; that was why they wanted to leave. If they’d been at the top, like your people will be, they’d have never wanted such a thing.

  Venli nodded. But she was more persuaded by other arguments. War was coming with the humans. She could feel it in the way their soldiers eyed her people’s weapons. They had enslaved those parshmen. They’d do the same to Venli’s people.

  The ancient songs had become irrelevant the moment Eshonai had led the humans to the Shattered Plains. The listeners could no longer hide. Conflict would find them. It was no longer a choice between their gods or freedom. It was a choice between their gods and human slaving brands.

  How do we proceed? Ulim asked.

  Venli closed her eyes, listening to her mother’s words. Her ancestors had been desperate. “We will need to be equally desperate,” Venli whispered. “My people need to see what I have seen: that we can no longer remain as we have been.”

  The humans will destroy them.

  “Yes. Help me prove it.”

  I am your servant in this, Ulim said to Subservience. What do you propose?

  Venli listened. Jaxlim’s voice cracked and she trailed off. Jaxlim had forgotten the song again. The older femalen turned away and cried softly.

  It broke Venli’s heart.

  “You have agents among the humans, Ulim?” Venli whispered.

  We do.

  “Can you communicate with them?”

  I have ways of doing so.

  “Have your agents influence those at the palace,” Venli said. “Get the Alethi to invite us to visit. Their king spoke of it before he left; he’s considering it already. We must bring our people there, then show them how powerful the humans are. We must overwhelm my people with our own insignificance.”

  She stood up, then went to comfort her mother.

  We must make them afraid, Ulim, Venli thought. We must make them sing to the Terrors long into the night. Only then will they listen to our promises.

  It shall be done, he replied.

  Words.

  I used to be good with words.

  I used to be good at a lot of things.


  Venli tried to attune the Rhythm of Conceit as she walked the halls of Urithiru. She kept finding the Rhythm of Anxiety instead. It was difficult to attune an emotion she didn’t feel; doing so felt like a worse kind of lie than she normally told. Not a lie to others, or to herself. A lie to Roshar.

  Timbre pulsed comfortingly. These were dangerous times, requiring dangerous choices.

  “That sounds an awful lot like the things Ulim told me,” Venli whispered.

  Timbre pulsed again. The little spren was of the opinion that Venli couldn’t be blamed for what she’d done, that the Voidspren had manipulated her mind, her emotions, her goals.

  Timbre, for all her wisdom, was wrong in this. Ulim had heightened Venli’s ambitions, her arrogance, but she’d given him the tools to work with. A part of her continued to feel some of those things. Worse, Ulim had occasionally left her gemheart during those days, and she’d still gone through with those plans, without his influence.

  She might not bear full blame for what had happened. But she’d been a willing part of it. Now she had to do her best to make up for it. So she kept her head high, walking as if she owned the tower, trailed by Rlain, who carried the large crate as if on her orders. Everyone needed to see her treating him as a servant; hopefully that would quash some of the rumors about the two of them.

  He hurried closer as they entered a less populated section of the tower. “The tower does feel darker now, Venli,” he said to the Rhythm of Anxiety—which didn’t help her own mood. “Ever since…”

  “Hush,” she said. She knew what he’d been about to say: Ever since the fight in the market.

  The whole tower knew by now that Kaladin Stormblessed, Windrunner and champion, fought. That his powers still functioned. The Fused had worked hard to spread a different narrative—that he’d been faking Radiant powers with fabrials, that he’d been killed during a cruel attack on innocent singer civilians in the market.

  Venli found that story far-fetched, and she knew Stormblessed only by reputation. She doubted the propaganda would fool many humans. If Raboniel had been behind it, the message would have been more subtle. Unfortunately, the Lady of Wishes spent most of her time with her research, and instead let the Pursuer lead.

  His personal troops dominated the tower. Already there had been a half dozen instances of singers beating humans near to death. This place was a simmering cauldron, waiting for the added bit of fuel that would bring it to a boil. Venli needed to be ready to get her people out when that happened. Hopefully the crate Rlain carried would help with that.

  Head high. Hum to Conceit. Walk slowly but deliberately.

  By the time they reached the Radiant infirmary, Venli’s nerves were so tight she could have played a rhythm on them. She shut the door after Rlain—they’d recently had it installed by some human workers—and finally attuned Joy.

  Inside the infirmary, the human surgeon and his wife cared for the comatose Radiants. They did a far better job of it than Venli’s staff; the surgeon knew how to minimize the formation of sores on the humans’ bodies and how to spot signs of dehydration.

  When Venli and Rlain entered, the surgeon’s wife—Hesina—hurried over. “Is this them?” she asked Rlain, helping him with the crate.

  “Nah, it’s my laundry,” he said to Amusement. “Figured Venli here is so mighty and important, she might be able to get someone to wash it for me.”

  Joking? Now? How could he act so indifferent? If they were discovered, it would mean their executions—or worse.

  The human woman laughed. They carried the box to the back of the room, away from the door. Hesina’s son put down the shoestrings he’d been playing with and toddled over. Rlain ruffled his hair, then opened the crate. He moved the decoy papers on top, revealing a group of map cases.

  Hesina breathed out in a human approximation of the Rhythm of Awe.

  “After Kal and I parted,” Rlain explained, “and the queen surrendered, I realized I could go anywhere in the tower. A little black ash mixed with water covered my tattoo, blending it into my pattern. Humans were confined to quarters, and so long as I looked like I was doing something important, the singers ignored me.

  “So I thought to myself, ‘What can I do to best undermine the occupation?’ I figured I had a day at most before the singers got organized and people started asking who I was. I thought about sabotaging the wells, but realized that would hurt too many innocents. I settled on this.”

  He waved his hand over the round tubes filling the crate. Hesina took one out and unrolled the map inside. It depicted the thirty-seventh floor of the tower, meticulously mapped.

  “So far as I know,” Rlain said, “guard posts and master-servant quarters just contain maps of the lower floors. The upper-level maps were kept in two places: the queen’s information vault and the map room. I stopped by the map room and found it burned out, likely at the queen’s order. The vault was on the ground floor, far from where her troops could have reached. I figured it might still be intact.”

  Rlain shrugged a human shrug. “It was shockingly easy to get in,” he continued to Resolve. “The human guards had been killed or removed, but the singers didn’t know the value of the place yet. I walked right through a checkpoint, stuffed everything I could into a sack, and wandered out. I said I was on a search detail sent to collect any form of human writing.”

  “It was brave,” Lirin the surgeon said, stepping over and folding his arms. “But I don’t know how useful it will be, Rlain. There’s not much they’d want on the upper floors.”

  “It might help Kaladin stay hidden,” Rlain said.

  “Maybe,” Lirin said. “I worry you put yourself through an awful lot of effort and danger to accomplish what might add up to a mild inconvenience for the occupation.”

  The man was a pragmatist, which Venli appreciated. She, however, was interested in other matters. “The tunnel complex,” she said. “Is there a map here of the tunnels under the tower?”

  Rlain dug for a moment, then pulled out a map. “Here,” he said. “Why?”

  Venli took it reverently. “It’s one of the few paths of escape, Rlain. I came in through those tunnels—they’re a complicated maze. Raboniel knew her way through, but I doubt I could get us out on my own. But with this…”

  “Didn’t the enemy collapse those tunnels?” Lirin asked.

  “Yes,” Venli said. “But I might have a way around that.”

  “Even if you do,” Lirin said, “we’d have to travel through the most heavily guarded section of the tower—where the Fused are doing their research on the tower fabrials.”

  Yes, but could she use her powers to form a tunnel through the stone? One that bypassed Raboniel’s workstation and the shield, then intersected with these caverns below?

  Perhaps. Though there was still the greater problem. Before they could run, she had to ensure the Fused wouldn’t give chase. Escaping the tower only to die by a Heavenly One’s hand in the mountains would accomplish nothing.

  “Rlain,” Hesina said. “These are wonderful. You did more than anyone could have expected of you.”

  “I might have been able to do more, if I hadn’t messed up,” Rlain said to Reconciliation. “I was stopped in the hallway, asked to give the name of the Fused I was operating under. I should have played dumb instead of using the name of one I’d heard earlier in the day. Turns out that Fused doesn’t keep a staff. She’s one of the lost ones.”

  “You could have locked yourself in a cell the moment the tower fell,” Lirin said, “and pretended to be a prisoner. That way, the Fused could have liberated you, and no one would be suspicious.”

  “Every human in the tower knows about me, Lirin,” Rlain said. “The ‘tame’ Parshendi your son ‘keeps.’ If I’d tried a ploy like that, the singers would have found me eventually, and I’d have ended up in a cell for real.” He shrugged again. “Did anyway though.”

  He and Hesina began digging through the maps, Rlain chatting with them as they did. He seemed t
o like these humans, and looked more comfortable around them than he was with her. Beyond that, the way he used human mannerisms to exaggerate his emotions—the way the rhythms were a subtle accent to his words, rather than the driving power behind them—it all seemed a little … pathetic.

  Lirin returned to his work tending the unconscious. Venli strolled over to him, attuning Curiosity. “You don’t like what they’re doing,” Venli said, nodding toward the other two.

  “I’m undecided,” Lirin said. “My gut says that stealing a few maps won’t hurt the occupation. But perhaps if we turned the maps in and claimed we found them in a forgotten room, there’s a good chance it would earn us favor with the Fused. Perhaps it would prove Hesina and I aren’t malcontents, so we could come out of hiding.”

  “It isn’t the hiding that protects you,” Venli said, “it is Lady Leshwi’s favor. Without it, the Pursuer would kill you, no matter what you did to prove yourself. He’d kill other Fused, if he thought it would let him fulfill his tradition. And the others would applaud him.”

  Lirin grunted—a human version of Derision, she thought—as he knelt beside a Radiant and lifted her eyelids to check her eyes. “Nice to know your government has its idiocies too.”

  “You really don’t want to resist, do you?” Venli said to Awe. “You truly want to live with the occupation.”

  “I resist by controlling my situation,” Lirin said. “And by working with those in power, rather than giving them reason to hurt me and mine. It’s a lesson I learned very painfully. Fetch me some water.”

  Venli was halfway to the water station before she realized she’d done what he said, despite telling him—several times—that he needed to show her more respect. What a strange man. His attitude was so commanding and in charge, but he used it to reinforce his own subservience.

  Timbre thrummed as Venli returned to him with the water. She needed to practice her powers some more—particularly if she might be required to tunnel them down through many feet of rock to reach an exit. She took the tunnel map and gave it to Jial, one of her loyalists. Jial folded it and placed it into her pocket as a knock sounded at the door.