A note beside the food said that Vathah and her soldiers had arrived, and had been quartered in a tenement nearby. Her slaves had been incorporated into the manor’s staff for the time being.
Chewing on the bread—it was delightful—Shallan went over to her trunks with the intent of unpacking. When she opened the first, however, she was confronted by a blinking red light. Tyn’s spanreed.
Shallan stared at it. That would be the person who relayed Tyn’s information. Shallan assumed it was a woman, though since the information relay station was in Tashikk, they might not even be Vorin. It could be a man.
She knew so little. She was going to have to be very careful . . . storms, she might get herself killed even if she was careful. Shallan was tired, however, of being pushed around.
These people knew something about Urithiru. It was, dangerous or not, Shallan’s best lead. She took out the spanreed, prepared its board with paper, and placed the reed. Once she turned the dial to indicate she had set up, the pen remained hanging there, immobile, but did not immediately start writing. The person trying to contact her had stepped away—the pen could have been in there blinking for hours. She’d have to wait until the person on the other side returned.
“Inconvenient,” she said, then smiled at herself. Was she really complaining about waiting a few minutes for instantaneous communication across half the world?
I will need to find a way to contact my brothers, she thought. That would be distressingly slow, without a spanreed. Could she arrange a message through one of these relay stations in Tashikk using a different intermediary, perhaps?
She settled back down on the couch—pen and writing board near the tray of food—and looked through the stack of previous communications that Tyn had exchanged with this distant person. There weren’t many. Tyn had probably destroyed them periodically. The ones remaining involved questions regarding Jasnah, House Davar, and the Ghostbloods.
One oddity stood out to Shallan. The way Tyn spoke of this group wasn’t like that of a thief and one-off employers. Tyn spoke of “getting in good” and “moving up” within the Ghostbloods.
“Pattern,” Pattern said.
“What?” Shallan asked, looking toward him.
“Pattern,” he replied. “In the words. Mmm.”
“Of this sheet?” Shallan asked, holding up the page.
“There and others,” Pattern said. “See the first words?”
Shallan frowned, inspecting the sheets. In each one, the first words came from the remote writer. A simple sentence asking after Tyn’s health or status. Tyn replied simply each time.
“I don’t understand,” Shallan said.
“They form groups of five,” Pattern said. “Quintets, the letters. Mmm. Each message follows a pattern—first three words start with one each of three of the quintet of letters. Tyn’s reply, the two that match.”
Shallan looked it over, though she couldn’t see what Pattern meant. He explained it again, and she thought she grasped it, but the pattern was complex.
“A code,” Shallan said. It made sense; you’d want a way to authenticate that the right person was on the other end of the spanreed. She blushed as she realized she had almost ruined this opportunity. If Pattern hadn’t seen this, or if the spanreed had started writing immediately, Shallan would have exposed herself.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t infiltrate a group skilled and powerful enough to bring down Jasnah herself. She just couldn’t.
And yet she had to.
She got out her sketchbook and started to draw, letting her fingers move on their own. She needed to be older, but not too much older. She’d be darkeyed. People would remark upon a lighteyes they didn’t know moving through camp. A darkeyes would be more invisible. To the right people, though, she could imply that she was using the eyedrops.
Dark hair. Long, like her real hair, but not red. Same height, same build, but a much different face. Worn features, like Tyn’s. A scar across the chin, a more angular face. Not as pretty, but not ugly either. More . . . straightforward.
She sucked in Stormlight from the lamp beside her, and that energy made her draw more quickly. It wasn’t excitement. It was a need to go forward.
She finished with a flourish, and found a face staring back at her from the page, almost alive. Shallan breathed out Light and felt it envelop her, twist about her. Her vision clouded for a moment, and she saw only the glow of that fading Stormlight.
Then it was gone. She didn’t feel any different. She prodded at her face. It felt the same. Had she—
The lock of hair hanging down over her shoulder was black. Shallan stared at it, then rose from her seat, eager and timid at the same time. She crossed to the washroom and stepped up to the mirror there, looking at a face transformed, one with tan skin and dark eyes. The face from her drawing, given color and life.
“It works . . .” she whispered. This was more than changing scuffs in her dress or making herself look older, as she’d done before. This was a complete transformation. “What can we do with this?”
“Whatever we imagine,” Pattern said from the wall nearby. “Or whatever you can imagine. I am not good with what is not. But I like it. I like the . . . taste . . . of it.” He seemed very pleased with himself at that comment.
Something was off. Shallan frowned, holding up her sketch, realizing she’d left a spot unfinished on the side of the nose. The Lightweaving there didn’t cover up her nose completely, and had a kind of fuzzy gap in the side. It was small; someone else would probably just see it as a strange scar. To her, it seemed glaring, and offended her artistic sense.
She prodded at the rest of the nose. She’d made it slightly larger than her real one, and could reach through the image to touch her nose. The image had no substance to it. In fact, if she moved her finger quickly through the tip of the false nose, it fuzzed to Stormlight, like smoke that had been blown away by a gust.
She removed her fingers, and the image snapped back into place, though it still had that gap on the side. Sloppy drawing on her part.
“How long will the image last?” she asked.
“It feeds on Light,” Pattern said.
Shallan dug the spheres from her safepouch. They were all dun—she’d likely used those up in the conversation with the highprinces. She took one from the lamp on the wall, replacing it with a dun sphere of the same denomination, and carried it in her fist.
Shallan went back into the sitting room. She’d need a different outfit, of course. A darkeyed woman wouldn’t—
The spanreed was writing.
Shallan hastened over to the sofa, breath catching as she saw the words appear. I think some information I have today will work. A simple introduction, but it followed the right pattern for the code.
“Mmm,” Pattern said.
She needed the first two words of her reply to start with the proper letters. But you said that last time, she wrote, hopefully completing the code.
Don’t worry, the messenger wrote. You’ll like this, though the timing might be tight. They want to meet.
Good, Shallan wrote back, relaxing—and blessing the time Tyn had spent forcing her to practice forgery techniques. She’d taken to it quickly, as it was a kind of drawing, but Tyn’s suggestions now let her imitate the woman’s own sloppier writing with demonstrable skill.
They want to meet tonight, Tyn, the reed wrote.
Tonight? What time was it? A clock on the wall read half past first night bell. It was just first moon, right after dark. She picked up the spanreed and started to write, “I don’t know if I’m ready,” but stopped herself. That wasn’t how Tyn would say it.
I’m not ready, she wrote instead.
They were insistent, the messenger returned. It is why I tried to contact you earlier. Apparently, Jasnah’s ward arrived today. What happened?
It is none of your concern, Shallan wrote back, matching the tone Tyn had used previously in these conversations. The person on the other end was a servant, not a colle
ague.
Of course, the reed wrote. But they want to meet you tonight. If you refuse, it might mean a severing of ties.
Stormfather! Tonight? Shallan ran her fingers through her hair, staring at the page. Could she do it tonight?
Would waiting really change anything?
Heart thumping, she wrote, I thought I had Jasnah’s ward captive, but the girl betrayed me. I’m not well. But I will send my apprentice.
Another one, Tyn? the reed wrote. After what happened with Si? Anyway, I doubt they’ll like meeting with an apprentice.
They don’t have a choice, Shallan wrote.
Perhaps she could have created a Lightweaving around herself that made her look like Tyn, but she doubted she was ready for something like that. Pretending to be someone she’d invented would be tough enough—but imitating a specific person? She’d be discovered for sure.
I’ll see, the messenger wrote.
Shallan waited. In distant Tashikk, the messenger would be getting out another spanreed and acting as intermediary to the Ghostbloods. Shallan spent the time checking on the sphere she’d carried in from the washroom.
Its light had faded a small amount. Keeping this Lightweaving going would require her to keep a stock of infused spheres on her person.
The spanreed started writing again. They’ll do it. Can you get to Sebarial’s warcamp quickly?
I think I can, Shallan wrote. Why there?
It’s one of the few with gates open all night, the messenger wrote. There is a tenement where your employers will meet your apprentice. I’ll draw you a map. Have your apprentice arrive at Salas’s moonheight. Good luck.
A sketch followed, indicating the location. Salas’s moonheight? She’d have twenty-five minutes, and she didn’t know the camp at all. Shallan leaped to her feet, then froze. She couldn’t go like this, dressed as a lighteyed woman. She hurried to Tyn’s trunk and dug through clothing.
A few minutes later she stood in front of the mirror, wearing loose brown trousers, a white buttoned shirt, and a thin glove on her safehand. She felt naked with her hand exposed like that. The trousers weren’t so bad—darkeyed women wore them when working the plantation back home, though she’d never seen a lighteyed lady in them. But that glove . . .
She shivered, noticing that her false face blushed when she did. The nose moved when she wrinkled her own as well. That was a good thing, though she’d been hoping to be able to hide her embarrassment.
She pulled on one of Tyn’s white coats. The stiff thing went all the way down to the top of her boots, and she tied it at the waist with a thick black hogshide belt so that it was mostly closed in front, as Tyn had worn it. She finished by replacing the spheres in the pouch in her pocket with infused ones from the lamps in the room.
That flaw in her nose still bothered her. Something to shade the face, she thought, hurrying back to her trunk. There, she dug out Bluth’s white hat, the one with the sides that folded upward at a slant. Hopefully it would look better on her than it had on Bluth.
She put it on, and when she returned to the mirror, she was pleased with how it shaded her face. It did look kind of silly. But then, she felt that everything about this outfit looked silly. A gloved hand? Trousers? The coat had seemed imposing on Tyn—it indicated experience and a sense of personal style. When Shallan wore it, she looked like she was pretending. She saw through the illusion to the frightened girl from rural Jah Keved.
Authority is not a real thing. Jasnah’s words. It is mere vapors—an illusion. I can create that illusion . . . as can you.
Shallan stood up taller, straightened the hat, then went to the bedroom and tucked a few things in her pockets, including the map of where to go. She walked to the window and pulled it open. Fortunately, she was on the ground floor.
“Here we go,” she whispered to Pattern.
Out she went, into the night.
And thus were the disturbances in the Revv toparchy quieted, when, upon their ceasing to prosecute their civil dissensions, Nalan’Elin betook himself to finally accept the Skybreakers who had named him their master, when initially he had spurned their advances and, in his own interests, refused to countenance that which he deemed a pursuit of vanity and annoyance; this was the last of the Heralds to admit to such patronage.
—From Words of Radiance, chapter 5, page 17
The warcamp was still busy, despite the hour. She wasn’t surprised; her time in Kharbranth had taught her that not everyone treated the arrival of night as a reason to stop working. Here, there were nearly as many people about in the streets as when she’d first ridden through.
And almost nobody paid attention to her.
For once, she didn’t feel conspicuous. Even in Kharbranth, people had glanced at her—noticed her, considered her. Some had thought of robbing her, others of how to use her. A young lighteyes without proper escort was distinctive, and possibly an opportunity. However, while wearing straight dark hair and dark brown eyes, she might as well have been invisible. It was wonderful.
Shallan smiled, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat—she still felt embarrassed by that gloved safehand, though nobody even looked at it.
She reached an intersection. In one direction, the warcamp glittered with torches and oil lanterns. A market, busy enough that nobody trusted spheres in their lamps. Shallan walked toward it; she’d be safer on the more traveled streets. Her fingers crinkled on the paper in her pocket, and she drew it out as she stopped to wait for a group of chattering people to move from in front of her.
The map looked easy enough to parse. She just needed to get her bearings. She waited, then finally realized that the group in front of her wasn’t going to move. She was expecting them to defer to her as they would a lighteyes. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she went around them.
It continued like that; she was forced to squeeze through tight places between bodies, and was jostled as she walked. This market flowed like two rivers passing one another, with shops on either side and vendors peddling food in the center. It was even covered in some places by awnings that stretched across to the buildings on the other side.
Perhaps only ten paces across, it was a claustrophobic, bustling, jabbering mess. And Shallan loved it. She found herself wanting to stop and sketch half the people she passed. They all seemed so full of life, whether haggling or simply walking with a friend and chewing on a snack. Why hadn’t she gone out more in Kharbranth?
She stopped, grinning at a man performing a show with puppets and a box. Farther down the way, a Herdazian used a sparkflicker and some kind of oil to make bursts of flame in the air. If she could just stop off a little time and do a sketch of him . . .
No. She had business to be about. Part of her didn’t want to go forward with it, obviously, and her mind was trying to distract her. She was becoming increasingly aware of this defense of hers. She used it, she needed it, but she couldn’t let it control her life.
She did stop at the cart of a woman selling glazed fruit, however. They looked juicy and red, and had been stabbed through with a little stick before being dipped in a glassy melted sugar. Shallan pulled a sphere from her pocket and held it out.
The woman froze, staring at the sphere. Others stopped nearby. What was the problem? It was just an emerald mark. It wasn’t like she’d gotten out the broam.
She looked at the glyphs listing prices. A stick of candied fruit was a single clearchip. Denominations of spheres wasn’t something she’d often had to think about, but if she remembered . . .
Her mark was worth two hundred and fifty times the cost of the treat. Even in her family’s strained state, this wouldn’t have been considered much money to them. But that was on the level of houses and estates, not the level of street vendors and working darkeyes.
“Uh, I don’t think I can change that,” the woman said. “Er . . . citizen.” A title given to a wealthy darkeyes of the first or second nahn.
Shallan blushed. How many times was she going to prove jus
t how naive she was? “It’s for one of the treats, and for some help. I’m new to the area. I could use some directions.”
“Expensive way to get directions, miss,” the woman said, but pocketed the sphere with deft fingers nonetheless.
“I need to find Nar Street.”
“Ah. You’re going the wrong storming way, miss. Back up the market flow, turn right. You’ll need to go, uh, six blocks, I think? It’s easy to find; the highprince made everyone lay out their buildings in squares, like in a proper city. Look for the taverns, and you’ll be there. But miss, I don’t think that’s the sort of place one like you should be visiting, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Even as a darkeyes, people thought her incapable of taking care of herself. “Thank you,” Shallan said, plucking out one of the sticks of candied fruit. She hastened away, crossing the flow to join those walking in the opposite direction through the market.
“Pattern?” she whispered.
“Mmm.” He was clinging to the outside of her coat, near the knees.
“Trail behind and watch to see if anyone follows me,” Shallan said. “Do you think you can do that?”
“They will make a pattern if they come,” he said, dropping to the ground. For a brief moment in the air, between coat and stone, he was a dark mass of twisting lines. Then he vanished like a drop of water hitting a lake.
Shallan hurried along with the flow, safehand securely gripping the sphere pouch in her coat pocket, freehand carrying the stick of fruit. She remembered all too well how Jasnah’s deliberate flashing of too much money in Kharbranth had lured thieves like vines to stormwater.
Shallan followed the directions, her sense of liberation replaced by anxiety. The corner she took out of the market led her to a roadway that was much less crowded. Was the fruit vendor trying to direct Shallan into a trap where she could be robbed easily? Head down, she hurried along the road. She couldn’t Soulcast to protect herself, not as Jasnah had. Storms! Shallan hadn’t even been able to make sticks catch fire. She doubted she’d be able to transform living bodies.
Words of Radiance Page 58
