Merin by the elbow. One walked behind Merin, the other in front. Merin’s
spearman’s training had included some rudimentary unarmed combat
moves, and Vasher’s stances had expanded upon this knowledge. Still, one
weakened, unarmed man against three noblemen with swords . . .
He wouldn’t have a better chance. Merin tensed, preparing to elbow
the man at his side. Then he paused as he caught the scent of something
familiar—a smell he hadn’t come to know until his elevation to nobleman.
The smell of horses.
Perhaps they were going to let him go after all.
A few seconds later his captors led him into a large, high-roofed stable.
Horse stalls lined the walls, and the smells of feed and dung were strong
in the air. Some stablehands worked preparing a fine-looking roan stallion, its saddlebags packed for an extended trip. Merin stood in confusion as one of his captors pushed him against a wooden stabledoor, then walked over
to bark at the stablehands in his foreign tongue.
Merin stayed where he had been put. The three soldiers eventually
adopted bored postures, and it became obvious that they were waiting for
something.
The something turned out to be a some one. He strode into the stables, dressed in fine seasilks. These Veden men appeared to prefer tighter
clothing than their Aleth counterparts, for this man’s rich trousers and
shirt were tailored to fit snugly. He wore a broad, squareish cloak, and had a short beard.
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He also carried no sword.
Merin maintained his slumped posture, but watched the newcomer with
careful eyes. The nobleman checked over the horse, and Merin noted for
the first time that the beast’s livery matched the glyph on the newcomer’s cloak. The man finished his inspection and waved the stablehands away,
apparently commanding them to leave the stables. Then he finally turned
to Merin. He held out his hand to the side, white smoke gathering around
his palm as Merin’s suspicions about the man’s nature were confirmed.
Merin glanced at the horse—the only saddled beast in the room. Only
one man would make a journey this day. Then he looked at the Shardbearer,
whose weapon was appearing and whose eyes showed a measure of grim
resolution. Two guards appeared at Merin’s shoulders, grabbing him in
tight grips, and Merin realized that he had waited too long. The Vedens
weren’t going to set him free—they were going to use him to prove to Lord
Dalenar that they had Renarin held captive. For that purpose, Merin’s
severed head would serve just as well as his living testimony.
Merin slumped in his captor’s grip, trying to gain a bit of slack in preparation for a struggle. The Shardbearer’s Blade appeared, and he stepped
forward, raising it.
A sudden yell snapped in the air. Merin didn’t understand the words, but
he recognized the voice. Lady Shinri stood at the palace stable entrance,
breathing deeply and looking disheveled. She yelled a demand at the
soldiers in Veden, her tone intolerant. The men, unfortunately, ignored her.
So Lady Shinri started throwing things.
She had very impressive aim. The large vase that smashed into one of
Merin’s guards must have made an unwieldy projectile, yet it struck true,
shattering against the man’s temple and causing him to cry out in shocked
pain. Merin threw his weight against the second guard, ramming his elbow
into the man’s stomach as the Shardbearer turned and raised a wary hand to fend off a flurry of thrown ceramics, horseshoes, and even what appeared
to be jewelry.
Merin brought his manacled hands around, smashing the metal clasp
into the face of his still-stunned captor. The guard went down, though
the other two men were quickly advancing on Shinri’s position. The
Shardbearer turned his attention back to Merin as Shinri was forced to
focus on the two soldiers.
Suddenly, something flipped through the air in Merin’s direction. He
tried to duck, but Shinri’s aim was nothing short of amazing, and it smacked him square in the forehead.
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 569
In that moment, whether from the daze of being hit or the confusion
of the moment, Merin thought he saw something. For just a brief second,
Merin felt the winds returned to him. Shinri’s projectile—a green and silver bracelet—bounced off his forehead and dropped toward the ground. Merin
snatched it with a reflexive, yet awkward, grab.
And, like a breath exhaled from the Almighty himself, the air around
Merin shifted. The winds curled and twisted, viscous and obvious. They
whispered in his mind again, expanding his knowledge and his senses. The
deep, bitter longing he had suppressed suddenly burst forth and was sated.
The Shardbearer’s swinging weapon flashed in the sunlight, air twisting
around it. Merin jumped back, desperately trying to avoid the blow, and
his fingers—which gripped Shinri’s bracelet—flared with a blazing pain.
The winds moved.
They lost their chaotic twirling, a tenset different currents whipping
like streamers before him. They turned with surprising uniformity, their
flows reorienting to push against Merin. The burst of wind shoved him
back, out of the Shardblade’s path. Merin raised his bound hands at the
same time, overcoming the flaring pain caused by a bracelet that suddenly
seemed to be burning with an inner heat. Winds swept around his arms,
guiding his hands in the path he directed, moving them faster than muscle
alone could provide.
The Shardblade flashed before Merin in a broad swing, passing directly
between his manacled hands and shearing through the metal bonds.
Merin stumbled back, falling to the ground and drooping the bracelet
with a groan of pain. The air immediately returned to plain mundanity, as
invisible to him as it was to everyone else.
The Shardbearer stood, dumbfounded, as the shackles fell free from
Merin’s hands and thunked to the floor beside the bracelet. There was a
moment of silence, then the Shardbearer looked up at Merin, raised his
weapon again, and advanced.
Merin scrambled frantically, looking for a weapon. The soldier he had
attacked lay on the ground a short distance away, and Merin grabbed for a
hilt sticking out from beneath the man’s unconscious body. Unfortunately,
as Merin grabbed the hilt and pulled it out, he was rewarded not with a
sword, but a nobleman’s knife. Merin stumbled to his feet anyway, holding
the weapon in a stance. However, the foot-long blade looked depressingly
inadequate when facing the enormous Shardblade. The Shardbearer had an
amazing reach, and he could easily shear through metal. He smiled as he
regarded Merin’s defense.
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Suddenly, Merin felt the terror Vasher had spoken of, the fear that came
from facing a Shardbearer. He was back on the Shieldhome sands, holding
a simple arrow while his opponent advanced with a steel blade. He felt
the stance, and saw the flaws in his opponent’s form. The Veden wasn’t
a warrior, he was what Vasher had taught Merin to defeat—a man who
relied not on skill, but upon his wea
pon. The man’s form was neat—he was
obviously a duelist—but it was strict and rigid, and it was confident. Far too confident.
Overconfidence is really just a problem of flexibility, Vasher’s voice whispered.
Presumption creates predictability.
The Shardbearer struck with an almost snide swing of his weapon. It
was a one-handed blow that had undoubtedly cut down many a cringing
battlefield peasant—an arrogant, demeaning attack. Merin dodged to the
side, feeling the winds though he couldn’t see them, then lunged forward—
ducking beneath the man’s surprised backhand—and rammed his dagger
directly through the Shardbearer’s forearm.
The man screamed in pain, dropping his Blade. Merin leapt for the
fallen weapon, lifting it in two hands. Merin saw that same terror in
the fallen Shardbearer’s eyes—the realization of what he faced, of what
was coming—just before the Blade took him in the neck.
Merin gasped for breath, standing over the corpse with dazed surprise.
“Merin!” a feminine voice screamed.
Merin spun, raising the Blade. It was awkward and unfamiliar in his
hands, but Vasher had taught him to deal with that. The two remaining
guards held a frantically struggling Shinri, oblivious to what had just
happened behind them. Both men died before they had time to realize
their mistake.
Shinri stumbled back, rubbing her wrist where one of the men had
grabbed her. Her eyes flickered to the dead men, but she didn’t gasp or
pale when confronted by the corpses. Merin stood for a moment, listening
for signs that the struggle had been heard, waiting for the sudden rush of soldiers.
They didn’t come. The stables were secluded, and the Shardbearer had
sent the stablehands away so that they wouldn’t witness Merin’s death.
Everything was oddly quiet.
“You killed them messily enough,” Shinri said, bending down to search
one of the bodies.
“Shardblades aren’t known for their cleanliness,” Merin replied as he
wiped the Blade free of blood.
THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 571
Shinri snorted, picking up a fallen soldier’s sword and returning it to
the sheath she had removed from his belt. “For Renarin,” she said to his
questioning glance. “I assume you intend to go back for him?”
“Of course,” Merin said firmly. “But you’ll have to show me the way.”
Shinri nodded, waving him to follow. Merin stepped back first, however,
studying the bracelet she had thrown at him. It sparkled with opaque green stones—the same stone his glyphward had been made from. It did not seem
hot to the touch—nor did his hand show any burn marks, though he could
still feel traces of the agonizing pain in his fingers.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Merin nodded, grabbing the bracelet and standing. His vision changed
immediately, granting him sight of the flow and ebb of the room’s subtle
wind currents. Touching the silver casing, however, gave no such reaction.
It wasn’t the glyph at all, he thought with a numb mind. It was never the glyph. It was the stone.
“What rock is this?” he asked as he joined Shinri in the hallway.
“Jade,” Shinri said. “It’s fairly common among women’s jewelry.”
“How did you know to throw this to me?” he asked.
She eyed him with a glance that told him just how little she appreciated
his tone. “Renarin,” she said. “He told me to give it to you. Why? What
does it matter?”
Merin just shook his head. “I . . .” How did one explain such a thing? He
had seen the look in her eyes when he had spoken of magic before.
“I thank you for the rescue,” he finally said. “You have incredible aim.”
Shinri shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice, though not recently. Anyway, your rescue is my own rescue. Come on, I think I can get us back to the
prison hallway without incident, but we’ll have to move quickly. Someone
will discover those bodies before long.”
Merin nodded, following her lead. He clutched the bracelet in a tight
grip, making certain that the jade stone touched his skin. The winds
had finally returned; he wasn’t about to let them vanish again.
Apparently, Shinri’s plans for their escape were in-depth, and she had
considered the stables as a back-up to the Oathgates. She knew the patrol
routes, and she had memorized every guard post. She led the two of them
through a furtive, yet uneventful, dash toward Renarin’s cell.
Merin spent the trip waiting, expectantly, to hear calls of alarm from
behind. None came, but that didn’t help his nerves. Still, he felt a strong measure of satisfaction at finally having been able to do something. The
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weeks of captivity were finally over—he had his Blade back, and he had the winds. Those two victories alone made him exuberant. Now if they could
only escape the city.
Shinri paused. Before them lay a hallway Merin vaguely recognized—
he had only seen it once from the outside. It was empty.
“No guards?” he asked with surprise.
Shinri shook her head, leading him forward. “There was only ever one
guard, and he was one of the ones you killed in the stables.”
Merin nodded, joining her at Renarin’s door.
“I found the keys on the jailer’s body,” she explained, pulling out a large ring. “We just have to—”
“We don’t need keys,” Merin said, raising the Shardblade. “Renarin?
Are you in there?”
“Of course,” a voice replied.
“Stand away from the door,” Merin said, then rammed his Blade between
the door and the wall and sliced free the lock’s bolt.
Shinri raised an appreciative eyebrow, discarding the keys, and Merin
pul ed open the door. He stepped inside a cell that was unsurprisingly similar to his own. It had no furniture and a set of blank walls, unmarked by—
“Oh, Blessed Lordmaker!” Shinri gasped.
Merin spun and immediately saw what she meant. Not all of the walls
were blank—the one that held the door was covered with scribbles. Some
of the writing was scratched into the stone, and some of it was written in a crusty, red color. Apparently, Renarin had used his own blood as ink.
The boy himself crouched near the far eastern side of the wall, scratching the stones with a small rock. “Just a moment,” he mumbled. “I’m almost
done here.”
Merin stepped back, stunned by the display. The entire wall was covered
with the insane scratchings. The tiny numbers seemed to have their own
flow, lining together in ways that almost made them seem like painted
patterns. Lines of scribbles spun and melded, some rotating around central points, others falling in neat rows. There were thousands of them, each
written with the delicate precision of madness.
“Renarin . . .” Shinri whispered. “What is this?”
“I had to use this wall so the jailer wouldn’t see when he looked in
through the window,” Renarin said, as if in response to the question.
“Is that blood?” Shinri asked, paling slightly.
“It made for the best writing,” Renarin said. “Scratching takes much
longer, and I can’t see it as well when I’m done. When I started to feel
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light-headed from losing so much blood, though, I realized I would have
to scratch during the less important sections.”
He’s gone mad, Merin realized. It started before, when he traveled with me, but Aredor’s death mixed with the captivity must have pushed him too far.
“Renarin,” he said quietly. “We have to go. We left bodies behind us—
they’ll discover our escape soon.”
“We have a bit of time yet,” Renarin assured him, not looking up from
his scribbling. “By the way, I should tell Lady Shinri that she did very well.
The permutations spoke a very different story for the rest of us should your execution have been successful. She even got you a Shardblade, I see.”
Merin looked down at the weapon. “Yes,” he said. “Renarin, we really
need to go.”
Shinri was still staring at the numbers, and she showed a hint of fear
in her eyes.
“I know,” Renarin said. “I just . . .” he trailed off, making a few final
notations. Then he paused.
“Renarin?”
Renarin sighed, setting down his rock and shaking his head. He stood,
inspecting his unnatural mural. “I’m too new at this, Merin. I focused my
vision too narrowly. All of this work doesn’t tell me much. You’re right here, in the section I was working on, and I’m on the other side of the door. Lady Shinri is in the center. We’re important, especially you two, but I looked so closely at you that I can’t see the larger scope. I see days, not years. I’ll need to start again.”
“You’re mad,” Shinri finally whispered.
Renarin smiled. “It’s a possibility, I suppose, though I certainly hope that I’m not. I feel . . . a wonder. A joy that I’ve never missed, yet at the same time known that I should have felt. I can finally see the true patterns that hid just at the edges of my sight. Shinri gave you the jade, Merin?”
Merin started, looking down at the bracelet. “How did you . . . ?”
Renarin looked at him, eyes alight. “How do you feel when you touch the
jade, Merin? Does truth open to you? What do you see that others cannot?”
Merin shivered beneath Renarin’s gaze. “I see the wind,” he whispered.
“I see the air moving.”
Renarin nodded, smiling. “I should have known the answer when you
showed me that glyph months ago. I’m sorry—my eyes weren’t open
Brandon Sanderson - [Stormlight Archive 01] Page 79
