The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  The three little spheres—only chips—lit the stone ground around themselves in little tan rings. Kaladin focused on them, holding his breath, willing the light into him.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried harder, staring into their depths.

  Nothing happened.

  He picked one up, cupping it in his palm, raising it so that he could see the light and nothing else. He could pick out the details of the storm, the shifting, spinning vortex of light. He commanded it, willed it, begged it.

  Nothing happened.

  He groaned, lying back on the rock, staring at the ceiling.

  “Maybe you don’t want it badly enough,” Teft said.

  “I want it as badly as I know how. It won’t budge, Teft.”

  Teft grunted and picked up one of the spheres.

  “Maybe we’re wrong about me,” Kaladin said. It seemed poetically appropriate that the moment he accepted this strange, frightening part of himself, he couldn’t make it work. “It could have been a trick of the sunlight.”

  “A trick of the sunlight,” Teft said flatly. “Sticking a bag to the barrel was a trick of the light.”

  “All right. Then maybe it was some odd fluke, something that happened just that once.”

  “And when you were wounded,” Teft said, “and whenever on a bridge run you needed an extra burst of strength or endurance.”

  Kaladin let out a frustrated sigh and tapped his head back lightly against the rock floor a few times. “Well, if I’m one of these Radiants you keep talking about, why can’t I do anything?”

  “I figure,” the grizzled bridgeman said, rolling the sphere in his fingers, “that you’re like a baby, making his legs work. At first it just kind of happens. Slowly, he figures how to make them move on purpose. You just need practice.”

  “I’ve spent a week staring at spheres, Teft. How much practice can it take?”

  “Well, more than you’ve had, obviously.”

  Kaladin rolled his eyes and sat back up. “Why am I listening to you? You’ve admitted that you don’t know any more than I do.”

  “I don’t know anything about using the Stormlight,” Teft said, scowling. “But I know what should happen.”

  “According to stories that contradict one another. You’ve told me that the Radiants could fly and walk on walls.”

  Teft nodded. “They sure could. And make stone melt by looking at it. And move great distances in a single heartbeat. And command the sunlight. And—”

  “And why,” Kaladin said, “would they need to both walk on walls and fly? If they can fly, why would they bother running up walls?”

  Teft said nothing.

  “And why bother with either one,” Kaladin added, “if they can just ‘move great distances in a heartbeat’?”

  “I’m not sure,” Teft admitted.

  “We can’t trust the stories or legends,” Kaladin said. He glanced at Syl, who had landed beside one of the spheres, staring at it with childlike interest. “Who knows what is true and what has been fabricated? The only thing we know for certain is this.” He plucked up one of the spheres and held it up in two fingers. “The Radiant sitting in this room is very, very tired of the color brown.”

  Teft grunted. “You’re not a Radiant, lad.”

  “Weren’t we just talking about—”

  “Oh, you can infuse,” Teft said. “You can drink in the Stormlight and command it. But being a Radiant was more than that. It was their way of life, the things they did. The Immortal Words.”

  “The what?”

  Teft rolled his sphere between his fingers again, holding it up and staring into its depths. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. That was their motto, and was the First Ideal of the Immortal Words. There were four others.”

  Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “Which were?”

  “I don’t actually know,” Teft said. “But the Immortal Words—these Ideals—guided everything they did. The four later Ideals were said to be different for every order of Radiants. But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” He hesitated. “Or so I was told.”

  “Yes, well, that seems a little obvious to me,” Kaladin said. “Life comes before death. Just like day comes before night, or one comes before two. Obvious.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously. Maybe that’s why the Stormlight refuses you.”

  Kaladin stood and stretched. “I’m sorry, Teft. I’m just tired.”

  “Life before death,” Teft said, wagging a finger at Kaladin. “The Radiant seeks to defend life, always. He never kills unnecessarily, and never risks his own life for frivolous reasons. Living is harder than dying. The Radiant’s duty is to live.

  “Strength before weakness. All men are weak at some time in their lives. The Radiant protects those who are weak, and uses his strength for others. Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.”

  Teft picked up spheres, putting them in his pouch. He held the last one for a second, then tucked it away too. “Journey before destination. There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.”

  “The Almighty? So the knights were tied to religion?”

  “Isn’t everything? There was some old king who came up with all this. Had his wife write it in a book or something. My mother read it. The Radiants based the Ideals on what was written there.”

  Kaladin shrugged, moving over to begin sorting through the pile of bridgemen’s leather vests. Ostensibly, he and Teft were here checking those over for tears or broken straps. After a few moments, Teft joined him.

  “Do you actually believe that?” Kaladin asked, lifting up a vest, tugging on its straps. “That anyone would follow those vows, particularly a bunch of lighteyes?”

  “They weren’t just lighteyes. They were Radiants.”

  “They were people,” Kaladin said. “Men in power always pretend things like virtue, or divine guidance, some kind of mandate to ‘protect’ the rest of us. If we believe that the Almighty put them where they are, it’s easier for us to swallow what they do to us.”

  Teft turned a vest over. It was beginning to tear beneath the left shoulder pad. “I never used to believe. And then… then I saw you infusing Light, and I began to wonder.”

  “Stories and legends, Teft,” Kaladin said. “We want to believe that there were better men once. That makes us think it could be that way again. But people don’t change. They are corrupt now. They were corrupt then.”

  “Maybe,” Teft said. “My parents believed in all of it. The Immortal Words, the Ideals, the Knights Radiant, the Almighty. Even old Vorinism. In fact, especially old Vorinism.”

  “That led to the Hierocracy. The devotaries and the ardents shouldn’t hold land or property. It’s too dangerous.”

  Teft snorted. “Why? You think they’d be worse at being in charge than the lighteyes?”

  “Well, you’ve probably got a point there.” Kaladin frowned. He’d spent so long assuming the Almighty had abandoned him, or even cursed him, that it was difficult to accept that maybe—as Syl had said—he’d instead been blessed. Yes, he’d been preserved, and he supposed he should be grateful for that. But what could be worse than being granted great power, yet still being too weak to save those he loved?

  Further speculation was interrupted as Lopen stood up straight in the doorway, gesturing covertly to Kaladin and Teft. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything to hide anymore. In fact, there hadn’t ever been anything to hide, other than Kaladin sitting on the floor and staring at the spheres like an idiot. He set aside the vest and walked to the entrance.

  Hashal’s palanquin was being carried directly toward Kaladin’s barrack, her tall, oft-silent husband walking along
side. The sash at his neck was violet, as was the embroidery on the cuffs of his short, vestlike jacket. Gaz still hadn’t reappeared. It had been a week now, and no sign of him. Hashal and her husband—along with their lighteyed attendants—did what he’d once done, and they rebuffed any questions about the bridge sergeant.

  “Storm it,” Teft said, stepping up beside Kaladin. “Those two make my skin itch, same way it does when I know someone’s got a knife and is standing behind me.”

  Rock had the bridgemen lined up and waiting quietly, as if for inspection. Kaladin walked out to join them, Teft and Lopen following behind. The bearers set the palanquin down in front of Kaladin. Open-sided with only a small canopy on the top, it was little more than an armchair on a platform. Many of the lighteyed women used them in the warcamps.

  Kaladin reluctantly gave Hashal a proper bow, prompting the other bridgemen to do so as well. Now was not the time to be beaten for insubordination.

  “You have such a well-trained band, bridgeleader,” she said, idly scratching her cheek with a ruby-red nail, her elbow on her armrest. “So… efficient at bridge runs.”

  “Thank you, Brightness Hashal,” Kaladin said, trying—but failing—to keep the stiff ness and hostility from his voice. “May I ask? Gaz hasn’t been seen for some days now. Is he well?”

  “No.” Kaladin waited for further reply, but she didn’t give one. “My husband has made a decision. Your men are so good at bridge runs that you are a model to the other crews. As such, you will be on bridge duty every day from now on.”

  Kaladin felt a chill. “And scavenging duty?”

  “Oh, there will still be time for that. You need to take torches down anyway, and plateau runs never happen at night. So your men will sleep during the day—always on call—and will work the chasms at night. A much better use of your time.”

  “Every bridge run,” Kaladin said. “You’re going to make us go on every one.”

  “Yes,” she said idly, tapping for her bearers to raise her. “Your team is just too good. It must be used. You’ll start full-time bridge duty tomorrow. Consider it an… honor.”

  Kaladin inhaled sharply to keep himself from saying what he thought of her “honor.” He couldn’t bring himself to bow as she retreated, but she didn’t seem to care. Rock and the men started muttering.

  Every bridge run. She’d just doubled the rate at which they’d be killed. Kaladin’s team wouldn’t last another few weeks. They were already so low on members that losing one or two men on an assault would cause them to flounder. The Parshendi would focus on them then, cutting them down.

  “Kelek’s breath!” Teft said. “She’ll see us dead!”

  “It’s not fair,” Lopen added.

  “We’re bridgemen,” Kaladin said, looking at them. “What made you think that any kind of ‘fairness’ applied to us?”

  “She hasn’t killed us fast enough for Sadeas,” Moash said. “You know that soldiers have been beaten for coming to look for you, to see the man who survived the highstorm? He hasn’t forgotten about you, Kaladin.”

  Teft was still swearing. He pulled Kaladin aside, Lopen following, but the others remained talking among themselves. “Damnation!” Teft said softly. “They like to pretend to be evenhanded with the bridge crews. Makes ’em seem fair. Looks like they gave up on that. Bastards.”

  “What do we do, gancho?” Lopen asked.

  “We go to the chasms,” Kaladin said. “Just like we’re scheduled to. Then make sure we get some extra sleep tonight, as we’re apparently going to be staying up all night tomorrow.”

  “The men will hate going into the chasms at night, lad,” Teft said.

  “I know.”

  “But we’re not ready for… what we need to do,” Teft said, looking to make sure nobody could hear. It was only him, Kaladin, and Lopen. “It will be another few weeks at least.”

  “I know.”

  “We won’t last another few weeks!” Teft said. “With Sadeas and Kholin working together, runs happen nearly every day. Just one bad run—one time with the Parshendi drawing bead on us—and it will all be over. We’ll be wiped out.”

  “I know!” Kaladin said, frustrated, taking a deep breath and forming fists to keep himself from exploding.

  “Gancho!” Lopen said.

  “What?” Kaladin snapped.

  “It’s happening again.”

  Kaladin froze, then looked down at his arms. Sure enough, he caught a hint of luminescent smoke rising from his skin. It was extremely faint—he didn’t have many gemstones near him—but it was there. The wisps faded quickly. Hopefully the other bridgemen hadn’t seen.

  “Damnation. What did I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Teft said. “Is it because you were angry at Hashal?”

  “I was angry before.”

  “You breathed it in,” Syl said eagerly, whipping around him in the air, a ribbon of light.

  “What?”

  “I saw it.” She twisted herself around. “You were mad, you drew in a breath, and the Light… it came too.”

  Kaladin glanced at Teft, but of course the older bridgeman hadn’t heard. “Gather the men,” Kaladin said. “We’re going down to our chasm duty.”

  “And what about what has happened?” Teft said. “Kaladin, we can’t go on that many bridge runs. We’ll be cut to pieces.”

  “I’m doing something about it today. Gather the men. Syl, I need something from you.”

  “What?” She landed in front of him and formed into a young woman.

  “Go find us a place where some Parshendi corpses have fallen.”

  “I thought you were going to do spear practice today.”

  “That’s what the men will be doing,” Kaladin said. “I’ll get them organized first. After that, I have a different task.”

  Kaladin clapped a quick signal, and the bridgemen made a decent arrowhead formation. They carried the spears they’d stashed in the chasm, secured in a large sack filled with stones and stuck in a crevice. He clapped his hands again, and they rearranged into a double-line wall formation. He clapped again, and they formed into a ring with one man standing behind every two as a quick step-in reserve.

  The walls of the chasm dripped with water, and the bridgemen splashed through puddles. They were good. Better than they had any right to be, better—for their level of training—than any team he’d worked with.

  But Teft was right. They still wouldn’t last long in a fight. A few more weeks and he’d have them practiced enough with thrusts and shielding one another that they’d begin to be dangerous. Until then, they were just bridgemen who could move in fancy patterns. They needed more time.

  Kaladin had to buy them some.

  “Teft,” Kaladin said. “Take over.”

  The older bridgeman gave one of those cross-armed salutes.

  “Syl,” Kaladin said to the spren, “let’s go see these bodies.”

  “They’re close. Come on.” She zipped off down the chasm, a glowing ribbon. Kaladin started after her.

  “Sir,” Teft called.

  Kaladin hesitated. When had Teft started calling him “sir”? Odd, how right that felt. “Yes?”

  “You want an escort?” Teft stood at the head of the gathered bridgemen, who were looking more and more like soldiers, with their leather vests and spears held in practiced grips.

  Kaladin shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Chasmfiends…”

  “The lighteyes have killed any who prowl this close to our side. Besides, if I did run into one, what difference would two or three extra men make?”

  Teft grimaced behind his short, greying beard, but offered no further objection. Kaladin continued to follow Syl. In his pouch, he carried the rest of the spheres they’d discovered on bodies while scavenging. They made a habit of keeping some of each discovery and sticking them to bridges, and with Syl helping at scavenging, they now found more than they used to. He had a small fortune in his pouch. That Stormlight—he hoped— w
ould serve him well today.

  He got out a sapphire mark for light, avoiding pools of water strewn with bones. A skull protruded from one, wavy green moss growing across the scalp like hair, lifespren bobbing above. Perhaps it should have felt eerie to walk through these darkened slots alone, but they didn’t bother Kaladin. This was a sacred place, the sarcophagus of the lowly, the burial cavern of bridgemen and spearmen who died upon lighteyed edicts, spilling blood down the sides of these ragged walls. This place wasn’t eerie; it was holy.

  He was actually glad to be alone with his silence and the remains of those who had died. These men hadn’t cared about the squabbles of those born with lighter eyes than they. These men had cared about their families or—at the very least—their sphere pouches. How many of them were trapped in this foreign land, these endless plateaus, too poor to escape back to Alethkar? Hundreds died each week, winning gems for men who were already rich, winning vengeance for a king long dead.

  Kaladin passed another skull, missing its lower jaw, the crown split by an axe’s blow. The bones seemed to watch him, curious, the blue Stormlight in his hand giving a haunted cast to the uneven ground and walls.

  The devotaries taught that when men died, the most valiant among them—the ones who fulfilled their Callings best—would rise to help reclaim heaven. Each man would do as he had done in life. Spearmen to fight, farmers to work spiritual farms, lighteyes to lead. The ardents were careful to point out that excellence in any Calling would bring power. A farmer would be able to wave his hand and create great fields of spiritual crops. A spearman would be a great warrior, able to cause thunder with his shield and lightning with his spear.

  But what of the bridgemen? Would the Almighty demand that all of these fallen rise and continue their drudgery? Would Dunny and the others run bridges in the afterlife? No ardents came to them to test their abilities or grant them Elevations. Perhaps the bridgemen wouldn’t be needed in the War for Heaven. Only the very most skilled went there anyway. Others would simply slumber until the Tranquiline Halls were reclaimed.