Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  “Well, let’s get to it, then,” Kaladin said. “I could certainly use something better than prison food.”

  The men cheered, piling off toward their barrack. As they moved, Kaladin grabbed Teft by the arm. “How did the men take it?” he asked. “My imprisonment?”

  “There was talk of breaking you out,” Teft admitted softly. “I beat some sense into them. Ain’t no good soldier who hasn’t spent a day or two locked up. It’s part of the job. They didn’t demote you, so they just wanted to slap your wrist a little. The men saw the truth of it.”

  Kaladin nodded.

  Teft glanced at the others. “There’s quite a lot of anger among them about this Amaram fellow. And a lot of interest. Anything about your past gets them talking, you know.”

  “Lead them back to the barrack,” Kaladin said. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

  “Don’t take too long,” Teft said. “The lads have been guarding this doorway for three weeks now. You owe them their celebration.”

  “I’ll be along,” Kaladin said. “I just want to say a few things to Moash.”

  Teft nodded and jogged off to wrangle the others. The prison’s front room felt empty when Kaladin walked back in. Only Moash and the armorers remained. Kaladin walked up to them, watching Moash make a fist with his gauntlet.

  “I’m still having trouble believing this, Kal,” Moash said as the armorers fit on his breastplate. “Storms . . . I’m now worth more than some kingdoms.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest selling the Shards, at least not to a foreigner,” Kaladin said. “That sort of thing can be considered treason.”

  “Sell?” Moash said, looking up sharply. He made another fist. “Never.” He smiled, a grin of pure joy as the breastplate locked into place.

  “I’ll help him with the rest,” Kaladin said to the armorers. They withdrew reluctantly, leaving Kaladin and Moash alone.

  He helped Moash fit one of the pauldrons to his shoulder. “I had a lot of time to think, in there,” Kaladin said.

  “I can imagine.”

  “The time led me to a few decisions,” Kaladin said as the section of Plate locked into place. “One is that your friends are right.”

  Moash turned to him sharply. “So . . .”

  “So tell them I agree with their plan,” Kaladin said. “I’ll do what they want me to in order to help them . . . accomplish their task.”

  The room grew strangely still.

  Moash took him by the arm. “I told them you’d see.” He gestured to the Plate he wore. “This will help too, with what we must do. And once we’ve finished, I think a certain man you challenged might need the same treatment.”

  “I only agree,” Kaladin said, “because it’s for the best. For you, Moash, this is about revenge—and don’t try to deny it. I really think it is what Alethkar needs. Maybe what the world needs.”

  “Oh, I know,” Moash said, putting on the helmet, visor up. He took a deep breath, then took a step and stumbled, nearly crashing to the ground. He steadied himself by grabbing a table, which he crunched beneath his fingers, the wood splitting.

  He stared at what he’d done, then laughed. “This . . . this is going to change everything. Thank you, Kaladin. Thank you.”

  “Let’s get those armorers and help you take it off,” Kaladin said.

  “No. You go to Rock’s storming feast. I’m going to the sparring grounds to practice! I won’t take this off until I can move in it naturally.”

  Having seen how much work Renarin was putting into learning his Plate, Kaladin suspected that might take longer than Moash wanted. He didn’t say anything, instead stepping back out into the sunlight. He enjoyed that for a moment, eyes closed, head toward the sky.

  Then, he jogged off to rejoin Bridge Four.

  My path has been chosen very deliberately. Yes, I agree with everything you have said about Rayse, including the severe danger he presents.

  Dalinar stopped on the switchbacks down from the Pinnacle, Navani at his side. In the waning light, they watched a river of men flowing back into the warcamps from the Shattered Plains. The armies of Bethab and Thanadal were returning from their plateau run, following their highprinces, who had probably gotten back somewhat earlier.

  Down below, a rider approached the Pinnacle, likely with news for the king on the runs. Dalinar looked to one of his guards—he had four tonight, two for him, two for Navani—and gestured.

  “You want the details, Brightlord?” asked the bridgeman.

  “Please.”

  The man jogged off down the switchbacks. Dalinar watched him go, thoughtful. These men were remarkably disciplined, considering their origin—but they were not career soldiers. They did not like what he had done in throwing their captain into prison.

  He suspected they wouldn’t let it become a problem. Captain Kaladin led them well—he was the exact type of officer Dalinar looked for. The kind that showed initiative not because of a desire for advancement, but because of the satisfaction of a job well done. Those kinds of soldiers often had rocky starts until they learned to keep their heads. Storms. Dalinar himself had needed similar lessons pounded into him at various points in his life.

  He continued with Navani down the switchbacks, walking slowly. She looked radiant tonight, hair done with sapphires that glowed softly in the light. Navani liked these strolls together, and they were in no hurry to arrive at the feast.

  “I keep thinking,” Navani said, continuing their previous conversation, “that there should be a way to use fabrials as pumps. You have seen the gemstones built to attract certain substances, but not others—it is most useful with something like smoke above a fire. Could we make this work with water?”

  Dalinar grunted, nodding.

  “More and more buildings in the warcamps are plumbed,” she continued, “after the Kharbranthian manner—but those use gravity itself as a way to conduct the liquid through their piping. I imagine true motion, with gemstones at the ends of piping segments to pull water through at a flow, against the pull of the earth. . . .”

  He grunted again.

  “We made a breakthrough in the design of new Shardblades the other day.”

  “What, really?” he asked. “What happened? How soon will you have one ready?”

  She smiled, arm around his.

  “What?”

  “Just seeing if you are still you,” she said. “Our breakthrough was realizing that the gemstones in the Blades—used to bond them—might not have originally been part of the weapons.”

  He frowned. “That’s important?”

  “Yes. If this is true, it means the Blades aren’t powered by the stones. Credit goes to Rushu, who asked why a Shardblade can be summoned and dismissed even if its gemstone has gone dun. We had no answers, and she spent the last few weeks in contact with Kharbranth, using one of those new information stations. She came up with a scrap from several decades after the Recreance which talks about men learning to summon and dismiss Blades by adding gemstones to them, an accident of ornamentation it seems.”

  He frowned as they passed a shalebark outcropping where a gardener was working late, carefully filing away and humming to himself. The sun had set; Salas had just risen in the east.

  “If this is true,” Navani said, sounding happy, “we’re back to knowing absolutely nothing about how Shardblades were crafted.”

  “I don’t see why that’s a breakthrough at all.”

  She smiled, patting him on the arm. “Imagine you had spent the last five years believing an enemy had been following Dialectur’s War as a model for tactics, but then heard it reported they instead had never heard of the treatise.”

  “Ah . . .”

  “We had been assuming that somehow, the strength and lightness of the Blades was a fabrial construct powered by the gemstone,” Navani said. “This might not be the case. It seems the gemstone’s purpose is only used in initially bonding the Blade—something that the Radiants didn’t need to do.”

  “Wai
t. They didn’t?”

  “Not if this fragment is correct. The implication is that the Radiants could always dismiss and summon Blades—but for a time the ability was lost. It was only recovered when someone added a gemstone to his Blade. The fragment says the weapons actually shifted shape to adopt the stones, but I’m not certain if I trust that.

  “Either way, after the Radiants fell but before men learned to put gemstones into their Blades and bond them, the weapons were apparently still supernaturally sharp and light, though bonding was impossible. This would explain several other fragments of records I’ve read and found confusing. . . .”

  She continued, and he found her voice pleasant. The details of fabrial construction, however, were not pressing to him at the moment. He did care. He had to care. Both for her, and for the needs of the kingdom.

  He just couldn’t care right now. In his head, he went over preparations for the expedition out onto the Shattered Plains. How to protect the Soulcasters from sight, as they preferred. Sanitation shouldn’t be an issue, and water would be plentiful. How many scribes would he need to bring? Horses? Only one week remained, and he had the majority of the preparations in place, such as mobile bridge construction and supply estimations. There was always more to plan, however.

  Unfortunately, the biggest variable was one he couldn’t plan for, not specifically. He didn’t know how many troops he’d have. It depended on which of the highprinces, if any, agreed to go with him. Less than a week out, and he still wasn’t certain if any of them would.

  I could use Hatham most, Dalinar thought. He runs a tight army. If only Aladar hadn’t sided with Sadeas so vigorously; I can’t figure that man out. Thanadal and Bethab . . . storms, will I bring their mercenaries if either of those two agree to come? Is that the kind of force I want? Dare I refuse any spear that comes to me?

  “I’m not going to get a good conversation out of you tonight, am I?” Navani asked.

  “No,” he admitted as they reached the base of the Pinnacle and turned south. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, and he could see the mask cracking. She talked about her work because it was something to talk about. He stopped beside her. “I know it hurts,” he said softly. “But it will get better.”

  “She wouldn’t let me be a mother to her, Dalinar,” Navani said, staring into the distance. “Do you know that? It was almost like . . . like once Jasnah climbed into adolescence, she no longer needed a mother. I would try to get close to her, and there was this coldness, like even being near me reminded her that she had once been a child. What happened to my little girl, so full of questions?”

  Dalinar pulled her close; propriety could seek Damnation. Nearby, the three guards shuffled, looking the other way.

  “They’ll take my son too,” Navani whispered. “They’re trying.”

  “I will protect him,” Dalinar promised.

  “And who will protect you?”

  He had no answer to that. Answering that his guards would do it sounded trite. That wasn’t the question she’d asked. Who will protect you when that assassin returns?

  “I almost wish that you would fail,” she said. “In holding this kingdom together, you make a target of yourself. If everything just collapsed, and we fractured back to princedoms, perhaps he’d leave us alone.”

  “And then the storm would come,” Dalinar replied softly. Twelve days.

  Navani eventually pulled back, nodding, composing herself. “You’re right, of course. I just . . . this is the first time, for me. Dealing with this. How did you manage it, when Shshshsh died? I know you loved her, Dalinar. You don’t have to deny it for my ego.”

  He hesitated. The first time; an implication that when Gavilar had died, she had not been broken up about it. She had never stated so outright an implication of the . . . difficulties the two had been having.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Was that too difficult a question, considering its source?” She tucked away her kerchief, which she’d used to dab her eyes dry. “I apologize; I know that you don’t like to talk about her.”

  It wasn’t that it was a difficult question. It was that Dalinar didn’t remember his wife. How odd, that he could go weeks without even noticing this hole in his memories, this change that had ripped out a piece of him and left him patched over. Without even a prick of emotion when her name, which he could not hear, was mentioned.

  Best to move to some other topic. “I cannot help but assume that the assassin is involved in all of this, Navani. The storm that comes, the secrets of the Shattered Plains, even Gavilar. My brother knew something, something he never shared with any of us.” You must find the most important words a man can say. “I would give almost anything to know what it was.”

  “I suppose,” Navani said. “I will go back to my journals of the time. Perhaps he said something that would give us clues—though I warn you, I’ve pored over those accounts dozens of times.”

  Dalinar nodded. “Regardless, that isn’t a worry for today. Today, they are our goal.”

  They turned, looking as coaches clattered past, making their way to the nearby feasting basin, where lights glowed a soft violet in the night. He narrowed his eyes and found Ruthar’s coach approaching. The highprince had been stripped of Shards, all but his own Blade. They had cut off Sadeas’s right hand in this mess, but the head remained. And it was venomous.

  The other highprinces were almost as big a problem as Sadeas. They resisted him because they wanted things to be easy, as they had been. They glutted themselves on their riches and their games. Feasts manifested that all too much, with their exotic food, their rich costumes.

  The world itself seemed close to ending, and the Alethi threw a party.

  “You must not despise them,” Navani said.

  Dalinar’s frown deepened. She could read him too well.

  “Listen to me, Dalinar,” she said, turning him to meet her eyes. “Has any good ever come from a father hating his children?”

  “I don’t hate them.”

  “You loathe their excess,” she said, “and you are close to applying that emotion to them as well. They live the lives they have known, the lives that society has taught them are proper. You won’t change them with contempt. You aren’t Wit; it isn’t your job to scorn them. Your job is to enfold them, encourage them. Lead them, Dalinar.”

  He drew a deep breath, and nodded.

  “I will go to the women’s island,” she said, noticing the bridgeman guard returning with news on the plateau assault. “They consider me an eccentric vestige of things better left in the past, but I think they still listen to me. Sometimes. I’ll do what I can.”

  They parted, Navani hurrying to the feast, Dalinar idling as the bridgeman passed his news. The plateau run had been successful, a gemheart captured. It had taken quite a long time to reach the target plateau, which was deep into the Plains—almost to the edge of the scouted area. The Parshendi had not appeared to contest the gemheart, though their scouts had watched from a distance.

  Again they decide not to fight, Dalinar thought, walking the last distance to the feast. What does the change mean? What are they planning?

  The feast basin was made up of a series of Soulcast islands beside the Pinnacle complex. It had been flooded, as it often was, in a way that made the Soulcast mounds rise between small rivers. The water glowed. Spheres, and a lot of them, must have been dumped into the water to give it that ethereal cast. Purple, to match the moon that was just rising, violet and frail on the horizon.

  Lanterns were placed intermittently, but with dim spheres, perhaps to not distract from the glowing water. Dalinar crossed the bridges to the farthest island—the king’s island, where the genders mixed and only the most powerful were invited. This was where he knew he’d find the highprinces. Even Bethab, who had just returned from his plateau run, was already in attendance—though, as he preferred to use mercenary companies for the bulk of his army, it wasn’t surprising he had returned so quickly from the run. Once
they captured the gemheart, he’d often ride back quickly with the prize, letting them sort out how to return.

  Dalinar passed Wit—who had arrived back at the warcamps with characteristic mystery—insulting everyone who passed. He had no wish to fence words with the man today. Instead, he sought out Vamah; the highprince seemed to have actually listened to Dalinar’s pleas during their most recent dinner. Perhaps with more nudging, he would commit to joining Dalinar’s assault on the Parshendi.

  Eyes followed Dalinar as he crossed the island, and whispered conversations broke out like rashes as he passed. He expected those looks by now, though they still unnerved him. Were they more plentiful this night? More lingering? He couldn’t move in Alethi society these days without catching a smile on the lips of too many people, as if they were all part of some grand joke that he had not been told.

  He found Vamah speaking with a group of three older women. One was Sivi, a highlady from Ruthar’s court who—contrary to custom—had left her husband at home to see to their lands, coming to the Shattered Plains herself. She eyed Dalinar with a smile and eyes like daggers. The plot to undermine Sadeas had to a large extent failed—but that was in part because the damage and shame had been deflected to Ruthar and Aladar, who had suffered the loss of Shardbearers in the men who had dueled Adolin.

  Well, those two were never going to have been Dalinar’s—they were Sadeas’s strongest supporters.

  The four people grew silent as Dalinar stepped up to them. Highprince Vamah squinted in the dim light, looking Dalinar up and down. The round-faced man had a cupbearer standing behind him with a bottle of some exotic liquor or another. Vamah often brought his own spirits to feasts, regardless of who hosted them; being engaging enough a conversationalist to earn a sip of what he’d managed to import was considered a political triumph by many attendees.

  “Vamah,” Dalinar said.

  “Dalinar.”

  “There’s a matter I’ve been wanting to discuss with you,” Dalinar said. “I find it impressive what you’ve been able to do with light cavalry on your plateau runs. Tell me, how do you decide when to risk an all-out assault with your riders? The loss of horses could easily overwhelm your earnings from gemhearts, but you have managed to balance this with clever stratagems.”