“Talented indeed,” Elhokar said.
“And such a… proper lad,” Sadeas said, sipping his drink.
“Yes,” Dalinar said. “At times, I wish there were peace, simply so that Adolin could dedicate himself to his dueling.”
Sadeas sighed. “More talk of abandoning the war, Dalinar?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You keep complaining that you’ve given up that argument, Uncle,” Elhokar said, turning to regard him. “Yet you continue to dance around it, speaking longingly of peace. People in the camps call you coward.”
Sadeas snorted. “He’s no coward, Your Majesty. I can attest to that.”
“Why, then?” Elhokar asked.
“These rumors have grown far beyond what is reasonable,” Dalinar said.
“And yet, you do not answer my questions,” Elhokar said. “If you could make the decision, Uncle, would you have us leave the Shattered Plains? Are you a coward?”
Dalinar hesitated.
Unite them, that voice had told him. It is your task, and I give it to you.
Am I a coward? he wondered. Nohadon challenged him, in the book, to examine himself. To never become so certain or high that he wasn’t willing to seek truth.
Elhokar’s question hadn’t been about his visions. And yet, Dalinar had the distinct impression that he was being a coward, at least in relation to his desire to abdicate. If he left because of what was happening to him, that would be taking the easy path.
I can’t leave, he realized. No matter what happens. I have to see this through. Even if he was mad. Or, an increasingly worrisome thought, even if the visions were real, but their origins suspect. I have to stay. But I also have to plan, to make sure I don’t tow my house down.
Such a careful line to walk. Nothing clear, everything clouded. He’d been ready to run because he liked to make clear decisions. Well, nothing was clear about what was happening to him. It seemed that in making the decision to remain highprince, he placed one important cornerstone into rebuilding the foundation of who he was.
He would not abdicate. And that was that.
“Dalinar?” Elhokar asked. “Are you… well?”
Dalinar blinked, realizing that he had stopped paying attention to the king and Sadeas. Staring off into space like that wouldn’t help his reputation. He turned to the king. “You want to know the truth,” he said. “Yes, if I could make the order, I would bring all ten warcamps and return to Alethkar.”
Despite what others said, that was not cowardly. No, he’d just confronted cowardice inside of him, and he knew what it was. This was something different.
The king looked shocked.
“I would leave,” Dalinar said firmly. “But not because I wish to flee or because I fear battle. It would be because I fear for Alethkar’s stability; leaving this war would help secure our homeland and the loyalty of the highprinces. I would send more envoys and scholars to find out why the Parshendi killed Gavilar. We gave up on that too easily. I still wonder if the assassination was initiated by miscreants or rebels among their own people.
“I’d discover what their culture is-and yes, they do have one. If rebels weren’t the cause of the assassination, I’d keep asking until I learned why they did it. I’d demand repayment-perhaps their own king, delivered to us for execution in turn-in exchange for granting them peace. As for the gemhearts, I’d speak with my scientists and discover a better method of holding this territory. Perhaps with mass homesteading of the area, securing all of the Unclaimed Hills, we could truly expand our borders and claim the Shattered Plains. I wouldn’t abandon vengeance, Your Majesty, but I would approach it-and our war here-more thoughtfully. Right now, we know too little to be effective.”
Elhokar looked surprised. He nodded. “I… Uncle, that actually makes sense. Why didn’t you explain it before?”
Dalinar blinked. Just several weeks ago, Elhokar had been indignant when Dalinar had merely mentioned the idea of turning back. What had changed?
I don’t give the boy enough credit, he realized. “I have had trouble explaining my own thoughts recently, Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty!” Sadeas said. “Surely you wouldn’t actually consider-”
“This latest attempt on my life has me unsettled, Sadeas. Tell me. Have you made any progress in determining who put the weakened gems in my Plate?”
“Not yet, Your Majesty.”
“They’re trying to kill me,” Elhokar said softly, huddling down in his armor. “They’ll see me dead, like my father. Sometimes I do wonder if we’re chasing after the ten fools here. The assassin in white-he was Shin.”
“The Parshendi took responsibility for sending him,” Sadeas said.
“Yes,” Elhokar replied. “And yet they are savages, and easily manipulated. It would be a perfect distraction, pinning the blame on a group of parshmen. We go to war for years and years, never noticing the real villains, working quietly in my own camp. They watch me. Always. Waiting. I see their faces in mirrors. Symbols, twisted, inhuman…”
Dalinar glanced at Sadeas, and the two shared a disturbed look. Was Elhokar’s paranoia growing worse, or had it always been hidden? He saw phantom cabals in every shadow, and now-with the attempt on his life- he had proof to feed those worries.
“Retreating from the Shattered Plains could be a good idea,” Dalinar said carefully. “But not if it is to begin another war with someone else. We must stabilize and unify our people.”
Elhokar sighed. “Chasing the assassin is only an idle thought right now. Perhaps we won’t need it. I hear that your eff orts with Sadeas have been fruitful.”
“They have indeed, Your Majesty,” Sadeas said, sounding proud-perhaps a little smug. “Though Dalinar still insists on using his own, slow bridges. Sometimes, my forces are nearly wiped out before he arrives. This would work better if Dalinar would use modern bridge tactics.”
“The waste of life…” Dalinar said.
“Is acceptable,” Sadeas said. “They’re mostly slaves, Dalinar. It’s an honor for them to have a chance to participate in some small way.”
I doubt they see it in that light.
“I wish you’d at least try my way,” Sadeas continued. “What we’ve been doing so far has worked, but I worry that the Parshendi will continue to send two armies against us. I don’t relish the idea of fighting both on my own before you arrive.”
Dalinar hesitated. That would be a problem. But to give up the siege bridges?
“Well, why not a compromise?” Elhokar said. “Next plateau assault, Uncle, you let Sadeas’s bridgemen help you for the initial march to the contested plateau. Sadeas has plenty of extra bridge crews he could lend you. He could still rush on ahead with a smaller army, but you’d follow more quickly than you have been, using his bridge crews.”
“That would be the same as using my own bridge crews,” Dalinar said.
“Not necessarily,” Elhokar said. “You’ve said that the Parshendi can rarely set up and fire on you once Sadeas engages them. Sadeas’s men can start the assault as usual, and you can join once he’s secured a foothold for you.”
“Yes…” Sadeas said, thoughtful. “The bridgemen you use will be safe, and you won’t be costing any additional lives. But you’ll arrive at the plateau to help me twice as quickly.”
“What if you can’t distract the Parshendi well enough?” Dalinar asked. “What if they still set up archers to fire on my bridgemen when I cross?”
“Then we’ll retreat,” Sadeas said with a sigh. “And we’ll call it a failed experiment. But at least we’ll have tried. This is how you get ahead, old friend. You try new things.”
Dalinar scratched his chin in thought.
“Oh, go on, Dalinar,” Elhokar said. “He took your suggestion to attack together. Try it once his way.”
“Very well,” Dalinar said. “We will see how it works.”
“Excellent,” Elhokar said, standing. “And now, I believe I’ll go congratulate yo
ur son. That bout was exciting!”
Dalinar hadn’t found it particularly exciting-Adolin’s opponent hadn’t ever held the upper hand. But that was the best kind of battle. Dalinar didn’t buy the arguments about a ‘good’ fight being a close one. When you won, it was always better to win quickly and with extreme advantage.
Dalinar and Sadeas stood in respect as the king descended the stairlike stone outcroppings toward the sandy floor below. Dalinar then turned to Sadeas. “I should be leaving. Send me a clerk to detail the plateaus you feel we could try this maneuver on. Next time one of them is up for assault, I’ll march my army to your staging area and we’ll leave together. You and the smaller, quicker group can go on ahead, and we’ll catch up once you’re in position.”
Sadeas nodded.
Dalinar turned to climb up the steps toward the ramp out.
“Dalinar,” Sadeas called after him.
Dalinar looked back at the other highprince. Sadeas’s scarf fluttered in a gust of wind, his arms folded, the metallic golden embroidery glistening. “Send me one of your clerks as well. With a copy of that book of Gavilar’s. It may amuse me to hear its other stories.”
Dalinar smiled. “I will do so, Sadeas.”
59
An Honor
“Above the final void I hang, friends behind, friends before. The feast I must drink clings to their faces, and the words I must speak spark in my mind. The old oaths will be spoken anew.”
— Dated Betabanan, 1173, 45 seconds pre-death. Subject: a lighteyed child of five years. Diction improved remarkably when giving sample.
Kaladin glared at the three glowing topaz spheres on the ground in front of him. The barrack was dark, empty save for Teft and himself. Lopen leaned in the sunlit doorway, watching with a casual air. Outside, Rock called out commands to the other bridgemen. Kaladin had them working on battle formations. Nothing overt. It would be construed as practice for bridge carrying, but he was actually training them to obey orders and rearrange themselves efficiently.
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, p
articularly 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 alongside. 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.
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