The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  The grass continued to part for the wagons, vanishing just in front, then creeping out after the wagons passed. The landscape here was dotted with strange shrubs that Kaladin didn’t recognize. They had thick stalks and stems and spiny green needles. Whenever the wagons grew too close, the needles pulled into the stalks, leaving behind twisted, wormlike trunks with knotted branches. They dotted the hilly landscape, rising from the grass-covered rocks like diminutive sentries.

  The wagons just kept on going, well past noon. Why aren’t we stopping for slop?

  The lead wagon finally pulled to a stop. The other two lurched to a halt behind it, the red-carapaced chulls fidgeted, their antennae waving back and forth. The box-shaped animals had bulging, stony shells and thick, trunklike red legs. From what Kaladin had heard, their claws could snap a man’s arm. But chulls were docile, particularly domesticated ones, and he’d never known anyone in the army to get more than a halfhearted pinch from one.

  Bluth and Tag climbed down from their wagons and walked up to meet Tvlakv. The slavemaster stood on his wagon’s seat, shading his eyes against the white sunlight and holding a sheet of paper in his hand. An argument ensued. Tvlakv kept waving in the direction they had been going, then pointing at his sheet of paper.

  “Lost, Tvlakv?” Kaladin called. “Perhaps you should pray to the Almighty for guidance. I hear he has a fondness for slavers. Keeps a special room in Damnation just for you.”

  To Kaladin’s left, one of the slaves—the long-bearded man who had talked to him a few days back—sidled away, not wanting to stand close to a person who was provoking the slaver.

  Tvlakv hesitated, then waved curtly to his mercenaries, silencing them. The portly man hopped down from his wagon and walked over to Kaladin. “You,” he said. “Deserter. Alethi armies travel these lands for their war. Do you know anything of the area?”

  “Let me see the map,” Kaladin said. Tvlakv hesitated, then held it up for Kaladin.

  Kaladin reached through the bars and snatched the paper. Then, without reading it, Kaladin ripped it in two. In seconds he’d shredded it into a hundred pieces in front of Tvlakv’s horrified eyes.

  Tvlakv called for the mercenaries, but by the time they arrived, Kaladin had a double handful of confetti to toss out at them. “Happy Middlefest, you bastards,” Kaladin said as the flakes of paper fluttered around them. He turned and walked to the other side of the cage and sat down, facing them.

  Tvlakv stood, speechless. Then, red faced, he pointed at Kaladin and hissed something at the mercenaries. Bluth took a step toward the cage, but then thought better of it. He glanced at Tvlakv, then shrugged and walked away. Tvlakv turned to Tag, but the other mercenary just shook his head, saying something soft.

  After a few minutes of stewing at the cowardly mercenaries, Tvlakv rounded the cage and approached where Kaladin was sitting. Surprisingly, when he spoke, his voice was calm. “I see you are clever, deserter. You have made yourself invaluable. My other slaves, they aren’t from this area, and I have never come this way. You can bargain. What is it you wish in exchange for leading us? I can promise you an extra meal each day, should you please me.”

  “You want me to lead the caravan?”

  “Instructions will be acceptable.”

  “All right. First, find a cliff.”

  “That, it will give you a vantage to see the area?”

  “No,” Kaladin said. “It will give me something to throw you off of.”

  Tvlakv adjusted his cap in annoyance, brushing back one of his long white eyebrows. “You hate me. That is good. Hatred will keep you strong, make you sell for much. But you will not find vengeance on me unless I have a chance to take you to market. I will not let you escape. But perhaps someone else would. You want to be sold, you see?”

  “I don’t want vengeance,” Kaladin said. The windspren came back—she’d darted off for a time to inspect one of the strange shrubs. She landed in the air and began walking around Tvlakv’s face, inspecting him. He didn’t seem to be able to see her.

  Tvlakv frowned. “No vengeance?”

  “It doesn’t work,” Kaladin said. “I learned that lesson long ago.”

  “Long ago? You cannot be older than eighteen years, deserter.”

  It was a good guess. He was nineteen. Had it really only been four years since he’d joined Amaram’s army? Kaladin felt as if he’d aged a dozen.

  “You are young,” Tvlakv continued. “You could escape this fate of yours. Men have been known to live beyond the slave’s brand—you could pay off your slave price, you see? Or convince one of your masters to give you your freedom. You could become a free man again. It is not so unlikely.”

  Kaladin snorted. “I’ll never be free of these brands, Tvlakv. You must know that I’ve tried—and failed—to escape ten times over. It’s more than these glyphs on my head that makes your mercenaries wary.”

  “Past failure does not prove that there is not chance in the future, yes?”

  “I’m finished. I don’t care.” He eyed the slaver. “Besides, you don’t actually believe what you’re saying. I doubt a man like you would be able to sleep at night if he thought the slaves he sold would be free to seek him out one day.”

  Tvlakv laughed. “Perhaps, deserter. Perhaps you are right. Or perhaps I simply think that if you were to get free, you would hunt down the first man who sold you to slavery, you see? Highlord Amaram, was it not? His death would give me warning so I can run.”

  How had he known? How had he heard about Amaram? I’ll find him, Kaladin thought. I’ll gut him with my own hands. I’ll twist his head right off his neck, I’ll—

  “Yes,” Tvlakv said, studying Kaladin’s face, “so you were not so honest when you said you do not thirst for vengeance. I see.”

  “How do you know about Amaram?” Kaladin said, scowling. “I’ve changed hands a half-dozen times since then.”

  “Men talk. Slavers more than most. We must be friends with one another, you see, for nobody else will stomach us.”

  “Then you know that I didn’t get this brand for deserting.”

  “Ah, but it is what we must pretend, you see? Men guilty of high crimes, they do not sell so well. With that shash glyph on your head, it will be difficult enough to get a good price for you. If I cannot sell you, then you…well, you will not wish for that status. So we will play a game together. I will say you are a deserter. And you will say nothing. It is an easy game, I think.”

  “It’s illegal.”

  “We are not in Alethkar,” Tvlakv said, “so there is no law. Besides, desertion was the official reason for your sale. Claim otherwise, and you will gain nothing but a reputation for dishonesty.”

  “Nothing besides a headache for you.”

  “But you just said you have no desire for vengeance against me.”

  “I could learn.”

  Tvlakv laughed. “Ah, if you have not learned that already, then you probably never will! Besides, did you not threaten to throw me off a cliff? I think you have learned already. But now, we must discuss how to proceed. My map has met with an untimely demise, you see.”

  Kaladin hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’ve never been this way either.”

  Tvlakv frowned. He leaned closer to the cage, inspecting Kaladin, though he still kept his distance. After a moment, Tvlakv shook his head. “I believe you, deserter. A pity. Well, I shall trust my memory. The map was poorly rendered anyway. I am almost glad you ripped it, for I was tempted to do the same myself. If I should happen across any portraits of my former wives, I shall see that they cross your path and take advantage of your unique talents.” He strolled away.

  Kaladin watched him go, then cursed to himself.

  “What was that for?” the windspren said, walking up to him, head cocked.

  “I almost find myself liking him,” Kaladin said, pounding his head back against the cage.

  “But…after what he did…”

  Kaladin shrugged. “I
didn’t say Tvlakv isn’t a bastard. He’s just a likable bastard.” He hesitated, then grimaced. “Those are the worst kind. When you kill them, you end up feeling guilty for it.”

  The wagon leaked during highstorms. That wasn’t surprising; Kaladin suspected that Tvlakv had been driven to slaving by ill fortune. He would rather be trading other goods, but something—lack of funds, a need to leave his previous environs with haste—had forced him to pick up this least reputable of careers.

  Men like him couldn’t afford luxury, or even quality. They could barely stay ahead of their debts. In this case, that meant wagons which leaked. The boarded sides were strong enough to withstand highstorm winds, but they weren’t comfortable.

  Tvlakv had almost missed getting ready for this highstorm. Apparently, the map Kaladin had torn up had also included a list of highstorm dates purchased from a roving stormwarden. The storms could be predicted mathematically; Kaladin’s father had made a hobby of it. He’d been able to pick the right day eight times out of ten.

  The boards rattled against the cage’s bars as wind buffeted the vehicle, shaking it, making it lurch it like a clumsy giant’s plaything. The wood groaned and spurts of icy rainwater sprayed through cracks. Flashes of lightning leaked through as well, accompanied by thunder. That was the only light they got.

  Occasionally, light would flash without the thunder. The slaves would groan in terror at this, thinking about the Stormfather, the shades of the Lost Radiants, or the Voidbringers—all of which were said to haunt the most violent highstorms. They huddled together on the far side of the wagon, sharing warmth. Kaladin left them to it, sitting alone with his back to the bars.

  Kaladin didn’t fear stories of things that walked the storms. In the army, he’d been forced to weather a highstorm or two beneath the lip of a protective stone overhang or other bit of impromptu shelter. Nobody liked to be out during a storm, but sometimes you couldn’t avoid it. The things that walked the storms—perhaps even the Stormfather himself—weren’t nearly so deadly as the rocks and branches cast up into the air. In fact, the storm’s initial tempest of water and wind—the stormwall—was the most dangerous part. The longer one endured after that, the weaker the storm grew, until the trailing edge was nothing more than sprinkling rain.

  No, he wasn’t worried about Voidbringers looking for flesh to feast upon. He was worried that something would happen to Tvlakv. The slavemaster waited out the storm in a cramped wooden enclosure built into the bottom of his wagon. That was ostensibly the safest place in the caravan, but an unlucky twist of fate—a tempest-thrown boulder, the collapse of the wagon—could leave him dead. In that case, Kaladin could see Bluth and Tag running off, leaving everyone in their cages, wooden sides locked up. The slaves would die a slow death by starvation and dehydration, baking under the sun in these boxes.

  The storm continued to blow, shaking the wagon. Those winds felt like live things at times. And who was to say they weren’t? Were windspren attracted to gusts of wind, or were they the gusts of wind? The souls of the force that now wanted so badly to destroy Kaladin’s wagon?

  That force—sentient or not—failed. The wagons were chained to nearby boulders with their wheels locked. The blasts of wind grew more lethargic. Lightning stopped flashing, and the maddening drumming of rain became a quiet tapping instead. Only once during their journey had a wagon toppled during a highstorm. Both it and the slaves inside had survived with a few dents and bruises.

  The wooden side to Kaladin’s right shook suddenly, then fell open as Bluth undid its clasps. The mercenary wore his leather coat against the wet, streams of water falling from the brim of his hat as he exposed the bars—and the occupants—to the rain. It was cold, though not as piercingly so as during the height of the storm. It sprayed across Kaladin and the huddled slaves. Tvlakv always ordered the wagons uncovered before the rain stopped; he said it was the only way to wash away the slaves’ stink.

  Bluth slid the wooden side into place beneath the wagon, then opened the other two sides. Only the wall at the front of the wagon—just behind the driver’s seat—couldn’t be brought down.

  “Little early to be taking down the sides, Bluth,” Kaladin said. It wasn’t quite the riddens yet—the period near the end of a highstorm when the rain sprinkled softly. This rain was still heavy, the wind still gusting on occasion.

  “The master wants you plenty clean today.”

  “Why?” Kaladin asked, rising, water streaming from his ragged brown clothing.

  Bluth ignored him. Perhaps we’re nearing our destination, Kaladin thought as he scanned the landscape.

  Over the last few days, the hills had given way to uneven rock formations—places where weathering winds had left behind crumbling cliffs and jagged shapes. Grass grew up the rocky sides that saw the most sun, and other plants were plentiful in the shade. The time right after a highstorm was when the land was most alive. Rockbud polyps split and sent out their vines. Other kinds of vine crept from crevices, licking up water. Leaves unfolded from shrubs and trees. Cremlings of all kinds slithered through puddles, enjoying the banquet. Insects buzzed into the air; larger crustaceans—crabs and leggers—left their hiding places. The very rocks seemed to come to life.

  Kaladin noted a half-dozen windspren flitting overhead, their translucent forms chasing after—or perhaps cruising along with—the highstorm’s last gusts. Tiny lights rose around the plants. Lifespren. They looked like motes of glowing green dust or swarms of tiny translucent insects.

  A legger—its hairlike spines lifted to the air to give warning of changes in the wind—climbed along the side of the cart, its long body lined with dozens of pairs of legs. That was familiar enough, but he’d never seen a legger with such a deep purple carapace. Where was Tvlakv taking the caravan? Those uncultivated hillsides were perfect for farming. You could spread stumpweight sap on them—mixed with lavis seeds—during seasons of weaker storms following the Weeping. In four months, you’d have polyps larger than a man’s head growing all along the hill, ready to break open for the grain inside.

  The chulls lumbered about, feasting on rockbuds, slugs, and smaller crustaceans that had appeared after the storm. Tag and Bluth quietly hitched the beasts to their harnesses as a grumpy-looking Tvlakv crawled out of his waterproof refuge. The slavemaster pulled on a cap and deep black cloak against the rain. He rarely came out until the storm had passed completely; he was very eager to get to their destination. Were they that close to the coast? That was one of the only places where they’d find cities in the Unclaimed Hills.

  Within minutes, the wagons were rolling again across the uneven ground. Kaladin settled back as the sky cleared, the highstorm a smudge of blackness on the western horizon. The sun brought welcome warmth, and the slaves basked in the light, streams of water dripping from their clothing and running out the back of the rocking wagon.

  Presently, a translucent ribbon of light zipped up to Kaladin. He was coming to take the windspren’s presence for granted. She had gone out during the storm, but she’d come back. As always.

  “I saw others of your kind,” Kaladin said idly.

  “Others?” she asked, taking the form of a young woman. She began to step around him in the air, spinning occasionally, dancing to some unheard beat.

  “Windspren,” Kaladin said. “Chasing after the storm. Are you certain you don’t want to go with them?”

  She glanced westward, longingly. “No,” she finally said, continuing her dance. “I like it here.”

  Kaladin shrugged. She’d ceased playing as many pranks as she once had, and so he’d stopped letting her presence annoy him.

  “There are others near,” she said. “Others like you.”

  “Slaves?”

  “I don’t know. People. Not the ones here. Other ones.”

  “Where?”

  She turned a translucent white finger, pointing eastward. “There. Many of them. Lots and lots.”

  Kaladin stood up. He couldn’t imagine that a spren had
a good handle on how to measure distance and numbers. Yes… Kaladin squinted, studying the horizon. That’s smoke. From chimneys? He caught a gust of it on the wind; if not for the rain, he’d probably have smelled it sooner.

  Should he care? It didn’t matter where he was a slave; he’d still be a slave. He’d accepted this life. That was his way now. Don’t care, don’t bother.

  Still, he watched with curiosity as his wagon climbed the side of a hill and gave the slaves inside a good vantage of what was ahead. It wasn’t a city. It was something grander, something larger. An enormous army encampment.

  “Great Father of Storms…” Kaladin whispered.

  Ten masses of troops bivouacked in familiar Alethi patterns—circular, by company rank, with camp followers on the outskirts, mercenaries in a ring just inside them, citizen soldiers near the middle, lighteyed officers at the very center. They were camped in a series of enormous craterlike rock formations, only the sides were more irregular, more jagged. Like broken eggshells.

  Kaladin had left an army much like this eight months ago, though Amaram’s force had been much smaller. This one covered miles of stone, stretching far both north and south. A thousand banners bearing a thousand different family glyphpairs flapped proudly in the air. There were some tents—mainly on the outside of the armies—but most of the troops were housed in large stone barracks. That meant Soulcasters.

  That encampment directly ahead of them flew a banner Kaladin had seen in books. Deep blue with white glyphs—khokh and linil, stylized and painted as a sword standing before a crown. House Kholin. The king’s house.

  Daunted, Kaladin looked beyond the armies. The landscape to the east was as he’d heard it described in a dozen different stories detailing the king’s campaign against the Parshendi betrayers. It was an enormous riven plain of rock—so wide he couldn’t see the other side—that was split and cut by sheer chasms, crevasses twenty or thirty feet wide. They were so deep that they disappeared into darkness and formed a jagged mosaic of uneven plateaus. Some large, others tiny. The expansive plain looked like a platter that had been broken, its pieces then reassembled with small gaps between the fragments.