The stout woman curtsied. “Brightness?”
“The Palanaeum,” Shallan said.
The woman bowed and led Shallan farther into the depths of the long hallway. Most of the women here—servants included—wore their hair bound, and Shallan felt conspicuous with hers loose. The deep red color made her stand out even more.
Soon, the grand hallway began to slope down steeply. But when the half-hour arrived, she could still hear distant bells ring behind her. Perhaps that was why the people here liked them so much; even in the depths of the Conclave, one could hear the outside world.
The servant led Shallan to a pair of grand steel doors. The servant bowed and Shallan dismissed her with a nod.
Shallan couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the doors; their exterior was carved in an intricate geometric pattern with circles and lines and glyphs. It was some kind of chart, half on each door. There was no time to study the details, unfortunately, and she passed them by.
Beyond the doors was a breathtakingly large room. The sides were of smooth rock and they stretched high; the dim illumination made it impossible to tell just how high, but she saw flickers of distant light. Set into the walls were dozens of small balconies, much like the private box seats of a theater. Soft light shone from many of these. The only sounds were turning pages and faint whispers. Shallan raised her safehand to her breast, feeling dwarfed by the magnificent chamber.
“Brightness?” a young male master-servant said, approaching. “What do you need?”
“A new sense of perspective, apparently,” Shallan said absently. “How…”
“This room is called the Veil,” the servant explained softly. “That which comes before the Palanaeum itself. Both were here when the city was founded. Some think these chambers might have been cut by the Dawnsingers themselves.”
“Where are the books?”
“The Palanaeum proper is this way.” The servant gestured, leading her to a set of doors on the other side of the room. Through them, she entered a smaller chamber that was partitioned with walls of thick crystal. Shallan approached the nearest one, feeling it. The crystal’s surface was rough like hewn rock.
“Soulcast?” she asked.
The servant nodded. Behind him, another servant passed leading an elderly ardent. Like most ardents, the aged man had a shaved head and a long beard. His simple grey robes were tied with a brown sash. The servant led him around a corner, and Shallan could vaguely make out their shapes on the other side, shadows swimming through the crystal.
She took a step forward, but her servant cleared his throat. “I will need your chit of admittance, Brightness.”
“How much does one cost?” Shallan asked hesitantly.
“A thousand sapphire broams.”
“So much?”
“The king’s many hospitals require much upkeep,” the man said apologetically. “The only things Kharbranth has to sell are fish, bells, and information. The first two are hardly unique to us. But the third…well, the Palanaeum has the finest collection of tomes and scrolls on Roshar. More, even, than the Holy Enclave in Valath. At last count, there were over seven hundred thousand separate texts in our archive.”
Her father had owned exactly eighty-seven books. Shallan had read them all several times over. How much could be contained in seven hundred thousand books? The weight of that much information dazzled her. She found herself hungering to look through those hidden shelves. She could spend months just reading their titles.
But no. Perhaps once she’d made certain her brothers were safe—once her house’s finances were restored—she could return. Perhaps.
She felt like she was starving, yet leaving a warm fruit pie uneaten. “Where might I wait?” she asked. “If someone I know is inside.”
“You may use one of the reading alcoves,” the servant said, relaxing. Perhaps he’d feared that she would make a scene. “No chit is required to sit in one. There are parshman porters who will raise you to the higher levels, if that is what you wish.”
“Thank you,” Shallan said, turning her back on the Palanaeum. She felt like a child again, locked in her room, not allowed to run through the gardens because of her father’s paranoid fears. “Does Brightness Jasnah have an alcove yet?”
“I can ask,” the servant said, leading the way back into the Veil, with its distant, unseen ceiling. He hurried off to speak with some others, leaving Shallan standing beside the doorway to the Palanaeum.
She could run in. Sneak through—
No. Her brothers teased her for being too timid, but it was not timidity that held her back. There would undoubtedly be guards; bursting in would not only be futile, it would ruin any chance she had of changing Jasnah’s mind.
Change Jasnah’s mind, prove herself. Considering it made her sick. She hated confrontation. During her youth, she’d felt like a piece of delicate crystalware, locked in a cabinet to be displayed but never touched. The only daughter, the last memory of Brightlord Davar’s beloved wife. It still felt odd to her that she been the one to take charge after…After the incident…After…
Memories attacked her. Nan Balat bruised, his coat torn. A long, silvery sword in her hand, sharp enough to cut stones as if they were water.
No, Shallan thought, her back to the stone wall, clutching her satchel. No. Don’t think of the past.
She sought solace in drawing, raising fingers to her satchel and reaching for her paper and pencils. The servant came back before she had a chance to get them out, however. “Brightness Jasnah Kholin has indeed asked that a reading alcove be set aside for her,” he said. “You may wait there for her, if you wish it.”
“I do,” Shallan said. “Thank you.”
The servant led her to a shadowed enclosure, inside of which four parshmen stood upon a sturdy wooden platform. The servant and Shallan stepped onto the platform, and the parshmen pulled ropes that were strung into a pulley above, raising the platform up the stone shaft. The only lights were broam spheres set at each corner of the lift’s ceiling. Amethysts, which had a soft violet light.
She needed a plan. Jasnah Kholin did not seem the type to change her mind easily. Shallan would have to surprise her, impress her.
They reached a level about forty feet or so off the ground, and the servant waved for the porters to stop. Shallan followed the master-servant down a dark hallway to one of the small balconies that extended out over the Veil. It was round, like a turret, and had a waist-high stone rim with a wooden railing above that. Other occupied alcoves glowed with different colors from the spheres being used to light them; the darkness of the huge space made them seem to hover in the air.
This alcove had a long, curving stone desk joined directly into the rim of the balcony. There was a single chair and a gobletlike crystal bowl. Shallan nodded in thanks to the servant, who withdrew, then she pulled out a handful of spheres and dropped them into the bowl, lighting the alcove.
She sighed, sitting down in the chair and laying her satchel on the desk. She undid the laces on her satchel, busying herself as she tried to think of something—anything—that would persuade Jasnah.
First, she decided, I need to clear my mind.
From her satchel she removed a sheaf of thick drawing paper, a set of charcoal pencils of different widths, some brushes and steel pens, ink, and watercolors. Finally, she took out her smaller notebook, bound in codex form, which contained the nature sketches she’d done during her weeks aboard the Wind’s Pleasure.
These were simple things, really, but worth more to her than a chest full of spheres. She took a sheet off the stack, then selected a fine-pointed charcoal pencil, rolling it between her fingers. She closed her eyes and fixed an image in her mind: Kharbranth as she’d memorized it in that moment soon after landing on the docks. Waves surging against the wooden posts, a salty scent to the air, men climbing rigging calling one another with excitement. And the city itself, rising up the hillside, homes stacked atop homes, not a speck of land wasted. Bells, distan
t, tinkling softly in the air.
She opened her eyes and began to draw. Her fingers moved on their own, sketching broad lines first. The cracklike valley the city was situated in. The port. Here, squares to be homes, there a slash to mark a switchback of the grand roadway that led up to the Conclave. Slowly, bit by bit, she added detail. Shadows as windows. Lines to fill out the roadways. Hints of people and carts to show the chaos of the thoroughfares.
She had read of how sculptors worked. Many would take a blank stone block and work it into a vague shape first. Then, they’d work it over again, carving more detail with each pass. It was the same for her in drawing. Broad lines first, then some details, then more, then down to the finest of lines. She had no formal training in pencils; she simply did what felt right.
The city took shape beneath her fingers. She coaxed it free, line by line, scratch by scratch. What would she do without this? Tension bled from her body, as if released from her fingertips into the pencil.
She lost track of time as she worked. Sometimes she felt like she was entering a trance, everything else fading. Her fingers almost seemed to draw of their own accord. It was so much easier to think while drawing.
Before too long, she had copied her Memory onto the page. She held up the sheet, satisfied, relaxed, her mind clear. The memorized image of Kharbranth was gone from her head; she’d released it into her sketch. There was a sense of relaxation to that too. As if her mind was put under tension holding Memories until they could be used.
She did Yalb next, standing shirtless in his vest and gesturing to the short porter who had pulled her up to the Conclave. She smiled as she worked, remembering Yalb’s affable voice. He’d likely returned to the Wind’s Pleasure by now. Had it been two hours? Probably.
She was always more excited by drawing animals and people than she was by drawing things. There was something energizing about putting a living creature onto the page. A city was lines and boxes, but a person was circles and curves. Could she get that smirk on Yalb’s face right? Could she show his lazy contentedness, the way he would flirt with a woman far above his station? And the porter, with his thin fingers and sandaled feet, his long coat and baggy pants. His strange language, his keen eyes, his plan to increase his tip by offering not just a ride, but a tour.
When she drew, she didn’t feel as if she worked with only charcoal and paper. In drawing a portrait, her medium was the soul itself. There were plants from which one could remove a tiny cutting—a leaf, or a bit of stem—then plant it and grow a duplicate. When she collected a Memory of a person, she was snipping free a bud of their soul, and she cultivated and grew it on the page. Charcoal for sinew, paper pulp for bone, ink for blood, the paper’s texture for skin. She fell into a rhythm, a cadence, the scratching of her pencil like the sound of breathing from those she depicted.
Creationspren began to gather around her pad, looking at her work. Like other spren, they were said to always be around, but usually invisible. Sometimes you attracted them. Sometimes you didn’t. With drawing, skill seemed to make a difference.
Creationspren were of medium size, as tall as one of her fingers, and they glowed with a faint silvery light. They transformed perpetually, taking new shapes. Usually the shapes were things they had seen recently. An urn, a person, a table, a wheel, a nail. Always of the same silvery color, always the same diminutive height. They imitated shapes exactly, but moved them in strange ways. A table would roll like a wheel, an urn would shatter and repair itself.
Her drawing gathered about a half-dozen of them, pulling them by her act of creation just as a bright fire would draw flamespren. She’d learned to ignore them. They weren’t substantial—if she moved her arm through one, its figure would smear like scattered sand, then reform. She never felt a thing when touching one.
Eventually, she held up the page, satisfied. It depicted Yalb and the porter in detail, with hints of the busy city behind. She’d gotten their eyes right. That was the most important. Each of the Ten Essences had an analogous part of the human body—blood for liquid, hair for wood, and so forth. The eyes were associated with crystal and glass. The windows into a person’s mind and spirit.
She set the page aside. Some men collected trophies. Others collected weapons or shields. Many collected spheres.
Shallan collected people. People, and interesting creatures. Perhaps it was because she’d spent so much of her youth in a virtual prison. She’d developed the habit of memorizing faces, then drawing them later, after her father had discovered her sketching the gardeners. His daughter? Drawing pictures of darkeyes? He’d been furious with her—one of the infrequent times he’d directed his infamous temper at his daughter.
After that, she’d done drawings of people only when in private, instead using her open drawing times to sketch the insects, crustaceans, and plants of the manor gardens. Her father hadn’t minded this—zoology and botany were proper feminine pursuits—and had encouraged her to choose natural history as her Calling.
She took out a third blank sheet. It seemed to beg her to fill it. A blank page was nothing but potential, pointless until it was used. Like a fully infused sphere cloistered inside a pouch, prevented from making its light useful.
Fill me.
The creationspren gathered around the page. They were still, as if curious, anticipatory. Shallan closed her eyes and imagined Jasnah Kholin, standing before the blocked door, the Soulcaster glowing on her hand. The hallway hushed, save for a child’s sniffles. Attendants holding their breath. An anxious king. A still reverence.
Shallan opened her eyes and began to draw with vigor, intentionally losing herself. The less she was in the now and the more she was in the then, the better the sketch would be. The other two pictures had been warm-ups; this was the day’s masterpiece. With the paper bound onto the board—safehand holding that—her freehand flew across the page, occasionally switching to other pencils. Soft charcoal for deep, thick blackness, like Jasnah’s beautiful hair. Hard charcoal for light greys, like the powerful waves of light coming from the Soulcaster’s gems.
For a few extended moments, Shallan was back in that hallway again, watching something that should not be: a heretic wielding one of the most sacred powers in all the world. The power of change itself, the power by which the Almighty had created Roshar. He had another name, allowed to pass only the lips of ardents. Elithanathile. He Who Transforms.
Shallan could smell the musty hallway. She could hear the child whimpering. She could feel her own heart beating in anticipation. The boulder would soon change. Sucking away the Stormlight in Jasnah’s gemstone, it would give up its essence, becoming something new. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat.
And then the memory faded, returning her to the quiet, dim alcove. The page now held a perfect rendition of the scene, worked in blacks and greys. The princess’s proud figure regarded the fallen stone, demanding that it give way before her will. It was her. Shallan knew, with the intuitive certainty of an artist, that this was one of the finest pieces she had ever done. In a very small way, she had captured Jasnah Kholin, something the devotaries had never managed. That gave her a euphoric thrill. Even if this woman rejected Shallan again, one fact would not change. Jasnah Kholin had joined Shallan’s collection.
Shallan wiped her fingers on her cleaning cloth, then lifted the paper. She noted absently that she’d attracted some two dozen creationspren now. She would have to lacquer the page with plytree sap to set the charcoal and protect it from smudges. She had some in her satchel. First she wanted to study the page and the figure it contained. Who was Jasnah Kholin? Not one to be cowed, certainly. She was a woman to the bone, master of the feminine arts, but not by any means delicate.
Such a woman would appreciate Shallan’s determination. She would listen to another request for wardship, assuming it was presented properly.
Jasnah was also a rationalist, a woman with the audacity to deny the existence of the Almighty himself based on her own reasoning. Jasnah would appre
ciate strength, but only if it was shaped by logic.
Shallan nodded to herself, taking out a fourth sheet of paper and a fine-tipped brushpen, then shaking and opening her jar of ink. Jasnah had demanded proof of Shallan’s logical and writing skills. Well, what better way to do that than to supplicate the woman with words?
Brightness Jasnah Kholin, Shallan wrote, painting the letters as neatly and beautifully as she could. She could have used a reed instead, but a brushpen was for works of art. She intended this page to be just that. You have rejected my petition. I accept that. Yet, as anyone trained in formal inquiry knows, no supposition should be treated as axiomatic. The actual argument usually read “no supposition—save for the existence of the Almighty himself—should be held as axiomatic.” But this wording would appeal to Jasnah.
A scientist must be willing to change her theories if experiment disproves them. I hold to the hope that you treat decisions in a like manner: as preliminary results pending further information.
From our brief interaction, I can see that you appreciate tenacity. You complimented me on continuing to seek you out. Therefore, I presume that you will not find this letter a breach of good taste. Take it as proof of my ardor to be your ward, and not as disdain for your expressed decision.
Shallan raised the end of her brushpen to her lips as she considered her next step. The creationspren slowly faded away, vanishing. There were said to be logicspren—in the form of tiny stormclouds—who were attracted to great arguments, but Shallan had never seen them.
You expect proof of my worthiness, Shallan continued. I wish I could demonstrate that my schooling is more complete than our interview revealed. Unfortunately, I haven’t the grounds for such an argument. I have weaknesses in my understanding. That is plain and not subject to reasonable dispute.
But the lives of men and women are more than logical puzzles; the context of their experiences is invaluable in making good decisions. My study in logic does not rise to your standards, but even I know that the rationalists have a rule: One cannot apply logic as an absolute where human beings are concerned. We are not beings of thought only.
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