The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  That was good. Kal figured this would be useful when he went to war someday, to fight for his highprince and the lighteyes.

  Sani had three broken fingers and the skin on her hand was scraped and gouged, the wound cluttered with sticks and dirt. The third finger was the worst, shattered and twisted nastily, splinters of bone protruding through the skin. Kal felt its length, noting the fractured bones, the blackness on the skin. He carefully wiped away dried blood and dirt with a wet cloth, picking out rocks and sticks as his father cut thread for sewing.

  “The third finger will have to go, won’t it?” Kal said, tying a bandage around the base of the finger to keep it from bleeding.

  His father nodded, a hint of a smile on his face. He’d hoped Kal would discern that. Lirin often said that a wise surgeon must know what to remove and what to save. If that third finger had been set properly at first…but no, it was beyond recovery. Sewing it back together would mean leaving it to fester and die.

  His father did the actual amputation. He had such careful, precise hands. Training as a surgeon took over ten years, and it would be some time yet before Lirin let Kal hold the knife. Instead, Kal wiped away blood, handed his father knives, and held the sinew to keep it from tangling as his father sewed. They repaired the hand so far as they could, working with deliberate speed.

  Kal’s father finished the final suture, obviously pleased at having been able to save four of the fingers. That wasn’t how Sani’s parents would see it. They’d be disappointed that their beautiful daughter would now have a disfigured hand. It almost always happened that way—terror at the initial wound, then anger at Lirin’s inability to work wonders. Lirin said it was because the townsfolk had grown accustomed to having a surgeon. To them, the healing had become an expectation, rather than a privilege.

  But Sani’s parents were good people. They’d make a small donation, and Kal’s family—his parents, him, and his younger brother Tien—would continue to be able to eat. Odd, how they survived because of others’ misfortune. Maybe that was part of what made the townsfolk resent them.

  Lirin finished by using a small heated rod to cauterize where he felt the stitches wouldn’t be enough. Finally, he spread pungent lister’s oil across the hand to prevent infection—the oil frightened away rotspren even better than soap and water. Kal wrapped on clean bandages, careful not to disturb the splints.

  Lirin disposed of the finger, and Kal began to relax. She’d be all right.

  “You still need to work on those nerves of yours, son,” Lirin said softly, washing blood from his hands.

  Kal looked down.

  “It is good to care,” Lirin said. “But caring—like anything else—can be a problem if it interferes with your ability to perform surgery.”

  Caring too much can be a problem? Kal thought back at his father. And what about being so selfless that you never charge for your work? He didn’t dare say the words.

  Cleaning the room came next. It seemed like half of Kal’s life was spent cleaning, but Lirin wouldn’t let him go until they were done with it. At least he opened the shutters, letting sunlight stream in. Sani continued to doze; the winterwort would keep her unconscious for hours yet.

  “So where were you?” Lirin asked, bottles of oil and alcohol clinking as he returned them to their places.

  “With Jam.”

  “Jam is two years your senior,” Lirin said. “I doubt he has much fondness for spending his time with those much younger than he.”

  “His father started training him in the quarterstaff,” Kal said in a rush. “Tien and I went to see what he’s learned.” Kal cringed, waiting for the lecture.

  His father just continued, wiping down each of his surgeon’s knives with alcohol, then oil, as the old traditions dictated. He didn’t turn toward Kal.

  “Jam’s father was a soldier in Brightlord Amaram’s army,” Kal said tentatively. Brightlord Amaram! The noble lighteyed general who watched over northern Alethkar. Kal wanted so much to see a real lighteyes, not stuffy old Wistiow. A soldier, like everyone talked about, like the stories were about.

  “I know about Jam’s father,” Lirin said. “I’ve had to operate on that lame leg of his three times now. A gift of his glorious time as a soldier.”

  “We need soldiers, father. You’d have our borders violated by the Thaylens?”

  “Thaylenah is an island kingdom,” Lirin said calmly. “They don’t share a border with us.”

  “Well, then, they could attack from sea!”

  “They’re mostly tradesmen and merchants. Every one I’ve met has tried to swindle me, but that’s hardly the same thing as invading.”

  All the boys liked to tell stories about far-off places. It was hard to remember that Kal’s father—the only man of second nahn in the town—had traveled all the way to Kharbranth during his youth.

  “Well, we fight with someone,” Kal continued, moving to scrub the floor.

  “Yes,” his father said after a pause. “King Gavilar always finds people for us to fight. That much is true.”

  “So we need soldiers, like I said.”

  “We need surgeons more.” Lirin sighed audibly, turning away from his cabinet. “Son, you nearly cry each time someone is brought to us; you grind your teeth anxiously during even simple procedures. What makes you think you could actually hurt someone?”

  “I’ll get stronger.”

  “That’s foolishness. Who’s put these ideas in your head? Why would you want to learn to hit other boys with a stick?”

  “For honor, Father,” Kal said. “Who tells stories about surgeons, for the Heralds’s sake!”

  “The children of the men and women whose lives we save,” Lirin said evenly, meeting Kal’s gaze. “That’s who tell stories of surgeons.”

  Kal blushed and shrank back, then finally returned to his scrubbing.

  “There are two kinds of people in this world, son,” his father said sternly. “Those who save lives. And those who take lives.”

  “And what of those who protect and defend? The ones who save lives by taking lives?”

  His father snorted. “That’s like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can’t protect by killing.”

  Kal kept scrubbing.

  Finally, his father sighed, walking over and kneeling down beside him, helping with the scrubbing. “What are the properties of winterwort?”

  “Bitter taste,” Kal said immediately, “which makes it safer to keep, since people won’t eat it by accident. Crush it to powder, mix it with oil, use one spoonful per ten brickweight of the person you’re drugging. Induces a deep sleep for about five hours.”

  “And how can you tell if someone has the fiddlepox?”

  “Nervous energy,” Kal said, “thirst, trouble sleeping, and swelling on the undersides of the arms.”

  “You’ve got such a good mind, son,” Lirin said softly. “It took me years to learn what you’ve done in months. I’ve been saving. I’d like to send you to Kharbranth when you turn sixteen, to train with real surgeons.”

  Kal felt a spike of excitement. Kharbranth? That was in an entirely different kingdom! Kal’s father had traveled there as a courier, but he hadn’t trained there as a surgeon. He’d learned from old Vathe in Shorse broon, the nearest town of any size.

  “You have a gift from the Heralds themselves,” Lirin said, resting a hand on Kal’s shoulder. “You could be ten times the surgeon I am. Don’t dream the small dreams of other men. Our grandfathers bought and worked us to the second nahn so that we could have full citizenship and the right of travel. Don’t waste that on killing.”

  Kal hesitated, but soon found himself nodding.

  “Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns.”

  —Collected: Chachanan, 1173, 84 seconds pre-death. Subject: a cutpurse with the wasting sickness, of partial Iriali descent.

  The highstorm eventually subsided. It was the dusk of the day the boy had died, the day Syl had left him. Kaladin
slid on his sandals—the same ones he’d taken from the leathery-faced man on that first day—and stood up. He walked through the crowded barrack.

  There were no beds, just one thin blanket per bridgeman. One had to choose whether to use it for cushioning or warmth. You could freeze or you could ache. Those were a bridgeman’s options, though several of the bridgemen had found a third use for the blankets. They wrapped them around their heads, as if to block out sight, sound, and smell. To hide from the world.

  The world would find them anyway. It was good at these kinds of games.

  Rain fell in sheets outside, the wind still stiff. Flashes lit the western horizon, where the center of the storm flew onward. This was an hour or so before the riddens, and was as early as one would want to go out in a highstorm.

  Well, one never wanted to go out in a highstorm. But this was about as early as it was safe to go out. The lightning had passed; the winds were manageable.

  He passed through the dim lumberyard, hunched against the wind. Branches lay scattered about like bones in a whitespine’s lair. Leaves were plastered by rainwater to the rough sides of barracks. Kaladin splashed through puddles that chilled and numbed his feet. That felt good; they were still sore from the bridge run earlier.

  Waves of icy rain blew across him, wetting his hair, dripping down his face and into his scruffy beard. He hated having a beard, particularly the way the whiskers itched at the corners of his mouth. Beards were like axehound pups. Boys dreamed of the day they’d get one, never realizing how annoying they could be.

  “Out for a stroll, Your Lordship?” a voice said.

  Kaladin looked up to find Gaz huddled in a nearby hollow between two of the barracks. Why was he out in the rain?

  Ah. Gaz had fastened a small metal basket on the leeward wall of one of the barracks, and a soft glowing light came from within. He left his spheres out in the storm, then had come out early to retrieve them.

  It was a risk. Even a sheltered basket could get torn free. Some people believed that the shades of the Lost Radiants haunted the storms, stealing spheres. Perhaps that was true. But during his time in the army, Kaladin had known more than one man who had been wounded sneaking around during full storm, looking for spheres. No doubt the superstition was due to more worldly thieves.

  There were safer ways to infuse spheres. Moneychangers would exchange dun spheres for infused ones, or you could pay them to infuse yours in one of their safely guarded nests.

  “What are you doing?” Gaz demanded. The short, one-eyed man clutched the basket to his chest. “I’ll have you strung up if you’ve stolen anyone’s spheres.”

  Kaladin turned away from him.

  “Storm you! I’ll have you strung up anyway! Don’t think you can run away; there are still sentries. You—”

  “I’m going to the Honor Chasm,” Kaladin said quietly. His voice would barely be audible over the storm.

  Gaz shut up. The Honor Chasm. He lowered his metal basket and made no further objections. There was a certain deference given to men who took that road.

  Kaladin continued to cross the courtyard.

  “Lordling,” Gaz called.

  Kaladin turned.

  “Leave the sandals and vest,” Gaz said. “I don’t want to have to send someone down to fetch them.”

  Kaladin pulled the leather vest over his head and dropped it to the ground with a splash, then left the sandals in a puddle. That left him in a dirty shirt and stiff brown trousers, both taken off a dead man.

  Kaladin walked through the storm to the east side of the lumberyard. A low thundering rumbled from the west. The pathway down to the Shattered Plains was familiar to him now. He’d run this way a dozen times with the bridge crews. There wasn’t a battle every day—perhaps one in every two or three—and not every bridge crew had to go on every run. But many of the runs were so draining, so horrific, that they left the bridgemen stunned, almost unresponsive, for the days between.

  Many bridgemen had trouble making decisions. The same happened to men who were shocked by battle. Kaladin felt those effects in himself. Even deciding to come to the chasm had been difficult.

  But the bleeding eyes of that unnamed boy haunted him. He wouldn’t make himself go through something like that again. He couldn’t.

  He reached the base of the slope, wind-driven rain pelting his face as if trying to shove him back toward the camp. He kept on, walking up to the nearest chasm. The Honor Chasm, the bridgemen called it, for it was the place where they could make the one decision left to them. The “honorable” decision. Death.

  They weren’t natural, these chasms. This one started narrow, but as it ran toward the east, it grew wider—and deeper—incredibly quickly. At only ten feet long, the crack was already wide enough that it would be difficult to jump. A group of six rope ladders with wooden rungs hung here, affixed to spikes in the rock, used by bridgemen sent down to salvage from corpses that had fallen into the chasms during bridge runs.

  Kaladin looked out over the plains. He couldn’t see much through the darkness and rain. No, this place wasn’t natural. The land had been broken. And now it broke the people who came to it. Kaladin walked past the ladders, a little farther along the edge of the chasm. Then he sat down, legs over the side, looking down as the rain fell around him, the droplets plunging into the dark depths.

  To his sides, the more adventurous cremlings had already left their lairs, scuttling about, feeding on plants that lapped up the rainwater. Lirin had once explained that highstorm rains were rich with nutrients. Stormwardens in Kholinar and Vedenar had proven that plants given storm water did better than those given lake or river water. Why was it that scientists were so excited to discover facts that farmers had known for generations and generations?

  Kaladin watched the drops of water streaking down toward oblivion in the crevasse. Little suicidal jumpers. Thousands upon thousands of them. Millions upon millions. Who knew what awaited them in that darkness? You couldn’t see it, couldn’t know it, until you joined them. Leaping off into the void and letting the wind bear you down…

  “You were right, Father,” Kaladin whispered. “You can’t stop a storm by blowing harder. You can’t save men by killing others. We should all become surgeons. Every last one of us….”

  He was rambling. But, oddly, his mind felt clearer now than it had in weeks. Perhaps it was the clarity of perspective. Most men spent their entire lives wondering about the future. Well, his future was empty now. So he turned backward, thinking about his father, about Tien, about decisions.

  Once, his life had seemed simple. That was before he’d lost his brother, before he’d been betrayed in Amaram’s army. Would Kaladin go back to those innocent days, if he could? Would he prefer to pretend everything was simple?

  No. He’d had no easy fall, like those drops. He’d earned his scars. He’d bounced off walls, bashed his face and hands. He’d killed innocent men by accident. He’d walked beside those with hearts like blackened coals, adoring them. He’d scrambled and climbed and fallen and stumbled.

  And now here he was. At the end of it all. Understanding so much more, but somehow feeling no wiser. He climbed to his feet on the lip of that chasm, and could feel his father’s disappointment looming over him, like the thunderheads above.

  He put one foot out over the void.

  “Kaladin!”

  He froze at the soft but piercing voice. A translucent form bobbed in the air, approaching through the weakening rain. The figure lunged forward, then sank, then surged higher again, like it was bearing something heavy. Kaladin brought his foot back and held out his hand. Syl unceremoniously alighted upon it, shaped like a skyeel clutching something dark in its mouth.

  She switched to the familiar form of a young woman, dress fluttering around her legs. She held in her hands a narrow, dark green leaf with a point divided in three. Blackbane.

  “What is this?” Kaladin asked.

  She looked exhausted. “These things are heavy!” She lifte
d the leaf. “I brought it for you!”

  He took the leaf between two fingers. Blackbane. Poison. “Why did you bring this to me?” he said harshly.

  “I thought…” Syl said, shying back. “Well, you kept those other leaves so carefully. Then you lost them when you tried to help that man in the slave cages. I thought it would make you happy to have another one.”

  Kaladin almost laughed. She had no concept of what she’d done, fetching him a leaf of one of Roshar’s most deadly natural poisons because she’d wanted to make him happy. It was ridiculous. And sweet.

  “Everything seemed to go wrong when you lost that leaf,” Syl said in a soft voice. “Before that, you fought.”

  “I failed.”

  She cowered down, kneeling on his palm, misty skirt around her legs, drops of rainwater passing through her and rippling her form. “You don’t like it then? I flew so far…I almost forgot myself. But I came back. I came back, Kaladin.”

  “Why?” he pled. “Why do you care?”

  “Because I do,” she said, cocking her head. “I watched you, you know. Back in that army. You’d always find the young, untrained men and protect them, even though it put you into danger. I can remember. Just barely, but I do.”

  “I failed them. They’re dead now.”

  “They would have died more quickly without you. You made it so they had a family in the army. I remember their gratitude. It’s what drew me in the first place. You helped them.”

  “No,” he said, clutching the blackbane in his fingers. “Everything I touch withers and dies.” He teetered on the ledge. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Those men in the bridge crew,” Syl whispered. “You could help them.”

  “Too late.” He closed his eyes, thinking of the dead boy earlier in the day. “It’s too late. I’ve failed. They’re dead. They’re all going to die, and there’s no way out.”