Edgedancer
Page 17
“Yeah,” Lift said around a bite of pancakes. “You should have a weird little thing hanging around you. Not me. Something weirder. Like a vine?”
“A spren,” the Stump said. “Not like a vine. Like light reflected on a wall from a mirror…”
Lift glanced at Wyndle, who clung to the wall nearby. He nodded his vine face.
“Sure, that’ll do. Congrats. You’re a starvin’ Knight Radiant, Stump. You’ve been feasting on spheres and healing kids. Probably makes up some for treatin’ them like old laundry, eh?”
The Stump regarded Lift, who continued to munch on pancakes.
“I would have thought,” the Stump said, “that Knights Radiant would be more majestic.”
Lift scrunched up her face at the woman, then thrust her hand to the side and summoned Wyndle in the shape of a large, shimmering, silvery fork. A Shardfork, if you would.
She stabbed him into the pancakes, and unfortunately he went all the way through them, through the plate, and poked holes in the Stump’s dresser. Still, she managed to pry up a pancake.
Lift took a big bite out of it. “Majestic as Damnation’s own gonads,” she proclaimed, then wagged Wyndle at the Stump. “That’s saying it fancy-style, so my fork don’t complain that I’m bein’ crass.”
The Stump seemed to have trouble coming up with a response to that, other than to stare at Lift with her jaw slack. She was rescued from looking dumb by someone pounding on the door below. One of the Stump’s assistants opened it, but the woman herself hastened down the steps as soon as she heard who it was.
Lift dismissed Wyndle. Eating with your hands was way easier than eating with a fork, even a very nice fork. He formed back into a vine and curled up on the wall.
A short time later, Ghenna—the fat scribe from the Grand Indifference—stepped in. Judging by the way the Stump practically scraped the ground bowing to the woman, Lift judged that maybe Ghenna was more important than she’d assumed. Bet she didn’t have a magic fork though.
“Normally,” the scribe said, “I don’t frequent such … domiciles as this. People usually come to me.”
“I can tell,” Lift said. “You obviously don’t walk about very much.”
The scribe sniffed at that, laying a satchel down on the bed. “His Imperial Majesty has been somewhat cross with us for cutting off the communication before. But he is understanding, as he must be, considering recent events.”
“How’s the empire doing?” Lift said, chewing on a pancake.
“Surviving,” the scribe said. “But in chaos. Smaller villages were hit the worst, but although the storm was longer than a highstorm, its winds were not as bad. The worst was the lightning, which struck many who were unlucky enough to be out traveling.”
She unpacked her tools: a spanreed board, paper, and pen. “His Imperial Majesty was very pleased that you contacted me, and he has already sent a message asking for the details of your health.”
“Tell him I ain’t eaten nearly enough pancakes,” Lift said. “And I got this strange wart on my toe that keeps growin’ back when I cut it off—I think because I heal myself with my awesomeness, which is starvin’ inconvenient.”
The scribe looked to her, then sighed and read the message that Gawx had sent her. The empire would survive, it said, but would take long to recover—particularly if the storm kept returning. And then there was the issue with the parshmen, which could prove an even greater danger. He didn’t want to share state secrets over spanreed. Mostly he wanted to know if she was all right.
She kind of was. The scribe took to writing what Lift had told her, which would be enough to tell Gawx that she was well.
“Also,” Lift added as the woman wrote, “I found another Radiant, only she’s real old, and kinda looks like an underfed crab without no shell.” She looked to the Stump, and shrugged in a half apology. Surely she knew. She had mirrors, right?
“But she’s actually kind of nice, and takes care of kids, so we should recruit her or something. If we fight Voidbringers, she can stare at them in a real mean way. They’ll break down and tell her all about that time when they ate all the cookies and blamed it on Huisi, the girl what can’t talk right.”
Huisi snored anyway. She deserved it.
The scribe rolled her eyes, but wrote it. Lift nodded, finishing off the last pancake, a type with a real thick, almost mealy texture. “Okay,” she proclaimed, standing up. “That’s nine. What’s the last one? I’m ready.”
“The last one?” the Stump asked.
“Ten types of pancakes,” Lift said. “It’s why I came to this starvin’ city. I’ve had nine now. Where’s the last one?”
“The tenth is dedicated to Tashi,” the scribe said absently as she wrote. “It is more a thought than a real entity. We bake nine, and leave the last in memory of Him.”
“Wait,” Lift said. “So there’s only nine?”
“Yes.”
“You all lied to me?”
“Not in so much—”
“Damnation! Wyndle, where’d that Skybreaker go? He’s got to hear about this.” She pointed at the scribe, then at the Stump. “He let you go for that whole money-laundering thing on my insistence. But when he hears you been lying about pancakes, I might not be able to hold him back.”
Both of them stared at her, as if they thought they were innocent. Lift shook her head, then hopped off the dresser. “Excuse me,” she said. “I gotta find the Radiant refreshment room. That’s a fancy way of saying—”
“Down the stairs,” the Stump said. “On the left. Same place it was this morning.”
Lift left them, skipping down the stairs. Then she winked at one of the orphans watching in the main room before slipping out the front door, Wyndle on the ground beside her. She took a deep breath of the wet air, still soggy from the Everstorm. Refuse, broken boards, fallen branches, and discarded cloths littered the ground, snarling up at the many steps that jutted into the street.
But the city had survived, and people were already at work cleaning up. They’d lived their entire lives in the shadow of highstorms. They had adapted, and would continue to adapt.
Lift smiled, and started off along the street.
“We’re leaving, then?” Wyndle asked.
“Yup.”
“Just like that. No farewells.”
“Nope.”
“This is how it’s going to be, isn’t it? We’ll wander into a city, but before there’s time to put down roots, we’ll be off again?”
“Sure,” Lift said. “Though this time, I thought we might wander back to Azimir and the palace.”
Wyndle was so stunned he let her pass him by. Then he zipped up to join her, eager as an axehound puppy. “Really? Oh, mistress. Really?”
“I figure,” she said, “that nobody knows what they’re doin’ in life, right? So Gawx and the dusty viziers, they need me.” She tapped her head. “I got it figured out.”
“You’ve got what figured out?”
“Nothing at all,” Lift said, with the utmost confidence.
But I will listen to those who are ignored, she thought. Even people like Darkness, whom I’d rather never have heard. Maybe that will help.
They wound through the city, then up the ramp, passing the guard captain, who was on duty there dealing with the even larger numbers of refugees coming to the city because they’d lost homes to the storm. She saw Lift, and nearly jumped out of her own boots in surprise.
Lift smiled and dug a pancake out of her pocket. This woman had been visited by Darkness because of her. That sort of thing earned you a debt. So she tossed the woman the pancake—which was really more of a panball at this point—then used the Stormlight she’d gotten from the ones she’d eaten to start healing the wounds of the refugees.
The guard captain watched in silence, holding her pancake, as Lift moved along the line breathing out Stormlight on everyone like she was tryin’ to prove her breath didn’t stink none.
It was starvin’ hard work. But that was what pancak
es was for, makin’ kids feel better. Once she was done, and out of Stormlight, she tiredly waved and strode onto the plain outside the city.
“That was very benevolent of you,” Wyndle said.
Lift shrugged. It didn’t seem like it had made much of a difference—just a few people, and all. But they were the type that were forgotten and ignored by most.
“A better knight than me might stay,” Lift said. “Heal everyone.”
“A big project. Perhaps too big.”
“And too small, all the same,” Lift said, shoving her hands in her pockets, and walked for a time. She couldn’t rightly explain it, but she knew that something larger was coming. And she needed to get to Azir.
Wyndle cleared his throat. Lift braced herself to hear him complain about something, like the silliness of walking all the way here from Azimir, only to walk right back two days later.
“… I was a very regal fork, wouldn’t you say?” he asked instead.
Lift glanced at him, then grinned and cocked her head. “Y’know, Wyndle. It’s strange, but … I’m starting to think you might not be a Voidbringer after all.”
POSTSCRIPT
Lift is one of my favorite characters from the Stormlight Archive, despite the fact that she has had very little screen time so far. I’m grooming her for a larger role in the future of the series, but this leaves me with some challenges. By the time Lift becomes a main Stormlight character, she’ll have already sworn several of the oaths—and it feels wrong not to show readers the context of her swearing those oaths.
In working on Stormlight Three, I also noticed a small continuity issue. By the time we see him again in that book, the Herald Nale will have accepted that his work of many centuries (watching and making sure the Radiants don’t return) is no longer relevant. This is a major shift in who he is and in his goals as an individual—and it felt wrong to have him undergo this realization offscreen.
Edgedancer, then, was an opportunity to fix both of these problems—and to give Lift her own showcase.
Part of my love of writing Lift has to do with the way I get to slip character growth and meaningful moments into otherwise odd or silly-sounding phrases. Such as the fact that in the novelette from Words of Radiance she says she’s been ten for three years (as a joke) can be foreshadowing with a laugh, which then develops into the fact that she actually thinks her aging stopped at ten. (And has good reason to think that.)
This isn’t the sort of thing you can do as a writer with most characters.
I also used this story as an opportunity to show off the Tashikki people, who (not having any major viewpoint characters) were likely not going to get any major development in the main series.
The original plan for this novella was for it to be 18,000 words. It ended up at around 40,000. Ah well. That just happens sometimes. (Particularly when you are me.)
BY BRANDON SANDERSON
THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE
The Way of Kings
Words of Radiance
Oathbringer
THE MISTBORN SAGA
THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
Mistborn
The Well of Ascension
The Hero of Ages
THE WAX AND WAYNE SERIES
The Alloy of Law
Shadows of Self
The Bands of Mourning
Elantris
Warbreaker
Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection
The Rithmatist
ALCATRAZ VS. THE EVIL LIBRARIANS
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
The Scrivener’s Bones
The Knights of Crystallia
The Shattered Lens
The Dark Talent
THE RECKONERS
Steelheart
Firefight
Calamity
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRANDON SANDERSON grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. He is the author of such bestsellers as the Mistborn® trilogy and its sequels, The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and The Bands of Mourning; the Stormlight Archive novels The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance; and other novels, including The Rithmatist and Steelheart. In 2013, he won a Hugo Award for Best Novella for The Emperor’s Soul, set in the world of his acclaimed first novel, Elantris. Additionally, he was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time® sequence. For behind-the-scenes information on all of Brandon Sanderson’s books, visit him online at brandonsanderson.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Postscript
Also by Brandon Sanderson
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this short story and novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EDGEDANCER
“Lift” copyright © 2014 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC Edgedancer copyright © 2016 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
Illustrations copyright © 2014, 2016 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
Brandon Sanderson® is a registered trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC.
All rights reserved.
Illustrations by Ben McSweeney and Isaac Stewart
A Tor Book
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-16654-8 (mini hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-16660-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250166609
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First Edition: October 2017