Whimsy was not terribly useful, and Mercy worries me. I do think that Valor is reasonable, and suggest you approach her again. It has been too long, in her estimation, since your last conversation.
“I’m sorry, Brightlord,” the ardent said as she walked through the room, picking up cushions from the floor and stacking them in her arms. “I do know the man you’re searching for, but he’s not here anymore.”
“You discharged him?” Kaladin asked, walking at her side.
“No, Brightlord. Not exactly.” She handed the stack of cushions to him, clearly expecting him to hold them as she walked to the next row and began gathering those.
Kaladin followed, balancing the stack of pillows. He and Teft were still trying to track down the refugee woman’s missing uncle. His name was Noril, and Kaladin’s father remembered the man. Not surprising, considering Lirin’s near-superhuman ability to recall people and faces.
Noril, who had lost an arm sometime in the past, had arrived in Hearthstone on the same day Kaladin had brought the flying ship. Noril had displayed signs of severe shock, so Lirin had taken extra care of him, making sure the man was on the airship for the flight to Urithiru.
After the ship arrived, things got chaotic. Overwhelmed by the number of refugees and their ailments, Lirin had sent Noril to the ardents. So, that was where Kaladin and Teft had come today. It felt odd to be spending so much time personally looking for one man when there were many patients to see. Coming here wasn’t particularly effective triage.
Unfortunately, that was a part of being a surgeon that Kaladin had never mastered. Giving up on one to save two others? Sure, it was great in principle. But doing it hurt.
Kaladin walked alongside the ardent while Teft leaned against the wall near the entrance to the room. It was otherwise empty, though some kind of training or teaching had plainly been going on earlier, judging by the rows of cushions.
“If you didn’t let Noril go,” Kaladin said, “what happened to him?”
“We sent him on,” the ardent explained. She was holding so many cushions, he couldn’t see her through them. “My devotary cares for physical ailments. We help rehabilitate those who have lost limbs, eyes, or their hearing in battle. He had only one arm, yes, but his wounds ran deeper.”
There were three cushions left on the floor, and when she tried to bend to pick them up, her stack teetered. So Kaladin held out his hand for her stack. Then he held out his other hand as well.
“You can’t carry them all,” she said. “Let’s…”
She trailed off as she saw what Kaladin had done. The stack he’d originally been holding—now Lashed upward just enough—remained floating in the air beside him.
“Oh,” she said, then inspected him more closely. “Oh! You’re Brightlord Stormblessed!”
Kaladin nudged the floating stack of cushions so they lazily floated over toward the far wall—where other unused cushions were piled—then took her stack.
The ardent quickly grabbed the last three, blushing as she walked him over to the wall. “I had no idea who you were! I’m sorry, Radiant.”
“It’s fine,” Kaladin said. “Don’t make anything of it, please.” As if being lighteyed wasn’t bad enough.
“Well, the man you want,” she said, “we couldn’t help him. We … did try to keep him rather than sending him on. We knew he was in bad shape, after all. But…”
“Bad shape?” Kaladin asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “Last week we caught him trying to hang himself. The surgeon who sent him here warned us to watch for it, fortunately, so we saved him. Then we sent him on to the Devotary of Mercy. They care for those who … have trouble with their minds.”
“You knew he might be a danger to himself,” Teft said, walking up, “and you didn’t send him there immediately?”
“We … no,” she said. “We didn’t.”
“Irresponsible,” Teft said.
“My father knew and sent him here first,” Kaladin reminded Teft. “I’m sure the ardents did what they could.”
“Go to level four, Brightlord,” she said. “Right near the center, along Northbeam and not quite to the Aladar Princedom.”
He set down the last of the cushions and nodded to Teft, and the two of them began the hike. Everything in Urithiru was a hike, especially on the lower floors.
Shallan always knew her way around just by the strata on the walls, which waved in colorful lines as different layers of rock had been cut through to make the tunnel. Kaladin considered himself good with directions, but he had to use the painted lines on the floor to get anywhere.
“Still can’t believe how much of this place hasn’t been explored,” Teft said as they walked.
“I suspect by now most of it has been explored,” Kaladin said. “Brightness Navani’s teams have mapped all the lower levels, and done walk-throughs of all the upper ones.”
“Walk-throughs, yes,” Teft said, eyeing a dark corridor. “But explored? You might walk the woods every day and never see one out of a hundred things in there watching you.”
As they struck inward, they saw fewer people. The lit areas—lined with Stormlight lanterns locked tight and bolted to the walls—dwindled behind, and they needed handheld spheres for light. There was a certain eeriness to these inner sections of the tower. Most everyone lived and worked on the rim. The only times they would strike inward would be to visit the atrium or one of the first-floor markets. He’d noted people taking long walks all the way around the rim to one of the lit corridors rather than cutting through the darker center. Storms, he’d found himself doing the same thing.
There was still space on the rim of the fifth and sixth floors, so why had this monastery chosen such an inward section? He was glad when they eventually reached a section of hallway that had permanent lanterns again. Paint on the floor indicated they were approaching Aladar’s princedom. A right turn at a large intersection with glyphs on the floor led them to the monastery—marked by a large wooden door blocking the way forward, painted with a glyphpair in the shape of the Vorin sword, indicating a religious building.
“Building” was, of course, a stretch. Generally for a small complex like this, people would find an area with a grouping of different-sized rooms and hallways and divide them off with a few doors at key entry points. Someone was monitoring the door, for it swung open as they approached, revealing a younger male ardent.
“Brightlord,” the man said, bowing. He squinted at Teft, trying to pick out his eye color. Then he bowed again. “Brightlord.”
Teft grumbled at that. These days, after being Radiant for as long as they had, their eyes rarely faded anymore. And there was no stopping him from complaining about being a lighteyes. Unlike Kaladin, who had gotten over it ages ago.
“If you have come to commission prayers or burn glyphwards, I would direct you toward the Devotary of Kelek, a little farther outward from here,” the ardent said, polishing a pair of spectacles and squinting at Kaladin. “We don’t take prayer commissions here.”
“Pardon,” Kaladin said. “But we’re not wanting prayers. Did you receive a patient recently who was missing an arm? His family is looking for him, and we’re helping track him down.”
“Can’t reveal patient information,” the man said in a bored tone, putting on his spectacles—then cursing softly and pulling them off again and rubbing them on his shirt, trying to get a spot he’d apparently missed. “I’d need the authorization of at least a highlord of the third dahn. Otherwise, speak to Sister Yara for normal visitation requests. I have a form somewhere for your wife to fill out.”
Teft glanced at Kaladin.
“You do it,” Kaladin said. “Syl’s out for her morning flight, and she’ll snap at me if I call her back early.”
Teft sighed and reached his hands out, making a silvery Shardspear appear. The Stormlight in the three nearest lanterns went out, streaming into him, setting his eyes aglow. A luminescent mist began to rise from his skin. Even his beard seeme
d to shine, and his clothing—once so pedestrian—rippled as he rose into the air about a foot.
The ardent stopped polishing his spectacles. He squinted at Teft, as if forgetting what was in his hands. “Oh. Brightlord Radiant,” he said, then bowed reverently first to Teft, then to Kaladin—though the man didn’t seem to recognize Kaladin. “Brightlord Radiant. I will see to your request.”
Kaladin didn’t much care for the reverence people showed them. People who had once spat after hearing someone speak of the “Lost Radiants” had turned around quickly when their highprince and their queen had each become one. It made Kaladin wonder how quickly these people might turn on them, if reverence suddenly became unfashionable.
That said, there were perks. Particularly with the ardents, who had quickly pointed out that Vorinism had always been closely aligned with the Knights Radiant. This one let them in now, absently tucking his spectacles in his robe’s breast pocket. He led them to a records room, stacked with ledgers and paper, and asked one of the ardents inside to watch the door while he saw to their “esteemed guests.” There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his tone, but he didn’t seem the enthusiastic type.
“One arm…” the ardent said, searching a ledger near the door.
“Name is Noril,” Teft said. “Doesn’t seem he’d have any reason to go by a false one.”
“He’s here, Brightlord,” the ardent said, leaning in close and pointing at words on the page. He patted at his robe’s lower pockets, as if searching for his spectacles. “He told us he has no living relatives though. Maybe it’s a different person. Ah, and he’s on watch for suicide, Brightlords. One unsuccessful attempt. A profoundly disturbed man.”
“Show us to him,” Kaladin said.
The ardent finally found his spectacles, but just started wiping them again. He led the way out of the records room and down a dark corridor lit by infrequently placed lanterns.
Kaladin followed, raising a sphere to give the place more light. As if it weren’t bad enough to be trapped deep in the tower, away from light and wind. Did they have to make it so dim as well? He couldn’t help but be reminded of his days in prison, following that time he’d helped Adolin in the arena. Kaladin had been locked up on dozens of occasions, but that one had felt the worst. Sitting in there fuming, stewing, festering. Feeling that the winds and the open sky had been stolen from him …
Dark times. Ones he’d rather not remember.
They passed door after door alongside the corridor, each marked by a numeric glyph. He saw not a few gloomspren around. The doors had small windows in them, but Kaladin assumed the dark cells beyond were unused—at least until he heard a voice muttering from one of them. At that, he stopped and held up his sphere, looking in. A woman sat in the featureless cell, her back to a bare wall, rocking back and forth as she muttered something unintelligible.
“How many of these rooms have people in them?” Kaladin asked.
“Hm? Oh, most of them,” the ardent said. “We’re a little understaffed, to be honest, Brightlord. We took in patients from most all the princedoms when we consolidated here. If you could bring the matter to the queen’s attention…”
“You lock them in here?” Teft demanded. “In the dark?”
“Many of the mentally deficient react poorly to overstimulation,” the ardent said. “We work hard to give them quiet, calm places to live, free of bright lights.”
“How do you know?” Kaladin asked, striding after the ardent.
“The therapy is prescribed by some of the best thinkers among the ardentia.”
“But how do you know?” Kaladin said. “Do any of them get better? Have you tried multiple theories and compared them? Have you tested different cures or remedies on different patient populations?”
“There are no cures for mental ailments, Brightlord,” the ardent said. “Even the Edgedancers can’t do anything for them, unless their state is related to a recent brain trauma.” He stopped beside a specific door scratched with the glyph for twenty-nine. “With all due respect, Brightlord, you should leave medical issues to those trained in them.” He rapped on the door with his knuckles. “This is him.”
“Open the door,” Kaladin said.
“Brightlord, he might be dangerous.”
“Has he ever attacked anyone?” Kaladin asked. “Has he hurt anyone other than himself?”
“No,” the ardent said, “but the insane can be unpredictable. You could be harmed.”
“Lad,” Teft said, “you could stick us with a hundred swords, and we’d just complain that our outfits got ruined. Open the storming door.”
“Oh. Um, all right.” He fished in his pocket, came out with his spectacles, then fished in the other one until he found a ring of keys. He held the keys close to his nose one by one to see the glyphs on them, then finally unlocked the door.
Kaladin stepped in, his sapphire broam revealing a figure who lay huddled on the floor by the wall. There was some straw for a bed beside the other wall, but the man wasn’t using it.
“Can’t give him blankets or sheets,” the ardent explained, peeking in. “Might try to strangle himself.”
“Noril?” Kaladin asked, hesitant. “Noril, are you awake?”
The man didn’t say anything, though he did stir. Kaladin stepped closer, noting the sewn-up sleeve. The man was missing his entire left arm. The room didn’t smell too bad, all things considered, so at least the ardents kept him clean. The clothing was barely shorts and a thin shirt.
“Noril,” Kaladin said, kneeling. “Your niece, Cressa, is looking for you. You aren’t alone. You have family.”
“Tell her I’m dead,” the man whispered. “Please.”
“She’s worried about you,” Kaladin said.
The man grunted, continuing to lie on the floor, facing the wall. Storms. I know that feeling, Kaladin thought. I’ve been there. He looked around the silent chamber cut off from the sunlight and wind.
This was so, so wrong.
“Can you stand?” he asked Noril. “I won’t force you to go talk to her. I merely want to take you somewhere else.”
Noril didn’t reply.
Kaladin leaned closer. “I know how you feel. Dark, like there’s never been light in the world. Like everything in you is a void, and you wish you could just feel something. Anything. Pain would at least tell you you’re alive. Instead you feel nothing. And you wonder, how can a man breathe, but already be dead?”
Noril turned his head, looking at Kaladin and blinking eyes red from lack of sleep. He wore a rough beard, unkempt.
“Come with me and talk,” Kaladin said. “That’s all you have to do. Afterward, if you want me to tell your niece that you’re dead, I will. You can come back here and rot. But if you don’t come now, I’m going to keep annoying you. I’m good at it. Trust me; I learned from the best.”
Kaladin stood up and offered a hand. Noril took it and let Kaladin haul him to his feet. They walked toward the door.
“What is this?” the ardent said. “You can’t let him out. He’s in our charge! We have to care for…”
He trailed off as Kaladin fixed him with a stare. Storms. Anyone would turn suicidal if kept in here too long.
“Lad,” Teft said, pulling the ardent gently out of the way, “I wouldn’t confront Brightlord Stormblessed right now. Not if you value keeping all your bits attached to you.”
Kaladin led Noril out of the monastery and straight toward the rim of the tower. Teft joined him, and the ardent—Kaladin hadn’t asked his name—trailed along behind. He didn’t go running for help, fortunately, but he clearly wasn’t willing to let them just leave with a patient either.
Noril walked quietly, and Kaladin let him adjust to the idea of being out of his cell.
“Kelek’s breath,” Teft muttered to Kaladin. “I was too harsh on that lady ardent. I chewed her out for keeping Noril instead of sending him to the experts—but if that’s what the experts were going to do, I see why she’d hesitate.”
; Kaladin nodded. Soon after, Syl came zipping through the corridor. “There you are,” she said.
“Honorspren can feel where their knight is,” Kaladin said. “So you don’t need to act surprised at finding me.”
Syl gave an exaggerated eye roll, and he swore she made her eyes bigger for emphasis.
“What are we doing?” she said, landing on his shoulder and sitting primly with her legs crossed and her hands on her knees. “Actually, I don’t care. I need to tell you something. Aladar’s axehounds had puppies. I had no idea how much I needed to see puppies until I flew by them this morning. They are the grossest things on the planet, Kaladin. They’re somehow so gross that they’re cute. So cute I could have died! Except I can’t, because I’m an eternal sliver of God himself, and we have standards about things like that.”
“Well, glad you’re feeling better.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.” She pointed toward Noril. “You found him, I see. Taking him to his niece?”
“Not yet,” Kaladin said.
He led Noril past a large corridor where people flowed in both directions. Across that, at long last, they stepped onto a balcony. A larger communal one, like the one by his clinic.
Noril stopped in the archway, his eyes watering as he looked up at the sky. Teft took him by the arm and led him out a little farther, to where some chairs were set beside the railing, overlooking the mountains.
Kaladin stepped up to the railing, and didn’t say anything at first.
Noril finally spoke. “Is she all right? My niece?”
“She’s worried about you,” Kaladin said, turning and settling into one of the seats. “My father—the surgeon you met in Hearthstone—says that you had a rough time of things before he met you.”
The man nodded, his stare hollow. He’d lost his family in a brutal way, Lirin had said, while being unable to help.
“For some of us,” Kaladin said, “it piles up bit by little bit. Until we realize we’re drowning. I thought I had it bad, but I suppose I wouldn’t trade places with you. Getting hit all at once like that…”
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