Noril shrugged.
“Nightmares?” Teft asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can’t remember the details. Maybe that’s some mercy from the Almighty.” He took a deep breath, tipping his head back to see the sky. “I don’t deserve mercy. I don’t deserve anything.”
“You just want to stop existing,” Kaladin said. “You don’t want to actually kill yourself, not on most days. But you figure it sure would be convenient if you weren’t around anymore.”
“Better for everyone to not have to deal with me,” Noril said.
Syl landed again on Kaladin’s shoulder and leaned forward, watching Noril with an intense expression.
“It wouldn’t be, you know,” Kaladin said. “Better for everyone, if you vanished. Your niece loves you. Your return would make her life better.”
“I can’t feel that way,” Noril said.
“I know. That’s why you need someone to tell it to you. You need someone to talk to, Noril, when the darkness is strong. Someone to remind you the world hasn’t always been this way; that it won’t always be this way.”
“How do you … know this?” Noril asked.
“I’ve felt it,” Kaladin said. “Feel it most days.”
Noril turned toward Teft.
“A man can’t hate himself because of what he’s done or not done,” Teft said. “I used to. Still try to sometimes, but I keep reminding myself that’s the easy path. It isn’t what they would have wanted of me, you know?”
“Yeah,” Noril said, sitting back. He still had that haunted cast to his eyes, but he at least seemed to be breathing more deeply. “Thank you. For bringing me out of that place. For talking to me.”
Kaladin glanced at the ardent, who hovered behind them. Teft kept Noril talking—not about anything important, just where he was from. Apparently he’d lost his arm years ago, in a different event than when he’d lost his family.
The more he talked, the better he seemed to feel. Not cured, by any means. But better.
Kaladin rose and approached the ardent, who had settled down on a stone bench that was part of the balcony. The man had put on his spectacles, and was staring at Noril.
“He’s talking,” the ardent said. “We haven’t been able to get more than a grunt out of him.”
“That’s not surprising,” Kaladin said. “When you’re like him, it’s hard to feel like doing anything—even talking. Storms … when it’s bad for me, I think I want anything but someone to talk to. I’m wrong though. While you can’t force it, having someone to talk to usually helps. You should be letting him meet with others who feel like he does.”
“That’s not in the book of treatments,” the ardent said. “It says we should keep lunatics away from each other. Talking together would make them feed off one another’s melancholy.”
“I could see that happening,” Kaladin said. “But do you really know for certain? Have you tried it?”
“No,” the ardent said. Seeming embarrassed, he glanced away from Kaladin. “I know you’re angry at us, Brightlord. But we do what we can. Most people, they want to ignore men like him. They shove them off to the ardents. You might think us callous, but we’re the only ones who care. Who try.”
“I don’t think you’re callous,” Kaladin said. “I think you’re simply approaching this wrong. In surgery, we know that a man in shock should be repositioned so that his feet are up, his head down. But someone who has a wound to the back or neck should never be moved, not until we determine the extent of the damage. Different ailments, different wounds, can require severely different treatments. Tell me, what treatments do you give a person with melancholia?”
“We…” The ardent swallowed. “Keep them away from anything that might aggravate or disturb them. Keep them clean. Let them be in peace.”
“And someone with aggressive tendencies?” Kaladin asked.
“The same,” the ardent admitted.
“Battle shock? Seeing hallucinations?”
“You know my answer already, Brightlord.”
“Someone needs to do better for these people,” Kaladin said. “Someone needs to talk to them, try different treatments, see what they think works. What actually helps.” Storms, he sounded like his father. “We need to study their responses, use an empirical approach to treatment instead of just assuming someone who has suffered mental trauma is permanently broken.”
“That all sounds great, Brightlord,” the ardent said. “But do you realize how much of a fight it would be to change the minds of the head ardents? Do you realize how much money and time it would cost to do what you’re suggesting? We don’t have the resources for that.”
He looked to Noril, who had tipped his head back, his eyes closed, feeling the sunlight on his skin. Syl had landed on the chair beside him and was studying him as one might a grand painting.
Kaladin felt a stirring deep within him. He’d worried that working with his father wouldn’t be truly fulfilling. He’d worried that he wouldn’t be able to protect people, as his oaths drove him to do. That he would make an inferior surgeon.
But if there was one thing he understood that most ardents and surgeons—even his father—did not, it was this.
“Release this man to my care,” Kaladin said. “And warn your superiors I will be coming for others. The ardents can complain all the way to Brightness Navani if they want. They’ll get the same answer from her that I’m giving you now: We’re going to try something new.”
The deaths of both Devotion and Dominion trouble me greatly, as I had not realized this immense power we held was something that could be broken in such a way. On my world, the power always gathered and sought a new Vessel.
The fourth day of the trip, Shallan was truly enjoying herself. The closest they’d come to danger was when they’d spotted a pair of Fused soaring past in the distance three days ago. The humans had quickly scrambled into their hiding place—the tarp stretched between two piles of goods at the rear of the barge—but they needn’t have worried. The Fused hadn’t deviated in the barge’s direction.
Other than that one event, she’d been able to spend her time in carefree drawing. Except, of course, when the Cryptics found her.
They loved to watch her draw. Currently, all four of them—Pattern, plus the three bonded to her agents—surrounded her. As a group, they hummed and buzzed and bounced up and down, watching as she tried to sketch Ua’pam standing on the high deck of the barge.
She’d grown accustomed to Pattern’s presence. She was fond of it, in fact—she enjoyed the way he’d hum when he heard something he knew was untrue, or the way he’d pipe up with questions about the most mundane of human activities. But when all four crowded around, Shallan’s serenity started building toward panic instead.
She’d almost forgotten how frightened she’d been when his strange symbol-headed figure had begun appearing in her drawings. She remembered now, though. Fleeing through the hallways of Kharbranth, her sanity unraveling as she sketched the hallway behind her, filled with Cryptics. She’d been peeking into Shadesmar. Her unconscious mind had begun to perceive spren as they appeared in the Cognitive Realm.
The same tension twisted her insides now, making her pencil lines sharp and stark. She tried to suppress the feeling. There was no reason for her to feel like she needed to run, scramble, scream.
Her lines were too dark, too rigid, to properly capture the Memory of Ua’pam standing with one foot up on the railing, looking like an explorer setting out for adventure. She tried to make herself relax, drawing a fanciful image of sunlight streaming around him. That, however, made the four Cryptics start humming in excitement.
“Could you all step back and give me more room?” Shallan asked the creatures.
They didn’t cock their heads like humans might have, but she could sense confusion in the way their patterns sped up. Then, as if one, all four took exactly one step backward. They then proceeded to lean in even closer.
Shallan sighed, and as she kept dr
awing, she got Ua’pam’s arm wrong. Spren were hard, because they didn’t quite have human proportions. The Cryptics started humming with excitement.
“That’s not a lie!” Shallan said, reaching for her eraser. “It’s a mistake, you nitwits.”
“Mmmm…” Ornament said. Beryl’s Cryptic had a fine pattern, delicate like lace, and a squeaky voice. “Nitwit! I am a nitwit. Mmmm.”
“A nitwit is a stupid person or spren,” Pattern explained. “But she said it in an endearing way!”
“Stupidly endearing!” Mosaic said. She was Vathah’s Cryptic, and her pattern had sharp lines to it. She often included rapid fast sections that waved like the women’s script. “Contradiction! Wonderful and blessed contradiction of nonsense and human complication to be alive!”
Motif, Ishnah’s Cryptic, simply made a bunch of clicking noises in rapid succession. His Alethi was not good, so he preferred to speak in the Cryptic language. The others began rapidly clicking to one another, and in the overlapping cacophony, she lost track of Pattern. For a moment they were all just a clump of alien creatures, huddled together with their patterns almost touching. The nearby sound of beads slapping against one another seemed the chatter of hundreds of Cryptics. Thousands of them. Watching her. Always watching her …
Radiant came to her rescue. Radiant, who had trained to ignore the chaos of battle, with its distracting sounds and constant yelling. When she took over, she brought with her a stability. She couldn’t draw, so she tucked away the pad. She excused herself from the Cryptics and made her way to the stern of the barge, where she watched the rolling beads until Shallan recovered and emerged.
“Thank you,” she said as Radiant withdrew.
Shallan listened to the peaceful rolling of the beads, endlessly surging. Perhaps it wasn’t just the Cryptics that were bothering her. And after several days on the barge spent drawing, it was time to dive into the problem of finding the spy. She took a deep breath, and submitted to Veil.
No, Veil said.
… No?
You said we could look for the spy today, Shallan said.
We are. You. With my help.
Is this, Shallan asked, penance because you broke the compact?
In a way. I want to coach you through a little espionage.
I don’t need to know it, she thought. I have you.
Humor me, kid. I need this.
Shallan sighed, but agreed. They couldn’t share skills, as evidenced by Veil’s drawing abilities. She knew espionage, Radiant could use a sword, and Shallan had their Lightweaving ability. And their sense of humor.
Oh please, Radiant thought.
“So how do we start?” Shallan asked.
We need to test each of the three subjects, Veil said, and plant a—
Wait, Radiant thought. Shouldn’t we first make absolutely certain the communication device couldn’t have been moved another way? If we’re using that as evidence that the spy is along on this mission?
Shallan ground her teeth. Veil sighed softly.
But both agreed that Radiant was, unfortunately, correct. So Shallan strolled to the large tent they’d set up on the deck of the barge, using boxes and tarps. It was more like a large cave. While they didn’t need shelter from the elements in Shadesmar, it made them feel comfortable.
Shallan ducked inside and went to the nook, made from boxes, that she shared with Adolin. She’d left the trunk unguarded—after all, she did want to catch the person doing this. She didn’t want to hover about the place and make it obvious what she knew.
For now, she unlocked the trunk and checked on the device. It hadn’t been moved again, so far as she could tell. But she didn’t trust the trunk’s lock. Tyn had been able to pick most locks—and beyond that, in the Physical Realm at least, spren could slip through openings like a keyhole. She’d seen Syl do it, not to mention Pattern.
She closed the trunk and—checking to make sure no one could see her around the corner in the box-walled nook—she tipped the trunk to one side, then the other. When she looked inside, the device had barely moved. She had it packed tightly enough between books and art materials that it couldn’t have flipped on its own.
Satisfied? she asked.
Yes, Radiant said. It couldn’t have shifted faces without being removed from the trunk.
Agreed, Veil said.
And we didn’t do it, right? Radiant asked pointedly.
It was a discomforting question. They weren’t always aware of what one of them did when another was in control. Often these days they worked together, giving up control by conscious choice, helping one another. But there were worse days. Shallan couldn’t remember all the things Veil had done during that day she’d seized control, for example.
I didn’t move it, Veil said. I promise.
I didn’t either, Radiant said.
“Nor did I,” Shallan whispered. And she knew it to be true. None of the Three had moved it, though she worried about Formless. Could part of her mind be betraying her? She didn’t think that piece was even aware, or real, yet.
It wasn’t us, Veil said. I know this, Shallan. You have to trust it.
She did. And that was what had disturbed her so much upon seeing the device moved. It was concrete proof that someone among her staff was lying to her.
All right, Veil said. I’ve gone over the places the trunk was out of our sight … and it’s not good. There were a ton of opportunities when it was alone back in Urithiru. We’re not going to get anywhere trying to discover who had access to it, particularly not from this barge.
“I still wish you’d do this part yourself,” Shallan whispered to her.
Tough. Go back out, and we’ll get started.
As she strode out, however, Pattern intercepted her. He walked up, his fingers laced before him. “Mmm…” he said. “I am sorry for earlier. For their overexcitement. The others do not have as much experience with humans.”
“They have their Radiants,” Shallan noted.
“Yes. That is not humans. That is one human each.”
“You only have me.”
“No! Before you, I studied humans. I talked about them much. I am very famous.”
“Famous?”
“Very famous.” His pattern sped up. “Cryptics do not often go into the cities of other spren. We are not liked. I went. I watched humans in Shadesmar, as we had planned to find humans to bond again. The other Cryptics were impressed by my bravery.”
“Yes, very brave,” Shallan said. “We humans are known to bite.”
“Ha ha. Yes, bite. And break your oaths and murder your spren. Ha ha.”
Shallan winced. True, those were the actions of other Radiants. Not Radiants from her generation. At least none of the noble ones, like Kaladin or Dalinar.
Nearby, in the center of the deck, the other three Cryptics were chatting with their heads together in a huddle.
“Do you think it strange,” Shallan asked, “that Cryptics would end up with the Lightweavers, the order of Radiants with the most artists? You, who cannot lie—and who are basically walking numerical equations?”
“We can lie,” Pattern said. “We are simply bad at it in general. It is not odd to end up with you. We like you in the way that a person likes new foods or new places. Besides, art is math.”
“No it’s not,” Shallan said, offended. “Art and math are basically opposites.”
“Mmm. No. All things are math. Art especially is math. You are math.”
“If so, I’m the type with a misplaced number hidden so deep in the equation, I can never find it—but always calculate out wrong.” She left Pattern then, strolling across the deck of the barge, passing several peakspren with molten light shining out through the cracks in their skin. High overhead, clouds had formed—the familiar ones of this place that pointed toward the distant sun like a roadway.
Those clouds didn’t seem to move according to ordinary weather patterns, but appeared and disappeared as the barge moved. Was it something to do
with the angle at which they were being seen?
All right, Veil, she thought. What do we do?
There are several ways to uncover a spy, Veil thought. We’re in a fortunate position, since we know they communicated directly with Mraize recently—and will likely do so again. We also have three specific suspects, a manageable number.
We’re going to try two different methods of finding the spy. The first is to catch them in a lie or a past misdeed, then push them until they grow uncomfortable and admit to us more than they intended. Everyone has a guilty conscience about something.
“Radiant doesn’t,” Shallan noted.
Don’t be so sure, Veil replied. But if this method doesn’t work, we’ll try something else—something that takes longer, but is more likely to work. We will find a way to feed each suspect a different tidbit of false information: a tidbit they will in turn feed to Mraize. Depending on which piece of information is leaked, we’ll know who did the leaking, and identify our spy.
That’s quite clever, Radiant noted.
Well, it’s more standard than clever, Veil admitted. This is a time-tested method, and our biggest problem in using it is that I’m certain Mraize is aware of it. So we’re going to have to be very subtle—and it might not work, as it requires Mraize to not only be told this information, but to not be suspicious of it, and to relate it back to us.
Fortunately, we have a long trip ahead of us, and so if neither of these methods works, we can try something else. Point is, today, trying this will be good practice for Shallan.
“I don’t need practice,” she whispered. “I have you.”
But Veil was being stubborn, so Shallan wandered across the deck to where Ishnah was helping Ua’pam and Unativi—his cousin, who ran the barge—as they manifested goods.
This was how almost everything—from clothing to building supplies—was created in Shadesmar. Spren didn’t quarry stone or spin threads; they took the souls of objects from the physical world, then “manifested” them. The term referred to making the object’s bead on this side instead reflect its physical nature.
Ua’pam held up a bead, inspecting it. Shallan could sense the souls of things by touching beads, though Veil had more trouble, and Radiant couldn’t do it at all. Spren also varied in skill in this area, and true ability to manifest was somewhat rare.
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