Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  He got nothing but more frosty accusations from the inkspren, so he returned to the street—and Maya let him. Had she somehow known this deadeye was strange? Was that why she’d wanted him to go in and talk to the shopkeeper?

  He moved to join his men, but stopped as he saw Godeke and his spren hastening up the street. The former ardent had a graceful way about him as he arrived and fluidly bowed. “Brightlord, I think you’ll want to see this.”

  “What? It’s not another deadeye spren, is it?”

  “No,” Godeke said. “It’s the humans.”

  But this does not get to the core of your letter. I have encouraged those who would speak to me to heed your warnings, but all seem content to ignore Odium for the time being. In their opinion, he is no threat as long as he remains confined in the Rosharan system.

  Light shimmered in the strange cube, seeping through at the corners as Mraize spoke. Veil watched, and suddenly felt disjointed—trapped between two moments.

  This experience … she’d done this before. She’d been here, kneeling on the ground, holding a cube that glowed from the corners. Exactly like this.

  She reached to the top of the cube, feeling the smooth metal, and expected it to be dimpled. She cocked her head, inspecting her fingers as she lifted them up and rubbed them against her thumb. This was wrong.… She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the enclosure beneath the tarp.

  She was on a mission into Shadesmar. Why should she expect to see gardens behind her? Her father’s gardens?

  Veil faded into Shallan. These memories … these were something lost to her. From the years leading up to her … her mother’s death. That twisted, knotted, overgrown time in her brain, hidden behind carefully cultivated flower beds. When she sorted through her memories, it didn’t feel like anything was missing. Yet she knew from other clues that there were holes.

  Remember, Veil thought. Remember.

  She’d trained with Pattern as a child. She’d spoken oaths. She’d summoned a Shardblade and struck down her own mother, frantic to survive. And—she looked back at the cube—she’d held one of these?

  She gripped the cube tightly, becoming hyperfocused on Mraize’s voice. She couldn’t think about the past. She couldn’t. Unfortunately, the sounds coming out of the cube seemed garbled to her. Her mind fixated on each syllable alone, and she couldn’t understand the Alethi as a language—it was instead a jumble of sounds.

  She shook herself, and the barge seemed to lurch beneath her. She gasped, forcing Veil to take over, and Mraize’s words started to make sense.

  “… have been careful,” Mraize was saying, “not to attract attention in this communication?”

  “I…” Veil said. “Of course I did this in secret. You know me better than that.” What had he been saying before? She’d missed it entirely.

  “It is always good,” he said, “to reinforce the behavior you want, little knife. In people as in axehounds. Your report?”

  “We have landed,” she said, “and the others went out to explore a small dockside town here on the coast. We have several weeks’ further travel via caravan, hopefully as uneventful as these, before reaching the fortress.”

  “Have you learned anything of interest about your fellow Radiants?”

  “Nothing I’d report to you, Mraize,” Veil said. “Mostly I wanted to make sure this cube of yours worked.” She considered. “What happens again if I pry the thing open?”

  “You will immediately destroy the spren that lives inside,” Mraize said.

  “You can’t kill spren.”

  “I didn’t say kill.”

  She held up the cube. Light escaped from the corners—had the cube opened a little? “Perhaps I do have a tidbit for you,” she said. “Something I might be willing to trade for information about this cube.”

  “That is not your mission, nor our arrangement, little knife,” Mraize said—sounding amused. “The hound does not withhold affection to get her feast. She performs first, and then receives her reward.”

  “You tell me to be the hunter, not the prey,” Veil said. “Yet snap at me when I show initiative?”

  “Initiative is wonderful, and your possession of it is commendable. However, our organization survives based on principles of hierarchy. A group of hunters working together could turn upon one another far too easily.

  “And so, I respect my babsk, and you respect me. We do not strike against our own, and we do not negotiate upward. To do otherwise is to invite anarchy. So continue to hunt, but do not think to hold hostage your results. Now, is there anything else to report on the mission that might be relevant?”

  He didn’t press her further on information about the other Radiants; so in essence, he conceded that point. She hadn’t been assigned to report on them, and he knew he had no right to press for that information.

  Note this fact, Veil thought. There is wiggle room in this arrangement, despite what he implies.

  “There have been some odd spren watching us,” Veil noted. “I only catch glimpses of them, but they seem the wrong color. As if they’d been corrupted.”

  “Curious,” Mraize said. “Sja-anat extends her influence. I am still waiting for the spren she promised would bond me.”

  “She promised to send a spren,” Veil said. “Not that the spren would choose you. Do not blame Shallan if you fail to secure what you want.”

  “And yet, Sja-anat spies on you during this trip. These spren you see? What can you tell me about them?”

  “They’re all the same variety, and they stay far away or obscured somehow. None of the others on our trip have seen them, though I’ve warned my team to watch for them.”

  “Sja-anat is important, little hunter,” Mraize said. “We must bind her to us. A spren of Odium willing to betray him? An ancient creature with equally ancient knowledge? I give you this secondary mission. Watch for these spren closely, and make contact if you can.”

  “I will,” Veil said. “Is there news of the tower or of Dalinar’s invasion?”

  “Oh, things here are subject to their usual flares of activity and surprise,” Mraize said. “Nothing unexpected for those who have been paying attention. I will let you know if anything here requires your involvement.”

  Veil nodded, feeling distracted as the sensation of holding the cube overcame her once more. She forced Shallan to take control again, to see the shadows of reflections of memories. She breathed in and out, trying to force herself to remain strong. To not run.

  Should she ask Mraize whether he knew anything of her past, and whether she’d ever communicated this way before? He’d be unlikely to answer, but that wasn’t why she hesitated.

  I don’t want to know, she thought. Instead she said, “I will contact you once we have traveled a distance on the caravan.”

  “Very well,” Mraize said. “Again, I must emphasize: Watch for any signs of these corrupted gloryspren. I worry that Sja-anat is playing us both, and I do not like the feeling.”

  Shallan almost dropped the cube in surprise. She intentionally hadn’t mentioned the specific variety of spren. Yet he called them gloryspren.

  HA! Veil thought.

  Oh, storms, Radiant thought. Veil’s plan worked. She’s going to be insufferable now.

  Insufferable? I’m incredible. Mraize has fallen into a common trap—that of being so clever, you start forgetting your fundamentals. Always question your information.

  “Understood,” Shallan forced herself to say. “I will keep diligent watch.” The glow in the cube faded. She carefully set it back in the chest, then took another Memory of it there before locking the lid.

  Word had gotten to Mraize, and the false tidbit—that she’d seen a gloryspren watching her—had revealed the truth.

  Beryl was the spy.

  * * *

  The humans that Godeke had found were an unexpected lot. They didn’t appear to be soldiers, but common workers with brown skin and black hair, both male and female. You found some Vorin people with that
skin tone, but more likely you’d find it in midlands. Marat, Tukar, the Reshi Isles.

  They wore simple clothing of a cut Adolin thought he recognized as being from southeastern Makabak. It had colors similar to Azish patterns, but the cloth was thicker and coarser, the outfits more enveloping, with braided tassels that hung low from the waist.

  Yes, he thought. They look like they’re from Marat, or maybe Tukar.

  Multiple caravans had made camps outside town, and all the others had spren occupants. As Adolin and Godeke had passed, those had waved or gestured in friendly ways. One had even called out to Archinal—Godeke’s spren—recognizing her.

  This human camp, by contrast, was an unwelcoming place. While the spren camps had manifested fires, this one was dark, lit by neither flame nor Stormlight. The human caravan had brought no pack animals, but the people had piled their things in the center of camp while some of their number slept. The rest of them, mostly men with cudgels resting on shoulders, watched the perimeter.

  “Who are they?” Adolin asked softly, watching from beside the wall of a small shop. The landscape outside the town was relatively barren, an open field of obsidian with some small crystalline plants growing in clusters, bobbing with lifespren—which were larger on this side.

  “Traders from another land perhaps?” Archinal said. The short cultivationspren wrung her hands. “Oh, it does happen, and more and more these days. People come in caravans seeking to trade. They like your wines, human brightlord. And many have heard tales of your weapons, and I’ve known several to ask to trade for one! As if a Shardblade would be available for purchase.”

  “Other lands,” Adolin said, rubbing his chin. “Maybe some other traders you met are from far away, but these are wearing Marati or Tukari clothing. They seem like locals to me—but if that’s the case, I’m left wondering how they got here. We only recently learned how to cross into Shadesmar, and it requires the aid of a Radiant. How did a trading caravan from our world slip through into here?”

  “That’s why I fetched you,” Godeke said. “Something feels off about the whole group.”

  “They could still be foreigners,” Archinal said. “They could be wearing manifested clothing they traded for while here. Oh! You mustn’t assume that what you see here relates to what you know from your life, human highprince.”

  “We could ask them, right?” Godeke said. “See if they’ll talk to us?”

  The two exchanged a look, and then Adolin shrugged. Why not? He walked out, joined by Godeke and his spren, Maya trailing along behind.

  He was noticed immediately by the caravaneers. One pointed, and a small group rushed up. The lighting of this place—with that distant sun, but strangely omnipresent illumination—played tricks on Adolin’s eyes. The shadows stretched the wrong way, and distance was harder to judge. So Adolin was accustomed to things feeling off.

  Even with that considered, the way these people seemed to be constantly wreathed in shadow … it was unnerving. As they stepped up, he felt like he could see only hints of features, and no matter which way they turned, the pits of their faces—the eye sockets, the lines along their noses—were always dark. He saw occasional glimpses of their eyes.

  They spoke to him in a language he didn’t know.

  “Do you speak Alethi?” he asked. “Or Veden?”

  “Gthlebn Thaylen?” Godeke asked.

  “Alethi?” one of the men said. “Go away, Alethi.”

  Yes, that was a Tukari accent. “We just want to chat,” Adolin said. “We haven’t seen other humans here. We thought it would be nice to talk to others.”

  “Go away,” the man repeated. “We not talk.”

  Adolin glanced past him, to where some of the humans had moved to fish among their goods. Though the people he spoke with carried cudgels, he caught a glint of reflected light among the others. They were carrying real weapons, but didn’t want to hold them openly.

  “Fine,” Adolin said. “Suit yourselves.”

  He and the others retreated to the town. The Tukari watched them all the way.

  “Those were Tukari,” Godeke said.

  “Yeah,” Adolin said. “Their country is led by a man claiming to be a god—who is actually a Herald. Father is planning to push the singer army in Emul down to crush them against those zealots. A hammer-and-anvil advance.”

  Were these strange travelers somehow connected to that business in Tukar? Or was it a coincidence?

  Adolin met up with his soldiers, and they walked back toward the barge. They’d want to get on with unloading their supplies and making camp. Archinal had been to the honorspren stronghold before, and was confident she could lead them there. It shouldn’t be difficult; if they simply followed the coast to the west, they’d eventually end up at the place.

  As they approached the barge, however, Adolin slowed. A figure was speaking to Unativi in front of the barge—a figure of white, tinted blue. Tall, distinguished. Adolin was accustomed to seeing this spren in a sharp uniform, not a buttoned shirt and trousers, but it was the same person.

  “Is that an honorspren?” Godeke asked.

  “Yes,” Adolin said, continuing forward. “That’s Notum. The captain of the ship we sailed on last time we were in Shadesmar.”

  It seemed his confrontation with the honorspren might happen sooner than he’d planned.

  * * *

  Shallan finished sketching by the light of gemstones, still sitting underneath the canopy. The locked chest beside her held the strange communications device, now re-created in her sketches.

  She’d attracted a few spren out of the ocean. Creationspren, which here were little swirling shapes of changing colors of light. They evoked different impressions, often faces. But they were small, and easy to treat like spren in the Physical Realm. She shooed them away as Pattern sat down beside her.

  “Mmmm…” he said. “You have drawn the same cube four times, Shallan. Are you well?”

  “No,” she said, “but this isn’t a sign of that.” She flipped through her sketchbook. “Someone has been moving this cube. Between times I get it out.”

  Pattern’s pattern slowed to almost a crawl. “You are certain?”

  “Yes,” she said, showing him the sketches. “There’s a scratch on this side near the corner, and that face was up yesterday—but it’s to the side today.”

  “Mmmm…” he said. “That is a very fine detail. One nobody else would have noticed.”

  “Yeah,” she said. Her drawings were eerily accurate. Supernaturally so, even. “Beryl is the spy. I have evidence of this, and I know she’s been contacting Mraize with the cube. I’m extremely curious how she activated it without drawing attention. Did you see her doing it?”

  “No,” he said. “I did not.”

  “Well, it’s a relief to know who it is,” Shallan said—and was surprised to find that it was. She could accept this, the traitor being the new girl. Shallan had begun to retreat at the idea of it being Vathah or Ishnah.

  Beryl. She could accept it being Beryl. That hurt—being betrayed would always hurt—but it could have been worse.

  Damnation, Veil thought.

  What? Shallan thought. What’s wrong?

  Does this feel too easy? Veil asked. Too convenient?

  Veil, Radiant thought. You went to all this trouble to seed the information and find the spy. Now you’re questioning?

  I just mentioned fundamentals, Veil replied. We need to question every bit of information, and ask ourselves if we’re being fed it. I need to think about this more.

  Shallan sighed, then shook her head. If Veil hadn’t gotten them drunk, then maybe they’d have caught Beryl. She started sketching again, the cube one more time—but this time adding dimples to the top. Did she remember? Did she want to remember?

  “Shallan?” Pattern said. “Mmm … Something is wrong, isn’t it? Something more than there being a spy among us?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, rubbing her forehead. The remnants of her earli
er hangover throbbed in the back of her mind. “Do … you remember me ever using a cube like this one when I was younger?”

  “Mmm. No?”

  “I did,” Shallan said. “I don’t know how, but I did. I can’t make sense of my own memories though.”

  “Perhaps … I can help you? Remember?”

  She stared at the sketchbook.

  “Shallan,” Pattern said. “I’m worried about you. Mmm. You say you’re getting better, but I worry. Adolin agrees, though I don’t think he sees what I do.”

  “What do you see?” she asked softly.

  “Something else looking out of your eyes, sometimes. Something new. It comes out when … when I try to talk about your past. So I’m afraid to do it. Sometimes you tease that you want me to say more. Then those other eyes see me.”

  “There’s another truth,” Shallan whispered. “Another…”

  “Another…”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Veil, take over.

  But—

  Veil found herself in control again, and heard voices drifting in from outside the barge. Adolin, strong and confident. Veil didn’t love him like Shallan did, but she knew right then that they needed to be near him. Shallan needed to be near him.

  No, Shallan thought from deep within. No. He’ll hate me. He’ll hate … what I did.…

  Veil went to be near him anyway. But she couldn’t find it in herself to tell him of Shallan’s fears—she would not risk pain she wasn’t certain Shallan could handle. She couldn’t risk giving more meat to Formless, and so remained silent.

  * * *

  “So it is you,” Notum said to Adolin. “You did not learn from your last excursion into this land? You had to return?”

  Notum appeared as an Alethi man, sturdy and tall, with close-cropped hair and a militaristic attitude. He had a beard a little like that of a Horneater, with prominent sideburns running down his cheeks, but with an additional thin mustache. It, along with his simple clothing, was all part of him. Though some spren wore manifested clothing, honorspren created it from their own substance.