“Always,” Kaladin said, nodding. “I swear it. Get as many of the Radiants out as you can, and then run. Once you do, I’ll follow.”
I love their art. The way they depict us is divine, all red shades and black lines. We appear demonic and fearsome; they project all fear and terror upon us.
—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
Dalinar stepped into the Prime’s warcamp home, and immediately felt as if he’d entered the wrong building. Surely this was a storage room where they were keeping extra furniture gathered from the surrounding abandoned towns.
But no, Dalinar was merely accustomed to austerity. It was an Alethi wartime virtue for a commander to eschew comfort. Dalinar had perhaps taken this idea too far on occasion—but he’d become comfortable with simple furniture, bare walls. Even his rooms in Urithiru had grown too cluttered for his taste.
Young Yanagawn came from a different tradition. This entry room was so full of rich furniture—painted bronze on every surface that wasn’t of some plush material—that it created a maze Dalinar had to wind through to reach the other side. Adding to the difficulty, the room was also packed with a battalion’s worth of servants. Twice Dalinar encountered someone in bright Azish patterns who had to physically climb onto a couch to let him pass.
Where had they found all of this? And those tapestries draping every visible space on the walls. Had they carried them all this way? He knew the Azish were more accustomed to long supply chains—they didn’t have access to the number of food-making Soulcasters that the Alethi did—but this was excessive, wasn’t it?
Though, he noted, turning back across the room as he reached the other side, this would certainly slow an assassin or a force who tried to break in here and attack the Prime.
In the next room he found an even greater oddity. The Prime—Yanagawn the First, Emperor of Makabak—sat in a throne at the head of a long table. Nobody else ate at the table, but it was stuffed with lit candelabras and plates of food. Yanagawn was finishing his breakfast, mostly pre-cut fruit. He wore a mantle of heavy cloth and an ornate headdress. He ate primly, spearing each bite of fruit with a long skewer, then raising it to his lips. He barely seemed to move, with one hand held crossed before his chest as he manipulated the skewer with the other.
A large rank of people stood to either side of him. They mostly seemed to be camp followers. Washwomen. Wheelwrights. Reshi chull keepers. Seamstresses. Dalinar picked out only a few uniforms.
Jasnah had already arrived for the meeting. She stood among the groups of people, and a servant ushered Dalinar in that direction as well, so he joined the bizarre display. Standing and watching the emperor eat his fruit one delicate bite at a time.
Dalinar liked the Azish—and they’d proven to be good allies with a shockingly effective military. But storms above and Damnation beyond, were they strange. Although curiously, he found their excess to be less nauseating than when an Alethi highprince indulged. In Alethkar this would be an expression of arrogance and a lack of self-restraint.
Here, there was a certain … cohesion to the display. Alethi servants of the highest order wore simple black and white, but the Azish ones were dressed almost as richly as the emperor. The overflowing table didn’t seem to be for Yanagawn. He was merely another ornament. This was about the position of Prime, and the empire itself, more than an elevation of the individual man.
From what Dalinar had heard, they’d had trouble appointing this most recent Prime. The reason for that was, of course, standing directly behind Dalinar: Szeth, the Assassin in White, had killed the last two Primes. At the same time, Dalinar couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be Prime. They had to deal with all this pomp, always on display. Maybe that was why their “scholarly republic” worked in a way Jasnah liked so much. They had accidentally made the position of emperor so awful, no sane person would want it—so they’d needed to find other ways to rule the country.
Dalinar had learned enough social grace to remain quiet until the display was complete. Each of the onlookers was then given a bronze plate full of food, which they accepted after bowing to the emperor. As they left one by one, other servants quickly made space at the table for Jasnah and Dalinar, though the clock he wore in his arm bracer told him he was still a few minutes early for the meeting.
Damnation’s own device, that was. Had him hopping about like the Prime. Though admittedly, Dalinar was realizing how much less of his time was wasted now that everyone knew precisely when to meet together. Without ever saying a word, Navani was bringing order to his life.
Be safe. Please. My life’s light, my gemheart.
He sent Szeth out, as neither of the other two monarchs had guards in the room. As they settled—the last of the observers leaving—Noura bowed to the Prime, then took a seat at the table deliberately positioned to be lower than the three of them. Some in the empire considered it a scandal that Dalinar, Jasnah, and Fen were always seated at the same height as the Prime, but Yanagawn had insisted.
“Dalinar, Jasnah,” the youth said, relaxing as he removed his headdress and set it onto the table. Noura gave him a glance at that, but Dalinar smiled. She obviously thought the Prime should maintain decorum, but Dalinar liked seeing the youth grow more comfortable with his position and his fellow monarchs. “I’m sorry we didn’t have plates of food for you as well,” Yanagawn continued in Azish. “I should have known you’d both arrive early.”
“It would have made a fine memento, Majesty,” Jasnah said, laying out some papers on the table. “But we were not of the chosen today, so it wouldn’t feel right to be so favored.”
The boy looked to Noura. “I told you she understood.”
“Your wisdom grows, Imperial Majesty,” the older woman said. She was an Azish vizier—a high-level civil servant. Her own outfit had less gold on it than the Prime’s, but it was nevertheless fantastically colored, with a cap and contrasting coat of a multitude of patterns and hues. Her long hair was greying and wound into a braid that emerged from her cap on one side.
“All right, Jasnah,” Yanagawn said, leaning forward to inspect Jasnah’s papers—though as far as Dalinar knew, he couldn’t read Alethi. “Tell it to me straight.”
Dalinar braced himself.
“We have practically no chance of recovering Urithiru,” Jasnah said in Azish, her voice barely accented. “Our scouts confirm that fabrials don’t work near it. That means if we were to re-create a smaller version of my mother’s flying machine to deliver troops, it would drop the moment it drew too close.
“They’ve also blocked off the caverns. My uncle delivered a small force to the bottom, and that action seems to have informed the enemy that we know their ruse is up. They are no longer sending fake messages via spanreed, and we’ve seen singer troops on the balconies.
“With a Shardblade—which we discovered can be delivered into the protected area so long as it is not bound—our troops can cut through the blockage at the bottom. But while doing that the force would be exposed to archers on higher ground. And if we made it through that rubble, fighting all the way up through a contested tunnel system would be a nightmare.
“A march by soldiers along the tops of the mountains is impossible for a multitude of reasons. But if we did reach the tower, we’d lose. Our battlefields are a careful balance of Radiant against Fused, Shardbearer against Regal, soldier against soldier. At Urithiru, we’d have no Radiants—and the entire strategy would topple.”
“We’d have Kaladin,” Dalinar said. “His powers still work. The Stormfather thinks it’s because he’s far enough along in his oaths.”
“With all due respect to him,” Jasnah said, “Kaladin is just one man—and one you relieved of duty before we left.”
She was correct, of course. Common sense dictated that one man was nothing against an army of Fused. Yet Dalinar wondered. Once, in the warcamps, he’d argued with Kaladin’s soldiers who had set up a vigil for the young Windrunner—then presumed dead. Dalinar had been proven wrong that time. N
ow, he found himself possessing some of the same faith as those soldiers.
Beaten down, broken, surrounded by enemies, Kaladin continued to fight. He knew how to take the next step. They couldn’t leave him to take it alone.
“Our best chance,” Dalinar said to the others, “is to deliver me and a force through Shadesmar to the tower. I might be able to open a perpendicularity there, and we could surprise the enemy with an attack.”
“You might be able to open one there, Uncle,” Jasnah said. “What does the Stormfather think?”
“He isn’t certain I am far enough along in my oaths or my skills to manage it yet,” Dalinar admitted.
Jasnah tapped her notes. “An assault through Shadesmar would require a large number of ships—something we don’t have on that side, and which I see no way of obtaining.”
“We need to find a way to support Kaladin, Navani, and whatever resistance they are building,” Dalinar said. “We might not need a large force of ships. A small group of trained soldiers might be able to sneak in, then disable the fabrial the enemy is using to stop Radiants.”
“Undoubtedly,” Jasnah said, “that is the method the enemy used to get into the tower. They will be guarding against this same tactic.”
“So what?” Yanagawn said, chewing on some nuts he had hidden in a pocket of his oversized robes. “Jasnah, you argue against every point Dalinar makes. Are you saying we should give up Urithiru to the enemy?”
“Our entire war effort falls apart without it,” Noura said. “It was the means by which we connected our disparate forces!”
“Not necessarily,” Jasnah said, showing some small maps to the Prime. “As long as we have a stronger navy—and proper air support—we can control the southern half of Roshar. It will necessitate weeks or months of travel—but we can coordinate our battlefields as long as we have spanreeds.”
“Still,” Yanagawn said, glancing at Noura. The older woman nodded in agreement.
“This is a major blow,” Dalinar said. “Jasnah, we can’t simply abandon Urithiru. You yourself spent years trying to locate it.”
“I’m not suggesting we do, Uncle,” she said, her voice cold. “I’m merely presenting facts. For now, I think we need to act as if we will not soon retake the tower—which might mean moving against Ishar’s forces in Tukar, so we can secure those positions. At any rate, we should be planning how to support our forces in southern Alethkar against the Vedens.”
They were all valid points, the core of a cohesive and well-reasoned battle strategy. She was trying hard, and mostly succeeding, at learning to be a capable tactical commander. He couldn’t blame her for feeling she had something to prove there; her entire life had been a series of people demanding she prove herself to them.
However, her quickness to abandon Urithiru smelled too similar to what Taravangian had done in abandoning Roshar. Give up quickly, once you think you’re beaten.
“Jasnah,” he said, “we need to try harder to liberate Urithiru.”
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t, only that such an action is going to be very difficult and costly. I’m trying to outline those costs so we’re aware of them.”
“The way you talk lacks hope.”
“‘Hope,’” she said, spreading her papers out on the table. “Have I ever told you how much I dislike that word? Think of what it means, what it implies. You have hope when you’re outnumbered. You have hope when you lack options. Hope is always irrational, Uncle.”
“Fortunately, we are not entirely rational beings.”
“Nor should we want to be,” she agreed. “At the same time, how often has ‘hope’ been the reason someone refuses to move on and accept a realistic attitude? How often has ‘hope’ caused more pain or delayed healing? How often has ‘hope’ prevented someone from standing up and doing what needs to be done, because they cling to a wish for everything to be different?”
“I would say,” Yanagawn said, leaning forward, “that hope defines us, Jasnah. Without it, we are not human.”
“Perhaps you are correct,” Jasnah said, a phrase she often used when she wasn’t convinced—but also didn’t want to continue an argument. “Very well then, let us discuss Urithiru.”
“Your powers will work,” Dalinar said, “at least partially. You have said the Fourth Ideal.”
“Yes,” she said. “I have—though the Stormfather is uncertain whether the fourth oath will truly allow a Radiant to withstand the suppression. Am I correct?”
“You are,” Dalinar said. “But if the enemy is resupplying via the Oathgates, there is only one way we can realistically do anything about this situation. We must destroy their suppression fabrial. And so my suggestion of a small team makes the most sense.”
“And you are to lead it?” Jasnah said.
“Yes,” Dalinar said.
“You are still far from mastering your powers. What if you can’t open a perpendicularity at Urithiru?”
“I’ve been experimenting, practicing,” Dalinar said. “But yes, I’ve a long way to go. So I’ve been considering another solution.” He selected one of Jasnah’s maps, then turned it for the others to see. “We came here to Emul to use a hammer-and-anvil tactic, shoving our enemy against an army here. The army of Ishar, the being the Azish call Tashi.”
“Yes, and?” Jasnah asked.
“I have scouts surveying his position,” Dalinar said, “and have visual confirmation—shown to me via Lightweaving—that the man himself is there. Wit’s drawings confirm it. I have spoken with the Stormfather, and the two of us think this is our best solution. Ishar is a master with the Bondsmithing art. If I can recruit him, he could be the secret to saving Urithiru.”
“Pardon,” Noura said. “But haven’t we determined that the Heralds are all … insane?” It was hard for her to say; their religion viewed the Heralds as deities. The Makabaki people worshipped them, and not the Almighty.
“Yes,” Dalinar said, “but Ash indicates Ishar might have escaped with less damage than others. She trusts him.”
“We’ve had letters from Ishar, Uncle,” Jasnah said. “That are not encouraging.”
“I want to try speaking with him anyway,” Dalinar said. “We’ve been mostly ignoring his armies, other than to use them as our anvil. But if I were to approach with a flag of peace and parley, Ishar—”
“Wait,” Yanagawn said. “You’re going to go personally?”
“Yes,” Dalinar said. “I need to see Ishar, ask him questions.”
“Send your Radiants,” Noura said. “Take this being captive. Bring him here. Then talk to him.”
“I would rather go myself,” Dalinar said.
“But…” Yanagawn said, sounding utterly baffled. “You’re a king. This is even worse than when Jasnah went out in Plate and fought the enemy!”
“It’s an old family tradition, Majesty,” Jasnah said. “We are prone to putting ourselves into the thick of things. I blame long-standing Alethi conditioning that says the best general is the one who leads the charge.”
“I suppose,” Yanagawn said, “that a history of having excessive numbers of Shards might create a feeling of invincibility. But Dalinar, why do you raise this point now? To get our advice?”
“More to warn you,” he said. “I’ve deliberately put the Mink in command of our military so I can step away to see to more … spiritual matters. Jasnah and Wit are preparing a contract for me to present to Odium, once we have pushed him to come speak to me again.
“Until we can make that work, I need to do something to help. I need to bring Ishar to our side—then see if he can teach me how to restore the Oathpact and help me rescue Urithiru.”
“Well,” Yanagawn said, looking to Noura. “Being allies with the Alethi is … interesting. Go with Yaezir’s own speed then, I suppose.”
Yaezir is dead, Dalinar thought, though he didn’t say it.
Jasnah took the reins of the conversation next, explaining the contract she was preparing for Odium. She and Dalinar
had already talked to Queen Fen earlier, via spanreed. Dalinar offered some explanations, but mostly let Jasnah do the persuading. She had an uphill battle, as getting the monarchs to agree to this contest would take some doing.
Jasnah could manage it; he was confident in her. His job, he was increasingly certain, involved his Bondsmithing, the Oathpact, and the Heralds.
Eventually the meeting came to an end. They agreed to meet again to talk over more points in the contract, but for now Yanagawn had to attend some religious ceremonies for his people. Dalinar needed to prepare for his trip to Tukar; he intended to go as soon as was reasonable.
As they rose to leave, Yanagawn replaced his headdress. “Dalinar,” the youth said, “do we know anything of Lift? We left her at the tower.”
“Kaladin said the other Radiants were unconscious,” Dalinar said. “That probably includes her.”
“Maybe,” Yanagawn said. “She often does what she isn’t supposed to. If you hear word, send to me, please?”
Dalinar nodded, joining Jasnah and withdrawing from Yanagawn’s palace. The exterior might look as ordinary as every other building in the village, but a palace it was.
He collected Szeth, who was holding something for him. Dalinar took the large book—intimidating in size, though he knew it to be shorter than it appeared. The paper inside was covered with his own bulky letter-lines, larger and thicker than was proper, drawn deliberately with his fat fingers.
He held the book toward Jasnah. He’d allowed early drafts and portions of it to be shared—and they’d gotten out all over the coalition by now. However, he hadn’t considered the book finished until he’d made some last changes earlier this week.
“Oathbringer?” she said, taking it eagerly. “It’s complete?”
“No, but my part is done,” Dalinar said. “This is the original, though the scribes have made copies following my last round of alterations. I wanted you to have the one I wrote.”
“You should feel proud, Uncle. You make history with this volume.”
“I fear you’ll find it to be mostly religious drivel.”
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