Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson

  Perhaps they hadn’t even gone after her. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She waited, pained. It started raining again. What would that do to her illusion? The stone she’d drawn had already been wet, so dryness wouldn’t give it away—but from the way the rain fell on her, it obviously was passing through the image.

  I need to find a way to see the outside while I’m hiding like this, she thought. Eyeholes? Could she make those inside her illusion? Perhaps she—

  Voices.

  “We will need to find how much he knows.” Mraize’s voice. “You will bring these pages to Master Thaidakar. We are close, but so—it appears—are Restares’s cronies.”

  The response came in a rasping voice. Shallan couldn’t make it out.

  “No, I’m not worried about that one. The old fool sows chaos, but does not reach for the power offered by opportunity. He hides in his insignificant city, listening to its songs, thinking he plays in world events. He has no idea. His is not the position of the hunter. This creature in Tukar, however, is different. I’m not convinced he is human. If he is, he’s certainly not of the local species. . . .”

  Mraize continued speaking, but Shallan heard no more as they moved off. A short time later, she heard more hoofbeats.

  She waited, water soaking though her coat and trousers. She shivered, satchel in her lap, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Weather lately had been warmer, but sitting in the rain belied that. She waited until her spine complained and her muscles screamed at her. She waited until finally, the boulder broke into luminescent smoke and faded away.

  Shallan started. What had happened?

  Stormlight, she realized, stretching her legs. She checked the pouch in her pocket. She’d drained every sphere, unconsciously, while holding up the illusion of the boulder.

  Hours had passed, the sky darkening as evening approached. Maintaining something simple like the boulder didn’t take much Light, and she didn’t have to consciously think about it to keep it going. That was good to know.

  She’d also proven herself a fool again for not even worrying about how much Light she had been using. Sighing, she climbed to her feet. She wobbled, her legs protesting the sudden motion. She took a deep breath, then walked over and peeked around the corner. The pavilion was gone and all signs of the Ghostbloods with it.

  “I guess this means I’m walking,” Shallan said, turning back toward the warcamps.

  “Did you expect otherwise?” Pattern asked from his place on her coat, sounding genuinely curious.

  “No,” Shallan said. “I’m just talking to myself.”

  “Mmm. No, you talk to me.”

  She walked on into the evening, cold. However, it wasn’t the deadly coldness she’d suffered in the south. This was uncomfortable, but nothing more. If she hadn’t been wet, the air probably would have been pleasant, despite the shade. She passed the time practicing her accents with Pattern—she’d speak, then have him repeat back to her exactly what she’d said, in her voice and tone. Being able to hear it that way helped a great deal.

  She had the Alethi accent down, she was certain. That was good, since Veil pretended to be Alethi. That one was easy, however, as Veden and Alethi were so similar you could almost understand one by knowing the other.

  Her Horneater accent was quite good too, in both Alethi and Veden. She was getting better and not overdoing it, as Tyn had suggested. Her Bav accent in both Veden and Alethi was passable, and through most of the time walking back, she practiced speaking both tongues with a Herdazian accent. Palona gave her a good example of this in Alethi, and Pattern could repeat to her things the woman had said, which was helpful for practice.

  “What I need to do,” Shallan said, “is train you to speak along with my images.”

  “You should have them speak themselves,” Pattern said.

  “Can I do that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because . . . well, I use Light for the illusion, and so they create an imitation of light. Makes sense. I don’t use sound to make them, though.”

  “This is a Surge,” Pattern said. “Sound is a part of it. Mmm . . . Cousins of one another. Very similar. It can be done.”

  “How?”

  “Mmmm. Somehow.”

  “You’re very helpful.”

  “I am glad . . .” He trailed off. “Lie?”

  “Yup.” Shallan stuffed her safehand into her pocket, which was also wet, and continued walking through patches of grass that pulled away in front of her. Distant hills showed lavis grain growing in orderly fields of polyps, though she didn’t see any farmers at this hour.

  At least it had stopped raining. She did still like rain, though she hadn’t considered how unpleasant it might be to have to walk a long distance in it. And—

  What was that?

  She pulled up short. A clump of something dark shadowed the ground ahead of her. She approached hesitantly, and found that she could smell smoke. The sodden, wet kind of smoke you smelled after a campfire was doused.

  Her carriage. She could make it out now, partially burned in the night. The rains had put out the fire; it hadn’t burned long. They’d probably started the blaze on the inside, where it would have been dry.

  It was certainly the one she’d hired. She recognized the trim on the wheels. She approached hesitantly. Well, she’d been right in her worry. It was a good thing she’d stayed behind. Something nagged at her. . . .

  The coachman!

  She ran ahead, fearing the worst. His corpse was there, lying beside the broken carriage, staring up at the sky. His throat had been slit. Beside him, his parshman porters lay dead in a pile.

  Shallan sat back on the wet stones, feeling sick, hand to her mouth. “Oh . . . Almighty above . . .”

  “Mmm . . .” Pattern hummed, somehow conveying a morose tone.

  “They’re dead because of me,” Shallan whispered.

  “You did not kill them.”

  “I did,” Shallan said. “As sure as if I’d held the knife. I knew the danger I was going into. The coachman didn’t.”

  And the parshmen. How did she feel about that? Voidbringers, yes, but it was difficult not to feel sick at what had been done.

  You’ll cause something far worse than this if you prove what Jasnah claims, part of her said.

  Briefly, while watching Mraize’s excitement over her art, she’d wanted to like the man. Well, she’d best remember this moment. He’d allowed these murders. He might not have been the one to slit the coachman’s throat, but he’d all but assured the others it was all right to remove her if they could.

  They’d burned the carriage to make it look like bandits had been behind this, but no bandits would come this close to the Shattered Plains.

  You poor man, she thought toward the coachman. But if she hadn’t arranged a ride, she wouldn’t have been able to hide as she did while the coach laid a false trail. Storms! How could she have handled this so nobody died? Would it have been possible?

  She eventually forced herself to her feet and, with slumped shoulders, continued to walk back toward the warcamps.

  The considerable abilities of the Skybreakers for making such amounted to an almost divine skill, for which no specific Surge or spren grants capacity, but however the order came to such an aptitude, the fact of it was real and acknowledged even by their rivals.

  —From Words of Radiance, chapter 28, page 3

  “Great. You’re the one guarding me today?”

  Kaladin turned as Adolin came out of his room. The prince wore a sharp uniform, as always. Monogrammed buttons, boots that cost more than some houses, side sword. An odd choice for a Shardbearer, but Adolin probably wore it as an ornament. His hair was a mess of blond sprinkled with black.

  “I don’t trust her, princeling,” Kaladin said. “Foreign woman, secret betrothal, and the only person who could vouch for her is dead. She could be an assassin, and that means putting you under the watch of the best I have.”

  “Humble,
aren’t we?” Adolin said, striding down the stone hallway, Kaladin falling into step beside him.

  “No.”

  “That was a joke, bridgeboy.”

  “My mistake. I was under the impression that jokes were supposed to be funny.”

  “Only to people with a sense of humor.”

  “Ah, of course,” Kaladin said. “I traded in my sense of humor long ago.”

  “And what did you get for it?”

  “Scars,” Kaladin said softly.

  Adolin’s eyes flicked toward the brands on Kaladin’s forehead, though most would be obscured by hair. “This is great,” Adolin said under his breath. “Just great. I’m so happy you’re coming along.”

  At the end of the hallway, they stepped into daylight. Not much of it, though. The sky was still overcast from the rains of the last few days.

  They emerged into the warcamp. “We collecting any other guards?” Adolin asked. “Usually there’s two of you.”

  “Just me today.” Kaladin was short-manned, with the king under his watch and with Teft taking the new recruits out patrolling again. He had two or three men on everyone else, but Adolin he figured he could watch on his own.

  A carriage waited, pulled by two mean-looking horses. All horses looked mean, with those too-knowing eyes and sudden movements. Unfortunately, a prince couldn’t arrive in a carriage pulled by chulls. A footman opened the door for Adolin, who settled into the confines. The footman closed the door, then climbed into a place at the back of the carriage. Kaladin prepared to swing up into the seat beside the carriage driver, then stopped.

  “You!” he said, pointing at the driver.

  “Me!” the King’s Wit replied from where he sat holding the reins. Blue eyes, black hair, black uniform. What was he doing driving the carriage? He wasn’t a servant, was he?

  Kaladin clambered cautiously up into his seat, and Wit shook the reins, prodding the horses into motion.

  “What are you doing here?” Kaladin asked him.

  “Trying to find mischief,” Wit replied cheerfully, as the horses’ hooves rang against the stone. “Have you been practicing with my flute?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Don’t tell me you left it in Sadeas’s camp when you moved out.”

  “Well—”

  “I said not to tell me,” Wit replied. “You don’t need to, since I already know. A shame. If you knew the history of that flute, it would make your brain flip upside-down. And by that, I mean that I would shove you off the carriage for having spied on me.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Eloquent today, I see.”

  Kaladin had left the flute behind. When he had gathered the bridgemen left in Sadeas’s camp—the wounded from Bridge Four, and the members of the other bridge crews—he’d been focused on people, not things. He hadn’t bothered with his little bundle of possessions, forgetting that the flute was among them.

  “I’m a soldier, not a musician,” Kaladin said. “Besides, music is for women.”

  “All people are musicians,” Wit countered. “The question is whether or not they share their songs. As for music being feminine, it’s interesting that the woman who wrote that treatise—the one you all practically worship in Alethkar—decided that all of the feminine tasks involve sitting around having fun while all the masculine ones involve finding someone to stick a spear in you. Telling, eh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You know, I’m working very hard to come up with engaging, clever, meaningful points of interest to offer you. I can’t help thinking you’re not upholding your side of the conversation. It’s a little like playing music for a deaf man. Which I might try doing, as it sounds fun, if only someone hadn’t lost my flute.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kaladin said. He’d rather be thinking about the new sword stances that Zahel had taught him, but Wit had shown him kindness before. The least Kaladin could do was chat with him. “So, uh, did you keep your job? As King’s Wit, I mean. When we met before, you implied you were in danger of losing your title.”

  “I haven’t checked yet,” Wit said.

  “You . . . you haven’t . . . Does the king know you’re back?”

  “Nope! I’m trying to think of a properly dramatic way to inform him. Perhaps a hundred chasmfiends marching in unison, singing an ode to my magnificence.”

  “That sounds . . . hard.”

  “Yeah, the storming things have real trouble tuning their tonic chords and maintaining just intonation.”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Yeah, the storming things have real trouble tuning their tonic chords and maintaining just intonation.”

  “That didn’t help, Wit.”

  “Ah! So you’re going deaf, are you? Let me know when the process is complete. I have something I want to try. If I can just remember—”

  “Yes, yes,” Kaladin said, sighing. “You want to play the flute for one.”

  “No, that’s not it . . . Ah! Yes. I’ve always wanted to sneak up and poke a deaf man in the back of the head. I think it will be hilarious.”

  Kaladin sighed. It would take an hour or so, even moving quickly, to reach Sebarial’s warcamp. A very long hour.

  “So you’re just here,” Kaladin said, “to mock me?”

  “Well, it’s kind of what I do. But I’ll go easy on you. I wouldn’t want you to go flying off on me.”

  Kaladin jolted with a start.

  “You know,” Wit said, nonchalant, “flying off in an angry tirade. That kind of thing.”

  Kaladin narrowed his eyes at the tall lighteyed man. “What do you know?”

  “Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

  Kaladin fidgeted. Wit knew about him and about Surgebinding. Kaladin was sure of it. So, should he expect some kind of demand?

  “What do you want,” Kaladin said, trying to speak more precisely, “from me?”

  “Ah, so you’re thinking. Good. From you, my friend, I want one thing. A story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “That is for you to decide.” Wit smiled at him. “I hope it will be dynamic. If there is one thing I cannot stomach, it is boredom. Kindly avoid being dull. Otherwise I might have to sneak up and poke you in the back of the head.”

  “I’m not going deaf.”

  “It’s also hilarious on people who aren’t deaf, obviously. What, you think I’d torment someone just because they were deaf? That would be immoral. No, I torment all people equally, thank you very much.”

  “Great.” Kaladin settled back, waiting for more. Amazingly, Wit seemed content to let the conversation die.

  Kaladin watched the sky, so dull. He hated days like these, which reminded him of the Weeping. Stormfather. Grey skies and miserable weather made him wonder why he’d even bothered to get out of bed. Eventually, the carriage reached Sebarial’s warcamp, a place that looked even more like a city than the other warcamps. Kaladin marveled at the fully constructed tenements, the markets, the—

  “Farmers?” he asked as they rolled past a group of men hiking toward the gates, carrying worming reeds and buckets of crem.

  “Sebarial has them setting up lavis fields on the southwestern hills,” Wit explained.

  “The highstorms out here are too powerful for farming.”

  “Tell that to the Natan people. They used to farm this entire area. Requires a strain of plant that doesn’t grow as large as you’re accustomed to.”

  “But why?” Kaladin asked. “Why wouldn’t farmers go someplace where it’s easier? Like Alethkar proper.”

  “You don’t know a lot about human nature, do you, Stormblessed?”

  “I . . . No, I don’t.”

  Wit shook his head. “So frank, so blunt. You and Dalinar are alike, certainly. Someone needs to teach th
e pair of you how to have a good time now and then.”

  “I know full well how to have a good time.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. It involves being anywhere you aren’t.”

  Wit stared at him, then chuckled, shaking the reins so the horses danced a little. “So you do have some spark of wit in you.”

  It came from Kaladin’s mother. She’d often said things like that, though never so insulting. Being around Wit must be corrupting me.

  Eventually, Wit pulled the carriage up to a nice manor home, the likes of which Kaladin would have expected in some fine lait, not here in a warcamp. With those pillars and beautiful glass windows, it was even finer than the citylord’s manor back in Hearthstone.

  In the carriageway, Wit asked the footman to fetch Adolin’s causal betrothed. Adolin climbed out to await her, straightening his jacket, polishing the buttons on one sleeve. He glanced up toward the driver’s seat, then started.

  “You!” Adolin exclaimed.

  “Me!” Wit replied. He swung down from the top of the carriage and performed a flowery bow. “Ever at your service, Brightlord Kholin.”

  “What did you do with my usual carriage driver?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Wit—”

  “What, you’re implying that I hurt the poor fellow? Does that sound like me, Adolin?”

  “Well, no,” Adolin said.

  “Exactly. Besides, I’m certain he’s gotten the ropes undone by now. Ah, and here’s your lovely almost-but-not-quite bride.”

  Shallan Davar had emerged from the house. She bobbed down the steps, not gliding down them as most lighteyed ladies would have. She’s certainly an enthusiastic one, Kaladin thought idly, holding the reins, which he’d picked up after Wit had dropped them.

  Something just felt off about this Shallan Davar. What was she hiding behind that eager attitude and ready smile? That buttoned sleeve on the safehand of a lighteyed woman’s dress, that could hide any number of deadly implements. A simple poisoned needle, stuck through the fabric, would be enough to end Adolin’s life.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t watch her every moment she was with Adolin. He had to show more initiative than that; could he instead confirm that she was who she said she was? Decide from her past if she was a threat or not?