Brandon Sanderson - [Stormlight Archive 01]

by The Way of Kings Prime (ALTERNATIVE VERSION) (pdf)

  to a duel.”

  Merin paused. “But you told me not to duel.”

  “Last week you couldn’t wait to embarrass yourself, now you’re arguing

  with me? Get!”

  Merin jumped, rushing over to ask one of the younger monks to invite

  the other Shardbearer to duel. Then Merin quickly went to the dressing

  square, where several other young monks helped him don the Shardplate.

  Merin knew the man he was about to spar. His name was Khalvan, a distant

  cousin to the Kholin. The man had done moderately well in the dueling

  competition, finishing near the middle of the pack of contestants.

  Several groups of onlookers gestured and nudged one another as Merin

  approached the dueling ring. Some smirked in amusement; others were

  simply curious. Though the rumors rightly claimed that Aredor had really

  been the one to save the king, Merin had taken part in the battle. If people had been curious about him before, they were doubly so now.

  So, what will it meant to them if I lose this duel? Merin thought with sudden apprehension, realizing that most of the courtyard had stopped its sparring to gather around his ring.

  What will it mean if I win?

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 323

  Merin raised his Blade to indicate that he was ready, and Khalvan stepped

  forward. The man’s stance was different from Merin’s—he kept the Blade

  closer to his body, its tip raised higher in the air.

  Merin struck first. Propelled by the speed of Shardplate, he danced

  across the sand, swinging his Blade in the sweeps Vasher had taught him.

  His opponent parried each blow with ease, then delivered a strike directly against Merin’s helm.

  Merin pulled to a stop in the sand, gritting his teeth as the scorekeeper

  awarded a point to Khalvan. Focus, Merin told himself, repeating Vasher’s oft-voiced counsel. Feel the form, and let it do the work.

  Merin approached the second bout more carefully, letting his opponent

  make the first move. When the man struck, Merin was able to block the

  first blow and try a counterstrike. His opponent easily turned Merin’s Blade away, but Merin let the form pull him back, just out of reach. Merin was

  actually surprised when his follow-up attack connected with Khalvan’s

  shoulder.

  Several members of the crowd nodded appreciatively at this, but the third

  point made them more skeptical, as Merin didn’t last to a count of three

  before taking a blow to the side.

  Merin grunted slightly at the impact. Even a dul ed Blade had a powerful

  force behind it. Khalvan had three points—though he couldn’t win until

  he struck Merin twice in the same place. Merin still had a chance. He

  advanced, wary and careful, just as he had been trained. He did everything right—he followed the form properly, he let reflex direct his movements,

  and he swung his Blade with precision. Yet the exchange still ended with

  a second blow to Merin’s helm, officially ending the contest.

  There was a general air of snickering as Merin pulled off his helm,

  nodding in respect to his opponent. On the battlefield, Merin would have

  been dead. Here, in the monastery courtyard, he was just shamed. He’d

  barely put up a fight. The crowd disbursed as the monks helped Merin

  out of his armor, then he slunk back toward Vasher and the others—no

  matter how crowded the courtyard got, Vasher’s corner somehow remained

  comfortably free of interlopers.

  Merin took a drink with bowed head and flexed his lightly-aching

  shoulder. Whatever it was the others had been encouraging Vasher to teach

  him, Merin would not learn it this day.

  “Well?” Vasher asked.

  “You saw,” Merin said. “I didn’t do so well.”

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  “Why?” Vasher asked.

  Merin shrugged. “I can’t tell,” he said honestly. “I thought I was doing

  everything right. The form . . . it just wasn’t enough. My attacks were too easy to block, and my swings were too wide—they left too many openings.

  Not enough practice, I guess.”

  Vasher grunted, eyeing him. “Oh, stop sulking. There was no way you

  were going to win that bout. Khalvan Nadadin is an accomplished and

  experienced duelist, and you’ve never fought a bout in Plate before.”

  “Then why did you make me fight him?” Merin protested.

  “The fight wasn’t the test, kid,” Chadrin said, seated in the wall’s shade a short distance away. “The question afterward was.”

  Merin paused. The question afterward . . . ?

  “The form I’m teaching you isn’t really one of the twenty dueling styles,

  Merin,” Vasher explained. “It’s something . . . else. Something we came

  up with ourselves.”

  “By ‘we,’” Chadrin added, “he means ‘I, Vasher, developed this all by

  myself.’”

  Vasher shot the man a glare, then turned back to Merin. “The style has

  its weaknesses,” he said. “It depends on knowing where your opponent is

  going to strike before he moves—something you can only do by fighting

  many men and understanding instinctively how your opponents think. It

  is a form that allows flexibility and ease of motion, letting you anticipate and adapt. It’s a difficult style of fighting, little spearman. You probably won’t win many duels until you master it. Once you do, you’ll win them all.”

  Merin frowned. “Then, what is this ‘skepping’ that the others mentioned?”

  “Something you don’t need to know at the moment,” Vasher said. Then,

  however, he raised a hand to cut off Merin’s objection. “However, it might be a good idea to start training you, just in case. Here, sit down.”

  Merin did so eagerly, settling himself on the sand. Vasher seated himself

  directly in front of Merin, adopting an almost meditative pose. “Hold out

  your hand in front of yourself, pointing at me, then hold up one finger and point it at the sky.”

  Merin did as commanded.

  “What do you see?” Vasher asked.

  “Um, my finger?” Merin replied.

  “Now focus on me,” Vasher commanded. “Leave your hand where it is.

  What do you see?”

  Merin frowned in confusion. “The same thing.”

  “The same?” Vasher asked. “Or two copies of the same?”

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 325

  “Well, yes,” Merin said. “If I focus on you, I see two versions of my

  finger. One from each eye.”

  “Exactly,” Vasher said. “Now, I want you to focus your attention away from the two fingers. Keep looking at me, but try and see through your fingers.

  First one, then the other. If you concentrate hard enough, you should be

  able to see what is beyond, even though your finger is in the way.”

  “All right . . .” Merin said.

  Vasher stood. “When you can make both fingers disappear at once, you’ll

  be ready to learn skepping.”

  “That’s it?” Merin protested, lowering his finger.

  Chadrin laughed. “Be glad, kid. At least he didn’t make you do anything

  completely pointless. I remember him once forcing a student to try and

  snatch raindops from the sky during a highstorm!”

  Vasher grunted. “This isn’t a ‘pointless’ exercise, Chadrin,” he snapped.

  “It will teach the boy to focus and to control his perceptions. It will train his mind for what is to come—if you can come up wit
h a better meditative

  exercise, then you can go find your own student.”

  Merin smiled at the repartee, holding his finger up again and trying to

  make the separate images disappear, as Vasher had taught. Unfortunately, now that his master had moved, the view in front of Merin was that of the other noblemen. They continued their sparring, their laughter, and their camaraderie—all without even passing a glance by Vasher’s corner of the courtyard.

  “They still don’t accept me,” Merin said. “I thought, maybe, helping

  Aredor save the king would change things. But it didn’t. They’re polite,

  some are even respectful, but they don’t like me. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of them.”

  “Good,” Vasher said.

  “Oh, leave the boy alone, Vasher,” Chadrin said. “Just because we left

  that world behind doesn’t mean it’s bad for everyone.”

  “The boy needs to know the truth,” Vasher said firmly. “They’ll never

  accept you, Merin. Never. You remind them too much of what they are

  not, and that makes them uncomfortable. They’re jealous of you because of

  what you’ve done in saving the king.”

  “But everyone knows that was Aredor,” Merin said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Vasher said. “They’re jealous. And, more importantly,

  they’re angry that you aren’t beneath them any more—you’re even above

  most of them in rank. They’re angry that Lord Dalenar gave you a place

  in his house, and they’re never, never going to accept you as one of their own. Get used to it.”

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  Merin lowered his eyes, staring down at the uncountable grains of sand

  before him. “Lord Dalenar said something similar. Back when I first got

  my Blade. He said I wouldn’t be able to make them like me, but I might

  be able to make them respect me.”

  “Lord Dalenar is a wise man,” Vasher repeated.

  “A wise man,” Chadrin said quietly. “A liar, but still wise.”

  Vasher shot Chadrin a laconic glare, and for the first time Chadrin

  looked as if he regretted one of his quips. Chadrin glanced away, blushing slightly. Before Merin could voice a question, Vasher turned the stare

  toward him, forcing him to choke down the inquiry. The topic of Lord

  Dalenar’s supposed ‘lies’ was not to be discussed.

  As soon as Merin returned from the monastery, he went looking for

  Aredor. His friend had been notably absent from sparring recently. Part of this was due, of course, to Aredor’s wound—the cut on his side had been

  deep, and had nearly cost him the use of his arm. He would not soon swing

  a sword with that hand again.

  There was more to it, though. Of all the members of Lord Dalenar’s

  house, inactivity seemed to aggravate Aredor the most. Merin saw the

  look in his friend’s eyes the last few times Aredor had visited the monas-

  tery—the young nobleman didn’t seem to find solace or relief in exercise,

  but rather saw the sparring as a reminder of the war he thought he should

  be fighting.

  Indeed, Aredor had been uncharacteristically pensive these last few

  weeks. Merin never knew where to locate his friend anymore—Aredor

  could no longer be found sparring at the monastery, lounging near the ladies’

  gardens, or drinking with friends in the local taverns. Instead, Dalenar’s heir tended to sulk in the quiet palace sitting rooms—where he would sit

  with dissatisfied eyes and a snappish attitude—or sometimes he would

  wander the palace, pacing and brooding like a vengeful stormshade.

  The worst sign of all was Aredor’s refusal to accompany his father when

  visiting local noblemen. Lord Dalenar was gone at the moment, in fact, on

  a three-day trip. Merin would have thought that Aredor would welcome

  the chance to leave Kholinar, but the heir had complained fatigue from

  his injury and remained behind. Merin shook his head—not like Aredor

  at all.

  Merin strode into the palace. He made a point of visiting his friend every day to try and lift the man’s spirits, and so he made his way to Aredor’s

  rooms. The steward there, however, informed Merin that Lord Aredor was

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 327

  absent—and, like usual, Aredor had left no word of his destination. Merin

  sighed, knocking on the door across the hallway instead. A familiar voice

  called for him to enter—Renarin employed no steward.

  Merin opened the door and stepped inside. There was something oddly

  sanitary about Renarin’s quarters—they didn’t quite look like someone lived in them. The boy was tidy almost to a fault, and he shunned ornamentation.

  Merin, by Aredor’s recommendation, had commissioned several works of

  glyph art from local artists and hung them in his room. Renarin’s walls

  were empty, and though his quarters were far larger than Merin’s, they held about half as much furniture, and no rugs.

  The room’s only sign of personalization was the desk near the corner

  of the room, a piece of furniture that held several stacks of glyph-covered papers. Merin walked across the empty room, picking up the topmost paper.

  The glyphs were pressed on its page in haphazard, almost frustrated,

  sequences. Merin recognized most of them—simple numbers, nothing

  like the complex characters used in paintings or books of literature.

  “I’m on the balcony,” Renarin’s voice called from a short distance away.

  Merin replaced the paper and made his way out onto the balcony. Though

  the Kholinar palace was only one story tall, it had been build on a slight cleft in the land, allowing all of the rooms on the backmost wall to overlook the city. Lord Dalenar’s balcony monopolized most of the space, but Renarin’s

  rooms had a small section to the side of his father’s.

  Renarin stood in simple whitish-grey clothing, not even wearing a cloak.

  He leaned against the balcony’s stone railing, staring out—not at the city, but instead up into the sky toward a pattern of clouds that drifted toward the lait. Not dark highstorm clouds, but regular white ones, the kind that Aredor claimed were far more common near the coast.

  “Have you seen your brother around today?” Merin asked, walking up

  to stand beside Renarin.

  Renarin’s shake of the head was almost imperceptibly slight. Merin

  squinted up into the sky, trying unsuccessfully to delve just what it was

  about the clouds that fascinated Renarin so.

  “He didn’t come to sparring again today,” Merin said. “The healers said

  he should try and work his good arm, so that he doesn’t get too weak.

  But he hasn’t shown up all week.”

  Renarin nodded.

  Merin sighed, leaning against the railing. “It’s just a cloud, Renarin.

  What’s so fascinating about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Renarin answered after a pause. “I wish I did.”

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  Merin shook his head. Sometimes talking with Renarin was about as

  informative as a conversation with a rock.

  Renarin frowned, still watching the cloud. “Do you ever think that you

  might be . . . missing something?”

  “Missing something?” Merin asked. “Like what? An appointment?”

  “No,” Renarin said. “Something bigger. Like a piece of you that isn’t

  there, and never has been. But you can feel the space where it should go,

  and you wonder if everyone
feels that space and doesn’t recognize it, or if they all have the piece and you don’t.”

  Merin frowned. “I don’t know, Renarin,” he said, trying his best to

  answer the question. “I always dreamed about the ballads and the wars. I

  wanted to be part of something like the stories I had heard. Then, suddenly, I was—and it turned out to be very different from what I had expected.

  There isn’t much glory in watching your friends get cut down by arrows

  and spears.”

  “But you became a Shardbearer,” Renarin noted.

  Merin grunted. “And sometimes I wonder if that was a blessing from

  the Almighty, or just some kind of divine prank.”

  Renarin smiled. “At least you got what you wanted, even if you later

  realized it wasn’t what you had thought. Me . . . I don’t even know what it is I want. I’ll probably never be a Shardbearer again, and the king certainly isn’t going to appoint me to any important positions.”

  “You’ll always have a place in Kholinar,” Merin said. “Aredor will see

  to that.”

  “Coddled by my elder brother,” Renarin said, shaking his head. “There

  should be more . . .” he glanced back toward the room. Merin followed his

  gaze toward the desk, with its papers. “Things have been confusing recently, Merin. I write at my equations and my numbers, like I did even as a child, but something’s wrong. I can’t find the answers anymore. It’s like . . . like I don’t have all the numbers. It’s like the universe can count to ten, but I can only reach five.”

  “Renarin,” Merin said flatly, “I have absolutely no idea what that’s

  supposed to mean.”

  Renarin smiled. “Neither do I, I suppose. I guess that’s the problem.”

  Merin shook his head, sighing. How could someone be so depressing if

  you didn’t even understand what they were talking about? As Merin turned,

  he noticed something from the palace grounds below. There was motion at

  the stables. “Has your father returned early?” he asked.

  “Not that I know of,” Renarin said, watching the cloud again.

  THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME 329

  Merin frowned. There was certainly something going on down there.

  “Come on,” he said, tugging at Renarin’s shoulder. It would do the boy

  some good to get out of his rooms.

  “Lord Aredor has decided to ride out and meet his father,” the stable-