The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  But his father was wrong. It was a stunning, frightening revelation. This wasn’t idle fancy or daydreaming about the glory of battle. This was real.

  At that moment, Kaladin knew he could kill, if he needed to. Some people—like a festering finger or a leg shattered beyond repair—just needed to be removed.

  “Like a highstorm, regular in their coming, yet always unexpected.”

  —The word Desolation is used twice in reference to their appearances. See pages 57, 59, and 64 of Tales by Hearthlight.

  “I’ve made my decision,” Shallan declared.

  Jasnah looked up from her research. In an unusual moment of deference, she put aside her books and sat with her back to the Veil, regarding Shallan. “Very well.”

  “What you did was both legal and right, in the strict sense of the words,” Shallan said. “But it was not moral, and it certainly wasn’t ethical.”

  “So morality and legality are distinct?”

  “Nearly all of the philosophies agree they are.”

  “But what do you think?”

  Shallan hesitated. “Yes. You can be moral without following the law, and you can be immoral while following the law.”

  “But you also said what I did was ‘right’ but not ‘moral.’ The distinction between those two seems less easy to define.”

  “An action can be right,” Shallan said. “It is simply something done, viewed without considering intent. Killing four men in self-defense is right.”

  “But not moral?”

  “Morality applies to your intent and the greater context of the situation. Seeking out men to kill is an immoral act, Jasnah, regardless of the eventual outcome.”

  Jasnah tapped her desktop with a fingernail. She was wearing her glove, the gemstones of the broken Soulcaster bulging beneath. It had been two weeks. Surely she’d discovered that it didn’t work. How could she be so calm?

  Was she trying to fix it in secret? Perhaps she feared that if she revealed it was broken, she would lose political power. Or had she realized that hers had been swapped for a different Soulcaster? Could it be, despite all odds, that Jasnah just hadn’t tried to use the Soulcaster? Shallan needed to leave before too long. But if she left before Jasnah discovered the swap, she risked having the woman try her Soulcaster just after Shallan vanished, bringing suspicion directly on her. The anxious waiting was driving Shallan near to madness.

  Finally, Jasnah nodded, then returned to her research.

  “You have nothing to say?” Shallan said. “I just accused you of murder.”

  “No,” Jasnah said, “murder is a legal definition. You said I killed unethically.”

  “You think I’m wrong, I assume?”

  “You are,” Jasnah said. “But I accept that you believe what you are saying and have put rational thought behind it. I have looked over your notes, and I believe you understand the various philosophies. In some cases, I think that you were quite insightful in your interpretation of them. The lesson was instructive.” She opened her book.

  “Then that’s it?”

  “Of course not,” Jasnah said. “We will study philosophy further in the future; for now, I’m satisfied that you have established a solid foundation in the topic.”

  “But I still decided you were wrong. I still think there’s an absolute Truth out there.”

  “Yes,” Jasnah said, “and it took you two weeks of struggling to come to that conclusion.” Jasnah looked up, meeting Shallan’s eyes. “It wasn’t easy, was it?”

  “No.”

  “And you still wonder, don’t you?”

  “Yes.

  “That is enough.” Jasnah narrowed her eyes slightly, a consoling smile appearing on her lips. “If it helps you wrestle with your feelings, child, understand that I was trying to do good. I sometimes wonder if I should accomplish more with my Soulcaster.” She turned back to her reading. “You are free for the rest of the day.”

  Shallan blinked. “What?”

  “Free,” Jasnah said. “You may go. Do as you please. You’ll spend it drawing beggars and barmaids, I suspect, but you may choose. Be off with you.”

  “Yes, Brightness! Thank you.”

  Jasnah waved in dismissal and Shallan grabbed her portfolio and hastened from the alcove. She hadn’t had any free time since the day she’d gone sketching on her own in the gardens. She’d been gently chided for that; Jasnah had left her in her rooms to rest, not go out sketching.

  Shallan waited impatiently as the parshman porters lowered her lift to the Veil’s groundfloor, then hurried out into the cavernous central hall. A long walk later, she approached the guest quarters, nodding to the master-servants who served there. Half guards, half concierges, they monitored who entered and left.

  She used her thick brass key to unlock the door to Jasnah’s rooms, then slipped inside and locked the door behind her. The small sitting chamber—furnished with a rug and two chairs beside the hearth—was lit by topazes. The table still contained a half-full cup of orange wine from Jasnah’s late research the night before, along with a few crumbs of bread on a plate.

  Shallan hurried to her own chamber, then shut the door and took the Soulcaster out of her safepouch. The warm glow of the gemstones bathed her face in white and red light. They were large enough—and therefore bright enough—that it was hard to look at them directly. Each would be worth ten or twenty broams.

  She’d been forced to hide them outside in the recent highstorm to infuse them, and that had been its own source of anxiety. She took a deep breath, then knelt and slid a small wooden stick from under the bed. A week and a half of practice, and she still hadn’t managed to make the Soulcaster do…well, anything at all. She’d tried tapping the gems, twisting them, shaking her hand, and flexing her hand in exact mimicry of Jasnah. She’d studied picture after picture she’d drawn of the process. She tried speaking, concentrating, and even begging.

  However, she’d found a book the day before that had offered what seemed like a useful tip. It claimed that humming, of all things, could make a Soulcasting more effective. It was just a passing reference, but it was more than she’d found anywhere else. She sat down on her bed and forced herself to concentrate. She closed her eyes, holding the stick, imagining it transforming into quartz. Then she began humming.

  Nothing happened. She kept on humming though, trying different notes, concentrating as hard as she could. She kept her attention on the task for a good half hour, but eventually her mind began to wander. A new worry began to nibble at her. Jasnah was one of the most brilliant, insightful scholars in the world. She’d put the Soulcaster out where it could be taken. Had she intentionally duped Shallan with a fake?

  It seemed an awful lot of trouble to go through. Why not just spring the trap and reveal Shallan as a thief? The fact that she couldn’t get the Soulcaster to work left her straining plausibility for explanations.

  She stopped humming and opened her eyes. The stick had not changed. So much for that tip, she thought, setting the stick aside with a sigh. She’d been so hopeful.

  She lay back on the bed, resting, staring up at the brown stone ceiling, cut—like the rest of the Conclave—directly out of the mountain. Here, the stone had been left intentionally rough, evoking the roof of a cave. It was quite beautiful in a subtle way she’d never noticed before, the colors and contours of the rock rippling like a disturbed pond.

  She took a sheet from her portfolio and began to sketch the rock patterns. One sketch to calm her, and then she would get back to the Soulcaster. Perhaps she should try it on her other hand again.

  She couldn’t capture the colors of the strata, not in charcoal, but she could record the fascinating way the strata wove together. Like a work of art. Had some stoneworker cut this ceiling intentionally, crafting this subtle creation, or was it an accident of nature? She smiled, imagining some overworked stonecutter noticing the beautiful grain of the rock and deciding to form a wave pattern for his own personal wonder and sense of beauty.

>   “What are you?”

  Shallan yelped, sitting up, sketchpad bouncing free of her lap. Someone had whispered those words. She’d heard them distinctly!

  “Who is there?” she asked.

  Silence.

  “Who’s there!” she said more loudly, her heart beating quickly.

  Something sounded outside her door, from the sitting room. Shallan jumped, hiding the hand wearing the Soulcaster under a pillow as the door creaked open, revealing a wizened palace maid, darkeyed and dressed in a white and black uniform.

  “Oh dear!” the woman exclaimed. “I had no idea you were here, Brightness.” She bowed low.

  A palace maid. Here to clean the room, an everyday occurrence. Focused on her meditation, Shallan hadn’t heard her enter. “Why did you speak to me?”

  “Speak to you, Brightness?”

  “You…” No, the voice had been a whisper, and it had quite distinctly come from inside Shallan’s room. It couldn’t have been the maid.

  She shivered and glanced about. But that was foolish. The tiny room was easily inspected. There were no Voidbringers hiding in the corners or under her bed.

  What, then, had she heard? Noises from the woman cleaning, obviously. Shallan’s mind had just interpreted those random sounds as words.

  Forcing herself to relax, Shallan looked out past the maid into the sitting room. The woman had cleaned up the wineglass and crumbs. A broom leaned against the wall. In addition, Jasnah’s door was cracked open. “Were you in Brightness Jasnah’s room?” Shallan demanded.

  “Yes, Brightness,” the woman said. “Tidying up the desk, making the bed—”

  “Brightness Jasnah does not like people entering her room. The maids have been told not to clean in there.” The king had promised that his maids were very carefully chosen, and there had never been issues of theft, but Jasnah still insisted that none enter her bedchamber.

  The woman paled. “I’m sorry, Brightness. I didn’t hear! I wasn’t told—”

  “Hush, it’s all right,” Shallan said. “You’ll want to go tell her what you’ve done. She always notices if her things were moved. It will be better for you if you go to her and explain.”

  “Y-Yes, Brightness.” The woman bowed again.

  “In fact,” Shallan said, something occurring to her. “You should go now. No point putting it off.”

  The elderly maid sighed. “Yes, of course, Brightness.” She withdrew. A few seconds later, the outside door closed and locked.

  Shallan leapt up, pulling off the Soulcaster and stuffing it back in her safepouch. She hurried outside, heart thumping, the strange voice forgotten as she seized the opportunity to look into Jasnah’s room. It was unlikely that Shallan would discover anything useful about the Soulcaster, but she couldn’t pass up the chance—not with the maid to blame for moving things.

  She felt only a glimmer of guilt for this. She’d already stolen from Jasnah. Compared with that, poking through her room was nothing.

  The bedroom was larger than Shallan’s, though it still felt cramped because of the unavoidable lack of windows. Jasnah’s bed, a four-poster monstrosity, took up half the space. The vanity was against the far wall, and beside it the dressing table from which Shallan had originally stolen the Soulcaster. Other than a dresser, the only other thing in the room was the desk, books piled high on the left side.

  Shallan never got a chance to look at Jasnah’s notebooks. Might she, perhaps, have taken notes on the Soulcaster? Shallan sat at the desk, hurriedly pulling open the top drawer and poking through the brushpens, charcoal pencils, and sheets of paper. All were organized neatly, and the paper was blank. The bottom right drawer held ink and empty notebooks. The bottom left drawer had a small collection of reference books.

  That left the books on the top of the table. Jasnah would have the majority of her notebooks with her as she worked. But…yes, there were still a few here. Heart fluttering, Shallan gathered up the three thin volumes and set them before her.

  Notes on Urithiru, the first one declared inside. The notebook was full—it appeared—of quotes from and notations about various books Jasnah had found. All spoke of this place, Urithiru. Jasnah had mentioned it earlier to Kabsal.

  Shallan put that book aside, looking at the next, hoping for mention of the Soulcaster. This notebook was also filled to capacity, but there was no title on it. Shallan picked through, reading some entries.

  “The ones of ash and fire, who killed like a swarm, relentless before the Heralds…” Noted in Masly, page 337. Corroborated by Coldwin and Hasavah.

  “They take away the light, wherever they lurk. Skin that is burned.” Cormshen, page 104.

  Innia, in her recordings of children’s folktales, speaks of the Voidbringers as being “Like a highstorm, regular in their coming, yet always unexpected.” The word Desolation is used twice in reference to their appearances. See pages 57, 59, and 64 of Tales by Hearthlight.

  “They changed, even as we fought them. Like shadows they were, that can transform as the flame dances. Never underestimate them because of what you first see.” Purports to be a scrap collected from Talatin, a Radiant of the Order of Stonewards. The source—Guvlow’s Incarnate—is generally held as reliable, though this is from a copied fragment of The Poem of the Seventh Morning, which has been lost.

  They went on like that. Pages and pages. Jasnah had trained her in this method of note taking—once the notebook was filled, each item would be evaluated again for reliability and usefulness and copied to different, more specific notebooks.

  Frowning, Shallan looked through the final notebook. It focused on Natanatan, the Unclaimed Hills, and the Shattered Plains. It collected records of discoveries by hunters, explorers, or tradesmen searching for a river passage to New Natanan. Of the three notebooks, the largest was the one that focused on the Voidbringers.

  The Voidbringers again. Many people in more rural places whispered of them and other monsters of the dark. The raspings, or stormwhispers, or even the dreaded nightspren. Shallan had been taught by stern tutors that these were superstition, fabrications of the Lost Radiants, who used tales of monsters to justify their domination of mankind.

  The ardents taught something else. They spoke of the Lost Radiants—called the Knights Radiant then—fighting off Voidbringers during the war to hold Roshar. According to these teachings, it was only after defeating the Voidbringers—and the departure of the Heralds—that the Radiants had fallen.

  Both groups agreed that the Voidbringers were gone. Fabrications or long-defeated enemies, the result was the same. Shallan could believe that some people—some scholars, even—might believe that the Voidbringers still existed, haunting mankind. But Jasnah the skeptic? Jasnah, who denied the existence of the Almighty? Could the woman really be so twisted as to deny the existence of God, but accept the existence of his mythological enemies?

  A knock came at the outer door. Shallan jumped, raising her hand to her breast. She hurriedly replaced the notebooks on the desk in the same order and orientation. Then, flustered, she hurried out to the door. Jasnah wouldn’t knock, you silly fool, she told herself, unlocking and opening the door a crack.

  Kabsal stood outside. The handsome, lighteyed ardent held up a basket. “I’ve heard reports that you have the day free.” He shook the basket temptingly. “Would you like some jam?”

  Shallan calmed herself, then glanced back at Jasnah’s open quarters. She really should investigate more. She turned to Kabsal, meaning to tell him no, but his eyes were so inviting. That hint of a smile on his face, that good-natured and relaxed posture.

  If Shallan went with Kabsal, maybe she could ask him what he knew regarding Soulcasters. That wasn’t what decided it for her, however, The truth was, she needed to relax. She’d been so on edge lately, brain stuffed with philosophy, every spare moment spent trying to make the Soulcaster work. Was it any wonder she was hearing voices?

  “I’d love some jam,” she declared.

  “Truthberry jam,”
Kabsal said, holding up the small green jar. “It’s Azish. Legends there say that those who consume the berries speak only the truth until the next sunset.”

  Shallan raised an eyebrow. They were seated on cushions atop a blanket in the Conclave gardens, not far from where she’d first experimented with the Soulcaster. “And is it true?”

  “Hardly,” Kabsal said, opening the jar. “The berries are harmless. But the leaves and stalks of the truthberry plant, if burned, give off a smoke that makes people intoxicated and euphoric. It appears that peoples often gathered the stalks for making fires. They’d eat the berries around the campfire and have a rather…interesting night.”

  “It’s a wonder—” Shallan began, then bit her lip.

  “What?” he prodded.

  She sighed. “It’s a wonder they didn’t become known as birthberries, considering—” She blushed.

  He laughed. “That’s a good point!”

  “Stormfather,” she said, blushing further. “I’m terrible at being proper. Here, give me some of that jam.”

  He smiled, handing over a slice of bread with green jam slathered across the top. A dull-eyed parshman—appropriated from inside the Conclave—sat on the ground beside a shalebark wall, acting as an impromptu chaperone. It felt so strange to be out with a man near her own age with only a single parshman in attendance. It felt liberating. Exhilarating. Or maybe that was just the sunlight and the open air.

  “I’m also terrible at being scholarly,” she said, closing her eyes, breathing deeply. “I like it outside far too much.”

  “Many of the greatest scholars spent their lives traveling.”

  “And for each one of them,” Shallan said, “there were a hundred more stuck back in a hole of a library, buried in books.”