I could Lash myself upward, he thought, and fall into the sky forever.
But no, that was how an ordinary person thought. A skyeel didn’t fear falling, did it? A fish didn’t fear drowning.
Until he began thinking in a new way, he wouldn’t control this gift he had been given. And it was a gift. He would embrace this.
The sky was now his.
Kaladin shouted, dashing forward. He leaped and Lashed himself to the wall. No pausing, no hesitance, no fear. He hit at a dead run, and nearby, Syl laughed for joy.
But that, that was simple. Kaladin jumped off the wall and looked directly above him at the opposite wall. He Lashed himself in that direction, and flung his body into a flip. He landed, going down on one knee upon what had been the ceiling to him a moment before.
“You did it!” Syl said, flitting around him. “What changed?”
“I did.”
“Well, yeah, but what about you?” Syl asked.
“Everything.”
She frowned at him. He grinned back, then took off at a run along the side of the chasm.
* * *
Shallan strode down the mansion’s back steps to the kitchen, thumping each foot down harder than it would normally fall, trying to imitate being heavier than she was. The cook looked up from her novel and dropped it in a wide-eyed panic, moving to stand. “Brightlord!”
“Remain seated,” Shallan mouthed, scratching at her face to mask her lips. Pattern spoke the words she’d told him to say in a perfect imitation of Amaram’s voice.
The cook remained seated, as ordered. Hopefully, from that position, she wouldn’t notice that Amaram was shorter than he should be. Even walking on her tiptoes—which was masked by the illusion—she was much shorter than the highprince.
“You spoke to the maid Telesh earlier,” Pattern said as Shallan mouthed the words.
“Yes, Brightlord,” the cook said, speaking softly to match Pattern’s tone of voice. “I sent her off to work with Stine for the evening. I thought the girl needed a little direction.”
“No,” Pattern said. “Her return was at my command. I have sent her out again, and told her not to speak of what happened tonight.”
The cook frowned. “What . . . happened tonight?”
“You are not to speak of this event. You interfered with something that is not of your concern. Pretend you did not see Telesh. Never speak of this event to me. If you do, I will pretend none of this happened. Do you understand?”
The cook grew pale, and nodded her head, sinking down in her chair.
Shallan nodded to her curtly, then walked from the kitchens out into the night. There, she ducked to the side of the building, heart pounding. A grin formed on her face anyway.
Out of sight, she exhaled Stormlight in a cloud, then stepped forward. As she passed through it, the image of Amaram vanished, replaced by that of the messenger boy she’d been imitating before. She scrambled back to the front of the building and sat down on the steps, slumping and leaning with her head on her hand.
Amaram and Hav walked up through the night, speaking softly. “. . . I didn’t notice that the girl had seen me talking to the messenger, Highlord,” Hav was saying. “She must have realized . . .” He trailed off as they saw Shallan.
She hopped to her feet and bowed to Amaram.
“It’s no matter now, Hav,” Amaram said, waving the soldier back to his rounds.
“Highlord,” Shallan said. “I bring you a message.”
“Obviously, darkborn,” the man said, stepping up to her. “What does he want?”
“He?” Shallan asked. “This is from Shallan Davar.”
Amaram cocked his head. “Who?”
“Betrothed of Adolin Kholin,” she said. “She is trying to update the accounting of all of the Shardblades in Alethkar with pictures. She would like to schedule a time to come and do a sketch of yours, if you are willing.”
“Oh,” Amaram said. He seemed to relax. “Yes, well, that would be fine. I am free most afternoons. Have her send someone to speak with my steward to arrange a meeting.”
“Yes, Highlord. I’ll see that it is done.” Shallan moved to leave.
“You came this late?” Amaram asked. “To ask such a simple question.”
Shallan shrugged. “I don’t question the commands of lighteyes, Highlord. But my mistress, well, she can be distracted at times. I suppose she wanted me on her task while it was fresh in her mind. And she’s really interested in Shardblades.”
“Who isn’t?” Amaram mused, turning away, speaking softly. “They’re wondrous things, aren’t they?”
Was he talking to her, or to himself? Shallan hesitated. A sword formed in his hand, mist coalescing, water beading on its surface. Amaram held it up, looking at himself in the reflection.
“Such beauty,” he said. “Such art. Why must we kill with our grandest creations? Ah, but I’m babbling, delaying you. I apologize. The Blade is still new to me. I find excuses to summon it.”
Shallan was barely listening. A Blade with the back edge ridged like flowing waves. Or perhaps tongues of fire. Etchings all along its surface. Curved, sinuous.
She knew this Blade.
It belonged to her brother Helaran.
* * *
Kaladin charged through the chasm, and the wind joined him, blowing at his back. Syl soared before him as a ribbon of light.
He reached a boulder in his way and jumped into the air, Lashing himself upward. He soared a good thirty feet upward before Lashing himself to the side and downward at the same time. The downward Lashing slowed his momentum upward; the sideways Lashing brought him to the wall.
He dismissed the downward Lashing and hit the wall with one hand, twisting and throwing himself to his feet. He kept running along the chasm wall. When he reached the end of the plateau, he leaped toward the next one and Lashed himself at its wall instead.
Faster! He held nearly all of the Stormlight he had left, fetched from the pouches he’d dropped earlier. He held so much that he glowed like a bonfire. It encouraged him as he jumped and Lashed himself forward, eastward. This made him fall through the chasm. The floor of the chasm whipped along beneath him, plants a blur to his sides.
He had to remember that he was falling. This was not flight, and every second he moved, his speed increased. That didn’t stop the feeling of liberty, of ultimate freedom. It just meant this could be dangerous.
The winds picked up and he Lashed himself backward at the last moment, slowing his descent as he crashed against a chasm wall before him.
That direction was down to him now, so he stood and ran along it. He was using the Stormlight at a furious rate, but he didn’t need to scrimp. He was paid like a lighteyed officer of the sixth dahn, and his spheres held not tiny chips of gemstone, but broams. A month’s pay for him now was more than he had ever seen at a time, and the Stormlight it held was a vast fortune compared to what he’d once known.
He shouted as he jumped a group of frillblooms, their fronds pulling in beneath him. He Lashed himself to the other chasm wall and crossed the chasm, landing on his hands. He threw himself back upward, and somehow Lashed himself only slightly in that direction.
Now much lighter, he was able to twist in the air and come down on his feet. He stood on the wall, facing down the chasm, hands in fists and Light pouring off him.
Syl hesitated, flitting around him back and forth. “What?” she asked.
“More,” he said, then Lashed himself forward again, down the corridor.
Fearless, he fell. This was his ocean to swim, his winds upon which to soar. He fell face-first toward the next plateau. Just before he arrived, he Lashed himself sideways and backward.
His stomach lurched. He felt like someone had tied a rope around him and pushed him off a cliff, then yanked on the rope right as he reached the end of it. The Stormlight inside, however, made the discomfort negligible. He pulled sideways, into another chasm.
Lashings sent him eastward again down
another corridor, and he wove around plateaus, keeping to the chasms—like an eel swimming through the waves, swerving around boulders. Onward, faster, still falling . . .
Teeth clenched at both the wonder and the forces twisting him, he tossed caution aside and Lashed himself upward. Once, twice, three times. He let go of all else, and amid the streaming Light, he shot from the chasms out into the open air above.
He Lashed himself back to the east so that he could fall in that direction again, but now no plateau walls got in his way. He soared toward the horizon, distant, lost in the darkness. He gained speed, coat flapping, hair whipping behind him. Air buffeted his face, and he narrowed his eyes, but did not close them.
Beneath, dark chasms passed one after another. Plateau. Pit. Plateau. Pit. This sensation . . . flying over the land . . . he had felt this before, in dreams. What took bridgemen hours to cross, he passed in minutes. He felt as if something were boosting him from behind, the wind itself carrying him. Syl zipped along to his right.
And to his left? No, those were other windspren. He’d accumulated dozens of them, flying around him as ribbons of light. He could pick out Syl. He didn’t know how; she didn’t look different, but he could tell. Like you could pick a family member out of a crowd just by their walk.
Syl and her cousins twisted around him in a spiral of light, free and loose, but with a hint of coordination.
How long had it been since he felt this good, this triumphant, this alive? Not since before Tien’s death. Even after saving Bridge Four, darkness had shadowed him.
That evaporated. He saw a spire of rock ahead on the plateaus, and nudged himself toward it with a careful Lashing to the right. Other Lashings to his rear slowed his fall enough that when he hit the tip of the spire of rock, he could clutch to it and spin around it, fingers on the smooth cremstone.
A hundred windspren broke around him, like the crash of a wave, spraying outward from Kaladin in a fan of light.
He grinned. Then he looked upward, toward the sky.
* * *
Highlord Amaram continued to stare at the Shardblade in the night. He held it up before him in the light spilling from the front of the manor house.
Shallan remembered her father’s quiet terror as he looked upon that weapon, leveled toward him. Could it be a coincidence? Two weapons that looked the same? Perhaps her memory was flawed.
No. No, she would never forget the look of that Blade. It was the one Helaran had held. And no two Blades were the same.
“Brightlord,” Shallan said, drawing Amaram’s attention. He seemed startled, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Yes?”
“Brightness Shallan,” she said, “wants to make certain the records are all correct and that the histories of the Blades and Plate in the Alethi army have been properly traced. Your Blade is not in them. She asked if you would mind sharing the origin of your Blade, in the name of scholarship.”
“I’ve explained this to Dalinar already,” Amaram said. “I don’t know the history of my Shards. Both were in the possession of an assassin who tried to kill me. A younger man. Veden, with red hair. We don’t know his name, and his face was ruined in my counterattack. I had to stab him through his faceplate, you see.”
Young man. Red hair.
She stood before her brother’s killer.
“I . . .” Shallan stammered, feeling sick. “Thank you. I will pass the information along.”
She turned, trying not to stumble as she walked away. She finally knew what had happened to Helaran.
You were involved in all of this, weren’t you, Helaran? she thought. Just like Father was. But how, why?
It seemed that Amaram was trying to bring back the Voidbringers. Helaran had tried to kill him.
But would anyone really want to bring back the Voidbringers? Perhaps she was mistaken. She needed to get to her rooms, draw those maps from the Memories she’d taken, and try to figure this all out.
The guards, blessedly, did not give her any further troubles as she slipped away from Amaram’s camp and into the anonymity of the darkness. That was well, for if they’d looked closely, they’d have seen the messenger boy with tears in his eyes. Crying for a brother that now, once and for all, Shallan knew was dead.
* * *
Upward.
One Lashing, then another, then a third. Kaladin shot up into the sky. Nothing but open expanse, an infinite sea for his delight.
The air grew cold. Still upward he went, reaching for the clouds. Finally, worried about running out of Stormlight before returning to the ground—he had only one infused sphere left, carried in his pocket for an emergency—Kaladin reluctantly Lashed himself downward.
He didn’t fall downward immediately; his momentum upward merely slowed. He was still Lashed to the sky; he hadn’t dismissed the upward Lashings.
Curious, he Lashed himself downward to slow further, then dismissed all of his Lashings except one up and one down. He eventually came to a stop hanging in midair. The second moon had risen, bathing the Plains in light far below. From here, they looked like a broken plate. No . . . he thought, squinting. It’s a pattern. He’d seen this before. In a dream.
Wind blew against him, causing him to drift like a kite. The windspren he’d attracted scampered away now that he wasn’t riding upon the winds. Funny. He’d never realized one could attract windspren as one attracted the spren of emotions.
All you had to do was fall into the sky.
Syl remained, spinning around him in a swirl until finally coming to rest on his shoulder. She sat, then looked down.
“Not many men ever see this view,” she noted. From up here, the warcamps—circles of fire to his right—seemed insignificant. It was cold enough to be uncomfortable. Rock claimed the air was thinner up high, though Kaladin couldn’t tell any difference.
“I’ve been trying to get you to do this for a while now,” Syl said.
“It’s like when I first picked up a spear,” Kaladin whispered. “I was just a child. Were you with me back then? All that time ago?”
“No,” Syl said, “and yes.”
“It can’t be both.”
“It can. I knew I needed to find you. And the winds knew you. They led me to you.”
“So everything I’ve done,” Kaladin said. “My skill with the spear, the way I fight. That’s not me. It’s you.”
“It’s us.”
“It’s cheating. Unearned.”
“Nonsense,” Syl said. “You practice every day.”
“I have an advantage.”
“The advantage of talent,” Syl said. “When the master musician first picks up an instrument and finds music in it that nobody else can, is that cheating? Is that art unearned, just because she is naturally more skilled? Or is it genius?”
Kaladin Lashed himself westward, back toward the warcamps. He didn’t want to leave himself stranded in the middle of the Shattered Plains without Stormlight. The tempest within had calmed greatly since he started. He fell in that direction for a time—getting as close as he dared before slowing himself—then removed part of the upward Lashing and began to drift downward.
“I’ll take it,” Kaladin said. “Whatever it is that gives me that edge. I’ll use it. I’ll need it to beat him.”
Syl nodded, still sitting on his shoulder.
“You don’t think he has a spren,” Kaladin said. “But how does he do what he does?”
“The weapon,” Syl said, more confidently than she had before. “It’s something special. It was created to give abilities to men, much as our bond does.”
Kaladin nodded, light wind ruffling his jacket as he fell through the night. “Syl . . .” How to broach this? “I can’t fight him without a Shardblade.”
She looked the other way, squeezing her arms together, hugging herself. Such human gestures.
“I’ve avoided the training with the Blades that Zahel offers,” Kaladin continued. “It’s hard to justify. I need to learn how to use one of th
ose weapons.”
“They’re evil,” she said in a small voice.
“Because they’re symbols of the knights’ broken oaths,” Kaladin said. “But where did they come from in the first place? How were they forged?”
Syl didn’t answer.
“Can a new one be forged? One that doesn’t bear the stain of broken promises?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
She didn’t reply. They floated downward for a time in silence until gently coming to rest on a dark plateau. Kaladin got his bearings, then walked over and drifted off the edge, going down into the chasms. He wouldn’t want to walk back using the bridges. The scouts would find it odd that he was coming back without having gone out.
Storms. They’d have seen him flying out here, wouldn’t they? What would they think? Were any close enough to have seen him land?
Well, he couldn’t do anything about that now. He reached the bottom of the chasm and started walking back toward the warcamps, his Stormlight slowly dying out, leaving him in darkness. He felt deflated without it, sluggish, tired.
He fished the last infused sphere from his pocket and used it to light his path.
“There’s a question you’re avoiding,” Syl said, landing on his shoulder. “It’s been two days. When are you going to tell Dalinar about those men that Moash took you to meet?”
“He didn’t listen when I told him about Amaram.”
“This is obviously different,” Syl said.
It was, and she was right. So why hadn’t he told Dalinar?
“Those men didn’t seem the type who would wait long,” Syl said.
“I’ll do something about them,” Kaladin said. “I just want to think about it some more. I don’t want Moash to get caught in the storm when we bring them down.”
She fell silent as he walked the rest of the way, retrieving his spear, then climbed the ladder up onto the plateaus. The sky overhead had grown cloudy, but the weather had been turning toward spring lately.
Enjoy it while you can, he thought. The Weeping comes soon. Weeks of ceaseless rain. No Tien to cheer him up. His brother had always been able to do that.
Amaram had taken that from him. Kaladin lowered his head and started walking. At the warcamps’ edge, he turned right and walked northward.
Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The) Page 74