The Way of Kings sa-1

by Brandon Sanderson

  When clever, careful plans failed, it was time to try something desperate.

  Lopen cut off suddenly. Kaladin hesitated. The Herdazian man had grown pale-faced and frozen in place. What was…

  Scraping. Kaladin froze as well, a panic rising in him. One of the side corridors echoed with a deep grinding sound. Kaladin turned slowly, just in time to catch sight of something large-no, something enormous- moving down the distant chasm. Shadows in the dim light, the sound of chitinous legs scratching on rock. Kaladin held his breath, sweating, but the beast didn’t come in their direction.

  The scraping grew softer, then eventually faded. He and Lopen stood immobile for a long time after the last sound had vanished.

  Finally, Lopen spoke. “Guess the nearby ones aren’t all dead, eh, gancho?”

  “Yeah,” Kaladin said. He jumped suddenly as Syl zipped back to find them. He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight as he did so, and when she alighted in the air, she found him sheepishly glowing.

  “What is going on?” she demanded, hands on hips.

  “Chasmfiend,” Kaladin said.

  “Really?” She sounded excited. “We should chase after it!”

  “What?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You could fight it, I’ll bet.”

  “Syl…”

  Her eyes were twinkling with amusement. Just a joke. “Come on.” She zipped away.

  He and Lopen stepped more softly now. Eventually Syl landed on the side of the chasm, standing there as if in mockery of when Kaladin had tried to walk up the wall.

  Kaladin looked up at the shadow of a wooden bridge forty feet above. This was the shallowest chasm they’d been able to find; they tended to get deeper and deeper the farther eastward you went. More and more, he was certain that trying to escape to the east was impossible. It was too far, and surviving the highstorm floods was too difficult a challenge. The original plan-fighting or bribing the guards, then running-was the best one.

  But they needed to live long enough to try that. The bridge above offered an opportunity, if Kaladin could reach it. He hefted his small bag of spheres and his slung sack full of armor and bones over his shoulder. He’d originally intended to have Rock shoot an arrow with a rope tied to it over the bridge, then back down into the chasm. With some men holding one end, another could have climbed up and tied the sack to the bridge’s underside.

  But that would risk letting an arrow shoot out of the chasm where scouts could see. They were said to be very keen-eyed, as the armies depended on them to spot chasmfiends making chrysalises.

  Kaladin thought he had a better way than the arrow. Maybe. “We need rocks,” he said. “Fist-size ones. A lot of them.”

  Lopen shrugged and began searching about. Kaladin joined him, fishing them out of puddles and pulling them from crevasses. There was no shortage of stones in the chasms. In a short time, he had a large pile of rocks in a sack.

  He took the pouch of spheres in his hand and tried to think the same way he had earlier, when he’d drawn in the Stormlight. This is our last chance.

  “Life before death,” he whispered. “Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”

  The First Ideal of the Knights Radiant. He breathed in deeply, and a thick jolt of power shot up his arm. His muscles burned with energy, with the desire to move. The tempest spread within, pushing at his skin, causing his blood to pump in a powerful rhythm. He opened his eyes. Glowing smoke rose around him. He was able to contain much of the Light, holding it in by holding his breath.

  It’s like a storm inside me. It felt as if it would rip him apart.

  He set the sack with the armor on the ground, but wound the rope around his arm and tied the sack of rocks to his belt. He took out a single fist-size stone and hefted it, feeling its storm-smoothed sides. This had better work….

  He infused the stone with Stormlight, frost crystallizing on his arm. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but it felt natural, like pouring liquid into a cup. Light seemed to pool underneath the skin of his hand, then transfer to the rock-as if he were painting it with a vibrant, glowing liquid.

  He pressed the stone to the rock wall. It fixed in place, leaking Stormlight, clinging so strongly that he couldn’t pry it free. He tested his weight on it, and it held. He placed another one a little lower, then another a little higher. Then, wishing he had someone to burn him a prayer for success, he started climbing.

  He tried not to think about what he was doing. Climbing on rocks stuck to the wall by… what? Light? Spren? He kept on going. It was a lot like climbing the stone formations back near Hearthstone with Tien, except that he could make handholds exactly where he wanted.

  Should have found some rock dust to cover my hands, he thought, pulling himself up, then taking another stone from his sack and sticking it into place.

  Syl walked along beside him, her casual stroll seeming to mock the difficulty of his climb. As he shifted his weight to another rock, he heard an ominous click from below. He risked a glance downward. The first of his rocks had fallen free. The ones near it were leaking Stormlight only faintly now.

  The rocks led up toward him like a set of burning footprints. The storm inside him had quieted, though it still blew and raged inside his veins, thrilling and distracting at the same time. What would happen if he ran out of Light before he reached the top?

  The next rock fell free. The one beside it followed a few seconds later. Lopen stood on the other side of the chasm bottom, leaning against the wall, interested but relaxed.

  Keep moving! Kaladin thought, annoyed at himself for getting distracted. He turned back to his work.

  Just as his arms were beginning to burn from the climb, he reached the underside of the bridge. He reached out as two more of his stones fell free. The clatter of each one was louder now, as they fell a much larger distance.

  Steadying himself on the bottom of the bridge with one hand, feet still pushing against the highest rocks, he looped the end of the rope around a wooden bridge support. He pulled it around and threaded it through again to make a makeshift knot. He left plenty of extra rope on the short end.

  He let the rest of the rope slide free of his shoulder and drop to the floor below. “Lopen,” he called. Light steamed from his mouth as he spoke. “Pull it tight.”

  The Herdazian did so, and Kaladin held to his end, making the knot firm. Then he took hold of the long section of rope and let himself swing free, dangling from the bottom of the bridge. The knot held.

  Kaladin relaxed. He was still steaming light, and-save for the call to Lopen-he’d been holding his breath for a good quarter hour. That could be handy, he thought, though his lungs were starting to burn, so he started to breathe normally. The Light didn’t leave him altogether, though it escaped faster.

  “All right,” Kaladin said to Lopen. “Tie the other sack to the bottom of the rope.”

  The rope wiggled, and a few moments later Lopen called up that it was done. Kaladin gripped the rope with his legs to hold himself in place, then used his hands to pull up the length underneath, hoisting up the sack full of armor. Using the rope on the short end of the knot, he slipped his pouch of dun spheres into the sack with the armor, then tied it into place underneath the bridge where-he hoped-Lopen and Dabbid would be able to get to it from above.

  He looked down. The ground looked so much more distant than it would have from the bridge above. From this slightly different perspective, everything changed.

  He didn’t get vertigo from the height. Instead, he felt a little surge of excitement. Something about him had always liked being up high. It felt natural. It was being below-trapped in holes and unable to see the world- that was depressing.

  He considered his next move.

  “What?” Syl asked, stepping up to him, standing on air.

  “If I leave the rope here, someone might spot it while crossing the bridge.”

  “So cut it free.”

  He looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “While dangling fro
m it?”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “That’s a forty-foot drop! I’d break bones at the very least.”

  “No,” Syl said. “I feel right about this, Kaladin. You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  “Trust you? Syl, you’ve said yourself that your memory is fractured!”

  “You insulted me the other week,” she said, folding her arms. “I think you owe me an apology.”

  “I’m supposed to apologize by cutting a rope and dropping forty feet?”

  “No, you apologize by trusting me. I told you. I feel right about this.”

  He sighed, looking down again. His Stormlight was running out. What else could he do? Leaving the rope would be foolish. Could he tie it in another knot, one he could shake free once at the bottom?

  If that type of knot existed, he didn’t know how to tie it. He clenched his teeth. Then, as the last of his rocks fell off and clattered to the ground, he took a deep breath and pulled out the Parshendi knife he’d taken earlier. He moved swiftly, before he had a chance to reconsider, and sliced the rope free.

  He dropped in a rush, one hand still holding the sliced rope, stomach lurching with the jarring distress of falling. The bridge shot away as if rising, and Kaladin’s panicked mind immediately sent his eyes downward. This wasn’t beautiful. This was terrifying. It was horrible. He was going to die! He-

  It’s all right.

  His emotions calmed in a heartbeat. Somehow, he knew what to do. He twisted in the air, dropping the rope and hitting the ground with both feet down. He came to a crouch, resting one hand on the stone, a jolt of coldness shooting through him. His remaining Stormlight came out in a single burst, flung from his body in a luminescent smoke ring that crashed against the ground before spreading out, vanishing.

  He stood up straight. Lopen gaped. Kaladin felt an ache in his legs from hitting, but it was like that of having leaped four or five feet.

  “Like ten crashes of thunder on the mounts, gancho!” Lopen exclaimed. “That was incredible!”

  “Thank you,” Kaladin said. He raised a hand to his head, glancing at the rocks scattered about the base of the wall, then looking up at the armor tied securely up above.

  “I told you,” Syl said, landing on his shoulder. She sounded triumphant.

  “Lopen,” Kaladin said. “You think you can get that bundle of armor during the next bridge run?”

  “Sure,” Lopen said. “Nobody will see. They ignore us Herdies, they ignore bridgemen, and they especially ignore cripples. To them, I’m so invisible I should be walking through walls.”

  Kaladin nodded. “Get it. Hide it. Give it to me right before the final plateau assault.”

  “They aren’t going to like you going into a bridge run armored, gancho,” Lopen said. “I don’t think this will be any different from what you tried before.”

  “We’ll see,” Kaladin said. “Just do it.”

  60

  That which we cannot have

  “The death is my life, the strength becomes my weakness, the journey has ended.”

  — Dated Betabanes, 1173, 95 seconds pre-death. Subject: a scholar of some minor renown. Sample collected secondhand. Considered questionable.

  “That is why, Father,” Adolin said, “you absolutely cannot abdicate to me, no matter what we discover with the visions.”

  “Is that so?” Dalinar asked, smiling to himself.

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, you’ve convinced me.”

  Adolin stopped dead in the hallway. The two of them were on their way to Dalinar’s chambers. Dalinar turned and looked back at the younger man. “Really?” Adolin asked. “I mean, I actually won an argument with you?”

  “Yes,” Dalinar said. “Your points are valid.” He didn’t add that he’d come to the decision on his own. “No matter what, I will stay. I can’t leave this fight now.”

  Adolin smiled broadly.

  “But,” Dalinar said, raising a finger. “I have a requirement. I will draft an order-notarized by the highest of my scribes and witnessed by Elhokar- that gives you the right to depose me, should I grow too mentally unstable. We won’t let the other camps know of it, but I will not risk letting myself grow so crazy that it’s impossible to remove me.”

  “All right,” Adolin said, walking up to Dalinar. They were alone in the hallway. “I can accept that. Assuming you don’t tell Sadeas about it. I still don’t trust him.”

  “I’m not asking you to trust him,” Dalinar said pushing the door open to his chambers. “You just need to believe that he is capable of changing. Sadeas was once a friend, and I think he can be again.”

  The cool stones of the Soulcast chamber seemed to hold the chill of the spring weather. It continued to refuse to slip into summer, but at least it hadn’t slid into winter either. Elthebar promised that it would not do so-but, then, the stormwarden’s promises were always filled with caveats. The Almighty’s will was mysterious, and the signs couldn’t always be trusted.

  He accepted stormwardens now, though when they’d first grown popular, he’d rejected their aid. No man should try to know the future, nor lay claim to it, for it belonged only to the Almighty himself. And Dalinar wondered how stormwardens could do their research without reading. They claimed they didn’t, but he’d seen their books filled with glyphs. Glyphs. They weren’t meant to be used in books; they were pictures. A man who had never seen one before could still understand what one meant, based on its shape. That made interpreting glyphs different from reading.

  Stormwardens did a lot of things that made people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, they were just so useful. Knowing when a highstorm might strike, well, that was just too tempting an advantage. Even though stormwardens were frequently wrong, they were more often right.

  Renarin knelt beside the hearth, inspecting the fabrial that had been installed there to warm the room. Navani had already arrived. She sat at Dalinar’s elevated writing desk, scribbling a letter; she waved a distracted greeting with her reed as Dalinar entered. She wore the fabrial he had seen her displaying at the feast a few weeks back; the multilegged contraption was attached to her shoulder, gripping the cloth of her violet dress.

  “I don’t know, Father,” Adolin said, closing the door. Apparently he was still thinking about Sadeas. “I don’t care if he’s listening to The Way of Kings. He’s just doing it to make you look less closely at the plateau assaults so that his clerks can arrange his cut of the gemhearts more favorably. He’s manipulating you.”

  Dalinar shrugged. “Gemhearts are secondary, son. If I can reforge an alliance with him, then it’s worth nearly any cost. In a way, I’m the one manipulating him.”

  Adolin sighed. “Very well. But I’m still going to keep a hand on my money pouch when he’s near.”

  “Just try not to insult him,” Dalinar said. “Oh, and something else. I would like you to take extra care with the King’s Guard. If there are soldiers we know for certain are loyal to me, put those in charge of guarding Elhokar’s rooms. His words about a conspiracy have me worried.”

  “Surely you don’t give them credence,” Adolin said.

  “Something odd did happen with his armor. This whole mess stinks like cremslime. Perhaps it will turn out to be nothing. For now, humor me.”

  “I have to note,” Navani said, “that I didn’t much care for Sadeas back when you, he, and Gavilar were friends.” She finished her letter with a flourish.

  “He’s not behind the attacks on the king,” Dalinar said.

  “How can you be certain?” Navani asked.

  “Because it’s not his way,” Dalinar said. “Sadeas never wanted the title of king. Being highprince gives him plenty of power, but leaves him with someone to take the blame for large-scale mistakes.” Dalinar shook his head. “He never tried to seize the throne from Gavilar, and he’s even better positioned with Elhokar.”

  “Because my son’s a weakling,” Navani said. It wasn’t an accusation.

  “He’s not weak
,” Dalinar said, “He’s inexperienced. But yes, that does make the situation ideal for Sadeas. He’s telling the truth-he asked to be Highprince of Information because he wants very badly to find out who is trying to kill Elhokar.”

  “Mashala,” Renarin said, using the formal term for aunt. “That fabrial on your shoulder, what does it do?”

  Navani looked down at the device with a sly smile. Dalinar could see she’d been hoping one of them would ask. Dalinar sat down; the highstorm would be coming soon.

  “Oh, this? It’s a type of painrial. Here, let me show you.” She reached up with her safehand, pushing a clip that released the clawlike legs. She held it up. “Do you have any aches, dear? A stubbed toe, perhaps, or a scrape?”

  Renarin shook his head.

  “I pulled a muscle in my hand during dueling practice earlier,” Adolin said. “It’s not bad, but it does ache.”

  “Come over here,” Navani said. Dalinar smiled fondly-Navani was always at her most genuine when playing with new fabrials. It was one of the few times when one got to see her without any pretense. This wasn’t Navani the king’s mother or Navani the political schemer. This was Navani the excited engineer.

  “The artifabrian community is doing some amazing things,” Navani said as Adolin proffered his hand. “I’m particularly proud of this little device, as I had a hand in its construction.” She clipped it onto Adolin’s hand, wrapping the clawlike legs around the palm and locking them into place.

  Adolin raised his hand, turning it around. “The pain is gone.”

  “But you can still feel, correct?” Navani said in a self-satisfied way.

  Adolin prodded his palm with the fingers of his other hand. “The hand isn’t numb at all.”

  Renarin watched with keen interest, bespectacled eyes curious, intense. If only the lad could be persuaded to become an ardent. He could be an engineer then, if he wanted. And yet he refused. His reasons always seemed like poor excuses to Dalinar.