Once he got a little closer, he settled down to watch for a while, to see if he could spot anything suspicious. He sorely missed the diaphanous form Syl had in the Physical Realm; she could have reported back to the others what he’d seen, or even scouted into the building herself, invisible to all but the right eyes.
After a short time, something crawled out of the beads of the ocean near him: a round lurglike creature with a fat, bulbous body and squat legs. About the size of a toddler, it hopped close to him, then tipped the entire top half of its head backward. A long tongue shot up in the air from the gaping mouth; it began to flap and wave.
Storms. An anticipationspren? They looked like streamers on his side, but those … those were waving tongues? What other simple, stable parts of his life were complete lies?
Two more anticipationspren joined the first, clustering near him and deploying their long, wagging tongues. He kicked at them. “Shoo.” Deceptively solid, they refused to budge, so he tried calming himself, hoping it would banish them. Finally, he just continued forward, his three bothersome attendants hopping behind. That sorely undermined the stealth of his approach, making him more nervous—which in turn made the anticipationspren even more eager to stick with him.
He managed to reach the wall of the tower, where he might have expected the heat of the enormous fire to be oppressive. Instead, he could barely feel it. Notably, the flames caused his shadow to behave normally, extending behind him instead of pointing toward the sun.
He took a breath, then glanced up through the open-shuttered window, into the ground floor of the lighthouse.
Inside, he saw an old Shin man—with furrowed, wrinkled skin and a completely bald head—sitting in a chair, reading by spherelight. A human? Kaladin couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. The old man began to turn a page in his book, then froze, looking up.
Kaladin ducked down, heart thumping. Those stupid anticipationspren continued to crowd nearby, but their tongues shouldn’t be visible through the window—
“Hello?” an accented voice called from inside the lighthouse. “Who’s out there? Show yourself!”
Kaladin sighed, then stood up. So much for his promise to do some stealthy reconnaissance.
* * *
Shallan waited with the others in the shadow of a strange rock growth. It looked something like a mushroom made from obsidian, the height of a tree; she thought she’d seen its like before, during one of her glimpses into Shadesmar. Pattern said it was alive, but “very, very slow.”
The group waited, pensive, as Kaladin scouted. She hated sending him alone, but Shallan knew nothing about that sort of work. Veil did. But Veil … still felt broken, from what had happened in Kholinar. That was dangerous. Where would Shallan hide now? As Radiant?
Find the balance, Wit had said. Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.…
She sighed, then got out her sketchbook and started drawing some of the spren they’d seen.
“So,” Syl said, sitting on a rock nearby and swinging her legs. “I’ve always wondered. Does the world look weird to you, or normal?”
“Weird,” Pattern said. “Mmm. Same as for everyone.”
“I guess neither of us technically have eyes,” Syl said, leaning back and looking up at the glassy canopy of their tree-mushroom shelter. “We’re each a bit of power made manifest. We honorspren mimic Honor himself. You Cryptics mimic … weird stuff?”
“The fundamental underlying mathematics by which natural phenomena occur. Mmm. Truths that explain the fabric of existence.”
“Yeah. Weird stuff.”
Shallan lowered her pencil, looking with dissatisfaction at the attempt she’d made at drawing a fearspren. It looked like a child’s scribble.
Veil was seeping out.
That has always been you, Shallan. You just have to admit it. Allow it.
“I’m trying, Wit,” she whispered.
“You all right?” Adolin asked, kneeling beside her, putting his hand on her back, then rubbing her shoulders. Storms, that felt good. They’d walked entirely too far these last few days.
He glanced at her sketchpad. “More … what did you call it? Abstractionalism?”
She snapped the sketchpad closed. “What is taking that bridgeman so long?” She glanced over her shoulder, which interrupted Adolin. “Don’t stop,” she added, “or I will murder you.”
He chuckled and continued working at her shoulders. “He’ll be fine.”
“You were worried about him yesterday.”
“He’s got battle fatigue, but an objective will help with that. We have to watch him when he’s sitting around doing nothing, not when he’s got a specific mission.”
“If you say so.” She nodded toward Azure, who stood by the coast, staring across the ocean of beads. “What do you make of her?”
“That uniform is well tailored,” Adolin said, “but the blue doesn’t work with her skin. She needs a lighter shade. The breastplate is overly much, like she’s trying to prove something. I do like the cape though. I’ve always wanted to justify wearing one. Father gets away with it, but I never could.”
“I wasn’t asking for a wardrobe assessment, Adolin.”
“Clothing says a lot about people.”
“Yeah? What happened to the fancy suit you got in Kholinar?”
He looked down—which stopped the massaging of shoulders for an unacceptable count of three, so she growled at him.
“It didn’t fit me anymore,” he said, resuming the massage. “But you do raise an important problem. Yes, we need to find food and drink. But if I have to wear the same uniform this entire trip, you won’t have to murder me. I’ll commit suicide.”
Shallan had almost forgotten that she was hungry. How odd. She sighed, closing her eyes and trying not to melt too much into the feeling of his touch.
“Huh,” Adolin said a short time later. “Shallan, what do you suppose that is?”
She followed his nod and spotted an odd little spren floating through the air. Bone-white and brown, it had wings extending to the sides and long tresses for a tail. In front of its body hovered a cube.
“Looks like those gloryspren we saw earlier,” she noted. “Only the wrong color. And the shape of the head is…”
“Corrupted!” Syl said. “That’s one of Odium’s!”
* * *
As he stepped inside the lighthouse, Kaladin’s instincts drove him to check to either side of the doorway for anyone waiting in ambush. The room seemed empty save for furniture, the Shin man, and some strange pictures on the walls. The place smelled of incense and spices.
The Shin man snapped his book closed. “Cutting it close, aren’t you? Well, let us begin! We haven’t much time.” He stood up, proving himself to be rather short. His odd clothing had puffed out portions on the arms, the trousers very tight. He walked to a door at the side of the chamber.
“I should fetch my companions,” Kaladin said.
“Ah, but the very best readings happen at the beginning of the highstorm!” The man checked a small device that he took from his pocket. “Only two minutes off.”
A highstorm? Azure had said they didn’t need to worry about those in Shadesmar.
“Wait,” Kaladin said, stepping after the little man—who had entered a room built up against the base of the lighthouse. It had large windows, but its main feature was a small table at the center. That held something lumpish covered by a black cloth.
Kaladin found himself … curious. That was good, after the darkness of the last few days. He stepped in, glancing to the sides again. One wall contained a picture of people kneeling before a bright white mirror. Another was a cityscape at dusk, with a group of low houses clustered before an enormous wall that had light glowing beyond it.
“Well, let’s begin!” the man said. “You have come to witness the extraordinary, and I shall provide it. The price is a mere two marks of Stormlight. You shall be greatly rewarded in kind—both in dreams and luste
r!”
“I should really get my friends.…” Kaladin said.
The man whipped the cloth off the table, revealing a large crystalline globe. It glowed with a powerful light, bathing the room in luminescence. Kaladin blinked against it. Was that Stormlight?
“Are you balking at the price?” the man said. “What is the money to you? Potential? If you never spend it, you gain nothing by having it. And the witness of what is to come will far recompense you for small means expended!”
“I…” Kaladin said, raising his hand against the light. “Storms, man. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The Shin man frowned, face lit from below like the globe. “You came here for a fortune, didn’t you? To the Rii Oracle? You wish me to see the unwalked paths—during the highstorm, when realms blend.”
“A fortune? You mean foretelling the future?” Kaladin felt a bitter taste in his mouth. “The future is forbidden.”
The old man cocked his head. “But … isn’t this why you came to see me?”
“Storms, no. I’m looking for passage. We heard that ships come by here.”
The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Passage? Why didn’t you say so? And I was really enjoying the speech. Ah well. A ship? Let me check my calendars. I think supplies are coming soon.…”
He bustled past Kaladin, muttering to himself.
Outside, the sky rippled with light. The clouds shimmered, gaining a strange, ethereal luminescence. Kaladin gaped, then glanced back at the little man, who had fetched a ledger from a side table.
“That…” Kaladin said. “Is that what a highstorm looks like on this side?”
“Hmmm? Oh, new, are you? How have you gotten into Shadesmar, but not seen a storm pass? Did you come directly from the perpendicularity?” The old man frowned. “Not a lot of people coming through there anymore.”
That light. The bright sphere on the table—as large as a man’s head, and glowing with a milky light—shifted colors, matching the pearlescent ripples above. There was no gemstone inside that globe. And the light seemed different. Transfixing.
“Here now,” the man said as Kaladin stepped forward, “don’t touch that. It’s only for properly trained fo—”
Kaladin rested his hand on the sphere.
And felt himself get carried away by the storm.
* * *
Shallan and the others dodged for cover, but too slowly. The strange spren flitted right under their small canopy.
Overhead, the clouds started to ripple with a vibrant set of colors.
The corrupted gloryspren landed on Shallan’s arm. Odium suspects that you survived, a voice said in her mind. That … that was the voice of the Unmade from the mirror. Sja-anat. He thinks something strange happened to the Oathgate because of our influence—we’ve never managed to Enlighten such powerful spren before. It’s believable that something odd might happen. I lied, and said I think you were sent far, far from the point of transfer.
He has minions in this realm, and they will be told to hunt you. So take care. Fortunately, he doesn’t know that you’re a Lightweaver—he thinks you are an Elsecaller for some reason.
I will do what I can, but I’m not sure he trusts me any longer.
The spren fluttered away.
“Wait!” Shallan said. “Wait, I have questions!”
Syl tried to snatch it, but it dodged and was soon out over the ocean.
* * *
Kaladin rode the storm.
He’d done this before, in dreams. He’d even spoken to the Stormfather.
This felt different. He rode in a shimmering, rippling surge of colors. Around him, the clouds streamed past at incredible speed, coming alight with those colors. Pulsing with them, as if to a beat.
He couldn’t feel the Stormfather. He couldn’t see a landscape beneath him. Just shimmering colors, and clouds that faded into … light.
Then a figure. Dalinar Kholin, kneeling someplace dark, surrounded by nine shadows. A flash of glowing red eyes.
The enemy’s champion was coming. Kaladin knew in that moment—an overpowering sensation thrumming through him—that Dalinar was in terrible, terrible danger. Without help, the Blackthorn was doomed.
“Where!” Kaladin screamed to the light as it began to fade. “When! How do I reach him!”
The colors diminished.
“Please!”
He saw a flash of a vaguely familiar city. Tall, built along the stones, it had a distinctive pattern of buildings at the center. A wall and an ocean beyond.
Kaladin dropped to his knees in the fortuneteller’s room. The little Shin man batted Kaladin’s hand from the glowing sphere. “—rtune seers like myself. You’ll ruin it, or…” He trailed off, then took Kaladin’s head, turning it toward him. “You saw something!”
Kaladin nodded weakly.
“How? Impossible. Unless … you’re Invested. What Heightening are you?” He squinted at Kaladin. “No. Something else. Merciful Domi … A Surgebinder? It has begun again?”
Kaladin stumbled to his feet. He glanced at the large globe of light, which the lighthouse keeper covered up again with the black cloth, then put his hand to his forehead, which had begun thumping with pain. What had that been? His heart still raced with anxiety.
“I … I need to go get my friends,” he said.
* * *
Kaladin sat in the main room of the lighthouse, in the chair Riino—the Shin lighthouse keeper—had occupied earlier. Shallan and Adolin negotiated with him on the other side of the room, Pattern looming over Shallan’s shoulder and making the fortuneteller nervous. Riino had food and supplies for trade, though it would cost them infused spheres. Apparently, Stormlight was the only commodity that mattered on this side.
“Charlatans like him aren’t uncommon, where I come from,” Azure said, resting with her back against the wall near Kaladin. “People who claim to be able to see the future, living off people’s hopes. Your society was right to forbid them. The spren do likewise, so his kind have to live off in places like this, hoping people will be desperate enough to come to them. Probably gets some business with each ship that comes through.”
“I saw something, Azure,” Kaladin said, still trembling. “It was real.” His limbs felt drained, like the aftereffect of lifting weights for a long period.
“Maybe,” Azure said. “Those types use dusts and powders that grant euphoria, making you think you’ve seen something. Even the gods of my land catch only glimpses of the Spiritual Realm—and in all my life, I’ve only met one human I believe truly understood it. And he might actually be a god. I’m not sure.”
“Wit,” Kaladin said. “The man that brought you the metal that protected your Soulcaster.”
She nodded.
Well, Kaladin had seen something. Dalinar …
Adolin walked over and handed Kaladin a squat metal cylinder. He used a device—provided by the Shin man—to break open the top. There were some fish rations inside. Kaladin poked at the chunks with his finger, then inspected the container.
“Canned food,” Azure noted. “It’s extremely convenient.”
Kaladin’s stomach rumbled, so he dug into the fish with the spoon Adolin provided. The meat tasted salty, but was good—far better than something Soulcast. Shallan joined them, trailed by Pattern, while the lighthouse keeper bustled off to fetch some supplies they’d traded for. The man glanced at the doorway, where the spren of Adolin’s Blade stood, silent like a statue.
Out through the room’s window, Kaladin could see Syl standing on the coast, watching out over the sea of beads. Her hair doesn’t ripple here, he thought. In the Physical Realm it often waved as if being brushed by an unseen breeze. Here, it acted like the hair of a human.
She hadn’t wanted to enter the lighthouse for some reason. What was that about?
“The lighthouse keeper says a ship will be arriving any time now,” Adolin said. “We should be able to buy passage.”
“Mmm,”
Pattern said. “The ship is going to Celebrant. Mmm. A city on the island.”
“Island?”
“It’s a lake on our side,” Adolin said. “Called the Sea of Spears, in the southeast of Alethkar. By the ruins … of Rathalas.” He drew his lips to a line and glanced away.
“What?” Kaladin asked.
“Rathalas was where my mother was killed,” Adolin said. “Assassinated by rebels. Her death drove my father into a fury. We almost lost him to the despair.” He shook his head, and Shallan rested her hand on his arm. “It’s … not a pleasant event to think about. Sadeas burned the city to the ground in retribution. My father gets a strange, distant expression whenever someone mentions Rathalas. I think he blames himself for not stopping Sadeas, even though he was mad with grief at the time, wounded and incoherent from an attempt on his own life.”
“Well, there’s still a spren city on this side,” Azure said. “But it’s in the wrong direction. We need to be heading west—toward the Horneater Peaks—not south.”
“Mmm,” Pattern said. “Celebrant is a prominent city. In it, we could find passage wherever we wish to go. And the lighthouse keeper doesn’t know when a ship going the right way might pass here.”
Kaladin put his fish down, then gestured at Shallan. “Can I have some paper?”
She let him have a sheet from her sketchpad. With an unpracticed hand, he drew out the buildings he’d seen in his momentary … whatever it had been. I’ve seen this pattern before. From above.
“That’s Thaylen City,” Shallan said. “Isn’t it?”
That’s right, Kaladin thought. He’d only visited once, opening the city’s Oathgate. “I saw this, in the vision I explained to you.” He glanced at Azure, who seemed skeptical.
Kaladin could still feel his emotion from the vision, that thrumming sense of anxiety. The sure knowledge that Dalinar was in grave danger. Nine shadows. A champion who would lead the enemy forces …
“The Oathgate in Thaylen City is open and working,” Kaladin said. “Shallan and I saw to that. And since the Oathgate in Kholinar brought us to Shadesmar, theoretically another—one that isn’t corrupted by the Unmade—could get us back.”
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