Oathbringer

by Brandon Sanderson

Kaladin shoved his way through, took Syl by the arm, and pulled her away from the stall. Adolin followed, holding his harpoon in one hand and a sack of food in the other. He looked threateningly toward the spren in the gathered crowd, who didn’t give chase.

  “They recognize you,” Kaladin said to Syl. “Even with the illusory skin color.”

  “Uh … maybe…”

  “Syl.”

  She held to her hat with one hand, her other arm in his hand as he towed her through the street. “So … you know how I mentioned I snuck away from the other honorspren…”

  “Yes.”

  “So, there might have been an enormous reward for my return. Posted in basically every port in Shadesmar, with my description and some pictures. Um … yeah.”

  “You’ve been forgiven,” Kaladin said. “The Stormfather has accepted your bond to me. Your siblings are watching Bridge Four, investigating potential bonds themselves!”

  “That’s kind of recent, Kaladin. And I doubt I’ve been forgiven—the others on the Shattered Plains wouldn’t talk to me. As far as they’re concerned, I’m a disobedient child. There’s still an incredible reward in Stormlight to be given to the person that delivers me to the honorspren capital, Lasting Integrity.”

  “And you didn’t think this was important to tell me?”

  “Sure I did. Right now.”

  They stopped to allow Adolin to catch up. The spren back at the food stall were still talking. Storms. This news would spread throughout Celebrant before long.

  Kaladin glared at Syl, who pulled down into the oversized poncho she’d bought. “Azure is a bounty hunter,” she said in a small voice. “And I’m … I’m kind of like a spren lighteyes. I didn’t want you to know. In case you hated me, like you hate them.”

  Kaladin sighed, taking her by the arm again and pulling her toward the docks.

  “I should have known this disguise wouldn’t work,” she added. “I’m obviously too beautiful and interesting to hide.”

  “News of this might make it hard to get passage,” Kaladin said. “We…” He stopped in the street. “Is that smoke up ahead?”

  * * *

  The Fused touched down on the quay, tossing Ico to the ground of the docks. Behind, Ico’s ship had become a raging bonfire—the other sailors and inspectors scrambled down the gangway in a frantic jumble.

  Shallan watched from the window. Her breath caught as the Fused lifted a few inches off the ground, then glided toward the registrar’s building.

  She sucked in Stormlight by reflex. “Look frightened!” she said to the others. She grabbed Adolin’s spren by the arm and pulled her to the side of the clerk’s room.

  The Fused burst in and found them cringing, wearing the faces of sailors that Shallan had sketched. Pattern was the oddest one, his strange head needing to be covered by a hat to have any semblance of looking realistic.

  Please don’t notice we’re the same sailors as on the ship. Please.

  The Fused ignored them, gliding up to the frightened vine spren behind the desk.

  “That ship was hiding human criminals,” Pattern whispered, translating the Fused’s conversation with the registrar. “They had a hydrator and remnants of human food—eaten—on the deck. There are two or three humans, one honorspren, and one inkspren. Have you seen these criminals?”

  The vine spren cringed down by the desk. “They went to the market for needed supplies. They asked me for ships that would get them passage to the perpendicularity.”

  “You hid this from me?”

  “Why does everyone assume I’ll just tell them things? Oh, I need questions, not assumptions!”

  The Fused regarded him with a cold glare. “Put that out,” he said, gesturing toward the fire. “Use the city’s sand stores, if needed.”

  “Yes, great one. If I might say, starting fires on the docks is an unwise—”

  “You may not say. When you finish putting out the fire, clear your things from this office. You are to be replaced immediately.”

  The Fused charged out of the room, letting in the scent of smoke. Ico’s ship foundered, the blaze flaring high. Nearby, sailors from other ships were frantically trying to control their mandras and move their vessels away.

  “Oh, oh my,” said the spren behind the desk. He looked to them. “You … you are a Radiant? The old oaths are spoken again?”

  “Yes,” Shallan said, helping Adolin’s spren to her feet.

  The frightened little spren sat up straighter. “Oh, glorious day. Glorious! We have waited so long for the honor of men to return!” He stood up and gestured. “Go, please! Get on a ship. I will stall, yes I will, if that one comes back. Oh, but go quickly!”

  * * *

  Kaladin sensed something on the air.

  Perhaps it was the flapping of clothing, familiar to him after hours spent riding the winds. Perhaps it was the postures of the people farther down the street. He reacted before he understood what it was, grabbing Syl and Adolin, pulling them all into a tent at the edge of the market.

  A Fused soared past outside, its shadow trailing behind, pointing the wrong direction.

  “Storms!” Adolin said. “Nice work, Kal.”

  The tent was occupied only by a single bewildered spren made of smoke, looking odd in a green cap and what seemed to be Horneater clothing.

  “Out,” Kaladin said, the smell of smoke on the air filling him with dread. They hurried down an alleyway between warehouses, out onto the docks.

  Farther down, Ico’s ship burned brilliantly. There was chaos on the docks as spren ran in all directions, shouting in their strange language.

  Syl gasped, pointing at a ship bedecked in white and gold. “We have to hide. Now.”

  “Honorspren?” Kaladin asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Pull down your hat, go back into the alley.” Kaladin scanned the crowd. “Adolin, do you see the others?”

  “No,” he said. “Ishar’s soul! There’s no water to put that fire out. It will burn for hours. What happened?”

  One of Ico’s sailors stepped from the crowd. “I saw a flash from something the Fused was holding. I think he intended to frighten Ico, but started the fire by accident.”

  Wait, Kaladin thought. Was that Alethi? “Shallan?” he asked as four Reachers gathered around.

  “I’m right here,” said a different one. “We are in trouble. The only ship that might have agreed to give us passage is that one there.”

  “The one sailing away at full speed?” Kaladin said with a sigh.

  “Nobody else would consider taking us on,” Azure said. “And they were all heading the wrong directions anyway. We’re about to be stranded.”

  “We could try fighting our way onto a ship,” Kaladin said. “Take control of it, maybe?”

  Adolin shook his head. “I think that would take long enough—and make enough trouble—that the Fused would find us.”

  “Well, maybe I could fight him,” Kaladin said. “Only one enemy. I should be able to take him.”

  “Using all our Stormlight in the process?” Shallan asked.

  “I’m just trying to think of something!”

  “Guys,” Syl said. “I might have an idea. A great bad idea.”

  “The Fused went looking for you,” Shallan said to Kaladin. “It flew to the market.”

  “It passed us.”

  “Guys?”

  “Not for long though. It’s going to turn around soon.”

  “Turns out Syl has a bounty on her head.”

  “Guys?”

  “We need a plan,” Kaladin said. “If nobody…” He trailed off.

  Syl had started running toward the majestic white and gold ship, which was slowly being pulled away from the docks. She threw down her poncho and hat, then screamed up at the ship while running along the pier beside it.

  “Hey!” she screamed. “Hey, look down here!”

  The vessel stopped ponderously, handlers slowing its mandras. Three blue-white honorspren appe
ared at the side, looking down with utter shock.

  “Sylphrena, the Ancient Daughter?” one shouted.

  “That’s me!” she shouted back. “You’d better catch me before I scamper away! Wow! I’m feeling capricious today. I might just vanish again, off to where nobody can find me!”

  It worked.

  A gangway dropped, and Syl scrambled up onto the ship—followed by the rest of them. Kaladin went last, watching nervously over his shoulder, expecting the Fused to come after them at any moment. It did, but it stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, watching them board the ship. Honorspren gave it pause, apparently.

  On board, Kaladin discovered that most of the sailors were those spren made of fog or mist. One of these was tying Syl’s arms together with rope. Kaladin tried to intervene, but Syl shook her head. “Not now,” she mouthed.

  Fine. He would argue with the honorspren later.

  The ship pulled away, joining others that fled the city. The honorspren didn’t pay much mind to Kaladin and the others—though one did take their harpoons, and another went through their pockets, confiscating their infused gemstones.

  As the city grew smaller, Kaladin caught sight of the Fused hovering over the docks, beside the smoke trail of a burning ship.

  It finally streaked off in the other direction.

  Many cultures speak of the so-called Death Rattles that sometimes overtake people as they die. Tradition ascribes them to the Almighty, but I find too many to be seemingly prophetic. This will be my most contentious assertion I am sure, but I think these are the effects of Moelach persisting in our current times. Proof is easy to provide: the effect is regionalized, and tends to move across Roshar. This is the roving of the Unmade.

  —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 170

  Dalinar started awake in an unfamiliar place, lying on a floor of cut stone, his back stiff. He blinked sleepily, trying to orient himself. Storms … where was he?

  Soft sunlight shone through an open balcony on the far side of the room, and ethereal motes of dust danced in the streams of light. What were those sounds? They seemed like the voices of people, but muffled.

  Dalinar stood, then fastened the side of his uniform jacket, which had come undone. It had been … what, three days since his return from Jah Keved? His excommunication from the Vorin church?

  He remembered those days as a haze of frustration, sorrow, agony. And drink. A great deal of drink. He’d been using the stupor to drive away the pain. A terrible bandage for his wounds, blood seeping out on all sides. But so far, it had kept him alive.

  I know this room, he realized, glancing at the mural on the ceiling. I saw it in one of my visions. A highstorm must have come while he was passed out.

  “Stormfather?” Dalinar called, his voice echoing. “Stormfather, why have you sent me a vision? We agreed they were too dangerous.”

  Yes, he remembered this place well. This was the vision where he’d met Nohadon, author of The Way of Kings. Why wasn’t it playing out as it had before? He and Nohadon had walked to the balcony, talked for a time, then the vision had ended.

  Dalinar started toward the balcony, but storms, that light was so intense. It washed over him, making his eyes water, and he had to raise his hand to shield his eyes.

  He heard something behind him. Scratching? He turned—putting his back to the brilliance—and spotted a door on the wall. It swung open easily beneath his touch, and he stepped out of the loud sunlight to find himself in a circular room.

  He shut the door with a click. This chamber was much smaller than the previous one, with a wooden floor. Windows in the walls looked out at a clear sky. A shadow passed over one of these, like something enormous moving in front of the sun. But … how could the sun be pointed this direction too?

  Dalinar looked over his shoulder at the wooden door. No light peeked underneath it. He frowned and reached for the handle, then paused, hearing the scratching once more. Turning, he saw a large desk, heaped with papers, by the wall. How had he missed that earlier?

  A man sat at the desk, lit by a loose diamond, writing with a reed pen. Nohadon had aged. In the previous vision, the king had been young—but now his hair was silver, his skin marked by wrinkles. It was the same man though, same face shape, same beard that came to a point. He wrote with focused concentration.

  Dalinar stepped over. “The Way of Kings,” he whispered. “I’m watching it be written.…”

  “Actually,” Nohadon said, “it’s a shopping list. I’ll be cooking Shin loaf bread today, if I can get the ingredients. It always breaks people’s brains. Grain was not meant to be so fluffy.”

  What…? Dalinar scratched at the side of his head.

  Nohadon finished with a flourish and tossed the pen down. He threw back his chair and stood, grinning like a fool, and grabbed Dalinar by the arms. “Good to see you again, my friend. You’ve been having a hard time of it lately, haven’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” Dalinar whispered, wondering who Nohadon saw him as. In the previous vision, Dalinar had appeared as one of Nohadon’s advisors. They’d stood together on the balcony as Nohadon contemplated a war to unite the world. A drastic resort, intended to prepare mankind for the next Desolation.

  Could that morose figure have really become this spry and eager? And where had this vision come from? Hadn’t the Stormfather told Dalinar that he’d seen them all?

  “Come,” Nohadon said, “let’s go to the market. A little shopping to turn your mind from your troubles.”

  “Shopping?”

  “Yes, you shop, don’t you?”

  “I … usually have people to do that for me.”

  “Ah, but of course you do,” Nohadon said. “Very like you to miss a simple joy so you can get to something more ‘important.’ Well, come on. I’m the king. You can’t very well say no, now can you?”

  Nohadon led Dalinar back through the door. The light was gone. They crossed to the balcony, which—last time—had overlooked death and desolation. Now, it looked out on a bustling city full of energetic people and rolling carts. The sound of the place crashed into Dalinar, as if it had been suppressed until that moment. Laughing, chatting, calling. Wagons creaking. Chulls bleating.

  The men wore long skirts, tied at the waists by wide girdles, some of which came all the way up over their stomachs. Above that they had bare chests, or wore simple overshirts. The outfits resembled the takama Dalinar had worn when younger, though of a far, far older style. The tubular gowns on the women were even stranger, made of layered small rings of cloth with tassels on the bottom. They seemed to ripple as they moved.

  The women’s arms were bare up to the shoulders. No safehand covering. In the previous vision, I spoke the Dawnchant, Dalinar remembered. The words that gave Navani’s scholars a starting point to translate ancient texts.

  “How do we get down?” Dalinar asked, seeing no ladder.

  Nohadon leaped off the side of the balcony. He laughed, falling and sliding along a cloth banner tied between a tower window and a tent below. Dalinar cursed, leaning forward, worried for the old man—until he spotted Nohadon glowing. He was a Surgebinder—but Dalinar had known that from the last vision, hadn’t he?

  Dalinar walked back to the writing chamber and drew the Stormlight from the diamond that Nohadon had been using. He returned, then heaved himself off the balcony, aiming for the cloth Nohadon had used to break his fall. Dalinar hit it at an angle and used it like a slide, keeping his right foot forward to guide his descent. Near the bottom, he flipped off the banner, grabbing its edge with two hands and hanging there for an instant before dropping with a thump beside the king.

  Nohadon clapped. “I thought you wouldn’t do it.”

  “I have practice following fools in their reckless pursuits.”

  The old man grinned, then scanned his list. “This way,” he said, pointing.

  “I can’t believe you’re out shopping by yourself. No guards?”

  “I walked all the way to Urithiru on my own.
I think I can manage this.”

  “You didn’t walk all the way to Urithiru,” Dalinar said. “You walked to one of the Oathgates, then took that to Urithiru.”

  “Misconception!” Nohadon said. “I walked the whole way, though I did require some help to reach Urithiru’s caverns. That is no more a cheat than taking a ferry across a river.”

  He bustled through the market and Dalinar followed, distracted by the colorful clothing everyone was wearing. Even the stones of the buildings were painted in vibrant colors. He’d always imagined the past as … dull. Statues from ancient times were weathered, and he’d never considered that they might have been painted so brightly.

  What of Nohadon himself? In both visions, Dalinar had been shown someone he did not expect. The young Nohadon, considering war. Now the elderly one, glib and whimsical. Where was the deep-thinking philosopher who had written The Way of Kings?

  Remember, Dalinar told himself, this isn’t really him. The person I’m talking to is a construct of the vision.

  Though some people in the market recognized their king, his passing didn’t cause much of a stir. Dalinar spun as he saw something move beyond the buildings, a large shadow that passed between two structures, tall and enormous. He stared in that direction, but didn’t see it again.

  They entered a tent where a merchant was selling exotic grains. The man bustled over and hugged Nohadon in a way that should have been improper for a king. Then the two started haggling like scribes; the rings on the merchant’s fingers flashed as he gestured at his wares.

  Dalinar lingered near the side of the tent, taking in the scents of the grains in the sacks. Outside, something made a distant thud. Then another. The ground shook, but nobody reacted.

  “Noh—Your Majesty?” Dalinar asked.

  Nohadon ignored him. A shadow passed over the tent. Dalinar ducked, judging the form of the shadow, the sounds of crashing footfalls.

  “Your Majesty!” he shouted, fearspren growing up around him. “We’re in danger!”

  The shadow passed, and the footfalls grew distant.

  “Deal,” Nohadon said to the merchant. “And well argued, you swindler. Make sure to buy Lani something nice with the extra spheres you got off me.”