Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  Dalinar stepped up to the group and waited for everyone to quiet. He would want to speak, of course. Adolin’s father could turn anything into an excuse for an inspirational speech.

  “I commend your bravery,” Dalinar said to the gathered people. “Know that you go representing not only me, but the entire coalition. With you go the hopes of millions.

  “The realm you traverse will be alien and at times hostile. Do not forget that it once held allies, and their fortresses welcomed men with open arms. Your task is to rekindle those ancient alliances, as we have re-formed the ancient bond between nations. Know that you take with you my utmost confidence.”

  Not bad, Adolin thought. At least it was short. Adolin’s six men cheered as expected. The Radiants applauded politely, which generally wasn’t the response that one of Dalinar’s rousing speeches received. He continued to treat them like soldiers, though most of the Radiants here today had never been in the military. Shallan was a country lighteyes and scholar turned spy; the Stump had run an orphanage; Godeke had been an ardent. So far as Adolin knew, Zu was the only one who had held anything resembling a weapon before saying her oaths.

  Jasnah said a few words, and so did Taravangian. Adolin listened with half an ear, wondering if Taravangian found it odd that the expedition wasn’t taking any Dustbringers. No one had spoken the reason, but it was obvious to Adolin. The Dustbringers didn’t serve Dalinar, at least not loyally enough for his taste.

  At the end of the speeches, the members of the expedition began squeezing into the small control building, leading the horses in as well. There might be some way to bring everyone on the platform into Shadesmar, but so far they’d been limited to people standing in the small control building.

  Adolin waved for Shallan to go in first without him. Jasnah, Taravangian, and Wit began to retreat across the platform with their attendants. Soon, Adolin and Dalinar stood facing one another, alone outside the building.

  A snort broke the air. Gallant had lingered, refusing the grooms who tried to coax him into the building with fruit. Dalinar broke his stern posture and patted the horse on the neck. “Thank you,” he said to Adolin, “for caring for him these last months. I don’t get much time for riding these days.”

  “We both know how busy you are, Father.”

  “That’s a new uniform,” Dalinar said to him. “Better than some you’ve been wearing lately.”

  “That’s amusing,” Adolin said. “Four years ago when I last wore this, you called it disgraceful.”

  Dalinar stiffened, lowering his hand from Gallant’s neck. Then he clasped his hands behind his back and stood tall. So storming tall. Sometimes Adolin’s father was more like a Soulcast statue than a person.

  “I guess … we’ve both become more lax over the years,” Dalinar said.

  “I think I’ve stayed the same person,” Adolin said. “I’m just more willing to let you be disappointed by that person.”

  “Son,” Dalinar said, “I’m not disappointed in you.”

  “Aren’t you? Can you say that truthfully, with an oath?”

  Dalinar fell silent. “I merely want you to be the best man you can be,” he finally said. “A better man than I was at your age. I know that’s the person you really are. And I want you to represent me well. Is that such a terrible thing?”

  “I don’t represent you anymore, Father. I’m a highprince. I represent myself. Is that such a terrible thing?”

  Dalinar sighed. “Don’t go down this road, son. Do not let my failings drive you to rebel against what you know is right, merely because it’s what I wish of you.”

  “I’m not—” Adolin made fists, trying to squeeze out his frustration. “I’m not simply rebelling, Father. I’m not fourteen anymore.”

  “No. When you were fourteen you looked up to me for some reason.” Dalinar glanced after the departing figures, growing small on the platform. “You see Taravangian out there? Do you know how he sees the world? Any cost, any price, is worth paying if what you want to achieve is—in the end—worthy.

  “Follow him, and you’ll be able to justify anything. Lying to your soldiers? Necessary, to get them to do their work. Gathering wealth? You need it to further your important goals. Killing innocents? All to forge a stronger nation.” He eyed Adolin. “Murdering a man in a back alley, then lying about it? Well, the world is better off without him. In fact, there are a lot of people this world could do without. Let’s start removing them quietly.…”

  Maybe I murdered Sadeas, Adolin thought. But at least I never killed anyone innocent. At least I didn’t burn my own wife to death.

  There it was. The seething knot deep inside him, the one Adolin didn’t dare touch lest it burn him. He knew Dalinar had been a different man then. A man not in his right mind, betrayed, consumed by the power of one of the Unmade. Besides, Dalinar hadn’t killed Adolin’s mother on purpose.

  One could know these things without feeling them. And this. Wasn’t. Something. You. Forgave.

  Adolin shoved that furious knot down and didn’t let it rule him, ignoring the angerspren at his feet. He said nothing to his father. He didn’t trust the anger, the frustration, and—yes—the shame churning within. If he opened his mouth, one of the three might come out, but he couldn’t say which.

  “You either believe as Taravangian does,” Dalinar said, “or you accept the better path: that your actions define you more than your intentions. That your goals and the journey used to attain them must align. I’m trying to stop you before you do some things you will truly, sincerely regret.”

  “And if I think the actions I’ve taken are worthy?” Adolin said.

  “Then perhaps we need to consider that my training of you in your youth was faulty. That is not surprising. I was not exactly the best of examples.”

  It’s about you again, Adolin thought. I can’t have an opinion or make choices—I’m only acting like this because of your influence.

  Kelek, Jezerezeh, and Heralds above! Adolin loved his father. Even now, with everything he’d learned about what Dalinar had done. Even with … that event. He loved his father. He loved that Dalinar tried so hard, and he had become someone far better than he’d once been.

  But Damnation. This last year, Adolin had begun to realize how difficult it could be to live around the man.

  “Maybe,” Adolin said, calming himself with effort. “Maybe—incredible though it may seem—there are more than two choices in life. I’m not you, but that doesn’t mean I’m Taravangian. Maybe I’m my own brand of wrong.”

  Dalinar rested his hand on Adolin’s shoulder. It should have been comforting, but Adolin couldn’t help but see it as a way to control the conversation. To put himself in the position of father, and Adolin squarely into his role as whining child.

  “Son,” Dalinar said, “I believe in you. Go, succeed on this mission. Convince the honorspren that we’re worthy of them. Prove to them that we have men waiting to take up the oaths and soar.”

  Adolin glanced at his father’s hand on his shoulder, then met the man’s eyes. There was something in those words …

  “You want me to become one of them, don’t you?” Adolin said. “Part of the purpose of this trip, in your eyes, is for me to become a Radiant!”

  “Your brother is worthy,” Dalinar said, “and your father—against his best efforts—has proven worthy. I’m sure you will prove yourself too.”

  As if I didn’t have enough burdens.

  Complaints died on Adolin’s lips—complaints that there were likely thousands of worthy people in the world and not all of them would be chosen. Complaints that he was fine with his life and didn’t need to live up to some spren’s ideals.

  Instead, Adolin simply bowed his head and nodded. Dalinar won the argument. The Blackthorn was unaccustomed to anything else. It wasn’t that Adolin agreed, but more that he didn’t know what to think, and that was the real problem. He couldn’t stand up to his father with maybes.

  Dalinar clapped him on the sho
ulder with his other hand and wished him farewell. Adolin walked Gallant into the chamber—highprince, leader of the expedition, and somehow still a little boy.

  It was crowded inside with the horses. These circular control buildings had a rotating inner wall, along with murals on the floor indicating various locations. Normally in order to initiate a swap, a Radiant used their Shardblade as a key to rotate the inner wall to the proper point.

  Today, Shallan did something different. At a nod from him, she summoned her Shardblade and fit it into the keyhole on the wall. Then she kept pushing, her sword melting out like a silvery puddle on the wall, the hilt flowing like liquid around her hand.

  She lifted her hand upward, moving the entire locking mechanism straight up. In a flash, they were thrown into Shadesmar.

  I have reached out to the others as you requested, and have received a variety of responses.

  Over the last week, Adolin had tasked his soldiers with making the transfer to Shadesmar several times. He’d even sent the horses in and out to make certain they wouldn’t panic. So most everyone was ready for what they saw. Nevertheless, they all—Adolin included—fell silent, struck by the incredible sights.

  The sky was black as midnight, only without stars. The sun seemed too distant, too frail, to properly light the place, though he wasn’t in darkness. He could easily see the small platform around them, which was the size of the control room. The sunlight illuminated the landscape, but strangely didn’t light the sky.

  The control room hadn’t come with them. Instead, two enormous spren stood in the air nearby: the attendants of this gateway, thirty or forty feet tall, one marble white and the other onyx.

  Adolin raised a hand toward them as he stepped across the platform. “Thank you, Ancient Ones!” he called.

  “It is done as the Stormfather requires,” the marble one replied, voice booming. “Our parent, the Sibling, has died. We will obey him instead.”

  Long ago, a mysterious spren named the Sibling had lived in Urithiru. It was now dead. Or sleeping. Or maybe that was the same thing. Spren answers about the Sibling contradicted one another. In any case, before dying, the Sibling had commanded these sentries to stop allowing people into Shadesmar.

  Many of the gatekeepers maintained this rule. However, a few had listened to the Stormfather’s request. They said that in the absence of other Bondsmiths, Dalinar and the Stormfather were worthy of obedience—even in contradiction of ancient orders.

  That was fortunate, for while Shallan could slip into Shadesmar using her powers, she couldn’t take anyone with her—and she couldn’t return on her own. Even Jasnah, whose powers supposedly allowed it, had trouble bringing herself back from Shadesmar.

  This platform was one of ten set upon tall pillars here, rising in a pattern similar to the one the Oathgates made in front of Urithiru. Adolin could see the other sentries hanging above them.

  Each pillar had a long spiraling ramp around it, leading down to the bead ocean far below. But the tower itself was far more majestic than any other sight. Adolin turned around, gazing up at the shimmering mountain of light and colors. The mother-of-pearl radiance didn’t exactly mimic the shape of the tower, but had a more crystalline feel to it. Except it wasn’t physical, but light. Radiant, resplendent, and brilliant.

  The tower was the same color the sky turned in Shadesmar when a highstorm was passing over Roshar. And the place was positively swarming with emotion spren on this side. They soared through it in great swarms, taking a variety of shapes—most distant enough that Adolin saw them only as small bits of color, though he knew they had strange shapes here. More organic, more beastly. They flew, crawled, and climbed across and through the tower’s shimmering light, making it look like a hive. It wasn’t until coming here that Adolin had realized just how many spren the humans of Urithiru attracted.

  Some of those could be dangerous on this side, but they’d been told the nature of the tower offered protection from that. Spren here were glutted on emotions, and were calmer.

  Everyone took a few minutes to absorb the stunning vista—the mountain of iridescent colors, the sentinels, the spren, and the long drop to the ocean below. Adolin finally tore his eyes away to do a quick recount of their numbers, as the Radiants had been joined by their personal spren.

  Pattern stood near Shallan; he was a tall figure in too-stiff robes with a changing symbol for a head. Adolin felt he could tell Pattern from the other Cryptics. There was a spring to Pattern’s step; he bounced when the other three Cryptics glided. Their symbols were also slightly … different.

  Adolin cocked his head, trying to decide why he should think that, as the symbols were always changing, never repeating that he could see. Yet the speed at which they changed, and the general feel of each one, was distinct.

  Zu—the closest Radiant to Adolin—leaped up and grabbed her tall spren in a hug. “Ha!” said the golden-haired Stoneward. “You’re a mountain on this side, Ua’pam!”

  Her spren’s skin appeared as if it were made of cracked rock, and it was glowing from within as if molten. Otherwise, he had generally humanlike features. Ua’pam wore fur-lined clothing on this side, like one might expect from one who lived high in the mountains. Adolin wasn’t certain how all that worked. Did spren get cold?

  Godeke was an Edgedancer, so his spren was a cultivationspren, a type Adolin had seen many times before: shaped roughly like a short woman, she was composed entirely of vines. Those vines wound tightly together into a face that had two crystals for eyes. Crystal hands, incredibly fine and delicate, emerged from the sleeves of her robe, and she had an aloof air as she looked around.

  The last spren was the oddest to Adolin. She seemed to be made entirely from mist, all save for the face, which hovered on the front of the head in the shape of a porcelain mask. That mask had a kind of twinkling reflection to it, always catching the light—in fact, he could have sworn that from some perspectives it was made of translucent crystal. The spren seemed to be female, or at least had a feminine figure and voice.

  This would be the spren of Arshqqam, the Truthwatcher. The spren wore a vest and trousers, both of which somehow floated and encapsulated the body made entirely of white fog. Her hands ended in gloves. Was it mist inside there, moving her fingers?

  “Do you like staring at me, human?” she asked with a delicate voice that tinkled like cracking glass. The mask’s lips didn’t move when she spoke. “We mistspren can choose our forms, you know. We usually choose a shape like a person, but we don’t need to. You seem so fascinated. Do you think me pretty, or do you think me a monster?”

  “I…” Adolin said.

  “Answer not,” Zu’s peakspren—Ua’pam—said with a grinding voice. “You. Tease not.”

  “I’m not teasing,” she replied. “Merely questioning. I like to know how minds think.”

  “A worthy enough goal,” Adolin said, searching around again. All of the Radiant spren were there, but where was she?

  Shallan caught his eyes and nodded toward the ramp down, so he hurried over, stopping at the top as he found a final spren sitting there waiting. She was another cultivationspren, with cordlike vines making up her face. But her vines were a dull brown and they pulled tighter—giving her features a sunken-in cast.

  Maya still wore the same dull brown rags. However, he saw hints of what they’d once been. Not robes as Godeke’s spren wore. This had been a uniform.

  Her most unnerving feature was her scratched-out eyes. It seemed as if someone had taken a knife to her face, except she hadn’t bled or been scarred by the cuts. She’d been erased. Ripped apart. Removed from existence. When she looked at Adolin, she seemed like a painting that had been vandalized.

  She sat huddled on the ramp. She didn’t speak; she never did—except one time over a year ago when she’d told him her name. She was his Shardblade. And, he hoped, his friend.

  “Mayalaran,” he said, holding out his hand toward her.

  She regarded the hand, then cocked
her head. As if it were some strange alien object for which she could determine no use. Adolin moved down the ramp and lightly took her hand, then put it into his. The coiled cords of her skin had a firm, smooth texture. Like a good hogshide hilt.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let me introduce the others.”

  He tugged on her hand and she followed, standing up and wordlessly joining him on the top of the platform.

  “That’s Shallan,” Adolin said, pointing. “My wife. You remember her and Pattern, right? There’s Godeke—he was once an ardent. Arshqqam is our Truthwatcher; she used to take care of orphans. And Zu, she’s…” Adolin hesitated. “Zu, what did you used to do?”

  “Make trouble, mostly,” the Iriali woman said. She pulled off her thick coat, letting out a deep sigh. Underneath she wore a tight wrap around her upper torso, a little like a warrior’s sarashi. She had bronze skin that seemed metallic to Adolin, and her hair wasn’t like his own blond—it was too golden. Though his mother had been from Rira, near Iri, the two peoples were distinct.

  “Come on, Ua’pam!” she said. “Let’s see what’s at the bottom of this ramp!”

  “Be careful,” the peakspren said as Zu put her coat over her shoulder and strolled to the side of the ramp.

  “Well,” Adolin said to Maya, “that’s Zu. Those other six are Shallan’s Lightweavers and their spren. Here, meet my soldiers.…”

  As he pulled Maya over to introduce her to Felt, the mistspren walked over beside him. “There is no use talking to a deadeye,” the creature said with unmoving lips. “Do you not understand this? What about you makes you wish to talk to something that cannot understand you?”

  “She understands,” Adolin said.

  “You think that she does. This is curious.”

  Adolin ignored the odd spren, instead introducing Maya to his team. He’d told them to expect her, so they each bowed respectfully and didn’t stare at her strange eyes too much. Ledder even complimented her appearance as a Blade, saying he’d always admired her beauty.

  Maya took it all with her characteristic mute solemnity. She didn’t cock her head; she simply stood by Adolin, looking at whoever was speaking.