Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “Could I reforge it?” Dalinar asked. “Could I remake the Oathpact, and bind the Fused away again?”

  I do not know. It may be possible, but I have no idea how. Or if it would be wise. The Heralds suffer for what they did.

  “I saw that in him,” Dalinar said, watching as Nale vanished in the distance. “He is burdened with a terrible pain that warps how he sees reality. An insanity unlike the ones that afflict ordinary men—an insanity that has to do with his worn soul…”

  Szeth recovered his sword, seeming ashamed he’d been so easily bested. Dalinar did not fault him, nor the others, who insisted that he and the Mink retreat from the battlefield, now that the rout of Taravangian’s troops was fully in progress.

  Dalinar let the Windrunners spirit him away. All the while, he was lost in thought.

  He needed to understand his powers. His duty was no longer to stand with a sword held high, shouting orders on the battlefield. He instead needed to find a way to use his abilities to solve this war. Reforge the Oathpact, or barring that, find another solution—one that included binding Odium once and for all.

  NINE YEARS AGO

  There was more than one way to explore. It turned out you could do it from the center of your own tent, if a group of living relics walked out of the forest and came to visit.

  The humans thrilled Eshonai. They hadn’t been destroyed after all. And their ways were so strange. They spoke without rhythm, and couldn’t hear the songs of Roshar. They made carapace out of metal and tied it to themselves. Though she first assumed they had lost their forms, she soon realized that they had only a single form, and could never change. They had to deal with the passions of mateform all the time.

  More intriguing, they brought with them a tribe of dullform creatures who also had no songs. They had skin patterns like the listeners, but didn’t talk, let alone sing. Eshonai found them fascinating and disturbing. Where had the humans found such strange individuals?

  The humans made camp across the river in the forest, and at first the Five let only a few listeners come to meet them. They worried about frightening away the strange humans if the entire family came to bother them.

  Eshonai thought this foolish. The humans wouldn’t grow frightened. They knew ancient things. Methods of forging metal and of writing sounds on paper. Things that the listeners had forgotten during the long sleep, the time they’d spent wearing dullform, memorizing songs by sheer force of will.

  Eshonai, Klade, and a few others joined a few human scholars, trying to decipher one another’s tongues. Preserved in the songs, fortunately, were human phrases. Perhaps her past with the songs was what helped Eshonai learn faster than the others. Or maybe it was her stubbornness. She spent evenings sitting with the humans, making them repeat sounds over and over late into the night by the light of their brilliant glowing gemstones.

  That was another thing. Human gemstones glowed far more brightly than listener ones. It had to do with the way the gemstones were cut and shaped. Each day with the humans taught her something new.

  Once the language barrier began to fall, the humans asked if they could be taken out onto the Shattered Plains. So it was that Eshonai led the way, though she kept them far from the ten ancient cities and the other listener families, for now.

  Using one of Eshonai’s maps, they approached from the north and walked along the chasms until they reached an ancient listener bridge. The rift in the stone smelled of wet rotting plants. Pungent, but not unpleasant. Where plants rotted, others often soon grew, and the scent of death was the same as the scent of life.

  The humans followed gingerly across the bridge of wood and rope, the guards going first—wearing their buffed metal carapace breastplates and caps. They seemed to expect the bridge to collapse at any moment.

  Once across, Eshonai stepped up onto a boulder and took a deep breath, feeling the winds. Overhead, a few windspren swirled in the sky. Once the guards had crossed, some of the others started over as well. Everyone had wanted to come see the Plains where the monsters of the chasms lived.

  One of the attendants was a curious woman who was the surgeon’s assistant. She climbed up onto the rock beside Eshonai, though her clothing—which enveloped her from neck to ankles and covered up her left hand for some reason—wasn’t particularly good for exploring. It was nice to see that there were some things that the listeners had figured out that the humans hadn’t.

  “What do you see?” she asked Eshonai in the human tongue. “When you look at the spren?”

  Eshonai hummed to Consideration. What did she mean? “I see spren,” Eshonai said, speaking slowly and deliberately, as her accent was sometimes bad.

  “Yes, what do they look like?”

  “Long white lines,” Eshonai said, pointing at the windspren. “Holes. Small holes? Is there a word?”

  “Pinpricks, perhaps.”

  “Pinpricks in sky,” Eshonai said. “And tails, long, very long.”

  “Curious,” the woman said. She wore a lot of rings on her right hand, though Eshonai couldn’t tell why. It seemed like they would get caught on things. “It is different.”

  “Different?” Eshonai said. “We see different?”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “You seem to see the reality of the spren, or closer to it. Tell me. We have stories, among the humans, of windspren that act like people. Taking different shapes, playing tricks. Have you ever seen one like that?”

  Eshonai went over the words in her mind. She thought she understood some of it. “Spren like people? Act like people?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have seen this,” she said.

  “Excellent. And windspren that talk? That call you by name? Have you met any like this?”

  “What?” Eshonai said, attuning Amusement. “Spren talking? No. It seems … not real? Fake, but a story?”

  “‘Fanciful’ is perhaps the word you want.”

  “Fanciful,” Eshonai said, examining the sounds in her mind. Yes, there was more than one way to explore.

  The king and his brother finally crossed onto the plateau. “King” was not a new word to her, as it was mentioned in the songs. There had been debate among the listeners whether they should have a monarch. It seemed to Eshonai that until they managed to stop squabbling and became a single unified people, the discussion was silly.

  The king’s brother was a brutish man who seemed like a slightly different breed from everyone else. He was the first she’d met, along with a group of human scouts, back in the forest. This human wasn’t simply larger than most of the others, he walked with a different step. His face was harder. If a human could ever be said to have a form, this man was warform.

  The king himself though … he was proof that humans didn’t have forms. He was so erratic. Sometimes loud and angry, other times quiet and dismissive. Listeners had different emotions too, of course. It was just that this man seemed to defy explanation. Perhaps the fact that the humans spoke with no rhythms made her more surprised when they acted with such passion. He was also the only male in the group who wore a beard. Why was that?

  “Guide,” the king said, walking up to her. “Is this where the hunts happen?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Depends. It is season, so maybe they come. Maybe not.”

  The king nodded absently. He had taken little interest in her or any of the listeners. His scouts and scholars, however, seemed as fascinated by Eshonai as she was with them. So she tended to spend time with them.

  “What kinds of greatshells can live here?” the brother asked. “There doesn’t seem to be space for them, with all these cracks in the ground. Are they like whitespines? Jumping from place to place?”

  “Whitespine?” she said, not knowing the word.

  The woman with the rings brought out a book with a drawing in it for her.

  Eshonai shook her head. “No, not that. They are…” How to explain the monsters of the chasms? “They are great. And large. And powerful. They … these lands are thei
rs.”

  “And do your people worship them?” one of the scholars asked.

  “Worship?”

  “Reverence. Respect.”

  “Yes.” Who wouldn’t respect a beast so mighty?

  “Their gods, Brightlord,” said the scribe to the king. “As I suspected, they worship these beasts. We must take care with future hunts.”

  Eshonai hummed to Anxiety, to indicate she was confused—but they didn’t recognize this. They had to say everything with words.

  “Here,” the king said, pointing. “This plateau seems a good enough place for a break.”

  The human attendants began unpacking their things—tents made of a marvelous tough cloth, and a variety of foods. They enjoyed their lunches, these humans. Their traveling luxury was so opulent, it made Eshonai wonder what their homes were like.

  Once they left, she intended to see. If they’d made it here without a properly durable form such as workform, then they must not have come that far. She attuned Amusement. After all these years with no contact, she likely would have found her way to their home on her own, given a few more months.

  Eshonai kept busy by helping erect the tents. She wanted to figure out the pieces. She was fairly certain she could carve poles like the ones used for holding up the roof. But the cloth was lighter, smoother, than what the listeners could create. One of the workers was having trouble with a knot, so Eshonai took out her knife to cut it free.

  “What is that?” a voice said from behind her. “Do you mind showing me that knife?”

  It was the woman with the rings. Eshonai had thought she might be once-mates with the king, considering how often she spoke with him. But apparently there was no relation.

  Eshonai glanced down, realizing that she’d brought out her good hunting knife. It was one of the weapons her ancestors had salvaged from the ruins at the center of the Plains, with beautiful metal that had lines in it, and a carved hilt of majestic detail.

  She shrugged and showed it to the woman. The strange woman, in turn, waved urgently to the king. He left the shade and stepped over, taking the knife and narrowing his eyes as he studied it.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked Eshonai.

  “It is old,” she said, not wanting to say too much. “Handed down. Generations.”

  “Lasting back to the False Desolation, perhaps?” the woman asked the king. “Could they really have weapons two thousand years old?”

  The listener Shardblades were far more marvelous, but Eshonai didn’t speak of those. Her family didn’t own any anyway.

  “I would like to know,” the king said, “how you—”

  He was interrupted by a trumping in the near distance. Eshonai spun, attuning Tension. “Monster of Chasms,” she said. “Get soldiers! I did not think one would come close.”

  “We can handle a…” the king began, but trailed off, and his eyes became wide. An awespren approached—a floating blue ball of a creature that expanded with great enthusiasm.

  Eshonai turned and saw a distant shadow emerging from a chasm. Sleek yet strong, powerful yet graceful. The beast walked on numerous legs, and didn’t bestow the humans with a glance. They were to it as it was to the sun—indeed, it turned upward at the light to bask. Gorgeous and mighty, as if the Rhythm of Awe had been given life.

  “Blood of my fathers…” the king’s brother said, stepping up. “How big is that thing?”

  “Bigger than any we have in Alethkar,” the king said. “You’d have to make your way to the Herdazian coast to come across a greatshell so large. But those live in the waters.”

  “These live in chasms,” Eshonai whispered. “It doesn’t seem angry, which is our fortune.”

  “It might be far enough away that it hasn’t noticed us,” the king’s brother said.

  “It noticed us,” Eshonai said. “It simply doesn’t care.”

  Others gathered around, and the king hushed them. Finally, the chasmfiend turned and looked them over. Then it slunk down into the chasm, trailed by a few shimmering chasmspren, like arrows in flight.

  “Storms,” the king’s brother said. “You mean at any time, standing on these plateaus, one of those might be right below? Prowling about?”

  “How can they live in those chasms?” one of the women asked. “What do they eat?”

  It was a more solemn and quick group that returned to their lunch. They were eager to finish and leave, but none of them said it, and none hummed to Anxiety.

  Of them all, only the king seemed unperturbed. While the others busied themselves, he continued studying Eshonai’s knife, which he hadn’t returned to her.

  “You truly kept these for thousands of years?” he asked.

  “No,” she admitted. “We found them. Not my parents. Their parents’ parents. In the ruins.”

  “Ruins, you say?” he looked up sharply. “What ruins? Those cities the other guide mentioned?”

  Eshonai cursed Klade softly for having mentioned the ten cities. Deciding not to clarify that she meant the ruins at the center of the Plains, she attuned Anxiety. The way he inspected her made her feel like she was a map that had been drawn wrong. “My people built cities,” she said. “Old parents of my people.”

  “You don’t say…” he said. “Very curious. You remember those days then? You have records of them?”

  “We have songs,” she said. “Many songs. Important songs. They talk of the forms we bore. The wars we fought. How we left the … I don’t know the word … the ones of old. Who ruled us. When the Neshua Kadal were fighting, with spren as companions, and had … had things … they could do…”

  “Radiants?” he said, his voice growing softer. “Your people have stories about the Knights Radiant?”

  “Yes, maybe?” she said. “I can’t words, yet. Of this.”

  “Curious, curious.”

  As she’d expected, the humans decided to return to the forest soon after their meal. They were frightened—all but the king. He spent the entire trip asking about the songs. She had plainly been mistaken when she’d assumed he didn’t care much about the listeners.

  For from that moment on, he seemed very, very interested. He had his scholars interrogate them about songs, lore, and whether they knew of any other ruins. When the humans finally left for their lands several days later, King Gavilar gave Eshonai’s people a gift: several crates of modern weapons, made of fine steel. They were no replacement for the ancient weapons, but not all of her people had those. No family had enough to outfit all their warriors.

  All Gavilar wanted in exchange was a promise: that when he returned in the near future, he wanted to find Eshonai’s people housed in one of the cities at the edge of the Plains. At that time, he said, he hoped to be able to hear from the keepers of songs in person.

  In my fevered state, I worry I’m unable to focus on what is important.

  —From Rhythm of War, page 3

  Navani set to work organizing her scholars under the careful supervision of a large number of singer guards.

  The situation left Navani with a delicate problem. She didn’t want to give away more than was absolutely necessary. But if she failed to make progress, Raboniel would eventually notice and take action.

  For now, Navani set the scholars to doing some busywork. The singers kept her people enclosed in a single one of the two library rooms, so Navani had the wards and younger ardents begin cleaning the room. They gathered up old projects and boxes of notes, then carried them out to stack in the hallway. They needed to make space.

  She assigned the more experienced scholars to do revision work: going back over projects and either checking calculations or drawing new sketches. Ardents brought out fresh ledgers to go over figures, while Rushu unrolled large schematics and set several younger women to measuring each and every line. This would take up several days, perhaps longer—and it was also quite a natural thing to do. Navani frequently ordered recalculations after an interruption. It restored the scholars to a proper mindset, and they
sometimes found legitimate errors.

  Soon enough, she had an orderly room full of calming sounds. Papers shuffling, pens writing, people quietly discussing. No creationspren or logicspren, as often attended exciting work. Hopefully the singers in the room wouldn’t realize that was odd.

  Those singers were always underfoot, lingering close enough to overhear what Navani told her people. She’d grown accustomed to a clean workspace—giving her people enough freedom to innovate, but also enough careful corralling to keep them innovating in the proper direction. All of these guards undermined that effort, and Navani often caught her scholars glancing up and staring at some armed brute standing nearby.

  At least most were merely common soldiers. Only one Fused—other than Raboniel—stayed near the scholars, and she wasn’t one of those unnerving ones who could meld with the rock. No, this was a Fused of Raboniel’s same type, a tall Fused with a topknot and a long face marbled white and red. The femalen sat on the floor, watching them, her eyes glazed over.

  Navani kept covert watch over this Fused during the morning work. She had been told that many Fused were unhinged, and this one seemed to fit that description. She often stared off into nothingness, then giggled to herself. She would let her head flop from one side to the other. Why would Raboniel put this one here to watch them? Were there possibly so few sane Fused left that there was no other choice?

  Navani leaned against the wall, touching her palms to the stone—where a vein of garnet ran almost imperceptibly along one line of strata—and pretended to watch as several young women carried boxes of papers out into the hallway.

  You didn’t talk to me last night, the Sibling said.

  “I was being watched,” Navani said under her breath. “They didn’t let me stay in my own rooms, but took me to a smaller one. We’ll need to talk here. You can hear me if I speak very softly like this?”

  Yes.

  “Can you see what Raboniel is doing?”

  She had some workers set up a desk near the shield, where she is doing tests upon it to see if she can get through.