Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  Syl soared off without another word, leaving Kaladin hiding inside the room with the baskets. Unfortunately, he soon heard voices—and peeked to see a pair of singers with baskets walking down the hallway. Even an occupying force of ancient evil soldiers needed to do laundry, it seemed. Kaladin closed the door, shutting himself in darkness, then—realizing there was a chance they were coming to dump their baskets in this very room—he grabbed a broom and lashed it across the door.

  Since he’d infused the broom on either end, no Stormlight should show through the door. A moment later it rattled as they tried to push it inward. Annoyed voices outside complained in Azish as they tried the door again. He gripped his knife, darkness weighing upon him. The horror of the nightmares, and a fatigue that went far deeper than the earlier strain to his muscles. A tiredness that had been with him so long, he’d accepted it as normal.

  When the door rattled again, he was certain it was a dark force come to claim him. He heard the sounds of bowstrings, and of Gaz yelling for the bridgemen to run. Screams of men dying, and … And …

  He blinked. The door had fallen still. When … when had that happened? He gave it a few minutes, wiping the sweat from his forehead, then un-Lashed the broom and cracked the door. Two abandoned baskets sat nearby, no singers in sight. He let out a long breath, then pried his fingers off his scalpel and tucked it away.

  Eventually Syl returned. “They weren’t going to their rooms,” she said, animatedly dancing around in patterns as a ribbon of light. “They dropped off their spanreed in a room ahead where there are dozens of spanreeds, watched over by a couple of senior femalens.”

  Kaladin nodded, breathing deeply, fighting back the tiredness.

  “You … all right?” Syl asked.

  “I’m fine,” Kaladin said. “That’s a spanreed hub you found. Makes sense they’d set one up in the tower.” Maintaining hundreds of spanreeds could grow unwieldy, so many highlords and highladies would set up hubs. Disparate locations—like guard posts around the tower—could send reports to a central room, where the hub attendants sifted for important information and sent it to those in power.

  The singers were keeping their reeds in central locations to be checked out, used, and returned. The reeds wouldn’t go home with individual scribes. This wasn’t going to be as easy as sneaking into a bedroom to grab one, but the hub might offer other opportunities.

  “We need to get past that guard post,” Kaladin whispered, burying his fatigue.

  “There’s something else, Kaladin,” Syl said. “Look out the door, down the tunnel.”

  Frowning, he did as she requested, peeking out and watching down the tunnel. He was confused, until he saw something pass in the air—like rippling red lightning.

  “That’s a new kind of Voidspren,” he said. The ones he’d seen in the past that looked like lightning moved along the ground.

  “It’s not, though,” Syl said. “That spren should be invisible to people, but something is off about its aura. It is leaving a trail that I noted the guards watching.”

  Curious. So the tower was interfering with spren invisibility? “Did the guards look at you when you passed?”

  “No, but they might just not have noticed me.”

  Kaladin nodded, watching a little longer. That spren in the distance didn’t pass again. “It’s worth the risk,” he decided, “in proceeding. At least we’ll know if we’re being spied upon.”

  “But what about that guard post?” she asked.

  “I doubt we’ll be able to sneak around it,” he said. “They’ll have all directions guarded for something valuable like a spanreed hub. But a lot of these rooms have small tunnels at the tops for ventilation. Perhaps we can sneak through one of those?”

  Syl led him carefully to an intersection. He peered right, to where four guards blocked the way, two at either side of the hallway. Spears at the crooks of their arms, they wore Alethi-style uniforms with knots on the shoulders. Kaladin was able to spot one of the ventilation holes nearby, but this one was far too small for him to squeeze into.

  He’d stood on guard duty himself like that on a number of occasions. If these four were well trained, there would be no luring them away with simple distractions. If you wanted a path well protected, you often posted four. Two to investigate any disturbances, two to remain vigilant.

  With the hallway this narrow, and with those guards looking as alert as they were … Well, he’d been there. The only times when he’d been drawn away, it had involved someone with proper authority commandeering him for another task.

  “Syl,” he whispered, “you’re getting better at changing colors. Do you think you could change your coloring to appear like a Voidspren?”

  She cocked her head, standing beside him in the air, then scrunched up her face in a look of concentration. Her dress changed to red, but not her “skin,” even though it was simply another part of her. Strange.

  “I think this is all I can manage,” she said.

  “Then make the dress cover your hands with gloves and put on a mask.”

  She cocked her head, then changed her clothing so she was wrapped in phantom cloth. That bled to a deep red, making her entire form glow with that color.

  She inspected her arms. “Do you think it will fool them?”

  “It might,” Kaladin said. He pulled a length of rope from his sack, then Lashed it to the wall. “Go order all four of them to come with you, then pull them over here to look at this.”

  “But … doesn’t that rope risk causing a bigger disturbance? Like, what if they go for backup?”

  “We need something reasonable enough to have caused a Voidspren to get riled up. I know guard duty though, and those are common warforms. Regular soldiers. I’m guessing that so long as there’s no danger, they’ll just make a report on it.”

  He hid down a side hallway, waiting as Syl flew off toward the guard post. She didn’t look exactly like a Voidspren, but it was a reasonable approximation.

  She drew near to the post, then spoke loudly enough that he heard her easily. “You there! I am super annoyed! Super, super annoyed! How can you stand there? Didn’t you see?”

  “Brightness?” one of them said, in Alethi. “Er, Ancient One? We are to—”

  “Come on, come on! No, all of you. Come see this! Right now. I’m really annoyed! Can’t you tell?”

  Kaladin waited, tense. Would it work? Even when acting angry, there was a certain perkiness to Syl’s voice. She sounded too … lively to be a Voidspren.

  The guards followed though—and as he’d hoped, the glowing length of rope on the wall caught their attention entirely. Kaladin was able to sneak out behind them, passing the post.

  At the end of this hallway was the door Syl said led into the spanreed room. Kaladin didn’t dare slip through it; he’d step directly into the middle of a hub of activity. Instead he prowled into a smaller hallway to the right—and here he finally caught a break. High up on the wall, near the ceiling, a dark cleft indicated a large ventilation shaft in the stone. Maybe big enough for him to squeeze through.

  Syl returned—once again white-blue, and likely invisible. “They’re sending one of their number to make a report,” she said. “Like you said.” She peeked into the shaft in the rock Kaladin had found. “What is this?”

  Ventilation? he thought, trying to send the idea to her so he wouldn’t have to make noise.

  It worked. “Seems too big for that,” she said. “This place is so strange.”

  With two of his brushes, Kaladin was able to haul himself up and inspect the cleft in the stone. Syl flew into the darkened shaft toward some light at the other end. He heard the guards talking as they came back, but he was around the corner from them now, out of sight.

  This ventilation shaft looked like it turned toward the spanreed room just to the left. It was big enough. Maybe.

  Syl waved, excited. So he squeezed in. It was more than wide enough to the right and left, but it was barely high enough. He had to
move using his brush handholds to pull himself along. He worried the scraping sounds he made would give him away—but he was rewarded when the shaft opened up to the left, revealing a small, well-lit room. The shaft he’d entered ran through the middle of the large thick wall between this room and whatever was on the other side.

  That meant Kaladin was able to peek in—hidden mostly behind the stone—at the room from the top of the wall. Spanreeds stood poised on many pieces of paper, waiting for reports. There was no sign of the two singer women from earlier—they’d delivered their spanreed and gone off duty. However, two other femalens in rich dresses maintained the reeds, checking for blinking lights and moving reeds between actively writing on boards and inactive piles on the tables.

  Syl entered, and none of them glanced at her, so she seemed to actually be invisible. So, she began reading the reports that were coming in. The door opened and one of the guards entered, requesting a report be sent to his superior. They’d found what appeared to be the sign of a Radiant—something the Pursuer had told everyone to watch for.

  Kaladin might not have much time before the creature himself arrived. Best to move quickly. As the guard left, Kaladin quietly maneuvered in the tight quarters, reaching to his waist and pulling out some of his rope. Directly beneath him was a table with a number of spanreeds, including a leather case that had a few nibs sticking out of it.

  He needed to wait for the perfect moment. Fortunately, several spanreeds started blinking at once—and they must have been important ones, for the two femalens quickly turned to these and stopped working on the soldier’s report. Kaladin Lashed his rope to one of his brushes, then infused the flat of the brush with a Reverse Lashing—commanding it to attract certain objects only. In this instance, that leather case.

  The femalens were so preoccupied that Kaladin felt his chance had come. He lowered the brush on the rope toward the table. As the brush drew near, the leather case moved of its own volition, pulled over so it stuck to the brush.

  Heart thumping, certain he was about to be caught, Kaladin drew it up, the case sticking to the end, the spanreeds inside clinking softly. Nobody noticed, and he pulled it into the shaft.

  Inside the case, he found an entire group of spanreeds—at least twenty. Perhaps they’d just been delivered, as they were still wrapped in pairs, with twine around them. Judging by the way the rubies glowed with Voidlight, he was hopeful that they would work in the tower.

  He tucked the large pouch away in his sack. He then spared a thought for all the important information that was likely being relayed through this room. Could he steal some of it?

  No. He’d already risked enough today. He sent a quick thought to Syl, who came zipping up to him as he wiggled backward through the ventilation shaft. She flitted on ahead of him, then called from behind, “Hallway is empty.”

  He eased out of the hole, catching the edge with his fingers and hanging a moment before quietly dropping the last few feet to the floor of the corridor. He peeked back out toward the guard post.

  “Now what?” Syl said. “Want me to imitate a Voidspren again?”

  He nodded. Part of him wanted to try another path, as he worried that these soldiers might grow suspicious at the same ruse. But he also knew they’d fallen for it once, and he knew a direct way to the perimeter using this path. Safer this way.

  As Syl was getting ready, however, Kaladin spotted something farther down this hallway, away from the guards. A flashing light. He held up his hand to stop Syl, then pointed.

  “What is that?” she said, zipping off toward the light. He followed more cautiously, stepping up to a blinking garnet light. Frowning, Kaladin pressed his hand against it.

  “Brightness Navani?” he asked.

  No, a voice said. It had a middling pitch, not necessarily male or female. I need you, Radiant. Please. They’ve found me.

  “You?”

  One of the nodes! That protect me. Please. Please, you have to defend it. Please.

  “How do you know? Have you told Brightness Navani?”

  Please.

  “Where?” he said.

  Second level, near the central atrium. I will lead you. They realized that one of the nodes would be open to the air, to be renewed by Stormlight. They’ve sent for her. The Lady of Pains. She’ll take my mind. Please, Radiant. Protect me.

  Syl hovered beside him. “What?” she asked.

  He lowered his hand. He was so tired.

  But today, he couldn’t afford to be tired. He had to be Kaladin Stormblessed. Kaladin Stormblessed fought anyway.

  “We’re going to need to find me a better weapon,” he said. “Quickly.”

  This point regarding the Rhythm of War’s emotional influence will be of particular interest to El.

  —From Rhythm of War, page 10

  Kaladin knew there was a chance he was making a huge mistake. He didn’t understand the nature of the tower or what was going on with it and Navani. He was risking a great deal by revealing himself.

  However, that garnet light had rescued him from the Pursuer’s clutches. And right now, he’d heard something in the spren’s voice. A genuine fright. Terror, combined with a plea for protection, was not something Kaladin could ignore.

  He was fatigued mentally and physically. As he ran, he drew a field of exhaustionspren, like jets of dust. Worse, a part of him panicked these days every time he went to pick up a weapon. He’d trained himself these last months to function despite those things. He leaned on the spike of energy that coursed through him, even before he drew in Stormlight. He let that control him, instead of the fatigue.

  It would catch up to him eventually. But for now, he could pretend to be strong. Pretend to be a soldier again.

  The four guards were facing in the other direction, so Kaladin—running at full speed—nearly reached them before the first guard spun around. Kaladin took the chance to burst alight with power, earning him another fraction of a second as the guard panicked, his eyes going wide with fright.

  He shouted as Kaladin drew close, hands out before him, waiting for the thrust of the spear. A lot of men were afraid of something sharp coming at them, but as long as his Stormlight held, Kaladin’s only real danger was getting outnumbered and overwhelmed.

  Kaladin caught the spear as the singer thrust it. He then yanked, throwing the enemy off balance. He’d been taught that maneuver by Hav, who said it was necessary to learn, but almost impossible to execute. Kaladin added his own twist by infusing the shaft with a Full Lashing, making it stick to the guard’s hands. Then he shoved the weapon to the side, sticking it to a second guard’s spear as he spun.

  Kaladin grabbed that spear, infusing it as well, then left both guards stuck to their weapons. As they shouted in surprise, Kaladin held the shafts of the crossed spears—one in each hand—and shoved them upward so the tips struck the ceiling. Then he smoothly ducked through the peaked opening, leaving the two men crying out and struggling as they tried unsuccessfully to free their weapons and hands.

  Kaladin slammed his shoulder into the third guard, infusing the singer’s coat with a slap to the back. He shoved this guard into the fourth. They fell in a lump, entangled and stuck together. Kaladin danced on his toes, awaiting the next attack. It didn’t come. The singers stayed where he’d put them, shouting and railing as they struggled to move.

  He kicked a spear up and seized it out of the air. Hello, old friend. I keep finding my way back to you, don’t I? Perhaps it wasn’t Teft’s addiction he needed to worry about. There was always an excuse for why Kaladin needed the spear again, wasn’t there?

  This was what he’d been afraid of. This was what made him tremble. The worry that he would never be able to put it down.

  He tucked the spear under his arm and took off through the tunnel. A twinkling garnet light appeared on the floor in front of him, moving along one of the strata, leading the way toward a stairwell ahead.

  “No,” Kaladin said, hoping the tower’s spren could hear him. �
�There will be a guard post at the bottom. I can already hear them responding to those shouts. To reach the second floor, we go out a perimeter balcony, down the outside, and then head inward. That will lose any tails we pick up.”

  The spren seemed to have heard, for they sent a light moving along the wall next to him—opposite Syl’s blue-white ribbon on his other side. They reached the balcony in a few short minutes, a fraction of the time it had taken to sneak inward. They were at the rim of the tower, but the central atrium was far at the eastern side. All the way inward. He’d have to cross the entire second floor to reach it.

  He heard shouts behind him, so he’d been right about picking up tails. He stuck his spear to his back by infusing part of it and slapping it against his shirt, then he unwound the rope around his waist. A quick infusion on the end let him stick it to the railing as he stepped up in a fluid motion and leaped off, sticking the other end to his shirt in case he slipped, then holding tight.

  He swung out and around, then onto the balcony below. This one, unfortunately, was occupied. So after he recovered his rope, he charged through a family’s room—leaping and sliding across their dinner table. He was out the door a moment later, spear in hand. He heard a distant shout of anger from outside the balcony, as the singers above realized he’d gone a way they couldn’t follow.

  The tower’s spren found him here and began guiding him. The strata and lines of crystal didn’t always run directly down the corridors, so sometimes the light would spiral around him, following the grain of the stone. Other times the light would vanish when there was no direct path for it, but it would always appear ahead of him again, glowing on the floor or wall, urging him onward.

  He drew attention, naturally. The late hour meant that he didn’t encounter crowds to slow him, but it also meant there wasn’t much else to distract the guard patrols. He infused and tossed his spear at a pair of guards who stumbled into the hallway ahead of him—then stole one of their dropped weapons as they struggled and cursed, trying to get his old weapon to stop sticking to their fingers.