Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  The Fused didn’t speak as Navani arrived. Instead she turned and walked out of the chamber with a relaxed gait. Navani followed, and they entered the hallway with the murals. Down to the left, the shield surrounding the crystal pillar glowed a soft blue.

  “Your scholars,” Raboniel finally noted, “do not seem to be making much progress. They were to deliver up to my people fabrials to test.”

  “My scholars are frightened and unnerved, Ancient One,” Navani said. “It might take weeks before they feel up to true studies again.”

  “Yes, and longer, if you continue having them repeat work in an effort to not make progress.”

  She figured that out faster than I anticipated, Navani thought as the two strolled along the hallway toward the shield. Here a common singer soldier in warform was working under the direction of several Fused. With a Shardblade.

  They’d known the singers had claimed some Blades from the humans they’d fought—but Navani recognized this one. It had belonged to her son. Elhokar’s Blade, Sunraiser.

  Navani kept her face impassive only with great effort, though the anxietyspren faded and an agonyspren arrived instead: an upside-down face carved from stone pressing out from the wall nearby. It betrayed her true emotions. That loss ran deep.

  Raboniel glanced at it, but said nothing. Navani kept her eyes forward. Watching that horrible Blade in that awful creature’s hand. The warform held the weapon at the ready. It held no gemstone at its pommel; it seemed that the warform didn’t have it bonded. Or perhaps the summoning mechanism didn’t work in the tower, with the protections in place.

  The warform attacked the shield—and contrary to Navani’s expectation, the Blade bit into the blue light. The warform carved off a chunk, which evaporated to nothing before it hit the floor—and the shield restored itself just as quickly. The warform tried again, attempting to dig faster. After a few minutes of watching, Navani could tell the effort was futile. The bubble regrew too quickly.

  “Fascinating behavior, wouldn’t you say?” Raboniel asked Navani.

  Navani turned toward Raboniel, steeling herself against the memories brought forth by the sight of the sword. She could cry for her child again tonight, as she had done many nights in the past. For now, she would not show these creatures her pain.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that shield, Lady of Wishes,” she said. “I couldn’t begin to understand how it was created.”

  “We could unravel its secrets, if we tried together,” Raboniel said, “instead of wasting our time watching one another for hidden motives.”

  “This is true, Ancient One,” Navani said. “But if you want my cooperation and goodwill, perhaps you shouldn’t flaunt in front of me the Blade taken from the corpse of my son.”

  Raboniel stiffened. She glanced at the warform with the weapon. “I did not know.”

  Didn’t she? Or was this another game?

  Raboniel turned, nodding for Navani to follow as they walked away from the shield.

  “If I might ask, Ancient One,” Navani said, “why do you give the Blades you capture to common soldiers, and not keep them yourselves?”

  Raboniel hummed to one of her rhythms, but Navani could never tell them apart. Singers seemed to be able to distinguish one rhythm from another after hearing a short word or a couple of seconds of humming.

  “Some Fused do keep the Blades we capture,” Raboniel said. “The ones who enjoy the pain. Now, I fear I must make some changes in how you and your scholars operate. You are distracted, naturally, by preventing them from giving me too much information. I have unconsciously put you in a position where your obvious talents are wasted by foolish politicking.

  “These are the new arrangements: You will work by yourself at my desk in a separate room from the other scholars. Twice a day, you may give them written directions, which I will personally vet. That should give you more time for worthwhile pursuits, and less for deceit.”

  Navani drew her lips to a line. “I think that is unwise, Ancient One,” she said. “I am accustomed to working directly with my scholars. They are far more efficient when I am personally directing their efforts.”

  “I find it difficult to imagine them being less efficient than they are currently, Navani,” Raboniel said. “We will work this way from now on. It is not a matter I care to debate.”

  Raboniel had a long stride, and used it purposely to force Navani to hurry to match her. Upon reaching the scholars’ chambers, Raboniel turned left instead of right—entering the room Navani’s scholars had been using as a library.

  Raboniel’s desk in this chamber had once belonged to Navani. The Fused gestured, and Navani sat as instructed. This was going to be inconvenient—but that was Raboniel’s intent.

  The Fused went down on one knee, then picked through a box on the floor here. She set something on the desk. A glass globe? Yes, like the one that had been near the first node Navani had activated.

  “When we discovered the node operating the field, this was connected to it,” Raboniel said. “Look closely. What do you see?”

  Navani hesitantly picked up the globe, which was heavier than it appeared. Though it was made of solid glass, she spotted an unusual construction inside. Something she hadn’t noticed, or understood, the first time she’d seen one of these. The globe had a pillar rising through the center.…

  “It’s a reproduction of the crystal pillar room,” Navani said, her eyes widening. “You don’t suppose…”

  “That’s how the field is created,” Raboniel said, tapping the globe with an orange carapace fingernail. “It’s a type of Soulcasting. The fabrial is persuading the air in a sphere around the pillar to think it is solid glass. That’s why cutting off a piece accomplishes nothing.”

  “That’s incredible,” Navani said. “An application of the Surge I never anticipated. It’s not a full transformation, but a half state somehow. Kept in perpetual stasis, using this globe as a model to mimic…”

  “There must be similar globes at the other nodes.”

  “Clearly,” Navani said. “After this one was detached, did it make the shield seem weaker than before?”

  “Not that we can tell,” Raboniel said. “One node must be enough to perpetuate the transformation.”

  “Fascinating…”

  Don’t get taken in, Navani. She wants you to think like a scholar, not like a queen. She wants you working for her, not against her.

  That focus was even more difficult to maintain as Raboniel set something else on the table. A small diamond the size of Navani’s thumb, full of Stormlight. But … was the hue faintly off? Navani held it up, frowning, turning it over in her fingers. She couldn’t tell without a Stormlight sphere to compare it to, but it did seem this color was faintly teal.

  “It’s not Stormlight, is it?” she asked. “Nor Voidlight?”

  Raboniel hummed a rhythm. Then, realizing Navani wouldn’t understand, said, “No.”

  “The third Light. I knew it. The moment I learned about Voidlight, I wondered. Three gods. Three types of Light.”

  “Ah,” Raboniel said, “but this isn’t the third Light. We call that Lifelight. Cultivation’s power, distilled. This is something different. Something unique. It is the reason I came to this tower. It is a mixing of two. Stormlight and Lifelight. Like…”

  “Like the Sibling is a child of both Honor and Cultivation,” Navani said.

  Storms. That was what the Sibling had meant by their Light no longer working. They hadn’t been able to make the tower function any longer because something had happened to the tower’s Light.

  “It came out in barely a trickle,” Raboniel said. “Something is wrong with the tower, preventing it from flowing.” Her rhythm grew more energetic. “But this is proof. I have long suspected that there must be a way to mix and change the various forms of Light. These three energies are the means by which all Surges work, and yet we know so little about them.

  “What could we do with this power if we truly under
stood it? This Towerlight is proof that Stormlight and Lifelight can mix and create something new. Can the same be done with Stormlight and Voidlight? Or will that prove impossible, since the two are opposites?”

  “Are they, though?” Navani asked.

  “Yes. Like night and day or oil and water. But perhaps we can find a way to put them together. If so, it could be a … model, perhaps, of our peoples. A way toward unity instead of strife. Proof that we, although opposites, can coexist.”

  Navani stared at the Towerlight sphere, and she felt compelled to correct one thing. “Oil and water aren’t opposites.”

  “Of course they are,” Raboniel said. “This is a central tenet of philosophy. They cannot mix, but must remain ever separated.”

  “Just because something doesn’t mix doesn’t make them opposites,” Navani said. “Sand and water don’t mix either, and you wouldn’t call them opposites. That’s beside the point. Oil and water can mix, if you have an emulsifier.”

  “I do not know this word.”

  “It’s a kind of binding agent, Ancient One,” Navani said, standing. If her things were still in here … yes, over at the side of the room, she found a crate holding simple materials for experiments.

  She made up a vial with some oil and water, adding some stumpweight sap extract as a simple emulsifier. She shook the resulting solution and handed it to Raboniel. The Fused took it and held it up, waiting for the oil and water to separate. But of course they didn’t.

  “Oil and water mix in nature all the time,” Navani said. “Sow’s milk has fat suspended in it, for example.”

  “I … have accepted ancient philosophy as fact for too long, I see,” Raboniel said. “I call myself a scholar, but today I feel a fool.”

  “Everyone has holes in their knowledge. There is no shame in ignorance. In any case, oil and water aren’t opposites. I’m not certain what the opposite of water would be, if the word even has meaning when applied to an element.”

  “The various forms of Light do have opposites,” Raboniel said. “I am certain of it. Yet I must think on what you’ve shown me.” She reached over and tapped the sphere full of Towerlight. “For now, experiment with this Light. To keep you focused, I must insist you remain in this room until finished each day, except when accompanied to use the chamber.”

  “Very well,” Navani said. “Though if you want my scholars to actually develop something for you, this idea of them drawing plans and you testing them is foolish. It won’t work, at least not well. Instead, Ancient One, I suggest you deliver to us gemstones that can power fabrials that work in the tower.”

  Raboniel hummed for a moment, regarding the emulsion. “I will send such gems to your people as proof of my willingness to work together.” She turned to go. “If you intend to use ciphers to give hidden instructions to your scholars, kindly make them difficult ones. The spren I will use to unravel your true messages do like a challenge. It gives them more variety in existence.”

  Raboniel set a guard at the door, but didn’t restrict Navani’s access within the room. It was otherwise unoccupied: it held only bookshelves, crates, and the occasional sphere lantern. There were no other exits, but near the rear of the room Navani found a vein of crystal hidden among the strata.

  “Are you there?” she asked, touching it.

  Yes, the Sibling replied. I am closer to death than ever. Surrounded by evils on all sides. Men and singers alike seeking to abuse me.

  “Don’t create a false equivalency,” Navani said. “My kind might not understand the harm we’ve done to spren, but the enemy certainly knows the harm they cause in corrupting them.”

  Regardless. I will soon die. Only two nodes remain, and the previous one was discovered so rapidly.

  “More proof that you should be helping us, not them,” Navani whispered, peeking through the stacks to see that she hadn’t aroused the guard’s attention. “I need to understand more about how these various forms of Light work.”

  I don’t think I can explain much, the Sibling said. For me, it all simply worked. Like a human child can breathe, so I used to make and use Light. And then … the tones went away … and the Light left me.

  “All right,” Navani said. “We can talk on that more later. For now, you need to tell me where the other nodes are.”

  No. Defend them once they are found.

  “Sibling,” Navani said, “if Kaladin Stormblessed can’t protect a node, no one can. Our goal should be to distract and mislead, to prevent the Fused from ever finding them. To do this, I’ll need to know where the nodes are.”

  You talk so well, the Sibling said. So frustratingly well. You humans always sound so reasonable. It’s only later, after the pain, that the truth comes out.

  “Hide it if you wish,” Navani said. “But you have to know, after watching Kaladin fight for you, that we are severely outmatched. Our sole hope is to prevent the nodes from being located. If I knew where at least one of them was, I could come up with plots to deflect the enemy’s attention.”

  Come up with those plots first, the Sibling said. Then talk to me again.

  “Fine,” Navani said. She slipped a few books off the shelf to hide what she’d been doing, then walked to her seat. There, she began writing down everything she knew about light.

  EIGHT YEARS AGO

  Eshonai turned the topaz over in her fingers and attuned Tension. A topaz should glow with a calm, deep brown—but this one gave off a wicked orange light, like the bright color along the back of a sigs cremling warning that it was poisonous.

  Looking closely, Eshonai thought she could make out the spren trapped in it. A painspren, frantically moving around. Though … perhaps she imagined the frantic part. The spren was mostly formless when inside the gemstone, having reverted to the misty Stormlight that created all of their kind. Still, it couldn’t be happy in there. How would she feel if she were locked into a room, unable to explore?

  “You learned this from the humans?” Eshonai said.

  “Yes,” Venli said. She sat comfortably between two of the elders in the small council room, which was furnished with woven mats and painted banners.

  Venli wasn’t one of the Five—the head elders—but she seemed to think she belonged among them. Something had happened to her these last few months. Where she’d once been self-indulgent, she now radiated egotism and confidence. She hummed to Victory as Eshonai passed the gemstone to one of the elders.

  “Why did you not bring this to us earlier, Venli?” Klade asked. The reserved elder took the gemstone next. “The humans have been gone for months now.”

  “I thought I might be wrong,” Venli said to Confidence. “I decided to see if I could trap a spren on my own. Surely you wouldn’t have wanted to be bothered by my fancies, should I have been wrong.”

  “I hadn’t heard of this thing they can do,” Klade said to Reconciliation. “Do you think you could trap a lifespren? If so, we could better choose when we adopt mateform. That would be convenient.”

  “Try this stone,” Venli said, taking it, then handing it to Varnali next. “I think it might be the secret to warform.”

  “A dangerous form,” Varnali said. “But useful.”

  “It is not a form of power,” Klade said. “It is within our rights to claim it.”

  “The humans make overtures,” Gangnah—foremost among them—said to Annoyance, a rhythm used to elicit sympathy for a frustrating situation. “They act as if we are a nation united, not a group of squabbling families. I wish we could present to them a stronger face. They have accomplished so much during our centuries apart, while we remember so little.”

  “Pardon, elders,” Eshonai said to Reconciliation. “But they have advantages we do not. A much larger population, ancient devices to create metals, a land more sheltered from the storms.”

  She’d recently returned from her latest exploration efforts—which the elders now fully supported. She’d sought to circumvent the human trading post, then find their home. She’d at
tuned Disappointment more than once; every place she thought she’d find the humans had been empty. They’d found packs of wild chulls, and even spotted a distant and rare group of Ryshadium.

  No humans. Not until she’d returned to their trading post, which had been transformed into a small fort—built from stone and staffed by soldiers and two scribes. The humans had a message for her there. The human king wished to “formalize relations” with her people, whom they referred to as “Parshendi.”

  She’d returned with the message to find this: Venli sitting among the elders. Venli, so sure of herself. Venli replicating human techniques that Eshonai—despite spending the most time with them—hadn’t heard them discuss.

  “Thank you, Eshonai,” Gangnah said to Appreciation. “You have done well on your expedition.” Workform had carapace only along the backs of the hands in small ridges, and Gangnah’s was beginning to whiten at the edges. A sign of her age. She turned to the others and continued. “We will need to respond to this offer. The humans expect us to be a nation. Should we form a government like they have?”

  “The other families would never follow us,” Klade said. “They already resent how the humans paid more attention to us.”

  “I find the idea of a king distasteful,” added Husal, to Anxiety. “We should not follow them in this.”

  Eshonai hummed to Pleading, indicating she wished to speak again. “Elders,” she said, “I think I should visit the other families and show them my maps.”

  “What would that accomplish?” Venli asked to Skepticism.

  “If I show them how much there is to the world, they will understand that we are smaller as a people than we thought. They will want to unite.”

  Venli hummed to Amusement. “You think they’d simply join with us? Because they saw maps? Eshonai, you are a delight.”

  “We will consider your proposal,” Gangnah said, then hummed to Appreciation—as a dismissal.

  Eshonai retreated out into the sunlight as the elders asked Venli additional questions about creating gemstones with trapped spren. Eshonai attuned Annoyance. Then, by force, she changed her rhythm to Peace instead. She always felt anxious after an extended trip. She wasn’t annoyed with her sister, just the general situation.