Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “Are we being watched?” Navani asked.

  I’ve told you, the Sibling said. Voidspren can’t be invisible in the tower. That protection is different from the one suppressing enemy Surgebinders, and Raboniel hasn’t corrupted it yet.

  “You also told me you could sense if a Voidspren was near.”

  Yes.

  “So … are any near?”

  No, the Sibling said. You do not trust my word?

  “Let’s just call it a healthy paranoia on my part,” Navani said. “Tell me again of—”

  You continue to experiment with fabrials, the Sibling interrupted. We need to talk more about that. I do not like what you’ve been doing.

  “I haven’t captured any more spren,” Navani whispered. “I’ve been working with Stormlight and Voidlight.”

  Dangerous work. The man who forges weapons can claim he’s never killed, but he still prepares for the slaughter.

  “If we’re going to restore your abilities, I need to understand how Light works. So unless you have a better idea for me to do this, I’m going to have to continue to use gemstones and—yes—fabrials.”

  The Sibling fell silent.

  “Tell me again about Towerlight,” Navani said.

  This is growing tedious.

  “Do you want to be saved, or not?”

  … Fine. Towerlight is my Light, the Light I could create.

  “Did you need a Bondsmith to make it?”

  No. I could make it on my own. And my Bondsmith could create it, through their bond with me.

  “And that Light, in turn, powered the tower’s defenses.”

  Not only the defenses. Everything.

  “Why does it no longer work?”

  I already explained that!

  “This is a common investigative method,” Navani said calmly, flipping through her book with her left hand. “My goal is to make you restate facts in different ways, leading you to explain things differently—or to remember details you forgot.”

  I haven’t forgotten anything. The defenses no longer work because I don’t have the Light for them. I lost most of my strength when I lost the ability to hear the two pure tones of Roshar. I can make only a tiny amount of Light, enough to power a few of the tower’s basic fabrials.

  “Two tones of Roshar?” Navani said. “There are three.”

  No, there are two. One from my mother, one from my father. The tone of Odium is an interloper. False.

  “Could part of the reason you lost your abilities relate to that tone becoming a pure tone of Roshar? Odium truly becoming one of the three gods?”

  I … don’t know, the Sibling admitted.

  Navani noted this hypothesis.

  We need to find a way to restore my Towerlight, the Sibling said, and remove the Voidlight from my system.

  “And that,” Navani said, “is exactly what I’m working on.” If she could figure out how to combine two Lights, then it would be the first step toward creating Towerlight.

  She clearly needed an emulsifier, a facilitator. What kind of emulsifier could “stick” to Stormlight and make it mix with Voidlight? She shook her head, taking her hand off the vein on the wall. She’d been here too long, so she took a book and strolled to the front of the room, lost in thought. However, as she reached her desk, she found a small box waiting for her.

  She glanced at the guard by the door, who nodded. Raboniel had sent it. Navani opened the box, breathless, and found a brightly glowing diamond. At first glance, it seemed to be another Stormlight sphere. But as she held it up and placed it next to a true one, she could see the green tinge to the one Raboniel had sent.

  Lifelight. She’d promised to get some for Navani.

  “Did she say how she acquired this?” Navani asked.

  The guard shook his head.

  Navani had a guess. The Sibling had lost sight of Lift, but had explained something was odd about that girl. Something Navani held as a hope that might get them out of this.

  Hands steady—though anticipationspren shot up around her—Navani used the middle tuning fork on this new diamond. And it worked: she was able to draw Lifelight out and send it streaming into a gemstone.

  Towerlight was Lifelight and Stormlight combined. So perhaps Lifelight—the Light of Cultivation—had some property that allowed it to mix with other Lights. Holding her breath, Navani repeated her earlier experiments, except with Lifelight instead of Voidlight.

  She failed.

  She couldn’t get Stormlight and Lifelight to mix. No use of tuning forks, no touching of the streams or clever use of gemstone differentials, worked.

  She tried mixing Voidlight and Lifelight. She tried mixing all three. She tried every experiment she’d listed in her brainstorming sessions earlier. Then she did them all again, until—because each experiment allowed a little Lifelight to vanish into the air—she’d used it all up.

  Shooing away exhaustionspren, she stood, frustrated. Another dead end. This was as bad as the morning’s experiments, when she’d tried everything she could think of—including using two tuning forks at once—to make Towerlight move from its gemstone. She’d failed at that as well.

  She gathered all the used diamonds and deposited them by the door guard to be picked up and reinfused—there was a highstorm coming today. After that, she paced, frustrated. She knew she shouldn’t let the lack of results bother her. Real scientists understood that experiments like this weren’t failures; they were necessary steps on the way to discovery. In fact, it would have been remarkable—and completely unconventional—to find a good result so early in the process.

  The problem was, scientists didn’t have to work under such terrible deadlines or pressures. She was isolated, each moment ticking them closer to disaster. The only lead she had was in trying to mix the Lights, in the hope that she could eventually create more Towerlight to help the Sibling.

  She wandered the room, pretending to inspect the spines of books on the shelves. If I make my discovery, Raboniel will know, since a guard is always watching. She’ll force the answer out of me, and so even in these attempts to escape, I’m furthering her goals—whatever those are.

  Navani was on the cusp of something important. The revelations she’d been given about Stormlight fundamentally changed their understanding of it and the world at large. Three types of power. The possibility they could be blended. And … possibly something else, judging by that strange sphere that warped the air around it.

  Her instincts said that this knowledge would come out eventually. And the ones who controlled it, exploited it, would be the ones who won the war.

  I need another plan, she decided. If she did discover how to make Towerlight, and if the shield did fall, Navani needed a way to isolate the crystal pillar for a short time. To defend it, perhaps to work on it.

  Navani gripped her notebook in her safehand, to appear as if she were writing down the titles of books. Instead she quickly took notes on an idea. She’d been told she could have anything she needed, so long as it was relevant to her experiments. They also let her store equipment out in the hallway.

  So, what if she created some fabrial weapons, then stored them in the hallway? Innocent-looking fabrials that, once activated, could be used to immobilize guards or Fused coming to stop her from working on the pillar? She sketched out some ideas: traps she could create using seemingly innocent fabrial parts. Painrials to administer agony and cause the muscles to lock up. Heating fabrials to burn and scald.

  Yes … she could create a series of defenses in the form of failed experiments, then store them “haphazardly” in crates along the hallway. She could even arm them by using Voidspren gems, as she could demand those for use in her experiments.

  These plans soothed her; this was something meaningful she could do. However, the experiments, and their potential, still itched at her. What was Raboniel’s true goal? Was it to make a weapon herself—like the one that had destroyed the room and Navani’s two scientists?

  A few hou
rs had passed, so it wouldn’t look strange if she went to the back of the stacks again. She picked up a book and settled down in a chair she’d placed nearby. Although she wasn’t directly visible to the guard, she pretended to read as she reached her hand to the wall and touched the vein.

  “Any spren nearby?” Navani asked.

  I cannot feel any, the Sibling said with a resigned tone.

  “Good. Tell me, do you know anything of the explosion that happened on the day of the invasion? It involved two of my scientists in a room on the fifth floor.”

  I felt it. But I do not know what caused it.

  “Have you ever heard of a sphere, or a Light, that warps the air around it? One that appears to be Voidlight unless you look at it long enough to notice the warping effect?”

  No, the Sibling said. I’ve never heard or seen anything like that—though it sounds dangerous.

  Navani considered, tapping her finger against the wall. “I haven’t been able to get any of the Lights to mix. Do you know of any potential binding agent that could make them stick together? Do you know how Towerlight is mixed from Stormlight and Lifelight?”

  They don’t mix, the Sibling said. They come together, as one. Like I am a product of my mother and father, so Towerlight is a product of me. And stop asking me the same questions. I don’t care about your “investigative methods.” I’ve told you what I know. Stop making me repeat myself.

  Navani took a deep breath, calming herself with effort. “Fine. Have you been able to eavesdrop on Raboniel at all?”

  Not much. I can only hear things near a few people that are relevant. I can see the Windrunner. I think the Edgedancer has been surrounded by ralkalest, which is why she’s invisible. Also, I can see one particular Regal.

  “Any ideas on why that is?”

  No. Regals weren’t often in the tower in the past, and never this variety. She can speak all languages; perhaps this is why I can see near her. Though she vanishes sometimes, so I cannot see all she does. I can also see near the crystal pillar, but with the field set up, I hear mere echoes of what is happening outside.

  “Tell me those, then.”

  It’s nothing relevant. Raboniel is trying her own experiments with the Light—and she hasn’t gotten as far as you have. This seems to frustrate her.

  Curious. That did a little for Navani’s self-esteem. “She really wants this hybrid Light. I wonder … maybe fabrials made with a hybrid Stormlight-Voidlight would work in the tower, even if the protections were turned against her again. Maybe that is why she wants it.”

  You are foolish to presume to know what one of the Fused wants. She is thousands of years old. You can’t outthink her.

  “You’d better hope that I can.” Navani flipped a few pages in her notebook. “I’ve been thinking of other ways out of this. What if we found you someone to bond, to make them Radiant? We could—”

  No. Never again.

  “Hear me out,” Navani said. “You’ve said you’ll never bond a human again, because of the things we do to spren. But what about a singer? Could you theoretically bond one of them?”

  We are talking of resisting them, and now you suggest I bond one? That seems insane.

  “Maybe not,” Navani said. “There’s a Parshendi in Bridge Four. I’ve met him, and Kaladin has vouched for him. He claims that his people rejected the Fused long ago. What about him? Not a human. Not someone who has ever created a fabrial—someone who knows the rhythms of Roshar.”

  The Sibling was silent, and Navani wondered if the conversation was over. “Sibling?” she asked.

  I had not considered this, they said. A singer who does not serve Odium? I will need to think. It would certainly surprise Raboniel, who thinks that I am dead or sleeping.

  In any case, I cannot form a bond now, with the protections up. I would need him to touch my pillar.

  “What if I had him here?” Navani said. “Ready to try when the shield falls? And with some distractions in place to give you time to talk to him.”

  I cannot form a bond with just anyone, the Sibling said. In the past I spent years evaluating Bondsmith squires to select one who fit me exactly. Even they eventually betrayed me, though not as badly as other humans.

  “Can we really afford pickiness right now?”

  It’s not pickiness. It is the nature of spren and the bond. The person must be willing to swear the correct oaths, to unite instead of divide. They must mean it, and the oaths must be accepted. It is not simply a matter of throwing the first person you find at me.

  Beyond that, since I cannot create Towerlight, they will not be able to either. A bond would do nothing unless we solve the problems with my powers. It would be better if you focused on that problem instead.

  “Fine,” Navani said, sensing an opening. “But I need time to research all of this. It is difficult to work while feeling I have a knife to my neck. If I knew the nodes were being defended, that would take the pressure off me. Tell me where one of them is. I have a list here of plans to protect it. I can read them off to you.”

  The Sibling was silent, so Navani continued.

  “We can have Kaladin start searching—loudly and obviously—on a different level, leading the enemy on a chase in the wrong direction. In the meantime, while they’re distracted, we could sneak up to the node and reinforce its defenses.

  “We have some crem that hasn’t hardened yet, kept wet in the tower stores. We could seal up the node location entirely. Maybe run the crem through with some training sheaths for Shardblades, so it would be extra difficult to cut. That could earn us hours to get troops in to defend it, if it does get discovered.

  “Or, if I knew where one of the nodes was, I might be able to have Kaladin begin infusing it with more Stormlight. That might counteract the Voidlight that Raboniel has used on you. If she can corrupt you through a node, could we not perhaps cleanse you through one? I think it’s worth trying, because my efforts to create Towerlight are stalled.”

  She waited, gripping her pad tightly. Her other ideas were sketchier than those. She wouldn’t use them unless these arguments didn’t work.

  So good with words. Humans are like persuasionspren. I can’t speak with one of you without being changed.

  Navani continued to wait. Silence was best now.

  Fine, the Sibling said. One of the two remaining nodes is in the well at the center of the place you call the Breakaway market. It is near other fabrials there. One hidden among many.

  “On the first floor?” Navani asked. “That’s such a populated area!”

  All of the nodes are down low. There was talk of installing others farther away, but my Bondsmith did not have the resources—my falling-out with the humans was driving them away. The project wasn’t completed. Only the four on the first few floors were completed.

  Navani frowned—though the well was a clever place to hide a fabrial. Many of the workings of the tower remained mysterious to modern scholars, so a cluster of gemstones working as pumps might indeed camouflage another fabrial. In fact, Navani had studied drawings of those pumps herself. Had this mechanism been there, unnoticed, all along?

  This is a good node for your agent to visit, the Sibling said. Because it can be reached from the back ways. Have your Windrunner visit it through the aquifers, and we will see if—by infusing it with Stormlight—he can counteract the corruption. It might not work, as I am not simply of Honor or of Cultivation. But … it could help.

  “And the final node?” Navani asked.

  Is mine alone, the Sibling replied. Show me that your work on this one helps, human, and then we can speak further.

  “A fair compromise,” Navani said. “I am willing to listen, Sibling.”

  She left the wall and grabbed some books to read, to cover what she’d been doing. And she did need to study more, after all. She’d have loved to have more books on music theory, but this archive didn’t have anything more specific on the topic. She did have Kalami’s notes about the gemstones they’d discov
ered that used certain buzzing vibrations as substitutes for letters. Perhaps those would help.

  She was browsing through those notes, walking idly among the stacks, when she saw the Sibling’s light flashing. She hurried over, nervous about how bright the light was. She glanced at the guard, hoping he hadn’t seen, and put her hand to the wall.

  “You need to—”

  They’ve found the node in the well. We’re too late.

  “What? Already?”

  I am as good as dead.

  “Contact Kaladin.”

  They already have the node, and he’s too far away. We—

  “Contact Kaladin,” Navani said. “Now. I’ll find a way to distract Raboniel.”

  Opposites. Opposites of sounds. Sound has no opposite. It’s merely overlapped vibration, the same sound, but sound has meaning. This sound does, at least. These sounds. The voices of gods.

  —From Rhythm of War, final page

  Kaladin awoke to something dark attacking him.

  He screamed, struggling against the clinging shadows. They’d been assaulting him for an eternity, wrapping around him, constricting him. Voices that never relented, fingers of shadow that drilled into his brain.

  He was in a dark place full of red light, and the shadows laughed and danced around him. They tormented him, flayed him, stabbed him again and again and wouldn’t let him die. He fought back the hands that gripped, then he crawled across the floor, pulling up against the wall and breathing shallowly. The rushing sounds of his own blood in his ears drowned out the laughter.

  One shadow continued watching him. One terrible shadow. It stared at him, then turned and took something from beside the wall before vanishing. Vanishing … out the door.

  Kaladin blinked, and the shadows melted from his mind. The terrible laughter, the phantom pain, the whispers. His mind always interpreted those as Moash’s voice.