Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “I need to persuade them that I cannot be held accountable for the actions of the ancient Radiants,” Adolin said. “That they cannot shun me or my father because of things done by ancient humans. In order to accomplish this, I will prove my character, I will prove that the modern Radiants are unconnected to the old orders, and I will prove that our actions in the face of the current crisis are proof of the honor men display.”

  Blended nodded. “We will choose a trial by witness. Assuming your motion is accepted, the trial will happen in three phases over three days. The first day, the High Judge is presented with three testimonies against your cause. The next day, you give your testimony. The final day, accusers are allowed one rebuttal, then judgment is requested. This format is not often chosen, because it allows so much weight of testimony against you. However, factoring in how weak your grasp of legal systems is, well … this choice is best.”

  Adolin felt a tremble deep inside. He wished for a fight he could face with sword in hand—but that was the trouble. Any given Radiant could do better than he at such a fight, so his expertise with the sword was effectively obsolete. He could not train himself to the level of a Radiant; they could heal from wounds and strike with supernatural grace and strength. The world had entered an era where simply being good at swordplay was not enough.

  That left him to find a new place. Father always complained about being unsuited for diplomacy; Adolin was determined not to make the same complaint. “If I may plead my case on the second day,” he said, “then I’m for it. The other methods you suggested would require me to understand too much of their law.”

  “Yes,” Blended said. “Though I worry that in giving testimony, you will incriminate yourself. Worse, you risk asking questions of the audience, presenting an opening for their condemnations. You could end up one man facing a crowd of experts in the law and rhetoric.”

  “I have to speak for myself though,” Adolin said. “I fail to see how I can achieve what I want without talking to them. I need to prove myself and appeal to their honor.”

  Blended flipped through pages of notes. He’d noticed that when she wouldn’t look at him, it meant she had something difficult to say.

  “What?” Adolin asked her.

  “You believe much in their honor, Prince Adolin. Your sense of justice … is.”

  “They are honorspren,” he said. “Don’t they basically have to be honorable?”

  “A conundrum is in this thing,” Blended said. “Yes, they are honorspren. But honor … isn’t something that … that is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Men define honor,” Blended said. “And no god can enforce it, no longer. Beyond that, spren like us are not mindless things. Our will is strong. Our perceptions mold our definitions of concepts such as honor and right and wrong. Just as with humans.”

  “You’re saying that what they perceive as honorable might not be what I perceive as honorable. Syl warned me as much.”

  “Yes,” she said. “What they are defines honor to them. Whatever they are.”

  “That’s … frightening,” Adolin admitted. “But there is goodness to them. They care for the deadeyes, even Maya, with great concern and attention.”

  “Hmmm, yes,” Blended said. “That one. Did another spren tell you her name?”

  “No, she told me herself.”

  “Deadeyes don’t speak. This is.”

  “You all keep saying that, but you’re wrong,” Adolin said. “I heard her in my mind. Only once, true, but she said her name. Mayalaran. She’s my friend.”

  Blended cocked her head. “Curious. Very curious…”

  “Deep down, the honorspren must want to help. Surely they’ll listen to me. Surely I can make them see.”

  “I will give you the best chance I can,” she said. “But please understand. Spren—all spren—fear you with good reason. In order to prove you wrong, they need only prove that bonding men is a risk. That past failings of men justify wariness.”

  “Everything is a risk,” Adolin said.

  “Yes. Which is why this trial … is not strong for you. This truth is, Prince Adolin.”

  “To hear you say it like that,” he said, trying to laugh about it, “it sounds like I have no chance!”

  She closed her book. And did not respond.

  He took a deep breath. “All right. How do we proceed?” he asked.

  “I suspect the best thing is to discover if the High Judge’s return is.” Blended stood up, leaving the books on the table as she strode toward the doors. Adolin was expected to keep up. She claimed to hate the honorspren because of an ancient rivalry, but she sure did act like them. Neither gave much deference to human titles, for example. Adolin didn’t consider himself stuck-up, but couldn’t they treat him with a little more respect?

  Outside, as always, he had that moment of jarring disconnect—his brain trying to reconcile that down wasn’t down and up wasn’t up. That people walked along all four faces inside the rectangular tower.

  He doubted he could ever feel at ease in this place. The spren claimed it was not Surgebinding that let them walk on the walls here; the long-standing presence of the honorspren instead allowed the tower to choose a different type of natural law. Perhaps that sort of talk made sense to Shallan. Where was she anyway? She was often late to these tutoring meetings, but she usually showed up.

  Blended led him across to the corner where the northern plane met the western plane; most of the official buildings were on the western one. Adolin always found this part curious; he had to step out and put one leg on the wall. He followed that by leaning back as he lifted his other leg, feeling like he was about to fall. Instead everything seemed to rotate, and he found himself standing on another plane.

  “You do that better than most humans,” Blended noted. “They often seem nauseated by the process.”

  He shrugged, then followed as she walked him toward a row of short buildings clustered near the base of the tower. Most buildings in Lasting Integrity were only one story. He wasn’t certain what happened if they got too tall; were you in danger of falling off?

  They passed groups of honorspren, and he thought about what Blended had said regarding their natures. Not simply of honor—of honor as defined by the spren themselves. Well, maybe they weren’t all as stuffy as they seemed. He’d catch laughter or a hint of a mischievous grin. Then an older uniformed honorspren would walk past—and everyone would grow solemn again. These creatures seemed trapped between an instinct for playfulness and their natures as the spren of oaths.

  He anticipated another tedious discussion with the honorspren who managed his case—but before Adolin and Blended entered the building of justice, she stopped and cocked her head. She waved for him to follow in another direction, and he soon saw why. A disturbance was occurring on the ground plane, near the gates into the city. A moment of panic made him wonder if his friends had decided to rescue him against his wishes—followed by a deeper worry that all those deadeyes outside had snapped and decided to rush the fortress.

  It was neither. A group of spren crowded around a newly arrived figure. “The High Judge?” Adolin guessed.

  “Yes,” Blended said. “Excellent. You can make your petition to him.” She walked that direction, down along the face of the western plane.

  Adolin followed until he saw the details of the figure everyone was making such a fuss over.

  The High Judge, it appeared, was human.

  * * *

  “Human?” Veil said, stopping in place. “That’s impossible.”

  She squinted at the figure below, and didn’t need to get close to see what her gut was already telling her. A short Alethi man with thinning hair. That was him, the one she’d been hunting. The High Judge was Restares.

  “Mmm…” Pattern said. “They did say the High Judge was a spren. Perhaps the honorspren lied? Mmm…”

  Veil stepped up to a small crowd of honorspren who had gathered on the southern plane to gawk at the new
comer. One was Lusintia, the honorspren assigned to show Veil around on her first day in the fortress. She was a shorter spren, with hair kept about level with the point of her chin. She didn’t wear a uniform, but the stiff jacket and trousers she preferred might as well have been one.

  Veil elbowed her way over to Lusintia, earning shocked glances from the honorspren, who generally didn’t crowd in such a way. Pattern followed in her wake.

  “That can’t be the High Judge,” Veil said, pointing. “I specifically asked if the High Judge was human.”

  “He’s not,” Lusintia said.

  “But—”

  “He might have the form of a man,” Lusintia said. “But he is an eternal and immortal spren who blesses us with his presence. That is Kalak, called Kelek’Elin among your people. Herald of the Almighty. He commanded us not to tell people he was here—and ordered us specifically to not speak of him to humans, so we were not allowed to answer your questions until you saw him for yourself.”

  One of the Heralds. Damnation.

  The man Mraize had sent her to find—and, she suspected, the man he wanted her to kill—was one of the Heralds.

  Jezrien is gone. Despite being all the way out here in Lasting Integrity, I felt him being ripped away. The Oathpact was broken already, but the Connection remained. Each of us can sense the others, to an extent. And with further investigation, I know the truth of what happened to him. It felt like death at first, and I think that is what it ultimately became.

  Rlain stepped into the laundry room, and felt every single storming head in the place turn to look at him. The singer guards at the door perked up, one nudging the other and humming to Curiosity. Human women working the large tubs of sudsy water turned as they scrubbed. Men who were toiling at bleaching vats—with long poles to move the cloth inside—stopped and wiped brows. Chatter became whispers.

  Rlain. Traitor. Reject. Oddity.

  He kept his head high—he hadn’t lived through Bridge Four to be intimidated by a quiet room and staring eyes—but he couldn’t help feeling like he was the one gemstone in the pile that didn’t glow. Somehow, with the singers invading Urithiru, he’d become more of an outsider.

  He strode past the vats and tubs to the drying station. Some of the tower’s original fabrials—the lifts, the main wells, the air vents—had been altered to work with Voidlight. That meant the workers here could set out large racks for drying in this room where the vents blew a little stronger. There was talk that the Fused would get other fabrials in the tower working soon, but Rlain wasn’t privy to their timelines.

  Near the drying racks he found a small cart waiting for him, filled with clean bedding. He counted the sheets as the foreman—a lighteyed human who always seemed to be standing around when Rlain visited—leaned against the wall nearby, folding his arms.

  “So,” he said to Rlain, “what’s it like? Roaming the tower. Ruling the place. Pretty good, eh?”

  “I don’t rule anything,” Rlain said.

  “Sure, sure. Must feel good though, being in charge of all those people who used to own you.”

  “I’m a listener,” Rlain said to Irritation. “I was never an Alethi slave, just a spy pretending to be one.” Well, except for Bridge Four. That had felt like true slavery.

  “But your people are in charge now,” the man prodded, completely unable to take a hint.

  “They aren’t my people,” Rlain said. “I’m a listener—I come from an entirely different country. I’m as much one of them as you are an Iriali.”

  The man scratched his head at that. Rlain sighed and wheeled the cart over to pick up some pillows. The women there didn’t usually talk to him, so he was able to pile up the pillows without getting more than a few scowls.

  He could hear their whispers, unfortunately. Better than they probably thought he could.

  “… Don’t speak too loudly,” one was saying. “He’ll report you to them.”

  “He was here all along,” another hissed. “Watching the Windrunners, planning when best to strike. He’s the one who poisoned them.”

  “Hovers over them like a vengeful spren,” a third said. “Watching to kill any who wake up. Any who—”

  She squealed as Rlain spun toward the three women. Their eyes opened wide and they drew back. Rlain could feel their tension as he walked up to them.

  “I like cards,” he said.

  The three stared at him in horror.

  “Cards,” Rlain said to Longing. “I’m best at towers, but I like runaround too. I’m pretty good, you know. Bisig says it’s because I’m good at bluffing. I find it fun. I like it.”

  The three women exchanged looks, obviously confused.

  “I thought you should know something about me,” Rlain said. “I figured maybe if you did, you would stop making things up.” He nodded to them, then forcibly attuned Peace as he went back to tie the pillows into place on the top of his cart. As he began wheeling it away, the whispers started again.

  “You heard him,” the first woman hissed. “He’s a gambler! Of course. Those kind can see the future, you know. Foul powers of the Void. He likes to take advantage of those unwise enough to bet against him.…”

  Rlain sighed, but kept going. At the door, he knew to step to the side as one of the singer guards tried to trip him. They hadn’t tired of that same old terrible trick—no matter how many times he visited. He shoved his way out the door quickly, but not before one of them called, “See you tomorrow, traitor!” to the Rhythm of Reprimand.

  Rlain pushed the cart through the halls of Urithiru. There were a lot of people out, both human and singer. Bringing water from the wells was a full-time duty for many hundreds of workers. A lot of the population had moved away from the perimeter, which was growing too cold. Instead they crowded together into these interior rooms.

  Humans gave way for him. Most of the singers didn’t glance at him, but those who did usually noticed his tattoo. Their rhythms changed, and their eyes followed him. Some hated him for the treason of his ancestors. Others had been told the listeners were a brave frontrunner group who had prepared for Odium’s return. These treated Rlain with reverence.

  In the face of it all—the frightened humans, the mistrusting Regals, the occasionally awed ordinary singers—he wished he could simply be Rlain. He hated that to every one of them, he was some kind of representation of an entire people. He wanted to be seen as a person, not a symbol.

  The closest he’d come had been among the men of Bridge Four. Even though they’d named him “Shen,” of all things. That was like naming one of their children “Human.” But for all their faults, they had succeeded in giving him a home. Because they’d been willing to try to see him for himself.

  As he pushed his cart, he caught sight of that cremling again. The nondescript brown one that would scuttle along walls near the ceiling, blending in with the stonework. They were still watching him.

  Venli had warned him about this. Voidspren invisibility didn’t work properly in the tower. So it appeared that, to keep an eye on someone here, they’d begun entering an animal’s gemheart. He tried to pretend he hadn’t seen it. Eventually, it turned and scuttled down a different hallway. Voidspren weren’t fully able to control the animals they bonded; though apparently the dumber the animal, the easier they were to influence. So there was no way of telling if the Voidspren had decided it had seen enough for the day, or if its host was merely distracted.

  Rlain eventually reached the atrium, and like many people, he briefly basked in the light coming through the large eastern window. There was always a lot of traffic in here these days. Though only the privileged among the singers were allowed to use the lifts, people of both species came here for light.

  He crossed the atrium with his cart, then pushed it through into the Radiant infirmary. He still couldn’t relax—as a surprising number of humans moved through the room among the unconscious Radiants.

  Ostensibly they all had a reason to be there. Water carriers, people to cha
nge the bedpans, others recruited to help feed broth to the Radiants. There were always new volunteers—the men and women of the tower were turning coming here into some kind of pilgrimage. Look in on the Radiants. Care for them. Then go burn prayers for them to recover. None of the people working in here seemed bothered by the fact that—not two years ago—they would have cursed by the Lost Radiants.

  Eyes chased Rlain as he—forcing himself to walk to the beat of the Rhythm of Peace—delivered the cart of freshly laundered sheets and pillows to those changing them. A man with one arm and haunted eyes was overseeing this work today. Like most of the others in the room, he’d painted his forehead with the shash glyph. That baffled Rlain.

  A few days ago, Lezian the Pursuer had ordered his men to beat those who wore the forehead mark—though only a day later, that order had been reversed by Raboniel. Still seemed strange that so many humans would wear the thing. They had to realize they were singling themselves out.

  Though he’d been forced to rein in his men, and there had been fewer incidents recently, the Pursuer continued to push for more brutality in the tower. Unnervingly, he’d placed a few guards here in the infirmary: two stormform Regals currently, on rotation with several other Regals, who stood watch at all hours.

  Rlain felt their stares on him as he walked to the back of the room where Lirin and Hesina had used hanging sheets to section off a part as a kind of office and living quarters for themselves. Rlain forced himself to attune Confidence until he could step between the sheets.

  Inside he found Lirin peeking out at the stormforms. A small surgery station was set up behind him, where Lirin could see patients—because of course he needed to do that. Kaladin had spoken of his father, and Rlain felt he knew Lirin and Hesina, though he’d interacted with them in person for only a few weeks.

  “Well?” Rlain asked.

  “The stormforms have seen me and Hesina,” Lirin whispered. “We couldn’t stay hidden all the time. But I don’t think it matters. By this point, someone must have recognized us. I wouldn’t be surprised if those Regals were sent here in the first place because this ‘Pursuer’ discovered we were here.”