Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  Blended strolled around Adolin and studied Maya’s face. “Still scratched out…” she said. “Though a bond between you is.”

  “I’m … no Radiant,” Adolin said.

  “No. That is certain.” Maya met Blended’s gaze. “But something is happening. I must leave this place at last and return to the inkspren. If the words this deadeye spoke are…”

  “If what she said is true,” Adolin said, “then you have no further excuse for refusing humankind the bonds they need.”

  “Don’t we?” Blended asked. “For centuries, my kind told ourselves an easy lie, yes. That humans had been selfish. That humans had murdered. But easy answers often are, so we can be excused.

  “This truth, though, means a greater problem is. Thousands of spren chose death instead of letting the Radiants continue. Does this not worry you more? They truly believed that—as humans claimed at the time—Surgebinding would destroy the world. That the solution was to end the orders of Radiants. Suddenly, at the cost of many lives.”

  “Did you know the full cost, Maya?” Adolin asked, the question suddenly occurring to him. “Did you and your Radiants know that you would become deadeyes?”

  Adolin felt Maya searching deep, pushing through her exhaustion, seeking … memories that were difficult for her to access. Eventually, she shook her head and whispered, “Pain. Yes. Death? No. Maybe.”

  Adolin sat beside her, letting her lean against him. “Why, Maya? Why were you willing to do it?”

  “To save … save…” She sagged and shook her head.

  “To save us from something worse,” Adolin said, then looked to Blended. “What does it mean?”

  “It means we’ve had all of this terribly wrong for much time, Highprince Adolin,” she said. “And my own stupidity is. I have always thought myself smart.” She shook her head as she stood before them, arms folded. “What an effective test. Very effective.”

  “This?” Adolin said, waving to the empty forum. “This was a complete and utter farce.”

  “I meant a different test,” Blended said. “The true trial—the one you’ve been engaging in for the last few years: the test for this spren’s loyalty. She was the only judge who ever mattered, and today was her chance to offer judgment.” Blended leaned forward. “You passed.”

  With that she turned to go and strode up the steps—her stark onyx coloring making her seem a shadow with no accompanying body. “Easy answers no longer are,” she said. “But if deadeyes can begin to return … this is grand news. Important news. I will convey this to my people.

  “I do not know if making new Radiants is a good idea—but I must admit that your ancestors were not traitors. Something did frighten them enormously, to cause humans and spren to destroy their bonds. And if the spren did not know they would die … then pieces of this puzzle are still missing. The questions are more complicated, and more dangerous, than we ever knew.”

  With that, Blended left. Adolin let Maya rest for a few minutes. When he finally stood up, she joined him. She followed him as she normally did, expressionless and mild, but he could feel that she was not as insensate as she’d been. She was conserving energy.

  She wasn’t healed, but she was better. And when he had needed her, she had been willing to struggle through death itself to speak for him.

  No, he thought. She spoke for herself. Don’t make the same mistake again.

  He needed to find Shallan and head to the Oathgate so they could share what he’d learned. Maybe the honorspren would swallow their pride and help. Maybe they would, as Blended said, find other reasons to fear.

  Either way, he suspected the Radiant relationship would never be the same again.

  FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO

  Venli scrambled through a nightmare of her own making.

  Beneath a blackened sky, humans and listeners fought with steel and lightning. She heard screams more often than commands, and beneath it all, a new song. A song of summoning, joined by thousands of voices. The Everstorm was coming, building to a crescendo as the listeners called it.

  She’d imagined this day as an organized effort by the listeners—led by her. Instead there was chaos, war, and death.

  She did not join in the singing. She splashed through deep puddles, seeking to escape. The Weeping rains streamed down, soft but persistent. She passed listeners she recognized, all standing in a line, their eyes glowing red as they sang.

  “Faridai,” she said to one of them. “We have to get away. The humans are sweeping in this direction.”

  He glanced at her, but continued singing. The whole line seemed completely oblivious to the rain, and mostly oblivious to her words. She attuned Panic. They were overwhelmed by the new form, consumed by it.

  She felt that same impulse, but was able to resist. Perhaps because of her long association with Ulim? She wasn’t certain. Venli hurried away, looking over her shoulder. She couldn’t make out much of what was happening on the battlefield. It stretched across multiple plateaus, veiled in mist and rain, shadowed by pitch-black clouds. Occasional bursts of red lightning showed that many of the new stormforms were fighting.

  Hopefully they could control their powers better than Venli could. When she had released the energy of stormform—expecting grand attacks that smote her foes—the lightning had gone in wild directions, unpredictable. She didn’t think she had hurt a single human, and now she felt limp, the glorious energy expended—and slow to renew.

  She hid by a large lump of rock that might have been a building long ago. Behind her, humans attacked the line of listeners she’d left; she heard screams, felt a crack as lightning was released.

  Their song did not start again, but she heard humans cursing and talking in their crude tongue, voices echoing over the sound of the rain. More dead. The storm was building, yes—nearly upon them. But how many listeners would be slaughtered before it arrived?

  Surely the other battlefronts are doing better, she thought, squeezing her eyes closed and listening to the Rhythm of Panic. Surely the listeners are winning.

  What of Ulim’s promises? What of Venli’s throne? She breathed in cold air, water streaming along the sides of her face, leaving her skin numb and her carapace chilled. She pressed against the rocks, trembling. It was all wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be safe.

  The sound of boots scraping stone made her open her eyes in time to see a spear coming at her. She lunged to the side, but the weapon struck across the ridges on her cheek and nose, cutting only a thin slice in her skin—mostly deflecting off the carapace mask stormform had given her face.

  She fell to the ground in a puddle and tried to pull away, one hand out and pleading. The human loomed over her, a terrible figure with his features completely lost in the shadow of his helm. He raised his spear.

  “No, no,” Venli said to Subservience in his language. “Please, no. I’m scholar. No weapon. Please, no.”

  He brandished his spear, but as she cringed—turning aside her face—no blow came. The man stepped away, then jogged off, joining some of his fellows who were forming up against an approaching group with glowing red eyes.

  Venli felt at the scrape the spear had caused, amazed at how little it had wounded her. Then she felt at her skin, her clothing. He’d … he’d just left her alone. As she’d asked. She stared after the man, attuning Derision. The fool didn’t know how important a listener he’d spared. He should have killed her.

  Derision seemed to fade though, as she considered. Was … was that the proper rhythm, the proper feeling, she should feel upon being saved? What had happened to her these last few years? What had she let happen to her?

  For a moment she heard the Rhythm of Appreciation instead. Part of her, it seemed, didn’t want to bask in the glory of the new form. Part of her longed for the comforts of the familiar. When she’d been weak.

  And this is strength? she thought as she picked herself up off the ground, listening to the thunder.

  The new storm was app
roaching. It would save them, exterminating the humans and elevating the listeners who survived. She simply had to make certain she was one of them. She scurried away to search out a stronger group of listeners to protect her. She entered an open section of plateau, slick with water, near one of the chasms.

  Bands of humans and listeners roamed along the edge of the chasm here, trying to get an upper hand against one another. If anything, the fighting in this area was more horrifying. She forcibly attuned Conceit and moved along the perimeter. Conceit. A good rhythm, a counterpart to Determination or Confidence—only grander. Conceit was a proud, strong rhythm with a surging fanfare of quick, complex, and bold beats.

  That was how she needed to feel. This was her battlefield. She’d crafted this, she’d brought it all together. There was nothing to fear here. This was her victory celebration.

  She passed one of the humans’ dead horses, a Ryshadium by the size. It had been killed by lightning, so at least some of her people were capable of controlling their new abilities. Ahead—illuminated by scattered light through a patch of clouds—she saw two brilliant figures fighting along the edge of the chasm. Shardbearers.

  Venli didn’t know the human, but the listener was Eshonai. She was the last of their Shardbearers. The Plate was distinctive, even if the new form had … changed her. It was hard to associate the terrible warlord Eshonai had become with the thoughtful femalen who had tried so hard to find a way out of the war.

  Venli stopped beside a broken spire of rock and hunkered down, watching through the rain as the two clashed. Eshonai—particularly the enhanced Eshonai—could handle a duel on her own. Venli would just be in the way.

  She was able to tell herself this, and believe it, right up until Eshonai was shoved off the rim of the chasm. One moment she was holding her own against the human. The next she was gone. Plunged into the abyss.

  Venli watched her go with a feeling of disconnect. In Shardplate, Eshonai could survive that fall. Probably. Venli was the one in danger, with the human Shardbearer nearby. The new rhythms thrummed through her, whispering of power. Heightening her emotions. She was herself, not overly influenced by the form. In control. Not a slave.

  Yet she felt … nothing. For a form that seemed so vibrant with emotions, that was wrong. Could the old Venli have watched her sister take a potentially deadly fall without so much as a sorrowful rhythm? Strange. Why no concern? What was happening to her?

  Venli withdrew. She … she’d go find Eshonai later. Help get her out of the chasm. They could attune Amusement together as they thought of Venli—a simple scholar—doing anything to help in a fight between two Shardbearers.

  The battlefield decayed further as Venli sought refuge. Screams. Lightning blasts. She saw in it something more terrible than just a clash over the future of their peoples. She saw something that enjoyed the killing. A force that seemed to be growing with the new storm, a force that loved passion, anger—any emotion, but especially those that came when people struggled.

  Emotion was never stronger than when someone died. This force sought it, craved it. Venli felt its presence like a building miasma, more oppressive than the rainclouds or the storm. She crept among some large rock formations. Lumps that had been buildings, now blanketed by thick crem. She wasn’t certain where she was in relation to the center of Narak.

  Fortunately, she found a narrow fissure between the ancient buildings. She squeezed in, wet and overwhelmed by the building sensation. Something was coming, something incredible. Something terrible.

  The new storm was here.

  Venli allowed herself to attune the rhythm of her true emotions—the wild, frenetic beat of the Rhythm of Panic. A more virulent version of the Rhythm of the Terrors. Everything went black, the last few hints of sunlight consumed by the weight of this new storm. Then, red lightning. It electrified the sky, and Venli crouched. No. She was still too exposed.

  She knew with a sudden, inexplicable confidence that if the storm saw her, it would destroy her.

  Between bolts of lightning, she pushed out of the cavity of rock and felt her way along the side of the stone building. The winds began to howl. Something else … something else was coming. A highstorm too?

  Panic almost overwhelmed her. Then—to her incredible relief—her fingers felt something. A hole cut into one of the crem-covered buildings. This was fresh, the cuts unnaturally smooth; a Shardbearer had been here.

  She eagerly sought refuge inside, trying to banish the Rhythm of Panic, replace it with something else. Outside, the winds began to clash. She pressed against the rear wall of the small empty chamber, lit by the increasingly violent flashes of light outside. First red. Then white. Then the two tangled like fighting greatshells, crushing the land around them as they grappled.

  Debris began to whip past the opening, lit by the rapid flashes, and the rhythms in her head went crazy. Breaking apart, movements of one melding with another. The ground trembled and groaned, and Venli sought to hide deeper in the building, away from the violence. As she passed a doorway, however, the floor undulated and she was cast to the ground.

  With a sound so loud her whole body vibrated, an entire section of the stone building was ripped free—including the room she’d just left.

  She was pelted by rain, exposed to the howling winds through the broken wall. This was the end. The end of the world. Tiny, terrified, she pressed herself between two solid-seeming chunks of rock and closed her eyes, unable to hear the rhythms over the sound of the tempest.

  She knew what rhythm she’d hear if she could, though. For there, pressed between stones, Venli was forced to admit what she really was. The truth that had always been there, covered over, encrusted with crem. Exposed only when the winds cut her to her soul.

  She was no genius forging a new path for her people. Everything she’d “discovered” had been given or hinted at by Ulim.

  She was no queen deserving of rule. She cared nothing for her people. Just for her own self.

  She wasn’t powerful. The winds and the storms reminded her that no matter what she did—no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she pretended—she would always be small.

  She had pretended she was those things, and would likely pretend them again as soon as she could lie to herself. As soon as she was safe. But here—with everything else flayed away and her soul stripped bare—Venli was forced to admit what she truly was. What she’d always been.

  A coward.

  I tell you; I write it. You must release the captive Unmade. She will not fade as I will. If you leave her as she is, she will remain imprisoned for eternity.

  Rlain found her crying.

  Venli could count on her fingers the number of times she could remember crying. Not merely attuning Mourning, but actually crying. Today she couldn’t help herself. She knelt in the sectioned-off part of the infirmary room, overlooking the large map of the Shattered Plains that Rlain had stolen. She was alone. Lirin and Hesina were in the main room, seeing to the patients.

  A note on the map hinted at what Raboniel had said: a group of nomads in the hills. Her people. They had survived.

  She turned to Rlain, who—shocked—was humming to Awe at finding her like this.

  “We’re not the last,” Venli whispered. “They are alive, Rlain. Thousands of them.”

  “Who?” He knelt. “What are you talking about?”

  Venli wiped her eyes—she wouldn’t have her tears destroying this glorious map. Venli handed him the note Raboniel had given her, but of course he couldn’t read. So she read it out loud for him.

  “You mean…” he said, attuning Awe. “Thousands of them?”

  “It was Thude,” Venli said. “He refused stormform. So did most of Eshonai’s closest friends. I … I wasn’t thinking back then.… I would have had them killed, but Eshonai separated them off and let them escape. Part of her fought, so she gave them a chance, and … And then…”

  Storms, she was a mess. She wiped her eyes again.

  �
��You would have had them killed?” Rlain asked. “Venli, I don’t understand. What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Everything,” she whispered to Pleading. “A thousand lies, Rlain.”

  “Venli,” he said, taking her hand. “Kaladin is awake. Teft is too. We have a plan. The start of one, at least. I came to explain it to Lirin and Hesina. We’re going to try to wake the Radiants, but we need to get those stormforms out of the room. If you know something that might help, now would be a good time to talk.”

  “Help?” Venli whispered. “Nothing I do helps. It only hurts.”

  Rlain hummed to Confusion. At a gentle prompting from Timbre, Venli started talking. She began with the strange human woman who had given her the sphere, and went all the way up to when Thude and the others left.

  She didn’t hide her part in it. She didn’t coat it with the Rhythm of Consolation. She gave it to him raw. The whole terrible story.

  As she spoke, he pulled farther and farther away from her. His expression changed, his eyes widening, his rhythms moving from shocked to angry. As she might have expected. As she wanted.

  When she finished, they sat in silence.

  “You are a monster,” he finally said. “You did this. You are responsible.”

  She hummed to Consolation.

  “I suppose the enemy would have found another way,” he said, “without your help. Regardless, Venli. You … I mean…”

  “I need to find them,” she said, rolling up the map. “There are daily transfers to Kholinar. Raboniel has released me from my duties here, and given me a writ allowing me to requisition whatever I need. I should be able to procure a spot in the next transfer, and from there go with some Heavenly Ones on a scouting mission out to the Shattered Plains.”

  “And in so doing, you’d lead the enemy directly to our people,” Rlain said. “Venli, Raboniel obviously wants you to do this. She knows you’re going to run to them. You’re playing into whatever plot she has.”