The princess began scrubbing her skin with mildly abrasive soap. “That was a particularly bland response, Shallan. What happened to your wit?”
Shallan glanced at the bench and its precious fabrial. After all this time, she had proven too weak to do what needed to be done. “My wit is on temporary hiatus, Brightness,” she said. “Pending review by its colleagues, sincerity and temerity.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her.
Shallan sat back on her heels, still kneeling on the towel. “How do you know what is right, Jasnah? If you don’t listen to the devotaries, how do you decide?”
“That depends upon one’s philosophy. What is most important to you?”
“I don’t know. Can’t you tell me?”
“No,” Jasnah replied. “If I gave you the answers, I’d be no better than the devotaries, prescribing beliefs.”
“They aren’t evil, Jasnah.”
“Except when they try to rule the world.”
Shallan drew her lips into a thin line. The War of Loss had destroyed the Hierocracy, shattering Vorinism into the devotaries. That was the inevitable result of a religion trying to rule. The devotaries were to teach morals, not enforce them. Enforcement was for the lighteyes.
“You say you can’t give me answers,” Shallan said. “But can’t I ask for the advice of someone wise? Someone who’s gone before? Why write our philosophies, draw our conclusions, if not to influence others? You yourself told me that information is worthless unless we use it to make judgments.”
Jasnah smiled, dunking her arms and washing off the soap. Shallan caught a victorious glimmer in her eye. She wasn’t necessarily advocating ideas because she believed them; she just wanted to push Shallan. It was infuriating. How was Shallan to know what Jasnah really thought if she adopted conflicting points of view like this?
“You act as if there were one answer,” Jasnah said, gesturing to Shallan to fetch a towel and climbing from the pool. “A single, eternally perfect response.”
Shallan hastily complied, bearing a large, fluffy towel. “Isn’t that what philosophy is about? Finding the answers? Seeking the truth, the real meaning of things?”
Toweling off, Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her.
“What?” Shallan asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“I believe it is time for a field exercise,” Jasnah said. “Outside of the Palanaeum.”
“Now?” Shallan asked. “It’s so late!”
“I told you philosophy was a hands-on art,” Jasnah said, wrapping the towel around herself, then reaching down and taking the Soulcaster out of its pouch. She slipped the chains around her fingers, securing the gemstones to the back of her hand. “I’ll prove it to you. Come, help me dress.”
As a child, Shallan had relished those evenings when she’d been able to slip away into the gardens. When the blanket of darkness rested atop the grounds, they had seemed a different place entirely. In those shadows, she’d been able to imagine that the rockbuds, shalebark, and trees were some foreign fauna. The scrapings of cremlings climbing out of cracks had become the footsteps of mysterious people from far-off lands. Large-eyed traders from Shinovar, a greatshell rider from Kadrix, or a narrowboat sailor from the Purelake.
She didn’t have those same imaginings when walking Kharbranth at night. Imagining dark wanderers in the night had once been an intriguing game—but here, dark wanderers were likely to be real. Instead of becoming a mysterious, intriguing place at night, Kharbranth seemed much the same to her—just more dangerous.
Jasnah ignored the calls of rickshaw pullers and palanquin porters. She walked slowly in a beautiful dress of violet and gold, Shallan following in blue silk. Jasnah hadn’t taken time to have her hair done following her bath, and she wore it loose, cascading across her shoulders, almost scandalous in its freedom.
They walked the Ralinsa—the main thoroughfare that led down the hillside in switchbacks, connecting Conclave and port. Despite the late hour, the roadway was crowded, and many of the men who walked here seemed to bear the night inside of them. They were gruff er, more shadowed of face. Shouts still rang through the city, but those carried the night in them too, measured by the roughness of their words and the sharpness of their tones. The steep, slanted hillside that formed the city was no less crowded with buildings than always, yet these too seemed to draw in the night. Blackened, like stones burned by a fire. Hollow remains.
The bells still rang. In the darkness, each ring was a tiny scream. They made the wind more present, a living thing that caused a chiming cacophony each time it passed. A breeze rose, and an avalanche of sound came tumbling across the Ralinsa. Shallan nearly found herself ducking before it.
“Brightness,” Shallan said. “Shouldn’t we call for a palanquin?”
“A palanquin might inhibit the lesson.”
“I’ll be all right learning that lesson during the day, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Jasnah stopped, looking off the Ralinsa and toward a darker side street. “What do you think of that roadway, Shallan?”
“It doesn’t look particularly appealing to me.”
“And yet,” Jasnah said, “it is the most direct route from the Ralinsa to the theater district.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“We aren’t ‘going’ anywhere,” Jasnah said, taking off down the side street. “We are acting, pondering, and learning.”
Shallan followed nervously. The night swallowed them; only the occasional light from late-night taverns and shops offered illumination. Jasnah wore her black, fingerless glove over her Soulcaster, hiding the light of its gemstones.
Shallan found herself creeping. Her slippered feet could feel every change in the ground underfoot, each pebble and crack. She looked about nervously as they passed a group of workers gathered around a tavern doorway. They were darkeyes, of course. In the night, that distinction seemed more profound.
“Brightness?” Shallan asked in a hushed tone.
“When we are young,” Jasnah said, “we want simple answers. There is no greater indication of youth, perhaps, than the desire for everything to be as it should. As it has ever been.”
Shallan frowned, still watching the men by the tavern over her shoulder.
“The older we grow,” Jasnah said, “the more we question. We begin to ask why. And yet, we still want the answers to be simple. We assume that the people around us—adults, leaders—will have those answers. Whatever they give often satisfies us.”
“I was never satisfied,” Shallan said softly. “I wanted more.”
“You were mature,” Jasnah said. “What you describe happens to most of us, as we age. Indeed, it seems to me that aging, wisdom, and wondering are synonymous. The older we grow, the more likely we are to reject the simple answers. Unless someone gets in our way and demands they be accepted regardless.” Jasnah’s eyes narrowed. “You wonder why I reject the devotaries.”
“I do.”
“Most of them seek to stop the questions.” Jasnah halted. Then she briefly pulled back her glove, using the light beneath to reveal the street around her. The gemstones on her hand—larger than broams—blazed like torches, red, white, and grey.
“Is it wise to be showing your wealth like that, Brightness?” Shallan said, speaking very softly and glancing about her.
“No,” Jasnah said. “It is most certainly not. Particularly not here. You see, this street has gained a particular reputation lately. On three separate occasions during the last two months, theatergoers who chose this route to the main road were accosted by footpads. In each case, the people were murdered.”
Shallan felt herself grow pale.
“The city watch,” Jasnah said, “has done nothing. Taravangian has sent them several pointed reprimands, but the captain of the watch is cousin to a very influential lighteyes in the city, and Taravangian is not a terribly powerful king. Some suspect that there is more going on, that the footpads might be bribing the watch. The politics of it are irrelevant
at the moment for, as you can see, no members of the watch are guarding the place, despite its reputation.”
Jasnah pulled her glove back on, plunging the roadway back into darkness. Shallan blinked, her eyes adjusting.
“How foolish,” Jasnah said, “would you say it is for us to come here, two undefended women wearing costly clothing and bearing riches?”
“Very foolish. Jasnah, can we go? Please. Whatever lesson you have in mind isn’t worth this.”
Jasnah drew her lips into a line, then looked toward a narrow, darker alleyway off the road they were on. It was almost completely black now that Jasnah had replaced her glove.
“You’re at an interesting place in your life, Shallan,” Jasnah said, flexing her hand. “You are old enough to wonder, to ask, to reject what is presented to you simply because it was presented to you. But you also cling to the idealism of youth. You feel there must be some single, all-defining Truth—and you think that once you find it, all that once confused you will suddenly make sense.”
“I…” Shallan wanted to argue, but Jasnah’s words were tellingly accurate. The terrible things Shallan had done, the terrible thing she had planned to do, haunted her. Was it possible to do something horrible in the name of accomplishing something wonderful?
Jasnah walked into the narrow alleyway.
“Jasnah!” Shallan said. “What are you doing?”
“This is philosophy in action, child,” Jasnah said. “Come with me.”
Shallan hesitated at the mouth of the alleyway, her heart thumping, her thoughts muddled. The wind blew and bells rang, like frozen raindrops shattering against the stones. In a moment of decision, she rushed after Jasnah, preferring company, even in the dark, to being alone. The shrouded glimmer of the Soulcaster was barely enough to light their way, and Shallan followed in Jasnah’s shadow.
Noise from behind. Shallan turned with a start to see several dark forms crowding into the alley. “Oh, Stormfather,” she whispered. Why? Why was Jasnah doing this?
Shaking, Shallan grabbed at Jasnah’s dress with her freehand. Other shadows were moving in front of them, from the far side of the alley. They grew closer, grunting, splashing through foul, stagnant puddles. Chill water had already soaked Shallan’s slippers.
Jasnah stopped moving. The frail light of her cloaked Soulcaster reflected off metal in the hands of their stalkers. Swords or knives.
These men meant murder. You didn’t rob women like Shallan and Jasnah, women with powerful connections, then leave them alive as witnesses. Men like these were not the gentlemen bandits of romantic stories. They lived each day knowing that if they were caught, they would be hanged.
Paralyzed by fear, Shallan couldn’t even scream.
Stormfather, Stormfather, Stormfather!
“And now,” Jasnah said, voice hard and grim, “the lesson.” She whipped off her glove.
The sudden light was nearly blinding. Shallan raised a hand against it, stumbling back against the alley wall. There were four men around them. Not the men from the tavern entrance, but others. Men she hadn’t noticed watching them. She could see the knives now, and she could also see the murder in their eyes.
Her scream finally broke free.
The men grunted at the glare, but shoved their way forward. A thick-chested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised. She calmly reached her hand out—fingers splayed—and pressed it against his chest as he swung a knife. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat.
Jasnah’s hand sank into the man’s skin, and he froze. A second later he burned.
No, he became fire. Transformed into flames in an eyeblink. Rising around Jasnah’s hand, they formed the outline of a man with head thrown back and mouth open. For just a moment, the blaze of the man’s death outshone Jasnah’s gemstones.
Shallan’s scream trailed off. The figure of flames was strangely beautiful. It was gone in a moment, the fire dissipating into the night air, leaving an orange afterimage in Shallan’s eyes.
The other three men began to curse, scrambling away, tripping over one another in their panic. One fell. Jasnah turned casually, brushing his shoulder with her fingers as he struggled to his knees. He became crystal, a figure of pure, flawless quartz—his clothing transformed along with him. The diamond in Jasnah’s Soulcaster faded, but there was still plenty of Stormlight left to send rainbow sparkles through the transformed corpse.
The other two men fled in opposite directions. Jasnah took a deep breath, closing her eyes, lifting her hand above her head. Shallan held her safehand to her breast, stunned, confused. Terrified.
Stormlight shot from Jasnah’s hand like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical. One struck each of the footpads and they popped, puffing into smoke. Their empty clothing dropped to the ground. With a sharp snap, the smokestone crystal on Jasnah’s Soulcaster cracked, its light vanishing, leaving her with just the diamond and the ruby.
The remains of the two footpads rose into the air, small billows of greasy vapor. Jasnah opened her eyes, looking eerily calm. She tugged her glove back on—using her safehand to hold it against her stomach and sliding her freehand fingers in. Then she calmly walked back the way they had come. She left the crystal corpse kneeling with hand upraised. Frozen forever.
Shallan pried herself off the wall and hastened after Jasnah, sickened and amazed. Ardents were forbidden to use their Soulcasters on people. They rarely even used them in front of others. And how had Jasnah struck down two men at a distance? From everything Shallan had read—what little there was to find—Soulcasting required physical contact.
Too overwhelmed to demand answers, she stood silent—freehand held to the side of her head, trying to control her trembling and her gasping breaths—as Jasnah called for a palanquin. One came eventually, and the two women climbed in.
The bearers carried them toward the Ralinsa, their steps jostling Shallan and Jasnah, who sat across from one another in the palanquin. Jasnah idly popped the broken smokestone from her Soulcaster, then tucked it into a pocket. It could be sold to a gemsmith, who could cut smaller gemstones from the salvaged pieces.
“That was horrible,” Shallan finally said, hand still held to her breast. “It was one of the most awful things I’ve ever experienced. You killed four men.”
“Four men who were planning to beat, rob, kill, and possibly rape us.”
“You tempted them into coming for us!”
“Did I force them to commit any crimes?”
“You showed off your gemstones.”
“Can a woman not walk with her possessions down the street of a city?”
“At night?” Shallan asked. “Through a rough area? Displaying wealth? You all but asked for what happened!”
“Does that make it right?” Jasnah said, leaning forward. “Do you condone what the men were planning to do?”
“Of course not. But that doesn’t make what you did right either!”
“And yet, those men are off the street. The people of this city are that much safer. The issue that Taravangian has been so worried about has been solved, and no more theatergoers will fall to those thugs. How many lives did I just save?”
“I know how many you just took,” Shallan said. “And through the power of something that should be holy!”
“Philosophy in action. An important lesson for you.”
“You did all this just to prove a point,” Shallan said softly. “You did this to prove to me that you could. Damnation, Jasnah, how could you do something like that?”
Jasnah didn’t reply. Shallan stared at the woman, searching for emotion in those expressionless eyes. Stormfather. Did I ever really know this woman? Who is she, really?
Jasnah leaned back, watching the city pass. “I did not do this just to prove a point, child. I have been feeling for some time that I took advantage of His Majesty’s hospitality. He doesn’t realize how much trouble he could face for allying himself with me. Besides, men like those…” There was something in her voice, an edge Sh
allan had never heard before.
What was done to you? Shallan wondered with horror. And who did it?
“Regardless,” Jasnah continued, “tonight’s actions came about because I chose this path, not because of anything I felt you needed to see. However, the opportunity also presented a chance for instruction, for questions. Am I a monster or am I a hero? Did I just slaughter four men, or did I stop four murderers from walking the streets? Does one deserve to have evil done to her by consequence of putting herself where evil can reach her? Did I have a right to defend myself? Or was I just looking for an excuse to end lives?”
“I don’t know,” Shallan whispered.
“You will spend the next week researching it and thinking on it. If you wish to be a scholar—a true scholar who changes the world—then you will need to face questions like this. There will be times when you must make decisions that churn your stomach, Shallan Davar. I’ll have you ready to make those decisions.”
Jasnah fell silent, looking out the side as the palanquin bearers marched them up to the Conclave. Too troubled to say more, Shallan suffered the rest of the trip in silence. She followed Jasnah through the hushed hallways to their rooms, passing scholars on their way to the Palanaeum for some midnight study.
Inside their rooms, Shallan helped Jasnah undress, though she hated touching the woman. She shouldn’t have felt that way. The men Jasnah had killed were terrible creatures, and she had little doubt that they would have killed her. But it wasn’t the act itself so much as the cold callousness of it that bothered her.
Still feeling numb, Shallan fetched Jasnah a sleeping robe as the woman removed her jewelry and set it on the dressing table. “You could have let the other three get away,” Shallan said, walking back toward Jasnah, who had sat down to brush her hair. “You only needed to kill one of them.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jasnah said.
“Why? They would have been too frightened to do something like that again.”
“You don’t know that. I sincerely wanted those men gone. A careless barmaid walking home the wrong way cannot protect herself, but I can. And I will.”
The Way of Kings Page 66