The hungry sky rumbled above, dark and angry. Lift knew that feeling. Too much time between meals, and looking to eat whatever it could find, never mind the cost.
The storm hadn’t fully arrived yet, but from the distant lightning, it seemed that this new storm didn’t have a stormwall. Its onset wouldn’t be a sudden, majestic event, but instead a creeping advance. It loomed like a thug in an alley, knife out, waiting for prey to wander past.
Lift stepped up to the mouth of the alleyway beside the orphanage, then crept in, passing between shanties that looked far too flimsy to survive highstorms. Even if the city had been built to absolutely minimize winds, there was just so much junk in here. A particularly vigorous sneeze could leave half the people in the alley homeless.
They realized it too, as almost everyone here had gone to the storm bunkers. She did catch the odd face peeking suspiciously between rags draped on windows, anticipationspren growing up from the floor beside them like red streamers. They were people too stubborn, or perhaps too crazy, to be bothered. She didn’t completely blame them. The government giving sudden, random orders and expecting everyone to hop? That was the sort of thing she usually ignored.
Except they should have seen the sky, heard the thunder. A flash of red lightning lit her surroundings. Today, these people should have listened.
She inched farther into the alleyway, entering a place of undefined shadows. With the clouds overhead—and everyone having taken their spheres away—the place was nearly impenetrable. So silent, the only sound that of the sky. Storms, was the old man actually in here? Maybe he was safe in a bunker somewhere. That scream from earlier could have been something unrelated, right?
No, she thought. No, it wasn’t. She felt another chill run through her. Well, even if the old man was here, how would she find his body?
“Mistress,” Wyndle whispered. “Oh, I don’t like this place, mistress. Something’s wrong.”
Everything was wrong; it had been since Darkness had first stalked her. Lift continued on, past shadows that were probably laundry draped along strings between shanties. They looked like twisted, broken bodies in the gloom. Another flash of lightning from the approaching storm didn’t help; the red light it cast made the walls and shanties seem painted with blood.
How long was this alleyway? She was relieved when, at last, she stumbled over something on the ground. She reached down, feeling at a clothed arm. A body.
I will remember you, Lift thought, leaning over and squinting, trying to make out the old man’s shape.
“Mistress…” Wyndle whimpered. She felt him wrap around her leg and tighten there, like a child clinging to his mother.
What was that? She listened as the silence of the alley gave way to a clicking, scraping sound. It encircled her. And for the first time she noticed that the figure she was poking at didn’t seem to be wrapped in a shiqua. The cloth on the arm was too stiff, too thick.
Mother, Lift thought, terrified. What is happening?
Lightning flashed, granting her a glimpse of the corpse. A woman’s face stared upward with sightless eyes. A black and white uniform, painted crimson by the lightning and covered in some kind of silky substance.
Lift gasped and jumped backward, bumping into something behind her—another body. She spun, and the skittering, clicking sounds grew agitated. The next flash of lightning was bright enough for her to make out a body pressed against the wall of the alleyway, tied to part of a shanty, the head rolling to the side. She knew him, just as she knew the woman on the ground.
Darkness’s two minions, Lift thought. They’re dead.
“I heard an interesting idea once, while traveling in a land you will never visit.”
Lift froze. It was the old man’s voice.
“There are a group of people who believe that each day, when they sleep, they die,” the old man continued. “They believe that consciousness doesn’t continue—that if it is interrupted, a new soul is born when the body awakes.”
Storms, storms, STORMS, Lift thought, spinning around. The walls seemed to be moving, shifting, sliding like they were covered in oil. She tried shying away from the corpses, but … she’d lost where they were. Was that the direction she’d come from, or did that lead deeper into this nightmare of an alleyway?
“This philosophy,” the old man’s voice said, “certainly has its problems, at least to an outside observer. What of memory, and continuity of culture, family, society? Well, the Omnithi teach that each are things you inherit in the morning from the previous soul that inhabited your body. Certain brain structures imprint memories, to help you live your single day of life as best you can.”
“What are you?” Lift whispered, looking around frantically, trying to make sense of the darkness.
“What I find most interesting about these people is how they continue to exist at all,” he said. “One would assume chaos would follow if each human sincerely believed that they had only one day to live. I wonder often what it says about you that these people with such dramatic beliefs live lives that are—basically—the same as the rest of you.”
There, Lift thought, picking him out in the shadows. The shape of a man, though as lightning lit him she could see that he wasn’t all there. Chunks were missing from his flesh. His right shoulder ended in a stump, and storms, he was naked, with strange holes in his stomach and thighs. Even one of his eyes was missing. There was no blood though, and in a quick succession of flashes she picked up something climbing his legs. Cremlings.
That was the skittering sound. Thousands upon thousands of cremlings coated the walls, each the size of a finger. Little beasts of chitin and legs clicking away and making that awful buzz.
“The thing about this philosophy is how difficult it is to disprove,” the old man said. “How do you know that you are the same you as yesterday? You would never know if a new soul came to inhabit your body, so long as it had the same memories. But then … if it acts the same, and thinks it is you, why would it matter? What is it to be you, little Radiant?”
In the flashes of lightning—they were growing more common—she watched one of the cremlings crawl across his face, a bulbous protrusion hanging off its back. The thing crawled into the eye hole, and she realized that bulbous part was an eye. Other cremlings swarmed up and began filling in holes, forming the missing arm. Each had a portion on the back that resembled skin. It presented this outward, using its legs to interlock with the many others holding together on the inside of the body.
“To me,” he said, “this is all no more than idle theory, as unlike you I do not sleep. At least, not all of me at once.”
“What are you?” Lift said.
“Just another refugee.”
Lift backed away. She didn’t care anymore about going back in the direction she had come—so long as she got away from this thing.
“You needn’t fear me,” the old man said. “Your war is my war, and has been for millennia. Ancient Radiants named me friend and ally before everything went wrong. What wonderful days those were, before the Last Desolation. Days of … honor. Now gone, long gone.”
“You killed these two people!” Lift hissed.
“In defense of myself.” He chuckled. “I suppose that is a lie. They were not capable of killing me, so I can’t plead self-defense, any more than a soldier could plead it in murdering a child. But they did ask, in not so many words, for a contest—and I gave it to them.”
He stepped toward her, and a flash of lightning revealed him flexing his fingers on his newly formed hand as the thumb—a single cremling, with little spindly legs on the bottom—settled into place, tying itself into the others.
“But you,” the thing said, “did not come for a contest, did you? We watch the others. The assassin. The surgeon. The liar. The highprince. But not you. The others all ignore you … and that, I hazard to predict, is a mistake.”
He took out a sphere, bathing the place in a phantom glow, and smiled at her. She could see the lines crisscrossing his skin where th
e cremlings had fit themselves together, but they were nearly lost in the wrinkles of an aged body.
This was just the likeness of an old man though. A fabrication. Beneath that skin was not blood or muscle. It was hundreds of cremlings, pulling together to form a counterfeit man.
Many, many more of them still scuttled on the walls, now lit by his sphere. Lift could see that she’d somehow made it around the body of the fallen soldier, and was backing into a dead end between two shanties. She looked up. Didn’t seem too difficult to climb, now that she had some light.
“If you flee,” the thing noted, “he’ll kill the one you wanted to save.”
“You are just fine, I’m sure.”
The monster chuckled. “Those two fools got it wrong. I’m not the one that Nale is chasing; he knows to stay away from me and my kind. No, there’s someone else. He stalks them tonight, and will complete his task. Nale, madman, Herald of Justice, is not one to leave business unfinished.”
Lift hesitated, hands in place on a shanty’s eaves, ready to haul herself up and start climbing. The cremlings on the walls—she’d never seen so many at once—scuttled aside, making room for her to pass.
He knew to let her run, if she wanted to. Clever monster.
Nearby, bathed in cool light that seemed bright as a bonfire compared to what she’d stumbled through before, the creature unwrapped a black shiqua. He started winding it around his right arm.
“I like this place,” he explained. “Where else would I have the excuse to cover my entire body? I’ve spent thousands of years breeding my hordelings, and still I can’t make them fit together quite right. I can pass for human almost as well as a Siah can these days, I’d hazard, but anyone who looks closely finds something off. It’s rather frustrating.”
“What do you know about Darkness and his plans?” Lift demanded. “And Radiants, and Voidbringers, and everything?”
“That’s quite the exhaustive list,” he said. “And I confess, I am the wrong one to ask. My siblings are more interested in you Radiants. If you ever encounter another of the Sleepless, tell them you’ve spoken with Arclo. I’m certain it will gain you sympathy.”
“That wasn’t an answer. Not the kind I wanted.”
“I’m not here to answer you, human. I’m here because I’m interested, and you are the source of my curiosity. When one achieves immortality, one must find purpose beyond the struggle to live, as old Axies always said.”
“You seem to have found purpose in talkin’ a whole bunch,” Lift said. “Without being helpful to nobody.” She scrambled up on top of the shanty, but didn’t go any higher. Wyndle climbed the wall beside her, and the cremlings shied away from him. They could sense him?
“I’m helping with far more than your little personal problem. I’m building a philosophy, one meaningful enough to span ages. You see, child, I can grow what I need. Is my mind becoming full? I can breed new hordelings specialized in holding memories. Do I need to sense what is going on in the city? Hordelings with extra eyes, or antennae to taste and hear, can solve that. Given time, I can make for my body nearly anything I need.
“But you … you are stuck with only one body. So how do you make it work? I have come to suspect that men in a city are each part of some greater organism they can’t see—like the hordelings that make up my kind.”
“That’s great,” Lift said. “But earlier, you said that Darkness was hunting someone else? You think he still hasn’t killed his prey in the city?”
“Oh, I’m certain he hasn’t. He hunts them right now. He will know that his minions have failed.”
The storm rumbled above, close. She itched to leave, to find shelter. But …
“Tell me,” she said. “Who is it?”
The creature smiled. “A secret. And we are in Tashikk, are we not? Shall we trade? You answer me honestly regarding my questions, and I’ll give you a hint.”
“Why me?” Lift said. “Why not bother someone else with these questions? At another time?”
“Oh, but you’re so interesting.” He wrapped the shiqua around his waist, then down his leg, then back up it, crossing to the other leg. His cremlings coursed around him. Several climbed up his face, and his eyes crawled out, new ones replacing them so that he went from being darkeyed to light.
He spoke as he dressed. “You, Lift, are different from anyone else. If each city is a creature, then you are a most special organ. Traveling from place to place, bringing change, transformation. You Knights Radiant … I must know how you see yourselves. It will be an important corner of my philosophy.”
I am special, she thought. I’m awesome.
So why don’t I know what to do?
The secret fear crept out. The creature kept talking his strange speech: about cities, people, and their places. He praised her, but each offhand comment about how special she was made her wince. A storm was almost here, and Darkness was about to murder in the night. All she could do was crouch in the presence of two corpses and a monster made of little squirming pieces.
Listen, Lift. Are you listening? People, they don’t listen anymore.
“Yes, but how did the city of your birth know to create you?” the creature was saying. “I can breed individual pieces to do as I wish. What bred you? And why was this city able to summon you here now?”
Again that question. Why are you here?
“What if I’m not special,” Lift whispered. “Would that be okay too?”
The creature stopped and looked at her. On the wall, Wyndle whimpered.
“What if I’ve been lying all along,” Lift said. “What if I’m not strictly awesome. What if I don’t know what to do?”
“Instinct will guide you, I’m sure.”
I feel lost, like a soldier on a battlefield who can’t remember which banner is hers, the guard captain’s voice said.
Listening. She was listening, wasn’t she?
Half the time, I get the sense that even kings are confused by the world. Ghenna the scribe’s voice.
Nobody listened anymore.
I wish someone would tell us what was happening. The Stump’s voice.
“What if you’re wrong though?” Lift whispered. “What if ‘instinct’ doesn’t guide us? What if everybody is frightened, and nobody has the answers?”
It was the conclusion that had always been too intimidating to consider. It terrified her.
Did it have to, though? She looked up at the wall, at Wyndle surrounded by cremlings that snapped at him. Her own little Voidbringer.
Listen.
Lift hesitated, then patted him. She just … she just had to accept it, didn’t she?
In a moment, she felt relief akin to her terror. She was in darkness, but well, maybe she’d manage anyway.
Lift stood up. “I left Azir because I was afraid. I came to Tashikk because that’s where my starvin’ feet took me. But tonight … tonight I decided to be here.”
“What is this nonsense?” Arclo asked. “How does it help my philosophy?”
She cocked her head as a realization struck her, like a jolt of power. Huh. Fancy that, would you?
“I … didn’t heal that boy,” she whispered.
“What?”
“The Stump trades spheres for ones of lesser value, probably swapping dun ones for infused ones. She launders money because she needs the Stormlight; she probably feeds on it without realizing what she’s doing!” Lift looked down at Arclo, grinning. “Don’t you see? She takes care of the kids who were born sick, lets them stay. It’s because her powers don’t know how to heal those. The rest, though, they get better. They do it so suspiciously often that she’s started to believe that kids must come to her faking to get food. The Stump … is a Radiant.”
The Sleepless creature met her eyes, then sighed. “We will speak again another time. Like Nale, I am not one to leave tasks unfinished.”
He tossed his sphere along the alleyway, and it plinked against stone, rolling back toward the orphanage. Lighting the w
ay for Lift as she jumped down and started running.
19
The thunder chased her. Wind howled through the city’s slots, windspren zipping past her, as if fleeing the advent of the strange storm. The wind pushed against Lift’s back, blowing scraps of paper and refuse around her. She reached the small amphitheater at the mouth of the alley, and hazarded a glance behind her.
She stumbled to a stop, stunned.
The storm surged across the sky, a majestic and terrible black thunderhead coursing with red lightning. It was enormous, dominating the entire sky, wicked with flashes of inner light.
Raindrops started to pelt her, and though there was no stormwall, the wind was already growing tempestuous.
Wyndle grew in a circle around her. “Mistress? Mistress, oh, this is bad.”
She stepped back, transfixed by the boiling mass of black and red. Lightning sprayed down across the slots, and thunder hit her with so much force, it felt as if she should have been flung backward.
“Mistress!”
“Inside,” Lift said, scrambling toward the door into the orphanage. It was so dark, she could barely make out the wall. But as she arrived, she immediately noticed something wrong. The door was open.
Surely they’d closed it after she’d left? She slipped in. The room beyond was black, impenetrable, but feeling at the door told her that the bar had been cut right through. Probably from the outside, and with a weapon that sliced wood cleanly. A Shardblade.
Trembling, Lift felt for the cut portion of the bar on the floor, then managed to fit it into place, holding the door closed. She turned in the room, listening. She could hear the whimpers of the children, choked sobs.
“Mistress,” Wyndle whispered. “You can’t fight him.”
I know.
“There are Words that you must speak.”
They won’t help.
Tonight, the Words were the easy part.
It was hard not to adopt the fear of the children around her. Lift found herself trembling, and stopped somewhere in the center of the room. She couldn’t creep along, stumbling over other kids, if she wanted to stop Darkness.