Oathbringer

  Nearby, hundreds of little spren—like little orange or green people, only a few inches tall—were climbing among the spheres. She ignored those, searching for the soul of something that would help.

  “Shallan,” Pattern said, kneeling. “I don’t think … I don’t think Soulcasting will accomplish anything? It will change an object in the other realm, but not here.”

  “What can I do here?” Those spines or claws or whatever rose around them, inevitable, deadly.

  Pattern hummed, hands clasped before him. His fingers were too smooth, as if they were chiseled of obsidian. His head shifted and changed, going through its sequence—the spherical mass was never the same, yet somehow still always felt like him.

  “My memory…” he said. “I don’t remember.”

  Stormlight, Shallan thought. Jasnah had told her to never enter Shadesmar without Stormlight. Shallan pulled a sphere from her pocket—she still wore Veil’s outfit. The beads nearby reacted, trembling and rolling toward her.

  “Mmmm…” Pattern said. “Dangerous.”

  “I doubt staying here will be better,” Shallan said. She sucked in a little Stormlight, only one mark’s worth. As before, the spren didn’t seem to notice her use of Stormlight as much as they had Kaladin’s. She rested her freehand against the surface of the ocean. Beads stopped rolling and instead clicked together beneath her hand. When she pushed down, they resisted.

  Good first step, she thought, drawing in more Stormlight. The beads pressed around her hand, gathering, rolling onto one another. She cursed, worried that she’d soon just have a big pile of beads.

  “Shallan,” Pattern said, poking at one of the beads. “Perhaps this?”

  It was the soul of the shield she’d felt earlier. She moved the sphere to her gloved safehand, then pressed her other hand to the ocean. She used that bead’s soul as a guide—much like she used a Memory as a guide for doing a sketch—and the other beads obediently rolled together and locked into place, forming an imitation of the shield.

  Pattern stepped out onto it, then jumped up and down happily. Her shield held him without sinking, though he seemed as heavy as an ordinary person. Good enough. Now she just needed something big enough to hold them all. Preferably, as she considered, two somethings.

  “You, sword lady!” Shallan said, pointing at Azure. “Help me over here. Adolin, you too. Kaladin, see if you can brood this place into submission.”

  Azure and Adolin hurried over.

  Kaladin turned, frowning. “What?”

  Don’t think about that haunted look in his eyes, Shallan thought. Don’t think about what you’ve done in bringing us here, or how it happened. Don’t think, Shallan.

  Her mind went blank, like it did in preparation for drawing, then locked on to her task.

  Find a way out.

  “Everybody,” she said, “those flames are the souls of people, while these spheres represent the souls of objects. Yes, there are huge philosophical implications in that. Let’s try to ignore them, shall we? When you touch a bead, you should be able to sense what it represents.”

  Azure sheathed her Shardblade and knelt, feeling at the spheres. “I can … Yes, there’s an impression to each one.”

  “We need the soul of something long and flat.” Shallan plunged her hands into the spheres, eyes closed, letting the impressions wash over her.

  “I can’t sense anything,” Adolin said. “What am I doing wrong?” He sounded overwhelmed, but don’t think about that.

  Look. Fine clothing that hadn’t been taken out of its trunk in a long, long time. So old that it saw the dust as part of itself.

  Withering fruit that understood its purpose: decompose and stick its seeds to the rock, where they could hopefully weather storms long enough to sprout and gain purchase.

  Swords, recently swung and glorying in their purpose fulfilled. Other weapons belonged to dead men, blades that had the faintest inkling that they’d failed somehow.

  Living souls bobbed around, a swarm of them entering the Oathgate control chamber. One brushed Shallan. Drehy the bridgeman. For a brief moment she felt what it was like to be him. Worried for Kaladin. Panicked that nobody was in charge, that he would have to take command. He wasn’t a commander. You couldn’t be a rebel if you were in charge. He liked being told what to do—that way he could find a method to do it with style.

  Drehy’s worries caused her own to bubble up. The bridgemen’s powers will fade without Kaladin, she thought. What of Vathah, Red, and Ishnah? I didn’t—

  Focus. Something reached out from the back of her mind, grabbed those thoughts and feelings, and yanked them into the darkness. Gone.

  She brushed a bead with her fingers. A large door, like a keep’s gate. She grabbed the sphere and shifted it to her safehand. Unfortunately, the next bead she touched was the palace itself. Momentarily stunned by the majesty of it, Shallan gaped. She held the entire palace in her hand.

  Too large. She dropped it and kept searching.

  Trash that still saw itself as a child’s toy.

  A goblet that had been made from melted-down nails, taken from an old building.

  There. She seized hold of a sphere and pressed Stormlight into it. A building rose before her, made entirely out of beads: a copy of the Oathgate control building. She managed to make its top rise only a few feet above the surface, most of the building sinking into the depths. The rooftop was within reach.

  “On top of it!” she shouted.

  She held the replica in place as Pattern scrambled onto the roof. Adolin followed, trailed by that ghostly spren and Azure. Finally, Kaladin picked up his pack and walked with his spren onto the rooftop.

  Shallan joined them with the aid of a hand from Adolin. She clutched the sphere that was the soul of the building, and tried to make the bead structure move through the sea like a raft.

  It resisted, sitting there motionless. Well, she had another plan. She scurried to the other side of the roof and stretched down, held by Pattern, to touch the sea again. She used the soul of the large door to make another standing platform. Pattern jumped down, followed by Adolin and Azure.

  Once they’d all piled precariously on the door, Shallan let go of the building. It crashed down behind them, beads falling in a tumult, frightening some of the little green spren crawling among the beads nearby.

  Shallan reconstructed the building on the other side of the door, with only the rooftop showing. They filed across.

  They progressed like that—following building with door and door with building—inching toward that distant land. Each iteration took Stormlight, though she could reclaim some from each creation before it collapsed. Some of the eel-like spren with the long antennae followed them, curious, but the rest of the varieties—and there were dozens—let them pass without much notice.

  “Mmm…” Pattern said. “Much emotion on the other side. Yes, this is good. It distracts them.”

  The work was tiring and tedious, but step by step, Shallan moved them away from the frothing mess of the city of Kholinar. They passed the frightened lights of souls, the hungry spren who feasted on the emotions from the other side.

  “Mmm…” Pattern whispered to her. “Look, Shallan. The lights of souls are no longer disappearing. People must be surrendering in Kholinar. I know you do not like the destruction of your own.”

  That was good, but not unexpected. The parshmen had never massacred civilians, though she couldn’t say for certain what happened to Azure’s soldiers. She hoped fervently they were able to either escape or surrender.

  Shallan had to edge her group frighteningly close to two of the spines that had emerged from the depths. Those gave no sign of having noticed them. Beyond, they reached a calmer space out among the beads. A place where the only sound came from the clacking of glass.

  “She corrupted them,” Kaladin’s spren whispered.

  Shallan took a break, wiping her brow with a handkerchief from her satchel. They were distant enough that the lights of so
uls in Kholinar were just a general haze of light.

  “What was that, spren?” Azure asked. “Corrupted?”

  “That’s why we’re here. The Oathgate—do you remember those two spren in the sky? Those two are the gateway’s soul, but the red coloring … They must be His now. That’s why we ended up here, instead of going to Urithiru.”

  Sja-anat, Shallan thought, said she was supposed to kill us. But that she’d try not to.

  Shallan wiped her brow again, then got back to work.

  * * *

  Adolin felt useless.

  All his life, he had understood. He’d taken easily to dueling. People naturally seemed to like him. Even in his darkest moment—standing on the battlefield and watching Sadeas’s armies retreat, abandoning him and his father—he’d understood what was happening to him.

  Not today. Today he was just a confused little boy standing in Damnation.

  Today, Adolin Kholin was nothing.

  He stepped onto another copy of the door. They had to huddle together while Shallan dismissed the rooftop behind, sending it crashing down, then squeezed past everyone to raise another copy of the building.

  Adolin felt small. So very small. He started toward the rooftop. Kaladin, however, remained standing on the door, staring sightlessly. Syl, his spren, tugged his hand.

  “Kaladin?” Adolin asked.

  Kaladin finally shook himself and gave in to Syl’s prodding. He walked onto the rooftop. Adolin followed, then took Kaladin’s pack—deliberately but firmly—and swung it over his own shoulder. Kaladin let him. Behind, the doorway shattered back into the ocean of beads.

  “Hey,” Adolin said. “It will be all right.”

  “I survived Bridge Four,” Kaladin growled. “I’m strong enough to survive this.”

  “I’m pretty sure you could survive anything. Storms, bridgeboy, the Almighty used some of the same stuff he put into Shardblades when he made you.”

  Kaladin shrugged. But as they walked onto the next platform, his expression grew distant again. He stood while the rest of them moved on. Almost like he was waiting for their bridge to dissolve and dump him into the sea.

  “I couldn’t make them see,” Kaladin whispered. “I couldn’t … couldn’t protect them. I’m supposed to be able to protect people, aren’t I?”

  “Hey,” Adolin said. “You really think that strange spren with the weird eyes is my sword?”

  Kaladin started and focused on him, then scowled. “Yes, Adolin. I thought that was clear.”

  “I was just wondering.” Adolin glanced over his shoulder and shivered. “What do you think about this place? Have you ever heard of anything like it?”

  “Do you have to talk right now, Adolin?”

  “I’m frightened. I talk when I’m frightened.”

  Kaladin glared at him as if suspecting what Adolin was doing. “I know little of this place,” he finally answered. “But I think it’s where spren are born.…”

  Adolin kept him talking. As Shallan created each new platform, Adolin would lightly touch Kaladin on the elbow or shoulder and the bridgeman would step forward. Kaladin’s spren hovered nearby, but she let Adolin guide the conversation.

  Slowly they approached the strip of land, which turned out to be made of a deep, glassy black stone. Kind of like obsidian. Adolin got Kaladin across onto the land, then settled him with his spren. Azure followed, her shoulders sagging. In fact, her … her hair was fading. It was the strangest thing; Adolin watched it dim from Alethi jet-black to a faint grey as she sat down. Must be another effect of this strange place.

  How much did she know of Shadesmar? He’d been so focused on Kaladin, he hadn’t thought to interrogate her. Unfortunately, he was so tired right now, he was having trouble thinking straight.

  Adolin stepped back onto the platform as Pattern stepped off. Shallan looked as if she was about to collapse. She stumbled, and the platform ruptured. He managed to grab her, and fortunately they only fell to waist-deep in the beads before their feet touched ground. The little balls of glass seemed to slide and move too easily, not supporting their weight.

  Adolin had to practically haul Shallan through the tide of beads up onto the bank. There, she toppled backward, groaning and closing her eyes.

  “Shallan?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

  “I’m fine. It just took … concentration. Visualization.”

  “We need to find another way back to our world,” Kaladin said, seated nearby. “We can’t rest. They’re fighting. We need to help them.”

  Adolin surveyed his companions. Shallan lay on the ground; her spren had joined her, lying in a similar posture and looking up at the sky. Azure slumped forward, her small Shardblade across her lap. Kaladin continued to stare at nothing with haunted eyes, his spren hovering behind him, worried.

  “Azure,” Adolin said, “is it safe here, on this land?”

  “As safe as anywhere in Shadesmar,” she said tiredly. “The place can be dangerous if you attract the wrong spren, but there isn’t anything we can do about that.”

  “Then we camp here.”

  “But—” Kaladin said.

  “We camp,” Adolin said. Gentle, but firm. “We can barely stand up straight, bridgeman.”

  Kaladin didn’t argue further. Adolin scouted up the bank, though each step felt like it was weighted with stone. He found a small depression in the glassy stone and—with some urging—got the rest of them to move to it.

  As they made improvised beds from their coats and packs, Adolin looked one last time at the city, standing witness to the fall of his birthplace.

  Storms, he thought. Elhokar … Elhokar is dead.

  Little Gav had been taken, and Dalinar was planning to abdicate. Third in line was … Adolin himself.

  King.

  I have done my best to separate fact from fiction, but the two blend like mixing paint when the Voidbringers are involved. Each of the Unmade has a dozen names, and the powers ascribed to them range from the fanciful to the terrifying.

  —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 4

  Szeth-son-son …

  Szeth-son …

  Szeth, Truthless …

  Szeth. Just Szeth.

  Szeth of Shinovar, once called the Assassin in White, had been reborn. Mostly.

  The Skybreakers whispered of it. Nin, Herald of Justice, had restored him following his defeat in the storm. Like most things, death had not been Szeth’s to claim. The Herald had used a type of fabrial to heal his body before his spirit departed.

  It had almost taken too long, however. His spirit hadn’t properly reattached to his body.

  Szeth walked with the others out onto the stone field before their small fortress, which overlooked the Purelake. The air was humid, almost like that of his homeland, though it didn’t smell earthy or alive. It smelled of seaweed and wet stone.

  There were five other hopefuls, all of them younger than Szeth. He was shortest among them, and the only one who kept his head bald. He couldn’t grow a full head of hair, even if he didn’t shave it.

  The other five kept their distance from him. Perhaps it was because of the way he left a glowing afterimage when he moved: a sign of his soul’s improper reattachment. Not all could see it, but these could. They were close enough to the Surges.

  Or maybe they feared him because of the black sword in a silver sheath that he wore strapped to his back.

  Oh, it’s the lake! the sword said in his mind. It had an eager voice that didn’t sound distinctly feminine or masculine. You should draw me, Szeth! I would love to see the lake. Vasher says there are magic fish here. Isn’t that interesting?

  “I have been warned, sword-nimi,” Szeth reminded the weapon, “not to draw you except in the case of extreme emergency. And only if I carry much Stormlight, lest you feed upon my soul.”

  Well, I wouldn’t do that, the sword said. It made a huffing sound. I don’t think you’re evil at all, and I only destroy things that are evil.

  The sword w
as an interesting test, given him by Nin the Herald—called Nale, Nalan, or Nakku by most stonewalkers. Even after weeks of carrying this black sword, Szeth did not understand what the experience was to teach him.

  The Skybreakers arranged themselves to watch the hopefuls. There were some fifty here, and that didn’t count the dozens who were supposedly out on missions. So many. An entire order of Knights Radiant had survived the Recreance and had been watching for the Desolation for two thousand years, constantly replenishing their numbers as others died of old age.

  Szeth would join them. He would accept their training, as Nin had promised him he would receive, then travel to his homeland of Shinovar. There, he would bring justice to the ones who had falsely exiled him.

  Do I dare bring them judgment? a part of him wondered. Dare I trust myself with the sword of justice?

  The sword replied. You? Szeth, I think you’re super trustworthy. And I’m a good judge of people.

  “I was not speaking to you, sword-nimi.”

  I know. But you were wrong, and so I had to tell you. Hey, the voices seem quiet today. That’s nice, isn’t it?

  Mentioning it brought the whispers to Szeth’s attention. Nin had not healed Szeth’s madness. He’d called it an effect of Szeth’s connection to the powers, and said that he was hearing trembles from the Spiritual Realm. Memories of the dead he’d killed.

  He no longer feared them. He had died and been forced to return. He had failed to join the voices, and now they … they had no power over him, right?

  Why, then, did he still weep in the night, terrified?

  One of the Skybreakers stepped forward. Ki was a golden-haired woman, tall and imposing. Skybreakers clothed themselves in the garb of local lawkeepers—so here, in Marabethia, they wore a patterned shoulder cloak and a colorful skirtlike wrap. Ki wore no shirt, merely a simple cloth tied around her chest.

  “Hopefuls,” she said in Azish, “you have been brought here because a full Skybreaker has vouched for your dedication and solemnity.”

  She’s boring, the sword said. Where did Nale go?

  “You said he was boring too, sword-nimi,” Szeth whispered.