Oathbringer

  That’s true, but interesting things happen around him. We need to tell him that you should draw me more often.

  “Your first training has already been completed,” Ki said. “You traveled with the Skybreakers and joined them in one of their missions. You have been evaluated and deemed worthy of the First Ideal. Speak it. You know the Words.”

  Vasher always drew me, the sword said, sounding resentful.

  “Life before death,” Szeth said, closing his eyes. “Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”

  The other five belted it out. Szeth whispered it to the voices that called to him from the darkness. Let them see. He would bring justice to those who had caused this.

  He’d hoped that the first oath would restore his ability to draw upon Stormlight—something he had lost along with his previous weapon. However, when he removed a sphere from his pocket, he was unable to access the Light.

  “In speaking this ideal,” Ki said, “you are officially pardoned for any past misdeeds or sins. We have paperwork signed by proper authorities for this region.

  “To progress further among our ranks, and to learn the Lashings, you will need a master to take you as their squire. Then may you speak the Second Ideal. From there, you will need to impress a highspren and form a bond—becoming a full Skybreaker. Today you will take the first of many tests. Though we will evaluate you, remember that the final measure of your success or failure belongs to the highspren. Do you have any questions?”

  None of the other hopefuls said anything, so Szeth cleared his throat. “There are five Ideals,” he said. “Nin told me of this. You have spoken them all?”

  “It’s been centuries since anyone mastered the Fifth Ideal,” Ki said. “One becomes a full Skybreaker by speaking the Third Ideal, the Ideal of Dedication.”

  “We can … know what the Ideals are?” Szeth asked. For some reason, he’d thought they would be hidden from him.

  “Of course,” Ki said. “You will find no games here, Szeth-son-Neturo. The First Ideal is the Ideal of Radiance. You have spoken it. The second is the Ideal of Justice, an oath to seek and administer justice.

  “The Third Ideal, the Ideal of Dedication, requires you to have first bonded a highspren. Once you have, you swear to dedicate yourself to a greater truth—a code to follow. Upon achieving this, you will be taught Division, the second—and more dangerous—of the Surges we practice.”

  “Someday,” another Skybreaker noted, “you may achieve the Fourth Ideal: the Ideal of Crusade. In this, you choose a personal quest and complete it to the satisfaction of your highspren. Once successful, you become a master like ourselves.”

  Cleanse Shinovar, Szeth thought. That would be his quest. “What is the Fifth Ideal?” he asked.

  “The Ideal of Law,” Ki said. “It is difficult. You must become law, become truth. As I said, it has been centuries since that was achieved.”

  “Nin told me we were to follow the law—something external, as men are changeable and unreliable. How can we become the law?”

  “Law must come from somewhere,” another of the Skybreaker masters said. “This is not an oath you will swear, so don’t fixate upon it. The first three will do for most Skybreakers. I was of the Third Ideal for two decades before achieving the Fourth.”

  When nobody else asked further questions, experienced Skybreakers began Lashing the hopefuls into the air.

  “What is happening?” Szeth asked.

  “We will carry you to the place of the test,” Ki said, “as you cannot move with your own Stormlight until you swear the Second Ideal.”

  “Do I belong with these youths?” Szeth said. “Nin treated me as something different.” The Herald had taken him on a mission to Tashikk, hunting Surgebinders from other orders. A heartless act that Nin had explained would prevent the coming of the Desolation.

  Except that it had not. The Everstorm’s return had convinced Nin he was wrong, and he’d abandoned Szeth in Tashikk. Weeks had passed there until Nin had returned to collect him. The Herald had dropped Szeth here at the fortress, then had vanished into the sky again, this time off to “seek guidance.”

  “The Herald,” Ki said, “originally thought that you might skip to the Third Ideal because of your past. He is no longer here, however, and we cannot judge. You’ll have to follow the same path as everyone else.”

  Szeth nodded. Very well.

  “No further complaints?” Ki asked.

  “It is orderly,” Szeth said, “and you have explained it well. Why would I complain?”

  The others seemed to like this response, and Ki herself Lashed him into the sky. For a moment he felt the freedom of flight—reminding him of his first days, holding an Honorblade long ago. Before he’d become Truthless.

  No. You were never Truthless. Remember that.

  Besides, this flight was not truly his. He continued falling upward until another Skybreaker caught him and Lashed him downward, counteracting the first effect and leaving him hovering.

  A pair of Skybreakers took him, one under each arm, and the entire group soared through the air. He couldn’t imagine they’d done this sort of thing in the past, as they’d remained hidden for so many years. But they didn’t seem to care about secrecy anymore.

  I like it up here, the sword said. You can see everything.

  “Can you actually see things, sword-nimi?”

  Not like a man. You see all kinds of things, Szeth. Except, unfortunately, how useful I am.

  I should point out that although many personalities and motives are ascribed to them, I’m convinced that the Unmade were still spren. As such, they were as much manifestations of concepts or divine forces as they were individuals.

  —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 7

  Kaladin remembered cleaning crem off the bunker floor while in Amaram’s army.

  That sound of chisel on stone reminded Kal of his mother. He knelt on kneepads and scraped at the crem, which had seeped in under doors or had been tracked in on the boots of soldiers, creating an uneven patina on the otherwise smooth floor. He wouldn’t have thought that soldiers would care that the ground wasn’t level. Shouldn’t he be sharpening his spear, or … or oiling something?

  Well, in his experience, soldiers spent little time doing soldier things. They instead spent ages walking places, waiting around, or—in his case—getting yelled at for walking around or waiting in the wrong places. He sighed as he worked, using smooth even strokes, like his mother had taught him. Get underneath the crem and push. You could lift it up in flat sections an inch or more wide. Much easier than chipping at it from above.

  A shadow darkened the door, and Kal glanced over his shoulder, then hunkered down farther. Great.

  Sergeant Tukks walked to one of the bunks and settled down, the wood groaning under his weight. Younger than the other sergeants, he had features that were … off somehow. Perhaps it was his short stature, or his sunken cheeks.

  “You do that well,” Tukks said.

  Kal continued to work, saying nothing.

  “Don’t feel so bad, Kal. It’s not unusual for a new recruit to pull back. Storms. It’s not so uncommon to freeze in battle, let alone on the practice field.”

  “If it’s so common,” Kal muttered, “why am I being punished?”

  “What, this? A little cleaning duty? Kid, this isn’t punishment. This is to help you fit in.”

  Kal frowned, leaning back and looking up. “Sergeant?”

  “Trust me. Everyone was waiting for you to get a dressing-down. The longer you went without one, the longer you were going to feel like the odd man out.”

  “I’m scraping floors because I didn’t deserve to be punished?”

  “That, and for talking back to an officer.”

  “He wasn’t an officer! He was just a lighteyes with—”

  “Better to stop that kind of behavior now. Before you do it to someone who matters. Oh, don’t glower, Kal. You’ll understand eventually.”

  Kal a
ttacked a particularly stubborn knob of crem near the leg of a bunk.

  “I found your brother,” Tukks noted.

  Kaladin’s breath caught.

  “He’s in the Seventh,” Tukks said.

  “I need to go to him. Can I be transferred? We weren’t supposed to be split apart.”

  “Maybe I can get him moved here, to train with you.”

  “He’s a messenger! He’s not supposed to train with the spear.”

  “Everyone trains, even the messenger boys,” Tukks said.

  Kal gripped his chisel tightly, fighting down the urge to stand up and go looking for Tien. Didn’t they understand? Tien couldn’t hurt cremlings. He’d catch the things and usher them outside, talking to them like pets. The image of him holding a spear was ludicrous.

  Tukks took out some fathom bark and started chewing. He leaned back on the bunk and put his feet up on the footboard. “Make sure you get that spot to your left.”

  Kaladin sighed, then moved to the indicated place.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Tukks asked. “The moment when you froze during practice?”

  Stupid crem. Why did the Almighty make it?

  “Don’t be ashamed,” Tukks continued. “We practice so you can freeze now, instead of when it will get you killed. You face down a squad, knowing they want to kill you even though they’ve never met you. And you hesitate, thinking it can’t possibly be true. You can’t possibly be here, preparing to fight, to bleed. Everyone feels that fear.”

  “I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt,” Kal said softly.

  “You won’t get far if you can’t admit to a little fear. Emotion is good. It’s what defines us, makes us—”

  “I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt.” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I was afraid of making someone hurt.”

  Tukks twisted the bark in his mouth, then nodded. “I see. Well, that’s another problem. Not unusual either, but a different matter indeed.”

  For a time, the only sound in the large barrack was that of chisel on stone. “How do you do it?” Kal finally asked, not looking up. “How can you hurt people, Tukks? They’re just poor darkeyed slobs like us.”

  “I think about my mates,” Tukks said. “I can’t let the lads down. My squad is my family now.”

  “So you kill someone else’s family?”

  “Eventually, we’ll be killing shellheads. But I know what you mean, Kal. It’s hard. You’d be surprised how many men look in the face of an enemy and find that they’re simply not capable of hurting another person.”

  Kal closed his eyes, letting the chisel slip from his fingers.

  “It’s good you aren’t so eager,” Tukks said. “Means you’re sane. I’ll take ten unskilled men with earnest hearts over one callous idiot who thinks this is all a game.”

  The world doesn’t make sense, Kal thought. His father, the consummate surgeon, told him to avoid getting too wrapped up in his patients’ emotions. And here was a career killer, telling him to care?

  Boots scraped on stone as Tukks stood up. He walked over and rested one hand on Kal’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the war, or even the battle. Focus on your squadmates, Kal. Keep them alive. Be the man they need.” He grinned. “And get the rest of this floor scraped. I think when you come to dinner, you’ll find the rest of the squad more friendly. Just a hunch.”

  That night, Kaladin discovered that Tukks was right. The rest of the men did seem more welcoming, now that he’d been disciplined. So Kal held his tongue, smiled, and enjoyed the companionship.

  He never told Tukks the truth. When Kal had frozen on the practice field, it hadn’t been out of fear. He’d been very sure he could hurt someone. In fact, he’d realized that he could kill, if needed.

  And that was what had terrified him.

  * * *

  Kaladin sat on a chunk of stone that looked like melted obsidian. It grew right out of the ground in Shadesmar, this place that didn’t seem real.

  The distant sun hadn’t shifted in the sky since they’d arrived. Nearby, one of the strange fearspren crawled along the banks of the sea of glass beads. As big as an axehound, but longer and thinner, it looked vaguely like an eel with stumpy legs. The purple feelers on its head wiggled and shifted, flowing in his direction. When it didn’t sense anything in him that it wanted, it continued along the bank.

  Syl didn’t make any noise as she approached, but he caught sight of her shadow coming up from behind—like other shadows here, it pointed toward the sun. She sat down on the lump of glass next to him, then thumped her head sideways, resting it on his arm, her hands in her lap.

  “Others still asleep?” Kaladin asked.

  “Yup. Pattern’s watching over them.” She wrinkled her nose. “Strange.”

  “He’s nice, Syl.”

  “That’s the strange part.”

  She swung her legs out in front of her, barefoot as usual. It seemed odder here on this side where she was human size. A small flock of spren flew above them, with bulbous bodies, long wings, and flowing tails. Instead of a head, each one had a golden ball floating right in front of the body. That seemed familiar.…

  Gloryspren, he thought. It was like the fearspren, whose antennae manifested in the real world. Only part of the actual spren showed there.

  “So…” Syl said. “Not going to sleep?”

  Kaladin shook his head.

  “Now, I might not be an expert on humans,” she said. “For example, I still haven’t figured out why only a handful of your cultures seem to worship me. But I do think I heard somewhere that you have to sleep. Like, every night.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Kaladin…”

  “What about you?” he said, looking away, along the isthmus of land that marked where the river was in the real world. “Don’t you sleep?”

  “Have I ever needed sleep?”

  “Isn’t this your land? Where you come from? I figured you’d … I don’t know … be more mortal here.”

  “I’m still a spren,” she said. “I’m a little piece of God. Did you miss the part about worshipping me?”

  When he didn’t reply, she poked him in the side. “You were supposed to say something sarcastic there.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We don’t sleep; we don’t eat. I think we might feed off humans, actually. Your emotions. Or you thinking about us, maybe. It all seems very complicated. In Shadesmar, we can think on our own, but if we go to your realm, we need a human bond. Otherwise, we’re practically as mindless as those gloryspren.”

  “But how did you make the transition?”

  “I…” She adopted a distant expression. “You called for me. Or, no, I knew that you would someday call for me. So I transferred to the Physical Realm, trusting that the honor of men lived, unlike what my father always said.”

  Her father. The Stormfather.

  It was so strange to be able to feel her head on his arm. He was accustomed to her having very little substance.

  “Could you transfer again?” Kaladin asked. “To carry word to Dalinar that something might be wrong with the Oathgates?”

  “I don’t think so. You’re here, and my bond is to you.” She poked him again. “But this is all a distraction from the real problem.”

  “You’re right. I need a weapon. And we’ll need to find food somehow.”

  “Kaladin…”

  “Are there trees on this side? This obsidian might make a good spearhead.”

  She lifted her head from his arm and looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

  “I’m fine, Syl,” he said. “I just lost my focus.”

  “You were basically catatonic.”

  “I won’t let it happen again.”

  “I’m not complaining.” She wrapped her arms around his right arm, like a child clinging to a favored toy. Worried. Frightened. “Something’s wrong inside you. But I don’t know what.”

  I’ve never locked up in real combat, he thought. Not since that day in training
, when Tukks had to come talk to me. “I … was just surprised to find Sah there,” he said. “Not to mention Moash.”

  How do you do it? How can you hurt people, Tukks.…

  She closed her eyes and leaned against him without letting go of his arm.

  Eventually he heard the others stirring, so he extricated himself from Syl’s grasp and went to join them.

  The most important point I wish to make is that the Unmade are still among us. I realize this will be contentious, as much of the lore surrounding them is intertwined with theology. However, it is clear to me that some of their effects are common in the world—and we simply treat them as we would the manifestations of other spren.

  —From Hessi’s Mythica, page 12

  The Skybreaker test was to take place in a modest-sized town on the north border of the Purelake. Some people lived in the lake, of course, but sane society avoided that.

  Szeth landed—well, was landed—near the center of the town square, along with the other hopefuls. The main bulk of the Skybreakers either remained in the air or settled onto the cliffs around the town.

  Three masters landed near Szeth, as did a handful of younger men and women who could Lash themselves. The group being tested today would include hopefuls like Szeth—who needed to find a master and swear the Second Ideal—and squires who had achieved that step already, but now needed to attract a spren and speak the Third Ideal.

  It was a varied group; the Skybreakers didn’t seem to care for ethnicity or eye color. Szeth was the only Shin among them, but the others included Makabaki, Reshi, Vorins, Iriali, and even one Thaylen.

  A tall, strong man in a Marabethian wrap and an Azish coat hefted himself from his seat on a porch. “It took you long enough!” he said in Azish, striding toward them. “I sent for you hours ago! The convicts have escaped into the lake; who knows how far they’ve gotten by now! They will kill again if not stopped. Find and deal with them—you’ll know them by the tattoos on their foreheads.”

  The masters turned to the squires and hopefuls; some of the more eager among them immediately went running toward the water. Several that could Lash took to the sky.