“How…” the man said. “How does one join up? They say … they say it heals you.…”
“Sure, it heals everything except what’s in the rockbud on the end of your neck. Which is great for me. I’m the only sane one in this group. That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“They say you have to be broken,” Lopen said, glancing toward his spren, who made a few loops of excitement, then shot off to hide again. Lopen would need to go looking for the little guy—he did enjoy the game. “You know that tall woman, the king’s sister? The chortana with the glare that could break a Shardblade? She says that the power has to get into your soul somehow. So I’ve been trying to cry a lot, and moan about my life being so terrible, but I think the Stormfather knows I’m lying. Hard to act sad when you’re the Lopen.”
“I might be broken,” the man said softly.
“Good, good! We don’t have a Thaylen yet, and lately it looks like we’re trying to collect one of everything. We even have a parshman!”
“I just ask?” the man said, then took a drink.
“Sure. Ask. Follow us around. Worked for Lyn. But you have to say the Words.”
“Words?”
“ ‘Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before pancakes.’ That’s the easy one. The hard one is, ‘I will protect those who cannot protect themselves,’ and—”
A sudden flash of coldness struck Lopen, and the gemstones in the room flickered, then went out. A symbol crystallized in frost on the stones around Lopen, vanishing under the cots. The ancient symbol of the Windrunners.
“What?” Lopen stood up. “What? Now?”
He heard a far-off rumbling, like thunder.
“NOW?” Lopen said, shaking a fist at the sky. “I was saving that for a dramatic moment, you penhito! Why didn’t you listen earlier? We were, sure, all about to die and things!”
He got a distinct, very distant impression.
YOU WEREN’T QUITE READY.
“Storm you!” Lopen made a double obscene gesture toward the sky—something he’d been waiting a long time to use properly for the first time. Rua joined him, making the same gesture, then grew two extra arms to give it more weight.
“Nice,” Lopen said. “Hey gancho! I’m a full Knight Radiant now, so you can start complimenting me.” Kaladin didn’t seem to have even noticed. “Just a moment,” Lopen said to the one-armed soldier, then stalked over to where Kaladin was speaking with a runner.
“You’re sure?” Kaladin said to the scribe. “Does Dalinar know about this?”
“He sent me, sir,” the woman said. “Here’s a map with the location the spanreed listed.”
“Gancho,” Lopen said. “Hey, did you—”
“Congratulations, Lopen, good job. You’re second-in-command after Teft until I return.”
Kaladin burst from the tent and Lashed himself to the sky, streaking away, the tent’s front flaps rustling in the wind of his passing.
Lopen put his hands on his hips. Rua landed on his head, then made a little squeal of angry delight while proffering toward Kaladin a double rude gesture.
“Don’t wear it out, naco,” Lopen said.
* * *
“Come on,” Ash said, holding Taln’s hand, pulling him up the last few steps.
He stared at her dully.
“Taln,” she whispered. “Please.”
The last glimmers of his lucidity had faded. Once, nothing would have kept him from the battlefield when other men died. Today, he had hidden and whimpered during the fighting. Now he followed her like a simpleton.
Talenel’Elin had broken like the rest of them.
Ishar, she thought. Ishar will know what to do. She fought down the tears—watching him fade had been like watching the sun go out. All these years, she’d hoped that maybe … maybe …
What? That he’d be able to redeem them?
Someone nearby cursed by her name, and she wanted to slap him. Don’t swear by us. Don’t paint pictures of us. Don’t worship at our statues. She’d stamp it all out. She would ruin every depiction. She …
Ash breathed in and out, then pulled Taln by the hand again, getting him into line with the other refugees fleeing the city. Only foreigners were allowed out right now, to prevent the Oathgate from being overworked. She’d get back to Azir, where their skin tones wouldn’t stand out.
What a gift you gave them! he’d said. Time to recover, for once, between Desolations. Time to progress …
Oh, Taln. Couldn’t he have just hated her? Couldn’t he have let her—
Ash stopped in place as something ripped inside of her.
Oh God. Oh, Adonalsium!
What was that? What was that?
Taln whimpered and collapsed, a puppet with cut strings. Ash stumbled, then sank to her knees. She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. It wasn’t pain. It was something far, far worse. A loss, a hole inside of her, a piece of her soul being excised.
“Miss?” a soldier asked, jogging up. “Miss, are you all right? Hey, someone get one of the healers! Miss, what’s wrong?”
“They … they killed him somehow.…”
“Who?”
She looked up at the man, tears blurring her vision. This wasn’t like their other deaths. This was something horrible. She couldn’t feel him at all.
They’d done something to Jezrien’s soul.
“My father,” she said, “is dead.”
They caused a stir in the refugees, and someone detached themselves from the group of scribes up ahead. A woman in deep violet. The Blackthorn’s niece. She looked at Ash, then at Taln, then at a piece of paper she’d been carrying. It contained shockingly accurate sketches of the two of them. Not as they were presented in iconography, but real sketches. Who … why?
That’s his drawing style, a part of Ash noted. Why has Midius been giving away pictures of us?
The ripping sensation finally ended. So abruptly that—for the first time in thousands of years—Ash fell unconscious.
Yes, I began my journey alone, and I ended it alone.
But that does not mean that I walked alone.
—From The Way of Kings, postscript
Kaladin flew across the churning ocean. Dalinar had been able to summon the strength to overcharge him with Stormlight, though it was obviously exhausting to do so.
Kaladin had used up that charge getting to Kharbranth, where he’d stopped for a night’s sleep. Even Stormlight could only push the body so far. After a long flight the next day, he’d reached the Tarat Sea.
He flew now using gemstones requisitioned from the royal treasury in Kharbranth. Smoke rose from several places along the coast of Alethkar, where cities still resisted the parshman invasion. Kaladin’s map fluttered in his fingers, and he watched the coast for the rock formation the scribe had sketched for him.
By the time he spotted it, he worried he wouldn’t have enough Stormlight left to make it back to safety. He dropped there and continued on foot, per the instructions, crossing a cold and rocky land that reminded him of the Shattered Plains.
Along a dried-out river, he found a little group of refugees huddled by a cavern in the stone. A very small fire laced the air with smoke, and lit ten people in brown cloaks. Nondescript, like many others he’d passed during his search. The only distinctive feature was a small symbol they’d painted on an old tarp pinned up between two poles at the front of the camp.
The symbol of Bridge Four.
Two of the figures rose from the fire, pulling back hoods. Two men: one tall and lanky, the other short and scrappy, silver-haired at the temples.
Drehy and Skar.
They gave Kaladin a pair of sharp salutes. Drehy had old cuts on his face and Skar looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. They’d had to cover their foreheads in ash to hide their tattoos, an act that wouldn’t have worked in simpler times. It basically marked them as runaway slaves.
Syl let out a laugh of pure delight, zipping over to them—and fr
om the way they reacted, it seemed she’d let them see her. Behind them, Shallan’s three servants emerged from their cloaks. Kaladin didn’t know the other people, but one of them would be the merchant they’d found—a man who still possessed a spanreed.
“Kal,” Skar said as Kaladin slapped him on the back. “There’s something we didn’t mention by spanreed.”
Kaladin frowned as Drehy returned to the fire and picked up one of the figures there. A child? In rags. Yes, a frightened little boy, maybe three or four years old, lips chapped, eyes haunted.
Elhokar’s son.
“We protect those,” Drehy said, “who cannot protect themselves.”
* * *
Taravangian was unable to solve the first page of the day’s puzzles.
Dukar, the stormwarden, took the paper and looked it over. He shook his head. Stupid today.
Taravangian rested back against his seat in Urithiru. He seemed to be stupid more and more often. Perhaps it was his perception.
Eight days had passed since the Battle of Thaylen Field. He wasn’t certain Dalinar would ever trust him again, but giving him some truth had been a calculated risk. For now, Taravangian was still part of the coalition. It was good, even if … It …
Storms. Trying to think through the fuzz in his brain was … bothersome.
“He is weak of mind today,” Dukar announced to Mrall, Taravangian’s thick-armed bodyguard. “He can interact, but should not make important policy decisions. We cannot trust his interpretation of the Diagram.”
“Vargo?” Adrotagia asked. “How would you like to spend the day? In the Veden gardens, perhaps?”
Taravangian opened his eyes and looked to his faithful friends. Dukar and Mrall. Adrotagia, who looked so old now. Did she feel as he did, shocked every time she looked in the mirror, wondering where the days had gone? When they’d been young, they’d wanted to conquer the world.
Or save it.
“Your Majesty?” Adrotagia asked.
Oh. Right. His mind did wander sometimes. “We cannot do anything until the Everstorm passes. Correct?”
Adrotagia nodded, proffering her calculations. “It is nearly here.” People had spent the eight days since the battle vainly hoping that the Everstorm had blown itself out for good. “It’s not as strong as it was during its previous cycle, but it is coming. It has already reached Azir, and should hit Urithiru within the hour.”
“Then let us wait.”
Adrotagia gave him a few letters that had come from his grandchildren in Kharbranth. He could read, even when he was stupid, though it took him longer to make out some of the words. Gvori had been accepted to study at the School of Storms, which had legacy access to the Palanaeum for all scholars. Karavaniga, the middle granddaughter, had been accepted for wardship, and had sketched him a picture of the three of them. Little Ruli grinned a gap-toothed smile in the center. She had drawn him a picture of flowers.
Taravangian touched the tears on his cheek as he finished reading. None of the three knew anything of the Diagram, and he was determined to keep it that way.
Adrotagia and Dukar conversed quietly in the corner of the room, confused by portions of the Diagram. They ignored Maben, the room servant, who felt Taravangian’s forehead, as he’d been coughing lately.
What fools we can be, Taravangian said, resting fingers on the picture of flowers. We never know as much as we think. Perhaps in that, the smart me has always been the more stupid one.
He knew the Everstorm’s arrival only by a ding from Adrotagia’s clock—a magnificently small piece, gifted by Navani Kholin.
“The Diagram has been wrong too often,” Mrall said to Adrotagia and Dukar. “It predicted Dalinar Kholin would fall, if pressured, and become the enemy’s champion.”
“Perhaps Graves was right,” Dukar said, rubbing his hands together nervously. He glanced toward the window, shuttered despite the fact that the Everstorm didn’t reach this high. “The Blackthorn could have been made an ally. This is what the Diagram meant.”
“No,” Taravangian said. “That is not what it meant.”
They looked to him. “Vargo?” Adrotagia asked.
He tried to find the argument to explain himself, but it was like trying to hold a cupful of oil in his fist.
“We’re in a dangerous position,” Dukar said. “His Majesty revealed too much to Dalinar. We will be watched now.”
… the … window …
“Dalinar doesn’t know of the Diagram,” Adrotagia countered. “Or that we brought the singers to Urithiru. He only knows that Kharbranth controlled the assassin—and thinks that the Herald’s insanity prompted us. We’re still well positioned.”
Open … the … window.… None of the others heard the voice.
“The Diagram is growing too flawed,” Mrall insisted. Though he was no scholar, he was a full participant in their scheme. “We’ve deviated too much from its promises. Our plans need to change.”
“It’s too late,” Adrotagia said. “The confrontation will happen soon.”
OPEN IT.
Taravangian rose from his seat, trembling. Adrotagia was right. The confrontation predicted by the Diagram would happen soon.
Sooner, even, than she thought.
“We must trust in the Diagram,” Taravangian whispered, as he passed by them. “We must trust the version of myself that knew what to do. We must have faith.”
Adrotagia shook her head. She didn’t like it when any of them used words like “faith.” He tried to remember that, and did remember it when he was smart.
Storms take you, Nightwatcher, he thought. Odium’s victory will kill you too. Couldn’t you have just gifted me, and not cursed me?
He’d asked for the capacity to save his people. He’d begged for compassion and acumen—and he’d gotten them. Just never at the same time.
He touched the window shutters.
“Vargo?” Adrotagia asked. “Letting in fresh air?”
“No, unfortunately. Something else.”
He opened the shutters.
And was suddenly in a place of infinite light.
The ground beneath him glowed, and nearby, rivers flowed past, made of something molten colored gold and orange. Odium appeared to Taravangian as a twenty-foot-tall human with Shin eyes and a scepter. His beard was not wispy, like Taravangian’s had been, but neither was it bushy. It almost looked like an ardent’s beard.
“Now,” Odium said. “Taravangian, is it?” He squinted, as if seeing Taravangian for the first time. “Little man. Why did you write to us? Why did you have your Surgebinder unlock the Oathgate, and allow our armies to attack Urithiru?”
“I wish only to serve you, Great God,” Taravangian said, getting down onto his knees.
“Do not prostrate yourself,” the god said, laughing. “I can see that you are no sycophant, and I will not be fooled by your attempts to seem one.”
Taravangian drew in a deep breath, but remained on his knees. Today of all days, Odium finally contacted him in person? “I am not well today, Great God. I … um … am frail and of ill health. Might I meet with you again, when I am well?”
“Poor man!” Odium said.
A chair sprouted from the golden ground behind Taravangian, and Odium stepped over to him, suddenly smaller, more human sized. He gently pushed Taravangian up and into the chair. “There. Isn’t that better?”
“Yes … thank you.” Taravangian scrunched up his brow. This was not how he’d imagined this conversation.
“Now,” Odium said, lightly resting his scepter on Taravangian’s shoulder. “Do you think I will ever meet with you when you are feeling well?”
“I…”
“Do you not realize that I chose this day specifically because of your ailment, Taravangian? Do you really think you will ever be able to negotiate with me from a position of power?”
Taravangian licked his lips. “No.”
“Good, good. We understand one another. Now, what is it you have been doing.…” H
e stepped to the side, and a golden pedestal appeared with a book on top of it. The Diagram. Odium began leafing through it, and the golden landscape changed, shifting to a bedroom with fine wooden furniture. Taravangian recognized it from the scribbled writing on every surface—from floor to ceiling, to the headboard of the bed.
“Taravangian!” Odium said. “This is remarkable.” The walls and furniture faded, leaving behind the words, which hung in the air and started glowing with a golden light. “You did this without access to Fortune, or the Spiritual Realm? Truly incredible.”
“Th-thank you?”
“Allow me to show you how far I see.”
Golden words exploded outward from the ones Taravangian had written in the Diagram. Millions upon millions of golden letters burned into the air, extending into infinity. Each took one small element that Taravangian had written, and expanded upon it in volumes and volumes’ worth of information.
Taravangian gasped as, for a moment, he saw into eternity.
Odium inspected words that Taravangian had once written on the side of a dresser. “I see. Take over Alethkar? Bold plan, bold plan. But why invite me to attack Urithiru?”
“We—”
“No need! I see. Give up Thaylen City to ensure that the Blackthorn fell, removing your opposition. An overture toward me, which worked, obviously.” Odium turned to him and smiled. A knowing, confident smile.
Do you really think you will ever be able to negotiate with me from a position of power?
All that writing loomed over Taravangian, blocking off the landscape with millions of words. A smarter him would have tried to read it, but this dumber version was simply intimidated. And … could that be for his … his good? Reading that would consume him. Lose him.
My grandchildren, he thought. The people of Kharbranth. The good people of the world. He trembled to think of what might happen to them all.
Somebody had to make the difficult decisions. He slipped off his golden seat as Odium studied another portion of the Diagram. There. Behind where the bed had stood. A section of words that had faded from golden to black. What was that? As he drew near, Taravangian saw that the words were blacked out into eternity starting from this point on his wall. As if something had happened here. A ripple in what Odium could see …