Here, they found nine Shardblades rammed into the stone. Abandoned. Navani put her gloved safehand to her mouth at the sight—nine beautiful Blades, each a treasure, simply left here? Why and how?
Dalinar stepped through the shadows, rounding the nine Blades. This was another image he’d misunderstood when living this vision the first time. These weren’t just Shardblades.
“Ash’s eyes,” Navani said, pointing. “I recognize that one, Dalinar. It’s the one…”
“The one that killed Gavilar,” Dalinar said, stopping beside the plainest Blade, long and thin. “The weapon of the Assassin in White. It’s an Honorblade. They all are.”
“This is the day that the Heralds made their final ascension to the Tranquiline Halls!” Navani said. “To lead the battle there instead.”
Dalinar turned to the side, to where he glimpsed the air shimmering. The Stormfather.
“Only…” Navani said. “This wasn’t actually the end. Because the enemy came back.” She walked around the ring of swords, then paused by an open spot in the circle. “Where is the tenth Blade?”
“The stories are wrong, aren’t they?” Dalinar said to the Stormfather. “We didn’t defeat the enemy for good, as the Heralds claimed. They lied.”
Navani’s head snapped up, her eyes focused on Dalinar.
I LONG BLAMED THEM, the Stormfather said, FOR THEIR LACK OF HONOR. IT IS … DIFFICULT FOR ME TO LOOK PAST OATHS BROKEN. I HATED THEM. NOW, THE MORE I COME TO KNOW MEN, THE MORE I SEE HONOR IN THOSE POOR CREATURES YOU NAME HERALDS.
“Tell me what happened,” Dalinar said. “What really happened?”
ARE YOU READY FOR THIS STORY? THERE ARE PARTS YOU WILL NOT LIKE.
“If I have accepted that God is dead, I can accept the fall of his Heralds.”
Navani settled down on a nearby stone, face pale.
IT STARTED WITH THE CREATURES YOU NAME VOIDBRINGERS, the Stormfather said, voice rumbling and low, distant. Introspective? AS I SAID, MY VIEW OF THESE EVENTS IS DISTORTED. I DO REMEMBER THAT ONCE, LONG BEFORE THE DAY YOU’RE SEEING NOW, THERE WERE MANY SOULS OF CREATURES WHO HAD BEEN SLAIN, ANGRY AND TERRIBLE. THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN GREAT POWER BY THE ENEMY, THE ONE CALLED ODIUM. THAT WAS THE BEGINNING, THE START OF DESOLATIONS.
FOR WHEN THESE DIED, THEY REFUSED TO PASS ON.
“That’s what is happening now,” Dalinar said. “The parshmen, they’re transformed by these things in the Everstorm. Those things are…” He swallowed. “The souls of their dead?”
THEY ARE THE SPREN OF PARSHMEN LONG DEAD. THEY ARE THEIR KINGS, THEIR LIGHTEYES, THEIR VALIANT SOLDIERS FROM LONG, LONG AGO. THE PROCESS IS NOT EASY ON THEM. SOME OF THESE SPREN ARE MERE FORCES NOW, ANIMALISTIC, FRAGMENTS OF MINDS GIVEN POWER BY ODIUM. OTHERS ARE MORE … AWAKE. EACH REBIRTH FURTHER INJURES THEIR MINDS.
THEY ARE REBORN USING THE BODIES OF PARSHMEN TO BECOME THE FUSED. AND EVEN BEFORE THE FUSED LEARNED TO COMMAND THE SURGES, MEN COULD NOT FIGHT THEM. HUMANS COULD NEVER WIN WHEN THE CREATURES THEY KILLED WERE REBORN EACH TIME THEY WERE SLAIN. AND SO, THE OATHPACT.
“Ten people,” Dalinar said. “Five male, five female.” He looked at the swords. “They stopped this?”
THEY GAVE THEMSELVES UP. AS ODIUM IS SEALED BY THE POWERS OF HONOR AND CULTIVATION, YOUR HERALDS SEALED THE SPREN OF THE DEAD INTO THE PLACE YOU CALL DAMNATION. THE HERALDS WENT TO HONOR, AND HE GAVE THEM THIS RIGHT, THIS OATH. THEY THOUGHT IT WOULD END THE WAR FOREVER. BUT THEY WERE WRONG. HONOR WAS WRONG.
“He was like a spren himself,” Dalinar said. “You told me before—Odium too.”
HONOR LET THE POWER BLIND HIM TO THE TRUTH—THAT WHILE SPREN AND GODS CANNOT BREAK THEIR OATHS, MEN CAN AND WILL. THE TEN HERALDS WERE SEALED UPON DAMNATION, TRAPPING THE VOIDBRINGERS THERE. HOWEVER, IF ANY ONE OF THE TEN AGREED TO BEND HIS OATH AND LET VOIDBRINGERS PAST, IT OPENED A FLOOD. THEY COULD ALL RETURN.
“And that started a Desolation,” Dalinar said.
THAT STARTED A DESOLATION, the Stormfather agreed.
An oath that could be bent, a pact that could be undermined. Dalinar could see what had happened. It seemed so obvious. “They were tortured, weren’t they?”
HORRIBLY, BY THE SPIRITS THEY TRAPPED. THEY COULD SHARE THE PAIN BECAUSE OF THEIR BOND—BUT EVENTUALLY, SOMEONE ALWAYS YIELDED.
ONCE ONE BROKE, ALL TEN HERALDS RETURNED TO ROSHAR. THEY FOUGHT. THEY LED MEN. THEIR OATHPACT DELAYED THE FUSED FROM RETURNING IMMEDIATELY, BUT EACH TIME AFTER A DESOLATION, THE HERALDS RETURNED TO DAMNATION TO SEAL THE ENEMY AGAIN. TO HIDE, FIGHT, AND FINALLY WITHSTAND TOGETHER.
THE CYCLE REPEATED. AT FIRST THE RESPITE BETWEEN DESOLATIONS WAS LONG. HUNDREDS OF YEARS. NEAR THE END, DESOLATIONS CAME SEPARATED BY FEWER THAN TEN YEARS. THERE WAS LESS THAN ONE YEAR BETWEEN THE LAST TWO. THE SOULS OF THE HERALDS HAD WORN THIN. THEY BROKE ALMOST AS SOON AS THEY WERE CAUGHT AND TORTURED IN DAMNATION.
“Which explains why things look so bad this time,” Navani whispered from her seat. “Society had suffered Desolation after Desolation, separated by short intervals. Culture, technology … all broken.”
Dalinar knelt and rubbed her shoulder.
“It is not so bad as I feared,” she said. “The Heralds, they were honorable. Perhaps not as divine, but I may even like them more, to know they were once just normal men and women.”
THEY WERE BROKEN PEOPLE, the Stormfather said. BUT I CAN START TO FORGIVE THEM, AND THEIR SHATTERED OATHS. IT MAKES … SENSE TO ME NOW AS IT NEVER DID BEFORE. He sounded surprised.
“The Voidbringers who did this,” Navani said. “They are the ones that are returning now. Again.”
THE FUSED, THE SOULS OF THE DEAD FROM LONG AGO, THEY LOATHE YOU. THEY ARE NOT RATIONAL. THEY HAVE BECOME PERMEATED WITH HIS ESSENCE, THE ESSENCE OF PURE HATRED. THEY WILL SEE THIS WORLD DESTROYED IN ORDER TO DESTROY MANKIND. AND YES, THEY HAVE RETURNED.
“Aharietiam,” Dalinar said, “was not really the end. It was just another Desolation. Except something changed for the Heralds. They left their swords?”
AFTER EACH DESOLATION, THE HERALDS RETURNED TO DAMNATION, the Stormfather said. IF THEY DIED IN THE FIGHTING, THEY WENT THERE AUTOMATICALLY. AND THOSE WHO SURVIVED WENT BACK WILLINGLY AT THE END. THEY HAD BEEN WARNED THAT IF ANY LINGERED, IT COULD LEAD TO DISASTER. BESIDES, THEY NEEDED TO BE TOGETHER, IN DAMNATION, TO SHARE THE BURDEN OF TORTURE IF ONE WAS CAPTURED. BUT THIS TIME, AN ODDITY OCCURRED. THROUGH COWARDICE OR LUCK, THEY AVOIDED DEATH. NONE WERE KILLED IN BATTLE—EXCEPT ONE.
Dalinar looked to the open spot in the ring.
THE NINE REALIZED, the Stormfather said, THAT ONE OF THEM HAD NEVER BROKEN. EACH OF THE OTHERS, AT SOME POINT, HAD BEEN THE ONE TO GIVE IN, TO START THE DESOLATION TO ESCAPE THE PAIN. THEY DETERMINED THAT PERHAPS THEY DIDN’T ALL NEED TO RETURN.
THEY DECIDED TO STAY HERE, RISKING AN ETERNAL DESOLATION, BUT HOPING THAT THE ONE THEY LEFT IN DAMNATION WOULD ALONE BE ENOUGH TO HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER. THE ONE WHO WASN’T MEANT TO HAVE JOINED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE, THE ONE WHO WAS NOT A KING, SCHOLAR, OR GENERAL.
“Talenelat,” Dalinar said.
THE BEARER OF AGONIES. THE ONE ABANDONED IN DAMNATION. LEFT TO WITHSTAND THE TORTURES ALONE.
“Almighty above,” Navani whispered. “How long has it been? Over a thousand years, right?”
FOUR AND A HALF THOUSAND YEARS, the Stormfather said. FOUR AND A HALF MILLENNIA OF TORTURE.
Silence settled over the little alcove, which was adorned with silvery Blades and lengthening shadows. Dalinar, feeling weak, sat down on the ground beside Navani’s rock. He stared at those Blades, and felt a sudden irrational hatred for the Heralds.
It was foolish. As Navani had said, they were heroes. They’d spared humanity the assaults for great swaths of time, paying with their own sanity. Still, he hated them. For the man they had left behind.
The man …
Dalinar leaped to his feet. “It’s him!” he shouted. “The madman. He really is a Herald!”
HE FINALLY BROKE, the Stormfather said. HE HAS JOINED THE NINE, WHO STILL LIVE. IN THESE MILLENNIA NONE HAVE EVER
DIED AND RETURNED TO DAMNATION, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER AS IT ONCE DID. THE OATHPACT HAS BEEN WEAKENED ALMOST TO ANNIHILATION, AND ODIUM HAS CREATED HIS OWN STORM. THE FUSED DO NOT RETURN TO DAMNATION WHEN KILLED. THEY ARE REBORN IN THE NEXT EVERSTORM.
Storms. How could they defeat that? Dalinar looked again at that empty spot among the swords. “The madman, the Herald, he came to Kholinar with a Shardblade. Shouldn’t that have been his Honorblade?”
YES. BUT THE ONE DELIVERED TO YOU IS NOT IT. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.
“I need to speak with him. He … he was at the monastery, when we marched. Wasn’t he?” Dalinar needed to ask the ardents, to see who had evacuated the madmen.
“Is this what caused the Radiants to rebel?” Navani asked. “Are these secrets what sparked the Recreance?”
NO. THAT IS A DEEPER SECRET, ONE I WILL NOT SPEAK.
“Why?” Dalinar demanded.
BECAUSE WERE YOU TO KNOW IT, YOU WOULD ABANDON YOUR OATHS AS THE ANCIENT RADIANTS DID.
“I wouldn’t.”
WOULDN’T YOU? the Stormfather demanded, his voice growing louder. WOULD YOU SWEAR IT? SWEAR UPON AN UNKNOWN? THESE HERALDS SWORE THEY WOULD HOLD BACK THE VOIDBRINGERS, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
THERE IS NOT A MAN ALIVE WHO HAS NOT BROKEN AN OATH, DALINAR KHOLIN. YOUR NEW RADIANTS HOLD IN THEIR HANDS THE SOULS AND LIVES OF MY CHILDREN. NO. I WILL NOT LET YOU DO AS YOUR PREDECESSORS DID. YOU KNOW THE IMPORTANT PARTS. THE REST IS IRRELEVANT.
Dalinar drew in a deep breath, but contained his anger. In a way, the Stormfather was right. He couldn’t know how this secret would affect him or his Radiants.
He’d still rather know it. He felt as if he were walking about with a headsman following, planning to claim his life at any moment.
He sighed as Navani stood and walked to him, taking his arm. “I’ll need to try to do sketches from memory of each of those Honorblades—or better, send Shallan to do it. Perhaps we can use the drawings to locate the others.”
A shadow moved at the entrance to this little alcove, and a moment later a young man stumbled in. He was pale of skin, with strange, wide Shin eyes and brown hair that had a curl to it. He could have been one of any number of Shin men Dalinar had seen in his own time—they were still ethnically distinct, despite the passing of millennia.
The man fell to his knees before the wonder of the abandoned Honorblades. But a moment later, the man looked to Dalinar, and then spoke with the Almighty’s voice. “Unite them.”
“Was there nothing you could do for the Heralds?” Dalinar asked. “Was there nothing their God could do to prevent this?”
The Almighty, of course, couldn’t answer. He had died fighting this thing they faced, the force known as Odium. He had, in a way, given his own life to the same cause as the Heralds.
The vision faded.
No good can come of two Shards settling in one location. It was agreed that we would not interfere with one another, and it disappoints me that so few of the Shards have kept to this original agreement.
“Shallan can take notes for us,” Jasnah said.
Shallan looked up from her notebook. She’d settled against the tile-covered wall, sitting on the floor in her blue havah, and had intended to spend the meeting doing sketches.
It had been over a week since her recovery and subsequent meeting with Jasnah at the crystal pillar. Shallan was feeling better and better, and at the same time less and less like herself. What a surreal experience it was, following Jasnah around as if nothing had changed.
Today, Dalinar had called a meeting of his Radiants, and Jasnah had suggested the basement rooms of the tower because they were so well secured. She was incredibly worried about being spied upon.
The rows of dust had been removed from the library floor; Navani’s flock of scholars had carefully catalogued every splinter. The emptiness served only to underscore the absence of the information they’d hoped to find.
Now everyone was looking at her. “Notes?” Shallan asked. She’d barely been following the conversation. “We could call for Brightness Teshav.…”
So far, it was a small group. The Blackthorn, Navani, and their core Surgebinders: Jasnah, Renarin, Shallan, and Kaladin Stormblessed, the flying bridgeman. Adolin and Elhokar were away, visiting Vedenar to survey the military capacities of Taravangian’s army. Malata was working the Oathgate for them.
“No need to call in another scribe,” Jasnah said. “We covered shorthand in your training, Shallan. I’d see how well you’ve retained the skill. Be fastidious; we will need to report to my brother what we determine here.”
The rest of them had settled into a group of chairs except for Kaladin, who stood leaning against the wall. Looming like a thundercloud. He had killed Helaran, her brother. The emotion of that peeked out, but Shallan smothered it, stuffing it into the back of her mind. Kaladin wasn’t to be blamed for that. He’d just been defending his brightlord.
She stood up, feeling like a chastened child. The weight of their stares prodded her to walk over and take a seat beside Jasnah with her pad open and pencil ready.
“So,” Kaladin said. “According to the Stormfather, not only is the Almighty dead, but he condemned ten people to an eternity of torture. We call them Heralds, and they’re not only traitors to their oaths, they’re probably also mad. We had one of them in our custody—likely the maddest of the lot—but we lost him in the turmoil of getting everyone to Urithiru. In short, everyone who might have been able to help us is crazy, dead, a traitor, or some combination of the three.” He folded his arms. “Figures.”
Jasnah glanced at Shallan. She sighed, then recorded a summary of what he’d said. Even though it was already a summary.
“So what do we do with this knowledge?” Renarin said, leaning forward with his hands clasped.
“We must curb the Voidbringer assault,” Jasnah said. “We can’t let them secure too great a foothold.”
“The parshmen aren’t our enemies,” Kaladin said softly.
Shallan glanced at him. There was something about that wavy dark hair, that grim expression. Always serious, always solemn—and so tense. Like he had to be strict with himself to contain his passion.
“Of course they’re our enemies,” Jasnah said. “They’re in the process of conquering the world. Even if your report indicates they aren’t as immediately destructive as we feared, they are still an enormous threat.”
“They just want to live better lives,” Kaladin said.
“I can believe,” Jasnah said, “that the common parshmen have such a simple motive. But their leaders? They will pursue our extinction.”
“Agreed,” Navani said. “They were born out of a twisted thirst to destroy humankind.”
“The parshmen are the key,” Jasnah said, shuffling through some pages of notes. “Looking over what you discovered, it seems that all parshmen can bond with ordinary spren as part of their natural life cycle. What we’ve been calling ‘Voidbringers’ are instead a combination of a parshman with some kind of hostile spren or spirit.”
“The Fused,” Dalinar said.
“Great,” Kaladin said. “Fine. Let’s fight them, then. Why do the common folk have to get crushed in the process?”
“Perhaps,” Jasnah said, “you should visit my uncle’s vision and see for yourself the consequences of a soft heart. Firsthand witness of a Desolation might change your perspective.”
“I’ve seen war, Brightness. I’m a soldier. Problem is, Ideals have expanded my focus. I can’t help but see the common men among the enemy. They’re not monsters.”
Dalinar raised a hand to stop Jasnah’s reply. “Your concern does you credit, Captain,” Dalinar said. “And your reports have been exceptionally timely. Do you honestly see a chance for an accommodation here?”
“I … I don’t know, sir. Even the common parshmen are furious at what was done to them.”
“I can’t afford to stay my hand from war,” Dalinar said. “Everything you say is right, but it is also nothing
new. I have never gone to battle where some poor fools on either side—men who didn’t want to be there in the first place—weren’t going to bear the brunt of the pain.”
“Maybe,” Kaladin said, “that should make you reconsider those other wars, rather than using them to justify this one.”
Shallan’s breath caught. It didn’t seem the sort of thing you said to the Blackthorn.
“Would that it were so simple, Captain.” Dalinar sighed loudly, looking … weathered to Shallan. “Let me say this: If we can be certain of one thing, it is the morality of defending our homeland. I don’t ask you to go to war idly, but I will ask you to protect. Alethkar is besieged. The men doing it might be innocents, but they are controlled by those who are evil.”
Kaladin nodded slowly. “The king has asked my help in opening the Oathgate. I’ve agreed to give it to him.”
“Once we secure our homeland,” Dalinar said, “I promise to do something I’d never have contemplated before hearing your reports. I’ll seek to negotiate; I’ll see if there is some way out of this that doesn’t involve smashing our armies together.”
“Negotiate?” Jasnah said. “Uncle, these creatures are crafty, ancient, and angry. They spent millennia torturing the Heralds just to return and seek our destruction.”
“We’ll see,” Dalinar said. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to contact anyone in the city with the visions. The Stormfather has found Kholinar to be a ‘dark spot’ to him.”
Navani nodded. “That seems, unfortunately, to coordinate with the failure of the spanreeds in the city. Captain Kaladin’s report confirms what our last notes from the city said: The enemy is mobilizing for an assault on the capital. We can’t know what the city’s status will be once our strike force arrives. You might have to infiltrate an occupied city, Captain.”
“Please send that it isn’t so,” Renarin whispered, eyes down. “How many would have died on those walls, fighting nightmares…”