“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 the 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 po
wer. 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 way 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.
Somewhere distant in the multistory orphanage, she heard thumping. Firm, booted feet on the wooden floors of the second story.
Lift drew in her awesomeness, and started to glow. Light rose from her arms like steam from a hot griddle. It wasn’t terribly bright, but in that pure-black room it was enough to show her the children she had heard. They grew quiet, watching her with awe.
“Darkness!” Lift shouted. “The one they call Nin, or Nale! Nakku, the Judge! I’m here.”
The thumping above stopped. Lift crossed the room, stepping into the next one and looking up a stairwell. “It’s me!” she shouted up it. “The one you tried—and failed—to kill in Azir.”
The door to the amphitheater rattled as wind shook it, like someone was outside trying to get in. The footfalls started again, and Darkness appeared at the top of the stairs, holding an amethyst sphere in one hand, a glittering Shardblade in the other. The violet light lit his face from below, outlining his chin and cheeks, but leaving his eyes dark. They seemed hollow, like the sockets of the creature Lift had met outside.
“I am surprised to see you accept judgment,” Darkness said. “I had thought you would remain in presumed safety.”
“Yeah,” Lift called. “You know, the day the Almighty was handin’ out brains to folks? I went out for flatbread that day.”
“You come here during a highstorm,” Darkness said. “You are trapped in here with me, and I know of your crimes in this city.”
“But I got back by the time the Almighty was givin’ out looks,” Lift called. “What kept you?”
The insult appeared to have no effect, though it was one of her favorites. Darkness seemed to flow like smoke as he started down the stairs, footsteps growing softer, uniform rippling in an unseen wind. Storms, but he looked so official in that outfit with the long cuffs, the crisp jacket. Like the very incarnation of law.
Lift scrambled to the right, away from the children, deeper into the orphanage’s ground floor. She smelled spices in this direction, and let her nose guide her into a dark kitchen.
“Up the wall,” she ordered Wyndle, who grew along it beside the doorway. Lift snatched a tuber from the counter, then grabbed on to Wyndle and climbed. She quieted her awesomeness, becoming dark as she reached the place where wall met ceiling, clinging to Wyndle’s thin vines.
Darkness entered below, looking right, then left. He didn’t look up, so when he stepped forward, Lift dropped behind him.
Darkness immediately spun, whipping that Shardblade around with a single-handed grip. It sheared through the wall of the doorway and passed a finger’s width in front of Lift as she threw herself backward.
She hit the floor and burst alight with awesomeness, Slicking her backside so she slid across the floor away from him, eventually colliding with the wall just below the steps. She untangled her limbs and started climbing the steps on all fours.
“You’re an insult to the order you would claim,” Darkness said, striding after her.
“Sure, probably,” Lift called. “Storms, I’m an insult to my own self most days.”
“Of course you are,” Darkness said, reaching the bottom of the steps. “That sentence has no meaning.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. A totally rational and reasonable way to fight a demigod. He didn’t seem to mind, but then, he wouldn’t. He had a lump of crusty earwax for a heart. So tragic.
The second floor of the orphanage was filled with smaller rooms, to her left. To her right, another flight of steps led farther upward. Lift dashed left, choking down the uncooked longroot, looking for the Stump. Had Darkness gotten to her? Several rooms held bunks for the children. So the Stump didn’t make them sleep in that one big room; they’d probably gathered there because of the storm.
“Mistress!” Wyndle said. “Do you have a plan!”
“I can make Stormlight,” Lift said, puffing and drawing a little awesomeness as she checked the room across the hall.
“Yes. Baffling, but true.”
“He can’t. And spheres are rare, ’cuz nobody expected the storm that came in the middle of the Weeping. So…”
“Ah … Maybe we wear him down!”
“Can’t fight him,” Lift said. “Seems the best alternative. Might have to sneak down and get more food though.” Where was the Stump? No sign of her hiding in these rooms, but also no sign of her murdered corpse.
Lift ducked back into the hallway. Darkness dominated the other end, near the steps. He walked slowly toward her, Shardblade held in a strange reverse grip, with the dangerous end pointing out behind him.
Lift quieted her awesomeness and stopped glowing. She needed to run him out, and maybe make him think she was running low, so he wouldn’t conserve.
“I am sorry I must do this,” Darkness said. “Once I would have welcomed you as a sister.”
“No,” Lift said. “You’re not really sorry, are you? Can you even feel something like sorrow?”
He stopped in the hallway, sphere still gripped before him for light. He actually seemed to be considering her question.
Well, time to move then. She couldn’t afford to get cornered, and sometimes that meant charging at the guy with a starvin’ Shardblade. He set himself in a swordsman’s stance as she dashed toward him, then stepped forward to swing.
Lift shoved herself to the side and Slicked herself, dodging his sword and sliding along the ground to his left. She got past him, but something about it felt too easy. Darkness watched her with careful, discerning eyes. He’d expected to miss her, she was sure of it.
He spun and advanced on her again, stepping quickly to prevent her from getting down the steps to the ground floor. This positioned her near the steps going upward. Darkness seemed to want her to go that direction, so she resisted, backing up along the hallway. Unfortunately, there was only one room on this end, the one above the kitchen. She kicked open the door, looking in. The Stump’s bedroom, with a dresser and bedding on the floor. No sign of the Stump herself.
Darkness continued to advance. “You are right. It seems I have finally released myself from the last vestiges of guilt I once felt at doing my duty. Honor has suffused me, changed me. It has been a long time coming.”
“Great. So you’re like … some kind of emotionless spren now.”
“Hey,” Wyndle said. “That’s insulting.”
“No,” Darkness said, unable to hear Wyndle. “I’m merely a man, perfected.” He waved toward her with his sphere. “Men need light, child. Alone we are in darkness, our movements random, based on subjective, changeable minds. But light is pure, and does not change based on our daily whims. To feel guilt at following a code with precision is wasted emotion.”
“And other emotion isn’t, in your opinion?”
“There are many useful emotions.”
“Which you totally feel, all the time.”
“Of course I do.…” He trailed off, and again seemed to be considering what she’d said. He cocked his head.