Words of Radiance

He’d tried to imagine what a highstorm would be like down here. He had seen the aftereffects when salvaging with Bridge Four. The twisted, broken corpses. The piles of refuse crushed against walls and into cracks. Boulders as tall as a man casually washed through chasms until they got wedged between two walls, sometimes fifty feet up in the air.

  “When?” he asked. “When is that highstorm?”

  She stared at him, then dug into her satchel, flipping through sheets of paper with her freehand while holding the satchel through the fabric of her safehand. She waved him over with his sphere, as she had to tuck hers away.

  He held it up for her as she looked over a page with lines of script. “Tomorrow night,” she said softly. “Just after first moonset.”

  Kaladin grunted, holding up his sphere and inspecting the chasm. We’re just to the north of the chasm we fell from, he thought. So the way back should be . . . that way?

  “All right then,” Shallan said. She took a deep breath, then snapped her satchel closed. “We walk back, and we start immediately.”

  “You don’t want to sit for a moment and catch your breath?”

  “My breath is quite well caught,” Shallan said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be moving. Once back, we can sit sipping mulled wine and laugh about how silly it was of us to hurry all that way, since we had so much time to spare. I’d like very much to feel that foolish. You?”

  “Yeah.” He liked the chasms. It didn’t mean he wanted to risk a highstorm in one of them. “You don’t have a map in that satchel, do you?”

  “No,” Shallan said with a grimace. “I didn’t bring my own. Brightness Velat has the maps. I was using hers. But I might be able to remember some of what I’ve seen.”

  “Then I think we should go this way,” Kaladin said, pointing. He started walking.

  * * *

  The bridgeman started walking off in the direction he’d pointed, not even giving her a chance to state her opinion on the matter. Shallan kept a huff to herself, snatching up her pack—she’d found some waterskins on the soldiers—and satchel. She hurried after him, her dress catching on something she hoped was a very white stick.

  The tall bridgeman deftly stepped over and around debris, eyes forward. Why did he have to be the one who survived? Though to be honest, she was pleased to find anyone. Walking down here alone would not have been pleasant. At least he was superstitious enough to believe that he’d been saved by some twist of fate and spren. She had no idea how she’d saved herself, let alone him. Pattern rode on her skirts, and before she’d found the bridgeman, he’d been speculating that the Stormlight had kept her alive.

  Alive after a fall of at least two hundred feet? It only proved how little she knew about her abilities. Stormfather! She’d saved this man too. She was sure of it; he’d been falling right beside her as they plummeted.

  But how? And could she figure out how to do it again?

  She hurried to keep up with him. Blasted Alethi and their freakishly long legs. He marched like a soldier, giving no thought to how she had to pick her way more carefully than he did. She didn’t want to get her skirt caught on every branch they passed.

  They reached a pool of water on the chasm floor, and he hopped up onto a log that bridged the water, barely breaking stride as he crossed. She stopped at the edge.

  He looked back at her, holding up a sphere. “You aren’t going to demand I give you my boots again, are you?”

  She raised a foot, revealing the military-style boots she wore underneath her dress. That got him to cock an eyebrow.

  “I wasn’t about to come out onto the Shattered Plains in slippers,” she said, blushing. “Besides, nobody can see your shoes under a dress this long.” She regarded the log.

  “You want me to help you across?” he asked.

  “Actually, I’m wondering how the trunk of a stumpweight tree got here,” she confessed. “They can’t possibly be native to this area of the Shattered Plains. Too cold out here. It might have grown along the coast, but a highstorm really carried it that far? Four hundred miles?”

  “You’re not going to demand we stop for you to sketch a picture, are you?”

  “Oh please,” Shallan said, stepping up onto the log and picking her way across. “Do you know how many sketches I have of stumpweights?”

  The other things down here were a different matter entirely. As they continued on their way, Shallan used her sphere—which she had to juggle in her freehand, trying to manage it along with the satchel in her safehand and the pack over her shoulder—to illuminate her surroundings. They were stunning. Dozens of different varieties of vines, frillblooms of red, orange, and violet. Tiny rockbuds on the walls, and haspers in little clusters, opening and closing their shells as if breathing.

  Motes of lifespren drifted around a patch of shalebark that grew in knobby patterns like fingers. You almost never saw that formation above. The tiny glowing specks of green light drifted through the chasm toward an entire wall of fist-size tube plants with little feelers wiggling out the top. As Shallan passed, the feelers retracted in a wave running up the wall. She gasped softly and took a Memory.

  The bridgeman stopped ahead of her, turning. “Well?”

  “Don’t you even notice how beautiful it is?”

  He looked up at the wall of tube plants. She was certain she’d read about those somewhere, but the name escaped her.

  The bridgeman continued on his way.

  Shallan jogged after him, pack thumping against her back. She almost tripped over a snarled pile of dead vines and sticks as she reached him. She cursed, hopping on one foot to stay upright before steadying herself.

  He reached out and took the pack from her.

  Finally, she thought. “Thank you.”

  He grunted, slipping it over his shoulder before continuing on without another word. They reached a crossroads in the chasms, a path going right and another going left. They’d have to weave around the next plateau before them to continue westward. Shallan looked up at the rift—getting a good picture in her mind of how this side of the plateau looked—as Kaladin chose one of the paths.

  “This is going to take a while,” he said. “Even longer than it took to get out here. We had to wait upon the whole army then, but we could also cut through the centers of the plateaus. Having to go around every one of them will add a lot to the trip.”

  “Well, at least the companionship is pleasant.”

  He eyed her.

  “For you, I mean,” she added.

  “Am I going to have to listen to you prattle all the way back?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I also intend to do some blathering, a little nattering, and the occasional gibber. But not too much, lest I overdo a good thing.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ve been practicing my burble,” she added.

  “I just can’t wait to hear.”

  “Oh, well, that was it, actually.”

  He studied her, those severe eyes of his boring into her own. She turned away from him. He didn’t trust her, obviously. He was a bodyguard; she doubted that he trusted many people.

  They reached another intersection, and Kaladin took longer to make this decision. She could see why—down here, it was difficult to determine which way was which. The plateau formations were varied and erratic. Some were long and thin, others almost perfectly round. They had knobs and peninsulas off to their sides, and that made a maze of the twisted paths between them. It should have been easy—there were few dead ends, after all, and so they really just had to keep moving westward.

  But which direction was westward? It would be very, very easy to get lost down here.

  “You’re not picking our course at random, are you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You seem to know a lot about these chasms.”

  “I do.”

  “Because the gloomy atmosphere matches your disposition, I assume.”

  He kept his eyes forward, walking without comm
ent.

  “Storms,” she said, hurrying to catch up. “That was supposed to be lighthearted. What would it take to make you relax, bridgeboy?”

  “I guess I’m just a . . . what was it again? A ‘hateful man’?”

  “I haven’t seen any proof to the contrary.”

  “That’s because you don’t care to look, lighteyes. Everyone beneath you is just a plaything.”

  “What?” she said, taking it like a slap to the face. “Where would you get that idea?”

  “It’s obvious.”

  “To whom? To you only? When have you seen me treat someone of a lesser station like a plaything? Give me one example.”

  “When I was imprisoned,” he said immediately, “for doing what any lighteyes would have been applauded for doing.”

  “And that was my fault?” she demanded.

  “It’s the fault of your entire class. Each time one of us is defrauded, enslaved, beaten, or broken, the blame rests upon all of you who support it. Even indirectly.”

  “Oh please,” she said. “The world isn’t fair? What a huge revelation! Some people in power abuse those they have power over? Amazing! When did this start happening?”

  He gave no reply. He’d tied his spheres to the top of his spear with a pouch formed from the white handkerchief he’d found on one of the scribes. Held high, it lit the chasm nicely for them.

  “I think,” she said, tucking away her own sphere for convenience, “that you’re just looking for excuses. Yes, you’ve been mistreated. I admit it. But I think you’re the one who cares about eye color, that it’s just easier for you to pretend that every lighteyes is abusing you because of your status. Have you ever asked yourself if there’s a simpler explanation? Could it be that people don’t like you, not because you’re darkeyed, but because you’re just a huge pain in the neck?”

  He snorted, then moved on more quickly.

  “No,” Shallan said, practically running to keep even with him and his long stride. “You’re not wiggling out of this. You don’t get to imply that I’m abusing my station, then walk off without a response. You did this earlier, with Adolin. Now with me. What is your problem?”

  “You want a better example of you playing with people beneath you?” Kaladin asked, dodging her question. “Fine. You stole my boots. You pretended to be someone you weren’t and bullied a darkeyed guard you’d barely met. Is that a good enough example of you playing with someone you saw as beneath you?”

  She stopped in her tracks. He was right, there. She wanted to blame Tyn’s influence, but his comment cut the bite out of her argument.

  He stopped ahead of her, looking back. Finally, he sighed. “Look,” he said. “I’m not holding a grudge about the boots. From what I’ve seen lately, you’re not as bad as the others. So let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Not as bad as the others?” Shallan said, walking forward. “What a delightful compliment. Well, let’s say you’re right. Perhaps I am an insensitive rich woman. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be downright mean and offensive, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “I apologize, and all I get in return is a shrug?”

  “I am what the lighteyes have made me to be.”

  “So you’re not culpable at all,” she said flatly. “For the way you act.”

  “I’d say not.”

  “Stormfather. I can’t say anything to change the way you treat me, can I? You’re just going to continue to be an intolerant, odious man, full of spite. Incapable of being pleasant around others. Your life must be very lonely.”

  That seemed to get under his skin, as his face turned red in the spherelight. “I’m starting to revise my opinion,” he said, “of you not being as bad as the others.”

  “Don’t lie,” she said. “You’ve never liked me. Right from the start. And not just because of the boots. I see how you watch me.”

  “That’s because,” he said, “I know you’re lying through your smile at everyone you meet. The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”

  “The only honest things I can say to you are insults.”

  “Bah!” he said. “I just . . . Bah! Why is it that being around you makes me want to claw my face off, woman?”

  “I have special training,” she said, glancing to the side. “And I collect faces.” What was that?

  “You can’t just—”

  He cut off as the scraping noise, echoing from one of the chasms, grew louder.

  Kaladin immediately put his hand over his improvised sphere lantern, plunging them into darkness. In Shallan’s estimation, that did not help. She stumbled toward him in the darkness, grabbing his arm with her freehand. He was annoying, but he was also there.

  The scraping continued. A sound like rock on rock. Or . . . carapace on rock.

  “I guess,” she whispered nervously, “having a shouting match in an echoing network of chasms was not terribly wise.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s getting closer, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “So . . . run?”

  The scraping seemed just beyond the next turn.

  “Yeah,” Kaladin said, pulling his hand off his spheres and charging away from the noise.

  Whether this was Tanavast’s design or not, millennia have passed without Rayse taking the life of another of the sixteen. While I mourn for the great suffering Rayse has caused, I do not believe we could hope for a better outcome than this.

  Kaladin scrambled down the chasm, leaping branches and refuse, splashing through puddles. The girl kept up better than he’d expected, but—hampered by her dress—she was nowhere near as swift as he was.

  He held himself back, matching her pace. Exasperating though she might be, he wasn’t going to abandon Adolin’s betrothed to be eaten by a chasmfiend.

  They reached an intersection and chose a path at random. At the next intersection, he only paused long enough to check to see if they were being followed.

  They were. Thumping from behind them, claws on stone. Scraping. He grabbed the girl’s satchel—he was already carrying her pack—as they ran down another corridor. Either Shallan was in excellent shape, or the panic got to her, because she didn’t even seem winded when they reached the next intersection.

  No time for hesitation. He barreled down a pathway, ears full of the sound of grinding carapace. A sudden four-voiced trump echoed through the chasm, as loud as a thousand horns being blown. Shallan screamed, though Kaladin barely heard her over the horrible sound.

  The chasm plants withdrew in large waves. In moments, the entire place went from fecund to barren, like the world preparing for a highstorm. They hit another intersection, and Shallan hesitated, looking back toward the sounds. She held her hands out, as if preparing to embrace the thing. Storming woman! He grabbed her and pulled her after him. They ran down two chasms without stopping.

  It was still chasing, though he could only hear it. He had no idea how close it was, but it had their scent. Or their sound? He had no idea how they hunted.

  Need a plan! Can’t just—

  At the next intersection, Shallan turned the opposite way from the one he had picked. Kaladin cursed, pounding to a stop and running after her.

  “This is no time,” he said, puffing, “to argue about—”

  “Shut it,” she said. “Follow.”

  She led them to an intersection, then another. Kaladin was feeling winded, his lungs protesting. Shallan stopped, then pointed and ran down a chasm. He followed, looking over his shoulder.

  He could see only blackness. Moonlight was too distant, too choked, to illuminate these depths. They wouldn’t know if the beast was upon them until it entered the light of his spheres. But Stormfather, it sounded close.

  Kaladin turned his attention back to his running. He nearly tripped over something on the ground. A corpse? He leaped it, catching up to Shallan. The hem of her dress was snarled an
d ripped from the running, her hair a mess, her face flushed. She led them down another corridor, then slowed to a stop, hand to the wall of the chasm, puffing.

  Kaladin closed his eyes, breathing in and out. Can’t rest long. It will be coming. He felt as if he were going to collapse.

  “Cover that light,” Shallan hissed.

  He frowned at her, but did so. “We can’t rest long,” he hissed back.

  “Quiet.”

  The darkness was complete save for the thin light escaping between his fingers. The scraping seemed almost on top of them. Storms! Could he fight one of these monsters? Without Stormlight? Desperate, he tried to suck in the Light he held in his palm.

  No Stormlight came, and he hadn’t seen Syl since the fall. The scraping continued. He prepared to run, but . . .

  The sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer anymore. Kaladin frowned. The body he’d stumbled over, it had been one of the fallen from the fight earlier. Shallan had led them back to where they’d started.

  And . . . to food for the beast.

  He waited, tense, listening to his heartbeat thumping in his chest. Scraping echoed in the chasm. Oddly, some light flashed in the chasm behind. What was that?

  “Stay here,” Shallan whispered.

  Then, incredibly, she started to move toward the sounds. Still holding the spheres awkwardly with one hand, he reached out with the other and snatched her.

  She turned back to him, then looked down. Inadvertently, he’d grabbed her by the safehand. He let go immediately.

  “I have to see it,” Shallan whispered to him. “We’re so close.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Probably.” She continued toward the beast.

  Kaladin debated, cursing her in his mind. Finally, he put his spear down and dropped her pack and satchel over its spheres to muffle the light. Then he followed. What else could he do? Explain to Adolin? Yes, princeling. I let your betrothed wander off alone in the darkness to get eaten by a chasmfiend. No, I didn’t go with her. Yes, I’m a coward.

  There was light ahead. It showed Shallan—her outline, at least—crouching beside a turn in the chasm, peeking around. Kaladin stepped up to her, crouching down and taking a look.