“Um… witless?” Kaladin said.
“I’ll tell him you said that,” Hoid noted, eyes twinkling. “But I think it’s inaccurate. One can have a wit, but not a witless. What is a wit?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of spren in your head, maybe, that makes you think?”
Hoid cocked his head, then laughed. “Why, I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.” He stood up, dusting off his black trousers.
“Is the story true?” Kaladin asked, rising too.
“Perhaps.”
“But how would we know it? Did Derethil and his men return?”
“Some stories say they did.”
“But how could they? The highstorms only blow one direction.”
“Then I guess the story is a lie.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, I said it. Fortunately, it’s the best kind of lie.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Why, the kind I tell, of course.” Hoid laughed, then kicked out the fire, grinding the last of the coals beneath his heel. It didn’t really seem there had been enough fuel to make the smoke Kaladin had seen.
“What did you put in the fire?” Kaladin said. “To make that special smoke?”
“Nothing. It was just an ordinary fire.”
“But, I saw—”
“What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind.”
“What does the story mean, then?”
“It means what you want it to mean,” Hoid said. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”
Kaladin frowned, looking westward, back toward the warcamps. They were alight now with spheres, lanterns, and candles. “It means taking responsibility,” Kaladin said. “The Uvara, they were happy to kill and murder, so long as they could blame the emperor. It wasn’t until they realized there was nobody to take the responsibility that they showed grief.”
“That’s one interpretation,” Hoid said. “A fine one, actually. So what is it you don’t want to take responsibility for?”
Kaladin started. “What?”
“People see in stories what they’re looking for, my young friend.” He reached behind his boulder, pulling out a pack and slinging it on his shoulder. “I have no answers for you. Most days, I feel I never have had any answers. I’ve come to your land to chase an old acquaintance, but I end up spending most of my time hiding from him instead.”
“You said… about me and responsibility…”
“Just an idle comment, nothing more.” He reached over, laying a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “My comments are often idle. I never can get them to do any solid work. Would that I could make my words carry stones. That would be something to see.” He held out the dark wood flute. “Here. I’ve carried her for longer than you’d believe, were I to tell you the truth. Take her for yourself.”
“But I don’t know how to play it!”
“Then learn,” Hoid said, pressing the flute into Kaladin’s hand. “When you can make the music sing back at you, then you’ve mastered it.” He began to walk away. “And take good care of that blasted apprentice of mine. He really should have let me know he was still alive. Perhaps he feared I’d come to rescue him again.”
“Apprentice?”
“Tell him I graduate him,” Hoid said, still walking. “He’s a full Worldsinger now. Don’t let him get killed. I spent far too long trying to force some sense into that brain of his.”
Sigzil, Kaladin thought. “I’ll give him the flute,” he called after Hoid.
“No you won’t,” Hoid said, turning, walking backward as he left. “It’s a gift to you, Kaladin Stormblessed. I expect you to be able to play it when next we meet!”
And with that, the storyteller turned and broke into a jog, heading off toward the warcamps. He didn’t move to go up into them, however. His shadowed figure turned to the south, as if he were intending to leave the camps. Where was he going?
Kaladin looked down at the flute in his hand. It was heavier than he had expected. What kind of wood was it? He rubbed its smooth length, thinking.
“I don’t like him,” Syl’s voice said suddenly, coming from behind. “He’s strange.”
Kaladin spun to find her on the boulder, sitting where Hoid had been a moment ago.
“Syl!” Kaladin said. “How long have you been here?”
She shrugged. “You were watching the story. I didn’t want to interrupt.” She sat with hands in her lap, looking uncomfortable.
“Syl—”
“I’m behind what is happening to you,” she said, voice soft. “I’m doing it.”
Kaladin frowned, stepping forward.
“It’s both of us,” she said. “But without me, nothing would be changing in you. I’m… taking something from you. And giving something in return. It’s the way it used to work, though I can’t remember how or when. I just know that it was.”
“I—”
“Hush,” she said. “I’m talking.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m willing to stop it, if you want,” she said. “But I would go back to being as I was before. That scares me. Floating on the wind, never remembering anything for longer than a few minutes. It’s because of this tie between us that I can think again, that I can remember what and who I am. If we end it, I lose that.”
She looked up at Kaladin, sorrowful.
He looked into those eyes, then took a deep breath. “Come,” he said, turning, walking back down the peninsula.
She flew over, becoming a ribbon of light, floating idly in the air beside his head. Soon they reached the place beneath the ridge leading to the warcamps. Kaladin turned north, toward Sadeas’s camp. The cremlings had retreated to their cracks and burrows, but many of the plants still continued to let their fronds float in the cool wind. When he passed, the grass pulled back in, looking like the fur of some black beast in the night, lit by Salas.
What responsibility are you avoiding….
He wasn’t avoiding responsibility. He took too much responsibility! Lirin had said it constantly, chastising Kaladin for feeling guilt over deaths he couldn’t have prevented.
Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn’t change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn’t have to care, then he didn’t need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn’t have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them.
“If I’m not cursed,” Kaladin said softly, “then why do I live when others die?”
“Because of us,” Syl said. “This bond. It makes you stronger, Kaladin.”
“Then why can’t it make me strong enough to help the others?”
“I don’t know,” Syl said. “Maybe it can.”
If I get rid of it, I’ll go back to being normal. For what purpose… so I can die with the others?
He continued to walk in the darkness, passing lights above that made vague, faint shadows on the stones in front of him. The tendrils of fingermoss, clumped in bunches. Their shadows seemed arms.
He thought often about saving the bridgemen. And yet, as he considered, he realized that he often framed saving them in terms of saving himself. He told himself he wouldn’t let them die, because he knew what it would do to him if they did. When he lost men, the wretch threatened to take over because of how much Kaladin hated failing.
Was that it? Was that why he searched for reasons why he might be cursed? To explain his failure away? Kaladin began to walk more quickly.
He was doing something good in helping the bridgemen—but he also was doing something selfish. The powers had unsettled him because of the responsibility they represented.
He broke into a jog. Before long, he was sprinting.
But if it wasn’t about him—if he wasn’
t helping the bridgemen because he loathed failure, or because he feared the pain of watching them die— then it would be about them. About Rock’s affable gibes, about Moash’s intensity, about Teft’s earnest gruff ness or Peet’s quiet dependability. What would he do to protect them? Give up his illusions? His excuses?
Seize whatever opportunity he could, no matter how it changed him? No matter how it unnerved him, or what burdens it represented?
He dashed up the incline to the lumberyard.
Bridge Four was making their evening stew, chatting and laughing. The nearly twenty wounded men from other crews sat eating gratefully. It was gratifying, how quickly they had lost their hollow-eyed expressions and begun laughing with the other men.
The smell of spicy Horneater stew was thick in the air. Kaladin slowed his jog, coming to a stop beside the bridgemen. Several looked concerned as they saw him, panting and sweating. Syl landed on his shoulder.
Kaladin sought out Teft. The aging bridgeman sat alone below the barrack’s eaves, staring down at the rock in front of him. He hadn’t noticed Kaladin yet. Kaladin gestured for the others to continue, then walked over to Teft. He squatted down before the man.
Teft looked up in surprise. “Kaladin?”
“What do you know?” Kaladin said quietly, intense. “And how do you know it?”
“I—” Teft said. “When I was a youth, my family belonged to a secret sect that awaited the return of the Radiants. I quit when I was just a youth. I thought it was nonsense.”
He was holding things back; Kaladin could tell from the hesitation in his voice.
Responsibility. “How much do you know about what I can do?”
“Not much,” Teft said. “Just legends and stories. Nobody really knows what the Radiants could do, lad.”
Kaladin met his eyes, then smiled. “Well, we’re going to find out.”
“ReShephir, the Midnight Mother, giving birth to abominations with her essence so dark, so terrible, so consuming. She is here! She watches me die!”
—Dated Shashabev, 1173, 8 seconds pre-death. Subject: a darkeyed dock-worker in his forties, father of three.
“I have a serious loathing of being wrong.” Adolin reclined in his chair, one hand resting leisurely on the crystal-topped table, the other swirling wine in his cup. Yellow wine. He wasn’t on duty today, so he could indulge just a tad.
Wind ruffled his hair; he was sitting with a group of other young lighteyes at the outdoor tables of an Outer Market wineshop. The Outer Market was a collection of buildings that had grown up near the king’s palace, outside the warcamps. An eclectic mix of people passed on the street below their terraced seating.
“I should think that everyone shares your dislike, Adolin,” Jakamav said, leaning with both elbows on the table. He was a sturdy man, a lighteyes of the third dahn from Highprince Roion’s camp. “Who likes being wrong?”
“I’ve known a number of people who prefer it,” Adolin said thoughtfully. “Of course, they don’t admit that fact. But what else could one presume from the frequency of their error?”
Inkima—Jakamav’s accompaniment for the afternoon—gave a tinkling laugh. She was a plump thing with light yellow eyes who dyed her hair black. She wore a red dress. The color did not look good on her.
Danlan was also there, of course. She sat on a chair beside Adolin, keeping proper distance, though she’d occasionally touch his arm with her freehand. Her wine was violet. She did like her wine, though she seemed to match it to her outfits. A curious trait. Adolin smiled. She looked extremely fetching, with that long neck and graceful build wrapped in a sleek dress. She didn’t dye her hair, though it was mostly auburn. There was nothing wrong with light hair. In fact, why was it that they all were so fond of dark hair, when light eyes were the ideal?
Stop it, Adolin told himself. You’ll end up brooding as much as Father.
The other two—Toral and his companion Eshava—were both lighteyes from Highprince Aladar’s camp. House Kholin was currently out of favor, but Adolin had acquaintances or friends in nearly all of the warcamps.
“Wrongness can be amusing,” Toral said. “It keeps life interesting. If we were all right all the time, where would that leave us?”
“My dear,” his companion said. “Didn’t you once claim to me that you were nearly always right?”
“Yes,” Toral said. “And so if everyone were like me, who would I make sport of? I’d dread being made so mundane by everyone else’s competence.”
Adolin smiled, taking a drink of his wine. He had a formal duel in the arena today, and he’d found that a cup of yellow beforehand helped him relax. “Well, you needn’t worry about me being right too often, Toral. I was sure Sadeas would move against my father. It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Positioning, perhaps?” Toral said. He was a keen fellow, known for his refined sense of taste. Adolin always wanted him along when trying wines. “He wants to look strong.”
“He was strong,” Adolin said. “He gains no more by not moving against us.”
“Now,” Danlan said, voice soft with a breathless quality to it, “I know that I’m quite new to the warcamps, and my assessment is bound to reflect my ignorance, but—”
“You always say that, you know,” Adolin said idly. He liked her voice quite a bit.
“I always say what?”
“That you’re ignorant,” Adolin said. “However, you’re anything but. You’re among the most clever women I’ve met.”
She hesitated, looking oddly annoyed for a moment. Then she smiled. “You shouldn’t say such things—Adolin—when a woman is attempting humility.”
“Oh, right. Humility. I’ve forgotten that existed.”
“Too much time around Sadeas’s lighteyes?” Jakamav said, eliciting another tinkling laugh from Inkima.
“Anyway,” Adolin said. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“I was saying,” Danlan said, “that I doubt Sadeas would wish to start a war. Moving against your father in such an obvious way would have done that, wouldn’t it?”
“Undoubtedly,” Adolin said.
“So perhaps that is why he held himself back.”
“I don’t know,” Toral said. “He could have cast shame on your family without attacking you—he could have implied, for instance, that you’d been negligent and foolish in not protecting the king, but that you hadn’t been behind the assassination attempt.”
Adolin nodded.
“That still could have started a war,” Danlan said.
“Perhaps,” Toral said. “But you have to admit, Adolin, that the Blackthorn’s reputation is a little less than… impressive of late.”
“And what does that mean?” Adolin snapped.
“Oh, Adolin,” Toral said waving a hand and raising his cup for some more wine. “Don’t be tiresome. You know what I’m saying, and you also know I mean no insult by it. Where is that serving woman?”
“One would think,” Jakamav added, “that after six years out here, we could get a decent winehouse.”
Inkima laughed at that too. She was really getting annoying.
“My father’s reputation is sound,” Adolin said. “Or have you not been paying attention to our victories lately?”
“Achieved with Sadeas’s help,” Jakamav said.
“Achieved nonetheless,” Adolin said. “In the last few months, my father’s saved not only Sadeas’s life, but that of the king himself. He fights boldly. Surely you can see that previous rumors about him were absolutely unfounded.”
“All right, all right,” Toral said. “No need to get upset, Adolin. We can all agree that your father is a wonderful man. But you were the one who complained to us that you wanted to change him.”
Adolin studied his wine. Both of the other men at the table wore the sort of outfits Adolin’s father frowned upon. Short jackets over colorful silk shirts. Toral wore a thin yellow silk scarf at the neck and another around his right wrist. It was quite fashionable, and
looked far more comfortable than Adolin’s uniform. Dalinar would have said that the outfits looked silly, but sometimes fashion was silly. Bold, different. There was something invigorating about dressing in a way that interested others, moving with the waves of style. Once, before joining his father at the war, Adolin had loved being able to design a look to match a given day. Now he had only two options: summer uniform coat or winter uniform coat.
The serving maid finally arrived, bringing two carafes of wine, one yellow and one deep blue. Inkima giggled as Jakamav leaned over and whispered something in her ear.
Adolin held up a hand to forestall the maid from filling his cup. “I’m not sure I want to see my father change. Not anymore.”
Toral frowned. “Last week—”
“I know,” Adolin said. “That was before I saw him rescue Sadeas. Every time I start to forget how amazing my father is, he does something to prove me one of the ten fools. It happened when Elhokar was in danger too. It’s like… my father only acts like that when he really cares about something.”
“You imply that he doesn’t really care about the war, Adolin dear,” Danlan said.
“No,” Adolin said. “Just that the lives of Elhokar and Sadeas might be more important than killing Parshendi.”
The others took that for an explanation, moving on toward other topics. But Adolin found himself circling the thought. He felt unsettled lately. Being wrong about Sadeas was one cause; the chance that they might actually be able to prove the visions right or wrong was another.
Adolin felt trapped. He’d pushed his father to confront his own sanity, and now—by what their last conversation had established—he had all but agreed to accept his father’s decision to step down if the visions proved false.
Everyone hates being wrong, Adolin thought. Except my father said he’d rather be wrong, if it would be better for Alethkar. Adolin doubted many lighteyes would rather be proven mad than right.
“Perhaps,” Eshava was saying. “But that doesn’t change all of his foolish restrictions. I wish he would step down.”
Adolin started. “What? What was that?”