I think this works fine in the book, because you can slog through and get to the point where the action happens. I think it will be fine once the story is completed. The issue is that it doesn't work so well for a web serial, because if you're invested in Sarus' story and the changes its made to canon, well, you aren't getting much of that for months on end.
Yup. I kind of had to decide whether I was okay writing something that would work as a book, but might be a slog when read as a serial, and I decided I was. They're different forms, and I like the form of the novel better--especially when I'm trying to imitate and learn from Sanderson's style. Ring-Maker was my great experiment in the serial form, and it went very well, but I want to tell a different kind of story this time. Again, I wouldn't blame anyone who wants to just put this aside and come back either in a few months when I finish posting Part 1 or in a couple years when I finish posting the whole story.
But I will say this much. You're completely right that Sarus lacks agency right now. And that is not a consequence of his circumstances—Mairë, in his exact position, would have already changed the face of the War of Reckoning irrevocably. Rather, it's a consequence of who he is and the arc he's on. He is not acting, not affecting the world. And that is the point. But why that matters won't be clear for a while yet.
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
-x-x-x-
13
Always
-x-x-x-
Whereas this creature seems to have countermeasures in place to actively prevent it from being noticed or observed by the humans it empowers.
-x-x-x-
Fifteen Years Ago
"Don't run, Sarus," chided his mother gently.
Sarus forced himself to slow, falling back into step just a few paces ahead of her. "Well, hurry up then!" he demanded, looking back at her.
"The fair will still be there when we arrive, even if we take our time and don't get there sweaty and mussed."
"Fine…" He fell into step beside her, reaching up and taking her hand in his. She squeezed his fingers.
"That's a good boy," she said. "If you behave, we can stay for the duel."
Sarus brightened. There were duels a few times a year in the arenas outside the castle, but he usually wasn't allowed to go see them. They weren't true Shardbearer duels—Sarus had never even seen a Shardblade, they were simply too rare and important to use on simple entertainment—but lighteyed soldiers would sometimes approximate with their side-swords. "Really?"
"I promise. But only if you behave. Will you be good?"
"I'll be good!"
His mother smiled down at him. "I know you will."
It was easy to say he'd behave in the moment. It was harder to stay at pace with her leisurely stroll for the whole mile-long walk down the lane to the city. The castle was built into the west side of a mountain, high enough on the foothills that it still looked over the city in the valley below. The road zig-zagged down the slope. If Sarus had been alone, running freely without regard for the path, he could have made the journey in just a few short minutes. But his mother always insisted on taking the paths. "We are direct servants of Brightlord Sadeas," she would tell him. "We must behave the part."
Still, despite feeling like his body might burst with excitement, he managed to stay at pace with his mother. He did let go of her hand and dart away once or twice to check the vinebud clusters that grew alongside the cobblestone road. The variety that grew here in northwestern Alethkar produced succulent, violet berries in the autumn. Unfortunately, it seemed he was too early. The vinebuds had lost most of their conical, yellow flowers, but what few fruits had taken their places were still hard and gray, more like pebbles than berries.
"No vineberries yet?" his mother asked as she caught up with him.
"No. When will they grow, Mother?"
"Within a month, most likely. You're getting too old for sweets, you know."
Sarus frowned. "I don't want to stop eating vineberries. I don't care if they're sweet."
"I didn't say you have to stop eating them," she said. "I learned a recipe for a men's pie that uses vineberries last winter, but you were too young to start eating men's food then. I'll make it for you this Weeping."
"Will it be spicy?"
"Of course," she said. "It's men's food."
"I don't like spicy," he complained.
"You've hardly had spicy food yet," she pointed out. "You only started eating men's food three weeks ago. It will grow on you."
"What if I don't want it to grow on me?"
"Then I suppose you had best join the ardentia," she said dryly. "Where instead of learning to use the spear you can learn to read and write and eat sweets like a woman."
He stuck out his tongue. "Ew."
She laughed.
Truthfully, it didn't sound so terrible. His mother sometimes read him stories from the books in the castle library. She'd read him the history of Sunmaker's siege of Vedenar and his duel with King Renchilo of Herdaz. She'd read him the fable of Ishi'Elin on the Shore of Origins, how the cleverest of the Heralds had fooled a hundred Voidbringers into being crushed on the rocks by a newborn highstorm. She'd read him the tale of Pathas, a thief who had pilfered treasures from a hundred kings only to fall at the hands of the Highprince of Sadeas.
Some of the stories weren't true, he knew that. But even those that weren't had the seed of truth in them, or so his mother said. The Sunmaker really had united Alethkar, had really conquered all of Herdaz and even ridden as far as Azir. Pathas really had been a legendary thief who had been captured by a prince who had lived in the same castle where Sarus now lived with his mother.
And Ishi'Elin really had been a Herald who fought the Voidbringers long ago. According to the ardents, at least.
Sarus knew that, as a boy, he would one day have to put away those stories. He might be second nahn, but once he grew old enough to work, he would have to dedicate himself to his Calling. He didn't know what that Calling would be, but it wouldn't be history or fiction. Those were feminine arts. Perhaps when he was old enough to marry, his wife would read to him as his mother did now, but that was so far in the distant future as to be meaningless.
After an interminably long time, they did finally reach the gates of the city. Sadear was a blur of color, resplendent in flapping banners of green, red, and gold. Shopkeepers had flung the doors of their stores wide, and those who had dedicated assistants or apprentices had turned them outside to attract the attention of anyone who might have money to spend. In front of the stores were stalls for those who did not do business in the city year-round or who had come in with the fair's traveling performers.
Many tried to call out to his mother, but one called out to him. "Ho there, little one!" called a man at one stall, gesturing to a table of small wooden figurines painted in vibrant colors. "Wouldn't you like a new toy? A Sadeas officer, or a Kholin Shardbearer? I have a whole army for you to browse like a general surveying the troops!"
"Oh, Mother, may I?" he asked, looking up at her. "Just one?"
She glanced over at the display. "Do you think you'll play with it?" she asked. "Or will you forget it after only a few days?"
"I'll play with it! Please, Mother, may I have some spheres?"
"Now, now," she chided, glancing down at him. "You know you're not to carry spheres around. But I'll come and buy you one, so long as they're not too expensive." His mother never let him carry his own spheres. She always said there was no need for a child of barely five years to have his own purse.
A few minutes later, Sarus happily followed his mother away from the stall, a wooden soldier in green and silver armor clutched in his fingers. Golden captain's knots were intricately carved on his shoulder. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome, Sarus," said his mother. "Now, don't lose that toy before we return home."
"I won't!"
They stopped for lunch at an outdoor pavilion serving foods he had never heard of. His mother ordered from the serving man who bustled between the circular tables. "Thaylen sweetfish for me," she said. "And the Azish flatbread for the little one. Moderately spiced, please."
As the man bustled away, Sarus grimaced at his mother. "Does it have to be moderately spiced?"
"You must grow used to spicier foods, little one," she said. "It would be a shame to join the ardentia just because you never got used to men's food."
That was fair, he supposed. If he did join the ardentia, it should at least be because he wanted to, not because he was a picky eater.
And when the food arrived, it was surprisingly good. Spicy, but maybe he really was getting used to that. "When is the duel?" he asked between bites.
"A few hours before sunset," said his mother. "We have just long enough for me to go to the produce market before then. I want to see if they have anything from Thaylenah."
"Why?"
"I tried a Thaylen cake a few weeks ago when I was waiting on Brightness Ialai. They were good, and I'd like to see if I can make them." Sarus' mother often did that. It was why they had stopped at this pavilion for lunch, rather than packing something from home. She frequently sought out foods from elsewhere on Roshar, places neither of them would ever go.
As it turned out, the market didn't have Thaylen cakes. But they did have some Thaylen bread—an odd, puffy loaf which yielded to the merchant's fingers, then bounced back as if he hadn't even touched it. His mother bought it along with a jar of Azish truthberry jam. She slipped both into her purse, then offered to put Sarus' toy soldier in with them.
"No," he said, clutching the wooden captain in both hands. "I want him out when I see the duel. To compare."
As if his words had been a cue, a trumpet rang out from the fields outside the city. He jumped in excitement. "Mother, is that—"
"That will be the duel," she said, smiling at him. "And you have been very good, so we'll stay to see it."
They weren't the only ones moving in that direction. Sarus' mother kept a tight grip on his hand as they followed the crowd walking down the thoroughfare in the direction of the city's western gate.
The arena was marked by a rope, suspended by metal stakes which had been driven into the rock. It was surrounded by wooden stands for the lighteyed spectators to sit in, but darkeyes like Sarus and his mother had to stand further back, behind a second rope barrier.
Still, they had been fairly close to the arena when the trumpets rang out, so they managed to find a good place. It was fairly near to the gate where lighteyes entered the arena and stands, and gave a good view of the arena itself. Sarus clutched the rope in front of him with one hand, the other holding his toy captain, eagerly waiting for the show to start. It couldn't start yet, of course. The best spectator's box wasn't yet filled. No one would start before the Highprince arrived.
Suddenly, Sarus' mother breathed in sharply. Sensing the change in her mood, Sarus looked up, then followed her gaze towards the path leading to the lighteyes' gate.
Three familiar people walked up the lane. Highprince Sadeas wore a dark green uniform, with silver buttons in two columns running up the sides of his breast. Beside him, Brightness Ialai wore a glittering silvery dress with green trim, perfectly complementing his outfit.
Between them was a girl Sarus knew. Tailiah's hair was done in a braid, and she wore a frilly dress in a pale green. She was young enough that her safehand was not yet covered by the sleeve of a havah, but she carried it daintily behind her back, already practicing for the day when she would have to begin hiding it in public.
Her eyes found Sarus'. Her face brightened. She started moving, passing her parents and coming in his direction.
Sarus' mother grabbed for his hand. He dropped his officer as she tugged him, back into the crowd and away from the duel. He tried to reach down with his free hand, but by the time he knew what was happening, they had left the toy far behind. He glanced up, catching Tailiah's confused, hurt eyes until she vanished behind a man's broad back.
Sarus resisted the urge to throw a tantrum. He was better than that—and he understood why they had left so suddenly. Tailiah should have known, too. But it was probably much easier to forget these things as the highprince's daughter than as the son of one of his maids. He swallowed that bitterness down.
Instead of complaining, he turned and jogged a little to keep up with his mother, so that she wasn't pulling him along like a cart behind a chull. "We're out of sight," he told her.
She slowed. "Are you sure?" She glanced back. "Oh, good, so we are."
He swallowed. "I lost my officer."
"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry," she said, looking down at him with sad eyes. "I'll buy you a new one, if you'd like."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, it's okay. But can we go back to see the duel, once Brightlord Sadeas and his family have sat down?"
There was an odd expression on his mother's face. "I told you we could see the duel if you were good," she said. "And you have been very, very good. Yes, we can go back. In just a few minutes."
The view wasn't as good anymore. But Sarus could still see the warriors clashing, blades flashing in the sunlight. It was good enough.
That night, after they had returned home, Sarus' mother spread the Azish jam over the Thaylen bread. It was very sweet. "You were very good today, Sarus," she said, smiling at him over their small table. "You've earned a meal without having to worry about eating proper men's food."
"Thank you," he said, looking down at the green jam spread over the puffy, almost cakey bread. Then he looked up and met her eyes. "Should I not be friends with Tailiah?" he asked.
Her face fell. "Oh, darling… it's not that simple."
"I know." And he did. "She's second dahn. We're second nahn."
"Yes. But that's—it's Tailiah's choice, and her family's choice, if she wants to interact with you. But her parents don't want her to interact with you out in public, especially not in front of other lighteyes. It's not that you can't be friends, dear one. It's just that, right now, you probably shouldn't be friends out in the city."
He nodded. "I'll be careful."
His mother didn't really understand what he'd been asking. He understood why they'd had to leave the duel, abandoning their prime view of the arena, just to avoid being seen as familiar with the highprince's daughter. His question, rather, was a strategic one. Is it too dangerous for me to remain friends with Tailiah? Do I need to tell her we mustn't be seen together anymore, even within the castle?
But though his mother hadn't given him the question, he understood the answer well enough. Yes. It was too dangerous. The wise thing to do was to break away from Tailiah now, when she was still too young to enact vengeance for hurt feelings and while she still had parents to help her understand the situation.
But it also wasn't Sarus' choice. It was Tailiah's. Because she was the lighteyes, and he was the darkeyes, and that was simply the way of the world.
Soon after, his mother sent him to bed. The only light in his small bedroom was the moonlight which streamed in through the window out into the courtyard. His mother always took the spherelamp out of his room when it was time for him to sleep.
He lay awake, staring up at the stone ceiling, thinking. It was just another part of growing up, really. He had to start eating men's food. He had to stop demanding stories from his mother. And, yes, he had to stop playing with Tailiah. He understood why.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt.
There was a sudden tapping on his window. He blinked and sat up.
There was a small figure outside in the courtyard. Her head barely cleared the windowsill. Her eyes caught Mishim's light and sparkled green.
He couldn't help but smile wryly as he stood and opened the window. "You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Don't care," said Tailiah in a whisper. She reached up, holding something out to him. In the moonlight he could see that its paint was a little chipped, but it was unmistakably his little Sadeas solider. "I think I made you drop this."
His mouth quivered. Bizarrely, he suddenly felt like crying. "Thanks," he said, taking the figurine.
"It was my fault you lost it in the first place," she said. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see the duel."
"I did, actually. We came back once you'd sat down."
"Oh, that's good." She smiled at him. The greenish moonlight glistened in her hair, no longer in its tight braid, and shimmered on the shoulders of her pale nightgown. "Mom was mad that I went over to you. I know I shouldn't have. I just forgot. You don't usually go out to the city."
"I convinced Mother to take me to the fair this year. It was nice."
"I imagine it was different for you than for me," said Tailiah, grimacing. "I had the privilege of joining Brightness Palinal for tea. She's the only person I know who can be boring after two whole glasses of sapphire wine."
Sarus laughed quietly. "Is she still boring after three?"
"After two, Mom usually decides she's been enough of a bad influence on me for one day," Tailiah said. She glanced over her shoulder. "I should get back to my rooms before someone notices I'm gone."
"Yes, you should."
She looked up at him. "I'll be more careful, I promise," she said. "But we'll still be friends, Sarus. We'll always be friends."
Sarus' hand shook on his wooden captain. "Always," he promised.
Tailiah smiled at him again, then turned and darted back into the night.
That is one promise that is guaranteed to broken. Hopefully it will be mended one day.
Well @Lithos Maitreya, establishing Sarus as his own character will make the awakening of his memories as Saruman hurt. But that is the point or byproduct of this type of story. It will also make it interesting to see how Sarus handles his new/old memories as well as how his friends in Bridge Four react to this profound in their friend.
I'm pretty sure Sadeas said that Sarus got his daughter killed and that's why he's on the bridge crews, so I don't think that's a friendship that can be rekindled.
After some conversation on the SB mirror, I decided to go back and make minor edits to the chapter to convert it to a duel with side-swords. Multiple readers made compelling cases for why jousting, even if it might have appeared by the time of The Way Of Kings, would probably not be commonplace in Alethkar fifteen years earlier. I do not promise to do this sort of thing again, I just happened to have time this week. Mostly I wanted to see how hard it would be to convert. The changes were not difficult, but there were enough of them that rather than a full changelog I decided to just put the original here for posterity.
Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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13
Always
-x-x-x-
Whereas this creature seems to have countermeasures in place to actively prevent it from being noticed or observed by the humans it empowers.
-x-x-x-
Fifteen Years Ago
"Don't run, Sarus," chided his mother gently.
Sarus forced himself to slow, falling back into step just a few paces ahead of her. "Well, hurry up then!" he demanded, looking back at her.
"The fair will still be there when we arrive, even if we take our time and don't get there sweaty and mussed."
"Fine…" He fell into step beside her, reaching up and taking her hand in his. She squeezed his fingers.
"That's a good boy," she said. "If you behave, we can stay for the joust."
Sarus brightened. There were jousts a few times a year in the lists outside the castle, but he usually wasn't allowed to go see them. "Really?"
"I promise. But only if you behave. Will you be good?"
"I'll be good!"
His mother smiled down at him. "I know you will."
It was easy to say he'd behave in the moment. It was harder to stay at pace with her leisurely stroll for the whole mile-long walk down the lane to the city. The castle was built into the west side of a mountain, high enough on the foothills that it still looked over the city in the valley below. The road zig-zagged down the slope. If Sarus had been alone, running freely without regard for the path, he could have made the journey in just a few short minutes. But his mother always insisted on taking the paths. "We are direct servants of Brightlord Sadeas," she would tell him. "We must behave the part."
Still, despite feeling like his body might burst with excitement, he managed to stay at pace with his mother. He did let go of her hand and dart away once or twice to check the vinebud clusters that grew alongside the cobblestone road. The variety that grew here in northwestern Alethkar produced succulent, violet berries in the autumn. Unfortunately, it seemed he was too early. The vinebuds had lost most of their conical, yellow flowers, but what few fruits had taken their places were still hard and gray, more like pebbles than berries.
"No vineberries yet?" his mother asked as she caught up with him.
"No. When will they grow, Mother?"
"Within a month, most likely. You're getting too old for sweets, you know."
Sarus frowned. "I don't want to stop eating vineberries. I don't care if they're sweet."
"I didn't say you have to stop eating them," she said. "I learned a recipe for a men's pie that uses vineberries last winter, but you were too young to start eating men's food then. I'll make it for you this Weeping."
"Will it be spicy?"
"Of course," she said. "It's men's food."
"I don't like spicy," he complained.
"You've hardly had spicy food yet," she pointed out. "You only started eating men's food three weeks ago. It will grow on you."
"What if I don't want it to grow on me?"
"Then I suppose you had best join the ardentia," she said dryly. "Where instead of learning to use the spear you can learn to read and write and eat sweets like a woman."
He stuck out his tongue. "Ew."
She laughed.
Truthfully, it didn't sound so terrible. His mother sometimes read him stories from the books in the castle library. She'd read him the history of Sunmaker's siege of Vedenar and his duel with King Renchilo of Herdaz. She'd read him the fable of Ishi'Elin on the Shore of Origins, how the cleverest of the Heralds had fooled a hundred Voidbringers into being crushed on the rocks by a newborn highstorm. She'd read him the tale of Pathas, a thief who had pilfered treasures from a hundred kings only to fall at the hands of the Highprince of Sadeas.
Some of the stories weren't true, he knew that. But even those that weren't had the seed of truth in them, or so his mother said. The Sunmaker really had united Alethkar, had really conquered all of Herdaz and even ridden as far as Azir. Pathas really had been a legendary thief who had been captured by a prince who had lived in the same castle where Sarus now lived with his mother.
And Ishi'Elin really had been a Herald who fought the Voidbringers long ago. According to the ardents, at least.
Sarus knew that, as a boy, he would one day have to put away those stories. He might be second nahn, but once he grew old enough to work, he would have to dedicate himself to his Calling. He didn't know what that Calling would be, but it wouldn't be history or fiction. Those were feminine arts. Perhaps when he was old enough to marry, his wife would read to him as his mother did now, but that was so far in the distant future as to be meaningless.
After an interminably long time, they did finally reach the gates of the city. Sadear was a blur of color, resplendent in flapping banners of green, red, and gold. Shopkeepers had flung the doors of their stores wide, and those who had dedicated assistants or apprentices had turned them outside to attract the attention of anyone who might have money to spend. In front of the stores were stalls for those who did not do business in the city year-round or who had come in with the fair's traveling performers.
Many tried to call out to his mother, but one called out to him. "Ho there, little one!" called a man at one stall, gesturing to a table of small wooden figurines painted in vibrant colors. "Wouldn't you like a new toy? A Sadeas heavy cavalryman, or a Kholin Shardbearer? I have a whole army for you to browse like a general surveying the troops!"
"Oh, Mother, may I?" he asked, looking up at her. "Just one?"
She glanced over at the display. "Do you think you'll play with it?" she asked. "Or will you forget it after only a few days?"
"I'll play with it! Please, Mother, may I have some spheres?"
"Now, now," she chided, glancing down at him. "You know you're not to carry spheres around. But I'll come and buy you one, so long as they're not too expensive." His mother never let him carry his own spheres. She always said there was no need for a child of barely five years to have his own purse.
A few minutes later, Sarus happily followed his mother away from the stall, a wooden cavalryman in green and silver armor aside a black charger clutched in his fingers. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome, Sarus," said his mother. "Now, don't lose that toy before we return home."
"I won't!"
They stopped for lunch at an outdoor pavilion serving foods he had never heard of. His mother ordered from the serving man who bustled between the circular tables. "Thaylen sweetfish for me," she said. "And the Azish flatbread for the little one. Moderately spiced, please."
As the man bustled away, Sarus grimaced at his mother. "Does it have to be moderately spiced?"
"You must grow used to spicier foods, little one," she said. "It would be a shame to join the ardentia just because you never got used to men's food."
That was fair, he supposed. If he did join the ardentia, it should at least be because he wanted to, not because he was a picky eater.
And when the food arrived, it was surprisingly good. Spicy, but maybe he really was getting used to that. "When is the joust?" he asked between bites.
"A few hours before sunset," said his mother. "We have just long enough for me to go to the produce market before then. I want to see if they have anything from Thaylenah."
"Why?"
"I tried a Thaylen cake a few weeks ago when I was waiting on Brightness Ialai. They were good, and I'd like to see if I can make them." Sarus' mother often did that. It was why they had stopped at this pavilion for lunch, rather than packing something from home. She frequently sought out foods from elsewhere on Roshar, places neither of them would ever go.
As it turned out, the market didn't have Thaylen cakes. But they did have some Thaylen bread—an odd, puffy loaf which yielded to the merchant's fingers, then bounced back as if he hadn't even touched it. His mother bought it along with a jar of Azish truthberry jam. She slipped both into her purse, then offered to put Sarus' cavalryman in with them.
"No," he said, clutching the wooden toy in both hands. "I want him out when I see the joust. To compare."
As if his words had been a cue, a trumpet rang out from the fields outside the city. He jumped in excitement. "Mother, is that—"
"That will be the joust," she said, smiling at him. "And you have been very good, so we'll stay to see it."
They weren't the only ones moving in that direction. Sarus' mother kept a tight grip on his hand as they followed the crowd walking down the thoroughfare in the direction of the city's western gate.
The lists were marked by a rope, suspended by metal stakes which had been driven into the rock. A stable along the city wall had been repurposed for the contestants' horses. There were wooden stands for the lighteyed spectators to sit in, but darkeyes like Sarus and his mother had to stand further back, behind a second rope barrier.
Still, they had been fairly close to the lists when the trumpets rang out, so they managed to find a good place. It was fairly near to the gate where lighteyes entered the lists and stands, and gave a good view of the arena itself. Sarus clutched the rope in front of him with one hand, the other holding his cavalryman, eagerly waiting for the show to start. It couldn't start yet, of course. The best spectator's box wasn't yet filled. No one would start before the Highprince arrived.
Suddenly, Sarus' mother breathed in sharply. Sensing the change in her mood, Sarus looked up, then followed her gaze towards the path leading to the lighteyes' gate.
Three familiar people walked up the lane. Highprince Sadeas wore a dark green uniform, with silver buttons in two columns running up the sides of his breast. Beside him, Brightness Ialai wore a glittering silvery dress with green trim, perfectly complementing his outfit.
Between them was a girl Sarus knew. Tailiah's hair was done in a braid, and she wore a frilly dress in a pale green. She was young enough that her safehand was not yet covered by the sleeve of a havah, but she carried it daintily behind her back, already practicing for the day when she would have to begin hiding it in public.
Her eyes found Sarus'. Her face brightened. She started moving, passing her parents and coming in his direction.
Sarus' mother grabbed for his hand. He dropped his cavalryman as she tugged him, back into the crowd and away from the joust. He tried to reach down with his free hand, but by the time he knew what was happening, they had left the toy far behind. He glanced up, catching Tailiah's confused, hurt eyes until she vanished behind a man's broad back.
Sarus resisted the urge to throw a tantrum. He was better than that—and he understood why they had left so suddenly. Tailiah should have known, too. But it was probably much easier to forget these things as the highprince's daughter than as the son of one of his maids. He swallowed that bitterness down.
Instead of complaining, he turned and jogged a little to keep up with his mother, so that she wasn't pulling him along like a cart behind a chull. "We're out of sight," he told her.
She slowed. "Are you sure?" She glanced back. "Oh, good, so we are."
He swallowed. "I lost my cavalryman."
"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry," she said, looking down at him with sad eyes. "I'll buy you a new one, if you'd like."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, it's okay. But can we go back to see the joust, once Brightlord Sadeas and his family have sat down?"
There was an odd expression on his mother's face. "I told you we could see the joust if you were good," she said. "And you have been very, very good. Yes, we can go back. In just a few minutes."
The view wasn't as good anymore. But Sarus could still see the warriors clashing, lances striking shields as they unhorsed one another. It was good enough.
That night, after they had returned home, Sarus' mother spread the Azish jam over the Thaylen bread. It was very sweet. "You were very good today, Sarus," she said, smiling at him over their small table. "You've earned a meal without having to worry about eating proper men's food."
"Thank you," he said, looking down at the green jam spread over the puffy, almost cakey bread. Then he looked up and met her eyes. "Should I not be friends with Tailiah?" he asked.
Her face fell. "Oh, darling… it's not that simple."
"I know." And he did. "She's second dahn. We're second nahn."
"Yes. But that's—it's Tailiah's choice, and her family's choice, if she wants to interact with you. But her parents don't want her to interact with you out in public, especially not in front of other lighteyes. It's not that you can't be friends, dear one. It's just that, right now, you probably shouldn't be friends out in the city."
He nodded. "I'll be careful."
His mother didn't really understand what he'd been asking. He understood why they'd had to leave the joust, abandoning their prime view of the lists, just to avoid being seen as familiar with the highprince's daughter. His question, rather, was a strategic one. Is it too dangerous for me to remain friends with Tailiah? Do I need to tell her we mustn't be seen together anymore, even within the castle?
But though his mother hadn't given him the question, he understood the answer well enough. Yes. It was too dangerous. The wise thing to do was to break away from Tailiah now, when she was still too young to enact vengeance for hurt feelings and while she still had parents to help her understand the situation.
But it also wasn't Sarus' choice. It was Tailiah's. Because she was the lighteyes, and he was the darkeyes, and that was simply the way of the world.
Soon after, his mother sent him to bed. The only light in his small bedroom was the moonlight which streamed in through the window out into the courtyard. His mother always took the spherelamp out of his room when it was time for him to sleep.
He lay awake, staring up at the stone ceiling, thinking. It was just another part of growing up, really. He had to start eating men's food. He had to stop demanding stories from his mother. And, yes, he had to stop playing with Tailiah. He understood why.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt.
There was a sudden tapping on his window. He blinked and sat up.
There was a small figure outside in the courtyard. Her head barely cleared the windowsill. Her eyes caught Mishim's light and sparkled green.
He couldn't help but smile wryly as he stood and opened the window. "You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Don't care," said Tailiah in a whisper. She reached up, holding something out to him. In the moonlight he could see that its paint was a little chipped, but it was unmistakably his little Sadeas cavalryman. "I think I made you drop this."
His mouth quivered. Bizarrely, he suddenly felt like crying. "Thanks," he said, taking the figurine.
"It was my fault you lost it in the first place," she said. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see the joust."
"I did, actually. We came back once you'd sat down."
"Oh, that's good." She smiled at him. The greenish moonlight glistened in her hair, no longer in its tight braid, and shimmered on the shoulders of her pale nightgown. "Mom was mad that I went over to you. I know I shouldn't have. I just forgot. You don't usually go out to the city."
"I convinced Mother to take me to the fair this year. It was nice."
"I imagine it was different for you than for me," said Tailiah, grimacing. "I had the privilege of joining Brightness Palinal for tea. She's the only person I know who can be boring after two whole glasses of sapphire wine."
Sarus laughed quietly. "Is she still boring after three?"
"After two, Mom usually decides she's been enough of a bad influence on me for one day," Tailiah said. She glanced over her shoulder. "I should get back to my rooms before someone notices I'm gone."
"Yes, you should."
She looked up at him. "I'll be more careful, I promise," she said. "But we'll still be friends, Sarus. We'll always be friends."
Sarus' hand shook on his wooden cavalryman. "Always," he promised.
Tailiah smiled at him again, then turned and darted back into the night.
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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14
A Thousand Weapons
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I only managed to see it because it allowed itself to be seen. I also appear to have had all but the vaguest impressions of that meeting wiped from my memory.
-x-x-x-
Sarus looked up as Syl darted inside the barrack window, taking the form of a leaf blown in by the chill breeze. She changed back into her usual girlish form. "He's awake," she said, looking at Sarus, Rock, and Murk seated side by side on a bunk near the door.
Sarus stood up, the other two only a beat behind him. He ignored the confusion of the wounded men by the door as he strode out of the barrack into the chill wind.
A highstorm started with a cold front.The air would grow thin—at high altitudes, it was enough to set more sensitive men groaning in their bunks. The wind would slowly rise, as though the land itself was inhaling deeply to brace itself for what was coming. The lull, it was called.
For five years now, Sarus had hated that term. The lull was the last opportunity anyone had to find shelter before the stormwall hit. If they failed, they died.
And if they succeeded, and had ill intentions, someone else might.
He circled the barrack until he reached the easterly wall, and there he was. Kaladin had been brutalized. He wasn't as injured as Moash or Teft, but blood still leaked from his split lip and torn ear, even hours later. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and dried blood still caked much of his face and clothes. He dangled by his ankles from the roof of the barrack where he had been strung up.
"Kaladin," Murk murmured behind Sarus.
"Murk," Kaladin responded, his voice barely a croak. "Tesh. Rock. Everyone get back from the battle all right?"
"Yes," Murk said. "All of us, at least. But the battle was…" He trailed off.
"A disaster," their bridgeleader said. His eyes were on Sarus, who nodded.
Over two hundred bridgemen had died. Not a single one was from Bridge Four. The survivors were only able to carry eleven of the bridges back from the plateau, and the rest had been abandoned—normally, soldiers might have retrieved them, but by the time the retreat had been sounded the Parshendi were still assembled in their firing line, and attempting to retrieve the other fallen bridges would have meant taking more fire. Bridgemen were expendable to Torol Sadeas. More than expendable—they were condemned. Soldiers, however, were valuable.
Kaladin sighed, let his eyes drift towards the ground below where he hung upside-down. "Storms," he said. "I'm an idiot."
No, Sarus thought. An idiot wouldn't have immediately realized that in trying to protect his men, he had doomed the battle. He knew Kaladin must have been a squadleader before being sent to the bridge crews—anyone with any training at all could see that he had experience with command—but a squadleader was trained to oversee a squad. To figure out how to use them effectively within a larger strategy. He was not expected to even understand, let alone plan, that strategy.
Kaladin had been doing as he had been trained. But bridgemen were not supposed to be trained. Bridgemen were not supposed to survive. And that dichotomy, that misunderstanding, had lost Sadeas yet another battle for the Tower.
"We wanted to say something," Rock said, his deep voice quiet in his chest. "Is from all the men, but most wouldn't come out. With highstorm so close—"
"It's all right," Kaladin murmured, still looking down at the rock. "I understand."
Rock fell momentarily silent. Sarus saw his jaw work for a moment before he found the strength to continue. "Well, is this. We will remember you. Bridge Four. We won't go back to how we were before you came. Maybe we all die, but we will show the newcomers first. Laughter around the fire. Food. Life. We will make it a tradition. In your memory."
"They say that Talenelat'Elin once held back an entire army of Voidbringers," whispered Murk. "First, he batted aside their weapons with his blade. When they disarmed him, he held his shield before him to block their weapons. When his shield broke, he defended the pass with his body. A thousand weapons pierced him, but he did not stand aside. He suffered and died, was sent back to Damnation to hold back the Enemy, so that the other Heralds could continue the fight. Today, Kaladin, you are Talenelat'Elin."
A strange smile touched Kaladin's lips. "There are worse people to be compared to," he murmured.
"If you ask us," said Rock, "we will cut you down."
"That would just earn you a similar punishment, and I'd just be strung up again for the next storm."
"Perhaps," said Rock. "But that would be a little time."
Kaladin shook his head. "No. I'm not letting my last act on Roshar be to get you all killed. Not after I tried so hard to save you."
Sarus felt something touch his beard. A drop of water. For a moment, he feared that the storm had come—but no, there had been no stormwall. Then he realized that he was crying. His tears were dripping into the salt-and-pepper tangle below his chin.
"Who sentenced me?" Kaladin asked.
"Highpr—no. Sadeas himself." Murk's voice was hard. "He said he was letting the Stormfather judge you. He said that if you deserved to live, you would."
Sadeas had been smiling as he said those words. It was the same smile he had worn as he held the branding iron to Sarus' skin.
"I want you three to do something for me," Kaladin said.
"Anything," Rock vowed.
"I want you to go back into the barrack and tell the men to come out after the storm passes. Tell them to come and look at me. And tell them that I'll open my eyes and look back, and they'll know that I survived. I chose not to take my own life, and I'm not letting Sadeas take it now."
Rock smiled. It was not a joyful expression. "I almost believe you will do it."
Sarus didn't. As Kaladin met his eyes, he saw there the same certainty that consumed every bridgeman eventually.
Kaladin was going to die. He knew it. And yet, even in the face of that certainty, he wanted to leave them not with despair, but with hope. Even when they came out later and found his corpse, he was leaving them that last gift, if they could only keep it.
Even as he died, Kaladin wanted to help Bridge Four. Even as he died for the crime of protecting them, he wanted to give them one last shield of warmth against the void.
Sarus hid his face behind an unsteady hand.
Then, hesitantly, a whisper came from his shoulder, soft enough that the rising wind hid it from the other men's ears. "I might be able to help him."
Sarus' eyes widened. His gaze snapped to the tiny black speck on his vest.
"You've probably heard the saying," Murk said. "Carry a sphere with you into the storm…"
"...And at least you'll have a light by which to see," Kaladin finished.
Sarus wasn't listening to either of them.
"I do not think the honorspren remembers the words," murmured Archive. The words left her almost as if ripped from her chest by the rising wind. "I could tell Kaladin. It might give him a chance."
Do it, then! Sarus had no idea what she was talking about, or what was making her hesitate.
"A risk is," she warned, clearly interpreting his expression. "One I do not fully understand. Honorspren do not like my kind, and I do not remember why. But if you ask it of me, I will tell him the words."
For a single, awful moment, Sarus found himself hesitating. But it wasn't fear of the nebulous animosity between honorspren and whatever Archive was that held him back.
I am here for you, Archive had said. Now she, like every man in the crew barrack, wanted to help Kaladin. Sarus could no more prevent the ugly surge of envy in him than he could have held back the storm itself.
But he could decide whether to heed it. Jerkily, he nodded at Archive.
"I will follow you inside shortly," she said, and leapt from his shoulder to be lost in the gloom.
Sarus looked up to see that Murk and Rock were both already walking away, Murk glancing back to see if he would follow.
"Go, Tesh," Kaladin said.
My name, Sarus thought, is Sarus.
His mother had named him for two virtues. She had named him for courage, and he was too afraid of failing to make a difference to even speak words into the air. She had named him for generosity, and the serpent of envy even now curled around his gut. He did not envy Kaladin's fate. But he envied in Kaladin the strength to meet that fate with clear eyes, a proud heart, and an unbent back.
His name was Sarus, and if he didn't say it now, Kaladin might well die without ever knowing it. Whatever words Archive intended to tell him, she clearly didn't think they would assure Kaladin's survival.
But it wasn't as though Sarus was worthy of his own name anyway.
Sarus turned and, without looking again at the man who had almost managed to convince him that the world was worth living in, walked back around and into the barrack.
He strode past Sigzil and Lesk as they closed the door behind him. He passed Moash and Teft where they lay in their bunks, then passed Murk and Rock where they sat without looking at each other near the entrance. He walked down the length of the barrack, west to east, until he reached the inner side of the wall where Kaladin now hung unprotected.
Then he sat with his back to it and put his face in his hands.
-x-x-x-
Kaladin could see the stormwall in the distance. It was far enough away, over the plains, that it still seemed to be moving slowly. He knew better. By the time it reached the edge of the warcamp, it would be mere seconds from him.
"Speak again the ancient oaths," said a soft voice beside him.
He turned his head sharply. There was a figure standing beside the wall, her back against the stone. She was tall—nearly as tall as Kaladin—and her skin and clothes were black and iridescent, as though she was composed entirely of tar.
She had to be a spren, but she didn't look like any spren Kaladin had ever heard of.
"What—who are you?" Syl said, suddenly between Kaladin and the strange spren. She seemed to be glowing brighter than normal, as if she was bristling.
The spren ignored her. She turned, and her jet-black eyes fixed on Kaladin. "Life before death," she said. "Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."
"What?" Kaladin asked.
"Say the words," said the spren. "Intend them. They are your only hope." Then she stepped past him and rounded the corner of the barrack, passing out of his sight.
Syl darted after her, but stopped before she rounded the corner, returning to Kaladin. "I'd forgotten them," she said.
"Forgotten what?"
"The words," Syl said, staring up at him. There was an odd, almost ashamed look on her face. "How could I have forgotten the words?"
"What words—"
-x-x-x-
The stormwall hit.
As close to the wall as he was, Sarus heard the deluge of water striking the barracks in a thundering patter, interspersed with thuds and crashes as rocks and branches were carried alongside the rain.
Then he heard the scraping. Kaladin was being blown along the barrack wall, his back dashed against the rough stone. Then it stopped as Kaladin sailed upward. Sarus could see it in his mind's eye—the man flapping in the wind like a macabre sailcloth, like laundry left mistakenly out into the maelstrom.
Sarus felt the tiniest pressure on his shoulder as Archive alighted back upon her perch. "I have told him the words," she whispered in his ear. "The rest is up to him."
Sarus was about to try and come up with a way to ask any one of a dozen questions, but the awful sounds resumed and drove all of them from his mind. There was a terrible crack as the breeze let up and Kaladin fell onto the sloping roof. The impact had audibly broken something in the man's body, and around him, Sarus saw multiple men wince.
But the impact did not repeat. Not at once, at least. Had Kaladin been torn free of the rope, or was he still alive enough to grab hold of the roof?
Sarus rested his head back against the wall, at once hating himself for not being out there beside Kaladin, and feeling as though some part of him was.
-x-x-x-
Kaladin blinked in the sudden blackness. He still felt his bruises, still felt the cold steel of the ring from which he had been hung. He had caught it in one hand, trying to minimize the impacts against the roof. The cold rainwater still streamed down his back and face. But the wind had stopped.
He looked up and his breath caught in his chest. There was a face in the dark. Its skin was as black as its surroundings, but the lines of its features were faintly traced in light. It was as wide as the whole breadth of the storm, yet somehow Kaladin could still see it entirely. It smiled at him.
Suddenly the sphere in his left hand blossomed with sapphire light. It illuminated the roof, the tattered rags he wore, the lacerations across his body. He glanced down, and when he looked back up, the face was gone.
Then lightning flashed, and the storm returned. He gasped, nearly losing his grip on his handhold under the onslaught. Syl burst with light before him, arms spread wide as if she could will the storm to part around her like a stream around a stone.
"Say the words!" she screamed. "I'm not losing you just because I'm too stupid to remember them!"
The words? He felt as if he had been in this storm for years. Had it really been mere minutes ago that the strange spren had come and told him… told him—
"Life before death," he said, the words lost in the gale. The words meant something. There was a profundity to them, as though he were reciting an ardent's prayer. He didn't know exactly what they meant—but, somehow, he knew exactly what he meant by them. His mind flashed to that moment after another highstorm, staring down into the Honor Chasm, when he had decided not to give up.
"Strength before weakness." He remembered the spear in his hands as he moved through his kata, down in the chasms.
"Journey before destination." He remembered nights spent surrounded by laughing men encircling Rock's cookfire.
The sphere in his hand blazed with blue fire. The storm rumbled around him, and suddenly he felt frozen, as if pinned to the rooftop by the gaze of the Almighty.
These words, said the Stormfather, in the voice of the highstorm itself, are accepted.
Kaladin's grip slipped from the metal ring. The wind carried him into the air, then threw him into the roof. The sphere in his other hand shone brighter than the sun, and the sight of it was the last thing he remembered for a while.
-x-x-x-
There was a momentary lull in the barrage, and then it came back. And, soon enough, the rhythmic thudding resumed on the roof. Kaladin had been holding onto the roof, and no longer was. Unconscious, if not already dead. Sarus supposed there wasn't much of a difference.
"Perhaps it was too little," Archive said. "Perhaps it was too late."
It was the longest highstorm Sarus had ever weathered. It lasted centuries, a millennium of that cracking thud, beating against the roof of the barrack like a Voidbringer's drum. Somehow, the worst part was that he had no idea when Kaladin slipped away—when unconsciousness gave way to death.
At least when Tailiah and his mother had died, it had been immediately obvious. He had known when horror should give way to grief, instead of holding both in this awful limbo.
But at long last, the winds died down. The body on the roof thudded one last time, then rolled audibly down the wall. The rain still pattered against the barrack, but it was the drizzle that always followed a storm.
Sarus stood up on shaking legs. As he crossed the barrack, he heard men standing to follow him. He pushed open the door, heedless of the cold wind and water, and walked out into the night. It was illuminated faintly by rainspren flickering like blue candles over puddles in the rock, and by windspren drifting on the last breezes left behind by the storm as it marched westward.
Rock fell into step beside Sarus. "I almost believe he lives," said the big Horneater quietly. "I almost think that it will be as he said. That he will open his eyes and all will be well. That there is justice in the world, and mercy in the storm."
Sarus just sighed.
They rounded the final corner. Kaladin looked like butchered meat. He bled from a hundred wounds, so many that there seemed to be more skin missing than remained on his corpse. The rainwater ran red down the side of the building, forming a dark pool beneath him.
Sarus glanced over at a sound and saw a few soldiers approaching from their own barrack, clad in thick raincloaks. They were looking over at the bridgemen, assembled like worshipers before the altar of their martyr. Sadeas must have sent them to assure that Kaladin had not been cut down early.
Well, he hadn't. Sarus looked back at the body. Beside him, Rock bowed his head.
As a result, Sarus was the only one who saw a ribbon of blue light sail down from over the barrack. Syl stopped beside Kaladin's face, looking down past his lacerated cheeks at his closed eyes. Her expression was one of worry, not of grief.
Kaladin opened his eyes. The movement was so sudden, so startling, that some of the other bridgemen actually slipped in the rainwater and fell. Sarus, however, did not. He just stared at Syl as she smiled. Then she turned, and her eyes found Sarus' own. Her smile didn't fade, but there was something odd in the way her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Something like suspicion.
Kaladin took in a wheezing breath, gazing unseeingly into the dark. His hand, which had been dangling below him in a tightly clenched fist, fell open, and something dropped into the puddle of blood and water below.
Sarus knelt. It was the sphere that Murk had given Kaladin. And, despite the highstorm that had passed not five minutes ago, the storm which should have infused it with Stormlight, it was as dun as if it had sat through an entire Weeping.
"He spoke the words," said Archive. She sounded satisfied.
Sarus looked down at his shoulder, demanding explanation. The speck there was silent for a moment before seeming to notice his gaze.
"Cut him down," Archive ordered, "and bring him Stormlight. As much as you can find. He will need that and more."
Stormlight? What could Stormlight do? But, well, tonight was apparently a night for miracles. Sarus straightened as Rock called for a ladder and knife.
There were not many spheres in a bridgeman's barrack, and those they had were never hung outside to be infused. Finding Stormlight would not be easy. But Sarus was determined.
This was one friend he would not allow to die.
He pocketed the sphere and helped Rock and Murk carry Kaladin into the barrack. They laid him down on a bunk near the back, where his blood immediately began to seep into the cot. Sarus did his best to follow Kaladin's example in suturing and bandaging the wounds, but he wasn't nearly as effective as Kaladin himself would have been.
Murk and Rock stayed nearby, helping by looking through Kaladin's things for his medical supplies. A little over half an hour of work passed before Sarus stood up, rolling his stiff shoulders, confident that he had done as much as he could.
"Do you think he'll survive the night?" Murk asked quietly.
Sarus nodded. And he believed it. Kaladin had survived the storm itself. He would not slip away in the dark hours of the morning.
"Thank you," said Syl quietly, hovering above Kaladin. She didn't look at Sarus, instead focused on the man lying below her.
Sarus took out the sphere Kaladin had dropped and set in on the man's pillow. For a moment, he thought he saw it glowing faintly–not blue, like an infused sphere, but orange. But the glimmer faded as Rock walked away. It must have been his hair reflected in the glass.
Archive made a quiet sound on his shoulder. He glanced at the speck where she sat.
"He will survive," she said. "But you should bring him Stormlight as soon as possible."
Payday was in two days. Sarus' pay had never gone to his slave debt, less because he actually wanted to spend it in other ways, and more because he refused to let any sphere pass into the Sadeas coffers that didn't need to. Generally, he used it to buy wine, as fine as he could get, like that he'd just started to drink before everything went wrong five years ago. This time, however, he had a better use for the spheres—so long as they were infused.
Sigzil's still around! He's just not getting as much focus yet. And... Yeah, I felt like I had to kill some of the canonical members of Bridge Four to preserve the sense of tension in the bridge crews and to highlight the chaotic nature of the timeline (and Sarus' effect on it). I was not happy to kill Skar and Dabbid, but I am happy that I have the room to expand on Murk!
Ok, I may be completely off here, but as far as I remember, there is never an orange light mentioned in Stormlight. So, can Curamo generate his own version of investiture, or like, pull from some LotR based source. My first thought was of the Palantir and their orange light, but that doesn't make overly much sense.
So basically, can Sarus produce his own stormlight?
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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15
Windows
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The most disturbing facet of this is that I believe I wiped the recollection away myself in order to preserve my sanity.
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"I should have known he'd do this," said Adolin quietly.
Renarin glanced over at him. His brother was looking across the room at their father. Dalinar was, once again, tied to a heavy chair as a highstorm raged outside.
A week ago, he had told them that he intended to abdicate the Kholin Highprincedom in favor of Adolin. He had promised to consider it when Adolin had protested. Even then, Renarin had known that he would only be considering how to brush aside Adolin's protests. Once Dalinar Kholin made a decision, neither army nor highstorm could turn him aside.
"You're disappointed?" Renarin asked.
"Of course I'm disappointed! I just wanted him to be a bit more circumspect about these visions! I didn't want him to abdicate over that one issue!"
"Why is it so bad?" Renarin asked. "He'll still be here to ask for advice."
Adolin shot him a look that Renarin couldn't read. "I'm not ready to be highprince."
"Will you ever be?"
Adolin's face twisted. "I don't know," he admitted.
"Then isn't this better? If you'll never feel ready, then better to become highprince while you still have Father to ask for advice."
"I don't… I suppose so, maybe. But is now really the time? In the middle of the war, when none of us have even been home in five years?"
"We're Alethi, Brother," said Renarin softly. "The only time we think we're healthy is at war."
"But there's a difference between this and border skirmishes," Adolin protested. "It would be one thing if we were just clashing with the other highprinces, or even if we were fighting Herdaz or Jah Keved on the frontier. This is a different kind of war. It requires experienced leaders."
"Experience isn't helping the other highprinces any," said Glys dryly where he hovered over Renarin's shoulder. "In fact, that might be the problem. They're all approaching the assaults on the plateaus the same as any other contest when they're supposed to be trying to avenge the old king."
"Ten experienced highprinces aren't making any headway against the Parshendi," said Renarin. "Maybe they need a new way of looking at it?"
Adolin sighed, looking back at Dalinar. "I don't want this," he said quietly.
Part of Renarin was bitter. But the rest of him… "I understand," he murmured.
"I thought things were finally getting back to normal," Adolin said. "When Father returned home after Uncle Gavilar died, he was different. He was better."
That was true. Renarin remembered holding his father as he sobbed, shaking and clutching the tiny wine bottle as though it was the one upright stone in a highstorm. Renarin had brought it to him in a desperate bid for Dalinar to just feel better. There were very few things he regretted more.
Then, two years later, King Gavilar had died. Dalinar had left Kholinar scarcely a week later, and had not returned for months after the assassination—long enough that he and Adolin had worried terribly. But then, at long last, he had arrived. And he had been changed. He no longer reached for wine. His eyes were clear, his back straight. And he had marshaled the armies of House Kholin and marched them south to their new King's muster.
"He still is better," Renarin said. "Even with these visions, he's better than he was."
"And yet he remained highprince for years after Mother died," said Adolin. "Why can't he see that?"
"You were a child then," Renarin pointed out. "You're a man now. You can be highprince, which wasn't true before."
Adolin grunted. "I still feel like a child sometimes."
Renarin didn't know how to answer that. So he remained silent.
"Do you really think this is right?" Adolin asked suddenly, turning to face him. "Do you really think Father should abdicate?"
"I…" Renarin hesitated. The truth was, he didn't know. He was just so used to rationalizing the actions of more powerful men that it came naturally to defend Dalinar's decision. "I'm not sure."
"Well, I am," said Adolin. "And I know that no matter how much of a problem Father's visions are, I would be worse."
"You're not—"
"I'm not ready, Renarin. I spend my days fumbling courtships and looking for duels. I've learned how to lead in theory, but I don't have any experience putting it into practice. I should be taking things over gradually—command of a small force, administration of a small territory, learning how to rule before I have to be responsible for the whole highprincedom. It shouldn't be like this."
"So says every son whose father dies before his time," said Glys, audible only to Renarin. "At least Dalinar's still breathing."
Renarin said nothing.
Adolin crossed to the window. The two layers of glass rattled quietly where they were set in the soulcast stone. He raised the shutters momentarily to look at the gale outside. "It's dying down," he said.
It was. Only a few more minutes passed before Dalinar's eyes cleared. "I've returned," he said hoarsely, at last speaking Alethi again instead of babbling in strange tongues.
"I'll get you a cup of wine," said Renarin as his brother moved to untie the older man. His father no longer drank heavily, but a glass of soothing orange was scarcely alcoholic at all and would help settle Dalinar's nerves. He knew from experience how helpful that was after a fit.
Glys darted ahead of him as he left the room. "I wonder what he sees in those visions," he said.
"He thinks the Almighty speaks to him," Renarin said. He entered the nearby sitting room and found a bottle of orange on the table.
"Sure, but what does he see? If the Almighty just wanted to have a quick chat, it wouldn't take the entire highstorm every time."
One of Renarin's eyebrows rose as he started back down the hall towards his family. "Does the Almighty have a usual way of speaking to people?"
"Fair point," Glys said. "If He does, I'm not—" He stopped with a sudden grunt.
Renarin suddenly had a feeling he knew what that grunt meant. "Is that…?"
"Another vision."
"Oh, no."
"I'm sorry," Glys said. "Do you want me to try and hold it?"
"No," Renarin sighed. "Let's get it out of the way."
"I'm sorry," said Glys as the vision overcame them.
It was different this time. Not a series of discrete moments, temporal and sequential, but half a dozen simultaneous instants. They lined the walls of the corridor like panes of stained glass.
He saw his cousin Jasnah, a silver shardblade in one hand. Its point was speared through Renarin's own chest. He saw his eyes burning out.
He saw a creature of stone tearing itself from a rocky shoreline.
He saw a single Parshendi with her hand on a pillar of white crystal. From her palm a violet corruption spread through the column.
He saw Kholinar aflame.
He saw his father kneeling before a figure wearing a crown adorned with three hollows, as if for absent jewels. Dalinar's eyes glowed red.
He saw dozens of Parshendi, their eyes alight with red flame, raising their hands upward to a gathering storm. Upon this final image, symbols flickered in golden lines, as if torn through the air between himself and the window. He thought he recognized them as the women's script, but he couldn't read whatever they said.
He had just long enough to take in all the visions before they vanished, melting back into the stone walls. He blinked. Suddenly he noticed that his hand was wet. It was shaking, he saw, and several drops of the orange wine had dribbled onto his fingers.
He staggered back down the corridor and returned to his family. He pushed the glass of orange wine, still mostly full, into his father's hands. Then he sank into a chair and put his head in his hands.
Glys, he said on the surface of his mind. What in Damnation was that?
"A vision," said Glys. But he sounded uncertain.
It was different from last time, said Renarin.
"I saw," said Glys. "I really don't know why, Renarin. Maybe it'll be different every time? I'm sorry I don't have more answers for you. There was text, too. We need to learn to read, Renarin."
You can't?
"Not Alethi women's script," Glys said. "I know a few languages, but not that one. Sorry."
We'll figure that out later. Renarin swallowed, then forced his head up.
"—I believed they were from the Almighty," Dalinar was saying. "You've convinced me that I may have jumped to that conclusion too readily. I don't yet know enough to trust them. I could be mad. Or they could be supernatural, but not of the Almighty."
"How could that be?" Adolin asked.
"The Old Magic," Renarin said hoarsely. Suddenly things were coming together in his head.
"What?" Adolin blinked at him. "The Old Magic is a myth."
"Unfortunately not," said their father, sipping from the wine. "I know this for a fact."
"You went to see her, didn't you?" Renarin asked. "The Nightwatcher." Cultivation, he added silently, thinking of a giant creature with armor of green scales. Glys had told him of the ancient, godlike being who, according to some spren, still lived in those western glades. It had been her death he had seen in his first vision.
Dalinar looked down, as if ashamed. "I did."
"The Nightwatcher could cause visions like these…" said Glys. "But he would know if they were either his boon or his curse."
"Unless these visions are either your boon or your curse," Renarin said, echoing the spren neither of the others could hear, "then I don't think these visions are from her."
"They aren't," said Dalinar firmly. "My boon and my curse are my own, but neither of them relate to these visions."
"Then I doubt this is the Old Magic," Renarin said.
"I agree."
"Then why bring it up at all?" Adolin asked, exasperated.
"Because, son, I don't know what's happening to me. These visions seem too detailed to be products of my mind. But your arguments are compelling. I could be wrong, and I am going mad. Or you could be wrong, and they are from the Almighty. Or they could be something entirely different. We simply don't know, and unless we do, it's too dangerous for me to be left in command."
"I still think we can contain it," said Adolin stubbornly.
"I had an episode in front of dozens of our soldiers two weeks ago, Adolin," said Dalinar. "Clearly we cannot. And I cannot simply ignore them, either. I cannot lead while second-guessing my every decision, and that is exactly what I would have to do if I tried to disregard these visions. They are changing me, son. Either I must trust myself, or I must step down. And unless we can trust these visions, I cannot trust myself."
"So what do we do?" Adolin asked helplessly.
"We experiment," Renarin suggested.
They both blinked at him. "What?" Dalinar asked.
"What if we tried to verify whether the visions were true?" Renarin asked. "You say they're detailed. What do you see, exactly?"
Dalinar hesitated. "I often see the Knights Radiant," he said, almost reluctantly. "At the end of each episode, someone—one of the Heralds, I suspect—comes to me and commands me to unite the highprinces."
"Huh," Glys said. "That's either a much more optimistic vision of the future than we've been getting, or he's seeing the past."
Or neither, Renarin said.
"Or neither," Glys acknowledged.
"Today," Dalinar continued, "I saw the Day of Recreance."
"The past, then," said Glys. "That's much easier to test."
"The Radiants abandoned their Shards and walked away. The Plate and Blades seemed to… fade as they were left behind. It's not something I feel I would have imagined. If the visions are products of my own mind, then my imagination is far more active than I knew."
"Damnation," said Glys. "Well, they're definitely true."
Renarin blinked, but forced himself to stay in the moment. "Do you remember any specifics?" he asked. "Names? Dates? Events or locations? Anything we could trace in history might be helpful."
"This last was at a place called Feverstone Keep," Dalinar remembered.
"I've never heard of it," Adolin said.
"Feverstone Keep," said Dalinar again. "There was a war going on near there. The Radiants had been fighting on the front lines before they withdrew and abandoned their Shards."
"Perhaps we could find something in history," said Renarin. "Proof either that this keep existed, or that the Radiants didn't abandon their duty there. Then we'd know."
Dalinar nodded slowly.
"I don't know," said Adolin slowly. "There aren't many histories going that far back. That's centuries before the Hierocracy."
"But not no histories," said Renarin. "Jasnah might know something. We could contact her."
"Even if Feverstone Keep does turn out to exist," said Adolin. "That's not necessarily proof. Father may have heard of it somewhere, then forgotten it until now."
"It's possible," said Renarin. "But the more details we can find that the dreams don't contradict, the more likely it is that they're legitimate. Some aspect of a delusion would have to be pure fancy, especially if he's seeing historical events that he never studied in detail."
"It's a good idea, son," said Dalinar. "We need to get a scribe to record the vision I just had, while it's still fresh."
Renarin stood. He felt much steadier on his feet now. "I'll go fetch one."
As he left the room again, he glanced at Glys. "So," he said. "Shards?"
"Swear the Third Ideal," Glys said. "Then we'll talk about Shards. For now, what he described is a detail that I doubt any humans at the time thought to record." He sighed, sounding sad. "I just wish I knew why."
"Why the Radiants betrayed their calling?"
"Why they betrayed their oaths. They killed thousands of us, Renarin. In one day, they wiped out generations of every type of thinking spren. And none of us know why. Or if any do, they aren't telling."
Renarin stopped. Somehow, he had never made the connection before. "If I go back on my oaths, you die."
"Yes," said Glys.
Renarin's hands shook. "Why did you come to me?" he asked. "How could you risk that? Why would you risk that?"
"Those are three very different questions, Renarin," said Glys gently. "How could I risk that? It wasn't easy. It's hard to come into the Physical Realm, and there's a toll to pay. Why would I risk it? Well, someone has to. Not all of us have given up on humanity and Roshar. But also because I wanted to. I'm a mistspren, Renarin, and we're curious by nature. I think I wanted to come to the Physical Realm for years before I actually did it. Maybe decades, or even centuries. That curiosity, more than duty, is what drove me to cross over, what drove me to become enlightened, and what eventually led me here. Why did I come to you? That's the easiest one to answer. Because you, Renarin Kholin, are worthy."
"I'm not," whispered Renarin.
"You are," Glys said. "And you prove it to me every single day."
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
-x-x-x-
16
Forgelight
-x-x-x-
I suspect that, had I not done so, this letter would be mere gibberish. Or, more likely, I would be dead.
-x-x-x-
"Back," mumbled Kaladin, his glazed eyes half-open and staring at nothing. "Stay back. I won't… No… I can't…"
Sarus sighed, keeping his hand on Kaladin's shoulder. The man had thrashed in a frenzy the last time he had mumbled about the dark shapes, and it wouldn't do for him to reopen the wounds that had only barely closed.
Syl hovered over Kaladin's chest. Her translucent, blue-white hands held a translucent, blue-white sword. She turned slowly, her steps careful upon a floor of open air. She cast her eyes around, brandishing her weapon as if to ward off an enemy force that surrounded her and Kaladin. Periodically, she leapt forward, slashing or thrusting with her blade, before withdrawing to her post.
She was warding off deathspren. Sarus could just barely see their outlines—many-legged, twisted shadows in the gloom of the barrack. It was not the first time he had seen them. Every so often he caught a glimpse of one descending on a dying bridgeman or soldier, though they were barely visible in the daylight.
Two days had passed. Two days during which there was a man as badly injured as Teft or Moash had been, but without a surgeon to watch him. Sarus had tried to make do with what little he had gleaned from watching Kaladin, but it was no substitute for whatever training Kaladin had. Two days of constant worry, constant fear that any moment, Kaladin might breathe out—and never in again.
As long as Syl stands guard, he told himself, Kaladin is still alive.
He looked up as Murk sat down beside him. "Gaz wouldn't give me your pay," he said, holding out five spheres. "But here's mine, if it'll help."
It was payday today. Normally, Sarus would have been outside to take his five diamond marks from Gaz. Before Kaladin had come, he had always spent those spheres immediately, and had passed the evening of payday pleasantly buzzed. There was no point in saving, but he refused to let even his tiny contribution pass into the Sadeas coffers.
Last payday had been the first exception. Sarus had given his pay to Kaladin to buy food and supplies for the injured men. He had intended to continue doing so. If Kaladin lived—which seemed increasingly likely—he likely would. But he'd have to track Gaz down tomorrow and get the spheres first.
One of Murk's spheres was dun, but the other four were still mostly infused. They were diamond marks, and while a mark would never hold as much Stormlight as a broam, they were far better than chips, which would often go entirely dun within two or three days after a highstorm.
Sarus took one of the infused spheres and held it out to Kaladin. He had no idea what he was expecting to happen, but still he was disappointed when nothing did.
"Hold it towards his face," Archive whispered in his ear. "It is easier to breathe in, or so I have heard."
Sarus moved the sphere towards Kaladin's face. A moment passed. Then, the man inhaled—sudden, sharp, a far cry from the shallow gasps that were becoming all too familiar. Murk gasped audibly as the pale Stormlight flowed, almost liquid, out of his sphere and into the man. Then, as he breathed out, the light rose from his lips like a wisp of steam, and his eyes glowed faintly blue, like embers giving up a final thread of smoke. The gaseous Stormlight billowed around Kaladin's wounds, and Sarus saw one gash visibly slim, as if he was watching a week of healing pass in a moment
It wasn't much, but it was something. Archive was right—Kaladin could absorb Stormlight. It might heal him entirely, if it was provided in sufficient quantities.
The trouble would be finding those quantities.
He passed the dun sphere back to Murk and took the three remaining infused ones. Then he pointed towards Rock. The large Horneater had just reentered the barrack, his week's pay glowing as he dropped it into his pocket.
Murk was still staring, open-mouthed, at Kaladin. Sarus snapped his fingers under Murk's nose to get his attention, then pointed more insistently at Rock.
"What?" Murk asked, blinking at him.
Sarus sighed, then gestured with the sphere in his hand, before pointing at Rock again.
"Oh! Right, I'll—yes. Be right back." He jumped to his feet and fled.
Sarus turned back to Kaladin and held out the remaining three spheres. Kaladin breathed in the Stormlight, and when he breathed out again—as the steam knitted his wounds together—the air left his lungs more easily.
He was still terribly injured. But, by the time Sarus had given him three more infused spheres from Rock's pay, he seemed to be healthy enough to be out of immediate danger. Sarus glanced around, but he could not see any deathspren congregating around the cot anymore.
The notion was confirmed when Syl sighed in relief and, slowly, left her combat stance. Rather than sheathing her sword, it seemed to shrink down into herself. She turned and gave Sarus and Rock a tired smile. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Both of you."
Rock bowed his head, touching his shoulders and then his brow in a strange, respectful gesture. "Of course, mafah'liki. If only all healing was so cheap."
"If only," Syl echoed.
-x-x-x-
Kaladin woke that night.
"Tesh? Rock? Murk?" The voice was quiet enough that none of the other men in the barrack seemed to hear it. Sarus glanced over, then stood up from his bunk and passed between the beds until he reached Kaladin's.
Syl was seated on air beside Kaladin's head, high enough that Sarus guessed she was probably just inside his peripheral vision. They both looked up as Sarus approached. "Tesh," Kaladin rasped. "Did you—how am I… what happened?"
Sarus raised an eyebrow.
"Guess you can't tell me," Kaladin said.
"They healed you, Kaladin," Syl told him. "It's been two days."
"Healed me? How?"
"They gave you Stormlight."
Kaladin blinked slowly. "What?"
Sarus nodded.
"That doesn't—what do you mean, they gave me Stormlight?"
"I don't know what to tell you," Syl said. "They held infused spheres up to you, and then they went dun, and you were a little healthier."
Kaladin stared at Sarus. "That doesn't make any sense."
Sarus shrugged. It wasn't as though he knew what was going on, either.
Kaladin stared at nothing, mouth moving slightly as though he was working through a problem in his head. Then, with no apparent cause, he stopped. Something seemed to dull in his eyes as he lay back against his pillow. "Thanks," he said.
Sarus frowned.
"Kaladin?" Syl asked.
The man said nothing for a long moment. When he did speak, it was in a whisper. "Bridgemen aren't supposed to survive."
Ah. Lamaril's words had left an impression, it appeared. Which… Kaladin, did you really not know this?
Suddenly, Sarus realized what it was Kaladin had missed. Not the tactical effects of side carry—neither of them had seen the massacre coming—but the fundamental role of the bridge crews. Kaladin must have been so confused to see a military force which never drilled, a force whose highprince was willing to let them be idle for most of the day. He must have been flabbergasted by their repeated deployment with no armor to protect them from the rain of arrows. He must have assumed that Sadeas was being foolish, and squandering resources in senseless cruelty.
The notion was laughable. Sarus knew Torol Sadeas. The man was cruel, certainly, but never foolish, and never wasteful. Sarus hadn't immediately understood why men were being sent to run headlong at the firing line. At first, he had assumed it was a question of speed. But with run after run of arrows sailing towards him, he eventually came to understand that every arrow which was fired at a bridgeman was one that wasn't striking a soldier.
Blood was cheap. It was a lesson Sarus had not truly learned until it was his blood being spent. From the perspective of a Highprince of Alethkar, there were always more darkeyes. Training, however, was valuable. Equipment was valuable. Spheres and status were valuable. Seen through that lens, the bridge crews were an entirely economic idea. They were an exchange of low-value darkeyed lives for currencies of higher value—the time spent training soldiers, the cost of the equipment they wore, the value and status won by claiming a chasmfiend's gemheart.
It was cruel. It was even monstrous. But it was also brutally pragmatic. It was, in short, exactly what Sarus had come to expect from Highprince Sadeas. The man rarely killed without gaining something in exchange…
—blood running over the flagstones—
…even if all he gained was vengeful satisfaction.
"Syl," Kaladin whispered. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Neither Sarus nor Syl had any answer to offer him.
-x-x-x-
The next day, Sarus pulled Murk aside while Rock led the men through drills. "You need something, Tesh?" the former ardent asked.
Sarus tapped his palm with a finger, then pointed at Gaz, who was sitting in the shadow of the Bridge Nine barrack.
"Oh," said Murk. "Sure, let's get your pay."
Gaz looked up as they approached. "What do you want, Dullard?"
"Don't call him that," said Murk shortly.
"What should I call him, then? Told you his name, has he?"
Murk hesitated. Sarus touched his shoulder, then turned to Gaz and held out a hand expectantly.
"He wants his pay," said Murk.
"Oh, does he," said Gaz, sneering. "And why should I believe you? It's not payday. He wants his pay off schedule, he can ask for them like anyone else."
Sarus lowered his hand, eyes fixed on Gaz. Beside him, he heard Murk breathe in sharply.
Gaz paled as Sarus stepped forward. He seemed to shrink against the side of the barrack. He looked small, even pathetic, like a cremling trapped beneath an axehound's paw, waiting for the predator to reach down and snap it up. "Storming—how the Damnation do you do that?" he wheezed, grabbing for his coinpurse. "Fine. Have your damn spheres."
Sarus stepped back, holding out his hand expectantly. Five diamond marks fell into his palm. Two were still weakly infused—the rest were dun.
"There," Gaz growled. "Now get back to your crew, storm you both."
Sarus turned without another look at Gaz and started back towards Bridge Four. He slipped the spheres into his pocket as he went.
Murk caught up with him. "How do you do that?" he asked.
Sarus glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You know," said Murk. "That thing where you step forward and—it's like you grow bigger. Without actually growing. You just sort of loom."
Sarus shrugged. He wasn't sure how he did it. He just did.
Before they could return to their places in the line, however, the horns rang out. Murk cursed. "Shalash's moonblood," he said. "I thought we'd have at least another day before we had to run again."
But they didn't. Rock took up the role of interim bridgeleader, and the crew formed up in their positions. Sarus saw two unfortunates in the back row, who would be in front with him for the final sprint: Maps and Hobber.
He shot a glance at the barracks. He imagined Kaladin lying in his bed, staring at the closed door. How did he feel as the crew took up the bridge without him? Did he feel guilty for not joining them? Relieved? Both?
As Sarus hefted the bridge onto his shoulders, he shook the thought off. For now, at least, it didn't matter.
Once again, Torol Sadeas crossed Sarus' bridge. But this time, Sarus didn't look at him. For nineteen crossings, Sadeas passed him by, the both of them keenly aware of one another, both pretending otherwise.
Nineteen crossings wasn't nearly so long a run as the disaster of three days ago. But it was still long enough that they didn't beat the Parshendi to the plateau. They arrived no more than a minute behind, however.
There was no attempt at side carry this time. Even when they saw the Parshendi scrambling for their bows, they only put their heads down and sprinted for the chasm. They hadn't beaten the enemy to the plateau, but the firing line had not been fully prepared by the time they arrived.
The Parshendi didn't have long enough to fire more than a single volley. But that was enough to bring down both Maps and Hobber.
Sarus, the rest of the crew behind him, dropped the bridge, thrust it across, then ducked aside to let the cavalry pass. Then, as Rock led the men to a safe hollow, Sarus turned back to find the fallen men.
He was too late for Maps. Hobber, however, was still alive, gasping in pain and clutching at an arrow in his lower leg. Sarus picked him up and sprinted for cover, then took Kaladin's medical equipment from Rock and got to work. He still wasn't Kaladin—not even close—but he learned quickly. Hobber would not die on this run.
They returned to the warcamp tired, but mostly relieved. Only one death and one injury placed them far, far better than any of the other bridge crews. The army celebrated a successful assault, but Bridge Four was just happy to be alive.
They returned to the barracks. Rock carried Hobber into a bunk, while Sarus crossed to the back of the barracks where Kaladin lay in the gloom.
"How did it go?" Kaladin asked, his eyes on Hobber as Rock laid him down near the door.
Sarus held up one finger.
"One death?"
Sarus nodded.
Kaladin sighed. "I should have been there."
None of us should be there, Sarus thought. But rather than give any response, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pay from Gaz. Light glimmered in the dusk.
"What on Roshar?" Kaladin said, blinking at the spheres. On Sarus' shoulder, Archive let out a wordless exclamation. All of them stared down at the spheres in Sarus' hand.
Two spheres were infused with pale blue Stormlight. The other three, however, were no longer dun. Instead, they glowed a dim orange. It was as though Sarus was holding three tiny candle flames in his hand.
"What are those?" Syl asked, darting forward to examine the strange spheres.
Sarus shook his head slowly, staring down at his hand. Then he held out the spheres to Kaladin.
"I don't think that'll work," said Syl. "Whatever's in those gems, it's not Stormlight. I doubt Kaladin can—"
Kaladin breathed in sharply. Twin streams of light flowed into him—one pale blue, the other orange as flame. On Sarus' shoulder, Archive suddenly grunted—loudly enough that he saw Murk blink and look around for the source of the sound. Sarus' eyes darted to the spren.
"Something strange is," Archive murmured, leaping up to rest inside his ear, the size of a speck of dust. The sensation tickled slightly, but was not particularly unpleasant. "I felt… Something."
"That," said Syl, "doesn't make any sense."
Sarus looked back at the five now-dun spheres. She was right. It made no sense at all.
"I think it worked, though," Kaladin said, sounding stronger. And Sarus couldn't deny it. His wounds were knitting closed before Sarus' eyes. "I feel better already."
"Rgh." Syl let out a frustrated grunt. "I hate how little I remember! I know that, whatever Light was in those spheres, you shouldn't have been able to use it. But I can't remember why!"
"Does it matter?" Kaladin asked.
"Yes!" Syl exclaimed. "Because that Light came from somewhere! And where it came from matters!"
Kaladin looked at Sarus. "Were they like that when you got them?"
Sarus shook his head.
"Then they must have gotten infused on the run," Kaladin said. "Anything unusual happen?"
Again, Sarus shook his head.
Kaladin considered the dun spheres. "Keep them on you," he said slowly. "I wonder if something similar will happen again."
The next morning, Kaladin joined the crew for drills. And, when Sarus checked the spheres that he had kept under his pillow, all five were glowing bright orange, as if they had been left out in a strange highstorm all night.
Oooooh we're getting right into the wierd stuff. Really mixing things up - Bridge 4 already aware of Kal (and probably Sarus) being radiants might spur them to train surges sooner. And what is this new form of investigure Sarus can aparently produce?
I don't know if I would say that Saruman was exceptionally good at mental combat? Perhaps offensively you could consider his charisma and voice, but defensively he too fell to the dark tower through the Palantir. I'd argue he even came off worse from it than Denethor did, to say nothing of EG Hurin or Bilbo's achievements on that score. Above average, certainly, but not more than that.
FORGELIGHT! FORGELIGHT! FORGELIGHT!
So Sarus can produce his own light, that's potentially enormously powerful but also well in line with what a maiar should be capable.
If anything the fact that he was in contact with Sauron as long as he was while still plotting against him of his own will speaks to his power.
Granted he still got played and his arrogance destroyed him in the end but this is still the guy who weakened the king of Rohan through a proxy and was swaying people who had every reason to dismiss his every word as BS.
If nothing else failing against the dark tower is a little bit like saying you'd lose in a duel against Adolin or lose in a fistfight against Batman. If the other dude is just that good and you can still put up a fight hard enough to not lose instantly that means most people of average ability are still chumps compared to you
Thanks to Elran and @BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.
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17
Hope
-x-x-x-
I can report only impressions of what I saw. I remember being awed and terrified by the sheer scale of the thing.
-x-x-x-
All around Sarus, men laughed and joked with one another. The firelight illuminated a ring in the dark night, contrasting with the violet glow of Salas shining luminous overhead.
Sarus held his sphere pouch in one hand. He kept it closed, but he knew that if he opened it, he would see ten spheres glowing the same orange as the campfire beneath Rock's pot.
A little more than a week had passed since Kaladin had risen. Since then, Bridge Four had been on two runs. The Parshendi only had a firing line waiting for them on the first, and they had been lucky enough to escape with no deaths and only three injuries, all of which had healed now. Even Moash and Teft were finally on their feet again, though both were still too weak to do more than help Lopen with the waterskins. For the first time in months, Bridge Four was fighting fit. No bunks were occupied by the invalid.
But that didn't seem to help Kaladin now. In the flickering firelight, his eyes seemed unnaturally dark, like twin voids in his head.
I guess you aren't perfect. I guess you are still human, just like me. Sarus thought this, eyes on Kaladin, and hated himself for the grim satisfaction that stirred in the darkest corners of his heart.
"Oy, Rock!" called Gadol. He tossed a package to the big Horneater, who caught it in midair. "Now we're all being fed again, the men chipped in for you."
Rock opened the package. Then he stilled, looking down at its contents. It was a straight razor and makeshift mirror.
"You complained about not being able to shave a few times," Murk said, grinning at Rock. "Thought we'd fix it."
Rock blinked hard. He glanced down at his pot. "Stew is ready," he said thickly, then fled the campfire.
Murk frowned. "You don't think we did wrong?" he asked Sarus quietly.
Sarus shook his head. Those tears had been of joy and gratitude. Then he reached to the side and nudged Kaladin.
The bridgeleader looked up from the rock between his feet. "What is it, Tesh?"
Sarus nodded in the direction of Teft, who was pulling another package from behind a rock. "We got you something too," Teft said, passing it over to Kaladin.
Kaladin sat with the paper-wrapped package in his hands for a moment without opening it. His expression hung suspended over some indeterminate emotion. "Thank you," he said at last, as he began to unwrap the parcel.
Within was a small leather wallet. In the wallet were several small needles, each a different length and girth, each polished to mirror brightness and sharp as a spearpoint. Strapped to the side of the wallet was a scalpel.
"Wanted to get you a spear, lad," said Teft quietly. "But getting that scalpel was hard enough for bridgemen."
"It feels a bit self-serving," said Murk with some embarrassment. "To get you something that you'll use to take care of us. We just didn't know what else to get you."
"It isn't self-serving," said Kaladin. His voice was slightly hoarse.
Sarus had contributed two spare spheres—the ten he had already was as many as his pouch could hold without risk of bursting—from his most recent wages to help purchase those needles. As he watched Kaladin's lips tremble, the envy that so often burned in his gut faded away, and he was unreservedly glad of his own contribution.
Kaladin looked up from his gift, the campfire reflected in his eyes. "I don't know what to do," he said quietly.
The mood around the campfire changed quite suddenly.
"I thought that, if I could just show the lighteyes the value of the men whose lives they were throwing away, I could make things better." The words poured from Kaladin like water loosed at last from behind a dam. "But they don't want bridgemen to be men of value. They don't keep us from being trained and equipped just because they don't want to pay for our training and gear. They keep us untrained and dressed in rags because it makes us easier targets. Because it makes us tempting to the Parshendi archers, and every arrow that hits an easily-replaced bridgeman is one that isn't fired at a soldier who's gone through expensive training and wearing hundreds of spheres' worth of gear. And I don't know how I can change that."
"Are you giving up, then?" Moash asked. Sarus glanced at him. His expression was conflicted. He had spent weeks holding out against the comfort Kaladin offered, and now that he was finally here around the fire with the rest of them, now Kaladin was buckling beneath the weight.
Kaladin didn't answer for a long moment. "No," he said finally. "I just don't know what to do. I still…" he looked up at where Syl hovered, invisible to all but a few, above the flames. "I refuse to give up on doing something. I just don't know what to try next."
The hearth lapsed into silence. It was broken when Rock emerged from the barrack, laughing. He had shaved his chin clean of stubble, but had left rich red sideburns running down his cheeks. "Ah, I feel like myself again!" Then he took in the change that had come over the crew. "What is wrong?"
"My fault, Rock," said Kaladin.
"Ah," said Rock, returning to his seat. "Is very bad situation we are in."
"Understatement of the decade," muttered Teft.
Rock ignored him. "The way I see it is this," he said. "We were dead men the moment we joined the bridge crew. But these past weeks, you have given us hope. Is it false hope? Maybe. But is the thing about hope: you never know whether it is false until afterward. This does not mean we should not bother with hoping. It means just the opposite. These past weeks that we have had hope, we have had fewest deaths of any bridge crew. Most who are injured recover. If we ever do find a way out, most of us will only see it because these weeks were good, and these weeks were only good because we had hope. You see?"
"You're saying false hope is better than no hope," Moash said.
Rock shook his head. "I am saying that hope is better than no hope, because by hoping we make it less false. We will never arrive at the summit if we do not begin walking uphill. Even lowlanders know this."
"Journey before destination," whispered Teft.
Kaladin's head shot up. "What did you say?"
Teft started, blinking at him. "Journey before destination," he said. "It's part of the… well, it's something I heard when I was a lad. It was part of the first oath the Knights Radiant swore, before the Recreance."
Kaladin blinked at him.
"Where'd you hear that?" Murk asked. "Not much is known about the Radiants. Most of the records from that far back were lost when the Hierocracy—"
"Life before death," Kaladin said softly.
Teft froze. He stared at Kaladin. Kaladin stared back. "That's how you survived the storm," Teft whispered.
Slowly, Kaladin nodded.
"Wait a moment," Murk said. "Are you saying that—Kaladin, are you saying you're a Knight Radiant?"
"I think I must be," said Kaladin quietly. "But I don't know what that means. I don't know what I should be able to do. I know I can heal with Stormlight, which is why I'm already walking after my injuries. But I don't know how that can help us in the long term."
"Well, healing with Stormlight probably can't get the rest of us out of here," said Teft. "But Surgebinding just might."
"Surgebinding?"
"The powers of the Radiants." Teft stood. "I don't know as much as I wish I did, but I might know enough to get us started."
"Before that, though," said Murk, following Teft to his feet. He looked around at the men around the fire. "I probably don't need to tell you all this," he said, "but it would make trouble if word got back to the lighteyes about this."
"You don't say," said Sigzil.
Murk ignored him. "I'm probably the most devout Vorin here," he said. "And I'm not going to tell anyone about this. So, I'm hoping none of you will, either. Can you all promise that?"
There were nods all around the fire. Sarus scanned each face and found no sign of a lie.
"Good!" said Rock, clapping his hands together in a sudden burst of sound. "We have no plan yet, but we have an idea. Is nearly as good. Enough to keep hoping, I think."
"For now," muttered Moash.
"It is hope," Rock said. "'For now' is all that matters. Now, anyone who wishes, I will shave!"
There was a pause. Then Kaladin smiled slightly. "I think I'll take you up on that."
The crew trickled in after him. Sarus, however, remained outside. He didn't think he could stand to be inside the cool spherelight of the barracks right now. Not surrounded by the rest of the encouraged crew. Kaladin had strained, had nearly broken, and then more than two dozen men who should have tumbled around him as he fell had somehow pulled him back up.
It should have been impossible. Kaladin was the pillar that supported them. How could the roof keep the walls upright? Yet it had happened.
Sarus was glad that it had happened. It had been painful to watch Kaladin curl inward on himself. But now the envy was back. Even when he stumbled, Kaladin stood taller than Sarus could dream to match.
"You never seem happy," Archive observed quietly from his shoulder. "Whether the men around you are hopeful or despairing, some discontent is. Why?"
Sarus shook his head. Even if he had been able to convince himself to speak in this moment, he didn't think he could bear to breathe life into his feelings. To speak them was to acknowledge them, and to acknowledge them was to admit to his shame.
Archive was silent for a time. When she spoke again, it was on a different topic. "You do not need to say them," she said. "But I must believe you mean them. I cannot force that belief any more than you can force the power."
The words. Life before death, Sarus thought. Journey before destination. There was another part to it, he suspected. Something about the rhythm of the words, the way the sounds flowed together in a musical phrase, suggested that there should be a third clause between the other two.
He had guessed it when Teft had spoken of the Radiants. Archive had known those words, and had known that Kaladin could benefit from them. Only two men in the crew had spren who followed them around, whispering in their ears. And Sarus suspected that the both of them were nascent Knights Radiant.
But only one of them seemed to deserve it. The other just burned with envy that he did not.
Archive sighed. "You have not let go of your despair," she said. "You cling to it like a child with a favorite blanket. You must grow past it."
Easy for you to say, thought Sarus.
"Your fear is. You are like Moash. You fear hope. You fear the comforting lie. But wise words are this night. Heed them."
Was that part of it? Sarus had originally taken up Kaladin's drills out of sheer boredom. Had he not truly bought into the dream of hope that the other men had been drawn into?
…Admittedly, no, he hadn't. But that wasn't the heart of the problem. It was a symptom, not a cause.
"I have misread something," said Archive quietly. "It is in your expression. This is well, so long as you know what must change. Because this cannot continue. He who remains at the same height while the water rises around him is doomed to drown."
The water rises…
The thought came quite suddenly, in a burst of inspiration. The water, Sarus thought. Where does the water go?
The chasms flooded during every highstorm. Torrential rain sent rushing rivers through those crevasses, water enough to widen the bases of the chasms through the long work of erosion, and to deposit hardening crem on every surface nearly thirty feet from the chasm's bases. Yet when Sarus and the crew climbed down after every storm, the only water they found was in small puddles localized to particular depressions in the floor.
Where does the water go? It was said that there was no other way out of the chasms save the ladder the bridgemen used to climb in and out for their scavenging duties, but if that were true the chasms would have overflowed centuries ago, or been long since filled in entirely by layers upon layers of sedimentary crem.
The water has to flow somewhere. Somewhere the armies haven't mapped. Somewhere to the east.
"You have realized something," Archive said.
He had. But how was he going to convey the idea to Kaladin, who so desperately wanted a way to protect his men? The very idea of speaking made beads of cold sweat rise up on Sarus' skin. It would be one thing to speak once, just a few words, to convey this one seed of a plan. But if he did so, he knew it would be just the beginning. The others would try to draw him out. They would try to get him to speak again. They would try to learn his name, unsuited as he was to it.
He entered the barrack, still thinking. The men were smiling with renewed hope as Rock shaved away the bristles on Sigzil's cheeks.
"You want a shave, Tesh?" Kaladin asked from where he sat on a bunk near the door.
Sarus shook his head. Truly, what he wanted was a trim—he had only just begun to grow his first bristles when he had been sent to the Plains, and he found he liked the idea of wearing a beard. It was just that his current one was wildly unkempt. But he was already thinking how to convey one complex idea without words—he didn't have the thought to spare on how to convey the length he wanted to wear his beard.
He went to bed that night still uncertain.
Inspiration came the next morning in the form of a lighteyed woman, borne to the barracks on a palanquin. ""I am Brightness Hashal," she said to the assembled Bridge Four. "My husband, Brightlord Matal, has been assigned as your new overseer."
He must have angered Sadeas somehow, thought Sarus dryly.
"I am told that this crew has caused significant trouble in the past," she said. "Well, my husband does not intend to run these crews with the lax attitude of his predecessor. There will be more order in these crews now. Every man will know his place and his duties. From now on, each crew will be assigned only one type of work duty. Gaz!"
The bridge sergeant ambled over, looking wary. "Yes, Brightness?"
"My husband wishes that Bridge Four be assigned permanently to chasm duty. Whenever they are not needed for bridge duty, they are to be working those chasms. This way, they shall know which areas have been recently scoured. It will be far more efficient. They will start at once."
Sarus heard a growl building in Kaladin's throat. He put a hand on his bridgeleader's shoulder. Kaladin subsided, glancing at him. Sarus raised a finger to his lips, then raised it further to tap the side of his head.
Kaladin's eyes widened. Then he turned back to Hashal and Gaz. "Understood, Brightness," he said. "We'll get down to the chasms, then."
The lighteyed woman glared at him for a moment, as though looking for sarcasm or duplicity. Finding none, she waved imperiously for her porters to bear her palanquin away.
"Not going to complain, Lordling?" asked Gaz.
"Not to you," said Kaladin, turning to Sarus. "You have an idea, Tesh?"
Sarus nodded, then jerked his head in the direction of the chasms.
"Sure," said Kaladin. "Come on, let's get down there."
The crew followed them to the edge of the chasm, then down the ladder. There was, once again, a puddle right at its base, splashing around their boots as they landed.
As man after man landed in the ankle-deep water, Sarus nudged Kaladin. He pointed at the puddle. Then at the crem lining the walls.
Kaladin frowned. "What are you getting at, Tesh?"
Sarus sighed. Then he knelt down, resting his palm on the surface of the water, just inches above the chasm floor. Then he raised it above his head. He made a gesture, miming waves rushing from east to west.
Kaladin's eyes suddenly widened in comprehension. "Where does all the water go," he whispered.
Sarus nodded.
"Wait, what?" Murk asked.
"The water," Kaladin said. "Every highstorm, these chasms fill with whole rivers worth of water. But they empty after the storm. Where does all that water go? It has to flow somewhere."
"And if we can find where it flows…" Teft said slowly, his eyes widening.
"We might be able to follow it out," Kaladin finished.
"It'd have to be a long way," said Murk slowly. "A long way. There are a couple warcamps east of us, and several to the south. Someone would have found a way out if there was one anywhere near any of the camps."
"True," said Kaladin. "You ever learn to draw maps before you ended up down here, Murk?"
"Not my specialty, I'm afraid," Murk said. "But I could give it a try, if we had something to write with."
"I can find something in the next few days," said Kaladin. "Buy it from somewhere. And it's not as though we won't have time to go looking for an exit. We're about to spend an awful lot of time down here. We might as well get something for it."
The men were smiling now, teeth pale in the gloom. Sarus felt their hope stirring around him. For the first time, he felt it stirring inside him, too. This might actually be a functional plan. If he was honest with himself, it probably wasn't. There were certainly ways that water might exit these chasms that would be impassable to bridgemen, and it was entirely possible that any exit would be too far for them to reach on foot without running afoul of a chasmfiend.
But it was a plan that didn't rely on the mercy of Torol Sadeas, which made it significantly more likely to succeed than what they had been trying for the past several weeks.
"And," said Kaladin slowly, "just in case we can't find another way out… I think it's time I start training you all with the spear. If we can't find a way out down here, well, we'll have to find a way out up there."
An uprising? Sarus found the idea didn't sound as hopeless as it once might have. If Kaladin could train these men, and perhaps outfit them with gear they scavenged down here… they would have thirty trained fighters. Not enough to fight an army, and incapable of outrunning cavalry… but probably enough to overwhelm a single guard post.
Kaladin seemed to be thinking much the same. "If we get through the perimeter and make it far enough before Sadeas realizes we're gone, we might be able to avoid his search parties," he said. "He'll send them, if only so the other bridge crews don't think they can escape that easily. But if we can avoid them, we can make our way west. Get out of Alethkar entirely, into Jah Keved or even further."
"And we'll be free," said Moash.
"And we'll be free," agreed Kaladin. "There's a lot of things that could go wrong. But it's better than nothing."
Yeah, by allowing Kalladin to survive his night in the Highstorm and continuing to allow Bridge Four to be a beacon of hope for the rest of the bridge crews.
I wonder if that will happen in this story. Or will event play out as in the books with Dalinar trading his Shardblade for all of Sadeas' bridge crews?
Definately starting to see the butterflies now. Kaladin outing himself to Bridge 4 in the middle of book 1, not the end - that changes a lot. He's going to start training sooner, without worrying about the crew seeing him. Might even have skill in lashings before the Tower happens...
its interesting, reading this as a fan of the Cosmere works but not knowing much about LotR. Im still discovering stuff and enjoying new characters and different takes on existing ones.
very excited to see the Sadeas PoV more often. He was such a compelling antagonist in the series.
I agree. Certain aspects of what he did appealed to me. Unfortunately, how he treated his bridge crews and the overall lack of order that pervaded his war camp made him an almost entirely unsympathetic antagonist for me.
I'd agree here, Sadeas was, for me, an interesting, compelling, and unsympathetic antagonist. Especially by the end of the 2nd book, which made the end of Words of Radiance so damn satisfying.
It is very interesting to see his POV here, it does add a little more nuance to his actions while still retaining his overall slimyness. The backstory being slowly revealed between Sarus and Sadeas also adds to this, seeing a more humane Sadeas in his youth versus the far more callous man he became with age.
Hmmm. Kaladin does briefly think about where the water goes in canon (well after initially deciding to escape, mind), but its never actually resolved, so I got curious. Looking over maps (all canonical, some from the appendice type bits of the books and some made by fans and approved by Sanderson), this seems to be a mystery unanswered (and admittedly basically unasked) in canon. 🤔 The Shattered Plains are located in a very hilly/mountainous area which in all maps I can find doesn't seem to have any visible rivers running through it proper. The map of the camps notes the "mighty River Vandonas", but I didn't recall that ever being mentioned in the books, and looking at the wiki page's references its presence in the text seems negligible. Southeastern Aleshkar has a big river called the Deathbend, and one of its tributaries seems to get pretty close to the Shattered Plains. Maybe the waters draining thataways?
For those unfamiliar, it should be noted that Sanderson has hinted the Plains are not a natural formation and were formed in, well, some kind of great shattering, lol. One of the small bits the readers are given of the parshendi listener's oral history talks about it and further on in canon Kaladin has some visions of them were they have a drastically different formation. The center-ish area of the Plains contains a partially intact ancient city from back when in the Radiant days, split apart across various plateaus and worn down by centuries of storms, and it definitely got hit by something big, though there's very little to hint at what it might have been. Interestingly, its also unclear when exactly it happened. Modern human sources in universe claim it was destroyed in the "Last Desolation", presumably either the Fused or the Unmade, but the Listener oral history (which while flawed seems a good deal more reliable than human history) claims that the plains were A: not destroyed by them or their dudes, and B: already destroyed when the Last Legion (or the listner's who split off? its unclear) arrived there, before the Last Desolation. Ultimately I can only guess where the story is going currently (beyond some obvious stuff like "Sarus will get his memories back, speak again, and become a Radiant at some point, probably not in that order"), but now that we're starting to more seriously branch from "canon but an extra dude is here" I'm kind of hopeful that Bridge Four does end up trying this "follow the water" escape plan (or any other escape method really), because in canon the plot happens and running away stops being a viable option.
The maps I was looking at, if anyone was curious, are below. There's also the very cool official interactive timeline/map of Roshar, although spoilers abound.
