Obviously they are fools The Desolation needs no usher It can and will sit where it wishes and the signs are obvious that the spren anticipate it doing so soon The Ancient of Stones must finally begin to crack It is a wonder that upon his will rested the prosperity and peace of a world for over four millennia
—From the Diagram, Book of the 2nd Ceiling Rotation: pattern 1
Shallan stepped off the bridge onto a deserted plateau.
The rain muffled the sounds of warfare, making the area feel even more isolated. Darkness like dusk. Rainfall like hushed whispers.
This plateau was higher than most, so she could see Stormseat’s center arrayed around her. Pillars with crem accreting at their bases, transforming them to stalagmites. Buildings that had become mounds, overgrown with stone like snow covering a fallen log. In the darkness and rain, the ancient city presented a sketch of skyline for the imagination to fill in.
This city hid beneath time’s own illusion.
The others followed her across the bridge. They’d skirted the fighting on Aladar’s battlefront, slipping along the Alethi lines to attain this farther plateau. Getting up here had taken time, as the bridgemen had needed to locate a usable landing. They’d had to climb a slope on the adjoining plateau and place their bridge there to get across the chasm.
“How can you be sure this is the right place?” Renarin asked, clinking down onto the plateau beside her. Shallan had opted for an umbrella, but Renarin stood in the rain, helm under his arm, letting the water stream down his face. Didn’t he wear spectacles? She hadn’t seen them on him much lately.
“It is the right place,” Shallan said, “because it’s deviant.”
“That’s hardly a logical conclusion,” Inadara said, joining the two of them as soldiers and bridgemen crossed to the empty plateau. “A portal of this nature would be kept hidden; it would not be deviant.”
“The Oathgates were not hidden,” Shallan said. “That is beside the point, however. This plateau is a circle.”
“Many are circular.”
“Not this circular,” Shallan said, striding forward. Now that she was here, she could see just how irregularly . . . well, regular the plateau was. “I was looking for a dais on a plateau, but didn’t realize the scale of what I was searching for. This entire plateau is the dais upon which the Oathgate sat.
“Don’t you see? The other plateaus were created by some kind of disaster—they are jagged, broken. This place is not. That’s because it was already here when the shattering happened. On the old maps it was a raised section, like a giant pedestal. When the Plains were broken, it remained this way.”
“Yes . . .” Renarin said, nodding. “Imagine a plate with a circle etched into the center . . . if a force shattered the plate, it might break along the already weakened lines.”
“Leaving you with a bunch of irregular pieces,” Shallan agreed, “and one shaped like a circle.”
“Perhaps,” Inadara said. “But I find it odd that something so tactically important would be exposed.”
“The Oathgates were a symbol,” Shallan said, continuing to walk. “The Vorin Right of Travel, given to all citizens of sufficient rank, is based on the Heralds’ declaration that all borders should be open. If you were going to create a symbol of that unity—a portal that connected all of the Silver Kingdoms together—where would you put it? Hidden in a locked room? Or on a stage that rose above the city? It was out here because they were proud of it.”
They continued through the blowing rain. There was a hallowed quality to this place, and honestly, that was part of how she knew she was right.
“Mmmm,” Pattern said softly. “They are raising a storm.”
“The Voidspren?” Shallan whispered.
“The bonded ones. They craft a storm.”
Right. Her task was urgent; she didn’t have time to stand around thinking. She was about to order the search begun, but paused as she noticed Renarin staring westward, his eyes distant.
“Prince Renarin?” she asked.
“The wrong way,” he whispered. “The wind is blowing from the wrong direction. West to east . . . Oh, Almighty above. It’s terrible.”
She followed his gaze, but could see nothing.
“It’s actually real,” Renarin said. “The Everstorm.”
“What are you talking about?” Shallan asked, feeling a chill at the tone of his voice.
“I . . .” He looked to her and wiped the water from his eyes, gauntlet hanging from his waist. “I should be with my father. I should be able to fight. Only I’m useless.”
Great. He was creepy and whiny. “Well, your father ordered you to help me, so deal with your issues. Everyone, let’s search this place.”
“What are we looking for, cousin?” asked Rock, one of the bridgemen.
Cousin, she thought. Cute. Because of the red hair. “I don’t know,” she said. “Anything strange, out of the ordinary.”
They split up and spread out across the plateau. Along with Inadara, Shallan had a small group of ardents and scholars to help her, including one of Dalinar’s stormwardens. She sent teams of several scholars, one bridgeman, and one soldier each in different directions.
Renarin and the majority of the bridgemen insisted on going with her. She couldn’t complain about that—this was a war zone. Shallan passed a lump on the ground, part of a large ring. Perhaps once a low ornamental wall. How would this place have looked? She pictured it in her mind, and wished she could have drawn it. That would certainly have helped her visualize.
Where would the portal be? Most likely at the center, so that was the direction she went. There she found a large stone mound.
“This is all?” Rock asked. “He is just more rock.”
“That is exactly what I was hoping to find,” Shallan said. “Anything exposed to the air would have weathered away or become immured with crem. If we’re to discover anything useful, it will have to be inside.”
“Inside?” asked one of the bridgemen. “Inside what?”
“The buildings,” Shallan said, feeling at the wall until she found a ripple in the back of the rock. She turned to Renarin. “Prince Renarin, would you kindly slay this rock for me?”
* * *
Adolin raised his sphere in the dark chamber, shining light on the wall. After so long outdoors in the Weeping, it felt strange not to have rain tapping against his helm. The musty air in this place was already growing humid, and even with the shuffling of soldiers and men coughing, Adolin felt like it was too silent. Within this rocky tomb, they may as well have been miles away from the battlefield just outside.
“How did you know, sir?” asked Skar, the bridgeman. “How’d you guess that this rock mound would be hollow?”
“Because a clever woman,” Adolin said, “once asked me to attack a boulder for her.”
Together, he and these men had circled to the other side of the large rock formation that the chanting Parshendi were using to guard their backs. With a few twists of the Shardblade, Adolin had cut an entrance into the mound, which had proven to be hollow as he’d hoped.
He picked his way through the dusty chambers, passing bones and dried debris that might once have been furniture. Presumably it had rotted away before the crem had finished sealing the building. Had it been a kind of communal dwelling, long ago? Or perhaps a market? It did have a lot of rooms; many doorways still bore rusted hinges that had once held doors.
A thousand men moved through the building with him, holding lanterns that carried large cut gems—five times bigger than broams, though even some of those were starting to fail, as it had been so long since a highstorm.
A thousand men was a large number to navigate through these eerie confines. But, unless he was completely off, they should now be approaching the opposite wall—the one just behind the Parshendi. Some of his men scouted nearby rooms, and came back with the confirmation. The building ended here. Adolin now saw the outlines of windows, sealed up with crem that had spilled in through gaps over the years, dribbling down the wall and piling on the floor.
“All right,” he called out to the company commanders and their captains. “Let’s gather everyone we can in this room here and the hall right outside. I’ll cut an exit hole. As soon as it’s open, we need to spill out and attack those singing Parshendi.
“First Company, you split to either side and secure this exit. Don’t get pushed back! I’ll charge and try to draw attention. Everyone else move through and join the assault as quickly as you can manage.”
The men nodded. Adolin took a deep breath, then closed his faceplate and stepped up to the wall. They were on the second floor of the building, but he estimated the buildup of crem outside would place that at about ground level. Indeed, from outside he heard a faint sound. Humming, resonating through the wall.
Storms, the Parshendi were right there. He summoned his Blade, waited until the company commanders passed the word back that their men were ready, then hacked at the wall in several long ribbons. He sliced it the other way with sweeping blows, then slammed his Plate shoulder into it.
The wall broke down and fell out, stone blocks cascading away from him. The rain returned in force. He was only a few feet off the ground, and he eagerly pushed his way out onto the slick wet rocks. Just to his left, Parshendi reserves stood in rows facing away from him, absorbed in their chanting. The clamor of battle was nearly inaudible here, all but drowned out by the spine-tingling sound of that inhuman singing.
Perfect. The rain and chanting had covered the noise of the hole opening. He hacked open another hole as men spilled out from the first one, bearing lights. He began to open a third exit, but heard a shout. One of the Parshendi had finally noticed him. She was female—with this new form of theirs, that was more obvious than it had been before.
He charged the short distance to the Parshendi and launched himself into their ranks, sweeping lethally with his Blade. Bodies fell dead with burned eyes. Five, then ten. His soldiers joined him, thrusting spears into the Parshendi, cutting off their awful song.
It was shockingly easy. These Parshendi abandoned their song reluctantly, coming out of their trance disoriented and confused. Those who fought did so without coordination, and Adolin’s swift attack didn’t allow time for them to summon their strange sparking energy.
It was like killing sleeping men. Adolin had done dirty work with his Shards before. Damnation, any time you took the field with Plate and Blade against ordinary men, you did dirty work—slaughtering those who might as well have been children with sticks. This was worse though. Often they’d come to just before he killed them—blinking to consciousness, shaking themselves awake, only to find themselves face-to-face with a full Shardbearer in the rain, murdering their friends. Those looks of horror haunted Adolin as he sent corpse after corpse to the ground.
Where was the Thrill that usually propelled him through this kind of butchery? He needed it. Instead, he felt only nausea. Standing amid a field of the newly dead—the acrid smoke of burned-out eyes curling up through the rain—he trembled and dropped his Blade in disgust. It vanished to mist.
Something crashed into him from behind.
He lurched over a corpse—stumbling but keeping his feet—and spun about. A Shardblade smashed against his chest, spreading a glowing web of cracks across his breastplate. He deflected the next blow with his forearm and stepped back, taking a battle stance.
She stood before him, rain streaming from her armor. What had she named herself? Eshonai.
Inside his helm, Adolin grinned at the Shardbearer. This he could do. An honest fight. He raised his hands, the Shardblade forming from mist as he swung upward and deflected her attack in a sweeping parry.
Thank you, he thought.
* * *
Dalinar rode Gallant back across the bridge from Roion’s plateau, nursing a bloody wound at his side. Stupid. He should have seen that spear. He’d been too focused on that red lightning and the quickly shifting Parshendi fighting pairs.
The truth, Dalinar thought, sliding from his horse so a surgeon could inspect the wound, is that you’re an old man now. Perhaps not by the measuring of lifespans, as he was only in his fifties, but by the yardstick of soldiers he was certainly old. Without Shardplate to assist, he was getting slow, getting weak. Killing was a young man’s game, if only because the old men fell first.
That cursed rain kept coming, so he escaped it under one of Navani’s pavilions. The archers kept the Parshendi from following across the chasm to harry Roion’s beleaguered retreat. With the help of the bowmen, Dalinar had successfully saved the highprince’s army, half of it at least—but they’d lost the entire northern plateau. Roion rode across to safety, followed by an exhausted Captain Khal on foot—General Khal’s son wore his own Plate and bore Teleb’s Blade, which he’d blessedly recovered from the corpse after the other man had fallen.
They’d been forced to leave the body, and the Plate. Just as bad, the Parshendi singing continued unabated. Despite the soldiers saved, this was a terrible defeat.
Dalinar undid his breastplate and sat down with a grunt as the surgeon ordered him a stool. He suffered the woman’s ministration, though he knew the wound was not terrible. It was bad—any wound was bad on the battlefield, particularly if it impaired the sword arm—but it wouldn’t kill him.
“Storms,” the surgeon said. “Highprince, you’re all scars under here. How many times have you been wounded in the shoulder?”
“Can’t remember.”
“How can you still use your arm?”
“Training and practice.”
“That’s not how it works . . .” she whispered, eyes wide. “I mean . . . storms . . .”
“Just sew the thing up,” he said. “Yes, I’ll stay off the battlefield today. No, I won’t stress it. Yes, I’ve heard all the lectures before.”
He shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. He’d told himself he wouldn’t ride into battle anymore. He was supposed to be a politician now, not a warlord.
But once in a while, the Blackthorn needed to come out. The men needed it. Storms, he needed it. The—
Navani thundered into the tent.
Too late. He sighed as she stalked up to him, passing this tent’s fabrial—which glowed on a little pedestal, collecting water around it in a shimmering globe. That water streamed off along two metal rods at the sides of the fabrial, spilling onto the ground, then running out of the tent and over the plateau’s edge.
He looked up at Navani grimly, expecting to be dressed down like a recruit who had forgotten his whetstone. Instead, she took him by his good side, then pulled him close.
“No reprimand?” Dalinar asked.
“We’re at war,” she whispered. “And we’re losing, aren’t we?”
Dalinar glanced at the archers, who were running low on arrows. He didn’t speak too loudly, lest they hear. “Yes.” The surgeon glanced at him, then lowered her head and kept sewing.
“You rode to battle when someone needed you,” Navani said. “You saved the lives of a highprince and his soldiers. Why would you expect anger from me?”
“Because you’re you.” He reached up with his good hand and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Adolin has won his plateau,” Navani said. “The Parshendi there are scattered and routed. Aladar holds. Roion has failed, but we’re still evenly matched. So how are we losing? I can sense that we are, from your face, but I don’t see it.”
“An even match is a loss for us,” Dalinar said. He could feel it building. Distant, to the west. “If they complete that song, then as Rlain warned, that is the end.”
The surgeon finished as best she could, wrapping the wound and giving Dalinar leave to replace his shirt and coat, which would hold the bandage tight. Once dressed, he climbed to his feet, intending to go to the command tent and get an update on the situation from General Khal. He was interrupted as Roion burst into the pavilion.
“Dalinar!” the tall, balding man rushed in, grabbing him by the arm. The bad one. Dalinar winced. “It’s a storming bloodbath out there! We’re dead. Storms, we’re dead!”
Nearby archers shuffled, their arrows spent. A sea of red eyes gathered on the plateau across the chasm, smoldering coals in the darkness.
For all that Dalinar wanted to slap Roion, that wasn’t the sort of thing you did to a highprince, even a hysterical one. Instead, he towed Roion out of the pavilion. The rain—now a full-blown storm—felt icy as it washed over his soaked uniform.
“Control yourself, Brightlord,” Dalinar said sternly. “Adolin has won his plateau. Not all is as bad as it seems.”
“It should not end this way,” the Almighty said.
Storm it! Dalinar shoved Roion away and strode out into the center of the plateau, looking up toward the sky. “Answer me! Let me know if you can hear me!”
“I can.”
Finally. Some progress. “Are you the Almighty?”
“I said I am not, child of Honor.”
“Then what are you?”
I AM THAT WHICH BRINGS LIGHT AND DARKNESS. The voice took on more of a rumbling, distant quality.
“The Stormfather,” Dalinar said. “Are you a Herald?”
NO.
“Then are you a spren or a god?”