Ym carefully trimmed the wood from the side of the small block. He held it up to the spherelight beside his bench, pinching his spectacles by the rim and holding them closer to his eyes.
Such delightful inventions, spectacles. To live was to be a fragment of the cosmere that was experiencing itself. How could he properly experience if he couldn’t see? The Azish man who had first created these devices was long deceased, and Ym had submitted a proposal that he be considered one of the Honored Dead.
Ym lowered the piece of wood and continued to carve it, carefully whittling off the front to form a curve. Some of his colleagues bought their lasts—the wooden forms around which a cobbler built his shoes—from carpenters, but Ym had been taught to make his own. That was the old way, the way it had been done for centuries. If something had been done one way for such a long time, he figured there was probably a good reason.
Behind him stood the shadowed cubbies of a cobbler’s shop, the toes of dozens of shoes peeking out like the noses of eels in their holes. These were test shoes, used to judge size, choose materials, and decide styles so he could construct the perfect shoe to fit the foot and character of the individual. A fitting could take quite a while, assuming you did it properly.
Something moved in the dimness to his right. Ym glanced in that direction, but didn’t change his posture. The spren had been coming more often lately—specks of light, like those from a piece of crystal suspended in a sunbeam. He did not know its type, as he had never seen one like it before.
It moved across the surface of the workbench, slinking closer. When it stopped, light crept upward from it, like small plants growing or climbing from their burrows. When it moved again, those withdrew.
Ym returned to his sculpting. “It will be for making a shoe.”
The evening shop was quiet save for the scraping of his knife on wood.
“Sh-shoe . . . ?” a voice asked. Like that of a young woman, soft, with a kind of chiming musicality to it.
“Yes, my friend,” he said. “A shoe for young children. I find myself in need of those more and more these days.”
“Shoe,” the spren said. “For ch-children. Little people.”
Ym brushed wooden scraps off the bench for later sweeping, then set the last on the bench near the spren. It shied away, like a reflection off a mirror—translucent, really just a shimmer of light.
He withdrew his hand and waited. The spren inched forward—tentative, like a cremling creeping out of its crack after a storm. It stopped, and light grew upward from it in the shape of tiny sprouts. Such an odd sight.
“You are an interesting experience, my friend,” Ym said as the shimmer of light moved onto the last itself. “One in which I am honored to participate.”
“I . . .” the spren said. “I . . .” The spren’s form shook suddenly, then grew more intense, like light being focused. “He comes.”
Ym stood up, suddenly anxious. Something moved on the street outside. Was it that one? That watcher, in the military coat?
But no, it was just a child, peering in through the open door. Ym smiled, opening his drawer of spheres and letting more light into the room. The child shied back, just as the spren had.
The spren had vanished somewhere. It did that when others drew near.
“No need to fear,” Ym said, settling back down on his stool. “Come in. Let me get a look at you.”
The dirty young urchin peered back in. He wore only a ragged pair of trousers, no shirt, though that was common here in Iri, where both days and nights were usually warm.
The poor child’s feet were dirty and scraped.
“Now,” Ym said, “that won’t do. Come, young one, settle down. Let’s get something on those feet.” He moved out one of his smaller stools.
“They say you don’t charge nothin’,” the boy said, not moving.
“They are quite wrong,” Ym said. “But I think you will find my cost bearable.”
“Don’t have no spheres.”
“No spheres are needed. Your payment will be your story. Your experiences. I would hear them.”
“They said you was strange,” the boy said, finally walking into the shop.
“They were right,” Ym said, patting the stool.
The urchin stepped timidly up to the stool, walking with a limp he tried to hide. He was Iriali, though the grime darkened his skin and hair, both of which were golden. The skin less so—you needed the light to see it right—but the hair certainly. It was the mark of their people.
Ym motioned for the child to raise his good foot, then got out a washcloth, wetted it, and cleaned away the grime. He wasn’t about to do a fitting on feet so dirty. Noticeably, the boy tucked back the foot he’d limped on, as if trying to hide that it had a rag wrapped around it.
“So,” Ym said, “your story?”
“You’re old,” the boy said. “Older than anyone I know. Grandpa old. You must know everythin’ already. Why do you want to hear from me?”
“It is one of my quirks,” Ym said. “Come now. Let’s hear it.”
The boy huffed, but talked. Briefly. That wasn’t uncommon. He wanted to hold his story to himself. Slowly, with careful questions, Ym pried the story free. The boy was the son of a whore, and had been kicked out as soon as he could fend for himself. That had been three years ago, the boy thought. He was probably eight now.
As he listened, Ym cleaned the first foot, then clipped and filed the nails. Once done, he motioned for the other foot.
The boy reluctantly lifted it up. Ym undid the rag, and found a nasty cut on the bottom of that foot. It was already infected, crawling with rotspren, tiny motes of red.
Ym hesitated.
“Needed to get some shoes,” the urchin said, looking the other way. “Can’t keep on without ’em.”
The rip in the skin was jagged. Done climbing over a fence, perhaps? Ym thought.
The boy looked at him, feigning nonchalance. A wound like this would slow an urchin down terribly, which on the streets could easily mean death. Ym knew that all too well.
He looked up at the boy, noting the shadow of worry in those little eyes. The infection had spread up the leg.
“My friend,” Ym whispered, “I believe I am going to need your help.”
“What?” the urchin said.
“Nothing,” Ym replied, reaching into the drawer of his table. The light spilling out was just from five diamond chips. Every urchin who had come to him had seen those. So far, Ym had been robbed of them only twice.
He dug more deeply, unfolding a hidden compartment in the drawer and taking a more powerful sphere—a broam—from there, covering its light quickly in his hand while reaching for some antiseptic with the other hand.
The medicine wasn’t going to be enough, not with the boy unable to stay off his feet. Lying in bed for weeks to heal, constantly applying expensive medication? Impossible for an urchin fighting for food each day.
Ym brought his hands back, sphere tucked inside of one. Poor child. It must hurt something fierce. The boy probably ought to have been laid out in bed, feverish, but every urchin knew to chew ridgebark to stay alert and awake longer than they should.
Nearby, the sparkling light spren peeked out from underneath a stack of leather squares. Ym applied the medication, then set it aside and lifted the boy’s foot, humming softly.
The glow in Ym’s other hand vanished.
The rotspren fled from the wound.
When Ym removed his hand, the cut had scabbed over, the color returning to normal, the signs of infection gone. So far, Ym had used this ability only a handful of times, and had always disguised it as medicine. It was unlike anything he had ever heard of. Perhaps that was why he had been given it—so the cosmere could experience it.
“Hey,” the boy said, “that feels a lot better.”
“I’m glad,” Ym said, returning the sphere and the medicine to his drawer. The spren had retreated. “Let us see if I have something that fits you.”
He began fitting shoes. Normally, after fitting, he’d send the patron away and craft a perfect set of shoes just for them. For this child, unfortunately, he’d have to use shoes he’d already made. He’d had too many urchins never return for their pair of shoes, leaving him to fret and wonder. Had something happened to them? Had they simply forgotten? Or had their natural suspicion gotten the better of them?
Fortunately, he had several good, sturdy pairs that might fit this boy. I need more treated hogshide, he thought, making a note. Children would not properly care for shoes. He needed leather that would age well even if unattended.
“You’re really gonna give me a pair of shoes,” the urchin said. “For nothin’?”
“Nothing but your story,” Ym said, slipping another testing shoe onto the boy’s foot. He’d given up on trying to train urchins to wear socks.
“Why?”
“Because,” Ym said, “you and I are One.”
“One what?”
“One being,” Ym said. He set aside that shoe and got out another. “Long ago, there was only One. One knew everything, but had experienced nothing. And so, One became many—us, people. The One, who is both male and female, did so to experience all things.”
“One. You mean God?”
“If you wish to say it that way,” Ym said. “But it is not completely true. I accept no god. You should accept no god. We are Iriali, and part of the Long Trail, of which this is the Fourth Land.”
“You sound like a priest.”
“Accept no priests either,” Ym said. “Those are from other lands, come to preach to us. Iriali need no preaching, only experience. As each experience is different, it brings completeness. Eventually, all will be gathered back in—when the Seventh Land is attained—and we will once again become One.”
“So you an’ me . . .” the urchin said. “Are the same?”
“Yes. Two minds of a single being experiencing different lives.”
“That’s stupid.”
“It is simply a matter of perspective,” Ym said, dusting the boy’s feet with powder and slipping back on a pair of the test shoes. “Please walk on those for a moment.”
The boy gave him a strange look, but obeyed, trying a few steps. He didn’t limp any longer.
“Perspective,” Ym said, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers. “From very close up, the fingers on a hand might seem individual and alone. Indeed, the thumb might think it has very little in common with the pinky. But with proper perspective, it is realized that the fingers are part of something much larger. That, indeed, they are One.”
The urchin frowned. Some of that had probably been beyond him. I need to speak more simply, and—
“Why do you get to be the finger with the expensive ring,” the boy said, pacing back the other direction, “while I gotta be the pinky with the broken fingernail?”
Ym smiled. “I know it sounds unfair, but there can be no unfairness, as we are all the same in the end. Besides, I didn’t always have this shop.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I think you’d be surprised at where I came from. Please sit back down.”
The boy settled down. “That medicine works real well. Real, real well.”
Ym slipped off the shoes, using the powder—which had rubbed off in places—to judge how the shoe fit. He fished out a pair of premade shoes, then worked at them for a moment, flexing them in his hands. He’d want a cushion on the bottom for the wounded foot, but something that would tear off after a few weeks, once the wound was healed. . . .
“The things you’re talking about,” the boy said. “They sound dumb to me. I mean, if we’re all the same person, shouldn’t everyone know this already?”
“As One, we knew truth,” Ym said, “but as many, we need ignorance. We exist in variety to experience all kinds of thought. That means some of us must know and others must not—just like some must be rich, and others must be poor.” He worked the shoe a moment longer. “More people did know this, once. It’s not talked about as much as it should be. Here, let’s see if these fit right.”
He handed the boy the shoes, who put them on and tied the laces.
“Your life might be unpleasant—” Ym began.
“Unpleasant?”
“All right. Downright awful. But it will get better, young one. I promise it.”
“I thought,” the boy said, stamping his good foot to test the shoes, “that you were gonna tell me that life is awful, but it all don’t matter in the end, ’cuz we’re going the same place.”
“That’s true,” Ym said, “but isn’t very comforting right now, is it?”
“Nope.”
Ym turned back to his worktable. “Try not to walk on that wounded foot too much, if you can help it.”
The urchin strode to the door with a sudden urgency, as if eager to get away before Ym changed his mind and took back the shoes. He did stop at the doorway, though.
“If we’re all just the same person trying out different lives,” the boy said, “you don’t need to give away shoes. ’Cuz it don’t matter.”
“You wouldn’t hit yourself in the face, would you? If I make your life better, I make my own better.”
“That’s crazy talk,” the boy said. “I think you’re just a nice person.” He ducked out, not speaking another word.
Ym smiled, shaking his head. Eventually, he went back to work on his last. The spren peeked out again.
“Thank you,” Ym said. “For your help.” He didn’t know why he could do what he did, but he knew the spren was involved.
“He’s still here,” the spren whispered.
Ym looked up toward the doorway out onto the night street. The urchin was there?
Something rustled behind Ym.
He jumped, spinning. The workroom was a place of dark corners and cubbies. Had he perhaps heard a rat?
Why was the door into the back room—where Ym slept—open? He usually left that closed.