The Way of Kings, Part 1 (The Stormlight Archive #1.1)

Ahead, the doors into the master’s rooms lay unwatched and dark at the end of a short hallway. Suspicious.

Szeth crept up to the doors, listening. Nothing. He hesitated, glancing to the side. A grand stairway led up to the second floor. He hustled over and used his Blade to shear free a wooden knob from the newel post. It was about the size of a small melon. A few hacks with the Blade cut a cloak-sized section of drapery free from a window. Szeth hurried back to the doors and infused the wooden sphere with Stormlight, giving it a Basic Lashing that pointed it westward, directly ahead of him.

He cut through the latch between the doors and eased one open. The room beyond was dark. Was Gavashaw gone for the evening? Where would he go? This city was not safe for him yet.

Szeth placed the wooden ball in the middle of the drape, then held it up and dropped it. It fell forward, toward the far wall. Wrapped in the fabric, the ball looked vaguely like a person in a cloak running through the room in a crouch.

No concealed guards struck at it. The decoy bounced off a latched window, then came to rest hanging against the wall. It continued to leak Stormlight.

That light illuminated a small table with an object atop it. Szeth squinted, trying to make out what it was. He edged forward, slinking into the room, closer and closer to the table.

Yes. The object on the table was a head. One with Gavashaw’s features. Shadows thrown by Stormlight gave the grisly face an even more haunted cast. Someone had beaten Szeth to the assassination.

“Szeth-son-Neturo,” a voice said.

Szeth turned, spinning his Shardblade around and falling into a defensive stance. A figure stood on the far side of the room, shrouded in the darkness. “Who are you?” Szeth demanded, his Stormlight aura growing brighter once he stopped holding his breath.

“Are you satisfied with this, Szeth-son-Neturo?” the voice asked. It was male and deep. What was that accent? The man wasn’t Veden. Alethi, perhaps? “Are you satisfied with trivial crimes? Killing over meaningless turf in backwater mining villages?”

Szeth didn’t reply. He scanned the room, looking for motion in the other shadows. None seemed to be hiding anyone.

“I’ve watched you,” the voice said. “You’ve been sent to intimidate shopkeepers. You’ve killed footpads so unimportant even the authorities ignore them. You’ve been shown off to impress whores, as if they were high lighteyed ladies. What a waste.”

“I do as my master demands.”

“You are squandered,” the voice said. “You are not meant for petty extortions and murders. Using you like this, it’s like hitching a Ryshadium stallion to a run-down market wagon. It’s like using a Shardblade to slice vegetables, or like using the finest parchment as kindling for a washwater fire. It is a crime. You are a work of art, Szeth-son-Neturo, a god. And each day Makkek throws dung at you.”

“Who are you?” Szeth repeated.

“An admirer of the arts.”

“Do not call me by my father’s name,” Szeth said. “He should not be sullied by association with me.”

The sphere on the wall finally ran out of Stormlight, dropping to the floor, the drapery muffling its fall. “Very well,” the figure said. “But do you not rebel against this frivolous use of your skills? Were you not meant for greatness?”

“There is no greatness in killing,” Szeth said. “You speak like a kukori. Great men create food and clothing. He who adds is to be revered. I am he who takes away. At least in the killing of men such as these I can pretend to be doing a service.”

“This from the man who nearly toppled one of the greatest kingdoms in Roshar?”

“This from the man who committed one of the most heinous slaughters in Roshar,” Szeth corrected.

The figure snorted. “What you did was a mere breeze compared to the storm of slaughter Shardbearers wreak on a battlefield each day. And those are breezes compared to the tempests you are capable of.”

Szeth began to walk away.

“Where are you going?” the figure asked.

“Gavashaw is dead. I must return to my master.”

Something hit the floor. Szeth spun, Shardblade down. The figure had dropped something round and heavy. It rolled across the floor toward Szeth.

Another head. It came to rest on its side. Szeth froze as he made out the features. The pudgy cheeks were stained with blood, the dead eyes wide with shock: Makkek.

“How?” Szeth demanded.

“We took him seconds after you left the gambling den.”

“We?”

“Servants of your new master.”

“My Oathstone?”

The figure opened his hand, revealing a gemstone suspended in his palm by a chain wrapped around his fingers. Sitting beside it, now illuminated, was Szeth’s Oathstone. The figure’s face was dark; he wore a mask.

Szeth dismissed his Shardblade and went down on one knee. “What are your orders?”

“There is a list on the table,” the figure said, closing his hand and hiding the Oathstone. “It details our master’s wishes.”

Szeth rose and walked over. Beside the head, which rested on a plate to contain the blood, was a sheet of paper. He took it, and his Stormlight illuminated some two dozen names written in the warrior’s script of his homeland. Some had a note beside them with instructions on how they were to be killed.

Glories within, Szeth thought. “These are some of the most powerful people in the world! Six highprinces? A Selay gerontarch? The king of Jah Keved?”

“It is time you stopped wasting your talent,” the figure said, walking to the far wall, resting his hand upon it.

“This will cause chaos,” Szeth whispered. “Infighting. War. Confusion and pain such as the world has rarely known.”

The chained gemstone on the man’s palm flashed. The wall vanished, turned to smoke. A Soulcaster.

The dark figure glanced at Szeth. “Indeed. Our master directs that you are to use tactics similar to those you employed so well in Alethkar years ago. When you are done, you will receive further instructions.”

He then exited through the opening, leaving Szeth horrified. This was his nightmare. To be in the hands of those who understood his capabilities and who had the ambition to use them properly. He stood for a time, silent, long past when his Stormlight ran out.

Then, reverently, he folded the list. He was surprised that his hands were so steady. He should be trembling.

For soon the world itself would shake.





PART


THREE


Dying



KALADIN SHALLAN





“The ones of ash and fire, who killed like a swarm, relentless before the Heralds.”

—Noted in Masly, page 337. Corroborated by Coldwin and Hasavah.




It sounds like you’re getting into Jasnah’s good graces quickly, the spanreed wrote out. How long before you can make the switch?