Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt,” Kal said softly.

“You won’t get far if you can’t admit to a little fear. Emotion is good. It’s what defines us, makes us—”

“I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt.” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I was afraid of making someone hurt.”

Tukks twisted the bark in his mouth, then nodded. “I see. Well, that’s another problem. Not unusual either, but a different matter indeed.”

For a time, the only sound in the large barrack was that of chisel on stone. “How do you do it?” Kal finally asked, not looking up. “How can you hurt people, Tukks? They’re just poor darkeyed slobs like us.”

“I think about my mates,” Tukks said. “I can’t let the lads down. My squad is my family now.”

“So you kill someone else’s family?”

“Eventually, we’ll be killing shellheads. But I know what you mean, Kal. It’s hard. You’d be surprised how many men look in the face of an enemy and find that they’re simply not capable of hurting another person.”

Kal closed his eyes, letting the chisel slip from his fingers.

“It’s good you aren’t so eager,” Tukks said. “Means you’re sane. I’ll take ten unskilled men with earnest hearts over one callous idiot who thinks this is all a game.”

The world doesn’t make sense, Kal thought. His father, the consummate surgeon, told him to avoid getting too wrapped up in his patients’ emotions. And here was a career killer, telling him to care?

Boots scraped on stone as Tukks stood up. He walked over and rested one hand on Kal’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the war, or even the battle. Focus on your squadmates, Kal. Keep them alive. Be the man they need.” He grinned. “And get the rest of this floor scraped. I think when you come to dinner, you’ll find the rest of the squad more friendly. Just a hunch.”

That night, Kaladin discovered that Tukks was right. The rest of the men did seem more welcoming, now that he’d been disciplined. So Kal held his tongue, smiled, and enjoyed the companionship.

He never told Tukks the truth. When Kal had frozen on the practice field, it hadn’t been out of fear. He’d been very sure he could hurt someone. In fact, he’d realized that he could kill, if needed.

And that was what had terrified him.

*

Kaladin sat on a chunk of stone that looked like melted obsidian. It grew right out of the ground in Shadesmar, this place that didn’t seem real.

The distant sun hadn’t shifted in the sky since they’d arrived. Nearby, one of the strange fearspren crawled along the banks of the sea of glass beads. As big as an axehound, but longer and thinner, it looked vaguely like an eel with stumpy legs. The purple feelers on its head wiggled and shifted, flowing in his direction. When it didn’t sense anything in him that it wanted, it continued along the bank.

Syl didn’t make any noise as she approached, but he caught sight of her shadow coming up from behind—like other shadows here, it pointed toward the sun. She sat down on the lump of glass next to him, then thumped her head sideways, resting it on his arm, her hands in her lap.

“Others still asleep?” Kaladin asked.

“Yup. Pattern’s watching over them.” She wrinkled her nose. “Strange.”

“He’s nice, Syl.”

“That’s the strange part.”

She swung her legs out in front of her, barefoot as usual. It seemed odder here on this side where she was human size. A small flock of spren flew above them, with bulbous bodies, long wings, and flowing tails. Instead of a head, each one had a golden ball floating right in front of the body. That seemed familiar.…

Gloryspren, he thought. It was like the fearspren, whose antennae manifested in the real world. Only part of the actual spren showed there.

“So…” Syl said. “Not going to sleep?”

Kaladin shook his head.

“Now, I might not be an expert on humans,” she said. “For example, I still haven’t figured out why only a handful of your cultures seem to worship me. But I do think I heard somewhere that you have to sleep. Like, every night.”

He didn’t respond.

“Kaladin…”

“What about you?” he said, looking away, along the isthmus of land that marked where the river was in the real world. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Have I ever needed sleep?”

“Isn’t this your land? Where you come from? I figured you’d … I don’t know … be more mortal here.”

“I’m still a spren,” she said. “I’m a little piece of God. Did you miss the part about worshipping me?”

When he didn’t reply, she poked him in the side. “You were supposed to say something sarcastic there.”

“Sorry.”

“We don’t sleep; we don’t eat. I think we might feed off humans, actually. Your emotions. Or you thinking about us, maybe. It all seems very complicated. In Shadesmar, we can think on our own, but if we go to your realm, we need a human bond. Otherwise, we’re practically as mindless as those gloryspren.”

“But how did you make the transition?”

“I…” She adopted a distant expression. “You called for me. Or, no, I knew that you would someday call for me. So I transferred to the Physical Realm, trusting that the honor of men lived, unlike what my father always said.”

Her father. The Stormfather.

It was so strange to be able to feel her head on his arm. He was accustomed to her having very little substance.

“Could you transfer again?” Kaladin asked. “To carry word to Dalinar that something might be wrong with the Oathgates?”

“I don’t think so. You’re here, and my bond is to you.” She poked him again. “But this is all a distraction from the real problem.”

“You’re right. I need a weapon. And we’ll need to find food somehow.”

“Kaladin…”

“Are there trees on this side? This obsidian might make a good spearhead.”

She lifted her head from his arm and looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

“I’m fine, Syl,” he said. “I just lost my focus.”

“You were basically catatonic.”

“I won’t let it happen again.”

“I’m not complaining.” She wrapped her arms around his right arm, like a child clinging to a favored toy. Worried. Frightened. “Something’s wrong inside you. But I don’t know what.”

I’ve never locked up in real combat, he thought. Not since that day in training, when Tukks had to come talk to me. “I … was just surprised to find Sah there,” he said. “Not to mention Moash.”

How do you do it? How can you hurt people, Tukks.…

She closed her eyes and leaned against him without letting go of his arm.

Eventually he heard the others stirring, so he extricated himself from Syl’s grasp and went to join them.





The most important point I wish to make is that the Unmade are still among us. I realize this will be contentious, as much of the lore surrounding them is intertwined with theology. However, it is clear to me that some of their effects are common in the world—and we simply treat them as we would the manifestations of other spren.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 12