Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“Because you refused to go on further trading expeditions!”

“What good would I be? One must trade from a position of power, something I can never do again. Besides, an exotic goods merchant who can’t walk? You know how much hiking is required.”

Vstim took her hand again. “I thought you were frightened. I thought you wanted something safe and secure. But I’ve been listening. Hmalka has told me—”

“You spoke to my superior?”

“People talk.”

“My work has been exemplary,” Rysn said.

“It isn’t your work she’s worried about.” He turned and brushed the grass, drawing Chiri-Chiri’s attention to his hand. She narrowed her eyes at it. “Do you remember what I told you, when you cut out that grass?”

“That I was to keep it. Until it no longer seemed odd.”

“You’ve always been so quick to make assumptions. About yourself, now, more than others. Here, perhaps this will … anyway, have a look.” Vstim handed her the box.

She frowned, then slid off the wooden lid. Inside was a wound-up cord of white rope. Beside that, a slip of paper? Rysn took out the sheet, reading it.



“A deed of ownership?” she whispered. “To a ship?”

“Brand new,” Vstim said. “A three-masted frigate, the largest I’ve ever owned—with fabrial stabilizers for storms, of the finest Thaylen engineering. I had her built in the shipyards of Klna City, which luckily sheltered her from both storms. While I’ve given the rest of my fleet—what’s left of it—to the queen for use against the invasion, this one I reserved.”

“Wandersail,” Rysn said, reading the ship’s name. “Babsk, you are a romantic. Don’t tell me you believe that old story?”

“One can believe in a story without believing it happened.” He smiled. “Whose rules are you following, Rysn? Who is forcing you to stay here? Take the ship. Go! I wish to fund your initial trade run, as an investment. After that, you’ll have to do well to maintain a vessel of this size!”

Rysn recognized the white rope now. It was a captain’s cord some twenty feet long, used as a traditional Thaylen mark of ownership. She’d wrap it in her colors and string it in the rigging of her ship.

It was a gift worth a fortune.

“I can’t take this,” she said, putting the box on the desk. “I’m sorry. I—”

He pushed the cord into her hands. “Just think about it, Rysn. Humor an old man who can no longer travel.”

She held the rope and found her eyes watering. “Bother. Babsk, I have an auditor coming today! I need to be composed and ready to account the queen’s vault!”

“Fortunately, the auditor is an old friend who has seen much worse from you than a few tears.”

“… But you’re the minister of trade!”

“They were going to make me go to a stuffy meeting with old Kholin and his soldiers,” Vstim said, leaning in, “but I insisted on coming to do this. I’ve always wanted to see the queen’s vault in person.”

Rysn wiped her tears, trying to recover some of her decorum. “Well, let’s be to it then. I assure you, everything is in order.”

*

The Sphere Vault’s thick steel door required three numbers to open, each rolled into a different dial, in three separate rooms. Rysn and other scribes knew one number, the door guards protected another, and an auditor—like Vstim—was typically given a third by the queen or the minister of the treasury. All were changed at random intervals.

Rysn knew for a fact that this was mostly for show. In a world of Shardblades, the real defense of the vault was in the layers of guards who surrounded the building, and—more importantly—in the careful auditing of its contents. Though novels were full of stories of the vault being robbed, the only real thefts had occurred through embezzlement.

Rysn moved her dial to the proper number, then pulled the lever in her room. The vault door finally opened with a resounding thump, and she scrambled her dial and called for Wmlak. Her porter entered, then pushed down on the back handles of her chair, lifting the front legs so he could wheel it out to meet the others.

Vstim stood by the now-open vault door with several soldiers. Today’s inner door guard—Tlik—stood with crossbow at the ready, barring entry. There was a slot that let the men stationed in the vault communicate with those outside, but the door couldn’t be opened from within.

“Scheduled accounting of the queen’s personal vault,” Rysn said to him. “Daily passcode: lockstep.”

Tlik nodded, stepping back and lowering his crossbow. Vstim entered with ledger in hand, trailed by a member of the Queen’s Guard: a rough-looking man with a shaved head and spiked eyebrows. Once they were in, Wmlak wheeled Rysn through the vault door, down a short corridor, and into a little alcove, where another guard—Fladm, today—waited.

Her porter brushed off his hands, then nodded to her and retreated. Tlik shut the vault door after him, the metal making a deep thump as it locked into place. The inner vault guards didn’t like anyone coming in who wasn’t specifically authorized—and that included her servant. She’d have to rely on the guards to move her now—but unfortunately, her large wheeled chair was too bulky to fit between the rows of shelves in the main vault.

Rysn felt a healthy dose of shame in front of her former babsk as she was taken—like a sack of roots—from her chair with rear wheels to a smaller chair with poles along the sides. Being carried was the most humiliating part.

The guards left her usual chair in the alcove, near the steps down to the lower level. Then, Tlik and the guardsman the queen had sent—Rysn didn’t know his name—took the poles and carried her into the main vault chamber.

Even here, in this job where she sat most of the time, her inability was a huge inconvenience. Her embarrassment was exacerbated as Chiri-Chiri—who wasn’t allowed in the vault for practical reasons—flitted by in a buzz of wings. How had she gotten in?

Tlik chuckled, but Rysn only sighed.

The main vault chamber was filled with metal racks, like bookcases, containing display boxes of gemstones. It smelled stale. Of a place that never changed, and was never intended to change.

The guards carried her down one of the narrow rows, light from spheres tied to their belts providing the only illumination. Rysn carried the captain’s rope in her lap, and fingered it with one hand. Surely she couldn’t take this offer. It was too generous. Too incredible.

Too difficult.

“So dark!” Vstim said. “A room full of a million gemstones, and it’s dark?”

“Most gems never leave,” Rysn said. “The personal merchant vaults are on the lower level, and there’s some light to those, with the spheres everyone has been bringing lately. These, though … they’re always here.”