Oathbringer Read online

  Why did he smile at her like that? What was he hiding, by not singing to the rhythms to calm her?

  “Sit, Eshonai,” the king said. “Oh, don’t be frightened, little scout. I’ve been wanting to speak to you. Your mastery of our language is unique!”

  She settled on a chair while Gavilar reached down and removed something from a small satchel. It glowed with red Stormlight, a construction of gemstones and metal, crafted in a beautiful design.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked, gently pushing it toward her.

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “It’s what we call a fabrial, a device powered by Stormlight. This one makes warmth. Just a smidge, unfortunately, but my wife is confident her scholars can create one that will heat a room. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No more smoky fires in hearths.”

  It seemed lifeless to Eshonai, but she didn’t say so. She hummed to Praise so he’d feel happy telling her of this, and handed it back.

  “Look closely,” King Gavilar said. “Look deep into it. Can you see what’s moving inside? It’s a spren. That is how the device works.”

  Captive like in a gemheart, she thought, attuning Awe. They’ve built devices that mimic how we apply the forms? The humans did so much with their limitations!

  “The chasmfiends aren’t your gods, are they,” he said.

  “What?” she asked, attuning Skepticism. “Why ask that?” What a strange turn in the conversation.

  “Oh, it’s merely something I’ve been thinking about.” He took the fabrial back. “My officers feel so superior, as they think they have you figured out. They think you’re savages, but they are so wrong. You’re not savages. You’re an enclave of memories. A window into the past.”

  He leaned forward, the light from the ruby leaking between his fingers. “I need you to deliver a message to your leaders. The Five? You’re close to them, and I’m being watched. I need their help to achieve something.”

  She hummed to Anxiety.

  “Now, now,” he said. “I’m going to help you, Eshonai. Did you know, I’ve discovered how to bring your gods back?”

  No. She hummed to the Rhythm of the Terrors. No …

  “My ancestors,” he said, holding up the fabrial, “first learned how to hold a spren inside a gemstone. And with a very special gemstone, you can hold even a god.”

  “Your Majesty,” she said, daring to take his hand in hers. He couldn’t feel the rhythms. He didn’t know. “Please. We no longer worship those gods. We left them, abandoned them.”

  “Ah, but this is for your good, and for ours.” He stood up. “We live without honor, for your gods once brought ours. Without them, we have no power. This world is trapped, Eshonai! Stuck in a dull, lifeless state of transition.” He looked toward the ceiling. “Unite them. I need a threat. Only danger will unite them.”

  “What…” she said to Anxiety. “What are you saying?”

  “Our enslaved parshmen were once like you. Then we somehow robbed them of their ability to undergo the transformation. We did it by capturing a spren. An ancient, crucial spren.” He looked at her, green eyes alight. “I’ve seen how that can be reversed. A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”

  “Insanity.” She rose to her feet. “Our gods tried to destroy you.”

  “The old Words must be spoken again.”

  “You can’t…” She trailed off, noticing for the first time that a map covered the table nearby. Expansive, it showed a land bounded by oceans—and the artistry of it put her own attempts to shame.

  She rose and stepped to the table, gaping, the Rhythm of Awe playing in her mind. This is gorgeous. Even the grand chandeliers and carved walls were nothing by comparison. This was knowledge and beauty, fused into one.

  “I thought you’d be pleased to hear that we are allies in seeking the return of your gods,” Gavilar said. She could almost hear the Rhythm of Reprimand in his dead words. “You claim to fear them, but why fear that which made you live? My people need to be united, and I need an empire that won’t simply turn to infighting once I am gone.”

  “So you seek for war?”

  “I seek for an end to something that we never finished. My people were Radiant once, and your people—the parshmen—were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other in endless squabbles, without light to guide them, and your people are as good as corpses?”

  She looked back at the map. “Where … where is the Shattered Plains? This portion here?”

  “That is all of Natanatan you gesture toward, Eshonai! This is the Shattered Plains.” He pointed at a spot not much bigger than his thumbnail, when the entire map was as large as the table.

  It gave her a sudden dizzying perspective. This was the world? She’d assumed that in traveling to Kholinar, they’d crossed almost as far as the land could go. Why hadn’t they shown her this before!

  Her legs weakened, and she attuned Mourning. She dropped back into her seat, unable to stand.

  So vast.

  Gavilar removed something from his pocket. A sphere? It was dark, yet somehow still glowed. As if it had … an aura of blackness, a phantom light that was not light. Faintly violet. It seemed to suck in the light around it.

  He set it on the table before her. “Take that to the Five and explain what I told you. Tell them to remember what your people once were. Wake up, Eshonai.”

  He patted her on the shoulder, then left the room. She stared at that terrible light, and—from the songs—knew it for what it was. The forms of power had been associated with a dark light, a light from the king of gods.

  She plucked the sphere off the table and went running.

  * * *

  When the drums were set up, Eshonai insisted on joining the drummers. An outlet for her anxiety. She beat to the rhythm in her head, banging as hard as she could, trying with each beat to banish the things the king had said.

  And the things she’d just done.

  The Five sat at the high table, the remnants of their final course uneaten.

  He intends to bring back our gods, she’d told the Five.

  Close your eyes. Focus on the rhythms.

  He can do it. He knows so much.

  Furious beats pulsing through her soul.

  We have to do something.

  Klade’s slave was an assassin. Klade claimed that a voice—speaking to the rhythms—had led him to the man, who had confessed his skills when pressed. Venli had apparently been with Klade, though Eshonai hadn’t seen her sister since earlier in the day.

  After a frantic debate, the Five had agreed this was a sign of what they were to do. Long ago, the listeners had summoned the courage to adopt dullform in order to escape their gods. They’d sought freedom at any cost.

  Today, the cost of maintaining that freedom would be high.

  She played the drums. She felt the rhythms. She wept softly, and didn’t look as the strange assassin—wearing flowing white clothing provided by Klade—left the room. She’d voted with the others for this course of action.

  Feel the peace of the music. As her mother always said. Seek the rhythms. Seek the songs.

  She resisted as the others pulled her away. She wept to leave the music behind. Wept for her people, who might be destroyed for tonight’s action. Wept for the world, which might never know what the listeners had done for it.

  Wept for the king, whom she had consigned to death.

  The drums cut off around her, and dying music echoed through the halls.

  I’m certain some will feel threatened by this record. Some few may feel liberated. Most will simply feel that it should not exist.

  —From Oathbringer, preface

  Dalinar Kholin appeared in the vision standing beside the memory of a dead god.

  It had been six days since his forces had arrived at Urithiru, legendary holy tower city of the Knights Radiant. They had escaped the arrival of a new devastating storm, seeking refuge through an ancient portal. The
y were settling into their new home hidden in the mountains.

  And yet, Dalinar felt as if he knew nothing. He didn’t understand the force he fought, let alone how to defeat it. He barely understood the storm, and what it meant in returning the Voidbringers, ancient enemies of men.

  So he came here, into his visions. Seeking to pull secrets from the god—named Honor, or the Almighty—who had left them. This particular vision was the first that Dalinar had ever experienced. It began with him standing next to an image of the god in human form, both perched atop a cliff overlooking Kholinar: Dalinar’s home, seat of the government. In the vision, the city had been destroyed by some unknown force.

  The Almighty started speaking, but Dalinar ignored him. Dalinar had become a Knight Radiant by bonding the Stormfather himself—soul of the highstorm, most powerful spren on Roshar—and Dalinar had discovered he could now have these visions replayed for him at will. He’d already heard this monologue three times, and had repeated it word for word to Navani for transcription.

  This time, Dalinar instead walked to the edge of the cliff and knelt to look out upon the ruins of Kholinar. The air smelled dry here, dusty and warm. He squinted, trying to extract some meaningful detail from the chaos of broken buildings. Even the windblades—once magnificent, sleek rock formations exposing countless strata and variations—had been shattered.

  The Almighty continued his speech. These visions were like a diary, a set of immersive messages the god had left behind. Dalinar appreciated the help, but right now he wanted details.

  He searched the sky and discovered a ripple in the air, like heat rising from distant stone. A shimmer the size of a building.

  “Stormfather,” he said. “Can you take me down below, into the rubble?”

  You are not supposed to go there. That is not part of the vision.

  “Ignore what I’m supposed to do, for the moment,” Dalinar said. “Can you do it? Can you transport me to those ruins?”

  The Stormfather rumbled. He was a strange being, somehow connected to the dead god, but not exactly the same thing as the Almighty. At least today he wasn’t using a voice that rattled Dalinar’s bones.

  In an eyeblink, Dalinar was transported. He no longer stood atop the cliff, but was on the plains down before the ruins of the city.

  “Thank you,” Dalinar said, striding the short remaining distance to the ruins.

  Only six days had passed since their discovery of Urithiru. Six days since the awakening of the Parshendi, who had gained strange powers and glowing red eyes. Six days since the arrival of the new storm—the Everstorm, a tempest of dark thunderheads and red lightning.

  Some in his armies thought that it was finished, the storm over as one catastrophic event. Dalinar knew otherwise. The Everstorm would return, and would soon hit Shinovar in the far west. Following that, it would course across the land.

  Nobody believed his warnings. Monarchs in places like Azir and Thaylenah admitted that a strange storm had appeared in the east, but they didn’t believe it would return.

  They couldn’t guess how destructive this storm’s return would be. When it had first appeared, it had clashed with the highstorm, creating a unique cataclysm. Hopefully it would not be as bad on its own—but it would still be a storm blowing the wrong way. And it would awaken the world’s parshman servants and make them into Voidbringers.

  What do you expect to learn? the Stormfather said as Dalinar reached the rubble of the city. This vision was constructed to draw you to the ridge to speak with Honor. The rest is backdrop, a painting.

  “Honor put this rubble here,” Dalinar said, waving toward the broken walls heaped before him. “Backdrop or not, his knowledge of the world and our enemy couldn’t help but affect the way he made this vision.”

  Dalinar hiked up the rubble of the outer walls. Kholinar had been … storm it, Kholinar was … a grand city, like few in the world. Instead of hiding in the shadow of a cliff or inside a sheltered chasm, Kholinar trusted in its enormous walls to buffer it from highstorm winds. It defied the winds, and did not bow to the storms.

  In this vision, something had destroyed it anyway. Dalinar crested the detritus and surveyed the area, trying to imagine how it had felt to settle here so many millennia ago. Back when there had been no walls. It had been a hardy, stubborn lot who had grown this place.

  He saw scrapes and gouges on the stones of the fallen walls, like those made by a predator in the flesh of its prey. The windblades had been smashed, and from up close he could see claw marks on one of those as well.

  “I’ve seen creatures that could do this,” he said, kneeling beside one of the stones, feeling the rough gash in the granite surface. “In my visions, I witnessed a stone monster that ripped itself free of the underlying rock.

  “There are no corpses, but that’s probably because the Almighty didn’t populate the city in this vision. He just wanted a symbol of the coming destruction. He didn’t think Kholinar would fall to the Everstorm, but to the Voidbringers.”

  Yes, the Stormfather said. The storm will be a catastrophe, but not nearly on the scale of what follows. You can find refuge from storms, Son of Honor. Not so with our enemies.

  Now that the monarchs of Roshar had refused to listen to Dalinar’s warning that the Everstorm would soon strike them, what else could Dalinar do? The real Kholinar was reportedly consumed by riots—and the queen had gone silent. Dalinar’s armies had limped away from their first confrontation with the Voidbringers, and even many of his own highprinces hadn’t joined him in that battle.

  A war was coming. In awakening the Desolation, the enemy had rekindled a millennia-old conflict of ancient creatures with inscrutable motivations and unknown powers. Heralds were supposed to appear and lead the charge against the Voidbringers. The Knights Radiant should have already been in place, prepared and trained, ready to face the enemy. They were supposed to be able to trust in the guidance of the Almighty.

  Instead, Dalinar had only a handful of new Radiants, and there was no sign of help from the Heralds. And beyond that, the Almighty—God himself—was dead.

  Somehow, Dalinar was supposed to save the world anyway.

  The ground started to tremble; the vision was ending with the land falling away. Atop the cliff, the Almighty would have just concluded his speech.

  A final wave of destruction rolled across the land like a highstorm. A metaphor designed by the Almighty to represent the darkness and devastation that was coming upon humankind.

  Your legends say that you won, he had said. But the truth is that we lost. And we are losing.…

  The Stormfather rumbled. It is time to go.

  “No,” Dalinar said, standing atop the rubble. “Leave me.”

  But—

  “Let me feel it!”

  The wave of destruction struck, crashing against Dalinar, and he shouted defiance. He had not bowed before the highstorm; he would not bow before this! He faced it head-on, and in the blast of power that ripped apart the ground, he saw something.

  A golden light, brilliant yet terrible. Standing before it, a dark figure in black Shardplate. The figure had nine shadows, each spreading out in a different direction, and its eyes glowed a brilliant red.

  Dalinar stared deep into those eyes, and felt a chill wash through him. Though the destruction raged around him, vaporizing rocks, those eyes frightened him more. He saw something terribly familiar in them.

  This was a danger far beyond even the storms.

  This was the enemy’s champion. And he was coming.

  UNITE THEM. QUICKLY.

  Dalinar gasped as the vision shattered. He found himself sitting beside Navani in a quiet stone room in the tower city of Urithiru. Dalinar didn’t need to be bound for visions any longer; he had enough control over them that he had ceased acting them out while experiencing them.

  He breathed deeply, sweat trickling down his face, his heart racing. Navani said something, but for the moment he couldn’t hear her. She seemed distant compa
red to the rushing in his ears.

  “What was that light I saw?” he whispered.

  I saw no light, the Stormfather said.

  “It was brilliant and golden, but terrible,” Dalinar whispered. “It bathed everything in its heat.”

  Odium, the Stormfather rumbled. The enemy.

  The god who had killed the Almighty. The force behind the Desolations.

  “Nine shadows,” Dalinar whispered, trembling.

  Nine shadows? The Unmade. His minions, ancient spren.

  Storms. Dalinar knew of them from legend only. Terrible spren who twisted the minds of men.

  Still, those eyes haunted him. As frightening as it was to contemplate the Unmade, he feared that figure with the red eyes the most. Odium’s champion.

  Dalinar blinked, looking to Navani, the woman he loved, her face painfully concerned as she held his arm. In this strange place and stranger time, she was something real. Something to hold on to. A mature beauty—in some ways the picture of a perfect Vorin woman: lush lips, light violet eyes, silvering black hair in perfect braids, curves accentuated by the tight silk havah. No man would ever accuse Navani of being scrawny.

  “Dalinar?” she asked. “Dalinar, what happened? Are you well?”

  “I’m…” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m well, Navani. And I know what we must do.”

  Her frown deepened. “What?”

  “I have to unite the world against the enemy faster than he can destroy it.”

  He had to find a way to make the other monarchs of the world listen to him. He had to prepare them for the new storm and the Voidbringers. And, barring that, he had to help them survive the effects.

  But if he succeeded, he wouldn’t have to face the Desolation alone. This was not a matter of one nation against the Voidbringers. He needed the kingdoms of the world to join him, and he needed to find the Knights Radiant who were being created among their populations.

  Unite them.

  “Dalinar,” she said, “I think that’s a worthy goal … but storms, what of ourselves? This mountainside is a wasteland—what are we going to feed our armies?”