The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Sigzil looked back at the others. They were beginning to sit back down, attacking their stew with vigor. “It’s the way you lead so naturally, the way you make others want to listen to you. These are things they associate with lighteyes. And so they have invented a past for you. You will have a difficult time disabusing them of it now.” Sigzil eyed him. “Assuming it is a fabrication. I was there in the chasm the day you used that spear.”
“A spear,” Kaladin said. “A darkeyed soldier’s weapon, not a lighteyes’s sword.”
“To many bridgemen, the difference is minimal. All are so far above us.”
“So what is your story?”
Sigzil smirked. “I wondered if you were going to ask. The others mentioned that you have pried into their origins.”
“I like to know the men I lead.”
“And if some of us are murderers?” Sigzil asked quietly.
“Then I’m in good company,” Kaladin said. “If it was a lighteyes you killed, then I might buy you a drink.”
“Not a lighteyes,” Sigzil said. “And he is not dead.”
“Then you’re not a murderer,” Kaladin said.
“Not for want of trying.” Sigzil’s eyes grew distant. “I thought for certain I had succeeded. It was not the wisest choice I made. My master…” He trailed off.
“Is he the one you tried to kill?”
“No.”
Kaladin waited, but no more information was forthcoming. A scholar, he thought. Or at least a man of learning. There has to be a way to use this.
Find a way out of this death trap, Kaladin. Use what you have. There has to be a way.
“You were right about the bridgemen,” Sigzil said. “We are sent to die. It is the only reasonable explanation. There is a place in the world. Marabethia. Have you heard of it?”
“No,” Kaladin said.
“It is beside the sea, to the north, in the Selay lands. The people are known for their great fondness for debate. At each intersection in the city they have small pedestals on which a man can stand and proclaim his arguments. It is said that everyone in Marabethia carries a pouch with an overripe fruit just in case they pass a proclaimer with whom they disagree.”
Kaladin frowned. He hadn’t heard so many words from Sigzil in all the time they’d been bridgemen together.
“What you said earlier, on the plateau,” Sigzil continued, eyes forward, “it made me think of the Marabethians. You see, they have a curious way of treating condemned criminals. They dangle them over the seaside cliff near the city, down near the water at high tide, with a cut sliced in each cheek. There is a particular species of greatshell in the depths there. The creatures are known for their succulent flavor, and of course they have gemhearts. Not nearly as large as the ones in these chasmfiends, but still nice. So the criminals, they become bait. A criminal may demand execution instead, but they say if you hang there for a week and are not eaten, then you can go free.”
“And does that often happen?” Kaladin asked.
Sigzil shook his head. “Never. But the prisoners almost always take the chance. The Marabethians have a saying for someone who refuses to see the truth of a situation. ‘You have eyes of red and blue,’ they say. Red for the blood dripping. Blue for the water. It is said that these two things are all the prisoners see. Usually they are attacked within one day. And yet, most still wish to take that chance. They prefer the false hope.”
Eyes of red and blue, Kaladin thought, imagining the morbid picture.
“You do a good work,” Sigzil said, rising, picking up his bowl. “At first, I hated you for lying to the men. But I have come to see that a false hope makes them happy. What you do is like giving medicine to a sick man to ease his pain until he dies. Now these men can spend their last days in laughter. You are a healer indeed, Kaladin Stormblessed.”
Kaladin wanted to object, to say that it wasn’t a false hope, but he couldn’t. Not with his heart in his stomach. Not with what he knew.
A moment later, Rock burst from the barrack. “I feel like a true alil’tiki’i again!” he proclaimed, holding aloft his razor. “My friends, you cannot know what you have done! Someday, I will take you to the Peaks and show you the hospitality of kings!”
Despite all of his complaining, he hadn’t shaved his beard off completely. He had left long, red-blond sideburns, which curved down to his chin. The tip of the chin itself was shaved clean, as were his lips. On the tall, oval-faced man, the look was quite distinctive. “Ha!” Rock said, striding up to the fire. He grabbed the nearest men there and hugged them both to him, causing Bisig to nearly spill his stew. “I will make you all family for this. A peak dweller’s humaka’aban is his pride! I feel like a true man again. Here. This razor belongs not to me, but to us all. Any who wishes to use it must do so. Is my honor to share with you!”
The men laughed, and a few took him up on the offer. Kaladin wasn’t one of them. It just…didn’t seem to matter to him. He accepted the bowl of stew Dunny brought him, but didn’t eat. Sigzil chose not to sit back down beside him, retreating to the other side of the campfire.
Eyes of red and blue, Kaladin thought. I don’t know if that fits us. For him to have eyes of red and blue, Kaladin would have to believe that there was at least a small chance the bridge crew could survive. This night, Kaladin had trouble convincing himself.
He’d never been an optimist. He saw the world as it was, or he tried to. That was a problem, though, when the truth he saw was so terrible.
Oh, Stormfather, he thought, feeling the crushing weight of despair as he stared down at his bowl. I’m falling back to the wretch I was. I’m losing my grip on this, on myself.
He couldn’t carry the hopes of all the bridgemen.
He just wasn’t strong enough.
FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Kaladin pushed past the shrieking Laral and stumbled into the surgery room. Even after years working with his father, the amount of blood in the room was shocking. It was as if someone had dumped out a bucket of bright red paint.
The scent of burned flesh hung in the air. Lirin worked frantically on Brightlord Rillir, Roshone’s son. An evil-looking, tusklike thing jutted from the young man’s abdomen, and his lower right leg was crushed. It hung by only a few tendons, splinters of bone poking out like reeds from the waters of a pond. Brightlord Roshone himself lay on the side table, groaning, eyes squeezed shut as he held his leg, which was pierced by another of the bony spears. Blood leaked from his improvised bandage, flowed down the side of the table, and dripped to the floor to mix with his son’s.
Kaladin stood in the doorway gaping. Laral continued to scream. She clutched the doorframe as several of Roshone’s guards tried to pull her away. Her wails were frantic. “Do something! Work harder! He can’t! He was where it happened and I don’t care and let me go!” The garbled phrases degenerated into screeches. The guards finally got her away.
“Kaladin!” his father snapped. “I need you!”
Shocked into motion, Kaladin entered the room, scrubbing his hands then gathering bandages from the cabinet, stepping in blood. He caught a glimpse of Rillir’s face; much of the skin on the right side had been scraped off. The eyelid was gone, the blue eye itself sliced open at the front, deflated like the skin of a grape pressed for wine.
Kaladin hastened to his father with the bandages. His mother appeared at the doorway a moment later, Tien behind her. She raised a hand to her mouth, then pulled Tien away. He stumbled, looking woozy. She returned in a moment without him.
“Water, Kaladin!” Lirin cried. “Hesina, fetch more. Quickly!”
His mother jumped to help, though she rarely assisted in the surgery anymore. Her hands shook as she grabbed one of the buckets and ran outside. Kaladin took the other bucket, which was full, to his father as Lirin eased the length of bone from the young lighteyes’s gut. Rillir’s remaining eye fluttered, head quivering.
“What is that?” Kaladin asked, pressing the bandage to the wound as his father
“Whitespine tusk,” his father said. “Water.”
Kaladin grabbed a sponge, dunked it in the bucket, and used it to squeeze water into Rillir’s gut wound. That washed away the blood, giving Lirin a good look at the damage. He quested with his fingers as Kaladin got some needle and thread ready. There was already a tourniquet on the leg. Full amputation would come later.
Lirin hesitated, fingers inside the gaping hole in Rillir’s belly. Kaladin cleaned the wound again. He looked up at his father, concerned.
Lirin pulled his fingers out and walked to Brightlord Roshone. “Bandages, Kaladin,” he said curtly.
Kaladin hurried over, though he shot a look over his shoulder at Rillir. The once-handsome young lighteyes trembled again, spasming. “Father…”
“Bandages!” Lirin said.
“What are you doing, surgeon?” Roshone bellowed. “What of my son?” Painspren swarmed around him.
“Your son is dead,” Lirin said, yanking the tusk free from Roshone’s leg.
The lighteyes bellowed in agony, though Kaladin couldn’t tell if that was because of the tusk or his son. Roshone clenched his jaw as Kaladin pressed the bandage down on his leg. Lirin dunked his hands in the water bucket, then quickly wiped them with knobweed sap to frighten off rotspren.
“My son is not dead,” Roshone growled. “I can see him moving! Tend to him, surgeon.”
“Kaladin, get the dazewater,” Lirin ordered gathering his sewing needle.
Kaladin hurried to the back of the room, steps splashing blood, and threw open the far cupboard. He took out a small flask of clear liquid.
“What are you doing?” Roshone bellowed, trying to sit up. “Look at my son! Almighty above, look at him!”
Kaladin turned hesitantly, pausing as he poured dazewater on a bandage. Rillir was spasming more violently.
“I work under three guidelines, Roshone,” Lirin said, forcibly pressing the lighteyes down against his table. “The guidelines every surgeon uses when choosing between two patients. If the wounds are equal, treat the youngest first.”
“Then see to my son!”
“If the wounds are not equally threatening,” Lirin continued, “treat the worst wound first.”
“As I’ve been telling you!”
“The third guideline supersedes them both, Roshone,” Lirin said, leaning down. “A surgeon must know when someone is beyond their ability to help. I’m sorry, Roshone. I would save him if I could, I promise you. But I cannot.”
“No!” Roshone said, struggling again.
“Kaladin! Quickly!” Lirin said.
Kaladin dashed over. He pressed the bandage of dazewater to Roshone’s chin and mouth, just below the nose, forcing the lighteyed man to breathe the fumes. Kaladin held his own breath, as he’d been trained.
Roshone bellowed and screamed, but the two of them held him down, and he was weak from blood loss. Soon, his bellows became softer. In seconds, he was speaking in gibberish and grinning to himself. Lirin turned back to the leg wound while Kaladin went to throw away the dazewater bandage.
“No. Administer it to Rillir.” His father didn’t look away from his work. “It’s the only mercy we can give him.”
Kaladin nodded and used the dazewater bandage on the wounded youth. Rillir’s breathing grew less frantic, though he didn’t seem conscious enough to notice the effects. Then Kaladin threw the bandage with the dazewater into the brazier; heat negated the effects. The white, puffy bandage wrinkled and browned in the fire, steam streaming off it as the edges burst into flame.
Kaladin returned with the sponge and washed out Roshone’s wound as Lirin prodded at it. There were a few shards of tusk trapped inside, and Lirin muttered to himself, getting out his tongs and razor-sharp knife.
“Damnation can take them all,” Lirin said, pulling out the first sliver of tusk. Behind him, Rillir fell still. “Isn’t sending half of us to war enough for them? Do they have to seek death even when they’re living in a quiet township? Roshone should never have gone looking for the storming whitespine.”
“He was looking for it?”
“They went hunting it,” Lirin spat. “Wistiow and I used to joke about lighteyes like them. If you can’t kill men, you kill beasts. Well, this is what you found, Roshone.”
“Father,” Kaladin said softly. “He’s not going to be pleased with you when he awakes.” The brightlord was humming softly, lying back, eyes closed.
Lirin didn’t respond. He yanked out another fragment of tusk, and Kaladin washed out the wound. His father pressed his fingers to the side of the large puncture, inspecting it.
There was one more sliver of tusk, jutting from a muscle inside the wound. Right beside that muscle thumped the femoral artery, the largest in the leg. Lirin reached in with his knife, carefully cutting free the sliver of tusk. Then he paused for a moment, the edge of his blade just hairs from the artery.
If that were cut… Kaladin thought. Roshone would be dead in minutes. He was only alive right now because the tusk had missed the artery.
Lirin’s normally steady hand quivered. Then he glanced up at Kaladin. He withdrew the knife without touching the artery, then reached in with his tongs to pull the sliver free. He tossed it aside, then calmly reached for his thread and needle.
Behind them, Rillir had stopped breathing.
That evening, Kaladin sat on the steps to his house, hands in his lap.
Roshone had been returned to his estate to be cared for by his personal servants. His son’s corpse was cooling in the crypt below, and a messenger had been sent to request a Soulcaster for the body.
On the horizon, the sun was red as blood. Everywhere Kaladin looked, the world was red.
The door to the surgery closed, and his father—looking as exhausted as Kaladin felt—tottered out. He eased himself down, sighing as he sat beside Kaladin, looking at the sun. Did it look like blood to him too?
They didn’t speak as the sun slowly sank before them. Why was it most colorful when it was about to vanish for the night? Was it angry at being forced belong the horizon? Or was it a showman, giving a performance before retiring?
Why was the most colorful part of people’s bodies—the brightness of their blood—hidden beneath the skin, never to be seen unless something went wrong?
No, Kaladin thought. The blood isn’t the most colorful part of a body. The eyes can be colorful too. The blood and the eyes. Both representations of one’s heritage. And one’s nobility.
“I saw inside a man today,” Kaladin finally said.
“Not for the first time,” Lirin said, “and certainly not for the last. I’m proud of you. I expected to find you here crying, as you usually do when we lose a patient. You’re learning.”
“When I said I saw inside a man,” Kaladin said, “I wasn’t talking about the wounds.”
Lirin didn’t respond for a moment. “I see.”
“You would have let him die if I hadn’t been there, wouldn’t you?”
Silence.
“Why didn’t you?” Kaladin said. “It would have solved so much!”
“It wouldn’t have been letting him die. It would have been murdering him.”
“You could have just let him bleed, then claimed you couldn’t save him. Nobody would have questioned you. You could have done it.”
“No,” Lirin said, staring at the sunset. “No, I couldn’t have.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m not a killer, son.”
Kaladin frowned.
Lirin had a distant look in his eyes. “Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right. If nobody starts, then others cannot follow. The lighteyes do their best to kill themselves, and to kill us. The others still haven’t brought back Alds and Milp. Roshone just left them there.”
Alds and Milp, two townsmen, had been on the hunt but hadn’t returned with the party bearing the two wounded lighteyes. Roshone had been so
“The lighteyes don’t care about life,” Lirin said. “So I must. That’s another reason why I wouldn’t have let Roshone die, even if you hadn’t been there. Though looking at you did strengthen me.”
“I wish it hadn’t,” Kaladin said.
“You mustn’t say such things.”
“Why not?”
“Because, son. We have to be better than they are.” He sighed, standing. “You should sleep. I may need you when the others return with Alds and Milp.”
That wasn’t likely; the two townsmen were probably dead by now. Their wounds were said to be pretty bad. Plus, the whitespines were still out there.
Lirin went inside, but didn’t compel Kaladin to follow.
Would I have let him die? Kaladin wondered. Maybe even flicked that knife to hasten him on his way? Roshone had been nothing but a blight since his arrival, but did that justify killing him?
No. Cutting that artery wouldn’t have been justified. But what obligation had Kaladin to help? Withholding his aid wasn’t the same thing as killing. It just wasn’t.
Kaladin thought it through a dozen different ways, pondering his father’s words. What he found shocked him. He honestly would have let Roshone die on that table. It would have been better for Kaladin’s family; it would have been better for the entire town.
Kaladin’s father had once laughed at his son’s desire to go to war. Indeed, now that Kaladin had decided he would become a surgeon on his own terms, his thoughts and actions of earlier years felt childish to him. But Lirin thought Kaladin incapable of killing. You can hardly step on a cremling without feeling guilty, son, he’d said. Ramming your spear into a man would be nowhere near as easy as you seem to think.
But his father was wrong. It was a stunning, frightening revelation. This wasn’t idle fancy or daydreaming about the glory of battle. This was real.