Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
The Stormfather rumbled in annoyance, but did not object. The place of endless white stone faded.
“What was that place?” Dalinar asked.
IT IS NO PLACE.
“But everything else in these visions is real,” Dalinar said. “So why is it that—”
IT IS NO PLACE, the Stormfather insisted firmly.
Dalinar fell silent, letting himself be taken by the vision.
I IMAGINED IT, the Stormfather said more softly, as if he were admitting something embarrassing. ALL THINGS HAVE A SOUL. A VASE, A WALL, A CHAIR. AND WHEN A VASE IS BROKEN, IT MIGHT DIE IN THE PHYSICAL REALM, BUT FOR A TIME ITS SOUL REMEMBERS WHAT IT WAS. SO ALL THINGS DIE TWICE. ITS FINAL DEATH IS WHEN MEN FORGET IT WAS A VASE, AND THINK ONLY OF THE PIECES. I IMAGINE THE VASE FLOATING AWAY THEN, ITS FORM DISSOLVING INTO THE NOTHINGNESS.
Dalinar had never heard anything so philosophical from the Stormfather. He hadn’t imagined it was possible that a spren—even a mighty one of the highstorms—could dream in such a way.
Dalinar found himself hurtling through the air.
Flailing his arms, he shouted in panic. First moon’s violet light bathed the ground far below. His stomach lurched and his clothes flapped in the wind. He continued yelling until he realized that he wasn’t actually getting closer to the ground.
He wasn’t falling, he was flying. The air was rushing against the top of his head, not his face. Indeed, now he saw that his body was glowing, Stormlight streaming off him. He didn’t feel like he was holding it though—no raging inside his veins, no urge to action.
He shielded his face from the wind and looked forward. A Radiant flew ahead, resplendent in blue armor that glowed, the light brightest at the edges and in the grooves. The man was looking back at Dalinar, doubtless because of his cries.
Dalinar saluted him to indicate he was all right. The armored man nodded, looking forward again.
He’s a Windrunner, Dalinar thought, piecing it together. I’ve taken the place of his companion, a female Radiant. He’d seen these two in the vision before; they were flying to save the village. Dalinar wasn’t moving under his own power—the Windrunner had Lashed the female Radiant into the sky, as Szeth had done to Dalinar during the Battle of Narak.
It was still difficult to accept that he wasn’t falling, and a sinking feeling persisted in the pit of his stomach. He tried to focus on other things. He was wearing an unfamiliar brown uniform, though he was glad to note that he had his side sword as requested. But why didn’t he have on Shardplate? In the vision, the woman had worn a set that glowed amber. Was this the result of the Stormfather trying to make him look like himself to Fen?
Dalinar still didn’t know why Radiant Plate glowed, while modern Shardplate did not. Was the ancient Plate “living” somehow, like Radiant Blades lived?
Perhaps he could find out from that Radiant ahead. He had to ask his questions carefully, however. Everyone would see Dalinar as the Radiant he had replaced, and if his questions were uncharacteristic, that tended only to confuse people, rather than get him answers.
“How far away are we?” Dalinar asked. The sound was lost in the wind, so he shouted it more loudly, drawing the attention of his companion.
“Not long now,” the man shouted back, voice echoing inside his helm, which glowed blue—most strongly at the edges and across the eye slit.
“I think something might be wrong with my armor!” Dalinar shouted to him. “I can’t make my helm retract!”
In response, the other Radiant made his vanish. Dalinar caught sight of a puff of Light or mist.
Beneath the helm, the man had dark skin and curly black hair. His eyes glowed blue. “Retract your helm?” he shouted. “You haven’t summoned your armor yet; you had to dismiss it so I could Lash you.”
Oh, Dalinar thought. “I mean earlier. It wouldn’t vanish when I wanted it to.”
“Talk to Harkaylain then, or to your spren.” The Windrunner frowned. “Will this be a problem for our mission?”
“I don’t know,” Dalinar shouted. “But it distracted me. Tell me again how we know where to go, and what we know of the things we’re going to fight?” He winced at how awkward that sounded.
“Just be ready to back me up against the Midnight Essence, and use Regrowth on any wounded.”
“But—”
You will find difficulty getting useful answers, Son of Honor, the Stormfather rumbled. These do not have souls or minds. They are re-creations forged by Honor’s will, and do not have the memories of the real people.
“Surely we can learn things,” Dalinar said under his breath.
They were created to convey only certain ideas. Further pressing will merely reveal the thinness of the facade.
This brought up memories of the fake city Dalinar had visited in his first vision, the destroyed version of Kholinar that was more prop than reality. But there had to be things he could learn, things that Honor might not have intended, but had included by chance.
I need to get Navani and Jasnah in here, he thought. Let them pick at these re-creations.
Last time in this vision, Dalinar had taken the place of a man named Heb: a husband and father who had defended his family with only a fireplace poker for a weapon. He remembered his frantic struggle with a beast of oily, midnight skin. He had fought, bled, agonized. He’d spent what seemed like an eternity trying—and eventually failing—to protect his wife and daughter.
Such a personal memory. False though it was, he had lived it. In fact, seeing the small town ahead—in the lait created by a large ridge of rock—made emotions well up inside Dalinar. It was a painful irony that he should have such vivid feelings about this place, these people, when his memories of Evi were still so shadowy and confused.
The Windrunner slowed Dalinar by grabbing his arm. They drew to a stop in midair, hovering above the rocky flats outside the village.
“There.” The Windrunner pointed to the field around the town, where weird black creatures were swarming. About the size of an axehound, they had oily skin that reflected the moonlight. While they moved on all sixes, they were like no natural animal. They had spindly legs like a crab’s, but a bulbous body and a sinuous head, featureless except for a slit of a mouth bristling with black teeth.
Shallan had faced the source of these things deep beneath Urithiru. Dalinar had slept a little less secure each night since, knowing that one of the Unmade had been hidden in the bowels of the tower. Were the other eight similarly lurking nearby?
“I’ll go down first,” the Windrunner said, “and draw their attention. You make for the town and help the people there.” The man pressed his hand against Dalinar. “You’ll drop in about thirty seconds.”
The man’s helm materialized, then he plunged toward the monsters. Dalinar remembered that descent from the vision—like a falling star come to rescue Dalinar and the family.
“How,” Dalinar whispered to the Stormfather. “How do we get the armor?”
Speak the Words.
“Which words?”
You will know or you will not.
Great.
Dalinar saw no sign of Taffa or Seeli—the family he’d protected—below. In his version they’d been out here, but their flight had been his doing. He couldn’t be sure how the vision had played out this time.
Storms. He hadn’t planned this very well, had he? In his mind’s eye, he’d anticipated getting to Queen Fen and helping her along, making sure she wasn’t in too much danger. Instead, he’d wasted time flying here.
Stupid. He needed to learn to be more specific with the Stormfather.
Dalinar began to descend in a controlled float. He had some idea of how the Windrunner Surges worked together, but he was impressed nonetheless. Just as he touched down, the feeling of lightness left him and the Stormlight rising from his skin puffed away. This left him as much less of a target in the darkness than the other Radiant, who glowed like a brilliant blue beacon, sweeping about himself with a grand Shardblade as
Dalinar crept through the town, his common side sword feeling frail compared to a Shardblade—but at least it wasn’t an iron poker. Some of the creatures scrambled by on the main thoroughfare, but Dalinar hid beside a boulder until they passed.
He easily identified the proper house, which had a small barn out back, nestled against the stone cliff that sheltered the town. He crept up, and found that the barn wall had been ripped open. He remembered hiding in there with Seeli, then fleeing as a monster attacked.
The barn was empty, so he headed for the house, which was much finer. Made of crem bricks, and larger, though it seemed only one family lived in it. For a house this big, that would be an oddity, wouldn’t it? Space was at a premium in laits.
Some of his assumptions obviously didn’t hold in this era. In Alethkar, a fine wooden mansion would be a symbol of wealth. Here, however, many of the other houses were of wood.
Dalinar slipped into the house, feeling increasingly worried. Fen’s real body couldn’t be harmed by what happened in the vision, but she could still feel pain. So while the injuries might not be real, her anger at Dalinar certainly would be. He could ruin any chance of her listening to him.
She’s already given up on listening, he assured himself. Navani agreed—this vision couldn’t make things worse.
He felt in his uniform’s pocket, and was pleased to find some gemstones. A Radiant would have Stormlight. He took out a small diamond the size of a pebble and used its white light to inspect the room. The table had been overturned, chairs scattered. The door hung open and creaked softly in a breeze.
There was no sign of Queen Fen, but Taffa’s body lay facedown near the hearth. She wore a single-piece brown dress, now in tatters. Dalinar sighed, sheathing his sword and kneeling to gently touch her back in a spot unraked by monster claws.
It’s not real, he told himself, not now. This woman lived and died thousands of years ago.
It still hurt to see her. He walked to the swinging door and stepped outside into the night, where howls and cries rang out from the town.
He strode quickly down the roadway, feeling a sense of urgency. No … not just urgency, impatience. Seeing Taffa’s corpse had changed something. He was not a confused man trapped in a nightmare, as he’d feared when first visiting this place. Why was he sneaking? These visions belonged to him. He should not fear their contents.
One of the creatures scuttled out of the shadows. Dalinar drew in Stormlight as it leaped and bit at his leg. Pain flared up his side, but he ignored it, and the wound reknit. He glanced down as the creature lunged again, with similar lack of results. It scurried backward a few paces, and he could sense confusion in its posture. This was not how its prey was supposed to act.
“You don’t eat the corpses,” Dalinar said to it. “You kill for pleasure, don’t you? I often think of how spren and man are so different, but this we share. We can both murder.”
The unholy thing came at him again, and Dalinar seized it in both hands. The body felt springy to the touch, like a wineskin filled to bursting. He painted the writhing monster with Stormlight and spun, hurling it toward a nearby building. The creature hit the wall back-first and stuck there several feet above the ground, legs scrambling.
Dalinar continued on his way. He simply cut through the next two creatures that came for him. Their disjointed bodies twitched, black smoke leaking from the carcasses.
What is that light? It danced in the night ahead, growing stronger. Harsh, orange, flooding the end of the street.
He didn’t remember a fire from before. Were homes burning? Dalinar approached, and found a bonfire, flickering with flamespren, built of furniture. It was surrounded by dozens of people holding brooms and crude picks: men and women alike, armed with whatever they could find. Even an iron poker or two.
Judging by the fearspren gathered around them, the townspeople were terrified. They managed some semblance of ranks anyway—with children at the center, nearer the fires—as they frantically defended themselves from the midnight monsters. A figure near the fire commanded from the top of a box. Fen’s voice had no accent; to Dalinar, her shouts seemed to be in perfect Alethi, though—in the strange way of these visions—everyone present was actually speaking and thinking in an ancient language.
How did she manage this so quickly? Dalinar wondered, mesmerized by the fighting townsfolk. Some of them fell in bloody, screaming heaps, but others pinned down the monsters and stabbed open their backs—sometimes with kitchen knives—to deflate them.
Dalinar remained on the outskirts of the battle until a dramatic figure in glowing blue swept down upon the scene. The Windrunner made short work of the remaining creatures.
At the end, he saved a glare for Dalinar. “What are you doing standing there? Why haven’t you helped?”
“I—”
“We’ll have words about this when we return!” he shouted, pointing toward one of the fallen. “Go, help the wounded!”
Dalinar followed the gesture, but walked toward Fen instead of the wounded. Some of the townspeople huddled and wept, though others exulted in survival, cheering and holding up their improvised weapons. He’d seen these aftereffects of a battle before. The welling up of emotions came in a variety of ways.
The bonfire’s heat caused Dalinar’s brow to sweat. Smoke churned in the air, reminding him of the place he’d been before he’d fully entered this vision. He’d always loved the warmth of an actual fire, dancing with flamespren, so eager to burn themselves out and die.
Fen was over a foot shorter than Dalinar, with an oval face, yellow eyes, and white Thaylen eyebrows she kept curled to hang down beside her cheeks. She did not braid her grey hair like an Alethi woman would have, but instead let it fall down to cover her shoulders. The vision had given her a simple shirt and trousers to wear—the costume of the man she’d replaced—though she’d found a glove for her safehand.
“Now the Blackthorn himself shows up?” she said. “Damnation, this is a strange dream.”
“Not quite a dream, Fen,” Dalinar said, looking back toward the Radiant, who had charged a small group of midnight monsters coming down the street. “I don’t know if I have time to explain.”
“I can slow it down,” one of the villagers said in the Stormfather’s voice.
“Yes, please,” Dalinar said.
Everything stopped. Or … slowed greatly. The bonfire’s flames shimmered lethargically, and the people slowed to a crawl.
Dalinar was unaffected, as was Fen. He sat down on a box beside the one Fen stood on, and she hesitantly settled down next to him. “A very strange dream.”
“I assumed I was dreaming myself, when I saw the first vision,” Dalinar said. “When they kept happening, I was forced to acknowledge that no dream is this crisp, this logical. In no dream could we be having this conversation.”
“In every dream I’ve experienced, what happened felt natural at the time.”
“Then you will know the difference when you wake. I can show many more of these visions to you, Fen. They were left for us by … a being with some interest in helping us survive the Desolations.” Best not to get into his heresy at the moment. “If one isn’t persuasive enough, I understand. I’m dense enough that I didn’t trust them for months.”
“Are they all this … invigorating?”
Dalinar smiled. “This was the most powerful of them, to me.” He looked to her. “You did better than I did. I worried only about Taffa and her daughter, but just ended up getting them surrounded by monsters anyway.”
“I let the woman die,” Fen said softly. “I ran with the child, and let the thing kill her. Used her almost as bait.” She looked to Dalinar, eyes haunted. “What was your purpose in this, Kholin? You imply you have power over these visions. Why did you trap me in this one?”
“Honestly, I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Send me a storming letter.”
“In person, Fen.” He nodded toward the
“Don’t be dense. My kingdom is suffering. I’m seeing to my people’s needs; I’m not turning my back on anyone.”
Dalinar looked to her and pursed his lips, but said nothing.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Fine, Kholin. You want to dig into it for real? Tell me this. You really expect me to believe that the storming Knights Radiant are back and that the Almighty chose you—a tyrant and a murderer—to lead them?”
In response, Dalinar stood up and drew in Stormlight. His skin began glowing with luminescent smoke, drifting from his body. “If you wish proof, I can persuade you. Incredible though it seems, the Radiants have returned.”
“And of the second part? Yes, there is a new storm, and perhaps new manifestations of power. Fine. What I don’t accept is that you, Dalinar Kholin, have been told by the Almighty to lead us.”
“I have been commanded to unite.”
“A mandate from God—the very same argument the Hierocracy used for seizing control of the government. What about Sadees, the Sunmaker? He claimed he had a calling from the Almighty too.” She stood and walked among the people of the town—who stood as if frozen, barely moving. She turned and swept a hand back toward Dalinar. “Now here you are, saying the same things in the same way—not quite threats, but insistent. Let us join forces! If we don’t, the world is doomed.”
Dalinar felt his patience slipping. He clenched his jaw, forced himself to be calm, and rose. “Your Majesty, you’re being irrational.”
“Am I? Oh, let me storming reconsider, then. All I need to do is let the storming Blackthorn himself into my city, so he can take control of my armies!”
“What would you have me do?” Dalinar shouted. “Would you have me watch the world crumble?”