Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
“That’s a nice illusion,” Wit said. “You got the back of the head right. People always flub the back. You’ve broken character though. You’re walking like a prim lighteyes, which looks silly in that costume. You’ll only be able to pull off a coat and hat if you own them.”
“I know,” she said, grimacing. “The persona … fled once you recognized me.”
“Shame about the dark hair. Your natural red would be arresting with the white coat.”
“This guise is supposed to be less memorable than that.”
He glanced at the hat, which she’d set on the table. Shallan blushed. She felt like a girl nervously showing her first drawings to her tutor.
The innkeeper entered with drinks, a mild orange, as it was still early in the day. “Many thanks, my liege,” Wit said. “I vow to compose another song about you. One without so many references to the things you’ve mistaken for young maidens…”
“Storming idiot,” the man said. He set the drinks on the table, and didn’t notice that Pattern rippled out from under one. The innkeeper bustled out, closing the door.
“Are you one of them?” Shallan blurted out. “Are you a Herald, Wit?”
Pattern hummed softly.
“Heavens no,” Wit said. “I’m not stupid enough to get mixed up in religion again. The last seven times I tried it were all disasters. I believe there’s at least one god still worshipping me by accident.”
She eyed him. It was always hard to tell which of Wit’s exaggerations were supposed to mean something and which were confusing distractions. “Then what are you?”
“Some men, as they age, grow kinder. I am not one of those, for I have seen how the cosmere can mistreat the innocent—and that leaves me disinclined toward kindness. Some men, as they age, grow wiser. I am not one of those, for wisdom and I have always been at cross-purposes, and I have yet to learn the tongue in which she speaks. Some men, as they age, grow more cynical. I, fortunately, am not one of those. If I were, the very air would warp around me, sucking in all emotion, leaving only scorn.”
He tapped the table. “Other men … other men, as they age, merely grow stranger. I fear that I am one of those. I am the bones of a foreign species left drying on the plain that was once, long ago, a sea. A curiosity, perhaps a reminder, that all has not always been as it is now.”
“You’re … old, aren’t you? Not a Herald, but as old as they are?”
He slid his boots off the chair and leaned forward, holding her eyes. He smiled in a kindly way. “Child, when they were but babes, I had already lived dozens of lifetimes. ‘Old’ is a word you use for worn shoes. I’m something else entirely.”
She trembled, looking into those blue eyes. Shadows played within them. Shapes moved, and were worn down by time. Boulders became dust. Mountains became hills. Rivers changed course. Seas became deserts.
“Storms,” she whispered.
“When I was young…” he said.
“Yes?”
“I made a vow.”
Shallan nodded, wide-eyed.
“I said I’d always be there when I was needed.”
“And you have been?”
“Yes.”
She breathed out.
“It turns out I should have been more specific, as ‘there’ is technically anywhere.”
“It … what?”
“To be honest, ‘there’ has—so far—been a random location that is of absolutely no use to anyone.”
Shallan hesitated. In an instant, whatever she seemed to have sensed in Wit was gone. She flopped back in her seat. “Why am I talking to you of all people?”
“Shallan!” he said, aghast. “If you were talking to someone else, they wouldn’t be me.”
“I happen to know plenty of people who aren’t you, Wit. I even like some of them.”
“Be careful. People who aren’t me are prone to spontaneous bouts of sincerity.”
“Which is bad?”
“Of course! ‘Sincerity’ is a word people use to justify their chronic dullness.”
“Well, I like sincere people,” Shallan said, raising her cup. “It’s delightful how surprised they look when you push them down the stairs.”
“Now, that’s unkind. You shouldn’t push people down the stairs for being sincere. You push people down the stairs for being stupid.”
“What if they’re sincere and stupid?”
“Then you run.”
“I quite like arguing with them instead. They do make me look smart, and Vev knows I need the help.…”
“No, no. You should never debate an idiot, Shallan. No more than you’d use your best sword to spread butter.”
“Oh, but I’m a scholar. I enjoy things with curious properties, and stupidity is most interesting. The more you study it, the further it flees—and yet the more of it you obtain, the less you understand about it!”
Wit sipped his drink. “True, to an extent. But it can be hard to spot, as—like body odor—you never notice your own. That said … put two smart people together, and they will eventually find their common stupidity, and in so doing become idiots.”
“Like a child, it grows the more you feed it.”
“Like a fashionable dress, it can be fetching in youth, but looks particularly bad on the aged. And unique though its properties may be, stupidity is frighteningly common. The sum total of stupid people is somewhere around the population of the planet. Plus one.”
“Plus one?” Shallan asked.
“Sadeas counts twice.”
“Um … he’s dead, Wit.”
“What?” Wit sat up straight.
“Someone murdered him. Er … we don’t know who.” Aladar’s investigators had continued hunting the culprit, but the investigation had stalled by the time Shallan left.
“Someone offed old Sadeas, and I missed it?”
“What would you have done? Helped him?”
“Storms, no. I’d have applauded.”
Shallan grinned and let out a deep sigh. Her hair had reverted to red—she’d let the illusion lapse. “Wit,” she said, “why are you here? In the city?”
“I’m not completely sure.”
“Please. Could you just answer?”
“I did—and I was honest. I can know where I’m supposed to be, Shallan, but not always what I’m supposed to do there.” He tapped the table. “Why are you here?”
“To open the Oathgate,” Shallan said. “Save the city.”
Pattern hummed.
“Lofty goals,” Wit said.
“What’s the point of goals, if not to spur you to something lofty?”
“Yes, yes. Aim for the sun. That way if you miss, at least your arrow will fall far away, and the person it kills will likely be someone you don’t know.”
The innkeeper chose that moment to arrive with some food. Shallan didn’t feel particularly hungry; seeing all those starving people outside had stolen her appetite.
The small plates held crumbly cakes of Soulcast grain topped with a single steamed cremling—a variety known as a skrip, with a flat tail, two large claws, and long antennae. Eating cremlings wasn’t uncommon, but it wasn’t particularly fine dining.
The only difference between Shallan’s meal and Wit’s was the sauce—hers sweet, his spicy, though his had the sauce in a cup at the side. Food supplies were tight, and the kitchen wasn’t preparing both masculine and feminine dishes.
The innkeeper frowned at her hair, then shook his head and left. She got the impression he was accustomed to oddities around Wit.
Shallan looked down at her food. Could she give this to someone else? Someone who deserved it more than she did?
“Eat up,” Wit said, rising and walking to the small window. “Don’t waste what you’re given.”
Reluctantly, she did as he instructed. It wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t terrible. “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.
“I’m smart enough not to follow my own advice, thank you very much.” He sound
“I want to learn to be like you,” Shallan said, feeling silly as she said it.
“No you don’t.”
“You’re funny, and charming, and—”
“Yes, yes. I’m so storming clever that half the time, even I can’t follow what I’m talking about.”
“—and you change things, Wit. When you came to me, in Jah Keved, you changed everything. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to change the world.”
He didn’t seem at all interested in his food. Does he eat? she wondered. Or is he … like some kind of spren?
“Who came with you to the city?” he asked her.
“Kaladin. Adolin. Elhokar. Some of our servants.”
“King Elhokar? Here?”
“He’s determined to save the city.”
“Most days, Elhokar has trouble saving face, let alone cities.”
“I like him,” Shallan said. “Despite his … Elhokarness.”
“He does grow on you, I suppose. Like a fungus.”
“He really wants to do what is right. You should hear him talk about it lately. He wants to be remembered as a good king.”
“Vanity.”
“You don’t care about how you’ll be remembered?”
“I’ll remember myself, which is enough. Elhokar though, he worries about the wrong things. His father wore a simple crown because he needed no reminder of his authority. Elhokar wears a simple crown because he worries that something more lavish might make people look at it, instead of at him. He doesn’t want the competition.”
Wit turned away from his inspection of the hearth and chimney. “You want to change the world, Shallan. That’s well and good. But be careful. The world predates you. She has seniority.”
“I’m a Radiant,” Shallan said, shoving another forkful of crumbly, sweet bread into her mouth. “Saving the world is in the job description.”
“Then be wise about it. There are two kinds of important men, Shallan. There are those who, when the boulder of time rolls toward them, stand up in front of it and hold out their hands. All their lives, they’ve been told how great they are. They assume the world itself will bend to their whims as their nurse did when fetching them a fresh cup of milk.
“Those men end up squished.
“Other men stand to the side when the boulder of time passes, but are quick to say, ‘See what I did! I made the boulder roll there. Don’t make me do it again!’
“These men end up getting everyone else squished.”
“Is there not a third type of person?”
“There is, but they are oh so rare. These know they can’t stop the boulder. So they walk beside it, study it, and bide their time. Then they shove it—ever so slightly—to create a deviation in its path.
“These are the men … well, these are the men who actually change the world. And they terrify me. For men never see as far as they think they do.”
Shallan frowned, then looked at her empty plate. She hadn’t thought she was hungry, but once she’d started eating …
Wit walked past and deftly lifted her plate away, then swapped it with his full one.
“Wit … I can’t eat that.”
“Don’t be persnickety,” he said. “How are you going to save the world if you starve yourself?”
“I’m not starving myself.” But she took a little bite to satisfy him. “You make it sound like having the power to change the world is a bad thing.”
“Bad? No. Abhorrent, depressing, ghastly. Having power is a terrible burden, the worst thing imaginable, except for every other alternative.” He turned and studied her. “What is power to you, Shallan?”
“It’s…” Shallan cut at the cremling, separating it from its shell. “It’s what I said earlier—the ability to change things.”
“Things?”
“Other people’s lives. Power is the ability to make life better or worse for the people around you.”
“And yourself too, of course.”
“I don’t matter.”
“You should.”
“Selflessness is a Vorin virtue, Wit.”
“Oh, bother that. You’ve got to live life, Shallan, enjoy life. Drink of what you’re proposing to give everyone else! That’s what I do.”
“You … do seem to enjoy yourself a great deal.”
“I like to live every day like it’s my last.”
Shallan nodded.
“And by that I mean lying in a puddle of my own urine, calling for the nurse to bring me more pudding.”
She almost choked on a bite of cremling. Her cup was empty, but Wit walked past and put his in her hand. She gulped it down.
“Power is a knife,” Wit said, taking his seat. “A terrible, dangerous knife that can’t be wielded without cutting yourself. We joked about stupidity, but in reality most people aren’t stupid. Many are simply frustrated at how little control they have over their lives. They lash out. Sometimes in spectacular ways…”
“The Cult of Moments. They reportedly claim to see a transformed world coming upon us.”
“Be wary of anyone who claims to be able to see the future, Shallan.”
“Except you, of course. Didn’t you say you can see where you need to be?”
“Be wary,” he repeated, “of anyone who claims to be able to see the future, Shallan.”
Pattern rippled on the table, not humming, only changing more quickly, forming new shapes in a rapid sequence. Shallan swallowed. To her surprise, her plate was empty again. “The cult has control of the Oathgate platform,” she said. “Do you know what they do up there every night?”
“They feast,” Wit said softly, “and party. There are two general divisions among them. The common members wander the streets, moaning, pretending to be spren. But others up on the platform actually know the spren—specifically, the creature known as the Heart of the Revel.”
“One of the Unmade.”
Wit nodded. “A dangerous foe, Shallan. The cult reminds me of a group I knew long ago. Equally dangerous, equally foolish.”
“Elhokar wants me to infiltrate them. Get onto that platform and activate the Oathgate. Is it possible?”
“Perhaps.” Wit settled back. “Perhaps. I can’t make the gate work; the spren of the fabrial won’t obey me. You have the proper key, and the cult takes new members eagerly. Consumes them, like a fire needing new logs.”
“How? What do I do?”
“Food,” he said. “Their proximity to the Heart drives them to feast and celebrate.”
“Drinking in life?” she said, quoting his sentiment from earlier.
“No. Hedonism has never been enjoyment, Shallan, but the opposite. They take the wonderful things of life and indulge until they lose savor. It’s listening to beautiful music, performed so loud as to eliminate all subtlety—taking something beautiful and making it carnal. Yet their feasting does give you an opening. I’ve brushed against their leaders—despite my best efforts. Bring them food for the revel, and I can get you in. A warning, however, simple Soulcast grain won’t satisfy them.”
A challenge, then. “I should get back to the others.” She looked up to Wit. “Would you … come with me? Join us?”
He stood, then walked to the door and pressed his ear against it. “Unfortunately, Shallan,” he said, glancing at her, “you’re not why I am here.”
She took a deep breath. “I am going to learn how to change the world, Wit.”
“You already know how. Learn why.” He stepped back from the door and pressed himself against the wall. “Also, tell the innkeeper I disappeared in a puff of smoke. It will drive him crazy.”
“The inn—”
The door opened suddenly, swinging inward. The innkeeper entered, and hesitated as he found Shallan sitting alone at the table. Wit slipped deftly around the door and out behind the man, who didn’t notice.
“Damnation,” the innkeeper said, searching
“I have no idea.”
“He said he’d treat me like a king.”
“Well, he’s keeping that promise…”
The innkeeper took the plates, then bustled out. Conversations with Wit had a way of ending in an odd manner. And, well, starting in an odd manner. Odd all around.
“Do you know anything about Wit?” she asked Pattern.
“No,” Pattern said. “He feels like … mmm … one of us.”
Shallan fished in her pouch for some spheres—Wit had stolen a few, she noted—as a tip for the poor innkeeper. Then she made her way back to the tailor’s shop, planning how to use her team to get the requisite food.
The wilting of plants and the general cooling of the air is disagreeable, yes, but some of the tower’s functions remain in place. The increased pressure, for example, persists.
—From drawer 1-1, second zircon
Kaladin drew in a small amount of Stormlight and stoked the tempest within. That little storm raged inside him, rising from his skin, haunting the space behind his eyes and making them glow. Fortunately—though he stood in a busy market square—this tiny amount of Stormlight wouldn’t be enough for people to see in the bright sunlight.
The storm was a primal dance, an ancient song, an eternal battle that had raged since Roshar was new. It wanted to be used. He acquiesced, kneeling to infuse a small stone. He Lashed it upward just enough to make it tremble, but not enough to send it zipping into the air.
The eerie screams came soon after. People started to shout in panic. Kaladin ducked away, exhaling his Stormlight and becoming—hopefully—merely another bystander. He crouched with Shallan and Adolin behind a planter. This plaza—with pillared archways on all four sides, sheltering what had once been a great variety of shops—was several blocks away from the tailor’s shop.
People squeezed into buildings or slipped out onto other streets. The slow ones simply huddled down beside the walls, hands over their heads. The spren arrived as two lines of bright yellow-white, twisting about one another above the plaza. Their inhuman screeches were awful. Like … like the sound of a wounded animal, dying alone in the wilderness.