Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“Shallan,” Pattern said, moving closer to her. “I know that you have forgotten much of what once was. Those lies attracted me. But you cannot continue like this; you must admit the truth about me. About what I can do, and what we have done. Mmm… More, you must know yourself. And remember.”

She sat cross-legged on the too-nice bed. Memories tried to claw their way out of the boxes inside her head. Those memories all pointed one way, toward carpet bloodied. And carpet… not.

“You wish to help,” Pattern said. “You wish to prepare for the Everstorm, the spren of the unnatural one. You must become something. I did not come to you merely to teach you tricks of light.”

“You came to learn,” Shallan said, staring at her map. “That’s what you said.”

“I came to learn. We became to do something greater.”

“Would you have me unable to laugh?” she demanded, suddenly holding back tears. “Would you have me crippled? That is what those memories would do to me. I can be what I am because I cut them off.”

An image formed in front of her, born of Stormlight, created by instinct. She hadn’t needed to draw this image first, for she knew it too well.

The image was of herself. Shallan, as she should be. Curled in a huddle on the bed, unable to weep for she had long since run out of tears. This girl… not a woman, a girl… flinched whenever spoken to. She expected everyone to shout at her. She could not laugh, for laughter had been squeezed from her by a childhood of darkness and pain.

That was the real Shallan. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. The person she had become instead was a lie, one she had fabricated in the name of survival. To remember herself as a child, discovering Light in the gardens, Patterns in the stonework, and dreams that became real… …

“Mmmm… Such a deep lie,” Pattern whispered. “A deep lie indeed. But still, you must obtain your abilities. Learn again, if you have to.”

“Very well,” Shallan said. “But if we did this before, can’t you just tell me how it is done?”

“My memory is weak,” Pattern said. “I was dumb so long, nearly dead. Mmm. I could not speak.”

“Yeah,” Shallan said, remembering him spinning on the ground and running into the wall. “You were kind of cute, though.” She banished the image of the frightened, huddled, whimpering girl, then got out her drawing implements. She tapped a pencil against her lips, then did something simple, a drawing of Veil, the darkeyed con woman.

Veil was not Shallan. Her features were different enough that the two of them would be distinct individuals to anyone who happened to see them both. Still, Veil did bear echoes of Shallan. She was a darkeyed, tan-skinned, Alethi version of Shallan—a Shallan that was a few years older and had a pointier nose and chin.

Finished with the drawing, Shallan breathed out Stormlight and created the image. It stood beside the bed, arms folded, looking as confident as a master duelist facing a child with a stick.

Sound. How would she do sound? Pattern had called it a force, part of the Surge of Illumination—or at least similar to it. She situated herself on the bed, one leg folded beneath her, inspecting Veil. Over the next hour, Shallan tried everything she could think of, from straining herself and concentrating, to trying to draw sounds to make them appear. Nothing worked.

Finally, she climbed off the bed and walked to get herself a drink from the bottle chilling in the bucket in the next room. As she approached it, however, she felt a tugging inside of her. She looked over her shoulder into the bedroom, and saw that the image of Veil had started to blur, like smudged pencil lines.

Blast, but that was inconvenient. Sustaining the illusion required Shallan to provide a constant source of Stormlight. She walked back into the bedroom and set a sphere on the floor inside of Veil’s foot. When she walked away, the illusion still grew indistinct, like a bubble preparing to pop. Shallan turned and put her hands on her hips, staring at the version of Veil that had gone all fuzzy.

“Annoying!” she snapped.

Pattern hummed. “I’m sorry that your mystical, godlike powers do not instantly work as you would like them to.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought you didn’t understand humor.”

“I do. I just explained…” He paused for a moment. “Was I being funny? Sarcasm. I was sarcastic. By accident!” He seemed surprised, even gleeful.

“I guess you’re learning.”

“It is the bond,” he explained. “In Shadesmar, I do not communicate this way, this… human way. My connection to you gives me the means by which I can manifest in the Physical Realm as more than a mindless glimmer. Mmmm. It links me to you, helps me communicate as you do. Fascinating. Mmmm.”

He settled down like a trumping axehound, perfectly content. And then Shallan noticed something.

“I’m not glowing,” Shallan said. “I’m holding a lot of Stormlight, but I’m not glowing.”

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “Large illusion transforms the Surge into another. Feeds off your Stormlight.”

She nodded. The Stormlight she held fed the illusion, drawing the excess from her that would normally float above her skin. That could be useful. As Pattern moved up onto the bed, Veil’s elbow—which was closest to him—grew more distinct.

Shallan frowned. “Pattern, move closer to the image.”

He obliged, crossing the cover of her bed toward where Veil stood. She unfuzzed. Not completely, but his presence made a noticeable difference.

Shallan walked over, her proximity making the illusion snap back to full clarity.

“Can you hold Stormlight?” Shallan asked Pattern.

“I don’t… I mean… Investiture is the means by which I…”

“Here,” Shallan said, pressing her hand down on him, muffling his words to an annoyed buzzing. It was an odd sensation, as if she’d trapped an angry cremling under the bedsheets. She pushed some Stormlight into him. When she lifted her hand, he was trailing wisps of it, like steam off a hotplate fabrial.

“We’re bonded,” she said. “My illusion is your illusion. I’m going to get a drink. See if you can keep the image from breaking apart.” She backed to the sitting room and smiled. Pattern, still buzzing with annoyance, moved down off the bed. She couldn’t see him—the bed was in the way—but she guessed he’d gone to Veil’s feet.

It worked. The illusion stayed. “Ha!” Shallan said, getting herself a cup of wine. She walked back and eased onto the bed—flopping down with a cup of red wine did not seem prudent—and looked over the side at the floor, where Pattern sat beneath Veil. He was visible because of the Stormlight.

I’ll need to take that into account, Shallan thought. Build illusions so that he can hide in them.

“It worked?” Pattern said. “How did you know it would work?”

“I didn’t.” Shallan took a sip of wine. “I guessed.”

She drank another sip as Pattern hummed. Jasnah would not have approved. Scholarship requires a sharp mind and alert senses. These do not mix with alcohol. Shallan drank the rest of the wine in a gulp.

“Here,” Shallan said, reaching down. She did the next bit by instinct. She had a connection to the illusion, and she had a connection to Pattern, so…