Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

The trapdoor refused to open, despite being unlocked. He’d oiled the parts. Why wasn’t it moving?

Crem, of course, he thought. He summoned his Shardblade and made a series of quick cuts around the trapdoor. Then, with an effort, he was able to force it to open. The ancient trapdoor swung upward and let him out onto the very top of the tower city.

He smiled, stepping onto the roof. Five days of exploration had sent Adolin and Navani into the depths of the city-tower. Dalinar, however, had been driven to seek the top.

For such an enormous tower, the roof was actually relatively small, and not that encrusted with crem. This high, less rain likely dropped during highstorms—and everyone knew crem was thicker in the east than it was in the west.

Storms, this place was high. His ears had popped several times while riding to the top, using the fabrial lift that Navani had discovered. She spoke of counterweights and conjoined gemstones, sounding awed by the technology of the ancients. All he knew was that her discovery had let him avoid climbing up some hundred flights of steps.

He stepped up to the edge and looked down. Below, each ring of the tower expanded out a little farther than the one above it. Shallan is right, he thought. They’re gardens. Each outer ring is dedicated to planting food. He did not know why the eastern face of the tower was straight and sheer, facing the Origin. No balconies along that side.

He leaned out. Distant, so far down it made him queasy, he picked out the ten pillars that held the Oathgates. The one to the Shattered Plains flashed, and a large group of people appeared on it. They flew Hatham’s flag. With the maps Dalinar’s scholars had sent, it had only taken Hatham and the others about a week of quick marching to reach the Oathgate. When Dalinar’s army had crossed that same distance, they’d done so very cautiously, wary of Parshendi attacks.

Now that he saw those pillars from this perspective, he recognized that there was one of them in Kholinar. It made up the dais upon which the palace and royal temple had been built. Shallan suspected that Jasnah had tried to open the Oathgate there; the woman’s notes said that Oathgates to each of the cities were locked tight. Only the one in the Shattered Plains had been left open.

Shallan hoped to figure out how to use the others, though their tests right now showed them to be locked somehow. If she managed to make them work, the world would become a much, much smaller place. Assuming there was anything left of it.

Dalinar turned and looked upward, regarding the sky. He took a deep breath. This was why he had come to the top.

“You sent that storm to destroy us!” he shouted toward the clouds. “You sent it to cover up what Shallan, and then Kaladin, were becoming! You tried to end this before it could begin!”

Silence.

“Why send me visions and tell me to prepare!” Dalinar shouted. “Then try to destroy us when we listen to them?”

I WAS REQUIRED TO SEND THOSE VISIONS ONCE THE TIME ARRIVED. THE ALMIGHTY DEMANDED IT OF ME. I COULD NO MORE DISOBEY THAN I COULD REFUSE TO BLOW THE WINDS.

Dalinar breathed in deeply. The Stormfather had replied. Blessedly, he had replied.

“The visions were his, then,” Dalinar said, “and you the vehicle for choosing who received them?”

YES.

“Why did you pick me?” Dalinar demanded.

IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOU WERE TOO SLOW. YOU FAILED. THE EVERSTORM IS HERE, AND THE SPREN OF THE ENEMY COME TO INHABIT THE ANCIENT ONES. IT IS OVER. YOU HAVE LOST.

“You said that you were a fragment of the Almighty.”

I AM HIS… SPREN, YOU MIGHT SAY. NOT HIS SOUL. I AM THE MEMORY MEN CREATE FOR HIM, NOW THAT HE IS GONE. THE PERSONIFICATION OF STORMS AND OF THE DIVINE. I AM NO GOD. I AM BUT A SHADOW OF ONE.

“I’ll take what I can get.”

HE WISHED FOR ME TO FIND YOU, BUT YOUR KIND HAVE BROUGHT ONLY DEATH TO MINE.

“What do you know of this storm that the Parshendi unleashed?”

THE EVERSTORM. IT IS A NEW THING, BUT OLD OF DESIGN. IT ROUNDS THE WORLD NOW, AND CARRIES WITH IT HIS SPREN. ANY OF THE OLD PEOPLE IT TOUCHES WILL TAKE ON THEIR NEW FORMS.

“Voidbringers.”

THAT IS ONE TERM FOR THEM.

“This Everstorm will come again, for certain?”

REGULARLY, LIKE HIGHSTORMS, THOUGH LESS FREQUENT. YOU ARE DOOMED.

“And it will transform the parshmen. Is there no way to stop it?”

NO.

Dalinar closed his eyes. It was as he had feared. His army had defeated the Parshendi, yes, but they were only a fraction of what was coming. Soon he would face hundreds of thousands of them.

The other lands weren’t listening. He’d managed to speak, via spanreed, with the emperor of Azir himself—a new emperor, as Szeth had visited the last one. There had been no succession war in Azir, of course. Those required too much paperwork.

The new emperor had invited Dalinar to visit, but obviously considered his words to be ravings. Dalinar hadn’t realized that rumors of his madness had traveled so far. Even without that, however, he suspected his warnings would be ignored, as the things he spoke of were insane. A storm that blew the wrong way? Parshmen turning into Voidbringers?

Only Taravangian of Kharbranth—and now, apparently, Jah Keved—had seemed willing to listen. Heralds bless that man; hopefully he could bring some peace to that tortured land. Dalinar had asked for more information about how he’d obtained that throne; initial reports indicated he’d stumbled into the position unexpectedly. But he was too new, and Jah Keved too broken, for him to be able to do much.

Beyond that, there were sudden and unexpected reports, coming via spanreed, of Kholinar rioting. No straight answers there yet, either. And what was this he heard of a plague in the Purelake? Storms, what a mess this all had become.

He would need to do something about it. All of it.

Dalinar looked to the sky again. “I have been commanded to refound the Knights Radiant. I will need to join their number if I am to lead them.”

Distant thunder rumbled in the sky, though there were no clouds.

“Life before death!” Dalinar shouted. “Strength before weakness! Journey before destination!”

I AM THE SLIVER OF THE ALMIGHTY HIMSELF! the voice said, sounding angry. I AM THE STORMFATHER. I WILL NOT LET MYSELF BE BOUND IN SUCH A WAY AS TO KILL ME!

“I need you,” Dalinar said. “Despite what you did. The bridgeman spoke of oaths given, and of each order of knights being different. The First Ideal is the same. After that, each order is unique, requiring different Words.”

The thunder rumbled. It sounded… like a challenge. Could Dalinar interpret thunder now?

This was a dangerous gambit. He confronted something primal, something unknowable. Something that had actively tried to murder him and his entire army.

“Fortunately,” Dalinar said, “I know the second oath I am to make. I don’t need to be told it. I will unite instead of divide, Stormfather. I will bring men together.”

The thunder silenced. Dalinar stood alone, staring at the sky, waiting.

VERY WELL, the Stormfather finally said. THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.

Dalinar smiled.

I WILL NOT BE A SIMPLE SWORD TO YOU, the Stormfather warned. I WILL NOT COME AS YOU CALL, AND YOU WILL HAVE TO DIVEST YOURSELF OF THAT… MONSTROSITY THAT YOU CARRY. YOU WILL BE A RADIANT WITH NO SHARDS.

“It will be what it must,” Dalinar said, summoning his Shardblade. As soon as it appeared, screams sounded in his head. He dropped the weapon as if it were an eel that had snapped at him. The screams vanished immediately.