Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“I’ll look for passage,” she said. “I have experience with it—I made a lot of trips when chasing down Jasnah.”

“Sounds good,” Adolin said. “We should put one Radiant in each group, so bridgeboy and Syl, you’ll go with me. Pattern and Azure will go with Shallan.”

“Maybe I should help Shallan—” Syl began.

“We’ll need a spren with us,” Adolin said. “To explain culture here. Let’s go trade in those spheres first, though.”

Moelach was said to grant visions of the future at different times—but most commonly at the transition point between realms. When a soul was nearing the Tranquiline Halls.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 144

Kaladin hiked through the city with Adolin and Syl. The moneychanging had gone quickly, and they’d left the spren of Adolin’s sword with the others. After Shallan had taken the deadeye’s hand, she had remained behind.

Reaching this city marked a welcome step forward, toward finally getting out of this place and reaching Dalinar. Unfortunately, a brand-new city full of unknown threats didn’t encourage him to relax.

The city wasn’t as densely populated as most human ones, but the variety of spren was stunning. Reachers like Ico and his sailors were common, but there were also spren that looked much like Adolin’s sword—at least before she’d been killed. They were made entirely of vines, though they had crystal hands and wore human clothing. Equally common were spren with inky black skin that shone with a variety of colors when light hit them right. Their clothing seemed part of them, like that of the Cryptics and honorspren.

A small group of Cryptics passed nearby, huddling close together as they walked. Each had a head with a slightly different pattern. There were other spren with skin like cracked stone, molten light shining from within. Still others had skin the color of old white ashes—and when Kaladin saw one of these point toward something, the skin stretching at the joint of his arm disintegrated and blew away, revealing the joint and knobs of the humerus. The skin quickly regrew.

The variety reminded Kaladin of the costumes of the Cult of Moments—though he didn’t spot a single honorspren. And it didn’t seem like the other spren mixed much. Humans were rare enough that the three of them—including Syl, imitating an Alethi—turned heads.

Buildings were constructed using bricks in a variety of colors or blocks of many different types of stone. Each building was a hodgepodge of materials with no pattern Kaladin could determine.

“How do they get building materials?” Kaladin asked as they followed the moneychanger’s instructions toward the nearby market. “Are there quarries on this side?”

Syl frowned. “I…” She cocked her head. “You know, I’m not sure. I think maybe we make it appear on this side, somehow, from yours? Like Ico did with the ice?”

“They seem to wear whatever,” Adolin said, pointing. “That’s an Alethi officer’s coat over an Azish scribe’s vest. Tashikki wrap worn with trousers, and there’s almost a full Thaylen tlmko, but they’re missing the boots.”

“No children,” Kaladin noticed.

“There have been a few,” Syl said. “They just don’t look little, like human children.”

“How does that even work?” Adolin said.

“Well, it’s certainly less messy than your method!” She scrunched her face up. “We’re made of power, bits of gods. There are places where that power coalesces, and parts start to be aware. You go, and then come back with a child? I think?”

Adolin chuckled.

“What?” Kaladin asked.

“That’s actually not that different from what my nanny told me when I asked her where children come from. A nonsense story about parents baking a new child out of crem clay.”

“It doesn’t happen often,” Syl said as they passed a group of the ash-colored spren sitting around a table and watching the crowds. They eyed the humans with overt hostility, and one flicked fingers toward Kaladin. Those fingers exploded to bits of dust, leaving bones that grew back the flesh.

“Raising children doesn’t happen often?” Adolin asked.

Syl nodded. “It’s rare. Most spren will go hundreds of years without doing it.”

Hundreds of years. “Storms,” Kaladin whispered, considering it. “Most of these spren are that old?”

“Or older,” Syl said. “But aging isn’t the same with spren. Like time isn’t. We don’t learn as fast, or change much, without a bond.”

Towers in the city’s center showed the time by way of fires burning in a set of vertical holes—so they could judge how to meet back with the others in an hour, as agreed. The market turned out to be mostly roofless stalls open to the air, with goods piled on tables. Even in comparison to the improvised market of Urithiru, this seemed … ephemeral to Kaladin. But there were no stormwinds to worry about here, so it probably made sense.

They passed a clothing stall, and of course Adolin insisted on stopping. The oily spren who managed the place had an odd, very terse way of talking, with a strange use of words. But it did speak Alethi, unlike most of Ico’s crew.

Kaladin waited for the prince to finish, until Syl stepped up and presented herself in an oversized poncho tied with a belt. On her head she wore a large, floppy hat.

“What’s that?” Kaladin asked.

“Clothes!”

“Why do you need clothes? Yours are built in.”

“Those are boring.”

“Can’t you change them?”

“Takes Stormlight, on this side,” she said. “Plus, the dress is part of my essence, so I’m actually walking around naked all the time.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Easy for you to say. We bought you clothing. You have three sets!”

“Three?” he said, looking down at his clothing. “I have my uniform, and this one Ico gave me.”

“Plus the one you’re wearing underneath that one.”

“Underwear?” Kaladin said.

“Yeah. That means you have three sets of clothing, while I have none.”

“We need two sets so one can be washed while we wear the other.”

“Just so you won’t be stinky.” She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way. “Look, you can give these to Shallan when I get bored with them. You know she likes hats.”

That was true. He sighed, and when Adolin returned with another set of underclothing for each of them—along with a skirt for Shallan—Kaladin had him haggle for the clothing Syl was wearing too. The prices were shockingly cheap, using a tiny fraction of the money from their writ.

They continued on, passing stalls that sold building materials. According to the signs Syl could read, some items were far more expensive than others. Syl seemed to think the difference had to do with how permanent the thing was in Shadesmar—which made Kaladin worry for the clothing they’d bought.

They found a place selling weapons, and Adolin tried to negotiate while Kaladin browsed. Some kitchen knives. A few hand axes. And sitting in a locked, glass-topped box, a long thin silvery chain.

“You like?” the shopkeeper asked. She was made of vines—her face formed as if from green string—and wore a havah with a crystal safehand exposed. “Only a thousand broams of Stormlight.”