Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

It was in pain. It could hurt.

It will go! Glys promised, excitable as ever.

Renarin raised his fist and summoned Stormlight. It glowed as a powerful beacon. And …

The red molten eyes faded before that light, and the thing settled down with a last extinguishing sigh.

His Thaylen companion approached with a soft clinking of Plate. “Good. Excellent!”

“Go help with the fighting,” Renarin said. “I need to open the Oathgate in person.” The man obeyed without question, running for the main thoroughfare leading down to the Ancient Ward.

Renarin lingered with that stone corpse, troubled. I was supposed to have died. I saw myself die.…

He shook his head, then hiked toward the upper reaches of the city.

* * *

Shallan, Veil, and Radiant held hands in a ring. The three flowed, faces changing, identities melding. Together, they had raised an army.

It was dying now.

A hulking variety of Fused had organized the enemy. These refused to be distracted. Though Veil, Shallan, and Radiant had made copies of themselves—to keep the real ones from being attacked—those died as well.

Wavering. Stormlight running out.

We’ve strained ourselves too far, they thought.

Three Fused approached, cutting through the dying illusions, marching through evaporating Stormlight. People fell to their knees and puffed away.

“Mmmm…” Pattern said.

“Tired,” Shallan said, her eyes drowsy.

“Satisfied,” Radiant said, proud.

“Worried,” Veil said, eyeing the Fused.

They wanted to move. Needed to move. But it hurt to watch their army die and puff into nothing.

One figure didn’t melt like the others. A woman with jet-black hair that had escaped its usual braids. It blew free as she stepped between the enemy and Shallan, Radiant, and Veil. The ground turned glossy, the surface of the stone Soulcast into oil. Veil, Shallan, and Radiant were able to glimpse it in the Cognitive Realm. It changed so easily. How did Jasnah manage that?

Jasnah Soulcast a spark from the air, igniting the oil and casting up a field of flames. The Fused raised hands before their faces, stumbling back.

“That should buy us a few moments.” Jasnah turned toward Radiant, Veil, and Shallan. She took Shallan by the arm—but Shallan wavered, then puffed away. Jasnah froze, then turned to Veil.

“Here,” Radiant said, tired, stumbling to her feet. She was the one Jasnah could feel. She blinked away tears. “Are you … real?”

“Yes, Shallan. You did well out here.” She touched Radiant’s arm, then glanced toward the Fused, who were venturing into the fires despite the heat. “Damnation. Perhaps I should have opened a pit beneath them instead.”

Shallan winced as the last of her army—like the shredded light of a setting sun—vanished. Jasnah proffered a gemstone, which Radiant drank eagerly.

Amaram’s troops had begun to form ranks again.

“Come,” Jasnah said, pulling Veil back to the wall, where steps grew from the stone itself.

“Soulcast?” Shallan asked.

“Yes.” Jasnah stepped onto the first, but Shallan didn’t follow.

“We shouldn’t have ignored this,” Radiant said. “We should have practiced this.” She slipped—for a moment—into viewing Shadesmar. Beads rolled and surged beneath her.

“Not too far,” Jasnah warned. “You can’t bring your physical self into the realm, as I once assumed you could, but there are things here that can feast upon your mind.”

“If I want to Soulcast the air. How?”

“Avoid air until you practice further,” Jasnah said. “It is convenient, but difficult to control. Why don’t you try to turn some stone into oil, as I did? We can fire it as we climb the steps, and further impede the enemy.”

“I…” So many beads, so many spren, churning in the lake that marked Thaylen City. So overwhelming.

“That rubble near the wall will be easier than the ground itself,” Jasnah said, “as you’ll be able to treat those stones as distinct units, while the ground views itself all as one.”

“It’s too much,” Shallan said, exhaustionspren spinning around her. “I can’t, Jasnah. I’m sorry.”

“It is well, Shallan,” Jasnah said. “I merely wanted to see, as it seemed you were Soulcasting to give your illusions weight. But then, concentrated Stormlight has a faint mass to it. Either way, up the steps, child.”

Radiant started up the stone steps. Behind, Jasnah waved her hand toward the approaching Fused—and stone formed from air, completely encasing them.

It was brilliant. Any who saw it in only the Physical Realm would be impressed, but Radiant saw so much more. Jasnah’s absolute command and confidence. The Stormlight rushing to do her will. The air itself responding as if to the voice of God himself.

Shallan gasped in wonder. “It obeyed. The air obeyed your call to transform. When I tried to make a single little stick change, it refused.”

“Soulcasting is a practiced art,” Jasnah said. “Up, up. Keep walking.” She sliced the steps off as they walked. “Remember, you mustn’t order stones, as they are more stubborn than men. Use coercion. Speak of freedom and of movement. But for a gas becoming a solid, you must impose discipline and will. Each Essence is different, and each offers advantages and disadvantages when used as a substrate for Soulcasting.”

Jasnah glanced over her shoulder at the gathering army. “And perhaps … this is one time when a lecture isn’t advisable. With all my complaints about not wanting wards, you’d think I would be able to resist instructing people at inopportune times. Keep moving.”

Feeling exhausted, Veil, Shallan, and Radiant trudged up and finally reached the top of the wall.

* * *

After how hard it had been for Renarin to get up to fight the thunderclast—he’d spent what seemed like an eternity caught in the press of people—he’d expected to have to work to cover the last distance to the Oathgate. However, people were moving more quickly now. The ones up above must have cleared off the streets, hiding in the many temples and buildings in the Royal Ward.

He was able to move with the flow of people. Near the top tier, he ducked into a building and walked to the back, past some huddled merchants. Most of the buildings here were a single story, so he used Glys to cut a hole in the roof. He then hollowed out some handholds in the rock wall and climbed up on top.

Beyond, he was able to get onto the street leading to the Oathgate platform. He was … unaccustomed to being able to do things like this. Not only using the Shardblade, but being physical. He’d always been afraid of his fits, always worried that a moment of strength would instantly become a moment of invalidity.

Living like that, you learned to stay back. Just in case. He hadn’t suffered a fit in a while. He didn’t know if that was just a coincidence—they could be irregular—or if they had been healed, like his bad eyesight. Indeed, he still saw the world differently from everyone else. He was still nervous talking to people, and didn’t like being touched. Everyone else saw in each other things he never could understand. So much noise and destruction and people talking and cries for help and sniffles and muttering and whispering all like buzzing, buzzings.