Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

But there is one other. A man. He must be of the Fourth Ideal, but he has no armor. So … maybe of the Third, but close to the Fourth? Perhaps it is something about his closeness to my father—and his closeness to the Surge of Adhesion—that keeps him conscious. His power is that of bonds. This man is a Windrunner, but no longer wears a uniform.

Kaladin. “Can you contact him?”

* * *

Kaladin’s first goal was Stormlight. Fortunately, he knew exactly where to find some infused spheres. Workers frequently erected gemstone lanterns in busier corridors, pushing away the darkness and making the interior more welcoming and comfortable. One such project had been happening on the sixth floor, far enough from his family’s clinic that he felt it wasn’t too dangerous to try approaching.

He started by feeling his way through the darkened hallways near his hiding place on the eleventh floor. Together with Syl, he made a mental map of the area, then inched to the perimeter. Kaladin felt like he was leaving a slaver’s cage when he saw that first glimmer of sunlight in the distance, and had to keep himself from running all-out to reach it.

Slow, steady, careful. He let Syl explore on ahead. She snuck up to the balcony, then peeked out. Kaladin crouched in the darkness waiting, watching, listening. Finally she darted back and made a swirl in the air, the signal that she hadn’t seen anything suspicious.

He emerged into the light. He tried to memorize the strata here in this outermost hallway, then glanced over his shoulder back into the bowels of the eleventh floor. That corridor was basically a straight shot to his hiding place. His stupid brain imagined forgetting the way and leaving Teft to die, wasting away, perhaps waking at the end. Alone, trapped, terrified …

Kaladin shook his head, then inched out into a balcony room where he could survey the exterior of the tower. They hadn’t seen a single guard while walking here. Glancing out, he didn’t see a single Heavenly One flying. What was happening? Had they retreated for some reason?

No. He still felt the oppressive dullness, the sign of whatever they’d done to suppress the Radiants. Kaladin leaned out farther. On the plateaus, he saw figures in blue uniforms guarding the Oathgates in their usual locations. He felt a spike of relief, and even disbelief. Had it all been some terrible nightmare?

“Kaladin!” Syl hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

The two of them pressed their backs to the nearby wall as a group of figures passed through the hallway outside. They were speaking to the rhythms, in Azish. Singer guards—Kaladin caught a glimpse of them carrying spears. He almost jumped them, but restrained himself. There would be an easier and less blatant way of getting a proper weapon.

The enemy was clearly still in control. And as he considered it, the truth occurred to him.

“They’re making the outside of the tower look like nothing has happened,” he whispered to Syl after the patrol had passed. “They know Dalinar will send Windrunners to scout the tower once communication fails, so the enemy is trying to pretend the place hasn’t been conquered. Those are either Fused illusions, or human sympathizers—perhaps the remnants of Amaram’s army—wearing stolen uniforms.”

“And Windrunners won’t be able to get close enough to discover the truth, lest their powers fail,” Syl said.

“That part will be suspicious,” Kaladin said. “The enemy can’t keep this going for long.”

The two moved to a nearby stairwell. It didn’t seem to be guarded, but he sent Syl ahead to check anyway. Then they started down, finding the tenth, ninth, and eighth floors relatively unguarded. There was simply too much space up here to watch it all. Though they did spot one other patrol at the tower’s perimeter, it was easy going until they reached the seventh floor. Here, leading down to the more populated sixth floor, they found guards at the bottom of the first five stairwells they tried.

They had to move inward and find a small out-of-the-way stairwell that Syl remembered. Reaching it meant entering the darkness again. To Kaladin, sunlight was as vital as food or water. Leaving it was agony, but he did it.

And as hoped, the smaller stairwell was unguarded. They emerged onto the sixth floor in quiet darkness. It seemed most of the tower’s human population was still confined to quarters. The enemy was working on how to rule this place, which should leave Kaladin with an opening. With that in mind, he sent Syl on a task.

She zipped out toward the balcony rooms, leaving him crouched in the stairwell, armed with his scalpel. Kaladin shivered, wishing he had a coat or jacket. It felt colder now than it ever had in the tower. Whatever the enemy had done to stop the Radiants had also interfered with the tower’s other functions. That made him worry about the people.

Syl eventually returned. “Your family is confined to quarters like everyone else,” she said softly. “But there are actual guards at their door. I didn’t dare try to talk to your father or mother, but I saw them together through the window. They look healthy, if frightened.”

Kaladin nodded. That was the best he could have hoped for, he supposed. Hopefully his father had talked his way out of trouble, as he’d said. Together, Kaladin and Syl snuck inward to the hallway where the lanterns were being installed. The workers had left a pile of lanterns here, along with tools for drilling their mountings into the rock.

They hadn’t left gemstones in the equipment piles, and the lanterns in this particular corridor were empty. But in the next corridor over, the lanterns had been fitted with amethysts—midsized gemstones for light, a little larger than a broam. That meant a lot of Stormlight, if he could get it out.

“What do you think?” Kaladin asked Syl. “Grab a crowbar and snap them quickly, then run for it?”

“Seems like that would make a lot of noise,” she said, landing on one of the lanterns.

“I could just steal the Stormlight and infuse the spheres I’ve been carrying. I wish I could get some of these gemstones though. I need a better reserve.”

“We could try to find the lampkeeper and get her keys,” Syl said.

“The one assigned to this floor is a lighteyed woman who lives somewhere on the third floor, I think. Lopen tried to get her to go to dinner with him.”

“Of course he did,” Syl said. “But … as I think about it, trying to find her seems like it would be difficult and dangerous.”

“Agreed.”

She stood on the top of the glowing lantern, then flitted around to the side, becoming a ribbon of light, and zipped in through the lantern’s small keyhole. Although she couldn’t pass through solid objects, squeezing through a crack or hole usually served well enough.

Her ribbon wound around inside the lantern. These were sturdy iron devices built to resist break-ins. They had glass sides, but those were reinforced with a lattice of metal. A key would unlock one of the faces, letting you swing it open and access the inside. The other faces of the lantern could be unlatched from the inside, and could open as well.

Syl flew over to one of these latches and formed into a person again. Theoretically, if you didn’t have a key, you could break the glass and use a wire to manually turn the inside latches to open one of the faces. But the device had been designed to make this difficult, with thick glass and that iron webbing behind.

Syl tried pushing on the latch, but it was too heavy for her. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at it. “Try a Lashing,” Syl called, her voice echoing against the glass, louder than her tiny form would have suggested.