Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“But—”

“No more complaints,” Shallan said, raising a finger. “Tonight, I am doing scholarship.”

She put the page down on her bed, then leaned over the side, fishing out several others.

“I wasn’t complaining,” Pattern complained. He moved down onto the bed beside her. “I do not remember well, but did Jasnah not use a desk when… ‘doing scholarship’?”

“Desks are for boring people,” Shallan said. “And for people who don’t have a squishy bed.” Would Dalinar’s camp have had such a plush bed for her? Likely, the workload would have been smaller. Though, finally, she’d managed to finish sorting through Sebarial’s personal finances and was almost ready to present him with a set of relatively neat books.

In a stroke of insight, she’d slipped a copy of one of her pages of quotes about Urithiru—its potential riches, and its connection to the Shattered Plains—in among the other reports she’d sent Palona. At the bottom, she wrote, “Among Jasnah Kholin’s notes are these indications of something valuable hidden out on the Shattered Plains. Will keep you informed of my discoveries.” If Sebarial thought there was opportunity beyond gemhearts out on the Plains, she might be able to get him to take her out there with his armies, in case Adolin’s promises didn’t come through.

Getting all of that ready had left her with little time for studying, unfortunately. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t sleep. This would be easier, Shallan thought, if Navani would agree to meet with me. She’d written again, and gotten the reply that Navani was busy caring for Dalinar, who had come down with a sickness. Nothing life-threatening, apparently, but he had withdrawn for a few days to recuperate.

Did Adolin’s aunt blame her for botching the dueling agreement? After what Adolin had decided to do last week… Well, at least his preoccupation left Shallan with some time to read and think about Urithiru. Anything other than worrying about her brothers, who still hadn’t responded to her letters pleading for them to leave Jah Keved and come to her.

“I find sleeping very odd,” Pattern said. “I know that all beings in the Physical Realm engage in it. Do you find it pleasant? You fear nonexistence, but is not unconsciousness the same thing?”

“With sleep, it’s only temporary.”

“Ah. It is all right, because in the morning, you each return to sentience.”

“Well, that depends on the person,” Shallan said absently. “For many of them, ‘sentience’ might be too generous a term…”

Pattern hummed, trying to sort through to the meaning of what she said. Finally, he buzzed an approximation of a laugh.

Shallan cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I have guessed that what you said is humorous,” Pattern said. “Though I do not know why. It was not a joke. I know of jokes. A soldier came running into camp after going to see the prostitutes. He was white in the face. His friends asked if he had found a good time. He said that he had not. They asked why. He said that when he’d asked how much the woman charged, she’d said one mark plus the tip. He told his friends that he hadn’t realized they were charging body parts now.”

Shallan grimaced. “You heard that from Vathah’s men, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It is funny because the word ‘tip’ means several different things. A payment made in addition to the sum initially charged, usually given voluntarily, and the top piece of something. In addition, I believe that ‘the tip’ means something in the slang of the soldiers, and so the man in the joke thought she was going to cut off his—”

“Yes, thank you,” Shallan said.

“That is a joke,” Pattern continued. “I understand why it is funny. Ha ha. Sarcasm is similar. You replace an expected result with one grossly unexpected, and the humor is in the juxtaposition. But why was your earlier comment funny?”

“It’s debatable whether it was, at this point…”

“But—”

“Pattern, nothing is less funny than explaining humor,” Shallan said. “We have more important things to discuss.”

“Mmm… Such as why you have forgotten how to make your images produce sound? You did it once, long ago.” …

Shallan blinked, then held up the modern map. “The capital of Natanatan was here, on the Shattered Plains. The old maps are misleading. Amaram notes that the Parshendi use weapons of masterly design, far beyond their skill in craftsmanship. Where would they have gotten those? From the ruins of the city that once was here.”

Shallan dug in her stacks of papers, getting out a map of the city itself. It didn’t show the surrounding area—it was just a city map, and a rather vague one, taken from a book she’d purchased. She thought it was the one that Jasnah referenced in her notes.

The merchant she’d bought it from claimed it was ancient—that it was a copy of a copy from a book in Azir that claimed to be a drawing of a tile mosaic depiction of the city of Stormseat. The mosaic no longer existed—so much of what they had of the shadowdays came from fragments like these.

“Scholars reject the idea that Stormseat was here on the Plains,” Shallan said. “They say that the craters of the warcamps don’t match the descriptions of the city. Instead, they propose that the ruins must be hidden up in the highlands, where you indicated. But Jasnah didn’t agree with them. She points out that few of the scholars have actually been here, and that this area in general is poorly explored.”

“Mmm,” Pattern said. “Shallan…”

“I agree with Jasnah,” Shallan said, turning from him. “Stormseat wasn’t a large city. It could have been in the middle of the Plains, and these craters something else… Amaram says here he thinks they might once have been domes. I wonder if that is even possible… They’d be so large… Anyway, this might have been a satellite city of some sort.”

Shallan felt like she was getting close to something. Amaram’s notes spoke mostly of trying to meet with the Parshendi, to ask them about the Voidbringers and how to return them. He did mention Urithiru, however, and seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Jasnah—that the ancient city of Stormseat would have contained a path to Urithiru. Ten of them had once connected the ten capitals of the Epoch Kingdoms to Urithiru, which had some kind of conference room for the ten monarchs of the Epoch Kingdoms—and a throne for each one.

That was why none of the maps placed the holy city in the same location. It was ridiculous to walk there; instead, you made for the nearest city with an Oathgate and used that.

He’s searching for the information there, Shallan thought. Same as I am. But he wants to return the Voidbringers, not fight them. Why?

She held up the antique map of Stormseat, the copy from the mosaic. It had artistic stylings instead of specific indications of things like distance and location. While she appreciated the former, the latter was truly frustrating.

Are you on here? she thought. The secret, the Oathgate? Are you here, on this dais, as Jasnah thought?

“The Shattered Plains haven’t always been shattered,” Shallan whispered to herself. “That’s what the scholars, all but Jasnah, are missing. Stormseat was destroyed during the Last Desolation, but it was so long ago, nobody talks about how. Fire? Earthquake? No. Something more terrible. The city was broken, like a piece of fine dinnerware hit with a hammer.”