Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Shallan continued her sketch. It was nice to be reminded that, for all their differences, there were occasional things that she and Jasnah shared.

She just wished that ignorance weren’t at the top of the list.

I noticed its arrival immediately, just as I noticed your many intrusions into my land.

It is time, the Stormfather said.

All went dark around Dalinar, and he entered a place between his world and the visions. A place with a black sky and an infinite floor of bone-white rock. Shapes made of smoke seeped through the stone ground, then rose around him, dissipating. Common things. A chair, a vase, a rockbud. Sometimes people.

I HAVE HER. The Stormfather’s voice shook this place, eternal and vast. THE THAYLEN QUEEN. MY STORM HITS HER CITY NOW.

“Good,” Dalinar said. “Please give her the vision.”

Fen was to see the vision with the Knights Radiant falling from the sky, come to deliver a small village from a strange and monstrous force. Dalinar wanted her to see the Knights Radiant firsthand, as they had once been. Righteous, protecting.

WHERE SHALL I PUT HER? the Stormfather asked.

“The same place you put me my first time,” Dalinar said. “In the home. With the family.”

AND YOU?

“I’ll observe, then talk to her after.”

YOU MUST BE PART OF EVENTS, the Stormfather said, sounding stubborn. YOU MUST TAKE THE ROLE OF SOMEONE. THIS IS HOW IT WORKS.

“Fine. Pick someone. But if possible, make Fen see me as myself, and let me see her.” He felt at the side sword he wore at his belt. “And can you let me keep this? I’d rather not have to fight with a poker again.”

The Stormfather rumbled in annoyance, but did not object. The place of endless white stone faded.

“What was that place?” Dalinar asked.

IT IS NO PLACE.

“But everything else in these visions is real,” Dalinar said. “So why is it that—”

IT IS NO PLACE, the Stormfather insisted firmly.

Dalinar fell silent, letting himself be taken by the vision.

I IMAGINED IT, the Stormfather said more softly, as if he were admitting something embarrassing. ALL THINGS HAVE A SOUL. A VASE, A WALL, A CHAIR. AND WHEN A VASE IS BROKEN, IT MIGHT DIE IN THE PHYSICAL REALM, BUT FOR A TIME ITS SOUL REMEMBERS WHAT IT WAS. SO ALL THINGS DIE TWICE. ITS FINAL DEATH IS WHEN MEN FORGET IT WAS A VASE, AND THINK ONLY OF THE PIECES. I IMAGINE THE VASE FLOATING AWAY THEN, ITS FORM DISSOLVING INTO THE NOTHINGNESS.

Dalinar had never heard anything so philosophical from the Stormfather. He hadn’t imagined it was possible that a spren—even a mighty one of the highstorms—could dream in such a way.

Dalinar found himself hurtling through the air.

Flailing his arms, he shouted in panic. First moon’s violet light bathed the ground far below. His stomach lurched and his clothes flapped in the wind. He continued yelling until he realized that he wasn’t actually getting closer to the ground.

He wasn’t falling, he was flying. The air was rushing against the top of his head, not his face. Indeed, now he saw that his body was glowing, Stormlight streaming off him. He didn’t feel like he was holding it though—no raging inside his veins, no urge to action.

He shielded his face from the wind and looked forward. A Radiant flew ahead, resplendent in blue armor that glowed, the light brightest at the edges and in the grooves. The man was looking back at Dalinar, doubtless because of his cries.

Dalinar saluted him to indicate he was all right. The armored man nodded, looking forward again.

He’s a Windrunner, Dalinar thought, piecing it together. I’ve taken the place of his companion, a female Radiant. He’d seen these two in the vision before; they were flying to save the village. Dalinar wasn’t moving under his own power—the Windrunner had Lashed the female Radiant into the sky, as Szeth had done to Dalinar during the Battle of Narak.

It was still difficult to accept that he wasn’t falling, and a sinking feeling persisted in the pit of his stomach. He tried to focus on other things. He was wearing an unfamiliar brown uniform, though he was glad to note that he had his side sword as requested. But why didn’t he have on Shardplate? In the vision, the woman had worn a set that glowed amber. Was this the result of the Stormfather trying to make him look like himself to Fen?

Dalinar still didn’t know why Radiant Plate glowed, while modern Shardplate did not. Was the ancient Plate “living” somehow, like Radiant Blades lived?

Perhaps he could find out from that Radiant ahead. He had to ask his questions carefully, however. Everyone would see Dalinar as the Radiant he had replaced, and if his questions were uncharacteristic, that tended only to confuse people, rather than get him answers.

“How far away are we?” Dalinar asked. The sound was lost in the wind, so he shouted it more loudly, drawing the attention of his companion.

“Not long now,” the man shouted back, voice echoing inside his helm, which glowed blue—most strongly at the edges and across the eye slit.

“I think something might be wrong with my armor!” Dalinar shouted to him. “I can’t make my helm retract!”

In response, the other Radiant made his vanish. Dalinar caught sight of a puff of Light or mist.

Beneath the helm, the man had dark skin and curly black hair. His eyes glowed blue. “Retract your helm?” he shouted. “You haven’t summoned your armor yet; you had to dismiss it so I could Lash you.”

Oh, Dalinar thought. “I mean earlier. It wouldn’t vanish when I wanted it to.”

“Talk to Harkaylain then, or to your spren.” The Windrunner frowned. “Will this be a problem for our mission?”

“I don’t know,” Dalinar shouted. “But it distracted me. Tell me again how we know where to go, and what we know of the things we’re going to fight?” He winced at how awkward that sounded.

“Just be ready to back me up against the Midnight Essence, and use Regrowth on any wounded.”

“But—”

You will find difficulty getting useful answers, Son of Honor, the Stormfather rumbled. These do not have souls or minds. They are re-creations forged by Honor’s will, and do not have the memories of the real people.

“Surely we can learn things,” Dalinar said under his breath.

They were created to convey only certain ideas. Further pressing will merely reveal the thinness of the facade.

This brought up memories of the fake city Dalinar had visited in his first vision, the destroyed version of Kholinar that was more prop than reality. But there had to be things he could learn, things that Honor might not have intended, but had included by chance.

I need to get Navani and Jasnah in here, he thought. Let them pick at these re-creations.

Last time in this vision, Dalinar had taken the place of a man named Heb: a husband and father who had defended his family with only a fireplace poker for a weapon. He remembered his frantic struggle with a beast of oily, midnight skin. He had fought, bled, agonized. He’d spent what seemed like an eternity trying—and eventually failing—to protect his wife and daughter.

Such a personal memory. False though it was, he had lived it. In fact, seeing the small town ahead—in the lait created by a large ridge of rock—made emotions well up inside Dalinar. It was a painful irony that he should have such vivid feelings about this place, these people, when his memories of Evi were still so shadowy and confused.