“People learn things from art.”
“Blasphemy! Art is not art if it has a function.”
Shallan rolled her eyes.
“Take this fork,” Wit said. He waved his hand. Some of her Stormlight split off from her, spinning above his hand and making an image of a floating fork in the darkness. “It has a use. Eating. Now, if it were to be ornamented by a master artisan, would that change its function?” The fork grew intricate embossing in the form of growing leaves. “No, of course not. It has the same use, ornamented or not. The art is the part that serves no purpose.”
“It makes me happy, Wit. That’s a purpose.”
He grinned, and the fork disappeared.
“Weren’t we in the middle of a story about a girl climbing a wall?” Shallan asked.
“Yes, but that part takes forever,” he said. “I’m finding things to occupy us.”
“We could just skip the boring part.”
“Skip?” Wit said, aghast. “Skip part of a story?”
Shallan snapped her fingers, and the illusion shifted so that they stood atop the wall in the darkness. The girl in the scarves finally—after toiling many days—pulled herself up beside them.
“You wound me,” Wit said. “What happens next?”
“The girl finds steps,” Shallan said. “And the girl realizes that the wall wasn’t to keep something in, but to keep her and her people out.”
“Because?”
“Because we’re monsters.”
Wit stepped over to Shallan, then quietly folded his arms around her. She trembled, then twisted, burying her face in his shirt.
“You’re not a monster, Shallan,” Wit whispered. “Oh, child. The world is monstrous at times, and there are those who would have you believe that you are terrible by association.”
“I am.”
“No. For you see, it flows the other direction. You are not worse for your association with the world, but it is better for its association with you.”
She pressed against him, shivering. “What do I do, Wit?” she whispered. “I know … I know I shouldn’t be in so much pain. I had to…” She took a deep breath. “I had to kill them. I had to. But now I’ve said the words, and I can’t ignore it anymore. So I should … should just die too, for having done it.…”
Wit waved to the side, toward where the girl in the scarves still overlooked a new world. What was that long pack she had set down beside her?
“So you remember,” Wit said gently, “the rest of the story?”
“It’s not important. We found the moral already. The wall kept people out.”
“Why?”
“Because…” What had she told Pattern before, when she’d been showing him this story?
“Because,” Wit said, pointing, “beyond the wall was God’s Light.”
It burst alight in a sudden explosion: a brilliant and powerful brightness that lit the landscape beyond the wall. Shallan gasped as it shone over them. The girl in the scarves gasped in turn, and saw the world in all its colors for the first time.
“She climbed down the steps,” Shallan whispered, watching the girl run down the steps, scarves streaming behind her. “She hid among the creatures who lived on this side. She sneaked up to the Light and she brought it back with her. To the other side. To the … to the land of shadows…”
“Yes indeed,” Wit said as the scene played out, the girl in the scarves slipping up to the grand source of light, then breaking off a little piece in her hand.
An incredible chase.
The girl climbing the steps frantically.
A crazed descent.
And then … light, for the first time in the village, followed by the coming of the storms—boiling over the wall.
“The people suffered,” Wit said, “but each storm brought light renewed, for it could never be put back, now that it had been taken. And people, for all their hardship, would never choose to go back. Not now that they could see.”
The illusion faded, leaving the two of them standing in the common room of the building, Muri’s little chamber off to the side. Shallan pulled back, ashamed at having wept on his shirt.
“Do you wish,” Wit asked, “that you could go back to not being able to see?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Then live. And let your failures be part of you.”
“That sounds … that sounds an awful lot like a moral, Wit. Like you’re trying to do something useful.”
“Well, as I said, we all fail now and then.” He swept his hands to the sides, as if brushing something away from Shallan. Stormlight curled out from her right and left, swirling, then forming into two identical versions of Shallan. They stood with ruddy hair, mottled faces, and sweeping white coats that belonged to someone else.
“Wit…” she started.
“Hush.” He walked up to one of the illusions, inspecting it, tapping his chin with his index finger. “A lot has happened to this poor girl, hasn’t it?”
“Many people have suffered more and they get along fine.”
“Fine?”
Shallan shrugged, unable to banish the truths she’d spoken. The distant memory of singing to her father as she strangled him. The people she’d failed, the problems she’d caused. The illusion of Shallan to the left gasped, then backed up against the wall of the room, shaking her head. She collapsed, head down against her legs, curling up.
“Poor fool,” Shallan whispered. “Everything she tries only makes the world worse. She was broken by her father, then broke herself in turn. She’s worthless, Wit.” She gritted her teeth, found herself sneering. “It’s not really her fault, but she’s still worthless.”
Wit grunted, then pointed at the second illusion, standing behind them. “And that one?”
“No different,” Shallan said, tiring of this game. She gave the second illusion the same memories. Father. Helaran. Failing Jasnah. Everything.
The illusory Shallan stiffened. Then set her jaw and stood there.
“Yes, I see,” Wit said, strolling up to her. “No different.”
“What are you doing to my illusions?” Shallan snapped.
“Nothing. They’re the same in every detail.”
“Of course they’re not,” Shallan said, tapping the illusion, feeling it. A sense pulsed through her from it, memories and pain. And … and something smothering them …
Forgiveness. For herself.
She gasped, pulling her finger back as if it had been bitten.
“It’s terrible,” Wit said, stepping up beside her, “to have been hurt. It’s unfair, and awful, and horrid. But Shallan … it’s okay to live on.”
She shook her head.
“Your other minds take over,” he whispered, “because they look so much more appealing. You’ll never control them until you’re confident in returning to the one who birthed them. Until you accept being you.”
“Then I’ll never control it.” She blinked tears.
“No,” Wit said. He nodded toward the version of her still standing up. “You will, Shallan. If you do not trust yourself, can you trust me? For in you, I see a woman more wonderful than any of the lies. I promise you, that woman is worth protecting. You are worth protecting.”