Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“Not soon,” Szeth said. “Right now. I shall say the Third Ideal this night, choosing to follow the law. I—”

“No,” a voice interrupted.

A figure stood up on the low wall surrounding the order’s stone courtyard. Skybreakers gasped, holding up lanterns, illuminating a man with dark Makabaki skin highlighted by a white crescent birthmark on his right cheek. Unlike the others, he wore a striking uniform of silver and black.

Nin-son-God, Nale, Nakku, Nalan—this man had a hundred different names and was revered across all Roshar. The Illuminator. The Judge. A founder of humankind, defender against the Desolations, a man ascended to divinity.

The Herald of Justice had returned.

“Before you swear, Szeth-son-Neturo,” Nin said, “there are things you need to understand.” He looked across the Skybreakers. “Things you all must understand. Squires, masters, gather our gemstone reserves and mobile packs. We will leave most of the squires. They leak Stormlight too much, and we have a long way to go.”

“Tonight, Just One?” Ki asked.

“Tonight. It is time for you to learn the two greatest secrets that I know.”

Nergaoul was known for driving forces into a battle rage, lending them great ferocity. Curiously, he did this to both sides of a conflict, Voidbringer and human. This seems common of the less self-aware spren.

—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 121

When Kaladin awoke on the ship in Shadesmar, the others were already up. He sat, bleary-eyed on his bunk, listening to beads crash outside the hull. There almost seemed … a pattern or rhythm to them? Or was he imagining things?

He shook his head, standing and stretching. He had slept fitfully, slumber interrupted by thoughts of his men dying, of Elhokar and Moash, of worries for Drehy and Skar. The darkness blanketed his feelings, making him lethargic. He hated that he was the last to rise. That was always a bad sign.

He used the facilities, then forced himself to climb up the steps. The vessel had three levels. The bottom was the hold. The next level, the lower deck, was for the cabins, where the humans had been given a spot for them all to share.

The uppermost deck was open to the sky, and was populated by spren. Syl said they were lightspren, but the common name was Reachers. They looked like humans with strange bronze skin—metallic, as if they were living statues. Both men and women wore rugged jackets and trousers. Actual human clothing, not merely imitations of it like Syl wore.

They didn’t carry weapons other than knives, but the ship had wicked harpoons clipped in racks at the sides of the deck. Seeing those made Kaladin infinitely more comfortable; he knew exactly where to go for a weapon.

Syl stood near the bow, watching out over the sea of beads again. He almost missed spotting her at first because her dress was red, instead of its normal white-blue. Her hair had changed to black, and … and her skin was flesh colored—tan, like Kaladin’s. What on Roshar?

He crossed the deck toward her, stumbling as the ship crashed through a swell in the beads. Storms, and Shallan said this was more smooth than some boats she’d been on? Several Reachers passed, calmly managing the large riggings and harnesses that attached to the spren who pulled the craft.

“Ah, human,” one of the Reachers said as Kaladin passed. That was the captain, wasn’t it? Captain Ico? He resembled a Shin man, with large, childlike eyes made of metal. He was shorter than the Alethi, but sturdy. He wore the same tan clothing as the others, sporting a multitude of buttoned pockets.

“Come with me,” Ico told Kaladin, then crossed the deck without waiting for a response. They didn’t speak much, these Reachers.

Kaladin sighed, then followed the captain back to the stairwell. A line of copper plating ran down the inside wall of the stairwell—and Kaladin had seen a similar ornamentation on the deck. He’d assumed it was decorative, but as the captain walked, he rested his fingers on the metal in an odd way.

Touching a plate with the tips of his fingers, Kaladin felt a distinct vibration. They passed the quarters of the ordinary spren sailors. They didn’t sleep, but they did seem to enjoy their breaks from work, swinging quietly in hammocks, often reading.

It didn’t bother him to see male Reachers with books—spren were obviously similar to ardents, who were outside of common understandings of male and female. At the same time … spren, reading? How odd.

When they reached the hold, the captain turned on a small oil lamp—so far as Kaladin could tell, he didn’t use a flaming brand to create the fire. How did it work? It seemed foolhardy to use fire for light with so much wood and cloth around.

“Why not use spheres for light?” Kaladin asked him.

“We have none,” Ico said. “Stormlight fades too quickly on this side.”

That was true. Kaladin’s team carried several larger unset gemstones, which would hold Stormlight for weeks—but the smaller spheres would run out after a week or so without seeing a storm. They’d been able to trade the chips and marks to the lighthouse keeper in exchange for barter supplies—mostly cloth—to buy passage on this ship.

“The lighthouse keeper wanted the Stormlight,” Kaladin said. “He kept it in some kind of globe.”

Captain Ico grunted. “Foreign technology,” he said. “Dangerous. Draws the wrong spren.” He shook his head. “At Celebrant, the moneychangers have perfect gemstones that can hold the light indefinitely. Similar.”

“Perfect gemstones? Like, the Stone of Ten Dawns?”

“I don’t know of this thing. Light in a perfect stone doesn’t run out, so you can give Stormlight to the moneychangers. They use devices to transfer it from smaller gemstones to their perfect ones. Then they give you credit to spend in the city.”

The hold was closely packed with barrels and boxes that were lashed to the walls and floor. Kaladin could barely squeeze through. Ico selected a rope-handled box from a stack, then asked Kaladin to pull it out as Ico resettled the boxes that had been atop it, then relashed them.

Kaladin spent the time thinking about perfect gemstones. Did such a thing exist on his side? If there really were flawless stones that could hold Stormlight without ever running out, that seemed important to know. It could mean the difference between life and death for Radiants during the Weeping.

Once Ico was done resettling the cargo, he gestured for Kaladin to help him pick up the box they’d removed. They maneuvered it out of the hold and up onto the top deck. Here, the captain knelt and opened the box, which revealed a strange device that looked a little like a coatrack—although only about three feet tall. Made entirely of steel, it had dozens of small metal prongs extending from it, like the branches of a tree—only it had a metal basin at the very bottom.

Ico fished in a pocket and took out a small box, from which he removed a handful of glass beads like those that made up the ocean. He placed one of them into a hole in the center of the device, then waved toward Kaladin. “Stormlight.”

“For what?”

“For you to live.”

“Are you threatening me, Captain?”

Ico sighed and regarded him with a suffering expression. Very human in its nature. It seemed the look of a man talking to a child. The spren captain waved his hand, insistent, so Kaladin took a diamond mark from his pocket.