Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

She tried to imagine Dalinar dangling in the sky after going “zip” because he activated this insane device, and couldn’t help smiling. If her husband wanted, he could have a Windrunner fly him up—but he never did. As efficient as that sounded, it really wasn’t worth the hassle and inconvenience, rather than simply riding a lift like everyone else.

“It’s a wonderfully creative design, Tomor,” she said. “I sometimes miss the flexibility of a young mind—it truly does lead one to explore paths that we, in our aged wisdom, never think to notice. You’ve done well here.”

He beamed. Now, if she could get him to do what she’d actually asked—

“Try it!” he said.

Try it. Oh dear. She glanced at his animated smile, and didn’t miss Kristir—the head scholar on duty today—passing behind, hiding her own smile with a stack of papers as she walked. The other scholars in the room pretended to be busy amid their logicspren, but Navani could feel their eyes.

“I assume,” she said to Tomor, “you’ve tested this yourself.”

“Yes!” he said. “I’ve been doing it in here for days!”

Well, at least it was probably safe. Navani gave him a polite smile, then inspected the controls. Yes … so this fabrial held several separate rubies, each attached to a distant weight. You pointed the glove in the direction you wanted to go—presumably up, but it could move you laterally as well—then conjoined one of the rubies. Then you unhooked the weight with a different control, and the glove pulled you along—using the force of the falling weight.

She took a deep breath, then raised her hand in the air.

“Be sure to make a fist first!” Tomor said.

She did so, then conjoined the device. The glove locked into place. She released one of the distant weights, then carefully relaxed her fist, and the distant weight slowly moved down.

Navani went up. Pulled somewhat uncomfortably by her arm, she rose several feet into the air. Tomor let out a whoop, and a number of the watching scribes applauded.

Navani tightened her fist, halting her ascent. She floated there, dangling by her arm roughly four feet in the air, her fist nearly touching the ceiling.

“See!” Tomor said. “See!”

“And … exactly how does one get down, Tomor?” she asked.

“Um…” He ran to the side and grabbed a large stepstool by the wall. “I’ve been using this.…”

He placed it for her, and—thankfully—she was allowed to deactivate the device. She dropped a few inches onto the stepstool to further applause. Now they were just baiting her.

Still, Tomor was sincere. And maybe there could be some use for this device. If someone needed to reach a flying ship that had already taken off, for example.

“I like it,” she told Tomor. “It’s a little hard on the shoulder though. I wonder if it would be better as some kind of belt, instead of a glove.”

“A belt…” he said, eyes opening wide. “A flying belt.”

“Well, a levitating belt,” Navani said, unstrapping the device. “Our fabrials still have the problem that they can only move in one direction at a time.”

“Yes, but with two belts,” he said, “you could fly up high, then shoot off into the distance!”

“Only until the weight hits the bottom of the shaft and you stop moving,” Navani said. “Unless we want to use an entire chull rig with dozens of attendants to keep you going, like we do with the Fourth Bridge.”

“Hmm,” Tomor said. “So many knots to untangle…”

“I also suggest,” Navani said before he could get distracted by the belt idea, “changing the method of speeding up and slowing down. It is more natural to open your fist when surprised, I think, so that should halt the device. Make it so that there is a bar—like a throttle for opening a pressure valve—across the hand. Squeeze it to get speed.”

“Right, right…” He sat and began sketching. “I’ll keep it as a gauntlet for now, and iterate … And maybe the dial on the finger is too easy to shift by accident. Perhaps we give up single-handed manipulation in favor of more specific control.…”

Navani left him and walked over to Kristir. She was short of stature, but not of personality, and bore a smile on her rosy cheeks. Navani leaned in to whisper, “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“We’ve had a pool going on whether you would actually try it out, Brightness,” Kristir whispered. “I won seven clearmarks.” She grinned. “You want me to point him back at making a lift, like he was supposed to be doing?”

“No,” Navani said. “Encourage him to keep going in this direction. I’d like to see what he comes up with.”

“Understood—though it would help us all immeasurably if you could break the altitude/lateral movement exclusivity problem for us.”

“It will take a better mind than mine to do that, Kristir,” Navani said. “Put our best mathematicians on it—but not Rushu. I have her thinking about how to protect the tower from—”

A shout came from outside the room. Navani turned and strode toward the door—but was stopped by a young soldier with his hand out toward her. He waved for the room’s guards to check the noise first. “Sorry, Brightness,” he said. “The Blackthorn would have my spheres if I let anything happen to you.”

“I’m pretty sure I know what this is, Lieutenant,” she said, but folded her arms and waited. The gathered scholars in the room behind her murmured in concerned tones. Navani peeked out into the hallway, where a couple of soldiers—men she’d assigned to Kalami’s investigation—were holding a struggling figure, surrounded by fearspren. Hopefully this wasn’t a false alarm.

“What is it?” the lieutenant asked as one of his guards jogged over.

“Not sure,” he said. “Those men say they’re working at Brightness Navani’s request.”

“I apologize, Brightness,” the lieutenant said, stepping back. He let her pass, though his soldiers maintained close proximity to her as she stepped into the hallway.

The man they’d captured was a wiry fellow, Alethi, but with skin on the paler side. He searched about, wild-eyed, struggling but not saying anything.

The bait had been her workstation, which she’d set up unoccupied across the hall, in the room used mostly for storing books and as a quiet reading nook. Her station there had been a tempting prospect, easy to reach from the door, and mostly ignored this last week.

Chananar—one of the soldiers she’d had secretly watching the workstation—stepped over to her and proffered half of a small ruby, illuminated faintly by the light of the spren trapped inside. A spanreed fabrial. The phantom spren in the tower had taken the bait. It had heard that she’d lost the previous spanreed, and had decided to send a replacement.

Navani plucked the ruby from the soldier’s hands and approached the captive. He looked around wildly, though he’d stopped struggling. “Who gave this to you?” Navani asked, holding the ruby before him. “Who told you to hide it among my things?”

He just stared at her and didn’t speak.