Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“We’re going to try it here?” Syl asked, darting over to him. “Isn’t it for getting up and down?”

“Brightness Navani told me it pulls you in whatever direction you point it,” he said. “New Windrunners always want to go up with their Lashings—but the more experience you have, the more you realize you can accomplish far more if you think in three dimensions.”

He pointed his left hand down the hallway and opened his palm. Then, thinking it wise, he took in a little Stormlight. Finally, he used his thumb to flip the little lever and engage the mechanism. Nothing happened.

So far so good, he thought, trying to move his hand right or left. It resisted, held in place. Good.

He eased his hand into a fist, squeezing the bar across his palm, and was immediately pulled through the corridor. He skidded on his heels, and wasn’t able to slow himself at all. Those weights really were heavy.

Kaladin opened his hand, stopping in place. Because the device was still active, when he lifted his feet off the ground, he stayed in the air. However, this also put an incredible amount of stress on his arm, especially the elbow.

Yes, the device in its current state might be too dangerous for anyone without Stormlight to use. He put his feet back down and tapped the toggle with his thumb to disengage the device, and his arm immediately dropped free. The weight—when he went to check on it—was hanging a little further down into the shaft. As soon as he’d disengaged the device, the brakes had locked, holding the weight in place.

He went out into the hallway, engaged the device, and gripped the bar firmly. That sent him soaring forward. He tucked up his feet, straining—with effort—to keep himself otherwise upright. In that moment, difficult though the exercise was, he felt something come alive in him again. The wind in his hair. His body soaring, claiming the sky, albeit in an imperfect way. He found the experience familiar. Even intuitive.

That lasted right up until the moment when he noticed the quickly approaching far wall. He reacted a little too slowly, first trying to Lash himself backward by instinct. He slammed into the wall hand-first and felt his knuckles crunch. The device continued trying to go forward, crushing his mangled hand further, forcing it to keep the bar compressed. The device held him affixed to the wall until he managed to reach over with his other hand and flip the thumb switch, releasing the mechanism and setting him free.

He gasped in pain, sucking the Stormlight from a nearby amethyst on the floor. The healing happened slowly, as it had the other day. The pain was acute; he gritted his teeth while he waited—and split skin, broken by bones, made him bleed on the device, staining its leather.

Syl scowled at the painspren crawling around the floor. “Um, I was wrong. That wasn’t particularly funny.”

“Sorry,” Kaladin said, eyes watering from the pain.

“What happened?”

“Bad instincts,” he said. “Not the device’s fault. I just forgot what I was doing.”

He sat to wait, and he heard the joints popping and the bones grinding as the Stormlight reknit him. He’d come to rely on his near-instantaneous healing; this was agony.

It was a good five minutes before he shook out his healed hand and stretched it, good as new, other than some lingering phantom pain. “Right,” he said. “I’ll want to be more careful. I’m playing with some incredible forces in those weights.”

“At least you didn’t break the fabrial,” Syl said. “Strange as it is to say, it’s a lot easier to get you a new hand than a new device.”

“True,” he said, standing. He launched himself down the hallway back the way he had come, this time maintaining a careful speed, and slowed himself as he neared the other end.

Over the next half hour or so he crashed a few more times, though never as spectacularly as that first one. He needed to be very careful to point his hand straight down the center of the hallway, or else he’d drift to the side and end up scraping across the wall. He also had to be acutely aware of the device, as it was remarkably easy to flip the activation switch accidentally by brushing his hand against something.

He kept practicing, and was able to go back and forth for quite a while before the device stopped working. He lurched to a halt midflight, hanging in the center of the hallway.

He rested his feet on the ground and deactivated the device. The weight he’d been using had hit the bottom. That had lasted him quite a long time—though much of that time had been resetting and moving around. In actual free fall, he probably wouldn’t have longer than a few minutes of flight. But if he controlled the weight, using it in short bursts, he could make good use of those minutes.

He wouldn’t be soaring about fighting Heavenly Ones in swooping battles with this. But he could get an extra burst of speed in a fight, and maybe move in an unexpected direction. Navani intended him to use it as a lift. It would work for that, certainly. And he intended to practice going up and down outside once it was dark.

But Kaladin also saw martial applications. And all in all, the device worked better than he’d expected. So he walked to the end of the hallway to set up again.

“More?” Syl asked.

“You have an appointment or something?” Kaladin asked.

“Just a little bored.”

“I could crash into another wall, if you like.”

“Only if you promise to be amusing when you do it.”

“What? You want me to break more fingers?”

“No.” She zipped around him as a ribbon of light. “Breaking your hands isn’t very funny. Try a different body part. A funny one.”

“I’m going to stop trying to imagine how to manage that,” he said, “and get back to work.”

“And how long are we going to be doing this decidedly unfunny crashing?”

“Until we don’t crash, obviously,” Kaladin said. “I had months to train with my Lashings, and longer to prepare for my first fight as a spearman. Judging by how quickly the Fused found the first node, I suspect I’ll have only a few days to train on this device before I need to use it.”

When the time came—assuming Navani or the Sibling could give him warning—he wanted to be ready. He knew of at least one way to quiet the nightmares, the mounting pressure, and the mental exhaustion. He couldn’t do much about his situation, or the cracks that were ever widening inside him.

But he could stay busy, and in so doing, not let those cracks define him.

The sand originated offworld. It is only one of such amazing wonders that come from other lands—I have recently obtained a chain from the lands of the dead, said to be able to anchor a person through Cognitive anomalies. I fail to see what use it could be to me, as I am unable to leave the Rosharan system. But it is a priceless object nonetheless.

—From Rhythm of War, page 13 undertext

Jasnah had never gone to war. Oh, she’d been near to war. She’d stayed behind in mobile warcamps. She’d walked battlefields. She’d fought and killed, and had been part of the Battle of Thaylen Field. But she’d never gone to war.

The other monarchs were baffled. Even the soldiers seemed confused as they parted, letting her stride forward among them in her Shardplate. Dalinar, though, had understood. Until you stand in those lines, holding your sword and facing down the enemy force, you’ll never understand. No book could prepare you, Jasnah. So yes, I think you should go.