Chapter Twenty-Two

Two hours later, he had fully drawn schematics, though he had no idea if they would work. The plan wasn't to fabricate all-new engines, but to modify the ones they had to intake water, superheat it to steam, and use it for propellant instead.

It was a slapdash fix. Hopefully it would work. There were some changes he knew he'd need to make, but his brain was growing numb. He needed a break, at least from that problem.

He ignored the cot for now, though he was as tired as ever. Best he could tell, the people of Beacon didn't sleep on regular schedules—indeed, it seemed like the entire planet lived on a strange "take hour-long naps when you feel like it" system. Rebeke had been baffled by his explanation that where he came from, people all generally slept at the same time—and for some eight hours at that.

Anyway, he didn't want to sleep yet. He washed up at a basin they'd given him and checked himself in the little hand mirror. He had a faint patina of stubble on his chin, and his hair had fully regrown—his body, as always, eventually adapted to match how he'd looked when he first took the Dawnshard all those years ago. He tossed the mirror aside, straightening the buttoned shirt they'd given him, and pulled his chair over to Elegy, who was still chained to the wall.

It's not just me, right? the knight asks. It is bizarre that you have a woman chained to your wall, isn't it?

"It is admittedly bizarre."

And you want her…why?

"I think her condition and mine might be similar," he said, narrowing his eyes at Elegy. "When I adopted the Dawnshard from Wit, it created my Torment. Too much Investiture, taken in too quickly, warping my very being."

Why didn't it warp Wit?

"I think it did. He just hides it well. Either way, when I gave away the Dawnshard, it left me changed. With a kind of scar tissue on my soul. That's the Torment. The strange Connection I have to all places at once, the ability to feed on Investiture, the ability to Skip from location to location—but also the curse of not being able to fight back.

"A Dawnshard is one of the primal forces of creation, and the one we carried is diametrically opposed to the concept of violence and harm. The scar tissue on my soul has that same Intent, that same requirement of its host: that I be unable to harm anyone at all for any reason."

It's ironic, you know, the hero says. Because of the way the Dawnshards were used…

"To kill God. Yes, I know." He sat back, thoughtful, meeting Elegy's glare. "She's got something similar, I'm guessing. A canker on her soul. The Cinder King's fire burned away her memories and personality, but there's no reason that should make her so violent, so enraged. I can't figure out how he controls creatures like her. It has to do with some kind of Connection or…well, scar tissue."

On the soul. That makes her violent, where yours makes you the opposite.

"Basically yes," he said.

When you were following your oaths, your natural need to follow them pushed through the scar tissue, though.

"It did, for a time," he said. "But now I feel like the scar is getting worse, Aux. I need to do something to stop that growth or, better, make it recede. Enough that I can fight, but not so far that I'm unable to Skip away from this planet."

Ideally he'd eventually clear it all away, severing his lingering Connection to the Dawnshard. So long as he retained that Connection, he was a link to whoever held it now. And so long as he could locate one of the most powerful weapons in all the cosmere, people would hunt him.

That was too big a problem to deal with at the moment. For now, he'd settle for any kind of therapy that suppressed his symptoms. He'd love to be able to fight back the next time a Charred tried to kill him.

He brought out the drained sunheart again, turned it over in his fingers. "These people," he said, "can transfer Investiture to one another through touch. And their highly Invested souls become these power sources when bombarded long enough by the sun. I'm hoping that I can find a way to siphon a little of my soul into this drained sunheart, taking some of the scar tissue with it. Follow?"

Vaguely, yes. It will be like lancing a boil.

"Yes, but not so gross."

Everything about mortals is gross. But siphoning off your soul…won't that, I don't know, hurt?

"Not if it's a very small amount," he said. "Plus, it will regrow, as will the scar. Human souls are resilient things, Aux. Like our bodies, they self-repair."

It was different for beings like Auxiliary. His essence had been burned away during the tragedy, leaving only this last, limited remnant.

So…you're going to use that rock to try to siphon off whatever soul sickness is making Elegy act so angry. If it works, you're going to try it on yourself, hoping you can cure your own soul sickness. Is that about the short of it?

"Indeed."

Rebeke probably wouldn't appreciate you experimenting on her sister like that.

"Probably not."

That might be why she is hiding outside your door, eh? Listening in?

He paused. "She is?"

Ah! Didn't you notice? I mean, someone is making small noises out there. I'll admit, I'm only guessing it is her. Powerful though I am, clairvoyance isn't on my list of abilities. But it does seem like it would be her, considering how the person keeps pressing against the door—as if trying to hear.

Yeah, Auxiliary was probably right.

I really thought you'd noticed, the knight says loftily, otherwise I'd have said something.

"Don't lie," he said with a smile. "You like showing off."

I love showing off, the knight exclaims. It feels so good. Why do mortals have taboos against it?

"We have taboos against everything that is fun," he said, still toying with the drained sunheart. If he was right, then everyone on this world had this same strange Connection to one another, allowing the ability to transfer parts of themselves. And this empty power source had held a distilled version of someone's soul, so it should work too, right?

However, when he tried touching the object to Elegy, nothing happened. Even when he braced himself, reached in, and touched it to her ember. She railed at him, and he heard a thump at the door as Rebeke shifted.

He pulled back, making a note in his book. He hadn't actually expected it to be that easy.

Investiture responded to human thought. It wasn't technically energy or matter—but it could become either. Investiture, energy, and matter were all one, as per Khriss's Second Law. It couldn't be created or destroyed; it could only change from one state to another.

However, Investiture responded differently from energy or matter. You could Command it. More precisely, the mindset you reached by speaking those Commands enabled you to enforce your will upon it. That was common across many of the flavors and varieties of power around the cosmere. Commands, oaths, incantations…any way to focus your will, your Intent, and project it to the Investiture.

Like the Command he'd tried with Contemplation earlier, which came from the planet Nalthis to make Investiture flow between bodies.

Today he tried almost all the ones he knew, in a variety of styles, as he pressed the sunheart against Elegy's exposed arm and ordered it to drain her heat. Nothing happened, and each failure was frustrating, suggesting that he didn't really know what he was doing.

He slumped down in his seat, tapping his head against the backrest. There was power locked away inside of Elegy, power that made her stronger, faster, more resilient. How to get at it? After some thought, he decided he probably didn't know the right Commands. There were methods using tones and vibrations that might work, but he didn't have that equipment—and he knew that heat, at least, transferred naturally between people here. That gave him his best clue to the mechanism of moving Investiture on this planet.

If this theory was even viable—which he couldn't say for certain—success would depend on using the local ways that people here invoked or evoked their power. So he'd need something familiar to this people, their particular way of organizing thoughts and will. But what would the local variety of that be? Not oaths, but…

The moment it occurred to him, it seemed obvious. "Rebeke!" he shouted in their tongue. "Would you come in here a moment? I need to ask you something."

The soft sounds at the door stopped. Then a sheepish Rebeke opened the door and stepped in.

Pretend, the knight says, I have a very smug expression on right now.

Rebeke glanced at her sister, looking relieved to find her unharmed. She then turned to Nomad, clearly expecting a scolding, which he didn't offer. He'd probably have listened in too, in her situation.

Nomad pointed to Elegy. "Didn't you mention that your people have some kind of ritual prayer they say before sharing heat with another person or, more importantly, before taking it?"

"There…are several," she said. "Why?"

"Tell me the situations."

"Well, there's one said between a husband and wife," she said, "before…intimacy."

Wow. Ritual prayers before sex. Sounds…fun?

"Anything else?"

"Prayer before first touching a loved one," she said. "Prayer of thanks before offering heat to one who has protected or served you. Prayer when with the dying, to take their heat before it fades away—"

He sat straighter in his chair.

"We only do it if someone is dying for certain!" she exclaimed. "And only for one who desperately needs the heat, to help them with a sickness or weakness!"

That's cute, the knight says. She thinks you care about their social customs. How endearing.

"Tell it to me," he said.

"Um… Blessed Adonalsium, accept this soul and reward them for their heat given. Bold one on the threshold of death, give me your dying heat that I may bless those who still live."

Perfect. A forced removal of Investiture, ritualized with a formal Command. He snatched the sunheart off the table and pressed it to Elegy's arm, drawing another growl. He said the words exactly as Rebeke had.

Nothing happened.

"You're trying to transfer her heat to the sunheart?" Rebeke said. "It won't work like you think. We've tried, and while we can store some heat in a depleted sunheart, it doesn't give enough power to fly ships."

Confirmation, the knight muses, that their souls aren't powerful enough to make sunhearts on their own. It's not just a congealed soul—the bombardment of sunlight is required to supercharge the thing, creating the power source.

"How do you do it?" Nomad asked her. "Transfer heat into a sunheart?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "It's not often used."

He thought a moment, then tried again, changing the words. "Bold one on the threshold of death, give this sunheart your heat, that it may bless those who still live." The tweak might be enough to…

No. Again, nothing happened.

"Why are you trying this?" Rebeke said. "I don't understand. There's really no use in transferring heat to a sunheart—it's not alive, so it can't appreciate the gift."

"Cosmereologically," he said, "you'd be surprised at the wide range of definitions of ‘alive' and ‘dead.' Regardless, I need to know how to transfer a bit of someone's soul into a sunheart."

"Why?" Rebeke demanded. "What are you trying to do?"

"Explore the nature of your power sources," he said. But unfortunately he was at a dead end here. And they were several hours closer to death on the slopes of an approaching mountain. He took the notebooks with his schematics from the table and held them up. "I need to build a prototype of my engine design. Quickly. You told me your people could fabricate parts."

"We can't fabricate for you," she said. "But our ancestors can."

He paused. "So…wait. You can't do it anymore?"

"No, we never could," she said. "But our ancestors can." She looked to him. "I suppose it's time to introduce you to the ghosts."