Chapter 10

The second moment had happened already, when Szeth himself decided to take upon him this quest. The one that would shape all of our futures.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth , page 8

K aladin followed Syl into a section of the tower with lower ceilings. They had to stop flying and walk, and soon entered the scribes’ … uh, supply depot?

That wasn’t what they called it, but Kaladin of course couldn’t read the sign. Scribes didn’t have a quartermaster. Storms, what did they call the place? A long, low-ceilinged room full of bookcases and puttering ardents, bald heads reflecting the glowing lights embedded into the stone. The scents of paper and hogshide leather filled the air.

He drew more than a few stares from the women and ardents they passed, but Syl strode straight through with her chin high, fully visible. She led him through a maze of tall bookcases toward a counter along the back.

A woman stood here, arms folded. Stark red lipstick on an otherwise pale face, like blood on a corpse. Wrinkles running from her nose and along her cheeks made it appear she could frown twice at the same time. When she saw Syl, both frowns became more pronounced.

Syl bobbed right up to the counter. “Do you have my things?” She waved at Kaladin. “I brought a pack human.”

“A what?” Kaladin said.

“You can carry things. I cannot. Ergo …”

The aging woman behind the counter looked him bottom to top, then sniffed. “I suppose I must acquiesce.”

“Yes, you must, ” Syl said. “Queen Navani says so. I know you checked.”

The woman’s sigh could have rippled a battle standard, but she reached beneath the counter and brought out a book, setting it on the table with a thump. “I found you a disposable copy.”

Syl waved eagerly, so Kaladin picked it up for her. He flipped through it, but there weren’t any pictures or glyphs. Just line after line of women’s script.

“The words are all broken up!” Syl said. “Not written with smooth lines at all.”

“Made with movable type, out of Jah Keved,” said the woman. “I wasn’t going to give you a handwritten one to take into the field.” She squinted at Kaladin. “You’re not going to teach him to read it, are you?”

“What if I did?” Syl said, going up on her tiptoes and projecting confidence. “Dalinar reads.”

“ Brightlord Dalinar is a holy man.”

“Kaladin’s holy,” Syl said. “Tell her.”

“I’m bonded to a piece of a god,” he said. “And she won’t let me forget it.”

“ See? ” Syl said.

The woman sighed again. “Still doesn’t justify taking my books into the field …”

“What is it?” Kaladin said, flipping through the pages.

“ The Way of Kings, ” Syl said. “Your own copy! I got it for you, since I’m your scribe.”

He opened his mouth to complain about the weight, that his rucksack was already packed. Then caught sight of the enthusiasm in her expression. She’d had this idea—of scribing for him—since before the attack on Urithiru. Confronted by her excited smile, his thoughts spun on their heel and did an about-face.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “Thank you.”

“The other things too,” Syl said to the woman behind the counter. “Come on.”

The woman sent a runner girl. That left the three of them standing there, in the back of a room full of shuffling and whispering people and floating logicspren, like little storms. It wasn’t quiet, but had an air of quietude. Odd, how this place—with all those leather book covers—could smell so much like the quartermaster shop with its armor.

A woman came to the counter and received prompt service, even deferential. Kaladin watched with annoyance. They treated Syl differently because she was a spren? Another woman strode past, wearing a long pleated skirt with a military jacket over the top. Kaladin didn’t recognize her, but that was an Alethi uniform jacket, tailored more snugly than the women of Bridge Four tended to prefer.

Syl’s eyes went wide, and she let out a soft “Ooooo …”

“New style,” the woman behind the counter said. “Based on an old ko-takama.” To their confused looks, she continued, “Female warrior clothing, very old, from our more savage times. That didn’t use the uniform coat, of course—and those had a higher waist, and sometimes a bow. I might have a picture somewhere …”

She trailed off as Syl’s clothing fuzzed and she was immediately wearing something similar. Syl rose up a little, her skirt—which was longer than the one she had worn in the past—rippling faintly. Thin, pleated, with the fitted jacket above. She continued to wear her hair loose, though she was one of the only ones in the room to do so.

“Nice,” Kaladin said. “It suits you.”

Syl grinned.

“I’d suggest,” the woman said, “a nice pair of leggings or trousers under the ko-takama for a Windrunner—or whatever you are—so that …”

“What?” Syl said innocently.

“When you’re flying,” the woman said. “So that, you know …”

Syl cocked her head, then gasped. “Oh! Or everyone will see my chull.”

“Your … chull?” the woman asked.

Syl leaned forward conspiratorially across the counter. “I could never figure out why these humans were so shy about the spot between their legs! Strange to my uncultured spren mind. Then I figured it out! Must be something pretty ugly down there, for everyone to be so afraid to show it! The ugliest thing I know of is a chull head. So when I made this body, I put one there.”

The woman stared at Syl, and seemed to be trying very hard not to look.

“… Chull head,” the woman finally said.

“Chull head,” Syl replied.

“Down … there.”

“Down there.”

Syl held the woman’s eyes with an unblinking stare, before adding, “I feed it grass sometimes.”

The woman released a shockspren and made a sound not unlike one Kaladin had heard from men being strangled. “I’ll go and check on your supplies,” she said, and scrambled away, blushing and appearing maybe a little nauseated.

Syl glanced at him and smiled sweetly.

“Chull head?” he asked.

“You know us spren!” she said. “So flighty and strange. Can’t even be trusted with a storming book! We might, I don’t know, read it and damage one of the precious pages.”

He snorted. “You didn’t … actually … you know …”

“Kaladin, don’t be stupid,” she said, hovering a foot off the ground, her new skirt rippling. “Think how uncomfortable that would be.”

“Do you even exist?” he said, saying it before he thought through the words. “Under the clothing? I mean, are the clothes your skin, or …”

She leaned toward him. “Wanna see?”

“Oh, storms no,” he said, imagining her vanishing her clothing right there in the middle of the book-quartermaster depot-place, fully visible to everyone. Or perhaps worse, just to him—to make him blush. Storms, she could do that at any time, in the middle of a meeting with Dalinar. She’d probably find it as funny as sticking his feet to the floor. One would think, after all this time, he’d have learned to keep his storming mouth shut.

“This,” she said, gesturing to the clothing, “is part of me, like your hair maybe, or your fingernails. Except you can’t control yours, and I can.”

“That doesn’t explain it,” Kaladin said. “I mean, let’s be honest: if it were me, I wouldn’t finish the parts that nobody could see. Why put in the effort?”

“It’s not effort,” she said. “ Changing is what takes the effort.” She gestured to herself. “This is me, my shape, my face—it’s who I am. I can change to be other things—bits of nature are easier. But eventually I will snap back to this shape. The same one I have in Shadesmar. That changes only in exceptional circumstances.”

Huh. It didn’t answer his question completely, but it was interesting.

“Still wondering how much detail I have, aren’t you?” she said, leaning up against him.

“No,” he said forcefully. “You’re going to find a way to embarrass me. So no. ”

She rolled her eyes. “We are as we were imagined, Kaladin,” she said. “Basically human—but with certain enviable improvements. You can assume that if a human has it, I do too—unless it’s icky.”

Which again really didn’t explain anything, considering how erratically Syl could define the word “icky.” But she fortunately let the matter drop—as the scribe finally returned with a small box. She set out paper, some ink, and several very thin, light pens—exotic ones that he’d heard were somehow made from parts of chickens.

Syl bounced up and down eagerly, ignoring the book-quartermaster and her severe gaze. Timid at first, Syl reached and—with effort—picked up one of the pens. Before that moment, the heaviest thing Kaladin had seen Syl carry on her own was one solitary leaf. Today, full sized, she scrunched up her face and concentrated—then deliberately heaved the pen into the air, like she was lifting a training weight.

Storms, Kaladin thought, impressed as she raised the pen and dipped it, each motion slow and careful. She placed it onto the page and crafted a single letter. Then she set the pen back down.

“Very good,” the book-quartermaster said. “You now display the skill of a four-year-old.”

Syl wilted, and Kaladin immediately felt a jolt. His annoyance at this woman simmered into something hotter. He opened his mouth, a dozen different options springing to mind. She wanted a scene? Oh, he could make a scene.

He checked those words; he didn’t want to spoil his day because of a bully. Instead he sighed, resting his arms on the counter. “What are you afraid of?” he asked her.

“Brightlord?” she asked him.

“I knew another bully once,” he said. “Short man. One eye. Treated everyone around him like crem—pushed us hard, too hard. Got people killed, and didn’t have an ounce of empathy. Turns out he was hugely in debt. Always terrified it would catch up to him, so he punished everyone around him. Makes me wonder if you’re the same, and have some reason you’re so angry and unpleasant.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Brightlord,” she said.

“I hope you are lying,” Kaladin said. “Because if there isn’t a reason—if you’re insufferable with no cause—then I feel even more sorry for you. So I’ll go with the assumption that deep down inside you, there’s a person capable of understanding what I’m going to say next.

“This attitude you put on? You think it makes you appear strong, but it doesn’t. Instead it makes very clear that something is wrong with you. Look at Syl’s effort. You should be thrilled ! Who berates a person for bettering herself? Who sells books and stationery, yet feels the need to undercut someone overcoming enormous physical limitations to use them?”

Kaladin held the woman’s eyes, and thought he saw something there. A spark of shame. And she drew a single shamespren, a white petal fluttering down behind her.

“Look,” Kaladin said, “you need to talk to someone about your problems. Not me; I’m just some stranger. But find someone. Talk. Grow. It’s worth the effort, all right?”

She glanced away, but then gave the faintest hint of a nod.

Kaladin took the paper Syl had written on and folded it, then tucked it in his jacket pocket. “I’m keeping this,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

“Now,” Syl said, “I can actually be your scribe.” She glanced at the paper. “So long as you carry the materials …”

He smiled, packing them—and her book—into his ruck. He slung it over both shoulders onto his back, then the two headed out. “I assume,” Kaladin said under his breath, “most book-quartermasters aren’t so terrible.”

“Wait, what did you call her?”

“Um … book-quartermaster? Who works at the scribes’ supply depot?”

“The head librarian,” she said, “at the library ?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, that’s the word.”

“You are absolutely adorable sometimes.”

They stepped out into Urithiru’s labyrinth of narrow corridors again. Kaladin nodded to the right, toward where he saw natural light down a hallway. It had a skylight, with some open-air windows at the sides.

“Tired of hallways?” he asked.

“Exhausted of them.”

Grinning, together they sought the sky.