Chapter 24

TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO

S zeth-son-Neturo found magic upon the wind, and so he danced with it.

Strict, methodic motions at first, as per the moves he had memorized. He stepped and spun, dancing in a wide circle around the large boulder. Szeth was as the limbs of the oak, rigid but ready. When those shivered in the wind, Szeth thought he could hear their souls seeking to escape, to shed bark like shells and emerge with new skin, pained by the cool air—yet aflush with joy. Painful and delightful, like all new things.

Szeth’s bare feet scraped across the packed earth as he danced, getting it on his toes, loving the feel of the soil. He went right to the edge, feet kissing the grass—then danced back, spinning to the accompaniment of his sister’s flute. The music was his dance partner, wind made animate through sound. The flute was the voice of air itself.

Time became thick when he danced. Molasses minutes and syrup seconds. Yet the wind wove among them, visiting each moment, lingering, then dashing away. He followed it. Emulated it. Became it.

More and more fluid he became as he circled the stone. No more rigidity, no more preplanned steps. Sweat flying from his brow to seek the sky, he was the air. Churning, spinning, violent. Around and around, his dance worship for the rock at the center of the bare ground. Five feet across and three feet high—at least the part that emerged from the soil—it was the largest in the region.

When he was wind, he felt he could touch that sacred stone, which had never known the hands of man. He imagined how it would feel. The stone of his family. The stone of his past. The stone to whom he gave his dance. He stopped finally, panting. His sister’s music cut off, leaving his only applause the bleating of the sheep. Molli the ewe had wandered onto the circular dance track again, and—bless her—was trying to eat the sacred rock. She never had been the smartest of the flock.

Szeth breathed deeply, sweat streaming from his face, wetting the packed earth below with speckles like stars.

“You practice too hard,” his sister—Elid-daughter-Zeenid—said. “Seriously, Szeth. Can’t you ever relax ?”

She stood up from the grass and stretched. Elid was fourteen, three years older than he was. Like him, she was on the shorter side—though she was squat where he was spindly. Trunk and branch, Dolk-son-Dolk called them. Which was appropriate, even if both Dolks were idiots.

She wore orange as her splash: the vivid piece of colorful clothing that marked them as people who added. One article per person, of whatever color they desired. In her case, a bright orange apron across a grey dress and vibrant white undergown. She spun her flute in her fingers, uncaring that she had broken her previous one doing exactly that.

Szeth bowed his head and went to get some water from the clay trough. Their homestead was nearby: a sturdy building constructed of boards, held together with wooden pegs. No metal, of course. Szeth’s father worked on the rooftop, plugging a hole. Normally he oversaw the other shepherds, visiting them to give them help. There was some kind of training involved, which Szeth didn’t understand. What kind of training did shepherds need? You just had to listen to the sheep, and follow them, and keep them safe.

Neturo was between assignments, working on the house he and his brothers had built. In a field opposite the home—distant but visible—the majority of their sheep grazed. A few, like Molli, preferred to stay close. Szeth liked when they could use fields near the homestead, as he could be near the stone and dance for it.

He dipped a wooden spoon into the trough and sipped rainwater, pure and clean. He peered through it to the clay bottom—he loved seeing things that couldn’t be seen, like air and water.

“Why do you practice so hard?” Elid said. “There’s nobody here but a couple of the sheep.”

“Molli likes my dancing,” Szeth said softly.

“Molli is blind,” Elid said. “She’s licking the dirt.”

“Molli likes to try new experiences,” he said, smiling and looking toward the old ewe.

“Whatever,” Elid said, flopping back on the grass to stare at the sky. “Wish there was more to do out here.”

“Dancing is something to do,” he said. “The flute is something to do. We must learn to add so that—”

She threw a dirt clod at him. He dodged easily, his feet light on the ground. He might be only eleven, but some in the village whispered he was the best dancer among them. He didn’t care about being the best. He only cared about doing it right. If he did it wrong, then he had to practice more.

Elid didn’t think that way. It bothered him how apathetic she had become about practicing as she grew older. She seemed like a different person these days.

Szeth tied his splash back on—a red handkerchief he wore around his neck—and did a quick count of the sheep.

Elid continued to stare at the sky. “Do you believe the stories they tell,” she eventually said, “of the lands on the other side of the mountains?”

“The lands of the stonewalkers? Why wouldn’t I?”

“They just sound so outlandish.”

“Elid, listen to yourself. Of course stories of outlanders sound outlandish.”

“Lands where everyone walks on stones though? What do they do? Hop from stone to stone, avoiding the soil?”

Szeth glanced at their family stone. It peeked up from the earth like a spren’s eyeball, staring unblinking at the sky, a vibrant red-orange. A splash for Roshar.

“I think,” he said to Elid, “that there must be a lot more rock out there. I think it’s hard to walk without stepping on stone. That’s why they get desensitized.”

“Where do the plants grow, then?” she asked. “Everyone always talks about how the outside is full of dangerous plants that eat people. There must be soil.”

True. Maybe the terrible vines he’d heard of stretched out long, like the tentacles you might find on a shamble, or one of the beasts that lived in the tidal pools a short distance down the coast.

“I heard,” Elid said, “that people constantly kill each other out there. That nobody adds, they only subtract.”

“Who makes the food then?” he said.

“They must eat each other. Or maybe they’re always starving? You know how the men on the ships are …”

He nervously looked toward the ocean—though it could be seen only on the sunniest days. Technically, his family was part of the farming town of Clearmount, which was at the very edge of a broad plain, excellent for grazing. This part of Shinovar wasn’t crowded; it was a day or two between towns. He heard that in the north there were towns everywhere.

The grassland bordered the southeastern coast of Shinovar. Clearmount, and Szeth’s family homestead, was in an honored location near the monastery of the Stonewards, which was up along the mountain ridge. In Szeth’s estimation, this was the perfect place to live. You could see the mountains yet also visit the ocean. You could walk for days across the vibrant green prairie, never seeing another person. During the early months of the year they grazed the animals here, near their homestead. In the mid months they would take the sheep up the slopes, seeking the untouched and overgrown grass there.

He bent down next to old Molli, scratching at her ears as she rubbed her head against him. She might lick rocks and eat dirt, but she was always good for a hug. He loved her warmth, the scratchy wool on his cheek, the way she kept him company when the others wandered.

She bleated softly when he finished hugging her. Szeth wiped the salty, dried sweat from his head. Maybe he shouldn’t practice dancing so hard, but he knew he’d made a few missteps. Their father said that they were blessed as people who could add beneath the Farmer’s eyes. The perfect station. Not required to toil in the field, not forced to kill and subtract—allowed to tend the sheep and develop their talents.

Free time was the greatest blessing in the world. Maybe that was why the men of the oceans sought to kill them and steal their sheep. It must make them angry to see such a perfect place as this. Those terrible men, like any petulant child, destroyed what they could not have.

“Do you think,” Elid whispered, “that the servants of the monasteries will ever come out and fight for us? Use the swords during one of the raids?”

“Elid!” he said, standing. “The shamans would never subtract.”

“Mother says they practice with the Blades. I’d like to see that, hold one. Why practice, except to—”

“They will fight the Voidbringers when they arrive,” Szeth snapped. “That is the reason.” He glanced toward the ocean. “Don’t speak of the swords. If the outsiders realized the treasures of the monasteries …”

“Ha,” she said. “I’d like to see them try to raid a monastery. I saw an Honorbearer once. She could fly. She—”

“Don’t speak of it,” he said. “Not in the open.”

Elid rolled her eyes at him, still lying on the grass. What had she done with her flute? If Father had to make yet another … She hated when he brought that up, so he forced himself to stay quiet. He pulled away from Molli, and then looked down at the ground she’d been licking.

To find another rock.

Szeth recoiled, part shocked, part terrified. It was small, only a handspan wide. It peeked up from the earth, perhaps revealed by last night’s rain. Szeth put his fingers to his lips, backing away. Had he stepped on it while dancing? It was in the packed earth of the dancing ring.

What … what should he do? This was the first stone he’d ever seen emerge. The ones in other villages and fields—carefully marked off and properly revered—had been there for years.

“What’s up with you?” Elid said.

He simply gestured. She, perhaps sensing his level of concern, rose and walked over. As soon as she saw it, she gasped.

They shared a glance. “I’ll get Father,” Szeth said, and started running.