Chapter 4

I have read that in the ancient days, the Wind often spoke to both human and singer. It would then mean that the Wind stopped talking not because of Odium, but because of people who began to fear her …

Or to worship the Storm instead.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth , page 4

K aladin soared up through the central column of Urithiru, Syl beside him.

In the atrium, he still saw signs of the battle that had happened two days ago. Blood that hadn’t been entirely scrubbed away. Broken banisters on balconies. That reminded him of another time he’d flown up this corridor … just after Teft’s murder. Dark, poisoned rage building within—the feeling a fraternal twin to the normal excitement of holding Stormlight.

That man he’d become after killing the Pursuer … that man frightened Kaladin. Even now, lit by calm sunlight. Remembering that man was like remembering a nightmare, and it caused painspren—like little severed hands—to appear on the balconies he passed, leaping off toward him.

He banished those feelings as he landed on a floor near the top of Urithiru. As he alighted in the central chamber where the lifts deposited people, he noted a glow coming from a nearby room.

“Navani,” Syl whispered, her eyes wide. She went light blue, shrank down to spren size, and zipped off in that direction. There was something almost intoxicating about Navani—and her bond with the Sibling—to spren in the tower city. Syl would be back shortly.

Kaladin forced himself to walk, not glide, over to Dalinar’s meeting room. As soon as he left Urithiru, Kaladin would have to return to using Stormlight only when necessary. Best to get into the habit now. As he walked, the wind blew behind him, somehow present all the way within the structure, carrying with it his armor spren as ribbons of light. He didn’t hear the wind’s voice, but it urged him forward, and its warnings echoed in his mind.

There was a small waiting room outside Dalinar’s meeting room. Urithiru had more and more furniture these days, including a couch here. It was, unfortunately, taken up entirely by Wit—who lay face up, filling space that could have accommodated three people, his feet up on one armrest—reading a book and chuckling to himself while a large globe of light hovered beside him. Some kind of odd spren?

“Ah, Wema,” Wit mumbled, turning the page. “You’ve finally noticed what a catch Vadam is? Let’s see how you screw it up.”

“Wit?” Kaladin said. “I didn’t realize you were back in the tower.” It was probably a stupid thing to say. Jasnah was here, so it made sense Wit had come along.

Wit, being Wit, finished his page before acknowledging Kaladin. At last the lanky man snapped the book closed, then sat up and lounged on the sofa a different way, arms spread across the back, one leg crossed on the other, looking like nothing so much as a king on his throne. A very relaxed king on a rather cushy throne.

“Well,” Wit said, his eyes alight with amusement, “if it isn’t my favorite flute thief.”

“You gave that flute to me, Wit,” Kaladin said, sighing as he leaned on the doorframe.

“Then you lost it.”

“I found it again.”

“Still lost it.”

“That’s not the same as stealing.”

“I’m a storyteller,” Wit said, with a flip of his fingers. “I have the right to redefine words.”

“That’s stupid.”

“That’s literature.”

“It’s confusing.”

“The more confusing, the better the literature.”

“That might be the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Aha!” Wit said, pointing. “Now you’re getting it.”

Kaladin hesitated. Sometimes during conversations with Wit, he wished he had someone to take notes for him. “So …” Kaladin said. “Do you want your flute back?”

“Hell no. I gave that to you, bridgeboy. Returning it would be almost as insulting as losing it!”

“Then what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Hmmm …” Wit said, reaching into a bag at his feet and slipping out a different flute, this one painted with a shiny red lacquer. He twirled it in his hand. “If only there were something we could do with these curious pieces of wood? They have holes that seem intended for some arcane purpose, beyond the understanding of mere mortals.”

Kaladin rolled his eyes.

“If only,” Wit continued, “there were a way to learn to do something productive with this item. It has the look of a tool. Nay, an instrument! Of mythical design. Alas. My poor finite mind is incapable of comprehending the—”

“If I don’t interrupt,” Kaladin said, “how long will you keep going?”

“Long, long past when it was funny.”

“It was funny?”

“The words?” Wit said. “Of course not. Your face while I say them though? Well, it’s been said I am an artist. Unfortunately, the primary subjects of my art can never experience my creations, as displayed upon their features.” He flipped the flute, then held it out to Kaladin. “Give it a try. It has the same fingerings as the one you lost and recovered, though not the same … capacity.”

“Wit, I can’t play this flute any more than I could play the other one you gave me,” Kaladin said. “I have no idea how.”

“So …” Wit flipped the flute again, then extended it farther toward Kaladin. “All you have to do is ask …”

“I guess I do have to wait for Dalinar,” Kaladin said, looking longingly at the closed door. Dalinar’s meetings often overran, despite the many clocks Navani had given him.

Kaladin felt an urgency to get to Shinovar, but if he wanted to fly all that way without using up a large sack of gemstones—which would be needed in the battle to come—he had to fly with the highstorm, hours away yet. So he had time. And … well, Kaladin felt indebted to Wit. As infuriating as the man—or whatever he was—could be … when Kaladin had been in the worst darkness of the storm, Wit had traveled a nightmare to pull him free.

This man was a friend. Kaladin appreciated him, quirks included. So, he played the role Wit obviously wanted. “Would you teach me?” Kaladin said, taking the flute. “I don’t have a lot of time, but—”

Wit was already moving, whipping some sheets of paper from the bag by his feet. He waved for his strange ball spren to go away, and Kaladin’s windspren followed, flitting out of the room as Kaladin glanced over the pages. They had odd symbols on them, which made Kaladin nervous, but Wit insisted it wasn’t actual writing. Merely marks on a paper representing sounds. It took Kaladin a few minutes to realize the joke.

Still, over the next hour—Dalinar was really taking his time—Kaladin followed Wit’s instructions. He learned the basics of fingering, of reading music, and—hardest of all—how to hold the thing and blow into it properly.

At the end of the hour, Kaladin was able to force out a stumbling rendition of the first line of the music, with notes that sounded breathy and weak in comparison to Wit’s playing. It was an incredibly simple accomplishment, and he didn’t attract a single musicspren, yet Kaladin felt he’d climbed a mountain. He was smiling in a stupid way as Syl, full sized and wearing a havah with purple trim, peeked in to investigate.

Based on the sounds I’m making, she’s probably come to see who’s stepping on a rat, Kaladin thought.

“Nice work,” Wit said. “Next fight, start up a bit of that. Surely the enemy will drop their weapons … probably just to cover their ears.”

“If anyone asks about my skill, I’ll be sure to tell them who my teacher is.”

Wit grinned.

“I know that song,” Syl said, folding her arms.

“Wit played it for us on the Shattered Plains,” Kaladin said. “Back when we first met him. The story of the Wandersail. ”

“I know it better than that though …” she said.

“Long ago,” Wit said softly, “that rhythm guided humans across the void from one planet to the other. They followed it to reach your world.”

“One of the rhythms of Roshar,” Syl said with a nod. “Made into a song, with the tones of the gods.”

“Gods older than yours,” Wit said from beside Kaladin on the couch.

“When you first played for us,” Kaladin said, remembering that lonely night on the plateaus when he’d still been a bridgeman, “I could swear the sound … came back. You’d play, then talk, and the song would continue to echo. How did you do that?”

“I didn’t,” Wit said.

“But—”

“Ask yourself who was listening that night.”

“Me. Syl. You, presumably.”

“And?”

“And … some guards in the distance?”

Wit shook his head. “Storms, how can you be from this land, yet be so dense. It—”

“The wind,” Kaladin guessed. “The wind was listening.”

Wit smiled. “Maybe you can be salvaged after all.”

“Is the wind a god?” Kaladin asked.

“When this world was created,” Wit said, “long before Honor, Cultivation, or Odium arrived, Adonalsium left something behind on it. Sometimes it’s called the Old Magic. That term is often applied to the Nightwatcher, who came—with Cultivation’s efforts—from one of those ancient spren. Listen to the Wind when it speaks, Kaladin. It’s weaker than it once was, but it has seen so very much.”

“It … told me a storm was coming,” Kaladin said. “And asked for help.”

“Then listen,” Wit said. “And the Wind … she will listen to you in return.” He winked. “That’s all I’ll say about it. I’m not one to give away another’s secrets.”

Lovely. Well, he’d done as Wit asked, so he returned the flute. Would Dalinar ever be finished? “It was a fun way to pass the time, Wit, but I have to ask. Music? What relevance does it have for someone like me?”

“Ah, now there’s a question for the ages,” Wit said, leaning back. “What use is art? Why does it hold such meaning and potency? I can’t tell you, because the short answer is unappealing and the long answer takes months. I will instead say this: every society in every region of every planet I’ve visited—and I’ve been to quite a large number—has made art.”

Kaladin nodded thoughtfully. Wit hadn’t answered his question, but he was accustomed to that. Protesting would only lead to mockery.

“Perhaps the question isn’t ‘What use is art?’” Wit mused. “Perhaps even that simple question misses the point. It’s like asking the use of having hands, or walking upright, or growing hair. Art is part of us, Kaladin. That’s the use; that’s the reason. It exists because on some fundamental level we need it. Art exists to be made.”

When Kaladin didn’t respond, Wit eyed him.

“I can accept that,” Kaladin said. “As an explanation.”

“It’s a tautology.”

“The more confusing the better, right?”

Wit grinned, and then it faded. He glanced at the door.

“Wit,” Kaladin said. “The Wind asked for help. And Dalinar is worried about the coming battle. I get the feeling this next part is going to be difficult.”

“Yeah,” Wit said softly. “I feel it too.”

A straight answer. Those were always disturbing.

“Do you have any … words of wisdom?” Kaladin asked. “A story, maybe?”

“Listen,” Wit said. “Everything you’ve done—Kal, everything you’ve been—has prepared you for what’s next. It’s going to be hard. Fortunately, life has been hard, so you’re working under familiar constraints.”

Kaladin glanced to the side, where Wit was staring off into space, idly spinning the red flute in his fingers. Something in his voice … his face …

“You’re talking,” Kaladin said softly, “as if one of us won’t survive this.”

“I wish I were optimistic enough to think one of us will survive.”

“Wit, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you say you’re immortal.”

“Immortality doesn’t seem to go as far as it once did, kid.” He glanced at Kaladin. “Listen, if the Wind wants your help … well, I think you can rise to what is coming. Probably. Difficult though it will be.”

“Storms,” Syl said, walking forward. “I’m … not sure I like it when he’s serious, Kaladin.”

“Dalinar is going to send you to Shinovar,” Wit said, “because he hopes Ishar can help with the contest of champions. Ishar can’t help, not like that, but you still need to go.”

“Why?” Kaladin asked. “Why go if I can’t do what I’m sent to do?”

“Because this is the journey, Kaladin,” Wit said softly. “The last part of it. Listen to me: I want you to practice with that flute until you make the sound return to you. Because that will mean Roshar is listening.”

What did that even mean? “I think you’ve been reading too many stories, Wit. Riddles aren’t actually helpful.”

Wit launched himself off the couch and crossed the room on legs that suddenly seemed spindly. “The problem is, I don’t actually know what the next part will entail. I have hints and thoughts, but mostly just worries. All I can do is point you toward what might be the correct path. That and keep your hope strong.”

“Jasnah doesn’t believe in hope,” Syl whispered, stepping over by Kaladin. “I heard her complaining about it once.”

“Jasnah would make an excellent Wit,” Wit said, pointing at Syl. “She’s the right combination of smart and stupid all at once.” He smiled in a fond way, and Kaladin thought the rumors about them must be true.

“I’m confused,” Kaladin said. “What are you saying, Wit?”

“That something is wrong,” Wit said, stalking across the room and throwing his hands into the air. “Something is horribly wrong, and has been for several days now, and I can’t figure out what it is. I’ve been waiting for the truth to come crashing down. I don’t know what to do or who to pray to, since the only true God I’ve known is the one we rejected and killed. So I’m sending you off, Kaladin. Hoping that if the Wind spoke to you, then some piece of that ancient deity is watching. Because when everything feels wrong, all I can do is hope.”

“The Passions,” Syl whispered.

“Isn’t that some old Thaylen religion?” Kaladin said. “Something about emotion?”

“Derived, anciently, from the teachings of Odium,” Wit said. “Though it’s not polite to point that out to practitioners of the Passions. People don’t like hearing that their religion was mythologized, as if myth can’t be true. Regardless, Ancient Daughter, I’d think better of you than to bring up the Passions.”

“Why?” she said. “Human religions are all a little silly, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Wit said, “but the Passions teach that if you are fervent enough— if you care enough—your emotion will influence your success. That if you want something badly enough, the cosmere will provide it for you.”

Kaladin nodded slowly. “There might be something to that.”

“Kid,” Wit said, leaning down over Kaladin on the couch, “the Passions are absolute horseshit. ”

“What? It’s good to be hopeful! The Passions sound nice.”

“The wrong people get far too much mileage out of things that sound nice,” Wit said. “Take it from a guy who is all too capable with a lie: nothing is easier to sell someone than the story they want to hear. The Passions are deeply insulting if you spare even a moment to consider. I once spoon-fed broth to a trembling child in a kingdom that no longer exists. I found her on a road leading away from a battlefield, after her parents—simple peasants—were slaughtered. Her elder brother lay dead a half mile behind, having starved.

“You think that kid who starved didn’t want to eat? You think her parents didn’t want to escape the ravages of war badly enough ? You think if they’d had more Passion, the cosmere would have saved them? How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn’t care enough about being rich. That they just didn’t pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude. Or storming Passion.”

He raised his finger at that last word, and angerspren burst around his feet like pools of boiling blood, as if on cue. Kaladin didn’t know if he’d ever seen Wit so riled up, particularly by something that had nothing to do with their conversation. Though one could never tell with Wit. Non sequiturs that ended up relevant were the daggers he kept strapped to his boots, to be employed when his foes were distracted.

“We need hope, Kaladin,” Wit said, leaning farther forward. “We’re heading straight toward what may be the most difficult moment in our lives. So remember: Hope is wonderful. Keep it, treasure it. Hope is a virtue—but the definition of that word is crucial. You want to know what a virtue truly is? It’s not that difficult.”

“If this entire conversation is the way I learn,” Kaladin said, “then I dispute the idea of it not being difficult.”

Wit chuckled, then stepped back and threw his hands up, angerspren vanishing and gloryspren—tiny spheres of golden light—bursting around him. “A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor … if these exist only to get you something, you’ve missed the storming point.”

He glanced at Syl. “This is where Jasnah is wrong about hope, smart though she is in so many ways. If hope doesn’t mean anything to you when you lose, then it wasn’t ever a virtue in the first place. It took me a long time to learn that, and I finally did so from the writings of a man who lost every belief he thought he had, then started over new.”

“Sounds like someone wise,” Syl said.

“Oh, Sazed is among the best. Hope I get to meet him someday.”

“When you do,” Kaladin said, “maybe some of his wisdom will rub off.”

Wit tossed his flute, spinning it, then pointed it directly at Kaladin. “Congratulations. You’ve practiced music, you’ve listened to a self-important rant, and you’ve delivered quips at awkward points. I dub you graduated from Wit’s school of practical impracticality.”

Syl sat on the couch, though she left no impression in its cushions. She looked completely baffled.

“Wait,” Kaladin said. “Does that make me … your apprentice?”

Wit belted out a loud, full belly laugh, long enough to be uncomfortable. “Kal,” he said, gasping for breath, “you’re still far, far too useful a human being to be an apprentice of mine. You’d end up actually helping people! No, I’ve already had one bridgeboy as an apprentice, and graduated or not, he’s incompetent enough to hold on to the position.”

“I’ll have you know,” Kaladin said, “that Sig is doing a fine job leading the Windrunners.”

“You’ve been corrupting him,” Wit said. “No, you’re not my apprentice, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn a thing or two. A kind of … cross-training in uselessness.” He said it while thrusting his flute into the air.

“You’re so storming dramatic,” Kaladin said.

“Simply trying to give you a proper send-off,” Wit said. “We’re at the end, Kaladin, and you are needed. I want you to march off to your divine destiny with a spring in your step.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do though,” Kaladin said. “War is coming, but I’m not involved. I’m just going to help a maniac return to his senses.”

“That’s it, eh?” Wit said. “Just you becoming your world’s first therapist.”

Kaladin glanced at Syl, who shook her head. “We have no idea what that is, Wit.”

“Because,” Wit said, “you haven’t finished inventing it yet.” He leaned in. “About time someone figured out a method to counteract what I’ve been doing. Now, practice that flute. Get Roshar to listen. Help Ishar. But know that you’re not coming back to aid Dalinar, whatever he thinks.”

“Practice the flute,” Syl said. “Get Roshar to listen to us. Help Ishar. Don’t come back.”

“Exactly,” Wit said. “Now go. The world needs the two of you—more than you, or it, or anyone other than your humble Wit yet realizes. The fight ahead of you will be legendary. Unfortunately, you can’t fight this one with strength of muscle. You’ll have to wield the spear another way. Good luck.”

With a sigh, Kaladin stood up. Then the most remarkable thing happened. Wit extended his hand, and didn’t pull back as Kaladin hesitantly took it. Wit gave a firm shake.

“You know what first drew me to you, Kaladin?” Wit asked. “You did one of the most difficult things a man can do: you gave yourself a second chance.”

“I took that second chance … maybe a third,” Kaladin admitted. “But now what? Who am I without the spear?”

“Won’t it be exciting to find out?” Wit said. “Have you ever wondered who you would be if there was no one you needed to save, no one you needed to kill? You’ve lived for others for so long, Kaladin. What happens when you try living for you ?” Wit held up his finger. “I know you can’t answer yet. Go and find out. ” With that, Wit bowed to him. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Kaladin asked.

“For the inspiration,” Wit said, straightening and looking to Kaladin, then to Syl, then smiling in a fond, yet somehow regretful way.

Kaladin felt a chill. “I’m … never going to see you again, am I, Wit?”

“No one knows the future, Kal,” he replied. “Not even me. So instead of saying goodbye, let’s call this … an extended period of necessary separation, requisite to give me time to think of the most perfect, exquisite insult. If I never get to deliver it in person … well, kindly do me the favor of imagining how wonderful it was. All right?”

“All right.”

Wit winked at him, then walked over to rap on the door.

Dalinar opened it a moment later. “Have you finally finished with him, Wit?” the man asked. “I’ve been waiting for a storming hour.”

“He’s all yours,” Wit said, striding away. “Remember what I told you.”

“I will,” both Kaladin and Dalinar said at the same time. They glanced at each other.

“Wit,” Kaladin called just before the man vanished. “What about my story?”

“You will tell your own story this time, Kaladin!” Wit said. “And if you’re lucky, the Wind will join in.” Then he was gone, his last whistle slowly fading.

“Did you ever think,” Kaladin said to Dalinar, “that you’d end up dancing to that man’s whims?”

“I suspect,” Dalinar said, stepping back and waving for Kaladin to enter, “we’ve been dancing to them for years without knowing it. Come. I have a few things to tell you two before you leave.”