Chapter 43

Now, it stands to the accountability of reason that orders of Radiants, greatly interposed from common nature by their various oaths, should have had some controversions one to another.

—From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 1

D alinar felt warm.

As if he’d slipped into a bath, a touch warmer than was comfortable at first, but then his heat blended with it—and it became perfect. Enveloping. Safe.

So long as he kept his eyes closed.

When he made the mistake of peeking, chaos reigned, trying to tear him from the warmth. Suddenly he was a child with his grandfather, bringing water to the practice grounds in an old, dusty part of Alethkar.

In a flash it was his wedding night with Evi, where he performed inadequately in a drunken stupor.

Then he was the man he’d been just a year ago, getting the report that Elhokar was dead. A son, sure as his own, lost to the Halls forever.

Cultivation had said he needed to see the past, and so he traveled it—but this was too many versions of himself to contain. So he closed his eyes.

And floated in warmth.

He vaguely remembered opening the perpendicularity in Urithiru with Navani. Something had … had gone wrong. His anchor had been severed; he’d been pulled in without a way home.

That was all right. He’d always been here, and should remain here. What were worries compared to this beautiful sense of peace? Here, nothing at all mattered …

He peeked.

He was walking across a battlefield, bloodied, searching for his brother. Dragging the corpse of a friend by one hand, because—in his stupor—he couldn’t leave the body behind. Blood trailed him like paint on a glyphward, a long stroke, using a once-human brush.

He closed his eyes again. Were all those versions of him truly the same person? Or were they paintings made of lying colors on a canvas? Arranged to give a sense of continuity, but in reality fractured.

Better to float.

No. Again he opened his eyes. He was a youth, angry at being mocked by well-dressed men from Kholinar. He was furious his father hadn’t defended Kholin honor, though he would later find that his father’s growing—but still hidden—senility was making him timid to appear in public.

Gavilar—noble Gavilar—stood nearby and watched, hands clasped behind his back. His expression distant.

Dalinar squeezed his eyes closed. Why did he keep opening them?

Because without reminders I’ll float here forever. This isn’t why I came. I have a purpose.

He would not find ancient secrets by happenstance. He would not save his people by doing what was easy. So, feeling as if he were fighting a terrible current, he reached into his pocket and found salvation.

A rock.

The one Wit had given him to tie him to the past. Show me! he thought, and he might have bellowed it as well. Take me here!

The warmth resisted. Why would it resist?

Please, Dalinar thought. I must see.

It will destroy you.

Had he really heard that? Was that … Honor’s power?

Please, he repeated, mouthing the word.

It will destroy us.

Please.

He dropped onto something hard. Hesitant, he blinked, opening his eyes to find himself kneeling among a few singers. They wore basic clothing: loincloths, some straps around their carapace. Their forms didn’t seem intimidating; more armored than workform, but not so much as warform.

“You all right, Moash?” one of them asked.

Moash? Did they see him as …

No, that was just an ancient name that had survived. Navani had mentioned reading it in her Dawnchant explorations. With his Connection to the Physical Realm severed, he could not return—but had he at least managed to reach the past?

Those singers still clustered around him, so he took one of their offered hands and let her help him to his feet.

“Sorry,” he said. “I tripped.”

They nodded, and everyone continued on, hiking up through a mountain pass. As in his other visions, he had taken the place of someone from history. These would see him as that person, though he saw himself as he was. The vision also made up for his basic failings—for instance, although he did not speak with a singer rhythm, the others didn’t notice.

He made a snap decision and tried to reach for his powers and open a pathway home. It didn’t work. He could access Stormlight—it was all around him, infusing everything. But when he tried to Connect the realms, slapping his hands together, nothing happened. Hadn’t Wit explained something about this? Perpendicularities didn’t work the other way.

Storms. He was trapped in here.

The others glanced back at him, so he hastened to catch up. If he acted wildly out of character, people in the vision would start getting confused, and the whole thing could break down. So he tried to keep pace while …

Wait. How much time had passed?

With a mounting horror, he pushed up his wide jacket sleeve to reveal his leather bracer strapped on over his shirt, set with Navani’s fabrials. Including the clock and day counter. Storms. He’d lost an entire day. That was disturbing, but a part of him was also relieved. The way Wit had spoken … it seemed Dalinar could have passed weeks, months, or more without noticing.

Well, this clock was tied to Wit’s. Maybe that could provide an anchor to get home? He tried using that tether, but again nothing happened. Either he was too inexperienced, or it was too weak a Connection to use to get home.

“Keep up, Moash!” one of the singers called.

“Sorry,” he said, puffing as he ran. Was he really that out of shape? Granted, some singer forms gave their hosts great endurance, so maybe he shouldn’t compare himself.

The landscape around them was sparsely forested, and home to a particularly rugged kind of rockbud with a thicker shell and shorter vines than he was accustomed to. Together, he and the singers finally crested the rise, and he was relieved to see a flat pass on the other side. The air was chill as the group continued forward.

Nine of us, he thought. Where is Navani?

Was she one of these singers? In the past, when he’d managed to bring her into a vision with him, they’d seen each other as they truly were—but who knew if those rules would hold? Before, his experience had been curated by the Stormfather.

As they hurried along, Dalinar checked his arm clock again, worried that he’d lose another day somehow. Instead he found the reverse: though he felt as if he’d been climbing for an hour or more, mere seconds had passed on his clock. Storms.

But how did he get home? He trekked through the pass with the others and saw, below, a vast wasteland of crem. A flat brown plain with nothing growing from it. Where was he? He’d never seen anything like this on Roshar. Except …

If Wit was right, he thought, this stone has brought me to witness the arrival of humans on Roshar. Which means that expanse of brown crem … that’s Shinovar, isn’t it?

“What makes it that way?” he asked out loud.

“The mud field?” the femalen from earlier asked. “That’s a question for the little gods, not for me, Moash.”

“There,” another of the team said. “The thieves are trying to skirt the base of the mountains.”

Dalinar followed their gesture, and spotted another group of singers. Only three, leading a group of small chulls along the edge of the mud field below.

“Chull rustlers,” he muttered. “All that running to chase down a few chull rustlers?”

They started descending immediately, taking the slope at a dangerous speed, at least for a human. He fell behind again, and eventually they just went on without him. By the time he reached the base of the slope—puffing and sweating—the others had recaptured their chulls. The rustlers ran off.

The chulls, for their part, barely seemed to have noticed. The large crustaceans rooted around on the ground, searching for rockbuds to chew. They appeared to be juveniles, as they were barely as tall as a person.

“You all right, Moash?” the femalen asked, trotting up to him.

“Fine,” he said. “I think I injured my ankle when I fell earlier.”

He sat on a rock, sweating. If this vision was like the others, these weren’t actual people he was talking to, but … echoes of them. Re-creations. This was like a play, pulled from the mists of time. As he sat, he drew in a little Stormlight—not enough to glow and look odd. His fatigue melted away, and he felt steadier. Yes, everything here was made of Stormlight.

He stood and walked to the edge of the seemingly endless brown plain. He tapped his toe against it, and found it more firm than he’d expected. It wasn’t crem though—it felt wrong. Mud? Like the word “muddy,” a synonym for dirty? The ground was said to be strange in Shinovar.

The femalen joined him, testing with her toe as well. She hummed something that sounded curious.

“Firmer than you thought?” Dalinar guessed.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve heard stories of entire hunting parties being swallowed by this stuff. It’s not supposed to harden like crem, but I swear we could walk on this.”

“Maybe it swallows you when you get farther out,” he said.

“A horrible place,” she said. “Come. We’re going to make camp, prepare for the storm.”

The storm? he thought. Damnation.

Singers could survive out in a highstorm. Technically, humans could too—he’d walked some during his time, particularly in his more reckless years as a youth. With a little age as seasoning, however, he looked back upon those days with chagrin. So foolhardy.

Perhaps the storm would be calmer here in Shinovar. The others found a stone hollow nearby, and settled down to feed the chulls and prepare a small camp. No metal, Dalinar noted as one of them hobbled the chulls by tying their feet together with vine ropes. I really am in the deep past, aren’t I?

So long as he couldn’t escape, he should try to learn something. Unfortunately, it was difficult to concentrate, worried as he was about Navani. Was she floating in that chaos somewhere, confronted by flashes of her past?

Navani, he thought. Navani …

Something latched on to him, a bond that glowed briefly like a silver cord. It yanked on him, and he felt a physical force that made him stumble. It was her. Pulling on him … like he’d pulled on that stone that Wit had given him. It had been his anchor. Now he was hers.

A moment later, the femalen stiffened, then her form melted, shifting like a Lightweaving to become Navani in her brilliant red havah. Dalinar blessed his fathers softly and trotted over, taking her by the arm as she wavered, dizzy. She gripped him, then glanced around.

“Did we do it?” she asked. “Is this … the past?”

Dalinar led her to the edge of the mud, away from the others. “I think it worked, Navani. The stone Wit gave us brought me here, but something is wrong. I feel no tether back to the Physical Realm—the clock works, but it says we’ve lost a day already.” He checked his arm with a sudden panic, but time seemed consistent now that he was in a vision. Though another hour had passed in here, the clock said mere minutes had passed in the Physical Realm.

“It could have been worse, I suppose,” she said, turning around. “Shinovar?”

“I believe so. I appeared with this group of singers.” He held up Wit’s rock. “This must be the day humans arrive. We’re a little early, I’d guess.” He turned toward the other singers. “Perhaps we can get something useful out of them.”

“Perhaps,” Navani said, her hand still on his arm. “Dalinar, I felt something when I was floating. A … tugging toward you that I was able to solidify, but there were others. I think there might be someone else in here with us.”

Dalinar rubbed his chin. “Perhaps whatever took us brought Wit as well. Or it could be the Stormfather; he exists partially in this place.” He nodded toward the singers again. “I’m going to try something. Might as well use the time we have, right?”

Navani nodded, following him as he walked to the group of singers. There, he put his hands on his hips and announced, “What do you lot think of Honor, the god?”

Beside him Navani snickered, and when he glanced at her, she’d put her hand up in front of her mouth to hide a smile.

“What?” he demanded.

“That’s your delicate plan to gather information?”

“I didn’t say it was delicate.” He eyed her. “Chull in a library?” he said, using one of her metaphors for him.

“Chull in a storming glassware shop, Dalinar.”

Well, his question got the attention of the singers. One stood up, a malen with a thick beard, who hummed to a rhythm Dalinar couldn’t pick out.

“Well?” Dalinar asked.

“I didn’t realize they’d gotten to you, Moash,” the singer said. “I’m tired of this argument.”

Dalinar shared a grin with Navani. Being direct wasn’t always the best strategy, but it was almost always a functional one.

“Tell me why,” Navani said. “I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Honor is our god,” the bearded one said, waving in annoyance and changing his rhythm. “His traditions are good enough for me.”

“The traditions are wrong,” said a femalen, tall and limber, not facing the malen as she worked. “Honor did not give us the spren, or the forms. They were gifts from the Origin of Songs, and They will return. Someday.”

“Origin of Songs,” Navani said softly. “My mind is translating the words, but I can pick up some of the grammar if I try. I think that’s referencing a person.”

“Adonalsium,” Dalinar guessed, using a name Wit had told him.

“Adonalsium,” the femalen singer agreed, still working. “Will come back for us. Until then, we have the Wind, the Stone, the spren. The life of trees and light of day. That is what we should worship.”

The others hummed in what seemed disagreement. When Dalinar prodded further, nobody acknowledged his questions.

“A problem with bluntness,” Navani whispered to him. “Sometimes you cut off future opportunities.”

He grunted in reply and considered what else to ask, then noticed the sky darkening, clouds billowing forward. He’d forgotten about the storm, but the reports seemed true about Shinovar: instead of a stormwall that tossed boulders, he was met with a strong—but not life-threatening—downpour. It lasted a mere fifteen or twenty minutes, during which rainspren dotted the ground like candles. After the initial deluge, the rain softened, becoming almost pleasant.

The singers settled onto their knees, then together sang. Each one chose their own words, but used the same rhythm and notes. Prayers, he realized, and suddenly felt that he was intruding. Navani took his hand, and then something crested the mountaintops—a shimmering distortion that shifted raindrops and frightened rockbuds. It had no color or light, but he could see it in the way it made the air ripple and the rain tremble. A wave like a flowing river, which washed down the slope, trailed by thousands of windspren.

Dalinar stepped in front of Navani by instinct, but the force broke around them, splitting in half—again like a flowing river. It brought with it a peaceful sensation and a wind that rippled his wet clothing. The rain’s chill faded to a comforting warmth, and fell into a pattern of sound.

We see you, a soft voice, overlapping like a chorus, said in his ear. Man from another time. Woman from a tower reborn.

“What … what are you?” Navani asked.

We are the Wind, the voices said. Caretakers of this land. And you are …?

“Travelers,” Dalinar said. “Witnesses.”

Come to see the change, the Wind said. Ah … the arrival.

“It is soon?” Dalinar asked.

Very soon. Very soon. The Wind swirled around them. Ah … but you are of them. The humans. So you come to know your forefathers …

“Pardon,” Navani said, “but do you know this … is just a vision?”

We have always been, the Wind said. But no thing can remain as it always was. This place is a piece of time, and we see it, experience it. We also see now—and what we have become. We are quiet, in your time, and lose our voice.

“Windspren? Is that what you become?”

The windspren? the Wind said. No, they continue, as we weaken from the arrival of new gods. We see this. We see. The ones you sent, Bondsmiths. The soldier and the assassin. They are where you stand now, but in another time …

Szeth and Kaladin had reached Shinovar? That was good to know. Dalinar took a deep breath, wondering if there was a way to communicate with them. Except … what could they do to help?

The best way to proceed was to accomplish his goal. See the past, learn the truths, and use that knowledge to gain Honor’s power. With that, he could get them home.

“I need to know why Honor’s power abandoned mankind,” Dalinar said to the Wind. “I have to access it. Take it up.”

At that, the Wind laughed.

“Do you know how I can persuade it to accept me?”

It surrounds you, but you cannot persuade it. Honor’s power is stubborn. Now, watch. It is time to see.

It flowed past them onto the mudflats. There, in the near distance, a light split the sky—and a portal opened to another world.

One on fire.