Chapter 74

Jasnah says that the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God must be questioned by the simple evidence of injustices done in life to the innocent, such as the child who dies from disease.

—From the epilogue to Oathbringer, by Dalinar Kholin

S igzil clutched his squire Deti in the middle of a battlefield and screamed. For help, for Stormlight, for a healer. His words were lost in the chaos of red lightning and shouting soldiers as the enemy poured in through the hole made by the dead thunderclast, the defenses broken open once more. Lightning flashed from the ground around him as stormforms unleashed their power to mirror that above.

Deti had blood on his lips, and trembled, surrounded by painspren—like tiny disembodied hands, clawing at the ground as they moved. Deti’s panting was dull, lacking Stormlight, which had been depleted in their clash with some Heavenly Ones.

“Take mine!” Sigzil said. “Take my Light, Deti!”

But Sigzil’s gemstones were drained.

Deti put a hand to his face, blood and rain mixing, then gasped. “It comes!” Deti shouted. “The Night of Sorrows! I stand on the precipice of dawn and watch it advance, consuming all light, all life, all hope! IT COMES! ”

Deti’s light faded. Sigzil screamed again and seized a lance from a dead Heavenly One nearby, crumpled in a heap from where Sigzil had dropped her. He raised the weapon, which had drained away Deti’s Stormlight, and bellowed into the night, seeking foes to kill.

He found plenty.

“Sigzil,” Vienta whispered. “You are in command. You cannot afford rage. You must fall back and find Stormlight.”

He rushed toward a group of his soldiers who were surrounded by direform Regals, with their bulky, spiked carapace and glowing red eyes. Sigzil ripped into their ranks, killing with a weapon that could suck away their Voidlight—expelling it into the night, for the gemstone mechanism at the lance’s pommel had cracked in its fall. He did all of this while wielding Vienta as a short dagger in his off hand.

He broke through, and found two Edgedancers among the soldiers. Mere feet away from a dying man they could have saved, had they known. That made even more angerspren boil at his feet.

You need to regroup our forces, Sigzil, Vienta said. You cannot bring Deti back. It’s time to retreat.

Sigzil continued to kill, always underestimated by his foes, as he was shorter than many of the Alethi around him. And storms, his logical side would not shut up. It agreed with Vienta. Once he’d fought those soldiers clear, he led them and the two Edgedancers in a retreat toward a stabilizing line of human forces at the rear of Narak Four. He dismissed his Blade and tossed the stolen lance to an armorer, then took gemstones off a runner boy whose job was to deliver them to Radiants in the field.

There were only a handful, as they had to ration. When were the storming Bondsmiths going to return? Sigzil surveyed the dark plateau, overrun with red-eyed figures, and knew the day was lost. Winn, the old general with a full head of silver hair, joined him.

“Orders, sir?” the elderly general shouted over the thunder.

“Time to retreat,” Sigzil said, breathing deeply, rain streaming down his face. This was his plan, but storms, he’d hoped to hold another day. “Give the command.”

As Winn did so, Sigzil sent Vienta to warn his squires—flying in pairs above—of the situation. He looked across the plateau toward the lump that was Deti, dead on the stone, and felt a treasonous sense of powerlessness.

Storms, he thought. This is what Kal felt, isn’t it? What eventually broke him?

He could learn from what his captain had endured. It wasn’t Sigzil’s fault, but the fault of the enemies, that his squire had fallen. He did his best to quash the thoughts about what he could have done differently, either in training or in the fighting today, to better protect Deti. He focused instead on helping the living. It worked, to an extent.

As his spren arrived, he spent some of his precious Stormlight to rise in the air and defend the back line of soldiers. He could see they took heart from seeing him hovering with his silvery spear in hand. They held stronger, emboldened as groups of beleaguered men found their way to this bastion of defense. More Edgedancers began to streak across the plateau, returning from where they’d been flanking the enemy forces. They picked up the fallen, healing them and carrying them to safety. Sigzil called the final retreat as the Stormwall and his group of Shardbearers held the bridgehead.

Their retreat took them all across Narak Two, the Oathgate plateau, which was connected to all three side plateaus. Narak Prime was to the east, and Narak Three to the southwest. His forces managed to get off the broken plateau, and the Stonewards dropped the bridge.

“The enemy appears to be celebrating,” Vienta whispered in his ear. “I see no indications they plan to push the assault further today. Well done.”

Sigzil nodded curtly, not feeling it. Yes, his plan had worked so far—but if they had to keep rationing Stormlight …

Skar and Leyten landed and checked in with him. Sigzil told them softly about Deti. Skar already knew, his team having done a few passes over the fallen plateau to search for pockets of survivors. They’d seen the body. Nearby, generals began to confer on how to draw enemy attention to Narak Three next, the other plateau they could afford to lose. That was going to be tricky, though Sigzil had some ideas.

For now, another item bothered him. “Leyten, Skar,” he said, “Deti spoke a Death Rattle when he died. Moelach is here.”

Leyten grunted. “I’ll poke around and see if anyone else heard anything from the dying today. I’m not too concerned though. Moelach never takes part in the fighting.”

“There might be other Unmade,” Sigzil warned. “Pass the word, you two.”

“Will do,” Skar said. “You’re not blaming yourself for this, are you?”

“Trying my best not to, but you know how it feels.”

Leyten nodded. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

“I’ll focus on the next phase of our strategy, and the academics will distract me. I can’t afford to mope right now—the generals and troops need to know I’m proud of the fighting they did, and of their excellent execution of my plan.”

“Storms,” Leyten said. “Sig, you really sound like a leader.”

Did he? He … did. “Blame Kaladin,” he said, managing a wan smile despite the day’s gloom. “And what he made of all of us.”

“Blame Kaladin,” Skar agreed. “Storming man and his inspiring ways.”

“Any of you see Moash during the fighting?”

“No,” Leyten said. “But we’re keeping watch. The moment he appears, we’ll make sure you know. Then there will be a reckoning.”

Chaos retreated around Shallan, but she didn’t emerge into a vision—not exactly. Instead, the complex flowing tides of the Spiritual Realm fashioned a kind of wall before her. The cloudy glass grew with the same creeping uncertainty as frost on a window, forming a wide, vaguely round pillar.

Wooden planks in several elevated tiers appeared next, around the glass pillar—and Shallan was able to climb them, as if she stood on some kind of strange scaffolding outside reality. Pattern and Testament emerged with her, and then farther up—because the scaffolding created disjointed levels—Rlain, Renarin, and their spren appeared.

After three attempts, she was slowly getting accustomed to the process. This was all created by Renarin and Glys—using Renarin’s instincts for how it should look, re-creating some scaffolding he’d seen around a monastery in his youth.

Shallan hunted around the pillar for a good spot to peek in. Renarin thought the cloudy glass was a visual manifestation of the uncertainty of this place—but some spots were less opaque. She located one and knelt on the plank, looking through to see a battle happening on the other side. Dalinar and Navani had been moving through the Desolations for some time now, and this pillar was the way that Glys and Tumi allowed Shallan’s team to watch.

They’d seen Desolation after Desolation—sometimes hundreds of years apart—as the Bondsmiths moved out of the shadowdays toward the future. In the last one, Shallan had seen people with spren and powers—early Knights Radiant, complete with Shardplate emblazoned with glyphs. Dalinar had leaped straight over the days of Nohadon, and the founding of the Radiants.

So far, she had spotted no sign of Mraize or Iyatil—either inside or outside the visions. But they’d be there, following Dalinar, as they believed his quest for Honor would lead them to Mishram as well. Today’s battlefield was in Shinovar, and it had changed during the millennia since that first vision. A blanket of languid green grass now grew where once there had been only wet dirt. Trees dotted the landscape in small groups, as if conversing at a dinner party.

Strange, how often the fighting in these visions happened in Shinovar—the isolationist kingdom hadn’t been so unapproachable back then, it seemed. She peered through her clearer section of glass. There. Those glowing figures swooping through the sky … those were Windrunners. Dalinar and Navani were heading straight toward the Recreance: the day oaths had been broken, the origin of the secrets that everyone was hunting.

“Did you see those Windrunners?” Renarin asked, boards creaking as he approached. “And soldiers with good bronze weapons this time. I think they’re finally making technological progress, rather than losing it with each Desolation.”

“We’re too far away from the action,” Shallan said, squinting. “Can you get us in closer?”

“I’ll talk to Glys,” he said.

Suddenly their window looked straight into the midst of a battle with the singers—a hectic mess. Yes, the Radiants were here, but not in the distinct uniforms she was accustomed to. However, the human combatants did maintain a formation for once. A giant shield wall with spears.

“That almost looks modern,” Rlain said from somewhere nearby. “Your people are using the same tactics here that they used against mine on the Shattered Plains.”

“Not exactly,” Renarin said. “That’s a shield wall, yes, but not a modern flexible block. No pikes, no cavalry, no heavy infantry—just well-drilled light infantry. This is still thousands of years ago, but something big has changed.”

“Metalworking,” Rlain said.

“It’s more that they can achieve continuity,” Shallan said. “People can start progressing at last, now that society isn’t obliterated every time the Fused return.”

“Exactly,” Renarin said. “While even the Recreance is shadowed, we have learned a lot from Father’s previous visions, and have some fragmentary texts from before. The Radiants during this period became a stable force connecting the people between Returns—a group of warriors who trained during the decades of peace, and were ready when the battle inevitably came.”

“Watchers at the rim,” Shallan whispered.

“Against my people,” Rlain said.

“Against the worst instincts in all people,” Shallan said, pulling back from the window. “Rlain, you yourself explained to me how the listeners refused to continue the fighting—and left. The Fused didn’t just oppress us. They did your kind as well.”

Rlain shook his head. “That’s too simple an explanation, Shallan. One side escalates, so the other must match—or go further. The Fused wouldn’t exist if the humans hadn’t begun to outgrow the land given them. The Heralds wouldn’t exist if the Fused hadn’t been created to stop this incursion.

“In turn, the Fused hardened—growing more and more determined each time they returned, learning to fight and defeat the Heralds. Humankind was left desolate, which led to the founding of the Radiants. The war simply kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning. I can decry the bloodshed, but I don’t blame the singers of these ancient days. Humans broke their promises and invaded. What else would you do but fight?”

She looked back at the window and saw a group of five Fused—Magnified Ones—smashing into the human phalanx, throwing men into the air. Stonewards came in, dashing to counter them, their brilliant armor appearing out of place on this battlefield. Those were essentially modern Shardbearers, among common soldiers wearing sculpted bronze breastplates, the kind she’d seen in a museum in Kharbranth.

“I …” she said. “Rlain, the singer side did serve Odium.”

“Because the other gods refused to help them.” He hummed to a soft rhythm. “This ancient war ended with the mass enslavement of my kind, save a handful. Is that the only acceptable answer? One people or another has to be subjugated, or even destroyed?”

“Rlain,” Renarin said, “my father is trying to end the war with peace. He’s willing to risk our homeland for it. There are other answers. There have to be.”

“If Odium will let any of those answers work,” Rlain said. “And what will your father’s peace offer my people? They are abandoned to the enemy god. I wish … I wish there were something to be done not only for the humans, but for the singers too.”

They fell quiet, watching death play out on the historical battlefield. Shallan tried to make sense of it, to see if she could spot Dalinar and Navani. But this was too close.

“Can you move us to the top of that hill?” she asked.

“This isn’t your map with Father, Shallan,” Renarin said. “I can’t just zoom us around. Glys says we’re lucky to see anything.”

“Give it a try, please,” she said. She couldn’t afford to get distracted by the historical implications of all this—she was here to stop Mraize and Iyatil.

Renarin and Glys discussed, and their window jumped to a hilltop. Not the one she’d requested, but it would work. Their window wouldn’t be visible to those inside the vision, Glys assured them. It still felt strange; soldiers could run straight through them, without noticing.

“There,” she said, finding Dalinar and Navani watching from another hill. She smiled, as seeing them reminded her of Adolin—who hopefully was having a much easier time than she was. Dalinar and Navani would likely observe this vision a short time, find out the year if they could, then use their anchor to jump forward many years, skipping Desolations.

She hoped they wouldn’t end up skipping the most important moments, requiring backtracking. But it felt to her that fate itself—or the power that made up the Spiritual Realm—recognized when events had significance. Maybe because humans and singers gave them importance. That sort of thing echoed, and also let you predict the future a little. Wit had, by his own explanation, come to Roshar specifically because he’d been able to feel that important events were impending. He’d once even attended a festival near her home estates.

Two Heralds crested a hill nearby, and Shallan glanced away. Shallan … Veil said inside her.

She forced herself to look back. At a woman with red hair, walking beside Jezrien the king.

The implications of this are daunting, Radiant thought.

We have to acknowledge them anyway, Veil said.

For now, Shallan let herself turn away. “What is that ?” she said, pointing to a darkened area where the grass was in shadow but no cloud was visible.

“Glys says one of the Unmade is there,” Renarin said, stepping closer to her. “It’s … Shallan, it’s Ba-Ado-Mishram. Not the real her, of course—a historical reconstruction in the vision.”

They’d caught glimpses of the other Unmade during previous battles, and Shallan felt annoyed that she hadn’t been able to see their creation. That event was mysterious even to the spren. What were the Unmade? Regardless, they’d never caught sight of Mishram before in one of these.

“I’m going in,” Shallan said. “Tell Glys to send me.”

“We said we were going to stay outside,” Renarin said, hopping down to her level, shaking the scaffolding. “Only send in illusions.”

“We said,” Shallan replied, “that we’d send in illusions until we saw something important. I recognize that stopping Mraize and Iyatil is most important, but maybe interacting with Mishram—even the historical one—could tell us something.”

“You still want to find the prison, don’t you?” Renarin asked. “Whether or not we stop the Ghostbloods first.”

And … was he humming to a rhythm?

Rlain stepped up to the edge of the higher scaffolding. “I think she should go in, Renarin. The plan is working—we have surveyed the landscape and looked for the Ghostbloods. Plus, with this framework, you and I can keep watch on her.”

“All right,” Renarin said. “Wave if something is wrong, and we’ll pull you out.”

Shallan nodded, and an eyeblink later she was inside the vision.