The Way of Kings (146 page)

Dalinar felt a chill. He had thought that this vision must come after his previous one, but prior visions hadn’t been chronological. He hadn’t seen any Knights Radiant yet, but that might not be because they had disbanded. Perhaps they didn’t
exist
yet. And perhaps there was a reason this man’s words sounded so familiar.

Could it be? Could he really be standing beside the very man whose words Dalinar had listened to time and time again? “There is honor in loss,” Dalinar said carefully, using words repeated several times in
The Way of Kings
.

“If that loss brings learning.” The man smiled. “Using my own sayings against me again, Karm?”

Dalinar felt himself grow short of breath. The man himself. Nohadon. The great king. He was real. Or he had been real. This man was younger than Dalinar had imagined him, but that humble, yet regal bearing… yes, it was right.

“I’m thinking of giving up my throne,” Nohadon said softly.

“No!” Dalinar stepped toward him. “You mustn’t.”

“I cannot lead them,” the man said. “Not if this is what my leadership brings them to.”

“Nohadon.”

The man turned to him, frowning. “What?”

Dalinar paused. Could he be wrong about this man’s identity? But no. The name Nohadon was more of a title. Many famous people in history had been given holy names by the Church, before it was disbanded. Even Bajerden wasn’t likely to be his real name; that was lost in time.

“It is nothing,” Dalinar said. “You cannot give up your throne. The people need a leader.”

“They
have
leaders,” Nohadon said. “There are princes, kings, Soulcasters, Surgebinders. We never lack men and women who wish to lead.”

“True,” Dalinar said, “but we do lack ones who are good at it.”

Nohadon leaned over the railing. He stared at the fallen, an expression of deep grief—and trouble—on his face. It was so strange to see the man like this. He was so young. Dalinar had never imagined such insecurity, such torment, in him.

“I know that feeling,” Dalinar said softly. “The uncertainty, the shame, the confusion.”

“You can read me too well, old friend.”

“I know those emotions because I’ve felt them. I… I never assumed that you would feel them too.”

“Then I correct myself. Perhaps you don’t know me well enough.”

Dalinar fell silent.

“So what do I do?” Nohadon asked.

“You’re asking
me
?”

“You’re my advisor, aren’t you? Well, I should like some advice.”

“I… You can’t give up your throne.”

“And what should I do with it?” Nohadon turned and walked along the long balcony. It seemed to run around this entire level. Dalinar joined him, passing places where the stone was ripped, the railing broken away.

“I haven’t faith in people any longer, old friend,” Nohadon said. “Put two men together, and they will find something to argue about. Gather them into groups, and one group will find reason to oppress or attack another. Now this. How do I protect them? How do I stop this from happening again?”

“You dictate a book,” Dalinar said eagerly. “A grand book to give people hope, to explain your philosophy on leadership and how lives should be lived!”

“A book? Me. Write a book?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a fantastically
stupid
idea.”

Dalinar’s jaw dropped.

“The world as we know it has quite nearly been destroyed,” Nohadon said. “Barely a family exists that hasn’t lost half its members! Our best men are corpses on that field, and we haven’t food to last more than two or three months at best. And I’m to spend my time writing a book? Who would scribe it for me? All of my wordsmen were slaughtered when Yelignar broke into the chancery. You’re the only man of letters I know of who’s still alive.”

A
man
of letters? This
was
an odd time. “I could write it, then.”

“With one arm? Have you learned to write left-handed, then?”

Dalinar looked down. He had both of his arms, though apparently the man Nohadon saw was missing his right.

“No, we need to rebuild,” Nohadon said. “I just wish there were a way to convince the kings—the ones still alive—not to seek advantage over one another.” Nohadon tapped the balcony. “So this is my decision. Step down, or do what is needed. This isn’t a time for writing. It’s a time for action. And then, unfortunately, a time for the sword.”

The sword?
Dalinar thought.
From you, Nohadon?

It wouldn’t happen. This man would become a great philosopher; he would teach peace and reverence for others, and would not force men to do as he wished. He would
guide
them to acting with honor.

Nohadon turned to Dalinar. “I apologize, Karm. I should not dismiss your suggestions right after asking for them. I’m on edge, as I imagine that we all are. At times, it seems to me that to be human is to want that which we cannot have. For some, this is power. For me, it is peace.”

Nohadon turned, walking back down the balcony. Though his pace was slow, his posture indicated that he wished to be alone. Dalinar let him go.

“He goes on to become one of the most influential writers Roshar has ever known,” Dalinar said.

There was silence, save for the calls of the people working below, gathering the corpses.

“I know you’re there,” Dalinar said.

Silence.

“What does he decide?” Dalinar asked. “Did he unite them, as he wanted?”

The voice that often spoke in his visions did not come. Dalinar received no answer to his questions. He sighed, turning to look out over the fields of dead.

“You are right about one thing, at least, Nohadon. To be human is to want that which we cannot have.”

The landscape darkened, the sun setting. That darkness enveloped him, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in his rooms, standing with his hands on the back of a chair. He turned to Adolin and Renarin, who stood nearby, anxious, prepared to grab him if he got violent.

“Well,” Dalinar said, “that was meaningless. I learned nothing. Blast! I’m doing a poor job of—”

“Dalinar,” Navani said curtly, still scribbling with a reed at her paper. “The last thing you said before the vision ended. What was it?”

Dalinar frowned. “The last…”

“Yes,” Navani said, urgent. “The very last words you spoke.”

“I was quoting the man I’d been speaking with. ‘To be human is to want that which we cannot have.’ Why?”

She ignored him, writing furiously. Once done, she slid off the high-legged chair, hurrying to his bookshelf. “Do you have a copy of… Yes, I thought you might. These are Jasnah’s books, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Dalinar said. “She wanted them cared for until she returned.”

Navani pulled a volume off the shelf. “Corvana’s
Analectics
.” She set the volume on the writing desk and leafed through the pages.

Dalinar joined her, though—of course—he couldn’t make sense of the page. “What does it matter?”

“Here,” Navani said. She looked up at Dalinar. “When you go into these visions of yours, you know that you speak.”

“Gibberish. Yes, my sons have told me.”

“Anak malah kaf, del makian habin yah,”
Navani said. “Sound familiar?”

Dalinar shook his head, baffled.

“It sounds a lot like what father was saying,” Renarin said. “When he was in the vision.”

“Not ‘a lot like’ Renarin,” Navani said, looking smug. “It’s exactly the same phrase. That is the last thing you said before coming out of your trance. I wrote down everything—as best I could—that you babbled today.”

“For what purpose?” Dalinar asked.

“Because,” Navani said “I thought it might be helpful. And it was. The same phrase is in the
Analectics
, almost exactly.”

“What?” Dalinar asked, incredulous. “How?”

“It’s a line from a song,” Navani said. “A chant by the Vanrial, an order of artists who live on the slopes of the Silent Mount in Jah Keved. Year after year, century after century, they’ve sung these same words—songs they claim were written in the Dawnchant by the Heralds themselves. They have the words of those songs, written in an ancient script. But the
meanings
have been lost. They’re just sounds, now. Some scholars believe that the script—and the songs themselves—may indeed be in the Dawnchant.”

“And I…” Dalinar said.

“You just spoke a line from one of them,” Navani said. “Beyond that, if the phrase you just gave me is correct, you
translated
it. This could prove the Vanrial Hypothesis! One sentence isn’t much, but it could give us the key to translating the entire script. It has been itching at me for a while, listening to these visions. I
thought
the things you were saying had too much order to be gibberish.” She looked at Dalinar, smiling deeply. “Dalinar, you might just have cracked one of the most perplexing—and ancient— mysteries of all time.”

“Wait,” Adolin said. “What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying, nephew,” Navani said, looking directly at him, “is that we have your proof.”

“But,” Adolin said. “I mean, he could have heard that one phrase…”

“And extrapolated an entire language from it?” Navani said, holding up a sheet full of writings. “This
is not
gibberish, but it’s no language that people now speak. I suspect it is what it seems, the Dawnchant. So unless you can think of another way your father learned to speak a dead language, Adolin, the visions are most certainly real.”

The room fell silent. Navani herself looked stunned by what she had said. She shook it off quickly. “Now, Dalinar,” she said, “I want you to describe this vision as accurately as possible. I need the exact words you spoke, if you can recall them. Every bit we gather will help my scholars sort through this….”

“In the storm I awaken, falling, spinning, grieving.”

—Dated Kakanev, 1173, 13 seconds pre-death. Subject was a city guardsman.

“How can you be so sure it was him, Dalinar?” Navani asked softly.

Dalinar shook his head. “I just am. That was Nohadon.”

It had been several hours since the end of the vision. Navani had left her writing table to sit in a more comfortable chair near Dalinar. Renarin sat across from him, accompanying them for propriety’s sake. Adolin had left to get the highstorm damage report. The lad had seemed very disturbed by the discovery that the visions were real.

“But the man you saw never spoke his name,” Navani said.

“It was him, Navani.” Dalinar stared toward the wall over Renarin’s head, looking at the smooth brown Soulcast rock. “There was an aura of command about him, the weight of great responsibilities. A regality.”

“It could have been some other king,” she said. “After all, he discarded your suggestion that he write a book.”

“It just wasn’t the time for him to write it yet. So much death… He was cast down by some great loss. Stormfather! Nine out of ten people dead in war. Can you imagine such a thing?”

“The Desolations,” Navani said.

Unite the people…. The True Desolation comes….

“Do you know of any references to the Desolations?” Dalinar asked. “Not the tales ardents tell. Historical references?”

Navani held a cup of warmed violet wine in her hand, beads of condensation on the rim of the glass. “Yes, but I am the wrong one to ask. Jasnah is the historian.”

“I think I saw the aftermath of one. I… I may have seen corpses of Voidbringers. Could that give us more proof?”

“Nothing nearly as good as the linguistics.” Navani took a sip of her wine. “The Desolations are matters of ancient lore. It could be argued that you imagined what you expected to see. But those words—if we can translate them, nobody will be able to dispute that you are seeing something real.” Her writing board lay on the low table between them, reed and ink set carefully across the paper.

“You intend to tell others?” Dalinar asked. “Of my visions?”

“How else will we explain what is happening to you?”

Dalinar hesitated. How could he explain? On one hand, it was relieving to know that he was not mad. But what if some force were trying to mislead him with these visions, using images of Nohadon and the Radiants because he would find them trustworthy?