The Way of Kings (167 page)

“Idiot girl,” Jasnah said, waving. The oceanlike beads to the left split, and the raft lurched, bearing them sideways toward a few flames of light. Jasnah shoved Shallan into one of the small flames, and she fell backward off the raft.

And hit the floor of the alcove. Jasnah sat where she had been, eyes closed. A moment later, she opened them, giving Shallan an angry look.

“Idiot girl!” Jasnah repeated. “You have no
idea
how dangerous that was. Visiting Shadesmar with only a single dim sphere? Idiot!”

Shallan coughed, feeling as if she still had beads in her throat. She stumbled to her feet, meeting Jasnah’s gaze. The other woman still looked angry, but said nothing.
She knows that I have her,
Shallan realized.
If I spread the truth…

What would it mean? She had strange powers. Did that make Jasnah some kind of Voidbringer? What would people say? No wonder she’d created the decoy.

“I want to be part of it,” Shallan found herself saying.

“Excuse me?”

“Whatever you’re doing. Whatever it is you’re researching. I want to be part of it.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying.”

“I know,” Shallan said. “I’m ignorant. There’s a simple cure for that.” She stepped forward. “I want to
know
, Jasnah. I want to be your ward in truth. Whatever the source of this thing you can do, I can do it too. I want you to train me and let me be part of your work.”

“You stole from me.”

“I know,” Shallan said. “And I’m sorry.”

Jasnah raised an eyebrow.

“I won’t excuse myself,” Shallan said. “But Jasnah, I came here intending to steal from you. I was planning it from the beginning.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“I planned to steal from Jasnah the bitter heretic,” Shallan said. “I didn’t realize I’d come to regret the need for that theft. Not just because of you, but because it meant leaving
this
. What I’ve come to love. Please. I made a mistake.”

“A large one. Insurmountable.”

“Don’t make a larger one by sending me away. I can be someone you don’t have to lie to. Someone who knows.”

Jasnah sat back.

“I stole the fabrial on the night you killed those men, Jasnah,” Shallan said. “I’d decided I couldn’t do it, but you convinced me that truth was not as simple as I thought it. You’ve opened a box full of storms in me. I made a mistake. I’ll make more. I need you.”

Jasnah took a deep breath. “Sit down.”

Shallan sat.

“You will never lie to me again,” Jasnah said, raising a finger. “And you will never steal from me, or anyone, again.”

“I promise.”

Jasnah sat for a moment, then sighed. “Scoot over here,” she said, pulling open a book.

Shallan obeyed as Jasnah took out several sheets filled with notes. “What is this?” Shallan asked.

“You wanted to be part of what I’m doing? Well, you’ll need to read this.” Jasnah looked down at the notes. “It’s about the Voidbringers.”

Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, walked with bowed back, carrying a sack of grain down off the ship and onto the docks of Kharbranth. The City of Bells smelled of a fresh ocean morning, peaceful yet excited, fishermen calling to friends as they prepared their nets.

Szeth joined the other porters, carrying his sack through the twisting streets. Perhaps another merchant might have used a chull cart, but Kharbranth was infamous for its crowds and its steep walkways. A line of porters was an efficient option.

Szeth kept his eyes down. Partially to imitate the look of a worker. Partially to lower his gaze from the blazing sun above, the god of gods, who watched him and saw his shame. Szeth should not have been out during the day. He should have hidden his terrible face.

He felt his every step should leave a bloody footprint. The massacres he’d committed these months, working for his hidden master… He could hear the dead scream every time he closed his eyes. They grated against his soul, rubbing it to nothing, haunting him, consuming him.

So many dead. So very many dead.

Was he losing his mind? Each time he went on an assassination, he found himself blaming the victims. He cursed them for not being strong enough to fight back and kill him.

During each of his slaughters, he wore white, just as he had been commanded.

One foot in front of the other. Don’t think. Don’t focus on what you’ve done. On what you’re… going to do.

He had reached the last name on the list: Taravangian, the king of Kharbranth. A beloved monarch, known for building and maintaining hospitals in his city. It was known as far away as Azir that if you were sick, Taravangian would take you in. Come to Kharbranth and be healed. The king loved all.

And Szeth was going to kill him.

At the top of the steep city, Szeth lugged his sack with the other porters around to the back of the palace structure, entering a dim stone corridor. Taravangian was a simpleminded man. That should have made Szeth feel more guilty, but he found himself consumed by loathing. Taravangian would not be smart enough to prepare for Szeth. Fool. Idiot. Would Szeth never face a foe strong enough to kill him?

Szeth had come to the city early and taken the job as a porter. He had needed to research and study, for the instructions commanded him—for once—not to kill anyone else in performing this assassination. Taravangian’s murder was to be done quietly.

Why the difference? The instructions stated that he was to deliver a message. “The others are dead. I’ve come to finish the job.” The instructions were explicit: Make certain Taravangian heard and acknowledged the words before harming him.

This was looking like a work of vengeance. Someone had sent Szeth to hunt down and destroy the men who had wronged him. Szeth laid his sack down in the palace larder. He turned automatically, following the shuffling line of porters back down the hallway. He nodded toward the servants’ privy, and the portermaster waved for him to go ahead. Szeth had made this same haul on several occasions, and could be trusted—presumably—to do his business and catch up.

The privy didn’t smell half as foul as he had anticipated. It was a dark room, cut into the underground cavern, but a candle burned beside a man standing at the pissing trough. He nodded to Szeth, tying up the front of his trousers and wiping his fingers on the sides as he walked to the door. He took his candle, but kindly lit a leftover stub before withdrawing.

As soon as he was gone, Szeth infused himself with Stormlight from his pouch and laid his hand on the door, performing a Full Lashing between it and the frame, locking it closed. His Shardblade came out next. In the palace, everything was built downward. Trusting the maps he’d purchased, he knelt and carved a square of rock from the floor, wider at the bottom. As it began to slide down, Szeth infused it with Stormlight, performing half a Basic Lashing upward, making the rock weightless.

Next, he Lashed himself upward with a subtle Lashing that left him weighing only a tenth his normal weight. He leapt onto the rock, and his lessened weight pushed the rock down slowly. He rode it down into the room below. Three couches with plush violet cushions lined the walls, sitting beneath fine silver mirrors. The lighteyes’ privy. A lamp burned with a small flame in the sconce, but Szeth was alone.

The stone thumped softly to the floor, and Szeth leaped off. He shed his clothing, revealing a black and white master-servant’s outfit underneath. He took a matching cap from the pocket and slipped it on, reluctantly dismissed his Blade, then slipped into the hallway and quickly Lashed the door shut.

These days, he rarely gave a thought to the fact that he walked on stone. Once, he would have revered a corridor of rock like this. Had that man once been him? Had he ever revered anything?

Szeth hurried onward. His time was short. Fortunately, King Taravangian kept a strict schedule. Seventh bell: private reflection in his study. Szeth could see the doorway into the study ahead, guarded by two soldiers.

Szeth bowed his head, hiding his Shin eyes and hurrying up to them. One of the men held out his hand wardingly, so Szeth grabbed it, twisting, shattering the wrist. He smashed his elbow into the man’s face, throwing him back against the wall.

The man’s stunned companion opened his mouth to yell, but Szeth kicked him in the stomach. Even without a Shardblade, he was dangerous, infused with Stormlight and trained in kammar. He grabbed the second guard by the hair and slammed his forehead against the rock floor. Then he rose and kicked open the door.

He walked into a room well illuminated by a double row of lamps on the left. Crammed bookcases covered the right wall from floor to ceiling. A man sat cross-legged on a small rug directly ahead of Szeth. The man looked out an enormous window cut through the rock, staring at the ocean beyond.

Szeth strode forward. “I have been instructed to tell you that the others are dead. I’ve come to finish the job.” He raised his hands, Shardblade forming.

The king did not turn.

Szeth hesitated. He had to make certain the man acknowledged what had been said. “Did you hear me?” Szeth demanded, striding forward.

“Did you kill my guards, Szeth-son-son-Vallano?” the king asked quietly.

Szeth froze. He cursed and stepped backward, raising his Blade in a defensive stance. Another trap?

“You have done your work well,” the king said, still not facing him. “Leaders dead, lives lost. Panic and chaos. Was this your destiny? Do you wonder? Given that monstrosity of a Shardblade by your people, cast out and absolved of any sin your masters might require of you?”

“I am not absolved,” Szeth said, still wary. “It is a common mistake stone-walkers make. Each life I take weighs me down, eating away at my soul.”

The voices… the screams… spirits below, I can hear them howling….

“Yet you kill.”

“It is my punishment,” Szeth said. “To kill, to have no choice, but to bear the sins nonetheless. I am Truthless.”

“Truthless,” the king mused. “I would say that you know much truth. More than your countrymen, now.” He finally turned to face Szeth, and Szeth saw that he had been wrong about this man. King Taravangian was no simpleton. He had keen eyes and a wise, knowing face, rimmed with a full white beard, the mustaches drooping like arrow points. “You have seen what death and murder do to a man. You could say, Szeth-son-son-Vallano, that you bear great sins for your people. You understand what they cannot. And so you have truth.”

Szeth frowned. And then it began to make sense. He knew what would happen next, even as the king reached into his voluminous sleeve and withdrew a small rock that glittered in the light of two dozen lamps. “You were always him,” Szeth said. “My unseen master.”

The king set the rock on the ground between them. Szeth’s Oathstone.

“You put your own name on the list,” Szeth said.

“In case you were captured,” Taravangian said. “The best defense against suspicion is to be grouped with the victims.”

“And if I’d killed you?”

“The instructions were explicit,” Taravangian said. “And, as we have determined, you are
quite
good at following them. I probably needn’t say it, but I order you
not
to harm me. Now, did you kill my guards?”

“I do not know,” Szeth said, forcing himself to drop to one knee and dismissing his Blade. He spoke loudly, trying to drown out the screams that he thought—for certain—must be coming from the upper eaves of the room. “I knocked them both unconscious. I believe I cracked one man’s skull.”

Taravangian breathed out, sighing. He rose, stepping to the doorway. Szeth glanced over his shoulder to note the aged king inspecting the guards and seeing to their wounds. Taravangian called for help, and other guards arrived to see to the men.

Szeth was left with a terrible storm of emotions. This kindly, contemplative man had sent him to kill and murder? He had caused the screams?

Taravangian returned.

“Why?” Szeth asked, voice hoarse. “Vengeance?”

“No.” Taravangian sounded very tired. “Some of those men you killed were my dear friends, Szeth-son-son-Vallano.”

“More insurance?” Szeth spat. “To keep yourself from suspicion?”

“In part. And in part because their deaths were necessary.”

“Why?” Szeth asked. “What could it possibly have served?”

“Stability. Those you killed were among the most powerful and influential men in Roshar.”

“How does that help stability?”

“Sometimes,” Taravangian said, “you must tear down a structure to build a new one with stronger walls.” He turned around, looking out over the ocean. “And we are going to need strong walls in the coming years. Very, very strong walls.”

“Your words are like the hundred doves.”

“
Easy to release, difficult to keep,
” Taravangian said, speaking the words in Shin.

Szeth looked up sharply. This man spoke the Shin language and knew his people’s proverbs? Odd to find in a stonewalker. Odder to find in a murderer.

“Yes, I speak your language. Sometimes I wonder if the Lifebrother himself sent you to me.”