He’d spent much of the trip intoxicated. Now, with the alcohol running out, the voices of the dead seemed to chase him. They were worst when he tried to sleep, and he felt a dull ache behind his eyes from poor rest.
“Sir?” Felt eventually asked. “Look there.” He pointed to a thin strip of green painting the windswept mountainside.
As they continued, Dalinar got a better view. The mountains split into a valley here, and since the opening pointed to the northeast, foothills shielded the interior from highstorms.
So plant life had exploded inside. Vines, ferns, flowers, and grasses grew together in a wall of underbrush. Trees stretched above them, and these weren’t the durable stumpweights of his homeland. These were gnarled, tall, and twisted, with branches that wound together. They were overgrown with draping moss and vines, lifespren bobbing about them in plenitude.
It all piled atop itself, reeds and branches sticking out in all directions, ferns so overgrown with vines that they drooped beneath the weight. It reminded Dalinar of a battlefield. A grand tapestry, depicting people locked in mortal combat, each one struggling for advantage.
“How does one enter?” Dalinar asked. “How do you pass through that?”
“There are some trails,” Felt said. “If you look hard enough. Shall we camp here, sir? You can scout out a path tomorrow, and make your final decision?”
He nodded, and they set up at the edge of the breach, close enough he could smell the humidity inside. They set up the wagons as a barrier between two trees, and the men soon had tents assembled. They were quick to get a fire going. There was a … feeling to the place. Like you could hear all of those plants growing. The valley shivered and cracked. When wind blew out, it was hot and muggy.
The sun set behind the mountains, plunging them into darkness. Soon after, Dalinar started inward. He couldn’t wait another day. The sound of it lured him. The vines rustling, moving as tiny animals scampered between them. Leaves curling. The men didn’t call after him; they understood his decision.
He stepped into the musty, damp valley, vines brushing his head. He could barely see in the darkness, but Felt had been right—trails revealed themselves as vines and branches bent away from him, allowing Dalinar entrance with the same reluctance as guards allowing an unfamiliar man into the presence of their king.
He had hoped for the Thrill to aid him here. This was a challenge, was it not? He felt nothing, not even a hint.
He trudged through the darkness, and suddenly felt stupid. What was he doing here? Chasing a pagan superstition while the rest of the highprinces gathered to punish Gavilar’s killers? He should be at the Shattered Plains. That was where he’d change himself, where he would go back to the man he’d been before. He wanted to escape the drink? He just needed to summon Oathbringer and find someone to fight.
Who knew what was out there in this forest? If he were a bandit, this was certainly where he would set up. People must flock here. Damnation! He wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone had started all this simply to draw in unsuspecting marks.
Wait. What was that? A sound different from scurries in the underbrush or vines withdrawing. He stopped in place, listening. It was …
Weeping.
Oh, Almighty above. No.
He heard a boy weeping, pleading for his life. It sounded like Adolin. Dalinar turned from the sound, searching the darkness. Other screams and pleas joined that one, people burning as they died.
In a moment of panic, he turned to run back the way he’d come. He immediately tripped in the underbrush.
He collapsed against rotten wood, vines twisting under his fingers. People screamed and howled all around, the sounds echoing in the near-absolute darkness.
Frantic, he summoned Oathbringer and stumbled to his feet, then began slashing, trying to clear space. Those voices. All around him!
He pushed past a tree trunk, fingers digging into the hanging moss and wet bark. Was the entrance this way?
Suddenly he saw himself in the Unclaimed Hills, fighting those traitorous parshmen. He saw himself killing, and hacking, and murdering. He saw his lust, eyes wide and teeth clenched in a dreadful grin. A skull’s grin.
He saw himself strangling Elhokar, who had never possessed his father’s poise or charm. Dalinar took the throne. It should have been his anyway.
His armies poured into Herdaz, then Jah Keved. He became a king of kings, a mighty conqueror whose accomplishments far overshadowed those of his brother. Dalinar forged a unified Vorin empire that covered half of Roshar. An unparalleled feat!
And he saw them burn.
Hundreds of villages. Thousands upon thousands of people. It was the only way. If a town resisted, you burned it to the ground. You slaughtered any who fought back, and you left the corpses of their loved ones to feed the scavengers. You sent terror before you like a storm until your enemies surrendered.
The Rift would be but the first in a long line of examples. He saw himself standing upon the heaped corpses, laughing. Yes, he had escaped the drink. He had become something grand and terrible.
This was his future.
Gasping, Dalinar dropped to his knees in the dark forest and allowed the voices to swarm around him. He heard Evi among them, crying as she burned to death, unseen, unknown. Alone. He let Oathbringer slip from his fingers and shatter to mist.
The crying faded until it was distant.
Son of Honor … a new sound whispered on the winds, a voice like the rustling of the trees.
He opened his eyes to find himself in a tiny clearing, bathed in starlight. A shadow moved in the darkness beyond the trees, accompanied by the noise of twisting vines and blowing grass.
Hello, human. You smell of desperation. The feminine voice was like a hundred overlapping whispers. The elongated figure moved among the trees ringing the clearing, stalking him like a predator.
“They … they say you can change a man,” Dalinar said, weary.
The Nightwatcher seeped from the darkness. She was a dark green mist, vaguely shaped like a crawling person. Too-long arms reached out, pulling her along as she floated above the ground. Her essence, like a tail, extended far behind her, weaving among tree trunks and disappearing into the forest.
Indistinct and vaporous, she flowed like a river or an eel, and the only part of her with any specific detail was her smooth, feminine face. She glided toward him until her nose was mere inches from his own, her silken black eyes meeting his. Tiny hands sprouted from the misty sides of her head. They reached out, taking his face and touching it with a thousand cold—yet gentle—caresses.
What is it you wish of me? the Nightwatcher asked. What boon drives you, Son of Honor? Son of Odium?
She started to circle him. The tiny black hands kept touching his face, but their arms stretched out, becoming tentacles.
What would you like? she asked. Renown? Wealth? Skill? Would you like to be able to swing a sword and never tire?
“No,” Dalinar whispered.
Beauty? Followers? I can feed your dreams, make you glorious.
Her dark mists wrapped around him. The tiny tendrils tickled his skin. She brought her face right up to his again. What is your boon?
Dalinar blinked tears, listening to the sounds of the children dying in the distance, and whispered a single word.
“Forgiveness.”
The Nightwatcher’s tendrils dodged away from his face, like splayed fingers. She leaned back, pursing her lips.