“Couldn’t hurt,” Rlain said, kneeling beside her. They’d all heard about what Kaladin had done the other day—appearing spectacularly in the Breakaway market, engaging the Fused, fighting in the air.
The Fused were obviously frightened. They had immediately started publicizing that they’d killed him. Too quickly, and too forcefully, without a body to show. The people of the tower weren’t buying it, and neither was Rlain. He’d joined Bridge Four later than most, but he’d been there for Kaladin’s most dramatic transformations. Stormblessed was alive in the tower somewhere, planning his next move.
Hesina continued to pore over the map of the tower’s sixth floor—but Rlain noticed something else. Hesina had set another map aside, one of the Shattered Plains. Rlain unrolled it fully and found himself attuning the Rhythm of the Lost. He’d never seen a full map, this detailed, of the entire Plains.
The immensity didn’t surprise him. He’d been out there as both listener and bridgeman. He’d flown with the Windrunners. He understood the scope of the Shattered Plains, and was prepared for Narak to seem diminutive when compared to the expanse of plateaus stretching in all directions. But he wasn’t prepared for how symmetrical it all was, now that he could see it all at once.
Yes, the Plains had most definitely been broken in a pattern. He hummed to Curiosity as he peered closer, and he picked out some cramped writing on the far eastern side of the Plains—where the plateaus were worn smaller by the winds. That was the direction the chasmfiends migrated after breeding or pupating. A dangerous area full of greatshells, herd animals, and predators as large as buildings.
“Hesina?” Rlain said, turning the map in her direction. “Can you read this part to me?”
She leaned over. “Scout report,” she said. “They found a camp out there, it seems. Some kind of large caravan or nomadic group. Maybe they’re Natans? A lot of this area is unexplored, Rlain.”
He hummed to himself, wondering if he should learn to read. Sigzil was always talking about how useful it was, though Rlain didn’t like the idea of relying on written words that had no life, instead of on songs. A piece of paper could be burned, lost, destroyed in a storm—but an entire people and their songs could not be so easily …
He trailed off. An entire people. It struck him anew that he was alone.
No, Venli is here, he thought. There were two of them. He’d never particularly liked Venli, but at least he wasn’t the sole listener. It made him wonder. Should they … try to rebuild? The idea nauseated him for multiple reasons. For one, the times he’d tried mateform himself, things hadn’t gone the way he—or anyone really—had expected.
Lirin abruptly pulled back from the curtains. His motion was so sudden that Hesina took it as a warning and immediately grabbed a sheet and pulled it over the maps. Then she laid out some bandages—to appear as if she’d spread the sheet onto the floor to keep the bandages clean as she rolled them. It was an excellent cover-up—one Rlain ruined by belatedly moving to tuck away his map of the Shattered Plains.
“It’s not that,” Lirin said, grabbing Rlain by the shoulder. “Come look. I think I recognize one of the workers.”
Lirin pointed out through the drapes, directing Rlain toward a short man. He had a mark on his forehead, but it wasn’t an inked shash glyph. It was a Bridge Four tattoo like Rlain’s own. Dabbid kept his eyes down, walking with his characteristic sense of mute subservience.
“I think that man was one of Kaladin’s friends,” Lirin said. “Am I right?”
Rlain nodded, then hummed softly to Anxiety and stepped out into the main room. He and Dabbid had often been set to work together as the only two members of Bridge Four who hadn’t gained Windrunner abilities. Seeing him opened that wound again for Rlain, and he hummed forcibly to Peace.
It wasn’t his fault that spren were as racist as humans. Or as singers. As people.
He quietly took Dabbid by the arm, steering him away from the Regals. “Storms, I’m glad to see you,” Rlain whispered. “I was worried about you, Dabbid. Where have you been? Were you frightened? Here, come help me bring some water to the others. Like the work we used to do, remember?”
He could imagine the poor mute hiding in a corner, crying as enemies flooded the tower. Dabbid had become kind of a mascot for Bridge Four. One of the first men Kaladin had saved. Dabbid represented what had been done to them, and the fact that they’d survived it. Wounded, but still alive.
Dabbid resisted as Rlain tugged him toward the water trough. The shorter bridgeman leaned in, then—remarkably—spoke.
“Rlain,” Dabbid said. “Please help. Kaladin is asleep, and he won’t wake up. I think … I think he’s dying.”
The singers first put Jezrien into a gemstone. They think they are clever, discovering they can trap us in those. It only took them seven thousand years.
Kaladin existed in a place where the wind hated him.
He remembered fighting in the market, then swimming through the well. He vaguely remembered running out into the storm—wanting to let go and drop away.
But no, he couldn’t give up. He’d climbed the outside of the tower. Because he’d known that if he fled, he’d leave Dabbid and Teft alone. If he fled, he’d leave Syl—maybe forever. So he’d climbed and …
And the Stormfather’s voice?
No, Dalinar’s voice.
That had been … days ago? Weeks? He didn’t know what had happened to him. He walked a place of constant winds. The faces of those he loved appeared in haunting shadows, each one begging for help. Flashes of light burned his skin, blinded him. The light was angry. And though Kaladin longed to escape the darkness, each new flash trained him to be more afraid of the light.
The worst part was the wind. The wind that hated him. It flayed him, slamming him against the rocks as he tried to find a hiding place to escape it.
Hate, it whispered. Hate. Hate hate.
Each time the wind spoke, it broke something inside Kal. Ever since he could remember—since childhood—he had loved the wind. The feel of it on his skin meant he was free. Meant he was alive. It brought new scents, clean and fresh. The wind had always been there, his friend, his companion, his ally. Until one day it had come to life and started talking to him.
Its hatred crushed him. Left him trembling. He screamed for Syl, then remembered that he’d abandoned her. He couldn’t remember how he’d come to this terrible place, but he remembered that. Plain as a dagger in his chest.
He’d left Syl alone, to lose herself because he’d gotten too far away. He’d abandoned the wind.
The wind crashed into him, pressing him against something hard. A rock formation? He was … somewhere barren. No sign of rockbuds or vines in the flashes of terrifying light. Only endless windswept, rocky crags. It reminded him of the Shattered Plains, but with far more variation to the elevations. Peaks and precipices, red and grey.
So many holes and tunnels. Surely there was a place to hide. Please. Just let me rest. For a minute.
He pushed forward, holding to the rock wall, trying not to stumble. He had to fight the wind. The terrible wind.
Hate. Hate. Hate.
Lightning flashed, blinding him. He huddled beside the rock as the wind blew stronger. When he started moving, he could see a bit better. Sometimes it was pure darkness. Sometimes he could see a little, though there was no light source he could locate. Merely a persistent directionless illumination. Like … like another place he couldn’t remember.