Brandon Sanderson
<Dyel> had the most unusual of visitors. That was not uncommon in Iri these days, now that the owners had returned. They walked the streets with bodies bearing patterns, like they were painted red, white, and black. But these visitors were not of the owners. These visitors were different.
The three sat at a table in her shop, on the far side, near the cubbies on the wall where her grandfather—before his murder—had put shoes. They huddled around their table, and when they’d come in, they’d pretended they were from “the east.” But <Dyel> knew accents, and these men were not from the east. Besides, their clothing was very strange, particularly the tallest man, with the long white coat and the strange spectacles peeking from his pocket.
She hovered in the doorway to the kitchen after delivering their tea, listening in, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice her loitering.
“Are you certain this is the right time?” asked the tall man, the one in the coat. He had skin like he was from Azir, with short black hair and muscles like a soldier. She could almost believe he was from the far east, where terrible men were said to be the fiercest warriors. And he had the height to maybe fit in there. But he liked sugar in his tea. What kind of fierce warrior liked sugar in his tea?
“Of course I’m not sure,” said the tubby one, who was constantly scowling. “The device is always unpredictable, don’t you know?” This one was Azish, perhaps, and completely bald. Older, shorter. Again, he wore odd clothing for this region. Most people she knew went around without shirts, and only <bandlo> for the women. He had on robes beneath the cloak. A cloak and colorful robes, in this weather?
The tall man grunted, then sipped his sugared tea. The third of them sat quietly. A Shin man, maybe, of middling height, but also balding, with lighter skin and more normal clothing, for an outlander. Shirt and trousers. He didn’t talk as much, but he watched things. She knew people like that.
Lest they think that she was observing them, <Dyel> busied herself with other tasks for a short time. Cleaning tables, standing by the door to give welcoming smiles to those who passed on the street. She liked that part. Looking at all the different kinds of people that were part of the One. She also liked smelling the ocean air. Though they were too poor to have a shop in the best part of town, the breeze still carried crisp, salty air inward to them. A gift of experience she could add to the One.
Outside, an owner walked past, a hulking figure with carapace and eyes that glowed red. There was some discussion—were these singers, these owners part of the One? Were they part of the grand connecting experience that unified all people? Or were they something else? <Dyel> thought they must be the One. It wouldn’t be the One unless it—God—encompassed everything. Every person a piece of it, extended out into the cosmere to live a different life and bring back enriching knowledge. Her mother didn’t believe that, but <Dyel> did. Because if she did, then grandpa Ym was always with her, and she with him, because they were the same.
“Serving girl,” one of the men called, “could I get another?”
She started, then hurried back to the table with the three strangers, her hair aflutter. She kept it long, only trimmed it when Mother forced her to. She was Iriali, and golden hair was her heritage.
She quickly refilled the men’s cups, though the thoughtful one—the quiet one—sat a sphere on the table. Her breath caught. A full broam? She looked to the man, who had a round friendly face. He nodded.
She snatched it up, the azure light inside making her skin glow. But Mother would insist she ask, so reluctantly, she spoke.
“Would you like some change?”
“No,” he said, still smiling. “Thought wouldn’t mind if you answered a question or two.”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“Have you ever seen,” the man asked, “a strange collection of lights that moves across the wall or floor, though you can find no source reflecting it?”
<Dyel> felt an immediate spike of terror. She nearly dropped the teapot. She’d suspected they weren’t what they said, but this? This?
“I’m sorry I have to go I forgot my mother wanted me to check on the biscuits stay as long as you want thank you for the tip we’re closed now good bye!”
She scampered into the back room, now kitchen and living space transformed from her grandfather’s workshop. She put her back to the wall, heart thundering, and tried to breathe in and out. He was back. The murderer. What to do?
Find Mother.
But Mother was gone. <Dyel> searched the entire shop. Wasn’t hard, considering how small it was, and found nothing but a note: Back in fifteen. Watch the shop.
Oh no. No no no no no no no.
She scrambled and found a knife—for spreading butter—then she hid in the corner holding it, trying not to be too loud as she cried and trembled. Until they darkened the doorway. Three men, two shorter, one taller.
<Dyel> yelped despite herself, holding out the knife. The three looked almost bored, as if killing her would barely bother them.
The tall one looked to the thoughtful one. “Look what you’ve done, Demoux,” he said, gesturing to her. "I told you you should keep quiet about that!”
“I need an intelligent spren to study,” he said. “They keep telling me no!”
“Perhaps that’s because you keep saying you want to study them, isn’t that so?” the grumpy one said. “We certainly frightened fewer people when your translator didn’t work.”
The tallest man walked up to <Dyel>, then knelt beside where she knelt, trying to force herself back against the wall, her skirt getting twisted and crumpled, the rough grain of the wood pressing against the skin of her back, except where she wore her <bandlo>. The man considered her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have—”
The back door slammed open, and there was her mother, frantic, in loose trousers and <bandlo>, a glowing mane of hair that was radiant with the light of the setting sun. She seemed alarmed, wild-eyed, then she saw the three strangers. Her Shardblade materialized a second later, bright and silver. Their family’s hidden secret, kept quiet since it had manifested a few months back. But few secrets mattered when you burst into the room and found your twelve-year-old daughter frightened by three assailants.
“Woah,” the tall one said, leaping backward.
He was the one, the killer named Darkness!
“Woah!” He pulled something from his belt, something he brandished like a weapon, though <Dyel> had never seen a weapon that was just a small tube of metal.
Strange lights followed as the grumpy one smashed a sphere on the ground, somehow cracking it. Stormlight flowed up around him, and strange symbols formed in the air. Mother leapt in front of <Dyel>, sweating, holding her weapon in two hands.
“We knew you’d come back,” Mother said. “We knew you’d come for me once you heard!”
Mother’s voice trembled. <Dyel> crawled forward and grabbed her around the legs, terrified.
They all stood quietly in the room until the thoughtful one, the Shin man said, “What the hell is going on?”
“We know about you,” Mother said, inching backward toward the door. “I spent months trying to find the tall Makabaki man who killed my father! I spoke to the families of the others you killed! We know what you are, what you do, murderer!”
<Dyel> cowered. Mother kept trying to inch them toward the door. Strangely, though, the tall man—the murderer who had killed her grandfather—relaxed, lowering his… strange weapon. The bald one lowered his hands, the strange glowing lights around him evaporating.
“I told you you looked like him.”
“I do not," the tall one said.
“You kind of do,” the thoughtful one said.
“Just because he and I are both dark-skinned?” the tall one said.
“I’m dark-skinned too,” said the bald one, “and no one says I look like him.”
“You’re silver most of the time, Galladon,” the tall one said, depositing his weapon back in his cloak. “Look, I’m not the murderer you’re worried about. That’s Nale, the Herald. I’m just a traveler.”
They both watched him in terrified quiet until Mother, strangely, cocked her head. She dismissed her Blade, which made <Dyel> quiver. Surely Mother didn’t believe the words of this killer?
Uma appeared a second later, sliding up the wall, a collection of lights like those scattered by a prism. Except none existed here. She made a kind of shimmering pattern that she said was unique to her.
“It’s alright, <Dyel>,” Uma said. Her voice was quiet, like the sound of glass when a cup vibrated in the hands of a musician. “I told your mother as well. I know the Herald Nale by sight, the one called Darkness, and this is not him. I suspect he is from very distant lands indeed.”
Oh. <Dyel> carefully stood up behind her mother, her heart still pounding, likely the same as all of them.
Until a moment later, the thoughtful one said, “Can I study you?”
“Umm,” Uma said, “no?”
“I told you to stop phrasing it like that, Demoux,” said the one called Galladon.
“I don’t want to lie to them,” Demoux said, gesturing.
The tall one cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should be going.”
Mother eyed them and was still tense. <Dyel> realized why. Yes, this was not Darkness, but she’d still burst into the room, likely after hearing her daughter cry out, and had still found three strange men in a part of their shop where no customer was allowed.
“Mother,” <Dyel> whispered, pointing, “they knew. They asked me about Uma.”
“How?” Mother demanded.
“We didn’t mean to frighten the girl,” the tall one said, with a placating hand forward. “We simply heard rumors. We’re scholars and like to study spren.”
“See?” Demoux said. “Baon uses it!”
“Baon is not an example of how to be in any way tactful,” Galladon said. “Crazyfools, all of you.”
What a curious word, smashing two together like that. He stepped forward, and though he had been the grouchiest at the table ordering drinks, he made his tone polite now.
“I’m sorry we frightened you. We will go now, with your leave, Radiant.”
Mother looked down at <Dyel>, then sighed, looking back at the men. “I have a letter for you.”
“…What?”
“What?”
“Mother?” <Dyel> asked.
“You remember when that odd woman visited last month?” she said. “She left me a letter, it’s in my nightstand. Please fetch it.”
<Dyel>, confused, did as she asked. Mother remained eye to eye with the three strangers. <Dyel> did remember that woman, the one who wore too many rings, and who had helped for several weeks at the local charity hospital. A healer skilled with herbs, and whose room had smelled of fish, from the creatures she had caught in the Purelake, then dried. She’d come for tea each morning, but had left a few weeks ago. Apparently not without leaving something.
In the nightstand beside the table they shared, <Dyel> found a sealed envelope. And on it was drawn roughly the profiles of the three men. These three men, except with quite comical exaggerated proportions. She’d have found them amusing if she weren’t so tense.
What an odd experience from the One. How had the woman known? But then, <Dyel>’s life had been turned upside down ever since Uma had arrived and her mother had started glowing sometimes. Unique experiences indeed. She cherished thinking of it that way, as she’d been taught. So many didn’t believe these days, but she did, for Grandfather’s sake.
She scampered down the stairs and handed the letter to her mother, who tossed it to the men.
“I was told,” Mother explained, “I would know who to give this to.”
The tall one, Baon, caught it. He eyed the others, then slit it open with a pocket knife. “It’s from him,” Baon said.
“Of course it is,” Demoux replied. “Right as we’re leaving. You think he wants to tease us back, make us keep wasting time?”
“What,” Galladon said, “does it say?”
Baon closed the envelope. “It has only his signature. And a crude depiction of male genitalia.”
“From the Trickster Aspect?” Mother said. “He was here too, last year.”
“Of course he was!” Demoux repeated, then sighed. “I’m ready to be off this rusting planet. What about you two?”
“Yes, please,” Galladon said. “One of the eldest beings in the cosmere, and he has the mental age of a thirteen-year-old.”
“If this man ever returns,” Baon said, “keep your distance. He isn’t terribly dangerous, but things around him always are. When he’s spotted, innocents get hurt. It’s inevitable.”
Well, of course. He was the Trickster Aspect, spun out of the One to create chaos. But you couldn’t just insult him by not serving him tea when he asked.
A ding came from Galladon’s pocket. “Time,” he said. The three men nodded to the two of them, then started out. Baon hesitated by the door.
“Things might be chaotic in your city for a little bit, but it will pass. Best stay inside.” Then he too left.
<Dyel> hugged her mother. Because they were alive, tense though it had been, but also because she was worried. Not just because of what Baon had said. Because it meant Darkness had not yet come, and they still needed to fear him.
Outside, people started shouting.
“I will look,” Uma said in her tinkling voice. “Stay strong. I do not know yet what this is.”
Mother nodded and grabbed <Dyel> and led her up the steps as Uma went out the door. Their shop was part of a larger building, four stories high, and they helped keep it tidy and fix things. Which meant Mother could take them up the access stairway all the way to the roof. There they burst out, and found what was causing the chaos.
Cusicesh the Protector had risen from the bay. The great multi-armed spren made only of a column of water. It had risen high in the air, larger than usual.
That was all? <Dyel> relaxed. She’d seen Cusicesh many times. This was nothing to fear. But why, then, were so many people pointing and crying out? Why were so many people running?
“It’s the wrong time of day,” her mother said, staring across the rooftops toward the bay.
Cusicesh, breaking tradition from the way he normally acted, waved his hands out to the sides, palms toward the city. And then, before him in the bay, the air split in a glorious radiant font, a column of light.
“The gateway,” Mother whispered, “to the Land of Shadows. Honor’s gateway. Oh, Father, Mother, ancestors become one! <Dyel>, it’s time! Run and fetch the traveler packs, it’s time!”
<Dyel> froze. Time? The traveler packs? All good Iriali kept them, of course, in case they needed to leave, but that was mostly a formality, unless…
It was time?
“PEOPLE,” Cusicesh spoke.
That spren never spoke.
The voice was deep and vibrated the city, somehow loud enough to make her soul shake, but not so loud it hurt her ears.
“IT IS HERE. I AM TO BE YOUR GUIDE FOR THE FIFTH JOURNEY.”
Time. That meant time to continue the Long Trail. Time to find the Fifth Land. Finally shocked out of her reverie, she went running for the travel packs, terrified that this great day should have come during her life. The One was certainly testing her with new experiences. She wished there were a way to explain that she was filled up with them, that she’d rather experience some peaceful days, without owners returning to the land, or her mother starting to glow, or the call to the Long Trail itself occurring.
But it wasn’t to be, as when she met back with her mother, Uma had returned. Mother was crying.
“We will try,” Mother whispered to the spren, who brightened the floor of the rooftop. “We will see, see how far you can go. Come, <Dyel>. We mustn’t miss the call. The gateway will not remain forever, and boats are already rowing out to meet it.”
And so she went with her mother. Found their way to a boat with only their travel packs. Joined with the light of the gateway, which she thought briefly must be like rejoining the One when she died. She emerged into a place of shadows with the leaders of their kind, who had already begun preparing caravans to cross the darkness. Other portals, she heard, had opened all across Iri, one in every major city. Nearby, she did spy the three strangers passing, Demoux complaining about the “odd behavior for a perpendicularity of this nature.”
Mother settled her down on some blankets to wait as she went to find their position in the caravans. <Dyel> clutched her pack to her chest, stunned by how fast it had happened. Stunned to realize that her time in the city, with the shop, was over.
And so she whispered a quiet farewell. It was time to leave Roshar.
Forever.
