You said that Hoid had actually been to more planets than Nomad.
Yes.
But has Nomad seen many planets that Wit's never been?
Yes, he has, he has seen a number of planets that Wit has not been to.
Are there planets in the Cosmere in which there is no Investiture, and could Sig accidentally skip there and get permanently stuck?
There are no planets with no Investiture. You would have to have no matter in order for there to be no Investiture, because matter, energy, and Investiture are the same thing. There are planets where, let's just say, natural sources of Investiture that are easy to reach are not present. So you would have to figure out another way to make this all work, which would be very difficult. It is possible for him to get there, but the way the magic is working is he is being drawn partially to sources of Investiture, so it's highly unlikely he would end up on one of those planets.
Can you share a little more about what made you decide to release this book before Stormlight 5?
So, there are these things that are like...like the who killed Asmodean, that we talked about. I like having questions that I give answers to. And stories are partially about questions. And one of the things that I wanted to have is that, occasionally in the Cosmere, I want to be giving you questions, that later on books can answer. This is why the aethers show up in Stormlight before I write an Aether book, and things like that. And in this case, the question of "Woah, what happened to Sigzil?" I think is actually a nice teaser for Stormlight 5, rather than a spoiler for Stormlight 5, if that makes any sense. And Sigzil's story's just a very small one in the context of Stormlight. But, I feel like this just adds another fun question for Stormlight, and that's part of why I wanted to get it out before. And it just felt right to me. Just like we're not getting Rock's story yet, even though we know something happened with him in Book 4. There are some times that I want things to be a little bit out of chronological order in order to inspire those questions. And I do kind of like the theories, so.
Do you have questions that you've embedded that are not answered until the end of the Stormlight Archive?
Yes. Um, yes.
There are questions there. Okay, so you still believe in that kind of like-
I do still believe in that, but they're more vague. In Stormlight 1, there's a set of things called Death Rattles, which are...the best, for Wheel of Time fans, the best mimic you have for them is probably Min's visions. They are little hints of what's to come. And those are embedded for things that happen all the way through the ten books. And, you know, I've done...done things like that.
There's going to be some of us going back and reading Way of Kings and going like "Oh, you know, in Book 9-there it is!"
Yes, right, yeah. You should be able to do that. There are other things that I don't want to highlight people's attention on, but there's another big one in the Stormlight Archive that I've been doing all through the books that people don't realize is foreshadowing for the back five books. But it is! So, that'll be very fun. I can tell you what that is after the stream. It's something that I can do in my work that's very hard for other people to do in their works.
Let's talk about the Torment for a second. Hoid would not call what has happened to him a Torment. Hoid, by holding a Dawnshard, was made permanently unable to cause physical harm to other beings. Eating meat makes him nauseous (if he is somehow able to eat it, and a lot of the times he just can't). That is because of the nature of the Dawnshard that he held actively warping and changing his spirit. He would not name it this. Nomad has named what has happened to him, a Torment. This is not a term that you can universally apply as a magical aspect of something. This is Sigzil saying "this terrible thing happened to me". And indeed what is happening to Sigzil is on a level beyond what happened to Hoid. So therefore perhaps other arcanists would say, "Yes, these are an aspect of holding a Dawnshard and Torment is the right way", but that word is loaded. That word has meaning, and someone is naming it this. You are not gonna run into a large set of people- there are only four Dawnshards- and you're not gonna run into a large set of people that have held one, so there may be no consensus even in-world to what these are called, and if they are Torment or blessings or what they are. Holding a Dawnshard will warp your soul. It's so much Investiture, it is so powerful, that you cannot hold one even briefly without it having a permanent effect upon you.
Sigzil refers to Skipping, and it’s implied that this is how he is worldhopping. Is this a method that doesn’t require the use of a perpendicularity?
It does not.
Is that how he’s been able stay ahead of the Night Brigade, and would this allow him to visit planets without a perpendicularity?
Yes. And yes.
Whatever is happening to Sigzil and his spren, is it related to the fact that the Sleepless forbid Rysn to bond a spren?
Yes. Also a good question.
I admire all these people. These are great, deep metaphysical questions.
I am amazed every stream at how little I know. Not how much other people know, but how little I know.
Let's just say you are finding out, or Sigzil is finding out first hand part of why that warning was in place. And he didn't get that warning. He should have. Let's say that other people in the Cosmere have been able to do it without it being a problem. And so, you know, if you happen to be an age-old immortal master of multiple arcanum, then you can get away with things that poor people like Sigzil have more trouble with.
If Sigzil got a Torment from being a Dawnshard, would someone like Kelsier, who has held a Shard, also manifest a Torment tied to the Intent of Preservation?
Not necessarily.
What about the Heralds, who are perceived as specific ideas?
Not necessarily. Good question, but not necessarily.
You decided to be up-front that Secret Project Four is "Stormlight-adjacent." If it's not a spoiler to clarify further: would you say it is more or less relevant to Stormlight Archive than Secret History is to Mistborn?
I'd say it's less relevant to Stormlight Archive than Secret History is to Mistborn. By a fair margin because things that are happening in Secret History are really relevant to Era 3. What's happening here is not on the same level, but is decently relevant to the future of the Cosmere. If that makes sense. The protagonist of Sunlit Man is a major player in the future of the Cosmere, but not as much in the future of Stormlight.
Have we met Hoid's other apprentices yet?
*hesitatingly* No on one, maybe on the second.
And will you write stories from their perspectives eventually?
Yes, I plan to.
Could you clarify Aux's gender? Because the text is inconsistent and it's not clear if you just hadn't decided or if this is intentional.
Yeah, it's not intentional. I started Aux female, didn't work for me. Felt wrong, so then in second draft I made Aux male-or at least male presenting-and I really felt that that dynamic worked better. So the one she or something that's left in there is just, I didn't spot it when I was revising. So, good question, Jofwu. It's-There's no guarantee that I won't bounce back, but this was feeling right for me.
Can you place this one in time for us relative to Era 3 of Mistborn and Sixth of the Dusk?
A little after in my current timeline of those. Karen hasn't seen all these timelines. She only canonizes timelines when books are written, and she hasn't done that for Sunlit Man yet. So she will slot it in. How should we say- you say Era 3 and Sixth of the Dusk. After Era 3, similar timeline to Sixth of the Dusk. Because Era 3 is before Sixth of the Dusk era. Those are not two of the same. Around Sixth of the Dusk era, probably just a tad after, is what I would say.
So the last thing we're going to be revealing is the artist for Secret Project 4. The artist is Ernanda Souza, she is from Brazil. The way that I met her is through Dan dos Santos' SmartClass that he does. An artist class, and this is made up of students and working professionals who go to people like Dan; there are other artists who run these sorts of things too through SmartSchool to get better and improve their craft. And they often have a visiting art director who gives them an assignment and then comes in and checks in on the artist. We kinda run it like you would an assignment in the real world.
Anyway, we were doing Skyward pieces and I noticed that Ernanda's Skyward piece was really well done; so well done we actually bought it from her. And then later on I was looking for an artist for Secret Project Number 4, and started seeing Ernanda's art around. At first I didn't make the connection. I showed Brandon some of the art and then I'm like, "wait a second! I already know this artist." That was a nice reveal. So, I contacted her, and she's excited about it.
I asked her to send me a few things about herself, and she says she has worked for Hit Point Press, Paizo, Upper Deck; she's illustrated for Magic the Gathering, has done cover art for Marvel Comics. You can see her breadth of style, that she can go very realistic like a Magic card, and then go over and do very comic, bright style, so she's very versatile. She also works as a concept artist and fantasy artist for video games and other projects that she can't announce. She did graphic design at a Brazillian university, but there she met other people doing digital art and that kinda set her off to going into the videogame market to work for indie RPG companies. She says: "I love to do art, I love the amount of possibilities to create something that sometimes can't be described through words, how drawing and painting can easily describe what words can't. Art and design are the first thing to call eyes' attention. Funny, since the world is driven more and more by technology and fast-paced rhythm, our inner selves still know how to appreciate color, harmony and draftsmanship."
So, very excited to be working with Ernanda on Secret Project Number 4.
Did Kelsier name the Ghostbloods or was that a coincidence?
RAFO
It has been stated repeatedly that the cognitive realm is geometrically flat. Like, flat earth flat. However, it is mathematically impossible to turn a sphere (such as the surface of a planet) into a flat plane without cuts or overlaps [by the Borsuk-Ulam theorem]. So my question is simply… how does the cosmere resolve these issues? Are there places on every planet where if you walk across a line in the physical realm, you’d now be in a completely different spot in the cognitive realm? Or perhaps places where two points of the physical realm collide in the cognitive realm?
Good question. And I don’t have an answer. I’ve always like Dymaxion maps, and those have big gaps. I would be fine with Shadesmar being non-Euclidean.
Thanks for the answer! If I may ask for clarification, when you say non-Euclidean do you mean going back on the whole "Shadesmar is flat" thing (since Euclidean just means flat), or do you mean it having a structure like e.g. the mentioned Dymaxion map (or perhaps even wilder things like planets being entirely disconnected)?
I mean something like when you get to where the edge of a segment on a Dymaxion map would be, you step across seamlessly into the next section even though there should be a huge gap.
I had always envisioned the cognitive realm as a Möbius strip. Flat, one sided, infinite, and ultimately a (sort of) loop. Is that accurate?
I don’t know if it’s a loop at all.
Do you ever get sneaky information from behind the scenes? If so do you ever look through Reddit or the web to see if anyone has posted that theory yet?
I love this question. Yes, all the time. And yes.
For example, there is a scene where a Herald appears, and I haven’t found anyone who has posted that they think that person might be a Herald.
I believe that it was mentioned long ago that your one of the people Brandon goes to check if his science is right. If so what is your favorite and least favorite of Brandon's crazy science in his books(cosmere and not) and how does the craziness of the SPs feel for you.
Secret Project 1 does not work astronomically at all, but it’s a fun idea. I’m more fine with the crazy world on Secret Project 4. I love that Brandon has these wacky ideas for worldbuilding, even if there’s just no way to make it work. For things that are somewhat plausible I do the best to make it work. For those that are just impossible, I don’t spend too much time worrying about them.
Yolen is totally impossible but it’s such a cool concept. I haven’t previously decided what my favorite and least favorite crazy science concepts are. But I do love the concepts of burning metals and breathing in Stormlight. Navani’s discoveries in Rhythm of War were very fascinating to me.
Do you mean the fain life, or does Yolen also have weird astronomy (like basically every Cosmere world at this point xD)? Or something else that's a RAFO?
It has weird astronomy.
In [Yumi and the Nightmare Painter] chapter two, Yumi uses the phrase "Warden-nimi." Is there a connection between this and Szeth's use of "sword-nimi" in Stormlight? Or is Hoid just using a phrase that his audience would be familiar with.
He is using a phrase that his audience would be familiar with. But (asterisk), there's maybe a little bit more. When he is using the word "nimi" he is using the Shin word intentionally, right? But there's some more there. He's chosen to use a Shin phrase on purpose.
Do all Dawnshards come with a Torment?
Not necessarily. It depends on your definition of Torment, and it depends on some other context.
"Some other context." Love that.
Yes. As you find out more about the Dawnshards, that will become more clear.
This is a very rough draft. I only have been working on this this very week. These prologues to the Stormlight books, they require some really intricate Tetris in making all the pieces lock together. And I’ve already found one mistake I actually made in Rhythm of War to get the timeline to align perfectly. So if you’re looking at this and saying, “Wow, the timeline minutia of the prologues isn’t quite locking together,” we will make that work. So don’t worry about that. Otherwise, things in this are subject to change. There are tweaks I’m going to make. But I figured, since the book is more than a year away, this would be fun to give the community so that they could have something to talk about and to read and to plan for. This does not have any major spoilers for Stormlight Five, obviously, and only minor spoilers, really for the rest, just because all these prologues take place on the same day.
This is the first draft of the prologue to Stormlight Book Five. It’s called: To Live.
Prologue: To Live
Gavilar Kholin was on the verge of immortality.
He merely had to find the right Words to say.
He walked in a circle around the nine Honorblades, driven point-first into the stone ground. The air smelled of burned flesh—a sickening, charred scent made all the more nauseating by the body’s hunger response to it. He’d been to enough death pyres to know that scent intimately, though he got the sense that in this battle, bodies hadn’t been burned after the fighting—but during it.
“They call it Aharietiam,” he said, trailing around the Blades, letting his fingers linger on each one. When he became a Herald, would his Blade become like these, imbued with power and lore? “The end of the world. Was it a lie?”
That depends, the Stormfather said in his mind, upon your definition of lies. Many who name it such believed what they said.
“And these,” he said, gesturing to the Blades. “The Heralds. What did they believe?”
If they had been entirely truthful in their lives, the Stormfather said, then I would not be seeking their replacements.
Gavilar nodded. “I swear this oath: to serve Honor and the land of Roshar as its Herald. Better than these did.”
Those are not the Words, the Stormfather said. You will never arrive at them by random attempts, Gavilar.
He would continue to try, nonetheless. He had not achieved his current status—as the most powerful man in the world—without doing things others thought impossible. Fortunately, he didn’t need to rely too much on guesswork. He had other, more promising leads.
He rounded the ring of Blades again, alone with them in the shadow of monolithic stones. By now, after dozens of times in this particular vision, he could name each and every blade and its associated Herald. The Stormfather, however, remained cagey about what he could do with these visions. Each day, it seemed like Gavilar discovered something new, and the Stormfather claimed it was not the way things were supposed to go. How much could he have accomplished if the spren would work with him instead of against him?
No matter. He would have his prize. He seized a sinuous, curved Blade. Belonging to the Herald Jezrien. Gavilar ripped it from the stone and swung it, enjoying the sound of it cutting the wind.
“Nohadon knew the Heralds,” he said. “He knew them well, during a Return during his time, before their deaths.”
Yes, the Stormfather admitted.
“It is in there, isn’t it?” he said. “The right Words are somewhere in The Way of Kings?”
Yes.
As he’d suspected. Gavilar had the entire book memorized by now—he’d taught himself to read years ago, of course. It had been worth the effort to experience the undertext alone. If he had known how much fun the women were having with those commentaries, he’d have insisted on learning to read years before. But the actual reason to read learned was more important: being able to search for secrets without revealing what he was doing to the women in his life.
He tossed the Herald’s blade aside, letting it clang against the stone—which made the Stormfather hiss in annoyance. Gavilar mentally chided himself. It was just a vision, and these slivers of it were nothing to him, but he had to keep up appearances for the spren. He needed to be seen as pious, and worthy, until he achieved his prize. The Stormfather’s opinion of him might be relevant to the transformation.
Next, he took up Chanarach’s blade. He was fond of this one. It had ornamentation like the others—this one focused on a large arrowhead design near the hilt—but went beyond that, even. The blade was bifurcated, with a slit down the center. That long hole in the center would be impossible—or at least highly impractical—for a normal sword. A foolish design for a common weapon. Here, it was a symbol that this blade was something unnatural, impossible.
“Chanarach,” he said, “was a soldier. I believe it; this is a soldier’s Blade. Solid and straight, but with that little impossibility missing from the center. I should liked to have seen her in battle. Lore often claims she has flaming red hair. Is that true?”
Yes.
“I feel I know them each so well,” he said, holding the Blade in front of him, then turning it to its edge. “My colleagues. Yet I could not pick them out of a crowd.”
Your colleagues only if you can find the Words.
Those Words. The most important ones Gavilar would ever say. When he found the right ones, he would be accepted into the Oathpact, and ascend beyond mortality. He had not yet asked which Herald he would replace; it felt crass, and he did not want to appear crass before the Stormfather. He suspected, though, he would replace Talenelat, the one who had not left his Blade before striking into the world, then dying. After all, it seemed his actions—being out of line with the others—were most in danger of breaking the Oathpact.
Gavilar stabbed the sword back down into the stone. “Let us return.”
The vision ended immediately and he found himself back in his study on the third floor of his palace. Books in shelves on the wall, a quiet desk for reading, tapestries and carpets to keep the echo of voices down. He wore his finery for the upcoming feast, regal clothing more archaic than was fashionable—to match his beard, which also stood out among the Alethi lighteyes. He wanted them to think of him as something older, almost something ancient, beyond their petty games.
Technically, this room had been assigned to Navani, but this was his palace. Everything in it belonged to him. People rarely looked for him here, and after the confusion lately—full of little people with little problems—he had needed a place where he could be settled with his thoughts.
His guards had not knocked to warn of his guests arriving; if they had, the Stormfather would have told him in the vision. So Gavilar took from his pocket a small book, which listed the latest surveys of the region around the Shattered Plains. Yes...he was increasingly certain that place held an ancient Oathgate—and things the Stormfather said made him think it might actually be unlocked. Through that, he could find mythical Urithiru, and there, records the ancient Heralds might have written.
Just another avenue, among dozens, he was pursuing. He would find the right Words. He was close. So tantalizingly close to the thing all men secretly desired, but only ten had ever achieved. Eternal life. A legacy that spanned millennia—because you were there to shepherd it.
It is not so grand as you think it to be, the spren said. Which gave him pause. He looked around the small room, but the Stormfather was invisible today, not appearing as a shimmer as he sometimes did.
The Stormfather couldn’t read his mind, could it? No. No, he’d tested that. It didn’t know his deepest thoughts, his deepest plans. For if it did know Gavilar’s heart, it wouldn’t be working with him.
“What isn’t?” Gavilar asked, slipping the book back into his pocket.
Immortality, the Stormfather said. It wears on men and women. It weathers them and their minds. Most of the Heralds are insane now—with unnatural ailments of the mind, unique to the circumstances of their ancient natures.
“How long did it take?” Gavilar asked, “until the symptoms started to arrive?”
Difficult to say. A thousand years, perhaps two.
“Then I will have that long to find a solution,” Gavilar said. “A much more reasonable timeline than the century—with luck—afforded a mortal. Wouldn’t you say?”
And you are willing to accept the cost? Everyone you know will be dust by the time you return.
And here, the lie. “A king’s duty is to his people,” he said. “By becoming a Herald, I can see to Alethkar’s needs in a way that no previous monarch ever has. I can suffer personal pains in order to accomplish this.”
The Stormfather seemed to mull this over. Gavilar wasn’t sure if it believed him when he said things like that or not.
“If I should die,” Gavilar said, quoting the Way of Kings, “then I would do so having lived my life right. It is not the destination that matters, but how one arrives there.”
Not even close, the spren said. Guessing will not bring you to the Words, Gavilar.
Yes, well, the words were in that volume somewhere. Sheltered among the self-righteous moralizing like a whitespine in the brambles. It wasn’t any of the obvious quotes, so Gavilar had begun to say ones that were less obvious. And if this didn’t yield fruit, and the quest for Urithiru proved to be a dead end...well, he had other avenues.
Gavilar Kholin was not a man accustomed to losing. That was how the greatest men lived their lives. They didn’t accept failure or loss. People got what they expected. And he expected not just victory, but divinity.
The guard knocked softly. Was it time already? Gavilar called for Petinor to come in, but he didn’t lead Restares or any of the others Gavilar had meetings with today.
“Sire,” the man said. “Your brother is here.”
“What? How did he find me?”
“Spotted us standing watch, I suspect, your majesty.”
Bother. “Let him in,” Gavilar said.
The guard bowed and withdrew. A second later, Dalinar burst in—as graceful as a three-legged chull. He slammed the door and bellowed, “Gavilar. I want to go talk to the Parshendi.”
Gavilar took a long, deep breath. “Brother, I warned you to stay away from the creatures. This is a very delicate situation, and we don’t want to offend them.”
“I won’t offend them,” Dalinar grumbled. He wore his takama, an old-fashioned warrior’s garb, with open-fronted robe showing a powerful chest—but with some grey hairs. He pushed past Gavilar and threw himself down into the seat by the desk.
That poor chair.
“Why, Dalinar,” Gavilar said, hand to his forehead. “Why do you even care about them?”
“Why do you?” Dalinar demanded. “This treaty, this sudden interest in their lands. Why? What are you planning? Tell me what it is. I deserve to know.”
Dear, blunt Dalinar. As subtle as a jug of Horneater white. And equally smart.
“Tell me straight,” Dalinar continued. “Are you going to go conquer them?”
“Why would I be signing a treaty if that were my intent?”
“I don’t know,” Dalinar said. “I just... I don’t want to see anything happen to them. I like them.”
“They’re parshmen.”
“I like parshmen.”
“You’ve never noticed a parshman unless he was too slow to bring your drink,” Gavilar said.
“There’s something about these,” Dalinar said. “I feel something about them. A kinship.”
“That’s foolish.” Gavilar walked to the desk, leaning down beside his brother. “Dalinar, what’s happening to you. Where is the Blackthorn?”
“Maybe he’s just tired,” Dalinar said softly. “Or blinded. By the soot and ashes of the dead, constantly in his face...”
For a moment, Gavilar thought he was referencing the vision. That was silly, of course. Dalinar was talking about the event at the Rift. The one that he didn’t think Gavilar knew about.
This was an enormous hassle. Restares would be here soon, and then...there was Thaidakar. So many knives to keep, balanced perfectly on their tips, lest they slide and cut him. He couldn’t deal with Dalinar having a crisis of conscience at the same time.
“Brother,” Gavilar said, “what would Evi say if she saw you like this?”
It was a carefully sharpened spear, slipped expertly into Dalinar’s gut. Because Dalinar didn’t think anyone knew what he’d done. Gavilar could tell, however, from the way Dalinar’s finger’s gripped the table, the way he recoiled at the name.
A subtle reminder. With another, delicately applied.
“She would want you to stand as a warrior,” Gavilar said softly. “And protect Alethkar.”
“I...” Dalinar whispered. “She...”
Gavilar offered a hand and heaved his brother to his feet, then led him to the door. “That’s right. Stand up straight. Stop worrying.”
Dalinar nodded, hand on the doorknob.
“Oh,” Gavilar said. “And Brother? Follow the Codes tonight. There is something strange upon the winds.”
The codes. Which said not to drink when battle might be imminent. Just a nudge to remind Dalinar that it was a feast night, and that there was plenty of wine on hand. Dalinar was out the door a moment later, his lumbering, pliable brain likely thinking only of two things.
First, what he’d done to Evi.
Second, how to find something strong enough to make him forget about the first.
When he was out down the hallway, Gavilar waved Petinor the guard close. He was one of the trusted, a member of the Sons of Honor. A group that was yet another knife that Gavilar kept balanced, for they could never know that he had outgrown them and their plans.
“Follow my brother,” Gavilar said. “See that he gets something to drink, but don’t make it overt that you’re offering. Lead him to the secret stores my wife keeps.”
“You’ve had me do that a few months back, sire,” Petinor whispered back. “So he already knows about it. There’s not much left, I’m afraid. He likes to share with his soldiers.”
“Well, find him something,” Gavilar replied. “I can let Restares and the others in when they arrive. Go.”
The soldier bowed and followed after Dalinar. Gavilar shut the door firmly, though was not surprised when the Stormfather’s voice pushed into his mind.
He has potential you do not see, that one.
“Dalinar? Of course he does. If I can keep him pointed the right direction, he will burn down entire nations.” Gavilar just had to keep him plied with alcohol the other times, so that he didn’t burn down this nation.
He could be more than you think.
“Dalinar is a big, dumb, blunt instrument you apply to problems until they break,” Gavilar said. “Best to keep him occupied otherwise—so he doesn’t get ideas and start seeing you as a problem.” Gavilar shivered, remembering a time on a battlefield, watching his brother approach. Soaked in blood. Eyes seeming to glow red with a hunger for the throne, the life Gavilar had...
That ghost haunted him at times. A vision, sure as the ones the Stormfather gave him, of what Dalinar could have been. Fortunately, the man was a kindly drunk. Both his pain and his addiction made him easy enough to control.
Though he should have had time to work on his plans before Restares arrived, Gavilar was soon interrupted by another knock at the door. He answered it himself, and found nothing outside. Until the Stormfather hissed warning in his mind, and he felt a sudden chill.
When he turned around, Thaidakar was there. The Lord of Scars himself, a figure in an enveloping hooded cloak. Storms. How did he do things like that? He couldn’t be an ordinary man.
“I was made promises,” Thaidakar said, hood shadowing his face. “I’ve given you information, Gavilar, of the most valuable denomination. My payment was to be a single man, delivered to me as requested. But now, I hear you’ve joined his little band of delusional dreamers?”
“I need him in my confidences, Thaidakar,” Gavilar said. “If I’m ever to give him up to you.”
“It seems to me,” Thaidakar said, “that you’re less interested in our bargain, and more interested in your own motives. It seems to me that by asking for him, I only directed you toward something valuable that you’ve decided to keep for yourself. It seems to me that you play games.”
“It seems to me,” Gavilar said, stepping closer to the cloaked figure, “that you’re not in a position to make demands. You need me. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so desperate. So why don’t we just...keep playing.”
Thaidakar remained still for a moment. Then, with an audible sigh, reached up with gloved hands and took down his hood. Gavilar froze—for despite their several interactions, he’d never before seen the man’s face.
It was blue. Was he...Aimian? Natan? No, this was a softer, glowing blue. Like Thaidakar was made entirely of white-blue light. He was younger than Gavilar had imagined—in his younger middle years, not the wizened elder he’d seemed. And he had a large spike, also blue, through one eye. The point jutted out the back of his skull.
This should have made him seem threatening. But his posture was not one of anger. “Gavilar,” he said, “you need to take care. You’re not immortal yet. While you’ve begun to play in forces that rip mortals apart by their very axi.”
“Do you know what they are?” Gavilar demanded, hungry. “The Words I must speak? The most important words I’ll ever speak?”
“No,” Thaidakar said. “I only want you to take care. Restares is not what you think he is. None of this is what you think it is. Deliver him to my agents, then we’ll give you what you said that you wanted: a return of the ancient days you’ve hungered for. A chance for the powers to come back.”
“I’ve grown beyond that,” Gavilar said.
“You can’t ‘grow beyond’ the tide, Gavilar,” Thaidakar replied. “You swim with it or get swept away. The things we’ve started are in motion. And to be honest, I don’t know that we did that much. I think that tide was coming whatever we did.”
Gavilar grunted. “Well, I intend to—”
He was cut off as Thaidakar transformed. His face melted away, features withdrawing into his head—which became a simple floating sphere. Glowing, with some kind of arcane rune at the center. The cloak vanished into wisps of smoke that evaporated away.
Gavilar growled, hungry. That...that looked a lot like what he’d read of the powers of Lightweavers. Knights Radiant. Was Thaidakar—
“Deliver Restares to me,” the sphere said, vibrating—though it had no mouth. “Or else. That is my ultimatum, Gavilar. You will not like to be my enemy.”
The sphere of light turned nearly transparent, difficult to track as it moved to the door, then shrank, bobbed down and vanished through the crack underneath.
Gavilar rested one hand on his desk, unnerved. “What was that?” he demanded of the Stormfather.
Something dangerous, the spren replied in his mind.
“Radiants?”
No. Similar, but no.
Gavilar had intended to work on his plans before his next meeting, but he found himself trembling. Which was stupid. He was a storming king, soon to be a demigod. He would not be unnerved by cheap tricks and vague threats.
Still, he sat down at his desk, breathing deeply. It held a few scattered notes and diagrams from his wife’s latest mechanical obsessions. Not for the first time, he wondered. Would Navani be able to crack this question? Should he bring this all to her?
He missed the way they’d once schemed together, during the days when they’d been conquering Alethkar. How long had it been since they’d all just laughed together? He, Ialai, Navani, and Sadeas?
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the kind of secret you shared. He knew those three so very well, and the Spren had hinted there was room for only one new Herald. Ialai or Sadeas would take the prize from him if they could—and he wouldn’t blame them for the attempt.
Navani though... He wondered. Could he trust her? Would she try to take the prize? Would she even see its value? She was so clever, so crafty in some ways. And yet, when he spoke of his goals for a greater legacy, she got lost in the details. Refusing to think of the mountain because she worried about the placement of the foothills.
He regretted how things had been between them lately. That coldness growing—well, grown over—their relationship. It was infecting his relationship with his children as well. Thinking of that sent a stab of pain into his heart. He should...
Everyone you know will be dust by the time you return...
Perhaps this way was best.
He had plans to mitigate his absence from this world, but he couldn’t say for certain if they would work. It might take several tries to perfect his management of the Returns of the enemy. So... Fewer attachments seemed better. To allow for a cleaner cut. Like made with a Shardblade.
Forced his mind to his plans, preparing well by the time Restares arrived. The balding man didn’t knock. He just peeked in, nervously checking each of the corners. Then he slipped in. He was followed by a shadow: a tall, imperious Makabaki man with a birthmark on one cheek. Gavilar had heard of his arrival, had told the two to be given rooms and treated as “ambassadors.” But he hadn’t yet had a chance to speak with this second man.
He walked with a certain...straightness. Firmness. Like he wasn’t a man who gave way. Not to wind, not to storm, and most certainly not to man.
“Gavilar Kholin,” the man said, not offering a hand or bow. “It is good to finally speak to you.” They locked stares.
Gavilar was impressed immediately. When Restares had first asked to bring a friend for this trip, Gavilar had expected...well, someone more like Restares himself.
“Have a drink,” Gavilar said, turning to gesture toward the small bar.
“No,” the man said simply. Not even a thank you or a compliment. Interesting. Intriguing.
Restares, instead, scuttled over like a child offered sweets. Even still, after several years knowing the man—even joining this newest incarnation of his organization—Gavilar found Restares to be...odd. The short, balding man sniffed at each of the wines. Then didn’t take one. He had never trusted a drink in Gavilar’s presence, but always checked anyway. As if he wanted to find poison, to prove to himself his paranoia was justified.
“Sorry,” Restares said, wringing his hands. “Sorry. Not...not thirsty today, Gavilar. Sorry.”
He was an odd one to have caused so much concern. Gavilar was close to tossing him aside. To seizing control of the entire organization.
But...why was Thaidakar so interested in Restares. Hunting him? Plus, periodically, Restares would surprise Gavilar.
Who was this man? Surely, he couldn’t actually be someone important. Perhaps his friend was the true power behind all of this. Could that be the case? Could Gavilar have been kept in the dark for two years about something that important?
“I’m glad you were willing to meet,” Restares said. “Yes, um. Because, um. So... Announcement. I have an announcement.”
Gavilar frowned. “What is this?”
“I hear,” Restares said, “that you’re looking to, um, restore the Voidbringers? To the land?”
“You founded the Sons of Honor, Restares,” Gavilar said, “to recover to men their ancient oaths. To restore the Knights Radiant. Well, they vanished when the Voidbringers did. So if we bring the Voidbringers back, the powers might return to men. It was a logical next step.”
More importantly, he thought, the Heralds will appear. Return from the land of the dead to lead us again.
Letting me usurp one of their positions.
“No, no, no,” Restares said, uncharacteristically firm. “That’s not how you were supposed to do this! I wanted the honor of men to return! I wanted us to explore what made those Radiants so grand. Before things went wrong.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Before...I made them...go wrong...”
Gavilar glanced at Restares’s friend—who waited by the door, arms folded, stern. Like a father who had found his child testing at the adult wines.
Restares wouldn’t meet Gavilar’s eyes. “We...we should stop trying to return the powers at all,” Restares said, voice wilting. “It...it’s dangerous. Too dangerous. We can’t...afford another Return...”
Gavilar felt a sudden jolt of annoyance at this line of argument. Again, he considered simply being rid of the man. But...no. There were secrets here. Besides, Restares was still important to the organization. Amaram respected him, for example, as did many of the others.
“Restares,” Gavilar said, advancing on the little man. “What is wrong with you? You’re talking about betraying everything we believe?” Or at least pretend to believe.
Restares shrugged. “I’ve...been persuaded of the dangers...”
“There are so many more dangers than you know about,” Gavilar said, subtly placing himself so he loomed over Restares, the sniveling man’s back to the corner. “Have you heard of a man named Thaidakar?”
Restares looked up, eyes widening.
“He wants to find you,” Gavilar said. “I have protected you so far. But he makes demands. Do you know why? What is it he wants from you, Restares?”
“Secrets,” Restares whispered. “The man...can’t abide...someone having more secrets than him.”
“What secrets?” Gavilar said firm, causing Restares to cringe down before him. “What is it you know Restares? I’ve put up with your games long enough. Your lies long enough. If you want my support, you need to talk to me. What is going on? What does Thaidakar want?”
“I know where she is hidden,” Restares whispered. “Where her soul is. Ba-Ado-Mishram. Granter of Forms. Their other god. The one who could rival Him. The one...we betrayed.”
Mishram? The unmade? Gavilar frowned, trying to connect that to what he knew. Why would Thaidakar care about an unmade? It didn’t seem to fit. A piece of the puzzle so oddly shaped, he wasn’t even certain how to use it.
“I’ve ruined it all,” Restares said. “You, Gavilar. You’re ruining it all too. Worse. I’ve done it again. I’m...feeling so much worse....”
Gavilar opened his mouth to speak, but a hand took him by the shoulder, firm, each finger like a vise. He turned to see Restares’s Makabaki friend standing behind.
“What have you done?” the man asked, voice like ice. “Gavilar Kholin. What actions have you taken to achieve this goal of yours, the one that my friend mistakenly set you upon?”
“You have no idea,” Gavilar said, holding a hand up toward his shoulder, meeting the stranger’s eyes. The man finally released his grip.
Gavilar took from his pocket a pouch, then casually spilled a group of spheres onto the table. “I’m close,” he said, “to achieving what we want, what we need. Restares, you must not lose nerve now!”
The stranger took in the spheres, eyes wide. He reached toward one of the ones that glowed with a dark, almost inverted, violet light. Impossible light; a color that should not exist. As soon as the stranger’s fingers got close, he pulled them back, then looked with wide eyes to Gavilar.
“You are a fool,” Restares’s friend said. “A terrible fool of a man charging toward the highstorm with a stick, thinking to fight it. What have you done? Where did you get Voidlight?”
Gavilar smiled. “It is set into motion. All of it.” He looked to Restares. “The project was a success.”
The man perked up. “It...it did? Is that...” He looked to his friend. “This could work, Nale! We could bring them back, then destroy them. It could work.”
Nale. Oh, storms. Gavilar knew—but tried to ignore—that Restares pretended to be a Herald. As if to try to make Gavilar and others impressed. Never knowing that Gavilar himself had become familiar with the Stormfather, who had told him the truth. That the Heralds had all long since returned to fight on Damnation.
So was this man, called Nale, pretending to be Nalan, Herald of Justice? He...had the look. Many of the depictions painted him as an imperious Makabaki man. And that birthmark...it was strikingly similar to one on several of the older paintings.
But no. That was ridiculous. To believe that, he’d have to believe that Restares—of all people—was a Herald.
Though...he could almost believe it of this newcomer. Gavilar watched the man. He had hoped that the display with the spheres would persuade them to move froward. Instead, the stranger looked as if he’d locked up. Becoming a monolith, as if made of stone, instead of a man.
“This is too dangerous,” he said. “Far too dangerous. What you do.”
Gavilar continued to hold his gaze. The world would move to his desires. It always had before.
“But you are,” the man eventually said, stepping back and changing his posture, leaning against the bookcase “the king. Your will...is law...in this land.” His expression calmed. Or, rather, became masked.
“Yes,” Gavilar said. “That is right. My will is law. I am the law.”
And he would soon be so much more.
“Restares,” he said. “I’ve more good news. These experiments are working—-all of them. We can move Voidlight from the storm here. Move it between here and Damnation. As you’ve wanted.”
“That’s a way,” Restares said, looking to Nale. “A way...maybe to escape...”
Nale waved to the spheres. “So that’s it? Well, being able to bring them back and forth from Braize doesn’t mean anything. It’s too close to be a relevant distance.”
“It was impossible only a few short years ago,” Gavilar said. “This is proof. The Connection is not severed, and the box allows for travel. Not yet as far as you’d like, but we must start the journey somewhere.”
He wasn’t certain why Restares was so eager to be able to move Light around in shadesmar, from different realms to another. It was one of the things he’d been most eager to know, and Thiadakar...well, he seemed to want this information as well. A way to transport Stormlight, and this new Voidlight, long distances. Safely.
There was a value here. Did it have to do with his quest? Was this how he’d get the Heralds to Return? Trap their souls in gemstones, but them in an aluminum box, and transport them to Alethkar? It might work. Restares talked about Heralds souls as being like spren that could work this way...
As he was contemplating that, however, Gavilar saw something. The door was cracked. And an eye peeked through.
Damnation. It was Navani. How much had she heard?
“Husband,” she said, immediately pushing into the room. “There are guests missing you at the gathering. You seem to have lost track of time.”
She acted as if she hadn’t been spying. He smothered his anger at that for now, turning to Restares and his friend. “Gentlemen, I will need to excuse myself.”
Restares again ran his hand through his wispy hair. “I want to know more of the project, Gavilar. Plus, you need to know that another of us is here tonight. I spotted her handiwork earlier.”
Another one? Another Son of Honor.
No, he was speaking of a Herald. He was growing more delusional. He’d found himself a man to be “Nale.” Who else had he decided he’d found?
“I have a meeting shortly with Meridas and the others,” Gavilar said, calmly soothing Restares. “They should have more information for me. We can speak again after that.”
“No,” the Makabaki man growled. “I doubt we shall.”
“There’s more here, Nale!” Restares said, though he followed as Gavilar ushered the two of them out. “This is important! I want out. This is the only way . . .”
Gavilar shut the door. Then turned to his wife. Damnation, she should know better than to interrupt him when in meetings with his visitors. She...
Storms. The dress was beautiful, her face more so. Even when angry. Staring at him with brilliant eyes, a fiery halo almost seeming to spread around her.
Again, he considered.
Again he rejected the idea.
If he was going to be a god, best to sever attachments. The sun could love the stars. But never as equals.
#
Some time later—after he’d seen to Navani and made an appearance at the feast—Gavilar finally slipped away to be by himself again. In his chambers this time, rather than her study. A moment of peace.
To confront what he’d learned.
“Tell me,” he said, walking across the springy carpet to the map of Roshar on the table. “Why would Thaidakar be so interested in Ba-Ado-Mishram?”
As he sometimes did, the Stormfather formed a rippling in the air beside Gavilar. Vaguely in the shape of a person, but indistinct. Without color or really form. Like the wavering in the air made by great heat on the stones.
She created your parshmen, he said. On accident. Long ago, after the Heralds’ final visit but before the Recreance, Mishram tried to rise up and replace the God of the Voidbringers. She gave the common voidbringers forms, Voidlight, abilities. To fight for themselves.
“Curious,” Gavilar said. “And then?”
And then...she fell. She was too small a being, not strong enough, to uphold an entire people. It all came crashing down, and so some brave men and women—Radiants—did something that had to be done, trapping Mishram in a gemstone to prevent her from destroying all of Roshar. The side effect of that event created the parshmen.
Simple parshmen. As Voidbringers. A delicious secret he’d pried out of the Stormfather some weeks ago, but he hadn’t known—until just now—what had caused the transformation. Gavilar strolled to the bookcase, where one of the new heating fabrials had been delivered to him by the scholar Rushur Kris just earlier in the day. He took it from its cloth casing, weighing it.
He had found a way to ferry Voidspren through Shadesmar to this world. Using gemstones. Who would have thought, Navani’s pet area of study would be so useful? So he’d begun to invest more into sponsoring artifabrians, learning what they were doing with their art. Because he didn’t just want the Voidbringers here—he wanted them indebted to him. This had to play out the way he wanted. And if that conniving Axindweth eluded his grasp, he’d have to do it without her.
He thought he heard a faint crackling sound from the Stormfather. Lightning? How cute.
“You’ve never challenged what I’m doing,” Gavilar said. “I would have thought that returning the Voidbringers would be opposed to your very nature.”
Opposition, sometimes, is needed, the Stormfather said. You will need someone to fight, should you take the position I am offering you.
“Give it to me,” Gavilar said. “Now. I need it.”
The Stormfather turned a shimmering head his direction. That was almost them.
“What, those?” Gavilar said. “Those were almost the words? A demand?”
So close. And so far.
Gavilar smiled, hefting the fabrial, thinking of the flamespren trapped inside. He was going to figure those Words out soon, wasn’t he? The Stormfather seemed increasingly suspicious, hostile.
And if things did go poorly...well, could he trap the Stormfather himself in one of these?
He determined to have another conversation with those artifabrians soon.
“Mishram the Unmade,” Gavilar said out-loud. “Yes, I can see how it all played out. Except the Recreance. Why would the Radiants give up such power?”
The Stormfather remained silent.
“Do you regret choosing me, Stormfather?” Gavilar asked.
You are the one I have chosen.
“That’s not an answer to the question I asked.”
It is the one I will give, regardless.
Gavilar contained his anger. Soon, Amaram arrived with a small collection of people—high-level Sons of Honor. The Stormfather vanished, and Gavilar let them in—but spoke quietly, to the Stormfather, a request. “Watch the door for me. Tell me if Navani, or anyone else, comes to spy on me again.”
I am not your errand boy. We have no Bond. You are my tool Gavilar.
Gavilar gave no response, expecting that—from past experience—the Stormfather would do as he asked. Instead, he focused on Amaram, and the people he had brought. Three men, two women. One of the men was one of Amaram’s lieutenants. The other four would be new recruits for the Sons of Honor, invited to the feast, and given time exclusively with the king.
It was an annoyance, but a worthy one. Amaram was careful to pick only the most important of people. Scholars of note, lighteyed leaders of houses in other countries. Gavilar picked out each of them from the notes about them, except the older man, in the robes. Who was he? A Stormwarden? Amaram liked to keep them around, to teach him their script. Something that allowed Amaram to pretend he wasn’t learning to write, preserving some semblance of Vorin devotion. That was important to him.
Gavilar had, of course, grown beyond that. Still, he met each person in turn, and as he reached the older man, something clicked. He did know this man. It was Taravangian, the king of Kharbranth. Famously, a man of little wits. Gavilar glanced at Amaram, hiding his confusion. Surely they weren’t going to invite this one into their confidence—they should find the power who ruled Kharbranth in secret. Likely to be one of two specific women, from Gavilar’s spy reports.
Amaram just nodded to the man again. So, over the next half hour, Gavilar gave his same speech. Talk about the need to return to oaths of the past, talk about the Radiants—who yes, lost their way at the end. He spoke of a return to what they had been, however. Of glories past and futures bright.
It was a good speech. It should be, considering how many times he’d given it by now. Indeed, it was beginning to grate on him to have to give it. Once, the only speeches he’d given had been to inspire troops. Yet now, here he was, spending his entire life in meetings and giving speeches.
Would he have changed his course in life if he’d known, all those years ago, that being king would mean spending far more time in a boardroom than on a battlefield?
After finishing, he let the people get something to drink—and Amaram’s lieutenant chatted to them about the realistic advantages of working together. While they did so, Gavilar watched Amaram, thoughtful.
Amaram was the epitome of a good officer. Honorable when required, but also understanding that the rules of both military and society were means to an end. That said, there was a zealous side to Amaram. While Gavilar had recruited the man into the organization, he’d been surprised by how passionately Amaram had bought into the doctrines.
Would Amaram understand that Gavilar’s true goal, of immortality, was so much more important than the restoration of the Knights Radiant? Or would he side with Restares?
I need a firmer grip on this man, Gavilar thought. I need to bind him to me. If only Jasnah would listen.
So, at the opportune time, he pulled Amaram aside. “Meridas,” Gavilar whispered. “These meetings are growing onerous. My experiment was a success. I have the weapon I have been hunting.”
Amaram started, then spoke softly. “You mean...”
“Yes, we’ll return the Voidbringers to this land,” Gavilar said. “But when we do, we will have a new way to fight them.”
“Or a new way to control them,” Amaram whispered.
Well, that was new. Gavilar considered his friend, and the ambition that his set jaw seemed to imply.
Good for you, Amaram, he thought. Gavilar hadn’t told Amaram much about his experiments with Light. Just enough to hint that they’d have a new way to kill Voidbringers, once they returned. To reassure him, and the others, that their actions wouldn’t be blasphemous—but a necessary step in protecting their people. He thought that Amaram assumed he had a new kind of Shardblade, and had let the man persist in the delusion for now. One had to be careful how one shared weapons.
Regardless, he wouldn’t have considered that Amaram would be willing to use the Voidbringers, instead of simply attacking them. It was an opportunity. Gavilar worried, after the meeting with Restares, that a schism in the Sons of Honor was coming. He needed this man on his side.
“We must return the Desolations,” Gavilar said. “Whatever the cost. It’s the only way.”
“I agree,” Amaram said. “Now more than ever.” He hesitated. “Things did not go well with your daughter, earlier. I thought we had an understanding there.”
“You just need more time, my friend. To win her over.”
Amaram hungered for the throne like Gavilar hungered for immortality. And maybe Gavilar would reward him with it. Elhokar, for certain, did not deserve to sit in it. That was exactly the opposite of the legacy Gavilar wanted.
He sent Amaram back to talk to the others. After they enjoyed their drinks for a short time, Gavilar would give another short speech. Then he could be on to more important...
He frowned, noticing that one of the new recruits wasn’t conversing with the others. The elderly man, Taravangian, instead stood to the side—staring at the wall map of Roshar. The others at something Amaram said as he approached. Taravangian didn’t look away at the sound.
Gavilar strode over. But before he could speak, Taravangian did.
“Do you wonder, ever,” the elderly man whispered, “at lives we’re giving them? The people beneath them?”
Gavilar frowned, unaccustomed to people—particularly strangers—addressing him with an air of familiarity, or imposition. But, then, this man saw himself as a king. And perhaps Gavilar’s equal. Laughable, considering that Taravangian ruled only one small city—but then, the man was said to be unremarkable.
“I worry less about their lives now,” Gavilar said, “and more about what might be to come.”
Taravangian nodded, looking thoughtful. “That was a good speech,” he said. “Inspiring. Do you actually believe it?”
“Would I say it if I didn’t?”
“Of course you would. A king will say whatever needs to be said. Wouldn’t it be grand if that were always what he actually believed? Yes, grand.” He looked to Gavilar, smiling. “Do you actually believe the Radiants can return?”
“Yes,” Gavilar said. “I do.”
“And you are not a fool,” Taravangian said, musing. “So you must have good reasons. I find that more interesting than the words themselves.”
Gavilar found himself revising his earlier opinion. A little king was still a king. And perhaps, in all of the dignitaries in the city tonight, here was one who might...in the least amount...understand demands put on the man pressed between crown and throne.
“A danger is coming,” Gavilar said softly, shocked at the sincerity he felt. “To this land. This world. An ancient danger.”
Taravangian narrowed his eyes.
“The Desolation is near,” Gavilar said. “The Everstorm. The Night of Sorrows.”
Taravangian, remarkably, grew pale.
He believed. Gavilar felt foolish whenever he tried to explain the true things that the Stormfather had told him, for he knew they sounded ridiculous. He worried people would think him mad for speaking them.
Yet this man...believed him? With no persuasion?
“Where,” Taravangian asked, “did you hear those words?”
“I don’t know that you’d believe me if I told you.”
“Will you believe me?” Taravangian asked. “Because ten years ago, my mother died of her tumors. Frail, lying on her bed at home, the scent of too many perfumes in the air, struggling to strangle the stench of death... She looked to me in her lasty moments...”
He met Gavilar’s eyes. “And she whispered something. ‘I stand before him, above the world itself, and he speaks the truth. The Desolation is near... The Everstorm. The Night of Sorrows.’ A few seconds later, she was gone.”
“I’ve...heard of this,” Gavilar admitted. “The prophetic words of the dead. It happens in battle sometimes. The last words of the dying are sacred...”
“How did you hear those words?” Taravangian asked, practically begging. “Please.”
“I see visions,” Gavilar said, frank. “Given me of the Almighty. So that we may prepare.” He looked toward the map on the wall. “Heralds send that I may become the person I need to be to stop what is coming...”
Let the Stormfather chew on that. Let him see sincerity in Gavilar. Storms...he felt it. Like he hadn’t in months. Standing there with a little king, before the map of the world, he felt it. And never before—in all of this—had he ever thought he might be inadequate to the task.
Perhaps, he thought, I should begin encouraging Dalinar to his training again. Begin reminding him that he is a soldier. He had the distinct impression that he was going to need someone, before too long, who knew the battlefield. Better than the boardroom.
He was shaken from the moment of solemnity by a voice in his head. Someone is approaching, the Stormfather warned. One of the Listeners. Eshonai, is her name. There is something about this one...
One of the Parshendi? Gavilar shook himself. Embarrassed of being seen so raw before another, even another king. So he welcomed the distraction made by the parshwoman’s arrival.
He dismissed Taravangian, Amaram, and the others for the time being and invited this Eshonai to enter. Happy to be rid of that strange old man, and his questioning eyes. The fellow was supposed to be so unremarkable. Why did he unnerve Gavilar in such a way?
The conversation with the parshwoman went excellently, with him setting her in motion to help him manipulate her people. To prepare them for the roles they’d play in coming years. After sending her off—and placating Amaram further afterward—Gavilar found himself tired, in his rooms, contemplating his vast number of plans.
He'd considered every avenue, put every possible idea into motion. He would obtain the prize. He was sure of it.
But today, he was starting to feel worn down by it. He even had another meeting or two today; Sadeas would be on his way even now. It all felt like so much. Perhaps...there was something more, too. A lingering emotional drain from his odd conversation with Taravangian.
Gavilar sank into a deep, plush chair by his balcony, releasing a long sigh. Early in his career as a warlord, he’d never have allowed himself this luxury of softness. He had mistakenly assumed that liking something soft meant he, himself, was soft.
A common failing among men who wished to appear strong. By being so afraid, they gave simple things power over them. It was not weakness to relax. To think.
The air shimmered in front of him.
“A full day,” Gavilar said.
Yes.
“The first of many such. I will be mounting an expedition back to the Shattered Plains soon. We can leverage my new treaty to obtain guides, promises, a way to forge inward to the center. Toward Urithiru.”
The Stormfather did not reply. Gavilar wasn’t certain if the spren could be said to have human mannerisms. Sometimes, it seemed so—and others, it seemed completely unfathomable. Today, though... That posture turned away, hinted at in the warping of the air. That silence.
“Do you regret,” Gavilar asked again, “choosing me?”
I regret, the Stormfather said, the way I have treated you. I should not have been so accommodating. It has made you lazy.
“This is lazy?” Gavilar said, forcing himself to sound amused, and not reveal his annoyance. “I’ve made grand plans.”
You do not consider with reverence the position you seek, the Stormfather said. I feel...you are not the one that I need. That I decided to find.
“You said that you were charged with this task,” Gavilar said. “By Honor. Finding someone to show the visions, to prevent calamity. You didn’t decide anything. You were instructed to do all of this.”
That is true. I do not speak in human ways. But still, once you are a...Herald, you will need to leave everything you know. You will be given up to torture between Returns. Why is it this doesn’t bother you?
Gavilar shrugged. “I will just give in.”
What?
“Give in,” Gavilar said, heaving himself out of his seat. “Why stay in that other place, to be tortured and potentially lose my mind? I give up each time and return immediately.”
The Heralds stay in Damnation to keep the Voidbringers away. To prevent them from overrunning the world. To lock them and seal them away. They—
“They are the ten fools for that,” Gavilar explained, pouring himself a drink from the carafe near his balcony. “If I cannot die, I will be the greatest king this world has ever known. Why lock my knowledge and leadership away on another world?”
To stop the war.
“Why would I care to stop a war?” Gavilar asked, this time genuinely amused. “War is the path to glory, to training our people to recover the Tranquiline Halls. I will never die, and never know that place, but my people...well they should be properly trained, don’t you think?” He turned back to the shimmer, taking a sip of orange wine. “I don’t fear these Voidbringers. Let them stay and fight. If they are reborn, well, we will just never run out of enemies to kill.”
The Stormfather did not respond. And again, Gavilar tried to read into the thing’s posture. Was the Stormfather proud of him? Gavilar thought this an elegant solution to the problem; he was uncertain why the Heralds had never realized it. Perhaps they were all cowards.
Ah, Gavilar, the Stormfather said. I see. I see my miscalculation. Your entire religious upbringing...created from the lies of Aharietiam... It pointed you toward this conclusion. Terrible though it is.
Damnation. The Stormfather wasn’t pleased. Gavilar recalculated. He couldn’t afford to let the Stormfather seem him as anything but devout. It suddenly felt terribly unfair. Here, he was drinking this awful excuse for wine to follow the ridiculous codes, he gave every possible oblation of piety—and yet, it wasn’t enough?
“What should I do,” Gavilar said. “To serve?”
You don’t understand, the Stormfather said. Those aren’t the words, Gavilar.
“Then what are the storming words!” he said, slamming the cup down on the table—shattering it, spilling wine across the wall. “You want me to save this planet? Then help me! Tell me what I’m saying wrong!”
It’s not about what you are saying. That is not what is wrong.
“But—”
Suddenly, the Stormfather wavered. Lightning pulsed through his shimmering form, lighting Gavilar’s room with an electric glow. Blue frost on the rugs, pure light reflecting in the glass of the balcony doors.
Then, the Stormfather cried out. A sound like a peal of thunder, agonized.
“What?” Gavilar said, backing up. “What happened?”
A Herald... A Herald has died... No. I am not ready... The Oathpact... No. They mustn’t see. They mustn’t know...
“Died?” Gavilar said. “Died. You said they were already dead! You said they were in Damnation, being tortured!”
The Stormfather rippled, then a face emerged in the shimmering. Two eyes, like holes in a storm, clouds spiraling around them and leading into the depths.
“You lied,” Gavilar said. “You lied?”
Oh, Gavilar. There is so much you do not know. So much you assume. And the two never do manage to meet. Like paths to opposing cities.
Those eyes seemed to pull Gavilar forward, to overwhelm him, to consume him. He’d never seen anything like this before. He... He saw storms, endless storms, and a world so frail. A tiny speck of blue in against an infinite canvas of black.
The Stormfather could lie?
“Restares,” Gavilar whispered. “Is he...”
Yes.
Gavilar felt cold, as if he were standing in the highstorm, ice seeping in through his skin. Seeking his heart. Those eyes...
“What are you?” Gavilar whispered, hoarse.
The biggest fool of them all, the Stormfather said. And the thing that has miscalculated. Goodbye, Gavilar. I have seen a glimpse of what is coming. And I will not prevent it.
“What?” Gavilar demanded, stepping forward. “What is coming?”
Your legacy.
The door slammed open. Sadeas, puffing, face red from exertion. “Assassin,” he said. “Coming this way, killing guards. We need your armor.”
Gavilar regarded him, stunned.
Then one word cut through.
Assassin.
I’ve been betrayed, he thought, and found that he was not surprised. He’d been expecting this. It had been in the balance for weeks. One of them was bound to come for him.
But which one?
“Gavilar!” Sadeas shouted. “Your armor?”
“Tearim wears it.”
“Damnation,” Sadeas said, throwing open the door. “Mine is nearly here.”
“You brought your armor to the feast?”
“Of course I did,” Sadeas said, looking back at him. “I don’t trust those Parshendi. You’d do well to emulate me. Trusting too much could get you killed someday.”
Screams sounded in the distance, but just outside the room, Gavilar saw the Sadeas armorers hurrying forward—carrying his Shardplate. Unpacked. Ready.
“Hold off the assassin,” Gavilar said. “I’ll run for Tearim and return when I have my plate.”
“I have a better idea,” Sadeas said. “Give me your cloak.”
Gavilar hesitated, then met his friend’s eyes. “You’d do that?”
“I worked too hard to put you on that throne, Gavilar,” Sadeas said, grim. “I’m not going to let that go to waste.”
“Thank you,” Gavilar said.
Sadeas shrugged, pulling on the cloak as the armorers ran—by his command—to suit up Gavilar instead. Whoever this assassin was, he’d find himself outmatched by a Shardbearer.
As he was armored, Gavilar glanced toward where the Stormfather had been standing—but the shimmer was gone.
Gavilar had been betrayed, but by whom?
Spren couldn’t lie. They couldn’t. He’d learned that from...the Stormfather.
Blood of my fathers, Gavilar thought as the Plate locked onto his legs. What else did it lie to me about?
And why, on all of Roshar, would it have done so?
#
Gavilar fell.
And he knew, even before he hit, this was it. The ending.
A legacy interrupted. An assassin who moved with an otherworldly grace, stepping on wall and ceiling, commanding light that bled from the very storms.
Gavilar hit the ground—surrounded by the wreckage of his balcony—and he saw white in a flash. But his body didn’t hurt. That was an extremely bad sign.
Thaidakar, he thought as a figure rose before him, shadowed in the night air. Only Thaidakar could send an assassin who could do such things as this.
He coughed as the figure loomed over him. “I . . . expected you . . . to come,” Gavilar forced out.
The assassin moved and knelt before him, though Gavilar couldn’t see anything more than shadows. Then...something changed, and the being in front of him—doing something Gavilar couldn’t make out—started to glow like a sphere. Like he’d been doing before...
Blood...blood of his fathers. “You can tell . . . Thaidakar,” Gavilar whispered, “That he’s too late. . . .”
“I don’t know who that is,” the assassin said, the words barely intelligible. The man held his hand to the side. Summoning a Blade.
This was it. Behind the assassin, a halo, a corona, of shimmering light. The Stormfather.
It was not me, the Stormfather said in his head. I did not cause this. I do not know if that brings you peace or not in your last moments, Gavilar.
But...
“Then who . . . ?” Gavilar forced out. “Restares? Sadeas? I never thought. . . .”
“My masters are the Parshendi,” the assassin said.
Gavilar blinked, focusing on him again as the man’s Blade formed. “The Parshendi? That makes no sense.”
I warned you, Gavilar, the Stormfather said. This is my failure as much as yours. If I try again, I will do it differently. I thought...your family...
His family. In that moment, Gavilar saw his legacy crumbling. He was dying.
Storms. He was dying.
What was left to him? What did anything matter if he was dying. He couldn’t. He couldn’t...
He was supposed to be eternal...
You’ve invited the enemy back, he realized. The end is coming. And your family, your kingdom, will have no recourse. No way to fight. Unless...
Hand quivering, he reached toward his pocket and pulled out sphere. The weapon. They needed to have this. His son... No, his son could not handle this... They needed a warrior. A true warrior. One that Gavilar had been doing his best to suppress for years. Out of a fear he barely dared acknowledge, even as he drew his last, ragged breaths.
Dalinar. Storms help them, it came down to Dalinar.
He handed the sphere toward the Stormfather, his vision fuzzing. Thinking...was...difficult.
“You must take this,” Gavilar whispered to the Stormfather. “They must not get it.” He seemed dazed. “Tell...tell my brother... He must find the most important words a man can say...”
No, the Stormfather said, though a hand took the sphere. Not him. I’m sorry, Gavilar. I will never trust your family again. I made that mistake once. I will not do so again.
Gavilar exhaled a whine of pain, not from his body, but from his soul. He had failed. He had brought them all to ruin. That, he realized with horror, would be his legacy.
And in the end, Gavilar Kholin, heir to the Heralds, died. As all men, ultimately, must.
Alone.
Is Chana Shallan's Mom?
RAFO.
Would you say that Shallan's mom counts in being in Way of Kings or Words of Radiance?
I would say that, yeah.
Should we assume that Sigzil’s Dawnshard is the same that Hoid used to have?
Sigzil, at one point, held the same Dawnshard that Hoid used to have. I phrased that very intentionally.
Does Sigzil still have his Bridge 4 tattoos?
So... Um... Nobody... how should we say it? We will RAFO that for now.
Could you charge spheres with this sun?
You could charge spheres with this sun. If you managed to find spheres that didn't melt. You could also charge White Sand with this sun really easily, and then you would have melted sand.
Is the Night Brigade related at all to the Night Aether?
No. Well related is a very... a term fraught... But not in a meaningful way.
Yeah well, they are, they are interested in perhaps doing something together is what that says. Which I am as well ... I actually have a pitch for them, in the back of my head, that that if I ever had a chance- so I may have to send them my pitch and see what they.
Are Sigzil's Skips and Yumi's/Painter's swap using the same mechanism?
Ehhh *waves hand noncommitally*
What is the name of the planet The Sunlit Man takes place on? Also, last week, we asked about Painter and Yumi's planets, too.
Secret Project Three, I talked to Isaac, and we have not canonized that yet. I thought we had, but we haven't. So I'm not gonna give that one away.
We have named the one for Sunlit Man, but it's somewhere in the text. I'm not gonna go look it up right now. We're not gonna canonize those.
When I talked to Isaac, he felt very uncomfortable about this, because it might change. We are not gonna canonize either of them. I'm sorry. We've done Tress's, but the other three planets, we are not canonizing yet. The two in Secret Project Three, and the one in this one [The Sunlit Man]. We will get you names, eventually.
So, that is the start of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Now the analysis.Where did this come from? Well, you can probably tell this is another Hoid story. I wanted, after I wrote Secret Project one, to try a different style of voice for Hoid. Project One has a modern fairytale vibe, like Princess Bride–and I like that. I think it turned out really well. I’m proud of it, and I’ll probably use that voice again sometime.
But I also wanted to have access to a different kind of voice for Hoid. (Or several different voices.) Part of the reason I’m doing all this is to figure out how I want to write Dragonsteel, his origin story, which will be first person. So I wanted to test out other narrative voices that Hoid might use in telling stories. For Secret Project three, I specifically wanted one where Hoid was using more of a traditional narrative style.
To explain it another way, I wanted him to tell a story that felt less fairytale and more dramatic. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter became that next exploration. I’m not sure it’s the voice he’ll use in Dragonsteel yet, but it’s much closer–and I love how this one worked for this specific story. It is, as I’ve said, my favorite of the four secret projects.
The original premise for this story came from a story I read long ago. Before I hired Peter Ahlstrom to be my assistant (now he’s my Editorial Director and VP of Editorial) he worked translating Manga. Before he did this professionally, he was doing fan editing on a manga site–and one of the manga he worked on was called Hikaru No Go.
Now, I’m not a big reader of Manga. I do try to do some dabbling in all kinds of media, so I’ve read some–but in general, I don’t consider myself well read in the manga field. But Peter was a good friend, and he was working on this, so I wanted to support him. I therefore started reading that manga–and I actually found the story to be fantastic. It’s a story about a young man who finds a possessed Go board, then an old master of the game rises as a ghost to teach him how to play.
I wondered what it would be like to be in the mind of that ghost, trying to teach someone new to do something that he loved so much (and were an expert in.) To give a mild spoiler for the next few chapters of Yumi, Painter is now going to be seen by everybody as her. Even though he sees himself as himself (he feels his body is his own) everyone else (other than Yumi) sees him as her. Yumi, in turn, has gone incorporeal. So…to find a way out of this mess..he needs to do her job in her world. She, in turn, is going to have to learn to do his job for him in his world, as they discover once they sleep, they jump to his world and she is seen as him.
This whole idea is that both of them are going to have to learn one another’s magic systems–and live one another’s lives–while trying to figure out what went wrong to put them in this state. I’ve seen this done before, kind of–but most stories do an actual body swap. I felt like I wanted to go another direction; Yumi and Painter aren’t experiencing one another’s bodies–just one another’s lives. (I feel the trope of “I’m in someone else’s body” has been done quite a bit in various ways before, and so I decided to try something else.)
That is my primary inspiration for this story. You might see little echoes of Your Name as well in this, as well as other similar stories. That’s intentional. Beyond that, another inspiration is Final Fantasy X, my favorite Final Fantasy. In fact, Yumi’s named slightly after Yuna, the main character of that. One of the things I loved about that game was the idea of fantastical jobs using magic. I’ve always wanted to dive into doing a story with some kind of fantastical job, or maybe two. Something cool (yet somehow still mundane) involving the sorts of work one could only do in a fantasy world.
Because it was originally inspired by a Manga, I decided to kind of use a little bit of Korean culture, a little bit of Japanese culture, mixed in with some other things.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Chapter One
The star was particularly bright that night when the nightmare painter started his rounds.
The star. Singular. No, not a sun. Just one star. A bullet hole in the midnight sky, bleeding pale light.
The nightmare painter lingered outside his apartment building, locking gaze with the star. It had always felt friendly to him. Many nights, it was his only companion. Unless you counted the nightmares.
After losing his staring match, he turned down the street, which was silent save for the faint hum of the hion lines. Ever-present, they flowed through the air—twin bands of pure energy, thick as a person’s wrist, about twenty feet above the street.
One line was an indecisive blue-green. You might have called it aqua, but if so, it was an electric variety. Or teal, perhaps. Turquoise’s pale cousin, who stayed in listening to music and never got enough sun.
The other was a vibrant fuchsia. If you could ascribe a personality to a simple line of light, this was perky, boisterous, blatant. It was a color you only wore if you wanted every eye in the room to judge you. A tich too purple for hot pink, it was—at the very least—a comfortably lukewarm pink.
The residents of the city of Kilahito might have found my explanation unnecessary. Why put such effort into describing something everyone knows? It would be like describing the sun would be to you. Yet, you need this context for—cold and warm—the hion lines were the colors of the city. Needing no pole or wire to hold them aloft, they ran down every street, reflecting in every window, lighting every denizen. Wire-thin strings of each color split off to each structure, powering modern life. They were the arteries and veins of Kilahito.
And just as necessary, albeit in a different way, was the young man walking beneath them. He’d originally been named Nikaro by his parents—but by tradition, many nightmare painters went by their title to anyone but their fellows. Few internalized it as he had. So we shall call him as he called himself. Simply, Painter.
You’d probably say Painter looked Veden. Similar features, same black hair, paler skin than your average Alethi. He’d have been confused to hear that comparison, as he’d never heard of such lands as those. In fact, his people had only just begun to think about whether or not their planet was alone in the cosmere. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Painter. He was a young man, still a year from his twenties, as you’d count the years. His people used different numbers, but for ease, let’s call him nineteen. Lanky, dressed in an untucked buttoning grey-blue shirt and a knee-length coat, he was the type who wore his hair long enough to brush his shoulders because he thought it took less effort. In reality, it took far more, but only if you do it right. He also thought it looked more impressive. But, again, only if you do it right. Which he didn’t.
You might have thought him young to bear the burden of protecting an entire city. But you see, he did it along with the hundreds of other nightmare painters. In this, he was important in the brilliantly modern way that teachers, firefighters, and nurses are important. Essential jobs that earn fancy days of appreciation on the calendar, words of praise in every politician’s mouth, and murmurs of thanks from people at restaurants. Indeed, discussions of the intense value of these professions crowd out other, more mundane conversations. Like ones regarding salary increases.
Painter didn’t make much as a result; just enough to eat and have some pocket cash. He lived in a single-room apartment provided by his work. Each night, he went out to his task. And he dis so, even at this hour, without fear of mugging or attack. Kilahito was a safe city, nightmares excluded. Nothing like rampaging, semi-sentient voids of darkness to drive down crime.
Understandably, most people stayed inside at night.
Night. Well, we’ll call it that. The time when people slept. They didn’t have the same view of these things that you do, as his people lived in persistent darkness. Still, during his shift, you’d say it felt like night. Painter passed through hollow streets alongside overstuffed apartments. The only activity he spotted was from Rabble Way: a street you might charitably call a “low end merchant quarter.” The long, narrow street lay near the perimeter of town, naturally. Along it, the hion connections had been bent and curved into signs. These hung out from shop after shop, like hands waving for attention.
Each sign—letters, pictures, and designs—was created using only two colors: aqua and magenta. Art drawn in two, continuous lines. Yes, they had another source of light. Light bulbs, as common on many planets. Kilahito often used them indoors. But the hion just worked, no need for machinery or replacement, so many relied on it, particularly outdoors.
Soon, Painter reached the edge of the city. The end of hion. One final street wrapped Kilahito, and beyond that was the shroud. An endless, inky darkness that that besieged the city, and every one on the planet.
It smothered the city like a dome, driven back by the hion—which could also be used to make passages and corridors between cities. Only the light of the star shone through the shroud. To this day, I’m not a hundred percent certain why. But we are close to where Virtuosity splintered herself, and I suspect that has had an effect.
At the perimeter of the city, just in front of the shroud,, Painter folded his arms, confident. This was his realm. Here, he was the lone hunter. The solitary wanderer. The man who prowled the endless dark, unafraid of—
Laughter tinkled in the air to his right.
He sighed, glancing to where two other nightmare painters strolled the perimeter. Akane wore a bright green skirt and buttoning white blouse, and carried the long brush of a nightmare painter like a baton. Tojin loped beside her, a young man with bulging arms and a flat features. Painter had always thought Tojin looked incomplete, as if the Shards had taken an unfinished person and rounded up.
They laughed again at something Akane said. Then they saw him standing there.
“Nikaro?” Akane called. “You on the same schedule as us again?”
“Yeah,” Painter said. “It’s, um, on the chart… I think?” Had he actually filled it out this time?
“Great!” she replied. “See you later. Maybe?”
“Uh, yeah,” Painter said.
Akane walked off, heels striking stone, paintbrush in hand, canvas under her arm. Tojin gave Painter a little shrug, then followed, his own supplies in his large painter’s bag. Painter lingered as he watched them go, and fought down the urge to go chasing after.
He was a lone hunter. A solitary wanderer. An….unescorted meanderer? Regardless, he didn’t want to work in a pair or a group, like a lot of the others did.
It would be nice if someone would ask him. So he could show Akane and Tojin that he had friends too. He would reject any such offer with stoic firmness, of course. Because he worked by himself. He was a single saunterer. A…
Painter sighed. It was difficult to maintain a properly brooding air after an encounter with the Akane. Particularly as her laughter echoed two streets over. Being a nightmare painter might not have been as…solemn a job as he made it out to be.
It helped him to think that it was. Made it feel like less of a mistake. Particularly during those times when he went to bed, and regretted the decisions that had forced him into a life where he’d spend the next six decades on this street every night, backlit by the hion. Alone.
Chapter Two
Yumi had always considered the appearance of the day star to be encouraging. An omen of fortune. A sign that the primal hijo would be open and welcoming to her. In fact, the day star seemed extra bright today—glowing a soft blue on the eastern horizon as the sun rose in the west.
A powerful sign, if you believed in such things. There’s an old joke that notes lost items tend to be in the last place one looks. By converse, omens tend to appear in the first place people look for them.
Yumi did believe in signs. She had to—as though she rarely spent time thinking about them these days, an omen had been the single most important event in her life. The one that had appeared right after her birth. The one that had marked her as Chosen by the spirits.
She settled herself on the warm floor of her wagon as her attendants, Chaeyung and Hwanji, entered. The bowed in ritual postures, then fed her with maipon sticks and spoons—a meal of rice and a stew that had been left on the ground to cook.
Yumi sat and swallowed, never so crass as to try to feed herself. This was a ritual, and she was an expert in those. Though, she couldn’t help feeling distracted. Today was nineteen days past her nineteenth birthday.
A day for decisions. A day for action.
A day to, maybe, ask for what she wanted?
It was a hundred days until the big festival in Torio City, the grand capital, seat of the queen. The yearly revel of the country’s greatest art, plays, and projects. She had never gone. Perhaps…this time…
First, she had duties. Once her attendants finished feeding her, she rose. They opened the door for her, then hopped down out of the private wagon. Yumi took a deep breath, then followed, stepping into sunlight and down into her clogs.
Immediately, her two attendants leaped to hold up enormous fronds to obscure her from view. Naturally, people in the village had gathered to see her. The Chosen. The yoki-hijo. The girl of commanding primal spirits. (Not the most pithy of titles, but it works better in their language.)
This land—Torio—couldn’t have been more different from where Painter lived. Not a single glowing line—cold or warm—streaked the sky. No apartment buildings. No pavement. Oh, but they had sunlight. A dominant red-orange sun, the color of baked clay. Bigger and closer than your sun, it had distinct spots of varied color on it—like a boiling breakfast stew, churning and undulating in the sky.
This crimson sun painted the landscape…well, just ordinary colors. That’s how the brain works. Once you’d been there a few hours, you wouldn’t notice the light was a shade redder. But when you first arrive, it looks striking. Like the result of a bloody massacre which everyone is too numb to acknowledge. It also provides dynamic descriptions for poets telling stories, so there’s that.
Hidden behind her fronds, Yumi walked on clogged feet through the village to the local cold spring. Once at the spring, her attendants slipped her out of her nightgown—a yoki-hijo did not dress or undress herself—and let her walk down into the slightly cool water, shivering at its shocking kiss. A short time later, Chaeyung and Hwanji followed with a floating plate holding crystalline soaps. They rubbed her with the first, then she washed. Once with the second, then she washed. Twice with the third. Three times with the fourth. Five times with the fifth. Eight times with the sixth. Thirteen times with the seventh.
You might think that extreme. If so, have you perhaps never heard of religion?
Yumi’s particular flavor of devotion, fortunately, did have some practical accommodations. The later soaps were only such in the broadest definition—you would consider them perfumed creams, with a deliberately moisturizing component.
(I find them particularly nice on the feet, though I’ll probably need them for more parts of my body once I arrive in the Torish version of hell for abusing their ritual components for bunion relief.)
Yumi’s final rinse involved ducking beneath the water for a count of a hundred and forty-four. Underneath, her dark hair flowed around her, writhing in the current of her motion as if alive. The forced washing got her hair extremely clean—which was important, as her religious calling forbade her from ever cutting it, so it reached all the way down to her waist.
Though it wasn’t required of the ritual, Yumi liked to look up through the shimmering warm water and see if she could find the sun. Fire and water. Liquid and light.
She burst out of the water at the exact count of one forty four and gasped. That was supposed to get easier, she’d been told. She was supposed to rise, serene, renewed and reborn. Instead, she was forced to break decorum today by coughing a little.
(Yes she saw coughing as “breaking decorum.” Don’t even ask about how she regarded calling a someone by their first name.)
Ritual bathing done, it was time for the ritual dressing, also done by her attendants. The traditional sash just under the bust, then the larger white wrap across the chest. Loose undergarment leggings. Then the tobok, in two layers of thick colorful cloth, with a wide bell skirt. Bright magenta, for the ritual day of the week.
She slipped on her clogs again. Then somehow stepped in them, natural and fluid. (I consider myself a reasonably adroit person, but Torish clogs—they call them getuk—always felt like bricks tied to my feet. They aren’t necessarily hard to balance in—they’re only six inches tall—but they grant most outsiders the graceful poise of a drunk chull.)
With all of that, she was finally ready…for her next ritual. In this case, she needed to pray at the village shrine to seek the blessings of the spirits. So, she again let her attendants block sight with their fronds, then walked out around to the village flower garden.
Here, vibrant blue blossoms—cup-like, to catch the rain—floated on thermals. They hovered around two feet off the ground. In Toria, plants never dared touch the ground, lest the heat wither them away. Each flower had wide leaves at the sides, catching the air—like lilies, with fine, dangling roots that absorbed nutrients from the air.
Yumi’s passing caused them to swirl and bump against one another. The shrine was a small structure, wood, mostly open to the air but with a latticed dome. Remarkably, it also floated gracefully a few feet off the ground—this time, by way of a lifting spirit underneath. It took the shape of two statues with grotesque features, facing one another. One vaguely male, one vaguely female, separate parts—thought they’d come from the same spirit. One crouched on the ground, while one clung to the bottom of the shrine.
Yumi approached among the flowers, the soft thermals causing her skirt to ripple. Thick cloth didn’t rise enough to be embarrassing; just enough to give shape and flare to the bell of her costume. She again took off her clogs as she reached the shrine, then she stepping up onto the cool wood. It barely wobbled, held firm by the strength of the spirit.
She knelt, then began the first of the thirteen ritual prayers. Now, if you think this description of her preparations took a while, that’s intentional. It might help you understand—in the slightest way—what it was to live Yumi’s life. Because this wasn’t a special day, in terms of her duties. This was normal. Ritual eating. Ritual bathing. Ritual dressing. Ritual prayers. And more.
Yumi was one of the Chosen, picked at birth by omen, granted the ability to influence the hijo, the spirits. It was an enormous honor among her people. And they never let her forget it.
The prayers, and following meditations, took around an hour. When she finished, she looked out toward the rising sun—slots in the shrine’s wooden canopy decorating her in alternating lines of light and shadow. She felt…lucky. Yes, she was certain that was the proper emotion. She was blessed to hold this station, one of the very fortunate few.
Duties done for the moment, she relaxed—though she thought she probably shouldn’t have—and contemplated the world the spirits provided. The warm sun, of vibrant red-orange, shining through brilliant clouds yellow, crimson, violet. A field of hovering flowers, trembling as tiny lizards leaped from one to the other. The stone underneath, warm and vibrant, the source of all life, heat, and growth.
She was a part of this. A vital one.
Surely this was wonderful.
Surely this was all that she should ever need.
Surely, she couldn’t want more. Even if…even if today was lucky. Even if… Perhaps, for once, she could ask?
The festival, she thought. One day to visit, wearing the clothing of an ordinary person. One day to be normal.
Rustling cloth and the sound of wooden shoes on stone caused Yumi to turn. Only one person would dare approach her during her meditation: Liyun, a tall woman in a severe black tobok with a white bow. Liyun, her kihomaban, a word that meant—in their language—something between a guardian and a sponsor. We’ll use the term warden for simplicity.
Liyun stopped a few steps from the shrine, hands behind her back. Ostensibly, she waited upon Yumi’s pleasure, a servant to the girl of commanding primal spirits. (Trust me, the term grows on you.) And yet, there was a certain demanding air to even the way Liyun stood.
Perhaps it was the fashionable shoes—clogs with thick wood beneath the toes, but long heels behind, with a sleek feel. Perhaps it was the way she wore her hair, cut short in the back, longer in the front—evoking the shape of a blade at each side of her head. This wasn’t a woman whose time you could waste, somehow, even when she wasn’t waiting for you.
Yumi quickly rose. “Is it time, Warden-nimi?” she said, with enormous respect.
Yumi and Painter’s languages shared a common root, and in both, there was a certain affection I find it hard to express in your tongue. They could conjugate sentences, or add modifiers to words, to indicate praise or derision. No curses or swears existed among them, interestingly. They would simply change a word to its lowest form instead. I’ll do my best to indicate for you this nuance by adding the word Highly or Lowly in certain key locations.
“The time has not quite arrived, Chosen,” Liyun said. “We should wait for the steamwell’s eruption.”
Of course. The air was renewed at the steamwell’s eruption, so better to wait a few minutes, if it was near. But that meant they had time. A few, precious moments with no scheduled work or ceremony.
“Warden-nimi,” Yumi said, gathering her courage. “The Festival of Reveals. It is near.”
“A hundred days, yes.”
“And it is a thirteenth year,” Yumi said. “The hijo will be unusually active. We will not…petition them that day, I assume?”
“I suppose we won’t, Chosen,” Liyun said, checking the little calendar—in form of a small book—she kept in her pouch. She flipped a few pages.
“And we’ll be…near Torio City? We’ve been traveling in the region.”
“And?”
“And… I…” Yumi bit her lip.
“Ah…” Liyun said. “You would like to spend the festival day in prayer of thanks to the spirits for granting you such an elevated station.”
Just say it, a part of her whispered. Just say no. That’s not what you want. Tell her.
Liyun snapped her book closed, watching Yumi. “Surely,” she said, “that is what you want. You wouldn’t actively desire to do something that would embarrass your station. To imply you regret your place. Would you, Chosen?”
“Never,” Yumi whispered.
“You were honored,” Liyun said, “of all the children born that year to be given this calling, these powers. One of only fourteen currently living.”
“I know.”
“You are special.”
She would have preferred to be less special—but she felt guilty the moment she thought it. Why would she second guess the spirits?
“I understand,” Yumi said, steeling herself. “Let’s not wait for the steamwell. Please, lead me to the arena. I am eager to start my duties and call the spirits.”
Chapter Three
The most terrifying thing about nightmares is how they transform.
I’m talking about regular nightmares now, not the kind that get painted. Terror dreams—they change. They evolve. It’s bad enough to encounter something frightening in the waking world, but at least those mortal horrors have shape, substance. That which has shape can be understood. That which has a mass can be destroyed.
Nightmares are a fluid terror. Once you get the briefest handle on one, it will change. It fill the nooks of the soul like spilled water filling cracks in the floor. Nightmares are a seeping chill, created by the mind to punish itself. In this, a nightmare is the very definition of masochism. Most of us are modest enough to keep that sort of thing tucked away, hidden.
And on Painter’s world, those dark bits were strikingly prone to coming alive.
He stood at the edge of the city—bathed from behind in radioactive teal and electric magenta—and looked out at darkness. Stiff, like a reflective surface, it shifted and flowed. Like molten tar.
The shroud. The blackness beyond.
Nightmares unformed.
There were trains that traveled the hion lines to other, distant cities. His parents lived in one, less than a day’s travel away from the larger metropolis of Kilahito, where he’d come to take work. So he knew other cities existed, that this one wasn’t alone. Yet, it was difficult not to feel isolated while looking into that endless blackness.
It stayed away from the hion lines. Mostly.
He turned to the right and walked along the perimeter for a short time, passing the outer buildings of the city—built in a line, like a shield wall, with narrow alleyways between. But it was made of buildings, and wasn’t an actual wall. Walls didn’t stop nightmares, so a solid fortification would merely prevent people from stepping out onto the perimeter.
In Painter’s experience, nobody came out here but his kind. The regular people stayed inside; even just one street inward felt infinitely more safe to them. They lived as he had, in his youth. Trying so very hard not to think about what was out there. Seething. Churning. Watching.
Now it was his job to confront it.
He didn’t see anything at first—no signs of particularly brave nightmares, encroaching upon the city. The signs could be subtle, however. So he kept walking on the perimeter. His assigned beat was a small wedge of the city moving inward several blocks, but the outside portion was the widest—and most likely to show a sign of a nightmare.
As he walked the road outside the city, he continued to imagine that he was some lone warrior, doing his rounds. Instead of, essentially, a pest exterminator who had gone to art school.
On his right, in toward the city, he began passing the capstone paintings. He wasn’t certain where the local painters had gotten the idea, but these days—during dull moments on patrol—the painters tended to do some practice work on the outer buildings of the city. The walls facing the shroud, naturally, didn’t have windows. So they made for large, inviting canvases.
Not strictly part of the job—these paintings couldn’t be turned in as proof of work done—each was a certain personal statement. He passed Akane’s painting, depicting an expansive flower. Black paint on the whitewashed wall.
His own was two buildings over. Just a blank white wall, though if you looked closely, you could see the failed project beneath, peeking through. He’d need to whitewash it again, to make sure that wasn’t visible. But not tonight, because finally, he caught signs of a nightmare. He stepped closer to the shroud, but didn’t touch it, of course.
Yes…the black surface here was disturbed. Like paint that had been touched when near to drying, it was…upset, rippling. It was difficult to make out, as the shroud didn’t reflect light, like the ink or tar it otherwise appeared to be. But Painter had trained well.
Something had left the darkness here and started into the city. He got his brush from his large painter’s bag, a tool as long as a sword. He always felt better with it in hand. Then he shifted his bag to his back, feeling the weight of canvases and ink jar inside. Then, he struck inward—passing the whitewashed wall that hadn’t quite covered up his old painting.
He’d tried four times so far. This last one had gotten further than most of his attempts—a painting of the star. He’d started it once he’d heard the news of an upcoming voyage, intended to travel the darkness of the sky. A trip to the star itself, taken by scientists, using a special vessel and a hion line launched to a place incredibly distant.
Because contrary to what everyone had assumed, the star wasn’t just a spot of light in the sky. Telescopes had revealed that it was a planet. Occupied, according to their best guess, by some other people. A place whose light, somehow, cut through the shroud.
The news of the impending trip had briefly inspired him. But he’d lost that spark, and the painting had languished. How long had it been since he’d covered it over? A month, at least.
On the corner of the wall near the painting, he picked out steaming blackness. The nightmare had passed this way, and had brushed the stones here, leaving residue. It evaporated slowly, shedding black tendrils into the night. He’d expected it to take this path, of course; they almost always took the most direct way into the city. But it was good to confirm.
Painter crept back inward, reentering the realm of hion light and its twin colors. Laughter echoed from somewhere down to his right, but the nightmare probably hadn’t gone that direction. The pleasure district was where people went to do anything other than sleep.
There, he thought, picking out some black wisps on a planter up ahead. The shrub grew toward the hion lines, the planet’s source of raw, nourishing light. So as Painter moved down the empty roadway, he walked through plants in boxes that looked as if they were reaching arms up in silent salute.
The next sign came near an alleyway. On the ground this time—an actual footprint. The nightmare had begun evolving, picking up on human thoughts, changing from formless blackness to something with a shape. Only a vague one, at first, but instead of a slinking, flowing black thing, it probably had feet now. They rarely left footprints even with this kind of shape, though, so he was fortunate to have found one.
He moved onto a darker street, where the hion lines were fine and thin as they flowed overhead. In this shadowy place, he remembered his first nights doing this alone. Despite extensive training, despite mentorship with three different painters, he’d felt exposed and raw trying it on his own. Like a fresh scrape, exposed to the air. His emotions, his fear, close to the surface.
That fear was layered well beneath callouses of experience now. Still, he gripped his shoulder bag tightly in one hand and held his brush out like a sword as he crept along. There, on the wall, was a handprint—with too-long fingers, and what looked like claws. Yes, it was taking a form. Its prey must be close.
Further down the tight alley, pressed between two buildings like hands pushing to trap him, he found it. Near a bare wall, a thing of ink and shadow, some seven feet tall. It had formed two long arms that bent too many times, the elongated fingers pressed against either side of the stone wall—and its head had sank through the stone to look into the room inside.
The tall ones always unnerved him, particularly when they had long fingers. He felt like he’d seen such things in his own, fragmented dreams—figments of terrors buried deep inside that only surfaced when he saw one like this. His feet scraped the stones, and the thing heard, withdrawing its head, wisps of formless blackness rising from it. As if it were ash from a fire, still smoldering.
No face, though. They never had faces—at least, not unless something was going wrong. Instead, these just displayed a deeper blackness on the front of the head. One that dripped dark liquid, like tears—as if the head were wax that had been melted from being too close to the fire.
Painter immediately put on his protections, thinking calm thoughts. This was the first and most important training. The nightmares, like many predators that fed on minds, could sense emotions and thoughts. They searched for the most powerful, raw ones to feed upon. So in this case, a placid mind was not of much interest.
The thing turned and looked back through the wall. This building had no windows, which was foolish. In removing them, the occupants trapped themselves more fully in the boxes of their homes. Nightmares, though, paid little attention to walls. This one had stretched through the stone. All people did by giving up windows was feed their claustrophobia, and perhaps make the jobs of painters more difficult.
Painter moved carefully, slowly, taking a canvas—a good three feet by three feet piece of thick cloth in a frame—from his shoulder bag. He sat it on the ground in front of him. His jar of paint followed—black, and runny, like ink. A blend designed to give excellent gradations in the grey and black. For nuance. Not that Painter himself bothered much these days.
He dipped the brush in the ink and knelt above his canvas, then hesitated, looking at the nightmare. The blackness continued to steam off of it, but its shape was still fairly indistinct. This was probably only its first or second trip into the city. It took a good dozen trips before a nightmare had enough substance to be dangerous—and they had to return to the shroud each time between to renew, lest they evaporate away.
So, by the looks of it, this one was fairly new. It probably couldn’t hurt him.
Probably.
And here was the crux of why painters were so important, yet so disposable, all at once. Their job was essential, but not urgent. As long as a nightmare was discovered and dealt with in its first ten or so trips into the city, it could be neutralized. That almost always happened.
Painter was good at controlling his fear with thoughts like these. Another part of his training—very pragmatic. Painter tried to consider what it looked like, what its shape could have been. Supposedly, if you picked something that sparked your imagination, you’d have more power over the entity. But he had trouble with this. Rather, during the last few months, it had seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
So today, he just settled on the shape of a small bamboo thicket and began painting. The thing had spindly arms, after all. Those were kind of like bamboo.
He’d practiced a great number of bamboo stalks. In fact, you could say that Painter had a certain scientific precision in the way he drew each segment—a little sideways flourish at the start, followed by a single long line. Then you let the brush linger a moment so that when you pulled it back, the blot you left formed the end knob of the segment. You could create each efficiently in a single stroke.
It was efficient, and these days, that seemed most important to him. As he painted, he fixed the shape in his mind—a central, powerful image. And as usual, he drew the thing’s attention with such deliberate thought. It hesitated, then pulled its head back out through the wall, turning toward him, face dripping its own ink.
It moved toward him, walking on its arms, but those had grown more round. With knobbed segments.
Painter continued. Stroke. Flourish. Leaves made with quick flips of the brush, blacker than the main body of the bamboo. Similar protrusions appeared on the arms of the thing as it drew closer. It also shrank upon itself as he painted a pot at the bottom. As always, the image captured the thing. Diverted it. So that, by the time it reached him, the transformation was fully in effect.
He never lost himself in the painting these days. After all, he told himself, he had a job to do. And he did that job well. As he finished, the thing even adopted some of the sounds of bamboo—the soft rattle of stalks beating against one another, to accompany the omnipresent buzz of the hion lines above.
He sat back, leaving a perfect bamboo painting on his canvas, mimicked by the thing in the alleyway, leaves rustling softly and brushing the sides of the walls. Then, with a sound very much like a sigh, it dispursed—trapped as it was, it couldn’t flee back to the outskirts of the city and rejoin the shroud to regain strength. Instead, like water trapped on a hot plate, it just…evaporated.
Soon, Painter was alone in the alleyway. He packed up his things, sliding the canvas back in the large bag with three other unused ones. Then went back on patrol.
Chapter Four
The local steamwell erupted right as Yumi was passing—at a safe distance—on the way to the Place of Ritual.
A glorious jet of water ascended from the hole in the center of the village. A furious, superheated cascade which reached forty feet at its highest—a gift from the spirits deep below. That was a decent height for this region.
The homes were built a good distance back, of course. In a ring around the steamwell. Like oh so many things in life, you wanted to be close—but not too close. Steamwells were life in this land. So long as you didn’t fraternize.
The water—the part that didn’t escape as steam—rained down on large bronze trays, set up in six concentric rings around the geyser. Elevated from the ground to keep them cool, the metal funneled the water down the slope toward the nearby homes. There were some sixty of those in the town—with room to grow, judging by how much water the steamwell released.
You needed that water to thrive in the land. Rain was rare, and rivers…well, one can imagine what the superheated ground did to prospective rivers. Water wasn’t rare in Yumi’s land, but it was concentrated, centralized, elevated. The air nearest the Steamwells was humid, nourishing migratory plants and other lively entities. You often found clouds above the steamwells, offering shade and occasional rainfall.
Further out from the city, though, were the searing barrens. Wastelands where the ground was too hot even for plants; the stone here could set clogs afire and kill travelers who lingered. In Torio, you traveled only at night, and only upon hovering wagons—pulled by flying devices created by the spirits. Needless to say, most people stayed home.
The loud pelting of drops against metal basins drowned out the murmurs of the watching crowds. For now Yumi could be seen—bathing finished, prayers proffered—and her attendants followed with fronds lowered, the ritual sign that the gathered townspeople could gawk at her.
She kept her eyes lowered, and she walked with a practiced step—a yoki-hijo must glide, as if a spirit herself. She was glad for the sound of the steamwell, for though she didn’t mind the whispers and murmurs of awe, they did sometimes…overwhelm.
She quickly reminded herself that the people’s awe wasn’t for her, but her calling. She needed to remember that, needed to banish pride and remain reserved. She most certainly needed to avoid anything embarrassing—like smiling. Out of reverence for her station.
The station, in return, didn’t notice. As is the case with many things that people revere.
She passed homes, most of which were in two tiers: one section built against the ground to benefit from the warmth and heat. Another built on stilts, with air underneath to keep it cooler. Imagine two large planter boxes built against one another, one elevated four feet, the other resting on the ground. Most all of them had a tree or two chained to them. Stocky, only about eight feet from tips of branches to bottom of their wide, webbed roots. Of course, these hovered about two feet in the air, riding the thermals.
Lighter plants hovered high in the sky, throwing down variegated shadows. During the daytime, you only found low plants in places like gardens, where the ground was cooler. That, and where humans worked to keep them nearby, so they didn’t float away, or get floated away. Torio is the only land I’ve ever heard of with tree rustlers.
At the far side of the town was the kimomakkin, or—as we’ll use it in this story—the Place of Ritual. A village usually had only one, lest the spirits get jealous of one another. A few flowers floated nearby, and when Yumi entered, her passing caused them to eddy and spin in behind her. They immediately shot up high into the sky. The place of ritual was a section of extra hot stone, though not nearly on the level of the outlands. You’d have found it as hot as walking on sand in the summertime—hot enough to be dangerous, but not in most cases deadly.
Here, heat was sacred. The village people gathered outside, their clogs scraping stone, parents lifting children. Three local spirit scribes settled on tall stools to sing songs that, best I can tell, the spirits don’t even notice. I approve of the job nonetheless. Anything to gainfully employ more musicians. It’s not that we’re unable to do anything else; it’s more that if you don’t find something productive for us to do, we’ll generally start asking ourselves questions like, “Hey, why aren’t they worshipping me?”
Everyone waited at the perimeter of the Place of Ritual, including Liyun. The songs started, a rhythmic chanting accompanying simple percussion of wooden sticks on wooden pans. A flute in the background, all of it growing more audible as the steamwell finished relieving itself and stumbled back off to sleep.
Inside the Place of Ritual was just Yumi.
The spirits deep underground.
And a whole lot of rocks.
The villagers spent months gathering them, setting them out through the city, then deliberating over which ones had the best shapes. You may think your local pastimes are boring, and the things your parents always forced you to do mind-numbing, but at least you didn’t spend your days excited by the prospect of ranking rock shapes.
Yumi put on a pair of knee pads, then knelt in the center of the rocks, spreading her skirts—which rippled and rose in the thermals. Normally, you did not want your skin to brush the ground. Here, there was something almost intimate about kneeling. Spirits gathered in places warm. Or, rather, warmth was a sign they were near.
They were unseen as of yet. You had to draw them forth—but they wouldn’t come to the beck of just anyone. You needed someone like Yumi. You needed a girl who could call to the spirits.
There were many ways that worked, but they shared a common theme: creativity. Most self-aware invested beings—be they called fay, seon, or spirit—respond to this fundamental aspect of human nature in one way or another.
Something from nothing. Creation.
Beauty from raw materials. Art.
Order from chaos. Organization.
Or in this case, all three at once. Each yoki-hijo trained in an ancient and powerful art. A kind of deliberate, wonderous artistry, requiring the full synergy of body and mind. Geological reorganization on the micro-scale, involving gravitational equilibrium.
In other words, they stacked rocks.
Yumi selected one with an interesting shape and carefully balanced it on end, then removed her hands and left it standing—oblong, looking like it should fall. The crowd gasped, though nothing arcane or mystical was on display. This was a result of instinct and practice. She place a second stone on the first, then then two on top at once—balancing them against one another in a way that looked impossible. The two incongruous stones—one leaning out to the right, the other precariously resting on its left tip—stayed steady as she pulled her hands away.
There was a deliberate reverence to the way Yumi moved, positioning rocks, then seeming to cradle them for a moment—stilling them, like a mother with a sleeping child. Then she’d pull her hands away, and leave the rocks as if a breath away from collapse. It wasn’t magic. But it was certainly magical.
The crowd ate it up. If you think their fascination to be odd, well…I’m not going to disagree. It is a little strange. Not just the balancing, but the way her people treated the performances—and creations—of the yoki-hijo as the greatest possible triumphs of artistry.
But then again, there’s nothing intrinsically valuable about any kind of art. That’s not me complaining or making light. It’s one of the most wonderful aspects to art—the fact that people decide what is beautiful. We don’t get to decide what is food and what is not. (Yes, exceptions exist. Don’t be pedantic. When you pass those marbles, we’re all going to laugh at you.) But we absolutely get to decide what counts as art.
If Yumi’s people wanted to declare that arranging rocks surpassed painting or sculpture as an artistic creation…well, I personally found it fascinating.
And the spirits agreed.
Today, Yumi created a spiral, using the artist’s sequence of progress as a kind of loose structure. You might know it by a different name. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four. Then back down. The piles of twenty or thirty rocks should have been the most impressive—and indeed, the fact that she could stack them so well is incredible. But she found ways to make the stacks of five or three delight just as much. Incongruous mixes of tiny rocks, with enormous ones balanced on top. Shingled patterns of stones, oblong ones hanging out precariously to the sides. Stones as long as her forearm balanced on their tiniest tips.
From the mathematical descriptions, and the use of the artist’s sequence, you might have assumed the process to be methodical. Calculating. And yet, somehow, it felt more a feat of organic improvisation than it did one of engineering prowess. Yumi swayed as she stacked, moving to the beats of the drums. She’d close her eyes, swimming her head from side to side as she felt the stones grind beneath her fingers. Judged their weights, the way they tipped.
Yumi didn’t want to just accomplish the task. She didn’t want to just perform for the whispering, excitable audience. She wanted to be worthy. She wanted to sense the spirits, and know what they wanted of her.
They deserved so much better than her. They deserved someone who did more than Yumi’s best. Someone who didn’t secretly yearn for freedom. Someone who didn’t—deep down—reject the incredible gift she’d been given.
Over the course of several hours, the sculpture grew into a brilliant spiral of stacks. Yumi outlasted the drumming women, who fell off after about two hours. She continued as people took children home for naps, or slipped away to eat, and even long enough that Liyun had to duck away to use the facilities, then hastily return.
Those watching could appreciate the sculpture, of course. But the best place to view it was from above. Or below. Imagine a great swirl made up of stacked stones, evoking the feeling of blowing wind, spiraling, yet made entirely from rock. Order from chaos. Beauty from raw materials. Something from nothing. The spirits noticed.
In record numbers, they noticed.
As Yumi continued through scraped fingers and aching muscles, they began to float up from the stones beneath. Teardrop shaped, radiant like the sun—a swirling orange and blue—and the size of a person’s head. They’d rise up and settle next to Yumi, watching her progress, transfixed. They didn’t have eyes—they were little more than blobs—but they could watch. Sense, at least.
Spirits of this sort find human creations to be fascinating. And here, because of what she’d done—because of who she was—they knew this sculpture was a gift. As the day grew dark, and the plants began to drift down from the upper layers of the sky, Yumi finally started to weaken. By now, her fingers were bloodied—the callouses scraped away by repetitive movement. Her arms had moved from sore, to numb, to somehow both sore and numb.
It was time for the next step. She couldn’t afford a childish mistake like she’d suffered in her early years: that of working so hard that she collapsed unconscious before binding the spirits. This wasn’t simply about creating the sculpture or providing a pious display. There was a measure of practicality attached to this day’s art, like a rider in a contract.
Feeling too tired to stand, Yumi turned from her creation—which contained hundreds of stones, the plies at the side of the yard depleted. Then she blinked, counting the spirits who surrounded her, each in its glory—in this case, looking a little like an series of overly large ice cream scoops that had tumbled from the cone.
Thirty-seven.
She’d summoned thirty-seven.
Most yoki-hijo were lucky to get six. Her previous record had been twenty.
Yumi wiped the sweat from her brow, then counted again through blurry eyes. She was tired. So (lowly) tired.
“Send forth,” she said, voice croaking, “the first supplicant.”
The crowd agitated with excitement, and people went running to fetch friends or family members who had fallen off during the hours of sculpting. A strict order of needs was kept in the town, adjudicated by methods Yumi didn’t know. Supplicants were arranged, with the lucky five or six at the top all but guaranteed a slot.
Those lower down would usually have to wait another year or more for another yoki-hijo to grant their needs. As spirits usually remained bound for five to ten years—with their effectiveness waning in the latter part of that—there was always a grand need for the efforts of the yoki-hijo. Today, for example, there were twenty-three names on the list, even though they’d only expected a half dozen spirits to arrive.
As one might imagine, there had been a fervor among the members of the town council to fill out the rest of the names. Yumi was unaware of this. She simply positioned herself at the front of the arena, kneeling, head bowed—and trying her best not to collapse sideways to the stone.
Liyun allowed the first supplicant in, a man with a head that sat a little too far forward on his neck, like a picture that had been cut in half, then sloppily taped back together. “Blessed bringer of spirits,” he said, wringing his cap in his hands, “we need light for my home. It has been six years, and we have been without.”
Six years? Without a light at nights? Suddenly, Yumi felt even more selfish for her attempt to escape her duties earlier. “I am sorry,” she whispered back, “for failing you and your family these many years.”
“You didn’t—” The man cut himself off. It wasn’t proper to contradict a yoki-hijo. Even to try to compliment them.
Yumi turned to the first of the spirits, who inched up beside her, curious. “Light,” she said. “Please. In exchange for this gift of mine, will you give us light?” At the same time, she projected the proper idea. Of a flaming sun becoming a small glowing orb, capable of being carried in the palm of your hand.
“Light,” the spirit said to her. “Yes.”
The man waited anxiously as the spirit shivered, then divided in half—one side glowing brightly, with a friendly orange color, the other becoming a dull blue sphere. So dark, it could be mistaken for black, particularly at dusk.
Yumi handed the man the two balls, each fitting in the palm of one hand. He bowed and retreated. The next requested a repelling pair, like was used in the garden veranda, to lift her small dairy into the air—and keep it cooler and let her make butter. Yumi complied, speaking to the next spirit in line, coaxing the spirit to split into the shape of two squat statues with grimacing features.
Each supplicant in turn got their request fulfilled. It had been years since Yumi had accidentally confused or frightened off a spirit—though these people didn’t know it, and so each waited in worried anticipation, fearing that their request would be one where the spirit turned away.
It didn’t happen, though each request took longer to fulfill, longer to persuade, as the spirits grew more detached from her performance. And each request took a little…something from Yumi. Something that recovered over time, but in the moment, left her feeling empty. Like a jar of jelly tea, being emptied scoop by scoop.
Some wanted light. A few wanted repelling devices. The majority requested flyers—hovering devices about two feet across. These could be used to help care for crops during the daytime, when they soared high and out of the reach of the farmers—and needed to be watched by the village’s great crows instead. There were some threats the crows could not manage, and being able to interact with them at height was a huge benefit, so a good fleet of flyers was a necessity for most settlements.
One could make basically anything out of a spirit, provided it was willing and you could formulate the request properly. To Torish people, using a spirit for light was as natural—and as common—as candles or lanterns might be among others. You might consider wasteful of the great cosmic power afforded them, but theirs was a harsh land where the ground itself could literally boil water. You’ll just have to forgive them for making use of the resources they had.
Getting through all thirty seven spirits was nearly as grueling as the art itself—and by the end, Yumi continued in a daze. Barely seeing, barely hearing. Mumbling ceremonial phrases by rote and projecting to the spirits with more primal need than crisp images. But eventually, the last supplicant bowed and hurried away with his new spirit saw. Yumi found herself alone before her creation, surrounded by cooling air and floating lilies that were drifting down to her level as the thermals cooled.
Done. She was…done?
Each bound spirit had reinforced her sculpture, the stones of which would now resist tipping as if they’d been glued in place. As the bond weakened, and the stones eventually started to drop over the years, the powers of the spirits would respond in kind. But in general, the more spirits you bound in a session, the longer all of them would last. What she’d done that day was unprecedented.
Liyun approached to congratulate her on the work so well done. She found, however, not a magnificent master of spirits—but an exhausted nineteen year old girl, collapsed unconscious, her hair fanning around her on the stone and her ceremonial silks trembling in the breeze.
Chapter Five
The nightmares had originally come from the sky.
Painter had heard the stories. Everyone had. They weren’t quite histories, mind you. They were fragments of stories that were likely exaggerations. They were taught in school regardless. Like a man with diarrhea in a sandpaper factory, sometimes all available options are less than ideal.
I watched it rain the blood of a dying god, one account read. I crawled through tar that took the faces of the people I had loved. It took them. And their blood became black ink.
Those are the words of a poet who, after the event, didn’t speak or even write for thirty years.
Grandfather spoke of the nightmares, another woman had written years later. He doesn’t know why he was spared. He stares at nothing when he speaks of those days spent crawling in the darkness, that terror from the sky, until he found another voice. They met and huddled, weeping together, clinging to one another—though they had never met before that day, they were suddenly brothers. Because they were real.
And then, this one, which I find most unnerving of them all: It will take me. It creeps under the barrier. It knows I am here. That one was found painted on the wall of a cave, roughly a hundred years later. No bones were ever located.
Yes, the records are sparse, fragmentary, and feverish. You’ll need to forgive the people who left them; they were busy surviving an all-out societal collapse. By Painter’s time, it had been seventeen centuries—and so far as they were concerned, the blackness of the shroud was normal.
But they’d only survived because of the hion: the lights that drove back the shroud. The energy by which a new society could be forged—or, in the parlance of the locals, painted anew. But this new world required dealing with the nightmares, one way or another.
“Another bamboo?” Sukishi said, sliding the top canvas from Painter’s bag.
“Bamboo works,” Painter said. “Why change if it works?”
“It’s lazy,” Sukishi replied.
Painter shrugged. His shift finished, it was time to turn in his paintings at the foreman’s office. The small room was lit by a small hanging chandelier. If you touch opposite lines of hion to either side of a piece of metal, you can make it heat up. From there, you were just a little sideways skip away from the incandescent bulb. As I said, not everything in the city was teal or magenta—though with hion outside, there generally wasn’t any need for street lights.
Sukishi marked a tally by Painter in the ledger. There wasn’t a strict quota—everyone knew that encountering nightmares was random, and there were more than enough painters. On average, you’d find one nightmare a night—but sometimes, you went days without even seeing one.
They still kept track. Go too long without a painting to turn in and questions would be asked. Now, the more lazy among you might notice a hole in this system. In theory, the rigorous training required to become a painter was supposed to weed out the sort of person who would just paint random things without actually encountering any nightmares. But there was a reason Sukishi hesitated and narrowed his eyes at painter after looking at the second canvas, and revealing a second bamboo painting.
“Bamboo works,” Painter repeated.
“You need to look at the shape of the nightmare,” Sukishi said. “You need to match your drawing to that, changing the natural form of the nightmare into something innocent, non-threatening. You should only be drawing bamboo if the things look like bamboo.”
“They did.”
Sukishi glared at him, and the old man had an impressive glare. Some facial expressions, like miso, required aging to hit their potency.
Painter feigned indifference, taking his wages for the day and stepping back out onto the street. He slung his bag over his shoulder—with his tools and remaining canvases—and went searching for some dinner.
The Noodle Pupil was the sort of corner restaurant where you could make noise. A place where you weren’t afraid to slurp as you sucked down your dinner, where your table’s laughter wasn’t embarrassing because it mixed like paint with that coming from the next table over. Though less busy on the “night” shift than during the “day,” it was still somehow loud, even when it was quiet.
Painter hovered around the place like a mote of dust in the light, looking for a place to land. The younger painters from his class congregated here with the sort of frequency that earned them their own unspoken booths or tables. A double-line of hion outlined the broad picture window in the front, glowing, made it look like a futuristic screen. Those same lines rose like vines above the window, spelling out the name in teal and magenta, with a giant bowl of noodles on top.
(Technically, I was a part owner in that noodle shop. What? Renowned, interdimensional storytellers can’t invest in a little real estate now and then?)
Painter stood outside, absorbing the laughter, like a tree soaking up the light of hion. Eventually, he lowered his head and ducked inside, looping his large shoulder bag on one of the prongs of the coat rack without looking. Fifteen other painters occupied the place, congregated around three tables. Akane’s table was in the back, where she was adjusting her hair. Tojin knelt low beside the table, solemnly adjudicating a noodle-eating contest between two other young men.
Painter sat down at the bar. He was, after all, a solitary defense against the miasma outside the city. A lone warrior. He preferred eating alone, obviously. He wouldn’t even have stopped in, save for his tragic mortality. Even solemn, edgy warriors against darkness needed noodles now and then.
The restaurant’s keeper flitted over behind the bar, then folded her arms and kind of hunched over as she stood, mimicking his pose. Finally, he looked up.
“Hey, Design,” he said. “Um…can I have the usual?”
“Your usual is so usual!” she said. “Don’t you want to know a secret? I’ll wrap it up and put it in your noodles if you order something new. But I’ll also tell you, because the paper will get soggy if it’s in the noodles too long, and you won’t be able to read it anyway.”
“Uh…” Painter said. “The usual. Please?”
“Politeness,” she said, pointing at him, “accepted.”
She…did not do a good job acting human. I take no blame, as she repeatedly refused my counsel on the matter. At least her disguise was holding up. People did wonder why the strange noodle-shop woman had long, white hair, despite appearing to be in her young twenties. She wore tight dresses, and many of the painters had crushes on her. She insisted, you see, that I make her disguise particularly striking.
Or, well, I should say it in her words. “Make me pretty so they’ll be extra disturbed if my face ever unravels. And give me voluptuous curves, because they remind me of a graphed cosign. And also because boobs look fun.”
It wasn’t an actual body—everyone kind of learned their lesson on that—but rather a complicated wireframe Lightweaving with force projections attached directly to her cognitive element as it manifested in the physical realm. But as I was getting pretty good at the technical side of all this, you can pretend it functioned the same as flesh and blood.
With Painter there, I could see what was happening—so I’ll admit to some pride regarding way Painter’s eyes followed Design as she walked over to begin preparing his meal. Granted, he did overdo it—his eyes lingered on her the entire time she worked. But don’t judge him too harshly. He was nineteen, and I’m a uniquely talented artist.
Design soon returned with his bowl of noodles, which she set into a circular nook carved into the wood. The hion lines—one connected to either end of bar—ran heat through the element at the bottom of the bowl, to keep the broth warm on chill Kilahito nights.
From behind, laughter and chanting heated up as the noodle-competition progressed. Painter, in turn, broke his maipon sticks apart and ate slowly, in a dignified way, befitting one of his imaginary station.
“Design,” he said, trying not to slurp too loud. “Is…what I’m doing important?”
“Of course it is,” she said, lounging down across the bar from him. “If you all didn’t eat the noodles, I think I’d run out of places to store them.”
“No,” he said, waving to his bag, still hanging from one arm of the restaurant’s curiously-shaped coat rack. “I mean being a nightmare painter. It’s an important job, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Design said. “Obviously. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a place with no nightmare painters. Then the people got eaten. It’s a short story.”
“I mean, I know it’s important in general,” Painter said. “But…is what I’m doing important?”
Design leaned forward across the bar, and he met her eyes. Which was difficult for him, considering her current posture. That said, some of you may have heard of her kind. I suggest, if you have the option, that you avoid trying to meet a Cryptic’s gaze. Their features—when undisguised—bend space and time, and have been known to lead to acute bouts of madness in those who try to make sense of them. Then again, who hasn’t wanted to flip off linear continuity now and then, eh?
“I see what you’re saying,” she told him.
“You do?” he asked.
“Yes. Noodles seven percent off tonight. In respect for the service of your brave painting services.”
It…wasn’t what he’d been talking about. But he nodded in thanks anyway. Because he was a young person working a vitally important, relatively low-paying job. Seven precent was seven percent.
Design, it should be noted, only gave discounts in prime number increments. Because, and I quote, “I have standards.” Still not sure what she meant.
She turned to see to another customer, so Painter continued slurping down the long noodles in warm, savory broth. The dish was quite good. Best in the city, according to some people, which isn’t that surprising. If there’s one thing you can count on a cryptic to do, it’s follow a list of instructions with exacting precision. Design had little vials of seasoning she added to the broth, each one counted to the exact number of grains of salt.
Halfway through the meal, he looked to the side as Akane stepped up to the bar to get some drinks. He looked away. She was gone a moment later, carrying cans of something festive to the others.
He ate the rest of the noodles in silence. Finally, Design noticed he was almost done. “Rice?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
She added a scoop soak up the rest of the broth, and he ate it down.
“You could go talk to them,” Design said softly, wiping at the counter with a rag.
“I tried that in school. It didn’t go well.”
“People grow up. It’s one of the things that makes them different from rocks. You should—”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m a loner, Design. You think I care what others think of me?”
She cocked her head, squinting with one eye. “Is that a trick question? Because you obviously—”
“How much?” he said. “With the discount?”
She sighed. “Six.”
“Six? A bowl normally costs two hundred kon.”
“Ninety-seven percent off,” she said. “Because you need it, Painter. You sure about this? I could go talk to them, tell them that you’re lonely. Why don’t I go do it right now?”
He laid a ten kon coin on the counter with a quick bow of thanks. Then, before she could push him further to do something that was probably good for him, he grabbed his bag from among the others hanging on the rack. He’d always found the statue coatrack a strange addition to the restaurant. But it was a quirky place. So, why not have a coat rack in the shape of a man with hawkish features and a sly smile?
Unfortunately, I had been quite aware of my surroundings when my ailment first struck. I had screamed inside when Design—thinking me too creepy otherwise—had spray painted me copper. Then, ever practical, she’d added a crown and several large bandoliers with poles on them for holding more bags or coats.
(As I said, I said I owned the restaurant. Part, at least. She ransacked my pockets for the money to build the place. I didn’t run it, though. You can’t do that when you’ve been frozen in time.
For your information, I have it on good authority that I made an excellent coat rack. I prefer not to think of it as an undignified disposal of my person, but rather me pulling off an incredible disguise.)
Painter stepped outside, heart thumping. A faint mist in the air gave the street a reflective sheen—an empty passage, lights hanging above, and then seeming to coat the ground below.
He breathed in, and out, and in again. And there, having fled from Design’s offers, he found it harder to maintain the fabrication. He wasn’t a loner. He wasn’t some proud knight, fighting the darkness for honor. He wasn’t important, interesting, or even personable. He was just one of likely thousands of unremarkable boys without the courage to do anything notable—and worse, without the skill to go underappreciated.
It was an unfair assessment of himself. But he thought it anyway, and found it difficult to stomach. Difficult enough that he wanted to retreat back toward his easy lies of self-imposed solitude and noble sacrifice. Unfortunately, another part was beginning to find those attitudes silly. Cringeworthy. With a sigh, he started off toward his apartment, his large painter’s bag across his shoulder and resting against his back.
At the first intersection, though, he spotted a tell-tail sign: whisps of darkness curling off the stone at the corner. A nightmare had passed this way recently.
That wasn’t too surprising. They were still in the poorer section of town, near the perimeter. Nightmares passed this way with some regularity. Another painter would find this one, eventually. He was off shift. Hands in pockets, absorbed by his personal discontent, he walked on past the corner. If he hurried home, he could still catch the opening of his favorite drama that would be broadcast through the hion viewer.
A light rain blew through the city, playing soft percussion on the street, making the reflected lines of light dance to the beat. Those dark wisps began to fade from the corner of stone. The trail going cold.
Two minutes later, Painter returned, stepping through a puddle and muttering to himself that the first part of the drama was always a recap anyway.
Chapter Six
Yumi awoke on the floor of her wagon, a blanket over her. The chill air of night had won its daily battle, driving back the deep heat of the stones beneath. She had been bathed, dressed in her formal sleeping gown, and placed here. Surrounded by flower petals in a circle, along with a ring of seeds for luck. Starlight cut around her in a square, reaching in through the window to gawk.
Sore, still somehow exhausted despite her hours of sleep, Yumi huddled in her blankets. The stone floor was comfortably warm. They lowered the wagon at nights, to touch the ground and draw forth its heat. You always wanted a home to touch the stones in some way for warmth at night—or for cooking in the day. People on other worlds don’t know what they’re missing; there’s a unique comfort to being able to lay down, drape a blanket over yourself, and bake in the floor’s own radiance. It was almost like the planet itself was feeding you life and strength.
Yumi huddled there for some time, trying to recover. She knew she should have felt pride at her accomplishment, and virtually any other person would have.
But she just…felt tired. And guilty because of her lack of proper emotions.
And more tired, because guilt of that sort is exceptionally difficult to carry. Heavier than the rocks she’d moved earlier.
Then ashamed. Because guilt has a great number of friends, and keeps their addresses handy for quick summons.
Heat seeped up around Yumi, but didn’t seem to be able to enter her. It cooked her, but she remained raw in the middle. She stayed there until the door opened. You might have heard clogged footsteps approaching first, but Yumi didn’t notice.
The figure in the doorway—in the deep of night, it was little more than a drop of ink on black paper—waited. Until finally Yumi looked up, realizing she’d been crying. The tears hit the floor and didn’t immediately evaporate.
“How did I do today, Liyun?” Yumi finally asked.
“You did your duty,” Liyun replied, voice soft, yet rasping. Like ripping paper.
“I…have never heard of a yoki-hijo summoning thirty-seven spirits in one day before,” Yumi said, hopeful. It wasn’t her warden’s job to compliment her. But…it would feel good…to hear the words nonetheless.
“Yes,” Liyun said. “It will make people question. Were you always capable of this? Were you holding back in other cities, refusing to bless them as you did this one?”
“I…”
“I’m certain it is wisdom in you, Chosen,” Liyun said. “To do as you did. I am certain it is not you working too hard, so that the next town in line gets a much smaller blessing, and therefore thinks themselves less worthy also.”
Yumi felt sick at the very thought. Her arms dangled at her sides, because moving them was painful. “I will work hard tomorrow.”
“I am sure you will.” Liyun paused. “I would hate to think that I trained a yoki-hijo who did not know how to properly pace herself. I would also hate to think that I was such a poor teacher that my student thought it wise to pretend to be unable of reaching her full potential, in order to have an easier time of her job.”
Yumi shrank down further, wincing at the throbs of pain from muscles in her arms and back. It seemed that even in great success, she did not do enough.
“Neither is true, fortunately.”
“I will tell Gongsha Town,” Liyun said. “They can look forward to a visit from a strong yoki-hijo tomorrow.”
“Thank you.
“May I offer a reminder, Chosen?”
Yumi glanced up, and kneeling where she was, the perspective made Liyun seemed to be ten feet tall. A silhouette against the night, like a cutout with blank space in the middle.
“Yes,” Yumi said, “please.”
“You must remember,” Liyun said, “that you are a resource to the land. Like the water of the steamwell. Like the plants, the sunlight, and the spirits themselves. If you do not take care of yourself, you will squander the great position and opportunity you have been given.”
“Thank you,” Yumi whispered.
“Sleep now, if it pleases you. Chosen.”
It takes real talent to use an honorific as an insult. I’ll give Liyun that much; it’s professional courtesy, from one hideous bastard to another.
Liyun shut the door with a click, and Yumi looked down, continuing to kneel. But she didn’t go back to sleep. She felt too much. Not just pain, not even just shame. Other, rebellious things. Numbness. Frustration. Even…anger.
She hauled herself to her feet, walking across lukewarm stone floor of the wagon to the window. But from here, she could see the rice bushes, which had lowered from the sky as the thermals cooled. A starlit collection of hundreds of individual plants, spinning and drifting lazily near the stone, their gas pockets slowly reinflating—one under each of the four broad leaves, with a cluster of seeds growing on top. It wasn’t actually rice, as you’d call it on Scadrial. The local word was mingo. But it boiled up close to the same—except for the deep blue-purple color—so we’ll use the more familiar word.
As Yumi watched, a burst of rice bushes jetted into the air, some dozen plants catching a rogue night thermal. Then they drifted lazily back down, where small creatures scurried underneath—looking for something to nibble on, and avoiding serpents. Both prey and hunter slept in trees during the heat. If they were fortunate, or unfortunate depending on the perspective, they picked different trees.
A gust across the field made it shiver and sway to the side, but night farmers moved along, waving large fans to keep the crops contained. Somewhere distant in the town, a giant crow cawed. (They aren’t as big as everyone says; I’ve never seen one the size of a full grown man. More like the size of a seven or eight year old.) A village corvider soon hushed the animal with soothing words and a treat.
Yumi wished she had someone to comfort her. Instead, she rested aching arms on the windowsill and stared out at the placid crops, turning lazily, occasionally jetting into the air. A tree leashed to the side of the building shivered in the breeze, its branches casting lines of shadow across Yumi’s face.
She could maybe just…crawl out of the window, and start walking. No night farmer would stop a yoki-hijo. She should have felt ashamed at the thought, but she was full up with shame at the moment. A cup filled to the top can’t hold anything more. It just spills out the sides, then boils on the floor.
She wouldn’t leave, but that night, she wished she could. Wished she could escape the prison of her ceremonial nightgown. She wasn’t even allowed to sleep as a normal person. She had to be reminded by her very undergarments what she was. Chosen at birth. Blessed at birth. Imprisoned at birth.
I… A voice said in her mind. I understand…
Yumi started, spinning around. Then she felt it, from deep below. A… A spirit. Her soul vibrated with its presence, a powerful one.
Bound… It said. You are bound…
Spirits understood her thoughts. That was part of her blessing. But they very, very rarely responded. She’d only heard of it happening in stories.
I am blessed, she thought toward it, bowing her head, suddenly feeling extremely foolish. How had she let her fatigue drive her to such insane thoughts? She’d anger the spirits. Suddenly, she had a terrible premonition. The spirits refusing to come at her performances. Villages going without light, without food, because of her. How could she reject such a—
No… The spirit thought. You are trapped. And we…we are trapped…like you…
Yumi frowned, stepping back to the window. Something was different about this voice. This spirit. It seemed…so very tired. And it was distant? Barely able to reach her? She looked up to the sparkling sky—and the bright daystar, stronger than them all. Was…the spirit…talking to her from there?
You work so hard, the spirit said. Can we give you something? A gift?
Yumi’s breath caught.
She’d read that story.
Most cultures have something similar. Some are terrible, but this wasn’t one of those places. Here, the boons of spirits were always associated with wonderous adventure.
She didn’t want adventure, though. She hesitated. Teetered, like a stone unbalanced. Then, in what was the most difficult moment of her life, she lowered her eyes.
You have already blessed me, she said. With the greatest gift a mortal can have. I accept my burden. It is for the best of my people. Forgive my idle thoughts earlier.
Very well… the distant spirit said. Then…could you give…us a boon?
Yumi looked up. That…never happened in the stories.
How? she asked.
We are bound. Trapped.
She glanced toward the corner of the room, where a spirit light—the spheres touching to turn the light off for sleep—lay on a counter. It was identical to those she’d made earlier today. One light sphere, one dark. Trapped?
No, the spirit thought. That is not our prison… We…have a more terrible…existence. Can you free us? Will you…try? There is one who can help.
Spirits in trouble? She didn’t know what she could do, but it was her duty to see them cared for. Her life was to serve. She was the yoki-hijo. The Girl of Commanding Primal Spirits.
Yes, she said, bowing her head again. Tell me what you need, and I will do whatever I can.
Please, it said. Free. Us.
All went black.
Chapter Seven
Painter wound through the next set of streets, tracking the nightmare as the rain tapped him on the head. The trail was difficult to follow; the dark whisps seemed to vanish in the haze of the rain. He had to backtrack twice as the streets grew more narrow, more winding, around through the huddled tenements of the city’s outer ring.
Deep in here, the hion lines overhead were as thin as twine, barely giving him enough light to see by. It got so bad that, eventually, he decided that he’d likely lost the trail. He turned to return home, passing a slit of a window he’d neglected to glance through just earlier.
He checked it this time, and found the nightmare inside, crouched at the head of a bed.
The room was lit by a faint line of teal hion tracing the ceiling, making shadows of the room’s meager furniture and frameless mattress, which held three figures. Parents that the nightmare had ignored. And a child, who made for more…tender prey.
The little boy was, perhaps, four. He huddled on his side, eyes squeezed shut, holding to a worn pillow that had eyes sewn on it—a poorer family’s approximation of a stuffed toy. The use indicated it was loved anyway.
The nightmare was tall enough that it had to bend over, or its head would have hit the ceiling. A sinuous, boneless neck. A body with a lupine features, legs that bent the wrong way, a face with a snout. With a sense of dread, Painter realized why this one had been so difficult to track. Virtually no smoke rose from its body. Most telling, it had eyes. Bone white, like drawn in chalk, but deep. Like holes going deep down into the skull.
This barely dripped darkness from its face. It was almost fully stable. No longer formless. No longer aimless.
No longer harmless.
This thing must have been incredibly crafty to have escaped notice this long. It took ten feedings for a nightmare to coalesce to this level. Only a few more, and it would be fully solid. Painter stepped backward, trembling. It already had substance. Things like this could…could slaughter hundreds. Things like this had destroyed entire towns in the past, most recently one known as Futinoro, destroyed only thirty years back—the most recent such tragedy.
This was above his pay grade. Quite literally. There was an entire specialized division of painters tasked with stopping stable nightmares. They traveled the land, going to towns where one was spotted.
The sound of a small sniffle broke through Painter’s panic. He ripped his eyes from the nightmare to look back at the bed, to where the child—trembling—had squeezed his eyes closed even tighter.
The child was awake.
At this stage, the nightmare could feed on direct terror just as easily as did the formless fear of a dream. It ran clawed fingers across the child’s cheek, leaving streaks of blood from slicked skin—the gesture was almost tender. And why shouldn’t it be? The child had given the thing shape and substance, ripped directly out of his deepest fears.
Now, the story thus far might have given you an unflattering picture of Painter. And yes, much of that picture is probably justified. Many of his problems in life were his own fault—and rather than try to fix them, he alternated between comfortable self-delusion and pointless self-pity.
But you should also know that right then—before the nightmare saw him—he could have easily slipped away into the night. He could have reported this to the foreman, who would have sent for the dreamwatch. Most painters would have done just that.
Instead, he reached for his painting supplies.
Too much noise. Too much noise! He thought as he slapped his bag down on the pavement and scrambled for a canvas. Lessons he didn’t realized he’d internalized returned to him: he couldn’t wake the people in the room. If the parents started screaming, the stable nightmare would attack and people would die.
Calm. Calm. Don’t feed it.
His training barely held as he, trembling, spilled out canvas, brush, and paints. He looked up.
And found the thing at the window, long neck stretching out through toward him, knife-fingers scraping the wall inside the room. Two white eye-holes seemed to want to suck him into them, pull him through to some other eternity. Before this day, he’d never seen a nightmare with anything resembling a face, this one smiled with bone-white, lupine teeth.
Painter’s fingers slipped on the ink jar, and it hit the ground before him with a clink, spraying ink on the ground. He struggled to keep his calm as he fumbled for it, then frantically dipped his brush right into the spilled ink.
The nightmare stretched forward…but then caught. It wasn’t used to having so much substance, and had trouble pulling itself through the wall. The claws were particularly difficult. The delay, though brief, probably saved Painter’s life as he managed to get his umbrella out and opened to shelter his canvas, then started painting.
He started with bamboo, of course. A…a blob at the bottom, then…then the straight line upward with a swipe. Just the briefest linger then to make the next knob… Like clockwork. He’d done this a hundred times.
He looked to the nightmare, which slowly slid one hand out through the wall—leaving gouges in the stone. Its smile deepened. Painter, in his current state, was most certainly not invisible to it. And bamboo was not going to be enough this time.
Painter tossed aside his canvas and pulled the last one from his bag. Nails ground stone as the thing pulled its second hand through the wall. Rainwater actually connected with its head, running down the sides of its grinning face. Crystal tears to accompany the midnight ones.
Painter began painting.
There’s a certain insanity that defines artists. The willful ability to ignore what exists. Millenia of evolution have produced in us not just the ability to recognize and register light, but to define colors, shapes, objects. I don’t think we often acknowledge how amazing it is we can tell what something is simply by letting some photons bounce off us.
An artist can’t see this. An artist has to be able to look at a rock and say, “That’s not stone. That’s a head. At least, it will be, once I pound on it with this hammer for a while.”
Painter couldn’t just see a nightmare. He had to see what it could be, what it might have been, if it hasn’t been produced by terror. And in that moment, he saw the child’s mother. Though he’d barely glimpsed her face in the bedroom next to her son, he recreated her.
Turn something terrible into something normal. Something loved. Even with a few brief strokes, he evoked the shape of her face. Stark eyebrows. Thin lips, faint brushes of ink. The curve of cheeks.
For the briefest moment, something returned to him. Something he’d lost in the monotony of a hundred paintings of bamboo. Something beautiful. Or, if you were a nearly stabilized nightmare, something terrible.
It fled. An event so incongruous that Painter slipped in his next brush stroke. He looked up, and barely caught sight of the thing running down the alleyway, away from him. It could have attacked, but it wasn’t quite stable yet. And so, it chose to flee, rather than risk letting him bind it into a passive, harmless shape.
He breathed out, and let the paintbrush slip from his fingers. He was relieved, on one hand. Worried on the other. If it could escape like that…it was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. He had basically no idea how to deal with something like that—and doubted his skill would have been enough to defeat it. Only the most skilled painters could actually bring down a stable nightmare, and he’d learned—painfully—that wasn’t him.
But fortunately, he didn’t have to do anything more; he’d done enough to frighten it away. Now, he could go and tell his superiors about the experience, and they’d send for the dreamwatch. They could hunt it before it finished its last two feedings, and the city would be safe.
He left the canvas on the ground beside the umbrella and stepped up to the wall, wrapping arms around himself to try to get some warmth to run through him again. Inside the room, the child had opened eyes and was staring at him. Painter smiled and nodded.
The kid immediately started screaming. That was more violent a reaction than Painter had been expecting, but it had the desired result: a pair of terrified parents comforting the boy, followed by a hesitant father in shorts hesitantly opening the tiny window.
He regarded the supplies on the ground—paintings slowly losing their ink to the rain—and the wet young man standing in the alleyway.
“…Painter?” he asked. “Was it…”
“A nightmare,” Painter said, feeling numb. “A strong one, feeding off of your son’s dreams.”
The man backed away from the window, eyes wide. He searched the room, as if to find something hiding in the corners.
“I frightened it away,” Painter said. “But…this was a strong one. Do you have family in another city?”
“My parents,” the man said. “In Fuhima.”
“Go there,” Painter said, speaking words he’d been taught to say in such a situation. “Nightmares can’t track a person that far—your son will be safe until we can deal with the horror. There is a fund available to help you during this time. Once I register what happened, you’ll be able to access it.”
The man looked back at the child, huddled in his mother’s arms, weeping. Then the man looked back at Painter—who knew what would come next. Demands, asking why he’d let the thing escape. Why he hadn’t been strong enough, good enough, practiced enough to actually capture the thing.
Instead, the man dropped to his knees, bowing his head. “Thank you,” he whispered. He looked back up at Painter, tears in his eyes. “Thank you.
Huh. Painter blinked, stammered a second. Then found his words. “Think nothing of it, citizen,” he said. “Just a man doing his job.” Then, with as much decorum he could manage in the rain—and with hands that were still trembling from the stress—he gathered up his things.
By the time he finished, the family was already packing their meager possessions. You’d forgive Painter for walking a little swiftly, often checking over his shoulder, as he wound back through the narrows of the outer ring. He had the feeling of one who had just been in a crash between two vehicles, or who had nearly been crushed by a falling piece of stone dropped from a construction site. A part of him couldn’t believe he was still alive.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped back out onto a larger road, and saw other people moving through the street. People up for the morning shift, heading to jobs. The star was low in the sky, just barely visible over the horizon, down hanging right at the end of the street.
He looked toward the foreman’s offices. But he suddenly, Painter found himself unnaturally tired. His feet like clay, mushy, his head like a boulder. He teetered. He needed…sleep.
The nightmare would not return to the city tonight. It would run to the shroud, regenerate, then slink in the following…night. He could tell foreman…in the morning…
He sluggishly, mind a haze, turned toward his apartment. It was near, fortunately. He barely registered arriving, climbing the stairs, and walking to his apartment. It took him four tries to get the key in, but as he stumbled into his room, he paused.
Dared he sleep? The family…needed his report…for the funds…
What was happening to him? Why did he suddenly feel like he’d been sucked of strength? He stumbled to the balcony, looking out, at the star. Then, he heard something odd. A rushing sound? Like…water?
He looked up.
Something came from the sky and hit him hard.
All went black.
Painter blinked. He was hot. Uncomfortably hot, and something was shining in his face. A garish light, like from the front of a hion-line bus. He blinked his eyes open, and was immediately blinded by the terrible, overpowering light.
What was (lowly) going on? He’d hit his head, perhaps? He forced his eyes open against the light and pulled himself—with effort—to his feet. He was wearing…bright cloth? Yes, a silken kind of nightgown, made of bright red and blue cloth.
Beside him lay a young woman. You’d recognize her as Yumi.
She opened her eyes.
Then screamed.
Is the magic system being used end-neutral? It appears to be using their Identity to fuel it? Or is that just other magic shenanigans going on causing that kind of effect? (making them grow tired, losing themselves, etc.)
RAFO. The book will answer some of this but not all of it.
You've talked about your experiences in Korea before, so it's neat to see that you're now using Korean and Japanese inspirations for Yumi's and Painter's worlds. Are the names and terms in this story gonna be informed by real-world words or meanings, or are they purely aesthetic?
They are mostly aesthetic.
Obviously there are going to be some, like I call it a tobok. (the costume that she puts on) "Bok" is Korean for "clothing". When you wear a hanbok it's a Korean traditional clothing. This is a tobok. I'm doing a few things like that. "Nimi" is obviously based, if you know Korean, on "nim" which is the Korean version of "san", the honorific. "Nim" is what you would say in Korean and "nimi" is just straight a ripoff of that. It's me using a word to translate into English a thing that they're doing in-world. You're going to see some more of that.
A lot of the names... Going and saying, "What does this name mean?" is not a thing... I learned my lesson in the first draft of Elantris shall we say, where I based people's names off the meaning of the Aons. And then you just flipped to the appendix and be like, "Oh, I guess this person's a traitor. Who names their son traitor?" The alpha readers caught that one. I'm like, "That is a bad way to do this." And then I named people based on what you would actually name people. And yes, they're based around Aons but it doesn't necessarily mean that it matches their personality. In the same way you could probably break down some of the Korean morphemes--Korean more than Japanese, because I know my Korean better than Japenese-- and be like, "Oh, this is obviously..." Yumi is... "Mi" means "beautiful" in Korean, right? So it's a very common morpheme in a lot of women's names. You could do that, but I'm not doing it intentional to be relevant to the plot. I just am familiar enough with how words and names are constructed that I can go to base sounds and build things in the same way that I built Elend not knowing that "Elend" actually means something in German because I was going back to base Germanic.
Don't read too much into it but you can find some things like that that you'll be able to split.
Did Virtuosity's Splintering directly or indirectly cause the nightmares to come, 17 centuries ago?
RAFO
When Hoid says the nightmares descended on Painter's planet 17 centuries ago, has he converted that for the general cosmere audience. (like how he just called Painter 19 years old)
Yes. He has converted it. Yes, in the same way that he says "we'll call him 19," yeah. You can assume that I'm doing that for most stories, or that Hoid is for the stories he's telling, with some exceptions. We don't do it on Roshar for instance.
Does Hoid do any sort of investigative research to verify important details of the story he tells?
Yes, he does quite a bit. You can assume that he, again... You're just reading them as they come up. I do think that this is relevant and important. You can assume that this is canon. That he has done his leg work and that he is telling a story the best that he can, which is better than any normal storyteller could.
If you were to drop a rock band and 300 of their most devoted followers onto Yumi's planet, and they performed a set that blew their fans' minds, would the spirits show up to watch?
Yes.
Does whether or not they know about the planet's magic system change the answer?
Yes. It changes the potency of what they're doing.
Do the people on Painter's planet have weird biological quirks due to living in the dark so long?
I am sidestepping this by use of the hion. For the most part, they are not going to deal well with sunburns. Not a lot of that going on. But at the same time, this has been going on a short enough time evolutionary wise that the adaptations would be very slight. You don't see a whole ton of that happening in the centuries that they have been living like this.
Are there any Easter eggs in any previous Cosmere works that are references to any of these secret projects that we will recognize once we’ve read them? Or were these all brand new ideas added to the Cosmere from where it stood before you started writing them?
You will find Easter eggs, but they've all been fairly well documented, of aethers appearing. Tress is on a world that involves the aethers tangentially. It's not the main, core aethers. So yes to that.
It's not really Easter eggs... Secret Project Four is something I've been laying groundwork for. But that's different from Easter eggs. When you read Secret Project Four you'll be like, "Oh, this is what he meant by 'he's been laying the groundwork'." It's a story that I've been preparing to tell and that you are prepped to read. That you can read if you haven't read anything else in the Cosmere, but you will enjoy more if you...
In fact, I am actually going to give you a minor spoiler on this. We are going to be putting this probably in the description so it's going to be spoiled for everyone. So even those who don't want spoilers, this is one that we're probably just going to make part of the thing on Thursday. It is Stormlight-adjacent. I warned you that it's one of the books adjacent. We're just going to go ahead and let people know it's Stormlight-adjacent. I think that will factor in to whether people are interested in digging in or not. Because those that haven't read The Stormlight Archive might not read the spoilers on that one, and those who have might read only the spoilers on that one. So it's like, Easter eggs? No. Full-on building toward? Yes.
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is the one that there are no real seeds for. It's just a story that I conceived and decided to write, on a planet that is connected to another one in ways that are interesting, and that don't play into the major Cosmere in large ways.
Is Design's noodle shop still in business at the time Hoid is telling [Yumi and the Nightmare Painter], under new management or otherwise?
RAFO
Will [Yumi and the Nightmare Painter] give us most of Virtuosity's story or will it come in a future book?
It will come in a future book.
What synonyms did you go through before choosing Virtuosity as the new shard?
Artistry was the only big one. I did shoot it to the company, and people shot back some suggestions otherwise, but everybody agreed that those two were the best options and I picked the one that I liked the most.
Is Hoid still in a relationship with you-know-who [Jasnah]?
RAFO
If your burned tin could you see through the shroud?
Yes.
Are hion televisions black and white, full color, only cyan and magenta, or something else?
RAFO
Are we going to find...
Can they deduce who Hoid is telling the story to in [Yumi and the Nightmare Painter]?
I don't really think that you can. There's some contextual clues but there is room for debate and so it's not going to be-- As Robert Jordan put it, he would always say "it will be intuitively obvious to the casual observer." It will not be. Don't spend the whole book distracted by trying to figure that out. I will recommend that you will enjoy the story better if you just enjoy the story. And then when you look back, "I wonder what this means? I wonder what that means?" But it's not a puzzle I'm building for you to figure it out.
What would happen if you stuck Nightblood into the shroud?
Nightblood would feed upon the Investiture as he is wont to do.
Is this Hoid recording a podcast? He kind of seems to be talking to people on several planets at the same time.
RAFO
So they have the spirit-powered flyers which would probably have better control, but does anyone ever unchain their tree and ride it as a hovercar when they're short on spirit flyers? How much weight can the trees support without touching the ground?
I actually will get into this in the book, so I will RAFO that. Do be aware that I am aware... Hoid may have warned you. If he didn't, it's not just thermals that are making the trees fly. I think that's probably pretty obvious, but just in case, it's not.
Hoid refers to himself as a “renowned interdimensional storyteller”. Does this word “interdimensional” refer to traveling between the Physical and Cognitive Realms, or does it mean something more?
Nope, that's what it means. Well, and Spiritual on occasions. He is not referencing moving through time, and there is no multiverse in the Cosmere. Good to ask that so I can reinforce it. No time travel to the past. No multiverse. These are two of my big nonos in the Cosmere
What is your favorite question that you had to RAFO at the time that has since been answered? Which current RAFO are you most excited for readers to find in the future?
I can tell you that RAFO-ing about Secret Projects and things and then eventually knowing I was gonna reveal these to everyone was a lot of fun. RAFO-ing, I have to be careful; I don't know if they're official RAFOs. 'Cause usually, when I put out teases about these, I didn't even tease these ones; I was teasing other secret projects, Kingmaker or the as-of-yet-not-announced/revealed 200,000 word secret project that I will someday maybe write. But knowing that I would be able to tell you guys eventually about this was really fun.
And, of course, there have been a whole lot of RAFOs around Stormlight Five's ending, and I am in the thick of working on that now, and it's very fun to imagine you all getting some of these things.
