The Way of Kings

“Lucky he didn’t win,” Kaladin said, “and discover how he’d been tricked. They wouldn’t have let him walk away with Sadeas’s Plate.”

“Nonsense,” Teft broke in. “Tradition–”

“Tradition is the blind witness they use to condemn us, Teft,” Kaladin said. “It’s the pretty box they use to wrap up their lies. It makes us serve them.”

Teft set his jaw. “I’ve lived a lot longer than you, son. I know things. If a common man killed an enemy Shardbearer, he’d become a lighteyes. That’s the way of it.”

He let the argument lapse. If Teft’s illusions made him feel better about his place in this mess of a war, then who was Kaladin to dissuade him? “So you were a servant,” Kaladin said to Rock. “In a brightlord’s retinue? What kind of servant?” He struggled for the right word, remembering back to the times he’d interacted with Wistiow or Roshone. “A footman? A butler?”

Rock laughed. “I was cook. My nuatoma would not come down to the lowlands without his own cook! Your food here, it has so many spices that you cannot taste anything else. Might as well be eating stones powdered with pepper!”

“You should talk about food,” Teft said, scowling. “A Horneater?”

Kaladin frowned. “Why do they call your people that, anyway?”

“Because they eat the horns and shells of the things they catch,” Teft said. “The outsides.”

Rock smiled, with a look of longing. “Ah, but the taste is so good.”

“You actually eat the shells?” Kaladin asked.

“We have very strong teeth,” Rock said proudly. “But there. You now know my story. Brightlord Sadeas, he wasn’t certain what he should do with most of us. Some were made soldiers, others serve in his house hold. I fixed him one meal and he sent me to bridge crews.” Rock hesitated. “I may have, uh, enhanced the soup.”

“Enhanced?” Kaladin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rock seemed to grow embarrassed. “You see, I was quite angry about my nuatoma’s death. And I thought, these lowlanders, their tongues are all scorched and burned by the food they eat. They have no taste, and…”

“And what?” Kaladin asked.

“Chull dung,” Rock said. “It apparently has stronger taste than I assumed.”

“Wait,” Teft said. “You put chull dung in Highprince Sadeas’s soup?”

“Er, yes,” Rock said. “Actually, I put this thing in his bread too. And used it as a garnish on the pork steak. And made a chutney out of it for the buttered garams. Chull dung, it has many uses, I found.”

Teft laughed, his voice echoing. He fell on his side, so amused that Kaladin was afraid he’d roll right into the chasm. “Horneater,” Teft finally said, “I owe you a drink.”

Rock smiled. Kaladin shook his head to himself, amazed. It suddenly made sense.

“What?” Rock said, apparently noticing his expression.

“This is what we need,” Kaladin said. “This! It’s the thing I’ve been missing.”

Rock hesitated. “Chull dung? This is the thing you need?”

Teft burst into another round of laugher.

“No,” Kaladin said. “It’s… well, I’ll show you. But first we need this knobweed sap.” They’d barely made their way through one of the bundles, and already his fingers were aching from the milking.

“What of you, Kaladin?” Rock asked. “I have been telling you my story. You will tell me yours? How did you come to those marks on your forehead?”

“Yeah,” Teft said, wiping his eyes. “Whose food did you trat in?”

“I thought you said it was taboo to ask about a bridgeman’s past,” Kaladin said.

“You made Rock share, son,” Teft said. “It’s only fair.”

“So if I tell my story, that means you’ll tell yours?”

Teft scowled immediately. “Now look, I ain’t going to–”

“I killed a man,” Kaladin said.

That quieted Teft. Rock perked up. Syl, Kaladin noticed, was still watching with interest. That was odd for her; normally, her attention wavered quickly.

“You killed a man?” Rock said. “And after this thing, they made you a slave? Is not the punishment for murder usually death?”

“It wasn’t murder,” Kaladin said softly, thinking of the scraggly bearded man in the slave wagon who had asked him these same questions. “In fact, I was thanked for it by someone very important.”

He fell silent.

“And?” Teft finally asked.

“And…” Kaladin said, looking down at a reed. Nomon was setting in the west, and the small green disk of Mishim – the final moon – was rising in the east. “And it turns out that lighteyes don’t react very well when you turn down their gifts.”

The others waited for more, but Kaladin fell silent, working on his reeds. It shocked him, how painful it still was to remember those events back in Amaram’s army.

Either the others sensed his mood, or they felt what he’d said was enough, for they each turned back to their work and prodded no further.

24 Gallery of Maps

Neither point makes the things I have written to you here untrue.