Words of Radiance

“Brightness?” Tvlakv said, waddling her direction. “I’m afraid we haven’t much to offer you in the way of meals. We are poor for merchants, you see, and cannot afford delicacies.”

“Whatever you have will suffice,” Shallan said, trying to keep the pain from showing in her face, though the spren had already given her away. “Please have one of your men get down my trunk.”

Tvlakv did so without complaint, though he watched hungrily as Bluth lowered it to the ground. It seemed a particularly bad idea to let him see what was inside; the less information he had, the better off she would be.

“These cages,” Shallan said, looking over the back of her wagon, “from those clasps at top, it looks like the wooden sides can be affixed over the bars.”

“Yes, Brightness,” Tvlakv said. “For highstorms, you see.”

“You only have enough slaves to fill one of the three wagons,” Shallan said. “And the parshmen ride in another. This one is empty, and will make an excellent traveling wagon for me. Put the sides on.”

“Brightness?” he said with surprise. “You want to be put into the cage?”

“Why not?” Shallan asked, meeting his eyes. “Certainly I’m safe in your custody, tradesman Tvlakv.”

“Er… yes…”

“You and your men must be well acquainted with rough travel,” Shallan said calmly, “but I am not. Sitting day in and out in the sun on a hard bench will not suit me. A proper carriage, however, would be a welcome amelioration of this wilderness journey.”

“Carriage?” Tvlakv said. “It’s a slave wagon!”

“Mere words, tradesman Tvlakv,” Shallan said. “If you please?”

He sighed, but gave the order, and the men pulled the sides out from beneath the wagon and hooked them up on the outside. They left off the back one, where the cage door was. The result did not look especially comfortable, but it would offer some privacy. Shallan had Bluth haul her chest up and inside, to Tvlakv’s dismay. Then, she climbed in and pulled the cage door shut. She held her hand out through the bars toward Tvlakv.

“Brightness?”

“The key,” she said.

“Oh.” He pulled it out of a pocket, regarding it for a moment—too long a moment—before handing it to her.

“Thank you,” she replied. “You may send Bluth with my meal when it is ready, but I shall require a bucket of clean water immediately. You have been most accommodating. I will not forget your service.”

“Er… Thank you.” It almost sounded like a question, and as he walked away, he seemed confused. Good.

She waited for Bluth to bring the water, then crawled—to stay off her feet—through the enclosed wagon. It stank of dirt and sweat, and she grew nauseated thinking of the slaves who had been held here. She would ask Bluth to have the parshmen scrub it later.

She stopped before Jasnah’s trunk, then knelt and gingerly raised the lid. Light spilled out from the infused spheres inside. Pattern waited there as well—she had instructed him not to be seen—his shape raising the cover of a book.

Shallan had survived, so far. She certainly wasn’t safe, but at least she wasn’t going to freeze or starve immediately. That meant she finally had to face greater questions and problems. She rested her hand on the books, ignoring her throbbing feet for the moment. “These have to reach the Shattered Plains.”

Pattern vibrated with a confused sound—a questioning pitch that implied curiosity.

“Someone needs to continue Jasnah’s work,” Shallan said. “Urithiru must be found, and the Alethi must be convinced that the return of the Voidbringers is imminent.” She shivered, thinking of the marbled parshmen working just one wagon over.

“You… mmm… continue?” Pattern asked.

“Yes.” She’d made that decision the moment she’d insisted that Tvlakv head for the Shattered Plains. “That night before the sinking, when I saw Jasnah with her guard down… I know what I must do.”

Pattern hummed, again sounding confused.

“It’s hard to explain,” Shallan said. “It’s a human thing.”

“Excellent,” Pattern said, eager.

She raised an eyebrow toward him. He’d quickly come a long way from spending hours spinning in the center of a room or climbing up and down walls.

Shallan took out some spheres for better light, then removed one of the cloths Jasnah had wrapped around her books. It was immaculately clean. Shallan dipped the cloth into the bucket of water and began to wash her feet.

“Before I saw Jasnah’s expression that night,” she explained, “before I talked to her through her fatigue and got a sense of just how worried she was, I had fallen into a trap. The trap of a scholar. Despite my initial horror at what Jasnah had described about the parshmen, I had come to see it all as an intellectual puzzle. Jasnah was so outwardly dispassionate that I assumed she did the same.”

Shallan winced as she dug a bit of rock from a crack in her foot. More painspren wiggled out of the floor of the wagon. She wouldn’t be walking great distances anytime soon, but at least she didn’t see any rotspren yet. She had better find some antiseptic.

“Our danger isn’t just theoretical, Pattern. It is real and it is terrible.”