The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

“How do you know my name?” he whispered. “How do you know it?” “I know it because … because it’s mine. My parents told it to me. I don’t know.” “Well I don’t either,” she said, nodding as if she’d just won some grand argument.

“You want me to lead the caravan?” “Instructions will be acceptable.” “All right. First, find a cliff.” “That, it will give you a vantage to see the area?” “No,” Kaladin said. “It will give me something to throw you off of.”

When she drew, she didn’t feel as if she worked with only charcoal and paper. In drawing a portrait, her medium was the soul itself. There were plants from which one could remove a tiny cutting—a leaf, or a bit of stem—then plant it and grow a duplicate. When she collected a Memory of a person, she was snipping free a bud of their soul, and she cultivated and grew it on the page. Charcoal for sinew, paper pulp for bone, ink for blood, the paper’s texture for skin. She fell into a rhythm, a cadence, the scratching of her pencil like the sound of breathing from those she depicted.

“Are you certain you want something so, er, ambitious?” the man asked. “Is ambition such an unseemly attribute in a young woman?” “Well, no, I suppose not.” He smiled again—the thick, toothy smile of a merchant trying to put someone at ease. “I can see you are a woman of discriminating taste.” “I am,” Shallan said, voice firm though her heart fluttered. Was she destined to get into an argument with everyone she met? “I do like my meals prepared very carefully, as my palate is quite delicate.” “Pardon. I meant that you have discriminating taste in books.” “I’ve never eaten one, actually.” “Brightness, I believe you are having sport with me.” “Not yet I’m not. I haven’t even really begun.”

“Brightness … I believe you stray into sarcasm.” “Funny. I thought I’d run straight into it, screaming at the top of my lungs.”

Wit shrugged. “I point out truths when I see them, Brightlord Sadeas. Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.”

“If the Wit is a fool, then it is a sorry state for men. I shall offer you this, Sadeas. If you can speak, yet say nothing ridiculous, I will leave you alone for the rest of the week.” “Well, I think that shouldn’t be too difficult.” “And yet you failed,” Wit said, sighing. “For you said ‘I think’ and I can imagine nothing so ridiculous as the concept of you thinking.

“People are discord,” Syl said.

“What does that mean?” “You all act differently and think differently. Nothing else is like that—animals act alike, and all spren are, in a sense, virtually the same individual. There’s harmony in that. But not in you—it seems that no two of you can agree on anything. All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that’s why you so often want to kill each other.”

“I had imagined,” she said, “that a walk would involve more walking.” “Hm,” he said. “Yes. We’ll be getting right to that soon. It’ll be grand. Lots of prancing, sauntering, and, er …” “Promenading?” Yis the leatherworker offered. “Isn’t that a type of drink?” Adolin asked. “Er, no, Brightlord. I’m fairly certain it’s another word for walking.” “Well, then,” Adolin said. “We’ll do plenty of it too. Promenading. I always love a good promenading.”

“First a stinky leatherworker’s shop, now the temple? I had assumed we would walk someplace at least faintly romantic.” “Religion’s romantic,” Adolin said, scratching his head. “Eternal love and all that, right?” She eyed him. “I’m going to go wait outside.” She turned and walked out with her handmaiden. “And someone get me a storming palanquin.” Adolin frowned, watching her go. “I’ll have to buy her something quite expensive to make up for this, I suspect.” “I don’t see what the problem is,” Kadash said. “I think religion is romantic.” “You’re an ardent,” Adolin said flatly. “Besides, that scar makes you a little too unsightly for my tastes.”

Dalinar hesitated beside Wit’s chair as Taselin waddled by with a huff. “Wit,” Dalinar said, “do you have to?” “Two what, Dalinar?” Wit said, eyes twinkling. “Eyes, hands, or spheres? I’d lend you one of the first, but—by definition— a man can only have one I, and if it is given away, who would be Wit then? I’d lend you one of the second, but I fear my simple hands have been digging in the muck far too often to suit one such as you. And if I gave you one of my spheres, what would I spend the remaining one on? I’m quite attached to both of my spheres, you see.” He hesitated. “Or, well, you can’t see. Would you like to?” He stood up off his chair and reached for his belt.

“The Assuredness Movement?” Shallan asked, holding up one of her books. “I guess I could get behind that.” “Oh?” “Yes. Much easier to stab it in the back from that position.”

“Is it hard for you, Jasnah? Painful, I mean?” “Atheism is not a disease, Your Majesty,” Jasnah said dryly. “It’s not as if I’ve caught a foot rash.”

“I see. So she’s a harsh mistress?” “Actually, no,” Shallan said. “I’m just fond of hyperbole.” “I’m not,” he said. “It’s a real bastard to spell.” “Kabsal!”

“He’s …” She had to pretend he was still alive. “My father is a man of passion and virtue. Just never at the same time.”

“Shave it clean,” Kaladin said, sitting down on the stump. “And I’d rather not have a strange pattern like yours.” “Ha!” Rock said, sharpening his razor. “You are a lowlander, my good friend. Is not right for you to wear a humaka’aban. I would have to thump you soundly if you tried this thing.” “I thought you said fighting was beneath you.” “Is allowed several important exceptions,” Rock said.

“Nothing,” Wit said. He seemed preoccupied, unlike his usual self. “Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldygrak. Isn’t it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them—yet wholly unlike them at the same time?” Dalinar frowned. “I wonder if you could do that to a man. Pull him apart, emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk. Then combine them back together into something else, like a Dysian Aimian. If you do put a man together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me. Or perhaps Gibletish.” “Is that your name, then? Your real name?” “No, my friend,” Wit said, standing up. “I’ve abandoned my real name. But when next we meet, I’ll think of a clever one for you to call me. Until then, Wit will suffice—or if you must, you may call me Hoid.

“Then I guess the story is a lie.” “I didn’t say that.” “No, I said it. Fortunately, it’s the best kind of lie.” “And what kind is that?” “Why, the kind I tell, of course.”

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”