Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

He had a large spike, also blue, through one eye. The point jutted out the back of his skull. Was he some kind of spren?

“I know where she is hidden,” Restares whispered. “Where her soul is. Ba-Ado-Mishram. Granter of Forms. The one who could rival Him. The one … we betrayed.”

Gavilar smiled. None of them knew of the secret scholar he kept in reserve. A master of all things scientific. A man who was neither Ghostblood nor Son of Honor. A man from another world.

I should have known I was being watched. All my life, the signs were there. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page

Instead he tipped his head back, sun warm on his skin, and acknowledged that while he didn’t feel great, someday he would feel great again. For today, that was enough.

I first knew the Wind as a child, during days before I knew dreams. What need has a child of dreams or aspirations? They live, and love, the life that is. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page

“I want things to change and be the same all at once.”

God or king. If they wanted his respect, they could earn it.

The Wind told me, before she vanished, that it was the change in Odium’s vessel that restored her voice. I wonder. Perhaps it is the new storm, making people begin to reconsider that the wind is not their enemy. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 3

“If it weren’t for that capacity, then what good would choices be? If we never had the power to do terrible things, then what heroism would it be to resist?”

I have read that in the ancient days, the Wind often spoke to both human and singer. It would then mean that the Wind stopped talking not because of Odium, but because of people who began to fear her … Or to worship the Storm instead. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 4

Well, it’s been said I am an artist. Unfortunately, the primary subjects of my art can never experience my creations, as displayed upon their features.”

Wit insisted it wasn’t actual writing. Merely marks on a paper representing sounds.

People don’t like hearing that their religion was mythologized, as if myth can’t be true.

“The wrong people get far too much mileage out of things that sound nice,” Wit said. “Take it from a guy who is all too capable with a lie: nothing is easier to sell someone than the story they want to hear.

“You think that kid who starved didn’t want to eat? You think her parents didn’t want to escape the ravages of war badly enough? You think if they’d had more Passion, the cosmere would have saved them? How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn’t care enough about being rich. That they just didn’t pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude. Or storming Passion.”

Non sequiturs that ended up relevant were the daggers he kept strapped to his boots, to be employed when his foes were distracted.

“A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor … if these exist only to get you something, you’ve missed the storming point.”

If hope doesn’t mean anything to you when you lose, then it wasn’t ever a virtue in the first place. It took me a long time to learn that, and I finally did so from the writings of a man who lost every belief he thought he had, then started over new.” “Sounds like someone wise,” Syl said. “Oh, Sazed is among the best. Hope I get to meet him someday.”

“Congratulations. You’ve practiced music, you’ve listened to a self-important rant, and you’ve delivered quips at awkward points. I dub you graduated from Wit’s school of practical impracticality.”

“Kal,” he said, gasping for breath, “you’re still far, far too useful a human being to be an apprentice of mine. You’d end up actually helping people! No, I’ve already had one bridgeboy as an apprentice, and graduated or not, he’s incompetent enough to hold on to the position.”

“You know what first drew me to you, Kaladin?” Wit asked. “You did one of the most difficult things a man can do: you gave yourself a second chance.”

As a historian, I find such nuances relevant. As a philosopher, I find them enticing. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 4

Regardless, the events surrounding the cleansing of Shinovar are of specific relevance, and I am doing my best to record what I can discover of the Wind’s own words regarding them. Though, now that the Wind and Heralds have vanished, I have only two sources who can speak of these events. They are my witnesses. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 5

However, the Wind did not think like a person does. This should not surprise anyone who has familiarity with a spren, though such things are less common now than they once were. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 5

Her memory was keen, but her interpretation and explanation of that memory could be fanciful. Those days, though, I believe that she was deliberate, concerned, and focused. She did not see the future. But she somehow knew it anyway. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page

All agree the first key moment came when Kaladin Stormblessed listened. Though not an Edgedancer, he did a fine impression of their oaths. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 8

The second moment had happened already, when Szeth himself decided to take upon him this quest. The one that would shape all of our futures. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 8

For while the contest of champions was to happen in the East, a different contest was to happen in Shinovar. And one that the Wind swore was equally vital. Perhaps more so. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page

I was not with them. I did not know of their quest. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 10

Yet I will do my best to recount their story, and that of the Wind. For they were her champions. —From Knights of Wind and Truth, page 11

As I approached the first crossroads, I met a family seeking a new life. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

Wit would do what he thought was best for a person, not what they wanted.

“The darkest, hairiest, greasiest bollocks on the most unkempt nethers of the most wanton demon of the most obscure religion’s damnable hellscape.”

This family did not speak my language, but we could both write glyphs, which proved facilitative in our conversation. As I shared their kindly cookfire, I learned some of their story. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

They had left behind family and hereditary home, something many would find unconscionable. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

What I learned from their glyphs scribbled in dust trembled my soul: it was because of me, and the stories they’d heard of my teachings, that they had left. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

They’d gone to seek a land some told them was mythical. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

A land where the king was a holy man, and was concerned with the plight of the farmer beyond the appropriation of taxes. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

I let them pass with two lies. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

First, I dared not tell them this dusty traveler with whom they shared a meal was in fact that very king they had heard of. The second was that I did not explain that very king had abdicated his throne and walked away from his kingdom. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

“The Nightwatcher came from the Night, as the Stormfather came from the Wind. Though, when I was young, the Wind was different. So very different.” “When were you created, Sibling?” Jasnah asked. “Some six thousand years ago, when the Stones wanted a legacy in the form of a child of Honor and Cultivation.

I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.

After we parted with affection the next day, I watched their cart roll into the distance, pulled by the father with two children riding in the rear, the mother striding with a pack on her back. Dust blew with them, for dust goes where it wishes, ignoring all borders. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

Would that men could always do the same—if I could enshrine one law in all further legal codes, it would be this. Let people leave if they wish. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

The Almighty has given us the limbs to move and the minds to decide. Let no monarch take away what was divinely granted. The Heralds also taught that all should have the sacred right of freedom of movement, to escape a bad situation. Or simply to seek a brighter dawn. —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable

A silvery horn or claw from some great beast. A chunk of light red crystal, like pink salt—though of a deeper, more vibrant color. A violet stone egg, partly crystalline, with silver swirling around its shell. A fat, succulent leaf that pulsed red and seemed to radiate heat. A vial of pale sand she now recognized as having a very practical application.

“Sometimes,” she said, “it’s good to ask the questions long before you need the answers.

“Once. It wasn’t a full Ascension, but a mortal did give up the power once. It proved to be the wrong choice, but it was the most selfless thing I believe I’ve ever witnessed. So yes, Dalinar, it is possible. But not easy.”

I continued on my way, contemplating dust and the nature of desertion. For I, as king, had walked away from my duties, and it was different for me. Had I not renounced a throne the Almighty had granted, and in so doing, undermined my very own words? Was I abandoning that which was divinely given me? —From The Way of Kings, fourth parable