Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5)

by Brandon Sanderson

“Did you know,” he whispered, “there is a world out there with an ocean in the sky? Another where people fly upon kites, as if every man were a Windrunner. Yet another where the gods can make any object stand up and walk? I will see them each someday, little knife. And claim a trophy to remember them by.”

“Ishar found Honor’s well of power and used it somehow?” “Honor’s power refuses the touch of men,” Nale said, “and his perpendicularity moves. Cultivation’s power at the Peaks is carefully monitored by her spren, and cannot be accessed by mortals. But Odium’s power … it dislikes him, thinks him weak. Mishram found its hiding place, and gained the ability to Connect to all of the singers. Ishar knew this, and …” “Damnation,” Kaladin whispered, feeling cold. “The Bondsmith Herald took up the power of Odium?” “Only a fraction of it,” Nale said. “It let him Connect to this land and become a god to the people here …

Rayse and I had been in an arms race. First his Fused, then my Heralds, then his Unmade, then my Radiants—which were not my conscious creation, but formed by pieces of me working independently. I crafted their oaths to maximize their abilities, per Kor’s contract and Ishar’s advice. That one understood the ways of gods as few mortals ever had.

I had the Heralds. And they, more and more, were able to draw on the powers of Roshar itself instead of just my Surges. I did not understand why or how, but I did not wish to seem weak by admitting that fact.

I screamed. And in my rage, I lost control and threw myself at him. He laughed, and threw his power against mine. What followed was a thunderclap, and silence, as all was pushed away from us. In that space of nothing—every axon forced away—our souls melded in the most unnerving of ways, too intimate, too reminiscent of creation for a creature such as him. In that moment, tiny pieces of something discordant were born. Something dangerous, even to a god. The counter to my essence. Anti-Light, it could be called. Worse, the shock wave of our clash surged beneath us, power rushing and vibrating with those terrible tones. I realized too late that there was something strange about this land, beneath this city. Pieces of something fallen. A … fourth moon? In splinters? It reacted to us, and I saw people there—new ones, watchers, who had been hidden from me. Those pieces of the sky … they sheltered from the eyes of God? That was not aluminum. It was something greater. Something … that responded to our clash, the ground liquefying in a pattern, dictated by the tone and the strange nature of the place. We vaporized an entire capital city in seconds. The direct clash between two gods was far too violent. I pulled back, horrified, knowing I’d just caused tens of thousands of deaths. One of the grandest cities … gone.

Another was Renarin the general, and he found this interesting, because he thought he might have been good at tactical decision-making. This him wore a strange uniform, one he didn’t recognize—not Alethi, though of that cut. He stood at Urithiru, he thought, and was older, with longer hair and a clean-shaven face. He studied this one a long while, for the Oathgate platforms visible to the sides were covered over with fields.

Oh. They were hurting. Something changed in me. I knew them each intimately by this point—they were, unknown to them, my dearest friends. And oh, how they hurt.

I knew then that Ba-Ado-Mishram’s plan would not work. If she took up Odium, it would eventually force her to this same confrontation. The power would never be content here; to replace Rayse would only cause a delay. I needed a way to expand our agreement. It had to include a prohibition on us ever clashing directly, lest I falter and try to destroy him. “Champions!” I pled. “Let us pick champions. Let them decide! The god of the victor rules Roshar. The god of the loser withdraws, confines their attention to one of the other planets in the system, and leaves Roshar alone.”

“If my people stop the rogue Unmade for you,” I said, “you will agree to my terms?” “I will agree,” Rayse said reluctantly, “not to force a direct confrontation between us.” “No more increasing gifts of power to our minions,” I said. “What the mortals have, they keep—but that is it. No direct confrontation between us, and no further expansion of our powers to our people. We leave them alone …” Because they deserve better than us. “These two points,” Rayse said, “I agree to: I will limit myself to never attack you first—yet I will not hold you to the same limitation; if you decide to attack me, I may fight back. And I … I will agree to a contest of champions, in the future, if specifics can be arranged and agreed to. Now, can you deal with this spren of mine? Remove her?”

I told myself it was for the greater good. But in that moment, the moment she was captured, the power I held—the power of oaths, bonds, and promises … It rejected me. My trap’s aftereffect upon all the singers was too much for it. It hated what I’d done, and the consequences were too great this time. I resisted. I cajoled. I ordered. I wrestled with the power, insisting that it see the difference between doing good and being honorable. It lashed back against me, for what I’d done was neither. And … the being who had been Tanner … Agreed.

But either way, I knew that I was bested, and it was only a matter of time—hours at most—until the power left me entirely. In my agony, I reached out to Kor. From her I felt only revulsion and hate. It echoed not through the singers alone, but through all bonds that had been made in my name. Each and every Radiant was corrupted. My every promise was flawed. I had sought to save the world, but in so doing had ruined it and everything I stood for. I … I showed them. When Radiants touched me in that hollow of stone, I showed them. I showed them all. I … I knew it was a moment of madness, of terrified weakness. I should never have compounded my mistakes like that. But I did. I projected the future to them. And to them, I did not explain it was only a possible future. They saw the world destroyed at their hands. Horrified, I fled.

In that moment, I understood the depths of our stupidity—for in shattering Adonalsium, we had removed the divine sense of love and compassion from the other Shards. That one had gone to Aona, among the best of us, and therefore among the first Rayse had sought out to kill. The power of Honor knew only one good: keeping oaths. I knew other goods. I had promised to protect Roshar. This sent a shudder through the power. A confusion. A conundrum. I could have taken it up to fight, but in a moment where I was truly strong, I refused. For once in my life, I turned away, and did not make things worse. But still I did not want to die. Protect me, I begged. A piece of you. The power took a portion of my soul, including my memories, and fled. Odium destroyed the rest with glee. Killing, at long last, his rival. But the power gave this remnant of me to my avatar in the storm—to the spren I had created as a true part of my soul. I died, yes, yet at the same time I lived on. I was now more spren than man. I did not care as much as Tanavast had—for why should a storm care? It could only blow. But secretly I carried a greater truth, and it kept me from being like any other spren. I, in one form, had been there. I knew the burden of terrible loss. For I, the Stormfather, remembered. The corpse of a child held in my arms, broken and burned. Dead cities. A world that had spent thousands of years in an endless war to fuel my promise to best Odium. Last of all, a betrayal of all that I stood ...

He watched the permutations, and found them clouded. He couldn’t completely destroy the power of Honor, as power could not be destroyed, but there were options. His predecessor had done it several ways. First, by imprisoning the power of two Shards in the Cognitive Realm, which had proved cataclysmic and made it very difficult to access the land. Then by attacking a Shard outright, an action which had left him wounded and had—in the clash—destroyed planets.

Second chance, Adolin. You’ve been given a second chance. You know what your father did with his. What will you do with yours?

I know that to this day, people are confused by how at the end, spren began arriving in the East without the need for bonds. Notum, now among the most famous of honorspren, is an example. The answer is simple, however. As the lands began to think of them, and remember them, they needed less the bond of a single person to give them purchase in the Physical Realm. For the thoughts of an entire people bolstered them.

The king claimed he could take any lowborn child in the land and raise him to be as noble, to be as learned and talented as any highborn child. One of his barons took the bet. And so, the lumberman’s son was brought to the palace.” “Were you that boy?” Dalinar asked. “No,” Wit said. “But I was young then, frightfully so. I’d somehow found a weapon destined to kill a god, and was carrying it un-wittingly.”

“Spren,” Nin said, “made physical so they could fight. Immortal, in possession of Surges, as is the natural state of many of your kind. I … It sounds outlandish to me now that I consider. But he also created something terrible …” “Human Fused,” Szeth guessed. “Like my father and my sister. You made their souls able to be recalled to new bodies, so they can be reborn each time they are killed. That’s why I could slay these on my pilgrimage, and you don’t mind.” “Yes,” Nin said. “We did it to each Honorbearer, save one. Sivi rejected him.”

“Poetry,” Wit said. “To win the test, he had to compose a piece of unique poetry.” Dalinar blinked in surprise. “Don’t look at me like that,” Wit said. “Familiarity with words is considered important to many noble courts.” “Even for men?” “Remarkably, it’s usually the men. I’ve known many a king who insisted that words with any substance were too difficult for women.” “The cosmere is a strange place, isn’t it?” “You have no idea.”

The lumberman’s son? In running, he lost the contest—but it didn’t matter. Because the next day, the barons launched a coup and executed the king.” Wit smiled grimly. “As I said, all governments are technically a form of republic.” “What became of the lumberman’s son in the end?” “He went to war. Fought, bled, learned, loved. He returned with vengeance one day and killed the barons. A remarkable tale, in fact.” Wit held his eyes. “We never have all the answers, Dalinar. On one hand, that contest was unlosable because I’d have validated the poem no matter what. “On the other, it was unwinnable, because the coup was well underway, and the contest was pointless—except at the same time not. The contest’s existence caused the coup. So while it mattered very much, the results didn’t.”

“He Connected himself to this land,” Nale continued. “I don’t know the process—I don’t understand a fraction of the things Ishar can do with his powers. Seven millennia later, I still couldn’t tell you why Ashyn burns. However, it was after he took the power … and became the spren of this land … that he started seeing himself as the Almighty.

I will leave one to ponder upon the incredible irony of the Herald of Bonds deciding he needed to teach Szeth, of all people, how to be humble. As if years of slavery weren’t a capable instructor.

“I’m wise to Midius’s tricks, child,” Ishar said. “He was there when we destroyed our previous world. Did your Wit tell you that? That he was involved, perhaps even responsible? He told us about the Shards, and it was his talk that led us to first contact Odium.” A cold shock ran through Kaladin. “He prefers to leave that part out,” Ishar said. “Strange, how he always manages to worm his way into each and every relevant decision. Like a fly that you can’t swat.”

The Herald’s madness had spread to the entire land as he Connected to it. Driving away the spren. Leaving Shinovar hollow.

Szeth remembered a voice. Heard it, almost. His own. As a child. “What is right, Father? Can’t you just tell me?” Then, his voice again, older, to the Farmer. “How do you know what to do?” Older again. To the captain of the guard. “Just tell me what to do, sir.” To Sivi, when joining her monastery. “I’m sure you know what is right.” Taravangian, Dalinar, Nin. Each time it was less and less a question. More and more a mantra. I am Truthless. I do not ask. I do as my masters require. Never. Again. Szeth raised his head, finding his knees as they continued to pummel him. Kicking and hitting. He turned his eyes to the sky, and something ignited inside him. Never. AGAIN. “I am my own agent,” Szeth shouted. “I make my own choices. I. Am. THE LAW!” Light erupted around him.

“Who are they?” Adolin asked, baffled. He didn’t see how deadeyed spren, even this many of them, would help. “They are those who have been forgotten,” Maya whispered. “Blades and Plate who are no longer thought of. Dropped into the sea, lost, buried in stone, discarded by time.” “They … eventually fade back into Shadesmar,” Adolin said, remembering what she’d told him. “To wander forever,” she said. “But I haven’t forgotten them. And they, like me, have not forgotten you.”

“Yes,” the spren said as a certain peace fell over the stone field, sprinkled with grass that peeked out of holes. “Yes, I see. I understand.” Szeth nodded. “You are the wrong spren for me, I’m afraid.” “What?” “If I am to choose, I do not choose you. The Skybreakers under Nin are wrong and as corrupted as Ishu’s touch on this land. You care not for people, only for rules. I do not care for your training styles, your philosophies, or the ‘truths’ you tell yourselves.” He paused, considering the next action, and decided it was right. “I will seek out the dissenters who live the old ways of the Skybreakers. There, I will find another spren. I release you from your bond. I wish we could have been friends.”

Nin’s spren appeared nearby, and Szeth’s spren reached out as if for help. The Herald’s spren shook its head. “How fitting, 12124. This is what happens when you give them too much power. Learn your lesson here, if you are ever allowed to speak oaths again. You have let yourself become an attendant to your human, an auxiliary to his will.” “Is that …” the shrinking spren said. “Is that so bad?” “Your failure proves that it is.”

“We will hold to the terms our god has made,” El said, not even looking up from the treaty as the Fused crumpled. El lifted the treaty, reading further, absently dismissing his Blade. “You earn tariffs on any use of the Oathgate … you rent land to the humans for their lumberyards and farms … but you get everything else …” He looked from Venli to the Five, then to Leshwi, who had floated nearer them. “I’m impressed. We’ll send ambassadors. I should have liked to own this land, but this is not an unacceptable outcome. It offers … different opportunities.” He returned the treaty and walked away, calling for his forces to retreat.

Yes. Dalinar felt that voice. The power of Honor. It HURTS. Why must it hurt? Can humans not simply do as they say that they will? This—the power of Honor—was one person he hadn’t yet acknowledged. One he’d seen, but hadn’t considered. He did so now, seeing through the eyes of the power itself. Person after person had failed it, making it tremble with agony. Awareness blossomed in Dalinar. And there, at the crux of two storms, Dalinar Kholin understood. “Stormfather,” he said. “I know the Words!”

“Impossible,” Ishar said. “What are you?” “I’m just an old spear who wouldn’t break, Ishar.”

This was worse than the days when he didn’t want to move. It was like the days when he would have done anything not to exist. Days like the one when he’d stood in the rain above a chasm long ago. That was what the Heralds lived with. Storms, Kaladin thought. I have to help them. It was a laughable thought. How could he help? He was barely functional. It was all he could do to stand there. But stand. Kaladin. DID. And somehow it helped. Seeing someone else resist helped. Szeth, groaning, managed to look up at him. Syl stirred. “How?” Ishar repeated. “What are you?” He gestured toward Szeth. “Are you … are you his spren? His god?” “No,” Kaladin said. “I’m his therapist.” Ishar blinked. “… What is that?” “I honestly have no idea,” Kaladin admitted.

The Words that both soldier and surgeon needed to learn eventually. Two halves of one man. A singular lesson. A step forward from what he’d learned in storm and tempest two weeks ago, Words said in agony. This was a counterpoint, learned with a peace that flowed through him and held off the darkness. Quiet Words. Reminiscent of what Teft had learned, and his friend’s wisdom helped now. Kaladin rested his hand comfortingly on Ishar’s shoulder, ignoring the hand at his throat, and spoke them. “I will protect myself, so that I may continue to protect others.”

He fixated on the power’s perspective, watching Tanavast betray it time and time again. He took to heart the lessons of his realm: that in this case, the destination wasn’t about a place, but about a Connection. It was about who you had become, not about where you arrived. The power surrounded him, and he slammed his hands together, opening a perpendicularity. Then he spoke to Honor the most important Words he might ever say. Words that only worked if he could say them truly. “I understand you.”

The Wind itself accepted his Words.

Kaladin felt he could see the power of the Fifth Ideal pushing back the blackness through that tether, like a drain being flooded in the wrong direction, until it reached Ishar and he gasped again. Black smoke exploded out of the Herald, pushed from his pores like Stormlight. Kaladin distinctly thought he heard, echoing through that failing bond, the gasps of eight other people as an unacknowledged darkness left them. An oppressive cloud that Ishar thought he’d been holding back, but had in reality been infecting every Herald. The blackness he’d absorbed from Odium centuries ago, by finding his pool of power. It wouldn’t heal them, lifting this dark cloud. Their wounds stretched back millennia before Ishar’s terrible decision. However, this might help open a path to healing.

Dalinar strode toward Odium, the power of Honor surrounding him. He saw it, true honor, in the efforts of two young people to set right an ancient wrong. In the way a young spearman rose to his feet in the darkness. In a man who stood with friends to save a city that was not his own. In the Lightweaver who refused the lies and accepted truth. Even in the way a queen who had been wrong resolved to do better. He saw it in what Alethkar had been, and what it had become. In himself. If the man who burned cities could be redeemed, then who could not? That was honor. The power couldn’t see it, and that still troubled Dalinar, but he could. Fortunately, with the release of Mishram accomplished—her betrayal the very thing that had broken Tanavast—the path became clear. That sin had been holding the power back all these centuries, but now it thirsted for a Vessel, and Dalinar had seen its existence and its failings. It wanted someone who understood it. That was the budding humanity of it, the budding awareness. Like all sapient things, it wanted to be understood. And thus, with that Connection, the power that had been ostracized at long last returned. Honor was born again in Dalinar Kholin.

The powers must be able to change. Everyone can change, even me. I walked those paths … I saw the past … I know divinity. Honor must learn.

Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought, realizing. Kaladin will preserve a piece … That’s what we need … Now that he knew the end he wanted, Dalinar could see the answers. You never could find them unless you knew what you were looking for, could you? “I can’t stop Odium,” Dalinar whispered, a plan forming. “But they can.” He looked to Nohadon. “Am I simply doing the same thing that has always been done, though? Kicking the problem down to the next generation. Isn’t that an awful idea?” “That depends,” Nohadon said, “upon what aid you can give them. And upon the type of people they are.” “They are the best,” Dalinar whispered. “There will be a cost, won’t there? I need Taravangian to think he’s won. And storms, he’s at least a little bit right, isn’t he? About decisions?” “Right,” Nohadon said, “and terribly, terribly wrong.” He squeezed Dalinar’s arm. “We do have to make awful decisions sometimes.

Yes, the remnant of Tanavast said. I am willing. This is my ultimate choice and sacrifice, Dalinar. I choose. Do it now. Dalinar opened his eyes, beacons of blazing power, and spoke four fateful words. “I renounce my oaths.”

“You what?” Taravangian demanded. “I renounce my oaths,” Dalinar said. “I break our contract. I break the oaths and contracts that Honor has made with Odium—all of them. I will not make any of the choices presented to me. I release you. I break my oaths.” The power tore free of Dalinar.

You understood me! it cried. Better than you think, Dalinar returned. There are still lessons to learn, stories to tell, but you cannot learn them with me. For you are not Honor. Not yet. Honor is far more than an oath kept. Learn, see, and remember me, Dalinar told it. Ask yourself why.

“With this,” Taravangian whispered, “I am certain to win. Listen to me, Honor. I did not break the contract. I kept my oaths. I have let myself be bound by them again and again. I understand you, and how you feel right now. I am worthy.” Dalinar held his breath. There was a lesson taught in the game towers, once you started to think you were strong enough … The power paused, and looked toward Dalinar. Go, Dalinar said. Watch. Learn. The power accepted Taravangian at Dalinar’s urging. Though interestingly, a few small pieces of it split off and fled. Dalinar had not expected that. Regardless, Taravangian took the power. Despite all he’d ever claimed, he drew it in, thirsting for more and Ascending to become a new god. Retribution.

“I have studied the Stormfather’s visions,” Ishar explained. “The Wind has suggested that I create something similar. Though our souls will return to Braize, our minds are separate—and I can place them inside a vision, freed from whatever our souls or bodies might feel. With delicacy, this can be hidden from the Shards. I think I can do it, if Ash and Pralla help.” Nale rushed back to Ishar, taking him by the arm. “You mean …?” “We could perhaps have peace between Returns,” Ishar said. “Instead of torture. Retribution will certainly seek vengeance against us if we bind him, and will attempt to make

A sound rumbled in the east. Nale looked, and saw darkness growing in the sky. Like a bruise on the heavens themselves. “You said no more storms, Ishar!” “I said no more highstorm,” Ishar whispered. “But there is another storm. Now the only storm. The Night of Sorrows has come, Nale. The True Desolation is here.” “The True Desolation?” Nale said, cradling Szeth in his lap. “Ishar, what … what good is it to fight now? Why struggle? Why care? The Stormfather is gone. Jezrien is gone. We have lost, finally. Honor is dead.” “Yes,” a quiet voice said. “Honor is dead.” Both Heralds spun to see Kaladin Stormblessed slowly pushing himself up to a seated position, hair disheveled, blue uniform rumpled, dirt on his face. He looked at his right hand, what was left of it, and grimaced. Then he sighed and heaved himself to his feet. “But,” Stormblessed said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“To think,” Kaladin said softly, “that you have lived millennia and you haven’t learned a simple truth.” He pulled a deep blue cloak from the pack, the tower and the crown emblazoned on the back. “Nobility has nothing to do with blood, Ishar. But it has everything to do with heart.”

Kaladin. Herald. “I,” Kaladin whispered, walking through that version, “accept this journey.” The air split with a crack of thunder. When the reply came, it was Syl’s voice. These Words are accepted.

“I can feel it. The Oathpact …” “Reforged,” Ishar said. He hesitated a moment, then lifted his arm to gesture toward Kaladin. “Welcome, Kaladin Stormblessed. Herald of Kings. Herald of the Wind. Herald of …” “Herald,” Kaladin said, “of Second Chances.”

“There is no more Stormfather,” the gateway spren said, stepping onto the platform. “There is no more Honor. There is no more Stormlight. Our era has ended.” Shallan looked around the ten Oathgates, where each of those spren was shrinking down as well. “No … more Stormlight?” Shallan asked. “For how long?” “Forever.”

He immediately saw what Dalinar had done. Odium had expected to have centuries to plan. Suddenly he had lost all of that. The true battle for the cosmere started right now.

He found only the man’s corpse, huddled beside the stone railing. His clothing ripped, his body bloodied. The damage done by the winds and tempest had been too much for Dalinar—but beneath him, sheltered from the storm, Gavinor survived, unconscious but alive. Protected in one last act of self-sacrifice.