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August 1 - October 8, 2018
“My other hand?” Lopen said. “The one that was cut off long ago, eaten by a fearsome beast? It is making a rude gesture toward you right now. I thought you would wish to know, so that you can prepare to be insulted.”
Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.”
Using a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will, she’d said. Both are base, and both will fail a person as they age.
“As you can see, I was perfectly ready for that, as shown by the poise I display as I make this decidedly rude gesture.”
“I ain’t grouchy,” Teft snapped. “I just have a low threshold for stupidity.”
“What think you? Can beauty be taken from a man? If he could not touch, taste, smell, hear, see . . . what if all he knew was pain? Has that man had beauty taken from him?” “I . . .” What did this have to do with anything? “Does the pain change day by day?” “Let us say it does,” the messenger said. “Then beauty, to that person, would be the times when the pain lessens. Why are you telling me this story?” The messenger smiled. “To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in your way. Tell me, what is the most beautiful thing you can imagine?”
“Love,” Shallan said, though partially just to distract them, “is like a pile of chull dung.” “Smelly?” Balat asked. “No,” Shallan said, “for even as we try to avoid both, we end up stepping in them anyway.”
If she was some kind of con woman, she wasn’t after Adolin’s life. Just his dignity. Too late, Kaladin thought, watching Adolin sit back with a stupid grin on his face. That’s dead and burned already.
“What has happened to us?” Dalinar asked. “Where is our honor?” “Honor is dead,” a voice whispered from beside him. Dalinar turned and looked at Captain Kaladin. He hadn’t noticed the bridgeman walking down the steps behind him. Kaladin took a deep breath, then looked at Dalinar. “But I’ll see what I can do. If this goes poorly, take care of my men.” Spear in hand, he grabbed the edge of the wall and flung himself over, dropping to the sands of the arena floor below.
“Wow. Well then, Gaw. I don’t talk to myself because I’m crazy.” “No?” “I do it because I’m awesome.”
“I’m a child and stuff. I’m so storming pure I practically belch rainbows.”
All men must try, the wind did see. It is the test, it is the dream.”
“I could hit you in the head with a hammer,” Wit said happily. “A good bludgeoning would make you forget and do wonders for that face of yours.” “Wit,” Dalinar said flatly. “I’m only joking.” “Good.” “A hammer would hardly dent that thick skull of his.” Amaram turned to Wit, a look of bafflement on his face. “You’re very good at that expression,” Wit noted. “A great deal of practice, I assume?” “This is the new Wit?” Amaram asked. “I mean,” Wit said, “I wouldn’t want to call Amaram an imbecile . . .” Dalinar nodded. “. . . because then I’d have to explain to him what the word means, and I’m
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As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.’”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to be the executioner who tried that.” He said it with a quiet intensity. “Me neither,” Shallan said. “I think hanging people is a poor choice of professions for an executioner. Better to be the guy with an axe.” He frowned at her. “You see,” she said, “with the axe, it’s easier to get ahead. . . .”
Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.
“Have you ever had to choose between two equally distasteful choices?” “Every day I choose to keep breathing.”
I will protect those who cannot protect themselves. It made sense, now, why he’d had to make this choice. Kaladin rolled to his knees. Graves and Moash were arguing. “I have to protect him,” Kaladin whispered. Why? “If I protect . . .” He coughed. “If I protect . . . only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.” If he did that, he only cared about what was convenient for himself. That wasn’t protecting. That was selfishness.
“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”
And then, like a falling star, a blazing fireball of light and motion shot down in front of Dalinar. It crashed into the ground, sending out a ring of Stormlight like white smoke. At the center, a figure in blue crouched with one hand on the stones, the other clutching a glowing Shardblade. His eyes afire with a light that somehow made the assassin’s seem dull by comparison, he wore the uniform of a bridgeman, and bore the glyphs of slavery on his forehead. The expanding ring of smoky light faded, save for a large glyph—a swordlike shape—which remained for a brief moment before puffing away.
“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”
“But I’ll let it slide so long as you’re willing to present me with a sufficiently sincere smile.” He did. And it felt very, very good.
“Oh, storms yes! Everybody, give the Lopen your spheres! I have glowing that needs to be done.”
“Conversely, if you gain a reputation for being too good, too skilled . . . beware. The better art will be in their heads, and if you give them an ounce less than they imagined, suddenly you have failed. Suddenly you are useless. A man will find a single coin in the mud and talk about it for days, but when his inheritance comes and is accounted one percent less than he expected, then he will declare himself cheated.”
“Give me an audience who have come to be entertained, but who expect nothing special. To them, I will be a god. That is the best truth I know.”
