Isles of the Emberdark

by Brandon Sanderson

“Of where rooms go once they are broken and worn down, discarded by the Grand Apparatus.” “You could just go see though, right?” Ed said. “Walk out of the city and find them?” “There is no leaving the city,” ZeetZi said. “The slavers made sure of that. Beyond that, you view it wrong. There are thousands of rooms, atop and around one another, all in motion, all part of the Grand Apparatus. If you wish to experience sunlight, my friend, you do not ‘leave the city.’ You request of the Grand Apparatus a room with windows, and when your time has come, a chamber will be brought to you. You will transfer, and abandon the room you’ve been occupying—then be taken to the perimeter, where sunlight will shine in upon you. “It is the same when you wish to sleep—request a bedroom, and it is brought. If you need the facilities of biological necessity, you call for one, and it will be attached to your current room. No one owns any place, but merely occupies each one, as our spirits briefly occupy these hosts that form our bodies.”