Isles of the Emberdark

by Brandon Sanderson

Last of all, he looked to Vathi. There had been many emotions shared between them. In another life, where women were allowed to be trappers, perhaps she would have been his apprentice. She’d changed those rules, but it had taken rising through corporate ranks to do things like that—and so the new world she made for younger women couldn’t include her. Not in the way she’d once imagined.

he’d been her apprentice. He had worked hard, at her encouragement, to find a new place in the world. To become, awkwardly, a new man. Turned out, they still needed the old one. Fortunately he’d never left. He’d never even really changed his clothing.

They faced one another for what might have been an uncomfortable amount of time for others. But he was used to silence, and she was used to hi...

He gave her one last look, and even added a smile, because she was always encouraging him to show more of those. “So I have to come back. When I see you again, I’ll have your proof.”

Starling crawled down the ladder in a metal tube, far from her homeworld—and even farther, at least emotionally, from that glorious day when she’d first transformed. Over fifty years had passed.

wearing her human shape. A shape she’d been magically locked into—exclusively—for twelve years now. She forced a spring into her step and told herself to keep positive. There was at least one blessing about being exiled:

She’d never have visited them if she hadn’t been forced out into the cosmere against her will.

It took a lot of energy to keep a ship like the Dynamic flying, and designers learned to be economical.

looking out at the bleak darkness of Shadesmar—an endless, empty black plane. Really, wasn’t it the darkness that reminded one how wonderful the light was? Traveling through Shadesmar was dreary, but at least she could do it in a ship, rather than walking in a caravan like people had done in the olden days.

Or worse, straying into regions where the ground went incorporeal and turned into the misty nothing they called the unsea. Or…the emberdark, people sometimes called that vast emptiness—the Rosharan term for the unexplored parts of Shadesmar.

A figure stepped out of the wall behind her. Transparent, with a faint glow to him, Nazh had pale skin with cool undertones, and wore a dark grey formal suit: the kind with a fancy cravat that normal people wore to only the most exclusive of gatherings. He didn’t have much choice, though, seeing as that was what he’d died in.

Silver against her powder-white skin, the thick pieces of metal—more like bracers visually—were the symbols of her exile, binding her in human form, locking away her abilities. Until she “learned.” She still didn’t know, years later, how much of the exile was to teach her and how much to punish her. Her people’s leaders could be…obscure.

Shards. She would not let that break her.

“It wouldn’t be polite to say.” “You were trained by one of the most obtuse, crass men in all of the cosmere, Star. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘polite.’” “Sure I do,” she said, hopping off the ladder. “It’s just that I’m a kindly young—” “You’re eighty-seven.” “I’m a kindly young—for the relative age of her species—person. Being kindly means you don’t tell your friend about the unfortunate nature of his coiffure. You merely imply it is ridiculous so you can maintain plausible deniability.”

Aditil had brown skin, with light tan—almost golden—undertones. She wore her black hair in a braid, and as she moved, Starling saw the distinctive pale blue, glasslike portion of her right hand. The center of the palm was replaced—bones and all—with a transparent aether the color of the sky. The glass was cracked, an indication that the symbiote she’d bonded was dead. Starling had never asked for the story behind that.

Rosharan antigrav technology, aether spores from the Dhatrian planetary network for thrust and engine power, a Scadrian composite metal hull. Never mind that all three technological strains produced their own viable starships without the others. The Dynamic, like her crew, had picked up a little here and a little there. All it was missing was an Awakened metalmind, but those were expensive—and Starling had never trusted them anyway.

There were so many different kinds of mechanical architectures in the cosmere, from so many different planets, that it could be difficult to learn them all. Plus, a patchwork ship like this might have parts from a half dozen different manufacturers, each with their own languages, customs, and—most importantly—input schemes.

With the lodestar she gave inputs—but she still checked specific gauges and local readouts of things like aether levels. Someone who grew familiar with a system rarely used their lodestar for everything. In this case, Aditil actually whispered to the aethers themselves—but it worked, as she got the engine back up to full power.

Not everyone was comfortable around shades. Indeed, there were some who’d say that bringing one on board your ship was tantamount to suicide.

A low humming sound came from within the machinery as zephyr aether generated gas, which created pressure—the basis for powering the ship. The fact that they could use the zephyr as propellant and for breathable air meant that the Dynamic was spaceworthy. They rarely needed that, as Xisis—the ship’s owner—usually had them do merchant runs through Shadesmar instead.

But after…” She looked at her hand, pressed flat on the ground, and the cracked aether bud in the right palm.

“Either way,” Starling said, “you’re a blessing to us here. A fully trained aetherbound?” “Without a functioning aether.” “Regardless, we get your knowledge, your skill. You always get the engine working again, when you try.” “I talk to it,” she said softly. “You can only afford older spores, which tend to be drowsy. I wake them up, that’s all…” She turned to Starling. “I’m broken, L.T. Ruined.”

It was expensive to travel to Dhatri. The law of commerce was simple: if you could get to a location through Shadesmar, it was cheap. If not, then you had to pay. A lot.

Most cities were in the Physical Realm, not in Shadesmar, but you could transfer between the two dimensions with ease—if you had a special kind of portal. They were called perpendicularities, and most major planets had them. To travel, you popped into Shadesmar on one planet, traveled easily to your destination, then popped back out. Unfortunately, Dhatri didn’t have a perpendicularity anymore. Which meant you couldn’t hop out of Shadesmar there to visit it. No, to get to Dhatri, you needed a faster-than-light-capable ship that traveled through space in the Physical Realm.

She was finally starting to feel like she understood this crew and how to be a leader, just like Master Hoid had been trying to teach her. Before he’d vanished, of course. It was…his way. He’d be back.

ZeetZi was a lawnark, a being that was basically human—except instead of hair, he had feathers. A mostly bald head, with dark brown skin that had a cool earthy tone, along with a crest of yellow and white feathers on the very top. He also had tiny feathers along his arms, almost invisible against his skin. Arcanists said lawnarks hadn’t evolved from birds or anything like that—more, they were humans who had been isolated, and whose hair had evolved into something more akin to feathers.

but she knew what the hordes had done to other planets. It was a familiar story. “Master Hoid,” Starling said, “trusts Chrysalis. He invited her on board.”

It said something that, even with a dragon and a shade on board, the crew was most frightened of the ship’s doctor.

As the figure heard Starling, it turned—revealing a face with the skin pulled back, and a network of insects beneath. Chapter Twenty-Three Some called them Clemaxin’s Hordes, after the first person who had discovered them. Starling used the name “Sleepless,” as that was the term they seemed to prefer. There were said to be fewer than a thousand individual Sleepless in the whole cosmere—and some estimates indicated that number was closer to two or three hundred.

They were each a group intelligence, made of hundreds of hordelings: insects, like large beetles, maybe three inches from tip to tail. In Chrysalis’s case, many hordelings had skin growing along them. In fact, one specific hordeling had a complete human nose growing out of its back—and was currently scurrying across the top of her head. As Starling watched, the face resealed, insects climbing into place, skin side out. Two bugs with eyeballs on them emerged, fitting into the face, and the nose positioned itself beneath them. It all locked together, forming Chrysalis’s face. At least, the face she presented to the world. Human, with tan skin and tattoos to help obscure the patchwork of lines made by the skin fitting together.

“Lieutenant,” Chrysalis said with a deep yet feminine voice. Though her drones could be of either sex, and though the body didn’t have secondary sex characteristics, her personality presented female. A severe, thick-bodied woman with a lean face and short blond hair. Unlike others, she didn’t carry a lodestar, a subtle indication that she likely knew every possible system and could adapt to them easily. “I’m sorry you caught me with my face down. Many eyes are better for cataloging than two.”

“Try what? To not hear when they call me ‘it’ instead of ‘she’?”

“Better they fear us. It is advantageous.” She clicked another jar into the cabinet. “I will move on soon. Hoid has abandoned me, as he warned me he would. I don’t know why I ever trusted him…”

Nazh floated down from the floor above. He could hover through most any substance—so long as he didn’t encounter any silver or aluminum. “Distress signal,” he said, voice tense. “From the emberdark.” “And the captain is willing to go help?” “She put us on a course right for it.”

“You can breathe under there, I read,” he said. He stuck his face into the smoky substance. “Yes, I can breathe. It’s not really water; it’s like…the memory of water. Something strange like that. A poet could explain, maybe.”

The human ability to sense direction was a liar straight from Gofi, the trickster island. People grew up in familiar environs, which led them to falsely trust instincts they didn’t actually have—for memory was different from navigational sense. Without landmarks, people were helpless. His uncle had drilled that into him, teaching Dusk to watch the stars and read the waves.

“I took a dream And made it mine I took a them And made they mine.” “Dream,” said more like “drem,” had once rhymed with the word “them.” He’d always found it curious how, in the old song, “them” was a noun you could count. A group. And “they” used to mean…well, what “them” meant now, he supposed. He was only guessing, but there was a calming way about the sounds. A promise. He sang the verses, appreciating that words—like people—changed over time to become something new. Perhaps he shouldn’t dislike words. They were living things, and maybe they could sense his aversion. Was that why they so often turned against him? He thought on that as he eased into the final verse. “I took a morrow And made it mine I took a sorrow And made it thine…” Rokke came out as he sang that last part. The twist at the end of the song had always made Dusk’s father laugh. So Dusk had laughed too, even before he’d understood why the twist of saying “thine” would land after four verses. Rokke,

The Aviar were like people—they understood things—but they relied more on emotions than definitions. That said, some breeds of Aviar chose to say words, so who knew?

He was crying before he realized it. Sak was asleep on her perch, but Rokke chirped to him for the first time. “I hope I’m not doing this because of Kokerlii,” Dusk whispered. “Tell me I’m not trying to die because I lost a bird. I’m doing this because it means something. Aren’t I?” Rokke chirped softly.

It was long and narrow, like a snake. But it seemed larger and longer than any snake he’d seen. Dimensions were difficult to judge, but he guessed its head was a good foot wide, with a body maybe five feet long—one that was more plated than scaled. It swam with a sinuous motion, swinging in wide curves, its body lined with faint lights. Odd, he thought. That was how he’d always imagined shadows, the beasts that prowled the seas near the Pantheon Islands. He’d seen artist drawings all his life depicting them as serpentine like this—extensions of the Dakwara, the great god of snakes, who had infinite coils extending into every ocean. However, he’d now seen actual shadows, or deepwalkers, as the scientists called them. He’d seen them up close, killed by modern weapons, their carcasses pulled up on beaches. They had legs, and were more crustacean than serpentine.

On the Pantheon Islands, many things—including the shadows—hunted minds. “Rokke,” he thought to ask, “are you hiding us?” She chirped. He didn’t know her well, but it seemed affirmative. Good, as that was her job. But he wondered. Had…had the two of them started to bond already? That was fast. Faster than he was comfortable with. Either way, her talent hid them from things that hunted for minds. You didn’t need to fully bond an Aviar to be lent its talent, if it was near. “Turn it off,” Dusk said. She squawked in a panic. “It’s all right,” he said,

Because this thing was way, way bigger than he’d assumed. Turned out, without landmarks or a sense of scale, it was incredibly difficult to judge the size of a monster swimming underneath you—even more so than he’d guessed. What he’d assumed was a serpent with a head a foot wide was in reality big enough to swallow the boat.

“My homeworld,” ZeetZi said, “is home to a multitudinous array of peoples, much as yours is, Lieutenant Starling.” “Wait,” she said, and even Leonore perked up, glancing at him. “You’ve been to Yolen?” “Once,” he said.

Ed had grabbed his notebook, antiquated pen at the ready. He loved the ones you had to dip, which was…well, inconvenient, but very Eddish. He had darker skin as well, more umber than ZeetZi’s—and of course, no feathers. Ed was of Silverlight, born and raised, though of Vaxilian heritage. His lodestar wasn’t on his hip; he carried it in his bag with his books and notebooks, but it was one of the arcanist ones, bigger and bulkier, with twice the number of buttons as anyone else’s.

The Knell—the name they had for the enormous natural beacon near Threnody—gave at least one data point. Anyone with a proper navigation device—or hell, even a hint of a sensory power, like Allomantic bronze—could sense the invisible waves it gave off, called the Current. So if you wanted to go to the Knell, then great, you could just follow the Current. Unfortunately, eldritch entities born of a god’s death tended to haunt the area immediately surrounding the Knell. So visiting it, and Nazh’s homeworld nearby, was not advised. Still, so long as you knew where you were, you could use the Knell as a reference point and create a heading to where you wanted to go. Things got tricky, though, if you didn’t know where you were. If you were lucky, you’d be close to someplace inhabited, as they tended to have beacons to light the way. Most could be sensed by the same devices that could locate the Current, but many others were more mundane, like radio. Large trade routes usually had small ones all along their path.

You’d be left with only the Knell, and the hope that by following it you’d eventually run across civilization. Like…being lost in the wilderness with only a compass. Knowing the way north was vital, and you could follow that. But a compass alone couldn’t tell you where you were; it only let you pick a direction and follow it.

“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.”

But there were no houses, just thousands of communal rooms, traded between people who requested them depending on their momentary needs. All part of some insane machine built before even the Shattering, they thought. Now used by the Sleepless to run tests upon mortals. Her master had visited the place, because of course he had. Hoid claimed to have solved a murder there, though the way he told it, she wasn’t certain his help had been in any way relevant. But…well, that was often the case with him. She was certain he was exaggerating the annoyance of the other parties involved.

The unsea, that part was called: the liquid-like nothing that formed the “ground” of the emberdark. Its presence indicated that no inhabited planet was nearby in the Physical Realm. If there were, people’s thoughts would shape Shadesmar in the region. Even places where people traveled a lot in Shadesmar itself became solid obsidian ground.

Not just the beacon. Something big.” He pointed to a sensor that had started flashing red. Even Starling knew what that meant: an entity of negative Investiture. One of the things born from the same event that had killed a god, made the Current, erupted into the Knell.