Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

by Brandon Sanderson

“Hush now, my dear one … be not afraid. Night comes upon us, but sunlight will break. Sleep now, my dear one … let your tears fade. Darkness surrounds us, but someday we’ll wake.…”

Anyway, there was trade, and that kept the roadway worn, even if the trees around did have a tendency to reach down their boughs—like grasping arms—to try to cover up the pathway. Reclaim it. The Forests did not like that people had infested them.

“What would it take?” she asked. “For you to see a miracle instead of a coincidence?” “It would take a miracle, obviously,” Silence said, picking up her knife. “Instead of just a coincidence.

“I hate you,” Silence whispered into the air as she ran. Each step was agony. She was growing old. “I hate you! What you did to me. What you did to us.” She didn’t know if she was speaking to Grandmother or the God Beyond. So often, they were the same in her mind. Had she ever realized that before?

“I’m an idiot, mam,” he said. “Not a fool.” He bowed his head to her, then walked away, slump-backed as always.

“Your rules, Grandmother.” The shade turned to her. Silence shivered, looking into those dead, glassy eyes of a matriarch she loathed and loved. “I hate you,” Silence said. “Thank you for making me hate you.”

Rosharan system can rival it, and there one of the planets is inhabited solely by Splinters.

Dusk shook his head, dipping his paddle into the water. That sound—wood on water—had been his companion for most of his days. He understood it far better than he did the speech of men.

The world is progressing. One man cannot slow it, no matter how determined he is.”

“My mother did not name me for the time of day. I was named because my mother saw the dusk of our people. The sun will soon set on us, she often told me.”

Downstream would lead closer to those sounds, the calls of death. Of the Dusk, he thought. Of the Dusk.

He prayed to Patji, whom he loved, whom he hated.

Of the Dusk. Born during that dusk, or bringer of it? What had he done?

In the palace, they had talked about the recovery of ancient powers. Knights Radiant. The binding of Surges, natural forces. I will remember those who have been forgotten.

They were elegant things of beauty, Darkness had said. They could ride the thinnest rope, dance across rooftops, move like a ribbon on the wind.…

created only a hunnerd years back by hiring the Imperial Shardblades out of Azir. Those didn’t spend much time at war, but were instead used for making mines or cutting up rocks and stuff. Very practical. Like using the royal throne as a stool to reach something on the high shelf.

“Pity can be a powerful tool. Anytime you can make someone else feel something, you’ve got power over them.”

“You’re wrong,” a voice whispered from the darkness. “You may be a god … but you’re still wrong.”

It was good to remember that life wasn’t only about scratchy things. Sometimes it was about soft pillows, fluffy cake. Nice words. Mothers.

Like how your mother had been so warm, and kindly, so ready to take care of everyone. It was incredible that anyone on Roshar should be as good to people as she’d been. She shouldn’t have had to die. Least, she should have had someone half as wonderful as she was to take care of her as she wasted away. Someone other than Lift, who was selfish, stupid. And lonely.

“I ain’t nobody,” Lift said. “He kills nobodies.” “And you don’t?” “I kill kings.” “Which is totally better.” He narrowed his eyes at her, then squatted down, sheathed sword held across his shoulders, with hands draped forward. “No. It is not. I hear their screams, their demands, whenever I see shadow. They haunt me, scramble for my mind, wishing to claim my sanity. I fear they’ve already won, that the man to whom you speak can no longer distinguish what is the voice of a mad raving and what is not.” “Oooookay,” Lift said. “But you didn’t attack me.” “No. The sword likes you.”

What good is seeking a greater law, when that law can be the whims of a man either stupid or ruthless?”

“Will you fight them, little Radiant?” the assassin asked. “You, alone, against two journeyman Skybreakers? A Herald waiting in the wings?” She glanced at Wyndle. “I don’t know. But I have to go anyway, don’t I?”

“You needn’t fear me,” the old man said. “Your war is my war, and has been for millennia. Ancient Radiants named me friend and ally before everything went wrong. What wonderful days those were, before the Last Desolation. Days of … honor. Now gone, long gone.”

Nale, madman, Herald of Justice, is not one to leave business unfinished.”

If you ever encounter another of the Sleepless, tell them you’ve spoken with Arclo. I’m certain it will gain you sympathy.”

When one achieves immortality, one must find purpose beyond the struggle to live, as old Axies always said.”

“I will listen,” Lift shouted, “to those who have been ignored!”

“You actually are,” he said, then felt at his face. “I wasn’t always like this. I am getting worse, aren’t I? It’s true.” “I don’t know,” Lift said. And then, by instinct, she did something she would never have thought possible. She hugged Darkness.

But I will listen to those who are ignored, she thought. Even people like Darkness, whom I’d rather never have heard. Maybe that will help.

“That was very benevolent of you,” Wyndle said. Lift shrugged. It didn’t seem like it had made much of a difference—just a few people, and all. But they were the type that were forgotten and ignored by most. “A better knight than me might stay,” Lift said. “Heal everyone.”