Warbreaker

by Brandon Sanderson

he was probably the world’s only god who didn’t believe in his own religion.

It’s not really how I would have handled the situation. Yes, I know, Vasher said. Your way would have involved making several more corpses. Well, I am a sword, Nightblood said with a mental huff. Might as well stick to what you’re good at…

In a short time, he was going to take her body and do with it as he wished. Part of her felt a rage at that—but it was the rage of frustration. The rage that came from knowing that something horrible was coming, and from being unable to do anything at all about it.

He had been stillborn, but had Returned.

“If you ever conclude that I’m being serious, then you can be sure that you’ve been working too hard on the problem.”

“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.”

“You avoid thinking, you avoid me, you avoid effort…is there anything you don’t avoid?” “Breakfast.”

“Will you please just get on with it?” she blurted out. Silence.

We’re gods to them only until they kill us.

Not every quick-tongued fool was a hero in disguise.

the great thing about madness is that it’s all in your head.”

Returned aren’t meant to stay. We extend their lives, giving them extra time to bless us. But they’re really only supposed to remain alive as long as it takes them to do what they need to.”

“You may have come back to save one person. But, more likely, there is information about the future or the afterlife that you felt you needed to share. Or perhaps some great event in which you felt you needed to participate. Remember, it was the heroic way in which you died that gave you the power to Return in the first place. What you are to do might relate to that, somehow.

“You saw something, Lightsong. On the other side, the future is visible, like a scroll that stretches into the eternal harmonics of the cosmos. Something you saw—something about the future—worried you. Rather than remaining at peace, you took the opportunity that your brave death afforded you, and you Returned to the world. Determined to fix a problem, share information, or otherwise help those who continued to live.

Our job, as your followers, is to provide Breath for you and keep you alive until you can accomplish your goal, whatever it may be. In the meantime, we pry for auguries and blessings, which can be gleaned only from one who has touched the future as you have.”

Llarimar glanced at him. “Your Grace. That smells of an interest in politics!”

“Fight with everything, force the universe to bow to you instead.”

“I want it to storm and tempest. Maybe this drizzle is the compromise between us.”

because everyone tries so hard to look distinctive, nobody does!

“The majority of it was originally gathered by Peacegiver the Blessed,” Bluefingers said. “He collected thousands of Breaths during the days of the Manywar. He passed those on to the first Hallandren God King. That inheritance has been transferred from father to son for centuries—and has been enlarged, since each God King is given two Breaths a week, instead of the one that the other Returned receive.”

He was a man who had everything, and so he bothered with nothing. He was a man who expected others to do everything for him. People like him annoyed her.

Some of his emotional mask had softened, and he displayed a very human look of confusion.

How exactly did he just do that to me? he thought. Llarimar hadn’t even really revealed anything, yet Lightsong had overcome his bout of melancholy.

Lightsong thought as he stood. He didn’t know what his “best” was. The truth was, he’d never bothered to find out.

“Ah, don’t worry, Vivenna. He wants to kill us too. At least you’re in good company.”

The God King of Hallandren had no tongue.

“The thing that scares Bluefingers so much. You’re not king, you’re a puppet! A figurehead. You’re paraded around by your priests, given a BioChromatic aura so strong that it makes people fall to their knees in wonder. Yet they took your tongue so that you couldn’t ever use it, and they never taught you to read, lest you learn too much or manage to communicate with others.”

“All so that they could control you.”

“That is the letter ‘shash,’ ” Siri said, smiling. “I can teach you them all, if you wish.” The priests were right to be worried.

You didn’t use me much, Nightblood said, sounding hurt. You could have used me. I’m better than a shirt. I’m a sword.

“Being royal is about more than just blood. It’s about lineage and the holy calling of Austre. My children will not have the Royal Locks unless I become queen of Idris. Only potential heirs have the ability to change their hair color.”

“Can I break his fingers?” She frowned. “No!” “Not even the unimportant ones?” Tonk Fah asked. “I mean, people have five after all. The little ones don’t even do that much.”

Work, my dear Blushweaver, is like fertilizer.” “It smells?” He smiled. “No, I was thinking that work is like fertilizer in that I’m glad it exists; I just don’t ever want to get stuck in it.”

He had an odd impulse to look into this more deeply. However, that sounded like work. He really couldn’t afford to make an exception to his usual habits, particularly without a lot of complaining first. It set a poor precedent.

“She’s a dear,” Blushweaver said, smiling. “You just say that because she’s so easy to manipulate.” “Of course,” Blushweaver said. “I positively love people who do as they should. ‘Should’ being defined as whatever I think is best.”

Murder in the Court of Gods,

You shud not anger the prests so, he wrote. His spelling, as one might expect, was awful.

You are very normal, he finally wrote. Siri frowned. “Um. Thank you?” Was that good sarcasm? he wrote. Because in reality, you are quite strange.

I would not kill a good person. They must know that.

But I remember the lessons the stories taught. Obediance is good. You shud treat people well. Do not go into the jungle by yourself. Do not lie. Do not hurt others.

From taking you? I do not understand. Siri blushed, hair turning red to match. “I mean, why did you just sit there?” Because I did not know what else to do, he said. I knew that we need to have a child. So I sat and waited for it to happen. We must be doing something wrong, for no child has come.

You don’t know how to have children?” In the stories, he wrote, a man and a woman spend the night together. Then they have a child. We spent many nights together, and there were no children.

No, he wrote. I did find it very interesting to see you naked.

“I know you don’t prefer war scenes,” Llarimar said. “But—” “I like it,” Lightsong said, cutting off the priest. “I like it a lot.” Llarimar fell silent. Lightsong stared into the painting with its flowing reds, painted so subtly that they gave a feeling of war, rather than just an image. “It might be the best painting that has ever passed through my hall.”

“So far this day I have discovered several disturbing and redefining elements of my soul which are slowly restructuring the very nature of my existence.” He took a sip from his drink. “Other than that, it was uneventful. You?”

Unknowing ignorance is preferable to informed stupidity.” “I’ll try to remember that.” “Do so and you defeat the point.

Siri paused, then found herself smiling even more broadly. “What?” Lightsong asked, then finished off the last of his drink. It was immediately replaced by another, this one blue. “Talking to you is like swimming in a river,” she said. “I keep getting pulled along with the current and I’m never sure when I’ll be able to take another breath.” “Watch out for the rocks, Vessel,” the high priest noted. “They look rather insignificant, but have sharp edges under the surface.” “Bah,” Lightsong said. “It’s the crocodiles you have to watch for. They can bite. And…what exactly were we talking about, anyway?”

“You’re a good man, Lightsong,” she said. “I knew it, even when you were insulting me. You mean no harm. Is that part of your persona?”

“You’re digging for something—I can sense it. And it has to do with the priests. Don’t make too many waves until you’re ready to strike. Sudden and surprising, that’s how you want to be. You don’t want to appear too nonthreatening—people are always suspicious of the innocent. The trick is to appear average. Just as crafty as everyone else. That way, everyone else will assume that they can beat you with just a little advantage.”

you don’t understand a man until you understand what makes him do what he does. Every man is a hero in his own story, Princess. Murderers don’t believe that they’re to blame for what they do. Thieves, they think they deserve the money they take. Dictators, they believe they have the right—for the safety of their people and the good of the nation—to do whatever they wish.” He stared off, shaking his head. “I think even Vasher sees himself as a hero. The truth is, most people who do what you’d call ‘wrong’ do it for what they call ‘right’ reasons.