“But you … you are stuck with only one body. So how do you make it work? I have come to suspect that men in a city are each part of some greater organism they can’t see—like the hordelings that make up my kind.”
“That’s great,” Lift said. “But earlier, you said that Darkness was hunting someone else? You think he still hasn’t killed his prey in the city?”
“Oh, I’m certain he hasn’t. He hunts them right now. He will know that his minions have failed.”
The storm rumbled above, close. She itched to leave, to find shelter. But …
“Tell me,” she said. “Who is it?”
The creature smiled. “A secret. And we are in Tashikk, are we not? Shall we trade? You answer me honestly regarding my questions, and I’ll give you a hint.”
“Why me?” Lift said. “Why not bother someone else with these questions? At another time?”
“Oh, but you’re so interesting.” He wrapped the shiqua around his waist, then down his leg, then back up it, crossing to the other leg. His cremlings coursed around him. Several climbed up his face, and his eyes crawled out, new ones replacing them so that he went from being darkeyed to light.
He spoke as he dressed. “You, Lift, are different from anyone else. If each city is a creature, then you are a most special organ. Traveling from place to place, bringing change, transformation. You Knights Radiant … I must know how you see yourselves. It will be an important corner of my philosophy.”
I am special, she thought. I’m awesome.
So why don’t I know what to do?
The secret fear crept out. The creature kept talking his strange speech: about cities, people, and their places. He praised her, but each offhand comment about how special she was made her wince. A storm was almost here, and Darkness was about to murder in the night. All she could do was crouch in the presence of two corpses and a monster made of little squirming pieces.
Listen, Lift. Are you listening? People, they don’t listen anymore.
“Yes, but how did the city of your birth know to create you?” the creature was saying. “I can breed individual pieces to do as I wish. What bred you? And why was this city able to summon you here now?”
Again that question. Why are you here?
“What if I’m not special,” Lift whispered. “Would that be okay too?”
The creature stopped and looked at her. On the wall, Wyndle whimpered.
“What if I’ve been lying all along,” Lift said. “What if I’m not strictly awesome. What if I don’t know what to do?”
“Instinct will guide you, I’m sure.”
I feel lost, like a soldier on a battlefield who can’t remember which banner is hers, the guard captain’s voice said.
Listening. She was listening, wasn’t she?
Half the time, I get the sense that even kings are confused by the world. Ghenna the scribe’s voice.
Nobody listened anymore.
I wish someone would tell us what was happening. The Stump’s voice.
“What if you’re wrong though?” Lift whispered. “What if ‘instinct’ doesn’t guide us? What if everybody is frightened, and nobody has the answers?”
It was the conclusion that had always been too intimidating to consider. It terrified her.
Did it have to, though? She looked up at the wall, at Wyndle surrounded by cremlings that snapped at him. Her own little Voidbringer.
Listen.
Lift hesitated, then patted him. She just … she just had to accept it, didn’t she?
In a moment, she felt relief akin to her terror. She was in darkness, but well, maybe she’d manage anyway.
Lift stood up. “I left Azir because I was afraid. I came to Tashikk because that’s where my starvin’ feet took me. But tonight … tonight I decided to be here.”
“What is this nonsense?” Arclo asked. “How does it help my philosophy?”
She cocked her head as a realization struck her, like a jolt of power. Huh. Fancy that, would you?
“I … didn’t heal that boy,” she whispered.
“What?”
“The Stump trades spheres for ones of lesser value, probably swapping dun ones for infused ones. She launders money because she needs the Stormlight; she probably feeds on it without realizing what she’s doing!” Lift looked down at Arclo, grinning. “Don’t you see? She takes care of the kids who were born sick, lets them stay. It’s because her powers don’t know how to heal those. The rest, though, they get better. They do it so suspiciously often that she’s started to believe that kids must come to her faking to get food. The Stump … is a Radiant.”
The Sleepless creature met her eyes, then sighed. “We will speak again another time. Like Nale, I am not one to leave tasks unfinished.”
He tossed his sphere along the alleyway, and it plinked against stone, rolling back toward the orphanage. Lighting the way for Lift as she jumped down and started running.
19
THE thunder chased her. Wind howled through the city’s slots, windspren zipping past her, as if fleeing the advent of the strange storm. The wind pushed against Lift’s back, blowing scraps of paper and refuse around her. She reached the small amphitheater at the mouth of the alley, and hazarded a glance behind her.
She stumbled to a stop, stunned.
The storm surged across the sky, a majestic and terrible black thunderhead coursing with red lightning. It was enormous, dominating the entire sky, wicked with flashes of inner light.
Raindrops started to pelt her, and though there was no stormwall, the wind was already growing tempestuous.
Wyndle grew in a circle around her. “Mistress? Mistress, oh, this is bad.”
She stepped back, transfixed by the boiling mass of black and red. Lightning sprayed down across the slots, and thunder hit her with so much force, it felt as if she should have been flung backward.
“Mistress!”
“Inside,” Lift said, scrambling toward the door into the orphanage. It was so dark, she could barely make out the wall. But as she arrived, she immediately noticed something wrong. The door was open.
Surely they’d closed it after she’d left? She slipped in. The room beyond was black, impenetrable, but feeling at the door told her that the bar had been cut right through. Probably from the outside, and with a weapon that sliced wood cleanly. A Shardblade.
Trembling, Lift felt for the cut portion of the bar on the floor, then managed to fit it into place, holding the door closed. She turned in the room, listening. She could hear the whimpers of the children, choked sobs.
“Mistress,” Wyndle whispered. “You can’t fight him.”
I know.
“There are Words that you must speak.”
They won’t help.
Tonight, the Words were the easy part.
It was hard not to adopt the fear of the children around her. Lift found herself trembling, and stopped somewhere in the center of the room. She couldn’t creep along, stumbling over other kids, if she wanted to stop Darkness.