He trailed off. Gavilar hadn’t believed either, when Dalinar told him. There was no such thing as a free parshman tribe. They were servants, and always had been servants.
“‘Did they have Shardblades then?’” Danlan said. Dalinar hadn’t realized that Jasnah had made a response.
“No.”
A scratched reply eventually came. “‘But they have them now. When did you first see a Parshendi Shardbearer?’”
“After Gavilar’s death,” Dalinar said.
He made the connection. They’d always wondered why Gavilar had wanted a treaty with the Parshendi. They wouldn’t have needed one just to harvest the greatshells on the Shattered Plains; the Parshendi hadn’t lived on the Plains then.
Dalinar felt a chill. Could his brother have known that these Parshendi had access to Shardblades? Had he made the treaty hoping to get out of them where they’d found the weapons?
Is it his death? Dalinar wondered. Is that the secret Jasnah’s looking for? She’d never shown Elhokar’s dedication to vengeance, but she thought differently from her brother. Revenge wouldn’t drive her. But questions. Yes, questions would.
“‘One more thing, Uncle,’” Danlan read. “‘Then I can go back to digging through this labyrinth of a library. At times, I feel like a cairn robber, sifting through the bones of those long dead. Regardless. The Parshendi, you once mentioned how quickly they seemed to learn our language.’”
“Yes,” Dalinar said. “In a matter of days, we were speaking and communicating quite well. Remarkable.” Who would have thought that parshmen, of all people, had the wit for such a marvel? Most he’d known didn’t do much speaking at all.
“‘What were the first things they spoke to you about?’” Danlan said. “‘The very first questions they asked? Can you remember?’”
Dalinar closed his eyes, remembering days with the Parshendi camped just across the river from them. Gavilar had become fascinated by them. “They wanted to see our maps.”
“Did they mention the Voidbringers?”
Voidbringers? “Not that I recall. Why?”
“‘I’d rather not say right now. However, I want to show you something. Have your scribe get out a new sheet of paper.’”
Danlan affixed a new page to the writing board. She put the pen to the corner and let go. It rose and began to scratch back and forth in quick, bold strokes. It was a drawing. Dalinar stood up and stepped closer, and Adolin crowded near. Reed and ink wasn’t the best medium, and drawing across spans wasn’t precise. The pen leaked tiny globs of ink in places it wouldn’t have on the other side, and though the inkwell was in the exact same place – allowing Jasnah to re-ink both her reed and Dalinar’s at the same time – his reed sometimes ran out before the one on the other side.
Still, the picture was marvelous. This isn’t Jasnah, Dalinar realized. Whoever was doing the drawing was far, far more talented than his niece.
The picture resolved into a depiction of a tall shadow looming over some buildings. Hints of carapace and claws showed in the thin ink lines, and shadows were made by drawing finer lines close together.
Danlan set it aside, getting out a third sheet of paper. Dalinar held the drawing up, Adolin at his side. The nightmarish beast in the lines and shadows was faintly familiar. Like…
“It’s a chasmfiend,” Adolin said, pointing. “It’s distorted – far more menacing in the face and larger at the shoulders, and I don’t see its second set of foreclaws – but someone was obviously trying to draw one of them.”
“Yes,” Dalinar said, rubbing his chin.
“‘This is a depiction from one of the books here,’” Danlan read. “‘My new ward is quite skilled at drawing, and so I had her reproduce it for you. Tell me. Does it remind you of anything?’”
A new ward? Dalinar thought. It had been years since Jasnah had taken one. She always said she didn’t have the time. “This picture’s of a chasmfiend,” Dalinar said.
Danlan wrote the words. A moment later, the reply came. “‘The book describes this as a picture of a Voidbringer.’” Danlan frowned, cocking her head. “‘The book is a copy of a text originally written in the years before the Recreance. However, the illustrations are copied from another text, even older. In fact, some think that picture was drawn only two or three generations after the Heralds departed.’”
Adolin whistled softly. That would make it very old indeed. So far as Dalinar understood, they had few pieces of art or writing dating from the shadowdays, The Way of Kings being one of the oldest, and the only complete text. And even it had survived only in translation; they had no copies in the original tongue.
“‘Before you jump to conclusions,’” Danlan read, “‘I’m not implying that the Voidbringers were the same thing as chasmfiends. I believe that the ancient artist didn’t know what a Voidbringer looked like, and so she drew the most horrific thing she knew of.’”
But how did the original artist know what a chasmfiend looked like? Dalinar thought. We only just discovered the Shattered Plains–
But of course. Though the Unclaimed Hills were now empty, they had once been an inhabited kingdom. Someone in the past had known about chasmfiends, known them well enough to draw one and label it a Voidbringer.
“‘I must go now,’” Jasnah said via Danlan. “‘Care for my brother in my absence, Uncle.’”
“Jasnah,” Dalinar sent, choosing his words very carefully. “Things are difficult here. The storm begins to blow unchecked, and the building shakes and moans. You may soon hear news that shocks you. It would be very nice if you could return and lend your aid.”
He waited quietly for the reply, the spanreed scratching. “‘I should like to promise a date when I will come.’” Dalinar could almost hear Jasnah’s calm, cool voice. “‘But I cannot estimate when my research will be completed.’”
“This is very important, Jasnah,” Dalinar said. “Please reconsider.”
“‘Be assured, Uncle, that I am coming. Eventually. I just can’t say when.’”
Dalinar sighed.
“‘Note,’” Jasnah wrote, “‘that I am most eager to see a chasmfiend for myself.’”
“A dead one,” Dalinar said. “I have no intention of letting you repeat your brother’s experience of a few weeks ago.”
“‘Ah,’” Jasnah sent back, “‘dear, overprotective Dalinar. One of these years, you will have to admit that your favored niece and nephew have grown up.’”
“I’ll treat you as adults so long as you act the part,” Dalinar said. “Come speedily, and we’ll get you a dead chasmfiend. Take care.”
They waited to see if a further response came, but the gem stopped blinking, Jasnah’s transmission complete. Danlan put away the spanreed and the board, and Dalinar thanked the clerks for their aid. They withdrew; Adolin looked as if he wanted to linger, but Dalinar gestured for him to leave.
Dalinar looked down at the picture of the chasmfiend again, unsatisfied. What had he gained from the conversation? More vague hints? What could be so important about Jasnah’s research that she would ignore threats to the kingdom?
He would have to compose a more forthright letter to her once he’d made his announcement, explaining why he had decided to step down. Perhaps that would bring her back.
And, in a moment of shock, Dalinar realized that he had made his decision. Sometime between leaving the trench and now, he’d stopped treating his abdication as an if and started thinking of it as a when. It was the right decision. He felt sick about it, but certain. A man sometimes needed to do things that were unpleasant.