The scraping grew softer, then eventually faded. He and Lopen stood immobile for a long time after the last sound had vanished.
Finally, Lopen spoke. “Guess the nearby ones aren’t all dead, eh, gancho?”
“Yeah,” Kaladin said. He jumped suddenly as Syl zipped back to find them. He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight as he did so, and when she alighted in the air, she found him sheepishly glowing.
“What is going on?” she demanded, hands on hips.
“Chasmfiend,” Kaladin said.
“Really?” She sounded excited. “We should chase after it!”
“What?”
“Sure,” she said. “You could fight it, I’ll bet.”
“Syl…”
Her eyes were twinkling with amusement. Just a joke. “Come on.” She zipped away.
He and Lopen stepped more softly now. Eventually Syl landed on the side of the chasm, standing there as if in mockery of when Kaladin had tried to walk up the wall.
Kaladin looked up at the shadow of a wooden bridge forty feet above. This was the shallowest chasm they’d been able to find; they tended to get deeper and deeper the farther eastward you went. More and more, he was certain that trying to escape to the east was impossible. It was too far, and surviving the highstorm floods was too difficult a challenge. The original plan – fighting or bribing the guards, then running – was the best one.
But they needed to live long enough to try that. The bridge above offered an opportunity, if Kaladin could reach it. He hefted his small bag of spheres and his slung sack full of armor and bones over his shoulder. He’d originally intended to have Rock shoot an arrow with a rope tied to it over the bridge, then back down into the chasm. With some men holding one end, another could have climbed up and tied the sack to the bridge’s underside.
But that would risk letting an arrow shoot out of the chasm where scouts could see. They were said to be very keen-eyed, as the armies depended on them to spot chasmfiends making chrysalises.
Kaladin thought he had a better way than the arrow. Maybe. “We need rocks,” he said. “Fist-size ones. A lot of them.”
Lopen shrugged and began searching about. Kaladin joined him, fishing them out of puddles and pulling them from crevasses. There was no shortage of stones in the chasms. In a short time, he had a large pile of rocks in a sack.
He took the pouch of spheres in his hand and tried to think the same way he had earlier, when he’d drawn in the Stormlight. This is our last chance.
“Life before death,” he whispered. “Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”
The First Ideal of the Knights Radiant. He breathed in deeply, and a thick jolt of power shot up his arm. His muscles burned with energy, with the desire to move. The tempest spread within, pushing at his skin, causing his blood to pump in a powerful rhythm. He opened his eyes. Glowing smoke rose around him. He was able to contain much of the Light, holding it in by holding his breath.
It’s like a storm inside me. It felt as if it would rip him apart.
He set the sack with the armor on the ground, but wound the rope around his arm and tied the sack of rocks to his belt. He took out a single fist-size stone and hefted it, feeling its storm-smoothed sides. This had better work…
He infused the stone with Stormlight, frost crystallizing on his arm. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but it felt natural, like pouring liquid into a cup. Light seemed to pool underneath the skin of his hand, then transfer to the rock – as if he were painting it with a vibrant, glowing liquid.
He pressed the stone to the rock wall. It fixed in place, leaking Stormlight, clinging so strongly that he couldn’t pry it free. He tested his weight on it, and it held. He placed another one a little lower, then another a little higher. Then, wishing he had someone to burn him a prayer for success, he started climbing.
He tried not to think about what he was doing. Climbing on rocks stuck to the wall by… what? Light? Spren? He kept on going. It was a lot like climbing the stone formations back near Hearthstone with Tien, except that he could make handholds exactly where he wanted.
Should have found some rock dust to cover my hands, he thought, pulling himself up, then taking another stone from his sack and sticking it into place.
Syl walked along beside him, her casual stroll seeming to mock the difficulty of his climb. As he shifted his weight to another rock, he heard an ominous click from below. He risked a glance downward. The first of his rocks had fallen free. The ones near it were leaking Stormlight only faintly now.
The rocks led up toward him like a set of burning footprints. The storm inside him had quieted, though it still blew and raged inside his veins, thrilling and distracting at the same time. What would happen if he ran out of Light before he reached the top?
The next rock fell free. The one beside it followed a few seconds later. Lopen stood on the other side of the chasm bottom, leaning against the wall, interested but relaxed.
Keep moving! Kaladin thought, annoyed at himself for getting distracted. He turned back to his work.
Just as his arms were beginning to burn from the climb, he reached the underside of the bridge. He reached out as two more of his stones fell free. The clatter of each one was louder now, as they fell a much larger distance.
Steadying himself on the bottom of the bridge with one hand, feet still pushing against the highest rocks, he looped the end of the rope around a wooden bridge support. He pulled it around and threaded it through again to make a makeshift knot. He left plenty of extra rope on the short end.
He let the rest of the rope slide free of his shoulder and drop to the floor below. “Lopen,” he called. Light steamed from his mouth as he spoke. “Pull it tight.”
The Herdazian did so, and Kaladin held to his end, making the knot firm. Then he took hold of the long section of rope and let himself swing free, dangling from the bottom of the bridge. The knot held.
Kaladin relaxed. He was still steaming light, and – save for the call to Lopen – he’d been holding his breath for a good quarter hour. That could be handy, he thought, though his lungs were starting to burn, so he started to breathe normally. The Light didn’t leave him altogether, though it escaped faster.
“All right,” Kaladin said to Lopen. “Tie the other sack to the bottom of the rope.”
The rope wiggled, and a few moments later Lopen called up that it was done. Kaladin gripped the rope with his legs to hold himself in place, then used his hands to pull up the length underneath, hoisting up the sack full of armor. Using the rope on the short end of the knot, he slipped his pouch of dun spheres into the sack with the armor, then tied it into place underneath the bridge where – he hoped – Lopen and Dabbid would be able to get to it from above.
He looked down. The ground looked so much more distant than it would have from the bridge above. From this slightly different perspective, everything changed.
He didn’t get vertigo from the height. Instead, he felt a little surge of excitement. Something about him had always liked being up high. It felt natural. It was being below – trapped in holes and unable to see the world – that was depressing.
He considered his next move.
“What?” Syl asked, stepping up to him, standing on air.
“If I leave the rope here, someone might spot it while crossing the bridge.”
“So cut it free.”
He looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “While dangling from it?”
“You’ll be fine.”
“That’s a forty-foot drop! I’d break bones at the very least.”
“No,” Syl said. “I feel right about this, Kaladin. You’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“Trust you? Syl, you’ve said yourself that your memory is fractured!”