I find Ba-Ado-Mishram to be the most interesting of the Unmade. She is said to have been keen of mind, a highprincess among the enemy forces, their commander during some of the Desolations. I do not know how this relates to the ancient god of the enemy, named Odium.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 224
Szeth of Shinovar flew with the Skybreakers for three days, southward.
They stopped several times to recover hidden stockpiles in mountain peaks or remote valleys. To find doorways, they often had to hack through five inches of crem. That amount of buildup had probably taken centuries to accumulate, yet Nin spoke of the places as if he’d just left. At one, he was surprised to find the food long since decayed—though fortunately, the gemstone stockpile there had been hidden in a place where it remained exposed to the storms.
In these visits, Szeth finally began to grasp how ancient this creature was.
On the fourth day, they reached Marat. Szeth had been to the kingdom before; he had visited most of Roshar during the years of his exile. Historically, Marat wasn’t truly a nation—but neither was it a place of nomads, like the backwaters of Hexi and Tu Fallia. Instead, Marat was a group of loosely connected cities, tribally run, with a highprince at their head—though in the local dialect, he was called “elder brother.”
The country made for a convenient waystop between the Vorin kingdoms of the east and the Makabaki ones of the center west. Szeth knew that Marat was rich in culture, full of people as proud as you’d find in any nation—but of almost no value on the political scale.
Which made it curious that Nin chose to end their flight here. They landed on a plain full of strange brown grass that reminded Szeth of wheat, save for the fact that this pulled down into burrows, leaving visible only the small bob of grain on the top. This was casually eaten by wild beasts that were wide and flat, like walking discs, with claws only on the underside to shove the grain into their mouths.
The disclike animals would probably migrate eastward, their droppings containing seeds that—stuck to the ground—would survive storms to grow into first-stage polyps. Those would later blow to the west and become second-stage grain. All life worked in concert, he’d been taught in his youth. Everything but men, who refused their place. Who destroyed instead of added.
Nin spoke briefly with Ki and the other masters, who took to the air again. The others joined them—all but Szeth and Nin himself—and streaked toward a town in the distance. Before Szeth could follow, Nin took him by the arm and shook his head. Together, the two of them flew to a smaller town on a hill near the coast.
Szeth knew the effects of war when he saw them. Broken doors, ruins of a short, breached wall. The destruction looked recent, though any bodies had been cleaned out and the blood had been washed away by highstorms. They landed before a large stone building with a peaked roof. Mighty doors of Soulcast bronze lay broken off in the rubble. Szeth would be surprised if somebody didn’t return to claim those for their metal. Not every army had access to Soulcasters.
Aw, the sword said from his back. We missed the fun?
“That tyrant in Tukar,” Szeth said, looking through the silent town. “He decided to end his war against Emul, and expand eastward?”
“No,” Nin said. “This is a different danger.” He pointed toward the building with the broken doors. “Can you read that writing above the doorway, Szeth-son-Neturo?”
“It’s in the local language. I don’t know the script, aboshi.” The divine honorific was his best guess of how to address one of the Heralds, though among his people it had been reserved for the great spren of the mountains.
“It says ‘justice,’ ” Nin said. “This was a courthouse.”
Szeth followed the Herald up the steps and into the cavernous main room of the ruined courthouse. In here, sheltered from the storm, they found blood on the floor. No bodies, but plenty of discarded weapons, helms, and—disturbingly—the meager possessions of civilians. The people had likely taken refuge inside here during the battle, a last grasp at safety.
“The ones you call parshmen name themselves the singers,” Nin said. “They took this town and pressed the survivors into labor at some docks farther along the coast. Was what happened here justice, Szeth-son-Neturo?”
“How could it be?” He shivered. The dark reaches of the room seemed to be filled with haunted whispers. He drew closer to the Herald for safety. “Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, suddenly attacked and murdered?”
“A poor argument. What if the lord of this city had stopped paying his taxes, then forced his people to defend the city when higher authorities arrived and attacked? Is not a prince justified in maintaining order in his lands? Sometimes, it is just to kill ordinary people.”
“But that did not happen here,” Szeth said. “You said this was caused by an invading army.”
“Yes,” Nin said softly. “This is the fault of invaders. That is true.” He continued walking through the hollow room, Szeth staying close behind him. “You are in a unique position, Szeth-son-Neturo. You will be the first to swear the oaths of a Skybreaker in a new world, a world where I have failed.”
They found steps near the back wall. Szeth got out a sphere for light, as Nin did not appear to be so inclined. That drove the whispers back.
“I visited Ishar,” Nin continued. “You call him Ishu-son-God. He has always been the most wise of us. I did not … want to believe … what had happened.”
Szeth nodded. He had seen that. After the first Everstorm, Nin had insisted that the Voidbringers hadn’t returned. He had given excuse after excuse, until eventually he’d been forced to admit what he was seeing.
“I worked for thousands of years to prevent another Desolation,” Nin continued. “Ishar warned me of the danger. Now that Honor is dead, other Radiants might upset the balance of the Oathpact. Might undermine certain … measures we took, and give an opening to the enemy.”
He stopped at the top of the steps and looked down at his hand, where a glistening Shardblade appeared. One of the two missing Honorblades. Szeth’s people had care of eight. Once, long ago, it had been nine. Then this one had vanished.
He’d seen depictions of it, strikingly straight and unornamented for a Shardblade, yet still elegant. Two slits ran the length of the weapon, gaps that could never exist in an ordinary sword, as they would weaken it.
They walked along a loft at the top of the courtroom. Records storage, judging by the scattered ledgers on the floor.
You should draw me, the sword said.
“And do what, sword-nimi?” Szeth whispered.
Fight him. I think he might be evil.
“He is one of the Heralds—one of the least-evil things in the world.”
Huh. Doesn’t bode well for your world, then. Anyway, I’m better than that sword he has. I can show you.
Picking his way past the legal debris, Szeth joined Nin beside the loft’s window. In the distance, farther along the coast, a large bay glistened with blue water. Many masts of ships gathered there, figures buzzing around them.
“I have failed,” Nin repeated. “And now, for the people, justice must be done. A very difficult justice, Szeth-son-Neturo. Even for my Skybreakers.”
“We will endeavor to be as passionless and logical as you, aboshi.”
Nin laughed. It didn’t seem to carry the mirth that it should have. “Me? No, Szeth-son-Neturo. I am hardly passionless. This is the problem.” He paused, staring out the window at the distant ships. “I am … different from how I once was. Worse, perhaps? Despite all that, a part of me wishes to be merciful.”
“And is … mercy such a bad thing, aboshi?”
“Not bad; merely chaotic. If you look through the records in this hall, you will find the same story told again and again. Leniency and mercy. Men set free despite crimes, because they were good fathers, or well-liked in the community, or in the favor of someone important.
“Some of those who are set free change their lives and go on to produce for society. Others recidivate and create great tragedies. The thing is, Szeth-son-Neturo, we humans are terrible at spotting which will be which. The purpose of the law is so we do not have to choose. So our native sentimentality will not harm us.”
He looked down again at his sword.
“You,” he said to Szeth, “must choose a Third Ideal. Most Skybreakers choose to swear themselves to the law—and follow with exactness the laws of whatever lands they visit. That is a good option, but not the only one. Think wisely, and choose.”
“Yes, aboshi,” Szeth said.
“There are things you must see, and things you must know, before you can speak. The others must interpret what they have sworn before, and I hope they will see the truth. You will be the first of a new order of Skybreakers.” He looked back out the window. “The singers allowed the people of this town to return here to burn their dead. A kinder gesture than most conquerors would allow.”
“Aboshi … may I ask you a question?”
“Law is light, and darkness does not serve it. Ask, and I will answer.”
“I know you are great, ancient, and wise,” Szeth said. “But … to my lesser eyes, you do not seem to obey your own precepts. You hunted Surgebinders, as you said.”
“I obtained legal permission for the executions I performed.”
“Yes,” Szeth said, “but you ignored many lawbreakers to pursue these few. You had motives beyond the law, aboshi. You were not impartial. You brutally enforced specific laws to achieve your ends.”
“This is true.”
“So is this just your own … sentimentality?”
“In part. Though I have certain leniencies. The others have told you of the Fifth Ideal?”
“The Ideal where the Skybreaker becomes the law?”
Nin held out his empty left hand. A Shardblade appeared there, different and distinct from the Honorblade he carried in the other hand. “I am not only a Herald, but a Skybreaker of the Fifth Ideal. Though I was originally skeptical of the Radiants, I believe I am the only one who eventually joined his own order.
“And now, Szeth-son-Neturo, I must tell you of the decision we Heralds made, long ago. On the day that would become known as Aharietiam. The day we sacrificed one of our own to end the cycle of pain and death…”