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home. What could she do? I take care of the children. It’s my job. It’s the job Lord Spirit gave me. “We have to get them out,” Matisse said, sprinting toward the Roost. “They know where to look because we cleaned this section of Elantris. The city is huge—if we get the children out into the dirty part, we can hide them.” “Yes, my lady,” Ashe said. “You go find my father!” Matisse said. “Tell him what we’re doing.” With that, she entered the Roost, Ashe hovering away into the night. Inside, Idotris had done as she asked, and the children were groggily putting on their shoes. “Quickly, children,” Matisse said. “What’s going on?” Tiil demanded. “We’ve got to go,” Matisse said to the young troublemaker. “Tiil, Teor, I’m going to need your help—you and all of the older children, all right? You have to try and help the young ones. Keep them moving, and keep them quiet. All right?” “Why?” Tiil asked, frowning. “What’s going on?” “It’s an emergency,” Matisse said. “That’s all you need to know.” “Why are you in charge?” Teor said, stepping up to his friend, folding his arms. “You know my father?” Matisse said. They nodded. “You know he’s a soldier?” Matisse asked. Again, a nod. “Well, that makes me a soldier too. It’s hereditary. He’s a captain, so I’m a captain. And that means I get to tell you what to do. You can be my subcaptains, though, if you promise to do what I say.” The two younger boys paused, then Tiil nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “Good. Now move!” The boys went to help the younger children. Matisse began to herd them out the front door, into the darkened streets. Many of them, however, had caught on to the terror of the night, and were too scared to budge. “Matisse!” Idotris hissed, coming closer. “What is going on?” “Ashe says New Elantris is under attack,” Matisse said, kneeling beside her lanterns. “Soldiers are slaughtering everyone.” Idotris grew quiet. She lit the lanterns, then stood. As she’d expected, the children—even the little ones—gravitated toward the light, and the sense of protection it offered. She handed one lantern to Idotris, and by its glow she could see his terrified face. “What do we do?” he asked with a shaking voice. “We run,” Matisse said, rushing out of the room. And the children followed. Rather than be left behind in the dark, they ran after the light, Tiil and Teor helping the smaller ones, Idotris trying to hush those who began to cry. Matisse was worried at bringing light, but it seemed the only way. Indeed, they barely kept the children moving as it was, herding them in the fastest way out of New Elantris—which was the way directly away from the screams, now frightfully close. That also took them away from the populated sections of New Elantris. Matisse had hoped that they’d run into someone who could help as they moved. Unfortunately, those who weren’t out practicing Aons were with her father, practicing with weapons. The
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only occupied buildings would have been the ones Ashe had indicated were being attacked. Their occupants … Don’t think about that, Matisse thought as their ragged band of fifty children reached the edges of New Elantris. They were almost free. They could— A voice suddenly yelled behind them, speaking in a harsh tongue Matisse didn’t understand. Matisse spun, looking over the heads of frightened children. The center of New Elantris was glowing faintly. From firelight. It was burning. There, framed by the flames of death, was a squad of three men in red uniforms. They carried swords. Surely they wouldn’t kill children, Matisse thought, her hand shaking as it held its lantern. Then she saw the glint in the soldiers’ eyes. A dangerous, grim look. They advanced on her group. Yes, they would kill children. Elantrian children, at least. “Run,” Matisse said, her voice quavering. Yet she knew the children could never move faster than these men. “Run! Go and—” Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a ball of light zipped from the sky. Ashe moved between the men, spinning around their heads, distracting them. The men cursed, waving their swords about in anger, looking up at the seon. Which is why they completely missed seeing Dashe charge them. He took them from the side, coming through a shadowed alleyway in New Elantris. He knocked down one soldier, sword flashing, then spun toward the other two as they cursed, turning away from the seon. We need to go! “Move!” she cried again, urging Idotris and the others to keep going. The children backed away from the sword fight, heading out into the night, following Idotris’s light. Matisse stayed near the back, turning with concern toward her father. He wasn’t doing well. He was an excellent warrior, but the soldiers had been joined by two other men, and Dashe’s body was weakened by being Elantrian. Matisse stood, holding her lantern in trembling fingers, uncertain what to do. The children were sniffling in the dark behind her, their retreat painfully slow. Dashe fought bravely, his rusty sword replaced by one that Sarene must have sent. He knocked aside blade after blade, but he was getting surrounded. I have to do something! Matisse thought, stepping forward. At that moment, Dashe turned, and she could see cuts on his face and body. The look of dread she saw in his eyes made her freeze up. “Go,” he whispered, his voice lost in the clamor, but his lips moving. “Run!” One of the soldiers rammed his sword through Dashe’s chest. “No!” Matisse screamed. But that only drew their attention as Dashe collapsed, quivering on the ground. The pain had become too much for him. The soldiers looked at her, then began to advance. Dashe had taken down more than one of them, but there were three left. Matisse felt numb. “Please, my lady!” Ashe floated down beside her, hovering urgently. “You must run!” Father is dead. No, worse—he’s Hoed. Matisse shook her head, forcing herself to stay alert. She’d seen tragedy as a beggar. She could keep
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going. She had to. These men would find the children. The children were too slow. Unless … She looked up at the seon beside her, noting the glowing Aon at his center. It meant “light.” “Ashe,” she said urgently as the soldiers approached. “Find Idotris ahead. Tell him to put out his lantern, then lead him and the others to someplace safe!” “Someplace safe? I don’t know if any place is safe.” “That library you spoke of,” Matisse said, thinking quickly. “Where is it?” “Straight north from here, my lady,” Ashe said. “In a hidden chamber beneath a squat building. It is marked by Aon Rao.” “Galladon and Karata are there,” Matisse said. “Take the children to them—Karata will know what to do.” “Yes,” Ashe said. “Yes, that sounds good.” “Don’t forget about the lantern,” Matisse said as he flew away. She turned to face the advancing soldiers. Then, with a shaky finger, she raised a hand and began to draw. Light burst from the air, following her finger. She forced herself to remain steady, completing the Aon despite her fear. The soldiers paused as they watched her, then one of them said something in a guttural language she assumed was Fjordell. They continued to advance on her. Matisse finished the Aon—Aon Ashe, the same one inside of her seon friend. But of course the Aon didn’t do anything. It just hung there, like they always did. The soldiers approached uncaringly, stepping right up to it. This had better work, Matisse thought, then put her finger in the place that Galladon had demonstrated and drew the final line. Immediately, the Aon—Aon Ashe—began to glow with a powerful light right in front of the soldiers’ faces. They called out as the sudden flash of brilliance shone in their eyes, then cursed, stumbling back. Matisse reached down to grab her lantern and run. The soldiers yelled after her, then began to follow. And, like the children earlier, they went toward the light—her light. Idotris and the others weren’t that far away—she could see their shadows still moving in the night—but the soldiers had been blinded too much to notice the faint movements, and Idotris had put out his light. The only thing for the soldiers to focus on was her lantern. Matisse led them away into the dark night, clutching her lantern in terrified fingers. She could hear them pursuing behind her as she entered Elantris proper. Sludge and darkness replaced the clean paving stones of New Elantris, and Matisse had to stop moving so quickly, lest she slide and stumble. She hurried anyway, rounding corners, trying to stay ahead of her pursuers. She felt so weak. Running was hard as an Elantrian. She didn’t have the strength to go very quickly. Already she was beginning to feel a powerful fatigue inside of her. She couldn’t hear any more pursuit. Perhaps … She turned a corner and ran afoul of a pair of soldiers standing in the night. She paused in shock, looking up at the men, recognizing them from before. They’re trained soldiers,
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she thought. Of course they know how to surround an enemy and cut them off! She spun to run, but one of the men grabbed her arm, laughing and saying something in Fjordell. Matisse cried out, dropping the lantern. The soldier stumbled, but held her firm. Think! Matisse told herself. You only have a moment. Her feet slipped in the sludge. She paused, then let herself fall, kicking at her captor’s leg. She was counting on one thing: She’d lived in Elantris. She knew how to move in the slime and sludge. These soldiers, however, didn’t. Her kick landed true, and the soldier immediately slipped, stumbling into his companion and crashing back to the slimy street as he released Matisse. She scrambled to her feet, her beautiful bright clothing now stained with Elantris sludge. Her leg flared with a new pain—she’d twisted her ankle. She’d been so careful in the past to keep free of major pains, but this one was stronger than anything she’d gotten before, far stronger than the cut on her cheek. Her leg burned with a pain she could barely believe, and it didn’t abate—it remained strong. An Elantrian’s wounds would never heal. Still, she forced herself to limp away. She moved without thinking, only wishing to get away from the soldiers. She heard them cursing, stumbling to their feet. She kept going, hopping slightly. She didn’t realize that she had moved in a circle until she saw the glow of New Elantris burning in front of her. She was back where she had begun. She paused. There he was, Dashe, lying on the paving stones. She rushed to him, not caring anymore about pursuit. Her father lay with the sword still impaling him, and she could hear him whispering. “Run, Matisse. Run to safety.…” The mantra of a Hoed. Matisse stumbled to her knees. She’d gotten the children to safety. That was enough. There was a noise behind her, and she turned to see a soldier approaching. His companion must have gone a different direction. Yet this man was stained with slime, and she recognized him. He was the one she had kicked. My leg hurts so much! she thought. She turned over, holding to Dashe’s immobile body, too tired—and too pained—to move any further. The soldier grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her away from her father’s corpse. He spun her around, the action bringing other pains to her arms. “You tell me,” he said in a thickly accented voice. “You tell me where other children went.” Matisse struggled in vain. “I don’t know!” she said. But she did. Ashe had told her. Why did I ask him where the library was? she berated herself. If I didn’t know, I couldn’t give them away! “You tell,” the man said, holding her with one hand, reaching for his belt knife with the other. “You tell, or I hurt you. Bad.” Matisse struggled uselessly. If her Elantrian eyes could have formed tears, she would have been crying. As if to prove his point, the soldier held up
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his knife before her. Matisse had never felt such terror in her life. And that was when the ground began to shake. The eastern sky had begun to glow with the coming of dawn, but that light was overshadowed by a sudden burst of light from around the perimeter of the city. The soldier paused, looking up at the sky. Suddenly Matisse felt warm. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed feeling warm, how much she’d grown used to the stale coolness of an Elantrian body. But the warmth seemed to flow through her, like someone had injected a hot liquid into her veins. She gasped at the beautiful, amazing feeling. Something was right. Something was wonderfully right. The soldier turned toward her. He cocked his head, then reached out and rubbed a rough finger across her cheek, where she had been wounded long ago. “Healed?” he said, confused. She felt wonderful. She felt … her heart! The man, looking confused, raised his knife again. “You healed,” he said, “but I can hurt you again.” Her body felt stronger. Yet she was still just a young girl, and he a trained soldier. She struggled, her mind barely beginning to comprehend that her skin was no longer blotched, but had turned a silvery color. It was happening! As Ashe had predicted! Elantris was returning! And she was still going to die. It wasn’t fair! She screamed in frustration, trying to wiggle free. The irony seemed perfect. The city was being healed, but that couldn’t prevent this terrible man from— “I think you missed something, friend,” a voice suddenly said. The soldier paused. “If the light healed her,” the voice said, “then it healed me too.” The soldier cried out in pain, then dropped Matisse, stumbling to the ground. She stepped back, and as the terrible man collapsed, she could finally see who was standing behind: her father, glowing with an inner light, the taint removed from his body. He seemed like a god, silvery and spectacular. His clothing was ripped where he’d been wounded, but the skin was healed. In his hand he held the very sword that had been impaling him moments before. She ran to him, crying—she could finally cry again!—and she grabbed him in an embrace. “Where are the other children, Matisse?” he said urgently. “I took care of them, Father,” she whispered. “Everyone has a job, and that’s mine. I take care of the children.” * * * “And what did happen to the children?” Raoden asked. “I led them to the library,” Ashe said. “Galladon and Karata were gone by then—we must have missed them as they ran back to New Elantris. But I hid the children inside, and stayed with them to keep them calm. I was so worried about what was happening inside the city, but those poor things…” “I understand,” Raoden said. “And Matisse … Dashe’s little daughter. I had no idea what she’d gone through.” Raoden smiled. He’d given Dashe two seons—ones whose masters had died, and who had found themselves without anyone to
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serve once they recovered their wits when Elantris was restored—in thanks for his services to New Elantris. Dashe had given one to his daughter. “Which seon did she end up with?” Raoden asked. “Ati?” “Actually, no,” Ashe said. “I believe it was Aeo.” “Equally appropriate,” Raoden said, smiling and standing as the door opened. His wife, Queen Sarene, entered, pregnant belly first. “I agree,” Ashe said, hovering over to Sarene. Aeo. It meant “bravery.” THESCADRIANSYSTEM THEELEVENTHMETAL This story may be read before the original Mistborn Trilogy. KELSIER held the small, fluttering piece of paper pinched between two fingers. The wind whipped and tore at the paper, but he held firm. The picture was wrong. He’d tried at least two dozen times to draw it right, to reproduce the image that she’d always carried. The original had been destroyed, he was certain. He had nothing to remind him of her, nothing to remember her by. So he tried, poorly, to reconstruct the image that she had treasured. A flower. That was what it had been called. A myth, a story. A dream. “You need to stop doing that,” his companion growled. “I should stop you from drawing those.” “Try,” Kelsier said softly, folding the small piece of paper between two fingers, then tucking it into his shirt pocket. He would try again later. The petals needed to be more tear-shaped. Kelsier regarded Gemmel with a calm gaze, then smiled. That smile felt forced. How could he smile in a world without her? Kelsier kept smiling. He’d do so until it felt natural. Until that numbness, tied in a knot within him, started to unravel and he began to feel again. If that was possible. It is. Please let it be. “Drawing those pictures makes you think of the past,” Gemmel snapped. The aging man had a ragged grey beard, and the hair on his head was so unkempt, it actually looked better-groomed when it was being whipped around by the wind. “It does,” Kelsier said. “I won’t forget her.” “She betrayed you. Move on.” Gemmel didn’t wait to see if Kelsier continued arguing. He moved away; he often stopped in the middle of arguments. Kelsier didn’t squeeze his eyes shut as he wanted to. He didn’t scream defiance to the dying day as he wanted to. He shoved aside thoughts of Mare’s betrayal. He should never have spoken his concerns to Gemmel. He had. That was that. Kelsier broadened his smile. It took effort. Gemmel glanced back at him. “You look creepy when you do that.” “That’s because you’ve never had a real smile in your life, you old heap of ash,” Kelsier said, joining Gemmel by the short wall at the edge of the roof. They looked down on the dreary city of Mantiz, nearly drowning in ash. The people here in the far north of the Western Dominance weren’t as good at cleaning it up as people were back in Luthadel. Kelsier had assumed there would be less ash out here—only one of the ashmounts was nearby, this far out. It
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did seem that the ash fell a little less frequently. But the fact that nobody organized to clean it up meant that it felt like there was far more. Kelsier curled his hand around the coping of the wall. He’d never liked this part of the Western Dominance. The buildings out here felt … melted. No, that was the wrong term. They felt too rounded, with no corners, and they were rarely symmetrical—one side of the building would be higher, or more lumpy. Still, the ash was familiar. It covered the building here just the same as everywhere, giving everything a uniform cast of black and grey. A layer of it coated streets, clung to the ridges of buildings, made heaps in alleys. Ashmount ash was sootlike, much darker than the ash from a common fire. “Which one?” Kelsier asked, rotating his gaze among the four massive keeps that broke the city skyline. Mantiz was a large city for this dominance, though—of course—it was nothing like Luthadel. There weren’t any other cities like Luthadel. Still, this one was respectable. “Keep Shezler,” Gemmel said, pointing toward a tall, slender building near the center of the city. Kelsier nodded. “Shezler. I can get in the door easily. I’ll need a costume—fine clothing, some jewelry. We need to find a place I can fence a bead of atium—and a tailor who can keep his mouth shut.” Gemmel snorted. “I’ve got a Luthadel accent,” Kelsier said. “From what I heard on the street earlier, Lord Shezler is absolutely infatuated with the Luthadel nobility. He’ll fawn over someone who presents himself right; he wants connections to society closer to the capital. I—” “You aren’t thinking like an Allomancer,” Gemmel cut him off, his voice gruff. “I’ll use emotional Allomancy,” Kelsier said. “Turn him to my—” Gemmel suddenly roared, spinning on Kelsier, moving too quickly. The ragged man snagged Kelsier by the front of his shirt and shoved him to the ground, looming over him, rattling the roof tiles. “You’re Mistborn, not some street Soother working for clips! You want to be taken again? Snatched up by his minions, sent back to where you belong? Do you?” Kelsier glared back at Gemmel as the mists began to grow in the air around them. Sometimes Gemmel seemed more beast than man. He began muttering to himself, speaking as if to a friend Kelsier couldn’t see or hear. Gemmel leaned closer, still muttering, his breath pungent and sharp, his eyes wide and frenzied. This man wasn’t completely sane. No. That was a gross understatement. This man had only a fringe of sanity left to him, and even that fringe was beginning to fray. But he was the only Mistborn who Kelsier knew, and dammit, Kelsier was going to learn from the man. It was either that or start taking lessons from some nobleman. “Now you listen,” Gemmel said, almost pleading. “Listen for once. I’m here to teach you how to fight. Not how to talk. You already do that. We didn’t come here so you could saunter in playing nobleman,
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like you did in the old days. I won’t let you talk through this, I won’t. You’re Mistborn. You fight.” “I will use whatever tool I have to.” “You’ll fight! Do you want to be weak again, let them take you again?” Kelsier was silent. “You want vengeance on them? Don’t you?” “Yes,” Kelsier growled. Something massive and dark shifted within him, a beast awakened by Gemmel’s prodding. It cut through even the numbness. “You want to kill, don’t you? For what they did to you and yours? For taking her from you? Well, boy?” “Yes!” Kelsier barked, flaring his metals, shoving Gemmel back. Memories. A dark hole lined by crystals sharp as razors. Her sobs as she died. His sobs as they broke him. Crumpled him. Ripped him apart. His screams as he remade himself. “Yes,” he said, coming up onto his feet, pewter burning within him. He forced himself to smile. “Yes, I’ll have vengeance, Gemmel. But I’ll have it my way.” “And what way is that?” Kelsier faltered. It was an unfamiliar experience for him. He’d always had a plan, before. Plans upon plans. Now, without her, without anything … The spark was snuffed out, the spark that had always driven him to reach beyond what others thought possible. It had led him from plan to plan, heist to heist, riches to riches. It was gone now, replaced by that knot of numbness. The only thing he could feel these days was rage, and that rage couldn’t guide him. He didn’t know what to do. He hated that. He’d always known what to do. But now … Gemmel snorted. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be able to kill a hundred men with a single coin. You’ll be able to Pull a man’s own sword from his fingers and strike him down with it. You’ll be able to crush men within their armor, and you’ll be able to cut the air like the mists themselves. You will be a god. Waste your time with emotional Allomancy when I’m finished. For now, you kill.” The bearded man loped back to the wall and glared at the keep. Kelsier slowly reined in his anger, rubbing his chest where he’d been forced to the ground. And … something odd occurred to him. “How do you know what I was like in the old days, Gemmel?” Kelsier whispered. “Who are you?” Lamps and limelights were lit in the night, their glow breaking out through windows into the curling mists. Gemmel hunkered beside his wall, whispering to himself again. If he heard Kelsier’s question, he ignored it. “You should still be burning your metals,” Gemmel said as Kelsier approached. Kelsier bit off a comment about not wanting to waste them. He’d explained that as a skaa child, he had learned to be very careful with resources. Gemmel had just laughed at that. At the time, Kelsier had assumed the laughter was due to Gemmel’s natural erratic nature. But … was it because he knew the truth? That Kelsier hadn’t grown up a poor skaa
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on the streets? That he and his brother had lived lives of privilege, their half-breed nature kept secret from society? He hated the nobility, true. Their balls and parties, their prim self-satisfaction, their superiority. But he couldn’t deny, not to himself, that he belonged among them. At least as much as he did among the skaa of the streets. “Well?” Gemmel said. Kelsier ignited some of the metals inside him, burning several of the eight metal reserves he had within. He’d heard Allomancers speak of those reserves on occasion, but had never expected to feel them himself. They were like wells of energy he could draw upon. Burning metals inside of him. How strange it sounded—yet how natural it felt. As natural as breathing in air and drawing strength from it. Each of those eight reserves enhanced him in some way. “All eight,” Gemmel said. “All of them.” He’d be burning bronze to sense what Kelsier was burning. Kelsier had only burned the four physical metals. Reluctantly, he burned the others. Gemmel nodded; now that Kelsier was burning copper, all signs of his Allomancy would have vanished to the other man. Copper, what a useful metal—it hid you from other Allomancers, and made you immune to their emotional Allomancy. Some spoke of copper derogatorily. You couldn’t use it to fight; you couldn’t change things with it. But Kelsier had always envied his friend Trap, who was a copper Misting. It was a powerful thing to know that your emotions were not the result of outside tampering. Of course, with copper burning, that meant he had to admit that everything he felt—the pain, the anger, and even the numbness—belonged to him alone. “Let’s go,” Gemmel said, leaping out into the night. The mists were almost fully formed. They came every night, sometimes thick, sometimes light. But always there. The mists moved like hundreds of streams piled atop one another. They shifted and spun, thicker, more alive than an ordinary fog. Kelsier had always loved the mists for reasons he couldn’t describe. Marsh claimed it was because everyone else feared them, and Kelsier was too arrogant to do what everyone else did. Of course, Marsh had never seemed to fear them either. The two brothers felt something, an understanding, an awareness. The mists claimed some as their own. Kelsier jumped down from the low roof, burning pewter to strengthen him so that the landing was solid. Then he followed Gemmel on the hard cobblestones, running on bare feet. Tin burned in his stomach; it made him more aware, made his senses stronger. The mists seemed wetter, their prickling dew cooler on his skin. He could hear rats scurrying in distant alleyways, hounds baying, a man snoring softly in a building nearby. A thousand sounds that would be inaudible to an ordinary person’s ears. At times when burning tin, the world seemed a cacophony. He couldn’t burn it too strongly, lest the noises grow distracting. Just enough to let him see better; tin made the mists appear more faint to his eyes, though why that
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should be he did not know. He trailed Gemmel’s shadowed form as they reached the wall around Keep Shezler and placed their backs to it. Atop that wall, guards called to one another in the night. Gemmel nodded, then dropped a coin. The scrawny, bearded man lurched into the air a second later. He wore a mistcloak—a dark grey cloak that was formed of many tassels from the chest down. Kelsier had asked for one. Gemmel had laughed at him. Kelsier walked up to the fallen coin. The mists nearby dipped and spun in a pattern like insects moving toward a flame—they always did that around Allomancers who were burning metals. He’d seen it happen to Marsh. Kelsier knelt beside the coin. To his eyes, a faint blue line—almost like a spider’s silk—led from his chest to the coin. In fact, hundreds of tiny lines pointed from his chest to each nearby source of metal. Iron and steel created these lines—one for Pushing, one for Pulling. Gemmel had told him to burn all his metals, but Gemmel often made no sense. There was no reason to burn both steel and iron; the two were opposites. He extinguished his iron, leaving only the steel. With steel, he could Push on any source of metal that was connected to him. The Push was mental, but felt much like shoving against something with his arms. Kelsier positioned himself above the coin and Pushed on it, as Gemmel had trained him. Since the coin couldn’t go downward, Kelsier was instead thrown upward. He popped into the air some fifteen feet, then awkwardly grabbed the coping of the wall above. He grunted, hauling himself up over the edge. A new group of blue lines sprang up at his chest, thickening. Sources of metal approaching him quickly. Kelsier cursed, throwing out a hand and Pushing. The coins that had been flying toward him were Pushed back into the night, zipping through the mists. Gemmel walked forward, undoubtedly the source of the coins. He attacked Kelsier sometimes; their first night together, Gemmel had thrown him off a cliff. Kelsier still couldn’t completely decide if the attacks were tests, or if the lunatic was actually trying to murder him. “No,” Gemmel muttered. “No, I like him. He almost never complains. The other three complained all the time. This one is strong. No. Not strong enough. No. Not yet. He’ll learn.” Behind Gemmel was a pair of lumps on the wall top. Dead guards, leaking trails of blood along the stones. The blood was black in the night. The mists seemed … afraid of Gemmel, somehow. They didn’t spin about him as they did other Allomancers. That was nonsense. Just his mind playing tricks on him. Kelsier stood up, and didn’t mention the attack. It wouldn’t do any good. He just had to stay aware and learn as much as he could from this man. Preferably without getting killed in the process. “You don’t need to use your hand to Push,” Gemmel grumbled at him. “Wastes time. And you need to
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learn to keep your pewter burning. You shouldn’t have had such a hard time climbing up over the edge of the wall.” “I—” “Don’t give me an excuse about saving your metals,” Gemmel said, inspecting the keep just ahead. “I’ve met children of the streets. They don’t conserve. If you come at one of them, they’ll use everything they have—every scrap of strength, every last trick—to take you down. They know how close to the edge they walk. Pray you never have to face one of those, pretty boy. They’ll rip you apart, chew you up, and make new reserves for themselves out of what you leave behind.” “I was going to say,” Kelsier said calmly, “that you haven’t even told me what we’re doing tonight.” “Infiltrating this keep,” Gemmel said, eyes narrowing. “Why?” “Does it matter?” “It sure as hell does.” “There’s something important in there,” Gemmel said. “Something we’re going to find.” “Well, that explains everything. Thank you for being so forthcoming. Could you possibly enlighten me on the meaning of life, since you’re so great at answering questions all of a sudden?” “Don’t know it,” Gemmel said. “I think it’s so we can die.” Kelsier suppressed a groan, leaning against the wall. I said that, he realized, fully expecting to get some dry remark in return. Lord Ruler, I miss Dox and the crew. Gemmel didn’t understand humor, even pathetic attempts at it. I need to get back, Kelsier thought. Back to people who care about living. Back to my friends. That thought made him shiver. It had only been three months since the … events at the Pits of Hathsin. The cuts on his arms were mostly just scars now. He scratched at them anyway. Kelsier knew his humor was forced, his smiles more dead than alive. He didn’t know why he found it so important to hold off returning to Luthadel, but it was. He had exposed wounds, gaping holes in himself that had yet to heal over. He had to stay away. He didn’t want them to see him like this. Insecure, a man who huddled in his sleep, reliving horrors still fresh. A man with no plan or vision. Besides, he needed to learn the things Gemmel was teaching him. He couldn’t return to Luthadel until … until he was himself again. Or at the very least a scarred version of himself, the wounds closed, the memories quieted. “Let’s be on with it then,” Kelsier said. Gemmel glared at him. The old lunatic didn’t like it when Kelsier tried to take control. But … well, that was what Kelsier did. Somebody had to. Keep Shezler was constructed in the unusual architectural style typical of any area of the Western Dominance far from Luthadel. Instead of blocks and peaks, it had an almost organic feel, with four tapering towers up front. He thought that buildings out here must be constructed of stone frames with a kind of hardened mud outside, sculpted and shaped to make all those curves and knobs. The keep, like the rest of
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the buildings, looked unfinished to Kelsier. “Where?” Kelsier said. “Up,” Gemmel said. “Then down.” He jumped from the wall and threw a coin for himself. He Pushed against it, and his weight drove it downward. When it hit the ground, Gemmel launched higher toward the building. Kelsier leaped and Pushed against his own coin. The two of them bounded across the space between the sculpted wall and the lit keep. Powerful limelights burned behind stained-glass windows; here in the Western Dominance, those windows were often odd shapes, and no two were alike. Had these people no understanding of proper aesthetics? Closer to the building, Kelsier began to Pull instead of Push—he switched from burning steel to burning iron, then yanked on a blue line leading to a steel window frame. That meant he was Pulled upward, as if he were on a tether. It was tricky; the ground still tugged him downward, and he also still had momentum forward, so when he Pulled he had to be careful not to slam himself into things. With Pulling, he gained more height. He needed it, as Keep Shezler was tall, as tall as any keep in Luthadel. The two Allomancers bounded up the front facade, grabbing or leaping from the knobs and bits of stonework. Kelsier landed on an outcropping, waved his arms for a moment, then snatched hold of a statue that had been placed there for no reason he could discern. It was covered in bits of glaze of different colors. Gemmel flew past on the right; the other Mistborn moved with a deft grace. He threw a coin to the side, where it hit an outcropping. Then, by pushing on it, Gemmel nudged himself in just the right direction. He spun, mistcloak streaking the mists, then Pulled himself to a different stained-glass window. He hit and hung there like an insect, fingers grabbing bits of metal and stone. Powerful limelight shone out through the window, which shattered the light into colors, spraying them across Gemmel as if he too were covered in bits of glaze. He looked up, a smile on his lips. In that light, with the mistcloak hanging beneath him, the mists dancing around him, Gemmel suddenly seemed more regal to Kelsier. Distant from the ragged madman. Something far more grand. Gemmel leaped out into the mists, then Pulled himself upward. Kelsier watched him go, surprised to find himself envious. I will learn, he told himself. I’ll be that good. From the start, he’d been drawn to zinc and brass, Allomancy that let him play with people’s emotions. It had seemed most similar to what he’d done unaided in the past. But he was a new man, reborn in those dreadful pits. Whatever he had been, it wasn’t enough. He needed to become something more. Kelsier threw himself upward, Pulling his way to the roof of the building. Gemmel kept going up past the roof, flying toward the tips of the four spires that adorned the front of the building. Kelsier dropped his entire bag of coins—the more metal
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you Pushed off, the faster and higher you could go—and flared his steel. He Pushed with everything he had, sending himself upward like an arrow. Mists streamed around him. The colorful lights of the stained-glass windows withdrew below. A spire dwindled on either side of him, growing more and more narrow. He shoved off the tin cladding on one of them to nudge himself to the right. With a final Push of strength he crested the very tip of the spire, which had a knob on top the size of man’s head. Kelsier landed on it, flaring his pewter, which improved his physical abilities. That didn’t just make him stronger; it made him more dexterous as well. Capable of standing on one foot atop a globe a handspan wide hundreds of feet off the ground. Having performed the maneuver, he stopped and stared at his foot. “You’re growing more confident,” Gemmel said. The other man had stopped just shy of the tip of the spire, clinging to it below Kelsier. “That’s good.” Then with a quick motion, Gemmel leaped up and swept Kelsier’s leg from underneath him. Kelsier cried out, losing control and falling into the mists. Gemmel Pushed against the vials full of metal flakes that Kelsier—like most Allomancers—carried on his belt. That Push shoved Kelsier away from the building and out into the mists. He plummeted, and lost rational thought for a moment. There was a primal terror to falling. Gemmel had spoken about controlling that, about learning not to fear heights or get disoriented while dropping. Those lessons fled Kelsier’s mind. But he was falling. Fast. Through churning mists, disoriented. It would take only seconds to hit the ground. Desperate, he Pushed on those vials of metal, hoping he was pointed in the right direction. They ripped from his belt and smashed downward into something. The ground. There wasn’t much metal in them. Barely enough to slow Kelsier. He hit the ground a fraction of a second after Pushing, and the blow knocked the wind from him. His vision flashed. He lay in a daze as something thumped to the ground beside him. Gemmel. The other man snorted in derision. “Fool.” Kelsier groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He was alive. And remarkably, nothing seemed broken—though his side and thigh smarted something wicked. He’d have awful bruises. Pewter had kept him alive. The fall, even with the Push at the end, would have broken another man’s bones. Kelsier stumbled to his feet and glared at Gemmel, but made no complaint. This probably was the best way to learn. At least it would be the fastest. Rationally, Kelsier would have chosen this—being thrown in, forced to learn as he went. That didn’t stop him from hating Gemmel. “I thought we were going up,” Kelsier said. “Then down.” “Then up again, I assume?” Kelsier asked with a sigh. “No. Down some more.” Gemmel strode across the grounds of the keep, passing ornamental shrubbery that had become dark, mist-shrouded silhouettes in the night. Kelsier hastened up beside Gemmel,
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wary of another attack. “It’s in the basement,” Gemmel muttered. “Basement, of all things. Why a basement?” “What’s in the basement?” Kelsier asked. “Our goal,” Gemmel said. “We had to go up high, so I could look for an entrance. I think there’s one out here in the gardens.” “Wait, that actually sounds reasonable,” Kelsier said. “You must have hit your head on something.” Gemmel glared at him, then shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. Kelsier readied his metals, prepared to fight back. But Gemmel turned his hand to the side and sprayed them across a pair of guards who were jogging up the path to see who was walking through the grounds at night. The men fell, one of them yelling. Gemmel didn’t seem to care that it might reveal the two of them. He stalked on ahead. Kelsier hesitated for a moment, glancing at the dying men. Employed by the enemy. He tried to feel something for them, but he couldn’t. That part of him had been ripped out by the Pits of Hathsin, though a different part was disturbed at how little he felt. He hurried on after Gemmel, who had found what appeared to be a groundskeeping shed. When he pulled open the door, however, there were no tools, just a dark set of steps leading downward. “Steel burning?” Gemmel asked. Kelsier nodded. “Watch for movement,” Gemmel said, grabbing a handful of coins from his pouch. Kelsier raised a hand toward the fallen guards and Pulled on the coins Gemmel had used against them, flipping them up toward him. He’d seen Gemmel Pull on things lightly, so that they didn’t streak toward him at full strength. Kelsier hadn’t mastered that trick yet, and he had to crouch down and let the coins spray over his head into the wall of the shed. He gathered them up, then started down after an impatient Gemmel, who was watching him with displeasure. “I was unarmed,” Kelsier explained. “Left my pouch on top of the building.” “Mistakes like that will end with you dead.” Kelsier didn’t reply. It had been a mistake. Of course, he’d planned to fetch the coin pouch—and would have, if Gemmel hadn’t knocked him off the spire. The light grew dim, then neared blackness as they continued down the steps. Gemmel didn’t produce a torch or lantern, but instead waved at Kelsier to go first. Another test of some sort? Steel burning within Kelsier let him identify sources of metal by their blue lines. He paused, then dropped the handful of coins to the ground, letting them bounce down the steps. In falling, they let him see where the stairs were, and when they came to a rest that gave him an even better picture. The blue lines weren’t really “seeing,” and he still had to walk carefully. However, the coins helped a great deal, and he did see a door latch as it drew near. Behind, he heard Gemmel grunt, and for once it seemed appreciative. “Nice trick with the
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coins,” the man murmured. Kelsier smiled, approaching the door at the bottom. He felt out for it, grabbing the metal latch. He carefully eased it open. There was light on the other side. Kelsier crouched—despite what Gemmel might think, he’d done his share of infiltrating and quiet nighttime thefts. He wasn’t some new sprout. He had simply learned that survival for a half-breed like him meant either learning to talk or learning to sneak; fighting head-on in most situations would have been foolish. Of course, not one of the three—fighting, talking, or sneaking—had worked that night. The night he’d been taken, a night when nobody could have betrayed him but her. But why had they taken her too? She couldn’t have— Stop, he told himself, padding into the room in a crouch. It was full of long tables crowded with various kinds of smelting apparatus. Not the bulky smithing kind, but the small burners and delicate instruments of a master metallurgist. Lamps burned on the walls, and a large red forge glowed in the corner. Kelsier felt fresh air blow through from somewhere; the other side of the room ended in several corridors. The room appeared empty. Gemmel entered, and Kelsier reached back to Pull the coins to him again. Some were stained with the blood of the fallen guards. Still in his crouch, he passed a desk full of writing implements and small, cloth-bound books. He glanced at Gemmel, who strode through the room without any attempt at stealth. Gemmel put his hands on his hips, looking around. “So where is he?” “Who?” Kelsier said. Gemmel started muttering under his breath, moving through the room, sweeping some of the implements off the tables and sending them crashing to the floor. Kelsier slipped around the perimeter, intent on peeking into the side corridors to see if anyone was coming. He checked the first one, and found that it opened into a long, narrow room. It was occupied. Kelsier froze, then slowly stood up. There were half a dozen people in the room, both men and women, bound by their arms to the walls. There were no cells, but the poor souls looked as if they’d been beaten within an inch of their lives. They wore only rags, and those were bloodied. Kelsier shook himself out of his daze, then padded to the first woman in the line. He pulled off her gag. The floor was damp; probably someone had been here recently to toss buckets of water on the prisoners to keep the laboratory from stinking. A gust of wind from the distant end of the hallway that the room eventually opened into brought a breath of fresh air. The woman grew stiff as soon as he touched her, eyes snapping open and growing wide with terror. “Please, please no…” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you,” Kelsier said. That numbness inside of him seemed to be … changing. “Please. Who are you? What is going on here?” The woman just stared at him. She winced when Kelsier reached up to untie her
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bonds, and he hesitated. He heard a muffled sound. Glancing to the side, he saw a second woman, older and matronly. Her skin had been all but flayed from beatings. Her eyes, however, were not nearly as frantic as those of the younger woman. Kelsier moved over and removed her gag. “Please,” the woman said. “Free us. Or kill us.” “What is this place?” Kelsier hissed, working on her arm bonds. “He’s searching for half-breeds,” she said. “To test his new metals on.” “New metals?” “I don’t know,” the woman said, tears on her cheeks. “I’m just skaa, we all are. I don’t know why he picks us. He talks about things. Metals, unknown metals. I don’t think he’s completely sane. The things he does … he says they are to bring out our Allomantic side … but my lord, I’ve no noble blood. I can’t…” “Hush,” Kelsier said, freeing her. Something was burning through that deep knot of numbness inside of him. Something that was like the anger he felt, but somehow different. It was more. It made him want to weep, yet it was warm. Freed, the woman stared at her hands, wrists scraped raw from the bindings. Kelsier turned to the other poor captives. Most were awake now. There wasn’t hope in their eyes. They just stared ahead, dull. Yes, he could feel it. How can we stand a world like this? Kelsier thought, moving to help another captive. Where things like this happen? The most appalling tragedy was that he knew this sort of horror was common. Skaa were disposable. There was nobody to protect them. Nobody cared. Not even him. He’d spent most of his life ignoring such acts of brutality. Oh, he’d pretended to fight back. But he’d really just been about enriching himself. All of those plans, all of those heists, all of his grand visions. All about him. Him alone. He freed another of the captives, a young, dark-haired woman. She looked like Mare. After being freed, she just huddled down on the ground in a ball. Kelsier stood over her, feeling powerless. Nobody fights, he thought. Nobody thinks they can fight. But they’re wrong. We can fight.… I can fight. Gemmel strode into the room. He looked over the skaa and barely seemed to notice them. He was still muttering to himself. He had taken just a few steps into the room when a voice yelled from the laboratory. “What is going on here?” Kelsier recognized that voice. Oh, he’d never heard it specifically before—but he recognized the arrogance in it, the self-assuredness. The contempt. He found himself rising, brushing past Gemmel, stepping back into the lab. A man in a fine suit, white shirt buttoned to the neck, stood in the laboratory. His hair was short, after the most current trends, and his suit looked to have been shipped in from Luthadel—it certainly was tailored after the most fashionable styles. He looked at Kelsier, imperious. And Kelsier found himself smiling. Really smiling, for the first time since the Pits. Since the betrayal.
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The nobleman sniffed, then raised a hand and tossed a coin at Kelsier. After a brief moment of surprise, Kelsier Pushed on it right as Lord Shezler did. Both were thrown backward, and Shezler’s eyes widened in shock. Kelsier slammed back against the wall. Shezler was Mistborn. No matter. A new kind of anger rose within Kelsier even as he grinned. It burned like a metal, that emotion did. An unknown, glorious metal. He could fight back. He would fight back. The nobleman yanked on his belt, dropping it—and his metals—from his waist. He whipped a dueling cane from his side and jumped forward, moving too quickly. Kelsier flared his pewter, then his steel, and Pushed on the apparatus on one of the tables, flinging it at Shezler. The man snarled, raising an arm and Pushing some of it away. Again, the two Pushes—one from Kelsier, one from his foe—struck one another, and they were both slammed backward. Shezler steadied himself against a table, which shook. Glass broke and metal tools clattered to the ground. “Have you any idea what all of that is worth?” Shezler growled, lowering his arm and advancing. “Your soul, apparently,” Kelsier whispered. Shezler prowled forward, coming close, then struck with the cane. Kelsier backed away. He felt his pocket jerk, and he Pushed, shoving the coins out of his coat as Shezler Pushed on them. A second later, and they would have cut through Kelsier’s stomach—as it was, they ripped out of his pocket, then shot backward toward the wall of the room. His coat’s buttons started to shake, though they only had some metal leaf on them. He pulled off the coat, removing the last bit of metal he was carrying. Gemmel should have warned me about that! The leaf had barely registered to his senses, but still he felt a fool. The older man was right; Kelsier wasn’t thinking like an Allomancer. He focused too much on appearance and not enough on what might kill him. Kelsier continued to back away, watching his opponent, determined not to make another mistake. He’d been in street brawls before, but not many. He’d tried to avoid them—brawling had been an old habit of Dockson’s. For once, he wished he’d been less refined in that particular area. He edged along one of the tables, waiting for Gemmel to come in from the side. The man didn’t enter. He probably didn’t intend to. This was all about finding Shezler, Kelsier realized. So that I could fight another Mistborn. There was something important in that.… It suddenly made sense. Kelsier growled, and was surprised to hear the sound coming from him. That glowing anger inside of him wanted vengeance, but also something more. Something greater. Not just revenge against those who had hurt him, but against the entirety of noble society. In that moment, Shezler—arrogantly striding forward, more concerned for his equipment than the lives of his skaa—became a focus for it all. Kelsier attacked. He didn’t have a weapon. Gemmel had spoken of glass knives, but had never given one
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to Kelsier. So, he snatched up a shard of broken glass from the floor, heedless of the cuts on his fingers. Pewter let him ignore pain as he jumped toward Shezler, going for his throat. He probably shouldn’t have won. Shezler was the more accomplished and practiced Allomancer—but it was obvious he was unaccustomed to fighting someone as strong as he was. He battered at Kelsier with the dueling cane. But with pewter Kelsier could ignore that as well, and instead he punched his shard of glass into the man’s neck—three times. In seconds it was over. Kelsier stumbled back, aches beginning to register. Shezler might have broken some of his bones with his battering; the man had pewter too, after all. The nobleman lay in his own blood though, twitching. Pewter could save you from a lot of things, but not a slit throat. The man choked on his own blood. “No,” he hissed. “I can’t … not me … I can’t die.…” “Anyone can die,” Kelsier whispered, dropping the bloodied shard of glass. “Anyone.” And a thought, a seed of a plan, began to form in his mind. “That was too quick,” Gemmel said. Kelsier looked up, blood dripping from the tips of his fingers. Shezler croaked a final attempt at breath, then fell still. “You need to learn Pushes and Pulls,” Gemmel said. “Dancing through the air, fighting as a real Mistborn does.” “He was a real Mistborn.” “He was a scholar,” Gemmel said, walking forward. He kicked at the corpse. “I picked a weak one first. Won’t be so easy next time.” Kelsier walked back into the room with the skaa. He freed them, one by one. He couldn’t do much more for them, but he promised that he’d see them safely out of the keep’s grounds. Maybe he could get them in touch with the local underground; he’d been in the city long enough to have a few contacts. Once he had them all freed, he turned to find them looking toward him in a huddled group. Some of the life seemed to have rekindled in their eyes, and more than a few were peeking into the room where Shezler’s corpse lay on the floor. Gemmel was picking through a notebook on one of the tables. “Who are you?” asked the matronly woman he’d spoken to earlier. Kelsier shook his head, still looking toward Gemmel. “I’m a man who has lived through things he shouldn’t have.” “Those scars…” Kelsier looked down at his arms, sliced with hundreds of tiny scars from the Pits. Removing his coat had exposed them. “Come on,” Kelsier said to the people, resisting the urge to cover up his arms. “Let’s get you to safety. Gemmel, what in the Lord Ruler’s name are you doing?” The older man grunted, leafing through a book. Kelsier trotted into the room and glanced at it. Theories and suppositions regarding the existence of an Eleventh Metal, the scrawl on the page read. Personal notes. Antillius Shezler. Gemmel shrugged and dropped the book to the table. Then he
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carefully and meticulously selected a fork from the fallen tools and other scattered laboratory remains. He smiled and chuckled to himself. “Now that is a fork.” He shoved it into his pocket. Kelsier took the book. In moments, he was ushering the wounded skaa away from the keep, where soldiers were prowling the yards, trying to figure out what was happening. Once they were out into the streets again, Kelsier turned back to the glowing building, which was lit with bright colors and beautiful windows. He listened in the curling mists as the guards’ shouting became frantic. The numbness was gone. He’d found something to replace it. His focus had returned. The spark was back. He’d been thinking too small. A plan began to bud, a plan he barely dared consider for its audacity. Vengeance. And more. He turned into the night, into the waiting mists, and went to find someone to make him a mistcloak. ALLOMANCERJAKAND THEPITS OF ELTANIA EPISODES TWENTY-EIGHT THROUGH THIRTY SPECIAL BOUND COLLECTION OF ALL THREE EPISODES! EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY HANDERWYM, JAK’S OWN FAITHFUL TERRIS STEWARD! This story contains minor spoilers for The Alloy of Law. I BEGIN this week’s letter as I awake to a mighty headache. Truly, dear readers, this pain was incredible—and the effect was a din inside my mind not unlike that of a hundred rifles firing. I groaned and rolled to my knees in the darkened chamber; my face had been resting upon cold rock. My vision shook and took time to recover. What had happened to me? I remembered my contest with the koloss challenger—a brute sized like a steamrail engine, with strength to match. I had defeated him with a bullet through the eye, had I not? Had I not in so doing maintained the loyalty of the entire koloss clan?* I climbed to my feet and felt gingerly at the back of my head. There, I found dried blood. Fear not, for the wound was not terrible. Surely I had weathered far worse. This was not nearly as bad as when I had found myself sinking in the ocean, my arms bound, my feet tied to a metal bust of the Survivor as I sank.* The arid air and whistling sound of the wind through broken rock indicated I was still in the Roughs, which was good. These lands of adventure and danger are my natural habitat, and I thrive upon the challenge they provide. If I were to spend too long in the safe and mundane environment of milky Elendel, I fear I would wilt away. My enclosure was a natural cavern of some sort, with rough stone walls and drooping stalactites on the ceiling. The cavern was shallow, however, and I found that it ended only a few feet back from my initial position. I would not be escaping in that direction, then.* Cautious of potential gunfire, I edged to the front of the cavern and looked out. As I had guessed from the slight chill to the air, I was elevated. My cavern was on the
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wall of a small canyon, and the mouth opened only to a steep drop onto a group of rounded rocks far below. Across from me, atop the ridge on the other side of the canyon, a group of blue figures watched my cavern. The hulking koloss were older ones, their skin stretched and broken, their bodies tattooed and draped with leather created from the skin of the men they had slain and eaten.* “Why have you stranded me here, dread beasts?” I shouted at them, my voice echoing in the canyon. “And what have you done with the fair Elizandra Dramali? If you have harmed one hair upon her ever-beauteous scalp, you shall know the fury of an Allomancer enraged!” The savages offered me no reply. They sat around their smoldering fire, and did not even turn in my direction. Perhaps my situation was not as ideal as I had decided upon my first assessment. The canyon wall outside my cavern was as slick as glass and was as steep as the price of whiskey at Marlie’s waystop. I surely could not survive an attempt to climb down, not dizzy as I was from the wound. But neither could I simply wait. Miss Dramali, my dear Elizandra, might surely be in danger. Curse that woman and her headstrong ways; she should have remained at camp as instructed. I had no idea what might have happened to her, nor to faithful Handerwym.* The koloss would not dare harm him, because of their vow to the Terris people,* but surely he feared for my safety. I gave little thought to how I had reached this dire location. I needed metal. My system was clean of it; I had burned the last to steady my hands and eyes as I took the perfect shot at the koloss challenger to my throne. Unfortunately, my captors had stolen Glint—brutes though they are, the koloss are wise enough to take the guns from a man, particularly after seeing my skill with my trusty sidearm. They had also taken my vials of metal. Perhaps they wanted to see if those contained whiskey. Some Roughs Allomancers do store their metals in such solutions, but I have always abstained from the process. The mind of a gentleman adventurer needs to retain clarity at all times.* Surely the hidden pouch of tin in the heel of my boot would serve me. By misfortune, however, the heel’s hidden compartment seemed to have been knocked open during my initial scuffle with the koloss champion. I had lost the pouch! I made a note to myself to speak with Ranette about her heel contraption and its tendency to open unexpectedly. Disaster! An Allomancer without metal. I was left with only my own wits as a tool. Those—though of no small measure—might not be enough. Who knew what kind of trouble the fair Elizandra might be in at this point? Determined, I began to feel about the cavern. It was an unlikely chance, but we were in highlands prized precisely because of their keen mining opportunities.
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Indeed, the Survivor favored me this day, for I located a small glimmering strain of metal along the far wall. Almost invisible, I discovered it only by touch.* In the dim cavern I could not judge the metal’s full nature, but I had no other options. Now, I have found from my infrequent trips to Elendel that I am regarded with a somewhat heroic reputation. I must assure you, good readers, that I am but a humble adventurer, not deserving of an unduly idolized status. That said, while I have never wished for glory,* I do value my reputation. Therefore, if I could remove from your memories the image of this next part of my narrative, I would do so. However, it has ever been my goal to present to you a sincere and unexpurgated account of my travels in the Roughs. Honesty is my greatest virtue.* And so, I offer you the truth of what needed to happen next. I knelt down and began to lick the wall. I would not ever wish to look foolish before you, dear readers.* But in order to survive in the Roughs, a man must be willing to seize opportunity. I did so. With my tongue. This activity gave me very little tin to burn, but it was enough for a few moments of enhanced senses.* I used them to listen with care for some clue as to how I might escape this situation. I heard two things with my tin-enhanced ears. The first was the tinkling of water. I peeked out of my cavern and saw that the rocks below hid a small stream I had not seen earlier. The other thing I heard was a strange scratching, like that of claws on a branch. I looked up, hopeful, and there found a crow perched among a sprout of weeds growing from the rocky wall. Could it be? “Well done!” the crow exclaimed to me in her inhuman voice. “You have found metal even in your prison, Jak. The Survivor is pleased by your ingenuity.” It was her. Lyndip, my spirit guide, sent by the Survivor to me during my most difficult times of trial.* I have long suspected her to be one of the Faceless Immortals,* as the legends speak of them being able to change forms and take the bodies of animals. “Lyndip!” I exclaimed. “Is Miss Dramali well? The koloss have not harmed her?” “They have not, bold adventurer,” Lyndip said. “But she is captured by them and is being held. You must escape, and quickly, for a dire fate awaits her.” “But how am I to escape!” “I cannot give you the method,” Lyndip said. “I am a guide, but I cannot solve a hero’s problems for him. It is not the way of the Survivor, who deems that all men must make their own way.”* “Very well,” I said. “But tell me, guide: Why was I taken captive again? Had I not earned the loyalty of the koloss clan; was I not their king? I defeated the challenger!” I
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am certain my frustration shone through, and I hope you do not think less of me—dear reader—to see such harsh words spoken to my spirit guide. However, I was not only concerned for the safety of my dear Elizandra, but was also devastated to lose the loyalty of this tribe of koloss. Savages though they are, they had seemed close to revealing their secrets to me—secrets I was certain would lead me to the symbol of the spearhead, the bloody footprints, and the Survivor’s Treasure. “I do not know for certain,” Lyndip said, “but I suspect it was because you used a gun to kill the challenger. Previously, in winning the loyalty of the clan, you did not shoot your rival but frightened him off with the placement of your bullet. Many koloss clans see killing at a distance with guns to be a sign of weakness, not strength.” Ruthless beasts—savages indeed.* The gun is the most elegant of weapons, the weapon of a gentleman. “I must escape and rescue the fair Elizandra,” I said. “Guide, did you see how I reached this cavern prison? Do the koloss have a secret passage somewhere, and did they bring me up here by that method?” “I saw, adventuresome one,” Lyndip said. “But the truth is not what you will wish to hear. There was no secret passage—instead, you were thrown up here by some koloss below.”* “Rust and Ruin!” I exclaimed. Undoubtedly, the beasts—afraid of the powerful weapons I had used—had placed me here to die of starvation, rather than risking the anger of their gods by killing me with their own hands. I needed a way out, and quickly. I looked out again, and noticed storm clouds in the near distance. This started me thinking. I glanced down at the trickle of water in the canyon floor below. As I had noticed, the sides of this canyon were particularly smooth. As if … weathered. Yes! I spotted distinctive lines on the canyon walls—water lines, from when the river ran bold and deep. My avenue of escape was soon to come! Indeed, the rains dumped on the plains upstream, and water soon surged into the canyon and—propelled by the narrower confines here—the river began to swell. I waited nervously for the right moment to enter the river, and in my waiting, found time despite my anxiety to pen this letter to you. I sealed it in the special, water-proof pocket of my rugged trousers with the hope that if I should meet my end, it would find its way to you somehow once my body was found. As rain began to fall on the canyon itself, I could wait no longer. I hurled myself into the risen waters below.* My readers, I trust this message finds you well. As you may recall, last week’s missive ended with a dangerous leap on my part toward a watery doom. I was certain that my time had come, but I am somewhat pleased to say that I have survived. Only “somewhat” because of the revelation that I
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must soon impart unto you. If you must read on, be warned: The contents of this letter are dreadful, and might produce discomfort—even sickness—in the more frail and youthful among you. I did leap from my cavern prison into the rising waters of the river. I must severely advise my readers against this kind of activity unless presented with the most dire of circumstances. The waters of a Roughs-style flash flood are dangerous, full of eddies and deadly rocks. If I had been presented with any other option, I surely would have taken it. The waters churned around me like a stampede. Fortunately, I had experience with surviving waters of this nature.* The key to swimming in waters such as these is to not fight. One must travel with the current, as a ship allows the sea to pull it. Still, even keeping afloat in such a tempest requires practice, luck, and force of will. With strength of arm, I managed to steer myself around the most deadly of rocks and survive as the waters of my small tributary merged with the greater waters of the Rancid, the greatest river of the area. Here, the larger amount of water caused slower currents, and I managed with some difficulty to swim to the shore and pull myself free. Exhausted, still dizzy from my wound, I flopped to the bank of the river. No sooner was I free, however, than a set of strong arms hauled me into the air. Koloss. I had been captured again. The beasts hauled me, sopping wet, away from the roaring river. I left a trail of water in the dust.* I did not fight against my captors. There were six of them, medium-sized koloss, their blue skin starting to pull tight across their bodies, ripping at the sides of the mouths and around the largest of muscles. They did not speak to me in their brutal tongue, and I knew I could not defeat six at once. Not without my guns and without metal. I deemed it better to let them drag me where they wished. Perhaps I would be placed back in my cavern prison. Instead, the koloss carted me toward an incongruous stand of trees, hidden within a small valley of rocks. I had never come to this location before—indeed, the koloss had always steered me away from this area, claiming that it was a wasteland. From whence, then, did come the trees?* The trees hid a small oasis in the dusty ground, a place where water welled up in a natural spring. I found this curious, as prime watering holes are usually marked on my maps. They drug me past the trees and around the watering hole, and I saw that it was very deep—so deep that the depths were blue, and I could not make out a bottom. The sides were all of stone. And, with a start, I realized that the pool was shaped vaguely like a spearhead. Could this be it? The location of the Survivor’s Treasure? Had I found it at
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long last?* I looked for the other sign, that of the bloody footprints spoken of in the legends. I did not see them until my wet form was dragged across the stones nearest to the pool. If you travel long in the Roughs, you will find that water sometimes reveals the true color of stone. This is not so much the case in the city where many of you live, dear readers, as the stones are coated in grime and soot. But here, the land is clean and fresh. The water my body dripped on the stones revealed a pattern in the rock not unlike that of a set of footprints leading into the oasis pool. This was it! Though not true footprints, I could see how a weary traveler—reaching this location—might mistake them for such. The invented story of the Survivor himself—bleeding from his spear wound and stopping here to drink—made sense. The place was accoutred with koloss tattoo designs traced on the rocks and had their leatherwork wrapping some of the tree trunks. This was obviously a holy place for them, which explained both the reason I had never heard of this oasis, and the reason men had vanished in this area. Any who stumbled across this spot were murdered for having witnessed what they should not. What did it say for my future that they had brought me here?* There were more koloss here, of course. Some were so ancient that they had burst their skin completely; these sat wrapped in leather to contain the slow seeping of blood from their flesh. If you have never seen a koloss ancient, consider yourself lucky. Their immensity of size is only matched by the strangeness of their features, lacking noses or lips, their eyes bulging from faces of red flesh. Most koloss die of heart attacks before reaching this state. These would continue to grow, even after losing their skin, until that fate claimed them. In ancient times, ones such as these would be killed. In modern days, however, elderly koloss are revered—or so I had learned, but only through stories.* I suspect that the locations where all tribes keep their elders are as holy as this one. My guards deposited me before the ancients. I climbed to my knees, wary. “You have come,” said one of the ancients. “You are not human,” another said. “You have bested our leader and killed all challengers,” said the third. “What will you do with me?” I demanded, forcing myself to my feet. Sodden and dazed though I was, I would meet my fate head-on.* “You will be killed,” one said. “It will be according to the will of the daughter of the one who challenged you,” said another. “You must join us,” said another. “Join you?” I demanded. “How?” “All koloss were once human,” said one of the ancients. I had heard such statements before. And, dear readers, I realize that I disparaged them to you. I considered them silly and fanciful. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you
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that I was wrong. So very wrong. I have since learned the terrible truth. The ancients are right. Koloss are people. The process is terrible. To initiate a man into their ranks, they take him and pin him with small spikes of metal. This creates a mystical transformation, during which the man’s mind and identity are savagely weakened. In the end, the person becomes as dull and simple as the koloss. Koloss are not born. Koloss are made. Their barbarity exists inside of all of us. Perhaps this was what dear Handerwym was trying to tell me.* They said that I had to join them. Was this to be my final end? To live my life as a brute in a distant village, my mind lost?* “You spoke of the daughter of the one who challenged me,” I said. “Who is this?” “Me,” said a soft, familiar voice. I turned and found Elizandra Dramali emerging from behind some trees nearby. She no longer wore her dress, and instead was wrapped in leathers that only just covered up her most intimate parts. Indeed, a full description of her figure would be too shocking for my more sensitive readers, and so I will forbear.* She still wore her spectacles, and her golden hair was pulled back into its customary tail, but her skin … her skin was now a shade of blue, such as I had never before seen. Elizandra, fair Elizandra, was koloss-blooded.* “This can’t be!” I exclaimed, staring at my beautiful Elizandra. The woman I had grown to love and cherish above all others. The woman who had somehow hidden her true nature from me all this time. Elizandra was koloss-blooded. I wish I did not have to write these words to you, my stalwart readers. But they are true, true as my poor heart bleeds. True as the ink on this page. “Makeup,” Elizandra said, demure eyes downcast. “As you can see, the blue cast to my skin is light, compared to some koloss-blooded. Clever use of powders and gloves have allowed me to hide what I am.” “But your mind!” I said, stepping toward her. “You think and have wit, unlike these beasts!”* I moved to reach toward her, but hesitated. Everything I knew about this woman was a lie. She was a monster. Not my fair, wonderful noblewoman, but a creature of the wilds, a murderer and a savage. “Jak,” she said. “I am still me. I was born to koloss, but have not accepted the transformation. My mind is as keen as that of any human. Please, my dear one, see past this skin and look into my heart.”* I could resist no longer. She might have lied, but she was still my Elizandra. I stepped into her embrace, and felt her sweet warmth in this time of confusion. “You are in grave danger, loved one,” she whispered into my ear. “They will make you one of them.” “Why?” “You frightened away their chief,” Elizandra whispered. “And ruled the clan despite the challenges we provided. Finally, you killed
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their greatest champion. My mother.” “The champion was a woman?” I asked. “Of course. Didn’t you notice?” I glanced at the gathered koloss, who wore loincloths, but generally no tops. If there was a way to distinguish the males from the females other than … ahem … peeking, I did not know it. In fact, I’d rather not have known that some of them were women. My crusty, wind-weathered cheeks did no longer often blush, for the things I’ve seen would rub your delicate minds raw. But if I’d been capable of a blush, I might have given one at that moment. “I am sorry, then, for killing her,” I said, looking back to Elizandra, who still held me. “She chose her own course in life,” Elizandra said. “And it was one of brutality and murder. I do not mourn her, but I will mourn you, should you be taken into their embrace, dear one. They speak of this being my will, but it is certainly not, though they will not listen to my protests.”* “Why did they lock me away to die in that cavern?” I asked. “It was a test,” Elizandra said. “A final challenge. They would have freed you after three days, if you had not escaped—but as you managed to, you have proven worthy to join their ranks and become their new chief in full. But to do so, you must undergo the transformation! You will lose most of your self, instead becoming one of them, a creature of instinct.”* I had to escape, then. This fate would be worse than death—it would be a death of the mind. Though I have gained a great respect for the koloss savages,* I had no intention of ever joining them. “You steered me here,” I realized, looking toward Elizandra. “Ever since we found you in these Roughs, you have been guiding me toward this tribe. You knew of this pool.” “I suspected, from your descriptions of what you sought, this was the location of the treasure,” said my fairest one. “But I did not know for certain. I had never been to the holy pool. Jak … once they transform you, they plan to do the same to me, against my will. I have resisted this all of my life. I would not let them take my mind as a youth—I will not allow it now!” “Enough talk!” said one of the elders. “You will be transformed!” The other koloss began to clap in unison. One of the ancients reached out a trembling, bloody hand, holding in his palm a handful of small spikes. “No!” I exclaimed. “There is no need! For I am already one of you!” Elizandra’s hand tightened on my arm. “What?” she whispered. “It is the only plan I can think of,” I whispered back. Then, more loudly, I proclaimed. “I am koloss!” “Not possible,” said one of the ancients. “You are not blue,” said another. “You have not the way,” said the third. “I slew your champion!” I declared. “What more proof do you need!
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Would an ordinary human be strong enough to do this?” “Gun,” said one of the ancients. “It takes not strength to use the gun.” Rust and Ruin! “Well then,” I declared, “I will prove it in a final test. For I will bring you the treasure of the Survivor!” The koloss grew silent. Their clapping stopped. “Not possible,” said one of the ancients. “Even strongest koloss have failed.” “Then if I succeed, you will know I have told the truth,” I said to the beasts. I was setting myself up for certain death. I wish I could tell you that bravery steered my lips that day, but it was truly just desperation. I spoke of the only thing that occurred to me, the only thing that would let me delay. If the legends were true, then the treasure was hidden “opposite the sky, raised only by life itself.” Opposite the sky must mean at the bottom of the pool—so far down, I could not see it. I would have to dive in and recover the treasure. “Not possible,” said another ancient. “I will prove it possible!” I declared. “Jak!” Elizandra said, hand on my arm. “You’re a fool!” “A fool I might be,” I said, “but I will not let them take me to be a koloss.” She pulled me to her, suddenly, and kissed me. Very little in life shocks me, dear readers, but that moment achieved the impossible. She had been so cold toward me at times that I was certain my affection would go unrequited. But this kiss … this kiss! As deep as the pool beside us, as true as the Survivor’s own teachings. As powerful as a bullet in flight, and as incredible as a bull’s-eye at three hundred yards. The passion in it warmed me, casting off the chill of my sodden clothing and the fear of a trembling heart. When she finished, metal flared to life inside of me. Though not an Allomancer, she’d poured some tin dust in her mouth, passing it to me in the kiss! I pulled back, marveling. “You’re amazing,” I whispered. “Well damn, Jak,” she whispered back. “You’ve finally gone and said something smart, for once.”* The koloss started to clap again. I picked the largest rock I could carry, then—taking a deep breath—leaped into the pool and allowed the rock to pull me downward. It was deep. Unfathomably deep.* The darkness soon swallowed me. Dear readers, you must imagine this complete darkness, for I do not believe I can do it justice. To be consumed by the blackness is itself a remarkable experience, but to be in the waters as light flees … there is something incredibly horrifying about such an experience. Even my steel nerves gave way to trembling as my descent continued. A terrible pain struck my ears, though whether this was from my wound, I know not. I dropped for what seemed like forever, until my lungs were burning, my mind growing numb. I nearly let go of my rock. I could not think. My wound
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threatened to overwhelm me, and though I could not see, I knew that my vision was growing cloudy. My body was failing me as I plummeted toward unconsciousness. I knew that I would die in these unseen depths. At that moment, I thought of Elizandra being turned into a koloss, losing the beautiful wit that so charmed me. This thought gave me strength, and I flared my tin. Flared tin brings clarity of mind, as I have said before. I have never welcomed it as much as I did then; those moments of lucidity forced away the shadow upon my mind. I felt the coldness of the water, and the pain in my head seemed incredible, but I was alive. I hit the bottom. Not daring to release my rock weight, I felt about me with one hand, frantic. My lungs burned like flared metals. Was it here? Yes! It was. Something square and unnatural, a box of metal. A strongbox? I tried to lift it, and managed to make it budge, but it was as heavy as my rock. With dismay, I realized that I could never carry this up to the surface. My body was too weak; swimming with such a weight was more than I could accomplish. Was I to fail, then? If I reached the surface without the treasure, perhaps they would simply kill me, or perhaps they would make me like them—either way I would be finished. I worked again to lift the box, but could swim only a few feet. I had no air, no strength. It was useless! And then, I remembered the poem. Opposite the sky you shall find it, and it shall be raised only by life itself.* Life itself. What was life down here? Air. I fumbled at the sides of the box and found a latch, which released some kind of object. It felt leathery, like a waterskin. I breathed into it, giving up all of the air in my lungs, air which no longer sustained me—but which might still serve me.* Then, I kicked off of the bottom, my metal spent, my air expended. Eternity. I burst from the surface of the pool as my vision clouded again. I saw only a moment of light before darkness snatched me back, but soft hands grabbed me and hauled me free of the water before I could sink to my doom. I smelled Elizandra’s perfume, and recovered to the sight of her concerned face, cradling my head in her lap. The view of her leather costume from beneath was not particularly proper, but also not unappreciated. “You fool,” she whispered as I rolled over and coughed water from my lungs. “He has failed!” exclaimed the koloss elders. At that very moment, something bobbed to the surface of the pool—it appeared to be an inflated bladder of some sort, perhaps from a sheep. I reached into the water and grabbed the strongbox that floated underneath.* The koloss crowded around as I knelt beside the box and worked at the lock. Elizandra produced the
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key we had found in Maelstrom’s mine, and it fitted* exactly. I turned it with a click, and opened the top. Inside were spikes. The koloss shouts first worried me, but they turned out to be shouts of joy. I looked to Elizandra, confused. “New spikes,” she said. “Many of them. With these, the tribe can grow. They were losing the wars with those nearby; my tribe has always been the smallest of those in the area. This will grow them by the dozens. It is a true treasure to them.” I sat back on my heels. I will express some regret to you, dear readers. I travel not for wealth, but for the joy of discovery and the opportunity to share the world with you—but still, this was not the treasure I had hoped to discover. A handful of small spikes? This was what I had searched for months upon months to find? This was the fabled wealth left by the Survivor himself? “Do not look so morose, dear one,” Elizandra said, dumping the spikes for the ancients to take. She pulled back with me as they gathered around. It appeared that the two of us had been forgotten in the excitement. “It seems we have our lives restored to us.” Indeed, the koloss did not stop us as we fled. We quickly left the small oasis valley, making toward the river and—hopefully—the rest of our caravan.* I still found myself disappointed. It was then that I noticed something. The box Elizandra carried hadn’t tarnished much from what had undoubtedly been over three centuries spent under the waters. I gestured for her to hand it to me, and I buffed at the surface of the lid. Then, I blinked in surprise. “What?” she asked, stopping in the path. I grinned. “Pure aluminum, my dear—worth thousands. We have found our treasure after all.” She laughed and favored me with another kiss. And it is here, my readers, that I must end the account of my travels in the Pits of Eltania. The treasure found, our lives lost—and then recovered—I had fulfilled the dying wish of dear, fallen Mikaff. It was my grandest adventure yet, and I believe I will rest for a short time before striking out again. I have been hearing of strange lights in the southern skies that can only hide another mystery. Until then, adventure on!* MISTBORN:SECRET HISTORY This novella contains major spoilers for the original Mistborn Trilogy and minor spoilers for The Bands of Mourning. PART ONE EMPIRE PART TWO WELL PART THREE SPIRIT PREFACE The Cosmere has always been full of secrets. I can trace my grand plan now to several key moments. The first is the emergence of Hoid, who dates back to my teenage years, when I conceived of a man who connected worlds that didn’t know about one another. A person in on the secret that nobody else understood. While reading books by other authors, in my mind I inserted this man into the backgrounds, imagining him as the random person described in a
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crowd—and dreaming of the story behind the story of which he was a part. The second moment that helped all this come together was reading the later books in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. I was awed by how he managed to tie the Robot novels and the Foundation novels together in one grand story. I knew I wanted to create something like this, an epic bigger than an epic. A story that spanned worlds and eras. The third moment, then, was the first appearance of Hoid in a novel. I inserted him nervously, worried about making everything work. I didn’t have my grand plan for the Cosmere at that point, only an inkling of what I wanted to do. That story was Elantris. The next book I wrote, Dragonsteel, was never published. (It’s not very good.) But in it I devised Hoid’s backstory, and the backstory of the entire universe I named the Cosmere. Elantris wasn’t picked up by a publisher until years after that point—and when it was, I had the grand plan in place. Mistborn, Stormlight, and Elantris became the core of it. (And you’ll find stories relating to all three in this collection.) I would guess that most people who read my works don’t know that the majority of the books are connected, with a hidden story behind the story. This pleases me. I have often said that I don’t want a reader to feel that they need to have my entire body of work memorized in order to enjoy a story. For now, Mistborn is just Mistborn, and Stormlight is just Stormlight. The stories of these worlds are at the forefront. That isn’t to say there aren’t hints. Lots of them. I originally intended these cameo hints between the worlds to be much smaller, particularly at first. Many readers, however, grew to love them—and I realized I didn’t need to be quite as stingy with the hidden story as I was being. I still walk a fine line. All of the stories you read are intended to be self-contained, at least within the context of their own world. However, if you do dig deeper, there is much more to learn. More secrets, as Kelsier would say. This collection takes a step closer to the connected nature of the Cosmere. Each story is prefaced by an annotation from Khriss, the woman who has been writing the Ars Arcanum appendixes at the ends of the novels. You’ll also find star maps for each solar system. With things like this, the collection goes further than I’ve gone before in connecting the worlds. It hints at what is to come eventually: full crossovers in the Cosmere. The time for that hasn’t arrived yet. If all this overwhelms you, know that most of the stories in here can be read independently. A few take place chronologically after published novels—and this is noted at the beginning of those stories, so you know how to avoid spoilers, if you want. None of the stories in the collection require knowledge of the Cosmere as
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a whole. The truth is, most of what’s going on in the Cosmere hasn’t yet been revealed, so you couldn’t be expected to be up to date on it all. That said, I do promise that this collection will provide not just questions, but at long last, some answers. First off, let’s acknowledge Emily—the person this book is dedicated to—for being both my inspiration and my co-president at Dragonsteel. I think you would all be amazed by how much she does behind the scenes. She deserves praise, accolades, and no small thanks for sharing her book (which this is) with all of you. Creative Development is our department focused on things like artwork for the books, concept art, and various cool things like that. In this department, I’d like to thank Isaac StewarŤ—VP, and my longtime partner in crime—for taking on the huge task of getting the artwork ready for all these Secret Projects. And speaking of that, Aliya Chen was the artist for this book, and she did an amazing job. My goal for each of these books was to let the artists have extra freedom to create art for the story the way they want, and Aliya was really fantastic to work with. I hope those of you who listen to the audiobook will find time to go check out the beautiful pieces she did for this project. Other members of this department include Rachael Lynn Buchanan (who brought Aliya’s art to our attention), Jennifer Neal, Ben McSweeney, Hayley Lazo, Priscilla Spencer, and Anna Earley. We also want to thank some of the people external to our organization here at Dragonsteel who helped on this project. This includes Oriana Leckert at Kickstarter, and Anna Gallagher and Palmer Johnson at BackerKit. Also, a special thanks to Bill Wearne, our print rep, who worked miracles to get these books printed on our schedule. Our Editorial department is headed by VP the Installed Peter Ahlstrom. His team also stepped up in a big way to get four extra books done on time, and they deserve huge props! They include Karen Ahlstrom, Kristy S. Gilbert (who did the layout), Betsey Ahlstrom, Jennie Stevens, and Emily Shaw-Higham. Deanna Hoak did our copyediting on this book. Our Operations department VP is Matt “You’re publishing how many books this year?” Hatch, who came on to our company just in time for us to do this huge project. Also on the operations team are Emma Tan-Stoker, Jane Horne, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Makena Saluone, Hazel Cummings, and Becky Wilson. Thanks so much, folks, for keeping us all in line and focused! The Publicity and Marketing department is headed by VP Adam Horne. These are the folks who helped me put together all the videos promoting the Secret Projects, and have been an invaluable resource in helping me get the news out about all of this! His team includes Jeremy Palmer, Taylor D. Hatch, and Octavia Escamilla. Nice work! Last but not least is our Merchandising and Events department, headed by Kara Stewart as the VP. This team took on
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an extra-large burden for these four Secret Projects, as it was a huge endeavor to get it all put together, packaged, and shipped out to you all. They also spearheaded getting the digital products to everyone, and they handle customer service, so no matter which version of the book you ended up getting, these are the fine folks who got them to you! A huge thanks to them for all their work. The team includes: Christi Jacobsen, Lex Willhite, and Kellyn Neumann. Mem Grange, Michael Bateman, Joy Allen, Katy Ives, Richard Rubert, Brett Moore, Ally Reep, Daniel Phipps, and Dallin Holden. Alex Lyon, Jacob Chrisman, Matt Hampton, Camilla Cutler, Quinton Martin, Kitty Allen, Esther Grange, Amanda Butterfield, Laura Loveridge, Gwen Hickman, Donald Mustard III, Zoe Hatch, Logan Reep, Rachel Jacobsen, and Sydney Wilson. My writing group for this book included Emily Sanderson, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Peter Ahlstrom, Karen Ahlstrom, Darci Stone, Eric James Stone, Alan Layton, Ethan Skarstedt, and Ben Olseeeen. Alpha readers for this book included Jessie Farr, Oliver Sanderson, Rachael Lynn Buchanan, Jennifer Neal, Christi Jacobson, Kellyn Neumann, Lex Willhite, Joy Allen, and Emma Tan-Stoker. Beta readers include Joshua Harkey, Tim Challener, Lingting “Botanica” Xu, Ross Newberry, Becca Reppert, Jessica Ashcraft, Alyx Hoge, Liliana Klein, Rahul Pantula, Gary Singer, Alexis Horizon, Lyndsey Luther, Nikki Ramsay, Suzanne Musin, Marnie Peterson, and Kendra Wilson. Gamma readers include many of the beta readers plus: Brian T. Hill, Evgeni “Argent” Kirilov, Rosemary Williams, Shannon Nelson, Brandon Cole, Glen Vogelaar, Rob West, Ted Herman, Drew McCaffrey, Jessie Lake, Chris McGrath, Bob Kluttz, Sam Baskin, Kendra Alexander, Lauren McCaffrey, Billy Todd, Chana Oshira Block, and Jayden King. And, obviously, I’d like to give a huge thanks to all of our Kickstarter backers, who made this project possible! Your enthusiasm has really propelled this project into the stratosphere. Thank you so very much. Brandon Sanderson * items with an asterisk are contained in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection. Elantris The Emperor’s Soul * The Hope of Elantris * The Eleventh Metal * Mistborn: The Final Empire The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: Secret History * The Alloy of Law Shadows of Self The Bands of Mourning The Lost Metal Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania * Warbreaker White Sand Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell * Sixth of the Dusk * The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Oathbringer Rhythm of War Edgedancer * Dawnshard Tress of the Emerald Sea Defending Elysium Skyward Starsight Cytonic Defiant Sunreach ReDawn Evershore The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England The Rithmatist Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds Steelheart Mitosis: A Reckoners Story Firefight Calamity Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener’s Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians I Hate Dragons Dreamer Firstborn Perfect State Snapshot Children of the Nameless The Original Dark One: Forgotten Dark One The Gathering Storm Towers of Midnight A Memory of Light Right about then, I woke up. Design was waiting for me, lounging behind the bar, smirking
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at me in the most unbearable way. Why I ever gave her a face, I’ll never know. “About time you loosened up a little,” she said. “Shut up.” I shook off the dozen or so coats that had been hung all over me, then pulled off the hooks and other things she’d attached for the purpose. I had to blink paint out of my eyes. Storming Cryptic. I kept the crown though. It was a special kind of awful. “What happened?” she asked. “Remember that time I got my memories stolen?” “Yes. It was hilarious.” “It was humiliating,” I said. “I instituted protection protocols to defend me if something tried to play games with my soul. When we landed here, that machine tried to draw my Investiture. My protocols activated.” “And turned you into a statue?” “It…wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped would happen.” She smirked at me. Insufferable creature. Then she waved around with two eager hands. “I started a restaurant!” “Yes, I was aware for much of it,” I said. “Sounds awful!” “You have no idea.” “Nope! Any desire to stick around until the next pickup in three years?” “None whatsoever.” Outside the front window of the shop, Painter and Yumi passed, supporting one another. They looked like the way it felt to spend three years being a coatrack. In other words, terrible. They paused just outside and kissed, but we’ll get to that. “How are we getting away?” I asked Design. She disappeared behind the counter, then emerged with a large stack of papers. “I have a plan.” “Delightful,” I said, finding a handful of individually packaged condiments in my pocket. Who had put those in there? “Yup. You imitate one of their astronauts. We steal their ship. It should be able to get us to Iron Seven Waystation.” “You need all of that?” I asked, pointing at her huge stack of papers. “To explain such a simple plan?” “What? This isn’t my plan. These are my recipes.” “Wonderful.” “They mostly aren’t. You have no idea how many different combinations of edible ingredients produce something completely inedible! It’s fun.” “No it’s not.” “It’s fun,” she said, “if someone else is tasting them.” I smiled. “Let’s go steal a spaceship.” “Finally!” she said, grabbing her recipes. “I’m ready.” “No worries about abandoning your restaurant?” “Nope! I willed it to someone. Well, two someones.” “Can they cook?” “Who cares? Let’s go!” And so, I escaped that dreadful planet. Such was the actual point of this story, if you hadn’t noticed. Pay attention. And stop encouraging rogue participants to go off script. I suppose, though, you want some loose ends tied up. Design gets letters from Masaka once in a while with updates, and I was able to send some inquiries to get more details. You should be thankful to her and the others, as this is the type of story I’m only able to tell you because I have the permission of those involved. You’ll be happy to know the planet, Komashi, survived. (Find it in the UTol system, in dual orbit
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with the planet UTol—which you might have heard about for other reasons.) The emergence of the sun didn’t cause an utter catastrophe on Komashi, though they did learn the hard way about sunburns. Turns out, a number of the spirits liked being hion lines, and were persuaded to continue in that service—with proper payment. That kept the heat of the ground down to something manageable. There were plants in the ruins of Torio City they could use to start new strains of crops, and the old ones would still grow by hion, if kept in the shade. It was difficult for a while, but society didn’t collapse. Evidently the sky can fall and most people will still get up the next day and go to work. I hear the planet is delightful to visit these days. Warm floors. Flying plants. Neon nights. I wouldn’t know, as I’m never going to go back. If you do go, though, stop by the Noodle Princess. I hear it has some of the best food around. And of course there’s the attached art gallery. Full of paintings and stacked-up stones. Just don’t sneeze. Painter and Yumi, well, they never told anyone about what had happened to them—though they did eventually manage to convince their friends that she was his secret girlfriend from another city, not his sister. A fact confirmed by his parents when they arrived in a tizzy, worried about what had become of their son during the upheavals. Nightmares went away forever, at least the living kind. Which meant no more need for painters. Those poor Dreamwatch members had to get jobs at their mommies’ and daddies’ corporations instead. At Painter’s insistence, his friends told everyone that Usasha—the only painter to die in the attack—had been the one to mobilize everyone. She was given the honors. At the end of it all, Painter and Yumi just wanted a quiet life with each other. Who would have guessed? If you visit, tell them I sent you, as Yumi and Painter do like offworld visitors. Just don’t overstay your welcome, try not to out their story to the locals, and be sure to tip your server well. And if you think of it, point out how humanlike she’s acting. Masaka is increasingly comfortable with others knowing what she is, but she—like all people—still appreciates a compliment now and then. Oh, and if you’re worried, the planet didn’t end up needing yoki-hijo to appease the spirits anymore. Turns out the things really, really like historical dramas. To this day, no one on the planet knows what Yumi actually is. They think of her as the eccentric cook of the best noodle place in town—the woman with the odd accent who can stack a hundred bowls on top of one another, with silverware balanced on each tier. That should cover it. Oh. Except the kiss. That first kiss, outside the noodle shop, bathed in sunlight. Lips together, sharing a deeper warmth, her hands to his face, his arms pulling her tight—as if to never let go. Pressed so
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close their very souls seemed to mix. And in the case of these two, those souls did at least mash together with a blast of abiding warmth. That said, it wasn’t a very good kiss. Considering the limited experience of the ones responsible, that won’t surprise you. Yet for two people whose only previous brushes with romance involved some particularly aspirational daydreams, it worked well enough. Plus, here’s the thing. A kiss doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. It doesn’t serve any real purpose. It’s valued solely because of the person you share it with. Things only have the value we give to them. And likewise, actions can be worth whatever we decide them to be worth. And so, to these two, that kiss was priceless. THE END Brandon Sanderson grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. In addition to completing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, he is the author of such bestsellers as the Mistborn saga, Warbreaker‚ the Stormlight Archive series beginning with The Way of Kings, The Rithmatist, the Skyward series, the Reckoners series beginning with Steelheart, and the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series. He won the Hugo Award for The Emperor’s Soul, a novella set in the world of his acclaimed first novel‚ Elantris. For behind-the-scenes information on all his books, visit brandonsanderson.com. Aliya Chen is an illustrator and visual development artist whose work is most often inspired by fantastical stories, foreign music, and the natural world. Outside of art, she loves to bake for friends and explore coastal trails with her family. The star was particularly bright when the nightmare painter started his rounds. The star. Singular. No, not a sun. Just one star. A bullet hole in the midnight sky, bleeding pale light. The nightmare painter lingered outside his apartment building, locking his eyes on the star. He’d always found it strange, that sentry in the sky. Still, he was fond of it. Many nights it was his sole companion. Unless you counted the nightmares. After losing his staring match, the nightmare painter strolled along the street, which was silent save for the hum of the hion lines. Ever present, those soared through the air—twin bands of pure energy, thick as a person’s wrist, about twenty feet up. Imagine them like very large versions of the filaments in the center of a light bulb—motionless, glowing, unsupported. One line was an indecisive blue-green. You might have called it aqua—or perhaps teal. But if so, it was an electric variety. Turquoise’s pale cousin, who stayed in listening to music and never got enough sun. The other was a vibrant fuchsia. If you could ascribe a personality to a cord of light, this one was perky, boisterous, blatant. It was a color you’d wear only if you wanted every eye in the room to follow you. A titch too purple for hot pink, it was at the very least a comfortably lukewarm pink. The residents of the city of Kilahito might
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have found my explanation unnecessary. Why put such effort into describing something everyone knows? It would be like describing the sun to you. Yet you need this context, for—cold and warm—the hion lines were the colors of Kilahito. Needing no pole or wire to hold them aloft, they ran down every street, reflected in every window, lit every denizen. Wire-thin strings of both colors split off the main cords, running to each structure and powering modern life. They were the arteries and veins of the city. Just as necessary to life in the city was the young man walking beneath them, although his role was quite different. He’d originally been named Nikaro by his parents—but by tradition, many nightmare painters went by their title to anyone but their fellows. Few internalized it as he had. So we shall call him as he called himself. Simply, Painter. You’d probably say Painter looked Veden. Similar features, same black hair, but of paler skin than many you’d find on Roshar. He would have been confused to hear that comparison, as he had never heard of such lands as those. In fact, his people had only recently begun to think about whether their planet was alone in the cosmere. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Painter. He was a young man, still a year from his twenties, as you’d count the years. His people used different numbers, but for ease let’s call him nineteen. Lanky, dressed in an untucked buttoned grey-blue shirt and a knee-length coat, he was the type who wore his hair long enough to brush his shoulders because he thought it took less effort. In reality it takes far more, but only if you do it right. He also thought it looked more impressive. But again, only if you do it right. Which he didn’t. You might have thought him young to bear the burden of protecting an entire city. But you see, he did it along with hundreds of other nightmare painters. In this, he was important in the brilliantly modern way that teachers, firefighters, and nurses are important: essential workers who earn fancy days of appreciation on the calendar, words of praise in every politician’s mouth, and murmurs of thanks from people at restaurants. Indeed, discussions of the intense value of these professions crowd out other more mundane conversations. Like ones regarding salary increases. As a result, Painter didn’t make much—merely enough to eat and have some pocket cash. He lived in a single-room apartment provided by his employer. Each night he went out for his job. And he did so, even at this hour, without fear of mugging or attack. Kilahito was a safe city, nightmares excluded. Nothing like rampaging semisapient voids of darkness to drive down crime. Understandably, most people stayed indoors at night. Night. Well, we’ll call it that. The time when people slept. They didn’t have the same view of these things that you do, as his people lived in persistent darkness. Yet during his shift, you’d say it felt like night. Painter passed hollow streets alongside
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overstuffed apartments. The only activity he spotted was from Rabble Way: a street you might charitably call a low-end merchant district. Naturally, the long narrow street lay near the perimeter of town. Here, the hion had been bent and curved into signs. These stuck out from shop after shop, like hands waving for attention. Each sign—letters, pictures, and designs—was created using just two colors, aqua and magenta, the art drawn in continuous lines. Yes, Kilahito had things like light bulbs, as are common on many planets. But the hion worked with no need for machinery or replacement, so many relied on it, particularly outdoors. Soon Painter reached the western edge. The end of hion. Kilahito was circular, and its perimeter held a final line of buildings, not quite a city wall. Warehouses mostly, without windows or residents. Outside of that was one last street, in a loop running around the city. No one used it. It lay there nonetheless, forming a kind of buffer between civilization and what lurked beyond. What lurked beyond was the shroud: an endless, inky darkness that besieged the city, and everyone on the planet. It smothered the city like a dome, driven back by the hion—which could also be used to make passages and corridors between cities. Only the light of the star shone through the shroud. To this day, I’m not a hundred percent certain why. But this was close to where Virtuosity Splintered herself, and I suspect that had an effect. Looking out at the shroud, Painter folded his arms, confident. This was his realm. Here, he was the lone hunter. The solitary wanderer. The man who prowled the endless dark, unafraid of— Laughter tinkled in the air to his right. He sighed, glancing to where two other nightmare painters strolled the perimeter. Akane wore a bright green skirt and buttoned white blouse, and carried the long brush of a nightmare painter like a baton. Tojin loped beside her, a young man with bulging arms and flat features. Painter had always thought Tojin was like a painting done without proper use of perspective or foreshortening. Surely a man’s arms couldn’t be that big, his chin that square. The two laughed once more at something Akane said. Then they saw him standing there. “Nikaro?” Akane called. “You on the same schedule as us again?” “Yeah,” Painter said. “It’s, um, on the chart…I think?” Had he actually filled it out this time? “Great!” she replied. “See you later. Maybe?” “Uh, yeah,” Painter said. Akane walked off, heels striking stone, paintbrush in hand, canvas under her arm. Tojin gave Painter a little shrug, then followed, his own supplies in his large painter’s bag. Painter lingered as he watched them go, and fought down the urge to chase after them. He was a lone hunter. A solitary wanderer. An…unescorted meanderer? Regardless, he didn’t want to work in a pair or a group, as a lot of the others did. It would be nice if someone would ask him. So he could show Akane and Tojin that he had friends.
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He would reject any such offer with stoic firmness, of course. Because he worked by himself. He was a single saunterer. A… Painter sighed. It was difficult to maintain a properly brooding air after an encounter with Akane. Particularly as her laughter echoed two streets over. To many of his colleagues, nightmare painting was not as…solemn a job as he made it out to be. It helped him to think otherwise. Helped him feel like less of a mistake. Especially during those times when he contemplated a life where he would spend his next six decades on this street every night, backlit by the hion. Alone. Yumi had always considered the appearance of the daystar to be encouraging. An omen of fortune. A sign that the primal hijo would be open and welcoming to her. The daystar seemed extra bright today—glowing a soft blue on the western horizon as the sun rose in the east. A powerful sign, if you believed in such things. (An old joke notes that lost items tend to be in the last place one looks. Conversely, omens tend to appear in the first place people look for them.) Yumi did believe in signs. She had to; an omen had been the single most important event in her life. At her birth, a falling star had marked the sky—indicating that she had been chosen by the spirits. She’d been taken from her parents and raised to accomplish a holy and important duty. She settled down on the warm floor of her wagon as her attendants, Chaeyung and Hwanji, entered. They bowed in ritual postures, then fed her with maipon sticks and spoons—a meal of rice and a stew that had been left on the ground to cook. Yumi sat and swallowed, never so crass as to try to feed herself. This was a ritual, and she was an expert in those. Though today she couldn’t help feeling distracted. It was nineteen days past her nineteenth birthday. A day for decisions. A day for action. A day to—maybe—ask for what she wanted? It was a hundred days until the big festival in Torio City, the grand capital, seat of the queen. The yearly reveal of the country’s greatest art, plays, and projects. She had never gone. Perhaps…this time… Once her attendants finished feeding her, she rose. They opened the door for her, then hopped down out of the private wagon. Yumi took a deep breath, then followed, stepping out into sunlight and down into her clogs. Immediately her two attendants leaped to hold up enormous fans, obscuring her from view. Naturally people in the village had gathered to see her. The Chosen. The yoki-hijo. The girl of commanding primal spirits. (Not the most pithy of titles, but it works better in their language.) This land—the kingdom of Torio—couldn’t have been more different from where Painter lived. Not one glowing line—cold or warm—streaked the sky. No apartment buildings. No pavement. Oh, but they had sunlight. A dominant red-orange sun, the color of baked clay. Bigger and closer than your sun,
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it had distinct spots of varied color on it—like a boiling breakfast stew, churning and undulating in the sky. This scarlet sun painted the landscape…well, perfectly ordinary colors. That’s how the brain works. Once you’d been there a few hours, you wouldn’t notice the light was a shade redder. But when you first arrived, it would look striking. Like the scene of a bloody massacre everyone is too numb to acknowledge. Hidden behind her fans, Yumi walked on her clogs through the village to the local cold spring. Once at the spring, her attendants slipped her out of her nightgown—a yoki-hijo did not dress or undress herself—and let her walk down into the slightly cool water, shivering at its shocking kiss. A short time later, Chaeyung and Hwanji followed with a floating plate holding crystalline soaps. They rubbed her once with the first, then she rinsed. Once with the second, then she rinsed. Twice with the third. Three times with the fourth. Five times with the fifth. Eight times with the sixth. Thirteen times with the seventh. You might think that extreme. If so, have you perhaps never heard of religion? Yumi’s particular flavor of devotion, fortunately, did have some practical accommodations. The later soaps were only such by the broadest definition—you would consider them perfumed creams, with a deliberately moisturizing component. (I find them especially nice on the feet, though I’ll probably need them for my whole body once I arrive in the Torish version of hell for abusing their ritual components for bunion relief.) Yumi’s final rinse involved ducking beneath the water for a count of a hundred and forty-four. Underneath, her dark hair flowed around her, writhing in the current of her motion as if alive. The compulsory washing made her hair extremely clean—which was important, as her religious calling forbade her from ever cutting it, so it reached all the way to her waist. Though it wasn’t required of the ritual, Yumi liked to gaze upward through the shimmering water and see if she could find the sun. Fire and water. Liquid and light. She burst out of the water at the exact count of one forty-four and gasped. That was supposed to get easier. She was supposed to rise serenely, renewed and reborn. Instead she was forced to break decorum today by coughing a little. (Yes, she saw coughing as “breaking decorum.” Don’t even ask how she regarded something truly onerous, like being late for a ritual.) Ritual bathing done, it was time for the ritual dressing, also carried out by her attendants. The traditional sash under the bust, then the larger white wrap across the chest. Loose undergarment leggings. Then the tobok, in two layers of thick colorful cloth, with a wide bell skirt. Bright magenta, her ritual wear for that day of the week. She slipped her clogs on again and somehow walked in them, natural and fluid. (I consider myself a reasonably adroit person, but Torish clogs—they call them getuk—feel like bricks tied to my feet. They aren’t necessarily hard to balance in—they’re only
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six inches tall—but they grant most outsiders the graceful poise of a drunk chull.) With all of that, she was at last ready…for her next ritual. In this case, she needed to pray at the village shrine to seek the blessings of the spirits. So she again let her attendants block all view of her with their fans, then walked out and around to the village flower garden. Here, vibrant blue blossoms—cuplike, to catch the rain—floated on thermals. They hovered around two feet in the air. In Torio, plants rarely dared touch the ground, lest the heat of the stone wither them away. Each flower was maybe two inches across, with wide leaves catching the thermals—like lilies with fine dangling roots that absorbed water from the air. Yumi’s passing caused them to swirl and bump against one another. The shrine was a small structure, wood, mostly open at the sides but with a latticed dome. Remarkably, it also floated gracefully a few feet off the ground—this time by way of a single lifting spirit underneath that took the physical shape of two statues, each with grotesque features, facing one another. One vaguely male crouched on the ground; one vaguely female clung to the bottom of the building. Though divided once made physical, they were still part of the same spirit. Yumi approached among the flowers, the soft thermals causing her skirt to ripple. Thick cloth didn’t rise enough to be embarrassing—merely enough to give shape and flare to the bell of her outfit. She removed her clogs once more as she reached the shrine, stepping up onto the cool wood. It barely wobbled, held firm by the strength of the spirit. She knelt, then began the first of the thirteen ritual prayers. Now, if you think my description of her preparations took a while, that’s intentional. It might help you understand—in the slightest way—Yumi’s life. Because this wasn’t a special day, in terms of her duties. This was typical. Ritual eating. Ritual bathing. Ritual dressing. Ritual prayers. And more. Yumi was one of the Chosen, picked at birth, granted the ability to influence the hijo, the spirits. It was an enormous honor among her people. And they never let her forget it. The prayers and following meditations took around an hour. When she finished, she looked up toward the sun, slots in the shrine’s wooden canopy decorating her in alternating lines of light and shadow. She felt…lucky. Yes, she was certain that was the proper emotion. She was blessed to hold this station, one of the very fortunate few. The world the spirits provided was wonderful. The sun of vivid red-orange shining through brilliant clouds of yellow, scarlet, violet. A field of hovering flowers, trembling as tiny lizards leaped from one to another. The stone underneath, warm and vibrant, the source of all life, heat, and growth. She was a part of this. A vital one. Surely this was wonderful. Surely this was all that she should ever need. Surely she couldn’t want more. Even if…even if today was lucky. Even if…perhaps,
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for once, she could ask? The festival, she thought. I could visit, wearing the clothing of an ordinary person. One day to be normal. Rustling cloth and the sound of wooden shoes on stone caused Yumi to turn. Only one person would dare approach her during meditation: Liyun, a tall woman in a severe black tobok with a white bow. Liyun, her kihomaban—a word that meant something between a guardian and a sponsor. We’ll use the term “warden” for simplicity. Liyun halted a few steps from the shrine, hands behind her back. Ostensibly she waited upon Yumi’s pleasure, a servant to the girl of commanding primal spirits. (Trust me, the term grows on you.) Yet there was a certain demanding air even to the way Liyun stood. Perhaps it was the fashionable shoes: clogs with thick wood beneath her toes, but sleek heels behind. Perhaps it was the way she wore her hair: cut short in the rear, longer in the front—evoking the shape of a blade at each side of her head. This wasn’t a woman whose time you could waste, somehow including when she wasn’t waiting for you. Yumi quickly rose. “Is it time, Warden-nimi?” she said, with enormous respect. Yumi’s and Painter’s languages shared a common root, and in both there was a certain affectation I find hard to express in your tongue. They could conjugate sentences, or add modifiers to words, to indicate praise or derision. Interestingly, no curses or swears existed among them. They would simply change a word to its lowest form instead. I’ll do my best to indicate this nuance by adding the words “highly” or “lowly” in certain key locations. “The time has not quite arrived, Chosen,” Liyun said. “We should wait for the steamwell’s eruption.” Of course. The air was renewed then; better to wait if it was near. But that meant they had time. A few precious moments with no scheduled work or ceremony. “Warden-nimi,” Yumi said (highly), gathering her courage. “The Festival of Reveals. It is near.” “A hundred days, yes.” “And it is a thirteenth year,” Yumi said. “The hijo will be unusually active. We will not…petition them that day, I assume?” “I suppose we won’t, Chosen,” Liyun said, checking the little calendar—in the form of a small book—that she kept in her pouch. She flipped a few pages. “We’ll be…near Torio City? We’ve been traveling in the region.” “And?” “And…I…” Yumi bit her lip. “Ah…” Liyun said. “You would like to spend the festival day in prayer of thanks to the spirits for granting you such an elevated station.” Just say it, a part of her whispered. Just say no. That’s not what you want. Tell her. Liyun snapped her book closed, watching Yumi. “Surely,” she said, “that is what you want. You wouldn’t actively desire to do something that would embarrass your station. To imply you regret your place. Would you, Chosen?” “Never,” Yumi whispered. “You were honored, of all the children born that year,” Liyun said, “to be given this calling, these powers. One of only fourteen
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currently living.” “I know.” “You are special.” She would have preferred to be less special—but she felt guilty the moment she thought it. “I understand,” Yumi said, steeling herself. “Let us not wait for the steamwell. Please, lead me to the place of ritual. I am eager to begin my duties and call the spirits.” It’s terrifying how nightmares transform. I’m talking about ordinary nightmares now, not the kind that get painted. Terror dreams—they change. They evolve. It’s bad enough to encounter something frightening in the waking world, but at least those mortal horrors have shape, substance. That which has shape can be understood. That which has mass can be destroyed. Nightmares are a fluid terror. Once you get the briefest handle on one, it will change. Filling nooks in the soul like spilled water filling cracks in the floor. Nightmares are a seeping chill, created by the mind to punish itself. In this, a nightmare is the very definition of masochism. Most of us are modest enough to keep that sort of thing tucked away, hidden. On Painter’s world, those dark bits were strikingly prone to coming alive. He stood at the edge of the city—bathed from behind in radioactive teal and electric magenta—and stared out at the churning darkness. It had substance; it shifted and flowed similar to molten tar. The shroud. The blackness beyond. Nightmares unformed. Trains traveled the hion lines to places like the small town where his family still lived, a couple of hours away. He knew other places existed. Yet it was difficult not to feel isolated while looking into that endless blackness. It stayed away from the hion lines. Mostly. He turned and walked the street outside the city for a short time. To his right, those outer buildings rose as a shield wall, with narrow alleyways between. As I said before, it wasn’t a true fortification. Walls didn’t stop nightmares; a wall would merely prevent people from stepping out onto the perimeter. In Painter’s experience, no one came out here but his kind. The ordinary people stayed indoors; even one street farther inward felt infinitely safer. The people lived as he once had, trying hard not to think about what was out there. Seething. Churning. Watching. These days, it was his job to confront it. He didn’t spot anything at first—no signs of particularly brave nightmares encroaching upon the city. Those could be subtle, however. So Painter continued. His assigned beat was a small wedge that began several blocks inward of the perimeter, but the outside portion was the widest—and the most likely place for signs of nightmares to appear. As he did his rounds, he continued to imagine that he was some lone warrior. Instead of, essentially, an exterminator who had gone to art school. To his right he passed the capstone paintings. He wasn’t certain where the local painters had come up with the idea, but these days—during dull moments on patrol—they tended to do practice work on the outer buildings of the city. The walls facing the shroud didn’t have windows.
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So they made for large inviting canvases. Not strictly part of the job, each was a certain personal statement. He passed Akane’s painting, depicting an expansive flower. Black paint on the whitewashed wall. His own spot was two buildings over. Just a blank white wall, though if you looked closely you could see the failed project beneath peeking through. He decided to whitewash it again. But not tonight, because he caught signs of a nightmare at last. He stepped closer to the shroud, but didn’t touch it of course. Yes…the black surface here was disturbed. Like paint that had been touched when near to drying, it was…upset, rippling. It was difficult to make out, as the shroud didn’t reflect light, unlike the ink or tar it otherwise appeared to be. But Painter had trained well. Something had emerged from the shroud here and started into the city. He retrieved his brush, a tool as long as a sword, from his large painter’s bag. He felt better with it in hand. He shifted his bag to his back, feeling the weight of the canvases and ink jar inside. Then he struck inward—passing the whitewashed wall that obscured his latest failure. He’d tried four times. This last one had gotten further than most of his attempts. A painting of the star, which he’d started after hearing the news of an upcoming voyage intended to travel the darkness of the sky. A trip to the star itself, for which scientists planned to use a special vessel and a pair of hion lines launched an incredible distance. In this, Painter had learned something interesting. Contrary to what everyone had once assumed, the star wasn’t merely a spot of light in the sky. Telescopes revealed it was a planet. Occupied, according to their best guess, by other people. A place whose light somehow cut through the shroud. The news of the impending trip had briefly inspired him. But he’d lost that spark, and the painting had languished. How long had it been since he’d covered it over? At least a month. On the corner of the wall near the painting, he picked out steaming blackness. The nightmare had passed this way and brushed the stone, leaving residue that evaporated slowly, shedding black tendrils into the night. He’d expected it to take this path; they almost always took the most direct way into the city. It was good to confirm it nonetheless. Painter crept inward, reentering the realm of the twin hion lights. Laughter echoed from somewhere to his right, but the nightmare probably hadn’t gone that direction. The pleasure district was where people went to do anything other than sleep. There, he thought, picking out black wisps on a planter up ahead. The shrub grew toward the hion lines and their nourishing light. So as Painter moved down the empty roadway, he walked between plants that looked as if they were reaching arms up in silent salute. The next sign came near an alley. An actual footprint, black, steaming dark vapors. The nightmare had begun evolving, picking
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up on human thoughts, changing from formless blackness to something with a shape. Only a vague one at first, but instead of being a slinking, flowing black thing, it probably had feet now. Even in that form they rarely left footprints, so he was fortunate to have found one. He moved onto a darker street, where the hion lines were fine and thin overhead. In this shadowy place, he remembered his first nights working alone. Despite extensive training, despite mentorship with three different painters, he’d felt exposed and raw—like a fresh scrape exposed to the air, his emotions and fear close to the surface. These days, fear was layered well beneath calluses of experience. Still, he gripped his shoulder bag tightly in one hand and held his brush out as he crept along. There, on the wall, was a handprint with too-long fingers and what looked like claws. Yes, it was taking a form. Its prey must be close. Farther along the narrow alley, by a bare wall, he found the nightmare: a thing of ink and shadow some seven feet tall. It had fashioned two long arms that bent too many times, the elongated palms pressed against the wall, fingers spread. Its head had sunk through the stone to peek into the room beyond. The tall ones always unnerved him, particularly when they had long fingers. He felt he’d seen figures like that in his own fragmented dreams—figments of terrors buried within. His feet scraped the stones, and the thing heard and withdrew its head, wisps of formless blackness rising from it like ash from a smoldering fire. No face though. They never had faces—not unless something was going very wrong. Instead they usually displayed a deeper blackness on the front of the head. One that dripped dark liquid. Like tears, or wax near a flame. Painter immediately raised his mental protections, thinking calm thoughts. This was the first and most important training. The nightmares, like many predators that fed on minds, could sense thoughts and emotions. They searched for the most powerful, raw ones to feed upon. A placid mind was of little interest. The thing turned and put its head through the wall again. This building had no windows, which was foolish. Nightmares could ignore walls. In removing windows, the occupants trapped themselves more fully in the boxes of their homes, feeding their claustrophobia—and making the jobs of the painters more difficult. Painter moved carefully, slowly, taking a canvas—a good three-foot by three-foot piece of thick cloth on a frame—from his shoulder bag. He set it on the ground in front of him. His jar of ink followed—black and runny. Nightmare painters always worked in black on white, no colors, as you wanted something that mimicked the look of a nightmare. The ink blend was designed to give excellent gradations in the grey and black. Not that Painter bothered with that much nuance these days. He dipped the brush in the ink and knelt above his canvas, then paused, gazing at the nightmare. The blackness continued to steam off
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it, and its shape was still fairly indistinct. This was probably only its first or second trip into the city. It took a good dozen trips before a nightmare had enough substance to be dangerous—and they had to return to the shroud each time to renew, lest they evaporate away. Judging by its appearance, this one was fairly new. It probably couldn’t hurt him. Probably. And here was the crux of why painters were so important, yet so disposable. Their job was essential, but not urgent. As long as a nightmare was discovered within its first ten or so trips into the city, it could be neutralized. That almost always happened. Painter was good at controlling his fear with thoughts like these. That was part of his training—very pragmatic. Once his breathing calmed, he tried to consider what the nightmare looked like, what its shape could have been. Supposedly if you picked something that the entity already resembled, then painted that, you would have more power over it. He had trouble with this. Or rather, during the last few months it had felt like more trouble than it was worth. So today he settled on the shape of a small bamboo thicket and began painting. The thing had spindly arms, after all. Those were kind of like bamboo. He’d practiced a great number of bamboo stalks. In fact, you could say that Painter had a certain scientific precision in the way he drew each segment—a little sideways flourish at the start, followed by a long line. You let the brush linger a moment so that when you raised it, the blot the brush left formed the end knob of the bamboo segment. You could create each in a single stroke. It was efficient, and these days that seemed most important to him. As he painted, he fixed the shape in his mind—a central powerful image. As usual such deliberate thought drew the thing’s attention. It hesitated, then pulled its head out from the wall and turned in his direction, its face dripping its own ink. It moved toward him, walking on its arms, but those had grown more round. With knobbed segments. Painter continued. Stroke. Flourish. Leaves made with quick flips of the brush, blacker than the main body of the bamboo. Similar protrusions appeared on the arms of the thing as it drew closer. It also shrank in upon itself as he painted a pot at the bottom. The painting captured the thing. Diverted it. So that by the time it reached him, the transformation was fully in effect. He never lost himself in the painting these days. After all, he told himself, he had a job to do. And he did that job well. As he finished, the thing even adopted some of the sounds of bamboo—the soft rattle of stalks beating against one another to accompany the omnipresent buzz of the hion lines above. He lifted his brush, leaving a perfect bamboo painting on his canvas, mimicked by the thing in the alley, leaves brushing the walls. Then, with
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a sound very much like a sigh, the nightmare dispersed. He’d deliberately transformed it into a harmless shape—and now, trapped as it was, it couldn’t flee to the shroud to regain strength. Instead, like water trapped on a hot plate, it just…evaporated. Soon Painter was alone in the alley. He packed up his things, sliding the canvas back into the large bag, alongside three unused ones. Then he returned to his patrol. The local steamwell erupted right as Yumi was passing—at a safe distance—on the way to the place of ritual. A glorious jet of water ascended from the hole in the center of the village. A furious, superheated cascade that reached forty feet at its highest—a gift from the spirits deep below. This water was vital; rain was scarce in Torio, and rivers…well, one can imagine what the superheated ground did to prospective rivers. Water wasn’t rare in Yumi’s land, but it was concentrated, centralized, elevated. The air nearest the steamwells was humid, nourishing migratory plants and other lively entities. You often found clouds above the steamwells, offering shade and occasional rainfall. The water that didn’t escape as steam rained down on large bronze trays set up in six concentric rings around the geyser. Elevated from the ground to keep them cool, the metal funneled the water down the slope toward the nearby homes. There were some sixty of those in the town—with room to grow, judging by how much water the steamwell released. The homes were built a good distance back, of course. Steamwells were vital to life in this land, yes, but it was best not to fraternize. Farther out from the city were the searing barrens. Wastelands where the ground was too hot even for plants; the stone there could set clogs afire and kill travelers who lingered. In Torio you traveled only at night, and only upon hovering wagons pulled by flying devices created by the spirits. Needless to say, most people stayed home. The loud pelting of drops against metal basins drowned out the murmurs of the watching crowds. Bathing finished, prayers proffered, Yumi could now be gawked at officially, so her attendants followed with fans withdrawn. She kept her eyes lowered, and she walked with a practiced step—a yoki-hijo must glide, as if a spirit. She was glad for the sound of the steamwell, for though she didn’t dare mind the whispers and murmurs of awe, they did sometimes…overwhelm. She quickly reminded herself that the people’s awe wasn’t for her, but for her calling. She needed to remember that, needed to banish pride and remain reserved. She most certainly needed to avoid anything embarrassing—like smiling. Out of reverence for her station. The station, in return, did not notice. As is the case with many things that people revere. She passed homes, most of which were in two tiers: One section built upon the ground to benefit from the warmth and heat. Another built on stilts, with air underneath to keep it cooler. Imagine two large planter boxes built against one another, one elevated four feet,
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the other resting on the ground. Most of them had a stocky tree or two—about eight feet from the tips of their branches to the bottom of their wide, webbed roots—chained to them, riding the thermals a few feet in the air. Lighter plants hovered high in the sky, casting variegated shadows. During the daytime, you found low plants solely in spots like gardens, where the ground was cooler. That and places where humans worked to keep them nearby, so they didn’t float away, or get floated away. Torio is the only land I’ve ever heard of with tree rustlers. (Yes, there’s more to the flying than the thermals alone. Even in Torio the trees are made of heavy wood. So they need specific local adaptations to float. But we’re not going to get into it right now.) At the far side of the town was the kimomakkin, or—as we’ll phrase it in this story—the place of ritual. A village usually had only one, lest the spirits get jealous of one another. A few flowers floated nearby, and when Yumi entered, her passing caused them to eddy and spin in her wake. They immediately shot up high into the sky. The place of ritual was a section of extra-hot stone, though not nearly on the level of the outlands. (If you’ve ever been to the Reshi Isles, where sand lines the beaches on bright and sweltering summer days, you might have a frame of reference. The stones in the place of ritual felt the same as walking across that beach sand on a particularly sunny day. Hot enough to hurt, but not so hot as to be deadly.) In Torio, heat was sacred. The village people gathered outside the fence, their clogs scraping stone, parents lifting children. Three local spirit scribes settled on tall stools to sing songs that, best I can tell, the spirits never noticed. (I approve of the job nonetheless. Anything to gainfully employ more musicians. It’s not that we’re unable to do anything else; it’s more that if you don’t find something productive for us to do, we’ll generally start asking questions like, “Hey, why aren’t they worshipping me?”) Everyone waited outside the small fenced portion of ground, including Liyun. The songs started: a rhythmic chanting accompanying a percussion of sticks on paddle drums, a flute in the background, all of it growing more audible as the steamwell finished relieving itself and stumbled off to sleep. Inside the place of ritual was only Yumi. The spirits deep underground. And a whole lot of rocks. The villagers spent months gathering them, setting them throughout the city, then deliberating over which ones had the best shapes. You may think your local pastimes are boring, and the things your parents always forced you to do mind-numbing, but at least you didn’t spend your days excited by the prospect of ranking rock shapes. Yumi put on a pair of kneepads, then knelt in the center of the rocks, spreading her skirts—which rippled and rose in the thermals. Normally you did not want
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your skin that close to the ground. Here, there was something almost intimate about kneeling. Spirits gathered in warm places. Or rather, warmth was a sign they were near. They were unseen as of yet. You had to draw them forth—but they wouldn’t come to the beck of just anyone. You needed someone like Yumi. You needed a girl who could call to the spirits. There were many viable methods, but they shared a common theme: creativity. Most self-aware Invested beings—be they called fay, seon, or spirit—respond to this fundamental aspect of human nature in one way or another. Something from nothing. Creation. Beauty from raw materials. Art. Order from chaos. Organization. Or in this case, all three at once. Each yoki-hijo trained in an ancient and powerful art. A deliberate, wondrous artistry requiring the full synergy of body and mind. Geological reorganization on the microscale, requiring acute understanding of gravitational equilibrium. In other words, they stacked rocks. Yumi selected one with an interesting shape and carefully balanced it on end, then removed her hands and left it standing—oblong, looking like it should fall. The crowd gasped, though nothing arcane or mystical was on display. The art was a product of instinct and practice. She placed a second stone on the first, then two on top at once—balancing them against one another in a way that looked impossible. The contrasting stones—one leaning out to the right, the other precariously resting on its left tip—remained steady as she pulled her hands away. There was a deliberate reverence to the way Yumi positioned rocks—seeming to cradle them for a moment, stilling them like a mother with a sleeping child. Then she’d withdraw her hands and leave the rocks as if one breath from collapse. It wasn’t magic. But it was certainly magical. The crowd ate it up. If you find their fascination to be odd, well…I’m not going to disagree. It is a little strange. Not merely the balancing, but the way her people treated the performances—and creations—of the yoki-hijo as the greatest possible triumphs of artistry. But then again, there’s nothing intrinsically valuable about any kind of art. That’s not me complaining or making light. It’s one of the most wonderful aspects to art—the fact that people decide what is beautiful. We don’t get to decide what is food and what is not. (Yes, exceptions exist. Don’t be pedantic. When you pass those marbles, we’re all going to laugh.) But we absolutely get to decide what counts as art. If Yumi’s people wanted to declare that rock arrangements surpassed painting or sculpture as an artistic creation…well, I personally found it fascinating. The spirits agreed. Today Yumi created a spiral, using the artist’s sequence of progress as a kind of loose structure. You might know it by a different name. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four. Then back down. The piles of twenty or thirty rocks should have been the most impressive—and indeed, the fact that she could stack them so well is incredible. But she found ways to make the
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stacks of five or three delight just as much. Incongruous mixes of tiny rocks, with enormous ones balanced on top. Shingled patterns of stones, oblong ones hanging out precariously to the sides. Stones as long as her forearm balanced on their tiniest tips. From the mathematical descriptions, and the use of the artist’s sequence, you might have assumed the process to be methodical. Calculating. Yet it felt more a feat of organic improvisation than it did one of engineering prowess. Yumi swayed as she stacked, moving to the beats of the drums. She’d close her eyes, swimming her head from side to side as she felt the stones grind beneath her fingers. Judged their weights, the way they tipped. Yumi didn’t want to simply accomplish the task. She didn’t want merely to perform for the whispering, excitable audience. She wanted to be worthy. She wanted to sense the spirits and know what they desired of her. She felt they deserved so much better than her. Someone who did more than she could, even at her best. Someone who didn’t secretly yearn for freedom. Someone who didn’t—deep down—reject the incredible gift she’d been given. Over the course of several hours, the sculpture grew into a brilliant spiral of dozens of stacks. Yumi outlasted the drumming women, who fell off after about two hours. She continued as people took children home for naps, or slipped away to eat. She went on so long that Liyun had to duck out to use the facilities, then hastily return. Those watching could appreciate the sculpture, of course. But the best place to view it was from above. Or below. Imagine a great swirl made up of stacked stones, evoking the feeling of blowing wind, spiraling, yet made entirely from rock. Order from chaos. Beauty from raw materials. Something from nothing. The spirits noticed. In record numbers, they noticed. As Yumi persevered through scraped fingers and aching muscles, spirits began to float up from the stones beneath. Teardrop shaped, radiant like the sun—a swirling red and blue—and the size of a person’s head. They’d rise up and settle next to Yumi, watching her progress, transfixed. They didn’t have eyes—they were little more than blobs—but they could watch. Sense, at least. Spirits of this sort find human creations to be fascinating. And here, because of what she’d done—because of who she was—they knew this sculpture was a gift. As the day grew dark and the plants began to drift down from the upper layers of the sky, Yumi finally started to weaken. By now her fingers were bloodied—the calluses scraped away by repetitive movement. Her arms had gone from sore to numb, to somehow both sore and numb. It was time for the next step. She couldn’t afford a childish mistake like she’d suffered in her early years: that of working so hard that she collapsed unconscious before binding the spirits. This wasn’t simply about creating the sculpture or providing a pious display. Like a fine-print rider in a contract, there was a measure of practicality attached to this
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day’s art. Too tired to stand, Yumi turned from her creation—which contained hundreds of stones. Then she blinked, counting the spirits who surrounded her in their glory—in this case they looked a bit like a series of overly large ice cream scoops that had tumbled from the cone. Thirty-seven. She’d summoned thirty-seven. Most yoki-hijo were lucky to get six. Her previous record had been twenty. Yumi wiped the sweat from her brow, then counted again through blurry eyes. She was tired. So (lowly) tired. “Send forth,” she said, her voice croaking, “the first supplicant.” The crowd agitated with excitement, and people went running to fetch friends or family members who had fallen off during the hours of sculpting. A strict order of needs was kept in the town, adjudicated by methods Yumi didn’t know. Supplicants were arranged, with the lucky five or six at the top all but guaranteed a slot. Those lower down would usually have to wait for another visit to see to their needs. As spirits typically remained bound for five to ten years—with their effectiveness waning in the latter part of that—there was always a grand need for the efforts of the yoki-hijo. Today, for example, had begun with twenty-three names on the list, though they’d expected only a half dozen spirits. As one might imagine, there was a fervor among the members of the town council to fill out the rest of the names. Yumi was unaware of this. She merely positioned herself at the front of the place of ritual, kneeling, head bowed—and trying her best not to collapse sideways to the stone. Liyun allowed the first supplicant in, a man with a head that sat a little too far forward on his neck, like a picture that had been cut in half and then sloppily taped together. “Blessed bringer of spirits,” he said, wringing his cap in his hands, “we need light for my home. It has been six years that we have been without.” Six years? Without a light at night? Suddenly, Yumi felt more selfish for her attempt to escape her duties earlier. “I am sorry,” she whispered back, “for failing you and your family these many years.” “You didn’t—” The man cut himself off. It wasn’t proper to contradict a yoki-hijo. Even to compliment them. Yumi turned to the first of the spirits, who inched up beside her, curious. “Light,” she said. “Please. In exchange for this gift of mine, will you give us light?” At the same time, she projected the proper idea. Of a flaming sun becoming a small glowing orb, capable of being carried in the palm of her hand. “Light,” the spirit said to her. “Yes.” The man waited anxiously as the spirit shivered, then divided in half—one side glowing brightly with a friendly orange color, the other becoming a dull blue sphere so dark it could be mistaken for black, particularly at dusk. Yumi handed the man the two balls, each fitting in the palm of one hand. He bowed and retreated. The next requested a repelling
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pair, as was used in the garden veranda, to lift her small dairy into the air so that it would stay cooler and she could make butter. Yumi complied, speaking to the next spirit in line, coaxing it to split into the shape of two squat statues with grimacing features. Each supplicant in turn got their request fulfilled. It had been years since Yumi had accidentally confused or frightened off a spirit—though these people didn’t know that, and so each waited in worried anticipation, fearing that their request would be one where the spirit turned away. It didn’t happen, though each request took longer to fulfill, each spirit longer to persuade, as they grew more detached from her performance. Plus, each request took a little…something from Yumi. Something that recovered over time, but in the moment left her feeling empty. Like a jar of citron tea being devoured spoonful by spoonful. Some wanted light. A few wanted repelling devices. The majority requested flyers—hovering devices about two feet across. These could be used to help care for crops during the daytime, when the plants soared out of reach of the farmers and needed to be watched by the village’s great crows instead. There were some threats the crows could not manage, so flyers were a necessity for most settlements. As always, the spirit split into two to make the devices—in this case a machine with great insectile wings, and a handheld device to control it from the ground. One could make basically anything out of a spirit, provided it was willing and you could formulate the request properly. To Torish people, using a spirit for light was as natural—and as common—as spheres are for you, and candles or lanterns are on other worlds. You might consider the Torish wasteful of the great cosmic power afforded them, but theirs was a harsh land where the ground could literally boil water. You’ll have to forgive them for making use of the resources they had. Getting through all thirty-seven spirits was nearly as grueling as the art itself—and by the end, Yumi continued in a daze. Barely seeing, barely hearing. Mumbling ceremonial phrases by rote and projecting to the spirits more with primal need than crisp images. But eventually, the last supplicant bowed and hurried away with his new spirit saw. Yumi found herself alone before her creation, surrounded by cooling air and floating lilies that were drifting down to her level as the thermals cooled. Done. She was…done? Her sculpture would be allowed to fade with time as all art does, and eventually would be taken down before the next visit of a yoki-hijo to this town. The power of the devices created in the ritual would eventually weaken, each spirit’s bond remaining in effect for a different length of time. But in general, the more spirits you bound in a session, the longer all of them would last. What she had done today was unprecedented. Liyun approached to offer congratulations. She found, however, not a magnificent master of spirits—but an exhausted nineteen-year-old girl, collapsed
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unconscious, her hair fanning around her on the stone and her ceremonial silks trembling in the breeze. The nightmares had originally come from the sky. Painter had heard the accounts. Everyone had. They weren’t quite histories, mind you. They were fragments of stories that were likely exaggerations. They were taught in school regardless. Like a man with diarrhea in a sandpaper factory, sometimes all available options are less than ideal. One account read: Those are the words of a poet who, after the event, didn’t speak or even write for thirty years. Years later, another woman wrote: And then this one, which I find most unnerving of them all: That was found roughly a hundred years later, painted on the wall of a cave. No bones were ever located. The accounts are sparse, fragmentary, and feverish. You’ll need to forgive the people who left them; they were busy surviving an all-out societal collapse. By Painter’s time, it had been seventeen centuries—and as far as they were concerned, the blackness of the shroud was normal. They’d only survived because of the hion: the lights that drove back the shroud. The energy by which a new society had been forged—or, in the parlance of the locals, painted anew. But this new world required dealing with the nightmares, one way or another. “Another bamboo?” Foreman Sukishi said, sliding the top canvas from Painter’s bag. “Bamboo works,” Painter said. “Why change if it works?” “It’s lazy,” Sukishi replied. Painter shrugged. The small room where he turned in his paintings after his shift was lit by a hanging chandelier. If you touch opposite lines of hion to either side of a piece of metal, you can make it heat up. From there, you’re barely a little sideways skip away from the incandescent bulb. As I said, not everything in the city was teal or magenta—though the hion overhead outside obviated a need for streetlights of any other color. Sukishi marked a tally by Painter’s name in the ledger. There wasn’t a strict quota—everyone knew that encountering nightmares was random, and there were more than enough painters. On average, you’d find one nightmare a night—but sometimes you went days without seeing a single one. They still kept track. Too long without a painting to turn in, and questions would be asked. Now, the more lazy among you might notice a hole in this system. In theory, the rigorous training required to become a painter was supposed to weed out the sort of person who would paint random things without actually encountering any nightmares. But there was a reason Sukishi hesitated and narrowed his eyes at Painter after retrieving the second canvas and revealing a second bamboo painting. “Bamboo works,” Painter repeated. “You need to look at the shape of the nightmare,” Sukishi said. “You need to match your drawing to that, changing the natural form of the nightmare into something innocent, nonthreatening. You should only be drawing bamboo if the nightmares you encounter look like bamboo.” “They did.” Sukishi glared at him, and the old man had an
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impressive glare. Some facial expressions, like miso, require aging to hit their potency. Painter feigned indifference, taking his wages for the day and stepping out onto the street. He slung his bag over his shoulder—with his tools and remaining canvases—and went searching for some dinner. The Noodle Pupil was the sort of corner restaurant where you could make noise. A place where you weren’t afraid to slurp as you sucked down your dinner, where your table’s laughter wasn’t embarrassing because it mixed like paint with that coming from the next one over. Though less busy on the “night” shift than during the “day,” it was somehow loud even when it was quiet. Painter hovered outside the place like a mote of dust in the light, seeking somewhere to land. The younger painters from his class congregated here with the sort of frequency that earned them their own unspoken booths and tables. A double line of hion outlined the broad picture window in the front, glowing, making it appear like a futuristic screen. Those same lines rose like vines above the window, spelling out the name in teal and magenta, with a giant bowl of noodles on top. (Technically, I was a part owner of that noodle shop. What? Renowned interdimensional storytellers can’t invest in a little real estate now and then?) Painter stood on the street, absorbing the laughter like a tree soaking up the light of hion. Eventually he lowered his head and ducked inside, looping his large shoulder bag on one of the prongs of the coatrack without looking. Fifteen other painters occupied the place, congregated around three tables. Akane’s place was in the back, where she was adjusting her hair. Tojin knelt low beside a nearby table, solemnly adjudicating a noodle-eating contest between two other young men. Painter sat at the bar. He was, after all, a solitary defense against the miasma outside the city. A lone warrior. He preferred eating by himself, obviously. He wouldn’t have stopped in, save for his tragic mortality. Even solemn, edgy warriors against darkness needed noodles now and then. The restaurant’s manager flitted over behind the bar, then folded her arms and kind of hunched as she stood, mimicking his pose. Finally he looked up. “Hey, Design,” he said. “Um…can I have the usual?” “Your usual is so usual!” she said. “Do you want to know a secret? If you order something new, I’ll write it down and wrap it up, then put it in your noodles. But I’ll also tell you what it is, because the paper will get soggy in the noodles, and you won’t be able to read it.” “Uh…” Painter said. “The usual. Please?” “Politeness,” she said, pointing at him, “accepted.” Design…did not do a good job acting human. I take no blame, as she repeatedly refused my counsel on the matter. At least her disguise was holding up. People did wonder why the strange noodle-shop woman had long white hair, despite appearing to be in her early twenties. She wore tight dresses, and many of the painters had
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crushes on her. She insisted, you see, that I make her disguise particularly striking. Or, well, I should say it in her words: “Make me pretty so they’ll be extra disturbed if my face ever unravels. And give me voluptuous curves, because they remind me of a graphed cosine. And also because boobs look fun.” It wasn’t an actual body—we all kind of learned our lesson on that—but rather a complicated wireframe Lightweaving with force projections attached directly to her cognitive element as it manifested in the physical realm. But as I was getting pretty good at the technical side of all this, you can pretend it functioned the same as flesh and blood. I’ll admit to some pride regarding the way Painter’s eyes followed Design as she walked over to begin preparing his meal. Granted, he did overdo it—his eyes lingered on her the entire time she worked. Don’t judge him too harshly. He was nineteen, and I’m a uniquely talented artist. Design soon returned with his bowl of noodles, which she set into a circular nook carved into the wood. The hion lines—one connected to either end of the bar—ran heat through the element at the bottom of the bowl to keep the broth warm on chill Kilahito nights. From behind, laughter and chanting picked up as the noodle competition progressed. Painter, in turn, broke his maipon sticks apart and ate slowly, in a dignified way, as befitted one of his imaginary station. “Design,” he said, trying not to slurp too loud. “Is…what I’m doing important?” “Of course it is,” she said, lounging down across the bar from him. “If you all didn’t eat the noodles, I think I’d run out of places to store them.” “No,” he said, waving to his bag where it hung from one arm of the restaurant’s curiously shaped coatrack. “I mean being a nightmare painter. It’s an important job, right?” “Uh, yeah,” Design said. “Obviously. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a place with no nightmare painters. Then the people got eaten. It’s a short story.” “I mean, I know it’s important in general,” Painter said. “But…is what I’m doing important?” Design leaned forward across the bar, and he met her eyes. Which was difficult for him, considering her current posture. That said, you may have heard of her kind. I suggest, if you have the option, that you avoid trying to meet a Cryptic’s gaze. Their features—when undisguised—bend space and time, and have been known to lead to acute bouts of madness in those who try to make sense of them. Then again, who hasn’t wanted to flip off linear continuity now and then, eh? “I see what you’re saying,” she told him. “You do?” he asked. “Yes. Noodles seven percent off tonight. In respect for your brave painting services.” It…wasn’t what he’d been talking about. But he nodded in thanks anyway. Because he was a young person working a vitally important, relatively low-paying job. Seven percent was seven percent. (Design, it should be noted, only gave
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discounts in prime number increments. Because, and I quote, “I have standards.” Still not sure what she meant.) She turned to see to another customer, so Painter continued slurping down the long noodles in the warm, savory broth. The dish was quite good. Best in the city, according to some people, which isn’t that surprising. If there’s one thing you can count on a Cryptic to do, it’s follow a list of instructions with strict precision. Design had little vials of seasoning she added to the broth, each one counted to the exact number of grains of salt. Halfway through the meal, Akane stepped up to the bar, and Painter glanced away. She was gone a moment later, carrying festive drinks to the others. He ate the rest of the noodles in silence. “Rice?” Design asked when she noticed he was almost done. “Yes, please.” She added a scoop to soak up the rest of the broth, and he scarfed it down. “You could go talk to them,” Design said softly, wiping the counter with a rag. “I tried befriending them in school. It didn’t go well.” “People grow up. It’s one of the things that makes them different from rocks. You should—” “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m a loner, Design. You think I care what others think of me?” She cocked her head, squinting with one eye. “Is that a trick question? Because you obviously—” “How much?” he said. “With the discount?” She sighed. “Six.” “Six? A bowl normally costs two hundred kon.” “Ninety-seven percent off,” she said. “Because you need it, Painter. You sure about this? I could go talk to them, tell them that you’re lonely. Why don’t I go do it right now?” He laid a ten-kon coin on the counter, with a quick bow of thanks. Before she could push him further to do something that was probably good for him, he grabbed his bag from among the others hanging on the rack. He’d always found the statue coatrack a strange addition to the restaurant. But it was a quirky place. So why not have a coatrack in the shape of a man with hawkish features and a sly smile? (Unfortunately, I had been quite aware of my surroundings when my ailment first struck. I had screamed inside when Design—thinking me too creepy otherwise—spray-painted me copper. Then, ever practical, she’d added a crown with spikes on it for holding hats, and several large bandoliers with poles on them for holding bags or coats. As I said, I owned the restaurant. Part owner at least. Design ransacked my pockets for the money to build the place. I didn’t run it though. You can’t do that when you’ve been frozen in time. For your information, I have it on good authority that I made an excellent coatrack. I prefer not to think of it as an undignified disposal of my person, but rather as pulling off an incredible disguise.) Painter stepped outside, heart thumping. A passing shower of rain had left puddles and given the street a reflective sheen—lines
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of light hanging above, their reflections ghosts beneath the ground. Painter breathed in, and out, and in again. Having fled from Design’s offers, he found it difficult to maintain the pretense. He knew he wasn’t a loner. He wasn’t some proud knight fighting the darkness for honor’s sake. He wasn’t important, interesting, or even personable. He was just one of likely thousands of unremarkable boys without the courage to do anything notable—and worse, without the skill to go underappreciated. It was an unfair assessment of himself. But he thought it anyway, and found it difficult to stomach. Difficult enough that he wanted to retreat toward his easy lies of self-imposed solitude and noble sacrifice. But a part of him was beginning to find those attitudes silly. Cringeworthy. That left him afraid. Without the illusion, how would he keep going? With a sigh, he started off toward his apartment, his large painter’s bag across his shoulder and resting against his back. At the first intersection though, he spotted a telltale sign: wisps of darkness curling off a brick at the corner. A nightmare had passed this way recently. That wasn’t too surprising. This was the poorer section of town near the perimeter. Nightmares came through here with some regularity. Another painter would find this one eventually; he was off shift. Hands in pockets, absorbed by his personal discontent, Painter walked on past the corner. If he hurried home, he could catch the opening of his favorite drama on the hion viewer. Another light rain blew through the city, playing soft percussion on the street, making the reflected lines dance to the beat. Those dark wisps began to fade from the corner brick, the trail going cold. Two minutes later, Painter reappeared, stepping through a puddle and following after the nightmare instead of returning home—all the while muttering to himself that the first part of the drama was always a recap anyway. All right, let’s talk about me. Uncharacteristically, I don’t want to discuss the topic. This isn’t a bright point in my career, and I would rather the attention be on other less statuesque people for the duration of the narrative. That said, I know it’s going to distract some of you unless I explain at least a tad. What had happened to me? I didn’t know. It’s complicated. I arrived on the planet, and immediately froze in place. Unable to move. Was I aware? Yes, at first. As the months passed, my senses began to dull. I fell into a kind of trance. Unaware, almost asleep. By the time the events of this story took place, Design and I had been in Kilahito for a bit over three years, Roshar time. So, how do I know this story? It started as voices. Dialogue. Lines spoken by Painter, who was near me. Others from Yumi—whose comments were softer, warped, more distant. From there my perception sparked, and I became aware of images, visuals, like they were…well, painted for me. In magenta and teal. Directly into my brain. Sometimes I saw what happened as
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faint representations, just two lines vaguely in the shapes of people. Other times I saw paintings or full-motion images. I seemed to have some control over which it became, depending on my level of attention. To this day, I can’t completely explain why this happened. Something to do with the Connection between us, though the intricacies of how these things interact sometimes baffle even the most astute arcanists. Regardless, I could tell that whatever was happening with Painter and Yumi was tied to what had happened to me—that their story was my story, only without the whole “frozen in place, painted copper, unable to interact with one’s surroundings” part. So kindly keep your attention on them. Because I most certainly wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything interesting, not anytime soon. Yumi awoke on the floor of her wagon, a blanket over her. She had been bathed, dressed in her formal sleeping gown, and placed here. Surrounded by flower petals in a circle, along with a ring of seeds for luck. Starlight cut around her in a square, reaching in through the window to gawk. Sore, still exhausted despite her hours of sleep, Yumi curled up beneath her blanket. They had to be at a halt in their travels. The chill air of night had driven back the worst of the ground’s heat, and her wagon had been lowered so that its stone floor could soak up the remaining warmth. She usually loved this. There was a unique comfort to being able to drape a blanket over her and bake in the floor’s radiance. It was almost like the planet itself was feeding her strength. Yumi huddled there for some time, trying to recover. She knew she should feel pride at her accomplishment, and virtually any other person would have. But she just felt…tired. And guilty over her lack of proper emotions. And more tired, because guilt of that sort is an immense burden. Heavier than the rocks she’d moved earlier. Then she felt ashamed. Because guilt has a great number of friends and keeps their addresses handy for quick summons. Heat seeped up around Yumi, but seemed not to enter her. It cooked her, but she remained raw in the middle. She stayed there until the door opened. You might have heard clogged footsteps approaching first, but Yumi didn’t notice. The figure in the doorway—in the deep of night, that figure was little more than a blot of ink on black paper—waited. Until Yumi looked up at last, realizing she’d been crying. The tears hit the floor and didn’t immediately evaporate. “How did I do today, Liyun?” Yumi finally asked, rising to her knees. “You did your duty,” Liyun replied, her voice soft yet rasping. Like ripping paper. “I…have never heard of a yoki-hijo summoning thirty-seven spirits in one day,” Yumi said, hopeful. It wasn’t her warden’s job to compliment her. But…it would feel good…to hear the words nonetheless. “Yes,” Liyun said. “It will make people question. Were you always capable of this? Were you holding back in other cities, refusing to
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bless them as you did this one?” “I…” “I’m certain it is wisdom in you, Chosen,” Liyun said, “to do as you did. I am certain it is not you working too hard, so that the next town in line gets a much smaller blessing and therefore thinks themselves less worthy also.” Yumi felt sick at the very thought. Her arms dangled at her sides, because moving them was painful. “I will work hard tomorrow.” “I am sure you will.” Liyun paused. “I would hate to think that I trained a yoki-hijo who did not know how to properly pace herself. I would also hate to think that I was such a poor teacher that my student thought it wise to pretend to be of lower potential, in order to have an easier time.” Yumi shrank down farther, wincing at the throbs of pain from muscles in her arms and back. Even in great success, it appeared she did not do enough. “Neither is true, fortunately,” she whispered. “I will tell Gongsha Town,” Liyun said, “that they can look forward to a visit from a strong yoki-hijo tomorrow.” “Thank you.” “May I offer a reminder, Chosen?” Yumi glanced up, and from where she knelt, the perspective made Liyun seem ten feet tall. A silhouette against the night; a cutout with blank space in the middle. “Yes,” Yumi said. “Please.” “You must remember,” Liyun said, “that you are a resource to the land. Like the water of the steamwell. Like the plants, the sunlight, and the spirits. If you do not take care of yourself, you will squander the great position and opportunity you have been given.” “Thank you,” Yumi whispered. “Sleep now, if it pleases you. Chosen.” It takes real talent to use an honorific as an insult. I’ll give Liyun that much; it’s professional courtesy, from one hideous bastard to another. Liyun turned to leave, then hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at Yumi. “I feel like…” she said, with an odd haunted cast to her voice, “this will happen again. Unless I do something. I am failing as your warden. Perhaps…I will seek advice. There must be something I can do.” She shut the door with a click, and Yumi lowered her eyes. She didn’t go back to sleep. She felt too much. Not just pain, not just shame. Other, rebellious things. Numbness. Frustration. Even…anger. She hauled herself to her feet and walked across the warm stone floor of the wagon to the window. Since her wagon hadn’t left yet, the next town must be close; otherwise they’d be on their way. From here she could see a starlit collection of hundreds of individual plants that had lowered from the sky as the thermals cooled. They spun and drifted lazily near the stone, their gas pockets—one under each of four broad leaves per plant—slowly reinflating, the stalks supporting clusters of seeds growing on top. Scadrians would have called it rice, a type of grain that is smaller and thinner than the ones you eat on Roshar. It wasn’t exactly rice. The
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local word was “mingo.” But it boiled up nearly the same except for the deep blue-purple color, so I’ll use the more familiar word. As Yumi watched, some dozen rice plants caught a rogue night thermal and jetted into the air, then drifted lazily back down. Small creatures scurried underneath looking for something to nibble on while avoiding serpents. Both prey and hunter slept in trees during the heat. If they were fortunate—or unfortunate, depending on the perspective—they picked different trees. A gust across the field made the plants shiver and sway to one side, but night farmers moved along, waving large fans to keep the crops contained. Somewhere distant in the town, a giant crow cawed. (They aren’t as big as everyone says; I’ve never seen one the size of a full-grown man. More like the size of a seven- or eight-year-old.) A village corvider soon hushed the animal with soothing words. Yumi wished she had someone to comfort her. Instead she rested aching arms on the windowsill and stared out at the placid crops as they turned lazily, occasionally jetting into the air. A tree leashed to the side of the wagon quivered in the breeze, its branches casting lines of shadow across Yumi’s face. She could maybe just…crawl out of the window and start walking. No night farmer would stop a yoki-hijo. She should have felt ashamed at the thought, but she was full up with shame at the moment. A cup filled to the top can’t hold anything more. It spills out over the rim, then boils onto the floor. She wouldn’t leave, but that night she wished she could. Wished she could escape the prison of her ceremonial nightgown. She wasn’t allowed to sleep as a normal person. She had to be reminded even by her undergarments of what she was. Chosen at birth. Blessed at birth. Imprisoned at birth. I… a voice said in her mind. I understand… Yumi started, spinning around. Then she felt it. A…a spirit. Her soul vibrated with its presence, a powerful one. Bound… it said. You are bound… Spirits understood her thoughts. That was part of her blessing. But they very, very rarely responded to anything a yoki-hijo thought. She’d heard of it happening only in stories. I am blessed, she thought toward it, bowing her head, suddenly feeling extremely foolish. How had she let her fatigue drive her to such insane contemplations? She would anger the spirits. Suddenly she had a terrible premonition: The spirits refusing to be drawn to her performances. Villages going without light, without food, because of her. How could she reject—? No… the spirit thought. You are trapped. And we…we are trapped…like you… Yumi frowned, turning back to the window. Something was different about this voice. This spirit. It seemed…so very tired. And it was distant? Barely able to reach her? She looked up to the sparkling sky—and the bright daystar, stronger than them all. Was…the spirit…talking to her from there? You worked so hard today, the spirit said. Can we give you something? A gift?
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Yumi’s breath caught. She’d read that story. Most cultures have something similar. Some are terrible, but this wasn’t one of those places. Here the boons of spirits were always associated with wondrous adventure. She shouldn’t want adventure though. She hesitated. Teetered, like a stone unbalanced. Then, in what was the most difficult moment of her life, she lowered her eyes. You have already blessed me, she said. With the greatest gift a mortal can have. I accept my burden. It is for the best of my people. Forgive my idle thoughts earlier. As you wish… the distant spirit said. Then…could you give…us a boon? Yumi looked up. That…never happened in the stories. How? she asked. We are bound. Trapped. She glanced toward the corner of the room, where a spirit light—the spheres touching to turn the light off for sleep—lay on a counter. It was identical to those she’d made earlier today. One light sphere, one dark. Trapped? No, the spirit thought. That is not our prison… We…have a more terrible…existence. Can you free us? Will you…try? There is one who can help you. Spirits in trouble? She didn’t know what she could do, but it was her duty to see them cared for. Her life was to serve. She was the yoki-hijo. The girl of commanding primal spirits. Yes, she said, bowing her head again. Tell me what you need, and I will do whatever I can. Please, it said. Free. Us. All went black. Painter wound through the next set of streets, tracking the nightmare as the rain tapped him on the head. The trail was difficult to follow; the dark wisps seemed to vanish in the haze. He backtracked twice as the streets grew narrower, winding through the huddled tenements of the city’s outer rings. The hion lines overhead here were as thin as twine, barely giving him enough light to see by. It got so bad that he eventually decided he’d lost the trail and turned to go home, passing a slit of a window he’d neglected to glance through earlier. He checked it this time and found the nightmare inside, crouched at the head of a bed. The room was lit by a faint line of teal hion tracing the ceiling, making shadows of the room’s meager furniture and frameless mattress, which held three figures: parents the nightmare had ignored, and a child who made for more…tender prey. The little boy was perhaps four. He huddled on his side, eyes squeezed shut, holding to a worn pillow that had eyes sewn on it—a poorer family’s approximation of a stuffed toy. Treasured regardless. The nightmare was tall enough that it had to bend over, or its head would have hit the ceiling. A sinuous, boneless neck. A body with lupine features, legs that bent the wrong way, a face with a snout. With a sense of dread, Painter realized why this one had been so difficult to track. Virtually no smoke rose from its body. Most telling, it had eyes. Bone white as if drawn in chalk, but
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as deep as sockets in a skull. This nightmare barely dripped darkness from its face. It was almost fully stable. No longer formless. No longer aimless. No longer harmless. This thing must have been incredibly crafty to have escaped notice during so many trips to the city. It took around ten feedings for a nightmare to coalesce to this level. Only a few more, and it would be fully solid. Painter stepped backward, trembling. It already had substance. Things like this could…could slaughter hundreds. The entire city of Futinoro had been destroyed by stable nightmares only thirty years earlier. This was above his pay grade. Quite literally. There was an entire specialized division of painters tasked with stopping stable nightmares. They traveled the land, going to towns where one was spotted. The sound of a small sniffle broke through Painter’s panic. He ripped his eyes from the nightmare to look at the bed, where the child—trembling—had squeezed his eyes closed even tighter. The child was awake. At this stage, the nightmare could feed on conscious terror as easily as it did the formless fear of a dream. It ran clawed fingers across the child’s cheek, trailing streaks of blood from split skin. The gesture was almost tender. And why shouldn’t it be? The child had given the thing shape and substance, ripped directly out of his deepest fears. Now, the story thus far might have given you an unflattering picture of Painter. And yes, much of that picture is justified. Many of his problems in life were his own fault—and rather than trying to fix them, he alternated between comfortable self-delusion and pointless self-pity. But you should also know that right then—before the nightmare saw him—he could have easily slipped away into the night. He could have reported this to the foreman, who would have sent for the Dreamwatch. Most painters would have done just that. Instead, our painter reached for his supplies. Too much noise. Too much noise! he thought as he slapped his bag onto the pavement and scrambled for a canvas. He couldn’t wake the parents. If anyone started screaming, the stable nightmare would attack and people would die. Calm. Calm. Don’t feed it. His training barely held as, trembling, he spilled out canvas, brush, and paints. He glanced up. And found the thing at the window, long neck stretching out toward him, knife-fingers scraping the wall inside the room. Two white eyeholes seemed to suck him into them, pull him through to some other eternity. Before this day, he’d never seen a nightmare with anything resembling a face, but this one smiled with bone-white lupine teeth. Painter’s fingers slipped on the ink jar, and it struck the ground before him with a clink, spilling. He struggled to keep his calm as he fumbled for the jar, then frantically decided to simply dip his brush into the ink puddle. The nightmare stretched forward…but then caught. It wasn’t used to having so much substance, and had trouble pulling itself through the wall. Its claws proved particularly difficult. The delay, though
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brief, probably saved Painter’s life, as he managed to get his umbrella out and open to shelter his canvas so he could begin. He started with bamboo, naturally. A…a blob at the bottom, then…then the straight line upward with a swipe. Just the briefest pause then to make the next knob… Like clockwork. He’d done this a hundred times. He looked toward the nightmare, which slowly slid one hand out through the wall—leaving gouges in the stone. Its smile broadened. Painter’s mind, in his current state, was most certainly not beneath its notice. And bamboo was not going to be enough this time. Painter tossed aside his canvas and pulled the last one from his bag. Nails ground stone as the thing pulled its other hand through the wall. Rainwater connected with its head, running down the sides of its grinning face: crystalline tears to accompany the midnight ones. Painter began painting. There’s a certain insanity that defines artists. The willful ability to ignore what exists. Millennia of evolution have produced in us not merely the ability to recognize and register light, but to define colors, shapes, objects. We don’t often acknowledge how amazing it is that we can tell what something is simply by letting some photons bounce off us. An artist can’t see this way. An artist has to be able to look at a rock and say, “That’s not stone. That’s a head. At least it will be, once I pound on it with this hammer for a while.” Painter couldn’t see just a nightmare. He had to see what it could be, what it might have been, if it hadn’t been produced by terror. In that moment he saw the child’s mother. Though he’d barely glimpsed her face in the bedroom next to her son, he recreated her. Turn something terrible into something normal. Something loved. He’d been warned that painting the nightmares as people was dangerous, because a person could still hurt you. But tonight it felt right. Even with a few brief strokes, he evoked the shape of her face. Stark eyebrows. Thin lips, faint brushstrokes of ink. The curve of cheeks. For the briefest moment, something returned to him. Something he’d lost in the monotony of a hundred paintings of bamboo. Something beautiful. Or if you were a nearly stabilized nightmare, something terrible. It fled. An event so incongruous that Painter slipped on his next brush stroke. He looked up and barely caught sight of the thing running away through the alley. It could have attacked, but it wasn’t quite stable yet. So it chose to flee rather than risk letting him bind it into a passive, harmless shape. In seconds, it was gone. He breathed out and let the paintbrush drop from his fingers. He was relieved, on one hand. Worried on the other. If it knew to escape…it was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. He had basically no idea how to deal with something like that—and doubted his skill would have been enough to defeat it. Only the most talented painters could bring down a
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stable nightmare, and he’d learned—painfully—that wasn’t him. Fortunately, he’d done enough to frighten it away. Now he could go and tell his superiors about the encounter, and they’d send for the Dreamwatch. They could hunt it before it finished its last few feedings, and the city would be safe. He left the canvas on the ground beside the umbrella and stepped up to the wall, wrapping his arms around himself to try to force some warmth into his core. Inside the room, the child had opened his eyes and was staring out the window at him. Painter smiled and nodded. The kid immediately started screaming. That was a more violent reaction than Painter had been expecting, but it had the desired result: a pair of terrified parents comforting the boy, followed by a hesitant father in shorts opening the tiny window. He regarded the supplies on the ground—paintings slowly losing their ink to the rain—and the wet young man standing in the alleyway. “…Painter?” he asked. “Was it…” “A nightmare,” Painter said, feeling numb. “Feeding off your son’s dreams.” The man backed away from the window, eyes wide. He searched the room, as if to find something hiding in the corners. “I frightened it away,” Painter said. “But…this was a strong one. Do you have family in another city?” “My parents,” the man said. “In Fuhima.” “Go there,” Painter said, speaking words he’d been taught to say in such a situation. “Nightmares can’t track a person that far—your son will be safe until we can deal with the horror. There is a fund available to help you during this time. Once I register what happened, you’ll be able to access it.” The man looked at the child huddled in his mother’s arms, weeping. Then at Painter—who knew what would come next. Demands, asking why he’d let the thing escape. Why he hadn’t been strong enough, good enough, practiced enough to capture the thing. Instead the man dropped to his knees, bowing his head. “Thank you,” he whispered. He looked back up at Painter, tears in his eyes. “Thank you.” Huh. Painter blinked, stammered a second. Then found his words. “Think nothing of it, citizen,” he said. “Just a man doing his job.” Then, with as much decorum as he could manage in the rain—and with hands still trembling from the stress—he gathered up his things. By the time he finished, the family was already packing their meager possessions. You’d forgive Painter for walking a little swiftly, often checking over his shoulder, as he wound through the narrows. He had the feeling of one who had nearly been crushed by a falling piece of stone. A part of him couldn’t believe he had escaped with his life. He breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out onto a larger road and saw other people—the regular foot traffic of the morning shift. The star was low in the sky, barely visible over the horizon at the end of the street. He looked toward the foreman’s offices, but suddenly found himself unnaturally tired. His
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feet like clay, mushy, his head a boulder. He teetered. He needed…sleep. The nightmare would not return to the city tonight. It would run to the shroud, regenerate, then slink in the following…night. He could tell the foreman…when he woke… Sluggish, his mind a haze, he turned toward home, which was fortunately nearby. He barely registered arriving, climbing the stairs, and walking to his apartment. It took him four tries to get the key in, but once he stumbled into his room and threw on his pajamas, he paused. Dared he sleep? The family…needed his report…for the funds… What was happening to him? Why did he suddenly feel like he’d been drained of strength? Abruptly gasping for breath, he flung open his window for fresh air, leaning out. Then he heard something odd. A rushing sound? Like…water? He looked up toward the star. Something came from the sky and struck him. Hard. All went black. Painter blinked. He was hot. Uncomfortably hot, and something was shining in his face. A garish light, like from the front of a hion-line bus. He blinked his eyes open and was immediately blinded by that terrible overpowering light. What was (lowly) going on? He’d hit his head perhaps? He forced his eyes open against the light and pushed himself with effort to a sitting position. He was wearing…bright cloth? Yes, some sort of bulky formal nightdress made of bright red-and-blue cloth. Beside him lay a young woman. You’d recognize her as Yumi. She opened her eyes. Then screamed. Painter bolted to his feet. He was in a small room with a stone floor, wooden walls, and no furniture. That impossibly bright light—flooding in through the room’s single window—washed everything out, making it difficult to see. He raised his hand against the bizarre red-orange glare. That was a color that light should never be. To him, seeing it was like seeing someone spill the wrong color of blood. Plus, that girl. How had he ended up lying next to her? She scrambled to her knees and grabbed at her blanket. Her hands went straight through it as if she weren’t there. Right. Okay. This was…a dream, maybe? Painter knew dreams. His classes—which he’d mostly paid attention to while secretly drawing in his notebook—had covered their nature in detail. This didn’t feel at all like a dream, but he knew you couldn’t trust yourself while in one. He needed to find some writing. According to his classes, that was one possible way to prove he was dreaming—you usually couldn’t read in a dream. “Attendants!” the girl shouted. “Attendants!” She continued scrabbling at the blanket, but it kept passing through her fingers. As if… Oh no. Was she a nightmare? Paper. He needed paper. Still shading his eyes against the garish light from the window, he did another scan of the room—but this place was completely empty. Who lived in a room with no dressers, no futon, not even a table? Wait. Book over there, on a shelf. He snatched it and flipped through the pages. Looked like a
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bunch of prayers? He could read them without trouble. The girl fell silent as her cries for help fortunately brought no response. If she was a nightmare, she…well, she defied his knowledge. One that was fully stable like she was should have been physical. She also shouldn’t have had color, or the shape of a girl, but should have taken the form of something twisted and imaginary. Unless she was beyond stable. There were stories of the last days of some of the cities that had been attacked, of solid nightmares that had begun to change color, more like flesh tones… But no, this girl wasn’t crazed, lashing out in a maddened frenzy, trying to kill. She couldn’t be a nightmare. He glanced back at the book. He could read it. That wasn’t sure proof, and yet…well, he knew dreams. He knew nightmares. He wasn’t dreaming. Time was linear. Causality was in effect. He could read, feel, and—most importantly—consider whether this was a dream without feeling a disconnect. Somehow, this was real. The girl, who was wearing a nightdress identical to what he had on, frantically clawed for her blankets. Painter didn’t know how to respond. He’d never woken next to an incorporeal girl before. While that’s far more pleasant than some of the things I’ve woken up in bed with, it can still be rather disorienting. “You wear my clothing…” the girl whispered. “You…you’re not an intruder, are you? You’re the spirit I talked to. You’ve taken shape?” Painter wasn’t certain what she was talking about, but—on account of it being better than being screamed at—he decided to play things cool. “Cool” in this case meant pretending that he knew what was going on. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Then he folded his arms and gave her his best confident “I am a dark and mysterious warrior” look. She bowed her head. “You are the powerful spirit. Please forgive me for my attitude earlier. I was surprised, confused. I did not mean offense.” Wait. That had worked? Wow. What next? Well, if someone thought he was cool, then he shouldn’t undermine or contradict that. It felt like a good rule to live by. Even if this was his first real chance to experiment with it. “Where am I?” he said. “You are in my wagon,” the girl said. “The wagon of a yoki-hijo. I am Yumi, and this is my chamber.” “And…where is your furniture?” “I need no furniture,” she said, “as my sole purpose is to serve and to contemplate your greatness.” That…felt like it went too far. He shuffled uncomfortably, then considered that maybe he could see where he was by checking out that window. He’d been deliberately avoiding that too-powerful red-orange light. This entire experience was impossible, but that light…it was incomprehensible. How could anything so bright exist? With trepidation, Painter approached the window, though part of him was certain the light would burn him. It seemed so much more…well, just more than the twin hion lines. It was like the very
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essence of flame. He put his toe into it, cringing—but nothing happened. He stepped fully into it and felt like he’d slipped into a warm bath. How strange. Blinking against the brightness, he raised his hand to shade his eyes and looked out. I wouldn’t call that a mistake, not really. But like a ten-year-old asking for the explanation of where babies came from, he did not know what he was getting himself into. Painter gazed up into a sky that was not dark. Instead it was a washed-out blue extending into infinity, dominated by an enormous ball of light. Like a huge light bulb in the sky except not soft and white, but angry and red-orange. As if that weren’t enough, plants dotted the sky. Big bunches of them, tended by great black crows that fanned them toward each other if they strayed. Flying objects buzzed around, organizing the crows and chasing away undomesticated birds. The land went on forever, brown stone occasionally sprinkled with hovering flowers. It was a lot to take in. More than he could manage. He didn’t even notice, for example, that Yumi’s wagon was floating in the air. What he did notice overwhelmed his remaining skepticism like a group of thirsty customers shoving open the door to the bar right before opening. This was real. But it wasn’t any place he knew about, or any place he’d read about. It wasn’t like his home at all. It was like…another planet? “The star,” he said, pointing at a gleam on the horizon. “The daystar, spirit?” Yumi asked from behind. “The news report said that people live on the star! That it’s another world, like ours. I remember…a nightmare coming down from the sky, engulfing me…” It had taken him to this place, perhaps? Then was that his home, up in the sky, visible from this position? “Powerful spirit,” Yumi said from where she knelt. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, but please. Could I know what you’ve done to me? And…how long you intend it to continue? That I might know your will, and properly worship it.” Yeah…acting cool was one thing. Making a young woman think he was some powerful divinity was another. “Look,” he said. “I’m, uh, not—” He was interrupted as a knock came at the door. Yumi raised her head in a panic, then glanced at Painter. “Please, spirit,” she said, “restore me. Please.” The door opened and two women entered. One was short and squat, in her twenties, the other in her thirties and more willowy. They were dressed in similarly strange, too-wide dresses, their hair up in buns. Painter felt a bit of Yumi’s same panic. She might assume he was some kind of important spirit, but surely these older people would respond differently. What was the punishment in this land for being caught invading a young woman’s bedchamber? The only thing he could think to do was fold his arms again in a confident posture. He thought it was impressive. It might have been—if you were a four-year-old wanting tips
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on how to pout. The two women, however, walked straight through Yumi as if they couldn’t see her. They carried a small table, for sitting on the floor while eating, and a bowl of rice. They approached Painter and knelt, bowing. He eyed Yumi, who stood up, her long hair snarled from sleep. She cocked her head, then walked forward and waved her hand in front of the women. “Chaeyung?” Yumi asked. “Hwanji? Can you hear me?” The two gave no response. They remained kneeling, though one looked up at Painter. “Chosen?” she asked. “Are…are you well?” Yumi gasped, her eyes widening. “Spirit…you’ve taken my shape?” Had he? Wait, no. He wasn’t a spirit. He had no (lowly) idea what was happening. (As a reminder, Yumi’s and Painter’s languages have this curious feature that makes narratives rather hard on a storyteller speaking to a crowd of people without high or low variations in their boring languages. Conveying this can be awkward, but I’m doing my best. You’re welcome.) Anyway, while Painter was confused, he was also hungry. And these women appeared to be waiting for him to eat. He decided that the confident thing to do—the way of the solitary warrior—was to get some sustenance so that he could continue being mysterious without his stomach growling. So he settled down and took the bowl of rice from the hands of one of the women. “Thanks,” he said, taking the maipon sticks from another. He started eating. “You have anything to go with this?” The two women gasped. “Why, spirit?” Yumi begged. “Why have you taken my form? You…cast me out? I am only a soul, and you have my body? But why can I see you in the shape of a young man?” She knelt before him, in line with the others. “Please. I don’t understand. Please. Tell me your will.” He hesitantly stopped, the mouthful of rice half-chewed. One of the women reached for the bowl and he shied back, then took another bite, judging their reaction. Horror? “Is it…poisoned or something?” he said. “Not that I mind. I am strong enough to stomach any poison, of course.” The two women fled, abandoning the table and other dining implements. They left the door swinging—spilling in more garish light—and ran off, their feet clopping on the stone ground. Were they…wearing wooden shoes? Yumi watched him with tears in her eyes. Then remarkably, subtly, her expression shifted. Drooping lips went taut. Teeth clenched. Her muscles tensed. “That’s it,” she said (lowly). “I’m done!” It’s a common mistake to assume that someone is weak because they are accommodating. If you think this, you might be the type who has no idea how much effort—how much strength—it takes to put up with your nonsense. Yumi wasn’t weak. She wasn’t a pushover. Don’t assume fragility where you should see patience. Beyond that, she did have her limits. They had just been reached. “I’ve served you all my life!” Yumi said, standing tall. “I’ve given everything to you!” The spirit blinked. And, well, Yumi hadn’t intended to
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make an outburst. I think that is rather part of the definition. The words simply gushed out. “I made a mistake!” she said. “I somehow worked too hard yesterday. Is that why you decided to rise? Why you demanded my help, then took my shape? Is that what this is? Punishment? You’re here to embarrass me! You know how someone like me is to act. You decreed it! So the sole reason you’d grab that bowl and start eating is to humiliate me!” Yumi finished, sucking in deep gasps, filled with a remarkable species of anger. She’d never let herself act like this before. One might have assumed it to be refreshing, but for her, it was more…inevitable. You dropped a brick and it fell. You dropped a flower and it floated. You pushed a person too far and…well, they exploded. Like a steamwell. The pressure had to go somewhere. She squeezed her eyes shut, hands making fists, and braced herself. She wasn’t certain what happened when you defied the spirits in such a terrible, insolent way. There were all kinds of implications of course, but few explicit answers. An ordinary person could have escaped with only some bad luck, but she was a yoki-hijo. She expected to be ripped to pieces. Perhaps to be compressed to the size of a marble. Maybe she’d be fortunate and the spirit would merely curse her to spit lizards when she tried to talk. But she couldn’t have stopped the outburst. She was exhausted, sore, overwhelmed. She waited. An uncomfortably long time. Then finally, the spirit spoke. “Let’s pretend,” it said, “that I’m not a spirit like you think I am. How bad would that be?” Yumi cracked one eye. He sat there, a piece of rice sticking to his cheek. As soon as he noticed she’d opened her eye, he puffed up a little, sitting straighter, and made a strange face. As if…nauseated? She couldn’t read it. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I wish that I did,” he said. “But I’m not a spirit. I’m a person. Granted, a mysterious one.” “Mysterious?” “Incredibly,” he said. “Look, I don’t know what this place is or why I’m here. But I think…I might be from another planet.” He winced when he said it. “Does that sound crazy?” She cocked her head. “That star in the sky?” he said, standing up and pointing at the window. “The one you called the daystar? I’m from there. Maybe. It’s my best theory.” “You’re…human?” “A hundred percent.” “Born from a mother?” He nodded. “You eat? You sleep? You…deposit the spirits’ gifts back into the ecosystem to be reused?” “Excuse me?” he said. Yumi was barely listening. Was it possible she’d gotten this wrong? Well, of course. She was, as has been established, exhausted, sore, overwhelmed. Not the best state of mind for logical thought. She reflected on what had happened the night before: The spirit talking to her, saying it was trapped. Asking her to free it. It hadn’t sounded angry at her weakness. It had said, There is one
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who can help you. “They sent you,” Yumi whispered. “They sent you to help me! The spirits are in danger. There are stories like this—great heroes tasked with quests by the spirits.” Her eyes widened. “They needed a boon from me. They needed my body? I couldn’t do what they needed, so they’ve put you in my place… Tell me, are you a great warrior among your kind? The people of the daystar?” He considered a moment. Longer than she’d have predicted. He was humble, evidently. Finally he nodded. “Yes. I’m among the greatest.” Her state made some sense then. The spirits had no substance until she called them. It stood to reason that in taking her form for this hero, they had given her a form as insubstantial as a spirit herself. She could feel her nightdress, but nothing else. Even the floor beneath her feet seemed to have no substance. She wasn’t certain how she walked or moved on it. “My attendants will return soon, hopefully,” Yumi said. “Tell them what has happened.” She reached out absently to take his hand in supplication. “They will know how to help. Please, we must…” She trailed off as her hand touched his. She felt an immediate shiver, like when she stepped into cool water—but heat followed. Warmth flooded her, moving up her fingers in a rush, accompanied by an almost electric tingling. It surged through her, overwhelming her, driving away all other thoughts, feelings, and sensations. When she’d touched the blanket, she’d felt nothing. Not even a tingling as her fingers passed through. The same when her attendants had walked through her. But this other effect was completely unexpected. She let go and jumped back, sucking in a breath, sweat prickling on her brow. He gaped at his hand, and his posture made it obvious he’d felt it too. A connection between her spirit and her body, perhaps? She found it difficult to speak for a moment, gasping for air—though without a body, that metaphor didn’t quite work. But when she looked at him, she felt like she was blushing all the way from her toes to the roots of her hair. All right, she thought. Maybe don’t touch him. It is…distracting. “That was crazy,” he said. “Touching you was like touching a raw hion line…” She backed away, embarrassed. “Maybe,” she said, “I could go see what’s happening in the town? It’s possible that in my current state, I might be able to communicate with the spirits.” “Sure. Um, I mean…a valiant suggestion.” She nodded and hesitantly stepped out of the wagon. She had slept barefoot and was worried about not having clogs, but her feet didn’t feel the ground’s heat. Only a yard past the door, however, she felt a sudden pulling sensation. She was unable to move any farther, as if she was tethered to him. She backed up, then tried running to escape the pull—but when she hit the edge of it she was yanked backward, as if on an elastic rope. She spun and stumbled into the
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wagon. He stepped forward as if to catch her, and her chest brushed against his. That warmth flooded her again, radiating deep into her core. With a yelp, she managed to leap away, then fell to the floor. Having no body, it didn’t hurt, but her blush was hotter this time. Celibacy was a fact of a yoki-hijo’s life, naturally. And she was very much in control of that aspect of her emotions. Absolutely in control. Yes indeed. She was rescued from her embarrassment as a severe figure stepped up to the door of her wagon, which was still swinging open. Liyun wore yellow on black today, as was the ritual for the fourth day of the month. As usual, she didn’t appear angry. One did not speak in anger to a yoki-hijo. Besides, Liyun was expert at expressing emotions without speaking them. “I hear, Chosen,” she said, leaving her clogs and swooping up onto the floor of the wagon, “that you have, in your wisdom, decided to violate ritual today.” She walked past Yumi, in a heap on the floor. “Oh,” the hero said. “Right. So, I’m supposed to tell you that I’m not who you think I am. I’m a hero, er, that the spirits brought? Look, my home is on that star out there, a place where the light is normal? Teal and magenta? Not…whatever is out there.” Yumi crawled on her knees to Liyun, then stumbled to her feet and nodded eagerly. Surely the warden would know how to approach this. Surely she could help the two of them understand what the spirits wanted. “You realize,” Liyun said softly, “that a Chosen must continue to serve, even through personal difficulties.” “Sure?” the hero said. “I guess?” “If a Chosen,” Liyun continued, “were to try to escape her duties through fabricated nonsense…why, it would only make life harder for her. And for everyone. The guilt of such lies would eventually tear her apart within.” Liyun bowed her head, as if in subservience. “Chosen. I apologize for my boldness in explaining to you that which you already know quite well.” Yumi sank back to her knees, a sick lump in her throat. That was…that was exactly what she should have expected from Liyun. If she’d been less out of sorts, she would have realized that sooner. “I see,” the hero said. He thought a moment, then he…posed? With arms folded? Did he think that looked dramatic when he was wearing a nightgown? “I don’t think you are taking me seriously enough. I—” “Please,” Yumi said, interrupting. “Please, hero. My previous plan was flawed. Just…just go along with what she is saying.” He frowned, glancing at Yumi. “Liyun,” Yumi said, “will never believe that I, of all yoki-hijo, was blessed in this way by the spirits. Just…for now, could you do as I say?” “Who is she?” he asked. “My head servant.” He seemed skeptical about that. Liyun, who had only heard his part of that conversation, opened her mouth to offer another passive-aggressive piece of “advice.” Yumi spoke first. “Tell
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her this: ‘I am sorry, Warden-nimi. I felt remnants of a dream, and was speaking according to them. By overtaxing myself yesterday, I’ve left myself weakened, as your wise counsel indicated. Forgive my indiscretions.’ ” He reluctantly repeated the words, cutting Liyun off. The warden fell silent, studying him. “Kneel,” Yumi whispered. “Please? And bow your head? I know it’s not very heroic, but…” He obeyed, doing as she asked. “Then shall I order the rituals to continue?” Liyun said. “Without interruption? It is, of course, your prerogative, Chosen.” The hero glanced at Yumi, as if to ask whether she actually had a choice. Which she didn’t. “I will continue the rituals,” she said, and the hero repeated it. “Please send the attendants back. And apologize to Hwanji that I addressed her directly.” Liyun accepted this, and turned and slipped out, her clogged feet clomping on the stone as she went to search for Hwanji and Chaeyung. Yumi pulled her hands to her breast and bowed her head, trying to still her racing heart. She always felt so tense when Liyun was serving her. More so now. The woman was already convinced that Yumi was trying to dodge her responsibilities…and with good reason. Yumi was, she knew, a poor representative of the Chosen. But the spirits had come to her for help. They had sent a hero. That meant something, didn’t it? “I don’t get it,” the hero said. “She’s your servant?” “Everyone serves me,” Yumi said softly, “so that I may serve the world. It is my honor and duty to call the spirits, and bind them to the service of the people of Torio. As such, the people are…deeply invested in freeing me from worldly concerns, so I may focus solely on my important obligations.” “It’s not just the sky that’s weird here, then?” he said. “It’s the (lowly) people too?” “I must say,” Yumi told him, bowing further, “that you are taking this well, hero. Many would insist this is nothing but a dream. Your adventures in your land must have been great and interesting for this experience to be mundane to you.” “I wouldn’t call it mundane,” he replied. “I just…have experience with dreams. My name is Painter, by the way.” “Painter,” she said, mouthing the word. “It means ‘one who paints’ in our language. That is interesting.” “I…I think I said it that way, in your language. Which I appear to be able to speak and read. Anyway, it’s more a title than a name.” He thought a moment. “So…I’m going to have to pretend to be you? At least until we get this all sorted out?” “Yes,” she said. “If we can make it through the early part of the day, we should be able to approach the spirits and find out from them what we are to do. Perhaps…perhaps then we will know how to explain this to Liyun?” That didn’t seem likely to Yumi, but the hero—Painter—didn’t know enough to object. Instead he scratched his head. She found it odd, naturally, that the spirits
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had sent a youth of her own age as the hero. Perhaps their ages had to match for the transfer to occur. And likely a hero this young was more incredible, to have accomplished so much in only two decades of life. “Those other women were offended,” he said, “when I took the food. Was it for them to eat, then?” “They must feed you,” Yumi said. “What? Like a baby?” “You must be free,” she explained, “of all worldly concerns. Others will do everything for you that you need.” “That…sounds extremely patronizing,” he said. “Maybe even humiliating.” She blushed. Well, as she considered it, perhaps to an outsider it would give that impression. Never to her, of course. Despite his reservations, Painter didn’t object when the attendants returned and set out their things. They’d prepared a new bowl of rice, and—with Yumi’s coaching—he did the appropriate ritual moves, letting them feed him bite by bite. Liyun haunted the doorway, though she normally wouldn’t come to Yumi until after morning prayers. As the meal progressed, Yumi managed to calm herself. Painter took direction well. She would have expected a hero to be more arrogant, but he did as she asked. By the end of the meal, Yumi was feeling far more composed and confident. They could manage this. They could approach the spirits, and receive direction. All they needed to do now was… Was… Oh. Oh no. The attendants rose and fetched their fans. Liyun gestured for Painter to stand and leave. “Okay,” he whispered to Yumi as she stood up with him. “I think I’m getting the hang of this. What’s next?” “Next,” she said, “we need to take our ritual bath.” “Ritual bath?” Painter said, thoughtful. That sounded nice. This place was much hotter than back home. A little refreshment would be welcome. “I suppose I could use a bath. It won’t be too hot, will it?” “The ritual bath is in the town’s cool spring,” Yumi explained. “Each day I work in a new town, so I do not know the layout—but the spring should be upon high ground. While you are here, it will be reserved exclusively for you, hero.” That did sound nice, particularly following what he’d been through. How could a simple meal be so taxing? Unfortunately, his conscience was working on him. Painter had gotten himself into some trouble with issues like this—expectations from others, warranted or not—in the past. While thinking of those days brought pain, he’d sworn he would never get into that kind of trouble again. Nonetheless, here he was. As the two attendants were out of the room, he found himself standing and staring at the strange ghostly girl with long hair. And words came out. “You asked if I’m a great warrior,” he said. “Are you needing me to fight something, then?” “I don’t think it will require that,” she said. “I don’t know, honestly. The spirits will need to be formed, and then asked. They said they’re trapped somehow; perhaps you can rescue them?” “By forming them?” he said,
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relaxing a little. “Does this require painting?” “Painting?” she said, cocking her head. “We call them. Through art.” Through art. Right. Okay. That he could do. Maybe even something other than bamboo. Was it true—had he been summoned to an entirely different world simply to…to paint? He should probably make sure, he thought. He looked to the girl to explain more, but… She was just so hopeful. Emotions flowed inside him like blood from wounds, warm and sharp. How long had it been since he’d felt needed, wanted? He didn’t mean to lie. He wasn’t really lying, was he? Her spirits had chosen him, brought him here, perhaps to paint them. In that moment, he wanted so badly to be the hero someone needed. To have a chance to make up for the mistakes of his past. To become something. It wasn’t arrogance, as some of you might assume. It was more desperation. Deep down, Painter saw himself as a ruined canvas—the painting spoiled by spilled ink, then tossed into the trash. This was his chance to spread himself out and start a new drawing on the back. He seized that opportunity like a ravenous man at his first bowl of rice in days. “Lead on,” he said, dropping his mysterious loner affectations and speaking with a heartfelt passion. “I’ll do it. Whatever it is you need, I promise, I’ll do it.” Yumi gestured to the doors. The attendants and that awful woman—Liyun, Yumi had called her—had gone that way. He leaned out of the doorway and looked around, hoping he’d be able to walk this part rather than being carried or something. Curiously the building—indeed a wagon as Yumi had said—appeared to be floating. That was…odd. But not much more than— He stepped on the ground. Barefoot. Painter yelped and leaped back onto the wooden steps, shaking the wagon-room. The ground was hot. Extremely hot; like as hot as a stove. For the first time, he looked specifically at the clogs everyone was wearing. Liyun and the attendants, in turn, stared at him with horrified expressions. It was the same sort of expression you might have given a person who sat down to dinner, then started eating the plate. “What is wrong, hero?” Yumi asked. “I recognize you are mighty and strong, but there is no reason you need to walk without shoes.” She frowned, glancing down at his bare feet. “This place is…” He trailed off, not wanting to spoil the illusion for Liyun and the attendants. Finally, he took a deep breath and slipped on the pair of clogs by the door. It seemed he hadn’t burned himself too badly, as the pain was fading, but he was still timid as he stepped onto the ground. The procession started off. Painter felt proud of how well he walked in the thick clogs; they looked more awkward than they actually were. He merely had to be deliberate with each step. He looked to Yumi, but she lowered her gaze and seemed reticent. Even more than earlier. What had he done
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this time? There were plenty of other oddities to occupy his attention. For example, the attendants held out big fans to hide him from the eyes of the gathering townspeople. That left gaps through which he could be seen though, and apparently the entire town had lined up to catch a glimpse of him. Why the pageantry? Couldn’t they have pulled him in the wagon to this new location? This halfway measure with the fans felt deliberate—like pretending not to care if anyone noticed your new haircut, but running your hands through it every time anyone glanced your way. There were also those floating plants—but at least he’d seen those from the wagon. So he didn’t gawk. Much. But then there was a very odd contraption at the center of the town—a big shiny metal thing made of wide sets of plates, as big across as a building. What was that all about? At least the people looked human. He would have expected aliens from another planet to have…he didn’t know. Some extra appendages? Seven eyes? Instead they were just people. Mostly eager-eyed, in bright clothing of a completely different fashion and design than he was used to. It reminded him of formal dresses and wraps worn at weddings among his people—at least the colors were similar. But these outfits were far bulkier, particularly on the women, whose dresses were bell-shaped instead of sleek and tight as was common in Kilahito. The men wore clothing that was loose and baggy—often pastel, with a watercolor softness—tied closed at the ankles. They accented these with the occasional black hat, and many wore neat short beards, which you rarely saw among Painter’s people. The townspeople stayed behind as Painter was led to some nearby hills. Close to the top, his attendants and he entered a secluded alcove where a pool of water filled a natural basin perhaps fifteen feet across. It looked to be only about waist-deep, and no steam rose from it. That was a good sign. Painter was already sweating. How did these people live here with that giant ball of fire in the sky constantly glaring at them? His attendants drew to a halt outside as he stepped up to the edge of the pool. Yes, this part should be nice. He looked to Yumi, who had followed him past rocks that provided privacy. She was blushing furiously. Why… Ah. Suddenly it made sense. She couldn’t get more than ten feet or so from him, but he had to take a bath. “It’s all right,” he whispered to her. “Just go behind those rocks over there and sit down.” “Hero?” she said. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.” Then she began to disrobe, undoing the bow on her dress. She was some type of ghost, but it seemed her clothing was part of whatever she was, because she was able to remove the overdress and set it down, leaving her in an underdress akin to a thin nightgown. “Wait,” he said. “That wouldn’t be appropriate? But this is?” “I may be in spirit form,”
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Yumi explained, “but I am still the yoki-hijo, and must follow the directions of the spirits. I must do my ritual cleansing. If we’re going to figure out what it is they have sent you to do, then I must be pure before their eyes.” Painter tried to forcibly stifle his blush. He figured that heroes didn’t blush. Unless they…what, had just slain their fourth dragon and had too much to drink? “Well then,” he said, “we could simply bathe in clothing.” “You can’t be ritually cleansed that way,” she said. “Besides, Chaeyung and Hwanji would think that very strange.” She nodded to the side, where his two attendants were walking up to join him. He’d assumed they were staying behind to give him privacy, but in fact they’d stopped to gather some soaps. And evidently to disrobe. Because neither was wearing a scrap of clothing. For a moment, Painter was rooted in place. Naturally it wasn’t out of embarrassment, as he was a mighty hero or some such rubbish. It was probably something far more heroic. Like indigestion. “At least they see you as me,” Yumi said, “so you will not embarrass them.” Embarrass them. Right. That was what he was worried about. The two set aside their soaps and began to undress him, because of course they did. Now, if you should ever find yourself in a similar position, this would be the place to call a stop to it. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a story, or if the fate of the world is at risk, or if it’s merely the result of a few stupid decisions. You never need to let someone undress you if you’re against the idea. Painter, however, was determined to help. To not mess up this chance like he’d messed up his real life. So he tried to play it off as nothing. He did so poorly, mind you, but one might admire his gumption. You could have assumed his blush to be due to the heat, and he almost managed to look stoic. Until he glanced at Yumi, who had pulled off her underdress but clutched it awkwardly to her chest. Her long, shimmering black hair falling over her shoulders and around her arms. “You…must have done this hundreds of times,” Yumi said to him, her eyes lowered. “Been…in situations like this. With women. A hero like you would be revered and lauded.” “Uh…” Painter said. The attendants glanced at him. “I’m talking to a spirit,” he said to them. “Please, um, ignore me.” They frowned at this, but pulled off his own undergarment. “It’s…something very new to me,” Yumi said. “Do you suppose maybe you could…avert your gaze?” Oh. Right. That was an option, wasn’t it? Now, you might be a little upset at Painter for not realizing this earlier, as it was the obvious gentlemanly thing to do. Please do remember, this had all come upon him rather unexpectedly. It’s hard to be gentlemanly when the world isn’t being particularly gentle with you. But if you can’t be a gentleman,
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you can at least not be a creep. Painter closed his eyes. The attendants led him into the water, which he found warm. This was the cold spring? They began bathing him with the ritual soaps, and didn’t exclaim or run screaming at the discovery of certain unexpected bits, so Painter assumed that the illusion—or whatever it was—worked absolutely, even to those touching him. He did his best to relax. They didn’t see him as him, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about. He figured that Tojin, back home, probably would have been thrilled to be in a situation like this. It would give him all kinds of opportunities to flex his muscles for everyone. Or who knew; maybe Tojin bathed with women all the time. He did always have Akane hanging off him. Yes, Tojin would probably relish the experience. Painter wondered if he shouldn’t try to do so as well. Wasn’t that what a great hero would do? He could put his back to Yumi and enjoy looking at the other two. But that idea disgusted him. The attendants didn’t know who he was. It wasn’t right. You’re a coward, a part of him thought. This might even be a dream. Enjoy it. But…well, he just couldn’t. Yumi was one thing. She’d chosen to come bathe here, knowing what he was. The attendants were another thing entirely. So he kept his eyes closed as he was washed. Unfortunately, he lost his footing while standing up, and started to slip. Through no fault of his own, his eyes popped open. He found Yumi standing in the water nearby, looking at his waist—well, below it—her head cocked. As soon as she saw his eyes open, she squeaked and squeezed hers closed. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that. I—” “It’s fine.” He closed his eyes again. “It’s a…difficult situation.” He meant that. After all, he’d basically done the same thing. As the attendants finished his current rinse and he leaned back into the water, his hand drifted to the side and accidentally touched Yumi’s. Again the powerful sense of warmth thrummed through him. Overwhelming, even exhausting. But with it, this time, came emotions. Her emotions. He could feel her fear, her embarrassment, her shame. Her deeper terror that something was very, very wrong—and that she didn’t know how to fix it. (She, in turn, felt much of the same from him—though when she sensed the shield he put up to protect his natural shyness, she interpreted it as confidence. She felt his own embarrassment, and the shame buried so far beneath his surface emotions it might as well have been magma churning beneath the crust of the planet.) Then, as they broke the touch, both felt better. The situation was horribly awkward, but in that moment they realized it was a shared experience of horrible awkwardness that they had to get through together. Trauma doesn’t decrease with company, but it does grow easier to work through when you know someone else understands. The attendants dunked him,
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and he—at Yumi’s instruction—did his best to stay underwater for the ritual amount of time. After that, the attendants withdrew from the pool to dry off, then stepped outside to dress and prepare the yoki-hijo’s tobok, which would take a few minutes. Alone with Yumi, Painter tipped his head back and relaxed into the warm water, his eyes closed. He let his hand drift out, kind of hoping it would touch Yumi’s again. “I truly am sorry,” she whispered, somewhere nearby. She hadn’t gotten out, then. “I…don’t have much experience…with men, you see. It’s not part of my training.” “Is it part of anyone’s?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “Did you…lead a normal life when you were young? Before you became a hero?” “Depends on what you call normal. I’d say it was…unremarkable in most ways. But not you? You’ve lived with this all your life?” “This has been my duty since I was chosen by the spirits as a baby.” She paused. “You may think it confining, but it’s an enormous honor. I provide such an important service to the people. Our society could not exist without the yoki-hijo. Thousands would starve.” He wanted to be encouraging, but words eluded him. He’d pretended to be a hero for so long that now that he had to live up to that ideal, even deciding what to say was difficult. Still, as he drifted there, somewhere near her, he found himself increasingly thrilled to be stolen from his other life and brought to this strange place. This, you might note, is somewhat different from many stories. Painter wasn’t reluctant. He wasn’t eager to get back to his life. What was there for him at home? Instead he was excited to find a way to actually help Yumi. To change the world. But wait, he thought. There was a stable nightmare. I never reported it. He could only vaguely remember trailing back to his apartment, struck by what now seemed a supernatural exhaustion, his mind a fuzz. He had to find a way home, or that nightmare could do serious damage. Kill and rampage. It was a sudden, cruel irony that the one time in his life where his otherwise monotonous job was urgent…was the same time he’d found himself in a mystical adventure. He had to help Yumi quickly, so he could get to Kilahito and report that nightmare. Unless he could find a way to send a message. For now, he focused on Yumi. How could he fix her problem? She needed a painting? Then his mind drifted a bit. Back to when he’d opened his eyes briefly and seen her standing there in the pool…her hair and skin glistening in the light… Wait. “Wait!” he said, splashing and righting himself, opening his eyes by instinct to double-check. “Yumi, your hair is wet!” She opened her own eyes, then stood and touched her long black hair. Which was wet. “Why?” he asked. “You can’t touch anything else, but you can touch the water?” She frowned. “I…didn’t feel like I was
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getting wet when I stepped into the pool. I felt nothing, like when I tried to touch the blanket or the wall. Now though, I do feel it. I’m floating. I feel the water’s coolness like every other time I’ve entered a pool like this.” She cocked her head. “It means something. You’re right.” They met one another’s eyes. Then, at basically the same moment, they realized where they were and what they weren’t wearing. Both blushed and squeezed their eyes closed. Yes, I know. But you were once young and nervous too. We all were. There’s nothing wrong with being a tad awkward. It is a sign of a new experience—and new experiences are among the cosmere’s best forms of emotional leavening. We shouldn’t be so afraid of showing inexperience. Cynicism isn’t interesting; it is often no more than a mask we place over tedium. “Your attendants have dressed and are returning to dry you, hero,” Yumi said softly. “They will wait until you’re ready—it is traditional to allow you time here. I will get dressed, then turn and let you know you may approach.” The water sloshed a bit as she left the pool. True to her word, she called out a short time later. He opened his eyes and found her dressed in her nightgown again, with her back toward him. Reminding himself that he wasn’t actually exposing himself to the attendants, Painter climbed out of the pool and let the women dry him. One had prepared new clothing, even more ornate than what he’d been wearing before. An undergarment followed by one of the bell-shaped skirts, with a separate top that came down over it in a matching—but darker—color. Bow across the front, though that was less to hold it together and more to ornament the ensemble. The clothing was made of a stiff, starchy silk that practically crinkled when handled. It was all so loose that it fit him, though he was several inches taller than Yumi and far from her measurements. He did notice that her own phantom clothing, now replaced, was darkened with the water seeping through from her skin. She hadn’t had a towel to dry herself. How had the water gotten her wet, then gotten her ghostly clothing wet? He tried to think of an explanation, but once more began to feel strangely tired. As the women tied Painter’s bow, the odd sensation increased, accompanied by nausea. That heat from the sky…the heat from below…the layers of clothing… It all came together in an otherworldly moment his body was not prepared to handle. Heroic or not, Painter swayed, felt his vision go dark, then fainted. He blinked awake to the sound of pounding on a door. Painter groaned and found himself on his futon. He shook his head, looking around his apartment. Strewn with clothing, a half-eaten box of cereal on the table, hion lights—teal and magenta—shining from the line outside his window, painting the place familiar modern colors. It had been a dream after all? The door continued to thump angrily. “Coming!”
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he shouted as the beating persisted. “I said I’m coming!” He shifted, sitting up, and put his hand to his head. Yumi sat up from the floor beside his futon, dressed in a pair of his pajamas—the oversized shirt exposing her shoulder, the sleeves long enough that her hands barely stuck out the ends. Her hair was a frizzy mess, and she looked baffled. He gaped, then reached for her. His arm passed through the edge of his short dining table. Painter froze, then waved his hand through the table. He couldn’t touch it. Or the sock that was sitting on it for some reason. Or the pillow, or… Yumi stumbled to her feet, knocking against the table, causing an old noodle bowl to rattle and one of the maipon sticks to fall off it and clatter to the wood. She glanced at it, then at her hands, then met his eyes with her own panicked ones. Oh no. Yumi was in the darkest place of dead spirits. That was the only explanation for the strange hostile lights coming in through the window—not warm like the sun, instead cold and terrible. That was the only explanation for the chill air, particularly under her bare feet. The door thumped and rattled. Some beast was out there. No, some terrible force from beyond life. She must be dead. But if that was so, why was she so very hungry? She felt like she’d been weeks without food. Was that another part of the torture? Had…had she been taken to the cold skies, where the souls of the unworthy drifted? Was she forbidden the embrace of the warm earth below? Was…was she that bad a yoki-hijo? Had she failed the spirits that terribly? Nearby, the hero groaned. The hero. He was here. Hope surged. Was this part of their quest? She’d learned in the histories that many heroes traveled to the place of cold, frozen spirits. She tried to contain her terror and make herself feel strong. Perhaps this was what the spirits wanted. Maybe…maybe she wasn’t dead, but on their path? The door pounded again, louder. “Nikaro!” a voice shouted outside. “You answer this door!” “Great,” the hero said (lowly). “It’s the foreman. Yumi…you’re going to have to answer that.” “What?” she said, her voice going shrill. “I can’t touch things,” he said, proving it by waving his hand through a table beside the strange altar he’d been lying on when they awoke. He then seemed to notice her confusion. “This is my room in my world, Yumi. Like I was in yours?” “Your…world?” she said. “You live in the land of frozen souls? The land of the sky?” “Yeah, kind of.” “Are we dead?” she whispered. “I…don’t think so. But if the foreman is forced to break in here, he might strangle one of us…” The door pounded once more. “I can hear you talking in there!” the terrible voice shouted. Some kind of demon, perhaps half person, half animal. Yumi stepped back, and only then realized what she was wearing. Some kind
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of loose trousers and a buttoned shirt, made of a thick but soft material. She gasped. You could see the exact shape of her— That and the curve of her— “Yumi,” the hero said. “Look at me. Are you all right?” “No!” she said. She glanced around again, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness—it must be night here, but what was that strange light?—she picked out things she hadn’t seen earlier. Wadded-up clothing on the floor. Unwashed bowls in piles on a counter. Refuse. The hero…was a slob? Well, of course he wasn’t. Heroes didn’t clean up after themselves. Servants did that. So his servants had grown lax in his absence. This was a small room. Surely this wasn’t his sole quarters. She leaned toward the window and glanced outside. There she saw a dauntingly dark sky. No stars at all. A grim nothing up above that felt eager to swallow her. But she was in some kind of large building. A palace? It was certainly bigger than any building she’d ever been in before. Yet the street was lined with them. A dozen or more palaces in a row! Taller than steamwell eruptions. How did these buildings get so big—ten stories—without collapsing? How did they live without heat from the ground? It’s the land of the heroes, she thought. Rules are different here. It was colder and darker than she’d imagined, but at least she probably wasn’t dead. The door thundered again. “Go,” the hero said. “Answer it and get rid of him.” “I can’t answer the door like this.” She gestured to her outfit. “The clothing outlines my form! It’s so immodest!” “Yumi, we were just taking a bath.” “In the service of the spirits,” she said, increasingly frantic. “Ritual cleansing. That’s completely different!” “He’ll see you as me,” the hero said. “Don’t you understand? Everyone looked at me and saw you. Now I’m the one that’s incorporeal. They won’t see you being immodest.” It was…a valid point. So, trying to control her anxiety, shoving aside her famishing hunger, she stepped to the door and eased it open. Doing that for herself would have been a novelty if the situation were different. Now she barely gave it a thought as she found a giant of a white-haired older man on the other side. He wore thick trousers and a buttoned shirt made of some material she didn’t recognize. He froze immediately, fixating on her. “What the… ?” He looked past her into the little room. “Well, slap me silly,” he muttered. “Would never have expected to find a girl answering Nikaro’s door…” Yumi stiffened. He saw her. He saw her? Painter groaned behind her. But this foreman seemed unable to see him, for he focused again only on Yumi. “Where is he?” “Tell him I’m sick!” Painter said, sounding panicked. “He’s sick!” she said quickly, then felt a stab of anguish at the untruth. Liyun would be disappointed in her. “Huh,” the foreman said, narrowing his eyes. “You…all right? Everything good here?” “I…” Then she drew in a
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breath and gave a deep ritual bow of conciliation. “O great being of the cold skies, forgive any slight or offense I have given. It is not my intent. Please ask of me what you will. I will do all in my power to see it delivered to you.” “Oh. Uh…” The foreman shuffled from one foot to the other. “Just, have him report in, okay? He didn’t do his rounds yesterday, and we’re already short-staffed. He’s supposed to send word if he’s sick.” “I will see this message delivered with all due soberness and courage,” Yumi whispered, lowering her bow. “Please go with the blessing of the spirits and find peace in your life.” “Thanks,” he muttered, sounding…embarrassed? “Wait,” Painter said, stepping up beside her. “You need to tell him something important. Um, repeat this. ‘Painter says he saw a stable nightmare, and—despite being sick—is so diligent at his job that he is out hunting to get more information. He wanted me to inform you that this is an emergency, and that you must send for the Dreamwatch.’ ” She repeated the words exactly as spoken and glanced up from her bow. The foreman frowned deeply. “He said that?” the man asked her. “Yes,” she said. “I vow it.” She knelt and touched her forehead to the floor in solemn consummation of the words. “Huh. Right, okay then,” the foreman said, then tromped away down the hallway. “Thank you,” Painter said, relief evident in his voice. “That’s one thing taken care of, at least. I can stop worrying.” Yumi stood upright, glancing down the hallway as the foreman vanished. She felt herself blushing with the heat of a thousand stones. A man had seen her. Like this. Not merely wearing…whatever this was she was wearing, but also with her hair disheveled. She was supposed to represent the spirits in every way, but today she would have had trouble properly representing a pile of dust. “That was strange,” the hero said, wandering around the room. “Why did he see you, Yumi? None of this makes any kind of sense.” Yumi moved to close the door, but as she did, a door directly across the hallway opened. And a goddess stepped out. Wearing almost no clothing at all. Her skirt ended mid-thigh, and was made of some kind of glossy black material. Her shirt was filmy and drooped low, exposing the depth of her bosom. Yumi would have thought her a demon but for her beauty. The woman was perhaps Yumi’s age, but her black hair shone with a luster that no amount of combing would ever provide Yumi. She wore makeup that—instead of lightening her face to pale white, as was used for formal situations in Torio—outlined her eyes in dark colors, making them wide and inviting. Her lips were cherry red, her cheeks dusted with a hint of blush. Yumi gaped at the gorgeous person, barely noticing when Painter cried out behind her, then waved his incorporeal hands through the door as if to try to shut it. The woman turned
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to Yumi and paused, then cocked her head. “Oh,” she said, taking in Yumi’s state of dress. “Um…hello. Are you…a friend of Nikaro’s?” “She’s going to think we’re sleeping together,” Painter said. “This is bad. She’ll never talk to me again. Quick, uh, tell her you’re my sister!” “I’m his sister,” Yumi whispered. “Yumi.” Then immediately panicked. Her earlier lie about Painter being sick had been a…stretch of the truth. He was sick in a way—he was incorporeal. So while it wasn’t strictly the sort of behavior proper for a yoki-hijo, she could rationalize it. This was different. This was a deliberate untruth. The sort that she’d never spoken since having impressed upon her—as a toddler—the gravity of her duties and the requirements of the spirits. She cringed, expecting the spirits to rise up and destroy her. She had to be better than such behaviors. However, no divine recrimination seized her. The woman across the hall relaxed. “Of course you are,” she said, evidently amused that she’d considered otherwise. “That makes sense. I’m Akane. Are you visiting Nikaro for the first time?” “Yes,” Painter said quickly. “Tell her that you came to see the big city.” Yumi repeated the words, numb. Maybe…well, if the hero was telling her to say these things, maybe they didn’t count as lies. After all, the spirits had sent him to her. He must know what he was doing. So instead of worrying, she tried to figure out this woman with the strange dress and kindly smile. “Close the door,” Painter said. Instead Yumi asked the woman, “Do you know Painter well?” “What, Nikaro?” the woman asked. “Well, I knew him in school, and we live across from each other. So…I suppose, maybe?” Yumi frowned, cocking her head. But then it clicked. Akane lived in his palace. She dressed like this. Painter was concerned she’d think that Yumi was sleeping with him. “Oh!” Yumi said. “You must be one of his concubines!” “His what?” Akane asked. Painter groaned, flopping back onto the altar he’d been lying on before. “He told me that he’d been with many women,” Yumi said. “Er, intimately, I mean. A hero like him has many such conquests in stories. I apologize for my blush. I am…not experienced. He explained it to me when we were bathing together earlier. He told me all about the hundreds of women he’d been with! I should have realized when I saw you that you were one of his concubines!” Yumi bowed. It was only proper to show the concubine of an important hero such deference. When she came up from her bow, however, she noticed the look of disgust on Akane’s face. Which quickly became a look of violent anger, Akane’s nose wrinkling in a sneer. “He said all of that,” Akane said, her voice as cold as the air in this strange place. “I…” Oh no. She’d misjudged, hadn’t she? Perhaps this was a woman he’d known intimately, but hadn’t made his concubine. That would explain her anger. Except something about the way she was fuming…“You’re…not
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one of his conquests?” Yumi asked. “Girl,” Akane said, “your brother has trouble conquering a bowl of noodles if it has too much spice.” “He’s…a mighty hero though. Right?” Yumi asked. In the other room, Painter groaned louder. “Hero?” Akane laughed. Then she turned and stalked away down the corridor, wearing shoes that did not look like they would survive the ground’s heat. But then, Yumi was beginning to think maybe this place wasn’t ever hot. She shut the door, then put her back to it. “I…did poorly, didn’t I?” she asked. Painter just continued staring at the ceiling. “Painter,” Yumi said, “are you a hero? Like you’ve been telling me?” “I…” “Painter,” she said, her voice growing firm as she stepped toward him. “Have you been telling me untruths?” He turned his head and met her eyes. “Look,” he said, “I’m a very good painter. Well…okay, I’m a weak painter. But I’m capable enough, right? So you said you needed someone like me, and I figured…” He held her eyes a moment, then turned away with obvious shame, flopping back down on his altar again. “It’s not my fault,” he muttered, “what you assumed.” Yumi felt a crushing sensation inside her, something squeezing the air from her lungs, her chest constricting. He wasn’t… She… She gasped in and out for several breaths, then sat on the floor. It wasn’t warm. How did they live without warmth underneath to bolster them? “What was I supposed to do?” Painter said. “I got home from work, and next thing I knew, I was in your world. In your body. And there you were, asking for help. And I do consider myself kind of heroic, you know? So…” “You lied,” she said. “You lied. And now…now I have no idea what’s going on. I thought the spirits sent you to me, and…and that you’d know what to do…and…” She focused on him. “And you peeked at me when I was bathing!” “You peeked at me.” “You’re not a holy vessel chosen by the spirits!” she said. “I am. I…I need to stack something.” She stormed through the small chamber, gathering up bowls of various sizes, some plates, other kitchen…things. She didn’t really know what went into cooking. She’d never done it before. She plopped down on the cold, lifeless floor near his table, which was low like the ones she knew. Why make low tables if the floor was cold? Her stomach growled. She ignored it, instead stacking the dishes. And mind you, this wasn’t normal stacking. No simple largest-to-smallest tower. No, this was expert-level ceremonial, artistic stacking. With a vengeful air. Painter watched her, transfixed as the stack grew higher. Then he sat up, staring as she positioned several bowls on their edges, with maipon sticks used to balance them and make the stack seem to teeter on stilts—though if you were to touch it, you’d have found it surprisingly sturdy. “Wow,” Painter eventually said. Yumi ignored him. She waited, praying, hoping the spirits would see this creation and visit. Offer wisdom, explain what
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they wanted of her. Why was she here in this terrible place? Why had they sent her a liar instead of a hero? No spirits visited. She felt nothing other than a ravenous hunger. “I need something to eat,” she said. “Rice cakes in the cupboard maybe?” he said, waving. “Some dry instant noodles. You can eat them raw. I do.” She followed his vague gesture. The food she found—wrapped in a strange clear material she was too famished to wonder about—proved to be a nasty, crunchy substance, like something proper that had been left on the ground to steam for far, far too long. She ate the entire thing anyway, then carried five more cakes—all he had left—back to the table and continued eating. Why hadn’t the spirits answered her? Did they not exist in this place? Were they ignoring her offering? Or…or was there a more terrible answer? Maybe they’d rescinded her gift, taken from her the blessing of being the yoki-hijo. The possibility terrified her. “That’s amazing,” Painter said, still staring at her tower. “How did you manage to (highly) stack them rim on rim like that?” “I managed nothing,” she whispered around bites of strange rations, “save the exercise of the talents the spirits gave me. I am nothing. Merely a vessel for their will.” “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry that—” “I do not want to hear your lies, nor your excuses for lies,” she said. “Please keep both to yourself.” “Fine.” A moment later the building trembled (as it often did when a bus passed by outside). That was enough to shift the balance of the stack, and it came tumbling straight down in a clatter of wood and ceramic. Yumi, even in her state, was shocked it didn’t all break and shatter. “Sorry,” Painter whispered. “The creations are unstable,” she replied, “unless blessed by the spirits. Which mine…might never be again…” She wiped crumbs from her mouth, then pulled her arms close, feeling like she was shrinking down into her strange clothing. Wishing she could vanish. But she had not been chosen because she was weak. She had to believe—at least had to pretend—that she could fix her situation. “So…what now?” Painter asked. “Not to sound rude, but you basically ruined my chances with Akane back there. I’ve been working on repairing my relationship with her for months. I’d rather not let you put a wrecking ball through the rest of my life.” “The spirits came to me,” she replied, “and said they needed help. I have to believe they picked me for something special, regardless of how this looks or feels. But why did they pick you to help me?” “Beats me,” he said (lowly). He sat up, then heaved a sigh. “I need to know how much time I lost. I felt like I was on your world only a few hours, but the foreman says I didn’t check in for an entire day.” “How do you know what day it is here?” she asked. “Do you check the stars?” “The star, you mean?”
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he asked. “Your planet is the only thing we can see in the sky here. It wouldn’t tell us anything even if I could see it right now.” He stood up and moved to a piece of glass affixed to one wall. He tried to touch it, then muttered softly as his hand passed through it. “I keep forgetting. Here, come turn this knob.” She did so, making two lines of light—soft purple and blue—appear behind the glass. They vibrated and shook, taking on the shapes of…people? Yes, small people barely two feet high, but incredibly detailed. Sound came from the glass as the two people talked—a woman made of the blue, and a man made of the violet. “—But your brother,” the woman said, moving to touch the man’s arm. The image grew more detailed, zooming in on her face, though it remarkably appeared to all be made of a single continuous line. “What will he say?” “Lee? Why should I (lowly) care what he says? I live my own life. I have to.” “Ah,” Painter said. “Times of the Night. That means it’s Samday evening. I haven’t seen this episode, so it’s the first showing. So I missed one day, didn’t report to work last night, and the foreman came to check on me in the evening.” Yumi settled on the floor and stared at the moving lines with wide eyes. “How… What happened to those people? Why did they turn into lines of light?” Painter chuckled. “They’re fine. Those two are actors. You know, like a play? You’ve seen a play, right?” She shook her head. “Too frivolous for a yoki-hijo,” she whispered. “But I’ve heard of them.” “Don’t you get any time to relax?” “I have plenty of time to meditate and pray.” “No, I mean…have fun?” “If I waste time having fun, people starve,” she said, still watching the two figures made of light. “How are actors doing this?” “They’re standing in another place,” Painter explained, “and projecting onto the hion lines. Uh…I don’t know how it works. Kind of like a photograph, maybe?” She looked at him blankly. “Right,” he said. “I guess you don’t have those. Just…imagine a pair of people standing in a room somewhere acting out this play. And these lines mimic the actions they’re making. Anyone in the city with a hion viewer can watch.” “Is…that what the glass is? A hion viewer?” “Nah, the viewer is these boxes on the side, which manipulates the shape of the lines. The glass is to keep you from touching the hion.” She nodded absently, mesmerized. The play, she pieced together, was about a man who had woken up one day without memories. This was important because he’d been the only one who knew the location of a fantastic treasure. But the story didn’t seem to be about the treasure. It was about all the different people trying to persuade the man that they’d been his good friend, and about the man piecing together the fragments of who he’d once been and discovering—bit by bit—who
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was actually an ally and who was lying. She knew that she should have been doing something else. Meditating, at the very least. But for some reason the story connected to her. The man with a blank life. Everything he tried was new… She was so tired. Overwhelmed. There was something incredibly therapeutic about sitting, pulling a blanket around herself, and watching someone else’s problems for a while. When the story finished she gasped softly. “It can’t end there!” she said. “What is in the safe?” “It always does this,” Painter said. “Every time. It ends right before it’s going to reveal something important or interesting. I think they want to make it so you have to watch the next episode.” “We have to!” she said. “When is it?” “This one is weekly,” he said. “Some are daily, others every other day. For this, the actors have other obligations, so they can only do it once in a while.” “A whole week?” The spirits were surely punishing her. Yumi pulled the blanket close, trying to keep warm. Maybe this was for the best. She wouldn’t be distracted by the story…except the lines remarkably started vibrating again and forming new shapes. “It’s returning!” she said. “That’s the next program,” he said. “Seasons of Regret. It’s one of the best.” “Another program… How many are there?” “A different one every hour,” he said. “All day. Though in the late night and early morning, they’re mostly reruns. Which is nice, in case you miss an episode.” Every hour? All day? This device was dangerous. She reached up and flipped it off before it could draw her in. She had to focus on her predicament. The spirits needed her. “Did anything happen to you?” she said. “Anything unusual before you woke up, having stolen my body?” “I didn’t steal anything,” he said, lying back on his plush altar, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. To be honest, Yumi was feeling a little worn out herself. “There was something,” he eventually continued. “Like I had you tell the foreman. A nightmare—one that was almost fully corporeal. That’s rare. I’ve never seen one like that.” “Nightmare?” Yumi said, frowning. “You were asleep?” “Nightmares walk in my world, Yumi,” he said. As if that weren’t the most terrifying thing someone had ever said. But he seemed unafraid. So maybe he wasn’t a complete waste. “But normally they’re formless, without the strength or ability to hurt people. I told you, I’m a nightmare painter. My kind keep them in control.” “That…actually does sound a little heroic,” she admitted. “See?” he said, sitting up. Then he wilted. “But I’m not a warrior. We use ink, and…it’s normally not dangerous. Boring and mundane, really. But I did encounter one. The foreman will take care of it though. Send for experts that…” He stood up suddenly, causing her to yelp and pull back. “The Dreamwatch!” he said. “They’re warriors, Yumi. They fight stable nightmares. Maybe if they come to the city, we can talk to them about your problem. Maybe
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the spirits want us to meet with them?” He hesitated. “That doesn’t make sense though. How would they help with your world? And why wouldn’t the spirits send one of them to you instead of me? So…I don’t know.” Yumi nodded, though she was barely listening. She found her mind oddly cloudy. She…she had to… Suddenly she was tired. Incredibly tired. Though she intended to respond to Painter, she instead stretched and curled up on the floor, nestled in the blanket. And fell asleep. Yumi awoke to delightful warmth underneath her back. As her eyes fluttered open and she moved to sit, her hand—unfortunately—passed through the floor. She could feel the warmth, but her body was again incorporeal. Next to her Painter sat up, disturbing blankets, wearing one of her thick, enveloping sleeping gowns. He looked toward the window, where sunlight streamed in, and groaned. “I guess,” he said, “we’re going to have to do something about that bathing issue…” I’ve often wondered at the purpose of nightmares. Again, the normal kind, not the stalking kind. Why do we have them? Is there a point? Maybe it’s a brutal way of making us more resilient. Humans are incredibly malleable. Despite my breadth of experience, I’ve never stopped being surprised at how durable human beings can be. They can survive in almost any environment. They can recover from debilitating loss. They can be crushed physically, mentally, emotionally—and still ask you how your day is going. Perhaps nightmares are Cultivation’s method of giving us a way of surviving trauma in a strangely safe environment. (At least safe physically.) A way to put it behind us, forget the details, but retain the growth. Nightmares are vicarious living done in our own minds. In that way, nightmares serve much the same function as storytellers. Evolution doing a favor for those who, unlucky and unfortunate, never encountered me. Painter finished his meal and barely managed to keep himself from wiping his mouth—his attendants had to do that for him. Yumi paced behind him, invisible to everyone else. She’d barely spoken to him since they’d awoken. He kept trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him like one would a bad scent made by someone too important to stink. Eventually the two attendants retreated—and were replaced by Liyun, in her strict formal outfit, her hairstyle impeccably symmetrical. There was a certain art to the way she loomed over him. He wondered if she practiced. How else would one explain her perfect posture, looking down at him without tipping her head, which made even the act of studying him seem like a huge inconvenience. The way she folded her arms to make her shadow expand across him, isolating him in darkness. The way she lingered just a tad longer than was comfortable… It was impressive. Like a beautiful gourmet dish. Made from mud. She settled down on her knees. “The people of the town,” she said, “are concerned about you, following your…episode yesterday.” “I’m…sorry?” Painter said. “I doubt I need to explain,” Liyun continued, “the indignity it would
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bring upon them to be refused the blessings of the spirits. They would see it as a terrible omen. They would be the town that caused the yoki-hijo to collapse. The shame would run deep, Chosen.” “Look,” Painter said, “it’s not like I fainted on purpose just to—” “No,” Yumi said stepping up to him. He turned, frowning. She was finally acknowledging him? He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “You will repeat only the words I say,” she told him. “You are not to interact with Liyun without my explicit guidance.” “But—” “You,” she said, “will repeat only the words I say.” He had admired Liyun’s ability to loom. But in one moment, Yumi eclipsed her master. She stepped up to him, eyes wide, daring, hands in tense fists. Threatening. Painter felt a sudden jolt of disconnect. He was…elevated, you might say, to a higher realm of understanding. Like a child painter who at long last gained enough skill to see the true artistry of a master, Painter was confronted by looming that was somehow more grandiose. While Liyun had loomed with exactness, it had felt performative. Yumi was passionate. The timid girl who had bowed before the foreman had now been completely consumed by…this creature. He’d faced nightmares, but in that moment he would have chosen to defy any of them before he did Yumi. He nodded. “Honored attendant,” Yumi said, nodding for him to repeat the words—which he did. “The failing is entirely mine. My flesh has been made weak by my foolishness two days ago, when I overextended myself. My soul, however, trusts in the spirits. It is my deepest wish to continue my duties today. I will give all effort to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s failing.” Painter finished the recitation. Which he admitted was likely a better way of handling Liyun. He’d never been particularly good at apologizing for things that weren’t his fault. To be honest, he’d never been that good at apologizing for things that were his fault… He gave a bow as Yumi indicated he should. When he looked up, he was surprised to see Liyun considering. She actually seemed to need to deliberate whether or not Yumi deserved forgiveness. For fainting. After pushing herself to serve while obviously unwell. What kind of twisted society produced people who thought this was reasonable? Liyun finally nodded. “You are wise, as always, elevated one. We will pretend that yesterday is unworthy of attention. Come, let us proceed with a proper day’s summoning.” She led the way out, and Yumi glared at Painter until he wordlessly followed. As they trekked through the town, obscured by the fans, he was again left wondering how these people lived in this sweltering heat. Even with the clogs lifting his feet from the ground, he felt it radiating, making his bell-shaped skirt ripple with thermals. Perhaps that was why they used such thick cloth—to prevent accidents. He kept his composure despite the heat, until they reached the base of the rise leading to the cold spring.
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Then a sudden noise like an explosion from near the center of the town made Painter spin, gaping as a jet of superheated water erupted and sprayed some thirty or forty feet into the air. The entire procession stopped to let him watch. It was like the ground was so inhospitable that the very laws of nature were corrupted. Instead of falling from the sky, water came up from below. It dispersed, part becoming steam, releasing a rumble and even a faint whine—as if tortured. “What (lowly) is wrong with this place?” he whispered. Yumi stepped between him and the sight. “Continue,” she said firmly. “But—” “A yoki-hijo does not break composure,” she said. “A yoki-hijo remains controlled, calm, and deliberate. If something startles you, look down or away. Do not stare. Do not gawk. You are not here to indulge. You are here to serve.” “I,” he hissed, “am not a yoki-hijo.” “No,” she said in the lowest form of speech, reserved for speaking of things like the slime between your toes. “You are a liar.” She held his gaze until he turned away and continued the procession. Painter found himself simmering, a little like the superheated water. Yes, he’d…overstated some things. But he didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. He’d offered to help. Were those the actions of a liar? Of someone who deserved the lowest form of speech? They reached the cold spring. He stood and thrust his hands to the sides until his attendants removed his clothing. Then he shut his eyes—without even glancing at Yumi—and strode into the bath. There he suffered the ministrations of the attendants while stewing in the broth of the not-so-cool spring. Was it too much to want acknowledgment of how tough this was for him? Some thankfulness for his willingness to help? Though he might not have recognized it at the time, these were familiar thoughts. Characteristic, even. They weren’t wrong—though a thought can be correct but still unhealthy. The several scrub-downs with various soaps and scents, anointing and preparing him, took longer than he remembered. Followed by that long dunk according to Yumi’s order. Finally the attendants withdrew. He lingered—half floating, half standing. Enjoying the water, trying to let it wash away his bad attitude. And eventually…well, he ended up peeking. He found Yumi standing right in front of him, eye to eye, so close that if she’d been corporeal he would have felt her breath. He jumped despite himself, splashing away. Had…had she been doing that the entire time? Staring at him? Glaring? Just waiting to see if he peeked? (The answer is yes. Yumi was, as you might have noticed, a special kind of stubborn.) Painter’s first inclination was to take in the sights. She stood there completely unashamed, in direct—or shall we say stark—contrast to how she’d been acting while wearing his pajamas. Despite not striking the most intimidating of postures—standing waist-deep in a pool of water, her wet hair plastered to her skin—there was confidence in her eyes. So, deliberately not ogling, Painter met her gaze. He
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stepped toward her, leaning forward until he feared touching noses and experiencing that surreal warmth again. She could glare, yes. Even loom with aplomb, despite being shorter than him. But Painter was an artist, and one thing artists learned to do was look. There’s something unnerving about the stare of someone trained in shadows, shapes, and anatomy. An artist has a gaze like a knife, separating the layers of skin, fat, and muscle. His were the eyes of a person who could rip out your soul and recreate it on the page in ink or graphite. After a minute of this, Yumi’s eyes narrowed and her lips cocked slightly to the side. While there are many ways to interpret that kind of expression, Painter picked the right one. This time it was a mark of surprise that he’d held the stare—accompanied by the very faintest measure of respect. “So,” he said, “is this what we’re going to do all day?” “The spirits picked you,” she said. “And then they sent you to me. I have to believe that they were correct to do so. To accept otherwise is to accept that I was chosen for no purpose—and that is lunacy.” “All right,” he said. “But that doesn’t tell us what we’re supposed to do.” “We have to commune with them,” she said. “Which means you have to summon them. I can’t—not without being able to touch the things around me. We bring them to us, and maybe that will be enough to prove ourselves. Perhaps that alone will end this…association the two of us have been forced into.” “And if it isn’t enough?” “Then the first step is still to summon them,” she said. “So we can get some answers. Spirits who have been formed and dedicated to a service can no longer speak—or perhaps they choose not to. But newly summoned ones can; they respond when I make requests of them. Our best hope is to learn from them what they want of us.” “Fine,” he said, leaning a little closer. “Fine,” she said, leaning even closer. A contest of pride, then. He leaned in a titch. She responded. Then he got just a hair’s distance from her, smiling, as there was no space remaining. So she inched forward and stubbornly touched her nose to his. Enveloping warmth. Understanding. A sharing of frustration, anger, confusion. Connection. Passion. They both splashed backward, and Painter gasped. It was completely unfair how— “Aargh!” Yumi shouted at the sky. “It is ridiculously unfair how…distracting that feels!” Then she looked at him, glaring still, and sullenly sank into the water down to her chin, covering herself as best as one could under the circumstances. She didn’t blink once as she did it. “Don’t stare,” she muttered. “Stare?” he said, turning away, feigning indifference. “At what? There’d need to be something worth looking at before I’d be tempted to stare, Yumi.” Then, because he wasn’t actually a heel despite what saying those words implied, he felt guilty. He walked out of the pool, telling himself—and his blush—that
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he didn’t care if she watched him. Chaeyung and Hwanji approached, bringing him towels and clothing. “Just don’t faint this time!” Yumi called from behind. “We have work to do today, liar.” Yumi was daunted by the number of towns she’d visited but couldn’t name. She was a servant of the people of Torio; shouldn’t she be able to name the places she’d helped? Yet she saw so little of them. Only their cold springs—or bathhouses, for those that didn’t have a spring—and their shrines and places of ritual. The different towns blurred together, interchangeable in her memory. At times she almost thought they could be the same town over and over—that she went to sleep and her wagon was pulled around in circles to give the illusion of motion before stopping right back where she’d begun. She was ashamed of that thought, because the places were important and unique to the people who lived in them. Take this shrine, where Painter knelt today per her instructions. Most shrines were in gardens, with cold stone so the flowers could spin low to the ground. This one was instead in the middle of an orchard. Nearby, trees drifted and bumped against one another, chained in place to keep them from floating off but given enough slack to always be in motion. The air was cooler than she liked, and the dim light of the sun behind so many branches reminded her of Painter’s world. However, this was a different kind of dimness: broken up instead of absolute, like sunlight made festive. The trees in turn were spangled with fruit. The celebration here was a quiet one. Though the workers had been cleared out to give the yoki-hijo silence for her meditations, this was plainly a cultivated spot. Any fallen fruit had been collected before it could bake into sticky tar. People worked in here frequently. Which meant the people of this town didn’t strictly obey tradition by setting the shrine off from commonly trafficked areas. She’d seen it before, and…well, a rebellious part of her approved. These people wanted their shrine near as they worked. There were spirit statues on the roof, created by a yoki-hijo to have no purpose beyond watching over the workers to give them comfort. Why shouldn’t people adapt tradition to their needs? It was a dangerous line of thinking—so when Liyun noted the cultivated trees and the statues on the roof of the shrine, she frowned. Then, fortunately, she bowed and withdrew—leaving the yoki-hijo to her ritual prayers. As Liyun retreated, Painter let out a long sigh. “Something’s wrong with that woman.” “Liyun-nimi,” Yumi said, “is an immaculate warden. You will expunge such terrible ideas from your mind.” “Why?” he said. “It’s not like I’m saying it to her face.” “Thinking it is as bad,” Yumi said. “You are a yoki-hijo. You are better than such thoughts. You must be pure, not just in action, but in mind and soul.” “But—” “Complaining is for those lesser. Back straight. Head bowed.” “I’m not a yoki-hijo.” “Today you are,” she
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said, walking around him as he knelt in the open-sided shrine. “If you want to end this, you must do what I cannot. Beyond that, there are consequences—rarely implemented—for a yoki-hijo who cannot serve. We are in danger of provoking Liyun to extreme measures, which will make it impossible for us to accomplish our goals. So unless you want to be stuck like this forever, you need to follow the protocol and do what I tell you.” He let out a long, annoyed breath. “Fine,” he said (lowly). Yumi nodded. During her bathing she had come to a realization. A reason why the spirits might have sent this seemingly useless person to take her place. Shortly they would test her theory. But first, meditation. “Now,” she said, “you will say the proper prayers. Because you are new to this, we will say only the six that are strictly necessary.” “Six?” he said. “How long will this take?” “Half an hour,” she said. “Roughly.” “A half hour of praying? But—” “Do you want out or not?” He grumbled, but as she began to recite the prayers, he repeated them. She wondered if perhaps she should be kneeling too. So she knelt beside him, hands laced in the pattern of reverence before her, head bowed. It would give him a good model at the least. Was it the words or the heart that mattered in a prayer? Perhaps the spirits would accept his words and her heart. The half hour was over in no time—saying only six of the prayers was novel, and barely felt like it was enough. But at the end Painter groaned as if she’d made him do something terrible, like carry his own luggage. He flopped to the side, and she decided to let him rest before making him— “Hey!” she snapped. “Don’t close your eyes.” “Just for a moment,” he said, his eyelids flickering. “If you fall asleep, we might swap again!” “You don’t know that’s true…” he mumbled. So she did the only thing she could think of to wake him. She stuck her finger through the middle of his forehead. The immediate effect was that overwhelming warmth, spreading through her body with a ripple—a tingling shiver riding before it, like a flower on a thermal. Then the blurring of self, that connection to him. She felt his fatigue, his concern, his frustration. His emotions washed against hers, mixing like overlapping prayers—blurring together, but still distinct. It wasn’t terrible. But it was unnerving, as it mashed them both together in a way that was utterly unnatural. He sat bolt upright, pulling away from her. “Hey! What are you (lowly) doing?” “Keeping you awake,” she said. “We must meet the spirits. You can’t afford to nap.” He huffed, but stood and shook his arms, the moment of drowsiness apparently past. “Fine. Let’s get on with it.” “We have to meditate,” she said, “until the ritual time.” “Ritual time,” he said. “Ritual bathing, ritual clothing, ritual place. When do I get my ritual tote bag? My ritual underpants? Ritual fingernail
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clipper?” “Levity,” she said, “is not becoming of a yoki-hijo. Your duty is to our people. To make light of your position is to make light of their lives.” “It’s a shame then,” he said gravely, “that their lives are all so (lowly) ridiculous that mockery is inevitable.” “Enough!” she shouted, pointing at him. “You will take this seriously.” “What happened to you?” he muttered, backing away before she could poke him again. “I liked the demure version of you better.” “Nothing happened to me,” she said. “This is who I am. The person I have to be. If I grow lax, then people die, Painter. Do you understand that? Farming among my people ends without the yoki-hijo. If I am not my best self, then people will starve. Forgive me if it’s a little stressful, therefore, that I can’t do my duty without the cooperation of a liar who finds all this funny!” He glanced away, looking ashamed. As he should have been. This was the way she’d been trained—with relentless conditioning toward solemnity. With unyielding strictness. Until the desire for levity and individuality had been drained from her like pus from a boil. It had worked for her. She’d turned out fine. Rather, she’d turned out to be what she had to be. It would work for him. She merely had to remain stern. For his good and the good of the spirits as well. “We wait, then,” he finally said. “We meditate,” she said, kneeling. He knelt beside her. “Meditate, eh? So…we just kneel here and think?” “No thinking,” she said, spreading her hands to the sides and tipping her head toward the sky. “Meditation is the opposite of thinking.” “Uh…I can force myself to be calm. Will that work?” She glanced at him, and he seemed genuinely confused. Did…she really have to explain something so simple? “It is more than calmness,” she clarified. “It is an utter rejection of all emotion, sensation, and individuality. You often start by fixating on something rhythmic, like your breathing or the deliberate stretching and relaxing of a muscle. Some find it helpful to vocalize a tone or a mantra. The goal is to empty your mind of all thought—abandoning even the initial focus that started the meditation.” “What’s the point of that?” She cocked her head, baffled. “To center yourself in the cosmere,” she said. “To wash your mind as you wash your body. To expel emotional refuse, as your body does with physical excrement. To be clean, down to your soul, and to renew. You’ve never done it before?” He shook his head. No wonder he was so…well, him. How backward must his society be to know nothing about a need so fundamental? She started him out—as you might with a child—with a focus on breathing. She centered herself, let herself simply exist. The familiar sense of drifting enveloped her, followed by the sensation of…nothing. Complete emptiness. Being. Nothing else. She was as the rocks, the trees in the air. The… He was there next to her. She could feel him.
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Now that she was centered, she sensed him pulling on her. She cracked an eye; his own eyes were closed, but he was smiling, his mouth twitching. “You’re thinking about something,” she said to him. “I can’t help thinking,” he complained. “I don’t want to stop, regardless. I like thinking about things.” “You will control even those enjoyable thoughts better,” she said, “when you are experienced at meditation.” “There’s more to life than control.” “Try it,” she said, centering herself again. “Practice. You’ll see. The best artists can focus far better on their art after training to meditate. Control leads to focus and focus to accomplishment.” “Depends on what you want to accomplish.” The two continued to kneel, and now Yumi found it difficult to stop thinking. About him. Not that there was anything specifically appealing about Painter. It was just that she’d never imagined kneeling in a shrine beside someone. It was…a thing that married couples did. Not an experience for her. To marry would be to defy the spirits and the gift they’d granted. To have a love, to have a family, would be to turn her back on her duty. She was a precious resource, and absolute dedication was required. Yet strangely, many of her world’s favorite stories involved a yoki-hijo falling in love. Liyun had rightly tried to keep them from her, but Yumi had heard the tales from Samjae—a yoki-hijo she’d been friends with when they were young—who had relayed them with a gleeful air of transgression. Samjae said transgressive stories were the best. Because forbidden love somehow tasted the sweetest. “Nice,” Painter said, shaking the shrine as he stood up. Yumi started, thinking he’d somehow sensed her thoughts. But he was referencing Liyun approaching up the path. “This means we’re done, right?” “Right,” Yumi said, standing. “Let’s go summon the spirits.” He nodded and took a step forward. Then he paused. “Wait. I can’t believe I’ve never asked this, but how do we summon them? You said something about art the other day?” “Yes, it’s easy,” she said. “All you have to do is stack some rocks.” It was time to test Yumi’s theory. She considered it as Painter entered the place of ritual, the fenced-off section of ground where stones had been placed for him. Townspeople gathered along the fence, musicians at the ready, and Yumi remained behind with them—until Painter was distant enough that she was pulled, against her will, a few steps inside. He looked back at her, noticing the pull. She nodded to him encouragingly. Earlier she’d said that his task would be easy. That was sort of an untruth. Learning to properly stack rocks was difficult, and had been a large part of her training. But she had a suspicion that it would be easy for him. That was the realization she’d come to while bathing, and it would explain so much. The spirits had come to her begging for help—yet Yumi had not been enough. She wasn’t skilled enough; wasn’t good enough. She was inadequate. So they had sent someone
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who could do what she couldn’t. Painter might not be a hero…but he might be a prodigy. That would explain why they’d picked him. She was now confident that he’d prove to be a natural at stacking, blessed with talent beyond her own even though he’d never known it on his world. The answer was so obvious it made her smile. She was able to maintain this happy delusion right up to the moment he “stacked” his first rock. It fell. The very first rock he placed fell. Somehow he managed to fail at balancing a large flat piece of stone on the ground. It toppled to the side and rolled away. The townspeople behind Yumi gasped. Painter didn’t notice—just gave a goofy smile and piled up some other rocks like he was…pushing blocks into a heap. He didn’t even manage this without squishing his finger, which made him yelp and shake it. Yumi glanced to Liyun, who watched with a slack jaw, horrified. Painter put a rock on top of his pile, which collapsed. Then he looked to Yumi and gestured. “Like this?” he asked. “How’s it look?” Oh no, Yumi thought. Oh, spirits. No. They were in serious, serious trouble. Painter woke in his rooms back in his world, the indignity of the rock fiasco fresh in his mind. He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. No, wait. He didn’t understand what would have been right. Rocks? What had been the point of those rocks? Yumi sat up from the blanket on the floor, her hair a twisted mess. “Ow,” she said softly. “I think I…somehow slept on my nose…” She focused on him, and despite the frizzy hair and rumpled pajamas, she became more commanding. “You have failed.” “I stacked the rocks!” he said, sitting up. “I did it six different ways before you had me leave.” As the people watching had grown increasingly distraught, Yumi had told him to plead fatigue to Liyun. The dignified woman, plainly troubled by whatever it was he’d done wrong, had led him back to the wagon, where he’d succumbed to sleep. He probably hadn’t even been awake six hours. Something about this transfer seemed to require a lot of energy, and they tired far faster than normal. “The stacking,” Yumi said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips, “must be done with skill and artistry.” “Stacking,” he said, “does not require artistry.” “To do it ritually does.” “Ritually. Of course. I should have known!” She stalked over and pointed at his face as if threatening to touch him. But he lay down on his futon and shrugged. “Go ahead. I’m feeling a bit of a chill anyway. Might warm me up.” She set her jaw, then stalked away, arms folded. She appeared to be shivering. The apartment looked as they’d left it, but he had a suspicion that they’d lost another day. Which meant the foreman would be furious. Hopefully the foreman had dealt with the stable nightmare. Painter hadn’t warned him about the family who might need money
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to relocate. The foreman would put it together, right? Maybe he should check in anyway. Make certain the Dreamwatch had arrived and everything was under control. It wasn’t his problem, now that he’d reported it, but he kept remembering that little boy with blood on his cheek from the nightmare’s claws. He at least wanted an update. How, though? He didn’t have a phone—those required expensive dedicated hion lines and were beyond a mere nightmare painter’s wages. So to get information from the foreman, they’d have to find a public phone and wait in line, or—since the office was so close—simply walk over. Both would require them to leave the apartment, however. Yumi was talking again. “To properly stack, one needs years of training.” “And you just expected me to do it with none?” “I…hoped you would have natural talent,” she admitted. “I was wrong, obviously. The only solution remaining is a difficult one. We must contact the spirits, which means you’re going to have to learn. We’ll come up with some excuse to Liyun, then train you, like I was as a child. Until you’re good enough to draw spirits.” Delightful. Training under her sounded about as much fun as a hornet-eating competition. And these spirits? Were they even real? Everyone on her world seemed to think so, and she had shown him some kind of goblinlike statues underneath her wagon that made it float. Those came from somewhere. Regardless, he had his own troubles. “I want to go talk to the foreman,” he said. “And check in. Make sure I still have a job…” “No,” she said. “We’re going to stay in here and I’m going to start training you. Your education begins now.” “My education? My training? To do what? Stack?” He sat up and waved his hand through the table. “Wow. That’s going to be so effective, Yumi.” “I can demonstrate,” she said. “Instruct.” “No,” he said, standing. “This is my world. I should get to make the rules. There’s a dangerous nightmare out there, and I want to be certain it’s been dealt with. Foreman doesn’t always…think the most highly of me—” “I wonder why.” “Yumi,” he said. “That nightmare is dangerous. It could be fully stable by now, and violently murderous! It could kill dozens or more if not stopped, and no regular painter is equipped to deal with one so strong. It requires talent beyond what someone like me has. “We are going to go make sure the foreman understood my warning, then get him to check on a family I helped. Who knows—maybe those spirits sent you to me, not the other way around! Maybe they need you to do something here! You ever consider that?” She huffed, arms still folded, but then glanced away. “Fine,” she said softly. “But…I can’t go out like this. I look, and feel, grimy. I don’t think bathing when I’m a spirit cleans this body.” “Well, we can fix that,” he said, walking across his living room to the small bathroom. He waved to it, and she sullenly
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stepped over and pulled open the door. He showed her the knobs on the shower, which she turned. Then she yelped, her eyes wide as the water sprayed down. “You have a geyser,” she said. “But…the water seems cold?” “It will warm,” he said. “Unless Mrs. Shinja used it all up again—avoid showering at nine in the morning, unless you like to freeze. Also, warning, she gets very possessive over the water. Be careful not to use too much yourself.” “Shower,” she said softly, letting the water run over her hand. “Soap here,” he said, pointing. “Shampoo and conditioner here. Clean towel there.” He nodded to her, then stepped toward the door. “Wait,” Yumi said, then turned, looking at him. “What?” “I’m…supposed to do it myself?” she asked. “You don’t have any…attendants I can call?” “Uh, no. Not a thing in my world.” “Right,” she said, and appeared strangely daunted. How could you be intimidated by something like showering? He smiled, finding it cathartic to see her, the tyrant, suddenly terrified of something so trivial. It was like finding out that a fearsome tiger was scared of getting its nails done. He shut the door, but then—because he couldn’t get too far from her—leaned against it. He did so absently, but then was shocked to discover he didn’t fall straight through. Just like he didn’t fall through the floor. So…why did he sometimes pass through things, but not always? (I could have explained. Unfortunately, at that moment I was being used to hold a large overstuffed coat, three bags, a puppy in a carrying case, and three boiled eggs. Don’t ask.) The sound of the water grew louder in the bathroom, then the telltale noise of splashing followed as Yumi stepped in. A few moments later, Painter was pretty sure he heard her sigh in satisfaction. “Nice, eh?” he said. “It’s warm,” Yumi’s voice said, echoing in the small bathroom. “I’d begun to think you people had no idea what it was to feel properly warm.” She paused. “Um…what is shampoo?” “For your hair,” he said. “Lather it up in your hair to clean it. Then use the conditioner to…uh… It’s good for the hair somehow. Trust me. It, um, moisturizes?” “Right. I’ll…shampoo, then? Do I do it now? Or after I’ve used the soap? And to what count do I lather before rinsing?” “There aren’t rules, Yumi,” he said. “You’ve really never done this before on your own? What about when you were a kid?” “I told you I was chosen by the spirits as a baby,” she replied. “Taken from my parents, raised by the wardens to my singular purpose.” “That’s terrible,” he said (lowly). “You didn’t get a childhood at all?” “A yoki-hijo is not a child,” she said, her voice bearing the air of an oft-recited line. “Nor is she an adult. The yoki-hijo is a manifestation of the will of the spirits. Her entire existence is service.” No wonder she was so strange. Didn’t excuse her being the human manifestation of what it felt like to miss
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the last bus home, but—considering all of this—at least she made more sense to him now. “How is it,” she asked, her voice echoing, “that your people have captured this geyser and channeled it to your will?” “It’s not a geyser. It’s water pumped from the lake, filtered and heated.” “Pumped? Are there people working those pumps right now to deliver this?” “No, it’s machines powered by the hion lines,” he said. “The heating too. Touch opposite hion lines to metal and it will heat up. It’s basic science to turn that into a bus engine or a simple heater.” “How do you know all this?” “School,” he said. “You are a painter.” “School teaches more than just painting.” “I was not taught anything but my duties,” she said, her voice softer. “It is better that way. I must keep focus. Other things might…cloud my mind with frivolities.” The conversation died off, and he let her linger in the shower—longer than he’d have let himself. Eventually Yumi stopped on her own. A few minutes later she said, “Do I put these clothes back on?” “Please don’t,” he said. “They haven’t been washed in days. Put on a towel for now.” She stepped out a moment later, wrapped in three towels. Well, fair enough. Painter led her to his pile of clean clothing. “I didn’t get around to folding these.” She cocked an eyebrow. “I intended to,” he said. “I usually fold everything right after it’s washed.” “I’m sure,” she said, nudging the pile with her toe. “This is all going to be too big on me, isn’t it?” “Yumi, in your world, you wear a dress that’s roughly the size of a bedspread. I think you’ll be fine.” She put a hand to her towels, then paused. But he was already walking to the bathroom, which was close enough that he didn’t hit the end of his leash. He stepped inside, giving her privacy. “Thank you,” she said from outside. “For being so…thoughtful.” “This isn’t being thoughtful,” he said. “It’s basic decency.” “Still, I didn’t expect it.” “It’s almost like it’s unfair to judge a person based on how they react after being forced into someone else’s body, towed off to a strange location, then forcibly stripped. Eh?” “I guess,” she said, “we’ve both been under…unusual amounts of stress.” A few minutes later she continued. “All right. I don’t like it, but this will have to do.” Painter stepped out to find her wearing… Well, it certainly met the definition of an outfit. It was clothing, at least. Worn on a body. She’d found one of his longer shirts—a thick turtleneck—and had put that on. He wasn’t too surprised by that, but she’d put a sweatshirt on over that, and the combination of long turtleneck and shorter sweatshirt was comical. In fact, the sweatshirt puffed out a little, as if she had another smaller one on underneath it. How many layers was she wearing? Regardless, it was the sweater she was using as a skirt—the sleeves tucked into the waist—that really threw
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him for a loop. She had put on some trousers underneath that as well, which was good he supposed. But… Wow. The total effect was truly something. “Do women actually go out like this?” she asked him. “Among your people? Wearing trousers?” “Not exactly like this…” he said. “Um, you realize that’s…a shirt, not a skirt.” “I needed to improvise,” she said. “To keep up some semblance of modesty.” She lifted up one foot. “At least your sandals fit, so long as I put on three pairs of socks. But I didn’t see any clogs.” “You won’t need clogs here…” he said, then trailed off, trying to find something else to say. How could her clothing look so baggy, yet so overstuffed at the same time? It was swallowing her completely, like her head was peeking out the mouth of some bizarre fish made of cloth. She stepped over to the mirror on the door of the bathroom and seemed to deflate a little at the sight. Well, after how much he’d been through in her world, it was hard to feel sorry for her. Maybe this would help her build a little empathy. “You aren’t too hot in that?” he asked. “Your world is unnaturally cold,” she said. “I think it’s best to be prepared. I’m ready to go petition your foreman. Please lead the way.” He had to show her how to lock the door after herself—apparently that was another thing she didn’t understand. “People would come in?” she said, turning the key. “To your home? When you’re not there? Why? To wait for you?” He shook his head and led her down the steps to the ground floor. Here, she froze at the exit to the building, looking up at the dark sky. I don’t blame her. There was something inherently moody about Painter’s world. In Kilahito it always felt like you’d stepped out right after it finished raining. In Kilahito the streets perpetually felt too empty—but in a way that made you think you were encountering a brief lull, with activity echoing from the next street over. In Kilahito, it always felt like the lights were turned down low to let the land sleep. In Kilahito you noticed absences. It was a city made from negative space. “Come on,” Painter said, waving to her from the street. She stayed in the doorway. “It’s so…empty.” “Comfortingly so,” he said. “You really find this more unnerving than your world, with that big ball of fire in the sky? With all those things flying around up there? That’s unnerving. It makes me feel like I’m going to get crushed!” “At least we can see what’s above,” she said. “Here…there’s just nothing.” “That’s the shroud,” he said. “Scientists have flown beyond it; they found more stars and things up there.” He softened his tone. “Look there. See that? The one that shines through the shroud?” She hesitantly stepped out onto the street with him and gazed up at the star. “Do you think that’s actually my world?” “It must be,” he said.
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“Whatever grabbed me came from the sky, and scientists say there are people there. It’s a planet like ours—they’ve taken pictures of what look like small cities, but they’re vague, too far away to make out much. Whoever lives there doesn’t seem to have radios or anything. They’re…not as advanced as we are.” She didn’t take this as an insult, instead staring up at the star, then turning her eyes to follow the hion lines above the street, their light painting it the contrasting blue and violet of progress. “This stable nightmare,” she said. “You said it will…hurt people? Unless we do something to stop it?” “Yes,” he said. “But we don’t have to do anything to stop it. My job is to report it. We did that, but I forgot to warn the foreman about a family that the nightmare threatened. I need to see they’ve gotten the assistance I promised them.” “You mentioned that others would come to stop the nightmare,” she said. “Didn’t you say we could recruit them? Actual heroes?” The words felt like a punch to Painter’s gut, but she apparently didn’t realize that, so he controlled it. “The foreman will send for a member of the Dreamwatch. Maybe two, with their companions. They’re spectacular artists, but I don’t think they can help with your problems. Come on.” She took a deep breath and nodded, then caught up to him. It was early evening, according to the clock in the bank window, and a decent number of people were out. Main thoroughfares like this were wide enough for an emergency vehicle to drive through, but the idea of personal vehicles would have been baffling to the residents of Kilahito. Most people traveled by bus or trolley, which connected to the hion lines and used them for power and guidance. “The foreman’s office is nearby,” he said as they walked, “so fortunately we won’t need to take the hion trams. The idea of talking you through the daytime tram schedule does not appeal to me.” She nodded again, although he doubted she knew what he was talking about. She seemed to be trying very hard not to look at the sky and was instead watching everyone they passed. She drew more than a few stares. It’s often said that nothing fazes people in a big city, and that does tend to be true—to an extent. Big-city people tend to be unfazed by ordinary sorts of strangeness. You don’t give a second glance to the drunk wearing no pants since, well, that’s the third one this week. But an oddity like Yumi? No pants was somehow less strange than what she’d opted to wear. “They know what I am,” she whispered to Painter. “They can sense the girl of commanding primal spirits.” “Uh…no,” he said. “We don’t have those here. They just think you look strange.” “They know,” she said, firm. “They stare at me like the townspeople do. Even if you don’t have yoki-hijo, these people can feel something is different about me. It is my burden. And
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