Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)(43)

“So why not join the expedition going to the center of the city?” Rysn asked. “There might be Shards there.”

“If there are,” Cord said, “the Radiants will claim them. I need to go a different direction. And the spren . . .” She shook her head, then turned to Rysn. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For . . . what?”

“For not assuming I was bad,” Cord said. “That man, Nikli, he tried to . . . what is the word in Veden? Make others think I was evil?”

“He framed you.”

“Framed. Like a picture?”

“Same word, different meaning.”

“Ah. Why—with so many sounds—do lowlanders make words that sound the same, but mean different things? Anyway, thank you. For not believing I was evil. I think many people, they dislike foreign people like me. Always believe them to be evil. But you believed me, instead of your friend.”

“I’ve been taught by a very wise man to see the world differently,” Rysn said. “You can thank him, when I introduce you.” Thinking of Vstim, however, made her realize what was bothering her about the pictures of the shore. She pointed at the sketch of the many gemhearts.

“There was a time once,” Rysn said, “when I went with my babsk—the man who trained me—to trade. And the person we met had left spheres and gemstones all about, casually. A sign of wealth. My babsk, he traded differently with this person than others we’d met. Harsher, more cutthroat. Um, that means . . . well, it’s another word for harsher I guess.”

Cord took one of the sketches. “This thing is the same?”

“Maybe,” Rysn said. “Afterward, I asked my babsk why he’d acted that way. He told me, ‘People don’t leave money out casually. They do it to make you see it. Either they want to pretend they have more than they have, or . . .’ ”

“Or?” Cord asked.

“Or they want you to fixate on it,” Rysn said. “And ignore some greater prize. Would you fetch one of the sailors for me? I need to deliver a message to Rushu.”





15





Lopen soared up high, Rua at his side, surveying the island. From up here, it seemed so small.

The city had a curious shape, like a flower with radiating petals. The rest of the island was boring: one big long beach. Nothing moved; nothing seemed suspicious, which he figured was how a place that was suspicious would act.

He dropped down to the rest of the group, where Rushu was doing a sketch of some of the buildings here at the outskirts of the city. These were covered in crem, giving them that familiar melted appearance that he associated with old things.

“From up there,” he said, “it all just looks like rocks. Why do you suppose there’s crem here, but not on the beach?”

“I would guess,” she said, still sketching, “that some of this was already covered in crem when the highstorms stopped reaching this island. The carapace and gemhearts by the beach are certainly old, but they must be fresher than these ruins.”

What he’d mistaken for walls when first approaching was really a line of buildings. Homes, perhaps? They were uniform, and groups of them formed the “tips” of the flower petals he’d seen from above.

Rushu finished her sketch, then turned to another page in her notebook—one that contained some kind of map.

“Hey!” Lopen said. “That looks exactly like the city!”

“An ancient map of Akinah,” she explained. “I was hoping to use it to conclusively prove this is the same place. You seem to have done that for me.”

“Glad to help,” Lopen said. With their squad of eight spear-wielding sailors, they moved inward, passing the grown-over buildings and entering the heart of the city.

Here, the roofs had all fallen in, leaving pillars and some remnants of walls. It was covered in just enough crem to make the ruins feel like they were sinking into the ground, but not enough to turn them into lumps. The result gave the place an almost rotting cast, reminding him of the refuse he’d find in the chasms with Bridge Four. These were the bones, the broken branches, and the withered flesh of a once grand city.

“It’s smaller than I’d imagined,” Lopen said, turning about and using his spear to gesture toward the far end of the city. “I could walk across the whole place in, sure, less time than it takes Punio to do his hair before we go out dancing.”

“Older cities were all that way,” Rushu said. “It was harder for the ancients to build windbreaks and aqueducts, and they didn’t have large trade operations to resupply cities with food. So everything was constructed on a much smaller scale.”

Lopen turned around in a circle, feeling like those broken buildings were skulls, with sunken eye sockets for windows, all dripping with hardened crem. Rushu sent the sailors to go searching through some of those, and he shivered. Why was he so nervous about this place?

“I . . . don’t know that we’ll find anything useful in here, Rushu,” he said, scanning about. “The place is less ruins than rubble.”

“The fact that it exists in such an undisturbed state is monumentally important, Lopen,” Rushu said. “It will be of great interest to archaeologists and historians. The more we’ve learned about the Recreance, the more we’ve realized that our understanding of the past is painfully incomplete.”