The Way of Kings

He picked one up, cupping it in his palm, raising it so that he could see the light and nothing else. He could pick out the details of the storm, the shifting, spinning vortex of light. He commanded it, willed it, begged it.

Nothing happened.

He groaned, lying back on the rock, staring at the ceiling.

“Maybe you don’t want it badly enough,” Teft said.

“I want it as badly as I know how. It won’t budge, Teft.”

Teft grunted and picked up one of the spheres.

“Maybe we’re wrong about me,” Kaladin said. It seemed poetically appropriate that the moment he accepted this strange, frightening part of himself, he couldn’t make it work. “It could have been a trick of the sunlight.”

“A trick of the sunlight,” Teft said flatly. “Sticking a bag to the barrel was a trick of the light.”

“All right. Then maybe it was some odd fluke, something that happened just that once.”

“And when you were wounded,” Teft said, “and whenever on a bridge run you needed an extra burst of strength or endurance.”

Kaladin let out a frustrated sigh and tapped his head back lightly against the rock floor a few times. “Well, if I’m one of these Radiants you keep talking about, why can’t I do anything?”

“I figure,” the grizzled bridgeman said, rolling the sphere in his fingers, “that you’re like a baby, making his legs work. At first it just kind of happens. Slowly, he figures how to make them move on purpose. You just need practice.”

“I’ve spent a week staring at spheres, Teft. How much practice can it take?”

“Well, more than you’ve had, obviously.”

Kaladin rolled his eyes and sat back up. “Why am I listening to you? You’ve admitted that you don’t know any more than I do.”

“I don’t know anything about using the Stormlight,” Teft said, scowling. “But I know what should happen.”

“According to stories that contradict one another. You’ve told me that the Radiants could fly and walk on walls.”

Teft nodded. “They sure could. And make stone melt by looking at it. And move great distances in a single heartbeat. And command the sunlight. And–”

“And why,” Kaladin said, “would they need to both walk on walls and fly? If they can fly, why would they bother running up walls?”

Teft said nothing.

“And why bother with either one,” Kaladin added, “if they can just ‘move great distances in a heartbeat’?”

“I’m not sure,” Teft admitted.

“We can’t trust the stories or legends,” Kaladin said. He glanced at Syl, who had landed beside one of the spheres, staring at it with childlike interest. “Who knows what is true and what has been fabricated? The only thing we know for certain is this.” He plucked up one of the spheres and held it up in two fingers. “The Radiant sitting in this room is very, very tired of the color brown.”

Teft grunted. “You’re not a Radiant, lad.”

“Weren’t we just talking about–”

“Oh, you can infuse,” Teft said. “You can drink in the Stormlight and command it. But being a Radiant was more than that. It was their way of life, the things they did. The Immortal Words.”

“The what?”

Teft rolled his sphere between his fingers again, holding it up and staring into its depths. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. That was their motto, and was the First Ideal of the Immortal Words. There were four others.”

Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “Which were?”

“I don’t actually know,” Teft said. “But the Immortal Words – these Ideals – guided everything they did. The four later Ideals were said to be different for every order of Radiants. But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” He hesitated. “Or so I was told.”

“Yes, well, that seems a little obvious to me,” Kaladin said. “Life comes before death. Just like day comes before night, or one comes before two. Obvious.”

“You’re not taking this seriously. Maybe that’s why the Stormlight refuses you.”

Kaladin stood and stretched. “I’m sorry, Teft. I’m just tired.”

“Life before death,” Teft said, wagging a finger at Kaladin. “The Radiant seeks to defend life, always. He never kills unnecessarily, and never risks his own life for frivolous reasons. Living is harder than dying. The Radiant’s duty is to live.

“Strength before weakness. All men are weak at some time in their lives. The Radiant protects those who are weak, and uses his strength for others. Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.”

Teft picked up spheres, putting them in his pouch. He held the last one for a second, then tucked it away too. “Journey before destination. There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.”

“The Almighty? So the knights were tied to religion?”