Brandon SANDERSON - The Way of Kings

Yes… this very thing had happened before, in his very first vision. Dalinar could remember it now. “Who are you?” Dalinar demanded. “Why are you showing me these visions?”

“You can see it there,” the figure said, pointing. “If you look closely. It begins in the distance.”

Dalinar glanced in that direction, annoyed. He couldn’t make out anything specific. “Storm it,” Dalinar said. “Won’t you answer my questions for once? What is the good of all of this if you just speak in riddles?”

The man didn’t answer. He just kept pointing. And… yes, something was happening. There was a shadow in the air, approaching. A wall of darkness. Like a highstorm, only wrong .

“At least tell me this,” Dalinar said. “What time are we seeing? Is this the past, the future, or something else entirely?”

The figure didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “You’re probably wondering if this is a vision of the future.”

Dalinar started. “I just… I just asked…”

This was familiar. Too familiar.

He said that exact thing last time, Dalinar realized, feeling a chill. This all happened. I’m seeing the same vision again.

The figure squinted at the horizon. “I cannot see the future completely. Cultivation, she is better at it than I. It’s as if the future is a shattering window. The further you look, the more pieces that window breaks into. The near future can be anticipated, but the distant future… I can only guess.”

“You can’t hear me, can you?” Dalinar asked, feeling a horror as he finally began to understand. “You never could.”

Blood of my fathers… he’s not ignoring me. He can’t see me! He doesn’t speak in riddles. It just seems that way because I took his responses as cryptic answers to my questions.

He didn’t tell me to trust Sadeas. I… I just assumed…

Everything seemed to shake around Dalinar. His preconceptions, what he’d thought he’d known. The ground itself.

“That is what could happen,” the figure said, nodding into the distance. “It’s what I fear will happen. It’s what he wants. The True Desolation.”

No, that wall in the air wasn’t a highstorm. It wasn’t rain making that enormous shadow, but blowing dust. He remembered this vision in full, now. It had ended here, with him confused, staring out at that oncoming wall of dust. This time, however, the vision continued.

The figure turned to him. “I am sorry to do this to you. By now I hope that what you’ve seen has given you a foundation to understand. But I can’t know for certain. I don’t know who you are, or how you have found your way here.”

“I…” What to say? Did it matter?

“Most of what I show you are scenes I have seen directly,” the figure said. “But some, such as this one, are born out of my fears. If I fear it, then you should too.”

The land was trembling. The wall of dust was being caused by something. Something approaching.

The ground was falling away.

Dalinar gasped. The very rocks ahead were shattering, breaking apart, becoming dust. He backed away as everything began to shake, a massive earthquake accompanied by a terrible roar of dying rocks. He fell to the ground.

There was an awful, grinding, terrifying moment of nightmare. The shaking, the destruction, the sounds of the land itself seeming to die.

Then it was past. Dalinar breathed in and out before rising on unsteady legs. He and the figure stood on a solitary pinnacle of rock. A little section that– for some reason – had been protected. It was like a stone pillar a few paces wide, rising high into the air.

Around it, the land was gone . Kholinar was gone. It had all fallen away into unplumbed darkness below. He felt vertigo, standing on the tiny bit of rock that – impossibly – remained.

“What is this?” Dalinar demanded, though he knew that the being couldn’t hear him.

The figure looked about, sorrowful. “I can’t leave much. Just these few images, given to you. Whoever you are.”

“These visions… they’re like a journal, aren’t they? A history you wrote, a book you left behind, except I don’t read it, I see it.”

The figure looked into the sky. “I don’t even know if anyone will ever see this. I am gone, you see.”

Dalinar didn’t respond. He looked over the sheer pinnacle, down at a void, horrified.

“This isn’t just about you either,” the figure said, raising his hand into the air. A light winked out in the sky, one that Dalinar hadn’t realized was there. Then another winked out as well. The sun seemed to be growing dimmer.

“It’s about all of them,” the figure said. “I should have realized he’d come for me.”

“Who are you?” Dalinar asked, voicing the words to himself.

The figure still stared into the sky. “I leave this, because there must be something. A hope to discover. A chance that someone will find what to do. Do you wish to fight him?”

“Yes,” Dalinar found himself saying, despite knowing that it didn’t matter. “I don’t know who he is, but if he wants to do this , then I will fight him.”

“Someone must lead them.”

“I will do it,” Dalinar said. The words just came out.

“Someone must unite them.”

“I will do it.”

“Someone must protect them.”

“I will do it!”

The figure was silent for a moment. Then he spoke in a clear, crisp voice. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. Speak again the ancient oaths and return to men the Shards they once bore.” He turned to Dalinar, meeting his eyes. “The Knights Radiant must stand again.”

“I cannot comprehend how that can be done,” Dalinar said softly. “But I will try.”

“Men must face them together,” the figure said, stepping up to Dalinar, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot squabble as in times past. He’s realized that you, given time, will become your own enemies. That he doesn’t need to fight you. Not if he can make you forget, make you turn against one another. Your legends say that you won. But the truth is that we lost. And we are losing.”

“Who are you?” Dalinar asked again, voice softer.

“I wish I could do more,” repeated the figure in gold. “You might be able to get him to choose a champion. He is bound by some rules. All of us are. A champion could work well for you, but it is not certain. And… without the Dawnshards… Well, I have done what I can. It is a terrible, terrible thing to leave you alone.”

“Who are you?” Dalinar asked again. And yet, he thought he knew.

“I am… I was … God. The one you call the Almighty, the creator of mankind.” The figure closed his eyes. “And now I am dead. Odium has killed me. I am sorry.”

“Can you feel it?” Wit asked of the open night. “Something just changed. I believe that’s the sound the world makes when it pisses itself.”

Three guards stood just inside the thick wooden city gates of Kholinar. The men regarded Wit with worry.

The gates were closed, and these men were of the night watch, a somewhat inappropriate title. They didn’t spend time “watching” so much as chatting, yawning, gambling, or – in tonight’s case – standing uncomfortably and listening to a crazy man.

That crazy man happened to have blue eyes, which let him get away with all kinds of trouble. Perhaps Wit should have been bemused by the stock these people put in something as simple as eye color, but he had been many places and seen many methods of rule. This didn’t seem any more ridiculous than most others.

And, of course, there was a reason the people did what they did. Well, there was usually a reason. In this case, it just happened to be a good one.