The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,81

Several groups of men from other tables were watching now. “You’ll see. Kurp, cut your throat.”

“I am forbidden to take my own life,” Szeth said softly in the Bav language. “As Truthless, it is the nature of my suffering to be forbidden the taste of death by my own hand.”

Amark settled back down, looking sheepish.

“Dustmother,” Ton said, “he always talks like that?”

“Like what?” Took asked, taking a gulp from his mug.

“Smooth words, so soft and proper. Like a lighteyes.”

“Yeah,” Took said. “He’s like a slave, only better ’cuz he’s a Shin. He don’t run or talk back or anything. Don’t have to pay him, neither. He’s like a parshman, but smarter. Worth a right many spheres, Oi’d say.” He eyed the other men. “Could take him to the mines with you to work, and collect his pay. He’d do things you don’t wanna. Muck out the privy, whitewash the home. All kinds of useful stuff.”

“Well, how’d you come by him, then?” one of the other men asked, scratching his chin. Took was a transient worker, moving from town to town. Displaying Szeth was one of the ways he made quick friends.

“Oh, now, that’s a story,” Took said. “Oi was traveling in the mountains down south, you know, and Oi heard this weird howling noise. It wasn’t joust the wind, you know, and…”

The tale was a complete fabrication; Szeth’s previous master—a farmer in a nearby village—had traded Szeth to Took for a sack of seeds. The farmer had gotten him from a traveling merchant, who had gotten him from a cobbler who’d won him in an illegal game of chance. There had been dozens before him.

At first, the darkeyed commoners enjoyed the novelty of owning him.

Slaves were far too expensive for most, and parshmen were even more valuable. So having someone like Szeth to order around was quite the novelty. He cleaned floors, sawed wood, helped in the fields, and carried burdens. Some treated him well, some did not.

But they always got rid of him.

Perhaps they could sense the truth, that he was capable of so much more than they dared use him for. It was one thing to have a slave of your own. But when that slave talked like a lighteyes and knew more than you did? It made them uncomfortable.

Szeth tried to play the part, tried to make himself act less refined. It was very difficult for him. Perhaps impossible. What would these men say if they knew that the man who emptied their chamber pot was a Shardbearer and a Surgebinder? A Windrunner, like the Radiants of old? The moment he summoned his Blade, his eyes would turn from dark green to pale—almost glowing—sapphire, a unique effect of his particular weapon.

Best that they never discovered. Szeth gloried in being wasted; each day he was made to clean or dig instead of kill was a victory. That evening five years ago still haunted him. Before then, he had been ordered to kill—but always in secret, silently. Never before had he been given such deliberately terrible instructions.

Kill, destroy, and cut your way to the king. Be seen doing it. Leave witnesses. Wounded but alive….

“…and that is when he swore to serve me my entire life,” Took finished. “He’s been with me ever since.”

The listening men turned to Szeth. “It is true,” he said, as he’d been ordered earlier. “Every word of it.”

Took smiled. Szeth didn’t make him uncomfortable; he apparently considered it natural that Szeth obeyed him. Perhaps as a result he would remain Szeth’s master longer than the others.

“Well,” Took said, “Oi should be going. Need to get an early start tomorrow. More places to see, more unseen roads to dare…”

He liked to think of himself as a seasoned traveler, though as far as Szeth could tell, he just moved around in a wide circle. There were many small mines—and therefore small villages—in this part of Bavland. Took had probably been to this same village years back, but the mines made for a lot of transient workers. It was unlikely he’d be remembered, unless someone had noted his terribly exaggerated stories.

Terrible or not, the other miners seemed to thirst for more. They urged him on, offering him another drink, and he modestly agreed.

Szeth sat quietly, legs folded, hands in his lap, blood trickling down his arm. Had the Parshendi known what they were consigning him to by tossing his Oathstone away as they fled Kholinar that night? Szeth had been required to recover it, then stand there beside