want to know. So it’s not surprising I can’t remember.”
Sigzil nodded in that mild, yet infuriating way of his. The Azish man just knew things. And he made you tell him things too. Unfair, that was. Terribly. Why did Teft have to end up with him on watch duty?
The two sat on rocks near the chasms just east of Dalinar’s warcamp. A cold wind blew in. Highstorm tonight.
He’ll be back before then. Surely by then.
A cremling scuttled past. Teft threw a rock at it, driving it toward a nearby crack. “I don’t know why you want to hear all of these things anyway. They aren’t any use.”
Sigzil nodded. Storming foreigner.
“All right, fine,” Teft said. “It was some kind of cult, you see, called the Envisagers. They . . . well, they thought if they could find a way to return the Voidbringers, then the Knights Radiant would return as well. Stupid, right? Only, they knew things. Things they shouldn’t, things like what Kaladin can do.”
“I see this is hard for you,” Sigzil said. “Want to play another hand of michim to pass the time instead?”
“You just want my storming spheres,” Teft snapped, wagging his finger at the Azish man. “And don’t call it by that name.”
“Michim is the game’s actual name.”
“That’s a holy word, and ain’t no game named a holy word.”
“The word isn’t holy where it came from,” Sigzil said, obviously annoyed.
“We ain’t there now, are we? Call it something else.”
“I thought you’d like it,” Sigzil said, picking up the colored rocks that were used in the game. You bet them, in a pile, while trying to guess the ones your opponent had hidden. “It’s a game of skill, not chance, so it doesn’t offend Vorin sensibilities.”
Teft watched him pick up the rocks. Maybe it would be better if he just lost all of his spheres in that storming game. It wasn’t good for him to have money again. He couldn’t be trusted with money.
“They thought,” Teft said, “that people were more likely to manifest powers if their lives were in danger. So . . . they’d put lives in danger. Members of their own group—never an innocent outsider, bless the winds. But that was bad enough. I watched people let themselves be pushed off cliffs, watched them tied in place with a candle slowly burning a rope until it snapped and dropped a rock to crush them. It was bad, Sigzil. Awful. The sort of thing nobody should have to watch, especially a boy of six.”
“So what did you do?” Sigzil asked softly, pulling tight the string on his little bag of rocks.
“Ain’t none of your business,” Teft said. “Don’t know why I’m even talking to you.”
“It’s all right,” Sigzil said. “I can see—”
“I turned them in,” Teft blurted out. “To the citylord. He held a trial for them, a big one. Had them all executed in the end. Never did understand that. They were only a danger to themselves. Their punishment for threatening suicide was to be killed. Nonsense, that is. Should have found a way to help them . . .”
“Your parents?”
“Mother died in that rock–string contraption,” Teft said. “She really believed, Sig. That she had it in her, you know? The powers? That if she were about to die, they’d come out in her, and she’d save herself . . .”
“And you watched?”
“Storms, no! You think they’d let her son watch that? Are you mad?”
“But—”
“Did watch my father die, though,” Teft said, looking out over the Plains. “Hanged.” He shook his head, digging in his pocket. Where had he put that flask? As he turned, however, he caught sight of that other lad sitting back there, fiddling with his little box as he often did. Renarin.
Teft wasn’t one for all that nonsense like Moash had talked about, wanting to overturn lighteyes. The Almighty had put them in their place, and who had business questioning him? Not spearmen, that’s for certain. But in a way, Prince Renarin was as bad as Moash. Neither one knew their place. A lighteyes wanting to join Bridge Four was as bad as a darkeyes talking stupid and lofty to the king. It didn’t fit, even if the other bridgemen seemed to like the lad.
And, of course, Moash was one of them now. Storms. Had he left his flask back at the barrack?
“Heads up, Teft,” Sigzil said, rising.
Teft turned around and saw men in uniform approaching. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his spear. It was Dalinar Kholin, accompanied by several