still hold dun gemstones.
On the wall, she found a metal disc set into the stone. Was this steel? It hadn’t rusted or even tarnished despite its long abandonment.
“It’s coming,” Renarin announced from the other side of the room, his quiet voice echoing across the domed chamber. Storms, that boy was disturbing, particularly when accompanied by a howling storm and the sound of rain pelting the plateau outside.
Brightness Inadara and several scholars arrived. Stepping into the chamber, they gasped and then began talking over one another as they rushed to examine the mural.
Shallan studied the strange disc set into the wall. It was shaped like a ten-pointed star and had a thin slot directly in the center. The Radiants could operate this place, she thought. And what did the Radiants have that nobody else did? Many things, but the shape of that slot in the metal gave her a pretty good guess why only they could make the Oathgate work.
“Renarin, get over here,” Shallan said.
The boy clomped in her direction.
“Shallan,” Pattern said warningly. “Time is very short. They have summoned the Everstorm. And . . . and there’s something else, coming from the other direction. A highstorm?”
“It’s the Weeping,” Shallan said, looking to Pattern, who dimpled the wall just beside the steel disc. “No highstorms.”
“One is coming anyway. Shallan, they’re going to hit together. Two storms coming, one from each direction. They will crash into each other right here.”
“I don’t suppose they’ll just, you know, cancel each other out?”
“They will feed each other,” Pattern said. “It will be like two waves hitting with their peaks coinciding . . . it will create a storm like none the world has ever seen. Stone will shatter, plateaus themselves might collapse. It’s going to be bad. Very, very bad.”
Shallan looked to Inadara, who had walked up beside her. “Thoughts?”
“I don’t know what to think, Brightness,” Inadara said. “You were right about this place. I . . . I no longer trust myself to judge what is correct and what is false.”
“We need to move the armies to this plateau,” Shallan said. “Even if they defeat the Parshendi, they’re doomed unless we can make this portal work.”
“It doesn’t look like a portal at all,” Inadara said. “What will it do? Open a doorway in the wall?”
“I don’t know,” Shallan said, looking to Renarin. “Summon your Shardblade.”
He did so, wincing as it appeared. Shallan pointed at the slot like a keyhole in the wall—acting on a hunch. “See if you can scratch that metal with your Blade. Be very careful. We don’t want to ruin the Oathgate, in case I’m wrong.”
Renarin stepped up and carefully—using his hand to pinch the weapon from above—placed the tip of the blade on the metal around the keyhole. He grunted as the Blade wouldn’t cut. He tried a little harder, and the metal resisted the Blade.
“Made of the same stuff!” Shallan said, growing excited. “And that slot is shaped like it might fit a Blade. Try sliding the weapon in, very slowly.”
He did so, and as the point moved into the hole, the entire shape of the keyhole shifted, the metal flowing to match the shape of Renarin’s Shardblade. It was working! He got the weapon placed, and they turned around, looking over the chamber. Nothing appeared to have changed.
“Did that do anything?” Renarin asked.
“It has to have,” Shallan said. They’d unlocked a door, perhaps. But how to turn the equivalent of the doorknob?
“We need Highlady Navani to help,” Shallan said. “More importantly, we need to bring everyone here. Go, soldiers, bridgemen! Run and tell Dalinar to gather his armies on this plateau. Tell him that if he doesn’t, they are doomed. The rest of you scholars, we’re going to put our heads together and figure out how this storming thing works.”
* * *
Adolin danced through the storm, trading blows with Eshonai. She was good, though she didn’t use stances he recognized. She dodged back and forth, feeling him out with her Blade, bursting through the storm like a crackling thunderbolt.
Adolin kept after her, sweeping with his Shardblade, forcing her away. A duel. He could win a duel. Even in the middle of a storm, even against a monster, this was something he could do. He backed her away across the battlefield, closer to where his armies had crossed the chasm to join this battle.
She was difficult to maneuver. He had only met this Eshonai twice, but he felt he knew her through the way she fought. He sensed her