“Nice,” Lopen said. “But wrong finger. Nope! Not that one either. Naco, that’s your foot.”
The spren turned the gesture toward Lopen.
“That’s it,” Lopen said. “You can thank me, naco, for inspiring this great advance in your learning. People—and little things made out of nothing too, sure—are often inspired near the Lopen.”
He turned and strolled into a tent of wounded, the far wall of which was tied right onto a nice, shiny bronze portion of wall. Lopen hoped the Thaylens would appreciate how nice it was. Who had a metal wall? Lopen would put one on his palace when he built it. Thaylens were strange though. What else could you say about a people who liked it so far south, in the cold? The local language was practically chattering teeth.
This tent of wounded was filled with the people who had been deemed too healthy to deserve Renarin’s or Lift’s healing, but still needed a surgeon’s care. They weren’t dying, sure, right now. Maybe later. But everyone was dying maybe later, so it was probably all right to ignore them for someone whose guts got misplaced.
The moans and whimpers indicated that they found not dying immediately to be a small comfort. The ardents did what they could, but most of the real surgeons were set up higher in the city. Taravangian’s forces had finally decided to join the battle, now that all the easy stuff—like dying, which really didn’t take much skill—was through.
Lopen fetched his pack, then passed Dru—who was folding freshly boiled bandages. Even after all these centuries, sure, they did what the Heralds had told them. Boiling stuff killed rotspren.
Lopen patted Dru on the shoulder. The slender Alethi man looked up and nodded toward Lopen, showing reddened eyes. Loving a soldier was not easy, and now that Kaladin had returned from Alethkar alone …
Lopen moved on, and eventually settled down beside a wounded man in a cot. Thaylen, with drooping eyebrows and a bandage around his head. He stared straight ahead, not blinking.
“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked the soldier.
The man shrugged.
Lopen lifted his foot up and put the boot on the man’s cot. The laces had come undone, and Lopen—one hand behind his back—deftly grabbed the strings and looped them around his hand, twisted them, then pulled them tight, using his other foot to hold one end. He wound up with an excellent knot with a nice bow. It was even symmetrical. Maybe he could get an ardent to write a poem about it.
The soldier gave no reaction. Lopen settled back, pulling over his pack, which clinked softly. “Don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world.”
The soldier cocked his head.
“Well, sure. Technically it might be. But for the end of the world, it’s not so bad, right? I figured that when everything ended, we’d sink into a noxious bath of pus and doom, breathing in agony as the air around us—sure—became molten, and we screamed a final burning scream, relishing the memories of the last time a woman loved us.” Lopen tapped the man’s cot. “Don’t know about you, moolie, but my lungs aren’t burning. The air doesn’t seem very molten. Considering how bad this could have gone, you’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Remember that.”
“I…” The man blinked.
“I meant, remember those exact words. That’s the phrase to tell the woman you’re seeing. Helps a ton.” He fished in his pack and pulled out a bottle of Thaylen lavis beer he’d salvaged. Rua stopped zipping around the top of the tent long enough to float down and inspect it.
“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked.
“A … another?” the man asked.
“Normally, I’d pop the cap off with one of my fingernails. I have great Herdazian ones, extra hard. You have weaker ones like most people. So here’s the trick.”
Lopen rolled up his trouser leg with one hand. He pressed the bottle—top first—to his leg and then, with a quick flick, twisted off the cap. He raised the bottle toward the man.
The man reached for it with the bandaged stump of his right arm, which ended above the elbow. He looked at it, grimaced, then reached with the left hand instead.
“If you need any jokes,” Lopen said, “I’ve got a few I can’t use anymore.”
The soldier drank quietly, eyes flicking to the front of the tent, where Kaladin had entered, glowing softly, speaking with some of the surgeons. Knowing Kaladin, he was probably telling them how to do their jobs.
“You’re one of them,” the soldier said. “Radiant.”
“Sure,” Lopen said. “But not really one of them. I’m trying to figure out the next step.”
“Next step?”
“I’ve got the flying,” Lopen said, “and the spren. But I don’t know if I’m good at saving people yet.”
The man looked at his drink. “I … think you might be doing just fine.”
“That’s a beer, not a person. Don’t get those mixed up. Very embarrassing, but I won’t tell.”
“How…” the man said. “How does one join up? They say … they say it heals you.…”
“Sure, it heals everything except what’s in the rockbud on the end of your neck. Which is great for me. I’m the only sane one in this group. That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“They say you have to be broken,” Lopen said, glancing toward his spren, who made a few loops of excitement, then shot off to hide again. Lopen would need to go looking for the little guy—he did enjoy the game. “You know that tall woman, the king’s sister? The chortana with the glare that could break a Shardblade? She says that the power has to get into your soul somehow. So I’ve been trying to cry a lot, and moan about my life being so terrible, but I think the Stormfather knows I’m lying. Hard to act sad when you’re the Lopen.”
“I might be broken,” the man said softly.
“Good, good! We don’t have a Thaylen yet, and lately it looks like we’re trying to collect one of everything. We even have a parshman!”
“I just ask?” the man said, then took a drink.
“Sure. Ask. Follow us around. Worked for Lyn. But you have to say the Words.”
“Words?”
“ ‘Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before pancakes.’ That’s the easy one. The hard one is, ‘I will protect those who cannot protect themselves,’ and—”
A sudden flash of coldness struck Lopen, and the gemstones in the room flickered, then went out. A symbol crystallized in frost on the stones around Lopen, vanishing under the cots. The ancient symbol of the Windrunners.
“What?” Lopen stood up. “What? Now?”
He heard a far-off rumbling, like thunder.
“NOW?” Lopen said, shaking a fist at the sky. “I was saving that for a dramatic moment, you penhito! Why didn’t you listen earlier? We were, sure, all about to die and things!”
He got a distinct, very distant impression.
YOU WEREN’T QUITE READY.
“Storm you!” Lopen made a double obscene gesture toward the sky—something he’d been waiting a long time to use properly for the first time. Rua joined him, making the same gesture, then grew two extra arms to give it more weight.
“Nice,” Lopen said. “Hey gancho! I’m a full Knight Radiant now, so you can start complimenting me.” Kaladin didn’t seem to have even noticed. “Just a moment,” Lopen said to the one-armed soldier, then stalked over to where Kaladin was speaking with a runner.
“You’re sure?” Kaladin said to the scribe. “Does Dalinar know about this?”