The Way of Kings

“You’re still in my alley,” a gruff voice said from behind him. That voice had awakened him in the first place.

“I shall vacate it presently,” Axies promised.

“You owe me rent. One night’s sleep.”

“In an alleyway?”

“Finest alleyway in Kasitor.”

“Ah. Is that where I am, then? Excellent.”

A few heartbeats of mental focus finally banished the headache. He opened his eyes, and this time found the sunlight quite pleasant. Brick walls rose toward the sky on either side of him, overgrown with a crusty red lichen. Small heaps of rotting tubers were scattered around him.

No. Not scattered. They looked to be arranged carefully. Odd, that. They were likely the source of the scents he’d noticed earlier. Best to leave his sense of smell inhibited.

He sat up, stretching, checking his muscles. All seemed to be in working order, though he had quite a few bruises. He’d deal with those in a bit. “Now,” he said, turning, “you wouldn’t happen to have a spare pair of pants, would you?”

The own er of the voice turned out to be a scraggly-bearded man sitting on a box at the end of the alleyway. Axies didn’t recognize him, nor did he recognize the location. That wasn’t surprising, considering that he’d been beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Again.

The things I do in the name of scholarship, he thought with a sigh.

His memory was returning. Kasitor was a large Iriali city, second in size only to Rall Elorim. He’d come here by design. He’d also gotten himself drunk by design. Perhaps he should have picked his drinking companions more carefully.

“I’m going to guess that you don’t have a spare pair of pants,” Axies said, standing and inspecting the tattoos on his arm. “And if you did, I’d suggest that you wear them yourself. Is that a lavis sack you have on?”

“You owe me rent,” the man grumbled. “And payment for destroying the temple of the northern god.”

“Odd,” Axies said, looking over his shoulder toward the alleyway’s opening. There was a busy street beyond. The good people of Kasitor would likely not take well to his nudity. “I don’t recall destroying any temples. Normally I’m quite cognizant of that sort of thing.”

“You took out half of Hapron Street,” the beggar said. “Number of homes as well. I’ll let that slide.”

“Mighty kind of you.”

“They’ve been wicked lately.”

Axies frowned, looking back at the beggar. He followed the man’s gaze, looking down at the ground. The heaps of rotting vegetables had been placed in a very particular arrangement. Like a city.

“Ah,” Axies said, moving his foot, which had been planted on a small square of vegetable.

“That was a bakery,” the beggar said.

“Terribly sorry.”

“The family was away.”

“That’s a relief.”

“They were worshipping at the temple.”

“The one I…”

“Smashed with your head? Yes.”

“I’m certain you’ll be kind to their souls.”

The beggar narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m still trying to decide how you fit into things. Are you a Voidbringer or a Herald?”

“Voidbringer, I’m afraid,” Axies said. “I mean, I did destroy a temple.”

The beggar’s eyes grew more suspicious.

“Only the sacred cloth can banish me,” Axies continued. “And since you don’t…I say, what is that you’re holding?”

The beggar looked down at his hand, which was touching one of the ratty blankets draped over one of his equally ratty boxes. He perched atop them, like…well, like a god looking down over his people.

Poor fool, Axies thought. It was really time to be moving on. Wouldn’t want to bring any bad luck down upon the addled fellow.

The beggar held up the blanket. Axies shied back, raising his hands. That made the beggar smile a grin that could have used a few more teeth. He hopped off his box, holding the blanket up wardingly. Axies shied away.

The beggar cackled and threw the blanket at him. Axies snatched it from the air and shook a fist at the beggar. Then he retreated from the alleyway while wrapping the blanket around his waist.

“And lo,” the beggar said from behind, “the foul beast was banished!”

“And lo,” Axies said, fixing the blanket in place, “the foul beast avoided imprisonment for public indecency.” Iriali were very particular about their chastity laws. They were very particular about a lot of things. Of course, that could be said for most peoples-the only difference were the things they were particular about.

Axies the Collector drew his share of stares. Not because of his unconventional clothing-Iri was on the northwestern rim of Roshar, and its weather therefore tended to be much warmer than that of places like Alethkar or even Azir. A fair number of the golden-haired Iriali men went about wearing only waist wraps, their skin painted various colors and patterns. Even Axies’s tattoos weren’t that noteworthy here.

Perhaps he drew stares because of his blue nails and crystalline deep blue eyes. Aimians-even Siah Aimians-were rare. Or perhaps it was because he cast a shadow the wrong way. Toward light, instead of away from it. It was a small thing, and the shadows weren’t long, with the sun so high. But those who noticed muttered or jumped out of the way. Likely they’d heard of his kind. It hadn’t been that long since the scouring of his homeland. Just long ago enough for stories and legends to have crept into the general knowledge of most peoples.

Perhaps someone important would take exception to him and have him brought before a local magistrate. Wouldn’t be the first time. He’d learned long ago not to worry. When the Curse of Kind followed you, you learned to take what happened as it happened.

He began to whistle softly to himself, inspecting his tattoos and ignoring those observant enough to gawk. I remember writing something somewhere… he thought, looking over his wrist, then twisting his arm over and trying to see if there were any new tattoos on the back. Like all Aimians, he could change the color and markings of his skin at will. That was convenient, as when you were very regularly robbed of everything you owned, it was blighted difficult to keep a proper notebook. And so, he kept his notes on his skin, at least until he could return to a safe location and transcribe them.

Hopefully, he hadn’t gotten so drunk that he’d written his observations someplace inconvenient. He’d done that once, and reading the mess had required two mirrors and a very confused bathing attendant.

Ah, he thought, discovering a new entry near the inside of his left elbow. He read it awkwardly, shuffling down the incline.

Test successful. Have noted spren who appear only when one is severely intoxicated. Appear as small brown bubbles clinging to objects nearby. Further testing may be needed to prove they were more than a drunken hallucination.

“Very nice,” he said out loud. “Very nice indeed. I wonder what I should call them.” The stories he’d heard called them sudspren, but that seemed silly. Intoxicationspren? No, too unwieldy. Alespren? He felt a surge of excitement. He’d been hunting this particular type of spren for years. If they proved real, it would be quite a victory.

Why did they appear only in Iri? And why so infrequently? He’d gotten himself stupidly drunk a dozen times, and had only found them once. If, indeed, he had ever really found them.

Spren, however, could be very elusive. Sometimes, even the most common types-flamespren, for instance- would refuse to appear. That made it particularly frustrating for a man who had made it his life’s work to observe, catalogue, and study every single type of spren in Roshar.

He continued whistling as he made his way through the town to the dockside. Around him flowed large numbers of the golden-haired Iriali. The hair bred true, like black Alethi hair-the purer your blood was, the more locks of gold you had. And it wasn’t merely blond, it was truly gold, lustrous in the sun.

He had a fondness for the Iriali. They weren’t nearly as prudish as the Vorin