“Kal?” Laral said, voice insistent. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if Father was serious or not. So I didn’t say anything.”
That was a lie. He’d known his father was serious. Kal just hadn’t wanted to mention leaving to become a surgeon, particularly not to Laral.
She placed her hands on her hips. “I thought you were going to go become a soldier.”
Kal shrugged.
She rolled her eyes, hopping down off her ridge onto a stone beside him. “Don’t you want to become a lighteyes? Win a Shardblade?”
“Father says that doesn’t happen very often.”
She knelt down before him. “I’m sure you could do it.” Those eyes, so bright and alive, shimmering green, the color of life itself.
More and more, Kal found that he liked looking at Laral. Kal knew, logically, what was happening to him. His father had explained the process of growing with the precision of a surgeon. But there was so much feeling involved, emotions that his father’s sterile descriptions hadn’t explained. Some of those emotions were about Laral and the other girls of the town. Other emotions had to do with the strange blanket of melancholy that smothered him at times when he wasn’t expecting.
“I…” Kal said.
“Look,” Laral said, standing up again and climbing atop her rock. Her fine yellow dress ruffled in the wind. One more year, and she’d start wearing a glove on her left hand, the mark that a girl had entered adolescence. “Up, come on. Look.”
Kal hauled himself to his feet, looking eastward. There, snarlbrush grew in dense thickets around the bases of stout markel trees.
“What do you see?” Laral demanded.
“Brown snarlbrush. Looks like it’s probably dead.”
“The Origin is out there,” she said, pointing. “This is the stormlands. Father says we’re here to be a windbreak for more timid lands to the west.” She turned to him. “We’ve got a noble heritage, Kal, darkeyes and light-eyes alike. That’s why the best warriors have always been from Alethkar. Highprince Sadeas, General Amaram…King Gavilar himself.”
“I suppose.”
She sighed exaggeratedly. “I hate talking to you when you’re like this, you know.”
“Like what?”
“Like you are now. You know. Moping around, sighing.”
“You’re the one who just sighed, Laral.”
“You know what I mean.”
She stepped down from the rock, walking over to go pout. She did that sometimes. Kal stayed where he was, looking eastward. He wasn’t sure how he felt. His father really wanted him to be a surgeon, but he wavered. It wasn’t just because of the stories, the excitement and wonder of them. He felt that by being a soldier, he could change things. Really change them. A part of him dreamed of going to war, of protecting Alethkar, of fighting alongside heroic lighteyes. Of doing good someplace other than a little town that nobody important ever visited.
He sat down. Sometimes he dreamed like that. Other times, he found it hard to care about anything. His dreary feelings were like a black eel, coiled inside of him. The snarlbrush out there survived the storms by growing together densely about the bases of the mighty markel trees. Their bark was coated with stone, their branches thick as a man’s leg. But now the snarlbrush was dead. It hadn’t survived. Pulling together hadn’t been enough for it.
“Kaladin?” a voice asked from behind him.
He turned to find Tien. Tien was ten years old, two years Kal’s junior, though he looked much younger. While other kids called him a runt, Lirin said that Tien just hadn’t hit his height yet. But, well, with those round, flushed cheeks and that slight build, Tien did look like a boy half his age. “Kaladin,” he said, eyes wide, hands cupped together. “What are you looking at?”
“Dead weeds,” Kal said.
“Oh. Well, you need to see this.”
“What is it?”
Tien opened his hands to reveal a small stone, weathered on all sides but with a jagged break on the bottom. Kal picked it up, looking it over. He couldn’t see anything distinctive about it at all. In fact, it was dull.
“It’s just a rock,” Kal said.
“Not just a rock,” Tien said, taking out his canteen. He wetted his thumb, then rubbed it on the flat side of the stone. The wetness darkened the stone, and made visible an array of white patterns in the rock. “See?” Tien asked, handing it back.
The strata of the rock alternated white, brown, black. The pattern was remarkable. Of course, it was still just a rock. But for some reason, Kal found himself smiling. “That’s nice, Tien.” He moved to hand the rock back.
Tien shook his head. “I found it for you. To make you feel better.”
“I…” It was just a stupid rock. Yet, inexplicably, Kal did feel better. “Thanks. Hey, you know what? I’ll bet there’s a lurg or two hiding in these rocks somewhere. Want to see if we can find one?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Tien said. He laughed and began moving down the rocks. Kal moved to follow, but paused, remembering something his father had said.
He poured some water on his hand from his own canteen and flung it at the brown snarlbrush. Wherever sprayed droplets fell, the brush grew instantly green, as if he were throwing paint. The brush wasn’t dead; it just dried out, waiting for the storms to come. Kal watched the patches of green slowly fade back to tan as the water was absorbed.
“Kaladin!” Tien yelled. He often used Kal’s full name, even though Kal had asked him not to. “Is this one?”
Kal moved down across the boulders, pocketing the rock he’d been given. As he did so, he passed Laral. She was looking westward, toward her family’s mansion. Her father was the citylord of Hearthstone. Kal found his eyes lingering on her again. That hair of hers was beautiful, with the two stark colors.
She turned to Kal and frowned.
“We’re going to hunt some lurgs,” he explained, smiling and gesturing toward Tien. “Come on.”
“You’re cheerful suddenly.”
“I don’t know. I feel better.”
“How does he do that? I wonder.”
“Who does what?”
“Your brother,” Laral said, looking toward Tien. “He changes you.”
Tien’s head popped up behind some stones and he waved eagerly, bouncing up and down with excitement.
“It’s just hard to be gloomy when he’s around,” Kal said. “Come on. Do you want to watch the lurg or not?”
“I suppose,” Laral said with a sigh. She held out a hand toward him.
“What’s that for?” Kal asked, looking at her hand.
“To help me down.”
“Laral, you’re a better climber than me or Tien. You don’t need help.”
“It’s polite, stupid,” she said, proffering her hand more insistently. Kal sighed and took it, then she proceeded to hop down without even leaning on it or needing his help. She, he thought, has been acting very strange lately.
The two of them joined Tien, who jumped down into a hollow between some boulders. The younger boy pointed eagerly. A silky patch of white grew in a crevice on the rock. It was made of tiny threads spun together into a ball about the size of a boy’s fist.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tien asked. “That is one?”
Kal lifted the flask and poured water down the side of the stone onto the patch of white. The threads dissolved in the simulated rainwater, the cocoon melting to reveal a small creature with slick brown and green skin. The lurg had six legs that it used to grip the stone, and its eyes were in the center of its back. It hopped off the stone, searching for insects. Tien laughed, watching it bounce from rock to rock, sticking to the stones. It left behind patches of mucus wherever it landed.
Kal leaned back against the stone, watching his brother, remembering days—not so long ago—when chasing lurgs had been more exciting.
“So,” Laral said, folding her arms. “What are you going to do? If your father tries to send you to Kharbranth?”
“I don’t know,” Kal said. “The surgeons won’t take anyone before their sixteenth Weeping, so I’ve got time to think.” The best surgeons and healers trained in Kharbranth. Everyone knew that. The city was said to have more hospitals than taverns.
“It sounds like your father is forcing you to do what he wants, not what you want,” Laral said.
“That’s the way everyone does it,” Kal said, scratching his head. “The other boys don’t mind becoming farmers because their fathers were farmers, and Ral just became the new town carpenter. He didn’t mind that it was what his father did. Why should I mind being a surgeon?”
“I just—” Laral looked angry. “Kal, if you go to war and find a Shardblade, then you’d be a lighteyes…. I mean…Oh, this is useless.” She settled back, folding her arms even more tightly.
Kal scratched his head. She really was acting oddly. “I wouldn’t mind going to war, winning honor and all that. Mostly, I’d like to travel. See what other lands are like.” He’d heard tales of exotic animals, like enormous crustaceans or eels that sang. Of Rall Elorim, City of Shadows, or Kurth, City of Lightning.
He’d spent a lot of time studying these last few years. Kal’s mother said he should be allowed to have a childhood, rather than focusing so much on his future. Lirin argued that the tests to be admitted by the Kharbranthian surgeons were very rigorous. If Kal wanted a chance with them, he’d have to begin learning early.
And yet, to become a soldier…The other boys dreamed of joining the army, of fighting with King Gavilar. There was talk of going to war with Jah Keved, once and for all. What would it be like, to finally see some of the heroes from stories? To fight with Highprince Sadeas, or Dalinar the Blackthorn?
Eventually, the lurg realized that it had been tricked. It settled down on a rock to spin its cocoon again. Kal grabbed a small, weathered stone off the ground, then laid a hand on Tien’s shoulder, stopping the boy from prodding the tired amphibian. Kal moved forward and nudged the lurg with two fingers, making it hop off the boulder and onto his stone. He handed this to Tien, who watched with wide eyes as the lurg spun its cocoon, spitting out the wet silk and using tiny hands to shape it. That cocoon would be watertight from the inside, sealed by dried mucus, but rainwater outside would dissolve the sack.
Kal smiled, then lifted the flask and drank. This was cool, clean water, which had already had the crem settled out. Crem—the sludgy brown material that fell with rainwater—could make a man sick. Everybody knew that, not just surgeons. You always let water sit for a day, then poured off the fresh water on top and used the crem to make pottery.
The lurg eventually finished its cocoon. Tien immediately reached for the flask.
Kal held the flask high. “It’ll be tired, Tien. It won’t jump around anymore.”
“Oh.”
Kal lowered the flask, patting his brother’s shoulder. “I put it on that stone so you could carry it around. You can get it out later.” He smiled. “Or you could drop it in Father’s bathwater through the window.”