A WARNING FROM BRANDON: This scene gives major spoilers for Words of Radiance. Please don’t continue unless you’ve finished that book. This is a very short sequence of Jasnah’s backstory I’ve been reading at signings. It’s not a polished draft. I often read very rough (and potentially continuity-error filled) sequences at signings as a special treat to people who attend. This scene is even rougher than most—first draft, and shouldn’t be taken as canon quite yet, as I haven’t firmed up or fixed all the terminology or Shadesmar interactions.
We’re excited to share with you a scene from somewhere in between the second and third book of the Stormlight Archive, containing back story that may or may not appear in the forthcoming Book Three. As Brandon says above, there are BIG SPOILERS for Book Two, so don’t dive in to this before you’ve read that volume.
Jasnah Kholin opened her eyes and gasped, fingers rigid, clawing at the obsidian ground. A knife in her chest! She could feel it grinding on her bones as it slipped between two ribs, glancing off her sternum. She spasmed, rolling into a ball, quivering.
“Jasnah.”
No. She could not lay prone. She fought to her knees, but then found herself raking her fingers across the ground, trembling, heaving breaths in and out. Moving—even breathing—was perversely difficult, not because of pain or incapacity, but because of the overwhelming sense of tension. It made her shake, made her made her want to run, fight, do anything she could to not die.
She shouted, stumbling to her feet, and spun about, hand on her chest.
Wet blood. Her blood. A dress cut with a single knife hole.
“Jasnah.” A figure all in black. A landscape of obsidian ground reflecting a bizarre sky and a sun that did not change locations.
She darted her head from side to side, taking in everything but registering very little of it.
Storms. She could sense that knife again, sliding into her flesh. She felt that same helplessness, that same panic—emotions which had accompanied the knife’s fall. She remembered the darkness consuming her, her hearing fading, the end.
She closed her eyes and shivered, trying to banish the memories. Yet the effort of trying to do so only seemed to solidify them.
She knew that she would remember dying for as long as it took the darkness to claim her again.
“You did well,” Ivory said. “Well, Jasnah.”
“The knife,” she whispered, opening her eyes, angry at how her voice trembled, “the knife was unexpected.” She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. That puffed out the last of her Stormlight, which she had drawn in at the last possible moment, then used like a lash to pull herself into this place. It had kept her alive, healed her.
Ivory said that while a person held enough Stormlight, only a crushing blow to the head itself would kill. She’d believed him, but storms that hadn’t made it any easier to lay there before the knife. Who would have expected them to stab her? Shouldn’t they have assumed that a blow to the head would be enough to—
Wait. Shallan!
“We have to go back,” Jasnah said, spinning. “Ivory, where is the junction?”
“It is not.”
She was able to locate the ship with ease. In Shadesmar, land and sea were reversed, so she stood on solid ground—but in the Physical Realm, Shallan and the sailors would still be in their ship. They manifest here as lights, similar to candle flames, and Jasnah thought of them as the representation of the person’s soul—despite Ivory telling her that was an extreme simplification.
They spotted the air around her, standing up on deck. That solitary flame would be Shallan herself. Many smaller lights darted beneath the ground—faintly visible through the obsidian. Fish and other sea life.
Nerves still taut, Jasnah searched around for the junction: a faint warping of the air that marked the place of her passage into Shadesmar. She could use it return to the ship, to…
One of the lights up above winked out.
Jasnah froze. “They’re being executed. Ivory! The junction.”
“A junction is not, Jasnah,” Ivory repeated. He stood with hands clasped behind his back, wearing a sharp—yet somehow alien—suit, all black. Here in Shadesmar, it was easier to distinguish the mother-of-pearl sheen to his skin, like the colors made by oil on water.
“Not?” Jasnah said, trying to parse his meaning. She’d missed his explanation the first time. Despite their years together, his language constructions still baffled her on occasion. “But there’s always a junction…”
“Only when a piece of you is there,” Ivory said. “Today, that is not. You are here, Jasnah. I am…sorry.”
“You brought me all the way into Shadesmar,” she asked. “Now?”
He bowed his head.
For years she’d been trying to get him to bring her into his world. Though she could peek into Shadesmar on her own—and even slip one foot in, so to speak—entering fully required Ivory’s help. How had it happened? The academic wanted to record her experiences and tease out the process, so that perhaps she could replicate it. She’d used Stormlight, hadn’t she? An outpouring of it, thrust into Shadesmar. A lash which had pulling her, like gravitation from a distant place, unseen…
Memories of what happened mixed with the terror of those last minutes. She shoved both emotions and memories aside. How could she help the people on the ship? Jasnah stepped up to the light, hovering before her, lifting a hand to cup one. Shallan, she assumed, though she could not be certain. Ivory said that there wasn’t always a direct correlation between objects their manifestation in Shadesmar.
She couldn’t touch the soul before her, not completely. Its natural power repelled her hand, as if she were trying to push two pieces of magnetized stone against one another.
A sudden screech broke Shadesmar’s silence.
Jasnah jumped, spinning. It sounded a trumping beast, only overlaid by the sounds of glass breaking. The terrible noise drove a shiver up her spine. It sounded like it had come from someplace nearby.
Ivory gasped. He leaped forward, grabbing Jasnah by the arm. “We must go.”
“What is that?” Jasnah asked.
“Grinder,” Ivory said. “You call them painspren.”
“Painspren are harmless.”
“On your side, harmless. Here, harmmore. Very harmmore. Come.” He yanked on her arm.
“Wait.”
The ship’s crew would die because of her. Storms! She had not thought that the Ghostbloods would be so bold. But what to do? She felt like a child here, newborn. Years of study had told her so little. Could she do anything to those souls above her? She couldn’t even distinguish which were the assassins and which were the crew.
The screech sounded again, coming closer. Jasnah looked up, growing tense. This place was so alien, with ridges and mountains of pure black obsidian, a landscape that was perpetually dim. Small beads of glass rolled about her feet—representations of inanimate objects in the physical realm.
Perhaps…
She fished among them, and these she could identify immediately by touch. Three plates from the galley, one bead each. A trunk holding clothing.
Several of her books.
Her hand hesitated. Oh storms, this was a disaster. Why hadn’t she prepared better? Her contingency plan in case of an assassination attempt had been to play dead, using faint amounts of stormlight from gems sewn into her hem to stay alive. But she’d foolishly expected assassins to appear in the night, strike her down, then flee. She’d not prepared for a mutiny, an assassination led by a member of the crew.
They would murder everyone on board.
“Jasnah!” Ivory said, sounding more desperate. “We must not be in this place! Emotions from the ship draw them!”
She dropped the spheres representing her books and ran her fingers through the other spheres, seeking… there. Ropes—the bonds tying the sailors as they were executed. She found a group of them and seized the spheres.
She drew in the last of her Stormlight, a few gemstones’ worth. So little.
The landscape reacted immediately. Beads on the ground nearby shivered and rolled toward her, seeking the stormlight. The calls of the painspren intensified. It was even closer now. Ivory breathed in sharply, and high above, several long ribbons of smoke descended out of the clouds and began to circle about her.
Stormlight was precious here. It was power, currency, even—perhaps—life. Without it, she’d be defenseless.
“Can I use this Light to return?” she asked him.
“Here?” He shook his head. “No. We must find a stable junction. Honor’s Perpendicularity, perhaps, though it is very distant. But Jasnah, the grinders will soon be!”
Jasnah gripped the beads in her hand.
“You,” she command, “will change.”
“I am a rope,” one of them said. “I am—”
“You will change.”
The ropes shivered, transforming—one by one—into smoke in the physical realm.
So,
MoiraineJasnah didn’t actually die, she jumped intoFinnlandShadesmar, and is now likely trapped there untilMatShallan can help her escape, and provide her valuable knowledge to the world…Except she didn’t do anything as dramatic as taking Lanfear with her…
I love that Brandon does this. Especially this excerpt. Answers a few questions, while introducting material for so many more!
Am pretty sure I broke my mouse clicking on the link when I happened to just notice this posting.
This makes it sound like it was the new crew that was Ghostbloods, that attacked, rather than having a second ship approach them by stealth and attack. I was wondering about this and it just makes more sense in my mind anyway.
And harmmore painspren…. interesting.
Love love love love love this!
I love getting to know the details behind Jasnah’s escape. I’m somewhat saddened that she wasn’t actually expecting the assassins – I thought “the new guy” was too obvious. However her reasoning about expecting assassins, just not the slaughter, seems believable.
It’s such a surprise really to see how much this flustered Jasnah – in my mind I kind of pictured her escape as planned and calculated. I also didn’t expect her to get so worried about Shallan and the rest. I guess my point is – this really shows there’s more to Jasnah than we’ve seen yet, and I like it.
And best part to me is the end when Jasnah commands the ropes to change! Such a foil to Shallan’s “please change?” with the stick – and it all goes back to Jasnah’s bit about command and presense – just ties in so nicely! Sanderson shows his skills for sure :)
“Honor’s Perpendicularity” as the name of a junction? And she ultimately materializes somewhere in Alethkar?
So many questions…
oooh ooooh….I love getting the “whys and wherefores” of her escape to Shadsmar!
Everything Naupathia said….
Book 3 please!
I am so glad for the internet right now. Thank you Tor and Brandon. :)
KiManiak @6: I wonder if Honor’s Perpendicularity might not be the Origin, where highstorms come from.
Honor’s perpendicularity is hidden in the horneater peaks. Rock mentions it a few times.
“Honor’s Perpendicularity” sounds like Honor’s Shardpool. Hoid came out of Cultivation’s, probably, so this is strong support for the Shardpools-lead-to-Shadesmar theory.
Love it.
I have to say it. NOT COOL TOR/BRANDON. Seriously not cool.
I’ve more or less got over the fact that I have to wait until 2015 for the next book, I’ve put how awesome Words was to the back of my mind, and I’m looking forward to getting other books, that are already out, like the Crippled God.
But no, Tor has to come and remind me how awesome this series and now I REALLY WANT BOOK THREE AND CAN’T STAND WAITING!!!!
:'(
But yeah, awesome segment.
Itkovian@11 – I assume that when it comes to the Stormlight Archive, that you are not yet done?
:-)
Does this match Ivory’s description in the prologue? I will have to go check it out. I recall him being described as dark and not mother of pearl. But I vaguely remember something about an oil slick.. Off to check out the WoR prologue!
“Here in Shadesmar, it was easier to distinguish the mother-of-pearl sheen to his skin, like the colors made by oil on water”
@1 did you read Words of Radiance? Didn’t she return on her own in the epilogue?
“harmmore. Very harmmore.” I love it!
Love it! Can’t wait for the next book. :D
(Oh, and… “Ivory said that there wasn’t always a direct correlation between objects their manifestation in Shadesmar.”
*and)
Well, there was some discussion last week on whether any members of the crew were able to escape when Shallan soulcast the ship. Having Jasnah soulcast the ropes binding them suggests that some did survive. Now I wonder if Jasnah was responsible for the Santhid (sp?) helping Shallan to reach the shore, or if the painspren had already forced her from the area by that time.
Also, this would mean that Shadesmar is an extremely dangerous place to be in proximity to a battle. Painspren / Grinders are everywhere during those.
Thanks, Brandon and Tor!
Interesting look at Jasnah’s “escape”. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, perhaps?
@1 – If you’ve read WoR, none of that’s a surprise. If you haven’t…
@13 – “…he had a certain reflective cast, as if he were made of oil. No…of some other liquid with a coasting of oil floating on the outside, giving him a dark, prismatic quality.” From WoR Prologue (Loc 237 in the ebook.) Seems to match, with the oil being the black suit she describes him as wearing here.
@16 If you’re there in the flesh, yes, but if you’re only partially there, I wonder how harmful the Grinders are!
@@@@@ 5 I think, since we’ve only had one Jasnah POV before this, that it in fact shows that Jasnah has flaws like everyone else. Dalinar would look invincible at times if we didn’t see his own inner turmoil, doubt, etc. Jasnah is calculated and incredibly intelligent, but not perfect. She is, however, very good at appearing that way. Aka, her lessons to Shallan on how people perceive you.
@@@@@ 16. Good observation, not entirely relevant yet but in the coming books I’m sure the question of “Why not escape to Shadesmar if in a crisis” will be countered by this danger. It’s not an easy loophole but is instead incredibly dangerous. I could see fans reacting to traveling to Shadesmar with the “Why didn’t the eagles just fly to Mordor” argument. And, his reason is more sound than the one he gave in his portion of the Wheel of Time for entering TAR in the flesh -which I thought was pretty weak.
A nitpick, but this is actually set during WoR, not after it. Then again, since it definitely spoils the ending of WoR, maybe it’s best to keep the article title.
And for the first two lines I thought it was going to be the same thing that was posted yesterday in the Re-Read. But no…. Brandon has to be awesome and tell us more.
Bouncing for joy and points to whoever from the Re-read said the sailors were freed somehow before the ship became water.
“Harmmore”, I’m going to enjoy learning how Ivory speaks.
Sorry @11, but the rest is not fully written, as I’m sure Brandon and Peter would tell us. So the beta-reader haven’t gotten their hands on it either. Everyone is waiting. :-(
But at least Brandon is not GRRM to make his fans wait a decade between books. :-)
GRRM didn’t used to do that either, @Braid_Tug. I have to admit, part of me wishes that he would slow down a bit, take a year off, something. He’s published so much in the short span of time his kids have been alive… at least he gets to work from home.
Then the rest of me is just glad he’s a write-a-holic!
Interesting timing on this. I picture Brandon sitting there with an inscruciable (sp?) smile reading the comments on the re-read about how Jasnah did her escape, getting a little chuckle at some of them perhaps, and then being like “Welllll, this is actually what happened.” That’s just my mental image of it, sounds more likely that he had this written up at least a couple of weeks ago and I’m not sure how much time he has to do stuff like read the comments on the re-read. But that’s kind of how I picture him with these sorts of ‘reveals’. Sort of like a father watching his kids try to figure out a puzzle with a benevolent smile on his face and then after they’ve gotten stuck for too long on a piece of it reaching in and fixing a few pieces so the puzzle makes more sense.
Oh, wow. So many of our discussions fixed, right here. Wow. And could the timing of this post possibly be more perfect??? (With reference to the reread, not the wait for the next book, of course…) Oh, my. I love it. Maybe I’ll think of something coherent to say eventually.
(turtlegirl @15 – Yes, there are a number of errors of one sort or another. It’s rough, as noted.)
eternalreturn @1: So you haven’t read WoR, I’m assuming…
wjames1204 @18. Other reasons for the lack of escaping to Shadesmar in times of crisis. First, with respect to Knights Radiants in general, only 3 orders (Lightweavers, Elsecallers and Willshapers) could access Shadesmar. Thus, it is a contingency that most Kinght Radiants could not utilize.
Second, with respect to Jasnah herself, we do know her proficiency with the Transportation Surge. From WoK, we can gather that over the years, she has become proficient at Transformation. It is possible that before her escape to Shadesmar her use of Transportation was limited at best. At this point in time, Jasnah may be as proficient with Transportation as Shallan is with Transformation by the end of WoR (which is to say, she only knows the basics and has not practiced).
Perhaps while in Shadesmar when WoR is taking place, Jasnah could be gaining experience so that by the end, she is capable of traveling in and out of Shadesmar with no junctions — but not perfect. That good but not great may explain why she Elsecalled into the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, by the end of WoR, Jasnah could be excellent with Elsecalling — but the immediacy of the Everstorm or a large presence of Grinders in Shademar could have caused her to Elsecall into the middle of nowhere in Roshar.
I would not be surprised that her lack of skills with Elsecalling was why she did Elsecall until the moment she was stabbed. It also explains why she could not go back and try to help the crew — or at the least, get Shallan.
In a related matter, her picking up the bead of her trunk may explain how the trunk got to the beach. She moved the bead of the trunk and placed it on the shore. Shallan never really came to a conclusion as to how a heavy trunk made its way from the wreckage of the boat to the shore; as opposed to sinking to the bottom of the sea.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
@25 re: the trunk. I like that idea, but at the same time, we see beads getting attracted to her in Shadesmar and not having an impact in the physical realm (same with the beads moving/drowning both her and Shallan in their respective first trip into Shadesmar). Perhaps, however, she’ll go on and Invest Stormlight into the trunk’s bead to Elsecall it to the beach where it’s found (or however Elsecalling might be performed on other objects).
More questions indeed. I assumed that when Ivory said they needed to find a stable junction, something like Honor’s Perpendicularity, the one they found determined where Jasnah came back to the Physical realm – that’s why she ended up in the middle of nowhere.
I do like the idea that Jasnah’s fiddling with the trunk-bead may explain its presence on the beach. Maybe the santhid’s cognitive aspect, or its spren, could see what Jasnah found valuable, and grabbed Shallan and the trunk?
@22 & 23:
Well, we know Peter reads the Re-read comments at times. :-)
Maybe not Brandon so much….
@21, True re: GRRM. Think he got lost in his own story.
And I hear Brandon is an insomniac, so you can get lots of work and play with the kids done when you only sleep a few hours a night.
If there’s some kind of interesting gestalt consensus that develops in comments, I may mention it to Brandon. But this scene’s appearance is coincidental to the reread. He wrote it on July 22nd, and the part excerpted above, which he read at the signings, is about half of what he wrote so far in the scene.
Thanks Peter! And please pass along our Thanks to Brandon!
Someone needs to introduce that rope to the stick. They should get along famously.
@31 The rope seems more pliant than the stick. That, or Shallan needs to learn to be as forceful as Jasnah
Honor’s Perpendicularity. Sounds like a singularity.
Very interesting and explains all of my questions re: Jasnah’s escape. It seems that the assassins did get a drop on her and that she and Ivory reacted in panic.
Infused gems sewn into a dress are a very sensible security precaution, which saved her life. She must be able to chose from which gems to draw, so as not to drain them prematurely, though. Which is an ability that we didn’t see anybody display so far.
Presumably, she couldn’t just draw Stormlight from the gems in a chest, which is why they were fully charged when Shallan got to them.
However, Shallan described Jasnah after her stabbing thusly:
“A body _in a thin nightgown_, eyes staring sightlessly”, etc.
Now, maybe I am misunderstanding something, but AFAIK a nightgown is not a dress? But Jasnah certainly wore remains of an expensive dress when she appeared in the epilogue of WoR, so it seems like there is/was some kind of continuity error…
“Shouldn’t they have assumed that a blow to the head would be enough to—”
So, Ivory had said that a crushing blow to the head would be enough to kill a surgebinder holding Stormlight and Jasnah seems to have received a blow to the head that should have appeared mortal to her attackers. Why is she still alive? Was the blow not crushing enough? And why is Jasnah so freaked about the stabbing, but not about the blow?
Jasnah transforming the ropes explaines how Yalb and Co. might have survived, as their appearance on one of Shallan’s drawings suggests. It would be even better if she also somehow arranged for santhid to save Shallan and for the chest with her research to wash up on the shore.
I really love what Sanderson is doing with Jasnah and Shallan and how it is different from stereotypical mentor-hero relationship in the genre.
Funnily enough, LoTR and The Hobbit actually had some elements of this as well, with Gandalf launching missions based on his superior and accurate knowledge and working behind the scenes to facilitate Bilbo’s/Frodo’s successes.
But all the innumerable imitators just chose to kill the mentor early for some reason and usually had them unable to share their knowledge and/or largely wrong about things to boot. Which has always irritated me, needless to say.
Awesome stuff about Shadesmar, of course. I really hope that this chapter stays in. More Jasnah!
Now that I’ve had time to digest this and the comments. Does anyone know if we’ve been told that humans can cause negative effects in shadesmar? up on till now everything in the “physical” realm appears as an inconsequential object in shadesmar, is this not the first time we see human beings having a direct negative effect on shadesmar and its inhabitants.
Could this be an intro into more nefarious ways for human beings to cause harm within shadesmar for whatever purpose? wonder what deathspren, angerspren and fearspren do in shadesmar? and do gloryspren come and save the day?
@35 I took it to mean that a blow to the head that damaged the brain would kill a surgebinder (e.g. a heavy blow from a mace that broke the skull and crushed the brain). I think Jasnah was just hit on the head to knock her out so they could stab her to death, but the head blow wasn’t fatal.
MikeyRocks@36 – gloryspren saving the day, I like that idea :)
35. Isilel
I think you have some good points, particularly about the nightgown/dress.
Just keep in mind, this was a first draft, and Sanderson particularly warned about continuity errors.
MSDNY @37:
The thing is, Jasnah was unpleasantly surprised by the stabbing and seemed to think that the assassins should have considered her dead after the blow to the head.
ZenBossanova @39:
If Jasnah’s nightgown – dress change is a continuity error, then it may have already occurred in WoR, because she was last seen by Shallan wearing a “thin nightgown”, but appeared back on Roshar wearing remnants of an expensive dress, according to Hoid.
Of course, it is still possible that Jasnah somehow acquired a dress during her extra-planar travels, like she seemingly did her knapsack… Then the mistake would be in this new excerpt.
Maybe she’s in the habit of Soulcasting her clothes?
(Also, it says something about my brain that after the “I am a rope” line, it immediately filled in “I am Groot!”)
Nice. Sanderson has a real gift with what I’d describe as his “magic systems,” and the system he employs in the Stormlight Archive series is his best yet, IMO. I also enjoy the fact that there is so much more of it for us readers to discover as he entertains us in the tour of his world (Sel? ) with all the other Surges, Voidbindings and of course, the mysteries of Shadesmar to unravel as well. He’s already hinted at a whole other order of existence in Shadesmar–ie, the Highspren, etc–and this teaser segment has left us all wanting more, I’d wager.
As for all the GRR Martin chatter, his series is way off course, and he seems too busy touring about, preening at the success of his TV show to bother with the novels. Which makes for an interesting contrast with Brandon S, who must be working 18+ hours per day to be churning out so much original and varied material as he has been/is doing. As writers, the 2 are like night and day.
It is a continuity error (as warned) that her “dress” in this scene has a knife hole, when in the book she was wearing a nightgown when she was stabbed. (See? Y’all just got to do a beta read thing!) It’s not necessarily a continuity error that she’s wearing a once-fine dress in the epilogue, because we don’t know where she’s been or what she’s done in the meantime. Maybe she found a dress-bead and Ivory helped her pull the physical reality of it into Shadesmar. (Likewise the backpack and bandolier) Or maybe she’s been somewhere else. That, we don’t know yet.
So she has to re-sew the lining of her clothes every few days? or does she leave her clothes out in every highstorm?
gregorman @43 – FWIW, Sel is the world of Elantris and The Emperor’s Soul. The Stormlight Archive is set (so far, anyway!) on the world called Roshar.
For reference (in case anyone wants a quick refresher), the Mistborn series are on a world called Scadrial; Warbreaker takes place on Nalthis. In novellas, Sixth of the Dusk is set on a world called First of the Sun, and Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell is on Threnody. Two yet-unpublished books (White Sand and Dragonsteel) take place on worlds named Taldain and Yolen respectively.
And here’s a fun tidbit from the London signing: Nazh is from Threnody. Go figure.
ChocolateRob @45 – Heh. I think a highstorm might damage the fabric too much for the latter. If I were her, I’d do it by means of small pockets which I could slit open and re-stitch easily every time I needed to change the gemstones.
(Edit – to add appropriate italics.)
@46 Wet- Who needs stitches when you can just talk to the spren of the coat to seal the holes you make when replacing the gemstones?
Well, since they’re in her hemline, she could have the whole hem sewn down except for a 1″ reinforced gap where she could pop the spheres in and out and then slide them around to the back.
It is very human of Jasnah to be seen as flustered and vulnerable when she’s just with her spren. I like that aspect of her character: to someone like Shallan, who looks up to her, she seems nearly inscrutable and always in control, in part because of her age in comparison to the youthfulness of Shallan, (because when I was 17, I’m sure I thought many 34-year-olds were inscruable and always in control of themselves too) and in part because of her status as lighteyes, princess, and respected scholar. Yet in her own head, she’s just as scared as any real person would be–she’s just learned to suppress what she reaveals to others.
So many new things! Spheres sewn into her hem…how clever! She’s been wanting to go to Shadesmar physically forever and NOW Ivory brings her? Hmm! Whoa, painspren are dangerous in Shadesmar? What do they do? How do other seemingly harmless spren manifest in Shadesmar? MUST KNOW!
It’s all very well for you youngsters to say that a year or eighteen months is a long wait between books. But what about me? I’m now over 80 years old and will be 82 by the time the 3rd book comes out. I told Brandon that he ought to think of us oldies and get his finger out. I also said that I’d stay alive untill 90 to spite him if the ist 5 books are not done by 2020. I don’t recon I’ll live until the Stomlight Archives are completed, but thats life. ;)
49. writelhd
I strongly agree about the way it humanized Jasnah, from her viewpoint, while leaving her inscrutible to Shallan.
I suspect we will see dangerous painspren, rotspren, deathspren, exhausionspren and so forth. They might be harmless here, but on the other side, they could be very formidable!
To Brandon and crew: thank you! “More Jasnah” is the correct answer to pretty much any question in my book.
On the other hand, while clarifying the immediate aftermath of the assasination, this fragment sheds no light on the all-important question of where a knapsack and “a kind of a bandolier” came from.
But, we now have two years to speculate about the exact nature of junctions. Yay!
@45, 46, 47, & 48: Do you think they have
Velcrohook&loop on Roshar?@Kholin, if they don’t have the stormlight Archive in heaven, you may be in the wrong place. ;)
If we are nitpicking about continuity errors (and I guess we are, although I want to clearly state that I loved the excerpt and read it 3x before noticing any “problems”) then I’ve got another to add:
Jasnah notes “A dress cut with a single knife hole” in the 4th paragraph. Chapter 7 of WoR states that Jasnah’s nightgown already has “blood blossoming from the breast” before Shallan sees one of the men “(ram) a long, thin knife right into Jasnah’s chest.” This implies that Jasnah was stabbed/wounded before, also in the chest (and one would assume, nightgown).
So I guess the nightgown should have 2 knife holes in it, unless we are to assume that the assassin was capable of being (and cared enough to be) so precise that he was able to ram a knife with enough speed and force to puncture Jasnah’s body all the way through to the floor, while hitting the exact same knifehole he made the first time. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just rather unlikely. Also in that case, Jasnah would potentially recall being stabbed more than once.
Again, just listing another continuity error and doing that whole “beta-read” thing. I personally really like this scene and hope Brandon finds some way to incorporate it into book #3.
Kimaniak@55- that confused me too. I would think the assassins wouldn’t want to hit the same place when making sure she was dead.
Dress hem: I see it as a small safe pouch in her hem. No cutting and sewing required. Or maybe a few small ones at even points around the hem, so that no one point is weighted down wrong. But yes, a re-enforced hem.
Uhm… costuming idea, but showing that off would be as scandalous as showing my safe hand. :-)
Andrew@25:
The only way this is possible is if both the Transportation and Transformation surges allow access to Shadesmar. Is this confirmed anywhere?
Alisonwonderland @58 – Chapter 53 epigraph:
Ah, excellent. Thanks, Alice.
I am somewhat puzzled by Jasnah’s strategy with respect to assassination attempts: play possum to convince the assassins you are dead, then wake up when they go away. But that is an extremely risky and very shortsighted strategy, as you are completely powerless and they can do whatever they want to you while you are lying there dead to all intents and purposes. What if they chop you up into small pieces, or lug what they think is your body and throw it into a bonfire, thinking to hide the assassination?
By contrast, she showed in tWoK that she was not afraid to face armed men intent on doing her harm, and she very cooly disposed of four armed men, blasting the last one from a distance. So why would she so casually surrender herself to assassins to do what they want to her?
That tWoK episode, more than any other, is what convinced me that she must really be dead, because I couldn’t imagine that she would employ such a sh*##y strategy when she could confront the assassins and fight it it out like she did in tWoK. Even if a ship full of assassins approached, I reasoned, she could soulcast the entire ship itself into water or smoke and drown the assassins, like the much less experienced Shallan did later.
I suppose it was a useful plot device to achieve her death/non-death, and I’m glad she is alive because I absolutely love her, but looked at critically, I find it pretty hard to believe that anybody who has the power to do what she did in tWoK would allow herself to be “killed” in this fashion.
@61. Alisonwonderland
I suspect it was one plan among many. If Jasnah had seem them first, then a full frontal assault (like in the alley) could make sense. But if they already have her surrounded, then escape could be much harder. I suspect we are going to see a scene from Jasnah’s life like that.
Assassins don’t normally hang around to dismember the body, if they are dealing with powerful royalty. They usually get the job done, and get out of there. Am I correct in assuming that?
In the scene in WoK Jasnah expected the attack and had planned what she was going to do. Here she was exhausted and surprised.
I needed this
That’s a ROUGH draft? You are an amazing writer!
There is one aspect to the Jasnah assassination attempt episode that has not been discussed and which is not clarified in this draft. Namely, the fact that Jasnah is seen by Shallan to be both exhausted and panic stricken hours prior to the attempt on her life. Was she anticipating such an attempt and was the exhaustion a sign that she wasn’t sleeping? If so why did she not use her considerable powers to better protect against an assassination? Why did she not even alert the captain that he had suspect sailors on board, or use her abilities to fix the faulty lock on her door? If her mental state was not about her life, what was the cause? She had already anticipated the coming Desolation for some time. Why, also, did she withhold her relevant book, “Words of Radiance” from Shallan until that night? Was her reluctance connected with the cause of her anxiety? To be revealed, hopefully, in book 3.
Thanks for these little tidbits. Can’t wait for the next book!
I am wondering about the connection between Wit and Jasnah. Why did Wit approach at the place, and at the time, Jasnah came back to Roshar?
Shadesmar is much alike Tel’anRiod (did I get the spell right?) a dangerous place to be, and you can travel, physically, in here.
Brandon is unique, by plot this beta into testing our imagination. I assume Ivory are her Spren. I imaging that Jasnah has been traveling within, and outside, Shadesmar. Just to learn more about her ability.
sincerely
Yes, Shadesmar and Tel’aran’rhiod are similar, except that the latter seems almost like a blending of the Cognitive and Spiritual realm
@25 – @27 re: how the trunk got to shore:
“You have no idea what I went through to recover this from the bottom of the Rosharan ocean. You owe me a new coat. –Nazh. ”
is a quote by Nazh on the bottom of one of Shallan’s drawings, the Pattern Drawing on p245 of WoR. However, it isn’t clear to whom the note was written. The wiki says the recipient is ‘unknown’.
I had assumed that it was in the trunk that ended up onshore with Shallan, but then, maybe not? Maybe it was with the other things of Shallan’s and Jasnah’s – there was more than one trunk of Jasnah’s and all of Shallan’s things, including her sketchbook(s).
So, maybe Nazh dropped the one trunk off on shore for Shallan’s education – funny how it just happened to be the one of books she needed – and transported the rest (including his annotations in Shallan’s sketchbook) to Jasnah (she is, after all, a Veristitalian)
or to whomever the ‘unkown’ person is for whom he collects such things. He also annotated one of Navani’s sketches for someone.
@62,@66 It doesn’t surprise me that Jasnah would have plans within plans within plans, and that she might have *wanted* to separate from Shallan and go off on her own to pursue her own goals, and planned on an assassination attempt as a way to accomplish that. Navani stated at one point that Jasnah was famous for surviving assassinations and turning up later somewhere else.
Shallan is a very intelligent, self-motivated learner, and didn’t need Jasnah to be right there to pursue her education once she had the books. Jasnah is a very experienced mentor, and I’m assuming Jasnah intended to reconnect at some point down the road. It fits with my understanding of Jasnah that she would not imagine all the trials and tribulations that happened to Shallan, and will be deeply chagrined when she finds out how her logical plan went awry in practice.
There was one quick note, which I thought was from Jasnah’s journal, at the beginning of WoR that made me suspect from the beginning of the book that she was alive. I am reading via an audiobook, so can’t go back and find the passage, but it started out with something like “had I known the [furor?] that my death caused, I ….” Not a statement a dead person could make, usually. My bad if I am misremembering…
I think Nazh was talking to Khriss?
@eternalreturn Not cool! You ought to begin with “spoiler alert for those reading Wheel Of Time” No thanks a lot! Not cool!
@61 – I think the main point to consider here isn’t if Jasnah was capable of defeating the assassins, but rather what her intended outcome was. Say that she does defeat them. When they don’t report back, the Ghostbloods send another, more powerful attack. But if they report back that the mission was successful and Jasnah is dead, then Jasnah now has a degree of freedom that she didn’t have before (until she’s forced to reveal herself of course).
Anyway that’s my two cents. I loved getting to see more of Jasnah, and I’m so glad that she’s alive. I was crushed when I thought she was dead! She’s easily one of the most interesting characters to read about.
Just a thought that a lot must have happened between this elsecalling and Jasnah’s meeting Wit in the Epilogue. She doesn’t even seem to think about defending herself with a shardblade here, perhaps she cannot yet do so?
I don’t know if this is just me but after reading it a few times it seems as if she actually was playing dead the whole time and when the knife cut in to her she did die which is the reason that she cant even recall going to Shadesmere.
But there’s always a junction…”
“Only when a piece of you is there,” Ivory said. “Today, that is not. You are here, Jasnah. I am…sorry.” this is not the first time that some dies and is brought back to life somehow…. right in the beginning of the first book they are talking about the pact and returning back to life for the next battle. later on at the end of book 2 when Kaladin kills Truthless and he gets revived.
this is just my speculation but I do believe that something like this is happening bu,t she don’t know or comprehends it yet.
or maybe she was unconscious for so long that the Remanence of her being disappeared on the ship which is why she couldn’t return.
@72 quintus79
Good point because killing your attackers with a shard blade is a way better plan than what she has at the point of this vignette. She must have spoken more oaths during her travels in shadesmar.