The Greatest Discovery

The Highstorm

Juliyah stepped out into the stirring green night. She dropped the spheres she still held into her pocket - moonlight was light enough. The wind, at a full gallop now, dried her tears before she could even make a few steps. She hunched against the rapid flow of cold air and pushed herself towards the banister in several slow deliberate steps.

The solid banister, half her height, provided a welcome shelter against the wind. She crouched under its moon-spawn shadow, so dark green it could be black, and opened Pattis' pouch; held it tight against her lap. What seemed at least a hundred small bags, each containing shards from a once solid gemstone, hid inside, crowned by two sets of doubled-ringed handcuffs. She took those out first and clasped them on her wrist and the opposite ankle. The second rings of the bracelets closed around the lightning rod. If the banister windbreaker would not be enough, this should hold them. Her, and Stem, and the healed emeralds, and... the stone...

A pang of guilt pricked her consciousness. I didn't even say goodbye to the stone. Storms, I didn't even tell him what I am about to do! Was there enough time now?

Still crouching, Juliyah placed the fingertips of one hand on the banister top, testing the wind. It was getting stronger, but she thought she could stand. The handcuff sliding across the lightning rod must have made a sound - metal on metal - as she got on her feet, but it was swallowed whole by the wind. Standing now, she looked east. The Stormwall was here.

An enormous ragged-edged boulder of darkness, streaked by lightning bolts, was rolling across Roshar, towards the tower. It was still distant but the majesty of it, the pure power, caught her breath. The part of her that was more floral than human, wanted to dance. The Highstorm was coming! The crem and the water and the energy! Life!

Juliyah watched nature rage and kill but somehow the dread of finality coming hand in hand with death was not there. A tree would die to gift its nutrients to the future tree, which would then die to birth another. A seed torn away from a branch today would land and bloom miles away later. A person dying today on the tower roof would give life to thousands of others... What was the end for her, was a beginning for so many others. That was part of nature. Part of what she had been for so long.

"Life before death," she whispered with cold lips. It made sense now, the ancient ideal. Life always marched before death. Always. Perhaps, legends did have a grain of truth in them.

A statistically-trained part of her mind informed her that at its current pace, the Stormwall would hit in less than two minutes. Maybe less. Juliyah reached out to Stem with what little stormlight she had to feed it the Intent of the healed gemstones. She hoped Stem would understand. She hoped she would have time to say a warm farewell to the stone.

Yet, before she even fully reached Shadesmar, a panicked shrill pierced her mind. It was so loud, it made the Highstorm sound like a breeze.

"You, rockbud of a girl! Run!" the stone yelled into her brain.

"What? I can't..."

"Listen, NOW! Unfasten yourself and RUN. I will do the rest. I will feed the Intent to your spren! I tried to tell you I can the entire day but you didn't visit Shadesmar once!"

Juliyah cut off an objection about the need to ration the remaining stormlight. That Stormwall was close.

"What makes you think it will work?" she asked.

The stone pointed - the image she received was of the space behind her - and said, "He says it will!"

Juliyah whirled to see the same stiff-clothed black figure, all angles, and oily surfaces, that she saw every time she slipped into Shadesmar in the last two days, looming just a pace away. When she asked what it wanted from her before, the weird spren said, "To see the sequel." It made her skin crawl. She shook her head.

"I don't trust it," she yelled over the wind. She had never seen a spren like this before.

"Trust me, then!"

"Are you sure?"

"YES! DO IT!"

There was such an air of urgent command in the stone's voice, that she started unlocking the handcuffs before she even knew what she was doing. The wrist one slid off quickly.

"Place me close to the soulcaster, both touching the lightning rod, and get yourself to safety! HURRY!"

A log, tossed into the air by the wind, crashed into the watch cabin behind her. The thick-walled building held. Juliyah barely spared it a glance, fumbling with the ankle handcuff. Dropping it to the ground, she placed Stem and the stone on both sides of the lightning rod, the pouch with emeralds on top, and piled as many bricks as she could find above to keep the wind from blowing it off.

"Will you be alright?" she asked the stone as she worked.

Shocked, she realized she didn't touch the soulcaster, but was still able to see the dark Shadesmar sky. She felt the stone grin. "First time I feel alive in millenia." Then, concern thick in his voice, "Run, girl, there is no more time!"

Juliyah straightened and was almost knocked off her feet by the wind. Run where? She wouldn't risk Pat and Aillia by knocking on the watch cabin door. She spun around, searching for some nook, a place to hide from the impending merciless destruction.

An inky shape, as tall as herself, shadowed her moves. She could see it constantly now. "A shelter is," the spren said, pointing down.

She realized she knew what he meant.

"Thank you," she said to the spren. It was as good a chance as any. She launched herself down the east stairway. Step after step after step after step. Down. Only down. Faster than she had ever run in her life.