Why, Vasher Thought, Does It Always Have Todo So Many Things Begin with Me Getting Thrown

Warbreaker

Chapter One

Why, Vasher thought, does it always have todo so many things begin with me getting thrown into prison?

The guardsmen laughed to one another outside, slamming the cell door shut with a clang. Vasher slowly stood up, dusting and dusted himself off, rolling his shoulder and wincing slightly at the pain.

Vasher turned, glancing out at the guards.He glanced about. While the bottom half of the his cell door was made of solid wood, the top half was barred, and he could easily see the three men as they opened his pack and began rifling through his possessions.

One of the guardsmen noticed him. He was an oversized beast of a man with a shaved head and a dirtied uniform that just barely showed the bright yellow and blue colorings of the T’Telir city guard.

Bright colors, Vasher thought. I’ll have to get used to those again. In any other nation, the vibrant blues and yellows would have been ridiculous on soldiers. This, however, was HallendrenHallandren: land of Returned Gods, Lifeless servants, BioChromatic research, and--of course--color.

Compared to the Hallendren norm, these guard uniforms were actually rather drab.

The large guard sauntered forward, walking toward the cell, leaving his friends to their fun with Vasher’s pack.

“They say you’re pretty tough,” the man said, sizing up Vasher.

Vasher did not respond.

“The bartender says you beat down some twenty men in the brawl,” the .” The guard continued. The man rubbed his chin. “You don’t look that tough to me. .”

Vasher turned away.

The guard snorted. “Either way, you should have known better than to strike a priest. The others, they’ll spend a night locked up. You, though--you’ll hang. Colorless bastardfool.”

Vasher turned away from the guardsman, looking over his cell. It was functional, if modestly unoriginal. Only a thin slit in the top let in light, the stone walls dripped with water and lichen, and a pile of dirty straw decomposed in the corner. Vasher was, fortunately, the only one in it. The fewer people he had to deal with, the better.

“You ignoring me?” the guard asked, stepping closer to Vasher’s cell.the bars. As he did so, the colors of his uniform brightened just slightly, like he’d stepped into a stronger light. The change was slight, though.. Vasher didn’t have much BioChromatic Breath remaining.

The guard didn’t notice the change in color--just like he hadn’t noticed back in the bar, when he and his buddies had picked Vasher up off the floor and thrown him in their cart. He’d likely soon wish that he’d been more observant.

“Here, now,” one of the men said from behind. “What’s this?” The two were still searching through Vasher’s possessions--doing so right outside his cell, as if to purposely provoke him. Vasher had always found it odd that the men who patrolled dungeons tended to be as bad, or worse, than the men they guarded. Perhaps that was intentional. Society didn’t seem to care if such men were outside the cells or in them--just as long as both groups were kept away from more honest men.

Assuming that such a thing existed.

A guard pulled something free from Vasher’s pack, an object which finally explained why the bag had to be so large. A guard pulled a long object--wrapped in white linen--free from Vasher’s pack. The man frowned at the object, then unwrapped a protective clothit, revealing a large, thin-bladed sword in a silver sheath. The hilt was pure black.

The guard whisteledwhistled quietly. “Who do you suppose he stole this from?”

Vasher remained quiet,..

The lead guard turned back towardeyed Vasher again, frowning. ItHe was likely occcuring to him thatwondering if Vasher might be some kind of nobleman. Though such things didn’t really exist in Hallendren, thereHallandren, many neighboring kingdoms had their lords and ladies.

Yet, what kind of lord would wear a drab brown cloak, ripped in several places? What kind of lord would sport bruises from a bar fight, a half-grown beard, and boots worn from years of walking? Eventually, the guard turned away, apperantlyapparently convinced that Vasher was no lord.

He was right. And he was wrong.

“Let me see that,” the lead guard said, taking the sword from the other two. He grunted, frowning, obviously surprised by how heavy the weaponit was. HeThe guard turned it about, noting the clasp that tied from sheath to hilt, keeping the blade from being drawn. He undid the clasp.

The colors in the room deepened slightly. They didn’t grow brighter--not like the guard’s vest had when he approached Vasher. Instead, the room’s colors grewtheystronger, yet darker at the same time. Reds became maroon. The yellows hardened to gold. Blue approached navy.

“Be careful, friend,” Vasher said quietly, “that sword is sharp.can be dangerous.”

The guard looked up. All was still for a brief moment. Then, the guard snorted. He nodded to the others, walking and walked away from Vasher’s cell., still carrying the sword. The other two followed, bearing Vasher’s pack, and all. All three entered the guard room at the end of the hallway.

The door thumped shut.

Vasher immediately began to move--he didn’t have much time. He knelt beside the patch of straw, picking through it and pulling out a handful of larger, more, sturdy lengths. He pulled threads from his cloak--it was beginning to get quite frayed at the bottom--and tied the straw into the shape of a small person, perhaps three inches high. He plucked off one of his eyebrows off, set it against the straw figure’s head, then reached into his boot and pulled out a brilliant red scarf.

Vasher paused for a moment, looking down at the little straw person. Then, he Breathed.

The Breath flowed from Vasher, puffing into the air, translucent yet radiant, like the color of oil on water in the sun. Vasher felt it flow out--the BioChromatic Breath, scholars called it. In Vasher’s estimation, he was

Vasher felt poor in BioChroma, with only some hundred and fifty Breaths to work with. That wasn’t even. He barely had enough to reach the Second Hieghtening.

Yet, First Heightening, which meant he had somewhere around a hundred and fifty Breaths. Yet, thatwaswas quite a hundred and forty-ninebit more than most people ever had. One person, one Breath. That was the way it usually went.

He knew he should feel fortunate to have that much.what he did. Still, Awakening was expensive. Even Awakening a small figure made from recently killed organic material--including a piece of his own body as a focus--drained away some fifty half of his Breaths.

Breaths.

Fifty Breaths, that had been taken from other people who would be left, leaving them without. It wouldn’t kill them, just. . .change them. Vasher didn’t know who they were; he hadn’t gathered these Breaths himself. They had been given to him. But, of course, that was the way it was always supposed to work. One could not take BioChroma by force.

The little straw figure jerked, sucking in the Breath. In Vasher’s hand, the brilliant red scarf faded to grey, the color draining away. Vasher leaned down, completing the final step of the process as he gave the Command.

“Fetch keys,” he said.

The straw figure stood, Awakened, and raised its single eyebrow toward Vasher.

Vasher pointed toward the guard room. From it, he heard sudden shouts of surprise.

Not much time at all, he thought.

The straw person ran along the floor, then jumped up, vaulting through the bars of Vashers’Vasher’s’ cell. Vasher turned, pullingdidn’t watch it go. Instead, he pulled off his cloak, then setting it on the floor. Arranged as it was, it was the perfect shape of a person--and it . It was marked with rips that matched the scars on Vasher’s own body, and it had a hood cut with holes to match Vasher’s eyes. It had taken time to get it right, yet the markings made it much easier to Awaken.Such things were not necessary, but the closer an object was to human shape and form, the fewer Breaths it took to Awaken.

Vasher leaned down, eying the cloak, trying not to think of the days when he’d had enough BreathBreaths to Awaken without regard for shape or focus. That had been a different time, and those Breaths were gone now.. He reached up, pullingpulled a tuft of hair from his head, then sprinkled it across the hood of the cloak.

Once again, he Breathed.

It took the rest of his Breath--the living aura of a hundred separate persons.. With it gone--the cloak trembling, the scarf losing the rest of its color--Vasher felt. . .dimmer. Colors weren’t as bright. He couldn’t feel the bustling of thousands of people moving about in the city above, a connection he often took for granted. It was the awareness all men had for other people--that thing which told you, in the drowsiness of sleep, thatwhen someone was standing above you and watching.entered the room. In Vasher, with his Breaths, it had been magnified a hundred and fifty times over.

And now it was gone from him. Sucked into the cloak and the straw person, giving them power.

The cloak jerked, moving. Vasher leaned down. “Protect me,” he Commanded, and the cloak grew still. He stood, throwing it on as the straw figure returned to his window. It carried, as he had hoped, a large ring of keys.

The figure’s straw feet were stained red. The crimson blood seemed so dull to Vasher.

He took the keys. “Thank you,” he said to the little figure.. He always thanked them. He didn’t really know why, particularly since the next thing he did was reach up to touch the Awakened creature on the chest.

“Your Breath to mine,” he commanded. The straw person immediately fell backward off the door--life draining from it--and Vasher got his Breath back. The familiar sense of awareness returned, the knowledge of connectedness, of fitting. He could only take the Breath back because he’d Awakened this creature himself--indeed, Awakenings of thethat sort he preformed were rarely permanent. He used his Breath like a reservoir, doling it out as needed, then recovering it when finished.

Compared to what he had once held, fifty Breaths were a laughably small number. However, when compared to nothing, it seemed nearly infinite. He shivered slightly in satisfaction.

The yells from the guard room died out. The dungeon fell still. He had to keep moving.

He quickly reached through the bars, using the keys to unlock his cell. He pushed the thick door open, rushing out into the hallway, leaving the straw figure discarded on the ground. He didn’t move toward the entrance to the dungeons, however--instead. Instead, he turned south, penetrating deeper into their depths.

This was the most uncertain part of his plan. Finding a bar tavern that was occasionally frequented by priests of the Iridescent Tones had been easy enough. Getting into a barbar fight, then ending it by striking one of those same priests, had been equally simple. Hallandrens took their religious figures very seriously--Vasher’s actions had earned him not the usual imprisonment in a local jail, but a trip to the royalGod King’s dungeons themselves.

And, knowing what kind of men tended to guard such dungeons, he’d had a pretty good idea that they would try to draw Nightblood. That had given him the distraction he’d needed to get the keys. However, all of his planning pointed toward his eventual goal. The

But now came the uncertain part of the plan. .

Vasher stopped, Awakened cloak rustling. Cells extended to either side of him in the dim light, lining the hallway. He’d stopped beside one in particular, however. It was easy to spot, for around it a patch of stone two cells wide had been drained of color, leaving the walls grey and dull, like the wooden door of the cell itself.

It was a place to imprison an Awakener. Drawing out the color wouldn’t leave an Awakener powerless, but it would hinder him, forceing him to use more Breaths to compensate.No color meant no Awakening. Vasher stepped up to the door, looking through the bars toward the shining figure inside.

The man hung from the ceiling, naked and chained. But, more importantly, he was gagged. And his color was vibrant to Vasher’s eyes, the color of his skin pure, his ragged clothing deep and brown.

In Awakening, lack of color to Bleed could be overcome. Indeed, with enough Breath, one could Awaken nearly anything--even if it had no human form or focus at all. The Command, however, was vital. The man was gagged. Another precaution. In order to Awaken, the man would need three things: Breath, color, and a command. A man who could not speak clearly could perform no Awakening.bring nothing to life.

The Harmonics and the Hues, some called it. The Iridescent tones. The relationship between color and sound, the requirement of spoken . A Command had to activate the Breath. Nobe spoken to give an object life--any stuttering, noany mispronunciation, was allowed.would invalidate the Awakening, leaving the Breath drawn out, but the object unable to act. The Commands had to be delivered clearly and firmly, in the Awakener’s own native language.

Vasher used the prison keys to unlock the cell door to this room, then walked slowlystepped inside. The man before him glowed with an aura of color, this man gave off was a manifestation of the many Breaths he held. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. Vasher himself could only see the aura because of the fifty Breaths he held, a number which placed him directly at the First Hightening.Anyone would be able to notice an aura that strong, though it was much easier for someone who had reached the First Heightening.

The prisoner swung in his bonds, eying Vasher through with a brusedbruised face that seemed to belybelie the brilliang colorful lifebrilliant color of his aura. Vasher had seen auras much brighter--he had seen men with so much BioChroma that they shined like the suns themselves, though withmade colors that were deep and true, rather than blinding.seem to shine with their radiance. The Returned, known as Godsgods here in Hallandren, glowed with such force. This man didn’t havehad that much Iridescence--he was, perhaps, as bright as a well-oiled lanterneffect.

It was enough, however. Vasher himself was much more poor. Though Vasher couldn’t see his own Iridescence, to others who held at least fifty Breaths he would glow slightly. Still, this man’s level of BioChroma was impressive. He had far more than Vasher did. To regular men, the only noticablenoticeable indication of Vasher’s Breath would be the very slight inccreaseincrease in the vibrancevibrancy of colors around him. It was so slight, however,small that almost everyone missed it.

That that wasn’t really something Vasher cared to complain about at the moment. If any of the guards had noticed his weight of Breath, he would have found himself gagged and bound, chained to the ceiling much in the same way as the figure before him.

The man continued to study Vasher, gagged lips bleeding slightly from lack of water. Vasher paused only briefly, then reached up and pulled the gag free.

“You,” the prisoner whispered, coughing slightly and wipinglicking his lips with his tongue, manacled hands clanking. “Here“Are you here to free me?”

“No, Pahn,” Vasher said quietly. “I’m here to kill you.”

Pahn snorted quietly as he hung from his bonds.. The man’s captivity obviously hadn’t been easy. When on him--when Vasher had last seen Pahn, he’d been plump and determined.. Now, judging by the emaciated body and cracked lips, the man hadhe’d been without food and water for some time. In addition, the fresh cuts and burn marks on his face, the were fresh. They, along with a scalp with bearing patches of hair that had been torn free, and the haunted look in hisPahn’s bag-rimmed eyes bespoke anothera solemn truth.

Breath could only be transferred by willful, intentional Command. That Command could, however, be. . .encouraged.

“So,” Pahn croaked, “you judge me, just like everyone else.”

“Your crimes are not my concern,” Vasher said. “. I just want your Breath.”

“You and the entire Hallandren court,” Pahn said with a snort, swinging slightly. .”