Balat smiled, reaching down and scratching behind the axehound's ear holes. The animal leaned against him-she probably weighed as much as he did. The bigger axehounds came up to a man's waist, though Scrak was of a smaller, quicker breed.

The songling quivered and Scrak pounced on it eagerly, crunching at its shell with her strong outer mandibles.

"Am I a coward, Scrak?" Balat asked, sitting down on a bench. He set his cane aside and snatched a small crab that had been hiding on the side of the bench, its shell having turned white to match the stone.

He held up the squirming animal. The green's grass had been bred to be less timid, and it poked out of its holes only a few moments after he passed. Other exotic plants bloomed, poking out of shells or holes in the ground, and soon patches of red, orange, and blue waved in the wind around him. The area around the axehound remained bare, of course. Scrak was having far too much fun with her prey, and she kept even the cultivated plants hidden in their burrows.

"I couldn't have gone to chase Jasnah," Balat said, starting to pull the crab's legs off. "Only a woman could get close enough to her to steal the Soulcaster. We decided that. Besides, someone needs to stay back and care for the needs of the house."

The excuses were hollow. He did feel like a coward. He pulled off a few more legs, but it was unsatisfying. The crab was too small, and the legs came off too easily.

"This plan probably won't even work," he said, taking off the last of the legs. Odd, looking at a creature like this when it had no legs. The crab was still alive. Yet how could you know it? Without the legs to wiggle, the creature seemed as dead as a stone.

The arms, he thought, we wave them about to make us seem alive. That's what they're good for. He put his fingers between the halves of the crab's shell and began to pry them apart. This, at least, had a nice feeling of resistance to it.

They were a broken family. Years of suffering their father's brutal temper had driven Asha Jushu to vice and Tet Wikim to despair. Only Balat had escaped unscathed. Balat and Shallan. She'd been left alone, never touched. At times, Balat had hated her for that, but how could you truly hate someone like Shallan? Shy, quiet, delicate.

I should never have let her go, he thought. There should have been another way. She'd never manage on her own; she was probably terrified. It was a wonder she'd done as much as she had.

He tossed the pieces of crab over his shoulder. If only Helaran had survived. Their eldest brother-then known as Nan Helaran, as he'd been the first son-had stood up to their father repeatedly. Well, he was dead now, and so was their father. They'd left behind a family of cripples.

"Balat!" a voice cried. Wikim appeared on the porch. The younger man was past his recent bout of melancholy, it appeared.

"What?" Balat said, standing.

Wikim rushed down the steps, hurrying up to him, vines-then grass-pulling back before him. "We have a problem."

"How large a problem?"

"Pretty big, I'd say. Come on." Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, sat on the wooden tavern floor, lavis beer slowly soaking through his brown trousers.

Grimy, worn, and fraying, his clothing was far different from the simple-yet elegant-whites he had worn over five years before when he'd assassinated the king of Alethkar.

Head bowed, hands in his lap, he carried no weapons. He hadn't summoned his Shardblade in years, and it felt equally long since he'd had a bath. He did not complain. If he looked like a wretch, people treated him as a wretch. One did not ask a wretch to assassinate people.

"So he'll do whatever you say?" asked one of the mine workers sitting at the table. The man's clothing was little better than Szeth's, covered with so much dirt and dust that it was difficult to tell grimy skin from grimy cloth. There were four of them, holding ceramic cups. The room smelled of mud and sweat. The ceiling was low, the windows-on the leeward side only-mere slots. The table was precariously held together with several leather straps, as the wood was cracked down the middle.

Took-Szeth's current master-set his cup down on the table's tilted side. It sagged under the weight of his arm. "Yeah, he sure will. Hey, kurp, look at me."

Szeth looked up. "Kurp" meant child in the local Bav dialect. Szeth was accustomed to such pejorative labels. Though he was in his thirty-fifth year-and his seventh year since being named Truthless-his people's large, round eyes, shorter stature, and tendency toward baldness led Easterners to claim they looked like children.

"Stand up," Took said.

Szeth did so.

"Jump up and down."

Szeth complied.

"Pour Ton's beer on your head."

Szeth reached for it.

"Hey!" Ton said, pulling the cup away. "None of that, now! Oi ain't done with this yet!"

"If you were," said Took, "he couldn't right pour it on his head, could he?"

"Get 'im to do something else, Took," Ton griped.

"All right." Took pulled out his boot knife and tossed it to Szeth. "Kurp, cut your arm up."

"Took…" said one of the other men, a sniffly man named Amark. "That ain't right, you know it."

Took didn't rescind the order, so Szeth complied, taking the knife and cutting at the flesh of his arm. Blood seeped out around the dirty blade.

"Cut your throat," Took said.

"Now, Took!" Amark said, standing. "Oi won't-"

"Oh hush, you," Took said. Several groups of men from other tables were watching now. "You'll see. Kurp, cut your throat."

"I am forbidden to take my own life," Szeth said softly in the Bav language. "As Truthless, it is the nature of my suffering to be forbidden the taste of death by my own hand."

Amark settled back down, looking sheepish.

"Dustmother," Ton said, "he always talks like that?"

"Like what?" Took asked, taking a gulp from his mug.

"Smooth words, so soft and proper. Like a lighteyes."

"Yeah," Took said. "He's like a slave, only better 'cuz he's a Shin. He don't run or talk back or anything. Don't have to pay him, neither. He's like a parshman, but smarter. Worth a right many spheres, Oi'd say." He eyed the other men. "Could take him to the mines with you to work, and collect his pay. He'd do things you don't wanna. Muck out the privy, whitewash the home. All kinds of useful stuff."

"Well, how'd you come by him, then?" one of the other men asked, scratching his chin. Took was a transient worker, moving from town to town. Displaying Szeth was one of the ways he made quick friends.

"Oh, now, that's a story," Took said. "Oi was traveling in the mountains down south, you know, and Oi heard this weird howling noise. It wasn't joust the wind, you know, and…"

The tale was a complete fabrication; Szeth's previous master-a farmer in a nearby village-had traded Szeth to Took for a sack of seeds. The farmer had gotten him from a traveling merchant, who had gotten him from a cobbler who'd won him in an illegal game of chance. There had been dozens before him.

At first, the darkeyed commoners enjoyed the novelty of owning him.

Slaves were far too expensive for most, and parshmen were even more valuable. So having someone like Szeth to order around was quite the novelty. He cleaned floors, sawed wood, helped in the fields, and carried burdens. Some treated him well, some did not.

But they always got rid of him.

Perhaps they could sense the truth, that he was capable of so much more than they dared use him for. It was one thing to have a slave of your own. But when that slave talked like a lighteyes and knew more than you did? It made them uncomfortable.

Szeth tried to play the part, tried to make himself act less refined. It was very difficult for him. Perhaps impossible. What would these men say if they knew that the man who emptied their chamber pot was a Shardbearer and a Surgebinder? A Windrunner, like the Radiants of old? The moment he summoned his Blade, his eyes would turn from dark green to pale-almost glowing-sapphire, a unique effect of his particular weapon.