Pattern
Shallan's Cryptic companion, manifested in the Physical Realm as a complex three-dimensional pattern of moving lines that can either hover as a small black ball or sink flat into a surface and ripple across it. He speaks with a buzzing voice, has trouble grasping bodily concepts like eating or memory, and is delighted by lies — the better the lie, the more pleased he seems. SA:WoR:Ch 6
Known facts
- persuade-via-truthPattern tells Shallan that to change one thing into another in Shadesmar she must persuade the bead, offering it truths — a hint at the Lightweaver method of Soulcasting that is rooted in lies and the truths beneath them.SA:WoR:Ch 11
- came-for-voidbringersPattern reveals to Shallan that he was sent — by the Cryptics, who are worried — and that he came specifically because of the impending return of the Voidbringers. He tells her spren tied to Odium are stirring, and they are coming.SA:WoR:Ch 13
- drawn-by-liesPattern tells Shallan that the Cryptics sent him to her specifically — because of her family, because of the lies she has built around what happened in that family. Most human minds break, he says; hers only cracked. Her lies are what saved her, Pattern says; her lies are what drew him to her.SA:WoR:Ch 13
- voice-mimicryPattern can creep close to a conversation and reproduce it back word-for-word in the speakers' own voices, vibrating the surface he sits on. Shallan sends him to eavesdrop on Tvlakv and Tag by the fire, and he plays back the exchange — voices, pauses, and a crackling fire afterward — in flawless imitation.SA:WoR:Ch 15
- knights-killed-their-sprenPattern tells Shallan that the old Knights Radiant killed their spren — something to do with their oaths — and that he expects her to do the same to him in time, as it happened to the others.SA:WoR:Ch 17
- second-surge-transformationPattern tells Shallan that Lightweaving is only one of her surges — the other is the power of transformation, the same force the Soulcasters use. He does not yet have a name for what she did with the deserters: she changed them without unmaking them.SA:WoR:Ch 20
- speaks-aloud-to-vathahPattern speaks aloud in a voice Vathah hears clearly, from the back of the deserter's own coat, telling him to release Shallan — and frightening him into letting her go when he grips her arm in anger. He can be heard by others, not only Shallan.SA:WoR:Ch 21
- reveals-three-shard-fragmentsPattern tells Shallan, reluctantly and in a near-whine, that his kind are fractured power that human thought has shaped into things-that-think — broken off from three sources: Honor, Cultivation, and one his kind do not speak of, Odium. The Voidbringers have their own spren.SA:WoR:Ch 24
- rants-during-highstormCooped up in Shallan's wagon during a highstorm, Pattern starts buzzing angrily and then rants in a language Shallan does not recognise, frightening Gaz and the soldiers sheltering with her — though they put it down to the storm and do not speak of it again.SA:WoR:Ch 24
- impersonates-jasnah-and-summons-vathahWatching Tyn beat Shallan toward a sword, Pattern sends Vathah and the deserters in by mimicking Jasnah's voice from outside the tent, sets Vathah's men against Tyn's soldiers, and, when Tyn looks for the speaker, briefly distracts her by being Jasnah aloud — the first time he is used as an active asset by Shallan.SA:WoR:Ch 34
- can-manipulate-small-objectsPattern can shrink to thumbnail size, slip through a keyhole, and push small mechanisms — the locking tumblers of Tyn's trunks — though only with what he describes as very little strength on the Physical side.SA:WoR:Ch 36
- spots-quintet-cipherPattern recognises a five-letter quintet cipher woven into Tyn's archived spanreed exchanges that Shallan could not see, saving her from outing herself on first contact with the Ghostbloods.SA:WoR:Ch 42
- postulates-fragments-of-dawnchantHovering at a wall of ancient maps, Pattern postulates a few words of what scholars have for centuries failed to translate of the Dawnchant — recognising the name Bajerden under one map, then guessing at "order" and "draw" — because the derived modern scripts on the same charts let him work the patterns. He claims humans are too abstract, too in the habit of lying to themselves, to be good at this kind of thing.SA:WoR:Ch 47
- opens-amaram-lock-and-speaks-in-amarams-voiceInside Amaram's manor Pattern reshapes himself into the lock of the shuttered map room and trips it open in seconds. Later, downstairs, he speaks aloud in a flawless imitation of Amaram's voice to silence the cook — Shallan only has to mouth the words while Pattern sounds them, both an extension of her illusion work and a glimpse of what the bond can do.SA:WoR:Ch 52
- was-not-aware-before-bonding-shallanPattern tells Shallan that he was not himself when the Knights Radiant existed; spren do not die as men do, but he was something diffuse and unaware in everything, and the bond and the transition to her world were what woke him.SA:WoR:Ch 75
Events
- SA:WoR:Ch 11 Rides the side of Shallan's wagon, instructed to keep out of sight.
- SA:WoR:Ch 20 Speaks to Shallan from her wagon seat after the charge: she has the power of transformation too.
- SA:WoR:Ch 21 Speaks aloud from the back of Vathah's coat to drive him off.
- SA:WoR:Ch 24 Surfaces in the woodgrain of Shallan's table after dusk and talks her through three things: truth is individual to the perceiver, the Voidbringers have spren of their own, and the power those spren come from is Odium.
- SA:WoR:Ch 30 Watches from nearby as Shallan sketches, hums softly when she tells a Gaz-flattering lie, then drifts out onto the pond and amuses himself counting the leaves on a tree.
- SA:WoR:Ch 32 Will not be quieted under Shallan's wagon during the storm; on closer listen his humming resolves into the words "Bad. Bad. So bad."
- SA:WoR:Ch 34 Hides as a moving shadow on the tent wall, calls Vathah in by mimicking Jasnah's voice from outside, and answers Shallan's wordless summons as a silvery Shardblade in her hands.
- SA:WoR:Ch 36 Shrinks small enough to slip through the keyhole of Tyn's trunk and pushes the lock from inside until it clicks open; later, eavesdrops on the deserters discussing whether Shallan will "come for them" and asks her to explain.
- SA:WoR:Ch 36 Rides invisibly on the back of Shallan's dress through the palanquin journey and the corridor argument with Kaladin; murmurs sleepily and is briefly mistaken for fabric design.
- SA:WoR:Ch 38 Rides hidden on the back of Shallan's skirt throughout the meeting, indistinguishable from fabric design and — at her order — silent.
- SA:WoR:Ch 40 Rides Shallan's skirt humming, then settles in the new sitting room as she unpacks.
- SA:WoR:Ch 42 Hums on the comforter, then sits on the sofa-back; spots the quintet cipher in Tyn's spanreed log.
- SA:WoR:Ch 43 Trails behind Shallan in the market to watch for tails, then climbs her coat through the Mraize meeting.
- SA:WoR:Ch 47 Hovers at Shallan's wall of maps and works out fragments of Dawnchant from the related scripts.
- SA:WoR:Ch 47 Rides the coach with Shallan while she practises Lightweaving — naming her Lightwoven copy of Sebarial a truthful lie.
- SA:WoR:Ch 49 Hums beside Shallan at the railing as she stares into the stormwall.
- SA:WoR:Ch 52 Trips Amaram's locked door, watches the corridor, and later speaks aloud in Amaram's voice to settle the cook.
- SA:WoR:Ch 54 Acts as Shallan's eyes after the meeting, then carries her voice in instructions to the coachman; watches with her from inside the boulder.
- SA:WoR:Ch 57 Slips from Shallan's skirt and crosses the stone of the benches under Shallan's direction to harass Abrobadar away from Renarin.
- SA:WoR:Ch 60 Decorates the wall above Shallan's headboard for the night's scholarship; later sits on the bed, then under Veil's foot as Shallan binds her first independent illusion to him.
- SA:WoR:Ch 63 Sits under Shallan's stool on the rooftop and at her direction goes to find which window the watcher is using.
- SA:WoR:Ch 63 Carries the animated Veil decoy down to the tree while Shallan lies in wait above.
- SA:WoR:Ch 63 Sets off the diversion at the far window so Shallan can breathe Veil's face back on after the gate trick.
- SA:WoR:Ch 63 Picks the cell lock from inside Shallan's coat and quietly asks why the room is kept so dark.
- SA:WoR:Ch 64 Hidden under Shallan's coat throughout the eavesdropping; afterwards puzzles at the metaphor of falling into the sea of spheres.
- SA:WoR:Ch 69 Riding on Shallan's skirts; before they met Kaladin, he was speculating that the Stormlight had kept her alive through the fall.
- SA:WoR:Ch 70 Hums softly from Shallan's skirt as she draws, content to keep silent while the bridgeman is nearby.
- SA:WoR:Ch 70 Rides Shallan's skirts through the chasms; hums when she snatches a vine specimen to take back for cultivation.
- SA:WoR:Ch 71 Speaks softly from Shallan's skirts as she walks the plateaus, prompting her to consider the symmetry of the Plains; she shushes him so Kaladin does not hear.
- SA:WoR:Ch 71 Hidden on Shallan's clothing as she waits with Kaladin for the chasmfiend; present when she summons her Shardblade.
- SA:WoR:Ch 72 With Shallan as she works the illusions; she considers casting them on him and chooses not to risk it.
- SA:WoR:Ch 72 Present with Shallan as she carves the cubby with her Shardblade.
- SA:WoR:Ch 74 With Shallan through the storm in the cubby; the satchel she clutches to her safehand holds him among her drawings.
- SA:WoR:Ch 75 Carries Dalinar and Navani's argument back to Shallan in the bath, then sits on the table and explains what he was before the bond and what was lost at the Recreance.
- SA:WoR:Ch 77 Buzzes contentedly on the seat and the carriage door beside Shallan as she reads, retreating before Navani climbs in.
- SA:WoR:Ch 78 Sits on the corner of her paper as she draws, scoffs at the creationspren for having no purpose, then is told to be discreet when Dalinar arrives.
- SA:WoR:Ch 81 Dimples the floor beside Shallan, names the stormspren outside, returns Inadara's suspicion with a clean insult, and urges her to draw faster.
- SA:WoR:Ch 83 Tells Shallan the bonded stormspren are crafting a storm — and that another, coming the wrong way from the west, is also building.
- SA:WoR:Ch 84 Warns Shallan that the Everstorm and an answering highstorm will meet over the centre and feed each other into something unprecedented.
- SA:WoR:Ch 85 Suggests Shallan cannot see the chamber's pattern because she is standing too close — like the Shattered Plains themselves — sending her to the centre of the mosaic.
- SA:WoR:Ch 86 Forms as Shallan's spren-Blade in her hands and slots into the steel keyhole, hums as the chamber unlocks, and lets her and Adolin push him like the spoke on a mill to rotate the inner wall.
- SA:WoR:Ch 87 From her skirt, tells Shallan she is almost one of the Radiants now — *Lightweavers make no oaths beyond the first; you must speak truths.*
- SA:WoR:Ch 88 Hums her into facing the truth she has buried — *it is time* — accepts her hatred without softening it (*eventually you will kill me, and you will have your revenge*), and admits that he is the Blade she summoned out of mist as a child.
Relations
- relatedShallan Davar — Veil baits Pattern with a fabricated memory and he confirms it. The spren Shallan has trusted longer than any other person is lying to her. SA:RoW:Ch 36
- relatedShallan Davar — Pattern is the Cryptic spren bonded to Shallan; sent because of her family and the lies that saved and drew him. SA:WoR:Ch 13
- relatedOdium — Pattern reveals that spren like himself are fragments of broken divine power from three sources — Honor, Cultivation, and one his kind do not speak of, Odium — and that the Voidbringers have spren of their own that come from him. SA:WoR:Ch 24
Backreferences
- summarySA:OB:Ch 8
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- factSpark
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- factOathgate spren
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- factThe spren of Adolin's Shardblade
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- factUnyielding Fidelity
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- summarySA:RoW:Ch 2
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- factTestament
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- factDeadeye
- factTestament
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- factSpiritual Realm
- factDeadeye
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- factShallan Davar
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- factMayalaran
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- factShallan Davar
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- factShallan Davar
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- factMraize's Cryptic
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- factShallan Davar
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- factShallan Davar
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- factPattern
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- factPattern
- factPattern
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- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
- factPattern
- factLightweaving
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- factPattern
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- factPattern
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- factOdium
- factPattern
- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
- factPattern
- summarySA:WoR:Ch 36
- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
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- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
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- factPattern
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- factShallan Davar
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- factShallan Davar
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- factShallan Davar
- summarySA:WoR:Ch 69
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- factShallan Davar
- factCryptics
- factPattern
- summarySA:WoR:Ch 77
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- factStormspren
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- factThe Everstorm
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- factShallan Davar
- factOathgates
- summarySA:WoR:Ch 87
- factHonorblade
- factShallan Davar
- summarySA:WoR:Ch 88
- factShallan Davar
- factBrightlord Davar
- factChana-rach