The Stump
also known as Arshqqam
The shriveled, twig-fingered old woman who runs Tashi's Light Orphanage in Yeddaw. Cuts no slack: three meals to any beggar urchin and no more, the rest of the place locked behind a door she shuts in your face. Locals call her the Stump because, by the saying, no storm has ever managed to blow her over. SA:ED:Ch 6
Known facts
- feeds-broken-childrenThe orphanage's hard rule of three meals and out is calibrated for the able beggar urchins. The children inside, Lift sees from the amphitheatre, are mostly the ones too broken or too confused to be kept at home: blind girls who play sound-games with dropped pebbles, sightless boys left on the doorstep by mothers who already have other mouths.SA:ED:Ch 10
- launders-money-through-orphanageA Yeddaw watch report, surfaced for Lift by Hauka, says the Stump is running a money-laundering scheme through Tashi's Light Orphanage: criminal donations come in, she trades spheres for ones of lesser value to scramble the spheres' identifiable marks, then routes the cleaned spheres on to other groups after taking a cut. The children, the watch believes, are the front that keeps the city's eyes off the rest.SA:ED:Ch 14
- lift-realises-the-stump-is-a-radiantTalking to Arclo in the alley, Lift works out what has been in front of her the whole time: the Stump is the one healing the children of Tashi's Light Orphanage. She launders spheres for the Stormlight without knowing what she's doing with it; she lets the children born sick stay because her power can't touch what they have, but everyone else — including Mik — recovers so suspiciously often she's started believing they fake it for the food. Lift grins up at the creature: *the Stump is a Radiant.*SA:ED:Ch 18
- bonded-to-a-light-on-the-wall-sprenPressed by Lift the morning after the storm — *you should have a weird little thing hanging around you, weirder than mine, like a vine?* — the Stump correctly names it a spren and corrects her description: *not like a vine. Like light reflected on a wall from a mirror.* She is, by the rules of the Knights Radiant, one of them — an Edgedancer feeding unwittingly on the Stormlight she's been laundering for years and healing the orphans of Tashi's Light Orphanage with it the whole time.SA:ED:Ch 20
- real-name-arshqqamGoes by *Arshqqam* outside the nickname Adolin's people use; takes a senior advisory role in his council before Lasting Integrity and argues that the honorspren should be appealed to on the grounds of their own attribute — honor — rather than guilt or threat.SA:RoW:Ch 34
Events
- SA:ED:Ch 6 Comes to the orphanage doorway to look Lift over and call her an opportunist; pronounces her allotment as three meals total and shuts the door in her face.
- SA:ED:Ch 10 Pulls a cart of clemabread rolls out to the amphitheatre, counts Lift's allotment against her tally, breaks up a fight between two of her own children, dismisses Mik as a faker, and herds the rest inside for nap time.
- SA:ED:Ch 17 Yanks Lift in out of the rising wind, scolding the whole way — *idiot child, you should have gone to a bunker* — then bars the door, gives her two pancakes from a private last batch she had no plan to share, and disappears into the next room muttering about putting her spheres out on the roof to charge in the strange new storm.
- SA:ED:Ch 19 Comes down out of the roof — where she had gone to set out her spheres in the strange new storm — to find Darkness hunting Lift in her upper hallway, and brains him with a length of wood, then again. *Leave my kids alone, you monster.* He cuts her plank in half, throws her down the steps, and stabs her with a knife instead of his Blade so she will bleed out slowly, knowing Lift will try to heal her.
- SA:ED:Ch 20 Healed by Lift the night before, the Stump turns up the next morning with a private plate of twelve pancakes for her, opens the door for Mik's mother, hosts Ghenna when the scribe arrives, and walks Lift through the small details of her own Edgedancer bond — naming her spren *like light reflected on a wall from a mirror.* Her shiqua is washed clean of Nin's knife-cut except for the bloodstain.
- SA:RoW:Ch 21 The Tashikki Truthwatcher crossing the plateau in rugged traveling clothes and a shawl, insisting on carrying her own pack — Adolin reaches to help and she tightens her grip on the strap.
- SA:RoW:Ch 22 Talks with Adolin through her spren about leaving Tashikk — *how could I stay, when a child could answer the call?* — and admits, wistfully, that the children at her orphanage giving her the name *Stump* is the only term of endearment she has held since her father.
- SA:RoW:Ch 24 Walks past with her mistspren while Shallan notes she needs to sketch the strange spren at some point.
- SA:RoW:Ch 34 Speaks bluntly across the campfire — through her spren — telling Adolin none of his proposals are strong enough, and that the only opening with the honorspren will be one that appeals to honor itself.
- SA:RoW:Ch 35 Follows the column behind the faster marchers; Radiant outpaces her.
- SA:RoW:Ch 36 Arrives with the trailing Cryptics and her spren, surveys the rescue, and nods in approval before starting the hike back.
Backreferences
- summarySA:ED:Ch 6
- factTashi's Light Orphanage
- factThe Stump's helper
- summarySA:ED:Ch 7
- summarySA:ED:Ch 10
- factMik
- summarySA:ED:Ch 14
- factThe Stump
- summarySA:ED:Ch 17
- summarySA:ED:Ch 18
- factThe Stump
- summarySA:ED:Ch 19
- summarySA:ED:Ch 20
- factWyndle
- factThe Stump
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 20
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 21
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 22
- factDreaming-though-Awake
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 24
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 34
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 35
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 36