POV: szeth
Summary
The morning after killing Tuko, Szeth strides through the open gates of the Windrunner monastery as its new Honorbearer. Acolytes scatter ahead of him to find their shamans. By the time he reaches Tuko's old quarters — his quarters now — the ten shamans of the house have gathered to meet him. Each wears a faded red armband, sun-bleached. Mourning. He thinks it appropriate.
Faraz-daughter-Daraz, the lead shaman, makes their position plain at once: the ten of them ask to be sent out into the surrounding villages as traveling shamans rather than to keep the monastery for him. A profound demotion. A profound statement. Szeth declines — he has not released them, and until he does he is Honorbearer — then asks where Tuko found them. *Rejects,* one of them admits. Turned away by the other houses. *Turned away,* Szeth presses, *but not for lack of skill with the sword?* Faraz lifts her chin: she once took a single bout out of five from Pozen's swordmaster Gonda-son-Darias — a serious thing. Szeth notes evenly that he took all five.
He has now confirmed what he suspected from the muster: five of the ten are nominally of the sword, five of the book — but all ten are really of the sword, gathered from across Shinovar for their willingness to question. Tuko, then, had been quietly preparing a rebellion. *You killed Tuko!* one of them shouts. *As I said,* Szeth answers, *be glad. I am more skilled than he was. You will need the very best to resist the others.* He walks. Eventually, reluctantly, they follow.
He throws open the armoury doors. Tuko had kept the house ready: swords in stacks, gemstones in abundance, armour and shields, a deep larder, the monastery's own wells. Each Monastery of Truth was built for siege; only this one, Szeth sees, was still maintained for it. He weighs the next steps in his head. If he can win over Moss he will have Soulcasting — infinite food, given care of the gemstones. Maybe Sivi …
Faraz cuts in. Did Tuko explain why he had been planning to rise? She admits he had not — only that the other monasteries might attack and that they should be ready. Then he had hesitated, and waited, and waited, until Szeth himself was sent to duel him. *He assumed he could defeat me,* Szeth says, and turns to the ten of them, and tells them what Tuko discovered and what he himself has lately confirmed: the other Honorbearers of Shinovar serve one of the Unmade. Knowingly or not, they answer to a being they call the Voice.
His voice does not shake. For once, he sounds as confident as he is trying to feel. He draws a breath and says the rest aloud: he must declare, alone, that the Desolation has arrived. The Voidbringers have returned. At long last the day of Truth is here, and it is time to fight. One Unmade has been found; the old records agree that where one is found the rest follow, or have already come in secret. The ten shamans go pale and wide-eyed — and then, slowly, they begin to nod. Tuko had been working on them, even without telling them why.
Szeth gives them their orders. He hopes still to recruit one or two of his peers; the others will resist, so they must move quickly. Mobilise. Recruit any of the people who will come. From this moment forward the Windrunner monastery is no longer a place of ritual but the staging ground for a war within Shinovar itself — and they must pray to the Heralds that they are not already too late.