The Girl Who Looked Up

Shallan closed her eyes, smiling, remembering the last time she’d seen a play at her father’s. A traveling children’s troupe come to entertain her. She’d taken Memories for her collection—but of course, that was now lost at the bottom of the ocean.

“The Girl Who Looked Up,” she whispered.

“What?” Pattern asked.

Shallan opened her eyes and breathed out Stormlight. She hadn’t sketched this particular scene, so she used what she had handy: a drawing she’d done of a young child in the market. Bright and happy, too young to cover her safehand. The girl appeared from the Stormlight and scampered up the steps, then bowed to Pattern.

“There was a girl,” Shallan said. “This was before storms, before memories, and before legends—but there was still a girl. She wore a long scarf to blow in the wind.”

A vibrant red scarf grew around the girl’s neck, twin tails extending far behind her and flapping in a phantom wind. The players had made the scarf hang behind the girl using strings from above. It had seemed so real.

“The girl in the scarf played and danced, as girls do today,” Shallan said, making the child prance around Pattern. “In fact, most things were the same then as they are today. Except for one big difference. The wall.”

Shallan drained an indulgent number of spheres from her satchel, then sprinkled the floor of the stage with grass and vines like from her homeland. Across the back of the stage, a wall grew as Shallan had imagined it. A high, terrible wall stretching toward the moons. Blocking the sky, throwing everything around the girl into shadow.

The girl stepped toward it, looking up, straining to see the top.

“You see, in those days, a wall kept out the storms,” Shallan said. “It had existed for so long, nobody knew how it had been built. That did not bother them. Why wonder when the mountains began or why the sky was high? Like these things were, so the wall was.”

The girl danced in its shadow, and other people sprang up from Shallan’s Light. Each was a person from one of her sketches. Vathah, Gaz, Palona, Sebarial. They worked as farmers or washwomen, doing their duties with heads bowed. Only the girl looked up at that wall, her twin scarf tails streaming behind her.

She approached a man standing behind a small cart of fruit, wearing Kaladin Stormblessed’s face.

“Why is there a wall?” she asked the man selling fruit, speaking with her own voice.

“To keep the bad things out,” he replied.

“What bad things?”

“Very bad things. There is a wall. Do not go beyond it, or you shall die.”

The fruit seller picked up his cart and moved away. And still, the girl looked up at the wall. Pattern hovered beside her and hummed happily to himself.

“Why is there a wall?” she asked the woman suckling her child. The woman had Palona’s face.

“To protect us,” the woman said.

“To protect us from what?”

“Very bad things. There is a wall. Do not go beyond it, or you shall die.”

The woman took her child and left.

The girl climbed a tree, peeking out the top, her scarf streaming behind her. “Why is there a wall?” she called to the boy sleeping lazily in the nook of a branch.

“What wall?” the boy asked.

The girl thrust her finger pointedly toward the wall.

“That’s not a wall,” the boy said, drowsy. Shallan had given him the face of one of the bridgemen, a Herdazian. “That’s just the way the sky is over there.”

“It’s a wall,” the girl said. “A giant wall.”

“It must be there for a purpose,” the boy said. “Yes, it is a wall. Don’t go beyond it, or you’ll probably die.”

“Well,” Shallan continued, speaking from the audience, “these answers did not satisfy the girl who looked up. She reasoned to herself, if the wall kept evil things out, then the space on this side of it should be safe.

“So, one night while the others of the village slept, she sneaked from her home with a bundle of supplies. She walked toward the wall, and indeed the land was safe. But it was also dark. Always in the shadow of that wall. No sunlight, ever, directly reached the people.”

Shallan made the illusion roll, like scenery on a scroll as the players had used. Only far, far more realistic. She had painted the ceiling with light, and looking up, you seemed to be looking only at an infinite sky— dominated by that wall.

“The girl traveled far,” Shallan said, looking back toward the stage. “No predators hunted her, and no storms assaulted her. The only wind was the pleasant one that played with her scarf, and the only creatures she saw were the cremlings that clicked at her as she walked.

“At long last, the girl in the scarves stood before the wall. It was truly expansive, running as far as she could see in either direction. And its height! It reached almost to the Tranquiline Halls!”

Shallan stood and walked onto the stage, passing into a different land— an image of fertility, vines, trees, and grass, dominated by that terrible wall. It grew spikes from its front in bristling patches.

“What happened?” Pattern said. “Shallan? I must know what happened.

Did she turn back?”

“Of course she didn’t turn back,” Shallan said. “She climbed. There were outcroppings in the wall, things like these spikes or hunched, ugly statues. She had climbed the highest trees all through her youth. She could do this.”

The girl started climbing. Had her hair been white when she’d started?

Shallan frowned.

Shallan made the base of the wall sink into the stage, so although the girl got higher, she remained chest-height to Shallan and Pattern.

“The climb took days,” Shallan said, hand to her head. “At night, the girl who looked up would tie herself a hammock out of her scarf and sleep there. She picked out her village at one point, remarking on how small it seemed, now that she was high.

“As she neared the top, she finally began to fear what she would find on the other side. Unfortunately, this fear did not stop her. She was young, and questions bothered her more than fear. So it was that she finally struggled to the very top and stood to see the other side. The hidden side…”

Next to Shallan, the girl stood triumphantly on the wall’s top, her scarves and white hair streaming out behind her in a sudden wind. Pattern buzzed beside Shallan.

“… and on that side of the wall,” Shallan whispered, “the girl saw steps.”

The back side of the wall was crisscrossed with enormous sets of steps leading down to the ground, so distant.

“What… what does it mean?” Pattern said.

“The girl stared at those steps,” Shallan whispered, remembering, “and suddenly the gruesome statues on her side of the wall made sense. The spears. The way it cast everything into shadow. The wall did indeed hide something evil, something frightening. It was the people, like the girl and her village.”

The illusion started to break down around her. This was too ambitious for her to hold, and it left her strained, exhausted, her head starting to pound. She let the wall fade, claiming its Stormlight. The landscape vanished, then finally the girl herself. Behind, the shadowed figures in the seats started to evaporate. Stormlight streamed back to Shallan, stoking the storm inside.

“That’s how it ended?” Pattern asked.

“No,” Shallan said, Stormlight puffing from her lips. “She goes down, sees a perfect society lit by Stormlight. She steals some and brings it back. The storms come as a punishment, tearing down the wall.”

“Ah…” Pattern said, hovering beside her on the now-dull stage. “So that’s how the storms first began?”

“Of course not,” Shallan said, feeling tired. “It’s a lie, Pattern. A story. It doesn’t mean anything.”

***

Wit settled back. “Have you heard the story of the Girl Who Looked Up?”

Shallan didn't reply.

“It's a story from long ago,” Wit said. He cupped his hands around the sphere on the floor. “Things were different in that time. A wall kept out the storms, but everyone ignore it. All but one girl, who looked up one day, and contemplated it.”

“Why is there a wall?” Shallan whispered.

“Oh, so you do know it? Good.” He leaned down, blowing at crem dust on the floor. It swirled up, making a figure of a girl. It gave the brief impression of her standing before a wall, but then disintegrated back into dust. He tried again, and it swirled a little higher this time but still fell back to dust.

“A little help?” he asked. He pushed a bag of spheres across the ground toward Shallan.

Shallan sighed, then picked up the bag and drew in the Stormlight. It started to rage within her, demanding to be used, so she stood up and breathed out, Weaving it into an illusion she'd done once before. A pristine village, and a young girl standing and looking upward, toward an impossibly tall wall in the distance.

The illusion made the room seem to vanish. Somehow, Shallan painted the walls and ceiling in precisely the right way, making them disappear into the landscape— become part of it. She hadn't made them invisible; they were merely covered up in a way that made it seem Shallan and Wit were standing in another place.

This was... this was more than she'd ever done before. But was she really doing it? Shallan shook her head and stepped up beside the girl, who wore long scarves.

Wit stepped up on the other side. “Hmmm,” he said. “Not bad. But it's not dark enough.”

“What?”

“I thought you knew the story,” Wit said, tapping the air. The color and light bled from her illusion, leaving them standing in the darkness of night, lit only by frail set of stars. The wall was an enormous blot before them. “In these days, there was no light.”

“No light...”

“Of course, even without light, people still had to live, didn't they? That's what people do. I hasten to guess it's the first thing they learn how to do. So they lived in the darkness, farmed in the darkness, ate in the darkness.” He waved behind him. People stumbled about in the village, feeling their way to different activities, barely able to see by the starlight.

In this context, strange though it seemed, some pieces of the story as she'd told it made sense. When the girl went up to people and asked, “Why is there a wall?” it was obvious why they found it easy to ignore.

The illusion followed Wit's words as the girl in the scarves asked several people about the wall. Don't go beyond it, or you shall die.

“And so,” Wit said, “she decided that the only way she'd find answers would be to climb the wall herself.” He glanced at Shallan. “Was she stupid or bold?”

“How should I know?”

“Wrong answer. She was both.”

“It wasn't stupid. If nobody asked questions, then we would never learn anything.”

“What of the wisdom of her elders?”

“They offered no explanation for why she shouldn't ask about the wall! No rationalization, no justification. There's a difference between listening to your elders and just being as frightened as everyone else.”

Wit smiled, the sphere in his hand lighting his face. “Funny, isn't it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren't many stories about the kids who say, 'Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I'm glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.'”

“Is that what you're trying to teach me, then?” Shallan snapped. “The fine distinction between choosing for yourself and ignoring good advice?”

“I'm a terrible teacher.” He waved his hands as the girld reached the wall after a long hike. She started to climb. “Fortunately, I'm an artist, and not a teacher.”

“People learn things from art.”

“Blasphemy! Art is not art if it has function.”

Shallan rolled her eyes.

“Take this fork,” Wit said. He waved his hand. Some of her Stormlight split off from her, spinning above his hand and making an image of a floating fork in the darkness. “It has a use. Eating. Now, if it were to be ornamented by a master artisan, would that change its function?” The fork grew intricate embossing in the form of growing leaves. “No, of course not. It has the same use, ornamented or not. The art is the part that serves no purpose.”

“It's makes me happy, Wit. That's a purpose.”

He grinned, and the fork disappeared.

“Weren't we in the middle of story about a girl climbing a wall?” Shallan asked.

“Yes, but that part takes forever,” he said. “I'm finding things to occupy us.”

“We could just skip the boring part.”

“Skip?” Wit said, aghast. “Skip part of a story?”

Shallan snapped her fingers, and the illusion shifted so that they stood atop the wall in the darkness. The girl in the scarves finally— after toiling many days— pulled herself up beside them.

“You wound me,” Wit said. “What happens next?”

“The girl find steps,” Shallan said. “And the girl realizes that the wall wasn't to keep something in, but to keep her and her people out.”

“Because?”

“Because we're monsters.”

Wit stepped over to Shallan, then quietly folded his arms around her. She trembled, then twisted, burying her face in his shirt.

“You're not a monster, Shallan,” Wit whispered. “Oh, child. The world is monstrous at times, and there are those who would have you believe that you are terrible by association.”

“I am.”

“No. For you see, it flows the other direction. You are not worse for your association with the world, but it is better for its association with you.”

She pressed against him, shivering. “What do I do, Wit?” she whispered. “I know... I know I shouldn't be in so much pain. I had to...” She took a deep breath. “I had to kill them. I had to. But now I've said the words, and I can't ignore it anymore. So I should... should just die too, for having done it...”

Wit waved to the side, toward where the girl in the scarves still overlooked a new world. What was that long pack she had set down beside her?

“So you remember,” Wit said gently, “the rest of the story?”

“It's not important. We found the moral already. The wall kept people out.”

“Why?”

“Because...” What had she told Pattern before, when she'd been showing him this story?

“Because,” Wit said, pointing, “beyond the wall was God's light.”

It burst alight in a sudden explosion: a brilliant and powerful brightness that lit the landscape beyond the wall. Shallan gasped as it shone over them. The girl in the scarves gasped in turn, and saw the world in all its colors for the first time.

“She climbed down the steps,” Shallan whispered, watching the girl run down the steps, scarves streaming behind her. “She hid among the creatures who lived on this side. She sneaked up to the Light and she brought it back with her. To the other side. To the... to the land of shadows...”

“Yes indeed,” Wit said as the scene played out, the girl in the scarves slipping up to the grand source of light, then breaking off a little piece in her hand.

An incredible chase.

The girl climbing the steps frantically.

A crazed descent.

And then... light, for the first time in the village, followed by the coming of the storms - boiling over the wall.

“The people suffered,” Wit said, “but each storm brought the light renewed, for it could never be put back, now that it had been taken. And people, for all their hardship, would never choose to go back. Not now that they could see.”

The illusion faded, leaving the two of them standing in the common room of the building, Muri's little chamber off to the side. Shallan pulled back, ashamed at having wept on his shirt.

“Do you wish,” Wit asked, “that you could go back to not being able to see?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Then live. And let your failures be part of you.”

“That sounds... that sounds an awful lot like moral, Wit. Like you're trying to do something useful.”

“Well, as I said, we all fail now and then.” He swept his hands to the sides, as if brushing something away from Shallan. Stormlight curled out from her right and left, swirling, then forming into two identical versions of Shallan. They stood with ruddy hair, mottled faces, and sweeping white coats that belonged to someone else.

“Wit...” she started.

“Hush.” He walked up to one of the illusions, inspecting it, tapping his chin with his index finger. “A lot has happened to this poor girl, hasn't it?”

“Many people have suffered more and they get along fine.”

“Fine?”

Shallan shrugged, unable to banish the truth she'd spoken. The distant memory of singing to her father as she strangled him. The people she'd failed, the problem she'd caused. The illusion of Shallan to the left gasped, then backed up against the wall of the room, shaking her head. She collapsed, head down against her legs, curling up.

“Poor fool,” Shallan whispered. “Everything she tries only makes the world worse. She was broken by her father, then broke herself in turn. She's worthless, Wit.” She gritted her teeth, found herself sneering. “It's not really her fault, but she's still worthless.”

Wit grunted, then pointed at the second illusion, standing behind them. “And that one?”

“No different,” Shallan said, tiring of his game. She gave the second illusion the same memories. Father. Helaran. Failing Jasnah. Everything.

The illusory Shallan stiffened. Then set her jaw and stood there.

“Yes, I see,” Wit said, strolling up to her. “No different.”

“What are you doing to my illusions?” Shallan snapped.

“Nothing. They're the same in every detail.”

“Of course they're not,” Shallan said, tapping the illusion, feeling it. A sense pulsed through her from it, memories and pain. And... and something smothering them...

Forgiveness. For herself.

She gasped, pulling her finger back as if it had been bitten.

“It's terrible,” Wit said, stepping up beside her, “to have been hurt. It's unfair, and awful, and horrid. But Shallan... it's okay to live on.”

She shook her head.

“Your other minds take over,” he whispered, “because they look so much more appealing. You'll never control them until you're confident in returning to the one who birthed them. Until you accept being you.”

“Then I'll never control it.” She blinked tears.

“No,” Wit said. He nodded toward the version of her still standing up. “You will, Shallan. If you do not trust yourself, can you trust me? For in you, I see a woman more wonderful than any of the lies. I promise you, that woman is worth protecting. You are worth protecting.”

She nodded toward the illusion of herself still standing. “I can't be her. She's just another fabrication.”

Both illusions vanished. “I see only one woman here,” Wit said. “And it's the one who is standing up. Shallan, that has always been you. You just have to admit it. Allow it.” He whispered to her. “It's all right to hurt.”

Shockingly, morning light was shining in the doorway. Had she been here all night, huddled in this hole of a room?

“Wit?” she asked. “I... I can't do it.”

He smiled. “There are certain things I know, Shallan. This is one of them. You can. Find the balance. Accept the pain, but don't accept that you deserved it.”

***

From Oathbringer— Stormlight Archive 3— by Brandon Sanderson