Yumi and the nightmare p.., p.1
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, page 1
YUMI AND THE NIGHTMARE PAINTER
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part Three
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Part Four
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Postscript
About the Author
Also by Brandon Sanderson
Copyright
ILLUSTRATIONS
Front Endpapers
Facing a Nightmare
Thirty-Seven Spirits
Seeking Advice
Meeting
Battle of Wills
Dress Shopping
The Noodle Pupil
Ritual Bathing
Learning to Paint
Learning to Stack
Meditation
Backlit by Wonder
Painter’s Portfolio
Comfort
The Stable Nightmare
In the Shroud
Recognition
Defending Kilahito
Contest
The Coatrack
Priceless
Rear Endpapers
Also for Emily,
Who, for some amazing reason, gives me her love.
Acknowledgments
First off, let’s acknowledge Emily—the person this book is dedicated to—for being both my inspiration and my co-president at Dragonsteel. I think you would all be amazed by how much she does behind the scenes. She deserves praise, accolades, and no small thanks for sharing her book (which this is) with all of you.
Creative Development is our department focused on things like artwork for the books, concept art, and various cool things like that. In this department, I’d like to thank Isaac StewarŤ—VP, and my longtime partner in crime—for taking on the huge task of getting the artwork ready for all these Secret Projects.
And speaking of that, Aliya Chen was the artist for this book, and she did an amazing job. My goal for each of these books was to let the artists have extra freedom to create art for the story the way they want, and Aliya was really fantastic to work with. I hope those of you who listen to the audiobook will find time to go check out the beautiful pieces she did for this project.
Other members of this department include Rachael Lynn Buchanan (who brought Aliya’s art to our attention), Jennifer Neal, Ben McSweeney, Hayley Lazo, Priscilla Spencer, and Anna Earley.
We also want to thank some of the people external to our organization here at Dragonsteel who helped on this project. This includes Oriana Leckert at Kickstarter, and Anna Gallagher and Palmer Johnson at BackerKit. Also, a special thanks to Bill Wearne, our print rep, who worked miracles to get these books printed on our schedule.
Our Editorial department is headed by VP the Installed Peter Ahlstrom. His team also stepped up in a big way to get four extra books done on time, and they deserve huge props! They include Karen Ahlstrom, Kristy S. Gilbert (who did the layout), Betsey Ahlstrom, Jennie Stevens, and Emily Shaw-Higham. Deanna Hoak did our copyediting on this book.
Our Operations department VP is Matt “You’re publishing how many books this year?” Hatch, who came on to our company just in time for us to do this huge project. Also on the operations team are Emma Tan-Stoker, Jane Horne, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Makena Saluone, Hazel Cummings, and Becky Wilson. Thanks so much, folks, for keeping us all in line and focused!
The Publicity and Marketing department is headed by VP Adam Horne. These are the folks who helped me put together all the videos promoting the Secret Projects, and have been an invaluable resource in helping me get the news out about all of this! His team includes Jeremy Palmer, Taylor D. Hatch, and Octavia Escamilla. Nice work!
Last but not least is our Merchandising and Events department, headed by Kara Stewart as the VP. This team took on an extra-large burden for these four Secret Projects, as it was a huge endeavor to get it all put together, packaged, and shipped out to you all. They also spearheaded getting the digital products to everyone, and they handle customer service, so no matter which version of the book you ended up getting, these are the fine folks who got them to you! A huge thanks to them for all their work.
The team includes: Christi Jacobsen, Lex Willhite, and Kellyn Neumann.
Mem Grange, Michael Bateman, Joy Allen, Katy Ives, Richard Rubert, Brett Moore, Ally Reep, Daniel Phipps, and Dallin Holden.
Alex Lyon, Jacob Chrisman, Matt Hampton, Camilla Cutler, Quinton Martin, Kitty Allen, Esther Grange, Amanda Butterfield, Laura Loveridge, Gwen Hickman, Donald Mustard III, Zoe Hatch, Logan Reep, Rachel Jacobsen, and Sydney Wilson.
My writing group for this book included Emily Sanderson, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Peter Ahlstrom, Karen Ahlstrom, Darci Stone, Eric James Stone, Alan Layton, Ethan Skarstedt, and Ben Olseeeen.
Alpha readers for this book included Jessie Farr, Oliver Sanderson, Rachael Lynn Buchanan, Jennifer Neal, Christi Jacobson, Kellyn Neumann, Lex Willhite, Joy Allen, and Emma Tan-Stoker.
Beta readers include Joshua Harkey, Tim Challener, Lingting “Botanica” Xu, Ross Newberry, Becca Reppert, Jessica Ashcraft, Alyx Hoge, Liliana Klein, Rahul Pantula, Gary Singer, Alexis Horizon, Lyndsey Luther, Nikki Ramsay, Suzanne Musin, Marnie Peterson, and Kendra Wilson. Special thanks to Mikah Kilgore for xyr beta feedback on the image descriptions found in the ebook and audiobook.
Gamma readers include many of the beta readers plus: Brian T. Hill, Evgeni “Argent” Kirilov, Rosemary Williams, Shannon Nelson, Brandon Cole, Glen Vogelaar, Rob West, Ted Herman, Drew McCaffrey, Jessie Lake, Chris McGrath, Bob Kluttz, Sam Baskin, Kendra Alexander, Lauren McCaffrey, Billy Todd, Chana Oshira Block, David Behrens, and Jayden King.
And, obviously, I’d like to give a huge thanks to all of our Kickstarter backers, who made this project possible! Your enthusiasm has really propelled this project into the stratosphere. Thank you so very much.
Brandon Sanderson
The star was particularly bright when the nightmare painter started his rounds.
The star. Singular. No, not a sun. Just one star. A bullet hole in the midnight sky, bleeding pale light.
The nightmare painter lingered outside his apartment building, locking his eyes on the star. He’d always found it strange, that sentry in the sky. Still, he was fond of it. Many nights it was his sole companion. Unless you counted the nightmares.
After losing his staring match, the nightmare painter strolled along the street, which was silent save for the hum of the hion lines. Ever present, those soared through the air—twin bands of pure energy, thick as a person’s wrist, about twenty feet up. Imagine them like very large versions of the filaments in the center of a light bulb—motionless, glowing, unsupported.
One line was an indecisive blue-green. You might have called it aqua—or perhaps teal. But if so, it was an electric variety. Turquoise’s pale cousin, who stayed in listening to music and never got enough sun.
The other was a vibrant fuchsia. If you could ascribe a personality to a cord of light, this one was perky, boisterous, blatant. It was a color you’d wear only if you wanted every eye in the room to follow you. A titch too purple for hot pink, it was at the very least a comfortably lukewarm pink.
The residents of the city of Kilahito might have found my explanation unnecessary. Why put such effort into describing something everyone knows? It would be like describing the sun to you. Yet you need this context, for—cold and warm—the hion lines were the colors of Kilahito. Needing no pole or wire to hold them aloft, they ran down every street, reflected in every window, lit every denizen. Wire-thin strings of both colors split off the main cords, running to each structure and powering modern life. They were the arteries and veins of the city.
Just as necessary to life in the city was the young man walking beneath them, although his role was quite different. He’d originally been named Nikaro by his parents—but by tradition, many nightmare painters went by their title to anyone but their fellows. Few internalized it as he had. So we shall call him as he called himself. Simply, Painter.
You’d probably say Painter looked Veden. Similar features, same black hair, but of paler skin than many you
Painter. He was a young man, still a year from his twenties, as you’d count the years. His people used different numbers, but for ease let’s call him nineteen. Lanky, dressed in an untucked buttoned grey-blue shirt and a knee-length coat, he was the type who wore his hair long enough to brush his shoulders because he thought it took less effort. In reality it takes far more, but only if you do it right. He also thought it looked more impressive. But again, only if you do it right. Which he didn’t.
You might have thought him young to bear the burden of protecting an entire city. But you see, he did it along with hundreds of other nightmare painters. In this, he was important in the brilliantly modern way that teachers, firefighters, and nurses are important: essential workers who earn fancy days of appreciation on the calendar, words of praise in every politician’s mouth, and murmurs of thanks from people at restaurants. Indeed, discussions of the intense value of these professions crowd out other more mundane conversations. Like ones regarding salary increases.
As a result, Painter didn’t make much—merely enough to eat and have some pocket cash. He lived in a single-room apartment provided by his employer. Each night he went out for his job. And he did so, even at this hour, without fear of mugging or attack. Kilahito was a safe city, nightmares excluded. Nothing like rampaging semisapient voids of darkness to drive down crime.
Understandably, most people stayed indoors at night.
Night. Well, we’ll call it that. The time when people slept. They didn’t have the same view of these things that you do, as his people lived in persistent darkness. Yet during his shift, you’d say it felt like night. Painter passed hollow streets alongside overstuffed apartments. The only activity he spotted was from Rabble Way: a street you might charitably call a low-end merchant district. Naturally, the long narrow street lay near the perimeter of town. Here, the hion had been bent and curved into signs. These stuck out from shop after shop, like hands waving for attention.
Each sign—letters, pictures, and designs—was created using just two colors, aqua and magenta, the art drawn in continuous lines. Yes, Kilahito had things like light bulbs, as are common on many planets. But the hion worked with no need for machinery or replacement, so many relied on it, particularly outdoors.
Soon Painter reached the western edge. The end of hion. Kilahito was circular, and its perimeter held a final line of buildings, not quite a city wall. Warehouses mostly, without windows or residents. Outside of that was one last street, in a loop running around the city. No one used it. It lay there nonetheless, forming a kind of buffer between civilization and what lurked beyond.
What lurked beyond was the shroud: an endless, inky darkness that besieged the city, and everyone on the planet.
It smothered the city like a dome, driven back by the hion—which could also be used to make passages and corridors between cities. Only the light of the star shone through the shroud. To this day, I’m not a hundred percent certain why. But this was close to where Virtuosity Splintered herself, and I suspect that had an effect.
Looking out at the shroud, Painter folded his arms, confident. This was his realm. Here, he was the lone hunter. The solitary wanderer. The man who prowled the endless dark, unafraid of—
Laughter tinkled in the air to his right.
He sighed, glancing to where two other nightmare painters strolled the perimeter. Akane wore a bright green skirt and buttoned white blouse, and carried the long brush of a nightmare painter like a baton. Tojin loped beside her, a young man with bulging arms and flat features. Painter had always thought Tojin was like a painting done without proper use of perspective or foreshortening. Surely a man’s arms couldn’t be that big, his chin that square.
The two laughed once more at something Akane said. Then they saw him standing there.
“Nikaro?” Akane called. “You on the same schedule as us again?”
“Yeah,” Painter said. “It’s, um, on the chart…I think?” Had he actually filled it out this time?
“Great!” she replied. “See you later. Maybe?”
“Uh, yeah,” Painter said.
Akane walked off, heels striking stone, paintbrush in hand, canvas under her arm. Tojin gave Painter a little shrug, then followed, his own supplies in his large painter’s bag. Painter lingered as he watched them go, and fought down the urge to chase after them.
He was a lone hunter. A solitary wanderer. An…unescorted meanderer? Regardless, he didn’t want to work in a pair or a group, as a lot of the others did.
It would be nice if someone would ask him. So he could show Akane and Tojin that he had friends. He would reject any such offer with stoic firmness, of course. Because he worked by himself. He was a single saunterer. A…
Painter sighed. It was difficult to maintain a properly brooding air after an encounter with Akane. Particularly as her laughter echoed two streets over. To many of his colleagues, nightmare painting was not as…solemn a job as he made it out to be.
It helped him to think otherwise. Helped him feel like less of a mistake. Especially during those times when he contemplated a life where he would spend his next six decades on this street every night, backlit by the hion. Alone.
Yumi had always considered the appearance of the daystar to be encouraging. An omen of fortune. A sign that the primal hijo would be open and welcoming to her.
The daystar seemed extra bright today—glowing a soft blue on the western horizon as the sun rose in the east. A powerful sign, if you believed in such things. (An old joke notes that lost items tend to be in the last place one looks. Conversely, omens tend to appear in the first place people look for them.)
Yumi did believe in signs. She had to; an omen had been the single most important event in her life. At her birth, a falling star had marked the sky—indicating that she had been chosen by the spirits. She’d been taken from her parents and raised to accomplish a holy and important duty.
She settled down on the warm floor of her wagon as her attendants, Chaeyung and Hwanji, entered. They bowed in ritual postures, then fed her with maipon sticks and spoons—a meal of rice and a stew that had been left on the ground to cook. Yumi sat and swallowed, never so crass as to try to feed herself. This was a ritual, and she was an expert in those.
Though today she couldn’t help feeling distracted. It was nineteen days past her nineteenth birthday.
A day for decisions. A day for action.
A day to—maybe—ask for what she wanted?
It was a hundred days until the big festival in Torio City, the grand capital, seat of the queen. The yearly reveal of the country’s greatest art, plays, and projects. She had never gone. Perhaps…this time…
Once her attendants finished feeding her, she rose. They opened the door for her, then hopped down out of the private wagon. Yumi took a deep breath, then followed, stepping out into sunlight and down into her clogs.
Immediately her two attendants leaped to hold up enormous fans, obscuring her from view. Naturally people in the village had gathered to see her. The Chosen. The yoki-hijo. The girl of commanding primal spirits. (Not the most pithy of titles, but it works better in their language.)
This land—the kingdom of Torio—couldn’t have been more different from where Painter lived. Not one glowing line—cold or warm—streaked the sky. No apartment buildings. No pavement. Oh, but they had sunlight. A dominant red-orange sun, the color of baked clay. Bigger and closer than your sun, it had distinct spots of varied color on it—like a boiling breakfast stew, churning and undulating in the sky.
This scarlet sun painted the landscape…well, perfectly ordinary colors. That’s how the brain works. Once you’d been there a few hours, you wouldn’t notice the light was a shade redder. But when you first arrived, it would look striking. Like the scene of a bloody massacre everyone is too numb to acknowledge.
Hidden behind her fans, Yumi walked on her clogs through the village to the local cold spring. Once at the spring, her attendants slipped her out of her nightgown—a yoki-hijo did not dress or undress herself—and let her walk down into the slightly cool water, shivering at its shocking kiss. A short time later, Chaeyung and Hwanji followed with a floating plate holding crystalline soaps. They rubbed her once with the first, then she rinsed. Once with the second, then she rinsed. Twice with the third. Three times with the fourth. Five times with the fifth. Eight times with the sixth. Thirteen times with the seventh.
