The Hero of Ages

45

VIN LANDED, ABORTING HER ATTACK, but still tense, eyes narrow with suspicion. Reen was backlit by the fitful lantern-light, looking much as she remembered. The four years had changed him, of course – he was taller, broader of build – but he had the same hard face, unrelieved by humor. His posture was familiar to her; during her childhood, he had often stood as he did now, arms folded in disapproval.

It all returned to her. Things she thought she’d banished into the dark, quarantined parts of her mind: blows from Reen’s hand, harsh criticism from his tongue, furtive moves from city to city.

And yet, tempering these memories was an insight. She was no longer the young girl who had borne her beatings in confused silence. Looking back, she could see the fear Reen had shown in the things he had done. He’d been terrified that his half-breed Allomancer of a sister would be discovered and slaughtered by the Steel Inquisitors. He’d beaten her when she made herself stand out. He’d yelled at her when she was too competent. He’d moved her when he’d feared that the Canton of Inquisition had caught their trail.

Reen had died protecting her. He had taught her paranoia and distrust out of a twisted sense of duty, for he’d believed that was the only way she would survive on the streets of the Final Empire. And, she’d stayed with him, enduring the treatment. Inside – not even buried all that deeply – she’d known something very important. Reen had loved her.

She looked up and met the eyes of the man standing in the cavern. Then, she slowly shook her head. No, she thought. It looks like him, but those eyes are not his.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I’m your brother,” the creature said, frowning. “It’s only been a few years, Vin. You’ve grown brash – I thought I’d taught you better than that.”

He certainly has the mannerisms down, Vin thought, walking forward warily. How did he learn them? Nobody thought that Reen was of any importance during his life. They wouldn’t have known to study him.

“Where did you get his bones?” Vin asked, circling the creature. The cavern floor was rough and lined with burgeoning shelves. Darkness extended in all directions. “And how did you get the face so perfect? I thought kandra had to digest a body to make a good copy.”

He had to be a kandra, after all. How else would someone manage such a perfect imitation? The creature turned, regarding her with a confused expression. “What is this nonsense? Vin, I realize that we’re not exactly the type to reunite with a fond embrace, but I did at least expect you to recognize me.”

Vin ignored the complaints. Reen, then Breeze, had taught her too well. She’d know Reen if she saw him. “I need information,” she said. “About one of your kind. He is called TenSoon, and he returned to your Homeland a year ago. He said he was going to be put on trial. Do you know what happened to him? I would like to contact him, if possible.”

“Vin,” the false Reen said firmly, “I am not a kandra.”

We’ll see about that, Vin thought, reaching out with zinc and hitting the impostor with a duralumin-fueled blast of emotional Allomancy.

He didn’t even stumble. Such an attack would have put a kandra under Vin’s control, just as it did with koloss. Vin wavered. It was growing difficult to see the impostor in the waning lantern-light, even with tin enhancing her eyes.

The failed emotional Allomancy meant that he wasn’t a kandra. But he wasn’t Reen either. There seemed only one logical course to follow.

She attacked.

Whoever the impostor was, he knew her well enough to anticipate this move. Though he exclaimed in mock surprise, he immediately jumped back, getting out of her reach. He moved on light feet – light enough that Vin was reasonably certain he was burning pewter. In fact, she could still feel the Allomantic pulses coming from him, though for some reason it was hard for her to pin down exactly which metals he was burning.

Either way, the Allomancy was an additional confirmation of her suspicions. Reen had not been an Allomancer. True, he could have Snapped during their time apart, but she didn’t think he had any noble blood to impart him an Allomantic heritage. Vin had gotten her powers from her father, the parent she and Reen had not shared.

She attacked experimentally, testing this impostor’s skill. He stayed out of her reach, watching carefully as she alternately prowled and attacked. She tried to corner him against the shelves, but he was too careful to be caught.

“This is pointless,” the impostor said, jumping away from her again.

No coins, Vin thought. He doesn’t use coins to jump.

“You’d have to expose yourself too much to actually hit me, Vin,” the impostor said, “and I’m obviously good enough to stay out of your reach. Can’t we stop this and get on to more important matters? Aren’t you even a bit curious as to what I’ve been doing these last four years?”

Vin backed into a crouch, like a cat preparing to pounce, and smiled.

“What?” the impostor asked.

At that moment, her stalling paid off. Behind them, the overturned lantern finally flickered out, plunging the cavern into darkness. But Vin, with her ability to pierce copperclouds, could still sense her enemy. She’d dropped her coin pouch back when she’d first sensed someone in the room – she bore no metal to give him warning of her approach.

She launched herself forward, intending to grab her enemy around the neck and pull him into a pin. The Allomantic pulses didn’t let her see him, but they did tell her exactly where he was. That would be enough of an edge.

She was wrong. He dodged her just as easily as he had before.

Vin fell still. Tin, she thought. He can hear me coming.

So, she kicked over a storage shelf, then attacked again as the crash of the falling shelf echoed loudly in the chamber, spilling cans across the floor.

The impostor evaded her again. Vin froze. Something was very wrong. Somehow, he always sensed her. The cavern fell silent. Neither sound nor light bounced off its walls. Vin crouched, the fingers of one hand resting lightly on the cool stone before her. She could feel the thumping, his Allomantic power washing across her in waves. She focused on it, trying to differentiate the metals that had produced it. Yet, the pulses felt opaque. Muddled.

There’s something familiar about them, she realized. When I first sensed this impostor, I thought… I thought he was the mist spirit.

There was a reason the pulses felt familiar. Without the light to distract her, making her connect the figure with Reen, she could see what she’d been missing.

Her heart began to beat quickly, and for the first time this evening – imprisonment included – she began to feel afraid. The pulses felt just like the ones she’d felt a year ago. The pulses that had led her to the Well of Ascension.

“Why have you come here?” she whispered to the blackness.

Laughter. It rang in the empty cavern, loud, free. The thumpings approached, though no footsteps marked the thing’s movement. The pulses suddenly grew enormous and overpowering. They washed across Vin, unbounded by the cavern’s echoes, an unreal sound that passed through things both living and dead. She stepped backward in the darkness, and nearly tripped over the shelves she’d knocked down.

I should have known you wouldn’t be fooled, a kindly voice said in her head. The thing’s voice. She’d heard it only once before, a year ago, when she’d released it from its imprisonment in the Well of Ascension.

“What do you want?” she whispered.

You know what I want. You’ve always known.

And she did. She had sensed it in the moment when she had touched the thing. Ruin, she called it. It had very simple desires. To see the world come to its end.

“I will stop you,” she said. Yet, it was hard to not feel foolish speaking the words to a force she did not understand, a thing that existed beyond men and beyond worlds.

It laughed again, though this time the sound was only inside her head. She could still feel Ruin pulsing – though not from any one specific place. It surrounded her. She forced herself to stand up straight.

Ah, Vin, Ruin said, its voice almost fatherly in tone. You act as if I were your enemy.

“You are my enemy. You seek to end the things I love.”

And is an ending always bad? it asked. Must not all things, even worlds, someday end?

“There is no need to hasten that end,” Vin said. “No reason to force it.”

All things are subject to their own nature, Vin, Ruin said, seeming to flow around her. She could feel its touch upon her – wet and delicate, like mist. You cannot blame me for being what I am. Without me, nothing would end. Nothing could end. And therefore, nothing could grow. I am life. Would you fight life itself?

Vin fell silent.

Do not mourn because the day of this world’s end has arrived, Ruin said. That end was ordained the very day of the world’s conception. There is a beauty in death – the beauty of finality, the beauty of completion. For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed.

“Enough,” Vin snapped, feeling alone and smothered in the chill darkness. “Stop taunting me. Why have you come here?”

Come here? it asked. Why do you ask that?

“What is your purpose in appearing now?” Vin said. “Have you simply come to gloat over my imprisonment?”

I have not “just appeared,” Vin, Ruin said. Why, I have never left. I’ve always been with you. A part of you.

“Nonsense,” Vin said. “You only just revealed yourself.”

I revealed myself to your eyes, yes, Ruin said. But, I see that you do not understand. I’ve always been with you, even when you could not see me.

It paused, and there was silence, both outside and inside of her head.

When you’re alone, no one can betray you, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Reen’s voice. The voice she heard sometimes, almost real, like a conscience. She’d taken it for granted that the voice was just part of her psyche – a leftover from Reen’s teachings. An instinct.

Anyone will betray you, Vin, the voice said, repeating a bit of advice it commonly gave. As it spoke, it slowly slid from Reen’s voice into that of Ruin. Anyone.

I’ve always been with you. You’ve heard me in your mind since your first years of life.

46

“ALL RIGHT,” BREEZE SAID, “so does somebody want to speculate on how our team’s spy ended up becoming a pseudo-religious vigilante freedom fighter?”

Sazed shook his head. They sat in their cavern lair beneath the Canton of Inquisition. Breeze, declaring that he was tired of travel rations, had ordered several of the soldiers to break open some of the cavern’s supplies to prepare a more suitable meal. Sazed might have complained, but the truth was that the cavern was so well stocked that even a determinedly eating Breeze wouldn’t be able to make a dent in it.

They had waited all day for Spook to return to the lair. Tensions in the city were high, and most of their contacts had gone to ground, weathering the Citizen’s paranoia regarding a rebellion. Soldiers walked the streets, and a sizable contingent had set up camp just outside the Ministry building. Sazed was worried that the Citizen had associated Breeze and Sazed with Spook’s appearance at the executions. It appeared that their days of moving about freely in the city were at an end.

“Why hasn’t he come back?” Allrianne asked. She and Breeze sat at a fine table, pilfered from an empty nobleman’s mansion. They had, of course, changed back to their fine clothing – a suit on Breeze, a peach dress on Allrianne. They always changed as soon as possible, as if eager to reaffirm to themselves who they really were.

Sazed did not dine with them; he didn’t have much of an appetite. Captain Goradel leaned against a bookcase a short distance away, determined to keep a close eye on his charges. Though the good-natured man wore his usual smile, Sazed could tell from the orders he’d given to his soldiers that he was worried about the possibility of an assault. He made very certain that Breeze, Allrianne, and Sazed stayed within the protective confines of the cavern. Better to be trapped than dead.

“I’m sure the boy is fine, my dear,” Breeze said, finally answering Allrianne’s question. “It’s likely he hasn’t come back because he fears implicating us in what he did today.”

“Either that,” Sazed said, “or he can’t get past the soldiers watching outside.”

“He snuck into a burning building while we were watching, my dear man,” Breeze said, “I doubt he’d have trouble with a bunch of toughs, especially now that it’s dark out.”

Allrianne shook her head. “It would have been better if he’d managed to sneak out of that building as well, rather than jumping off the roof in front of everyone.”

“Perhaps,” Breeze said. “But, part of being a vigilante rebel is letting your enemies know what you are about. The psychological effect produced by leaping from a burning building carrying a child is quite sound. And, to do that right in front of the tyrant who tried to execute said child? I wasn’t aware that dear little Spook had such a flair for drama!”

“He’s not so little anymore, I think,” Sazed said quietly. “We have a habit of ignoring Spook too much.”

“Habits come from reinforcement, my dear man,” Breeze said, wagging a fork at Sazed. “We paid little attention to the lad because he rarely had an important role to play. It isn’t his fault – he was simply young.”

“Vin was young as well,” Sazed noted.

“Vin, you must admit, is something of a special case.”

Sazed couldn’t argue with that.

“Either way,” Breeze said, “when we look at the facts, what happened isn’t really all that surprising. Spook has had months to become known to Urteau’s underground population, and he is of the Survivor’s own crew. It is logical that they would begin to look to him to save them, much as Kelsier saved Luthadel.”

“We’re forgetting one thing, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said. “He jumped from a rooftop ledge two stories up and landed on a cobbled street. Men do not survive falls like that without broken bones.”

Breeze paused. “Staged, you think? Perhaps he worked out some kind of landing platform to soften the fall?”

Sazed shook his head. “I believe it a stretch to assume that Spook could plan, and execute, a staged rescue like that. He would have needed the aid of the underground, which would have ruined the effect. If they knew that his survival was a trick, then we wouldn’t have heard the rumors we did about him.”

“What, then?” Breeze asked, shooting a glance at Allrianne. “You’re not truly suggesting that Spook has been Mistborn all this time, are you?”

“I do not know,” Sazed said softly.

Breeze shook his head, chuckling. “I doubt he could have hidden that from us, my dear man. Why, he would have had to go through that entire mess of overthrowing the Lord Ruler, then the fall of Luthadel, without ever revealing that he was anything more than a Tineye! I refuse to accept that.”

Or, Sazed thought, you refuse to accept that you wouldn’t have detected the truth. Still, Breeze had a point. Sazed had known Spook as a youth. The boy had been awkward and shy, but he hadn’t been deceitful. It was truly a stretch to imagine him to have been a Mistborn from the beginning.

Yet, Sazed had seen that fall. He had seen the grace of the jump, the distinctive poise and natural dexterity of one burning pewter. Sazed found himself wishing for his copperminds so that he could search for references about people spontaneously manifesting Allomantic powers. Could a man be a Misting early in life, then transform to a full Mistborn later?

It was a simple thing, related to his duties as an ambassador. Perhaps he could spend just a little time looking through his stored memories, seeking examples…

He paused. Don’t be silly, he thought. You’re just looking for excuses. You know that it’s impossible for an Allomancer to gain new powers. You won’t find any examples because there aren’t any.

He didn’t need to look through his metalminds. He had set those aside for a very good reason – he could not be a Keeper, could not share the knowledge he’d collected, until he could sort the truth from the lies.

I’ve let myself get distracted lately, he thought with determination, rising from his place and leaving the others behind. He walked over to his “room” in the cache, with the sheets hung there cutting off his view of the others. Sitting on the table was his portfolio. In the corner, next to a shelf full of cans, sat his sack full of metalminds.

No, Sazed thought. I made a promise to myself. I will keep it. I will not allow myself to become a hypocrite simply because some new religion appears and waves at me. I will be strong.

He sat down at the table, opening his portfolio, taking out the next sheet in the line. It listed the tenets of the Nelazan people, who had worshipped the god Trell. Sazed had always been partial to this religion because of its focus on learning and study of mathematics and the heavens. He’d saved it for near the end, but had done so more out of worry than anything else. He’d wanted to put off what he’d known would happen.

Sure enough, as he read about the religion, he saw the holes in its doctrines. True, the Nelazan had known a great deal about astronomy, but their teachings on the afterlife were sketchy – almost whimsical. Their doctrine was purposefully vague, they’d taught, allowing all men to discover truth for themselves. Reading this, however, left Sazed frustrated. What good was a religion without answers? Why believe in something if the response to half of his questions was “Ask Trell, and he will answer“?

He didn’t dismiss the religion immediately. He forced himself to put it aside, acknowledging to himself that he wasn’t in the right mood for studying. He didn’t feel like he was in the mood for much, actually.

What if Spook really has become Mistborn? he wondered, mind getting drawn back to the previous conversation. It seemed impossible. Yet, a lot of things they thought they’d known about Allomancy – such as the existence of only ten metals – had turned out to be falsehoods taught by the Lord Ruler to hide some powerful secrets.

Perhaps it was possible for an Allomancer to spontaneously manifest new powers. Or, perhaps there was a more mundane reason Spook had managed such a long fall. It could be related to the thing that made Spook’s eyes so sensitive. Drugs, perhaps?

Either way, Sazed’s worry about what was happening kept him from being able to focus on studying the Nelazan religion as he should. He kept getting the feeling that something very important was occurring. And Spook was at the center of it.

Where was that boy?

“I know why you’re so sad,” Spook said.

Beldre turned, shock showing on her face. She didn’t see him at first. He must have been too deep in the misty shadows. It was growing hard for him to tell.

He stepped forward, moving across the plot of land that had once been a garden outside the Citizen’s home. “I figured it out,” Spook said. “At first, I thought that sadness had to do with this garden. It must have been beautiful, once. You would have seen it in its fullness, before your brother ordered all gardens plowed under. You were related to nobility, and probably lived in their society.”

She looked surprised at this.

“Yes, I know,” Spook said. “Your brother is an Allomancer. He’s a Coinshot; I felt his Pushes. That day at Marketpit.”

She remained silent – more beautiful herself than the garden could ever have been – though she did take a step backward as her eyes finally found him in the mists.

“Eventually,” Spook continued, “I decided that I must be wrong. Nobody mourns so much for a simple garden, no matter how lovely. After that, I thought the sadness in your eyes must come from being forbidden to take part in your brother’s councils. He always sends you out, into the garden, when he meets with his most important officials. I know what it’s like to feel useless and excluded among important people.”

He took another step forward. The rough earth lay torn beneath his feet, covered by an inch of ash, the dreary remnants of what had once been fertile ground. To his right stood the lone shrub that Beldre often came to gaze at. He didn’t look toward it; he kept his eyes on her.

“I was wrong,” he said. “Being forbidden your brother’s conferences would lead to frustration, but not such pain. Not such regret. I know that sorrow now. I killed for the first time this afternoon. I helped overthrow empires, then helped build them anew. And I’d never killed a man. Not until today.”

He stopped, then looked into her eyes. “Yes, I know that sorrow. What I’m trying figure out is why you feel it.”

She turned away. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “There are guards watching–”

“No,” Spook said. “Not anymore. Quellion sent too many men into the city – he’s afraid that he’ll suffer a revolution, like happened in Luthadel. Like he himself inspired here when he seized power. He’s right to be afraid, but he was wrong to leave his own palace so poorly guarded.”

“Kill him,” Kelsier whispered. “Quellion is inside; this is the perfect chance. He deserves it, you know he does.”

No, Spook thought. Not today. Not in front of her.

Beldre glanced back at him, her eyes growing hard. “Why have you come? To taunt me?”

“To tell you that I understand,” Spook said.

“How can you say that?” she said. “You don’t understand me – you don’t know me.”

“I think I do,” Spook said. “I saw your eyes today, when you watched those people being marched to their deaths. You feel guilty. Guilty for your brother’s murders. You sorrow because you feel you should be able to stop him.” He took a step forward. “You can’t, Beldre. He’s been corrupted by his power. He might once have been a good man, but no longer. Do you realize what he’s doing? Your brother is murdering people simply to get Allomancers. He captures them, then threatens to kill their families unless they do as he asks. Are those the actions of a good man?”

“You are a simplistic fool,” Beldre whispered, though she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I know,” Spook said. “What are a few deaths when it comes to securing the stability of a kingdom?” He paused, then shook his head. “He’s killing children, Beldre. And he’s doing it simply to cover up the fact that he’s gathering Allomancers.”

Beldre was silent for a moment. “Go,” she finally said.

“I want you to come with me.”

She looked up.

“I’m going to overthrow your brother,” Spook said. “I am a member of the Survivor’s own crew. We took down the Lord Ruler – Quellion will hardly provide us with a challenge. You don’t have to be here when he falls.”

Beldre snorted quietly in derision.

“It’s not just about your safety,” Spook said. “If you join with us, it will be a strong blow to your brother. Perhaps it will convince him that he is wrong. There could be a more peaceful way of making this happen.”

“I’m going to start screaming in three heartbeats,” Beldre said.

“I don’t fear your guards,” Spook said.

“I don’t doubt that,” Beldre said. “But if they come, you’ll have to kill again.”

Spook wavered. He stayed where he was, however, calling her bluff.

And so she started screaming.

“Go kill him!” Kelsier said over her screams. “Now, before it’s too late! Those guards you killed – they were just following orders. Quellion, he’s the true monster.”

Spook ground his teeth in frustration, then finally ran, fleeing from Beldre and her screams, leaving Quellion alive.

For the moment.

The group of rings, clasps, ear loops, bracelets, and other bits of metal gleamed on the table like a treasure hoard of legend. Of course, most of the metals were rather mundane. Iron, steel, tin, copper. No gold or atium.

Yet, to a Feruchemist, the metals were worth far more than their economic value. They were batteries, stores that could be filled, then drawn upon. One made of pewter, for instance, could be filled with strength. Filling it would drain the Feruchemist of strength for a time – making him weak enough that simple tasks grew difficult – but the price was worthwhile. For, when necessary, he could draw that strength forth.

Many of these metalminds, spread out on the table in front of Sazed, were empty at the moment. Sazed had last used them during the horrific battle that had ended with the fall – then rescue – of Luthadel over a year before. That battle had left him drained in more ways than one. Ten rings, lined up on the side of the table, had been used to nearly kill him. Marsh had shot them at Sazed like coins, piercing his skin. That, however, had allowed Sazed to draw forth their power and heal himself.

At the very center of the collection were the most important metalminds of all. Four bracers – meant to clasp on to the upper or lower arms – sat gleaming and polished, made of the purest copper. They were the largest of his metalminds, for they held the most. Copper carried memories. A Feruchemist could take images, thoughts, or sounds that were fresh in his mind, then store them away. While inside, they wouldn’t decay or change, as memories could while held in the mind.

When Sazed had been a young man, an older Feruchemist had read out the entire contents of his copperminds. Sazed had stored the knowledge in his own copperminds; they contained the sum total of Keeper knowledge. The Lord Ruler had worked hard to smother people’s memories of the past. But the Keepers had gathered them – stories of how the world had been before the ash came and the sun had turned red. The Keepers had memorized the names of places and of kingdoms, had gathered the wisdom of those who were lost.

And they had memorized the religions that had been forbidden by the Lord Ruler. These he had worked the most diligently to destroy, and so the Keepers had worked with equal diligence to rescue them – to secure them away inside of metalminds, so someday they could be taught again. Above all, the Keepers had searched for one thing: knowledge of their own religion, the beliefs of the Terris people. Those had been forgotten during the destructive chaos following the Lord Ruler’s ascension. However, despite centuries of work, the Keepers had never recovered this most precious knowledge of all.

I wonder what would have happened if we had found it, Sazed thought, picking up a steelmind and quietly polishing it. Probably nothing. He’d given up on his work with the religions in his portfolio for the moment, feeling too discouraged to study.

There were fifty religions left in his portfolio. Why was he deluding himself, hoping to find any more truth in them than he had in the previous two hundred and fifty? None of the religions had managed to survive the years. Shouldn’t he just let them be? Looking through them seemed to be part of the great fallacy in the work of the Keepers. They’d struggled to remember the beliefs of men, but those beliefs had already proven they lacked the resilience to survive. Why bring them back to life? That seemed as pointless as reviving a sickly animal so it could fall to predators again.

He continued to polish. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Breeze watching him. The Soother had come to Sazed’s “room,” complaining that he couldn’t sleep, not with Spook still outside somewhere. Sazed had nodded, but continued polishing. He didn’t wish to get into a conversation; he just wanted to be alone.

Breeze, unfortunately, stood and came over. “Sometimes, I don’t understand you, Sazed,” Breeze said.

“I do not endeavor to be mysterious, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said, moving on to polish a small bronze ring.

“Why take such good care of them?” Breeze asked. “You never wear them anymore. In fact, you seem to spurn them.”

“I do not spurn the metalminds, Lord Breeze. They are, in a way, the only sacred thing I have left in my life.”

“But you don’t wear them, either.”

Sazed continued polishing. “No. I do not.”

“But why?” Breeze asked. “You think that she would have wanted this? She was a Keeper too – do you honestly think she’d want you to give up your metalminds?”

“This particular habit of mine is not about Tindwyl.”

“Oh?” Breeze asked, sighing as he seated himself at the table. “What do you mean? Because honestly, Sazed, you’re confusing me. I understand people. It bothers me that I can’t understand you.”

“After the Lord Ruler’s death,” Sazed said, putting down the ring, “do you know what I spent my time doing?”

“Teaching,” Breeze said. “You left to go and restore the lost knowledge to the people of the Final Empire.”

“And did I ever tell you how that teaching went?”

Breeze shook his head.

“Poorly,” Sazed said, picking up another ring. “The people didn’t really care. They weren’t interested in the religions of the past. And why should they have been? Why worship something that people used to believe in?”

“People are always interested in the past, Sazed.”

“Interested, perhaps,” Sazed said, “but interest is not faith. These metalminds, they are a thing of museums and old libraries. They are of little use to modern people. During the years of the Lord Ruler’s reign, we Keepers pretended that we were doing vital work. We believed that we were doing vital work. And yet, in the end, nothing we did had any real value. Vin didn’t need this knowledge to kill the Lord Ruler.

“I am probably the last of the Keepers. The thoughts in these metalminds will die with me. And, at times, I can’t make myself regret that fact. This is not an era for scholars and philosophers. Scholars and philosophers do not help feed starving children.”

“And so you don’t wear them anymore?” Breeze said. “Because you think they’re useless?”

“More than that,” Sazed said. “To wear these metalminds would be to pretend. I would be pretending that I find the things in them to be of use, and I have not yet decided if I do or not. To wear them now would seem like a betrayal. I set them aside, for I can do them no justice. I’m just not ready to believe, as we did before, that gathering knowledge and religions is more important than taking action. Perhaps if the Keepers had fought, rather than just memorized, the Lord Ruler would have fallen centuries ago.”

“But you resisted, Sazed,” Breeze said. “You fought.”

“I don’t represent myself any longer, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said softly. “I represent all Keepers, since I am apparently the last. And I, as the last, do not believe in the things I once taught. I cannot with good conscience imply that I am the Keeper I once was.”

Breeze sighed, shaking his head. “You don’t make sense.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“No, I think you’re just confused. This may not seem to you like a world for scholars, my dear friend, but I think you’ll be proven wrong. It seems to me that now – suffering in the darkness that might just be the end of everything – is when we need knowledge the most.”

“Why?” Sazed said. “So I can teach a dying man a religion that I don’t believe? To speak of a god, when I know there is no such being?”

Breeze leaned forward. “Do you really believe that? That nothing is watching over us?”

Sazed sat quietly, slowing in his polishing. “I have yet to decide for certain,” he finally said. “At times, I have hoped to find some truth. However, today, that hope seems very distant to me. There is a darkness upon this land, Breeze, and I am not sure that we can fight it. I am not sure that I want to fight it.”

Breeze looked troubled at that. He opened his mouth, but before he could respond, a rumble rolled through the cavern. The rings and bracers on the table quivered and clinked together as the entire room shook, and there was a clatter as some foodstuffs fell – though not too many, for Captain Goradel’s men had done good work in moving most of the stockpile off of shelves and to the ground, in order to deal with the quakes.

Eventually, the shaking subsided. Breeze sat with a white face, looking up at the ceiling of the cavern. “I tell you, Sazed,” he said. “Every time one of those quakes comes, I wonder at the wisdom of hiding in a cave. Not the safest place during an earthquake, I should think.”

“We really have no other option at the moment,” Sazed said.

“True, I suppose. Do… does it seem to you like those quakes are coming more frequently?”

“Yes,” Sazed said, picking up a few fallen bracelets from the floor. “Yes, they are.”

“Maybe… this region is just more prone to them,” Breeze said, not sounding convinced. He turned, looking to the side as Captain Goradel rounded a shelf and approached them in a rush.

“Ah, come to check on us, I see,” Breeze said. “We survived the quake quite handily. No need for urgency, my dear captain.”

“It’s not that,” Goradel said, puffing slightly. “It’s Lord Spook. He’s back.”

Sazed and Breeze shared a look, then rose from their chairs, following Goradel to the front of the cavern. They found Spook walking down the steps. His eyes were uncovered, and Sazed saw a new hardness in the young man’s expression.

We really haven’t been paying enough attention to the lad.

The soldiers backed away. There was blood on Spook’s clothing, though he didn’t appear wounded. His cloak was burned in places, and the bottom ended in a charred rip.

“Good,” Spook said, noticing Breeze and Sazed, “you’re here. Did that quake cause any damage?”

“Spook?” Breeze asked. “No, we’re all fine here. No damage. But–”

“We have little time for chatter, Breeze,” Spook said, walking past them. “Emperor Venture wants Urteau, and we’re going to deliver it to him. I need you to start spreading rumors in the city. It should be easy – some of the more important elements in the underworld already know the truth.”

“What truth?” Breeze asked, joining Sazed as they followed Spook through the cavern.

“That Quellion is using Allomancers,” Spook said, his voice echoing in the cavern. “I’ve now confirmed what I suspected before – Quellion recruits Mistings from the people he arrests. He rescues them from his own fires, then holds their families hostage. He relies on the very thing he’s preaching against. The entire foundation for his rule, therefore, is a lie. Exposing that lie should cause the entire system to collapse.”

“That’s capital, we can certainly do that…” Breeze said, glancing at Sazed again. Spook kept walking, and Sazed followed, trailing Spook as he moved through the cavern. Breeze moved away, probably to fetch Allrianne.

Spook stopped beside the water’s edge. He stood there for a moment, then turned toward Sazed. “You said that you have been studying the construction that brought the water down here, diverting it from the canals.”

“Yes,” Sazed said.

“Is there a way to reverse the process?” Spook asked. “Make the water flood the streets again?”

“Perhaps,” Sazed said. “I am not certain that I have the engineering expertise to accomplish the feat, however.”

“Is there knowledge in your metalminds that would help you?” Spook asked.

“Well… yes.”

“Then use them,” Spook said.

Sazed paused, looking uncomfortable.

“Sazed,” Spook said. “We don’t have much time – we have to take this city before Quellion decides to attack and destroy us. Breeze is going to spread the rumors, then I am going to find a way to expose Quellion as a liar before his people. He’s an Allomancer himself.”

“Will that be enough?”

“It will if we give them someone else to follow,” Spook said, turning back to look across the waters. “Someone who can survive fires; someone who can restore water to the city streets. We’ll give them miracles and a hero, then expose their leader as a hypocrite and a tyrant. Confronted with that, what would you do?”

Sazed didn’t respond immediately. Spook made good points, even about Sazed’s metalminds still being useful. Yet Sazed wasn’t certain what he thought of the changes in the young man. Spook seemed to have grown far more competent, but…

“Spook,” Sazed said, stepping in closer, speaking quietly enough that the soldiers standing behind couldn’t hear. “What is it you aren’t sharing with us? How did you survive the leap from that building? Why do you cover your eyes with cloth?”

“I…” Spook faltered, showing a hint of the insecure boy he had once been. For some reason, seeing that made Sazed more comfortable. “I don’t know if I can explain, Saze,” Spook said, some of his pretension evaporating. “I’m still trying to figure it out myself. I’ll explain eventually. For now, can you just trust me?”

The lad had always been a sincere one. Sazed searched those eyes, so eager.

And found something important. Spook cared. He cared about this city, about overthrowing the Citizen. He’d saved those people earlier, when Sazed and Breeze had just stood outside, watching.

Spook cared, and Sazed did not. Sazed tried – he grew frustrated with himself because of his depression, which had been worse this evening than it usually was.

His emotions had been so traitorous lately. He had trouble studying, had trouble leading, had trouble being of any use whatsoever. But, looking into Spook’s eager eyes, he was almost able to forget his troubles for a moment.

If the lad wanted to take the lead, then who was Sazed to argue?

He glanced toward his room, where the metalminds lay. He had gone so long without them. They tempted him with their knowledge.

As long as I don’t preach the religions they contain, he thought, I’m not a hypocrite. Using this specific knowledge Spook requests will, at least, bring some small meaning to the suffering of those who worked to gather knowledge of engineering.

It seemed a weak excuse. But, in the face of Spook taking the lead and offering a good reason to use the metalminds, it was enough.

“Very well,” Sazed said. “I shall do as you request.”

47

ELEND STOOD IN THE MISTS.

Once, he had found them disconcerting. They had been the unknown – something mysterious and uninviting, something that belonged to Allomancers and not to ordinary men.

Yet, now he was an Allomancer himself. He stared up at the shifting, swirling, spinning banks of vapor. Rivers in the sky. He almost felt as if he should get pulled along in some phantom current. When he’d first displayed Allomantic powers, Vin had explained Kelsier’s now-infamous motto. The mists are our friend. They hide us. Protect us. Give us power.

Elend continued to stare upward. It had been three days since Vin’s capture.

I shouldn’t have let her go, he thought again, heart twisting within him. I shouldn’t have agreed to such a risky plan.

Vin had always been the one to protect him. What did they do now, when she was in danger? Elend felt so inadequate. Had their situations been reversed, Vin would have found a way to get into the city and rescue him. She’d have assassinated Yomen, would have done something.

And yet, Elend didn’t have her flair of brash determination. He was too much of a planner and was too well acquainted with politics. He couldn’t risk himself to save her. He’d already put himself into danger once, and in so doing, had risked the fate of his entire army. He couldn’t leave them behind again and put himself in danger, particularly not by going into Fadrex, where Yomen had already proven himself a skilled manipulator.

No further word had come from Yomen. Elend expected ransom demands, and was terrified of what he might have to do if they came. Could he trade the fate of the world for Vin’s life? No. Vin had faced a similar decision at the Well of Ascension, and had chosen the right option. Elend had to follow her example, had to be strong.

Yet the thought of her captured came close to paralyzing him with dread. Only the spinning mists seemed to somehow comfort him.

She’ll be all right, he told himself, not for the first time. She’s Vin. She’ll figure a way out of it. She’ll be all right…

It felt odd, to Elend, that after a lifetime of finding the mists unsettling he would now find them so comforting. Vin didn’t see them that way, not anymore. Elend could sense it in the way she acted, in the words she spoke. She distrusted the mists. Hated them, even. And Elend couldn’t really blame her. They had, after all, changed somehow – bringing destruction and death.

Yet, Elend found it hard to distrust the mists. They just felt right. How could they be his enemy? They spun, swirling around him just slightly as he burned metals, like leaves spinning in a playful wind. As he stood there, they seemed to soothe away his concerns about Vin’s captivity, giving him confidence that she would find a way out.

He sighed, shaking his head. Who was he to trust his own instincts about the mists over Vin’s? She had the instincts born of a lifetime of struggling to survive. What did Elend have? Instincts born of a lifetime of partygoing and dancing?

Sound came from behind him. People walking. Elend turned, eyeing a pair of servants carrying Cett in his chair.

“That damn Thug isn’t around here, is he?” Cett asked as the servants set him down.

Elend shook his head as Cett waved the servants away. “No,” Elend said. “He’s investigating some kind of disturbance in the ranks.”

“What happened this time?” Cett asked.

“Fistfight,” Elend said, turning away, looking back toward Fadrex City’s watch fires.

“The men are restless,” Cett said. “They’re a little like koloss, you know. Leave them too long, and they’ll get themselves into trouble.”

Koloss are like them, actually, Elend thought. We should have seen it earlier. They are men – just men reduced to their most base emotions.

Cett sat quietly in the mists for a time, and Elend continued his contemplations.

Eventually, Cett spoke, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “She’s as good as dead, son. You know that.”

“No, I don’t,” Elend said.

“She’s not invincible,” Cett said. “She’s a damn good Allomancer, true. But, take her metals away…”

“She’ll surprise you, Cett.”

“You don’t even look worried,” Cett said.

“Of course I’m worried,” Elend said, growing more certain. “I just… well, I trust her. If anyone can get out, Vin will.”

“You’re in denial,” Cett said.

“Perhaps,” Elend admitted.

“Are we going to attack?” Cett asked. “Try and get her back?”

“This is a siege, Cett,” Elend said. “The point is to not attack.”

“And our supplies?” Cett asked. “Demoux had to put the soldiers on half rations today. We’ll be lucky not to starve ourselves before we can get Yomen to surrender.”

“We have time yet,” Elend said.

“Not much. Not with Luthadel in revolt.” Cett was silent for a moment, then continued. “Another of my raiding parties returned today. They had the same things to report.”

The same news as all the others. Elend had authorized Cett to send soldiers into nearby villages, to scare the people, perhaps pillage some supplies. Yet, each of the raiding groups had come back empty-handed, bearing the same story.

The people in Yomen’s kingdom were starving. Villages barely survived. The soldiers hadn’t the heart to hurt them any further, and there wasn’t anything to take, anyway.

Elend turned toward Cett. “You think me a bad leader, don’t you?”

Cett looked up, then scratched at his beard. “Yes,” he admitted. “But, well… Elend, you’ve got one thing going for you as a king that I never did.”

“And that is?”

Cett shrugged. “The people like you. Your soldiers trust you, and they know you have too good a heart for your own good. You have a strange effect on them. Lads like those, they should have been eager to rob villages, even poor ones. Especially considering how on-edge our men are and how many fights there have been in camp. And yet, they didn’t. Hell, one of the groups felt so sorry for the villagers that they stayed for a few days and helped water the fields and do repairs to some of the homes!”

Cett sighed, shaking his head. “A few years ago, I would have laughed at anyone who chose loyalty as a basis for rule. But, well… with the world falling apart as it is, I think even I would rather have someone to trust, as opposed to someone to fear. I guess that’s why the soldiers act as they do.”

Elend nodded.

“I thought a siege was a good idea,” Cett said. “But, I don’t think it will work anymore, son. The ash is falling too hard now, and we don’t have supplies. This whole thing is becoming a damn mess. We need to strike and take what we can from Fadrex, then retreat to Luthadel and try to hold it through the summer while our people grow crops.”

Elend fell silent, then turned, looking to the side as he heard something else in the mists. Shouting and cursing. It was faint – Cett probably couldn’t hear it. Elend left, hurrying toward the sound, leaving Cett behind.

Another fight, Elend realized as he approached one of the cooking fires. He heard yells, blustering, and the sounds of men brawling. Cett’s right. Goodhearted or not, our men are getting too restless. I need–

“Stop this immediately!” a new voice called. Just ahead, through the dark mists, Elend could see figures moving about the firelight. He recognized the voice; General Demoux had arrived on the scene.

Elend slowed. Better to let the general deal with the disturbance. There was a big difference between being disciplined by one’s military commander and one’s emperor. The men would be better off if Demoux were the one to punish them.

The fighting, however, did not stop.

“Stop this!” Demoux yelled again, moving into the conflict. A few of the brawlers listened to him, pulling back. The rest, however, just continued to fight. Demoux pushed himself into the melee, reaching to pull apart two of the combatants.

And one of them punched him. Square in the face, throwing Demoux to the ground.

Elend cursed, dropping a coin and Pushing himself forward. He fell directly into the middle of the firelight, Pushing out with a Soothing to dampen the emotions of those fighting.

“Stop!” he bellowed.

They did, freezing, one of the soldiers standing over the fallen General Demoux.

“What is going on here?” Elend demanded, furious. The soldiers looked down. “Well?” Elend said, turning toward the man who had punched Demoux.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” the man grumbled. “We just…”

“Speak, soldier,” Elend said, pointing, Soothing the man’s emotions, leaving him compliant and docile.

“Well, my lord,” the man said. “They’re cursed, you know. They’re the reason Lady Vin got taken. They were speaking of the Survivor and his blessings, and that just smacked me as hypocrisy, you know? Then, of course their leader would show, demanding that we stop. I just… well, I’m tired of listening to them, is all.”

Elend frowned in anger. As he did so, a group of the army’s Mistings – Ham at their head – shoved through the crowd. Ham met Elend’s eyes, and Elend nodded toward the men who had been fighting. Ham made quick work of them, gathering them up for reprimand. Elend walked over, pulling Demoux to his feet. The grizzled general looked more shocked than anything.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Demoux said quietly. “I should have seen that coming… I should have been ready for it.”

Elend just shook his head. The two of them watched quietly until Ham joined them, his police pushing the troublemakers away. The rest of the crowd dispersed, returning to their duties. The solitary bonfire burned alone in the night, as if shunned as a new symbol of bad luck.

“I recognized a number of those men,” Ham said, joining Elend and Demoux as the troublemakers were led away. “Mistfallen.”

Mistfallen. The men who, like Demoux, had lain sick from the mists for weeks, instead of a single day. “This is ridiculous,” Elend said. “So they remained sick awhile longer. That doesn’t make them cursed!”

“You don’t understand superstition, my lord,” Demoux said, shaking his head and rubbing his chin. “The men look for someone to blame for their ill luck. And… well, it’s easy to see why they’d be feeling their luck was bad lately. They’ve been hard on anyone who was sickened by the mists; they’re just most hard on we who were out the longest.”

“I refuse to accept such idiocy in my army,” Elend said. “Ham, did you see one of those men strike Demoux?”

“They hit him?” Ham asked with surprise. “Their general?”

Elend nodded. “The big man I was talking to. Brill is his name, I think. You know what will have to be done.”

Ham cursed, looking away.

Demoux looked uncomfortable. “Maybe we could just… throw him in solitary or something.”

“No,” Elend said through his teeth. “No, we hold to the law. If he’d struck his captain, maybe we could let him off. But deliberately striking one of my generals? The man will have to be executed. Discipline is falling apart as it is.”

Ham wouldn’t look at him. “The other fight I had to break up was also between a group of regular soldiers and a group of mistfallen.”

Elend ground his teeth in frustration. Demoux, however, met his eyes. You know what needs to be done, he seemed to say.

Being a king isn’t always about doing what you want, Tindwyl had often said. It’s about doing what needs to be done.

“Demoux,” Elend said. “I think the problems in Luthadel are even more serious than our difficulties with discipline. Penrod looked toward us for support. I want you to gather a group of men and take them back along the canal with the messenger, Conrad. Lend aid to Penrod and bring the city back under control.”

“Yes, my lord,” Demoux said. “How many soldiers should I take?”

Elend met his eyes. “About three hundred should suffice.” It was the number who were mistfallen. Demoux nodded, then withdrew into the night.

“It’s the right thing to do, El,” Ham said softly.

“No, it’s not,” Elend said. “Just like it’s not right to have to execute a soldier because of a single lapse in judgment. But, we need to keep this army together.”

“I guess,” Ham said.

Elend turned, glancing up through the mists. Toward Fadrex City. “Cett’s right,” he finally said. “We can’t just continue to sit out here, not while the world is dying.”

“So, what do we do about it?” Ham asked.

Elend wavered. What to do about it indeed? Retreat and leave Vin – and probably the entire empire – to its doom? Attack, causing the deaths of thousands, becoming the conqueror he feared? Was there no other way to take the city?

Elend turned and struck out into the night. He found his way to Noorden’s tent, Ham following curiously. The former obligator was awake, of course. Noorden kept odd hours. He stood hurriedly as Elend entered his tent, bowing in respect.

There, on the table, Elend found what he wanted. The thing he had ordered Noorden to work on. Maps. Troop movements.

The locations of koloss bands.

Yomen refuses to be intimidated by my forces, Elend thought. Well, let’s see if I can turn the odds back against him.

48

AS DAYS PASSED IN THE CAVERN, Vin regretted knocking over the lantern. She tried to salvage it, searching with blind fingers. However, the oil had spilled. She was locked in darkness.

With a thing that wanted to destroy the world.

Sometimes she could sense it, pulsing near her, watching silently – like some fascinated patron at a carnival show. Other times, it vanished. Obviously, walls meant nothing to it. The first time it disappeared, she felt a sense of relief. However, just moments after it vanished, she heard Reen’s voice in her mind. I haven’t left you, it said. I’m always here.

The words chilled her, and she thought – just briefly – that it had read her mind. However, she decided that her thoughts would have been easy to guess. Looking back through her life, she realized that Ruin couldn’t have spoken each and every time she heard Reen’s voice in her head. A lot of the time she heard Reen, it was in response to things she’d been thinking, rather than things she’d been doing. Since Ruin couldn’t read minds, those comments couldn’t have come from it.

Ruin had been speaking to her for so long, it was difficult to separate her own memories from its influence. Yet, she had to trust in the Lord Ruler’s promise that Ruin couldn’t read her mind. The alternative was to abandon hope. And she wouldn’t do that. Each time Ruin spoke to her, it gave her clues about its nature. Those clues might give her the means to defeat it.

Defeat it? Vin thought, leaning back against a rough stone wall of the cavern. It’s a force of nature, not a man. How could I even think to defeat something like that?

Time was very difficult to gauge in the perpetual blackness, but she figured from her sleep patterns that it had been around three or four days since her imprisonment.

Everyone called the Lord Ruler a god, Vin reminded herself. I killed him.

Ruin had been imprisoned once. That meant that it could be defeated, or at least bottled up. But, what did it mean to imprison an abstraction – a force – like Ruin? It had been able to speak to her while imprisoned. But its words had felt less forceful then. Less… directed. Ruin had acted more as an influence, giving the child Vin impressions that manifested through memories of Reen. Almost like… it had influenced her emotions. Did that mean it used Allomancy? It did indeed pulse with Allomantic power.

Zane heard voices, Vin realized. Right before he died, he seemed to be talking to something. She felt a chill as she rested her head back against the wall.

Zane had been mad. Perhaps there was no connection between the voices he heard and Ruin. Yet, it seemed like too much of a coincidence. Zane had tried to get her to go with him, to seek out the source of the pulsings – the pulsings that had eventually led her to free Ruin.

So, Vin thought, Ruin can influence me regardless of distance or containment. However, now that it has been freed, it can manifest directly. That brings up another question. Why hasn’t it already destroyed us all? Why play games with armies?

The answer to that one, at least, seemed obvious. She sensed Ruin’s boundless will to destroy. She felt as if she knew its mind. One drive. One impulse. Ruin. So, if it hadn’t accomplished its goal yet, that meant it couldn’t. That it was hindered. Limited to indirect, gradual means of destruction – like falling ash and the light-stealing mists.

Still, those methods would eventually be effective. Unless Ruin was stopped. But how?

It was imprisoned before… but what did the imprisoning? She’d once assumed that the Lord Ruler had been the one behind Ruin’s imprisonment. But that was wrong. Ruin had already been imprisoned when the Lord Ruler had traveled to the Well of Ascension. The Lord Ruler, then known as Rashek, had gone on the quest with Alendi, in order to slay the presumed Hero of Ages. Rashek’s purpose had been to stop Alendi from doing what Vin had eventually done: accidentally releasing Ruin.

Ironically, it had been better that a selfish man like Rashek had taken the power. For, a selfish man kept the power for himself, rather than giving it up and freeing Ruin.

Regardless, Ruin had already been imprisoned before the quest began. That meant that the Deepness – the mists – weren’t related to Ruin. Or, at least, the connection wasn’t as simple as she’d assumed. Letting Ruin go hadn’t been what had prompted the mists to start coming during the day and killing people. In fact, the daymists had started to appear as much as a year before she’d released Ruin, and the mists had started killing people some hours before Vin had found her way to the Well.

So… what do I know? That Ruin was imprisoned long ago. Imprisoned by something that, perhaps, I can find and use again?

She stood up. Too much sitting and thinking had made her restless, and she began to walk, feeling her way along the wall.

During her first day of imprisonment she’d begun, by touch, to scout the cavern. It was huge, like the other caches, and the process had taken her several days. However, she’d had nothing else to do. Unlike the cache in Urteau, this one had no pool or source of water. And, as Vin investigated it, she discovered that Yomen had removed all of the water barrels from what she assumed was their place on the far right corner. He’d left the canned food and other supplies – the cavern was so enormous that he would have had trouble finding time to remove everything, let alone finding a place to store it somewhere else – however, he’d taken all of the water.

That left Vin with a problem. She felt her way along the wall, locating a shelf where she’d left an open can of stew. Even with pewter and a rock, it had taken her a frightfully long time to get into the can. Yomen had been clever enough to remove the tools she could have used for opening the food stores, and Vin only had one vial’s worth of pewter remaining. She’d opened some ten cans of food on her first day, burning away what pewter she’d had inside of her. That food was already dwindling, however, and she was feeling the need for water – the stew did little to quench her thirst.

She picked up the can of stew, carefully eating only a mouthful. It was almost gone. The taste reminded her of the hunger that was a growing complement to her thirst. She pushed the feeling away. She’d dealt with hunger for her entire childhood. It was nothing new, even if it had been years since she’d last felt it.

She moved on, trailing fingers on the side of the wall to keep her bearings. It seemed like such a clever way to kill a Mistborn. Yomen couldn’t defeat her, and he trapped her instead. Now, he could simply wait for her to die of dehydration. Simple, effective.

Perhaps Ruin is speaking to Yomen, too, she thought. My imprisonment could all be part of Ruin’s plan.

Whatever that is.

Why had Ruin chosen her? Why not lead someone else to the Well of Ascension? Someone easier to control? She could understand why Ruin had chosen Alendi, all those years before. During Alendi’s time, the Well had been sequestered high in the mountains. It would have been a very difficult trek, and Ruin would have needed just the right person to plan, then survive, the expedition.

However, during Vin’s day, the Well had somehow been moved to Luthadel. Or, perhaps Luthadel had been built on top of the Well. Either way, it was there, right beneath the Lord Ruler’s palace. Why had Ruin waited so long to free himself? And, of all the people he could have chosen as his pawn, why Vin?

She shook her head as she arrived at her destination – the only other thing of interest in the vast cavern. A metal plate on the wall. She reached up, brushing her fingers across the slick steel. She’d never been an excellent reader, and the last year – spent in war and travel – hadn’t afforded her much time to improve her abilities. And so, it had taken her some time, feeling her way across each groove carved into the metal, to figure out what was written on the plate.

There was no map. Or, at least, not like the ones in the previous storage caverns. Instead, there was a simple circle, with a dot at the center. Vin wasn’t certain what it was supposed to mean. The text was equally frustrating. Vin ran her fingers across the grooves, though she had long since memorized what the words said.

I have failed you.

I have planned these caverns, knowing a calamity is coming, hoping that I might find some secret that might be of use should I fall to the thing’s scheming. Yet, I have nothing. I do not know how to defeat it. The only thing I can think of is to keep it at bay by taking the power at the Well for myself when it returns.

However, if you are reading this, I have failed. That means I am dead. As I write this, I find that prospect to be less tragic than I might previously have assumed. I would rather not deal with the thing. It has been my constant companion, the voice that whispers to me always, telling me to destroy, begging me to give it freedom.

I fear that it has corrupted my thoughts. It cannot sense what I think, but it can speak inside of my head. Eight hundred years of this has made it difficult to trust my own mind. Sometimes, I hear the voices, and simply assume that I am mad.

That would certainly be preferable.

I do know that these words must be written in steel to be preserved. I have written them in a steel sheet, then ordered them scribed into a plate, knowing that in doing so, I reveal my weakness to my own priests. The thing has whispered to me that I am a fool to expose myself by writing this and letting others see it.

That is primarily why I decided to go through with the creation of this plate. Doing so seemed to make the thing angry. That is reason enough, I think. It is good that some few of my loyal priests know of my weakness, if only for the good of the empire, should I somehow fall.

I have tried to be a good ruler. At first, I was too young, too angry. I made mistakes. Yet, I have tried so hard. I nearly destroyed the world with my arrogance, and yet I fear I have nearly destroyed it again through my rule. I can do better. I will do better. I will create a land of order.

The thoughts in my mind, however, make me wonder just how much of what I do has been twisted from my original intentions. At times, my empire seems a place of peace and justice. Yet, if that is so, why can I not stop the rebellions? They cannot defeat me, and I must order them slaughtered each time they rise up. Can they not see the perfection of my system?

Regardless, this is not the place for justification. I need no justification, for I am – after a form – God. Yet, I know there is something greater than I. If I can be destroyed, It will be the cause of that destruction.

I have no advice to give. It is more powerful than I am. It is more powerful than this world. It claims to have created this world, in fact. It will destroy us all eventually.

Perhaps these stores will let mankind survive a little longer. Perhaps not. I am dead. I doubt that I should care.

Still, I do. For you are my people. I am the Hero of Ages. That is what it must mean: Hero of Ages, a hero that lives through the ages, as I do.

Know that the thing’s power is not complete. Fortunately, I have hidden his body well.

And that was the end. Vin tapped the plate with frustration. Everything about the words on it seemed contrived to frustrate her. The Lord Ruler had led them on this grand chase, then at the end, he offered no hope? Elend was betting so much on what this plaque would contain, and yet, it was virtually worthless. At least the other ones had contained some relevant information about a new metal or the like.

I have failed you. It was infuriating – almost crushingly so – to come all this way, then find that the Lord Ruler had been as stumped as they were. And, if he’d known more – as his words implied that he did – why hadn’t he shared it on the plate? And yet, she could sense his instability even through these words – his washing back and forth from contrition to arrogance. Perhaps that was Ruin’s influence on him. Or, perhaps it was simply the way he had always been. Either way, Vin suspected that the Lord Ruler couldn’t have told her much more that would have been of use. He’d done what he could, holding Ruin at bay for a thousand years. It had corrupted him, perhaps even driven him mad.

That didn’t stop her from feeling a sharp sense of disappointment at what the plate contained. The Lord Ruler had been given a thousand years to worry about what would happen to the land if he were killed before the power returned to the Well, and even he hadn’t been able to come up with a way out of the problem.

She looked up toward the plate, though in the darkness, she could not see it.

There has to be a way! she thought, refusing to accept the Lord Ruler’s implication that they were doomed. What was it you wrote at the bottom? “I have hidden his body well.”

That part seemed important. However, she hadn’t been–

A sound rung through the darkness.

Vin turned immediately, growing tense, feeling for her last metal vial. Proximity to Ruin had made her jumpy, and she found her heart beating with anxiety as she listened to the echoing sounds – sounds of stone grinding against stone.

The door to the cavern was opening.

49

SAZED MADE A SMALL NOTATION ON HIS DIAGRAM, comparing measurements of the waterway. From what he could tell, the Lord Ruler hadn’t really needed to do much to create the underground lake. Water had already been flowing into the cavern. The Lord Ruler’s engineers had simply widened the passageways, bringing in a steadier, surer flow that outpaced the natural drainage.

The result was an aquifer of good size. Some machinery in a side cave proved to be a mechanism for plugging the outlets at the bottom – presumably so that one could keep the water reserve from escaping, should something happen to the incoming supply. Unfortunately, there was no existing way to block off the inlets.

Before the Lord Ruler’s creation of the reservoir, only a small amount of the water had passed into the cavern. The rest flowed instead into what were now the streets, filling the canals. So, Sazed assumed, if he could stop the water from entering the cavern, it would refill the canals.

I’ll need to know more about water pressure, Sazed thought, so I can provide enough weight to plug those inlets. He thought he’d seen a book on the subject inside his metalmind.

He leaned back in his chair, tapping his metalmind. Memory blossomed inside his head as he withdrew a section of text: an index he’d made listing the titles of books he had in his storage. As soon as he pulled the text out, the words became as clear to him as if he’d just read and memorized them. He scanned through the list quickly, seeking the title he needed. When he found it, he scribbled it on a piece of paper. Then, he placed the list back inside his coppermind.

The experience was odd. After replacing the list, he could recollect having drawn the material out – but, he had no memory whatsoever of what the index had contained. There was a blank in his mind. Only the words scribbled on the paper explained things that he’d known just seconds before. With that title, he could draw the appropriate book into his mind in its entirety. He selected the chapters he wanted, then stuck the rest back into the coppermind, lest they decay.

And, with those chapters, his knowledge of engineering was as fresh as if he’d just read and studied the book. He easily figured out the proper weights and balances he’d need to craft barriers that would, he hoped, return water to the streets above.

He worked alone, sitting at a fine stolen desk, a lantern lighting the cavern around him. Even with the knowledge provided by his copperminds, it was difficult work, with many calculations – not exactly the kind of research he was accustomed to. Fortunately, a Keeper’s copperminds were not limited to his own interests. Each Keeper kept all of the knowledge. Sazed could vaguely remember the years he’d spent listening and memorizing. He’d only needed to know the information well enough to remember it for a short time, then he could dump it into a coppermind. In that way, he was both one of the smartest and most ignorant men who had ever lived – he had memorized so much, but had intentionally forgotten it all.

Regardless, he had access to texts on engineering as well as religion. Knowing such things did not make him a brilliant mathematician or architect – however, it did give him enough competence to make him a good deal better than a layman.

And, as he worked, he was finding it more and more difficult to deny that scholarship was something at which he excelled. He was not a leader. He was not an ambassador. Even while he served as Elend’s chief ambassador, he’d spent much of his time looking through his religions. Now, when he should be heading the team in Urteau, more and more he found himself letting Spook take the lead.

Sazed was a man of research and of letters. He found contentment in his studies. Even though engineering wasn’t an area he particularly enjoyed, the truth was, he’d much rather study – no matter what the topic – than do anything else. Is it such a shameful thing, he thought, to be the man who likes to provide information for others, rather than be the one who has to use that information?

The tapping of a cane on the ground announced Breeze’s arrival. The Soother didn’t need a cane to walk; he just preferred to carry one to look more gentlemanly. Of all the skaa thieves Sazed had known, Breeze did by far the best job of imitating a nobleman.

Sazed quickly jotted down a few more notations, then returned the chapters on water pressure to his coppermind. No need to let them decay while speaking to Breeze. For, of course, Breeze would want to talk. Sure enough, as soon as Breeze sat at Sazed’s table, he scanned the diagrams, then raised an eyebrow. “That’s coming along nicely, my dear man. You may have missed your calling.”

Sazed smiled. “You are kind, Lord Breeze, though I fear an engineer would find this plan unsightly. Still, I think it will be sufficient.”

“You really think you can do it?” Breeze asked. “Make the waters flow as the lad asked? Is it even possible?”

“Oh, it is quite possible,” Sazed said. “My expertise – not the plausibility of the task – is the item in question. The waters once filled those canals, and they can do so again. In fact, I believe that their return will be far more spectacular than the original flow. Before, much of the water was already diverted into these caverns. I should be able to block most of that and return the waters above in force. Of course, if Lord Spook wishes to keep the canals flowing, then we will have to let some of the water escape down here again. Canal works generally don’t have much of a current, especially in an area where there are many locks.”

Breeze raised an eyebrow.

“Actually,” Sazed continued, “canals are far more fascinating than you might expect. Take, for instance, the methods of transforming a natural river into a canal – making it what is called a navigation – or perhaps look at the methods of dredging used to remove silt and ash from the depths. I have one particular book by the infamous Lord Fedre, who – despite his reputation – was an absolute genius when it came to canal architecture. Why, I’ve had to…” Sazed trailed off, then smiled wanly. “I apologize. You’re not interested in this, are you?”

“No,” Breeze said, “but it’s enough that you are, Sazed. It’s good to see you excited about your studies again. I don’t know what it was you were working on before, but it always bothered me that you wouldn’t share it with anyone. Seemed like you were almost ashamed of what you were doing. Now, however – this is like the Sazed I remember!”

Sazed looked down at his scribbled notes and diagrams. It was true. The last time that he had been so excited about a line of study was…

When he’d been with her. Working on their collection of myths and references regarding the Hero of Ages.

“In truth, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said, “I do feel somewhat guilty.”

Breeze rolled his eyes. “Sazed. Do you always have to be feeling guilty about something? Back in the original crew, you felt you weren’t doing enough to help us overthrow the Lord Ruler. Then, once we killed him, you were distraught because you weren’t doing what the other Keepers told you to. Do you want to tell me exactly how you go about feeling guilty for studying, of all things?”

“I enjoy it.”

“That’s wonderful, my dear man,” Breeze said. “Why be ashamed of that enjoyment? It’s not like you enjoy killing puppies or something like that. True, I think you’re a bit crazy, but if you want to enjoy something so particularly esoteric, then you should feel free. It leaves more room for those of us who prefer more common delights – such as getting drunk on Straff Venture’s finest wines.”

Sazed smiled. He knew that Breeze was Pushing on his emotions, making him feel better, but he did not rebel against the emotions. The truth was, he did feel good. Better than he had in some time.

Though, still…

“It is not so simple, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said, setting down his pen. “I feel happy being able to simply sit and read, without having to be in charge. That is why I feel guilty.”

“Not everybody is meant to be a leader, Sazed.”

“No,” Sazed said, “but Lord Elend did put me in charge of securing this city. I should be planning our overthrow of the Citizen, not letting Lord Spook do it.”

“My dear man!” Breeze said, leaning down. “Have I taught you nothing? Being in charge isn’t about doing anything – it’s about making certain that other people do what they’re supposed to! Delegation, my friend. Without it, we would have to bake our own bread and dig our own latrines!” Then, Breeze leaned in. “And, trust me. You don’t want to taste anything I’ve had a hand in baking. Ever. Particularly after I’ve cleaned a latrine.”

Sazed shook his head. “This isn’t what Tindwyl would have wanted of me. She respected leaders and politicians.”

“Correct me if you must,” Breeze said, “but didn’t she fall in love with you, not some king or prince?”

“Well, love is perhaps–”

“Come now, Sazed,” Breeze said. “You were mooning about as surely as any teenage boy with a new fancy. And, while she was a bit more reserved, she did love you. One didn’t have to be a Soother to see that much.”

Sazed sighed, looking down.

“Is this what she’d want of you, Sazed?” Breeze said. “To deny who you are? To become yet another stuffy politician?”

“I do not know, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said softly. “I… I don’t have her anymore. And so, perhaps, I can remember her by being involved in what she loved.”

“Sazed,” Breeze said frankly, “how is it you can be so wise in so many areas, yet be so completely stupid about this?”

“I…”

“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”

“And if what I want isn’t what society needs?” Sazed said. “Sometimes, we just have to do what we don’t enjoy. That is a simple fact of life, I think.”

Breeze shrugged. “I don’t worry about that. I just do what I’m good at. In my case, that’s making other people do things that I don’t want to. It all fits together, in the end.”

Sazed shook his head. It wasn’t that simple, and his depression lately hadn’t only been tied to Tindwyl and her death. He had put off his study of the religions, but he knew that he would be driven to return to them. The work with the canals was a welcome distraction, but even so, Sazed could feel his earlier conclusions and work looming.

He didn’t want to discover that the last religions in the group held no answers. That was part of why it was so relaxing for him to study something else, for engineering didn’t threaten his worldview. However, he could not distract himself forever. He would find the answers, or the lack of answers, eventually. His portfolio sat beneath the desk, resting against the sack of metalminds.

For now, however, he allowed himself a reprieve. But even with his concern over the religions abated for the moment, there were concerns that needed addressing. He nodded his head in the direction of the lake. Spook, just barely visible, stood at the edge, speaking with Goradel and some of the soldiers.

“And what of him, Lord Breeze?” Sazed asked in a whisper, low enough that even Spook wouldn’t be able to hear. “As I said, Emperor Venture placed me in charge of this matter. What if I let Spook take control, and then he fails? I worry that the young man is not… seasoned enough for this task.”

Breeze shrugged. “He seems to be doing well so far. Remember how young Vin was when she killed the Lord Ruler.”

“Yes,” Sazed whispered, “but this situation is different. Spook seems… odd, lately. He is certainly hiding things from us. Why is he so determined to take this city?”

“I think it’s good for the boy to show a little determination,” Breeze said, sitting back in his chair. “That lad has been far too passive for most of his life.”

“Do you not worry about his plan? This could easily collapse around us.”

“Sazed,” Breeze said. “Do you remember our meeting a few weeks back? Spook asked me why we couldn’t just topple Quellion like we did the Lord Ruler.”

“I remember,” Sazed said. “You told him the reason we couldn’t was because we didn’t have Kelsier anymore.”

Breeze nodded. “Well,” he said softly, pointing his cane toward Spook, “my opinion has been revised. We don’t have Kelsier, but it’s looking more and more like we have something similar.”

Sazed frowned.

“I’m not saying the lad has Kelsier’s force of personality. His… presence. However, you’ve heard the reputation the boy is gaining among the people. Kelsier succeeded not because of who he was, but because of who people thought he was. That’s something I didn’t believe we could replicate. I’m starting to think I was wrong.”

Sazed wasn’t as easily convinced. Yet, he kept his reservations to himself as he turned back to his research. Spook must have noticed them looking over at him, for a few minutes later he made his way to Sazed’s table. The boy blinked against the lantern-light, soft though it was, and pulled up a chair. The fine furniture looked odd to Sazed, contrasted against the rows of dusty, utilitarian shelves.

Spook looked fatigued. How long has it been since he slept? Sazed thought. He’s still up whenever I bed down, and awake before I rise.

“Something doesn’t feel right here,” Spook said.

“Oh?” Breeze asked. “Other than the fact that we’re chatting beside an underground lake in a storehouse built by the Lord Ruler underneath an Inquisitor fortress?”

Spook gave the Soother a flat look, then glanced at Sazed. “I feel like we should have been attacked by now.”

“What makes you say that?” Sazed asked.

“I know Quellion, Saze. The man’s a bully after the classical style. He came to power through force, and he keeps control by giving the people plenty of alcohol and tiny freedoms, like letting them go to bars at night. At the same time, however, he keeps everyone on the edge of fear.”

“How did he take charge, anyway?” Breeze asked. “How did he get control before some nobleman with a good set of house guards could do it?”

“Mists,” Spook said. “He went out in them, and declared that anyone faithful to the Survivor would be safe in them. Then, the mists started killing, and gave a handy confirmation of what he’d said. He made a big deal about the mists killing those who had evil in their hearts. The people were so worried about what was happening that they listened to him. He managed to make a law that required everyone to go out in the mists, so that they could see who died and who didn’t. The ones who survived were – he declared – pure. He told them they could set up a nice little utopia. After that, they started killing nobility.”

“Ah,” Breeze said. “Clever.”

“Yeah,” Spook said. “He completely glossed over the fact that the nobility never got taken by the mists.”

“Wait,” Sazed said. “What?”

Spook shrugged. “Hard to confirm now, but that’s what the stories say. The nobility seemed immune to the mistsickness. Not skaa who had noble blood, but actually nobility.”

“How odd,” Breeze noted.

More than odd, Sazed thought. Downright strange. Does Elend know about this connection? As Sazed considered it, it seemed unlikely that Elend did. Their army and allies were all made up of skaa. The only nobility they knew were those back in Luthadel, and they had all chosen to stay inside at night, rather than risk going into the mists.

“Either way,” Spook said, “Quellion’s a bully. And bullies don’t like anyone in their turf who can challenge them. We should have had some kind of attempt on our lives by now.”

“The lad has a point,” Breeze said. “Quellion’s type doesn’t kill just in fancy executions. I’d bet that for every person he throws into one of those buildings, there are three dead in an alley somewhere, slowly being buried in ash.”

“I’ve told Goradel and his men to be particularly careful,” Spook said, “and I’ve prowled our perimeter. However, I haven’t caught any assassins so much as spying on us. Quellion’s troops just sit out there, watching us, but not doing anything.”

Breeze rubbed his chin. “Perhaps Quellion is more afraid of us than you assume.”

“Perhaps,” Spook said, sighing. He rubbed his forehead.

“Lord Spook,” Sazed said carefully, “you should sleep.”

“I’m fine,” Spook said.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was burning pewter to stay awake, Sazed thought. Or, am I just looking for signs to confirm what I worried about before?

We never questioned when Vin or Kelsier manifested powers beyond what even normal Allomancers were capable of. Why should I be so suspicious of Spook? Is it simply because I know him too well? Do I focus on my memories of the boy when he has obviously become a man?

“Anyway,” Spook said, “how goes the research?”

“Rather well, actually,” Sazed said, turning around several of his diagrams so that Spook could see them. “I am about ready to begin work on the actual construction.”

“How long will it take, do you think?”

“A few weeks, perhaps,” Sazed said. “A rather short time, all things considered. Fortunately, the people who drained the canals left behind a large amount of rubble, which I can use. In addition, the Lord Ruler stocked this storehouse quite well. There is timber, as well as some basic carpentry supplies, and even some pulley networks.”

“What was that creature preparing for?” Breeze said. “Food and water, I can understand. But, blankets? Timber? Pulleys?”

“Disaster, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said. “He included everything that a people would need in the event that the city itself was destroyed. He even included bedrolls for sleeping and infirmary supplies. Perhaps he feared koloss rampages.”

“No,” Spook said. “He prepared for exactly what is happening. Now, you’ll be building something to plug the water? I kind of thought you’d just collapse the tunnels.”

“Oh, goodness no,” Sazed said. “We don’t have the manpower or equipment to cause a cave-in. Also, I wouldn’t want to do anything that would risk bringing the cavern down upon us. My plans are to build a wooden blocking mechanism that can be lowered into the current. Enough weight, along with the proper framework, should provide reinforcement to stop the flow. It’s actually not unlike the mechanisms used in the locks of canals.”

“Which,” Breeze added, “he’ll be happy to tell you about. At length.”

Sazed smiled. “I do think that–”

He was cut off, however, as Captain Goradel arrived, looking a fair bit more solemn than usual.

“Lord Spook,” Goradel said. “Someone is waiting for you above.”

“Who?” Spook asked. “Durn?”

“No, my lord. She says she’s the Citizen’s sister.”

“I’m not here to join with you,” the woman – Beldre – said.

They sat in an austere audience chamber in the Inquisition building above their cavern. The room’s chairs lacked any sort of cushioning, and steel plates hung on the wooden walls as decoration – to Sazed, they were uncomfortable reminders of what he had seen when he had visited the Conventical of Seran.

Beldre was a young woman with auburn hair. She wore a simple, Citizen-approved dress, dyed red. She sat with hands in lap, and while she met the eyes of those in the room, there was a nervous apprehension to her that weakened her position considerably.

“Why are you here then, my dear?” Breeze asked carefully. He sat in a chair across from Beldre. Allrianne sat at his side, watching the girl with an air of disapproval. Spook paced in the background, occasionally shooting glances at the window.

He thinks this is a feint, Sazed realized. That the girl is a distraction to throw us off before we get attacked. The boy wore his dueling canes, strapped to his waist like swords. How well did Spook even know how to fight?

“I’m here…” Beldre said, looking down. “I’m here because you’re going to kill my brother.”

“Now, where did you get an idea like that!” Breeze said. “We’re in the city to forge a treaty with your brother, not assassinate him! Do we look like the types who would be very good at that sort of thing?”

Beldre shot a glance at Spook.

“Him excluded,” Breeze said. “Spook is harmless. Really, you shouldn’t–”

“Breeze,” Spook interrupted, glancing over with his strange, bandaged eyes, spectacles hidden underneath and bulging out from the face just slightly under the cloth. “That’s enough. You’re making us both seem like idiots. Beldre knows why we’re here – everyone in the city knows why we’re here.”

The room fell silent.

He… looks a little bit like an Inquisitor, wearing those spectacles beneath the bandages, Sazed thought, shivering.

“Beldre,” Spook said. “You honestly expect us to think that you came here simply to plead for your brother’s life?”

She glanced at Spook, defiantly meeting his eyes – or, rather, his lack thereof. “You can try to sound harsh, but I know you won’t hurt me. You’re of the Survivor’s crew.”

Spook folded his arms.

“Please,” Beldre said. “Quellion is a good man, like you. You have to give him more time. Don’t kill him.”

“What makes you think we’d kill him, child?” Sazed asked. “You just said that you thought we would never harm you. Why is your brother different?”

Beldre glanced down. “You’re the ones who killed the Lord Ruler. You overthrew the entire empire. My brother doesn’t believe it – he thinks that you rode the Survivor’s popularity, claiming to be his friends after he’d sacrificed himself.”

Spook snorted. “I wonder where your brother got an idea like that. Perhaps he knows someone else who’s claimed to have the Survivor’s blessing, killing people in his name…”

Beldre blushed.

“Your brother doesn’t trust us,” Sazed said. “Why do you?”

Beldre shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I guess… men who lie don’t save children from burning buildings.”

Sazed glanced at Spook, but couldn’t read anything in the young man’s hard expression. Finally, Spook spoke. “Breeze, Sazed, Allrianne, outside with me. Goradel, watch the woman.”

Spook pushed his way out into the hallway, and Sazed followed with the others. Once the door was closed, Spook turned to regard the rest of them. “Well?”

“I don’t like her,” Allrianne said, folding her arms.

“Of course you don’t, dear,” Breeze said. “You never like competition.”

“Competition?” Allrianne huffed. “From a timid little thing like that? Honestly.”

“What do you think, Breeze?” Spook asked.

“About the girl, or about you insulting me in there?”

“The first,” Spook said. “Your pride isn’t important right now.”

“My dear fellow,” Breeze said, “my pride is always important. As for the girl, I’ll tell you this – she’s terrified. Despite what she says, she’s very, very frightened – which means that she hasn’t done this sort of thing very often. My guess is that she’s noble.”

Allrianne nodded. “Definitely. Just look at her hands – when they’re not shaking from fright, you can see that they’re clean and soft. She grew up being pampered.”

“She’s obviously a bit naive,” Sazed said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have come here, expecting that we’d just listen to her, then let her go.”

Spook nodded. He cocked his head, as if listening to something. Then he walked forward, pushing open the door to the room.

“Well?” Beldre asked, maintaining her false air of forcefulness. “Have you decided to listen to me?”

“In a way,” Spook said. “I’m going to give you more time to explain your point. Plenty of time, actually.”

“I… don’t have long,” Beldre said. “I need to get back to my brother. I didn’t tell him I was leaving, and…” She trailed off, apparently seeing something in Spook’s expression. “You’re going to take me captive, aren’t you?”

“Breeze,” Spook said, turning. “How do you think the people would respond if I started spreading the rumor that the Citizen’s own sister has turned against him, fleeing to our embassy for protection?”

Breeze smiled. “Well now. That’s clever! Almost makes up for how you treated me. Have I mentioned yet how rude that was?”

“You can’t!” Beldre said, standing, facing Spook. “Nobody will believe that I’ve deserted!”

“Oh?” Spook asked. “Did you speak to the soldiers outside before you came in here?”

“Of course not,” Beldre said. “They’d have tried to stop me. I ran up the steps before they could.”

“So, they can confirm that you entered the building of your own will,” Spook said. “Sneaking around a guard post.”

“Doesn’t look good,” Breeze agreed.

Beldre wilted slightly, sitting down in her chair. By the Forgotten Gods, Sazed thought. She really is naive. The Citizen must have expended a great deal of effort in sheltering her so.

Of course, from what Sazed had heard, Quellion rarely let the girl out of his sight. She was always with him, being watched over. How will he react? Sazed thought with a chill. What will he do when he learns we have her? Attack?

Perhaps that was the plan. If Spook could force an outright attack on the Citizen’s part, it would look bad. Especially bad when Quellion was turned back by a few soldiers – he couldn’t know how well fortified their position was.

When did Spook get so clever?

Beldre looked up from her seat, a few tears of frustration gleaming in her eyes. “You can’t do this. This is deceitful! What would the Survivor say if he knew what you were planning?”

“The Survivor?” Spook asked, chuckling. “I have a feeling he’d approve. If he were here, actually, I think he’d suggest that we do this very thing…”

50

THE DOOR TO THE CAVERN OPENED.

Vin immediately downed her last vial of metals.

She jumped, tossing a coin behind herself, leaping up onto the top of one of the freestanding shelves. The cavern echoed with the sound of stone on stone as its door opened. Vin threw herself forward – Pushing off the coin – to shoot toward the front of the room. A crack of light outlined the door, and even this small amount of illumination hurt her eyes.

She gritted her teeth against the light, blinking as she landed. She threw herself up against the wall just to the side of the door, clutching her knives, flaring pewter to help herself deal with the sudden pain of light. Tears crept down her cheeks.

The door stopped moving. A solitary man stepped into the cavern, bearing a raised lantern. He wore a fine black suit and gentleman’s hat.

Vin ignored him.

She slipped around the man and ducked through the door, entering the small chamber beyond. A group of startled workers shied back, dropping ropes which were connected to the door’s opening mechanisms. Vin ignored these men as well, other than to shove her way through them. Dropping a coin, she Pushed herself upward. The wooden ladder’s rungs became a blur beside her as she soared up and slammed into the trapdoor in the ceiling.

And bounced off it with a grunt of pain.

She desperately caught rungs of the ladder as she began to fall, ignoring the sudden sting in her shoulder from hitting so hard. She flared pewter and pushed down on a rung with her legs, then slammed her back up against the trapdoor, trying to force it up and open.

She strained. Then, the rung broke beneath her feet, sending her toppling down again. She cursed, Pushing off her coin to slow her fall, and hit the floor in a crouch.

The workers had backed into a huddle – uncertain whether they wanted to venture into the dark cavern, but also uncertain whether they wanted to remain in the small room with a Mistborn. The suited nobleman had turned. He held his lantern high, illuminating Vin. A bit of broken ladder rung fell free and cracked to the stone floor beside her.

“The trapdoor is well secured with a very large rock on top of it, Lady Venture,” the nobleman said. Vin vaguely recognized him. He was a bit overweight, but was kempt, with very short hair and a thoughtful face.

“Tell the men up above to remove the stone,” Vin said quietly, raising a dagger.

“That is not going to happen, I’m afraid.”

“I can make it happen,” Vin said, stepping forward. The workers pulled back even further.

The nobleman smiled. “Lady Venture, let me assure you of several things. The first is that you are the only Allomancer among us, and so I have no doubt that you could slaughter us with the barest of efforts. The second is that the stone above is not moving anytime soon, so we might as well sit down and have a pleasant chat, as opposed to brandishing weapons and threatening each other.”

There was something… disarming about the man. Vin checked with bronze, but he wasn’t burning any metals. Just to be certain, she Pulled a bit on his emotions, making him more trusting and friendly, then tried to Soothe away any sense of guile he might have felt.

“I see that you’re at least considering my offer,” the nobleman said, waving to one of the workers. The worker hastily opened his pack, pulling out two folding chairs, then arranging them on the ground before the open stone door. The nobleman placed the lantern to the side, then sat down.

Vin crept a little closer. “Why do I recognize you?”

“I’m a friend of your husband,” the nobleman said.

“Telden,” Vin said, placing him. “Telden Hasting.”

Telden nodded. She had seen him at the ball a few weeks back, the first one they had attended. But, she’d known him from someplace earlier than that. He’d been one of Elend’s friends in Luthadel, before the Collapse.

Warily, Vin took the offered seat, trying to figure out Yomen’s game. Did he think she wouldn’t kill Telden, just because he’d been Elend’s friend?

Telden lounged in his chair, somewhat less proper than the average nobleman. He waved a worker forward, and the man presented two bottles. “Wine,” Telden said. “One is pure, the other contains an extremely powerful sedative.”

Vin raised an eyebrow. “This is to be some sort of guessing game?”

“Hardly,” Telden said, opening one of the bottles. “I’m far too thirsty – and from what I hear, you’re not the type who possesses an excessive amount of patience for games.”

Vin cocked her head as Telden accepted two cups from a servant, then poured some of the ruby wine into each. As she watched, she realized why he was so disarming. He reminded her of Elend – the old, carefree Elend. From what she could tell, this Telden was genuinely still like that.

I have to grant Yomen that much, she thought. His city may not be perfect, but he has created a place where men like Telden can retain some of their innocence.

Telden took a drink of his wine, proffering the other cup to Vin. She slid one of her knives into her sheath, then took the cup. She didn’t drink – and had no intention of doing so.

“This is the wine without the sedative,” Telden said. “Good vintage, too. Yomen is a true gentleman – if he’s going to send one of his friends down into a pit to die, he’ll at least provide them with expensive wine to soften the blow.”

“I’m supposed to believe that you’re here to be imprisoned too?” Vin asked flatly.

“Of course not,” Telden said. “Though many consider my mission to be hopeless.”

“And that mission is?”

“To get you to drink some of the drugged wine, so that you can be safely transported up above.”

Vin snorted.

“I see that you agree with my detractors,” Telden said.

“You just gave yourself away,” Vin said. “You just said that I’m supposed to drink the wine and fall unconscious. That means you have a way to signal to those above that I’ve been dealt with, so they can remove the stone and let you out. You have the power to free us. And I have the power to make you do as I wish.”

“Emotional Allomancy cannot control me to that extent,” Telden said. “I’m no Allomancer, but I do know something of it. I suspect that you’re manipulating my emotions right now, actually – which really isn’t necessary, since I’m being completely frank with you.”

“I don’t need Allomancy to make you talk,” Vin said, glancing down at the knife she still had in her other hand.

Telden laughed. “You think that King Yomen – yes, he’s up above – won’t be able to tell if I’m speaking under duress? I have no doubt that you’d be able to break me, but I’m not going to betray my word simply on threats, so you’d have to cut off a few fingers or something before I’d do as you ask. I’m pretty certain that Yomen and the others would hear me screaming.”

“I could kill the servants,” Vin said. “One at a time, until you agree to tell Yomen that I’m unconscious and have him open the door.”

Telden smiled. “You think that I’d care if you kill them?”

“You’re one of Elend’s friends,” Vin said. “You were one of those who talked philosophy with him.”

“Philosophy,” Telden said, “and politics. Elend, however, was the only one of us interested in the skaa. I assure you, the rest of us really didn’t understand where he got such a fascination with them.” He shrugged. “However, I’m not a heartless man. If you kill enough of them, perhaps I would break down and do as you ask. Might as well get started, then.”

Vin glanced at the servants. They seemed terrified of her, and Telden’s words didn’t help. After a few moments of silence, Telden chuckled.

“You are Elend’s wife,” he noted. “Yomen is aware of this, you see. He was mostly convinced that you wouldn’t kill any of us, despite your rather fearsome reputation. From what we hear, you have a habit of killing kings and gods, perhaps the occasional soldier. Skaa servants, however…”

Vin looked away from the servants, but didn’t meet Telden’s eyes, fearing that he’d see confirmation in them. He was wrong about her – she would kill those servants if she thought it would get her out. However, she was uncertain. If Yomen heard screams, he wouldn’t be likely to open the trapdoor, and Vin would have slaughtered innocents for no reason.

“So,” Telden said, finishing off his wine. “We are at a stalemate. We assume that you’re running low on food down here, unless you’ve found a way to open those cans. Even if you have, there’s nothing you can do down here to help up above. My guess is that unless you take the wine, we’ll all end up starving to death in this cavern.”

Vin sat back in her chair. There has to be a way out – a chance to exploit this.

However, it was incredibly unlikely that she’d be able to break through that door above. She could maybe use duralumin and steel to Push her way through. However, her steel and pewter would be gone, and she was out of metal vials.

Telden’s words, unfortunately, held a great deal of truth. Even if Vin could survive in the cavern, she’d be stagnant and useless. The siege would continue up above – she didn’t even know how that was going – and the world would continue to die by Ruin’s machinations.

She needed to get out of the cavern. Even if that meant being put into Yomen’s hands. She eyed the bottle of drugged wine.

Damn, She thought. That obligator is far cleverer than we expected. The wine would certainly have been prepared with enough strength to knock out an Allomancer.

However…

Pewter made the body resistant to all kinds of drugs. If she flared pewter with duralumin after drinking the wine, would it perhaps burn away the poison and leave her awake? She could pretend to be unconscious, then escape above.

It seemed like a stretch. And yet, what was she to do? Her food was almost gone, and her chances for escaping were slim. She didn’t know what Yomen wanted of her – and Telden would be very unlikely to tell her – but he must not want her dead. If that had been the case, he’d simply have left her to starve.

She had a choice. Either wait longer in the cavern, or gamble on a better chance to escape up above. She thought for just a moment, then made up her mind. She reached for the bottle. Even if her trick with pewter didn’t work, she’d rather gamble on getting into a better situation up above.

Telden chuckled. “They did say that you were a decisive one. That’s rather refreshing – I’ve spent far too long with stuffy noblemen who take years to come to any firm decisions.”

Vin ignored him. She easily popped the cork off of the bottle, then raised it and took a swig. The drugs began to take effect almost immediately. She settled back in her chair, letting her eyes droop, trying to give the impression that she was falling asleep. Indeed, it was very difficult to remain awake. Her mind was clouding despite flared pewter.

She slumped, feeling herself drift away. Here goes, she thought, then burned duralumin. Her body flared with hyperenhanced pewter. Immediately, the feeling of tiredness went away. She almost bolted upright from the sudden burst of energy. Telden was chuckling. “I’ll be,” he said to one of the servants. “She actually went for it.”

“You’d be dead if she hadn’t, my lord,” the servant said. “We’d all be dead.”

And then the duralumin ran out. Her pewter disappeared with a puff, and with it went her immunity to the drug, which hadn’t burned away. It had been a long shot anyway.

She barely heard her weapon click as it slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. Then, she fell unconscious.

51

ELEND FLEW THROUGH THE MISTS. He’d never quite been able to manage Vin’s horse shoe trick. Somehow, she could keep herself in the air, bounding from Push to Push, then Pulling each horseshoe back up behind her after she used it. To Elend, the process looked like a cyclone of potentially lethal chunks of metal with Vin at the center.

He dropped a coin, then Pushed himself in a powerful leap. He’d given up on the horseshoe method after four or five failed attempts. Vin had seemed puzzled that he couldn’t get it down – she’d apparently figured it out on her own, needing only about a half hour’s practice to perfect it.

But, well, that was Vin.

Elend made do with coins, of which he carried a rather large bag. Copper clips, the smallest of the old imperial coins, worked perfectly for his purposes – particularly since he was apparently much more powerful than other Mistborn. Each of his Pushes carried him farther than they should have, and he really didn’t use that many coins, even when traveling a long distance.

It felt good to be away. He felt free as he plunged down from his leap, dropping through the shifting darkness, then flared pewter and landed with a muffled thump. The ground in this particular valley was relatively free of ash – it had drifted, leaving a small corridor where it only came up to his mid-calf. So, he ran for a few minutes, for the change.

A mistcloak fluttered behind him. He wore dark clothing, rather than one of his white uniforms. It seemed appropriate; besides, he’d never really had a chance to be a true Mistborn. Since discovering his powers, he’d spent his life at war. There wasn’t all that much need for him to go scuttling about in the darkness, particularly not with Vin around to do it better.

I can see why Vin would find this intoxicating, he thought, dropping another coin and bounding between two hilltops. Even with the stress of Vin’s capture and the threat to the empire, there was an exhilarating freedom about cruising through the mists. It almost allowed him to forget about the wars, the destruction, and the responsibility.

Then, he landed, ash coming up to nearly his waist. He stood for a few moments, looking down at the soft black powder. He couldn’t escape it. Vin was in danger, the empire was collapsing, and his people were starving. It was his job to fix these things – that was the burden he’d taken upon himself when he’d become emperor.

He Pushed himself into the air, leaving a trail of ash fluttering in the mists behind him.

I certainly hope Sazed and Breeze are having better luck in Urteau, he thought. He was worried about his chances with Fadrex, and the Central Dominance was going to need the grain in the Urteau cache if they were going to plant enough food for the coming winter.

He couldn’t worry about that now. He simply had to count on his friends to be effective. Elend’s job was to do something to help Vin. He couldn’t just sit and wait in the camp, letting Yomen pull the strings. And yet, he didn’t dare try to assassinate Yomen – not after the man had tricked both of them so cleverly.

And so, Elend ran, heading northeast, toward the last known location of a koloss army. The time for subtlety and diplomacy was over. Elend needed a threat – something he could hold over Yomen’s head and, if necessary, use to batter him. And nothing was better at battering a city than koloss. Perhaps he was a fool for seeking out the brutes on his own. Perhaps it was wrong to give up on diplomacy. Yet, he had made his decision. It seemed he had failed in so many things lately – protecting Vin, keeping Luthadel safe, defending his people – that he simply needed to act.

Ahead, he saw a light in the mists. He landed, running through a field of knee-deep ash. Only flared pewter gave him the strength to manage it. When he got closer, he saw a village. He heard screams. He saw shadows scrambling about in fright.

He leaped, dropping a coin, flaring his metals. He passed through curling mist, looming over the village and its frightened occupants, his mistcloak flaring. Several of the homes were burning. And, by that light, he could see the hulking dark forms of koloss moving through the streets. Elend picked a beast who was raising its weapon to strike, then Pulled. Below, he heard the koloss grunt, but it managed to hang onto its weapon. However, the koloss itself wasn’t that much heavier than Elend – and so it was Pulled up into the air by one arm as Elend was yanked downward. Elend Pulled himself against a door hinge as he fell, edging himself just to the side of the confused flying koloss. He sprayed the beast with coins as he passed.

Beast and weapon spun in the air. Elend landed in the street before a huddled group of skaa. The flying koloss’s weapon hit the ashen earth point-first beside him. The koloss itself dropped dead on the other side of the street.

A large group of koloss turned, bloodred eyes shining in the firelight, frenzy making them excited about the prospect of a challenge. He would have to frighten them first, before he’d be able to take control of them. He was looking forward to that this time.

How could they possibly have once been people? Elend wondered, dashing forward and yanking the fallen koloss sword from the ground as he passed it, throwing out a spray of black soil. The Lord Ruler had created the creatures. Was this what had happened to those who had opposed him? Had they become koloss to make his army? The creatures had great strength and fortitude, and could subsist on the barest of sustenance. Yet, to make men – even your enemies – into monsters such as this?

Elend ducked forward, dropping one beast by shearing its legs at the knees. Then he jumped, lopping off the arm of another. He spun, slamming his crude sword through the chest of a third. He felt no remorse at killing what had once been innocents. Those people were dead. The creatures that remained would propagate themselves by using other humans unless they were stopped.

Or unless they were controlled.

Elend cried out, spinning through the group of koloss, wielding a sword that should have been too heavy for him. More and more creatures took notice, turning to tromp down streets lit by the light of burning buildings. This was a very large group, by scout reports – some thirty thousand in number. That many would quickly overrun such a small village, annihilating it like a small pile of ash before storm winds.

Elend would not let that happen. He fought, killing beast after beast. He’d come to gain himself a new army, but as the time passed, he found himself fighting for another reason. How many villages such as this one had been destroyed without anyone in Luthadel pausing to give so much as a passing thought? How many subjects – claimed by Elend, even if they didn’t know it – had he lost to the koloss? How many had he failed to protect already?

Elend sheared a koloss head free, then spun, Pushing two smaller beasts away by their swords. A massive twelve-footer was stomping forward, weapon raised. Elend gritted his teeth, then raised his own sword, flaring pewter.

Weapon met weapon in the blazing village, metal ringing like a forge under the hammer. And Elend stood his ground, matching strength with a monster twice his height.

The koloss stood, dumbfounded.

Stronger than I should be, Elend thought, twisting and cutting the surprised creature’s arm free. Why can’t that strength protect the people I rule?

He cried out, slicing the koloss clean through at the waist – if only to show that he could. The beast fell into two gory pieces.

Why? Elend thought with rage. What strength must I possess, what must I do, to protect them?

Vin’s words, spoken months ago back in the city of Vetitan, returned to him. She’d called everything he did short-term. But, what more could he do? He was no slayer of gods, no divine hero of prophecy. He was just a man.

And, it seemed that these days, ordinary men – even Allomancers – weren’t worth very much. He screamed as he killed, ripping through another pack of koloss. And yet, like his efforts back at Fadrex, it just didn’t seem like enough.

Around him, the village still burned. As he fought, he could hear women crying, children screaming, men dying. Even the efforts of a Mistborn were negligible. He could kill and kill, but that would not save the people of the village. He screamed, Pushing out with a Soothing, yet the koloss resisted him. He didn’t bring even a single one under his control. Did that mean that an Inquisitor controlled them? Or were they simply not frightened enough?

He fought on. And, as he did, the prevalence of death around him seemed a metaphor for all he had done over the last three years. He should have been able to protect the people – he’d tried so hard to protect the people. He’d stopped armies, overthrown tyrants, reworked laws, and scavenged supplies. And yet, all of that was a tiny drop of salvation in a vast ocean of death, chaos, and pain. He couldn’t save the empire by protecting a corner of it, just as he couldn’t save the village by killing a small fraction of the koloss.

What good was killing another monster if it was just replaced by two more? What good was food to feed his people if the ash just smothered everything anyway? What good was he, an emperor who couldn’t even defend the people of a single village?

Elend had never lusted for power. He’d been a theorist and a scholar – ruling an empire had mostly been an academic exercise for him. Yet, as he fought on that dark night in the burning mists and falling ash, he began to understand. As people died around him despite his most frenzied efforts, he could see what would drive men for more and more power.

Power to protect. At that moment, he would have accepted the powers of god-hood, if it would mean having the strength to save the people around him.

He dropped another koloss, then spun as he heard a scream. A young woman was being pulled from a nearby house, despite an older man holding onto her arm, both yelling for help. Elend reached to his sash, pulling free his bag of coins. He tossed it into the air, then simultaneously Pushed on some of the coins inside and Pulled on others. The sack exploded with twinkling bits of metal, and Elend shot some forward into the body of the koloss yanking on the woman.

It grunted, but did not stop. Coins rarely worked against koloss – you had to hit them just right to kill them. Vin could do it.

Elend wasn’t in a mood for such subtlety, even had he possessed it. He yelled in defiance, snapping more coins at the beast. He flipped them up off the ground toward himself, then flung them forward, shooting missile after glittering missile into the creature’s blue body. Its back became a glistening mass of too-red blood, and finally it slumped over.

Elend spun, turning from the relieved father and daughter to face down another koloss. It raised its weapon to strike, but Elend just screamed at it in anger.

I should be able to protect them! he thought. He needed to take control of the entire group, not waste time fighting them one at a time. But, they resisted his Allomancy, even as he Pushed on their emotions again. Where was the Inquisitor guardian?

As the koloss swung its weapon, Elend flared pewter and flung himself to the side, then sheared the creature’s hand free at the wrist. As the beast screamed in pain, Elend threw himself back into the fight. The villagers began to rally around him. They obviously had no training for war – they were likely under Yomen’s protection and didn’t need to worry about bandits or roving armies. Yet, despite their lack of skill, they obviously knew to stay close to the Mistborn. Their desperate, pleading eyes prodded Elend on, drove him to cut down koloss after koloss.

For the moment, he didn’t have to worry about the right or wrong of the situation. He could simply fight. The desire for battle burned within him like metal – the desire, even, to kill. And so he fought on – fought for the surprise in the eyes of the townspeople, for the hope each of his blows seemed to inspire. They had given their lives up for lost, and then a man had dropped from the sky to defend them.

Two years before, during the siege of Luthadel, Vin had attacked Cett’s fortification and slaughtered three hundred of his soldiers. Elend had trusted that she had good reasons for the attack, but he’d never understood how she could do such a thing. At least, not until this night, fighting in an unnamed village, too much ash in the dark sky, the mists on fire, koloss dying in ranks before him.

The Inquisitor didn’t appear. Frustrated, Elend spun away from a group of koloss, leaving one dying in his wake, then extinguished his metals. The creatures surrounded him, and he burned duralumin, then burned zinc, and Pulled.

The village fell silent.

Elend paused, stumbling slightly as he finished his spin. He looked through the falling ash, turning toward the remaining koloss – thousands and thousands of them – who now suddenly stood motionless and patient around him, under his control at last.

There’s no way I took them all at once, he thought warily. What had happened to the Inquisitor? There was usually one with a mob of koloss this big. Had it fled? That would explain why suddenly Elend had been able to control the koloss.

Worried, yet uncertain what else to do, he turned to scan the village. Some people had gathered to stare at him. They seemed to be in shock – instead of doing something about the burning buildings, they simply stood in the mists, watching him.

He should have felt triumphant. And yet, his victory was spoiled by the Inquisitor’s absence. In addition, the village was in flames – by this point, very few structures remained that weren’t burning. Elend hadn’t saved the village. He’d found his koloss army, as he’d planned, but he felt as if he’d failed in some greater way. He sighed, dropping his sword from tired, bloody fingers, then walked toward the villagers. As he moved, he was disturbed by the number of koloss bodies he passed. Had he really slain so many?

Another part of him – quiescent now, but still aflame – was sorry that the time for killing had ended. He stopped before a silent group of villagers.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” an elderly man asked.

“Who?” Elend asked.

“The Lord Ruler,” the man whispered.

Elend looked down at his black uniform, encased in a mistcloak, both of which were slick with blood.

“Close enough,” he said, turning to the east – toward where his human army camped many miles away, waiting for him to return with a new koloss force to aid them. There was only one reason for him to do that. Finally, he acknowledged what he’d decided, unconsciously, the moment he’d set out to find more of the creatures.

The time for killing hasn’t ended at all, he thought. It has just begun.

52

DURING THE DAYS OF THE LORD RULER, Luthadel had been the most crowded city in the world. Filled with three- and four-story tenements, it had been packed with the skaa who’d worked its numerous furnaces and forges, with the noble merchants who’d sold its goods, and with the high nobility who’d simply wanted to be near the imperial court. TenSoon had assumed that now, with the Lord Ruler dead and the imperial government shattered, Luthadel would become far less densely populated.

He had, apparently, been wrong.

Still wearing the wolfhound’s body, he trotted along in amazement as he explored the streets. It seemed that every nook – every alleyway, every street corner, each and every tenement – had become home to a skaa family. The city smelled terrible, and refuse clogged the streets, buried in ash.

What is going on? he wondered. The skaa lived in filth, many of them looking sick, coughing piteously in their ash-filled gutters. TenSoon made his way toward Keep Venture. If there were answers to be found, he hoped to locate them there. Occasionally, he had to growl menacingly at skaa who looked at him hungrily, and twice he had to run from gangs that ignored his growls.

Surely Vin and Elend would not have let this city fall so far, he thought as he hid in an alley. It was a foreboding sign. He’d left Luthadel without knowing whether or not his friends would even survive the city’s siege. Elend’s banner – the spear and the scroll – flew at the front of the city, but could someone else have taken Elend’s sign as their own? And what of the koloss army that had threatened to destroy Luthadel a year ago?

I should never have left her, TenSoon thought, feeling a stab of anxiety. My foolish kandra sense of duty. I should have stayed here, and told her what I know, little though it is.

The world could end because of my foolish honor.

He poked his head out of the alleyway, looking at Keep Venture. TenSoon’s heart sank to see that its beautiful stained-glass windows had been shattered. Crude boards blocked the broken holes. There were guards at the front gates, however, which seemed a better sign.

TenSoon crept forward, trying to look like a mangy stray. He kept to the shadows, edging his way up to the gate. Then, he lay down in some refuse to watch the soldiers. He expanded his eardrums, craning to hear what the men were saying.

It turned out to be nothing. The two guards stood quietly, looking bored and not a little disconsolate as they leaned against their obsidian-tipped spears. TenSoon waited, wishing that Vin were there to Pull on the emotions of the guards, making them more talkative.

Of course, if Vin were here, I wouldn’t have to be poking about for information, TenSoon thought with frustration. And so, he waited. Waited as the ash fell, waited even until the sky darkened and the mists came out. Their appearance finally sparked some life into the guards. “I hate night duty,” one of them muttered.

“Nothing wrong with night,” the other one said. “Not for us. Mists didn’t kill us. We’re safe from them.”

What? TenSoon thought, frowning to himself.

“Are we safe from the king?” the first guard said quietly.

His companion shot him a glance. “Don’t say such things.”

The first guard shrugged. “I just hope the emperor gets back soon.”

“King Penrod has all of the emperor’s authority,” the second guard said sternly.

Ah, TenSoon thought. So Penrod managed to keep the throne. But… what’s this about an emperor? TenSoon feared that the emperor was Straff Venture. That terrible man had been the one poised to take Luthadel when TenSoon had left.

But what of Vin? Somehow, TenSoon just couldn’t bring himself to believe that she had been defeated. He had watched her kill Zane Venture, a man who had been burning atium when Vin had none. She’d done the impossible three times, to TenSoon’s count. She’d slain the Lord Ruler. She’d defeated Zane.

And she’d befriended a kandra who had been determined to hate her.

The guards fell silent again. This is foolish, TenSoon thought. I don’t have time to hide in corners and eavesdrop. The world is ending! He rose, shaking the ash from his body – an action that caused the guards to start, raising their spears anxiously as they searched the darkening night for the source of the sound.

TenSoon hesitated, their nervousness giving him an idea. He turned and loped off into the night. He’d grown to know the city quite well during his year serving with Vin – she had liked to patrol the city, particularly the areas around Keep Venture. Even with his knowledge, however, it took TenSoon some time to find his way to where he was going. He had never visited the location, but he had heard it described.

Described by a person whom TenSoon had been killing at the time.

The memory still brought him chills. Kandra served Contracts – and in Contracts, they usually were required to imitate specific individuals. A master would provide the proper body – kandra were forbidden to kill humans themselves – and the kandra would emulate it. However, before any of that happened, the kandra would usually study its quarry, learning as much about them as possible.

TenSoon had killed OreSeur, his generation brother. OreSeur, who had helped overthrow the Father. At Kelsier’s command, OreSeur had pretended to be a nobleman named Lord Renoux so that Kelsier would have an apparent nobleman as a front to use in his plan to overthrow the empire. But, there had been a more important part for OreSeur to play in Kelsier’s plot. A secret part that not even the other members of the crew had known until after Kelsier’s death.

TenSoon arrived at the old warehouse. It stood where OreSeur had said it would. TenSoon shuddered, remembering OreSeur’s screams. The kandra had died beneath TenSoon’s torture, torture which had been necessary, for TenSoon had needed to learn all that he could. Every secret. All that he would need in order to convincingly imitate his brother.

That day, TenSoon’s hatred of humans – and at himself for serving them – had burned more deeply than ever before. How Vin had overcome that, he still didn’t know.

The warehouse before TenSoon was now a holy place, ornamented and maintained by the Church of the Survivor. A plaque hung out front, displaying the sign of the spear – the weapon by which both Kelsier and the Lord Ruler had died – and giving a written explanation of why the warehouse was important.

TenSoon knew the story already. This was the place where the crew had found a stockpile of weapons, left by the Survivor to arm the skaa people for their revolution. It had been discovered the same day that Kelsier had died, and rumors whispered that the spirit of the Survivor had appeared in this place, giving guidance to his followers. Those rumors were true, after a fashion. TenSoon rounded the building, following instructions OreSeur had given as he died. The Blessing of Presence let TenSoon recall the precise words, and despite the ash, he found the spot – a place where the cobbles were disturbed. Then, he began to dig.

Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin, had indeed appeared to his followers that night years ago. Or, at least, his bones had. OreSeur had been commanded to take the Survivor’s own body and digest it, then appear to the faithful skaa and give them encouragement. The legends of the Survivor, the whole religion that had sprung up around him, had been started by a kandra.

And TenSoon had eventually killed that kandra. But not before learning his secrets. Secrets such as where OreSeur had buried the bones of the Survivor, and how the man had looked.

TenSoon smiled as he unearthed the first bone. They were years old now, and he hated using old bones. Plus, there would be no hair, so the one he created would be bald. Still, the opportunity was too valuable to pass up. He’d only seen the Survivor once, but with his expertise in imitation…

Well, it was worth a try.

Wellen leaned against his spear, watching those mists again. Rittle – his companion guard – said they weren’t dangerous. But, Rittle hadn’t seen what they could do. What they could reveal. Wellen figured that he had survived because he respected them. That, and because he didn’t think too hard about the things he had seen.

“You think Skiff and Jaston will be late to relieve us again?” Wellen asked, trying again to start a conversation.

Rittle just grunted. “Dunno, Wells.” Rittle never did care for small talk.

“I think maybe one of us should go see,” Wellen said, eyeing the mist. “You know, ask if they’ve come in yet…” He trailed off.

Something was out there.

Lord Ruler! he thought, cringing back. Not again!

But, no attack came from the mists. Instead, a dark figure strode forward. Rittle perked up, lowering his spear. “Halt!”

A man walked from the mists, wearing a deep black cloak, arms at his sides, hood up. His face, however, was visible. Wellen frowned. Something about this man looked familiar…

Rittle gasped, then fell to his knees, clutching something at his neck – the pendant of a silver spear that he always wore. Wellen frowned. Then he noticed the scars on this newcomer’s arms.

Lord Ruler! Wellen thought in shock, realizing where he’d seen this man’s face. It had been in a painting, one of many available in the city, that depicted the Survivor of Hathsin.

“Rise,” the stranger said, speaking in a benevolent voice.

Rittle stood on shaking feet. Wellen backed away, uncertain whether to be awed or terrified, and feeling a little of both.

“I have come to commend your faith,” the Survivor said.

“My lord…” Rittle said, his head still bowed.

“Also,” Kelsier said, raising a finger. “I have come to tell you I do not approve of how this city is being run. My people are sick, they starve, and they die.”

“My lord,” Rittle said, “there is not enough food, and there have been riots seizing that which was stockpiled. My lord, and the mists kill! Please, why have you sent them to kill us!”

“I did no such thing,” Kelsier said. “I know that food is scarce, but you must share what you have and have hope. Tell me of the man who rules this city.”

“King Penrod?” Rittle asked. “He rules for Emperor Elend Venture, who is away at war.”

“Lord Elend Venture? And he approves of how this city is being treated?” Kelsier looked angry. Wellen cringed.

“No, my lord!” Rittle said, shaking. “I…”

“Lord Penrod is mad,” Wellen found himself saying.

The Survivor turned toward him.

“Wells, you shouldn’t…” Rittle said, but then trailed off, the Survivor shooting him a stern look.

“Speak,” the Survivor said to Wellen.

“He speaks to the air, my lord,” Wellen said, averting his eyes. “Talks to himself – claims that he can see the Lord Ruler standing beside him. Penrod… he’s given lots of strange orders, lately. Forcing the skaa to fight each other for food, claiming that only the strong should survive. He kills those who disagree with him. That kind of thing.”

“I see,” the Survivor said.

Surely he knows this already, Wellen thought. Why bother asking?

“Where is my Heir?” the Survivor asked. “The Hero of Ages, Vin.”

“The Lady Empress?” Wellen asked. “She’s with the emperor.”

“Where?”

“Nobody knows for certain, my lord,” Rittle said, still shaking. “She hasn’t returned in a long time. My sergeant says that she and the emperor are fighting in the South, fighting koloss. But I’ve heard other men say the army went to the west.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Kelsier said.

Wellen perked up, remembering something.

“What?” the Survivor asked, apparently noticing Wellen’s change in posture.

“An army troop stopped by the city a few months ago,” Wellen said, feeling proud. “They kept it quiet, but I was in the group that helped them resupply. Lord Breeze was with them, and he spoke of meeting up with others of your crew.”

“Where?” Kelsier asked. “Where were they going?”

“North,” Wellen said. “To Urteau. That must be where the emperor is, my lord. The Northern Dominance is in rebellion. He must have taken his armies to quell it.”

The Survivor nodded. “Very well,” he said. He turned as if to go, then paused, looking back. “Pass what news you can,” he said. “There isn’t much time left. Tell the people that when the mists leave, they should immediately find shelter. A place underground, if possible.”

Wellen paused, then nodded. “The caverns,” he said. “Where you trained your army?”

“That will do,” Kelsier said. “Farewell.”

The Survivor disappeared into the mists.

TenSoon left the gates of Keep Venture behind, running off into the mists. He could, perhaps, have gotten himself into the building. However, he wasn’t certain how well his imitation of the Survivor would hold up under closer scrutiny.

He didn’t know how reliable the two guards’ information was. However, he had no better leads. Other people he had talked to in the night hadn’t been able to provide any information about the army’s movements. Evidently, Vin and Elend had been gone from Luthadel for quite some time.

He rushed back to the patch of earth behind the warehouse where he’d found Kelsier’s body. He knelt in the darkness, uncovering the sack he’d stuffed with bones. He needed to get the dog’s body back and head north. Hopefully he would–

“You there!” a voice said.

TenSoon looked up reflexively. A man stood in the doorway of the warehouse, looking through the mists at TenSoon. A lantern flared to life behind him, revealing a group of people who had apparently taken up residence inside of the holy place.

Uh, oh… TenSoon thought as those at the front adopted shocked expressions.

“My lord!” the man in front said, quickly kneeling in his sleeping robe. “You’ve returned!”

TenSoon stood, stepping carefully to hide the sack of bones behind him. “I have,” he said.

“We knew that you would,” the man said as others began to whisper and cry out behind him. Many fell to their knees. “We stayed in this place, praying for you to come give us counsel. The king is mad, my lord! What do we do?”

TenSoon was tempted to expose himself as a kandra, but looking into their hopeful eyes, he found that he could not. Besides, perhaps he could do some good. “Penrod has been corrupted by Ruin,” he said. “The thing that seeks to destroy the world. You must gather the faithful and escape this city before Penrod kills you all.”

“My lord, where should we go?”

TenSoon hesitated. Where? “There are a pair of guards at the front of Keep Venture. They know of a place. Listen to them. You must get to a place underground. Do you understand?”

“Yes, lord,” the man said. Behind, more and more people were edging forward, straining to catch a glimpse of TenSoon. He bore their scrutiny with some nervousness. Finally, he bid them be careful, then fled into the night.

He found an empty building and quickly changed back to the dog’s bones before anyone else could see him. When he was done, he eyed the Survivor’s bones, feeling a strange… reverence.

Don’t be silly, he told himself. They’re just bones, like hundreds of other sets you’ve used. Still, it seemed foolish to leave such a potentially powerful tool behind. He carefully packed them into the sack he’d pilfered, then – using paws he’d created to have more dexterity than those of a real wolfhound – he tied the sack on his back.

After that, TenSoon left the city by the northern gate, running at full wolfhound speed. He would go to Urteau and hope that he was on the right path.

53

SPOOK FOUND HER SITTING on the rocky lakeshore, looking out across the deep black waters, so still in the cavern’s windless air. In the near distance, Spook could hear Sazed – with a large contingent of Goradel’s men – working on their project to stanch the flow of water into the cavern.

Spook approached Beldre quietly, carrying a mug of warmed tea. It almost seemed to burn his flesh, which meant that it would be just right for normal people. He let his own food and drinks sit out until they cooled to room temperature.

He didn’t wear his eye bandage. With pewter, he’d found that he could withstand a little lantern-light. She didn’t turn as he approached, so he cleared his throat. She jumped slightly. It was no wonder that Quellion worked so hard to shelter the girl – one could not fake Beldre’s level of innocence. She wouldn’t survive three heartbeats in the underground. Even Allrianne, who did her best to look like a puff, had an edge to her that bespoke an ability to be as hard as necessary in order to survive. Beldre, though…

She’s normal, Spook thought. This is how people would be, if they didn’t have to deal with Inquisitors, armies, and assassins. For that, he actually envied her. It was a strange feeling, after so many years spent wishing that he were someone more important.

She turned back toward the waters, and he approached and sat beside her. “Here,” he said, handing her the mug. “I know it gets a bit chilly down here, with the lake and the water.”

She paused, then took the mug. “Thank you,” she whispered. Spook let her roam free in the cavern – there was very little she could sabotage, though he had warned Goradel’s men to keep an eye on her. Either way, there was no way she was going to get out. Spook kept two dozen men guarding the exit, and had ordered the ladder up to the trapdoor above removed, to be replaced only with proper authorization.

“Hard to believe this place was beneath your city all along, isn’t it?” Spook said, trying to work into a conversation. Oddly, it had seemed easier to speak to her when he was confronting her in her gardens, surrounded by danger.

Beldre nodded. “My brother would have loved to find this place. He worries about food supplies. Fewer and fewer fish are being caught in the northern lakes. And crops… well, they’re not doing so well, I hear.”

“The mists,” Spook said. “They don’t let enough sunlight through for most plants.”

Beldre nodded, looking down at her mug. She hadn’t taken a sip yet.

“Beldre,” Spook said, “I’m sorry. I actually considered kidnapping you from those gardens, but decided against it. However, with you showing up here, alone…”

“It was just too good an opportunity,” she said bitterly. “I understand. It’s my own fault. My brother always says I’m too trusting.”

“There are times that would be an advantage.”

Beldre sniffed quietly. “I’ve never known such times as that. It seems my entire life, I’ve just trusted and been hurt. This is no different.”

Spook sat, feeling frustrated with himself. Kelsier, tell me what to say! he thought. Yet, God remained silent. The Survivor didn’t seem to have much advice about things that didn’t relate to securing the city.

It had all seemed so simple when Spook had given the order to capture her. Why, now, was he sitting here with this empty pit in his stomach?

“I believed in him, you know,” Beldre said.

“Your brother?”

“No,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “The Lord Ruler. I was a good little noblewoman. I always gave my payments to the obligators – paying extra, even, and calling them in to witness the smallest things. I also paid them to come tutor me in the history of the empire. I thought everything was perfect. So neat; so peaceful. And then, they tried to kill me. Turns out I’m half skaa. My father wanted a child so desperately, and my mother was barren. He had two children with one of the maidservants – my mother even approved.”

She shook her head. “Why would someone do that?” she continued. “I mean, why not pick a noblewoman? No. My father chose the servant woman. I guess he fancied her or something…” She looked down.

“For me, it was my grandfather,” Spook said. “I never knew him. Grew up on the streets.”

“Sometimes I wish I had,” Beldre said. “Then maybe this would all make sense. What do you do when the priests you’ve been paying to tutor you since you were a child – men you trusted more than your own parents – come to take you away for execution? I would have died, too. I just went with them. Then…”

“Then what?” Spook asked.

“You saved me,” she whispered. “The Survivor’s crew. You overthrew the Lord Ruler, and in the chaos, everybody forgot about people like me. The obligators were too busy trying to please Straff.”

“And then, your brother took over.”

She nodded quietly. “I thought he’d be a good ruler. He really is a good man! He just wants everything to be stable and secure. Peace for everyone. Yet, sometimes, the things he does to people… the things he asks of people…”

“I’m sorry,” Spook said.

She shook her head. “And then you came. You rescued that child, right in front of Quellion and me. You came to my gardens, and you didn’t even threaten me. I thought… maybe he really is as the stories say. Maybe he’ll help. And, like the idiot I always am, I just came.”

“I wish things were simple, Beldre,” Spook said. “I wish I could let you go. But, this is for the greater good.”

“That’s just what Quellion always says, you know,” she said.

Spook paused.

“You’re a lot alike, you two,” she said. “Forceful. Commanding.”

Spook chuckled. “You really don’t know me very well, do you?”

She flushed. “You’re the Survivor of the Flames. Don’t think I haven’t heard the rumors – my brother can’t keep me out of all of his conferences.”

“Rumors,” Spook said, “are rarely reliable.”

“You’re a member of the Survivor’s crew.”

Spook shrugged. “That’s true. Though, I became a member by accident.”

She frowned, glancing at him.

“Kelsier handpicked the others,” Spook said. “Ham, Breeze, Sazed – even Vin. He chose my uncle too. And, by doing so, he got me as a bonus. I… I was never really part of it all, Beldre. I was kind of like an observer. They posted me on watch and things like that. I sat in on the planning sessions, and everyone just treated me like an errand boy. I must have refilled Breeze’s cup a hundred times during that first year!”

A hint of amusement showed on her face. “You make it sound like you were a servant.”

“Pretty much,” Spook said, smiling. “I couldn’t talk very well – I’d grown used to speaking in an Eastern street slang, and everything I said came out garbled. I’ve still got an accent, they tell me. So, I just stayed quiet most of the time, embarrassed. The crew was nice to me, but I knew I was pretty much just ignored.”

“And now you’re in charge of them all.”

Spook laughed. “No. Sazed’s the one really in charge of us here. Breeze ranks me too, but he lets me give orders because he’s too lazy to do so. He likes to make people do things without them knowing it. Half the time, I’m certain that the things I’m saying are just ideas he somehow got into my head.”

Beldre shook her head. “The Terrisman is in charge? But, he looks to you!”

“He just lets me do what he doesn’t want to,” Spook said. “Sazed’s a great man – one of the best I’ve known. But, well, he’s a scholar. He’s better off studying a project and writing notes than he is giving commands. So, that only leaves me. I’m just doing the job that everyone else is too busy to do.”

Beldre sat quietly for a moment, then finally took a sip of her tea. “Ah,” she said. “It’s good!”

“The Lord Ruler’s own brew, for all we know,” Spook said. “We found it down here, with the rest of this stuff.”

“This is why you came, isn’t it?” Beldre asked, nodding to the cavern. “I wondered why your emperor cared about Urteau. We haven’t really been an important force in the world since the Venture line moved its center of power to Luthadel.”

Spook nodded. “This is part of it, though Elend is also worried about the rebellion up here. It’s dangerous, having a foe who is slaughtering noblemen controlling one of the major cities just a short distance north of Luthadel. That’s all I can really tell you, though. Most of the time, I feel like I’m still just a bystander in all of this. Vin and Elend, they’re the ones who really know what’s going on. To them, I’m the guy they could spare to spend months spying in Urteau while they did important work in the South.”

“They are wrong to treat you so,” Beldre said.

“No, it’s all right,” Spook said. “I’ve kind of enjoyed being up here. I feel like I’ve been able to do something, finally.”

She nodded. After a short time, she set down her cup, wrapping her arms around her knees. “What are they like?” she asked. “I’ve heard so many stories. They say that Emperor Venture always wears white, and that the ash refuses to stick to him! He can quell an army just by looking at them. And his wife, the Survivor’s heir. Mistborn…”

Spook smiled. “Elend is a forgetful scholar – twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meetings he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has changed him some, but on the inside, I think he’s still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence.

“And Vin… well, she really is different. I’ve never been sure what to make of her. Sometimes, she seems as frail as a child. And then she kills an Inquisitor. She can be fascinating and frightening at the same time. I tried to court her once.”

“Really?” Beldre said, perking up.

Spook smiled. “I gave her a handkerchief. I heard that’s how you do it in noble society.”

“Only if you’re a romantic,” Beldre said, smiling wistfully.

“Well, I gave her one,” Spook said. “But I don’t think she knew what I meant by it. And, of course, once she did figure it out, she turned me down. I’m not sure what I was thinking, trying to court her. I mean, I’m just Spook. Quiet, incomprehensible, forgettable Spook.”

He closed his eyes. What am I saying? Women didn’t want to hear men talk about how insignificant they were. He’d heard that much. I shouldn’t have come to talk to her. I should have just gone about, giving orders. Looking like I was in charge.

The damage had been done, however. She knew the truth about him. He sighed, opening his eyes.

“I don’t think you’re forgettable,” Beldre said. “Of course, I’d be more likely to think fondly of you if you were to let me go.”

Spook smiled. “Eventually. I promise.”

“Are you going to use me against him?” Beldre asked. “Threaten to kill me if he doesn’t give in?”

“Threats like that are hollow if you know you’ll never do what you say,” Spook said. “Honestly, Beldre, I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, I’ve got a feeling you’ll be safer here than back in your brother’s palace.”

“Please don’t kill him, Spook,” Beldre said. “Maybe… maybe you can help him somehow, help him see that he’s being too extreme.”

Spook nodded. “I’ll… try.”

“Do you promise?” she said.

“All right,” Spook said. “I promise to at least try to save your brother. If I can.”

“And the city too.”

“And the city,” Spook said. “Trust me. We’ve done this before – the transition will go smoothly.”

Beldre nodded, and she actually seemed to believe him. What kind of woman is still able to trust people after everything she’s been through? If she’d been Vin, she would have stabbed him in the back at the first opportunity, and that would have probably been the right thing to do. Yet, this girl just continued to trust. It was like finding a beautiful plant growing alone in a field of burnt ash.

“Once we’re done, maybe you could introduce me to the emperor and empress,” Beldre said. “They sound like interesting people.”

“I’ll never argue with that statement,” Spook said. “Elend and Vin… well, they’re certainly interesting. Interesting people with heavy burdens. Sometimes, I wish I were powerful enough to do important works like them.”

Beldre laid a hand on his arm, and he glanced down, a bit surprised. What?

“Power can be a terrible thing, Spook,” she said quietly. “I’m… not pleased with what it’s done to my brother. Don’t wish so hard for it.”

Spook met her eyes, then nodded and rose. “If you need anything, ask Sazed. He’ll see to your comforts.”

She looked up. “Where are you going?”

“To be seen.”

“I want primary trade contracts on all the canals,” Durn said. “And a title from the emperor.”

“You?” Spook said. “A title? You think a ‘lord’ in front of your name is going to make that face any less ugly?”

Durn raised an eyebrow.

Spook just chuckled. “Both are yours. I cleared it with Sazed and Breeze – they’ll even draft you a contract, if you want.”

Durn nodded appreciatively. “I do. Lords pay attention to things like that.” They sat in one of his many backroom chambers – not in his private home, but in a place attached to a particular inn. An old set of drums hung on the wall.

Spook had had little trouble sneaking out past Quellion’s soldiers standing watch at the front of the Ministry building. Even before he’d gained enhanced abilities with tin, and long before he’d been able to burn pewter, he’d learned to sneak about in the night and spy. A group of soldiers had barely posed an obstacle for him. He couldn’t remain cooped up in the cavern like the others. He had too much work to do.

“I want the Harrows dammed off,” Spook said. “We’ll flood the canals during the evening, when the markets are empty. Nobody lives in the streetslots except for those of you here in the slums. If you want to keep this place from flooding, you’ll need a good watertight blockade in place.”

“Already taken care of,” Durn said. “When the Harrows were new, we pulled off the lock system from its mouth, but I know where it is. It’ll fit back in place well enough to keep the water out, assuming we can install it correctly.”

“You’d better,” Spook said. “I don’t want the deaths of half the city’s beggar population on my conscience. I’ll warn you the day we intend to pull this off. See if you can get some of the goods out of the market, as well as keep people out of the streetslots. That, plus what you’re doing for my reputation, will guarantee you the title you want.”

Durn nodded, rising. “Well, let’s go work on that reputation, then.” He led the way out of the back room, bringing Spook out into the commons of the bar. As always, Spook wore his burned cloak – it had become something of a symbol for him. He’d never worn a mistcloak, but somehow, this felt even better.

The people rose when he entered. He smiled, motioning for Durn’s men to bring out wineskins – stolen from the storage cavern and carried by Spook as he snuck out several nights in a row. “Tonight,” he said, “you don’t have to pay for Quellion’s stolen liquor. That’s his way of keeping you happy and content.”

And that was the only speech he gave. He wasn’t Kelsier, able to impress people with his words. Instead – at Breeze’s suggestion – he stayed mostly quiet. He visited tables, trying to not be aloof, but also speaking little. He looked thoughtful, and asked the people about their problems. He listened to stories of loss and hardship, and drank with them to the memory of those Quellion had murdered. And, with his pewter, he never got drunk. He already had a reputation for that – the people regarded it mystically, as they did his ability to survive fire.

After that bar, they visited another, and another after that, Durn careful to keep him to the safest – and yet most populated – of the locations. Some were in the Harrows, others were above. Through it all, Spook felt an amazing thing: his confidence growing. He really was a little like Kelsier. Vin might have been the one trained by the Survivor, but Spook was the one who was doing just what he’d done – encouraging the people, leading them to rise up for their own sakes.

As the evening passed, the various bars became a blur. Spook breathed curses against Quellion, speaking of the murders and of the Allomancers the Citizen retained. Spook didn’t spread the rumors that Quellion was himself an Allomancer – he let Breeze do that more carefully. That way, it wouldn’t look like Spook was too eager to set the man up.

“To the Survivor!”

Spook looked up, holding his mug of wine, smiling as the bar patrons cheered.

“To the Survivor!” another said, pointing at Spook. “Survivor of the Flames!”

“To the death of the Citizen!” Durn said, raising his own mug – though he rarely drank from it. “Down with the man who said he’d let us rule, then took it all for himself!”

Spook smiled, taking a drink. He hadn’t realized how exhausting it could be to simply sit around and speak to people. His flared pewter kept his body’s weariness at bay, but it couldn’t prevent the mental fatigue.

I wonder what Beldre would think if she saw this, he thought. The men cheering me. She’d be impressed, wouldn’t she? She’d forget about how I droned on about how useless I was.

Perhaps the visits to the bars had been fatiguing simply because he had something else he wished he could be doing. It was silly – she was his captive. He’d betrayed her trust. She was obviously just warming up to him in an effort to get him to let her go. Yet, he couldn’t help thinking back to their conversation, going over it again and again in his mind. Despite the stupid things he’d said, she’d laid her hand on his arm. That meant something, didn’t it?

“You all right?” Durn asked, leaning in. “That’s your tenth mug tonight.”

“I’m fine,” Spook said.

“You were looking a little distant there.”

“I have a lot on my mind,” Spook said.

Durn leaned back, frowning, but didn’t say anything more.

Some things about his conversation with Beldre bothered Spook, even more than his own stupid comments. She seemed to really be worried by the things that her brother had done. When Spook himself was in power, would she see him as she did Quellion? Would that be a bad thing, or a good thing? She already said they were similar.

Power can be a terrible thing…

He looked up, glancing at the people of the bar as they cheered him again, just as the men had in the other bars. Kelsier had been able to handle adulation like this. If Spook wanted to be like Kelsier, then he’d have to deal with it as well, right?

Wasn’t it a good thing to be liked? To have people willing to follow him? He could finally break away from the old Spook. He could stop being that boy, the one so insignificant and easily forgotten. He could leave that child behind, and become a man who was respected. And why shouldn’t he be respected? He wasn’t that boy anymore. He wore his bandages across his eyes, heightening his mystical reputation as a man who did not need light to see. Some even said that anywhere that fire burned, Spook could see.

“They love you,” Kelsier whispered. “You deserve it.”

Spook smiled. That was all the confirmation he needed. He stood, raising his arms before the crowd. They cheered in response.

It had been a long time coming. And it felt all the sweeter for the wait.

54

WHEN VIN AWOKE, she was not surprised to find herself bound. She was surprised to feel that she was wearing metal manacles.

The first thing she did – even before she opened her eyes – was reach inside for her metals. With steel and iron, perhaps she could use the manacles as weapons. With pewter…

Her metals were gone.

She kept her eyes closed, trying not to display the panic she felt, thinking through what had happened. She’d been in the cavern, trapped with Ruin. Elend’s friend had come in, given her the wine, and she’d taken it. Gambled.

How long had it been since she’d fallen unconscious?

“Your breathing has changed,” a voice reported. “You are obviously awake.”

Vin cursed herself quietly. There was a very easy way to take away an Allomancer’s powers – easier, even, than making them burn aluminum. You just had to keep them drugged long enough for them to pass the metals through their body. As she thought about it, her mind shrugging off the effects of extended sleep, she realized this was what must have happened to her.

The silence continued. Finally, Vin opened her eyes. She expected to see cell bars. Instead, she saw a sparsely furnished, utilitarian room. She lay on a bench, head cushioned by a hard pillow. Her manacles were connected to a chain several feet long, which was in turn locked to the base of the bench. She tugged on the chain carefully, and determined that it was very well affixed.

The motion drew the attention of a pair of guards who stood beside the bench. They jumped slightly, raising staffs and eyeing her warily. Vin smiled to herself; part of her was proud that she could evoke such a response even when chained and metalless.

“You, Lady Venture, present something of a problem.” The voice came from the side. Vin raised herself up on one arm, looking over the bench’s armrest. On the other side of the room – perhaps fifteen feet away – a bald figure in robes stood with his back to her. He stared out a large window, facing west, and the setting sun was a violent crimson blaze around his silhouette.

“What do I do?” Yomen asked, still not turning toward her. “A single flake of steel, and you could slaughter my guards with their own buttons. A taste of pewter, and you could lift that bench and smash your way out of the room. The logical thing to do would be to gag you, keep you drugged at all times, or kill you.”

Vin opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a cough. She immediately tried to burn pewter to strengthen her body. The lack of metal was like missing a limb. As she sat up, coughing further and growing dizzy, she found herself craving the metal more than she’d imagined that she ever would. Allomancy wasn’t supposed to be addictive, not like certain herbs or poisons. However, at that moment, she could have sworn that all the scientists and philosophers were flat-out wrong.

Yomen made a sharp gesture with one arm, still not turning from the sunset. A servant approached, bearing a cup for Vin. She eyed it uncertainly.

“If I wanted to poison you, Lady Venture,” Yomen said without turning, “I could do it without guile.”

Good point, Vin thought wryly, accepting the cup and drinking the water it contained.

“Water,” Yomen said. “Collected from rain, then strained and purified. You will find no trace metals in it to burn. I specifically ordered it kept in wooden containers only.”

Clever, Vin thought. Years before she’d become consciously aware of her Allomantic powers, she’d been burning the tiny bits of metal she haphazardly got from groundwater or dining utensils.

The water quenched her thirst and stilled her cough. “So,” she finally said, “if you’re so worried about me eating metals, why leave me ungagged?”

Yomen stood quietly for a moment. Finally, he turned, and she could see the tattoos across his eyes and face, his skin reflecting the deep colors of the falling sun outside. On his forehead, he wore his single, silvery bead of atium.

“Various reasons,” said the obligator king.

Vin studied him, then raised the cup to take another drink. The motion jangled her manacles, which she eyed in annoyance as they again restricted her movement.

“They’re made of silver,” Yomen said. “A particularly frustrating metal for Mistborn, or so I am told.”

Silver. Useless, unburnable silver. Like lead, it was one of the metals that provided no Allomantic powers at all.

“An unpopular metal indeed…” Yomen said, nodding to the side. A servant approached Vin, bearing something on a small platter. Her mother’s earring. It was a dull thing, Allomantically, made of bronze with some silver plating. Much of the gilding had worn off years ago, and the brownish bronze showed through, making the earring look to be the cheap bauble it was.

“Which is why,” Yomen continued, “I am so curious as to why you would bother with an ornament such as this. I have had it tested. Silver on the outside, bronze on the inside. Why those metals? One useless to Allomancers, the other granting what is considered the weakest of Allomantic powers. Would not an earring of steel or of pewter make more sense?”

Vin eyed the earring. Her fingers itched to grab it, if only to feel metal between her fingers. If she’d had steel, she could have Pushed on the earring, using it as a weapon. Kelsier had once told her to keep wearing it for that simple reason. Yet, it had been given to her by her mother. A woman Vin had never known. A woman who had tried to kill her.

Vin snatched the earring. Yomen watched curiously as she stuck it in her ear. He seemed… wary. As if waiting for something.

If I really did have some trick planned, she thought, he’d be dead in an instant. How can he stand there so calmly? Why give me my earring? Even if it isn’t made of useful metals, I might find a way to use it against him.

Her instincts told her he was trying an old street ploy – kind of like throwing your enemy a dagger to make him attack. Yomen wanted to spring any traps she was planning. It seemed a silly move. How could he possibly hope to best a Mistborn?

Unless he himself is a Mistborn, Vin thought. He feels he can beat me.

He has atium, and is ready to burn it when I try something.

Vin did nothing; made no attack. She wasn’t certain if her instincts about Yomen were right, but that didn’t really matter. She couldn’t attack, for the earring had no hidden secret. The truth was, she simply wanted it back because it felt comfortable in her ear. She was accustomed to wearing it.

“Interesting,” Yomen said. “Regardless, you are about to discover one of the reasons I have left you without a gag…” With that, he raised a hand toward the door. He clasped his hands behind his back as a servant opened the door, showing in an unarmed soldier in the white and brown of Elend’s livery.

You should kill him, Ruin whispered in her mind. All of them.

“Lady Venture,” Yomen said without looking at her. “I must ask you not to speak to this man except when I indicate, and answer only as I request. Otherwise, he will have to be executed, and a fresh messenger sent for from your army.”

The soldier paled. Vin just frowned, eyeing the obligator king. Yomen was obviously a calm man, and he wanted to appear harsh. How much of it was an act?

“You can see that she is alive, as promised,” Yomen said to the soldier.

“How do we know this is not a kandra in disguise?” the soldier asked.

“You can ask your question,” Yomen said.

“Lady Venture,” the soldier said, “what did you have for dinner the night before you went to the party inside the city?”

It was a good question to ask. A kandra would have interrogated her about important moments – such as her first meeting with Elend. Something like a meal, however, was so random that no kandra would have thought to ask about it. Now, if Vin could remember…

She looked at Yomen. He nodded – she could answer. “Eggs,” she said. “Fresh eggs that I bought in the city, during one of my spying trips.”

The man nodded.

“You have your answer, soldier,” Yomen said. “Report to your king that his wife is still alive.”

The soldier withdrew and the servants closed the door. Vin sat back on the bench, waiting for a gag.

Yomen remained where he was, looking at her.

Vin looked back. Finally, she spoke. “How long do you think that you can keep Elend placated? If you know anything of him at all, then you will realize that he is a king first, and a man second. He will do what he needs to do, even if it means my death.”

“Eventually, perhaps,” Yomen said. “However, for now, the stall is effective. They say that you are a blunt woman, and appreciate brevity. Therefore, I will be straightforward with you. My purpose in capturing you was not to use you as leverage against your husband.”

“Is that so,” she said flatly. “Why did you capture me, then?”

“It is simple, Lady Venture,” Yomen said. “I captured you so that I could execute you.”

If he expected surprise from her, she didn’t give it. She just shrugged. “Sounds like an unnecessarily formal term. Why not just cut my throat while I was drugged?”

“This city is a place of law,” Yomen said. “We do not kill indiscriminately.”

“This is war,” Vin said. “If you wait for ‘discrimination’ before you kill, you’ll have a lot of unhappy soldiers.”

“Your crime is not one of war, Lady Venture.”

“Oh? And am I to know this crime, then?”

“It is the most simple of all crimes. Murder.”

Vin raised an eyebrow. Had she killed someone close to this man? Perhaps one of the noble soldiers in Cett’s retinue, back a year ago when she’d assaulted Keep Hasting?

Yomen met her eyes, and she saw something in them. A loathing that he kept hidden behind the calm front. No, she hadn’t killed one of his friends or relatives. She’d killed someone far more important to him.

“The Lord Ruler,” she said.

Yomen turned away again.

“You can’t honestly intend to try me for that,” Vin said. “It’s ridiculous.”

“There will be no trial,” Yomen said. “I am the authority in this city, and need no ceremony to give me direction or permission.”

Vin snorted. “I thought you said this was a place of law.”

“And I am that law,” Yomen said calmly. “I believe in letting a person speak for themselves before I make my decision. I will give you time to prepare your thoughts – however, the men who will be guarding you have orders to kill you if it ever looks like you are putting something unapproved into your mouth.”

Yomen glanced back at her. “I’d be very careful while I eat or drink, if I were you. Your guards have been told to err on the side of safety, and they know that I will not punish them if they accidentally kill you.”

Vin paused, cup of water still held lightly in her fingers.

Kill him, Ruin’s voice whispered. You could do it. Take a weapon from one of those soldiers, then use it on Yomen.

Vin frowned. Ruin still used Reen’s voice – it was familiar, something that had always seemed a part of her. Discovering that it belonged to that thing… it was like finding out that her reflection really belonged to someone else, and that she’d never actually seen herself.

She ignored the voice. She wasn’t sure why Ruin would want her to try killing Yomen. After all, Yomen had captured her – the obligator king was working on Ruin’s side. Plus, Vin doubted her ability to cause the man any harm. Chained, lacking offensive metals… she’d be a fool to attack.

She also didn’t trust Yomen’s comments about keeping her alive so that she could “speak” in her defense. He was up to something. Yet, she couldn’t fathom what it might be. Why leave her alive? He was too clever a man to lack a reason.

Giving no hint of his motivations, Yomen turned away from her again, looking back out his window. “Take her away.”

55

IT TOOK ELEND MUCH LONGER to get back from the village than it had taken to get there. For one thing, he had left a lot of his coins with the villagers. He wasn’t certain how much good money would do them in the coming weeks, but he’d felt that he had to do something. They were going to have a rough time of it the next few months. Their food stores nearly depleted, their homes burned by koloss, their water sources contaminated by ash, their capital – and king – besieged by Elend himself…

I have to stay focused, he told himself, walking through the falling ash. I can’t help every village. I have to worry about the larger picture.

A picture that included using a force of koloss to destroy another man’s city. Elend gritted his teeth, continuing to walk. The sun was creeping toward the horizon, and the mists had already started to appear, lit by the blazing fire of red sunlight. Behind him tromped some thirty thousand koloss. His new army.

That was another reason it took him a bit longer to get back. He wanted to walk with the koloss army, rather than jumping ahead of them, in case their Inquisitor appeared to steal them back. He still couldn’t believe that such a large group hadn’t been under any kind of direction.

I attacked a koloss army on my own, he thought as he slogged through a patch of thigh-deep ash. I did it without Vin’s help, intent on defeating their Inquisitor by myself.

How had he thought to fight an Inquisitor on his own? Kelsier himself had only barely been able to defeat one of the things.

Vin has killed three now, he thought. We took them on together, but she was the one who killed each one.

He didn’t begrudge her the abilities she had, but he did feel occasional glimmers of envy. That amused him. It had never bothered him when he’d been an ordinary man, but now that he was Mistborn too, he found himself coveting her skill.

And even with her skill, she had been captured. Elend tromped along, feeling a weight he couldn’t shake. Everything just seemed wrong to him. Vin imprisoned, while he was free. Mist and ash suffocating the land. Elend, despite all his powers, was unable to do anything to protect the people – and the woman – he loved.

And that was the third reason that he walked ploddingly with his koloss, rather than returning immediately to his camp. He needed some time to think. Some time alone. Perhaps that was what had driven him to leave in the first place.

He’d known that their work was dangerous, but he’d never really thought that he might lose her. She was Vin. She always got out. She survived.

But what if, this time, she didn’t?

He’d always been the vulnerable one – the common person in a world of Mistborn and koloss. The scholar who couldn’t fight, who had to depend on Vin for protection. Even during the last year of fighting, she’d stayed close to him. If she’d been in danger, he’d been in danger, and there hadn’t really been time to think about what would happen if he survived and she didn’t.

He shook his head, pushing through the ash. He could have used koloss to force a trail for him. For the moment, however, he wanted to be apart even from them. So, he walked ahead, a lone figure in black on a field of solid ash backlit by a setting red sun.

The ashfalls were getting far worse. Before he’d left the village, he’d spent a day having his koloss clear the streets and rebuild some of the homes. Yet, with the rate at which the ash was falling, the mist and even the possibility of other wandering koloss were becoming secondary problems. The ash. It alone would kill them. Already, it buried trees and hills. It was up to his waist in places.

Perhaps if I’d stayed in Luthadel, he thought, working with my scholars, we could have discovered a way to stop this…

No, that was foolish. What would they do? Plug the ashmounts? Find a way to wash all of the ash out into the sea? In the distance ahead of him through the evening mists, he could see a red glow in the sky, even though the sun set on the opposite horizon. He could only assume that the light to the east came from fire and lava rising out of the ashmounts.

What did he do about a dying sky, ash so thick he could barely move through it, and erupting volcanoes? So far, his way of dealing with these things had been to ignore them.

Or, rather, to let Vin worry about them.

That’s really what has me worried, he thought. Losing the woman I love is bad enough. But, losing the one I trusted to fix all this… that’s truly frightening.

It was an odd realization. The deep truth was, he really did trust Vin as more than a person. She was more like a force. Almost a god, even? It seemed silly, thinking about that directly. She was his wife. Even if he was a member of the Church of the Survivor, it felt wrong to worship her, to think her divine.

And he didn’t, not really. But he did trust her. Vin was a person of instinct, while Elend was one of logic and thought. Sometimes, it seemed she could do the impossible simply because she didn’t stop to think about how impossible it really was. If Elend came to a cliff, he stopped, gauging the distance to the other side. Vin just jumped.

What would happen on the day she didn’t reach the other side? What if the events they were tied up in were bigger than two people could hope to solve, even if one of those people was Vin? As he considered it, even the possibility of discovering helpful information in the cache at Fadrex had been a slim hope.

We need help, Elend thought with frustration. He stopped in the ash, the darkness closing around him as night proper finally fell. The mists swirled.

Help. So, what did that mean? Help from some mysterious god like the ones that Sazed had once preached about? Elend had never known a god other than the Lord Ruler. And he’d never really had faith in that creature – though, meeting Yomen had changed his perspective on how some people worshipped the Lord Ruler.

Elend stood, looking up at the sky, watching the flakes of ash fall. Continuing their silent, yet ceaseless, barrage against the land. Like the raven feathers of a soft pillow used to suffocate a sleeping victim.

We are doomed, he thought. Behind him, the koloss stopped their march, waiting upon his silent order. That’s it. It’s all going to end.

The realization wasn’t crushing. It was gentle, like a final tendril of smoke from a dying candle. He suddenly knew that they couldn’t fight – that everything they’d done over the last year had been pointless.

Elend slumped to his knees. The ash came up to his chest. Perhaps this was one final reason why he’d wanted to walk home alone. When others were around, he felt as if he had to be optimistic. But, alone, he could face the truth.

And there, in the ash, he finally just gave up.

Someone knelt down beside him.

Elend jumped backward, scrambling to his feet and scattering ash. He flared pewter belatedly, giving himself the tense strength of a Mistborn about to attack. But, there was nobody beside him. He froze, wondering if he’d been imagining things. And then, burning tin and squinting in the darkness of the ashen night, he finally saw it. A creature of mist.

It wasn’t really composed of mist. Rather, it was outlined in mist. The random shiftings suggested its figure, which was roughly that of a man. Elend had seen this creature twice before. The first time, it had appeared to him in the wilderness of the Northern Dominance.

The second time, it had stabbed him in the gut, leaving him to bleed to death.

Yet, that had been an attempt to get Vin to take the power at the Well of Ascension and use it to heal Elend. The thing’s intentions had been good, even if it had nearly killed Elend. Plus, Vin said that this creature had led her to the bit of metal that had somehow turned Elend into an Allomancer.

The mist spirit watched him, its figure barely distinguishable in the patterns of flowing mists.

“What?” Elend asked. “What do you want of me?”

The mist spirit raised its arm and pointed to the northeast.

That’s what it did the first time it met me. It just pointed, as if trying to get me to go somewhere. I didn’t understand what it meant then either.

“Look,” Elend said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “If you want to say something, why not just say it?”

The mist spirit stood quietly in the mists.

“At least write it,” Elend said. “The pointing just isn’t working.” He knew that the creature – whatever it was – had some corporeality. After all, it had managed to stab Elend handily enough.

He expected the creature to just continue standing there. However, to Elend’s surprise, it followed the command, kneeling down in the ash. It reached out with a misty hand, and began to scratch in the ash. Elend took a step forward, cocking his head to see what the thing was writing.

I will kill you, the words said. Death, death, death.

“Well… that’s pleasant,” Elend said, feeling an eerie chill.

The mist spirit seemed to slump. It knelt in the ash, making no impression in the ground.

Such odd words to write, Elend thought, when it seemed to be trying to get me to trust it… “It can change your words, can’t it?” Elend asked. “The other force. It can rewrite pieces of text on paper, so why not things scratched in ash?”

The mist spirit looked up.

“That’s why you ripped the corners off of Sazed’s papers,” Elend said. “You couldn’t write him a note, because the words would just get changed. So, you had to do other things. More blunt things – like pointing.”

The creature stood.

“So, write more slowly,” Elend said. “Use exaggerated motions. I’ll watch the movements of your arm, and form the letters in my mind.”

The mist spirit began immediately, waving its arms about. Elend cocked his head, watching its motions. He couldn’t make any sense of them, let alone form letters out of them.

“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “That isn’t working. Either it’s changing things, or you just don’t know your letters.”

Silence.

Wait, Elend thought, glancing at the text on the ground. If the text changed…

“It’s here, isn’t it,” he said, feeling a sudden and icy chill. “It’s here with us now.”

The mist spirit remained still.

“Bounce around for a yes,” Elend said.

The mist spirit began to wave its arms as it had before.

“Close enough,” Elend said, shivering. He glanced around, but could see nothing else in the mists. If the thing Vin had released was there, then it made no impression. Yet, Elend thought he could feel something different. A slight increase in wind, a touch of ice in the air, the mists moving about more agitatedly. Perhaps he was just imagining things.

He focused his attention back on the mist spirit. “You’re… not as solid as you were before.”

The creature remained still.

“Is that a no?” Elend said, frustrated. The creature remained still.

Elend closed his eyes. Forcing himself to focus, thinking back to the logic puzzles of his youth. I need to approach this more directly. Use questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Why would the mist spirit be harder to see now than before? Elend opened his eyes.

“Are you weaker than you were before?” he asked.

The thing waved its arms.

Yes, Elend thought.

“Is it because the world is ending?” Elend asked.

More waving.

“Are you weaker than the other thing? The thing Vin set free?”

Waving.

“A lot weaker?” Elend asked.

It waved, though it seemed a bit disconsolate this time.

Great, Elend thought. Of course, he could have guessed that. Whatever the mist spirit was, it wasn’t a magical answer to their problems. If it were, it would have saved them by now.

What we lack most is information, Elend thought. I need to learn what I can from this thing.

“Are you related to the ash?” he asked.

No motion.

“Are you causing the ashfalls?” he asked.

No motion.

“Is the other thing causing the ashfalls?”

This time, it waved.

Okay. “Is it causing the mists to come in the day too?”

No motion.

“Are you causing the mists to come in the day?”

It seemed to pause in thought at this one, then it waved about less vigorously than before.

Is that a “maybe“? Elend wondered. Or a “partially“?

The creature fell still. It was getting harder and harder to see it in the mists. Elend flared his tin, but that didn’t make the creature any more distinct. It seemed to be… fading.

“Where was it you wanted me to go?” Elend asked, more for himself than expecting an answer. “You pointed… east? Did you want me to go back to Luthadel?”

It waved with half-enthusiasm again.

“Do you want me to attack Fadrex City?”

It stood still.

“Do you not want me to attack Fadrex City?”

It waved vigorously.

Interesting, he thought.

“The mists,” Elend said. “They’re connected to all this, aren’t they?”

Waving.

“They’re killing my men,” Elend said.

It stepped forward, then stood still, somehow looking urgent.

Elend frowned. “You reacted to that. You mean to say they aren’t killing my men?”

It waved.

“That’s ridiculous. I’ve seen the men fall dead.”

It stepped forward, pointing at Elend. He glanced down at his sash. “The coins?” he asked, looking up.

It pointed again. Elend reached into his sash. All that was there were his metal vials. He pulled one out. “Metals?”

It waved vigorously. It just continued to wave and wave. Elend looked down at the vial. “I don’t understand.”

The creature fell still. It was getting more and more vague, as if it were evaporating.

“Wait!” Elend said, stepping forward. “I have another question. One more before you go!”

It stared him in the eyes.

“Can we beat it?” Elend asked softly. “Can we survive?”

Stillness. Then, the creature waved just briefly. Not a vigorous wave – more of a hesitant one. An uncertain one. It evaporated, maintaining that same wave, the mists becoming indistinct and leaving no sign that the creature had been there.

Elend stood in the darkness. He turned and glanced at his koloss army, who waited like the trunks of dark trees in the distance. Then he turned back, scanning for any further signs of the mist spirit. Finally, he just turned and began to tromp his way back to Fadrex. The koloss followed.

He felt… stronger. It was silly – the mist spirit hadn’t really given him any useful information. It had been almost like a child. The things it had told him were mostly just confirmations of what he’d already suspected.

Yet, as he walked, he moved with more determination. If only because he knew there were things in the world he didn’t understand – and that meant, perhaps, there were possibilities he didn’t see. Possibilities for survival.

Possibilities to land safely on the other side of the chasm, even when logic told him not to jump.

56

SPOOK STOOD IN THE DARK CAVERN, looking at his board and paper. He had it propped up, like an artist’s canvas, though he wasn’t sketching images, but ideas. Kelsier had always outlined his plans for the crew on a charcoal board. It seemed like a good idea, even though Spook wasn’t explaining plans to a crew, but rather trying to work them out for himself.

The trick was going to be getting Quellion to expose himself as an Allomancer before the people. Durn had told them what to look for, and the crowds would be ready, waiting for confirmation of what they had been told. However, for Spook’s plan to work, he’d have to catch the Citizen in a public place, then get the man to use his powers in a way that was obvious to those watching.

I can’t let him just Push on a distant metal, then, he thought, scratching a note to himself on the charcoal board. I’ll need him to shoot into the air, or perhaps blast some coins. Something visible, something we can tell everyone to watch for.

That would be tough, but Spook was confident. He had several ideas scratched up on the board, ranging from attacking Quellion at a rally to tricking him into using his powers when he thought nobody was looking. Slowly, the thoughts were jelling into a cohesive plan.

I really can do this, Spook thought, smiling. I always felt such awe for Kelsier’s leadership abilities. But, it’s not as hard as I thought.

Or, at least, that was what he told himself. He tried not to think about the consequences of a failure. Tried not to think about the fact that he still held Beldre hostage. Tried not to worry about the fact that when he awoke some mornings – his tin having burned away during the night – his body felt completely numb, unable to feel anything until he got more metal as fuel. Tried not to focus on the riots and incidents his appearances, speeches, and work among the people were causing.

Kelsier kept telling him not to worry. That should be enough for him. Shouldn’t it?

After a few minutes, he heard someone approaching, footsteps quiet – but not too quiet for him – on the stone. The rustle of a dress, yet without perfume, let him know exactly who it was.

“Spook?”

He lowered the charcoal and turned. Beldre stood at the far side of his “room.” He’d made himself an alcove between several of the storage shelves, partitioned off with sheets – his own personal office. The Citizen’s sister wore a beautiful noble gown of green and white.

Spook smiled. “You like the dresses?”

She looked down, flushing slightly. “I… haven’t worn anything like this in years.”

“Nobody in this city has,” Spook said, setting down the charcoal and wiping his fingers on a rag. “But, then, that makes it pretty easy to get them, if you know which buildings to loot. It looks like I matched your size pretty well, eh?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, drifting forward. The gown really did look good on her, and Spook found it a little difficult to focus as she drew closer. She eyed his charcoal board, then frowned. “Is… that supposed to make any sense?”

Spook shook himself free of his trance. The charcoal board was a mess of scratches and notations. That, in itself, would have made it difficult enough to read. There was, however, something else that made it even more incomprehensible.

“It’s mostly written in Eastern street slang,” Spook said.

“The language you grew up speaking?” she said, fingering the board’s edge, careful not to touch the writing itself, lest she smudge it.

Spook nodded.

“Even the words are different,” she said. “Wasing?”

“It kind of means ‘was doing,’ ” Spook explained. “You start sentences with it. ‘Wasing the run of there’ would mean ‘I was running to that place.’ ”

“Wasing the where of how of the finds,” Beldre said, smiling slightly to herself as she read from the board. “It sounds like gibberish!”

“Wasing the how of wanting the doing,” Spook said, smiling, falling into a full accent. Then he flushed, turning away.

“What?” she asked.

Why do I always act so foolish around her? he thought. The others always made fun of my slang – even Kelsier thought it was silly. Now I start speaking it before her?

He’d been feeling confident and sure as he studied his plans before she arrived. Why was it that the girl could always make him fall out of his leadership role and go back to being the old Spook? The Spook who had never been important.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of the accent,” Beldre said. “I think it’s kind of charming.”

“You just said it was gibberish,” Spook said, turning back to her.

“But that’s the best part!” Beldre said. “It’s gibberish on purpose, right?”

Spook remembered with fondness how his parents had responded to his adoption of the slang. It had been a kind of power, being able to say things that only his friends could understand. Of course, he’d started speaking in it so much that it had been hard to switch back.

“So,” Beldre said, eyeing the board. “What does it say?”

Spook hesitated. “Just random thoughts,” he said. She was his enemy – he had to remember that.

“Oh,” she said. Something unreadable crossed her face, then she turned away from the board.

Her brother always banished her from his conferences, Spook thought. Never told her anything important. Left her feeling like she was useless…

“I need to get your brother to use his Allomancy in front of the people,” Spook found himself saying. “To let them see that he’s a hypocrite.”

Beldre looked back.

“The board is filled with my ideas,” Spook said. “Most of them aren’t very good. I’m kind of leaning toward just attacking him, making him defend himself.”

“That won’t work,” Beldre said.

“Why not?”

“He won’t use Allomancy against you. He wouldn’t expose himself like that.”

“If I threaten him strongly enough he will.”

Beldre shook her head. “You promised not to hurt him. Remember?”

“No,” Spook said, raising a finger. “I promised to try to find another way. And, I don’t intend to kill him. I just need to make him think that I’d kill him.”

Beldre fell silent again. His heart lurched.

“I won’t do it, Beldre,” Spook said. “I won’t kill him.”

“You promise that?”

Spook nodded.

She looked up at him, then smiled. “I want to write him a letter. Perhaps I can talk him into listening to you; we could avoid the need for this in the first place.”

“All right…” Spook said. “But, you realize I’ll have to read the letter to make certain you’re not revealing anything that could hurt my position.”

Beldre nodded.

Of course, he’d do more than read it. He’d rewrite it on another sheet of paper, changing the line order, and then add a few unimportant words. He’d worked on too many thieving crews to be unaware of ciphers. But, assuming that Beldre was being honest with him, a letter from her to Quellion was a good idea. It couldn’t help but strengthen Spook’s position.

He opened his mouth to ask whether or not her sleeping accommodations were acceptable, but cut himself off as he heard someone approaching. Harder footsteps this time. Captain Goradel, he guessed.

Sure enough, the soldier appeared around the corner to Spook’s “room” a short time later.

“My lord,” the soldier said. “You should see this.”

The soldiers were gone.

Sazed looked through the window with the others, inspecting the empty plot of ground where Quellion’s troops had been camped for the last few weeks, watching the Ministry building.

“When did they leave?” Breeze asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Just now,” Goradel explained.

The move felt ominous to Sazed for some reason. He stood beside Spook, Breeze, and Goradel – though the others seemed to take the soldiers’ retreat as a good sign.

“Well, it will make sneaking out easier,” Goradel noted.

“More than that,” Spook said. “It means I can incorporate our own soldiers in the plan against Quellion. We’d never have gotten them out of the building secretly with half an army on our doorstep, but now…”

“Yes,” Goradel said. “But where did they go? Do you think Quellion is suspicious of us?”

Breeze snorted. “That, my dear man, sounds like a question for your scouts. Why not have them search out where that army went?”

Goradel nodded. But then, to Sazed’s slight surprise, the soldier looked toward Spook for a confirmation. Spook nodded, and the captain moved off to give the orders.

He looks to the boy over Breeze and I, Sazed thought. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Sazed himself had agreed to let Spook take the lead, and to Goradel, all three of them – Sazed, Breeze, Spook – were probably equal. All were in Elend’s inner circle, and of the three, Spook was the best warrior. It made sense for Goradel to look to him as a source of authority.

It just felt strange to see Spook giving orders to the soldiers. Spook had always been so quiet during the days of the original crew. And yet, Sazed was beginning to respect the boy too. Spook knew how to give orders in a way that Sazed could not, and he had shown remarkable foresight in his preparations in Urteau, as well as his plans to overthrow Quellion. He had a flair for the dramatic that Breeze kept saying was remarkable.

And yet, there was that bandage on the boy’s eyes, and the other things he hadn’t explained. Sazed knew that he should have pushed harder for answers, but the truth was that he trusted Spook. Sazed had known Spook from the lad’s young teenage years, when he’d barely been capable of communicating with others.

As Goradel moved off, Spook looked to Sazed and Breeze. “Well?”

“Quellion is planning something,” Breeze said. “Seems too early to jump to conclusions, though.”

“I agree,” Spook said. “For now, we go forward with the plan.”

With that, they split up. Sazed turned, making his way back down and over to the far side of the cavern – to where a large group of soldiers worked in an area well lit with lanterns. On his arms, he wore the familiar weight of his copperminds – two on his forearms, two on his upper arms. In them sat the knowledge of engineering he needed to complete the task Spook had assigned him.

Lately, Sazed didn’t know what to think. Each time he climbed the ladder and looked out over the city, he saw worse signs. The ashfalls were heavier. The earthquakes were growing more and more frequent, and more and more violent. The mists were lingering later and later in the day. The sky grew dark, the red sun more like a vast bleeding scar than a source of light and life. The ashmounts made the horizon red even during the night.

It seemed to him that the end of the world should be a time when men found faith, not a time when they lost it. Yet, the little time that he’d devoted to studying the religions in his portfolio had not been encouraging. Twenty more religions eliminated, leaving just thirty potential candidates.

He shook his head to himself, moving among the toiling soldiers. Several groups worked on wooden contraptions filled with rocks – weight systems that would fall to block off the water running into the cavern. Others worked on the system of pulleys that would lower the mechanism. After about a half hour or so, Sazed determined that they were all doing their tasks well, and returned to his calculations. However, as he walked to his table, he saw Spook approaching him.

“Riots,” Spook said, falling into step beside Sazed.

“Excuse me, Lord Spook?”

“That’s where the soldiers went. Some people started a fire, and the soldiers guarding us were needed to put it out before the whole city went up. There’s a lot more wood here than there is in Central Dominance cities.”

Sazed frowned. “Our actions here are becoming dangerous, I fear.”

Spook shrugged. “Seems like a good thing to me. This city is on the edge of snapping, Saze. Just like Luthadel was when we took control.”

“Only the presence of Elend Venture kept that city from destroying itself,” Sazed said quietly. “Kelsier’s revolution could easily have turned into a disaster.”

“It will be all right,” Spook said.

Sazed eyed the young man as the two of them walked through the cavern. Spook seemed to be trying very hard to project an air of confidence. Perhaps Sazed was just growing cynical, but he found it difficult to be as optimistic as Spook.

“You don’t believe me,” Spook said.

“I’m sorry, Lord Spook,” Sazed said. “It’s not that… it’s just that I seem to have trouble having faith in anything lately.”

“Oh.”

They walked silently for a while, eventually finding themselves at the edge of the glassy underground lake. Sazed paused beside the waters, his worries chewing at his insides. He stood for a long moment, feeling frustrated, but not really having an outlet.

“Don’t you even worry, Spook?” Sazed finally asked. “Worry that we’ll fail?”

“I don’t know,” Spook said, shuffling.

“And, it’s so much more than this,” Sazed said, waving back at the work crews. “The very sky seems to be our enemy. The land is dying. Don’t you wonder what good any of this is? Why we even struggle? We’re all doomed anyway!”

Spook flushed. Then, finally, he looked down. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “I… I understand what you’re doing, Sazed. You’re trying to find out if I doubt myself. I guess you can see through me.”

Sazed frowned, but Spook wasn’t looking.

“You’re right,” the young man said then, wiping his brow, “I do wonder if I’ll fail. I guess Tindwyl would be annoyed at me, wouldn’t she? She didn’t think that leaders should doubt themselves.”

That gave Sazed pause. What am I doing? he thought, horrified at his outburst. Is this what I’ve really become? During most of my life, I resisted the Synod, rebelling against my own people. Yet, I was at peace, confident that I was doing the right thing.

Now I come here, where people need me most, and I just sit around and snap at my friends, telling them that we’re just going to die?

“But,” Spook said, looking up, “though I doubt myself, I still think we’ll be all right.”

Sazed was surprised at the hope he saw in the boy’s eyes. That’s what I’ve lost.

“How can you say that?” Sazed asked.

“I don’t know, really,” Spook said. “I just… Well, do you remember that question you asked me when you first got here? We were standing by the lake, just over there. You asked me about faith. You asked what good it was, if it just led people to hurt each other, like Quellion’s faith in the Survivor has done.”

Sazed looked out over the lake. “Yes,” he said softly. “I remember.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since,” Spook said. “And… I think I might have an answer.”

“Please.”

“Faith,” Spook said, “means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”

Sazed frowned.

“It means that there will always be a way,” Spook whispered, staring forward, eyes glazed, as if seeing things that Sazed could not.

Yes, Sazed thought. That is what I have lost. And it’s what I need to get back.

57

YOU SHOULD KILL THEM.

Vin looked up as she heard a pair of guards pass the door to her cell. There was one good thing about Ruin’s voice – it tended to warn her when people were nearby, even if it did always tell her to kill them.

A part of her did wonder if, in fact, she was mad. After all, she saw and heard things that nobody else could. However, if she were mad, there would really be no way for her to realize it. So, she simply decided to accept what she heard, and move on.

In truth, she was glad for Ruin’s voice on occasion. Other than Ruin, she was alone in the cell. All was still. Even the soldiers did not speak – likely at Yomen’s orders. Plus, each time Ruin spoke, she felt as if she learned something. For instance, she had learned that Ruin could either manifest in person or affect her from a distance. When its actual presence was not with her in the cell, Ruin’s words were far more simple and vague.

Take, for instance, Ruin’s order that she kill the guards. She couldn’t follow that suggestion, not from within the cell. It wasn’t so much a specific order as it was an attempt to change her inclinations. Again, that reminded her of Allomancy, which could exert a general influence over a person’s emotions.

General influence…

Something suddenly occurred to her. She quested out, and – sure enough – she could still feel the thousand koloss that Elend had given her. They were under her control still, distant, obeying the general orders she’d given them before.

Could she use them somehow? Deliver a message to Elend, perhaps? Get them to attack the city and free her? As she considered them, both plans seemed flawed. Sending them to Fadrex would just get them killed, as well as risk upsetting whatever plans Elend had for a potential attack. She could send them to find Elend, but that would probably just get them killed by the camp guards, who would be afraid they were bloodlusting. Plus, what would she have them do if they did get to him? She could order them to take actions, like attack or pick someone up, but she’d never tried something as delicate as ordering one to speak certain words.

She tried forming those words in her head and getting them to the koloss, but all she sensed back was confusion. She’d have to work on that some more. And, as she considered, she wondered if getting a message to Elend would really be the best way to use them. It would let Ruin know about a potential tool she had that, maybe, he hadn’t noticed.

“I see that he finally found a cell for you,” a voice said.

Vin looked up, and there he was. Still wearing Reen’s form, Ruin stood in the small cell with her. He maintained a straight-backed posture, standing almost benevolently over her. Vin sat up on her cot. She’d never thought that of all her metals, she would miss bronze so much. When Ruin returned to visit in “person,” burning bronze had let her feel him via bronzepulses and gave her warning that he had arrived, even if he didn’t appear to her.

“I’ll admit that I’m disappointed in you, Vin,” Ruin said. He used Reen’s voice, but he imbued it with a sense of… age. Of quiet wisdom. The fatherly nature of that voice, mixed with Reen’s face and her own knowledge of the thing’s desire to destroy, was disturbing.

“The last time you were captured and locked away without metals,” Ruin continued, “not a night passed before you’d killed the Lord Ruler and overthrown the empire. Now you’ve been soundly imprisoned for what… a week now?”

Vin didn’t respond. Why come taunt me? Does it expect to learn something?

Ruin shook its head. “I would have thought at the very least that you’d have killed Yomen.”

“Why are you so concerned with his death?” Vin asked. “It seems to me that he’s on your side.”

Ruin shook its head, standing with hands clasped behind its back. “You still don’t understand, I see. You’re all on my side, Vin. I created you. You’re my tools – each and every one of you. Zane, Yomen, you, your dear Emperor Venture…”

“No. Zane was yours, and Yomen is obviously misguided. But Elend… he’ll fight against you.”

“But he can’t,” Ruin said. “That’s what you refuse to understand, child. You cannot fight me, for by the mere act of fighting you advance my goals.”

“Evil men, perhaps, help you,” Vin said. “But not Elend. He’s a good person, and not even you can deny that.”

“Vin, Vin. Why can’t you see? This isn’t about good or evil. Morality doesn’t even enter into it. Good men will kill as quickly for what they want as evil men – only the things they want are different.”

Vin fell silent.

Ruin shook its head. “I keep trying to explain. This process we are engaged in, the end of all things – it’s not a fight, but a simple culmination of inevitability. Can any man make a pocket watch that won’t eventually wind down? Can you imagine a lantern that won’t eventually burn out? All things end. Think of me as a caretaker – the one who watches the shop and makes certain that the lights are turned out, that everything is cleaned up, once closing time arrives.”

For a moment, he made her question. There was some truth in his words, and seeing the changes in the land these last few years – changes that started before Ruin was even released – did make her wonder.

Yet, something about the conversation bothered her. If what Ruin said was completely true, then why did he care about her? Why return and speak to her?

“I guess that you’ve won, then,” she said quietly.

“Won?” Ruin asked. “Don’t you understand? There was nothing for me to win, child. Things happen as they must.”

“I see,” Vin said.

“Yes, perhaps you do,” Ruin said. “I think that you just might be able to.” It turned and began to walk quietly from one side of the cell toward the other. “You are a piece of me, you know. Beautiful destroyer. Blunt and effective. Of all those I’ve claimed over this brief thousand years, you are the only one I think just might be able to understand me.”

Why, Vin thought, it’s gloating! That’s why Ruin is here – because it wants to make certain that someone understands what it has accomplished! There was a feeling of pride and victory in Ruin’s eyes. They were human emotions, emotions that Vin could understand.

At that moment, Ruin stopped being an it in her mind, and instead became a he.

Vin began to think – for the first time – that she could find a way to beat Ruin. He was powerful, perhaps even incomprehensible. But she had seen humanity in him, and that humanity could be deceived, manipulated, and broken. Perhaps it was this same conclusion that Kelsier had drawn, after looking into the Lord Ruler’s eyes that fateful night when he had been captured. She finally felt as if she understood him, and what it must have felt like to undertake something so bold as the defeat of the Lord Ruler.

But Kelsier had years to plan, Vin thought. I… I don’t even know how long I have. Not long, I would guess. Even as she thought, another earthquake began. The walls trembled, and Vin heard guards cursing in the hallway as something fell and broke. And Ruin… he seemed to be in a state of bliss, his eyes closed, mouth open slightly and looking pleasured as the building and city rumbled.

Eventually, all fell still. Ruin opened his eyes, staring her down. “This work I do, it’s about passion, Vin. It’s about dynamic events; it’s about change! That is why you and your Elend are so important to me. People with passion are people who will destroy – for a man’s passion is not true until he proves how much he’s willing to sacrifice for it. Will he kill? Will he go to war? Will he break and discard that which he has, all in the name of what he needs?”

It’s not just that Ruin feels that he’s accomplished something, Vin thought, he feels that he’s overcome. Despite what he claims, he feels that he’s won – that he’s defeated something… but who or what? Us? We would be no adversary for a force like Ruin.

A voice from the past seemed to whisper to her from long ago. What’s the first rule of Allomancy, Vin?

Consequence. Action and reaction. If Ruin had power to destroy, then there was something that opposed him. It had to be. Ruin had an opposite, an opponent. Or, he once had.

“What did you do to him?” Vin asked.

Ruin hesitated, frowning as he turned toward her.

“Your opposite,” Vin said. “The one who once stopped you from destroying the world.”

Ruin was silent for a long moment. Then he smiled, and Vin saw something chilling in that smile. A knowledge that he was right. Vin was part of him. She understood him.

“Preservation is dead,” Ruin said.

“You killed him?”

Ruin shrugged. “Yes, but no. He gave of himself to craft a cage. Though his throes of agony have lasted several thousand years, now, finally, he is gone. And the bargain has come to its fruition.”

Preservation, Vin thought, a piece of a gigantic whole clicking into place. The opposite of Ruin. A force like that couldn’t have destroyed his enemy, because he would represent the opposite of destruction. But imprisonment, that would be within his powers.

Imprisonment that ended when I gave up the power at the Well.

“And so you see the inevitability,” Ruin said softly.

“You couldn’t create it yourself, could you?” Vin asked. “The world, life. You can’t create, you can only destroy.”

“He couldn’t create either,” Ruin said. “He could only preserve. Preservation is not creation.”

“And so you worked together,” Vin said.

“Both with a promise,” Ruin said. “My promise was to work with him to create you – life that thinks, life that loves.”

“And his promise?” Vin asked, fearing that she knew the answer.

“That I could destroy you eventually,” Ruin said softly. “And I have come to claim what was promised me. The only point in creating something is to watch it die. Like a story that must come to a climax, what I have done will not be fulfilled until the end has arrived.”

It can’t be true, Vin thought. Preservation. If he really represents a power in the universe, then he couldn’t really have been destroyed, could he?

“I know what you are thinking,” Ruin said. “You cannot enlist Preservation’s power. He is dead. He couldn’t kill me, you see. He could only imprison me.”

Yes. I figured that last part out already. You really can’t read my mind, can you?

Ruin continued. “It was a villainous act, I must say. Preservation tried to escape our bargain. Would you not call that an evil deed? It is as I said before – good and evil have little to do with ruin or preservation. An evil man will protect that which he desires as surely as a good man.”

But something is keeping Ruin from destroying the world now, she thought. For all his words about stories and endings, he is not a force that would wait for an “appropriate” moment. There is more to this, more that I’m not understanding.

What is holding him back?

“I’ve come to you,” Ruin said, “because I want you, at least, to watch and see. To know. For it has come.”

Vin perked up. “What? The end?”

Ruin nodded.

“How long?” Vin asked.

“Days,” Ruin said. “But not weeks.”

Vin felt a chill, realizing something. He had come to her, finally revealing himself, because she was captured. He thought that there was no further chance for mankind. He assumed that he had won.

Which means that there is a way to beat him, she thought with determination. And it involves me. But I can’t do it here, or he wouldn’t have come to gloat.

And that meant she had to get free. Quickly.

58

“THROW YOUR WEIGHT HERE,” Sazed said, pointing at a wooden lever. “The counterweights will fall, swinging down all four floodgates and stemming the flow into the cavern. I warn you, however – the explosion of water above will be rather spectacular. We should be able to fill the city’s canals in a matter of hours, and I suspect that a portion of the northern city will be flooded.”

“To dangerous levels?” Spook asked.

“I do not think so,” Sazed said. “The water will burst out through the conduits in the interchange building beside us. I’ve inspected the equipment there, and it appears sound. The water should flow directly into the canals, and from there exit the city. Either way, I would not want to be in those streetslots when this water comes. The current will be quite swift.”

“I’ve taken care of that,” Spook said. “Durn is going to make certain the people know to be clear of the waterways.”

Sazed nodded. Spook couldn’t help but be impressed. The complicated construct of wood, gears, and wire looked like it should have taken months to build, not weeks. Large nets of rocks weighed down the four gates, which hung, ready to block off the river.

“This is amazing, Saze,” Spook said. “With a sign as spectacular as the reappearance of the canal waters, the people will be certain to listen to us instead of the Citizen.” Breeze and Durn’s men had been working hard over the last few weeks, whispering to the people to watch for a miracle from the Survivor of the Flames. Something extraordinary, something to prove – once and for all – who was the rightful master of the city.

“It is the best I could do,” Sazed said with a modest bow of the head. “The seals won’t be perfectly tight, of course. However, that should matter little.”

“Men?” Spook said, turning to four of Goradel’s soldiers. “You understand what you are to do?”

“Yes, sir,” the lead soldier said. “We wait for a messenger, then throw the lever there.”

“If no messenger comes,” Spook said, “throw the switch at nightfall.”

“And,” Sazed said, raising a finger, “don’t forget to twist the sealing mechanism in the other room, plugging the water flow out of this chamber. Otherwise, the lake will eventually empty. Better that we keep this reservoir full, just in case.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said with a nod.

Spook turned, looking back over the cavern. Soldiers bustled about, preparing. He was going to need most of them for the night’s activities. They looked eager – they’d spent too long holed up in the cavern and the building above. To the side, Beldre regarded Sazed’s contraption with interest. Spook broke away from the soldiers, approaching her with a quick step.

“You’re really going to do it?” she said. “Return the water to the canals?”

Spook nodded.

“I sometimes imagined what it would be like to have the waters back,” she said. “The city wouldn’t feel as barren – it would become important, like it was during the early days of the Final Empire. All those beautiful waterways. No more ugly gashes in the ground.”

“It will be a wonderful sight,” Spook said, smiling.

Beldre just shook her head. “It… amazes me that you can be such different people at the same time. How can the man who would do such a beautiful thing for my city also plan such destruction?”

“Beldre, I’m not planning to destroy your city.”

“Just its government.”

“I do what needs to be done.”

“Men say that so easily,” Beldre said. “Yet, everybody seems to have a different opinion of what ‘needs’ to be done.”

“Your brother had his chance,” Spook said.

Beldre looked down. She still carried with her the letter they’d received earlier in the day – a response from Quellion. Beldre’s plea had been heartfelt, but the Citizen had responded with insults, implying that she had been forced to write the words because she was being held prisoner.

I do not fear a usurper, the letter read. I am protected by the Survivor himself. You will not have this city, tyrant.

Beldre looked up. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Give him more time. Please.”

Spook hesitated.

“There is no more time,” Kelsier whispered. “Do what must be done.”

“I’m sorry,” Spook said, turning from her. “Stay with the soldiers – I’m leaving four men to guard you. Not to keep you from fleeing, though they will do that. I want you inside this cavern. I can’t promise that the streets will be safe.”

He heard her sniffle quietly behind him. He left her standing there, then walked toward the gathering group of soldiers. One man brought Spook his dueling canes and singed cloak. Goradel stood at the front of his soldiers, looking proud. “We’re ready, my lord.”

Breeze walked up beside him, shaking his head, dueling cane tapping the ground. He sighed. “Well, here we go again…”

The evening’s occasion was a speech Quellion had been publicizing for some time. He had stopped executions recently, as if finally realizing that the deaths were contributing to the instability of his rule. He apparently intended to swing back toward benevolence, holding rallies, emphasizing the wonderful things he was doing for the city.

Spook walked alone, a little ahead of Breeze, Allrianne, and Sazed, who chatted behind. Some of Goradel’s soldiers followed as well, wearing common Urteau garb. Spook had split their force, sending it by different paths. It wasn’t dark yet – to Spook the falling sun was bright, forcing him to wear his blindfold and spectacles. Quellion liked to hold his speeches in the evening, so that the mists arrived during them. He liked the implied connection to the Survivor.

A figure hobbled out of a side streetslot next to Spook. Durn walked with a stooped posture, a cloak obscuring his figure. Spook respected the twisted man’s insistence on leaving the security of the Harrows, going out to run jobs himself. Perhaps that was why he’d ended up as leader of the city’s underground.

“People are gathering, as expected,” Durn said, coughing quietly. “Some of your soldiers are already there.”

Spook nodded.

“Things are… unsettled in the city,” Durn said. “It worries me. Segments I can’t control have already started looting some of the prohibited noble mansions. My men are all busy trying to get people out of the streetslots.”

“It will be all right,” Spook said. “Most of the populace will be at the speech.”

Durn was silent for a moment. “Word is that Quellion is going to use his speech to denounce you, then finally order an attack on the Ministry building where you’re staying.”

“It’s a good thing we won’t be there, then,” Spook said. “He shouldn’t have withdrawn his soldiers, even if he did need them to keep order in the city.”

Durn nodded.

“What?” Spook said.

“I just hope you can handle this, lad. Once this night is through, the city will be yours. Treat it better than Quellion did.”

“I will,” Spook said.

“My men will create a disturbance for you at the meeting. Farewell.” Durn took the next left, disappearing down another streetslot alleyway.

Ahead, the crowds were already gathering. Spook put up the hood of his cloak, keeping his eyes obscured as he wove his way through the crowd. He quickly left Sazed and the others behind, pushing his way up a ramp to the old city square – the place Quellion had chosen for his speech. His men had erected a wooden stage, from which the Citizen could face the crowd. The speech was already in progress. Spook stopped just a short distance away from a guard patrol. Many of Quellion’s soldiers surrounded the stage, eyeing the crowd.

Minutes passed, and Spook spent them listening to Quellion’s voice ring, yet paying no attention to the words. Ash fell around him, dusting the crowd. Mists began to twist in the air.

He listened, listened with ears no other man had. He used Allomancy’s strange ability to filter and ignore – hearing through the chatter and whispers and shuffles and coughs, just as he could somehow see through the obscuring mists. He heard the city. Yells in the distance.

It was beginning.

“Too fast!” a voice whispered, a beggar moving up to Spook’s side. “Durn sends word. Riots in the streets, ones he didn’t start! Durn cannot control them. My lord, the city is beginning to burn!”

“It was a night not unlike this one,” another voice whispered. Kelsier’s voice. “A glorious night. When I took the city of Luthadel, and made it mine.”

A disturbance began at the back of the crowd; Durn’s men were causing their distraction. Some of Quellion’s guards pulled away to quell this nearby riot. The Citizen continued to shout his accusations. Spook heard his own name in Quellion’s words, but the context was simply noise.

Spook tilted his head back, looking up at the sky. Ash fell toward him, as if he were sailing through it into the air. Like a Mistborn.

His hood fell back. Men around him whispered in surprise.

A clock rang in the distance. Goradel’s soldiers rushed the stage. Around him, Spook could feel a glow rising. The fires of rebellion, burning in the city. Just like the night he had overthrown the Lord Ruler. The torches of revolution. Then the people had put Elend on the throne.

This time, it would be Spook they elevated.

Weak no more, he thought. Never weak again!

The last of Quellion’s soldiers rushed away from the stage, moving into combat with Goradel’s men. The crowd shied away from the battle, but nobody ran. They had been prepared well for the night’s events. Many would be waiting, watching for the signs Spook and Durn had promised – signs revealed just a few hours before, to minimize the risk of Quellion’s spies learning Spook’s plan. A miracle in the canals, and proof that Quellion was an Allomancer.

If the Citizen – or even any of his guards on the stage – shot coins or used Allomancy to leap into the air, the people would see. They would know that they had been deceived. And that would be the end. The crowd surged away from the cursing soldiers, and their withdrawal left Spook standing alone. Quellion’s voice finally trailed off. Some of his soldiers were rushing up to get him off the stage.

Quellion’s eyes found Spook. Only then did they show fear.

Spook leaped. He couldn’t Steelpush himself, but his legs were fueled by the power of flared pewter. He soared up, easily cresting the lip of the stage, landing in a crouch. He pulled free a dueling cane, then rushed the Citizen.

Behind him, people began to cry out. Spook heard his name, Survivor of the Flames. Survivor. He wouldn’t just kill Quellion, but destroy him. Undermining his rule, just as Breeze had suggested. At that moment, the Soother and Allrianne would be manipulating the crowd, keeping them from running away in a panic. Holding them there.

So they could watch the show Spook was about to give.

The guards at Quellion’s side saw Spook too late. He dropped the first one easily, crushing the man’s skull inside his helmet. Quellion screamed for more help.

Spook swung at another man, but his target moved out of the way, supernaturally quick. Spook pulled to the side just in time to dodge a blow, the weapon grazing the side of his cheek. The man was an Allomancer – a pewter burner. The large brute who carried no sword, but instead an obsidian-edged cudgel.

Pewter isn’t spectacular enough, Spook thought. The people won’t know how to tell if a man is swinging too quickly or enduring too much. I have to make Quellion shoot coins.

The Thug backed away, obviously noting Spook’s own increased speed. He kept his weapon raised warily, but did not attack. He just had to stall, letting his companion pull Quellion away. The Thug would be no easy fight – he would be more skilled than Spook, and even stronger.

“Your family is free,” Spook lied quietly. “We saved them earlier. Help us capture Quellion – he no longer has a hold on you.”

The Thug paused, lowering his weapon.

“Kill him!” Kelsier snapped.

That hadn’t been Spook’s plan, but he responded to the prompting. He dodged inside the Thug’s reach. The man turned in shock, and as he did, Spook delivered a backhanded blow to the skull. Spook’s dueling cane shattered. The Thug stumbled to the ground, and Spook snatched up the man’s fallen weapon, the obsidian-lined cudgel.

Quellion was at the edge of the stage. Spook jumped, sailing across the wooden platform. It was all right for him to use Allomancy; he hadn’t preached against it. Only Quellion the hypocrite needed to fear using his powers.

Spook cut down the remaining guard as he landed – the jagged shards of obsidian ripping through flesh. The soldier fell, and Quellion spun.

“I don’t fear you!” Quellion said, voice shaking. “I’m protected!”

“Kill him,” Kelsier ordered, appearing visibly on the stage a short distance away. Usually, the Survivor only spoke in his mind; he hadn’t actually appeared since that day in the burning building. It meant important things were happening.

Spook grabbed the Citizen by the front of his shirt, yanking him forward. Spook raised the length of wood, blood dripping from the obsidian shards onto the side of his hand.

“No!”

Spook froze at that voice, then glanced to the side. She was there, shoving her way through the crowd, approaching the open space before the stage.

“Beldre?” Spook asked. “How did you get out of the cavern?”

But, of course, she couldn’t hear him. Only Spook’s supernatural hearing had allowed him to pick her voice out of the sounds of fear and battle. He met her eyes across the distance, and saw her whispered words more than he heard them.

Please. You promised.

“Kill him!”

Quellion chose that moment to try and pull away. Spook turned, yanking back again – harder this time, nearly ripping Quellion’s shirt free as he threw the man down to the wooden platform. Quellion cried out in pain, and Spook raised his brutal weapon with both hands.

Something sparked in the firelight. Spook barely felt the impact, though it shook him. He stumbled, looking down, seeing blood on his side. Something had pierced the flesh of his left arm and shoulder. Not an arrow, though it had moved like one. His arm drooped, and though he couldn’t feel the pain, it seemed that his muscles weren’t working properly.

Something hit me. A… coin.

He turned. Beldre stood at the front of the crowd, crying, her hand raised toward him.

She was there that day I was captured, Spook thought numbly, at her brother’s side. He always keeps her near. To protect her, we thought.

Or the other way around?

Spook stood up straighter, Quellion whimpering in front of him. Spook’s arm dripped a trail of blood from where Beldre’s coin had hit, but he ignored it, staring at her.

“You were always the Allomancer,” he whispered. “Not your brother.”

And then, the crowd began to scream – likely prompted by Breeze. “The Citizen’s sister is an Allomancer!”

“Hypocrite!”

“Liar!”

“He killed my uncle, yet left his own sister alive!”

Beldre cried out as the people, carefully prepared and planted, saw the proof that Spook had promised them. It didn’t have the target he had intended, but the machine he had set in motion could not be halted now. The people gathered around Beldre, yelling in anger, shoving her among themselves.

Spook stepped toward her, raising his wounded arm. Then a shadow fell on him.

“She was always planning to betray you, Spook,” Kelsier said.

Spook turned, looking at the Survivor. He stood tall and proud, like the day when he’d faced the Lord Ruler.

“You kept waiting for an assassin,” Kelsier said. “You didn’t realize that Quellion had already sent one. His sister. Didn’t it strike you as strange that he’d let her get away from him and enter the enemy’s own base? She was sent there to kill you. You, Sazed, and Breeze. The problem is, she was raised a pampered rich girl. She’s not used to killing. She never was. You were never really in danger from her.”

The crowd surged, and Spook spun, worried about Beldre. However, he calmed a bit as he realized that the people were simply pulling her toward the stage. “Survivor!” people were chanting. “Survivor of the Flames!”

“King!”

They cast Beldre before him, pushing her up onto the platform. Her scarlet clothing was ripped, her figure battered, her auburn hair a mess. To the side, Quellion groaned. Spook appeared to have broken his arm without realizing it.

Spook moved to help Beldre. She was bleeding from several small cuts, but she was alive. And she was crying.

“She was his bodyguard,” Kelsier said, stepping over to Beldre. “That’s why she was always with him. Quellion isn’t an Allomancer. He never was.”

Spook knelt beside the girl, cringing at her bruised form.

“Now, you must kill her,” Kelsier said.

Spook looked up, blood seeping from the cut on the side of his face, where the Thug had grazed him. Blood dripped from his chin. “What?”

“You want power, Spook?” Kelsier said, stepping forward. “You want to be a better Allomancer? Well, power must come from somewhere. It is never free. This woman is a Coinshot. Kill her, and you can have her ability. I will give it to you.”

Spook looked down at the weeping woman. He felt surreal, as if he were not quite there. His breathing was labored, each breath coming as a gasp, his body shaking despite his pewter. People chanted his name. Quellion was mumbling something. Beldre continued to cry.

Spook reached up with his bloodied hand, ripping off his blindfold, spectacles tumbling free. He stumbled to his feet, looking out over the city.

And saw it burning.

The sounds of rioting echoed through the streets. Flames burned in a dozen different spots, lighting the mists, casting a hellish haze over the city. Not the fires of rebellion at all. The fires of destruction.

“This is wrong…” Spook whispered.

“You will take the city, Spook,” Kelsier said. “You will have what you always wanted! You’ll be like Elend, and like Vin. Better than either! You’ll have Elend’s titles and Vin’s power! You’ll be like a god!”

Spook turned away from the burning city as something caught his attention. Quellion was reaching out with his good arm, reaching toward…

Toward Kelsier.

“Please,” Quellion whispered. It seemed as if he could see the Survivor, though nobody else around them could. “My lord Kelsier, why have you forsaken me?”

“I gave you pewter, Spook,” Kelsier said angrily, not looking at Quellion. “Will you deny me now? You must pull free one of the steel spikes that support this stage. Then, you must take the girl, and press her to your chest. Kill her with the spike, and drive it into your own body. That is the only way!”

Kill her with the spike… Spook thought, feeling numb. This all began that day when I nearly died. I was fighting a Thug in the market; I used him as a shield. But… the other soldier struck anyway, stabbing through his friend and into me.

Spook stumbled away from Beldre, kneeling beside Quellion. The man cried out as Spook forced him down against the wooden planks.

“That’s right,” Kelsier said. “Kill him first.”

But Spook wasn’t listening. He ripped Quellion’s shirt, looking at the shoulder and chest. There was nothing odd about either. The Citizen’s upper arm, however, had a length of metal piercing it. It appeared to be bronze. Hand shaking, Spook pulled the metal free. Quellion screamed.

But so did Kelsier.

Spook turned, bloodied bronze spike in his hand. Kelsier was enraged, hands like claws, stepping forward.

“What are you?” Spook asked.

The thing screamed, but Spook ignored it, looking down at his own chest. He ripped open his shirt, exposing the mostly healed wound in his shoulder. A glimmer of metal still shone there, the tip of the sword. The sword that had passed through an Allomancer – killing the man – and then entered Spook’s own body. Kelsier had told him to leave the broken shard there. As a symbol of what Spook had gone through.

The point of the shard protruded from Spook’s skin. How had he forgotten about it? How had he ignored such a relatively large piece of metal inside of his body? Spook reached for it.

“No!” Kelsier said. “Spook, do you want to go back to being normal? Do you want to be useless again? You’ll lose your pewter, and go back to being weak, like you were when you let your uncle die!”

Spook wavered.

No, Spook thought. Something is wrong. I was supposed to expose Quellion, get him to use his Allomancy, but I just attacked instead. I wanted to kill. I forgot about plans and preparation. I brought destruction to this city.

This is not right!

He pulled the glass dagger from his boot. Kelsier screamed terribly in his ears, but Spook reached up anyway, slicing the flesh of his chest. He reached in with pewter-enhanced fingers and grabbed the steel shard that was embedded inside.

Then, he ripped the bit of metal free, casting it across the stage, crying out at the shock of pain. Kelsier vanished immediately. And so did Spook’s ability to burn pewter.

It hit him all at once – the fatigue of pushing himself so hard during his time in Urteau. The wounds he’d been ignoring. The sudden explosion of light, sound, smell, and sensation that pewter had let him resist. It overcame him like a physical force, crushing him down. He collapsed to the platform.

He groaned, unable to think anymore. He could simply let the blackness take him…

Her city is burning.

Blackness…

Thousands will die in the flames.

The mists tickled his cheeks. In the cacophony, Spook had let his tin dim, relieving him of sensation, leaving him feeling blissfully numb. It was better that way.

You want to be like Kelsier? Really like Kelsier? Then fight when you are beaten!

“Lord Spook!” The voice was faint.

Survive!

With a scream of pain, Spook flared tin. As the metal always did, it brought a wave of sensations – thousands of them, shocking him at once. Pain. Feeling. Hearing. Sounds, smells, lights.

And lucidity.

Spook forced himself to his knees, coughing. Blood still streamed down his arm. He looked up. Sazed was running toward the platform.

“Lord Spook!” Sazed said, puffing as he arrived. “Lord Breeze is trying to damp down riots, but we pushed this city too far, I think! The people will destroy it in their rage.”

“The flames,” Spook croaked. “We have to put out the fires. The city is too dry; it has too much wood. It will burn, with everyone in it.”

Sazed looked grave. “There is no way. We must get out! This riot will destroy us.”

Spook glanced to the side. Beldre was kneeling beside her brother. She’d bound his wound, and then made a makeshift sling for his arm. Quellion glanced at Spook, looking dazed. As if he’d just awoken from a dream.

Spook stumbled to his feet. “We won’t abandon the city, Sazed.”

“But–”

“No!” Spook said. “I ran from Luthadel and left Clubs to die. I will not run again! We can stop the flames. We just need water.”

Sazed paused.

“Water,” Beldre said, standing.

“The canals will fill soon,” Spook said. “We can organize fire brigades – use the flood to stop the flames.”

Beldre glanced down. “There will be no flood, Spook. The guards you left… I attacked them with coins.”

Spook felt a chill. “Dead?”

She shook her head, hair disheveled, her face scratched. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I didn’t look.”

“The waters have not come yet,” Sazed said. “They… should have been released by now.”

“Then we will bring them!” Spook snapped. He spun at Quellion, then stumbled, feeling dizzy. “You!” he said, pointing at the Citizen. “You would be king of this city? Well, lead this people, then. Get control of them and prepare them to put out the fires.”

“I can’t,” Quellion said. “They’ll kill me for what I’ve done.”

Spook wobbled, light-headed. He steadied himself against a beam, holding his head. Beldre took a step toward him.

Spook looked up, meeting Quellion’s eyes. The fires of the city were so bright that his flared tin made it difficult to see. Yet, he dared not release the metal – only the power of noise, heat, and pain was keeping him conscious.

“You will go to them,” Spook said. “I don’t give a damn if they rip you apart, Quellion. You’re going to try to save this city. If you don’t, I’ll kill you myself. Do you understand?”

The Citizen froze, then nodded.

“Sazed,” Spook said, “take him to Breeze and Allrianne. I’m going to the cache. I’ll bring the floodwaters to the canals, one way or another. Have Breeze and the others form fire brigades to douse the flames as soon as there is water.”

Sazed nodded. “It is a good plan. But Goradel will lead the Citizen. I am coming with you.”

Spook nodded wearily. Then, as Sazed moved off to get the guard captain – who had apparently established a defensive perimeter around the square – Spook climbed from the stage and forced himself to begin moving toward the cache.

Soon, he noticed someone catch up to him. Then, after a few moments, that person passed him and ran on. Part of his mind knew it was a good thing that Sazed had decided to move on – the Terrisman had created the mechanism that would flood the city. He would throw the lever. Spook wasn’t needed.

Keep moving.

He did, walking on, as if each step were in atonement for what he had done to the city. After a short time, he realized that someone was at his side, tying a bandage on his arm.

He blinked. “Beldre?”

“I betrayed you,” she said, looking down. “But, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t let you kill him. I…”

“You did the right thing,” Spook said. “Something… something was interfering, Beldre. It had your brother. It almost had me. I don’t know. We have to keep walking, though. The lair is close. Just up the ramp.”

She supported him as they walked. Spook smelled the smoke before he got there. He saw the light, and felt the heat. He and Beldre climbed up to the top of the ramp, practically crawling, for she was nearly as battered as he was. However, Spook knew what he would find.

The Ministry building, like so much of the town, was burning. Sazed stood before it, hand raised before his eyes. To Spook’s overenhanced senses, the brilliance of the flames was so great that he had to look away. The heat made him feel as if he were standing just inches from the sun.

Sazed tried to get closer to the building, but was forced back. He turned toward Spook, shielding his face. “It’s too hot!” he said. “We need to find some water, or perhaps some sand. Put out the fire before we can get below.”

“Too late…” Spook whispered. “It will take too long.”

Beldre turned, looking over her city. To Spook’s eyes, smoke seemed to twist and rise everywhere in the bright sky, reaching up, as if to meet the falling ash.

He set his jaw, then stumbled forward, toward the fire.

“Spook!” she cried out. But, she needn’t have worried. The flames were too hot. The pain was so strong that he had to pull back before he’d crossed even half the distance. He stumbled away, joining Beldre and Sazed, gasping quietly, blinking tears. His heightened senses made it even more difficult for him to approach the flames.

“There is nothing we can do here,” Sazed said. “We must gather crews and come back.”

“I’ve failed,” Spook whispered.

“No more than any of us,” Sazed said. “This is my fault. The emperor put me in command.”

“We were supposed to bring security to the city,” Spook said. “Not destruction. I should be able to stop those fires. But, it hurts too much.”

Sazed shook his head. “Ah, Lord Spook. You are no god, to command fire at your whim. You are a man, like the rest of us. We’re all just… men.”

Spook allowed them to pull him away. Sazed was right, of course. He was just a man. Just Spook. Kelsier had chosen his crew with care. He’d left a note for them, when he died. It had listed the others – Vin, Breeze, Dockson, Clubs, and Ham. He’d spoken of them, of why he’d picked them.

But not Spook. The only one who didn’t fit in.

I named you, Spook. You were my friend.

Isn’t that enough?

Spook froze, forcing the others to stop. Sazed and Beldre looked at him. Spook stared into the night. A night that was far too bright. The fires burned. The smoke was pungent.

“No,” Spook whispered, feeling fully lucid for the first time since the evening’s violence had started. He pulled himself free of Sazed’s grip and ran back toward the burning building.

“Spook!” Two voices yelled in the night.

Spook approached the flames. His breathing grew forced, and his skin grew hot. The fire was bright – consuming. He dashed right for it. Then, at the moment when the pain became too great, he extinguished his tin.

And became numb.

It happened just as it had before, when he had been trapped in the building without any metals. Flaring tin for so long had expanded his senses, but now that he wasn’t burning it at all, those same senses became dull. His entire body grew deadened, lacking feeling or sensation.

He burst through the doorway into the building, flames raining around him.

His body burned. But, he couldn’t feel the flames, and the pain could not drive him back. The fire was bright enough that even his weakened eyes could still see. He dashed forward, ignoring fire, heat, and smoke.

Survivor of the Flames.

He knew the fires were killing him. Yet, he forced himself onward, continuing to move long after the pain should have rendered him unconscious. He reached the room at the back, skidding and sliding down the broken ladder.

The cavern was dark. He stumbled through it, pushing his way past shelves and furniture, making his way along the wall, moving with a desperation that warned him that his time was short. His body wasn’t working right anymore – he had pushed it too far, and he no longer had pewter.

He was glad for the darkness. As he finally stumbled against Sazed’s machine, he knew that he would have been horrified to see what the flames had done to his arms.

Groaning quietly, he felt for and found the lever – or, through numb hands, what he hoped was the lever. His fingers no longer worked. So, he simply threw his weight against it, moving the gears as required.

Then he slid down to the ground, feeling only cold and dark.