Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (25 page)

Yet, Ruin is not omnipotent ,
Vin thought.
If it were, there would have been no f ight. It wouldn 't have
needed to trick me into releasing it.

It cannot know my thoughts.
. . .

Even that knowledge was frustrating. What good were her thoughts ? Always before, she'd had Sazed, Elend, or TenS oon to talk with about problems like this. This wasn't a task for Vin; she was no scholar. Yet, Sazed had turned his back on his studies, TenS oon had returned to his people, and Elend was far too busy lately to worry about anything but his army and its politics. That left Vin. And she still found reading and scholarship to be stuf fy and boring.

Yet, she was also becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of doing what was necessary, even if she found it distastef ul . She was no longer j ust her own person. She belonged to the New Empire. She had been its knife now it was time to try a different role.

I have to do it , she thought, sitting in the red sunlight. There is a puzzle here something to be solved.
What was it Kelsier liked to say?

There's always
another secret.

She remembered Kelsier, standing boldly before a small group of thieves, proclaiming that they would overthrow the Lord Ruler and free the empire.
We're thieves,
he'd said. And we're extraordinarily good ones. We can rob the unrobbable and fool the un f oolable. We know how to take an incredibly large task and break
it down to manageable pieces, then deal with each of those pieces.
That day, when he'd written up the team's goals and plans
on a small board, Vin had been amazed by how possible he had made an impossible task seem. That day, a little bit of her had begun to believe that Kelsier could overthrow the Final Empire.

A ll right , Vin thought. I'll begin like Kelsier did, b y listing the things that I know
f or certain.
There
had
been a power at the Well of Ascension, so that much about the stories was true. There had also been something alive, imprisoned in or near the Well. It had tricked Vin into using the power to destroy its bonds. Maybe she could have used that power to destroy Ruin instead, but she'd given it up.

She sat thoughtfully, tapping her finger against the back of the logbook. She could still remember wisps of what it had felt like to hold that power. It had awed her, yet at the same time felt natural and right. In fact, while she held it, ever ything had f elt natural. The workings of the world, the ways of men . . . it was like the power had been more than simple capability. It had been understanding as well.

That was a tangent. She needed to focus on what she knew before she could philosophize on what she needed to do. The power was real, and Ruin was real. Ruin had retained some ability to change the world while confined Sazed had confirmed that his texts had been altered to suit Ruin's purpose. Now Ruin was free, and Vin assumed that it was behind the vi olent mist killings and the falling ash. Though , she reminded herself, I don 't know either of those things
for certain.
What did she know about Ruin? She had touched it, felt it, in that moment she had released it. It had a need to destroy, yet it was not a force of simple chaos. It didn't act randomly. It planned and thought. And, it didn't seem able to do anything it wanted. Almost as if it followed specif ic rules . . . She paused. "Elend? " she called.

The emperor turned from his p lace beside the prow.

"What is the first rule of Allomancy?" Vin asked. "The first thing I taught you? "

"Consequence," Elend said. "Every action has consequences. When you Push on something heavy, it will push you back. If you Push on something light, it will fly away." It was the first lesson that Kelsier had taught Vin, as well as she assumed the first lesson his master had taught him.

"It's a good rule," Elend said, turning back to his contemplation of the horizon. "It works for all things in life. If you throw something into the air, it will come back down. If you bring an army into a man's kingdom, he will react . . ."

Consequence , she thought, frowning. Like things falling back when
thrown into the sky. That's what
Ruin's actions f eel like to me. Consequences.
Perhaps it was a remnant of touching the power, or perhaps j ust some rationalization her unconscious mind was giving her. Yet, she felt a logic to Ruin. She didn't understand that logic, but she could recognize it.

Elend turned back toward her. "That's why I like Allomancy, actually. Or, at least, the theory of it. The skaa whisper about it, call it mystical, but it's really quite rational . You can tell what an Allomantic Push is going to do as certainly as you can tell what will happen when you drop a rock off the side of the boat. For every Push, there is a Pull. There are no exceptions. It makes simple, logical sense unlike the ways of men, which are filled with flaws, irregularities, and double meanings . Allomancy is a thing of nature."

A thing of nature.

For every Push, there is a Pull. A consequence.

"That's important," Vin whispered.

"What?"

A consequence.

The thing she had f elt at the Well of Ascension had been a thing of destruction, like Alendi described in his logbook. But, it hadn't been a creature, not like a person. It had been a force a thinking force, but a force nonetheless. And forces had rules. Allomancy, weather, even the pull of the ground. The world was a place that made sense. A place of logic. Every Push had a Pull. Every force had a consequence.

She had to discover, then, the laws relating to the thing she was fighting. That would tell her how to beat it.

"Vin?" Elend asked, studying her face.

Vin looked away. "It's nothing, Elend. Nothing I can speak of, at least." He watched her for a moment.
He thinks that you're plotting against him
, Reen whispered from the back of her mind. Fortunately, the days when she had listened to Reen's words were long past. Indeed, as she watched Elend, she saw him nod slowly, and accept her explanation. He turned back to his own contemplations . . 55 201

Vin rose, walking forward, laying a hand on his arm. He sighed, raising the arm and wrapping it around her shoulders, pulling her close. That arm, once the weak arm of a scholar, was now muscular and firm.

"What are you thinking about? " Vin asked.

"You know," Elend said.

"It was necessary, Elend. The soldiers had to get exposed to the mists eventually."

"Yes," Elend said. "But there's something more, Vin. I f ear I'm becoming like
him
."

"Who ? "

"The Lord Ruler."

Vin snorted quietly, pulling closer to him.

"This is something he would have done," Elend said. "Sacrificing his own men for a tactical advantage."

"You explained this to Ham, " Vin said. "We can't afford to waste time."

"It's still ruthless," Elend said. "The problem isn't that those men died, it's that I was so willing to make it happen. I feel . . .
brutal
, Vin. How far will I go to see my goals achieved? I'm marching on another man's kingdom to take it from him."

"For the greater good."

"That has been the excuse of tyrants throughout all time. I know it. Yet, I press on.
This
is why I didn't want to be emperor. This is why I let Penrod take my throne from me back during the siege. I didn't want to be the kind of leader who had to do things like this. I want to protect, not besiege and kill!

But, is there any other way? Everything I do seems like it must be done. Like exposing my own men in the mists. Like marching on Fadrex City. We have to get to that storehouse it's the only lead we have that could even possibly give us some clue as to what we're supposed to do! It all makes such sense . Ruthless, brutal sense."

Ruthlessness is the ver y most practical of emotions, Reen's voice whispered. She ignored it. " You've been listening to Cett too much."

"Perhaps," Elend said. "Yet, his is a logic I find difficult to ignore. I grew up as an idealist, Vin we both know that's true. Cett provides a kind of balance. The things he says are much like what Tindwyl used to say."

He paused, shaking his head. "Just a short time ago, I was talking with Cett about Allomantic Snapping. Do you know what the noble houses did to ensure that they found the Allomancers among their children?"

"They had them beaten," Vin whispered. A person's Allomantic powers were always latent until something traumatic brought them out. A person had to be brought to the brink of death and survive only then would their powers be awakened. It was called Snapping.

Elend nodded. "It was one of the great, dirty secrets of so-called noble life. Families of ten lost children to the beatings those beatings had to be brutal for them to evoke Allomantic abilities. Each house was diff erent, but they generally specified an age before adolescence. When a boy or girl hit that age, they were taken and beaten near to death."

Vin shivered slightly.

"I vividly remember mine," El end said. "Father didn't beat me himself, but he did watch. The saddest thing about the beatings was that most of them were pointless. Only a handful of children, even noble children, became Allomancers. I didn't. I was beaten for nothing."

"You stopped those beatings, Elend," Vin said softly . He had draf ted a bill soon after becoming king. A person could choose to undergo a supervised beating when they came of age, but Elend had stopped it from happening to children.

"And I was wrong," Elend said softly.

Vin looked up.

"Allomancers are our most powerful resource, Vin," Elend said, looking out over the marching soldiers. "Cett lost his kingdom, nearly his life, because he couldn't marshal enough Allomancers to protect him. And I made it illegal to search out Allomancers in my population."

"Elend, you stopped the beating of children."

"And if those beatings could save lives?" Elend asked. "Like exposing my soldiers could save lives?

What about Kelsier? He only gained his powers as a Mistborn
af
ter he was trapped in the Pits of Hathsin. What would have happened if he'd been beaten properly as a child? He would always have been Mistborn. He could have saved his wif e ."

"And then wouldn't have had the courage or motivation to overthrow the Final Empire."

"And is what we have any better? " Elend asked. "The longer I've held this throne, Vin, the more I've come to realize that some of the things the Lord Ruler did weren't evil, but simply effective. Right or wrong, he maintained order in his kingdom."

Vin looked up, catching his eyes, forcing him to look down at her. "I don't like this hardness in you, Elend."

He looked out over the blackened canal waters. "It doesn't control me, Vin. I don't agree with most of the things the Lord Ruler did. I'm j ust coming to understand him and that understanding worries me." She saw questions in his eyes, but also strengths. He looked down and met her eyes. "I can hold this throne only because I know that at one point, I was willing to give it up in the name of what was right. If I ever lose that, Vin, you need to tell me. All right?"

Vin nodded.

Elend looked back at the horizon again.
What is it he hopes to see?
Vin thought.

"There has to be a balance, Vin," he said. "Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be." He sighed. "But for now," he said, nodding to the side, "we simply have to be satisfied with who we are."

Vin glanced to the side as a small courier skiff from one of the other narrowboats pulled up alongside theirs. A man in simple brown robes stood upon it. He wore large spectacles, as if attempting to obscure the intricate Ministry tattoos around his eyes, and he was smiling happily . Vin smiled herself. Once, she had thought that a happy obligator was
alwa ys
a bad sign. That was before she'd known Noorden. Even during the days of the Lord Ruler, the contented scholar had probably lived most of his life in his own little world. He provided a strange proof that even in the confines of what had once been in her opinion the most evil organization in the empire, one could f ind good men.

"Your Excellency," Noorden said, stepping off of the skiff and bowing. A couple of assistant scribes joined him on the deck, lugging books and ledgers. "Noorden," Elend said, j oining the man on the foredeck. Vin followed. "You have done the counts I asked?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," Noorden said as an aide opened up a ledger on a pile of boxes. "I must say, this was a dif f icult task, what with the army moving about and the like ."

"I'm certain you were thorough as always, Noorden," Elend said. He glanced at the ledger, which seemed to make sense to him, though all Vin saw was a bunch of random numbers.

"What's it say?" she asked.

"It lists the number of sick and dead," Elend said. "Of our thirty-eight thousand, nearly six thousand were taken by the sickness . We lost about five hundred and fif ty."

"Including one of my own scribes," Noorden said, shaking his head. Vin frowned. Not at the death, at something else, something itching at her mind . . .

"Fewer dead than expected," Elend said, pulling thoughtfully at his beard.

"Yes, Your Excellency," Noorden said. "I guess these soldier types are more rugged than the average skaa population. The sickness, whatever it is, didn't strike them as hard."

"How do you know ? " Vin asked, looking up. "How do you know how many
should
have died? "

"Previous experience, my lady," Noorden said in his chatty way. "We've been tracking these deaths with some interest. Since the disease is new, we're trying to determine exactly what causes it. Perhaps that will lead us to a way to treat it. I've had my scribes reading what we can, trying to find clues of other diseases like this. It seems a little like the shakewelts, though that's usually brought on by "

"Noorden," Vin said, frowning. " You have figures then? Exact numbers?"

"That's what His Excellency asked for, my lady."

"How many fell sick to the disease?" Vin asked. "Exactly ? "

"Well, let me see . . ." Noorden said, shooing his scribe away and checking the ledger. "Five thousand two hundred and forty-three."