Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (65 page)

He didn't begrudge her the abi lities 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 f irst 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 Mist-born and koloss. The scholar who couldn't fight, who had to depend on Vin for protection. Even during the last y ear 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 f ire 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 f ix all this . . . that's truly f rightening
. 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 f elt wrong to worship her, to think her div ine.

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 j umped.

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 hel p , Elend thought with frustration. He stopped in the ash, the darkness closing around him as night proper f inally 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 p ointless .

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 j ust gave up.

Someone knelt down beside him.

Elend jumped backward, scrambling to his feet and scattering ash. He f lared 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 bef ore. The f irst 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 f irst time it met me. It just pointed, as if tr ying 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, f eeling 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 tr ying 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 S azed'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.

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"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
f eel something dif f erent. A slight increase in wind, a touch of ice in the air, the mists moving about more agitatedly. Perhaps he was j ust 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 directl y. 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 f rom 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 c ome 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 j ust 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 sof tly. "Can we survive ? " Stillness. Then, the creature w aved 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 saf ely on the other side of the chasm, even when logic told him not to jump.

. 135 201

I don't know why Preservation decided to use his last bit of li fe appearing to Elend during his trek
back to Fadrex. From what I understand, Elend didn't reall y learn that much from the meeting. By
then, o f course, Preservation was but a shadow of himself and that shadow was under immense
destructive pressure from Ruin
.
Perhaps Preservation or, the remnants of what he had been wanted
to get Elend alone. Or, perhaps he saw Elend kneeling in that f ield, and knew that the emperor of
men was very close to just l ying down in the ash, never to rise again. Either wa y, Preservation did a
ppear, and in doing so ex posed himself to Ruin's attacks. Gone were the days when Preservation
could turn away an Inquisitor with a bare gesture, gone even were the days when he could strike a
man down to bleed and die
.
By the time Elend saw the "mist spirit," Preservation must have been
barel y coherent. I wonder what Elend would have done, had he known that he was in the presence of
a d ying god that on that night, he had been the last witness of Preservation's passing. If Elend had
waited just a f ew more minutes on that ashen f ield, he would have seen a body short of stature, black
hair, prominent nose fall from the mists and slump dead into the ash
.
As it was, the cor pse was le ft alone to be buried in ash. The world was dying. Its gods had to die
with it
.