Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (88 page)

Then, the sun had . . . dropped. It had fallen below the horizon in less than a second, the ground lurching beneath Elend's feet. Part of him assumed that he was going mad. Yet, he could not deny that it was now nighttime, even if his body and one of the city clocks he had visited indicated that it should have been af ternoon. He landed on a building, then jumped of f, Pushing against a broken door handle. He shivered as he moved in the open air of darkness. It was night the stars blazing uncomfortably above and there was no mist. Vin had told him that the mists would protect him. What would protect him now that they were gone? He made his way to Keep Venture, his palace. He found the building to be a burned-out husk. He landed in the courtyard, staring up at his home the place he had been raised trying to make sense of the destruction. Several guards in the brown colors of his livery lay decomposing on the cobblestones. All was still.
What in the hell happened here?
he thought with f rustration. He poked through the building, but found no clues. All had been burned. He left via a broken window on the top floor, then paused at something he saw in the rear courtyard. He dropped to the ground. And there, beneath a patio canopy that had kept of f much of the ash, he found a corpse in a f ine gentlemen's suit lying on the cobbles. Elend rolled it over, noting the sw ord thrust through its stomach and the posture of a suicide. The corpse's fingers still held the weapon.
Penrod,
he thought, recognizing the face. Dead, presumably, by his own hand. Something lay scrawled in charcoal on the patio floor. Elend wiped away the drifted ash, smudging the letters in the process. Fortunately, he could still read them.
I'm
sorry, it read. Something has taken control of me .
.
. of this cit y. I am lucid only part of the time. Better to kill m yself than to cause more destruction. Look toward the
Terris
Dominance
for your people .
Elend turned toward the north. Terris? That seemed like a very odd place in which to seek refuge. If the people of the city had f led, then why would they have left the Central Dominance, the place where the mists were the weakest?

He eyed the scribbles.

Ruin . . . a voice seemed to whi sper.
Lies
. . .

Ruin could change text. Words like Penrod's couldn't be trusted. Elend bid a silent farewell to the corpse, wishing he had the time to bury the old statesman, then dropped a coin to Push himself into the air.

The people of Luthadel had gone somewhere . If Ruin had found a way to kill them, then Elend would have found more corpses. He suspected that if he took the time to search, he could probably find people still hiding in the city. Likely, the disappearance of the mists then the sudden change from day to night had driven them into hiding. Perhaps they had made it to the storage cavern beneath Kredik Shaw. Elend hoped that not many had gone there, considering the damage that had been done to the palace. If there were people there, they would be sealed in.

West . . . the wind seemed to whisper. Pits . . .

Ruin usuall y changes text so that it's very similar to what it said be f ore,
Elend thought.
So . . .
Penrod probabl y did write most of those words, tr ying to tell me where to go to f ind m y people.
Ruin made it sound like they went to the Terris Dominance,
but what
if Penrod originally wrote that
they went to the Terris people ? It made good sense. If he'd fled Luthadel, he would have gone there it
was a place where there was already an established group of refugees, a group
with herds, crops, and food.

Elend turned west, leaving the city, cloak flapping with each Allomantic bound. Suddenly, Ruin's frustration made even more sense to Vin. She f elt she held the power of all creation. Yet, it took everything she had to get even a few words to Elend. She wasn't even certain if he'd heard her or not. She knew him so well, however, that she felt a . . . connection. Despite Ruin's efforts to block her, she f elt as if some part of her had been able to get through to some part of Elend. Perhaps in the same way Ruin was able to communicate with his Inquisitors and followers? Still, her nearimpotence was infuriating. Balance, Ruin spat. Balance imprisoned
me. Preservation's sacri f ice that was to siphon off the part
of me that was stronger, to lock it away, to leave me equal with him again. For a time
.
Only f or a time. And what is time to us, Vin?

Nothing
.

. 181 201

It may seem odd to those reading this that atium was part of the body of a god. However, it is
necessary to understand that when we said "body" we generally meant "power." As my mind has
expanded, I've come to realize that objects and ener gy are actually composed of the very same things,
and can change state from one to another. It makes perf ect sense to me that the power of godhood
would be manif est within the world in physical form. Ruin and Preservation were not nebulous
abstractions. The y were integral parts of existence. In a way, ever y object that existed in the world
was composed of their power
.

A tium, then, was an ob ject that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half
Preservation as, say, a rock would be atium was completel y o f Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were craf
ted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away during the
betra yal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn't truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, f or
they would have regrown eventuall y in a f ew hundred years and continued to deposit atium, as the
place was a natural outlet f or Ruin's trapped power
.

When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin which is, perhaps, why
atium turned people into such e ff icient killing machines. They didn't use up this power, however, but
simpl y made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was ex pended, the power would return to the Pits and
begin to coalesce again just as the power at the Well of A scension would return there again af ter it
had been used
.

78

T H IS IS ,
SAZED THOUGHT,
without a doubt , the oddest dungeon I have ever been in
. Granted, it was only the second time he had been imprisoned. Still, he had observed several prisons in his lifetime, and had read of others. Most were like cages. This one, however, consisted only of a hole in the ground with an iron grate covering the top. S azed scrunched down inside of it, stripped of his metalminds, his legs cramped.

It was
probabl y built for a kandra,
he thought.
One without bones, perhaps?
What would a kandra without bones be like ? A pile of goo ? Or, perhaps, a pile of
muscles?

Either way, this prison had not been meant to hold a man particularly not one as tall as S azed. He could barely move. He reached up, pushing against the grate, but it was secure. A large lock held it in place.

He wasn't certain how long he had been in the pit. Hours ? Perhaps even days. They still hadn't given him anything to eat, though a member of the Third Generation had poured some water on him. Sazed was still wet with it, and he had taken to sucking on the cloth of his robes to assuage his thirst. This is sill y, he thought, not for the first time. The world is ending, and I'm in prison? He was the f inal Keeper, the Announcer. He should be up above, recording events.

Because, truth be told, he was beginning to believe that the world would not end. He had accepted that something, perhaps Preservation itself, was watching over and protecting mankind. He was more and more determined to follow the Terris religion not because it was perfect, but because he would rather believe and have hope. The Hero was real. Sazed believed that. And he had faith in her. He had lived with Kelsier and had helped the man. He had chronicled the rise of the Church of the Survivor during the first years of its development. He had even researched the Hero of Ages with Tindwyl and taken it upon himself to announce Vin as the one who fulfilled the prophecies. But it was only recently that he'd started to have faith in her. Perhaps it was his decision to be someone who saw miracles . Perhaps it was the daunting f ear of the ending that seemed to loom just ahead. Perhaps it was the tension and anxiety. Regardless, somehow, from the chaos, he drew peace. She would come. She would preserve the world. However, Sazed needed to be ready to help. And that meant escaping.

He eyed the metal grate. The lo ck was of f ine steel, the grate itself of iron. He reached up tentatively, touching the bars, draining a bit of his weight and putting it into the iron. Immediately, his body grew lighter. In Feruchemy, iron stored physical weight, and the grate was pure enough to hold a Feruchemical charge. It went against his instincts to use the grate as a metalmind it wasn't portable, and if he had to flee, he'd leave behind all of the power he'd saved. Yet, what good would it be to simply sit in the pit and wait?

He reached up with the other hand, touching the steel lock with one finger. Then, he began to fill it as well, draining his body of speed. He instantly began to feel lethargic, as if his every motion even his breathing was more difficult. It was like he had to push through some thick substance each time he moved. He stayed that way. He had le arned to enter a kind of meditative trance when he f illed metalminds. Often, he would fill many at once, leaving himself sickly, weak, slow, and dull-minded. When he could, it was better to simply . . .

Drift.

He wasn't certain how long the meditation lasted. Occasionally, the guard came to pour water on him. When the sounds came, Sazed would let go and huddle down, pretending to sleep. But, as soon as the guard withdrew, he would reach back up and continue to fill the metalminds. More time passed. Then, he he ard sounds . Sazed huddled down again, then waited expectantly for the shower of water.

"When I sent you back to save my people," a voice growled, "this wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Sazed popped his eyes open, glancing upward, and was surprised to see a canine face looking through the grate. "TenSoon? " S azed asked.

The kandra grunted and stepped back. S azed perked up as another kandra appeared. She wore a delicate True Body made of wood, willowy and almost inhuman. And, she held some keys.

"Quickly, MeLaan," TenSoon growled with his dog's voice. He had apparently switched back to the wolfhound, which made sense . Moving as a horse through the sometimes steep and narrow tunnels of the Homeland would have been diff icult.

The f emale kandra unlocked the grate, then pulled it back. Sazed eagerly climbed free. In the room, he found several other kandra wearing deviant True Bodies . In the corner, the prison guard lay bound and gagged.

"I was seen entering the Homeland, Terrisman," TenS oon said. "So we have little time. What has happened here ? MeLaan told me of your imprisonment KanPaar announced that the First Generation had ordered you taken. What did you do to antagonize them?"

"Not them," Sazed said, stretching his cramped legs. "It was the Second Generation. They have taken the Firsts captive, and plan to rule in their stead." The girl MeLaan gasped. " They would never!"

"They did," Sazed said, standing. "I fear for the safety of the Firsts. KanPaar may have been afraid to kill me because I am human. However, the Firsts . . ." "But," MeLaan said, "the Seconds are kandra. They wouldn't do something like that ! We're not that kind of people ." TenSoon and Sazed shared a look. A ll societies have people who break the rules, child, Sazed thought. Particularly
when power is concerned
. "We have to find the Firsts," TenSoon said. "And recover the Trustwarren."

"We will f ight with you, TenSoon," one of the other kandra said.

"We're f inally throwing them off!" another said. " The Seconds, and their insistence that we serve the humans!"

Sazed frowned at this. What did humans have to do with this conflict? Then, however, he noticed how the others regarded TenSoon.
The dog's body,
he realized.
To
them, TenSoon is a revolutionary of the highest order all because of something V in ordered him to do .

TenSoon met Sazed eyes again, opening his mouth to speak. Then, however, he paused. " They're coming," he said with a curse, his dog's ears flattening. Sazed spun with concern, noti cing shadows on the rock wall of the corridor leading into the prison chamber. The chamber was small, with six or so pit cells in the floor. There were no other entrances.

Despite their brave words, TenSoon's companions immediately shied back, huddling against the wall. They were obviously not accustomed to conflict, particularly with their own kind. TenSoon shared none of their timidity. He charged forward as soon as the group of Fifths entered the room, ramming his shoulder into one's chest, howling and clawing at another.

There is a kandra who f its in
with his people as poorly as I do with my own,
Sazed thought, smiling. He stepped backward, moving up onto the top of the prison grate, touching its metals with his bare feet.

The Fif ths had trouble fighting TenSoon he had trained with Vin, and was apparently quite confident in his dog's body. He kept moving, knocking them over. However, there were five of them, and only one TenSoon. He was forced to retreat.

The wounds in his body close as he orders them, Sazed noticed. That must be why
the guards usually
carr y hammers
.

Which made it fairly obvious how one had to f ight kandra. TenSoon backed up beside Sazed. "I apologize," the dog growled. " This isn't much of a rescue." "Oh, I don't know," S azed said with a smile, the Fifths surrounding them. "You needn't give up so quickly, I think." The Fif ths charged, and Sazed tapped iron from the grate beneath his bare feet. Immediately, his body grew several times heavier than normal, and he grabbed a kandra guard by the arms. Then fell on him.

Sazed always said he wasn't a warrior. However, the number of times he'd said that, then been forced to fight anyway, made him think he was losing that excuse. The truth was, he'd been in far more battles over the last f ew years than he felt he had any right to have survived. Either way, he knew some rudimentary moves and, with both Feruchemy and surprise to aid him, that was about all he needed. Tapping weight increased the density of his body and of his bones, keeping him from damaging himself as he collapsed on top of the soldier. Sazed f elt a satisf ying crack as they hit the grate, S azed's greatly increased weight crushing the kandra guard's bones. They used stone True Bodies, but even that wasn't enough.