Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (93 page)

A powerful peace swelled in Elend. His Allomancy flared bright, though he knew the metals inside of him should have burned away . Only atium remained, and its strange power did not could not give him the other metals. But it didn't matter. For a moment, he was embraced by something greater. He looked up, toward the sun. And he saw just briefly an enormous figure in the air j ust above him. A shif ting, brilliant personage of pure white. Her hands held to his shoulders with her head thrown back, white hair streaming, mist flaring behind her like wings that stretched across the sky.
V in,
he thought with a smile.

Elend looked back down as Marsh screamed and leaped forward, attacking with his axe in one hand, seeming to trail something vast and black like a cloak behind him. Marsh raised his other hand across his face, as if to shield his dead eyes from the image in the air above Elend. Elend burned the last of his atium, flaring it to life in his stomach. He raised his sword in two hands and waited for Marsh to draw close. The Inquisitor was stronger and was a better warrior. Marsh had the powers of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, making him another Lord Ruler. This was not a battle Elend could win. Not with a sword.

Marsh arrived, and Elend thought he understood what it had been like for Kelsier to face the Lord Ruler on that square in Luthadel, all those years ago. Marsh struck with his axe; Elend raised his sword in return and prepared to strike .

Then, Elend burned duralumin with his atium.

Sight, S ound, Strength, Power, Glory, Speed!

Blue lines sprayed from his chest like rays of light. But those were all overshadowed by one thing. Atium plus duralumin. In a f lash of knowledge, Elend felt a mind-numbing wealth of information. All became white around him as knowledge saturated his mind.

"I see now," he whispered as the vision faded, and along with it his remaining metals. The battlef ield returned. He stood upon it, his sword piercing Marsh's neck. It had gotten caught on the spikehead jutting out of Marsh's back, between the shoulder blades.

Marsh's axe was buried in Elend's chest.

The phantom metals Vin had given him burned to life within Elend again. They took the pain away. However, there was only so much that pewter could do, no matter how high it was flared. Marsh ripped his axe free, and Elend stumbled backward, bleeding, letting go of his sword. Marsh pulled the blade free from his neck, and the wound vanished, healed by the powers of Feruchemy. Elend fell, slumping into a pile of koloss bodies . He would have been dead already, save for the pewter. Marsh stepped up to him, smiling. His empty eye socket was . 189 201

wreathed in tattoos, the mark that Marsh had taken upon himself. The price he had paid to overthrow the Final Empire.

Marsh grabbed Elend by the throat, pulling him back up. "Your soldiers are dead, Elend Venture," the creature whispered. "Our koloss rampage inside the kandra caverns. Your metals are gone. You have lost."

Elend felt his life dripping away, the last trickle from an empty glass. He'd been here before, back in the cavern at the Well of Ascension. He should have died then and he'd been terrified. This time, oddly, he was not. There was no regret. Just satisfaction.

Elend looked up at the Inquisitor. Vin, like a glowing phantom, still hovered above them both.

"Lost?" Elend whispered. "We've won, Marsh." "Oh, and how is that?" Marsh asked, dismissive. Human stood at the side of the pit in the center of the cavern room. The pit where Ruin's body had been. The place of victory.

Human stood, dumbfounded, a group of other koloss stepping up to him, looking equally confused. The pit was empty.

"Atium," Elend whispered, tasting blood. "Where is the atium, Marsh? Where do you think we got the power to f ight? You came for that atium? Well it's
gone
. Tell your master that! You think my men and I expected to kill all of these koloss ? There are tens of thousands of them! That wasn't the point at all." Elend's smile widened. "Ruin's body is gone, Marsh. We burned it all away, the others and I. You might be able to kill me, but you'll never get what you came for. And that is why we win." Marsh screamed in anger, demanding the truth, but Elend had spoken it. The deaths of the others meant that they had run out of atium. His men had fought until it was gone, as Elend had commanded, burning away every last bit.

The body of a god. The power of a god. Elend had held it for a moment. More important, he'd destroyed it. Hopefully, that would keep his people safe.
It's up to you now, Vin,
he thought, still f eeling the peace of her touch upon his soul.
I've done what I can
. He smiled at Marsh again, defiantly, as the Inquisitor raised his axe.

The axe took off Elend's head.

Ruin raged and thrashed about, enraged and destructive. Vin only sat quietly, watching Elend's headless body slump back into the pile of blue corpses.
How do you like that!
Ruin scre amed.
I killed
him! I Ruined everything you love! I took it from you!

Vin floated above Elend's
body, looking
down. She reached out with incorporeal fingers, touching
his head, remembering how it had felt to use her power to fuel his Allomancy. She didn't know what she had done . Something akin to what Ruin did when it controlled the koloss, perhaps . Only opposite. Liberating. Serene. Elend was dead. She knew that, and knew that there was nothing she could do. That brought pain, true, but not the pain she had expected. I let him go
long ago,
she thought, stroking his face.
At the Well of Ascension. A llomancy brought him back to me for a time
. She didn't feel the pain or terror that she had known before, when she'd thought him dead. This time, she felt only peace. These last f ew years had been a blessing an extension. She'd given Elend up to be his own man, to risk himself as he wished, and perhaps to die. She would always love him. But she would not cease to function because he was gone.

The opposite, perhaps. Ruin floated directly above her, throwing down insults, telling her how it would kill the others. S azed. Breeze. Ham. Spook.
So f ew le f t of the original crew,
she thought.
Kelsier dead so long ago. Dockson and Clubs slaughtered at the Battle of Luthadel. Yeden dead with
his soldiers. OreSeur taken at Zane's command. Marsh,
fallen
to become an Inquisitor. And the others
who joined us, now gone as well. Tindw yl, TenSoon, Elend
. . . Did Ruin think she would let their sacrif ices be for nothing? She rose, gathering her power. She forced it against the power of Ruin, as she had the other times . Yet, this time was different. When Ruin pushed back, she didn't retreat. She didn't preserve herself. She drove onward.

The confrontation made her divine body tremble in pain. It was the pain of a cold and hot meeting, the pain of two rocks being smashed together and ground to dust. Their forms undulated and rippled in a tempest of power.

And Vin drove on.

Preservation could never destroy you!
she thought, almost screaming it against the agony.
He could
onl y protect. That's why he needed to create humankind. All along, Ruin, this was part of his plan!

He didn't give up part of himsel f , making himself weaker, simply so that he could create intelligent li
fe! He knew he needed something of both Preservation and o f Ruin. Something that could both
protect and destroy. Something that could destroy to protect
.

He gave up his power at the Well , and into the mists, giving it to us so that we could take it. He
always intended this to happen. Y ou think this was your plan? It was his. His all along
. Ruin cried out. Still, she drove on.

You created the thing that can kill you, Ruin,
Vin said.
And you just made one huge f inal mistake.
You shouldn 't have killed Elend
.

You see, he was the only reason I had left to
live .

She didn't shy back, though the conf lict of opposites ripped her apart. Ruin screamed in terror as the force of her power completely melded with Ruin's. Her consciousness now formed and saturated with Preservation moved to touch that of Ruin. Neither would yield. And, with a surge of power, Vin bid farewell to the world, then pulled Ruin into the abyss with her.

Their two minds puf f ed away, like mist under a hot sun.

. 190 201

Once Vin died, the end came quickl y. We were not prepared for it but even all of the Lord Ruler's
planning could not have prepared us for this. How did one prepare for the end of the world itsel f ?

82

SAZED WATCHED QUIETLY
from the mouth of the cavern. Outside, the koloss raged and stomped about, looking confused. Most of the men who had been watching with Sazed had fled. Even most of the soldiers had retreated into the caverns, calling him a fool for waiting. Only General Demoux, who had managed to crawl back to the cavern after his atium ran out, remained, just a few steps into the tunnel . The man was bloody, his arm ending in a tourniquet, his leg crushed. He coughed quietly, waiting for Aslydin to return with more bandages.

Outside, the sun rose into the sky. The heat was incredible, like an oven. Cries of pain echoed from deep within the cavern behind Sazed. Koloss were inside . "She'll come," Sazed whispered. He could see Elend's body. It had fallen back down the pile of koloss corpses. It was stark, bright white and red against the black and b lue of the koloss and ash. "Vin will come," S azed said insistently.

Demoux looked dazed. Too much blood lost. He slumped back, closing his eyes. Koloss began to move toward the cavern mouth, though they didn't have the direction or frenzy they'd displayed before.

"The Hero will come!" Sazed said.

Outside, something appeared, as if from mists, then slumped down in the bodies beside Elend's corpse. It was followed immediately by something else, a second figure, which also f ell motionless . There! S azed thought, scrambling out of the cavern. He dashed past several koloss. They tried to swing for him, but Sazed wore his metalminds. He felt he should
have his
copperminds to use in case he needed to record something important. He wore his ten rings, the ones he'd used to fight during the siege of Luthadel, for he knew that he might need them.

He tapped a bit of steel and dodged the koloss attacks. He moved quickly through the mass of confused-looking koloss, climbing over bodies, moving up to the scrap of white cloak that marked Elend's resting place . His corpse was there, headless.

A small body lay beside his. Sazed fell to his knees, grabbing Vin by the shoulders. Beside her, atop the pile of dead koloss, lay another body . It was that of a man with red hair, one whom S azed di d not recognize, but he ignored it.

For Vin was not moving.

No! he thought, checking for a pulse. There was none. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, but very, very dead.

"This can
not
be!" he yelled, shaking her body again. Several koloss lumbered toward him. He glanced upward. The sun was rising. It was getting hard to breathe for the heat. He f elt his skin burning. By the time the sun reached its zenith, it would likely be so hot the land would burn.

"Is this how it ends?" he screamed toward the sky. "Your Hero is dead! Ruin's power may be broken, the koloss may be lost to him as an army, but
the world will still
die ! " The ash had killed the plants. The sun would burn away anything that remained. There was no food. Sazed blinked out tears, but they dried on his face. "This is how you leave us ? " he whispered. And then, he f elt something. He looked down. Vin's body was smoking slightly. Not from the heat. It seemed to be leaking something . . . or, no. It was connected to something. The twists of mist he saw, they led to a vast white light. He could just barely see it.

He reached out and touched the mist, and felt an awesome power. A power of stability. To the side, the other corpse the one he di dn't recognize was also leaking something. A deep black smoke. Sazed reached out with his other hand, touching the smoke, and felt a dif f erent power more violent. The power of change. He knelt, stunned, between the bodies. And, only then, did it start to make sense.
The prophecies always used the gender-neutral,
he thought.
So that they could refer to either a man
or a woman, we assumed. Or . . . perhaps because they re ferred to a Hero who wasn't reall y either
one?

He stood up. The sun's power overhead
felt insignif icant compared to the twin yet opposite powers that surrounded him.

The Hero would be rejected of his people,
Sazed thought.
Yet, he would save them. Not a warrior,
though he would f ight. Not born a king, but would become one anywa y
. He looked upward again.

Is this what you planned
all along?

He tasted of the power, but drew back, daunted. How could he use such a thing? He was just a man. In the brief glimpse of forces that he touched, he knew that he'd have no hope of using it. He didn't have the training.

"I can't do this," he said through cracked lips, reaching to the sky. "I don't know how. I cannot make the world as it was I never saw it. If I take this power, I will do as the Lord Ruler did, and will only make things worse for my trying. I am simply a man."

Koloss cried out in pain from the burning. The heat was terrible, and around Sazed, trees began to pop and burst into flames. His touch on the twin powers kept him alive, he knew, but he did not embrace them.

"I am no Hero," he whispered, still reaching to the sky.

His arms twinkled, golden. His copperminds, worn on his forearms, reflected the light of the sun. They had been with him for so long, his companions. His knowledge .

Knowledge. . . .

The words of the prophecy were very precise,
he thought suddenly.
They say . . . they say that the
Hero will bear the f uture of the world on his arms
.
Not on his shoulders. Not in his hand s
. On his arms.