"We could just let Straff have it," Dockson finally said. "The city, I mean. We could promise to call Vin off. If that is where.this is heading anyway ..."
"Dox," Ham said quietly, "what would Kell think, to hear you talk like thai'.'"
"We could give the city to Jastes Lekal." Breeze said. "Perhaps he can be persuaded to treat the skaa with dignity."
"And let twenty thousand koloss into the city?" Ham asked. "Breeze, have you ever seen what those things can
do?"
Dockson pounded the table. "I'm just giving options. Ham. What else are we going to do?" "Fight," Clubs said. "And die." The room fell silent again.
"You sure know how to kill a conversation, my friend," Breeze finally said.
"It needed to be said," Clubs muttered. "No use fooling yourselves anymore. We can't win a fight, and a fight is where this was always going. The city is going to get attacked. We're going to defend it. And we'll lose.
"You wonder if we should just give up. Well, we're not going to do that. Kell wouldn't let us, and so we won't let ourselves. We'll fight, and we'll die with dignity. Then, the city will burn-but we'll have said something. The Lord Ruler pushed us around for a thousand years, but now we skaa have pride. We fight. We resist. And we die."
"What was this all worth, then?" Ham said with frustration. "Why overthrow the Final Empire? Why kill the Lord Ruler? Why do anything, if it was just going to end like this? Tyrants ruling every dominance, Luthadel smashed to rubble, our crew dead?"
"Because," Sazed said sofdy, "someone had to begin it. While the Lord Ruler ruled, society could not progress. He kept a stabilizing hand on the empire, but it was an oppressive hand as well. Fashion stayed remarkably unchanged for a thousand years, the noblemen always trying to fit the Lord Ruler's ideals. Architecture and science did not progress, for the Lord Ruler frowned on change and invention.
"And the skaa could not be free, for he would not let them. However, killing him did not free our peoples, my friends. Only time will do that. It will take centuries, perhaps-centuries of fighting, learning, and growth. At the beginning, unfortunately and unavoidably, things will be very difficult. Worse even than they were beneath the Lord Ruler."
"And we die for nothing," Ham said with a scowl.
"No," Sazed said. "Not nothing. Lord Hammond. We will die to show that there are skaa who will not be bullied, who will not back down. This is a very important precedent, I think. In the histories and legends, this is the kind of event that inspires. If the skaa are ever to take rule of themselves, there will need to be sacrifices they can look to for motivation. Sacrifices like that of the Survivor himself."
The men sat in silence.
"Breeze." Ham said. "I could use a little more confidence right now."
"Of course," Breeze said, carefully Soothing away the man's anxiety and.fear. His face lost some of its pale pallor, and he sat up a little straighten Just for good measure, Breeze gave the rest of the crew a little of the same treatment.
"How long have you known?" Dockson asked Sazed.
"For some time now. Lord Dockson." Sazed said.
"But, you couldn't have known that Straff would pull back and give us to the koloss. Only Clubs figured that out."
"My knowledge was general. Lord Breeze," Sazed said in his even voice. "It did not relate to the koloss specifically. I have thought for some time that this city would fall. In all honesty, I am deeply impressed with your efforts. This people should long since have been defeated, I think. You have done something grand-something that will be remembered for centuries."
"Assuming anyone survives to tell the story," Clubs noted.
Sazed nodded. "That, actually, is why I called this gathering. There is little chance of those of us who remain in the city surviving-we will be needed .to help with defenses, and if we do survive the koloss attack. Straff will try to execute us. However, it is not necessary for us all to remain in Luthadel for its fall-someone, perhaps, should be sent out to organize further resistance against the warlords."
"I won't leave my men." Clubs grumbled.
"Nor I," Ham said. "Though I did send my family to ground yesterday." The simple phrase meant that he'd had them leave, perhaps to hide in the city's underground, perhaps to escape through one of the passwalls. Ham wouldn't know-and that way he couldn't betray their location. Old habits died hard.
"If this city falls," Dockson said. "ITI be here with it. That's what Kell would expect. I'm not leaving."
"I'll go," Breeze said, looking at Sazed. "Is it too early to volunteer?"
"Urn. actually. Lord Breeze," Sazed said. "I wasn't-"
Breeze held up a hand. "It's all right, Sazed. I believe it's obvious whom you think should be sent away. You didn't invite them to the meeting."
Dockson frowned. "We're going to defend Luthadel to the death, and you want to send away our only Mistbom?"
Sazed nodded his head. "My lords," he said softly, "the men of this city will need our leadership. We gave them this city and put them in this predicament. We cannot abandon them now. But... there are great things at work in this world. Greater things than us, I think. I am convinced that Mistress Vin is part of them.
"Even if these matters are delusions on my part, then Lady Vin still must not be allowed to die in this city. She is the people's most personal and powerful link to the Survivor. She has become a symbol to them, and her skills as a Mistbom give her the best chance of being able to get away, then survive the attacks Straff will undoubtedly send. She will be a great value in the fight to come-she can move quickly and stealthily, and can fight alone, doing much damage, as she proved last night."
Sazed bowed his head. "My lords. I called you here today so that we could decide how to convince her to run, when the rest of us stay to fight. It will not be an easy task, I think."
"She won't leave Elend." Ham said. "He'll have to go, too."
"My thoughts as well. Lord Hammond." Sazed said.
Clubs chewed his lip in thought. "That boy won't be easily convinced to flee. He still thinks we can win this fight."
"And we may yet," Sazed said. "My lords, my purpose is not to leave you without any hope at all. But. the dire circumstances, the likelihood of success ..."
"We know, Sazed," Breeze said. "We understand."
'There have to be others of the crew who can go," Ham said, looking down. "More than just the two."
"I would send Tindwyl with them," Sazed said. "She will carry to my people many discoveries of great importance. I also plan to send Lord Lcstiboumes. He would do little good in the battle, and his abilities as a spy could be of help to Lady Vin and Lord Elend as they try to rally resistance among the skaa.
"However, those four will not be the only ones who survive. Most of the skaa should be safe-Jastes Lekal seems to be able to control his koloss somehow. Even if he cannot, then Straff should arrive in time to protect the city's people."
"Assuming Straff is planning what Clubs thinks he is," Ham said. "He could actually be withdrawing, cutting his losses and leaving Luthadel behind."
"Either way," Clubs said. "Not many can get out. Neither Straff nor Jastes are likely to allow large groups of people to flee the city. Right now, confusion and fear in the streets will serve their purposes far better than depopulation. We might be able to get a few riders on horseback out- especially if one of those riders is Vin. The rest of the people will have to take their chances with the koloss."
Breeze felt his stomach turn. Clubs spoke so bluntly ... so callously. But that was Clubs. He wasn't even really a pessimist; he just said the things that he didn't think others wanted to acknowledge.
Some of the skaa will survive to become slaves for Straff Venture, Breeze thought. But those who fight-and those who have led the city this last year-are doomed. That includes me.
It's true. This time there really is no way out.
"Well?" Sazed asked, hands spread before him. "Are we in agreement that these four should go?"
&nbs
p; The members of the group nodded.
"Let us discuss, then," Sazed said, "and devise a plan for sending them away."
"We could just make Elend think that the danger isn't that great," Dockson said. "If he believes that the city is in for a long siege, he might be willing to go with Vin on a mission somewhere. They wouldn't realize what was happening back here until it was too late."
"A good suggestion. Lord Dockson," Sazed said. "I think, also, that we could work with Vin's concept of the Well of Ascension."
The discussion continued, and Breeze sat back, satis--fied. Vin, Elend, and Spook will sun'ive, he thought. I’ll have to convince Sazed to l^t Allrianne go with them. He glanced around the roomrnoticing a release of tension in the postures of the others. Dockson and Ham seemed at peace, and even Clubs was nodding quietly to himself, looking satisfied as they talked through suggestions.
The disaster was still coming. But, somehow, the possibility that some would escape-the youngest crewmem-bers, the ones still inexperienced enough to hope-made everything else a little easier to accept.
Vin stood quietly in the mists, looking up at the dark spires, columns, and towers of Kredik Shaw. In her head, two sounds thumped. The mist spirit and the larger, vaster sound.
It was growing more and more demanding.
She continued forward, ignoring the thumps as she approached Kredik Shaw. The Hill of a Thousand Spires, once home of the Lord Ruler. It had been abandoned for well over a year, but no vagrants had made their home here. It was too ominous. Too terrible. Too much a reminder of him.
The Lord Ruler had been a monster. Vin remembered well the night, over a year before, when she had come to this palace intending to kill him. To do the job that Kelsier had unwittingly trained her to do. She had walked through this very courtyard, had passed guards at the doors before her.
And she had let them live. Kelsier would have just fought his way in. But Vin had talked them into leaving, into joining the rebellion. That act had saved her life when one of those very men, Goradel, had led Elend to the palace dungeons to help rescue Vin.
In a way, the Final Empire had been overthrown because she hadn 7 acted like Kelsier.
And yet, could she base future decisions upon a coincidence like that? Looking back, it seemed too perfectly allegorical. Like a neat little tale told to children, intended to teach a lesson.
Vin had never heard those tales as a child. And, she had survived when so many others had died. For every lesson like the one with Goradel. it seemed that there were a dozen that ended hi tragedy.
And then there was Kelsier. He'd been right, in the end. His lesson was very different from the ones taught by the children's tales. Kelsier had been bold, even excited, when he executed those who stood in his path. Ruthless. He had looked toward the greater good; he'd always had his eyes focused on the fall of the empire, and the eventual rise of a kingdom like Elend's.
He had succeeded. Why couldn't she kill as he had, knowing she was doing her duty, never feeling guilt? She'd always been frightened by the edge of danger Kelsier had displayed. Yet, wasn't that very edge the thing that had let him succeed?
She passed into the tunnel-like corridors of the palace, feet and mistcloak tassels trailing marks in the dust. The mists, as always, remained behind. They didn't enter buildings-or, if they did, they usually didn't remain for long. With them, she left behind the mist spirit.
She had to make a decision. She didn't like the decision, but she was accustomed to doing things she didn't like. That was life. She hadn't wanted to fight the Lord Ruler, but she had.
It soon became too dark even for Mistborn eyes, and she had to light a lantem. When she did, she was surprised to see that her footsteps weren't the only ones in the dust. Apparently, someone else had been haunting the corridors. However, whoever it was, she didn't encounter them as she walked through the hallways.
She entered the chamber a few moments later. She wasn't sure what had drawn her to Kredik Shaw, let alone the hidden chamber at its center. It seemed, however, that she had been feeling a kinship with the Lord Ruler lately. Her walkings had brought her here, to a place she hadn't visited since that night when she'd slain the only God she'd ever known.
He had spent a lot of time in this hidden chamber, a place he had apparently built to remind him of his homeland. The chamber had a domed roof that arced overhead. The walls were filled with silvery murals and the floor was filled with metallic inlays. She ignored these, walking forward toward the room's central feature-a small stone building that had been built within the larger chamber.
It was here that Kelsier and his wife had been captured many years before, during Kelsier's first attempt to rob the
Lord Ruler. Mare had been murdered at the Pits. But Kelsier had survived.
It was here, in this same chamber, that Vin hail first faced an Inquisitor, and had nearly been killed herself. It was also here that she had come months later in her first attempt to kill the Lord Ruler. She had been defeated that time. too.
She stepped into the small building-wilhin-a-building. It had only one room. The floor had been torn up by Elend's crews, searching for the atium. The walls were still hung, however, with the trappings the Lord Ruler had left behind. She raised her lantern, looking at them.
Rugs. Furs. A small wooden flute. The things of his people, the Terns people, from a thousand years before. Why had he built his new city of Luthadel here, to the south, when his homeland-and the Well of Ascension itself- had been to the north? Vin had never really understood that.
Perhaps it came down to decision. Rashek. the Lord Ruler, had been forced to make a decision, too. He could have continued as he was, the pastoral villager. He would probably have had a happy life with his people.
But he had decided to become something more. In doing so, he had committed terrible atrocities. Yet, could she blame him for the decision itself? He had become what he'd thought he needed to be.
Her decision seemed more mundane, but she knew that other things-the Well of Ascension, the protection of Luthadel-could not be considered until she was certain what she wanted and who she was. And yet, standing in that room where Rashek had spent much of his time, thinking about the Well, the demanding thumps in her head sounded louder than they ever had before.
She had to decide. Elend was the one she wanted to be with. He represented peace. Happiness. Zane, however, represented what she felt she had to become. For the good of everyone involved.
The Lord Ruler's palace held no clues or answers for her. A few moments later, frustrated and baffled at why she had even come, she left it behind, walking back out into the mists.
Zane awoke to the sound of a tent spike being pounded in a specific rhythm. His reaction was immediate.
He burned steel and pewter. He always swallowed a new bit of each before sleeping. He knew the habit would probably kill him someday; metals were poisonous if allowed to linger.
Dying someday was better, in Zane's opinion, than dying today.
He flipped out of his cot, tossing his blanket toward the opening tent flap. He could barely see in the darkness of night. Even as he jumped, he heard something ripping. The tent walls being slit.
Kill them!" God screamed.
Zane thumped to the ground and grabbed a handful of coins from the bowl beside his bed. He heard cries of surprise as he spun, throwing coins in a spinning spray around him.
He Pushed. Tiny plunks of sound thumped around him as coins met canvas, then continued on. And men began to scream.
Zane fell to a crouch, waiting silently as the tent collapsed around him. Someone was thrashing the cloth to his right. He shot a few coins, and heard a satisfying grunt of pain. In the stillness, canvas resting atop him like a blanket, he heard footsteps running away.
He sighed, relaxing, and used a dagger to slice away the lop of his tent. He emerged to a misty night. He'd gone to sleep later today than he usually did; it was probably near midnight. Time to be up anyway.
; He strode across the fallen top of his tent-moving over to the now cloaked form of his cot-and cut a hole so he could reach through and pluck out the vial of metal he'd stored in a pocket beneath it. He downed the metals, and tin brought near light to his surroundings. Four men lay dying or dead around his tent. They were soldiers, of course. Straff's soldiers. The attack had come later than Zane had expected.
Straff trusts me more than I assumed. Zane stepped over the dead form of an assassin and cut his way into a storage chest, then pulled out his clothing. He changed quietly, then removed a small bag of coins from the chest. It must have been the attack on Cett's keep, he thought. It finally convinced Straff that I was too dangerous to let live.
Zane found his man working quiedy beside a tent a short distance away, ostensibly testing the strength of a tent cord. He watched every night, paid to pound on a tent spike should anyone approach Zane's tent. Zane tossed the man a bag of coins, then moved off into the darkness, passing the canal waters with their supply barges on his way to Straff's tent.
His father had some few limitations. Straff was fine at large-scale planning, but the details-the subtleties-often got away from him. He could organize an army and crush his enemies. He, however, liked to play with dangerous tools. Like the atium mines at the Pits of Hathsin. Like Zane.
Those tools often ended up burning him.
Zane walked up to the side of Straff's tent, then ripped a hole in the canvas and strode in. Straff waited for him. Zane gave the man credit: Straff watched his death coming with defiance in his eyes. Zane stopped in the middle of the room, in front of Straff, who sat in his hard wooden chair.
"Kill him," God commanded.
Lamps burned in the comers, illuminating the canvas. The cushions and blankets in the comer were rumpled; Straff had taken one last romp with his favorite mistresses before sending his assassins. The king displayed his characteristic air of strong defiance, but Zane saw more. He saw a face too slick with sweat, and he saw hands trembling, as if from-a disease.
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