Mistborn

by Brandon Sanderson

  “The emotions will fade, won’t they?” Vin said as a red-clothed serving girl entered the crowd.

  “Yes,” Breeze said, sitting back and sliding the panel closed. “But memories stay. If people associate strong emotion with an event, they’ll remember it better.”

  A few moments later, Ham entered through the back door. “That went well. The men are leaving invigorated, and a number of them are staying behind. We’ll have a good set of volunteers to send off to the caves.”

  Breeze shook his head. “It’s not enough. Dox takes a few days to organize each of these meetings, and we only get about twenty men from each one. At this rate, we’ll never hit ten thousand in time.”

  “You think we need more meetings?” Ham asked. “That’s going to be tough—we have to be very careful with these things, so only those who can be reasonably trusted are invited.”

  Breeze sat for a moment. Finally, he downed the rest of his wine. “I don’t know—but we’ll have to think of something. For now, let’s return to the shop. I believe Kelsier wishes to hold a progress meeting this evening.”

  Kelsier looked to the west. The afternoon sun was a poisonous red, shining angrily through a sky of smoke. Just below it, Kelsier could see the silhouetted tip of a dark peak. Tyrian, closest of the Ashmounts.

  He stood atop Clubs’s flat-roofed shop, listening to workers returning home on the streets below. A flat roof meant having to shovel off ash occasionally, which was why most skaa buildings were peaked, but in Kelsier’s opinion the view was often worth a bit of trouble.

  Below him, the skaa workers trudged in despondent ranks, their passing kicking up a small cloud of ash. Kelsier turned away from them, looking toward the northern horizon... toward the Pits of Hathsin.

  Where does it go? he thought. The atium reaches the city, but then disappears. It isn’t the Ministry—we’ve watched them—and no skaa hands touch the metal. We assume it goes into the treasury. We hope it does, at least.

  While burning atium, a Mistborn was virtually unstoppable, which was part of why it was so valuable. But, his plan was about more than just wealth. He knew how much atium was harvested at the pits, and Dockson had researched the amounts that the Lord Ruler doled out—at exorbitant prices—to the nobility. Barely a tenth of what was mined eventually found its way into noble hands.

  Ninety percent of the atium produced in the world had been stockpiled, year after year, for a thousand years. With that much of the metal, Kelsier’s team could intimidate even the most powerful of the noble houses. Yeden’s plan to hold the palace probably seemed futile to many—indeed, on its own, it was doomed to fail. However, Kelsier’s other plans...

  Kelsier glanced down at the small, whitish bar in his hand. The Eleventh Metal. He knew the rumors about it—he’d started them. Now, he just had to make good on them.

  He sighed, turning eyes east, toward Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler’s palace. The name was Terris; it meant “The Hill of a Thousand Spires.” Appropriate, since the imperial palace resembled a patch of enormous black spears thrust into the ground. Some of the spires twisted, others were straight. Some were thick towers, others were thin and needlelike. They varied in height, but each one was tall. And each one ended in a point.

  Kredik Shaw. That’s where it had ended three years before. And he needed to go back.

  The trapdoor opened, and a figure climbed onto the roof. Kelsier turned with a raised eyebrow as Sazed brushed off his robe, then approached in his characteristically respectful posture. Even a rebellious Terrisman maintained the form of his training.

  “Master Kelsier,” Sazed said with a bow.

  Kelsier nodded, and Sazed stepped up beside him, looking toward the imperial palace. “Ah,” he said to himself, as if understanding Kelsier’s thoughts.

  Kelsier smiled. Sazed had been a valuable find indeed. Keepers were necessarily secretive, for the Lord Ruler had hunted them practically since the Day of Ascension itself. Some legends claimed that the Ruler’s complete subjugation of the Terris people—including the breeding and stewardship programs—was simply an outgrowth of his hatred for Keepers.

  “I wonder what he would think if he knew a Keeper was in Luthadel,” Kelsier said, “barely a short walk from the palace itself.”

  “Let us hope we never find out, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said.

  “I appreciate your willingness to come here to the city, Saze. I know it’s a risk.”

  “This is a good work,” Sazed said. “And this plan is dangerous for all involved. Indeed, simply living is dangerous for me, I think. It is not healthy to belong to a sect that the Lord Ruler himself fears.”

  “Fears?” Kelsier asked, turning to look up at Sazed. Despite Kelsier’s above-average height, the Terrisman was still a good head taller. “I’m not sure if he fears anything, Saze.”

  “He fears the Keepers,” Sazed said. “Definitely and inexplicably. Perhaps it is because of our powers. We are not Allomancers, but . . . something else. Something unknown to him.”

  Kelsier nodded, turning back toward the city. He had so many plans, so much work to do—and at the core of it all were the skaa. The poor, humble, defeated skaa.

  “Tell me about another one, Saze,” Kelsier said. “One with power.”

  “Power?” Sazed asked. “That is a relative term when applied to religion, I think. Perhaps you would like to hear of Jaism. Its followers were quite faithful and devout.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Jaism was founded by a single man,” Sazed said. “His true name is lost, though his followers simply called him ‘the Ja.’ He was murdered by a local king for preaching discord— something he was apparently very good at—but that only made his following larger.

  “The Jaists thought that they earned happiness proportional to their overt devotion, and were known for frequent and fervent professions of faith. Apparently, speaking with a Jaist could be frustrating, since they tended to end nearly every sentence with ‘Praise the Ja.’ ”

  “That’s nice, Saze,” Kelsier said. “But power is more than just words.”

  “Oh, quite indeed,” Sazed agreed. “The Jaists were strong in their faith. Legends say that the Ministry had to wipe them out completely, since not one Jaist would accept the Lord Ruler as God. They didn’t last long past the Ascension, but only because they were so blatant that they were easy to hunt down and kill.”

  Kelsier nodded, then he smiled, eyeing Sazed. “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to convert.”

  “My apologies, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said, “but the religion does not suit you, I think. It has a level of brashness that you might find appealing, but you would find the theology simplistic.”

  “You’re getting to know me too well,” Kelsier said, still regarding the city. “In the end, after kingdoms and armies had fallen, the religions were still fighting, weren’t they?”

  “Indeed,” Sazed said. “Some of the more resilient religions lasted all the way until the fifth century.”

  “What made them so strong?” Kelsier said. “How did they do it, Saze? What gave these theologies such power over people?”

  “It wasn’t any one thing, I think,” Sazed said. “Some were strong through honest faith, others because of the hope they promised. Others were coercive.”

  “But they all had passion,” Kelsier said.

  “Yes, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said with a nod. “That is a quite true statement.”

  “That’s what we’ve lost,” Kelsier said, looking over the city with its hundreds of thousands, barely a handful of whom would dare fight. “They don’t have faith in the Lord Ruler, they simply fear him. They don’t have anything left to believe in.”

  “What do you believe in, if I may ask, Master Kelsier?”

  Kelsier raised an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly sure yet,” he admitted. “But overthrowing the Final Empire seems like a good start. Are there any religions on your list that include the slaughter of noblemen as a holy duty?�
��

  Sazed frowned disapprovingly. “I do not believe so, Master Kelsier.”

  “Maybe I should found one,” Kelsier said with an idle smile. “Anyway, have Breeze and Vin returned yet?”

  “They arrived just before I came up here.”

  “Good,” Kelsier said with a nod. “Tell them I’ll be down in a moment.”

  Vin sat in her overstuffed chair in the conference room, legs tucked beneath her, trying to study Marsh out of the corner of her eye.

  He looked so much like Kelsier. He was just...stern. He wasn’t angry, nor was he grumpy like Clubs. He just wasn’t happy. He sat in his chair, a neutral expression on his face.

  The others had all arrived except for Kelsier, and they were chatting quietly amongst themselves. Vin caught Lestibournes’s eye and waved him over. The teenage boy approached and crouched beside her chair.

  “Marsh,” Vin whispered beneath the general hum of the room. “Is that a nickname?”

  “Notting without the call of his parents.”

  Vin paused, trying to decipher the boy’s eastern dialect. “Not a nickname, then?”

  Lestibournes shook his head. “He wasing one though.”

  “What was it?”

  “Ironeyes. Others stopped using it. Too calling close to an iron in the real eyes, eh? Inquisitor.”

  Vin glanced at Marsh again. His expression was hard, his eyes unwavering, almost like they were made of iron. She could see why people would stop using the nickname; even referring to a Steel Inquisitor made her shiver.

  “Thanks.”

  Lestibournes smiled. He was an earnest boy. Strange, intense, and jumpy—but earnest. He retreated to his stool as Kelsier finally arrived.

  “All right, crew,” he said. “What’ve we got?”

  “Besides the bad news?” Breeze asked.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s been twelve weeks, and we’ve gathered under two thousand men,” Ham said. “Even with the numbers the rebellion already has, we’re going to fall short.”

  “Dox?” Kelsier asked. “Can we get more meetings?”

  “Probably,” Dockson said from his seat beside a table stacked with ledgers.

  “Are you sure you want to take that risk, Kelsier?” Yeden asked. His attitude had improved during the last few weeks— especially once Kelsier’s recruits had begun to file in. As Reen had always said, results made quick friends.

  “We’realreadyindanger,”Yedencontinued. “Rumors areall over the underground. If we make any more of a stir, the Ministry is going to realize that something major is happening.”

  “He’s probably right, Kell,” Dockson said. “Besides, there are only so many skaa willing to listen. Luthadel is big, true, but our movement here is limited.”

  “All right,” Kelsier said. “So, we’ll start working the other towns in the area. Breeze, can you split your crew into two effective groups?”

  “I suppose,” Breeze said hesitantly.

  “We can have one team work in Luthadel and the other work in surrounding towns. I can probably make it to all of the meetings, assuming we organize them so they don’t happen at the same time.”

  “Thatmany meetings willexpose us even more,”Yedensaid.

  “And that, by the way, brings up another problem,” Ham said. “Weren’t we supposed to be working on infiltrating the Ministry’s ranks?”

  “Well?” Kelsier asked, turning to Marsh.

  Marsh shook his head. “The Ministry is tight—I need more time.”

  “It’s not going to happen,” Clubs grumbled. “Rebellion’s already tried it.”

  Yeden nodded. “We’ve tried to get spies into the Inner Ministries a dozen times. It’s impossible.”

  The room fell silent.

  “I have an idea,” Vin said quietly.

  Kelsier raised an eyebrow.

  “Camon,” she said. “He was working on a job before you recruited me. Actually, it was the job that got us spotted by the obligators. The core of that plan was organized by another thief, a crewleader named Theron. He was setting up a fake canal convoy to carry Ministry funds to Luthadel.”

  “And?” Breeze asked.

  “Those same canal boats would have brought new Ministry acolytes to Luthadel for the final part of their training. Theron has a contact along the route, a lesser obligator who was open to bribes. Maybe we could get him to add an ‘acolyte’ to the group from his local chapter.”

  Kelsier nodded thoughtfully. “It’s worth looking into.”

  Dockson scribbled something on a sheet with his fountain pen. “I’ll contact Theron and see if his informant is still viable.”

  “How are our resources coming?” Kelsier asked.

  Dockson shrugged. “Ham found us two ex-soldier instructors. The weapons, however ...well, Renoux and I are making contacts and initiating deals, but we can’t move very quickly. Fortunately, when the weapons come, they should

  come in bulk.”

  Kelsier nodded. “That’s everything, right?”

  Breeze cleared his throat. “I’ve . . . been hearing a lot of rumors on the streets, Kelsier,” he said. “The people are talking about this Eleventh Metal of yours.”

  “Good,” Kelsier said.

  “Aren’t you worried that the Lord Ruler will hear? If he has forewarning of what you’re going to do, it will be much more difficult to... resist him.”

  He didn’t say “kill,” Vin thought. They don’t think that Kelsier can do it.

  Kelsier just smiled. “Don’t worry about the Lord Ruler— I’ve got things under control. In fact, I intend to pay the Lord Ruler a personal visit sometime during the next few days.”

  “Visit?” Yeden asked uncomfortably. “You’re going to visit the Lord Ruler? Are you insa...” Yeden trailed off, then glanced at the rest of the room. “Right. I forgot.”

  “He’s catching on,” Dockson noted.

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway, and one of Ham’s guards entered a moment later. He made his way to Ham’s chair and whispered a brief message.

  Ham frowned.

  “What?” Kelsier asked.

  “An incident,” Ham said.

  “Incident?” Dockson asked. “What kind of incident?”

  “You know that lair we met in a few weeks back?” Ham said. “The one where Kell first introduced his plan?”

  Camon’s lair, Vin thought, growing apprehensive.

  “Well,” Ham said, “apparently the Ministry found it.”

  It seems Rashek represents a growing faction in Terris culture. A large number of the youths think that their unusual powers should be used for more than just fieldwork, husbandry, and stonecarving. They are rowdy, even violent—far different from the quiet, discerning Terris philosophers and holy men that I have known.

  They will have to be watched carefully, these Terrismen. They could be very dangerous, if given the opportunity and the motivation.

  11

  KELSIER PAUSED IN THE DOORWAY, blocking Vin’s view. She stooped down, trying to peek past him into the lair, but too many people were in the way. She could only tell that the door hung at an angle, splintered, the upper hinge torn free.

  Kelsier stood for a long moment. Finally, he turned, looking past Dockson toward her. “Ham is right, Vin. You may not want to see this.”

  Vin stood where she was, looking at him resolutely. Finally, Kelsier sighed, stepping into the room. Dockson followed, and Vin could finally see what they had been blocking.

  The floor was scattered with corpses, their twisted limbs shadowed and haunting in the light of Dockson’s solitary lantern. They weren’t rotting yet—the attack had happened only that morning—but there was still a smell of death about the room. The scent of blood drying slowly, the scent of misery and of terror.

  Vin remained in the doorway. She’d seen death before— seen it often, on the streets. Knifings in alleys. Beatings in lairs. Children dead of starvation. She had once seen an old woman’s ne
ck snapped by the backhand of an annoyed lord.

  The body had lain in the street for three days before a skaa corpse crew had finally come for it.

  Yet, none of those incidents had the same air of intentional butchery that she saw in Camon’s lair. These men hadn’t simply been killed, they had been torn apart. Limbs lay separated from torsos. Broken chairs and tables impaled chests. There were only a few patches of floor that were not covered in sticky, dark blood.

  Kelsier glanced at her, obviously expecting some sort of reaction. She stood, looking over the death, feeling... numb. What should her reaction be? These were the men who had mistreated her, stolen from her, beaten her. And yet, these were the men who had sheltered her, included her, and fed her when others might have simply given her to the whoremasters.

  Reen probably would have berated her for the traitorous sadness she felt at the sight. Of course, he had always been angry when—as a child—she’d cried as they left one town for another, not wanting to leave the people she’d grown to know, no matter how cruel or indifferent they were. Apparently, she hadn’t quite gotten over that weakness. She stepped into the room, not shedding any tears for these men, yet at the same time wishing that they had not come to such an end.

  In addition, the gore itself was disturbing. She tried to force herself to maintain a stiff face in front of the others, but she found herself cringing occasionally, glancing away from mangled corpses. The ones who had performed the attack had been quite... thorough.

  This seems extreme, even for the Ministry, she thought. What kind of person would do something like this?

  “Inquisitor,” Dockson said quietly, kneeling by a corpse.

  Kelsier nodded. Behind Vin, Sazed stepped into the room, careful to keep his robes clear of the blood. Vin turned toward the Terrisman, letting his actions distract her from a particularly grisly corpse. Kelsier was a Mistborn, and Dockson was supposedly a capable warrior. Ham and his men were securing the area. However, others—Breeze, Yeden, and Clubs— had stayed behind. The area was too dangerous. Kelsier had even resisted Vin’s desire to come.

  Yet, he had brought Sazed without apparent hesitation. The move, subtle though it was, made Vin regard the steward with a new curiosity. Why would it be too dangerous for Mistings, yet safe enough for a Terrisman steward? Was Sazed a warrior? How would he have learned to fight? Terrismen were supposedly raised from birth by very careful trainers.