Zane sat, watching the blood seep from the gash on his forearm. “She’s more capable than you think, Father.”
Straff raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you believe those stories, Zane? The lies about her and the Lord Ruler?”
“How do you know they are lies?”
“Because of Elend,” Straff said. “That boy is a fool; he only controls Luthadel because every nobleman with half a wit in his head fled the city. If that girl were powerful enough to defeat the Lord Ruler, I sincerely doubt that your brother could ever have gained her loyalty.”
Zane cut another slice in his arm. He didn’t cut deeply enough to do any real damage, and the pain worked as it usually did. Straff finally turned from his meal, masking a look of discomfort. A small, twisted piece of Zane took pleasure from seeing that look in his father’s eyes. Perhaps it was a side effect of his insanity.
“Anyway,” Straff said, “did you meet with Elend?”
Zane nodded. He turned to a serving girl. “Tea,” he said, waving his uncut arm. “Elend was surprised. He wanted to meet with you, but he obviously didn’t like the idea of coming into your camp. I doubt he’ll come.”
“Perhaps,” Straff said. “But, don’t underestimate the boy’s foolishness. Either way, perhaps now he understands how our relationship will proceed.”
So much posturing, Zane thought. By sending this message, Straff took a stand: he wouldn’t be ordered about, or even inconvenienced, on Elend’s behalf.
Being forced into a siege inconvenienced you, though, Zane thought with a smile. What Straff would have liked to do was attack directly, taking the city without parlay or negotiations. The arrival of the second army made that impossible. Attack now, and Straff would be defeated by Cett.
That meant waiting, waiting in a siege, until Elend saw reason and joined with his father willingly. But, waiting was something Straff disliked. Zane didn’t mind as much. It would give him more time to spar with the girl. He smiled.
As the tea arrived, Zane closed his eyes, then burned tin to enhance his senses. His wounds burst to life, minor pains becoming great, shocking him to wakefulness.
There was a part of all this he wasn’t telling Straff. Sheis coming to trust me, he thought. And there’s something else about her. She’s like me. Perhaps…she could understand me.
Perhaps she could save me.
He sighed, opening his eyes and using the towel to clean his arm. His insanity frightened him sometimes. But, it seemed weaker around Vin. That was all he had to go on for the moment. He accepted his tea from the serving girl—long braid, firm chest, homely features—and took a sip of the hot cinnamon.
Straff raised his own cup, then hesitated, sniffing delicately. He eyed Zane. “Poisoned tea, Zane?”
Zane said nothing.
“Birchbane, too,” Straff noted. “That’s a depressingly unoriginal move for you.”
Zane said nothing.
Straff made a cutting motion. The girl looked up with terror as one of Straff’s guards stepped toward her. She glanced at Zane, expecting some sort of aid, but he just looked away. She yelled pathetically as the guard pulled her off to be executed.
She wanted the chance to kill him, he thought. I told her it probably wouldn’t work.
Straff just shook his head. Though not a full Mistborn, the king was a Tineye. Still, even for one with such an ability, sniffing birchbane amid the cinnamon was an impressive feat.
“Zane, Zane…” Straff said. “What would you do if you actually managed to kill me?”
If I actually wanted to kill you, Zane thought, I’d use that knife, not poison. But, he let Straff think what he wished. The king expected assassination attempts. So Zane provided them.
Straff held something up—a small bead of atium. “I was going to give you this, Zane. But I see that we’ll have to wait. You need to get over these foolish attempts on my life. If you were ever to succeed, where would you get your atium?”
Straff didn’t understand, of course. He thought that atium was like a drug, and assumed that Mistborn relished using it. Therefore, he thought he could control Zane with it. Zane let the man continue in his misapprehension, never explaining that he had his own personal stockpile of the metal.
That, however, brought him to face the real question that dominated his life. God’s whispers were returning, now that the pain was fading. And, of all the people the voice whispered about, Straff Venture was the one who most deserved to die.
“Why?” God asked. “Why won’t you kill him?”
Zane looked down at his feet. Because he’s my father, he thought, finally admitting his weakness. Other men did what they had to. They were stronger than Zane.
“You’re insane, Zane,” Straff said.
Zane looked up.
“Do you really think you could conquer the empire yourself, if you were to kill me? Considering your…particular malady, do you think you could run even a city?”
Zane looked away. “No.”
Straff nodded. “I’m glad we both understand that.”
“You should just attack,” Zane said. “We can find the atium once we control Luthadel.”
Straff smiled, then sipped the tea. The poisoned tea.
Despite himself, Zane started, sitting up straight.
“Don’t presume to think you know what I’m planning, Zane,” Straff said. “You don’t understand half as much as you assume.”
Zane sat quietly, watching his father drink the last of the tea.
“What of your spy?” Straff asked.
Zane lay the note on the table. “He’s worried that they might suspect him. He has found no information about the atium.”
Straff nodded, setting down the empty cup. “You’ll return to the city and continue to befriend the girl.”
Zane nodded slowly, then turned and left the tent.
Straff thought he could feel the birchbane already, seeping through his veins, making him tremble. He forced himself to remain in control. Waiting for a few moments.
Once he was sure Zane was distant, he called for a guard. “Bring me Amaranta!” Straff ordered. “Quickly!”
The soldier rushed to do his master’s bidding. Straff sat quietly, tent rustling in the evening breeze, a puff of mist floating to the floor from the once open flap. He burned tin, enhancing his senses. Yes…he could feel the poison within him. Deadening his nerves. He had time, however. As long as an hour, perhaps, and so he relaxed.
For a man who claimed he didn’t want to kill Straff, Zane certainly spent a lot of effort trying. Fortunately, Straff had a tool even Zane didn’t know about—one that came in the form of a woman. Straff smiled as his tin-enhanced ears heard soft footsteps approaching in the night.
The soldiers sent Amaranta right in. Straff hadn’t brought all of his mistresses with him on the trip—just his ten or fifteen favorites. Mixed in with the ones he was currently bedding, however, were some women that he kept for their effectiveness rather than their beauty. Amaranta was a good example. She had been quite attractive a decade before, but now she was creeping up into her late twenties. Her breasts had begun to sag from childbirth, and every time Straff looked at her, he noticed the wrinkles that were appearing on her forehead and around her eyes. He got rid of most women long before they reached her age.
This one, however, had skills that were useful. If Zane heard that Straff had sent for the woman this night, he’d assume that Straff had simply wanted to bed her. He’d be wrong.
“My lord,” Amaranta said, getting down on her knees. She began to disrobe.
Well, at least she’s optimistic, Straff thought. He would have thought that after four years without being called to his bed, she would understand. Didn’t women realize when they were too old to be attractive?
“Keep your clothing on, woman,” he snapped.
Amaranta’s face fell, and she laid her hands in her lap, leaving her dress half undone, one breast exposed—as if she were trying to tempt him with her agi
ng nudity.
“I need your antidote,” he said. “Quickly.”
“Which one, my lord?” she asked. She wasn’t the only herbalist Straff kept; he learned scents and tastes from four different people. Amaranta, however, was the best of them.
“Birchbane,” Straff said. “And…maybe something else. I’m not sure.”
“Another general potion, then, my lord?” Amaranta asked.
Straff nodded curtly. Amaranta rose, walking to his poison cabinet. She lit the burner at the side, boiling a small pot of water as she quickly mixed powders, herbs, and liquids. The concoction was her particular specialty—a mixture of all of the basic poison antidotes, remedies, and reagents in her repertoire. Straff suspected that Zane had used the birchbane to cover something else. Whatever it was, however, Amaranta’s concoction would deal with—or at least identify—it.
Straff waited uncomfortably as Amaranta worked, still half naked. The concoction needed to be prepared freshly each time, but it was worth the wait. She eventually brought him a steaming mug. Straff gulped it, forcing down the harsh liquid despite its bitterness. Immediately, he began to feel better.
He sighed—another trap avoided—as he drank the rest of the cup to be certain. Amaranta knelt expectantly again.
“Go,” Straff ordered.
Amaranta nodded quietly. She put her arm back through the dress’s sleeve, then retreated from the tent.
Straff sat stewing, empty cup cooling in his hand. He knew he held the edge. As long as he appeared strong before Zane, the Mistborn would continue to do as commanded.
Probably.
19
If only I had passed over Alendi when looking for an assistant, all those years ago.
Sazed unclasped his final steelmind. He held it up, the braceletlike band of metal glistening in the red sunlight. To another man, it might seem valuable. To Sazed, it was now just another empty husk—a simple steel bracelet. He could refill it if he wished, but for the moment he didn’t consider the weight worth carrying.
With a sigh, he dropped the bracelet. It fell with a clank, tossing up a puff of ash from the ground. Five months of storing, of spending every fifth day drained of speed, my body moving as if impeded by a thick molasses. And now it’s all gone.
The loss had purchased something valuable, however. In just six days of travel, using steelminds on occasion, he had traveled the equivalent of six weeks’ worth of walking. According to his cartography coppermind, Luthadel was now a little over a week away. Sazed felt good about the expenditure. Perhaps he’d overreacted to the deaths he’d found in the little southern village. Perhaps there was no need for him to hurry. But, he’d created the steelmind to be used.
He hefted his pack, which was much lighter than it had been. Though many of his metalminds were small, they were heavy in aggregate. He’d decided to discard some of the less valuable or less full ones as he ran. Just like the steel bracelet, which he left sitting in the ash behind him as he went on.
He was definitely in the Central Dominance now. He’d passed Faleast and Tyrian, two of the northern Ashmounts. Tyrian was still just barely visible to the south—a tall, solitary peak with a cut-off, blackened top. The landscape had grown flat, the trees changing from patchy brown pines to the willowy white aspens common around Luthadel. The aspens rose like bones growing from the black soil, clumping, their ashen white bark scarred and twisted. They—
Sazed paused. He stood near the central canal, one of the main routes to Luthadel. The canal was empty of boats at the moment; travelers were rare these days, even more rare than they had been during the Final Empire, for bandits were far more common. Sazed had outrun several groups of them during his hurried flight to Luthadel.
No, solitary travelers were rare. Armies were far more common—and, judging from the several dozen trails of smoke he saw rising ahead of him, he had run afoul of one. It stood directly between him and Luthadel.
He thought quietly for a moment, flakes of ash beginning to fall lightly around him. It was midday; if that army had scouts, Sazed would have a very difficult time getting around it. In addition, his steelminds were empty. He wouldn’t be able to run from pursuit.
And yet, an army within a week of Luthadel…. Whosewas it, and what threat did it pose? His curiosity, the curiosity of a scholar, prodded him to seek a vantage from which to study the troops. Vin and the others could use any information he gathered.
Decision made, Sazed located a hill with a particularly large stand of aspens. He dropped his pack at the base of a tree, then pulled out an ironmind and began to fill it. He felt the familiar sensation of decreased weight, and he easily climbed to the top of the thin tree—his body was now light enough that it didn’t take much strength to pull himself upward.
Hanging from the very tip of the tree, Sazed tapped his tinmind. The edges of his vision fuzzed, as always, but with the increased vision he could make out details about the large group settled into a hollow before him.
He was right about it being an army. He was wrong about it being made up of men.
“By the forgotten gods…” Sazed whispered, so shocked that he nearly lost his grip. The army was organized in only the most simplistic and primitive way. There were no tents, no vehicles, no horses. Just hundreds of large cooking fires, each ringed with figures.
And those figures were of a deep blue. They varied greatly in size; some were just five feet tall, others were lumbering hulks of ten feet or more. They were both the same species, Sazed knew. Koloss. The creatures—though similar to men in base form—never stopped growing. They simply continued to get bigger as they aged, growing until their hearts could no longer support them. Then they died, killed by their body’s own growth imperative.
Before they died, however, they got very large. And very dangerous.
Sazed dropped from the tree, making his body light enough that he hit the ground softly. He hurriedly searched through his copperminds. When he found the one he wanted, he strapped it to his upper left arm, then climbed back up the tree.
He searched an index quickly. Somewhere, he’d taken notes on a book about the koloss—he’d studied it trying to decide if the creatures had a religion. He’d had someone repeat the notes back to him, so he could store them in the coppermind. He had the book memorized, too, of course, but placing so much information directly in his mind would ruin the—
There, he thought, recovering the notes. He tapped them from the coppermind, filling his mind with knowledge.
Most koloss bodies gave out before they reached twenty years of age. The more “ancient” creatures were often a massive twelve feet in height, with stocky, powerful bodies. However, few koloss lived that long—and not just because of heart failure. Their society—if it could be called that—was extremely violent.
Excitement suddenly overcoming apprehension, Sazed tapped tin for vision again, searching through the thousands of blue humanoids, trying to get visual proof of what he’d read. It wasn’t hard to find fights. Scuffles around the fires seemed common, and, interestingly, they were always between koloss of nearly the same size. Sazed magnified his view even further—gripping the tree tightly to overcome the nausea—and got his first good look at a koloss.
It was a creature of smaller size—perhaps six feet tall. It was man-shaped, with two arms and legs, though its neck was hard to distinguish. It was completely bald. The oddest feature, however, was its blue skin, which hung loose and folded. The creature looked like a fat man might, had all his fat been drained away, leaving the stretched skin behind.
And…the skin didn’t seem to be connected very well. Around the creature’s red, blood-drop eyes, the skin sagged, revealing the facial muscles. The same was true around the mouth: the skin sagged a few inches below the chin, the lower teeth and jaw completely exposed.
It was a stomach-turning sight, especially for a man who was already nauseated. The creature’s ears hung low, flopping down beside its jawline. Its nose was formless and loose, wit
h no cartilage supporting it. Skin hung baggily from the creature’s arms and legs, and its only clothing was a crude loincloth.
Sazed turned, selecting a larger creature—one perhaps eight feet tall—to study. The skin on this beast wasn’t as loose, but it still didn’t seem to fit quite right. Its nose twisted at a crooked angle, pulled flat against the face by an enlarged head that sat on a stumpy neck. The creature turned to leer at a companion, and again, the skin around its mouth didn’t quite fit: the lips didn’t close completely, and the holes around the eyes were too big, so they exposed the muscles beneath.
Like…a person wearing a mask made of skin, Sazed thought, trying to push away his disgust. So…their body continues to grow, but their skin doesn’t?
His thought was confirmed as a massive, ten-foot-tall beast of a koloss wandered into the group. Smaller creatures scattered before this newcomer, who thumped up to the fire, where several horses were roasting.
This largest creature’s skin was pulled so tight it was beginning to tear. The hairless blue flesh had ripped around the eyes, at the edges of the mouth, and around the massive chest muscles. Sazed could see little trails of red blood dripping from the rips. Even where the skin wasn’t torn, it was pulled taut—the nose and ears were so flat they were almost indistinguishable from the flesh around them.
Suddenly, Sazed’s study didn’t seem so academic. Koloss had come to the Central Dominance. Creatures so violent and uncontrollable that the Lord Ruler had been forced to keep them away from civilization. Sazed extinguished his tinmind, welcoming the return to normal vision. He had to get to Luthadel and warn the others. If they—
Sazed froze. One problem with enhancing his vision was that he temporarily lost the ability to see close up—so it wasn’t odd that he hadn’t noticed the koloss patrol surrounding his aspens.
By the forgotten gods! He held firm to the tip of the tree, thinking quickly. Several koloss were already pushing their way into the stand. If he dropped to the ground, he’d be too slow to escape. As always, he wore a pewtermind; he could easily become as strong as ten men, and maintain it for a good amount of time. He could fight, perhaps….
The Mistborn Trilogy Page 92