The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  The various members of the group nodded, understanding that the meeting was over. As they left, Elend stepped back out into the mists, looking up at the distant bonfires burning on the rocky heights.

  Quiet as a sigh, Vin stepped up to his side, following his gaze. She stood for a few moments. Then she glanced to the side, where a pair of soldiers were entering the tent to carry Cett away. Her eyes narrowed in displeasure.

  "I know," Elend said quietly, knowing that she was thinking of Cett again and his influence over Elend.

  "You didn't deny that you might turn to assassination," Vin said softly.

  "Hopefully it won't come to that."

  "And if it does?"

  "Then I'll make the decision that is best for the empire."

  Vin was silent for a moment. Then, she glanced at the fires up above.

  "I could come with you," Elend offered.

  She smiled, then kissed him. "Sorry," she said. "But you're noisy."

  "Come now. I'm not that bad."

  "Yes you are," Vin said. "Plus, you smell."

  "Oh?" he asked, amused. "What do I smell like?"

  "An emperor. A Tineye would pick you out in seconds."

  Elend raised his eyebrows. "I see. And, don't you possess an imperial scent as well?"

  "Of course I do," Vin said, wrinkling her nose. "But I know how to get rid of it. Either way, you're not good enough to go with me, Elend. I'm sorry."

  Elend smiled. Dear, blunt Vin.

  Behind him, the soldiers left the tent, carrying Cett. An aide walked up, delivering to Elend a short list of informants and noblemen who might be willing to talk. Elend passed it to Vin. "Have fun," he said.

  She dropped a coin between them, kissed him again, then shot up into the night.

  I am only just beginning to understand the brilliance of the Lord Ruler's cultural synthesis. One of the benefits afforded him by being both immortal and-for all relevant purposes-omnipotent was a direct and effective influence on the evolution of the Final Empire.

  He was able to take elements from a dozen different cultures and apply them to his new, "perfect" society. For instance, the architectural brilliance of the Khlenni builders is manifest in the keeps that the high nobility construct. Khlenni fashion sense-suits for gentlemen, gowns for ladies-is another thing the Lord Ruler decided to appropriate.

  I suspect that despite his hatred of the Khlenni people-of whom Alendi was one-Rashek had a deep-seated envy of them as well. The Terris of the time were pastoral herdsmen, the Khlenni cultured cosmopolitans. However ironic, it is logical that Rashek's new empire would mimic the high culture of the people he hated.

  26

  Spook stood in his little one-room lair, a room that was-of course-illegal. The Citizen forbade such places, places where a man could live unaccounted, unwatched. Fortunately, forbidding such places didn't eliminate them.

  It only made them more expensive.

  Spook was lucky. He barely remembered leaping from the burning building, clutching six Allomantic vials, coughing and bleeding. He didn't at all remember making it back to his lair. He should probably be dead. Even surviving the fires, he should have been sold out-if the proprietor of his little illegal inn had realized who Spook was and what he'd escaped, the promise of reward would undoubtedly have been irresistible.

  But, Spook had survived. Perhaps the other thieves in the lair thought he had been on the wrong side of a robbery. Or, perhaps they simply didn't care. Either way, he was able to stand in front of the room's small mirror, shirt off, looking in wonder at his wound.

  I'm alive, he thought. And. . I feel pretty good.

  He stretched, rolling his arm in its socket. The wound hurt far less than it should have. In the very dim light, he was able to see the cut, scabbed over and healing. Pewter burned in his stomach-a beautiful complement to the familiar flame of tin.

  He was something that shouldn't exist. In Allomancy, people either had just one of the eight basic powers, or they had all fourteen powers. One or all. Never two. Yet, Spook had tried to burn other metals without success. Somehow, he had been given pewter alone to complement his tin. Amazing as that was, it was overshadowed by a greater wonder.

  He had seen Kelsier's spirit. The Survivor had returned and had shown himself to Spook.

  Spook had no idea how to react to that event. He wasn't particularly religious, but. . well, a dead man-one some called a god-had appeared to him and saved his life. He worried that it had been an hallucination. But, if that were so, how had he gained the power of pewter?

  He shook his head, reaching for his bandages, but paused as something twinkled in the mirror's reflection. He stepped closer, relying-as always-upon starlight from outside to provide illumination. With his extreme tin senses, it was easy to see the bit of metal sticking from the skin in his shoulder, even though it only protruded a tiny fraction of an inch.

  The tip of that man's sword, Spook realized, the one that stabbed me. It broke-the end must have gotten embedded in my skin. He gritted his teeth, reaching to pull it free.

  "No," Kelsier said. "Leave it. It, like the wound you bear, is a sign of your survival."

  Spook started. He glanced about, but there was no apparition this time. Just the voice. Yet, he was certain he'd heard it.

  "Kelsier?" he hesitantly asked.

  There was no response.

  Am I going mad? Spook wondered. Or. . is it like the Church of the Survivor teaches? Could it be that Kelsier had become something greater, something that watched over his followers? And, if so, did Kelsier always watch him? That felt a little bit. . unsettling. However, if it brought him the power of pewter, then who was he to complain?

  Spook turned and put his shirt on, stretching his arm again. He needed more information. How long had he been delirious? What was Quellion doing? Had the others from the crew arrived yet?

  Taking his mind off of his strange visions for the moment, he slipped out of his room and onto the dark street. As lairs went, his wasn't all that impressive-a room behind the hidden door in a slum alleyway wall. Still, it was better than living in one of the crowded shanties he passed as he made his way through the dark, mist-covered city.

  The Citizen liked to pretend that everything was perfect in his little utopia, but Spook had not been surprised to find that it had slums, just like every other city he'd ever visited. There were many people in Urteau who, for one reason or another, weren't fond of living in the parts of town where the Citizen could keep watch on them. These had aggregated in a place known as the Harrows, a particularly cramped canal far from the main trenches.

  The Harrows was clogged with a disorderly mash of wood and cloth and bodies. Shacks leaned against shacks, buildings leaned precariously against earth and rock, and the entire mess piled on top of itself, creeping up the canal walls toward the dark sky above. Here and there, people slept under only a dirty sheet stretched between two bits of urban flotsam-their millennium-old fear of the mists giving way before simple necessity.

  Spook shuffled down the crowded canal. Some of the piles of half-buildings reached so high and wide that the sky narrowed to a mere crack far above, shining down its midnight light, too dim to be of use to any eyes but Spook's.

  Perhaps the chaos was why the Citizen chose not to visit the Harrows. Or, perhaps he was simply waiting to clean them out until he had a better grip on his kingdom. Either way, his strict society, mixed with the poverty it was creating, made for a curiously open nighttime culture. The Lord Ruler had patrolled the streets. The Citizen, however, preached that the mists were of Kelsier-and so could hardly forbid people to go out in them. Urteau was the first place in Spook's experience where a person could walk down a street at midnight and find a small tavern open and serving drinks. He moved inside, cloak pulled tight. There was no proper bar, just a group of dirty men sitting around a dug-out firepit in the ground. Others sat on stools or boxes in the corners. Spook found an empty box, and sat down.

  Then he closed his ey
es and listened, filtering through the conversations. He could hear them all, of course-even with his earplugs in. So much about being a Tineye wasn't about what you could hear, but what you could ignore.

  Footsteps thumped near him, and he opened his eyes. A man wearing trousers sewn with a dozen different buckles and chains stopped in front of Spook, then thumped a bottle on the ground. "Everyone drinks," the man said. "I have to pay to keep this place warm. Nobody just sits for free."

  "What have you got?" Spook asked.

  The bartender kicked the bottle. "House Venture special vintage. Aged fifty years. Used to go for six hundred boxings a bottle."

  Spook smiled, fishing out a pek-a coin minted by the Citizen to be worth a fraction of a copper clip. A combination of economic collapse and the Citizen's disapproval of luxury meant that a bottle of wine that had once been worth hundreds of boxings was now practically worthless.

  "Three for the bottle," the bartender said, holding out his hand.

  Spook brought out two more coins. The bartender left the bottle on the floor, and so Spook picked it up. He had been offered no corkscrew or cup-both likely cost extra, though this vintage of wine did have a cork that stuck up a few inches above the bottle's lip. Spook eyed it.

  I wonder. .

  He had his pewter on a low burn-not flared like his tin. Just there enough to help with the fatigue and the pain. In fact, it did its job so well that he'd nearly forgotten about his wound during the walk to the bar. He stoked the pewter a bit, and the rest of the wound's pain vanished. Then, Spook grabbed the cork, pulling it with a quick jerk. It came free of the bottle with barely a hint of resistance.

  Spook tossed the cork aside. I think I'm going to like this, he thought with a smile.

  He took a drink of the wine straight from the bottle, listening for interesting conversations. He had been sent to Urteau to gather information, and he wouldn't be much use to Elend or the others if he stayed lying in bed. Dozens of muffled conversations echoed in the room, most of them harsh. This wasn't the kind of place where one found men loyal to the local government-which was precisely why Spook had found his way to the Harrows in the first place.

  "They say he's going to get rid of coins," a man whispered at the main firepit. "He's making plans to gather them all up, keep them in his treasury."

  "That's foolish," another voice replied. "He minted his own coins-why take them now?"

  "It's true," the first voice said. "I seen him speak on it myself. He says that men shouldn't have to rely on coins-that we should have everything together, not having to buy and sell."

  "The Lord Ruler never let skaa have coins either," another voice grumbled. "Seems that the longer old Quellion is in charge, the more he looks like that rat the Survivor killed."

  Spook raised an eyebrow, taking another chug of wine. Vin, not Kelsier, was the one who had killed the Lord Ruler. Urteau, however, was a significant distance from Luthadel. They probably hadn't even known about the Lord Ruler's fall until weeks after it happened. Spook moved on to another conversation, searching for those who spoke in furtive whispers. He found exactly what he was listening for in a couple of men sharing a bottle of fine wine as they sat on the floor in the corner.

  "He has most everyone catalogued now," the man whispered. "But he's not done yet. He has those scribes of his, the genealogists. They're asking questions, interrogating neighbors and friends, trying to trace everyone back five generations, looking for noble blood."

  "But, he only kills those who have noblemen back two generations."

  "There's going to be a division," the other voice whispered. "Every man who is pure back five generations will be allowed to serve in the government. Everyone else will be forbidden. It's a time when a man could make a great deal of coin if he could help people hide certain events in their past."

  Hum, Spook thought, taking a swig of wine. Oddly, the alcohol didn't seem to be affecting him very much. The pewter, he realized. It strengthens the body, makes it more resistant to pains and wounds. And, perhaps, helps it avoid intoxication?

  He smiled. The ability to drink and not grow drunk-an advantage of pewter that nobody had told him about. There had to be a way to use such a skill.

  He turned his attention to other bar patrons, searching for useful tidbits. Another conversation spoke of work in the mines. Spook felt a chill and a flicker of remembrance. The men spoke of a coal mine, not a gold mine, but the grumbles were the same. Cave-ins. Dangerous gas. Stuffy air and uncaring taskmasters.

  That would have been my life, Spook thought. If Clubs hadn't come for me.

  To this day, he still didn't understand. Why had Clubs traveled so far-visiting the distant eastern reaches of the Final Empire-to rescue a nephew he'd never met? Surely there had been young Allomancers in Luthadel who had been equally deserving of his protection.

  Clubs had spent a fortune, traveled a long distance in an empire where skaa were forbidden to leave their home cities, and had risked betrayal by Spook's father. For that, Clubs had earned the loyalty of a wild street boy who-before that time-had run from any authority figure who tried to control him.

  What would it be like? Spook thought. If Clubs hadn't come for me, I would never have been in Kelsier's crew. I might have hidden my Allomancy and refused to use it. I might have simply gone to the mines, living my life like any other skaa.

  The men commiserated about the deaths of several who had fallen to a cave-in. It seemed that for them, little had changed since the days of the Lord Ruler. Spook's life would have been like theirs, he suspected. He'd be out in those Eastern wastes, living in sweltering dust when outside, working in cramped confines the rest of the time.

  Most of his life, it seemed that he had been a flake of ash, pushed around by whatever strong wind came his way. He'd gone where people told him to go, done what they'd wanted him to. Even as an Allomancer, Spook had lived his life as a nobody. The others had been great men. Kelsier had organized an impossible revolution. Vin had struck down the Lord Ruler himself. Clubs had led the armies of revolution, becoming Elend's foremost general. Sazed was a Keeper, and had carried the knowledge of centuries. Breeze had moved waves of people with his clever tongue and powerful Soothing, and Ham was a powerful soldier. But Spook, he had simply watched, not really doing anything.

  Until the day he ran away, leaving Clubs to die.

  Spook sighed, looking up. "I just want to be able to help," he whispered.

  "You can," Kelsier's voice said. "You can be great. Like I was."

  Spook started, glancing about. But, nobody else appeared to have heard the voice. Spook sat back uncomfortably. However, the words made sense. Why did he always berate himself so much? True, Kelsier hadn't picked him to be on the crew, but now the Survivor himself had appeared to Spook and granted him the power of pewter.

  I could help the people of this city, he thought. Like Kelsier helped those of Luthadel. I could do something important: bring Urteau into Elend's empire, deliver the storage cache as well as the loyalty of the people.

  I ran away once. I don't ever have to do that again. I won't ever do that again!

  Smells of wine, bodies, ash, and mold hung in the air. Spook could feel the very grain in the stool beneath him despite his clothing, the movements of people throughout the building shuffling and vibrating the ground beneath his feet. And, with all of this, pewter burned inside of him. He flared it, made it strong alongside his tin. The bottle cracked in his hand, his fingers pressing too hard, though he released it quickly enough to keep it from shattering. It fell toward the floor, and he snatched it from the air with his other hand, the arm moving with blurring quickness.

  Spook blinked, awed at the speed of his own motions. Then, he smiled. I'm going to need more pewter, he thought.

  "That's him."

  Spook froze. Several of the conversations in the room had stopped, and to his ears-accustomed to a cacophony-the growing silence was eerie. He glanced to the side. The men who had been speaking of the m
ines were looking at Spook, speaking softly enough that they probably assumed he couldn't hear them.

  "I'm telling you I saw him get run through by the guards. Everyone thought he was dead even before they burned him."

  Not good, Spook thought. He hadn't thought himself memorable enough for people to notice. But. . then again, he had attacked a group of soldiers in the middle of the city's busiest market.

  "Durn's been talking about him," the voice continued. "Said he was of the Survivor's own crew. ."

  Durn, Spook thought. So he does know who I really am. Why has he been telling people my secrets? I thought he was more careful than that.

  Spook stood up as nonchalantly as he could, then fled into the night.

  Yes, Rashek made good use of his enemy's culture in developing the Final Empire. Yet, other elements of imperial culture were a complete contrast to Khlennium and its society. The lives of the skaa were modeled after the slave peoples of the Canzi. The Terris stewards resembled the servant class of Urtan, which Rashek conquered relatively late in his first century of life.

  The imperial religion, with its obligators, actually appears to have arisen from the bureaucratic mercantile system of the Hallant, a people who were very focused on weights, measures, and permissions. The fact that the Lord Ruler would base his Church on a financial institution shows-in my opinion-that he worried less about true faith in his followers, and more about stability, loyalty, and quantifiable measures of devotion.

  27

  Vin shot through the dark night air. Mist swirled about her, a spinning, seething storm of white upon black. It darted close to her body, as if snapping at her, but never came closer than a few inches away-as if blown back by some current of air. She remembered a time when the mist had skimmed close to her skin, rather than being repelled. The transition had been gradual; it had taken months before she had realized the change.

  She wore no mistcloak. It felt odd to be leaping about in the mists without one of the garments, but in truth, she was quieter this way. Once, the mistcloak had been useful in making guards or thieves turn away at her passing. However, like the era of friendly mists, that time had passed. So, instead, she wore only a black shirt and trousers, both closely fitted to her body to keep the sounds of flapping fabric to a minimum. As always, she wore no metal save for the coins in her pouch and an extra vial of metals in her sash. She pulled out a coin now-its familiar weight wrapped in a layer of cloth-and threw it beneath her. A Push against the metal sent it slamming into the rocks below, but the cloth dampened the sound of its striking. She used the Push to slow her descent, popping her up slightly into the air.