The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  No further word had come from Yomen. Elend expected ransom demands, and was terrified of what he might have to do if they came. Could he trade the fate of the world for Vin's life? No. Vin had faced a similar decision at the Well of Ascension, and had chosen the right option. Elend had to follow her example, had to be strong.

  Yet the thought of her captured came close to paralyzing him with dread. Only the spinning mists seemed to somehow comfort him.

  She'll be all right, he told himself, not for the first time. She's Vin. She'll figure a way out of it. She'll be all right. .

  It felt odd, to Elend, that after a lifetime of finding the mists unsettling he would now find them so comforting. Vin didn't see them that way, not anymore. Elend could sense it in the way she acted, in the words she spoke. She distrusted the mists. Hated them, even. And Elend couldn't really blame her. They had, after all, changed somehow-bringing destruction and death.

  Yet, Elend found it hard to distrust the mists. They just felt right. How could they be his enemy? They spun, swirling around him just slightly as he burned metals, like leaves spinning in a playful wind. As he stood there, they seemed to soothe away his concerns about Vin's captivity, giving him confidence that she would find a way out.

  He sighed, shaking his head. Who was he to trust his own instincts about the mists over Vin's? She had the instincts born of a lifetime of struggling to survive. What did Elend have? Instincts born of a lifetime of partygoing and dancing?

  Sound came from behind him. People walking. Elend turned, eyeing a pair of servants carrying Cett in his chair.

  "That damn Thug isn't around here, is he?" Cett asked as the servants set him down.

  Elend shook his head as Cett waved the servants away. "No," Elend said. "He's investigating some kind of disturbance in the ranks."

  "What happened this time?" Cett asked.

  "Fistfight," Elend said, turning away, looking back toward Fadrex City's watch fires.

  "The men are restless," Cett said. "They're a little like koloss, you know. Leave them too long, and they'll get themselves into trouble."

  Koloss are like them, actually, Elend thought. We should have seen it earlier. They are men-just men reduced to their most base emotions.

  Cett sat quietly in the mists for a time, and Elend continued his contemplations.

  Eventually, Cett spoke, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "She's as good as dead, son. You know that."

  "No, I don't," Elend said.

  "She's not invincible," Cett said. "She's a damn good Allomancer, true. But, take her metals away. ."

  She'll surprise you, Cett.

  "You don't even look worried," Cett said.

  "Of course I'm worried," Elend said, growing more certain. "I just. . well, I trust her. If anyone can get out, Vin will."

  "You're in denial," Cett said.

  "Perhaps," Elend admitted.

  "Are we going to attack?" Cett asked. "Try and get her back?"

  "This is a siege, Cett," Elend said. "The point is to not attack."

  "And our supplies?" Cett asked. "Demoux had to put the soldiers on half rations today. We'll be lucky not to starve ourselves before we can get Yomen to surrender."

  "We have time yet," Elend said.

  "Not much. Not with Luthadel in revolt." Cett was silent for a moment, then continued. "Another of my raiding parties returned today. They had the same things to report."

  The same news as all the others. Elend had authorized Cett to send soldiers into nearby villages, to scare the people, perhaps pillage some supplies. Yet, each of the raiding groups had come back empty-handed, bearing the same story.

  The people in Yomen's kingdom were starving. Villages barely survived. The soldiers hadn't the heart to hurt them any further, and there wasn't anything to take, anyway.

  Elend turned toward Cett. "You think me a bad leader, don't you?"

  Cett looked up, then scratched at his beard. "Yes," he admitted. "But, well. . Elend, you've got one thing going for you as a king that I never did."

  "And that is?"

  Cett shrugged. "The people like you. Your soldiers trust you, and they know you have too good a heart for your own good. You have a strange effect on them. Lads like those, they should have been eager to rob villages, even poor ones. Especially considering how on-edge our men are and how many fights there have been in camp. And yet, they didn't. Hell, one of the groups felt so sorry for the villagers that they stayed for a few days and helped water the fields and do repairs to some of the homes!"

  Cett sighed, shaking his head. "A few years ago, I would have laughed at anyone who chose loyalty as a basis for rule. But, well. . with the world falling apart as it is, I think even I would rather have someone to trust, as opposed to someone to fear. I guess that's why the soldiers act as they do."

  Elend nodded.

  "I thought a siege was a good idea," Cett said. "But, I don't think it will work anymore, son. The ash is falling too hard now, and we don't have supplies. This whole thing is becoming a damn mess. We need to strike and take what we can from Fadrex, then retreat to Luthadel and try to hold it through the summer while our people grow crops."

  Elend fell silent, then turned, looking to the side as he heard something else in the mists. Shouting and cursing. It was faint-Cett probably couldn't hear it. Elend left, hurrying toward the sound, leaving Cett behind.

  Another fight, Elend realized as he approached one of the cooking fires. He heard yells, blustering, and the sounds of men brawling. Cett's right. Goodhearted or not, our men are getting too restless. I need-

  "Stop this immediately!" a new voice called. Just ahead, through the dark mists, Elend could see figures moving about the firelight. He recognized the voice; General Demoux had arrived on the scene.

  Elend slowed. Better to let the general deal with the disturbance. There was a big difference between being disciplined by one's military commander and one's emperor. The men would be better off if Demoux were the one to punish them.

  The fighting, however, did not stop.

  "Stop this!" Demoux yelled again, moving into the conflict. A few of the brawlers listened to him, pulling back. The rest, however, just continued to fight. Demoux pushed himself into the melee, reaching to pull apart two of the combatants.

  And one of them punched him. Square in the face, throwing Demoux to the ground.

  Elend cursed, dropping a coin and Pushing himself forward. He fell directly into the middle of the firelight, Pushing out with a Soothing to dampen the emotions of those fighting.

  "Stop!" he bellowed.

  They did, freezing, one of the soldiers standing over the fallen General Demoux.

  "What is going on here?" Elend demanded, furious. The soldiers looked down. "Well?" Elend said, turning toward the man who had punched Demoux.

  "I'm sorry, my lord," the man grumbled. "We just. ."

  "Speak, soldier," Elend said, pointing, Soothing the man's emotions, leaving him compliant and docile.

  "Well, my lord," the man said. "They're cursed, you know. They're the reason Lady Vin got taken. They were speaking of the Survivor and his blessings, and that just smacked me as hypocrisy, you know? Then, of course their leader would show, demanding that we stop. I just. . well, I'm tired of listening to them, is all."

  Elend frowned in anger. As he did so, a group of the army's Mistings-Ham at their head-shoved through the crowd. Ham met Elend's eyes, and Elend nodded toward the men who had been fighting. Ham made quick work of them, gathering them up for reprimand. Elend walked over, pulling Demoux to his feet. The grizzled general looked more shocked than anything.

  "I'm sorry, my lord," Demoux said quietly. "I should have seen that coming. . I should have been ready for it."

  Elend just shook his head. The two of them watched quietly until Ham joined them, his police pushing the troublemakers away. The rest of the crowd dispersed, returning to their duties. The solitary bonfire burned alone in the night, as if shunned as a new symbol of bad luck.


  "I recognized a number of those men," Ham said, joining Elend and Demoux as the troublemakers were led away. "Mistfallen."

  Mistfallen. The men who, like Demoux, had lain sick from the mists for weeks, instead of a single day. "This is ridiculous," Elend said. "So they remained sick awhile longer. That doesn't make them cursed!"

  "You don't understand superstition, my lord," Demoux said, shaking his head and rubbing his chin. "The men look for someone to blame for their ill luck. And. . well, it's easy to see why they'd be feeling their luck was bad lately. They've been hard on anyone who was sickened by the mists; they're just most hard on we who were out the longest."

  "I refuse to accept such idiocy in my army," Elend said. "Ham, did you see one of those men strike Demoux?"

  "They hit him?" Ham asked with surprise. "Their general?"

  Elend nodded. "The big man I was talking to. Brill is his name, I think. You know what will have to be done."

  Ham cursed, looking away.

  Demoux looked uncomfortable. "Maybe we could just. . throw him in solitary or something."

  "No," Elend said through his teeth. "No, we hold to the law. If he'd struck his captain, maybe we could let him off. But deliberately striking one of my generals? The man will have to be executed. Discipline is falling apart as it is."

  Ham wouldn't look at him. "The other fight I had to break up was also between a group of regular soldiers and a group of mistfallen."

  Elend ground his teeth in frustration. Demoux, however, met his eyes. You know what needs to be done, he seemed to say.

  Being a king isn't always about doing what you want, Tindwyl had often said. It's about doing what needs to be done.

  "Demoux," Elend said. "I think the problems in Luthadel are even more serious than our difficulties with discipline. Penrod looked toward us for support. I want you to gather a group of men and take them back along the canal with the messenger, Conrad. Lend aid to Penrod and bring the city back under control."

  "Yes, my lord," Demoux said. "How many soldiers should I take?"

  Elend met his eyes. "About three hundred should suffice." It was the number who were mistfallen. Demoux nodded, then withdrew into the night.

  "It's the right thing to do, El," Ham said softly.

  "No, it's not," Elend said. "Just like it's not right to have to execute a soldier because of a single lapse in judgment. But, we need to keep this army together."

  "I guess," Ham said.

  Elend turned, glancing up through the mists. Toward Fadrex City. "Cett's right," he finally said. "We can't just continue to sit out here, not while the world is dying."

  "So, what do we do about it?" Ham asked.

  Elend wavered. What to do about it indeed? Retreat and leave Vin-and probably the entire empire-to its doom? Attack, causing the deaths of thousands, becoming the conqueror he feared? Was there no other way to take the city?

  Elend turned and struck out into the night. He found his way to Noorden's tent, Ham following curiously. The former obligator was awake, of course. Noorden kept odd hours. He stood hurriedly as Elend entered his tent, bowing in respect.

  There, on the table, Elend found what he wanted. The thing he had ordered Noorden to work on. Maps. Troop movements.

  The locations of koloss bands.

  Yomen refuses to be intimidated by my forces, Elend thought. Well, let's see if I can turn the odds back against him.

  Once "freed," Ruin was able to affect the world more directly. The most obvious way he did this was by making the ashmounts emit more ash and the earth begin to break apart. As a matter of fact, I believe that much of Ruin's energy during those last days was dedicated to these tasks.

  He was also able to affect and control far more people than before. Where he had once influenced only a few select individuals, he could now direct entire koloss armies.

  48

  As days passed in the cavern, Vin regretted knocking over the lantern. She tried to salvage it, searching with blind fingers. However, the oil had spilled. She was locked in darkness.

  With a thing that wanted to destroy the world.

  Sometimes she could sense it, pulsing near her, watching silently-like some fascinated patron at a carnival show. Other times, it vanished. Obviously, walls meant nothing to it. The first time it disappeared, she felt a sense of relief. However, just moments after it vanished, she heard Reen's voice in her mind. I haven't left you, it said. I'm always here.

  The words chilled her, and she thought-just briefly-that it had read her mind. However, she decided that her thoughts would have been easy to guess. Looking back through her life, she realized that Ruin couldn't have spoken each and every time she heard Reen's voice in her head. A lot of the time she heard Reen, it was in response to things she'd been thinking, rather than things she'd been doing. Since Ruin couldn't read minds, those comments couldn't have come from it.

  Ruin had been speaking to her for so long, it was difficult to separate her own memories from its influence. Yet, she had to trust in the Lord Ruler's promise that Ruin couldn't read her mind. The alternative was to abandon hope. And she wouldn't do that. Each time Ruin spoke to her, it gave her clues about its nature. Those clues might give her the means to defeat it.

  Defeat it? Vin thought, leaning back against a rough stone wall of the cavern. It's a force of nature, not a man. How could I even think to defeat something like that?

  Time was very difficult to gauge in the perpetual blackness, but she figured from her sleep patterns that it had been around three or four days since her imprisonment.

  Everyone called the Lord Ruler a god, Vin reminded herself. I killed him.

  Ruin had been imprisoned once. That meant that it could be defeated, or at least bottled up. But, what did it mean to imprison an abstraction-a force-like Ruin? It had been able to speak to her while imprisoned. But its words had felt less forceful then. Less. . directed. Ruin had acted more as an influence, giving the child Vin impressions that manifested through memories of Reen. Almost like. . it had influenced her emotions. Did that mean it used Allomancy? It did indeed pulse with Allomantic power.

  Zane heard voices, Vin realized. Right before he died, he seemed to be talking to something. She felt a chill as she rested her head back against the wall.

  Zane had been mad. Perhaps there was no connection between the voices he heard and Ruin. Yet, it seemed like too much of a coincidence. Zane had tried to get her to go with him, to seek out the source of the pulsings-the pulsings that had eventually led her to free Ruin.

  So, Vin thought, Ruin can influence me regardless of distance or containment. However, now that it has been freed, it can manifest directly. That brings up another question. Why hasn't it already destroyed us all? Why play games with armies?

  The answer to that one, at least, seemed obvious. She sensed Ruin's boundless will to destroy. She felt as if she knew its mind. One drive. One impulse. Ruin. So, if it hadn't accomplished its goal yet, that meant it couldn't. That it was hindered. Limited to indirect, gradual means of destruction-like falling ash and the light-stealing mists.

  Still, those methods would eventually be effective. Unless Ruin was stopped. But how?

  It was imprisoned before. . but what did the imprisoning? She'd once assumed that the Lord Ruler had been the one behind Ruin's imprisonment. But that was wrong. Ruin had already been imprisoned when the Lord Ruler had traveled to the Well of Ascension. The Lord Ruler, then known as Rashek, had gone on the quest with Alendi, in order to slay the presumed Hero of Ages. Rashek's purpose had been to stop Alendi from doing what Vin had eventually done: accidentally releasing Ruin.

  Ironically, it had been better that a selfish man like Rashek had taken the power. For, a selfish man kept the power for himself, rather than giving it up and freeing Ruin.

  Regardless, Ruin had already been imprisoned before the quest began. That meant that the Deepness-the mists-weren't related to Ruin. Or, at least, the connection wasn't as simple as she'd assumed. Lettin
g Ruin go hadn't been what had prompted the mists to start coming during the day and killing people. In fact, the daymists had started to appear as much as a year before she'd released Ruin, and the mists had started killing people some hours before Vin had found her way to the Well.

  So. . what do I know? That Ruin was imprisoned long ago. Imprisoned by something that, perhaps, I can find and use again?

  She stood up. Too much sitting and thinking had made her restless, and she began to walk, feeling her way along the wall.

  During her first day of imprisonment she'd begun, by touch, to scout the cavern. It was huge, like the other caches, and the process had taken her several days. However, she'd had nothing else to do. Unlike the cache in Urteau, this one had no pool or source of water. And, as Vin investigated it, she discovered that Yomen had removed all of the water barrels from what she assumed was their place on the far right corner. He'd left the canned food and other supplies-the cavern was so enormous that he would have had trouble finding time to remove everything, let alone finding a place to store it somewhere else-however, he'd taken all of the water.

  That left Vin with a problem. She felt her way along the wall, locating a shelf where she'd left an open can of stew. Even with pewter and a rock, it had taken her a frightfully long time to get into the can. Yomen had been clever enough to remove the tools she could have used for opening the food stores, and Vin only had one vial's worth of pewter remaining. She'd opened some ten cans of food on her first day, burning away what pewter she'd had inside of her. That food was already dwindling, however, and she was feeling the need for water-the stew did little to quench her thirst.

  She picked up the can of stew, carefully eating only a mouthful. It was almost gone. The taste reminded her of the hunger that was a growing complement to her thirst. She pushed the feeling away. She'd dealt with hunger for her entire childhood. It was nothing new, even if it had been years since she'd last felt it.

  She moved on, trailing fingers on the side of the wall to keep her bearings. It seemed like such a clever way to kill a Mistborn. Yomen couldn't defeat her, and he trapped her instead. Now, he could simply wait for her to die of dehydration. Simple, effective.