The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  Elend continued to stride forward, walking onto an ash-free pathway and then into the camp proper. Soldiers were gathering about, whispering, looking at him. He didn't know how to answer Ham's question. What did he do? What could he do?

  "We'll help them, Ham," he said. "We won't give up."

  Ham nodded, looking slightly bolstered. "Though, before you do anything else, what you should probably do is go change your clothing. . "

  Elend glanced down, remembering that he was still wearing the black uniform, bloodied from killing koloss, then stained by ash. His appearance caused quite a stir in the men. They've only seen me in the white, pristine outfit. Many of them have never even seen me fight-never seen me bloodied, never seen me dirtied by ash.

  He wasn't certain what bothered him about that.

  Ahead, Elend could see a bearded figure sitting in a chair beside the pathway, as if he were simply out there for an afternoon repast. Cett eyed him as he passed. "More koloss?"

  Elend nodded.

  "We're going to attack, then?" Cett asked.

  Elend stopped.

  The mist spirit apparently didn't want him to attack. But, he couldn't be certain what it had wanted him to know or think-he didn't even know if he should trust it. Could he base the future of his empire on vague impressions he got from a ghost in the mists?

  He had to get into that storage, and he couldn't afford to wait in siege-not any longer. Plus, attacking seemed the best way to get Vin back safely. Yomen would never return her-Elend either had to sit around and wait, or he had to attack, hoping that in the chaos of battle, Yomen would leave her in a dungeon somewhere. True, attacking risked an execution, but letting Yomen use her as a bargaining chip seemed just as dangerous for her.

  I have to be the man who makes the hard decisions, he told himself. It's what Vin was trying to teach me at the ball-that I can be both Elend the man, and Elend the king. I took these koloss for a purpose. Now I need to use them.

  "Inform the soldiers," Elend said. "But don't have them form ranks. We attack in the morning, but do so in surprise-koloss first, breaking through their defenses. The men can form up after that, then go in and seize control."

  We'll rescue Vin, get into that cavern, then get back to Luthadel with the food supplies.

  And survive as long as we can.

  I suspect that Alendi, the man Rashek killed, was himself a Misting-a Seeker. Allomancy, however, was a different thing in those days, and much more rare. The Allomancers alive in our day are the descendants of the men who ate those few beads of Preservation's power. They formed the foundation of the nobility, and were the first to name him emperor.

  The power in these few beads was so concentrated that it could last through ten centuries of breeding and inheritance.

  62

  Sazed stood outside the room, looking in. Spook lay in his bed, still swaddled in bandages. The boy had not awakened since his ordeal, and Sazed wasn't certain if he ever would. Even if he did live, he'd be horribly scarred for the rest of his life.

  Though, Sazed thought, this proves one thing. The boy doesn't have pewter. If Spook had been able to burn pewter, then he would have healed far more quickly. Sazed had administered a vial of pewter just in case, and it had made no difference. The boy hadn't mystically become a Thug.

  It was comforting, in a way. It meant that Sazed's world still made sense.

  Inside the room, the girl-Beldre-sat at Spook's side. She came every day to spend time with the lad. More time, even, than she spent with her brother, Quellion. The Citizen had a broken arm and some other wounds, but nothing lethal. Though Breeze ruled in Urteau, Quellion was still an authority, and he seemed to have grown far more. . civil. He now seemed willing to consider an alliance with Elend.

  It seemed strange to Sazed that Quellion would become so accommodating. They had entered his city, sown chaos, and nearly killed him. Now he listened to their offers of peace? Sazed was suspicious, to be sure. Time would tell.

  Inside, Beldre turned slightly, finally noticing Sazed at the doorway. She smiled, standing.

  "Please, Lady Beldre," he said, entering. "Don't stand."

  She seated herself again as Sazed walked forward. He surveyed his bandage work on Spook, checking the young man's condition, comparing notes from inside the medical texts of his copperminds. Beldre watched quietly.

  Once he was finished, he turned to leave.

  "Thank you," Beldre said from behind.

  Sazed stopped.

  She glanced at Spook. "Do you think. . I mean, has his condition changed?"

  "I am afraid that it has not, Lady Beldre. I cannot promise anything in regard to his recovery."

  She smiled faintly, turning back toward the wounded lad. "He'll make it," she said.

  Sazed frowned.

  "He's not just a man," Beldre said. "He's something special. I don't know what he did to bring my brother back, but Quellion is just like his old self-the way he was before all of this insanity began. And the city. The people have hope again. That's what Spook wanted."

  Hope. . Sazed thought, studying the girl's eyes. She really does love him.

  It seemed, in a way, silly to Sazed. How long had she known the boy? A few weeks? During that short time, Spook had not only earned Beldre's love, but had become a hero to the people of an entire city.

  She sits and hopes, having faith that he will recover, Sazed thought. Yet, upon seeing him, the first thing I thought of was how relieved I was that he wasn't a Pewterarm. Had Sazed really become that callous? Just two years before, he had been willing to fall hopelessly in love with a woman who had spent most of her life chastising him. A woman with whom he had only had a few precious days.

  He turned and left the room.

  Sazed walked to his quarters in the nobleman's mansion they had taken, their new home now that their former residence was a burned-out ruin. It was nice to have ordinary walls and steps again, rather than endless shelves bounded by cavern walls.

  On his desk sat the open portfolio, its cloth-wrapped coverboard stained with ash. One stack of pages sat to its left, and one stack sat to its right. There were only ten pages left in the right stack.

  Taking a deep breath, Sazed approached and sat down. It was time to finish.

  It was late morning the next day before he set the final sheet onto the top of the left stack. He'd moved quickly through these last ten, but he'd been able to give them his undivided attention, not being distracted by riding as he worked or other concerns. He felt that he'd given each one due consideration.

  He sat for a time, feeling fatigued, and not just from lack of sleep. He felt. . numb. His task was done. After a year's work, he'd sifted through each and every religion in his stack. And he'd eliminated every one.

  It was odd, how many common features they all had. Most claimed ultimate authority, denouncing other faiths. Most taught of an afterlife, but could offer no proof. Most taught about a god or gods, yet-again-had little justification for their teachings. And every single one of them was riddled with inconsistencies and logical fallacies.

  How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn't occur in the present day?

  And then, of course, there was the final flake of ash on the pile-the thing that each and every faith had, in his opinion, failed to prove. All taught that believers would be blessed. And all had absolutely no answer as to why their gods had allowed the faithful to be captured, imprisoned, enslaved, and slaughtered by a heretic known as Rashek, the Lord Ruler.

  The stack of pages sat face down on the desk before him. They meant that there was no truth. No faith that would bring Tindwyl back to him. Nothing watching over men, contrary to what Spook had affirmed so strongly. Sazed ran his fingers across the final pa
ge, and finally, the depression he'd been fighting-barely holding at bay for so long-was too strong for him to overcome. The portfolio had been his final line of defense.

  It was pain. That's what the loss felt like. Pain and numbness at the same time; a barb-covered wire twisting around his chest combined with an absolute inability to do anything about it. He felt like huddling in a corner, crying, and just letting himself die.

  No! he thought. There must be something. .

  He reached under his desk, trembling fingers seeking his sack of metalminds. However, he didn't pull one of these out, but instead removed a large, thick tome. He put it on the table beside his portfolio, then opened it to a random page. Words written in two different hands confronted him. One was careful and flowing. His own. The other was terse and determined. Tindwyl's.

  He rested his fingers on the page. He and Tindwyl had compiled this book together, deciphering the history, prophecies, and meanings surrounding the Hero of Ages. Back before Sazed had stopped caring.

  That's a lie, he thought, forming a fist. Why do I lie to myself? I still care. I never stopped caring. If I'd stopped caring, then I wouldn't still be searching. If I didn't care so much, then being betrayed wouldn't feel so painful.

  Kelsier had spoken of this. Then Vin had done the same. Sazed had never expected to have similar feelings. Who was there that could hurt him so deeply that he felt betrayed? He was not like other men. He acknowledged that not out of arrogance, but out of simple self-knowledge. He forgave people, perhaps to a fault. He simply wasn't the type to feel bitter.

  He'd assumed, therefore, that he would never have to deal with these emotions. That's why he'd been so unprepared to be betrayed by the only thing he couldn't accept as being flawed.

  He couldn't believe. If he believed, it meant that God-or the universe, or whatever it was that watched over man-had failed. Better to believe that there was nothing at all. Then, all of the world's inadequacies were simply mere chance. Not caused by a god who had failed them.

  Sazed glanced at his open tome, noticing a little slip of paper sticking out between its pages. He pulled it free, surprised to find the picture of a flower that Vin had given him, the one that Kelsier's wife had carried. The one she'd used to give herself hope. To remind her of a world that had existed before the coming of the Lord Ruler.

  He glanced upward. The ceiling was of wood, but red sunlight-refracted by the window-sprayed across it. "Why?" he whispered. "Why leave me like this? I studied everything about you. I learned the religions of five hundred different peoples and sects. I taught about you when other men had given up a thousand years before.

  "Why leave me without hope, when others can have faith? Why leave me to wonder? Shouldn't I be more certain than any other? Shouldn't my knowledge have protected me?"

  And yet, his faith had made him even more susceptible. That's what trust is, Sazed thought. It's about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you. That's why he'd given up his metalminds. That's why he had decided to sort through the religions one at a time, trying to find one that had no faults. Nothing to fail him.

  It just made sense. Better to not believe, rather than be proven wrong. Sazed looked back down. Why did he think to talk to the heavens? There was nothing there.

  There never had been.

  Outside, in the hallway, he could hear voices. "My dear doggie," Breeze said, "surely you'll stay for another day."

  "No," said TenSoon the kandra, speaking in his growling voice. "I must find Vin as soon as possible."

  Even the kandra, Sazed thought. Even an inhuman creature has more faith than I.

  And yet, how could they understand? Sazed closed his eyes tight, feeling a pair of tears squeeze from the corners. How could anyone understand the pain of a faith betrayed? He had believed. And yet, when he had needed hope the most, he had found only emptiness.

  He picked up the book, then snapped closed his portfolio, locking the inadequate summaries inside. He turned toward the hearth. Better to simply burn it all.

  Belief. . He remembered a voice from the past. His own voice, speaking to Vin on that terrible day after Kelsier's death. Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief-what is faith-if you don't continue in it after failure. .

  How innocent he had been.

  Better to trust and be betrayed, Kelsier seemed to whisper. It had been one of the Survivor's mottos. Better to love and be hurt.

  Sazed gripped the tome. It was such a meaningless thing. Its text could be changed by Ruin at any time. And do I believe in that? Sazed thought with frustration. Do I have faith in this Ruin, but not in something better?

  He stood quietly in the room, holding the book, listening to Breeze and Ten-Soon outside. The book was a symbol to him. It represented what he had once been. It represented failure. He glanced upward again. Please, he thought. I want to believe. I really do. I just. . I just need something. Something more than shadows and memories. Something real.

  Something true. Please?

  "Farewell, Soother," TenSoon said. "Give my regards to the Announcer." Then, Sazed heard Breeze thump away. TenSoon padded down the hallway on his quieter dog's feet.

  Announcer. .

  Sazed froze.

  That word. .

  Sazed stood, stunned for a moment. Then, he threw his door open and burst into the hallway. The door slammed back against the wall, making Breeze jump. TenSoon stopped at the end of the hallway, near the stairs. He turned back, looking at Sazed.

  "What did you call me?" Sazed demanded.

  "The Announcer," TenSoon said. "You are, are you not, the one who pointed out Lady Vin as the Hero of Ages? That, then, is your title."

  Sazed fell to his knees, slapping his tome-the one he had written with Tindwyl-on the floor before him. He flipped through the pages, locating one in particular, penned in his own hand. I thought myself the Holy Witness, it said, the prophet foretold to discover the Hero of Ages. They were the words of Kwaan, the man who had originally named Alendi the Hero. From these writings, which were their only clues about the original Terris religion, Sazed and the others had gleaned what little they knew of the prophecies about the Hero of Ages.

  "What is this?" Breeze asked, leaning down, scanning the words. "Hum. Looks like you've got the wrong term, my dear doggie. Not 'Announcer' at all, but 'Holy Witness.' "

  Sazed looked up. "This is one of the passages that Ruin changed, Breeze," he said quietly. "When I wrote it, it read differently-but Ruin altered it, trying to trick me and Vin into fulfilling his prophecies. The skaa had started to call me the Holy Witness, their own term. So Ruin retroactively changed Kwaan's writings so that they seemed prophetic and reference me."

  "Is that so?" Breeze asked, rubbing his chin. "What did it say before?"

  Sazed ignored the question, instead meeting TenSoon's canine eyes. "How did you know?" he demanded. "How do you know the words of the ancient Terris prophecies?"

  TenSoon fell back on his haunches. "It strikes me as odd, Terrisman. There's one great inconsistency in this all, a problem no one has ever thought to point out. What happened to the packmen who traveled with Rashek and Alendi up to the Well of Ascension?"

  Rashek. The man who had become the Lord Ruler.

  Breeze stood up straight. "That's easy, kandra," he said, waving his cane. "Everyone knows that when the Lord Ruler took the throne of Khlennium, he made his trusted friends into noblemen. That's why the nobility of the Final Empire were so pampered-they were the descendants of Rashek's good friends."

  TenSoon sat quietly.

  No, Sazed thought with wonder. No. . that couldn't be! "He couldn't have made those packmen into nobles."

  "Why ever not?" Breeze asked.

  "Because the nobility gained Allomancy," Sazed said, standing. "Rashek's friends were Feruchemists. If he'd made them into noblemen, then. ."

  "Then they could have challenged him," TenSoon said. "They could have become both Allomancers and Feruchem
ists as he was, and had his same powers."

  "Yes," Sazed said. "He spent ten centuries trying to breed Feruchemy out of the Terris population-all in fear that someday someone would be born with both Feruchemy and Allomancy! His friends who went to the Well with him would have been dangerous, since they were obviously powerful Feruchemists, and they knew what Rashek had done to Alendi. Rashek would have had to do something else with them. Something to sequester them, perhaps even kill them. . "

  "No," TenSoon said. "He didn't kill them. You call the Father a monster, but he was not an evil man. He didn't kill his friends, though he did recognize the threat their powers posed to him. So, he offered them a bargain, speaking directly to their minds while he was holding the power of creation."

  "What bargain?" Breeze asked, obviously confused.

  "Immortality," TenSoon said quietly. "In exchange for their Feruchemy. They gave it up, along with something else."

  Sazed stared at the creature in the hallway, a creature who thought like a man but had the form of a beast. "They gave up their humanity," Sazed whispered.

  TenSoon nodded.

  "They live on?" Sazed asked, stepping forward. "The Lord Ruler's companions? The very Terrismen who climbed to the Well with him?"

  "We call them the First Generation," TenSoon said. "The founders of the kandra people. The Father transformed every living Feruchemist into a mistwraith, beginning that race. His good friends, however, he returned to sentience with a few Hemalurgic spikes. You've done your work poorly, Keeper. I expected that you'd drag this out of me long before I had to leave."

  I've been a fool, Sazed thought, blinking away tears. Such a fool.

  "What?" Breeze asked, frowning. "What's going on? Sazed? My dear man, why are you so flustered? What do this creature's words mean?"

  "They mean hope," Sazed said, pushing into his room, hurriedly throwing some of his clothing into a travel pack.