Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (17 page)

"All right, people," Elend finally said. "Let's start preparations. Breeze, Sazed, Allrianne I'll need you to talk with the scribes about supply estimates for your trip. Ham, send word to Luthadel and tell Penrod to have our scholars work on culturing plants that can grow in very little sunlight. Demoux, pass the word to the men. We march tomorrow ."

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Hemalurgy, it is called, because of the connection to blood. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that
death is alwa ys involved in the transfer of powers via Hemalurgy. Marsh once described it as a

"messy" process. Not the adjective I would have chosen. It's not disturbing enough.
13

I'M M ISS I NG SOMET H I NG,
MARSH THOUGHT.

He sat in the koloss camp. Just sitting. He hadn't moved in hours. Ash dusted him like a statue. Ruin's attention had been focused elsewhere lately, and Marsh had been left with more and more time to himself.

He still didn't struggle. Struggle just brought Ruin's attention.

Isn 't that what I want?
he thought.
To be controlled?
When Ruin forced him to see things its way, the dying world seemed wonderful. That bliss was far superior to the dread he f elt while sitting on the stump, slowly being buried in ash.

No. No, that's not what I want ! It was bliss, true, but it was false. As he had once struggled against Ruin, he now struggled against his own sense of inevitability.
What am I missing?
he thought again, distracting himself. The koloss army three hundred thousand strong hadn't moved in weeks. Its members were slowly, yet relentlessly, killing each other. It seemed a waste of resources to let the army stagnate, even if the creatures could apparently eat even the dead plants beneath the ash to survive.

They can't possibl y live on that for long, can they?
He didn't know much about the koloss, despite spending the better part of a year with them. They appeared to be able to eat almost anything, as if just f illing their stomachs were more important than actual nutrition.

What was Ruin waiting for? Why not take his army in and attack? Marsh was familiar enough with Final Empire geography to recognize that he was stationed in the North, near Terris. Why not move down and strike Luthadel?

There were no other Inquisitors in the camp. Ruin had called them to other tasks, leaving Marsh alone. Of all the Inquisitors, Marsh had been given the largest number of new spikes he had ten new ones planted at various places in his body . That ostensibly made him the most powerful of the Inquisitors . Why leave him behind?

Yet . .
. what does it matter?
he wondered.
The end has come. There is no way to beat Ruin. The
world will end.

He felt guilty for the thought. If he could have turned his eyes downward in shame, he would have. There had been a time when he'd run the entire skaa rebellion. Thousands had looked to him for leadership. And then . . . Kelsier had been captured. As had Mare, the woman both Kelsier and Marsh had loved. When Kelsier and Mare had been cast into the Pits of Hathsin, Marsh had left the rebellion. His rationale had been simple. If the Lord Ruler could catch Kelsier the most brilliant thief of his time then he would catch Marsh eventually too. It hadn't been fear that had driven Marsh's retirement, but simple realism. Marsh had always been practical. Fighting had proven useless . So why do it?

And then Kelsier had returned and done what a thousand years of rebellious skaa hadn't been able to: He'd overthrown the empire, facilitating the death of the Lord Ruler himself.
That should have been me,
Marsh thought.
I served the rebellion all my li fe, then gave up just be f ore
they finally won.

It was a tragedy, and it was made worse by the fact that Marsh was doing it again. He was giving up. Damn you, Kelsier! he thought with f rustration. Can't you leave me be even in death?

And yet, one harrowing, undeniable fact remained. Mare had been right. She had chosen Kelsier over Marsh. And then, when both men had been forced to deal with her death, one had given up. The other had made her dreams come true.

Marsh knew why Kelsier had decided to overthrow the Final Empire. It hadn't been for the money, the fame, or even as most suspe cted for revenge. Kelsier knew Mare's heart. He'd known that she dreamed of days when plants flourished and the sky was not red. She'd always carried with her that little picture of a f lower, a copied copy of a copy a depiction of something that had been lost to the Final Empire long ago.

But , Marsh thought bitterly, you didn 't make her dreams a realit y, Kelsier. You f ailed. You
killed
the Lord Ruler, but that didn't f ix anything. It made things worse!
The ash continued to fall, blow ing around Marsh in a lazy breeze. Koloss grunted, and in the near distance one screamed as his companion killed him. Kelsier was dead now. But, he had died for her dream. Mare had been right to pick him, but she was dead too. Marsh wasn't. Not yet. I can f ight still, he told himself.
But how?

Even moving his finger would draw Ruin's attention.

Although, during the last few weeks, he hadn't struggled at all. Perhaps that was why Ruin decided it could leave Marsh alone for so long. The creature or the force, or whatever it was wasn't omnipotent. Marsh suspected, however, that it could move about freely, watching the world and seeing what was happening in various parts of it. No walls could block its view it seemed to be able to watch anything. Except a man's mind.

Perhaps . . . perhaps if I stop struggling long enough, I'll be able to surprise it when I finally do
decide to strike.

It seemed as good a plan as any. And, Marsh knew exactly what he would do, when the time came. He'd remove Ruin's most useful tool. He'd pull the spike f rom his back and kill himself. Not out of frustration, and not out of despair. He knew that he had some important part to play in Ruin's plans. If he removed himself at the right time, it could give the others the chance they needed. It was all he could give. Yet, it seemed fitting, and his new confidence made him wish he could stand and face the world with pride. Kelsier had killed himself to secure freedom for the skaa. Marsh would do the same and in doing so, hope to help save the world itself from destruction.

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PART TWO CLOTH AND GLASS
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Ruin 's consciousness was trapped by the Well of Ascension, kept mostl y impotent. That night, when
we discovered the Well f or the f irst time, we found something we didn't understand. A black smoke,
clogging one of the rooms.

Though we discussed it af ter the f act, we couldn 't decide what that was. How could we possibly
have known?

The body of a god or, rather, the power of a god, since the two are reall y the same thing. Ruin and
Preservation inhabited power and energy in the same way a person inhabits flesh and blood.
14

SPOOK FLARED TIN.

He let it burn within him burn brightly, burn powerfully. He never turned it off anymore. He j ust left it on, letting it roar, a f ire within him. Tin was one of the slowest-burning of metals, and it wasn't difficult to obtain in the amounts necessary for Allomancy.

He moved down the silent street. Even with Kelsier's now-famous proclamations that the skaa need not f ear the mists, few people went out at night. For, at night, the mists came. Deep and mysterious, dark and omnipresent, the mists were one of the great constants of the Final Empire. They came every night. Thicker than a simple fog, they swirled in definite patterns almost as if the diff erent banks, streams, and fronts of mist were living things. Almost playful, yet enigmatic. To Spook, however, they were barely an obstruction anymore. He'd always been told not to flare his tin too much; he'd been warned not to become dependent upon it . It would do dangerous things to his body, people said. And, the truth was, they were right. He had flared his tin nonstop for a year straight never letting up, keeping his body in a constant state of super-heightened senses and it had changed him. He worried that the changes would, indeed, be dangerous.

But he needed them, for the pe ople of Urteau needed him.

Stars blazed in the sky above him like a million tiny suns. They shone through the mists, which had during the last year become diaphanous and weak. At first, Spook had thought the world itself was changing. Then he had realized that it was j ust his perception. Somehow, by f laring tin for so long, he had permanently enhanced his senses to a point far beyond what other Allomancers could attain. He'd almost stopped. The flared tin had begun as a reaction to Clubs's death. He still felt terrible about the way he'd escaped Luthadel, leaving his uncle to die . During those first few weeks, Spook had flared his metals as almost a penance he'd wanted to f eel everything around him, take it all in, even though it was painful . Perhaps because it was painful.

But then he'd started to change, and that had worried him. But, the crew always talked about how hard Vin pushed herself. She rarely slept, using pewter to keep herself awake and alert. Spook didn't know how that worked he was no Mistborn, and could only burn one metal but he figured that if burning his one metal could give him an advantage, he'd better take it. Because they were going to need every advantage they could get.

The starlight was like daylight to him. During the actual day, he had to wear a cloth tied across his eyes to protect them, and even then going outside was sometimes blinding. His skin had become so sensitive that each pebble in the ground each crack, each flake of stone felt like a knife jabbing him through the soles of his shoes. The chill spring air seemed f reezing, and he wore a thick cloak. However, he had concluded that these nuisances were small prices to pay for the opportunity to become . . . whatever it was he had become. As he moved down the street, he could hear people shuffling and turning in their beds, even through their walls. He could sense a footstep from yards away. He could see on a dark night as no other human ever had.

Perhaps he'd find a way to be come useful to the others. Always before, he'd been the least important member of the crew. The dismissible boy who ran errands or kept watch while the others made plans. He didn't resent them for that they'd been right to give him such simple duties. Because of his street dialect, he'd been difficult to understand, and while all the other members of the crew had been handpicked by Kelsier, Spook had joined by default since he was Clubs's nephew. Spook sighed, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets as he walked down the too-bright street. He could f eel each and every thread in the fabric . Dangerous things were happening, he knew that: the way the mists lingered during the day, the way the ground shook as if it were a sleeping man, periodically suffering a terrible dream. Spook worried he wouldn't be of much help in the critical days to come. A little over a year before, his uncle had died af ter Spook fled the city. Spook had run out of fear, but also out of a knowledge of his own impotence. He wouldn't have been able to help during the siege. He didn't want to be in that position again. He wanted to be able to help, somehow. He wouldn't run into the woods, hiding while the world ended around him. Elend and Vin had sent him to Urteau to gather as much inf ormation as he could about the Citizen and his government there, and so Spook intended to do his best. If that meant pushing his body beyond what was safe, so be it. He approached a large intersecti on. He looked both ways down the intersecting streets the view clear as day to his eyes .
I may not be Mistborn, and I may not be
emperor, he thought. But I 'm something. Something new. Something Kelsier would be proud of.

Maybe
this time I
can hel p.

He saw no motion in either direction, so he slipped onto the street and moved to the north. It felt strange, sometimes, slinking quietly along a street that seemed brightly lit. Yet, he knew that to others it would be dark, with only starlight to see by, the mist blocking and obscuring as ever. Tin helped an Allomancer pierce the mists, and Spook's increasingly sensitive eyes were even better at this. He brushed through the mists, barely noticing them.

He heard the patrol long before he saw it. How could someone not hear that clanking of armor, not f eel that clatter of feet on the cobblestones ? He froze, standing with his back to the earthen wall bordering the street, watching for the patrol.

They bore a torch to Spook's enhanced eyes, it looked like a blazing beacon of near-blinding brilliance. The torch marked them as fools. Its light wouldn't help just the reverse. The light ref lected off the mists, enveloping the guards in a little bubble of light that ruined their night vision. Spook stayed where he was, motionless. The patrol clanked forward, moving down the street. They passed within a few feet of him, but didn't notice him standing there. There was something . . . invigorating about being able to watch, f eeling at once completely exposed and perfectly unseen. It made him wonder why the new Urteau government even bothered with patrols. Of course, the government's skaa officials would have very little experience with the mists. As the guard patrol disappeare d around a corner bearing their glaring torch with them Spook turned back to his task. The Citizen would be meeting with his aides this night, if his schedule held. Spook intended to listen in on that conversation. He moved carefully down the street. No city could compare with Luthadel in sheer size, but Urteau made a respectable effort. As the hereditary home of the Venture line, it had once been a much more important and well-maintained city than it was now. That decline had begun even before the death of the Lord Ruler. The most obvious sign of that was the roadway Spook now walked on. Once, the city had been crisscrossed with canals that had functioned as watery streets . Those canals had gone dry some time ago, leaving the city crossed by deep, dusty troughs that grew muddy when it rained. Rather than filling them in, the people had simply begun to use the empty bottoms as roads. The street Spook now used had once been a wide waterway capable of accommodating even large barges. Ten-foot-high walls rose on either side of the sunken street, and buildings loomed above, built up against the lip of the canal. Nobody had been able to give Spook a def inite, or consistent, answer as to why the canals had emptied some blamed earthquakes, others blamed droughts. The fact remained, however, that in the hundred years since the canals had lost their water, nobody had found an economical way to refill them.