Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (9 page)

"Not much new there," Elend said, sounding disappointed. "We already knew about malatium and about controlling koloss. Though, I'd never thought to have several Soothers Push at the same time. That might be helpful." Bef ore, they'd thought it took a Mistborn burning duralumin to get control of koloss.

"It doesn't matter," Vin said, pointing at the other side of the plate. "We have
that
." The other half of the plate contained a map, carved into steel, j ust like the maps they had found in the other three storage caverns. It depicted the Final Empire, divided into dominances. Luthadel was a square at the center. An "X" to the east marked the main thing they'd come looking for: the location of the f inal cavern. There were five, they thought. They'd found the first one beneath Luthadel, near the Well of Ascension. It had given the location of the second, to the east. The third had been in Urteau Vin had been able to sneak into that one, but they hadn't managed to recover the food yet. That one had led them here, to the south. Each map had two numbers on it a five and a lower number. Luthadel had been number one. This one was number four.

"That's it," Vin said, running her fingers along the carved inscriptions on the plate. "In the Western Dominance, as you guessed. Somewhere near Chardees ? " "Fadrex City," Elend said.

"Cett's home?"

Elend nodded. He knew far more about geography than she.

"That's the place, then," Vin said. " The one where it is." Elend met her eyes, and she knew he understood her. The caches had grown progressively larger and more valuable. Each one had a specialized aspect to it as well the f irst had contained weapons in addition to its other supplies, while the second had contained large amounts of lumber. As they'd investigated each successive cache, they'd grown more and more excited about what the last one might contain. Something spectacular, surely. Perhaps even it .

The Lord Ruler's atium cache.

It was the most valuable treasure in the Final Empire. Despite years of searching, nobody had ever located it. S ome said it didn't even exist. But, Vin felt that it had to. Despite a thousand years of c ontrolling the sole mine that produced the extremely rare metal, he had allowed only a small portion of atium to enter the economy. Nobody knew what the Lord Ruler had done with the greater portion he had kept to himself for all those centuries.

"Now, don't get too excited," Elend said. "We have no proof that we'll find the atium in that final cavern."

"It has to be there," Vin said. "It makes sense. Where else would the Lord Ruler store his atium? "

"If I could answer that, we'd have found it."

Vin shook her head. "He put it somewhere safe, but somewhere where it would eventually be found. He left these maps as clues to his followers, should he somehow be defeated. He didn't want an enemy who captured one of the caverns to be able to find them all instantly." A trail of clues that led to one, final cache. The most important one. It made sense. It had to. Elend didn't look convinced. He rubbed his bearded chin, studying the . 22 201

reflective plate in their lantern light. "Even if we find it," he said, "I don't know that it will help that much. What good is money to us now? " "It's more than money," she said. "It's power. A weapon we can use to f ight."

"Fight the mists ?" he asked.

Vin fell silent. "Perhaps not," she finally said. "But the koloss, and the other armies. With that atium, your empire becomes secure . . . . Plus, atium is part of all this, Elend. It's only valuable because of Allomancy but Allomancy didn't exist until the Ascension."

"Another unanswered question," Elend said. "Why did that nugget of metal I ingested make me Mistborn? Where did it come from? Why was it placed at the Well of Ascension, and by whom? Why was there only one left, and what happened to the others ? "

"Maybe we'll find the answer once we take Fadrex," Vin said.

Elend nodded. She could tell he considered the information contained in the caches the most important reason to track them down, followed closely by the supplies. To him, the possibility of finding atium was relatively unimportant. Vin couldn't explain why she f elt he was so wrong in this regard. The atium
was
important. She j ust knew it. Her earlier despair lightened as she looked over the map. They had to go to Fadrex. She knew it.

The answers would be there.

"Taking Fadrex won't be easy," Elend noted. "Cett's enemies have entrenched themselves quite solidly there. I hear a former Ministry obligator is in charge ." "The atium will be worth it," Vin said.

"If it's there," Elend said.

She gave him a flat stare.

He held up a hand. "I'm just trying to do what you told me, Vin I'm trying to be realistic. However, I agree that Fadrex will be worth the effort. Even if the atium isn't there, we need the supplies in that store. We need to know what the Lord Ruler left us."

Vin nodded. She herself no longer had any atium. She'd burned up their last bit a y ear and a half ago, and she'd never gotten used to how exposed she f elt without it. Electrum softened that f ear somewhat, but not completely .

Voices sounded from the other end of the cavern, and Elend turned. "I should go speak to them," he said. "We're going to have to organize things in here quickly." "Have you told them yet that we're going to have to move them back to Luthadel ?"

Elend shook his head. "They won't like it," he said. " They're becoming independent, as I always hoped they would."

"It has to be done, Elend," Vin said. "This city is well outside our defensive perimeter. Plus, they can't have more than a f ew hours of mistless daylight left this far out. Their crops are already doomed." Elend nodded, but he continued to stare out into the darkness . "I come, I seize control of their city, take their treasure, then force them to abandon their homes. And from here we go to Fadrex to conquer another."

"Elend "

He held up a hand. "I know, V in. It must be done." He turned, leaving the lantern and walking toward the doorway. As he did, his posture straightened, and his face became more firm. Vin turned back to the plate, rereading the Lord Ruler's words. On a different plate, much like this one, S azed had found the words of Kwaan, the long-dead Terrisman who had changed the world by claiming to have found the Hero of Ages. Kwaan had left his words as a confession of his errors, warning that some kind of force was working to change the histories and religions of mankind. He'd worried that the force was suborning the Terris religion in order to cause a "Hero" to come to the North and release it.

That was exactly what Vin had done. She'd called herself hero, and had released the enemy all the while thinking that she was sacrificing her own needs for the good of the world. She ran her fingers across the l arge plate .

We have to do more than just fight wars! she thought, angry at the Lord Ruler.
If you knew so much,
why didn't you leave us more than this? A f ew maps in scattered halls filled with supplies? A couple
of paragraphs,
telling us about metals that are
of barely any use? What good is a cave f ull o f food
when we have an entire empire to f eed!

Vin stopped. Her fingers made far more sensitive by the tin she was burning to help her eyesight in the dark cavern brushed against grooves in the plate's surface. She knelt, leaning close, to f ind a short inscription carved in the metal, at the bottom, the letters much smaller than the ones up above. Be careful what you speak , it read. It can hear what you sa y. It can read what you write. Only your thoughts are saf e .

Vin shivered.

Only your thoughts
are safe
.

What had the Lord Ruler learned in his moments of transcendence? What things had he kept in his mind forever, never writing them down for fear of revealing his knowledge, always expecting that he would eventually be the one who took the power when it came again? Had he, perhaps, planned to use that power to destroy the thing that Vin had released?

You have doomed yourselves . . . . The Lord Ruler's last words, spoken right before Vin had thrust the spear through his heart. He'd known. Even then before the mists had started coming during the day, before she'd begun hearing the strange thumpings that led her to the Well of Ascension even then, she'd worried. Be careful what you speak . . . only your thoughts are safe .
I have to f igure this out. I have to connect what we have, f ind the way to defeat or outwit this thing
that I've loosed
.

And I can 't talk this over with anyone, or it will know what I'm planning
.

. 23 201

Rashek soon f ound a balance in the changes he made to the world which was f ortunate, for his
power burned away quite quickly. Though the power he held seemed immense to him, it was truly only
a tiny f raction of something much greater
.

Of course, he did end up naming himsel f the "Sliver of Infinit y" in his religion. Perhaps he
understood more than I give him credit for
.

Either wa y, we had him to thank f or a world without f lowers, where plants grew brown rather than
green, and where people could survive in an environment where ash fell from the sk y on a regular
basis
.

6

I'M TOO WEAK,
Marsh thought.

Lucidity came upon him suddenly, as it of ten did when Ruin wasn't watching him closely. It was like waking from a nightmare, f ully aware of what had been going on in the dream, yet confused as to the reasoning behind his actions.

He continued to walk through the koloss camp. Ruin still controlled him, as it alway s did. Yet, when it didn't press hard enough against Marsh's mind when it didn't focus on him sometimes, Marsh's own thoughts returned.

I can 't f ight it , he thought. Ruin couldn't read his thoughts, of that he was fairly confident. And yet, Marsh couldn't f ight or struggle in any way. When he did, Ruin immediately asserted control once again. This had been proven to Marsh a dozen times over. Sometimes he managed to quiver a f inger, perhaps halt a step, but that was the best he could do.

It was depressing. However, Marsh had always considered himself to be a practical man, and he forced himself to acknowledge the truth. He was never going to gain enough control over his body to kill himself.

Ash fell as he walked through the camp. Did it ever stop these days? He almost wished that Ruin wouldn't ever let go of his mind. When his mind was his own, Marsh saw only pain and destruction. When Ruin controlled him, however, the falling ash was a thing of beauty, the red sun a marvelous triumph, the world a place of sweetness in its death.

Madness,
Marsh thought, approaching the center of camp.
I need to go mad. Then I won't have to deal
with all of this
.

Other Inquisitors joined him at the center of the camp, walking with quiet swishes of their robes. They didn't speak. They never spoke Ruin controlled them all, so why bother with conversation? Marsh's brethren had the normal spikes in their heads, driven into the skull. Yet, he could also see telltale signs of the new spikes, jutting from their chests and backs. Marsh had placed many of them himself, killing the Terrismen that had either been captured in the north or tracked down across the land. Marsh himself had a new set of spikes, some driven between the ribs, others driven down through the chest. They were a beautif ul thing. He didn't understand why, but they excited him. The spikes had come through death, and that was pleasant enough but there was more. He knew, somehow, that the Inquisitors had been incomplete the Lord Ruler had withheld some abilities to make the Inquisitors more dependent upon him. To make certain they couldn't threaten him. But now, what he'd kept back had been provided.

What a beauti ful world, Marsh thought, looking up into the falling ash, f eeling the light, comforting flakes upon his skin.

. 24 201

I speak of us as "we." The group. Those of us who were trying to discover and de feat Ruin. Perhaps
my thoughts are now tainted, but I like to look back and see the sum of what we were doing as a
single, united assault, though we were all involved in di f ferent processes and plans.
We were one. That didn 't stop the world from ending, but that's not necessaril y a bad thing.
7

THEY GAVE HIM BONE S.

TenSoon f lowed around them, dissolving muscles, then re-forming them into organs, sinew, and skin. He built a body around the bones, using skills gained over centuries spent eating and digesting humans. Corpses only, of course he had never killed a man. The Contract forbade such things. After a year in his pit of a prison, he felt as if he had forgotten how to use a body. What was it like to touch the world with rigid digits, rather than a body that flowed against the confines of stone ? What was it like to taste and smell with only tongue and nostrils, rather than with every bit of skin exposed to the air. What was it like to . . .

To see. He opened his eyes and gasped, drawing first breath into remade, f ull-sized lungs. The world was a thing of wonder and of . . . light. He had forgotten that, during the months of near madness. He pushed himself to his knees, looking down at his arms. Then, he reached up, feeling his f ace with a tentative hand. His body wasn't that of any spe cific person he would have needed a model to produce such a replica. Instead, he had covered the bones with muscles and skin as best he could. He was old enough that he knew how to create a reasonable approximation of a human. The f eatures wouldn't be hands ome; they might even be a little grotesque. That, however, was more than good enough for the moment. He f elt . . . real again.

Still on hands and knees, he looked up at his captor. The cavern was lit only by a glowstone a large, porous rock set atop a thick column base. The bluish fungus that grew on the rock made enough of a glow to see by especially if one had specif ically grown eyes that were good at seeing in dim blue light. TenSoon knew his captor. He knew most kandra, at least up to the Sixth and Seventh Generations. This kandra's name was VarSell. In the Homeland, VarSell didn't wear the bones of an animal or human, but instead used a True Body a set of false bones, human-shaped, crafted by a kandra artisan. V arSell's True Body was quartz, and he left his skin translucent, allowing the stone to sparkle faintly in the fungal light as he studied TenSoon.