The Mistborn Trilogy (166 page)

Most people would have gone mad from the stress of being so confined for . . . he didn’t even
know
how long it had been. Months? But TenSoon had the Blessing of Presence. His mind would not give in easily.

Sometimes he cursed the Blessing for keeping him from the blissful relief of madness.

Focus
, he told himself. He had no brain, not as humans did, but he was able to think. He didn’t understand this. He wasn’t certain if any kandra did. Perhaps those of the First Generation knew more—but if so, they didn’t enlighten everyone else.

They can’t keep you here forever
, he told himself.
The First Contract says
. . .

But he was beginning to doubt the First Contract—or, rather, that the First Generation paid any attention to it. But, could he blame them? TenSoon was a Contract-breaker. By his own admission, he had gone against the will of his master, helping another instead. This betrayal had ended with his master’s death.

Yet, even such a shameful act was the least of his crimes. The punishment for Contract-breaking was death, and if TenSoon’s crimes had stopped there, the others would have killed him and been done with it. Unfortunately, there was much more at stake. TenSoon’s testimony—given to the Second Generation in a closed conference—had revealed a much more dangerous, much more important, lapse.

TenSoon had betrayed his people’s secret.

They can’t execute me
, he thought, using the idea to keep him focused.
Not until they find out who I told
.

The secret. The precious, precious secret.

I’ve doomed us all. My entire people. We’ll be slaves again. No, we’re already slaves. We’ll become something else
—
automatons, our minds controlled by others. Captured and used, our bodies no longer our own
.

This was what he had done—what he had potentially set in motion. The reason he deserved imprisonment and death. And yet, he wished to live. He should despise himself. But, for some reason, he still felt he had done the right thing.

He shifted again, masses of slick muscle rotating around one another. Midshift, however, he froze. Vibrations. Someone was coming.

He arranged himself, pushing his muscles to the sides of the pit, forming a depression in the middle of his body. He needed to catch all of the food that he could—they fed him precious little. However, no slop came pouring down through the grate. He waited, expectant, until the grate unlocked. Though he had no ears, he could feel the coarse vibrations as the grate was dragged back, its rough iron finally dropped against the floor above.

What?

Hooks came next. They looped around his muscles, grabbing him and ripping his flesh as they pulled him out of the pit. It hurt. Not just the hooks, but the sudden freedom as his body was spilled across the floor of the prison. He unwillingly tasted dirt and dried slop. His muscles quivered, the unfettered motion of being
outside the cell felt strange, and he strained, moving his bulk in ways that he had nearly forgotten.

Then it came. He could taste it in the air. Acid, thick and pungent, presumably in a gold-lined bucket brought by the prison keepers. They were going to kill him after all.

But, they can’t!
he thought.
The First Contract, the law of our people, it
—

Something fell on him. Not acid, but something hard. He touched it eagerly, muscles moving against one another, tasting it, testing it, feeling it. It was round, with holes, and several sharp edges . . . a skull.

The acid stink grew sharper. Were they stirring it? TenSoon moved quickly, forming around the skull, filling it. He already had some dissolved flesh stored inside of an organ-like pouch. He brought this out, oozing it around the skull, quickly making skin. He left the eyes alone, working on lungs, forming a tongue, ignoring lips for the moment. He worked with a sense of desperation as the taste of acid grew strong, and then . . .

It hit him. It seared the muscles on one side of his body, washing over his bulk, dissolving it. Apparently, the Second Generation had given up on getting his secrets from him. However, before killing him, they knew they had to give him an opportunity to speak. The First Contract required it—hence the skull. However, the guards obviously had orders to kill him before he could actually say anything in his defense. They followed the form of the law, yet at the very same time they ignored its intent.

They didn’t realize, however, how quickly TenSoon could work. Few kandra had spent as much time on Contracts as he had—all of the Second Generation, and most of the Third, had long ago retired from service. They led easy lives here in the Homeland.

An easy life taught one very little.

Most kandra took hours to form a body—some younger ones needed days. In seconds, however, TenSoon had a rudimentary tongue. As the acid moved up his body, he forced out a trachea, inflated a lung, and croaked out a single word:

“Judgment!”

The pouring stopped. His body continued to burn. He worked through the pain, forming primitive hearing organs inside the skull cavity.

A voice whispered nearby. “Fool.”

“Judgment!” TenSoon said again.

“Accept death,” the voice hissed quietly. “Do not put yourself in a position to cause further harm to our people. The First Generation has granted you this chance to die because of your years of extra service!”

TenSoon paused. A trial would be public. So far, only a select few knew the extent of his betrayal. He could die, cursed as a Contract-breaker but retaining some measure of respect for his prior career. Somewhere—likely in a pit in this very room—there were some who suffered endless captivity, a torture that would eventually break even the minds of those endowed with the Blessing of Presence.

Did he want to become one of those? By revealing his actions in an open forum,
he would earn himself an eternity of pain. Forcing a trial would be foolish, for there was no hope of vindication. His confessions had already damned him.

If he spoke, it would not be to defend himself. It would be for other reasons entirely.

“Judgment,” he repeated, this time barely whispering.

In some ways, having such power was too overwhelming, I think. This was a power that would take millennia to understand. Remaking the world would have been easy, had one been familiar with the power. Yet, I realized the danger inherent in my ignorance. Like a child suddenly given awesome strength, I could have pushed too hard, and left the world a broken toy I could never repair
.

ELEND VENTURE, SECOND EMPEROR
of the Final Empire, had not been born a warrior. He’d been born a nobleman—which, in the Lord Ruler’s day, had essentially made Elend a professional socialite. He’d spent his youth learning to play the frivolous games of the Great Houses, living the pampered lifestyle of the imperial elite.

It wasn’t odd for him to have ended up a politician. He’d always been interested in political theory, and while he’d been more a scholar than a true statesman, he’d known that someday he’d rule his house. Yet, he hadn’t made a very good king at first. He hadn’t understood that there was more to leadership than good ideas and honest intentions. Far more.

I doubt you will ever be the type of leader who can lead a charge against the enemy, Elend Venture
. The words had been spoken by Tindwyl—the woman who’d trained him in practical politics. Remembering those words made Elend smile as his soldiers crashed into the koloss camp.

Elend flared pewter. A warm sensation—now familiar to him—burst to life in his chest, and his muscles became taut with extra strength and energy. He’d swallowed the metal earlier, so that he could draw upon its powers for the battle. He was an Allomancer. That still awed him sometimes.

As he’d predicted, the koloss were surprised by the attack. They stood motionless for a few moments, shocked—even though they must have seen Elend’s newly recruited army as it charged. Koloss had trouble dealing with the unexpected. They found it hard to comprehend a group of weak, outnumbered humans attacking their camp. So, it took them time to adjust.

Elend’s army made good use of that time. Elend himself struck first, flaring his pewter to give himself yet more power as he cut down the first koloss. It was a smaller beast. Like all of its kind, it was human-like in form, though it had oversized, drooping blue skin that seemed detached from the rest of its body. Its beady red eyes showed a bit of inhuman surprise as it died, Elend yanking his sword from its chest.

“Strike quickly!” he yelled as more koloss turned from their firepits. “Kill as many as you can before they frenzy!”

His soldiers—terrified, but committed—charged in around him, overrunning the first few groups of koloss. The “camp” was little more than a place where the koloss had tromped down ash and the plants beneath, then dug firepits. Elend could see his men growing more confident at their initial success, and he encouraged them by Pulling on their emotions with Allomancy, making them braver. He was more comfortable with this form of Allomancy—he still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of leaping about with metals the way Vin did. Emotions, however—those he understood.

Fatren, the city’s burly leader, stuck near Elend as he led a group of soldiers toward a large pack of koloss. Elend kept an eye on the man. Fatren was the ruler of this small city; if he died, it would be a blow to morale. Together, they rushed a small group of surprised koloss. The largest beast in that group was some eleven feet tall. Like that of all large koloss, this creature’s skin—once loose—was now pulled tight around its oversized body. Koloss never stopped growing, but their skin always remained the same size. On the younger creatures, it hung loose and folded. On the big ones, it stretched and ripped.

Elend burned steel, then threw a handful of coins into the air in front of him. He Pushed on the coins, throwing his weight against them, spraying them at the koloss. The beasts were too tough to fall to simple coins with any reliability, but the bits of metal would injure and weaken them.

As the coins flew, Elend charged the large koloss. The beast pulled a huge sword off its back, and it seemed elated at the prospect of a fight.

The koloss swung first, and it had an awesome reach. Elend had to jump backward—pewter making him more nimble. Koloss swords were massive, brutish things, so blunt they were almost clubs. The force of the blow shook the air; Elend wouldn’t have had a chance to turn the blade aside, even with pewter helping him. In addition, the sword—or, more accurately, the koloss holding it—weighed so much that Elend wouldn’t be able to use Allomancy to Push it out of the creature’s hands. Pushing with steel was all about weight and force. If Elend Pushed on something heavier than himself, he’d be thrown backward.

So, Elend had to rely on the extra speed and dexterity of pewter. He threw himself out of his dodge, dashing to the side, watching for a backhand. The creature turned, silent, eyeing Elend, but didn’t strike. It hadn’t quite frenzied yet.

Elend stared down his oversized enemy.
How did I get here?
he thought, not for the first time.
I’m a scholar, not a warrior
. Half the time he thought he had no business leading men at all.

The other half the time, he figured that he thought too much. He ducked
forward, striking. The koloss anticipated the move, and tried to bring its weapon down on Elend’s head. Elend, however, reached out and Pulled on the sword of another koloss—throwing that creature off balance and allowing two of Elend’s men to slay it, and also Pulling Elend himself to the side. He just barely evaded his opponent’s weapon. Then, as he spun in the air, he flared pewter and struck from the side.

He sheared completely through the beast’s leg at the knee, toppling it to the ground. Vin always said that Elend’s Allomantic power was unusually strong. Elend wasn’t certain about that—he didn’t have much experience with Allomancy—but the force of his own swing did send him stumbling. He managed to regain his footing, however, and then took off the creature’s head.

Several of the soldiers were staring at him. His white uniform was now sprayed with bright red koloss blood. It wasn’t the first time. Elend took a deep breath as he heard inhuman screams sounding through the camp. The frenzy was beginning.