The Mistborn Trilogy (20 page)

“What do you mean by ‘people’?” Kelsier asked. “A lot of Allomancers know about them, and I’m sure the Ministry does. Regular people…well, they just don’t go out at night. Most skaa fear and curse mistwraiths, but go their entire lives without actually seeing one.”

“Lucky for them,” Vin muttered. “Why doesn’t someone do something about these things?”

Kelsier shrugged. “They’re not that dangerous.”

“That one has a human head!”

“It probably found a corpse,” Kelsier said. “I’ve never heard of a mistwraith attacking a full-grown, healthy adult. That’s probably why everyone leaves them alone. And, of course, the high nobility have devised their own uses for the creatures.”

Vin looked at him questioningly, but he said no more, rising and walking down the hillside. She shot one more glance at the unnatural creature, then took off, following Kelsier.

“Is that what you brought me out here to see?” Vin asked.

Kelsier chuckled. “Mistwraiths might look eerie, but they’re hardly worth such a long trip. No, we’re heading over there.”

She followed his gesture, and was able to make out a change in the landscape ahead. “The imperial highroad? We’ve circled around to the front of the city.”

Kelsier nodded. After a short walk—during which Vin glanced backward no less than three times to make certain the mistwraith hadn’t gained on them—they left the scrub and stepped onto the flat, packed earth of the imperial highroad. Kelsier paused, scanning the road in either direction. Vin frowned, wondering what he was doing.

Then she saw the carriage. It was parked by the side of the highroad, and Vin could see that there was a man waiting beside it.

“Ho, Sazed,” Kelsier said, walking forward.

The man bowed. “Master Kelsier,” he said, his smooth voice carrying well in the night air. It had a higher pitch to it, and he spoke with an almost melodic accent. “I almost thought that you had decided not to come.”

“You know me, Saze,” Kelsier said, jovially slapping the man on the shoulder. “I’m the soul of punctuality.” He turned and waved a hand toward Vin. “This apprehensive little creature is Vin.”

“Ah, yes,” Sazed said, speaking in a slow, well-enunciated way. There was something strange about his accent. Vin approached cautiously, studying the man. Sazed had a long, flat face and a willowy body. He was even taller than Kelsier—tall enough to be a bit abnormal—and his arms were unusually long.

“You’re a Terrisman,” Vin said. His earlobes had been stretched out, and the ears themselves contained studs that ran around their perimeter. He wore the lavish, colorful robes of a Terris steward—the garments were made of embroidered, overlapping
V
shapes, alternating among the three colors of his master’s house.

“Yes, child,” Sazed said, bowing. “Have you known many of my people?”

“None,” Vin said. “But I know that the high nobility prefer Terrismen stewards and attendants.”

“Indeed they do, child,” Sazed said. He turned to Kelsier. “We should go, Master Kelsier. It is late, and we are still an hour away from Fellise.”

Fellise
, Vin thought.
So, we’re going to see the impostor Lord Renoux.

Sazed opened the carriage door for them, then closed it after they climbed in. Vin settled on one of the plush seats as she heard Sazed climb atop the vehicle and set the horses in motion.

Kelsier sat quietly in the carriage. The window shades were closed against the mist, and a small lantern, half shielded, hung in the corner. Vin rode on the seat directly across from him—her legs tucked up underneath her, her enveloping mistcloak pulled close, hiding her arms and legs.

She always does that,
Kelsier thought.
Wherever she is, she tries to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. So tense.
Vin didn’t sit, she crouched. She didn’t walk, she prowled. Even when she was sitting in the open, she seemed to be trying to hide.

She’s a brave one, though.
During his own training, Kelsier hadn’t been quite so willing to throw himself off of a city wall—old Gemmel had been forced to push him.

Vin watched him with those quiet, dark eyes of hers. When she noticed his attention, she glanced away, huddling down a little more within her cloak. Unexpectedly, however, she spoke.

“Your brother,” she said in her soft near-whisper of a voice. “You two don’t get along very well.”

Kelsier raised an eyebrow. “No. We never have, really. It’s a shame. We should, but we just…don’t.”

“He’s older than you?”

Kelsier nodded.

“Did he beat you often?” Vin asked.

Kelsier frowned. “Beat me? No, he didn’t beat me at all.”

“You stopped him, then?” Vin said. “Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like you. How did you escape? Did you run, or were you just stronger than him?”

“Vin, Marsh never
tried
to beat me. We argued, true—but we never really wanted to hurt one another.”

Vin didn’t contradict him, but he could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe him.

What a life…
Kelsier thought, falling silent. There were so many children like Vin in the underground. Of course, most died before reaching her age. Kelsier had been one of the lucky ones: His mother had been a resourceful mistress of a high nobleman, a clever woman who had managed to hide the fact that she was skaa from her lord. Kelsier and Marsh had grown up privileged—considered illegitimate, but still noble—until their father had finally discovered the truth.

“Why did you teach me those things?” Vin asked, interrupting his thoughts. “About Allomancy, I mean.”

Kelsier frowned. “I promised you that I would.”

“Now that I know your secrets, what is to keep me from running away from you?”

“Nothing,” Kelsier said.

Once again, her distrusting glare told him that she didn’t believe his answer. “There are metals you didn’t tell me about. Back in our meeting on the first day, you said there were ten.”

Kelsier nodded, leaning forward. “There are. But I didn’t leave the last two out because I wanted to keep things from you. They’re just…difficult to get used to. It will be easier if you practice with the basic metals first. However, if you want to know about the last two, I can teach you once we arrive in Fellise.”

Vin’s eyes narrowed.

Kelsier rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to trick you, Vin. People serve on my crews because they want to, and I’m effective because they can rely on one another. No distrust, no betrayals.”

“Except one,” Vin whispered. “The betrayal that sent you to the Pits.”

Kelsier froze. “Where did you hear that?”

Vin shrugged.

Kelsier sighed, rubbing his forehead with one hand. That wasn’t what he wanted to do—he wanted to scratch his scars, the ones that ran all along his fingers and hands, twisting up his arms toward his shoulders. He resisted.

“That isn’t something worth talking about,” he said.

“But there was a traitor,” Vin said.

“We don’t know for certain.” That sounded weak, even to him. “Regardless, my crews rely on trust. That means no coercions. If you want out, we can go back to Luthadel right now. I’ll show you the last two metals, then you can be on your way.”

“I don’t have enough money to survive on my own,” Vin said.

Kelsier reached inside of his cloak and pulled out a bag of coins, then tossed it onto the seat beside her. “Three thousand boxings. The money I took from Camon.”

Vin glanced at the bag distrustfully.

“Take it,” Kelsier said. “You’re the one who earned it—from what I’ve been able to gather, your Allomancy was behind most of Camon’s recent successes, and you were the one who risked Pushing the emotions of a obligator.”

Vin didn’t move.

Fine,
Kelsier thought, reaching up and knocking on the underside of the coachman’s chair. The carriage stopped, and Sazed soon appeared at his window.

“Turn the carriage around please, Saze,” Kelsier said. “Take us back to Luthadel.”

“Yes, Master Kelsier.”

Within moments, the carriage was rolling back in the direction it had come. Vin watched in silence, but she seemed a little less certain of herself. She eyed the bag of coins.

“I’m serious, Vin,” Kelsier said. “I can’t have someone on my team who doesn’t want to work with me. Turning you away isn’t a punishment; it’s just the way things must be.”

Vin didn’t respond. Letting her go would be a gamble—but forcing her to stay would be a bigger one. Kelsier sat, trying to read her, trying to understand her. Would she betray them to the Final Empire if she left? He thought not. She wasn’t a bad person.

She just thought that everybody else was.

“I think your plan is crazy,” she said quietly.

“So do half the people on the crew.”

“You can’t defeat the Final Empire.”

“We don’t have to,” Kelsier said. “We just have to get Yeden an army, then seize the palace.”

“The Lord Ruler will stop you,” Vin said. “You can’t beat him—he’s immortal.”

“We have the Eleventh Metal,” Kelsier said. “We’ll find a way to kill him.”

“The Ministry is too powerful. They’ll find your army and destroy it.”

Kelsier leaned forward, looking Vin in the eye. “You trusted me enough to jump off the top of the wall, and I caught you. You’re going to have to trust me this time too.”

She obviously didn’t like the word “trust” very much. She studied him in the weak lanternlight, remaining quiet long enough that the silence grew uncomfortable.

Finally, she snatched the bag of coins, quickly hiding it beneath her cloak. “I’ll stay,” she said. “But not because I trust you.”

Kelsier raised an eyebrow. “Why, then?”

Vin shrugged, and she sounded perfectly honest when she spoke. “Because I want to see what happens.”

Having a keep in Luthadel qualified a house for high noble status. However, having a keep didn’t mean that one had to live in it, especially not all of the time. Many families also maintained a residence in one of Luthadel’s outskirt cities.

Less crowded, cleaner, and less strict in its observance of imperial laws, Fellise was a rich town. Rather than containing imposing, buttressed keeps, it was filled with lavish manors and villas. Trees even lined some of the streets; most of them were aspens, whose bone-white bark was somehow resistant to the discoloring of the ash.

Vin watched the mist-cloaked city through her window, the carriage lantern extinguished at her request. Burning tin, she was able to study the neatly organized and well-groomed streets. This was a section of Fellise she had rarely seen; despite the town’s opulence, its slums were remarkably similar to the ones in every other city.

Kelsier watched the city through his own window, frowning.

“You disapprove of the waste,” Vin guessed, her voice a whisper. The sound would carry to Kelsier’s enhanced ears. “You see the riches of this city and think of the skaa who worked to create it.”

“That’s part of it,” Kelsier said, his own voice barely a whisper. “There’s more, though. Considering the amount of money spent on it, this city should be beautiful.”

Vin cocked her head. “It is.”

Kelsier shook his head. “The homes are still stained black. The soil is still arid and lifeless. The trees still grow leaves of brown.”

“Of course they’re brown. What else would they be?”

“Green,” Kelsier said. “Everything should be green.”

Green?
Vin thought.
What a strange thought.
She tried to imagine trees with green leaves, but the image seemed silly. Kelsier certainly had his quirks—though, anyone who had spent so long at the Pits of Hathsin was bound to be left a bit strange.

He turned back toward her. “Before I forget, there are a couple more things you should know about Allomancy.”

Vin nodded.

“First,” Kelsier said, “remember to burn away any unused metals you have inside of you at the end of the night. Some of the metals we use can be poisonous if digested; it’s best not to sleep with them in your stomach.”

“All right,” Vin said.

“Also,” Kelsier said, “never try to burn a metal that isn’t one of the ten. I warned you that impure metals and alloys can make you sick. Well, if you try to burn a metal that isn’t Allomantically sound at all, it could be deadly.”

Vin nodded solemnly.
Good to know,
she thought.

“Ah,” Kelsier said, turning back toward the window. “Here we are: the newly purchased Manor Renoux. You should probably take off your cloak—the people here are loyal to us, but it always pays to be careful.”

Vin agreed completely. She pulled off the cloak, letting Kelsier tuck it in his pack. Then she peeked out the carriage window, peering through the mists at the approaching manor. The grounds had a low stone wall and an iron gate; a pair of guards opened the way as Sazed identified himself.

The roadway inside was lined with aspens, and atop the hill ahead Vin could see a large manor house, phantom light spilling from its windows.

Sazed pulled the carriage up before the manor, then handed the reins to a servant and climbed down. “Welcome to Manor Renoux, Mistress Vin,” he said, opening the door and gesturing to help her down.

Vin eyed his hand, but didn’t take it, instead scrambling down on her own. The Terrisman didn’t seem offended by her refusal.

The steps to the manor house were lit by a double line of lantern poles. As Kelsier hopped from the carriage, Vin could see a group of men gathering at the top of the white marble stairs. Kelsier climbed the steps with a springy stride; Vin followed behind, noticing how clean the steps were. They would have to be scrubbed regularly to keep the ash from staining them. Did the skaa who maintained the building know that their master was an imposter? How was Kelsier’s “benevolent” plan to overthrow the Final Empire helping the common people who cleaned these steps?

Thin and aging, “Lord Renoux” wore a rich suit and a pair of aristocratic spectacles. A sparse, gray mustache colored his lip, and—despite his age—he didn’t carry a cane for support. He nodded respectfully to Kelsier, but maintained a dignified air. Immediately, Vin was struck by one obvious fact:
This man knows what he is doing.