The Mistborn Trilogy (240 page)

Eventually, all fell still. Ruin opened his eyes, staring her down. “This work I do, it’s about
passion
, Vin. It’s about dynamic events; it’s about change! That is why you and your Elend are so important to me. People with passion are people who will destroy—for a man’s passion is not
true
until he proves how much he’s willing to sacrifice for it. Will he kill? Will he go to war? Will he break and discard that which he has, all in the name of what he
needs
?”

It’s not just that Ruin feels that he’s accomplished something
, Vin thought,
he
feels that he’s overcome. Despite what he claims, he feels that he’s won—that he’s defeated something . . . but who or what? Us? We would be no adversary for a force like Ruin.

A voice from the past seemed to whisper to her from long ago.
What’s the first rule of Allomancy, Vin?

Consequence. Action and reaction. If Ruin had power to destroy, then there was something that opposed him. It had to be. Ruin had an opposite, an opponent. Or, he once had.

“What did you do to him?” Vin asked.

Ruin hesitated, frowning as he turned toward her.

“Your opposite,” Vin said. “The one who once stopped you from destroying the world.”

Ruin was silent for a long moment. Then he smiled, and Vin saw something chilling in that smile. A knowledge that he was right. Vin
was
part of him. She understood him.

“Preservation is dead,” Ruin said.

“You killed him?”

Ruin shrugged. “Yes, but no. He gave of himself to craft a cage. Though his throes of agony have lasted several thousand years, now, finally, he is gone. And the bargain has come to its fruition.”

Preservation
, Vin thought, a piece of a gigantic whole clicking into place.
The opposite of Ruin. A force like that couldn’t have
destroyed
his enemy, because he would represent the opposite of destruction. But imprisonment, that would be within his powers.

Imprisonment that ended when I gave up the power at the Well.

“And so you see the inevitability,” Ruin said softly.

“You couldn’t create it yourself, could you?” Vin asked. “The world, life. You can’t create, you can only destroy.”

“He couldn’t create either,” Ruin said. “He could only preserve. Preservation is not creation.”

“And so you worked together,” Vin said.

“Both with a promise,” Ruin said. “My promise was to work with him to create you—life that thinks, life that loves.”

“And his promise?” Vin asked, fearing that she knew the answer.

“That I could destroy you eventually,” Ruin said softly. “And I have come to claim what was promised me. The only point in creating something is to watch it die. Like a story that must come to a climax, what I have done will not be fulfilled until the end has arrived.”

It can’t be true
, Vin thought.
Preservation. If he really represents a power in the universe, then he couldn’t really have been destroyed, could he?

“I know what you are thinking,” Ruin said. “You cannot enlist Preservation’s power. He is dead. He couldn’t kill me, you see. He could only imprison me.”

Yes. I figured that last part out already. You really can’t read my mind, can you?

Ruin continued. “It was a villainous act, I must say. Preservation tried to escape our bargain. Would you not call that an evil deed? It is as I said before—good and
evil have little to do with ruin or preservation. An evil man will protect that which he desires as surely as a good man.”

But something is keeping Ruin from destroying the world now
, she thought.
For all his words about stories and endings, he is not a force that would wait for an “appropriate” moment. There is more to this, more that I’m not understanding.

What is holding him back?

“I’ve come to you,” Ruin said, “because I want you, at least, to watch and see. To know. For it has come.”

Vin perked up. “What? The end?”

Ruin nodded.

“How long?” Vin asked.

“Days,” Ruin said. “But not weeks.”

Vin felt a chill, realizing something. He had come to her, finally revealing himself, because she was captured. He thought that there was no further chance for mankind. He assumed that he had won.

Which means that there is a way to beat him
, she thought with determination.
And it involves me. But I can’t do it here, or he wouldn’t have come to gloat.

And that meant she had to get free. Quickly.

Once you begin to understand these things, you can see how Ruin was trapped even though Preservation’s mind was gone, expended to create the prison. Though Preservation’s consciousness was mostly destroyed, his spirit and body were still in force. And, as an opposite force of Ruin, these could still prevent Ruin from destroying.

Or, at least, keep him from destroying things too quickly. Once his mind was “freed” from its prison the destruction accelerated quickly.

“
THROW YOUR WEIGHT HERE
,” Sazed said, pointing at a wooden lever. “The counterweights will fall, swinging down all four floodgates and stemming the flow into the cavern. I warn you, however—the explosion of water above will be rather spectacular. We should be able to fill the city’s canals in a matter of hours, and I suspect that a portion of the northern city will be flooded.”

“To dangerous levels?” Spook asked.

“I do not think so,” Sazed said. “The water will burst out through the conduits in the interchange building beside us. I’ve inspected the equipment there, and it appears sound. The water
should
flow directly into the canals, and from there exit the city. Either way, I would not want to be in those streetslots when this water comes. The current will be quite swift.”

“I’ve taken care of that,” Spook said. “Durn is going to make certain the people know to be clear of the waterways.”

Sazed nodded. Spook couldn’t help but be impressed. The complicated construct of wood, gears, and wire looked like it should have taken months to build, not weeks. Large nets of rocks weighed down the four gates, which hung, ready to block off the river.

“This is amazing, Saze,” Spook said. “With a sign as spectacular as the reappearance of the canal waters, the people will be
certain
to listen to us instead of the Citizen.” Breeze and Durn’s men had been working hard over the last few
weeks, whispering to the people to watch for a miracle from the Survivor of the Flames. Something extraordinary, something to prove—once and for all—who was the rightful master of the city.

“It is the best I could do,” Sazed said with a modest bow of the head. “The seals won’t be perfectly tight, of course. However, that should matter little.”

“Men?” Spook said, turning to four of Goradel’s soldiers. “You understand what you are to do?”

“Yes, sir,” the lead soldier said. “We wait for a messenger, then throw the lever there.”

“If no messenger comes,” Spook said, “throw the switch at nightfall.”

“And,” Sazed said, raising a finger, “don’t forget to twist the sealing mechanism in the other room, plugging the water flow
out
of this chamber. Otherwise, the lake will eventually empty. Better that we keep this reservoir full, just in case.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier said with a nod.

Spook turned, looking back over the cavern. Soldiers bustled about, preparing. He was going to need most of them for the night’s activities. They looked eager—they’d spent too long holed up in the cavern and the building above. To the side, Beldre regarded Sazed’s contraption with interest. Spook broke away from the soldiers, approaching her with a quick step.

“You’re really going to do it?” she said. “Return the water to the canals?”

Spook nodded.

“I sometimes imagined what it would be like to have the waters back,” she said. “The city wouldn’t feel as barren—it would become important, like it was during the early days of the Final Empire. All those beautiful waterways. No more ugly gashes in the ground.”

“It will be a wonderful sight,” Spook said, smiling.

Beldre just shook her head. “It . . . amazes me that you can be such different people at the same time. How can the man who would do such a beautiful thing for my city also plan such destruction?”

“Beldre, I’m not planning to destroy your city.”

“Just its government.”

“I do what needs to be done.”

“Men say that so easily,” Beldre said. “Yet, everybody seems to have a different opinion of what ‘needs’ to be done.”

“Your brother had his chance,” Spook said.

Beldre looked down. She still carried with her the letter they’d received earlier in the day—a response from Quellion. Beldre’s plea had been heartfelt, but the Citizen had responded with insults, implying that she had been forced to write the words because she was being held prisoner.

I do not fear a usurper
, the letter read.
I am protected by the Survivor himself. You will not have this city, tyrant.

Beldre looked up. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Give him more time. Please.”

Spook hesitated.

“There is no more time,” Kelsier whispered. “Do what must be done.”

“I’m sorry,” Spook said, turning from her. “Stay with the soldiers—I’m leaving four men to guard you. Not to keep you from fleeing, though they will do that. I want you inside this cavern. I can’t promise that the streets will be safe.”

He heard her sniffle quietly behind him. He left her standing there, then walked toward the gathering group of soldiers. One man brought Spook his dueling canes and singed cloak. Goradel stood at the front of his soldiers, looking proud. “We’re ready, my lord.”

Breeze walked up beside him, shaking his head, dueling cane tapping the ground. He sighed. “Well, here we go again. . . .”

The evening’s occasion was a speech Quellion had been publicizing for some time. He had stopped executions recently, as if finally realizing that the deaths were contributing to the instability of his rule. He apparently intended to swing back toward benevolence, holding rallies, emphasizing the wonderful things he was doing for the city.

Spook walked alone, a little ahead of Breeze, Allrianne, and Sazed, who chatted behind. Some of Goradel’s soldiers followed as well, wearing common Urteau garb. Spook had split their force, sending it by different paths. It wasn’t dark yet—to Spook the falling sun was bright, forcing him to wear his blindfold and spectacles. Quellion liked to hold his speeches in the evening, so that the mists arrived during them. He liked the implied connection to the Survivor.

A figure hobbled out of a side streetslot next to Spook. Durn walked with a stooped posture, a cloak obscuring his figure. Spook respected the twisted man’s insistence on leaving the security of the Harrows, going out to run jobs himself. Perhaps that was why he’d ended up as leader of the city’s underground.

“People are gathering, as expected,” Durn said, coughing quietly. “Some of your soldiers are already there.”

Spook nodded.

“Things are . . . unsettled in the city,” Durn said. “It worries me. Segments I can’t control have already started looting some of the prohibited noble mansions. My men are all busy trying to get people out of the streetslots.”

“It will be all right,” Spook said. “Most of the populace will be at the speech.”

Durn was silent for a moment. “Word is that Quellion is going to use his speech to denounce you, then finally order an attack on the Ministry building where you’re staying.”

“It’s a good thing we won’t be there, then,” Spook said. “He shouldn’t have withdrawn his soldiers, even if he
did
need them to keep order in the city.”

Durn nodded.

“What?” Spook said.

“I just hope you can handle this, lad. Once this night is through, the city will be yours. Treat it better than Quellion did.”

“I will,” Spook said.