Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (31 page)

"Well ? " Vin asked.

The old man let out a breath of mist and smoke. "I just told you that I like the man, child. What would possess me to give you information to use against him? " "You're an informant," Vin said. "That's what you do sell information."

"I'm a storyteller," Slowswift corrected. "And not every story is meant for every set of ears. Why should I talk to those who would attack my city and overthrow my liege ? "

"We'd give you a powerful pos ition in the city once it is ours." Slowswif t snorted quietly. "If you think such things would interest me, then Cett obviously told you little regarding my temperament."

"We could pay you well."

"I sell information, child. Not my soul."

"You're not being very helpful," Vin noted.

"And tell me, dear child," he said, smiling slightly. "Why exactly should I care?" Vin frowned. This is, she thought, undoubtedly the strangest informant meeting I've
ever been to.
Slowswif t puffed on his pipe. He didn't appear to be waiting for her to say anything. In fact, he seemed to think the conversation was over.

He's a nobleman, Vin thought. He likes the way that the world used to be. It was com f ortable. Even skaa fear change.

Vin stood. "I'll tell you why you should care, old man. Because the ash is falling, and soon it will cover up your pretty little city. The mists kill. Earthquakes shake the landscape, and the ashmounts burn hotter and hotter. Change is looming. Eventually, even Yomen won't be able to ignore it. You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead." She turned to leave.

"They say you'll stop the ash," the old man said quietly from behind. " Turn the sun yellow again. They call you Heir of the Survivor. Hero of Ages." Vin paused, turning to look through the traitorous mist toward the man with his pipe and closed book. "Yes," she said.

"Seems like quite the destiny to live up to."

"It's either that or give up."

Slowswif t sat silently for a moment. "Sit down, child," the old man f inally said, gesturing toward the seat again.

Vin reseated herself.

"Yomen is a good man," Slow swift said, "but only a mediocre leader. He's a bureaucrat, a member of the Canton of Resource. He can make things happen get supplies to the right places, organize construction projects. Ordinarily, that would have made him a good enough ruler. However . . ."

"Not when the world is ending," Vin said softly.

"Precisely. If what I've heard is true, then your husband is a man of vision and action. If our little city is going to survive, then we'l l need to be part of what you are offering."

"What do we do, then?"

"Yomen has f ew weaknesses," Slowswift said. "He's a calm man, and an honorable one. However, he has an unfailing belief in the Lord Ruler and his organization." "Even now ? " Vin asked. "The Lord Ruler died!"

"Yes, so ? " Slowswift asked, amused. "And your Survivor? Last I checked, he was somewhat dead as well. Didn't seem to hinder his revolution much, now did it?" "Good point."

"Yomen is a believer," Slowswift said. "That may be a weakness; it may be a strength. Believers are of ten willing to attempt the seemingly impossible, then count on providence to see them through." He paused, glancing at Vin. "That sort of behavior can be a weakness
if
the belief is misplaced." Vin said nothing. Belief in the Lord Ruler was misplaced. If he'd been a god, then she wouldn't have been able to kill him. In her mind, it was a rather simple matter. "If Yomen has another weakness," Slowswift said, " it is his wealth."

"Hardly a weakness."

"It is if you can't account for its source. He got money somewhere a suspiciously vast amount of it, far more than even local Ministry coffers should have been able to provide. Nobody knows where it came from."

The cache, Vin thought, perking up. He reall y
does have the atium!

"You reacted a little too strongly to that one," Slowswift said, taking a puff on his pipe. "You should try to give less away when speaking with an informant." Vin flushed.

"Anyway," the old man said, turning back to his book, "if that is all, I should like to return to my reading. Give my regards to Ashweather."

Vin nodded, rising and moving over toward the banister. As she did, however, Slowswift cleared his throat. "Usually, " he noted, "there is compensation for acts such as mine." Vin raised an eyebrow . "I thought you said that stories shouldn't cost."

"Actually," Slowswift noted, "I said that a story itself shouldn't be a cost. That is very different from the story itself costing something. And, while some will argue, I believe that a story without cost is one considered worthless."

"I'm sure that's the only reason," Vin said, smiling slightly as she tossed her bag of coins minus a few cloth-covered ones to use for j umping to the old man. "Gold imperials. Still good here, I assume?"

. 66 201

"Good enough," the old man said, tucking them away. " Good enough . . ." Vin jumped out into the night, leaping a few houses away, burning bronze to see if she felt any Allomantic pulses from behind. She knew that her nature made her irrationally suspicious of people who appeared weak. For the longest time, she'd been convinced that Cett was Mistborn, simply because he was paraplegic. Still, she checked on Slowswif t. This was one old habit that she didn't f eel much need to extinguish.

No pulses came from behind. Soon, she moved on, pulling out Cett's instructions, searching out a second informant. She trusted Slowswift's words well enough, but she would like confirmation. She picked an informant on the other side of the spectrum a beggar named Hoid whom Cett claimed could be found in a particular square late at night.

A few quick jumps brought her to the location. She landed atop a roof and looked down, scanning the area. The ash had been allowe d to drift here, piling in corners, making a general mess of things. A group of lumps huddled in an alley beside the square . Beggars, without home or j ob. Vin had live d like that at times, sleeping in alleys, coughing up ash, hoping it wouldn't rain. She soon located a f igure that wasn't sleeping like the others, but sitting quietly in the light ashfall. Her ears picked out a faint sound. The man was humming to himself, as the instructions said that he might be doing. Vin hesitated.

She couldn't decide what it was, but something bothered her about the situation. It wasn't right. She didn't stop to think, she simply turned and j umped away. That was one of the big diff erences between her and Elend she didn't always need a reason. A feeling was enough. He always wanted to tease things out and find a why, and she loved him for his logic . However, he would have been very frustrated about her decision to turn away from the square as she had.

Perhaps nothing bad would have happened if she'd gone into the square. Perhaps something terrible would have occurred. She would never know, nor did she need to know. As she had countless other times in her life, Vin simply accepted her instincts and moved on.

Her flight took her along a street that Cett had noted in his instructions. Curious, Vin didn't search out another informant, but instead followed the road, bounding from anchor to anchor in the pervasive mists . She landed on a cobbled street a short distance from a building with lit windows. Blocky and utilitarian, the building was nonetheless daunting if only because of its size. Cett had written that the Canton of Resource was the largest of the Steel Ministry buildings in the city. Fadrex had acted as a kind of way station between Luthadel and more important cities to the west. Ne ar several main canal routes and well fortified against banditry, the city was the perfect place for a Canton of Resource regional headquarters. Yet, Fadrex hadn't been important enough to attract the Cantons of Orthodoxy or Inquisiti on traditionally the most powerful of the Ministry departments. That meant that Yomen, as head obligator at the Resource building, had been the area's top religious authority. From what Slowswift said, Vin assumed that Yomen was pretty much a standard Resource obligator: dry, boring, but terribly efficient. And so, of course, he'd chosen to make his old Canton building into his palace. It was what Cett had suspected, and Vin could easily see that it was true. The building bustled with activity despite the late hour, and was guarded by platoons of soldiers. Yomen had probably chosen the building in order to remind everyone where his authority originated. Unfortunately, it was also where the Lord Ruler's supply cache would be located. Vin sighed, turning from her contemplation of the building. Part of her wanted to sneak in and try to find her way down to the cavern beneath. Instead, she dropped a coin and shot herself into the air. Even Kelsier wouldn't have tried breaking into the place on his first night of scouting. She'd gotten into the one in Urteau, but it had been abandoned. She had to confer with Elend and study the city for a few days before she did something as bold as sneak into a fortified palace.

Using starlight and tin, Vin re ad off the name of the third and final informant. It was another nobleman, which wasn't surprising, considering Cett's own station. She began moving in the direction indicated. However, as she moved, she noticed something.

She was being followed.

She only caught hints of him behind her, obscured by the patterns of swirling mist. Tentatively, Vin burned bronze, and was rewarded with a very faint thumping from behind. An obscured Allomantic pulse. Usually, when an Allomancer burned copper as the one behind her was doing it made him invisible to the Allomantic bronze sense. Yet, for some reason Vin had never been able to explain, she could see through this obf uscation. The Lord Ruler had been able to do likewise, as had his Inquisitors.

Vin continued to move. The Allomancer following her obviously believed himself or herself invisible to Vin's senses . He moved with quick, easy bounds, following at a safe distance. He w as good without being excellent, and he was obviously Mistborn, for only a Mistborn could have burned both copper and steel at the same time.

Vin wasn't surprised. She'd assumed that if there were any Mistborn in the city, her leaping would draw their attention. Just in case, she hadn't bothered burning any copper herself, leaving her pulses open to be heard by anyone Mistborn or Seeker who was listening. Better an enemy drawn out than one hiding in the shadows. She increased her pace, though not suspiciously so, and the person following had to move quickly to keep up. Vin kept going toward the f ront of the city, as if planning to leave. As she got closer, her Allomantic senses produced twin blue lines pointing at the massive iron brackets holding the city gates to the rock at their sides. The brackets were large, substanti al sources of metal, and the lines they gave off were bright and thick.

Which meant they would make excellent anchors. Flaring her pewter to keep from being crushed, Vin
Pushed
on the brackets, throwing herself backward. Immediately, the Allomantic pulses behind her disappeared.

Vin shot through ash and mist, even her tight clothing flapping slightly from the wind. She quickly Pulled herself down to a rooftop and crouched, tense. The other Allomancer must have stopped burning his metals. But why would he do that? Did he know that she could pierce copperclouds? If he did, then why had he followed her so recklessly ?

Vin felt a chill. There was something else that gave off Allomantic pulses in the night. The mist spirit. She hadn't seen it in over a year. In fact, during her last encounter with it, it had nearly killed Elend only to then restore him by making him Mistborn.

She still didn't know how the spirit f it into all of this. It wasn't Ruin she had felt Ruin's presence when she'd freed him at the Well of Ascension. They were diff erent.

I don't even know i f this
was
the s pirit tonight ,
Vin told herself. Yet, the one tailing her had vanished so abruptly. . . .

Confused, and chilled, she Pushed herself out of the city and quickly made her way back to Elend's camp.

. 67 201

One f inal aspect of the Lord Ruler's cultural manipulation is quite interesting: that of technology.
I have already mentioned that Rashek chose to use Khlenni architecture, which allowed him to
construct lar ge structures and gave him the civil engineering necessary to build a city as large as
Luthadel. In other areas, however, he suppressed technological advancements. Gunpowder, f or
instance, was so frowned upon by Rashek that knowledge of its use disappeared almost as quickly as
knowledge of the Terris religion.

Apparently, Rashek f ound it alarming that armed with gunpowder weapons, even the most common of
men could be nearly as ef f ective as archers with years o f training. A nd so, he favored archer s. The
more training-dependent militar y technology was, the less likely it was that the peasant population
would be able to rise up and resist him. Indeed, skaa revolts always failed in part for this very reason.
28

"ARE YOU SURE IT WAS THE MIST SPIRIT?"
Elend asked, frowning, a half-finished letter scribed into a steel foil sheet sitting on his desk before him. He'd decided to sleep in his cabin aboard the narrowboat, rather than in a tent. Not only was it more comfortable, he felt more secure with walls around him, as opposed to canvas.

Vin sighed, sitting down on their bed, pulling her legs up and setting her chin on her knees. "I don't know. I kind of got spooked, so I f l ed."

"Good thing," Elend said, shivering as he remembered what the mist spirit had done to him.

"Sazed was convinced that the mist spirit wasn't evil," Vin said.

"So was I," Elend said. "If you'll remember, I'm the one who walked right up to it, telling you that I felt it was friendly. That was right about the time it stabbed me." Vin shook her head. "It was try ing to keep me f rom releasing Ruin. It thought that if you were dying, I would take the power f or myself and heal you, rather than giving it up."

"You don't know its intentions for certain, Vin. You could be connecting coincidences in your mind."