Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (72 page)

"Why ? " Ruin asked. "Why don't you want them worshipping you? All of those happy skaa? Looking toward you for hope?"

"The Lord Ruler
must
be behind all of this," Yomen mused out loud. "That means that he wanted the world to see you as his killer. He wanted the skaa to worship you."

"Why ? " Ruin repeated. "Why be so uncomfortable? Is it because you know you
can't
off er them hope ? What is it they call him, the one you are supposed to have replaced? The Survivor? A word of Preservation, I think. . . ."

"Perhaps he intends to return dramatically," Yomen said. "To depose you and topple you, to prove that faith in him is the only true faith."

Why don't you fit? Ruin whispered in her head.

"Why else would he want them to worship you?" Yomen asked.

" They're wrong! " Vin snapped, raising hands to her head, trying to stop the thoughts. Trying to stop the guilt.

Yomen paused.

"They're wrong about me," Vin said. "They don't worship me, they worship what they think I should be. But I'm not the Heir of the Sur vivor. I didn't do what Kelsier did. He freed them." You conquered them, Ruin whispered.

"Yes," Vin said, looking up. "You're looking in the wrong direction, Yomen. The Lord Ruler won't return."

"I told you that "

"No," Vin said, standing. "No, he's not coming back. He doesn't need to.
I
took his place ." Elend had worried that he was becoming another Lord Ruler, but his concern had always seemed flawed to Vin. He hadn't been the one to conquer and reforge an empire, she had. She'd been the one who made the other kings submit.

She'd done exactly as the Lord Ruler had. A Hero had risen up, and the Lord Ruler had killed him, then taken the power of the Well of Ascension. Vin had killed the Lord Ruler, then taken that same power. She'd given up the power, true, but she'd filled the same role.

It all came to a head. The reason why the skaa worshipping her, calling her their savior, felt so wrong. Suddenly, her real role in it all seemed to snap into place. "I'm not the Survivor's Heir, Yomen," she said sickly. "I'm the Lord Ruler's."

He shook his head dismissively.

"When you first captured me," she said, "I wondered why you kept me alive. An enemy Mistborn?

Why not just kill me and be done with it? You claimed that you wanted to give me a trial, but I saw through that. I knew you had another motive. And now I know what it is ." She looked him in the eyes. "You said earlier that you planned to execute me for the Lord Ruler's murder, but you just admitted that you think he's still alive. You say that he'll return to topple me from my place, so you can't . 148 201

kill me, lest you interf ere with your god's plans."

Yomen turned away from her.

"You
can't
kill me," she said. "Not until you're certain of my place in your theology. That's why you kept me alive, and that's why you risk bringing me in here to talk. You need information only I c an give you have to get testimony from me in a trial of sorts because you want to know what happened that night. So you can try to convince yourself that your god still lives." Yomen didn't respond.

"Admit it. I'm in no danger here." She stepped forward.

And Yomen moved. His steps suddenly became more fluid he didn't have the grace of pewter or the knowledge of a warrior, but he moved just
right.
She dodged instinctively, but his atium let him anticipate her, and before she could so much as think, he'd thrown her to the floor, holding her pinned with a knee against
her
back. "I may not kill you yet," he said calmly, "but that hardly means that you're in 'no danger,' Lady Venture."

Vin grunted.

"I want something from you," he said. " S omething more than what we've discussed. I want you to tell your husband to send his army away." "Why would I do that?" Vin said, face pressed against the cold stone of the f loor.

"Because," Yomen said, "you claim to want my storage cache, yet you claim to be good people. You now know that I will use the food in it wisely, to feed my people. If your Elend really is as altruistic as you claim, he certainly won't be so self ish as to throw away lives to war, j ust so you can steal away our food and use it to feed your own."

"We can grow crops," Vin said. "We get enough light in the Central Dominance, while you don't. The seed stock you have will be useless to you!" "Then trade me for it."

"You won't talk to us!"

Yomen stepped back, releasing the pressure on her back. She rubbed her neck, sitting up, feeling frustrated. "It's about more than the food in that cache, Yomen," she said. "We control the other four of them. The Lord Ruler, he left clues in them. There is something to the whole group that can save us."

Yomen snorted. "You were down there all that time, and you didn't read the plaque that the Lord Ruler left?"

"Of course I did."

"Then you know that there
is
nothing more in those caches," Yomen said. " They're all part of his plan, true. And f or some reason that plan requires that men think he is dead. Regardless, you know now what he said. So, why take the city from me?"

Why take the city from me ? The real reason itched inside of Vin. Elend had always f ound it an unimportant one, but to her, it held powerful appeal . " You know full well why we have to take the city," Vin said. "As long as you have it , we have reason to conquer you."

"It? " Yomen asked.

Ruin stepped forward, curious.

"You know what I mean. The atium. The Lord Ruler's supply."

"That?" Yomen asked, laughing. "This is all about the atium? Atium is worthless !" Vin frowned. "Worthless? It's the single most valuable commodity in the Final Empire!"

"Oh?" Yomen asked. "And how many people are there around to burn it? How many noble houses remain to play petty politics and vie for power by showing how much atium they can leach f rom the Lord Ruler? The value of atium was based in the economy of an empire, Lady Venture. Without the trappings of a reserve system and an upper class giving the metal implied worth, atium has no real value." Yomen shook his head. " To a starving man, what is more important a loaf of bread, or an entire j ar of atium he can't use, eat, or sell ?"

He waved for the guards to take her. They pulled her to her feet, and she struggled, holding Yomen's eyes.

Yomen turned away from her again. "Those lumps of metal do me no good, save perhaps to keep you in check. No, the food was the real resource. The Lord Ruler left me the riches I required to establish his power again. I just need to f igure out what he wants me to do next." The soldiers finally succeeded in pulling her away.

. 149 201

I don 't wonder that we focused far too much on the mists during those da ys. But from what I now
know of sunlight and plant development, I realize that our crops weren't in as much danger from
misty days as we f eared. We might very well have been able to f ind plants to eat that did not need as
much light to survive. True, the mists did also cause some deaths in those who went out in them, but
the number killed was not a large enough percentage of the population to be a threat to our survival
as a s pecies. The ash, that was our real problem. The smoke f illing the atmosphere, the black f lakes
covering up ever ything beneath, the eruptions of the volcanic ashmounts . . . Those were what would
kill the world.

61

"ELEND!" HAM CALLED,
rushing up to him. "You're back ! "

"Surprised?" Elend asked, reading his friend's expression.

"Of course not," Ham said, a little too quickly. "The scouts reported your approach." My arrival may not surprise you, Elend thought tiredly, but the fact that I'm still alive
does. Did you
think I'd run off to get myself killed, or did you simply think that I'd wander away and abandon you?

It wasn't a line of reasoning he wanted
to pursue. So, he simply smiled, resting a hand on Ham's shoulder and looking toward the c amp. It looked strange, bunkered down as it was, ash piled up outside of it. It looked a little like it was dug into the ground several feet. There was so much ash. . . . I can't worry about everything at once, Elend thought with determination. I just have to trust. Trust in m ysel f and keep going.

He had pondered the mist spirit the rest of his trip. Had it really told him not to attack Fadrex, or was Elend simply misinterpreting its gestures? What had it wanted him to learn by pointing at his vial of metals ?

Beside him, Ham was regarding the mass of new koloss. To the side of the army, his other koloss sat still under his control. Though he had grown increasingly adept at keeping a hold on the cre atures, it was still nice to be back close to them. It made him feel more comfortable. Ham whistled quietly. " Twenty -eight thousand?" he asked. "Or, at least, that's what the scouts say." Elend nodded.

"I hadn't realized how large the group was," Ham said. "With that many . . ." Thirty-seven thousand total, Elend thought. More than enough to storm Fadrex. He began to walk down the incline, toward the camp. Though he hadn't needed much pewter to help him through the hike, he was still tired. "Any news of Vin?" he said hopefully, though he knew that if she'd managed to escape, she would have already found him.

"We sent a messenger into the city while you were gone," Ham said as they began to walk. " Yomen said a soldier could come and confirm that Vin was still alive, and so we complied in your name, thinking it best if Yomen thought you were here."

"You did well," Elend said.

"It's been a while since then," Ham said. "We haven't heard anything of her since."

"She's still alive," Elend said.

Ham nodded. "I believe so too."

Elend smiled. "It's not just faith, Ham," he said, nodding toward the koloss that had remained behind.

"Before she was captured, I gave some of those to her. If she'd died, then they would have gone out of control. As long as she lives whether or not she has metals she will remain bonded to them." Ham paused. "That . . . would have been something good to tell us earlier, El."

"I know," Elend said. "It's too easy to forget how many I'm controlling I didn't even think that not all of those are mine. Post scouts, keep an eye on them. I'll take them back if they go wild." Ham nodded. "Could you contact her through them?"

Elend shook his head. How did he explain? Controlling the koloss wasn't a subtle thing their minds were too dull for much beyond simple commands. He could order them to attack, or to freeze, or to follow and carry things. But he couldn't direct them precisely, couldn't instruct them to speak a message or even
how
to accomplish a goal. He could only say "Do this" and watch them go.

"We've had scout reports f rom the Central Dominance, El," Ham said, voice troubled. Elend looked at him.

"Most of our scouts didn't return. Nobody knows what happened to Demoux and the men you sent we hope they reached Luthadel, but the capital is in bad shape. The scouts who have returned be ar some pretty frustrating news . We've lost many of the cities you conquered during this last year. The people are starving, and a lot of villages are empty save for the dead. Those who can flee to Luthadel, leaving trails of corpses on the road, buried in ash."

Elend closed his eyes. But Ham wasn't done.

"There are tales of cities swall owed by the rumbling earth," Ham said, voice almost a whisper. "King Lekal and his city fell to lava from one of the ashmounts. We haven't heard f rom Janarle in weeks; his entire retinue seems to have vanished, and the Northern Dominance is in chaos. The entire Southern Dominance is said to be burning. . . . Elend, what do we do?" Elend continued to stride for w ard, walking onto an ash-free pathway and then into the camp proper. Soldiers were gathering about, whispering, looking at him. He didn't know how to answer Ham's question. What did he do? What could he do?

"We'll help them, Ham," he sai d. "We won't give up."

Ham nodded, looking slightly bolstered. "Though, before you do anything else, what you should probably do is go change your clothing. . . ." Elend glanced down, remembering that he was still wearing the black uniform, bloodied from killing koloss, then stained by ash. His appearance caused quite a stir in the men. They've only seen me in the white, pristine out f it. Many of them have never even seen me f ight never seen me bloodied, never seen me dirtied by ash. He wasn't certain what bothered him about that.

Ahead, Elend could see a bearded f igure sitting in a chair beside the pathway, as if he were simply out there for an afternoon repast. Cett eyed him as he passed. "More koloss?" Elend nodded.

"We're going to attack, then?" Cett asked.

Elend stopped.

The mist spirit apparently didn't want him to attack. But, he couldn't be certain what it had wanted him to know or think he didn't even know if he should trust it. Could he base the future of his empire on vague impressions he got f rom a ghost in the mists?

He had to get into that storage , and he couldn't afford to wait in siege not any longer. Plus, attacking seemed the best way to get Vin back safely. Yomen would never return her Elend either had to sit around and wait, or he had to attack, hoping that in the chaos of battle, Yomen would leave her in a dungeon somewhere. True, attacking risked an execution, but letting Yomen use her as a bargaining chip seemed just as dangerous for her.

I have to be the man who makes the hard decisions, he told himself. It's what Vin was trying to teach me at
the ball that I can be both Elend the man, and Elend the king. I took these koloss for a purpose.
Now I need to use them.

"Inform the soldiers, " Elend said. "But don't have them form ranks. We attack in the morning, but do so in surprise koloss first, breaking through their defenses. The men can form up after that, then go in and seize control."

We'll rescue V in, get into that cavern, then get back to Luthadel with the food supplies.
And survive as long as we can.

. 150 201

I suspect that A lendi, the man Rashek killed, was himself a Misting a Seeker. A llomancy, however,
was a di ff erent thing in those days, and much more rare. The A llomancers alive in our day are the
descendants of the men who ate those few beads of Preservation 's power. The y f ormed the
foundation of the nobilit y, and were the f irst to name him emperor.