Well of Ascension

by Brandon Sanderson

  reveal...

  A wall. The room ended abruptly, and his light sparkled off the wall. It held a steel plate, like those above. This one was a good five feet across, and nearly as tall. And it bore writing. Suddenly interested. Sazed set down his pack and stepped forward, raising his lamp to read the top words on the wall.

  The text was in Terris.

  It was an old dialect, certainly, but one that Sazed could make out even without his language coppermind. His hand trembled as he read the words.

  I write these words in steel, for anything hot set in metal cannot he trusted.

  I have begun to wonder if I am the only sane man remaining. Can the others not see'.' They have been waiting so long for their hero to come-the one spoken of in Terris prophecies-that they quickly jump between conclusions, presuming that each story and legend applies to this one man.

  My brethren ignore the other facts. They cannot connect the other strange things that are happening. They are deaf to my objections and blind to my discoveries.

  Perhaps they are right. Perhaps I am mad. or jealous, or simply daft. My name is Kwaan. Philosopher, scholar, traitor. I am the one who discovered Alendi. and I am the one who first proclaimed him to be the Hero of Ages. I am the one who started this all.

  And I am the one who betrayed him. for I now know that he must never be allowed to complete his quest.

  "Sazed."

  Sazed jumped, nearly dropping the lamp. Marsh stood in the doorway behind him. Imperious, discomforting, and so dark. He fit this place, with its lines and hardness.

  "The upstairs quarters are empty," Marsh said. "This trip

  has been a waste-my brethren took anything of use with

  them."

  "Not a waste. Marsh," Sazed said, turning back to the plate of text. He hadn't read all of it: he hadn't even gotten close. The script was written in a tight, cramped hand, its etchings coating the wall. The steel had preserved the words despite their obvious age. Sazed's heart beat a little faster.

  This was a fragment of text from before the Lord Ruler's reign. A fragment written by a Terris philosopher-a holy man. Despite ten centuries of searching, the Keepers had never fulfilled the original goal of their creation: they had never discovered their own Terris religion.

  The Lord Ruler had squelched Terris religious teachings soon after his rise to power. His persecution of the Terris people-his own people-had been the most complete of his long reign, and the Keepers had never found more than vague fragments regarding what their own people had once believed.

  "I have to copy this down. Marsh." Sazed said, reaching for his pack. Taking a visual memory wouldn't work- no man could stare at a wall of so much text, then remember the words. He could, perhaps, read them into his coppermind. However, he wanted a physical record, one that perfectly preserved the structure of lines and punctuation.

  Marsh shook his head. "We will not stay here. I do not think we should even have come."

  Sazed paused, looking up. Then he pulled several large sheets of paper from his pack. "Very well, then," he said. "I'll take a rubbing. That will be better anyway, I think. It will let me see the text exactly as it was written."

  Marsh nodded, and Sazed got out his charcoal.

  This discovery... he thought with excitement. This will be like Rashek's logbook. We are getting close!

  However, even as he began the rubbing-his hands moving carefully and precisely-another thought occurred to him. With a text like this in his possession, his sense of duty would no longer let him wander the villages. He had to return to the north to share what he had found, lest he die and this text be lost. He had to go to Terris.

  Or... to Luthadel. From there he could send messages north. He had a valid excuse to get back to the center of action, to see the other crewmembers again.

  Why did that make him feel even more guilty?

  When I finally had the realization-finally connected all of the signs of the Anticipation to Alendi-1 was so excited. Yet, When I announced my discovery to the other Worldbringers, I was met with scorn.

  Oh, how I wish that I had listened to them.

  13

  MIST SWIRLED AND SPUN, LIKE monochrome paints running together on a canvas. Light died in the west, and night came of age.

  Vin frowned. "Does it seem like the mists are coming

  earlier?"

  "Earlier?" OreSeur asked in his muffled voice. The kandra wolfhound sat next to her on the rooftop.

  Vin nodded. "Before, the mists didn't start to appear until after it grew dark, right?"

  "It is dark. Mistress."

  "But they're already here-they started to gather when the sun was barely beginning to set."

  "I don't see that it matters. Mistress. Perhaps the mists are simply like other weather patterns-they vary, sometimes."

  "Doesn't it even seem a little strange to you?"

  "I will think it strange if you wish me to. Mistress," OreSeur said.

  "That isn't what I meant."

  "1 apologize. Mistress." OreSeur said. "Tell me what you do mean, and I will be certain to believe as commanded."

  Vin sighed, rubbing her brow. I wish Sazed were back... she thought. It was an idle wish, however. Even if Sazed were in Luthadel, he wouldn't be her steward. The Terrismen no longer called any man master. She'd have to make do with OreSeur. The kandra, at least, could provide information that Sazed could not-assuming she could get it out of him.

  "We need to find the impostor," Vin said. 'The one who... replaced someone." "Yes, Mistress," OreSeur said.

  Vin sat back in the mists, reclining on a slanted rooftop, resting her arms back on the tiles. "Then, I need to know more about you."

  "Me, Mistress?"

  "Kandra in general. If I'm going to find this impostor, I need to know how he thinks, need to understand his motivations."

  "His motivations will be simple, Mistress," OreSeur said. "He will be following his Contract."

  "What if he's acting without a Contract?"

  OreSeur shook his canine head. "Kandra always have a Contract. Without one, they are not allowed to enter human society."

  "Never?" Vin asked.

  "Never."

  "And what if this is some kind of rogue kandra?" Vin said.

  "Such a thing does not exist," OreSeur said firmly.

  Oh? Vin thought skeptically. However, she let the matter drop. There was little reason for a kandra to infiltrate the palace on his own; it was far more likely that one of Elend's enemies had sent the creature. One of the warlords, perhaps, or maybe the obligators. Even the other nobility in the city would have had good reason to spy on Elend.

  "Okay," Vin said. "The kandra is a spy, sent to gather information for another human."

  "Yes."

  "But," Vin said, "if he did take the body of someone in the palace, he didn't kill them himself. Kandra can't kill humans, right?"

  OreSeur nodded. "We are all bound by that rule."

  "So, somebody snuck into the palace, murdered a member of the staff, then had their kandra take the body." She paused, trying to work through the problem. "The most dangerous possibilities-the crewmembers-should be considered first. Fortunately, since the killing happened yesterday, we can eliminate Breeze, who was outside the city at the time."

  OreSeur nodded.

  "We can eliminate Elend as well," Vin said. "He was with us on the wall yesterday."

  "That still leaves the majority of the crew. Mistress."

  Vin frowned, sitting back. She'd tried to establish solid alibis for Ham, Dockson, Clubs, and Spook. However, all of them had had at least a few hours unaccounted for. Long enough for a kandra to digest them and take their place.

  "All right," she said. "So, how do I find the impostor? How can I tell him from other people?"

  OreSeur sat quietly in the mists.

  "There has to be a way," Vin said. "His imitation can't be perfect. Would cutting him work?"

  OreSeur shook his head. "Kandra replicate a body
perfectly. Mistress-blood, flesh, skin, and muscle. You have seen that when I split my skin."

  Vin sighed, standing and stepping up on the tip of the peaked rooftop. The mists were already full, and the night was quickly becoming black. She began to walk idly back and forth on the ridge, an Allomancer's balance keeping her from falling.

  "Perhaps 1 can just see who isn't acting oddly," she said. "Are most kandra as good at imitation as you are?"

  "Among kandra, my own skill is average. Some are worse, others are better."

  "But no actor is perfect," Vin said.

  "Kandra don't often make mistakes, Mistress," OreSeur said. "But, this is probably your best method. Be warned, however-he could be anyone. My kind are very skilled."

  Vin paused. It's not Elend, she told herself forcibly. He was with me all day yesterday. Except in the morning.

  Too long, she decided. We were on the wall for hours, and those bones were freshly expelled. Besides, I'd know if it were him ... wouldn 71?

  She shook her head. "There has to be another way. Can I spot a kandra with Allomancy somehow?"

  OreSeur didn't answer immediately. She turned toward him in the darkness, studying his canine face. "What?" she asked.

  "These are not things we speak of with outsiders."

  Vin sighed. "Tell me anyway."

  "Do you command me to speak?"

  "I don't really care to command you in anything."

  "Then I may leave?" OreSeur asked. "You do not wish to command me, so our Contract is dissolved?"

  "That isn't what I meant," Vin said.

  OreSeur frowned-a strange expression to see on a dog's face. "It would be easier for me if you would try to say what you mean. Mistress."

  Vin gritted her teeth. "Why is it you're so hostile?"

  "I'm not hostile. Mistress. I am your servant, and will do as you command. That is part of the Contract."

  "Sure. Are you like this with all of your masters?"

  "With most, I am fulfilling a specific role," OreSeur said. "I have bones to imitate-a person to become, a personality to adopt. You have given me no direction: just the bones of this ... animal."

  So that's it, Vin thought. Still annoyed by the dog's body. "Look, those bones don't really change anything. You are still the same person."

  "You do not understand. It is not who a kandra is that's important. It's who a kandra becomes. The bones he takes, the role he fulfills. None of my previous masters have asked me to do something like this."

  "Well, I'm not like other masters," Vin said. "Anyway, I asked you a question. Is there a way I can spot a kandra with Allomancy? And yes, I command you to speak."

  A flash of triumph shone in OreSeur's eyes, as if he enjoyed forcing her into her role. "Kandra cannot be affected by mental Allomancy, Mistress."

  Vin frowned. "Not at all?"

  "No, Mistress," OreSeur said. "You can try to Riot or Soothe our emotions, if you wish, but it will have no effect. We won't even know that you are trying to manipulate us."

  Like someone who is burning copper. 'That's not exactly the most useful bit of information," she said, strolling past the kandra on the roof. Allomancers couldn't read minds or emotions; when they Soothed or Rioted another person, they simply had to hope that the person reacted as intended.

  She could "test" for a kandra by Soothing someone's emotions, perhaps. If they didn't react, that might mean they were a kandra-but it could also just mean that they were good at containing their emotions.

  OreSeur watched her pacing. "If it were easy to detect kandra, Mistress, then we wouldn't be worth much as impostors, would we?"

  "I suppose not," Vin acknowledged. However, thinking about what he'd said made her consider something else. "Can a'kandra use Allomancy? If they eat an Allomancer, I mean?"

  OreSeur shook his head.

  Thai's another method, then, Vin thought. If I catch a member of the crew burning metals, then I know he's not the kandra. Wouldn't help with Dockson or the palace servants, but it would let her eliminate Ham and Spook.

  'There's something else," Vin said. "Before, when we were doing the job with Kelsier, he said that we had to keep you away from the Lord Ruler and his Inquisitors. Why was that?"

  OreSeur looked away. "This is not a thing we speak of."

  "Then I command you to speak of it."

  'Then I must refuse to answer," OreSeur said.

  "Refuse to answer?" Vin asked. "You can do that?"

  OreSeur nodded. "We are not required to reveal secrets about kandra nature. Mistress. It is-"

  "In the Contract," Vin finished, frowning. I really need to read that thing again.

  "Yes, Mistress. I have, perhaps, said too much already."

  Vin turned away from OreSeur, looking out over the city. The mists continued to spin. Vin closed her eyes.

  questing out with bronze, trying to feel the telltale pulse of an Allomancer burning metals nearby.

  OreSeur rose and padded over beside her, then settled down on his haunches again, sitting on the inclined roof. "Shouldn't you be at the meeting the king is having, Mistress?"

  "Perhaps later," Vin said, opening her eyes. Out beyond the city, watchfires from the armies lit the horizon. Keep Venture blazed in the night to her right, and inside of it, Elend was holding council with the others. Many of the most important men in the government, sitting together in one room. Elend would call her paranoid for insisting that she be the one who watched for spies and assassins. That was fine; he could call her whatever he wanted, as long as he stayed alive.

  She settled back down. She was glad Elend had decided to pick Keep Venture as his palace, rather than moving into Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler's home. Not only was Kredik Shaw too big to be properly defended, but it also reminded her of him. The Lord Ruler.

  She thought of the Lord Ruler often, lately-or, rather, she thought of Rashek, the man who had become the Lord Ruler. A Terrisman by birth. Rashek had killed the man who should have taken the power at the Well of Ascension and...

  And done what? They still didn't know. The Hero had been on a quest to protect the people from a danger simply known as the Deepness. So much had been lost; so much had been intentionally destroyed. Their best source of information about those days came in the form of an aged journal, written by the Hero of Ages during the days before Rashek had killed him. However, it gave precious few clues about his quest.

  Why do I even worry about these things? Vin thought. The Deepness is a thing a thousand years forgotten. Elend and the others are right to be concerned about more pressing events.

  And still, Vin found herself strangely detached from them. Perhaps that was why she found herself scouting outside. It wasn't that she didn't worry about the armies.

  She just felt... removed from the problem. Even now, as she considered the threat to Luthadel, her mind was drawn back to the Lord Ruler.

  You don't know what I do for mankind, he had said. I was your god, even if you couldn 't see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves. Those were the Lord Ruler's last words, spoken as he lay dying on the floor of his own throne room. They worried her. Chilled her, even still.

  She needed to distract herself. "What kinds of things do you like, kandra?" she asked, turning to the creature, who still sat on the rooftop beside her. "What are your loves, your hatreds?"

  "I do not want to answer that."

  Vin frowned. "Do not want to, or do not have to?"

  OreSeur paused. "Do not want to, Mistress." The implication was obvious. You 're going to have to command me.

  She almost did. However, something gave her pause, something in those eyes-inhuman though they were. Something familiar.

  She'd known resentment like that. She'd felt it often during her youth, when she'd served crewleaders who had lorded over their followers. In the crews, one did what one was commanded-especially if one was a small waif of a girl, without rank or means of intimidation.

  "If you don't wish to speak of it," Vin said, turni
ng away from the kandra, "then I won't force you."

  OreSeur was silent.

  Vin breathed in the mist, its cool wetness tickling her throat and lungs. "Do you know what I love, kandra?" "No, Mistress."

  'The mists," she said, holding out her arms. "The power, the freedom."

  OreSeur nodded slowly. Nearby, Vin felt a faint pulsing with her bronze. Quiet, strange, unnerving. It was the same odd pulsing that she had felt atop Keep Venture a few nights before. She had never been brave enough to investigate it again.

  It's time to do something about that, she decided. "Do you know what I hate, kandra?" she whispered, falling to a crouch, checking her knives and metals.

  "No, Mistress."

  She turned, meeting OreSeur's eyes. "I hate being afraid."

  She knew that others thought her jumpy. Paranoid. She had lived with fear for so long that she had once seen it as something natural, like the ash, the sun, or the ground itself.

  Kelsier had taken that fear away. She was careful, still, but she didn't feel a constant sense of terror. The Survivor had given her a life where the ones she loved didn't beat her. had shown her something better than fear. Trust. Now that she knew of these things, she would not quickly surrender them. Not to armies, not to assassins ...

  Not even to spirits.

  "Follow if you can," she whispered, then dropped off the rooftop to the street below.

  She dashed along the mist-slicked street, building momentum before she had time to lose her nerve. The source of the bronze pulses was close; it came from only one street over, in a building. Not the top, she decided. One of the darkened windows on the third floor, the shutters open.

  Vin dropped a coin and jumped into the air. She shot upward, angling herself by Pushing against a latch across the street. She landed in the window's pitlike opening, arms grabbing the sides of the frame. She flared tin, letting her eyes adjust to the deep darkness within the abandoned room.

  And it was there. Formed entirely of mists, it shifted and spun, its outline vague in the dark chamber. It had a vantage to see the rooftop where Vin and OreSeur had been talking.