The thumpings were getting stronger and stronger.
"Prophecies do not have to be a scam, Mistress," OreSeur said. "Or even, really, a promise for the future. They can simply be an expression of hope."
"What do you know of such things?" Vin said dismis-sively, setting aside her sheet.
There was a moment of silence. "Nothing, of course, Mistress," OreSeur eventually said.
Vin turned toward the dog. "I'm sorry, OreSeur. I didn't mean ... Well, I've just been feeling distracted lately."
Thump. Thump. Thump....
"You need not apologize to me, Mistress," OreSeur said. "I am only kandra."
"Still a person," Vin said. "If one with dog breath."
OreSeur smiled. "You chose these bones for me. Mistress. You must deal with the consequences."
'The bones might have something to do with it," Vin said, rising. "But I don't think that carrion you eat is helping. Honesdy, we have to get you some mint leaves to chew."
OreSeur raised a canine eyebrow. "And you don't think a dog with sweet breath would attract attention?"
"Only from anyone you happen to kiss in the near future," Vin said, returning her stacks of paper to her desk.
OreSeur chuckled softly in his canine way, turning back to study the city.
"Is the procession finished yet?" Vin asked.
"Yes, Mistress," OreSeur said. "It is difficult to see, even from a height. But, it does look like Lord Cett has finished moving in. He certainly did bring a lot of carts."
"He's Allrianne's father," Vin said. "Despite how much that girl complains about accommodations in the army, I'd bet that Cett likes to travel in comfort."
OreSeur nodded. Vin turned, leaning against the desk, watching him and thinking of what he'd said earlier. Expression of hope....
"The kandra have a religion, don't they?" Vin guessed.
OreSeur turned sharply. That was enough of a confirmation'.
"Do the Keepers know of it?" Vin asked.
OreSeur stood on his hind legs, paws against the win-dowsill. "I should not have spoken."
"You needn't be afraid," Vin said. "I won't give away your secret. But, I don't see why it has to be secret anymore."
"It is a kandra thing. Mistress," OreSeur said. "It wouldn't be of any interest to anyone else."
"Of course it would," Vin said. "Don't you see, OreSeur? The Keepers believe that the last independent religion was destroyed by the Lord Ruler centuries ago. If the kandra managed to keep one, that suggests that the Lord Ruler's theological control of the Final Empire wasn't absolute. That has to mean something."
OreSeur paused, cocking his head, as if he hadn't considered such things.
His theological control wasn't absolute? Vin thought, a bit surprised at the words. Lord Ruler-I'm starting to sound like Sazed and Elend. I've been studying too much lately.
"Regardless, Mistress," OreSeur said. "I'd rather you didn't mention this to your Keeper friends. They would probably begin asking discomforting questions."
'They're like that," Vin said with a nod. "What is it your people have prophecies about, anyway?"
"I don't think you want to know. Mistress."
Vin smiled. "They talk about overthrowing us, don't they?"
OreSeur sat down, and she could almost see a flush on his canine face. "My ... people have dealt with the Contract for a great long time. Mistress. I know it is difficult for you to understand why we would live under this burden, but we find it necessary. Yet. we do dream of a day when it may not be."
"When all the humans are subject to you?" Vin asked.
OreSeur looked away. "When they're all dead, actually."
"Wow."
"The prophecies are not literal. Mistress," OreSeur said. "They're metaphors-expressions of hope. Or, at least, that is how I have always seen them. Perhaps your Terris prophecies are the same? Expressions of a belief that if the people were in danger, their gods would send a Hero to protect them? In this case, the vagueness would be intentional-and rational. The prophecies were never meant to mean someone specific, but more to speak of a general feeling. A general hope."
If the prophecies weren't specific, why could only she sense the drumming heats?
Stop it, she told herself. You're jumping to conclusions. "All the humans dead," she said. "How do we die off? The kandra kill us?"
"Of course not," OreSeur said. "We honor our Contract, even in religion. The stories say that you'll kill yourselves off. You're of Ruin, after all, while the kandra are of Preservation. You're ... actually supposed to destroy the world, I believe. Using the koloss as your pawns."
"You actually sound sorry for them," Vin noted with amusement.
"The kandra actually tend to think well of the koloss, Mistress." OreSeur said. "There is a bond between us; we both understand what it is to be slaves, we both are outsiders to the culture of the Final Empire, we both-"
He paused.
"What?" Vin asked.
"Might I speak no further?" OreSeur asked. "I have said too much already. You put me off balance, Mistress."
Vin shrugged. "We all need secrets." She glanced toward the door. 'Though there's one I still need to figure out."
OreSeur hopped down from his chair, joining her as she strode out the door.
There was still a spy somewhere in the palace. She'd been forced to ignore that fact for far too long.
Elend looked deeply into the well. The dark pit-wide-mouthed to accommodate the comings and goings of numerous skaa-seemed a large mouth opening up. stone lips spread and preparing to swallow him down. Elend glanced to the side, where Ham stood speaking with a group of healers.
"We first noticed when so many people came to us complaining of diarrhea and abdominal pains," the healer said. "The symptoms were unusually strong, my lord. We've ... already lost several to the malady."
Ham glanced at Elend. frowning.
"Everyone who grew sick lived in this area." the healer continued. "And drew their water from this well or another in the next square."
"Have you brought this to the attention of Lord Penrod and the Assembly?" Elend asked.
"Um. no, my lord. We figured that you ..."
I'm not king anymore, Elend thought. However, he couldn't say the words. Not to this man, looking for help.
'Til take care of it." Elend said, sighing. "You may return to your patients."
"They are filling our clinic, my lord." he said.
"Then appropriate one of the empty noble mansions," Elend said. "There are plenty of those. Ham. send him with some of my guard to help move the sick and prepare the building."
Ham nodded, waving over a soldier, telling him to gather twenty on-duty men from the palace to meet with the healer. The healer smiled, looking relieved, and bowed to Elend as he left.
Ham walked up. joining Elend beside the well. "Coincidence?"
"Hardly," Elend said, gripping the edge if the well with frustrated fingers. "The question is, which one poisoned it?"
"Cett just came into the city." Ham said, rubbing his chin. "Would have been easy to send out some soldiers to covertly drop.in the poison."
"Seems more Tike something my father would do," Elend said. "Something to increase our tension, to get back at us for playing him for a fool in his camp. Plus, he's got that Mistborn who could have easily placed the poison."
Of course, Cett had had this same thing happen to him-Breeze poisoning his water supply back before he reached the city. Elend ground his teeth. There was really no way to know which one was behind the attack.
Either way, the poisoned wells meant trouble. There were others in the city, of course, but they were just as vulnerable. The people might have to start relying on the river for their water, and it was far less healthy, iLs waters muddy and polluted by waste from both the army camps and the city itself.
"Set guards around these wells," Elend said, waving a hand. "Board them "up, post warnings, and then tell the healers to watch with particular care
for other outbreaks."
We just keep getting wound tighter and tighter, he thought as Ham nodded. At this rate, we'll snap long before winter ends.
After a detour for a late dinner-where some talk about servants getting sick left her concerned-Vin went in and checked on Elend, who had just returned from walking the city with Ham. After that, Vin and OreSeur continued their original quest: that of finding Dockson.
They located him in the palace library. The room had once been Straff's personal study; Elend seemed to find the room's new purpose amusing for some reason.
Personally, Vin didn't find the library's location nearly as amusing as its contents. Or, rather, lack thereof. Though the room was lined with shelves, nearly all of them showed signs of having been pillaged by Elend. The rows of books lay pocked by forlorn empty spots, their companions taken away one by one, as if Elend were a predator, slowly whittling down a herd.
Vin smiled. It probably wouldn't be too long before Elend had stolen every book in the small library, carrying the tomes up to his study, then forgetfully placing them in one of his piles-ostensibly for return. Still, there were a large number of volumes left-ledgers, books of figures, and notebooks on finances: things that Elend usually found of little interest.
Dockson sat at the library's desk now, writing in a ledger. He noticed her arrival, and glanced over with a smile, but then turned back to his notations-apparently not wanting to lose his place. Vin waited for him to finish, OreSeur at her side.
Of all the members of the crew, Dockson seemed to have changed the most during the last year. She remembered her first impressions of him, back in Camon's lair. Dockson had been Kelsier's right-hand man, and the more "realistic" of the pair. And yet, there had always been an edge of humor to Dockson-a sense that he enjoyed his role as the straight man. He hadn't foiled Kelsier so much as complemented him.
Kelsier was dead. Where did that leave Dockson? He wore a nobleman's suit, as he always had-and of all the crewmembers, the suits seemed to fit him the best. If he shaved off the half beard, he could pass for a nobleman- not a rich high courtier, but a lord in early middle age who had lived his entire life trading goods beneath a great house master.
He wrote in his ledgers, but he had always done that. He still played the role of the responsible one in the crew. So. what was different? He was the same person, did the same things. He just felt different. The laughter was gone; the quiet enjoyment of the eccentricity in those around him. Without Kelsier, Dockson had somehow changed from temperate to ... boring.
And that was what made her suspicious.
This has to be done, she thought, smiling at Dockson as he set down his pen and waved her to take a seat.
Vin sat down, OreSeur padding over to stand beside her chair. Dockson eyed the dog, shaking his head slightly. "That's such a remarkably well-trained beast, Vin," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it...."
Does he know? Vin wondered with alarm. Would one kandra be able to recognize another in a dog's body? No, that couldn't be. Otherwise OreSeur could find the impostor for her. So, she simply smiled again, patting Ore-Seur's head. "There is a trainer in the market. He teaches wolfhounds to be protective-to stay with young children and keep them out of danger."
Dockson nodded. "So, any purpose to this visit?"
Vin shrugged. "We never chat anymore, Dox."
Dockson sat back in his chair. "This might not be the best time for chatting. I have to prepare the royal finances to be taken over by someone else, should the vote go against Elend."
Would a kandra be able to do the ledgers? Vin wondered. Yes. They'd have known-they'd have been prepared.
"I'm sorry," Vin said". "I don't mean to bother you, but Elend has been so busy lately, and Sazed has his project...."
"It's all right," Dockson said. "I can spare a few minutes. What's on your mind?"
"Well, do you remember that conversation we had, back before the Collapse?"
Dockson frowned. "Which one?"
"You know.... The one about your childhood."
"Oh," Dockson said, nodding. "Yes, what about it?"
"Well, do you still think the same way?"
Dockson paused thoughtfully, fingers slowly tapping on the desktop. Vin waited, trying not to show her tension. The conversation in question had been between the two of them, and during it, Dockson had first spoken to her of how much he'd hated the nobility.
"I suppose I don't," Dockson said. "Not anymore. Kell always said that you gave the nobility too much credit. Vin-. But you started to change even him there at the end. No, I don't think that noble society needs to be completely destroyed. They aren't all monsters as once presumed."
Vin relaxed. He not only knew the conversation, he knew the details of the tangents they'd discussed. She had been the only one there with him. That had to mean that he wasn't the kandra, right?
"This is about Elend, isn't it?" Dockson asked.
Vin shrugged. "I suppose."
"I know that you wish he and I could get along better.
Vin. But, all things considered, I think we're doing pretty well. He is a decent man; I can acknowledge that. He has some faults as a leader: he lacks boldness, lacks presence." Not like Kelsier.
"But," Dockson continued, "I don't want to see him lose his throne. He has treated the skaa fairly, for a nobleman."
"He's a good person, Dox," Vin said quietly.
Dockson looked away. "I know that. But... well, every time I talk to him, I see Kelsier standing over his shoulder, shaking his head at me. Do you know how long Kell and I dreamed of toppling the Lord Ruler? The other crewmem-bers, they thought Kelsier's plan was a newfound passion- something that came to him in the Pits. But it was older than that, Vin. Far older.
"We always hated the nobility, Kell and 1. When we were youths, planning our first jobs, we wanted to be rich-but we also wanted to hurt them. Hurt them for taking from us things they had no right to. My love... Kelsier's mother.... Every coin we stole, every nobleman we left dead in an alleyway-this was our way of waging war. Our way of punishing them."
Vin sat quietly. It was these kinds of stories, these memories of a haunted past, that had always made her just a little uncomfortable widi Kelsier-and with the person he had been training her to become. It was this sentiment that gave her pause, even when her instincts whispered that she should go and exact retribution on Straff and Celt with knives in the night.
. Dockson held some of that same hardness. Kell and Dox weren't evil men, but there was an edge of vengeful-ness to them. Oppression had changed them in ways that no amount of peace, reformation, or recompense could redeem.
Dockson shook his head. "And we put one of them on the throne. I can't help but think that Kell would be angry with me for letting Elend rule, no matter how good a man he is."
"Kelsier changed at the end," Vin said quietly. "You said it yourself, Dox. Did you know that he saved Elend's life?"
Dockson turned, frowning. "When?"
"On that last day," Vin said. "During the fight with the Inquisitor. Kell protected Elend, who came looking for me."
"Must have thought he was one of the prisoners."
Vin shook her head. "He knew who Elend was, and knew that I loved him. In the end, Kelsier was willing to admit that a good man was worth protecting, no matter who his parents were."
"I find that hard to accept, Vin."
"Why?"
Dockson met her eyes. "Because if I accept that Elend bears no guilt for what his people did to mine, then I must admit to being a monster for the things that I did to them."
Vin shivered. In those eyes, she saw the truth behind Dockson's transformation. She saw the death of his laughter. She saw the guilt. The murders.
This man is no impostor.
"I can find little joy in this government, Vin," Dockson said quietly. "Because I know what we did to create it. The thing is, I'd do it all again. I tell myself it's because I believe in skaa freedom. I still lie awake a
t nights, however, quietly satisfied for what we've done to our former rulers. Their society undermined, their god dead. Now they know."
Vin nodded. Dockson looked down, as if ashamed, an emotion she'd rarely seen in him. There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Dockson sat quietly as she withdrew, his pen and ledger forgotten on the desktop.
"It's not him," Vin said, walking down an empty palace hallway, trying to shake the haunting sound of Dockson's voice from her mind.
"You are certain, Mistress?" OreSeur asked.
Vin nodded. "He knew about a private conversation that Dockson and I had before the Collapse."
OreSeur was silent for a moment. "Mistress," he finally said, "my brethren can be very thorough."
"Yes, but how could he have known about such an event?"
"We often interview people before we take their bones. Mistress," OreSeur explained. "We'll meet them several times, in different settings, and find ways to talk about their lives. We'll also talk to their friends and acquaintances. Did you ever tell anyone about this conversation you had with Dockson?"
Vin stopped to lean against the side of the stone hallway. "Maybe Elend," she admitted. "I think I mentioned it to Sazed too, just after it happened. That was almost two years ago."
"That could have been enough. Mistress," OreSeur said. "We cannot learn everything about a person, but we try our best to discover items like this-private conversations, secrets, confidential information-so that we can mention them at appropriate times and reinforce our illusion."
Vin frowned.
"There are ... other things as well. Mistress," OreSeur said. "I hesitate because I do not wish you to imagine your friends in pain. However, it is common for our master-the one who actually does the killing-to torture their victim for information."
Vin closed her eyes. Dockson felt so real... his guilt, his reactions ... that couldn't be faked, could it?
"Damn," she whispered quietly, opening her eyes. She turned, sighing as she pushed open the shutters of a hallway window. It was dark out, and the mists curled before her as she leaned against the stone windowsill and looked out at the courtyard two stories below.
Well of Ascension Page 39
