“If I’m right,” Kelsier said, “the Lord Ruler will let them chase stragglers from our army for several months, giving the nobility a chance to blow off a little steam. Except, he’s going to get a lot more than he expected. When that house war starts, we’re going to use the chaos to seize the palace.”
“With what army, my dear man?” Breeze said.
“We still have some troops left,” Kelsier said. “Plus, we have time to recruit more. We’ll have to be careful—we can’t use the caves, so we’ll have to hide our troops in the city. That will probably mean smaller numbers. However, that won’t be an issue—you see, that garrison is going to return eventually.”
The members of the group shared a look as the executions proceeded below. Vin sat quietly, trying to decide what Kelsier meant by that statement.
“Exactly, Kell,” Ham said slowly. “The Garrison will return, and we won’t have a big enough army to fight them.”
“But we will have the Lord Ruler’s treasury,” Kelsier said, smiling. “What is it you always say about those Garrisoners, Ham?”
The Thug paused, then smiled too. “That they’re mercenaries.”
“We seize the Lord Ruler’s money,” Kelsier said, “and it means we get his army too. This can still work, gentlemen. We can make it work.”
The crew seemed to grow more confident. Vin, however, turned her eyes back toward the square. The fountains ran so red that they seemed completely filled with blood. Over it all, the Lord Ruler watched from within his jet-black carriage. The windows were open, and—with tin—Vin could just barely see a silhouetted figure sitting within.
That’s our real foe, she thought. Not the missing garrison, not the Inquisitors with their axes. That man. The one from the logbook.
We’ll have to find a way to defeat him, otherwise everything else we do will be pointless.
I think I’ve finally discovered why Rashek resents me so very much. He does not believe that an outsider such as myself—a foreigner—could possibly be the Hero of Ages. He believes that I have somehow tricked the philosophers, that I wear the piercings of the Hero unjustly.
According to Rashek, only a Terrisman of pure blood should have been chosen as the Hero. Oddly, I find myself even more determined because of his hatred. I must prove to him that I can perform this task.
27
IT WAS A SUBDUED GROUP that returned to Clubs’s shop that evening. The executions had stretched for hours. There had been no denunciations, no explanations by the Ministry or the Lord Ruler—just execution, after execution, after execution. Once the captives were gone, the Lord Ruler and his obligators had ridden away, leaving a pile of corpses on the platform and bloodied water running in the fountains.
As Kelsier’s crew returned to the kitchen, Vin realized that her headache no longer bothered her. Her pain now seemed... insignificant. The baywraps remained on the table, thoughtfully covered by one of the house maids. No one reached for them.
“All right,” Kelsier said, taking his customary place leaning against the cupboard. “Let’s plan this out. How should we proceed?”
Dockson recovered a stack of papers from the side of the room as he walked over to seat himself. “With the Garrison gone, our main focus becomes the nobility.”
“Indeed,” Breeze said. “If we truly intend to seize the treasury with only a few thousand soldiers, then we’re certainly going to need something to distract the palace guard and keep the nobility from taking the city away from us. The house war, therefore, becomes of paramount importance.”
Kelsier nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
“But, what happens when the house war is over?” Vin said. “Some houses will come out on top, and then we’ll have to deal with them.”
Kelsier shook his head. “I don’t intend for the house war to ever end, Vin—or, at least, not for a long while. The Lord Ruler makes dictates, and the Ministry polices his followers, but the nobility are the ones who actually force the skaa to work. So, if we bring down enough noble houses, the government may just collapse on its own. We can’t fight the entire Final Empire as a whole—it’s too big. But, we might be able to shatter it, then make the pieces fight each other.”
“We need to put financial strain on the Great Houses,” Dockson said, flipping through his papers. “The aristocracy is primarily a financial institution, and lack of funds will bring any house down.”
“Breeze, we might need to use some of your aliases,” Kelsier said. “So far, I’ve really been the only one in the crew working on the house war—but if we’re going to make this city snap before the Garrison returns, we’ll need to step up our efforts.”
Breeze sighed. “Very well. We’ll just have to be very careful to make certain no one accidentally recognizes me as someone I shouldn’t be. I can’t go to parties or functions— but I can probably do solitary house visits.”
“Same for you, Dox,” Kelsier said.
“I figured as much,” Dockson said.
“It will be dangerous for both of you,” Kelsier said. “But speed will be essential. Vin will remain our main spy—and we’ll probably want her to start spreading some bad information. Anything to make the nobility uncertain.”
Ham nodded. “We should probably focus our attentions on the top, then.”
“Indeed,” Breeze said. “If we can make the most powerful houses look vulnerable, then their enemies will be quick to strike. Only after the powerful houses are gone will people realize that they were the ones really supporting the economy.”
The room fell quiet for a second, then several heads turned toward Vin.
“What?” she asked.
“They’re talking about House Venture, Vin,” Dockson said. “It’s the most powerful of the Great Houses.”
Breeze nodded. “If Venture falls, the entire Final Empire would feel the tremors.”
Vin sat quietly for a moment. “They’re not all bad people,” she finally said.
“Perhaps,” Kelsier said. “But Lord Straff Venture certainly is, and his family sits at the very head of the Final Empire. House Venture needs to go—and you already have an in with one of its most important members.”
I thought you wanted me to stay away from Elend, she thought with annoyance.
“Just keep your ears open, child,” Breeze said. “See if you can get the lad to talk about his house’s finances. Find us a bit of leverage, and we’ll do the rest.”
Just like the games Elend hates so much. However, the executions were still fresh in her mind. That sort of thing had to be stopped. Besides—even Elend said he didn’t like his father, or his house, very much. Maybe... maybe she could find something. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
A knock came at the front door, answered by one of the apprentices. A few moments later, Sazed—clad in a skaa cloak to hide his features—entered the kitchen.
Kelsier checked the clock. “You’re early, Saze.”
“I try to make it a habit, Master Kelsier,” the Terrisman replied.
Dockson raised an eyebrow. “That’s a habit someone else could afford to pick up.”
Kelsier snorted. “If you’re always on time, it implies that you never have anything better you should be doing. Saze, how are the men?”
“As good as can be expected, Master Kelsier,” Sazed replied. “But they can’t hide in the Renoux warehouses forever.”
“I know,” Kelsier said. “Dox, Ham, I’ll need you to work on this problem. There are two thousand men left from our army; I want you to get them into Luthadel.”
Dockson nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll find a way.”
“You want us to keep training them?” Ham asked.
Kelsier nodded.
“Then we’ll have to hide them in squads,” he said. “We don’t have the resources to train men individually. Say...a couple hundred men per team? Hidden in slums near one another?”
“Make sure none of the teams know about the others,” Dockson said. �
��Or even that we still intend to strike at the palace. With that many men in town, there’s a chance some of them will eventually get taken by the obligators for one reason or another.”
Kelsier nodded. “Tell each group that it’s the only one that didn’t get disbanded, and that it’s being retained just in case it’s needed at some point in the future.”
“You also said that recruitment needed to be continued,” Ham said.
Kelsier nodded. “I’d like at least twice as many troops before we try and pull this off.”
“That’s going to be tough,” Ham said, “considering our army’s failure.”
“What failure?” Kelsier asked. “Tell them the truth—that our army successfully neutralized the Garrison.”
“Though most of them died doing it,” Ham said.
“We can gloss over that part,” Breeze said. “The people will be angry at the executions—that should make them more willing to listen to us.”
“Gathering more troops is going to be your main task over the next few months, Ham,” Kelsier said.
“That’s not much time,” Ham said. “But, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good,” Kelsier said. “Saze, did the note come?”
“It did, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said, pulling a letter from beneath his cloak and handing it to Kelsier.
“And what would that be?” Breeze asked curiously.
“A message from Marsh,” Kelsier said, opening the letter and scanning its contents. “He’s in the city, and he has news.”
“What news?” Ham asked.
“He doesn’t say,” Kelsier said, grabbing a baywrap. “But he gave instructions on where to meet him tonight.” He walked over, picking up a regular skaa cloak. “I’m going to go scout the location before it gets dark. Coming, Vin?”
She nodded, standing.
“The rest of you keep working on the plan,” Kelsier said. “In two months’ time, I want this city to be so tense that when it finally breaks, even the Lord Ruler won’t be able to hold it together.”
“There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there?” Vin said, looking away from the window, turning toward Kelsier. “A part of the plan.”
Kelsier glanced over at her in the darkness. Marsh’s chosen meeting place was an abandoned building within the Twists, one of the most impoverished skaa slums. Kelsier had located a second abandoned building across from the one they would meet in, and he and Vin waited on the top floor, watching the street for signs of Marsh.
“Why do you ask me that?” Kelsier finally said.
“Because of the Lord Ruler,” Vin said, picking at the rotting wood of her windowsill. “I felt his power today. I don’t think the others could sense it, not like a Mistborn can. But I know you must have.” She looked up again, meeting Kelsier’s eyes. “You’re still planning to get him out of the city before we try to take the palace, right?”
“Don’t worry about the Lord Ruler,” Kelsier said. “The Eleventh Metal will take care of him.”
Vin frowned. Outside, the sun was setting in a fiery blaze of frustration. The mists would come soon, and supposedly Marsh would arrive a short time later.
The Eleventh Metal, she thought, remembering the skepticism with which the other crewmembers regarded it. “Is it real?” Vin asked.
“The Eleventh Metal? Of course it is—I showed it to you, remember?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “Are the legends real? Are you lying?”
Kelsier turned toward her, frowning slightly. Then he smirked. “You’re a very blunt girl, Vin.”
“I know.”
Kelsier’s smile deepened. “The answer is no. I’m not lying. The legends are real, though it took some time for me to find them.”
“And that bit of metal you showed us really is the Eleventh Metal?”
“I think so,” Kelsier said.
“But you don’t know how to use it.”
Kelsier paused, then shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
Kelsier shrugged, turning to look out the window. “Even if I don’t discover the secret in time, I doubt the Lord Ruler will be as big a problem as you think. He’s a powerful Allomancer, but he doesn’t know everything—if he did, we’d be dead right now. He’s not omnipotent, either—if he were, he wouldn’t have needed to execute all of those skaa to try and frighten the city into submission.
“I don’t know what he is—but I think he’s more like a man than he is a god. The words in that logbook...they’re the words of a regular person. His real power comes from his armies and his wealth. If we remove them, he won’t be able to do anything to stop his empire from collapsing.”
Vin frowned. “He might not be a god, but . . . he’s something, Kelsier. Something different. Today, when he was in the square, I could feel his touch on my emotions even when I was burning copper.”
“That’s not possible, Vin,” Kelsier said with a shake of his head. “If it were, Inquisitors would be able to sense Allomancy even when there was a Smoker nearby. If that were the case, don’t you think they’d hunt down all of the skaa Mistings and kill them?”
Vin shrugged.
“You know the Lord Ruler is strong,” Kelsier said, “and you feel like you should still be able to sense him. So you do.”
Maybe he’s right, she thought, picking off another bit of the windowsill. He’s been an Allomancer for far longer than I have, after all.
But...I felt something, didn’t I? And the Inquisitor that nearly killed me—somehow, he found me in the darkness and rain. He must have sensed something.
She let the matter drop, however. “The Eleventh Metal. Couldn’t we just try it and see what it does?”
“It’s not that simple,” Kelsier said. “You remember how I told you never to burn a metal that wasn’t one of the ten?”
Vin nodded.
“Burning another metal can be deadly,” Kelsier said. “Even getting the wrong mixture in an alloy metal can make you sick. If I’m wrong about the Eleventh Metal...”
“It will kill you,” Vin said quietly.
Kelsier nodded.
So, you’re not quite as certain as you pretend, she decided. Otherwise, you’d have tried it by now.
“That’s what you want to find in the logbook,” Vin said. “A clue about how to use the Eleventh Metal.”
Kelsier nodded. “I’m afraid we weren’t very lucky in that respect. So far, the logbook hasn’t even mentioned Allomancy.”
“Though it does talk about Feruchemy,” Vin said.
Kelsier eyed her as he stood by his window, one shoulder leaning against the wall. “So Sazed told you about that?”
Vin glanced down. “I...kind of forced him to.”
Kelsier chuckled. “I wonder what I’ve unleashed upon the world by teaching you Allomancy. Of course, my trainer said the same thing about me.”
“He was right to worry.”
“Of course he was.”
Vin smiled. Outside, the sunlight was nearly gone, and diaphanous patches of mist were beginning to form in the air. They hung like ghosts, slowly growing larger, extending their influence as night approached.
“Sazed didn’t have time to tell me much about Feruchemy,” Vin said carefully. “What kind of things can it do?” She waited in trepidation, assuming that Kelsier would see through her lie.
“Feruchemy is completely internal,” Kelsier said in an offhand voice. “It can provide some of the same things we get from pewter and tin—strength, endurance, eyesight—but each attribute has to be stored separately. It can enhance a lot of other things too—things that Allomancy can’t do. Memory, physical speed, clarity of thought...even some strange things, like physical weight or physical age, can be altered by Feruchemy.”
“So, it’s more powerful than Allomancy?” Vin said.
Kelsier shrugged. “Feruchemy doesn’t have any external powers—it can’t Push and Pull emotions, nor can
it Steelpush or Ironpull. And, the biggest limitation to Feruchemy is that you have to store up all of its abilities by drawing them from your own body.
“Want to be twice as strong for a time? Well, you have to spend several hours being weak to store up the strength. If you want to store up the ability to heal quickly, you have to spend a great deal of time feeling sick. In Allomancy, the metals themselves are our fuel—we can generally keep going as long as we have enough metal to burn. In Feruchemy, the metals are just storage devices—your own body is the real fuel.”
“So, you just steal someone else’s storage metals, right?” Vin said.
Kelsier shook his head. “Doesn’t work—Feruchemists can only access metal stores they themselves created.”
“Oh.”
Kelsier nodded. “So, no. I wouldn’t say that Feruchemy is more powerful than Allomancy. They both have advantages and limitations. For instance, an Allomancer can only flare a metal so high, and so his maximum strength is bounded. Feruchemists don’t have that kind of limitation; if a Feruchemist had enough strength stored up to be twice as strong as normal for an hour, he could choose instead to be three times as strong for a shorter period of time—or even four, five, or six times as strong for even shorter periods.”
Vin frowned. “That sounds like a pretty big advantage.”
“True,” Kelsier said, reaching inside of his cloak and pulling out a vial containing several beads of atium. “But we have this. It doesn’t matter if a Feruchemist is as strong as five men or as strong as fifty men—if I know what he’s going to do next, I’ll beat him.”
Vin nodded.
“Here,” Kelsier said, unstoppering the vial and pulling out one of the beads. He took out another vial, this one filled with the normal alcohol solution, and dropped the bead in it. “Take one of these. You might need it.”
“Tonight?” Vin asked, accepting the vial.
Kelsier nodded.
“But, it’s just Marsh.”
“It might be,” he said. “Then again, maybe the obligators caught him and forced him to write that letter. Maybe they’re following him, or maybe they’ve since captured him and have tortured him to find out about the meeting. Marsh is in a very dangerous place—think about trying to do the same thing you’re doing at those balls, except exchange all the noblemen for obligators and Inquisitors.”
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