Vin turned her eyes from the book. I probably shouldn’t tell him about Shan – not until I talk to Sazed. “I think my cleverness did its job well,” she said instead. “After all, I came to the ball to dance.”
“I find dancing overrated.”
“You can’t remain aloof from the court forever, Lord Venture – you’re the heir of a very important house.”
He sighed, stretching and leaning back in his chair. “I suppose you’re right,” he said with surprising frankness. “But the longer I hold out, the more annoyed my father will become. That, in itself, is a worthy goal.”
“He’s not the only one you hurt,” Vin said. “What of the girls that never get asked to dance because you’re too busy rummaging through your books?”
“As I recall,” Elend said, setting the last book on the top of his pile, “someone was just pretending to read in order to avoid dancing. I don’t think the ladies have any trouble finding more amicable partners than myself.”
Vin raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t have trouble because I’m new and I’m low-ranked. I suspect that the ladies closer to your station have trouble finding partners, amicable or not. As I understand it, noblemen are uncomfortable dancing with women above their station.”
Elend paused, obviously searching for a comeback.
Vin leaned forward. “What is it, Elend Venture? Why are you so intent on avoiding your duty?”
“Duty?” Elend asked, leaning toward her, his posture earnest. “Valette, this isn’t duty. This ball… this is fluff and distraction. A waste of time.”
“And women?” Vin asked. “Are they a waste too?”
“Women?” Elend asked. “Women are like… thunderstorms. They’re beautiful to look at, and sometimes they’re nice to listen to – but most of the time they’re just plain inconvenient.”
Vin felt her jaw drop slightly. Then she noticed the twinkle in his eye, the smile at the edges of his lips, and she found herself smiling as well. “You say these things just to provoke me!”
His smile deepened. “I’m charming that way.” He stood, looking at her fondly. “Ah, Valette. Don’t let them trick you into taking yourself too seriously. It’s not worth the effort. But, I must bid you a good evening. Try not to let months pass between balls you attend in the future.”
Vin smiled. “I’ll think about it.”
“Please do,” Elend said, bending down and scooting the tall stack of books off the table and into his arms. He teetered for a moment, then steadied himself and peeked to the side. “Who knows – maybe one of these days you’ll actually get me to dance.”
Vin smiled, nodding as the nobleman turned and walked off, circling the perimeter of the ballroom’s second tier. He was soon met by two other young men. Vin watched curiously as one of the men clapped Elend on the shoulder in a friendly way, then took half of the books. The three began to walk together, chatting.
Vin didn’t recognize the newcomers. She sat thoughtfully as Sazed finally appeared out of a side hallway, and Vin eagerly waved him forward. He approached with a hurried step.
“Who are those men with Lord Venture?” Vin asked, pointing toward Elend.
Sazed squinted behind his spectacles. “Why… one of them is Lord Jastes Lekal. The other is a Hasting, though I don’t know his given name.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Houses Lekal and Hasting are both political rivals of House Venture, Mistress. Noblemen often visit with each other in smaller, after-ball parties, making alliances…” The Terrisman paused, turning back to her. “Master Kelsier will wish to hear of this, I think. It is time we retire.”
“I agree,” Vin said, rising. “And so do my feet. Let’s go.”
Sazed nodded, and the two of them made their way to the front doors. “What took you so long?” Vin asked as they waited for an attendant to fetch her shawl.
“I came back several times, Mistress,” Sazed said. “But you were always dancing. I decided I would be of far more use speaking with the servants than I would be standing beside your table.”
Vin nodded, accepting her shawl, then walked out the front steps and down the carpeted stairs, Sazed just behind her. Her step was quick – she wanted to get back and tell Kelsier the names she’d memorized before she forgot the whole list. She paused at the landing, waiting for a servant to fetch her carriage. As she did, she noticed something odd. A small disturbance was going on a short distance away in the mists. She stepped forward, but Sazed put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. A lady wouldn’t wander off into the mists.
She reached to burn copper and tin, but waited – the disturbance was getting closer. It resolved as a guard appeared from the mists, pulling a small, struggling form: a skaa boy in dirty clothing, face soot-stained. The soldier gave Vin a wide berth, nodding apologetically to her as he approached one of the guard captains. Vin burned tin to hear what was said.
“Kitchen boy,” the soldier said quietly. “Tried to beg from one of the noblemen inside a carriage when they stopped for the gates to open.”
The captain simply nodded. The soldier pulled his captive back out into the mists, walking toward the far courtyard. The boy struggled, and the soldier grunted with annoyance, keeping a tight grip. Vin watched him go, Sazed’s hand on her shoulder, as if to hold her back. Of course she couldn’t help the boy. He shouldn’t have–
In the mists, beyond the eyesight of regular people, the soldier drew out a dagger and slit the boy’s throat. Vin jumped, shocked, as the sounds of the boy’s struggling tapered off. The guard dropped the body, then grabbed it by a leg and began to drag it away.
Vin stood, stunned, as her carriage pulled up.
“Mistress,” Sazed prompted, but she simply stood there.
They killed him, she thought. Right here, just a few paces away from where noblemen wait for their carriages. As if… the death were nothing out of the ordinary. Just another skaa, slaughtered. Like an animal.
Or less than an animal. Nobody would slaughter pigs in a keep courtyard. The guard’s posture as he’d performed the murder indicated that he’d simply been too annoyed with the struggling boy to wait for a more appropriate location. If any of the other nobility around Vin had noticed the event, they paid it no heed, continuing their chatting as they waited. Actually, they seemed a little more chatty, now that the screams had stopped.
“Mistress,” Sazed said again, pushing her forward.
She allowed herself to be led into the carriage, her mind still distracted. It seemed such an impossible contrast to her. The pleasant nobility, dancing, just inside a room sparkling with light and dresses. Death in the courtyard. Didn’t they care? Didn’t they know?
This is the Final Empire, Vin, she told herself as the carriage rolled away. Don’t forget the ash because you see a little silk. If those people in there knew you were skaa, they’d have you slaughtered just as easily as they did that poor boy.
It was a sobering thought – one that absorbed her during the entire trip back to Fellise.
19
Kwaan and I met by happenstance – though, I suppose, he would use the word “providence.”
I have met many other Terris philosophers since that day. They are, every one, men of great wisdom and ponderous sagaciousness. Men with an almost palpable importance.
Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom – nor was he even a religious scholar. When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library – I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think.
That he should be the one who finally discovered the great Hero of Terris prophecy is a matter that would cause me to laugh, had events turned out just a little differently.
KELSIER COULD FEEL ANOTHER ALLOMANCER pulsing in the mists. The vibrations washed over him like rhythmic waves brushing up against a tranquil shore. They were faint, but unmistakable.
He crouched at
op a low garden wall, listening to the vibrations. The curling white mist continued its normal, placid wafting – indifferent, save for the bit closest to his body, which curled in the normal Allomantic current around his limbs.
Kelsier squinted in the night, flaring tin and seeking out the other Allomancer. He thought he saw a figure crouching atop a wall in the distance, but he couldn’t be certain. He recognized the Allomantic vibrations, however. Each metal, when burned, gave off a distinct signal, recognizable to one who was well practiced with bronze. The man in the distance burned tin, as did the four others Kelsier had sensed hiding around Keep Tekiel. The five Tineyes formed a perimeter, watching the night, searching for intruders.
Kelsier smiled. The Great Houses were growing nervous. Keeping five Tineyes on watch wouldn’t be that hard for a house like Tekiel, but the noblemen Allomancers would resent being forced into simple guard duty. And if there were five Tineyes on watch, chances were good that a number of Thugs, Coinshots, and Lurchers were on call as well. Luthadel was quietly in a state of alert.
The Great Houses were growing so wary, in fact, that Kelsier had trouble finding cracks in their defenses. He was only one man, and even Mistborn had limits. His success so far had been achieved through surprise. However, with five Tineyes on watch, Kelsier wouldn’t be able to get very close to the keep without serious risk of being spotted.
Fortunately, Kelsier didn’t need to test Tekiel’s defenses this night. Instead, he crept along the wall toward the outer grounds. He paused near the garden well, and – burning bronze to make certain no Allomancers were near – reached into a stand of bushes to retrieve a large sack. It was heavy enough that he had to burn pewter to pull it free and throw it over his shoulder. He paused in the night for a moment, straining for sounds in the mist, then hauled the sack back toward the keep.
He stopped near a large, whitewashed garden veranda that sat beside a small reflecting pool. Then, he heaved the sack off his shoulder and dumped its contents – a freshly killed corpse – onto the ground.
The body – which had belonged to one Lord Charrs Entrone – rolled to a stop with its face in the dirt, twin dagger wounds glistening in its back. Kelsier had ambushed the half-drunken man on a street just outside of a skaa slum, ridding the world of another nobleman. Lord Entrone, in particular, would not be missed – he was infamous for his twisted sense of pleasure. Skaa bloodfights, for instance, were a particular enjoyment of his. That was where he had spent this evening.
Entrone had, not coincidentally, been a major political ally of House Tekiel. Kelsier left the corpse sitting in its own blood. The gardeners would locate it first – and once the servants knew about the death, no amount of noble obstinacy would keep it quiet. The murder would cause an outcry, and immediate blame would probably be placed upon House Izenry, House Tekiel’s rival. However, Entrone’s suspiciously unexpected death might make House Tekiel wary. If they began poking around, they would find that Entrone’s gambling opponent at the night’s bloodfight had been Crews Geffenry – a man whose house had been petitioning the Tekiels for a stronger alliance. Crews was a known Mistborn, and a very competent knife-fighter.
And so, the intrigue would begin. Had House Izenry done the murder? Or, perhaps, had the death been an attempt by House Geffenry to push Tekiel into a higher state of alarm – thereby encouraging them to seek allies among the lesser nobility? Or, was there a third answer – a house that wanted to strengthen the rivalry between Tekiel and Izenry?
Kelsier hopped off the garden wall, scratching at the fake beard he wore. It didn’t really matter whom House Tekiel decided to blame; Kelsier’s real purpose was to make them question and worry, to make them mistrust and misunderstand. Chaos was his strongest ally in fostering a house war. When that war finally came, each noblemen killed would be one less person that the skaa would have to face in their rebellion.
As soon as Kelsier got a short distance from Keep Tekiel, he flipped a coin and went to the rooftops. Occasionally, he wondered what the people in the houses beneath him thought, hearing footsteps from above. Did they know that Mistborn found their homes a convenient highway, a place where they could move without being bothered by guards or thieves? Or, did the people attribute the knockings to the ever-blamable mistwraiths?
They probably don’t even notice. Sane people are asleep when the mists come out. He landed on a peaked roof, retrieved his pocket watch from a nook to check the time, then stowed it – and the dangerous metal from which it was made – away again. Many nobility blatantly wore metal, a foolish form of bravado. The habit had been inherited directly from the Lord Ruler. Kelsier, however, didn’t like carrying any metal – watch, ring, or bracelet – on him that he didn’t have to.
He launched himself into the air again, making his way toward the Sootwarrens, a skaa slum on the far northern side of town. Luthadel was an enormous, sprawling city; every few decades or so, new sections were added, the city wall expanded through the sweat and effort of skaa labor. With the advent of the modern canal era, stone was growing relatively cheap and easy to move.
I wonder why he even bothers with the wall, Kelsier thought, moving along rooftops parallel to the massive structure. Who would attack? The Lord Ruler controls everything. Not even the western isles resist anymore.
There hadn’t been a true war in the Final Empire for centuries. The occasional “rebellion” consisted of nothing more than a few thousand men hiding in hills or caves, coming out for periodic raids. Even Yeden’s rebellion wouldn’t rely much on force – they were counting on the chaos of a house war, mixed with the strategic misdirection of the Luthadel Garrison, to give them an opening. If it came down to an extended campaign, Kelsier would lose. The Lord Ruler and the Steel Ministry could marshal literally millions of troops if the need arose.
Of course, there was his other plan. Kelsier didn’t speak of it, he barely even dared consider it. He probably wouldn’t even have an opportunity to implement it. But, if the opportunity did arrive…
He dropped to the ground just outside of the Sootwarrens, then pulled his mistcloak tight and walked along the street with a confident step. His contact sat in the doorway of a closed shop, puffing quietly on a pipe. Kelsier raised an eyebrow; tobacco was an expensive luxury. Hoid was either very wasteful, or he was just as successful as Dockson implied.
Hoid calmly put away the pipe, then climbed to his feet – though that didn’t make him much taller. The scrawny bald man bowed deeply in the misty night. “Greetings, my lord.”
Kelsier paused in front of the man, arms tucked carefully inside his mistcloak. It wouldn’t do for a street informant to realize that the unidentified “nobleman” he was meeting with had the scars of Hathsin on his arms.
“You come highly recommended,” Kelsier said, mimicking the haughty accent of a nobleman.
“I am one of the best, my lord.”
Anyone who can survive as long as you have must be good, Kelsier thought. Lords didn’t like the idea of other men knowing their secrets. Informants generally didn’t live very long.
“I need to know something, informant,” Kelsier said. “But first you must vow never to speak of this meeting to anyone.”
“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said. He’d likely break the promise before the night was out – another reason informants didn’t tend to live very long. “There is, however, the matter of payment…”
“You’ll have your money, skaa,” Kelsier snapped.
“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said with a quick bob of the head. “You requested information regarding House Renoux, I believe…”
“Yes. What is known about it? Which houses is it aligned with? I must know these things.”
“There isn’t really much to know, my lord,” Hoid said. “Lord Renoux is very new to the area, and he is a careful man. He’s making neither allies nor enemies at the moment – he’s buying a large number of weapons and armor, but is probably just purchasing from a wide variety of houses and merchants, thereby
ingratiating himself to them all. A wise tactic. He will, perhaps, have an excess of merchandise, but he will also have an excess of friends, yes?”
Kelsier snorted. “I don’t see why I should pay you for that.”
“He’ll have too much merchandise, my lord,” Hoid said quickly. “You could make a clever profit, knowing that Renoux is shipping at a loss.”
“I’m no merchant, skaa,” Kelsier said. “I don’t care about profits and shipping!” Let him chew on that. Now he thinks I’m of a Great House – of course, if he hadn’t suspected that because of the mistcloak, then he doesn’t deserve his reputation.
“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said quickly. “There is more, of course…”
Ah, and here we see it. Does the street know that House Renoux is connected to the rumblings of rebellion? If anyone had discovered that secret, then Kelsier’s crew was in serious jeopardy.
Hoid coughed quietly, holding out his hand.
“Insufferable man!” Kelsier snapped, tossing a pouch at Hoid’s feet.
“Yes, my lord,” Hoid said, falling to his knees and searching about with his hand. “I apologize, my lord. My eyesight is weak, you know. I can barely see my own fingers held in front of my face.”
Clever, Kelsier thought as Hoid found the pouch and tucked it away. The comment about eyesight was, of course, a lie – no man would get far in the underground with such an impediment. However, a nobleman who thought his informant to be half blind would be far less paranoid about being identified. Not that Kelsier himself was worried – he wore one of Dockson’s best disguises. Beside the beard, he had a fake, but realistic, nose, along with platforms in the shoes and makeup to lighten his skin.
“You said there was more?” Kelsier said. “I swear, skaa, if it isn’t good…”
“It is,” Hoid said quickly. “Lord Renoux is considering a union between his niece, the Lady Valette, and Lord Elend Venture.”
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