Sazed was a Terrisman; his entire life had been one of oppression and loss. But these men, Breeze himself included, were accustomed to success. Even against overwhelming odds, they were confident. They were the type of men who could go up against a god, and expect to win. They wouldn’t deal well with losing. Of course, when losing meant death, who would?
“Straff’s armies are getting ready to break camp,” Clubs finally said. “He’s doing it subtly, but the signs are there.”
“So, he’s coming for the city,” Dockson said. “My men in Penrod’s palace say the Assembly has been sending missive after missive to Straff, all but begging him to come take up occupation of Luthadel.”
“He’s not going to take the city,” Clubs said. “At least, not if he’s smart.”
“Vin is still a threat,” Breeze said. “And it doesn’t look like Straff has a Mistborn to protect him. If he came into Luthadel, I doubt there is a single thing he could do to keep her from slitting his throat. So, he’ll do something else.”
Dockson frowned, and glanced at Ham, who shrugged.
“It’s really quite simple,” Breeze said, tapping the table with his dueling cane. “Why, even I figured it out.” Clubs snorted at this. “If Straff makes it look like he’s withdrawing, the koloss will probably attack Luthadel for him. They’re too literal to understand the threat of a hidden army.”
“If Straff withdraws,” Clubs said, “Jastes won’t be able to keep them from the city.”
Dockson blinked. “But they’d…”
“Slaughter?” Clubs asked. “Yes. They’d pillage the richest sectors of the town—probably end up killing most of the noblemen in the city.”
“Eliminating the men that Straff has been forced—against his will, knowing that man’s pride—to work with,” Breeze added. “In fact, there’s a good chance the creatures will kill Vin. Can you imagine her not joining the fight if koloss broke in?”
The room fell silent.
“But, that doesn’t really help Straff get the city,” Dockson said. “He’ll still have to fight the koloss.”
“Yes,” Clubs said, scowling. “But, they’ll probably take down some of the city gates, not to mention level a lot of the homes. That will leave Straff with a clear field to attack a weakened foe. Plus, koloss don’t strategize—for them, city walls won’t be much help. Straff couldn’t ask for a better setup.”
“He’d be seen as a liberator,” Breeze said quietly. “If he returns at the right time—after the koloss have broken into the city and fought the soldiers, but before they’ve done serious damage to the skaa quarter—he could free the people and establish himself as their protector, not their conqueror. Knowing how the people feel, I think they’d welcome him. Right now, a strong leader would mean more to them than coins in their pockets and rights in the Assembly.”
As the group thought on this, Breeze eyed Sazed, who still sat quietly. He’d said so little; what was his game? Why gather the crew? Was he subtle enough to know that they’d simply needed to have an honest discussion like this, without Elend’s morals to clutter things up?
“We could just let Straff have it,” Dockson finally said. “The city, I mean. We could promise to call Vin off. If that is where this is heading anyway…”
“Dox,” Ham said quietly, “what would Kell think, to hear you talk like that?”
“We could give the city to Jastes Lekal,” Breeze said. “Perhaps he can be persuaded to treat the skaa with dignity.”
“And let twenty thousand koloss into the city?” Ham asked. “Breeze, have you ever seen what those things can do?”
Dockson pounded the table. “I’m just giving options, Ham. What else are we going to do?”
“Fight,” Clubs said. “And die.”
The room fell silent again.
“You sure know how to kill a conversation, my friend,” Breeze finally said.
“It needed to be said,” Clubs muttered. “No use fooling yourselves anymore. We can’t win a fight, and a fight is where this was always going. The city is going to get attacked. We’re going to defend it. And we’ll lose.
“You wonder if we should just give up. Well, we’re not going to do that. Kell wouldn’t let us, and so we won’t let ourselves. We’ll fight, and we’ll die with dignity. Then, the city will burn—but we’ll have said something. The Lord Ruler pushed us around for a thousand years, but now we skaa have pride. We fight. We resist. And we die.”
“What was this all worth, then?” Ham said with frustration. “Why overthrow the Final Empire? Why kill the Lord Ruler? Why do anything, if it was just going to end like this? Tyrants ruling every dominance, Luthadel smashed to rubble, our crew dead?”
“Because,” Sazed said softly, “someone had to begin it. While the Lord Ruler ruled, society could not progress. He kept a stabilizing hand on the empire, but it was an oppressive hand as well. Fashion stayed remarkably unchanged for a thousand years, the noblemen always trying to fit the Lord Ruler’s ideals. Architecture and science did not progress, for the Lord Ruler frowned on change and invention.
“And the skaa could not be free, for he would not let them. However, killing him did not free our peoples, my friends. Only time will do that. It will take centuries, perhaps—centuries of fighting, learning, and growth. At the beginning, unfortunately and unavoidably, things will be very difficult. Worse even than they were beneath the Lord Ruler.”
“And we die for nothing,” Ham said with a scowl.
“No,” Sazed said. “Not nothing, Lord Hammond. We will die to show that there are skaa who will not be bullied, who will not back down. This is a very important precedent, I think. In the histories and legends, this is the kind of event that inspires. If the skaa are ever to take rule of themselves, there will need to be sacrifices they can look to for motivation. Sacrifices like that of the Survivor himself.”
The men sat in silence.
“Breeze,” Ham said, “I could use a little more confidence right now.”
“Of course,” Breeze said, carefully Soothing away the man’s anxiety and fear. His face lost some of its pale pallor, and he sat up a little straighter. Just for good measure, Breeze gave the rest of the crew a little of the same treatment.
“How long have you known?” Dockson asked Sazed.
“For some time now, Lord Dockson,” Sazed said.
“But, you couldn’t have known that Straff would pull back and give us to the koloss. Only Clubs figured that out.”
“My knowledge was general, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said in his even voice. “It did not relate to the koloss specifically. I have thought for some time that this city would fall. In all honesty, I am deeply impressed with your efforts. This people should long since have been defeated, I think. You have done something grand—something that will be remembered for centuries.”
“Assuming anyone survives to tell the story,” Clubs noted.
Sazed nodded. “That, actually, is why I called this gathering. There is little chance of those of us who remain in the city surviving—we will be needed to help with defenses, and if we do survive the koloss attack, Straff will try to execute us. However, it is not necessary for us all to remain in Luthadel for its fall—someone, perhaps, should be sent out to organize further resistance against the warlords.”
“I won’t leave my men,” Clubs grumbled.
“Nor I,” Ham said. “Though I did send my family to ground yesterday.” The simple phrase meant that he’d had them leave, perhaps to hide in the city’s underground, perhaps to escape through one of the passwalls. Ham wouldn’t know—and that way he couldn’t betray their location. Old habits died hard.
“If this city falls,” Dockson said, “I’ll be here with it. That’s what Kell would expect. I’m not leaving.”
“I’ll go,” Breeze said, looking at Sazed. “Is it too early to volunteer?”
“Um, actually, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said, “I wasn’t—”
Breeze held up a hand. “It’s all righ
t, Sazed. I believe it’s obvious whom you think should be sent away. You didn’t invite them to the meeting.”
Dockson frowned. “We’re going to defend Luthadel to the death, and you want to send away our only Mistborn?”
Sazed nodded his head. “My lords,” he said softly, “the men of this city will need our leadership. We gave them this city and put them in this predicament. We cannot abandon them now. But…there are great things at work in this world. Greater things than us, I think. I am convinced that Mistress Vin is part of them.
“Even if these matters are delusions on my part, then Lady Vin still must not be allowed to die in this city. She is the people’s most personal and powerful link to the Survivor. She has become a symbol to them, and her skills as a Mistborn give her the best chance of being able to get away, then survive the attacks Straff will undoubtedly send. She will be a great value in the fight to come—she can move quickly and stealthily, and can fight alone, doing much damage, as she proved last night.”
Sazed bowed his head. “My lords, I called you here today so that we could decide how to convince her to run, when the rest of us stay to fight. It will not be an easy task, I think.”
“She won’t leave Elend,” Ham said. “He’ll have to go, too.”
“My thoughts as well, Lord Hammond,” Sazed said.
Clubs chewed his lip in thought. “That boy won’t be easily convinced to flee. He still thinks we can win this fight.”
“And we may yet,” Sazed said. “My lords, my purpose is not to leave you without any hope at all. But, the dire circumstances, the likelihood of success…”
“We know, Sazed,” Breeze said. “We understand.”
“There have to be others of the crew who can go,” Ham said, looking down. “More than just the two.”
“I would send Tindwyl with them,” Sazed said. “She will carry to my people many discoveries of great importance. I also plan to send Lord Lestibournes. He would do little good in the battle, and his abilities as a spy could be of help to Lady Vin and Lord Elend as they try to rally resistance among the skaa.
“However, those four will not be the only ones who survive. Most of the skaa should be safe—Jastes Lekal seems to be able to control his koloss somehow. Even if he cannot, then Straff should arrive in time to protect the city’s people.”
“Assuming Straff is planning what Clubs thinks he is,” Ham said. “He could actually be withdrawing, cutting his losses and leaving Luthadel behind.”
“Either way,” Clubs said. “Not many can get out. Neither Straff nor Jastes are likely to allow large groups of people to flee the city. Right now, confusion and fear in the streets will serve their purposes far better than depopulation. We might be able to get a few riders on horseback out—especially if one of those riders is Vin. The rest of the people will have to take their chances with the koloss.”
Breeze felt his stomach turn. Clubs spoke so bluntly…so callously. But that was Clubs. He wasn’t even really a pessimist; he just said the things that he didn’t think others wanted to acknowledge.
Some of the skaa will survive to become slaves for Straff Venture, Breeze thought. But those who fight—and those who have led the city this last year—are doomed. That includes me.
It’s true. This time there really is no way out.
“Well?” Sazed asked, hands spread before him. “Are we in agreement that these four should go?”
The members of the group nodded.
“Let us discuss, then,” Sazed said, “and devise a plan for sending them away.”
“We could just make Elend think that the danger isn’t that great,” Dockson said. “If he believes that the city is in for a long siege, he might be willing to go with Vin on a mission somewhere. They wouldn’t realize what was happening back here until it was too late.”
“A good suggestion, Lord Dockson,” Sazed said. “I think, also, that we could work with Vin’s concept of the Well of Ascension.”
The discussion continued, and Breeze sat back, satisfied. Vin, Elend, and Spook will survive, he thought. I’ll have to convince Sazed to let Allrianne go with them. He glanced around the room, noticing a release of tension in the postures of the others. Dockson and Ham seemed at peace, and even Clubs was nodding quietly to himself, looking satisfied as they talked through suggestions.
The disaster was still coming. But, somehow, the possibility that some would escape—the youngest crewmembers, the ones still inexperienced enough to hope—made everything else a little easier to accept.
Vin stood quietly in the mists, looking up at the dark spires, columns, and towers of Kredik Shaw. In her head, two sounds thumped. The mist spirit and the larger, vaster sound.
It was growing more and more demanding.
She continued forward, ignoring the thumps as she approached Kredik Shaw. The Hill of a Thousand Spires, once home of the Lord Ruler. It had been abandoned for well over a year, but no vagrants had made their home here. It was too ominous. Too terrible. Too much a reminder of him.
The Lord Ruler had been a monster. Vin remembered well the night, over a year before, when she had come to this palace intending to kill him. To do the job that Kelsier had unwittingly trained her to do. She had walked through this very courtyard, had passed guards at the doors before her.
And she had let them live. Kelsier would have just fought his way in. But Vin had talked them into leaving, into joining the rebellion. That act had saved her life when one of those very men, Goradel, had led Elend to the palace dungeons to help rescue Vin.
In a way, the Final Empire had been overthrown because she hadn’t acted like Kelsier.
And yet, could she base future decisions upon a coincidence like that? Looking back, it seemed too perfectly allegorical. Like a neat little tale told to children, intended to teach a lesson.
Vin had never heard those tales as a child. And, she had survived when so many others had died. For every lesson like the one with Goradel, it seemed that there were a dozen that ended in tragedy.
And then there was Kelsier. He’d been right, in the end. His lesson was very different from the ones taught by the children’s tales. Kelsier had been bold, even excited, when he executed those who stood in his path. Ruthless. He had looked toward the greater good; he’d always had his eyes focused on the fall of the empire, and the eventual rise of a kingdom like Elend’s.
He had succeeded. Why couldn’t she kill as he had, knowing she was doing her duty, never feeling guilt? She’d always been frightened by the edge of danger Kelsier had displayed. Yet, wasn’t that very edge the thing that had let him succeed?
She passed into the tunnel-like corridors of the palace, feet and mistcloak tassels trailing marks in the dust. The mists, as always, remained behind. They didn’t enter buildings—or, if they did, they usually didn’t remain for long. With them, she left behind the mist spirit.
She had to make a decision. She didn’t like the decision, but she was accustomed to doing things she didn’t like. That was life. She hadn’t wanted to fight the Lord Ruler, but she had.
It soon became too dark even for Mistborn eyes, and she had to light a lantern. When she did, she was surprised to see that her footsteps weren’t the only ones in the dust. Apparently, someone else had been haunting the corridors. However, whoever it was, she didn’t encounter them as she walked through the hallways.
She entered the chamber a few moments later. She wasn’t sure what had drawn her to Kredik Shaw, let alone the hidden chamber at its center. It seemed, however, that she had been feeling a kinship with the Lord Ruler lately. Her walkings had brought her here, to a place she hadn’t visited since that night when she’d slain the only God she’d ever known.
He had spent a lot of time in this hidden chamber, a place he had apparently built to remind him of his homeland. The chamber had a domed roof that arced overhead. The walls were filled with silvery murals and the floor was filled with metallic inlays. She ignored these, walking forward toward the room’s ce
ntral feature—a small stone building that had been built within the larger chamber.
It was here that Kelsier and his wife had been captured many years before, during Kelsier’s first attempt to rob the Lord Ruler. Mare had been murdered at the Pits. But Kelsier had survived.
It was here, in this same chamber, that Vin had first faced an Inquisitor, and had nearly been killed herself. It was also here that she had come months later in her first attempt to kill the Lord Ruler. She had been defeated that time, too.
She stepped into the small building-within-a-building. It had only one room. The floor had been torn up by Elend’s crews, searching for the atium. The walls were still hung, however, with the trappings the Lord Ruler had left behind. She raised her lantern, looking at them.
Rugs. Furs. A small wooden flute. The things of his people, the Terris people, from a thousand years before. Why had he built his new city of Luthadel here, to the south, when his homeland—and the Well of Ascension itself—had been to the north? Vin had never really understood that.
Perhaps it came down to decision. Rashek, the Lord Ruler, had been forced to make a decision, too. He could have continued as he was, the pastoral villager. He would probably have had a happy life with his people.
But he had decided to become something more. In doing so, he had committed terrible atrocities. Yet, could she blame him for the decision itself? He had become what he’d thought he needed to be.
Her decision seemed more mundane, but she knew that other things—the Well of Ascension, the protection of Luthadel—could not be considered until she was certain what she wanted and who she was. And yet, standing in that room where Rashek had spent much of his time, thinking about the Well, the demanding thumps in her head sounded louder than they ever had before.
She had to decide. Elend was the one she wanted to be with. He represented peace. Happiness. Zane, however, represented what she felt she had to become. For the good of everyone involved.
The Mistborn Trilogy Page 130
