Fatren nodded.
“Let’s go,” Vin said, eagerness sounding in her voice as she looked over at the small city.
“Lord Fatren, do you want to come with us, or do you want to supervise your men?” Elend asked.
Fatren’s eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do?”
“There is something in your city we need to claim.”
Fatren paused. “I’ll come, then.” He gave some orders to his men while Vin waited impatiently. Elend gave her a smile, then finally Fatren joined them, and the three walked back toward the Vetitan gate.
“Lord Fatren,” Elend said as they walked, “you should address me as ‘my lord’ from now on.”
Fatren looked up from his nervous study of the koloss standing around them.
“Do you understand?” Elend said, meeting the man’s eyes.
“Um . . . yes. My lord.”
Elend nodded, and Fatren fell a little behind him and Vin, as if showing an unconscious deference. He didn’t seem rebellious—for now, he was probably happy to be alive. Perhaps he would eventually resent Elend for taking command of his city, but by then, there would be little he could do. Fatren’s people would be accustomed to the security of being part of a larger empire, and the stories of Elend’s mysterious command of the koloss—and therefore salvation of the city—would be too strong. Fatren would never rule again.
So easily I command, Elend thought. Just two years ago, I made even more mistakes than this man. At least he managed to keep his city’s people together in a time of crisis. I lost my throne, until Vin conquered it back for me.
“I worry about you,” Vin asked. “Did you have to start the battle without me?”
Elend glanced to the side. There was no reproach in her voice. Just concern.
“I wasn’t sure when—or even if—you’d arrive,” he said. “The opportunity was just too good. The koloss had just marched an entire day. We probably killed five hundred before they even decided to start attacking.”
“And the Inquisitor?” Vin asked. “Did you really think you could take him on your own?”
“Did you?” Elend asked. “You fought him for a good five minutes before I was able to get there and help.”
Vin didn’t use the obvious argument—that she was by far the more accomplished Mistborn. Instead, she just walked silently. She still worried about him, even though she no longer tried to protect him from all danger. Both her worry and her willingness to let him take risks were part of her love for him. And he sincerely appreciated both.
The two of them tried to stay together as much as possible, but that wasn’t always feasible—such as when Elend had discovered a koloss army marching on an indefensible city while Vin was away delivering orders to Penrod in Luthadel. Elend had hoped she would return to his army camp in time to find out where he had gone, then come help, but he hadn’t been able to wait. Not with thousands of lives at stake.
Thousands of lives . . . and more.
They eventually reached the gates. A crowd of soldiers who had either arrived late to the battle or been too afraid to charge stood atop the bulwark, looking down with awe. Several thousand koloss had gotten past Elend’s men and tried to attack the city. These now stood motionless—by his silent command—waiting outside the bulwark.
The soldiers opened the gates, letting in Vin, Elend, Fatren, and Vin’s single koloss servant. Most of them eyed Vin’s koloss with distrust—as well they should. She ordered it to put down the dead Inquisitor, then made it follow as the three of them walked down the ash-piled city street. Vin had a philosophy: the more people who saw koloss and grew accustomed to the creatures, the better. It made the people less frightened of the beasts, and made it easier to fight should they have to face koloss in battle.
They soon approached the Ministry building that Elend had first inspected upon entering the city. Vin’s koloss walked forward and began to rip the boards off of its doors.
“The Ministry building?” Fatren said. “What good is it? We already searched it.”
Elend eyed him.
“My lord,” Fatren said belatedly.
“The Steel Ministry was linked directly to the Lord Ruler,” Elend said. “Its obligators were his eyes across the empire, and through them he controlled the nobility, watched over commerce, and made certain that orthodoxy was maintained.”
The koloss yanked the door open. Moving inside, Elend burned tin, enhancing his eyesight so that he could see in the dim light. Vin, obviously doing the same, had little trouble picking her way across the broken boards and furniture littering the floor. Apparently, Fatren’s people hadn’t just “searched” the place—they’d ransacked it.
“Yeah, I know about obligators,” Fatren said. “There aren’t any of them here, my lord. They left with the nobility.”
“The obligators saw to some very important projects, Fatren,” Elend said. “Things like trying to discover how to use new Allomantic metals, or like searching for lines of Terris blood that were breeding true. One of their projects is of particular interest to us.”
“Here,” Vin said, calling out from beside something set in the floor. A hidden trapdoor.
Fatren glanced back toward the sunlight, perhaps wishing that he’d decided to bring a few soldiers with him. Beside the trapdoor, Vin lit a lantern she’d salvaged from somewhere. In the blackness of a basement, even tin wouldn’t provide sight. Vin opened the trapdoor, and they made their way down the ladder. It eventually ended in a wine cellar.
Elend walked to the center of the small cellar, surveying it as Vin began to check the walls. “I found it,” she said a second later, rapping her fist on a certain portion of the stone block wall. Elend walked forward, joining her. Sure enough, there was a thin slit in the stones, barely visible. Burning steel, Elend could see two faint blue lines pointing to metal plates hidden behind the stone. Two stronger lines pointed behind him, toward a large metal plate set into the wall, affixed very securely with enormous bolts bored into the stone.
“Ready?” Vin asked.
Elend nodded, flaring his iron. They both Pulled on the plate buried in the stone wall, steadying themselves by Pulling back against the plates on the back wall.
Not for the first time, the foresight of the Ministry impressed Elend. How could they have known that someday, a group of skaa would take control of this city? And yet, this door had not only been hidden—it had been crafted so that only someone with Allomancy could open it. Elend continued to Pull in both directions at once, feeling as if his body were being stretched between two horses. But, fortunately, he had the power of pewter to strengthen his body and keep it from ripping apart. Vin grunted in effort beside him, and soon a section of the wall began to slide open toward them. No amount of prying would have been able to wedge the thick stone open, and only a lengthy, arduous effort would have been enough to break through. Yet, with Allomancy, they opened the door in a matter of moments.
Finally, they let go. Vin exhaled in exhaustion, and Elend could tell that it had been more difficult for her than it was for him. Sometimes, he didn’t feel justified in having more power than she—after all, he’d been an Allomancer for far less time.
Vin picked up her lantern, and they moved into the now-open room. Like the other two Elend had seen, this cavern was enormous. It extended into the distance, their lantern’s light making only a faint dent in the blackness. Fatren gasped in wonder as he joined them in the doorway. The room was filled with shelves. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
“What is it?” Fatren asked.
“Food,” Elend said. “And basic supplies. Medicines, cloth, water.”
“So much,” Fatren said. “Here, all along . . .”
“Go get more men,” Elend said. “Soldiers. We’ll need them to guard the entrance, to keep people from breaking in and stealing the contents.”
Fatren’s face hardened. “This place belongs to my people.”
“My people, Fatren,” Elend said, watching V
in walk into the room, bearing the light with her. “This city is mine, now, as are its contents.”
“You came to rob us,” Fatren accused. “Just like the bandits who tried to take the city last year.”
“No,” Elend said, turning toward the soot-stained man. “I came to conquer you. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t see one.”
Elend gritted his teeth to keep himself from snapping at the man—the fatigue, the draining effect of leading an empire that seemed doomed—put him on edge so often lately. No, he told himself. Men like Fatren need more than another tyrant. They need someone to look up to.
Elend approached the man, and intentionally didn’t use emotional Allomancy on him. Soothing was effective in many situations, but it wore off quickly. It was not a method to make permanent allies.
“Lord Fatren,” Elend said. “I want you to think carefully about what you’re arguing for. What would happen if I did leave you? With this much food, this much wealth down here? Can you trust your people not to break in, your soldiers not to try selling some of this to other cities? What happens when the secret of your food supply gets out? Will you welcome the thousands of refugees who will come? Will you protect them, and this cavern, against the raiders and bandits who will follow?”
Fatren fell silent.
Elend laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I meant what I said above, Lord Fatren. Your people fought well—I was very impressed. They owe their survival today to you—your foresight, your training. Mere hours ago, they assumed they would be slaughtered by koloss. Now, they are not only safe, but under the protection of a much larger army.
“Don’t fight this. You’ve struggled well, but it is time to have allies. I won’t lie to you—I’m going to take the contents of this cavern, whether you resist me or not. However, I intend to give you the protection of my armies, the stability of my food supplies, and my word of honor that you can continue to rule your people under me. We need to work together, Lord Fatren. That’s the only way any of us are going to survive the next few years.”
Fatren looked up. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “I’ll go get those men you asked for, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Elend said. “And, if you have anyone who can write, send them to me. We’ll need to catalogue what we have down here.”
Fatren nodded, then left.
“Once, you couldn’t do things like that,” Vin said from a short distance away, her voice echoing in the large cavern.
“Like what?”
“Give a man such forceful commands,” she said. “Take control away from him. You’d have wanted to give these people a vote on whether or not they should join your empire.”
Elend looked back at the doorway. He stood silently for a moment. He hadn’t used emotional Allomancy, and yet he felt as if he’d bullied Fatren anyway. “Sometimes, I feel like a failure, Vin. There should be another way.”
“Not right now, there isn’t,” Vin said, walking up to him, putting a hand on his arm. “They need you, Elend. You know that they do.”
He nodded. “I know it. I just can’t help thinking that a better man would have found a way to make the will of the people work along with his rule.”
“You did,” she said. “Your parliamentary assembly still rules in Luthadel, and the kingdoms you reign over maintain basic rights and privileges for the skaa.”
“Compromises,” Elend said. “They only get to do what they want as long as I don’t disagree with them.”
“It’s enough. You have to be realistic, Elend.”
“When my friends and I met together, I was the one who spoke of the perfect dreams, of the great things we’d accomplish. I was always the idealist.”
“Emperors don’t have that luxury,” Vin said quietly.
Elend looked at her, then sighed, turning away.
Vin stood, watching Elend in the cold lantern-light of the cavern. She hated seeing such regret, such . . . disillusionment in him. In a way, his current problems seemed even worse than the self-doubt he had once struggled with. He seemed to see himself as a failure despite what he had accomplished.
And yet, he didn’t let himself wallow in that failure. He moved on, working despite his regret. He was a harder man than he had once been. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The old Elend had been a man who was easily dismissed by many—a genius who had wonderful ideas, but little ability to lead. Still, she missed some of what was gone. The simple idealism. Elend was still an optimist, and he was still a scholar, but both attributes seemed tempered by what he had been forced to endure.
She watched him move along one of the storage shelves, trailing a finger in the dust. He brought the finger up, looking at it for a moment, then snapped it, throwing a small burst of dust into the air. The beard made him look more rugged—like the wartime commander he had become. A year of solid training with Allomancy and the sword had strengthened his body, and he’d needed to get his uniforms retailored to fit properly. The one he wore now was still stained from battle.
“This place is amazing, isn’t it?” Elend asked.
Vin turned, glancing into the darkness of the storage cavern. “I suppose.”
“He knew, Vin,” Elend said. “The Lord Ruler. He suspected that this day would come—a day when the mists returned and food would be scarce. So, he prepared these supply depots.”
Vin joined Elend beside a shelf. She knew from previous caverns that the food would still be good, much of it processed in one of the Lord Ruler’s canneries, and would remain so for years in storage. The amount in this cavern could feed the town above for years. Unfortunately, Vin and Elend had more to worry about than a single town.
“Imagine the effort this must have taken,” Elend said, turning over a can of stewed beef in his hand. “He would have had to rotate this food every few years, constantly packing and storing new supplies. And he did it for centuries, without anyone knowing what he was doing.”
Vin shrugged. “It’s not so hard to keep secrets when you’re a god-emperor with a fanatical priesthood.”
“Yes, but the effort . . . the sheer scope of it all . . .” Elend paused, looking at Vin. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“The Lord Ruler thought it could be beaten. The Deepness, the thing that we released. The Lord Ruler thought he could eventually win.”
Vin snorted. “It doesn’t have to mean that, Elend.”
“Then why go through all of this? He must have thought that fighting wasn’t hopeless.”
“People struggle, Elend. Even a dying beast will still keep fighting, will do anything to stay alive.”
“You have to admit that these caverns are a good sign, though,” Elend said.
“A good sign?” Vin asked quietly, stepping closer. “Elend, I know you’re just trying to find hope in all this, but I have trouble seeing ‘good signs’ anywhere lately. You have to admit now that the sun is getting darker. Redder. It’s even worse down here, in the South.”
“Actually,” Elend said, “I doubt that the sun has changed at all. It must be all the smoke and ash in the air.”
“Which is another problem,” Vin said. “The ash falls almost perpetually now. People are having trouble keeping it out of their streets. It blots out the light, making everything darker. Even if the mists don’t kill off next year’s crops, the ash will. Two winters ago—when we fought the koloss at Luthadel—was the first I’d seen snow in the Central Dominance, and this last winter was even worse. These aren’t things we can fight, Elend, no matter how big our army!”
“What do you expect me to do, Vin?” Elend asked, slamming his can of stew down on the shelf. “The koloss are gathering in the Outer Dominances. If we don’t build our defenses, our people won’t last long enough to starve.”
Vin shook her head. “Armies are short-term. This,” she said, sweeping her hand across the cavern. “This is short-term. What are we doing here?”
“We’re surviving
. Kelsier said—”
“Kelsier is dead, Elend!” Vin snapped. “Am I the only one who sees the irony in that? We call him the Survivor, but he is the one who didn’t survive! He let himself become a martyr. He committed suicide. How is that surviving?”
She stood for a moment, looking at Elend, breathing deeply. He stared back, apparently undaunted by her outburst.
What am I doing? Vin thought. I was just thinking about how much I admired Elend’s hope. Why argue with him now?
They were stretched so thin. Both of them.
“I don’t have answers for you, Vin,” Elend said in the dark cavern. “I can’t even begin to understand how to fight something like the mist. Armies, however, I can deal with. Or, at least, I’m learning how.”
“I’m sorry,” Vin said, turning away. “I didn’t mean to argue again. It’s just so frustrating.”
“We’re making progress,” Elend said. “We’ll find a way, Vin. We’ll survive.”
“Do you really think we can do it?” Vin asked, turning to look him in the eyes.
“Yes,” Elend said.
And she believed him. He had hope, and always would. That was a big part of why she loved him so much.
“Come on,” Elend said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s find what we came for.”
Vin joined him, leaving her koloss behind, walking into the depths of the cavern as they heard footsteps outside. There was more than one reason they had come to this place. The food and the supplies—of which they passed seemingly endless shelves—were important. However, there was more.
A large metal plate was set into the back wall of the rough-hewn cavern. Vin read the words inscribed on it out loud.
“ ‘This is the last metal I will tell you about,’ ” she read. “ ‘I have trouble deciding the purpose of it. It allows you to see the past, in a way. What a person could have been, and who they might have become, had they made different choices. Much like gold, but for others.
The Mistborn Trilogy Page 158
