The Mistborn Trilogy

by Brandon Sanderson

The creature stood.

  “So, write more slowly,” Elend said. “Use exaggerated motions. I’ll watch the movements of your arm, and form the letters in my mind.”

  The mist spirit began immediately, waving its arms about. Elend cocked his head, watching its motions. He couldn’t make any sense of them, let alone form letters out of them.

  “Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “That isn’t working. Either it’s changing things, or you just don’t know your letters.”

  Silence.

  Wait, Elend thought, glancing at the text on the ground. If the text changed . . .

  “It’s here, isn’t it,” he said, feeling a sudden and icy chill. “It’s here with us now.”

  The mist spirit remained still.

  “Bounce around for a yes,” Elend said.

  The mist spirit began to wave its arms as it had before.

  “Close enough,” Elend said, shivering. He glanced around, but could see nothing else in the mists. If the thing Vin had released was there, then it made no impression. Yet, Elend thought he could feel something different. A slight increase in wind, a touch of ice in the air, the mists moving about more agitatedly. Perhaps he was just imagining things.

  He focused his attention back on the mist spirit. “You’re . . . not as solid as you were before.”

  The creature remained still.

  “Is that a no?” Elend said, frustrated. The creature remained still.

  Elend closed his eyes. Forcing himself to focus, thinking back to the logic puzzles of his youth. I need to approach this more directly. Use questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Why would the mist spirit be harder to see now than before? Elend opened his eyes.

  “Are you weaker than you were before?” he asked.

  The thing waved its arms.

  Yes, Elend thought.

  “Is it because the world is ending?” Elend asked.

  More waving.

  “Are you weaker than the other thing? The thing Vin set free?”

  Waving.

  “A lot weaker?” Elend asked.

  It waved, though it seemed a bit disconsolate this time.

  Great, Elend thought. Of course, he could have guessed that. Whatever the mist spirit was, it wasn’t a magical answer to their problems. If it were, it would have saved them by now.

  What we lack most is information, Elend thought. I need to learn what I can from this thing.

  “Are you related to the ash?” he asked.

  No motion.

  “Are you causing the ashfalls?” he asked.

  No motion.

  “Is the other thing causing the ashfalls?”

  This time, it waved.

  Okay. “Is it causing the mists to come in the day too?”

  No motion.

  “Are you causing the mists to come in the day?”

  It seemed to pause in thought at this one, then it waved about less vigorously than before.

  Is that a “maybe”? Elend wondered. Or a “partially”?

  The creature fell still. It was getting harder and harder to see it in the mists. Elend flared his tin, but that didn’t make the creature any more distinct. It seemed to be . . . fading.

  “Where was it you wanted me to go?” Elend asked, more for himself than expecting an answer. “You pointed . . . east? Did you want me to go back to Luthadel?”

  It waved with half-enthusiasm again.

  “Do you want me to attack Fadrex City?”

  It stood still.

  “Do you not want me to attack Fadrex City?”

  It waved vigorously.

  Interesting, he thought.

  “The mists,” Elend said. “They’re connected to all this, aren’t they?”

  Waving.

  “They’re killing my men,” Elend said.

  It stepped forward, then stood still, somehow looking urgent.

  Elend frowned. “You reacted to that. You mean to say they aren’t killing my men?”

  It waved.

  “That’s ridiculous. I’ve seen the men fall dead.”

  It stepped forward, pointing at Elend. He glanced down at his sash. “The coins?” he asked, looking up.

  It pointed again. Elend reached into his sash. All that was there were his metal vials. He pulled one out. “Metals?”

  It waved vigorously. It just continued to wave and wave. Elend looked down at the vial. “I don’t understand.”

  The creature fell still. It was getting more and more vague, as if it were evaporating.

  “Wait!” Elend said, stepping forward. “I have another question. One more before you go!”

  It stared him in the eyes.

  “Can we beat it?” Elend asked softly. “Can we survive?”

  Stillness. Then, the creature waved just briefly. Not a vigorous wave—more of a hesitant one. An uncertain one. It evaporated, maintaining that same wave, the mists becoming indistinct and leaving no sign that the creature had been there.

  Elend stood in the darkness. He turned and glanced at his koloss army, who waited like the trunks of dark trees in the distance. Then he turned back, scanning for any further signs of the mist spirit. Finally, he just turned and began to tromp his way back to Fadrex. The koloss followed.

  He felt . . . stronger. It was silly—the mist spirit hadn’t really given him any useful information. It had been almost like a child. The things it had told him were mostly just confirmations of what he’d already suspected.

  Yet, as he walked, he moved with more determination. If only because he knew there were things in the world he didn’t understand—and that meant, perhaps, there were possibilities he didn’t see. Possibilities for survival.

  Possibilities to land safely on the other side of the chasm, even when logic told him not to jump.

  I don’t know why Preservation decided to use his last bit of life appearing to Elend during his trek back to Fadrex. From what I understand, Elend didn’t really learn that much from the meeting. By then, of course, Preservation was but a shadow of himself—and that shadow was under immense destructive pressure from Ruin.

  Perhaps Preservation—or, the remnants of what he had been—wanted to get Elend alone. Or, perhaps he saw Elend kneeling in that field, and knew that the emperor of men was very close to just lying down in the ash, never to rise again. Either way, Preservation did appear, and in doing so exposed himself to Ruin’s attacks. Gone were the days when Preservation could turn away an Inquisitor with a bare gesture, gone—even—were the days when he could strike a man down to bleed and die.

  By the time Elend saw the “mist spirit,” Preservation must have been barely coherent. I wonder what Elend would have done, had he known that he was in the presence of a dying god—that on that night, he had been the last witness of Preservation’s passing. If Elend had waited just a few more minutes on that ashen field, he would have seen a body—short of stature, black hair, prominent nose—fall from the mists and slump dead into the ash.

  As it was, the corpse was left alone to be buried in ash. The world was dying. Its gods had to die with it.

  56

  SPOOK STOOD IN THE DARK CAVERN, looking at his board and paper. He had it propped up, like an artist’s canvas, though he wasn’t sketching images, but ideas. Kelsier had always outlined his plans for the crew on a charcoal board. It seemed like a good idea, even though Spook wasn’t explaining plans to a crew, but rather trying to work them out for himself.

  The trick was going to be getting Quellion to expose himself as an Allomancer before the people. Durn had told them what to look for, and the crowds would be ready, waiting for confirmation of what they had been told. However, for Spook’s plan to work, he’d have to catch the Citizen in a public place, then get the man to use his powers in a way that was obvious to those watching.

  I can’t let him just Push on a distant metal, then, he thought, scratching a note to himself on the charcoal board. I’ll need him to shoot into the air, or perhaps blast some coins. Somethin
g visible, something we can tell everyone to watch for.

  That would be tough, but Spook was confident. He had several ideas scratched up on the board, ranging from attacking Quellion at a rally to tricking him into using his powers when he thought nobody was looking. Slowly, the thoughts were jelling into a cohesive plan.

  I really can do this, Spook thought, smiling. I always felt such awe for Kelsier’s leadership abilities. But, it’s not as hard as I thought.

  Or, at least, that was what he told himself. He tried not to think about the consequences of a failure. Tried not to think about the fact that he still held Beldre hostage. Tried not to worry about the fact that when he awoke some mornings—his tin having burned away during the night—his body felt completely numb, unable to feel anything until he got more metal as fuel. Tried not to focus on the riots and incidents his appearances, speeches, and work among the people were causing.

  Kelsier kept telling him not to worry. That should be enough for him. Shouldn’t it?

  After a few minutes, he heard someone approaching, footsteps quiet—but not too quiet for him—on the stone. The rustle of a dress, yet without perfume, let him know exactly who it was.

  “Spook?”

  He lowered the charcoal and turned. Beldre stood at the far side of his “room.” He’d made himself an alcove between several of the storage shelves, partitioned off with sheets—his own personal office. The Citizen’s sister wore a beautiful noble gown of green and white.

  Spook smiled. “You like the dresses?”

  She looked down, flushing slightly. “I . . . haven’t worn anything like this in years.”

  “Nobody in this city has,” Spook said, setting down the charcoal and wiping his fingers on a rag. “But, then, that makes it pretty easy to get them, if you know which buildings to loot. It looks like I matched your size pretty well, eh?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, drifting forward. The gown really did look good on her, and Spook found it a little difficult to focus as she drew closer. She eyed his charcoal board, then frowned. “Is . . . that supposed to make any sense?”

  Spook shook himself free of his trance. The charcoal board was a mess of scratches and notations. That, in itself, would have made it difficult enough to read. There was, however, something else that made it even more incomprehensible.

  “It’s mostly written in Eastern street slang,” Spook said.

  “The language you grew up speaking?” she said, fingering the board’s edge, careful not to touch the writing itself, lest she smudge it.

  Spook nodded.

  “Even the words are different,” she said. “Wasing?”

  “It kind of means ‘was doing,’ ” Spook explained. “You start sentences with it. ‘Wasing the run of there’ would mean ‘I was running to that place.’ ”

  “Wasing the where of how of the finds,” Beldre said, smiling slightly to herself as she read from the board. “It sounds like gibberish!”

  “Wasing the how of wanting the doing,” Spook said, smiling, falling into a full accent. Then he flushed, turning away.

  “What?” she asked.

  Why do I always act so foolish around her? he thought. The others always made fun of my slang—even Kelsier thought it was silly. Now I start speaking it before her?

  He’d been feeling confident and sure as he studied his plans before she arrived. Why was it that the girl could always make him fall out of his leadership role and go back to being the old Spook? The Spook who had never been important.

  “You shouldn’t be ashamed of the accent,” Beldre said. “I think it’s kind of charming.”

  “You just said it was gibberish,” Spook said, turning back to her.

  “But that’s the best part!” Beldre said. “It’s gibberish on purpose, right?”

  Spook remembered with fondness how his parents had responded to his adoption of the slang. It had been a kind of power, being able to say things that only his friends could understand. Of course, he’d started speaking in it so much that it had been hard to switch back.

  “So,” Beldre said, eyeing the board. “What does it say?”

  Spook hesitated. “Just random thoughts,” he said. She was his enemy—he had to remember that.

  “Oh,” she said. Something unreadable crossed her face, then she turned away from the board.

  Her brother always banished her from his conferences, Spook thought. Never told her anything important. Left her feeling like she was useless. . . .

  “I need to get your brother to use his Allomancy in front of the people,” Spook found himself saying. “To let them see that he’s a hypocrite.”

  Beldre looked back.

  “The board is filled with my ideas,” Spook said. “Most of them aren’t very good. I’m kind of leaning toward just attacking him, making him defend himself.”

  “That won’t work,” Beldre said.

  “Why not?”

  “He won’t use Allomancy against you. He wouldn’t expose himself like that.”

  “If I threaten him strongly enough he will.”

  Beldre shook her head. “You promised not to hurt him. Remember?”

  “No,” Spook said, raising a finger. “I promised to try to find another way. And, I don’t intend to kill him. I just need to make him think that I’d kill him.”

  Beldre fell silent again. His heart lurched.

  “I won’t do it, Beldre,” Spook said. “I won’t kill him.”

  “You promise that?”

  Spook nodded.

  She looked up at him, then smiled. “I want to write him a letter. Perhaps I can talk him into listening to you; we could avoid the need for this in the first place.”

  “All right . . .” Spook said. “But, you realize I’ll have to read the letter to make certain you’re not revealing anything that could hurt my position.”

  Beldre nodded.

  Of course, he’d do more than read it. He’d rewrite it on another sheet of paper, changing the line order, and then add a few unimportant words. He’d worked on too many thieving crews to be unaware of ciphers. But, assuming that Beldre was being honest with him, a letter from her to Quellion was a good idea. It couldn’t help but strengthen Spook’s position.

  He opened his mouth to ask whether or not her sleeping accommodations were acceptable, but cut himself off as he heard someone approaching. Harder footsteps this time. Captain Goradel, he guessed.

  Sure enough, the soldier appeared around the corner to Spook’s “room” a short time later.

  “My lord,” the soldier said. “You should see this.”

  The soldiers were gone.

  Sazed looked through the window with the others, inspecting the empty plot of ground where Quellion’s troops had been camped for the last few weeks, watching the Ministry building.

  “When did they leave?” Breeze asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  “Just now,” Goradel explained.

  The move felt ominous to Sazed for some reason. He stood beside Spook, Breeze, and Goradel—though the others seemed to take the soldiers’ retreat as a good sign.

  “Well, it will make sneaking out easier,” Goradel noted.

  “More than that,” Spook said. “It means I can incorporate our own soldiers in the plan against Quellion. We’d never have gotten them out of the building secretly with half an army on our doorstep, but now . . .”

  “Yes,” Goradel said. “But where did they go? Do you think Quellion is suspicious of us?”

  Breeze snorted. “That, my dear man, sounds like a question for your scouts. Why not have them search out where that army went?”

  Goradel nodded. But then, to Sazed’s slight surprise, the soldier looked toward Spook for a confirmation. Spook nodded, and the captain moved off to give the orders.

  He looks to the boy over Breeze and I, Sazed thought. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Sazed himself had agreed to let Spook take the lead, and to Goradel, all three of them—Sazed, Breeze, Spook—were probably e
qual. All were in Elend’s inner circle, and of the three, Spook was the best warrior. It made sense for Goradel to look to him as a source of authority.

  It just felt strange to see Spook giving orders to the soldiers. Spook had always been so quiet during the days of the original crew. And yet, Sazed was beginning to respect the boy too. Spook knew how to give orders in a way that Sazed could not, and he had shown remarkable foresight in his preparations in Urteau, as well as his plans to overthrow Quellion. He had a flair for the dramatic that Breeze kept saying was remarkable.

  And yet, there was that bandage on the boy’s eyes, and the other things he hadn’t explained. Sazed knew that he should have pushed harder for answers, but the truth was that he trusted Spook. Sazed had known Spook from the lad’s young teenage years, when he’d barely been capable of communicating with others.

  As Goradel moved off, Spook looked to Sazed and Breeze. “Well?”

  “Quellion is planning something,” Breeze said. “Seems too early to jump to conclusions, though.”

  “I agree,” Spook said. “For now, we go forward with the plan.”

  With that, they split up. Sazed turned, making his way back down and over to the far side of the cavern—to where a large group of soldiers worked in an area well lit with lanterns. On his arms, he wore the familiar weight of his copperminds—two on his forearms, two on his upper arms. In them sat the knowledge of engineering he needed to complete the task Spook had assigned him.

  Lately, Sazed didn’t know what to think. Each time he climbed the ladder and looked out over the city, he saw worse signs. The ashfalls were heavier. The earthquakes were growing more and more frequent, and more and more violent. The mists were lingering later and later in the day. The sky grew dark, the red sun more like a vast bleeding scar than a source of light and life. The ashmounts made the horizon red even during the night.

  It seemed to him that the end of the world should be a time when men found faith, not a time when they lost it. Yet, the little time that he’d devoted to studying the religions in his portfolio had not been encouraging. Twenty more religions eliminated, leaving just thirty potential candidates.

  He shook his head to himself, moving among the toiling soldiers. Several groups worked on wooden contraptions filled with rocks—weight systems that would fall to block off the water running into the cavern. Others worked on the system of pulleys that would lower the mechanism. After about a half hour or so, Sazed determined that they were all doing their tasks well, and returned to his calculations. However, as he walked to his table, he saw Spook approaching him.