The Hero of Ages m-3

by Brandon Sanderson

  KanPaar gestured again. The guards raised their weapons.

  "It's something I had never paused to consider," TenSoon said. "Humans, if you think about it, just aren't built for speed. Dogs, however, are."

  The hammers fell.

  TenSoon leaped forward.

  The powerful dog's haunches launched him into motion. TenSoon was a member of the Third Generation. Nobody had been eating and emulating bodies as long as he had, and he knew how to pack muscles into a body. In addition, he had spent a year wearing the bones of a wolfhound, being forced to try to keep up with his Mistborn master. He had undergone what had effectively been a year of training by one of the most talented Allomancers the world had ever known.

  On top of that, a body mass that had translated from a scrawny human made quite a substantial wolfhound. This, combined with his skill in crafting bodies, meant that when TenSoon jumped, he jumped. His guards cried out in shock as TenSoon sprang away, his leap taking him at least ten feet across the room. He hit the ground running, but didn't head for the door. They'd be expecting that.

  Instead he sprang directly toward KanPaar. The foremost of Seconds cried out, throwing up ineffectual hands as a hundred pounds of wolfhound crashed into him, throwing him to the stone floor. TenSoon heard sharp cracks as KanPaar's delicate bones shattered, and KanPaar screamed in a very un-kandra-like way.

  That seems appropriate, TenSoon thought, shoving his way through the ranks of the Seconds, shattering bones. Honestly, what kind of vain fool wears a True Body made of crystal?

  Many of the kandra didn't know how to react. Others-especially the younger ones-had spent a lot of time around humans on Contracts, and they were more accustomed to chaos. These scattered, leaving their elder companions sitting on the benches in shock. TenSoon darted between bodies, heading toward the doors. The guards beside the podium-the ones who would have shattered his bones-rushed to KanPaar's side, their filial sense of duty overriding their desire to prevent his escape. Besides, they must have seen the crowd clogging the doorway, and assumed that TenSoon would be slowed.

  As soon as he reached the crowd, TenSoon jumped again. Vin had required him to be able to leap incredible heights, and he'd practiced with many different muscle structures. This jump wouldn't have impressed Vin-TenSoon no longer had the Blessing of Potency he'd stolen from OreSeur-but it was more than enough to let him clear the watching kandra. Some cried out, and he landed in a pocket of open space, then leaped again toward the open cavern beyond.

  "No!" he heard echoing from the Trustwarren. "Go after him!"

  TenSoon took off in a loping dash down one of the corridors. He ran quickly-far more quickly than anything bipedal could have managed. With his canine body, he hoped he'd be able to outrun even kandra bearing the Blessing of Potency.

  Farewell, my home, TenSoon thought, leaving the main cavern behind. And farewell to what little honor I had left.

  PART THREE

  THE BROKEN SKIES

  Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy-just a changing of the time and rate of its use.

  34

  Marsh strode into the small town. Workers atop the makeshift gate-which looked flimsy enough that a determined knock would send it toppling-froze in place. Ash sweepers noticed him pass with shock, then horror. It was odd, how they watched, too terrified to flee. Or, at least, too terrified to be the first one to flee.

  Marsh ignored them. The earth trembled beneath him in a beautiful song-quakes were common, here, in the shadow of Mount Tyrian. It was the ashmount closest to Luthadel. Marsh walked through Elend Venture's own territory. But, of course, the emperor had abandoned it. That seemed an invitation to Marsh, and to the one who controlled him. They were really the same. Marsh smiled as he walked.

  A small piece of him was still free. He let it sleep, however. Ruin needed to think he had given up. That was the point. And so, Marsh held back only a tiny bit, and he did not fight. He let the ashen sky become a thing of bespeckled beauty, and treated the death of the world as a blessed event.

  Biding his time. Waiting.

  The village was an inspiring sight. The people were starving here, even though they were within the Central Dominance: Elend Venture's "protected" area. They had the wonderful, haunted expressions of those who were close to giving up hope. The streets were barely maintained, the homes-which had once been the dwellings of noblemen, but were now filled with hungry skaa-covered in ash, their gardens stripped and their structures cannibalized to feed fires during the winter.

  The gorgeous sight made Marsh smile with satisfaction. Behind him, people finally started to move, fleeing, doors slamming. There were probably some six or seven thousand people living in the town. They were not Marsh's concern. Not at the moment.

  He was interested only in a single, specific building. It looked little different from the others, a mansion in a fine row. The town had once been a stopping place for travelers, and had grown to be a favored place for nobility to construct second homes. A few noble families had lived here permanently, overseeing the many skaa who had worked the plantations and fields on the plains outside.

  The building Marsh chose was slightly better maintained than those around it. The garden was, of course, more weeds than cultivation, and the outer mansion walls hadn't seen a good scrubbing in years. However, fewer sections of it looked to have been broken apart for firewood, and a guard actually stood watch at the front gate.

  Marsh killed him with one of the razor-sharp metal triangles that had once been used in the Lord Ruler's ceremonies. Marsh Pushed it through the guard's chest even as the man opened his mouth in challenge. The air was oddly still and quiet as the guard's voice cut off, and he toppled to the side in the road. The skaa who watched from nearby homes knew better than to react, and didn't stir.

  Marsh hummed to himself as he strolled up the front walk to the mansion, startling a small flock of ravens who had come to roost. Once this path would have been a calming stroll through gardens, the way marked by flagstones. Now it was simply a hike through a weed-filled field. The man who owned the place obviously couldn't afford more than the lone gate guard, and nobody raised an alarm at Marsh's approach. He was actually able to walk right up to the front doors. Smiling to himself, he knocked.

  A maidservant opened the doors. She froze when she saw Marsh, taking in his spiked eyes, his unnaturally tall figure, his dark robes. Then she began to tremble.

  Marsh held out a hand, palm up, with another of the triangles. Then he Pushed it straight into her face. It snapped out the back of the skull, and the woman toppled. He stepped over her body and entered the house.

  It was far nicer inside than the exterior had led him to expect. Rich furnishings, freshly painted walls, intricate ceramics. Marsh raised an eyebrow, scanning the room with his spiked eyes. The way his sight worked, it was hard for him to distinguish colors, but he was familiar enough with his powers now that he could pick them out if he wanted. The Allomantic lines from the metals inside of most things were really quite expressive.

  To Marsh, the mansion was a place of pristine whiteness and bright blobs of expensive color. Marsh searched through it, burning pewter to enhance his physical abilities, allowing him to walk much more lightly than would otherwise have been possible. He killed two more servants in the course of his exploration, and eventually moved up to the second floor.

  He found the man he wanted sitting at a desk in a top-floor room. Balding, wearing a rich suit. He had a petite mustache set in a round face, and was slumped, eyes closed, a bottle of hard liquor empty at his feet. Marsh saw this with displeasure.

  "I come all this way to get you," Marsh said. "And when I finally find you, I discover that you have intoxicated yourself into a stupor?"

  The man had never met Marsh, of course. That didn't stop
Marsh from feeling annoyed that he wouldn't be able to see the look of terror and surprise in the man's eyes when he found an Inquisitor in his home. Marsh would miss out on the fear, the anticipation of death. Briefly, Marsh was tempted to wait until the man sobered up so that the killing could be performed properly.

  But, Ruin would have none of that. Marsh sighed at the injustice of it, then slammed the unconscious man down against the floor and drove a small bronze spike through his heart. It wasn't as large or thick as an Inquisitor spike, but it killed just as well. Marsh ripped it out of the man's heart, leaving the former nobleman dead, blood pooling on the floor.

  Then, Marsh walked out, leaving the building. The nobleman-Marsh didn't even know his name-had used Allomancy recently. The man was a Smoker, a Misting who could create copperclouds, and the use of his ability had drawn Ruin's attention. Ruin had been wanting an Allomancer to drain.

  And so, Marsh had come to harvest the man's power and draw it into the spike. It seemed something of a waste to him. Hemalurgy-particularly Allomantic imbues-was much more potent when one could drive the spike through the victim's heart and directly into a waiting host. That way, very little of the Allomantic ability was lost. Doing it this way-killing the Allomancer to make a spike, then traveling somewhere else to place it-would grant the new host far less power.

  But, there was no getting around it in this case. Marsh shook his head as he stepped over the maidservant's body again, moving out into the unkempt gardens. No one accosted, or even looked at, him as he made his way to the front gates. There, however, he was surprised to find a couple of skaa men kneeling on the ground.

  "Please, Your Grace," one said as Marsh passed. "Please, send the obligators back to us. We will serve better this time."

  "You have lost that opportunity," Marsh said, staring at them with his spike-heads.

  "We will believe in the Lord Ruler again," another said. "He fed us. Please. Our families have no food."

  "Well," Marsh said. "You needn't worry about that for long."

  The men knelt, confused, as Marsh left. He didn't kill them, though part of him wished to. Unfortunately, Ruin wanted to claim that privilege for himself.

  Marsh walked across the plain outside the town. After about an hour's time he stopped, turning to look back at the community and the towering ashmount behind it.

  At that moment, the top left half of the mountain exploded, spewing a deluge of dust, ash, and rock. The earth shook, and a booming sound washed over Marsh. Then, flaming hot and red, a large gout of magma began to flow down the side of the ashmount toward the plain.

  Marsh shook his head. Yes. Food was hardly this town's biggest problem. They really needed to get their priorities straight.

  Hemalurgy is a power about which I wish I knew far less. To Ruin, power must have an inordinately high cost-using it must be attractive, yet must sow chaos and destruction in its very implementation.

  In concept, it is a very simple art. A parasitic one. Without other people to steal from, Hemalurgy would be useless.

  35

  "You'll be all right here?" Spook asked.

  Breeze turned away from the brightened tavern, raising an eyebrow. Spook had brought him-along with several of Goradel's soldiers in street clothing-to one of the larger, more reputable locations. Voices rang within.

  "Yes, this should be fine," Breeze said, eyeing the tavern. "Skaa out at night. Never thought I'd see that. Perhaps the world really is ending. . "

  "I'm going to go to one of the poorer sections of town," Spook said quietly. "There are some things I want to check on."

  "Poorer sections," Breeze said musingly. "Perhaps I should accompany you. I've found that the poorer people are, the more likely they are to let their tongues wag."

  Spook raised an eyebrow. "No offense, Breeze, but I kind of think you'd stand out."

  "What?" Breeze asked, nodding toward his utilitarian brown worker's outfit-quite a change from his usual suit and vest. "I'm wearing these dreadful clothes, aren't I?"

  "Clothing isn't everything, Breeze. You've kind of got a. . bearing about you. Plus, you don't have much ash on you."

  "I was infiltrating the lower ranks before you were born, child," Breeze said, wagging a finger at him.

  "All right," Spook said. He reached to the ground, scooping up a pile of ash. "Let's just rub this into your clothing and on your face. . "

  Breeze froze. "I'll meet you back at the lair," he finally said.

  Spook smiled, dropping the ash as he disappeared into the mists.

  "I never did like him," Kelsier whispered.

  Spook left the richer section of town, moving at a brisk pace. When he hit the streetslot, he didn't stop, but simply leaped off the side of the road and plummeted twenty feet.

  His cloak flapped behind him as he fell. He landed easily and continued his quick pace. Without pewter, he would certainly have broken some limbs. Now he moved with the same dexterity he'd once envied in Vin and Kelsier. He felt exhilarated. With pewter flaring inside of him, he never felt tired-never even felt fatigued. Even simple acts, like walking down the street, made him feel full of grace and power.

  He moved quickly to the Harrows, leaving behind the streets of better men, entering the cluttered, overpacked alley-like streetslot, knowing exactly where he'd find his quarry. Durn was one of the leading figures in the Urteau underworld. Part informant, part beggar lord, the unfulfilled musician had become a sort of a mayor of the Harrows. Men like that had to be where people could find-and pay-them.

  Spook still remembered that first night after waking from his fevers a few weeks back, the night when he'd visited a tavern and heard men talking about him. Over the next few days, he'd visited several other taverns, and had heard others mention rumors that spoke of Spook. Sazed and Breeze's arrival had kept Spook from confronting Durn-the apparent source of the rumors-about what he'd been telling people. It was time to correct that oversight.

  Spook picked up his pace, leaping heaps of discarded boards, dashing around piles of ash, until he reached the hole that Durn called home. It was a section of canal wall that had been hollowed out to form a kind of cave. Though the wooden framing around the door looked as rotted and splintered as everything else in the Harrows, Spook knew it to be reinforced on the back with a thick oaken bar.

  Two brutes sat watch outside. They eyed Spook as he stopped in front of the door, cloak whipping around him. It was the same one he'd been wearing when he'd been tossed into the fire, and it was still spotted with burn marks and holes.

  "The boss isn't seeing anyone right now, kid," said one of the big men, not rising from his seat. "Come back later."

  Spook kicked the door. It broke free, its hinges snapping, the bar shattering its mountings and tumbling backward.

  Spook stood for a moment, shocked. He had too little experience with pewter to gauge its use accurately. If he was shocked, however, the two brutes were stunned. They sat, staring at the broken door.

  "You may need to kill them," Kelsier whispered.

  No, Spook thought. I just have to move quickly. He dashed into the open hallway, needing no torch or lantern by which to see. He whipped spectacles and a cloth out of his pocket as he approached the door at the end of the hallway, fixing them in place even as the guards called out behind him.

  He threw his shoulder against the door with a bit more care, slamming it open but not breaking it. He moved into a well-lit room where four men sat playing chips at a table. Durn was winning.

  Spook pointed at the men as he skidded to a stop. "You three. Out. Durn and I have business."

  Durn sat at the table, looking genuinely surprised. The brutes rushed up behind Spook, and he turned, falling to a crouch, reaching under his cloak for his dueling cane.

  "It's all right," Durn said, standing. "Leave us."

  The guards hesitated, obviously angry at being passed so easily. Finally, however, they withdrew, Durn's gambling partners going with them. The door closed.

&nb
sp; "That was quite the entrance," Durn noted, sitting back down at his table.

  "You've been talking about me, Durn," Spook said, turning. "I've heard people discussing me in taverns, mentioning your name. You've been spreading rumors about my death, telling people that I was on the Survivor's crew. How did you know who I was, and why have you been using my name?"

  "Oh, come now," Durn said, scowling. "How anonymous did you think you were? You're the Survivor's friend, and you spend a good half your time living in the emperor's own palace."

  "Luthadel's a long way from here."

  "Not so far that news doesn't travel," Durn said. "A Tineye comes to town, spying about, flaunting seemingly endless funds? It wasn't really that hard to figure out who you were. Besides, there's your eyes."

  "What about them?" Spook asked.

  The ugly man shrugged. "Everyone knows that strange things happen around the Survivor's crew."

  Spook wasn't certain what to make of that. He walked forward, looking over the cards on the table. He picked one up, feeling its paper. His heightened senses let him feel the bumps on the back.

  "Marked cards?" he asked.

  "Of course," Durn said. "Practice game, to see if my men could read the patterns right."

  Spook tossed the card onto the table. "You still haven't told me why you've been spreading rumors about me."

  "No offense, kid," Durn said. "But. . well, you're supposed to be dead."

  "If you believed that, then why bother talking about me?"

  "Why do you think?" Durn said. "The people love the Survivor-and anything related to him. That's why Quellion uses his name so often. But, if I could show that Quellion killed one of Kelsier's own crew. . well, there are a lot of people in this city who wouldn't like that."

  "So, you're just trying to help," Spook said flatly. "Out of the goodness of your heart."

  "You're not the only one who thinks that Quellion is killing this city. If you're really of the Survivor's crew, you'll know that sometimes, people fight."