Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

The new Inquisitor dashed toward the Lord Ruler. As he ran, his robe cowl fell back, giving Vin a view of his bald head. There was something familiar about the newcomer’s face despite the spike-heads coming out the front—and the gruesome spike-tips jutting from the back—of his skull. Despite the bald head and the unfamiliar clothing, the man looked a little like Kelsier. No, she realized. Not Kelsier. Marsh! Marsh took the dais steps in twos, moving with an Inquisitor’s supernatural speed. Vin struggled to her feet, shrugging off the effects of her near-choking. Her surprise, however, was more difficult to dismiss. Marsh was alive. Marsh was an Inquisitor. The Inquisitors weren’t investigating him because they suspected him. They intended to recruit him! And now he looked like he intended to fight the Lord Ruler. I’ve got to help! Perhaps…perhaps he knows the secret to killing the Lord Ruler. He figured out how to kill Inquisitors, after all!

“I am God,” he said. So different from the humble man in the logbook. “God cannot be killed,” he said. “God cannot be overthrown. Your rebellion—you think I haven’t seen its like before? You think I haven’t destroyed entire armies on my own? What will it take before you people stop questioning? How many centuries must I prove myself before you idiot skaa see the truth? How many of you must I kill!”

Vin’s head snapped up. Through the haze of pain and hopelessness, something triggered a memory inside of her. He keeps saying…he keeps saying that his people should be dominant…. She reached within, feeling her last little bit of Eleventh Metal reserve. She burned it, looking through tearstained eyes as the Lord Ruler held Marsh in a one-handed grip. The Lord Ruler’s past self appeared next to him. A man in a fur cloak and heavy boots, a man with a full beard and strong muscles. Not an aristocrat or a tyrant. Not a hero, or even a warrior. A man dressed for life in the cold mountains. A herdsman. Or, perhaps, a packman.

Vin leaned back, her mind fuzzing from the pain. She lay there for…a time. She couldn’t think. “Mistress!” a voice said. And then, Sazed was at her side, his brow wet with sweat. He reached over and poured something down her throat, and she swallowed. Her body knew what to do. She reflexively flared pewter, strengthening her body. She flared tin, and the sudden increase of sensitivity shocked her awake. She gasped, looking up at Sazed’s concerned face.

Vin glanced at the withered form on the ground a short distance away. “It’s him. The Lord Ruler. He’s dead.” Sazed frowned curiously, standing. He wore a brown robe, and had brought a simple wooden spear with him. Vin shook her head at the thought of such a pitiful weapon facing the creature that had nearly killed her and Marsh. Of course. In a way, we were all just as useless. We should be dead, not the Lord Ruler. I pulled his bracelets off. Why? Why can I do things like he can? Why am I different? “Mistress…” Sazed said slowly. “He is not dead, I think. He’s…still alive.”

The Lord Ruler cast his eyes down at the crowd, and the final realization of his failure seemed to hit him. He looked back up at the ring of people who had defeated him. “You don’t understand,” he wheezed. “You don’t know what I do for mankind. I was your god, even if you couldn’t see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves….” Vin glanced at Marsh and Sazed. Slowly, each of them nodded. The Lord Ruler had begun coughing, and he seemed to be aging even further. Vin leaned on Sazed, her teeth gritted against the pain of her broken leg. “I bring you a message from a friend of ours,” she said quietly. “He wanted you to know that he’s not dead. He can’t be killed. “He is hope.” Then she raised the spear and rammed it directly into the Lord Ruler’s heart.

She’d slept most of the day—as, apparently, had Marsh, who stood beside her. Sazed had carried a message to the rest of the crew, telling them of Vin’s survival. Apparently, there had been no major casualties among the others—for which Vin was glad. She hadn’t gone to them yet, however. Sazed had told them that she needed to rest, and they were busy setting up Elend’s new government.

“The Lord Ruler,” she finally said. “He…just used a trick to be immortal, then. That means he wasn’t ever really a god, right? He was just lucky. Anyone who was both a Feruchemist and an Allomancer could have done what he did.” “It appears that way, Mistress,” Sazed said. “Perhaps that was why he feared Keepers so much. He hunted and killed Feruchemists, for he knew that the skill was hereditary—just as Allomancy is. If the Terris lines ever mixed with those of the imperial nobility, the result could very well have been a child who could challenge him.”

“It is indeed a possibility, Master Marsh,” Sazed said. “There are very few legends about the origins of Allomancy, and nearly all of them agree that Allomancers first ‘appeared with the mists.’” Vin frowned. She’d always assumed that the title “Mistborn” had come about because Allomancers tended to do their work at night. She’d never considered that there might be a stronger connection. Mist reacts to Allomancy. It swirls when an Allomancer uses his abilities nearby. And…what did I feel at the end? It was like I drew something from the mists. Whatever she’d done, she hadn’t been able to replicate it.

We thought you were dead,” Vin said. “When we found the body and the blood at the Soothing station…” Marsh nodded. “I was going to send word of my survival, but they watched me fairly closely that first day. I didn’t expect Kell to make his move so quickly.” “None of us did, Master Marsh,” Sazed said. “None of us expected it at all.” “He actually did it, didn’t he?” Marsh said, shaking his head in wonder. “That bastard. There are two things I’ll never forgive him for. The first is for stealing my dream of overthrowing the Final Empire, then actually succeeding at it.” Vin paused. “And the second?” Marsh turned spike-heads toward her. “Getting himself killed to do it.”

Vin shivered. That…thing ate Kelsier’s body. “I don’t want it around,” she said. “I’ll send it away.” “Do not be quite so hasty, Mistress,” Sazed said. “Kandra are expensive servants—you must pay them in atium. If Kelsier bought an extended contract for one, it would be foolish to waste its services. A kandra might prove a very useful ally in the months to come.” Vin shook her head. “I don’t care. I don’t want that thing around. Not after what it did.”

You don’t know what I do for mankind. I was your god, even if you couldn’t see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves…. The Lord Ruler’s final words. At the time, she thought he’d been referring to the Final Empire as the thing he did “for mankind.” However, she wasn’t so certain anymore. There had been…fear in his eyes when he’d spoken those words, not pride.

Night had come, and the mists surrounded her. Protecting her, hiding her, giving her power… Elend Venture sat at a desk below, beneath a skylight that still hadn’t been patched from the time Vin had thrown a body through it. He didn’t notice her crouching above. Who would? Who saw a Mistborn in her element? She was, in a way, like one of the shadow images created by the Eleventh Metal. Incorporeal. Really just something that could have been. Could have been…

She looked down at him, sitting in the lanternlight, reading at his desk and making scribbled notes in his little book. His meetings earlier had apparently gone well—everyone seemed willing to accept him as king. Marsh whispered that there were politics behind the support, however. The nobility saw Elend as a puppet they could control, and factions were already appearing amongst the skaa leadership. Still, Elend finally had an opportunity to draft the law code he’d been dreaming of. He could try to create the perfect nation, try to apply the philosophies he had studied for so long. There would be bumps, and Vin suspected that he would ultimately have to settle for something far more realistic than his idealistic dream. That didn’t really matter. He would make a good king. Of course, compared with the Lord Ruler, a pile of soot would make a good king….

She felt cold in the mists, in the quiet darkness. The mist empowered, protected, and hid…even when she didn’t really want it to do any of the three. I can’t do this. That person who would be with him, that’s not me. That was an illusion, a dream. I am that child who grew up in the shadows, the girl who should be alone. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him. It was over. As she had anticipated, everything was changing. In truth, she’d never really made a very good noblewoman. It was time for her to go back to being what she was good at. A thing of shadows, not of parties and balls. It was time to go. She turned to leave, ignoring her tears, frustrated with herself. She left him, her shoulders slumped as she hobbled across the metallic roof and disappeared into the mist. But then… He died promising us that you had starved to death years ago. With all the chaos, she’d nearly forgotten the Inquisitor’s words about Reen. Now, however, the memory made her pause. Mists passed her, curling, coaxing. Reen hadn’t abandoned her. He’d been captured by the Inquisitors who had been looking for Vin, the unlawful child of their enemy. They’d tortured him. And he had died protecting her. Reen didn’t betray me. He always promised that he would, but in the end, he didn’t. He had been far from a perfect brother, but he had loved her nonetheless. A whispered voice came from the back of her mind, speaking in Reen’s voice. Go back.