The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

Hoid

One final aspect of the Lord Ruler’s cultural manipulation is quite interesting: that of technology. I have already mentioned that Rashek chose to use Khlenni architecture, which allowed him to construct large structures and gave him the civil engineering necessary to build a city as large as Luthadel. In other areas, however, he suppressed technological advancements. Gunpowder, for instance, was so frowned upon by Rashek that knowledge of its use disappeared almost as quickly as knowledge of the Terris religion. Apparently, Rashek found it alarming that, armed with gunpowder weapons, the most common of men could be nearly as effective as archers with years of training. So he favored archers. The more training-dependent military technology was, the less likely it was that the peasant population would be able to rise up and resist him. Indeed, skaa revolts always failed in part for this very reason.

Originally, men assumed that Rashek’s persecution of the Terris religion came from hatred. Yet now that we know Rashek was himself a Terrisman, his destruction of that religion seems odd. I suspect it had something to do with the prophecies about the Hero of Ages. Rashek knew that Preservation’s power would eventually return to the Well of Ascension. If the Terris religion had been allowed to survive, perhaps someday a person would find their way to the Well and take up the power, then use it to defeat Rashek and overthrow his empire. So he obscured knowledge of the Hero and what he was supposed to do, hoping to keep the secret of the Well to himself.

Rashek wore both black and white. I think he wanted to show that he was a duality, Preservation and Ruin. This was a lie. After all, he had touched only one of the powers—and in a very small way at that.

The plan is simple. When the power returns to the Well, I will take it and make certain the thing remains trapped. And still I worry. It has proven far more clever than I had assumed, infecting my

thoughts, making me see and feel things I do not wish to. It is so subtle, so careful. I cannot see how it could cause my death, but still I worry.

If I am dead, these caches will provide some measure of protection for my people. I fear what is coming. What might be. If you read this now, and I am gone, then I fear for ...

There are metals of Allomancy which I have shared with none. If you are a priest of mine, working this cavern and reading these words, know that you will incur my wrath if you share this knowledge. However, if it is true that the force has returned and I am unable to deal with it, then perhaps knowledge of electrum will give you some aid. My researchers have discovered that mixing an alloy of forty-five percent gold and fifty-five percent silver creates a new Allomanti...

Allomancy is clearly of Preservation. The rational mind will see this. For in the case of Allomancy, net power is gained. It is provided by an external source—Preservation’s own body.

This is it, she thought, flaring pewter to keep from shaking. It’s finally happening. I finally get to dance with him! At that moment—as the music began—Elend reached into his pocket and pulled out a book. He raised it with one hand, the other on her waist, and began to read.

Vin’s jaw dropped, then she whacked him on the arm. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as he shuffled through the dance steps, still holding his book. “Elend! I’m trying to have a special moment here!”

Blessing of Potency.

In Hemalurgy, the type of metal used in a spike is important, as is the positioning of that spike on the body. For instance, steel spikes take physical Allomantic powers—the ability to burn pewter, tin, steel, or iron—and bestow them upon the person receiving the spike. Which of these four is granted depends on where the spike is placed. Spikes made from certain other metals steal Feruchemical abilities. For example, all of the original Inquisitors were given a gold spike, which—after first being pounded through the body of a Feruchemist—gave the Inquisitor the ability to store up healing power. (Though they couldn’t do so as quickly as a real Feruchemist, as per the law of Hemalurgic decay.) This is obviously where the Inquisitors got their infamous ability to recover from wounds quickly, and was also why they needed to rest so much.

Hell, boy, every leader has weaknesses—the ones who win are the ones who learn how to smother those weaknesses, not give them fuel!”

“This doesn’t seem like a simple anomaly, my lord,” Demoux said. “It’s precise. The same number keeps showing up over and over. Sixteen.”

Elend shook his head. “Even if it does, Demoux, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s only a number.” “It’s the number of fortnights the Survivor spent in the Pits of Hathsin,” Demoux said. “Coincidence.” “It’s how old Lady Vin was when she became Mistborn.” “Again, coincidence,” Elend said. “There seem to be an awful lot of coincidences related to this, my lord,” Demoux said.

Hemalurgic decay was less obvious in Inquisitors that had been created from Mistborn. Since they already had Allomantic powers, the addition of other abilities made them awesomely strong. In most cases, however, Inquisitors were created from Mistings. It appears that Seekers like Marsh were the favored recruits. For when a Mistborn wasn’t available, an Inquisitor with enhanced bronze abilities was a powerful tool for searching out skaa Mistings.

A spike. A small metal spike driven into the side of the dead koloss. There was a rip of blue skin by the spikehead, as if … As if the spikes were holding the skin in place, Vin thought. Like nails holding cloth to a wall. Spikes. Spikes like … Human retrieved a third and fourth spike, then stepped forward into the tent. Surgeons and soldiers moved back in fear, crying out for Vin to do something as Human approached the bed of a wounded soldier. Human looked from one unconscious man to another, then reached for one of them. Stop! Vin commanded in her mind. Human froze in place. Only then did the complete horror of what was happening occur to her. “Lord Ruler,” she whispered. “You were going to turn them into koloss, weren’t you? That’s where you come from. That’s why there are no koloss children.” “I am human,” the large beast said quietly.

Hemalurgy can be used to steal Allomantic or Feruchemical powers and give them to another person. However, a Hemalurgic spike can also be created by killing a normal person, one who is neither an Allomancer nor a Feruchemist. In that case, the spike instead steals the power of Preservation existing within the soul of the person. (The power that gives all people sapience.) A Hemalurgic spike can extract this power, then transfer it to another person, granting them residual abilities similar to those of Allomancy. After all, Preservation’s body—a tiny trace of which is carried by every human being—is the very same essence that fuels Allomancy. And so, a kandra granted the Blessing of Potency is actually acquiring a bit of innate strength similar to that of burning pewter. The Blessing of Presence grants mental capacity in a similar way, while the Blessing of Awareness is the ability to sense with greater acuity, and the rarely used Blessing of Stability grants emotional fortitude.

Even now, I can barely grasp the scope of all this. The events surrounding the end of the world seem larger than the Final Empire and the people within it. I sense Shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void. I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single

name: Adonalsium.

Who or what it was, I do no...

Originally, we assumed that a koloss was a combination of two people into one. That was wrong. Koloss are not the melding of two people, but five, as evidenced by the four spikes needed to make them. Not five bodies, of course, but five souls. Each pair of spikes grants what the kandra would call the Blessing of Potency. However, each spike also distorts the koloss body a little more, making it increasingly inhuman. Such is the cost of Hemalurgy.

Hemalurgic spikes change people physically, depending on which powers are granted, where the spike is placed, and how many spikes someone has. Inquisitors, for instance, are changed drastically from the humans they used to be. Their hearts are in different places from those of humans, and their brains rearrange to accommodate the lengths of metal jabbed through their eyes. Koloss are changed in even more drastic ways. One might think that kandra are changed most of all. However, one must remember that new kandra are made from mistwraiths and not humans. The spikes worn by the kandra cause only a small transformation in their hosts—leaving their bodies mostly like that of a mistwraith, but allowing their minds to begin working. Ironically, while the spikes dehumanize the koloss, they give a measure of humanity to the kandra.

I think that the koloss were more intelligent than we wanted to give them credit for being. For instance, originally they used only spikes the Lord Ruler gave them to make new members. He would provide the metal and the unfortunate skaa captives, and the koloss would create new “recruits.” At the Lord Ruler’s death, the koloss should quickly have died out. This was how he had designed them. If they got free from his control, he expected them to kill themselves off and end their rampage. However, they somehow deduced that spikes in the bodies of fallen koloss could be harvested, then reused. They then no longer required a fresh supply of spikes. I often wonder what effect the constant reuse of spikes had on their population. A spike can only hold so much of a Hemalurgic imbuement, so they could not create spikes that granted infinite strength, no matter how many people those spikes killed and drew power from. But did the repeated reuse of spikes perhaps bring more humanity to the koloss they made?

For all that it disgusts me, I cannot help but be impressed by Hemalurgy as an art. In Allomancy and Feruchemy, skill and subtlety come through the application of one’s powers. The best Allomancer might not be the most powerful, but instead the one who can most skillfully manipulate the Pushes and Pulls of metals. The best Feruchemist is the one who is most capable of sorting the information in his copperminds, or most able to manipulate his weight with iron. The art that is unique to Hemalurgy is the knowledge of where to place the spikes.

Each spike, positioned very carefully, can determine how the recipient’s body is changed by Hemalurgy. A spike in one place creates a monstrous, near-mindless beast. In another place, a spike will create a crafty and homicidal Inquisitor. Without the instinctive knowledge granted by taking the power at the Well of Ascension, Rashek would never have been able to use Hemalurgy. With his mind expanded, and with a little practice, he was able to intuit where to place spikes that would create the servants he wanted. It is a little-known fact that the Inquisitors’ torture chambers were actually Hemalurgic laboratories. The Lord Ruler was constantly trying to develop new breeds of servant. It is a testament to Hemalurgy’s complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power.

Pretender Venture, I have her, as you have probably guessed. There’s one thing I’ve always noted about Mistborn. To a man, they are overconfident. Thank you for the stimulating conversation. I’m glad I was able to keep you distracted for so long. King Yomen

And she recognized his face. Reen.

A man with a given power—such as an Allomantic ability—who then gained a Hemalurgic spike granting that same power would be nearly twice as strong as a natural unenhanced Allomancer. An Inquisitor who was a Seeker before his transformation would therefore have an enhanced ability to use bronze. This simple fact explains how many Inquisitors were able to pierce copperclouds.

Ruin’s escape deserves some explanation. This is a thing that even I had a problem understanding. Ruin could not have used the power at the Well of Ascension. It was of Preservation, Ruin’s fundamental opposite. Indeed, a direct confrontation of these two forces would have caused the destruction of both. However, Ruin’s prison was fabricated of that power. Therefore it was attuned to the power of Preservation—the very power of the Well. When that power was released and dispersed rather than utilized, it acted as a key. The subsequent “unlocking” is what freed Ruin.

“More than that,” Sazed said. “To wear these metalminds would be to pretend. I would be pretending that I find the things in them to be of use, and I have not yet decided whether that is true. To wear them now would seem a betrayal. I set them aside, for I can do them no justice. I’m not ready to believe, as we did before, that gathering knowledge and religions is more important than taking action. Perhaps if the Keepers had fought, rather than simply memorized, the Lord Ruler would have fallen centuries ago.”

“But you resisted, Sazed,” Breeze said. “You fought.”

“I don’t represent myself any longer, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said softly. “I represent all Keepers, si...

A...

as the last, do not believe in the things I once taught. I cannot with good conscience imply that...

Ruin’s prison was not like those that hold men. He wasn’t bound by bars. In fact, he could move about freely. His prison, rather, was one of impotence. In the terms of forces and gods, this meant balance. If Ruin were to push, the prison would push back, essentially rendering Ruin powerless. And because much of his power was stripped away and hidden, he was unable to affect the world in any but the most subtle of ways. I should stop here and clarify something. We speak of Ruin being “freed” from his prison. But that is misleading. Releasing the power at the Well tipped the aforementioned balance in Ruin’s direction, but he was still too weak to destroy the world in the blink of an eye as he yearned to do. This weakness was caused by part of Ruin’s power—his very body—having been taken and hidden from him. Which was why Ruin became so obsessed with finding the hidden part of his self.

Once “freed,” Ruin was able to affect the world more directly. The most obvious way he did this was by making the Ashmounts emit more ash and the earth begin to break apart. As a matter of fact, I believe that much of Ruin’s energy during those last days was dedicated to these tasks. He was also able to affect and control far more people than before. Where he had once influenced only a few select individuals, he could now direct entire koloss armies.

I have failed you. I have planned these caverns, knowing a calamity is coming, hoping that I might find some secret that would be of use should I fall to the thing’s scheming. Yet I have nothing. I do not know how to defeat it. The only thing I can think of is to keep it at bay by taking the power at the Well for myself when it returns. However, if you are reading this, I have failed. That means I am dead. As I write this, I find that prospect to be less tragic than I might previously have assumed. I would rather not deal with the thing. It has been my constant companion, the voice that whispers to me always, telling me to destroy, begging me to give it freedom. I fear that it has corrupted my thoughts. Though it cannot sense what I think, it can speak inside my head. Eight hundred years of this has made it difficult to trust my own mind. Sometimes I hear the voices and simply assume that I am mad. That would certainly be preferable.

I do know that these words must be written in steel to be preserved. I have written them in a steel sheet, then ordered them scribed

into a plaque, knowing that in doing so I reveal my weakness to my own priests. The thing has whispered to me that I am a fool to expose myself by writing this and letting others see it. That is primarily why I decided to go through with the creation of this plaque. Doing so seemed to make the thing angry. That is reason enough, I think. It is good that some few of my loyal priests know of my weakness, if only for the good of the empire, should I somehow fall. I have tried to be a good ruler. At first I was too young, too angry. I made mistakes. Yet I have tried so hard. I nearly destroyed the world with my arrogance, and I fear I have nearly destroyed it again through my rule. I can do better. I will do better. I will create a land of order. The thoughts in my mind, however, make me wonder how much of what I do has been twisted from my original intentions. At times my...

Regardless, this is not the place for justification. I need no justification, for I am—after a form—God. Yet I know there is something greater than I. If I can be destroyed, it will be the cause of that destruction. I have no advice to give. It is more powerful than I am. It is more powerful than this world. In fact, it claims to have created this world. It will destroy us all eventually. Perhaps these storages will let mankind survive a little longer. Perhaps not. I am dead. I doubt that I should care. Still, I do. For you are my people. I am the Hero of Ages. That is what it must ...

One might ask why Ruin couldn’t have used Inquisitors to release him from his prison. The answer to this is simple enough, if one understands the workings of power. Before the Lord Ruler’s death, he maintained too tight a grip on the Inquisitors to let Ruin control them directly. Even after the Lord Ruler’s death, however, such a servant of Ruin could never have rescued him. The power in the Well was of Preservation, and an Inquisitor could only have taken it by first removing his Hemalurgic spikes. That, of course, would have killed him. Thus, Ruin needed a much more indirect way to achieve his purpose. He needed someone he hadn’t tainted too much, but someone he could lead by the nose, carefully manipulating.

“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.” “And if what I want isn’t what society needs?” Sazed said. “Sometimes we are required to do what we don’t enjoy. That is a simple fact of life, I think.” Breeze shrugged. “I don’t worry about that. I

only do what I’m good at. In my case, that’s making

other people do things that I don’t want to. It all fits to...

“Sazed,” Breeze said. “Do you remember our meeting a few weeks back? Spook asked me why we couldn’t just topple Quellion like we did the Lord Ruler.” “I remember,” Sazed said. “You told him the reason we couldn’t was because we didn’t have Kelsier anymore.” Breeze nodded. “Well,” he said softly, pointing his cane toward Spook, “my opinion has been revised. We don’t have Kelsier, but it’s looking more and more like we have something similar.” Sazed frowned.

“I’m not saying the lad has Kelsier’s force of personality. His … presence. However, you’ve heard the reputation the boy is gaining among the people. Kelsier succeeded not because of who he was, but because of who people thought he was. That’s something I didn’t believe we could replicate. I’m starting to think I was wrong.”

One can see Ruin’s craftiness in the meticulousness of his planning. He managed to orchestrate the downfall of the Lord Ruler only a short time before Preservation’s power returned to the Well of Ascension. And then, less than two years later, he had freed himself. On the scale of gods and their power, this tricky timing was as precise as an expert incision performed by the most talented of surgeons.

Once Ruin was free from his prison, he was able to influence people more strongly—but impaling someone with a Hemalurgic spike was difficult no matter the circumstances. To achieve such things, he apparently began with people who already had a tenuous grip on reality. Their insanity made them more open to his touch, and he could use them to spike more stable people. In any case, it’s impressive how many important people Ruin managed to spike. King Penrod, ruling Luthadel at the time, is a good example of this.