The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)

by Brandon Sanderson

As, he realized, Vin had once chosen to believe and trust in the crew. Because of what Kelsier had taught her. You taught me too, Survivor, Sazed thought, moving out into the stone tunnel to meet with the kandra leaders. Thank you.

I’ve always wondered about the strange ability Allomancers have to pierce the mists. When one burned tin, he or she could see farther at night through the mists. To the layman this might seem natural—tin, after all, enhances the senses. The logical mind, however, may find a puzzle in this ability. How exactly would tin let one see through the mists? As an obstruction, they are unconnected with the quality of one’s eyesight. Both the nearsighted scholar and the long-sighted scout would have the same trouble seeing into the distance if there was a wall in the way. This should have been our first clue. Allomancers could see through the mists because the mists were composed of the very same power as Allomancy. Once attuned by burning tin, the Allomancer was almost part of the mists. And therefore they became more translucent to him.

Looking back, we should have been able to see the connection among the mists, Allomancy, and the power at the Well of Ascension. Not only could Allomancers’ vision pierce the mists, but there was the fact that the mists swirled slightly around the body of a person using any type of Allomancy. Perhaps more telling was the fact that when a Hemalurgist used his abilities, it drove the mists away. The closer one came to Ruin, the more under his influence, and the longer one bore his spikes, the more the mists were repelled.

It may seem odd to those reading this that atium was part of the body of a god. However, it is necessary to understand that when we said “body” we generally meant “power.” As my mind has expanded, I’ve come to realize that objects and energy are composed of the very same things, and can change state from one to the other. It makes perfect sense to me that the power of godhood would manifest within the world in physical form. Ruin and Preservation were not nebulous abstractions. They were integral parts of existence. In a way, every object that existed in the world was composed of their power. Atium, then, was an object that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin’s body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn’t truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually—in a few hundred years—and continued to deposit

atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin’s trapped power. When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin—which is perhaps why atium turned people into such efficient killing machines. They didn’t use up this power, however, but simply made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was expended, the power would return to the Pits and begin to coalesce again—as the power at the Well of Ascension would slowly return there after it had been used.

I believe that the mists were searching for someone to become a new host for them. The power needed a consciousness to direct it. In this matter, I am still confused. Why would power used to create and destroy need a mind to oversee it? Yet it seems to have only a vague will of its own, tied to the mandate of its abilities. Without a consciousness to direct it, nothing could be created or destroyed. It’s as if the power of Preservation understood that its tendency to reinforce stability was not enough. If nothing changed, nothing would ever come to exist. That makes me wonder who or what the minds of Preservation and Ruin were. Regardless, the mists—the power of Preservation—chose someone to become their host long before all of this happened. She, however, was immediately seized by Ruin and used as a pawn. He must have known that by giving her a disguised Hemalurgic spike, he would keep the mists from Investing themselves in her as they wished. The three times she drew upon their power, then, were the three times when her earring had been removed from her body. When she had

fought the Lord Ruler, his Allomancy had Pushed it away. When fighting Marsh in Fadrex, she had used the earring as a weapon. And at the end, Marsh ripped it out, freeing her and allowing the mists—now desperate for a host, since Preservation’s last wisp was gone—to finally pour into her.

You don’t know what I do for mankind, the Lord Ruler had said. And I didn’t, Vin thought. Thank you.

The kandra people always said they were of Preservation, while the koloss and Inquisitors were of Ruin. Yet the kandra bore Hemalurgic spikes like the others. Was their claim, then, simple delusion? No, I think not. They were created by the Lord Ruler to be spies. When they said such things, most of us interpreted that as meaning he planned to use them as spies in his new government, because of their ability to imitate other people. Indeed, they were used for this purpose. But I see something much more grand in their existence. They were the Lord Ruler’s double agents, planted with Hemalurgic spikes, yet trusted—taught, bound—to pull them free when Ruin tried to seize them. In Ruin’s moment of triumph, when he’d always assumed the kandra would be his on a whim, the vast majority of them immediately switched sides and left him unable to seize his prize. They were of Preservation all along.

Snapping has always been the dark side of Allomancy. A person’s genetic endowment may make them a potential Allomancer, but in order for the power to manifest, the body must be put through extraordinary trauma. Though Elend spoke of how terrible his beating was, during our day, unlocking Allomancy in a person was easier than it had once been, for we had the infusion of Preservation’s power into the human bloodlines via the nuggets granted to nobility by the Lord Ruler. When Preservation set up the mists, he was afraid of Ruin escaping his prison. In those early days before the Ascension, the mists began to Snap people as they did during our time—but this action of the mists was one of the only ways to awaken Allomancy in a person, for the genetic attributes were buried too deeply to be brought out by a simple beating. The mists of that day created Mistings alone—there were no Mistborn until the Lord Ruler made use of the nuggets. The people misinterpreted the mists’ intent, as the process of Snapping Allomancers caused some—particularly the young and the old—to die. This hadn’t been Preservation’s desire, but he’d given up most of his consciousness to form Ruin’s prison, and the mists had to be left to work as best they could without specific direction. Ruin, subtle as ever, knew that he couldn’t stop the mists from doing their work. However, he could do the unexpected and encourage them. So he helped make them stronger. That brought death to the plants of the world, and c...

Three hundred men, Elend thought. Sent away from my army because of all the ones who fell sick, they were the most sick. Sixteen days. Three hundred twenty-seven men. One-sixteenth of those who fell sick. One out of sixteen Allomantic metals.

From within the cavern, echoing, she sensed a familiar voice. “Today, men, I ask of you your lives.” Vin hovered down, listening. Though she couldn’t see into the cavern because of the metals in the rock, she could still hear. If she’d had eyes, she knew she would have been crying. “I ask of you your lives,” Elend said, his voice echoing, “and your courage. I ask of you your faith and your honor—your strength and your compassion. For today, I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it good, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this. “Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is a victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frustrated!” There was a brief pause. “In the end, they will kill us,” Elend said, his voice loud, ringing in the cavern. “But first, they shall fear us!” The men yelled at this, and Vin’s enhanced mind could pick out over three hundred distinct voices. She heard them split, rushing toward the different cavern entrances. A moment later, someone appeared from the front entrance near her. A figure in white slowly stepped out into the ash, brilliant white cape fluttering. He held a sword in one hand. Elend! she tried to cry at him. No! Go back! Charging them is madness! You’ll be killed! Elend stood tall, ...

He spun amid a cloud of phantom images, striking at flesh, feeling almost as if he were in the mists again. No koloss could stand against him. He felt energized—he felt amazing. For a time he was invincible. He’d swallowed so many atium beads he felt like he’d throw up. For its entire history, atium had been a thing that men had needed to save and hoard. Burning it had seemed such a shame that it had been used only sparingly, in instances of great need. Elend didn’t need to worry about any of that now. He just burned as much as he wanted. And it made him into a disaster for the koloss—a whirlwind of precision strikes and impossible dodges, always a few steps ahead of his opponents. Foe after foe fell before him. And when he began to get low on atium, he Pushed himself off a fallen sword back to the entrance. There, with plenty of water to wash it down, Sazed waited with another bag of atium. Elend downed the beads quickly, then returned to the battle.

Life, Vin said. You said that the sole reason to create something was so that you could destroy it. She hovered by Elend, watching him fight. The deaths of the koloss should have pained her. Yet she did not think of the slaughter. Perhaps it was the influence of Preservation’s power, but she saw only a man struggling, fighting when hope seemed impossible. She didn’t see death; she saw life. She saw faith.

She has to come, Sazed thought. Everything points toward her arrival. “The Hero will come,” he repeated.

Once Vin died, the end came quickly. We were not prepared for it—but all of the Lord Ruler’s planning could not have prepared us for this. How did one prepare for the end of the world itself?

atop the pile of koloss, lay another body—of a man with red hair whom Sazed did not recognize, but he ignored it.