The Lost Metal (Mistborn, #7)

by Brandon Sanderson

Nearby, their motorcar pulled up to the curb and Hoid, the driver, stepped out. “Your carriage, sir,”

of course...

She dug faster as she realized at least one of them was made of a strange metal with dark red spots like rust. One they’d been searching for forever.

“The ash comes again,” the man said through bloody lips, his voice strangely grating. “The world will fall to it. You will get what you deserve, and all will wither beneath a cloud of blackness and a blanket of burned bodies made ash.” Marasi gritted her teeth, working on the rusty-looking spike, slick with blood. “Your end,” the voice whispered. “Your end comes. Either in ash, or at the hands of the men of gold and red. Gold and—”

“Trellium?” she said. “Yes. It has to be.”

One day, the men of gold and red, bearers of the final metal, will come to you. And you will be ruled by them.

“No, though it’s nearly as mythical. We think it’s trellium, a metal from offworld.”

Wayne could never be accused of poor fashion sense. Just poor taste.

“I get to cross the misted unknown, the dark vastness that Harmony calls ‘Shadesmar.’ I’ll be the first kandra to go out there long-term, with an official mission.

“So-called God Metals were the source of the mists back in anteverdant days.”

We are watching, Marasi, it read. And we are impressed. It had a small symbol at the bottom, with three interlocking diamonds.

“Always plan for an explosion around Wax,” Steris said. “It saves a ton of effort.”

“Everyone enjoys something more when they have a monetary stake in it.”

She felt warm as she dug out her book of home emergencies. Yes, she knew she could be extreme. At the same time, making these was therapeutic. Her fears eased once she wrote them down. If she’d thought of something, catalogued it and considered it, then it stopped having power over her—she had power over it.

“This level of energy release could happen only if some of the Investiture or the matter itself was transformed into energy.”

“Investiture,” VenDell said. “The essence of the gods. Everything has an Invested component, normally inaccessible without certain abilities. When you burn metals, Lord Ladrian, you pull Investiture directly from the Spiritual Realm and use it to do work. Much like energy does work in those lights. But here is the key idea: Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same, fundamentally.”

“Indeed!” VenDell replied. “And states can change from one to the other. Energy can become Investiture. This is the soul of Feruchemy. Investiture can become matter. That is where harmonium comes from. And matter can become energy.”

His vision kept behaving oddly, distorting at times for just a second or two. And his mind kept playing tricks on him, making him think he glimpsed blue Allomantic lines without burning metals.

“Trell is the god Autonomy,” Harmony replied. “What we call a Shard of Adonalsium. Autonomy carries power like my own, a dangerous force for manipulating the very nature of reality and existence. Though Autonomy is held by a woman named Bavadin, her many different faces—or avatars—act with independence. Trell, a male god from the ancient records, can be considered one of these.”

“My sister?” Harmony nodded. “The leader of the Set. Invested by Autonomy. Avatar of a god on this world.”

“You should know, perhaps, that each of these powers—these Shards—has what we call an Intent. A driving motivation. I bear two: one driving me to preserve and protect, the other driving me to destroy.

Autonomy mobilizes an army from offworld to invade and destroy everyone on this planet. Telsin moves to circumvent that. Both plans are catastrophic to us, and both are in motion.”

“I go by Moonlight,” the woman said. “We like code names. It’s one of our things.”

“Indeed. That makes Harmony the most valuable—the most Invested—being in the cosmere. One of the other sixteen decided the best way to improve his stock was to try to destroy all the others. He managed it in a few cases.” “And … is that Trell?” Moonlight shook her head. “No, his name is Odium. Trell—Autonomy—had a different idea. You see these buildings? These houses? All pieces of a larger art installation. The grand creation is impressive, but it’s not yours. This kind of pattern, and those straight lines, those reflective panels … that’s from a Taldain movement known as brutalism.

Some worlds have entire pantheons that are all versions of her, each of which has a distinct personality and identity.”

Answers. Actual answers. She’d been searching for so long, hit so many dead ends. To finally get an explanation felt … wonderful.

“Oi!” Wayne said, sitting up. “Hey, Wax! Somebody done sewn a sack of dicks together and made a person! It’s even walking!”

“Death is not a religion,” Ironeyes said. “It is a fact.”

“Everyone shut up and listen!” Steris snapped. “Or I will barf on the table to get your attention!”

Bilming ideal: mass-produced individuality.

Who had briefly held the mantle of Preservation before releasing it to the Ascendant Warrior. And who had then protected the people of the Southern Continent for years after the world was remade.

Wait, are they supposed to know this?

“Moonlight,” the woman said after a glance. “You have to read this. Travel to Bjendal has been completely upset. That’s four primary systems we can’t visit without extreme danger, if you count Roshar. I’ve said it for years: The perpendicularities are no longer viable. They never were good for mass transportation or commerce, no matter how hard those fools on Nalthis try. We need a different …”

“Silajana says he would be happy to aid in this. Kaise, would you fetch the appropriate binder?”

“It’s called an aether,” Moonlight said, walking up behind her. “An ancient entity predating the creation of your world. TwinSoul can grow it, manipulate it. Would you like to know more?”

Shri Prasanva, I hate to pull you from your quiet evenings of scholarship, but I fear we’re going to need your help.”

“We are eager to serve, my lord. Silajana sends his regards, and wishes he could send more of his aetherbound to aid in your fight.”

“Concentrated Investiture,” Moonlight said. “Unkeyed from any Identity. This is an energy source that can power things like your Metallic Arts.”

Cheaper than tin? Preservation! If every criminal could afford bullets to kill Allomancers, and every citizen could keep a band of aluminum in their hat to prevent emotional Allomancy, it … Well, it would change the world.

“It’s something I’m practicing still—stamps that will work on any object, I mean. Requires Invested ink, on this planet, but we’ve got the process mostly working.”

I can only maintain roseite objects under certain fields of Investiture. Some planets have those naturally, but yours does not, so my roseite creations—outside of our safehouse—must be touching me, or they will disintegrate. It also requires water, drawn from my body, to fuel the creations.

“Beyond that, my ability to form objects is limited by my personal skill and understanding. I cannot make you a gun, for example. The mechanics are beyond this old mind, and the intricacies too fine. Simple tools are the extent of my abilities, though Silajana has bonded some more talented than I in that regard.”

“Silajana is one of the primal aethers. They predate Adonalsium, you know, and exist outside of his power.”

“And I’d think, ‘Damn, that’s a fancy chair.’ And I’d wonder … would the old backyard mistmaker sound different? What if I released a little concentrated essence of Wayne into those perfect leather contours? Would it feel different? Would my cheeks—”

“True,” TwinSoul said, “but my homeland is inhospitable to my kind for now. I joined Lord Kelsier for the opportunity to gain allies and resources for my eventual fight against the dark aether. And having this planet remain safe and uncorrupted is a worthy goal on its own.”

“They’re probably coming through Shadesmar,” Moonlight said. “A dimension overlapping ours. It’s how TwinSoul and I got here.”

“Behold!” he said, his voice somehow booming through the tunnel. “By the grace of Silajana, Suna, Vishwadhar, and the Twelve Primal Aethers, I am Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila, Grand Aetherbound of the twelve kingdoms, Raj of the Coriander Court. And these people are under my protection.”

She was Marasi’s distant cousin Armal Harms: a woman who had been kidnapped by Miles Hundredlives and the Vanishers seven years ago, during Wax’s first case in the city after his return.

“Nearly every man I’ve had to shoot? He had a story like yours. It’s the sort of thing Marasi is always talking about. You have to stop the Blatant Barms of the world, yes. But if you can create a world where fewer boys grow up alone … well, maybe you’ll have far fewer Blatant Barms to face in the future. Maybe that was what your mother was saying.”

Sometimes you needed what he’d done. You needed a sword. But Wayne figured sometimes you needed something else. A shield? Or maybe that was too poetic. He didn’t know much about poetry.

Sometimes what you needed was a guy who had been there before.

“No,” Wax repeated. “They were built and trained to defeat us. That man knows exactly how to hunt me.” “So …” Wayne grinned. “I take the fellow, you take the woman?”