The Well of Ascension (Mistborn 2)

The men sat in silence.

"Breeze," Ham said, "I could use a little more confidence right now."

"Of course," Breeze said, carefully Soothing away the man's anxiety and fear. His face lost some of its pale pallor, and he sat up a little straighter. Just for good measure, Breeze gave the rest of the crew a little of the same treatment.

"How long have you known?" Dockson asked Sazed.

"For some time now, Lord Dockson," Sazed said.

"But, you couldn't have known that Straff would pull back and give us to the koloss. Only Clubs figured that out."

"My knowledge was general, Lord Breeze," Sazed said in his even voice. "It did not relate to the koloss specifically. I have thought for some time that this city would fall. In all honesty, I am deeply impressed with your efforts. This people should long since have been defeated, I think. You have done something grand—something that will be remembered for centuries."

"Assuming anyone survives to tell the story," Clubs noted.

Sazed nodded. "That, actually, is why I called this gathering. There is little chance of those of us who remain in the city surviving—we will be needed to help with defenses, and if we do survive the koloss attack, Straff will try to execute us. However, it is not necessary for us all to remain in Luthadel for its fall—someone, perhaps, should be sent out to organize further resistance against the warlords."

"I won't leave my men," Clubs grumbled.

"Nor I," Ham said. "Though I did send my family to ground yesterday." The simple phrase meant that he'd had them leave, perhaps to hide in the city's underground, perhaps to escape through one of the passwalls. Ham wouldn't know—and that way he couldn't betray their location. Old habits died hard.

"If this city falls," Dockson said, "I'll be here with it. That's what Kell would expect. I'm not leaving."

"I'll go," Breeze said, looking at Sazed. "Is it too early to volunteer?"

"Um, actually, Lord Breeze," Sazed said, "I wasn't—"

Breeze held up a hand. "It's all right, Sazed. I believe it's obvious whom you think should be sent away. You didn't invite them to the meeting."

Dockson frowned. "We're going to defend Luthadel to the death, and you want to send away our only Mistborn?"

Sazed nodded his head. "My lords," he said softly, "the men of this city will need our leadership. We gave them this city and put them in this predicament. We cannot abandon them now. But. . .there are great things at work in this world. Greater things than us, I think. I am convinced that Mistress Vin is part of them.

"Even if these matters are delusions on my part, then Lady Vin still must not be allowed to die in this city. She is the people's most personal and powerful link to the Survivor. She has become a symbol to them, and her skills as a Mistborn give her the best chance of being able to get away, then survive the attacks Straff will undoubtedly send. She will be a great value in the fight to come—she can move quickly and stealthily, and can fight alone, doing much damage, as she proved last night."

Sazed bowed his head. "My lords, I called you here today so that we could decide how to convince her to run, when the rest of us stay to fight. It will not be an easy task, I think."

"She won't leave Elend," Ham said. "He'll have to go, too."

"My thoughts as well, Lord Hammond," Sazed said.

Clubs chewed his lip in thought. "That boy won't be easily convinced to flee. He still thinks we can win this fight."

"And we may yet," Sazed said. "My lords, my purpose is not to leave you without any hope at all. But, the dire circumstances, the likelihood of success. . ."

"We know, Sazed," Breeze said. "We understand."

"There have to be others of the crew who can go," Ham said, looking down. "More than just the two."

"I would send Tindwyl with them," Sazed said. "She will carry to my people many discoveries of great importance. I also plan to send Lord Lestibournes. He would do little good in the battle, and his abilities as a spy could be of help to Lady Vin and Lord Elend as they try to rally resistance among the skaa.

"However, those four will not be the only ones who survive. Most of the skaa should be safe—Jastes Lekal seems to be able to control his koloss somehow. Even if he cannot, then Straff should arrive in time to protect the city's people."

"Assuming Straff is planning what Clubs thinks he is," Ham said. "He could actually be withdrawing, cutting his losses and leaving Luthadel behind."

"Either way," Clubs said. "Not many can get out. Neither Straff nor Jastes are likely to allow large groups of people to flee the city. Right now, confusion and fear in the streets will serve their purposes far better than depopulation. We might be able to get a few riders on horseback out—especially if one of those riders is Vin. The rest of the people will have to take their chances with the koloss."

Breeze felt his stomach turn. Clubs spoke so bluntly. . .so callously. But that was Clubs. He wasn't even really a pessimist; he just said the things that he didn't think others wanted to acknowledge.

Some of the skaa will survive to become slaves for Straff Venture, Breeze thought. But those who fight—and those who have led the city this last year—are doomed. That includes me.

It's true. This time there really is no way out.

"Well?" Sazed asked, hands spread before him. "Are we in agreement that these four should go?"

The members of the group nodded.

"Let us discuss, then," Sazed said, "and devise a plan for sending them away."

"We could just make Elend think that the danger isn't that great," Dockson said. "If he believes that the city is in for a long siege, he might be willing to go with Vin on a mission somewhere. They wouldn't realize what was happening back here until it was too late."

"A good suggestion, Lord Dockson," Sazed said. "I think, also, that we could work with Vin's concept of the Well of Ascension."

The discussion continued, and Breeze sat back, satisfied. Vin, Elend, and Spook will survive, he thought. I'll have to convince Sazed to let Allrianne go with them. He glanced around the room, noticing a release of tension in the postures of the others. Dockson and Ham seemed at peace, and even Clubs was nodding quietly to himself, looking satisfied as they talked through suggestions.

The disaster was still coming. But, somehow, the possibility that some would escape—the youngest crewmembers, the ones still inexperienced enough to hope—made everything else a little easier to accept.

Vin stood quietly in the mists, looking up at the dark spires, columns, and towers of Kredik Shaw. In her head, two sounds thumped. The mist spirit and the larger, vaster sound.

It was growing more and more demanding.

She continued forward, ignoring the thumps as she approached Kredik Shaw. The Hill of a Thousand Spires, once home of the Lord Ruler. It had been abandoned for well over a year, but no vagrants had made their home here. It was too ominous. Too terrible. Too much a reminder of him.

The Lord Ruler had been a monster. Vin remembered well the night, over a year before, when she had come to this palace intending to kill him. To do the job that Kelsier had unwittingly trained her to do. She had walked through this very courtyard, had passed guards at the doors before her.

And she had let them live. Kelsier would have just fought his way in. But Vin had talked them into leaving, into joining the rebellion. That act had saved her life when one of those very men, Goradel, had led Elend to the palace dungeons to help rescue Vin.

In a way, the Final Empire had been overthrown because she hadn't acted like Kelsier.

And yet, could she base future decisions upon a coincidence like that? Looking back, it seemed too perfectly allegorical. Like a neat little tale told to children, intended to teach a lesson.

Vin had never heard those tales as a child. And, she had survived when so many others had died. For every lesson like the one with Goradel, it seemed that there were a dozen that ended in tragedy.

And then there was Kelsier. He'd been right, in the end. His lesson was very different from the ones taught by the children's tales. Kelsier had been bold, even excited, when he executed those who stood in his path. Ruthless. He had looked toward the greater good; he'd always had his eyes focused on the fall of the empire, and the eventual rise of a kingdom like Elend's.

He had succeeded. Why couldn't she kill as he had, knowing she was doing her duty, never feeling guilt? She'd always been frightened by the edge of danger Kelsier had displayed. Yet, wasn't that very edge the thing that had let him succeed?

She passed into the tunnel-like corridors of the palace, feet and mistcloak tassels trailing marks in the dust. The mists, as always, remained behind. They didn't enter buildings—or, if they did, they usually didn't remain for long. With them, she left behind the mist spirit.

She had to make a decision. She didn't like the decision, but she was accustomed to doing things she didn't like. That was life. She hadn't wanted to fight the Lord Ruler, but she had.

It soon became too dark even for Mistborn eyes, and she had to light a lantern. When she did, she was surprised to see that her footsteps weren't the only ones in the dust. Apparently, someone else had been haunting the corridors. However, whoever it was, she didn't encounter them as she walked through the hallways.

She entered the chamber a few moments later. She wasn't sure what had drawn her to Kredik Shaw, let alone the hidden chamber at its center. It seemed, however, that she had been feeling a kinship with the Lord Ruler lately. Her walkings had brought her here, to a place she hadn't visited since that night when she'd slain the only God she'd ever known.

He had spent a lot of time in this hidden chamber, a place he had apparently built to remind him of his homeland. The chamber had a domed roof that arced overhead. The walls were filled with silvery murals and the floor was filled with metallic inlays. She ignored these, walking forward toward the room's central feature—a small stone building that had been built within the larger chamber.

It was here that Kelsier and his wife had been captured many years before, during Kelsier's first attempt to rob the Lord Ruler. Mare had been murdered at the Pits. But Kelsier had survived.

It was here, in this same chamber, that Vin had first faced an Inquisitor, and had nearly been killed herself. It was also here that she had come months later in her first attempt to kill the Lord Ruler. She had been defeated that time, too.

She stepped into the small building-within-a-building. It had only one room. The floor had been torn up by Elend's crews, searching for the atium. The walls were still hung, however, with the trappings the Lord Ruler had left behind. She raised her lantern, looking at them.

Rugs. Furs. A small wooden flute. The things of his people, the Terris people, from a thousand years before. Why had he built his new city of Luthadel here, to the south, when his homeland—and the Well of Ascension itself—had been to the north? Vin had never really understood that.

Perhaps it came down to decision. Rashek, the Lord Ruler, had been forced to make a decision, too. He could have continued as he was, the pastoral villager. He would probably have had a happy life with his people.