فصل 8

8

Vin threw herself into the mists. She soared in the night air, passing over darkened homes and streets. An occasional, furtive bob of light glowed in the mists—a guard patrol, or perhaps an unfortunate late-night traveler.

Vin began to descend, and she immediately flipped a coin out before herself. She Pushed against it, her weight plunging it down into the quiet depths. As soon as it hit the street below, her Push forced her upward, and she sprang back into the air. Soft Pushes were very difficult—so each coin she Pushed against, each jump she made, threw her into the air at a terrible speed. The jumping of a Mistborn wasn’t like a bird’s flight. It was more like the path of a ricocheting arrow.

And yet, there was a grace to it. Vin breathed deeply as she arced above the city, tasting the cool, humid air. Luthadel by day smelled of burning forges, sun-heated refuse, and fallen ash. At night, however, the mists gave the air a beautiful chill crispness—almost a cleanliness.

Vin crested her jump, and she hung for just a brief moment as her momentum changed. Then she began to plummet back toward the city. Her mistcloak tassels fluttered around her, mingling with her hair. She fell with her eyes closed, remembering her first few weeks in the mist, training beneath Kelsier’s relaxed—yet watchful—tutelage. He had given her this. Freedom. Despite two years as a Mistborn, she had never lost the sense of intoxicating wonder she felt when soaring through the mists.

She burned steel with her eyes closed; the lines appeared anyway, visible as a spray of threadlike blue lines set against the blackness of her eyelids. She picked two, pointing downward behind her, and Pushed, throwing herself into another arc.

What did I ever do without this? Vin thought, opening her eyes, whipping her mistcloak behind her with a throw of the arm.

Eventually, she began to fall again, and this time she didn’t toss a coin. She burned pewter to strengthen her limbs, and landed with a thump on the wall surrounding Keep Venture’s grounds. Her bronze showed no signs of Allomantic activity nearby, and her steel revealed no unusual patterns of metal moving toward the keep.

Vin crouched on the dark wall for a few moments, right at the edge, toes curling over the lip of the stone. The rock was cool beneath her feet, and her tin made her skin far more sensitive than normal. She could tell that the wall needed to be cleaned; lichens were beginning to grow along its side, encouraged by the night’s humidity, protected from the day’s sun by a nearby tower.

Vin remained quiet, watching a slight breeze push and churn the mists. She heard the movement on the street below before she saw it. She tensed, checking her reserves, before she was able to discern a wolfhound’s shape in the shadows.

She dropped a coin over the side of the wall, then leapt off. OreSeur waited as she landed quietly before him, using a quick Push on the coin to slow her descent.

“You move quickly,” Vin noted appreciatively.

“All I had to do was round the palace grounds, Mistress.”

“Still, you stuck closer to me this time than you ever did before. That wolfhound’s body is faster than a human one.” OreSeur paused. “I suppose,” he admitted.

“Think you can follow me through the city?”

“Probably,” OreSeur said. “If you lose me, I will return to this point so you can retrieve me.” Vin turned and dashed down a side street. OreSeur then took off quietly behind her, following.

Let’s see how well he does in a more demanding chase, she thought, burning pewter and increasing her speed. She sprinted along the cool cobbles, barefoot as always. A normal man could never have maintained such a speed. Even a trained runner couldn’t have kept pace with her, for he would have quickly tired.

With pewter, however, Vin could run for hours at breakneck speeds. It gave her strength, lent her an unreal sense of balance, as she shot down the dark, mist-ruled street, a flurry of cloak tassels and bare feet.

OreSeur kept pace. He loped beside her in the night, breathing heavily, focused on his running.

Impressive, Vin thought, then turned down an alleyway. She easily jumped the six-foot-tall fence at the back, passing into the garden of some lesser nobleman’s mansion. She spun, skidding on the wet grass, and watched.

OreSeur crested the top of the wooden fence, his dark, canine form dropping through the mists to land in the loam before Vin. He came to a stop, resting on his haunches, waiting quietly, panting. There was a look of defiance in his eyes.

All right, Vin thought, pulling out a handful of coins. Follow this.

She dropped a coin and threw herself backward up into the air. She spun in the mists, twisting, then Pushed herself sideways off a well spigot. She landed on a rooftop and jumped off, using another coin to Push herself over the street below.

She kept going, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, using coins when necessary. She occasionally shot a glance behind, and saw a dark form struggling to keep up. He’d rarely followed her as a human; usually, she had checked in with him at specific points. Moving out in the night, jumping through the mists…this was the true domain of the Mistborn. Did Elend understand what he asked when he told her to bring OreSeur with her? If she stayed down on the streets, she’d expose herself.

She landed on a rooftop, jarring to a sudden halt as she grabbed hold of the building’s stone lip, leaning out over a street three stories below. She maintained her balance, mist swirling below her. All was silent.

Well, that didn’t take long, she thought. I’ll just have to explain to Elend that— OreSeur’s canine form thumped to the rooftop a short distance away. He padded over to her, then sat down on his haunches, waiting expectantly.

Vin frowned. She’d traveled for a good ten minutes, running over rooftops with the speed of a Mistborn. “How…how did you get up here?” she demanded.

“I jumped atop a shorter building, then used it to reach these tenements, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “Then I followed you along the rooftops. They are placed so closely together that it was not difficult to jump from one to another.” Vin’s confusion must have shown, for OreSeur continued. “I may have been…hasty in my judgment of these bones, Mistress. They certainly do have an impressive sense of smell—in fact, all of their senses are quite keen. It was surprisingly easy to track you, even in the darkness.” “I…see,” Vin said. “Well, that’s good.”

“Might I ask, Mistress, the purpose of that chase?”

Vin shrugged. “I do this sort of thing every night.”

“It seemed like you were particularly intent on losing me. It will be very difficult to protect you if you don’t let me stay near you.” “Protect me?” Vin asked. “You can’t even fight.”

“The Contract forbids me from killing a human,” OreSeur said. “I could, however, go for help should you need it.” Or throw me a bit of atium in a moment of danger, Vin admitted. He’s right—he could be useful. Why am I so determined to leave him behind?

She glanced over at OreSeur, who sat patiently, his chest puffing from exertion. She hadn’t realized that kandra even needed to breathe.

He ate Kelsier.

“Come on,” Vin said. She jumped from the building, Pushing herself off a coin. She didn’t pause to see if OreSeur followed.

As she fell, she reached for another coin, but decided not to use it. She Pushed against a passing window bracket instead. Like most Mistborn, she often used clips—the smallest denomination of coin—to jump. It was very convenient that the economy supplied a prepackaged bit of metal of an ideal size and weight for jumping and shooting. To most Mistborn, the cost of a thrown clip—or even a bag of them—was negligible.

But Vin was not most Mistborn. In her younger years, a handful of clips would have seemed an amazing treasure. That much money could have meant food for weeks, if she scrimped. It also could have meant pain—even death—if the other thieves had discovered that she’d obtained such a fortune.

It had been a long time since she’d gone hungry. Though she still kept a pack of dried foods in her quarters, she did so more out of habit than anxiety. She honestly wasn’t sure what she thought of the changes within her. It was nice not to have to worry about basic necessities—and yet, those worries had been replaced by ones far more daunting. Worries involving the future of an entire nation.

The future of…a people. She landed on the city wall—a structure much higher, and much better fortified, than the small wall around Keep Venture. She hopped up on the battlements, fingers seeking a hold on one of the merlons as she leaned over the edge of the wall, looking out over the army’s fires.

She had never met Straff Venture, but she had heard enough from Elend to be worried.

She sighed, pushing back off the battlement and hopping onto the wall walk. Then she leaned back against one of the merlons. To the side, OreSeur trotted up the wall steps and approached. Once again, he went down onto his haunches, watching patiently.

For better or for worse, Vin’s simple life of starvation and beatings was gone. Elend’s fledgling kingdom was in serious danger, and she’d burned away the last of his atium trying to keep herself alive. She’d left him exposed—not just to armies, but to any Mistborn assassin who tried to kill him.

An assassin like the Watcher, perhaps? The mysterious figure who had interfered in her fight against Cett’s Mistborn. What did he want? Why did he watch her, rather than Elend?

Vin sighed, reaching into her coin pouch and pulling out her bar of duralumin. She still had the reserve of it within her, the bit she’d swallowed earlier.

For centuries, it had been assumed that there were only ten Allomantic metals: the four base metals and their alloys, plus atium and gold. Yet, Allomantic metals always came in pairs—a base metal and an alloy. It had always bothered Vin that atium and gold were considered a pair, when neither was an alloy of the other. In the end, it had turned out that they weren’t actually paired; they each had an alloy. One of these—malatium, the so-called Eleventh Metal—had eventually given Vin the clue she’d needed to defeat the Lord Ruler.

Somehow Kelsier had found out about malatium. Sazed still hadn’t been able to trace the “legends” that Kelsier had supposedly uncovered teaching of the Eleventh Metal and its power to defeat the Lord Ruler.

Vin rubbed her finger on the slick surface of the duralumin bar. When Vin had last seen Sazed, he’d seemed frustrated—or, at least, as frustrated as Sazed ever grew—that he couldn’t find even hints regarding Kelsier’s supposed legends. Though Sazed claimed he’d left Luthadel to teach the people of the Final Empire—as was his duty as a Keeper—Vin hadn’t missed the fact that Sazed had gone south. The direction in which Kelsier claimed to have discovered the Eleventh Metal.

Are there rumors about this metal, too? Vin wondered, rubbing the duralumin. Ones that might tell me what it does?

Each of the other metals produced an immediate, visible effect; only copper, with its ability to create a cloud that masked an Allomancer’s powers from others, didn’t have an obvious sensory clue to its purpose. Perhaps duralumin was similar. Could its effect be noticed only by another Allomancer, one trying to use his or her powers on Vin? It was the opposite of aluminum, which made metals disappear. Did that mean duralumin would make other metals last longer?

Movement.

Vin just barely caught the hint of shadowed motion. At first, a primal bit of terror rose in her: Was it the misty form, the ghost in the darkness she had seen the night before?

You were just seeing things, she told herself forcefully. You were too tired. And, in truth, the glimmer of motion proved too dark—too real—to be the same ghostly image.

It was him.

He stood atop one of the watchtowers—not crouching, not even bothering to hide. Was he arrogant or foolish, this unknown Mistborn? Vin smiled, her apprehension turning to excitement. She prepared her metals, checking her reserves. Everything was ready.

Tonight I catch you, my friend.

Vin spun, throwing out a spray of coins. Either the Mistborn knew he’d been spotted, or he was ready for an attack, for he easily dodged. OreSeur hopped to his feet, spinning, and Vin whipped her belt free, dropping her metals.

“Follow if you can,” she whispered to the kandra, then sprang into the darkness after her prey.

The Watcher shot away, bounding through the night. Vin had little experience chasing another Mistborn; her only real chance to practice had come during Kelsier’s training sessions. She soon found herself struggling to keep up with the Watcher, and she felt a stab of guilt for what she had done to OreSeur earlier. She was learning firsthand how difficult it was to follow a determined Mistborn through the mists. And she didn’t have the advantage of a dog’s sense of smell.

She did, however, have tin. It made the night clearer and enhanced her hearing. With it, she managed to follow the Watcher as he moved toward the center of the city. Eventually, he let himself drop down toward one of the central fountain squares. Vin fell as well, hitting the slick cobblestones with a flare of pewter, then dodging to the side as he threw out a handful of coins.

Metal rang against stone in the quiet night, coins plinging against statues and cobblestones. Vin smiled as she landed on all fours; then she bounded forward, jumping with pewter-enhanced muscles and Pulling one of the coins up into her hand.

Her opponent leaped backward, landing on the edge of a nearby fountain. Vin landed, then dropped her coin, using it to throw herself upward over the Watcher’s head. He stooped, watching warily as she passed over him.

Vin caught of one of the bronze statues at the center of the fountain itself and pulled herself to a stop atop it. She crouched on the uneven footing, looking down at her opponent. He stood balanced on one foot at the edge of the fountain, quiet and black in the churning mists. There was a…challenge in his posture.

Can you catch me? he seemed to ask.

Vin whipped her daggers out and jumped free of the statue. She Pushed herself directly toward the Watcher, using the cool bronze as an anchor.

The Watcher used the statue as well, Pulling himself forward. He shot just beneath Vin, throwing up a wave of water, his incredible speed letting him skid like a stone across the fountain’s still surface. As he jumped clear of the water, he Pushed himself away, shooting across the square.

Vin landed on the fountain lip, chill water spraying across her. She growled, jumping after the Watcher.

As he landed, he spun and whipped out his own daggers. She rolled beneath his first attack, then brought her daggers up in a two-handed double jab. The Watcher jumped quickly out of the way, his daggers sparkling and dropping beads of fountain water. He had a lithe power about him as he came to rest in a crouch. His body looked tense and sure. Capable.

Vin smiled again, breathing quickly. She hadn’t felt like this since…since those nights so long ago, when she’d sparred with Kelsier. She remained in a crouch, waiting, watching the mist curl between her and her opponent. He was of medium height, had a wiry build, and he wore no mistcloak.

Why no cloak? Mistcloaks were the ubiquitous mark of her kind, a symbol of pride and security.

She was too far away to distinguish his face. She thought she saw a hint of a smile, however, as he jumped backward and Pushed against another statue. The chase began again.

Vin followed him through the city, flaring steel, landing on roofs and streets, Pushing herself in great arcing leaps. The two bounded through Luthadel like children on a playground—Vin trying to cut off her opponent, he cleverly managing to stay just a little bit ahead of her.

He was good. Far better than any Mistborn she had known or faced, save perhaps for Kelsier. However, she’d grown greatly in skill since she’d sparred with the Survivor. Could this newcomer be even better? The thought thrilled her. She’d always considered Kelsier a paradigm of Allomantic ability, and it was easy to forget that he’d had his powers for only a couple of years before the Collapse.

That’s the same amount of time that I’ve been training, Vin realized as she landed in a small, cramped street. She frowned, crouching, remaining still. She’d seen the Watcher fall toward this street.

Narrow and poorly maintained, the street was practically an alleyway, lined on both sides by three- and four-story buildings. There was no motion—either the Watcher had slipped away or he was hiding nearby. She burned iron, but the iron-lines revealed no motion.

However, there was another way….

Vin pretended to still be looking around, but she turned on her bronze, flaring it, trying to pierce the coppercloud that she thought might be close.

And there he was. Hiding in a room behind the mostly closed shutters of a derelict building. Now that she knew where to look, she saw the bit of metal he’d probably used to jump up to the second story, the latch he must have Pulled on to quickly close the shutters behind him. He’d probably scouted this street beforehand, always intending to lose her here.

Clever, Vin thought.

He couldn’t have anticipated her ability to pierce copperclouds. But, attacking him now might give away that ability. Vin stood quietly, thinking of him crouching above, tensely waiting for her to move off.

She smiled. Reaching inside, she examined the duralumin reserve. There was a possible way to discover if burning it created some change in the way she looked to another Mistborn. The Watcher was likely burning most of his metals, trying to determine what her next move would be.

So, thinking herself incredibly clever, Vin burned the fourteenth metal.

A massive explosion sounded in her ears. Vin gasped, dropping to her knees in shock. Everything grew bright around her, as if some crack of energy had illuminated the entire street. And she felt cold; frigidly, stunningly cold.

She moaned, trying to make sense of the sound. It…it wasn’t an explosion, but many explosions. A rhythmic thudding, like a drum pounding just beside her. Her heartbeat. And the breeze, loud as a howling wind. The scratchings of a dog searching for food. Someone snoring in their sleep. It was as if her hearing had been magnified a hundred times.

And then…nothing. Vin fell backward against the cobblestones, the sudden rush of light, coldness, and sound evaporating. A form moved in the shadows nearby, but she couldn’t make it out—she couldn’t see in the darkness anymore. Her tin was… Gone, she realized, coming to. My entire store of tin has been burned away. I was…burning it, when I turned on the duralumin.

I burned them both at once. That’s the secret. The duralumin had burned away all her tin in a single, massive burst. It had made her senses amazingly acute for a very short time, but had stolen away her entire reserve. And, looking, she could see that her bronze and her pewter—the other metals she’d been burning at the time—were gone as well. The onrush of sensory information had been so vast that she hadn’t noticed the effects of the other two.

Think about it later, Vin told herself, shaking her head. She felt like she should be deafened and blinded, but she wasn’t. She was just a bit stunned.

The dark form moved up beside her in the mists. She didn’t have time to recover; she pushed herself to her feet, stumbling. The form, it was too short to be the Watcher. It was… “Mistress, do you require assistance?”

Vin paused as OreSeur padded up to her, then sat on his haunches.

“You…managed to follow,” Vin said.

“It was not easy, Mistress,” OreSeur said flatly. “Do you require assistance?” “What? No, no assistance.” Vin shook her head, clearing her mind. “I guess that’s one thing I didn’t think of by making you a dog. You can’t carry metals for me now.” The kandra cocked his head, then padded over into an alleyway. He returned a moment later with something in his mouth. Her belt.

He dropped it by her feet, then returned to his waiting position. Vin picked up the belt, pulling off one of her extra metal vials. “Thank you,” she said slowly. “That is very…thoughtful of you.” “I fulfill my Contract, Mistress,” the kandra said. “Nothing more.”

Well, this is more than you’ve ever done before, she thought, downing a vial and feeling her reserves return. She burned tin, restoring her night vision, releasing a veil of tension from her mind; since she’d discovered her powers, she’d never had to go out at night in complete darkness.

The shutters of the Watcher’s room were open; he had apparently fled during her fit. Vin sighed.

“Mistress!” OreSeur snapped.

Vin spun. A man landed quietly behind her. He looked…familiar, for some reason. He had a lean face—topped with dark hair—and his head was cocked slightly in confusion. She could see the question in his eyes. Why had she fallen down?

Vin smiled. “Maybe I just did it to lure you closer,” she whispered—softly, yet loud enough that she knew tin-enhanced ears would hear her.

The Mistborn smiled, then tipped his head to her as if in respect.

“Who are you?” Vin asked, stepping forward.

“An enemy,” he replied, holding up a hand to ward her back.

Vin paused. Mist swirled between them on the quiet street. “Why, then, did you help me fight those assassins?” “Because,” he said. “I’m also insane.”

Vin frowned, eyeing the man. She had seen insanity before in the eyes of beggars. This man was not insane. He stood proudly, eyes controlled as he regarded her in the darkness.

What kind of game is he playing? she wondered.

Her instincts—a lifetime’s worth of instincts—warned her to be wary. She had only just learned to trust her friends, and she wasn’t about to offer the same privilege to a man she had met in the night.

And yet, it had been over a year since she’d spoken with another Mistborn. There were conflicts within her that she couldn’t explain to the others. Even Mistings, like Ham and Breeze, couldn’t understand the strange dual life of a Mistborn. Part assassin, part bodyguard, part noblewoman…part confused, quiet girl. Did this man have similar troubles with his identity?

Perhaps she could make an ally out of him, bringing a second Mistborn to the defense of the Central Dominance. Even if she couldn’t, she certainly couldn’t afford to fight him. A spar in the night was one thing, but if their contest grew dangerous, atium might come into play.

If that happened, she’d lose.

The Watcher studied her with a careful eye. “Answer something for me,” he said in the mists.

Vin nodded.

“Did you really kill Him?”

“Yes,” Vin whispered. There was only one person he could mean.

He nodded slowly. “Why do you play their games?”

“Whose games?”

The Watcher gestured into the mists, toward Keep Venture.

“Those aren’t games,” Vin said. “It’s no game when the people I love are in danger.” The Watcher stood quietly, then shook his head, as if…disappointed. Then, he pulled something from his sash.

Vin jumped back immediately. The Watcher, however, simply flipped a coin to the ground between them. It bounced a couple of times, coming to a rest on the cobbles. Then, the Watcher Pushed himself backward into the air.

Vin didn’t follow. She reached up, rubbing her head; she still felt like she should have a headache.

“You’re letting him go?” OreSeur asked.

Vin nodded. “We’re done for tonight. He fought well.”

“You sound almost respectful,” the kandra said.

Vin turned, frowning at the hint of disgust in the kandra’s voice. OreSeur sat patiently, displaying no further emotion.

She sighed, tying her belt around her waist. “We’re going to need to come up with a harness or something for you,” she said. “I want you to carry extra metal vials for me, like you did as a human.” “A harness won’t be necessary, Mistress,” OreSeur said.

“Oh?”

OreSeur rose, padding forward. “Please get out one of your vials.”

Vin did as requested, pulling out a small glass vial. OreSeur stopped, then turned one shoulder toward her. As she watched, the fur parted and the flesh itself split, showing forth veins and layers of skin. Vin pulled back a bit.

“There is no need to be worried, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “My flesh is not like your own. I have more…control over it, you might say. Place the metal vial inside my shoulder.” Vin did as asked. The flesh sealed around the vial, obscuring it from view. Experimentally, Vin burned iron. No blue lines appeared pointing toward the hidden vial. Metal inside of a person’s stomach couldn’t be affected by another Allomancer; indeed, metal piercing a body, like Inquisitor spikes or Vin’s own earring, couldn’t be Pushed or Pulled by someone else. Apparently, the same rule applied to metals hidden within a kandra.

“I will deliver this to you in an emergency,” OreSeur said.

“Thank you,” Vin said.

“The Contract, Mistress. Do not give me thanks. I do only what I am required.” Vin nodded slowly. “Let’s go back to the palace, then,” she said. “I want to check on Elend.”

But, let me begin at the beginning. I met Alendi first in Khlennium; he was a young lad then, and had not yet been warped by a decade spent leading armies.