Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [358]
“There is…something different here in this last room, at the back of the main landing. I’m not certain what to make of it. A torture chamber, perhaps? There are tables—metal tables—set into the floor. They are bloody, though there are no corpses. Blood flakes and powders at my feet—a lot of men have died in this room, I think. There don’t appear to be torture implements beyond…
“Spikes. Like the ones in Inquisitor eyes. Massive, heavy things—like the spikes one might pound into the ground with a very large mallet. Some are tipped with blood, though I don’t think I’ll handle those. These other ones…yes, they look indistinguishable from the ones in Marsh’s eyes. Yet, some are of different metals.”
Sazed set the spike down on a table, metal clinking against metal. He shivered, scanning the room again. A place to make new Inquisitors, perhaps? He had a sudden horrific vision of the creatures—once only several dozen in number—having swelled their ranks during their months sequestered in the Conventical.
But that didn’t seem right. They were a secretive, exclusive bunch. Where would they have found enough men worthy of joining their ranks? Why not make Inquisitors from the servants above, rather than just killing them?
Sazed had always suspected that a man had to be an Allomancer to be changed into an Inquisitor. Marsh’s own experience substantiated that premise: Marsh had been a Seeker, a man who could burn bronze, before his transformation. Sazed looked again at the blood, the spikes, and the tables, and decided he wasn’t certain that he wanted to know how one made a new Inquisitor.
Sazed was about to leave the room when his lamp revealed something at the back. Another doorway.
He moved forward, trying to ignore the dried blood at his feet, and entered a chamber that didn’t seem to match the rest of the Conventical’s daunting architecture. It was cut directly into the stone, and it twisted down into a very small stairwell. Curious, Sazed walked down the set of worn stone steps. For the first time since entering the building, he felt cramped, and he had to stoop as he reached the bottom of the stairwell and entered a small chamber. He stood up straight, and held up his lamp to reveal…
A wall. The room ended abruptly, and his light sparkled off the wall. It held a steel plate, like those above. This one was a good five feet across, and nearly as tall. And it bore writing. Suddenly interested, Sazed set down his pack and stepped forward, raising his lamp to read the top words on the wall.
The text was in Terris.
It was an old dialect, certainly, but one that Sazed could make out even without his language coppermind. His hand trembled as he read the words.
I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.
I have begun to wonder if I am the only sane man remaining. Can the others not see? They have been waiting so long for their hero to come—the one spoken of in Terris prophecies—that they quickly jump between conclusions, presuming that each story and legend applies to this one man.
My brethren ignore the other facts. They cannot connect the other strange things that are happening. They are deaf to my objections and blind to my discoveries.
Perhaps they are right. Perhaps I am mad, or jealous, or simply daft. My name is Kwaan. Philosopher, scholar, traitor. I am the one who discovered Alendi, and I am the one who first proclaimed him to be the Hero of Ages. I am the one who started this all.
And I am the one who betrayed him, for I now know that he must never be allowed to complete his quest.
“Sazed.”
Sazed jumped, nearly dropping the lamp. Marsh stood in the doorway behind him. Imperious, discomforting, and so dark. He fit this place, with its lines and hardness.
“The upstairs quarters are empty,