Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [680]
The Lord Ruler’s atium cache.
It was the most valuable treasure in the Final Empire. Despite years of searching, nobody had ever located it. Some said it didn’t even exist. But, Vin felt that it had to. Despite a thousand years of controlling the sole mine that produced the extremely rare metal, he had allowed only a small portion of atium to enter the economy. Nobody knew what the Lord Ruler had done with the greater portion he had kept to himself for all those centuries.
“Now, don’t get too excited,” Elend said. “We have no proof that we’ll find the atium in that final cavern.”
“It has to be there,” Vin said. “It makes sense. Where else would the Lord Ruler store his atium?”
“If I could answer that, we’d have found it.”
Vin shook her head. “He put it somewhere safe, but somewhere where it would eventually be found. He left these maps as clues to his followers, should he—somehow—be defeated. He didn’t want an enemy who captured one of the caverns to be able to find them all instantly.”
A trail of clues that led to one, final cache. The most important one. It made sense. It had to. Elend didn’t look convinced. He rubbed his bearded chin, studying the reflective plate in their lantern light. “Even if we find it,” he said, “I don’t know that it will help that much. What good is money to us now?”
“It’s more than money,” she said. “It’s power. A weapon we can use to fight.”
“Fight the mists?” he asked.
Vin fell silent. “Perhaps not,” she finally said. “But the koloss, and the other armies. With that atium, your empire becomes secure. . . . Plus, atium is part of all this, Elend. It’s only valuable because of Allomancy—but Allomancy didn’t exist until the Ascension.”
“Another unanswered question,” Elend said. “Why did that nugget of metal I ingested make me Mistborn? Where did it come from? Why was it placed at the Well of Ascension, and by whom? Why was there only one left, and what happened to the others?”
“Maybe we’ll find the answer once we take Fadrex,” Vin said.
Elend nodded. She could tell he considered the information contained in the caches the most important reason to track them down, followed closely by the supplies. To him, the possibility of finding atium was relatively unimportant. Vin couldn’t explain why she felt he was so wrong in this regard. The atium was important. She just knew it. Her earlier despair lightened as she looked over the map. They had to go to Fadrex. She knew it.
The answers would be there.
“Taking Fadrex won’t be easy,” Elend noted. “Cett’s enemies have entrenched themselves quite solidly there. I hear a former Ministry obligator is in charge.”
“The atium will be worth it,” Vin said.
“If it’s there,” Elend said.
She gave him a flat stare.
He held up a hand. “I’m just trying to do what you told me, Vin—I’m trying to be realistic. However, I agree that Fadrex will be worth the effort. Even if the atium isn’t there, we need the supplies in that store. We need to know what the Lord Ruler left us.”
Vin nodded. She herself no longer had any atium. She’d burned up their last bit a year and a half ago, and she’d never gotten used to how exposed she felt without it. Electrum softened that fear somewhat, but not completely.
Voices sounded from the other end of the cavern, and Elend turned. “I should go speak to them,” he said. “We’re going to have to organize things in here quickly.”
“Have you told them yet that we’re going to have to move them back to Luthadel?”
Elend shook his head. “They won’t like it,” he said. “They’re becoming independent, as I always hoped they would.”
“It has to be done, Elend,” Vin said. “This city is well outside our