Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [757]
“Yomen has few weaknesses,” Slowswift said. “He’s a calm man, and an honorable one. However, he has an unfailing belief in the Lord Ruler and his organization.”
“Even now?” Vin asked. “The Lord Ruler died!”
“Yes, so?” Slowswift asked, amused. “And your Survivor? Last I checked, he was somewhat dead as well. Didn’t seem to hinder his revolution much, now did it?”
“Good point.”
“Yomen is a believer,” Slowswift said. “That may be a weakness; it may be a strength. Believers are often willing to attempt the seemingly impossible, then count on providence to see them through.” He paused, glancing at Vin. “That sort of behavior can be a weakness if the belief is misplaced.”
Vin said nothing. Belief in the Lord Ruler was misplaced. If he’d been a god, then she wouldn’t have been able to kill him. In her mind, it was a rather simple matter.
“If Yomen has another weakness,” Slowswift said, “it is his wealth.”
“Hardly a weakness.”
“It is if you can’t account for its source. He got money somewhere—a suspiciously vast amount of it, far more than even local Ministry coffers should have been able to provide. Nobody knows where it came from.”
The cache, Vin thought, perking up. He really does have the atium!
“You reacted a little too strongly to that one,” Slowswift said, taking a puff on his pipe. “You should try to give less away when speaking with an informant.”
Vin flushed.
“Anyway,” the old man said, turning back to his book, “if that is all, I should like to return to my reading. Give my regards to Ashweather.”
Vin nodded, rising and moving over toward the banister. As she did, however, Slowswift cleared his throat. “Usually,” he noted, “there is compensation for acts such as mine.”
Vin raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said that stories shouldn’t cost.”
“Actually,” Slowswift noted, “I said that a story itself shouldn’t be a cost. That is very different from the story itself costing something. And, while some will argue, I believe that a story without cost is one considered worthless.”
“I’m sure that’s the only reason,” Vin said, smiling slightly as she tossed her bag of coins—minus a few cloth-covered ones to use for jumping—to the old man. “Gold imperials. Still good here, I assume?”
“Good enough,” the old man said, tucking them away. “Good enough . . .”
Vin jumped out into the night, leaping a few houses away, burning bronze to see if she felt any Allomantic pulses from behind. She knew that her nature made her irrationally suspicious of people who appeared weak. For the longest time, she’d been convinced that Cett was Mistborn, simply because he was paraplegic. Still, she checked on Slowswift. This was one old habit that she didn’t feel much need to extinguish.
No pulses came from behind. Soon, she moved on, pulling out Cett’s instructions, searching out a second informant. She trusted Slowswift’s words well enough, but she would like confirmation. She picked an informant on the other side of the spectrum—a beggar named Hoid whom Cett claimed could be found in a particular square late at night.
A few quick jumps brought her to the location. She landed atop a roof and looked down, scanning the area. The ash had been allowed to drift here, piling in corners, making a general mess of things. A group of lumps huddled in an alley beside the square. Beggars, without home or job. Vin had lived like that at times, sleeping in alleys, coughing up ash, hoping it wouldn’t rain. She soon located a figure that wasn’t sleeping like the others, but sitting quietly in the light ashfall. Her ears picked out a faint sound. The man was humming to himself, as the instructions said that he might be doing.
Vin hesitated.
She couldn’t decide what it was, but something bothered her about the situation. It wasn’t right. She didn’t stop to think, she simply turned and jumped away. That was one of the big differences between her and Elend—she didn’t always need a reason. A feeling was enough. He always wanted to tease things out and find a why, and she loved him for his logic. However, he would have been very frustrated