Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [830]
She waited. Nothing happened. She was trying to Riot the men’s sense of anger and irritability. However, she didn’t even know if she was Pulling in the right direction. In addition, Rioting and Soothing weren’t as precise as Pushing steel. Breeze always explained that the emotional makeup of a person was a complex jumble of thoughts, instincts, and feelings. An Allomancer couldn’t control minds or actions. He could only nudge.
Unless . . .
Taking a deep breath, Vin extinguished all of her metals. Then, she burned duralumin and zinc, and Pulled in the direction of the distant guards, hitting them with a powerfully enhanced burst of emotional Allomancy.
Immediately, a curse echoed through the hallway. Vin cringed. Fortunately, the noise wasn’t directed at her. The guards in the corridor perked up, and the argument in the distance grew louder, more fervent. Vin didn’t need to burn tin to hear when the scuffle broke out, men yelling at each other.
The guards to the left rushed away, moving to find out what the source of the disturbance was. The ones to her right left two men behind, however, and so Vin drank a vial of metal, then Rioted their emotions, enhancing their senses of curiosity to the point of breaking.
The two men left, rushing after their companions, and Vin scurried down the corridor. She soon saw that her instincts had proven right—the four men had been guarding a door into one of the storage rooms. Vin took a deep breath, then opened the door and ducked inside. The trapdoor inside was closed, but she knew what to look for. She pulled it open, then jumped into the darkness beneath her.
She Pushed down a coin as she fell, using the sound of its hitting to let her know how far down the floor was. She landed on rough stonework, standing in complete darkness—pitch black beyond even what tin would let her see in. She felt around, however, and found a lantern on the wall. She pulled out her flint, and soon had light.
And there it was, the door in the wall leading into the storage cavern. The rock mountings had been torn apart, the door forced. The wall was still there, and the door itself was intact, but getting it open had obviously taken some great amount of work. The door was open slightly, barely wide enough for a person to get through. It had obviously taken Yomen a lot of effort to even get it that far.
He must have known it was here, Vin thought, standing up straight. But . . . why break it open like this? He has a Mistborn who could have opened the door with a Steelpull.
Heart fluttering in anticipation, Vin slipped through the opening and into the silent storage cache. She immediately jumped down to the cache floor and began searching for the plate that would contain the Lord Ruler’s information. She just had to—
Stone scraped against stone behind her.
Vin spun, feeling an instant of sharp and dreadful realization.
The stone door shut behind her.
“. . . and that,” Elend said, “is why the Lord Ruler’s system of government had to fall.”
He was losing them. He could tell—more and more people were trailing away from the argument. The problem was, Yomen actually was interested.
“You make a mistake, young Venture,” the obligator said, tapping the table idly with his fork. “The sixth-century stewardship program was not even devised by the Lord Ruler. The newly formed Canton of Inquisition proposed it as a means of population control for the Terris, and the Lord Ruler agreed to it provisionally.”
“That provision turned into a means of subjugating an entire race of people,” Elend said.
“That subjugation started far earlier,” Yomen said. “Everyone knows the history of this, Venture. The Terris were a people who absolutely refused to submit to imperial rule, and they had to be strictly reined in. However, can you honestly say that Terris stewards were treated poorly? They’re the most honored servants