Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [840]
I wonder what would have happened if we had found it, Sazed thought, picking up a steelmind and quietly polishing it. Probably nothing. He’d given up on his work with the religions in his portfolio for the moment, feeling too discouraged to study.
There were fifty religions left in his portfolio. Why was he deluding himself, hoping to find any more truth in them than he had in the previous two hundred and fifty? None of the religions had managed to survive the years. Shouldn’t he just let them be? Looking through them seemed to be part of the great fallacy in the work of the Keepers. They’d struggled to remember the beliefs of men, but those beliefs had already proven they lacked the resilience to survive. Why bring them back to life? That seemed as pointless as reviving a sickly animal so it could fall to predators again.
He continued to polish. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Breeze watching him. The Soother had come to Sazed’s “room,” complaining that he couldn’t sleep, not with Spook still outside somewhere. Sazed had nodded, but continued polishing. He didn’t wish to get into a conversation; he just wanted to be alone.
Breeze, unfortunately, stood and came over. “Sometimes, I don’t understand you, Sazed,” Breeze said.
“I do not endeavor to be mysterious, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said, moving on to polish a small bronze ring.
“Why take such good care of them?” Breeze asked. “You never wear them anymore. In fact, you seem to spurn them.”
“I do not spurn the metalminds, Lord Breeze. They are, in a way, the only sacred thing I have left in my life.”
“But you don’t wear them, either.”
Sazed continued polishing. “No. I do not.”
“But why?” Breeze asked. “You think that she would have wanted this? She was a Keeper too—do you honestly think she’d want you to give up your metalminds?”
“This particular habit of mine is not about Tindwyl.”
“Oh?” Breeze asked, sighing as he seated himself at the table. “What do you mean? Because honestly, Sazed, you’re confusing me. I understand people. It bothers me that I can’t understand you.”
“After the Lord Ruler’s death,” Sazed said, putting down the ring, “do you know what I spent my time doing?”
“Teaching,” Breeze said. “You left to go and restore the lost knowledge to the people of the Final Empire.”
“And did I ever tell you how that teaching went?”
Breeze shook his head.
“Poorly,” Sazed said, picking up another ring. “The people didn’t really care. They weren’t interested in the religions of the past. And why should they have been? Why worship something that people used to believe in?”
“People are always interested in the past, Sazed.”
“Interested, perhaps,” Sazed said, “but interest is not faith. These metalminds, they are a thing of museums and old libraries. They are of little use to modern people. During the years of the Lord Ruler’s reign, we Keepers pretended that we were doing vital work. We believed that we were doing vital work. And yet, in the end, nothing we did had any real value. Vin didn’t need this knowledge to kill the Lord Ruler.
“I am probably the last of the Keepers. The thoughts in these metalminds will die with me. And, at times, I can’t make myself regret that fact. This is not an era for scholars and philosophers. Scholars and philosophers do not help feed starving children.”
“And so you don’t wear them anymore?” Breeze said. “Because you think they’re useless?”
“More than that,” Sazed said. “To wear these metalminds would be to pretend. I would be pretending that I find