Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [931]
Slowly, the man with one arm raised his remaining hand. “I was taken, my lord. I’m sorry. This wound is probably punishment for—”
Elend cut the man off, rushing forward, pulling out his spare metal vial. “Drink this,” he commanded.
The man paused, then did as asked. Elend knelt beside the bed eagerly, waiting. His heart pounded in his chest. “Well?” he finally asked.
“Well . . . what, my lord?” the soldier asked.
“Do you feel anything?” Elend asked.
The soldier shrugged. “Tired, my lord?”
Elend closed his eyes, sighing. It was a silly—
“Well, that’s odd,” the soldier suddenly said.
Elend snapped his eyes open.
“Yes,” the soldier said, looking a bit distracted. “I . . . I don’t know what to make of that.”
“Burn it,” Elend said, turning on his bronze. “Your body knows how, if you let it.”
The soldier’s frown deepened, and he cocked his head. Then, he began to thump with Allomantic power.
Elend closed his eyes again, exhaling softly.
Yomen was walking up behind Elend. “What is this?”
“The mists were never our enemy, Yomen,” Elend said, eyes still closed. “They were just trying to help.”
“Help? Help how? What are you talking about?”
Elend opened his eyes, turning. “They weren’t killing us, Yomen. They weren’t making us sick. They were Snapping us. Bringing us power. Making us able to fight.”
“My lord!” a voice suddenly called. Elend turned as a frazzled soldier stumbled into the room. “My lords! The koloss are attacking! They’re charging the city!”
Elend felt a start. Ruin. It knows what I just discovered—it knows it needs to attack now, rather than wait for more troops.
Because I know the secret!
“Yomen, gather every bit of powdered metal you can find in this city!” Elend yelled. “Pewter, tin, steel, and iron! Get it to anyone who has been stricken by the mists! Make them drink it down!”
“Why?” Yomen said, still confused.
Elend turned, smiling. “Because they are now Allomancers. This city isn’t going to fall as easily as everyone assumed. If you need me, I’ll be on the front lines!”
There is something special about the number sixteen. For one thing, it was Preservation’s sign to mankind.
Preservation knew, even before he imprisoned Ruin, that he wouldn’t be able to communicate with humankind once he diminished himself. And so, he left clues—clues that couldn’t be altered by Ruin. Clues that related back to the fundamental laws of the universe. The number was meant to be proof that something unnatural was happening, and that there was help to be found.
It may have taken us long to figure this out, but when we eventually did understand the clue—late though it was—it provided a much-needed boost.
As for the other aspects of the number . . . well, even I am still investigating that. Suffice it to say that it has great ramifications regarding how the world, and the universe itself, works.
71
SAZED TAPPED HIS PEN against the metal paper, frowning slightly. “Very little of this last chunk is different from what I knew before,” he said. “Ruin changed small things—perhaps to keep me from noticing the alterations. It’s obvious that he wanted to make me realize that Vin was the Hero of Ages.”
“He wanted her to release him,” said Haddek, leader of the First Generation. His companions nodded.
“Perhaps she was never the Hero,” one of the others offered.
Sazed shook his head. “I believe that she is. These prophecies still refer to her—even the unaltered ones that you have told me. They talk of one who is separate from the Terris people, a king of men, a rebel caught between two worlds. Ruin just emphasized that Vin was the one, since he wanted her to come and free him.”
“We always assumed that the Hero would be a man,” Haddek said in his wheezing voice.
“So did everyone else,” Sazed said. “But, you said yourself that all the prophecies use gender-neutral pronouns. That had to be intentional—one does not use such language in old Terris by accident. The neutral case was chosen so that we wouldn’t know whether the Hero was male or female.”
Several of