Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

“Yes, Master Marsh,” Sazed explained. “You see, youth is one of the things that a Feruchemist can store. It’s a fairly useless process—in order to store up the ability to feel and look a year younger, you would have to spend part of your life feeling and looking one year older. Often, Keepers use the ability as a disguise, changing ages to fool others and hide. Beyond this, however, no one has ever seen much use for the ability.

“However, if the Feruchemist were also an Allomancer, he might be able to burn his own metal storages, releasing the energy within them tenfold. Mistress Vin tried to burn some of my metals earlier, but couldn’t access the power. However, if you were able to make up the Feruchemical storages yourself, then burn them for the extra power . . .”

Marsh frowned. “I don’t follow you, Sazed.”

“I apologize,” Sazed said. “This is, perhaps, a thing that is difficult to understand without a background in both Allomantic and Feruchemical theory. Let me see if I can explain it better. What is the main difference between Allomancy and Feruchemy?”

“Allomancy draws its power from metals,” Marsh said. “Feruchemy draws its powers from the person’s own body.”

“Exactly,” Sazed said. “So, what the Lord Ruler did—I presume—was combine these two abilities. He used one of the attributes only available to Feruchemy—that of changing his age—but fueled it with Allomancy instead. By burning a Feruchemical storage that he himself had made, he effectively made a new Allomantic metal for himself—one that made him younger when he burned it. If my guess is correct, he would have gained a limitless supply of youth, since he was drawing most of his power from the metal itself, rather than his own body. All he would have to do was spend the occasional bit of time aged to give himself Feruchemical storages to burn and stay young.”

“So,” Marsh said, “just burning those storages would make him even younger than when he started?”

“He would have had to place that excess youth inside of another Feruchemical storage, I think,” Sazed explained. “You see, Allomancy is quite spectacular—its powers generally come in bursts and flares. The Lord Ruler wouldn’t have wanted all of that youth at once, so he’d have stored it inside of a piece of metal which he could slowly drain, keeping himself young.”

“The bracelets?”

“Yes, Master Marsh. However, Feruchemy gives decreasing returns—it takes more than the proportionate amount of strength, for instance, to make yourself four times as strong as a regular man, as opposed to simply twice as strong. In the Lord Ruler’s case, this meant that he had to spend more and more youth to keep from aging. When Mistress Vin stole the bracelets, he aged incredibly quickly because his body was trying to stretch back to where it should have been.”

Vin sat in the cool evening wind, staring out toward Keep Venture. It was bright with light; not even a single day had passed, and Elend was already meeting with skaa and noblemen leaders, drafting a code of laws for his new nation.

Vin sat quietly, fingering her earring. She’d found it in the throne room, had put it back in her torn ear as it began to heal. She wasn’t certain why she kept it. Perhaps because it was a link to Reen, and the mother who had tried to kill her. Or, perhaps, simply because it was a reminder of things she shouldn’t have been able to do.

There was much to learn, still, about Allomancy. For a thousand years, the nobility had simply trusted what the Inquisitors and Lord Ruler told them. What secrets had they shadowed, what metals had they hidden?

“The Lord Ruler,” she finally said. “He . . . just used a trick to be immortal, then. That means he wasn’t ever really a god, right? He was just lucky. Anyone who was both a Feruchemist and an Allomancer could have done what he did.”

“It appears that way, Mistress,” Sazed said. “Perhaps that was why he feared Keepers so much. He hunted and killed Feruchemists, for he knew that the skill was hereditary—just as Allomancy is. If the Terris lines ever mixed with those of the imperial nobility, the result could very well have been a child who could challenge him.”

“Hence the breeding programs,” Marsh said.

Sazed nodded. “He needed to make absolutely sure that the Terrismen weren’t allowed to mix with the regular populace, lest they pass on latent Feruchemical abilities.”

Marsh shook his head. “His own people. He did such horrible things to them just to keep hold of his power.”

“But,” Vin said, frowning, “if the Lord Ruler’s powers came from a mixture of Feruchemy and Allomancy, what happened at the Well of Ascension? What was the power that the man who wrote the logbook—whoever he was—was supposed to find?”

“I don’t know, Mistress,” Sazed said quietly.

“Your explanation doesn’t answer everything,” Vin said, shaking her head. She hadn’t spoken of her own strange abilities, but she had spoken of what the Lord Ruler had done in the throne room. “He was so powerful, Sazed. I could feel his Allomancy. He was able to Push on metals inside my body! Perhaps he could enhance his Feruchemy by burning the storages, but how did he get so strong at Allomancy?”

Sazed sighed. “I fear that the only person who could have answered these questions died this morning.”

Vin paused. The Lord Ruler had held secrets about the Terris religion that Sazed’s people had been searching for centuries to find. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him.”

Sazed shook his head. “His own aging would have killed him soon anyway, Mistress. What you did was right. This way, I can record that the Lord Ruler was struck down by one of the skaa he had oppressed.”

Vin flushed. “Record?”

“Of course. I am still a Keeper, Mistress. I must pass these things on—history, events, and truths.”

“You won’t . . . say too much about me, will you?” For some reason the idea of other people telling stories about her made her uncomfortable.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Mistress,” Sazed said with a smile. “My brethren and I will be very busy, I think. We have so much to restore, so much to tell the world. . . . I doubt details about you need to be passed on with any urgent timing. I will record what happened, but I will keep it to myself for a while, if you wish.”

“Thank you,” Vin said, nodding.

“That power that the Lord Ruler found in the cave,” Marsh said speculatively, “perhaps it was just Allomancy. You said that there is no record of any Allomancers before the Ascension.”

“It is indeed a possibility, Master Marsh,” Sazed said. “There are very few legends about the origins of Allomancy, and nearly all of them agree that Allomancers first ‘appeared with the mists.’ ”

Vin frowned. She’d always assumed that the title “Mistborn” had come about because Allomancers tended to do their work at night. She’d never considered that there might be a stronger connection.

Mist reacts to Allomancy. It swirls when an Allomancer uses his abilities nearby. And . . . what did I feel at the end? It was like I drew something from the mists.

Whatever she’d done, she hadn’t been able to replicate it.

Marsh sighed and stood. He had been awake only a few hours, but he already seemed tired. His head hung slightly, as if the weight of the spikes were pulling it down.

“Does that . . . hurt, Marsh?” she asked. “The spikes, I mean?”

He paused. “Yes. All eleven of them . . . throb. The pain reacts to my emotions somehow.”

“Eleven?” Vin asked with shock.

Marsh nodded. “Two in the head, eight in the chest, one in the back to seal them together. That’s the only way to kill an Inquisitor—you have to separate the top spikes from the bottom ones. Kell did it through a beheading, but it’s easier to just pull out the middle spike.”

“We thought you were dead,” Vin said. “When we found the body and the blood at the Soothing station . . .”

Marsh nodded. “I was going to send word of my survival, but they watched me fairly closely that first day. I didn’t expect Kell to make his move so quickly.”