Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

Breeze shook his head. “It’s not enough. Dox takes a few days to organize each of these meetings, and we only get about twenty men from each one. At this rate, we’ll never hit ten thousand in time.”


“You think we need more meetings?” Ham asked. “That’s going to be tough—we have to be very careful with these things, so only those who can be reasonably trusted are invited.”

Breeze sat for a moment. Finally, he downed the rest of his wine. “I don’t know—but we’ll have to think of something. For now, let’s return to the shop. I believe Kelsier wishes to hold a progress meeting this evening.”



Kelsier looked to the west. The afternoon sun was a poisonous red, shining angrily through a sky of smoke. Just below it, Kelsier could see the silhouetted tip of a dark peak. Tyrian, closest of the Ashmounts.

He stood atop Clubs’s flat-roofed shop, listening to workers returning home on the streets below. A flat roof meant having to shovel off ash occasionally, which was why most skaa buildings were peaked, but in Kelsier’s opinion the view was often worth a bit of trouble.

Below him, the skaa workers trudged in despondent ranks, their passing kicking up a small cloud of ash. Kelsier turned away from them, looking toward the northern horizon . . . toward the Pits of Hathsin.

Where does it go? he thought. The atium reaches the city, but then disappears. It isn’t the Ministry—we’ve watched them—and no skaa hands touch the metal. We assume it goes into the treasury. We hope it does, at least.

While burning atium, a Mistborn was virtually unstoppable, which was part of why it was so valuable. But, his plan was about more than just wealth. He knew how much atium was harvested at the pits, and Dockson had researched the amounts that the Lord Ruler doled out—at exorbitant prices—to the nobility. Barely a tenth of what was mined eventually found its way into noble hands.

Ninety percent of the atium produced in the world had been stockpiled, year after year, for a thousand years. With that much of the metal, Kelsier’s team could intimidate even the most powerful of the noble houses. Yeden’s plan to hold the palace probably seemed futile to many—indeed, on its own, it was doomed to fail. However, Kelsier’s other plans . . .

Kelsier glanced down at the small, whitish bar in his hand. The Eleventh Metal. He knew the rumors about it—he’d started them. Now, he just had to make good on them.

He sighed, turning eyes east, toward Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler’s palace. The name was Terris; it meant “The Hill of a Thousand Spires.” Appropriate, since the imperial palace resembled a patch of enormous black spears thrust into the ground. Some of the spires twisted, others were straight. Some were thick towers, others were thin and needlelike. They varied in height, but each one was tall. And each one ended in a point.

Kredik Shaw. That’s where it had ended three years before. And he needed to go back.

The trapdoor opened, and a figure climbed onto the roof. Kelsier turned with a raised eyebrow as Sazed brushed off his robe, then approached in his characteristically respectful posture. Even a rebellious Terrisman maintained the form of his training.

“Master Kelsier,” Sazed said with a bow.

Kelsier nodded, and Sazed stepped up beside him, looking toward the imperial palace. “Ah,” he said to himself, as if understanding Kelsier’s thoughts.

Kelsier smiled. Sazed had been a valuable find indeed. Keepers were necessarily secretive, for the Lord Ruler had hunted them practically since the Day of Ascension itself. Some legends claimed that the Ruler’s complete subjugation of the Terris people—including the breeding and stewardship programs—was simply an outgrowth of his hatred for Keepers.

“I wonder what he would think if he knew a Keeper was in Luthadel,” Kelsier said, “barely a short walk from the palace itself.”

“Let us hope we never find out, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said.

“I appreciate your willingness to come here to the city, Saze. I know it’s a risk.”

“This is a good work,” Sazed said. “And this plan is dangerous for all involved. Indeed, simply living is dangerous for me, I think. It is not healthy to belong to a sect that the Lord Ruler himself fears.”

“Fears?” Kelsier asked, turning to look up at Sazed. Despite Kelsier’s above-average height, the Terrisman was still a good head taller. “I’m not sure if he fears anything, Saze.”

“He fears the Keepers,” Sazed said. “Definitely and inexplicably. Perhaps it is because of our powers. We are not Allomancers, but . . . something else. Something unknown to him.”

Kelsier nodded, turning back toward the city. He had so many plans, so much work to do—and at the core of it all were the skaa. The poor, humble, defeated skaa.

“Tell me about another one, Saze,” Kelsier said. “One with power.”

“Power?” Sazed asked. “That is a relative term when applied to religion, I think. Perhaps you would like to hear of Jaism. Its followers were quite faithful and devout.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Jaism was founded by a single man,” Sazed said. “His true name is lost, though his followers simply called him ‘the Ja.’ He was murdered by a local king for preaching discord—something he was apparently very good at—but that only made his following larger.

“The Jaists thought that they earned happiness proportional to their overt devotion, and were known for frequent and fervent professions of faith. Apparently, speaking with a Jaist could be frustrating, since they tended to end nearly every sentence with ‘Praise the Ja.’ ”

“That’s nice, Saze,” Kelsier said. “But power is more than just words.”

“Oh, quite indeed,” Sazed agreed. “The Jaists were strong in their faith. Legends say that the Ministry had to wipe them out completely, since not one Jaist would accept the Lord Ruler as God. They didn’t last long past the Ascension, but only because they were so blatant that they were easy to hunt down and kill.”

Kelsier nodded, then he smiled, eyeing Sazed. “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to convert.”

“My apologies, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said, “but the religion does not suit you, I think. It has a level of brashness that you might find appealing, but you would find the theology simplistic.”

“You’re getting to know me too well,” Kelsier said, still regarding the city. “In the end, after kingdoms and armies had fallen, the religions were still fighting, weren’t they?”

“Indeed,” Sazed said. “Some of the more resilient religions lasted all the way until the fifth century.”

“What made them so strong?” Kelsier said. “How did they do it, Saze? What gave these theologies such power over people?”

“It wasn’t any one thing, I think,” Sazed said. “Some were strong through honest faith, others because of the hope they promised. Others were coercive.”

“But they all had passion,” Kelsier said.

“Yes, Master Kelsier,” Sazed said with a nod. “That is a quite true statement.”

“That’s what we’ve lost,” Kelsier said, looking over the city with its hundreds of thousands, barely a handful of whom would dare fight. “They don’t have faith in the Lord Ruler, they simply fear him. They don’t have anything left to believe in.”

“What do you believe in, if I may ask, Master Kelsier?”

Kelsier raised an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly sure yet,” he admitted. “But overthrowing the Final Empire seems like a good start. Are there any religions on your list that include the slaughter of noblemen as a holy duty?”

Sazed frowned disapprovingly. “I do not believe so, Master Kelsier.”

“Maybe I should found one,” Kelsier said with an idle smile. “Anyway, have Breeze and Vin returned yet?”

“They arrived just before I came up here.”

“Good,” Kelsier said with a nod. “Tell them I’ll be down in a moment.”