Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

He stopped near a large, whitewashed garden veranda that sat beside a small reflecting pool. Then, he heaved the sack off his shoulder and dumped its contents—a freshly killed corpse—onto the ground.

The body—which had belonged to one Lord Charrs Entrone—rolled to a stop with its face in the dirt, twin dagger wounds glistening in its back. Kelsier had ambushed the half-drunken man on a street just outside of a skaa slum, ridding the world of another nobleman. Lord Entrone, in particular, would not be missed—he was infamous for his twisted sense of pleasure. Skaa bloodfights, for instance, were a particular enjoyment of his. That was where he had spent this evening.

Entrone had, not coincidentally, been a major political ally of House Tekiel. Kelsier left the corpse sitting in its own blood. The gardeners would locate it first—and once the servants knew about the death, no amount of noble obstinacy would keep it quiet. The murder would cause an outcry, and immediate blame would probably be placed upon House Izenry, House Tekiel’s rival. However, Entrone’s suspiciously unexpected death might make House Tekiel wary. If they began poking around, they would find that Entrone’s gambling opponent at the night’s bloodfight had been Crews Geffenry—a man whose house had been petitioning the Tekiels for a stronger alliance. Crews was a known Mistborn, and a very competent knife-fighter.

And so, the intrigue would begin. Had House Izenry done the murder? Or, perhaps, had the death been an attempt by House Geffenry to push Tekiel into a higher state of alarm—thereby encouraging them to seek allies among the lesser nobility? Or, was there a third answer—a house that wanted to strengthen the rivalry between Tekiel and Izenry?

Kelsier hopped off the garden wall, scratching at the fake beard he wore. It didn’t really matter whom House Tekiel decided to blame; Kelsier’s real purpose was to make them question and worry, to make them mistrust and misunderstand. Chaos was his strongest ally in fostering a house war. When that war finally came, each noblemen killed would be one less person that the skaa would have to face in their rebellion.

As soon as Kelsier got a short distance from Keep Tekiel, he flipped a coin and went to the rooftops. Occasionally, he wondered what the people in the houses beneath him thought, hearing footsteps from above. Did they know that Mistborn found their homes a convenient highway, a place where they could move without being bothered by guards or thieves? Or, did the people attribute the knockings to the ever-blamable mistwraiths?

They probably don’t even notice. Sane people are asleep when the mists come out. He landed on a peaked roof, retrieved his pocket watch from a nook to check the time, then stowed it—and the dangerous metal from which it was made—away again. Many nobility blatantly wore metal, a foolish form of bravado. The habit had been inherited directly from the Lord Ruler. Kelsier, however, didn’t like carrying any metal—watch, ring, or bracelet—on him that he didn’t have to.

He launched himself into the air again, making his way toward the Sootwarrens, a skaa slum on the far northern side of town. Luthadel was an enormous, sprawling city; every few decades or so, new sections were added, the city wall expanded through the sweat and effort of skaa labor. With the advent of the modern canal era, stone was growing relatively cheap and easy to move.

I wonder why he even bothers with the wall, Kelsier thought, moving along rooftops parallel to the massive structure. Who would attack? The Lord Ruler controls everything. Not even the western isles resist anymore.

There hadn’t been a true war in the Final Empire for centuries. The occasional “rebellion” consisted of nothing more than a few thousand men hiding in hills or caves, coming out for periodic raids. Even Yeden’s rebellion wouldn’t rely much on force—they were counting on the chaos of a house war, mixed with the strategic misdirection of the Luthadel Garrison, to give them an opening. If it came down to an extended campaign, Kelsier would lose. The Lord Ruler and the Steel Ministry could marshal literally millions of troops if the need arose.

Of course, there was his other plan. Kelsier didn’t speak of it, he barely even dared consider it. He probably wouldn’t even have an opportunity to implement it. But, if the opportunity did arrive . . .

He dropped to the ground just outside of the Sootwarrens, then pulled his mistcloak tight and walked along the street with a confident step. His contact sat in the doorway of a closed shop, puffing quietly on a pipe. Kelsier raised an eyebrow; tobacco was an expensive luxury. Hoid was either very wasteful, or he was just as successful as Dockson implied.

Hoid calmly put away the pipe, then climbed to his feet—though that didn’t make him much taller. The scrawny bald man bowed deeply in the misty night. “Greetings, my lord.”

Kelsier paused in front of the man, arms tucked carefully inside his mistcloak. It wouldn’t do for a street informant to realize that the unidentified “nobleman” he was meeting with had the scars of Hathsin on his arms.

“You come highly recommended,” Kelsier said, mimicking the haughty accent of a nobleman.

“I am one of the best, my lord.”

Anyone who can survive as long as you have must be good, Kelsier thought. Lords didn’t like the idea of other men knowing their secrets. Informants generally didn’t live very long.

“I need to know something, informant,” Kelsier said. “But first you must vow never to speak of this meeting to anyone.”

“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said. He’d likely break the promise before the night was out—another reason informants didn’t tend to live very long. “There is, however, the matter of payment. . . .”

“You’ll have your money, skaa,” Kelsier snapped.

“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said with a quick bob of the head. “You requested information regarding House Renoux, I believe. . . .”

“Yes. What is known about it? Which houses is it aligned with? I must know these things.”

“There isn’t really much to know, my lord,” Hoid said. “Lord Renoux is very new to the area, and he is a careful man. He’s making neither allies nor enemies at the moment—he’s buying a large number of weapons and armor, but is probably just purchasing from a wide variety of houses and merchants, thereby ingratiating himself to them all. A wise tactic. He will, perhaps, have an excess of merchandise, but he will also have an excess of friends, yes?”

Kelsier snorted. “I don’t see why I should pay you for that.”

“He’ll have too much merchandise, my lord,” Hoid said quickly. “You could make a clever profit, knowing that Renoux is shipping at a loss.”

“I’m no merchant, skaa,” Kelsier said. “I don’t care about profits and shipping!” Let him chew on that. Now he thinks I’m of a Great House—of course, if he hadn’t suspected that because of the mistcloak, then he doesn’t deserve his reputation.

“Of course, my lord,” Hoid said quickly. “There is more, of course. . . .”

Ah, and here we see it. Does the street know that House Renoux is connected to the rumblings of rebellion? If anyone had discovered that secret, then Kelsier’s crew was in serious jeopardy.

Hoid coughed quietly, holding out his hand.

“Insufferable man!” Kelsier snapped, tossing a pouch at Hoid’s feet.

“Yes, my lord,” Hoid said, falling to his knees and searching about with his hand. “I apologize, my lord. My eyesight is weak, you know. I can barely see my own fingers held in front of my face.”