Part 20 (1/2)
”We are well, Master Keeper,” said one of the others. He was the youngest of the elders, and he was only a few years younger than Sazed. Most of the men here were far older-and far wiser-than he. That they should look to him seemed wrong.
”Will you not reconsider your place with us, Master Keeper?” asked another. ”We want not for food or for land. Yet, what we do lack is a leader.”
”The Terris people were oppressed long enough, I think,” Sazed said. ”You have no need for another tyrant king.”
”Not a tyrant,” one said. ”One of our own.”
”The Lord Ruler was one of our own,” Sazed said quietly, The group of men looked down. That the Lord Ruler had proven to be Terris was a shame to all of their people.
”We need someone to guide us,” one of the men said. ”Even during the days of the Lord Ruler, he was not our leader. We looked to the Keeper Synod.”
The Keeper Synod-the clandestine leaders of Sazed's sect. They had led the Terris people for centuries, secretly working to make certain that Feruchemy continued, despite the Lord Ruler's attempts to breed the power out of the people.
”Master Keeper,” said Master Vedlew, senior of the elders.
”Yes, Master Vedlew?”
”You do not wear your copperminds.”
Sazed looked down. He hadn't realized it was noticeable that, beneath his robes, he wasn't wearing the metal bracers. ”They are in my pack.”
”It seems odd, to me,” Vedlew said, ”that you should work so hard during the Lord Ruler's time, always wearing your metalminds in secret, despite the danger. Yet, now that you are free to do as you wish, you carry them in your pack.”
Sazed shook his head. ”I cannot be the man you wish me to be. Not right now.”
”You are a Keeper.”
”I was the lowest of them,” Sazed said. ”A rebel and a reject. They cast me from their presence. The last time I left Tathingdwen, I did so in disgrace. The common people cursed me in the quiet of their homes.”
”Now they bless you, Master Sazed,” said one of the men.
”I do not deserve those blessings.”
”Deserve them or not, you are all we have left.”
”Then we are a sorrier people than we may appear.”
The room fell silent.
”There was another reason why I came here, Master Vedlew,” Sazed said, looking up. ”Tell me, have any of your people died recently in . . . odd circ.u.mstances?”
”Of what do you speak?” the aged Terrisman asked.
”Mist deaths,” Sazed said. ”Men who are killed by simply going out into the mists during the day.”
”That is a tale of the skaa,” one of the other men scoffed. ”The mists are not dangerous.”
”Indeed,” Sazed said carefully. ”Do you send your people out to work in them during the daylight hours, when the mists have not yet retreated for the day?”
”Of course we do,” said the younger Terrisman. ”Why, it would be foolish to let those hours of work pa.s.s.”
Sazed found it difficult not to let his curiosity work on that fact. Terrismen weren't killed by the daymists.
What was the connection?
He tried to summon the mental energy to think on the issue, but he felt traitorously apathetic. He just wanted to hide somewhere where n.o.body would expect anything of him. Where he wouldn't have to solve the problems of the world, or even deal with his own religious crisis.
He almost did just that. And yet, a little part of him-a spark from before-refused to simply give up. He would at least continue his research, and would do what Elend and Vin asked of him. It wasn't all all he could do, and it wouldn't satisfy the Terrismen who sat here, looking at him with needful expressions. he could do, and it wouldn't satisfy the Terrismen who sat here, looking at him with needful expressions.
But, for the moment, it was all Sazed could offer. To stay at the Pits would be to surrender, he knew. He needed to keep moving, keep working.
”I'm sorry,” he said to the men, setting aside the ledger. ”But this is how it must be.”
During the early days of Kelsier's original plan, I remember how much he confused us all with his mysterious ”Eleventh Metal.” He claimed that there were legends of a mystical metal that would let one slay the Lord Ruler-and that Kelsier himself had located that metal through intense research.
n.o.body really knew what Kelsier did in the years between his escape from the Pits of Hathsin and his return to Luthadel. When pressed, he simply said that he had been in ”the West.” Somehow in his wanderings he discovered stories that no Keeper had ever heard. Most of the crew didn't know what to make of the legends he spoke of. This might have been the first seed that made even his oldest friends begin to question his leaders.h.i.+p.
23.
IN THE EASTERN LANDS, near the wastelands of grit and sand, a young boy fell to the ground inside a skaa shack. It was many years before the Collapse, and the Lord Ruler still lived. Not that the boy knew of such things. He was a dirty, ragged thing-like most other skaa children in the Final Empire. Too young to be put to work in the mines, he spent his days ducking away from his mother's care and running about with the packs of children who foraged in the dry, dusty streets. near the wastelands of grit and sand, a young boy fell to the ground inside a skaa shack. It was many years before the Collapse, and the Lord Ruler still lived. Not that the boy knew of such things. He was a dirty, ragged thing-like most other skaa children in the Final Empire. Too young to be put to work in the mines, he spent his days ducking away from his mother's care and running about with the packs of children who foraged in the dry, dusty streets.
Spook hadn't been that boy for some ten years. In a way, he was aware that he was delusional-that the fever of his wounds was causing him to come in and out of consciousness, dreams of the past filling his mind. He let them run. Staying focused required too much energy.
And so, he remembered what it felt like as he hit the ground. A large man-all men were large compared with Spook-stood over him, skin dirtied with the dust and grime of a miner. The man spat on the dirty floor beside Spook, then turned to the other skaa in the room. There were many. One was crying, the tears leaving lines of cleanliness on her cheeks, was.h.i.+ng away the dust.
”All right,” the large man said. ”We have him. Now what?”
The people glanced at each other. One quietly closed the shack's door, shutting out the red sunlight.
”There's only one thing to be done,” another man said. ”We turn him in.”
Spook looked up. He met the eyes of the crying woman. She looked away. ”Wasing the where of what?” Spook demanded.
The large man spat again, setting a boot against Spook's neck, pus.h.i.+ng him back down against the rough wood. ”You shouldn't have let him run around with those street gangs, Margel. d.a.m.n boy is barely coherent now.”
”What happens if we give him up?” asked one of the other men. ”I mean, what if they decide that we're like him? They could have us us executed! I've seen it before. You turn someone in, and those . . . things come searching for everyone that knew him.” executed! I've seen it before. You turn someone in, and those . . . things come searching for everyone that knew him.”
”Problems like his run in the family, they do,” another man said.
The room grew quiet. They all knew about Spook's family.