The Hero of Ages

Yet, during those months, she had been content. Perhaps more content than any other time in her life. She loved Elend, and was glad life had progressed to the point where she could call him husband, but there had been a delicious innocence about her early days with the crew. Dances spent with Elend reading at her table, pretending to ignore her. Nights spent learning the secrets of Allomancy. Evenings spent sitting around the table at Clubs's shop, sharing laughter with the crew. They'd faced the challenge of planning something as large as the fall of an empire, yet felt no burden of leadership or weight of responsibility for the fut1ure.



Somehow, she had grown into a woman in between the fall of kings and collapse of worlds. Once she had been terrified of change. Then she had been terrified of losing Elend. Now her fears were more nebulous—worries of what would come after she was gone, worries of what would happen to the people of the empire if she failed to divine the secrets she sought.



She turned from her contemplation of the large, castle-like keep, Pushing herself off of a chimney brace and into the night. Attending those balls in Luthadel had changed her dramatically, leaving a residual effect that she'd never been able to shake. Something within her had responded instantly to the dancing and the parties. For the longest time, she'd struggled to understand how that part of her fit into the rest of her life. She still wasn't certain she knew the answer. Was Valette Renoux—the girl she had pretended to be at the balls—really a part of Vin, or just a fabrication devised to serve Kelsier's plot?



Vin bounded across the city, making cursory notes of fortifications and troop placements. Ham and Demoux would probably find a way to get true military spies into the city eventually, but they'd want to hear preliminary information from Vin. She also made note of living conditions. Elend had hoped that the city would be struggling, a factor that his siege would exacerbate, making Lord Yomen more likely to capitulate.



She found no obvious signs of mass starvation or disrepair—though it was difficult to tell much at night. Still, the city streets were kept swept of ash, and a remarkable number of the noble homes appeared occupied. She would have expected the noble population to be the first to bolt at news of an approaching army.



Frowning to herself, Vin completed her loop of the city, landing in a particular square that Cett had suggested. The mansions here were separated from each other by large grounds and cultivated trees; she walked along the street, counting them off. At the fourth mansion, she leaped up and over the gate, then moved up the hill to the house.



She wasn't certain what she expected to find—Cett had been absent from the city for two years, after all. Yet, he'd indicated that this informant was the most likely to be of help. True to Cett's instructions, the rear balcony of the mansion was lit. Vin waited in the darkness suspiciously, the mist cold and unfriendly, yet providing cover. She didn't trust Cett—she worried that he still bore her a grudge for her attack on his keep in Luthadel a year before. Wary, she dropped a coin and launched herself into the air.



A lone figure sat on the balcony, fitting the description in Cett's instructions. Those same instructions gave this informant the nickname Slowswift. The old man appeared to be reading by the light of a lamp. Vin frowned, but as instructed, she landed on the balcony railing, crouching beside a ladder that would have allowed a more mundane visitor to approach.



The old man did not look up from his book. He puffed quietly on a pipe, a thick woolen blanket across his knees. Vin wasn't certain if he noticed her or not. She cleared her throat.



"Yes, yes," the old man said calmly. "I shall be with you in a moment."



Vin cocked her head, looking at the strange man with his bushy eyebrows and frosty white hair. He was dressed in a nobleman's suit, with a scarf and an overcoat that bore an oversized fur collar. He appeared to be completely unconcerned by the Mistborn crouching on his railing. Eventually, the elderly man closed his book, then turned toward her. "Do you enjoy stories, young lady?"



"What kind of stories?"



"The best kind, of course," Slowswift said, tapping his book. "The kind about monsters and myths. Longtales, some call them—stories told by skaa around the fires, whispering of mistwraiths, sprites, and brollins and such."



"I don't have much time for stories," Vin said.



"Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days." A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. "It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it. It's not a very nice place these days."



Vin did a quick check with bronze, but the man burned nothing. What was his game? "I was told that you could give me information," she said carefully.



"That I can certainly do," the man said. Then he smiled, glancing at her. "I have a wealth of information—though somehow I suspect that you might find most of it useless."



"I'll listen to a story, if that's what it will cost."



The man chuckled. "There's no surer way to kill a story than to make it a 'cost,' young lady. What is your name, and who sent you?"



"Vin Venture," Vin said. "Cett gave me your name."



"Ah," the man said. "That scoundrel still alive?"



"Yes."



"Well, I suppose I could chat with someone sent by an old writing friend. Come down off that railing—you're giving me vertigo."



Vin climbed down, wary. "Writing friend?"



"Cett is one of the finest poets I know, child," said Slowswift, waving her toward a chair. "We shared our work with one another for a good decade or so before politics stole him away. He didn't like stories either. To him, everything had to be gritty and 'real,' even his poetry. Seems like an attitude with which you'd agree."



Vin shrugged, sitting in the indicated chair. "I suppose."



"I find that ironic in a way you shall never understand," the old man said, smiling. "Now, what is it you wish of me?"



"I need to know about Yomen, the obligator king."



"He's a good man."



Vin frowned.



"Oh," Slowswift said. "You didn't expect that? Everyone who is your enemy must also be an evil person?"



"No," Vin said, thinking back to the days before the fall of the Final Empire. "I ended up marrying someone my friends would have named an enemy."



"Ah. Well then, Yomen is a fine man, and a decent king. A fair bit better a king than Cett ever was, I'd say. My old friend tries too hard, and that makes him brutal. He doesn't have the subtle touch that a leader needs."



"What has Yomen done that is so good, then?" Vin asked.



"He kept the city from falling apart," Slowswift said, puffing on his pipe. The smoke mixed with the swirling mists. "Plus, he gave both nobility and skaa what they wanted."



"Which was?"



"Stability, child. For a time, the world was in turmoil—neither skaa nor nobleman knew his place. Society was collapsing, and people were starving. Cett did little to stop that—he fought constantly to keep what he'd killed to obtain. Then1 Yomen stepped in. People saw authority in him. Before the Collapse, the Lord Ruler's Ministry had ruled, and the people were ready to accept an obligator as a leader. Yomen immediately took control of the plantations and brought food to his people, then he returned the factories to operation, started work in the Fadrex mines again, and gave the nobility a semblance of normalcy."



Vin sat quietly. Before, it might have seemed incredible to her that—after a thousand years of oppression—the people would willingly return to slavery. Yet, something similar had happened in Luthadel. They had ousted Elend, who had granted them great freedoms, and had put Penrod in charge—all because he promised them a return to what they had lost.



"Yomen is an obligator," she said.



"People like what is familiar, child."



"They're oppressed."



"Someone must lead," the old man said. "And, someone must follow. That is the way of things. Yomen has given the people something they've been crying for since the Collapse—identity. The skaa may work, they may be beaten, they may be enslaved, but they know their place. The nobility may spend their time going to balls, but there is an order to life again."



"Balls?" Vin asked. "The world is ending, and Yomen is throwing balls?"



"Of course," Slowswift said, taking a long, slow puff on his pipe. "Yomen rules by maintaining the familiar. He gives the people what they had before—and balls were a large part of life before the Collapse, even in a smaller city like Fadrex. Why, there is one happening tonight, at Keep Orielle."



"On the very day an army arrived to besiege the city?"



"You just pointed out that the world seems very close to disaster," the old man said, pointing at her with his pipe. "In the face of that, an army doesn't mean much. Plus, Yomen understands something even the Lord Ruler didn't—Yomen always personally attends the balls thrown by his subjects. In doing so, he comforts and reassures them. That makes a day like this, when an army arrived, a perfect day for a ball."



Vin sat back, uncertain what to think. Of all the things she had expected to find in the city, courtly balls were very low on the list. "So," she said. "What's Yomen's weakness? Is there something in his past that we can use? What quirks of personality make him vulnerable? Where should we strike?"



Slowswift puffed quietly on his pipe, a breeze blowing mist and ash across his elderly figure.



"Well?" Vin asked.



The old man let out a breath of mist and smoke. "I just told you that I like the man, child. What would possess me to give you information to use against him?"



"You're an informant," Vin said. "That's what you do—sell information."



"I'm a storyteller," Slowswift corrected. "And not every story is meant for every set of ears. Why should I talk to those who would attack my city and overthrow my liege?"



"We'd give you a powerful position in the city once it is ours."



Slowswift snorted quietly. "If you think such things would interest me, then Cett obviously told you little regarding my temperament."



"We could pay you well."



"I sell information, child. Not my soul."



"You're not being very 1helpful," Vin noted.



"And tell me, dear child," he said, smiling slightly. "Why exactly should I care?"



Vin frowned. This is, she thought, undoubtedly the strangest informant meeting I've ever been to.



Slowswift puffed on his pipe. He didn't appear to be waiting for her to say anything. In fact, he seemed to think the conversation was over.



He's a nobleman, Vin thought. He likes the way that the world used to be. It was comfortable. Even skaa fear change.



Vin stood. "I'll tell you why you should care, old man. Because the ash is falling, and soon it will cover up your pretty little city. The mists kill. Earthquakes shake the landscape, and the ashmounts burn hotter and hotter. Change is looming. Eventually, even Yomen won't be able to ignore it. You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same—and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead." She turned to leave.

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