Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(113)
Fortunately, Kelsier didn’t need to test Tekiel’s defenses this night. Instead, he crept along the wall toward the outer grounds. He paused near the garden well, and—burning bronze to make certain no Allomancers were near—reached into a stand of bushes to retrieve a large sack. It was heavy enough that he had to burn pewter to pull it free and throw it over his shoulder. He paused in the night for a moment, straining for sounds in the mist, then hauled the sack back toward the keep.
He stopped near a large, whitewashed garden veranda that sat beside a small re?ecting 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 blood?ghts, 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 ?rst—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 ?nd that Entrone’s gambling opponent at the night’s blood?ght 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-?ghter.
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 ?nally 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 ?ipped 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 con?dent step. His contact sat in the doorway of a closed shop, puf?ng 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 unidenti?ed “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.