Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(125)
Still, the Lord Ruler’s story reminded Kelsier of the legends he had heard—stories whispered by skaa, discussed by noblemen, and memorized by Keepers. They claimed that once, before the Ascension, the Lord Ruler had been the greatest of men. A beloved leader, a man entrusted with the fate of all mankind.
Unfortunately, Kelsier knew how the story ended. The Final Empire itself was the logbook’s legacy. The Lord Ruler hadn’t saved mankind; he had enslaved it instead. Reading a ?rsthand account, seeing the Lord Ruler’s self-doubt and internal struggles, only made the story that much more tragic.
Kelsier raised the booklet to continue; however, his boat began to slow. He glanced out the window of his cabin, looking up the canal. Dozens of men trudged along the towpath— a small road alongside the canal—pulling the four barges and two narrowboats that made up their convoy. It was an ef?cient, if labor-intensive, way to travel; men pulling a barge across a canal could move hundreds more pounds of weight than they could if forced to carry packs.
The men had pulled to a stop, however. Ahead, Kelsier could make out a lock mechanism, beyond which the canal split into two sections. A kind of crossroads of waterways. Finally, Kelsier thought. His weeks of travel were over.
Kelsier didn’t wait for a messenger. He simply stepped out onto the deck of his narrowboat and slipped a few coins from his pouch into his hand. Time to be a bit ostentatious, he thought, dropping a coin to the wood. He burned steel and Pushed himself into the air.
He lurched upward at an angle, quickly gaining a height where he could see the entire line of men—half pulling the boats, half walking and waiting for their shifts. Kelsier ?ew in an arc, dropping another coin as he passed over one of the supply-laden barges, then Pushing against it when he began to descend. Would-be soldiers looked up, pointing in awe as Kelsier soared above the canal.
Kelsier burned pewter, strengthening his body as he thumped to the deck of the narrowboat leading the caravan.
Yeden stepped out of his cabin, surprised. “Lord Kelsier! We’ve, uh, arrived at the crossroads.”
“I can see that,” Kelsier said, glancing back along the line of boats. The men on the towpath spoke excitedly, pointing. It felt strange to use Allomancy so obviously in the daylight, and before so many people.
There’s no help for it, he thought. This visit is the last chance the men will have to see me for months. I need to make an impression, give them something they can hold on to, if this is all going to work….
“Shall we go see if the group from the caves has arrived to meet us?” Kelsier asked, turning back to Yeden.
“Of course,” Yeden said, waving for a servant to pull his narrowboat up to the side of the canal and throw out the plank. Yeden looked excited; he really was an earnest man, and that much Kelsier could respect, even if he was a bit lacking in presence.
Most of my life, I’ve had the opposite problem, Kelsier thought with amusement, walking with Yeden off of the boat.
Too much presence, not enough earnestness.
The two of them walked up the line of canal workers. Near the front of the men, one of Ham’s Thugs—playing the part of Kelsier’s guard captain—saluted. “We’ve reached the crossroads, Lord Kelsier.”
“I can see that,” Kelsier repeated. A dense stand of birch trees grew ahead, running up a slope into the hills. The canals ran away from the woods—there were better sources of wood in other parts of the Final Empire. The forest stood alone and ignored by most.
Kelsier burned tin, wincing slightly at the suddenly blinding sunlight. His eyes adjusted, however, and he was able to pick out detail—and a slight bit of motion—in the forest.
“There,” he said, ?ipping a coin into the air, then Pushing it. The coin zipped forward and thocked against a tree. The prearranged sign given, a small group of camou?aged men left the tree line, crossing the ash-stained earth toward the canal.
“Lord Kelsier,” the foremost man said, saluting. “My name is Captain Demoux. Please, gather the recruits and come with me—General Hammond is eager to meet with you.”
“Captain” Demoux was a young man to be so disciplined. Barely into his twenties, he led his small squad of men with a level of solemnity that might have seemed self-important had he been any less competent.
Younger men than he have led soldiers into battle, Kelsier thought. Just because I was a fop when I was that age doesn’t mean that everyone is. Look at poor Vin—only sixteen, already a match for Marsh in seriousness.
They took a roundabout passage through the forest—by Ham’s order, each troop took a different path to avoid wearing a trail. Kelsier glanced back at the two hundred or so men behind, frowning slightly. Their trail would probably still be visible, but there was little he could do about that—the movements of so many men would be nearly impossible to mask.
Demoux slowed, waving, and several members of his squad scrambled forward; they didn’t have half their leader’s sense of military decorum. Still, Kelsier was impressed. The last time he’d visited, the men had been typically ragtag and uncoordinated, like most skaa outcasts. Ham and his of?cers had done their work well.
The soldiers pulled away some false underbrush, revealing a crack in the ground. It was dark within, the sides jutting with crystalline granite. It wasn’t a regular hillside cavern, but instead a simple rend in the ground leading directly down.