Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(159)
Four more deaths.
Vin searched the bleachers with urgent, tin-enhanced eyes. She found Elend sitting amid a group of younger men. None of them were laughing, and they weren’t the only ones. True, many of the nobility made light of the experience, but there were some small minority who looked horri?ed.
Kelsier continued. “Breeze, you asked about the atium. I’ll be honest. It was never my main goal—I gathered this crew because I wanted to change things. We’ll grab the atium— we’ll need it to support a new government—but this job isn’t about making me, or any of you, wealthy.
“Yeden is dead. He was our excuse—a way that we could do something good while still pretending to just be thieves. Now that he’s gone, you can give up, if you want. Quit. But, that won’t change anything. The struggle will go on. Men will still die. You’ll just be ignoring it.”
Four more deaths.
“It’s time to stop the charade,” Kelsier said, staring at them each in turn. “If we’re going to do this now, we have to be up-front and honest with ourselves. We have to admit that it isn’t about money. It’s about stopping that.” He pointed at the courtyard with its red fountains—a visible sign of death for the thousands of skaa too far away to even tell what was happening.
“I intend to continue my ?ght,” Kelsier said quietly. “I realize that some of you question my leadership. You think I’ve been building myself up too much with the skaa. You whisper that I’m making myself into another Lord Ruler—you think that my ego is more important to me than overthrowing the empire.”
He paused, and Vin saw guilt in the eyes of Dockson and the others. Spook rejoined the group, still looking a bit sick.
Four more deaths.
“You’re wrong,” Kelsier said quietly. “You have to trust me. You gave me your con?dence when we began this plan, despite how dangerous things seemed. I still need that con?dence! No matter how things appear, no matter how terrible the odds, we have to keep ?ghting!”
Four more deaths.
The crew slowly turned toward Kelsier. Resisting the Lord Ruler’s Pushing on their emotions didn’t seem like half as much a struggle for Kelsier anymore, though Vin had let her zinc lapse.
Maybe… maybe he can do it, Vin thought, despite herself. If there was ever a man who could defeat the Lord Ruler, it would be Kelsier.
“I didn’t choose you men because of your competence,” Kelsier said, “though you are certainly skilled. I chose each of you speci?cally because I knew you to be men of conscience. Ham, Breeze, Dox, Clubs…you are men with reputations for honesty, even charity. I knew that if I were going to succeed at this plan, I would need men who actually cared.
“No, Breeze, this isn’t about boxings or about glory. This is about war—a war we have been ?ghting for a thousand years, a war I intend to end. You may go, if you wish. You know I’ll let any of you out—no questions asked, no repercussions exacted—if you wish to go.
“However,” he said, eyes growing hard, “if you stay, you have to promise to stop questioning my authority. You can voice concerns about the job itself, but there will be no more whispered conferences about my leadership. If you stay, you follow me. Understood?”
One by one, he locked eyes with the crewmembers. Each one gave him a nod.
“I don’t think we ever really questioned you, Kell,” Dockson said. “We just…we’re worried, and I think rightly so. The army was a big part of our plans.”
Kelsier nodded to the north, toward the main city gates. “What do you see up in the distance, Dox?”
“The city gates?”
“And what is different about them recently?”
Dockson shrugged. “Nothing unusual. They’re a bit understaffed, but—”
“Why?” Kelsier interjected. “Why are they understaffed?”
Dockson paused. “Because the Garrison is gone?”
“Exactly,” Kelsier said. “Ham says that the Garrison could be out chasing remnants of our army for months, and only about ten percent of its men stayed behind. That makes sense—stopping rebels is the sort of thing the Garrison was created to do. Luthadel might be exposed, but no one ever attacks Luthadel. No one ever has.”
A quiet understanding passed between the members of the crew.
“Part one of our plan to take the city has been accomplished,” Kelsier said. “We got the Garrison out of Luthadel. It cost us far more than we expected—far more than it should have. I wish to the Forgotten Gods that those boys hadn’t died. Unfortunately, we can’t change that now—we can only use the opening they gave us.
“The plan is still in motion—the main peacekeeping force in the city is gone. If a house war starts in earnest, the Lord Ruler will have a dif?cult time stopping it. Assuming he wants to. For some reason, he tends to step back and let the nobility ?ght each other every hundred years or so. Perhaps he ?nds that letting them at each other’s throats keeps them away from his own.”
“But, what if the Garrison comes back?” Ham asked.
“If I’m right,” Kelsier said, “the Lord Ruler will let them chase stragglers from our army for several months, giving the nobility a chance to blow off a little steam. Except, he’s going to get a lot more than he expected. When that house war starts, we’re going to use the chaos to seize the palace.”