Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(30)

“No,” Kelsier said. “If I can, I’m going to kill him too.”

Silence.

“Kelsier,” Ham said slowly. “The Lord Ruler is the Sliver of In?nity. He’s a piece of God Himself. You can’t kill him. Even capturing him will probably prove impossible.”

Kelsier didn’t reply. His eyes, however, were determined.

That’s it, Vin thought. He has to be insane.

“The Lord Ruler and I,” Kelsier said quietly, “we have an unsettled debt. He took Mare from me, and he nearly took my own sanity as well. I’ll admit to you all that part of my reason for this plan is to get revenge on him. We’re going to take his government, his home, and his fortune from him.

“However, for that to work, we’ll have to get rid of him. Perhaps imprison him in his own dungeons—at the very least, we’ll have to get him out of the city. However, I can think of something far better than either option. Down those pits where he sent me, I Snapped and came to an awakening of my Allomantic powers. Now I intend to use them to kill him.”

Kelsier reached into his suit pocket and pulled something out. He set it on the table.

“In the north, they have a legend,” Kelsier said. “It teaches that the Lord Ruler isn’t immortal—not completely. They say he can be killed with the right metal. The Eleventh Metal. That metal.”

Eyes turned toward the object on the table. It was a thin bar of metal, perhaps as long and wide as Vin’s small ?nger, with straight sides. It was silvery white in color.

“The Eleventh Metal?” Breeze asked uncertainly. “I’ve heard of no such legend.”

“The Lord Ruler has suppressed it,” Kelsier said. “But it can still be found, if you know where to look. Allomantic theory teaches of ten metals: the eight basic metals, and the two high metals. There is another one, however, unknown to most. One far more powerful, even, than the other ten.”

Breeze frowned skeptically.

Yeden, however, appeared intrigued. “And, this metal can somehow kill the Lord Ruler?”

Kelsier nodded. “It’s his weakness. The Steel Ministry wants you to believe that he’s immortal, but even he can be killed—by an Allomancer burning this.”

Ham reached out, picking up the thin bar of metal. “Where did you get it?”

“In the north,” Kelsier said. “In a land near the Far Peninsula, a land where people still remember what their old kingdom was called in the days before the Ascension.”

“How does it work?” Breeze asked.

“I’m not sure,” Kelsier said frankly. “But I intend to ?nd out.”

Ham regarded the porcelain-colored metal, turning it over his ?ngers.

Kill the Lord Ruler? Vin thought. The Lord Ruler was a force, like the winds or the mists. One did not kill such things. They didn’t live, really. They simply were.

“Regardless,” Kelsier said, accepting the metal back from Ham, “you don’t need to worry about this. Killing the Lord Ruler is my task. If it proves impossible, we’ll settle for tricking him outside of the city, then robbing him silly. I just thought that you should know what I’m planning.”

I’ve bound myself to a madman, Vin thought with resignation. But that didn’t really matter—not as long as he taught her Allomancy.

I don’t even understand what I’m supposed to do. The Terris philosophers claim that I’ll know my duty when the time comes, but that’s a small comfort.

The Deepness must be destroyed, and apparently I’m the only one who can do so. It ravages the world even now. If I don’t stop it soon, there will be nothing left of this land but bones and dust.

5

“AHA!” KELSIER’S TRIUMPHANT FIGURE POPPED up from behind Camon’s bar, a look of satisfaction on his face. He brought his arm up and thunked a dusty wine bottle down on the countertop.

Dockson looked over with amusement. “Where’d you ?nd it?”

“One of the secret drawers,” Kelsier said, dusting off the bottle.

“I thought I’d found all of those,” Dockson said.

“You did. One of them had a false back.”

Dockson chuckled. “Clever.”

Kelsier nodded, unstoppering the bottle and pouring out three cups. “The trick is to never stop looking. There’s always another secret.” He gathered up the three cups and walked over to join Vin and Dockson at the table.

Vin accepted her cup with a tentative hand. The meeting had ended a short time earlier, Breeze, Ham, and Yeden leaving to ponder the things Kelsier had told them. Vin felt that she should have left as well, but she had nowhere to go. Dockson and Kelsier seemed to take it for granted that she would remain with them.

Kelsier took a long sip of the rubicund wine, then smiled. “Ah, that’s much better.”

Dockson nodded in agreement, but Vin didn’t taste her own drink.

“We’re going to need another Smoker,” Dockson noted.

Kelsier nodded. “The others seemed to take it well, though.”

“Breeze is still uncertain,” Dockson said.

“He won’t back out. Breeze likes a challenge, and he’ll never ?nd a challenge greater than this one.” Kelsier smiled. “Besides, it’d drive him insane to know that we were pulling a job that he wasn’t in on.”