“I’m sorry, Mistress,” OreSeur said, speaking low enough that only she could hear. “I assumed that you were going to dispose of these.”
Vin nodded. The skeleton was, of course, the one OreSeur had been using before she gave him the animal body. Finding the door unlocked—Vin’s usual sign that she wanted a room cleaned—the maids had entered. Vin had stashed the bones in a basket, intending to deal with them later. Apparently, the maids had decided to check and see what was in the basket, and been somewhat surprised.
“It’s all right, Captain,” Elend said to the young guard—Captain Demoux, second-in-command of the palace guard. Despite the fact that Ham shunned uniforms, this man seemed to take great pride in keeping his own uniform very neat and smart.
“You did well by keeping this quiet,” Elend said. “We knew about these bones already. They aren’t a reason for concern.”
Demoux nodded. “We figured it was something intentional.” He didn’t look at Vin as he spoke.
Intentional, Vin thought. Great. I wonder what this man thinks I did. Few skaa knew what kandra were, and Demoux wouldn’t know what to make of remains like these.
“Could you dispose of these quietly for me, Captain?” Elend asked, nodding to the bones.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” the guard said.
He probably assumes I ate the person or something, Vin thought with a sigh. Sucked the flesh right off his bones.
Which, actually, wasn’t that far from the truth.
“Your Majesty,” Demoux said. “Would you like us to dispose of the other body as well?”
Vin froze.
“Other one?” Elend asked slowly.
The guard nodded. “When we found this skeleton, we brought in some dogs to sniff about. The dogs didn’t turn up any killers, but they did find another body. Just like this one—a set of bones, completely cleaned of flesh.”
Vin and Elend shared a look. “Show us,” Elend said.
Demoux nodded, and led them out of the room, giving a few whispered orders to one of his men. The four of them—three humans and one kandra—traveled a short distance down the palace hallway, toward a less used section of visitors’ chambers. Demoux dismissed a soldier standing at a particular door, then led them inside.
“This body wasn’t in a basket, Your Majesty,” Demoux said. “It was stuffed in a back closet. We’d probably never have found it without the dogs—they picked up the scent pretty easily, though I can’t see how. These corpses are completely clean of flesh.”
And there it was. Another skeleton, like the first, sitting piled beside a bureau. Elend glanced at Vin, then turned to Demoux. “Would you excuse us, Captain?”
The young guard nodded, walking from the room and closing the door.
“Well?” Elend said, turning to OreSeur.
“I do not know where this came from,” the kandra said.
“But it is another kandra-eaten corpse,” Vin said.
“Undoubtedly, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “The dogs found it because of the particular scent our digestive juices leave on recently excreted bones.”
Elend and Vin shared a look.
“However,” OreSeur said, “it is probably not what you think. This man was probably killed far from here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They are discarded bones, Your Majesty,” OreSeur said. “The bones a kandra leaves behind …”
“After he finds a new body,” Vin finished.
“Yes, Mistress,” OreSeur said.
Vin looked at Elend, who frowned. “How long ago?” he asked. “Maybe the bones were left a year before, by my father’s kandra.”
“Perhaps, Your Majesty,” OreSeur said. But he sounded hesitant. He padded over, sniffing at the bones. Vin picked one up herself, holding it to her nose. With tin, she easily picked out a sharp scent that reminded her of bile.
“It’s very strong,” she said, glancing at OreSeur.
He nodded. “These bones haven’t been here long, Your Majesty. A few hours at most. Perhaps even less.”
“Which means we have another kandra somewhere in the palace,” Elend said, looking a bit sick. “One of my staff has been … eaten and replaced.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” OreSeur said. “There is no way to tell from these bones whom it could be, since these are the discards. The kandra would have taken the new bones, eating their flesh and wearing their clothing.”
Elend nodded, standing. He met Vin’s eyes, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. It was possible that a member of the palace staff had been replaced, which would mean a slight breach in security. There was a far more dangerous possibility, however.
Kandra were incomparable actors; OreSeur had imitated Lord Renoux so perfectly that even people who’d known him had been fooled. Such talent could have been used for the imitation of a maid or a servant. However, if an enemy had wanted to get a spy into Elend’s closed meetings, he would need to replace a person far more important.
It would be someone that we haven’t seen during the last few hours, Vin thought, dropping the bone. She, Elend, and OreSeur had been on the wall for most of the afternoon and evening—ever since the end of the Assembly meeting—but the city and palace had been in chaos since the second army had arrived. The messengers had had trouble finding Ham, and she still wasn’t certain where Dockson was. In fact, she hadn’t seen Clubs until he’d joined her and Elend on the wall just a bit before. And Spook had been the last to arrive.
Vin looked down at the pile of bones, feeling a sickening sense of unease. There was a very good chance that someone in their core team—a member of Kelsier’s former band—was now an impostor.
THE END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
GHOSTS IN THE MIST
It wasn’t until years later that I became convinced that Alendi was the Hero of Ages. Hero of Ages: the one called Rabzeen in Khlennium, the Anamnesor.
Savior.
12
A FORTRESS SAT IN THE misty murk of evening.
It rested at the bottom of a large depression in the land. The steep-sided, craterlike valley was so wide that even in daylight Sazed would barely have been able to see the other side. In the oncoming darkness, obscured by mist, the far edge of the massive hole was only a deep shadow.
Sazed knew very little about tactics and strategy; though his metalminds held dozens of books on the subjects, he had forgotten their contents in order to create the stored records. The little he did know told him that this fortress—the Conventical of Seran—was not very defensible. It relinquished the high ground, and the crater sides would provide an excellent location for siege engines to pelt rocks down at the walls.
This fortress, however, had not been built to defend against enemy soldiers. It had been built to provide solitude. The crater made it difficult to find, for a slight rise in the land around the crater’s lip made it practically invisible until one drew near. No roads or paths marked the way, and travelers would have great trouble getting down the sheer sides.
The Inquisitors did not want visitors.