Too long, she decided. We were on the wall for hours, and those bones were freshly expelled. Besides, I’d know if it were him … wouldn’t I?
She shook her head. “There has to be another way. Can I spot a kandra with Allomancy somehow?”
OreSeur didn’t answer immediately. She turned toward him in the darkness, studying his canine face. “What?” she asked.
“These are not things we speak of with outsiders.”
Vin sighed. “Tell me anyway.”
“Do you command me to speak?”
“I don’t really care to command you in anything.”
“Then I may leave?” OreSeur asked. “You do not wish to command me, so our Contract is dissolved?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Vin said.
OreSeur frowned—a strange expression to see on a dog’s face. “It would be easier for me if you would try to say what you mean, Mistress.”
Vin gritted her teeth. “Why is it you’re so hostile?”
“I’m not hostile, Mistress. I am your servant, and will do as you command. That is part of the Contract.”
“Sure. Are you like this with all of your masters?”
“With most, I am fulfilling a specific role,” OreSeur said. “I have bones to imitate—a person to become, a personality to adopt. You have given me no direction; just the bones of this … animal.”
So that’s it, Vin thought. Still annoyed by the dog’s body. “Look, those bones don’t really change anything. You are still the same person.”
“You do not understand. It is not who a kandra is that’s important. It’s who a kandra becomes. The bones he takes, the role he fulfills. None of my previous masters have asked me to do something like this.”
“Well, I’m not like other masters,” Vin said. “Anyway, I asked you a question. Is there a way I can spot a kandra with Allomancy? And yes, I command you to speak.”
A flash of triumph shone in OreSeur’s eyes, as if he enjoyed forcing her into her role. “Kandra cannot be affected by mental Allomancy, Mistress.”
Vin frowned. “Not at all?”
“No, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “You can try to Riot or Soothe our emotions, if you wish, but it will have no effect. We won’t even know that you are trying to manipulate us.”
Like someone who is burning copper. “That’s not exactly the most useful bit of information,” she said, strolling past the kandra on the roof. Allomancers couldn’t read minds or emotions; when they Soothed or Rioted another person, they simply had to hope that the person reacted as intended.
She could “test” for a kandra by Soothing someone’s emotions, perhaps. If they didn’t react, that might mean they were a kandra—but it could also just mean that they were good at containing their emotions.
OreSeur watched her pacing. “If it were easy to detect kandra, Mistress, then we wouldn’t be worth much as impostors, would we?”
“I suppose not,” Vin acknowledged. However, thinking about what he’d said made her consider something else. “Can a kandra use Allomancy? If they eat an Allomancer, I mean?”
OreSeur shook his head.
That’s another method, then, Vin thought. If I catch a member of the crew burning metals, then I know he’s not the kandra. Wouldn’t help with Dockson or the palace servants, but it would let her eliminate Ham and Spook.
“There’s something else,” Vin said. “Before, when we were doing the job with Kelsier, he said that we had to keep you away from the Lord Ruler and his Inquisitors. Why was that?”
OreSeur looked away. “This is not a thing we speak of.”
“Then I command you to speak of it.”
“Then I must refuse to answer,” OreSeur said.
“Refuse to answer?” Vin asked. “You can do that?”
OreSeur nodded. “We are not required to reveal secrets about kandra nature, Mistress. It is—”
“In the Contract,” Vin finished, frowning. I really need to read that thing again.
“Yes, Mistress. I have, perhaps, said too much already.”
Vin turned away from OreSeur, looking out over the city. The mists continued to spin. Vin closed her eyes, questing out with bronze, trying to feel the telltale pulse of an Allomancer burning metals nearby.
OreSeur rose and padded over beside her, then settled down on his haunches again, sitting on the inclined roof. “Shouldn’t you be at the meeting the king is having, Mistress?”
“Perhaps later,” Vin said, opening her eyes. Out beyond the city, watchfires from the armies lit the horizon. Keep Venture blazed in the night to her right, and inside of it, Elend was holding council with the others. Many of the most important men in the government, sitting together in one room. Elend would call her paranoid for insisting that she be the one who watched for spies and assassins. That was fine; he could call her whatever he wanted, as long as he stayed alive.
She settled back down. She was glad Elend had decided to pick Keep Venture as his palace, rather than moving into Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler’s home. Not only was Kredik Shaw too big to be properly defended, but it also reminded her of him. The Lord Ruler.
She thought of the Lord Ruler often, lately—or, rather, she thought of Rashek, the man who had become the Lord Ruler. A Terrisman by birth, Rashek had killed the man who should have taken the power at the Well of Ascension and …
And done what? They still didn’t know. The Hero had been on a quest to protect the people from a danger simply known as the Deepness. So much had been lost; so much had been intentionally destroyed. Their best source of information about those days came in the form of an aged journal, written by the Hero of Ages during the days before Rashek had killed him. However, it gave precious few clues about his quest.
Why do I even worry about these things? Vin thought. The Deepness is a thing a thousand years forgotten. Elend and the others are right to be concerned about more pressing events.
And still, Vin found herself strangely detached from them. Perhaps that was why she found herself scouting outside. It wasn’t that she didn’t worry about the armies. She just felt … removed from the problem. Even now, as she considered the threat to Luthadel, her mind was drawn back to the Lord Ruler.
You don’t know what I do for mankind, he had said. I was your god, even if you couldn’t see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves. Those were the Lord Ruler’s last words, spoken as he lay dying on the floor of his own throne room. They worried her. Chilled her, even still.
She needed to distract herself. “What kinds of things do you like, kandra?” she asked, turning to the creature, who still sat on the rooftop beside her. “What are your loves, your hatreds?”
“I do not want to answer that.”
Vin frowned. “Do not want to, or do not have to?”
OreSeur paused. “Do not want to, Mistress.” The implication was obvious. You’re going to have to command me.
She almost did. However, something gave her pause, something in those eyes—inhuman though they were. Something familiar.
She’d known resentment like that. She’d felt it often during her youth, when she’d served crewleaders who had lorded over their followers. In the crews, one did what one was commanded—especially if one was a small waif of a girl, without rank or means of intimidation.