She pointed at another paragraph. “It left destruction in its wake, right? Countless thousands died because of it. But, he never says that the Deepness actually attacked them. He says that they ‘died because of it.’ Maybe we’ve just been looking at this the wrong way all along. Those people weren’t crushed or eaten. They starved to death because their land was slowly being swallowed by the mists.”
Sazed studied her paper. She seemed so certain. Did she know nothing of proper research techniques? Of questioning, of studying, of postulating and devising answers?
Of course she doesn’t, Sazed chastised himself. She grew up on the streets—she doesn’t use research techniques.
She just uses instinct. And she’s usually right.
He smoothed the paper again, reading its passages. “Lady Vin? Did you write this yourself?”
She flushed. “Why is everybody so surprised about that?”
“It just doesn’t seem in your nature, Lady Vin.”
“You people have corrupted me,” she said. “Look, there isn’t a single comment on this sheet that contradicts the idea that the Deepness was mist.”
“Not contradicting a point and proving it are different things, Lady Vin.”
She waved indifferently. “I’m right, Sazed. I know I am.”
“What about this point, then?” Sazed asked, pointing to a line. “The Hero implies that he can sense a sentience to the Deepness. The mist isn’t alive.”
“Well, it does swirl around someone using Allomancy.”
“That isn’t the same thing, I think,” Sazed said. “He says that the Deepness was mad … destructively insane. Evil.”
Vin paused. “There is something, Sazed,” she admitted.
He frowned.
She pointed at another section of notes. “Do you recognize these paragraphs?” It isn’t a shadow, the words read.
This dark thing that follows me, the thing that only I can see—it isn’t really a shadow. It is blackish and translucent, but it doesn’t have a shadowlike solid outline. It’s insubstantial—wispy and formless. Like it’s made out of a dark fog.
Or mist, perhaps.
“Yes, Lady Vin,” Sazed said. “The Hero saw a creature following him. It attacked one of his companions, I think.”
Vin looked in his eyes. “I’ve seen it, Sazed.”
He felt a chill.
“It’s out there,” she said. “Every night, in the mists. Watching me. I can feel it, with Allomancy. And, if I get close enough, I can see it. As if formed from the mist itself. Insubstantial, yet somehow still there.”
Sazed sat quietly for a moment, not certain what to think.
“You think me mad,” Vin accused.
“No, Lady Vin,” he said quietly. “I don’t think any of us are in a position to call such things madness, not considering what is happening. Just … are you certain?”
She nodded firmly.
“But,” Sazed said. “Even if this is true, it does not answer my question. The logbook author saw that same creature, and he didn’t refer to it as the Deepness. It was not the Deepness, then. The Deepness was something else—something dangerous, something he could feel as evil.”
“That’s the secret, then,” Vin said. “We have to figure out why he spoke of the mists that way. Then we’ll know …”
“Know what, Lady Vin?” Sazed asked.
Vin paused, then looked away. She didn’t answer, instead turning to a different topic. “Sazed, the Hero never did what he was supposed to. Rashek killed him. And, when Rashek took the power at the Well, he didn’t give it up like he was supposed to—he kept it for himself.”
“True,” Sazed said.
Vin paused again. “And the mists have started killing people. They’ve started coming during the day. It’s … like things are repeating again. So … maybe that means that the Hero of Ages will have to come again.”
She glanced back at him, looking a bit … embarrassed? Ah … Sazed thought, sensing her implication. She saw things in the mists. The previous Hero had seen the same things. “I am not certain that is a valid statement, Lady Vin.”
She snorted. “Why can’t you just come out and say ‘you’re wrong,’ like regular people?”
“I apologize, Lady Vin. I have had much training as a servant, and we are taught to be nonconfrontational. Nevertheless, I do not think that you are wrong. However, I also think that, perhaps, you haven’t fully considered your position.”
Vin shrugged.
“What makes you think that the Hero of Ages will return?”
“I don’t know. Things that happen; things I feel. The mists are coming again, and someone needs to stop them.”
Sazed ran his fingers across his translated section of the rubbing, looking over its words.
“You don’t believe me,” Vin said.
“It isn’t that, Lady Vin,” Sazed said. “It’s just that I am not prone to rushing to decisions.”
“But, you’ve thought about the Hero of Ages, haven’t you?” Vin said. “He was part of your religion—the lost religion of Terris, the thing you Keepers were founded to try and discover.”
“That is true,” Sazed admitted. “However, we do not know much about the prophecies that our ancestors used to find their Hero. Besides, the reading I’ve been doing lately suggests that there was something wrong with their interpretations. If the greatest theologians of pre-Ascension Terris were unable to properly identify their Hero, how are we supposed to do so?”
Vin sat quietly. “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” she finally said.
“No, Lady Vin, please don’t think that. I apologize—your theories have great merit. I simply have a scholar’s mind, and must question and consider information when I am given it. I am far too fond of arguing, I think.”
Vin looked up, smiling slightly. “Another reason you never made a good Terris steward?”
“Undoubtedly,” he said with a sigh. “My attitude also tends to cause conflicts with the others of my order.”
“Like Tindwyl?” Vin asked. “She didn’t sound happy when she heard that you’d told us about Feruchemy.”
Sazed nodded. “For a group dedicated to knowledge, the Keepers can be rather stingy with information about their powers. When the Lord Ruler still lived—when Keepers were hunted—the caution was warranted, I think. But, now that we are free from that, my brethren and sisters seem to have found the habit of secrecy a difficult one to break.”
Vin nodded. “Tindwyl doesn’t seem to like you very much. She says that she came because of your suggestion, but every time someone mentions you, she seems to get … cold.”
Sazed sighed. Did Tindwyl dislike him? He thought, perhaps, that her inability to do so was a large part of the problem. “She is simply disappointed in me, Lady Vin. I’m not sure how much you know of my history, but I had been working against the Lord Ruler for some ten years before Kelsier recruited me. The other Keepers thought that I endangered my copperminds, and the very order itself. They believed that the Keepers should remain quiet—waiting for the day when the Lord Ruler fell, but not seeking to make it happen.”