“But why would that matter?” Tindwyl said. “It didn’t take a specific person to stop the mists—Rashek’s success proves that. Here, skip to the end. Read that passage about Rashek.”
“‘I have a young nephew, one Rashek,’” Sazed read. “‘He hates all of Khlennium with the passion of envious youth. He hates Alendi even more acutely—though the two have never met—for Rashek feels betrayed that one of our oppressors should have been chosen as the Hero of Ages.
“‘Alendi will need guides through the Terris mountains. I have charged Rashek with making certain that he and his trusted friends are chosen as those guides. Rashek is to try and lead Alendi in the wrong direction, to discourage him or otherwise foil his quest. Alendi won’t know that he has been deceived.
“‘If Rashek fails to lead Alendi astray, then I have instructed the lad to kill my former friend. It is a distant hope. Alendi has survived assassins, wars, and catastrophes. And yet, I hope that in the frozen mountains of Terris, he may finally be exposed. I hope for a miracle.
“‘Alendi must not reach the Well of Ascension. He must not take the power for himself.’”
Tindwyl sat back, frowning.
“What?”
“Something is wrong there, I think,” she said. “But I cannot tell you precisely what.”
Sazed scanned the text again. “Let us break it down to simple statements, then. Rashek—the man who became the Lord Ruler—was Kwaan’s nephew.”
“Yes,” Tindwyl said.
“Kwaan sent Rashek to mislead, or even kill, his once friend Alendi the Conqueror—a man climbing the mountains of Terris to seek the Well of Ascension.”
Tindwyl nodded.
“Kwaan did this because he feared what would happen if Alendi took the Well’s power for himself.”
Tindwyl raised a finger. “Why did he fear that?”
“It seems a rational fear, I think,” Sazed said.
“Too rational,” Tindwyl replied. “Or, rather, perfectly rational. But, tell me, Sazed. When you read Alendi’s logbook, did you get the impression that he was the type who would take that power for himself?”
Sazed shook his head. “Actually, the opposite. That is part of what made the logbook so confusing—we couldn’t figure out why the man represented within would have done as we assumed he must have. I think that is part of what eventually led Vin to guess that the Lord Ruler wasn’t Alendi at all, but Rashek, his packman.”
“And Kwaan says that he knew Alendi well,” Tindwyl said. “In fact, in this very rubbing, he compliments the man on several occasions. Calls him a good person, I believe.”
“Yes,” Sazed said, finding the passage. “‘He is a good man—despite it all, he is a good man. A sacrificing man. In truth, all of his actions—all of the deaths, destructions, and pains that he has caused—have hurt him deeply.’”
“So, Kwaan knew Alendi well,” Tindwyl said. “And thought highly of him. He also, presumably, knew his nephew Rashek well. Do you see my problem?”
Sazed nodded slowly. “Why send a man of wild temperament, one whose motivations are based on envy and hatred, to kill a man you thought to be good and of worthy temperament? It does seem an odd choice.”
“Exactly,” Tindwyl said, resting her arms on the table.
“But,” Sazed said, “Kwaan says right here that he ‘doubts that if Alendi reaches the Well of Ascension, he will take the power and then—in the name of the greater good—give it up.’”
Tindwyl shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, Sazed. Kwaan wrote several times about how he feared the Deepness, but then he tried to foil the hope of stopping it by sending a hateful youth to kill a respected, and presumably wise, leader. Kwaan practically set up Rashek to take the power—if letting Alendi take the power was such a concern, wouldn’t he have feared that Rashek might do the same?”
“Perhaps we simply see things with the clarity of those regarding events that have already occurred,” Sazed said.
Tindwyl shook her head. “We’re missing something, Sazed. Kwaan is a very rational, even deliberate, man—one can tell that from his narrative. He was the one who discovered Alendi, and was the first to tout him as the Hero of Ages. Why would he turn against him as he did?”
Sazed nodded, flipping through his translation of the rubbing. Kwaan had gained much notoriety by discovering the Hero. He found the place he was looking for.
There was a place for me in the lore of the Anticipation, the text read. I thought myself the Announcer, the prophet foretold to discover the Hero of Ages. Renouncing Alendi then would have been to renounce my new position, my acceptance, by the others.
“Something dramatic must have happened,” Tindwyl said. “Something that would make him turn against his friend, the source of his own fame. Something that pricked his conscience so sharply that he was willing to risk opposing the most powerful monarch in the land. Something so frightening that he took a ridiculous chance by sending this Rashek on an assassination mission.”
Sazed leafed through his notes. “He fears both the Deepness and what would happen if Alendi took the power. Yet, he cannot seem to decide which one is the greater threat, and neither seems more present in the narrative than the other. Yes, I can see the problem here. Do you think, perhaps, Kwaan was trying to imply something by the inconsistency in his own arguments?”
“Perhaps,” Tindwyl said. “The information is just so slim. I cannot judge a man without knowing the context of his life!”
Sazed looked up, eyeing her. “Perhaps we have been studying too hard,” he said. “Shall we take a break?”
Tindwyl shook her head. “We don’t have the time, Sazed.”
He met her eyes. She was right on that point.
“You sense it too, don’t you?” she asked.
He nodded. “This city will soon fall. The forces pressing upon it … the armies, the koloss, the civil confusion …”
“I fear it will be more violent than your friends hope, Sazed,” Tindwyl said quietly. “They seem to believe that they can just continue to juggle their problems.”
“They are an optimistic group,” he said with a smile. “Unaccustomed to being defeated.”
“This will be worse than the revolution,” Tindwyl said. “I have studied these things, Sazed. I know what happens when a conqueror takes a city. People will die. Many people.”
Sazed felt a chill at her words. There was a tension to Luthadel; war was coming to the city. Perhaps one army or another would enter by the blessing of the Assembly, but the other would still strike. The walls of Luthadel would run red when the siege finally ended.
And he feared that end was coming very, very soon.
“You are right,” he said, turning back to the notes on his desktop. “We must continue to study. We should collect more of what we can find about the land before the Ascension, so that you may have the context you seek.”
She nodded, showing a fatalistic resolve. This was not a task they could complete in the time they had. Deciphering the meaning of the rubbing, comparing it to the logbook, and relating it to the context of the period was a scholarly undertaking that would require the determined work of years.