TenSoon frowned. What?
And then he made the connection. The body that TenSoon had created around the bones must look convincing—as if it were the original one that these bones had belonged to. VarSell assumed that TenSoon had been able to create such a realistic approximation because he’d originally digested the human’s corpse, and therefore knew how to create the right body around the bones.
TenSoon smiled. “I’ve never worn these bones before.”
VarSell eyed him. He was of the Fifth Generation—two centuries younger than TenSoon. Indeed, even among those of the Third Generation, few kandra had as much experience with the outside world as TenSoon.
“I see,” VarSell finally said.
TenSoon turned, looking over the small chamber. Three more Fifth Generationers stood near the door, watching him. Like VarSell, few of them wore clothing—and those who did wore only open-fronted robes. Kandra tended to wear little while in the Homeland, as that allowed them to better display their True Bodies.
TenSoon saw two sparkling rods of metal embedded in the clear muscles of each Fifth’s shoulders—all three had the Blessing of Potency. The Second Generation was taking no risk of his escaping. It was, of course, another insult. TenSoon had come to his fate willingly.
“Well?” TenSoon asked, turning back to VarSell. “Are we to go?”
VarSell glanced at one of his companions. “Forming the body was expected to take you longer.”
TenSoon snorted. “The Second Generation is unpracticed. They assume that because it still takes them many hours to create a body, the rest of us require the same amount of time.”
“They are your elder generation,” VarSell said. “You should show them respect.”
“The Second Generation has been sequestered in these caves for centuries,” TenSoon said, “sending the rest of us to serve Contracts while they remain lazy. I passed them in skill long ago.”
VarSell hissed, and for a moment TenSoon thought the younger kandra might slap him. VarSell restrained himself, barely—to TenSoon’s amusement. After all, as a member of the Third Generation, TenSoon was senior to VarSell—much in the same way that the Seconds were supposedly senior to TenSoon.
Yet, the Thirds were a special case. They always had been. That’s why the Seconds kept them out on Contracts so much—it wouldn’t do to have their immediate underlings around all the time, upsetting their perfect little kandra utopia.
“Let’s go, then,” VarSell finally decided, nodding for two of his guards to lead the way. The other one joined VarSell, walking behind TenSoon. Like VarSell, these three had True Bodies formed of stone. Those were popular among the Fifth Generation, who had time to commission—and use—lavish True Bodies. They were the favored pups of the Seconds, and tended to spend more time than most in the Homeland.
They had given TenSoon no clothing. So, as they walked, he dissolved his genitals, and re-formed a smooth crotch, as was common among the kandra. He tried to walk with pride and confidence, but he knew this body wouldn’t look very intimidating. It was emaciated—he’d lost much mass during his imprisonment and more to the acid, and he hadn’t been able to form very large muscles.
The smooth, rock tunnel had probably once been a natural formation, but over the centuries, the younger generations had been used during their infancy to smooth out the stone with their digestive juices. TenSoon didn’t see many other kandra. VarSell kept to back corridors, obviously not wanting to make too much of a show.
I’ve been away so long, TenSoon thought. The Eleventh Generation must have been chosen by now. I still don’t know most of the Eighth, let alone the Ninth or Tenth.
He was beginning to suspect that there wouldn’t be a Twelfth Generation. Even if there were, things could not continue as they had. The Father was dead. What, then, of the First Contract? His people had spent ten centuries enslaved to humankind, serving the Contracts in an effort to keep themselves safe. Most of the kandra hated men for their situation. Up until recently, TenSoon had been one of those.
It’s ironic, TenSoon thought. But, even when we wear True Bodies, we wear them in the form of humans. Two arms, two legs, even faces formed after the fashion of mankind.
Sometimes he wondered if the unbirthed—the creatures that the humans called mistwraiths—were more honest than their brothers the kandra. The mistwraiths would form a body however they wished, connecting bones in odd arrangements, making almost artistic designs from both human and animal bones. The kandra, though—they created bodies that looked human. Even while they cursed humankind for keeping them enslaved.
Such a strange people they were. But they were his. Even if he had betrayed them.
And now I have to convince the First Generation that I was right in that betrayal. Not for me. For them. For all of us.
They passed through corridors and chambers, eventually arriving at sections of the Homeland that were more familiar to TenSoon. He soon realized that their destination must be the Trustwarren. He would argue his defense in his people’s most sacred place. He should have guessed.
A year of torturous imprisonment had earned him a trial before the First Generation. He’d had a year to think about what to say. And if he failed, he’d have an eternity to think about what he’d done wrong.
It is too easy for people to characterize Ruin as simply a force of destruction. Think rather of Ruin as intelligent decay. Not simply chaos, but a force that sought in a rational—and dangerous—way to break everything down to its most basic forms.
Ruin could plan and carefully plot, knowing if he built one thing up, he could use it to knock down two others. The nature of the world is that when we create something, we often destroy something else in the process.
8
ON THE FIRST DAY OUT of Vetitan, Vin and Elend murdered a hundred of the villagers. Or, at least, that was how Vin felt.
She sat on a rotting stump at the center of camp, watching the sun approach the distant horizon, knowing what was about to happen. Ash fell silently around her. And the mists appeared.
Once—not so long ago—the mists had come only at night. During the year following the Lord Ruler’s death, however, that had changed. As if a thousand years of being confined to the darkness had made the mists restless.
And so, they had begun to come during the day. Sometimes, they came in great rolling waves, appearing out of nowhere, disappearing as quickly. Most commonly, however, they just appeared in the air like a thousand phantoms, twisting and growing together. Tendrils of mist that sprouted, vine-like tentacles creeping across the sky. Each day, they retreated a little bit later in the day, and each day they appeared a little earlier in the evening. Soon—perhaps before the year ended—they would smother the land permanently. And this presented a problem, for ever since that night when Vin had taken the power of the Well of Ascension, the mists killed.
Elend had had trouble believing Sazed’s stories two years before, when the Terrisman had come to Luthadel with horrific reports of terrified villagers and mists that killed. Vin too had assumed that Sazed was mistaken. A part of her wished she could continue in that delusion as she watched the waiting townspeople, huddled together on the broad open plain, surrounded by soldiers and koloss.