“Go to the desk,” the voice commanded.
“I’m dead,” Spook whispered.
“No you’re not. Go to the desk.”
Spook turned his head, looking at the flames. A figure stood in them, a dark silhouette. The walls dripped, bubbled, and hissed, their plaster and paints blackening. Yet, this shadow of a person didn’t seem to mind the fire. That figure seemed familiar. Tall. Commanding.
“You …?” Spook whispered.
“Go to the desk!”
Spook rolled to his knees. He crawled, dragging his useless arm, moving to the side of the desk.
“Right drawer.”
Spook pulled it open, then leaned against the side, slumping. Something was inside.
Vials?
He reached for them eagerly. They were the kinds of vials used by Allomancers to store metal shavings. With trembling fingers, Spook picked one up, then it slipped free of his numb fingers. It shattered. He stared at the liquid that had been inside—an alcohol solution that would keep the metal flakes from corroding, as well as help the Allomancer drink them down.
“Spook!” the voice said.
Dully, Spook took another vial. He worked off the stopper with his teeth, feeling the fires blaze around him. The far wall was nearly gone. The fires crept toward him.
He drank the contents of the vial, then searched inside of himself, seeking tin. But there was none. Spook cried out in despair, dropping the vial. It had contained no tin. How would that have saved him anyway? It would have made him feel the flames, and his wound, more acutely.
“Spook!” the voice commanded. “Burn it!”
“There is no tin!” Spook yelled.
“Not tin! The man who owned this house was no Tineye!”
Not tin. Spook blinked. Then—reaching within himself—he found something completely unexpected. Something he’d never thought to ever see, something that shouldn’t have existed.
A new metal reserve. He burned it.
His body flared with strength. His trembling arms became steady. His weakness seemed to flee, cast aside like darkness before the rising sun. He felt tension and power, and his muscles grew taut with anticipation.
“Stand!”
His head snapped up. He leaped to his feet, and this time the dizziness was gone. His mind still felt numb, but something was clear to him. Only one metal could have changed his body, making it strong enough to work despite his terrible wound and blood loss.
Spook was burning pewter.
The figure stood in the flames, dark, hard to make out. “I’ve given you the blessing of pewter, Spook,” the voice said. “Use it to escape this place. You can break through the boards on the far side of that hallway, escape out onto the roof of the building nearby. The soldiers won’t be watching for you—they’re too busy controlling the fire so it doesn’t spread.”
Spook nodded. The heat didn’t bother him anymore. “Thank you.”
The figure stepped forward, becoming more than just a silhouette. Flames played against the man’s firm face, and Spook’s suspicions were confirmed. There was a reason he’d trusted that voice, a reason why he’d done what it had said.
He’d do whatever this man commanded.
“I didn’t give you pewter just so you could live, Spook,” Kelsier said, pointing. “I gave it to you so you could get revenge. Now, go!”
More than one person reported feeling a sentient hatred in the mists. This is not necessarily related to the mists killing people, however. For most—even those it struck down—the mists seemed merely a weather phenomenon, no more sentient or vengeful than a terrible disease.
For some few, however, there was more. Those it favored, it swirled around. Those it was hostile to, it pulled away from. Some felt peace within it, others felt hatred. It all came down to Ruin’s subtle touch, and how much one responded to his promptings.
20
TENSOON SAT IN HIS CAGE.
The cage’s very existence was an insult. Kandra were not like men—even if he were not imprisoned, TenSoon would not have run or tried to escape. He had come willingly to his fate.
And yet, they locked him up. He wasn’t certain where they had gotten the cage—it certainly wasn’t something kandra normally would need. Still, the Seconds had found it and erected it in one of the main caverns of the Homeland. It was made of iron plates and hard steel bars with a strong wire mesh stretched across all four faces to keep him from reducing his body to base muscles and wriggling through. It was another insult.
TenSoon sat inside, naked on the cold iron floor. Had he accomplished anything other than his own condemnation? Had his words in the Trustwarren been of any value at all?
Outside his cage, the caverns glowed with the light of cultivated mosses, and kandra went about their duties. Many stopped, studying him. This was the purpose of the long delay between his judgment and sentencing. The Second Generationers didn’t need weeks to ponder what they were going to do to him. However, TenSoon had forced them to let him speak his mind, and the Seconds wanted to make certain he was properly punished. They put him on display, like some human in the stocks. In all the history of the kandra people, no other had ever been treated in such a way. His name would be a byword of shame for centuries.
But we won’t last centuries, he thought angrily. That was what my speech was all about.
But, he hadn’t given it very well. How could he explain to the people what he felt? That their traditions were coming to a focus, that their lives—which had been stable for so long—were in drastic need of change?
What happened above? Did Vin go to the Well of Ascension? What of Ruin, and Preservation? The gods of the kandra people were at war again, and the only ones who knew of them were pretending that nothing was happening.
Outside his cage, the other kandra lived their lives. Some trained the members of the newer generations—he could see Elevenths moving along, little more than blobs with some glistening bones. The transformation from mistwraith to kandra was a difficult one. Once given a Blessing, the mistwraith would lose most of its instincts as it gained sentience, and would have to relearn how to form muscles and bodies. It was a process that took many, many years.
Other adult kandra went about food preparation. They would stew a mixture of algae and fungi inside stone pits, not unlike the one in which TenSoon would spend eternity. Despite his former hatred of mankind, TenSoon had always found the opportunity to enjoy outside food—particularly aged meat—a very tempting consolation for going out on a Contract.
Now, he barely had enough to drink, let alone enough to eat. He sighed, looking through the bars at the vast cavern. The caves of the Homeland were enormous, far too large for the kandra to fill. But, that was what many of his people liked about them. After spending years in a Contract—serving a master’s whims, often for decades at a time—a place that offered the option of solitude was quite precious.
Solitude, TenSoon thought. I’ll have plenty of that, soon enough. Contemplating an eternity in prison made him a little less annoyed with the people who came to gawk at him. They would be the last of his people he ever saw. He recognized many of them. The Fourths and Fifths came to spit at the ground before him, showing their devotion to the Seconds. The Sixths and the Sevenths—who made up the bulk of the Contract fillers—came to pity him and shake their heads for a friend fallen. The Eighths and Ninths came out of curiosity, amazed that one so aged could have fallen so far.