One of the physicians rushed forward, taking the boy. “Mistsickness?” he asked.
The woman, weeping, nodded. “I kept him inside until today. I knew! I knew that it wanted him! Oh, please …”
Yomen shook his head as the physician took the boy to a bed. “You should have listened to me, woman,” he said firmly. “Everyone in the city was to have been exposed to the mists. Now your son will take a bed that we may need for wounded soldiers.”
The woman slumped down, still crying. Yomen sighed, though Elend could see the concern in the man’s eyes. Yomen was not a heartless man, just a pragmatic one. In addition, his words made sense. It was no use hiding someone inside all of their lives, just because of the possibility that they might fall to the mists.
Fall to the mists … Elend thought idly, glancing at the boy in bed. He had stopped convulsing, though his face was twisted in an expression of pain. It looked like he hurt so much. Elend had only hurt that much once in his life.
We never did figure out what this mistsickness was all about, he thought. The mist spirit had never returned to him. But, perhaps Yomen knew something.
“Yomen,” he said, walking up to the man, distracting him from his discussion with the surgeons. “Did any of your people ever figure out the reason for the mistsickness?”
“Reason?” Yomen asked. “Does there need to be a reason for a sickness?”
“There does for one this strange,” Elend said. “Did you realize that it strikes down exactly sixteen percent of the population? Sixteen percent—to the man.”
Instead of being surprised, Yomen just shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“Sense?” Elend asked.
“Sixteen is a powerful number, Venture,” Yomen said, looking over some reports. “It was the number of days it took the Lord Ruler to reach the Well of Ascension, for instance. It figures prominently in Church doctrine.”
Of course, Elend thought. Yomen wouldn’t be surprised to find order in nature—he believes in a god who ordered that nature.
“Sixteen …” Elend said, glancing at the sick boy.
“The number of original Inquisitors,” Yomen said. “The number of Precepts in each Canton charter. The number of Allomantic metals. The—”
“Wait,” Elend said, looking up. “What?”
“Allomantic metals,” Yomen said.
“There are only fourteen of those.”
Yomen shook his head. “Fourteen we know of, assuming your lady was right about the metal paired to aluminum. However, fourteen is not a number of power. Allomantic metals come in sets of two, with groupings of four. It seems likely that there are two more we haven’t discovered, bringing the number to sixteen. Two by two by two by two. Four physical metals, four mental metals, four enhancement metals, and four temporal metals.”
Sixteen metals …
Elend glanced at the boy again. Pain. Elend had known such pain once—the day his father had ordered him beaten. Beaten to give him such pain that he thought he might die. Beaten to bring his body to a point near death, so that he would Snap.
Beaten to discover if he was an Allomancer.
Lord Ruler! Elend thought with shock. He dashed away from Yomen, pushing back into the soldiers’ section of the infirmary.
“Who here was taken by the mists?” Elend demanded.
The wounded regarded him with quizzical looks.
“Did any of you get sick?” Elend asked. “When I made you stand out in the mists? Please, I must know!”
Slowly, the man with one arm raised his remaining hand. “I was taken, my lord. I’m sorry. This wound is probably punishment for—”
Elend cut the man off, rushing forward, pulling out his spare metal vial. “Drink this,” he commanded.
The man paused, then did as asked. Elend knelt beside the bed eagerly, waiting. His heart pounded in his chest. “Well?” he finally asked.
“Well … what, my lord?” the soldier asked.
“Do you feel anything?” Elend asked.
The soldier shrugged. “Tired, my lord?”
Elend closed his eyes, sighing. It was a silly—
“Well, that’s odd,” the soldier suddenly said.
Elend snapped his eyes open.
“Yes,” the soldier said, looking a bit distracted. “I … I don’t know what to make of that.”
“Burn it,” Elend said, turning on his bronze. “Your body knows how, if you let it.”
The soldier’s frown deepened, and he cocked his head. Then, he began to thump with Allomantic power.
Elend closed his eyes again, exhaling softly.
Yomen was walking up behind Elend. “What is this?”
“The mists were never our enemy, Yomen,” Elend said, eyes still closed. “They were just trying to help.”
“Help? Help how? What are you talking about?”
Elend opened his eyes, turning. “They weren’t killing us, Yomen. They weren’t making us sick. They were Snapping us. Bringing us power. Making us able to fight.”
“My lord!” a voice suddenly called. Elend turned as a frazzled soldier stumbled into the room. “My lords! The koloss are attacking! They’re charging the city!”
Elend felt a start. Ruin. It knows what I just discovered—it knows it needs to attack now, rather than wait for more troops.
Because I know the secret!
“Yomen, gather every bit of powdered metal you can find in this city!” Elend yelled. “Pewter, tin, steel, and iron! Get it to anyone who has been stricken by the mists! Make them drink it down!”
“Why?” Yomen said, still confused.
Elend turned, smiling. “Because they are now Allomancers. This city isn’t going to fall as easily as everyone assumed. If you need me, I’ll be on the front lines!”
There is something special about the number sixteen. For one thing, it was Preservation’s sign to mankind.
Preservation knew, even before he imprisoned Ruin, that he wouldn’t be able to communicate with humankind once he diminished himself. And so, he left clues—clues that couldn’t be altered by Ruin. Clues that related back to the fundamental laws of the universe. The number was meant to be proof that something unnatural was happening, and that there was help to be found.
It may have taken us long to figure this out, but when we eventually did understand the clue—late though it was—it provided a much-needed boost.
As for the other aspects of the number … well, even I am still investigating that. Suffice it to say that it has great ramifications regarding how the world, and the universe itself, works.
71
SAZED TAPPED HIS PEN AGAINST the metal paper, frowning slightly. “Very little of this last chunk is different from what I knew before,” he said. “Ruin changed small things—perhaps to keep me from noticing the alterations. It’s obvious that he wanted to make me realize that Vin was the Hero of Ages.”
“He wanted her to release him,” said Haddek, leader of the First Generation. His companions nodded.
“Perhaps she was never the Hero,” one of the others offered.
Sazed shook his head. “I believe that she is. These prophecies still refer to her—even the unaltered ones that you have told me. They talk of one who is separate from the Terris people, a king of men, a rebel caught between two worlds. Ruin just emphasized that Vin was the one, since he wanted her to come and free him.”