The Hero of Ages

No! he thought. There must be something. .

He reached under his desk, trembling fingers seeking his sack of metalminds. However, he didn't pull one of these out, but instead removed a large, thick tome. He put it on the table beside his portfolio, then opened it to a random page. Words written in two different hands confronted him. One was careful and flowing. His own. The other was terse and determined. Tindwyl's.

He rested his fingers on the page. He and Tindwyl had compiled this book together, deciphering the history, prophecies, and meanings surrounding the Hero of Ages. Back before Sazed had stopped caring.

That's a lie, he thought, forming a fist. Why do I lie to myself? I still care. I never stopped caring. If I'd stopped caring, then I wouldn't still be searching. If I didn't care so much, then being betrayed wouldn't feel so painful.

Kelsier had spoken of this. Then Vin had done the same. Sazed had never expected to have similar feelings. Who was there that could hurt him so deeply that he felt betrayed? He was not like other men. He acknowledged that not out of arrogance, but out of simple self-knowledge. He forgave people, perhaps to a fault. He simply wasn't the type to feel bitter.

He'd assumed, therefore, that he would never have to deal with these emotions. That's why he'd been so unprepared to be betrayed by the only thing he couldn't accept as being flawed.

He couldn't believe. If he believed, it meant that God-or the universe, or whatever it was that watched over man-had failed. Better to believe that there was nothing at all. Then, all of the world's inadequacies were simply mere chance. Not caused by a god who had failed them.

Sazed glanced at his open tome, noticing a little slip of paper sticking out between its pages. He pulled it free, surprised to find the picture of a flower that Vin had given him, the one that Kelsier's wife had carried. The one she'd used to give herself hope. To remind her of a world that had existed before the coming of the Lord Ruler.

He glanced upward. The ceiling was of wood, but red sunlight-refracted by the window-sprayed across it. 'Why?' he whispered. 'Why leave me like this? I studied everything about you. I learned the religions of five hundred different peoples and sects. I taught about you when other men had given up a thousand years before.

'Why leave me without hope, when others can have faith? Why leave me to wonder? Shouldn't I be more certain than any other? Shouldn't my knowledge have protected me?'

And yet, his faith had made him even more susceptible. That's what trust is, Sazed thought. It's about giving someone else power over you. Power to hurt you. That's why he'd given up his metalminds. That's why he had decided to sort through the religions one at a time, trying to find one that had no faults. Nothing to fail him.

It just made sense. Better to not believe, rather than be proven wrong. Sazed looked back down. Why did he think to talk to the heavens? There was nothing there.

There never had been.

Outside, in the hallway, he could hear voices. 'My dear doggie,' Breeze said, 'surely you'll stay for another day.'

'No,' said TenSoon the kandra, speaking in his growling voice. 'I must find Vin as soon as possible.'

Even the kandra, Sazed thought. Even an inhuman creature has more faith than I.

And yet, how could they understand? Sazed closed his eyes tight, feeling a pair of tears squeeze from the corners. How could anyone understand the pain of a faith betrayed? He had believed. And yet, when he had needed hope the most, he had found only emptiness.

He picked up the book, then snapped closed his portfolio, locking the inadequate summaries inside. He turned toward the hearth. Better to simply burn it all.

Belief. . He remembered a voice from the past. His own voice, speaking to Vin on that terrible day after Kelsier's death. Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief-what is faith-if you don't continue in it after failure. .

How innocent he had been.

Better to trust and be betrayed, Kelsier seemed to whisper. It had been one of the Survivor's mottos. Better to love and be hurt.

Sazed gripped the tome. It was such a meaningless thing. Its text could be changed by Ruin at any time. And do I believe in that? Sazed thought with frustration. Do I have faith in this Ruin, but not in something better?

He stood quietly in the room, holding the book, listening to Breeze and Ten-Soon outside. The book was a symbol to him. It represented what he had once been. It represented failure. He glanced upward again. Please, he thought. I want to believe. I really do. I just. . I just need something. Something more than shadows and memories. Something real.

Something true. Please?

'Farewell, Soother,' TenSoon said. 'Give my regards to the Announcer.' Then, Sazed heard Breeze thump away. TenSoon padded down the hallway on his quieter dog's feet.

Announcer. .

Sazed froze.

That word. .

Sazed stood, stunned for a moment. Then, he threw his door open and burst into the hallway. The door slammed back against the wall, making Breeze jump. TenSoon stopped at the end of the hallway, near the stairs. He turned back, looking at Sazed.

'What did you call me?' Sazed demanded.

'The Announcer,' TenSoon said. 'You are, are you not, the one who pointed out Lady Vin as the Hero of Ages? That, then, is your title.'

Sazed fell to his knees, slapping his tome-the one he had written with Tindwyl-on the floor before him. He flipped through the pages, locating one in particular, penned in his own hand. I thought myself the Holy Witness, it said, the prophet foretold to discover the Hero of Ages. They were the words of Kwaan, the man who had originally named Alendi the Hero. From these writings, which were their only clues about the original Terris religion, Sazed and the others had gleaned what little they knew of the prophecies about the Hero of Ages.

'What is this?' Breeze asked, leaning down, scanning the words. 'Hum. Looks like you've got the wrong term, my dear doggie. Not 'Announcer' at all, but 'Holy Witness.' '

Sazed looked up. 'This is one of the passages that Ruin changed, Breeze,' he said quietly. 'When I wrote it, it read differently-but Ruin altered it, trying to trick me and Vin into fulfilling his prophecies. The skaa had started to call me the Holy Witness, their own term. So Ruin retroactively changed Kwaan's writings so that they seemed prophetic and reference me.'

'Is that so?' Breeze asked, rubbing his chin. 'What did it say before?'

Sazed ignored the question, instead meeting TenSoon's canine eyes. 'How did you know?' he demanded. 'How do you know the words of the ancient Terris prophecies?'

TenSoon fell back on his haunches. 'It strikes me as odd, Terrisman. There's one great inconsistency in this all, a problem no one has ever thought to point out. What happened to the packmen who traveled with Rashek and Alendi up to the Well of Ascension?'

Rashek. The man who had become the Lord Ruler.

Breeze stood up straight. 'That's easy, kandra,' he said, waving his cane. 'Everyone knows that when the Lord Ruler took the throne of Khlennium, he made his trusted friends into noblemen. That's why the nobility of the Final Empire were so pampered-they were the descendants of Rashek's good friends.'

TenSoon sat quietly.

No, Sazed thought with wonder. No. . that couldn't be! 'He couldn't have made those packmen into nobles.'

'Why ever not?' Breeze asked.

'Because the nobility gained Allomancy,' Sazed said, standing. 'Rashek's friends were Feruchemists. If he'd made them into noblemen, then. .'