The Hero of Ages

'Then they could have challenged him,' TenSoon said. 'They could have become both Allomancers and Feruchemists as he was, and had his same powers.'

'Yes,' Sazed said. 'He spent ten centuries trying to breed Feruchemy out of the Terris population-all in fear that someday someone would be born with both Feruchemy and Allomancy! His friends who went to the Well with him would have been dangerous, since they were obviously powerful Feruchemists, and they knew what Rashek had done to Alendi. Rashek would have had to do something else with them. Something to sequester them, perhaps even kill them. . '

'No,' TenSoon said. 'He didn't kill them. You call the Father a monster, but he was not an evil man. He didn't kill his friends, though he did recognize the threat their powers posed to him. So, he offered them a bargain, speaking directly to their minds while he was holding the power of creation.'

'What bargain?' Breeze asked, obviously confused.

'Immortality,' TenSoon said quietly. 'In exchange for their Feruchemy. They gave it up, along with something else.'

Sazed stared at the creature in the hallway, a creature who thought like a man but had the form of a beast. 'They gave up their humanity,' Sazed whispered.

TenSoon nodded.

'They live on?' Sazed asked, stepping forward. 'The Lord Ruler's companions? The very Terrismen who climbed to the Well with him?'

'We call them the First Generation,' TenSoon said. 'The founders of the kandra people. The Father transformed every living Feruchemist into a mistwraith, beginning that race. His good friends, however, he returned to sentience with a few Hemalurgic spikes. You've done your work poorly, Keeper. I expected that you'd drag this out of me long before I had to leave.'

I've been a fool, Sazed thought, blinking away tears. Such a fool.

'What?' Breeze asked, frowning. 'What's going on? Sazed? My dear man, why are you so flustered? What do this creature's words mean?'

'They mean hope,' Sazed said, pushing into his room, hurriedly throwing some of his clothing into a travel pack.

'Hope?' Breeze asked, peeking in.

Sazed looked back, toward where Breeze stood. The kandra had walked up, and stood behind him in the hallway. 'The Terris religion, Breeze,' Sazed said. 'The thing my sect was founded for, the thing my people have spent lifetimes searching to discover. It lives on. Not in written words that can be corrupted or changed. But in the minds of men who actually practiced it. The Terris faith is not dead!'

There was one more religion to add to his list. His quest was not yet over.

'Quickly, Keeper,' TenSoon said. 'I was prepared to go without you, since everyone agreed that you had stopped caring about these things. However, if you will come, I will show you the way to my Homeland-it is along the path I must travel to find Vin. Hopefully, you will be able to convince the First Generation of the things I have not.'

'And that is?' Sazed asked, still packing.

'That the end has arrived.'

Ruin tried many times to get spikes into other members of the crew. Though some of what happened makes it seem like it was easy for him to gain control of people, it really was not.

Sticking the metal in just the right place-at the right time-was incredibly difficult, even for a subtle creature like Ruin. For instance, he tried very hard to spike both Elend and Yomen. Elend managed to avoid it each time, as he did on the field outside of the small village that contained the next-to-last storage cache.

Ruin did actually manage to get a spike into Yomen, once. Yomen, however, removed the spike before Ruin got a firm grip on him. It was much easier for Ruin to get a hold on people who were passionate and impulsive than it was for him to hold on to people who were logical and prone to working through their actions in their minds.

63

'What I don't understand,' Vin said, 'is why you chose me. You had a thousand years and hundreds of thousands of people to choose from. Why lead me to the Well of Ascension to free you?'

She was in her cell, sitting on her cot-which now lay legless on the floor, having collapsed when she removed the screws. She'd asked for a new one. She'd been ignored.

Ruin turned toward her. He came often, wearing Reen's body, still indulging himself in what Vin could only assume was a kind of gloating. As he often did, however, he ignored her question. Instead, he turned to the east, eyes seeming as if they could see directly through the cell wall.

'I wish you could see it,' he said. 'The ashfalls have grown beautiful and deep, as if the sky itself has shattered, raining down shards of its corpse in flakes of black. You feel the ground tremble?'

Vin didn't respond.

'Those quakes are the earth's final sighs,' Ruin said. 'Like an old man, moaning as he dies, calling for his children so that he can pass on his last bits of wisdom. The very ground is pulling itself apart. The Lord Ruler did much of this himself. You can blame him, if you wish.'

Vin perked up. She didn't draw attention to herself by asking more questions, but instead just let Ruin ramble on. Again, she noted just how human some of his mannerisms seemed.

'He thought he could solve the problems himself,' Ruin continued. 'He rejected me, you know.'

And that happened exactly a thousand years ago, Vin thought. A thousand years has passed since Alendi failed in his quest; a thousand years since Rashek took the power for himself and became the Lord Ruler. That's part of the answer to my question. The glowing liquid at the Well of Ascension-it was gone by the time I finished freeing Ruin. It must have disappeared after Rashek used it too.

A thousand years. Time for the Well to regenerate its power? But what was that power? Where did it come from?

'The Lord Ruler didn't really save the world,' Ruin continued. 'He just postponed its destruction-and, in doing so, he helped me. That's the way it must always be, as I told you. When men think they are helping the world, they actually do more harm than good. Just like you. You tried to help, but you just ended up freeing me.'

Ruin glanced at her, then smiled in a fatherly way. She didn't react.

'The ashmounts,' Ruin continued, 'the dying landscape, the broken people-those were all Rashek's. The twisting of men to become koloss, kandra, and Inquisitor, all his. .'

'But, you hated him,' Vin said. 'He didn't free you-so you had to wait another thousand years.'

'True,' Ruin said. 'But a thousand years is not much time. Not much time at all. Besides, I couldn't refuse to help Rashek. I help everyone, for my power is a tool-the only tool by which things can change.'

It's all ending, Vin thought. It really is. I don't have time to sit and wait. I need to do something. Vin stood, causing Ruin to glance toward her as she walked to the front of the cell. 'Guards!' she called. Her voice echoed in her own chamber. 'Guards!' she repeated.

Eventually, she heard a thump outside. 'What?' a rough voice demanded.

'Tell Yomen that I want to deal.'

There was a pause.

'Deal?' the guard finally asked.

'Yes,' Vin said. 'Tell him I have information that I want to give him.'

She wasn't certain how to read the guard's response, since it was simply more silence. She thought she heard him walking away, but without tin, she couldn't tell.