Soy, por desgracia, el Héroe de las Eras.
Ostentar el poder le hizo cosas extrañas a mi mente. En solo unos instantes, me familiaricé con el poder en sí, con su historia y con las formas en que podía ser utilizado.
Sin embargo, este conocimiento era diferente de la experiencia, o incluso de la habilidad de usar el poder. Por ejemplo, sabía mover un planeta en el cielo, pero no sabía dónde colocarlo para que no estuviera demasiado cerca ni demasiado lejos del sol.
En cierto sentido, tener semejante poder resultaba abrumador, creo. Era un poder que se tardaría milenios en comprender. Rehacer el mundo habría sido fácil, si hubiera estado familiarizado con el poder. Sin embargo, advertí el peligro inherente a mi ignorancia. Como un niño que de pronto adquiere una fuerza asombrosa, podría haber empujado demasiado y dejado el mundo convertido en un juguete roto que es imposible reparar.
Esto es lo que en verdad le sucedió a Rashek, creo. Se esforzó demasiado. Trató de eliminar las brumas acercando el planeta al Sol, pero lo movió demasiado lejos y volvió el mundo demasiado caluroso para la gente que lo habitaba.
Las montañas de ceniza fueron su solución. Había descubierto que empujar un planeta requería demasiada precisión, así que hizo en cambio que las montañas entraran en erupción y arrojaran al aire humo y ceniza. La atmósfera más densa hizo más frío el mundo y volvió rojo el Sol.
Cada vez que Rashek trataba de arreglar las cosas, las empeoraba. Tuvo que cambiar las plantas del mundo para que pudieran sobrevivir en el nuevo y endurecido entorno. Sin embargo, ese cambio hizo que las plantas fueran menos nutritivas para la humanidad. De hecho, la ceniza que caía habría hecho enfermar a los hombres, haciéndoles toser como quienes pasaban demasiado tiempo en las minas bajo tierra. Por eso Rashek cambió también a la humanidad, alterándola para que pudiera sobrevivir.
Rashek pronto encontró un equilibrio en los cambios, lo cual fue una suerte, pues su poder se consumió muy rápidamente. Aunque le parecía inmenso, en realidad no era más que una diminuta fracción de algo mucho más grande.
Naturalmente, acabó llamándose a sí mismo la «Lasca del Infinito» de su religión. Tal vez comprendía más de lo que le reconozco.
Sea como fuere, tuvimos que agradecerle un mundo sin flores, en el que las plantas crecían marrones en vez de verdes y la gente sobrevivía en un entorno donde la ceniza caía del cielo de manera continuada.
Hablo de «nosotros». El grupo. Los que intentábamos descubrir y derrotar a Ruina. Tal vez mis pensamientos estén ahora confusos, pero me gusta mirar atrás y ver la suma de lo que hicimos como un único ataque coordinado, aunque todos estuviéramos implicados en distintos planes y procesos.
Éramos uno. Eso no impidió que el mundo terminara, pero tampoco fue necesariamente negativo.
Es demasiado fácil caracterizar a Ruina simplemente como una fuerza destructiva. Considerémosla mejor una decadencia inteligente. No solo caos, sino una fuerza que buscó de forma racional (y peligrosa) reducirlo todo a su forma más básica.
Ruina lo planeaba todo con cuidado, sabiendo que, si construía una cosa, podría usarla para derribar otras dos. La naturaleza del mundo es tal que, cuando creamos algo, a menudo destruimos otra cosa en el proceso.
La alomancia nació con las brumas. O, al menos, la alomancia coincidió con la aparición de las primeras brumas. Cuando Rashek se hizo con el poder en el Pozo de la Ascensión, tomó conciencia de ciertas cosas. Algunas se las susurró Ruina; otras le fueron concedidas como parte instintiva del poder.
Una de ellas era el conocimiento de las Tres Artes Metálicas. Supo, por ejemplo, que las pepitas de metal de la Cámara de la Ascensión convertían en nacidos de la bruma a quienes las ingerían. Después de todo, eran fracciones del poder del Pozo mismo.
Pepitas de alomancia pura, el poder mismo de Conservación. No sé por qué Rashek dejó una de esas pepitas en el Pozo de la Ascensión. Tal vez no la vio, o tal vez pretendía guardarla para obsequiar con ella a un sirviente afortunado.
Tal vez temía perder sus poderes algún día y necesitar esa pepita para recuperar la alomancia. Sea como fuere, bendigo a Rashek por su olvido, pues sin esa pepita Elend habría muerto aquel día en el Pozo.
El Primer Contrato, a menudo mencionado por los kandra, fue en un principio solo una serie de promesas hechas al lord Legislador por la Primera Generación. Anotaron estas promesas, y al hacerlo codificaron las primeras leyes kandra. Les preocupaba gobernarse solos, independientemente del lord Legislador y de su imperio. Por eso, tomaron lo que le habían escrito y le pidieron su aprobación.
Él les ordenó que lo grabaran en acero, y luego firmó personalmente al pie. Este código fue lo primero que aprendieron los kandra al despertar de su vida como espectros de la bruma. Contenía órdenes para reverenciar a las generaciones anteriores, sencillos derechos legales garantizados a cada uno, instrucciones para crear nuevos kandra y una exigencia de dedicación total al lord Legislador.
Lo más preocupante: el Primer Contrato contenía una orden que, invocada, requería el suicidio en masa de todo el pueblo kandra.
Rashek trasladó el Pozo de la Ascensión, obviamente.
Fue muy astuto por su parte: quizá lo más inteligente que hizo. Sabía que el poder regresaría un día al Pozo, pues un poder semejante (el poder fundamental sobre el que estaba formado el mundo) no se agota sin más. Puede ser usado, y por tanto difundido, pero siempre se renueva.
Así, sabiendo que los rumores e historias persistirían, Rashek cambió el paisaje mismo del mundo. Puso montañas en lo que sería el norte, y llamó Terris a ese lugar. Luego allanó su auténtica tierra natal, y construyó allí su capital.
Construyó su palacio alrededor de esa sala en su centro, la sala donde meditaba, la sala réplica de su antigua casa en Terris. Un refugio creado momentos antes de que su poder se agotara.
Debido a su conexión con la sangre, se llama hemalurgia. No es una coincidencia, creo yo, que la muerte esté siempre implicada en el traspaso de poder a través de la hemalurgia. Marsh lo describió una vez como un proceso «sucio». Tampoco es el adjetivo que yo habría elegido. No es lo bastante perturbador.
La conciencia de Ruina estaba atrapada en el Pozo de la Ascensión, casi impotente. Esa noche, cuando descubrimos el Pozo por primera vez, encontramos algo que no comprendíamos. Un humo negro cubría una de las salas.
Aunque lo discutimos después, no supimos decir qué era. ¿Cómo íbamos a saberlo?
Formaba parte del cuerpo de un dios, o más bien, del poder de un dios, ya que en realidad ambas cosas son lo mismo. Ruina y Conservación habitaban poder y energía del mismo modo que un hombre habita carne y sangre.
La ceniza.
No creo que la gente llegara a comprender lo afortunada que fue. Durante los mil años anteriores al Colapso, empujaron la ceniza hacia los ríos, la apilaron en las afueras de las ciudades y, en general, la dejaron estar. Nunca comprendieron que, sin los microbios y plantas que Rashek había desarrollado para reducir las partículas de la ceniza, la tierra habría quedado enterrada rápidamente.
Aunque, claro, eso acabó sucediendo de todas formas.
Se llaman sabios alománticos. Hombres y mujeres que avivan sus metales durante tanto tiempo y con tanta fuerza, que el flujo constante de poder alomántico transforma su misma psicología.
En la mayoría de los casos, con la mayoría de los metales, los efectos son muy leves. Los buscadores, por ejemplo, a menudo se convierten en sabios del bronce sin saberlo. Su alcance se expande por quemar el metal durante tanto tiempo. Convertirse en un sabio del peltre es peligroso, ya que requiere forzar muchísimo el cuerpo a un estado en que no se puede sentir cansancio ni dolor. La mayoría se mata por accidente antes de que el proceso se complete, y en mi opinión, el beneficio no merece la pena el esfuerzo.
Los sabios del estaño, sin embargo... son algo especial. Dotados con sentidos que superan lo que cualquier alomántico normal necesitaría o querría, se convierten en esclavos de lo que tocan, oyen, ven, huelen y saborean. No obstante, el poder anormal de estos sentidos les proporciona una clara e interesante ventaja.
Podría argumentarse que, igual que el inquisidor que ha sido transformado por un clavo hemalúrgico, el sabio alomántico ya no es humano.
La sutileza desplegada por los microbios devoradores de ceniza y las plantas mejoradas demuestra que Rashek progresó cada vez más en el manejo del poder. Se consumió en cuestión de minutos, pero para un dios los minutos pueden pasar como horas. Durante ese tiempo, Rashek comenzó siendo un niño ignorante que empujó un planeta demasiado cerca del Sol, se convirtió en un adulto capaz de crear montañas de ceniza para enfriar el aire, y finalmente en un artesano maduro capaz de desarrollar plantas y criaturas para propósitos específicos.
También demuestra su forma de pensar durante el tiempo que estuvo con el poder de Conservación. Bajo su influencia, estuvo obviamente en modo protector. En vez de nivelar los montones de ceniza y tratar de devolver el planeta a su sitio, reaccionó trabajando furiosamente para arreglar los problemas que él mismo había causado.
Rashek no resolvió todos los problemas del mundo. De hecho, con cada cosa que arreglaba, creaba problemas nuevos. Sin embargo, fue lo bastante listo para que cada problema subsiguiente fuera menor que los anteriores. Así, en vez de plantas que morían por el sol distorsionado y el suelo ceniciento, tuvimos plantas que no ofrecían nutrición suficiente.
Salvó el mundo. Cierto, que el mundo estuviera al borde de la destrucción fue por su causa en primera instancia... pero teniéndolo todo en cuenta, hizo un trabajo admirable. Al menos, no liberó a Ruina como hicimos nosotros.
Sí, la ceniza era negra. No, no debería serlo. Prácticamente toda ceniza común tiene un componente oscuro, pero es gris o blanca además de negra.
La ceniza de los Montes de Ceniza... era diferente. Como las brumas, la ceniza que cubría nuestra tierra no era algo natural. Tal vez fuera la influencia del poder de Ruina, tan negra como blanca era Conservación. O tal vez fuera solo la naturaleza de los Montes de Ceniza, especialmente diseñados y creados para lanzar al cielo humo y ceniza.
Más de una persona manifestó haber notado un odio consciente en las brumas. Esto no está necesariamente relacionado con que las brumas maten a la gente. A la mayoría, incluso aquellos a quienes afectó, las brumas simplemente les parecían un fenómeno meteorológico, no más consciente ni vengativo que una terrible enfermedad.
Para otros, sin embargo, había más. A los que favorecía, los envolvía. A los que era hostil, los apartaba. Algunos sentían paz dentro de ellas, otros sentían odio. Todo se reducía al sutil contacto de Ruina, y a cuánto se reaccionaba a sus incitaciones.
No debería sorprender que Elend se convirtiera en un alomántico tan poderoso. Es un hecho bien documentado (aunque esa documentación no estaba al alcance de la mayoría) que los alománticos eran mucho más fuertes durante los primeros días del Imperio Final.
En aquellos días, un alomántico no necesitaba duraluminio para hacerse con el control de un kandra o un koloss. Bastaba con un simple empujón o un tirón de las emociones. De hecho, esta habilidad fue uno de los principales motivos por los que los kandra idearon sus Contratos con los humanos, pues por aquel entonces no solo los nacidos de la bruma, sino también los aplacadores y encendedores podían controlarlos a placer.
Las perlas de metal encontradas en el Pozo (perlas que convertían a los hombres en nacidos de la bruma) eran el motivo por el que los alománticos solían ser más poderosos. Aquellos primeros nacidos de la bruma eran como Elend Venture: poseían un poder primigenio que luego se transmitió por los linajes de la nobleza, debilitándose un poco con cada generación.
El lord Legislador fue uno de aquellos antiguos alománticos, su poder puro y sin adulterar por el tiempo y la reproducción. En parte por eso era tan poderoso comparado con otros nacidos de la bruma; aunque, en efecto, su capacidad para mezclar feruquimia y alomancia era lo que producía muchas de sus más espectaculares habilidades. Con todo, me parece interesante que uno de sus poderes «divinos» (su esencial fuerza alomántica) fuera algo que también poseían los nueve alománticos originales.
Durante los primeros días del plan original de Kelsier, recuerdo lo mucho que este nos confundió a todos con su misterioso «Undécimo metal». Decía que había leyendas sobre un metal místico que permitía matar al lord Legislador, y que él había localizado ese metal tras una intensa búsqueda.
Nadie sabía realmente qué hizo Kelsier en los años transcurridos entre su huida de los Pozos de Hathsin y su regreso a Luthadel. Cuando alguien insistía, simplemente contestaba que había estado «en el oeste». De algún modo, en sus correrías descubrió historias de las que ningún guardador había oído hablar. La mayoría de los miembros del grupo no sabían cómo interpretar las leyendas de las que hablaba. Tal vez ese fuera el principal motivo por el que hasta sus más viejos amigos empezaron a cuestionar su liderazgo.
Ahora creo que las historias, leyendas y profecías de Kelsier sobre el «Undécimo metal» fueron creadas por Ruina. Kelsier buscaba un modo de matar al lord Legislador, y Ruina, siempre sutil, se lo proporcionó.
En efecto, ese secreto fue crucial. El Undécimo metal de Kelsier proporcionó la pista que necesitábamos para matar al lord Legislador. Sin embargo, hasta en esto fuimos manipulados. El lord Legislador conocía los objetivos de Ruina, y jamás lo habría liberado del Pozo de la Ascensión. Ruina necesitaba otros peones... y para que eso sucediera, el lord Legislador tenía que morir. Incluso nuestra mayor victoria fue moldeada por los sutiles dedos de Ruina.
El Equilibrio. ¿Es real?
Casi hemos olvidado esta parte del saber. Los skaa solían hablar al respecto, antes del Colapso. Los filósofos discutieron mucho en los siglos III y IV, pero en la época de Kelsier ya era un tema casi olvidado.
Sin embargo, era real. Había una diferencia fisiológica entre los skaa y la nobleza. Cuando el lord Legislador alteró a la humanidad para hacerla más tolerante a la ceniza, cambió también otras cosas. Algunos grupos de personas (los nobles) fueron creados para ser menos fértiles, pero también más altos, más fuertes y más inteligentes. Otros (los skaa) fueron creados para ser más bajos, más resistentes, y para tener muchos hijos.
Los cambios, sin embargo, fueron leves; y pasados mil años de interrelación, las diferencias habían sido prácticamente borradas.
I am only just beginning to understand the brilliance of the Lord Ruler's cultural synthesis. One of the benefits afforded him by being both immortal and—for all relevant purposes—omnipotent was a direct and effective influence on the evolution of the Final Empire.
He was able to take elements from a dozen different cultures and apply them to his new, "perfect" society. For instance, the architectural brilliance of the Khlenni builders is manifest in the keeps that the high nobility construct. Khlenni fashion sense—suits for gentlemen, gowns for ladies—is another thing the Lord Ruler decided to appropriate.
I suspect that despite his hatred of the Khlenni people—of whom Alendi was one—Rashek had a deep-seated envy of them as well. The Terris of the time were pastoral herdsmen, the Khlenni cultured cosmopolitans. However ironic, it is logical that Rashek's new empire would mimic the high culture of the people he hated.
Yes, Rashek made good use of his enemy's culture in developing the Final Empire. Yet, other elements of imperial culture were a complete contrast to Khlennium and its society. The lives of the skaa were modeled after the slave peoples of the Canzi. The Terris stewards resembled the servant class of Urtan, which Rashek conquered relatively late in his first century of life.
The imperial religion, with its obligators, actually appears to have arisen from the bureaucratic mercantile system of the Hallant, a people who were very focused on weights, measures, and permissions. The fact that the Lord Ruler would base his Church on a financial institution shows—in my opinion—that he worried less about true faith in his followers, and more about stability, loyalty, and quantifiable measures of devotion.
One final aspect of the Lord Ruler's cultural manipulation is quite interesting: that of technology.
I have already mentioned that Rashek chose to use Khlenni architecture, which allowed him to construct large structures and gave him the civil engineering necessary to build a city as large as Luthadel. In other areas, however, he suppressed technological advancements. Gunpowder, for instance, was so frowned upon by Rashek that knowledge of its use disappeared almost as quickly as knowledge of the Terris religion.
Apparently, Rashek found it alarming that armed with gunpowder weapons, even the most common of men could be nearly as effective as archers with years of training. And so, he favored archers. The more training-dependent military technology was, the less likely it was that the peasant population would be able to rise up and resist him. Indeed, skaa revolts always failed in part for this very reason.
The Lord Ruler didn't just forbid certain technologies, he suppressed technological advancement completely. It seems odd now that during the entirety of his thousand-year reign, very little progress was made. Farming techniques, architectural methods—even fashion remained remarkably stable during the Lord Ruler's reign.
He constructed his perfect empire, then tried to make it stay that way. For the most part, he was successful. Pocket watches—another Khlenni appropriation—that were made in the tenth century of the empire were nearly identical to those made during the first. Everything stayed the same.
Until it all collapsed, of course.
Originally, men assumed that Rashek's persecution of the Terris religion came from hatred. Yet, now that we know that Rashek was himself a Terrisman, his destruction of that religion seems odd. I suspect it had something to do with the prophecies about the Hero of Ages. Rashek knew that Preservation's power would eventually return to the Well of Ascension. If the Terris religion had been allowed to survive, then perhaps—someday—a person would find their way to the Well and take up the power, then use it to defeat Rashek and overthrow his empire. So, he obscured knowledge of the Hero and what he was supposed to do, hoping to keep the secret of the Well to himself.
Rashek wore both black and white. I think he wanted to show that he was a duality, Preservation and Ruin.
This, of course, was a lie. After all, he had only touched one of the powers—and only in a very small way at that.
Allomancy, obviously, is of Preservation. The rational mind will see this. For, in the case of Allomancy, net power is gained. It is provided by an external source—Preservation's own body.
Hemalurgy is of Ruin. It destroys. By taking abilities from one person and giving them to another—in reduced amounts—power is actually lost. In line with Ruin's own appointed purpose—breaking down the universe into smaller and smaller pieces—Hemalurgy gives great gifts, but at a high cost.
Feruchemy, it should be noted, is the power of balance. Of the three powers, only it was known to men before the conflict between Preservation and Ruin came to a head. In Feruchemy, power is stored up, then later drawn upon. There is no loss of energy—just a changing of the time and rate of its use.
Hemalurgy is a power about which I wish I knew far less. To Ruin, power must have an inordinately high cost—using it must be attractive, yet must sow chaos and destruction in its very implementation.
In concept, it is a very simple art. A parasitic one. Without other people to steal from, Hemalurgy would be useless.
In Hemalurgy, the type of metal used in a spike is important, as is the positioning of that spike on the body. For instance, steel spikes take physical Allomantic powers—the ability to burn pewter, tin, steel, or iron—and bestow them upon the person receiving the spike. Which of these four is granted, however, depends on where the spike is placed.
Spikes made from other metals steal Feruchemical abilities. For example, all of the original Inquisitors were given a pewter spike, which—after first being pounded through the body of a Feruchemist—gave the Inquisitor the ability to store up healing power. (Though they couldn't do so as quickly as a real Feruchemist, as per the law of Hemalurgic decay.) This, obviously, is where the Inquisitors got their infamous ability to recover from wounds quickly, and was also why they needed to rest so much.
Hemalurgic decay was less obvious in Inquisitors that had been created from Mistborn. Since they already had Allomantic powers, the addition of other abilities made them awesomely strong.
In most cases, however, Inquisitors were created from Mistings. It appears that Seekers, like Marsh, were the favored recruits. For, when a Mistborn wasn't available, an Inquisitor with enhanced bronze abilities was a powerful tool for searching out skaa Mistings.
Hemalurgy can be used to steal Allomantic or Feruchemical powers and give them to another person. However, a Hemalurgic spike can also be created by killing a normal person, one who is neither an Allomancer nor a Feruchemist. In that case, the spike instead steals the very power of Preservation existing within the soul of the people. (The power that, in fact, gives all people sentience.)
A Hemalurgic spike can extract this power, then transfer it to another, granting them residual abilities similar to those of Allomancy. After all, Preservation's body—a tiny trace of which is carried by every human being—is the very same essence that fuels Allomancy.
And so, a kandra granted the Blessing of Potency is actually acquiring a bit of innate strength similar to that of burning pewter. The Blessing of Presence grants mental capacity in a similar way, while the Blessing of Awareness is the ability to sense with greater acuity and the rarely used Blessing of Stability grants emotional fortitude.
Even now, I can barely grasp the scope of all this. The events surrounding the end of the world seem even larger than the Final Empire and the people within it. I sense shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void.
I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: Adonalsium. Who, or what, it was, I do not yet know.
Originally, we assumed that a koloss was a combination of two people into one. That was wrong. Koloss are not the melding of two people, but five, as evidenced by the four spikes needed to make them. Not five bodies, of course, but five souls.
Each pair of spikes grants what the kandra would call the Blessing of Potency. However, each spike also distorts the koloss body a little more, making it increasingly inhuman. Such is the cost of Hemalurgy.
Hemalurgic spikes change people physically, depending on which powers are granted, where the spike is placed, and how many spikes someone has. Inquisitors, for instance, are changed drastically from the humans they used to be. Their hearts are in different places from those of humans, and their brains rearrange to accommodate the lengths of metal jabbed through their eyes. Koloss are changed in even more drastic ways.
One might think that kandra are changed most of all. However, one must remember that new kandra are made from mistwraiths, and not humans. The spikes worn by the kandra cause only a small transformation in their hosts—leaving their bodies mostly like that of a mistwraith, but allowing their minds to begin working. Ironically, while the spikes dehumanize the koloss, they give a measure of humanity to the kandra.
I think that the koloss were more intelligent than we wanted to give them credit for being. For instance, originally, they used only spikes the Lord Ruler gave them to make new members. He would provide the metal and the unfortunate skaa captives, and the koloss would create new "recruits."
At the Lord Ruler's death, then, the koloss should quickly have died out. This was how he had designed them. If they got free from his control, he expected them to kill themselves off and end their own rampage. However, they somehow made the deduction that spikes in the bodies of fallen koloss could be harvested, then reused.
They then no longer required a fresh supply of spikes. I often wonder what effect the constant reuse of spikes had on their population. A spike can only hold so much of a Hemalurgic charge, so they could not create spikes that granted infinite strength, no matter how many people those spikes killed and drew power from. However, did the repeated reuse of spikes perhaps bring more humanity to the koloss they made?
For all that it disgusts me, I cannot help but be impressed by Hemalurgy as an art. In Allomancy and Feruchemy, skill and subtlety come through the application of one's powers. The best Allomancer might not be the most powerful, but instead the one who can best manipulate the Pushes and Pulls of metals. The best Feruchemist is the one who is most capable of sorting the information in his copperminds, or best able to manipulate his weight with iron.
The art that is unique to Hemalurgy, however, is the knowledge of where to place the spikes.
Each spike, positioned very carefully, can determine how the recipient's body is changed by Hemalurgy. A spike in one place creates a monstrous, near-mindless beast. In another place, a spike will create a crafty—yet homicidal—Inquisitor.
Without the instinctive knowledge granted by taking the power at the Well of Ascension, Rashek would never have been able to use Hemalurgy. With his mind expanded, and with a little practice, he was able to intuit where to place spikes that would create the servants he wanted.
It is a little-known fact that the Inquisitors' torture chambers were actually Hemalurgic laboratories. The Lord Ruler was constantly trying to develop new breeds of servant. It is a testament to Hemalurgy's complexity that, despite a thousand years of trying, he never managed to create anything with it beyond the three kinds of creatures he developed during those few brief moments holding the power.
A man with a given power—such as an Allomantic ability—who then gained a Hemalurgic spike granting that same power would be nearly twice as strong as a natural unenhanced Allomancer.
An Inquisitor who was a Seeker before his transformation would therefore have an enhanced ability to use bronze. This simple fact explains how many Inquisitors were able to pierce copperclouds.
Ruin's escape deserves some explanation. This is a thing that even I had a problem understanding.
Ruin could not have used the power at the Well of Ascension. It was of Preservation, Ruin's fundamental opposite. Indeed, a direct confrontation of these two forces would have caused the destruction of both.
Ruin's prison, however, was fabricated of that power. Therefore, it was attuned to the power of Preservation—the very power of the Well. When that power was released and dispersed, rather than utilized, it acted as a key. The subsequent "unlocking" is what finally freed Ruin.
Ruin's prison was not like those that hold men. He wasn't bound by bars. In fact, he could move about freely.
His prison, rather, was one of impotence. In the terms of forces and gods, this meant balance. If Ruin were to push, the prison would push back, essentially rendering Ruin powerless. And because much of his power was stripped away and hidden, he was unable to affect the world in any but the most subtle of ways.
I should stop here and clarify something. We speak of Ruin being "freed" from his prison. But that is misleading. Releasing the power at the Well tipped the aforementioned balance back toward Ruin, but he was still too weak to destroy the world in the blink of an eye as he yearned to do. This weakness was caused by part of Ruin's power—his very body—having been taken and hidden from him.
Which was why Ruin became so obsessed with finding the hidden part of his self.
Once "freed," Ruin was able to affect the world more directly. The most obvious way he did this was by making the ashmounts emit more ash and the earth begin to break apart. As a matter of fact, I believe that much of Ruin's energy during those last days was dedicated to these tasks.
He was also able to affect and control far more people than before. Where he had once influenced only a few select individuals, he could now direct entire koloss armies.
One might ask why Ruin couldn't have used Inquisitors to release him from his prison. The answer to this is simple enough, if one understands the workings of power.
Before the Lord Ruler's death, he maintained too tight a grip on them to let Ruin control them directly. Even after the Lord Ruler's death, however, such a servant of Ruin could never have rescued him. The power in the Well was of Preservation, and an Inquisitor could only have taken it by first removing his Hemalurgic spikes. That, of course, would have killed him.
Thus, Ruin needed a much more indirect way to achieve his purpose. He needed someone he hadn't tainted too much, but someone he could lead by the nose, carefully manipulating.
One can see Ruin's craftiness in the meticulousness of his planning. He managed to orchestrate the downfall of the Lord Ruler only a short time before Preservation's power returned to the Well of Ascension. And then, within a few years of that event, he had freed himself.
On the time scale of gods and their power, this very tricky timing was as precise as an expert cut performed by the most talented of surgeons.
Once Ruin was free from his prison, he was able to influence people more strongly—but impaling someone with a Hemalurgic spike was difficult no matter what the circumstances.
To achieve such things, he apparently began with people who already had a tenuous grip on reality. Their insanity made them more open to his touch, and he could use them to spike more stable people. Either way, it's impressive how many important people Ruin managed to spike. King Penrod, ruling Luthadel at the time, is a very good example of this.
Near the end, the ash began to pile up in frightening amounts. I've spoken of the special microbes that the Lord Ruler devised to help the world deal with the ashfalls. They did not "feed" on ash, really. Rather, they broke it down as an aspect of their metabolic functions. Volcanic ash itself is, actually, good for soil, depending on what one wishes to grow.
Too much of anything, however, is deadly. Water is necessary for survival, yet too much will drown. During the history of the Final Empire, the land balanced on the very knife-edge of disaster via the ash. The microbes broke it down about as rapidly as it fell, but when there was so much of it that it oversaturated the soil, it became more difficult for plants to survive.
In the end, the entire system fell apart. Ash fell so steadily that it smothered and killed, and the world's plant life died off. The microbes had no chance of keeping up, for they needed time and nutrients to reproduce.
The pact between Preservation and Ruin is a thing of gods, and difficult to explain in human terms. Indeed, initially, there was a stalemate between them. On one hand, each knew that only by working together could they create. On the other hand, both knew that they would never have complete satisfaction in what they created. Preservation would not be able to keep things perfect and unchanging, and Ruin would not be able to destroy completely.
Ruin, of course, eventually acquired the ability to end the world and gain the satisfaction he wanted. But, then, that wasn't originally part of the bargain.
Preservation's desire to create sentient life was what eventually broke the stalemate. In order to give mankind awareness and independent thought, Preservation knew that he would have to give up part of himself—his own soul—to dwell within mankind. This would leave him just a tiny bit weaker than his opposite, Ruin.
That tiny bit seemed inconsequential, compared with their total vast sums of power. However, over aeons, this tiny flaw would allow Ruin to overcome Preservation, thereby bringing an end to the world.
This, then, was their bargain. Preservation got mankind, the only creations that had more Preservation than Ruin in them, rather than a balance. Independent life that could think and feel. In exchange, Ruin was given a promise—and proof—that he could bring an end to all they had created together. It was the pact.
And Preservation eventually broke it.
By sacrificing most of his consciousness, Preservation created Ruin's prison, breaking their deal and trying to keep Ruin from destroying what they had created. This event left their powers again nearly balanced—Ruin imprisoned, only a trace of himself capable of leaking out. Preservation reduced to a mere wisp of what he once was, barely capable of thought and action.
These two minds were, of course, independent of the raw force of their powers. Actually, I am uncertain of how thoughts and personalities came to be attached to the powers in the first place—but I believe they were not there originally. For both powers could be detached from the minds that ruled them.
I don't know why Preservation decided to use his last bit of life appearing to Elend during his trek back to Fadrex. From what I understand, Elend didn't really learn that much from the meeting. By then, of course, Preservation was but a shadow of himself—and that shadow was under immense destructive pressure from Ruin.
Perhaps Preservation—or, the remnants of what he had been—wanted to get Elend alone. Or, perhaps he saw Elend kneeling in that field, and knew that the emperor of men was very close to just lying down in the ash, never to rise again. Either way, Preservation did appear, and in doing so exposed himself to Ruin's attacks. Gone were the days when Preservation could turn away an Inquisitor with a bare gesture, gone—even—were the days when he could strike a man down to bleed and die.
By the time Elend saw the "mist spirit," Preservation must have been barely coherent. I wonder what Elend would have done, had he known that he was in the presence of a dying god—that on that night, he had been the last witness of Preservation's passing. If Elend had waited just a few more minutes on that ashen field, he would have seen a body—short of stature, black hair, prominent nose—fall from the mists and slump dead into the ash.
As it was, the corpse was left alone to be buried in ash. The world was dying. Its gods had to die with it.
I have come to see that each power has three aspects: a physical one, which can be seen in the creations made by Ruin and Preservation; a spiritual one in the unseen energy that permeates all of the world; and a cognitive one in the minds which controlled that energy.
There is more to this. Much more that even I do not yet comprehend.
Once you begin to understand these things, you can see how Ruin was trapped even though Preservation's mind was gone, expended to create the prison. Though Preservation's consciousness was mostly destroyed, his spirit and body were still in force. And, as an opposite force of Ruin, these could still prevent Ruin from destroying.
Or, at least, keep him from destroying things too quickly. Once his mind was "freed" from its prison the destruction accelerated quickly.
I do not know what went on in the minds of the koloss—what memories they retained, what human emotions they truly still knew. I do know that our discovery of the one creature, who named himself Human, was tremendously fortunate. Without his struggle to become human again, we might never have understood the link between the koloss, Hemalurgy, and the Inquisitors.
Of course, there was another part for him to play. Granted, not large, but still important, all things considered.
The prison Preservation created for Ruin was not created out of Preservation's power, though it was of Preservation. Rather, Preservation sacrificed his consciousness—one could say his mind—to fabricate that prison. He left a shadow of himself, but Ruin, once escaped, began to suffocate and isolate this small remnant vestige of his rival. I wonder if Ruin ever thought it strange that Preservation had cut himself off from his own power, relinquishing it and leaving it in the world, to be gathered and used by men.
In Preservation's gambit, I see nobility, cleverness, and desperation. He knew that he could not defeat Ruin. He had given too much of himself and, beyond that, he was the embodiment of stasis and stability. He could not destroy, not even to protect. It was against his nature. Hence the prison.
Mankind, however, had been created by both Ruin and Preservation—with a hint of Preservation's own soul to give them sentience and honor. In order for the world to survive, Preservation knew he had to depend upon his creations. To give them his trust.
I wonder what he thought when those creations repeatedly failed him.
I don't wonder that we focused far too much on the mists during those days. But from what I now know of sunlight and plant development, I realize that our crops weren't in as much danger from misty days as we feared. We might very well have been able to find plants to eat that did not need as much light to survive.
True, the mists did also cause some deaths in those who went out in them, but the number killed was not a large enough percentage of the population to be a threat to our survival as a species. The ash, that was our real problem. The smoke filling the atmosphere, the black flakes covering up everything beneath, the eruptions of the volcanic ashmounts . . . Those were what would kill the world.
I suspect that Alendi, the man Rashek killed, was himself a Misting—a Seeker. Allomancy, however, was a different thing in those days, and much more rare. The Allomancers alive in our day are the descendants of the men who ate those few beads of Preservation's power. They formed the foundation of the nobility, and were the first to name him emperor.
The power in these few beads was so concentrated that it could last through ten centuries of breeding and inheritance.
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.
One might notice that Ruin did not send his Inquisitors to Fadrex until after Yomen had—apparently—confirmed that the atium was there in the city. Why not send them as soon as the final cache was located? Where were his minions in all of this?
One must realize that, in Ruin's mind, all men were his minions, particularly those whom he could manipulate directly. He didn't send an Inquisitor because they were busy doing other tasks. Instead, he sent someone who—in his mind—was exactly the same thing as an Inquisitor.
He tried to spike Yomen, failed, and by that time, Elend's army had arrived. So, he used a different pawn to investigate the cache for him and discover if the atium really was there or not. He didn't commit too many resources to the city at first, fearing a deception on the Lord Ruler's part. Like him, I still wonder if the caches were, in part, intended for just that purpose—to distract Ruin and keep him occupied.
In those moments when the Lord Ruler both held the power at the Well and was feeling it drain away from him, he understood a great many things. He saw the power of Feruchemy, and rightly feared it. Many of the Terris people, he knew, would reject him as the Hero, for he didn't fulfill their prophecies well. They'd see him as a usurper who killed the Hero they sent. Which, in truth, he was.
I think, over the years, Ruin would subtly twist him and make him do terrible things to his own people. But at the beginning, I suspect his decision against them was motivated more by logic than emotion. He was about to unveil a grand power in the Mistborn.
He could have, I suppose, kept Allomancy secret and used Feruchemists as his primary warriors and assassins. However, I think he was wise to choose as he did. Feruchemists, by the nature of their powers, have a tendency toward scholarship. With their incredible memories, they would have been very difficult to control over the centuries. Indeed, they were difficult to control, even when he suppressed them. Allomancy not only provided a spectacular new ability without that drawback, it offered a mystical power he could use to bribe kings to his side.
Inquisitors had little chance of resisting Ruin. They had more spikes than any of his other Hemalurgic creations, and that put them completely under his domination.
Yes, it would have taken a man of supreme will to resist Ruin even slightly while bearing the spikes of an Inquisitor.
Koloss also had little chance of breaking free. Four spikes, and their diminished mental capacity, left them fairly easy to dominate. Only in the throes of a blood frenzy did they have any form of autonomy.
Four spikes also made them easier for Allomancers to control. In our time, it required a duralumin Push to take control of a kandra. Koloss, however, could be taken by a determined regular Push, particularly when they were frenzied.
When the Lord Ruler offered his plan to his Feruchemist friends—the plan to change them into mistwraiths—he was making them speak on behalf of all the land's Feruchemists. Though he changed his friends into kandra to restore their minds and memories, the rest he left as nonsentient mistwraiths. These bred more of their kind, living and dying, becoming a race unto themselves. From these children of the original mistwraiths, he made the next generations of kandra.
However, even gods can make mistakes, I have learned. Rashek, the Lord Ruler, thought to transform all of the living Feruchemists into mistwraiths. However, he did not think of the genetic heritage left in the other Terris people, whom he left alive. So it was that Feruchemists continued being born, if only rarely.
This oversight cost him much, but gained the world so much more.
The question remains, where did the original prophecies about the Hero of Ages come from? I now know that Ruin changed them, but did not fabricate them. Who first taught that a Hero would come, one who would be an emperor of all mankind, yet would be rejected by his own people? Who first stated he would carry the future of the world on his arms, or that he would repair that which had been sundered?
And who decided to use the neutral pronoun, so that we wouldn't know if the Hero was a woman or a man?
Quellion actually placed his spike himself, as I understand it. The man was never entirely stable. His fervor for following Kelsier and killing the nobility was enhanced by Ruin, but Quellion had already had the impulses. His passionate paranoia bordered on insanity at times, and Ruin was able to prod him into placing that crucial spike.
Quellion's spike was bronze, and he made it from one of the first Allomancers he captured. That spike made him a Seeker, which was one of the ways he was able to find and blackmail so many Allomancers during his time as king of Urteau.
The point, however, is that people with unstable personalities were more susceptible to Ruin's influence, even if they didn't have a spike in them. That, indeed, is likely how Zane got his spike.
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.
Yes, there are sixteen metals. I find it highly unlikely that the Lord Ruler did not know of them all. Indeed, the fact that he spoke of several on the plates in the storage caches meant that he knew at least of those.
I must assume that he did not tell mankind of them earlier for a reason. Perhaps he held them back to give him a secret edge, much as he kept back the single nugget of Preservation's body that made men into Mistborn.
Or, perhaps he simply decided that mankind had enough power in the ten metals they already understood. Some things we shall never know. Part of me still finds what he did regrettable. During the thousand-year reign of the Lord Ruler, how many people were born, Snapped, lived, and died never knowing that they were Mistings, simply because their metals were unknown?
Of course, this did give us a slight advantage, at the end. Ruin had a lot of trouble giving duralumin to his Inquisitors, since they'd need an Allomancer who could burn it to kill before they could use it. And, since none of the duralumin Mistings in the world knew about their power, they didn't burn it and reveal themselves to Ruin. That left most Inquisitors without the power of duralumin, save in a few important cases—such as Marsh—where they got it from a Mistborn. This was usually considered a waste, for if one killed a Mistborn with Hemalurgy, one could draw out only one of their sixteen powers and lost the rest. Ruin considered it much better to try to subvert them and gain access to all of their power.
I have spoken of Inquisitors, and their ability to pierce copperclouds. As I said, this power is easily understood when one realizes that many Inquisitors were Seekers before their transformation, and that meant their bronze became twice as strong.
There is at least one other case of a person who could pierce copperclouds. In her case, however, the situation was slightly different. She was a Mistborn from birth, and her sister was the Seeker. The death of that sister–and subsequent inheritance of power via the Hemalurgic spike used to kill that sister–left her twice as good at burning bronze as a typical Mistborn. And that let her see through the copperclouds of lesser Allomancers.
She once asked Ruin why he had chosen her. The primary answer is simple. It had little to do with her personality, attitudes, or even skill with Allomancy.
She was simply the only child Ruin could find who was in a position to gain the right Hemalurgic spike—one that would grant her heightened power with bronze, which would then let her sense the location of the Well of Ascension. She had an insane mother, a sister who was a Seeker, and was—herself—Mistborn. That was precisely the combination Ruin needed.
There were other reasons, of course. But even Ruin didn't know them.
Each Hemalurgic spike driven through a person's body gave Ruin some small ability to influence them. This was mitigated, however, by the mental fortitude of the one being controlled.
In most cases—depending on the size of the spike and the length of time it had been worn—a single spike gave Ruin only minimal powers over a person. He could appear to them, and could warp their thoughts slightly, making them overlook certain oddities—for instance, their compulsion for keeping and wearing a simple earring.
I've always wondered about the strange ability Allomancers have to pierce the mists. When one burned tin, he or she could see farther at night, looking through the mists. To the layman, this might seem like a logical connection—tin, after all, enhances the senses.
The logical mind, however, may find a puzzle in this ability. How, exactly, would tin let one see through the mists? As an obstruction, they are unconnected with the quality of one's eyesight. Both the nearsighted scholar and the long-sighted scout would have the same trouble seeing into the distance if there were a wall in the way.
This, then, should have been our first clue. Allomancers could see through the mists because the mists were, indeed, composed of the very same power as Allomancy. Once attuned by burning tin, the Allomancer was almost part of the mists. And therefore, they became more translucent to him.
Looking back, we should have been able to see the connection between the mists, Allomancy, and the power at the Well of Ascension. Not only could Allomancers' vision pierce the mists, but there was the fact that the mists swirled slightly around the body of a person using any kind of Allomancy.
More telling, perhaps, was the fact that when a Hemalurgist used his abilities, it drove the mists away. The closer one came to Ruin, the more under his influence, and the longer one bore his spikes, the more the mists were repelled.
It may seem odd to those reading this that atium was part of the body of a god. However, it is necessary to understand that when we said "body" we generally meant "power." As my mind has expanded, I've come to realize that objects and energy are actually composed of the very same things, and can change state from one to another. It makes perfect sense to me that the power of godhood would be manifest within the world in physical form. Ruin and Preservation were not nebulous abstractions. They were integral parts of existence. In a way, every object that existed in the world was composed of their power.
Atium, then, was an object that was one-sided. Instead of being composed of half Ruin and half Preservation—as, say, a rock would be—atium was completely of Ruin. The Pits of Hathsin were crafted by Preservation as a place to hide the chunk of Ruin's body that he had stolen away during the betrayal and imprisonment. Kelsier didn't truly destroy this place by shattering those crystals, for they would have regrown eventually—in a few hundred years—and continued to deposit atium, as the place was a natural outlet for Ruin's trapped power.
When people burned atium, then, they were drawing upon the power of Ruin—which is, perhaps, why atium turned people into such efficient killing machines. They didn't use up this power, however, but simply made use of it. Once a nugget of atium was expended, the power would return to the Pits and begin to coalesce again—just as the power at the Well of Ascension would return there again after it had been used.
I believe that the mists were searching for someone to become a new host for them. The power needed a consciousness to direct it. In this matter, I am still rather confused. Why would power used to create and destroy need a mind to oversee it? And yet, it seems to have only a vague will of its own, tied in to the mandate of its abilities. Without a consciousness to direct it, nothing could actually be created or destroyed. It's as if the power of Preservation understands that its tendency to reinforce stability is not enough. If nothing changed, nothing would ever come to exist.
That makes me wonder who or what the minds of Preservation and Ruin were.
Regardless, the mists—the power of Preservation—chose someone to become their host long before all of this happened. That someone, however, was immediately seized by Ruin and used as a pawn. He must have known that by giving her a disguised Hemalurgic spike, he would keep the mists from investing themselves in her as they wished.
The three times she drew upon their power, then, were the three times when her earring had been removed from her body. When she had fought the Lord Ruler, his Allomancy had ripped it free. When fighting Marsh in Fadrex, she had used the earring as a weapon. And, at the end, Marsh ripped it out, freeing her and allowing the mists—which were now desperate for a host, since Preservation's last wisp was gone—to finally pour themselves into her.
The kandra people always said they were of Preservation, while the koloss and Inquisitors were of Ruin. Yet, the kandra bore Hemalurgic spikes, just like the others. Was their claim, then, simple delusion?
No, I think not. They were created by the Lord Ruler to be spies. When they said such things, most of us interpreted that as meaning he planned to use them as spies in his new government, because of their ability to imitate other people. Indeed, they were used for this purpose.
But I see something much more grand in their existence. They were the Lord Ruler's double agents, planted with Hemalurgic spikes, yet trusted—taught, bound—to pull them free when Ruin tried to seize them. In Ruin's moment of triumph, when he'd always assumed the kandra would be his on a whim, the vast majority of them immediately switched sides and left him unable to seize his prize.
They were of Preservation all along.
Snapping has always been the dark side of Allomancy. A person's genetic endowment may make them a potential Allomancer, but in order for the power to manifest, the body must be put through extraordinary trauma. Though Elend spoke of how terrible his beating was, during our day, unlocking Allomancy in a person was easier than it had once been, for we had the infusion of Preservation's power into the human bloodlines via the nuggets granted to nobility by the Lord Ruler.
When Preservation set up the mists, he was afraid of Ruin escaping his prison. In those early days, before the Ascension, the mists began to Snap people as they did during our time—but this action of the mists was one of the only ways to awaken Allomancy in a person, for the genetic attributes were buried too deeply to be brought out by a simple beating. The mists of that day created Mistings only, of course—there were no Mistborn until the Lord Ruler made use of the nuggets.
The people misinterpreted the mists' intent, as the process of Snapping Allomancers caused some—particularly the young and the old—to die. This hadn't been Preservation's desire, but he'd given up most of his consciousness to form Ruin's prison, and the mists had to be left to work as best they could without specific direction.
Ruin, subtle as ever, knew that he couldn't stop the mists from doing their work. However, he could do the unexpected and encourage them. And so, he helped make them stronger. That brought death to the plants of the world, and created the threat that became known as the Deepness.
Once Vin died, the end came quickly. We were not prepared for it—but even all of the Lord Ruler's planning could not have prepared us for this. How did one prepare for the end of the world itself?
Vin was special.
Preservation chose her from a very young age, as I have mentioned. I believe that he was grooming her to take his power. Yet, the mind of Preservation was very weak at that point, reduced only to the fragment that we knew as the mist spirit.
What made him choose this girl? Was it because she was a Mistborn? Was it because she had Snapped so early in life, coming to her powers even as she went through the pains of the unusually difficult labor her mother went through to bear her?
Vin was unusually talented and strong with Allomancy, even from the beginning. I believe that she must have drawn some of the mist into her when she was still a child, in those brief times when she wasn't wearing the earring. Preservation had mostly gotten her to stop wearing it by the time Kelsier recruited her, though she put it back in for a moment before joining the crew. Then, she'd left it there at his suggestion.
Nobody else could draw upon the mists. I have determined this. Why were they open to Vin and not others? I suspect that she couldn't have taken them all in until after she'd touched the power at the Well of Ascension. It was always meant, I believe, to be something of an attuning force. Something that, once touched, would adjust a person's body to be able to accept the mists.
Yet, she did make use of a small crumb of Preservation's power when she defeated the Lord Ruler, a year before she even began hearing the thumping of the power's return to the Well.
There is much more to this mystery. Perhaps I will tease it out eventually, as my mind grows more and more accustomed to its expanded nature. Perhaps I will determine why I was able to take the powers myself. For now, I only wish to make a simple acknowledgment of the woman who held the power just before me.
Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy.