Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

guess the coin couldn’t go anywhere, so I had to be the one that moved.”
    Kelsier nodded approvingly. “Consequences, Vin. You use your own weight when you Steelpush. If you’re a lot heavier than your anchor, it will fly away from you like that coin did. However, if the object is heavier than you are—or if it runs into something that is—you’ll be Pushed away. Ironpulling is similar—either you’ll be Pulled toward the object or it will be Pulled toward you. If your weights are similar, then you’ll both move.
    “This is the great art of Allomancy, Vin. Knowing how much, or how little, you will move when you burn steel or iron will give you a major advantage over your opponents. You’ll find that these two are the most versatile and useful of your abilities.”
    Vin nodded.
    “Now, remember,” he continued. “In both cases, the force of your Push or Pull is directly away from or toward you. You can’t flip things around with your mind, controlling them to go wherever you want. That’s not the way that Allomancy works, because that’s not the way the physical world works. When you push against something—whether with Allomancy or with your hands—it goes directly in the opposite direction. Force, reactions, consequences. Understand?”
    Vin nodded again.
    “Good,” Kelsier said happily. “Now, let’s go jump over that wall.”
    “ What? ”
    He left her standing dumbfounded in the street. She watched him approach the base of the wall, then scurried over to him.
    “You’re insane!” she said quietly.
    Kelsier smiled. “I think that’s the second time today you’ve said that to me. You need to pay better attention—if you’d been listening to everyone else, you’d know that my sanity departed long ago.”
    “Kelsier,” she said, looking up at the wall. “I can’t. . . . I mean, I’ve never really even used Allomancy before this evening!”
    “Yes, but you’re such a quick learner,” Kelsier said, pulling something out from beneath his cloak. It appeared to be a belt. “Here, put this on. It’s got metal weights strapped to it. If something goes wrong, I’ll probably be able to catch you.”
    “Probably?” Vin asked nervously, strapping on the belt.
    Kelsier smiled, then dropped a large metal ingot at his feet. “Put the ingot directly below you, and remember to Steel-push, not Ironpull. Don’t stop Pushing until you reach the top of the wall.”
    Then he bent down and jumped.
    Kelsier shot into the air, his dark form vanishing into the curling mists. Vin waited for a moment, but he didn’t plummet back down to his doom.
    All was still, even to her enhanced ears. The mists whirled playfully around her. Taunting her. Daring her.
    She glanced down at the ingot, burning steel. The blue line glowed with a faint, ghostly light. She stepped over to the ingot, standing with one foot on either side of it. She glanced up at the mists, then down one last time.
    Finally, she took a deep breath and Pushed against the ingot with all of her strength.

----
“ He shall defend their ways, yet shall violate them. He will be their savior, yet they shall call him heretic. His name shall be Discord, yet they shall love him for it. ”

    8

    V IN SHOT INTO THE AIR. She suppressed a scream, remembering to continue Pushing despite her fear. The stone wall was a blur of motion just a few feet away from her. The ground disappeared below, and the line of blue pointing toward the ingot grew fainter and fainter.
    What happens if it disappears?
    She began to slow. The fainter the line grew, the more her speed decreased. After just a few moments of flight, she crept to a halt—and was left hanging in the air above a nearly invisible blue line.
    “I’ve always liked the view from up here.”
    Vin glanced to the side. Kelsier stood a short distance away; she had been so focused that she hadn’t noticed that she was hovering just a few feet from the top of the wall.
    “Help!” she said, continuing to Push desperately, lest she fall. The mists below her shifted and spun, like some dark ocean of damned souls.
    “You don’t have to worry too much,” Kelsier said. “It’s easier to balance in the air if you have a tripod of anchors, but you can do fine with a single anchor. Your body is used to balancing itself. Part of what you’ve been doing since you learned to walk transfers to Allomancy. As long as you stay still, hanging at the very edge of your Pushing ability, you’ll be pretty