Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

silence. "But, might I instead be excused? There is. . .a task I wish to perform."
    "Of course, Sazed," Vin said. "But first, tell me. Do you know if any of the others survived?"
    "Clubs and Dockson are dead, my lady," Sazed said. "I have not seen their bodies, but the reports were from reliable sources. You can see that Lord Hammond is here, with us, though he has suffered a very bad wound."
    "Breeze?" she asked.
    Sazed nodded to the lump that lay huddled beside the wall. "He lives, thankfully. His mind, however, appears to be reacting poorly to the horrors he saw. It could simply be a form of shock. Or. . .it could be something more lasting."
    Vin nodded, turning to Ham. "Ham. I need pewter."
    He nodded dully, pulling out a vial with his good hand. He tossed it to her. Vin downed it, and immediately her fatigue seemed to lessen. She stood up straighter, her eyes becoming more alert.
    That can't be healthy , Sazed thought with worry. How much of that has she been burning?
    Step more energetic, she turned to walk toward her koloss.
    "Lady Vin?" Sazed asked, causing her to turn around. "There is still an army out there."
    "Oh, I know," Vin said, turning to take one of the large, wedge like koloss swords from its owner. It was actually a few inches taller than she was.
    "I am well aware of Straff's intentions," she said, hefting the sword up onto her shoulder. Then she turned in to the snow and mist, walking toward Keep Venture, her strange koloss guards tromping after her.

    It took Sazed well into the night to complete his self-appointed task. He found corpse after corpse in the frigid night, many of them iced over. The snow had stopped falling, and the wind had picked up, hardening the slush to slick ice. He had to break some of the corpses free to turn them over and inspect their faces.
    Without his brassmind to provide heat, he could never have performed his grisly job. Even so, he had found himself some warmer clothing—a simple brown robe and a set of boots. He continued working through the night, the wind swirling flakes of snow and ice around him. He started at the gate, of course. That was where the most corpses were. However, he eventually had to move into alleyways and thoroughfares.
    He found her body sometime near morning.
    The city had stopped burning. The only light he had was his lantern, but it was enough to reveal the strip of fluttering cloth in a snowbank. At first, Sazed thought it was just another bloodied bandage that had failed in its purpose. Then he saw a glimmer of orange and yellow, and he moved over—he no longer had the strength to rush—and reached into the snow.
    Tindwyl's body cracked slightly as he rolled it out. The blood on her side was frozen, of course, and her eyes were iced open. Judging from the direction of her flight, she had been leading her soldiers to Keep Venture.
    Oh, Tindwyl , he thought, reaching down to touch her face. It was still soft, but dreadfully cold. After years of being abused by the Breeders, after surviving so much, she had found this. Death in a city where she hadn't belonged, with a man—no, a half man—who did not deserve her.
    He released his brassmind, and let the night's cold wash over him. He didn't want to feel warm at the moment. His lantern flickered uncertainly, illuminating the street, shadowing the icy corpse. There, in that frozen alley of Luthadel, looking down at the corpse of the woman he loved, Sazed realized something.
    He didn't know what to do.
    He tried to think of something proper to say—something proper to think—but suddenly, all of his religious knowledge seemed hollow. What was the use in giving her a burial? What was the value in speaking the prayers of a long-dead god? What good was he? The religion of Dadradah hadn't helped Clubs; the Survivor hadn't come to rescue the thousands of soldiers who had died. What was the point?
    None of Sazed's knowledge gave him comfort. He accepted the religions he knew—believed in their value—but that didn't give him what he needed. They didn't assure him that Tindwyl's spirit still lived. Instead, they made him question. If so many people believed so many different things, how could any one of them—or, even, anything at all—actually be true?
    The skaa called Sazed holy, but at that moment he realized that he was the most profane of men. He was a creature who knew three hundred religions, yet had faith in none of them.
    So, when his tears fell—and nearly began to freeze to his