Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

paper.
    Sazed felt like running, like scrambling away in fear, but his scholar's mind dredged something up to fight his terror. Alendi , he thought. The one everyone thought was the Hero of Ages. He said he saw a thing made of mist following him .
    Vin claimed to have seen it as well .
    "What. . .do you want?" he asked, trying to remain calm.
    The spirit didn't move.
    Could it be. . .her? he wondered with shock. Many religions claimed that the dead continued to walk the world, just beyond the view of mortals. But this thing was too short to be Tindwyl. Sazed was sure that he would have recognized her, even in such an amorphous form.
    Sazed tried to gauge where it was looking. He reached out a hesitant hand, picking up the scrap of paper.
    The spirit raised an arm, pointing toward the center of the city. Sazed frowned.
    "I don't understand," he said.
    The spirit pointed more insistently.
    "Write down for me what you want me to do."
    It just pointed.
    Sazed stood for a long moment in the room with only one candle, then glanced at the open book. The wind flipped its pages, showing his handwriting, then Tindwyl's, then his again.
    Alendi must not be allowed to reach the Well of Ascension. He must not be allowed to take the power for himself .
    Perhaps. . .perhaps Kwaan knew something that nobody else had. Could the power corrupt even the best of people? Could that be why he turned against Alendi, trying to stop him?
    The mist spirit pointed again.
    If the spirit tore free that sentence, perhaps it was trying to tell me something. But. . .Vin wouldn't take the power for herself. She wouldn't destroy, as the Lord Ruler did, would she?
    And if she didn't have a choice?
    Outside, someone screamed. The yell was of pure terror, and it was soon joined by others. A horrible, echoing set of sounds in a dark night.
    There wasn't time to think. Sazed grabbed the candle, spilling wax on the table in his haste, and left the room.

    The winding set of stone stairs led downward for quite some time. Vin walked down them, Elend at her side, the thumping sounding loudly in her ears. At the bottom, the stairwell opened into. . .
    A vast chamber. Elend held his lantern high, looking down into a huge stone cavern. Spook was already halfway down the stone steps leading to the floor. Ham was following.
    "Lord Ruler. . ." Elend whispered, standing at Vin's side. "We'd have never found this without tearing down the entire building!"
    "That was probably the idea," Vin said. "Kredik Shaw isn't simply a palace, but a capstone. Built to hide something. This . Above, those inlays on the walls hid the cracks of the doorway, and the metal in them obscured the opening mechanism from Allomantic eyes. If I hadn't had a hint. . ."
    "Hint?" Elend asked, turning to her.
    Vin shook her head, nodding to the steps. The two began down them. Below, she heard Spook's voice ring.
    "There's food down here!" he yelled. "Cans and cans of it!"
    Indeed, they found rank upon rank of shelves sitting on the cavern floor, meticulously packed as if set aside in preparation for something important. Vin and Elend reached the cavern floor as Ham chased after Spook, calling for him to slow down. Elend made as if to follow, but Vin grabbed his arm. She was burning iron.
    "Strong source of metal that way," she said, growing eager.
    Elend nodded, and they rushed through the cavern, passing shelf after shelf. The Lord Ruler must have prepared these , she thought. But for what purpose?
    She didn't care at the moment. She didn't really care about the atium either, but Elend's eagerness to find it was too much to ignore. They rushed up to the end of the cavern, where they found the source of the metal line.
    A large metal plaque hung on the wall, like the one Sazed had described finding in the Conventical of Seran. Elend was clearly disappointed when they saw it. Vin, however, stepped forward, looking through tin-enhanced eyes to see what it contained.
    "A map?" Elend asked. "That's the Final Empire."
    Indeed, a map of the empire was carved into the metal. Luthadel was marked at the center. A small circle marked another city nearby.
    "Why is Statlin City circled?" Elend asked, frowning.
    Vin shook her head. "This isn't what we came for," she said. "There." A tunnel split off from the main cavern. "Come on."

    Sazed ran through the streets, not even certain what he was doing. He followed the mist spirit, which was difficult to trace in the night, as his candle had long since puffed