Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

said. "Is that why you wanted those men to throw you in the sea?"
    Eustin turned the blade slowly, catching the light. He was still weeping, his face now slack and empty. Balasar wondered which of them he was seeing now, which of their number haunted him in that moment, and he felt the eyes of the dead upon him. They were in the room, invisibly crowding it as the sailors had.
    "Can you tell me they died with honor?" Eustin breathed.
    "I'm not sure what honor is," Balasar said. "We did what we did because it was needed, and we were the men to do it. The price was too high for us to bear, you and I and Coal. But we aren't finished, so we have to carry it a bit farther. That's all."
    "It wasn't needed, General. I'm sorry, but it wasn't . We take a few more cities, we gain a few more slaves. Yes, they're the richest cities in the world. I know it. Sacking even one of the cities of the Khaiem would put more gold in the High Council's coffers than a season in the Westlands. But how much do they need to buy Little Ott back from hell?" Eustin asked. "And why shouldn't I go there and get him myself, sir?"
    "It's not about gold. I have enough gold of my own to live well and die old. Gold's a tool we use—a tool I use—to make men do what must be done."
    "And honor?"
    "And glory. Tools, all of them. We're men, Eustin. We've no reason to lie to each other."
    He had the man's attention now. Eustin was looking only at him, and there was confusion in his eyes—confusion and pain—but the ghosts weren't inside him now.
    "Why then, sir? Why are we doing this?"
    Balasar sat back. He hadn't said these words before, he had never explained himself to anyone. Pride again. He was haunted by his pride. The pride that had made him take this on as his task, the work he owed to the world because no one else had the stomach for it.
    "The ruins of the Empire were made," he said. "God didn't write it that the world should have something like that in it. Men created it. Men with little gods in their sleeves. And men like that still live. The cities of the Khaiem each have one, and they look on them like plow horses. Tools to feed their power and their arrogance. If it suited them, they could turn their andat loose on us. Hold our crops in permanent winter or sink our lands into the sea or whatever else they could devise. They could turn the world itself against us the way you or I might hold a knife. And do you know why they haven't?"
    Eustin blinked, unnerved, Balasar thought, by the anger in his voice.
    "No, sir."
    "Because they haven't yet chosen to. That's all. They might. Or they might turn against each other. They could make everything into wastelands just like those. Acton, Kirinton, Marsh. Every city, every town. It hasn't happened yet because we've been lucky. But someday, one of them will grow ambitious or mad. And then all the rest of us are ants on a battlefield, trampled into the mud. That's what I mean when I say this is needed. You and I are seeing that it never happens," he said, and his words made his own blood hot. He was no longer uncertain or touched by shame. Balasar grinned wide and wolfish. If it was pride, then let him be proud. No man could do what he intended without it. "When I've finished, the god-ghosts of the Khaiem will be a story women tell their babes to scare them at night, and nothing more than that. That's what Little Ott died for. Not for money or conquest or glory.
    "I'm saving the world," Balasar said. "So, now. Say you'd rather drown than help me."

BRANDON SANDERSON grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University and lives in Provo, Utah with his wife, Emily. For fascinating behind-the-scenes information about the Mistborn trilogy and his acclaimed first novel, Elantris , visit him at www.brandonsanderson.com.

* Forthcoming