Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

they found a corpse in there. One they initially assumed was Marsh!"
    "Later, Marsh said that more than one person had been killed there," Vin said quietly. "There just hadn't been enough . . . left of them to tell."
    "Again," Cett said, "does this all have a point?"
    "Well, it seems to be doing a good job of annoying you," Ham said lightly. "Do we need any other point?"
    Elend gave them both hard looks. "The point is, Cett, that Vin discovered something earlier this week."
    The group turned toward her.
    "Koloss," Vin said. "They're made from humans."
    "What?" Cett asked, frowning. "That's absurd."
    "No," Vin said, shaking her head. "I'm sure of it. I've checked living koloss. Hidden in those folds and rips of skin on their bodies, they are pierced by spikes. Smaller than the Inquisitor spikes, and made from different metals, but all of the koloss have them."
    "Nobody has been able to figure out where new koloss come from," Elend said. "The Lord Ruler guarded the secret, and it's become one of the great mysteries of our time. Koloss seem to kill each other with regularity when someone isn't actively controlling them. Yet, there always seem to be more of the creatures. How?"
    "Because they are constantly replenishing their numbers," Ham said, nodding slowly. "From the villages they pillage."
    "Did you ever wonder," Elend said, "back during the siege of Luthadel, why Jastes's koloss army attacked a random village before coming for us? The creatures needed to replenish their numbers."
    "They always walk about," Vin said, "wearing clothing, talking about being human. Yet, they can't quite remember what it was like. Their minds have been broken."
    Elend nodded. "The other day, Vin finally got one of them to show her how to make new koloss. From what he did, and from what he's said since, we believe that he was going to try to combine two men into one. That would make a creature with the strength of two men, but the mind of neither."
    "A third art," Ham said, looking up. "A third way to use the metals. There is Allomancy, which draws power from the metals themselves. There is Feruchemy, which uses metals to draw power from your own body, and there is . . ."
    "Marsh called it Hemalurgy," Vin said quietly.
    "Hemalurgy . . ." Ham said. "Which uses the metals to draw power from someone else's body."
    "Great," Cett said. "Point?"
    "The Lord Ruler created servants to help him," Elend said. "Using this art . . . this Hemalurgy . . . he made soldiers, which we call koloss. He made spies, which we call kandra. And he made priests, which we call Inquisitors. He built them all with weaknesses, so that he could control them."
    "I first learned how to take control of the koloss because of TenSoon," Vin said. "He inadvertently showed me the secret. He mentioned that the kandra and koloss were cousins, and I realized I could control one just as I had the other."
    "I . . . still don't see where you're heading with this," Demoux said, glancing from Vin to Elend.
    "The Inquisitors must have the same weakness, Demoux," Elend said. "This Hemalurgy leaves the mind . . . wounded. It allows an Allomancer to creep in and take control. The nobility always wondered what made the Inquisitors so fanatically devoted to the Lord Ruler. They weren't like regular obligators—they were far more obedient. Zealous to a fault."
    "It happened to Marsh," Vin whispered. "The first time I met him after he'd been made an Inquisitor, he seemed different. But, he only grew even odder during the year following the Collapse. Finally, he turned on Sazed, tried to kill him."
    "What we're trying to suggest," Elend said, "is that something is controlling the Inquisitors and the koloss. Something is exploiting the weakness the Lord Ruler built into the creatures and is using them as its pawns. The troubles we've been suffering, the chaos following the Collapse—it's not simply chaos. No more than the patterns of people who fall sick to the mists are chaotic. I know it seems obvious, but the important thing here is that we now know the method. We understand why they can be controlled and how they're being controlled."
    Elend continued to pace, his feet marking the dirty tent floor. "The more I think about Vin's discovery, the more I come to believe that this is all connected. The koloss, the kandra, and the Inquisitors are not three separate oddities, but part of a single cohesive phenomenon. Now, on the surface, knowledge of this third art . . . this Hemalurgy . . .