Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

Mix duralumin and zinc or brass, then Pull on the emotions of a koloss, and he will be yours."
    Yomen didn't dismiss her comments as lies. Ruin, however, strolled forward, walking around Vin in a circle.
    "Vin, Vin. What is your game now?" Ruin asked, amused. "Lead him on with little tidbits, then betray him?"
    Yomen apparently came to the same conclusion. "Your facts are interesting, Empress, but completely unprovable in my present situation. Therefore, they are—"
    "There were five of these storage caverns," Vin said, stepping forward. "We found the others. They led us here."
    Yomen shook his head. "And? Why should I care?"
    "Your Lord Ruler planned something for those caverns—you can tell that much from the plate he left here in this one. He says that he came up with no way to fight what is happening to us in the world, but do you believe that? I feel there has to be more, some clue hidden in the text of all five plaques."
    "You expect me to believe that you care what the Lord Ruler wrote?" Yomen asked. "You, his purported murderer?"
    "I couldn't care less about him," Vin admitted. "But Yomen, you have to believe that I care what happens to the people of the empire! If you've gathered any intelligence about Elend or myself, you know that is true."
    "Your Elend is a man who thinks far too highly of himself," Yomen said. "He has read many books, and assumes that his learning makes him capable of being a king. You . . . I still don't know what to think about you." His eyes showed a bit of the hatred she had seen in him during their last meeting. "You claim to have killed the Lord Ruler. Yet . . . he couldn't really have died. You're part of all this, somehow."
    That's it, Vin thought. That's my in. "He wanted us to meet," Vin said. She didn't believe it, but Yomen would.
    Yomen raised an eyebrow.
    "Can't you see?" Vin said. "Elend and I discovered the other storage caverns, the first one under Luthadel itself. Then, we came here. This was the last of the five. The end of the trail. For some reason, the Lord Ruler wanted to lead us here. To you."
    Yomen stood for a few moments. To the side, Ruin mimed applause.
    "Send for Lellin," Yomen said, turning toward one of his soldiers. "Tell him to bring his maps."
    The soldier saluted and left. Yomen turned to Vin, still frowning. "This is not to be an exchange. You will give me the information I request, then I will decide what to do with it."
    "Fine," Vin said. "But, you yourself just said that I was connected to all of this. It's all connected, Yomen. The mists, the koloss, me, you, the storage caverns, the ash . . ."
    He flinched slightly as Vin mentioned that last one.
    "The ash is getting worse, isn't it?" she asked. "Falling more thickly?"
    Yomen nodded.
    "We were always worried about the mists," Vin said. "But the ash, it's going to be what kills us. It will block the sunlight, bury our cities, cover our streets, choke our fields. . . ."
    "The Lord Ruler won't let that happen," Yomen said.
    "And if he really is dead?"
    Yomen met her eyes. "Then you have doomed us all."
    Doomed. . . . The Lord Ruler had said something similar right before Vin had killed him. She shivered, waiting in awkward silence, suffering Ruin's smiling stare until a scribe scuttled into the room, bearing several rolled maps.
    Yomen took one of the maps, waving the man away. He spread it out on a table, waving Vin forward. "Show me," he said, stepping back to keep out of her reach as she approached.
    She picked up a piece of charcoal, then began to mark the locations of the storage caverns. Luthadel. Satren. Vetitan. Urteau. All five that she had found—all near the Central Dominance, one in the center, the other four forming a box around it. She put a final "X" beside Fadrex City.
    Then, with charcoal gripped in her fingers, she noticed something. Sure are a lot of mines shown on this map around Fadrex, she thought. A lot of metal in the area.
    "Step back," Yomen said.
    Vin moved away. He approached, scanning the map. Vin stood in silence, thinking. Elend's scribes could never find a pattern to the cache locations. Two were in small cities, two in large ones. Some near canals, others not. The scribes claimed that they just didn't have a large enough set from which to determine patterns.
    "This seems completely random," Yomen said, echoing her own thoughts.
    "I didn't make up those locations, Yomen," she said, folding her arms. "Your spies can confirm where Elend has taken his armies and sent