Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

resistance.
    Spook tossed the cork aside. I think I'm going to like this , he thought with a smile.
    He took a drink of the wine straight from the bottle, listening for interesting conversations. He had been sent to Urteau to gather information, and he wouldn't be much use to Elend or the others if he stayed lying in bed. Dozens of muffled conversations echoed in the room, most of them harsh. This wasn't the kind of place where one found men loyal to the local government—which was precisely why Spook had found his way to the Harrows in the first place.
    "They say he's going to get rid of coins," a man whispered at the main firepit. "He's making plans to gather them all up, keep them in his treasury."
    "That's foolish," another voice replied. "He minted his own coins—why take them now?"
    "It's true," the first voice said. "I seen him speak on it myself. He says that men shouldn't have to rely on coins—that we should have everything together, not having to buy and sell."
    "The Lord Ruler never let skaa have coins either," another voice grumbled. "Seems that the longer old Quellion is in charge, the more he looks like that rat the Survivor killed."
    Spook raised an eyebrow, taking another chug of wine. Vin, not Kelsier, was the one who had killed the Lord Ruler. Urteau, however, was a significant distance from Luthadel. They probably hadn't even known about the Lord Ruler's fall until weeks after it happened. Spook moved on to another conversation, searching for those who spoke in furtive whispers. He found exactly what he was listening for in a couple of men sharing a bottle of fine wine as they sat on the floor in the corner.
    "He has most everyone catalogued now," the man whispered. "But he's not done yet. He has those scribes of his, the genealogists. They're asking questions, interrogating neighbors and friends, trying to trace everyone back five generations, looking for noble blood."
    "But, he only kills those who have noblemen back two generations."
    "There's going to be a division," the other voice whispered. "Every man who is pure back five generations will be allowed to serve in the government. Everyone else will be forbidden. It's a time when a man could make a great deal of coin if he could help people hide certain events in their past."
    Hum , Spook thought, taking a swig of wine. Oddly, the alcohol didn't seem to be affecting him very much. The pewter , he realized. It strengthens the body, makes it more resistant to pains and wounds. And, perhaps, helps it avoid intoxication?
    He smiled. The ability to drink and not grow drunk—an advantage of pewter that nobody had told him about. There had to be a way to use such a skill.
    He turned his attention to other bar patrons, searching for useful tidbits. Another conversation spoke of work in the mines. Spook felt a chill and a flicker of remembrance. The men spoke of a coal mine, not a gold mine, but the grumbles were the same. Cave-ins. Dangerous gas. Stuffy air and uncaring taskmasters.
    That would have been my life, Spook thought. If Clubs hadn't come for me.
    To this day, he still didn't understand. Why had Clubs traveled so far—visiting the distant eastern reaches of the Final Empire—to rescue a nephew he'd never met? Surely there had been young Allomancers in Luthadel who had been equally deserving of his protection.
    Clubs had spent a fortune, traveled a long distance in an empire where skaa were forbidden to leave their home cities, and had risked betrayal by Spook's father. For that, Clubs had earned the loyalty of a wild street boy who—before that time—had run from any authority figure who tried to control him.
    What would it be like? Spook thought. If Clubs hadn't come for me, I would never have been in Kelsier's crew. I might have hidden my Allomancy and refused to use it. I might have simply gone to the mines, living my life like any other skaa.
    The men commiserated about the deaths of several who had fallen to a cave-in. It seemed that for them, little had changed since the days of the Lord Ruler. Spook's life would have been like theirs, he suspected. He'd be out in those Eastern wastes, living in sweltering dust when outside, working in cramped confines the rest of the time.
    Most of his life, it seemed that he had been a flake of ash, pushed around by whatever strong wind came his way. He'd gone where people told him to go, done what they'd wanted him to. Even as an Allomancer, Spook had lived his life as a nobody. The others