Krishna
Wow. What a fantasy and world building! The book races ahead from the beginning and does not let go. Nice. This is the first book in the popular Fantasy series of Mistborn.
Lord Tresting is supervising his employees who are slaves really, the apathetic skaa. He has an obligator with him. The obligator came from an exalted government agency and is impressed with Tresting’s management fo the irascible skaas. Tresting is pleased.
Kelsier had come to the place, a Skaa and appalled at the treatment of his fellow Skaas as slaves, humiliated, enslaved. Kelsier has magic in him. He ‘burns’ or digests tin (Allomancy is a kind of magic that gives superpowers. The powers vary depending on the type of metal ‘burned’).
The people fear mists. (With no logical reason, according to Kelsier). Outside they hear an older woman and a younger woman in argument. The older woman is Jess and her pretty daughter, according to the skaa with Kelsier is ‘cursed’.
Kelsier leaves when he hears that Tresling has an eye on Jess’s daughter and later, the skaa find that there has been a massacre and Tresling has been murdered and his house has been burned to the ground.
Meanwhile, in another part of the Empire, Camon, a master thief and his assistant Vin live. Vin hates Camon and is beaten at the slightest infraction, real or imagined. But win has ‘the touch’ and makes sure that Camon’s schemes succeed by manipulating the mind of the victim.
Kelsier is back in Luthadel, where the ash keeps falling continuously, and he meets his friend Dockson. Dockson calls Kelsier Kell and he calls his friend Dox. Kelsier is planning a daring operation and wants to rope in his unruly but efficient brother in the scheme.
Kelsier finds Vin through his friend Dox and rescues her. He realizes that Vin is a mistborn and takes her under his wing. He assembles a crowd. His mission? To cause chaos, bring down the Lord Ruler who was supposed to be eternal and all powerful god-like figure, and steal all the precious metal atium which is the only metal capable of killing the Lord Ruler. And Kelsier adds that he also intends to kill Lord Ruler if possible, not just drive him away. A monumental task, then.
They get into a planning session on how this can be achieved. Meanwhile, Kelsier takes Vin out to start her training. She is also supposed to pretend to be a noble to infiltrate the nobility that serves the Grand Ruler and learn their secrets. Fun stuff!
She learns about ‘burning’ various metals and also sees a frightening but harmless mistwraith. Kelsier takes her to see his imposter noble.
Kelsier and Vin hear that Camon’s inn has been compromised by being identified as a rebel hideout. When they go to investigate (with Vin following Kelsier secretly and being found out), they find the entire crew slaughtered! Following Kelsire, Vin also finds Camon hanging in the public street.
When Kelsier goes ‘flying’ through the streets to look harmlessly into Lord Ruler’s place, Vin follows and insists that she join him. He relents but a surprise awaits them. A whole crew of Inquisitors, the magical powerful beings with metals in their eyes, is waiting for them. Vin gets grievously wounded but is saved by Sazad, the Terrisman who plays butler to her in her disguise as a noble.
She recovers and goes back to balls and she finds that Lord Elenter is sincere in wanting to help the downtrodden skaa. She trusts him and is agonizing over Kelsier’s plan to eradicate the lot of them.
She gets news that her secret army has been compromised and that there is a large group of Lord Ruler’s army sent to kill them all. Kelsier and Vin try to outrun the invaders and warn the base to dissipate to prevent loss of lives.
She ‘drags’ pewter. They make it too late to save the main army but save the people who stayed back. The group gives up hope that they can do anything now that the army is gone, and accuse Kelsier of grandiosity and duplicity. Before he can respond, they get the message that there are going to be mass beheadings of skaa and the group goes and watches innocent women and children being killed and the Lord Ruler sitting in his carriage watching. All of the nobility is there even Elend.
Kelsier says that at a very high cost of men and the life of their leader who foolishly believed in the myth of invincibility as suggested by Kelsier (but not for this reason) goes and attacks a garrison in broad daylight and gets obliterated, though not before inflicting heavy losses on the Lord Ruler’s army. But they have most of the garrison out. The group decides to carry on with their rebellion.
When Vin goes to the next ball, she seems to have gained the confidence of Elend who asks her to leave town as the nobility is in great danger in Luthadel. He also confesses that his own house is not as safe as they think because it is only their control of extraction of Atium (on behalf of the Lord Ruler) that keeps them safe so far.
However, soon after he gets strong suspicions about Vin since ‘Lady R’ as she is known, was not in the carriage on the way back, as reported by his friends. He talks to his dad and gets two spies allocated to him, so that he can ‘follow someone discretely’ to find out more.
When Vin goes unsuspecting to the next ball in the house of Venture itself, she gets cold shouldered everywhere and Elend accuses of lying to him. She is crestfallen and also learns that the biggest gossip, Kliss is a deep one. She is shrewd and the vacuous mannerism was an act. After extracting a heavy price she reports that Elend will be murdered that very day and his father was complicit in it, as he wishes to pass the House control to his nephew after Elend is dead.
The second major setback comes when Kelsier’s brother Marsh, who tried to infiltrate the Lord Ruler’s army, overdid his disguise, found tortured and killed. So the crew moves to the backup location and then (without Kell who was away) decide that there is no way they can move forward since Marsh was tortured prior to dying and must have revealed all their secrets and so the Lord Ruler knows all their plans to date.
But Kell comes in tired. He calmly announces that he has destroyed all Atium producing crystals in the mines! And he says that ‘further plans’ will be discussed the next day. However, they hear of further executions the next day and go over to watch.
There is a fantastic scene of Kelsier confronting an Inquisitor and then facing the Lord Ruler himself. He walks around with spears thrown by disgruntled elements completely lodged in his body, even not deigning to acknowledge them. The scene is electrifying.
Then there is a shocking twist where Kelsier’s final plans are revealed. The team receives one shocking news after another, including how a slain Roloux came back to life and met them in a secret hideout!
There are magical creatures like mistwraiths who grow up to be a kandra. There is the mysterious Eleventh Metal that is capable of killing the Lord Ruler (but no one knows how); there is effects of burning various metals; there is a camouflage of allomancy so that other allomancers or Seekers would not know you are burning anything; there are powerful folks who can see through such camouflage. What is there not to like?
Vin is now past her doubts about the loyalty of the team and decides to go find out Lord Ruler’s secret. Kelsier was unable to get into one particular room in Lord Ruler’s palace even after trying twice and now she decides to go hunt it down.
She manages to get into Lord Ruler’s secret room, attacking an Inquisitor with hand made arrows and then wounding another. She first does not see anything but when a chair swivels, she burns the Eleventh Metal. She sees an old man sitting there. But she sees a shadow man of the Lord Ruler next to him. When an Inquisitor grabs her, she also sees a nobleman shadow.
She is captured and forced to drink a metal that obliterates all other metal stores, rendering her a puny strengthless girl. There is a confrontation where her father, admitting to having had relations with a skaa (her mother) and allowing her to live, is killed in front of every Obligator’s eyes and Lord Ruler (his younger self) now hands over control of atium to the Inquisitors.
When she is brought back to the cell, the Inquisitor – the same one she had ‘killed’ a short while before – promises to torture her and Sazad, who had followed her into the palace and got captured and beaten badly. When the Inquisitor left, Sazad uses Ferromancy to release her but loses his strength shortly. He begs her to leave but they are stopped by Lord Ruler’s soldiers. Elend comes with a handful of soldiers and asks them to release ‘Valette’ but he is outnumbered. Luckily, she finds a metal vial and manages to smash through. Sazad asks that he be left behind and asks Vin to run but she gives Sazad to Elend and then goes to confront Lord Ruler, finally claiming to know how to kill him.
Brilliant action scenes. No wonder this series is so very famous and so popular. It keeps your interest with emotions, pure action, fantasy magic. What is there not to like?
I will leave how the book ends so as not to give everything away. A great read. There are many interesting (mini?) twists there.
9/10
— Krishna