Brandon SANDERSON - The Well of Ascension

It was hard to believe that anything could actually be worse than the Lord Ruler’s oppression. Sazed told himself that these people’s pain would pass, that they would someday know prosperity because of what he and the others had done. Yet, he had seen farmers forced to slaughter each other, had seen children starve because some despot had “requisitioned” a village’s entire food supply. He had seen thieves kill freely because the Lord Ruler’s troops no longer patrolled the canals. He had seen chaos, death, hatred, and disorder. And he couldn’t help but acknowledge that he was partially to blame.

He continued to refill the hole. He had been trained as a scholar and a domestic attendant; he was a Terrisman steward, the most useful, most expensive, and most prestigious of servants in the Final Empire. That meant almost nothing now. He’d never dug a grave, but he did his best, trying to be reverent as he piled dirt on the corpse. Surprisingly, about halfway through the process, the peasants began to help him, pushing dirt from the pile into the hole.

Perhaps there is hope for these yet , Sazed thought, thankfully letting one of the others take his shovel and finish the work. When they were done, the very tip of the HaDah branch breached the dirt at the head of the grave.

“Why’d you do that?” Teur asked, nodding to the branch.

Sazed smiled. “It is a religious ceremony, Goodman Teur. If you please, there is a prayer that should accompany it.”

“A prayer? Something from the Steel Ministry?”

Sazed shook his head. “No, my friend. It is a prayer from a previous time, a time before the Lord Ruler.”

The peasants eyed each other, frowning. Teur just rubbed his wrinkled chin. They all remained quiet, however, as Sazed said a short HaDah prayer. When he finished, he turned toward the peasants. “It was known as the religion of HaDah. Some of your ancestors might have followed it, I think. If any of you wish, I can teach you of its precepts.”

The assembled crowd stood quietly. There weren’t many of them – two dozen or so, mostly middle-aged women and a few older men. There was a single young man with a club leg; Sazed was surprised that he’d lived so long on a plantation. Most lords killed invalids to keep them from draining resources.

“When is the Lord Ruler coming back?” asked a woman.

“I do not believe that he will,” Sazed said.

“Why did he abandon us?”

“It is a time of change,” Sazed said. “Perhaps it is also time to learn of other truths, other ways.”

The group of people shuffled quietly. Sazed sighed quietly; these people associated faith with the Steel Ministry and its obligators. Religion wasn’t something that skaa worried about – save, perhaps, to avoid it when possible.

The Keepers spent a thousand years gathering and memorizing the dying religions of the world , Sazed thought. Who would have thought that now – with the Lord Ruler gone – people wouldn’t care enough to want what they’d lost ?

Yet, he found it hard to think ill of these people. They were struggling to survive, their already harsh world suddenly made unpredictable. They were tired. Was it any wonder that talk of beliefs long forgotten failed to interest them?

“Come,” Sazed said, turning toward the village. “There are other things – more practical things – that I can teach you.”

VIN COULD SEE SIGNS OF anxiety reflected in the city. Workers milled anxiously and markets bustled with an edge of concern – showing that same apprehension that one might see in a cornered rodent. Frightened, but not sure what to do. Doomed with nowhere to run.

Many had left the city during the last year – noblemen fleeing, merchants seeking some other place of business. Yet, at the same time, the city had swelled with an influx of skaa. They had somehow heard of Elend’s proclamation of freedom, and had come with optimism – or, at least, as much optimism as an overworked, underfed, repeatedly beaten populace could manage.

And so, despite predictions that Luthadel would soon fall, despite whispers that its army was small and weak, the people had stayed. Worked. Lived. Just as they always had. The life of a skaa had never been very certain.

It was still strange for Vin to see the market so busy. She walked down Kenton Street, wearing her customary trousers and buttoned shirt, thinking about the time when she’d visited the street during the days before the Collapse. It had been the quiet home of some exclusive tailoring shops.

When Elend had abolished the restrictions on skaa merchants, Kenton Street had changed. The thoroughfare had blossomed into a wild bazaar of shops, pushcarts, and tents. In order to target the newly empowered – and newly waged – skaa workers, the shop owners had altered their selling methods. Where once they had coaxed with rich window displays, they now called and demanded, using criers, salesmen, and even jugglers to try to attract trade.

The street was so busy that Vin usually avoided it, and this day was even worse than most. The arrival of the army had sparked a last-minute flurry of buying and selling, the people trying to get ready for whatever was to come. There was a grim tone to the atmosphere. Fewer street performers, more yelling. Elend had ordered all eight city gates barred, so flight was no longer an option. Vin wondered how many of the people regretted their decision to stay.

She walked down the street with a businesslike step, hands clasped to keep the nervousness out of her posture. Even as a child – an urchin on the streets of a dozen different cities – she hadn’t liked crowds. It was hard to keep track of so many people, hard to focus with so much going on. As a child, she’d stayed near the edges of crowds, hiding, venturing out to snatch the occasional fallen coin or ignored bit of food.

She was different now. She forced herself to walk with a straight back, and kept her eyes from glancing down or looking for places to hide. She was getting so much better – but seeing the crowds reminded her of what she had once been. What she would always – at least in part – still be.

As if in response to her thoughts, a pair of street urchins scampered through the throng, a large man in a baker’s apron screaming at them. There were still urchins in Elend’s new world. In fact, as she considered it, paying the skaa population probably made for a far better street life for urchins. There were more pockets to pick, more people to distract the shop owners, more scraps to go around, and more hands to feed beggars.

It was difficult to reconcile her childhood with such a life. To her, a child on the street was someone who learned to be quiet and hide, someone who went out at night to search through garbage. Only the most brave of urchins had dared cut purses; skaa lives had been worthless to many noblemen. During her childhood, Vin had known several urchins who been killed or maimed by passing noblemen who found them offensive.

Elend’s laws might not have eliminated the poor, something he so much wanted to do, but he had improved the lives of even the street urchins. For that – among other things – she loved him.

There were still some noblemen in the crowd, men who had been persuaded by Elend or circumstances that their fortunes would be safer in the city than without. They were desperate, weak, or adventuresome. Vin watched one man pass, surrounded by a group of guards. He didn’t give her a second glance; to him, her simple clothing was reason enough to ignore her. No noblewoman would dress as she did.