In the Mistborn series, Kredik Shaw is the name of the Lord Ruler’s palace, located in Luthadel.
Outside Appearance & Atmosphere
The Lord Ruler’s imperial palace resembles a patch of enormous black spears thrust into the ground, with some spires being twisted, while others are straight. Its name in Terris means “Hill of a Thousand Spires.”
When Vin first visits Kredik Shaw, secretly following Kelsier inside, she notes that the “palace feels…wrong somehow.” Kelsier tells her this is because the Lord Ruler radiates like an incredibly powerful Soother, smothering the emotions of everyone who gets close to him (1.246).
The Lord Ruler’s Main Room
Within its depths, the Lord Ruler’s main room is described as being quite majestic by Vin:
“The room was shaped like a massive, stocky cylinder. The wall—there was only one, running in a wide circle—was made entirely of glass. Lit by fires from behind, the room glowed with spectral light. The glass was colored, though it didn’t depict any specific scene. Instead, it seemed crafted from a single sheet, the colors blown and melded together in long, thin trails, like mist” (1.601).
The Well of Ascension
The Lord Ruler has hidden the Well of Ascension within Kredik Shaw, using the palace as a capstone to hide its location. Vin is able to find it due to the pulses it gives off during the second Mistborn novel.
Location within Kredik Shaw
Within Kredik Shaw, Vin and Elend come upon a room shaped like an upside-down bowl. Here, they find a stone shack, which is like a building within a building, that leads them to a cavern that holds the Well of Ascension.
“Elend’s lantern glistened against the fine stonework and murals, mostly in black and grey. The stone shack stood in the center of the room, abandoned, enclosed” (2.755).
They tear apart this “building-within-a-building”, ripping up sections of the floor. Beneath the floor, they find solid rock, and Vin burns her metals, seeing a thick, blue line that points her towards more metal underneath. She burns duralumin and pulls on the stone and a section of the floor’s wall slides open. It reveals a secret passageway with stairs that lead down to a vast, stone cavern chamber.
A tunnel splits off the end of this cavern, which leads Vin and Elend down to another strange, smoke-filled cavern. At the other side of this cavern, there is a final chamber, much smaller than the first two. This room is man-made, or at least has the feeling of being man-made:
“Stalactites formed pillars through the low-ceilinged room, and they were spaced far too evenly to be random. Yet at the same time, they looked as if they had grown naturally, and showed no signs of being worked” (2.766)
The air is notably warmer here, and a low light comes from something on the far side of the chamber, shimmering. It’s the Well of Ascension, and it’s described as a glowing white pool:
“It was gathered in a small depression in the rock, and it looked thick—like metal. A silvery white, glowing liquid metal. The Well was only a few feet across, but its power loomed in her mind” (2.770).
Around the Well of Ascension, the room is littered with what looks like broken pottery. These are actually beads of gold metal. Vin shoves one of them down Elend’s throat at the end of the novel to save his life, and it gives him Allomantic abilities.
