“So,” she said slowly, “what exactly is a ‘Keeper’?”

Sazed smiled. “Now, that is a far more clever question, Mistress. Keepers are…storehouses. We remember things, so that they can be used in the future.”

“Like religions,” Vin said.

Sazed nodded. “Religious truths are my particular specialty.”

“But, you remember other things too?”

Sazed nodded.

“Like what?”

“Well,” Sazed said, closing the tome he had been studying. “Languages, for instance.”

Vin immediately recognized the glyph-covered cover. “The book I found in the palace! How did you get it?”

“I happened across it while searching for you,” the Terrisman said. “It is written in a very old language, one that hasn’t been spoken regularly in nearly a millennium.”

“But you speak it?” Vin asked.

Sazed nodded. “Enough to translate this, I think.”

“And…how many languages do you know?”

“A hundred and seventy-two,” Sazed said. “Most of them, such as Khlenni, are no longer spoken. The Lord Ruler’s unity movement of the fifth century made