Mistborn: Secret History

1

What Kelsier would have given for a pencil and paper.

Something to write on, some way to pass the time. A means of collecting his thoughts and creating a plan of escape.

As the days passed, he tried scratching notes into the sides of the Well, which proved impossible. He tried unraveling threads from his clothing, then tying knots in them to represent words. Unfortunately, threads vanished soon after he pulled them free, and his shirt and trousers immediately returned to the way they’d looked before. Fuzz, during one of his rare visits, explained that the clothing wasn’t real – or rather, it was just an extension of Kelsier’s spirit.

For the same reason, he couldn’t use his hair or blood to write. He didn’t technically have either. It was supremely frustrating, but sometime during his second month of imprisonment he admitted the truth to himself. Writing wasn’t all that important. He’d never been able to write while confined to the Pits, but he’d planned all the same. Yes, they had been feverish plans, impossible dreams, but lack of paper hadn’t stopped him.

The attempts to write weren’t about making plans so much as finding something to do. A quest to soak up his time. It had worked for a few weeks. But in acknowledging the truth, he lost his will to keep trying to find a way to write.

Fortunately, about the time he acknowledged this, he discovered something new about his prison.

Whispering.

Oh, he couldn’t hear it. But could he “hear” anything? He didn’t have ears. He was… what had Fuzz said? A Cognitive Shadow? A force of mind, holding his spirit together, preventing it from diffusing. Saze would have had a field day. He loved mystical topics like this.

Regardless, Kelsier could sense something. The Well continued to pulse as it had before, sending waves of writhing shock through the walls of his prison and out into the world. Those pulses seemed to be strengthening, a continuous thrumming, like the sense bronze lent one in “hearing” people using Allomancy.

Inside of each pulse was… something. Whispers, he called them – though they contained more than just words. They were saturated with sounds, scents, and images.

He saw a book, with ink staining its pages. A group of people sharing a story. Terrismen in robes? Sazed?

The pulses whispered chilling words. Hero of Ages. The Announcer. Worldbringer. He recognized those terms from the ancient Terris prophecies mentioned in Alendi’s logbook.

Kelsier knew the discomforting truth now. He had met a god, which meant there was real depth and reality to faith. Did this mean there was something to that array of religions Saze had kept in his pocket, like playing cards to stack a deck?

You have brought Ruin upon this world….

Kelsier settled into the powerful light that was the Well, and found – with practice – that if he submerged himself in the center right before a pulse, he could ride it a short distance. It sent his consciousness traveling out of the Well to catch glimpses of each pulse’s destination.

He thought he saw libraries, quiet chambers where distant Terrismen spoke, exchanging stories and memorizing them. He saw madmen huddled in streets, whispering the words the pulses delivered. He saw a Mistborn man, noble, jumping between buildings.

Something other than Kelsier rode with those pulses. Something directing an unseen work, something interested in the lore of the Terris. It took Kelsier an embarrassingly long time to realize he should try another tactic. He dunked himself into the center of the pool, surrounded by the too-thin liquid light, and when the next pulse came he pushed himself in the opposite direction – not along with the pulse, but toward its source.

The light thinned, and he looked into someplace new. A dark expanse that was neither the world of the dead nor the world of the living.

In that other place, he found destruction.

Decay. Not blackness, for blackness was too complete, too whole to represent this thing he sensed in the Beyond. It was a vast force that would gleefully take something as simple as darkness, then rip it apart.

This force was time infinite. It was the winds that weathered, the storms that broke, the timeless waves running slowly, slowly, slowly to a stop as the sun and the planet cooled to nothing.

It was the ultimate end and destiny of all things. And it was angry.

Kelsier pulled back, throwing himself up out of the light, gasping, trembling.

He had met God. But for every Push, there was a Pull. What was the opposite of God?

What he had seen troubled him so much that he almost didn’t return. He almost convinced himself to ignore the terrible thing in the darkness. He nearly blocked out the whispers and tried to pretend he had never seen that awesome, vast destroyer.

But of course he couldn’t do that. Kelsier had never been able to resist a secret. This thing, even more than meeting Fuzz, proved that Kelsier had been playing all along at a game whose rules far outmatched his understanding.

That both terrified and excited him.

And so, he returned to gaze upon the thing. Again and again he went, struggling to comprehend, though he felt like an ant trying to understand a symphony.

He did this for weeks, right up until the point when the thing looked at him.

Before, it hadn’t seemed to notice – as one might not notice the spider hiding inside a keyhole. This time though, Kelsier somehow alerted it. The thing churned in an abrupt change of motion, then flowed toward Kelsier, its essence surrounding the place from which Kelsier observed. It rotated slowly about itself in a vortex – like an ocean that began turning around one spot. Kelsier couldn’t help but feel that an infinite, vast eye was suddenly squinting at him.

He fled, splashing, kicking up the liquid light as he backed away into his prison. He was so alarmed that he felt a phantom heartbeat thrumming inside of him, his essence acknowledging the proper reaction to shock and trying to replicate it. That stilled as he settled into his customary seat at the side of the pool.

The sight of that thing turning its attention upon him, the sensation of being tiny in the face of something so vast, deeply troubled Kelsier. For all his confidence and plotting, he was basically nothing. His entire life had been an exercise in unintentional bravado.

Months passed. He didn’t return to study the thing Beyond; Kelsier instead waited for Fuzz to visit and check in on him, as he did periodically.

When Fuzz finally arrived, he looked even more unraveled than the last time, mists escaping from his shoulders, a small hole in his left cheek exposing a view into his mouth, his clothing growing ragged.

“Fuzz?” Kelsier asked. “I saw something. This… Ruin you spoke of. I think I can watch it.”

Fuzz just paced back and forth, not even speaking.

“Fuzz? Hey, are you listening?”

Nothing.

“Idiot,” Kelsier tried. “Hey, you’re a disgrace to deityhood. Are you paying attention?”

Even an insult didn’t work. Fuzz just kept pacing.

Useless, Kelsier thought as a pulse of power left the Well. He happened to catch a glimpse of Fuzz’s eyes as the pulse passed.

And in that moment, Kelsier was reminded why he had named this creature a god in the first place. There was an infinity beyond those eyes, a complement to the one trapped here in this Well. Fuzz was the infinity of a note held perfectly, never wavering. The majesty of a painting, frozen and still, capturing a slice of life from a time gone by. It was the power of many, many moments compressed somehow into one.

Fuzz stopped before him and his cheeks unraveled fully, revealing a skeleton beneath that was also unraveling, eyes glowing with eternity. This creature was a divinity; he was just a broken one.

Fuzz left, and Kelsier didn’t see him for many months. The stillness and silence of his prison seemed as endless as the creatures he had studied. At one point, he found himself planning how to draw the attention of the destructive one, if only to beg it to end him.

It was when he started talking to himself that he really got worried.

“What have you done?”

“I’ve saved the world. Freed mankind.”

“Gotten revenge.”

“The goals can align.”

“You are a coward.”

“I changed the world!”

“And if you’re just a pawn of that thing Beyond? Like the Lord Ruler claimed? Kelsier, what if you have no destiny other than to do as you’re told?”

He contained the outburst, recovered himself, but the fragility of his own sanity unnerved him. He hadn’t been completely sane in the Pits either. In a moment of stillness – staring at the shifting mists that made up the walls of the cavernous room – he admitted a deeper secret to himself.

He hadn’t been completely sane since the Pits.

That was one reason why he didn’t at first trust his senses when someone spoke to him.

“Now this I did not expect.”

Kelsier shook himself, then turned with suspicion, worried he was hallucinating. It was possible to see all kinds of things in those shifting mists that made up the walls of the cavern, if you stared at them long enough.

This, however, was not a figure made of mist. It was a man with stark white hair, his face defined by angular features and a sharp nose. He seemed vaguely familiar to Kelsier, but he couldn’t place why.

The man sat on the floor, one leg up and his arm resting upon his knee. In his hand he held some kind of stick.

Wait… no, he wasn’t sitting on the floor, but on an object that somehow seemed to be floating upon the mists. The white, loglike object sank halfway into the mists of the floor and rocked like a ship on the water, bobbing in place. The rod in the man’s hand was a short oar, and his other leg – the one that wasn’t up – rested over the side of the log and vanished into the misty ground, visible only as an obscured silhouette.

“You,” the man said to Kelsier, “are very bad at doing as you’re supposed to.”

“Who are you?” Kelsier asked, stepping to the edge of his prison, eyes narrowed. This was no hallucination. He refused to believe his sanity was that far gone. “A spirit?”

“Alas,” the man said, “death has never really suited me. Bad for the complexion, you see.” He studied Kelsier, lips raised in a knowing smile.

Kelsier hated him immediately.

“Got stuck there, did you?” the man said. “In Ati’s prison…” He clicked his tongue. “Fitting recompense, for what you did. Poetic even.”

“What I did?”

“Destroying the Pits, O scarred one. That was the only perpendicularity on this planet with any reasonable ease of access. This one is very dangerous, growing more so by the minute, and difficult to find. By doing as you did, you basically ended traffic through Scadrial. Upended an entire mercantile ecosystem, which I’ll admit was fun to watch.”

“Who are you?” Kelsier said.

“I?” the man said. “I am a drifter. A miscreant. The flame’s last breath, made of smoke at its passing.”

“That’s… needlessly obtuse.”

“Well, I’m that too.” The man cocked his head. “That mostly, if I’m honest.”

“And you claim to not be dead?”

“If I were, would I need this?” the Drifter said, knocking his oar against the front of his small loglike vessel. It bobbed at the motion, and for the first time Kelsier was able to make out what it was. Arms he’d missed before, hanging down into the mists, obscured. A head that drooped on its neck. A white robe, masking the shape.

“A corpse,” he whispered.

“Oh, Spanky here is just a spirit. It’s damnably difficult to get about in this subastral – anyone physical risks slipping through these mists and falling, perhaps forever. So many thoughts pool together here, becoming what you see around you, and you need something finer to travel over it all.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Says the man who built a revolution upon the backs of the dead. At least I only need one corpse.”

Kelsier folded his arms. This man was wary – though he spoke lightheartedly, he watched Kelsier with care, and held back as if contemplating a method of attack.

He wants something, Kelsier guessed. Something that I have, maybe? No, he seemed legitimately surprised that Kelsier was there. He had come here, intending to visit the Well. Perhaps he wanted to enter it, access the power? Or did he, perhaps, just want to have a look at the thing Beyond?

“Well, you’re obviously resourceful,” Kelsier said. “Perhaps you can help me with my predicament.”

“Alas,” the Drifter said. “Your case is hopeless.”

Kelsier felt his heart sink.

“Yes, nothing to be done,” the Drifter continued. “You are, indeed, stuck with that face. By manifesting those same features on this side, you show that even your soul is resigned to you always looking like one ugly sonofa–”

“Bastard,” Kelsier cut in. “You had me for a second.”

“Now, that’s demonstrably wrong,” the Drifter said, pointing. “I believe only one of us in this room is illegitimate, and it isn’t me. Unless…” He tapped the floating corpse on the head with his oar. “What about you, Spanky?”

The corpse actually mumbled something.

“Happily married parents? Still alive? Really? I’m sorry for their loss.” The Drifter looked to Kelsier, smiling innocently. “No bastards on this side. What about yours?”

“The bastard by birth,” Kelsier said, “is always better off than the one by choice, Drifter. I’ll own up to my nature if you own up to yours.”

The Drifter chuckled, eyes alight. “Nice, nice. Tell me, since we’re on the topic, which are you? A skaa with noble bearing, or a nobleman with skaa interests? Which half is more you, Survivor?”

“Well,” Kelsier said dryly, “considering that the relatives of my noble half spent the better part of four decades trying to exterminate me, I’d say I’m more inclined toward the skaa side.”

“Aaaah,” the Drifter said, leaning forward. “But I didn’t ask which you liked more. I asked which you were.”

“Is it relevant?”

“It’s interesting,” the Drifter said. “Which is enough for me.” He reached down to the corpse he was using as a boat, then removed something from his pocket. Something that glowed, though Kelsier couldn’t tell if it was something naturally radiant, or just something made of metal.

The glow faded as the Drifter administered it to his vessel, then – covering the motion with a cough, as if to hide from Kelsier what he was doing – furtively applied some of the glow to his oar. When he placed the oar back into the mists, it sent the boat scooting closer to the Well.

“Is there a way for me to escape this prison?” Kelsier asked.

“How about this?” the Drifter said. “We’ll have an insult battle. Winner gets to ask one question, and the other has to answer truthfully. I’ll start. What’s wet, ugly, and has scars on its arms?”

Kelsier raised an eyebrow. All of this talk was a distraction, as evidenced by Drifter scooting – again – closer to the prison. He’s going to try jump for the Well, Kelsier thought. Leap in, hoping to be fast enough to surprise me.

“No guess?” Drifter asked. “The answer is basically anyone who spends time with you, Kelsier, as they end up slitting their wrists, hitting themselves in the face, and then drowning themselves to forget the experience. Ha! Okay, your turn.”

“I’m going to murder you,” Kelsier said softly.

“I– Wait, what?”

“If you step inside here,” Kelsier said, “I’m going to murder you. I’ll slice the tendons on your wrists so your hands can’t do anything more than batter at me uselessly as I kneel against your throat and slowly crush the life out of you – all while I remove your fingers one by one. I’ll finally let you breathe a single, frantic gasp – but at that moment I’ll shove your middle finger between your lips so that you’re forced to suck it down as you struggle for air. You’ll go out knowing you choked to death on your own rotten flesh.”

The Drifter gaped at him, mouth working soundlessly. “I…” he finally said. “I don’t think you know how to play this game.”

Kelsier shrugged.

“Seriously,” Drifter said. “You need some help, friend. I know a guy. Tall, bald, wears lots of earrings. Have a chat with him next–”

The Drifter cut off midsentence and leaped for the prison, kicking off the floating corpse and throwing himself at the light.

Kelsier was ready. As Drifter entered the light, Kelsier grabbed the man by one arm and slung him toward the side of the pool. The maneuver worked, and Drifter seemed to be able to touch the walls and floor here in the Well. He slammed against the wall, sending waves of light splashing up.

As Kelsier tried to punch at Drifter’s head while he was stumbling, the man caught himself on the side of the pool and kicked backward, knocking Kelsier’s legs out from beneath him.

Kelsier splashed in the light, and he tried to burn metals by reflex. Nothing happened, though there was something to the light here. Something familiar–

He managed to get to his feet, and caught Drifter lunging for the center, the deepest part. Kelsier snatched the man by the arm, swinging him away. Whatever this man wanted, Kelsier’s instincts said that he shouldn’t be allowed to have it. Beyond that, the Well was Kelsier’s only asset. If he could hold the man back from what he wanted, subdue him, perhaps it would lead to answers.

The Drifter stumbled, then lunged, trying to grab Kelsier.

Kelsier, in turn, pivoted and buried his fist in the man’s stomach. The motion gave him a thrill; after sitting for so long, inactive, it was nice to be able to do something.

Drifter grunted at the punch. “All right then,” he muttered.

Kelsier brought his fists up, checked his footing, then unleashed a series of quick blows at Drifter’s face that should have dazed him.

When Kelsier pulled back – not wanting to go too far and hurt the man seriously – he found that Drifter was smiling at him.

That didn’t seem a good sign.

Somehow, Drifter shook off the hits he’d taken. He jumped forward, dodged Kelsier’s attempted punch, then ducked and slammed his fist into Kelsier’s kidneys.

It hurt. Kelsier lacked a body, but apparently his spirit could feel pain. He let out a grunt and brought up his arms to protect his face, stepping backward in the liquid light. The Drifter attacked, relentless, slamming his fists into Kelsier with no care for the damage he might be doing to himself.

Go to the ground, Kelsier’s instincts told him. He dropped one hand and tried to seize Drifter by the arm, planning to send them both down into the light to grapple.

Unfortunately, the Drifter was a little too quick. He dodged and kicked Kelsier’s legs from beneath him again, then grabbed him by the throat, slamming him repeatedly – brutally – against the bottom of the shallower part of the prison, splashing him in light that was too thin to be water, but suffocating nonetheless.

Finally Drifter hauled him up, limp. The man’s eyes were glowing. “That was unpleasant,” Drifter said, “yet somehow still satisfying. Apparently you already being dead means I can hurt you.” As Kelsier tried to grab his arm, Drifter slammed Kelsier down again, then pulled him back up, stunned.

“I’m sorry, Survivor, for the rough treatment,” Drifter continued. “But you are not supposed to be here. You did what I needed you to, but you’re a wild card I’d rather not deal with right now.” He paused. “If it’s any consolation, you should feel proud. It’s been centuries since anyone got the drop on me.”

He released Kelsier, letting him slump down and catch himself against the side of the prison, half submerged in the light. He growled, trying to pull himself up after Drifter.

Drifter sighed, then proceeded to kick at Kelsier’s leg repeatedly, shocking him with the pain of it. He screamed, holding his leg. It should have cracked from the force of those kicks, and though it had not, the pain was overwhelming.

“This is a lesson,” Drifter said, though it was difficult to hear the words through the pain. “But not the one you might think it is. You don’t have a body, and I don’t have the inclination to actually injure your soul. That pain is caused by your mind; it’s thinking about what should be happening to you, and responding.” He hesitated. “I’ll refrain from making you choke on a chunk of your own flesh.”

He walked toward the middle of the pool. Kelsier watched through eyes quivering with pain as Drifter held his hands out to the sides and closed his eyes. He stepped into the center of the pool, the deep portion, and vanished into the light.

A moment later, a figure climbed back out of the pool. Yet this time, the person was shadowy, glowing with inner light like…

Like someone in the world of the living. This pool had let Drifter transition from the world of the dead to the real world. Kelsier gaped, following Drifter with his eyes as the man strode past the pillars in the room, then stopped at the other side. Two tiny sources of metal still glowed fiercely there to Kelsier’s eyes.

Drifter selected one. It was small, as he could toss it into the air and catch it again. Kelsier could sense the triumph in that motion.

Kelsier closed his eyes and concentrated. No pain. His leg wasn’t actually hurt. Concentrate.

He managed to make some of the pain fade. He sat up in the pool, rippling light coming up to his chest. He breathed in and out, though he didn’t need the air.

Damn. The first person he’d seen in months had thrashed him, then stolen something from the chamber outside. He didn’t know what, or why, or even how the Drifter had managed to slip from one world to the next.

Kelsier crawled to the center of the pool, lowering himself down into the deep portion. He stood, his leg still aching faintly, and put his hands to the sides. He concentrated, trying to…

To what? Transition? What would that even do to him?

He didn’t care. He was frustrated and humiliated. He needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t incapable.

He failed. No amount of concentration, visualization, or straining of muscles made him do what the Drifter had managed. He climbed from the pool, exhausted and chastened, and settled on the side.

He didn’t notice Fuzz standing there until the god spoke. “What were you doing?”

Kelsier turned. Fuzz visited infrequently these days, but when he did come, he always did it unannounced. If he spoke, he often only raved like a madman.

“Someone was just here,” Kelsier said. “A man with white hair. He somehow used this Well to pass from the world of the dead to the world of the living.”

“I see,” Fuzz said softly. “He dared that, did he? Dangerous, with Ruin straining against his bonds. But if anyone were going to try something so foolhardy, it would be Cephandrius.”

“He stole something, I think,” Kelsier said. “From the other side of the room. A bit of metal.”

“Aaah…” Fuzz said softly. “I had thought that when he rejected the rest of us, he would stop interfering. I should know better than to trust an implication from him. Half the time you can’t trust his outright promises….”

“Who is he?” Kelsier asked.

“An old friend. And no, before you ask, you can’t do as he did and transition between Realms. Your ties to the Physical Realm have been severed. You’re a kite with no string connecting it to the ground. You cannot ride the perpendicularity across.”

Kelsier sighed. “Then why was he able to come to the world of the dead?”

“It’s not the world of the dead. It’s the world of the mind. Men – all things, truly – are like a ray of light. The floor is the Physical Realm, where that light pools. The sun is the Spiritual Realm, where it begins. This Realm, the Cognitive Realm, is the space between where that beam stretches.”

The metaphor barely made any sense to him. They all know so much, Kelsier thought, and I know so little.

Still, at least Fuzz was sounding better today. Kelsier smiled toward the god, then froze as Fuzz turned his head.

Fuzz was missing half his face. The entire left side was just gone. Not wounded, and there was no skeleton. The complete half smoked, trailing wisps of mist. Half his lips remained, and he smiled back at Kelsier, as if nothing were wrong.

“He stole a bit of my essence, distilled and pure,” Fuzz explained. “It can Invest a human, grant him or her Allomancy.”

“Your… face, Fuzz…”

“Ati thinks to finish me,” Fuzz said. “Indeed, his knife was placed long ago. I’m already dead.” He smiled again, a gruesome expression, then vanished.

Feeling wrung out, Kelsier slumped alongside the pool, lying on the stones – which actually felt a little like real stone, instead of the fluffy softness of everything else made of mist.

He hated this feeling of ignorance. Everyone else was in on some grand joke, and he was the butt. Kelsier stared up at the ceiling, bathed in the glow of the shimmering Well and its column of light. Eventually, he came to a quiet decision.

He would find the answers.

In the Pits of Hathsin, he had awakened to purpose and had determined to destroy the Lord Ruler. Well, he would awaken again. He stood up and stepped into the light, strengthened. The clash of these gods was important, that thing in the Well dangerous. There was more to all of this than he’d ever known, and because of that he had a reason to live.

Perhaps more importantly, he had a reason to stay sane.

2

Kelsier no longer worried about madness or boredom. Each time he grew weary of his imprisonment, he remembered that feeling – that humiliation – he’d felt at Drifter’s hands. Yes, he was trapped in a space only five or so feet across, but there was plenty to do.

First he returned to his study of the thing Beyond. He forced himself to duck beneath the light to face it and meet its inscrutable gaze – he did it until he didn’t flinch when it turned its attention on him.

Ruin. A fitting name for that vast sense of erosion, decay, and destruction.

He continued to follow the Well’s pulses. These trips gave him cryptic clues to Ruin’s motives and plots. He sensed a familiar pattern to the things it changed – for Ruin seemed to be doing what Kelsier himself had done: coopting a religion. Ruin was manipulating the hearts of the people by changing their lore and books.

That terrified Kelsier. His purpose expanded, as he watched the world through these pulses. He didn’t just need to understand, he needed to fight this thing. This horrible force that would end all things, if it could.

He struggled, therefore, with a desperation to understand what he saw. Why did Ruin transform the old Terris prophecies? What was the Drifter – whom Kelsier spotted in very rare pulses – doing up in the Terris Dominance? Who was this mysterious Mistborn to whom Ruin paid so much attention, and was he a threat to Vin?

When he rode the pulses, Kelsier watched for – craved – signs of the people he knew and loved. Ruin was keenly interested in Vin, and many of his pulses centered around watching her or the man she loved, that Elend Venture.

The mounting clues worried Kelsier. Armies around Luthadel. A city still in chaos. And – he hated to confront this one – it looked like the Venture boy was king. When Kelsier realized this, he was so angry he spent days away from the pulses.

They’d gone and put a nobleman in charge.

Yes, Kelsier had saved this man’s life. Against his better judgment, he’d rescued the man that Vin loved. Out of love for her, perhaps a twisted paternal sense of duty. The Venture boy hadn’t been too bad, compared to the rest of his kind. But to give him the throne? It seemed that even Dox was listening to Venture. Kelsier would have expected Breeze to ride whatever wind came his way, but Dockson?

Kelsier fumed, but he could not remain away for long. He hungered for these glimpses of his friends. Though each was only a brief flash – like a single image from eyes blinked open – he clung to them. They were reminders that outside his prison, life continued.

Occasionally he was given a glimpse of someone else. His brother, Marsh.

Marsh lived. That was a welcome discovery. Unfortunately, the discovery was tainted. For Marsh was an Inquisitor.

The two of them had never been what one would call familial. They had taken divergent paths in life, but that wasn’t the true source of the distance between them – it wasn’t even due to Marsh’s stern ways butting against Kelsier’s glibness, or Marsh’s unspoken jealousy for things Kelsier had.

No, the truth was they had been raised knowing that at any point they could be dragged before the Inquisitors and murdered for their half-blooded nature. Each had reacted differently to an entire life spent, essentially, with a death sentence: Marsh with quiet tension and caution, Kelsier with aggressive self-confidence to mask his secrets.

Both had known a single, inescapable truth. If one brother were caught, it meant the other would be exposed as a half-blood and likely killed as well. Perhaps this situation would have brought other siblings together. Kelsier was ashamed to admit that for him and Marsh, it had been a wedge. Each mention of “Stay safe” or “Watch yourself” had been colored by an undercurrent of “Don’t screw up, or you’ll get me killed.” It had been a vast relief when, after their parents’ deaths, the two of them had agreed to give up pretense and enter the underground of Luthadel.

At times Kelsier toyed with fantasies of what might have been. Could he and Marsh have integrated fully, becoming part of noble society? Could he have overcome his loathing for them and their culture?

Regardless, he wasn’t fond of Marsh. The word “fond” sounded too much of walks in a park or time spent eating pastries. One was fond of a favorite book. No, Kelsier was not fond of Marsh. But strangely, he still loved him. He was initially happy to find the man alive, but then perhaps death would have been better than what had been done to him.

It took Kelsier weeks to figure out the reason Ruin was so interested in Marsh. Ruin could talk to Marsh. Marsh and other Inquisitors, judging by the glimpses and the sensation he received of words being sent.

How? Why Inquisitors? Kelsier found no answers in the visions he saw, though he did witness an important event.

The thing called Ruin was growing stronger, and it was stalking Vin and Elend. Kelsier saw it clearly in a trip through the pulses. A vision of the boy, Elend Venture, sleeping in his tent. The power of Ruin coalescing, forming a figure, malevolent and dangerous. It waited there until Vin entered, then tried to stab Elend.

As Kelsier lost the pulse, he was left with the image of Vin deflecting the blow and saving Elend. But he was confused. Ruin had waited there specifically until Vin returned.

It hadn’t actually wanted to hurt Elend. It had just wanted Vin to see him trying.

Why?

3

“It’s a plug,” Kelsier said.

Fuzz – Preservation, as the god had said he could be called – sat outside the prison. He was still missing half his face, and the rest of him was leaking in larger patches as well.

These days the god spent more time near the Well, for which Kelsier was grateful. He had been practicing how to pull information from the creature.

“Hmmm?” Preservation asked.

“This Well,” Kelsier said, gesturing around him. “It’s like a plug. You created a prison for Ruin, but even the most solid of burrows must have an entrance. This is that entrance, sealed with your own power to keep him out, since you two are opposites.”

“That…” Preservation said, trailing off.

“That?” Kelsier prompted.

“That’s utterly wrong.”

Damn, Kelsier thought. He’d spent weeks on that theory.

He was starting to feel an urgency. The pulses of the Well were growing more demanding, and Ruin seemed to be growing increasingly eager in its touch upon the world. Recently the light of the Well had started to act differently, condensing somehow, pulling together. Something was happening.

“We are gods, Kelsier,” Preservation said with a voice that trailed off, then grew louder, then trailed off again. “We permeate everything. The rocks are me. The people are me. And him. All things persist, but decay. Ruin… and Preservation…”

“You told me this was your power,” Kelsier said, gesturing again at the Well, trying to get the god back on topic. “That it gathers here.”

“Yes, and elsewhere,” Preservation said. “But yes, here. Like dew collects, my power gathers in that spot. It is natural. A cycle: clouds, rain, river, humidity. You cannot press so much essence into a system without it congealing here and there.”

Great. That didn’t tell him anything. He pressed further on the topic, but Fuzz grew quiet, so he tried something else. He needed to keep Preservation talking – to prevent the god from slumping into one of his quiet stupors.

“Are you afraid?” Kelsier asked. “If Ruin gets free, are you afraid he will kill you?”

“Ha,” Preservation said. “I’ve told you. He killed me long, long ago.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m sitting here talking to you.”

“And I’m talking to you. How alive are you?”

A good point.

“Death for one such as me is not like death for one such as you,” Preservation said, staring off again. “I was killed long ago, when I made the decision to break our promise. But this power I hold… it persists and it remembers. It wants to be alive itself. I have died, but some of me remains. Enough to know that… there were plans….”

It was no use trying to pry out what those plans were. He didn’t remember whatever this “plan” was that he’d made.

“So it’s not a plug,” Kelsier said. “Then what is it?”

Preservation didn’t reply. He didn’t even seem to hear.

“You said to me once before,” Kelsier continued, speaking more loudly, “that the power exists to be used. That it needs to be used. Why?”

Again no answer. He was going to need to try a different tactic. “I looked at him again. Your opposite.”

Preservation stood up straight, turning his haunting, half-finished gaze upon Kelsier. Mentioning Ruin often shocked him out of his stupor.

“He is dangerous,” Preservation said. “Stay away. My power protects you. Do not taunt him.”

“Why? He’s locked up.”

“Nothing is eternal, not even time itself,” Preservation said. “I didn’t imprison him so much as delay him.”

“And the power?”

“Yes…” Preservation said, nodding.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, he will use that. I see.” Preservation started, as if realizing – or maybe just recalling – something important. “My power created his prison. My power can unlock it. But how would he find someone who would do it? Who would hold the powers of creation, then give them away…”

“Which… we don’t want them to do,” Kelsier said.

“No. It will free him!”

“And last time?” Kelsier asked.

“Last time…” Preservation blinked, and seemed to come to himself more. “Yes, last time. The Lord Ruler. I made it work last time. I’ve put her into the spot to do this, but I can hear her thoughts…. He’s been working on her…. So mixed up…”

“Fuzz?” Kelsier asked, uncertain.

“I must stop her. Someone…” His eyes unfocused.

“What are you doing?”

“Hush,” Fuzz said, voice suddenly more commanding. “I’m trying to stop this.”

Kelsier looked around, but there was nobody else here. “Who?”

“Do not assume that the me you see here is the only me,” Fuzz said. “I am everywhere.”

“But–”

“Hush!”

Kelsier hushed, in part because he was happy to see such strength from the god after so long motionless. After some time, however, he slumped down. “No use,” Fuzz mumbled. “His tools are stronger.”

“So…” Kelsier said, testing to see if he’d be hushed again. “Last time. Rashek used the power, instead of… what? Giving it up?”

Fuzz nodded. “Alendi would have done the right thing, as he perceived it. Given the power up – but that would have freed Ruin. ‘Giving the power up’ is a stand-in for giving the power to him. The powers would interpret that as me releasing him. My power, accepting his touch back into the world, directly.”

“Great,” Kelsier said. “We need a sacrifice then. Someone to take up the powers of eternity, then use them for whatever he wants instead of giving them away. Well, that is a sacrifice I’m perfect to make. How do I do it?”

Preservation regarded him. The creature’s earlier strength was no more. He was fading, losing his human attributes. He didn’t blink anymore, for example, and didn’t make a pretense of breathing in before speaking. He could be utterly motionless, lifeless as an iron rod.

“You,” Preservation finally said. “Using my power. You.”

“You let the Lord Ruler do it.”

“He tried to save the world.”

“As did I.”

“You tried to rescue a boatful of people from a fire by sinking the boat, then claiming, ‘At least they didn’t burn to death.’ ” God hesitated. “You’re going to punch me again, aren’t you?”

“Can’t reach you, Fuzz,” Kelsier said. “The power. How do I use it?”

“You can’t,” Preservation said. “That power is part of the prison. This is what you did by merging your soul to the Well, Kelsier. You wouldn’t be able to hold it anyway. You’re not Connected enough to me.”

Kelsier settled down to think on this, but before he had time to do much, he noticed an oddity. Were those figures in the chamber outside? Yes, they were. Living people, marked by their glowing souls. More Inquisitors come to drop off a dead body? He hadn’t seen any of them for ages.

Two people stole into the corridor and approached the Well, passing rows of pillars that showed as illusory mist to Kelsier.

“They’re here,” Preservation said.

“Who?” Kelsier said, squinting. It was difficult to make out details of faces, with those souls glowing. “Is that…”

It was Vin.

“What?” Preservation said, looking toward Kelsier, noting his shock. “You thought I was waiting here for nothing? It happens today. The Well of Ascension is full. The time has arrived.”

The other figure was the boy, Elend Venture. Kelsier was surprised to find he wasn’t angry at the sight. Yes, the crew should have known better than to put a nobleman in charge, but that wasn’t really Elend’s fault. He’d always been too oblivious to be dangerous.

Besides, whatever the faults of his parentage, this Venture boy had stayed with Vin.

Kelsier folded his arms, watching Venture kneel beside the pool. “If he touches it, I’m going to slap him.”

“He will not,” Preservation said. “It’s for her. He knows it. I’ve been preparing her. I tried, at least.”

Vin turned, and seemed to be looking at God. Yes, she could see him. Was there a way Kelsier could use that?

“You tried?” Kelsier said. “Did you explain what she needs to do? Your opposite has been watching her, interacting with her. I’ve seen him doing it. He tried to kill Elend.”

“No,” Fuzz said, haunted. “He was imitating me. He looked as I do, to them, and tried to kill the boy. Not because he cares about one death, but because he wanted her to distrust me. To think I am her enemy. But can’t she tell the difference? Between his hate and destruction, and my peace. I cannot kill. I’ve never been able to kill….”

“Talk to her!” Kelsier said. “Tell her what she needs to do, Fuzz!”

“I…” Preservation shook his head. “I can’t get through to her, can’t speak to her. I can hear her mind, Kelsier. His lies are there. She doesn’t trust me. She thinks she needs to give it up. I’ve tried to stop this. I left her clues, and then I tried to make someone else stop her. But… I’ve… I’ve failed…”

Oh, hell, Kelsier thought. Need a plan. Quick.

Vin was going to give up the power. Release the thing. Even without Preservation’s assertions, Kelsier would have known what Vin would do. She was a better person than he had ever been, and she never had thought she deserved the rewards she was given. She’d take this power, and she’d assume she had to give it up for the greater good.

But how to change that? If Preservation couldn’t speak to her, then what?

Elend stood up and approached Preservation. Yes, the boy could see Preservation too.

“She needs motivation.” Kelsier said, an idea clicking in his mind. Ruin had tried to stab Elend, to frighten her.

It was the right idea. He just hadn’t gone far enough.

“Stab him,” Kelsier said.

“What?” Preservation said, aghast.

Kelsier pushed out of his prison bonds a few steps, approaching Fuzz, who stood just outside. He strained to the absolute limits of his fetters.

“Stab him,” Kelsier said. “Use that knife at your belt, Fuzz. They can see you, and you can affect their world. Stab Elend Venture. Give her a reason to use the power. She’ll want to save him.”

“I’m Preservation,” he said. “The knife… I haven’t actually drawn it in millennia. You speak of acting like him, as he pretended I would act! It’s horrible!”

“You have to!” Kelsier said.

“I can’t… I…” Fuzz reached to his belt, and his hand shimmered. The knife appeared there. He looked down at it, the blade glistening. “Old friend…” he whispered at it.

He looked toward Elend, who nodded. Preservation raised his arm, weapon in hand.

Then stopped.

His half face was a mask of pain. “No…” he whispered. “I Preserve…”

He’s not going to do it, Kelsier thought, watching Elend talk to Vin, his posture reassuring. He can’t do it.

Only one option.

“Sorry, kid,” Kelsier said.

Kelsier grabbed Preservation’s shimmering arm and slashed it across the Venture boy’s stomach.

He felt as if he were stabbing his own flesh. Not because of Venture, but because he knew what it would do to Vin. His heart lurched as she rushed to Venture’s side, weeping.

Well, he’d saved this boy’s life once, so this would make them even. Besides, she would rescue him. She’d have to save Elend. She loved him.

Kelsier stepped back, returning to his prison proper, leaving an aghast Preservation to stare at his own hand as he stumbled away from the fallen man.

“Gut wound,” Kelsier whispered. “He’ll take time to die, Vin. Grab the power. It’s right here. Use it.”

She cradled Venture. Kelsier waited, anxious. If she entered the pool, she’d be able to see Kelsier, wouldn’t she? She’d become transcendent, like Preservation. Or would she have to use the power first?

Would that free Kelsier? He had no answers, only an assurance that whatever happened, he could not let that thing Beyond escape. He turned.

And was shocked to find it there. He could sense it, pressed against the reality of this world, an infinite darkness. Not just the flimsy imitation of Preservation he’d made before, but the entire vast power. It wasn’t in any specific space, but at the same time it was pressed up against reality and watching with a keen interest.

To his horror, Kelsier saw it change, sending forward spines like the spindly legs of a spider. On their end, dangling like a puppet, was a humanoid figure.

Vin… it whispered. Vin…

She looked toward the pool, her posture grieved. Then she left Venture and entered the Well, passing Kelsier without seeing him and reaching the deepest point. She sank slowly into the light. At the last moment, she ripped something glowing from her ear and tossed it out – a bit of metal. Her earring?

Once she sank completely, she did not appear on this side. Instead, a storm began. A rising column of light surrounded Kelsier, blocking him from seeing anything but the raw energy. Like a sudden tide, an explosion, an instant sunrise. It was all around him, active, excited.

You mustn’t do it, child, Ruin said through his humanlike puppet. How could it speak with such a soothing voice? He could see the force behind it, the destruction, but the face it put on was so kindly. You know what you must do.

“Don’t listen to it, Vin!” Kelsier screamed, but his voice was lost in the roar of the power. He shouted and railed as the voice conned Vin, warning her that if she took the power she’d destroy the world. Kelsier fought through the light, trying to find her, to seize her and explain.

He failed. He failed horribly. He couldn’t make himself heard, couldn’t touch Vin. Couldn’t do anything. Even his impromptu plan of stabbing Elend proved foolish, for she released the power. Weeping, flayed, ripped open, she did the most selfless thing he had ever seen.

And in so doing, she doomed them.

The power became a weapon as she released it. It made a spear in the air and ripped a hole through reality and into the place where Ruin waited.

Ruin rushed through that hole to freedom.

4

Kelsier sat on the lip of the now empty Well of Ascension. The light was gone, and with it his prison. He could leave.

He didn’t seem to be stretching away and fading. Apparently being part of Preservation’s power for a time had expanded Kelsier’s soul, letting him linger. Though honestly, he wished he could vanish at this moment.

Vin – glowing and radiant to his eyes – lay beside Elend Venture, clutching him and weeping as his soul pulsed, growing weaker. Kelsier stood up, turning his back toward the sight. For all his cleverness, he’d gone and broken the poor girl’s heart.

I must be the smartest idiot around, Kelsier thought.

“It was going to happen,” Preservation said. “I thought… Maybe…” From the corner of his eye, Kelsier saw Fuzz approach Vin, then look down at the fallen Venture.

“I can Preserve him,” Preservation whispered.

Kelsier spun. Preservation started waving at Vin, and she stumbled to her feet. She followed the god a few feet to something Elend had dropped, a fallen nugget of metal. Where had that come from?

The Venture boy was carrying it when he entered, Kelsier thought. That was the last bit of metal from the other side of the room, the twin of the one the Drifter had stolen. Kelsier approached as Vin took the nugget of metal, so tiny, and approached Elend, then put it into his mouth. She washed it down with a vial of metal.

Soul and metal became one. Elend’s light strengthened, glowing vibrantly. Kelsier closed his eyes, feeling a thrumming sense of peace.

“That was good work, Fuzz,” Kelsier said, opening his eyes and smiling at Preservation as the god stepped over to him. Vin’s posture manifested incredible joy. “I’m almost ready to think you’re a benevolent god.”

“Stabbing him was dangerous, painful,” Preservation said. “I cannot condone such recklessness. But perhaps it was right, regardless of how I feel.”

“Ruin’s free,” Kelsier said, looking upward. “That thing has escaped.”

“Yes. Fortunately, before I died, I put a plan into motion. I can’t remember it, but I’m certain that it was brilliant.”

“You know, I’ve said something similar myself on occasion, after a night of drinking.” Kelsier rubbed his chin. “I’m free too.”

“Yes.”

“This is where you joke that you aren’t certain which was more dangerous to release. Me or the other one.”

“No,” Fuzz said. “I know which is more dangerous.”

“Failing marks for effort there, I’m afraid.”

“But perhaps…” Preservation said. “Perhaps I cannot say which is more annoying.” He smiled. With his face half melted off and his neck starting to go, it was unnerving. Like a happy bark from a crippled puppy.

Kelsier slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll make a solid crewmember out of you yet, Fuzz. For now, I want to get the hell out of this room.”