Mistborn: Secret History

1

He’d hoped to have the sun back once Ruin vanished from the sky, but after walking far enough out, he seemed to leave his world behind – and the sun with it. The sky here was nothing but empty blackness. Kelsier eventually managed to use some vines to strap his flagging cookfire to the end of his staff, which became an improvised torch.

It was a strange experience, hiking through the darkened landscape, holding a staff with an entire campfire on the top. But the logs didn’t fall apart, and the thing wasn’t nearly as heavy as it should have been. Not as hot either, particularly if – when bringing it out – he didn’t make it manifest fully.

Plant life grew all around him, real to his touch and eyes, though of strange varieties, some with brownish red fronds and others with wide palms. Many trees – a jungle of exotic plants.

There were some bits of mist in here. If he knelt by the ground and looked for them, he could find little glowing spirits. Fish, sea plants. They manifested here above the ground, though in the ocean on the other side they were probably down within the depths. Kelsier stood up, holding the soul of some kind of massive deep-sea creature – like a fish, only as large as a building – in his hand, feeling its ponderous strength.

That was surreal, but so was his life these days. He dropped the fish’s soul and continued onward, hiking through waist-high plants with a blazing staff lighting the way.

As he got farther from the shore, he felt a tugging at his soul. A manifestation of his ties to the world he’d left behind. He knew, without having to experiment, that this tug would ultimately grow strong enough that he wouldn’t be able continue outward.

He could use that. The tugging was a tool that let him judge if he was getting farther from his world, or if he’d gotten turned around in the darkness. Navigation was otherwise next to impossible, now that he didn’t have the canals and roadways to guide him.

By judging the pull on his soul, he kept himself pointed directly outward, away from his homeland. He wasn’t completely certain that was where he’d find his goal, but it seemed like his best bet.

He hiked through the jungle for days, but then it started to dwindle. Eventually he reached a place where plants grew only in occasional patches. They were replaced with strange formations of rock, like glassy sculptures. The jagged things were often some ten feet or more tall. He didn’t know what to make of those. He had stopped passing the souls of fish, and nothing seemed to be alive out here in either Realm.

The pull tugging him backward was growing laborious to fight. He was beginning to worry he’d have to turn around when, at long last, he spotted something new.

A light on the horizon.

2

Sneaking was a great deal easier when you didn’t technically have a body.

Kelsier moved in silence, having dismissed his cloak and staff. He’d left his pack behind, and though there were a few plants out here, he could pass through them, not even rustling their leaves.

The lights ahead pulsed from a fortress crafted of white stone. It wasn’t a city, but close enough for him. That light had an odd quality; it didn’t burn or flicker like a flame. Some kind of limelight? He drew near and pulled up beside one of the odd rock formations that were common out here. It had hooked spikes drooping from it almost like branches.

The very walls of this fortress glowed faintly. Was that mist? It didn’t seem to have the same hue to it; it was too blue. Keeping to the shadows of rock formations, Kelsier rounded the building toward a brighter light source at the back.

This turned out to be an enormous glowing cord as thick as a large tree trunk. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic power, and the light it gave off was the same shade as the walls – only far more brilliant. It seemed to be some kind of energy conduit, and ran off into the far distance, visible in the darkness for miles.

The cord passed into the fortress through a large gate in the back. As Kelsier crept closer, he found that little lines of energy were running across the stone of the wall. They branched smaller and smaller, like a glowing web of veins.

The fortress was tall, imposing, like a keep – but without the ornamentation. It didn’t have a separate fortification around it, but its walls were steep and sheer. Guards moved atop the roof, and as one passed, Kelsier pushed himself down into the ground. He was able to sink into it completely, becoming nearly invisible, though that required grabbing hold of the ground and pulling himself downward until only the top of his head was visible.

The guards didn’t notice him. He climbed back out of the ground and inched up to the base of the fortress wall. He pressed his hand against the glowing stone and was given the impression of a rocky wall far from here, in another place. An unfamiliar land with striking green plants. He gasped, pulling his hand away.

These weren’t stones, but the spirits of stones – like his spirit of a fire. They had been brought here and constructed into a building. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so clever at having found himself a staff and a sack.

He touched the stone again, looking at that green landscape. That was what Mare had talked about, a land with an open blue sky. Another planet, he decided. One that didn’t suffer our fate.

For the moment he ignored the image of that place, pushing his fingers through the spirit of the stone. Strangely, the stone resisted. Kelsier gritted his teeth and pushed harder. He managed to get his fingers to sink in about two inches, but couldn’t make them go any farther.

It’s that light, he thought. It pushed back on him. Looks a little like the light of souls.

Well, he couldn’t slip through the wall. What now? He retreated into the shadows to consider. Should he try to sneak in one of the gates? He rounded the building, contemplating this for a short time, before suddenly feeling foolish. He hurried forward to the wall again and pressed his hand against the stones, sinking his fingers in a few inches. Then he reached up and did the same with the other hand.

Then he proceeded to scale the wall.

Though he missed Steelpushing, this method proved quite effective. He could grip the wall basically anywhere he wanted, and his form didn’t have much weight. Climbing was easy, as long as he maintained his concentration. Those images of a land with green plants were very distracting. Not a speck of ash in sight.

A piece of him had always considered Mare’s flower a fanciful story. And while the place looked strange, it also attracted him with its alien beauty. There was something about it that was incredibly inviting. Unfortunately, the wall kept trying to spit his fingers back out, and maintaining his grip took a great deal of attention. He continued moving; he could revel in that luxurious scene of green grass and pleasant hills another time.

One of the upper levels had a window big enough to get through, which was good. The guards on the keep’s top would have been difficult to dodge. Kelsier slipped in the window, entering a long stone corridor lit by the spiderwebs of power coursing across the walls, floor, and ceiling.

The energy must keep the stones from evaporating, Kelsier thought. All the souls he’d brought with him had begun to deteriorate, but these stones were solid and unbroken. Those tiny lines of power were somehow sustaining the spirits of the stone, and perhaps as a side effect keeping people like Kelsier from passing through the walls.

He crept down the corridor. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but he wouldn’t have learned anything more by sitting outside and waiting.

The power coursing through this place kept giving him visions of another world – and, he realized with discomfort, the energy seemed to be permeating him. Mixing with his soul’s own energy, which had already been touched by the power at the Well. In a few brief moments, he had started to think that place with the green plants looked normal.

He heard voices echoing in the hallway, speaking a strange language with a nasal tone. Prepared for this, Kelsier scrambled out a window and clung there, just outside.

A pair of guards hurried through the hallway beside him, and after they passed he peeked in to see that they were wearing long white-blue tabards, pikes at their shoulders. They had fair skin and looked like they could have been from one of the dominances – except for their strange language. They spoke energetically, and as the words washed across him Kelsier thought… He thought he could make some of it out.

Yes. They speak the language of open fields, of green plants. Of where these stones came from, and the source of this power…

“… is pretty sure he saw something, sir,” one guard was saying.

The words struck Kelsier strangely. On one hand he felt they should be indecipherable. On the other hand he instantly knew what they meant.

“How would a Threnodite have made it all the way here?” the other guard snapped. “It defies reason, I tell you.”

They passed through the doors at the other end of the hall. Kelsier climbed back into the corridor, curious. Had a guard seen him outside then? This didn’t seem like a general alarm, so if he had been spotted, the glimpse had been brief.

He debated fleeing, but decided to follow the guards instead. Though most new thieves tried to avoid guards during an infiltration, Kelsier’s experience showed that you generally wanted to tail them – for they’d always stick close to the things that were most important.

He wasn’t certain if they could harm him in any way, though he figured it would be best not to find out, so he stayed a good distance back from the guards. After curving through a few stone corridors, they reached a door and went in. Kelsier crept up, cracked it, and was rewarded by the sight of a larger chamber where a small group of guards were setting up a strange device. A large yellow gemstone the size of Kelsier’s fist shone in the center, glowing even more brightly than the walls. That gem was surrounded by a lattice of golden metal holding it in place. All told, it was the size of a desk clock.

Kelsier leaned forward, hidden just outside the door. That gemstone… that had to be worth a fortune.

A different door into the room – one opposite him – slammed open, causing several guards to jump, then salute. The creature that entered seemed… well, mostly human. Wizened, dried up, the woman had puckered lips, a bald scalp, and strange silvery-dark skin. She glowed faintly with the same quiet blue-white light as the walls.

“What is this?” the creature snapped in the language of the green plants.

The guard captain saluted. “Probably just a false alarm, ancient one. Maod says he saw something outside.”

“Looked like a figure, ancient one,” another guard piped up. “Saw it myself. It tested at the wall, sinking its fingers into the stone, but was rebuffed. Then it retreated, and I lost sight of it in the darkness.”

So he had been seen. Damn. At least they didn’t seem to know he’d crept into the building.

“Well, well,” the ancient creature said. “My foresight does not seem so foolish now, does it, Captain? The powers of Threnody wish to join the main stage. Engage the device.”

Kelsier had an immediate sinking feeling. Whatever that device did, he suspected it would not go well for him. He turned to bolt down the corridor, making for one of the windows. Behind him, the powerful golden light of the gemstone faded.

Kelsier felt nothing.

“Well,” the captain said from behind, voice echoing. “Nobody from Threnody within a day’s march of here. Looks like a false alarm after all.”

Kelsier hesitated in the empty corridor. Then, cautious, he crept back to peek into the room. The guards and the wizened creature all stood around the device, seeming displeased.

“I do not doubt your foresight, ancient one,” the guard captain continued. “But I do trust my forces on the Threnodite border. There are no shadows here.”

“Perhaps,” the creature said, resting her fingers on the gemstone. “Perhaps there was someone, but the guard was wrong about it being a Cognitive Shadow. Have the guards be on alert, and leave the device on just in case. This timing strikes me as too opportune to be coincidental. I must speak with the rest of the Ire.”

As she said the word, this time Kelsier got a sense of its meaning in the language of the green plants. It meant age, and he had a sudden impression of a strange symbol made from four dots and some lines that curved, like ripples in a river.

Kelsier shook his head, dispelling the vision. The creature was walking in Kelsier’s direction. He scrambled away, barely reaching a window and climbing out as the creature pushed open the door and strode through the hallway.

New plan, Kelsier decided, hanging outside on the wall, feeling completely exposed. Follow the weird lady giving orders.

He let her get a distance ahead of him, then entered the corridor and followed silently. She rounded the outer corridor of the fortress before eventually reaching the end of it, where it stopped at a guarded door. She passed inside, and Kelsier thought for a moment, then climbed out another window.

He had to be careful; if the guards above weren’t already keeping close watch on the walls, they soon would be. Unfortunately, he doubted he could get through that doorway without bringing every guard in the place down on him. Instead he climbed along the outside of the fortress until he reached the next window past the guarded door. This one was smaller than the others he’d gone through, more like an arrow slit than a true window. Fortunately, it looked into the room the strange woman had entered.

Inside, an entire group of the creatures sat in discussion. Kelsier pressed up against the slit of a window, peeking in, clinging precariously to the wall some fifty feet in the air. The beings all had that same silvery skin, though two were a shade darker than the rest. It was difficult to distinguish individuals among them; they were all so old, the men completely bald, the women nearly so. Each wore the same distinctive robe – white, with hoods that could be pulled up and silver embroidery around the cuffs.

Curiously, the light from the walls was dimmer in the room. The effect was particularly noticeable near where one of the creatures was sitting or standing. It was like… they themselves were drawing in the light.

He was at least able to pick out the woman from before, with her wizened lips and long fingers. Her robe had a thicker band of silver. “We must move up our timetable,” she was saying to the others. “I do not believe this sighting was a coincidence.”

“Bah,” said a seated man who held a cup of glowing liquid. “You always jump at stories, Alonoe. Not every coincidence is a sign of someone drawing upon Fortune.”

“And do you disagree that it is best to be careful?” Alonoe demanded. “We have come too far, worked too hard, to let the prize slip away now.”

“Preservation’s Vessel has nearly expired,” another woman said. “Our window to strike is approaching.”

“An entire Shard,” Alonoe said. “Ours.”

“And if that was an agent of Ruin the guards spotted?” asked the seated man. “If our plans have been discovered? The Vessel of Ruin could have his eyes upon us at this very moment.”

Alonoe seemed disturbed by this, and she glanced upward as if to search the sky for the watching eyes of the Shard. She recovered, speaking firmly. “I will take the chance.”

“We will draw his anger either way,” another of the beings noted. “If one of us Ascends to Preservation, we will be safe. Only then.”

Kelsier chewed on this as the creatures fell silent. So someone else can take up the Shard. Fuzz is almost dead, but if someone were to seize his power as he died…

But hadn’t Preservation told Kelsier that such a thing was impossible? You wouldn’t be able to hold my power anyway, Preservation had said. You’re not Connected enough to me.

He’d seen that now firsthand, in the space between moments. Were these creatures somehow Connected enough to Preservation to take the power? Kelsier doubted it. So what was their plan?

“We move forward,” the seated man said, looking to the others. One at a time, they nodded. “Devotion protect us. We move forward.”

“You won’t need Devotion, Elrao,” Alonoe said. “You will have me.”

Over my dead body, Kelsier thought. Or… well, something like that.

“The timetable is accelerated then,” said Elrao, the man with the cup. He drank the glowing liquid, then stood. “To the vault?”

The others nodded. Together they left the room.

Kelsier waited until they were gone, then tried pushing himself through the window. It was too small for a person, but he wasn’t completely a person any longer. He could meld a few inches with the stone, and with effort he was able to contort his shape and squeeze through the wide slit.

He finally tumbled into the room, shoulders popping into their previous shape. The experience left him with a splitting headache. He sat up, back to the wall, and waited for the pain to fade before standing to give this room a thorough ransacking.

He didn’t come up with much. A few bottles of wine, a handful of gemstones left casually in one of the drawers. Both were real, not souls pulled through to this Realm.

The room had a door leading into the inner parts of the fortress, and so – after peeking through – he slipped in. This next room looked more promising. It was a bedroom. He rifled through the drawers, discovering several robes like the wizened people had been wearing. And then, in the small table by the hearth, the jackpot. A book of sketches filled with strange symbols like the one he had visualized. Symbols that he felt, vaguely, he could understand.

Yes… These were writing, though most of the pages were filled with terms he couldn’t begin to comprehend, even once he began to be able to read the symbols themselves. Terms like Adonalsium, Connection, Realmatic Theory.

The end pages, however, described the culmination of the notes and sketches. A kind of arcane device in the shape of a sphere. You could break it and absorb the power within, which would briefly Connect you to Preservation – like the lines he’d seen in the place between moments.

That was their plan. Travel to the place of Preservation’s death, prime themselves with this device, and absorb his power – Ascending to take his place.

Bold. Exactly the kind of plan Kelsier admired. And now, he finally knew what he was going to steal from them.

3

Thievery was the most authentic form of flattery.

What could be more satisfying than knowing the things you possessed were intriguing, captivating, or valuable enough to provoke another man to risk everything to obtain them? This was Kelsier’s purpose in life, to remind people of the value of the things they loved. By taking them away.

These days, he didn’t care for the little thieveries. Yes, he’d pocketed the gemstones he’d found up above, but that was more out of pragmatism than anything else. Ever since the Pits of Hathsin, he hadn’t been interested in stealing common possessions.

No, these days he stole something far greater. Kelsier stole dreams.

He crouched outside the fortress, hidden between two spires of twisting black rock. He now understood the purpose of creating such a powerful building, here at the reaches of Preservation and Ruin’s dominion. That fortress protected a vault, and inside that vault lay an incredible opportunity. The seed that would make a person, under the right circumstances, into a god.

Getting to it would be nearly impossible. They’d have guards, locks, traps, and arcane devices he couldn’t plan for or expect. Sneaking in and robbing that vault would test his skills to their utmost, and even then he was likely to fail.

He decided not to try.

That was the thing about big, defended vaults. You couldn’t realistically leave most possessions in them forever. Eventually you had to use what you guarded – and that provided men such as Kelsier with an opportunity. And so he waited, prepared, and planned.

It took a week or so – counting days by judging the schedules of the guards – but at long last an expedition sallied forth from the keep. The grand procession of twenty people rode on horseback, holding aloft lanterns.

Horses, Kelsier thought, slipping through the darkness to keep pace with the procession. Hadn’t expected that.

Well, they weren’t moving terribly quickly even with the mounts. He was able to keep up with them easily, particularly since he didn’t tire as he had when alive.

He counted five of the wizened ancients and a force of fifteen soldiers. Curiously, each of the ancients was dressed almost exactly the same, in their similar robes with hoods up and leather satchels over their shoulders, the same style of saddlebags on each horse.

Decoys, Kelsier decided. If someone attacks, they can split up. Their enemy might not know which of them to follow.

Kelsier could use that, particularly since he was relatively certain who carried the Connection device. Alonoe, the imperious woman who seemed to be in charge, wasn’t the type to let power slip through her spindly fingertips. She intended to become Preservation; letting one of her colleagues carry the device would be too risky. What if they got ideas? What if they used it themselves?

No, she’d have the weapon on her somewhere. The only question was how to get it from her.

Kelsier gave it some time. Days of travel through the darkened landscape, keeping pace with the caravan while he planned.

There were three basic types of thievery. The first involved a knife to the throat and a whispered threat. The second involved pilfering in the night. And the third… well, that was Kelsier’s favorite. It involved a tongue coated with zinc. Instead of a knife it used confusion, and instead of prowling it worked in the open.

The best kind of thievery left your target uncertain if anything had happened at all. Getting away with the prize was all well and good, but it didn’t mean much if the city guard came pounding on your door the next day. He’d rather escape with half as many boxings, but the confidence that his trickery wouldn’t be discovered for weeks to come.

And the real trophy was to pull off a heist so clever, the target didn’t ever discover you’d taken something from them.

Each “night” the caravan made camp in an anxious little cluster of bedrolls around a campfire, much like the one in Kelsier’s pack. The ancients got out jars of light, drinking and restoring the luminance to their skin. They didn’t chat much; these people seemed less like friends and more like a group of noblemen who considered one another allies by necessity.

Soon after their meal each night, the ancients retired to their bedrolls. They set guards, but didn’t sleep in tents. Why would you need a tent out here? There was no rain to keep off, and practically no wind to block. Just darkness, rustling plants, and a dead man.

Unfortunately, Kelsier couldn’t figure out a way to get to the weapon. Alonoe slept with her satchel in her hands, watched over by two guards. Each morning she checked to make sure the weapon was still there. Kelsier managed to get a glimpse of it one morning, and saw the glowing light inside, making him reasonably certain her satchel wasn’t a decoy.

Well, that would come. His first step was to sow a little misdirection. He waited for an appropriate night, then pushed himself down into the ground, sinking his essence beneath the surface. Then he pulled himself through the rock. It was like swimming through very thick liquid dirt.

He came up near where Alonoe had just settled down to sleep, and stuck only his lips out of the ground. Dox would have had a fit of laughter seeing this, Kelsier thought. Well, Kelsier was far too arrogant to worry about his pride.

“So,” he whispered to Alonoe in her own language, “you presume to hold Preservation’s power. You think you’ll fare better than he did at resisting me?”

He then pulled himself down under the ground. It was black as night under there, but he could hear the thumping of feet and the cries of shock from what he’d said. He swam out a distance, then lifted an ear from the ground.

“It was Ruin!” Alonoe was saying. “I swear, it must have been his Vessel. Speaking to me.”

“So he does know,” said another of the ancient ones. Kelsier thought it was Elrao, the man who had challenged her back in the fortress.

“Your wards were supposed to prevent this!” Alonoe said. “You told me they’d stop him from sensing the device!”

“There are ways for him to know of us without having sensed the orb, Alonoe,” another female said. “My art is exacting.”

“How he found us is not the problem,” Elrao said. “The question is why he hasn’t destroyed us.”

“Preservation’s Vessel still lives,” the other woman said, musing. “That might be preventing Ruin’s direct interference.”

“I don’t like it,” Elrao said. “I think we should turn back.”

“We have committed,” Alonoe replied. “We press forward. No quarreling.”

The stir in the camp eventually quieted down and the ancient ones turned back to their bedrolls, though more of the guards stayed awake than usual. Kelsier smiled, then pushed himself over beside Alonoe’s head again.

“How would you like to die, Alonoe?” he whispered to her, then ducked beneath the earth.

This time they didn’t go back to sleep. The next day it was a bleary-eyed party that set off across the dark landscape. That night, Kelsier prodded them again. And again. He made the next week a hell for the group, whispering to different members, promising them terrible things. He was quite proud of the various ways he came up with to distract, frighten, and unnerve them. He didn’t get a chance to grab Alonoe’s satchel – if anything, they were more careful with it than they had been. He did manage to snatch one of the other ones while they were breaking down camp one morning. It was empty save for a fake glass orb.

Kelsier continued his campaign of discord, and by the time the group reached the jungle of strange trees their patience had unraveled. They snapped at one another and spent less time each morning or night resting. Half the party was convinced they should turn back, though Alonoe insisted that the fact that “Ruin” only spoke to them was proof he couldn’t stop them. She pressed the increasingly divided group forward, into the trees.

Which was exactly where Kelsier wanted them. Staying ahead of the horses would be easy in this snarl of a jungle, where he could pass through foliage as if it weren’t there. He slipped on ahead and set up a little surprise for the group, then came back to find them bickering again. Perfect.

He pushed himself into the center of one of the trees, keeping only his hand outside, tucked at the back, holding the knife that Nazh had given him. As the line of horses passed, he reached out and swiped one of the animals on the flank.

The creature let out a scream of pain, and chaos broke out in the line. The people near the front – their nerves taut from a week spent being tormented by Kelsier’s whispers – gave their horses their heads. Soldiers shouted, warning they were under attack. Ancient ones urged their beasts in different directions, some collapsing as the animals tripped in the underbrush.

Kelsier darted through the jungle, catching up to those in the front. Alonoe had kept her horse mostly under control, but it was even darker in these trees than outside, and the lanterns jostled wildly as the animals moved. Kelsier dashed past Alonoe to a point ahead where he’d strung his cloak between two trees and lashed it in place with vines.

He climbed a tree and reached into the cloak as the front of the line – haggard and reduced in numbers – arrived. He’d lashed his fire inside the cloak, and he brought it alive as they neared. The result was a burning, cloaked figure, appearing suddenly in the air above the already frazzled group.

They screamed, calling that Ruin had found them, and split apart, running their horses in a chaotic jumble – some one direction, some another.

Kelsier dropped to the ground and slipped through the darkness, staying parallel to Alonoe and the guard who managed to remain with her. The woman soon caught her horse in a snarl of undergrowth. Perfect. Kelsier ducked away and recovered his stash of supplies, then threw on one of the robes he’d found in the fortress. He scrambled through the brush, the robe catching on things, until he was just close enough for Alonoe to see.

Then he stepped out where she could see him and called to her, waving his hand. Thinking she’d found a larger group of her people, she and her lone guard trotted their horses toward him. That, however, only served to draw them away from the rest of the group. Kelsier led her farther from the others, then ducked away into the darkness, losing her and leaving her and her guard isolated.

From there he scrambled through the dark underbrush toward the rest of the group, his phantom heart pounding.

This. He’d missed this.

The con. The excitement of playing people like flutes, twisting them about themselves, tying their minds in knots. He hurried through the forest, listening to the shouts of fright, the calls of soldiers to one another, the snorts and cries of the horses. The patch of dense vegetation had become demonic disharmony.

Nearby, one of the wizened men was gathering soldiers and his colleagues, calling for them to keep their heads, and started leading them back in the direction they’d come, perhaps to regroup with those that had been lost when the line first scattered.

Kelsier – still wearing the robe and holding his stolen satchel over his shoulder – lay down on the ground in their path, and waited until someone spotted him.

“There!” a guard said. “It’s–”

Kelsier sank himself down into the ground, leaving the robe and satchel behind. The guard screamed at the sight of one of the ancients apparently melting to nothing.

Kelsier crept up out of the ground a short distance away as the group gathered around his robe and satchel. “She disintegrated, ancient one!” the guard said. “I watched it with my own eyes.”

“That’s one of Alonoe’s robes,” a woman whispered, hand pulled to her breast in shock.

Another of the ancients looked in the satchel. “Empty,” he said. “Merciful Domi… What were we thinking?”

“Back,” Elrao said. “Back! Everyone get your horses! We’re leaving. Curse Alonoe and this idea of hers!”

They were gone in moments. Kelsier strolled through the forest, stepping up beside the discarded robe – which they’d left – listening to the main bulk of the expedition crash through the jungle in their haste to escape him.

He shook his head, then took a short walk through the underbrush to where Alonoe and her lone guard were now trying to follow the sounds of the main body. They were doing a pretty good job of it, all things considered.

When the ancient one wasn’t looking, Kelsier grabbed the guard around the neck and hauled him into the darkness. The man thrashed, but Kelsier got him in a quick lock and hold, knocking the man out without too much trouble. He pulled the body back quietly, then returned to find the solitary ancient one standing with lantern in hand beside her horse, turning frantically.

The jungle had become eerily still. “Hello?” she called. “Elrao? Riina?”

Kelsier waited in shadow as the calls became more and more frantic. Eventually the woman’s voice gave out. She slumped down in the forest, exhausted.

“Leave it,” Kelsier whispered.

She looked up, red-eyed, frightened. Ancient or not, she could obviously still feel fear. Her eyes darted to one side, then the other, but he was too well hidden for her to spot him.

“Leave it,” Kelsier repeated.

He didn’t need to ask again. She nodded, trembling, then took off her satchel and opened it, dumping out a large glass orb. The light from it was brilliant, and Kelsier had to step back lest it reveal him. Yes, there was power in that orb, great power. It was filled with glowing liquid that was far purer, and far brighter, than what the ancients had been drinking.

Exhaustion evident in her every move, the woman went to climb back onto her horse.

“Walk,” Kelsier commanded.

She looked toward the darkness, searching, but didn’t see him. “I…” she said, then licked her wizened lips. “I could serve you, Vessel. I–”

“Go,” Kelsier ordered.

Wincing, she unhooked the saddlebags and – lethargically – threw them over her shoulder. He didn’t stop her. She probably needed those jars of glowing liquid to survive, and he didn’t want her dead. He just wanted her to be slower than her companions. Once she found them, they might compare stories and realize they’d been had.

Or perhaps not. Alonoe struck out into the jungle. Hopefully they’d all conclude that Ruin had indeed bested them. Kelsier waited until she was gone, then strolled over and picked up the large glass orb. It showed no discernible way of being opened, other than shattering it.

He held the glowing orb before him and shook it, gazing at the incredible, mesmerizing liquid light within.

That was the most fun he’d had in ages.