Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

by Brandon Sanderson

Sel is notable for being dishardic, one of few planets in the cosmere to attract two separate Shards of Adonalsium: Dominion and Devotion.

as at some point in the distant past, both Devotion and Dominion were destroyed. Their Investiture—their power—was Splintered, their minds ripped away, their souls sent into the Beyond.

At this point, the bulk of the Investiture that made up the powers of Dominion and Devotion is trapped on the Cognitive Realm.

GAOTONA ran his fingers across the thick canvas, inspecting one of the greatest works of art he had ever seen. Unfortunately, it was a lie.

What great works could you create if you focused on industry and beauty instead of wealth and deception?” “What I do is great art.” “No. You copy other people’s great art. What you do is technically marvelous, yet completely lacking in spirit.”

Rather than repairing it as it had been meant to be, someone had put ordinary glass into the window and left it to crack. A stamp from Shai in the bottom right corner had restored the window, rewriting its history so that a caring master craftsman had discovered the fallen window and remade it. That seal had taken immediately. Even after all this time, the window had seen itself as something beautiful.

Being honest did not make one naive. A dishonest fool and an honest fool were equally easy to scam; you just went about it in different ways.

A Forger wasn’t a simple scam artist or trickster. A Forger was an artist who painted with human perception.

Gaotona looked back at her as she sat, then held out a seal to him. He hesitantly proffered an arm. “It occurs to me,” he said, “that even in our extreme care not to do so, we have underestimated you, woman.”

“It will take,” Shai said. “If you were the wall, what would you rather be? Dreary and dull, or alive with paint?” “Walls can’t think!” “That doesn’t stop them from caring.”

“Go,” he said. “Please.” He seemed to know what those shouts were about, or at least he could guess. “Do better this time,” Shai said. “Please.” With that, she fled.

“I did manipulate you, Gaotona,” she admitted. “But I had to do it in the most difficult way possible.” “Which was?” “By being genuine,” she replied. “You can’t manipulate people by being genuine.” “You can’t?” Shai asked. “Is that not how you’ve made your entire career? Speaking honestly, teaching people what to expect of you, then expecting them to be honest to you in return?” “It’s not the same thing.”

“Keep this safe,” she said. “Show it to no one.” He took it hesitantly. “What is it?” “The truth,” she said, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “If I escape, I will change my final Essence Mark. The one I never intend to use … I will add to it, and to my memories, a kindly grandfather who saved my life. A man of wisdom and compassion whom I respected very much.”

In short, he would become a fighter. He would take that single—but so hard—step across the line from dreamer to doer. Gaotona could see it, in these pages. He found himself weeping. Not for the future or for the emperor. These were the tears of a man who saw before himself a masterpiece. True art was more than beauty; it was more than technique. It was not just imitation.

It was boldness, it was contrast, it was subtlety. In this book, Gaotona found a rare work to rival that of the greatest painters, sculptors, and poets of any era. It was the greatest work of art he had ever witnessed.

As morning broke, Gaotona slowly—excruciatingly—stood up beside his hearth. He clutched the book, that matchless work of art, and held it out. Then he dropped it into the flames.

It is one of only two places in the cosmere where humankind does not predate the arrival of Shards.

I maintain, however, that the one of these with the largest potential impact on the cosmere is Hemalurgy. Usable by anyone with the right knowledge, this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture, creating false Connections that no Shard designed or intended.

Of course, with copper burning, that meant he had to admit that everything he felt—the pain, the anger, and even the numbness—belonged to him alone.

“Have you any idea what all of that is worth?” Shezler growled, lowering his arm and advancing. “Your soul, apparently,” Kelsier whispered.

The numbness was gone. He’d found something to replace it. His focus had returned. The spark was back. He’d been thinking too small. A plan began to bud, a plan he barely dared consider for its audacity. Vengeance. And more. He turned into the night, into the waiting mists, and went to find someone to make him a mistcloak.

“I killed you once,” the Lord Ruler said. “You tried,” Kelsier replied, his heart racing. The other plan, the secret plan. “But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”

Metal and souls are the same thing, he observed. Who would have thought?

But of course he couldn’t do that. Kelsier had never been able to resist a secret.

Fuzz was the infinity of a note held perfectly, never wavering.

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

“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.”

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.”

She considered. “My name is Khriss, of Taldain.” She nodded toward the other man, and he reluctantly replaced his knife. “That is Nazh, a man in my employ.”

“Preservation?” Nazh said, stepping up and seizing Kelsier’s arm. So, as with the Drifter, they could indeed touch Kelsier. “You’ve spoken directly with one of the Shards?”

“Your questions are dangerous. Once you step behind the curtain and see the actors as the people they are, it becomes harder to pretend the play is real.”

“The Shards,” Khriss said, drawing Kelsier’s attention, “are not God, but they are pieces of God. Ruin, Preservation, Autonomy, Cultivation, Devotion … There are sixteen of them.”

“Anyway, there was a God. Adonalsium. I don’t know if it was a force or a being, though I suspect the latter. Sixteen people, together, killed Adonalsium, ripping it apart and dividing its essence between them, becoming the first who Ascended.”

Adonalsium originally created the first humans, therefore your gods had a pattern to use.”

“You’re everywhere. I can’t leave you.” “No. They’re beyond me. I … I cannot depart this land. I’m too Invested in it, in every rock and leaf.” He pulsed, his already indistinct form spreading thinner. “We … grow attached easily, and it takes one who is particularly dedicated to leave.”

“Yes,” Kelsier whispered. He made a fist against the door. “I did it. I made the Lord Ruler himself pay, Mare.” And that boiling mass of writhing serpents in the sky … that had been the result. He’d seen the truth, in his moment between time with Preservation. The Lord Ruler would have prevented this doom for another thousand years. Kill one man. Get vengeance, but cause how many more deaths?

Kill, and they killed in turn. Get revenge, and their vengeance returned tenfold. You are mine, Survivor.

“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.”

This was energy; this was excitement. Almost he forgot the troubles he faced. Almost this was enough. If he could dance the mists with Vin at night, then finding a way to recapture his life in the Physical Realm might not matter so much.

A man he didn’t know sitting on a burning throne and watching Luthadel, a twisted smile on his lips.

And Kelsier, the Survivor of Death, Ascended.

“You made the wrong one of us into your Inquisitor, Ruin,” Kelsier hissed. “You shouldn’t have picked the good brother. He always did have a nasty habit of doing what was right instead of what was smart.”

Below, men fought for their lives, and he saw them transcending the Physical Realm because of the body of the god that they burned.

She embraced him, and he found himself weeping. The daughter he’d never had, the little child of the streets. Though she was still small, she’d outgrown him. And she loved him anyway. He held his daughter close against his own broken soul.

He met her eyes, and saw the implicit question. How much was about us? it asked. And how much was about you? “I don’t know,” he said to her. She squeezed his hand and smiled—that smile she’d never have been able to give when he first found her. That, more than anything, made him proud of her. “Thank you,” she whispered again. Then she let go of his hand and followed Elend into the Beyond.

Odium clashed with (and mortally wounded) the Shard Ambition here. Ambition would later be Splintered, though that final act took place in a different location.

Names didn’t mean a whole lot in the Forests. Or maybe they meant everything. The right ones, that was.

Better to marry a stone than Silence Montane. A stone showed more affection.

At fourteen, the girl was already taller than her mother. A fine thing to suffer, a child taller than you.

A Forescout knew to look the Forests straight on. A Forescout knew that the surveyors were wrong. There was a predator out there. The Forest itself was one.