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Kelsier burned the Eleventh Metal.
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Planxti's Imaginary World
Nothing changed, while everything changed. For to Kelsier’s eyes, two men now stood before him. One was the immortal emperor who had dominated for a thousand years: an imposing figure with jet-black hair and a chest stuck through with two spears that he didn’t even seem to notice. Next to him stood a man with the same features—but a completely different demeanor. A figure cloaked in thick furs, nose and cheeks flush as if cold. His hair was tangled and windswept, his attitude jovial, smiling. It was the same man.
It was only further proof that the Eleventh Metal wasn’t what Kelsier had once hoped. The metal was no magical solution for ending the Lord Ruler. He would have to rely instead upon his other plan. And so, Kelsier smiled. “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.”
Kelsier braced himself. He could not fight against someone who was immortal. Not alive, at least. Stand tall. Give them something to remember.
Kelsier flared the Eleventh Metal, and caught a glimpse of something new. The Lord Ruler standing in a room—no, a cavern! The Lord Ruler stepped into a glowing pool and the world shifted around him, rocks crumbling, the room twisting, everything changing.
Kelsier died.
He screamed, desperately trying to hold himself together. His will meant nothing. He was rent, ripped, and hurled into a place of endless shifting mists.
No, it felt like Kelsier was solidifying, entering this place fully. The withdrawal of the mists was more like a clearing of his own mind.
More strikingly, the wagon’s prison bars glowed on this side.
other white-hot pinpricks of light appeared around him, dotting the landscape. Doorknobs. Window latches. Everything in the living world was reflected here in this place, and while most things were shadowy mist, metal instead appeared as a powerful light.
many of the lights were people. He saw each as an intense white glow radiating out from a human form. Metal and souls are the same thing, he observed.
Kelsier’s own corpse. Touching it was like remembering a fond experience. Familiar scents from his youth. His mother’s voice. The warmth of lying on a hillside with Mare, looking up at the falling ash.
scrambled toward him. At first he thought perhaps this person had seen his spirit. But no, they ran to his corpse and knelt. Now that she was close, he could make out the details of this figure’s features, cut of mist and glowing from deep within. “Ah, child,” Kelsier said. “I’m sorry.” He reached out and cupped Vin’s face as she wept over him, and found he could feel her. She was solid to his ethereal fingers. She didn’t seem able to feel his touch, but he caught a vision of her from the real world, cheeks stained with tears.
Not a figure made of mist, but a man in strange clothing: a thin wool coat that went down almost to his feet, and beneath it a shirt that laced closed, with a kind of conical skirt. That was tied with a belt that had a bone-handled knife stuck through a loop. The man was short, with black hair and a prominent nose. Unlike the other people—who were made of light—this man looked normal, like Kelsier.
“Who are you?” Kelsier demanded. “Oh, I think you know.” The man met Kelsier’s eyes, and in them Kelsier saw eternity. A cool, calm eternity—the eternity of stones that saw generations pass, or of careless depths that didn’t notice the changing of days, for light never reached them anyway. “Oh, hell,” Kelsier said. “There’s actually a God?” “Yes.” Kelsier decked him.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re real, and you’re letting this happen?” He waved toward the square where—to his horror—he saw lights winking out. The Inquisitors were attacking the crowd. “I do what I can.” The fallen figure seemed to distort for a moment, bits of him expanding, like mists escaping an enclosure. “I do . . . I do what I can. It is in motion, you see. I . . .” Kelsier recoiled a step, eyes widening as God came apart, then pulled back together.
The version of God near Kelsier stood up and rubbed his jaw. “Nobody has ever done that before.” “What, really?” Kelsier asked. “No.
away. Other spirits in the square followed. Kelsier spun on God. “What’s happening?” “You didn’t think this was the end, did you?” God asked, waving toward the shadowy world. “This is the in-between step. After death and before . . .” “Before what?” “Before the Beyond,” God said. “The Somewhere Else. Where souls must go. Where yours must go.”
“We need a plan,” Kelsier said. “A plan?” God asked. “To get me out of this. I might need your help.” “There is no way out of this.” “That’s a terrible attitude,” Kelsier said. “We’ll never get anything done if you talk like that.”
“No time for lectures. Talk to me. Has anyone ever resisted being pulled into the Beyond?” “No.” God’s form pulsed, unraveling again before coming back together. “I’ve told you already.” Damn, Kelsier thought. He seems one step from falling apart himself. Well, you had to work with what you had. “You’ve got to have some kind of idea what I could try, Fuzz.” “What did you call me?” “Fuzz. I’ve got to call you something.” “You could try ‘My Lord,’ ” Fuzz said with a huff.
Time was running out; he could feel himself sliding toward oblivion, a distant point of nothingness, dark and unknowable.
“So,” Fuzz said. “You’re not only the first to punch me, you’re also the first to try to recruit me. You are a distinctively strange man.”
“Spirits who come to this place are drawn into the Beyond.” “You aren’t.” “I’m a god.” A god. Not just “God.” Noted.
“He Ascended, if just for a short time. He held enough of the power to expand his soul.” Got it. Expand my soul.
“It was spectacular to watch! And now he is Preserved. I am glad you didn’t find a way to destroy him. Everyone else passes, but not him. It’s wonderful.” “Wonderful?” Kelsier felt like spitting. “He’s a tyrant, Fuzz.” “He’s unchanging,” God said, defensive. “He’s a brilliant specimen. So unique. I don’t agree with what he does, but one can empathize
“Maybe you would enjoy watching another do as he did,” Kelsier said. “Expand their soul.” “Impossible. The power at the Well of Ascension won’t be gathered and ready for more than a year.” “What?” Kelsier said. The Well of Ascension?
“But no, you wouldn’t be able to use the Well. I’ve failed at locking him away. I knew I would; he’s stronger. His essence seeps out in natural forms. Solid, liquid, gas. Because of how we created the world. He has plans. But are they deeper than my plans, or have I finally outthought him . . . ?”
“Power is returning to the Well of Ascension,” Kelsier said. Fuzz hesitated. “Hm. Yes. Um, but it’s far, far away. Yes, too far for you to go. Too bad.” God, it turned out, was a terrible liar.
“You didn’t even fight.” “I used the Eleventh Metal.” “Foolishness,” God said. He started pacing. “That was Ruin’s influence on you. But what was the point? I can’t understand why he wanted you to have that useless metal.”
Kelsier hadn’t expected God to be so . . . human. Excitable, even energetic.
“Did you? Hmm. Yes, the metal, flared during the moment of transition. You got a glimpse of the Spiritual Realm, then? His Connection and his past? You were using Ati’s essence, unfortunately. One shouldn’t trust it, even in a diluted form. Except . . .” He frowned, cocking his head, as if trying to remember something he’d forgotten. “Another god,” Kelsier whispered, closing his eyes. “You said . . . you trapped him?” “He will break free eventually. It’s inevitable. But the prison isn’t my last gambit. It can’t be.”
He raced the grip of death itself, its cold fingers closing around him. Run.
He was losing it. Losing himself. He could move no more. Something seized him. “Please . . .” Kelsier whispered, falling, sliding away. This is not right. Fuzz’s voice. “You want to see something . . . spectacular?” Kelsier whispered. “Help me live. I’ll show you . . . spectacular.” Fuzz wavered, and Kelsier could sense the divinity’s hesitance. It was followed by a sense of purpose, like a lamp being lit, and laughter. Very well. Be Preserved, Kelsier. Survivor.
“The power,” Fuzz said, standing beyond the light. “You are now part of it, Kelsier.” “Yeah,” Kelsier said, climbing to his feet, dripping with radiant light. “I can feel it, thrumming through me.” “You are trapped with him,” Fuzz said. He seemed shallow, wan, compared to the powerful light that Kelsier stood amid. “I warned you. This is a prison.” Kelsier settled down, breathing in and out. “I’m alive.” “According to a very loose definition of the word.” Kelsier smiled. “It’ll do.”
Immortality proved to be far more frustrating than Kelsier had anticipated.
The pool he was in grew deep at the center point, and was filled with liquid light that seemed a reflection of something more . . . potent on the other side.
As if this place were part spirit, like him.
Kelsier’s Preservation,
That left Kelsier with a cavern made of shadows, the glowing pool itself, and some pillars extending through the chamber. At the other end, he saw the glow of bits of metal, though he couldn’t figure out what they were.
“He’s killing me, you know. He wants me gone before the next cycle, though . . . perhaps I can hold out. You hear me, Ruin! I’m not dead yet. Still . . . still here . . .” Hell, Kelsier thought, cold. God is going insane.
“Sixteen.” “Six . . . teen?” Kelsier said. “Sixteen.” Fuzz grinned. “Clever, don’t you think?” “Because it means . . .” “The number of metals,” Fuzz said. “In Allomancy.” “There are ten. Eleven, if you count the one I discovered.” “No! No, no, that’s stupid. Sixteen. It’s the perfect number. They’ll see.
“What . . .” he finally said. “What have you done?” Kelsier stood up in his prison. “What have you done?” Fuzz screamed. Kelsier smiled. “Hope,” he said softly. “I have hoped.” “He was perfect,” Fuzz said. “He was . . . the only one of you . . . that . . .” He spun suddenly, gazing down the shadowy room beyond Kelsier’s prison. Someone stood at the other end. A tall, commanding figure, not made of light. Familiar clothing, of both white and black, contrasting with itself. The Lord Ruler. His spirit, at least. Kelsier stepped up onto the rim of stone around the pool and waited as the Lord Ruler
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“That grin,” the Lord Ruler said to Kelsier, “is insufferable. I did kill you.” “I returned the favor.” “You didn’t kill me, Survivor.” “I forged the blade that did.”
“Do you know what you’ve done, Survivor?” “I’ve won.” “You’ve brought Ruin upon the world. You are a pawn. So proud, like a soldier on the battlefield, confident he controls his own destiny—while ignoring the thousands upon thousands in his rank.” He shook his head. “Only a year left. So close. I would have again ransomed this undeserving planet.”
Where yours must go, Rashek.” Rashek? Kelsier looked again at the Lord Ruler. You could not tell a Terrisman by skin tone; that was a mistake many people made. Some Terris were dark, others light. Still, he would have thought . . . The room filled with furs. This man, in the cold.
He closed his eyes, then he stretched toward that point that defied geometry. He faded, then finally vanished. Kelsier gaped. “He left?” “To the Somewhere Else,” Fuzz said, sitting down. “I should not have been so hopeful. Everything passes, nothing is eternal. That is what Ati always claimed. . . .”
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.
Hero of Ages. The Announcer. Worldbringer. He recognized those terms from the ancient Terris prophecies mentioned in Alendi’s logbook.
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. . . .
He saw a Mistborn man, noble, jumping between buildings.
