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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.
He had met God. But for every Push, there was a Pull. What was the opposite of God?
He nearly blocked out the whispers and tried to pretend he had never seen that awesome, vast destroyer.
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.
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.
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.
he admitted a deeper secret to himself. He hadn’t been completely sane since the Pits.
“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.”
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.”
“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.”
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“You need some help, friend. I know a guy. Tall, bald, wears lots of earrings. Have a chat with him next—”
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 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.
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.”
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.”
“He stole a bit of my essence, distilled and pure,” Fuzz explained. “It can Invest a human, grant him or her Allomancy.”
“Ati thinks to finish me,” Fuzz said. “Indeed, his knife was placed long ago. I’m already dead.”
Ruin. A fitting name for that vast sense of erosion, decay, and destruction.
Ruin was manipulating the hearts of the people by changing their lore and books.
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?
Fuzz—Preservation, as the god had said he could be called—sat outside the prison.
“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.
“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
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“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.”
“You thought I was waiting here for nothing? It happens today. The Well of Ascension is full. The time has arrived.”
“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.”
At the last moment, she ripped something glowing from her ear and tossed it out—a bit of metal. Her earring?
Instead, a storm began. A rising column of light surrounded Kelsier, blocking him from seeing anything but the raw energy.
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.
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 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.
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“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.”
Kelsier eventually stepped out onto the streets of Luthadel a free—if dead—man. For a time he just walked the city, so relieved to be out of that hole that he was able to ignore the sense of dread he felt at Ruin’s escape.
Unfortunately, without the pulses—those had stopped when Ruin escaped—to guide him, he didn’t know where to start looking.
Kelsier settled down on the steps beside Vin. He clasped his hands before himself. “So . . . that went well.” Vin, of course, didn’t reply. “I mean,” Kelsier continued, “yes, we ended up releasing a world-ending force of destruction and chaos, but at least the Lord Ruler is dead. Mission accomplished. Plus you still have your nobleman boyfriend, so there’s that. Don’t worry about the scar on his stomach. It’ll make him look more rugged. Mists know, the little bookworker could use some toughening up.”
He leaned down beside her. “I’m going to beat this thing, Vin. I am going take care of this.” “And how,” Preservation said from the courtyard below the steps, “are you going to accomplish that?”
“Stop him? He’s the force of entropy, a universal constant. You can’t stop that any more than you can stop time.”
He knew that vastness. Ruin was indeed watching.
the soul of Ati that is still in there somewhere would laugh at this.” “He has a soul?”
“No, they died during the intial break-in, days ago. Dockson. Clubs.” A spear of ice shot through Kelsier. He tried to stand up from beside the corpse he’d been inspecting, but stumbled, trying to force out the words. “No. No, not Dox.” Preservation nodded. “Wh . . . When did it happen? How?” Preservation laughed. The sound of madness. He showed little of the kindly, uncertain man who had greeted Kelsier when he’d first entered this place. “Both were murdered by koloss as the siege broke. Their bodies were burned days ago, Kelsier, while you were trapped.”
Dox. I wasn’t here for him. I could have seen him again, as he passed. Talked to him. Saved him maybe? “He cursed you as he died, Kelsier,” Preservation said, voice harsh. “He blamed you for all this.” Kelsier bowed his head. Another lost friend. And Clubs too . . . two good men. He’d lost too many of those in his life, dammit. Far too many. I’m sorry, Dox, Clubs. I’m sorry for failing you.
He also felt Preservation’s pain. It was the loss Kelsier had felt at Dox’s death, only magnified thousands of times over. Preservation felt every light that went out, felt them and knew them as a person he had loved.
“I can’t help you do . . . whatever it is you think you’re doing. Not directly. I don’t . . . think well enough anymore. But . . .” “But?” Preservation solidified a little further. “But I know where you’ll find someone who can.”
He would not let this thing intimidate him again. He’d already killed one god. The second murder was always easier than the first.
They would have been horrified to find that here on this side, the lake—and actually the river as well—was inverted somehow. Opposite to the way the mists under his feet had a liquid feel to them, the lake rose into a solid mound, only a few inches high but harder and somehow more substantial than the ground he’d become used to walking upon.
“Yes, it congeals here,” Preservation said. “It has to do with the way men think, and where they are likely to pass. Somewhat to do with that, at least.”
Kelsier passed scrubby plants sprouting from the otherwise hard ground—not misty, inchoate plants, but real ones full of color. They had broad brown leaves with—curiously—what seemed like mist rising from them.
The world of the dead has plants and animals? he thought. But that wasn’t what Preservation had called it. The Cognitive Realm. How did these plants grow here? What watered them?
Preservation had promised him help, but he wasn’t sure how much he trusted what Preservation said. Odd, that living through his own death should make him more hesitant to trust in God’s word.
“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.” “Excellent,” Kelsier said. “Any idea why Preservation would tell me to come talk to you?” “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?”
