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“He’s dying,” Kelsier said, spinning Nazh’s knife in his fingers. He’d palmed it during their altercation a moment ago, and was curious to find that though it was made of metal, it didn’t glow. “He’s a short man with black hair—or he used to be. He’s been . . . well, unraveling.” “Hey,” Nazh said, eyes narrowing at the knife. He looked at his belt, and the empty sheath. “Hey!” “Unraveling,” Khriss said. “So a slow death. Ati doesn’t know how to Splinter another Shard? Or he hasn’t the strength? Hmm . . .” “Ati?” Kelsier asked. “Preservation mentioned that name too.”
“I woke up from death after having, deep down, expected there to be no afterlife. I found that God was real, but that he was dying.
“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.”
16 metals
“The rest are on other planets.”
“Other planets,” she repeated gently. “Yes, there are dozens of them. Many are inhabited by people much like you or me. There is an original, shrouded and hidden somewhere in the cosmere. I’ve yet to find it, but I have found stories.
“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.” “Who were they?” Kelsier said, trying to make sense of this. “A diverse group,” she said. “With equally diverse motives. Some wished for the power; others saw killing Adonalsium as the only good option left to them. Together they murdered a deity, and became divine themselves.” She smiled in a kindly way, as if to prepare him for what came next. “Two of
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“And that thing? It used to be human?” “The power . . . distorts,” Khriss said. “There’s a person in that somewhere, directing it. Or perhaps just riding it at this point.”
“I’ve never viewed it in person, and the past deaths were different. They were each a single, stunning event, the god’s power shattered and dispersed. This is more like a strangulation, while those were like a beheading. This should be very instructive.”
“You’re overselling it,” Kelsier said. “The Drifter told me what I did.” “The . . . who?” Khriss asked. “Fellow with white hair,” Kelsier said. “Lanky, with a sharp nose and—” “Damn,” Khriss said. “Did he get to the Well of Ascension?” “Stole something there,” Kelsier said. “A bit of metal.” “Damn,” Khriss said, looking at her servant. “We need to go. I’m sorry, Survivor.”
“It will happen slowly, Survivor, over months. But it is coming. Ruin will consume this world, and the man once known as Ati won’t be able to stop it. If he even cared to.”
Kelsier watched after him, then did the only rational thing. He ate the bolt he’d taken from the bottom of the stool.
“Three letters. I R E. It means something in their language, these people from another land. The ones who died, but did not. I have felt them crowding at the edges of my vision, like spirits in the night.”
“Died, but did not.”
“The Ire built a city,” Preservation said, softly. “In a place between worlds . . .”
“Going?” Preservation said. “You’re leaving me?” The urgency of those words startled Kelsier. “If these people can help us, then I need to talk to them.” “They can’t help us,” Preservation said. “They’re . . . they’re callous. They plot over my corpse like scavenging insects waiting for the last beat of the heart. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”
But Kelsier, you can’t abandon me. We . . . we’re a team, right?”
Time didn’t pass; time had no relevance here. It was not a place. Location had no relevance. Only Connection, person to person, man to world, Kelsier to god. And that god was everything. The thing he had pitied was the very ground Kelsier walked upon, the air, the metals—his own soul. Preservation was everywhere. Beside it, Kelsier was insignificant. An afterthought.
“I can’t stop him,” Kelsier whispered. “I know,” Preservation said. “I could see thousands upon thousands of possibilities. In none of them did I defeat that thing.” “The ribbons of the future are never as useful as . . . as they should be,” Preservation said. “I rode them much, in the past. It’s too hard to see what is actually likely, and what is just a fragile . . . fragile, distant maybe. . . .” “I can’t stop it,” Kelsier whispered. “I’m too like it. Everything I do serves it.” Kelsier looked up, smiling.
“No. I can’t stop it. No matter what I do, I can’t stop it.” He looked down at Preservation. “But she can.” “He knows this. You were right. He has been preparing her, infusing her.” “She can beat it.” “A frail possibility,” Preservation said. “A false promise.”
Occasionally he’d found other, stranger plants in the landscape between towns—places where the springy ground grew more firm.
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.
not this one—lay on the cot in the corner. He and Mare had left this place in a hurry, and had been forced to stash some of their possessions in a hole behind a stone in the hearth. Those were gone now; he’d pilfered them after Mare’s death, following his escape from the Pits and his training with the strange old Allomancer named Gemmel.
In refusing to accept death, Kelsier had also given up returning to Mare. Unless there was nothing beyond the warping. Unless that death was real and final.
Cold wood that somehow remembered warmth. This fire was dead in the real world, but it wished it could burn again.
He could give this fire something. Burn again, he told it. Be warm again. It couldn’t happen in the Physical Realm, but all things there could manifest here. The fire wasn’t actually alive, but to the people who had once lived here, it had been almost so. A familiar, warm friend. Burn . . . Light burst from his fingers, pouring out of his hands, a flame appearing there. Kelsier dropped it quickly, stepping back, grinning at the crackling blaze. It looked very much like the fire that Nazh and Khriss had carried with them; the logs themselves had appeared on this side, with dancing flames. Fire.
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After taking a deep breath, he pushed his hand into the fire and grabbed the center of the logs, then closed his fist, capturing the bit of mist that made up the essence of that cookfire. It all folded upon itself, vanishing.
Some trees still lived here, shadowy, their souls manifesting as misty forms that glowed like the souls of men.
Because of the way time blended here, it didn’t feel to him as if months had passed. Indeed, this experience was far preferable to his sanity-grating year trapped at the Well.
Kelsier, the Survivor of Death,
He planted his staff on the ground beside him—he’d recovered that from the body of a dead refugee in the real world and coaxed it to life, giving it a new home and a new master to serve. Same for the enveloping cloak he wore, frayed at the edges almost like a mistcloak.
The pack he carried was different; he’d taken that from an abandoned store. No master had ever carried it. It considered its purpose to sit on a shelf and be admired. So far it had still made for a suitable companion.
When an object was recovered—or worse, destroyed—in the Physical Realm, its Identity changed and the spirit would return to the location of its body.
The figure wore robes and had bright, flame-red hair. He bore a welcoming smile, but Kelsier could see spines beneath the surface of his skin. Pricking spider legs, thousands of them, pushing against the skin and causing it to pucker outward in erratic motions. Ruin’s puppet. The thing he’d seen the force construct and dangle toward Vin.
“The man who would not accept his own end, even though his soul longed for it, even though his wife longed for him to join her in the Beyond.
You realize that if he were in control, nobody would age? Nobody would think or live? If he had his way you’d all be frozen in time, unable to act lest you harm one another.” “So you’re killing him.” “As I said,” Ruin replied with a grin. “A mercy. For an old man well past his prime. But if all you plan to do is insult me, I must be going. It’s a shame you’ll be off on that island when the end comes. I assume you’d like to greet the others when they die.”
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.
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.
