Several days into his run home, he passed a small village where a few glowing souls huddled together in a building. As he watched, horrified, the roof collapsed, dumping ash on them. Three glows winked out immediately, and the souls of three ashen skaa appeared in the Cognitive Realm, their strings to the physical world cut.
Preservation didn’t appear to greet them.
Kelsier grabbed one of them, an aged woman who—as he took her hand—started and looked at him with wide eyes. “Lord Ruler!”
“No,” Kelsier said. “But close. What is happening?”
She started to stretch away. Her companions had already vanished.
“It’s ending…” she whispered. “All ending…”
And she was gone. Kelsier was left holding empty air, disturbed.
He started running again. He’d felt guilty leaving the horse behind in the forest, but surely the animal was better off there than it would have been here.
Was he too late? Was Preservation already dead?
He ran himself hard, the heft of the glass orb weighing down his pack. Perhaps it was the urgency, but his course became even more single-minded than it had been during his trip out. He didn’t want to see the failing world, the death all around him. Compared to that the exhaustion of the run was preferable, and so he sought it, running himself ragged.
He traveled for days upon days. Weeks upon weeks. Never stopping, never looking. Until …
Kelsier.
He jolted to a halt on a field of windswept ash. He had the distinct impression of mist in the physical world. Glowing mist. Power. He could not see that here, but he could sense it all around him.
“Fuzz?” he said, raising a hand to his forehead. Had he imagined that voice?
Not that way, Kelsier, the voice said, sounding distant. But yes, it was Preservation. We aren’t … aren’t … there.…
The crushing weight of fatigue hit Kelsier. Where was he? He spun about, looking for some kind of landmark, but those were difficult to find out here. The ash had buried the canals; a few weeks back he remembered swimming down through the ground to find them. Lately … he’d just been running.…
“Where?” Kelsier demanded. “Fuzz?”
So … tired …
“I know,” Kelsier whispered. “I know, Fuzz.”
Fadrex. Come to Fadrex. You are close.…
Fadrex City? Kelsier had been there before, in his youth. It was just south of …
There. Just barely visible in the Cognitive Realm, he made out the shadowy tip of Mount Morag in the distance. That direction was north.
He turned his back toward the ashmount and ran for everything he was worth. It seemed a brief eyeblink before he reached the city and was given a welcome, warming sight. Souls.
The city was alive. Guards in the towers and on the tall rock formations surrounding the city. People in the streets, sleeping in their beds, clogging the buildings with beautiful, shining light. Kelsier walked right through the city gates, entering a wonderful, radiant city where people still fought on.
In the warmth of that glow, he knew he was not too late.
Unfortunately, his was not the only attention focused here. He had resisted looking upward during his run, but he could not help but do so now, confronting the churning, boiling mass. Shapes like black snakes slithered across one another, stretching to the horizon in all directions. It was watching. It was here.
So where was Preservation? Kelsier walked through the city, basking in the presence of other souls, recovering from his extended run. He stopped at one street corner, then spotted something. A tiny line of light, like a very long piece of hair, near his feet. He knelt, picking at it, and found that it stretched all the way along the street—impossibly thin, glowing faintly, yet too strong for him to break.
“Fuzz?” Kelsier said, following the strand, finding where it connected to another—it seemed a lattice that spread through the whole city.
Yes. I … I’m trying.…
“Nice work.”
I can’t talk to them … Fuzz said. I’m dying, Kelsier.…
“Hang on,” Kelsier said. “I’ve found something; it’s here in my pack. I took it from those creatures you mentioned. The Eyree.”
I do not sense anything, Fuzz said.
Kelsier hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal the object to Ruin. Instead he picked up the thread, which had enough slack for him to slip it into the pack and press it against the orb.
“How about that?”
Ahh … Yes …
“Can this help you somehow?”
No, unfortunately.
Kelsier felt his heart sink further.
The power … the power is hers.… But Ruin has her, Kelsier. I can’t … I can’t give it.…
“Hers?” Kelsier asked. “Vin? Is she here?”
The thread vibrated in Kelsier’s fingers like the string of an instrument. Waves came along it from one direction.
Kelsier followed them, noticing again how Preservation had covered this city with his essence. Perhaps he figured that if he was going to be strung out anyway, he should lie down like a protective blanket.
Preservation led him to a small city square clogged with glowing souls and bits of metal on the walls. They glowed so brightly, particularly in contrast to the darkness of his months out alone. Was one of these souls Vin?
No, they were beggars. He moved among them, feeling at their souls with his fingertips, catching glimpses of them in the other Realm. Huddled in the ash, coughing and shivering. The fallen men and women of the Final Empire, the people even the common skaa tended to dismiss. For all his grand plans, he hadn’t made the lives of these people better, had he?
He stopped in place.
That last beggar, sitting against an old brick wall … there was something about him. Kelsier backed up, touching the beggar’s soul again, seeing a vision of a man with hands and face wrapped in bandages, white hair sticking out from beneath. Stark white hair, a fact not quite hidden by the ash that had been rubbed into it.
Kelsier felt a sudden shock, a painful spike that ran up his fingers into his soul. He jumped back as the beggar glanced his direction.
“You!” Kelsier said. “Drifter!”
The beggar shifted in place, but then glanced another direction, searching the square.
“What are you doing here?” Kelsier demanded.
The glowing figure gave no response.
Kelsier whipped his hand back and forth, trying to shake out the pain. His fingers had actually gone numb. What had that been? And how had the white-haired Drifter managed to affect him in this Realm?
A small glowing figure landed on a rooftop nearby.
“Oh, hell,” Kelsier said, looking from Vin to the Drifter. He responded immediately, throwing himself toward the wall of the building and climbing desperately up it to Vin’s side. “Vin. Vin, stay away from that man.”
Of course yelling was pointless. She couldn’t hear him.
Still, Kelsier seized her by the shoulders, seeing her in the Physical Realm. When had she grown so confident, so knowing? Those shoulders of hers had once cringed, but now they gave her the posture of a woman fully in control. Those eyes that had once widened in wonder were now narrowed with keen perception. Her hair was longer, but her slight build somehow seemed far more powerful than it had when he’d first met her.
“Vin,” Kelsier said. “Vin! Listen, please. That man is trouble. Don’t approach him. Don’t—”
Vin cocked her head, then leaped off the roof, away from the Drifter.
“Hell,” Kelsier said. “Did she actually hear me?”
Or was it a coincidence? Kelsier leaped after Vin, tossing himself carelessly from the building. He didn’t have Allomancy, but he was light, and could fall without getting hurt. He landed softly and sprinted across the springy ground, tailing Vin as best he could, running through buildings, ignoring walls, trying to stay close. She still got ahead of him.
Kelsier … Pr
eservation’s voice whispered at him.
Something thrummed through him, a familiar jolt of power, a warmth within. It reminded him of burning metals. Preservation’s own essence, empowering him.
He ran faster, jumped farther. It wasn’t true Allomancy, but instead was something more raw and primal. It surged through Kelsier, warming his soul, letting him reach Vin—who had stopped in the street before a large building. Soon after he reached her, she took off again down the street, but this time Kelsier managed to keep pace, barely.
And she knew he was there. He could sense it in the way she leaped, trying to shake a tail, or at least catch sight of one. She was good, but this was a game he’d been playing for decades before she was born.
She could sense him. Why? How?
She sped up and he followed, with difficulty. His motions were clumsy; he had Preservation pushing him along, but he didn’t have the finesse of true Allomancy. He couldn’t Push or Pull; he merely jumped, grabbing hold of the shadowed walls of buildings, then throwing himself off in prowling leaps.
Still, he grinned widely. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed training with Vin in the mists, matching himself against another Mistborn, watching his protégé inch toward excellence. She was good now. Fantastic even. Remarkable at judging the force of each Push, at balancing her own weight against her anchors.
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.
They hit an intersection and turned toward the city’s perimeter. Vin bounded ahead on lines of steel; Kelsier hit the ground, thrumming with Preservation’s power, and prepared to jump.
Something descended around him. A blackness of shredding spikes, of spider-leg scratches in the air, of jet-black mist.
“Well,” Ruin said from all sides. “Well, well. Kelsier? How did I not see you earlier?”
The power suffocated him, pushing him toward the ground. Ahead, a small figure bounded after Vin, created of black mist and pulsing with a similar rhythm to what Kelsier had displayed. A decoy of some sort.
Like he did before, Kelsier thought. Imitating Fuzz to trick Vin. He struggled, frustrated, against his bonds.
Preservation, in turn, whimpered like a child in Kelsier’s mind, then withdrew from him. The warming power faded from within Kelsier. Remarkably, as the power dampened, so did Ruin’s ability to hold Kelsier down. Ruin’s strength became less oppressive, and Kelsier was able to struggle to his feet and push through the veil of sharp mists, stumbling onto the street.
“Where have you been?” Ruin asked. The power behind Kelsier condensed, forming into the shape of the man he’d seen before, with the red hair. The motions beneath the man’s skin were more subdued this time.
“Here and there,” Kelsier said, glancing after Vin. He’d never catch up to her now. “I thought I’d see the sights. Find out what death has to offer.”
“Ah, very coy. Did you visit the Ire? And got turned away from them, I assume. Yes, I can guess at that. What I want to know is why you returned. I thought for certain you would flee. Your part in this is done; you did what I needed you to.”
Kelsier set down his pack, hopefully keeping hidden the orb of light inside. He walked forward, strolling around Ruin’s manifestation. “My part?”
“The Eleventh Metal,” Ruin said, amused. “You think that was a coincidence? A story nobody else had heard of, a secret way to kill an immortal emperor? It fell right in your lap.”
Kelsier took it in stride. He’d already figured that Gemmel had been touched by Ruin, that Kelsier himself had been a pawn of the creature. But why could Vin hear me? What was he missing? He looked after Vin again.
“Ah,” Ruin said. “The child. You still think she’s going to defeat me, do you? Even after she set me free?”
Kelsier spun toward Ruin. Damn. How much did the creature know? Ruin smiled and stepped up to Kelsier.
“Leave Vin alone,” Kelsier hissed.
“Leave her alone? She’s mine, Kelsier. Just as you are. I’ve known that child since the day of her birth, and have been preparing her for even longer.”
Kelsier gritted his teeth.
“So cute,” Ruin said. “You actually thought this was all your idea, didn’t you? The fall of the Final Empire, the end of the Lord Ruler … recruiting Vin in the first place?”
“Ideas are never original,” Kelsier said. “Only one thing is.”
“And what is that?”
“Style,” Kelsier said.
Then he punched Ruin across the face.
Or he tried to. Ruin evaporated as his fist drew close, and a copy of him formed beside Kelsier a moment later. “Ah, Kelsier,” he said. “Was that wise?”
“No,” Kelsier said. “It was merely thematic. Leave her alone, Ruin.”
Ruin smiled at him in a pitying way, then a thousand spindly, needle-like black spikes shot from the creature’s body, ripping through the robes that made up its clothing. They pierced Kelsier like spears, fraying his soul, bringing a blinding wave of pain.
He screamed, falling to his knees. It was like the stretching when he’d first entered this place, only forced, intrusive.
He dropped to the ground, spasming, his soul leaking curls of mist. The spikes were gone, as was Ruin. But of course the creature was never truly gone. It watched from that undulating sky, covering everything.
Nothing can be destroyed, Kelsier, Ruin’s voice whispered, intruding directly into his mind. That’s something humans can’t understand. All things merely change, break down, become something new … something perfect. Preservation and I, we’re two sides to the same coin, really. For when I am done, he shall finally have his desired stillness, unchangingness. And there won’t be anything, body or soul, to disturb it.
Kelsier breathed in and out, using familiar motions from when he’d been alive to calm himself. Finally he groaned and rolled to his knees.
“You deserved that,” Preservation noted, his voice distant.
“Sure did,” Kelsier said, stumbling to his feet. “It was worth trying anyway.”
2
OVER the next few days, Kelsier tried to replicate his success in getting Vin to listen to him. Unfortunately, Ruin was watching for him now. Each time Kelsier got close, Ruin interfered, surrounding him, holding him back. Choking him with black smoke and driving him away.
Ruin seemed amused to keep Kelsier around the periphery of Vin’s camp outside Fadrex, and didn’t drive him away. But anytime Kelsier tried to speak directly with her, Ruin punished him. Like a parent slapping a child’s hand for getting too close to the flame.
It was infuriating, more so because of the way Ruin’s words dug at him. Everything Kelsier had accomplished had merely been part of this thing’s master plan to be freed. And the creature did have some kind of hold on Vin. It could appear to her, as reinforced by how it led her away from the camp one day, in a sudden motion that confused Kelsier.
He tried to follow, running after the phantom that Ruin had made. It bounded like a Mistborn and Vin followed, obviously convinced that she’d discovered a spy. They left the camp behind entirely.
Kelsier slowed, feeling useless, standing on the misty ground outside the city and watching them vanish into the distance. She could sense that thing, and as long as it was here it overshadowed Kelsier. He’d never be able to speak with her.
Ruin’s reason for leading Vin away soon manifested. Something launched an assault on Vin and Elend’s army of koloss. Kelsier figured it out from the bustling of the camp, and was able to reach the scene faster than the people in the Physical Realm. It looked like siege equipment had been rolled out onto a ridge above where the koloss camped.
It rained down death upon the beasts. Kelsier couldn’t do anything but watch as the sudden attack killed thousands of them. He couldn’t feel any real regret when the koloss wer
e destroyed, but it did seem a waste.
The koloss raged in frustration, unable to reach their enemy. Curiously, their souls started to appear in the Cognitive Realm.
And they were human.
Not koloss at all, but people, dressed in a variety of outfits. Many were skaa, but there were soldiers, merchants, and even nobility among them. Both male and female.
Kelsier gaped. He had never quite known what koloss were, but he had not expected this. Common people, made beasts somehow? He rushed among the dying souls as they faded.
“What happened to you,” he demanded of one woman. “How did this happen to you?”
She regarded him with a bemused expression. “Where,” she said, “where am I?”
In a moment she was gone. It seemed the transition was too much of a shock. The others showed similar confusion, holding out their hands as if surprised to find themselves human again—though not a few seemed relieved. Kelsier watched as thousands of these figures appeared, then faded away. It was a slaughter on the other side, stones crashing down all around. One passed right through Kelsier before rolling away, breaking bodies.
He could use this, but he would need something specific. Not a skaa peasant, or even a crafty lord. He needed someone who …
There.
He dashed through fading spirits and dodged between the glowing souls of creatures not yet dead, making for a particular spirit who had just appeared. Bald, with tattoos circling his eyes. An obligator. This man seemed less surprised by events, and more resigned. By the time Kelsier arrived, the lanky obligator was already starting to stretch away.
“How?” Kelsier demanded, counting on the obligator to understand more about the koloss. “How did this happen to you?”
“I don’t know,” the man said.
Kelsier felt his heart sink.
“The beasts,” the man continued, “should have known better than to take an obligator! I was their keeper, and they did this to me? This world is ruined.”
Should have known better? Kelsier clutched the obligator’s shoulder as the man stretched toward nothingness. “How? Please, how is it done? Men become koloss?”