Ruin was careful not to let Kelsier get too close. He couldn’t even draw near enough to hear his brother’s thoughts. Ruin laughed as, awash in the gore of the murder, Marsh finally retrieved the letter Spook had sent.
“You think,” Ruin said, “you’re so clever, Kelsier. Words in metal. I can’t read them, but my minion can.”
Kelsier sank down as Marsh felt at the plate Spook had ordered carved, reading the words out loud for Ruin to hear. Kelsier formed a body for himself and knelt in the ash, slumping forward, beaten.
Ruin formed beside him. “It’s all right, Kelsier. This is the way things were meant to be. The reason they were created! Do not mourn the deaths that come to us; celebrate the lives that have passed.”
He patted Kelsier, then evaporated. Marsh stumbled to his feet, ash sticking to the still-wet blood on his clothing and face. He then leaped after Ruin, following his master’s call. The end was approaching quickly now.
Kelsier knelt by the corpse of the fallen man, who was slowly being covered in ash. Vin had spared him, and Kelsier had gotten him killed after all. He reached into the Cognitive Realm, where the man’s spirit had stumbled in the place of mist and shadows, and was now looking skyward.
Kelsier approached and clasped the man’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
“I’ve failed,” Goradel said as he stretched away.
It twisted Kelsier inside, but he didn’t dare contradict the man. Forgive me.
Now, to be quiet. Kelsier let himself drift again, spread out. No longer did he try to stop Ruin’s influence. In withdrawing, he saw that he had been helping a tiny bit. He’d held back some earthquakes, slowed the flow of lava. An insignificant amount, but at least he’d done something.
Now he let it go and gave Ruin free rein. The end accelerated, twisting about the motions of one young woman, who arrived back in Luthadel at the advent of a storm.
Kelsier closed his eyes, feeling the world hush, as if the land itself were holding its breath. Vin fought, danced, and pushed herself to the limits of her abilities—and then beyond. She stood against Ruin’s assembled might of Inquisitors, and fought with such majesty that Kelsier was astonished. She was better than the Inquisitor he’d fought, better than any man he’d seen. Better than Kelsier himself.
Unfortunately, against an entire murder of Inquisitors, it was not nearly enough.
Kelsier forced himself to hold back. And hell, was it difficult. He let Ruin reign, let his Inquisitors beat Vin to submission. The fight was over too soon, and ended with Vin broken and defeated, at Marsh’s mercy.
Ruin stepped close, whispering to her. Where is the atium, Vin? he said. What do you know of it?
Atium? Kelsier drew himself near as Marsh knelt by Vin and prepared to hurt her. Atium. Why …
It all came together for him. Ruin wasn’t complete either. There in the broken city of Luthadel—rain washing down, ash clogging the streets, Inquisitors roosting and watching with expressionless spiked eyes—Kelsier understood.
Preservation’s plan. It could work!
Marsh snapped Vin’s arm, and grinned.
Now.
Kelsier hit Ruin with the full strength of his power. It wasn’t much, and he was a poor master of it. But it was unexpected, and it drew away Ruin’s attention. The powers met, and the friction—the opposition—caused them to grind.
Pain coursed through Kelsier. The ground throughout the city trembled.
“Kelsier, Kelsier,” Ruin said.
Below, Marsh laughed.
“Do you know,” Kelsier said, “why I always won at card tricks, Ruin?”
“Please,” Ruin said. “Does this matter?”
“It’s because,” Kelsier said, grunting in pain, his power taut, “I could always. Force. People to choose. The card I wanted them to.”
Ruin paused, then looked down. The letter—delivered by Goradel not to Vin, but to Marsh—did its job.
Marsh ripped free Vin’s earring.
The world froze. Ruin, vast and immortal, looked on with complete and utter horror.
“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.”
Ruin looked to Kelsier, turning his full, incredible attention on him.
Kelsier smiled. Gods, it appeared, could still fall for a classic misdirection con.
Vin reached to the mists, and Kelsier felt the power within him tremble, eager. This was what they’d been meant for; this was their purpose. He felt Vin’s yearning, and felt her question. Where had she felt this power before?
Kelsier rammed himself against Ruin, the powers clashing, exposing his soul. His darkened, battered soul.
“The power came from the Well of Ascension, of course,” Kelsier said to Vin. “It’s the same power, after all. Solid in the metal you fed to Elend. Liquid in the pool you burned. And vapor in the air, confined to night. Hiding you. Protecting you…”
Kelsier took a deep breath. He felt Preservation’s energy being ripped from him. He felt Ruin’s fury pummeling him, flaying him, ravenous to destroy him. For one last moment he felt the world. The farthest ashfall, the people in the distant south, the curling winds, and the life straining—struggling—to continue on this planet.
Then Kelsier did the most difficult thing he’d ever done.
“Giving you power!” he roared to Vin, letting go of Preservation’s essence so she could take it up.
Vin drew in the mists.
And Ruin’s full fury came against Kelsier, slamming him down, ripping into his soul. Tearing him apart.
8
KELSIER was cloven asunder with a rending, pervasive pain—like that of a bone being pulled from a socket. He tumbled, unable to see or think—unable to do more than scream at the attack.
He ended up someplace surrounded by mist, blind to anything beyond its shifting. Death, for real this time? No … but he was very close. He could feel the stretching coming upon him again, coaxing him, trying to pull him toward that distant point where everyone else had gone.
He wanted to go. He hurt so much. He wanted it all to end, to go away. Everything. He just wanted it to stop.
He had felt this despair before, in the Pits of Hathsin. He didn’t have Preservation’s voice to guide him now, as he had then, but—weeping, trembling—he sank his hands into the misty expanse around him and held on. Clinging to it, refusing to go. Denying that force that called to him, promising peace and an ending.
Eventually it stilled, and the stretching sensation faded away. He had held the power of deity. The final death could not take him unless he wanted it to.
Or unless he was completely destroyed. He shuddered in the mists, thankful for their embrace, but still uncertain where he was—and uncertain why Ruin hadn’t finished the job. He’d planned to; Kelsier had felt that. Fortunately, Kelsier’s destruction had become an afterthought in the face of a new threat.
Vin. She’d done it! She’d Ascended!
Groaning, Kelsier pulled himself upward, finding he’d been hit so hard by Ruin’s attack that he’d been driven far down into the springy, misty ground of the Cognitive Realm. He was able to pull himself out, with difficulty, and collapsed onto the surface. His soul was distorted, mangled, like a body struck by a boulder. It leaked dark smoke from a thousand holes.
As he lay there it slowly re-formed, and the pain—at long last—faded. Time had passed. He didn’t know how much, but it had been hours upon hours. He wasn’t in Luthadel. De-Ascending—then being crushed by Ruin’s power—had flung his soul far from the city.
He blinked phantom eyes. Above him the sky was a tempest of white and black tendrils, like clouds attacking one another. In the distance he could hear something that made the Realm tremble. He forced himself to his feet and walked, eventually cresting a hill where he saw—below—that figures made of light were locked in battl
e. A war, men against koloss.
Preservation’s plan. He’d seen it, understood it in those last moments. Ruin’s body was atium. The plan was to create something special and new—people who could burn away Ruin’s body in an attempt to get rid of it.
Below, men fought for their lives, and he saw them transcending the Physical Realm because of the body of the god that they burned. Above, Ruin and Preservation clashed. Vin did a much better job of it than Kelsier had; she had the full power of the mists, and beyond that there was something natural about the way she held that power.
Kelsier dusted himself off and adjusted his clothing. Still the same shirt and trousers he’d been wearing during his fight with the Inquisitor long ago. What had happened to his pack and the knife Nazh had given him? Those were lost somewhere on the endless fields of ash between here and Fadrex.
He crossed through the battle, stepping out of the way of raging koloss and transcendent men who could see into the Spiritual Realm, if only in a very limited way.
Kelsier reached the top of a hill and stopped. On another hill beyond, distant but close enough to make out, Elend Venture stood among a pile of corpses, clashing with Marsh. Vin hovered above, expansive and incredible, a figure of glowing light and awesome power—like an inspiration for the sun and clouds.
Elend Venture raised his hand, and then exploded with light. Lines of white scattered from him in all directions, lines that drilled through all things. Lines that Connected him to Kelsier, to the future, and to the past.
He’s seeing it fully, Kelsier thought. That place between moments.
Elend ended with a sword in Marsh’s neck, and looked directly at Kelsier, transcending the three Realms.
Marsh slammed an axe into Elend’s chest.
“No!” Kelsier screamed. “No!” He stumbled down the hillside, running for Venture. He climbed over corpses, shadowy on this side, and scrambled toward where Elend had died.
He hadn’t reached the position yet when Marsh took off Elend’s head.
Oh, Vin. I’m sorry.
Vin’s full attention coursed around the fallen man. Kelsier pulled to a stop, numb. She would rage. She would lose control. She would …
Rise in glory?
He watched, awed, as Vin’s strength coalesced. There was no hatred in the thrumming that washed from her, calming all things. Above her Ruin laughed, again assuming he knew so much. That laughter cut off as Vin rose against him, a glorious, radiant spear of power—controlled, loving, compassionate, but unyielding.
Kelsier knew then why she, and not he, had needed to do this.
Vin crashed her power against Ruin’s, suffocating him. Kelsier stepped up to the top of the hill, watching, feeling a familiarity with that power. A kinship that warmed him deep within as Vin performed the ultimate act of heroism.
She brought destruction to the destroyer.
It ended in an eruption of light. Wisps of mist, both dark and white, streamed down from the sky. Kelsier smiled, knowing that at long last it was finished. In a rush, the mists swirled in twin columns, impossibly high. The powers had been released. They quivered, uncertain, like a storm brewing.
Nobody is holding them.…
Kelsier reached out, timid, trembling. He could …
Elend Venture’s spirit stumbled into the Cognitive Realm beside him, tripping and collapsing to the ground. He groaned, and Kelsier grinned at him.
Elend blinked as Kelsier held out a hand. “I always imagined death,” Elend said, letting Kelsier help him to his feet, “as being greeted by everyone I’ve ever loved in life. I hadn’t imagined that would include you.”
“You need to pay better attention, kid,” Kelsier said, looking him over. “Nice uniform. Did you ask them to make you look like a cheap knockoff of the Lord Ruler, or was it more an accident?”
Elend blinked. “Wow. I hate you already.”
“Give it time,” Kelsier said, slapping him on the back. “For most that eventually fades to a sense of mild exasperation.” He looked at the power still coursing around them, then frowned as a figure made of glowing light scrambled across the field. Its shape was familiar to him. It stepped up to Vin’s corpse, which had fallen to the ground.
“Sazed,” Kelsier whispered, then touched him. He was not prepared for the rush of emotion brought on by seeing his friend in this state. Sazed was frightened. Disbelieving. Crushed. Ruin was dead, but the world was still ending. Sazed had thought that Vin would save them. Honestly, so had Kelsier.
But it seemed there was yet another secret.
“It’s him,” Kelsier whispered. “He’s the Hero.”
Elend Venture placed a hand on Kelsier’s shoulder. “You need to pay better attention,” he noted. “Kid.” He pulled Kelsier away as Sazed reached for the powers, one with each hand.
Kelsier stood in awe of the way they combined. He’d always seen these powers as opposites, yet as they swirled around Sazed it seemed that they actually belonged to one another. “How?” he whispered. “How is he Connected to them both, so evenly? Why not just Preservation?”
“He has changed, this last year,” Elend said. “Ruin is more than death and destruction. It is peace with these things.”
The transformation continued, but awesome though it was, Kelsier’s attention was drawn by something else. A coalescing of power near him on the hilltop. It formed into the shape of a young woman who slipped easily into the Cognitive Realm. She didn’t so much as stumble, which was both appropriate and horribly unfair.
Vin glanced at Kelsier and smiled. A welcoming, warm smile. A smile of joy and acceptance, which filled him with pride. How he wished he’d been able to find her earlier, when Mare was still alive. When she’d needed parents.
She went to Elend first, and seized him in a long embrace. Kelsier glanced at Sazed, who was expanding to become everything. Well, good for him. It was a tough job; Sazed could have it.
Elend nodded to Kelsier, and Vin walked over. “Kelsier,” she said to him, “oh, Kelsier. You always did make your own rules.”
Hesitant, he didn’t embrace her. He reached out his hand, feeling oddly reverent. Vin took it, the tips of her fingers curling into his palm.
Nearby another figure had coalesced from the power, but Kelsier ignored him. He stepped closer to Vin. “I…” What did he say? Hell, he didn’t know.
For once, he didn’t know.
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.
“You did it,” he finally whispered. “What nobody else could have done. You gave yourself up.”
“Well,” she said, “I had such a good example, you see.”
He pulled her tight and held her for a moment longer. Unfortunately, he eventually had to let go.
Ruin stood up nearby, blinking. Or … no, it wasn’t Ruin any longer. It was just the Vessel, Ati. The man who had held the power. Ati ran his hand through his red hair, then looked about. “Vax?” he said, sounding confused.
“Excuse me,” Kelsier said to Vin, then released her and trotted over to the red-haired man.
Whereupon he decked the man across the face, laying him out completely.
“Excellent,” Kelsier said, shaking his hand. At his feet, the man looked at him, then closed his eyes and sighed, stretching away into eternity.
Kelsier walked back to the others, passing a figure in Terris robes standing with hands clasped before him, draping sleeves covering them. “Hey,” Kelsier said, then looked at the sky and the glowing figure there. “Aren’t you…”
“Part of me is,” Sazed replied. He looked to Vin and Elend and held out his hands, one toward each of them. “Thank you both for this new beginning. I have healed your bodies. You can return to them, if you wish.”
Vin looked to Elend. To Kelsier’s horror, he had begun to stretch out. He turned to
ward something Kelsier couldn’t see, something Beyond, and smiled, then stepped in that direction.
“I don’t think it works that way, Saze,” Vin said, then kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” She turned, took Elend’s hand, and began to stretch toward that unseen, distant point.
“Vin!” Kelsier cried, grabbing her other hand, clutching it. “No, Vin. You held the power. You don’t have to go.”
“I know,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.
“Please,” Kelsier said. “Don’t go. Stay. With me.”
“Ah, Kelsier,” she said. “You have a lot to learn about love, don’t you?”
“I know love, Vin. Everything I’ve done—the fall of the empire, the power I’ve given up—that was all about love.”
She smiled. “Kelsier. You are a great man, and should be proud of what you’ve done. And you do love. I know you do. But at the same time, I don’t think you understand it.”
She turned her gaze toward Elend, who was vanishing, only his hand—in hers—still visible. “Thank you, Kelsier,” she whispered, looking back at him, “for all you have done. Your sacrifice was amazing. But to do the things you had to do, to defend the world, you had to become something. Something that worries me.
“Once, you taught me an important lesson about friendship. I need to return that lesson. A last gift. You need to know, you need to ask. How much of what you’ve done was about love, and how much was about proving something? That you hadn’t been betrayed, bested, beaten? Can you answer honestly, Kelsier?”
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.