Kelsier felt himself stretching further. He’d go soon. It didn’t seem his new body could sweat, for if it could have his forehead would certainly be drenched by now.
“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?
He dredged through his memories, trying to remember the things Sazed had told him of religion and belief. The scope of it threatened to overwhelm him. He’d been playing at rebellion and thrones—focusing on religion only when he thought it might benefit his plans—and all the while, this had been in the background. Ignored and unnoticed.
He felt like a child.
Fuzz kept speaking, oblivious to Kelsier’s awakening. “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 . . . ?”
Fuzz distorted again. His diatribe made little sense to Kelsier. He felt as if it was important, but it just wasn’t urgent.
“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.
Kelsier seized him, and the little man cringed.
“Tell me,” Kelsier said. “Please. I can feel myself stretching away, falling, being pulled. Please.”
Fuzz yanked out of his grip. Kelsier’s fingers . . . or rather, his soul’s fingers . . . weren’t working as well any longer.
“No,” Fuzz said. “No, it is not right. If you touched it, you might just add to his power. You will go as all others.”
Very well, Kelsier thought. A con, then.
He let himself slump against the wall of a ghostly building. He sighed, settling down in a seated position, back to the wall. “All right.”
“See, there!” Fuzz said. “Better. Much better, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kelsier said.
God seemed to relax. With discomfort, Kelsier noticed God was still leaking. Mist slipped away from his body at a few pinprick points. This creature was like a wounded beast, placidly going about its daily life while ignoring the bite marks.
Remaining motionless was hard. Harder than facing down the Lord Ruler had been. Kelsier wanted to run, to scream, to scramble and move. That sensation of being drawn away was horrible.
Somehow he feigned relaxation. “You asked,” he said, as if very tired and having trouble forcing it out, “me a question? When you first appeared?”
“Oh!” Fuzz said. “Yes. You let him kill you. I had not expected that.”
“You’re God. Can’t you see the future?”
“To an extent,” Fuzz said, animated. “But it is cloudy, so cloudy. Too many possibilities. I did not see this among them, though it was probably there. You must tell me. Why did you let him kill you? At the end, you just stood there.”
“I couldn’t have gotten away,” Kelsier said. “Once the Lord Ruler arrived, there was no escaping. I had to confront him.”
“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.” He perked up. “And that fight. You and the Inquisitor. Yes, I’ve seen many things, but that was unlike any other. Impressive, though I wish you hadn’t caused such destruction, Kelsier.”
He returned to pacing, but seemed to have more of a spring to his step. Kelsier hadn’t expected God to be so . . . human. Excitable, even energetic.
“I saw something,” Kelsier said, “as the Lord Ruler killed me. The person as he might once have been. His past? A version of his past? He stood at the Well of Ascension.”
“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.”
Perhaps I should just let go, Kelsier thought, drifting.
“There now,” God said. “Farewell, Kelsier. You served him more often than you did me, but I can respect your intentions, and your remarkable ability to Preserve yourself.”
“I saw it,” Kelsier whispered. “A cavern high in the mountains. The Well of Ascension . . .”
“Yes,” Fuzz said. “That’s where I put it.”
“But . . .” Kelsier said, stretching, “he moved it. . . .”
“Naturally.”
What would the Lord Ruler do, with a source of such power? Hide it far away?
Or keep it very, very close? Near to his fingertips. Hadn’t Kelsier seen furs, like the ones he’d seen the Lord Ruler wearing in his vision? He’d seen them in a room, past an Inquisitor. A building within a building, hidden within the depths of the palace.
Kelsier opened his eyes.
Fuzz spun toward him. “What—”
Kelsier heaved himself to his feet and started running. There wasn’t much self to him left, just a fuzzy blurred image. The feet that he ran upon were distorted smudges, his form a pulled-out, unraveling piece of cloth. He barely found purchase upon the misty ground, and when he stumbled against a building, he pushed through it, ignoring the wall as one might a stiff breeze.
“So you are a runner,” Fuzz said, appearing beside him. “Kelsier, child, this accomplishes nothing. I suppose I should have expected nothing less from you. Frantically butting against your destiny until the last moment.”
Kelsier barely heard the words. He focused on the run, on resisting that grip hauling him backward, into the nothing. He raced the grip of death itself, its cold fingers closing around him.
Run.
Concentrate.
Struggle to be.
The flight reminded him of another time, climbing through a pit, arms bloodied. He would not be taken!
The pulsing became his guide, that wave that washed periodically through the shadowy world. He sought its source. He barreled through buildings, crossed thoroughfares, ignoring both metal and the souls of men until he reached the grey mist silhouette of Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires.
Here, Fuzz seemed to grasp what was going on.
“You zinctongued raven,” the god said, moving beside him without effort while Kelsier ran with everything he had. “You’re not going to reach it in time.”
He was running through mists again. Walls, people, buildings faded. Nothing but dark, swirling mists.
But the mists had never been his enemy.
With the thumping of those pulses to guide him, Kelsier strained through the swirling nothingness until a pillar of light exploded before him. It was there! He could see it, burning in the mists. He could almost touch it, almost . . .
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.
Som
ething shoved him forward, and Kelsier merged with the light.
Moments later he blinked awake. He lay in the misty world still, but his body—or, well, his spirit—had re-formed. He lay in a pool of light like liquid metal. He could feel its warmth all around him, invigorating.
He could make out a misty cavern outside the pool; it seemed to be made of natural rock, though he couldn’t tell for certain, because it was all mist on this side.
The pulsing surged through him.
“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.”
2
Immortality proved to be far more frustrating than Kelsier had anticipated.
Of course, he didn’t know if he was truly immortal or not. He didn’t have a heartbeat—which was only unnerving when he noticed it—and didn’t need to breathe. But who could say if his soul aged or not in this place?
In the hours following his survival, Kelsier inspected his new home. God was right, it was a prison. 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.
Fortunately, though the Well was not wide, only the very center was deeper than he was tall. He could stay around the perimeters and only be in the light up to his waist. It was thin, thinner than water, and easy to move through.
He could also step out of this pool and its attached pillar of light, settling onto the rocky side. Everything in this cavern was made of mist, though the edges of the Well . . . He seemed to see the stone better here, more fully. It appeared to have some actual color to it. As if this place were part spirit, like him.
He could sit on the edge of the Well, legs dangling into the light. But if he tried to walk too far from the Well, misty wisps of that same power trailed him and held him back, like chains. They wouldn’t let him get more than a few feet from the pool. He tried straining, pushing, dashing and throwing himself out, but nothing worked. He always pulled up sharply once he got a few feet away.
After several hours of trying to break free, Kelsier settled down on the side of the Well, feeling . . . exhausted? Was that even the right word? He had no body, and felt no traditional signs of tiredness. No headache, no strained muscles. But he was fatigued. Worn out like an old banner allowed to flap in the wind through too many rainstorms.
Forced to relax, he took stock of what little he could make out of his surroundings. Fuzz was gone; the god had been distracted by something a short time after Kelsier’s Preservation, and had vanished. 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.
This was the sum of his existence. Had he just locked himself away in this little prison for eternity? It seemed an ultimate irony to him that he might have managed to cheat death, only to find himself suffering a fate far worse.
What would happen to his mind if he spent a few decades in here? A few centuries?
He sat on the rim of the Well, and tried to distract himself by thinking about his friends. He’d trusted in his plans at the moment of his death, but now he saw so many holes in his plot to inspire a rebellion. What if the skaa didn’t rise up? What if the stockpiles he’d prepared weren’t enough?
Even if that all worked, so much would ride upon the shoulders of some very ill-prepared men. And one remarkable young woman.
Lights drew his attention, and he leaped to his feet, eager for any distraction. A group of figures, outlined as glowing souls, had entered this room in the world of the living. There was something odd about them. Their eyes . . .
Inquisitors.
Kelsier refused to flinch, though by every instinct he dreaded these creatures. He had bested one of their champions. He would fear them no longer. Instead, he paced his confines, trying to discern what the three Inquisitors were lugging toward him. Something large and heavy, but it didn’t glow at all.
A body, Kelsier realized. Headless.
Was this the one he’d killed? Yes, it must be. Another Inquisitor was reverently carrying the dead one’s spikes, a whole pile of them, all placed together inside a large jar of liquid. Kelsier squinted at it, taking a single step out of his prison, trying to determine what he was seeing.
“Blood,” Fuzz said, suddenly standing nearby. “They store the spikes in blood until they can be used again. In that way, they can prevent the spikes from losing their effectiveness.”
“Huh,” Kelsier said, stepping to the side as the Inquisitors tossed the body into the Well, then dropped in the head. Both evaporated. “Do they do this often?”
“Each time one of their number dies,” Fuzz said. “I doubt they even know what they are doing. Tossing a dead body into that pool is beyond meaningless.”
The Inquisitors retreated with the spikes of the fallen. Judging by their slumped forms, the four creatures were exhausted.
“My plan,” Kelsier said, looking to Fuzz. “How is it going? My crew should have discovered the warehouse by now. The people of the city . . . did it work? Are the skaa angry?”
“Hmmm?” Fuzz asked.
“The revolution, the plan,” Kelsier said, stepping toward him. God shifted backward, getting just beyond where Kelsier would be able to reach, hand going to the knife at his belt. Perhaps that punch earlier had been ill-advised. “Fuzz, listen. You have to go nudge them. We’ll never have a better chance of overthrowing him.”
“The plan . . .” Fuzz said. He unraveled for a moment, before returning. “Yes, there was a plan. I . . . remember I had a plan. When I was smarter . . .”
“The plan,” Kelsier said, “is to get the skaa to revolt. It won’t matter how powerful the Lord Ruler is, won’t matter if he’s immortal, once we toss him in chains and lock him away.”
Fuzz nodded, distracted.
“Fuzz?”
He shook, glancing toward Kelsier, and the sides of his head unraveled slowly—like a fraying rug, each thread seeping away and vanishing into nothing. “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.
Fuzz started pacing. “I know you’re listening, changing what I write, what I have written. You make our religion all about you. They hardly remember the truth any longer. Subtle as always, you worm.”
“Fuzz,” Kelsier said. “Could you just go—”
“I needed a sign,” Fuzz whispered, stopping near Kelsier. “Something he couldn’t change. A sign of the weapon I’d buried. The boiling point of water, I think. Maybe its freezing point? But what if the units change over the years? I needed something that would be remembered always. Something they’ll immediately recognize.” He leaned in. “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. They have to see.” Fuzz started pacing again, and his head returned—mostly—to its earlier state.
Kelsier sat down on the rim of his prison. God’s actions were far more erratic than they had been earlier. Had s
omething changed, or—like a human with a mental disease—was God simply better at some times than he was at others?
Fuzz looked up abruptly. He winced, turning his eyes toward the ceiling, as if it were going to collapse on him. He opened his mouth, jaw working, but made no sound.
“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 strode toward the light of the Well. He stopped in place when he noticed Kelsier.
“I killed you,” the Lord Ruler said. “Twice. Yet you live.”
“Yes. We’re all aware of how strikingly incompetent you are. I’m glad you’re beginning to see it for yourself. That’s the first step toward change.”
The Lord Ruler sniffed and looked around at the chamber, with its diaphanous walls. His eyes passed over Fuzz, but he didn’t give the god much consideration.
Kelsier exulted. She’d done it. She’d actually done it. How? What secret had he missed?
“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.”
Fuzz cleared his throat. “It is my duty to be with you as you transition. Don’t be worried, or—”
“Be silent,” the Lord Ruler said, inspecting Kelsier’s prison. “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.”