“Sure,” Kelsier said. “Tell Fuzz he’s to take something long, hard, and sharp, then ram it up your backside for me.”
“As if he could harm even me. 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.”
“It can’t be that close.”
“It is, fortunately. But even if you could have done something to help, you’re useless out here. A shame.”
Sure, Kelsier thought. And you came here to tell me that, rather than remaining quietly pleased that I was off being distracted by my quest.
Kelsier recognized a hook when he saw one. Ruin wanted him to believe that the end was very near, that coming out here had been pointless.
Which meant it wasn’t.
Preservation said he couldn’t leave to go where I’m going, Kelsier thought. And Ruin is similarly bound, at least until the world is destroyed.
Maybe, for the first time in months, he’d be able to escape that squirming sky and the eyes of the destroyer. He saluted Ruin, tucked away his fire, then strode down the hill.
“Running, Kelsier?” Ruin said, appearing on the hillside with hands clasped as Kelsier passed him. “You cannot flee your fate. You are tied to this world, and to me.”
Kelsier kept on walking, and Ruin appeared at the bottom of the hill, in the same pose.
“Those fools in the fortress won’t be able to help you,” Ruin noted. “I think that once this world reaches its end, I will pay them a visit. They’ve existed far too long past what is right.”
Kelsier stopped at the edge of the new land of dark stone, like the lake that had become an island. This one was even larger. The ocean had become a continent.
“I will kill Vin while you’re gone,” Ruin whispered. “I will kill them all. Think about that, Kelsier, on your journey. When you come back, if there’s anything left, I might have need of you. Thank you for all you’ve done on my behalf.”
Kelsier stepped out onto the ocean continent, leaving Ruin behind on the shore. Kelsier could almost see the spindly threads of power that animated this puppet, providing a voice to the terrible force.
Damn. Its words were lies. He knew that.
They hurt anyway.
PART FIVE
IRE
1
HE’D hoped to have the sun back once Ruin vanished from the sky, but after walking far enough out, he seemed to leave his world behind—and the sun with it. The sky here was nothing but empty blackness. Kelsier eventually managed to use some vines to strap his flagging cookfire to the end of his staff, which became an improvised torch.
It was a strange experience, hiking through the darkened landscape, holding a staff with an entire campfire on the top. But the logs didn’t fall apart, and the thing wasn’t nearly as heavy as it should have been. Not as hot either, particularly if—when bringing it out—he didn’t make it manifest fully.
Plant life grew all around him, real to his touch and eyes, though of strange varieties, some with brownish-red fronds and others with wide palms. Many trees—a jungle of exotic plants.
There were some bits of mist in here. If he knelt by the ground and looked for them, he could find little glowing spirits. Fish, sea plants. They manifested here above the ground, though in the ocean on the other side they were probably down within the depths. Kelsier stood up, holding the soul of some kind of massive deep-sea creature—like a fish, only as large as a building—in his hand, feeling its ponderous strength.
That was surreal, but so was his life these days. He dropped the fish’s soul and continued onward, hiking through waist-high plants with a blazing staff lighting the way.
As he got farther from the shore, he felt a tugging at his soul. A manifestation of his ties to the world he’d left behind. He knew, without having to experiment, that this tug would ultimately grow strong enough that he wouldn’t be able to continue outward.
He could use that. The tugging was a tool that let him judge if he was getting farther from his world, or if he’d gotten turned around in the darkness. Navigation was otherwise next to impossible, now that he didn’t have the canals and roadways to guide him.
By judging the pull on his soul, he kept himself pointed directly outward, away from his homeland. He wasn’t completely certain that was where he’d find his goal, but it seemed like his best bet.
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. He had stopped passing the souls of fish, and nothing seemed to be alive out here in either Realm.
The pull tugging him backward was growing laborious to fight. He was beginning to worry he’d have to turn around when, at long last, he spotted something new.
A light on the horizon.
2
SNEAKING was a great deal easier when you didn’t technically have a body.
Kelsier moved in silence, having dismissed his cloak and staff. He’d left his pack behind, and though there were a few plants out here, he could pass through them, not even rustling their leaves.
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.
This turned out to be an enormous glowing cord as thick as a large tree trunk. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic power, and the light it gave off was the same shade as the walls—only far more brilliant. It seemed to be some kind of energy conduit, and ran off into the far distance, visible in the darkness for miles.
The cord passed into the fortress through a large gate in the back. As Kelsier crept closer, he found that little lines of energy were running across the stone of the wall. They branched smaller and smaller, like a glowing web of veins.
The fortress was tall, imposing, like a keep—but without the ornamentation. It didn’t have a separate fortification around it, but its walls were steep and sheer. Guards moved atop the roof, and as one passed, Kelsier pushed himself down into the ground. He was able to sink into it completely, becoming nearly invisible, though that required grabbing hold of the ground and pulling himself downward until only the top of his head was visible.
The guards didn’t notice him. He climbed back out of the ground and inched up to the base of the fortress wall. He pressed his hand against the glowing stone and was given the impression of a rocky wall far from here, in another place. An unfamiliar land with striking green plants. He gasped, pulling his hand away.
These weren’t stones, but the spirits of stones—like his spirit of a fire. They had been brought here and constructed into a building. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so clever at having found himself a staff and a sack.
He touched the stone again, looking at that green landscape. That was what Mare had talked about, a land with an open blue sky. Another planet, he decided. One that didn’t suffer our fate.
For the moment he ignored the image of that place, pushing his fingers through the spirit of the stone. Strangely, the stone resisted. Kelsier gritted his teeth and pushed harder. He man
aged to get his fingers to sink in about two inches, but couldn’t make them go any farther.
It’s that light, he thought. It pushed back on him. Looks a little like the light of souls.
Well, he couldn’t slip through the wall. What now? He retreated into the shadows to consider. Should he try to sneak in one of the gates? He rounded the building, contemplating this for a short time, before suddenly feeling foolish. He hurried forward to the wall again and pressed his hand against the stones, sinking his fingers in a few inches. Then he reached up and did the same with the other hand.
Then he proceeded to scale the wall.
Though he missed Steelpushing, this method proved quite effective. He could grip the wall basically anywhere he wanted, and his form didn’t have much weight. Climbing was easy, as long as he maintained his concentration. Those images of a land with green plants were very distracting. Not a speck of ash in sight.
A piece of him had always considered Mare’s flower a fanciful story. And while the place looked strange, it also attracted him with its alien beauty. There was something about it that was incredibly inviting. Unfortunately, the wall kept trying to spit his fingers back out, and maintaining his grip took a great deal of attention. He continued moving; he could revel in that luxurious scene of green grass and pleasant hills another time.
One of the upper levels had a window big enough to get through, which was good. The guards on the keep’s top would have been difficult to dodge. Kelsier slipped in the window, entering a long stone corridor lit by the spiderwebs of power coursing across the walls, floor, and ceiling.
The energy must keep the stones from evaporating, Kelsier thought. All the souls he’d brought with him had begun to deteriorate, but these stones were solid and unbroken. Those tiny lines of power were somehow sustaining the spirits of the stone, and perhaps as a side effect keeping people like Kelsier from passing through the walls.
He crept down the corridor. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but he wouldn’t have learned anything more by sitting outside and waiting.
The power coursing through this place kept giving him visions of another world—and, he realized with discomfort, the energy seemed to be permeating him. Mixing with his soul’s own energy, which had already been touched by the power at the Well. In a few brief moments, he had started to think that place with the green plants looked normal.
He heard voices echoing in the hallway, speaking a strange language with a nasal tone. Prepared for this, Kelsier scrambled out a window and clung there, just outside.
A pair of guards hurried through the hallway beside him, and after they passed he peeked in to see that they were wearing long white-blue tabards, pikes at their shoulders. They had fair skin and looked like they could have been from one of the dominances—except for their strange language. They spoke energetically, and as the words washed across him Kelsier thought … He thought he could make some of it out.
Yes. They speak the language of open fields, of green plants. Of where these stones came from, and the source of this power …
“… is pretty sure he saw something, sir,” one guard was saying.
The words struck Kelsier strangely. On one hand he felt they should be indecipherable. On the other hand he instantly knew what they meant.
“How would a Threnodite have made it all the way here?” the other guard snapped. “It defies reason, I tell you.”
They passed through the doors at the other end of the hall. Kelsier climbed back into the corridor, curious. Had a guard seen him outside then? This didn’t seem like a general alarm, so if he had been spotted, the glimpse had been brief.
He debated fleeing, but decided to follow the guards instead. Though most new thieves tried to avoid guards during an infiltration, Kelsier’s experience showed that you generally wanted to tail them—for they’d always stick close to the things that were most important.
He wasn’t certain if they could harm him in any way, though he figured it would be best not to find out, so he stayed a good distance back from the guards. After curving through a few stone corridors, they reached a door and went in. Kelsier crept up, cracked it, and was rewarded by the sight of a larger chamber where a small group of guards were setting up a strange device. A large yellow gemstone the size of Kelsier’s fist shone in the center, glowing even more brightly than the walls. That gem was surrounded by a lattice of golden metal holding it in place. All told, it was the size of a desk clock.
Kelsier leaned forward, hidden just outside the door. That gemstone … that had to be worth a fortune.
A different door into the room—one opposite him—slammed open, causing several guards to jump, then salute. The creature that entered seemed … well, mostly human. Wizened, dried up, the woman had puckered lips, a bald scalp, and strange silvery-dark skin. She glowed faintly with the same quiet blue-white light as the walls.
“What is this?” the creature snapped in the language of the green plants.
The guard captain saluted. “Probably just a false alarm, ancient one. Maod says he saw something outside.”
“Looked like a figure, ancient one,” another guard piped up. “Saw it myself. It tested at the wall, sinking its fingers into the stone, but was rebuffed. Then it retreated, and I lost sight of it in the darkness.”
So he had been seen. Damn. At least they didn’t seem to know he’d crept into the building.
“Well, well,” the ancient creature said. “My foresight does not seem so foolish now, does it, Captain? The powers of Threnody wish to join the main stage. Engage the device.”
Kelsier had an immediate sinking feeling. Whatever that device did, he suspected it would not go well for him. He turned to bolt down the corridor, making for one of the windows. Behind him, the powerful golden light of the gemstone faded.
Kelsier felt nothing.
“Well,” the captain said from behind, voice echoing. “Nobody from Threnody within a day’s march of here. Looks like a false alarm after all.”
Kelsier hesitated in the empty corridor. Then, cautious, he crept back to peek into the room. The guards and the wizened creature all stood around the device, seeming displeased.
“I do not doubt your foresight, ancient one,” the guard captain continued. “But I do trust my forces on the Threnodite border. There are no shadows here.”
“Perhaps,” the creature said, resting her fingers on the gemstone. “Perhaps there was someone, but the guard was wrong about it being a Cognitive Shadow. Have the guards be on alert, and leave the device on just in case. This timing strikes me as too opportune to be coincidental. I must speak with the rest of the Ire.”
As she said the word, this time Kelsier got a sense of its meaning in the language of the green plants. It meant “age,” and he had a sudden impression of a strange symbol made from four dots and some lines that curved, like ripples in a river.
Kelsier shook his head, dispelling the vision. The creature was walking in Kelsier’s direction. He scrambled away, barely reaching a window and climbing out as the creature pushed open the door and strode through the hallway.
New plan, Kelsier decided, hanging outside on the wall, feeling completely exposed. Follow the weird lady giving orders.
He let her get a distance ahead of him, then entered the corridor and followed silently. She rounded the outer corridor of the fortress before eventually reaching the end of it, where it stopped at a guarded door. She passed inside, and Kelsier thought for a moment, then climbed out another window.
He had to be careful; if the guards above weren’t already keeping close watch on the walls, they soon would be. Unfortunately, he doubted he could get through that doorway without bringing every guard in the place down on him. Instead he climbed along the outside of the fortress until he reached the next window past the guarded door. This one was smaller than the others he’d gone through, more like an arrow slit than a true window. Fortunately, it looked into the room the strange woman had entered.
Ins
ide, an entire group of the creatures sat in discussion. Kelsier pressed up against the slit of a window, peeking in, clinging precariously to the wall some fifty feet in the air. The beings all had that same silvery skin, though two were a shade darker than the rest. It was difficult to distinguish individuals among them; they were all so old, the men completely bald, the women nearly so. Each wore the same distinctive robe—white, with a hood that could be pulled up and silver embroidery around the cuffs.
Curiously, the light from the walls was dimmer in the room. The effect was particularly noticeable near where one of the creatures was sitting or standing. It was like … they themselves were drawing in the light.
He was at least able to pick out the woman from before, with her wizened lips and long fingers. Her robe had a thicker band of silver. “We must move up our timetable,” she was saying to the others. “I do not believe this sighting was a coincidence.”
“Bah,” said a seated man who held a cup of glowing liquid. “You always jump at stories, Alonoe. Not every coincidence is a sign of someone drawing upon Fortune.”
“And do you disagree that it is best to be careful?” Alonoe demanded. “We have come too far, worked too hard, to let the prize slip away now.”
“Preservation’s Vessel has nearly expired,” another woman said. “Our window to strike is approaching.”
“An entire Shard,” Alonoe said. “Ours.”
“And if that was an agent of Ruin the guards spotted?” asked the seated man. “If our plans have been discovered? The Vessel of Ruin could have his eyes upon us at this very moment.”
Alonoe seemed disturbed by this, and she glanced upward as if to search the sky for the watching eyes of the Shard. She recovered, speaking firmly. “I will take the chance.”
“We will draw his anger either way,” another of the beings noted. “If one of us Ascends to Preservation, we will be safe. Only then.”