And was shocked to find it there. He could sense it, pressed against the reality of this world, an infinite darkness. Not just the flimsy imitation of Preservation he’d made before, but the entire vast power. It wasn’t in any specific space, but at the same time it was pressed up against reality and watching with a keen interest.
To his horror, Kelsier saw it change, sending forward spines like the spindly legs of a spider. On their end, dangling like a puppet, was a humanoid figure.
Vin… it whispered. Vin…
She looked toward the pool, her posture grieved. Then she left Venture and entered the Well, passing Kelsier without seeing him and reaching the deepest point. She sank slowly into the light. At the last moment, she ripped something glowing from her ear and tossed it out – a bit of metal. Her earring?
Once she sank completely, she did not appear on this side. Instead, a storm began. A rising column of light surrounded Kelsier, blocking him from seeing anything but the raw energy. Like a sudden tide, an explosion, an instant sunrise. It was all around him, active, excited.
You mustn’t do it, child, Ruin said through his humanlike puppet. How could it speak with such a soothing voice? He could see the force behind it, the destruction, but the face it put on was so kindly. You know what you must do.
“Don’t listen to it, Vin!” Kelsier screamed, but his voice was lost in the roar of the power. He shouted and railed as the voice conned Vin, warning her that if she took the power she’d destroy the world. Kelsier fought through the light, trying to find her, to seize her and explain.
He failed. He failed horribly. He couldn’t make himself heard, couldn’t touch Vin. Couldn’t do anything. Even his impromptu plan of stabbing Elend proved foolish, for she released the power. Weeping, flayed, ripped open, she did the most selfless thing he had ever seen.
And in so doing, she doomed them.
The power became a weapon as she released it. It made a spear in the air and ripped a hole through reality and into the place where Ruin waited.
Ruin rushed through that hole to freedom.
4
Kelsier sat on the lip of the now empty Well of Ascension. The light was gone, and with it his prison. He could leave.
He didn’t seem to be stretching away and fading. Apparently being part of Preservation’s power for a time had expanded Kelsier’s soul, letting him linger. Though honestly, he wished he could vanish at this moment.
Vin – glowing and radiant to his eyes – lay beside Elend Venture, clutching him and weeping as his soul pulsed, growing weaker. Kelsier stood up, turning his back toward the sight. For all his cleverness, he’d gone and broken the poor girl’s heart.
I must be the smartest idiot around, Kelsier thought.
“It was going to happen,” Preservation said. “I thought… Maybe…” From the corner of his eye, Kelsier saw Fuzz approach Vin, then look down at the fallen Venture.
“I can Preserve him,” Preservation whispered.
Kelsier spun. Preservation started waving at Vin, and she stumbled to her feet. She followed the god a few feet to something Elend had dropped, a fallen nugget of metal. Where had that come from?
The Venture boy was carrying it when he entered, Kelsier thought. That was the last bit of metal from the other side of the room, the twin of the one the Drifter had stolen. Kelsier approached as Vin took the nugget of metal, so tiny, and approached Elend, then put it into his mouth. She washed it down with a vial of metal.
Soul and metal became one. Elend’s light strengthened, glowing vibrantly. Kelsier closed his eyes, feeling a thrumming sense of peace.
“That was good work, Fuzz,” Kelsier said, opening his eyes and smiling at Preservation as the god stepped over to him. Vin’s posture manifested incredible joy. “I’m almost ready to think you’re a benevolent god.”
“Stabbing him was dangerous, painful,” Preservation said. “I cannot condone such recklessness. But perhaps it was right, regardless of how I feel.”
“Ruin’s free,” Kelsier said, looking upward. “That thing has escaped.”
“Yes. Fortunately, before I died, I put a plan into motion. I can’t remember it, but I’m certain that it was brilliant.”
“You know, I’ve said something similar myself on occasion, after a night of drinking.” Kelsier rubbed his chin. “I’m free too.”
“Yes.”
“This is where you joke that you aren’t certain which was more dangerous to release. Me or the other one.”
“No,” Fuzz said. “I know which is more dangerous.”
“Failing marks for effort there, I’m afraid.”
“But perhaps…” Preservation said. “Perhaps I cannot say which is more annoying.” He smiled. With his face half melted off and his neck starting to go, it was unnerving. Like a happy bark from a crippled puppy.
Kelsier slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll make a solid crewmember out of you yet, Fuzz. For now, I want to get the hell out of this room.”
Part Three
SPIRIT
1
Kelsier really wanted something to drink. Wasn’t that what you did when you got out of prison? Went drinking, enjoyed your freedom by giving it up to a little booze and a terrible headache?
When alive, he’d usually avoided such levity. He liked to control a situation, not let it control him – but he couldn’t deny that he thirsted for something to drink, to numb the experience he’d just been through.
That seemed terribly unfair. No body, but he could still be thirsty?
He climbed from the caverns surrounding the Well of Ascension, passing through misty chambers and tunnels. As before, when he touched something he was able to see what it looked like in the real world.
His footing was firm on the inconstant ground; though it was somewhat springy, like cloth, it held his weight unless he stamped hard – which would cause his foot to sink in like it was pushing through thick mud. He could even pass through the walls if he tried, but it was harder than it had been during his initial run, when he’d been dying.
He emerged from the caverns into the basement of Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler’s palace. It was even easier than usual to get turned about in this place, as everything was misty to his eyes. He touched the things of mist that he passed, so he could picture his surroundings better. A vase, a carpet, a door.
Kelsier eventually stepped out onto the streets of Luthadel a free – if dead – man. For a time he just walked the city, so relieved to be out of that hole that he was able to ignore the sense of dread he felt at Ruin’s escape.
He must have wandered an entire day that way, sitting on rooftops, strolling past fountains. Looking over this city dotted with glowing pieces of metal, like lights hovering in the mists at night. He ended up on top of the city wall, observing the koloss who had set up camp outside the town but – somehow – didn’t seem to be killing anyone.
He needed to see if there was a way to contact his friends. Unfortunately, without the pulses – those had stopped when Ruin escaped – to guide him, he didn’t know where to start looking. He’d lost track of Vin and Elend in his excitement at leaving the caverns, but he remembered some of what he’d seen through the pulses. That gave him a few places to search.