He ultimately found his crew at Keep Venture. It was the day after the disaster at the Well of Ascension, and they appeared to be holding a funeral. Kelsier strolled through the courtyard, passing among the glowing souls of men, each burning like a limelight. Those he brushed gave him an impression of their appearance. Many he recognized: skaa he’d interacted with, encouraged, uplifted during his final months of life. Others were unfamiliar. A disturbing number of soldiers who had once served the Lord Ruler.
He found Vin at the front, sitting on the steps of Keep Venture, huddled and slumped over. Elend was nowhere to be seen, though Ham stood nearby, arms folded. In the courtyard, somebody waved their hands before the group, giving a speech. Was that Demoux? Leading the people in the funeral service? Those were certainly corpses laid out in the courtyard, their souls no longer shining. He couldn’t hear what Demoux was saying, but the presentation seemed clear.
Kelsier settled down on the steps beside Vin. He clasped his hands before himself. “So… that went well.”
Vin, of course, didn’t reply.
“I mean,” Kelsier continued, “yes, we ended up releasing a world-ending force of destruction and chaos, but at least the Lord Ruler is dead. Mission accomplished. Plus you still have your nobleman boyfriend, so there’s that. Don’t worry about the scar on his stomach. It’ll make him look more rugged. Mists know, the little bookworker could use some toughening up.”
She didn’t move, but maintained her slumped posture. He rested his arm across her shoulders and was given a glimpse of her as she looked in the real world. Full of color and life, yet somehow… weathered. She seemed so much older now, no longer the child he’d found scamming obligators on the streets.
He leaned down beside her. “I’m going to beat this thing, Vin. I am going take care of this.”
“And how,” Preservation said from the courtyard below the steps, “are you going to accomplish that?”
Kelsier looked up. Though he was prepared for the sight of Preservation, he still winced to see him as he was – barely even in human shape any longer, more a dissolved bunch of weaving threads of frayed smoke, giving the vague impression of a head, arms, legs.
“He’s free,” Preservation said. “That’s it. Time up. Contract due. He will take what was promised.”
“We’ll stop him.”
“Stop him? He’s the force of entropy, a universal constant. You can’t stop that any more than you can stop time.”
Kelsier stood up, leaving Vin and walking down the steps toward Preservation. He wished he could hear what Demoux was saying to this small crowd of glowing souls.
“If he can’t be stopped,” Kelsier said, “then we’ll slow him. You did it before, right? Your grand plan?”
“I…” Preservation said. “Yes… There was a plan….”
“I’m free now. I can help you put it into motion.”
“Free?” Preservation laughed. “No, you’ve just entered a larger prison. Tied to this Realm, bound to it. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing I can do.”
“That–”
“He’s watching us, you know,” Preservation said, looking upward at the sky.
Kelsier followed his gaze reluctantly. The sky – misty and shifting – seemed so distant. It felt as if it had pulled back from the planet, like people in a crowd shying away from a corpse. In that vastness Kelsier saw something dark, thrashing, writhing upon itself. More solid than mist, like an ocean of snakes, obscuring the tiny sun.
He knew that vastness. Ruin was indeed watching.
“He thinks you’re insignificant,” Preservation said. “I think he finds you amusing – the soul of Ati that is still in there somewhere would laugh at this.”
“He has a soul?”
Preservation didn’t respond. Kelsier stepped up to him, passing corpses made of mists on the ground.
“If he is alive,” Kelsier said, “then he can be killed. No matter how powerful.” You’re proof of that, Fuzz. He’s killing you.
Preservation laughed, a harsh, barking noise. “You keep forgetting which of us is a god and which is just a poor dead shadow. Waiting to expire.” He waved a mostly unraveled arm, fingers made of spirals of unwound, misty strings. “Listen to them. Doesn’t it embarrass you how they talk? The Survivor? Ha! I Preserved them for millennia. What have you done for them?”
Kelsier turned toward Demoux. Preservation appeared to have forgotten that Kelsier couldn’t hear the speech. Intending to go touch Demoux, to get a view of what he looked like now, Kelsier brushed one of the corpses on the ground.
A young man. A soldier, by the looks of it. He didn’t know the boy, but he started to worry. He looked back at where Ham was standing – that figure near him would be Breeze.
What of the others?
He grew cold, then started touching corpses, looking for any he recognized. His motions became more frantic.
“What are you seeking?” Preservation asked.
“How many–” Kelsier swallowed. “How many of these were friends of mine?”
“Some,” Preservation said.
“Any members of the crew?”
“No,” Preservation said, and Kelsier let out a sigh. “No, they died during the intial break-in, days ago. Dockson. Clubs.”
A spear of ice shot through Kelsier. He tried to stand up from beside the corpse he’d been inspecting, but stumbled, trying to force out the words. “No. No, not Dox.”
Preservation nodded.
“Wh… When did it happen? How?”
Preservation laughed. The sound of madness. He showed little of the kindly, uncertain man who had greeted Kelsier when he’d first entered this place.
“Both were murdered by koloss as the siege broke. Their bodies were burned days ago, Kelsier, while you were trapped.”
Kelsier trembled, feeling lost. “I…” Kelsier said.
Dox. I wasn’t here for him. I could have seen him again, as he passed. Talked to him. Saved him maybe?
“He cursed you as he died, Kelsier,” Preservation said, voice harsh. “He blamed you for all this.”
Kelsier bowed his head. Another lost friend. And Clubs too… two good men. He’d lost too many of those in his life, dammit. Far too many.
I’m sorry, Dox, Clubs. I’m sorry for failing you.
Kelsier took that anger, that bitterness and shame, and channeled it. He’d found purpose again during his days in prison. He wouldn’t lose it now.
He stood and turned to Preservation. The god – shockingly – cringed as if frightened. Kelsier seized the god’s form, and in a brief moment was given a vision of the grandness beyond. The pervading light of Preservation that permeated all things. The world, the mists, the metals, the very souls of men. This creature was somehow dying, but his power was far from gone.
He also felt Preservation’s pain. It was the loss Kelsier had felt at Dox’s death, only magnified thousands of times over. Preservation felt every light that went out, felt them and knew them as a person he had loved.
Around the world they were dying at an accelerated pace. Too much ash was falling, and Preservation only anticipated it increasing. Armies of koloss rampaging beyond control. Death, destruction, a world on its last legs.
And… to the south… what was that? People?
Kelsier held Preservation, in awe at this creature’s divine agony. Then Kelsier pulled him close, into an embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” Kelsier whispered.