“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.
Something 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?