Mistborn: secret history

3

The bolt didn’t do anything. He’d hoped he’d be able to make Allomancy work, but the bolt just settled

into his stomach – a strange and uncomfortable weight. He couldn’t burn it, despite trying. As he walked,

he eventually coughed it back up and tossed it away.

He stepped to the transition from the island to the misty ground around Luthadel, and felt a new weight

upon him. A doomed world, dying gods, and an entire universe he’d never known existed. His only hope

now was… to journey to the ocean?

That was farther than he had ever gone, even during his travels with Gemmel. It would take months to

walk that far. Did they have months?

He stepped off the island, crossing onto the soft ground of the misted banks. Luthadel loomed in the near

distance, a shadowy wall of curling mist.

“Fuzz?” he called. “You out there?”

“I’m everywhere,” Preservation said, appearing beside him.

“So you were listening?” Kelsier asked.

He nodded absently, form frayed, face indistinct. “I think… Surely I was…”

“They mentioned someone called the Eyes Ree?”

“Yes, the I-ree,” Preservation said, pronouncing it in a slightly different way. “Three letters. I R E. It

means something in their language, these people from another land. The ones who died, but did not. I

have felt them crowding at the edges of my vision, like spirits in the night.”

“Dead, but alive,” Kelsier said. “Like me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Died, but did not.”

Great, Kelsier thought. He turned toward the west. “They are supposedly at the ocean.”

“The Ire built a city,” Preservation said, softly. “In a place between worlds…”

“Well,” Kelsier said, then took a deep breath. “That’s where I’m going.”

“Going?” Preservation said. “You’re leaving me?”

The urgency of those words startled Kelsier. “If these people can help us, then I need to talk to them.”

“They can’t help us,” Preservation said. “They’re… they’re callous. They plot over my corpse like

scavenging insects waiting for the last beat of the heart. Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

“You’re everywhere. I can’t leave you.”

“No. They’re beyond me. I… I cannot depart this land. I’m too Invested in it, in every rock and leaf.” He

pulsed, his already indistinct form spreading thinner. “We… grow attached easily, and it takes one who is

particularly dedicated to leave.”

“And Ruin?” Kelsier said, turning toward the west. “If he destroys everything, would he be able to

escape?”

---

“Yes,” Preservation said, very softly. “He could go then. But Kelsier, you can’t abandon me. We… we’re a

team, right?”

Kelsier rested his hand on the creature’s shoulder. Once so confident, now little more than a smudge in

the air. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. If I’m going to stop that thing, I’ll need some kind of help.”

“You pity me.”

“I pity anyone who’s not me, Fuzz. A hazard of being the man I am. But you can do this. Keep an eye on

Ruin, and try to get word to Vin and that nobleman of hers.”

“Pity,” Preservation repeated. “Is that… is that what I’ve become? Yes… Yes, it is.”

He reached up with a vaguely outlined hand and seized Kelsier’s arm from underneath. Kelsier gasped,

then cut off as Preservation grabbed him by the back of the neck with his other hand, locking his gaze

with Kelsier’s. Those eyes snapped into focus, fuzziness becoming suddenly distinct. A glow burst from

them, silvery white, bathing Kelsier and blinding him.

Everything else was vaporized; nothing could withstand that terrible, wonderful light. Kelsier lost form,

thought, very being. He transcended self and entered a place of flowing light. Ribbons of it exploded from

him, and though he tried to scream, he had no voice.

Time didn’t pass; time had no relevance here. It was not a place. Location had no relevance. Only

Connection, person to person, man to world, Kelsier to god.

And that god was everything. The thing he had pitied was the very ground Kelsier walked upon, the air,

the metals – his own soul. Preservation was everywhere. Beside it, Kelsier was insignificant. An

afterthought.

The vision faded. Kelsier stumbled away from Preservation, who stood, placid, a blur in the air – but a

representation of so much more. Kelsier put his hand to his chest and was pleased, for a reason he

couldn’t explain, to find that his heart was beating. His soul was learning to imitate a body, and somehow

having a racing heart was comforting.

“I suppose I deserved that,” Kelsier said. “Be careful how you use those visions, Fuzz. Reality isn’t

particularly healthy for a man’s ego.”

“I would call it very healthy,” Preservation replied.

“I saw everything,” Kelsier mumbled. “Everyone, everything. My Connection to them, and… and…”