Mistborn: secret history

Spreading into the future, he thought, grasping at an explanation. Possibilities, so many possibilities…

like atium.

“Yes,” Preservation said, sounding exhausted. “It can be trying to recognize one’s true place in things.

Few can handle the–”

“Send me back,” Kelsier said, scrambling up to Preservation, taking him by the arms.

“What?”

“Send me back. I need to see that again.”

“Your mind is too fragile. It will break.”

“I broke that damn thing years ago, Fuzz. Do it. Please.”

Preservation hesitantly gripped him, and this time his eyes took longer to start glowing. They flashed, his

form trembling, and for a moment Kelsier thought the god would dissipate entirely.

Then the glow spurted to life, and in an instant Kelsier was consumed. This time he forced himself to look

away from Preservation – though it was less a matter of looking, and more a matter of trying to sort

through the horrible overload of information and sensation that assaulted him.

Unfortunately, in turning his attention away from Preservation he risked giving it to something else –

something equally demanding. There was a second god here, black and terrible, the thing with the spines

and spidery legs, sprouting from dark mists and reaching into everything throughout the land.

Including Kelsier.

In fact, his ties to Preservation were trivial by comparison to these hundreds of black fingers which

attached him to that thing Beyond. He sensed a powerful satisfaction from it, along with an idea. Not

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words, just an undeniable fact.

You are mine, Survivor.

Kelsier rebelled at the thought, but in this place of perfect light, truth had to be acknowledged.

Straining, soul crumbling before that terrible reality, Kelsier turned toward the tendrils of light spreading

into the distance. Possibilities upon possibilities, compounded upon one another. Infinite, overwhelming.

The future.

He dropped out of the vision again, and this time fell to his knees panting. The glow faded, and he was

again on the banks of Lake Luthadel. Preservation settled down beside him and rested his hand on

Kelsier’s back.

“I can’t stop him,” Kelsier whispered.

“I know,” Preservation said.

“I could see thousands upon thousands of possibilities. In none of them did I defeat that thing.”

“The ribbons of the future are never as useful as… as they should be,” Preservation said. “I rode them

much, in the past. It’s too hard to see what is actually likely, and what is just a fragile… fragile, distant

maybe….”

“I can’t stop it,” Kelsier whispered. “I’m too like it. Everything I do serves it.” Kelsier looked up, smiling.

“It broke you,” Preservation said.

“No, Fuzz.” Kelsier laughed, standing. “No. I can’t stop it. No matter what I do, I can’t stop it.” He looked

down at Preservation. “But she can.”

“He knows this. You were right. He has been preparing her, infusing her.”

“She can beat it.”

“A frail possibility,” Preservation said. “A false promise.”

“No,” Kelsier said softly. “A hope.”

He held his hand out. Preservation took it and let Kelsier pull him to his feet. God nodded. “A hope. What

is our plan?”

“I continue to the west,” Kelsier said. “I saw, in the possibilities…”

“Do not trust what you saw,” Preservation said, sounding far more firm than he had earlier. “It takes an

infinite mind to even begin to glean information from those tendrils of the future. Even then you are likely

to be wrong.”

“The path I saw started by me going to the west,” Kelsier said. “It’s all I can think to do. Unless you have

a better suggestion.”

Preservation shook his head.

“You need to stay here, fight him off, resist – and try to get through to Vin. If not her, then Sazed.”

“He… is not well.”

Kelsier cocked his head. “Hurt in the fighting?”

“Worse. Ruin tries to break him.”

Damn. But what could he do, except continue with his plan? “Do what you can,” Kelsier said. “I’ll seek

these people to the west.”

“They won’t help.”

“I’m not going to ask for their help,” Kelsier said, then smiled. “I’m going to rob them.”

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