Mistborn: secret history

New plan, Kelsier decided, hanging outside on the wall, feeling completely exposed. Follow the weird lady

giving orders.

He let her get a distance ahead of him, then entered the corridor and followed silently. She rounded the

outer corridor of the fortress before eventually reaching the end of it, where it stopped at a guarded door.

She passed inside, and Kelsier thought for a moment, then climbed out another window.

He had to be careful; if the guards above weren’t already keeping close watch on the walls, they soon

would be. Unfortunately, he doubted he could get through that doorway without bringing every guard in

the place down on him. Instead he climbed along the outside of the fortress until he reached the next

window past the guarded door. This one was smaller than the others he’d gone through, more like an

arrow slit than a true window. Fortunately, it looked into the room the strange woman had entered.

Inside, an entire group of the creatures sat in discussion. Kelsier pressed up against the slit of a window,

peeking in, clinging precariously to the wall some fifty feet in the air. The beings all had that same silvery

skin, though two were a shade darker than the rest. It was difficult to distinguish individuals among them;

they were all so old, the men completely bald, the women nearly so. Each wore the same distinctive robe

– white, with hoods that could be pulled up and silver embroidery around the cuffs.

Curiously, the light from the walls was dimmer in the room. The effect was particularly noticeable near

where one of the creatures was sitting or standing. It was like… they themselves were drawing in the

light.

He was at least able to pick out the woman from before, with her wizened lips and long fingers. Her robe

had a thicker band of silver. “We must move up our timetable,” she was saying to the others. “I do not

believe this sighting was a coincidence.”

“Bah,” said a seated man who held a cup of glowing liquid. “You always jump at stories, Alonoe. Not every

coincidence is a sign of someone drawing upon Fortune.”

“And do you disagree that it is best to be careful?” Alonoe demanded. “We have come too far, worked too

hard, to let the prize slip away now.”

“Preservation’s Vessel has nearly expired,” another woman said. “Our window to strike is approaching.”

“An entire Shard,” Alonoe said. “Ours.”

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“And if that was an agent of Ruin the guards spotted?” asked the seated man. “If our plans have been

discovered? The Vessel of Ruin could have his eyes upon us at this very moment.”

Alonoe seemed disturbed by this, and she glanced upward as if to search the sky for the watching eyes of

the Shard. She recovered, speaking firmly. “I will take the chance.”

“We will draw his anger either way,” another of the beings noted. “If one of us Ascends to Preservation,

we will be safe. Only then.”

Kelsier chewed on this as the creatures fell silent. So someone else can take up the Shard. Fuzz is almost

dead, but if someone were to seize his power as he died…

But hadn’t Preservation told Kelsier that such a thing was impossible? You wouldn’t be able to hold my

power anyway, Preservation had said. You’re not Connected enough to me.

He’d seen that now firsthand, in the space between moments. Were these creatures somehow Connected

enough to Preservation to take the power? Kelsier doubted it. So what was their plan?

“We move forward,” the seated man said, looking to the others. One at a time, they nodded. “Devotion

protect us. We move forward.”

“You won’t need Devotion, Elrao,” Alonoe said. “You will have me.”

Over my dead body, Kelsier thought. Or… well, something like that.

“The timetable is accelerated then,” said Elrao, the man with the cup. He drank the glowing liquid, then

stood. “To the vault?”

The others nodded. Together they left the room.

Kelsier waited until they were gone, then tried pushing himself through the window. It was too small for a

person, but he wasn’t completely a person any longer. He could meld a few inches with the stone, and

with effort he was able to contort his shape and squeeze through the wide slit.

He finally tumbled into the room, shoulders popping into their previous shape. The experience left him

with a splitting headache. He sat up, back to the wall, and waited for the pain to fade before standing to

give this room a thorough ransacking.

He didn’t come up with much. A few bottles of wine, a handful of gemstones left casually in one of the

drawers. Both were real, not souls pulled through to this Realm.

The room had a door leading into the inner parts of the fortress, and so – after peeking through – he

slipped in. This next room looked more promising. It was a bedroom. He rifled through the drawers,

discovering several robes like the wizened people had been wearing. And then, in the small table by the

hearth, the jackpot. A book of sketches filled with strange symbols like the one he had visualized. Symbols

that he felt, vaguely, he could understand.

Yes… These were writing, though most of the pages were filled with terms he couldn’t begin to

comprehend, even once he began to be able to read the symbols themselves. Terms like Adonalsium,

Connection, Realmatic Theory.

The end pages, however, described the culmination of the notes and sketches. A kind of arcane device in

the shape of a sphere. You could break it and absorb the power within, which would briefly Connect you

to Preservation – like the lines he’d seen in the place between moments.

That was their plan. Travel to the place of Preservation’s death, prime themselves with this device, and

absorb his power – Ascending to take his place.

Bold. Exactly the kind of plan Kelsier admired. And now, he finally knew what he was going to steal from

them.

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