Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)

“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.”





Part Four


Journey





1





Kelsier ran. He needed the urgency, the strength, of being in motion. A man running somewhere had a purpose.

He left the region around Luthadel, jogging alongside a canal for direction. Like the lake, the canal was reversed here—a long, narrow mound rather than a trough.

As he moved, Kelsier tried yet again to sort through the conflicting set of images, impressions, and ideas he’d experienced in that place where he could perceive everything. Vin could beat this thing. Of that Kelsier was certain, as certain as he was that he couldn’t defeat Ruin himself.

From there however, his thoughts grew more vague. These people, the Ire, were working on something dangerous. Something he could use against Ruin . . . maybe.

That was all he had. Preservation was right; the threads in that place between moments were too knotted, too ephemeral, to give him much beyond a vague impression. But at least it was something he could do.

So he ran. He didn’t have time to walk. He wished again for Allomancy, pewter to lend him strength and endurance. He’d had that power for such a short time, compared to the rest of his life, but it had become second nature to him very quickly.

He no longer had those abilities to lean on. Fortunately, without a body he did not seem to tire unless he stopped to think about the fact that he should be tiring. That was no problem. If there was one thing Kelsier was good at, it was lying to himself.

Hopefully Vin would be able to hold out long enough to save them all. It was a terrible weight to put on the shoulders of one person. He would lift what portion he could.





2





I know this place, Kelsier thought, slowing his jog as he passed through a small canalside town. A waystop where canalmasters could rest their skaa, have a drink, and enjoy a warm bath for the night. It was one of many that dotted the dominances, all nearly identical. This one could be distinguished by the two crumbling towers on the opposite bank of the canal.

Yes, Kelsier thought, stopping on the street. Those towers were distinctive even in the dreamy, misted landscape of this Realm. Longsfollow. How could he have reached this place already? It was well outside the Central Dominance. How long had he been running?

Time had become a strange thing to him since his death. He had no need for food, and didn’t feel tiredness beyond what his mind projected. With Ruin obstructing the sun, and the only light that of the misty ground, it was very difficult to judge the passing of days.

He’d been running . . . for a while. A long while?

He suddenly felt exhausted, his mind numbing, as if suffering the effects of a pewter drag. He groaned and sat down by the side of the canal mound, which was covered in tiny plants. Those plants seemed to grow anywhere water was present in the real world. He’d found them sprouting from misty cups.

Occasionally he’d found other, stranger plants in the landscape between towns—places where the springy ground grew more firm. Places without people: the extended, ashen emptiness between dots of civilization.

He heaved himself to his feet, fighting off the exhaustion. It was all in his head, quite literally. Reluctant to push himself back into a run for the moment, he strolled through Longsfollow. A town had grown up here around the canal stop. Well, a village. Noblemen who ran plantations farther out from the canal would come here to trade and to ship goods in toward Luthadel. It had become a hub of commerce, a bustling civic center.

Kelsier had killed seven men here.

Or had it been eight? He strolled, counting them off. The lord, both of his sons, his wife . . . Yes, seven, counting two guards and that cousin. That was right. He’d spared the cousin’s wife, who had been with child.