Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)

“Yes,” Kelsier said.

God seemed to relax. With discomfort, Kelsier noticed God was still leaking. Mist slipped away from his body at a few pinprick points. This creature was like a wounded beast, placidly going about its daily life while ignoring the bite marks.

Remaining motionless was hard. Harder than facing down the Lord Ruler had been. Kelsier wanted to run, to scream, to scramble and move. That sensation of being drawn away was horrible.

Somehow he feigned relaxation. “You asked,” he said, as if very tired and having trouble forcing it out, “me a question? When you first appeared?”

“Oh!” Fuzz said. “Yes. You let him kill you. I had not expected that.”

“You’re God. Can’t you see the future?”

“To an extent,” Fuzz said, animated. “But it is cloudy, so cloudy. Too many possibilities. I did not see this among them, though it was probably there. You must tell me. Why did you let him kill you? At the end, you just stood there.”

“I couldn’t have gotten away,” Kelsier said. “Once the Lord Ruler arrived, there was no escaping. I had to confront him.”

“You didn’t even fight.”

“I used the Eleventh Metal.”

“Foolishness,” God said. He started pacing. “That was Ruin’s influence on you. But what was the point? I can’t understand why he wanted you to have that useless metal.” He perked up. “And that fight. You and the Inquisitor. Yes, I’ve seen many things, but that was unlike any other. Impressive, though I wish you hadn’t caused such destruction, Kelsier.”

He returned to pacing, but seemed to have more of a spring to his step. Kelsier hadn’t expected God to be so . . . human. Excitable, even energetic.

“I saw something,” Kelsier said, “as the Lord Ruler killed me. The person as he might once have been. His past? A version of his past? He stood at the Well of Ascension.”

“Did you? Hmm. Yes, the metal, flared during the moment of transition. You got a glimpse of the Spiritual Realm, then? His Connection and his past? You were using Ati’s essence, unfortunately. One shouldn’t trust it, even in a diluted form. Except . . .” He frowned, cocking his head, as if trying to remember something he’d forgotten.

“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.