Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)
Brandon Sanderson
PREFACE
This story contains enormous spoilers for the first three Mistborn novels. Seriously, please don’t read this unless you’ve read those books. I’d actually prefer you wait until you’ve finished book six, The Bands of Mourning, because some of the reveals in this story will spoil that book as well.
What follows is something I started planning in 2004, over a decade ago at this point. For years I wasn’t certain if I’d be able to write it; it depended on how popular Mistborn was, and on whether people cared about the greater cosmere or not.
Well, responses to both have been incredible. So, off and on over the years I worked on scenes for this when I had a spare moment. Though I love how it turned out, I want to warn you. Structurally, this isn’t like most pieces I’ve written. It relies on knowledge of the original Mistborn Trilogy, and though it tells its own cohesive narrative, the elements of that narrative are scattered across three years’ time in-world.
That creates something unlike anything I’ve done before. Something weird, but audacious in its own right.
Now, it’s finally time to reveal some secrets.
FOR NATHAN HATFIELD
Who helped Mistborn come to be
Part One
Empire
1
Kelsier burned the Eleventh Metal.
Nothing changed. He still stood in that Luthadel square, facing down the Lord Ruler. A hushed audience, both skaa and noble, watched at the perimeter. A squeaking wheel turned lazily in the wind, hanging from the side of the overturned prison wagon nearby. An Inquisitor’s head had been nailed to the wood of the wagon’s bottom, held in place by its own spikes.
Nothing changed, while everything changed. For to Kelsier’s eyes, two men now stood before him.
One was the immortal emperor who had dominated for a thousand years: an imposing figure with jet-black hair and a chest stuck through with two spears that he didn’t even seem to notice. Next to him stood a man with the same features—but a completely different demeanor. A figure cloaked in thick furs, nose and cheeks flush as if cold. His hair was tangled and windswept, his attitude jovial, smiling.
It was the same man.
Can I use this? Kelsier thought, frantic.
Black ash fell lightly between them. The Lord Ruler glanced toward the Inquisitor that Kelsier had killed. “Those are very hard to replace,” he said, his voice imperious.
That tone seemed a direct contrast to the man beside him: a vagabond, a mountain man wearing the Lord Ruler’s face. This is what you really are, Kelsier thought. But that didn’t help. It was only further proof that the Eleventh Metal wasn’t what Kelsier had once hoped. The metal was no magical solution for ending the Lord Ruler. He would have to rely instead upon his other plan.
And so, Kelsier smiled.
“I killed you once,” the Lord Ruler said.
“You tried,” Kelsier replied, his heart racing. The other plan, the secret plan. “But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.”
The Lord Ruler snorted. He raised a casual arm.
Kelsier braced himself. He could not fight against someone who was immortal.
Not alive, at least.
Stand tall. Give them something to remember.
The Lord Ruler backhanded him. Agony hit Kelsier like a stroke of lightning. In that moment, Kelsier flared the Eleventh Metal, and caught a glimpse of something new.
The Lord Ruler standing in a room—no, a cavern! The Lord Ruler stepped into a glowing pool and the world shifted around him, rocks crumbling, the room twisting, everything changing.
The vision vanished.
Kelsier died.
It turned out to be far more painful a process than he had anticipated. Instead of a soft fade to nothingness, he felt an awful tearing sensation—as if he were a cloth caught between the jaws of two vicious hounds.
He screamed, desperately trying to hold himself together. His will meant nothing. He was rent, ripped, and hurled into a place of endless shifting mists.
He stumbled to his knees, gasping, aching. He wasn’t certain what he knelt upon, as downward seemed to just be more mist. The ground rippled like liquid, and felt soft to his touch.
He knelt there, enduring, feeling the pain slowly fade away. At last he unclenched his jaw and groaned.
He was alive. Kind of.
He managed to look up. That same thick greyness shifted all around him. A nothingness? No, he could see shapes in it, shadows. Hills? And high in the sky, some kind of light. A tiny sun perhaps, as seen through dense grey clouds.
Kelsier breathed in and out, then growled, heaving himself to his feet. “Well,” he proclaimed, “that was thoroughly awful.”
It did seem there was an afterlife, which was a pleasant discovery. Did this mean . . . did this mean Mare was still out there somewhere? He’d always offered platitudes, talking to the others about being with her again someday. But deep down he’d never believed, never really thought . . .
The end was not the end. Kelsier smiled again, this time truly excited. He turned about, and as he inspected his surroundings, the mists seemed to withdraw. No, it felt like Kelsier was solidifying, entering this place fully. The withdrawal of the mists was more like a clearing of his own mind.