Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)(28)

“Why do you resist so?” Ruin asked, strolling around the fire. Kelsier walked the other direction, keeping distance between himself and this creature.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kelsier said. “Perhaps because you’re an evil force of destruction and pain.”

Ruin pulled up, as if offended. “That was uncalled for!” He spread his hands. “Death is not evil, Kelsier. Death is necessary. Every clock must wind down, every day must end. Without me there is no life, and never could have been. Life is change, and I represent that change.”

“And now you’ll end it.”

“It was a gift I gave,” Ruin said, stretching out his hand toward Kelsier. “Life. Wondrous, beautiful life. The joy of the new child, the pride of a parent, the satisfaction of a job well done. These are from me.

“But it is done now, Kelsier. This planet is an elderly man, having lived his life in full, now wheezing his last breaths. It is not evil to give him the rest he demands. It’s a mercy.”

Kelsier looked at that hand, which undulated with the pinprick pressing of the spiders inside.

“But who am I talking to?” Ruin said with a sigh, pulling back his hand. “The man who would not accept his own end, even though his soul longed for it, even though his wife longed for him to join her in the Beyond. No, Kelsier. I do not anticipate you will see the necessity of an ending. So continue to think me evil, if you must.”

“Would it hurt so much,” Kelsier said, “to give us a little more time?”

Ruin laughed. “Ever the thief, looking for what you can get away with. No, a reprieve has been granted time and time again. I assume you have no message for me to deliver, then?”

“Sure,” Kelsier said. “Tell Fuzz he’s to take something long, hard, and sharp, then ram it up your backside for me.”

“As if he could harm even me. You realize that if he were in control, nobody would age? Nobody would think or live? If he had his way you’d all be frozen in time, unable to act lest you harm one another.”

“So you’re killing him.”

“As I said,” Ruin replied with a grin. “A mercy. For an old man well past his prime. But if all you plan to do is insult me, I must be going. It’s a shame you’ll be off on that island when the end comes. I assume you’d like to greet the others when they die.”

“It can’t be that close.”

“It is, fortunately. But even if you could have done something to help, you’re useless out here. A shame.”

Sure, Kelsier thought. And you came here to tell me that, rather than remaining quietly pleased that I was off being distracted by my quest.

Kelsier recognized a hook when he saw one. Ruin wanted him to believe that the end was very near, that coming out here had been pointless.

Which meant it wasn’t.

Preservation said he couldn’t leave to go where I’m going, Kelsier thought. And Ruin is similarly bound, at least until the world is destroyed.

Maybe, for the first time in months, he’d be able to escape that squirming sky and the eyes of the destroyer. He saluted Ruin, tucked away his fire, then strode down the hill.

“Running, Kelsier?” Ruin said, appearing on the hillside with hands clasped as Kelsier passed him. “You cannot flee your fate. You are tied to this world, and to me.”

Kelsier kept on walking, and Ruin appeared at the bottom of the hill, in the same pose.

“Those fools in the fortress won’t be able to help you,” Ruin noted. “I think that once this world reaches its end, I will pay them a visit. They’ve existed far too long past what is right.”

Kelsier stopped at the edge of the new land of dark stone, like the lake that had become an island. This one was even larger. The ocean had become a continent.

“I will kill Vin while you’re gone,” Ruin whispered. “I will kill them all. Think about that, Kelsier, on your journey. When you come back, if there’s anything left, I might have need of you. Thank you for all you’ve done on my behalf.”

Kelsier stepped out onto the ocean continent, leaving Ruin behind on the shore. Kelsier could almost see the spindly threads of power that animated this puppet, providing a voice to the terrible force.

Damn. Its words were lies. He knew that.

They hurt anyway.





Part Five


Ire





1





He’d hoped to have the sun back once Ruin vanished from the sky, but after walking far enough out, he seemed to leave his world behind—and the sun with it. The sky here was nothing but empty blackness. Kelsier eventually managed to use some vines to strap his flagging cookfire to the end of his staff, which became an improvised torch.

It was a strange experience, hiking through the darkened landscape, holding a staff with an entire campfire on the top. But the logs didn’t fall apart, and the thing wasn’t nearly as heavy as it should have been. Not as hot either, particularly if—when bringing it out—he didn’t make it manifest fully.

Plant life grew all around him, real to his touch and eyes, though of strange varieties, some with brownish red fronds and others with wide palms. Many trees—a jungle of exotic plants.

There were some bits of mist in here. If he knelt by the ground and looked for them, he could find little glowing spirits. Fish, sea plants. They manifested here above the ground, though in the ocean on the other side they were probably down within the depths. Kelsier stood up, holding the soul of some kind of massive deep-sea creature—like a fish, only as large as a building—in his hand, feeling its ponderous strength.