Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)(3)

She stretched, then faded away. Other spirits in the square followed.

Kelsier spun on God. “What’s happening?”

“You didn’t think this was the end, did you?” God asked, waving toward the shadowy world. “This is the in-between step. After death and before . . .”

“Before what?”

“Before the Beyond,” God said. “The Somewhere Else. Where souls must go. Where yours must go.”

“I haven’t gone yet.”

“It takes longer for Allomancers, but it will happen. It is the natural progress of things, like a stream flowing toward the ocean. I’m here not to make it occur, but to comfort you as you go. I see it as a kind of . . . duty that comes with my position.” He rubbed the side of his face and gave Kelsier a glare that said what he thought of his reception.

Nearby, another pair of people faded into the eternities. They seemed to accept it, stepping into the stretching nothingness with relieved, welcoming smiles. Kelsier looked at those departing souls.

“Mare,” he whispered.

“She went Beyond. As you will.”

Kelsier looked toward that point Beyond, the point toward which all the dead were being drawn. He felt it, faintly, begin to tug on him as well.

No. Not yet.

“We need a plan,” Kelsier said.

“A plan?” God asked.

“To get me out of this. I might need your help.”

“There is no way out of this.”

“That’s a terrible attitude,” Kelsier said. “We’ll never get anything done if you talk like that.”

He looked at his arm, which was—disconcertingly—starting to blur, like ink on a page that had been accidentally brushed before it dried. He felt a draining.

He started walking, forcing himself into a stride. He wouldn’t just stand there while eternity tried to suck him away.

“It is natural to feel uncertain,” God said, falling into step beside him. “Many are anxious. Be at peace. The ones you left behind will find their own way, and you—”

“Yes, great,” Kelsier said. “No time for lectures. Talk to me. Has anyone ever resisted being pulled into the Beyond?”

“No.” God’s form pulsed, unraveling again before coming back together. “I’ve told you already.”

Damn, Kelsier thought. He seems one step from falling apart himself.

Well, you had to work with what you had. “You’ve got to have some kind of idea what I could try, Fuzz.”

“What did you call me?”

“Fuzz. I’ve got to call you something.”

“You could try ‘My Lord,’?” Fuzz said with a huff.

“That’s a terrible nickname for a crewmember.”

“Crewmember . . .”

“I need a team,” Kelsier said, still striding through the shadowy version of Luthadel. “And as you can see, my options are limited. I’d rather have Dox, but he’s got to go deal with the man who is claiming to be you. Besides, the initiation to this particular team of mine is a killer.”

“But—”

Kelsier turned, taking the smaller man by the shoulders. Kelsier’s arms were blurring further, drawn away like water being pulled into the current of an invisible stream.

“Look,” Kelsier said quietly, urgently, “you said you were here to comfort me. This is how you do it. If you’re right, then nothing I do now will matter. So why not humor me? Let me have one last thrill as I face down the ultimate eventuality.”

Fuzz sighed. “It would be better if you accepted what is happening.”

Kelsier held Fuzz’s gaze. Time was running out; he could feel himself sliding toward oblivion, a distant point of nothingness, dark and unknowable. Still he held that gaze. If this creature acted anything like the human he resembled, then holding his eyes—with confidence, smiling, self-assured—would work. Fuzz would bend.

“So,” Fuzz said. “You’re not only the first to punch me, you’re also the first to try to recruit me. You are a distinctively strange man.”

“You don’t know my friends. Next to them I’m normal. Ideas please.” He started walking up a street, moving just to be moving. Tenements loomed on either side, made of shifting mists. They looked like the ghosts of buildings. Occasionally a wave—a shimmer of light—would pulse through the ground and buildings, causing the mists to writhe and twist.

“I don’t know what you expect me to tell you,” Fuzz said, hustling up to walk beside him. “Spirits who come to this place are drawn into the Beyond.”

“You aren’t.”

“I’m a god.”

A god. Not just “God.” Noted.

“Well,” Kelsier said, “what is it about being a god that makes you immune?”

“Everything.”

“I can’t help thinking you aren’t pulling your weight on this team, Fuzz. Come on. Work with me. You indicated that Allomancers last longer. Feruchemists too?”

“Yes.”

“People with power,” Kelsier said, pointing toward the distant spires of Kredik Shaw. This was the road the Lord Ruler had taken, heading toward his palace. Though the Lord Ruler’s carriage was now distant, Kelsier could still see his soul glowing up there somewhere. Far brighter than the others.