Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson
“He didn’t have to leave,” Kelsier said. “He could have remained. Could have survived!”
“I told you, by this point rational people want to move on.” Fuzz vanished.
Kelsier remained standing there, at the edge of his prison, the glowing pool tossing his shadow across the floor. He stared into the misty room with its columns, waiting for something, though he wasn’t certain what. Confirmation, celebration, a change of some sort.
Nothing. Nobody came, not even the Inquisitors. How had the revolution gone? Were the skaa now rulers of society? He would have liked to see the deaths of the noble ranks, treated—in turn—as they had treated their slaves.
He received no confirmation, no sign, of what was happening above. They didn’t know about the Well, obviously. All Kelsier could do was settle down.
And wait.
PART TWO
WELL
1
WHAT Kelsier would have given for a pencil and paper.
Something to write on, some way to pass the time. A means of collecting his thoughts and creating a plan of escape.
As the days passed, he tried scratching notes into the sides of the Well, which proved impossible. He tried unraveling threads from his clothing, then tying knots in them to represent words. Unfortunately, threads vanished soon after he pulled them free, and his shirt and trousers immediately returned to the way they’d looked before. Fuzz, during one of his rare visits, explained that the clothing wasn’t real—or rather, it was just an extension of Kelsier’s spirit.
For the same reason, he couldn’t use his hair or blood to write. He didn’t technically have either. It was supremely frustrating, but sometime during his second month of imprisonment he admitted the truth to himself. Writing wasn’t all that important. He’d never been able to write while confined to the Pits, but he’d planned all the same. Yes, they had been feverish plans, impossible dreams, but lack of paper hadn’t stopped him.
The attempts to write weren’t about making plans so much as finding something to do. A quest to soak up his time. It had worked for a few weeks. But in acknowledging the truth, he lost his will to keep trying to find a way to write.
Fortunately, about the time he acknowledged this, he discovered something new about his prison.
Whispering.
Oh, he couldn’t hear it. But could he “hear” anything? He didn’t have ears. He was … what had Fuzz said? A Cognitive Shadow? A force of mind, holding his spirit together, preventing it from diffusing. Saze would have had a field day. He loved mystical topics like this.
Regardless, Kelsier could sense something. The Well continued to pulse as it had before, sending waves of writhing shock through the walls of his prison and out into the world. Those pulses seemed to be strengthening, a continuous thrumming, like the sense bronze lent one in “hearing” people using Allomancy.
Inside of each pulse was … something. Whispers, he called them—though they contained more than just words. They were saturated with sounds, scents, and images.
He saw a book, with ink staining its pages. A group of people sharing a story. Terrismen in robes? Sazed?
The pulses whispered chilling words. Hero of Ages. The Announcer. Worldbringer. He recognized those terms from the ancient Terris prophecies mentioned in Alendi’s logbook.
Kelsier knew the discomforting truth now. He had met a god, which meant there was real depth and reality to faith. Did this mean there was something to that array of religions Saze had kept in his pocket, like playing cards to stack a deck?
You have brought Ruin upon this world.…
Kelsier settled into the powerful light that was the Well, and found—with practice—that if he submerged himself in the center right before a pulse, he could ride it a short distance. It sent his consciousness traveling out of the Well to catch glimpses of each pulse’s destination.
He thought he saw libraries, quiet chambers where distant Terrismen spoke, exchanging stories and memorizing them. He saw madmen huddled in streets, whispering the words the pulses delivered. He saw a Mistborn man, noble, jumping between buildings.
Something other than Kelsier rode with those pulses. Something directing an unseen work, something interested in the lore of the Terris. It took Kelsier an embarrassingly long time to realize he should try another tack. He dunked himself into the center of the pool, surrounded by the too-thin liquid light, and when the next pulse came he pushed himself in the opposite direction—not along with the pulse, but toward its source.
The light thinned, and he looked into someplace new. A dark expanse that was neither the world of the dead nor the world of the living.
In that other place, he found destruction.
Decay. Not blackness, for blackness was too complete, too whole to represent this thing he sensed in the Beyond. It was a vast force that would gleefully take something as simple as darkness, then rip it apart.
This force was time infinite. It was the winds that weathered, the storms that broke, the timeless waves running slowly, slowly, slowly to a stop as the sun and the planet cooled to nothing.
It was the ultimate end and destiny of all things. And it was angry.
Kelsier pulled back, throwing himself up out of the light, gasping, trembling.
He had met God. But for every Push, there was a Pull. What was the opposite of God?
What he had seen troubled him so much that he almost didn’t return. He almost convinced himself to ignore the terrible thing in the darkness. He nearly blocked out the whispers and tried to pretend he had never seen that awesome, vast destroyer.
But of course he couldn’t do that. Kelsier had never been able to resist a secret. This thing, even more than meeting Fuzz, proved that Kelsier had been playing all along at a game whose rules far outmatched his understanding.
That both terrified and excited him.
And so, he returned to gaze upon the thing. Again and again he went, struggling to comprehend, though he felt like an ant trying to understand a symphony.
He did this for weeks, right up until the point when the thing looked at him.
Before, it hadn’t seemed to notice—as one might not notice the spider hiding inside a keyhole. This time though, Kelsier somehow alerted it. The thing churned in an abrupt change of motion, then flowed toward Kelsier, its essence surrounding the place from which Kelsier observed. It rotated slowly about itself in a vortex—like an ocean that began turning around one spot. Kelsier couldn’t help but feel that an infinite, vast eye was suddenly squinting at him.
He fled, splashing, kicking up the liquid light as he backed away into his prison. He was so alarmed that he felt a phantom heartbeat thrumming inside of him, his essence acknowledging the proper reaction to shock and trying to replicate it. That stilled as he settled into his customary seat at the side of the pool.
The sight of that thing turning its attention upon him, the sensation of being tiny in the face of something so vast, deeply troubled Kelsier. For all his confidence and plotting, he was basically nothing. His entire life had been an exercise in unintentional bravado.
Months passed. He didn’t return to study the thing Beyond; Kelsier instead waited for Fuzz to visit and check in on him, as he did periodically.
When Fuzz finally arrived, he looked even more unraveled than the last time, mists escaping from his shoulders, a small hole in his left cheek exposing a view into his mouth, his clothing growing ragged.
“Fuzz?” Kelsier asked. “I saw something. This … Ruin you spoke of. I think I can watch it.”
Fuzz just paced back and forth, not even speaking.
“Fuzz? Hey, are you listening?”
Nothing.
“Idiot,” Kelsier tried. “Hey, you’re a disgrace to deityhood. Are you paying attention?”
Even an insult didn’t work. Fuzz just kept pacing.
Useless, Kelsier thought as a pulse of power left the Well. He happened to catch a glimpse of Fuzz’s eyes as the pulse passed.
And in
Fuzz stopped before him and his cheeks unraveled fully, revealing a skeleton beneath that was also unraveling, eyes glowing with eternity. This creature was a divinity; he was just a broken one.
Fuzz left, and Kelsier didn’t see him for many months. The stillness and silence of his prison seemed as endless as the creatures he had studied. At one point, he found himself planning how to draw the attention of the destructive one, if only to beg it to end him.
It was when he started talking to himself that he really got worried.
“What have you done?”
“I’ve saved the world. Freed mankind.”
“Gotten revenge.”
“The goals can align.”
“You are a coward.”
“I changed the world!”
“And if you’re just a pawn of that thing Beyond? Like the Lord Ruler claimed? Kelsier, what if you have no destiny other than to do as you’re told?”
He contained the outburst, recovered himself, but the fragility of his own sanity unnerved him. He hadn’t been completely sane in the Pits either. In a moment of stillness—staring at the shifting mists that made up the walls of the cavernous room—he admitted a deeper secret to himself.
He hadn’t been completely sane since the Pits.
That was one reason why he didn’t at first trust his senses when someone spoke to him.
“Now this I did not expect.”
Kelsier shook himself, then turned with suspicion, worried he was hallucinating. It was possible to see all kinds of things in those shifting mists that made up the walls of the cavern, if you stared at them long enough.
This, however, was not a figure made of mist. It was a man with stark white hair, his face defined by angular features and a sharp nose. He seemed vaguely familiar to Kelsier, but he couldn’t place why.
The man sat on the floor, one leg up and his arm resting upon his knee. In his hand he held some kind of stick.
Wait … no, he wasn’t sitting on the floor, but on an object that somehow seemed to be floating upon the mists. The white, loglike object sank halfway into the mists of the floor and rocked like a ship on the water, bobbing in place. The rod in the man’s hand was a short oar, and his other leg—the one that wasn’t up—rested over the side of the log and vanished into the misty ground, visible only as an obscured silhouette.
“You,” the man said to Kelsier, “are very bad at doing as you’re supposed to.”
“Who are you?” Kelsier asked, stepping to the edge of his prison, eyes narrowed. This was no hallucination. He refused to believe his sanity was that far gone. “A spirit?”
“Alas,” the man said, “death has never really suited me. Bad for the complexion, you see.” He studied Kelsier, lips raised in a knowing smile.
Kelsier hated him immediately.
“Got stuck there, did you?” the man said. “In Ati’s prison…” He clicked his tongue. “Fitting recompense, for what you did. Poetic even.”
“What I did?”
“Destroying the Pits, O scarred one. That was the only perpendicularity on this planet with any reasonable ease of access. This one is very dangerous, growing more so by the minute, and difficult to find. By doing as you did, you basically ended traffic through Scadrial. Upended an entire mercantile ecosystem, which I’ll admit was fun to watch.”
“Who are you?” Kelsier said.
“I?” the man said. “I am a drifter. A miscreant. The flame’s last breath, made of smoke at its passing.”
“That’s … needlessly obtuse.”
“Well, I’m that too.” The man cocked his head. “That mostly, if I’m honest.”
“And you claim to not be dead?”
“If I were, would I need this?” the Drifter said, knocking his oar against the front of his small loglike vessel. It bobbed at the motion, and for the first time Kelsier was able to make out what it was. Arms he’d missed before, hanging down into the mists, obscured. A head that drooped on its neck. A white robe, masking the shape.
“A corpse,” he whispered.
“Oh, Spanky here is just a spirit. It’s damnably difficult to get about in this subastral—anyone physical risks slipping through these mists and falling, perhaps forever. So many thoughts pool together here, becoming what you see around you, and you need something finer to travel over it all.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Says the man who built a revolution upon the backs of the dead. At least I only need one corpse.”
Kelsier folded his arms. This man was wary—though he spoke lightheartedly, he watched Kelsier with care, and held back as if contemplating a method of attack.
He wants something, Kelsier guessed. Something that I have, maybe? No, he seemed legitimately surprised that Kelsier was there. He had come here, intending to visit the Well. Perhaps he wanted to enter it, access the power? Or did he, perhaps, just want to have a look at the thing Beyond?
“Well, you’re obviously resourceful,” Kelsier said. “Perhaps you can help me with my predicament.”
“Alas,” the Drifter said. “Your case is hopeless.”
Kelsier felt his heart sink.
“Yes, nothing to be done,” the Drifter continued. “You are, indeed, stuck with that face. By manifesting those same features on this side, you show that even your soul is resigned to you always looking like one ugly sonofa—”
“Bastard,” Kelsier cut in. “You had me for a second.”
“Now, that’s demonstrably wrong,” the Drifter said, pointing. “I believe only one of us in this room is illegitimate, and it isn’t me. Unless…” He tapped the floating corpse on the head with his oar. “What about you, Spanky?”
The corpse actually mumbled something.
“Happily married parents? Still alive? Really? I’m sorry for their loss.” The Drifter looked to Kelsier, smiling innocently. “No bastards on this side. What about yours?”
“The bastard by birth,” Kelsier said, “is always better off than the one by choice, Drifter. I’ll own up to my nature if you own up to yours.”
The Drifter chuckled, eyes alight. “Nice, nice. Tell me, since we’re on the topic, which are you? A skaa with noble bearing, or a nobleman with skaa interests? Which half is more you, Survivor?”
“Well,” Kelsier said dryly, “considering that the relatives of my noble half spent the better part of four decades trying to exterminate me, I’d say I’m more inclined toward the skaa side.”
“Aaaah,” the Drifter said, leaning forward. “But I didn’t ask which you liked more. I asked which you were.”
“Is it relevant?”
“It’s interesting,” the Drifter said. “Which is enough for me.” He reached down to the corpse he was using as a boat, then removed something from his pocket. Something that glowed, though Kelsier couldn’t tell if it was something naturally radiant, or just something made of metal.
The glow faded as the Drifter administered it to his vessel, then—covering the motion with a cough, as if to hide from Kelsier what he was doing—furtively applied some of the glow to his oar. When he placed the oar back into the mists, it sent the boat scooting closer to the Well.
“Is there a way for me to escape this prison?” Kelsier asked.
“How about this?” the Drifter said. “We’ll have an insult battle. Winner gets to ask one question, and the other has to answer truthfully. I’ll start. What’s wet, ugly, and has scars on its arms?”
Kelsier raised an eyebrow. All of this talk was a distraction, as evidenced by Drifter scooting—again—closer to the prison. He’s going to try to jump for the Well, Kelsier thought. Leap in, h
“No guess?” Drifter asked. “The answer is basically anyone who spends time with you, Kelsier, as they end up slitting their wrists, hitting themselves in the face, and then drowning themselves to forget the experience. Ha! Okay, your turn.”
“I’m going to murder you,” Kelsier said softly.
“I— Wait, what?”
“If you step inside here,” Kelsier said, “I’m going to murder you. I’ll slice the tendons on your wrists so your hands can’t do anything more than batter at me uselessly as I kneel against your throat and slowly crush the life out of you—all while I remove your fingers one by one. I’ll finally let you breathe a single, frantic gasp—but at that moment I’ll shove your middle finger between your lips so that you’re forced to suck it down as you struggle for air. You’ll go out knowing you choked to death on your own rotten flesh.”
The Drifter gaped at him, mouth working soundlessly. “I…” he finally said. “I don’t think you know how to play this game.”
Kelsier shrugged.
“Seriously,” Drifter said. “You need some help, friend. I know a guy. Tall, bald, wears lots of earrings. Have a chat with him next—”
The Drifter cut off midsentence and leaped for the prison, kicking off the floating corpse and throwing himself at the light.
Kelsier was ready. As Drifter entered the light, Kelsier grabbed the man by one arm and slung him toward the side of the pool. The maneuver worked, and Drifter seemed to be able to touch the walls and floor here in the Well. He slammed against the wall, sending waves of light splashing up.
As Kelsier tried to punch at Drifter’s head while he was stumbling, the man caught himself on the side of the pool and kicked backward, knocking Kelsier’s legs out from beneath him.
Kelsier splashed in the light, and he tried to burn metals by reflex. Nothing happened, though there was something to the light here. Something familiar—
He managed to get to his feet, and caught Drifter lunging for the center, the deepest part. Kelsier snatched the man by the arm, swinging him away. Whatever this man wanted, Kelsier’s instincts said that he shouldn’t be allowed to have it. Beyond that, the Well was Kelsier’s only asset. If he could hold the man back from what he wanted, subdue him, perhaps it would lead to answers.