Brandon SANDERSON - Mistborn - Secret History

Whether his reasoning was correct or not, Kelsier couldn’t tell. But he did confirm time and time again that madmen could no longer hear him.

However, now he could hear people.

Everyone, not just the mad. He could hear their thoughts like voices – their hopes, their worries, their terrors. If he focused too long on them, directed his attention to a city, the multitude of thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. It was a buzz, a rush, and he found it difficult to separate individuals from the mess.

Above it all – land, cities, ash – hung the mists. They coated everything, even in the daytime. While trapped entirely in the Cognitive Realm, he hadn’t seen how pervasive they were.

That’s power, he thought, gazing upon it. My power. I should be able to hold that, manipulate it.

He couldn’t. That left Ruin far stronger than he was. Why had Preservation left the mists untouched like that? It was still part of him, of course, but it was like… like a diffused army, spread as scouts throughout the kingdom, rather than gathered for war.

Ruin wasn’t so inhibited. Kelsier could see his power at work now, revealed in ways that had been too grand for him to recognize before Ascending. Ruin ripped open the tops of ashmounts, holding them pried apart, letting death spew forth. He touched koloss all across the empire, driving them to murderous frenzies. When they ran out of people to kill, he gleefully turned them against one another.

He had hold of multiple people in every remaining city. His machinations were incredible – complex, subtle. Kelsier couldn’t even follow all the threads, but the result was obvious: chaos.

Kelsier could do nothing about it. He held unimaginable power, yet he was still impotent. But importantly, Ruin had to act to counter him.

That was an important revelation. He and Ruin were both everywhere; their souls were the very bones of the planet. But their attention… that could only be divided so far.

If Kelsier tried to change things where Ruin was focused, he always lost. When Kelsier tried to stop the ashmounts, Ruin’s arms ripping them open were stronger than his trying to seal them. When he tried to bolster Vin’s armies with a sense of encouragement, Ruin acted like a blockade, keeping him away.

In a desperate attempt, he made a push to approach Vin herself. He wasn’t certain what he could do, but he wanted to try battering Ruin away – push himself, and see what he was capable of doing.

He threw everything he had into it, straining against Ruin – feeling the friction of their essences meeting as he drew nearer to Vin, who was locked in a room within the palace of Fadrex. His essence meeting Ruin’s caused shocks through the land, trembles. An earthquake.

He was able to draw close. He could feel Vin’s mind, hear her thoughts. She knew so little – like he had known so little when he’d begun this. She didn’t know about Preservation.

The clashing pushed Kelsier’s essence away, ripping Preservation back from him, exposing his core – like a grinning skull as the flesh was torn free. A soul lined with darkness, but which was Connected to Vin somehow. Tied to her by the inscrutable lines that made up the Spiritual Realm.

“Vin!” he shouted, in agony, straining. The fight between him and Ruin caused the earthquake to intensify, and Ruin exulted in that destruction. It weakened his attention for a brief moment.

“Vin!” Kelsier said, getting closer. “Another god, Vin! There’s another force!”

Confusion. She didn’t see. Something leaked from Kelsier, drawing toward her. And with a shock, Kelsier saw a terrible sight, something he’d never suspected. A glowing spot of metal in Vin’s ear, so similar to the color of her brilliant soul that he had missed it until he’d gotten very close.

Vin was spiked.

“What’s the first rule of Allomancy, Vin!” Kelsier screamed. “The first thing I taught you!”

Vin looked up. Had she heard ?

“Spikes, Vin!” Kelsier began. “You can’t trust–”

Ruin returned and shoved Kelsier with a fierce burst of power, interrupting him. To hold on longer would have meant letting Ruin rip the power of Preservation away from him completely, and so he let himself go.

Ruin shoved him out of the building, out of the city entirely. Their clash brought incredible pain to Kelsier, and he couldn’t help bearing the impression that – divine though he was – he was limping as he left the city.

Ruin was too focused on this place. Too strong here. He had almost all of his attention pointed at Vin and this city of Fadrex. He was even bringing in Marsh.

Maybe…

Kelsier tried to get close to Marsh, focusing his attention on his brother. Those same lines were there as had been with Vin, lines of Connection linking Kelsier’s soul to his brother. Perhaps he could get through to Marsh too.

Unfortunately, Ruin spotted this too easily, and Kelsier was too weakened – too sore – from the previous clash. Ruin rebuffed him with ease, but not before Kelsier heard something emanating from Marsh.

Remember yourself, Marsh’s thoughts whispered. Fight, Marsh, FIGHT. Remember who you are.

Kelsier felt a swelling of pride as he fled from Ruin. Something within Marsh, something of his brother, had survived. However, there was nothing Kelsier could do to help now. Whatever Ruin wanted in Fadrex, Kelsier would have to let him have it. To confront Ruin here was impossible, for Ruin could best Kelsier in a direct confrontation.

Fortunately, Kelsier had made a career of knowing when to avoid a fair fight. The con was on, and when the house guard was alert, your best bet was to lie low for a while.

Ruin watched Fadrex so intently, it would leave chinks elsewhere.

Do better,Kelsier.

He watched and waited. He could be careful.

The hearts of men are not your toys.

He floated, becoming the mists, observing how Ruin moved his pieces. The Inquisitors were his primary hands. Ruin positioned them deliberately.

The weakness of all clever men.

An opening. Kelsier needed an opening.

Survive.

Ruin thought he was in control all across the Final Empire. So sure of himself. But there were holes. He was devoting less and less attention to the broken city of Urteau, with its empty canals and starving people. One of his threads revolved around a young man who wore cloth wrapping his eyes and a burned cloak on his back.

Yes, Ruin thought he had this city in hand.

But Kelsier… Kelsier knew that boy.

Kelsier focused his attention on Spook as the young man – overwhelmed and driven to the brink of madness – stumbled onto a stage before a crowd. Ruin had driven him to this point by wearing Kelsier’s form. He was trying to make an Inquisitor of the boy, while at the same time setting up the city to burn in riots and bedlam.

But his actions in this city were like so many others. His attention was too divided, with his only real focus on Fadrex. He worked in Urteau, but didn’t prioritize it. He’d already set his plans in motion: Ruin the hopes of this people, burn the city to the ground. All it required was for a confused boy to commit a murder.

Spook stood onstage, prepared to kill in front of the crowd. Kelsier drew his attention in like a puff of mist, careful, quiet. He was the pulsing of the boards beneath Spook’s feet, he was the air being breathed, he was the flame and fire.

Ruin was here, raging, demanding that Spook murder. It wasn’t the careful, smiling persona. This was a purer, rawer form of the power. This piece of him had little of Ruin’s attention, and he hadn’t brought his full power to bear.