Brandon SANDERSON: The Eleventh Metal: A Mistborn Short Story

“Don’t know it,” Gemmel said. “I think it’s so we can die.”

Kelsier suppressed a groan, leaning against the wall. I said that, he realized, fully expecting to get some dry remark in return. Lord Ruler, I miss Dox and the crew.

Gemmel didn’t understand humor, even pathetic attempts at it. I need to get back , Kelsier thought. Back to people who care about living. Back to my friends.

That thought made him shiver. It had only been three months since . . . events at the Pits of Hathsin. The cuts on his arms were mostly just scars now. He scratched at them anyway.

Kelsier knew his humor was forced, his smiles more dead than alive. He didn’t know why he found it so important to hold off returning to Luthadel, but it was. He had exposed wounds, gaping holes in himself that had yet to heal over. He had to stay away. He didn’t want them to see him like this. Insecure, a man who huddled in his sleep, reliving horrors still fresh. A man with no plan or vision.

Besides, he needed to learn the things Gemmel was teaching him. He couldn’t return to Luthadel until . . . until he was himself again. Or at the very least a scarred version of himself, the wounds closed, the memories quieted.

“Let’s be on with it then,” Kelsier said.

Gemmel glared at him. The old lunatic didn’t like it when Kelsier tried to take control. But . . . well, that was what Kelsier did. Somebody had to.

Keep Shezler was constructed in the unusual architectural style typical of any area of the Western Dominance far from Luthadel. Instead of blocks and peaks, it had an almost organic feel, with four tapering towers up front. He thought that buildings out here must be constructed of stone frames with a kind of hardened mud outside, sculpted and shaped to make all those curves and knobs. The keep, like the rest of the buildings, looked unfinished to Kelsier. “Where?” Kelsier said.

“Up,” Gemmel said. “Then down.” He jumped from the wall and threw a coin for himself. He Pushed against it, and his weight drove it downward. When it hit the ground, Gemmel launched higher toward the building.

Kelsier leaped and Pushed against his own coin. The two of them bounded across the space between the sculpted wall and the lit keep. Powerful limelights burned behind stained glass windows; here in the Western Dominance, those windows were often odd shapes, and no two were alike. Had these people no understanding of proper aesthetics?

Closer to the building, Kelsier began to Pull instead of Push – he switched from burning steel to burning iron, then yanked on a blue line leading to a steel window frame. That meant he was Pulled upward, as if he were on a tether. It was tricky; the ground still tugged him downward, and he also still had momentum forward, so when he Pulled he had to be careful not to slam himself into things.

With Pulling, he gained more height. He needed it, as Keep Shezler was tall, as tall as any keep in Luthadel. The two Allomancers bounded up the front facade, grabbing or leaping from the knobs and bits of stonework. Kelsier landed on an outcropping, waved his arms for a moment, then snatched hold of a statue that had been placed there for no reason he could discern. It was covered in bits of glaze of different colors.

Gemmel flew past on the right; the other Mistborn moved with a deft grace. He threw a coin to the side, which hit an outcropping. Then, by pushing on it, Gemmel nudged himself in just the right direction. He spun, mistcloak streaking the mists, then Pulled himself to a different stained glass window. He hit and hung there like an insect, fingers grabbing bits of metal and stone.

Powerful limelight shone out through the window, which shattered it into colors, spraying them across Gemmel as if he too were covered in bits of glaze. He looked up, a smile on his lips. In that light, with the mistcloak hanging beneath him, the mists dancing around him, Gemmel suddenly seemed more regal to Kelsier. Distant from the ragged madman. Something far more grand.

Gemmel leaped out into the mists, then Pulled himself upward. Kelsier watched him go, surprised to find himself envious. I will learn, he told himself. I’ll be that good.

From the start, he’d been drawn to zinc and brass, Allomancy that let him play with people’s emotions. It had seemed most similar to what he’d done unaided in the past. But he was a new man, reborn in those dreadful pits. Whatever he had been, it wasn’t enough. He needed to become something more.

Kelsier threw himself upward, Pulling his way to the roof of the building. Gemmel kept going up past the roof, flying toward the tips of the four spires that adorned the front of the building. Kelsier dropped his entire bag of coins – the more metal you Pushed off, the faster and higher you could go – and flared his steel. He Pushed with everything he had, sending himself upward like an arrow.

Mists streamed around him. The colorful lights of the stained glass windows withdrew below. A spire dwindled on either side of him, growing more and more narrow. He shoved off the tin cladding on one of them to nudge himself to the right.

With a final Push of strength he crested the very tip of the spire, which had a knob on top the size of man’s head. Kelsier landed on it, flaring his pewter, which improved his physical abilities. That didn’t just make him stronger; it made him more dexterous as well. Capable of standing on one foot atop a globe a handspan wide hundreds of feet off the ground. Having performed the maneuver, he stopped and stared at his foot.

“You’re growing more confident,” Gemmel said. The other man had stopped just shy of the tip of the spire, clinging to it below Kelsier. “That’s good.”

Then with a quick motion, Gemmel leaped up and swept Kelsier’s leg from underneath him. Kelsier cried out, losing control and falling into the mists. Gemmel Pushed against the vials full of metal flakes that Kelsier – like most Allomancers – carried on his belt. That Push shoved Kelsier away from the building and out into the mists.

He plummeted, and lost rational thought for a moment. There was a primal terror to falling. Gemmel had spoken about controlling that, about learning not to fear heights or get disoriented while dropping.

Those lessons fled Kelsier’s mind. But he was falling. Fast. Through churning mists, disoriented. It would take only seconds to hit the ground.

Desperate, he Pushed on those vials of metal, hoping he was pointed the right direction. They ripped from his belt and smashed downward into something. The ground.

There wasn’t much metal in them. Barely enough to slow Kelsier. He hit the ground a fraction of a second after Pushing, and the blow knocked the wind from him. His vision flashed.

He lay in a daze as something thumped to the ground beside him. Gemmel. The other man snorted in derision. “Fool.”

Kelsier groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He was alive. And remarkably, nothing seemed broken – though his side and thigh smarted something wicked. He’d have awful bruises. Pewter had kept him alive. The fall, even with the Push at the end, would have broken another man’s bones.

Kelsier stumbled to his feet and glared at Gemmel, but made no complaint. This probably was the best way to learn. At least it would be the fastest. Rationally, Kelsier would have chosen this – being thrown in, forced to learn as he went. That didn’t stop him from hating Gemmel.

“I thought we were going up,” Kelsier said.

“Then down.”

“Then up again, I assume?” Kelsier asked with a sigh.

“No. Down some more.” Gemmel strode across the grounds of the keep, passing ornamental shrubbery that had become dark, mist-shrouded silhouettes in the night. Kelsier hastened up beside Gemmel, wary of another attack.