Well of Ascension

by Brandon Sanderson

Yet, so much about that time was vague. He was beginning to doubt that he'd ever understood the things he'd studied;

  He quickened his step, shading his candle with his hand, knowing where he needed to go. He'd visited the building-within-a-building, the place where the Lord Ruler had once spent his time. Sazed had studied the place after the empire's fall, chronicling and cataloguing. He stepped into the outer room, and was halfway across it before he noticed the unfamiliar opening in the wall.

  Afigure stood in doorway, head bowed. Sazed's candlelight reflected the polished marble walls, the silvery in-layed murals, and the spikes in the man's eyes.

  "Marsh?" Sazed asked, shocked. "Where have you been?"

  "What are you doing, Sazed?" Marsh whispered.

  "I'm going to Vin," he said, confused. "She has found the Well, Marsh. We have to get to her, stop her from doing anything with it until we're sure what it does."

  Marsh remained silent for a short time. "You should not have come here, Terrisman," he finally said, head still bowed.

  "Marsh? What is going on?" Sazed took a step forward, feeling urgent.

  "I wish I knew. I wish ... I wish I understood."

  "Understood what?" Sazed asked, voice echoing in the domed room.

  Marsh stood silently for a moment. Then he looked up, focusing his sightless spikeheads on Sazed.

  "I wish I understood why I have to kill you," he said, then lifted a hand. An Allomantic Push slammed into the metal bracers on Sazed's arms, throwing him backward, crashing him into the hard stone wall.

  "I'm sorry," Marsh whispered.

  Alendi must not reach the Well of Ascension....

  58

  "LORD RULER!" ELEND WHISPERED, pausing at the edge of the second cavern.

  Vin joined him. They had walked in the passage for some time, leaving the storage cavern far behind, walking through •a natural stone tunnel. It had ended here, at a second, slightly smaller cavern that was clogged with a thick, dark smoke. It didn't seep out of the cavern, as it should have, but billowed and churned upon itself.

  Vin stepped forward. The smoke didn't choke her, as she expected. There was something oddly welcoming about it. "Come on," she said, walking through it across the cavern floor. "I see light up ahead."

  Elend joined her nervously.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Sazed slammed into the .wall. He was no Allomancer; he had no pewter to strengthen his body. As he collapsed to the ground, he felt a sharp pain in his side, and knew he had cracked a rib. Or worse.

  Marsh strode forward, faintly illuminated by Sazed's candle, which burned fitfully where Sazed had dropped it.

  "Why did you come?" Marsh whispered as Sazed struggled to his knees. "Everything was going so well." He watched with iron eyes as Sazed slowly crawled away. Then Marsh Pushed again, throwing Sazed to the side.

  Sazed skidded across the beautiful white floor, crashing into another wall. His arm snapped, cracking, and his vision shuddered.

  Through his pain, he saw Marsh stoop down and pick something up. A small pouch. It had fallen from Sazed's sash. It was filled with bits of metal; Marsh obviously thought it was a coin pouch.

  "I'm sorry,"' Marsh said again, then raised a hand and Pushed the bag at Sazed.

  The pouch shot across the room and hit Sazed, ripping, the bits- of metal inside tearing into Sazed's flesh. He didhfnave to look down to know how badly he was injured. Oddly, he could no longer feel his pain-but he could feel the blood, warm, on his stomach and legs.

  I'm... sorry, too, Sazed thought as the room grew dark, and he fell to his knees. I've failed... though I know not at what. I can't even answer Marsh's question. I don't know why I came here.

  He-felt himself dying. It was an odd experience. His mind was resigned, yet confused, yet frustrated, yet slowly... having'... trouble ...

  Those weren’y coins, a voice seemed to whisper.

  The thought rattled in his dying mind.

  The bag Marsh shot at you. Those weren't coins. They were rings, Sazed. Eight of them. You took out two-eyesight and hearing. You left the other ones where they were.

  In the pouch, tucked into your sash.

  Sazed collapsed, death coming upon him like a cold shadow. And yet, the thought rang true. Ten rings, embedded into his flesh. Touching him. Weight. Speed of body. Sight. Hearing. Touch. Scent. Strength. Speed of mind. Wakefulness.

  And health.

  He tapped gold. Tie didn't have to be wearing the metal-mind to use it-he only had to be touching it. His chest stopped burning, and his vision snapped back into focus. His arm straightened, the bones reknitting as he drew upon several days' worth of health in a brief flash of power. He gasped, his mind recovering from its near death, but the goldmind restored a crisp clarity to his thoughts.

  The flesh healed around the metal. Sazed stood, pulling the empty bag from where it stuck from his skin, leaving the rings inside of him. He dropped it to the ground, the wound sealing, draining the last of the power from the goldmind. Marsh stopped at the mouth of the doorway, turning in surprise. Sazed's arm still throbbed, probably cracked, and his ribs were bruised. Such a short burst of health could only do so much.

  But he was alive.

  "You have betrayed us. Marsh," Sazed said. "I did not realize those spikes stole a man's soul, as well as his eyes."

  "You cannot fight me," Marsh replied quietly, his voice echoing in the dark room. "You are no warrior."

  Sazed smiled, feeling the small metalminds within him give him power. "Neither, I think, are you."

  I am involved in something that is far over my head, Elend thought as they passed through the strange, smoke-filled cavem. The floor was rough and uneven, and his lantern seemed dim-as if the swirling black smoke were sucking in the light.

  Vin walked confidently. No, determinedly. There was a difference. Whatever was at the end of this cavern, she obviously wanted to discover it.

  And... what will it be? Elend thought. The Well of Ascension?

  The Well was a thing of mythology-something spoken of by obligators when they taught about the Lord Ruler. And yet... he had followed Vin northward, expecting to find it, hadn't he? Why.be so tentative now?

  Perhaps because he was finally beginning to accept what was happening. And it worried him. Not because he feared for his life, but because suddenly he didn't understand the world. Armies he could understand, even if he didn't know how to defeat them. But a thing like the Well? A thing of gods, a thing beyond the logic of scholars and philosophers?

  That was terrifying.

  They finally approached the other side of the smoky cavern. Here, there appeared to be a final chamber, one much smaller than the first two. As they stepped into it, Elend noticed something immediately: this room was man-made. Or, at least, it had the feel of something man-made. Stalactites formed pillars through the low-ceilinged room, and they were spaced far too evenly to be random. Yet, at the same time, they looked as if they had grown naturally, and showed no signs of being worked.

  The air seemed warmer inside-and, thankfully, they passed out of the smoke as they entered. A low light came from something on the far side of the chamber, though EJerid couldn't distinguish the source. It didn't look like torchlight. It was .the wrong color, and it shimmered rather than flickered.

  Vin wrapped an arm around him, staring toward the back of the chamber, suddenly seeming apprehensive.

  "Where is that light coming from?" Elend asked, frowning.

  "A pool." Vin said quietly, her eyes far keener than his. ^ glowing white pool."

  Elend frowned. But, the two of them didn't move. Vin seemed hesitant. "What?" he asked.

  She pulled against him. 'That's the Well of Ascension. I can feel it inside of my head. Beating."

  Elend forced a smile, feeling a surreal sense of displacement. 'That's what we came for, then."

  "What if I don't know what to do?" Vin asked quietly. "What if I take the power, but I don't know how to use it? What if I... become li
ke the Lord Ruler?"

  Elend looked down at her, arms wrapped around him, and his fear lessened a bit. He loved her. The situation they faced, it couldn't easily fit into his logical world. But Vin had never really needed logic. And he didn't need it either, if he trusted her.

  He took her head in his hands, rotating it up to look at him. "Your eyes are beautiful."

  She. frowned. "What-"

  "And," Elend continued, "part of the beauty in them comes from your sincerity. You won't become the Lord Ruler, Vin. You'll know what to do with that power. I trust you."

  She smiled hesitantly, then nodded. However, she didn't move forward into the cavern. Instead, she pointed at something over Elend's shoulder. "What's that?"

  Elend turned, noticing a ledge on the back wall of the small room. It grew straight out of the rock just beside the doorway they had entered. Vin approached the ledge, and Elend followed behind her, noticing the shards that lay upon it.

  "It looks like broken pottery," Elend said. There were several patches of it, and more of it was scattered on the floor beneath the ledge.

  Vin picked up a piece, but there didn't seem to be anything distinctive about it. She looked at Elend, who was fishing through the pottery pieces. "Look at this," he said, holding up one that hadn't been broken like the others. It was a disklike piece of fired clay with a single bead of some metal at the center.

  "Atium?" she asked.

  "It looks like the wrong color," he said, frowning.

  "What is it, then?"

  "Maybe we'll find the answers over there," Elend said, turning and looking down the rows of pillars toward the light. Vin nodded, and they walked forward.

  Marsh immediately tried to Push Sazed away by the metal bracers on his arms. Sazed was ready, however, and he tapped his ring ironmind-drawing forth the weight he had stored within it. His body grew denser, and he felt its weight pulling him down, his fists feeling like balls of iron on the ends of lead arms.

  Marsh immediately lurched away, thrown violently backward by his own Push. He slammed into the back wall, a cry of surprise escaping his lips. It echoed in the small, domed room.

  Shadows danced in the room as the candle grew weaker. Sazed tapped sight, enhancing his vision, and released iron as he dashed toward the addled Inquisitor. Marsh, however, recovered quickly. He reached out. Pulling an unlit lamp off the wall. It zipped through the air. flying toward Marsh.

  Sazed tapped zinc. He felt something like a twisted hybrid of an Allomancer and a Feruchemist, his sources of metal embedded within him. The gold had healed his in-sides, made him whole, but the rings still remained within his flesh. This was what the Lord Ruler had done, keeping his metalminds inside of him, piercing his flesh so that they would be harder to steal.

  That had always seemed morbid to Sazed. Now, he saw how useful it eould be. His thoughts sped up, and he quickly saw the trajectory of the lamp. Marsh would be able- to use it as a weapon against him. So Sazed tapped steel. Allomancy and Feruchemy had one fundamental difference: Allomancy drew its powers from the metals themselves,, and so the amount of power was limited; in Feruchemy, one could compound an attribute many times, drawing out months' worth of power in a few minutes.

  Steel stored physical speed. Sazed zipped across the room, air rushing in his ears as he shot past the open doorway. He snatched the lamp out of the air, then tapped iron hard-increasing his weight manyfold-and tapped pewter to give himself massive strength.

  Marsh didn't have time to react. He was now Pulling on a lamp held in Sazed's inhumanly strong, inhumanly heavy, hand. Again, Marsh was yanked by his own Allomancy. The Pull threw him across the room, directly toward Sazed.

  Sazed turned, slamming the lamp into Marsh's face. The metal bent in his hand, and the force threw Marsh backward. The Inquisitor hit the marble wall, a spray of blood misting in the air. As Marsh slumped to the ground, Sazed could see that he'd driven one of the eye-spikes back into the front of the skull, crushing the bone around the socket.

  Sazed returned his weight to normal, then jumped forward, raising his impromptu weapon again. Marsh, however, threw an arm up and Pushed. Sazed skidded back a few feet before he was able to tap the ironmind again, increasing his weight.

  Marsh grunted, his Push forcing him back against the wall. It also, however, kept Sazed at bay. Sazed struggled to step forward, but the pressure of Marsh's Push-along with his own bulky, weighed-down body-made walking difficult. The two strained for a moment. Pushing against each other in the darkening light. The room's inlays sparkled, quiet murals watching them, open doorway leading down to the Well just to the side.

  "Why, Marsh?" Sazed whispered.

  "I don't know," Marsh said, his voice coming out in a growl.

  With a flash of power, Sazed released his ironmind and instead tapped steel, increasing his speed again. He dropped the lamp, ducking to the side, moving more quickly than Marsh could track. The lamp was forced backward, but then fell to the ground as Marsh let go of his Push, jumping forward, obviously trying to keep from being trapped against the wall.

  But Sazed was faster. He spun, raising a hand to try to pull out Marsh's linchpin spike-the one in between his shoulder blades, pounded down lengthwise into the back. Pulling this one spike would kill an Inquisitor; it was the weakness the Lord Ruler had built into them.

  Sazed skidded around Marsh to attack from behind. The spike in Marsh's right eye protruded several extra inches out the back of his skull, and it dribbled blood.

  Sazed's steelmind ran out.

  The rings had never been intended to last long, and his two extreme bursts had drained this one in seconds. He slowed with a dreadful lurch, but his arm was still raised, and he still had the strength of ten men. He could see the bulge of the linchpin spike underneath Marsh's robe. If he could just-

  Marsh spun, then dexterously knocked aside Sazed's hand. He rammed an elbow into Sazed's stomach, then brought a backhand up' and crashed it into his face.

  Sazed fell backward, and his pewtermind ran out, his strength disappearing. He hit the hard steel ground with a grunt of pain, and rolled.

  Marsh loomed in the dark room. The candle flickered.

  "You were wrong. Sazed," Marsh said quietly. "Once, I was not a warrior, but that has changed. You spent the last two years teaching, but I spent them killing. Killing so many people...."

  Marsh stepped forward, and Sazed coughed, trying to get his bruised body to move. He worried that he'd rebro-ken his arm. He tapped zinc again, speeding up his thoughts, but that didn't help his body move. He could only watch-more fully aware of his predicament and unable to do a thing to stop it-as Marsh picked up the fallen lamp.

  The candle went out.

  Yet, Sazed could still see Marsh's face. Blood dripped from the crushed socket, making the man's expression even harder to read. The Inquisitor seemed .. . sorrowful as he raised the lamp in a clawlike grip, intending to smash it down into Sazed's face.

  Wait, SaZed thought. Where is thai light coining from?

  A dueling cane smashed against the back of Marsh's head, shattering and throwing up splinters.

  Vin and Elend walked up to the pool. Elend knelt quietly beside it. but Vin just stood. Staring at the glittering waters.

  They were gathered in a small depression in the rock, and they looked thick-like metal. A silvery white, glowing liquid metal. The Well was only a few feet across, but its power loomed in her mind.

  Vin was so enraptured by the beautiful pool, in fact, that she didn't notice the mist spirit until Elend's grip tightened on her arm. She looked up, noticing the spirit standing before them. It seemed to have its head bowed, but as she turned, its shadowy form stood up straighten

  She'd never seen the creature outside of the mist. It still wasn't completely ... whole. Mist puffed from its body, flowing downward, creating its amorphous form. A persistent pattern.

  Vin hissed quietly, pulling out a dagger.

  "Wait!" Elend said, standing.

  Sh
e frowned, shooting him a glance.

  "I don't think it's dangerous, Vin," he said, stepping away from her, toward the spirit.

  "Elend, no!" she said, but he gently shook her free.

  "It visited me while you were gone, Vin," he explained. "It didn't hurt me. It just... seemed like it wanted me to know something." He smiled, still wearing his nondescript cloak and traveling clothing, and walked slowly up to the mist spirit. "What is it you want?"

  The mist spirit stood immobile for a moment, then it raised its arm. Something flashed, reflecting the pool's light.

  "No!" Vin screamed, dashing forward as the spirit slashed across Elend's gut. Elend grunted in pain, then stumbled back.

  "Elend!" Vin said, scrambling to Elend's side as he slipped and fell to the ground. The spirit backed away, dripping bloodjrom somewhere within its deceptively incorporeal form. Elend's blood.

  Elend lay, shocked, eyes wide. Vin flared pewter and ripped open the front of his jacket, exposing the wound. The spirit had cut deeply into his stomach, slashing the gut open.

  "No... no... no..." Vin said, mind growing numb, Elend's blood on her hands. The wound was very bad. Deadly.

  Ham dropped the broken cane, one arm still in a sling. The beefy Thug looked incredibly pleased with himself as he stepped over Marsh's body and reached his good hand toward Sazed.

  "Didn't expect to find you here, Saze," the Thug said.

  Dazed, Sazed took the hand and climbed to his feet. He stumbled over Marsh's body, somehow distractedly knowing that a simple club to the head wouldn't be enough to kill the creature. Yet Sazed was too addled to care. He picked up his candle, lit it from Ham's lantern, then made his way toward the stairs, forcing himself onward.

  He had to keep going. He had to get to Vin.

  Vin cradled Elend in her arms, her cloak forming a hasty- and dreadfully inadequate-bandage around his torso.

  "I love you," she whispered, tears warm on her cold cheeks. "Elend, I love you. I love you...."

  Love wouldn't be enough. He was trembling, eyes staring upward, barely able to focus. He gasped, and blood bubbled in his spittle.