The Well of Ascension

The winding set of stone stairs led downward for quite some time. Vin walked down them, Elend at her side, the thumping sounding loudly in her ears. At the bottom, the stairwell opened into. . .



A vast chamber. Elend held his lantern high, looking down into a huge stone cavern. Spook was already halfway down the stone steps leading to the floor. Ham was following.



"Lord Ruler. . ." Elend whispered, standing at Vin's side. "We'd have never found this without tearing down the entire building!"



"That was probably the idea," Vin said. "Kredik Shaw isn't simply a palace, but a capstone. Built to hide something. This. Above, those inlays on the walls hid the cracks of the doorway, and the metal in them obscured the opening mechanism from Allomantic eyes. If I hadn't had a hint. . ."



"Hint?" Elend asked, turning to her.



Vin shook her head, nodding to the steps. The two began down them. Below, she heard Spook's voice ring.



"There's food down here!" he yelled. "Cans and cans of it!"



Indeed, they found rank upon rank of shelves sitting on the cavern floor, meticulously packed as if set aside in preparation for something important. Vin and Elend reached the cavern floor as Ham chased after Spook, calling for him to slow down. Elend made as if to follow, but Vin grabbed his arm. She was burning iron.



"Strong source of metal that way," she said, growing eager.



Elend nodded, and they rushed through the cavern, passing shelf after shelf. The Lord Ruler must have prepared these, she thought. But for what purpose?



She didn't care at the moment. She didn't really care about the atium either, but Elend's eagerness to find it was too much to ignore. They rushed up to the end of the cavern, where they found the source of the metal line.



A large metal plaque hung on the wall, like the one Sazed had described finding in the Conventical of Seran. Elend was clearly disappointed when they saw it. Vin, however, stepped forward, looking through tin-enhanced eyes to see what it contained.



"A map?" Elend asked. "That's the Final Empire."



Indeed, a map of the empire was carved into the metal. Luthadel was marked at the center. A small circle marked another city nearby.



"Why is Statlin City circled?" Elend asked, frowning.



Vin shook her head. "This isn't what we came for," she said. "There." A tunnel split off from the main cavern. "Come on."



Sazed ran through the streets, not even certain what he was doing. He followed the mist spirit, which was difficult to trace in the night, as his candle had long since puffed out.



People screamed. Their panicked sounds gave him chills, and he itched to go and see what the problem was. Yet the mist spirit was demanding; it paused to catch his attention if it lost him. It could simply be leading him to his death. And yet. . .he felt a trust for it that he could not explain.



Allomancy? he thought. Pulling on my emotions?



Before he could consider that further, he stumbled across the first body. It was a skaa man in simple clothing, skin stained with ash. His face was twisted in a grimace of pain, and the ash on the ground was smeared from his thrashings.



Sazed gasped as he pulled to a halt. He knelt, studying the body by the dim light of an open window nearby. This man had not died easily.



It's. . .like the killings I was studying, he thought. Months ago, in the village to the south. The man there said that the mists had killed his friend. Caused him to fall to the ground and thrash about.



The spirit appeared in front of Sazed, its posture insistent. Sazed looked up, frowning. "You did this?" he whispered.



The thing shook its head violently, pointing. Kredik Shaw was just ahead. It was the direction Vin and Elend had gone earlier.



Sazed stood. Vin said she thought the Well was still in the city, he thought. The Deepness has come upon us, as its tendrils have been doing in the far reaches of the empire for some time. Killing.



Something greater than we comprehend is going on.



He still couldn't believe that Vin going to the Well would be dangerous. She had read; she knew Rashek's story. She wouldn't take the power for herself. He was confident. But not completely certain. In fact, he was no longer certain what they should do with the Well.



I have to get to her. Stop her, talk to her, prepare her. We can't rush into something like this. If, indeed, they were going to take the power at the Well, they needed to think about it first and decide what the best course was.



The mist spirit continued to point. Sazed stood and ran forward, ignoring the horror of the screams in the night. He approached the doors of the massive palace structure with its spires and spikes, then dashed inside.



The mist spirit remained behind, in the mists that had birthed it. Sazed lit his candle again with a flint, and waited. The mist spirit did not move forward. Still feeling an urgency, Sazed left it behind, continuing into the depths of the Lord Ruler's former home. The stone walls were cold and dark, his candle a wan light.



The Well couldn't be here, he thought. It's supposed to be in the mountains.



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.



A figure stood in doorway, head bowed. Sazed's candlelight reflected the polished marble walls, the silvery inlayed 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 didn't have 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't 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. He didn't have to be wearing the metalmind 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 cavern. 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?