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?
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.