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mists. Some came at him with dueling canes while others fell back with bows. No Allomancers that he’d spotted. In the night, he could finally prove the worth of the mistcoat. As he dodged between the thugs—kicking the other aluminum gun away—the tassels on his coat spun in the air, seeming to meld with the mists. Men attacked where he had been, the tassels confusing them as they churned the fog. He twisted between two of the thugs and raised a gun to either side and fired, sending them to the ground. Then he turned and leveled both weapons at the man who had been sneaking up on him. Both out, I believe. He pulled the triggers anyway. The weapons clicked. The terrified man stumbled back, then paused. “He’s out! Move! He’s defenseless!” The man charged forward. Wax dropped the guns. Why, exactly, would they assume that I need guns to be dangerous? He reached into his coat and undid the rope at his waist. He pulled it free, draping the rope from his fingers. Ranette’s hook clinked as it hit the ground. The man in front of him hesitated at the sound, dueling cane held nervously. “This,” Wax said, “is how it used to be done.” He yanked the rope, whipping the metal end into the air, then Pushed the spike at the man’s chest, letting the rope move through his fingers to give it more slack. It hit, cracking ribs, and Wax yanked the rope back, holding it on a tight leash and spinning the hook through the air as he turned. He Pushed again, slamming the metal into the man raising a bow. Wax twisted and knelt, whipping the rope around. It spun before him in a grand arc, stirring the mist as he gave the rope more slack, then Pushed it, slamming the spike-hook past one man and into another’s chest. Wax yanked the spike-hook back, catching the other man on the thigh, tripping him as he came forward with a dueling cane. Wax caught the hook in one hand and turned, Pushing the hook forward into the shoulder of an ambusher. Wax ripped it free with a yank, then Pushed it directly back into the man’s face. One more, he thought. Wax whirled, pulling the hook back into his hand, searching. The last man scrambled for something on the ground. He looked up, raising one of the fallen aluminum guns. “The Set sends its regards, law—” He cut off as a shadow behind him rammed a knife into his back. “Here’s a tip, kid,” MeLaan said. “Save the wisecracks until your foe is dead. Like this. See how easy it is?” She kicked the corpse in the face. Wax looked around at the fallen and groaning men. He held the rope tightly. Those sharpshooters on the roofs might reposition soon and start firing. “We need to move fast. I think Bleeder is going after Lord Harms, my betrothed’s father.” “Damn,” MeLaan said. “You want to try to climb up and go after those sharpshooters?” “No time,” Wax
whispered. He pointed down the street. “You go that way; I’ll go the other way. If you get out, head back to the Counselor’s Cup, a tavern over on Edden Way. I’ll meet you there after I go for Lord Harms. If I or someone I send talks to you, first say the words ‘all yellow pants.’” “Sure thing.” “Good luck.” “I’m not the one who needs help, lawman,” MeLaan said. “I’m basically bulletproof.” She gave him a kind of mock salute, then took off down the street, charging through the mists. Wax recovered Vindication, but didn’t holster her. Instead, he grabbed one of the corpses nearby and lugged it up onto his shoulder, stuffing bullets into its pocket. Then he pulled off his gunbelt. He didn’t know if those sharpshooters might be Metalborn, set to watch for lines of metal in the mists. Just in case, he heaved the corpse overhead and Pushed, lobbing it upward through the mists. Then he Pushed on his gunbelt, sending it flying ahead of him down the street. Finally he ran, chasing after the gunbelt and using Allomancy to knock it up and forward again as it started to fall. A gunshot broke the night, but he couldn’t pinpoint its origin. He didn’t know if the sharpshooter was trying to hit the corpse, his gunbelt, or him. Another shot followed. He burst out of the alley, snatched his gunbelt off the ground, then leaped, soaring over the walkway and coming down in the frigid blackness of the canal. Dark water surrounded him, the guns towing him down as his mistcoat billowed outward. He kicked downward, seeking the floor of the canal. And then, still submerged, he Pushed on the mooring rings on either side of the canal behind him. Most people, even seasoned gunmen, underestimated the stopping power of a good foot of water. Wax surged through the canal like a fish swimming downstream, continuing to Push on new mooring rings as they passed, staying centered in the canal and remaining submerged. He scraped the bottom of a boat overhead, but kept Pushing, praying he wouldn’t ram himself into anything in the depths. By the time his breath ran out, he must have traveled a number of blocks. He burst out of the water and, coughing, crawled to the side of the canal and heaved himself out onto the walkway. He stumbled to his feet. Nobody shot him, which was a good sign. He paused just long enough to catch his breath and roughly bind his arm, then took to the skies, heading for the Harms mansion. 12 “That’s good,” Wayne said, notepad out. “You’re sure that fellow wasn’t acting strange, then? Nothing odd?” The serving woman shook her head, sitting with her arms wrapped around herself. They’d finally managed to get down from the top floor, following the panicked exodus by the rich types. The governor was surrounded by a bubble of guards over to Wayne’s left, and a set of strong electric lanterns illuminated the misty night. The green in front of the
skyscraper felt right empty, now that so many people had left. He figured that would soon change, when Marasi returned with some more constables. She’d run off to fetch them, and give a report. That meant Wayne was the sole officer of lawkeepin’ in the vicinity. A frightening thought. “I’ve got one more question for you,” Wayne said to the woman. “Yes, officer?” she asked. “Where’d you get those shoes?” The woman blinked, then looked down. “Um … My shoes?” “Yeah, your shoes,” Wayne said. “Look plenty comfortable, they do. Can never have too many pairs of black pumps. They go with rusting everything.” She looked back at him. “You’re a man.” “Sure am,” Wayne said. “Checked last time I pissed. The shoes?” “Rousseau’s,” she said. “Third Octant, on Yomen Street.” She paused. “They were on sale last week.” “Damn!” Wayne said. “That’s beautiful. Thanks. You’re free to go.” She gave him that look that people seemed to give only to Wayne, the one he hadn’t quite figured. Ah well. He wrote down the name of the shop. If he had to wear those awful pumps from his disguise box one more time, he’d probably go insane. He popped a ball of gum into his mouth and wandered over toward the pile of guards, going over his notes. That server up above, he thought, tapping his pad with his pencil, was not the kandra. Wayne had talked to a dozen of the staff. All knew the fellow and said he hadn’t been acting strange at all. But none of them liked him. He was a screwup, and none were surprised that he’d turned out to be rotten. An amateur might think that picking the new guy made for a good disguise, but this Bleeder, she could be anyone. Why would she pick the low man on the list, someone who had only joined the staff a few weeks back? Sure, being new would give you an excuse to not know people’s names, but by reports, this fellow hadn’t forgotten anyone’s name tonight. And picking a habitual klutz with a bad reputation would just lead to everyone watching over your shoulder. A terrible choice for an imitator. That guy had been some other kind of mole. He shook his head. “Where’s Drim?” he asked the guards. “I wanna show him what I’ve got.” The guard leaned over, looking at Wayne’s notepad. “All that’s on there is a bunch of scribbles.” “It’s for show,” Wayne said. “Makes people talk more if they think you’re writin’ stuff down. Dunno why. I sure wouldn’t want anyone rememberin’ the slag I say.…” He hesitated, then shoved aside the guard, looking into the middle of the pile. Drim wasn’t there, and neither was the governor. “What’d you do with him!” Wayne said, turning on the others. A smug group of bastards, they were. “It was best everyone thought he was still here,” the guard said. “In truth, he and Drim headed to a secure location ages ago. If we fooled you, then hopefully we fooled the assassin.” “Fooled
… I’m supposed to be protectin’ the guy!” “Well, you’re doing a rusting good job of that, mate, ain’tcha,” the guard said, then smirked. So Wayne did the only reasonable thing. He spat out his gum, then decked the fellow. * * * Wax rarely appreciated the city as much as he did when he needed to get somewhere quickly. To the eyes of a man burning steel, Elendel was alight and full of motion, even while shadowed by darkness and mist. Metal. In some ways, that was the true mark of mankind. Man tamed the stones, the bones of the earth below. Man tamed the fire, that ephemeral, consuming soul of life. And combining the two, he drew forth the marrow of the rocks themselves, then made molten tools. Wax passed among the skyscrapers like a whisper, the motion drying his clothing. He became just another current in the mists, and moving with him in radial spokes was a majestic network of blue lines—like a million outstretched fingers pointing the way to anchors he could use along his path. When even a galloping horse was too slow, Wax had steel. It burned in him, returning to the fire that gave it shape. From it he drew power. Sometimes that wasn’t enough. But this night, he exploded through the lit upper windows of the Harms dwelling, rolling and coming up with guns leveled. Lord Harms swiveled in the chair of his writing desk, knocking over his pot of ink. The red-faced older man had a comfortable paunch, an easy manner, and a pair of mustaches that were in competition with his jowls to see which could droop farthest toward the floor. Upon seeing Wax, he started, then scrambled to reach into his desk drawer. Wax scanned the room. Nobody else there. No enemies in the corners, no moving bits of metal in closets or the bedroom. He’d arrived in time. Wax let out a sigh of relief, standing up as Lord Harms finally got his desk drawer open. The man whipped out a pistol, one of the modern semiautos that were popular with the constables. Harms leaped to his feet and rushed over to Wax, holding his gun in two hands. “Where are they!” Harms exclaimed. “We can take them, eh, old boy?” “You have a gun,” Wax said. “Yes indeed, yes indeed. After what happened last year, I realized that a man has to be armed. What’s the emergency? I’ll have your back!” Wax carefully tipped the point of Lord Harms’s gun downward, just in case a bullet was chambered—because, fortunately, the man hadn’t locked a magazine into the pistol. Wax glanced behind at the windows. He’d flung them open with a Push as he approached, but they were meant to open outward, not inward. He’d ripped both right off their hinges, toppling one while the other hung by its corner. It finally gave way, crashing to the floor, cracking the glass inside the wooden frame. Mist poured in through the opening, flooding the floor. Where was Bleeder? In the house
somewhere? Impersonating a maid? A neighbor? A constable passing on the street? Standing in the room with him? “Jackstom,” Wax said, looking to Lord Harms, “do you remember when you first met me, and Wayne was pretending to be my butler?” Harms frowned. “You mean your uncle?” Good, Wax thought. An impostor wouldn’t know that, would she? Rusts … He’d have to suspect everyone. “You’re in danger,” Wax said, sliding his guns into their hip holsters. His suit was basically ruined from the swim in the canal, and he’d tossed aside his cravat, but the sturdy mistcoat had seen far worse than this. “I’m getting you out of here.” “But…” Lord Harms trailed off, face blanching. “My daughter?” As if he had only one. “Steris is fine,” Wax said. “Wayne is watching her. Let’s go.” The problem was, go where? Wax had a hundred places he could take Harms, but Bleeder could be lurking at any of them. The odds were certainly in Wax’s favor, and yet … Bleeder is ancient, Harmony had said. Older than the destruction of the world. She is crafty, careful, and brilliant.… She spent centuries studying human behavior. Any option Wax chose could be the very one Bleeder had predicted he would choose. How did you outthink something so old, so knowledgeable? The solution seemed easy. You didn’t try. * * * Steris left ZoBell Tower to find Wayne sitting across the street from a huddle of bruised and obviously angry men. Wayne was eating a sandwich. “Oh, Wayne,” she said, looking from the hostile, wounded men and back to him. “Those are the governor’s guards. He’s going to need them tonight.” “’s not my fault,” Wayne said. “They was bein’ unaccommodating.” He took a bite of his sandwich. She sighed, settling down beside him and looking up through the mists toward the tower. She could make out the lights on various floors glowing like phantoms above, leading all the way up to the very top. “This is how it’s going to be, with him, isn’t it?” she asked. “Always being left behind in the middle of something? Always half feeling as if I’m part of his life?” Wayne shrugged. “You could do the noble thing, Steris. Give up on the whole marriage. Let him loose to find someone he actually likes.” “And my family’s investment in him and his house?” “Well, I know this here is revolutionary words, Steris, but you can loan a chap money without him havin’ to jump you in appreciation, if you know my meanin’.” Good Harmony he could be shockingly unmannered. He wasn’t like this to others. Oh, he was crass and whimsical, but rarely blatantly rude. He saved that for her. Was he expecting her to fight back, prove herself somehow? She’d never been able to figure this man out. Preparing what to say to him only seemed to make him more vulgar. “Did he say where he was going?” she said, trying to remain polite. “Nah,” Wayne said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “He’s chasin’ Bleeder down. Means
he could have gone anywhere, and so tryin’ to find him is useless. He’ll come back for me when he can. If I leave, I’ll just end up missing him.” “I see.” She settled back, crossing her feet on the curb and staring up at those lights. “Do you hate me because of what I represent, Wayne? The responsibilities that called him back?” “I don’t hate you,” Wayne said. “I find you repulsive. That there is an important distinction, it is.” “But—” Wayne stood up. He shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Then he walked over to the guards that were glaring at him and sat down. The implication was obvious. I’d rather be here. Steris closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, and tried to pretend she was someone other than herself for a time. Eventually, sounding bells announced the arrival of constable carriages. She stood up and composed herself, relieved when Marasi exited one of them and hurried over. “Waxillium?” she asked. Steris shook her head. “Get in,” Marasi said, pointing to one of the carriages. “I’m sending you someplace safe.” “I think the danger has passed here,” Steris said. “Unless Wayne is picking fights again.” “No,” Marasi said. “The danger has only just started.” Something in the younger woman’s tone gave Steris pause. Other constables weren’t piling out of the carriages. In fact, they seemed to be waiting for Marasi. They weren’t coming here to investigate the man Waxillium had chased off. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Steris asked. “Yeah,” Marasi said. “Wayne, get over here! We’ve got work to do.” * * * Wax stashed Lord Harms at the very top of Feder Tower. He’d chosen its location on the city map by picking random numbers; hopefully Bleeder wouldn’t be able to outthink a plan with no thought involved. Harms had instructions to lie low, hide in the darkness and stay quiet. Even if Bleeder could Steelpush and search in the night, the chance of her happening upon Harms was ridiculously low verging on impossible. That didn’t stop Wax from worrying. Steris’s father was a silly man, but good-natured and amiable. It was the best Wax could do, as he needed to locate the governor. That hunt took Wax longer than he’d have assumed, which was actually a good thing. It meant that Drim, despite his dislike of Wax, was doing his job properly. Best Wax could determine, they had sent at least three unmarked carriages away from ZoBell Tower: two decoys, and one with the governor inside. He spotted one on Stanton Way, and dismissed it. Too obvious, with the guards riding on top. Guessing that another had gone east, he found it driving around in a circle in the Third Octant, also trying to draw attention. It was moving too slowly. Besides, the governor wouldn’t go that way. Innate was a fighter. He wouldn’t want to be seen hiding. So it was that Wax found himself perched on the top of a building near Hammond Promenade, a few streets from Innate’s own mansion. He’d return
here, eschewing safehouses in the city. He’d want to be in his center of power and authority. The mists seemed to glow here in the city, lit by a thousand lights—an increasing number of them electric. It took long enough for the carriage to arrive that Wax was starting to second-guess himself. But arrive it did: a tall-topped enclosed coach with red curtains. Yes, it was quite nondescript. The horses, however, were from the governor’s prized breeding stock. Just like the two decoys. Wax shook his head as he jumped and Pushed his way to the top of the stone archway outside the First Insurance Bank. The coach moved at a fair clip and held no obvious guards. They must have taken a very roundabout way to take so long to reach here. Wax leaped off the bank’s facade and Pushed on a streetlight, hurling himself after the governor’s coach. He landed on its top and nodded to the surprised coachman, then swung down alongside the vehicle and knocked on the coach’s door, hanging by one arm above the blur of cobblestones beneath. They were certainly running the animals hard. After a few moments the window shade opened, revealing Drim’s surprised face. “Ladrian?” he said. “What the hell are you doing?” “Being polite,” Wax said. “May I come in?” “What if I refuse?” “Then I stop being polite.” Drim sneered, but glanced to the side, where the governor rode with his hat in his lap. The man nodded, and Drim sighed and turned back to the door. They didn’t stop the carriage. So Wax had to let go, drop a bullet casing, and Push back to the carriage as Drim opened the door. He grabbed it by the handle, Pushing off a passing light, and ducked into the vehicle, ending up seated opposite Drim and the governor. Drim would be a perfect person to imitate. As would the carriage driver, as would basically anyone with access to the governor, including his wife and family. “Lord Ladrian,” Innate said with a sigh. “Breaking up the party wasn’t enough for you? You have to harass me on the way home from it as well?” Wax shrugged, then moved to climb back out of the carriage. He had the door half open before Innate, sputtering, snapped, “What are you doing now, you fool?” “Leaving,” Wax said. “There are thousands of places I could be right now, most of them more pleasant.” He hesitated, then pulled out one of his Sterrions and flipped it in his hand, holding it grip-first to the governor. “Here.” The governor’s eyes bulged. “Why would I need a gun? I have bodyguards.” “So did your brother,” Wax said. “Take it. I’ll feel guilty when you get shot, if I haven’t done something.” “… Shot?” Innate blanched. “My brother was killed because of his flirtations with the underbelly of Elendel. They wouldn’t dare touch me.” “I’m sure they wouldn’t,” Wax said, leaning out the door, then hesitated again and looked back in. “You know how to spot a kandra, right, Drim?” “A
what?” the thick-necked bodyguard said. “Those are myths,” Lord Innate said. “Are they?” Wax said. “Then the one I met tonight must have been lying. Not sure how she made her skin transparent though. Oh well. Guess you have it in hand.” “You mean to tell me,” Innate said, stopping Wax with a touch before he could move out the door again, “that one of the Faceless Immortals was at my party tonight?” “Two, actually,” Wax said. “One came to help. I would introduce you, have her prove her nature to you, but it does seem that your mind is made up. The other one at the party was the person who killed your brother. You sure you don’t want a gun? No? All right, I’ll just be—” “You’ve made your point, Lord Waxillium,” Innate said, sour-faced. He settled back beside the carriage’s lantern, which burned gas with a proper light. “My lord,” Drim said, looking to Innate. “This is stupid. The Faceless Immortals? Every second person claims to have met one, just to get their stories in the broadsheets! You’re not really considering these claims, are you?” Innate studied Wax. “He is,” Wax said. “Because he knows something strange happened to his brother. Killed in his saferoom, guards murdered from behind by someone they trusted—and Winsting Innate took his security very seriously. More seriously than you do, I’d suspect, Mister Governor.” “You can introduce me to one of the creatures?” Innate asked. “Offer me proof of their existence?” “Yes.” “But why,” Drim said, “would one of Harmony’s own servants kill Lord Winsting?” “The kandra has gone insane,” Wax said softly. “We don’t know her motives yet, but she does seem to want you dead, Mister Governor. So my job is to keep you alive.” “What do we do?” Innate asked. “How do we prepare?” “Well,” Wax said, “first I take over your security.” “Like hell you do!” Drim said. “You taking over is impossible,” Innate agreed. “Drim has served me well for years. He … Where are you going?” Wax turned back from the door. “There’s a play I wanted to see tonight,” he said, gesturing. “Figured I’d go catch the tail end while you two discuss this.” “And if this creature comes for me while you’re gone?” Innate demanded. “I’m sure your head of security can deal with it,” Wax said. “He knew the kandra were at the party tonight, didn’t he? And he most certainly didn’t miss Wayne slipping in wearing a disguise. And—” “You may review my security protocols,” Innate said with a sigh. “And offer advice.” “Fine,” Wax said, pulling the door closed as the carriage turned a corner and approached the governor’s mansion. “But you have to agree to one thing right now. I’m going to give you both a passphrase, and I want you both to vow not to share it with anyone. Not even each other or Lady Innate. You’ll also give me a passphrase. When we meet, we’ll exchange them in a whisper, which will prove that none of us have been replaced.”
“You honestly think I wouldn’t know my own wife?” Innate asked tiredly. “I’m sure you would,” Wax said, softening his tone. “But this is a requirement of my aid, and you must humor me. It will put my mind at ease.” The family was most dangerous. Bleeder had sounded so confident, as if she had the governor in hand, which made Wax think the creature had already gotten to one of the family. Lady Innate hadn’t been at the party, but Harmony had said Bleeder could swap bodies whenever she wished. Rust and Ruin, what an awful spot to be in. Bleeder could have killed a niece or nephew, a toddler even, and be planning to imitate one of them to get to the governor. In the Historica, kandra imitated animals. The house pets could secretly be assassins. Wax glanced at the governor, who looked profoundly disturbed, his hands clasped, eyes staring as if to see a thousand miles. The implications of it were sinking in. Innate wasn’t an idiot. Just an egotist and possibly a crook. The carriage pulled up to the mansion and Drim climbed out. As Wax followed, the governor took him by the arm. “I will want to see this proof of yours, Roughian.” “I’ll arrange a meeting tomorrow.” “Tonight.” Wax nodded. “If this is true,” the governor said, still holding his arm, “what do we do? I’ve read the Words of Founding. I know what the Immortals were capable of. Ruin … this creature could be anyone. Passphrases won’t be enough. Not nearly.” “They won’t,” Wax admitted. “Sir, the thing has access to the Metallic Arts too. At any time, she could be anything from a Pulser to an Archivist. Though she can only carry one at a time without risking loss of control, she can swap the powers out at will.” “Great Harmony,” the governor whispered. “How do you stop something like that?” “Frankly, I don’t know. You should probably already be dead.” “Why am I not?” the governor asked, waving back Drim, who had peeked in to check on them. “This creature could have killed me as easily as she did my brother.” “She seems to have some kind of agenda. Bigger than you. She might not want to bring you down until doing so topples the city government entirely.” Wax hesitated, then leaned closer. “Sir, you might want to leave Elendel.” “Leave?” Innate said. “Have you seen what is going on in the city?” Wax nodded. “I—” “Labor strikes,” Innate continued as if he hadn’t heard Wax. “Food prices skyrocketing. Too many men from one job out of work, too many from another demanding to be treated better. Rusts, there are practically riots in the streets, man! And the scandal. I can’t leave. My career would be over.” “Better than your life being over.” The governor glanced at him. He didn’t seem to see it that way. “Leaving is impossible,” Innate reiterated. “It would look like I’m abandoning the people—they’d think the scandal drove me into hiding. I’d be perceived as a coward. No.
Impossible. I will send Lady Innate to safety, as well as the children. I must stay and you must deal with this thing, whatever it is. Stop it before it can go any further.” “I’ll try,” Wax said, leaning in. “Give me a passphrase to authenticate myself. Something memorable, but nonsensical.” “‘Leavening on sand.’” “Good. Mine for you is ‘bones without soup.’ You have a saferoom?” “Yes,” Innate said. “In the bottom of the mansion, beneath the sitting room.” “Set up in there,” Wax said, climbing out of the carriage, “and if you lock the door, don’t let anyone in until I arrive, and can give you the passphrase.” Soon after stepping down, Wax found himself pulling out Vindication. He’d leveled the gun before he registered what had set him off. Cries of alarm, but not pain. A servant hastened out of the governor’s mansion, passing pillars on the front lit stark white, like a line of femurs. “My lord governor!” the woman cried. “We’ve had a telenote through the wire; something has happened. You’re going to need to prepare a response!” “What is it?” Wax demanded as the governor climbed from the carriage. The servant hesitated, eyes widening at Wax’s gun. She wore a sharp black suit, skirt to the ankles, red scarf at the neck. A steward, or perhaps one of the governor’s advisors. “I’m a constable,” Wax said. “What is the emergency?” “A murder,” she said. Harmony, no … “Not Lord Harms. Please tell me!” Had he left the man to be killed, in his haste to get to the governor? “Lord who?” the woman asked. “It wasn’t a nobleman at all, constable.” She glanced at Drim, who nodded—Wax could be trusted. She looked back to Wax. “It was Father Bin. The priest.” * * * Marasi stared up at the corpse, which had been nailed to the wall like an old drapery. One spike through each eye. Blood painted the man’s cheeks and had soaked into the white ceremonial robes, forming a crimson vest. Almost like a Terris V. Blood stained the wall on either side of the corpse as well, smeared there by thrashing arms and fingers. Marasi shivered. The priest had been alive as this happened. Though constables poked and prodded at the large nave of the church, Marasi felt alone, standing before that corpse and its steel eyes. Just her and the body, a disturbingly reverent scene. It reminded her of something out of the Historica, though she couldn’t remember what. Captain Aradel stepped up beside her. “I’ve had word of your sister,” he said. “We’ve got her in one of our most secure safehouses.” “Thank you, sir.” “What do you make of it?” he asked, nodding toward the body. “It’s ghastly, sir. What exactly happened?” “The conventicalists aren’t being very helpful,” he said. “I’m not sure if they’re in shock, or if they see our intrusion here as offensive.” He gestured for her to go before him and they passed Wayne, who sat in one of the pews chewing gum and looking up at
the body. Marasi and Aradel exited the domed nave and entered a small foyer where a row of ashen-faced people sat on some benches. They were conventicalists—those who worked in a Survivorist church aside from the priest. A grey-haired woman sat at their head, wearing the formal dress of a church matron. She wiped her eyes, and several youths huddled against her, eyes down. Constable Reddi stood nearby; the lean man tucked his clipboard under his arm and saluted Aradel. Normally, this wasn’t the sort of thing a constable-general would be involved in, but Aradel had been a detective for many years. “Will you be handling the interrogation yourself, sir?” Reddi asked. The conventicalists stiffened visibly at the word “interrogation.” Marasi could have smacked him for his tone. “No,” Aradel. “Very good, sir,” Reddi said, pulling his bow tie tight and taking out his clipboard. He stepped up to the conventicalists. “Actually,” Aradel said, “I was thinking we’d let Lieutenant Colms try.” Marasi felt a sharp spike of panic, which she smothered immediately. She wasn’t afraid of a simple interrogation, particularly with amiable witnesses. But the way Aradel said it, so seriously, made her suddenly feel as if it were some type of test. Wonderful. She took a deep breath and pushed past Reddi, who had lowered his clipboard and was eyeing her. The assembled group of eight people sat with slumped shoulders. How to best approach them? They’d described to a sketch artist what had happened, but details could separate Ruin from Preservation. Marasi settled down on the bench between two of them. “My condolences on your loss,” she said softly. “My apologies too. The constabulary has failed you this day.” “It’s not your fault,” the matron said, pulling one of the children tight. “Who could have anticipated … Holy Survivor, I knew those Pathians were a miscreant bunch. I always knew it. No rules? No precepts to guide their lives?” “Chaos,” a shaven-headed man said from the bench behind. “They want nothing but chaos.” “What happened?” Marasi said. “I’ve read the report, of course, but … rusts … I can’t imagine…” “We were waiting for evening celebration,” the matron said. “The mists had put in quite the appearance! Must have been almost a thousand people in the dome for worship. And then he just sauntered up to the dais, that Pathian mongrel.” “Did you recognize him?” “Course I did,” the matron said. “It was that Larskpur; we see him at community functions all the time. People feel they have to invite a Pathian priest, as if to not show favoritism, though nobody wants them around.” Behind her, the underpriest nodded. “Little wretch of a man, barely fit his robes,” he said. “Nothing ornate. Really just a smock. They don’t even dress up to worship.” “He started talking to the crowd,” the matron continued. “Like he was going to give the mistdawn sermon! Only it was vile stuff he spouted.” “Such as what?” Marasi asked. “Blasphemy,” the matron said. “But it shouldn’t matter. Look here, constable. Why are you even talking
to us? A thousand people saw him. Why are you treating us like we did something wrong? You should be off arresting that monster.” “We have people hunting for him,” Marasi said, and rested her hand on the shoulder of one of the children; the little girl whimpered and clamped on to her arm. “And I promise you, we’ll catch and punish the one who did this. But every detail you can remember will help us put him away.” The matron and the underpriest glanced at each other. But it was one of the others—a lanky altarman in his twenties—who spoke. “Larskpur said,” the man whispered, “that the Survivor was a false god. That Kelsier had tried, and failed, to help humankind. That his death hadn’t been about protecting us or Ascending, but about stupidity and bravado.” “It’s what they’ve always thought,” the matron said, “but don’t say. Those Pathians … they claim to accept everyone, but if you push you can see the truth. They mock the Survivor.” “They want chaos,” the underpriest repeated. “They hate that so many people look to the Survivor. They hate that we have standards. They have no meetings, no churches, no commandments.… The Path isn’t a religion, it’s a platitude.” “It stunned us, I’ll tell you that,” the matron said. “I thought at first that Father Bin must have invited Larskpur to speak. Why else would he be so bold as to step up to the pulpit? I was so horrified by what he said that I didn’t notice the blood at first.” “I did,” the underpriest said. “I thought he was wearing gloves. I stared at those fingers, waving, bright red. And then I noticed the drops that he was flicking across the floor and the pulpit as he gestured.” They all were quiet for a moment. “There isn’t anything more to say,” the matron finally said. “Larskpur gestured one last time, and the back draping fell down. There he was, our blessed father, nailed there in a terrible parody of the Survivor’s Statemark. Poor Father Bin had been … hanging the whole time. Might have been still alive, bleeding and dying while we all listened to that blasphemy.” Marasi doubted that. Though the priest had obviously struggled at first, the spikes would have ended that quickly. “Thank you,” she said to the distraught group. “You’ve been very helpful.” She carefully pried the little girl’s hands from her arm and passed her to the matron. Marasi stood, walking to Aradel and Reddi, who stood on the other side of the room. “What do you think?” Marasi asked softly. “About the information,” Reddi said, “or your interrogation techniques?” “Either.” “That wasn’t how I’d have done it,” the short constable said. “But I suppose that you did put them at ease.” “They didn’t offer much,” Aradel said, rubbing at his chin. “What did you expect?” Marasi asked. “Captain, this had to be the same person who killed Winsting.” “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Aradel said. “What would be the motive?” “Can you explain this any other way?”
Marasi said, gesturing toward the room with the dead priest. “A Pathian? Murdering? Sir, their priests are some of least aggressive people on the planet. I’ve seen toddlers more dangerous.” Aradel continued rubbing his chin. “Reddi,” he said, “go get those conventicalists something to drink. They could use a warm mug right now, I’d suspect.” “Sir?” Reddi said, taken aback. “You been spending so much time at the gun range you’ve gone deaf?” Aradel said. “Be about it, Captain. I need to talk to Constable Colms.” Reddi’s glare at Marasi could have boiled water, but he moved off to do as ordered. “Sir,” Marasi said, watching him go, “I can’t help noticing that you’re determined to see the rest of the constables hate me.” “Nonsense,” he said. “Just giving the boy a nudge. He’s useless when he isn’t trying to show off for me—those weeks when he thought he had the assistant’s position sewn up were miserable. He’s a better officer when he has somebody to compete with.” He took Marasi by the shoulder and steered her away from the seated conventicalists. A junior corporal had just shown up with blankets and mugs of warm tea. Hopefully Reddi wouldn’t be too put out at having that job stolen from him too. “I,” Aradel said, drawing her attention back to him, “can’t fight mistwraiths and spirits in the night. I’m a watchman, not an exorcist.” “I understand that, sir,” Marasi said. On their ride over here, she’d told him what Waxillium had said about Bleeder. She wasn’t about to keep information like that from her superior. “But if the criminal is supernatural, what option do we have?” “I don’t know,” Aradel said, “and that frustrates me to no end. I’ve got a city dry as a pile of autumn leaves, Lieutenant, and it’s about to go up in flames. I don’t have the manpower to hunt down a fallen immortal; I need to have constables on the streets trying to keep this city from consuming itself.” “Sir, what if the two are related?” “The two murders?” “The murders and the unrest, sir.” She closed her eyes, remembering the chapel with its dome and pews, and tried to imagine it as it had been earlier. Larskpur standing in front and waving his hands, horrified parishioners fleeing and bearing the story that the Pathian leader had murdered a Survivorist priest … “Bleeder, or whoever is behind this, has distracted the government with a scandal,” Marasi said opening her eyes. “Now she strikes at one church leader in the guise of another? Sir, whatever her real motives are, she’s obviously trying to strain Elendel. She wants this city to break.” “You might be ascribing too much to one person, Lieutenant.” “Not just a person,” Marasi said. “A demigod. Sir, what started the worker strikes?” “Hell if I know,” Aradel said, patting at his pocket and taking out his cigar case. He opened it and found only a little folded note. He grimaced and showed it to her. There’s a banana in your drawer. “Damn woman will
be the death of me. Anyway, I suspect the strikes have been building for a while. Harmony knows I sympathize with the poor fools. Get paid like dirt while the house lords live in mansions and penthouses.” “But why now?” Marasi asked. “It’s the food, right? Suddenly spiked prices, worry that even when the strikes end, there won’t be food to be bought?” “That certainly hasn’t helped,” Aradel agreed. “Those floods are going to be a strain.” “A broken dam. Did we investigate that properly?” Aradel paused, little paper half folded to return to his pocket. “You think that could have been sabotage?” “Could be worth checking,” Marasi said. “Could be indeed,” Aradel said. “I’ll see if I can spare some men. But if you’re right, what’s this creature’s endgame?” “General mayhem?” Marasi asked. Aradel shook his head. “Maybe it’s different for mistwraiths, but men who do things like this, they do it to prove something. They want to show how clever they are, or they want to stop an injustice. Maybe she wants to bring someone down. Isn’t the governor a Pathian?” “I think so.” “So this murder tonight could be an attempt to discredit his religion.” Aradel nodded. “Kill his brother, expose a scandal, undermine his faith, cause riots during his tenure … Rusts, this could be about making sure that Innate doesn’t just die, he gets stomped to the ground.” Marasi nodded slowly. “Sir. I … might have proof that the governor is corrupt.” “What? What kind of proof?” “Nothing definitive,” she said, blushing. “It has to do with his policies, and when he’s changed his mind on bills, when he’s voted irregularly following visits with certain key individuals. Sir, you said you hired me in part because of my ability to read statistics. I’ll show you what I have once it’s all arranged, but the story the governor’s record tells is of a man who is offering himself up for sale.” Aradel ran a hand through his hair, red flecked with grey. “Harmony. Keep this quiet, Lieutenant. We’ll worry about it another time. Understand?” “Yes, sir. And I agree.” “But good work,” he noted, then jogged over to take crime scene reports. Marasi couldn’t help feeling a thrill that he’d listened to what she said, even when all she could offer was half explanations. At the same time, however, a disturbing thought struck her. What if Aradel was secretly the kandra, somehow? How much damage could Bleeder do if she had an entire octant’s constables under her thumb? No. Aradel had been around people when the priest was murdered. Rusts … the creature would have Marasi jumping at shadows, wondering if everyone she met was a kandra. She went to get herself a cup of that tea, hoping it would help her banish the image in her head of poor Father Bin hung from the wall. She wasn’t halfway to the table with the flasks before the doors to the foyer slammed open and Waxillium strode in. He trailed tassels like the curling mists, his powerful stride prompting
lesser constables to scuttle out of his way. How was it that he could so fully encapsulate everything the constables should be, but weren’t? Noble without being pandering, thoughtful yet proactive, unyielding yet inquisitive. Marasi smiled, then hurried after him. It wasn’t until they reached the chapel, with its large glass dome and the dead priest hanging on the far side, that she realized she’d forgotten entirely about getting tea. A headache still thumped inside her skull. Aradel stood inside the nave, accompanied by two young constables. “Lord Ladrian,” he said, turning toward Waxillium. “We’ll have a report on the body ready for you in—” “I’ll see for myself, constable,” Waxillium said. “Thank you.” He dropped a bullet casing and rose into the air, soaring over rows of pews beneath the dome to land on the dais. Aradel sighed and muttered a curse under his breath, then turned to one of the corporals. “See that His Lordship gets whatever he needs. Maybe he can make something of this damn mess—assuming he doesn’t just shoot the place up instead.” The young constable nodded, then ran to join Waxillium, who was saying something to Wayne, who had stepped up to join him. Whatever Waxillium said sent the shorter man scuttling out the doors on some errand. The constable-general shook his head, a sour grimace on his lips. “Sir?” Marasi said. “You’re upset with Lord Waxillium?” Aradel started, as if he hadn’t seen—or hadn’t registered—her standing there. “Pay no heed, Lieutenant. His Lordship is a great resource to this department.” “Sir, that has the sound of a practiced answer to it.” “Good,” Aradel said, “because it took me a long time to learn to say it without cursing.” “Could I have the non-practiced version?” Aradel looked her over. “Let’s just say that it must be damn nice, Lieutenant, to have other people to clean up your messes for you.” He nodded to her, then stalked from the room. Rusts. Was that how Aradel saw Waxillium? A rogue nobleman accustomed to getting what he wanted, blunt in ways that Aradel could never be? The constable-general wasn’t a nobleman, and had to worry about funding, politics, the future of his men. Waxillium could just butt in and do what he liked, shooting and letting his status—both as an Allomancer and a house lord—get him out of it. That perspective was eye-opening. Waxillium was a trouble. A worthwhile trouble, as he did get things done, but almost as bad as the problems he solved. But for that brief moment he seemed less an ally and more a storm that you had to prepare for and clean up after. Disturbed, she walked up through the room to join him beside the body. “Those spikes give off strong lines,” Waxillium noted to her, pointing at Father Bin’s ruined face. “To my Allomantic senses, I mean. From what I’ve read, I think that means they’re not Hemalurgic spikes. Those are supposed to be tough to see and Push on, like metalminds.” “What would spiking him accomplish?” Marasi asked. “No idea,” Waxillium
said. “Still, when you get that body down, send me a sample of metal from each spike. I want to run some tests on their composition.” “All right,” Marasi said. “We should have seen it. She’s trying to drive a wedge between the Pathians and the Survivorists.” “The governor is Pathian,” Marasi said. “We think Bleeder is trying to get at him.” “You’re right,” Waxillium said, narrowing his eyes. “But that’s not her true goal. She wants to overthrow the city. Perhaps the governor’s murder will be the capstone. But what does this have to do with me?” “Everything doesn’t have to be about you, you know.” “Not everything,” Waxillium agreed. “Just this.” Annoyingly, he was probably right. Why else would Bleeder be parading around the city wearing the body of the man who had killed Waxillium’s wife? Waxillium left the corpse, pushing out of the building though the rear exit. There a narrow alleyway led out to the street. Marasi followed, joining Waxillium in the darkness and mists. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You don’t plan a dramatic murder like this one without preparing an escape route,” Waxillium said. “From the discarded handkerchiefs and handbags left behind, I’d guess the room was full when she revealed the body. The worshippers ran out the main doors, and the murderer would have expected this. She would have come out the back, getting away while everyone was either fleeing or stunned.” “Okay…” “Narrow alley,” Waxillium said, kneeling to inspect the wall. “Look at this.” Marasi squinted. The bricks along the wall here had been scraped, leaving behind something that had rubbed off on them. “Looks metallic. Silvery.” “Paint, I’d guess,” Waxillium said. “Where it came from is a small question, unfortunately, compared to the larger ones. Why would she kill this priest in the first place? She warned me she was going to. I thought she meant your father. Not Father Bin.” “Waxillium,” Marasi said. “We need more information. About what this creature can do, and what its motives might be.” “Agreed,” Waxillium said. He rose and stared down the alleyway. “I’d like to ask God a few hard questions. I doubt He’s going to make Himself available, however, so we’ll have to settle for someone else.” “Who?” Marasi asked. “I had some help tonight,” Waxillium said. “From an unexpected source. I have a feeling that an interview with her will be illuminating. Want to come?” “Of course I do,” Marasi said. “Why wouldn’t I?” “Well,” Waxillium said, “I’m worried that interacting with her might prove … theologically difficult.” 13 Wayne didn’t consider himself to be a particularly religious man. He figured that Harmony didn’t pay much attention to fellows like him, for the same reason a master painter didn’t often wonder what his mom had done with the pictures he’d given her as a toddler. That said, Wayne did like to visit the temple of the common man now and then. It made him feel better and forget his problems for a spell. So he knew the place when Wax sent him
on ahead to check it over. The temple huddled on the corner of an intersection, a stately old building, squat and stubborn. Newer tenements perched on either side, some six stories tall, but the temple had the air of an old gaffer in his chair who hadn’t the inclination to look higher than a fellow’s knees. As Wayne had expected, the door was open and friendly, still spilling out light, though it was starting to get late. He strolled down the lane and nodded to the temple guard, who wore a cap and overalls for his uniform and bore a ceremonial stick what seemed to have bits of hair sticking out of the end, likely from clubbing men upside the head for being too rowdy. Wayne tipped his hat to the man and chanted the proper invocation to gain admittance. “Hello, Blue. How watery’s the beer today?” “Don’t make trouble at the pub tonight, Wayne,” the man intoned in response. “My temper is really short.” “Temper?” Wayne said, passing him. “That’s a funny name for it, mate, but if the ladies like you givin’ silly names to your body parts, I ain’t gonna say nothin’.” Ritual introductions finished, Wayne stepped into the temple proper. Inside, men and women bowed at their places, heads drooping as they considered the deep complexities of the cosmere. Their prayers were made in mumbled exchanges to friends, and their incense in the burning of pipes. A picture of Old Ladrian himself hung over the altar, a man with a ripe paunch and a cup thrust forward, as if to demand attention. Wayne stood in the doorway, head bowed in respect, and dabbed his fingers into a trail of beer dripping from a nearby table, then anointed himself on the forehead and navel, the mark of the spear. The scent marked him as a pilgrim upon this holy ground, and he passed among the penitent seeking forgiveness on his way to the altar. The air of the place was odd tonight. Solemn. Yes, the temple was a place of contemplation, but it should also be a place of joy. Where were the hymns, sung in a holy slur? Where was the laughter, the joyful noise of celebration? Not good, he thought as he settled onto one of the pews—in this case a rough, circular table with scriptures carved into it, like Mic is a total git and The sausages is rubbish. He’d always liked that one. It brought up real theological implications, it did. If the food they ate was trash, were they ultimately trash? Were they all nothing in the end? Or should one instead see even trash as something to be elevated, as it had been created by the God Beyond like everything else? Wayne settled back in his seat and drew a few looks from nearby tables. As a lovely young conventicalist in a plunging top passed by carrying mugs, he took her arm. “I’ll haaave…” he blinked. “Ahll have some whiskey.” He had the accent and tone of a man who had been very,
very pious already this night. The maid shook her head and continued on her way. Those nearby ignored him. Wayne closed his eyes and listened to their prayers. “They’re just gonna let us starve. You heard the governor, Ren. All he cares about is his rusting reputation.” “We’re supposed to have the good life. Harmony made this land for us all. But do we get to enjoy it? No. Its riches only mean that the fine folk get more outfits and big houses.” “Something needs to change in this city. I ain’t out of work like those fellows at the steel mill, but Harmony…” “Sixteen-hour shifts. I leave before my little girl gets up, and she’s in bed before I get back. See her once a week, I do.” “We work and die so we can give it all up to the same people. They own the building we live in. Ain’t that the scam? Work for them all day, then give it all back at night for the privilege of bein’ able to survive another day to keep workin’.” Weighty prayers, those were. Wayne kicked back away from his table and walked to the altar at the front of the room, with its bottles on the rack behind shining in the light. Gas lights. Real traditional, this temple was. He settled down at the altar between a fellow with suspenders and another with arms so hairy he had to have some bear in him. Grandfather, at least. “Whhiskey,” Wayne said to the priest behind the altar. The man gave him a cup of water with a lemon in it instead. Rusts. Might have laid the accent on a little too thick. Wayne settled back, sipping his water. The men here at the altar, they didn’t complain. They just stared, holding their cups. Wayne nodded. Those were silent prayers, the kind that you could read in their eyes. He reached out and plucked the cup from the next man’s hands and gave it a sniff. Plain rum. What fun was that? He reached over to bear-fur and plucked his drink from his fingers as well, and gave it a sniff. Both men turned toward him as he downed the rest of his water, then mixed their drinks together in his cup. He gave it a squeeze of his lemon and a pinch of sugar from behind the altar, then added some ice, placed a coaster on top, and shook like his life depended on it. Which it might, since the fellow with rugs on his arms had just stood up and cracked his knuckles. Before he could start pounding, Wayne spun a cup toward each man and settled back in thought. The cups settled into place, and the altar fell silent. Hesitant, the men reached out and tried their drinks. Suspenders tried his first. “Wow,” the man said. “What did you do?” Wayne didn’t reply, tapping the table with one finger as hairy-arms tried his drink and nodded appreciatively. Living among the fancy folk had taught Wayne a few things. Fancy folk
couldn’t ever do anything the ordinary way. Sometimes he thought they acted strange just so they wouldn’t be like regular folk. But they did know how to get drunk. He’d give them that. The priest came over to investigate the disturbance, but both men just wanted more of what Wayne had made. The priest listened to them try to explain it, and then nodded—looked like he’d worked some fancy parties, or had some rich folk come in. Wayne slipped something onto the altar. A couple of bullet casings. “What’s this?” the priest asked, setting down the cup he’d been wiping. “Is this … is this aluminum?” Wayne stood up and gathered a few things from behind the altar, then piled them in the priest’s arms. He had ice, fortunately, from a delivery earlier. That was getting cheaper and cheaper these days, with shipments down from the mountains. The fellow also had a nice collection of spirits and some fixings. Enough for Wayne to make do. Wayne pointed for the man to follow him, then began working his way through the room. He stopped at each table, taking their drinks and reworking them. Those with beer got juice or soda water, mixed carefully and transformed. He always left them with something like what they’d started with, but new. Fresh. He added ginger to some—worked real nice with lemon—and bitters to others. He tried to use something from every table, and only got cussed at a couple of times. Before too long, he had the temple feeling far more companionable. In fact, he’d drawn something of a crowd. The group cheered as he settled down at a table in front of a tall, pretty woman with large eyes and long fingers. The drink he made for her wasn’t actually anything special—gin and lime, with some soda water and a hint of sugar—but the secret ingredient … well, that was something special. A pouch of blue powder he’d found at the party earlier that night. He’d traded some sand for it. He mixed the powder into the drink with a hidden twist of the fingers, shaking, before finally adding the lime. As he slid the cup in front of the woman, the drink’s blue liquid swirled and moved, then blushed to a deep violet, the color moving through it like growing mists. Those around him hushed in awe, and the woman smiled at him. He gave her a grin back. He was taken, yes, but he needed to keep practicing his flirtin’ or Ranette was likely to start ignoring him. And then the skin of the woman’s cheeks shifted to blue, then violet, just like the drink had. Wayne jumped back from the table as her skin returned to normal. She took the drink with a sly smile and sipped at it. “Nice,” she said, “but I usually like something with more kick to it.” The others in the temple were retreating to their pews. They’d enjoyed the show, but were looking forward to enjoying their liquor even more. They didn’t seem to have noticed
what the woman’s skin had done. Perhaps Wayne had been mistaken. He hesitantly took the seat back and looked at the woman, whose eyes—clear as daylight—shifted from blue to violet, then once again to blue. “Well hang me,” Wayne said. “You’re that immortal, ain’t you?” “Sure am,” she said, sipping her drink and holding out her hand for him to shake. “Name’s MeLaan. Waxillium told me to say ‘all yellow pants’ to prove it. You did well here tonight. When I first arrived, I felt like the place was going to burst from all the anger. You might have stopped a riot.” “It’s just one pub,” Wayne said, shaking her hand, then settling back in his chair. “One outta hundreds. If a riot is brewin’, I can’t stop it with some girly drinks.” “True, I suppose.” “What I need to do,” Wayne said, “is get the whole city drunk.” “Or, you know, advocate workers’ rights to bring down working hours, improve conditions, and meet a base minimum of pay.” “Yeah, yeah,” Wayne said. “That too. But if I could get everybody drunk, think how much happier this city would be.” “So long as you get me drunk first, I’d be fine with it.” She held out her cup to him. “Top a lady off, will you?” Wayne frowned. “Now, this ain’t right. You’re some kinda demigod or something. Shouldn’t you be moralizin’ at me?” “Lo, behold,” MeLaan said, wiggling her cup, “bring an offering to your deity in the form of one blue sunset, extra gin. And ye shall be blessed.” “I think I can do that,” Wayne said. “Bloody hell, maybe I am religious after all.” * * * The immortal demigod took a throaty slurp of her beer, then slammed the mug down onto the table, grinning like a four-year-old who had been paid in cookies to rat out her sister. Wax studied her as she looked Wayne in the eyes and let out a belch that could have woken the dead. Beside Wax, Wayne nodded in appreciation, looking quite impressed. He then downed his own beer and belched back at MeLaan, easily twice as long and loud. “How do you do that?” MeLaan asked. “Years of trainin’ and practice,” Wayne said. “I’ve been alive for well over half a millennium,” MeLaan said. “I am certain I have more practice than you.” “You don’t have the will, though,” Wayne said, wagging his finger. “You gotta want it.” He downed the rest of his mug and let out a protracted belch. Marasi, who sat next to Wax in their booth at the pub, looked horrified by the exchange. Wax had allowed her to drive them here, if only so he could rebind his wound and check it over. The painkillers were doing their job, though. He could barely feel the hit. After the short ride, he and Marasi had walked in on these two in the middle of their belching … contest? Wax wasn’t certain if it was a contest, or more a matter of mutual appreciation, like two virtuosos playing
their favorite songs. MeLaan finished her beer, then dramatically held up her hand. The palm split, forming lips, which then let out a soft belch. “Cheating,” Wayne said. “Just using what Father gave me,” MeLaan said. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t belch out of other body parts if you could.” “Well,” Wayne said, “now that you mention it, I can make a real interestin’ sound wif—” Wax cleared his throat. “Not to defer a conversation about which parts of Wayne’s body can and can’t make noise, but I have to admit that you aren’t what I expected, Your Grace.” “Bloody hell,” MeLaan said. “Please don’t call me that.” “You’re a servant of Harmony,” Wax said. “I’m from one of the later generations,” MeLaan said. “In kandra terms, I’m basically still a kid.” “You lived through the Catacendre,” Wax said. “You knew the Originators.” “I spent the Catacendre underground,” MeLaan said. “I was an adolescent, and didn’t know the land when it was covered in ash. You really don’t need to be intimidated by me.” “You’re over six hundred years old,” Marasi said. “So is dirt,” MeLaan said. She leaned forward. “Look, I’m just here to help. If you want someone to fawn over, I’ll send VenDell or one of the really ancient ones to you. They like it. I just want to see Paalm stopped, then helped.” Wax leaned forward on the table. He could sense in the way MeLaan smiled at people passing by—the way she tapped her finger to the tavern song a group of drunk men sang in the corner—that she liked people. She liked being here, among them. She wasn’t aloof, as he’d expected, or withdrawn. Not even that alien, despite the fact that she’d just made a mouth in her hand. “You’re the one who brought me my earring,” he said, fingering his ear with its tiny spike. “All those years ago.” MeLaan’s smile widened. “I was wearing the same body, but I’m still surprised you remember.” “And whose body is it?” Marasi asked. “Where did you get those bones?” “I made them,” MeLaan said, raising her chin. Her face went transparent, suddenly, revealing the skull underneath—one made of carved crystal of a vivid emerald color. “I prefer True Bodies, though if I need to I can take another form. I’ll warn you, as far as kandra go, I’m only so-so at impersonation.” “And this one we’re huntin’?” Wayne asked. He’d started building a houselike tower using the thin wooden coasters strewn around the tavern table, balancing them on their ends. “Paalm?” MeLaan said, turning her face back to normal. “She was one of our best. Of all the kandra I know, only TenSoon is better at it than she is.” “But she’ll be erratic,” Wax said. “She’s gone mad. That should help us spot her, even in disguise, right?” “Maybe,” MeLaan said, grimacing. She took a few of the coasters and started her own tower. “Paalm is good, and imitation … well, it’s kind of ingrained in us, particularly the older kandra who worked back in
the days of the Final Empire. Some of them don’t feel like they have personalities of their own; they don’t know how to live unless they’re being someone else.” “You seem to find the idea disturbing,” Wax said, curious. “I’m a youngster,” she said with a shrug. “Never really had to serve the Lord Ruler. I’ve always served Harmony, who seems like a generally nice fellow.” An odd way to refer to God. Wax glanced at Marasi, who cocked an eyebrow at him and shrugged. Around them, the pubgoers chattered with a low hum of energy and enthusiasm. Wax and the others had settled into a secluded booth at the side. The warm gas lighting was somehow friendlier, more alive than the electric lights back at his mansion. “All right,” Wax said to MeLaan. “Let’s talk about what Bleeder can do. And about how to kill her.” “You don’t need to kill her,” MeLaan said quickly, getting her tower to a second story. She glanced at Wayne, who already had his up to three levels. “Just remove her remaining spike, which will basically immobilize her. She’s confused; we can deal with her once we have her in custody.” “Confused?” Wax said. “She killed a priest by nailing him through the eyes.” MeLaan’s smile faded. “She only has one spike. She’s not thinking straight.” “Yes,” Wax said, “but she pulled the other spike out herself, right?” “We think so,” MeLaan admitted. “We’re weaker than other Hemalurgic creatures. Only two spikes, and we can be taken. So she removed one.” “She wanted freedom to kill,” Wax said. “She’s not ‘confused,’ MeLaan. She’s destructive and possibly psychotic. Tell me how to kill her.” MeLaan sighed. “Acid works, but that’s horribly inefficient. If you crush her skeleton, she’ll have a hard time moving, so maybe use that. Gunshots will be useless, as will most forms of physical damage. The spike—it’s the key. Pull it out, and she’ll revert to her primal state. It is the best way.” “Her primal state,” Marasi said. “A mistwraith.” MeLaan nodded. Wax tapped the table in thought. “If I can get the spike out, chances are that I’ve already immobilized her. If she’s tied up, what good will it do to remove the spike?” “Waxillium,” MeLaan said, leaning forward, “you do realize what you’re dealing with? Paalm was trained by the ancients, and served the Lord Ruler himself. She quashed rebellions and overthrew kingdoms in his service, and she is intimately familiar with the intricacies of Hemalurgy. By your own accounts, she’s learned to use spikes to grant herself Allomancy and Feruchemy—something we thought impossible. If you have her captured, that is a state she’s not likely to remain in for long. Remove that spike.” Wax felt a chill. “Right,” he said. “Will do.” “Rusts,” Marasi whispered. “I thought you didn’t want us to be intimidated by you.” “Me?” the kandra said. “I’m harmless.” She waved at the barmaid, then pointed at her mug. “I’m far less crazy than Paalm.” “Great,” Wax said. He glanced at Wayne. “You look concerned.” “Me?”
Wayne said, placing a fourth level onto his tower. “Sorry. Tryin’ to think of how to get everyone in the city drunk.” “I … I’m not going to ask.” Wax grabbed a few of the coasters as a barmaid dropped more on the table, noticing that they were playing with them. He started building a tower of his own. “So we get the spike out. How?” “Easiest way is to call me,” MeLaan said. “I can get it out. But if I’m not there, don’t wait on me. Break her bones, start pulling them out, and eventually you’ll find the spike. It will take a strong stomach.” Great. “Is there a way to spot a kandra? Wound patterns? Blood samples?” MeLaan dug into her pocket. “Once we’ve shifted shapes, we lock into that body and are that person. We’ll bleed, and if you take off a finger, our prints will remain that of the person we’re imitating. Even another kandra will have trouble spotting a duplicate. Haven’t you read the Historica?” “Several times,” Wax said, “but the kandra sections are kind of dull.” “I feel like I should be offended by that.” “Then you aren’t drunk enough,” Wayne responded. Five levels. Wax shook his head and concentrated on getting his second level built. “Anyway,” MeLaan said, “locating other kandra was a problem in the past. So we did something about it, just in case. The more scientifically minded among us developed this.” She slid something onto the table. A pair of needles, about as long as a man’s palm is wide, attached to metal syringes. Wax held one up. “Inject that into a kandra,” MeLaan said, “and the liquid inside will make her shape droop for a bit. The skin briefly goes clear, reveals who she really is.” “Nifty,” Wayne said. “One problem though,” MeLaan said. “If you stick it into someone who isn’t a kandra, it will kill them.” “Inconvenient,” Marasi said, examining the other one. “Yeah,” MeLaan said. “We’re working on that part. This is a last resort, obviously, but it will immobilize her briefly. If you want to find Paalm before using it, you can try to catch her in a lie. She won’t have the actual memories of the person she’s imitating. Conversely, if you see someone who isn’t Metalborn use a power, that outs her too.” “I’ve got a feeling that if she’s using her powers right in front of me, I’m dead anyway,” Wax said. The group fell silent. Wax took both syringes and tucked them into the pouch on his gunbelt. Marasi scribbled on a note pad, transcribing the conversation—he’d have to ask her for a copy. Drink refills arrived, and no payment was requested. What had Wayne done here before Wax arrived? He was afraid to ask. What help is this? Wax thought, frustrated, his tower falling to pieces. A weapon he could use only when he was already a hundred percent certain who the impostor was? It felt like so little. Bleeder could be anyone. Bleeder could manifest any of the powers. Bleeder
was ancient, brilliant, and crafty.… “She has a plan,” Wax said. “She’s not simply crazy, MeLaan. There is more to this.” “You’re still determined to kill her,” MeLaan said, sighing. “If I have to. Why are you so hesitant? I’d think that the kandra would be determined, more than anyone, to see this problem dealt with.” “She’s not a ‘problem,’” MeLaan said. “She’s a person. Yes, I want to see her stopped. She needs to be stopped. But…” She settled back, then knocked over her small tower of coasters with a flick of the finger. “There’s so few of us left. Hell, there weren’t ever more than five or six hundred of us, and we lost a lot in the days before the Final Ascension. Imagine if your entire race consisted of three hundred people, lawman. Maybe you’d be a little more hesitant to see one of them slagged.” “A person’s species shouldn’t matter,” Wax snapped. “I don’t care if there are three hundred of you left or just three; when one of you starts nailing people to walls in my city, I’m going to—” “Wax,” Wayne interrupted, balancing his sixth story of beer-mat coasters. “Check your pulse, mate.” Wax took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he said. “What was that,” Marasi said, wagging her pencil from Wayne to Wax. “Pulse?” “Sometimes,” Wayne said, “Wax forgets he’s a person and starts thinkin’ he’s a rock instead.” “It’s Wayne speak,” Wax said, grabbing some coasters and starting another tower. “For times when he thinks I should be a little more empathetic.” “You can be single-minded, mate.” “Says the man who once collected eighty different kinds of beer bottles.” “Yeah,” Wayne said, smiling fondly. “Did that mostly to annoy you, I did.” “You’re kidding.” He shook his head. “Started to hate all those rusting bottles, but each morning you’d curse when you tripped over a new box o’ them, and it was just so melodious…” “You know,” MeLaan said, taking a pull on her drink, “you two aren’t anything like I was led to believe.” “Tell me about it,” Marasi said. “For one thing,” MeLaan added, “I had no idea that Kid Wayne was so talented with beer-mat sculptures.” “He cheated,” Wax said. “He stuck some of the coasters on his lower level together with that gum stuff he’s been chewing.” Marasi and MeLaan turned to Wayne, who grinned. He picked up his sculpture, knocking down the top levels, but revealing that the bottom three had—indeed—been stuck together. “Wayne,” Marasi said, aghast. “Are you that concerned with impressing us?” “It wasn’t about impressing anyone,” Wax said. “The contest wasn’t about how high the towers got—it was about if I’d spot what he did. He always cheats somehow. Back to the matter at hand, MeLaan. Your rogue kandra friend is planning something. If her plot gains momentum, it will roll over us and crush this city.” “I agree,” MeLaan said. “So what do we do?” “We outthink her,” Wax said. “I need to know her motive. Why is she doing this? What drove her to pull
out her spike in the first place?” “I wish I knew,” MeLaan said. “We’ve been trying to figure out the same thing.” “Tell me about her, then,” Wax said, tapping at his empty shot glass. “What is she like? What are her passions?” “Paalm was the ultimate blank slate,” MeLaan said. “Old-style kandra. Like I said, she spent so much time out on missions that she barely had a personality of her own. She had real trouble with that at the dawn of a new world. Some of the older generations, they liked to spend time in the Homeland, only left for a mission when forced to. Not Paalm. She was the Father’s own, the kandra reserved specifically to do missions for the Lord Ruler.” She hesitated. “She might know things from him. Things the rest of us weren’t told. I think he may even have had her imitate Inquisitors at times, act as a mole among them. “Anyway, she wouldn’t have been able to impersonate an Inquisitor without a good grasp of Allomancy and Feruchemy. So maybe that’s where she got the knowledge. She was loyal to the Lord Ruler, and then when he was gone, she became loyal to Harmony. Fanatical about it. Insisted on being given mission after mission, and never spent time with the rest of us. Kept to herself. She was almost always in character. Until…” “Murderous rampage,” Wayne said softly. “It’s always the quiet ones. Well, and the psychopathic ones. That too.” So what does that tell me? Wax thought, leaving his little tower at three stories. How would I approach this if it were any other criminal? MeLaan leaned back for a moment, as if lost in thought, then flipped a coaster at Wax’s tower to knock it down. She grunted. “What?” Wax said. “I was just curious to see if you were cheating too.” “Wax never cheats,” Wayne said, face halfway in his mug. Wax had never figured out how he could talk and drink at the same time without choking. “That’s incorrect,” Wax said. “I cheat infrequently. That way nobody’s expecting it.” He stood up. “Can you think of a reason Bleeder would target the governor in particular?” MeLaan shook her head. “Do any of the other kandra know her better than you do?” “Maybe one of the older ones,” MeLaan said. “I’ll see if I can get one of them to come talk to you.” “Good,” Wax said. “But first I want you three watching the governor.” “I’ve got to report in to the precinct offices first,” Marasi said. “I want to follow up on something there.” “Fine,” Wax said. “Wayne, you head to the governor’s mansion first.” “He ditched me last time.” “He won’t again,” Wax said. “I’ve persuaded him to listen, though we’ll need him to meet MeLaan soon.” “Sure, all right,” Wayne said. “It wasn’t like I was planning to, you know, sleep tonight or anythin’.” “Sleep might be in short supply going forward,” Wax said. “You want me to go with him, Dawnshot?” MeLaan asked. “Depends. Marasi, would
you like some backup?” “Yes please,” she said. “Watch her,” Wax said, nodding toward Marasi. “And maybe give Aradel a glimpse of your nature. It’s probably time to inform him what we’re up against.” “Already done,” Marasi said. “Though I’m sure he’d like proof.” Wax grunted. He hadn’t ordered her to do that. “Be quick about your errand,” Wax told her. “And get to the governor. I want more than one set of eyes on him. And before we split, I want each pair of us to exchange codes, individual and unknown to the others, so we each have a way to authenticate ourselves to one another. I’ve done the same with the governor and his top staff.” Harmony, this was going to be a nightmare. “Watching the governor isn’t going to be enough, Wax,” Marasi said, standing up from the table. “You yourself said it. Too reactive. So what else are we going to do?” “I’ll come up with something.” The others stood, and Wax towed Wayne by the arm to check to see that they were square with the pub manager. Surprisingly, Wayne had indeed paid for everything he should have. On their way toward the door, Wax explained to his friend a little idea he had for protecting the governor. They stepped into the entryway of the pub, where MeLaan was waiting while Marasi fired up her beast of a motorcar. Wayne hiked off to catch a carriage to take him to the governor’s mansion, and Wax took MeLaan by the arm. “I hate this,” he noted, soft enough to keep the bouncer outside from hearing. “Not being able to trust people I should always be able to. Second-guessing myself.” “Yeah,” she replied. “But you’ll handle it. There’s a reason He came to you for this.” She stepped in closer. Rusts, she was attractive—but then, it would be odd if she weren’t, all things considered. “You and I aren’t the only ones hunting Paalm, lawman—every kandra in the city is searching for her. Thing is, I don’t think many of my brothers and sisters will be of use. They’re timid about hurting others, particularly after what TenSoon was forced to do during the Remarked Duplicity. And beyond that, they can be an … inconsistent group.” “They’re God’s servants,” Wax said. “Yes,” MeLaan replied, “and they’ve had centuries upon centuries to refine their eccentricities. Getting older does not tend to make you more normal, let me tell you. We don’t think like killers. We’ve been too closely in contact with Harmony. What Paalm is doing, it baffles us. It goes against everything we’ve believed and lived for centuries. I don’t think we’ll be able to find her, not in time. But you … you can.” “Because I think like a killer.” “I didn’t—” “It’s all right,” Wax said, releasing her arm. “I am what I am.” He took his mistcoat from the peg by the door and shrugged it on before stepping out into the night. “Thanks, by the way,” he said. “For?” He tapped his ear, and the earring
he wore in it. “This.” “I was just the delivery girl.” “Doesn’t matter. It was what I needed. When I needed it.” He dropped a bullet casing, then stilled it with his foot. “I’ll meet you all at the governor’s mansion.” 14 If you want to know a man, dig in his firepit. The phrase was from the Roughs, maybe koloss in origin. Basically, it meant that you could judge a lot about a man’s life by what he threw away—or by what he was willing to burn in order to stay warm. A loud church clock rang eleven as Wax moved through the mists on Allomantic jumps. The sound echoed in the night, the bell tower hidden in the darkness. Eleven was not late these days, particularly not in the heart of the city, but it should have marked a time when most men and women had begun to seek their beds. Labor started early in the morning. Only, a sizable portion of the laborers in the city didn’t have a job to get up for right now. That was reflected in the busy streets and busier pubs, not to mention the Soothing parlors he passed, still open well into the night. Those were places where the downhearted could seek a different kind of relief, in the form of an Allomancer who—for a small fee—would wipe away their emotions for a time and leave them numb. Rioting parlors were a different beast. There, you could choose the emotion you wanted and have it stoked within you. Those might be even more popular, judging by the line he saw outside one. Wax delayed on a rooftop, listening, then headed for the sound of men shouting. He ran along the peaked roof and Pushed off the nails in the shingles, launching himself over a set of apartments in a quiet flutter, coming down and landing on a street beyond. Here, he found a small Pathian sanctuary. Not the church with the bell he’d heard earlier; Pathian structures were too small for that. Built to resemble old Terris huts, they were often empty save for two chairs. One for you. One, ostensibly, for Harmony. The religion forbade worship, in a formal way. But talking to God was encouraged. Tonight, the little sanctuary was under siege. They shouted and threw rocks: a group of shadows in the mist, probably drunk. He could make them out well enough; a misty night was never too dark in the city, not with all the ambient light reflecting off the vapors. Wax yanked Vindication from her holster and stalked forward, mistcoat flaring behind him. His profile was enough. The first man who spotted him emerging from the mists yelled a warning and the men scattered, leaving the detritus of their tiny riot. Fallen stones. A few bottles. Wax watched their metal lines to make sure none of them rounded back on him. One stopped nearby, but kept his distance. He shook his head, stepping up to the sanctuary. He found the missionary cowering inside, a Terriswoman in intricate braids.
Pathian clergy was a strange thing. On one hand, the religion emphasized man’s personal connection to Harmony—doing good, without formality. On the other hand, people needed direction. Someone to explain all of this. Pathian missionaries—called priests by outsiders, though they rarely used the term for themselves—set up in places like this, explaining the Path to all who came. A clergy, yes, but not in the formal way of the Survivorists. He’d always found it curious that the small Pathian sanctuaries—with large doorways on eight sides—let in the mists, while Survivorist churches observed the mists from behind domes of glass, comfortable in their ornate rooms full of golden statues and fine wood pews. The woman looked up at him as he knelt, smelling oil. Her lantern lay broken nearby. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I … Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” Her eyes flicked toward the gun. On principle, Wax didn’t holster the thing. “It would be best if you retired for the night,” Wax said. “But I live in the loft upstairs.” “Go to the Village then,” Wax said. “In fact, gather any of your colleagues you can in a short time and take them as well. A Survivorist priest has been brutally murdered by someone posing as a Pathian missionary.” “Sweet Harmonies,” the woman whispered. Wax left her to gather her things and, hopefully, do as he told her. He struck out into the night, following a few lines of metal toward where the man he’d scared off earlier had hidden. Wax studied the darkened alleyway in the mists, then dropped a shell casing and launched himself into the air. A careful Push let him drop straight into the alleyway, where he landed and leveled a gun at the head of the person hiding there. Who immediately soiled himself, judging from the stench and the liquid pooling at the young man’s feet. Wax sighed and lifted Vindication. The young man scrambled backward, stumbling over a box of trash, adding to his humiliation. “You’re going to leave that missionary alone,” Wax said. “She had nothing to do with the murder.” The youth nodded. Wax dropped a shell casing and prepared to launch himself back into the night. “M-murder?” the youth asked. “Of the…” Wax hesitated. “Wait. Why were you here, attacking that sanctuary?” The boy whimpered. “They came into the pub, two of them in those Pathian robes, and cursed out the Survivor an’ us.” “Two?” Wax said, advancing on the boy, making him cringe. “There was more than one?” He nodded, then—crying—scrambled away and ran into the night. Wax let him go. I should have guessed, he thought, launching himself into the air. The news of the murder couldn’t have traveled this quickly. There was more to the plot than the one killing. Rusts. Were other priests in danger? Two people. Bleeder and someone else? Or two helpers? MeLaan had seemed confident that Bleeder would be working alone, but this offered evidence to the contrary. And the attempt to kill Wax earlier, the ploy involving the server at ZoBell Tower,
matched too well with his fears of an assassin to be coincidence. Bleeder had help, likely from Wax’s uncle. He’d look into that later. For now, however, there was a different lead he wanted to chase. He eventually reached the location he’d set out to find: Ashweather Carriage and Coach, a large open yard at the northern edge of the octant where a fleet of carriages of various styles was stored. Rich-looking landaus with retractable tops. Conventional buggies, with less lavish upholstery and wood, to attract a modest clientele. A few surrey-style, with frilled tops. By far the most common in the carriage park was the standard road coach: the four-wheeled vehicle with a completely enclosed passenger compartment, and room at the top front for a driver. They called them Barringtons in the city, after Lord Barrington, and though the paint jobs could vary wildly, the style was pretty much standardized. Wax’s own coaches were Barringtons. He counted seven in a line here, all lit by electric lamps atop towering stanchions high enough to light the whole yard and adjacent large, low buildings. Those were stables, of course, as his nose confirmed. All of the Ashweather Company’s carriages were painted a shiny black, common for vehicles used as cabs in the city, and they had a round shield on the side proclaiming the Cett family heritage. A shield painted silver. The color that had scraped onto the bricks in the alleyway outside the church. Bleeder had likely fled in a coach just like one of these, one that had been told to wait while Bleeder killed the priest. Wax inspected each vehicle in turn, running his fingers over the silver-painted shields on the sides. No scrapes. “Can I help you?” a curt voice demanded. Steelsight indicated a person walking up the row of vehicles. No weapon held, but metal buttons on his coat, a ring on each hand, some change in the pocket, and a watch in his waistcoat. A few pins in the collar of his shirt—very small lines—gave Wax an idea of how tall the man was. Wax turned toward the voice. The man turned out to be a pudgy fellow in a distinctive formal suit with long tails, identifying him as the establishment’s proprietor. Wax had known more than a few Cetts in his time. He’d never gotten along with any of them. Lean or fat, rich or scrawny, they all got the same calculating look on their faces as they tried to estimate how much money Wax would be willing to part with. This Cett’s eyes flicked toward Wax’s suit, which was rumpled, swum-in, and missing the cravat. With the duster on, he likely didn’t look very distinguished—and the man’s expression hardened. Then he saw the tassels on the duster. His entire demeanor changed immediately. His posture went from “Stay away from my coaches” to “You look like the type who will pay extra for velvet pillows.” “My lord,” he added, nodding his head. “Would you like to hire a coach for the evening?” “You know me?” Wax
said. “Waxillium Ladrian, I believe.” “Good,” Wax said, digging into his pocket and removing a small steel sheet, engraved on one side. His credentials, proof that he was a constable. “I’m on constabulary business. How many of these coaches do you have?” Wax nodded toward the line. Cett’s expression fell as he realized Wax wasn’t likely to be paying him for anything tonight. “Twenty-three,” the man finally said. “Lots of coaches still in service for the night,” Wax said. “Considering the hour.” “We work as long as people are out, constable,” Cett said. “And tonight, people are out.” Wax nodded. “I need a list of the drivers who are still working, their routes, and any prearranged clients they picked up today.” “Of course.” Cett seemed more relaxed as he led Wax toward a small building in the center of the carriage yard. As they walked, a coach arrived—no scraped sides—drawn by a pair of sweaty horses with drooping heads and a bit of froth at the mouths. Long hours for the beasts too, it seemed. Inside the building, Cett fetched some records from a desk. Too eager, Wax thought as the man hurried over and offered them. Whenever someone worked with the authorities too easily, it made Wax’s eye twitch. So he took his time browsing through the lists Cett proffered and kept an eye on the man as he did so. “What percentage of your pickups are impromptu, and what percentage are arranged ahead of time?” “Half and half, for the black coaches,” Cett said. “The open carriages are more spur-of-the-moment.” He had a good game face, but something was bothering him. What was he hiding? You think everyone is hiding something, Wax told himself, flipping through the pages. Stay on the task at hand. Wax dug into the list, hoping Bleeder had decided to hire a coach for a pickup to be certain she had her escape planned, rather than just grabbing a cab on the street. Finding the one who had driven her would be useful either way. He looked over the records for the drivers still out for the night. Each had a few prearranged pickups over the course of the day, but only three had been scheduled around the time of the murder. And two of those were repeat customers with a long list of pickups in the past. That left one. A person to be picked up in the Fourth Octant, and to be driven “at liberty,” meaning they were to be driven as long as the client wished. Shanwan was the name listed. A Terris name. The word meant “secret.” “I need to find this driver,” Wax said, holding up the list and pointing. If they’re still alive. “Coach sixteen,” Cett said, rubbing his chin. “That’s Chapaou’s. No telling when he’ll be back; you probably don’t want to wait. I can send you a message when he returns.” “Maybe,” Wax said, but dallied. The door slammed open and a young woman in trousers and suspenders burst in. “Boss,” she said, “late-night play getting out on
Bonnweather. They’re going to want rides.” “We sent coaches there already.” “Not enough,” the young woman said. “Boss, there are lots of men on the streets. Common men, the type that will make the rich folk nervous. Playgoers will want carriages.” Cett nodded. “Wake Jone and Forgeron. Send them and anyone else you can rouse. Anything more?” “We could have more wheels out for certain, particularly near the pubs.” “Coinshot,” Wax guessed, noticing the bag of metal bits—probably pieces of scrap—the young woman carried. “You’ve been using Allomancer runners to scout for busy areas to send drivers.” “Is that surprising?” Cett asked. “It’s expensive.” “You have to spend money to make money, constable,” Cett said. “And as you can see, I’m having a very busy night. Perhaps you could leave me to it, if I promise to—” “Coinshot,” Wax said to the girl. “You see coach number sixteen out there? I assume your boss has you checking in on the drivers, make sure they’re doing their jobs?” “How—” she began. “You don’t hire an Allomancer just for traffic reports,” Wax said. “Coach sixteen?” She glanced at Cett, who nodded. So whatever Cett was hiding, it probably didn’t have to do with this driver. In fact, it probably didn’t have anything to do with Bleeder. Just your average, run-of-the-mill lawbreaking. At least one Allomancer on staff, Wax thought. “I didn’t see sixteen on the streets,” the young Allomancer said, turning to Wax. “But that’s because Chapaou is at a Soothing parlor over on Decan Street. His coach is around the corner.” “At a Soothing parlor?” Cett demanded. “He’s on the clock!” “I know,” the Allomancer said. “I thought you’d want to hear.” “Hm, yes,” Wax said. “And what of the Rioter you have on staff. Are they there too?” “Nah,” the Allomancer said. “He’s on—” She cut off, and grew pale. The entire room fell still. “Using emotional Allomancy,” Wax said, “to drum up customers. Riot passing people, make them feel tired or urgent, and more willing to take the coach conveniently parked right across the street.” Cett looked sick. Yes, that was it. Flagrant use of a Rioter to drum up business, a violation of the Allomantic Agreement of ’94. There were entire departments in the government that watched for this sort of thing. Fortunately, while it was a dangerous crime, it wasn’t one that worried Wax at the moment. “You don’t have any proof…” Cett said, then thought better of it. “I’ll be speaking with my attorney. I’ll have you know that my people are off-limits for interrogation without a judicial order to—” “Take it up with the constable-general,” Wax said. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him soon. For now, I need a description of this carriage driver of yours, along with the names of any pets he owns.” * * * Marasi walked along a counter topped with a row of rifles, each accompanied by a domed steel helmet, a folded heavy jacket, and a box of ammunition. Rusts! She hadn’t realized the constabulary had access to these kinds
of weapons. “Well,” she said, looking back at MeLaan, “we’re ready if a koloss warlord decides to invade again.” A pair of corporals, both men, were looking over each weapon to confirm it was in good repair. Though she spotted more than one pair of bleary eyes, the place was alive with activity. More and more constables were arriving, called in for extra duty. As they entered through the main doors they tended to stop as Marasi had, looking at the row of weapons. Perhaps that was why Aradel had ordered them set out like this. A quick visual reminder of how dangerous things were growing in the city. Marasi rounded the front counter and entered the offices behind. A young woman corporal passed by, handing Marasi a warm cup of dark tea. It smelled strong, cooked down to increase the concentration of caffeine. She tried a sip. Yup. Awful. She drank another sip anyway. She wasn’t going to embarrass herself by asking for honey when everyone else was chugging the stuff like it was some kind of contest. MeLaan trailed after her, looking around the room with interest. The voluptuous kandra drew glances. And, well, stares. It wasn’t often that a gorgeous, six-and-a-half-foot-tall woman strode into the constabulary offices clad in trousers and a tight shirt. She seemed to like the attention, judging by the way she smiled at the men they passed. Of course she likes the attention, Marasi thought. Otherwise she wouldn’t have chosen a body so exquisitely proportioned. It seemed blatant to Marasi. After all, technically MeLaan wasn’t even human. “I didn’t expect to find women in uniform here,” MeLaan noted. “I’d assumed you to be an oddity.” “The constabulary is very egalitarian,” Marasi said. “The Ascendant Warrior serves as a model for all women. You won’t find as many of us here as in, say, the solicitors’ offices, but it’s hardly considered an unfeminine profession.” “Sure, sure,” MeLaan said, smiling at a young lieutenant as the two of them made their way to the back rooms, where the records office was. “But I’ve always found humans to be rather sexist. A natural result of your sexual dimorphism, VenDell says.” “And kandra aren’t sexist?” Marasi said, blushing. “Hmm? Well, considering that a male kandra you’re talking to today might decide to be a woman tomorrow, I’d say we have a different perspective on all that.” Marasi blushed further. “Surely you’re exaggerating.” “Not really. Wow, you blush easily, don’t you? I’d have thought you’d find this natural, considering that your God is basically a hermaphrodite at this point. Both good and evil, Ruin and Preservation, light and dark, male and female. Et cetera et cetera.” They reached the doors to the records office and Marasi turned away to hide her blush. She really wished she’d just find a way to get over her embarrassment. “Harmony’s not my god. I’m a Survivorist.” “Oh, yeah,” MeLaan said, “because that makes sense. Worship the guy who died, rather than the one who saved the world.” “The Survivor transcended death,” Marasi said, looking
back, hand on the door, but not entering. “He survived even being killed, adopting the mantle of the Ascendant during the time between Preservation’s death and Vin’s Ascension.” Rust … was she arguing theology with a demigod? MeLaan, however, just cocked her head. “What, really?” “Um … yes. Harmony wrote of it himself in the Words of Founding, MeLaan.” “Huh. I really ought to read that thing one of these days.” “You haven’t…” Marasi blinked, trying to fathom a world where one of the Faceless Immortals didn’t know doctrine. “I keep meaning to,” MeLaan said, shrugging. “Never can find the time.” “You’re over six hundred years old.” “That’s the thing about having an eternity, kid,” MeLaan said. “It gets really easy to procrastinate. Are we going in that room or not?” Marasi sighed, pushing into a room filled with filing cabinets and tables piled high with ledgers and broadsheets. This was Aradel’s doing; he liked to keep his thumb on what people were saying and writing in the city. So far, he didn’t do much with the collection besides watch for reports of crimes his men had missed, but Marasi had plans. Unfortunately, Constable Miklin—who ran the records office—was one of Reddi’s closest friends. As Marasi entered, Miklin and the other two people working there looked up, then immediately turned back to their files. “Who’s the civilian?” Miklin asked from his desk in the corner. How did he get his hair to stand up straight like that? Almost like a patch of grass growing from a pot. “Special investigator from another jurisdiction,” Marasi said. “Lord Ladrian sent her.” Miklin sniffed. “I’m led to believe this wisp hunt is your doing? I barely got to the offices tonight before I was sent back here to dig up information on that dam breaking.” “What did you find?” Marasi said eagerly, slipping between two large filing cabinets—he had them arranged like sentries—and stepping up to his desk. “Nothing,” Miklin said. “Dead end. Waste of my time.” “I’d like to see what you found anyway,” Marasi said. “If it’s not too much trouble.” Miklin rested his hands on the table. He spoke softly. “Why are you here, Colms?” “I thought Aradel told you,” Marasi said. “The dam breakage might—” “Not that. Here. In the constabulary. You had an offer to join the octant’s senior prosecutor on a permanent basis, with a letter of commendation on your internship with him. I looked into it. And now … what? You suddenly want to chase criminals? Strap on some six-guns like you’re from the rusting Roughs? That’s not what police work is like.” “I’m well aware,” Marasi said dryly. “But thank you for the information. What did you find?” He sighed, then tapped a folder with the back of his hand. “Rusting waste of my time,” he muttered. Marasi took the folder and retreated between the filing cabinets. She wished it were only Miklin she had to deal with, but the two other constables made their opinions known with quiet sniffs of disdain. Marasi felt them glaring at her
as she led MeLaan out of the room, clutching her folder. “Why do they treat you like that?” MeLaan asked as they slipped out. “It’s complicated.” “People tend to be. Why do you let them treat you like that?” “I’m working on it.” “You want me to do something?” MeLaan said. “I could scare the cynicism right out of those people, show them you’ve got friends that—” “No!” Marasi said. “No, please. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.” MeLaan followed her as she scurried to her desk outside of Aradel’s office. A lanky female constable stood there, one foot on Marasi’s chair, chatting with the man one desk over and sipping her tea. Marasi cleared her throat twice before the woman—Taudr was her name, wasn’t it?—finally looked at her, rolled her eyes, and moved out of the way. Marasi settled down. MeLaan pulled over a chair. “You sure you don’t want me—” “No,” Marasi said immediately, digging into the folder. She took a deep breath. “No, please.” “I’m sure your friend Waxillium could come on over, fire off a few slugs, force them to stop being such sourlips.” Oh, Survivor, no, Marasi thought, the image of it making her sick. But MeLaan obviously wasn’t going to let this go without an explanation. “I’m beginning to realize that Waxillium is part of the reason why they treat me as they do,” Marasi said, opening the folder Miklin had prepared. “Life in the precinct follows a hierarchy. The sergeants start as corporals, work the streets, put in ten or fifteen years doing a hard beat and finally earn a promotion. The captains start out as lieutenants, and mostly come from noble stock. Once in a while, a sergeant works his or her way up. But everyone’s expected to put in their time at the bottom.” “And you…” “I skipped all that,” Marasi said. “I applied for—and got—an important position as Aradel’s chief aide. Waxillium makes that worse, as I’m associated with him. He’s like a whirlwind, blowing through and messing everything up. But he’s also good at what he does and a high-ranking nobleman, so nobody complains too loudly. I, however…” “Not noble.” “Not noble enough,” Marasi said. “My father is low-ranked, and I’m illegitimate. That makes me the available target, when Waxillium is off-limits.” MeLaan leaned back in her chair and scanned the room. “Spook was always droning on about things like this—that bloodline shouldn’t matter as much as capability. You doing what you did should be impressive to everyone, not threatening. Hell, you said the place was egalitarian.” “It is,” Marasi said. “That’s why I could get the job in the first place. But it doesn’t stop people from resenting me. I’m the way the world is changing, MeLaan, and change is frightening.” “Huh,” the kandra said. “And the lower ranks just go along with this? You think they’d like you showing that someone can jump in line.” “You don’t know a lot about human nature, do you?” “Of course I do. I’ve studied, and imitated, dozens of people.” “I suspect
you understand individuals, then,” Marasi said. “The interesting thing about people is that while they might seem unique, they actually play into broad patterns. Historically, the working class has often been more resistant to change than the class oppressing them.” “Really?” MeLaan asked. Marasi nodded. She started to reach for some books on the small shelf beside her desk, but stopped. This wasn’t the time. In fact, they might be witnessing one of the exceptions to this rule, outside on the streets. And, like many upendings of the status quo, when it did happen, it could be violent. Like a steam engine’s boiler that had been plugged up, given no release until suddenly … everything exploded. Nobody liked to realize they’d been had. People in Elendel believed they were living the good life—they’d been told all their lives that Harmony had blessed them with a rich and lavish land of bounty. You could listen to that sort of talk only so long before starting to wonder why all the incredible orchards were owned by someone else, while you had to work long hours just to feed your children. Marasi dug into the contents of the folder, which listed the events surrounding the flooding to the east. MeLaan settled back in her seat. What a curious creature she was, sitting with head held high, meeting the glances of people who passed without the least concern about what anyone thought of her. Miklin was annoying, but he hadn’t let his displeasure undermine his work, which was meticulous and thorough. He’d included constable reports on the dam breakage, a piece written by the engineer who had investigated the problem, and broadsheet clippings from Elendel regarding the disaster. Most importantly, there was a transcript of the recent trial and execution of the farmer who had caused the flood. He claimed he’d wanted to ruin his neighbor’s harvest in an “accident.” But the saboteur had packed too much dynamite, and had blown a hole in the dam large enough to cause the entire thing to fail. Dozens dead, and crops destroyed throughout the region, causing grain shortages. The defense had called witnesses who claimed that the saboteur, a man named Johnst, had been acting erratically. They claimed he was obviously mad. And the more she read, the more Marasi was convinced he was mad—if only because Bleeder was. “Look at this,” Marasi said, handing a sheet to MeLaan. The kandra took it and read, then grunted. “He couldn’t remember the names of his children at the trial?” “Seems like good evidence that Johnst had been replaced, wouldn’t you say?” “Yes and no,” MeLaan said. “The old guard, they are really good at interrogating people and doing research before taking a new form. We don’t have to do that so much anymore—most of the forms we take are personas we’ve made up ourselves. If this was Bleeder, she must have been pressed for time.” MeLaan pointed at a section farther down the page. “This is much better proof, if you ask me.” Marasi scooted over, looking at the
paragraphs indicated. “Wow,” Marasi said, taking the paper back. She hadn’t reached that section yet. “Yeah. Escaping the grave, eh? She actually let them bury her?” “Undoubtedly,” MeLaan said. “Paalm is nothing if not dedicated to her craft.” “Then why forget the names of the children?” MeLaan shook her head. “No idea.” Either way, this seemed to be enough to take to Aradel. “Come on,” she said. 15 One thing that Wax’s life in the Roughs had taught him was that men would monetize anything. The first time he’d seen someone selling water, he’d been surprised. Who sold something that literally fell from the sky? Now, more than twenty years later, he was surprised nobody in Elendel had found a way to charge a tax on collecting rainwater. If someone wanted it, you could charge for it. That went double for Allomancy, though there were some conservatives who decried the increasing commercialization of the Metallic Arts. Feruchemists for hire were much scarcer than Allomancers, perhaps because Terris traditions viewed their powers with such reverence. Wax walked up the steps toward the building, which stood alone on the street in a fairly nice neighborhood of town, even if this was the darker end of the lane, so to speak. The place was two stories tall, and had the window shades drawn, though light inside gave them a warm glow. A black coach—with a silver crest, scraped across its face—was parked in the drive to the right. The Soothing washed over him right as he reached the door. A calm, gentle feeling—like emotional anesthetic. Like someone had pressed a pillow against his emotions in an attempt to lovingly smother them. Sloppy, he thought. Should have brought my hat. It had an aluminum lining, and Bleeder could have access to a spike letting her Soothe or Riot. Well, he’d have to fetch it later. He pushed into the building, entering a room dimly lit with lamps in red shades. A scattering of men and women lounged on cushions inside, smoking cigars or incense pipes, staring at the ceiling, which was painted like a stained-glass window in a pretty, abstract pattern. Most businesses would be closed by this hour, but not the Soothing parlors. Visiting one was more expensive than a night at the pub, but had none of the side effects. Or to be more precise, it had different side effects. A woman in a matronly gown—and a hat, likely aluminum-lined—approached Wax, probably to take payment, but Wax flashed his credentials. “If you think credentials will get you in free,” the proprietor said, “then you must be new to the force.” Wax gave her a dry smile, tucking away the metal plate. She ran a low-grade Soothing parlor. While what she did wasn’t illegal—amusingly, it was fine to manipulate people’s emotions so long as they were paying for it—she’d be used to the constables checking up on her. Not only did these sorts of places tend to attract people who were hiding from something, it was very possible for a disreputable Soothing parlor to take
advantage of its clients. None of the people here matched Chapaou’s description, but Soothing parlors often had more than one room. “Short man,” Wax said, “balding. Known as Chapaou, but may not have given that name.” The proprietor nodded and gestured for Wax to follow as she crossed the room, weaving between the people lounging on the floor. The dim, smoky building should have left Wax jumpy—this was just the sort of place where accidents or ambushes happened—but the Soothing was difficult to pierce. It tore away the top layers of his concern, exposing those beneath—his worry for Wayne and Marasi. Beneath that, a surprising frustration—even anger—at God. Then those emotions too became as fluttering wings, leaving him hollow. Not calm, just empty. He wanted to settle into one of the chairs, close his eyes, and let out a sigh of relaxation. Bleeder would wait. Surely she wouldn’t try to kill again tonight. Why worry if she did? He probably couldn’t stop her anyway. He found he hated that sensation. These emotions were his; they were a core of his self. Taking them away didn’t make him happy or help him forget. It just made him feel sick. He picked up his pace, trying to urge the proprietor faster as they left the room with the cushions and stepped into a long hallway. Here, they passed several other rooms: A completely white chamber with people sitting cross-legged on the floor. Another that was completely black, no lights at all, the people inside barely visible. There was even a room with painted trees on the walls, the ground covered in thatch, like a Terris meeting hut. A lone man sat in this one, on a solitary chair, eyes closed. The proprietor led Wax up a set of steps. Perhaps the man in the Terris room had been one of the Soothers—the parlor would have at least one in here somewhere, extending out a small bubble of Soothing. Parlors were supposed to have aluminum sheets in the walls to keep the emotional Allomancy contained from the neighborhood, but the rule wasn’t uniformly enforced. The proprietor led Wax to a small room on the second floor, unadorned save for a couch at the center for massages. Chapaou didn’t lie on that. Instead, he paced by a latched window in the far wall, frustrating the masseuse who stood nearby with her arms folded. An old man sat in a chair by the wall. The metal vials in his pocket—visible to Wax as small, diffuse lines pointing at the suspended flakes—marked him as an Allomancer. Wax raised his eyebrow. Chapaou had paid for a private session. Where had he found that kind of money? The coach driver stopped in place, looking toward Wax. His eyes flicked toward the guns at Wax’s hips, then he fell to his knees, weeping. The aged Soother rose with audible cracks from his joints. “I’ve done what I can, Mistress Halex,” he said to the proprietor. “But this man doesn’t need Allomancy. He needs a physician.” “He’s yours,” Mistress Halex said to
Wax. “Get him out of here. He’s disturbing my people.” Wax crossed the room to kneel beside Chapaou. The short man shivered, holding his legs. “Chapaou,” Wax said. “Look at me.” Chapaou turned toward him. “What’s the name of your dog?” Wax asked. “My … I don’t have a dog. He died a few years back.” Good enough. This wasn’t Bleeder in disguise, unless she’d thought to interrogate a random cabdriver about his pets before killing him and taking his shape. “What’s wrong?” Wax said. “Why are you here?” “To forget what I saw.” “Soothing doesn’t work like that,” Wax said. “It doesn’t take your memories.” “But it should make me feel better, right?” “Depends on the emotions you’re feeling,” Wax said, “and the skill of the Soother.” He held the man by the shoulder. “What did you see, Chapaou?” The man blinked reddened eyes. “I saw … myself.” * * * Aradel wasn’t in his office, of course. That place was there, as he put it, “for giving house lords somewhere to sit when they come to complain at me.” Marasi found him on the roof of the constabulary offices listening to reports from the two precinct Coinshots who had been scouting the city. Marasi politely waited with MeLaan and several constable lieutenants standing nearby, and was able to hear most of the latest report. Thousands still on the streets, my lord. They’re congregating at pubs. Not going home … Aradel stood with one booted foot up on the short wall around the rooftop as he took the reports. Mist curled around each Coinshot in a distinct vortex; it responded to the use of Allomancy. Finally, Aradel dismissed the two. They weren’t true constables—more contractors. Their loyalties would be to their houses. Or in some cases to their pocketbooks. As they left—jumping off the building—the constable-general turned to the waiting lieutenants. “Get the men ready to clear out the pubs,” he said softly. “Sir?” one of the women asked. “We’re going to close them down,” Aradel said, pointing. “First on the promenades, then work down the smaller streets. We can’t start until I get authority from the governor to institute martial law in the octant, but I want the constables ready to move as soon as we have word.” The lieutenants ran to obey. Aradel glanced toward Marasi, and she thought she saw something of his ancestor in him, a soldier who had died a martyr during the days of the Ascendant Warrior. In another era, would this man have been a field general rather than a policeman? “What do you have for me, Lieutenant Colms?” he said, waving her forward. MeLaan lingered by the stairwell down, hands in her trouser pockets. “Our assassin, sir,” Marasi said, proffering the folder. “She dug her way out of her own grave after being executed for causing the floods in the east. They found the bones nearby a few days later, and called it desecration of the grave. After all, why would they guess that one of the holy Faceless Immortals had been inhabiting
the body of a murderer and criminal?” Aradel breathed out quietly in a hiss. Shadows moved beneath the streetlights, despite the hour, on the promenade behind him. “So this is all her doing?” “Pardon, sir,” Marasi said, “but I’d say this is rather the fault of the city’s unpleasant working conditions. That said, Bleeder is most certainly shoving it along. She wanted this city to be on the brink of cracking when she made her move.” “Ruin…” Aradel whispered. “In the face of that, it seems almost trivial whether the governor is corrupt or not, doesn’t it?” “I suppose that depends on whom you ask.” Shouts rose from the street down below; a group of men passing along the canal, speaking riotously to one another. She couldn’t make out their words, just their tone. “I still want proof,” Aradel said. “Not to diminish your efforts, Lieutenant. But I’m not going to jump at wraiths in the mist unless I can see for myself. That goes for the governor too. Keep your eyes open. If you can find me something concrete, we’ll use it once this all blows over. And I still want some kind of proof regarding your supernatural assassin.” “I understand, sir,” Marasi said, nodding toward MeLaan, lit by the lanterns hanging on poles near the door to the stairs. “And I have some proof for you there. But it would be best if we could do this in private.” Aradel slowly shifted his weight backward, lowering his foot from the top of the parapet he’d been leaning on. He glanced at Marasi, who nodded. “Below,” he said to the two remaining constables attending him. Junior corporals, for message running. They obeyed, and once they were gone, Aradel crossed the distance to MeLaan. “I hope,” he said, after clearing his throat, “that my questions aren’t offensive, er, Your Grace.” “Sincere inquiries never offend, human,” MeLaan said, “for it is thy duty to seek truth. True questions return only truth.” Her skin shimmered, growing transparent as it had before, but somehow also giving off a kaleidoscopic sheen. She spread her hands to the sides, and her blouse somehow split and slid down her shoulders, exposing a transparent torso with an emerald skeleton that glittered in the lamplight. Marasi blinked. Well, that hadn’t been what she’d been expecting. Beside her, Aradel inhaled sharply, then didn’t seem to be breathing at all as he took in the sight. MeLaan’s head—completely transparent—cocked, and she looked down at them with a maternal cast. “Speak,” she whispered. “What…” Aradel cleared his throat. “Is what Constable Colms has told me true? Could one of your kind really be behind this?” “Paalm is a lost soul,” MeLaan said, “tortured by a broken mind and a twisted spirit. Yes, she is of us, human. Thy task is not easy, but we shall aid thee in thy desperation.” “Great,” Aradel said. “I guess … I guess that’s the confirmation I needed.” He hesitated. “Could you, by any chance, put in a good word for me with Harmony?” “Thy deeds are thine
own good words, human,” MeLaan said. “And thy God knows of them. Go and protect this city. Worry not for thyself, but instead for thy fellows.” “Right, right,” Aradel said. “I’ll just be about it, then. Unless there’s anything more you can tell me…” “Thy snoring,” MeLaan said, “is rather loud.” “I … What?” “It doth be like unto an hundred angry koloss,” MeLaan said, “in the middle of a rockslide. Lo, and it doth come near to waking the dead.” “Right…” Aradel said. “Be on thy way, human,” MeLaan said. “As commanded. Lieutenant Colms, a moment?” He bowed his head to MeLaan, walking around her to the side, and had trouble tearing his eyes off her. Granted, Marasi had trouble doing the same. MeLaan was overwhelming even when she wasn’t transparent and half naked. MeLaan nodded Marasi onward. No need to come back up for her. When they were halfway down the stairs, Aradel let out a deep breath. “Well, that was strange.” “I did warn you,” Marasi noted. “That you did. The bit about snoring … a metaphor, I assume. But for what? The constables, we’re too loud, perhaps?” He nodded to himself. “We’re supposed to serve the people, but the complaints of brutality, and of officers ordering people around as if they were lords … Yes, I can see. I’ll need to make some changes. Do you think that’s what she meant?” “I don’t know,” Marasi said carefully. “Meeting her does tend to affect one in profound ways.” “Very true.” Aradel hesitated on the steps, turning as if he longed to return up above. He held himself back. “The question I had earlier remains. We’ve got an immortal killer out there, potentially trying to overthrow the government. How in Preservation do we fight something like that?” “You don’t,” Marasi said. “Lord Waxillium will handle the kandra. We should focus on keeping the city from exploding.” Aradel nodded. “I want you to do something for me.” “Sir?” They still stood in the stairwell, lit by a solitary electric light above them. “You mention Lord Ladrian,” Aradel said. “He seems to trust you, Lieutenant.” “We have become good friends over the last year.” “He’s a wildcard, Lieutenant,” Aradel said. “I appreciate the work he does, but his methods … let’s just say I wouldn’t mind having a little more information on what he’s doing and when.” “You’re asking me to spy on him.” Aradel shrugged. Another man might have been embarrassed to be confronted with it so bluntly, but he didn’t seem so. “I won’t lie to you, Colms. I think you can be a resource for this department in more ways than one. It’s my job to see that the law in this octant is served, and I’ll feel a hell of a lot better if I know what Lord Ladrian is doing. If only so I can get the proper warrants—and if necessary, apologies—ready.” “I see,” Marasi said. Aradel waited for something more. She could practically hear the implication. You’re a constable, Lieutenant. This is your job. Do as
you are assigned. “You could just ask him,” she said. “He’s been deputized. He is technically under your jurisdiction.” “And you don’t think I’ve tried? He always promises a report. If I’m lucky, that consists of a letter telling me where he left a suspect hanging by his ankles—do you remember that one?—or a quick rundown at a party of something he’s hunting, if only so he can ask me for the loan of some resources. I don’t mean to turn you into his chaperone, but honestly, a little more information would be wonderful.” Marasi sighed. “I’ll write you a weekly report. More frequently if an investigation is ongoing, as it is now. But I will inform him that I’m doing so.” “Great. Fantastic.” Aradel started down the stairs again, stepping quickly and speaking almost as fast. “Get to the governor’s place and tell him I need an executive order for martial law tonight so I can clear the pubs. Suggest he send one to each of the octants. Then check in on your friend Ladrian and tell me anything he’s learned about this immortal who thinks she can bring down our city.” He reached the floor below and strode out into the main chamber, shouting for a report on the number of constables they’d been able to call up for duty this night. Marasi followed more slowly, legs feeling like they bore hundred-pound bracers. You can be a resource for this department in more ways than one.… She reached the ground floor and walked out the precinct’s back door. She’d always known that her involvement with Waxillium had helped her obtain this job. If she hadn’t joined his hunt for Miles Hundredlives, she’d never have gained enough notability. That said, she’d assumed her understanding of historical crime rates, her letters of recommendation, and her interview had been more important. Was that even the case? Had Aradel given her the job instead of someone like Reddi because she knew Waxillium? Did her studies even matter? She settled with her back against the wall, waiting for MeLaan. Rusts … did everything always have to be about Waxillium? Of course, thinking that made her feel like a child, jealous that someone else had more blocks than she did. MeLaan strolled into the alleyway a short time later, disturbing the mists. “Well?” MeLaan asked. “How did I do?” “We shall aid thee in thy desperation?” Marasi asked. “Hey, it’s what he expected.” “Not what I expected.” MeLaan sniffed. “I can be divine when I need to be. I’ve had a long time to practice.” “Then why don’t you use the act around me and the others?” “Who says this isn’t the act?” MeLaan said. She met Marasi’s eyes. “Perhaps my duty as one of Harmony’s servants is to show people what they need to see, whatever will bring them the most peace.” Marasi felt cold, suddenly, a shiver running through her. Not at the words, but at the look in MeLaan’s eyes, which had faded to a faint translucence. As if … in reminder? Then
MeLaan threw her head back and started laughing. “Nah, I’m just rusting you, kid. I don’t show you that side because it’s too hard to keep a straight face while talking with all those ‘thee’s and ‘whatfore’s.” “Hence the snoring wisecrack?” Marasi said. “Yeah. I had to check on the guy when Harmony was first looking for Paalm. He snores like a steam engine, that one. Anyway, where to now?” “The governor’s mansion,” Marasi said. “Along we go, then,” MeLaan said, striding toward the exit of the alleyway. * * * “We pulled to a stop,” Chapaou said, hunched up next to his carriage in the mists outside the Soother’s place. “And I’d been hearing things inside the coach. I didn’t like how he’d come out of that church, with hands all red.” Wax knelt in the back of the coach, listening while he carefully unwrapped a bundle of black cloth. A lantern hung on the side of the coach, giving him light, but also turning the mists into a bloom of illumination. He could still feel the Soother’s touch from the nearby building, but it was far less pronounced now. He felt almost like himself. That was both good and bad, for there was nothing to hold back his sense of revulsion as he unwrapped the bloody mallet that had been used to pound the spikes into Father Bin. “I shouldn’t have looked into the coach,” Chapaou said. “He told me not to look, you know? But I couldn’t help it. So I turned softly and peeked in the coachman’s slot, the one they have so you can see if the person inside is ripping the upholstery or whatnot. “I found I hadn’t been carrying a man, but a monster. A mistwraith, with bones and sinew exposed, and a face of stretched muscle and grinning teeth. It looked at me, all smiles, and scrambled up toward the hole. It pressed that exposed eye against the slot, and then it changed. It changed. Skin growing over its face, like mine. A twisted, broken version of me.” He started weeping again. Wax unrolled bones from the bundle, the corpse of the Pathian whom Bleeder had imitated in order to kill Father Bin. Bleached, picked clean, and under them a pile of cloth. Pathian robes? Yes, the colors were right. “Hands all red…” Chapaou whispered. “You ran, after that?” Wax asked, lining up the bones carefully. “No, I drove,” Chapaou said. “I whipped the horses forward, bearing that demonspawn in my coach. A driver for Ironeyes himself. What good would it do to run? It had my soul. Harmony … it has my soul.” “No,” Wax said. “It is a trickster, a false face, Chapaou. It was a twisted version of yourself, you say?” MeLaan had said that older kandra could often approximate a face without having the right bones, but it was always noticeable. “Yeah.” The man huddled down lower in the alleyway. “I know what you think, lawman. I killed that priest tonight, didn’t I? I went mad, and I killed him,
and those bloody hands are mine. Shoulda killed myself, jumped off that bridge…” “No,” Wax said. “You’ve been taken in by a charlatan, Chapaou. It wasn’t you.” The man just whimpered. Wax continued, methodically laying out the evidence, though a part of him wondered what good it would do. Did traditional detective work have any place in a fight against a creature like this? How did you fight mythology with a microscope? Harmony … what if he did find a clue? If he chased her down? Could he even defeat something like this? He stared at the bones, then shook his head. He would send for a crime-scene team to look this over. He needed to get to the governor’s mansion and check in. Wait, he thought, then leaned forward. There, on the hem of the robe. What was that? He shielded the lantern, causing Chapaou to groan and huddle down farther. With the lantern dimmed, Wax spotted it better. The corner of the robe’s hem glowed with a soft blue light, easy to miss. Wax reached down, taking a substance off the robe and rubbing it between his fingers. A powder of some sort? What kind of powder gave off its own light, faint though it was? “Did you see anything glowing back here, Chapaou?” he asked, turning toward the man. Wax had to unshield the lantern to get him to respond. Even then, the only reply he got was a confused shake of the head. “Where did you drive the coach?” Wax asked. “Lestib Square,” Chapaou whispered. “Where I’d been told to drop the creature off. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and waited. It … it climbed up to me, as it left. Hands on my shoulders, head beside mine, cheeks touching. I could feel the blood, though it left none staining my shirt. It … it whispered to me, lawman. ‘I will make you free.’ When I opened my eyes it had gone, leaving those bones in the passenger compartment along with a small pile of coins. I thought for sure I’d gone mad.” Wax downed an extra vial of metals to refill his stores, then dried the vial out and took a sample of the dust. Lestib Square, named after the Lord Mistborn. It was worryingly close to the governor’s mansion. “Don’t worry. I’m on the thing’s trail. I intend to stop it.” “It said it would make me free,” Chapaou said. “If I’m not mad, then that means … that means that thing was real.” “It is,” Wax said. “Honestly, sir, I’d rather be crazy.” “Eh,” Wax said, rising and pushing Chapaou toward his coach. “The thing probably doesn’t want you dead anyway.” “Probably?” “No way to tell for certain,” Wax said, checking his ammunition. “But I’d bet money against it—at least, it no more wants you dead than it wants everyone in the city dead. Maybe. Not sure yet what its endgame is.” Chapaou looked sick. Damn. He was sure that last part had been comforting. “Go home,” Wax said, then tossed the man a
few banknotes. “Or go find a hotel. Get some sleep. She isn’t going to come for you.” She had much bigger game to hunt. GUEST EDITORIAL: THE NUISANCE OF NEGLIGENT COINSHOTS! In the last sixteen months I have replaced three lamposts, an iron gate, and two steeple spires, all at my Madion Ways house. My residence in the 6th Octant, much nearer the Hub, has needed twice that attention due to it being on the main route of Coinshot couriers. Motor cars, carriages, bronze statues. None of these is safe from similar fates. Must our fine neighborhoods look like a return to the World of Ash? No! Let us take back our dignity! (Continued on Back.) VISITORS from other WORLDS Rarely does The House Record bring news of the sensational, but the reputable Lady Nicelle Sauvage of New Seran has contacted us with a report that will shock you. “I was lost in the mountains south of the Southern Roughs,” said Sauvage. “And my fellow travellers had either left me or died. That’s when I came upon a mountain pool of the most perfect blue, fed by the melting snows of the heights. Harmony, but I thought I’d reached Paradise.” As twilight struck early, as it is wont to do in the mountains, Sauvage saw a hunched figure by the pool. “Just a shadow, really,” she said. “Piercing eyes, and a face like some otherworldly beast from one of those hideous pulp stories. I regret to say I hadn’t the courage to engage this Visitor. Instead, its horrible visage struck right at my heart. I let preservation instinct take over and ran for an hour before making camp elsewhere.” (More on Back, Column 4.) The Sinister Soiree! I described my assailant as wearing a striped white suit, but that is not as specific as it may seem. In Elendel, someone dressed as described would stick out like afternoon tea among koloss, but in New Seran the men run about in such vibrant suits that one would almost think they are all performers late for the circus. So I will be more specific. The gunman also wore mustaches waxed straight horizontal to a perfect point. The women on both sides of him stood back not only because he had brandished a gun, but also because they feared losing eyes to the sharp and glistening facial hair. I burned what little tin reserves I had left. (You will recall that I detailed the episode last week in “A Sport of Spirits” where I’d been forced to flare most of my tin to counteract the effects of winning a gentlemanly impromptu wine-sipping contest earlier in the evening.) “Stand down, sir,” I said, cursing myself for leaving Glint in my outer jacket taken by the servant when I’d entered the party. Had I become so soft since leaving the Roughs that I felt comfortable enough without Glint on my very person? Never! Unconsciously I knew that even without my trusty sidearm I was a match 16 Wax perched on an electricity pylon, overlooking the governor’s mansion—a
clean white building, brightly lit in the mists by floodlights. Those didn’t shine so strongly every night, and their brightness tonight seemed to indicate that Innate was worried. The crowds were not dispersing. Men roamed the streets; there seemed to be more of them than there had been earlier, though the clock had struck midnight soon after Wax had left the Soothing parlor. He’d stopped by his house to rebind his arm wound, chew down some painkillers, and pick up some supplies: his hat, his short-barreled shotgun, and his thigh holster. He’d considered sending someone for Lord Harms, but honestly, Wax wanted him safe where Bleeder couldn’t use the man against him. Better that he stay hidden on his rooftop. In fact, he’d been half tempted to go fetch Steris and drop her somewhere similar. Time was short, unfortunately. He had to trust that the constables watching her would keep her hidden. From there, he’d walked the streets a short time, listening. He’d overheard anger at the government. Vitriol for the Pathians. Those complaints were bad enough, but mixed with them was a more disturbing trend. Anger, but with no focus. General discontent. The grumbling of men over their beers, of youths out on the street throwing rocks at cats. Hiding amid it all was a murderer, like a lion in the grass. At least the governor’s mansion looked calm. He’d come fearing the worst, a strike on Innate while he was away. She’s got me pinned, Wax thought with dissatisfaction, as the breeze rustled his mistcoat. I can’t stay and protect the governor because I have to follow leads and try to figure out her plan. But I can’t be as effective in that hunt because I keep worrying that I’m leaving Innate exposed. Could he convince the governor to hide? Beneath his feet, electricity ran like an invisible river through the suspended cables. Spirits that moved like Allomancers in the sky, hopping from building to building … Ah, lawman, a voice intruded upon his thoughts like a nail into a board. There you are. Wax reached to his waist for Vindication. Where? This had to mean Bleeder was close, right? Watching somewhere? Do you know, the voice said, about the body’s remarkable defenses? Inside, there are tiny bits of you that men never see. Even surgeons don’t know of them, for they’re too small. It takes a refined taste to distinguish them, know them. What is it that your friend likes to say? Ain’t nobody what knows the cow better than the butcher? Wax dropped down from his perch, slowing himself by Pushing on a discarded bottle cap. Mists churned around him, drawn by his Allomancy. If a tiny invader enters your blood, Bleeder said, the entire body begins to spin around it, to fight it, to find it and eliminate it. Like a thousand fingers of mist, like a legion of soldiers all too small to see. But what is very interesting is when the body turns upon itself, and these soldiers run wild. Free … “Where are you?”
Wax asked loudly. Close, Bleeder said. Watching. You, and the governor. I will need to kill him, you know. “Can we talk?” Wax asked a little softer. Isn’t that what we’re doing? Wax turned, walking in the night. Either Bleeder would have to follow—which might let him catch motions in the mists—or he’d get far enough away that she couldn’t hear to reply to him, which would tell him which direction to search in. “Are you going to try to kill me?” Wax asked. What good would it do to kill you? “So you want games.” No. Bleeder sounded resigned. No games. “What, then?” Wax asked. “Why bother with all of this showmanship?” I’ll free them. Every one of them. I’ll take this people, and I’ll open their eyes. “How?” What are you, Waxillium? Bleeder asked. “A lawman,” Wax said immediately. That’s the coat you’re wearing right now, but it’s not who you are. I know. God knows I’ve seen the truth in you. “Tell me, then,” Wax said, still walking through the mists. I don’t think I can. I might be able to show you. Bleeder didn’t seem to have trouble hearing, though Wax had softened his voice. Allomancy? Or did she just have the ability to make ears that worked better than human ones? He kept searching. Perhaps one of those dark windows in the government building nearby? Wax headed that way. “Is that why you’re targeting the governor, then?” he asked. “You want to bring him down, free the people from the government’s oppression?” You know he’s just another pawn. “I don’t know that.” I wasn’t talking to you that time, Waxillium. He hesitated in the mists. The office building loomed before him, the windows a hundred hollow eyes. Most of those windows were closed—a common practice at night. No need to invite the mists in. Religion could say what it wished, and people believed, mostly. But the mists still made them uncomfortable. There, Wax thought, picking out an open window on the second floor. Very good, Bleeder said, and Wax saw something shift just inside the window, ambient light barely sufficient to let him discern it. Ever the detective. “I’m not much of one, actually,” Wax said. “In the Roughs, you solve fewer cases with investigation than with a good pair of guns.” That’s a fun lie, Bleeder said. Do you tell that one at parties to youths who’ve read too many stories about the Roughs? They don’t like hearing about interrogating family members of a man gone bad? Tracking down gunsmiths to see who fixed an outlaw’s rifle? Digging through an old campfire after days spent on the road? “How do you know about things like that?” Wax asked. I do my homework. It’s a kandra thing, which I assume MeLaan explained. Whatever you claim, you’re a good investigator. Maybe an excellent one. Even if you are, by definition, a dog chasing its own tail. Wax walked right up to the base of the building, the mist thinning between him and Bleeder, who skulked just inside the
window about ten feet up. Her face, though enveloped by the shadows, seemed wrong to Wax. Shaped oddly. “Have you asked him?” Bleeder whispered from above, barely audible in the night. She had a rasping, dry voice, like the one in his head. “Who?” “Harmony. Have you asked why he didn’t save Lessie? A whisper at the right time, telling you not to split up. A warning in the back of your mind, telling you not to prowl down that tunnel, but instead circle around behind? You could have saved Lessie so easily with his help.” “Don’t speak her name,” Wax hissed. “He’s supposed to be God. He could have snapped his fingers and made Tan drop dead on the spot. He didn’t. Have you asked why?” Vindication was in Wax’s hand a moment later, pointing up toward that window. His other hand felt at his gunbelt for the pouch that held the syringes. Bleeder chuckled. “Ever quick with the gun. If you speak to Harmony again, ask him. Did he know the effect Lessie had on you, that she was what kept you out in the Roughs? Did he know, perhaps, that you’d never return here—where he needed you—as long as she was alive? Did he, perhaps, want her to die?” Wax fired. Not to hit Bleeder. He just needed to hear a crack in the night. That sound, so familiar, of breaking air. The bullet left a trail in the mist, and the wall beside Bleeder popped, scattering flakes of brick. Rusts … he was shaking. “I’m sorry,” Bleeder whispered. “For what I have to do. Cleaning the wound is often more painful than the cut itself. You will see, and understand, once you are free.” “No, we—” The mists churned. Wax stumbled back, swinging his gun toward something that had passed in a blur, leaving a corridor of swirling mist. Bleeder. Moving with Feruchemical speed. Toward the governor. Wax cursed, swinging Vindication behind himself and planting a bullet in the ground, then Pushing in a powerful burst. He launched through the mists toward the blazing light of the governor’s grounds, sweeping over the gates, startling a small flock of ravens, which scattered into the air around him. Two shots rang out in the night. As Wax crossed the grounds, he spotted Bleeder on the mansion’s front steps, wearing a body-length scarlet coat. The guards at the front doors lay dead at her feet. In the glow of the electric lights, he could see what was wrong with Bleeder’s face now—she wore a black-and-white mask. The Marksman’s mask, but twisted, broken up one side. She ducked into the building, not using her speed any longer. Wax landed beside the bodies—he didn’t have time to check them for life—and growled as he shoved into the building, gun out, and checked right, then left. The house steward screamed, dropping a tray of tea in the entryway as Bleeder skidded across the floor and into the next room. Wax followed, the main door ripping from its frame and flying out behind him into
the night as he Pushed against it and its hinges to cross the room in a half run, half skim. He burst into the next chamber—a sitting room—with Vindication out, spinning the cylinder to one of the gun’s special hazekiller rounds. A Thug shot, extra-heavy slug, built to deliver as much force as possible. The room he entered was decorated with the kind of perfect furniture you found only in a house that had too many rooms. According to the blueprint he’d been given, under it would be the saferoom. Still the gun, Bleeder said in his mind as she leaped over a sofa, heading toward the wall, which hid the steps down to the saferoom. Useless. I cannot be killed with that. Wax raised Vindication and sighted, then fired, Pushing the bullet forward in a burst of extra speed. It hit Bleeder as she landed. Right in the ankle. The bone shattered and Bleeder collapsed as she tried to put weight on her ankle. She turned toward Wax, lips raised in a snarl visible through the broken side of the mask. Wax put a bullet through the eyehole in the mask. This is meaningless— He strode forward, shooting her in the hand as she tried to raise her gun. Wax pulled out the syringe, ready to Push it toward her skin, but she growled and became a blur. Wax tried to follow that blur—but at that moment, the side of the room burst open, revealing the hidden stairwell. A group of men in black suits and shotguns piled out, frantic. The governor’s special security. Wax dove for cover as they started firing. He didn’t catch much of what happened next, as he put his back to the side of a thick chair. Bleeder moved among the men, firing. They tried to fire back, doing more damage to their friends than they did to her. It was over by the time the report from the first gunshot had faded in Wax’s ears. Men lay groaning and bleeding on the floor, and Bleeder was through the hole and heading down the steps. Wax set his jaw and Pushed himself across the room. He landed, skidding on blood, and leaped into the stairwell. Another Push sent him soaring down the steps. Gunshots resounded in the narrow confines of the stairwell, coming from just ahead. Wax slowed himself with a shot forward into the ground, landing beside a final handful of guards who lay bleeding on the floor. The kandra stood alone before the door to the saferoom. She looked at Wax, smiled, and became a blur. But her speed only lasted a fraction of a second. Soon after she’d begun tapping her metalmind, she slowed back down. Wax caught sight of her just as she unlocked the door to the governor’s saferoom, using a key she shouldn’t have. She pulled the door open with a flourish, then glanced back at Wax, shaking her head. She obviously thought she was still a blur moving with incredible speed. And she was. Wax had simply joined her.
One of the fallen bodies stirred, and Wayne pushed back his hat, showing a grin. Wax raised his hands, a gun in each, and was rewarded by an expression of utter shock on Bleeder’s face. She’d regrown her eye, though blood still streamed down the front of her mask. As he had chased her, talked to her, she’d always seemed fully in control. Until this moment. Wax blasted away with both guns. That wasn’t usually a good idea, at least if you wanted to hit anything, but they were barely ten feet apart—and besides, he was inside a speed bubble. His bullets would refract when leaving sped-up time, and so aiming was of questionable value anyway. At a time like this, you didn’t want to be precise. You wanted to be thorough. Steris would be proud. He fired in a cacophony, empting both weapons. He took advantage of Bleeder’s shock, dropping his guns and pulling his other Sterrion out of its under-arm holster and unloading it. His short-barreled shotgun, from the holster on his thigh, followed, belching slugs and thunder as Wax strode to the edge of the speed bubble. After reaching the rim, the bullets deflected out into normal time, moving painfully slowly. But less than a foot separated Bleeder and the edge of Wayne’s bubble. Wax dropped the shotgun and pulled out one of the syringes again, and shoved it toward her, Pushing on the metal, hoping against hope that—stunned from the gunfire—she wouldn’t notice it coming. As the kandra turned to run, the first bullet hit. Others followed in a storm. Half missed, but Wax had fired almost two dozen shots. Many punched into Bleeder, who dropped her Feruchemical speed as they caught her. She moved lethargically, trying to escape the hail of bullets, sprays of blood bursting silently into the air, like the seeds blown from a dandelion. She stumbled against the doorframe, and one of the shotgun slugs hit the back of her head, ripping a hole through her face and breaking off the mask. She sagged, gripping the doorframe, draped in her red cloak. The needle flew from Wax’s Push, spinning in the air, but it—like the bullets—had been deflected by the edge of the speed bubble. It impaled itself into the wood of the doorframe just inches from Bleeder. She righted herself a second later, and sped up again, wounds vanishing. She didn’t look at him as her back straightened and she strode through the door. She did flip the needle off the frame, sending it toppling in slow motion toward the ground. Wax dug a handful of rounds from the pouch on his belt, then leaped out of the speed bubble. He felt an immediate lurch—as if the world had been upended—and heard a faint popping sound. The nausea hit him like a punch to the face, but he was ready for it. He’d ducked out of speed bubbles before. A single gunshot sounded from the saferoom. He crossed the distance to the door in a rush, throwing the cartridges in front of himself,
ready to Push on the ones that he might need to hit Bleeder. Once inside, however, he let the rounds drop to the ground. Bleeder wasn’t in the room; an open door at the back led out, presumably through a tunnel to the grounds above. The plush saferoom—round and rimmed with bookshelves—had a wet bar on one end and was lit by comfortable reading lamps. The governor knelt on the floor, holding a bleeding Drim, frantically trying to stanch the blood coming from the bodyguard’s neck. Wax dashed across the room, stopping at the door into the escape tunnel. “Lawman!” Innate cried. “Help. Please … oh, Harmony. Help!” Wax hesitated, peering into that empty, dark tunnel. He was reminded of another one like it, dusty and shored up by beams at the sides. Both a tomb and a stage … Behind, Wayne stumbled into the room, then scrambled to help Innate. Wax remained by the door into the tunnel, rolling a few rounds between his fingers. “He saved me,” Innate said, weeping. By this point, he was drenched in Drim’s blood. He’d pulled off his shirt, trying to use it to stanch the blood. “He leaped into the way right as the assassin shot,” Innate said. “Tell me you can … Please…” “He’s gone, mate,” Wayne said, settling back. “Other casualties upstairs, Wayne,” Wax said, pointing. With reluctance, he shut the door to the escape tunnel. He couldn’t give chase, not and leave the governor alone here. Wayne rushed out of the room to check on the men who had been shot upstairs. Wax walked over to the governor, who knelt before his bodyguard’s corpse. He’d never seen Innate look so human as he did at that moment, shoulders slumped, head bowed. Exhausted, wrung-out. Could anyone fake that? He checked anyway. “Leavening on sand,” Wax said. Innate looked up at him, eyes unfocused. Wax’s heart skipped a beat, but then the governor sighed. “Bones without soup.” He knew the passphrase. This was really Innate. Wax knelt beside the governor, looking over Drim’s corpse. Annoying though the man had been at times, he had not deserved this. “I’m sorry.” “She stopped moving at a blur,” Innate said, his voice strained. “She appeared inside, gun out, but seemed angry about something. Drim leaped for me right before she shot. She was gone a second later. Surely she could have paused to finish me off, rather than running.” “She obtained Feruchemical powers only two weeks ago,” Wax said. “That time frame greatly limits how much speed she can have stored up, and moving as fast as she has been must have drained her metalmind quickly. She needed to escape before it ran out.” Of course, there could be another reason. She might have just wanted to frighten them, and the governor. To prod him to do something. But what? She said she intended to kill him, but not until the time was right. Why? What was the plan? “So she’s flawed,” Innate said. “She can be beaten.” “Of course she can,” Wax said. He looked
down at the corpse, and the floor stained red. But at what cost? He took a deep breath. “I want you to leave the city.” “No.” “That’s stupidity,” Wax snapped. “She will be back.” “Have you looked out there, lawman?” Innate said, waving a bloody hand in a vaguely upward direction. “Have you seen what’s happening in this city?” “You can’t do anything about that tonight.” “I most certainly can.” Innate stood. “I’m the leader of this city; I’m not going to run away. If anything, I need to be seen—need to meet with the chief instigators of this movement, if any can be found. I need to address the crowds, prepare a speech—I need to gather my cabinet, and with them make sure that there’s still a city here in the morning.” He pointed at Wax. “You stop this creature, Ladrian. I don’t have a bodyguard any longer. I’m in your hands.” He strode out then. Whatever else he thought of the man, Wax had to respect Innate’s grit. You stop this creature.… Wax glanced at the syringe, still lying on the floor near the doorframe. So close. If it had hit, he might have been able to depress the metal plunger and send the liquid into her veins. Feeling powerless, he fetched that syringe and brought it back to Drim’s corpse, dead with a bullet right in the neck. Wax plunged the syringe into the corpse’s arm and emptied it into the flesh. Nothing happened. He hadn’t expected it to—it seemed very implausible that Bleeder would have managed to get Drim’s face on and fool the governor this way. But it still made Wax feel more comfortable. He stumbled to his feet. Rusts, he was tired. Why hadn’t she killed the governor? There was more to this. Wayne peeked in. “Two guards might make it. We have a surgeon helpin’ them now.” “Good,” Wax said. “Wait for me upstairs.” Wayne nodded, ducking back out. Wax instead walked to the escape route and pulled open the door. He lit a candle and stepped up the slope, cautious, hand on his gun. What did undermining the governor, inciting a riot against the Pathians, and Wax’s own “freedom” have to do with one another? What was he missing? He didn’t find Bleeder in the tunnel, though halfway up it he found her red cloak. She’d tossed it, bloodied, to the side. There, scrawled on the wall, was a crude picture shaped like a man, drawn with a fingernail into the wood. Dabs of dried blood marked the figure’s eyes, and another marked its mouth. The words scrawled beneath in blood gave Wax a chill. I rip out his tongue to stop the lies. I stab out his eyes to hide from his gaze. You will be free. 17 About a half hour after Bleeder’s attack, Wayne walked into the governor’s fancy washroom. Only in his head it wasn’t the washroom. He just knew to call it that here. You see, Wayne had figured out the code. Rich folks, they had this code. All
of them knew it, and they used it like a new language to weed out everyone who didn’t belong. Regular folk, they called something after what it was. You’d say, “What’s that, Kell?” And they’d say, “That? That there’s the crapper.” And you’d reply, “What do you do with it?” And they’d say, “Well, Wayne, that’s where you put your crap.” It made sense. But rich folk, they had a different word for the crapper. They’d call it a “commode” or a “washroom.” That way, when someone asked for the crapper, they knew it was a person they needed to oppress. Wayne did his business and spat his gum into the bowl before flushing. It felt good to be wearing his own hat again, dueling canes at his waist. He’d spent a good hour or two wearing the clothing and false face of a guard for Innate. Horribly uncomfortable, that. He wiped his sniffly nose and washed his hands, drying them on towels embroidered with Innate’s name. He was that worried people would run off with his towels? Well, the joke was on him. Wayne was perfectly happy to wipe up dirt with the governor’s name. He tucked the towel into his pocket, and left in trade a few mints he’d taken from the bar. He wandered out from there, peeking into the room where the governor was holding a meeting with all kinds of important folks, the type who called the crapper “the facilities.” You know, he thought, maybe I have it wrong. Maybe it’s not code. Maybe they’re just so familiar with what comes out of their arses, normal words aren’t specific enough. Like how the Terris language had seven different words for iron. He nodded to himself. A new theory. Wax was gonna love this one. Wayne passed into the room with the couches, where the guards had been gunned down. Wax stood inside with an envelope, into which he dropped something small and metallic. He sealed it, then handed it to a young messenger from the governor’s staff. “Deliver it quickly,” Wax said. “Pound on the door. Wake her up if you have to—and don’t get scared off if she cusses at you or threatens to shoot you. She won’t actually hurt you.” The young man nodded, though he’d gone pale. “Tell her it’s urgent,” Wax said, holding up his finger. “Don’t let her toss it aside and read it in the morning. You stay there until she’s read what I wrote, you understand?” “Yes, sir.” “Good lad. Off with you.” The youth ran out. Wayne strolled over to Wax, passing the open door down to the saferoom. The bodies around it had been removed, though the blood remained. “Ranette?” Wayne asked hopefully. Wax nodded. “I thought of something that might help.” “I coulda delivered that, you know.…” “You, she would shoot,” Wax said. “Only ’cuz she likes me,” Wayne said, smiling. He’d have welcomed an excuse to go see Ranette. This night was getting darker and darker, it seemed. “Wayne…” Wax said. “You know she doesn’t actually
like you.” “You always say that, but you’re just not seein’ the truth, Wax.” “She tries to kill you.” “To keep me alive,” Wayne said. “She knows I live a dangerous life. So, keepin’ me on my toes is the best way to make sure I stick around. Anyway, was that Marasi I saw in there with the governor and his important folk?” Wax nodded. “She and MeLaan arrived a short time back. Aradel wants to declare martial law.” “And you don’t?” Wayne asked, taking a seat on one of the nice couches that didn’t have much blood splattered on it. Important people were meeting nearby. He suspected he knew what would come next, and he intended to wait around for it. Wax stood for a moment, then shook his head. “Bleeder set this all up, Wayne. She’s been pushing us toward this. ‘I rip out his tongue … I stab out his eyes…’” “Now, I’m as for dismemberment as the next fellow,” Wayne said, “but that’s a mite violent for this time of day.” “Bleeder wrote it on the wall down below. A poem of some sort. It doesn’t feel finished to me.” “She nailed that priest through the eyes,” Wayne noted. “And ripped out Winsting’s tongue,” Wax said. He fished in his pocket and brought something out, tossing it to Wayne. “What’s this?” Wayne asked, turning it over in his fingers. It was a piece of painted wood. “Remains of the Marksman’s mask. Bleeder was wearing it.” “You think she was him all along?” Wayne asked. “Maybe,” Wax said. “It would have served her purpose, riling up the people of the slums, reminding them how rich the houses are. By bringing him down, I put myself at odds with the common people.” “I hate to say it, mate,” Wayne said, “but you ain’t exactly beloved of them anyway.” “I’m a hero from the Roughs,” Wax said. “You’re a conner,” Wayne said. “And a house lord, mate. Not to mention the fact that you can, yunno, fly. You can’t treat this like Weathering. You can’t convince a fellow you’re on his side by slapping him in jail overnight, then playing cards with him until he sees you as a regular chap.” Wax sighed. “You’re right, of course.” “Usually am.” “Except that time on Lessie’s birthday.” “You always have to bring that up, don’t you?” Wayne leaned back, tipping his hat down over his eyes. “Honest mistake.” “You put dynamite in the oven, Wayne.” “Gotta hide a gift where nobody’ll look for it.” “I need to piece this together,” Wax said, starting to pace. “Sketch it out. Write it down. We’re missing something very important.” Wayne nodded, but was hardly listening. Wax would figure it out. Wayne just needed to get some shuteye, while the getting was still good enough for … He heard a door click open. He threw back his hat and was on his feet a second later, scrambling for the door. Wax cursed, pulling out one of his guns, following as Wayne dashed into the hallway and intercepted
the servant with a plate full of little party foods. “Aha!” Wayne said. “Thought you could slip by me, didja!” The kitchen maid looked horrified as Wayne gathered up three of each of the treats. Wax stopped in the doorway, then lowered his gun. “Oh, for Harmony’s sake.” “Harmony can get his own,” Wayne said, popping a little cake in his mouth. As he turned back to Wax, the maid scuttled away, heading for the meeting. It was exactly what Wayne had been waiting for. Important folk meeting together always meant snacks. Or canapés, if you knew the code. Wayne popped one in his mouth—candied bacon wrapped around a walnut. “How is it?” Wax asked. “Tastes like cotton candy,” Wayne said, relishing the flavor, “made of baby.” “I did not need to hear that,” Wax said, slipping his gun back into its holster. “I’m going to need to go back out there, see if I can figure out Bleeder’s plan. That leaves you here to protect the governor again.” Wayne nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but that’s a tall order, mate.” “I’ve arranged for some help,” Wax said, leading the way over to the ladies’ crapper. He knocked on the door. “Still changing!” MeLaan’s voice came from inside. “How long?” Wax said. The door cracked, and a woman’s face peeked out that looked completely unlike MeLaan’s. “Not long,” she said in MeLaan’s voice. “This lady’s hair was a real pain.” She shut the door. “I recognize that face,” Wayne said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “One of the guards,” Wax said. “That got shot a little earlier.” “Oh right.” Wayne had a sinking feeling. “Wasn’t she one of the ones I tried to save?” “Died shortly thereafter,” Wax said. “MeLaan will keep the arm in a sling—that was where the shot hit first, before penetrating into the woman’s lung. We’ll keep her on the governor’s guard staff, and hopefully Bleeder will be so busy looking for you and me that she’ll miss MeLaan.” “I hope you appreciate this,” the kandra’s voice came from inside the crapper. “I hate being short. As a side note, this lady tasted awful. Far too lean and tough.” The door cracked, revealing the face again. “Next time, choose a body that’s been sitting around awhile, would you? Nice and aged is the best flavor for…” She trailed off, looking from Wayne to Wax, noticing their expressions. “Oh right,” she said. “Mortals. I’d forgotten how squeamish you can be.” “Please,” Wax said, sounding pained, “show some respect for the dead woman. It’s already difficult to let you use her corpse like this.” MeLaan rolled her eyes—rusts, it was strange to see her behave just like before, but in an entirely different body. “It’s either me or the worms, kids. Don’t you think she’d be happy to go out all at once, munched down in half an hour, rather than sitting there and melting into the ground over the course of—” “Too much description, MeLaan,” Wax said, his voice strained. “Fine, fine. I’m almost ready;
just have to get the clothing on. How is the hair?” “Good,” Wayne said. “I think you forgot an eyebrow though.” MeLaan felt at her face. “Hell,” she said. “This is what you get by forcing me to work so quickly.” She ducked back into the room. “Speaking of quickly,” Wax said through the door, “is this about what I can expect with Bleeder? A half hour to change bodies?” Wayne nodded. That would be useful to know. “No, unfortunately,” MeLaan’s voice said from inside, muffled. It was still the same voice as she’d had in her other body. Was she going to change that? “Paalm is old-generation, very practiced. I don’t think anybody is as good as TenSoon, mind you, but Paalm will be fast—particularly swapping into a body she’s used before. I’ve known early-generationers who can change bodies in under ten minutes, and that’s going in blind.” “Isn’t that tough?” Wayne called. “Like … I once hadda eat twenty sausages for a bet. Won five notes, but spent an hour on the ground moaning like a fellow on the pot tryin’ to force a mango through his delicate doughnut, if you catch my meaning.” Wax groaned softly, but a short time later MeLaan opened the door again, and was this time clothed in a black suit like the other guards. She was also smiling. “You’re cute,” she noted to Wayne. “How’s my eyebrow?” “Uh, good.” Cute? “But I’m taken.” “In answer to your question,” MeLaan said, “it is hard, but not for the reason you’re implying. We can force-feed and expel excess, which makes doing the transformation near a drain like in here convenient. The tough part is memorizing the muscle patterns as you digest them. That and getting the hair right. You people are practically drowning in the stuff. Fortunately, for a quick change like this, I can ignore the hair under the clothing.” “So … wait,” Wayne said, rubbing his chin. “You’re saying we might be able to check if a person is a kandra by…” “… Seeing if they put leg and arm hair on?” MeLaan asked. “That might actually work, but only if the kandra had to change fast.” “Arm hair,” Wayne said. “Right. I was thinkin’ of arm hair.” “That is the most difficult part to get right on short notice,” MeLaan said. “We can’t make hair, so we’ve got to use your own, and place each strand in a pore. Arms and legs have thousands of the things. What a pain. Far worse than a mass on the head or whatnot.” “MeLaan,” Wax said, digging in his coat pocket and bringing something out. “Do you recognize this?” “I don’t have a lot to go on, chief, but I’d say it’s an empty glass vial.” “Take it inside and turn off the lights,” Wax said, tossing her the vial as Wayne stepped forward, trying to get a look. That stuff seemed interesting. MeLaan withdrew, then shoved open the door a second later. She grabbed Wax by the mistcoat, somehow still imposing despite the fact that
she was now shorter than either of them. “Where did you get this?” “Bottom of Bleeder’s robes,” Wax said. “The ones she was wearing to imitate a priest.” “This is perchwither,” MeLaan said. “It’s a bioluminescent fungus. It grows in only one place.” “Where?” Wax asked. “The kandra Homeland.” Wax looked deflated. “Oh. So that’s where we’d expect her to be going, right?” “No,” MeLaan said. “The kandra are no longer trapped there. We move in society—we have homes, lives. If we want to meet up with others of our kind, we catch them at the pub. The Homeland is a monument. A holy site. A place of relics. The fact that she’s been there recently, wearing the body of someone she killed…” MeLaan shivered visibly, letting go of Wax. “It’s nauseating.” “I should check it out,” Wax said. “She might be staying down there.” MeLaan folded her arms, looking him over. “Harmony says it’s okay,” she said. “You can get in through the tombs; look for the sign of atium and use your other eyes. We don’t use that entrance very often, but it’s probably easiest for you. Just don’t break anything, lawman.” “I’ll do my best,” Wax said, turning as a footman peeked in from the hallway, then approached with a small silver tray bearing a card. “Lord Ladrian?” said the footman, holding out the tray. “Your coach has arrived.” “Coach?” Wayne asked. On a hunt, Wax was usually in full-on “fly through the city like a rusting vulture” mode. Why would he need a coach? Wax picked up the card on the tray, then nodded and took a deep breath. “Thank you.” He turned to Wayne and MeLaan. “Keep the governor alive. I’ll send word if I discover anything.” “So what’s in the coach?” Wayne asked. “I sent a note soon after I got here to the mansion,” Wax said. “There’s one person in this city who might have an inkling of what Bleeder is up to.” Wax’s face took on a grim cast. Ah, of course, Wayne thought. He patted Wax on the shoulder. This wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting. “Who?” MeLaan asked, looking from Wayne back to Wax. “What are you talking about?” “Have you ever heard,” Wax said, “of a group called the Set?” * * * Wax found his uncle waiting comfortably inside the coach. No bodyguards. The coachman didn’t even ask for Wax’s weapons as he stopped at the door. Contacting his uncle had been easy; the appointment book had listed a few of Edwarn’s safe-deposit boxes, kept under false names. After posting watch on one for a few weeks, Wax had found a letter inside, suggesting he try something else. He’d left his own letter. After that, one had appeared for him. They never said anything useful, and Wax had driven himself crazy trying to find out how they were being placed. But Edwarn seemed to know the moment a new one from Wax arrived. Wax took a deep breath, then climbed into the coach. Edwarn was a stocky man distinguished by a
short, precisely trimmed beard, a beautifully tailored suit, and a cravat so narrow and thin, it lay flat like a bowtie loosened at the end of a long night. Edwarn’s hands rested easily on the ornate head of a cane, and his face bore a wide smile. “Nephew!” he said as Wax settled into his seat. “You can’t imagine my joy upon receiving your note, and with a promise that you wouldn’t try to arrest me. So quaint! I came immediately; I feel like we’ve been too distant lately.” “Distant? You tried to have me killed.” “And you’ve tried to return the favor!” Edwarn said, knocking with his cane on the roof to get the coach moving. “Yet here we sit, both alive and well. I see no reason why we can’t be amiable. We are rivals, yes, but also still family.” “You’re a criminal, Uncle,” Wax said. “Considering the things you’ve done, I don’t feel much familial empathy.” Edwarn sighed, slipping his pipe from his pocket. “Can’t you at least try to be pleasant?” “I’ll try.” Truth was, Wax wanted information from this man. Antagonizing him would not be smart. They rolled on silently for a while as Edwarn lit the pipe, and Wax tried to organize his thoughts. How to approach this? “Dangerous night,” Edwarn noted, nodding out the window as they passed a group of men and women holding aloft lanterns and torches while listening to a woman standing on a stack of boxes. She shouted into the mists angry words that Wax couldn’t quite make out. Rusts, that group was close to the governor’s mansion. He hoped that Innate and the constables could get this under control. “I wonder,” Edwarn said, puffing on his pipe, “if that night long ago felt the same as this one—the night when the Survivor’s Gambit played out. The fall of a regime. The start of a new world.” “You can’t possibly think this is equivalent,” Wax said. “The Lord Ruler’s reign was one of terror and oppression. These people are upset, yes, but it’s a far different world now.” “Different?” Edwarn said, letting smoke roll from his mouth as he spoke. “Perhaps. But human emotions are the same. It seems that no matter how nice the box is, put a man inside it and he will buck. Fight. Rail.” “And you claim to be on the side of the common man,” Wax said dryly. “Hardly. I want power. Wealth. Influence. Just like the people in the Survivor’s crew, actually.” “They were heroes.” “And thieves.” “They were what they had to be.” “And Kelsier himself?” Edwarn said. “In the years before his grand gambit? What of the Ascendant Warrior, living on the street, scamming noblemen and priests for a living? Have you read the Words of Founding, Nephew? The Historica speaks frankly about their ambitions. The Survivor didn’t just want to overthrow the Lord Ruler; he wanted to steal the empire’s riches. He wanted to rule the world that came about upon the Lord Ruler’s fall. He wanted power. Influence. Wealth.” “I’m not
going down this road, Uncle,” Wax said. “Have you ever wondered,” Edwarn mused, ignoring Wax’s objection, “if you’d get along with them? If you’d lived back then, what would you have seen? A bunch of miscreants? Lawbreakers? Would you have trussed up the Ascendant Warrior and tossed her in a cell? The law is not something holy, son. It’s just a reflection of the ideals of those lucky enough to be in charge.” “I don’t know any constables,” Wax said, “who think the law is perfect or the courts infallible. But they’re the best damn things we have right now, and I’m not going to entertain for a second the idea that you’re some kind of secret seeker of justice. You’re as rotten as they come, Uncle.” “So pleasant,” Edwarn said. “And this is what I get for responding to your invitation? Insults and vitriol. And one wonders why our house is considered a laughingstock these days. I’m told they invite you to parties just to see you strut.” “I sent to you,” Wax said through clenched teeth, “because I think we might have a common enemy. I know you want to rule this city. Well, I need you to see reason. I’ve spoken with the creature. If we don’t stop her, there might not be a city to rule.” Edwarn didn’t respond, holding his pipe and looking through the coach’s glass window at the curling mists in the darkness just outside. “What do you know?” Wax asked, almost a plea. “I’m certain the Set has been watching events with interest. Your attempt to kill me earlier—tell me that was just a strike of opportunity. Tell me you aren’t working with her. She’ll see it all burn, Uncle. Help me bring her down.” Edwarn mused silently awhile, enjoying his pipe. “Do you realize what your overzealous campaign against us has accomplished, Nephew?” he finally asked. “Half the city’s elements are too frightened to work with the Set, for fear that you’ll show up on their doorstep and shoot their mothers. The money you’ve seized hasn’t ruined us, but it has made some of our members very, very upset.” “Good,” Wax said. “You say that because you’re ignorant,” Edwarn spat. “Among the members of the Set, I am conservative. I speak against brashness, against violence. The more you shove, however, the weaker my influence becomes, and stronger grow the voices clamoring for change. At any cost.” “Oh, Harmony,” Wax whispered. “You are working with her.” “It’s more like we’re riding the storm,” Edwarn said. “Personally, I’d love to see you bring this creature down. It might topple some of my rivals, give me a chance to propose something audacious of my own to the Set. But I’m not going to help you, Nephew. Perhaps this is what needs to be.” “How can you do this?” Wax asked. “You’re going to watch it all burn?” “Ashes are excellent fertilizer,” Edwarn said. “Unless they pile so high they smother everything.” Edwarn drew his lips to a tight line. “You are shortsighted and self-righteous. You were
ever so, even during your youth. But still I love you, Nephew. I consider it a sign of that love that I haven’t actually had you killed. I keep hoping you’ll see we are not your enemy. We are the thieves and miscreants of this day who will someday be hailed as heroes. The men and women who will change the world because … what was it you said?… this is what we need to be in order to survive.” “And my sister?” Wax said. “Is holding her captive part of what you need to do to survive?” “Yes, actually,” Edwarn said, meeting his eyes. “Because I don’t doubt that someday I’m going to need to use her against you. Kill me, and your sister is as good as dead, Waxillium.” He knocked again on the ceiling beneath the driver. The carriage slowed to a stop. “Run along now,” Edwarn said. “Go be the toy soldier and pretend you wouldn’t have murdered the Survivor’s entire crew, if you’d lived under the Lord Ruler. Try to pretend you went out into the Roughs to find justice, and not because you realized life in this city was just too damn hard for you.” They sat in the quiet, immobile coach. Wax held himself steady, though Edwarn’s eyes flicked toward Wax’s shoulder holster, as if he was expecting Wax to draw. He could. He could shoot this man right here and now—he’d broken promises before, and to far better men than his uncle. Kill me, and your sister is as good as dead.… Wax kicked the door open. “I’m going to go deal with this kandra, but know that I won’t forget you, Uncle. One day you’re going to find me standing behind you with a gun to your head, and you’ll have the sudden, horrible realization that there’s nothing left that can protect you.” “I look forward to it!” Edwarn said. “If that day doesn’t come before next summer, you should join me for Mareweather dinner. We’ll have stuffed pig in your honor.” Wax growled softly, but stepped from the coach and slammed the door. 18 Marasi had spent a great portion of her adult life preparing to be an attorney, and her mother had wished her to someday find her way to politics. Marasi had abandoned aspirations toward politics in her youth, and had recently abandoned the solicitors as well. The thing was, those professions had one important flaw: They were populated entirely with attorneys and politicians. Despite her best efforts she now found herself in a room full of them. Governor Innate stood by the hearth here, in his private study, one arm resting on the mantel. Arrayed before him were the men and women of his executive staff, a hearty bunch who didn’t seem nearly as groggy as the constables and guards who had been called up in the middle of the night. In fact, the group displayed a distinct energy as they discussed the crisis. Their words tumbled over one another in their eagerness to express their opinions, like children
vying for parental approval. Marasi stood beside the window—where the governor had put her, saying he’d get to her later. So she waited, listened, and circumspectly took notes on her pad. If the kandra happened to be hiding among them, she doubted a verbal slip would enable her to recognize Bleeder, but it seemed the best use of her time as long as she was required to stay put. “It will all blow over,” repeated the city sanitation director. He was an attorney who had been through the same program she’d completed, albeit many years ago. Marasi wasn’t sure why he needed a law degree to run city sanitation. “Rep, you’re taking this too seriously.” “I am taking an attempt on my life too seriously?” Innate asked. “An attack that left one of my lifelong friends dead?” That brought a stillness to the room, and the sanitation director settled back down, red-faced. Innate had changed his shirt from the one stained red with blood, but Marasi knew they all had seen him before he’d done so. She rather thought he’d delayed changing until they had. “I wasn’t talking about the assassination attempt,” the sanitation director said. “I meant the ruckus outside. It will blow over.” “They’re already looting,” the minister of trade noted, a bespectacled woman who had brought two aides to take notes for her. She hadn’t offered them seats. “There will always be looting,” the sanitation director said. “It happens. We hunker down, let burn what needs to burn. Contain, rather than try to stamp out.” “Foolishness,” said the secretary of education, a corpulent woman who sat with her feet up by the crackling fire. “This is a time for decisiveness, my lord governor. You need to show your rivals that you are not easily cowed. You know the Lekals have been getting traction lately, and your brother’s scandal will only fuel their ambition. Mark my words, they will present a strong candidate to rival you at the next election, and he will lean on this night’s events to discredit you.” “Yes,” said the minister of public affairs. “Could they be behind the assassination attempt, perhaps?” The governor glanced toward Marasi—the first time he’d acknowledged her since the meeting had begun. He knew about MeLaan now; she’d shown her true nature to him just before the meeting started. He believed, and had begun by explaining to the executive staff about the rogue kandra. The others obviously considered it foolishness and, after the way of their kind, were simply ignoring what he’d told them. Marasi met his gaze calmly. Once upon a time she had dreamed of being a participant in meetings like this one. Gatherings where important decisions were made, where laws were drafted and political strategies adopted. Now, she found herself frustrated by all the talk. Waxillium was rubbing off on her, and perhaps not in ways she should appreciate. “No, no,” the sanitation director said. “The Lekals aren’t behind this. An assassin? Are you mad, Donton? They would never be caught engaging in something so potentially damaging.” “Agreed,”
said the secretary of education. “This was someone far more desperate. I repeat, my lord governor. Decisiveness. Leadership. You asked about martial law? Well, that is the minimum you must do, I say. Send the constables out in force. Crush the looters, scatter the rioters, be seen protecting the city.” Others voiced their opinions on this, and the governor quieted them. “I’ll consider. I’ll consider.” His tone was sharp, sharper than Marasi had heard from him before. “Out with you all. I need to think.” In that moment he looked haggard. The counselors quieted, then made their way out. Marasi moved to join them, reluctantly. “Miss Colms,” the governor said, walking to his desk, “a moment.” Marasi obeyed, stepping up before the desk as he settled down. He reached to the floor, pushing back the rug and exposing the top of a small safe, which he absently unlocked with a key from his desk. He reached inside, taking out his seal of office, then settled down to begin writing. “Tell Constable-General Aradel that he has his writ of martial law,” the governor said tiredly. “He’s the only constable-general to contact me so far, which I find disturbing. I am appointing him with executive authority as lord high constable, director of all law-enforcement offices in the city until this crisis is over. The other octants’ constables-general will need to report to him.” Marasi didn’t reply. The others weren’t going to like that. The rivalry among the octant precincts was officially characterized as friendly, but in reality had far too much bite to it for her taste. “And your instructions regarding the people of the city?” Marasi asked softly as he wrote. “Should the constables do as your education secretary suggests?” Innate finished writing. He looked up at her, and seemed to weigh her with his eyes. “You’re new to the constabulary, I believe? The … cousin of Lord Ladrian’s betrothed?” “I wasn’t aware I’d attracted your attention,” Marasi said. “You haven’t. He has. Damnable man.” Marasi remained silent, feeling awkward before his judgmental gaze. “Those mobs will end up here sooner or later, you know,” the governor said, tapping his pen on the table. “They’ll come demanding answers. I must speak to them, turn this tide.” Speak to them? Marasi thought. As you did earlier? That speech hadn’t shown any particular sense of empathy. Rusts, had that only been this afternoon? Checking the governor’s ornate desk clock, she found it was almost two—so the governor’s speech had technically been yesterday. She probably shouldn’t have looked at the time; seeing exactly how late it was merely reminded her of her own exhaustion. It was like an angry creditor pounding on her door; she’d be able to ignore it for only so long. “Tell Aradel,” the governor mused, “not to stop the people from converging here at the mansion, but he is to beat down any looters in other parts of the city. Put the fear of the sword into them. I’ll need a force of constables here, of course, to keep the masses who
come to me in check, but I do want to speak to them. This will be a night for history to be made.” “Sir,” Marasi said. “I know a thing or two about the mentality of crowds, if you wish—” Someone outside called for Innate, and he stood in the middle of Marasi’s sentence. He shoved the writ toward her, sealed with his stamp, then marched out to deal with the questions. Marasi watched him go with a sigh. Hopefully Wayne and that kandra woman would be able to assure his safety. She’d happily see Innate incarcerated someday, but she didn’t wish him dead. His assassination would be, among other things, terrible for city morale. She stored the writ beside her pistol in her purse, then walked from the room and slipped through the hallway, where many of the cabinet members were giving orders to aides and accepting cups of steaming black tea from household staff. Wayne lounged in a corner, feet up on an end table and spinning an expensive gold-and-mahogany pen between his fingers. Harmony knew where he’d stolen that. Unfortunately, her motor needed a refueling, so she’d have to use more mundane methods to run the writ to Aradel. She found the footman and ordered a carriage. The haggard footman, however, shook his head. “It will be a few minutes, miss, before I can dredge up a coach. The executive staff have half the cabs in the city running notes for them, and on a night like this one no less…” He glanced meaningfully toward the open door. Outside, the porch lights barely penetrated the mists. They curled and danced, almost timid. Tiny wisps would creep into the entry hall, then vanish almost immediately like steam over a stove. “I will wait,” Marasi said. “Thank you.” He seemed pleased by her response; perhaps others had been less understanding. As he was called away, Marasi idled in the doorway, staring into the mists. That orange haze over the city wasn’t normal. Fires were burning out there. If they were lucky, those flames would only be massed lanterns and torches, not buildings. Standing there strongly reminded her of something that she couldn’t put her finger on. She shook her head and walked back into the mansion with half a mind to find Wayne and see what he thought of recent events. In the large sitting room beyond the entryway, she passed a weary serving man scrubbing the wooden floor. The bloodstains were stubborn, it appeared. The man had already discreetly rolled the rug up against the wall for disposal. Marasi passed him and, changing her mind about finding Wayne, instead walked down the stairs toward the hidden chamber. A city close to breaking, she thought as she reached the bottom. This has happened before. In the confined space, the air still smelled of the soap that had been used to clean up the blood. The empty saferoom had a quiet, scholastic feel about it, with all those books on the walls. There was no overhead lighting, just the lamps, shaded a
soft red-orange. She walked around the room, noting the many volumes of the full Words of Founding when she passed it on the wall. The leather-bound books seemed pristine, and on a whim, she pulled the first one out and checked it. The pages were uncut, as sometimes happened in new books. This volume had obviously never been read. Long ago the Survivor had pushed a city to the brink of destruction, then channeled that fury into a rebellion that had overthrown a millennium-long dictatorship. Every student learned of those days, but Marasi had read the detailed accounts, including of the night when it had all come to a head. She could imagine it had been a night very much like this one. Only instead of the Survivor, this time it had been induced by a psychotic murderer. She has to be doing it on purpose, Marasi thought, walking through the room. Trying to echo that night when the Lord Ruler fell. A people on the brink of insurrection. Noble houses at each other’s throats. And now … Now a speech. The governor would have his moment before the crowd, and they would sense the resonance even if they couldn’t put their finger on it. They’d been taught about that night since childhood. They would listen to him, and expect him to be like the Last Emperor, who had spoken long ago on the night of the Lord Ruler’s death. The Last Emperor had come to power because of his heartfelt words that night. But Governor Innate was not Elend Venture. Far from it. Marasi suddenly stopped and backed up a few steps. She’d been walking beside the built-in bookcases, paying little conscious attention to them, but just enough to have noticed something off. Here, on this long shelf of pristine books, were three in a row with spines scuffed at the bottom. What distinguished these books? They were part of a seven-volume collection of dry political treatises written long ago by the Counselor of Gods. She took one and flipped through it, finding nothing of interest. Perhaps Innate had been studying lately. But … why were only the third, fourth, and fifth volumes scuffed? She picked up another and opened it—and here she found the reason. Cut into the center of the pages was a hole containing a key. Innate hadn’t been reading Breeze’s old essays. He had simply forgotten which volume had the key in it. Marasi held up the key, then glanced at the room’s solitary desk. Dared she? Of course I dare, she thought, crossing the room with a swish of skirts. Her constable credentials, plus Aradel’s concern about the governor, would give her legal grounds for doing a quick search. She knew the law as well as anyone. She also knew that the law was subject to interpretation by the city’s judges, most of whom had noble blood and would not take kindly to someone spying on the governor. That was why her fingers were trembling as she quickly tried the key in the desk drawer. It
didn’t fit. She paused, then tried a spot on the floor like the one up above, where the governor had gotten out his seal. Sure enough, there was a hidden safe under the rug. She turned the key in it, and earned a satisfying click. She pulled the safe open and quickly scanned the contents. A pistol. Cigars. She didn’t recognize the brand. A bundle of banknotes tied with string. Enough to buy a house. Marasi’s eyes bulged a little, but she kept searching. A stack of letters. These she took over to the desk, expecting to find details of an illicit romantic relationship or the like. She skimmed them, then read more deeply, then sank down into the desk’s chair, raising her fingers to her lips. The letters did detail a relationship—or, rather, many of them. These were private communications with house leaders throughout the city. Although couched in euphemism and circumlocution, to her they clearly spoke of corruption. Marasi grew cold as she flipped through them, letter by letter. The actual writing was opaque. We agree that certain courtesies will be extended or These are acceptable terms as per our previous arrangement. But they were dated, and her mind quickly related each of them to her notes back at the precinct. This was proof. She flipped through more. Yes, they aligned with her own statistical analysis. These were Innate’s promises of political favors in exchange for bribes. With the obfuscatory language, it might not be a smoking gun—but it was at least a very warm one. Better, Innate had added notations to most of the letters to remind himself of important points. Here was one probably trading a promise by Innate to push for higher tariffs on refined steel from outside the city in exchange for a favorable deal on a land purchase by one of his family. Another more recent one was about a judge’s seat, when Innate had appointed a Hammondess scion to a recent opening. She’d suspected corruption, but this was jarring—seeing it discussed like this in black and white. She sifted through the stack. No letters to the Lekals, his primary rivals. None to Waxillium either, Marasi saw with relief—nor any older ones to Edwarn Ladrian, Waxillium’s uncle. Under the letters was a ledger, which she expected would show what Innate thought he was still owed, and would also record the state of his private accounts. Flipping through quickly didn’t tell her enough to be certain, but it did seem reasonable. Marasi sat holding it all, feeling overwhelmed. Rusts. The people are right to be in revolt. Was this the crux of Bleeder’s plan? Shove Innate into the limelight, then undermine him by exposing his corruption—indeed, the corrupt nature of virtually every noble family in the city? In revealing these letters, Marasi could be playing into the creature’s hands. That made her sick. If he was this corrupt, didn’t he need to be exposed and removed? She hurriedly tucked the letters into her purse. Captain Aradel needed to see this. Marasi quickly shut and locked the
safe, put back the key, and then started up the steps. She didn’t want to be in the basement when the footman came looking for her to announce her carriage. Innate will claim they were planted by Bleeder, Marasi thought as she reached ground level. He’ll have an easy out. Beyond that, if he noticed they were gone, he’d have a pretty good idea of who took them. That same servant was still cleaning up, and he’d seen Marasi go down and return. But Rust and Ruin, she wasn’t going to just ignore something like this. * * * Flying through the air at night let Wax see the distinct presence of humankind, as marked by strict boundaries. Where they dwelled, there was illumination. Pinpricks in the darkness, men and women staking a claim on the night. The lights spread like the roots of a tree. His uncle had left him far from where he wanted to be. Fortunately, for a Coinshot even the vastness of Elendel was manageable. He didn’t immediately turn inward, however, to visit the kandra Homeland. His uncle’s words haunted him, and before those Bleeder’s gibes. They attacked from two different directions, like pins pushed into either temple. He needed to think, to be alone. Perhaps then he could sort through what this mess meant. He landed on a rooftop overlooking the vast glowing carpet of lights before him. A cat watched him from a nearby flower box, its eyes alight. Below was another row of pubs. Loud, raucous. Surely it was past two in the morning, yet they showed no signs of quieting down. Rusts, how he hated that one could never feel truly alone in the city. Even in the privacy of his mansion, the quiet was marred by the incessant passage of carriages outside. He leaped away into the night, frightening the cat. He soared high in a long arc, trying to get far enough away that he couldn’t hear the men shouting drunkenly in the row of pubs. His search took him eastward, toward the edge of the city. As he approached, something emerged from the mists like the bleached spine of some ancient monster. Eastbridge, a massive construction that spanned the Irongate River here. On one hand, he marveled that humankind could create something like this—an enormous riveted marvel, big enough to let motors pass and also hold railroad tracks. On the other hand, the mists completely engulfed the bridge, giving it an even more skeletal cast. Humankind would create, and take pride in those creations, but Harmony’s presence could make it all seem trivial. Did He know? Wax landed atop one of the bridge’s towers, boots clanging. Could He have saved Lessie? The answer was simple. Of course Harmony had known. To believe in a God was to accept that He or She wasn’t going to deliver you from every problem. It wasn’t something Wax had ever dwelled on. Living in the Roughs, he’d accepted that sometimes you just had to weather things on your own. Help didn’t always come. That was
life. You dealt with it. But now, something felt different. He’d spoken to Harmony. Hell, Wax was out here right now because of a request from God Himself. That made it all the more personal. God hadn’t saved Lessie, hadn’t given Wax warning. And now He expected Wax to just hop to it and do as He demanded? And what would you do? Wax addressed himself, walking along the bridge’s lofty pinnacle. Let the city burn? Let Bleeder keep killing? Of course he couldn’t. Harmony knew that too. He had Wax by the throat. Are you there? Wax asked, sending the thought out. Harmony? He felt at his ear before remembering that he’d taken out his earring. By necessity, yes, but in that moment he was glad not to have it. Not to let God get a purchase on his mind, for the thoughts he had weren’t particularly pious. Wax strode through the mists, while down below a lone motorcar puttered across the bridge. Bleeder was toying with him. He could feel her fingers sneaking in, piercing his skull, wrapping around his mind. He could see exactly what she was doing, yet couldn’t banish the questions she raised. Wax paused at one end of the tower’s top. From here he could see the edge of the city, where the lights gave way to the darkness of the countryside. Behind him, the city was a brilliant blaze, thousands upon thousands of lights, but the electric lines hadn’t yet come out past the bridge. On the outskirts of Elendel, the lights stopped. The last few hung on the bridge, like lighthouses looking out at the vast blackness of the sea. He yearned for that darkness. To leap out into it, escape all this responsibility—stop needing to worry about hundreds of thousands of people he couldn’t know, and get back to helping the few he could. Freedom. Freedom, to Wax, wasn’t the absence of responsibility. He didn’t doubt that if he left again, he’d find himself as a lawman once more. No, freedom was not lack of responsibilities—it was being able to do what was right, without having to worry if it was also wrong. He didn’t contemplate leaving, not seriously. But he did sit for a time, looking out at that darkness. Trying to look past the people, the shadowed suburbs, and see simplicity again. Rusts. What he wouldn’t give to trade all the politicians, games, and secrets for an honest murderer calling him out on the street. Coward. His own thought. Not from Harmony, or Bleeder. That made it all the more like a punch to the gut, for he knew it to be the truth. Wax took a deep breath and stood up again, shouldering his burdens. He turned away from the darkness and leaped off the bridge, Pushing himself into the night again. He’d come here for a moment’s solace, to think. Turned out, he didn’t like where those thoughts were taking him. 19 As much as Wayne appreciated all the fancy treats the governor was providing, he had to admit
he wasn’t entirely sympathetic to the man’s plight. After all, the whole point of having someone in charge—like the governor—was about makin’ sure people knew which fellow to kill. That was why they had elections, wasn’t it? Innate got to be in charge and order everybody about, but when the assassins got bored, they didn’t go whack the guy what sold fish on the street corner. They went for the guy in charge. You had to take the good with the bad, you did. On one hand, you got fancy sweets any time of day. On the other hand, you might find murderers in your loo. That was the breaks. And this Innate guy, he seemed to really want to meet Ironeyes. Not running away to the country when you knew a psychopathic, shapeshifting super-Allomancer was after you? Yeah, he understood he was a target. As Wayne sauntered after him—taking the tray from the serving girl as she tried to retreat with the uneaten cakes—the governor stopped in the doorway to his study. “I need a few minutes to think, to prepare my remarks,” he said to Wayne and the other guards. “Thank you.” “But sir!” MeLaan said. “You can’t go in alone. We need to protect you!” “And what are any of you going to do,” Innate said, “about someone who can move at the speed of a thunderclap? We will just have to take our chances that the constables can deal with this … creature.” “I don’t think—” MeLaan began, but cut off as he shut the door, leaving her, Wayne, and a couple of other guards in the hallway. Wayne rolled his eyes, then leaned against the wall. “You two,” he said to the other guards, “go watch the window from outside that room, whydontcha? We’ll set up here.” The two fellows shuffled, looked like they’d object, but then slunk out of the hallway. I wonder, Wayne thought, settling down on the floor beside the door, if they’re rethinkin’ their career choices. What with most everyone else guarding the governor dead already … “You mortals,” MeLaan said, waving toward the door, “can be surprisingly cavalier with your limited life spans.” “Yeah,” Wayne said. “He probably just wants to get me in trouble.” “What?” MeLaan sounded amused. “By getting himself killed?” “Sure,” Wayne said. “The idiot forbade me from goin’ to his fancy party earlier, then ditched me afterwise. He’s got it in for me. He’s gonna get himself killed, and leave me to explain it to Wax. ‘Sorry, mate. I let your pet politician get ripped in half.’ And Wax’ll scowl at me real good, even though ’s not my fault.” MeLaan sat down across from him and grinned. “Is that what happened to his horse?” “Why you gotta bring that up again?” Wayne asked, wriggling down to get comfortable and tipping his hat over his eyes. “That really wasn’t my fault. I had myself a dehabilitating injury when that happened.” “De…” “Yeah,” Wayne said, “made me cuss and drink like a bugger.” He settled back, listening, eyes closed.
Servants moved through the building. Messengers went over their routes. Important types discussed their opinions just a room over. They all talked. Everyone had to talk. People couldn’t just think something, they had to explain it. Wayne was the same. He was people, after all. This murderer, this kandra, she was people too. She had talked to Wax. She had to talk. Wax would probably catch her. He did things like that, impossible things that nobody thought he could. But just in case he didn’t, Wayne listened. You could tell a lot about people from the way they talked. You saw their past, their upbringing, their aspirations—all in the words they used. And this kandra … sooner or later she’d slip up and use the wrong word. A word that would be obvious, like a fellow drinking milk in the middle of a rowdy tavern. He didn’t hear anything right off, though oddly he did notice MeLaan whispering to herself. As he listened, she modulated her voice, making it deeper—though still feminine. She repeated a few words to herself. “She woulda been a twofie,” Wayne noted, eyes still closed. “Hm?” MeLaan said. “Your bones,” Wayne said. “Woman you’re wearin’ right now. Twofie. Second Octant. Raised on the outskirts.” “And how do you know that?” MeLaan asked. “Heard her curse as I was helpin’ her,” Wayne said, feeling a stab of regret. The woman had just been doing her job, trying to keep someone from being killed. She’s still doing her job though, he thought, cracking an eye and looking at MeLaan. Her bones are, at least. Given the choice, if he died while trying to do something important, he’d rather that his bones get up and see it done right. Hell, with some kandra friends, he could be annoying Steris well into the afterlife. “Like this?” MeLaan said. “Second Octant, touch of agave farmer?” “Nice,” Wayne said. “Draw out the end of your sentences, pitch them lower. Get some real twofie into that voice.” “Is this better?” “Yeah, actually,” Wayne said, sitting up. “That’s damn good.” “TenSoon would be proud,” MeLaan said. “I can still get a difficult accent right, when I need to.” “Difficult?” Wayne said. “The twofie accent?” “With agave farmer.” “Common mix,” Wayne said. “Once, I hadda do a guy who grew up on the northwestern coast, raised by deaf parents, only talking once in a while—who had then moved in with the Terris fundamentalists up in the mountains there.” MeLaan frowned as a servant bustled past carrying linen. Some of the executive staff were going to be staying through the night, what was left of it, and guest rooms needed to be prepared. “I don’t know if I can do that,” MeLaan said, talking in a slow, deliberate way, with a hint of Terris and a lot of slurred words. “But it does sound like fun.” “Ha!” Wayne said, turning on the accent, which was actually more clipped than MeLaan had made it. “Good, but you’re trying too hard. Being raised by parents who can’t hear doesn’t make
a chap stupid. He just looks at the world differently, see?” “Not bad,” MeLaan said. The next servant who passed gave them a glare as she had to pick her way over their outstretched legs in the hallway. “It’s better if I have a hat,” Wayne said. “A … hat.” “Sure,” Wayne said. “Hats is a disguise for your brain. Helps you think like the person what wore it last. You wanna know a guy? Put on his hat.” “Has anyone ever told you that you’re surprisingly wise?” MeLaan asked. “All the bloody time.” “They’re idiots. You’re not wise, you’re playing them. You’re doing this on purpose.” She grinned. “I love it.” Wayne tipped his hat forward, smiling and leaning back again. “I’m not lying ’bout the hats though. They do help.” “Sure,” MeLaan said. “Like bones.” He cracked an eye at her. “Does it ever … bother you? Knowin’ you might live forever?” “Bother me? Why would it? Immortality is damn convenient.” “Don’t know about that,” Wayne said. “Seems to me that it would be nice to finally be done, you know? It’s like … like you’re running a race, and you don’t know quite where the end is, but you got an idea. An’ you only need to make it that far. I can do that, I figure. But you, you don’t have no end.” “You actually sound like you want to die.” “Someday,” Wayne said. “Huh. Maybe I should get into politics.” MeLaan shook her head at him, seeming bemused. “It can be daunting,” she admitted a short time later, “to consider eternity, as Harmony must see it. But anytime I get bored, I can just live a new life.” “Put on a new hat,” Wayne said. “Become someone else.” “Switch it up. Be bold where once I was timid. Be crass where I was respectful. Makes life interesting, dynamic.” She paused. “And there’s something else. We can die, if we want.” “What, just like that?” “Kinda,” MeLaan said. “Don’t know if you’ve read the accounts. They’re blurry about this topic anyway, but near the end of the World of Ash, Ruin tried to take over the kandra. Control them directly. Well, TenSoon and those in charge, they were really terrified by that. So they planned, and we all talked. And about a century after the Catacendre, we figured out a way to stop our own lives. Takes a little concentration, but sets the body into a spiral where we just … end.” “Nice,” Wayne said, nodding. “That makes a lot of sense. Always have an escape route planned. Oh, and your ‘a’s are still off; you carried them over from your own accent. They aren’t nasal enough. Draw them out, if you wanna sound like a real twofie.” She cocked her head at him. “You’re wasted as a human.” “Nah,” Wayne said. “I’ve barely had a few mouthfuls today.” He reached in his pocket and checked his flask. “Well, maybe a wee more than that.” “No, I meant—” He grinned at her, and she cut off, then grinned
back. He tipped his hat to her, then closed his eyes and continued listening. A short time later, she stood up and started pacing the hall, and he could hear her saying her “a” sounds to herself as she walked. He listened for a good long while, catching nothing abnormal, though he was pretty sure the sanitation-minister guy was lying about his education. That fellow had never been to the university—or if he had, he hadn’t hung around long enough to pick up the proper words. Wayne was mulling this over when he heard something out front. A voice, faint but unmistakable. He scrambled to his feet, causing MeLaan to jump. “Gottago,” he said. “Watchdaidiot.” “But—” “Berideback,” Wayne said, clutching his hat and running down the hallway, his long Roughs-style duster flaring to the sides. He raced around the corner and dashed toward the front of the mansion. “He said to deliver it here,” the woman was saying to the butler. “So I’ve brought it. It was a simple task—he just needed something made. Hardly worth waking me…” She turned to him. A radiant, glorious woman, built like a good Roughs fence—just tall enough, lean, but strong too. She had dark hair, which he’d compared to a pony’s on several occasions—and it was right unfair that she should get mad, considering she kept it in a tail and everything. She wore trousers, because skirts were stupid, and boots, ’cuz stuff needed to be kicked. The whole world could be going wrong, but seeing her made him forget. He grinned. In return she gave him her special scowl, the one just for him. It was how he knew she cared. That, and when she shot him she tended to aim for places that didn’t hurt too much. “She’s with me,” Wayne said, running up. “Like hell I am,” Ranette said, but she let him steer her away from the butler. “And one wonders,” the butler said from behind, “how His Grace’s life can be threatened, when we’re letting every dust rat in the city saunter up and—” He cut off as Ranette spun, her pistol out. Wayne caught her arm in time to stop her from firing. “Dust rat?” she muttered. “When’s the last time you bathed?” Wayne said. Then winced. “Just … you know, curious.” “Guns don’t care if I stink, Wayne. I have things to do. And I don’t like being ordered around.” She shook a little cloth pouch in her left hand. Behind, the butler had grown very pale. Wayne got her into the sitting room. She didn’t stink, despite what she said—she smelled of grease and gunpowder. Good scents. Ranette scents. “What is it?” Wayne asked, snatching the pouch once they were out of sight. “Something Wax asked me to make,” Ranette said. “Who got killed over there?” She pointed toward the still-open secret door down to the saferoom. Murder always caught her attention, if only because she’d want to see the bodies and judge how well the bullets tore up the flesh. Wayne rolled a small metal object
from the pouch onto his palm. A bullet. His hand started to shake. “Oh, for Harmony’s sake,” Ranette said, plucking the bullet from his hand before he could drop it. “It’s not a gun, you idiot.” “It’s a part of one,” Wayne said, shoving his hand in his pocket and breathing deeply. He could hold a bullet. He did that all the time, for Wax. The shaking subsided. Something seemed odd about that bullet though. “So if I gave you a splinter of wood, and told you it had once been in a rifle stock, you’d go to pieces then too?” “Dunno,” Wayne said. “You think I understand how my brain works?” “I’d say there’s a logical fallacy in that statement,” Ranette said. “Maybe two.” She tucked the bullet back into the pouch. “Wax here?” “No. He’s off detectiving.” “Then you’ll have to take this,” she said, handing him the pouch. “His note insisted it was important. Half powder as he asked, piercing bullet, forged not to shatter.” He could hold a bullet. He took it, then tucked it away immediately in his duster. See? “So, uh, want to go get a drink?” he said. “You know, when the city is safe. Or maybe before it’s safe? I don’t mind none if the pub’s a little on fire while we drink.” “You know I’d sooner shoot myself, Wayne,” she said with a sigh. “And Misra would shoot me if—by chance—I did go, come to think of it.” Wayne frowned. That was nowhere near the vitriol he normally got from her. “What’s wrong?” he asked. She shook her head, glancing back toward the entryway. “It’s bad out there, Wayne. People still on the streets, thronging together, shouting. I’ve seen crowds like this before, in the Roughs. Usually right before a man got strung up, law or no law. Those were towns of five hundred. What happens when it’s five million who start acting like that…” “Probably the return of the Ashen World,” Wayne said. “What better time to finally profess your long-requited love for a certain handsome fellow what don’t mind none if you smell like the inside of a barrel of sulfur?” She gave him the glare again. He grinned. But then she didn’t shoot him. Or even punch him. Damn. This was bad. “They’re starting to gather outside,” Ranette said, distracted. “Chanting slogans about the governor.” “I need to check that,” Wayne decided. If the governor wasn’t going to let him in and watch him close up, maybe he could learn something about Bleeder’s plans out in that crowd. “Get back to your house, lock the doors, and keep your guns handy.” It was telling that she didn’t offer the slightest objection to his order as he strode toward the door out into the mists. * * * Captain Aradel regarded the governor’s writ as he would the last will and testament of a beloved family member: with both reverence and obvious discomfort. “He names me lord high constable,” Aradel said. “But … rusts, I’m no lord.” He looked up at
Reddi and his other lieutenants. “Perhaps,” Reddi said, “the appointment conveys a title, sir.” “The governor can’t just appoint someone to the peerage,” Marasi said. “A new title has to be ratified by a council with a quorum of the major house seats in the city.” She bit her lip as soon as she said it. She didn’t mean to be contrary. Aradel didn’t appear to mind. He carefully folded the writ and slid it into his jacket pocket. She’d found him gathering a sizable force outside of headquarters, preparing to still malcontents and ring constabulary bells to let the people living nearby know that at least someone was patrolling this night. Phantom sounds floated through the mists. Distant shouts. Clangs. Screams. It felt like hell itself surrounded them, shrouded in a veil of darkness and fog. “Sir,” Marasi said. “The governor said that he wanted you to do two things. First, send a detachment to forcefully quell rioting in the city. Second, bring up a smaller force to guard him as he prepares to address the people near the mansion. You’re not to turn protesters away there, but elsewhere in the city … sir, he counseled you to be firm of hand. Very firm.” “Rusting idiots deserve it,” said Lieutenant Mereline, a woman with short blonde hair. “No need for bloodthirst, Lieutenant,” Aradel said. “I seem to remember you cussing out the Hasting family with some regularity yourself.” “Doesn’t mean I’m setting fire to the city,” Mereline said. “The high houses being bastards doesn’t excuse being bastards ourselves. Sir.” “Well, the mansion seems a good enough center from which to operate,” Aradel said. “Chip, you and the messengers run to the other constables-general and ask them to meet me at the governor’s mansion with their officers. We’ll coordinate the city lockdown from there. Everyone else, let’s double-time it that way. If His Grace wants to talk to the people, I want a nice thick barrier of police bodies between him and his constituents, understand?” The group bustled into motion, the bell ringers setting out in front, the messengers scattering—one even taking to the skies; Chip was one of the Coinshots. The rest of the constables fell into a march. An uneven one—they weren’t soldiers—but no less resolute. “Sir,” Marasi said, walking quickly up to Aradel, “there’s something else I need to tell you, if you can spare a moment.” “How important is it?” Aradel asked, pausing at the side of the group. “Very.” Reddi cleared his throat behind them. “Perhaps you should discuss it while traveling to the mansion, sir. If the governor really is planning to address the crowds…” “Yes,” Aradel said. “Innate suddenly appointed me lord high constable; that immediately worries me about what other kinds of impulsive things he’s capable of doing tonight. Let’s do this on the move, Colms. Reddi, bring along the rest of the constables as smartly as you can. I’m going to the mansion ahead of you.” Marasi nodded. The things she wanted to discuss would be best said in the privacy of a
carriage anyway. Except … Idiot, she thought as Aradel jogged over to a group of horses in constable livery, reins held by a corporal. The carriage she’d been contemplating pulled away, loaded with equipment most likely. Reddi grinned at her smugly. Marasi sighed. She’d been looking forward to maintaining her decorum tonight. Ah well. She walked over and took a set of reins. Aradel was already in his saddle. He glanced at her, then raised a hand to his head. “Oh, of course. I didn’t think—” Marasi swung up into the saddle, awkwardly bunching her skirt up between her legs and sitting on part of it, revealing a generous expanse of leg. “It occurs to me, sir,” Marasi noted, “that lady constable uniforms could be distinctly more utilitarian.” “We’ll … make a note of it, Lieutenant Colms.” He glanced toward the retreating carriage. “If you wish—” “Sir,” Marasi said, “I believe the city is on fire. Perhaps we can discuss feminine modesty on another occasion?” “Of course.” He nodded and they set off in a clatter of hooves, trailed by two corporals with rifles in the scabbards on their saddles. The four horses quickly outpaced the larger group of constables, and even the carriage, as they rode through the mists. Marasi was glad of the darkness, as it hid her furious blush. In compensation, she had gained the memory of Reddi’s stunned expression, utterly shocked by what she’d done. Well, why shouldn’t she show her legs? Historical precedent, and simple practicality, demanded that women be allowed into all professions. What lord would turn away a Thug or a Bloodmaker from his guards just because she had breasts? What constable office would pass up the chance to have every Tineye or Coinshot they could get? What bank wouldn’t jump at the chance to employ a Terriswoman with copperminds? The thing was, woman constables were also expected to be models of ladylike behavior. A holdover from the old days, reinforced by the speeches of Lady Allrianne Ladrian soon after the Catacendre. There was just this blunt expectation that you would strive to remain feminine at the same time as you did your job. A heavy double standard to bear. At times Marasi didn’t mind. She liked dresses, and nice hair, and solving problems with a careful word instead of a fist to the face. To her it was perfectly reasonable to be feminine and a constable. But did the men ever have to worry about being properly masculine while doing their jobs? One social problem at a time, Marasi, she admonished herself, riding alongside Aradel. Though she was going to buy some rusting trousers. Riding this way was cold. “You ride well,” Aradel called to her as they slowed slightly from their initial burst away from the others. He led the way across a canal bridge, cutting across the middle of the Third Octant to get to the Second. “I’ve had plenty of practice,” Marasi said. “That’s uncommon in the city these days,” Aradel noted. “A hobby?” “You could say that,” Marasi said, blushing
as she remembered her girlish fascination with the Roughs, lawmen, and Allomancer Jak stories. When her friends—well, acquaintances—had been given new coats for their birthdays, she’d begged for a Roughs duster and hat. Pure foolishness, of course. She’d completely grown out of that. “What is it you wanted to tell me?” Aradel called. “Could we slow further for a moment?” He nodded and obliged, to the point where the horses were maintaining a brisk walk. Marasi opened the purse she’d slung over her shoulder and thrust the letters at Aradel. She hadn’t consciously realized how eager she’d been to pass them on to someone else, so that the responsibility they represented wouldn’t rest solely on her. Aradel took them. “What’s this?” he asked quietly. “You remember telling me to snoop around the governor’s place, if I got the chance?” “I remember telling you—with great circumspection—to keep your eyes open, Lieutenant.” “I did, sir. I kept my hands open too. In case something damning happened to fall into them.” “Harmony. What did you find?” “Letters,” Marasi said, “from Innate to various ladies and lords in the city, arranging for the purchase of political favors and the suppression of legislation they didn’t want. Sir, they’re annotated in his own hand, and they match my records of suspicious events during his tenure as governor. During the ride to bring you the writ I read through them, and I’m convinced he’s just as corrupt as his brother was.” Aradel gave no outward reaction of either surprise or outrage. He rode in silence, gripping the letters, eyes forward. “Sir?” Marasi finally asked. “You put me in a difficult position, Lieutenant.” “Sir. I’d say that the governor has put you in that position, not me.” “How legally did you obtain these?” “That depends,” Marasi said, “on how the courts would interpret your authority to investigate when there is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, and whether or not you were justified in authorizing me to act.” “In other words, you stole them.” “Yes, sir.” Aradel tucked them away. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect him, sir,” Marasi offered. “Until proven guilty in court, he’s still the rightful leader of the city. This isn’t the Roughs, where we can just stride up and shoot someone, then publish our reasons later.” “The mere fact that you feel you need to point that out,” Aradel said, “means you’ve been spending too much time with your Coinshot friend, Colms. I’m not considering avoiding my duty. I’m just thinking of all those people, and their rioting. And they’re right. They are being robbed by the system. Ruin … we were supposed to be better than this. What if the Lord Mistborn saw us now?” “I suspect,” Marasi said, “he’d tell us to do something about the situation.” Aradel nodded curtly. When he offered no further commentary, Marasi kicked her horse back into a trot, and the lord high constable followed suit. * * * Tradition held that today’s Field of Rebirth looked exactly the same as on that day long ago when humankind had crept
from the wombs of stone that Harmony had created. Though the city had claimed all of the surrounding area, this central ring of pleasant grass and gentle hills had been left as a monument to another time. Marewill flowers brushed Wax’s mistcoat as he strode across the springy ground. The tradition that this place hadn’t changed was pure stupidity. Surely when Breeze and Hammond had climbed out into the sunlight, they hadn’t found grass that was perfectly manicured or flowers that grew in careful lines. Did people who spoke of that tradition just ignore the benches and the pathways? The buildings? Surely Harmony hadn’t left lavatories on the grassland for the convenience of visitors. At the center the highest hill was topped by the half museum, half mausoleum sheltering the tombs of the Last Emperor and the Ascendant Warrior. Their giant statues rose above, dominating the area. As Wax approached, he was surprised to find lamps on the low structure spilling light across the grass and flowers. A pair of constables guarded the door. “Now, just turn on back and don’t make trouble,” one of them called as Wax approached. Wax ignored the order, striding out of the mists and up to the men. “The caretakers called for your help, I assume?” The two constables studied him, then reluctantly saluted. His reputation preceded him, though these men wore the patches of constables from the First Octant. It was a precinct he hadn’t often visited, but who else strode through the night in a mistcoat with a shotgun strapped to his leg? “They’re worried about looters,” one of the constables said, a squat fellow with a half beard around his mouth. “Um, sir.” “Wise,” Wax said, striding past them and pushing into the mausoleum. “Uh, sir?” one of the constables said. “They said not to let … Sir?” Wax pushed the door shut as the two constables started arguing outside about whether they should stop him or not. He scanned the open foyer, with its murals of the Originators. Hammond, the Lord Mistborn, Lady Truth, Wax’s own ancestor Edgard Ladrian. Portly and self-satisfied, in his portrait he held a cup of wine. He’d always looked like the sort of person Wax would want to punch on sight. The type who was certainly guilty of something. Wax ignored the displays of various relics from the World of Ash, and didn’t enter the chamber that held the resting places of the Ascendant Warrior and her husband, though he did raise his gun and spin the cylinder toward them in acknowledgment. A Roughs tradition to respect the fallen. “What’s this?” A bleary-eyed woman stepped out of a nearby room, apparently a small apartment for the caretaker. “Nobody was to be let in!” “Routine inspection,” Wax said, striding past without looking. “Routine? In the middle of the night?” “You asked for constable involvement,” Wax said. “Codes require that when you ask for guards from the precinct, we have to do an inspection to make sure you don’t have contraband.” “Contraband?” the woman asked. “This is the Originator
Tomb!” “Just doing my job,” Wax said. “You can take it up with my superiors outside, if you wish.” She stormed out toward the front doors in a huff as Wax reached a small room unadorned with relics or plaques. The only thing in here was a hole in the ground. It was a gaping pit fenced by a railing to keep inquisitive children from tumbling in. There was a ladder, but Wax dropped a bullet casing and jumped, falling freely a short distance before slowing himself and hitting the dark, glassy stone floor at the bottom. A few lights dangled from the ceiling, like drips of molasses. He Pushed on a nearby light switch, causing the lights to flicker on throughout this enormous cavern. He’d visited here as a youth; every tutor brought their charges to visit, and he understood it was common in the public schools as well. It felt different now, standing alone in the large, low-ceilinged chamber. No jabbering tourists to break the mood or chase away visions of the past. He could hear much better the water rushing in the distance, where the river flowed. Parts of the caverns were supposed to have flooded over time. He could only vaguely remember explanations during his tour here of why others remained dry. He walked into the cavern, trying to imagine what it had been like to huddle in one of these caves, the world dying outside, wondering if you were going to spend the rest of your short life trapped in darkness. He trailed his fingers on the stone walls as he wound around corners. The place was large and open, but also contained a series of smaller, bulbous chambers at the side. Most were part of the museum, and contained plaques with quotes from the Originators, written in metal. Others contained depictions of the rebuilding of the world, or other relics such as a replica of both Harmony’s Bands and the Bands of Mourning. One entire chamber was dedicated to the Words of Founding, Harmony’s books, lore, knowledge, and own holy account of what had happened to the World of Ash. Another chamber contained volumes by other Originators, some of which were considered holy canon by one sect or another—while some, like the Docksithium, were decidedly apocryphal. Wax had tried to read the thing once. Copyright pages were more interesting. He lingered at a chamber dedicated to the Survivor containing a hundred different depictions of him by various artists, some contemporary, others ancient. There was fervent fascination with his posthumous “apparitions” to people during the final days, though Harmony himself attributed those to the Faceless Immortals. Echoing voices chased Wax onward. Wayne would probably give him hell for confusing the poor people, rather than just telling them what he was doing. Of course, Wayne would probably have convinced them he was the Lord Ruler, then made them fix him dinner. So he tried not to let Wayne’s moral compass influence him too much. Wax counted down the chambers dedicated to each of the metals until he reached
the sign of atium. This little chamber contained documentation and rumors about the mythological metal; Wax didn’t have the time to read them. Instead, he followed the blue lines his steelsight showed him. They pointed toward a side wall, where he was able to pry back a decorative piece of wood paneling and push on a lever, popping open a doorway and revealing a cavern beyond. He slipped in, unhooked an old oil lantern from the wall, and pulled the door shut before kneeling down in the pitch blackness, fishing in his gunbelt for some matches. As he pulled them out, a growling voice sounded in the dimness. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 20 Wax held very still in the darkness. He flared his steel, seeking guidance from that comfortable fire inside of him. The blue lines pointed exclusively behind him; those pointed toward the hidden doorway and the nails in the wall. There was nothing else. Except … Could he just barely make something out? Two faint lines, tiny as the threads of a spiderweb. He flared his metal, straining, Pushing. The lines quivered in the darkness. Then they were gone. Wax whipped out his Sterrion and pointed it down the corridor away from the lines, and fired three times in quick succession. The flash of gunpowder lit the room like lightning as he leveled his other gun toward the blue lines and the source of the sound. In those flashes, he made out something in the darkness crouching nearby. It was inhuman, with bestial eyes and stark white teeth. Rust and Ruin. Fingers sweaty on his gun, Wax backed away from the thing, ready to fire. He didn’t pull the trigger. You didn’t shoot something for talking to you. “You’re certainly a jumpy one,” the voice growled. “Who are you?” What are you? “Light your lantern, human,” the voice said. “And lock that door. Let’s be away from here before someone comes to investigate the gunfire.” Wax paused to catch his breath and steady his nerves, but eventually slipped his guns back into their holsters. Whatever it was, it could have attacked him instead of speaking to him. It didn’t want him dead. He lit the small lantern, but when he raised it, the creature had retreated into the corridor until it was just a shadow. Still unnerved, Wax flipped the latches he found on the wall, locking the hidden doorway closed from the inside. “Come,” the voice said. “You’re one of them,” Wax whispered, raising the lantern and following the shadowy figure, which walked on all fours. “You’re a kandra.” “Yes.” Wax jogged to catch up, his lanternlight finally giving him a good look at his companion. A wolfhound, easily the largest he had ever seen, of a mottled grey coloring. The pelt reminded him of the mists. “I’ve read about you,” Wax said. “Thrilling,” the kandra growled. “I’m so happy Sazed included me in his little book so that drunk people can curse by my name.” “They … do that?” “Yes.” The wolfhound growled quietly in the back
of his throat. “There are … stuffed toys too.” “Oh yeah,” Wax said. “Soonie cubs. I’ve seen those around.” The growling grew louder, and Wax’s nervousness returned. Best not to taunt the immortal hound. He didn’t know how many of the legends of this creature were true, but if even a percentage were based in fact … “So,” Wax said. “Guardian. You were waiting for me?” “It was decided,” the kandra said, “that allowing a human to wander these caverns alone was unwise. I came myself. The others are busy.” “Hunting Bleeder?” “Counteracting her,” the kandra said, leading him to an intersection, then taking the right fork. They walked in silence for a short time before Wax cleared his throat. “Um … do you mind explaining what you mean by that?” The dog sighed, a discomforting sound. A talking dog was strange, but the sigh was just so human. “I don’t talk much these days,” the kandra said. “I’ve … fallen out of practice, it seems. Paalm is trying to spark a revolution, using skills she learned from the Lord Ruler himself. But she is only one kandra. She has disdain for the rest of us, and therefore underestimates us in equal measure. We can do what she does, imitating people, appearing on the streets. For every ‘priest’ she has commit an atrocity, we will have dozens out tonight, preaching temperance and peace, pleading with the people not to listen to rumors.” “Wise,” Wax said. He hadn’t considered what the other kandra might be doing, other than vaguely assuming they were tracking Bleeder. This made good sense. Could he use it, somehow, in his investigation? As they moved deeper into the caverns, Wax noted a crusty white substance growing on the rocks, the source of the powdery residue he’d found on Bleeder’s clothing. Presumably, if he extinguished his lantern he’d be able to see the glow. He might not even need the lantern, but thinking of all this stone surrounding him—separating him from the mists above—he felt no urge to extinguish it. The network of tunnels was far more extensive than he’d expected. He’d thought of this place only as that one cavern underneath the tomb—but that wasn’t it at all. Harmony had assembled many different refuges of people as he remade the world, placing them all in the same area that was now Elendel. How much of the city did these tunnels stretch beneath? He passed a number of them that had flooded; what was the difference between those and the ones that remained dry? As they wound through the tunnels, they passed an opening into a different large cavern. He raised his lantern to give it a glance, then froze in place. Instead of more rough, natural rock, his light illuminated dusty tiles and pillars, with parts of the floor torn up. Past them, there was what appeared to be a small hut of all things. “TenSoon?” he asked as the kandra continued forward. “Come along, human.” “Is that…” “Yes. Many people hid in the basements of Kredik Shaw, the
Lord Ruler’s palace. Sazed moved that here, as he did with all other caverns of refuge.” Wax couldn’t pull himself away, gaping at history—no, mythology—come alive. The Lord Ruler’s palace. Places where the Survivor and his followers had walked. Rusts … the Well of Ascension itself would be in there. “Human,” the kandra said, insistent. “There is something I wish for you to see. Come.” Another time, Wax thought, turning from the entrance to lost Kredik Shaw and following TenSoon. “MeLaan said that the kandra don’t come down here often. Why not? Isn’t this your home?” “It is a sacred place,” the wolfhound said. “Yes, it is home, but also a prison—and so much more. Under the Lord Ruler, we needed this place for freedom, to be ourselves. Outside, we were controlled, enslaved by men.” Bitter, Wax thought. Even after hundreds of years, this creature was pained by the life it had led. Did he blame humankind? Did Bleeder? “We come here,” TenSoon said, “when the mood strikes us. Usually we come alone, and infrequently. There are clubs up above where we can socialize now, being ourselves. Homes. Lives. The younger generations almost never visit this place. They prefer their lives as they are now, and don’t wish to remember the past. I suppose I’m the same, though for different reasons.” Wax nodded, walking alongside the kandra as they penetrated ever deeper into the twisting tunnels of the Homeland. They passed many empty chambers, but some that held oddities, like two with old baskets and some discarded bones on the floor. Wax had been in his fair share of tunnels out in the Roughs, but most of those had been some kind of man-made mine. These caverns were different. Those had smelled of dust and dirt, while this place somehow felt alive. Of water and fungus. Of patience. The tunnels were knobby, yet smooth, like wax pooled beneath a long-burning candle. Holy ground. Everything else in the world, so far as he knew, had been completely remade during the Catacendre. But these caverns stretched back to eternity, as old as human memory. Older. Eventually they reached a small chamber that didn’t seem quite as organic as the others. Had it been shaped, somehow, by kandra hands? TenSoon settled down on his haunches in the entrance to the room. Wax’s light glittered off the smooth, bulbous rock of the floor, which fell away into a series of pits. Perhaps three feet across, they looked like holes dug by prospectors foolishly hunting metals out in the Roughs. Wax glanced at TenSoon. “I passed by here on my way to meet with you,” the kandra said in his growling, half-human voice. “I smelled something wrong.” Smelled something? Wax couldn’t catch any odd scents—but this whole place smelled strange to him. He stepped into the room, then noted something. One of the small pits was full. Were those sheets of paper? Yes, they were. As Wax knelt at the rim of the pit, he was surprised to find hundreds of sheets of paper inside, jagged on
one edge, as if they’d been ripped from a book. They contained cramped writing, with numbered verses. The Words of Founding. Besides the normal writing, someone had scrawled all over these in brownish-red ink. Blood, Wax thought. It’s blood. He set down his lantern, then reached down and picked up a page. Book eighty, verses twenty-seven through fifty. Verses about Harmony’s quest for Truth. Someone, likely Bleeder, had written all over them the words Lies, lies, lies. Wax dug up other sheets. Most had something written on them, a word or phrase, though many were just smeared with blood. Something bothered Wax about it all, something that made his eye twitch. He couldn’t say what it was. I was there, one sheet read. Nobody, said another. It was, said another. He started laying them out. TenSoon—whom he’d almost forgotten—sniffed in the doorway. Wax glanced back. “Did you see these?” “Yes,” TenSoon said. “What do you make of them?” “I … did not stay long,” the kandra said, then looked to the side. “I do not spend time in this room, human. I am not fond of it.” This room … Wax felt cold. Was this the prison that TenSoon had been trapped in, locked away without bones, awaiting execution? Rusts. He was kneeling in a place that had decided the fate of the world. Wax stretched down, grabbing more of the sheets. It seemed like Bleeder had ripped apart an entire set of the Words of Founding—the unabridged version. Old edition too, judging by the fact that it had been handwritten instead of printed. “You really knew her, didn’t you?” Wax asked. “The Ascendant Warrior?” “I knew her,” TenSoon said softly. “Near the end, I spent over an hour without my spikes, and so my memories degraded. However, most of what I lost was from the time right before my fall. Most of my memories of her are crisp.” Wax hesitated with stacks of pages in his hands. “What was she like? As a person, I mean.” “She was strong and vulnerable all at once,” TenSoon whispered. “She was my last master, and my greatest. She had a way of pouring everything of herself into what she did. When she fought, she was the blade. When she loved, she was the kiss. In that regard, she was far more … human than any I have known.” Wax found himself nodding as he settled the pages about him, in stacks based on whether they had words or not. The ones with fingerprints he set in their own stack. Perhaps they would be useful. Probably not. Bleeder was a shapeshifter, after all. TenSoon eventually padded up to him. “They look,” TenSoon said, inspecting the sheets, “like they might say something if you string them together.” “Yeah,” Wax said, dissatisfied. “What is wrong?” “It’s too much,” Wax said, waving his hand at it. “Too convoluted, too sensational. Why would she write on a bunch of pages, then rip them out and leave them here?” “Because she’s mad.” “No,” Wax said. “She’s not that kind of
mad. The way she’s been working is too deliberate, too focused. Her motives might be insane, but her methods have been careful.” How could he explain it? This case had his instincts fighting with one another. He tried again. “When someone leaves something like this behind, it means one of two things. They’re sloppy, or they’re trying too hard. She’s not sloppy, but I don’t think she’s trying to be cute either, dangling clues and playing games. When I talked to her…” “You spoke with Paalm?” TenSoon demanded, his ears perking up. “When?” “Earlier tonight,” Wax said. “There was something regretful about her. She claimed to not be playing games, but this seems like a game. A thousand discarded pages, left to be put back together and form a clue?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Madness or not, she had to know that other kandra would eventually find this.” “Very well,” TenSoon said, settling back down. “But she spoke to you as herself, not an imitation?” “Yes. Is that odd? You’re doing it right now, and MeLaan seems to be acting no specific role either.” “We are not Paalm,” TenSoon said. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s been subject to the performance. I was like that too, years ago. I didn’t know who I was if I was not imitating someone.” Wax looked across the sheets. Freedom, one of them said in a scrawl across the page. Will give you freedom whether you, said another, only half of a thought. “What was she like?” Wax asked. “Who is she, Guardian?” “Hard to say,” TenSoon replied. “Paalm was the Lord Ruler’s pet kandra, a slave to his will and the contract we made with him. She ignored events surrounding the end of the World of Ash; she vanished, didn’t return to the Homeland. I assumed her dead, until she appeared among the survivors. Even then she separated herself from us, though she served Harmony as we all did. Until … nothing. Absence.” “Freedom,” Wax said, tapping the page. “She talked about that with me. What does it mean?” “I don’t know,” TenSoon said, voice even more a growl than before. “She has betrayed everything we are. But then, so did I. So perhaps we are a pair, she and I. Two of the oldest monsters remaining on this planet, now that many of the Seconds have taken the escape of ending their own lives.” “Freedom…” Wax whispered. “Someone else moves us.… She left a note for me in the governor’s mansion. She removed a politician’s tongue, to stop his lies. Killed a priest through the eyes, to stop him from looking. Seeing. For who? For what?” She had been the Lord Ruler’s kandra, moved about and danced at his whims. And then … Harmony’s servant? She lived with his voice inside her head, knowing all along that he could take control of her. How would that feel? Would it make you remove one of your spikes? Would you be trying to bring that freedom to everyone? Misguided, in your
insanity, certain that the world needed saving? Wax stood up slowly. “It’s about Harmony.” “Lawman?” “She’s trying to bring down God Himself.” “That’s insane.” “Yes,” Wax said, turning to the kandra. “It is.” He started to pace in the small room. “Speak to Harmony and find out something for me. Did Bleeder first leave because Harmony tried to take control of her at some point? Did that set her off?” A moment of silence. “Yes,” TenSoon replied. “Harmony says He didn’t try to control her directly, but He did push her very hard to do something she didn’t want to do.” “She’s been persistent about this idea that all people are controlled.” Harmony … was she Bloody Tan? Was she wearing his body, even back then? Was she there when I shot Lessie? “She sees everyone as Harmony’s puppets—in her eyes, the politicians are His mouth. She’s bringing down the government for that reason. Religion? Harmony’s eyes, to watch over the people. She works to undermine that by creating strife between the religious sects.” “Yes…” TenSoon said. “In a way, it could be seen as a continuation of the First Contract. Serve the Lord Ruler. Bring down the force that he worked to defeat. Harmony is half of that.” “But what am I in this?” Wax continued, only half listening to TenSoon. “Why me? Why focus on—” No, wrong question. What was she going to do next? Eyes, tongue … ears, maybe? Pretend she’s a step ahead of you, Wax told himself. Prepare for the worst. He looked again at the sheets on the floor. She wanted Wax out of the way. An elaborate puzzle? It was a time waster, a distraction. She’d ripped out these sheets not to tease him, but to remove him from the investigation long enough to accomplish the next phase of her plan. She’d led him here with that dust on her robe. She’d planted it there for that purpose. “She knows,” Wax said softly. “She knows what you’re going to do, TenSoon. What you’ve done.” He felt cold, and met the kandra’s inhuman eyes. “She’s planned that you would send your kandra to try to win back the hearts and minds of the people. That exposes you. Her next step is to bring them down.” * * * Wayne wandered between two bonfires. Inside one, table and chair legs made sharp lines, like the shadowy limbs of corpses being burned. The mists didn’t get too close to the fires, though the smoke made a good imitator in the night. Like a beggar dressed up so nice, you only knew him for what he was when you got close enough to catch a proper whiff. Wayne leaned in to one of the bonfires to light his cigar, though that required him to heal the skin of his arm as it burned. He smelled both of his own singed hair and of the scent of the fire. Polished furniture didn’t burn clean. He liked feeling the heat though. Made him feel alive. He had stopped filling his metalminds,
hoping he had enough health for what was coming. He couldn’t afford to be weak or sickly right now. Not with what was happening. He leaned back away from the flames and settled the cigar between his teeth. It was a fancy type, from the governor’s own hidden stash. Wayne took a long puff before remembering that he hated the rusting things. Ah well. He hadn’t traded anything good for it. Just one of Wax’s forks. The crowd gathering here in the square was the biggest he’d seen this night. They clumped in the bonfire light like a flock of ravens drawn to a kill. Wayne moved up to the back of the crowd and handed his cigar to someone there. He left her standing, baffled, as he dove into the crowd. With a crowd this big, you couldn’t move through them, but with them. You hadda pull the crowd on like a good coat, snug and tight, then let the cloth give you some direction. Wayne shuffled when the people shuffled, and shouted at the proper points, giving just the right drunken slur to his speech. He gave back a friendly elbow when one nudged him, and before too long he neared the front. Here, above everyone else, a shirtless fellow in trousers and suspenders stood atop a fountain statue, holding on to the Survivor’s spear for balance, his other fist raised toward the crowd. “They rob us blind!” the man shouted. Aye, that’s true, Wayne thought, shouting along with the crowd’s roar of agreement. “They expect us to work long hours every day, but then when it ain’t convenient for them, they just cut us loose and don’t care none if we starve.” Yeah, they do, Wayne thought, joining in the cursing and shouting. “They do each other favors,” the man bellowed. “They suck us dry, then gather to throw lavish parties!” I’ve been to those parties, Wayne thought. Good sandwiches. “Would the Survivor have stood for this?” Probably not, Wayne admitted. As the crowd surged around him, Wayne folded his arms and thought. Sure, bringing down a homicidal shapeshifter was important and all, but rusts, this seemed a bad time to be hanging around with conners and noblemen. Listening to this speech, he was half inclined to string himself up, which was really disturbing, since he was generally suicidal only in the mornings. He was about to turn away and flow back toward the mansion to talk with MeLaan about this when something changed. A new figure climbed up onto the statue: an older, balding man who was a little thick around the waist, but in a friendly-type way. He wore ornate robes that frayed like a mistcoat at the bottom. A Survivorist priest? The older man held up a pleading hand, and the fellow who had been shouting bowed his head in acknowledgment and stepped back. Beneath the giant image of the Survivor, his priest would be heard. Wayne felt a disturbance stir within him, like his stomach discovering he’d just fed it a bunch of rotten apples.
Religion worried him. It could ask men to do things they’d otherwise never do. “I come to you,” the priest said into the night, “understanding and sympathetic. But I implore you, do not invoke the Survivor’s name for looting and destruction. There is a way to fight back, and I will join you in it, but these are not the days of the Lord Ruler’s tyranny. You have the ability to make your voice heard. You can send advocates to the government for you.” The crowd hushed. A few men shouted out expletives, explaining exactly what they wanted to do to the governor, but most grew quiet. “The Survivor said that we should smile,” the priest pled. “He taught that we should not let our sorrows drag us down no matter how bad life became.” The mood of the crowd was shifting. They shuffled instead of shouted. Wayne relaxed. Well, maybe religion was good for something other than fancy clothes and weird hats. If that priest defused this group, Wayne would buy him a drink, he would. And buying drinks for priests was great, because they usually wouldn’t drink theirs, so you got two for yourself to … Wait. Why was that fellow in the suspenders—the one who had talked before—sneaking up behind the priest? Raising his hand, as if to— “No!” Wayne shouted, shoving through the crowd toward the fountain. He froze time, which caused quite a mess of confusion in the people around him, but it didn’t do much. All that let him do was stand there feeling helpless, knowing the priest was too far away to save. The fellow in the suspenders stood just behind the gentle old man, hand raised, knife glittering in the firelight. Except that wasn’t no knife. It was a needle. Wayne dropped his speed bubble. The needle plunged down, striking the priest in the back. The round-faced man jerked upright, and then his flesh started to melt. It turned translucent, his eyes drooping out of their sockets, crystal bones beneath glittering in the light of the bonfires. “Look!” the bare-chested man said. “See what they send to try to placate you? The Faceless Immortals serve the nobility! This was no priest, but one of their minions. They want you to believe you’re free, that their democracy works for you, but all that surrounds you is lies!” Wayne gaped as the priest—no, the kandra—struggled to stand upright and speak, but that made it worse. The protesters shouted, their rowdiness back with renewed strength, save for near Wayne, where the people were still confused as to why time had stopped for them. A woman in a dirty skirt eyed him. “Hey, aren’t you that guy from the Roughs?” Wayne grimaced, backing away. On the fountain, the leader spotted him and interrupted his diatribe. He pointed right at Wayne. “One of them is here!” he shouted. “They send constables into our midst! They’re all around, controlling you!” Basically the entire crowd turned to look at Wayne. Well, hell. for any person in the room. Had I not
bested the tribes at the Pits of Eltania? Was I not the first to bring back tales of the slopes of the Ashmounts, now gone green with vegetation? And wasn’t it I that had domesticated the fabled long-necked horses of the Plains of Kaermeron? “I shall not lower this gun,” said the man, “until you pay for your crimes.” My enhanced senses picked up a faint tremor in the man’s speech. I noticed the almost imperceptible flicks of his eyes to the right and left. This wasn’t one of the Cobblesguilder henchmen as I’d at first thought. He was a man looking for revenge, and he wasn’t entirely sure if I was the one from whom he should exact it. “Let us talk this through peaceably,” I suggested. I gently removed Lady Lavont’s trembling fingers from my arm. “All will be solved, my lady,” I said, detecting a faint gasp in her breathing as my fingers brushed hers for so short a moment. Mustaches straightened. “You killed my brother three years back in the Roughs near Covingtar,” he said. I needed time to think on his accusation, so I stepped forward, raised my hands in the air, and said, “As you can see, I am unarmed.” I turned in a circle, displaying to the crowd that I in fact held no sidearm. And yes, bravely, I turned my back on Mustaches, trusting in his uncertainty of my identity. As I turned, I thought through my predicament. It was true that some three years back I had found myself in the vicinity of Covingtar. But had I killed someone’s brother there? No doubt I had left many a man brotherless, but never intentionally. The very thought of killing a man for the express purpose of leaving another man brotherless is highly repugnant to me. “I am not the man you seek,” I said, raising my glass for another sip because, by the Faceless, if I was going to die I would do it drinking a fine Chamblis Montreau 328. The gun barrel shook more. If my gambit failed, I would sport yet another bullet scar on my strapping abdomen. Skin and muscle would heal, but the finely-woven shirt had been a gift from the daughter of the owner of Gilles & Gilles—on the corner of Canton Avenue and Troncheau Way—tailors of exquisite and tasteful dress shirts for fashionable and high society types. I did not wish it to be spoiled with my worthy blood. “Then who are you?” asked Mustaches, his gun’s barrel dropping more. The moment of danger was not yet over, but my own breathing evened out. My enhanced senses found Mustache’s gazelle-quick heartbeat slowing to a more reasonable pace. “Gentleman Jak,” I said with humility. “Surely you have heard of me.” “So you ain’t that Waxillium Ladrian fellow?” “By the Survivor, no!” My anger rose without warning. Many a man had met the righteous end of my knuckles for such a comment, but here in the barely civilized reaches of the Outer Cities, I knew I musn’t punish this ill-informed
yokel for his folly. “My good man, no,” I said more calmly and letting out a generous laugh. He shakily reholstered his pistol. A crooked smile began beneath those knifelike mustaches of his. I approached him like I would a prairie lion, but heartbeats later I was slapping him on the back like an old friend (and narrowly avoiding the end of one of his mustaches piercing me through the right earlobe, a hole that no doubt would make the honorable Handerwym jealous of the metalminds I might hang there). “A drink,” I roared. “A drink for my friend! For I too would pull a gun on Waxillium Ladrian were I to meet him in person!” Danger averted, Lady Lavont came again to my side, a tinkle of laughter on her lips. Then I noticed over the crowd two pairs of waving arms that I immediately recognized as Handerwym’s. In trying to get my attention over the pressing crowd in the room, he shook his arms in so aggravated a fashion that one of his metalminds flew from his wrist and landed like an Outer Cities cataract diver into the sparkle punch, spraying red droplets all in a mottle upon Lady Lavont’s pastel satin evening gown. My dependable steward’s convulsing could only be interpreted one way. During my diversion with Mustaches, the Lord Mistborn’s only remaining buttons had been stolen, swapped for the indistinguishable duplicates, and neither I nor Handerwym had been in a position to intercept the perpetrators. I needed my enhanced senses to seek out the thieves, but I had just used my last modicum of tin to help defuse Mustaches’ desire to bring me face to face with Old Ironeyes. I pushed through the crowd toward the only source of reliable tin in the room. The Lord Mistborn’s clasps of wasing, which I now knew to be counterfeit— —Continued next week!!— THE BEST OF THE BASIN! Gentleman Jak Recommends a Chamblis 328 with a box of Doxonar Brand Cigars All Gentleman Jak’s Adventures from the pages of The House Record, compiled for the first time and annotated by his faithful Terrisman scribe. Available now at fine book shops in all Octants! 21 “Ashfalls!” TenSoon said as he ran alongside Wax through the tunnels of the kandra Homeland. “I have told Harmony to pass the word to my fellows. We will stop our efforts immediately, but He says it might be too late.” Wax nodded, holding his lantern and puffing from exertion. “We’re Harmony’s ears,” TenSoon growled. “That fits with her theme, doesn’t it? We listen, move among you, report back to God. She’s going to try to deafen Him.” Wax nodded again. “That’s pointless!” TenSoon said. “She can’t stop Harmony. Even with all of this, she’s just a child throwing rocks at a mountain to try to move it.” “Yeah,” Wax said, scrambling over some rubble. Pieces of the kandra Homeland had obviously suffered from being shoved about in the earth during the Catacendre. Walls had collapsed, then had lain here, broken, for hundreds of years. “But she’s not
really trying to kill God. She just wants to free people from Him, in her twisted way.” “Free them?” TenSoon said. He was silent for a time. “Emotion. That’s it, isn’t it? Vin liberated koloss by making them feel powerful emotions. It gave an opening into their souls, let her break through another’s control and seize the creatures.” “That’s what the old stories say,” Wax replied. “Good to have confirmation.” “Humans aren’t Hemalurgic creations like koloss. Powerful emotion won’t ‘free’ them from Harmony.” “Sure it will,” Wax said. “At least in Bleeder’s eyes. If you’re in a rage, you’re not following Harmony’s careful plans. You’re out of control. She’s going to drive this city to madness in an insane attempt to liberate it.” “Ruin!” TenSoon growled. “I may have to leave you behind, lawman. I must reach my people quickly and speak with them about what is happening.” “Fine,” Wax said. “But I might keep up better than you assume, so long as I—” A shrill howl echoed through the corridor, so chilling that Wax pulled to a stop. He drew Vindication, lantern held high in his off hand. The howl was joined by others, a terrible cacophony, each sound jarring against the others. TenSoon leaned low, growling as the howls faded. “What the hell was that?” Wax said. “I have never heard its like before, human.” “Aren’t you over a thousand years old?” “Something like that,” TenSoon said. “Holy hell,” Wax repeated. “Another way out?” The kandra took off, leading him back the way they had come. The howls started up again, louder. The tight tunnels and uneven stones suddenly seemed far more confining. Wax ran and, despite his earlier bravado, found he had real trouble keeping up with TenSoon. The stone around them didn’t contain any metals, at least not in a pure enough form for him to Push on. Besides, the tunnels twisted and turned too much for long Pushes. So he ran, holding on to his lantern with sweating fingers, listening as the things behind seemed to grow more excited. Distracted as he was, he almost crashed into TenSoon when he caught up to him standing still in the tunnel. “What?” Wax asked, panting from his run. “It smells wrong ahead,” TenSoon said. “They’re waiting for us.” “Great,” Wax said. “What are they?” “They smell like men,” TenSoon said. More howls came from behind. “Those,” Wax said, “are men?” “Come,” TenSoon said, turning and scrambling away, his claws scratching on stone. Wax followed. “Another way out?” he asked again. TenSoon didn’t answer, instead leading them in a sprint through small caverns, around corners, through tunnels. They stopped at an intersection, TenSoon considering their options while Wax fingered his gun nervously. He swore he could see something moving down the tunnel they’d left behind, the one where TenSoon claimed to have spotted an ambush. “TenSoon…” he said, nervous. “This way,” the kandra said, dashing off. Wax followed, entering a longer tunnel. Perfect. He let himself lag behind, holding up the lantern, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was
following. His light reflected from eyes in the shadows. Figures that were bent low, scrambling on all fours, moving in a distinctly inhuman way. Sweating, Wax dropped a shell casing and shoved it with his foot into a cleft in the rock. He Pushed, throwing himself down the corridor to catch up with TenSoon, landing just before they took a corner at speed. “They’re not human,” Wax said. “Not completely.” “Hemalurgy,” TenSoon said. “This is terrible. Paalm … She has gone further than I had assumed. She doesn’t just kill. She Ruins.” “They’re almost upon us,” Wax said, clutching gun and lantern. “How do we get out?” “We don’t,” TenSoon said, ducking to the side and into a small chamber. “We fight.” Wax followed, but stopped in the doorway, gun at the ready. They’d passed this room before, or one like it. It was filled with small baskets—glancing at them now, he could see they were full of bones. The things chasing them had started yipping, but he could hear them scrambling on the stone—could hear them breathing in excited gasps—as they drew close. Inside the room, TenSoon transformed. It happened in a burst, the kandra’s skin sloughing off his canine bones and splashing to the ground like a bucket of slop tossed out the back of a kitchen. The muscles and melting skin slapped against one of the baskets, tipping it, dumping bones. MeLaan had said he was fast, but that word didn’t begin to describe the sudden motion as TenSoon absorbed the bones. Arms sprouted from the side of his mass, then lifted it into the air even as legs formed beneath, thick like those of a wrestler. A skull emerged like a bubble rising through molasses, filling in with muscles stretched against bone, a jaw shifting into place. In seconds, a short but robust figure stood in the chamber. The face of stretched skin and muscle reminded Wax of a koloss, but those forearms were like hammers, and the chest superhumanly powerful. It was nude, though the crotch lacked genitals of either variety. Wax looked back down the corridor outside and raised his pistol, sweating. The things prowled closer. Heads emerged from the darkness, faces that twisted human features into something more canine. He counted five total. These creatures were no longer bipedal, but traces of humanity laced them—fingers that were too long, hands with opposable thumbs. The joints bent the wrong way at the elbows and knees, and the eyes … the eyes were dead. Pure black. “What has she done to you?” Wax whispered at them. The creatures didn’t respond. Either they could not think, could not speak, or didn’t care to do either. Wax fired upward, half hoping that the sound would scare the things away, send them scuttling back into the night. The greater part of him hoped they would remain, so he could finish off every last one of the poor bastards. The single shot rang loud in the tunnel, but the beasts didn’t flee. Instead they surged forward, their reluctance giving way to
frenzy. Wax leveled Vindication and unloaded at the first creatures, aiming for skulls. Flashes of gunfire lit the tunnel. Though his bullets tore off skin and left streaks of bleeding muscle, not one of the creatures dropped. Wax ducked back into the room, holstering Vindication and setting his lantern on an outcropping. “Their skulls have been thickened,” he shouted to TenSoon while reaching for his Sterrion. The kandra stepped past him, both lithe and powerful. Wax could almost hear the muscles constricting, pulling taught beneath that skin. As the first creature entered, TenSoon smashed it on the side of the head, pinning it to the wall with one hand. Then he stepped back and raised his foot to crush the skull against the rocks. The others leaped over TenSoon, dragging him down, biting his flesh. He grabbed at one, ripping it free by the hind legs and hurling it away. Wax fired, aiming for the eyes. “They have been created to fight you,” TenSoon growled from the ground, where he wrestled with one of the creatures while others tore at him. “Flee. Your modern weapons are useless here, lawman!” Like hell they are, Wax thought, dropping his Sterrion and reaching to the large holster on his thigh, bringing out his short-barreled shotgun. He pulled out a handful of shells and tossed them to the floor with a sound like rain. Then he waded in, slapping the first monster that came at him across the face with the shotgun. It flinched, then howled—baring rows of uneven teeth. Wax shoved the shotgun into its mouth and fired. Bits of it colored the wall, and as it fell—thrashing—it knocked over baskets, spilling bones to the rock floor. The one creature’s death caught the attention of others, who turned from the bleeding TenSoon and charged Wax. Wax naturally preferred the pistol. A handgun was an extension of one’s focus, a weapon of precision—like a thrown coin in anteverdant days. The soul of the Coinshot, his will made manifest. The shotgun was something different; it wasn’t an extension of focus or will, but it did do a good job of representing his rage. Wax shouted, slamming his shotgun across the face of one beast and Pushing on the barrel, giving the swing incredible momentum. The blow flung the creature to the side as Wax spun and pumped his gun, then blasted at the leg of the next one, ripping its arm free at the shoulder and sending it face-first into the stone. He leaped over the next one that came for him, Pushing on a fallen bullet for lift. He fired a shotgun slug down into the beast’s back, stunning it, then multiplied his weight and landed with a crunch. The thing thrashed and writhed beneath him as another leaped at his throat. He pumped and shot it in the head, then Pushed on the slug. His weight still increased—draining his metalmind at a furious rate—that bullet didn’t stop at the skull as the others had. It split bone and made a mess of the brain. Wax
sidestepped that corpse as it flopped beside him, then swung his shotgun upward into the head of the last beast coming for him. It flipped backward, exposing the belly. Wax fired three times, emptying the shotgun. The underbelly was soft, as he’d hoped. The thing went down. He stood, breathing deeply, the rhythm of the fight having consumed him. Nearby, TenSoon rolled over, the wounds to his arms and sides resealing. He had killed another of the things by ripping it in half. His eyes were wide as he regarded Wax. His bloodied face looked as inhuman as those of the creatures they’d just fought. TenSoon climbed to his feet, surveying the wreckage. The lantern still burned calmly, illuminating bones scattered across the floor and masses that had once—horribly—been human, but now just twitched. Wax felt sick. He’d called them “things” in his head, but these had been people. TenSoon was right. What Bleeder had done here was worse, somehow, than even her murders. “I will need to ask Harmony,” TenSoon said, “if I have failed Him in killing this day.” His voice was the same gravelly growl as before, when he’d inhabited the wolfhound’s body. “Why would he care?” Wax said, still sick. “He uses me to kill all the time.” “You are His Ruin,” TenSoon said. “I am His Preservation.” Wax stood in silence amid the dead and dying and lowered his shotgun, trying to suppress the immediate feeling of indignation he felt. Was that all he was to Harmony? A killer? A destroyer? “Still,” TenSoon said, picking his way through the room and speaking as if he didn’t realize the insult he’d just offered, “I do not think Harmony will mind what I have done. These poor souls…” He knelt and prodded at one of the bodies Wax had killed. TenSoon came up with a thin piece of metal, silvery and perhaps as long as a finger. Did it have a red cast to it, or was that just the blood? He used steelsight and found that while he could see the spike, the line was duller than it should have been. Hemalurgy. “One spike,” TenSoon said, turning it over. “Any more, and Harmony might have been able to control these beasts. How could such a change be effected by a single spike? This is a level of Hemalurgy beyond my understanding, lawman.” Wax shook his head, checking on the creatures. Not to see if they were still a threat, but to make sure he didn’t leave one of them here to die a protracted death. He found one woman still alive, paralyzed by his shot into her back. She watched him with those eyes, shaped like a person’s, yet alien and dark. Whatever else had happened to these people, they should have been able to keep their eyes. Wax put his gun to the woman’s eye and fired, up into the brain. Then he closed his eyes and offered … what? A prayer to Harmony? Harmony hadn’t helped these people. I have done something to help.… The words
whispered to him from the past. A memory of the last time Harmony had spoken to him. I sent you. Wax wasn’t certain if that was enough this time. “Tell me you’ll see these people buried,” Wax said. “I will,” TenSoon said as a howl sounded in the distance. “More come. Do we fight here, or run?” “Can you get us out?” Wax asked, reloading the shotgun. “Perhaps. Not by a conventional method, but there could be a way.” “Then let’s go,” Wax said. “This is another distraction, TenSoon. Those creatures only came for us when we left the other chamber.” TenSoon nodded, dropping his body to the floor and absorbing the wolfhound’s bones again. Only seconds passed before he’d restored himself, save for the hair. That started to sprout from the skin as TenSoon moved to the door, coming in waves as the kandra’s body arranged it and pushed it out. Wax grabbed his lantern and they fled, TenSoon again leading the way. * * * “There he goes, boys!” Wayne yelled, pointing into the darkness. “I saw that dirty conner right ahead. You go that way, I’ll head around the other way, and we’ll trap ’im between us, we will!” The small force of men with him—armed with wrenches and brooms—split off in a cheering, clangorous mass of spit and vengeance. Wayne egged them on while backward-jogging in the other direction. Eventually he slowed, finally alone, and shook his head. Not bad fellows, for all the fact that they had the combined wits of a brick. Wayne spun a dueling cane in his fingers, rounding back through an alleyway and popping out near the governor’s mansion. He didn’t go toward the front—more and more angry people were gathering there, and some might recognize him from before. On his head he wore a newsboy’s cap, his other hat carefully stowed in a bush along the way. That was fine; he liked this new cap well enough, but he felt naked in another way—he was out of bendalloy. Completely dry. That was bad. No more stopping time unless Wax had an extra vial for him. The fellow often carried one. Wayne slipped around the mansion, intending to head toward the back doors, where he hoped the guards would let him in. He’d wasted time, far too much, getting away from that crowd. The sight of that poor kandra melting in front of everyone else haunted him. Rusts. He wasn’t sure which side of the argument he came down on, but at least he wasn’t going around melting people for an audience. Besides, for the moment he figured he’d choose the side that wasn’t actively trying to kill him. He strolled and stuck a new ball of gum into his mouth. Then he hesitated, mists swirling around him, the mansion looming before him like a mesa in the Roughs, lit up all white. He heard a voice drifting toward him. The accent was wrong. Just slightly wrong, but in a profound way. And suddenly he knew who Bleeder was impersonating. * * *
The howls were distant from Wax, but they haunted him more than they had during the first chase, for now he knew what made them. If he survived this, he would have to see something done for these creatures. TenSoon conducted them through the intestines of the Homeland, eventually reaching a wall full of cracks. Wax raised his lantern, inspecting it. The wolfhound beside him had a pelt that was missing hair in patches. “Well?” Wax said, inspecting the dead end. “We have been watching this spot,” TenSoon said. “It cracked long ago, and the cracks seem to have widened over the years. If it opens, it will provide another path into the Homeland, and we wish to be aware of each of those.” Wax ran his fingers along the cracks in the stone wall. Air moved through them, he thought, catching a whiff of something more … rotten. More like the city he knew. Familiar and disgusting all at once. He tapped his metalmind, increasing his weight, then threw his shoulder against the wall. This was tricky, as his strength hadn’t increased except in its ability to lift his own limbs and manipulate his heavier muscles. That lent him some ability, but mostly he had to try to force things just right so that he was falling into the wall as much as pushing on it. He finally got the correct leverage, shoving through the cracked rock and causing a clatter. He was able to pick his way through into a narrow rift, like a very thin slot canyon out in the Roughs. The walls were slick with water, and knobby as in so much of this underground realm. “What now?” Wax asked. “Now we climb, human,” TenSoon said. He melted again, dumping his bones and fur to the ground, becoming a group of muscles. Here, in these narrow confines, that was an advantage. TenSoon was able to push on both walls and start sliding up the crack, filling holes and clefts with his mass, then using his muscles to propel himself upward. A bag, like a stomach, had formed around the wolfhound bones, and he carted these up behind him. It was grotesque yet fascinating. This was the natural state of the kandra, the sludgelike collection of muscles that at times acted human. Of course, Wax thought, starting to climb, what am I but a pile of blood and meat that gets up and walks around? This climb was difficult, particularly with the lantern, though decreasing his weight substantially helped. After only a short time, he heard the creatures come in below, howling and scrambling. His heart beat more quickly, but they didn’t seem to have much luck climbing. He continued to inch upward, until—in his haste for a handhold—he fumbled with the lantern and dropped it. It bumped and clanged against the stones before smashing down below. The light went out. In that moment, Wax realized he was buried in the earth, clinging to rocks in the darkness. The walls seemed to press against him, and twisted monsters howled
below and sought his blood. He gasped in sudden panic. Then his eyes adjusted and a soft blue light revealed the world to him. He wasn’t trapped. There was a way out above. He could see it by the patina of blue fungus growing on the walls, giving a gentle light to everything. “Harmony made sure it spread here,” TenSoon’s voice said from above. “He wanted to make certain that no person was ever trapped in darkness in this place again.” Wax forced himself to continue upward. He recognized where he was now, from the stories. The holes in the walls that he used as handholds had once been overgrown with crystals, and within, geodes containing a bead of the lost metal. Legendary atium. He was climbing the Pits of Hathsin themselves. “Peace, lawman,” TenSoon said from above. “Keep climbing.” Had he heard Wax’s breathing quicken? He steadied himself and continued. This place was no longer a prison. No more did it cut and lacerate, as it had done to the Survivor’s arms. The climb was actually easy, with all those holes. The sounds from below grew softer. Finally, he crawled from the crevice into a section of man-made tunnel. One of the city sewers; the crack behind him was just a thin cleft in the rock that gave no hint of its ancient origin. Wax shivered, breathing in the awful stench of the sewers, but still glad to be free. TenSoon convulsed as a mass nearby, then formed into a wolfhound again. “I can see why Paalm might want me distracted and unable to stop my people from being caught in her trap,” he said. “But what happened below, that was not for me, but you, human. What was she trying to distract you from?” Wax didn’t reply, but could think of only one reason. Once she dealt with the kandra, her plan would be ready for the final steps. She’d need to drive the people of the city further into a frenzy, freeing them, as she saw it, sending them forth as a mob to rage and hate, destroying Elendel. The governor was planning to speak to the people of the city. Bleeder hadn’t succeeded in killing him yet, and Wax suspected he knew why. Because when she murdered him, she wanted an audience. PART THREE 22 Mist seemed to burn in the night, like clouds before the sun. Wax dropped through it, slamming to the steps of the governor’s mansion, surprising the guards there. Constables, by the uniforms, rather than the normal guards. Good. They’d been running low on the latter. Wax stood up straight, turning and regarding the crowd gathering in front of the mansion. Constables with rifles made an uneasy barrier between them and the building. Nearby, workers erected a small stage on the steps. Aradel supervised, though judging from his sour expression, he was rather displeased with the governor’s plan. Wax agreed. Addressing the crowd would be playing right into Bleeder’s hands. He grabbed one of the constables. “I assume there hasn’t been another attempt on
the governor’s life?” “No, sir,” the constable said. “He’s in his study, sir.” Wax nodded and barged into the mansion, trailing wisps of mist behind him. He stalked toward the back, and in the hallway Marasi intercepted him, taking him by the arm. “Kolossblood,” she said, giving him the password he’d given her, proving she wasn’t a kandra. “Nighttime Summer,” Wax said back, authenticating himself. “You need to do something about that crowd, Marasi. They’re going to rip this city down.” “We’re working on it. Have you seen Wayne?” “No. Why?” “MeLaan says he went out to inspect the protesters. That was over half an hour ago. Nobody has seen him since.” “He’ll turn up,” Wax said. “I need to talk to the governor.” Marasi nodded, but held on to his arm as he tried to walk toward the study. “Wax,” she said softly, “he’s corrupt. Really corrupt. I’ve found proof.” Wax drew in a deep breath. “Let’s survive this night. Then we’ll do something about that.” “My thoughts are similar,” Marasi said, “but I think Bleeder wants to put us in a difficult position—perhaps she wants to force us to let the governor die.” “Not going to happen,” Wax said. “We’ll hand him over to the courts, but not a mob. Have you checked on your sister?” “No,” Marasi said. “But I’ve been intending to.” “Do so,” Wax said. “I’ll look in on your father after talking to the governor. I don’t want either showing up as an unexpected hostage.” “As long as it isn’t me, for a change,” Marasi said with a grimace. “MeLaan is wearing the body of the guard with the sling. She’s furious the governor won’t let her or the others in. I’m going to go see if I can track down Wayne; wouldn’t be surprised to find him on the front row of the mob.” She let go of his arm and headed toward the exit. “Marasi,” Wax said after her. “Hm?” “The uniform,” he said. “It suits you. Don’t know if I’ve had a chance to mention that.” She blushed—she was Marasi after all—before continuing. Wax turned and strode down the hallway toward the door to the governor’s study. MeLaan lounged there with a group of three other guards. “Nobody is to enter, lawman,” one of them said with an annoyed tone. “He’s been in there composing a speech for the last hour. He won’t—” Wax walked past them and tried the door, which was locked. He could hear Innate’s voice inside, going over a speech. Wax increased his weight and flung the door open with Allomancy, splintering the doorframe. Innate stood inside, holding a pad of paper and pacing as he talked. He froze midstride and spun on Wax, then relaxed visibly. “You could have knocked,” the governor said. “And you could have ignored a knock,” Wax said, walking in and swinging the door shut behind him. It didn’t latch, of course, after what Wax had done. “What do you think you’re doing, Innate? You could have been killed in here, quietly, alone without
anyone to help.” “And what would they have done?” Innate demanded, tossing his pad onto his desk. He walked up, then spoke more softly: “Wind’s whisper.” “Drunken steam,” Wax said back, latest passphrases exchanged. Innate was authentic. “Locking your guards out was foolhardy. They would have fought for you, protected you. We chased her off one time before.” “You chased her off,” Innate said, walking back to his desk and picking up his pad. “The rest were useless. Even poor Drim.” He went back to his pacing, speaking the lines of his speech to himself and practicing emphasis. Wax fumed, feeling dismissed. This was the man they struggled to protect? Wax made his way to the window. It was open, surprisingly, letting in wisps of mist. They didn’t travel far. He’d heard legends of the mists filling rooms, but that rarely happened. He leaned against the window, looking out at the darkness, listening with half an ear to Innate’s speech. It was inflammatory and dismissive. He claimed to feel the problems the people had, but called them peasants. This would just make things worse. She wants that, Wax thought. She wants to free the city from Harmony by making it angry. She knew what Innate was going to say. Of course she knew. She’d been leading them around this entire time. Every clue Wax had found so far had been carefully planted for him. So what did he do? Stop Innate’s speech? What if that was what she wanted? He tapped his finger on the windowsill. Tap. Tap. Squish. He looked down, then blinked. A wad of chewed gum had been stuck here. Wax lifted his finger, and—as he contemplated it—something started to fall into place. Something he’d been missing. Bleeder had set this all up from the start. Wax’s suspicions had begun because she’d deliberately alerted him by wearing Bloody Tan’s face. That had been a conscious ploy on her part, a way to start the festivities. Everything was moving on her timetable. Bleeder had had everything already in place when this night arrived. She’d been planning this for a long time. Far longer than he’d assumed. So where was the best place to hide? Rusts. Wax reached for his gun and spun. He found himself facing down Governor Innate, who had taken out a sidearm and leveled it. “Damn it, Wax,” the governor said. “Just a few minutes more and I’d have had this. You see too far. You can always see a little too far.” Wax froze there, hand on his gun. He met the governor’s eyes, and hissed out slowly. “You knew the passphrase,” Wax whispered, “but of course you did. I gave it to you. When did you kill him? How long has the city been ruled by an impostor?” “Long enough.” “The governor wasn’t your target. You think bigger than that—I should have seen. But Drim … He was in the saferoom when you entered below. Is that why you killed him? No. He’d have known you were gone.” “He knew all along,” Bleeder said. “He
was mine. But tonight, I killed him because of you, Wax. You’d shot me up…” “You had on the governor’s clothing underneath the cloak,” Wax said. “Rusts! I’d bloodied you. So you needed an excuse for why the governor was covered in blood, an excuse to pull off your shirt and stanch a wound.” She held the gun on him, immobile. The weapon didn’t register to his Allomancy. Aluminum. She was prepared, of course. But she seemed torn. She didn’t want to kill him. She’d never wanted to kill him, for some reason. So Wax yelled for help. It was risky, but nothing ever ended well when you obeyed the person with the gun on you. As he’d suspected, Bleeder didn’t shoot at him as the door burst open. Wax pulled out his gun and fired at Bleeder, to distract her as he dug in his gunbelt for the last needle that MeLaan had given him. The guards turned their guns toward Wax and started firing. Idiot, he thought, throwing himself toward the governor’s desk for cover. Of course they’d do that. “Wait!” he said. “The governor has been taken. Don’t—” Bleeder gunned down the guards. Wax rolled behind the desk, but still heard it as they cried out in shock, their own governor—so far as they knew—shooting them down. Wax winced, cursing. Those deaths were upon him. “I guess the rest of the constables will be upon us soon,” Bleeder said. “They’re not free yet. Neither are you, despite how I’ve tried.…” Wax peeked up over the desk, then ducked down again as she swung the gun toward him. The governor’s face was twisted in a mask of anger and frustration. “Why couldn’t you have given me a little longer?” she demanded. “So close. Now I have to kill you, claim you were the kandra, and blame you for shooting my guards. That way I can still talk to the crowd, free them.…” Yet she didn’t come for him. She still seemed upset. Best to take advantage of that. “MeLaan, go!” Wax shouted, then Pushed on the nails in the floor, flinging himself up into the air. One of the corpses at Bleeder’s feet grabbed her around the legs. Wax Pushed off the wall, leaping toward Bleeder. She growled, then slapped his hand as he landed, knocking the needle free. Rusts, she was strong. She kicked MeLaan off as Wax dove for the fallen needle. She became a blur. As he tried to grab the needle, Bleeder snatched it and spun around, slamming it down into MeLaan’s shoulder. It was done in an eyeblink. Then she lurched to a stop. She seemed jarred by the motion. Her metalmind storage, at long last, had run dry. Wax pulled out his gun and fired, lying with his back on the floor. The bullets ripped her skin, but did nothing else. Nearby, MeLaan’s shape distorted—face drooping and the skin going transparent. Wax lay on the ground, his emptied gun pointed at Bleeder, whose skin re-formed from the wounds. They stared at one another for
an extended moment before boots in the hallway outside made Bleeder curse, then dash for the window. Wax grabbed his other gun, following, then threw himself down as shots sounded outside. He waited a moment, then glanced up, but didn’t spot her in the swirling mists. Wax cursed, rolling his arm in its socket. Rusts. That bullet hole he’d taken earlier in the night was bleeding again, and the pain was returning. He thought he’d chewed enough painkiller to keep it away. “You all right?” he asked MeLaan, who had managed to sit up. “Yeah,” she said, though the word was mangled by her melted face. “I made them do this to me once to test it out. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” “Thanks for the save,” Wax said, anxiously scanning the room for hidden compartments with his steelsight. Quivering lines in the closet. Could he be so lucky? He rushed over and yanked it open. Wayne—tied securely and gagged—tumbled out and hit the floor with a thump. He was alive, thank Harmony. Wax knelt down, sighed in relief, and loosened the gag. Wayne looked like he’d been stabbed in the leg, and his metalminds had been stripped away so he couldn’t heal, but he was alive. “Wax!” Wayne said. “It’s the governor. Bugger’s got the same ‘a’ as MeLaan!” “I know,” Wax said. “You’re lucky. She probably wanted to harvest your Metalborn abilities with spikes, otherwise she’d have killed you right off. Why didn’t you warn anyone?” “Was going to, but I needed to check first. Got too close to the window, and she rusting came right out for me. Had knocked me upside the head, stripped off my metalminds, and had me over her shoulder all in an eyeblink. Drug me up here after, real quiet-like. You get her?” “No,” Wax said, working on Wayne’s bonds. “She ran off.” Gunshots sounded outside. “And you ain’t chasin’ her down?” “Had to check on you first.” “I’m fine,” Wayne said. “Stop untying me and look in my pocket.” Wax felt at Wayne’s pocket, pulling out a small pouch. “From Ranette,” Wayne said. Wax removed a single bullet cartridge. He held it up as a tense set of constables, led by Marasi, piled into the room. The newcomers called for an explanation. Wax left them to interrogate Wayne, instead seeking the mists once more. 23 Wax was a bullet in the night, rushing through the mists and disturbing them with his passing. He had become the hunter rather than the game, though the transition might have taken too long. He soared upward first to get a view of the area. An ever-growing crowd surrounded the governor’s mansion. Roaring. Calling for change, or perhaps just blood. Would he bring down Bleeder only to find her victorious in a city destroyed? He couldn’t worry about that at the moment. Instead he sought signs, clues, a story. Nobody passed, even at night, without leaving a trail. Perhaps it would be too faint for him to locate, but it would exist. There. A group of
people pulling away from the mansion, instead of crowding toward it. Wax landed in a storm, mistcoat flaring. This was the mansion’s garden, near a large workers’ shed. Wax studied the pattern of people moving away. The gunfire just a moment ago, he thought. It wasn’t to shoot someone, but to clear the crowd. She was out of Feruchemical speed and fleeing frantically, and had opened fire into the air to clear this pocket of people. As he listened he picked out cries of confusion, some people claiming the constables had opened fire on the crowd. Others claimed they’d seen the governor himself running, trying to escape the mansion. Wax loaded Vindication with the single bullet Ranette had sent, placing it in one of the special chambers he could quickly spin to at will. Then he inched open the door to the shed, crouching beside the doorway so as to not present a profile. The mists were bright with torchlight this night, but that light didn’t penetrate to the dark shed. Wax searched through the shadows, until he saw something. A bone? Yes, and draped over it cloth. He picked out a fallen cravat, a white buttoning shirt … the governor’s clothing. Bleeder had stashed another body in here, and had fled to swap into it. How fast was she? MeLaan had said that Bleeder could change faster than she could, but that nobody was as quick as TenSoon. That didn’t tell him much. MeLaan had taken minutes, TenSoon seconds. Wax held Vindication beside his head and slipped through the doorway. If he could find Bleeder in midtransformation … “I can still free you,” a voice whispered from the darkness inside. “Perhaps I have lost the city, but I didn’t come here for them. Not at first. I came for you.” “Why me?” Wax asked, searching furiously through the darkness, palm sweating as he held Vindication. “Damn it, creature, why me?” “I have deafened him,” Bleeder whispered. “I have cut out his tongue, pierced his eyes, but still he can act. You are his hands, Waxillium Ladrian. He may be deaf, blind, and mute … but still, with you, he can move his pawns.” “I’m my own man, Bleeder,” Wax said, finally spotting what he thought was her silhouette, crouched at the back of the dusty chamber, beside a rack of shovels. “Perhaps I serve Harmony, but I do so because I wish it.” “Ah,” she whispered. “Do you know, Wax, how long he cultivated you? How long he teased you, led you by the nose? How he sent you to be hardened by the Roughs, so he could draw you back in once you had aged properly, like leather being cured.…” Wax raised Vindication, but the side of the building burst outward, showering pieces of wood across the lawn. Wax tried to draw a bead on her, but didn’t fire, and Bleeder ducked out. He had to be very careful with this shot. Ranette had sent but one bullet, and only it would matter in this fight. Bleeder fled into the
night and launched into the air. The breaking wall had been an indication, but this was confirmation. Her metalmind, drained of the speed she’d stored up, was now useless. She’d left it on the ground beside the governor’s bones, and had become a Coinshot instead. Wax followed, Pushing on the same nails, sending himself into the sky. He could see why she’d chosen to become a Coinshot; Steelpushing lent great maneuverability and speed, and logically gave her the best chance of escaping. There was a problem with that, of course. Steel was his domain. * * * The pile of bones on the floor of the little shack proved that at least one person was having a worse night than Wayne was. He nudged the pile with his toe, then grimaced at his wounded leg. Rusting inconvenient, that was. He had to grab the wall for support. He looked toward Marasi. “I can’t decide,” he said, “if the governor already bein’ dead means we did a really terrible job, or a really good one.” “How,” Marasi replied, kneeling beside the corpse, “could you see this as anything other than terrible?” “Well, see, we weren’t the ones what was in charge of keepin’ him alive when he died.” Wayne shrugged. “Guess anytime I find a corpse and it ain’t my fault they’re dead, I feel a little relieved.” MeLaan strolled into the cottage, still wearing the body of the guardswoman—though she had moved back to speaking with her own voice now. “It’s getting rough out there. We’ll want to get back into the mansion soon.” Marasi continued to kneel by the bones, which were lit by Wayne’s lantern. His wrists still chafed from his confinement, and his leg smarted something fierce. Rusting kandra. She’d known just how to take him out: a quick burst of speed, tie his legs together, gag him, steal his metalminds—even though it didn’t matter none how quickly he could heal if he was tied up. Course, she should have checked his hands for gum as she towed him into the room. “The governor is dead,” Marasi whispered. “Yeah,” Wayne said, “havin’ your skeleton removed tends to do that to a guy.” “What does it mean?” Marasi said, looking out the side of the shack, in the direction they’d seen Wax escape. “Well, it means he won’t be makin’ it to his tap-dancing lessons this—” “Wayne?” “Yeah?” “Shut it.” “Yes, ma’am.” Marasi closed her eyes, and Wayne leaned back against the wall, looking out at that crowd. Angry, waiting for the governor to give them his speech. The speech that was supposed to stop all this. “Bleeder was planning to outrage them,” MeLaan said. “I heard some of his speech. Maybe we can make them disperse?” “No,” Marasi said, standing. “We can do better than that.” She turned to MeLaan, then nudged the governor’s skull with her foot. “How long will it take you to imitate him?” “I didn’t digest his corpse—and don’t wince like that, it’s not my fault you people happen to be edible. If it helps,
you taste terrible, even if you’re properly aged. Anyway, it will be tough. TenSoon’s pretty good at re-creating a face from a skull, but I’m way less practiced.” Wayne didn’t say anything. He could shut it. Damn right he could shut it, when he needed to. Even if there was jokes that practically begged to be said. “You have us to help you get it right,” Marasi said to MeLaan. “Plus, it will be dark. You won’t need to fool Innate’s mother, just a crowd of angry citizens, most of whom haven’t seen him up close.” MeLaan folded her arms, inspecting the remains. “Fine. If you think you can come up with something for me to say that will placate that crowd, I’ll do it.” Wayne stood still, jaw clenched. No jokes about … well, the obvious things. Besides, he’d just learned something far worse. Something that was no cause for laughter. Marasi looked at him, then frowned. “Wayne, what’s wrong?” He sat down, shaking his head. “Wayne?” Marasi said, rising, sounding genuinely concerned. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that—” “I don’t mind what you said,” Wayne said. “Then what?” “Well,” he said, looking at MeLaan, “I’d just always assumed … you know … that humans tasted wonderful.” “Nope,” MeLaan said. “You’re really woundin’ my self-esteem,” Wayne said. “Maybe I’m different. Wanna gnaw on my arm a bit? It’ll grow right back, least once we find out what that monster did with my metalminds.…” Marasi sighed loudly. “MeLaan, work on those bones. I need to rewrite your speech.…” 24 Bleeder had obviously practiced with steel. She knew how to Push on passing latches or lampposts to adjust her course. She knew how to drop low before shoving on a parked motorcar to give herself lateral speed, rather than just Pushing herself higher. She was capable. Wax was more than capable. He followed as a shadow, never more than a half leap behind her. He sensed an increasingly frantic quality to her motions, flared steel trying to Push herself out of his reach. He let her, at first, trying to run her out of steel. They bounced through the city, two currents in the mist, leaping over roadways clogged with angry rioters, past middle-class neighborhoods full of closed shutters and extinguished lights, over the grounds of the rich—whose security forces stood tensely by gates, waiting for this hellish night to end. Wax confirmed to himself as they flew that Bleeder had not been the Marksman. She’d worn one of his masks earlier—and seemed to be doing so again, from the quick glance he got as she passed a burning building in the night—but she did so to consternate and confuse him. Marks had sought the insides of rooms as he ran, trying to set up an ambush. She kept to the open spaces, as if frightened of the indoors. No running toward skyscrapers, no seeking the cramped confines of the slums. Instead, she headed directly east from the governor’s mansion, toward the freedom of the outer city. There wouldn’t

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