Bands of Mourning

by Brandon Sanderson

  No. He didn’t need to think of Lessie right now. He smiled back at Steris, then pulled her tighter and Pushed, launching them straight up. Higher, up away from this district. The city’s taller buildings were visible only as lines of lights in the night, pointing upward through the mists. He launched up off a rooftop, then passed a shaking gondola, moving by electricity and carrying a group of gawking passengers. It rocked as Wax launched them sideways from it toward the skyscrapers.

  Two were near enough one another, and with a quick series of furious Pushes, he was able to throw himself and Steris up through the swirling mists in a succession of arcs, first one way, then the other. He crested the tops and Pushed off one, sending them up a little farther. He had hoped that with the elevation of this highest terrace of the city—

  Yes. They burst from the mists into a realm seen by very few. The Ascendant’s Field, Coinshots called it: the top of the mists at night. White stretched in all directions, churning like an ocean’s surface, bathed in starlight.

  Steris gasped, and Wax managed to hold them in place by Pushing against the tips of the two skyscrapers below. Without a third, he wasn’t certain how long he could balance, but for the moment they remained steady.

  “So beautiful…” Steris said, clinging to him.

  “Thank you again,” Wax said to her. “I still can’t believe you snuck a gun into the party.”

  “It’s only appropriate,” Steris said, “that you would make a smuggler out of me.”

  “Just as you try to make a gentleman out of me.”

  “You’re already a gentleman,” Steris said.

  Wax looked down at her as she held to him while trying to stare in every direction at once. He suddenly found something burning in him, like a metal. A protectiveness for this woman in his arms, so full of logic and yet so full of wonder at the same time. And a powerful affection.

  So he let himself kiss her. She was surprised by it, but melted into the embrace. They started to drift sideways and arc downward as he lost his balance on his anchors, but he held on to the kiss, letting them slip back down into the churning mists.

  * * *

  Wayne put his feet up on the table in their hotel suite, a new book open in front of him. He’d picked it up earlier, when poking through the city.

  “You oughtta read this thing, Mara,” he called to Marasi, who paced back and forth behind his couch. “Strangest thing you ever heard. These blokes, they build this ship, right? Only it’s meant to go up. Uses a big explosion or some such to send it to the stars. These other blokes steal it, right, and there’s seven of them, all convicts. They go lookin’ for plunder, but end up on this star what has no—”

  “How can you read?” Marasi asked, still pacing.

  “Well, I’m not right sure,” Wayne said. “By all accounts, I should be dumber than a sack full o’ noodles.”

  “I mean, aren’t you nervous?” Marasi asked.

  “Why should I be?”

  “Something could go wrong.”

  “Nah,” Wayne said. “I’m not along. Wax can only get into so much trouble without me to—”

  Something hit the window, causing Marasi to jump. Wayne turned to see Wax clinging to one of the windowsills, Steris tucked under one arm like a sack of potatoes—well, a sack of potatoes that had a very nice rack, anyway. Wax pulled open the window, set Steris inside, then swung in himself.

  Wayne popped a peanut into his mouth. “How’d it go?”

  “Eh,” Wax said. He had lost his dinner jacket somewhere, and blood—hopefully not his own—covered one arm of his shirt. His cravat drooped, half tied.

  “We figured out where Suit and his people are likely holed up,” Wayne said as Marasi ran over to check on her sister, who looked flustered, but alive and such.

  “You’re kidding,” Wax said.

  “Nope,” Wayne said, then grinned and popped a peanut. “What’d you find?”

  “Clues about Marasi’s cube,” Wax said, pulling off his cravat. “And something about a building project, and a potential army. Suit’s timetable seems to be more advanced than I’d thought.”

  “Cheery,” Wayne said. “So…”

  Wax sighed, then pulled out his billfold and tossed a note at Wayne. “You win.”

  “You had a bet?” Marasi demanded.

  “Friendly wager,” Wayne said, making the note disappear. “Can I bring these peanuts when we go?”

  “Go?” Marasi said, standing up.

  Wayne thumbed toward Wax, who had pulled out his travel bag. “We’re leaving. Marasi, Steris, I’d suggest packing lightly. You have about fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m already packed,” Steris said, standing up.

  “I—” Marasi looked from him to her, seeming baffled. “What did you do at that party?”

  “Hopefully,” Wax said, “not start a war. But I can’t say for certain.”

  Marasi groaned. “You let him do this,” she accused Steris.

  Steris blushed. Wayne always found that expression odd from her, seeing as how she had the emotions of a rock and all.

  What followed was an energetic bout of motion as Wax and Marasi both ran to pack things. Wayne sidled up to Steris and popped a peanut in his mouth. “You got that preparin’-your-bags-early thing from me, didn’t you?”

  “I … Well, yes, actually.”

  “What will you trade me for it, then?” Wayne said. “Gotta have a good trade when you take stuff.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Steris said.

  Fifteen minutes later, the four of them piled into a carriage driven by MeLaan in her male body. A bedraggled Aunt Gin stood on the doorstep of her hotel watching them. She held a wad of cash in her hand—a wad that included the money Wayne had won off Wax. He’d left it as a tip on account of him putting his boots up on the furniture.

  A furiously loud set of bells sounded in the distance, and it drew closer. “Is that the constables?” Aunt Gin asked, sounding horrified.

  “Afraid so,” Wax said, pulling the door closed.

  The carriage lurched into motion, and Steris leaned out the window, waving farewell to the poor innkeeper.

  “Framed for murder!” Steris called to her. “It’s on page seventeen of the list I gave you! Try not to let them harass our servants too much when they arrive!”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Wax stepped up to a cliff in the darkness and let the mists enfold him.

  He missed darkness. It was never dark in the city, not as it had been in the Roughs. Electric lights were only exacerbating the issue. Everything glowing, casting away the darkness—and with it, stillness. Silence. Solitude.

  A man found himself when he was alone. You only had one person to chat with, one person to blame. He fished in his mistcoat pocket and was surprised to find a cigar. He thought he was out of these, good stout Tingmars brought down from Weathering.

  He cut this one with his belt knife, then lit it with a match. He savored it, drawing in the smoke, holding it, then puffing it out to churn in the mists. A little bit of him to mix with Harmony. May He choke on it.

  At his side, he turned a little metal spike over in his fingers. The earring VenDell had sent.

  It was nearly identical to the one he’d used to kill Lessie.

  Eventually, footsteps on pine needles signaled someone approaching. He pulled on his cigar, giving a warm glow to the mists and revealing MeLaan’s face. Her feminine one. She’d finished changing, and was doing up the buttons on her shirt as she joined him.

  “You going to get some sleep?” she asked softly.

  “Maybe.”

  “Last I checked,” she said, “humans still need it. Once in a while.”

  Wax pulled on his cigar, then blew out into the mists again.

  “Suit wants you to go back to Elendel, I figure,” MeLaan said. “He’s trying to set it up so that you’ll have no choice, so far as you see it.”

  “We’re in a bad spot, MeLaan,” Wax said. “The emissary
that Aradel sends to a political rally ends up murdering the host? If the outer cities weren’t tense before, they will be now. At the very best, it will be a huge political embarrassment. At the worst, I’ve started a war.”

  Wind blew, rustling pine branches he couldn’t see. He couldn’t even see MeLaan; clouds must have rolled in, blocking the starlight. Sweet, enveloping darkness.

  “If there is war,” she said, “Suit will have started it. Not you.”

  “I might be able to prevent it,” Wax said. “Governor Aradel needs to know, MeLaan. If the outer cities are going to claim assassination—use it as the brand to start a bonfire—I can’t just vanish. I have to get to Elendel. That way, I can claim I knew the New Seran justice system was corrupt, and so I fled to safety. I can make my case in the broadsheets before news spreads; I can convince Aradel I didn’t kill the woman. If I do anything else, it will look like I’m hiding.”

  “Like I said,” MeLaan said. “He’s set it up so that you have no choice—so far as you see it.”

  “You see it differently?”

  “I’ve been a lot of people, Ladrian. Seen through a lot of eyes. There’s always another perspective, if you look hard enough.”

  He pulled on his cigar and held the smoke a long moment before letting it out in a slow dribble. MeLaan crept away. Did her kind need sleep? She’d implied they didn’t, but he couldn’t say for certain.

  Alone with his cigar, he tried to sort through what he wanted to do. Go back to Elendel, as forced upon him by Suit’s minions, or chase after the mystery—as forced upon him by Harmony’s minions. He rolled the earring in his fingers, and confronted the hatred simmering inside of him.

  He’d never hated God before. After Lessie’s supposed death the first time, he hadn’t blamed Harmony. Rusts, even after Bleeder had raised the question of why Harmony hadn’t helped, Wax hadn’t responded with hatred.

  But now … yes, that hatred was there. You could take knocks, out in the Roughs. You lost friends. You sometimes had to kill a man you didn’t want to kill. But one thing you never did: You never betrayed a companion. Friends were too rare a privilege out in those wilds, where everything seemed to want you dead.

  By hiding the truth from him, Harmony had stabbed him square in the back. Wax could forgive a lot of things. He wasn’t sure this was one of them.

  His cigar eventually ran out. His questions lingered. By the time he hiked back toward their campsite, the mist was retreating for the night. He fed the horses—six of them, purchased at the New Seran bottom terrace shipping yards, along with a full-sized stagecoach used to do runs to the Southern Roughs.

  They’d narrowly escaped New Seran. Galloping their carriage, they’d managed to descend the ramps before the police, but only after Wax had been forced to bring down a gondola line.

  The police hadn’t given chase after that, as if realizing they didn’t have the resources to hunt someone like Waxillium Dawnshot, at least not without a lot of backup. Wax still wanted to be moving. Though he was tired to the bones, he couldn’t let himself—or anyone else—rest long. Just in case.

  As the others groggily piled into the vehicle, MeLaan took the reins from him and climbed up to the driver’s seat. Wayne hopped into the spotter’s seat beside her, and she gave him a grin.

  “Where to, boss?” she asked, turning to Wax. “Back home?”

  “No,” Wax said. “We ride to Dulsing, the place Wayne and Marasi located.” The direction of the building project.

  “You found another perspective, I see,” MeLaan said.

  “Not yet,” Wax said softly, climbing into the stagecoach. “But let’s see if Harmony dares try to give me one.”

  PART THREE

  17

  Marasi had read a lot about life in the Roughs in her youth, and knew what to expect of a stagecoach trip: boredom, dust, and discomfort.

  It was wonderful.

  She had to forcibly keep herself from hanging out the window as Wayne occasionally did, watching the scenery pass. They weren’t in the Roughs, but this was close enough. The smell of the horses, the bumps in the road, the rickety creak of the wood and the springs … She had seen and done some remarkable things during her time with Waxillium, but this really felt as if she were living in an adventure.

  Waxillium reclined across from her, feet up on the seat next to her, a wide-brimmed hat over his eyes, face bristly from a day without shaving. He’d removed his boots, which sat on the floor beside his shotgun.

  It seemed surreal to remember she’d even considered a relationship with him, now that so long had passed with them working together. No, she was not interested, no longer. But she did admire the perfect image of him there—the gun, the boots, and the hat.

  Of course, that image was distorted by the sight of Steris curled up on the seat beside him, snoring softly with her head on his shoulder. In what kind of bizarre world did Marasi’s punctilious half sister end up on the adventure? Steris belonged in a sitting room with a cup of tea and a dry book about horticulture, not riding cross-country in a stagecoach toward a potential army of Allomancers. Yet here she was, snuggled up against Dawnshot himself.

  Marasi shook her head. She wasn’t envious of Steris, which was—frankly—remarkable, considering their upbringings. It was very hard to hate Steris. You could be bored by her, confused by her, or frustrated with her—but hate her? Impossible.

  Marasi got out her notebook to continue her report to VenDell and Constable-General Reddi, which she hoped to be able to send before reaching Dulsing.

  Waxillium shifted, then tipped his hat back, eyeing her. “You should get some sleep.”

  “I’ll rest when we stop.”

  “Stop?”

  Marasi hesitated. They’d been going for half a day already, avoiding the main roads to evade potential pursuers from New Seran. They’d crossed several fields, and spent a full hour rattling along a stone ridge to bypass some farms below in a way that left little sign of their passage.

  Their path lay almost directly northeast of New Seran, skirting the mountains to their right, staying to the foothills—which meant some ups and downs, but this was still good farmland. All of the Basin was, even here at the edges, where things were dryer than in the center.

  “I thought that after stopping last night—” Marasi said. “Dear. You mean to go straight there?”

  “‘Straight’ is an odd term,” Waxillium said, “considering how much MeLaan has us weaving to avoid getting caught. But yes. Shouldn’t be more than another four hours or so.”

  A train could have had them there in a fraction of that time, delivered in comfort. Maybe the outer cities did have reason to gripe about the way things were set up.

  “Waxillium?” Marasi said as he shifted again.

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you think they’re real? The Bands of Mourning?”

  He tipped back his hat all the way. “Did I ever tell you why I went to the Roughs?”

  “As a youth?” Marasi said. “It was because you hated the politics, the expectations. Polite society that was anything but polite.”

  “That’s why I left Elendel,” Waxillium said. “But why the Roughs? I could have gone to one of the outer cities, could have found a plantation somewhere to read books and live a quiet life.”

  “Well…” Marasi frowned. “I guess I thought you always wanted to be a lawman.”

  Waxillium smiled. “I wish I’d spotted it that easily. Should have. I spent my childhood tattling on other children for every little thing they did.”

  “Then what?”

  He settled back, closing his eyes. “I was chasing a legend, Marasi. Tales of the Survivor’s gold, riches to be had, stories to be made.”

  “You?” Marasi started. “You were a gentleman adventurer?”

  Waxillium winced visibly at the term. “You make me sound like that fool in the broadsheets. I tell you, Marasi, those first months were hard. Every other town was full of the unemployed from the mines shuttin
g down, and I couldn’t enter a saloon without finding some fool baby-face like myself, up from the Basin with a head full of glory and treasure.”

  “So you started hunting bounties,” she said. “You told me this part. Something about boots.”

  “Eventually, yes,” Waxillium said, smiling. “Struggled for a long time up there before turning to bounties. At first, though, I had my eyes full of riches and gold. Took time to shake that out of me, but even then, becoming a lawman was about the cash. Started hunting men for money. And, well, there’d always been this streak in me that didn’t like seeing people get pushed around. Ended up in Weathering. Just another forgotten, dried-out city in the Roughs with nobody to care about it. It was six years before someone gave me credentials and made it official.”

  The stagecoach cabin swayed on its straps. Up above, Marasi could hear Wayne and MeLaan chatting. So long as they weren’t making out again while trying to drive.

  “When VenDell told us about this, I didn’t want the Bands to be real,” Waxillium said, looking out the window. “I hated the thought of some foolish dream pulling me away again, after I’d finally found stability in Elendel. I didn’t want that lure of excitement, the reminder of a world I’d come to love out there in the dust.”

  “So you think they are real.”

  “Here’s the thing,” he said, leaning forward, causing Steris to shift in her sleep. “My uncle hasn’t had time to breed his Allomancers, as I suspect he’s been doing. The plans he and the Set have concocted, they’re long-term investments. But he promised something to Kelesina, and he really sounded like he thinks he can deliver. You have the device?”

  Marasi pulled the small metal cube from her purse. Waxillium fished in his pocket and brought out his coin, the one some beggar had apparently given him. He held up the two next to each other, sunlight through the window gleaming off the cube and highlighting the otherworldly symbols on its sides.

  “Something strange is going on, Marasi,” Waxillium said. “Something important enough to draw my uncle’s attention. I don’t have the answers. I need to find them.”