Bands of Mourning

by Brandon Sanderson

  “The day of kings has passed,” Edwarn said. “The day of mighty men to be worshiped has gone, and with its passing goes the right of Allomancers to power. No more will their gifts hinge on the whims of fate. Instead, the powers will come to those who deserve them. Who can use them.”

  He raised his foot to step, then hesitated, looking down. He grinned, moving his foot backward and making Wax’s heart fall. “Trying to goad me into stepping onto the trap? Such a brash plan, Waxillium.” He glanced upward. “Looks like it’s rigged to drop this entire section of ceiling. You’d be caught in it too.”

  Edwarn turned and looked right at where Wax was sitting, trying to hide among the corpses.

  Wax raised his head. “It would have been worth the cost.” He still had his shotgun, but doubted he had the strength to use it. Instead, kneeling, he held out a single bloodied hand, clutching a bullet in it. “Shall we see how good you are, Uncle?”

  A duel. Perhaps he could win a duel.

  Edwarn regarded him, then shook his head. “I think not.”

  He stepped on the pressure plate, triggering the trap.

  * * *

  Telsin marched Marasi and the others out of the temple. And, once they were outside, Telsin reached to Marasi’s arm and ripped free the medallion there.

  Marasi gasped, clutching her purse as the cold descended upon her like a swarm of insects, nipping at every bit of exposed skin. Her dress suddenly seemed flimsy, useless. She might as well have been naked. Telsin repeated the process for Steris, then reached for Allik’s arm.

  “Please,” Marasi said. “He—”

  Telsin grabbed the medallion. Allik tried to pull away, but one of the guards cuffed him across the face, cracking his mask and sending him to the snowy ground. The guard reached down, ripping off the medallion.

  Allik gasped loudly, huddling on the cold stone. Beyond them, the field was a flurry of activity. Tents flapped in the wind, and men scurried around the fallen Hunter airship. A group of people in masks were being marched across the field to a particularly large tent—so, Allik’s crewmates were still alive.

  One man with a red uniform beneath his thick coat hiked up the steps. “Lady Sequence,” he said to Telsin as he reached the top. “We’ve located what we think must be the weapon.”

  “The Bands?” Marasi asked.

  Telsin looked at her drolly. “The Bands were a possibility. An engaging one, yes, and I will not deny my disappointment. Irich will be particularly displeased. But we didn’t come here for them.”

  The airship, Marasi realized, looking toward it. Bearing a bomb intended to destroy the temple.

  A bomb that had never been used. Men moved about the large airship, investigating it. This was what Suit and the others had come for.

  Marasi stepped forward, but one of the guards grabbed her while another dug in her purse to check for anything dangerous. Another batted Steris’s notebook from her fingers, then began to frisk Steris none too gently.

  “The ship is in good repair despite the elements, Sequence,” the soldier told Telsin as Marasi watched helplessly. “It didn’t crash as the other one did.”

  “Excellent,” Telsin said. “Let’s see if that thing has any of the powering metal left in it.” She started down the steps, her warming medallion letting her ignore the freezing cold. She seemed like a spirit in her sleek, airy gown beside men in full winter gear. She hesitated, looking back at Marasi and the others.

  “Search them thoroughly,” she informed the men. “I sensed faint metal from the older woman, but it’s gone now. Her notebook must have metal bindings. I don’t believe that they have any aluminum guns—besides the one that Waxillium had. Either way, keep watch on them. They’re insurance against the short one, who is still out here somewhere.”

  * * *

  The roof fell in on them.

  Wax shouted, diving toward the pedestal and the two simple bracers. Suit took a different tack; he Pushed himself back away from the bracers, out of the path of the stones.

  Rock hit Wax like a fist slamming him to the ground. Bones crunched inside of him. He gasped, but got a mouthful of dust.

  He knew how bad it was when the pain faded. As the dust settled, he found he couldn’t move any part of his body. A weight rested on his back, pinning him with his head to the side. One of his hands hung within his view, the fingers mangled. He couldn’t feel them. Nothing. Just his face. Enough to feel the tears of pain and failure on his cheeks.

  Steel. He tried burning it.

  He felt a few wisps of it inside of him, a warmth that became the only thing he could sense.

  Rubble shifted nearby, and rocks clattered. A second later Suit appeared, a cut in his arm resealing. He dusted himself off and glanced at Wax.

  “The trouble with Hemalurgy is in its limitations,” he said. “If you kill a man and steal his Metallic abilities, the resulting gift to you is weakened. Did you know that? What’s more, if you spike yourself too much, you become subject to Harmony’s … interference. Indeed, by the stories, you might open yourself to the interference of any idiot Soother or Rioter with enough talent.” He shook his head. “I am limited to three boons, even if we have discovered how to make someone else be weak, while we gain the benefit.”

  He glanced toward the bracers. “But if there is a way to gain more powers, and not be subject to Harmony … now that would be something. I see why Telsin was so eager.”

  He left Wax, passing the frozen corpses of the dead masked ones, bits of them sticking from beneath fallen rocks. Crushed. Some even looked to have shattered.

  Suit stepped up to the pedestal. “Behold me, Waxillium. Today, I become a god.”

  Wax tried to cry out, but his lungs wouldn’t hold enough air. He tried to heave himself free, but his body no longer worked. He was dying. Though steel burned fitfully inside of him, he was dying.

  No. He was already dead. His body just hadn’t quite realized it yet.

  Suit held the Bands. Wax twisted his head as best he could, pinned as he was, to see it. The bearded man smiled broadly, waiting.

  Nothing happened.

  Suit strained, his face darkening. Then he turned the bracers around, looking them over. He put them on.

  Still, nothing happened.

  “Drained,” he said with disgust. “After all this, we find them empty of attributes. What a waste.” He sighed, then walked over to Wax, sliding the aluminum gun from his pocket. “I have no doubt that Irich’s scientists will be able to puzzle out how the Bands were made. Take that thought with you into the eternities, Waxillium. Be sure to shake Ironeyes’s hand for me. I intend to never meet him.”

  He pressed the gun against Wax’s head.

  And then something slammed into Suit. The man cried out, and a scuffle followed, along with the gun discharging. Suit cursing. Feet on stone.

  A second later, Wayne scrambled into view. He knelt beside Wax and looked him over, seeming horrified.

  “Wayne,” Wax croaked. “How…?”

  “Ah, ’s nothing,” his partner said. “Slipped out and fell down another of those holes. That one ended in spikes, I’m afraid. But I was able to heal up and climb out, once the soldiers had passed, then slip into this pit. You picked a better hole to fall in than I did, for sure.”

  “Suit…”

  “He ran,” Wayne said. “Didn’t want to face me himself, not with me healing. Right cowardly, that one.…” He trailed off, looking down at Wax’s body, pinned by the rock. “I—”

  “Find Steris and Marasi,” Wax croaked. “Help them escape.”

  “Wax,” he said, shaking his head. “No. No. I can’t do this without you.”

  “Yes you can. Fight.”

  “Not that part,” Wayne said. “The rest of it. Livin’. We … we’ll get you out of this.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, then looked at the stone on top of Wax, then down at the blood pooling beneath.

  Then he sat back, running his hands through his hair, ey
es wide, as if in shock. Wax tried to urge him on, but his lips wouldn’t move.

  Not enough strength.

  * * *

  Marasi huddled on the cold ground with Steris and Allik, surrounded by armed men who searched their possessions. It was still night out here, but sunrise had to be close.

  Waxillium would have found a way out of this.

  Stop comparing yourself to him, she thought. Is it any wonder you stand in his shadow, when that’s all you can see yourself doing?

  She needed to solve this. A dozen plans ran through her head, all stupid. The guard nearby still had her purse.

  ReLuur’s spike, it might be in there. Since it was Hemalurgically Invested, it might not have registered to the eyes of an Allomancer looking for metals on her. The guard dumped the purse out, spilling the contents onto the cold stone.

  No spike. Instead, among her notebooks and handkerchiefs tumbled a palm-sized wedge of metal. The aluminum spearhead from the statue?

  Wayne, I’m going to … She gritted her teeth. When had he swapped her for the spike? That man!

  “I searched that purse already,” another guard noted. “No weapons.”

  “Well then, what’s this?” the first guard said, picking up the wedge-shaped piece of aluminum.

  The second guard snorted. “You’re welcome to try to kill someone with that if you want. It’s dull.”

  Marasi wilted, feeling stupid. Even if she had the spike, what would she do? She couldn’t overpower armed guards.

  Then what could she do?

  Someone fell through the sky and thumped to the ground nearby. She perked up, thinking it must be Waxillium. Instead it was Suit, clothing ripped and dusty, carrying a gun. The guards saluted, the one with her purse dropping it and the metal wedge. One of her glass makeup jars rolled away.

  Poor Allik huddled beside Steris. He’d stopped shivering, and his skin was turning blue. Steris met her eyes, and looked resigned.

  Suit strode past. He looked far more intimidating dropping through the air using Allomantic abilities than he had bundled up for the weather and standing on the steps of the temple.

  “Is my brother dead?” Telsin demanded, turning from her group of engineers nearby.

  “Yes,” Suit said. “Though I encountered the short one.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Left him distracted,” Suit said. “I thought you’d want to see what I found.” He held up something that gleamed in the powerful lights the crew had set up. Two silvery bracers, each as long as a forearm. “There was a hidden chamber down there, Sequence. And my, what a secret it contained.”

  Telsin shoved between her scientists and scrambled up to Suit. She took the bracers, awed.

  “They don’t work,” Suit noted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re out of attributes, I think. Their reserves gone.”

  “But they grant Allomancy too,” Telsin said, putting them on and waving toward one of the guards, who tossed her a vial of metals. She downed it, eager.

  “Well?” Suit asked.

  “Nothing.”

  A decoy, Marasi thought. Like the glass case and the empty pedestal … yes, that had been one too. She could see now why Waxillium had been doing his measuring.

  Waxillium. He couldn’t really be …

  No. What could she do? Not fight. But think. These Bands were a decoy. A second layer of falsehood to confuse intruders.

  So where were the real ones?

  * * *

  Candles in a dark room.

  They’re another decoy, Wax thought, mind muddled. Those bracers were too perfect, just like the stories. They were left to fool us.

  Like the symbols of Wax’s old adversary, painted on the door of a mansion. Meant to distract. Delay.

  This place was made for the Lord Ruler, Wax thought. Those traps … those traps are stupid. What if one did catch him? The whole thing has to be a decoy.

  So what? There was another temple out there? Maybe they had hidden it in a cave?

  He could barely see anymore. Wayne held his hand, tears streaming down his face. Everything was fading. The cold … coming … like darkness …

  No, Wax thought, it wouldn’t be somewhere else. He’d need to be able to find it. He’d recognize it.…

  It was.

  It was here!

  Wax gasped, and tried to form the words, eyes wide. Wayne gripped his hand, knuckles white.

  He couldn’t feel it.

  The darkness arrived, and Wax died.

  28

  Wax stilled.

  Wayne let the hand fall limp. He wanted to just sit here. Stare at nothing like those fellows in rows nearby, the ones that weren’t crushed. Sit and become nothing.

  All his life, only one man had believed in him. Only one man had forgiven him, had encouraged him. The rest of this damned race could burn away and become ash, for all Wayne cared. He hated them all.

  But … what would Wax say?

  He left me, the bastard, Wayne thought, wiping his eyes. In that moment, he hated Wax too. But then, Wayne loved him more than the hatred. He growled, and stumbled to his feet. He had no weapons; he’d dropped his dueling canes above.

  He stared at Wax’s body, then knelt and felt along the man’s leg. He got ahold of something and yanked it free. The shotgun.

  Wayne’s hands immediately started shaking.

  “You stop that,” he hissed at them. “We’re done with that.”

  He cocked the shotgun, then went looking for a way out of this tomb.

  * * *

  The whole temple is a decoy, Marasi thought, trembling in the cold. So where are the actual Bands?

  The place was built for the Lord Ruler, who would supposedly return to claim his weapon. Where would you put that weapon?

  He’d know what it looked like, Marasi thought. He built it. We think it was in the shape of bracers, but it didn’t have to be. Could be anything.

  That would be smart, if you were making a weapon. These metalminds, you had to know what they did before they worked. You could protect yourself, so only someone who knew what to look for could use your weapon.

  And in that case, the people who built the temple could have left the weapon where the returning Lord Ruler would see it, but everyone else would pass right by, digging farther into the temple to encounter traps, pits, and decoys—all designed to either kill them or convince them that they’d successfully robbed the place.

  Where did you put the weapon? On the doorstep, under the sign of the Sovereign himself, in his very own hand. Marasi turned, frantic, searching out the oversized spearhead.

  It lay right beside her, where the guard had dropped it. Waxillium had called it aluminum because he couldn’t sense it, but he hadn’t looked closely enough.

  If he had, he’d have seen it was made of different interwoven metals, wavy, like the folds forged into the blade of a sword. He couldn’t Push on it, not because it was aluminum.

  But because it was a metalmind, stored with more power than any they’d ever seen.

  * * *

  Around Wax, everything became misty and indistinct. The cavern, the rocks, the ground itself—all just mist. He could stand on it somehow.

  Harmony stepped up beside Wax in the misty darkness. They fell in beside one another, walking as was natural for men to do. God looked much as Wax had always imagined Him. Tall, peaceful, hands laced before Himself. Face like a long oval, serene and human, though He towed behind Him a cloak of timelessness. Wax could see it, trailing after. Storms and winds, clouds and rain, deserts and forests, all reflected somehow in this creature’s wake. His robe was the Terris V pattern, where each V was not a color, but an age. A strata of time, like those of a deep rock uncovered.

  “They say,” Wax said softly, “that You come to all people when they die.”

  “It is a duty I consider to be among my most sacred,” Harmony said. “Even with other pressing matters, I find time to take this walk.” H
e had a quiet voice, familiar to Wax. Like that of a forgotten friend.

  “I’m dead then.”

  “Yes,” Harmony said. “Your body, mind, and soul have separated. Soon one will return to the earth, another to the cosmere, and the third … Even I do not know.”

  Wax continued walking. The shadowy cavern vanished, and Wax had a feeling of blurring. Mists became darkness, and all he could see was a distant light, like the sun below the horizon.

  “If You can take time to walk with us,” Wax said, bitter, “why not come a little earlier? Why not stop the walk before it must begin?”

  “Should I prevent all hardship, Waxillium?”

  “I know where this is going,” Wax said. “I know what You’re going to say. You value choice. Everyone theorizes about it. But You can help. You’ve done it before, in placing me where I needed to go. You intervene. So why not intervene more? Prevent children from being killed. Make certain that constables arrive in time to stop deaths. You don’t have to take away choice, but You could do more. I know You could.”

  He left the last part unsaid.

  You could have saved her. Or at least told me what I was doing.

  Harmony nodded. It felt bizarre to be demanding things, but rusts … if this was the end, Wax wanted a few answers.

  “What is it to be God, Waxillium?” Harmony asked.

  “I don’t think that’s a question I can answer.”

  “It is not one I ever thought I’d have to answer either,” Harmony said. “But obviously, it has been forced upon me. You would have me intervene and stop the murders of innocents. I could do this. I have considered it. If I were to stop every one, what then? Do I stop maimings as well?”

  “Of course,” Wax said.

  “And where do I hold back, Waxillium? Do I prevent all wounds, or do I prevent only those caused by evil people? Do I stop a man from falling asleep so that he will not tip a candle and burn down his house? Do I stop all harm that could ever befall a person?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And once nobody is ever hurt,” Harmony said, “will people be satisfied? Will they not pray to me and ask for more? Will some people still curse and spit at the sound of my name because they are poor, while another is rich? Should I mitigate this, make everyone the same, Waxillium?”