The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
They topped the cliff face, and Wax landed them softly alongside the falls. Marasi let out a held breath as he set her down; he could tell from the tension of her grip that she hadn’t enjoyed the flight as much as he had. Steelpushing wasn’t natural to her, nor were the heights—she backed away from the cliff as soon as she was free.
“Going to go get the others?” she asked.
“Let’s find the hotel first,” Wax said, pointing the way toward a statue he’d spotted upon landing. He could still make out the green patina of the statue’s head over the tops of the nearby homes. He started in that direction.
Marasi joined him, and they entered a street with a fair amount of foot traffic, papergirls and boys hawking broadsheets at every corner. Fewer horses or carriages than in Elendel—almost none, though he did see a fair number of pedicabs. That made sense, with the layout of the city. He found it interesting that the gondola system wasn’t only for getting between terraces; there were also lines crossing the sky above them carting people from one section of this terrace to another.
“Like a shark among minnows,” Marasi mumbled.
“What’s that?” Wax asked.
“Look at how people swerve around you,” Marasi said. “Lord Cimines once did a study comparing constables to sharks, showing how the people in a crowded walkway responded exactly the same way as animals do to a predator moving nearby.”
He hadn’t noticed, but she was right. People gave him a wide berth—though not because they guessed he was a constable. It was the mistcoat duster, the weapons, and perhaps his height. Everyone seemed a little shorter down here, and he saw over the crowd by several inches.
In Elendel, his clothing had been abnormal—but so was everyone’s. That city was a mishmash, like an old barrel full of spent cartridges. All different calibers represented.
Here, the people wore lighter clothing than in Elendel. Pastel dresses for the ladies, striped white suits and boater hats for the men. Compared to them, he was a bullet hole in a stained-glass window.
“Never been good at blending in anyway,” he said.
“Fair enough,” Marasi said. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you need Wayne tonight?”
“At the party?” Wax asked, amused. “I have trouble imagining a situation where he doesn’t end up drunk in the punch bowl.”
“Then I’ll borrow him,” Marasi said. “I want to check the graveyards for ReLuur’s spike.”
Wax grunted. “That will be dirty work.”
“Which is why I asked for Wayne.”
“Noted. What do you think the chances are you’ll find the thing buried in a grave?”
Marasi shrugged. “I figure we’ll start with the most obvious and easiest method.”
“Grave robbing is the easiest method?”
“It is with proper preparation,” Marasi said. “I don’t intend to do the digging, after all.…”
Wax stopped listening.
The chatter of the crowd faded as he froze in place, staring at a broadsheet held up by a papergirl on a nearby corner. That symbol, the jagged reverse mah … he knew that symbol all too well. He left Marasi midsentence, pushing through the crowd to the girl and snatching the paper.
That symbol. Impossible. FARTHING MANSION HIT, the headline read. He fished out a few clips for the girl. “Farthing Mansion? Where is it?”
“Just up Blossom Way,” the girl said, pointing with her chin and making the coins in his palm disappear.
“Come on,” he said, interrupting Marasi as she started saying something.
People did make way for him, which was convenient. He could have taken to the sky, but he found the mansion without difficulty, partially because of the people crowded outside and pointing. The symbol was painted in red, exactly like the one he’d known back in the Roughs, but this time it marred the wall of a fine, three-story stone mansion instead of a stagecoach.
“Waxillium, for the love of sanity,” Marasi said, catching up to him. “What has gotten into you?”
He pointed at the symbol.
“I recognize that,” Marasi said. “Why would I recognize that?”
“You read the accounts of my time in the Roughs,” Wax said. “It’s in there—that’s the symbol of Ape Manton, one of my old nemeses.”
“Ape Manton!” Marasi said. “Didn’t he—”
“Yes,” Wax said, remembering the nights of torture. “He hunts Allomancers.”
But why would he be here? Wax had put him away, and not just in some minor village. He’d been locked up in True Madil, biggest town in the Northern Roughs, with a jail like a vise. How in Harmony’s True Name had he gotten all the way down to New Seran?
Robbery wouldn’t be the end of Manton’s activities here. He always had a motive behind the thefts, a goal. I have to figure out what he took, and why he—
No.
No, not right now. “Let’s get to the hotel,” Wax said, ripping himself away from the sight of that red symbol.
“Rusts,” Marasi said, hurrying after him. “Could he be involved somehow?”
“With the Set? Not a chance. He hates Allomancers.”
“Enemy of my enemy…”
“Not the Ape,” Wax said. “He wouldn’t take the hand of a Metalborn trying to save him from slipping to his death.”
“So…”
“So he’s not part of this,” Wax said. “We ignore him. I’m here for my uncle.”
Marasi nodded, but seemed disturbed. They passed a Lurcher juggler, dropping balls and tugging them back up into the air—along with the occasional object from among the amused crowd of watchers. A waste of Allomantic abilities. And all these people. Suffocating. He had hoped that in leaving Elendel, he would escape crowded streets. He nearly pulled out his gun and fired a shot to clear them all away.
“Wax…” Marasi said, taking his arm.
“What.”
“What? Rusts, your stare could nail a person’s head to the wall right now!”
“I’m fine,” he said, pulling his arm away from her.
“This vendetta against your uncle is—”
“It’s not a vendetta.” Wax picked up his pace, striding through the crowd, mistcoat tassels flaring behind him. “You know what he’s doing.”
“No, and neither do you,” Marasi said.
“He’s breeding Allomancers,” Wax said. “Maybe Feruchemists. I don’t need to know his exact plan to know how bad that is. What if he’s making an army of Thugs and Coinshots? Twinborn. Compounders.”
“That might be true,” Marasi admitted. “But you aren’t chasing him because of any of that, are you? He beat you. In the Hundredlives case, Mister Suit got the best of you. Now you’re going to win the war where you lost the battle.”
He stopped in place, turning on her. “How petty do you think I am?”
“Considering what I just told you,” she said, “I’d say I consider you precisely that petty. It’s not wrong to be angry at Suit, Waxillium. He’s holding your sister. But rusts, please don’t let it cloud your judgment.”
He took a deep breath, then gestured toward the mansion up the street. “You want me to go chasing after the Ape instead?”
“No,” Marasi said, then blushed. “I agree that we need to stay focused on getting back the spike.”
“You’re here for the spike, Marasi,” Wax said. “I’m here to find Suit.” He nodded down the street, toward a discreet hotel sign, barely visible on the front of a building. “You go check us in. I’m going to fetch the others.”
* * *
“With this suite and the others, you’ll basically have the entire top floor to yourselves.” The hotel owner—who insisted upon being called Aunt Gin—beamed as she said it.
Wayne yawned, rubbing his eyes as he poked through the lavish room’s bar. “Great. Lovely. Can I have your hat?”
“My … hat?” The elderly woman looked up at the oversized hat. The sides drooped magnificently, and the thing was festooned with flowers. Like, oodl
“You have a lady friend?” Aunt Gin asked. “You wish to give her the hat?”
“Nah,” Wayne said. “I need to wear it next time I’m an old lady.”
“The next time you what?” Aunt Gin grew pale, but that was probably on account of the fact that Wax went stomping by, wearing his full rusting mistcoat. That man never could figure out how to blend in.
“Do these windows open?” Wax asked, pointing toward the penthouse suite’s enormous bay windows. He stepped up onto one of the sofas and shoved on the window.
“Well, they used to open,” Aunt Gin said. “But they rattled in the breezes, so we painted them shut and sealed the latches. Never could stand the thought of someone—”
Wax shoved one of them open, breaking off the latch and making a sharp cracking sound as the paint outside was ripped, perhaps some of the wood splintering.
“Lord Ladrian!” Aunt Gin said with a gasp.
“I’ll pay for the repairs,” Wax said, hopping off the couch. “I need that to open in case I have to jump out.”
“Jump—”
“Aha!” Wayne said, pulling open the bar’s bottom cabinet.
“Alcohol?” Marasi asked, walking by.
“Peanuts,” Wayne said, spitting out his gum and then popping a handful of nuts into his mouth. “I ain’t had nothin’ to eat since I swiped that fruit in Steris’s luggage.”
“What are you babbling about?” Steris asked from the couch, where she was writing in her notebook.
“I left you one of my shoes in trade,” Wayne said, then dug in his duster’s pocket, pulling out the other shoe. “Speaking of that, Gin, will you swap me your hat for this one?”
“Your shoe?” Aunt Gin asked, turning back toward him, then jumping as Wax forced open another window.
“Sure,” Wayne said. “They’re both clothes, right?”
“What would I do with a man’s shoe?”
“Wear it next time you gotta be a fellow,” Wayne said. “You’ve got the perfect face for it. Good shoulders, too.”
“Well, I—”
“Please ignore him,” Steris said, rising and walking over. “Here, I’ve prepared for you a list of possible scenarios that might transpire during our residence here.”
“Steris…” Wax said, forcing open the third and final window.
“What?” she demanded. “I will not have the staff unprepared. Their safety is our concern.”
“Fire?” Aunt Gin asked, reading the list. “Shoot-outs. Robbery. Hostage situations. Explosions?”
“That one is completely unfair,” Wax said. “You’ve been listening to Wayne.”
“Things do explode around you, mate,” Wayne said, munching peanuts. Nice bit of salt on these.
“He’s right, unfortunately,” Steris said. “I’ve accounted for seventeen explosions involving you. That’s a huge statistical anomaly, even considering your profession.”
“You’re kidding. Seventeen?”
“Afraid so.”
“Huh.” He had the decency to look proud of it, at least.
“A pastry shop once blew up while we was in it,” Wayne said, leaning in to Aunt Gin. “Dynamite in a cake. Big mess.” He held out some peanuts toward her. “How about I throw in these peanuts with the shoe?”
“Those are my peanuts! From this very room!”
“But they’re worth more now,” Wayne said. “On account of my being real hungry.”
“I told you to ignore him,” Steris said, tapping on the notebook she’d handed Aunt Gin. “Look, you only read the table of contents. The rest of the pages contain explanations of the possible scenarios I’ve outlined, and suggested responses to them. I’ve sorted the list by potential for property damage.”
Wax leaped into the center of the room, then thrust his hand forward. The door quivered.
“What … what is he doing?” Aunt Gin asked.
“Checking to see where the best places in the room are for slamming the door with his mind,” Wayne said. “In case someone bursts in on us.”
“Just read the notebook, all right?” Steris requested in a pleasant tone.
Aunt Gin looked toward her, seeming bewildered. “Are these things … threats?”
“No, of course not!” Steris said. “I only want you to be prepared.”
“She’s thorough,” Wayne said.
“I like to be thorough.”
“Usually that means if you ask her to kill a fly, she’ll burn down the house just to be extra sure it gets done.”
“Wayne,” Steris said, “you’re needlessly making the lady concerned.”
“Flooding from a diverted waterfall,” Aunt Gin said, reading from the book again. “Koloss attack. Cattle stampede through the lobby?”
“That one is highly unlikely,” Steris said, “but it never hurts to be prepared!”
“But—”
The door to the adjoining suite slammed open. “Hello, humans,” MeLaan said, stepping into the doorway wearing nothing more than a tight pair of shorts and a cloth wrapped around her chest. “I need to put on something appropriate for tonight. What do you think? Large breasts? Small breasts? Extra-large breasts?”
Everybody in the room paused, then turned toward her.
“What?” MeLaan said. “Picking a proper bust size is vital to a lady’s evening preparations!”
Silence.
“That’s … kind of an improper question, MeLaan,” Steris finally said.
“You’re just jealous because you can’t take yours off to go for a run,” MeLaan said. “Hey, where is that bellboy with my things? I swear, if he drops my bags and cracks any of my skulls, there will be fury in this room!” She stalked away.
“Did she say skulls?” Aunt Gin said.
The door slammed.
“Aha!” Wax said, lowering his hand. “There it is.”
Marasi approached and wrapped her arm around the elderly lady’s shoulders, leading her away. “Don’t worry. It won’t be nearly as bad as they make it seem. Likely nothing will happen to you or your hotel.”
“Other than Wax rippin’ your windows apart,” Wayne noted.
“Other than that,” Marasi said, giving him a glare.
“Young lady,” Aunt Gin said under her breath, “you need to get away from these people.”
“They’re fine,” Marasi said, reaching the door. “We’ve just had a long night.”
Aunt Gin nodded hesitantly.
“Good,” Marasi said. “Now, when you get down below, would you please send someone to the trade bureau for me? Have them collect the names of each and every person who works at the local graveyards.”
“Graveyards?”
“It’s vitally important,” Marasi said, then pushed the woman out and shut the door.
“Graveyards?” MeLaan said, sticking her head into the room. She was now completely bald. “Reminds me. Would you order me something to eat? A nice hunk of aged meat.”
“Rotting, you mean,” Wax said.
“Nothing like the odor of a nice flank after a day in the sun,” MeLaan said, ducking back into her room as a knock came at the other door. “Ah! My bags. Excellent. What? No, of course there aren’t corpses in these. Why would I need bones with the flesh still on them? Thank you. Bye.”
Wayne popped the last of the peanuts into his mouth. “I dunno about you all, but I’m gonna find a place to snore for a few hours.”
“Sleeping arrangements, Waxillium?” Marasi asked.
“You and Steris in the suite across the hall,” Wax said, “Wayne and I in here. MeLaan gets her own room. She probably wants to, um…”
“Melt?” Marasi offered.
“… on her own.”
“I’m good, really,” MeLaan called from the next room. A second later she opened the door again. She wore the same bones and build, but this time she was completely bare-chested.
It wasn’t a woman’s chest.
&nb
Wayne cocked his head. She’d sculpted her face too, giving herself masculine features. Steris’s eyes were bulging. At least that was worth seeing.
“You’re…” Steris said. “You’ll become a…”
“A man?” MeLaan asked. “Yeah. It’ll look better when I’ve decided on the right body. Need to settle on a voice, too.” She looked around the room. “Um, is this a problem?”
Everyone looked at Wayne for some reason. He thought for a moment, then shrugged. Maybe he should have given his shoes to her.
“You don’t mind?” Steris demanded of him.
“It’s still her.”
“But she looks like a man!”
“So does the lady what runs this house,” Wayne said, “but she has kids, so someone still decided to take her an—”
“It will do, MeLaan,” Wax said, resting a hand on Steris’s arm. “Assuming you can get into the party.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said, spinning around. “I will get in, and be ready to give you support. But this is your play, Ladrian, not mine. You’re the detective; I’m just around for the punchy-punchy, stabby-stabby.”
She closed the door. Wayne shook his head. Now that, that’s a situation a man don’t rightly encounter all that often.… Well, he’d found occasion to be an old lady now and then, so it made sense to him. It was probably good for a woman to be a fellow once in a while, if only to offer some perspective. Easier to piss too. Couldn’t discount that.
“She assumes,” Wax said, “that our detective style isn’t normally the punchy-punchy, stabby-stabby type.”
“To be fair,” Wayne said, “it’s usually a more shooty-shooty, whacky-whacky type.”
Marasi rubbed her forehead. “Why are we having this conversation?”
“Because we’re tired,” Wax said. “Get some sleep, everyone. Wayne, you’re going to go with Marasi tonight and dig up some graves.” He took a deep breath. “And I, unfortunately, am going to a party.”
11
Wearing a formal cravat and jacket reminded Wax of the year after he’d left the Village. A year when his uncle had gleefully wrapped him in the packaging of a young nobleman and presented him to the city’s elite, feeling he’d won some kind of war when Wax was expelled from Terris society.