The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
“That don’t matter none for our business.”
“I do think it might.”
“See, it won’t,” Wayne said, “on account of my needin’ only one special little item, that nobody else would find of interest.”
Dechamp looked Wayne up and down. Then he eyed Marasi, and his eyes lingered as Wayne had said they would. Finally Dechamp smiled and stood, calling into the hut. “Boy? Boy!”
A child scrambled out into the mists, bleary-eyed and wearing a dirty smock and trousers. “Sir?”
“Go and kindly do a round of the yard,” Dechamp said. “Make sure we ain’t disturbed.”
The boy grew wide-eyed, then nodded and scampered off into the mists. Dechamp rested his shovel on his shoulder, pocketing the whetstone. “Now, what can I be callin’ you, good sir?”
“Mister Coins will do,” Wayne said. “And I’ll be callin’ you Mister Smart Man, for the decision you just made right here and now.”
He was changing his accent. It was subtle, but Marasi could tell he’d shifted it faintly.
“Nothing is set as of yet,” Dechamp said. “I just like to give that boy some exercise now and then. Keeps his health.”
“Of course,” Wayne said. “And I understand completely that nothing has been promised. But I tell you, this thing I want, ain’t nobody else goin’ to give you a clip for it.”
“If that’s so, then why are you so keen for it?”
“Sentimental value,” Wayne said. “It belonged to a friend, and it was really hard for him to part with it.”
Marasi snorted in surprise at that one, drawing Dechamp’s attention.
“Are you the friend?”
“I don’t speak skaa,” she said in the ancient Terris language. “Could you perhaps talk in Terris, please?”
Wayne winked at her. “No use, Dechamp. I can’t get her to speak proper, no matter how much I try. But she’s fine to look at, ain’t she?”
He nodded slowly. “Iffen this item be under my watchful care, where might it be found?”
“There was a right tragic incident in town a few weeks back,” Wayne said. “Explosives. People dead. I hear they brought the pieces to you.”
“Bilmy runs the day shift,” Dechamp said. “He brought ’em in. The ones what weren’t claimed, the city put in a nice little grave. They was mostly beggars and whores.”
“And right undeservin’ of death,” Wayne said, taking off his hat and putting it over his breast. “Let’s go see them.”
“You want to go tonight?”
“Iffen it ain’t too much a sweat.”
“Not much sweat, Mister Coins,” Dechamp said, “but your name had better match your intentions.”
Wayne promptly got out a few banknotes and waved them. Dechamp snatched them, sniffed them for some reason, then shoved them in his pocket. “Well, those ain’t coins, but they’ll do. Come on, then.”
He took out an oil lantern, then led them into the mists.
“You changed your accent,” Marasi whispered to Wayne as they followed a short distance behind.
“Aged it back a tad,” Wayne explained softly. “Used the accent of a generation past.”
“There’s a difference?”
He looked shocked. “Of course there is, woman. Made me sound older, like his parents. More authority.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe she’d even asked.
Dechamp’s lantern reflected off the mists as they walked, and that actually made it harder to see in the night, but he’d probably need it when digging. It did little to dispel the eeriness of gravestones broken by the occasional twisted mistwraith image. She understood, logically, why the tradition would have grown up. If there was one place you wanted to keep scavengers away from, it would be the graveyard. Except that the place had its own set of human scavengers, so the statues weren’t working.
“Now,” Dechamp said, and Wayne caught up to listen, “I’ll have you know that I am an honest man.”
“Of course,” Wayne said.
“But I’m also a thrifty man.”
“Ain’t we all,” Wayne said. “I never buys the fancy beer, even when it’s last call and the bartender halves it to empty the barrel.”
“You’re a man after my own heart, then,” Dechamp said. “Thrifty. What’s the good of lettin’ things rot and waste away, I says. The Survivor, he didn’t waste nothing useful.”
“Except noblemen,” Wayne said. “Wasted a fair number o’ them.”
“Wasn’t a waste,” Dechamp said, chuckling. “That there was weapons testing. Gotta make sure your knives is workin’.”
“Indeed,” Wayne said. “Why, sometimes the sharp ends on mine need lotsa testin’. To make sure they don’t break down in the middle of a good killin’.”
They shared a laugh, and Marasi shook her head. Wayne was in his element—he could talk about stabbing rich people all day long. Never mind that he himself was wealthier, now, than most of Elendel.
She didn’t much care to listen to them as they continued to laugh and joke, but unfortunately she also didn’t want to get too far away in this darkness. Yes, the mists were supposed to belong to the Survivor, but rusts, every second tombstone looked like a figure stumbling toward her in the night.
Eventually the gravekeeper led them to a freshly filled grave tucked away behind a few larger mausoleums. It was unmarked save for the sign of the spear, carved in stone and set into the dirt. Nearby, a few other new graves—these open—awaited corpses.
“You might want to grab a seat,” Dechamp said, hefting his shovel. “This’ll go fast, since the grave is upturned, but not that fast. And you might tell the lady to watch the other way. There’s no tellin’ what bits I might toss up.”
“Grab a seat…” Wayne said, looking around at the field of tombstones. “Where, my good man?”
“Anywhere,” Dechamp said, starting to dig. “They don’t care none. That’s the motto of the gravekeeper, you know. Just remember, they don’t care none.…”
And he set to it.
13
I have to accept their rules, Wax thought, crossing the room to the informant. They’re different, no matter what Steris says. But I do know them.
He’d decided to stay in the Basin and do what he could here. He’d seen the dangers on the streets of Elendel, and had worked to fight them. But those were a lesser wound—it was like patching the cut while the rot festered up the arm.
Chasing down the Set’s lesser minions … they probably wanted him doing those things. If he was going to protect the people, he was going to have to gun for more important targets. That meant keeping his temper, and it meant dancing and playing nice. It meant doing all the things his parents, and even his uncle, had tried to teach him.
Wax stopped near the alcove the informant, Devlin, occupied. The man was watching the nearby fish tank, which stood beneath a depiction of Tindwyl, Mother of Terris, perched on the walls during her last stand against the darkness. In the tank, tiny octopuses moved across the glass.
After a moment’s waiting, the informant nodded toward him. Wax approached and rested his arm against the glass of the tank beside Devlin, a short, handsome man with a hint of hair on his upper lip and chin.
“I expected you to be arrogant,” Devlin noted.
“What makes you think that I’m not?”
“You waited,” Devlin said.
“An arrogant man can still be polite,” Wax said.
Devlin smiled. “I suppose he can be, Lord Waxillium.” One of the little octopuses seized a passing fish in its tentacles and dropped from the side of the tank, holding the squirming fish and pulling it up toward its beak.
“They don’t feed them,” Devlin noted, “for a week or so before a party. They like the show they provide.”
“Brutal,” Wax said.
“Lady Kelesina imagines herself the predator,” he said, “and we all her fish, invited in to swim and perhaps be consumed.” Devlin smiled. “Of course, she doesn’t
“You know something about that cage?” Wax asked.
“It’s the cage we’re all in, Lord Waxillium! This Basin that Harmony created for us. So perfect, so lush. Nobody leaves.”
“I did.”
“To the Roughs,” Devlin said, dismissive. “What’s beyond them, Waxillium? Beyond the deserts? Across the seas? Nobody cares.”
“I’ve heard it asked before.”
“And has anyone put up the money to find the answers?”
Wax shook his head.
“People can ask questions,” Devlin said, “but where there is no money, there are no answers.”
Wax found himself chuckling, to which Devlin responded with a modest nod. He had developed a subtle way of explaining that he needed to be paid to give information. Oddly, despite the immediate—and somewhat crass—demand, Wax found himself more comfortable here than he’d been with Lord Gave.
Wax fished in his pocket and held out the strange coin. “Money,” he said. “I have an interest in money.”
Devlin took it, then cocked an eyebrow.
“If someone could tell me how this could be spent,” Wax noted, “I would be enriched. Really, we all would be.”
Devlin turned it over in his fingers. “Though I’ve never seen the exact image on this one, coins like these have been moving with some regularity through black-market antiquities auctions. I’ve been baffled as to why. There is no reason to keep them secret, and it would not be illegal to sell them in the open.” He flipped the coin back to Wax.
He caught it with surprise.
“You didn’t expect me to answer so frankly,” Devlin said. “Why do people so often ask questions when they’re not expecting answers?”
“Do you know anything else?” Wax asked.
“Gave bought a few,” Devlin said, “then immediately stopped, and the pieces he purchased are no longer on display in his home.”
Wax nodded thoughtfully and dug into his pocket for some money to offer the informant.
“Not here,” Devlin said, rolling his eyes. “One hundred. Send a note of transfer to your bank and have them move it to my account.”
“You’d trust me?” Wax asked.
“Lord Waxillium, it’s my job to know whom to trust.”
“It will be done, then. Assuming you have a little more for me.”
“Whatever is being covered up,” Devlin said, looking back toward the fish tank, “a good quarter of the nobility in the city is embroiled in it. First I was curious; now I’m terrified. It involves a massive building project to the northeast of here.”
“What kind of building project?” Wax asked.
“No way of knowing,” Devlin said. “Some farmers have seen it. Claimed Allomancers were involved. News died before it got here. Quashed. Smothered. Everything’s been strange in New Seran lately. A murderer from the Roughs showing up, attacking the homes of rich Metalborn, then you come to a party…”
“This project to the northeast,” Wax said. “Allomancers?”
“I don’t have anything more on it,” Devlin said, then tapped the fish tank, trying to frighten one of the little octopuses.
“What about the explosion a few weeks back?” Wax asked. “The one in the city?”
“An attack by this murderer from the Roughs, they say.”
“Do you believe them?”
“It didn’t kill any Metalborn,” Devlin said.
None that you know of, Wax thought. Where did Hemalurgy fit into all of this?
Devlin stood and nodded to Wax, extending a hand as if in farewell.
“That’s it?” Wax asked.
“Yes.”
“Steep price for so little,” Wax said, taking the hand.
Devlin leaned in, speaking softly, “Then let me give you a bit more. What you’re involved in is dangerous, more than you can imagine. Get out. That’s what I’m doing.”
“I can’t,” Wax said as Devlin pulled back.
“I know you, lawman,” Devlin said. “And I can tell you, the group you chase, you don’t need to worry about them. They won’t be a danger for decades, perhaps centuries. You’re ignoring the bigger threat.”
“Which is?” Wax asked.
“The rest of the people in this room,” Devlin said, “the ones not involved in your little conspiracy—the ones who care only about how their cities are being treated.”
“Pardon,” Wax said, “but they don’t seem like nearly the same level of danger to me.”
“Then you aren’t paying attention,” Devlin said. “Personally, I’m curious to find out how many lives the Basin’s first civil war claims. Good day, Lord Ladrian.” He walked away, snapping his fingers as he passed a few people. One of them scuttled off to follow him.
Wax found himself growling softly. First that woman during the dancing, now this fellow. Wax felt like he was being jerked around on the end of someone’s string. What had he even found out? Confirmation that artifacts were being sold? So someone else had found the place that ReLuur had evanotyped?
A building project, Wax thought. Allomancers.
Civil war.
Feeling cold, Wax moved back through the crowd. He rounded a group of people, noting that Steris was gone from their table—though she’d finished his cup of sweetened soda water before leaving. He turned and started through the crowd, looking for her.
That, by chance, brought him unexpectedly face-to-face with a statuesque woman with her hair in a bun and a ring on each finger. “Why, Lord Waxillium,” Kelesina said, waving for her companions to withdraw, leaving her alone with Wax. “I was hoping to get a chance to speak with you.”
He felt an immediate spike of panic—which he shot in the head and dumped in a lake. He would not be intimidated by one of Suit’s lackies, no matter how wealthy or influential. “Lady Shores,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it rather than kissing it. He might not be in the Roughs, but he didn’t intend to take his eyes off his enemy.
“I hope you’ve been enjoying the party,” she said. “The main address is about a half hour away; you might find it of note. We’ve invited the mayor of Bilming himself to speak. I’ll be certain to get you a transcript to bring back to your peasant governor, so that you needn’t worry about memorizing the details.”
“That’s very courteous of you.”
“I—” she began.
Rusts, he was tired of letting someone else steer his conversation tonight.
“Have you seen Lord Gave?” Wax interrupted. “I insulted him by accident earlier. I wish to make amends.”
“Gave?” Kelesina said. “Don’t mind him, Waxillium. He’s hardly worth the bother.”
“Still,” Wax said. “I feel like I’m wearing blocks of concrete on my feet and trying to dance! Every step I take, I smash somebody’s toes. Rusts, I’d hoped that people down here wouldn’t be as touchy as they are in Elendel.”
She smiled. The words seemed to put her at ease, as if she were getting from him exactly what she expected.
Use that, Wax told himself. But how? This woman had decades’ worth of experience moving in social circles. Steris could opine all she wanted about his virtues, but he’d spent years doing target practice instead of attending parties. How could he expect to match these people at their own game?
“I’m sorry to see you didn’t bring your associate,” Kelesina said.
“Wayne?” Wax asked, genuinely incredulous.
“Yes. I’ve had letters regarding him from friends in Elendel. He seems so colorful!”
“That’s one way to put it,” Wax said. “Pardon, Lady Kelesina, but I’d sooner bring my horse to a party. It’s better behaved.”
She laughed. “You are a charmer, Lord Waxillium.”
This woman was guilty as sin, and he knew it. He could feel it. He did the next part by instinct. He pulled the coin from his pocket and held it up.
“Maybe you can answer something for me,” he said, and realized he
Kelesina froze.
“Now personally,” Wax said, flipping it over, “I think it has to do with those rumors of what’s happenin’ out northeast. Big dig in the ground, I’ll bet? Well, I figure this must be from that. Relic from the old days. Mighty interesting, eh?”
“Don’t be taken in by those rumors, Lord Waxillium,” she said. “After stories circulated, people began coining things like those in the city to sell to the gullible.”
“Is that so?” Wax said, trying to sound disappointed. “That’s a shame. It sounded really interesting to me.” He pocketed the coin as the band started another song. “Care for a dance?”
“Actually,” she said, “I promised the next one already. Can I find you later, Lord Waxillium?”
“Sure, sure,” he said, then gave her a nod as she withdrew. He stepped back to his table, watching her move pointedly through the crowd with frightened motions.
“Was that Lady Kelesina?” Steris said, joining him, holding another cup of the sweetened yellow drink.
“Yup,” Wax said.
“I wasn’t planning to talk to her until after the speech,” Steris said, huffing. “You’ve thrown off my entire timeline.”
“Sorry.”
“It will have to do. What did you discover from her?”
“Nothing,” Wax said, still watching Lady Kelesina as she met with some men in suits nearby. She kept her face calm, but the curt way she motioned … yes, she sure was agitated. “I told her what I’d discovered.”
“You what?”
“I tipped her off that I was on to them,” Wax said, “though I tried to act stupid. I don’t know if she bought that part. Wayne’s far better than I am at it. He’s a natural, you see.”
“You’ve ruined it then?”
“Maybe,” Wax said. “But then, if this were the Roughs and I were confronting a criminal—but had no evidence—this is what I’d do. Let it slip that I was suspicious of them, then watch where they go.”