The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
“… time to show those in Elendel that their tyranny is not only unjust, it is against the will of the Survivor, who died in the name of freedom.…”
The hallway was empty. Wax stepped out, Steris at his side. “Try not to look like you’re sneaking,” he suggested softly.
She nodded, and together they moved down a long hallway set with brass gas lamps that had been converted to electricity. According to the mansion layout he had memorized, the ballroom and these small guest quarters were in their own wing to the east. If they moved west along this hallway, took this corner …
They passed under an archway into the mansion’s central atrium, where a stream ran through the center of the mansion—diverted from one of the waterfalls, then cascading down a set of arranged rocks covered in chimes. Only a few lights glowed on the walls, giving the atrium a dusklike feeling.
“That humidity must be awful for the mansion’s woodwork,” Steris noted. “What practical reason could they have to run a river through the middle of their house?”
“I’m sure the reasons aren’t practical at all,” Wax said. Nearby, a maid passed in from another doorway. She saw him and froze.
Wax glared at her, standing up straight, putting as much nobleman sneer into his expression as he could muster. The young woman didn’t challenge them, but ducked her head and scuttled away, carrying her stack of linens.
They picked their way through the dim atrium. Above, broad glass windows would have given a view of the sky—but instead mist spun and swirled. Wax raised his fingers in greeting toward the distant mists, but stopped himself.
Harmony watched through those mists. Harmony the impotent, Harmony the meaningless. He set his jaw and turned away from the windows, leading Steris along a path in the indoor garden, which was set with small rocks and plants. From his maps, he guessed that Kelesina would be up on the second floor somewhere. As they followed the path northward, walking along the stream, he spotted a second-floor balcony.
“Honestly,” Steris muttered, “how can they even know if the water is sanitary? A river running through their gardens wasn’t enough? It has to go through the house itself?”
Wax smiled, studying that balcony. “I’m going to scout ahead up there. Speak loudly if someone confronts you. That will warn me, and I’ll sneak back.”
“Very well,” Steris said.
He dug in his pocket for a few coins, feeling old-fashioned as he burned steel and prepared to jump.
“Do you want something more substantial?” Steris asked.
He glanced at her, then down at her purse. “They searched your purse.”
“That they did,” she said, then took the hem of her skirt, lifting it up to the side and revealing a small handgun strapped to her thigh. “I worried they’d do something like that. So I made other plans.”
Wax grinned. “I could get used to having you around, Steris.”
She blushed in the dim light. “I might, uh, need your help getting the thing off.”
He knelt down, realizing that she’d used approximately seven rolls of tape to strap the gun in place. Also, being Steris, she’d worn shorts under the dress—in case she had to do what she was doing. Two pairs, judging by the bit of cloth he saw peeking out from under the top one.
Wax set to work extricating the gun. “I see you didn’t want this coming off accidentally.”
“I kept imagining it falling out and firing,” Steris said, “mid-dance.”
Wax grunted, working at her thigh beneath her dress. “You realize that if this were a play, this is exactly the point where someone would walk in on us.”
“Lord Waxillium!” Steris said. “What kind of theater have you been attending?”
“The kind you find in the Roughs,” Wax said, yanking the gun free. It proved to be one of his Riotings, a .22 six-shot he kept in his gun case but rarely used. It would do. He stood up, letting Steris settle her skirt back down. “Nice work.”
“I tried a shotgun first,” she said, blushing. “You should have seen me try to walk with one of those on my leg!”
“Stay out of sight, if you can,” he told her, then dropped a coin and launched himself toward the upper balcony.
* * *
Marasi stepped into the gravekeeper’s shack, clicking the door closed behind her. Wayne looked up from breaking the legs off a chair.
“Is that necessary?” Marasi asked.
“Dunno,” he said, snapping off another one. “It’s fun, though. How are our toughs?”
Marasi glanced out the window toward where a group of the local constables were carting away the last of the thugs. It turned out that setting off dynamite in the middle of the city was a fine way to get the attention of the authorities.
“They don’t know anything,” she said. “Hired muscle, paid and sent to do the hit. The ones who hired them mentioned your name, which turns out to have been a mistake.”
“I’m famous,” Wayne said happily, snapping another leg off. The hut had been thoroughly ransacked, drawers ripped out, cushions slit, furniture in shambles. Wayne looked at the chair leg he’d broken, apparently checking to see if it was hollow, then tossed it over his shoulder.
“We can try to follow the payments to those men,” Marasi continued, “but I suspect that Suit was too careful for this to be traced. And there’s no sign of the runner boy.”
Wayne grunted, stomping on the floor in one section, then taking a few steps and stomping again.
“The police brought an Allomancer,” Marasi continued. “And there’s no metal in that grave, so if the spike was ever there, it isn’t now.” She sighed, leaning back against the wall. “Rust and Ruin … I hope Waxillium is having more luck than we are.”
Wayne kicked a hole in the floor with the heel of his boot. Marasi perked up, then walked over as he fished around in a compartment he’d found.
“Aha!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?” Marasi asked.
Wayne brought out a bottle. “Dechamp’s hidden booze stash.”
“That’s all?”
“All? It’s great! A fellow like that hides his booze well. Too many other workers around to swipe the stuff.”
“So we’re at a dead end.”
“Well, there’s an account book on the desk there that I found under a false bottom in the drawer,” Wayne noted, taking a swig of the dark liquid he’d found. “Lists everybody what paid the people here for a grave robbin’ in the last few years.”
Marasi started. “When did you find that?”
“First,” Wayne said. “Hardly had to search for it. The booze though, that they hid well. Good priorities, these folks.”
Marasi stepped over some stuffing from one of the sofas and picked up the ledger. It didn’t belong to Dechamp, but to the graveyard as a whole. It listed plots, what had been found in them, and to whom it had been sold.
It’s so the boss of the place can keep track of what they’ve sold and what they haven’t, Marasi thought. And to keep track of his minions, to be certain they didn’t get any ideas about making their own side business of grave robbing.
Next to an entry from a few days back was a note from the manager. If anyone comes looking to investigate this plot, send to me immediately.
Marasi closed the book, then fished from her pocket the paper that listed workers at the graveyard. “Come on,” she said to Wayne. “We have one more stop to make tonight.”
15
Templeton Fig smoothed the feathers of his dead white crow. He knew for a fact that this animal was an authentic albino, not some knockoff crafted by an opportunist who had heard of his collection. By now, he had seen enough dead animals bleached white to spot a fake.
He had stuffed this bird himself, prize of his collection, and set it looking over its shoulder with a small strip of rabbit skin in its beak. Such a magnificent creature. People always found it striking, as its coloring was the opposite of what they expected. Things like cats and dogs sometimes had white coloring n
He replaced the glass dome over the crow, then stepped back and clasped his hands, looking at the white animals in a row. Frozen in death. Perfection. Only … the suckling boar. Had it been moved to the side? The housekeeper had better not have decided to dust his collection again.
He stepped up, twisting the glass jar that held the boar. Behind him, fire crackled in his hearth, though it wasn’t particularly cold outside. He even had the window open. He liked the contrast—warmth from the fire, a cool breeze from outside. As he was trying to get the boar just right, the door to his study creaked.
“Templeton?” a quiet voice asked, peeking in. Destra had bags under her eyes, hair frazzled. Her nightgown seemed to have swallowed her. The woman had lost more weight. Soon she would be positively skeletal. “Are you coming to bed?”
“Later,” he said, looking back to his boar. There.
“When later?”
“Later.”
She winced at his tone and pulled the door closed behind her. The woman should know better than to disturb him. Sleep. How could he sleep until he knew what had happened at the graveyard? One did not disappoint the men with whom he had been dealing. They asked for something to be done, and you saw it done.
He would know soon. He stepped forward, moving his albino squirrel to the end of the line. Did it look better that way? He reached up and wiped the sweat from his brow, then moved the squirrel back. No, that wasn’t right either. Then how was he to—
His fire stopped crackling.
Templeton’s breath caught. He turned slowly in place, fishing in his vest pocket for his handkerchief. The fire was still there, but it was motionless. Trell’s soul! What could have frozen the flames?
Something thumped on his door. Templeton backed away, fingers clawing at his pocket, still seeking that handkerchief. The door thumped again, and his back hit the shelf where he kept his collection. He tried to whisper an inquiry, but he was having trouble breathing.
The door burst open and the gravedigger Dechamp—eyes staring sightlessly, blood covering his shirt—fell into the room.
Templeton screamed then, scuttling away from the door, and put his back to the far wall of his small den. His fingers found the windowsill, gripping it for strength as he stared at the corpse lying in the doorway.
Something tapped on his window.
Templeton squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to look. Frozen fire. A body on his floor. He was dreaming. It was a nightmare. It wasn’t possible.…
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He found his handkerchief finally and clutched it, his eyes squeezed shut.
“Templeton.” The rasping voice drifted in through the window.
Templeton turned slowly and faced the window. He opened his eyes.
Death stood outside.
Cloaked in black, Death’s face was hidden beneath the hood—but two metal spikes protruded from the cowl, catching the firelight on their heads.
“I’m dead,” Templeton whispered.
“No,” Death whispered. “You can die when I say. Not before.”
“Oh, Harmony.”
“You are not His,” Death whispered, standing in the darkness outside. “You are mine.”
“What do you want from me? Please!” Templeton slumped to his knees. He forced himself to glance back toward Dechamp. Would that body rise? Would it come for him?
“You have something of mine, Templeton,” Death whispered. “A spike.” He raised his arms, letting the cloak shift back and expose white skin. A spike was stuck through one arm. The other arm was bare, save for a bloody hole.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Templeton screamed. “They insisted! I don’t have it!”
“Where.”
“Sent by courier!” Templeton said. “To Dulsing! I don’t know more. Oh, please. Please! They demanded I recover the spike for them. I didn’t know it was yours! It was just a rusting piece of metal. I’m innocent! I’m…”
He trailed off, realizing that the fire had started crackling again. He blinked, focusing again on the window. It was empty. A … a dream after all? He turned and found Dechamp’s corpse still leaking blood on the floor.
Templeton whimpered and huddled down. He was honestly relieved when the constables burst into the room a short time later.
* * *
Wayne shucked the awful, heavy cloak and held up his arm, healing his wounds. Not much left in his metalmind. He was going to have to be sparing after this. Those bullet wounds earlier had taken a lot out of him.
“You didn’t need to actually cut holes in your arm, Wayne,” Marasi said, joining him in the garden—he’d trampled some very nice petunias to get to the window.
“Course I did,” Wayne replied, wiping away the blood. “You’ve gotta be authentic.” He scratched at his head, and shifted the wires that held two half spikes hovering in front of his eyes.
“Take that thing off,” Marasi said. “It looks ridiculous.”
“He didn’t think so,” Wayne said. Inside the house, the constables dragged Templeton Fig away. The information in the ledger Wayne had found should be enough to see him well and truly incarcerated. Poor chap. He didn’t really do anything wrong. You can’t steal from a person that’s already dead. But then, people were strange about their stuff. Wayne had given up on trying to figure out all their little rules.
He’d send the fellow some fruit in prison. Might make him feel better. “How was the accent?” he asked.
“Worked well enough.”
“I wasn’t sure how Death ’imself would sound, you know? I figured all important-like, like Wax when he’s tellin’ me to take my feet off the furniture. Mixed with some real old-soundin’ tones, like a grandfather’s grandfather. And grindy, like a man what is choking to death.”
“In fact,” Marasi said, “he’s quite articulate, and not at all ‘grindy.’ And the accent is strange—not like anything I’ve heard before.”
Wayne grunted, taking off his head spikes. “Can you do it for me?”
“What? The accent?”
Wayne nodded eagerly.
“No. Not a chance.”
“Well, next time you meet that guy, tell ’im he’s gotta come talk to me. I need to hear what he sounds like.”
“What does it matter?”
“I gotta hear,” Wayne said. “For next time.”
“Next time? How often do you expect you’ll be imitating Death?”
Wayne shrugged. “This is the fourth so far. So you never can tell.” He took the last swig of Dechamp’s brandy, then slung his cloak over his shoulder and started through the mists back toward the road.
“Dulsing,” Marasi said.
“You know it?”
“It’s a little farming settlement,” Marasi said. “Maybe fifty miles northeast of New Seran. I read about it in my textbooks—there was a landmark water rights case there—but it’s isolated and tiny, barely worth anyone’s time. What in the world does the Set want with it?”
“Maybe they like their tomatoes real fresh,” Wayne said. “I know I do.”
Marasi grew silent, obviously deep in thought, worried for some reason. Wayne left her to it, digging out his tin of gum, tapping it, then flipping it open and selecting one of the soft, powder-covered balls to chew. So far as he was concerned, this had been a bang-up night. Dynamite, a nice brawl, free brandy, and getting to scare the piss out of someone.
It was the simple things that made his life worth living.
* * *
Wax had little luck with the first set of rooms he scouted. Though they supposedly belonged to Kelesina, they proved to be empty. He was tempted to ransack them for information, but decided that would take too long—and would be too incriminating at the moment. Being discovered lost in a hallway was excusable; being discovered going through a lady’s desk drawers was another thing entirely.
He prowled back to the atrium and checked on Steris, gave her a wav
He listened at a set of doors, and heard nothing other than a voice drifting in from the window—the voice of Lord Severington, still plowing through his speech in the ballroom. With the amplification devices, Wax could make out a word here and there.
“… suffer the rule … new Lord Ruler?… improper taxation … era must end…”
I will have to give that more attention, Wax thought, prowling through the hallway toward the next set of rooms. Severington was mayor of Bilming, the port city west of Elendel. It was the only major one in the Basin besides Elendel itself—and was an industrial powerhouse. If conflict did come, they’d be spearheading it.
They’re spearheading it now, Wax realized as more words drifted up to him.
He continued down the hallway, listening at the next set of doors. He was about to turn away, when he heard a voice. There was someone inside. Wax crouched down, ear to the door, wishing he had a Tineye along to listen for him. That voice …
That was his uncle.
Wax pressed his ear up against the door, heedless of how he’d look to someone entering the hallway. Rusts … he couldn’t make out much. A half word here and there. But it was Edwarn. Another voice spoke, and that was almost certainly Kelesina.
The gap under the door was dark. Wax put his hand to his pocket and the handgun secreted there, then turned the door’s knob and eased it open. Beyond was some kind of study, completely dark but for the thin strip of light under the door on the far side. Wax slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and scuttled through the room—stifling a curse as he smacked his arm on an end table. Heart thumping, he put his back to the wall beside the other door.
“Never mind that,” his uncle was saying. His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking through a cloth or a mask or something. “Why have you interrupted me? You know the importance of my work.”
“Waxillium knows about the project,” Kelesina said. “And he’s found one of the coins. He’s acting stupid, but he knows.”