The Bands of Mourning (50 page)

Then he sat back, running his hands through his hair, eyes 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.” He 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?”

“I won’t be caught in this trap,” Wax said. “You’re the God, not me. You can find a line where You prevent the worst.
You
can find a line where You’re stopping the worst that is reasonable, while still letting us live our lives.”

The light ahead suddenly rolled outward, and Wax found that they’d been rounding a
planet
. They stood high above it, and had stepped from darkness into sunlight, which let Wax see the world below, bathed in a calm, cool light.

Beyond that hung a haze of red. All around, pressing in upon the world. He could feel it choking him, a miasma of dread and destruction.

“Perhaps,” Harmony said softly, “I have already done just as you suggest. You do not see it, because the worst never reaches you.”

“What is it?” Wax asked, trying to take in that vast redness. It beat inward, but he could see something, a thin strip of light—like a bubble around the world—stopping it.

“A representation,” Harmony said. “A crude one, perhaps.” He looked to Wax and smiled, like a father at a wide-eyed child.

“We’re not done with our conversation,” Wax said. “You let her die.
You let me kill her
.”

“And how long,” Harmony asked softly, “must you hate yourself for that?”

Wax clenched his jaw, but couldn’t force down the trembling that took him. He lived it again, holding her as she died. Knowing he’d killed her.

That hatred
seethed
inside of him. Hatred for Harmony. Hatred for the world.

And yes. Hatred for himself.

“Why?” Wax asked.

“Because you demanded it of me.”

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes. A part of you did. An eventuality I can see, one of many possible Waxilliums, all you—yet not set. Know yourself, Waxillium. Would you have had another kill her? Someone she didn’t know?”

“No,” he whispered.

“Would you have had her live on, a slave in her mind? Corrupted by that
cursed
spike that would forever leave her scarred, even if replaced?”

“No.” He was crying.

“And if you had known,” Harmony said, holding his eyes, “that you’d never have been able to pull that trigger unless your eyes were veiled? If you’d realized what knowledge of the truth would do to you—stilling your hand and trapping her in an endless prison of madness—what would you have asked of me?”

“Don’t tell me,” Wax whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

The silence seemed to stretch until eternity.

“I am sorry,” Harmony said with a gentle voice, “for your pain. I am sorry for what you did, what we had to do. But I am not sorry for making you do what had to be done.”