The Bands of Mourning (19 page)

The same cube he’d seen before his steel was drained. Wax plucked it from her palm. “Where’d you get this?”

“The guy with the cane dropped it,” Marasi said. “He moved as if to pull a gun on me, and raised this.”

Wax turned it toward MeLaan, and she shook her head.

“That’s a
real
strange gun,” Wayne noted.

“Is there anything in that lore VenDell talked about,” Wax said, “that mentions a device that negates Allomancy?”

“Nothing I’ve heard,” MeLaan said.

“I mean,” Wayne said, “it ain’t even got a barrel.”

“But you said you don’t pay attention to the research, MeLaan,” Marasi said, taking the cube back.

“That’s true.”

“And if they could shoot the rusting thing,” Wayne added, “the bullet would be small as a flea.”

Marasi sighed. “Wayne, can’t you ever let a joke die?”

“Hon, that joke
started
dead,” he said. “I’m just givin’ it a proper burial.”

“We need another train south,” Marasi said, turning to the others.

“These bandits might have information,” Wayne said. “Chasin’ them down could be useful. ’Sides, I didn’t get to stomp none of them, on account of some untimely snogging.”

“At least it was
good
snogging,” MeLaan added. Then, to Marasi’s glare, she added, “What? It was. Poor guy hadn’t had a proper snog in years. Had a lot of pent-up energy.”

“You’re not even human,” Marasi said. “You should be ashamed.
Not to mention
that you’re six hundred years old.”

“I’m young at heart. Really—I copied this one off a sixteen-year-old that I ate a few months back.”

The room grew very still.

“Oh … was that gauche?” MeLaan said, wincing. “That
was
gauche, wasn’t it? She didn’t taste very good, if that’s anything to you. Hardly rotten at all. And … I should stop talking about this. New Seran? Are we going, or staying to chase bandits?”

“Going,” Wax said, which earned a nod from Marasi. “If this is connected, we’ll run into them later. If it’s not, then I’ll see what I can do to help once we’ve dealt with my uncle.”

“And how’re we going to get to New Seran?” Wayne said. “Doesn’t look like our train will be leaving anytime soon.”

“Freight train,” Wax said, checking the wall lists. “Coming through in an hour. They’re going to move our train onto the repair track, so we can flag that one down for a ride. It won’t be comfortable, but it will get us there by morning. Go gather your luggage. Hopefully there aren’t too many holes in it.”

Wayne and MeLaan obeyed, walking out side by side. Maybe there was actually something there between them. If anything, Wayne didn’t seem the least bit put out by being reminded just how alien, and just how old, MeLaan was.

Then again, Wayne wasn’t known for his taste in women. Or, well, his
taste
at all, really. Wax glanced at Marasi, who had remained behind. She held up the little cube, turning it over in her fingers, inspecting the intricate carvings it bore on its various faces.

“Can I get VenDell’s notes back from you?” she said. “Maybe there’s something in them about this thing.”

“More convinced this wasn’t a random train robbery?”

“Maybe a little,” Marasi said. “You should talk to my sister.”

“She seemed perfectly calm when I checked on her earlier.”

“Of course she’s calm,” Marasi said. “She’s Steris. But she’s
also
doing needlework.”

“… And that’s bad?”

“Steris only does needlework when she has an overwhelming desire to appear normal,” Marasi said. “She read somewhere that it’s an appropriate hobby for a woman of means. She hates it to death, but won’t tell a soul. Trust me. If needlework is involved, she’s upset. I could talk to her, but she’s never listened to me. She didn’t even know about me until we were teenagers. Besides, you’ll need to get used to this.”

She strode from the room, and Wax—oddly—found himself smiling. Whatever else could be said, Marasi had come a long way since he’d first met her.

He took his jacket off the hook on the wall and slipped it on, then walked back into the night. Marasi was calling for the stationmaster, probably to arrange their passage on the cargo train. Wax strolled along the tracks, passing cold electric lights, until he reached the bench where Steris worked on her needlepoint.

He settled down beside her. “Marasi says you’re having a tough time of it.”

Steris paused her needlepoint. “You’re a very straightforward man, Lord Waxillium.”

“Can be.”

“But as we both know, it’s all an act. You were raised among Elendel’s elite. You had tutors and diction coaches. In your youth, you spent your time at parties and balls.”

“And then I spent twenty years in the Roughs,” Wax said. “The winds out there can weather the strongest granite. Are you surprised they can do the same to a man?”

She turned to him, head cocked to the side.

Wax sighed and leaned back, stretching his legs out, ankles crossed. “Have you ever been somewhere you didn’t fit in? A place where everyone else seems to get it immediately? They know what to do. They know what to say. But rusts, you have to
work
to untangle it all?”

“That describes my entire life,” Steris said softly.

He put his arm around her, and let her rest her head on his shoulder. “Well, that was how those parties were for me. Social situations were a chore. Everyone laughing, and me just standing there, stressed out of my mind and trying to figure out the right thing to do. I didn’t smile a lot back then. Guess I still don’t. I’d escape the parties when I could, find my way to a quiet balcony.”

“And do what? Read?”

Wax chuckled. “No. I don’t mind a book now and then, but Wayne is the real reader.”

Steris raised her head, looking surprised.

“I’m serious,” Wax said. “Granted, he likes ones with pictures now and then, but he
does
read. Often out loud. You should hear him do the voices to himself. Me … I’d just find a balcony that looked out over the city somewhere, and I’d stare. Listen.” He smiled. “When I was a boy, more than a few people thought I was slow because I’d sit there staring out a window.”

“Then you found your way to the Roughs.”

“I was so glad to be away from Elendel and its phoniness. You call me blunt. Well, that’s the man I want to be. That’s the man I admire. Perhaps I’m only acting like him, but it’s a sincere act. Hang me, but it is.”

Steris sat quietly for a few moments, head on his shoulder, and Wax stared out into the night. A nice night, all things considered.

“You’re wrong,” she noted, sounding drowsy. “You do smile. Most often when you’re flying on lines of steel. It’s the only time I think … I think I see … pure joy in you.…”

He looked down at her, but she’d apparently dozed off, judging by the way she was breathing. He settled back, thinking about what she’d said, until the cargo train finally pulled into the station.

10

Wax started awake to the sound of distant explosions.

He immediately scrambled to his feet, reaching for his metals, bleary-eyed and disoriented. Where was he? Crew cabin of the cargo train. It was large, with some stiff couches in the back for the engineers to catch a nap while their train was waiting to be unloaded. Steris was asleep on one, wrapped in his jacket. Wayne dozed in the corner, hat over his face.

They’d left the servants behind for now; they would come along on the next passenger train. MeLaan had chosen to ride in the back with their luggage—she had wanted to look through her bundles of bones to pick the right body for the night.

Wax downed metals and whipped out Vindication, stumbling forward toward the sounds—which, now fully awake, he wasn’t certain were explosions at all. A continuous rumble, like an earthquake, off in the distance. He stepped out into the cab proper of the engine car. This was a newer machine, one of the oil-driven ones, with no need for a coal tender.

Marasi stood near the front with the engineer, a tall fellow with bright eyes and forearms like pistons.

That rumbling … Wax frowned, lowering his gun as Marasi glanced at him. The sky was bright blue; morning had arrived. He stepped into the cabin, and could see that ahead, New Seran rose before them. The city spread across a series of enormous, flat-topped stone terraces. There were at least a dozen of them, and each was split by multiple streams, which crossed them and then dropped off the edge down to the next terrace. The sound wasn’t an earthquake or explosion, but that of
waterfalls
.

In places, the drop was just a little ripple—a fall of some five feet or so. But in others, majestic waterfalls plunged fifty feet or more before pounding onto the next stone platform. It looked like a man-made effect, for the various split streams and waterfalls eventually ran back together into the river, which flowed away from the city toward distant Elendel.

Wax slid Vindication into her holster, though it took two tries because he was so mesmerized by the waterfalls. Indeed, the whole city. Buildings sprouted between the rivers, and vibrant green vines draped the cliffs like nature’s own tresses. Beyond, the Seran mountains rose, lofty and whited at the tops.

Marasi grinned, leaning out of the cab to get a better look up at the heights of the city. The engineer stood by his levers, valves, and cranks trying to act casual, though he was obviously watching Wax and Marasi for their reactions.

“I often think,” the man eventually said, “that Harmony was showing off a little when He made this place.”

“I had no idea this was here,” Wax said, stepping up beside Marasi. Behind him, Wayne yawned and stumbled to his feet.

“Yeah, well,” the engineer said, “people from Elendel often forget there’s a whole country out here. No offense, my lord. There’s a lot of Elendel to take in, so it makes sense you’d get a little blinded by it.”

“You’re from New Seran?” Marasi asked.

“Born and raised, Captain Colms.”

“Then you can tell us where to find our hotel, perhaps?” Marasi asked. “The Copper Gate?”

“Oh, that’s a
nice
one,” the engineer said, pointing. “Top terrace, in the waterman district. Look for the big statue of the Lord Mistborn. It’s not two blocks from there.”

“How close can you get us?” Marasi asked.

“Not close at all, I’m afraid,” the engineer said. “We’re not a passenger train, and even those can only go to the middle tiers. We’ll be down at the bottom. It’ll take you a few hours to ride the gondolas up. There are ramps too, if you’d prefer a carriage, but they take longer—and the gondolas have a better view.”

Gondolas would have been wonderful, Wax thought, if most of them had had more than a few hours of sleep. With the reception tonight, they’d need to be rested and ready to go.

“Shortcut?” he asked Marasi.

“You realize I’m wearing a skirt.”

“I do. What happened to that fancy new constable uniform with the trousers?”

“Packed away. Not everyone likes wearing uniforms when we don’t have to, Waxillium.”

“Well, you can wait and take the gondolas,” Wax said. “Think of me resting peacefully in a soft hotel bed while you blink bleary eyes and droop against—”

“All right,
fine,
” Marasi said, stepping up to him. “Just stay away from crowds.”

Wax grabbed her around the waist. “I’ll be back for the rest of you,” he told Wayne, who nodded. “Engineer, have our things sent to the Copper Gate, if you please.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Wax slid open the side of the cab, took another drink of metal flakes—recovered from the stash in his luggage—then pulled Marasi tight, burned steel, and leaped. A flared Push sent them soaring away from the train, which was slowing as it approached the buildings clustered around the base of New Seran.

They dropped toward these, but a shot from Vindication as they neared the ground gave him something to bounce off of. He sent them upward, past the lower tiers, using metal he found there to keep them aloft.

The homes here were much smaller than those in Elendel. Quaint, even. In Elendel, you could rarely afford to waste space on a single dwelling—even in the slums, towering apartments were the norm. There was a kind of eternal shift going on, where sections of town would fall into disrepair over time, filling with the poor while those able to afford something new moved to other sections. It was fascinating to him that, if you looked at old maps, what were now slums had once been considered prime real estate.