Shadows of Self

  “The … radio? What is that?”

  You don’t explore, Harmony continued, ignoring Wax’s confusion. Why would you? You have everything you want here. You’ve barely progressed technologically from what I gave you in the books. Yet others, who were nearly destroyed …

  I made a mistake with you, I now see. I still make many. Does that ruin your faith, Waxillium? Does it worry you that your God is fallible?

  “You never claimed to be infallible, so far as I remember.”

  No. I did not.

  Wax felt a warmth, a fire, as if the inside of the carriage were heating to incredible temperatures.

  I loathe suffering, Waxillium. I hate that people like Bleeder must be allowed to do what they do. I cannot stop them. You can. I beg you to do so.

  “I will try.”

  Good. Oh, and Waxillium?

  “Yes, Lord?”

  Do be less harsh with Marasi Colms. You aren’t my only agent in the affairs of men; I worked quite hard to maneuver Marasi into a position where she could do good in this city. It is taxing to have you continue to dismiss her because her admiration makes you uncomfortable.

  Wax swallowed. “Yes, Lord.”

  I will send you help.

  The voice vanished. The temperature returned to normal. Wax leaned back, sweating, feeling drained.

  A rapping came at his window. Hesitant, Wax pulled aside the shade. Wayne’s face hung there, upside down, his hand holding his hat onto his head. “You done talking to yourself, Wax?” he asked.

  “I … Yes, I am.”

  “I heard voices in my head once too, you know.”

  “You did?”

  “Sure. Gave me a fright. I banged my head against the wall until I went unconscious. Never heard them again! Ha. Showed ’em good, I did. If rats move in, best thing to do is to burn the nest and send ’em packing.”

  “And the nest … was your head.”

  “Yup.”

  The sad thing was, Wayne probably wasn’t lying. Being unkillable, so long as one had some healing power stored up, could do strange things to a person’s sense of self-preservation. Of course, Wayne had probably been drunk at the time. That also tended to do strange things to a person’s sense of self-preservation.

  “Well, anyway,” Wayne said. “We’re almost to the precinct headquarters. Time to go back to being dirty conners. At least they’ll probably have scones inside.”

  * * *

  Marasi stood in the precinct station with arms folded, partially to hide the fact that her hands were still trembling. That was unfair. She’d been in firefights numerous times now. She should be accustomed to this … but still, after the jolt of it all wore off—the moment of thrill and action—she occasionally found herself feeling drained. Surely she’d get past it eventually.

  “He was wearing these, sir,” Reddi said, placing a pair of bracers onto the table with a thump. “No other metal on his body save for the gun and a pocketful of rounds. We’ve called in the First Octant precinct’s Leecher to make sure he doesn’t have any metal swallowed, but we can’t be certain until she arrives.”

  Aradel picked up one of the bracers, turning it over in his hands. The dim room was a kind of balcony, overlooking the interrogation chamber below, where the assassin Marasi had stopped sat slumped in a chair. His name was Rian; no house, though they’d located his family. He was tied with ropes to a large stone behind his chair. No metal in the room, to make it safe to stow Coinshots or Lurchers. Stone floor, walls made of thick wood joined with wooden pegs. Almost primitive in feel. The balcony had glass walls, letting them look down upon him without being heard.

  “So he’s Metalborn,” said Lieutenant Caberel, the only other person in the room. The stout woman picked up the other bracer. “Why didn’t he use his abilities in the assassination? If he killed Winsting with Feruchemical speed, like old Waxillium Dawnshot says, he should have done the same today.”

  “Maybe he didn’t kill Winsting,” Aradel said. “The attacks could be unrelated.”

  “He fits the profile though, sir,” Reddi said. “Winsting’s bodyguards probably would have trusted a member of the governor’s personal guard. He could have talked his way past them and done the deed.”

  “Hard to imagine Winsting’s guards letting even someone like that in alone with their charge, Captain,” Aradel said. “After a firefight where others were being killed? They’d be tense. Suspicious.”

  Down below, the suspect began rocking back and forth on his seat. The vents that would allow them to listen in on him were closed, but she had a sense that he was muttering to himself again.

  “So, we just ask him,” Caberel said.

  “Again?” Reddi said. “You heard before. All he does is mumble.”

  “Then encourage him,” Caberel said. “You’re pretty good at that, Reddi.”

  “I suppose his face could use a few new bruises,” Reddi said.

  “You know you can’t do that,” Marasi said from beside the window.

  Reddi looked at her. “Don’t quote statistics at me, Colms. I’ve found I can make a man speak the truth, no matter what you claim.”

  “It isn’t statistics this time,” Marasi said. “If you actively torture that man, you’ll ruin him for prosecution. His attorneys will get him off for sure.”

  Reddi gave her a scowl.

  “So send for his daughter,” Caberel said, glancing over the fact sheet they had on the man. “We threaten her in front of him, but don’t do anything to harm her. He’ll talk.”

  Marasi rubbed her forehead. “That’s specifically illegal, Caberel. Do you people know nothing about Article Eighty-Nine? He has rights.”

  “He’s a criminal,” Reddi said.

  “He’s a suspected criminal.” Marasi sighed. “You can’t continue to act as you have in the past, Reddi. New laws are in place. They’re only going to get stricter, and the defense attorneys are increasingly clever.”

  “The solicitors have sold out to the other side,” Caberel said with a nod. “She’s right.”

  Marasi remained silent on that score. Of course it wasn’t really a matter of selling out at all—but she’d settle for the constables learning to follow the rules, regardless of the reasoning.

  “I think,” Reddi said, “that it’s unfortunate we’ve got someone among us who seems to be more on the solicitors’ side than on the side of justice. She knows more about their ways than ours.”

  “Perhaps she does,” Aradel said in a soft, stern voice. “And one might consider that to be exactly why I brought her in among us, Captain Reddi. Colms knows contemporary legal codes. If you paid more attention to the very laws you are sworn to uphold, perhaps Daughnin wouldn’t have gotten back on the street last month.”

  Reddi blushed, bowing his head. Aradel stepped up beside Marasi, looking down at the captive. “How are you at interrogating hostile witnesses, Lieutenant?”

  “Less practiced than I’d like to be,” she replied with a grimace. “I’m willing to give it a try, but we might as well wait for a few more minutes.”

  “Why?”

  Distantly, a door slammed. “That’s why,” Marasi said.

  A moment later, the door into their observation chamber was flung open, Pushed by Waxillium as he approached. Couldn’t the man be bothered to lift a hand from time to time? He strode in, tailed by Wayne, who was for some reason wearing Constable Terri’s hat.

  Waxillium looked down at the captive. He narrowed his eyes, then glanced at the bracers on the table nearby. One jumped, then fell off the table, Pushed by his unseen Allomantic ability.

  He grunted. “Those aren’t metalminds,” he said. “This man is a decoy. You’ve been duped.” He turned as if to leave. Wayne slouched down in one of the chairs and put his feet up beside the bracers, then promptly started snoring.

  “Wait, that’s it?” Reddi said, glancing at Waxillium. “You aren’t even going to interrogate him?”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Waxillium sai
d. “He might give us clues that will help find Winsting’s killer. But it wasn’t that man.”

  “How can you be so sure, Waxillium?” Marasi said.

  “It takes more effort to Push on real metalminds,” Waxillium said, pointing. “And that man is too obvious. Whoever did this has predicted our conjecture that one of Innate’s guards was behind the murder, and wants us to jump on this man as a suspect. They want us to assume we have the killer in custody. Why, though? Are they planning something tonight…?” Distracted, he walked toward the door. “I’m going to go talk to the prisoner. Marasi, I wouldn’t mind another set of ears.”

  She started. He was asking her for help? That was a change from making her feel guilty every time she showed up at a crime scene. She glanced at Aradel, who gave her leave, and she hurried after Waxillium.

  In the stairwell down, Waxillium stopped and turned toward her. He was wearing his Roughs hat. He only did that when he was in full-on “tough lawman” mode. “I hear you brought this guy in.”

  “I did.”

  “Nice work.”

  That should not have given her the thrill that it did. She didn’t need his approval.

  It was nice nonetheless.

  He continued to study her, as if on the verge of saying something more.

  “What?” Marasi asked.

  “I spoke to God on the way over here.”

  “All right…” Marasi said. “I’m glad you’re devout enough to say a prayer now and then.”

  “Yes. Thing is, He spoke back.”

  She cocked her head, trying to judge the meaning of that. But Waxillium Ladrian was nothing if not earnest. Rusts, often he was too blunt.

  “All right,” she said. “What did he tell you?”

  “Our killer is a Faceless Immortal,” Waxillium said, starting down the steps again. “A creature who calls herself Bleeder. She can change shapes by taking the bones of the dead, and she’s been driven mad. Even Harmony doesn’t know her purposes.”

  Marasi followed him down, trying to swallow that. Mistwraiths and kandra … those were things out of the Historica, not real life. Then again, once she would have said that men like Miles Hundredlives and Waxillium Dawnshot were men out of stories. They’d lived up to the legends to a surprising degree.

  “So that could be her,” Marasi said, gesturing toward the wall separating them from the prisoner. “She could have any shape, any face! Why are you so sure this isn’t the killer?”

  “Because the governor is still alive,” Waxillium said softly. “The creature who’s behind this casually murdered Winsting in a saferoom, behind a wall of guards, after intentionally starting a firefight in the room above. She wouldn’t be caught like this. It’s a taunt.” He looked to Marasi. “But I can’t be certain, not a hundred percent. So I need you to know what we’re up against.”

  She nodded to him and he nodded back, then he led the way out of the stairwell and around the corner toward the interrogation room. Marasi took a bit of satisfaction in the fact that the corporal there looked to her for authorization before opening the door for Waxillium.

  The poor captive inside sat with his arms tied tight, staring at the table in front of him. He muttered softly. Waxillium walked straight up to the table and took the other seat, settling down and putting his hat on the table. Marasi lingered back, where—in case they were wrong about the prisoner—she’d be out of reach but able to offer aid.

  Waxillium tapped the table with his index finger, as if trying to decide what to say. The prisoner, Rian, finally looked up.

  “She said you’d come talk to me,” Rian said softly.

  “She?” Waxillium said.

  “God.”

  “Harmony?”

  “No. She said I had to kill the governor. Had to attack him. I tried not to listen.…”

  Waxillium narrowed his eyes. “You met her? What did she look like? What face was she wearing?”

  “You can’t save him,” Rian whispered. “She’s going to kill him. She promised me freedom, but here I am, bound. Oh, Ruin.” He took a deep breath. “There is something for you. In my arm.”

  “In your…” Waxillium actually seemed disturbed. Marasi took an unconscious step forward, noticing for the first time a small bulge in the prisoner’s forearm.

  Before she could quote the legal problems with doing so, Waxillium stood up and took that arm, making a quick slice in the skin. He pulled something out, bloody. A coin? Marasi stepped forward again as the prisoner reached to his head with his bleeding arm and started humming to himself.

  Waxillium wiped off the coin with his handkerchief. He inspected it, then turned it over. Then he grew very still, paling. He stood up suddenly. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  Rian only continued humming.

  “Where?” Waxillium demanded, grabbing the man by the front of the shirt.

  “Waxillium,” Marasi said, running up, hand on his arm. “Stop.”

  He looked to her, then dropped Rian.

  “What is that coin?” Marasi asked.

  “A message,” Waxillium said, shoving the coin in his pocket. “This man won’t know anything of use. Bleeder knew we might capture him. Do you have plans for tonight?”

  She frowned. “What … why are you asking?”

  “Governor’s attending a party. Steris says he won’t cancel despite what has happened, and this is the sort of thing she’s always right about. He’ll want to put up a strong front, and won’t want his political enemies to think he has anything to either hide or fear. We need to be at that party. Because I guarantee Bleeder will be.”

  8

  Young Waxillium, age twelve, looked from one coin to the other. Both bore a picture of the Lord Mistborn on the front, standing with his left arm outspread toward the Elendel Basin. On the back, each displayed a picture of the First Central Bank, in which his family owned a large stake.

  “Well?” Edwarn asked. He had a stern face and perfect hair. He wore his suit like he’d been born in it—and to him it was a uniform of war.

  “I…” The youthful Waxillium looked from one to the other.

  “It is understandable you can’t spot the difference,” Edwarn said. “It takes an expert, which is why so few of these have been discovered. More may actually be in circulation; we can’t know how many. One of those is an ordinary coin; the other has a very special defect.”

  The carriage continued rattling through the streets as Waxillium studied the coins. Then he unfocused his eyes. It was a trick he’d been taught by a friend at a party recently, used for making two drawings spring to life by overlapping them.

  Eyes unfocused, coins before him, he crossed his eyes intentionally and let the images of the two coins overlap one another. When they locked into place, the element of the picture that wasn’t the same—one of the pillars on the bank building—fuzzed as his eyes were unable to focus on that point.

  “The mistake happened,” Uncle Edwarn continued, “because a defective coin striker was used. One worker at the mint brought home a pocketful of these curiosities, which were never supposed to enter circulation. You won’t be able to see it, but the error—”

  “It’s the pillars,” Waxillium said. “On the right side of the bank picture. They are spaced too closely.”

  “Yes. How did you know that? Who told you?”

  “I saw it,” Waxillium said, handing the coins back.

  “Nonsense,” Uncle Edwarn said. “Your lie is not a believable one, but I can respect your attempt at hiding your source.” He held up one of the coins. “This is the most valuable defective coin in Elendel history. It’s worth as much as a small house. Studying it taught me something important.”

  “That rich people are foolish? They’ll pay more money for a coin than it’s worth?”

  “All people are foolish, just in different ways,” Uncle Edwarn said offhandedly. “That lesson I learned elsewhere. No, this coin showed me a harsh but invaluable truth. Money is meaningless.”
br />   Waxillium perked up. “What?”

  “Only expectation has value as currency, Waxillium,” Uncle Edwarn said. “This coin is worth more than the others because people think it is. They expect it to be. The most important things in the world are worth only what people will pay for them. If you can raise someone’s expectation … if you can make them need something … that is the source of wealth. Owning things of value is secondary to creating things of value where none once existed.”

  The carriage stopped. Outside, an intimidating flight of stone steps led up to the very bank pictured on the coin. Uncle Edwarn waited for the coachman to open his door, but Waxillium hopped down on his own.

  Uncle Edwarn met him on the steps. “Your father,” Uncle said, “is hopeless with economics. I have worked on him for years, but he cannot—or will not—learn. I have great expectations of you, Waxillium. Banking is not your only option for serving your house. However, after today I suspect you will recognize it as the best one.”

  “I’m not going to be a banker,” Waxillium said, climbing the steps.

  “Oh? You have your eye on administering the teamsters after all?”

  “No,” Waxillium said. “I’m going to be a hero.”

  His uncle chose not to reply immediately as they approached the top of the steps. Finally, he said softly, “You are twelve years old, and you still speak of this? I expect such foolishness from your sister, but your father should have beaten it out of you by now.”

  Waxillium turned defiant eyes up at his uncle.

  “The day of heroes has passed,” Uncle Edwarn said. “The stories of people breaking out of history belong to another world. We have reached an era of modernism, both louder and more silent at the same time. You watch. Where once kings and warriors shaped the world, now quiet men in offices will do the same—and do it far, far more effectively.”

  They entered the bank lobby, which had a low ceiling and a wall of cagelike bars with hunched-over people inside who received or disbursed cash from or to those who waited in lines. Waxillium’s uncle led him around to the back. The dark wood furnishings and mold-colored rug made it feel like dusk in the room, even with windows open and gas lamps burning.