Shadows of Self

  15

  One thing that Wax’s life in the Roughs had taught him was that men would monetize anything. The first time he’d seen someone selling water, he’d been surprised. Who sold something that literally fell from the sky?

  Now, more than twenty years later, he was surprised nobody in Elendel had found a way to charge a tax on collecting rainwater. If someone wanted it, you could charge for it. That went double for Allomancy, though there were some conservatives who decried the increasing commercialization of the Metallic Arts. Feruchemists for hire were much scarcer than Allomancers, perhaps because Terris traditions viewed their powers with such reverence.

  Wax walked up the steps toward the building, which stood alone on the street in a fairly nice neighborhood of town, even if this was the darker end of the lane, so to speak. The place was two stories tall, and had the window shades drawn, though light inside gave them a warm glow. A black coach—with a silver crest, scraped across its face—was parked in the drive to the right.

  The Soothing washed over him right as he reached the door. A calm, gentle feeling—like emotional anesthetic. Like someone had pressed a pillow against his emotions in an attempt to lovingly smother them.

  Sloppy, he thought. Should have brought my hat. It had an aluminum lining, and Bleeder could have access to a spike letting her Soothe or Riot. Well, he’d have to fetch it later. He pushed into the building, entering a room dimly lit with lamps in red shades. A scattering of men and women lounged on cushions inside, smoking cigars or incense pipes, staring at the ceiling, which was painted like a stained-glass window in a pretty, abstract pattern.

  Most businesses would be closed by this hour, but not the Soothing parlors. Visiting one was more expensive than a night at the pub, but had none of the side effects. Or to be more precise, it had different side effects. A woman in a matronly gown—and a hat, likely aluminum-lined—approached Wax, probably to take payment, but Wax flashed his credentials.

  “If you think credentials will get you in free,” the proprietor said, “then you must be new to the force.”

  Wax gave her a dry smile, tucking away the metal plate. She ran a low-grade Soothing parlor. While what she did wasn’t illegal—amusingly, it was fine to manipulate people’s emotions so long as they were paying for it—she’d be used to the constables checking up on her. Not only did these sorts of places tend to attract people who were hiding from something, it was very possible for a disreputable Soothing parlor to take advantage of its clients.

  None of the people here matched Chapaou’s description, but Soothing parlors often had more than one room. “Short man,” Wax said, “balding. Known as Chapaou, but may not have given that name.”

  The proprietor nodded and gestured for Wax to follow as she crossed the room, weaving between the people lounging on the floor. The dim, smoky building should have left Wax jumpy—this was just the sort of place where accidents or ambushes happened—but the Soothing was difficult to pierce. It tore away the top layers of his concern, exposing those beneath—his worry for Wayne and Marasi. Beneath that, a surprising frustration—even anger—at God. Then those emotions too became as fluttering wings, leaving him hollow. Not calm, just empty.

  He wanted to settle into one of the chairs, close his eyes, and let out a sigh of relaxation. Bleeder would wait. Surely she wouldn’t try to kill again tonight. Why worry if she did? He probably couldn’t stop her anyway.

  He found he hated that sensation. These emotions were his; they were a core of his self. Taking them away didn’t make him happy or help him forget. It just made him feel sick.

  He picked up his pace, trying to urge the proprietor faster as they left the room with the cushions and stepped into a long hallway. Here, they passed several other rooms: A completely white chamber with people sitting cross-legged on the floor. Another that was completely black, no lights at all, the people inside barely visible. There was even a room with painted trees on the walls, the ground covered in thatch, like a Terris meeting hut. A lone man sat in this one, on a solitary chair, eyes closed.

  The proprietor led Wax up a set of steps. Perhaps the man in the Terris room had been one of the Soothers—the parlor would have at least one in here somewhere, extending out a small bubble of Soothing. Parlors were supposed to have aluminum sheets in the walls to keep the emotional Allomancy contained from the neighborhood, but the rule wasn’t uniformly enforced.

  The proprietor led Wax to a small room on the second floor, unadorned save for a couch at the center for massages. Chapaou didn’t lie on that. Instead, he paced by a latched window in the far wall, frustrating the masseuse who stood nearby with her arms folded. An old man sat in a chair by the wall. The metal vials in his pocket—visible to Wax as small, diffuse lines pointing at the suspended flakes—marked him as an Allomancer.

  Wax raised his eyebrow. Chapaou had paid for a private session. Where had he found that kind of money? The coach driver stopped in place, looking toward Wax. His eyes flicked toward the guns at Wax’s hips, then he fell to his knees, weeping.

  The aged Soother rose with audible cracks from his joints. “I’ve done what I can, Mistress Halex,” he said to the proprietor. “But this man doesn’t need Allomancy. He needs a physician.”

  “He’s yours,” Mistress Halex said to Wax. “Get him out of here. He’s disturbing my people.”

  Wax crossed the room to kneel beside Chapaou. The short man shivered, holding his legs. “Chapaou,” Wax said. “Look at me.”

  Chapaou turned toward him.

  “What’s the name of your dog?” Wax asked.

  “My … I don’t have a dog. He died a few years back.”

  Good enough. This wasn’t Bleeder in disguise, unless she’d thought to interrogate a random cabdriver about his pets before killing him and taking his shape.

  “What’s wrong?” Wax said. “Why are you here?”

  “To forget what I saw.”

  “Soothing doesn’t work like that,” Wax said. “It doesn’t take your memories.”

  “But it should make me feel better, right?”

  “Depends on the emotions you’re feeling,” Wax said, “and the skill of the Soother.” He held the man by the shoulder. “What did you see, Chapaou?”

  The man blinked reddened eyes. “I saw … myself.”

  * * *

  Aradel wasn’t in his office, of course. That place was there, as he put it, “for giving house lords somewhere to sit when they come to complain at me.”

  Marasi found him on the roof of the constabulary offices listening to reports from the two precinct Coinshots who had been scouting the city. Marasi politely waited with MeLaan and several constable lieutenants standing nearby, and was able to hear most of the latest report. Thousands still on the streets, my lord. They’re congregating at pubs. Not going home …

  Aradel stood with one booted foot up on the short wall around the rooftop as he took the reports. Mist curled around each Coinshot in a distinct vortex; it responded to the use of Allomancy. Finally, Aradel dismissed the two. They weren’t true constables—more contractors. Their loyalties would be to their houses. Or in some cases to their pocketbooks.

  As they left—jumping off the building—the constable-general turned to the waiting lieutenants. “Get the men ready to clear out the pubs,” he said softly.

  “Sir?” one of the women asked.

  “We’re going to close them down,” Aradel said, pointing. “First on the promenades, then work down the smaller streets. We can’t start until I get authority from the governor to institute martial law in the octant, but I want the constables ready to move as soon as we have word.”

  The lieutenants ran to obey. Aradel glanced toward Marasi, and she thought she saw something of his ancestor in him, a soldier who had died a martyr during the days of the Ascendant Warrior. In another era, would this man have been a field general rather than a policeman?

  “What do you have for me, Lieutenant Colms?” he said, waving her forward. M
eLaan lingered by the stairwell down, hands in her trouser pockets.

  “Our assassin, sir,” Marasi said, proffering the folder. “She dug her way out of her own grave after being executed for causing the floods in the east. They found the bones nearby a few days later, and called it desecration of the grave. After all, why would they guess that one of the holy Faceless Immortals had been inhabiting the body of a murderer and criminal?”

  Aradel breathed out quietly in a hiss. Shadows moved beneath the streetlights, despite the hour, on the promenade behind him. “So this is all her doing?”

  “Pardon, sir,” Marasi said, “but I’d say this is rather the fault of the city’s unpleasant working conditions. That said, Bleeder is most certainly shoving it along. She wanted this city to be on the brink of cracking when she made her move.”

  “Ruin…” Aradel whispered. “In the face of that, it seems almost trivial whether the governor is corrupt or not, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose that depends on whom you ask.” Shouts rose from the street down below; a group of men passing along the canal, speaking riotously to one another. She couldn’t make out their words, just their tone.

  “I still want proof,” Aradel said. “Not to diminish your efforts, Lieutenant. But I’m not going to jump at wraiths in the mist unless I can see for myself. That goes for the governor too. Keep your eyes open. If you can find me something concrete, we’ll use it once this all blows over. And I still want some kind of proof regarding your supernatural assassin.”

  “I understand, sir,” Marasi said, nodding toward MeLaan, lit by the lanterns hanging on poles near the door to the stairs. “And I have some proof for you there. But it would be best if we could do this in private.”

  Aradel slowly shifted his weight backward, lowering his foot from the top of the parapet he’d been leaning on. He glanced at Marasi, who nodded.

  “Below,” he said to the two remaining constables attending him. Junior corporals, for message running. They obeyed, and once they were gone, Aradel crossed the distance to MeLaan. “I hope,” he said, after clearing his throat, “that my questions aren’t offensive, er, Your Grace.”

  “Sincere inquiries never offend, human,” MeLaan said, “for it is thy duty to seek truth. True questions return only truth.” Her skin shimmered, growing transparent as it had before, but somehow also giving off a kaleidoscopic sheen. She spread her hands to the sides, and her blouse somehow split and slid down her shoulders, exposing a transparent torso with an emerald skeleton that glittered in the lamplight.

  Marasi blinked. Well, that hadn’t been what she’d been expecting. Beside her, Aradel inhaled sharply, then didn’t seem to be breathing at all as he took in the sight. MeLaan’s head—completely transparent—cocked, and she looked down at them with a maternal cast.

  “Speak,” she whispered.

  “What…” Aradel cleared his throat. “Is what Constable Colms has told me true? Could one of your kind really be behind this?”

  “Paalm is a lost soul,” MeLaan said, “tortured by a broken mind and a twisted spirit. Yes, she is of us, human. Thy task is not easy, but we shall aid thee in thy desperation.”

  “Great,” Aradel said. “I guess … I guess that’s the confirmation I needed.” He hesitated. “Could you, by any chance, put in a good word for me with Harmony?”

  “Thy deeds are thine own good words, human,” MeLaan said. “And thy God knows of them. Go and protect this city. Worry not for thyself, but instead for thy fellows.”

  “Right, right,” Aradel said. “I’ll just be about it, then. Unless there’s anything more you can tell me…”

  “Thy snoring,” MeLaan said, “is rather loud.”

  “I … What?”

  “It doth be like unto an hundred angry koloss,” MeLaan said, “in the middle of a rockslide. Lo, and it doth come near to waking the dead.”

  “Right…” Aradel said.

  “Be on thy way, human,” MeLaan said.

  “As commanded. Lieutenant Colms, a moment?” He bowed his head to MeLaan, walking around her to the side, and had trouble tearing his eyes off her. Granted, Marasi had trouble doing the same. MeLaan was overwhelming even when she wasn’t transparent and half naked. MeLaan nodded Marasi onward. No need to come back up for her.

  When they were halfway down the stairs, Aradel let out a deep breath. “Well, that was strange.”

  “I did warn you,” Marasi noted.

  “That you did. The bit about snoring … a metaphor, I assume. But for what? The constables, we’re too loud, perhaps?” He nodded to himself. “We’re supposed to serve the people, but the complaints of brutality, and of officers ordering people around as if they were lords … Yes, I can see. I’ll need to make some changes. Do you think that’s what she meant?”

  “I don’t know,” Marasi said carefully. “Meeting her does tend to affect one in profound ways.”

  “Very true.” Aradel hesitated on the steps, turning as if he longed to return up above. He held himself back. “The question I had earlier remains. We’ve got an immortal killer out there, potentially trying to overthrow the government. How in Preservation do we fight something like that?”

  “You don’t,” Marasi said. “Lord Waxillium will handle the kandra. We should focus on keeping the city from exploding.”

  Aradel nodded. “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Sir?” They still stood in the stairwell, lit by a solitary electric light above them.

  “You mention Lord Ladrian,” Aradel said. “He seems to trust you, Lieutenant.”

  “We have become good friends over the last year.”

  “He’s a wildcard, Lieutenant,” Aradel said. “I appreciate the work he does, but his methods … let’s just say I wouldn’t mind having a little more information on what he’s doing and when.”

  “You’re asking me to spy on him.”

  Aradel shrugged. Another man might have been embarrassed to be confronted with it so bluntly, but he didn’t seem so. “I won’t lie to you, Colms. I think you can be a resource for this department in more ways than one. It’s my job to see that the law in this octant is served, and I’ll feel a hell of a lot better if I know what Lord Ladrian is doing. If only so I can get the proper warrants—and if necessary, apologies—ready.”

  “I see,” Marasi said.

  Aradel waited for something more. She could practically hear the implication. You’re a constable, Lieutenant. This is your job. Do as you are assigned.

  “You could just ask him,” she said. “He’s been deputized. He is technically under your jurisdiction.”

  “And you don’t think I’ve tried? He always promises a report. If I’m lucky, that consists of a letter telling me where he left a suspect hanging by his ankles—do you remember that one?—or a quick rundown at a party of something he’s hunting, if only so he can ask me for the loan of some resources. I don’t mean to turn you into his chaperone, but honestly, a little more information would be wonderful.”

  Marasi sighed. “I’ll write you a weekly report. More frequently if an investigation is ongoing, as it is now. But I will inform him that I’m doing so.”

  “Great. Fantastic.” Aradel started down the stairs again, stepping quickly and speaking almost as fast. “Get to the governor’s place and tell him I need an executive order for martial law tonight so I can clear the pubs. Suggest he send one to each of the octants. Then check in on your friend Ladrian and tell me anything he’s learned about this immortal who thinks she can bring down our city.”

  He reached the floor below and strode out into the main chamber, shouting for a report on the number of constables they’d been able to call up for duty this night. Marasi followed more slowly, legs feeling like they bore hundred-pound bracers.

  You can be a resource for this department in more ways than one.…

  She reached the ground floor and walked out the precinct’s back door. She’d always known that her involvement with Waxillium had helped her obt
ain this job. If she hadn’t joined his hunt for Miles Hundredlives, she’d never have gained enough notability. That said, she’d assumed her understanding of historical crime rates, her letters of recommendation, and her interview had been more important.

  Was that even the case? Had Aradel given her the job instead of someone like Reddi because she knew Waxillium? Did her studies even matter?

  She settled with her back against the wall, waiting for MeLaan. Rusts … did everything always have to be about Waxillium? Of course, thinking that made her feel like a child, jealous that someone else had more blocks than she did.

  MeLaan strolled into the alleyway a short time later, disturbing the mists. “Well?” MeLaan asked. “How did I do?”

  “We shall aid thee in thy desperation?” Marasi asked.

  “Hey, it’s what he expected.”

  “Not what I expected.”

  MeLaan sniffed. “I can be divine when I need to be. I’ve had a long time to practice.”

  “Then why don’t you use the act around me and the others?”

  “Who says this isn’t the act?” MeLaan said. She met Marasi’s eyes. “Perhaps my duty as one of Harmony’s servants is to show people what they need to see, whatever will bring them the most peace.”

  Marasi felt cold, suddenly, a shiver running through her. Not at the words, but at the look in MeLaan’s eyes, which had faded to a faint translucence. As if … in reminder?

  Then MeLaan threw her head back and started laughing. “Nah, I’m just rusting you, kid. I don’t show you that side because it’s too hard to keep a straight face while talking with all those ‘thee’s and ‘whatfore’s.”

  “Hence the snoring wisecrack?” Marasi said.

  “Yeah. I had to check on the guy when Harmony was first looking for Paalm. He snores like a steam engine, that one. Anyway, where to now?”

  “The governor’s mansion,” Marasi said.

  “Along we go, then,” MeLaan said, striding toward the exit of the alleyway.

  * * *

  “We pulled to a stop,” Chapaou said, hunched up next to his carriage in the mists outside the Soother’s place. “And I’d been hearing things inside the coach. I didn’t like how he’d come out of that church, with hands all red.”