The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn, #6)

by Brandon Sanderson

“We’re leaving. Marasi, Steris, I’d suggest packing lightly. You have about fifteen minutes.” “I’m already packed,” Steris said, standing up.

“You got that preparin’-your-bags-early thing from me, didn’t you?” “I . . . Well, yes, actually.” “What will you trade me for it, then?” Wayne said. “Gotta have a good trade when you take stuff.” “I’ll think about it,” Steris said.

“Framed for murder!” Steris called to her. “It’s on page seventeen of the list I gave you! Try not to let them harass our servants too much when they arrive!”

A man found himself when he was alone. You only had one person to chat with, one person to blame.

He’d never hated God before. After Lessie’s supposed death the first time, he hadn’t blamed Harmony. Rusts, even after Bleeder had raised the question of why Harmony hadn’t helped, Wax hadn’t responded with hatred. But now . . . yes, that hatred was there.

“I was chasing a legend, Marasi. Tales of the Survivor’s gold, riches to be had, stories to be made.” “You?” Marasi started. “You were a gentleman adventurer?”

“You think your uncle is trying to make Allomancers with technology, rather than by birth.”

“Marasi used a speed bubble while we were moving,” Waxillium said. “We hit the threshold and towed her out of it, popping the thing and lurching us from one time frame to the next.” “But, she used it on the train,” Steris said. “Speed bubbles move with you if you’re on something massive enough,”

“It doesn’t steal Allomancy, Wayne. It never did.” “But—” “It takes the metal one is burning,” Wax said, “and somehow . . . extends it. You saw. It Pushed your metal away, as if a Coinshot were there near you. The cube used Allomancy.”

It looks like you have to be an Allomancer to use this—it doesn’t grant new powers, but it does extend the ones you have. It’s like . . . like an Allomantic grenade.”

“Maaaate,” Wayne whispered. “It’s someone else’s metalmind, but I can use it.” “Like VenDell said,” Wax said, taking the bracelet from Wayne’s fingers. “A metalmind with no Identity. Rusts. I have to flare my metal to even get the faintest line pointing to it. This thing must be stuffed full of power.” More than any metalmind he’d ever sensed, in fact. He could usually push on those without too much trouble. He’d barely be able to shift this one.

The only way to have created this would involve using a Feruchemist with two powers. So either the Set had access to full-blooded Feruchemists, or his fears were coming true. They’d figured out how to use Hemalurgy. Or it’s a relic, he thought. There’s that possibility. Perhaps this and the box were artifacts of another time.

Wax grinned in the darkness. “Steris, you’re a gem.”

It was a boat. Of course, the common word “boat” didn’t do the thing justice. Wayne stared at the massive construction, searching for a better description. One that would capture the majesty, the incredible scale, of the thing he was seeing. “That’s a damn big boat,” he finally whispered. Much better.

Wax said, sliding a gun from the holster at his side. MeLaan did the same, only her holster was her leg. Like, the skin split and she reached in through a slit in her trousers and slipped the gun out—a sleek, long-barreled thing. Wayne whistled softly. She grinned, then gave him a kiss. “Try not to get shot too many times.” “You neither,” he said. They split up.

Not far away, the scientists—led by a man with a limp—walked up a plank ramp, peering into the open side of the boat. It’s him, Marasi thought. The same one from the train robbery. He was showing the newcomers around the project.

“Gettin’ old,” Wayne said with a grin, passing him and starting up the next ladder. “Don’t be dense,” Wax said, grabbing the ladder below him and climbing. “I’m trying to pace myself. What if we reach the top and have to fight?” “You can throw your wooden teeth at ’em,” Wayne said from above. “Do some cane waggin’ as well. I’m sure you’re cross about stayin’ up so late.”

“I should deck you right in your grin,” he grumbled as he joined the still-smiling Wayne on the catwalk. “But you’d just heal.” “Nah,” Wayne said. “I’d fall over and groan. Considerin’ your age, it’s more important to make you feel you’ve accomplished somethin’ in a day.”

Technically, every person in the world was dying—they were merely doing it very slowly. Irich’s curse was not that he was dying. It was that he could feel it happening.

His left hand barely worked anymore; he could grip his cane, but he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling as he did so—and he practically had to drag his left leg with each step. The shortness of breath had begun. His physician said that one day, he simply wouldn’t have the strength to breathe. On that day, Irich would suffocate alone, unable to move. And he could feel it coming. Step by excruciating step.

Technically, he was an Array—a rank of some influence within the Set. Suit and his people had a high regard for scientific thought. The power and prestige, however, were meaningless to him. Neither could grant him additional breaths of life.

“This ship,” Irich said, “is filled with enigmas. You have noticed the odd patterns on the ceilings, but questions like those are barely the beginning. What is the purpose of the room hung with dozens of black hoods, like those worn by an executioner? We have found what appear to be musical instruments, but they seem incapable of making any sounds. The ship has an ingenious system of plumbing, and we have identified facilities for both men and women—but there is a third set of rooms with an indecipherable marking on the doors. For whom were these built? People of the lower class? Families? A third gender?

“Why, how this thing moves of course.”

He had thought that on the train, they might find . . . But no, of course not. An idle hope.

“You said my head might hold the key,” MeLaan said, striding into the chamber beyond—a small, surprisingly well-furnished room. “It’s actually my thigh, right now. A kandra stores its cognitive system through its entire body, but my memories right now are in a solid metal compartment in my thigh. Safer that way. People aim for the head.”

what’s in your head?” “Eyes, sensory apparatus,” MeLaan said. “And an emergency canteen.” “You’re kidding.” “Nope,” MeLaan said, hands on hips,

“Hmm . . . This is going to be a little tougher. Can’t crack something like this with a set of picks.” “Can you manage it?” Marasi asked. “Patience,” MeLaan said. “Bring over that lamp.” Marasi took it from the desk, stretching out the cord to its fullest and directing its light for MeLaan. “Hmmm . . .” MeLaan said, then pressed her hand against the safe, ignoring the dial. Her fingers and palm went translucent, and then her flesh began to wiggle, squeezing into the joints, leaving behind crystalline bones held together with the barest of sinew.

The Originators were big-city people, through and through.

Dark pits of eyes. The pictures. Marasi had forgotten the pictures that ReLuur had left. Horrible faces of red and black, with those deep, dark eyes. Images as if from a nightmare, drawn in frantic, scribbled strokes. The monsters were real. And there was one in the cage here, swathed in thick fur, face of polished red. It regarded her, silent, then reached out between the bars with a shockingly human hand and whispered a single word through lips that somehow didn’t move. “Please.”

“That ship out there wasn’t built by the Set. It’s from somewhere else, someplace distant and alien. It probably wrecked near our coast, and the Set brought it here to be studied.” MeLaan cocked her head. “Harmony does say odd things sometimes, about other peoples, not from the Basin—”

Proof that there was life past the Roughs, and the deserts beyond.

but instead he was dressed in trousers that went down to just below his knees, under which he wore tight white socks. His shirt was loose and white, and over it he wore a snug red vest—matching his mask in coloring—with a double row of buttons up the front. She’d never seen clothing like it before, but it was hardly savage. The man yanked up one sleeve, exposing his arm, and strapped on the disc by its cloth ties. He let out a relieved sigh.

“Fotenstall,” he whispered in awe. “Allomancer,” Marasi said with a nod. “Hanner konge?”

He got it open and pulled out another one of those small, coinlike medallions with the straps on the sides. He pulled off the one he was wearing, and immediately gave a visible shiver, then slapped this one on instead. “How’s that?” he asked, looking back at them. Marasi blinked in shock. He’d said it in her language—strangely accented, true, but intelligible. “No?” the man asked. “You’re looking at me confused, still. These things never work right. She swore that—” “No, it works!” Marasi said. “At least, I can understand you.” She looked to the others, who nodded. “Aha!” the man said. “Great, great. Put these on.” He tossed a medallion at each of them. “Touching the skin, please, maskless barbarians. Except you, Metallic One. You will not need one, yah?”

“What do they do?” MeLaan asked. “Make you lighter,” the masked man said. As soon as he said it—as soon as she knew what it did—something inside of Marasi understood. She was holding metal that, somehow, she could feel. It wanted something from her, and she poured it in, filling the metal . . . the metalmind.

“Great Metallic One,” the masked man said, glancing at Waxillium, “I, of course, wouldn’t dare give orders to one of your stature, even if you wear your bare face out at all times. Who am I to judge? Even if you look equally crass as these others—even the cute one—I’m sure you’re not. But, if I may be so bold as to suggest—” “What?” Waxillium asked. “A little Push,” the masked man said, pointing downward. “On my mark.”

“Reduce your weight!” the man cried. “I mean, if it is aligned with your magnificent will, O Metabolic One.” “Metabolic?” Wax asked, filling his metalmind and decreasing his weight. The ship stabilized in the air. “Uh,” the masked man said, seating himself at the front, “well, we’re supposed to use a different title each time, yah? I’ve never been very good at this, Your Magnificence. Please don’t launch a coin directly into my skull. I’m not insolent, just stupid.”

“Allik Neverfar, Tall One,” the man said.

He dropped into the forest and surprised Steris, who sat on her horse with the others in a line, all packed and ready to go. “Lord Waxillium!” she cried. “I assumed you’d be coming, and prepared—”

He released the horses, then grabbed Steris around the waist. “Turns out we’ve found something better.” He pulled out one of his older guns, then dropped it—he’d need a large chunk of metal to get them high enough—and Pushed, launching them from the forest and into the sky.

“there’s a weapon of some sort to the south, hidden among the mountains separating the Basin from the Roughs. Uncle Edwarn has found it.

The kandra woman knelt over Marasi, hand on her side, the flesh having liquefied and run down into the wound. It was discomfortingly like what had happened when she’d picked the lock, as if Marasi were just another puzzle to be manipulated. Rusts, she could feel MeLaan poking around in there with bits of flesh that had become tentacles.

“Hmm?” MeLaan asked, pulling her arm out, the flesh forming back over her crystalline bones. “Oh. I caught a hole in the intestines, as you’d guessed. Sewed that up tight, using some catgut I made from some spare intestines I had brewing. I patched it with some of my flesh, grafted on.” “She’ll reject the flesh.” “Nah. I took a bite and replicated her skin. Her body will think it’s hers.” “You ate part of me?” Marasi said. “Wow,” Waxillium said. “That’s . . . wow.”

“I had assumed,” he said, “that everyone up here in the land of the Sovereign was a barbarian. Nobody wears masks, and what your people did to my crewmates . . .” He shivered again. This didn’t seem to be the cold. “But then you let me out,” he continued. “And you had one of them with you, a grand Metalborn of the precious arts. So I’m left confused.”

“Who is the Sovereign?” Waxillium asked from behind. Allik winced. “Surely he was not as great as you, Remarkable One.”

“The Sovereign was our king from three centuries ago. He told us he was your king first. And your god.” “The Lord Ruler?” Waxillium said. “He died.” “Yes,” Allik said. “He told us that too.” “Three hundred years ago,” Waxillium said. “Exactly?” “Three hundred and thirty, Persistent One.”

“That’s after Harmony Ascended. Are you sure about those dates?” “Of course I’m sure,” Allik said. “But if you wish me to revise my beliefs in order to—”

Anyway, the Sovereign came about ten years after the Ice Death happened, yah? Silly name, but you’ve got to call it something. The land was beautiful and warm, and then it froze.” Marasi glanced toward Waxillium, frowning. He shrugged. “Froze?” she said. “I don’t recall hearing of freezing.” “It’s frozen right now!” Allik said, shivering. “You had it here too, you must have. Over three centuries ago, the Ice Death came.” “The Catacendre?” Waxillium said. “Harmony remade the world. Saved it.”

“Froze it,” Allik said, shaking his head. “The land was soft and warm, and now it is harsh and broken and frozen.”

“Allik’s from the South, Waxillium. Haven’t you read the old books? The people from the Final Empire never went in that direction. The oceans boiled, suppos...