Bands of Mourning Page 4

  Shoes went last. A new pair. They’d be hideously uncomfortable. “Are we late enough yet?” he asked Steris.

  She checked the clock in the corner. “I planned for us to go in two minutes from now.”

  “Ah, delightful,” he said, taking her arm. “That means we can be spontaneous and arrive early. Well, late-early.”

  She clung to his arm, letting him steer her down the side chamber toward the entrance to the dome, and the church proper. Drewton followed behind.

  “Are you … certain you wish to proceed?” Steris asked, stopping him before they entered the walkway to the dome.

  “Having second thoughts?”

  “Absolutely not,” Steris said immediately. “This union is quite beneficial to my house and status.” She took Wax’s left hand in both of hers. “But Lord Waxillium,” she said softly, “I don’t want you to feel trapped, particularly after what happened to you earlier this year. If you wish to back out, I will accept it as your will.”

  The way she clutched his hand as she said those words sent a very different message. But she didn’t seem to notice. Looking at her, Wax found himself wondering. When he’d first agreed to the marriage, he’d done so out of duty to his house.

  Now, he felt his emotions shifting. The way she’d been there for him these last months as he’d grieved … The way she looked at him right now …

  Rust and Ruin. He was actually fond of Steris. It wasn’t love, but he doubted he would love again. This would do.

  “No, Steris,” he said. “I would not back out. That … wouldn’t be fair to your house, and the money you have spent.”

  “The money doesn’t—”

  “It’s all right,” Wax said, giving her hand a little squeeze. “I have recovered enough from my ordeal. I’m strong enough to do this.”

  Steris opened her mouth to reply, but a knock at the door heralded Marasi sticking her head in to check on them. With dark hair and softer, rounder features than Steris, Marasi wore bright red lipstick and a progressive lady’s attire—a pleated skirt, with a tight buttoned jacket.

  “Finally,” she said. “Crowd is getting fidgety. Wax, there’s a man here wanting to see you. I’ve been trying to send him away, but … well…”

  She came into the room and held the door open, revealing the same slender man in the brown suit and bow tie from before, standing with the ash girls in the antechamber that led to the dome proper.

  “You,” Wax said. “How did you get here before Wayne?”

  “I don’t believe your friend is coming,” the man said. He stepped in beside Marasi and nodded to her, then closed the doors, shutting out the ash girls. He turned and tossed Wax a wadded-up ball of paper.

  When Wax caught it, it clinked. Unfolding it revealed the two wedding pendants. Scrawled on the paper were the words: Gonna go get smashed till I can’t piss straight. Happy weddings ’n stuff.

  “Such beautiful imagery,” Steris observed, taking Wax’s wedding pendant in a white-gloved hand as Marasi looked over his shoulder to read the note. “At least he didn’t forget these.”

  “Thank you,” Wax said to the man in brown, “but as you can see, I’m quite busy getting married. Whatever you need from me can—”

  The man’s face turned translucent, displaying the bones of his skull and spine beneath.

  Steris stiffened. “Holy One,” she whispered.

  “Holy pain,” Wax said. “Tell Harmony to get someone else this time. I’m busy.”

  “Tell … Harmony…” Steris mumbled, her eyes wide.

  “Unfortunately, this is part of the problem,” the man in brown said, his skin returning to normal. “Harmony has been distracted as of late.”

  “How can God be distracted?” Marasi asked.

  “We’re not sure, but it has us worried. I need you, Waxillium Ladrian. I have a job you’ll find of interest. I realize you’re off to the ceremony, but afterward, if I could have a moment of your time…”

  “No,” Wax said.

  “But—”

  “No.”

  Wax pulled Steris by the arm, shoving open the doors, striding past Marasi, leaving the kandra. It had been six months since those creatures had manipulated him, played him, and lied to him. The result? A dead woman in his arms.

  Bastards.

  “Was that really one of the Faceless Immortals?” Steris said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Yes, and for obvious reasons I want nothing to do with them.”

  “Peace,” she said, holding his arm. “Do you need a moment?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Wax stopped in place. She waited, and he breathed in and out, banishing from his mind that awful, awful scene when he’d knelt on a bridge alone, holding Lessie. A woman he realized he’d never actually known.

  “I’m all right,” he said to Steris through clenched teeth. “But God should have known not to come for me. Particularly not today.”

  “Your life is … decidedly odd, Lord Waxillium.”

  “I know,” he said, moving again, stepping with her beside the last door before they entered the dome. “Ready?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Was she … teary-eyed? It was an expression of emotion he’d never seen from her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Forgive me. It’s just … more wonderful than I’d imagined.”

  They pushed open the doors, revealing the glistening dome, sunlight streaming through it and upon the waiting crowd. Acquaintances. Distant family members. Seamstresses and forgeworkers from his house. Wax sought out Wayne, and was surprised when he didn’t find the man, despite the note. He was the only real family Wax had.

  The ash girls scampered out, sprinkling small handfuls of ash on the carpeted walkway that ringed the perimeter of the dome. Wax and Steris started forward in a stately walk, presenting themselves for those in attendance. There was no music at a Survivorist ceremony, but a few crackling braziers with green leaves on top let smoke trail upward to represent the mist.

  Smoke ascends while ash falls, he thought, remembering the priest’s words from his youth, back when he’d attended Survivorist ceremonies. They walked all the way around the crowd. At least Steris’s family had made a decent showing, her father included—the red-faced man gave Waxillium an enthusiastic fist-raise as they passed.

  Wax found himself smiling. This was what Lessie had wanted. They’d joked time and time again about their simple Pathian ceremony, finalized on horseback to escape a mob. She said that someday, she’d make him do it proper.

  Sparkling crystal. A hushed crowd. Footsteps on scrunching carpet dappled with grey ash. His smile widened, and he looked to the side.

  But of course, the wrong woman was there.

  He almost stumbled. Idiot man, he thought. Focus. This day was important to Steris; the least he could do was not ruin it. Or rather, not ruin it in a way she hadn’t expected. Whatever that meant.

  Unfortunately, as they walked the remaining distance around the rotunda, his discomfort increased. He felt nauseous. Sweaty. Sick, like the feeling he had gotten the few times he had been forced to run from a killer and leave innocents in danger.

  It all forced him, finally, to acknowledge a difficult fact. He wasn’t ready. It wasn’t Steris, it wasn’t the setting. He just wasn’t ready for this.

  This marriage meant letting go of Lessie.

  But he was trapped, and he had to be strong. He set his jaw and stepped with Steris onto the dais, where the priest stood between two stands topped with crystal vases of Marewill flowers. The ceremony was drawn from ancient Larsta beliefs, from Harmony’s Beliefs Reborn, a volume in the Words of Founding.

  The priest spoke the words, but Wax couldn’t listen. All was numbness to him, teeth clenched, eyes straight ahead, muscles tense. They’d found a priest murdered in this very church. Killed by Lessie as she went mad. Couldn’t they have done something for her, instead of setting him on the hunt?
Couldn’t they have told him?

  Strength. He would not flee. He would not be a coward.

  He held Steris’s hands, but couldn’t look at her. Instead, he turned his face upward to look out the glass dome toward the sky. Most of it was crowded out by the buildings. Skyscrapers on two sides, windows glistening in the morning sun. That water tower certainly did block the view, though as he watched, it shifted.…

  Shifted?

  Wax watched in horror as the legs under the enormous metal cylinder bent, as if to kneel, ponderously tipping their burden on its side. The top of the thing sheared off, spilling tons of water in a foaming wave.

  He yanked Steris to him, arm firmly around her waist, then ripped off the second button down on his waistcoat and dropped it. He Pushed against this single metal button, launching himself and Steris away from the dais as the priest yelped in surprise.

  Water crashed against the dome, which strained for the briefest of seconds before a section of it snapped open, hinges giving way inward to the water.

  2

  “Are you certain you’re all right, my lord?” Wax asked, helping Lord Drapen, constable-general of the Sixth Octant, down the steps toward his carriage. Water trickled beside them in little streams, joining a small river in the gutters.

  “Ruined my best pistol, you realize,” Drapen said. “I’ll have to send the thing to be cleaned and oiled!”

  “Bill me the expense, my lord,” Wax said, ignoring the fact that a good pistol would hardly be ruined by a little—or, well, a lot of—water. Wax turned the aging gentleman over to his coachman, sharing a resigned look, before turning and climbing back up the steps into the church. The carpet squished when he stepped on it. Or maybe that was his shoes.

  He passed the priest bickering with the Erikell insurance assessor—come to do an initial report for when the church demanded payment on their policy—and entered the main dome. The one open section of glass still swung on its hinges up above, and the tipped water tower—its legs on the other side had kept it from crashing down completely—still blocked out much of the sky.

  He passed overturned benches, discarded Marewill petals, and general refuse. Water dripped, the room’s only sound other than the echoing voice of the priest. Wax squished his way up to the dais. Steris sat on its edge, wet dress plastered to her body, strands of hair that had escaped from her wedding braids sticking to the sides of her face. She sat with arms crossed on her knees, staring at the floor.

  Wax sat down next to her. “So, next time a flood is dumped on our heads, I’ll try to remember that jumping upward is a bad idea.” He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and squeezed it out.

  “You tried to get us backward too. It merely wasn’t fast enough, Lord Waxillium.”

  He grunted. “Looks like simple structural failure. If it was instead some kind of assassination attempt … well, it was an incompetent one. There wasn’t enough water in there to be truly dangerous. The worst injury was to Lord Steming, who fell and knocked his head when scrambling off his seat.”

  “No more than an accident then,” Steris said. She flopped backward onto the dais, the carpet letting out a soft squish.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” She sighed. “Do you ever wonder if perhaps the cosmere is out to overwhelm you, Lord Waxillium?”

  “The cosmere? You mean Harmony?”

  “No, not Him,” Steris said. “Just cosmic chance rolling the dice anytime I pass, and always hitting all ones. There seems to be a poetry to it all.” She closed her eyes. “Of course the wedding would fall apart. Several tons of water falling through the roof? Why wouldn’t I have seen that? It’s so utterly outlandish it had to happen. At least the priest didn’t get murdered this time.”

  “Steris,” Wax said, resting a hand on her arm. “We’ll fix this. It will be all right.”

  She opened her eyes, looking toward him. “Thank you, Lord Waxillium.”

  “For what, exactly?” he asked.

  “For being nice. For being willing to subject yourself to, well, me. I understand that it is not a pleasant concept.”

  “Steris…”

  “Do not think me self-deprecating, Lord Waxillium,” she said, sitting up and taking a deep breath, “and please do not assume I’m being morose. I am what I am, and I accept it. But I am under no illusions as to how my company is regarded. Thank you. For not making me feel as others have.”

  He hesitated. How did one respond to something like that? “It’s not as you say, Steris. I think you’re delightful.”

  “And the fact that you were gritting your teeth as the ceremony started, hands gripping as tightly as a man dangling for his life from the side of a bridge?”

  “I…”

  “Are you saddened at the fact that our wedding is delayed? Can you truly say it, and be honest as a lawman, Lord Waxillium?”

  Damn. He floundered. He knew a few simple words could defuse or sidestep the question, but he couldn’t find them, despite searching for what was an awkwardly long time—until saying anything would have sounded condescending.

  “Perhaps,” he said, smiling, “I’ll just have to try something to relax me next time we attempt this.”

  “I doubt going to the ceremony drunk would be productive.”

  “I didn’t say I’d drink. Perhaps some Terris meditation beforehand.”

  She eyed him. “You’re still willing to move forward?”

  “Of course.” As long as it didn’t have to be today. “I assume you have a backup dress?”

  “Two,” she admitted, letting him help her to her feet. “And I did reserve another date for a wedding two months from now. Different church—in case this one exploded.”

  He grunted. “You sound like Wayne.”

  “Well, things do tend to explode around you, Lord Waxillium.” She looked up at the dome. “Considering that, getting drenched must be rather novel.”

  * * *

  Marasi trailed around the outside of the flooded church, hands clasped behind her back, notebook a familiar weight in her jacket pocket. A few constables—all corporals—stood about looking as if they were in charge. That sort of thing was important in a crisis; statistics showed that if a uniformed authority figure was nearby, people were less likely to panic.

  Of course, there was also a smaller percentage who were more likely to panic if an authority figure was nearby. Because people were people, and if there was one thing you could count on, it was that some of them would be weird. Or rather that all of them would be weird when circumstances happened to align with their own individual brand of insanity.

  That said, today she hunted a very special kind of insane. She’d tried the nearby pubs first, but that was too obvious. Next she checked the gutters, one soup kitchen, and—against her better judgment—a purveyor of “novelties.” No luck, though her backside did get three separate compliments, so there was that.

  Finally, running out of ideas, she went to check if he’d decided to steal the forks from the wedding breakfast. There, in a dining hall across the street from the church, she found Wayne in the kitchens wearing a white jacket and a chef’s hat. He was scolding several assistant cooks as they furiously decorated tarts with fruit glaze.

  Marasi leaned against the doorway and watched, tapping her notebook with her pencil. Wayne sounded utterly unlike himself, instead using a sharp, nasal voice with an accent she couldn’t quite place. Easterner, perhaps? Some of the outer cities there had thick accents.

  The assistant cooks didn’t question him. They jumped at what he said, bearing his condemnation as he tasted a chilled soup and swore at their incompetence. If he noticed Marasi, he didn’t show it, instead wiping his hands on a cloth and demanding to see the produce the delivery boys had brought that morning.

  Eventually, Marasi strolled into the kitchen, dodging a short assistant chef bearing a pot almost as big as she was, and stepped up to Wayne.

  “I’ve seen crisper lettuce in the garba
ge heap!” he was saying to a cringing delivery boy. “And you call these grapes? These are so overripe, they’re practically fermenting! And—oh, ’ello, Marasi.” He said the last line in his normal, jovial voice.

  The delivery boy scrambled away.

  “What are you doing?” Marasi asked.

  “Makin’ soup,” Wayne said, holding up a wooden spoon to show her. Nearby, several of the assistant cooks stopped in place, looking at him with shocked expressions.

  “Out with you!” he said to them in the chef’s voice. “I must have time to prepare! Shoo, shoo, go!”

  They scampered away, leaving him grinning.

  “You do realize the wedding breakfast is canceled,” Marasi said, leaning back against a table.

  “Sure do.”

  “So why…”

  She trailed off as he stuffed an entire tart in his mouth and grinned. “Hadda make sure they didn’t welch on their promif an’ not make anyfing to eat,” he said around chewing, crumbs cascading from his lips. “We paid for this stuff. Well, Wax did. ’Sides, wedding being canceled is no reason not to celebrate, right?”

  “Depends on what you’re celebrating,” Marasi said, flipping open her notebook. “Bolts securing the water tower in place were definitely loosened. Road below was conspicuously empty, some ruffians—from another octant entirely, I might add—having stopped traffic by starting a fistfight in the middle of the rusting street.”

  Wayne grunted, searching in a cupboard. “Hate that little notebook of yours sometimes.”

  Marasi groaned, closing her eyes. “Someone could have been hurt, Wayne.”

  “Now, that ain’t right at all. Someone was hurt. That fat fellow what has no hair.”

  She massaged her temples. “You realize I’m a constable now, Wayne. I can’t turn a blind eye toward wanton property damage.”

  “Ah, ’s not so bad,” Wayne said, still rummaging. “Wax’ll pay for it.”