Brandon SANDERSON: The Alloy of Law

He was trying to cling to what he had been. He wasn’t that person any longer. He couldn’t be. But people did need him for something else.

“Tillaume,” Wax said.

The butler looked back from the candles. The mansion didn’t have electric lights yet, though workmen were coming to install them soon. Something his uncle had paid for before dying, money Wax couldn’t recover now.

“Yes, my lord?” Tillaume asked.

Wax hesitated, then slowly pulled his shotgun from its place inside his coat and set it into the trunk beside his bed, placing it beside a companion he’d left there earlier. He took off his mistcoat, wrapping the thick material over his arm. He held the coat reverently for a moment, then placed it in the trunk. His Sterrion revolvers followed. They weren’t his only guns, but they represented his life in the Roughs.

He closed the lid of the trunk on his old life. “Take this, Tillaume,” Wax said. “Put it somewhere.”

“Yes, my lord,” Tillaume said. “I shall have it ready for you, should you need it again.”

“I won’t be needing it,” Wax said. He had given himself one last night with the mists. A thrilling climb up the tower, an evening spent with the darkness. He chose to focus on that – rather than his failure with the toughs – as his night’s accomplishment.

One final dance.

“Take it, Tillaume,” Wax said, turning away from the trunk. “Put it somewhere safe, but put it away. For good.”

“Yes, my lord,” the butler said softly. He sounded approving.

And that, Wax thought, is that. He then walked into the washroom. Wax the lawkeeper was gone.

It was time to be Lord Waxillium Ladrian, Sixteenth High Lord of House Ladrian, residing in the Fourth Octant of Elendel City.

SIX MONTHS LATER

“How’s my cravat?” Waxillium asked, studying himself in the mirror, turning to the side and tugging at the silver necktie again.

“Impeccable as always, my lord,” Tillaume said. The butler stood with hands clasped behind his back, a tray with steaming tea sitting beside him on the serving stand. Waxillium hadn’t asked for tea, but Tillaume had brought it anyway. Tillaume had a thing about tea.

“Are you certain?” Waxillium asked, tugging at the cravat again.

“Indeed, my lord.” He hesitated. “I’ll admit, my lord, that I’ve been curious about this for months. You are the first high lord I’ve ever waited upon who can tie a decent cravat. I’d grown quite accustomed to providing that assistance.”

“You learn to do things on your own, when you live out in the Roughs.”

“With all due respect, my lord,” Tillaume said, his normally monotone voice betraying a hint of curiosity, “I wouldn’t have thought that one would need to learn that skill in the Roughs. I wasn’t aware that the denizens of those lands had the slightest concern for matters of fashion and decorum.”

“They don’t,” Waxillium said with a smile, giving one final adjustment to the cravat. “That’s part of why I always did. Dressing like a city gentleman had an odd effect on the people out there. Some immediately respected me, others immediately underestimated me. It worked for me in both cases. And, I might add, it was unspeakably satisfying to see the looks on the faces of criminals when they were hauled in by someone they had assumed to be a city dandy.”

“I can imagine, my lord.”

“I did it for myself too,” Waxillium said more softly, regarding himself in the mirror. Silver cravat, green satin vest. Emerald cuff links. Black coat and trousers, stiff through the sleeves and legs. One steel button on his vest among the wooden ones, an old tradition of his. “The clothing was a reminder, Tillaume. The land around me may have been wild, but I didn’t need to be.”

Waxillium took a silver pocket square off his dressing stand, deftly folded it in the proper style, and slipped it into his breast pocket. A sudden chiming rang through the mansion.

“Rust and Ruin,” Waxillium cursed, checking his pocket watch. “They’re early.”

“Lord Harms is known for his punctuality, my lord.”

“Wonderful. Well, let’s get this over with.” Waxillium strode out into the hallway, boots gliding on the green velvet-cut rug. The mansion had changed little during his two-decade absence. Even after six months of living here, it still didn’t feel like it was his. The faint smell of his uncle’s pipe smoke still lingered, and the decor was marked by a fondness for deep dark woods and heavy stone sculpture. Despite modern tastes, there were almost no portraits or paintings. As Waxillium knew, many of those had been valuable, and had been sold before his uncle’s death.

Tillaume walked alongside him, hands clasped behind his back. “My lord sounds as though he considers this day’s duty to be a chore.”

“Is it that obvious?” Waxillium grimaced. What did it say about him that he’d rather face down a nest of outlaws – outgunned and outmanned – than meet with Lord Harms and his daughter?

A plump, matronly woman waited at the end of the hallway, wearing a black dress and a white apron. “Oh, Lord Ladrian,” she said with fondness. “Your mother would be so pleased to see this day!”

“Nothing has been decided yet, Miss Grimes,” Waxillium said as the woman joined the two of them, walking along the balustrade of the second-floor gallery.

“She did so hope that you’d marry a fine lady someday,” Miss Grimes said. “You should have heard how she worried, all those years.”

Waxillium tried to ignore the way those words twisted at his heart. He hadn’t heard how his mother worried. He’d hardly ever taken time to write his parents or his sister, and had only visited that one time, just after the railway reached Weathering.

Well, he was making good on his obligations now. Six months of work, and he was finally getting his feet under him and pulling House Ladrian – along with its many forgeworkers and seamstresses – from the brink of financial collapse. The last step came today.

Waxillium reached the top of the staircase, then hesitated. “No,” he said, “I mustn’t rush in. Need to give them time to make themselves comfortable.”

“That is–” Tillaume began, but Waxillium cut him off by turning the other way and marching back along the balustrade.

“Miss Grimes,” Waxillium said, “are there other matters that will need my attention today?”

“You wish to hear of them now?” she asked, frowning as she bustled to keep up.

“Anything to keep my mind occupied, dear woman,” Waxillium said. Rust and Ruin… he was so nervous that he caught himself reaching inside his jacket to finger the grip of his Immerling 44-S.

It was a fine weapon; not as good as one of Ranette’s make, but a proper, and small, sidearm for a gentleman. He’d decided he would be a lord, and not a lawman, but that didn’t mean he was going to go about unarmed. That… well, that would just be plain insane.

“There is one matter,” Miss Grimes said, grimacing. She was the Ladrian house steward, and had been for the last twenty years. “We lost another shipment of steel last night.”

Waxillium froze on the walkway. “What? Again!”

“Unfortunately, my lord.”

“Damn it. I’m starting to think the thieves are targeting only us.”

“It’s only our second shipment,” she said. “House Tekiel has lost five shipments so far.”

“What are the details?” he asked. “The disappearance. Where did it happen?”

“Well–”

“No, don’t tell me,” he said, raising a hand. “I can’t afford to be distracted.”

Miss Grimes gave him a flat look, since that was probably why she’d avoided telling him about it before his meeting with Lord Harms. Waxillium rested a hand on the railing, and felt his left eye twitch. Someone was out there, running an organized, highly efficient operation stealing the contents of entire railcars. They were being called the Vanishers. Perhaps he could poke around a little and…