Brandon Sanderson - Shadows of Self

He fished in his pocket. Rich people didn’t make sense at all. That candelabra was probably worth a fortune, and Wax just left it lying around. Wayne fished in his other pocket, looking for something good to trade, and came out with a pocket watch.

Ah, that, he thought, shaking it and hearing the pieces rattle inside. How long since this thing actually told time? He picked up the candelabra, pocketed the doily underneath, then put the candelabra back in place with the pocket watch hanging from it. Seemed like a fair trade.

Been needing a new handkerchief, he thought, blowing his nose into it, then pushed open the door and wandered in.

Wax stood before an easel, looking at the large artist’s sketch pad he had filled with intricate plans. “Up all night, were you?” Wayne asked with a yawn. “Rusts, man, you make it hard to loaf about properly.”

“I don’t see what my insomnia has to do with your laziness, Wayne.”

“Makes me look bad, ’sall,” Wayne said, looking over Wax’s shoulder. “Proper loafing requires company. One man lying about is being idle; two men lying about is a lunch break .”

Wax shook his head, walking over to look at some broadsheets. Wayne leaned in, inspecting Wax’s paper. It held long lists of ideas, some connected by arrows, with a sketch of the way the bodies had fallen in both the ballroom and the saferoom.

“What’s all this, then?” Wayne asked, picking up a pencil and drawing a little stick figure with a gun shooting at all the dead bodies. His hand trembled as he drew the stick gun, but otherwise it was a right good stick figure.

“Proof to me that a Steelrunner is involved,” Wax said. “Look at the pattern of deaths in the ballroom. Four of the most powerful people in the room were killed with the same gun, and they were the only ones up there killed by that weapon—but it’s the same one that killed the guards outside the saferoom. I’d bet those four above were shot first, dead in an eyeblink, so fast that it sounded like a single long shot. Thing is, judging by the wounds, each shot came from a different location.”

Wayne didn’t know a lot about guns, seeing as how he couldn’t try to use one without his arm doing an impersonation of a carriage on a bumpy road, but Wax was probably right. Wayne moved down to start sketching some stick figures of topless women in the center of the picture, but Wax stepped over and plucked the pencil from his fingers.

“What’s that?” Wayne asked, tapping the center of the sketch pad, where Wax had drawn a bunch of straight lines.

“The pattern the killer used baffles me,” Wax said. “The four people in the party he shot, they all fell while in random conversations—look how they were lying. Everyone else who died was part of the larger shoot-out, but these four, they died while the party was still going on. But why did he shoot them from different directions? See, best I can guess, he fired first here, killing Lady Lentin. Her dropped drink was stomped on many times over the next few minutes. But then the killer used his speed to move quickly over here and fire in another direction. Then he moved again, and again. Why four shots from different places?”

“Who was standing where he shot?”

“The people he killed, obviously.”

“No, I mean, who was standing near him when he fired his gun. Not who did he shoot, but who was he near when he shot?”

“Ahh…” Wax said.

“Yep. Looks to me like he was trying to set them all off,” Wayne said, sniffling. “Get everyone in the room shootin’ at each other. See? It’s like how, to start a bar fight, you throw a bottle at some fellow and then turn to the person next to you and cry out, ‘Hey, why’d you throw that bottle at that nice fellow? Rusts, he looks big. And now he’s comin’ for you, and—’”

“I understand the concept,” Wax said dryly. He tapped the drawing pad. “You might have something.”

“It’s not catching.”

Wax smiled, writing some notes on the side of the pad. “So the killer wanted to sow chaos.… He started a firefight by bouncing around the room, making it look like various parties were attacking one another. They would already have been tense, suspicious of one another.…”

“Yup. I’m a genius.”

“You just recognized this because the killer was making others do his work for him, which is an expertise of yours.”

“As I said. Genius. So how are you going to find him?”

“Well, I was thinking of sending you to the Village to—”

“Not today,” Wayne said.

Wax turned to him, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s the first of the month,” Wayne said.

“Ah. I had forgotten. You don’t need to go every month.”

“I do.”

Wax studied him, as if waiting for a further comment or wisecrack. Wayne said nothing. This was actually serious. Slowly, Wax nodded. “I see. Then why haven’t you left yet?”

“Well, you know,” Wayne said. “It’s like I often say…”

“Greet every morning with a smile. That way it won’t know what you’re planning to do to it?”

“No, not that one.”

“Until you know it ain’t true, treat every woman like she has an older brother what is stronger than you are?”

“No, not … Wait, I said that?”

“Yes,” Wax said, turning back to his notes. “It was a very chivalrous moment for you.”

“Rusts. I should really write these things down.”

“I believe that is another thing you often say.” Wax made a notation. “Unfortunately, you’d first have to learn how to write.”

“Now, that’s unfair,” Wayne said, walking over to Wax’s desk and poking around in its drawers. “I can write—I know four whole letters, and one’s not even in my name!”

Wax smiled. “Are you going to tell me what you always say?”

Wayne found a bottle in the bottom drawer and lifted it up, dropping in the lace he’d taken from outside as a replacement. “If you’re going to have to do something awful, stop by Wax’s room and trade for some of his rum first.”

“I don’t believe you’ve ever said that.”

“I just did.” Wayne took a gulp of the rum.

“I…” Wax frowned. “I have no response to that.” He sighed, setting down his pencil. “However, since you’re going to be indisposed, then I suppose I will have to go visit the Village.”

“Sorry. I know you hate that place.”

“I will survive,” Wax said, grimacing.

“Wanna piece of advice?”

“From you? Probably not. But please feel free.”

“You should stop by Wax’s room before you go,” Wayne said, trailing out toward the door, “and pinch some of his rum.”

“The rum you just pocketed?”

Wayne hesitated, then took the rum out of his pocket. “Ah, mate. Sorry. Tough for you.” He shook his head. Poor fellow. He pulled the door closed behind him, took a pull on the rum, and continued on his way down the stairs and out of the mansion.

Marasi tugged at the collar of her jacket, glad for the seaborne wind that blew across her. It could get warm in her uniform—a proper one today, with a buttoned white blouse and brown skirt to match the brown coat.

Next to her, the newsman wasn’t so thankful for the wind. He cursed, throwing a heavy chunk of iron—it looked like a piece of an old axle—onto his stack of broadsheets. On the street, the traffic slowed in a moment of congestion. Motorcar drivers and coachmen yelled at one another.

“Ruin break that Tim Vashin,” the newsman grumbled, looking at the traffic. “And his machines.”

“It’s hardly his fault,” Marasi said, digging in her pocketbook.

“It is,” the newsman said. “Motors were fine, nothing wrong with them for driving in the country or on a summer afternoon. But they’re cheap enough now, everyone has to have one of the rusting things! A man can’t take his horse two blocks without being run down half a dozen times.”