Brandon Sanderson - Shadows of Self

“Earlier tonight,” Wax said. “There was something regretful about her. She claimed to not be playing games, but this seems like a game. A thousand discarded pages, left to be put back together and form a clue?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Madness or not, she had to know that other kandra would eventually find this.”

“Very well,” TenSoon said, settling back down. “But she spoke to you as herself, not an imitation?”

“Yes. Is that odd? You’re doing it right now, and MeLaan seems to be acting no specific role either.”

“We are not Paalm,” TenSoon said. “As long as I’ve known her, she’s been subject to the performance. I was like that too, years ago. I didn’t know who I was if I was not imitating someone.”

Wax looked across the sheets. Freedom, one of them said in a scrawl across the page. Will give you freedom whether you, said another, only half of a thought.

“What was she like?” Wax asked. “Who is she, Guardian?”

“Hard to say,” TenSoon replied. “Paalm was the Lord Ruler’s pet kandra, a slave to his will and the contract we made with him. She ignored events surrounding the end of the World of Ash; she vanished, didn’t return to the Homeland. I assumed her dead, until she appeared among the survivors. Even then she separated herself from us, though she served Harmony as we all did. Until … nothing. Absence.”

“Freedom,” Wax said, tapping the page. “She talked about that with me. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” TenSoon said, voice even more a growl than before. “She has betrayed everything we are. But then, so did I. So perhaps we are a pair, she and I. Two of the oldest monsters remaining on this planet, now that many of the Seconds have taken the escape of ending their own lives.”

“Freedom…” Wax whispered. “Someone else moves us.… She left a note for me in the governor’s mansion. She removed a politician’s tongue, to stop his lies. Killed a priest through the eyes, to stop him from looking. Seeing. For who? For what?”

She had been the Lord Ruler’s kandra, moved about and danced at his whims. And then … Harmony’s servant? She lived with his voice inside her head, knowing all along that he could take control of her. How would that feel?

Would it make you remove one of your spikes? Would you be trying to bring that freedom to everyone? Misguided, in your insanity, certain that the world needed saving?

Wax stood up slowly. “It’s about Harmony.”

“Lawman?”

“She’s trying to bring down God Himself.”

“That’s insane.”

“Yes,” Wax said, turning to the kandra. “It is.” He started to pace in the small room. “Speak to Harmony and find out something for me. Did Bleeder first leave because Harmony tried to take control of her at some point? Did that set her off?”

A moment of silence. “Yes,” TenSoon replied. “Harmony says He didn’t try to control her directly, but He did push her very hard to do something she didn’t want to do.”

“She’s been persistent about this idea that all people are controlled.” Harmony … was she Bloody Tan? Was she wearing his body, even back then? Was she there when I shot Lessie? “She sees everyone as Harmony’s puppets—in her eyes, the politicians are His mouth. She’s bringing down the government for that reason. Religion? Harmony’s eyes, to watch over the people. She works to undermine that by creating strife between the religious sects.”

“Yes…” TenSoon said. “In a way, it could be seen as a continuation of the First Contract. Serve the Lord Ruler. Bring down the force that he worked to defeat. Harmony is half of that.”

“But what am I in this?” Wax continued, only half listening to TenSoon. “Why me? Why focus on—”

No, wrong question.

What was she going to do next? Eyes, tongue … ears, maybe? Pretend she’s a step ahead of you, Wax told himself. Prepare for the worst.

He looked again at the sheets on the floor. She wanted Wax out of the way. An elaborate puzzle? It was a time waster, a distraction. She’d ripped out these sheets not to tease him, but to remove him from the investigation long enough to accomplish the next phase of her plan. She’d led him here with that dust on her robe. She’d planted it there for that purpose.

“She knows,” Wax said softly. “She knows what you’re going to do, TenSoon. What you’ve done .” He felt cold, and met the kandra’s inhuman eyes. “She’s planned that you would send your kandra to try to win back the hearts and minds of the people. That exposes you. Her next step is to bring them down.”

Wayne wandered between two bonfires. Inside one, table and chair legs made sharp lines, like the shadowy limbs of corpses being burned. The mists didn’t get too close to the fires, though the smoke made a good imitator in the night. Like a beggar dressed up so nice, you only knew him for what he was when you got close enough to catch a proper whiff.

Wayne leaned in to one of the bonfires to light his cigar, though that required him to heal the skin of his arm as it burned. He smelled both of his own singed hair and of the scent of the fire. Polished furniture didn’t burn clean. He liked feeling the heat though. Made him feel alive.

He had stopped filling his metalminds, hoping he had enough health for what was coming. He couldn’t afford to be weak or sickly right now. Not with what was happening.

He leaned back away from the flames and settled the cigar between his teeth. It was a fancy type, from the governor’s own hidden stash. Wayne took a long puff before remembering that he hated the rusting things. Ah well. He hadn’t traded anything good for it. Just one of Wax’s forks.

The crowd gathering here in the square was the biggest he’d seen this night. They clumped in the bonfire light like a flock of ravens drawn to a kill. Wayne moved up to the back of the crowd and handed his cigar to someone there. He left her standing, baffled, as he dove into the crowd.

With a crowd this big, you couldn’t move through them, but with them. You hadda pull the crowd on like a good coat, snug and tight, then let the cloth give you some direction. Wayne shuffled when the people shuffled, and shouted at the proper points, giving just the right drunken slur to his speech. He gave back a friendly elbow when one nudged him, and before too long he neared the front. Here, above everyone else, a shirtless fellow in trousers and suspenders stood atop a fountain statue, holding on to the Survivor’s spear for balance, his other fist raised toward the crowd.

“They rob us blind!” the man shouted.

Aye, that’s true, Wayne thought, shouting along with the crowd’s roar of agreement.

“They expect us to work long hours every day, but then when it ain’t convenient for them, they just cut us loose and don’t care none if we starve.”

Yeah, they do, Wayne thought, joining in the cursing and shouting.

“They do each other favors,” the man bellowed. “They suck us dry, then gather to throw lavish parties!”

I’ve been to those parties, Wayne thought. Good sandwiches.

“Would the Survivor have stood for this?”

Probably not, Wayne admitted. As the crowd surged around him, Wayne folded his arms and thought. Sure, bringing down a homicidal shapeshifter was important and all, but rusts, this seemed a bad time to be hanging around with conners and noblemen. Listening to this speech, he was half inclined to string himself up, which was really disturbing, since he was generally suicidal only in the mornings.