Brandon Sanderson - Shadows of Self

“We go in quickly and quietly,” Reddi whispered to the team. “Hope to Harmony they don’t have a Coinshot with them. Keep your helmets on. I don’t want that Soother taking control of any of you.”

Marasi cocked an eyebrow. Soothers couldn’t control people, though many mistook that. It didn’t help that the Words of Founding spoke vaguely of kandra and koloss being controlled by Allomancy, but Marasi now knew that was only possible for someone who bore Hemalurgic spikes.

“Colms,” Reddi said, still speaking in a low voice, “stay at the back. You’re not a field agent. I don’t want you getting hurt or, worse, messing this up.”

“As you wish,” she said.

Reddi counted softly. On ten, the group of them surged into the misted alleyway. Marasi hung near the back, walking with hands clasped behind her. Almost immediately after entering the alleyway, the constables pulled to a stop. A force of men in dark clothing piled out of a doorway inside the alley, blocking off access to the little carriage.

Marasi’s heart pounded as the two groups regarded one another. At least this proved she’d been right about the carriage. A few of the newcomers carried guns, but a barked word from one of the dark-clothed men made them tuck those away.

They don’t want to draw the crowd’s attention from the speech, Marasi thought. They still think what the governor is saying plays into their plans.

Keeping this fight quiet would serve both sides. The two groups stood waiting, tense, before Reddi waved his dueling cane.

The two forces crashed into one another.

Bleeder stepped closer to Wax in the mists. Atop this high platform, this tower on the bridge, nothing else seemed to exist. It was as if they stood on a tiny steel island rising from the sea. Grey all around, darkness extending into vastness above.

“Maybe I should have come to you,” Lessie’s voice said. “And had you help me with my plan. But he was watching. He’s always watching. I’m glad you took the earring out. At least my words meant something to you.”

“Stop,” Wax whispered. “Please.”

“Stop what?” Lessie asked, mere inches from him. “Stop walking? Stop talking? Stop loving you? My life would have been a lot easier if I’d been able to do that .”

Wax seized her with his open hand, grabbing her by the neck, thumb along her jaw. She met his eyes, and he saw pity in them.

“Perhaps,” she said, “the reason I didn’t come to you had no connection to Harmony at all. I knew this would hurt you. I’m sorry.”

No, Wax thought.

“I’m going to have to do something about you,” she said. “Keep you safe, somehow, but out of the way. Might have to hurt you, Wax. For your own good.”

No, this isn’t real.

“Still don’t know what to do about Wayne,” she said. “Couldn’t bring myself to kill him, poor fool. He followed you here, to help you in the city. For that I love him. But he’s still Harmony’s, and so he’s probably better dead than the way he is now.”

NO!

Wax shoved her back, lifting Vindication again. The gun, however, leaped from his fingers—Pushed by Bleeder. It tumbled into the mists.

Wax growled, ramming his shoulder into Bleeder, trying to toss her off the tower. She seized him as he hit, throwing them both off balance.

As they fell together, she raised her aluminum gun and shot him in the leg.

He cried out as they fell from the tower, dropping through the mists. A frantic Push on the bridge below slowed Wax, but when he hit, his leg gave out and he screamed, dropping to one knee.

Gun. Find the gun.

It had fallen this way. Rusts. Would it even work after dropping so far? He hadn’t heard it hit. Did that mean it had plunged into the waters?

Bleeder landed hard nearby. She spun on him, lit now by the garish electric lights that lined the roadway of the bridge. It was empty of carriages and motorcars, and behind her, a greater light hovered over the city. Red, violent light, seeming to burn the mists.

Looking out of the city, he saw darkness and peace. But inward, Elendel burned.

Marasi edged along the outside of a battlefield.

It was a very small battlefield, true, but the ferocity of the conflict stunned her. She felt she could—for the first time—imagine what it had been like to live during the War of Ash, so long ago.

But surely wars back then had been more thought-out, more deliberate. Not this mixed jumble of figures beating on one another, breaking bones, cursing, stepping on the fallen. Watching it made her sick, anxious. Those men were her colleagues, struggling frantically to push through the Set’s thugs. All night they’d been forced to stand and watch the city decompose around them, the situation growing worse and worse as they felt helpless.

This was something they could fight, so fight they did, cracking heads, shoving down enemies, grunting in the dirty, dark alleyway in an effort to reach the carriage. Thankfully, the Set troops here didn’t appear to include any Coinshots or Pewterarms.

Her men were still outnumbered, and for all their determination they weren’t making much headway. Outside the alleyway, the crowd was growing restless. The kandra’s speech turned toward the words Marasi had written for her, words promising social reform, legislation to cut down work hours and improve conditions in the factories. What Marasi was able to hear of the echoing voice, unfortunately, had a sense of desperation to it. It sounded fake, inauthentic.

That wasn’t MeLaan’s fault. She had said she didn’t have time to prepare this imitation properly, and it wasn’t her specialty in the first place. Rusts. The crowd started to shout, cursing the governor’s lies. MeLaan’s voice faltered. Was this the Rioter, whipping the crowd into a frenzy? Or were the people so angry, they were overcoming the Allomancy?

Either way, Marasi couldn’t help feeling desperate as her men struggled and fell, the crowd building toward a full-on riot. She made her way along the side of the alley, hoping that if she got to that carriage she could make a difference. Unfortunately, the alley’s confines were too narrow, and combatants filled the entire thing. Already half her men were down. Those who fought looked like wraiths, shifting and undulating in the mists. Shadows trying to consume shadows.

Nobody on either side seemed to pay her much attention. That was common. For most of her life, her father had wished that she would vanish. Those in high society were very good at pretending she didn’t exist. Even Waxillium seemed to forget she was along sometimes.

Well, so be it. She took a deep breath, and strode directly into the fight. As she neared two struggling men, she dodged in, as if trying to do something to help—then flung herself to the side as if she’d been hit. It was a fair impression, in her opinion.

She heard Reddi curse her name from somewhere in the alleyway, but nobody came to her rescue. They kept trying very assiduously to kill one another, and so Marasi crept along the ground, crawling in the shadows until she neared the carriage.

Two guards stood here. Drat. She needed to get past them. How?

She glanced back toward the fight. It had moved farther up the alley, the constables being forced to retreat before superior numbers. They were probably far enough away that Marasi could try something truly desperate.

She used her Allomancy.

For a brief moment, she engaged a speed bubble that caught herself and just the two guards. She extinguished her metal immediately. Only seconds had passed outside.

It was still jarring. The mists seemed to zip with sudden speed around them, and the combatants lurched in their motions. The two guards jumped in surprise, looking around. Marasi did her best impression of a corpse.