The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson [131]
Standing in the mouth of the smaller alleyway, waiting for her, was a tall man in a black robe.
She gasped, stepping backward. The man was well over six feet tall, and the enveloping robe gave him an ominous appearance. He brought up pale hands and took down his hood, exposing a shaved head and a face that was tattooed around the eyes in an intricate pattern.
Driven into those eyes, point-first, were what looked like a pair of thick railroad spikes. One of the eye sockets was deformed, as if it had been crushed, long-healed scars and bony ridges under the skin marring the tattoos.
Marasi knew this creature from mythology, but seeing him left her cold, terrified. “Ironeyes,” she whispered.
“I apologize for bringing you like this,” Ironeyes said. He had a quiet, gravelly voice.
“Like this?” she said, her voice coming out as almost a squeak.
“With emotional Allomancy. I sometimes Pull too hard. I’ve never been as good at this sort of thing as Breeze was. Be calm, child. I will not hurt you.”
She felt an instant calmness, though that felt terribly unnatural, and left her feeling even worse. Calm, but sick. One should not be calm when speaking with Death himself.
“Your friend,” Ironeyes said, “has uncovered something very dangerous.”
“And you wish him to stop?”
“Stop?” Ironeyes said. “Not at all. I wish him to be informed. Harmony has particular views about how things must be done. I do not always agree with him. Oddly, his particular beliefs require that he allow that. Here.” Ironeyes reached into the folds of his cloak, bringing out a small book. “There is information in this. Guard it carefully. You may read it, if you wish, but deliver it to Lord Waxillium on my behalf.”
She took the book. “Pardon,” she said, trying to fight through the numbness he had put inside her. Was she really speaking to a mythological figure? Was she going mad? She could barely think. “But why didn’t you take it to him yourself?”
Ironeyes responded with a tight-lipped smile, watching her with the heads of those silvery spikes. “I have a feeling he’d have tried to shoot me. That one does not like unanswered questions, but he does my brother’s work, and that is something I feel inclined to encourage. Good day, Lady Marasi Colms.”
Ironeyes turned, cloak rustling, and walked away down the alley. He put his hood up as he walked, then lifted into the air, propelled by Allomancy over the tops of the nearby buildings. He vanished from sight.
Marasi clutched the book, then slid it into her handbag, shaking.
* * *
Waxillium landed at the rail station, dropping as gently as he could from his Allomantic flight down the tracks. Landing still hurt his leg.
Wayne sat on the platform, feet up on a barrel, smoking his pipe. He still had his arm in a sling. He wouldn’t be able to heal it quickly—he had no health stored up. Trying to store some now would just make him heal more slowly during that process, then heal more quickly as he tapped his metalmind, ending with no net gain.
Wayne was reading a small novel that he’d picked out of someone’s pocket on their train ride out to the estates. He’d left an aluminum bullet in its place, worth easily a hundred times the price of the book. Ironically, the person who found it would probably throw it away, never realizing its value.
I’ll need to talk to him about that again, Waxillium thought, walking up onto the platform. But not today. Today, they had other worries.
Waxillium joined his friend, but continued staring to the south. Toward the city, and his uncle.
“It’s a pretty good book,” Wayne said, flipping a page. “You should try it. It’s about bunnies. They talk. Damnedest thing ever.”
Waxillium didn’t reply.
“So, was it your uncle?” Wayne asked.
“Yes.”
“Crud. I owe you a fiver, then.”
“The bet was for twenty.”
“Yeah, but you owe me fifteen.”
“I do?”
“Sure, for that bet I made that you’d end up helpin’ me with the Vanishers.”
Waxillium frowned,