The Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4)(77)

He nodded to Clamps, who was watching over the men. The scarred man nodded back. He was loyal enough, though he had joined up for the thrill of robbery rather than the purpose of any cause. Of them all, only Tarson—dear, brutal Tarson—had anything resembling true loyalty.

Clamps claimed to be dedicated, though Miles knew otherwise. Well, Clamps hadn’t been the one to fire the first shot in the last mess. For all Miles’s professions about wanting to change things, his temper—and not his mind—had eventually ruled.

He should have been better than that. He was a man created to have a steady hand and an even steadier mind. Made by Trell, inspired by the Survivor, yet still weak. Miles questioned himself often. Was that the mark of a lack of dedication? He’d never done anything in his life without questioning.

He turned, studying his domain, such as it was. Thieves, murderers, and braggarts. He took a deep breath, then burned gold.

It was considered one of the least of the Allomantic metals. Far less useful than its alloy, which was in turn far less useful than one of the prime battle metals. In most cases, being a gold Misting was little better than being an aluminum Misting—a power so useless, it had become proverbial for one who did nothing.

But gold was not completely useless. Just mostly so. Upon burning it, Miles split. The change was visible only to his own senses, but for a moment, he was two people, two versions of himself. One was the man he had been. The angry lawkeeper, growing more bitter by the day. He wore a white duster over rugged clothing, with tinted spectacles to shade his eyes against the harsh sun. Dark hair kept short and greased back. No hat. He’d always hated those.

The other man was the man he’d become. Dressed in the clothing of a city worker—buttoned shirt and suspenders over dirty trousers with fraying cuffs. He walked with a slouch. When had that begun?

He could see through both pairs of eyes, think both sets of thoughts. He was two people at once, and each one loathed the other. The lawkeeper was intolerant, angry, and frustrated. He hated anything that broke with the strict order of the law, and meted out harsh punishments with no mercy. He had a special loathing for someone who had once followed the law, but had turned his back upon it.

The robber, the Vanisher, hated that the lawkeeper let others choose his rules. There was really nothing sacred about the law. It was arbitrary, created by powerful men to help them hold power. The criminal knew that secretly, deep down, the lawkeeper understood this. He was severe toward criminals because he felt so impotent. Each day, life grew worse for the good people, the people who tried, and the laws did little to help them. He was like a man swatting mosquitoes while ignoring the gash in his leg, an artery open and throbbing gushes of blood onto the floor.

Miles gasped, and extinguished his gold. He felt weary, suddenly, and slumped back against the wall. His two minders watched him with emotionless expressions.

“Go,” Miles said to them, waving a weak hand. “Check over my men. Use your Allomancy to determine if any of them accidentally left metal on their bodies. I want them clean.”

The two men looked at each other. They didn’t behave as if they cared to obey him.

“Go,” Miles said more firmly. “So long as you’re here, you should be useful.”

After another moment of hesitation, the two men walked away to do as ordered. Miles slumped down farther, back to the wall, breathing in and out.

Why do I do that to myself?

There had been considerable speculation about what a gold Misting really saw when burning his metal. A past version of himself, certainly. Was it the person he had actually been? Or was it a person he might have become, if he’d chosen another branching path of his life? That possibility had always struck him as sounding reminiscent of the mythical lost metal, atium.

Either way, he liked to think that burning his gold on occasion helped him—that each time he did it, it let him take the best of what he had been and mix it with the best of what he could be. An alloy of himself, then.

It disturbed him how much the two people he became hated each other. He could almost feel it like an oven’s heat, radiating from coal and stone.

He stood back up. Some of the men were staring at him, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t like the criminal bosses he’d often arrested in the Roughs. They had to worry about looking strong in front of their men, lest they be killed by someone who wanted to seize power.

Miles couldn’t be killed, and his men knew it. He’d once put a shotgun to his own head in front of them to prove it.

He walked over to a pile of trunks and boxes. A few were full of things Mister Suit had ordered stolen from Wax’s mansion, effects the man hoped would help them fight—or perhaps frame—the former lawkeeper. Suit had resisted killing Wax at first, for some reason.

Miles left them and walked around to the back side, where his own trunks had been deposited following the hasty evacuation of their old hideout. He picked through a few, then opened one. His white duster was inside. He took it out, shaking it, then got out a pair of sturdy Roughs trousers and a matching shirt. He slipped his tinted spectacles into the pocket, then went to change.

He’d been worried about hiding, worried that he’d be recognized and branded an outlaw. Well, an outlaw was what he had become. If this was the path he had chosen, he could at least walk it with pride.

Let them see me for what I am.

He would not turn from his course. It was too late to change one’s aim when the hammer was already falling. But it wasn’t too late to straighten his back.