Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5)(32)
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* * *
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6
Wax soared through the air above Elendel, hat held by its strings to his neck, mistcoat waving behind him like a banner. Below, the city bustled and moved, people swarming through its roadway arteries. Some glanced at him, but most ignored him. Allomancers were not the rarity here they had been in the Roughs.
All these people, Wax thought, Pushing off a fountain shaped like mists condensing into Harmony with arms upraised, bracers glittering golden on the otherwise green copper statue. Women sat on its stone edge; children played in its waters. Motorcars and horse carriages broke around it, sweeping to the sides and charging down other roads, going about the ever-important business of city life.
So many people—and here, in the Fourth Octant, a frightening percentage of them were his responsibility. To begin with he paid their wages, or oversaw those who did; on the solvency of his house rested the financial stability of thousands upon thousands. But that was only part of it; because through his seat in the Senate, he represented any who worked for him, or who lived on properties he owned.
Two divisions within the Senate. One side, the representatives of the professions, was elected and came and went as people’s needs changed. The other side, the seats of the noble houses, was stable and immutable—not subject to the whims of voters. The governor, elected by the seats, presided over them all.
A good enough system, except it meant that Wax was supposed to look after tens of thousands of individuals he could never know. His eye twitched, and he turned, Pushing off some rebar sloppily left sticking from a tenement wall.
Towns were better in the Roughs, where you could know everyone. That way you could care for them, and really feel you were doing something. Marasi would argue that statistically, leading his house here was more effective in creating general human happiness, but he wasn’t a man of numbers; he was a man who trusted his gut. His gut missed knowing the people he served.
Wax landed on a large water tower near a glass dome covering his octant’s largest Church of the Survivor. People were worshipping inside, though a greater number would come at dusk to await the mists. The Church revered the mists, and yet with that glass dome they still separated themselves from it. Wax shook his head, then Pushed off along the nearby canal.
He’s probably finished by now, Wax thought. He’ll be on one of the nearby docks, listening to the lapping water.…
He continued along the canal, which was cluttered with boats. Tindwyl Promenade, which ran along this canal, was crowded—even more so than usual. Dense with life. It was difficult not to feel subsumed by the great city, engulfed, overwhelmed, insignificant. Out in the Roughs Wax hadn’t just enforced the law; he had interpreted it, revised it when needed. He had been the law.
Here he had to dance around egos and secrets.
As Wax searched for the right dock, he was surprised to eventually find the reason for the traffic on the promenade. It was all bunched up, trying to get through a large clot of men with signs. Wax passed overhead, and was shocked to see a small cluster of constables from the local octant amid the picketers—they were being pressed on all sides by the shouting men, waving signs in an uncomfortably violent manner.
Wax dropped through the air and Pushed lightly on the nails in the promenade boards here, slowing his descent. He landed in a crouch in an opening nearby, mistcoat flaring, guns clinking.
The picketers regarded him for a long moment, then broke apart, taking off in different directions. He didn’t even have to say a word. In moments the beleaguered constables emerged, like stones on the plain as the soil washed away in a sudden rain.
“Thanks, sir,” said their captain, an older woman whose blonde hair poked down straight about an inch on all sides around her constable’s hat.
“They’re getting violent?” Wax asked, watching the last of the picketers vanish.
“Didn’t like us trying to move them off the promenade, Dawnshot,” the woman said. She shivered. “Didn’t expect it to go so bad, so fast.…”
“Can’t say I blame them much,” one of the other constables said, a fellow with a neck like a long-barreled pistol. His fellows turned to him, and he hunched down. “Look, you can’t say you don’t have mates among them. You can’t say you haven’t heard them grumble. Something needs to change in this city. That’s all I’m saying.”
“They don’t have the right to block a main thoroughfare,” Wax said, “no matter their grievances. Report back to your precinct, and make sure you bring more men next time.”