The Alloy of Law
This room was very curious. A large tunnel led off into darkness on the left side of the chamber, and railway tracks were set into it. The beginnings, Mister Suit said, of an underground railway line in the city. How would it cut through the canals? It would have to run under them, he guessed. A strange image.
As of now, that tunnel was only a test. It led a short distance to a large wooden building, where Miles could quarter the rest of his men. He had another thirty or so. At the moment, they were bringing in boxes of supplies and what was left of their aluminum. There wasn’t much. In one blow, Wax had all but upended the Vanishers.
Miles puffed on his cigar, thoughtful. As always, he was drawing upon his goldmind, invigorating himself, refreshing his body. He never felt sick, never lacked energy. He still had to sleep, and he still grew old, but other than that, he was practically immortal. So long as he had enough gold.
That was the problem though, wasn’t it? Smoke curled in front of him, twisting upon itself like the mists.
“Boss?” Clamps asked. “Mister Suit is waiting. Aren’t you going to go meet with him?”
Miles blew out smoke. “In a moment.” Suit did not own him. “How is recruitment, Clamps?”
“It’s … I’ll need more time. One day ain’t enough, ’specially following half of us getting slaughtered.”
“Watch your tone,” Miles said.
“Sorry.”
“Wax was bound to enter the game eventually,” Miles said softly. “He changes the rules, and it is true that we lost far more men than I would have liked. We are fortunate at the same time, however. Now that Waxillium has entered, we can anticipate him.”
“Boss,” Tarson said, leaning in, “there’s talk among the men. That you and Wax … that you two set us all up.” He cringed back, as if expecting a violent reaction.
Miles puffed on his cigar, and managed to contain his initial burst of anger. He was getting better at that. A little. “Why would they say that?”
“You were once a lawkeeper, and all…”
“I still am,” Miles said. “What we do, it is not outside the law. Not the true law. Oh, the rich will make their own codes, will force us to live by them. But our law is the law of humanity itself.
“Men who work for me, they are given the dispensation of reform. Their work here washes away their previous … infractions. Tell them I am proud of them, Clamps. I realize we’ve been through something traumatic, but we did survive. We will face tomorrow with greater strength.”
“I’ll tell ’em, boss,” Clamps said.
Miles covered a grimace. He couldn’t decide if the words were the right ones or not; he wasn’t meant for preaching. But the men needed conviction from him, so conviction he would display. “Fifteen years,” he said softly.
“Boss?”
“Fifteen years I spent out in the Roughs, trying to protect the weak. And you know what? It never got better. All that effort, it meant nothing. Children still died, women were still abused. One man wasn’t enough to change things, not with the corruption here at the heart of civilization.” He took a puff on his cigar. “If we’re going to change things, we need to change them here, first.”
And Trell help me if I’m wrong. Why had Trell made men like him, if not to see wrongs righted? The Words of Founding had even included a lengthy explanation of Trellism and its teachings, which proved men like Miles were special.
He turned and moved along the walkway. It hung like a balcony on the north side of the large chamber. Tarson and Clamps stayed behind; they knew he liked to be alone when he faced Mister Suit.
Miles pulled open the door at the end of the walk, and entered Mister Suit’s office. Why he needed an office here, Miles didn’t know; perhaps he’d be keeping a closer eye on operations at this new base. Mister Suit had wanted them here from the beginning. It annoyed Miles that he’d finally had to accept the offer—it put him more closely under his backer’s thumb.
Enough good robberies, and we won’t need him any longer, Miles told himself. Then we can move somewhere else.
Mister Suit was a round-faced man with a full gray-streaked beard. He sat at his desk sipping a cup of tea and wearing an extremely stylish and expensive suit of black silk with a turquoise vest. As Miles entered, he was studying a broadsheet.
“You know I don’t like the smell of those,” Mister Suit said without looking up.
Miles puffed his cigar anyway.
Mister Suit smiled. “Did I hear that your old friend has already located your previous base of operations?”
“Men were captured,” Miles said simply. “It was only a matter of time.”
“They aren’t very loyal to your cause.”
Miles had no response to that. They both knew that most of his men worked for the money, and not for any greater purpose.
“Do you know why I like you, Miles?” Mister Suit asked.
I don’t particularly care if you do or not, Miles thought, but held his tongue.
“You’re careful,” Mister Suit continued. “You have a goal, you believe in it, but you don’t let it cloud your vision. In fact, your cause is not so different from that of my associates and me. I think it is a worthy goal, and you a worthy leader.” Mister Suit turned over his broadsheet. “The shootings at the last robbery threaten to undermine my confidence in that assessment.”
“I…”
“You lost your temper,” Mister Suit said, voice growing cold, “and you therefore lost control of your men. That is why this disaster occurred. There was no other reason.”
“You should have been ready for him.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Mister Suit sipped his tea. “Come now, Miles. You wore a mask on your face. You knew there was a chance he’d come.”
“I wore a mask,” Miles said, keeping his temper with some effort, “because I am a man of some renown. Wax wasn’t the only one who could have recognized me.”
“A valid point, I suppose. But then, with how dramatic you insist on being—cargo that vanishes, rather than just being stolen, it makes me wonder why you avoid being recognized.”
“The drama serves a purpose,” Miles snapped. “I’ve told you. So long as the police are baffled by how we’re getting the cargo, it will keep them making mistakes.”
“And the drama?” Suit said idly, turning over a newspaper on his desk. “The ‘Vanishers,’ Miles?”
He said nothing. He’d explained his reasons before, the ones he let Suit know of. There was more to it, of course. He needed to be dramatic, needed to capture the public’s attention. Miles was out to change the world. You couldn’t do that if people thought of you as common thieves. Mystery, power, a pinch of magic … that could work wonders for his cause.
“No comment,” Suit said. “Well, your reasoning has proven valid in the past. Except when it comes to Waxillium. I’ll admit, Miles, that part of me wonders. Is there some ancient grudge between the two of you I should be aware of? Something that, perhaps, would have caused you to act recklessly?” Mister Suit’s eyes were as cold as iron. “Something that would have made you try to goad him into attacking during that party? So you could fight him?”
Miles held that gaze, then leaned down, hands on the table, fingers gripping his cigar. “I have no grudge against Waxillium Ladrian. He is one of the finest men this world has known. A finer man than you or I, or practically anyone else in this city.”
“And this is supposed to comfort me? You all but say that you won’t fight him.”
“Oh, I’ll fight him. Kill him, if I have to. Wax chose the wrong side. Men like him, men like me, we have a choice. Serve the people or serve the wealthy. He abandoned his right to protection the moment he returned to this city and started mingling with them.”
“Curious,” Suit said. “I’m also one of them, you know.”
“I work with what I have. And besides, you have … other things recommending you. Especially since you did renounce your claim to privilege.”
“Not to privilege,” Suit said. “Merely to title. And I still think you intended to provoke Waxillium. That’s why you shot Peterus.”
“I shot Peterus because he was an impostor,” Miles snapped. “He pretended to seek justice, and everyone praised him for it, but all the while he was pandering to the elite and the corrupt. In the end, they let him come play at their parties, like a favored dog. I put him down.”
Mister Suit nodded slowly. “Very well.”
“I will clean this city up, Suit. Even if I have to rip out its blackened heart with my fingernails, I’ll do it. But you’re going to need to get me more aluminum.”
“I am setting things in motion,” Suit said. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a rolled sheet of paper. He set it in front of Miles.
Miles took off the string and unrolled the paper. Schematics. “Tekiel’s new ‘unrobbable’ freight car?”
Suit nodded.
“It will take time to—” Miles began.
“I’ve had people working on this for some time now. Your job is not the planning, Miles. Your job is the execution. I will see that you have the resources you need.”
Miles looked over the blueprint. Suit was connected. Powerful. Miles couldn’t help feeling that he’d gotten himself entangled in something far beyond his control. “My men are still holding the latest captive,” he said. “What do you want done with her?”
“That will be arranged,” Suit said. He took a sip of his tea. “If I had been paying closer attention, I would have removed that one from the list. Waxillium will not stop seeking her. It would have been so much easier if the explosion had worked. Now we must contemplate more direct action.”
“I’ll deal with him personally,” Miles said. “Today.”
* * *
“Miles Dagouter is Twinborn,” Waxillium said, leaning forward in their train car. “A particularly dangerous variety of Twinborn.”
“Double gold,” Wayne said with a nod, reclining on the cushioned bench opposite Waxillium. Outside, the outer suburbs of Elendel passed in a blur.
Marasi sat on the bench near Wayne. “Gold Allomancers aren’t particularly dangerous, from what I’ve read.”
“No,” Waxillium said. “They aren’t. But it’s the Compounding that makes Miles so powerful. If your Allomancy and Feruchemy share a metal, you can access its power tenfold. It’s complicated. You store an attribute inside the metal, then burn it to release the power. It’s called Compounding. By the legends, it’s the way the Sliver gained immortality.”
Marasi frowned. “I’d assumed stories of Miles’s extraordinary healing abilities to be exaggerations. I assumed he was just a Bloodmaker, like Wayne.”
“Oh, he’s a Bloodmaker all right,” Wayne said, spinning a dueling cane around his wrist and catching it again. “Except he doesn’t ever run out of health.”