The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,121

foolish as to not realize that we could simply—”

“Shut it,” Waxillium growled.

Allik flinched.

“Doesn’t work?” Waxillium asked.

Allik shook his head. “They interfere with each other.”

“So to create one with multiple powers…”

“You must be very skilled,” Allik said. “More skilled than any who has lived among us. Or…” He chuckled. “Or you’d have to have all the powers, rather than adding yours to the medallion, then passing it to another to have it added to! If that were the case, you’d be a great god indeed. As powerful as the Sovereign.”

“He did create one of these,” Waxillium said, rubbing the medallion with his thumb. “One with all of the abilities. A bracer, or a set of them, that granted all sixteen Allomantic abilities and all sixteen Feruchemical abilities.”

Allik wilted.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Allik?” Waxillium asked, looking into the man’s eyes.

Marasi leaned forward. Waxillium said he wasn’t good at reading people, but he was wrong. He was great at it—so long as reading them involved bullying them.

“Yes,” Allik whispered.

“You traveled from your lands to find the Bands of Mourning,” Waxillium said. “Why are they up here?”

“Hidden away,” Allik said. “When the Sovereign left us, he took them with him, along with his priests, his closest servants. Well, some of them eventually returned, yah? With stories to tell. He’d taken them on a great journey, and had them build a temple for him in a hidden range of mountains. He’d left the priests there, with the Bands, and told them to protect them until he returned for them. And, that was dumb, yah? Because we could really use those to fight the Deniers of Masks.”

“Deniers of masks? Like us?”

“No, no,” Allik said, laughing. “You’re just barbarians. The Deniers are really dangerous.”

“Hey,” Wayne called from behind them, hair whipping in the wind, hat held in his hands. When had he woken up? “We knocked your big ship outta the sky, didn’t we?”

“You?” Allik said, laughing. “No, no. You could not have so harmed Brunstell. He fell to a great storm. It is a danger of our ships—so light, so easily troubled by storms. We would have landed Brunstell, but we were in the mountains, searching. We were so close to the temple, but then … yah. Blown out of the mountains over your lands. Smashed into that poor village. The barbarians there were nice at first. Then the others came.”

He shrank down in his chair.

Waxillium patted him on the shoulder.

“Thank you, Wonderful One,” Allik said. He heaved a sigh. “Well, ever since the Sovereign’s elite told us the stories, we’ve tried to find the bracers.”

“Find them?” Waxillium said. “You told us he’d left the Bands there for himself.”

“Well, yah, but everyone interprets it as a challenge. A test sent by the Sovereign? He was fond of those. Why would he let priests tell us about them, if he didn’t want us to come claim them?

“Only, after years of searching, everyone started thinking the temple was some fancy legend, lost in time. Everyone’s uncle had a map, yah? The type worth less than the paper it’s written on? But then, recently, some interesting stories started circulating. Talk of lands up here, and of mountains nobody had explored. We sent several scout vessels, and they returned with stories of your people, in this land.

“Well, five or six years back, the Hunters sent a big ship up with a quest to finally find the temple. And they succeeded, we think. One skimmer came back with a map of where they’d been. The rest froze to death; a blizzard in the mountains overwhelmed their medallions.”

Wind rocked the small ship as Allik fell silent.

“We’re going after that temple, right?” Marasi asked, looking at Waxillium.

“Damn right we are.”

22

Marasi had plenty of time to think as they traveled southward toward the mountains. Allik guessed the trip would take about two hours, which surprised her. She’d imagined an airship to be a fast-moving vehicle, but this was likely slower than a train. Still, being able to proceed there in a straight line instead of having to follow the landscape was a distinct advantage.

Even with the fans whirring in their casings, the airship seemed to spend much of its time gliding. Allik would increase their height or lower it, trying to find favorable winds—and he complained that he didn’t know the airstreams of this area. He did his navigation using devices she didn’t recognize along with some startlingly accurate maps of the lower Basin. How often had these people prowled through the