The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,129

inside, where the temple had some kind of entryway. It had murals on either side, just like the ones that the strange kandra chap had shown back in Wax’s mansion. Wayne stepped up to one, beside Wax, who was inspecting it.

Yup. Same mural. One depicting a pair of bracers on a pedestal, the other—across the way—depicting the Lord Ruler wearing them.

“We’ve found the place for certain, then,” Wax said. “The statue was enough evidence, but this seals it. ReLuur was here.”

Together they left the entryway, stepping through its only door into a long, dark hallway. What were those lumps ahead? MeLaan and Steris held their lanterns higher, though nobody seemed to have any inclination to be the first one to proceed.

The masked fellow, though, he was muttering something in funny-talk. He seemed to be following something with his eyes. A metal pattern on the wall? He stepped to the side, and dug the little grenade from his pocket. He did something, opening its side, then used tweezers to extract what looked like a small nugget of metal. He shoved it into a cavity in the wall, then pulled down a lever.

Wayne heard what he thought was distant humming, then a series of small blue lights started glowing on the walls. As was appropriate to match the atmosphere of this rusting place, they were creepier than Steris in the morning. There were no bulbs or anything rational like that, just sections of the walls that seemed to be made of translucent glass that glowed in a downright gloomy way.

It was enough to light up the lumps on the floor. Bodies. A right disturbing number of them, lying in awkward positions. And those pools around them … frozen blood.

Wayne whistled softly. “They really went far to give this place a creepy look.”

“Those bodies weren’t here originally,” Wax said dryly. “I think they must be— Wayne, what the hell is that?”

“It fell right off,” Wayne said, clutching the spearhead, which was cold to the touch, even through the handkerchief. The tip was peeking out on one side. “I didn’t even look at it, Wax. Musta been loosened by the wind. See, it has a hole on the bottom for screwing off and—”

“Don’t touch anything,” Wax said, pointing at him. “Else.”

MeLaan gave him a look.

“You shut up,” Wayne said to her.

“Didn’t say a word, Wayne.”

“You implied one. That’s worse.”

Wax sighed, looking at the pilot fellow, who was inspecting some carvings on the wall. “Allik?” Wax said, then tapped the medallion he’d tied to his wrist.

The masked man sighed, but swapped out one of his medallions for the other. He immediately shivered. “I have now been to hell,” he said. “These mountains will rise all the way there for certain.”

“You think hell is in the sky?” Steris asked, standing close to Wax, practically clinging to him.

“Of course it is,” Allik said. “Dig down deep enough in the ground, and things get warm. Hell must be the other way. What did you want of me, Great Metallic Destroyer?”

Wax sighed. “Bodies,” he said, nodding down the hallway. “Traps?”

“Yes,” Allik said. “The ones who built this place were charged with protecting the Sovereign’s weapon. They knew others would eventually follow, and so the builders were bound to make it difficult, knowing that they could not remain to guard in person. Not in this place of ice and death. But…”

“What?” Wax said.

“Those masks,” Allik said.

“The masks of Hunters?” Wax asked.

Allik looked at him, shocked. “How did you recognize them?”

“I didn’t,” Wax said, walking forward carefully. Wayne joined him, as did MeLaan. Wax waved for Marasi, Steris, and Telsin to remain back, though he gestured for Allik to join them.

Together, the four of them walked to the first set of corpses. Wax knelt down beside the pool of frozen blood. The closest fellow had died miserably, with a spike through his chest. Wayne could see the trap now, the tip of it still jutting from the wall. The poor fellow’s mates must have tried to pull him free of the spike, but then had gotten caught in traps themselves.

The masks were different from Allik’s, that was for sure. Made of wood with bits of glass stuck to them, each in a different, odd pattern. And these ones showed the mouth, covering the top half the face, then running down the sides. The skin there, at the sides of the mask, seemed to have melded with the wood—though that might be because everything in here was as cold as a spinster’s