The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,27

yelped. “Nope, can’t do it. Gotta go.”

“Well,” Wayne huffed, climbing out. “I’ve never been treated in such a manner! And we’re not even halfway down portway!”

“Sorry, my lord!” the man said, poling away as quickly as he could. “Sorry!”

Wayne cocked his hat, grinned, and checked the sign hanging from the streetlamp. Exactly where he’d wanted to go, and not a clip paid. He started whistling and strolled along the canal, keeping an eye out for a better offering. What would the god want?

Maybe that? he wondered, eyeing a line of people waiting at Old Dent’s roadside cart, wanting to buy some of his fried potatoes. Seemed a good bet.

Wayne wandered over. “Need some help, Dent?”

The old man looked up and wiped his brow. “Five clips a small pouch, eight for a large, Wayne. And don’t eat none of the stock, or I’ll fry your fingers.”

Wayne grinned, slipping behind the cart as the man turned back to his brazier and stirred a batch that was frying. Wayne took the customers’ money—and didn’t eat much of the stock—until the last man in line arrived, a fancy-looking fellow in a doorman’s jacket. Probably worked at one of the hotels down the lane. Good tips at those jobs.

“Three large,” the man said.

Wayne got his potatoes, took the man’s money, then hesitated. “Actually,” Wayne said, holding up a note, “do you have change? We got too many large bills.”

“I suppose,” the man said, digging in his nice eelskin wallet.

“Great, here’s a twenty.”

“I’ve got two fives and ten ones,” the man said, putting them down.

“Thanks.” Wayne took them, then hesitated. “Actually, I’ve got plenty of ones. Could I get that ten I saw in your wallet?”

“Fine.”

Wayne gave him a handful of coins and took the ten.

“Hey,” the man said, “there are only seven here.”

“Whoops!” Wayne said.

“What are you doing, Wayne?” Old Dent said. “There’s more change in the box under there.”

“Really?” Wayne glanced. “Rusts. Okay, how about you just give me my twenty back?” He counted the man back thirteen and poured the coins and bills into his hand.

The man sighed, and gave Wayne the twenty. “Can I just get some sauce for my chips?”

“Sure, sure,” Wayne said, squeezing some sauce onto the pouches, beside the potatoes. “That’s a nice wallet. Whaddaya want for it?”

The man hesitated, looking at his wallet.

“I’ll give you this,” Wayne said, plucking the flower off his ear and holding it out with a banknote worth ten.

The man shrugged and handed over the empty wallet, taking the bill and stuffing it in his pocket. He threw the flower away. “Idiot,” the man said, marching off with his potatoes.

Wayne tossed the wallet up and caught it again.

“Did you shortchange that man, Wayne?” Old Dent asked.

“What’s that?”

“You got him to give you fifty, and you gave him back forty.”

“What?” Wayne said, stuffing the wallet in his back pocket. “You know I can’t count that high, Dent. ’Sides, gave him ten extra at the end.”

“For his wallet.”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “The flower was for the wallet. The bill was ’cuz I somehow ended up with an extra ten completely on accident, very innocent-like.” He smiled, helped himself to a pouch of chips, and went wandering off.

That wallet was nice. His god would like that. Everyone needed wallets, right? He got it out and opened and closed it repeatedly, until he noticed that one side was worn.

Rusts. He’d been cheated! This wouldn’t work at all for an offering. He shook his head, walking along the canal promenade. A pair of urchins sat on one side, hands out for coins. The melancholy sound of a busker rose from a little farther down the path. Wayne was near the Breakouts, a nice slum, and he caught whiffs of their distinctive odor. Fortunately the aroma wafting from a nearby bakery overwhelmed most of it.

“Here’s the thing,” he said to one of the urchins, a girl not seven. He settled down on his haunches. “I ain’t travailed enough.”

“… Sir?” the girl asked.

“In the old stories of quests, you gotta travail. That’s like traveling, but with an ailment stapled on. Headaches and the like; maybe a sore backside too.”

“Can … can I have a coin, sir?”

“Ain’t got no coins,” Wayne said, thinking. “Damn. In the stories they always tip the urchins, don’t they? Lets ya know they’re the heroes and such. Hold here for a sec.”

He stood up and burst into the bakery, real heroic-like. A woman behind the counter was just pulling a rack of meat buns out of the oven.