Wax breathed out. “Seems proof it’s a God Metal.”
“Indeed,” Steris said, scribbling notes in the darkness.
“Someone tell the dumb conner what’s happening,” Marasi said. “How is this proof of anything?”
“It’s complicated,” Wax said. “Each element has a kind of signature, represented by the wavelengths it releases when heated. It’s basically a way to identify elements and compounds. Like using fingerprints to identify a person.”
“And this metal,” Steris said, “somehow projects a full spectrum, as if it were made of pure white light. But it also has something strange happening in the red, as if it has a light beyond what the machine can calculate or read.”
“I’ve only seen something like this once before,” Wax said.
“From harmonium?” Marasi guessed.
“Yes.” He tapped the table, then shook his head. “In dealing with these metals, so many things seem to break the laws of physics. I feel like I’m experimenting with something dangerously beyond our understanding.”
“Should we move to the safe box?” Steris asked.
“Probably wise,” Wax said. “Particularly since the next step is to put some of these shavings into acids.”
The “safe box” was Steris’s name for the small reinforced box they’d built into the back wall. Three feet square and three feet deep, it was made out of aluminum and steel, with a large safe-like door on the front. That door had a small plate of very thick glass at the top, so you could look in. This contraption could take a grenade without trouble, and had handled an ettmetal-water explosion before.
Harmonium — ettmetal — was highly unstable. You needed to keep it in oil, as it tended to react even to the air. Since they couldn’t know how trellium would respond to his acids, Wax set everything up inside the box, then latched it closed. From there, he could use some thin arms on gears inside to tip a little bit of trellium into each of the ten flasks of acid — and two flasks of a base.
Harmonium wasn’t affected by acids, but maybe this metal would be. Anything to give him more of a foothold, help him understand. As he worked, Marasi walked over to the wall where Steris and he had pinned ideas, experiments, and thoughts regarding harmonium. Rusts … the oldest of those were over five years old now. Wax found it depressing to realize how little progress they’d made.
“All of this,” Marasi said, reading the notes. “I don’t think I’ve looked at it closely before … You’re trying to split it.” She spun toward him. “You’ve been trying to divide harmonium into its base metals? You’re trying to create atium!”
He looked back into his viewer, continuing to dump flakes into the acid.
“Not just atium…” Marasi said. “Lerasium too? That’s the metal that … It created Mistborn! It’s explained in the records left by Harmony. Allomancy entered the world because the Lord Ruler gave lerasium to some of his followers, who burned it and were changed. Those first mythical Mistborn — they held incredible power. You’re trying to replicate that.”
“No,” Wax said. “I’m trying to see if it can be replicated.”
“All these years,” Marasi said, “and you never told me why you kept needing ettmetal? I thought you were trying to figure out how to make airships, like everyone else!”
“We’ve barely made any progress,” Wax said, finishing with the acids and turning away from the safe box. “But Marasi, don’t you see? The Set is devoted to restoring the ancient powers to people — they’ll use eugenics, Hemalurgy, anything. So if it’s possible to make lerasium again, we need to know about it.”
“You still could have told me,” she said.
“I wanted to have something useful to show first,” Wax said. He walked over to join her, passing Steris, who was fiddling with the trellium spike. Beside Marasi, he looked up at the wall of pinned ideas again. Remembered how thrilling it had been when first working on harmonium.
Getting some trellium to play with had awakened that again. But now, staring at this board, he remembered the rest of the experience. The slow, steady realization that he wasn’t going to crack this particular puzzle. He’d worked on enough hopeless cases to realize when one was growing cold.
He was a hobbyist, not an expert. He’d shared his notes with the people at the university, and they’d thanked him — but had plainly already made the same observations. If a breakthrough with ettmetal was going to happen, it would come from those dedicated scientists working to build Elendel its own airships, Allomantic grenades, and Feruchemical medallions.
He would probably have to turn the trellium spike over to them. He’d have his fun for a few days, but this was too important to keep from the real experts.
“Waxillium?” Steris said from behind. “You should come look at this.”
“What?” he asked, turning.
“The trellium spike,” she said, “is reacting to the harmonium.”
14
Wayne ducked into the alley just in time. Those two fellows with the bowler hats passed by on the sidewalk a moment later. Wayne crouched there, heart pounding, and counted to a hundred before letting himself relax. Close call.
He’d mostly recovered from the meeting with MeLaan. In fact, he figured he’d handled it quite well. Nothing was broken, nobody was broken but him, and he’d only needed three shots of whiskey to get moving after. Plus, he’d realized what his day was going to be.
It was a rusting funeral.
You could take quests and flush them away. He was having a funeral today, and that was that. He had worn his nice jacket and a matching hat, all fancy and proper. He even had a flower in the lapel, which he’d paid for. With actual money. Fancy is as fancy does.
He rejoined the procession on the street outside. Yes, they all seemed to know it was a funeral day, they did. So many heads down rather than looking up at the sun. So many dull faces, like they were the dead, still up and moving because … well, in the city, there were jobs to do.
Did dead people think funerals were celebrations? Initiation parties? Reverse birthdays?
He kept his head down, acting like a member of the masses on the sidewalk. This city, it just had so many people. Floods of them on the streets in this part of the octant, the financial district, all in their funeral finest. It should have been easy for anyone to fit in since there was basically every sort of person you might want to meet. But somehow the financial district mashed people up into a similar ball of cravats and heels. You could almost not notice that some were Terris and others were koloss-blooded.
Hard to miss that rusting airship dominating the sky, but keeping your head down helped. Maybe today’s funeral was for the city itself. Or at least its naiveté.
The Drunken Spur was on Feder Way, right on the corner of Seventy-Third. You couldn’t miss it, what with the swinging wooden sign outside and the mannequins in Roughs gear in the window. Not a lot of upscale cafés used mannequins, but this place was special. Kind of like how a kid who ate mud was special. But Jaxy liked it, so one made accommodations. Wayne was an accommodating kind of person, he was.
He stepped inside and tried not to cringe too hard at what the serving staff was wearing. Roughs hats. Bright red shirts. Chaps? Oh, Ruin. He was going to gag. At least the greeter at the host’s stand was in a proper suit.