Mistborn #04 The Alloy of Law

would be back to cut Geormin down. Right now, he couldn’t afford to make the noise. At least he knew he was on the right track. This was certainly Bloody Tan’s lair.
    There was another patch of light in the distance. How long was this tunnel? He approached the pool of light, and here found another corpse, this one hung on the wall sideways. Annarel, a visiting geologist who had vanished soon after Geormin. Poor woman. She’d been dried in the same manner, body spiked to the wall in a very specific pose, as if she were on her knees inspecting a pile of rocks.
    Another pool of light drew him onward. Clearly this wasn’t a cellar—it was probably some kind of smuggling tunnel left over from the days when Feltrel had been a booming town. Tan hadn’t built this, not with those aged wooden supports.
    Wax passed another six corpses, each lit by its own glowing lantern, each arranged in some kind of pose. One sat in a chair, another strung up as if flying, a few stuck to the wall. The later ones were more fresh, the last one recently killed. Wax didn’t recognize the slender man, who hung with hand to his head in a salute.
    Rust and Ruin, Wax thought. This isn’t Bloody Tan’s lair … it’s his gallery.
    Sickened, Wax made his way to the next pool of light. This one was different. Brighter. As he approached, he realized that he was seeing sunlight streaming down from a square cut in the ceiling. The tunnel led up to it, probably to a former trapdoor that had rotted or broken away. The ground sloped in a gradual slant up to the hole.
    Wax crawled up the slope, then cautiously poked his head out. He’d come up in a building, though the roof was gone. The brick walls were mostly intact, and there were four altars in the front, just to Wax’s left. An old chapel to the Survivor. It seemed empty.
    Wax crawled out of the hole, his Sterrion at the side of his head, coat marred by dirt from below. The clean, dry air smelled good to him.
    “Each life is a performance,” a voice said, echoing in the ruined church.
    Wax immediately ducked to the side, rolling up to an altar.
    “But we are not the performers,” the voice continued. “We are the puppets.”
    “Tan,” Wax said. “Come out.”
    “I have seen God, lawkeeper,” Tan whispered. Where was he? “I have seen Death himself, with the nails in his eyes. I have seen the Survivor, who is life.”
    Wax scanned the small chapel. It was cluttered with broken benches and fallen statues. He rounded the side of the altar, judging the sound to come from the back of the room.
    “Other men wonder,” Tan’s voice said, “but I know. I know I’m a puppet. We all are. Did you like my show? I worked so hard to build it.”
    Wax continued along the building’s right wall, his boots leaving a trail in the dust. He breathed shallowly, a line of sweat creeping down his right temple. His eye was twitching. He saw corpses on the walls in his mind’s eye.
    “Many men never get a chance to create true art,” Tan said. “And the best performances are those which can never be reproduced. Months, years, spent preparing. Everything placed right. But at the end of the day, the rotting will begin. I couldn’t truly mummify them; I hadn’t the time or resources. I could only preserve them long enough to prepare for this one show. Tomorrow, it will be ruined. You were the only one to see it. Only you. I figure … we’re all just puppets … you see…”
    The voice was coming from the back of the room, near some rubble that was blocking Wax’s view.
    “Someone else moves us,” Tan said.
    Wax ducked around the side of the rubble, raising his Sterrion.
    Tan stood there, holding Lessie in front of him, her mouth gagged, her eyes wide. Wax froze in place, gun raised. Lessie was bleeding from her leg and her arm. She’d been shot, and her face was growing pale. She’d lost blood. That was how Tan had been able to overpower her.
    Wax grew still. He didn’t feel anxiety. He couldn’t afford to; it might make him shake, and shaking might make him miss. He could see Tan’s face behind Lessie; the man held a garrote around her neck.
    Tan was a slender, fine-fingered man. He’d been a mortician. Black hair, thinning, worn greased back. A nice suit that now shone with blood.
    “Someone else moves us, lawman,” Tan said softly.
    Lessie met Wax’s eyes. They both knew what to do in this situation. Last time, he’d been the one captured. People always tried to use them