Harmony’s eyes softened. “Wayne. You aren’t the best I could do. You’re the best there is. And no being, neither god nor mortal, could have wished for more than one such as you.”
Wayne wanted to reject that. But damn, if God was sayin’ it … maybe … maybe Wax was right? About Wayne?
Damn. Had Wax been right all along?
“You don’t have to do this,” Harmony whispered. “I will never again force such a choice upon someone. Unfortunately, it is the only sure solution that I can think of, and my thoughts move with exceptional speed. This preserves, but it … destroys.”
“The only solution that is sure,” Wayne said. “There’s another?”
“It is possible — very slightly possible — that you could use your new powers to Push hard enough against upcoming sources of metal to hold the ship back, treading water, while we gain more time and figure something else out. It would be exceptionally difficult, but it’s plausible.”
“You can see the future,” Wayne said. “Would it work?”
“I can see probabilities,” Harmony said. “I can see what might happen. It is, at times, frustrating.”
“And … what are the chances that other option works?”
“One in a hundred, maybe.”
One in a hundred? A one percent chance at survival.
… And a ninety-nine percent chance it failed. Meaning a whole ton of people got vaporized.
Damn. What a day to leave his lucky hat behind.
“There’s this family what doesn’t have a daddy because of me,” Wayne said, stepping forward. “You’ll take care of them?”
“Of course.”
“Will Wax survive this?”
“Normally, no person could,” Harmony said. “Considering explosions in water are exceptionally dangerous. Fortunately, this one will be channeled mostly upward — and Wax has pewter now. So long as he burns the metals in those other vials I gave him, he should survive the blast. I will … do what I can to help Preserve him. But Wayne, there is nothing I can do for you. This blast will be too big.”
Wayne nodded, then hesitated, looking toward Harmony. “Will this … earn me forgiveness?”
“Oh, Wayne,” Harmony said. “You’ve heard this from Wax. You have to hear it from me too, I think. You can’t do this for forgiveness. You need no forgiveness, not anymore.”
And … he was right.
Wayne wasn’t doing this for forgiveness, or out of shame, or out of a need to prove himself. He wasn’t the man he’d been when Wax pulled him out of his hiding place. He was someone different.
“Wayne,” Harmony asked, “do you know who you are?”
“Yeah, I know who I am,” Wayne said. “I’m the God. Damn. HERO.” He paused. “Sorry.”
“Under the circumstances,” Harmony said, smiling, “I understand. Each of those barrels has a hole in the top, to draw in air once the explosion starts. The harmonium has been removed from its oil bath and is currently being heated. That means if you pour water in, it will detonate the harmonium. That will destroy the mechanism that heats up the bomb, and will prevent the much greater explosion. Once you pour, use your Allomancy to Push the barrel out of the speed bubble.”
“Right, then,” Wayne said. “I’m gonna need your hat.”
“My … hat?”
“Gotta sculpt a speed bubble just right,” Wayne said, “and put everything I have into the Push. Burn so much bendalloy in one moment, it practically melts me from the inside — slow time so much, even electric signals get dull.”
“I don’t wear a hat.”
“You’re God. Improvise somethin’.”
Harmony paused, then touched Wayne on the head. He felt it start to glow, as if something had been settled there. Earrings too. He felt earrings like a proper Terrisman wore. Something he’d maybe always been, just in secret.
It wasn’t nothin’ magical. But when he wore someone’s hat, he thought he could understand them. And who was better to understand than God himself?
“Good,” Wayne said, adopting the proper accent. Old-fashioned, but Terris. Like Harmony. He dropped his speed bubble and gathered his power. “Hold on to your robes, my dear friend. This is going to be unlike anything you have seen before, I think.”
* * *
Marasi strode toward Blantach’s constabulary offices, Armal and a few of her friends in her wake, through a dark city content with its own business. Ignorant of the crisis.
Yet she felt something in the mists. Wax always talked about them in this supernatural way, a way she rarely felt.
Tonight though, they seemed to be holding their breath.
* * *
Steris froze on the docks. Her workers and constables were still busy doing as she asked, but something felt … odd? About the moment? She turned toward the waters and looked out across the misty sea.
Gripping the little silver spear she wore at her neck, she said a prayer.
* * *
“Now!” Harmony said.
Wayne made the perfect speed bubble. Most Allomancers with his powers couldn’t change the shape of a bubble. But bendalloy was so expensive, people couldn’t really afford to practice.
He could. He’d probably done this more than any person alive. In that moment, he made a bubble that contained the three barrel devices — but had a hole to exclude the device on the wall that coordinated the explosions.
Then he burned duralumin and Pushed.
People didn’t often refer to speed bubbles and slowness bubbles as Pushing and Pulling, like they talked about Steelpushes and Ironpulls. But it was the same. What Wayne did, it was Pushing on reality itself. Distorting it, shoving it inward, warping it.
Today he Pushed harder than any person in history. He Pushed like a god, on account of wearing Sazed’s own hat. On account of that strange metal, and on account of Wayne bein’ the hero. Time squeezed in around him, compressed like coal bein’ made into rustin’ diamond. Further, further, as a whole damn stomach full of bendalloy was burned in an instant.
God himself froze. Standing motionless. The bubble crystallized into a visible sphere. Lights that had been blinking halted, half-on. Something funny even happened to his eyesight, everything going all strange until he took another vial of Harmony’s metals and burned steel to see that way instead.
Go.
Canteen in hand, Wayne flooded the first bomb. He ducked back as the water dripped, then Pushed that barrel right out of the speed bubble as the explosion started. It transfixed him momentarily, fire and light erupting from the barrel, all outlined in these strange blue lines. As if that barrel was releasing its soul to the afterlife.
Cracks started to appear in his crystallized speed bubble. Damn. Wayne leaped to the second barrel and poured, then Pushed it out too. It sent electric warnings up the wires — but the box that controlled the detonation was stuck in slow time, the signals moving like molasses.
Damn, how fast was he moving? And he’d thought he was getting slow because of old age. Heh.
He slammed into the third barrel and dumped the rest of the canteen’s water out into it. He Pushed it, then turned, gazing out at all three barrels hanging motionless in time. He was going so fast, only the first one was exploding, and that because he’d taken the longest to Push it out. The blast was completely halted now.
He let out a breath and dropped the canteen. He’d been gobbled up, it was true. But when that happened, you strangled the monster from the inside.
His crystalline speed bubble shattered.
And all became red light and blossoms of fire.