Literature / The Lost Metal

WARNING: Late Arrival Spoilers abound for previous books in Wax and Wayne.

Fourth book in the Wax and Wayne series.

After the events of The Bands of Mourning, the Basin managed to avoid immediate civil war—but that does not mean all is done. Now, years later, Lord Waxilium Ladrian finds himself fighting hard in the legislature, struggling against both the Set's machinations and the nobility's own fear and stubbornness. He tries, and fails, to defeat a bill that will grant the Governor of Elendel complete authority over the entire Basin... without any say from anyone outside the city.

Meanwhile, Marasi and Wayne are following leads, and find everything pointing to Bilming, the industrial powerhouse of the outer cities. It seems as though Bilming has been completely taken over the the Set and their religion of Trell, the new god fighting to unseat Harmony. As everything comes to a head, everyone must decide what they are willing to do for peace, and what they can do to make up for the flaws of their government.

---

This book provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: Wax and Wayne use Hemalurgic spikes taken from the bodies of Set agents to give Wax the power to use duralumin and Wayne the power to Steelpush. At the end of the book, Wayne ingests Lerasium to become a Mistborn to perform his Heroic Sacrifice, while Harmony implies that Wax unknowingly became a Mistborn himself at the start of the book when he unknowingly created and ingested Lerasium during his attempt to split Harmonium.
• All There in the Manual: Moreso than any Cosmere novel so far, The Lost Metal draws heavily on other works from outside the Mistborn continuity. Things like the floating globe used to contact Kelsier (a Seon, as seen in Elantris), proper names like "Nalthis," and "Dor," and the systems of investiture used by the Ghostbloods are all explained in their native texts. Marasi gets the Cliffs Notes version of some of these systems, with bits not necessary for the reader to understand the plot left unexplained.
• Awesome, but Impractical: It's mentioned that using Shadesmar to travel between worlds is impractical at the best of times, and it is never going to be something that truly works on a massive scale. Take into account the fact that many Shards are watching the Cognitive Realm very closely, and it is a dangerous method of getting around. Kelsier insists that they need to find something better. A few hints scattered throughout the franchise imply that Scadrial ends up inventing a mostly normal form of space travel.
• Back for the Finale: Marsh/Ironeyes, last seen in the epilogue of The Alloy of Law, returns.
• BFG: Ranette's newest invention, simply called "the Big Gun".
• Bittersweet Ending: Equally heavy on the bitter and the sweet. Wayne dies disarming the harmonium-trellium nuke, but dies a hero finally at peace with himself. Civil war with the rest of the Basin cities has been averted, but the problems that lead to it still somewhat remain. The Malwish retake the Bands of Mourning and close off most channels with the Basin, implying Scadrial is about to enter its equivalent of the Cold War. Autonomy agrees to leave the planet and Harmony alone... for now, and it's implied that other forces and Shards out in the Cosmere are still VERY interested in Scadrial. Wax is finally allowed to retire from Harmony's service, but Harmony's Shards are starting to become more at odds with one another. Harmony nevertheless agrees to help Kelsier start advancing Scadrial's technology to better prepare itself for the wider Cosmere.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Kelsier and Sazed's argument in the epilogue. Sazed is right that giving the people of Scadrial advanced technological knowledge this relatively early in their industrial development is dangerous. He feels that this fruit of wisdom needs to be self-discovered and self-learned over the course of centuries. However, Kelsier's counterargument isn't wrong when he says they don't have that kind of breathing room any longer. Scadrial's barely repelled one incursion from the larger Cosmere; had Sazed been on his game, it would never have gotten this far and they were lucky this time. They can't count on that kind of luck again for the incursions that will be coming in the immediate future. Their people need to be prepared and ready if they're have any chance against technologically superior invaders.
• Captain Obvious: Wayne mentions that he "suspects" MeLaan is going to break up with him soon. When pressed, he admits that this is because she told him "Wayne, I'm going to break up with you soon."
• Caught Monologuing: Realizing that she's stalling him, Wax takes advantage of Telsin monologuing with her back to him to slip away from her.
• Chekhov's Gun: Several. Wax shows off Vindication Two and the Big Gun well before we see them in action. Wayne fires a gun early on, before using one surprises a foe, but not the reader. Moonlight's dangerous, experimental stamp perfectly complements the two jars of liquid Dor, and those inform Marasi what she can do to close the portal Autonomy's troops were going to invade through.
• The Chosen One: Telsin is the chosen avatar of Autonomy, taking in the seed of power that is Trell and becoming the planet's new god. Telsin is rather annoyed when she notes that, actually, Autonomy pretty clearly likes Wax better than her. When Telsin fails, Autonomy makes sure to mock her a bit before abandoning her.
• Code Name: The Ghostbloods use codenames for everything. Marasi's first contact is "Moonlight" (which confuses her because she doesn't know what a moon is), there's also "TwinSoul" (though he tells her his real name freely), and "Codenames Are Stupid" (she generally just goes by "Codenames").
• Control Freak: Autonomy is this one, in a case of Dramatic Irony lampshaded by many of her own underlings. Despite wanting her followers to be rugged individuals, she's not afraid to pull a You Have Failed Me. She wants them to individually and freely choose what she thinks is best. Best demonstrated with the city of Bilming. Every house is designed to be completely unique... but they all come from the plans of a single architect.
• Corrupt Politician: Wax uncovers a plot to buy votes to make sure a specific bill goes through. Unfortunately, he only finds conclusive proof that two people are complicit, so the vote proceeds with those two abstaining, and the bill still passes.
• Crossover Finale: Kaise and Shai both feature as members of the Ghostbloods.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Dumand and Getruda. They are each heavily trained to fight their own good counterpart, but not each other's.
• Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: Lampshaded and averted by Harmony towards Wax about Trell, or rather Autonomy. Harmony notes he's trying to be a bit more straightforward about things now.
• Death Is Gray: When Telsin suffers a Death by Depower as Autonomy rejects her as an avatar, her body turns grey for unknown reasons.
• Dimensional Traveler: Marasi meets a few Ghostbloods who are from off world, wielding alien forms of investiture. They're concerned about their normal travel methods becoming unreliable, a factor in Kelsier urging Harmony to fast-track the discovery of space travel.
• Double-Meaning Title: The titular "Lost Metal" refers to either atium (which Marsh needs to maintain his immortality), or lerasium (which Kelsier wanted to democratize Allomancy). Many people have tried to split harmonium in the belief that it will create atium and lerasium. It fails, but the giant explosion created instead is the biggest driver of the plot. As it turns out, the reaction does create atium and lerasium, just in amounts too small to be noticed.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • The government of Elendel thinks the best way to squash a rebellion is to make the governor legal authority of the entire Basin. Wax points out that this will do nothing but piss off everyone else, especially since no one outside Elendel gets to vote.
  • Wax realizes that Telsin is completely blind to his character development, still thinking of him as the angry kid who ran away to the Roughs because he didn't want to deal with house politics. This lets her outmaneuver her in subtle but important ways.
  • Wayne's double Getruda is trying to become him, seeing only the surface. When Wayne lets his shell crack and says that he doesn't like being himself because it's painful, Getruda thinks that she has to embrace pain.
• Doing In the Wizard: Marsh has become known as "Old Iron Eyes," and is seen as Scadrial's equivalent of the Grim Reaper. In this book, we learn that he's survived since the original trilogy by doing the same trick with Atium that the Lord Ruler used to live forever...and he's run out.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Dumand and Getruda, two Set agents who have approximations of Wax and Wayne's powers thanks to Hemalurgy. They also try to imitate the personalities of their counterparts, which frustrates Wayne since both of them are insultingly bad at it. After a few inconclusive clashes, Wax & Wayne invoke Opponent Switch and are able to kill the pair.
  • Autonomy is something of a foil to the Survivor, which might be part of why the Set uses so much Survivorist imagery and training. But while the church (and Kelsier himself) teaches to survive and help each other through the hard times, Autonomy deliberately sets people into dangerous situations so that the strong can survive.
• Evil Is Not a Toy:
  • Autonomy and the Set severely underestimate the yield of their Fantastic Nuke. Intended to only destroy the city of Elendel, Harmony notes that with the amount they have, if it detonated it could have ignited the atmosphere and caused a continent-wide Apocalypse How at the minimum. Justified, as while Autonomy's forces have similar technological levels, both are unfamiliar with the details of more advanced topics such as rocketry and nuclear physics.
  • Working with Autonomy at all, really. It's unclear when and why the Set originally started working with her, but by now the Set is just riding the tiger, hoping to prove that they can rule the world before Autonomy sends in her armies to destroy it. Telsin, in particular, dies unceremoniously when Autonomy withdraws her power and Telsin's enhanced body can no longer sustain itself.
• Fantastic Nuke: Harmonium being divided by Trellium causes a massive reaction. Unlike most examples of the trope, this isn't merely a giant bomb; it parallels real-life nuclear weapons at nearly every step.
  • The division is very similar to a fission device, complete with it requiring a great deal of electricity and not being something that can be set off accidentally.
  • The makers of the bomb insist that it is necessary to prevent a worse atrocity.
  • It's theorized that it could even set the atmosphere on fire.
  • It even has a rocket delivery system. Only the Set aren't able to finish or figure out said delivery system in time, instead opting to use it as a Red Herring.
  • What's more, for a proper explosion, everything has to explode in a certain order, with perfect timing. It's possible to 'neutralize' the bomb essentially by blowing it up in the wrong order. Which is how Wayne does it.
• Grand Finale: For Era Two of the Mistborn franchise.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Wayne gives up his life to detonate the harmonium of Autonomy's Fantastic Nuke.
• Hero of Another Story: Somewhat literally, as well as a mild case of Adaptational Heroism. While the Ghostbloods in The Stormlight Archive are presented as a sinister conspiracy, they're portrayed much more open and benevolent here. Given that their direct and stated goals are to ensure Scadrial's safety, it makes a bit more sense.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Telsin finally gets angry enough to tell Wax that she's hated him for decades, seeing him as a judgemental, Holier Than Thou weakling.
• Info Dump: The Lost Metal is arguably more of a Cosmere novel than a Mistborn novel, involving many proper nouns and magic systems from other worlds. Marasi functions as an Audience Surrogate for this, having off-world operatives among the Ghostbloods explain their powers to her and, by proxy, readers unfamiliar with the wider Cosmere.
• Insistent Terminology: Marasi and Moonlight have a conversation about how it's not magic, it's investiture. Marasi finds it frustrating, especially since using metals to gain power clearly isn't magic either, that just makes sense.
  Marasi: You have a stamp that literally turns you into a different person. How is that not magic?
  Moonlight: I will admit that's always been more mystical than the other parts.
• God Is Inept: The entire conflict (and, retroactively, Wax's entire fight against the Set) is essentially a proxy war between Harmony and Autonomy. Harmony seeks to prevent Autonomy's plans, but is so paralyzed by his conflicting Intents (as he holds the shards of both Ruin and Preservation, each power pulls against the other) that he offers little help. Even his surveillance of Scadrial has been confounded by Autonomy's agents, making him even less useful than in previous books.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Moonlight/Shai has a stamp that would make her an Elantrian (and a big jug of liquid Investiture to power the Aons), but she is extremely reluctant to use it because she can't be sure that any part of her true memories would survive the change (since in order to become an Elantrian she would have had to have been born in a completely different civilization on an entirely different continent). When cornered by the Set, she uses the soulstamp... and sure enough, she has no memory of ever having been Moonlight the Ghostblood.
  • Kelsier authorizing the use of the jars of pure Investiture is also this, judging by the Ghostbloods' reactions and how radical both uses are.
• Graceful Loser: Autonomy accepts the setback of their plans and the destruction of the Set, withdrawing from Scadrial for now.
• Informed Attribute: Showing off the difficulty of pulling off an expansive literary universe, several of the World Hoppers are supporting characters from other novels… and it's very easy to miss their specific identities. For example, Codenames is Kaise, Sarene's cousin from Elantris.
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: From an In-Universe perspective. Moonlight's code name makes no sense to Marasi, because the planet of Scadrial has no moon.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Those who skipped Rhythm of War will find The Ghostbloods' leader is Kelsier.
• Left Hanging: The mystery of who drained the Bands of Mourning and why is pointedly never answered, though the Malwish are implicated.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Wayne mentions reading a book about time travel that starts when someone gets zapped by electricity. He lampshades that it was written when most people didn't understand electricity, and there was an older book with an identical plot that used a different plot device involving indoor plumbing.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Ranette's girlfriend (and then wife) Jaxy is feminine, the first time we see her she is wearing a fine dress and diamond barettes in her fashionably cut hair. And, as Wayne says, she likes sparkes. Together, Ranette and Jaxy form a Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple.
• Mana Potion: The Ghostbloods have an emergency stash of distilled Investiture from Sel that can fuel any invested art. TwinSoul and Moonlight use this to turbocharge their powers, and Marasi uses hers to let a the kidnapped allomancers be The Cavalry.
• Memorial Statue: For Wayne, in the final epilogue. They include a hat that can be switched out, and a couple plaques of quotes; one profound, one rude.
• Mundane Utility: Wayne muses that Coinshots make great bottle openers.
• Noodle Incident: Wayne mentions at one point setting a fire to school but then says it was "an evil damn school". Wax thinks for a moment — and agrees.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Very little is said of Kelsier's condition, besides that a Hemalurgic spike pins his soul to his body and that death has separated him from his Allomancy.
• Opponent Switch: This is how Wax & Wayne eventually choose to deal with Dumand & Getruda, their evil counterparts the Set has created. Wax is able to blow off the arm containing Getruda's gold-feruchemy Spike (something the gun-averse Wayne could not have done). Wayne grapples Dumand, then pickpockets his metal vial after Dumand pushes them both into the sky, then after the pair of them slam into the ground just gets up and walks away.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The antagonistic mayor of Bilming is introduced with a rant about how Kandra aren't even people, just puppets of Harmony, using "It" Is Dehumanizing. Naturally he's a member of the Set.
• Puppet King:
  • The current governor of Elendel is completely useless, clearly just a puppet for his second in command. It's one of many reasons that Wax knows putting him in charge of the entire Basin is a terrible idea.
  • While he doesn't fully cut his strings, he does jump at the chance to help the people of Elendel when the rest of the government evacuates in the face of the coming disaster. He basically just stands nearby while Steris does all the work, but his presence lends her quite a bit of authority, and he is hailed as a hero for it. After the disaster, he promptly fires his vice-governor and offers Steris a job in disaster preparation.
• Put on a Bus: MeLaan volunteers for a mission to contact other worlds via the Cognitive Realm early in the novel and doesn't participate in the plot.
• Retconjuration: Moonlight, one of the Ghostbloods, has this power. She uses it a few times to make a door where there wasn't one before.
• The Reveal: Following Mraize's comments about the Ghostbloods seeking power, it seems their ultimate goal is finding a way to fully democratize Investiture, particularly removing the genetic requirements for Allomantic powers.
• Running Gag: "Your carriage, sir" is what Hoid (working as Wax's carriage driver) says as he arrives where he shouldn't be in several, increasingly more surreal occasions.
• Secretly Selfish: As shown earlier in the series, Wayne makes a point of delivering his blood money to Alliandre every month in person, to allow him to feel like he's making a penance for killing her father. Ranette helps him to understand that she doesn't enjoy the confrontations any more than he does, all he's really doing is reminding her of her father's death, and that if he really cared about her he'd just give her the money by check and let her move on.
• Secretly Wealthy: Wayne has become this by the time of the Grand Finale. His investments into early electric companies have proven fruitful, and he turns out to have some Hidden Depths when it comes to business. It's implied that he'll be responsible for funding Scadrial's first organized sporting league, just furthering his wealth. Amusingly, every time he is finding a new venture, he is actively trying to go broke, seeing himself as not the right person to be rich, only to fail spectacularly. By the time of his death, his accountants estimate that he's the fourth richest person in the entire city. It also gets played for some comedy after Wayne's death. He uses one of his accounts to set up and bankroll a series of posthumous practical jokes to play on Wax, Steris, and Marasi. The 'campaign' is still ongoing two years after Wayne's death, leaving everybody resigned to the likelihood that with that kind of funding, Wayne will go on posthumously pranking them all indefinitely.
• Sequel Hook: Moonlight is last seen running around as an Elantrian, and Marasi promises to help the Ghostbloods find her at some point.
• Sex God: MeLaan tells Wayne that, even in her immortal lifetime, sex with him was the best she had ever had. Unfortunately she is saying this to take some of the sting off as she breaks up with him.
• Soft Water: Averted. Wax is Pushed off a ship and on hitting the sea he breaks his leg.
• Springtime for Hitler: Wayne is Secretly Wealthy, but hates it, so he is giving his money to various causes he is sure will make him go broke. Unfortunately for him, he feels obligated to at least try and every one of those ventures, from affordable housing to electricity to the potential for a local sports league, are all actually very good ideas.
• Stealth Pun: Wax is able to use a Steelpush enhanced by duralumin to propel himself directly from the top of the skyscraper "the Shaw" to a Pewternaut. That's right; he flew from Shaw-to-ship.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Kelsier and Sazed by the end of the novel. They're not on opposing sides - in fact, their argument is about how best to protect Scadrial - but relations between them are nonetheless strained as Era Two ends.
• Time Skip: About five to six years after The Bands Of Mourning. Wax and Steris have had two kids in some not-quite Babies Ever After; communication lines between the Southern Continent and the Basin are open and tourism is stated to be a thing; and technology has advanced, with electric trains, early 20th century battleships, and early (fantastic) nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles being developed.
• Time Stands Still: At the climax of the story, Wayne uses the power of a lerasium Mistborn, plus duralumin, plus seventeen pouches of bendalloy, to create a time bubble so powerful that it lets him disarm all three of the Set's Investiture bombs before the electronic anti-tamper circuits detect that the first one is being tampered with and detonate the other two. Almost literally - this required Wayne to be moving at very near lightspeed to beat the electricity in the wires.
• Trick Bomb: Southern Scadrian grenades can be charged with Allomantic powers. This helps Marasi Take a Level in Badass, as she can now deploy bubbles of slowed time without being trapped in them herself.
• Underground City: Marasi finds one while investigating the Set's underground caverns. The people she finds living there have all been kidnapped by the Set and have been led to believe that they are the last survivors of a catastrophe involving the return of the Ashmounts. They also happen to all have Allomantic powers or heritage which the Set intended to use as breeding stock. This ends up being really helpful as they were able to help Marasi use up the pool of pure investiture powering a portal that lead to the awaiting army of red and gold.
• Unexpected Inheritance: At the end, the minor character Allriandre is ambivalent to learn that Wayne — The Atoner who had killed her father — has died and bequeathed most of his estate to her. Then she learns he had become one of the richest people in the country. To say that her financial woes are over is an understatement.
• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway:
  • Moonlight's soul stamp. She has plenty of soul stamps, but this one in particular she never had enough spare Investiture to test. If she did anything wrong, the new version of her could forget who she is and never change back. Of course, she has to use it, becoming an Elantrian who has no memory of who she was before.
  • Subverted by Telsin's rocket which never finishes development. It is ultimately used as a decoy, while the real bomb is sent on a warship.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Dumand (Wax's Evil Counterpart, given a range of powers with hemalurgy) compensates for his lack of skill by using duralumin (which massively boosts Allomancy-use by burning all of one's metal in an instant) to boost almost every Steelpush he does. This backfires on him when he Pushes himself and Wayne into the air, and Wayne flings Dumand's metal vial into the mists.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In the epilogue, Ironeyes, known to Scadrians as Death Himself, walks up to the cast in the middle of a public park for a conversation without anyone noticing. Steris lampshades how nobody seems to notice or care, which Marsh writes off as emotional Allomancy. Wax suspects something else.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Deliberately Zigzagged and Discussed. Wax's final assault on the Shaw as Harmony's Sword has him mowing down dozens upon dozens of soldiers and mercenaries like mincemeat. After the soldiers are wiped out, he and Wayne run into a contingent of far less well armed mooks. Wayne convinces Wax to spare them, pointing out that while the previous mooks were zealous kill squads very much out for blood, these are just regular building security guards, left behind almost as an afterthought. Indeed, Wayne manages to convince them all to just up and leave, helping them realise they'd much rather be with their families than be either mowed down like trash or complicit in a world-ending scheme.
  Wayne: Stop.
  Wax: What?
  Wayne: These ones ain't into it. Those other ones, the ones who came down first? They wanted us dead. They wanted to prove themselves. They wanted the fight. These poor sods? These are the last defense. And they ain't into it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Some members of the Set turn out to be this, wishing to take over the world by any means necessary on Autonomy's behalf, so she will not just destroy the planet outright.
• Wrong Context Magic: The Scadrians get their first exposure to Forgery, AonDor, and the aetherbound, invested arts that originate in other worlds. Moonlight makes clear that they're not magic, they just work in different ways than Allomancy and Feruchemy.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Zigzagged. There's a passing reference to Elendel building rigid airships full of helium or hydrogen. But they're considered inferior copies of Malwish airships, which are made of wood and kept aloft with Allomancy.

---