She dressed for the part in a recently purchased and precisely fitted shirt and trousers, both dyed a deep blue like the tail end of twilight. She had finally found a tailor that was just right, a hidden gem in the back alleys of the textile district. The harness fit comfortably underneath, though she carried her staff in hand as she wove through the winding side streets.
The address wasn’t far, located in an emptier section of Crossing. A line of four row houses showed varying levels of fire damage, but older and not part of the recent troubles that Tyrissa seen firsthand. Many of the other residences nearby looked equally abandoned, vandalized, or simply boarded up and forgotten. The address belonged to the last in the row of fire-damaged buildings, one that looked the least likely to collapse without any encouragement. The front door was boarded up like the others, but an open side door in the alley led to a short flight of stairs and into the central living area of the charred home.
The interior was thick with the long-lingering scent of ashes, but looked structurally sound in the faint, indirect light of the street lamps. The room was clear of any furniture, the floorboards slightly warped from the heat and stained by water. Tyrissa squinted against the gloom and tried to sense out Wolef’s presence. She felt a slight draw towards the stairway, the only real feature in the room. The sensation was alluring, somewhere between desire and fascination, and very different from the purely physical sensations associated with Fire and Water, Air and Earth.
A patch of shadow on the stairs stirred and spoke. “Tyrissa. You’re right on time.”
“Wolef. In your element, I see.”
The Shade resolved into sight, sitting on the lowest step, his clothes, hair, skin and eyes decreasing degrees of black. The mental allure from the slight pull of shadow magick faded away. Mostly.
“Always,” he said with the contrasting flash of a white smile. He stood just about eye level with her while standing on the lowest step. “Shall we take up our watch on the third floor?”
Tyrissa followed him up the stairs, running her fingers through the dust and grit that coated the handrail. “What are we watching?”
“With so much activity in one night, some pieces of the Thieves’ operations came loose. One such piece led to the house across the street.”
Wolef led her to a room that overlooked the empty street through a wide window, complete with a padded bench. The glass was missing but the view was sound, a commanding overlook on their target across the street. The house in question was much like the rest in the neighborhood: seemingly abandoned with boarded up windows, though the front door was intact and unbarred.
“That place is a short term storehouse. Small, discrete deliveries arrive every day and once a week they’re moved out.”
“What are they moving?”
“Elchemical materials. Specifically, the kind that are highly illegal to possess in even modest quantities outside the oversight of the Concordium and of interest to our ultimate quarry.”
“So they’re supplying Vralin’s elchemy production.”
“Correct. And he in turn supplies the Thieves with their bag of tricks. The goal tonight is to wait for and then follow the shipment to see where it goes next. It has to get to Vralin eventually. Unless there’s a second rogue elchemist in the Khalanheim underground.” Wolef’s focus shifted between her and the house across the street and she saw that his eyes had a faint luminance to them, a spectral glow.
“This all sounds like something you’re just the man for,” Tyrissa said. “Why do you need me?”
“Indeed, I could do this all myself. I wanted try out our newest partner and see if someone else on the team can operate on the more delicate side of things.”
“You might be disappointed. Subtlety isn’t my strongest virtue.”
“Perhaps not. Regardless, I needed a break from long, lonely Slides through the city’s underbelly and dodging Vralin’s Fireweaver pet.”
“Her name is Ash,” Tyrissa corrected him sharply. Wolef raised an eyebrow at that. “We’ve met a couple times before the night at the mills,” she added.
Wolef barked out a short laugh. “Ash. They always take names like that. Strange that she would stay loyal to Vralin for even this long. Fireweavers are fickle. It takes a lot to keep their attention.”
“You’ve had some experience with them, then?”
“I’ve had ample practice against Firepacts back home, yes. It was part of my Shade training. But also more recently with Kexal and Garth, during their last Pactbound hunt.”
“Back home being the Evelands,” Tyrissa said, trying to prod him to say more.
“If you wish to use the Northern name. It’s certainly easier to say than Vitu’ka zo vuli ya Hakisilu.”
“What does that mean?”
“The land of Vitu’ka, Empire of Shadows. Roughly.” The name was possessive and ignored Giroon’s homeland of Zegun’da, but Tyrissa had already decided to avoid mentioning the nation of one Evelander to the other.
“Empire of Shadows sounds a little…”
“Evil?” Wolef asked with a smile.
“In a word.”
“It’s a matter of perspective. In many ways Vitu’ka is inverted from the North. Skin degrees of black instead of white, unified under a single banner instead of your many small nations, and for some, a preference of night over day.”
“And where do Shadow Pactbound fit?”
“The Shades are the heart of Vitu’ka’s power, her soldiers, spies, and scouts.”
“With all that shadow in your homeland, shouldn’t there be light? A balance?”
Wolef stiffened slightly, as if she had somehow insulted him. “Nothing thus far,” he said. “There may not be such a thing as a Light Pactbound.”
“I’ve never heard of one,” Tyrissa said, hoping to smooth away whatever slight she may have committed. “Though most of what I know about pact magick comes from stories, even with what I’ve seen first-hand.”
“Given what you’ve told us about your own abilities,” Wolef said, choosing his words carefully, as if breaking delicate news, “perhaps you could simulate one.”
“Maybe you and I could try that out sometime.”
“I… indeed,” he whispered while turning back to the street, “Perhaps we should.”
Just as Tyrissa was about to ask after that small bit of hesitation, Wolef pointed to the street and said, “Ah, we have action below.”
Tyrissa felt a minor flush of embarrassment, both for missing the rather obvious change and distracting away Wolef’s attention from the street. A wagon had pulled up in front of the opposite house and soon a trio of men emerged through the front door. Each carried a small crate and they moved with the caution and care of knowing that what they carried was volatile and expensive. Every other crate produced a faint rattle of glass stacked against glass when they were set into the padded wagon bed. The driver gingerly organized the crates and made quick tally marks on a slip of paper before covering each round with a thick, dampening cloth.
On the third round, one of the three crew members slipped while descending the stairs, causing his crate to fly from his hands. The other Thieves froze in place as it crashed to the ground, expecting the worst. The top of the crate split off, spilling out bundles wrapped in brown paper.
“Idiot,” the driver hissed. “Lucky that was the leaf or we’d all be dead!”
“Or at least on fire,” Wolef whispered. “Speaking of…”
Muttering apologizes, the clumsy crew member replaced the spilled packets back into the crate. One of the bundles had split open and now brilliant red leaves skittered down the street on the riftwinds.
“What is that?” Tyrissa asked.
“I think it’s kuti kas. Inferno leaf. It’s an elchemical plant, aligned to Fire. It burns hotter and longer than most wood but at many times the price. Fireweavers chew it like tobacco to filter out the poisonous buildup from using their abilities.” He tapped one forearm. “Like my rods. It can also b
e processed to make fire bombs and lock melters. Just the sort of thing Thieves would want.”
“So it could be used to pay off a Fireweaver?”
“Absolutely. In addition to being an elemental filter, it’s very addictive. In the borderlands back home, the easiest way to stop a Zegun advance is to hit their kuti supplies and weaken their Pactbound.”
The Thieves wrapped up loading the wagon, the bed now full of crates. Wolef stood and wrapped a hand around the window frame. “It’s time to move. I’ll follow from the rooftops, you take the streets.” The buildings weren’t packed as close together here as the areas around the university hill and the mill district, so Tyrissa wouldn’t be able to repeat their first encounter, flying across the city’s rooftops.
“Will do,” she said.
There was another burst of that alluring pull as Wolef’s body blurred into a darkened outline and melded into the shadows. Tyrissa could follow his position as he Slid away, curling around the exterior of the building to wait among the sculpted and burnt gables fronting the roof. She rose and hurried downstairs back to the alleyway, keeping note of the constant sense of Wolef location, a pull of magick attraction.
Peering around the corner, Tyrissa watched as the storehouse crew dispersed. Two went back in the house, while the third joined the driver atop the wagon’s bench. The driver snapped the reins and the single draft horse plodded into motion. She tried to shrink into the shadows as the wagon passed, but the two Thieves were too focused on the streets ahead and didn’t even give her hiding place a glance. She felt Wolef flash by above and looked up just in time to see a man-shaped shadow blink across the gap between the row houses.
Best keep up.
Tyrissa cut away from the wagon’s route, following the alley to a parallel street. The pull towards Wolef waned, almost becoming lost among the rush of air as she hurried through the streets to meet the wagon again as it moved toward less chaotic side streets. They were headed southeast, toward the Rift. Wolef became a faint beacon in her mind, an enticing point to follow. Tyrissa certainly hadn’t memorized the streets of Khalanheim, but the routes blurred into a varied challenge, her sense of direction keeping her from ever taking a completely wrong path. It was times like this that the city faded away to become just like the Morgwood, with obstacles and detours that were all part of the plan. She never lost track of the wagon, always able to catch up to it as it made its way toward the warehouses and docking platforms and towers of Khalanheim’s inland zeppelin port.
This was more familiar territory. Many of her earlier jobs with the Cadre involved escorting unspecified shipments to and from the warehouses and storage vaults of Dockside. The wagon arrived at its destination soon after entering the grid of storage buildings: a mid-sized warehouse with mild security, the kind reserved for low risk shipments like foodstuffs or construction materials. Certainly not elchemical supplies. There was no sneaking in required for the shipment, the driver simply passed a small pouch to the gate guard. The guard checked the weight and started to pull open the gate. An existing deal, then. The wagon soon disappeared into the warehouse and their brief chase was concluded.
A pleasurable shiver ran up her spine as the pull of Wolef’s shadow magicks spiked in intensity and he stepped out of the shadows next to her. Despite the proximity of Wolef’s shifts into and out of the shadows, she never felt an analogue to absorbing the wind energies in the Rift. There was only the dwindling alluring sensation, like a lingering pleasant scent, and no usable counter magicks.
“You kept up even better than I thought you would, Tyrissa,” he said.
“I have my tricks.” She guessed that he had no idea how easy it was for her to follow him while melded into the shadows, another difference between Shadow and the other Elements. Ash and Settan seemed to be able to feel her just as easily as she could feel them.
“That you do. I think we’ve seen enough for tonight. Kexal has a way with dock workers. I’ll let him know that he has someone new to befriend. He and Garth should be back in town today.”
“The pieces are starting to come together,” Tyrissa whispered back, though she meant more than Vralin’s supply chain. If Ash was dependent on him for her filtering supplies, his leverage might be too strong and Tyrissa wouldn’t be able to split her away. She would have to find another way to break the hold on Ash, especially before Wolef decided to execute on his ‘ample practice’ against Fireweavers.
“Wolef, if you see Ash in the depths again tell her that I’m looking for her.”
The Shade gave her a quizzical look, but nodded and said, “I will.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The streets of Under Bridge were brighter than other areas of the lower city and the air was fresher. Tyrissa saw why as she exited the tunnel from the surface into the district’s central square. The east side of the square was fenced off and open to the Rift. Beyond the wire netting and guarded gates lay the substructure of the western end of the Sunrise Span. A forest of pylons, anchors, cables, and pipes converged there before arching out under the great bridge to shrink into the distance across the Rift. Late afternoon light bounced off the far wall of the Rift and brightened the smallest of the Khalanheim’s official under districts.
Compared to Forge and its mirror underground, Under Bridge was sparse and sleepy, with only light foot traffic going to and fro their jobs or homes and few wagons crowded the streets with their attendant horses or oxen. The houses on the other three sides of the square were squat, modest things, but well kept. A swarm of children tore around the square, playing at a game that involved a small rubbery ball kicked against anything that would rebound it. If it weren’t for the marvel of engineering and magick to the east, Tyrissa could mistake the scene for an utterly average village anywhere in the world.
She turned down a side street and made her way to Kexal and Garth’s little house with curling green paint and high, narrow windows. Kexal called it their ‘hide-out’ though Tyrissa was sure that they made no real attempt to hide themselves in the city. The brothers were back in Khalanheim after a spate of fundraising bounty hunting, and this was the first day in many where Tyrissa wasn’t too exhausted to check in with them. As she stepped up to the solid, recently replaced and unpainted oaken door, she heard Kexal through the walls bellowing out his side of an argument. Then a polite silence for his brother’s response, followed by another string of profanity laced shouting. Tyrissa gave a firm knock that went ignored before opening the door unbidden.
Inside, the two Jalarni sat at opposite side of the old workman table, each in white linen shirtsleeves, each with a tankard in front of them. A small, tapped cask built of dark wood with ‘Jonston Brews’ stenciled in yellow paint on the side sat at one end of the table. A vented metal box with an open top lay in front of Garth, an array of tools and components spread around it. His pen and pad of paper was close at hand, the top sheet thick with hastily scrawled words.
Kexal raised his tankard to Tyrissa’s entry and said, “Evening Ty,” with a smile.
She took an empty seat near the center of the table and said in her best feigned Jalarni drawl, “You boys doing alright in here?”
“We were having a vigorous discussion over Garth’s little invention,” Kexal said, setting down his drink and rising from his chair. “I’m glad you came ‘round, we can use you as a test subject. Get the dust Garth.”
Garth made a face that said ‘Fine, but I don’t like it,’ then rose as well, walking to an open storage trunk in the corner of the room. Kexal went to a shelf and came back with a sheet newspaper, spreading it out on the table in front of Tyrissa. It was an edition of The Times of Khalanheim from a week ago, and brought to mind those long hours spent scanning through newsprint in the dim cellar of the university library.
“What do you need me to do?”
Kexal didn’t respond, watching as Garth drew a draw-stringed pouch of faded red fabric and a small spoon from the chest. He set it on the table with all the care of
an elchemist moving uncontained gloworb fluid, undid the drawstring and removed a second cloth pouch. He opened the second pouch and slowly dipped the spoon in, withdrawing a helping of fine black dust. It looked like the powdered Rhonian spices hawked in the high end shopping arcades. Holding an open palm under the spoon, Garth transferred the dust to the newspaper atop an article on the winter resurgence of river pirates along the Rildermeek.
“I want you to touch that,” Kexal said, voice intent. Both of them leaned in close.
“What’s supposed to happen?”
“Nothing bad. Do it.”
Ominous but what the hell. Tyrissa pointed a forefinger at the pile of dust and paused above it for the sake of drama. The two brothers waited with baited breath. She jammed her fingertip into the dust, sending a tiny smoke-like cloud into the air. It felt like gritty flour. Nothing happened.
Garth raised his fists over his head in silent victory, a smug smile across his face.
“Alright alright! Fine! You were right,” Kexal said. “Don’t have to rub it in.”
“Now will you tell me what that is,” Tyrissa asked while brushing the dust off the new sunset red lacquer on her fingernail. Garth bent over and picked up either end of the newspaper, folding it over and carefully funneling the dust back into the pouch. Kexal snatched up his tankard and refilled it from the cask, then settled back into his chair, leaning back and resting his booted feet on the table.
“It’s the powdered form of qulzir crystal, an elchemical material. They only grow in and around earth domains. Stories are mixed on their specific effects, one being that they’re known to dampen air magicks. That much we’re sure of. Garth and I’s debate was over whether it would react with other Pactbound. Wouldn’t do having the box shut down our guys as well. We meant to test it with Hali or Wolef, but it fell by the wayside due to the observatory job and subsequent matters. You were the first to show up.”
Garth replaced the pouch in the storage chest and returned with an empty tankard in one hand, and a different wrapped bundle in the other. He set the tankard in front of Tyrissa and motioned at the cask with an open palm for her to help herself. She demurred for now. He spread the cloth bundle on the table. Within were three glass lenses, pale blue like a hazy sky and run through with cloud-like swirls of white. Tyrissa recognized them as the shards she saw Vralin removing and replacing in his bracer.
Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Page 30