“Picked those up with you that night at the mills,” Kexal said. “We’ve been poking at them, trying to puzzle out a use. Thought maybe you could shed some further light.”
She thought back to her lessons with Settan and his talk of a creeping decaying sickness the Shapers would purge out in the Rift. These must be Vralin’s equivalent means, his way of filtering the power that coursed in his veins. Vralin had looked somewhat wan that night. Tyrissa had dismissed it as a trick of night’s shadows and the rush of the chase. He visibly improved as soon as he replaced these lenses.
Tyrissa picked one up. The shard was feather-light and so smooth she thought it might slip from her fingertips at any moment. Her skin tingled like in the Rift and started to draw in the energies contained within the shard. These could be a portable dose of air magick, to carry as a backup when needed. She didn’t have long to marvel at the possibilities. Instead of a calm weight of earth, her stomach roiled as if she’d eaten a rotten meal, corpse blossoms instead of stone roses. Tyrissa let the disc fall back to the table with a glassy ring. The sense of decay faded quickly, but left her feeling ill.
“You alright?”
“I’m fine. These won’t be of any use to me. They’re pure waste. Poison.” If they could cut off Vralin’s supply, would he fall ill or waste away?
“Wolef said as much, but we figured you might want to take a look since you’re…”
“Different,” Tyrissa finished. Doubly so. Pactbound and yet unlike others of my kind. She didn’t need any more reminders. Kexal said nothing, instead rising for a refill of his tankard. She wanted to change the subject, having already spent too much time worrying over what she was.
“Did Wolef tell you about the docks?” Tyrissa had a strangely fond memory of that night, either due to the company or the activity. Mostly the company. She hoped and half expected to wake each morning to find another note for another midnight rendezvous.
“He did. There are three certain things in this world: the sun risin’, the sun settin’, and the casual corruption of dockworkers. Doesn’t matter if it’s zeppelins instead of boats, they’ll still do you a favor for a minimal price. We chatted with a couple fellas working nights and had them keep an eye on those shipments from that Thieves house. Turns out those crates have a special nighttime departure on the same zepp every week.”
“So they have something to hide,” she said. Tyrissa knew little of zeppelins, she did know that no captain would fly in the dark. The Rift was treacherous enough during the day. Flying at night was asking for a bad wind and a long fall.
“That and more. The same zepp leaves after midnight, but gets back to her mooring before sunrise with new cargo to unload. Our boys on the docks say she’s gone less than two hours and there ain’t a place to fly that close to Khalanheim.”
“Then where are they going?” Zeppelins were used for longer haul trips along the Rift. Anything closer was cheaper and safer to send by wagon.
“Down. A zeppelin is the only way to move supplies and materials that deep in good, discrete time. Wolef’s been runnin’ himself ragged in those tunnels, but now we’ll have a better fix on Vralin’s location. Next time the zepp makes a delivery, Wolef will be along for the ride.”
Tyrissa nodded. From the glimpses she had seen on her trips with Settan, there were thousands of tunnels and caves running through the earth below Khalanheim. A man could completely disappear down there.
“After that we wait for good news,” Kexal said, draining his tankard and slamming it down on the table with a wooden thock. “And start lookin’ into routes down that’ll accommodate people who can’t meld into the shadows. Once Wolef finds Vralin’s hidey-hole, we’ll flush him out. Take him by surprise and ideally,” he gave a sidelong glance at Garth’s incomplete device, “With a new trick up our sleeves, though the old fashioned way is still our go-to. The observatory was the first time I got all up close and personal with him. He’s slick as hell but I can take him. Just need a little help and a new trick.”
“I thought I was your new trick?” she asked with a grin.
“Two new tricks, then.”
“How long have you been chasing him?”
“The better part of a year now. We jumped on the bounty as soon as it went out last spring. It was too big of a prize to not give it a try. There was a feedin’ frenzy at first, all sorts of hunters tryin’ to strike it rich. He’s a slippery one though and for the most part there was nothing but close calls and near misses. We did manage to track down and raid his hideout in the city. That’s where we found that floatcore for Master Guldres. But Vralin got away from us. A short time later he stood his ground against another ambush from a different group. Killed six hunters.” Kexal shook his head in dismay. “Idiots. Enthusiasm dropped after that.”
“And then he headed north?”
“Eventually. He fell in with a group of Hithian mercs, led by that woman you call kin. They buzzed around the region, between here and Velhem, for a while. Wolef kept tabs on their movements as best he could. When they went north into Vordeum, we followed.”
“And you lost the trail in Morgale.” Where they all died, save one.
“Right. Came back here on the caravan and figured it a lost cause until the Thieves started getting all uppity and started probing Master Guldres’s holdings these last couple months. You know the rest and here we are.”
Tyrissa felt a thirst from all this talk. She leaned over to the cask and poured a half serving of an aromatic nut-brown ale.
Kexal nodded with approval. “Solid Jalarni style ale, brewed here by a countryman of ours. Not quite the same as the real deal but close enough given the distance.”
Tyrissa raise the tankard to her lips and gave it a taste. It was as strong as it was bitter and it took half her willpower to avoid spitting it out. It burned on the way down.
“Feels like a horse just kicked me in the mouth,” she said, setting the tankard aside.
“Exactly. Tastes like home,” Kexal said, he and Garth raising their tankards in salute.
Jalarn was nearly as far away as Morgale. Hali’s home lay crumbled at the south end of the Rift. Wolef was from an entire different continent. Are we a rogue’s gallery of foreigners, all far from home?
“How long have you been away?”
“Six years now. Been tearin’ up the North ever since.”
Tyrissa wanted nothing more than to ask why they left, but somehow the weight with which Kexal said ‘six years’ told her all she needed to know for now. Another story for another time. She took another drink of the ale. The second swallow was easier. Slightly. “A life of adventure?” she asked.
“At times. Mostly taking bounties or guard jobs for traders. Occasionally hired to take on the harder stuff.” He waved his hand in a wide arc. “This house is nothing special, but it’s a damn sight better than what we’re used to, right Garth?” Garth nodded without looking up from his work. “Pure luxury. But it’s been worth it, by the by. We’ve seen things people only hear in Bard’s tales. Pactbound, monsters, elementals, domains. Crazy shit.”
“So you’re hunted Pactbound before?”
“Yeah. The most recent was a Fireweaver hidin’ out on the Outer Zarvinas in Felarill, harassin’ the trade routes. He was an Evelander fellow. That’s when we joined up with Wolef, actually. The bulk of Pact bounties are Firepacts. They’re both the worst and easiest of the bunch.”
“How so?” Her thoughts went to Ash.
“Well, like fire, they’re unstable, wild. They burn out faster than other kinds of Pactbound and lose their minds in the process. But you know what to expect from them. This one, we got him in the middle of a storm like you’ve never seen. Really helps when the weather is on your side. The trip back was worse than the bounty.”
Garth rapped his knuckles on the table for their attention. He raised a hand to his mouth and waggled his fingers, smiling all the while. A string of little coughs, the mute man’s version of laughter, followed.<
br />
“What’s that mean?”
Kexal glowered at his brother. “That’s his way of remindin’ me of our run-in with a kraken.”
“I’d like to hear that story.”
“Some other time,” he shuddered. “Suffice to say, you’ll never get me on the ocean again.”
Tyrissa let out a laugh that faded into a thoughtful silence.
“How do you deal with it, Kexal?” she asked after a moment. “The ‘crazy shit’. Your life in constant danger. The fighting. The killing.”
The big man thought on this one for a while. “First, you make sure you’re fightin’ the good fight. That’s hard, I know, but you gotta try. Second: you can’t let it overwhelm you. When things are at their wildest you put your head down and do what you must. But afterward, if you make it out the other side, you gotta be able to laugh.”
Kexal gave her a grin. “Can’t recommend it for most folks. But we aren’t most folks.”
Tyrissa couldn’t argue with that. “We sure aren’t.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Tyrissa and Jesca made their way through the backstreets of Forge. Tonight’s contract had taken twice as long as estimated and it was well past midnight. The job began with a pickup of an unspecified cargo from the zeppelin moors, fresh off the boat and tightly sealed in crates stenciled with ciphers. Questionable and secretive for certain, but the client, or at least the intermediary running the operation, had all the necessary paperwork from Central and the funds to hire a ten-strong band from the Cadre to escort it all. From the moors, they escorted two wagons in a circuitous route across the city, stopping at seven different places to deliver or pick up additional supplies, all similarly marked with codes to signify which was what.
Their client’s expense was justified. They had been tailed the entire time by an unidentified group, a succession of cloaked figures in the night. Rival or Thieves, they made no move against them and melted away when the wagons reached their destination: a Forge workshop that was built and secured like a fortress.
It had rained heavily in the middle of the escort, and the streets faintly steamed where the heat of the underground forges and factories rose through vents in the ground. Tyrissa carried her guild coat over one shoulder, enjoying the transitions between the crisp night air and pockets of warmth rising from below. This had been their first job together since the Alvedo contract ended, and Jesca showed nothing a professional face to her. Beneath the ambient hiss and grind of Forge this walk back toward Crossing was as silent as death
“What do you figure was in the crates,” Tyrissa asked, trying to raise some sort of conversation.
“Wouldn’t know,” Jesca replied coolly. “Not really our business.”
“Still fun to take a guess. So hush-hush. Maybe some sort of new elchemical tech.”
Jesca gave her a hard look. “Why do you think that?”
Because I could feel the earth magicks radiating from inside. Her Pact-sense was inconsistent with elchemical materials. Most were inert with respect to her, like the newer street lamps, but some set off her Pact just like actual elemental magicks. She was happy to trade her spotter’s place atop the second wagon for walking along side it at the first opportunity.
“Because of the stops around the Concordium’s campus and the close attention from whoever was following us,” she said instead.
They turned down an alley between two tall stone buildings, an empty canyon where long lines of exhaust vents belched up residual heat from the manufactories in Under Forge. Layers of soot from below stained the walls in graffiti-like patterns.
“Suppose it’ll remain a secret. Everyone has a few in this city, right Ty?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tyrissa knew that Jesca harbored suspicions toward her, but played the part of mild indignation anyway. It was only a matter of time until she couldn’t hide her true nature anymore. Whatever that was.
Jesca sighed. “Nothing. Sorry. It’s just been a long day,” she apologized with a weak, halfway sincere smile.
The alleyway flashed with a brief orange light and Tyrissa felt the tell-tale shiver of elemental cold reply through her bones. Wolef had delivered her message to Ash and the Fireweaver had chosen a perfectly awful time to make her appearance.
“What was that?” Jesca asked.
Sooner than later, I guess. No use hiding anymore. “A Fire Pactbound on the roof,” Tyrissa replied in a liberating, matter-of-fact tone. She could feel Ash circling around atop the building to their left. The pull of frost was strong. She was burning through a dangerous amount of magick.
“We have to get out of here,” Jesca drew the longer of her two knives and scanned the linear slice of sky that topped the alleyway.
“No, I have to take care of this. Stay behind me.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Ash!” Tyrissa called out. “Get down here!”
A fiery light surged behind them and Tyrissa spun in place in time to see Ash landing, a wreath of fire chasing her descent. Jesca followed, half a step behind, her blade raised and ready.
Jesca yelled an unconvincing, “Back off!” down the alleyway.
Ash looked at Jesca and cocked her head to one side. The flames across her shoulders surged and sent coils down her arm to coalesce into an open palm. Ash’s arm snapped forward and threw the ball of fire, but Tyrissa was ready for it. She fluidly spun about and hooked her staff around Jesca to pull her out of the way. With her other hand, she flung her guild coat into the path of the fireball, knocking it off course to burst against the wall of the alley. The flames reduced her coat to a pile of ashes and half-melted metal buttons before sputtering out.
Tyrissa faced down Ash and again felt the dueling mental urges. One cried out to soothe this girl’s plight, to save her. The other howled for blood, a demand to end her. Tyrissa tried to push them away, knowing it was her own Pact pressing on. She had felt no such urges around Settan or Wolef. It was specifically Ash that set them off.
She could see the duality in Ash’s face as well. The Fireweaver stood still but her face flickered between blind burning rage and a pure pleading panic. She was a mess, clothes ragged and burned in patches, and hair a tangle of a half dozen singed shades. Whatever use the Elemental Flames had for her had ground her down this. A puppet, a nearly broken tool ready to be discarded. But still she held on to a fragment of herself, a piece that cried out for help.
In that moment Tyrissa realized she felt more kinship the desperate girl in front of her than with Jesca behind her. Tyrissa had come to Khalanheim with a Pact etched in her head, looking for a way out. While she no longer desired a way out, she could possibly give Ash that escape.
Tyrissa stepped forward, moving more on instinct than out of any defined plan. Ash flinched, then scowled, her shawl of fire flaring higher.
I cannot be burned. Not by you.
Ash raised her hands and let out a cord of flame that lashed down the alleyway toward Tyrissa. It stopped a few inches short of her, as if striking an invisible wall, and the ice in her bones surged higher. Tyrissa let the converted magicks flow out of her, her footfalls creating pools of water that drained into the heat vents. She heard Jesca gasp behind her, a small, remote sound. Tyrissa let her staff fall from her hands. She wouldn’t need it.
Ash held her ground and continued to funnel out a constant stream of fire that gave the alleyway a harsh, infernal glow. Her face was fixed into a snarl, teeth stained black and red from chewing inferno leaf. But her eyes still betrayed desperation. Tyrissa let the flames filter through as the intensity rose with each step. The trail of water became inlaid with fleeting lattices of ice and snow condensed into the air around her.
Tyrissa came within arm’s reach and saw that black, charred veins of corruption had spider-webbed across Ash’s skin. She was overusing her Pact energies, about to burn out and be overwhelmed by the poisonous, unmitigated usage. Tyrissa gently grasped Ash’s hands and brought them together.
The torrent of water and fire began to chaotically swirl around them.
Filter it out.
She followed the flow of fire magick through Ash and found a font of power chaotically churning within, a burning parallel to what Tyrissa felt when full of any given element. That source recoiled from her touch and Tyrissa saw what lay beyond Ash. In that instant she caught an infinitesimal glimpse of Elemental Fire itself, an eternally burning furnace, a world-wide wildfire. Not a mind, but a presence, a universal force of a scope beyond her mortal capacity to fully comprehend. Chaos. Rage. Destruction. Those were its fundamental components. Yet there was also a profound patience, a sense of indescribable purpose at the beating heart of the inferno.
She couldn’t directly challenge that. But she could place herself between it and Ash, a defiant wall of glacial ice. It was presumptuous to even think of it in those terms. Ash was nothing but a spark to this force, and Tyrissa a single rain drop. Somehow, defiance proved to be enough and the Flames withdrew its connection. It was a concession rather than a surrender, and carried the unspoken, menacing promise of a future response.
The torrent ended in an abrupt jolt and Ash’s shawl of fire winked out like a snuffed candle. Tyrissa let the remaining water magicks flood out of her to drain into the heat vents. The alleyway was briefly thick with steam, but the riftwinds soon cleared the air.
“Gone,” Ash whispered, swaying in place, looking stunned. Tyrissa caught her as her legs gave out and guided her to the ground.
“So very quiet. Thank you. Thank you.” Ash said, her voice weak and tears welling up in her eyes.
Tyrissa was at a loss. “The right thing to do,” she said. What did I do? How did I do that?
Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Page 31
