Chapter 13: Chapter twelve

To be a Shadow, you must master your emotions. Do not let your emotions master you.

• Shadows of Inveritus training manual.

 

Kalissa had often wondered how she would react to losing a comrade in the field. She had never really lost someone before. Her father was still alive, she had never known her mother, and she didn’t let herself get close to the other students. Part of her had been worried she would find she couldn’t handle loss because she had no experience with it. Another, smaller part, had been worried it wouldn’t affect her at all. Instructors had done their best to teach her techniques for coping with loss, for putting grieving to one side to focus on the mission, but you never really know how you’re going to react to a friend’s death until it happens.

Now, staring down at what was left of Carlton, the tears dry on her cheeks, she had her answer. She was calm, focussed, and utterly furious.

She didn’t scream at the heavens, she didn’t charge off to the Yarrl’s last known location, she didn’t even bury Carlton. Any of these things would compromise her mission. Worse, they would undermine her ability to take revenge.

And make no mistake, Kalissa was out for revenge. She hadn’t been that close to Carlton but she considered him a friend, someone she respected. And some arseholes had torn him in half. She wouldn’t stand for that.

But the Yarrls had a numerical advantage and, if Carlton’s remains were any indication, at least one of them had tomological enhancements. Carlton looked like someone had ripped him apart with their bare hands, which meant terrifying strength. Probably a juggernaut. Kalissa didn’t know much about the ins and outs of tomology, just that it could be used to grant all sorts of nasty abilities to people at the eventual cost of their sanity, but she knew enough to be wary of it. And everyone knew the stories of Yarrlish juggernauts, hulking forces of destruction that slayed men by the score. Any fight between Kalissa and one of them could only end one way.

But then, Kalissa wasn’t planning to fight them. She was planning to murder them.

Kalissa walked back to the room she and Carlton had been staying in, a plan taking shape in her head all the while. She changed her clothes and her face. Tonight, she would return to watching Sal and Sarina, wait for them to sell the Dagger and look for an opportunity to swipe it.

But first, she had someone she needed to see.

 

 

Kalissa strode into Leather Stuff, breezed right past the large man selling leather goods, and entered the storage room. There she found a slight man with a hooked nose and one eyebrow. Not one eyebrow that went right the way across his brow mind you. He had an eyebrow over his left eye but the one over his right was conspicuously missing. It wasn’t obvious why and Kalissa didn’t care enough to ask. This was Gerrard and he was the Shadow’s lightshaper in Cadersville, which meant he was who Kalissa needed to talk to about getting a message onto the light network.

“Hey short stuff, need something relayed?” Gerrard said.

Kalissa wasn’t particularly short, only just under the average for a woman, but Gerrard seemed like the kind of person who needed very little provocation for a nickname. Kalissa suspected it had something to do with the one eyebrow thing. Either way, she didn’t bring it up.

“Yes, and you’re going to need the authentication phrases for this one.”

Something in Kalissa’s tone made Gerrard hesitate. “How come Carlton didn’t come?”

“He’s dead. Go get your phrases.”

This time Gerrard didn’t hesitate. He went to fetch his book of authentication phrases. Technically he should have had them memorized, but most of the lightshapers weren’t that committed. They weren’t Shadows after all, they were just doing a job. And, while they were mostly fairly trustworthy, they weren’t held to as high a standard as the Shadows themselves. In practical terms this meant that while Gerrard had a few phrases written down somewhere, Kalissa was expected to have them all memorized by the time she got to town. And, since each lightshaper was given a different set of phrases, this meant a lot of memorization for the Shadows.

Gerrard returned with a ledger after a couple of moments and flipped to the back page, concealing it from Kalissa.

“The road has a branch in it,” he said, giving his standard challenge.

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“We take the path of service,” Kalissa said, giving the standard response. Then she added, “until our last day.”

Gerrard’s eyes widened a little at hearing an authentication phrase he had never heard out loud before and he checked his book. It was the phrase for top-priority transmissions, and technically Kalissa wasn’t supposed to know it. But how she came to know the phrase wasn’t near as interesting as what she planned to do with it.

“What’s the message?” Gerrard asked.

“High priority Shadow dead salt supply threatened location twenty-three.”

Gerrard checked the message with Kalissa. She confirmed it.

Gerrard didn’t know the significance of the message Kalissa had just told him to send. To understand what Kalissa had just done, he would need to understand two very specific things about the Inveritus economy. Specifically, how important salt is to Inveritus and that Inveritus gets almost all its salt from the Salitian city of Rockspar, with only a tiny, supplemental amount coming from the flagging salt mines in Tavat. Salt was vital to Inveritus as the city didn’t produce much meat of its own so is forced to import, which requires salt for preservation during transport and storage. Plus, salt is used for a variety of things by the university. Unfortunately for Inveritus, it has no way to produce its own salt and Salitos is the only country which has strong trade connections with Inveritus and access to saltwater. Parts of Yarrl apparently touch the great salt sea, as do the far reaches of Lhint, but Yarrl is notoriously isolationist and control of Lhintish salt is tightly restricted by order of the Silent Tower which no Lhintish merchant would dare oppose. In fact, about half the reason Inveritus even wanted the Frozen Dagger was that getting in good with the Silent Tower could help to remove their reliance on Salitian salt.

All of this meant that claiming there was a threat to Inveritus’s supply of salt was about the most likely thing to rouse the Shadows to kill a whole lot of people except for an actual threat of war on Inveritus, and preventing that is the Shadow’s primary purpose. What Kalissa had done was effectively call the wrath of Inveritus’s Shadows down on the Yarrls heads. In response to a threat like that, the Shadows would authorize funds from every contact in the area, send reinforcements to her location, and okay just about anything she decided was necessary to protect the salt supply.

Of course, if they found out there wasn’t a legitimate threat to their salt supply, Kalissa would be at best fired and, at worst, beheaded. But this was the only way she could see to complete her mission and get revenge for Carlton’s death, so she figured she’d pass that test when she got to it.

Once she had confirmed the message with Gerrard, he looked at her like he expected her to leave. She didn’t. She waited while he climbed a concealed ladder up to the roof and sent the message, and then continued to wait. She kept her mouth closed and her eyes on the sky outside.

“You’re going to be waiting a while if you’re hoping for a reply,” Gerrard said, clearly feeling put out by her silent presence. “It’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.”

“I disagree,” she said simply, and went back to waiting.

She was proven right after only a couple of hours. Given how long it took for a message to be relayed to Inveritus and back, the reply must have come almost immediately.

High priority completely support Shadow location twenty-three.

“What can I do to help you?” Gerrard said seriously.

Well, that changed his attitude. Kalissa had just been given authority to extract any support or finances from him and all the Shadows’ other contacts. Though Kalissa suspected Gerrard was motivated less by his duty than by his purse. The Shadows had a policy of repaying any money they demanded promptly and with a healthy rate of interest, so he was probably thinking of what he could spend the extra on.

“Start by getting me all the money you have. I’ll need an operational budget.”

Gerrard left in a hurry and came back with a large pouch of coins along with two smaller ones that could be secreted away easily. It turned out to be rather a lot of money. Gerrard had been working as a lightshaper for Inveritus for quite some time and from the looks of his stash he had barely spent a dullmark of his pay. She counted out the total and wrote him a receipt so he could get his money from Inveritus.

“I’m going to mention the exact amount in my report too,” she said. “Just in case you had any ideas of getting yourself a bonus.”

“Of course not,” Gerrard said, almost convincingly.

Kalissa shrugged and left with her money. She had to get back to surveiling the Snake Pit so she didn’t lose the Dagger. Once she had that, she could use it as bait to lure in and kill the Yarrls who were after it. She also had to come up with a plan to keep her bosses from executing her once this was all over, but one thing at a time.

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