Hidden Treasures

— Harrence —

Wearing a desert skirt and robe, his face disguised in Red Tower colors (carmine eyes, amber lips), with a long crop in his hand to guide the line of appalons who plodded under bags of grain, purchased from several towns not too far from the cadre's camp and then repackaged to appear they came from further south, Harrence and the rest of Ma'Tocha's cadre entered the trade city of Kashpam. The disciple was likewise in disguise, riding lead position side-saddle, dressed in gauzy finery. Marlowe was her attendant, feminine and demure beside her mistress, while Dash and Callie were also made up like Calique hunters. Apparently, Calique didn't let their women take up weapons, so Callie was disguised not only as another nationality but also as a man. Dash was happy with the new disguise because it was high time for someone else to change their gender.

That, and the robes were dramatic and impressively comfortable in the summer heat.

Thalia's Calique caravaner was with them, a man named Hushang, acting both as lead cargo handler and "spear", the head of a hunter team. The man was dark and thin, with nearly white hair and hard plates along his back. He was in charge of their disguises but, unlike the other "desert men", he made his face with umber and deep green.

"If the guards try to question you, I will respond. There is a way these things are done, and they will know you aren't Calique if you speak." Minutes later, Hushang mortified them with belligerence towards a gate guard, calling him a 'red spot upon the skin of Dace' and 'not worthy to cross spears with desert chickens'. The guard replied in kind, comparing Hushang to withered bark on dead trees, ready to be chopped down for firewood.

After several such exchanges, Ma'Tocha audibly sighed, impatient with the manly ordeal.

"I have much to say to you little pup, by my lady has ridden all day in the sun. We're bringing corn and wheat from Kashmar, and dates from farther south."

"Dates! Show me!" The guard was visibly enthusiastic and, when shown the load of dense rectangular packages tightly wrapped in leaves, wanted to know where they'd be sold.

"Public brokerage," said the spear, with meaningful glances toward his mistress. The implication was she was a dilettante, a lesser daughter of some rich family who was trading more for adventure than as a serious merchant. Probably, she was Kashmari, trying to escape the cloistered life imposed on women there. They had seen her like before, many times. Her caravan was too large for selling in a market stall, and too small for contracted work, altogether too in-between for an experienced trader. But the fact that she had dates would open doors. That suggested she was resourceful but not experienced.

The sentries checked the load to verify their cargo, took a gate fee from Marlowe's hand, and waved them in.

The last Defender of Pure Faith was here, Harrence was sure of it. They never let the fragments of sun out of their sight, and the final fragment was in Kashpam. The defender had taken residence in a house beside the local temple, kicking out the priests and healers who were living there. A ghost boy with a wry smile, whose name was Edward when he lived, conveyed these facts to Harrence while standing silently near him. As casually as he knew how, Harrence moved his hand away from his body until it nearly touched the boy, and filled him up with spirit. Not completely of course, their ghostly appetites were bottomless, but Harrence pushed as much into Edward as he could without tiring himself and sent the boy to watch over the parsonage. Once the ghost was gone Harrence put his hand inside his money pouch and felt around for the smooth orange stone he knew was there. Ma'Tocha had filled it for him to draw on. It would have taken days for Harrence to fill the one spirit stone, but she had done it in minutes.

Harrence had to be discrete because he was supposed to be guarding a door. Ma'Tocha was alone with some rotund merchant, and both parties had left their protection outside to glare at each other. The opposition fingered swords menacingly but to Harrence they looked afraid. Calique hunters had a reputation for wild ferocity, and wearing the full desert ensemble wasn't exactly putting the merchant guards at ease. The pretend-Calique didn't even bother to speak to their counterparts but stood in comfortable silence, to make the situation more tense.

Ma'Tocha's bulwark wasn't worried about the merchant guard: they had a stack of prayers and couldn't be overcome by such a paltry force, not with the numbers so far in their favor: only two Dacian soldiers for each bulwark.

Finally, after an hour and a half of standing around, the door opened to the sounds of mutual laughter. Whatever deal they had closed was satisfactory to both parties and now they were down to the bureaucratic process of payment. All twelve guards, Ma'Tocha's four and the merchant's eight, followed the laughing, chatty pair across the street to an imposing building: Gull House.

Like nearly all of Kashpam, Gull House was made of well-joined masonry, but it stood two full stories taller than its neighbors and had armed guards at the door. It also had a basement full of gold behind heavy locks, according to Yarra, a fact that explained the bas-reliefs of hanged men all along the building's facade. It was a warning against theft.

The group took over a large meeting room, where tea and jota were brought for customers while their armed escorts were pointedly ignored. Soon enough, they were joined by a tidy man in fine but understated clothing, who would arrange for gold and goods to be held in escrow until everything was gathered in one place and verified. The contract was recorded on boards describing the terms of the exchange: All the little caravan's cargo would be sold for metal blooms (mostly copper) and garnet ore, and a little gold for traveling expenses.

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The back half of the building was for loading and unloading appalons, and rows of thick doors with heavy locks, concealing storage areas. By the time they got the appalons unloaded and stashed the cargo in their designated cells, the sun had set. Dates, sweet dates, were so valuable right now that the extra security was warranted.

It would take two days, maybe three, for the transaction to close properly. Counterparties waited on other transactions, with counterparties who in turn depended on upstream deals to be completed, thus releasing funds and merchandise for downstream trades. And for every transaction thus lubricated, both Gull House and the city government took their fractions.

Harrence had never imagined a place like Gull House. The thought that such an edifice existed just to secure large trades boggled him. The people in Gull House didn't make anything, nor did they buy and sell like merchants. They didn't own goods except the building itself and however much of their own gold was sitting in the basement vaults. They sold their services, like a Healer or an animal trainer, but what they ultimately traded in was trust.

According to Marlowe, Kashpam wasn't a large city, not when compared to the likes of Kashmar, Lavradio, or Unity City, but it was a very wealthy one for its size. Unity City, Dace's Capital, wasn't welcoming to foreigners except those belonging to the church. Kashpam was Dace's southernmost city, near to Kashmar's border and far away from the capital. Without the right connections, First Family connections, a merchant who arrived in Unity City with trains full of valuable goods would find themselves unable to unload a single sack of wheat. As a consequence, Kashpam was the farthest north most merchants dared to travel with their goods.

Unsurprisingly, the First Families all had interests in Kashpam, and took on all the merchandise to sell it at a markup farther north. That was part of how the families grew so rich, by taking on the final, safest leg of trade for nearly everything bound for the magnificence of Unity City, host to Enclave and the heart of the church.

Gull House was a rarity in that it had no direct association with First Families, a fact that explained its relatively small size. Several larger brokerages existed, but Ma'Tocha's cargo was too small for them. Also, she wanted to avoid places where she might stumble upon distant relatives and be recognized.

On their return trip to their inn, Harrence oggled a variety of beast traits on display in Kashpam far exceeding anything he'd ever seen. He'd never met someone with back plates like Hushang, or tails that ended in poufs of fur. All around him, there was skin and fur in colors he'd never seen at home, hues of greens and blues that felt mysterious to him but didn't raise an eyebrow for anyone else. There were people with eyes like animals and spikes for hair. He'd never known the world was so large, and he was glad his girls got to see some of it before they moved on.

At the depot where they stabled all their appalons, Marlowe pointed out the trains and the cartmens' insignia that identified their owners and nationalities. Hyskos, Mialta, Lavradio, Gallia, Ullidia, Moldonia, and Kravikas were all well-represented, but nearly half the cars belonged to Dacian companies. Some of the cars looked recently active, but most of them had been parked for months, unable to make the long journey across the desert. The Calique's desert sat smack in the middle of the continent, and the presence of a monster there had shut down cross-continental trade. Now everything had to go by ocean ship, a dicey proposition due to storms and giants in the deep, or cross the desert without using long-established highways or Calique escorts. Some Calique had recently taken to raiding caravans, and the route was considered even more dangerous than ocean voyages.

When Marlowe told him the First Families owned the largest shipping vessels, Harrence wasn't the least bit surprised.

"You look strained, Harrence. Are you okay?" Those were the first words Ma'Tocha said as herself all day. The cadre had rented a private suite of rooms for lodging, a typical arrangement for wealthy merchants, and ordered food for twice their numbers. The inn's kitchen was up to the task and sent them dishes cooked in Dacian and Kashmari styles. The disciple put up a privacy barrier as soon as the staff departed.

"It's a lot to take in. But you were right about the training, Sister Ma. It makes a difference. Did you know there are entire rooms full of gems? They aren't fully cut or polished, but there's tons of them, stashed away in those locked storage places all over town." Brynn, even less concerned with propriety now that she was dead, had been peeking inside all the cells. The most interesting ones were small and deliberately hard to access, but none had barriers against ghosts.

"That's … actually very interesting." Ma'Tocha looked intrigued but shook off the tidbit for now. "What about the fragment? Did you find it?"

"It's in the parsonage, next to the temple. The defender wears it all the time. He has a handful of guards with him, six right now. So far, no one else has entered or left the house except to clean or deliver food."

"This one can see through walls?" Hushang nearly yelled.

"The mirrors have never left the Nexus training rooms, ever, except to bring one here for Harrence to study." Ma'Tocha smiled while she boasted, happy with her lucky find. "It's a risk, but we have to stop Enclave from killing off so much talent, or there'll be no one left to train."

The six of them sat around a low round table and shared the dishes Calique style. They hadn't had a real meal since leaving camp, so there was a lot of food moving around from the center platters to their plates, and from their plates into their mouths. Harrence loaded his plate quickly to ensure he would get some of everything even though he couldn't eat it yet. He wasn't done talking.

"There are prisoners in the jail, a man and his daughter, kept separate from everyone else. They both have the talent. Hers is stronger than mine, I'm sure. I don't know why they were arrested but," Harrence let the company fill in the blanks on their own. Two talented people were in jail, while the parsonage was occupied by a Defender of Pure Faith. The conclusion was as obvious as it was upsetting.

"And there's a camp of five hundred soldiers not far from here, all of them with mounts," added Harrence. "It looks to me like they're waiting for something."

"Yeah. They're waiting for us to show ourselves," Dash offered to the group. "What's the plan, boss?"

"We wait. And we let Harrence do what he does." Ma'Tocha looked as tense as the rest of them felt. They were sitting in enemy territory right now, with the city's guards plus five hundred cavalry nearby.

"Tonight's the first sounding board issue of Nexus News. A few days from now, all those soldiers will ride out and leave us free to act. Then we can finish this."