“I understand completely, Jio-jen.” Shae sat down at the table, which was set with a pot of tea and an assortment of snacking foods. Luto positioned his seat behind and to the left of her. Tyne Retu served the tea, pouring Shae’s cup first. Shae ate some of the roasted nuts and pickled vegetables to be polite, but she was anxious to get on with the discussion and had little appetite.
Jio and Tyne seemed to feel the same way. After some small talk about the weather in the south versus the north, and mutual inquiries into the health of their respective families, the Pillar of Six Hands Unity shifted forward and said, in his slow, southern cadence, “Kauljen, I appreciate you taking the time to come to Lukang. We’re not as big as Janloon, so sometimes people don’t realize how much our city has to offer.”
Shae said, “I would be a poor Weather Man if I didn’t already know that Lukang is growing even faster than Janloon these days.”
“The Six Hands Unity clan has had a partnership with the Mountain since Ayt Yugontin’s time,” Jio said, “but lately we’ve been faced with”—he exchanged glances with his Weather Man—“issues that have made me rethink what’s best for my clan.”
Shae hoped her Shadow was paying close attention. She was used to having Woon’s reassuring jade aura right behind her and wished it wasn’t absent in what might be a pivotal negotiation. She leaned forward to match Jio and said encouragingly, “What sort of issues are you facing, Jio-jen?”
Jio said, “Lukang is growing, but that also means big-city troubles. We’re the nearest major port to the Uwiwa Islands, so we’ve always had problems with jade smuggling and illegal SN1, but it’s gotten worse. Many of the refugees from Oortoko that came to Kekon over the past few years settled here, with the Mountain’s sponsorship. Some of them are good citizens, but some are barukan who deal in shine and commit other crimes. Six Hands Unity is not a large clan. We don’t have enough Green Bones to police the barukan. We’ve asked the Mountain to send more of their Fists and Fingers, but they prioritize their territories in Janloon.”
Jio had begun speaking slowly, but now he picked up speed. “Ayt Mada has barukan working for her—members of the Matyos, the largest of the gangs in Shotar. They take delivery of jade that arrives in Lukang and transport it under guard to Janloon. So the Mountain is lenient on their other activities.”
Shae was confused. “Jade arrives in Lukang?” she said. “From where? The mines?” To her knowledge, none of the KJA-controlled jade processing facilities were located in the area.
Again, Jio glanced at his Weather Man. Their jade auras seemed to tauten. Shae sensed that the leaders of Six Hands Unity had debated long and hard about whether to share this information with her. “We were surprised as well, at first,” Jio said. “Usually, we’re worried about jade going the other way, being smuggled out of the country. That’s still happening, but the opposite is happening too—jade has been arriving by ship or plane from the Uwiwa Islands.”
“Why would—” Shae began, then stopped before she could finish the question: Why would jade be brought into Kekon—the country it came from in the first place? The answer struck her in an instant.
Four years ago, after No Peak assassinated the Uwiwan smuggler Zapunyo, Ayt had struck an alliance with the Keko-Shotarian mercenaries who’d been employed as Zapunyo’s bodyguards and enforcers. A barukan man named Iyilo, originally from the Matyos gang and one of Zapunyo’s longtime aides, had killed Zapunyo’s sons and taken over his assets in the Uwiwa Islands to become the leader of Ti Pasuiga, the largest jade and shine smuggling ring in the region, which he now operated with as much ruthlessness as his predecessor. While the Green Bone clans had largely eradicated organized scrap picking from Kekon’s mines, an inevitable amount of raw and cut jade was still ferreted away by enterprising criminals.
And according to Jio Wasu, the Mountain was buying it back.
To cement the alliance with Iyilo and the Matyos barukan, Ayt had whispered the name of the former Royal Council chancellor Son Tomarho, ensuring the passage of legislation allowing refugees from war-torn Oortoko—including jade-wearing barukan sponsored by the Mountain—to immigrate to Kekon, where Ayt had put them to work. Buying back raw jade from the Uwiwa Islands, bringing it into Lukang, and placing it in the Mountain’s stores not only buttressed the clan’s wealth against uncertainty in the financial markets, it constricted the supply and inflated the price of illegal jade. With jade prices high, the Mountain’s unofficial sales to Ygutan, East Oortoko, and other countries would be far more profitable. Shae was also certain that Ayt was taking a cut of Ti Pasuiga’s shine trade, as well as whatever black market rocks it didn’t repatriate but instead allowed to reach other buyers.