Dagger's Edge (Shadow series)

by Logston, Anne

  Jael laughed and made a show of spitting into her own hand before she clasped her mother’s warm, rough fingers.

  “Bargain,” she said.

  Donya’s smile quivered, and she pulled Jael close, her embrace almost painful in its ferocity.

  “You drive a tough bargain, too,” Donya said at last, her

  voice hoarse. “You’ve learned a lot from Shadow.”

  “Nan, I think I got that from you,” Jael chuckled, knuckling tears out of her eyes. “I used to hide in the meeting hall so I could watch you in council. You could be pretty tough yourself.”

  “I never thought of myself as much of an example,” Donya said, chuckling a little, too. “Come on, let’s go back inside.”

  Shadow and Argent were in the study as promised, sipping brandy and staring at the fire in silence.

  “Are we interrupting your cheerful conversation?” Donya asked sarcastically.

  “No, we were just speculating on how much brandy each of you would need, so we could drink the rest,” Shadow said, chuckling. “We only left a little.” She indicated two goblets on a table.

  Argent rose and took Jael’s hands, looking into her eyes.

  “And what do you think now, Jaellyn?”

  Jael knew what he meant. She grinned gamely at him.

  “I think I’m more elf than human...Father.”

  Argent kissed the top of her head.

  “I can’t say that I’m sorry...daughter.”

  “Oh, please,” Shadow groaned. “If you’re all going to get weepy on me, I’m leaving.” She grinned. “In fact, I’m leaving anyway.”

  “Don’t go, Shadow, we’ll stop,” Donya laughed, sniffing a little. “I’ll even bring out more wine.”

  “No, no,” Shadow said quickly. “That wasn’t what I meant. I think I’m ready to catch a caravan out of town.”

  “Oh, but, Aunt Shadow, you just arrived,” Jael protested.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly ‘arrive’ as much as I got dragged back,” Shadow chuckled. “But it looks like the situation with the Temple of Baaros is taken care of, and, Jael, everything I can do to help you, I’ve already done. Argent says there’s a spice merchant sending some wagons out tomorrow morning, and I think I can talk him into hauling one more not-too-heavy elf along.”

  “Isn’t there any way we can persuade you to stay a little longer?” Donya asked unhappily.

  “Oh, I’ll be back before too long,” Shadow assured her. “And you can always let me know when you need me. But please,” she added, “the next time you call that Fortune-be-damned signet back, I hope the timing is a little less awkward.”

  “Surely you won’t leave today,” Argent said. “The caravan doesn’t leave until tomorrow.”

  “I need to bargain the wagon master into letting me come along,” Shadow reminded him. “I want to tell Aubry goodbye, and if you don’t mind me saying it, I need to hit the market one more time to pick up a few Suns for the road.”

  “Oh, Shadow.” Donya sighed. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” She reached for Shadow, but Shadow danced back, laughing.

  “Not another round of tears and hugs,” Shadow said with mock sternness. “I don’t think I can stand it twice in one day. Jael, you can walk me out of the castle.”

  Donya insisted on loading Shadow with so many gifts that Shadow protested she would have to take a carriage to the Guild, although Jael privately thought that the bottles of wine, the heaviest items in the load, were the one gift Shadow had no objection to. Argent quietly pressed a pouch into Shadow’s hand; Shadow pretended to be outraged, but she took the pouch.

  “I hate saying good-bye,” Shadow grumbled as she walked with Jael down the castle corridors. “But your mother flays me up and down every time I sneak away. Besides”—she hefted the pouch—”it isn’t all bad.” She glanced sideways at Jael. “So are you going to tell me what your mother said?”

  Jael wondered why—Aunt Shadow undoubtedly knew everything already, didn’t she?—but told Shadow anyway. When she was done, Shadow sat down on the castle steps, shaking her head.

  “Doe’s many fine things, little acorn, but she never was much of a storyteller,” she said. “Truth told, I wanted to know what she didn’t tell you.”

  “What didn’t she tell me?” Jael asked quickly.

  “I don’t think she left much out but the festival in the Heartwood,” Shadow mused. “And that’s none of your concern, anyway. But I’ll tell you something Donya didn’t know. Farryn once said that the Kresh were given their souls by their Enlightened Ones—kind of a mage-priest—at a passage ceremony. As Donya said, none of us were curious enough to find out more.”

  “Mother said that if I wait a year, I can go looking for him,” Jael said dismally. “That means another year of breaking light globes, I suppose.”

  “Well, then I suppose I’ll just have to come back in a year, instead of waiting for your birthday,” Shadow grinned. “That’s well enough, anyway; can’t say I fancied a journey back at midwinter. But as I’ll miss this birthday, I suppose I’ll give you something to make up for a year’s worth of light globes and soupstones.”

  Shadow unbuckled her belt and slid one of her matched dagger sheaths free. She handed the dagger in its sheath to Jael.

  “That’s for you,” Shadow said. “Go on, draw it, but be careful.”

  Jael cautiously drew the blade from its sheath, then gasped involuntarily. She had never seen anything like the dagger; its strange pale metal was unaccountably light. What astonished Jael was the dagger’s feeling of rightness in her hand, as if she grasped something alive that welcomed her touch.

  “Look at the edge on that,” Shadow sighed. “Do you know, in the twenty years I’ve had it, I’ve never had to use a whetstone on it—not that any whetstone I’ve ever seen could grind that metal. Farryn gave me that.”

  “It’s a wonderful dagger,” Jael said wonderingly. She loved the feel of it. The lightness of it seemed perfect to her, made her want to handle it, to use it. “But you are sure you want to give me this?” She forced the words out reluctantly.

  “That’s all right, I’ve got another,” Shadow said cheerfully, patting the dagger’s twin on the other side of her belt. “But I think Farryn would have wanted you to have one. Now, I warn you, the thing’s far too light in the blade for throwing, but you could cut a sunbeam in half with that edge. You practice with it—not against live folks, mind—and we’ll see what you can do next autumn.” She patted Jael’s shoulder. “How are you progressing on that game with all the little stone pieces?”

  “Oh, I solved that right away,” Jael said proudly.

  Shadow grimaced.

  “Do you know, I tinkered with that thing for weeks and couldn’t get ten pieces to fit together. Hmmmph. You and stone, I suppose, make a good pair.”

  Jael sighed.

  “Where are you going, Aunt Shadow?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Shadow grinned at Jael, then winked. “I was thinking maybe north. Then west.”

  “Oh, Aunt Shadow, really?” The relief that flooded through Jael was like the first ray of warm sunlight after a long, cold winter. If there was anyone in the world who could find her father’s people—or word of them—it was Shadow.

  “Really, little sapling,” Shadow chuckled. “And that’s why I need to leave now, so I can get some road behind me while it’s still warm enough for easy traveling, especially going north. I’ll winter in Ramant or Issel, and when the northern merchants come into the city to winter, I can see what they know.”

  “I wish I could go with you,” Jael said, sighing again. “It’s hard staying here and wondering.”

  “Well, you’ve been wondering for most of your twenty years, so I don’t know that much has changed,” Shadow said practically. “One year more isn’t going to do you any great harm. Keep working on your combat skills, just as you’ve been doing, and some geography wouldn’t be amiss, either. All right?”

  “I don’t
have much choice,” Jael said dismally.

  “There’s every hope that Donya will find some doddering old sage with all the answers,” Shadow said encouragingly. “Besides, you’ll likely have other things to think about, with that young Lord Urien coming around to court you.”

  “Well, there’s that,” Jael admitted, brightening. In all that had happened, she had almost forgotten Lord Urien.

  “Your young lord’s a smooth character,” Shadow said, shaking her head. “Be careful of yourself. A handsome young rogue like that’s fine for a night’s tumble in the furs, but don’t go hanging your heart on him. Those young lordlings have only two speeds—a roll in the furs that means less to them than the cost of a goblet of wine, or an alliance marriage—and I doubt either one is really what you want. Listen to your heart—or at least to your loins—and be sure you get what you want, not just what he wants. Understand?”

  “Yes, Aunt Shadow,” Jael said, sighing again. If she listened to her loins, she’d never do anything. But Aunt Shadow knew everything there was to know about men, probably.

  “Then you’ll likely be the one with a few stories to tell next time I’m in town,” Shadow chuckled. “Well, I can bear one more hug before I go, I suppose.”

  Jael buried her face in Shadow’s shoulder. When Shadow left, her warm, familiar smells were what Jael always remembered the most clearly—the musky herbal essence Shadow used on her hair, the tobacco odor that clung to her clothes from the taverns she frequented, and, of course, the fragrance of wine.

  It seemed wrong, somehow, to see Shadow walk out through the castle gates like any visitor might, instead of out the secret passage from the garden, so Jael turned away. Aunt Shadow wouldn’t look back; she never did. One day, Jael vowed, she would walk out of Allanmere like that—whistling cheerfully, her steps light and sure, and without a backward glance.

  Despite what had seemed a very long day, there was still daylight left, and Jael had no desire to return to the castle. Better to let Mother and Father alone for a while, anyway; she’d been the one to stir up this bees’ nest, and best to let it settle without her.

  She thought briefly of seeking out Lord Urien, but that would be awkward. What could she say? “Well, I just happened to be wandering around the Temple District and thought I’d pay a call.” Uh-uh. But that made her think of Tanis, and Tanis would think nothing awry if the High Lord’s daughter came looking for him. That meant sneaking into the temple again; certainly the High Lord’s daughter, so elflike in appearance, couldn’t simply walk into the Temple of Baaros without being recognized, even wearing her usual scarf and smudges. Besides, then Urien would see her and think she had come to see him.

  As it was still daylight, there was no one in the empty building adjoining the temple, and Jael was easily able to gain entry to the Temple of Baaros’s cellar. Once there, however, Jael found herself uneasy. Something had changed about the cellar, something more than just the additional boxes and casks that had been stacked there. Somehow the cellar seemed colder and darker than it had been, and Jael could hear a distant rustling—were there rats here?—and a muffled sound as if something heavy stirred. Jael shivered, but did not retreat; likely there were vermin in the subcellars.

  Jael had at first thought to wait in the cellar for a while to see if Tanis would come down; the rustling, however, made her decide that she would rather take the chance of being discovered than the risk of being rat-bitten. Jael crept cautiously up the cellar steps, peering out before she ventured farther.

  Thanks to the additional priests and acolytes Urien had brought with him, the upper temple was much busier than it had been before, and it was some time before Jael found an opportunity to dart out of the stairwell and hide herself in her usual nook, where she could wait more safely for Tanis to appear. It was nearly an hour before the young acolyte appeared, but fortunately he was alone. When Jael whispered to him, Tanis glanced about him and quickly ducked into Jael’s hiding place.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered. “Everyone’s here, even High Priest Urien.” Tanis’s eyes narrowed. “Unless you came to see him.”

  “No, I came to see if you wanted to go to the market, like you said before,” Jael whispered back. “I couldn’t very well send a messenger, could I? Can you go?”

  Tanis nodded.

  “High Priest Urien just dismissed me,” he said. “I was waiting to see if Thuvik would be dismissed, too, to go with me to the market. But I’d rather go with you. Let me walk out first, and I’ll wave if there’s no one coming.”

  With Tanis watching the hall, it was simple for Jael to dart to the cellar steps and make her escape through the empty temple. Tanis met her at the edge of the Temple District.

  “Have you heard the news?” he said excitedly. “The second and third signs of Baaros’s prophecy have happened, and just today, too!”

  “What, earth flying in the air and stone opening up and swallowing something down?” Jael asked surprisedly. “All today? I didn’t see anything of the sort.”

  “There was a mage in the market this morning boring a well,” Tanis told her. “Suddenly there was a good-sized explosion, and bits of dirt and rock were hurled all over the market—earth falling from the sky. A few people were hurt, too.” He frowned briefly. “But the curious part is that the explosion broke into one of the underground springs and must’ve ruptured a good-sized cavern down there. Three of the market wells just drained right down into the hole.”

  “But that wasn’t anything divine, just an accident,” Jael protested. She wondered uncomfortably when the explosion had happened in relation to when she had been watching that very mage.

  “High Priest Urien says the sign was real,” Tanis told her. “But anyway, we don’t have to sneak around in the back roads now. High Priest Urien announced the change in temple doctrine at the ritual this noon, when he informed the worshippers that all the signs had occurred. High Priest Urien said he hoped to encourage the elven merchants to join the temple, too. There was quite an uproar, I’ll tell you that for nothing, and half the worshippers walked out of the temple right there even after the signs, but we expected that. Most of those who left weren’t merchants anyway.”

  “What difference does that make?” Jael asked curiously.

  “Merchants are the worshippers we want to attract,” Tanis shrugged rather apologetically. “Baaros is, after all, the god of profitable trade. Merchants make generous offerings once they’re established in the temple, and they also spread the sect to other cities. I suppose that’s one reason the main temple sent High Priest Urien to put Ankaras back in line. Other cities won’t welcome our temples if they have a reputation for making trouble for the ruling families.”

  “That’s what Lord Urien told Mother and Father,” Jael agreed.

  “So what about this elven ritual you mentioned?” Tanis said, changing the subject. “I didn’t know you were a worshipper of—uh—what was it?”

  “The Mother Forest,” Jael told him. “I’m not. It wasn’t really that kind of ritual. It was a kind of adulthood ritual, supposed to make me stop fouling up other people’s magic.”

  “Supposed to?” Tanis asked, glancing at Jael sideways. “Didn’t it work?”

  “Nah, I guess I fouled that one up, too,” Jael said sourly.

  “I’m just glad you didn’t ruin the Lesser Summoning,” Tanis grinned. “But High Priest Urien and his lesser priests have been casting private rituals every night to commune with Baaros, and all the signs have been true, so He must be pleased with us.”

  Jael found, to her disgust, that she had left the castle so quickly that she had not thought to bring any money, so Tanis treated for balls of a light dough that had been fried in hot fat, then dipped in honey and cinnamon. They nibbled on the sweets and watched a troupe of jugglers perform at the center of the market. Apparently these were honest jugglers, using no magic to aid in their tricks, because nothing dropped or broke during their performance. Jael was so relieved
by this blessing that at the end of the performance, she begged Tanis to give the jugglers a whole Sun, promising to reimburse him as soon as she could get her pocket money from the castle.

  After the honey cakes and the jugglers, Jael took Tanis to the city wall and talked the guards into letting them up to watch the moonrise. Tanis had never been on the wall and was duly impressed with the view to the west—the width of the Brightwater River and, beyond it, the vast expanses of gently rolling farmlands.

  “They’ll be threshing soon,” Jael mused. “As soon as we get enough sunny days in a row.”

  “Does Allanmere have a harvest festival?” Tanis asked. “Most cities do, but we came here after the harvest last year.”

  “There’s one here and one in the Heartwood,” Jael told him. “Different times, of course, so the elves who live or trade in town can go to both.” She chuckled. “Can’t cheat an elf out of a festival. The elven festival, the Fruiting of the Vine, will be right after the last of the moondrop berries have ripened and been pressed and the wine kegged. The city’s harvest festival will be sooner, as soon as the grain’s brought in. A week or two, probably.”

  “I went to a couple of harvest festivals in Loroval,” Tanis said. He hesitated for a moment. “Would you want to go to the festival with me?”

  Now it was Jael’s turn to hesitate. Harvest fest would be delightful with Tanis, a thrilling adventure—but what if Lord Urien later invited her? It wouldn’t be fair to Tanis to accept and then cancel.

  “I’d like to,” she said slowly, “but I don’t know if I can promise yet. Sometimes my parents expect me to show myself with them. But the festival will run for three days; surely I’ll have a little free time somewhere in there.”

  “I’d like that,” Tanis said, rather shyly. “Especially now that neither of us will be in trouble for being seen together.”

  “Wasn’t there someone selling dragon here a day or two ago?” Jael asked suddenly, remembering when she and Urien had driven through the market. “Are they still here?”