Dagger's Edge (Shadow series) (14 page)

“Ankaras says that elves have no souls,” Jael said slowly.

“Ankaras says that to sway his followers,” Donya said distantly. “Anyone with a little sense knows that’s ridiculous. No creature without a soul can work magic, and the elves have more mages than we do, although elven magic is of a different sort than human—more linked to natural forces. Maybe that’s why half-bloods like myself are rarely mages—that having both human and elven elements in our souls, we don’t have quite enough of one or the other for either human or elven magic. I don’t think anyone knows much about how souls and magic work together.”

“Well, I’ll have to
find
someone who knows,” Jael said flatly. “That, or spend the rest of my years avoiding mages, and light globes, and leakproofed pottery, and heat-spelled crocks, and soupstones, and Gates—”

“I know what you’re thinking.” Donya turned swiftly to face Jael, her jaw set, her eyes hard. “I know just what you’re thinking. And that, Jaellyn, is why I never told you. You’re
not
going looking for him, Jaellyn. You’re
not.
You’ve got responsibilities here. Even if you could go, even if you could keep yourself alive long enough to get there, you’d never find him. His people lived so far to the north that no one but a few nomad traders had ever met them, and they’re not even there now. Farryn told me they were going to go hunting the rest of their people, and that was over twenty years ago. So there’s no use to even think about it.”

Jael ground her teeth, silent for fear of what she might say if she spoke. Twenty years of whispers and wondering and “You’re
not
going.” Twenty years of rumors and jeers and “You’re
not
going.” Jael clenched her shaking hands so hard that her nails bit into her palms, suddenly furious.

“Well, what do you suggest, Mother?”‘ Jael said bitterly. “What about some of the High Lady’s wisdom for her own daughter? After all, it was
your
‘autumn whirlwind’ that made me this way.”

“All right! It’s my fault!” Donya snapped, her dark eyes blazing. “Is that what you want me to say? It’s my fault. Do you think I haven’t been paying for it all twenty years?”

“Not like I have,” Jael retorted. “And if you have your way I’ll be paying for it the rest of my life, too. Be honest, Mother—how much of it was that you didn’t know, and how much of it was that you just didn’t want to know?”

This time the hurt in Donya’s eyes didn’t bother Jael at all. She was glad when her mother made no reply, but turned away, staring out into the garden. When Donya turned back, however, her face was calm again.

“Give me one more year,” Donya said quietly. “That year may see these conflicts in the city resolved so that Argent and I can decide which of you children will make the most suitable Heir. Work with your combat masters, and study the accounts of the lands outside Allanmere. I’ll consult with the finest sages to see what can be done for you, and I’ll send messengers north and west to learn what they can. At the end of that year, if we haven’t found an answer, then whatever you decide to do, I won’t oppose it.”

Jael scowled. First Shadow, and now her mother! Well, at least a year was less time than Shadow wanted.

“All right,” Jael said cautiously. “One year from now, or until you tell me I can go, whichever comes first. But on two conditions.”

“What conditions?” Donya returned, just as cautiously.

“First, you’ve got to really try to find an answer for me, like you said, sending people north and west and talking to sages and so on,” Jael said firmly. “If you stop trying, the bargain’s canceled.”

“That’s fair,” Donya said, nodding. “And the other?”

“That you don’t treat me like a child anymore,” Jael said wryly. “Even if I look like one.”

“Sometimes you act like one, too,” Donya said, holding up a hand to stall Jael’s protest. She half smiled. “But I’ll try if you will.” She glanced around, then spit into her right hand like any street merchant and held it out. “Bargain?”

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.