Dagger's Point (Shadow series) (17 page)

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been waiting here for ages.”

“I met some elves in the marketplace,” Jael said. “They shared their supper with me, and told me about a good furrier, and—”

“You never told me you were going to be gone,” Tanis said irritably.

“Well, you didn’t tell me you’d be back here for supper,” Jael said, a little irritated herself by his tone. “You left so late, and you were going to trade the furs and find the Guild, too, that I thought you wouldn’t be back anytime soon. And you didn’t tell me I was confined to our room like a prisoner, either.”

“You could have left me a message if you were going to be
gone so long,” Tanis grumbled.

“If I’d known I was going to be gone so long, I would have, if I could have made the innkeeper understand me,” Jael retorted. “Listen, Tanis, do you want to sit here and argue, or do you want to tell me what happened? Did you sell the furs? Did you find the Guild?”

“Yes, and yes,” Tanis said at last. “I had to buy a full membership in the Guild. The Guildmaster doesn’t grant temporary permission unless the thief won’t be in town longer than three days. So I had to go back out and sell the furs so I’d have the four Moons to pay for my membership.
Then
I had to go back and pay for the membership and get my token.” Tanis held up a narrow brass band that he’d slid over one finger like a ring. “Four Moons for
that,
and it’s not even copper.”

“What does it matter what it’s made of?” Jael asked practically. “What matters is how much you steal, isn’t it? But tell me about the furs.”

“I tried three furriers in the market,” Tanis said wearily, “but I still got only three Suns for the whole bundle. I’m no judge of some of these western furs, but I would have thought I’d get twice that, even as hard as it was to bargain.”

“Were any of the furriers named Lezlas?” Jael asked. “At the south end of the market?”

“No, they were all near the north, where the Guild Hall was,” Tanis told her. “Why?”

“Because the elves I met recommended a furrier,” she said, shrugging. “It might not hurt to show him the rest of the furs tomorrow and see if you can get a better price.”

“Why don’t you just do it, since you know so much?” Tanis asked sourly.

“Because you’re much better at bargaining than I am, and you know more languages than I do,” Jael said patiently. “And because this furrier might remember that just about the time this odd-looking elf showed up at his shop, all his preservation spells and waterproofing spells disappeared from all his best stock. And because you need to look over the market anyway.”

“And what are you going to be doing?” Tanis asked slowly. “Chatting with your new friends?”

“Actually, I thought I’d look at horses,” Jael told him. “I know we can’t buy yet, but a least I can find out which dealers are honest and have good stock.”

Tanis was silent for a few moments, then quietly pulled a rolled sheet out of his pack.

“I bought a new map,” he said. He unrolled the sheet and pointed to a spot marked on it. “There’s Zaravelle.”

Jael stared at the map, her heart sinking. The Willow River had carried them not only south, but east. In fact, they were not far west of where the Brightwater emptied into the sea. So many days of traveling, so much danger, and she had made hardly any progress at all westward; in fact, all she’d managed was to end up leagues and leagues out of her way south.

Jael didn’t realize she was crying until a fat drop splattered on the hide, smearing the line representing the Willow River. Another tear fell, causing Zaravelle to bleed into the sea, before Jael could turn her head away. Then Tanis’s arms were warm and strong around her and his tunic was rough and damp under her cheek.

Tanis let Jael cry herself dry, holding her quietly until she had calmed somewhat. Then he remained silent a few moments longer, letting Jael think about what they were both thinking.

“We could go back to Allanmere,” he said quietly. “Get more money, new horses, and start again. With what we’ll make from the furs, we might have enough for ship’s passage east along the coast and then up the Brightwater.”

The thought almost brought new tears. The waste of time and trouble and the danger to their lives was bad enough, but how could Jael crawl back to Allanmere and tell her mother that they’d been robbed blind by three dirty trappers and had rafted leagues in the wrong direction? It had been hard enough to leave in the first place; would Donya let her leave again, knowing Jael had nearly been killed three times, once by skinshifters, her mother’s worst fear?

Worst of all was that if Jael returned to Allanmere, to safe stone walls and the familiar faces of people who loved her, would she have the courage to start again, knowing what she had to face, knowing she was chasing legends across an unknown

land? She was terribly afraid she would not—that she’d find some perfectly good reason why her journey should wait until the next spring, and then next spring she’d find another equally good reason. And three decades from now she’d still be making the light globes explode in the dining hall during supper.

“I can’t go back,” Jael said into Tanis’s shoulder. “I just can’t. Not like this.”

Tanis sighed, but he only held Jael even closer and bent to kiss her tumbled hair.

“Baaros help me,” he said, “I don’t think I could either.”

Jael glanced up, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Really?” she asked, sniffling.

“Really.” He grinned. “When have I ever had this much fun?”

That made Jael laugh, and then everything was all right again. Jael wiped her eyes and her nose, then honked loudly in her handkerchief. That set them off again, and it was some time before Jael could fumble through her kit for Argent’s potion. Her fingers closed on the bottle of Bluebright instead, and she gazed at it for a long moment before she loosened the stopper.

“What about a drink to celebrate?” she asked.

Tanis reached for the bottle, then hesitated.

“You said you didn’t want to waste it,” he said slowly.

Jael shrugged.

“Just this once can’t hurt,” she said. “For that matter, Serji said—”

“Who’s Serji?” Tanis interrupted.

“One of the elves I met today. Anyway, he said there was a great mage in town. Maybe he could divine how the Bluebright’s made, so maybe we could get more.”

“Just this once, then,” Tanis said, smiling. He raised the bottle and sipped.

“To daring,” he said.

“To daring,” Jael repeated softly, taking a tiny sip of the potent liquid.

This time it wasn’t quite so awkward; Jael had a better practical idea of how things were supposed to work, and Tanis’s arm was almost completely healed, so they didn’t have to worry about his accidentally reopening the wound. Still, as Tanis’s breathing slowed and Jael laid her head on his shoulder, shivering a little as their sweat dried in the cool night air, Jael wondered privately if they’d
quite
gotten it right yet.

“Tanis,” she said at last, very softly, “am I doing this right?”

Tanis chuckled softly.

“Of course you are,” he said. “Why?”

“When you’ve been with—uh, well, when other people do that,” Jael said hesitantly, “do they half fall off the bed, or do their elbows and knees keep getting caught between the bed and the wall? I mean, doesn’t that mean I’m doing something wrong?”

Tanis laughed outright this time.

“No, Jaellyn,” he said tenderly. “It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No.” Tanis pulled her closer. “It just means the bed’s too narrow. It’s not your fault.”

Reassurance was a wonderful, slow joy growing in Jael’s heart—that for once, in fact, it wasn’t her fault. And maybe, Jael realized, the highwaymen and the skinshifters and the trappers and the river weren’t her fault either, that maybe Jaellyn the Cursed wasn’t responsible for every bit of misfortune that crossed their trail. The idea was almost unthinkable.

“Promise?” Jael asked in a small voice.

“I promise.” Tanis rolled over to face her and grinned. “And next time we’ll pull the mattress onto the floor and I’ll prove it.”

Jael wanted to caution him that she couldn’t keep using the Bluebright every time Tanis wanted a tumble. They had only a small amount of Bluebright with them, and there might be no way to get more. In addition, Jael remembered Argent’s caution about using such a drug. It wouldn’t do to form a dependency.

She said none of this. There was no reason to spoil Tanis’s happiness with unpleasant facts that he likely had already thought of. For now it was enough that, thanks to the Bluebright, she could still take a sensuous pleasure in his holding her, could feel mildly excited again by his hand gently stroking her lower back. Soon enough it would fade, and then Tanis would simply be her dear friend again, his touch only comforting, the smell of his sweat mildly annoying rather than heady and arousing. Soon enough it would all be gone; better not to bring too many truths into their bed to ruin this moment.

In the morning they walked together to the market. Tanis gave Jael most of the money, and he took the remainder of the pelts. At the outskirts of the market they parted; Jael would look at horses and see which merchants sold journey food and supplies, and Tanis would sell the pelts and see if he could expand their tiny hoard of cash. They’d meet again at midday, and Jael would take him to meet Barend, Roa, and Serji. In the meantime, both Jael and Tanis would try to learn when the next boat would be going up the Willow River to Tilwich, so they could attempt to buy passage.

The first priority for Jael, however, was new clothing for herself and for Tanis, and she was quite prepared to spend some of their little money for it. Fortunately, due to the extensive trade with local trappers, leather was very cheap, and as fiber plants were grown widely not far to the east, woven cloth was inexpensive as well. Also because of the trapper trade, a good number of merchants sold dried meat, fruits and vegetables, and journey cakes to travelers. Resupplying, too, would be cheap.

Horses were another matter. There might be folk breeding horses in Tilwich, but there appeared to be none in Zaravelle, and all the horses for sale had been shipped in either from Tilwich or from the eastern coastal cities, an expensive process that forced up the prices. The horses were so expensive, in fact, that Jael reluctantly decided it might be better to wait and purchase their mounts in Tilwich rather than pay the exorbitant prices, plus, of course, whatever fees the trading boat might charge to carry the horses upriver.

The horses, however, gave Jael an unexpected opportunity to earn money. She’d been looking at a set of mountain ponies in one corral when she’d felt the familiar warm tingling inside that told her magic was in use nearby. Jael quickly turned away and focused her attention elsewhere, only to find the pony merchant eyeing her so dourly that Jael was fairly forced to ask him what was the matter. She’d likely buy from this merchant if she and Tanis decided to buy after all, as he seemed to be the only horse merchant in the city who spoke Olvenic.

“I see you don’t like my ponies either. I haven’t sold a pony out of this string,” the merchant complained. “They’re good beasts, sturdy and steady, and they can go for a long time on poor feed, but they can’t hold a gait. It’s wretched. I’d swear I checked each of the miserable beasts myself when I bought them.”

Jael remembered the spell that had been cast on Karina’s horses. It wouldn’t be unthinkable that one horse dealer might hire such a spell cast on a rival’s stock to ruin the merchant’s reputation and drive him out of the market.

“My folk are good with animals, and we have a little magic as well,” Jael said cautiously. “If I can solve your problem with these ponies, what would you pay me?”

The merchant’s face brightened.

“You think they’re bespelled, eh? I had the same thought—I was ready to go to Rhadaman to lift any enchantment, though it’d cost me dear. If you can show me that my ponies are once more fit to sell, I’ll pay you a Moon for each pony.”

Jael was so stunned by the amount of this offer—there were thirty ponies—that it never occurred to her to haggle over the price. She checked each pony, running her hands over them until the tingling subsided. The merchant put each pony through its paces, delighted with the results of Jael’s treatment, and quickly handed over the money. As Jael left, however, she realized wryly that thirty Moons—only the equivalent of six Suns—was far, far less than any mage would have charged for exactly the same service. Well, Tanis had likely been well bested in his sale of the pelts; Jael, who was no merchant at all, was certainly entitled to one poor bargain, especially when she’d had to expend so little effort in exchange for the Moons weighting her sleeve. It was satisfying, too, to turn what had always seemed nothing but a curse to her benefit.

When Tanis met Jael at midday, he, too, looked considerably cheered; in fact, he was positively beaming under the grime he always rubbed over his face before thieving.

“You’ll never guess—” Tanis began.

“You wouldn’t believe—” Jael said at the same time, and they both burst out laughing.

“You first,” Tanis said when he caught his breath, but waited until he and Jael had bought a few meat pies and found a quiet alley where they could eat and talk.

Jael told Tanis the result of her morning shopping, and showed him the new clothing she’d bought and the thirty Moons she’d earned. Tanis was duly impressed by the silver, although he agreed with Jael that she probably could have gotten more, and they chuckled a bit wondering which of the other horse dealers in the market had likely cast the spell, and how that dealer would react when the ponies began selling well again.

“Well, I can’t boast thirty Moons for a few moments of petting ponies,” Tanis said, “and to be truthful, I’m out of practice stealing, so I kept to the easiest marks. But I took over a hundred coppers, sixteen Moons, and two Suns. And these,” he added, tossing a small packet to Jael. “I thought you might like them.”

The packet turned out to contain tiny molded cakes of sap-sugar. Flattered that Tanis had remembered her sweet tooth, Jael insisted on sharing the sweets as Tanis finished his account.