Jalia Prevails (Book 5) (27 page)

“Alin, do stop looking at young al’Degar like that. It ill becomes you to waste so much of your time on futile hatred. Have you wondered why he and his young lady decided to invite themselves to a meal with Sala Rotiln and her bedmate?”

“I considered they had become bored with the Marin’s and those awful children,” Bredan stated tartly.

“Those two children saved my life and my money, which is one and the same to me in a manner of speaking. You have no reason to hate them so please be civil,” Sila paused and a shiver of delight ran up her spine as she sipped again at the ten year old red wine. “I have come to the conclusion that Jalia and Daniel do nothing without an ulterior motive. You really should be warming to them, Alin, because you and they are cut from the same cloth.”

“There is nothing they could want from the Rotiln woman,” Bredan grumbled as he scratched at his itching leg. “She is merely providing support for Sorn in collecting those swords from the Telmarian traders. Sorn is the real player in this game. It is likely that Rotiln is not fully conversant with her plans.”

“Now, that is more like you, Alin. You are a schemer and it is certain that Gally Sorn is one too. There were only two people that I have feared in Slarn over the years, Deren Sorn and Maximus Tallis. All the others had gone to some soft school for gentlemen, which seemed to regard removal of the balls of its pupils as its primary objective.”

“As I remember, Yandin was eternally grateful that those men hated each other’s guts. Had they teamed up they would have been formidable opponents.”

Sila ran the rim of her wineglass over her lips. “I wonder Alin, would a girl like Gally Sorn who makes no secrets of her sexual proclivities and her desire for power, not be drawn to a man like Maximus Tallis, who is like her father in many ways?”

Bredan considered the possibility with pursed lips. “Highly likely, except for the certainty of death that such a relationship would bring. Gally Sorn does not strike me as a stupid woman by anyone’s estimation.”

“That is your one weakness, Alin; your inability to see what love will drive people to,” Sila Klint smiled at her own cleverness. “I think the real motive of our young friends is being played out in front of our eyes.”

“You have lost me, my lady,” Bredan admitted.

“They are kept busy here and Jalia al’Dare has gone. I wonder where?”

“Searching Rotiln’s room,” Bredan said in disgust at himself and he uttered a foul expletive at his own stupidity.

“The question we should be asking,” Sila mused to herself as much as Bredan, “Is exactly what is she searching for?”

Jak Venjer banged on Captain Toren’s door in a blind fury. The Captain was a bought man, and bought men were expected to keep their clients fully informed. As he heard the door being unlocked, Jak drew his knife from his belt.

Captain Toren opened the door in his underpants, which were bulging suspiciously at the front. Before he could so much as ask a question, he found himself pressed hard against the wall with Jak’s knife tickling his throat.

“And just when were you going to tell me that we are docking in Tallis?” Jak whispered furiously. Toren looked in horror at the knife but could not answer the question because it was held so close to his throat. Jak realized he had to move his knife if he wanted Toren to speak, and this he did reluctantly.

“It was Boat Company business and I work primarily for them,” Toren explained in as conciliatory a whisper as he could manage under the circumstances. “Our arrangement is nothing to do with information about their plans.” Toren hoped that Venjer would understand he was whispering for a purpose and would continue to do the same. He flicked his eyes towards his room door repeatedly in the hope that Venjer would take the hint.

Jak let the knife fall further from Toren’s throat as he decided Toren had a point. Under an absolutely strict interpretation of their deal, Toren was in the right.

“Did it even occur to you that this matter might be directly connected with our arrangement?” he asked in a much lower voice.

“I would have told you at our next meeting, once the Steam Dragon is underway. I did not want the news to leak out to people like the Governor. He might have taken it as a sign of Boat Company weakness.”

“The Governor is not one of my men,” Jak said softly. He let go of the Captain who tried to straighten up his sagging underwear.

“Who can know for certain who are your men, and who are not?”

“Fair enough,” Jak said and swept down the corridor without a backwards glance.

Gally Sorn swung around the bedroom door wearing nothing but a smile.

“Who was that?” she asked as she beckoned him back.

“Nothing. A silly misunderstanding, that is all.” Toren noticed what Gally was using the side of the door to do to herself. She seemed unconcerned by the prospect of splinters. The sight of Gally’s body was having its usual effect on the Captain.

“I can see you are ready to play again, Gil. Come back to bed and I will see if I can make that nasty swelling go away,” Gally giggled as she stopped using the door as a rubbing post and grabbed the Captain’s hand. “Not too quickly though, I hope. A girl has certain needs to be satisfied.”

Jalia walked into the dining room with an apologetic smile on her face.

“I am so sorry, Lady Rotiln, what ever must you think of me?” she asked as she sat down at the table. “The problem I was suffering seems to have left me.”

“You must call me Sala, child, and I shall call you Jalia. That is an unusual name you know, very ancient if my memory serves me correct. I am surprised that there are any left in Jalon who carry it.”

“My mother chose it for me,” Jalia replied. “She died before I thought to ask her why. It is too late to ask now, I’m afraid.”

“Daniel on the other hand, is a fairly common name,” Daniel pointed out.

“Only in the form of Dan,” Lady Sala corrected. “It seems everyone in Jalon gives their children shortened names, even royalty. Even Jalia is itself a shortened form of the name Jaliscia.”

“Really?” Daniel said with a sudden gleam in his eye, “I shall know what to call Jalia when she next acts like a naughty little girl.”

“Harrumph!” Lady Rotiln said as her face reddened. Jalia just looked sweetly at Daniel as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The smoldering sexual signals flying between Jalia and Daniel had an invigorating effect on Lady Rotiln.

She gave Halad a significant look and he gave a start as he realized he was required to speak.

“I thank you for your conversation, but I am tired after a busy day in Bratin. I am sure that Lady Rotiln is also feeling the same way. Would you mind if we called it a night?”

“Absolutely no problem,” Daniel said, rising quickly to his feet before Lady Rotiln stood up. “Thank you for all your kind assistance. I’m sure our stay in Slarn will be much more enjoyable now we know exactly what to see.”

Daniel and Jalia watched Halad and Lady Rotiln leave the room with fixed smiles on their faces.

“You don’t suppose they are going to play at naughty little girl and angry father?” Daniel asked just before Jalia’s elbow in the guts rendered him temporarily speechless.

“I can’t take you anywhere?” Jalia scolded. “I’ve a good mind not to give you your toy back.” Exactly contrary to her words, she rammed Daniel’s knife into his hands. Jalia thrust them with enough force to bend Daniel further over.

“Some bad fruit we ate in Bratin,” she explained loudly to the room and everybody watching them returned their gaze back to their food.

Lady Rotiln turned and faced Halad at the door to her suite.

“You won’t be rough on me, now will you Halad?” she asked in a little girl voice.

“I shall not leave a single mark upon your tender flesh, my lady,” Halad replied sternly.

“You can, just so long as they are not where anyone might see them,” Lady Rotiln giggled. “I have never felt as young as I do now, even when I was really that age.”

She unlocked the door and they rushed into her suite. Halad took her in his arms and lifted her off her feet to kiss her passionately. Lady Rotiln’s eyes were closed for a long time while Halad hugged her close. She wrapped her legs around his as best she could while constrained in her dress. Then she opened her eyes and saw the knife mark in the door.

“Put me down, you oath,” she shouted; all thoughts of liaisons forgotten. Halad staggered as she struggled to get out of his embrace.

“Have I done something to offend?” Halad asked in sudden fright. Lady Rotiln was part of a powerful family who would have less trouble killing Halad than they would swatting a fly.

“Not you fool, there, look where I’m pointing.”

Halad followed her arm and saw the knife mark in the door. He ran his finger over it, getting a splinter in his finger for his troubles.

As he cursed and shook his hand, Lady Rotiln started to search the room. It took only moments to remove the draw and pick up the empty bag hidden beneath it.

“The cunning bitch,” she said, half in curse and half in admiration. She sat down heavily in a chair and considered her options.

“What is missing, my lady?” Halad had wrapped his finger in his handkerchief and was trying to avoid bursting into tears.

“Nothing, Halad. Forget it. I do not want you to concern yourself in this matter.”

“Once I have run cold water on my finger I am sure we will be able to resume where we left off,” Halad offered.

Lady Rotiln dismissed the suggestion. “I am no longer in the mood,” she told Halad. “Go back to your own cabin for the night. We will meet in the morning for breakfast.”

“Why would anybody stick a knife in your door to let you know they had burgled you?” Halad asked. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to leave the room in a mess?”

“That is a very good question, Halad.” Lady Rotiln gathered him in her arms and led him towards the door. “And it is one I shall sleep on tonight.”

Before Halad was aware of what was going on he was standing in the corridor staring at a closed door. After a few moments of thought, he shrugged and made his way to his cabin, which was much less salubrious.

Lady Rotiln went to her bed and sat down upon it. The ring and the dagger were back with their original owners, of that she was certain. On her own part, she would have to explain to Gally Sorn what had happened and suspected that the conversation would not be a pleasant experience.

Lady Rotiln shrugged. She had done her best and it wasn’t her fault. If Gally wanted to take the matter further with Daniel and Jalia that was up to her. The ring and dagger were hardly that valuable. The whole thing was nothing more than a contest of wills between Gally and the couple. It seemed that Jalia and Daniel had won this round. Knowing Gally the way she did, Lady Rotiln almost felt sorry for the two of them. For all that they had just stolen from her and made her life difficult, she admired both of them and didn’t want them hurt.

15.
      
Essences

Next morning, Daniel fitted his dagger back onto his belt. It felt good to wear it again, as it had been his since his mother gave it to him on his seventh birthday. He now knew that the dagger was over a thousand years old and had hung from the belt of every heir of the Magician King’s since their destruction at the hands of the Fairie.

Even before the Fairie, Princess Clea, endowed it with the power to fly to his command, it had been filled with ancient human magic. It had shielded the heirs from Fairie detection and he knew it had been shielding him even as Clea added to its power. Daniel looked down at his dagger with a sense of awe.

The dagger’s hilt was of the plainest construction, its wooden hilt had cracked centuries ago and been repaired many times, string having being wound around the handle soaked with glue. He had repaired that handle himself when he was twelve years old, using furniture makers’ glue made from the hooves of horses. This gave the string a varnished look, though its hilt felt anything but smooth in his hand.

The blade it sported had been tarnished and dinted in those days, he had sharpened it many times but some of the nicks along its length were deep. Princess Clea had changed all that the day she added her magic to that already there. The blade now glinted with a wicked blue light in sunlight and it had become sharper than any razor that Daniel had known. It sometimes felt like it was cutting the air itself when Daniel swung it. What Clea had also done that day was make the knife desirable to a thief; where before, a thief would have left it untouched.

The Steam Dragon left the port of Bratin at first light, this time without incident. Daniel imagined that Captain Toren must have been expecting an angry mob at the least after what happened at Wegnar. Not that their visit to Bratin had been uneventful. Daniel wondered what the people of Bratin would make of their clock restarting. He hoped they would not connect the event to him.

He looked over to Jalia’s bunk where she appeared to be sleeping. He was well aware that that look could be an illusion; she often lay like that when fully awake. Jalia had made no attempt to make her special invisible ink solution when they got back to the cabin, possibly because they stayed up talking with Cara and Don until well after midnight. Nin and Hala had left them earlier as Nin had to start work at first light.

Daniel began to brew tea.

“Make enough tea for two,” Jalia said, speaking from over his shoulder. Daniel hadn’t heard her get up or come to him, which had undoubtedly been her plan. However, he did not bat an eyelid when she spoke.

“When do I ever brew tea for one?”

Turning around, he saw her standing naked. He always had trouble getting his eyes off her when she was in that state, though she was unconcerned about being naked around him. It wasn’t only the arousal, as he loved to look at and admire her beautifully proportioned body.

Jalia’s body was a work of art as far as Daniel was concerned. He could see the hint of muscles rippling below smooth white skin. She had the whitest skin of anybody he had seen; apparently inheriting it with her blue eyes from her mother. Jalia had told him that her mother had regularly dyed her hair black, as her natural hair color was some kind of yellow. Daniel had never heard of people with hair that color, let alone seen one.

He knew Jalia worried that her breasts were too small, but she would have been far less balanced and poised if her breasts were bigger. Her figure could have been designed for an acrobat and Daniel considered that she had the better of the deal, though Jalia never saw it that way.

“We do not have time for that this morning,” Jalia said disapprovingly, as she noticed the bulge in Daniel’s trousers. “You have been getting far too much of it as it is. Everyone knows that a horse needs to be kept short of oats to get the best from it.”

“Are you saying that you see me as some kind of horse?” Daniel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I am saying that I need to keep you in shape. Too much sex will make you go blind.”

“I think it is the sexual relief I resort to that does that.”

“And to think those self-same hands just made and handed me this mug of tea,” Jalia replied. “I trust you washed them properly first?”

“No, I never do,” Daniel said with a wide grin on his face. “Does that mean that you will be doing all the cooking and tea making from now on?”

Jalia ignored him and got dressed. Daniel drank his tea while he waited for her. He sat on his bunk with his boots up on the bed.

“Don’t think you are getting me into that bunk after you have wiped your boots all over the sheets.” Jalia dragged his feet around to the floor. “I want to get on this morning.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to prepare the juice for the invisible ink. I am going to sieve it through a muslin bag but I doubt that will be good enough. I will probably have to distil it as well.”

“You have the magic ring,” Daniel pointed out.

“Daniel, you know how literal the ring is. How am I going to ask it to extract a substance I can’t even name, let alone describe meaningfully in words? I would probably end up with a vial of pure water if I was to try.”

“And the other reason?” Daniel sensed an undercurrent.

“This is a chance for me to be an alchemist again, if only for a few hours. I trained for four years of my life to do that and you know the price I paid. I want to use those skills again; if only to prove to myself I still can.”

“You will still have eyebrows at the end of it?” Daniel asked. “When you made the exploding powder you lost your eyebrows for weeks. I’m very fond of your eyebrows.”

Daniel said this in so pathetic a voice that Jalia punched him on the shoulder and laughed. “I will try and hold onto my eyebrows this time. I’m making something that won’t leave a mark on paper, so I hardly think it’s dangerous.”

“In that case, let us be off to break our fast in the dining room. I wonder if Hala will be there, or whether she considers herself part of the crew.”

“I’m sure she’ll be there, Daniel. She hasn’t made that decision yet.”

Their table was already filled with friends when they got there. Cara, Don and Hala looked up and smiled as they entered the room.

Cara was particularly eager to discuss their plans. They had barely sat down before she was asking the one question they couldn’t answer.

“How are we going to stop Gally Sorn from getting the swords to Maximus?”

Daniel looked around to make sure nobody was near enough to have heard.

“Perhaps we could just refer to it as
The Problem
?” Daniel suggested. Cara put her hand to her mouth as she realized what she had just said in a public place and nodded, her face having turned a deep shade of crimson.

“Well then, how do we deal with the problem?” Don asked. He bit into a piece of cheese and wondered if the Boat Company had ever considered adding variety to their breakfast fare.

“We will eat a hearty breakfast so we have the energy to think,” Jalia replied. “The remaining journey takes the Steam Dragon four days so there is no need to rush into anything. I’m sure something will turn up if we relax.”

“Do we have any idea about her plans?” Cara asked more circumspectly.

“Some,” Jalia admitted. “It is not common knowledge yet, but the Dragon will be docking in Tallis and not Dalk as was planned. Someone set fire to the Boat Company’s buildings in Dalk’s harbor and it is out of action.”

“You think the fire is the work of Deren Sorn?” Don asked, “Because from all I understand about him, he is not so stupid as to make an enemy out of the Boat Company.”

“We believe that Gally is working with Maximus, remember? This could be his plan to get the swords, not Deren’s,” Jalia said

“Deren will have every possible route out of the port covered,” Don stated as an indisputable fact. “And he will have the full support of Oto Tallis who Tallis’s king. There is no way Gally is going to get those swords to Maximus once the Dragon docks in Tallis.”

“Which merely confirms that we do not know Gally’s plan,” Daniel pointed out.

“If we don’t understand how she’s going to do it, how can we possibly stop her?” Hala asked.

“Do you know where Nin is right this minute?” Jalia asked.

“Of course,” Hala replied, confused by the question and the change of subject.

“And no doubt you have plans to meet up with him,” Jalia continued.

“Yes, but…”

“And yet I can stop those plans by making you come back to our cabin and not letting you out?”

“Yes, but…”

“Therefore I can stop your plans without knowing where Nin is or when you plan to meet him?” Jalia asked triumphantly.

“I suppose so.”

“We know exactly where the swords are and we know where Gally Sorn is. Even if we never discover what her plans are, we can still stop her,” Jalia concluded.

“But it would be nice to know, wouldn’t it?” Hala asked, feeling a little crushed.

“I’d certainly be happier if I knew what she was up to,” Daniel agreed and gave Hala a hug. She smiled and hugged him back.

“So would I,” Jalia agreed, “I was just pointing out that it isn’t essential for us to know.”

As they got up to leave, Jalia turned to Daniel.

“Let me get on with what I have to do in peace, Daniel. I should be finished before the evening meal.” She put on her best little-girl-pleading look.

“Promise me you won’t use the fluid on the paper without me being there?”

“How could you think I would consider such a thing?”

“Long, bitter, experience, has been my guide,” Daniel said with a sad smile.

“I promise,” Jalia said when she realized he planned to keep them there until she spoke.

“Then I will let you get on with it.” Daniel kissed Jalia lightly on the forehead.

“I had my fingers crossed the whole time,” Jalia whispered to herself as she left the room.

 
“I’m going to do some sword practice with Hala,” Cara announced. “Some man seems to have forgotten about the lessons he was supposed to give her.”

“She was busy with Nin,” Daniel protested.

“Just like a man to come up with such a feeble excuse.” Cara sniffed. “Come on Hala, you will soon learn that a woman can only trust the word of another woman.”

“It looks like it’s just the two of us,” Don remarked.

“Is there any more of this boat you haven’t shown me?” Daniel asked.

Don waved at Daniel to follow and the men walked from the room.

Jalia returned to their cabin and collected the materials she needed to purify the juice. She carefully cut the rind away from the fruit and put the rest into a muslin bag before squeezing juice through the bag and into a basin. As she expected, the juice was full of pulp that escaped through the weave of the bag. In other times, she might have waited for the pulp to settle out, but she wanted this task finished by the end of the day. She poured all the liquid she had produced into a glass tumbler.

The next step was to distil the essence from the juice. Jalia remembered from her training that the essence of the Balbub fruit vaporized before water did. Therefore, her best option was to create a small still. She stripped the glass cover off the room’s oil lamp and bent the lamp’s clips to form a stand. She mounted the tumbler with the fruit juice on the clips before she lit the lamp.

It was fortunate that the Steam Dragon was supplied with equipment from a city. Glass was rare in the villages while cities always had glass manufacturers. Their cabin had several items she could use. There was a tall glass vase that she filled with cold water and held at a steep angle. She planned to condense the vapor on the outside surface of the vase. The liquid she wanted would form on the vase and drip into a tumbler.

She would have to keep the juice in the tumbler just hot enough to release vapors but not hot enough to boil. She also needed to keep the vase’s surface cold enough to condense the vapors, and this required frequent changes of water. It was a delicate process, requiring precise actions and patience, and would take the rest of the day to complete.

As Jalia worked, she talked to her ring as if it was a pupil and she the teacher, explaining what she was doing step by step. She had decided the ring needed a name and Lady Rotiln had given her the perfect one the previous evening.