Daja's Book (7 page)

There must have been something in her magical voice; he was at her side in a flash, urging her up the cliff face. The higher she rose, the more warmth she took from the stone. By the time they were at the ridge, she felt much better.

I saw a river down there
, Briar remarked.
Melted water, running through a long tube in the ice. It was
beautiful! Recovering from his daze, he added,
What happened? We got in the hot springs under the castle and you were gone. We didn't wreck any plumbing, by the way. The water came through another crack in the stone. We should close the opening, though, before somebody gets flooded
.

How?
Daja asked.
I don't know which of us did it or how, and I
truly
don't know how to stop it up again. Moving rock is what Tris does
.

Then let's ask her
, the boy replied sternly.
Let's get it fixed and go back to work, before some long-neb finds our bodies just standing in the baths. You got your bond to her?

Daja found it. Racing along, taking the quick way back to the castle and their bodies, they called to their friend.
Tris! Tris
!

—
and hematite to draw illness from a body
—Tris was memorizing one of the many lists Niko gave her while she worked.
To ground and stabilize, to focus on the physical plane, for scrying. Jade for lave, healing
—

TRIS
! Briar and Daja shouted, throwing their power behind the call.

What?! What? I'm
busy! cried Tris.

Rather than waste time by telling her what had happened, they showed her images of the break in the ground Daja had made and the water jet shooting out of it. Tris needed a moment to sort out what they needed; the doubled images of the same event were more confusing than useful at first.
I'll fix it
, she
told them grumpily.
And you better hope Niko doesn't find out
.

He won't if you stop jawing and get to it
, Briar retorted, as he and Daja fell into their physical bodies again.

As they began to stretch limbs that had gone stiff, they felt Tris in the earth nearby, grumbling like a vexed housewife. By the time they walked out of the baths, she had used the bubbling force of the hot springs to block the channel Daja had opened.

“We'd better change clothes,” Briar commented with a sigh. “If Lark sees us like this, she might think we got in a fight or something.”

There was no arguing with that: all their work to get the mud out of their garments had just created large smears. Daja followed Briar to their rooms, where they changed into clean things. Daja also seized the opportunity to use their privy. On their way back to Lark, Tris, and Sandry they peered into the courtyard where Daja's power had gotten away from her. Tris had done things properly. The only sign that hot water had jetted from the ground here was soaked earth and water-splattered stone.

T
here
you are,” Lark began, rising to her feet when Briar and Daja returned. There was a look of welcome and relief in her eyes.

Daja blinked at the scene before her: she could see why Lark was so glad they were back. Across from the entry to the courtyard, someone had placed two piles of cushions on a groundcloth. Between the cushions was a low wooden table decked with covered plates, a pitcher, and a teapot. Little Bear lay with his muzzle on his forepaws, nose just touching the groundcloth, eyes locked on the plates.

In front of the whole arrangement waited Polyam. With a bow to Daja, the Trader indicated the
cushions, and said, “It is a fine day for a conversation.” The words were set by centuries of custom around the Pebbled Sea. They meant that the one who spoke them wished to do serious business.

Daja walked over, passing close to her forge. A quick glance into it showed that her white fire grid was gone, used up far below the ground.

“I beg you to accept this gift,” Polyam added with a wave toward the iron vine. Beside it was a chased dish a foot in width. Daja picked it up. It was copper of a particular ruddy shade, with an inch-wide rim decorated in scalloped patterns, and a central design of shaggy horses and fur-capped riders in full gallop. It was a good piece of metal, comfortably solid in her hands. “It's just a token,” commented Polyam, her words still those of bargaining custom. “To show my respect for your work.”

Daja flipped the dish over, searching for the maker's mark. It was in one horse's round haunch; not the mark of a smith she knew. “This is Gold Ridge copper,” she murmured. During the trip north, she had taken every chance to see and handle local metalwork. Long before their arrival, she knew the feel of Gold Ridge copper as well as she knew her own name.

“I bought it here,” Polyam replied. “We come through every two years or so.”

You must have done better then, to afford this, thought Daja. The plate was worth at least two silver
astrels, a lot of money for a
wirok
. “I couldn't take one of your things.”

Polyam shook her head. “I was a different woman then. The business I hope to do with you is more important.”

Daja ran her fingers over the chasing. The copper sang behind her eyes as she stared at Polyam. At last she rested the piece next to the iron vine. Getting her staff from where it leaned against the wall, she laid it on the dropcloth and sat next to it, one pile of cushions at her back.

Once Polyam was seated with her own staff beside her, she carefully poured tea into small cups. Bargain-cups were supposed to be fine work; this pair had seen better days. Daja chose to ignore it. She had a feeling that Polyam had been forced to use her belongings—no one wanted the caravan's bargain-goods handled by a
trangshi
. They would only have to be cleansed later, or even destroyed.

Polyam raised her cup to Daja. “To business,” she said.

Daja copied her. “To business.” She sipped as her hostess did and hummed with pleasure. This was real Trader tea, hot, strong, flavored with smoke. She'd drunk nothing like it since her last night aboard Third Ship Kisubo.

Polyam smiled. “Talk needs food, or the talkers weaken.” She took lids from the dishes, putting them aside. The plates were laden with things like cold vine
leaves stuffed with rice, onion, garlic, and mint, tiny pickled onions, pastries filled with chicken or eggplant and spices, apricots stuffed with almond-rosewater paste, and small fruit tartlets. Last but not least, she saw almond and orange cakes. All were traditional foods among Traders, in caravans and ships alike, and Daja had not tasted any of them in months.

Looking at her knees, she bit down on her lower lip until she had beaten the urge to cry. If Polyam saw emotion, she would know that Daja was sensitive about Trader food, and she would have the advantage when they bargained. At last the girl took up the threadbare linen napkin Polyam had supplied and spread it over her crossed legs. “I really shouldn't,” she said, as good manners dictated.

Polyam was very carefully staring at the table. “It is a poor effort, I know, but my mother's sister would be shamed to tears if I returned this uneaten.”

Daja picked up one of each thing, arranging the food on her plate. When she finished her choices, Polyam followed suit. Carefully Daja lifted a tiny pickled onion to her lips and bit down, savoring the tart juice and the vegetable's crispness.

Little Bear whined. Daja glanced at him: he was still in the same position at the edge of the dropcloth, but his tail waved slowly. He whined again.

Something made her look past him. Briar and Tris watched her with nearly the same expression on their faces as the dog. Sandry was too well-behaved to be
caught staring. Lark's back was to them as she helped Sandry to pull the sticks and threads of the new loom taut.

Daja looked at Briar and Tris again; her face twitched. Polyam twisted so she could see what was going on. Tris cut furiously at aloe leaves as the boy stirred bubbling seaweed.

“It would be
kaq's
manners not to share,” Polyam muttered. “Will you join us?” she invited the others. Briar walked over immediately. Little Bear sat up, tail thumping.

“This is very kind of you,” Lark said as she and Tris came to sit with them. Sandry joined them once she'd rolled up the loom.

“The people bargaining in Deadman's District never shared,” admitted Briar, his mouth full of pastry. “They'd let us watch, though.”

“Let us say I have a soft spot for dogs, then,” replied Polyam, scratching Little Bear behind the ears. “And children.”

“Your mother's sister must have enough
zirok
in Oti Bookkeeper's ledgers for the next three generations, if she cooks like this for a trade,” said Daja. “Even my clan leader didn't cook so well.”

“The head of your clan had to
cook
?” Tris wanted to know. “Why not make someone else do it?”

“Traders prize cooking as highly as the ability to negotiate better prices,” said Lark. “That's why formal
bargaining includes gifts of food, isn't it, Polyam? People let down their guard if they're well-fed.”

Polyam made a face. “It's not right that a
kaq
knows so much of
Tsaw'ha
ways,” she muttered. To Daja she added, “Or that you are
teaching
them our ways.”

“I was taught your ways by other Traders, when I was just a sprightly young thing,” said Lark.

“She was an acrobat,” Daja told Polyam.

“And a dancer,” added Sandry.

“And she passed the tambourine for coins after they performed,” Tris put in.

“I learned what I know traveling with my parents and my nurse,” remarked Sandry.

“Then where are they now, your mother and father?” Polyam wanted to know, her eye bright with curiosity. “Would they be happy to see their child in the dirt, associating with commoners?”

“They're dead,” Sandry replied flatly, tracing the embroidery on a cushion with her finger. “Both of them, in the smallpox epidemic in Hatar last fall.”

“When the gods balance the books, mortals weep,” Polyam said gravely. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Sandry looked at her, small round chin thrust out stubbornly. “Besides, Uncle likes my friends.
And
he doesn't seem to mind dirt.”

“Gods know we rode through enough of it these last two weeks,” muttered Tris.

“What of you, boy?” Polyam asked Briar. “Where did you learn
Tsaw'ha
things?”

“In Hajra, in Sotat,” replied the boy, taking another stuffed vine leaf.

“Don't look at me,” Tris said hurriedly. “My family never associated with anyone other than fellow merchants.”

“You all live in the same house, at a Living Circle temple city?” inquired the Trader.

The four nodded.

“And you are all
xurdin
?” she continued, using the word for mage.

“Niko found us,” explained Sandry. “Niklaren Goldeye. Daja was shipwrecked, and he found her; I was hidden from a mob in a cellar in Hatar. Briar was being sentenced to—” She blinked, trying to remember her friend's one-time destination.

“The docks,” he said. When Polyam looked at him, he showed her his X tattoos. “Caught thieving three times—but don't worry. Anyone that nicks Trader—
Tsaw'ha
—” he changed the word with a mocking grin—”things gets bad magic on them.”

“And Tris was at another Living Circle temple,” Sandry finished. She didn't add that Tris's family had given her away, being too frightened to keep her. Even now Tris hated to hear it mentioned. “Niko saw our magic, that no one else knew we had, and brought us to Lark and Rosethorn—”

“And Frostpine,” interrupted Daja.

Sandry beamed at her. “I wasn't going to forget him. How could I? They had magic like ours,” she told Polyam. “Well, and he brought me there partly because Duke Vedris is my great-uncle.”

“It's quite a story,” admitted Lark. “And it grows every day.” She grinned. “Sometimes it's very tiring to be a part of it.”

“Ack!” cried Briar. Now that the food was nearly gone, he realized his current pot of what he called “oil stew” might burn. Getting up, he ran over to tend it.

“So you were Blue Traders?” Polyam asked Daja.

Seeing Tris open her mouth to ask for an explanation of the term, Daja quickly said, “Those who travel the seas and rivers are Blue Traders. The ones who ride snow or sand are called White Traders.” Answering Polyam, she added, “Blue Traders, on the Pebbled Sea.”

“Speaking of snow, Polyam, didn't you come here from the north? How were the passes? Is autumn there as late as it is here?” Lark wanted to know.

Polyam refilled Daja's teacup. “Not in the Namornese Mountains,” she replied. “But the closer we came to here, the more shrunken the snow and ice-fields on all but the highest mountains.”

“Maybe you know what I saw,” said Daja. “There was a river of ice, I swear it! In the higher mountains, about ten or fifteen miles—” She looked around, trying to guess directions from the sun. She pointed. “Southwest. It ended in a barren valley—”

“It looked more scraped than barren,” Briar called from his table.

Polyam and Lark traded amused glances. “You have never seen a glacier before?” inquired the Trader.

“A glacier? A real one?” asked Tris, eager. “Where? Could I see it?”

“There is a small one, probably the one she means,” Polyam replied. “The Dalburz—it flows out of the Feyzi ice cap in Gansar.”

“But this looks like a river, except there are cracks in it,” protested Daja.

“That's what a glacier is,” Tris informed her. “A river of ice that grows and shrinks, depending on the weather. Lark,
phase
can I see it?”

“We'll have to ask Niko,” said the dedicate, getting to her feet and gracefully dusting off her behind. “Now, why don't we go back to work, so Daja and Polyam can bargain? Now that the ice is broken, so to speak,” she added with an impish smile.

“Oh, all right,” grumbled Tris, struggling to rise.

“Thank you for the blessing and the bounty of food,” Lark told Polyam in Tradertalk, with a bow. She drew Tris away, translating what she'd just said. Sandry followed, after a small, polite curtsey to Polyam. Little Bear resettled himself, this time for a proper nap.

For a moment the Trader said nothing, twisting so she could look at Daja's friends as they settled to their tasks. When she turned back to Daja, there was no
way for the girl to guess what thoughts were behind that scarred and yellow-marked face. “They say the ice caps from which the glaciers spring are miles deep,” Polyam remarked. “I have a feeling that your story is much the same—I see only the tiniest part of what is there, for you and for all of them.” She hesitated, then added, “When we have finished our bargain, I will add a packet of tea. I know it cannot be found.”

The offer was a startling one. Their unique tea blend was one of the few things Traders did not include in business deals: while artisans,
lugsha
, might taste it in a bargaining session, they could not buy it.

At the mention of the reason they were there, both of them looked at the iron vine and the copper plate beside it. Daja gasped. Somehow, a rod in the trunk of the vine had separated from the others, to plunge one end into the plate. The metal around the iron looked soft and crumpled, as if the rod sucked the copper into the vine. On a branch near that rod and the plate, a tiny copper bud had appeared.

Daja got up and walked over to inspect her creation. Gently she turned it—and the plate—over. The thin piece of iron merged with the plate as if they were melted together, and copper striped the iron all the way back to the vine's trunk. Freeing the plate would be a chore, if it could be done at all. Ought she to ask Rosethorn for help?

“I'm
dreadfully
sorry,” Daja told Polyam as the
Trader joined her. “I had no idea this would happen. None at all.”

Polyam stared at plate and vine, rubbing her scarred ear. “Two gold majas,” she said at last. “Even
gilav
Chandrisa won't argue, not when she sees this. And it seems I must find another token to give you, since I will be getting this one back in another form.”

“Please,” Daja said, putting a hand on the woman's arm. “A token isn't necessary.”

Polyam's smile was wry. “First I am lectured in proper bargaining by your friends, then
you
tell me to ignore it. If we are to do this, let it be done correctly.”

“Besides,” Tris remarked from her seat near Briar, her gray eyes sharp behind her spectacles, “the more unusual
this
purchase is, the better
you
look to your caravan.”