Dagger's Point (Shadow series) (34 page)

Lainan’s words were the last blow to her already fraying temper. Jael jumped to her feet.

“By the gods, it seems like since I was born I’ve never been quite good enough for anybody,” Jael exploded. “And I’m damned sick of it.” She pointed to Lainan’s sword. “Is there a guard on that thing?”

Lainan rose to his feet also, his eyes narrowing.

“There is, yes, for practice,” he said. “Do you challenge me?”

Jael strode to her packs and drew out her own sword, carefully fitting the guard over the sharp blade.

“I don’t want to kill you,” she said, “and I hope you don’t want to kill me, but by the gods, I can’t take another moment of being stupid, clumsy Jaellyn who isn’t worthy of being someone’s sister or even of a soul of her own! So let’s settle this right now. If you can defeat me, Tanis and I will start home at first light tomorrow. But if I win, tomorrow at first light you get me into that temple. If those Enlightened Ones aren’t going to help me, they can by the gods tell me so in person.”

“Gladly,” Lainan said, drawing his own sword. To Jael’s relief, he fitted it with a metal guard very similar to hers. The sword, too, was much like Jael’s, although it seemed newer.

Jael kicked aside the furs scattered over the floor to make room; they certainly couldn’t fight outside in the narrow alleys between the buildings. She half-expected Lainan to demand some overly elaborate challenge ritual, but to her relief he took a ready stance without further ado, only waiting for Jael to raise her own sword before he launched his attack.

Jael had had no sword practice for weeks, and she’d never practiced against the style Lainan was using; his first swift stroke almost went through her guard, and she realized miserably that she’d slowed down in the weeks since she’d practiced against an armed opponent. She missed, too, the swift, sure balance she’d had when she found the soul keeper in the dragon’s nest; fortunately, having never had a chance to use her new surefootedness in sword practice, she hadn’t come to depend upon it.

Lainan’s stroke was almost blinding in its speed, and again Jael barely turned it aside. He’d rapidly forced her into a defensive stand, too busy parrying his strokes to press an attack of her own. Gods, her mother’s style was too slow for this kind of swordplay, the elven style too subtle, and she’d had little success developing her own instinctive style when no one else seemed to use it, unlike Lainan, who’d been training probably for years—

Stop thinking,
Jael reminded herself sternly, and she drew a deep breath, relaxing her muscles and flowing with the rhythm of Lainan’s attack, waiting for an opening to press her own offensive. At last Lainan overextended ever so slightly and Jael was able to pull him off balance, breaking his pattern; by the time he had recovered, Jael had found her own rhythm. She had his measure now, and though he was well trained in a style similar to the one Jael tried to use—and much better at it than Jael, too—he’d never been exposed to the several different styles that Jael had worked with.

Now she exploited that knowledge, using moves and strategies he couldn’t possibly know to break his patterns. Now Jael had the advantage; unlike Lainan, she was well accustomed to fighting against a style entirely different from her own, accustomed to altering her own patterns to adapt.

As Lainan tried again and again to create a pattern to beat down Jael’s guard, to slip past her defenses, and was repeatedly confounded, he grew angrier and more frustrated. They were both becoming tired now, but Jael, worn down by long travel, unaccustomed to lengthy swordplay, and strained by the effort to incorporate moves never meant for her sword and style, could feel her strength failing quickly. She was utterly relieved when Lainan made the wrong parry, enabling her with an elven maneuver to twist his sword out of his hand and send it skittering across the stone floor.

Lainan looked so furious that for a moment Jael thought he’d attack her, armed or not, but at last he raised his empty hands, fingers splayed, then lowered them to his side, breathing hard.

“You have bested me,” he growled.

Jael was gasping for breath herself, but she picked up his sword and handed it back to him.

“Only just,” she panted. “You’re faster than me, and stronger, too. If I hadn’t known moves you couldn’t possibly have learned, you’d have had me in a moment or two. That trick wouldn’t work on you a second time, I’ll wager.”

Lainan’s scowl faded slowly. Abruptly he extended one hand; remembering the plains hunters, Jael clasped forearms with him and smiled.

“You fought well and honorably,” Lainan said grudgingly. “Will you teach me what you know?”

“If you’ll teach me, too,” Jael grinned. “I have a lot to learn from you, too. As long as I’m here, that is.”

This time Lainan almost smiled.

“A fair bargain,” he said. “And tomorrow I’ll take you to the temple, as I promised.”

“And me,” Tanis said. Jael turned to see him standing by the door flap, leaning comfortably against the stone. “I’m going, too.”

Jael wiped sweat out of her eyes and laid her sword down.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to realize I don’t want to practice with either of you,” Tanis said good-naturedly, “or no self-respecting dragon would want what’s left of me. You’ve been in such a bad mood the last couple of days, I thought you might want some company.”

“I think I’ve worked off my bad mood,” Jael panted, grinning at Lainan. “I hope you have, too.”

Lainan gave Jael the briefest of nods, sheathed his sword, and slipped through the doorway without a word. Tanis took off his fur jacket and laid it aside, pouring a cup of cold water for Jael.

“So you’re tired of waiting for the Enlightened Ones to make a move?” Tanis asked. “What’11 you do if they say no, they won’t help you?”

“I’ll just have to make sure they don’t say no,” Jael sighed. “There’s nothing else I can do, is there? Look, let’s not talk about it or I’ll never sleep tonight.”

“After that bout, you’ll sleep,” Tanis said, grinning. He pulled a few furs back over the floor. “Lie down and I’ll rub your muscles.”

Tanis’s touch was gentler than her mother’s, firm and slow and soothing, and Jael felt her taut muscles relax. She was near the firepit, and the glow of the heat against her bare skin was delightful. Despite the hard stone floor under the furs, she was starting to drowse when Tanis stopped.

“Just lie still a moment,” Tanis murmured, and Jael could hear his footsteps across the floor. When he returned, he sat down on the floor beside her, the bottle of Bluebright in his hand.

“One last drink?” he suggested. “Soon you won’t need it.”

Jael started to decline—it was late and she was tired—but then she thought,
I’ll just lie there and think about tomorrow.
It occurred to her, too, although she said nothing, that the last few times she’d lain with Tanis, the woman he’d been tumbling hadn’t really been her, not entirely. Somehow she couldn’t quite bring herself to tell him that, and for that reason perhaps she owed him, and herself, this one night.

Jael floated in the warm euphoria of the Bluebright, wonderfully aware and rejoicing in the sweet sensations of stone surrounding her, the tender insistence of Tanis’s touch, the softness of the furs against her skin, but most of all being
Jaellyn
who could enjoy these things. When she drowsed in Tanis’s arms, she held on to waking as long as she could, knowing that when she woke she’d no longer be all Jaellyn as she was this night, that the morrow might indeed mean the end of all hope that she’d ever be completely whole, permanently
herself.
That thought, the sensation of teetering on the dagger’s point of her destiny, made each moment, each touch so much the sweeter.

She never remembered falling asleep that night, but she woke abruptly in the dim light of the dwelling to find Lainan standing over them, apparently unembarrassed.

“If you’re still determined to go to the Enlightened Ones,” he said, “let us go before my father learns of it. It’s against all custom for those who have not proven themselves and gained a soul to enter the temple unless summoned there.”

Jael and Tanis quickly donned their warm clothes, and, a little defiantly, Jael belted on her sword and dagger. They followed Lainan in the dim predawn light through the maze of alleys as quietly as they could, emerging at the cliff.

“We’ll take a basket down,” Lainan told them. “The path would be quieter, but it takes almost an hour to descend that way.”

Jael eyed the strange basket contraption dubiously. One woven basket was large enough to hold the three of them comfortably, and the basket itself seemed sturdy enough, but the odd arrangement of levers, chains, and pulleys confused her.

“The basket is counterweighted,” Lainan said helpfully. “There are several boulders attached to the chains. By pulling the levers, I choose how many boulders to release in accordance with the amount of weight in the basket.”

Jael and Tanis exchanged puzzled looks, but as Lainan seemed to have faith in the device, they could do nothing but step into the basket with him and hope that he knew how to operate it. Lainan pulled three levers, and to Jael’s great relief, the basket descended slowly but smoothly. Tanis, Jael noticed, clutched the rim of the basket with white-knuckled hands all the way down, although Jael was fascinated by the view of the valley floor approaching. Was this how a beast-speaker saw the ground, flying in the mind of a hawk? She almost regretted it when the basket thumped gently onto the ground at the base of the cliff.

It was only a short walk from the base of the cliff to the temple opening. Unlike the openings to the houses, this large arch was richly ornamented with the same sort of intricate carvings Jael had seen on the inside of the houses. Also unlike the houses, there was no leather door flap; this archway contained a door of solid stone, with no means of opening it that Jael could ascertain.

Lainan hesitated in front of the stone slab.

“Are you certain?” he said, gazing soberly into Jael’s eyes. “The Enlightened Ones will not be pleased by this intrusion.”

“I’m certain,” Jael said firmly. “But if you’re afraid to go in, we’ll go by ourselves.” She glanced at the door. “If we can figure out how.”

“I will take you to them,” Lainan said, although there was a tinge of uncertainty in his voice. “I gave you my word.”

He turned back to the stone door, and for the first time Jael noticed in the center of it an indentation in the shape of a six-fingered hand. Lainan fitted his own hand into the space, and the door soundlessly pivoted inward. Jael gasped as the edge of the door came into view; it was thicker than the length of her arm. Beyond the door was a stone hallway leading apparently into the mountainside, lit by torches in wall sconces.

Lainan stepped inside, beckoning to them to follow. Jael took Tanis’s hand and stepped through the door, too, shivering. The door swung slowly closed behind them.

Almost immediately Jael felt the tingling of magic surrounding her, and she shivered again. This was probably a very, very bad idea—

One of the torches flickered and went out, then another. Lainan looked up at the torches in consternation.

“Maybe we should leave,” Tanis suggested, looking at the torches as well.

“No,” Jael said, firming her resolve. “They can either help me or put up with the consequences of
not
helping me. Lainan, just show us where to go.”

“We’ll continue inward,” Lainan said, glancing up again as another torch went out. “We’ll be met. Undoubtedly the Enlightened Ones already know of our presence.”

“A scrying spell?” Jael asked, stifling a grin.

“Many of the Enlightened Ones were born to the Silent Singers Clan,” Lainan said. “They likely heard our thoughts as we approached.”

Jael winced. She knew that the Stone Brothers were those who shaped stone as she did, she had guessed that all the Wind Dancers could run like the wind, as Donya had said Farryn could, and she knew that the Enlightened Ones were the Kresh’s mages, but she hadn’t had much opportunity to wonder how the Silent Singers Clan had earned their name. Some beast-speakers, she knew, were sensitive enough that they were bombarded with the thoughts of men and women, too. Jael had always thanked the Mother Forest that
she’d
not been burdened with that particular problem, especially in the city. She’d have to guard her thoughts well while she was here.

Two more torches flickered out. Lainan scowled uncompre-hendingly.

“If this keeps up,” Tanis said worriedly, “we’re going to be in the dark. Can you see in total darkness, Jael?”

“Uh-uh.” Jael stepped up next to Lainan as yet another torch went out. “Lainan, maybe we’d better hurry.”

Lainan turned to face her.

“Do you know why the—”

“Welcome, young ones.” A gray-robed woman stepped out of the shadows, and Jael started violently; the greeting had been in her own language. “You are expected. The inner circle will meet with you. Come with me.”

Lainan did not hesitate, but fell into step behind the woman. Jael and Tanis exchanged glances and shrugged, following also. The hall was so silent that the sound of their footsteps, even their breath, seemed thunderingly loud. Jael winced a little to herself each time a torch extinguished as she passed by. She fancied that the gray-robed woman walked a little faster each time one of the lights died.

The hallway went straight into the mountainside for an amazing distance, and Jael continued to wonder at the engravings thick on the walls and ceiling. Surely the deep tunnels and intricate reliefs represented centuries of work. At last the hallway forked in different directions, and Jael could see other figures, almost all women, moving down the side passages, a few of whom gazed at the group curiously as they passed by. Their guide, however, continued down the main passageway, which eventually ended in another stone door. The door opened silently at the woman’s touch, the Enlightened One standing aside and motioning to Lainan, Jael, and Tanis to enter.

Jael gasped involuntarily at the size of the dome-shaped room into which they stepped. It was as large as the main dining hall of the palace in Allanmere, and brightly lit by torches, candles, and fat lamps. Stone benches, apparently spun up from the stuff of the floor itself, formed rows facing a large, low platform at the far end of the room. Behind the platform was an archway similar to the door by which they’d entered the mountain, but this one appeared to be one piece of rock solid with the mountain. At one end of the platform was a large stone altar; at the other was a stone table surrounded by chairs fashioned from what appeared to be large bones—dragon, perhaps. Two gray-robed women and one man occupied the chairs now, all gazing impassively at Jael.