Daja's Book (3 page)

She shook her head without looking up. “I don't know how I did it—and if I did, I don't know that next time I wouldn't burn the whole thing up.”

The riders looked at each other and shrugged. “If you figure it out, I'd like to know,” said the one who'd offered his jacket. The men bowed to her and went off to find their horses.

Sandry looked at Briar. “I need to find an answer to this accident,” she told him. “Otherwise, what's to say I won't destroy something?”

After pointing out the well to Polyam, Tris had returned to her seat and her book, still bristling over the Trader's behavior. She was just beginning to calm down when a shadow fell over her page. Looking up, she saw Polyam. “Now what?”

“Our
children have better manners,” the woman said tartly as she thumped the ground with her staff, trying to find a better place to stand.

“Then go bother one of them,” muttered Tris. She went back to her reading.

One end of the staff—the dirty end, she thought indignantly—tapped the pages of her book. “I have a name: Polyam. Use it, and tell me something,
xurdin
girl. If you knew one who was not a Trader—who was
trangshi
—would you also know why?”

Tris brushed dirt-flakes from her book. “What do you care?
Polyam
,” she added when the Trader glared at her.

Polyam lifted the end of her staff and held it close to the book. “A polite answer is noted by Oti Bookkeeper, and is entered in the account-book of your life. I have nothing to do until the smith comes but keep my face in front of yours, if you would rather be rude than tell me what I ask.”

Tris looked up at the Trader's scars, and looked away.

“I'm not pretty,” said Polyam grimly. “A
wirok
doesn't need looks. People are very happy to give me what I want cheap and send me away, rather than
have me about. I ask again: If you know one who is
trangshi
, would you also know why?”

Tris gnawed her lip and decided she would rather that this woman with her torn face and missing leg go away. “The ship Daja's family was on—Third Ship Kisubo, it was called—it sank. She was the only survivor. Now she lives at Winding Circle temple.
You
people kicked her out like the wreck was her fault.”

“You do not get rid of someone with smallpox because it is that one's fault. You do it so no one else will get the disease. Bad luck is a disease. Only the carrier—a
trangshi
—survives it, to give it to others.”

“Nonsense,” retorted Tris.

“You are sure of many things, for one who is not very old.” Polyam sighed and muttered, to herself more than to Tris, “I may be
wirok
, but at least I am still
Tsaw'ha
.”

“What does
wirok
mean, anyway? And saw-hah?” Tris always wanted to learn the meanings of new Trader words. Unlike her friends, she couldn't speak Tradertalk. “And what's so wonderful about being that and not what Daja is?”

“Wirok
bring no profit to the caravan,” was the reply. “A
wirok
spends the caravan's money with blacksmiths, and food sellers, and other needful
kaqs
. Even our children scorn a
wirok
. And you call
Tsaw'ha
Traders.”

Tris lifted her pale brows, her gray eyes puzzled. “Being a
wirok
is still better than being
trangshi
?”

The Trader hesitated. Whatever reply she might have made was lost when Daja shrieked inside the forge.
Tris
!, came Daja's frantic mind-call. In all the months Tris had known her, she had never heard Daja sound as terrified as she did now.
TrisTrisTRIS
!

The redhead jumped to her feet and raced into the building. The moment she saw Daja, she skidded to a halt.

Inside the smithy, Daja could hear Polyam clearly. Eavesdropping, not thinking of what she was up to, Daja had gone to draw a fresh nail-rod out of the fire. Instead of one length of iron, she had grasped the entire fistful of rods she'd set to heat.

Once in her grip, unnoticed by Daja, the rods had twined around each other, then split apart, forming three branches. One branch reached toward the fire, splitting again to form three twigs. Another branch wound itself around Daja's arm.

Startled by the feel of iron on her skin—though she could handle red-hot metal without getting burned, the sensation was an odd one—Daja looked down. A third iron branch reached between the fingers on her free hand, then wrapped around her palm and over her wrist.

Daja tried to pull free and failed. She bent her power on the iron, silently ordering it back to its original shape. Instead the pieces that gripped her arms continued to grow. They each seized a shoulder, holding it fast. One spread down her back;
another sprouted a tendril that gently twined around her neck. That was when she panicked and screamed.

When Tris reached her, she found Daja trapped by what looked like an ancient grapevine—trunk, limbs, and all—made of iron that still glowed orange with heat. It was sprouting metal leaves.

“It's
growing
,” Polyam gasped. She had followed Tris back to the forge.

“I can see that!” growled Tris. “Now hush—I have to do some magic.”
Frostpine
! she cried silently, calling through her magical connection to her friends. They needed Daja's teacher, and they needed him now.
Briar, Sandry, get Frostpine, hurry
!

“Tris, make it stop,” Daja begged. “I can't—magic won't touch it.
My
magic—”

Tris felt Briar's and Sandry's magics flower in her mind, as if they stood within her skull and saw through her eyes. She wished that Frostpine were part of their link. Things would be so much easier if she could speak to him as she did to her friends.

Briar, it's got leaves, it's yours
, Sandry announced.
Do something. Tris, open to him. To us
.

“Daja, breathe deep,” ordered Tris. “Calm down. It's harder to work if you're—”

“How calm would
you
be?” the captive demanded.

Tris hesitated, then grabbed Daja's hands. Briar and Sandry concentrated. Using their intertwined magics, following the ties that stretched between all four of
them, they reached into Daja with Tris, pouring in to fill Daja's skin.

I
never made anything
not
grow before
, Briar told his friends.
And the metal confuses me
. He spread through the girls, reaching into the limbs of the iron plant. All of them felt him twine around Daja's power, blocking the tendrils as the metal reached for more growth. All of them felt him grip, gathering the spreading power into his fist, and twisting it around. When he released it, the magic was locked in place.

Tris and Daja opened their eyes. The iron vine had stopped growing.

It had also wrapped its tendrils around Tris's hands. Tug as she might, she could not pull herself free of Daja.

A
n hour later, the smith-mage Frostpine inspected Tris and Daja, stroking his wild beard and trying to look serious. A dedicate of the Living Circle temples, he wore the red habit that meant his vows were given to the gods of fire. He was muscular, an inch or two over six feet tall, with skin a deeper brown than Daja's, dark eyes, and full lips that liked to smile. Bald on top of his head, he grew his wiry black hair long on the sides, as if to make up for it. His heavy-lidded eyes glittered now with what looked suspiciously like amusement.

“I suppose nothing like this ever happened to
you
,” Tris accused sourly. She and Daja were still trapped.
Before she had left them, Polyam had found a tall stool for Tris to sit on. Daja could not sit—the metal had grown down as far as her thighs, making it impossible for her to bend.

“Actually, my power got away from me once. I was—” Frostpine cleared his throat. “I was attempting to put some gold ornaments back onto a tribal queen's jeweled collar.”

“She gave him her gems, and he knew that her husband would miss them and suspect that she had given them to a lover.” Rosethorn leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, her delicately carved mouth curled in a half-smile. Sandry and Briar sat on the ground next to her.

“I didn't know she was married,” said Frostpine defensively.

“Did you ask?” Rosethorn inquired. She was a stocky woman only an inch taller than Daja, with short-cropped chestnut hair and wicked brown eyes. In her green habit, which marked her dedication to the gods of the earth, she was hard to see in the shadowy forge.

“Not all of us are as perfect as you,” said Frostpine, putting his hands on the iron that held Daja and Tris captive. “Sometimes magic gets away from a mage, is the point I was
trying
to make.” He glared at Rosethorn, then concentrated on his task.

Daja smiled. Frostpine would make things right.
He always did. She could feel the power that welled from him as his magic fed into the iron vine.

“There.” Polyam had come back to the smithy. This time she brought company, two other Traders: an older woman who wore a gold-trimmed maroon gauze veil on her hair, and a
mimander
, a Trader mage, robed head to toe in lemon-colored cloth, wearing a face-veil of the same eye-smarting shade. “It is as I told you,” Polyam said to them.

Daja felt her teacher's power draw back as Frostpine glared at the newcomers. “I don't mind if you watch, but you must be silent. We don't need distractions.”

The older woman nodded as regally as any queen; the
mimander
bowed. All three Traders, including Polyam, leaned on their staffs as they watched.

After a moment, Daja felt Frostpine's power return to the vine. He was putting forth more effort now. “You know, I expect liveliness from gold,” he murmured to her. “It's such an agreeable metal, and it takes suggestions a bit too well. But iron? Iron shouldn't be getting into this kind of mischief—aha!”

No one had to ask why he had exclaimed: the metal vines were shrinking, pulling away from the girls' captive arms. Tris yanked free. The vines loosened their grip on Daja more reluctantly, but eventually they let her go. She slid out of their hold with a
sigh of relief. The moment she was loose, she and Frostpine drew their magic from the iron.

“
Now
what do you do with it?” Rosethorn wanted to know. “It seems a shame to melt it down.”

The iron tendrils coiled, shrinking away. “I think you scared it,” Tris remarked.

Daja picked up the metal plant. “I don't know if we could make anything normal with it even if we did melt it down.” She ran her fingers over the corded trunk. “It doesn't exactly feel like iron now.”

Rosethorn put a hand on one of the branches. A thin iron twig sprouted between two of her fingers. “
I
think it's going to keep growing. That's how it feels to me.”

“You are
certain
that it will grow?” asked the
mimander
, his voice slightly muffled by his yellow veil. He walked farther into the smithy, bowed to Rosethorn and Frostpine, and held a yellow-gloved hand over the iron vine. “Yes—I can feel the power. This is like nothing I have known.”

“May we help you, honored
mimander
?” Frostpine inquired.

The older woman spoke quietly to Polyam, who announced, “Tenth Caravan Idaram will pay, in the coin of Emelan, a gold maja for this thing.”

Daja frowned at the Traders. A gold maja was half a year's income for a poor family. That was startling enough. What was more startling yet was that she
knew Trader custom: that sum had to be the lowest bid the newcomers could think she might accept.

“It must be cleansed of contact with a
trangshi
,” the
mimander
remarked to Polyam and the other Trader.

“It was a
trangshi
that made it,” snapped Rosethorn. Tris beamed at her.

“Even a rat has fur and meat,” Polyam replied, her eyes bright. “A gold maja and a gold astrel. We would offer more, but there is the cost of the herbs and oils for the cleansing to be considered.”

Three hundred silver crescents
! Sandry told Daja through their magical tie.
It's a dowry, or new took, or even gold to work with. Maybe you ought to take it?

Think it over
, Briar advised.
You have something they want. Make 'em pay through the nose. That's a fine revenge, after how Traders dealt with you
.

“It's not for sale,” Frostpine told Polyam and her companions. “We need to study it before
any
decision is reached.”

“A gold maja and two gold astrels,” the older woman said. “Not a copper more. The
trangshi
may have the night to consider it.” She walked away, head high. The
mimander
hesitated. He might have been looking at Daja, but it was hard for her to tell through the fine yellow veil on his face. Then he, too, followed the older woman. Polyam shifted position to let him goby.

“You needn't think
gilav
Chandrisa will go up from that price,” she said to Frostpine. “Hers is the last word in any bargaining.”

What's a
gilav? Tris inquired silently.

Caravan boss
, answered Briar.
Like the captain of a ship
.

Daja looked at her vine. One tendril had wrapped around her finger, catlike. She felt a bubbling emotion in her chest, one that threatened to cut off her breath. They can't have it two ways, she told herself. Either I don't exist, or I do. They must want this very badly, to make an offer to a
trangshi
.

“We Blue Traders have a saying,” she remarked, staring off to Polyam's side. “When three parties bargain, no one wins. Tenth Caravan Idaram must bargain with me directly.
Me
. Talk to Daja Kisubo the
trangshi
, or there will be no talk at all.”

Frostpine grinned and put an arm around her shoulders. Sandry clapped; Briar whistled his approval. Even Rosethorn and Tris smiled.

Polyam shrugged. “Since I heard nothing, I can transmit no offers that are impossible to meet.” Turning, she hobbled off after the other Traders.

Daja tightened her grip on the iron, wishing she could go with them, could return to the kind of life where she had always known the rules.

We're
your people now
, Sandry told her in mind-talk.

They threw you out
, added Briar.
Or were you forgetting?

“Frostpine!” A short man with gray-bristled cheeks stood in the doorway, glaring at them through dark eyes buried in wrinkles. He dressed like a craftsman in a knee-length green tunic, loose brown breeches, and leather slippers; a round white cap covered his hair. “I never bargained for your
apprentice
doing magic here, all unsupervised.”

“Neither did we,” Frostpine said, walking toward the owner of the forge with Daja in tow. “Daja Kisubo, this is Kahlib ul Hanoh, the village smith.”

Daja hoisted the iron vine into a better grip. Bowing, she nearly fell over, unbalanced by her creation. “Sorry about the magic,” she said, red with embarrassment.

“I hope you didn't leave any loose—it acts oddly, if it isn't used in the working,” chided the smith. “I'm not a mage, but I've dealt with them enough to know.”

“I think it's all in the vine,” muttered Daja, looking around. They had learned to see magic over the summer, a useful side effect of their magic coming together. She used that vision now, but the only silver gleam of power she could find was on the mages.

Frostpine clapped her on the shoulder. “Why don't you go back up to the castle and have a bath?” he suggested. “You look wrung out.”

She was also filthy, Daja realized. Soot from the iron vine streaked her skin and clothes from her neck to her knees. Even for a smith, that was a lot of dirt. “All right,” she said quietly.

“Take that with you,” ordered Kahlib. “I don't have time to keep an eye on it.”

Daja settled the branching iron in her arms, bowed again to the smith, and trudged out of the forge.

Rosethorn turned to Briar. “Now all the excitement's over, student of mine, how would you like to see the gold of Gold Ridge?”

Five months ago Briar had been a street-rat and thief: the mention of riches still had power over him. “
You
want to show me gold?” he asked. “You don't have any use for it.”

“This kind I do. Come on.” With a polite farewell to Kahlib, Rosethorn drew Briar outside and led the way in the walk up the road to the castle. The dog Little Bear sat in front of the gates, plainly waiting for one of his people to return. When Rosethorn and Briar turned short of the dog's post, following a lesser road that headed up into the rough ground south of the castle, Little Bear followed them.

Their new road narrowed until it was more of a track, broad enough for two people to ride abreast. Steep and twisty, it led deep into huge rock formations.

“What kind of gold would they keep outside the walls?” Briar demanded, toiling along. He hadn't
thought anything else would be up here—what kept bandits from attacking the castle from behind?

“You'll see.”

Rosethorn said nothing more, and Briar saved his breath for climbing. At least the view through the breaks in the rocks was pretty or it would have been if so much of the valley below had not been hidden in smoke. When the trail leveled off, Rosethorn stopped for a rest, coughing. Even Little Bear sat, his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth.

“Are you all right?” Briar asked his teacher gruffly. He didn't want to seem mushy or anything, but sometimes at night he woke up cold and sweating from dreams that something had happened to Rosethorn.

She took a water bottle from her belt and drank, then rubbed the mouthpiece on her sleeve and passed the bottle to him. “Blasted smoke,” she explained after a few breaths. “And the air's thin this high up. Take a look.” She waved an arm to her right, where the ground dipped. Briar walked over and blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

Here on the mountain's edge someone had carved out a pocket valley and terraced it. To the northeast, where the far rim should be, he saw a stone wall, manned by soldiers. So much for anyone sneaking up on the castle from behind, he thought, squinting at the small valley. They would have to come over that wall, which looked difficult.

In the pocket valley, rows and rows of plants stood between irrigation ditches that were almost dry. To Briar's sorrow, the plants were all sere and brown, dead or dying.

“The gold of Gold Ridge,” Rosethorn commented, sounding better. “Or what's left of it.”

“How can plants be gold?” he asked.

“These are saffron crocuses. The flowers' stigmas are worth more than their weight in gold. It takes twenty thousand of them to make up an ounce of saffron.”

Briar whistled soundlessly. Saffron was the most expensive spice in the world and made fortunes for those who dealt in it. The cost of a pound of it would probably feed all of Gold Ridge for a year or two. “Gold is right. What happened—not enough water?” he asked without taking his eyes from the terraces before him.

“What they have they bring up from the castle, but that's hard water and isn't very healthy for the plants. Usually water isn't an issue—saffron doesn't need much—but the drought has gone on in this part of the country for three years.”

“I wish they had let us know earlier this summer,” said a light, crisp voice nearby. “We might have been able to help.”

Briar jumped. A man walked up to them around a curve in the trail that led into the pocket valley. He was ten inches taller than Briar's own height of five
feet, slender, with long hair streaked black and gray. At fifty-three he was older than Rosethorn by twenty years, with a craggy face and a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. His eyes were his most interesting feature: black as sloes, they were framed with thick black lashes and set deep under heavy black brows. He was dressed well, in a pale yellow linen shirt, loose brown linen trousers, polished boots, and an open cotton overrobe dyed an exacting shade of bronze.

Little Bear whipped the path with his tail, raising a cloud of dust that made Rosethorn sneeze.

“Niko, you scared me out of a season's growth!” snapped Briar, angry at himself for not sensing that another person was nearby. “For somebody whose whole life is about seeing things, you go invisible real fast!”

“That was my intent.” Niklaren Goldeye's smile was half hidden under his mustache. “I know I've done well if I can surprise
you
, Briar.”

The boy sniffed and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “I was thinking about the plants,” he replied. “Poor things.”

“Come take a closer look,” Rosethorn said, retrieving her water bottle from him. With Little Bear at her side, she led the way into the tiny valley. The man and the boy followed her.