Daja's Book (2 page)

“No, you're not big enough to be a whole smith. Apprentice, I desire to speak with your master,” the woman said flatly. “There is work to be done, and—”

Since Daja wasn't looking, she couldn't watch the Trader examine their surroundings as she tried to spot an adult smith. When the woman fell silent, though, Daja knew what she had seen: her staff, with its unmarked cap.

Daja looked up in time to catch the glare the
Trader directed her way. Then the woman turned her face toward the forge.

“Where is the smith?!” she called, her voice ringing from the metal all around them. “I desire to speak with the smith, immediately! There is work to be done, work for which Tenth Caravan Idaram will pay!”

Tris
, Daja called with her magic.
Tris, I need you
.

Behind the smithy, Tris sighed. The worst part about helping Daja, as far as she was concerned, was the interruptions. Rather than answer, she reached out and gripped a fistful of air. Giving it a twist, she threw it like a spear through the opening in the wall. That done, she ran nail-bitten fingers through her very short red hair, thrust her brass-rimmed spectacles higher on her long nose, and went back to reading.

Inside the smithy, flames roared like dragonfire out of the bed of hot coals. The Trader flinched.

I don't need more air
! Daja informed her friend.
I
need help, right now
!

I'm busy
, came Tris's reply.
Get someone else
.

There
isn't
anyone else
.

“I have no choice but to stand here and hope that someone will tell me where I can find the smith,” the Trader announced, turning her back to Daja. If Daja spoke, she knew that the Trader would pretend not to hear: that was how Traders handled
trangshi
. “It is most urgent that I speak to a smith—to a
real
smith.”

Trisana Chandler, I need you right now
! thought Daja fiercely.

Furious, Tris rose, shook out her skirts and petticoats, and closed her book and stuck it into the pocket of her gown. Sparks glimmered at the ends of her hair as she stomped around the side of the building. Coming to a halt beside the Trader, she scowled up at the woman with storm-gray eyes. Her pale, lightly freckled skin was blotched red and white with anger; the two-inch strands of her coppery hair were rising to stand at angles to her head.

“What do
you
want?” she demanded. “I was
reading
.”

“I want the smith,” the Trader snapped back. “I am Polyam,
wirok
of Tenth Caravan Idaram. I have business for him.”

“The smith is out riding with the duke of Emelan,” Tris replied. “There's my friend Daja Kisubo. She's all the smith you'll get till they come back!”

“I'm
trangshi
, remember?” Daja asked patiently. “By Trader law I don't exist. If I don't exist, then she can't talk to me or hear me. Get hold of yourself, will you? You're sparking all over the place.”

Tris raked her fingers through her hair and examined the fistful of light she had gathered. “Shurri defend us,” she muttered. Closing her fingers, she killed the sparks.

Polyam backed away from her. “If I had a choice, I
would go somewhere else,” she informed Tris. “But I don't. It's two days' journey to the next blacksmith on this road. I will wait until this smith comes.”

“Why don't you tell me what you want, and I'll tell Daja,” Tris said, a shade too patiently. “Then she can do what you need and you can go away with your whole caravan.”

“If a
trangshi
were here, I could not accept work from that
trangshi's
hand,” replied Polyam. “Even if you handled it before me. I must have a smith. One that is not unclean.”

Now tiny lightning bolts rippled over Tris's hair and around the frames of her spectacles. The Trader clung to her staff with both hands, her dark face ashy with fear.

“She's a
xurdin
, not
a yerui
,” Daja said quickly. She knew Polyam heard, but there was still custom to observe—she wouldn't admit that she had. “Tris, tell her you're a
xurdin
, a mage. She thinks you're a
yerui
, a hungry ghost-devil. That your magic will eat her.
Please
,” she begged, knowing her friend was about to refuse.

The other girl sighed. The tiny bits of lightning began to shrink. “I'm a mage, all right?” she said to Polyam. “I'm a mage; she's a mage. It's just strange magic we have; it's not like most people's. It's not evil; I won't hurt you. I'm
trying
not to hurt you right now, and I'm succeeding, aren't I?”

Polyam's full mouth tightened. “You didn't have to
tell me your magic is strange,” she replied. “I've been on the roads all my life, and I've never seen anything like what you just did.”

Daja came up to stand at Tris's back. “I'll see if Sandry or Briar can get the smith,” she whispered into her friend's ear. “Be polite. It's not
her
fault I'm
trangshi
. Offer her water from the well.”

Tris glanced back and up into Daja's eyes. “It's not your fault, either.”

“It doesn't matter, not if you're a Trader. Offer her a drink.” Daja stepped into the shadows behind the forge. Perhaps if Tris couldn't see Daja, she wouldn't be so quick to defend her against what she saw as insults.

She's only a
kaq
, thought Daja tiredly. It was the first time in weeks that she'd thought of the redhead that way. Tris wasn't so bad, once you got to know her, but
kaqs
—those who weren't Traders—didn't understand important things like
trangshi
custom.

Sandry, Briar
, Daja called, sending her magic through the air.
Can you find the smith, Kahlib? He's got an important customer who will only talk to him
.

Nearly two miles away Lady Sandrilene fa Toren inspected a heavily embroidered jacket. It belonged to one of their warrior escorts, who had draped it over a tree-limb while he and his friends watered their horses at a mountain stream. Sandry had wanted a better look at one of those jackets all morning, ever
since Lady Inoulia of Gold Ridge and her people had joined the duke on their inspection of the largest grassfires. No doubt the man would have let her see it if she had asked, but that would have involved bowing and respectful conversation with Sandry as Duke Vedris's great-niece. She would have felt guilty about keeping a nervous man standing as she went over the beautiful needlework on his back. It was simpler this way with the tree to hide her slender form from the warriors at the brook.

She brought her small nose close to the stitches, marveling at the complex embroidery. All the riders' jackets started with the same image: a lavender flower, well opened, with slender yellow rods at the center. Each design, though, was individual in the waves of light that radiated from the design, done in all colors, patterns, and threads. She had stopped doing fine embroidery more than two months ago, but these jackets made her fingers itch to pick up needle and silk again.

She was a slim, fine-boned girl, with bright blue eyes and a stubborn chin. Sunstreaks gilded her brown hair, tidily braided and pinned up under a sheer gray veil. Her overgown was dove gray linen, sleeveless and plain but for a long row of jet buttons down the front. Jet buttons also twinkled atop her small, black shoes. Her puff-sleeved undergown was white cotton, woven so fine as to be almost
comfortable in the stuffy heat of the day. She would have loved to trade this elegant mourning for just one of her light cotton dresses, but that would have shocked the nobles who housed her great-uncle and his companions on this long ride through Duke Vedris's realm. Sandry did not feel like explaining that her parents, dead a year, would have laughed at the thought of her wearing deep mourning, as was expected of the nobility. Instead, as long as she rode with the duke, she wore the clothes proper to her station and envied her three friends their freedom to wear colors and fewer layers as she herself did at home.

She thrust her discomfort from her mind and peered more closely at the ornate embroidery. Could
she
do that braided stitch?

“If you want me to nick it”—Sandry jumped, and the boyish voice went on—”I'll have to wait till dark.”

She glared into Briar Moss's amused green eyes. “As if you stole
anything
anymore!” she retorted.

“Now
that's
where you're wrong.” Reaching into the loosely belted brown jacket he wore instead of a shirt, he produced two small bunches of grapes. “The best around, with the crops falling off.” He passed a bunch into her hands. “I've had better.”

Sandry returned the grapes. “Thanks, but no. Watch for those riders coming back.”

He glanced at the brook. “Don't worry. They've
taken off their boots and they're cooling their toesies. Maybe I
could
nick the jacket right now, if you want it.”

Sandry shook her head and returned to examining the embroidery. Briar leaned against the tree and ate his grapes. Unlike her, he was dressed for comfort: he wore cotton breeches and normally went barefoot, unless one of their teachers forced him into sandals or boots. At five feet, he was taller than Sandry by a hand's length. He had the glossy black hair—worn short and rough-cut—almond-shaped eyes, and gold-brown skin of an easterner, but a thin-bladed nose and eyes that changed from gray-green to lime green pointed to western blood in one of his parents. He wasn't sure which of them it might be: he had never known his father, and his mother had died when he was four.

“I thought all the grassfires would be hurting you and Rosethorn,” Sandry remarked as she traced a metallic thread in the pattern of stitches.

Briar shook his head. “The grass is mostly dead.” He'd left Rosethorn, his teacher of plant-magic, calmly discussing next year's crops with the duke and Lady Inoulia. “Their drought killed most of it weeks ago. And the top burns so fast that the fire moves on, and the roots and seeds are fine, still.”

“Oh,” Sandry murmured, not really listening. “What flower is this? On these jackets?”

“It looks like a crocus. Why?” He wasn't vexed
with her for not listening. He knew what she was like when she saw anything unusual done with cloth.

“Just curious. Here, look at this thread. Is it real gold, or—”

Sandry, Briar
. Daja's magical voice made them jump with surprise. Heat jumped from Sandry's finger to race down the metal thread, melting it as the silk around it charred. She gaped at the mess. She had no fire or lightning magic—that was Daja and Tris! How did she melt that thread? And what could she say to the jacket's owner?

I'll find the smith
, Briar told Daja. The sense of contact with her faded. “C'mon,” he urged Sandry.

“I burned it!” she hissed, grabbing his sleeve and pointing out the scorch marks. “I was touching it when Daja reached us and—and
heat
came out of me!”

He scratched an elbow. “All the more reason to leave before the owner sees it.”

Sandry shook her head. “It's my fault the jacket is ruined. I have to make amends.”

“Why?” he asked reasonably. “Nobody saw you—”

“I
saw me,” she said flatly.

The boy stared at her. “Nobles,” he finally remarked. “You don't see
me
having a conscience.” He looked at his jailhouse tattoos, black X's stained deep into the webs between his thumbs and forefingers. “It just confuses things.”

“They're coming back,” she said with a nod toward
the creek. The men had finished their gossip, and the jacket's owner was approaching. “You'd better go find the smith.”

“You expect me to leave a mate in a pinch,” he replied scornfully. “Don't
you
see me nice!”

“It's not that,” protested Sandry. She stood up straight, shoulders back, chin up, and folded her hands neatly in front of her.

The man who had left his jacket there halted with a frown. “Excuse me, my lady,” he said, reaching for his property. He said nothing to Briar, but kept an eye on him.

“I ruined your jacket,” Sandry told him, her upper lip quivering. “I can't explain it, but you had a metal thread in the embroidery, and it melted. What repayment would be fair?”

“You melted a thread,” he repeated, one black eyebrow raised. “I don't see a fire here.” He was a handsome young man, with the long black hair and slanted black eyes common to these mountains. The hint of a smile twitched the side of his mouth.

“Magically,” replied Sandry. “I'm pretty sure it was magically. The design was so beautiful, and now it's scorched and that thread is gone.”

There were muffled chuckles from the warrior's friends. He examined the design. “Looks like a kind of spiral fern, doesn't it?” he asked his companions, showing them the scorched mark. “One just unfurling.”

Briar had to admit, the design didn't look ruined. A thin, spiky burn mark wound about the crocus and across the bands of color that radiated from it. Someone could have etched the mark in deliberately.

“Doesn't seem damaged at all, my lady,” said one of the rider's friends.

Sandry gulped. “I could make a new design, and replace that,” she told the jacket's owner. “It would take me a while, but if we're in these mountains for a few weeks …”

He shrugged the garment on. “I like it as it is.” Picking up her hand, he bowed and kissed her fingers. “I'll be the envy of my village, with your mark on me.”

Sandry blushed crimson. The rider winked at Briar and walked away.

A few of the other warriors stayed. One removed his jacket and offered it to the girl. “Would you do mine?”