Trader's Leap (Liaden Universe Book 23)

by Sharon Lee

  “How long is the ship to hold dock?”

  “Until the investigation is completed and the sentencing made. Based on what we observed, I would venture to guess that the entire matter will be brought to a close in a matter of two or three days, whereupon the ship will be free to pursue its destiny. As it happens, the master trader has continuing business with Trader Janifer Carresens-Denobli, which may easily encompass most of two days.”

  The captain inclined her head.

  “Are the traders compromised or under restriction?”

  “We of course share the restrictions placed upon the ship, but are free to move on-port, and pursue our lawful business.”

  He sighed suddenly.

  “The traders are, I believe, justly wearied from their work upon the day. It was an exhilarating day, and would have been so, even without the intrusion of rogue dramliz into the markets.”

  Priscilla closed her eyes briefly.

  “Is the captain satisfied?” Shan asked gently. “If there are other concerns, I will happily continue, but I really think that Trader yos’Galan ought to be allowed to seek her bed.”

  Priscilla opened her eyes.

  “The captain is satisfied,” she said, and took a breath.

  “The pair of you . . . ” she said, allowing her feelings rein at last.

  “We’re neither of us competent to be allowed on-port alone, clearly,” Padi said unexpectedly. “But no harm was done, Priscilla. I know that you and Lina are cautious about my lending Father energy, but it was an emergency.”

  Priscilla met Padi’s eyes.

  “An emergency?”

  “A cascading emergency, if you will have the worst of it. Vanz—Trader Carresens-Denobli—and I were sent to the markets by the combined word of the elder traders. I was to increase inventory for The Redlands, and Vanz was to . . . show his jacket alongside the Tree-and-Dragon, and set the port a-twitter, or so he believed. He made some small purchases of his own, but it was my will that guided us, and I was buying textiles.”

  “And these emergencies rose from textiles?”

  “The first did, yes. Several vendors made certain to mention Madame Zoe’s Whimsies as a specialty shop worthy of our attention. We went, and Karna with us. The shop was . . . very strange. Dim. The goods seemed to have been dyed with vya. I was bemused, Karna was very nearly overpowered—and Madame Zoe had utterly beguiled Vanz. I created a diversion and snatched him and Karna away.

  “It was only after we were away that we realized that something very bad had happened to Vanz. We called in an emergency to the elder traders and met them at a safe place, some distance from Madame’s shop.”

  She paused, and Shan took up the tale.

  “A compulsion to return to Madame Zoe at all costs had been attached to the boy—Padi had snatched him away before it was completed, at great risk to herself. I examined him, realized that the construct needed to be removed at once, if only for Vanz’s peace—”

  “And that,” Padi interrupted, “is when the second emergency arrived. It was clear that Father was going to do something. It was also clear to me—because I have, truly, Priscilla, paid attention to you and to Lina—that he would make himself dangerously ill, if he did so without assistance.”

  Priscilla met a pair of hot lavender eyes.

  “I couldn’t Heal Vanz, or I would have done. Father had the skill and the knowledge to do what was required; certainly, he had the will. All that was required was sufficient energy to see the thing properly done—and that I could offer him.”

  “Padi was seemly and professional, Priscilla,” Shan continued. “She did precisely as she was asked; she merely made herself available. I controlled the flow. The lad was freed, and neither of us took the least harm, as you can See.”

  She could, Priscilla admitted, her anger cooling. Merely . . .

  “I was frightened,” she told him.

  “Forgive us,” Padi said, with surprising gentleness. “But somebody had to do something.”

  Priscilla laughed, sharply.

  “The trouble with Dragons,” she said, her voice not quite steady, “is that they always do something, no matter their own danger!”

  “That’s fairly said,” Shan answered. “I believe that may be why there are so few of us.”

  “Goddess . . . ”

  She frowned and looked to Padi.

  “What sort of risk to yourself?” she said.

  “Oh, Madame was angry because I was robbing her of Vanz, and she threw—I really don’t know what she threw, but my shields turned it and—”

  “Goddess forfend!” Priscilla interrupted, opening her Inner Eyes to survey the carnage. “She did that? A second strike—”

  “Yes,” Padi said very patiently, “but she didn’t get a chance to do it again. Whatever it was. I am quite unharmed.”

  Priscilla closed all of her eyes.

  “Padi?”

  “Yes?”

  “Go to bed, child. Go to sleep. See Lina at your first possible opportunity tomorrow; your shields must be repaired before you venture out on-port again.”

  “Yes,” Padi said, and rose. She bowed gently, appropriately, between clan members.

  “Chiat’a bei kruzon,” she murmured, and left them, the door whispering closed behind her.

  There was silence in the office for several heartbeats. Priscilla sat with her eyes closed, seeing in vivid memory the damage done to Padi’s shields. If Shan had been struck with the same blow—

  “My shields,” he murmured, “are tricky.”

  She opened her eyes and met his glance.

  “So they are. Shan—”

  “Priscilla,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “Will you sleep with me tonight?”

  She half-laughed.

  “You are impossible,” she told him, and stood abruptly, unable to stay seated.

  “Yes,” she said, holding her hand out to him. “By all means, let us sleep together tonight. We’ll particularly celebrate the fact that you’re here for me to hold.”

  Padi all but fell into her bunk, half-asleep until her head struck the pillow, whereupon she opened her eyes.

  “But how long will it take to repair my shields?” she demanded of the dim air. From the desk came a faint rattle, as if a stylus or a notebook, or both, had taken to the air.

  “Behave yourselves!” she snapped, and heard three distinct strikes against the desktop.

  It was not a trivial question, she thought. It had taken hours to form the shields in the first place; hours more to learn how to maintain them. If they were only to be at Volmer for two more days—she would lose the opportunity to do more trading. Specifically, since today she had been buying on behalf of the ship, she would lose the opportunity to increase her own inventory, which, with the master trader intent on opening a new market—if she chose well, she might make considerable gains in her march to the garnet. Not only that, she and Vanz had been discussing a collaboration, working off of his idea of introducing novelty to Nubella Run’s current Loop, and if she were confined to the ship . . .

  Quite simply, she didn’t have hours to set her broken shields right—

  She blinked up at the hidden ceiling.

  Broken shields.

  Shields that required, in a word, Healing.

  Was it possible, she thought, that she might find her own way to that foggy country where Father had Healed Vanz? She had . . . the impression—no! the conviction!—that the fog had bolstered Father’s efforts with Vanz as much or more than Padi’s freely given energy. In fact, he might have been counting on the fog’s assistance, when he had determined to Heal Vanz. Father was not, in her experience, a fool; he would have accepted risk—even grave risk—but he would not have traded his life for Vanz.

  Yes, Padi thought, abandoning that line of thought to focus on her immediate needs. If she could recall the way to the fog-filled land, perhaps she might Heal her shields, and there would be nothing to do tomorrow, save show herself to Li
na before she went out a-trading.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to recall how it had felt, that space into which Father had retreated, effortlessly drawing herself and Vanz with him. She recalled the softness of the fog, the faint tint of pink in the busy clouds, the taste of the air—

  Something cool and damp stroked across her face, and she opened her eyes—to a parlor, complete with two chairs and a tea table bearing an entire service. Sitting in the chair on the far side of the table was the person she had twice met, with Lady Selph’s assistance. In this time and place, the rough hair was loosely braided; the face seemed not so much fierce as . . . simply curious. The eyes were mismatched still—tonight, in this place, one was grey, the other green.

  “Ah, there you are,” they said, voice reflecting a certain bemused whimsy. “Pray sit. The tea is fresh, and the cookies made by my cousin Entilly. You will taste no better, travel where and how you might.”

  Padi glanced around her. The room—well, there was no room. There were the chairs, the table, the tea service, and the little plate of sweet things, but the room . . . faded away, until at the far edges, where perhaps there ought to be walls, there was simply a gentle roiling of . . . fog.

  “Am I inept again?” asked her host. “Did you not mean to come here?”

  It was, Padi allowed, a fair question. It came to her that this person might, indeed, be a teacher. Certainly, they were relaxed in this odd situation and the others where they had previously met.

  “I believe it is I who am inept,” she said, sitting in the chair left for her. “I had wished to arrive at a space filled with fog, which would enhance my ability to perform a Healing.”

  A tip of the rough head to the right, and then to the left, brought her attention to the misty might-be of the walls.

  “Yes,” she said doubtfully. “But the place I was in . . . earlier . . . was only mist and fog, myself, and the persons involved in the Healing.”

  “I see. Well, perhaps we might sort it out together. Tea?”

  “Thank you,” Padi said, suddenly realizing that she was intensely hungry.

  Her host poured, handed the cup across, and nodded to the plate of cookies.

  “Please, have what you will.”

  “Thank you,” Padi said again.

  She sipped her tea; the host sipped theirs. They both reached to the plate at the same time, fingers brushing. It seemed the very air crackled, and Padi felt a thrill of delight along nerves she had not previously known she possessed.

  Raising her eyes, she met an interested mismatched gaze.

  “Are you well?” the host asked.

  “Very well,” she returned, composed, and withdrew her hand.

  The cookie her wily fingers had captured was iced in lavender. It was delicious, and she had eaten the whole thing before she realized what she was about.

  She raised her eyes, but met only an approving nod.

  “Please do not stint yourself,” her host said—and abruptly frowned.

  “But what has happened to your beautiful shields?”

  She frowned in turn.

  “I believe you have confused me with another of your wide acquaintance.”

  “No, that would be quite impossible, I assure you. What has happened to your shields?”

  Padi reached for her teacup, sipped, and put the cup down.

  “As I am given to understand it, what happened is—they worked. Someone threw . . . something . . . I am very ignorant and I do not know what, precisely, was thrown. However, my shields turned it, exactly as they ought.

  “But here is the dreadful thing—I must see to their repair before I may go out on-port again!”

  “Certainly you must do that!” returned the host with feeling. “Someone is clearly trying to kill you.”

  “No, but only see what will happen—I will not be able to go on-port again, and quite aside from the fact that I will not be able to increase my personal inventory with an eye toward our next port, and that I will be forced to forswear myself, they will—that is to say, if there are others, who are with that person—they will think that I am afraid!”

  “I see,” said the host, and leaned close to choose another cookie. Padi waited until they had leaned back before taking another for herself. She ate it with somewhat more decorum than the first, and sighed when it was gone.

  “I can quite see that it will not do for them to think you craven,” the host said.

  “No, it won’t,” she said more calmly. “However, we are only a few days at Volmer, and I fear it will take at least that long before my teachers are satisfied with any repairs.”

  She gave her companion a conscious glance.

  “I am not very apt with my lessons. To form the shields at all took . . . a very long time. My teacher is patient, but she was worn quite thin by the time I managed a credible result, unbeautiful as they are.”

  “No, I do not allow that. Your shields are lovely—they may, in fact, be poetry—and I am lost in admiration of them. Of course, they must be repaired, for your own safety. But there is no need to spend days, or even hours, laboring over them. I think that between us we may do the needful speedily and with good result within this very hour.”

  The host glanced from one side to another.

  “Do you know, I think you have come to a correct location, after all? So, tell me, what do you wish from your shields?”

  Padi blinked.

  “Well, that they should work as well—or better!—as they did today.” She paused, thinking.

  “Better?” asked her host, picking up the pot and warming their cups. “Have they not performed well enough?”

  “They performed admirably,” Padi said. “I honor them, whatever I may think of their aesthetics. But, if they can be made better and I am able to hold them firm, that would be desirable. Everyone who has seen the damage immediately flies into alt, imagining what might have happened, had there been a second assault.”

  She moved her shoulders. “It is quite disconcerting; there was no second strike.”

  “One must always plan for the second strike, however. At least, this is what my cousin tells me. As he is put in charge of the safety of a great number of people, I expect he knows something of the topic.”

  Padi chewed her bottom lip, still considering her own shields.

  “If it were possible, I would also like them to be . . . beautiful and flexible, but—I will not give up functionality for grace.”

  “Nor should you. Your shields are perfect as formed. They reflect yourself—as even one who has known you only briefly may see—and they produce an effective warning.”

  The host struck a pose. “Behold me, a feral flower! Admire, but do not try me!”

  Padi laughed.

  “Yes! If I may suggest, you will want to lay in layers, given the possibility of a second, or even a third, blow. They may be as light as laughter, or mist, and if you can love them, it will be all the better. Only see how they cherished you!”

  Padi sighed. “There’s another problem. I can’t really See them. Only I sometimes can manage glimpses, around the edges. Enough to know—”

  “Enough to know nothing at all about them!” the host interrupted passionately, rising all in a rush. “Here!”

  Abruptly, the table vanished, replaced by a tall, ornately framed mirror.

  “Look, then!”

  Frowning, Padi stared into the mirror, expecting to see herself in her familiar uniform, but finding instead a smear of pewter, swirling—and snapping into sharp focus.

  She was looking at her shields, Padi thought. They were beautiful, in a toothy, louche sort of way. The arching planes reminded her of the wings of Megelaar, the dragon who guarded Korval’s Tree. The fretwork evoked knots of lavender flowers. There was a significant dent in the upper right quadrant, with shock lines radiating out and down—

  Padi took a sharp breath.

  “She was angry, wasn’t she?” she murmured.

  “And surprised, I th
ink we must believe.”

  “Yes, which was why there was only one strike.”

  Padi looked over the mirror, into a pair of interested, mismatched eyes. “Are you able to hold this for me? I would like to see what I am doing.”

  “As long as you like,” said the host gallantly. “I am completely at your service.”

  “Thank you,” she said, studying the image more closely.

  Light as laughter, she thought, and as surprising.

  She nodded, and said meditatively, “I am going to preserve the dent.”

  “A poetic choice. If it is not impudent, I approve.”

  Padi frowned. “I would have thought it the choice of a port tough.”

  “Poetry is in the eye of the beholder. Indeed, it might be understood as a challenge—Only see what I have already survived! Need I fear you? Others might see a fair and friendly warning. Still others, an appropriate modesty.”

  Padi laughed. “Modesty?”

  “Indeed. Look! Look here! I know my limits to a fine millimeter. Do you know yours so well?”

  Padi laughed again. “What is your name?”

  “My call-name?”

  “If it is not impudent of me to ask.”

  “Not at all. Call me Tekelia, and I will come.”

  “And is that poetry, or a threat?”

  “Merely fact. May one ask—a name for a name?”

  Have they taught you yet that names are to conjure by? Lute whispered from memory once more. Padi hesitated.

  “If I am impertinent, I offer regret—”

  “No,” she said, “you are not impertinent. I was only remembering something a friend had said to me, about names. But I see that, here, is no discrepancy.”

  She inclined her head. “You may call me Padi.”

  “And so I shall. And now—again, if I am not impudent!—may I suggest we give our attention to your shields?”

  “It is time, isn’t it?”

  She looked again to the mirror, to her reflected shields, and felt a certain, sudden fondness for them. They had saved her life; they were well-made, graceful and strong. They were worthy of her gratitude, and her love. They deserved nothing more or less of her than to be made into the best shields she could possibly craft.