Dagger's Edge (Shadow series)

by Logston, Anne

  Five guards appeared in the stairway. They froze momentarily at the sight of the demon, but quickly moved forward to stand beside Donya, helping her to keep the demon back from the stairs.

  “Jael, take your friend and get out of here!” Donya shouted, forcing the demon back away from the stairs again. “There’s nothing you can do!”

  But was there?

  Jael hurried to Tanis’s side and helped him to his feet, supporting most of his weight as they staggered up the stairs. Argent was waiting at the top, and he quickly helped Tanis away from the trapdoor.

  “What’s happening down there?” he asked anxiously. “Is Donya all right?”

  “So far,” Jael answered, snatching one of the bottles of Bluebright from the case. “The guards are helping her. I’ve got to go back down.”

  “Jaellyn—” Argent reached out to stop her, but Jael ducked under his arm and half fell, half ran down the stairs. As soon as she reached the bottom, she pulled the stopper out of the Bluebright and gulped down two large mouthfuls.

  There was no warning, no pleasant drifting; this time the Bluebright hit her like a paving stone in the gut. Jael gasped as her legs went limp under her, huddling on the floor against the wall.

  Some potions, Mist had said, could temporarily stop the effects of soul-sickness. The dreaming potion she’d taken in the forest had allowed her to melt a good-sized hole in one of the Forest Altars, but that wasn’t the only time she’d done it; after a dose of Bluebright, she’d unconsciously melted her drinking mug into an unrecognizable lump. Could she do it consciously? Jael didn’t know, but with Mother and the guards facing a demon, there was nothing to do but try.

  Suddenly the battle between her mother, the guards, the demons all seemed very far away, moving with incredible slowness and clarity. Jael marveled at that for a precious moment, then laid both hands flat against the stone of the floor and closed her eyes.

  This time stone seemed to welcome her, and she let it draw her down into its cool, sheltering strength. Nothing would pull her back this time. She could feel the feet of her mother, the guards’, the demon’s, like gentle taps against her skin— her mother’s fancy slippers, sliding somewhat on the damp floor; the hard boots of the guards, and—there, the scaly heat of the demon’s feet.

  Until a mage comes, Jael thought almost gaily, it’s time, as Uncle Mist would say, to put down roots.

  She was stone, and stone opened to accept its prisoner.

  Jael sighed with satisfaction and let the Bluebright carry her away to dreams of stone, and peace.

  “Jael.” Argent was shaking her, and Jael opened her eyes. The High Lord was bending over her, smiling.

  Jael rubbed her eyes.

  “Is the demon gone?” she asked confusedly.

  “Not yet, but Jermyn is on the way,” Argent reassured her. “It will do no harm, though, being sunk up to its eyes in the floor.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Jael smiled, utterly relaxed. “And

  Mother? She’s all right?”

  “She’s well enough, if rather angry,” Argent chuckled. “Look.” He moved out of her way.

  Donya and the guards stood where Jael had last seen them. Donya and one of the guards bore a few scratches, testimony to the demon’s ferocity and speed, but appeared otherwise unharmed.

  They were behaving, however, in a most unusual fashion, jerking at their legs and cursing. Jael was most impressed at her mother’s considerable vocabulary of obscenities.

  “Mother?” she called. “What’s the matter?”

  Donya twisted awkwardly to face her daughter, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

  “Whatever you did to make the floor swallow up the demon, I’m impressed,” the High Lady of Allanmere said slowly. “But could you please possibly make the floor let go of our feet?”

  Jael started to stand, then gasped in surprise. She had sunk into the stone so deeply that it had flowed over the tops of her thighs, trapping her where she was.

  “What’s the matter?” Donya called. “Are your feet stuck, too?”

  “Not exactly,” Jael said, blushing.

  IX

  “I must admit, I’ve never seen stonemasons find such amusement in their work,” Argent chuckled, tying the last bandage into place. “There, Tanis. That should keep you comfortable enough while you mend. It’s a pity that demon-inflicted wounds can’t be healed more quickly. But you’ll stay here at the castle, tended by our healers, until you’re completely well.”

  “Thank you, High Lord,” Tanis said, grinning ruefully. “I suppose the soreness will remind me of the idiocy of facing a demon while armed with nothing but a torch.”

  “Or maybe remind you of the bravery of a true friend,” Jael added, hugging him as best she could without causing him pain.

  “You were the one who was brave, and clever, too,” Tanis protested. “We’d never have known where you were, or what was happening, if you hadn’t warned us as you did.”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Jael said, thoroughly embarrassed. “I thought I’d simply broken the scrying spell on the crystal.”

  “When we received your message and you didn’t come home, we thought—” Donya shook her head. “Well, we thought you were with Lord Urien, and we were surprised and worried when we didn’t see you in the temple the next morning.” She chuckled. “But when every light globe in the temple exploded in the middle of the ritual, we knew you had to be somewhere nearby.”

  “I guess I can’t say I’m sorry I ruined Ankaras’s summoning,” Jael admitted, “since that was what I was trying to do. But I’m sorry he’s decided to close the temple in Allanmere. It wasn’t his fault, not really.”

  “It’s best that he leaves,” Argent said firmly. “Even though he actually had no involvement with the murders, he was helping Urien, however inadvertently, by his involvement with the anti-elven factions in Allanmere. Were it not for the conflict within the city which he helped to create, it might have been possible to discover the source of the problem sooner. As it was, his sympathies with the Dyers’ Guild and other disruptive factions made it simple for Urien to make him a scapegoat for our suspicions and to confuse our investigations. Jermyn’s divinations using Solly’s body revealed the location of the Gate in the house near Rivertown, but by then the Gate was closed, and Urien had even purchased the house in Ankaras’s name, although we didn’t learn that until afterward.”

  “Tanis and I made the same mistake,” Jael admitted, sighing. “If I hadn’t been so ready to believe Ankaras was behind all of it, I might not have been so eager to believe everything Urien told me.”

  “We all believed him,” Tanis said disgustedly. “Even Ankaras. And now that rumors are linking the Temple of Baaros with the murders, I don’t think even bringing in another High Priest could save it.”

  “What will you do?” Jael asked unhappily. “Go back to Loroval?”

  Tanis grinned and shook his head.

  “I believe the priesthood’s too dangerous for me,” he said. “I think I’ll go see if the Thieves’ Guild has room for another apprentice. If they’ll leave me enough free time for my other lessons, that is. After all this, my family shouldn’t complain too loudly.”

  “I think the Guildmaster will take you, if I ask him nicely,” Jael grinned back. “But what other lessons?”

  “Oh, things like digging firepits and gutting fish,” Tanis said casually. “If I can find someone to teach me, that is. I may not have too many months to learn.”

  “You can’t learn thievery in a few months,” Donya told him. “It takes time and patience.”

  “I’m a patient fellow,” Tanis said, but his smile was meant for Jael.

  “And you.” Donya rounded on Jael. “Next time you’re feeling inquisitive about something going on in Allanmere, Jaellyn, you remember who the law is in this city, and it isn’t you. And after your involvement in this business is rumored from one end of the city to the other, it’s never likely to be you, either
. I imagine even the elves are going to start looking favorably at Markus over someone who gets into this much trouble. I’d half believe you did it on purpose.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Jael said humbly, but she chuckled to herself.

  “Oh, don’t smile, young woman,” Donya said sternly. “I’m half of a mind to set you to shoveling in the stables for a week, just in revenge for putting me up against a demon wearing slippers and finery and that damned light sword.”

  “But you were wonderful,” Jael said quickly. “Even in slippers and finery and my sword that’s ‘too damned light.’ “

  “Well.” Donya’s mouth twitched at the corners. “Perhaps I’ll just beat you head to foot at our next sword lesson, then. Or lock you in a room full of light globes.”

  Jael cowered in mock fear.

  “Not that! Please, not that!”

  “Enough,” Argent said mildly. “Donya, shall we leave the city’s newest apprentice thief to his rest?”

  Donya glanced from Jael to Tanis and sighed.

  “All right,” she said, shaking her head. “Priests and thieves,” she muttered as she followed Argent out of the room.

  “Your mother is right, though,” Tanis said more seriously when Donya and Argent were gone. “Even if your parents declare Markus as Heir, that won’t make some of the folk feel any more kindly toward ‘Jael the Unlucky.’ “

  Jael shrugged resignedly, removing the gold drops from her ears and slipping Solly’s gold rings back in.

  “When you walk the dagger’s edge, you’ve got to have good balance,” she said, gazing down at the earrings in her hand. “I’m not the only one in the city who slips sometimes. And then you likely end up with—”

  “A broken heart?” Tanis said gently, squeezing Jael’s hand.

  “No, nothing so serious as that,” Jael said, sighing. She dropped the earrings into her pocket, then turned back to Tanis and smiled.

  “Just sore feet.”

  About the Author

  Anne Logston was born February 15, 1962 in Indianapolis, Indiana and grew up there and in the country in southern Indiana. She started to write fiction as soon as she could put intelligible words on paper. She quickly learned to type so she could put intelligible and LEGIBLE words on paper. Anne graduated from the University of Indianapolis in 1984 with an Associate’s degree in computer sciences, for which she had no talent, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature, for which she had no practical use.

  After college, Anne spent six years masquerading by day as a bad-tempered but sane legal secretary, then coming home at night to assume her secret identity as a bad-tempered and mildly demented writer. After significant bootsole-to-buttocks encouragement from her best friend, Mary Bischoff, she reluctantly sent off her first manuscript and was blessed with a remarkably short search for a publisher. Her first novel, Shadow, saw print in 1991, and two years later she abandoned my “normal” life and descended completely into fantasy.

  Anne has a remarkably patient husband, Paul, who supplies the sanity in their marriage. Together they are owned by three cats, two dogs, and one snake. In her infrequent leisure time, she likes to grow and/or cook strange and spicy things, and is an avid collector of anything about vampires.

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