Shadows of Aggar (Amazons of Aggar) Read online

  He met no response in her. He tried again. “Min, your Empire would have sent you on this quest regardless of our involvement. It is not our way to interfere with the decisions of others. Our only intent is to lend aid to those who have already been appointed by the Fates and by the Mother — ”

  “Not to interfere?!” Diana rasped, stunned. “Then what do you call such a thing as lifebonding?”

  Elana flinched, stepping back as Di’nay’s hand swung in a wide gesture to point at her. The intensity of that amarin was startling.

  “You demand I not travel alone! Then you bind me to a woman only to ignore her very presence until it suits you to call on her for whatever purpose?! Explain to me how that is not interfering?”

  “It is our way — ”

  “But it is not mine!”

  The Council Speaker drew a chilly mantel about himself. His words were uttered slowly and very distinctly. “You will fail if you attempt this alone. Now, do we return to the study or do we merely entrust you to your Shadow’s care and be done?”

  Elana swallowed hard, watching Di’nay waver between suspicions and necessities. The intensity defied Elana’s ability to decipher the Amazon’s amarin. The woman’s chair squeaked and Elana felt herself breathe a sigh of relief as Di’nay abruptly sat back. A hand flicked towards the waiting parchments. “Continue — ”

  † † †

  “We are here tonight. Your gear is there.” Elana pointed to the chest beneath the shuttered windows, leaving the taller woman to swing the door shut. Frowning, Elana hurried to the hearth and picked up the flint. The wood needed only for the tinder to be lit, but she was displeased that her orders had not been carried through to completion. The room should have been warmed long before Di’nay’s arrival.

  The back of her neck prickled and she felt more than heard Di’nay’s approach. Self-consciously she rearranged the kindling before reaching for the strike stone.

  “Here.” Diana’s sharpness shattered the silence.

  Elana glanced upwards and saw the small, straight dagger the other offered. Mutely she accepted it, and Di’nay left her. Half-wishing that she could put more than air space between herself and her companion, Elana turned back to the hearth. She turned the sheathed dagger and used the steel knotted hilt to strike the flint. There was no need to dull the blade. The tinder caught the sparks and tiny flames licked out. Sitting back on her heels, she watched the wood catch. She needed a second or two before she faced the cold anger of the woman behind her. An icy touch radiated from Di’nay just as heat did from the fire. This woman was much too complicated, Elana realized, to be understood by merely deciphering her amarin. But the power within Di’nay seemed to heighten her own sensitivities. It would take practice to learn to think clearly around those bombarding forces.

  Concentrating, Elana mentally eased herself away from Di’nay’s anger and wrapped herself in the warmth of the fire. The living forces that had once flowed through this crackling wood were still tangible to her — still welcoming to her; if she could but relax and reach out for that calming strength. Her eyes unfocused a bit, and she felt herself immersed in the warmth….

  After a moment, she sighed and gently retreated from the calm. There was still the stony displeasure to face. She rose and moved to the bed where Di’nay sat rummaging through a leather pack. She extended the small knife, hilt first.

  “Keep it.” Diana waved ungraciously. “I’ve got another.”

  It startled Elana to be reminded of the older woman’s wealth, although she vaguely remembered that other worlds were not as metal-poor as Aggar. Still, the thrill to actually own a hand dagger of steels! She pulled the small blade from its sheath almost reverently. Swords of varying quality were common enough with travelers and soldiers, but such a small item was indeed a luxury. Most knives were of finely honed stone or kiln-fired black glass. They were certainly cutting and lethal enough, but they were easily worn past sharpening within a tenmoon or so.

  “Thank you,” she whispered somewhat belatedly, once again intensely aware of Di’nay’s brooding stare.

  “Will you answer me something?” Diana asked abruptly, setting her pack aside.

  Elana nodded, placing her new treasure carefully on the chest.

  “Why you? What makes you so well-equipped for this mission?” Even sitting on the bed Diana was not eye level with the young woman; she found it exasperating.

  “My Sight — and I am — was the Eldest Prepared.” It was strange to remember that she was not any longer.

  “Have you ever been out of the Keep?” Diana fired.

  “Seldom. I was not born here.”

  “But you have been to Maltar’s lands?”

  “I have not.”

  “Yet you know the way well enough that the Speaker can’t be bothered to share his precious maps with you?” The sarcasm was thick in her voice and an ironic, disbelieving twist curled her lips.

  “I did not learn the routes by studying maps,” Elana agreed, quietly serious.

  That unspoken assurance eased the taunt from Diana’s expression. “How did you learn them?”

  “The Seers taught me.”

  “Then would it have been redundant to have added a comment or two? Since you know so much?” The accusation was meant to sting, but Diana couldn’t tell if it had. Damn it, was the girl as boneless as a dishrag after all?

  “It was not expected, Di’nay.”

  “Not expected!” she rasped and felt her Amazon blood boil at the servitude in the answer. “By who? The Council Speaker?”

  “Nor by you.”

  Diana swallowed some of her fury. It was true. She too had forgotten Elana’s presence for much of that meeting. “And so you said nothing?”

  Elana frowned slightly. “I said nothing, because I had nothing to say.”

  She took a short bite of air and after a moment asked more quietly, “Could you tell me, Elana, just what should I expect from you?”

  “I am your Shadow,” Elana returned with a faintly puzzled shrug. “I am an extra set of ears and eyes for you. With my Sight, some might say I am better qualified than most because I can literally fade into the shadows of a room….”

  Diana remembered their meeting in the garden.

  “I am charged with your life, Di’nay.”

  “In what way?” Diana’s teeth clamped tight again.

  “With your safety and your comfort. I am guide when you request… guard or companion as you need. You are to survive and strongly if you are to deal with Fates’ tasks. I am expected to see that you do. I am to be cook, bedfellow, protector — whatever you need, I am to provide it.”

  “In short, your life,” she grunted.

  “If need be, certainly.”

  “Mae n’Pour!” Diana gasped in her own tongue, cursing the wastes — grappling for the Goddess’ sweet strength. She wanted to smash something. Anything! “Tell me, child! How much did they pay your parents to buy you?”

  Elana held silent at the insult. Her gaze dropped.

  Diana shut her mouth, scolding herself. Elana was not responsible for her anger. She was angry at the Council, at Baily, at the demeaning societies she had become so disenchanted with. It was not permissible to take her temper out on this woman.

  Diana rose and paced to the hearth, gripping the mantel with white-knuckled tension. She was becoming too old for this sort of thing. Her detachment was fraying. She needed to quit, not because she was tired of saving this world or that from eternal crisis, but because she was tired of the senselessness of so many societies — such wasted, useless customs of power and slavery.

  Okay, she acknowledged almost with defeat, I am again a disillusioned sociologist. I can’t change this world, but dear Goddess why can’t I stop acting as if I agreeably belong to it — like some insensitive male cad! Where was her respect for the woman’s being? A slow, deep breath gathered in her lungs. The anger and tension finally receded. Yes, she was a Sister — this world — it was not hers.
Relief flooded her suddenly as she remembered that truth. With surprise, Diana wondered when she had last been without that tension. Had it been even before Maryl’s departure? She hadn’t known she’d resented the woman’s leaving so much. No, not leaving, she knew, but the choice of the man over her — an Amazon.

  Diana turned wearily from the hearth. “I beg your patience. I spoke out of turn.”

  “I… I find no grudge,” Elana stammered quickly, again finding the intensity of Di’nay’s amarin blurred any ability to anticipate action. She had not expected a formal apology.

  Diana gestured helplessly. “It’s just… I don’t want to own you, but I feel I do.”

  Gently Elana shook her dark head. “I am here by choice.” She hesitated, then added, “Perhaps more so than you are.”

  So Elana had guessed something of this struggle. Diana nodded. She found a half-hearted grin. “I’m glad one of us wants to be here.”

  The soft, full lips smiled. Disconcerted, Diana was reminded of the woman’s beauty. Stubbornly, she pushed the thought away. “How old are you, Elana?”

  “Twelve and more tenmoons.”

  “You look barely past ten seasons,” Diana said flatly, moving back to the bed and to her pack.

  “And you do not seem forty years,” Elana said quietly, slipping into Common.

  Diana hid a smile as she produced a leather package and began to unlace it. “Thank you. I’m not quite twenty seasons, actually. But it’s nice to know that the job hasn’t aged me too much.

  “This is not an ordinary set,” Diana said, shifting their attention to the array of cookware she’d laid out. The pieces had been well-fitted and packed, one inside the other with a lid securing the lot together. She handed the largest pot to Elana; it wasn’t more than twenty centimeters in diameter.

  The texture of the piece felt like well-fired ceramic, and the discolored glaze looked like any typical travel dish. Elana turned the pot over curiously. The amarin was wrong, almost absent, and it was much too light for clay or stone. Suddenly she turned to the chest and picked up the small knife. She tapped the hilt to the pot. It gave a nice, satisfying tinny clack. She smiled. It was the alien alloy again.

  Diana was impressed. Few of Aggar had ever noticed the weight discrepancy, and none had ever guessed it was not ceramic. “You’ll find it heats more rapidly, but it’s the weight that’s important.”

  “It’s less than a third of what a clay set would be,” Elana noted, finding it surprisingly practical for Terran equipment. “And there are more pieces.”

  “I like fire brewed tea,” Diana confessed. “It takes too long to brew it and heat the wash water unless I’ve got separate containers. Anyway,” she slid the set back into its bag and handed the lot to Elana, “this is for you. So’s the blanket.”

  “It too is not — ordinary?”

  “It’s a synthetic thermal,” Diana struggled with how to translate into non-tech language. She wondered just how much Common Elana really knew. “It becomes hot — or cold as you decide what you need.”

  Somberly Elana lifted her face and with great care took Di’nay’s chin between her fingers. From habit the Amazon shifted her eyes down to meet the blue-white gaze for an instant — and then the contact was broken. “It is synthetic,” Elana said quietly, easily tonguing the new word. “Neither wool nor linen.”

  Diana blinked. Those depths of shimmering sapphire no longer mesmerized her soul.

  “It creates heat as one needs it, yes?”

  Diana mentally shook herself and turned the tightly stitched edging over at the corner. “Here is the control.” She guided Elana’s fingers over the small, embedded rectangle. “Squeeze this way… on the flattened side… and it will heat. Press the edge so… yes and it will cool.”

  “And how do you turn it off?”

  “Bend it in half.” She pinched the fabric. “The only drawback is it’s thin.” She folded the blanket loosely and gave it to Elana. “And the ground does get terribly hard sometimes.”

  The woman smiled. “Thank you. It will save much room.”

  Diana pulled a short rod from her bag and bent it in the middle with a crack. A light burst forth and the two of them blinked in the brightness before she twisted the end and reduced it to a narrow beam. She cracked it again, off, and tossed it on the bed muttering, “One flashlight.”

  Elana’s tongue moistened her lips slightly before she said, “I see… differently at night. Perhaps we need take only yours?”

  Diana hesitated, eyeing her companion suspiciously, but in the end she merely shrugged. “There is only the one.

  “Also — matches.” She gave Elana a small box of blue-tipped sticks. “They’re for starting fires when it’s too damp to catch a spark easily.” Deftly she struck one against the box and it flared. She blew it out and tossed it into the hearth. “They work even when they’re wet, but they’re hard to come by at the base, so I try not to use them unless it’s an emergency. We should both carry a box.”

  Elana nodded.

  “What do you usually carry?” Diana asked then, finishing with the pack and settling herself down on the edge of the bed.

  “Three days’ dried food and waterskin, a bedroll, an extra set of clothing, cookery, spices and salt, my medicine purse, a hunting knife, a sheath of bolts and my crossbow.”

  “Knife!” Diana quickly dove back into the pack and returned with a hunting knife. She slid the tie loop free and pulled it from the black sheath. It was smooth, sharp and curved along one side. The other was straight and lined with biting, serrated teeth. Grinning at the thought of Baily’s outrage, Diana re-sheathed it, presenting it to Elana, “A hunting knife — one for each of us.”

  “Thank you.” Another knife — a metal knife! Elana wondered if this woman had ever even used the black glass knives of Aggar’s design.

  “You said a crossbow? Do you carry any other weapons?”

  A little self-derisively Elana admitted that, “I’ve been trained to carry full gear… from leather breast plates to long sword… if I must.”

  “How long of a sword can you manage?”

  “I’m most comfortable with a twenty-eight length.”

  “No longer?”

  She shrugged. “I do not have the reach to take advantage of a longer piece.”

  “Is it the weight or the length you have trouble with?”

  “Length,” Elana admitted. “A blade made with your metals would be easier to wield, but we are taught with wooden pieces from a young age. They were light enough. I am more than adequate defensively.” She allowed a small smile of satisfaction. “I know where the other strikes even as he does it. I am not quite so effective offensively, especially against men. There is six inches and more difference in our reach. And it is clumsy to wear.”

  “And the long bow?”

  She shook her head. “I have not the strength to be reliable in extended use.”

  Diana nodded. She knew Terran women also had to work particularly hard and with focus to develop upper body strength. “You don’t have trouble loading the crossbow then?”

  “I can load it quickly by force when I must,” Elana assured her, “but it is seldom necessary. I have made several adjustments in mine. I’ve a small crank that re-sets the two strings, and a pulley system that multiplies the throw force.”

  Diana raised an eyebrow with interest. She was impressed. “Your own design?”

  “We are expected to adapt our gear to our individual needs.”

  “Others have similar crossbows then?”

  Elana thought a moment, then half-shook her head. “Few have given it much use here at the Keep. I believe I’m the only one proficient in it for many years now.”

  “How much more force do you get with the modifications?”

  “Equivalent to one-and-a-half that of a standard long bow.”

  Diana whistled silently. It was a very deadly weapon. She drew a deep breath. “You do better to carry more bolts than worry about
swords and leathers.”

  “I’ll do as you think best.”

  “No,” Diana turned to her, “I want us to talk. We make joint decisions as long as both of our lives are at stake.”

  Elana’s eyes were blue-white as they skirted across the woman’s face, noting her gravity. She remembered the lingering unease of the evening’s meeting. Quietly she asserted, “You talk of being partners. That requires some trust, Di’nay.”

  The Amazon paused, and her fingers pressed tiredly against the bridge of her nose. Reluctantly her hand dropped as she nodded. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  Elana felt her heart ache at the loneliness she felt from the woman. In a desperate answer to that emptiness she ventured, “Perhaps… in time we might find it?”

  Diana found herself wanting that so much it hurt. She despaired of ever trusting one so young with so much. “I expect we will… eventually.”

  For a long moment, Elana stood saying nothing; then at Diana’s glance she turned slowly for the hearth to bank the fire.

  With weariness, Diana found herself staring at the single, mammoth bed. She sighed. Most people of Aggar enforced strong bans on sexual relations, and she had too long experienced Maryl’s discomfort to believe that her new companion was going to relish sharing the blankets. “Elana…?” The woman glanced at her expectantly. “I haven’t slept in almost two days. I’m completely exhausted. If I promise I wish only to sleep, do you believe we could share the bed?”

  A small laugh escaped her as Elana half-turned, still kneeling at the hearth. “Where else would we be?”

  “I could be on the floor,” Diana responded flatly.

  Elana dropped her jesting at Di’nay’s solemnness. “This Keep does not hold to customs that either permit or ban bedfellows. You have no need to protect me here. Beyond these walls, it will be assumed that we are wed or that you own me. Neither appearance distresses me.” For a long moment they looked at one another, until finally Elana prompted, “There is something more.”