Tales of Avalon: The Maid and the Falcon

✧ Chapter 20: Streets of Namah ✧

The city bustled and swirled, as usual, like a tide ebbing and flowing around buildings and market stalls.  A rumble of voices in a hundred languages rose and fell with the waves.  Somewhere on the docks, a group of voices rose in a sea chanty, with more volume and enthusiasm than melody.

In the marketplace, Tena half-danced down the street, her skirt swishing around her ankles.  It was new and she knew her friends would be jealous, even if it wasn't as fine as the ones merchant's daughters wore.

Humming happily Tena arrived at her stall and spread out her wares.  It had been a good harvest today.

"Aya aya, Tena, did you bring your junk again?" the stallkeeper next to her mumbled with a shake of his head.  He sold mats.

"Oh, hush, old man.  You like me better than the fishmonger who was here before."

"Aya, not much to like about that one.  But your stall brings strange people around."

Tena shrugged, pretending blissful ignorance.  "I just pick up odds and ends.  It's not up to me which people want to buy them."

"Trash digger."

"Reed fingers," she retorted, tossing her head.  He snorted, but not unkindly.

Hours later, Tena looked up from a quiet reverie to see someone standing in front of her stall.  "Can I help you?" she asked, not concerned by the cloak covering most of the person's face.  Even though it was meant to hide her customer, the cloak was made of nice material and well cut.  Tena had a keen eye for hidden money.

"Yes."  It was a woman's voice, with a slight accent.  Tena raised her eyebrows but said nothing.  "The little medallion behind you."

"This one?"  Tena picked up a small, bright medallion with a tree etched into its surface, growing from a river.  Hints of a green-gray tarnish lurked on the edges of the design, in spite of all her efforts to clean it.  It looked like silver, but the tarnish was wrong.

"Yes.  How much is it?"

"This one?  About... thirty copper."

The cloaked visitor took a sudden breath, and Tena prepared to haggle.

"Really?  Thirty copper?"

"Is there a problem with the price?"

"Not at all."  The visitor handed Tena thirty copper coins and held out a slim hand for the medallion, but Tena stared at the hand for a moment.  It was so incredibly pale.

"You're a northerner."  Was it her imagination, or had the hand flickered for an instant?  Tena glanced up and saw eyes beneath the cloak, hard and cold as a steel edge in an unmoving face, and she quickly looked away.  Hastily, Tena finished the transaction and handed the medallion over.  Her guest examined it for a moment and nodded in satisfaction, then handed Tena a silver coin.

"It feels wrong not to pay a proper price for white steel."

Tena stared into the crowd for some time after her customer had vanished into it.  She'd had some odd customers, certainly, but this was by far one of the strangest.  Quietly, she stored the memory of this encounter away; it might prove useful.

A few people stopped by Tena's stall throughout the day, but none of them seemed to be interested enough to make a purchase.  Tena found her mind wandering back to the medallion she'd sold earlier.  Was it really white steel?  That was from the north, if she wasn't mistaken.  Of course it would be a northerner who recognized it.

Isn't white steel a dwarven alloy made for fusing with other things?  If that was the case, why make a medallion out of nothing but white steel?  If the medallion had been fused, there should have been magic in it, and Tena would have known to sell it for much, much more.  An unfused white steel medallion... was it incomplete?  But what completes white steel if it's not already worked into the metal?  After puzzling for what felt like an eternity, Tena gave up.  She didn't know nearly enough about smithing to answer the question.  Questions were useless things, anyway, meant for people who didn't have a living to earn.