by Victor Poole
"It says that there are two ways to fly," Leed said. "Well, three, but I don't count the last one as flying, really."
"What are they?" Ajalia asked, lying flat on her stomach. She put one hand on top of the bag where the dagger and the stone lay, and felt both of the lumps. She was sure that if she left either object alone for long, they would mysteriously disappear, and she would have an awful time trying to get anyone to admit taking them. Some artifacts, Ajalia thought, had a strange quality of seeming to belong to no one, and therefore to anyone who picked them up. Her own master had had three items from the distant past, and he had undergone a nearly endless dance of having them stolen, and retrieving them again, not only from his own slaves, but from fellow traders and their wives and children. People in general did not feel as compunctious, Ajalia thought, about taking items that were so old they had had masses of unrelated owners. Once a thing had been taken on by so many different people, she thought, the thing itself seemed to become, to the masses, an item of public interest. Ajalia was sure that if her own boys saw the dagger or the sky stone, they would be tempted to take them, and she counted her own boys far more honest than the vast majority of people anywhere.
"The first way to fly," Leed said, marking his place with his finger, and turning backwards in the slim leather book, "is to take hold of the cords in the sky, and to climb them, as though they were a tangle of vines in a forest."
Oh, Ajalia thought, and she imagined doing that. It would be easier, she reflected, to climb the sky, than to build wings.
"The second way is to fashion magic into the shape of wings, and then fly with them," Leed said, "and the third way, which I do not think counts as flying, really, is to make wings out of earth and sky magic, and attach them to a horse."
"Does it have to be a horse?" Ajalia asked, thinking of the jennet, and of the great blue yurl that had been sold into the mountains.
"It doesn't say," Leed said, "but all the examples show a horse. The book says that all the horses came down from the sky first. It says they're very sensitive to magic, more than other animals."
"I thought all the animals in Slavithe came down from the sky kingdom," Ajalia said, shifting her weight, and stretching out her legs. Delmar is coming, she told herself, and she smiled as she remembered the way his reddish beard was growing in.
"Well, a lot of them did," Leed said, "but most of them have crossed with animals from here, and their flesh is heavier now. The creatures in the forest are purer, though," Leed said. "The birds and little animals didn't have any domesticated things to mate with."
"The slaves brought animals with them?" Ajalia asked.
"Yes," Leed said, and he flipped back to his place in the book.
"Tell me the highlights," Ajalia said, looking over at the sunlight that was coming through the balcony curtains. The curtains were partially closed, as she had drawn them the last time she had been in the room, but a slight breeze was coming in, and swinging the curtains a little from side to side.
"Um," Leed said, twisting his mouth, and wiggling on the bed. He frowned down at the book. "The witches are cut off from power, and so they steal what they can reach from children, and from pregnant women and babies."
"All right," Ajalia said, and she was thinking of what Coren had said, about Lilleth trying to make Delmar father a child. Ajalia told herself that she would ask Delmar about this; she hoped he would not know anything about it, but, she thought, she could see how Lilleth would have been able to introduce such a topic in a not-insidious way. She still wanted to find the potential young woman, or women, if there had been multiple prospects, and grill them about details. Ajalia had not enjoyed Sharo's sudden and deeply-rooted possessiveness towards Delmar, and she wanted to do what she could to avoid such a person popping up again without warning.
"The priests do the same thing," Leed said, "but they think it doesn't count as stealing, because they want to fight with the witches."
"Does the book say that?" Ajalia asked. She got up to her feet, and came to the window.
"No," Leed said. "I'm extrapolating."
"What does the book say?" she asked.
"Mostly things you already know, probably," Leed hedged.
"Then go to the beginning," Ajalia told him, "and read it out to me." Leed glared at her from under the fringe of brown hair.
"Really?" he asked suspiciously. "I thought you would run off and do important things."
"If I step foot outside that door," Ajalia told the boy, "I will have endless and draining adventures. Everyone else can have adventures for now. I want to know what that book says." She guessed, rightly, that magic was quickly becoming the centerpiece of her interactions with any and all the Slavithe people, and she was thoroughly fed up with feeling unprepared, and not knowing what was going on, and what powers she could access.
"Well," Leed said doubtfully. "It would probably take a while."
"When did you fall asleep last night?" Ajalia asked him. Leed looked at her.
"I don't know," he admitted. I came here, after the house was quiet. I think I fell asleep when I was reading."
"Some witches came here last night, and tried to attack me," Ajalia said. Leed sat upright, his eyes wide.
"Really?" he asked eagerly. She saw him looking at where her knife was concealed, and she knew he wanted to hear a long story about a fight.
"After the witches showed up," Ajalia continued, "a much larger group of priests attacked, and there was fighting."
"Why did the witches come?" Leed asked eagerly. The book lay half-open in his lap where he had been turning the pages. His face was turned with rapt attention to Ajalia.
"They had been using Coren, Delmar's little brother, as a thrall, and they wanted to collect him. I'd gotten the bad magic out of him, and when they saw that, they wanted to take him and make him a shadow child."
"Oh, no," Leed said, his eyes wide. He looked thoroughly delighted with what Ajalia said. "Did they carry him off?" he asked.
"No," Ajalia said. She began to comb out her hair.
"What happened with the priests?" Leed demanded. Ajalia glanced at the boy. His face was wrought with excitement. She pulled the blanket over the boy's head, and began to change her clothes. "What happened next?" Leed demanded, his voice coming muffled through the cloth.
"The priests wanted to kill the witches. I think they wanted to kill me, as well," Ajalia said. She pulled a clean tunic over her head, and got leggings out of her trunk. Her wardrobe, she reflected sorrowfully, was being rapidly decimated to scraps and rags. The orange gown she had been wearing was not completely ruined, but it was no longer fit to wear. Bits of blood, and discolored places where the magic had passed through the cloth, filled up the beautiful gown. There was a long tear along one side of the leg, and Ajalia could not think of where it had come from. She supposed that she might have rubbed up against something at one point, thought she couldn't think when.
When she had dressed, Ajalia yanked at the blanket, and Leed's tousled head appeared.
"How did you fight off the priests?" Leed asked.
"I put up barriers of magic," Ajalia said, beginning to pack the pockets in the waist of her pants. "Ocher came down, and he distracted the priests for a while. I put up a wall of magic around the priests, and when they tried to cross through it, they all died."
"Really?" Leed asked, sounding both horrified and delighted. He looked down at the book. "Do you think I could kill evil people?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"I wasn't trying to kill them," Ajalia said. "I was mostly making things up."
"But they're dead now," Leed said impressively. A new idea seemed to take hold of him, and his whole body almost vibrated with excitement. "Are they downstairs now?" he asked seriously. Ajalia knew he was about to say, can I go see? A smile tugged at the corners of Ajalia's lips, but she shook her head.
"No," she said. "Ocher's cleared everything up by now."
"But what about the witches?" Leed asked urgently
. "Where are they? Are they coming back to fight again?" The boy sounded eager to build a fortress, or to wield a weapon. Ajalia was sure that if she said the witches were returning, Leed would leap to his feet and begin to devise cunning traps and attack plans.
"The witches almost all died when they went through the magic, too," Ajalia said. She knew that Leed had noticed her say "almost." "Two were left," Ajalia said. "I killed one of them." Leed stared at her with big, solemn eyes.
"Why?" he asked.
"I looked inside of her, and I saw a lot of darkness," Ajalia told him.
"Do you see darkness when you look inside of me?" Leed asked her fearlessly. He was not being morbid; Ajalia saw that the boy wanted to know what he was like, and what she thought of him.
"No," Ajalia said.
"What do you see?" Leed pressed.
"I see you," Ajalia said. Leed frowned at her.
"You didn't say anything at all about me," he said, sounding disappointed.
"What is there to say?" Ajalia asked. Leed glared at her, his lips in a tight line.
"I want you to say something nice," Leed said.
"Like what?" she asked. Leed's frown deepened.
"It doesn't count," he said, "if I tell you what to say."
"But what do you wish I would say?" she asked. Leed took a deep breath, and held it. Then he sighed with some disappointment.
"Where's the other witch?" he asked. Ajalia saw that the boy had been used to his uncle, or other adults in his life, telling him who he was, and what he was like. She saw that Leed thought she might have such thoughts, and that he wanted to shape himself into whatever form of boy she wanted most. She would not tell Leed what she saw in him, because she knew that he would stifle himself, and wring himself up into whatever he perceived she wanted. She did not want the boy to do this to himself; she wanted him to be whoever he was. She could see that her refusal to answer caused the boy pain, but she would rather he felt pain now, than that he manipulate himself into being who he thought she wanted him to be. Ajalia had participated in such internal contortions herself, when she had been a small child, and desperate to earn her father's love and approval. She would not willingly engage with such dramatics with Leed now, however much he asked her to.
"The last witch is here," Ajalia said. She saw Leed's face light up; he was thoroughly distracted by this news, and she saw that he wanted to see the witch himself, as if she were a sort of placebo for the dead bodies he had hoped to stare at. "Chad is guarding her," Ajalia said, "and I'm having the boys learn to throw magic at her."
Leed's eyes grew very wide at this.
"You're letting them do magic?" he asked.
"The witch tells me that using cords of power from the sky and earth is not real magic," Ajalia told Leed. Leed scoffed at her.
"That witch doesn't know anything," Leed said. "This book is all about real magic. She talks a little bit about the beginnings of witches," Leed said interestedly, turning to the front part of the book. Ajalia knew that Leed meant Bakroth's wife, who had written this book. "Here," Leed said, pointing at a page. "She said that when you use the lights to harm other people, the lights draw away from you, and if you don't make it right, and restore the light you stole or destroyed, with light from your own soul, that the earth is offended, and the sky god withdraws his approval."
"So if you harm other people, you can't touch the lights in the earth and sky," Ajalia said. Leed nodded.
"She said that there were many people, when Jerome was alive, who had learned to steal lights, and they were starting to call that magic, and say that it wasn't natural to use the real lights at all."
"Bakroth's wife talked of Jerome being alive? Does that mean he was dead later?" Ajalia asked. Leed nodded importantly. Ajalia saw that the boy was thoroughly enjoying his ability to tell her what the book said; she saw that his sense of himself as a person was being shored up, and his opinion of his own validity was rising up.
"Bakroth's wife lived a lot longer than Jerome," Leed said. "This whole part of the book is after Jerome died, and Bakroth's wife came back into Slavithe, and tried to bring the people back into line. It didn't work," Leed added with a frown, "but she left her son behind, when she went back into hiding."
"Her son?" Ajalia asked.
"Yes," Leed said, nodding. "It says in the very first part that she was with child, and then later on, about here," he said holding a chunk of the pages, "she had the baby, and there are a bunch of spells that are about helping children connect to the lights, and teaching them magic."
"The book tells how to teach magic?" Ajalia asked quickly. Leed nodded. "Have you read the whole book?" she asked. Leed nodded again. "Here," Ajalia said, "give the book to me. You go out now, and find Daniel. Tell him that I said you are going to teach the boys magic. Can you do that?" she asked. Ajalia was supremely anxious to get all of her household boys into a state of preparation; she knew that trouble was brewing in Slavithe; she could feel the undercurrent of conflict that was in the air. She had not been in a hurry yet, because she was sure that the skirmish last night had bought her time. Both priests and witches, she thought, would be tense for several days, trying to judge their positions, and maneuvering to gain favor with Delmar. She did not think they would attack each other, or her, yet, but she knew there would be a fight soon, and she wanted her boys to be able to defend themselves from the invisible evil of the corrupt users of magic in the city. Leed was watching Ajalia shrewdly, and his face was very still.
"Is there going to be another fight?" Leed asked. Ajalia nodded.
"Can you teach the boys," she asked again, "with what you've read?"
"Yes," Leed said slowly. "It's very simple."
"Can you show me some magic?" Ajalia asked. Leed looked at her, and then he raised one hand. A shimmering ball of the ocean-colored blue magic, the magic that Ajalia had mixed from the stars and from the red-gold cords of light deep within the earth, appeared over his hand. Ajalia hissed with pleasure. "Did you learn that from this book?" she asked. Leed looked at her, and nodded. "Have you read the whole thing?" she asked.
"I just have these two pages left," Leed said, "at the end."
"Read them now," Ajalia said. She went to the balcony, and looked out. She felt enormously relieved, both that Leed could do what she had done, and because he said he would be able to teach the other boys. Ajalia felt as though a great weight were slipping now from her mind. She was not yet, she thought, in the clear, but she would be soon, and she was sure that the moment Leed had gone to meet with the other boys, she would feel enormously better. She had not realized until now how anxiously she had felt about her vulnerable boys. She still was not entirely sure why the witches seemed to target young boys in particular, but she was determined that neither the witches, with their dark and hideous scrawls, nor the bloodthirsty priests, with their solemn faces, would get to even one of her boys. Once Leed had taught the house boys, Ajalia thought, she would have the cleaning crew boys sent for, and she would form the dragon temple into a manner of fortress.
She still did not know what these purges were, that the boys and the young men of Slavithe were expected to perform, but she had a sick suspicion that they were wound up somehow in the priests' ugly ways. A picture was forming in her mind, of a society where both men and women preyed on innocent children, all in the name of protecting those children from other evil people. Whatever the purges were, Ajalia thought, they clearly didn't work to catch or prevent witchcraft, and she suspected that they were created to benefit the priests more than the children who were expected to undergo them.
She waited until Leed had closed the book, and then she held out her hand for it. Leed regarded her warily.
"Are you sure you don't want me to tell you more?" he asked. Ajalia watched the boy.
"Are there things I need to know in the next five minutes?" she asked him, Leed thought about this.
"Two things," he said finally. "I think Delmar might be related to Bakroth, and yo
u're probably the sky angel." Ajalia thought about what Leed had said.
"Tell me more," she said. Leed took a deep breath, as though he were about to launch into a diatribe. "Please given me the very short version," Ajalia added quickly. Leed looked as though he was going to be offended, but then a smile broke over his face.
"You wouldn't be able to tell," Leed said, "because you're not from here. But there are some details about Bakroth's son, the baby his wife had in the wilderness, that match up a lot to one of Delmar's famous ancestors."
"Okay," Ajalia said. "And what about the sky angel?"
"Bakroth's wife could see the future," Leed said. "She writes about it in a couple of places. She learned how to use the magic to kind of tunnel forward, to see where things led to."
"All right," Ajalia said, She remembered what she had done when she had looked inside Vinna, and how she had seen many paths that all led into blackness and evil.
"So when the people were all gradually turning away from magic," Leed began. He saw Ajalia nodding impatiently, and he smiled again. "She tried to find out how things would get better," Leed said. "She saw a woman coming from the East, with red and gold in her heart, and Bakroth's wife called her the sky angel."
Ajalia felt a strange tingling at the edges of her heart. She had first looked at herself not long ago, to see the colors of her own spirit, and she had seen a riot of red and warm lights. She felt now as though someone were watching her from far away.
"You have those colors," Leed pointed out, "and you come from the East."