by Victor Poole
"You can see the colors now?" Ajalia asked quickly. Leed nodded.
"Anyone can," he said, lifting the book. "It says so, here."
"If you see Ocher," Ajalia said to Leed, "tell him how to see the lights."
Leed grinned, and handed the book to Ajalia.
"I'm going to like things now," Leed told her. "If my uncle ever comes after me, I know how to fly away." Ajalia grinned at the boy.
"You've learned how to fly already?" she asked. Leed grimaced.
"Well, I haven't tried it yet," he admitted, "but I will soon. It says how, in the book."
"Gather all of the boys in the house," Ajalia said. "Find Daniel first. I want all of you to find a way to connect Esther back to the earth and sky."
"That's the witch?" Leed asked. Ajalia nodded.
"Don't teach her any magic," Ajalia said, "and tell the other boys not to say anything to her either. I want to see if we can use her as a spy."
Leed's eyes were sparkling now.
"I'll show Ocher, if I see him," Leed said. "And I'll warn the boys about not teaching the witch." Leed ran towards the door of the room.
"And Leed," Ajalia said. Leed paused, and turned. "See what you can get Chad to do, as well," Ajalia said. Leed smiled with an evil smile, and unlocked the door. Ajalia laughed at the look on the boy's face, and watched him go out. She rose up, and went to the door. She hesitated for a moment, and then locked the door again. She went to the desk, and got a sheet of paper. The Slavithe people made excellent paper. Ajalia thought that her master would see to the construction of a large paper mill, if he ever did arrive in Slavithe. She wondered what Barat would tell their master about Slavithe, when he and the other Eastern slaves arrived in the East.
Ajalia was surprised to find that since Delmar had sponsored her, and made her an honorary citizen of Slavithe, she no longer regarded herself as a slave. She was not sure how this had happened in her; she had always seen herself as valuable chattel before this. But the words Delmar had used, and the way he had treated her since then, had given her a kind of second life. She no longer felt like a belonging; she felt like a person, and like her own person. She felt as though she owned herself. Ajalia thought, in the back of her mind, that she would be able to maintain a relationship with her master, if and when he came, by telling him of the customs of Slavithe. Her master had a good understanding of the ways of foreigners; she was almost sure that if she framed her explanation in terms of what the people of Slavithe would accept, and how they saw her now as one of themselves, he would not press her into living openly as a slave. She was not concerned about returning to the East; if her master never journeyed here, she would not return, and if he did, she was far more valuable to him here than she could be anywhere else.
Ajalia began to make a map of names; she wrote down Simon's name, and Lilleth's, and drew lines out to each of their sons. She wrote down herself, and Philas, and then she began to write out, along the edges of the page, all the people she had met or worked with in Slavithe, those who had become a permanent part of her picture of the place. When Ajalia had filled up the page with names, she studied it for a moment, and then turned the page over, and began to plan.
In the filtering afternoon light that sunk low against the balcony curtains, a gentle knock came at Ajalia's door. She tucked away her sheet of paper, and then paused, and picked it up. Tucking the paper into her bag, which she slung once more over her shoulder, she unlocked and opened the door. Isacar was in the hall, looking abashed.
"I didn't want to disturb you," the young man said.
"Tell me about things," Ajalia said, going out of the room, and closing the door behind her. She made a practice never to leave things in her room that she would be upset never to see again. The slim leather book she had put into her bag with the book she had been saving for Delmar; the falcon's dagger, and the sky stone, were in her bag still.
Isacar told her about the state of the house as they walked together towards the stairs. Isacar, Ajalia saw, had gone exploring the dragon temple. He told her that he and his woman, Fashel, had arranged a brief ceremony to be performed later in the week, and that he had given Fashel some of the money that Ajalia had given him, to start setting up the kitchen.
"Tell Fashel she can have Sun, and Clare if she's free," Ajalia told Isacar. "They will help her in the kitchen. I have my boys occupied for now." A smile, like a burst of lightning, passed over Isacar's face.
"I know about the boys," Isacar admitted. He raised his hand, and a tiny gleam of mixed blue, from the star and deep earth lights, appeared there. Ajalia was impressed. "Leed has got everyone practicing," Isacar said, his mouth looking quite pleased.
"What about the witch?" Ajalia asked. They headed down the stairs together. The walls of the staircase had been recently scrubbed, and Ajalia saw now that the barest sheen of gold was beginning to show through the white stone. She had told Daniel to gradually add more of the poison juice to their cleaning fluids, to make the white stone turn golden over time. Isacar caught Ajalia looking, and the young man smiled.
"The boy, Daniel, told me of your plan," Isacar said in a low voice, as though he were speaking of something quite indiscreet. Isacar's eyes were sparkling with fun; Ajalia thought that he had probably never had so much excitement in all his life as he had had in the last several hours, notwithstanding his long employment in the old man Tree's household. "The witch, Esther, is coming along well," Isacar told Ajalia. "Chad learned the magic from Leed first. He insisted, and said it was his right, since you had promised Esther to him, if she lived. The other boys snuck magic while Chad wasn't looking, but Esther is grounded all right now."
"Can Chad do magic now, as well?" Ajalia asked. She was surprised, but pleased.
"He's quite as good as Leed is," Isacar said. Ajalia felt that, while she had slept, the whole household had undergone an upheaval. She could not quite imagine Chad being particularly good at anything, but she looked forward to seeing him now. "Esther seems all right," Isacar said. "She offered to purge the boys properly, and Chad watched her the whole time. That was only a little while ago. No one ever went to bed," Isacar confessed. "A lot of the boys wanted to help with the dead bodies, and then there was the scrubbing."
"Where are the black stones?" Ajalia asked. They had come out of the stairs, and Ajalia went through the back hallway towards the kitchens. Isacar came along with her, oozing efficiency out of his pores.
"Daniel sent a boy out to market, early, for some baskets," Isacar said. "It wasn't enough, and finally Denai went out and brought a cart. He hitched that little animal up to it, and the boys helped him haul the stones into the back. Most of the boys are from the mines," Isacar said quickly, "so they're good at sorting rocks, and shoveling." Ajalia knew that her boys were from the quarries; she had gone and fetched many of them herself from their previous employers, but she listened to Isacar describe how the clear black stones had been sorted by size and quality, and the best stones had been carried upstairs in baskets.
They came near the door to the kitchen, and Ajalia stopped in the hall.
"There are still great heaps of the lesser stones in the back enclosure," Isacar said. "The front hall is clear, now."
"Has Ocher seen to the bodies?" Ajalia asked. "They're gone?"
"Yes," Isacar said. "The floor's been cleaned. I told you that," he said, frowning. Ajalia sighed, her mind on the paper she had been filling with figures and names.
"I heard the first time," Ajalia said. "I wanted to make sure the bodies aren't stacked in a room just off the hall, waiting to be carted away."
"Oh, no," Isacar said, "the bodies are all gone." He glanced over at Ajalia. "Clare's gone, too," he added slyly.
"Have they gone to get married?" Ajalia asked. Isacar could not stop himself from smiling. He nodded
"Good for Clare," Ajalia said. She still felt a flurry of anxiety in the back of her mind; she felt as if she were forgetting something vital. "Coren," she said. "Where's Coren?"
"
He's helping the others," Isacar said. Ajalia looked at Isacar in surprise. "I think Coren is trying very hard to fit in," Isacar said. "He's not nearly so sour as he was last night. Leed beat him a little, at first, but Coren wouldn't fight back, and now they seem to get along."
Ajalia imagined the tiny Leed beating with his fists on Coren, who was easily twice his size, and she kept back a smile with difficulty.
"That is surprising," Ajalia said. Isacar looked at her hesitantly.
"I do not wish to speak out of turn," he said, and looked at her meaningfully. Ajalia recognized the look in Isacar's eyes; it was the same look she had given her own master in the past, though she had never been so forward as to speak her mind at such times. She sighed, and prepared to be lectured. Isacar saw the look on her face, and he grinned. "I won't tell you what to do," Isacar said, "but you did hire me, and I'd like to do my job."
Ajalia looked at Isacar, and wondered if the young man was as sensible as she hoped he was.
"Tell me more," she said. Isacar's face looked puffy with repressed advice. Ajalia smiled, and laughed at him. "You are too wise to tell me," she guessed, "but I look ill, and I need sleep, and you would like to send food up to my room and continue to play lord of the temple while I busy myself over higher tasks."
Isacar smiled in spite of himself.
"Well," he said, but he did not seem to be able to think of anything else to say.
"Come on," Ajalia said, and she went into the kitchen.
PHILAS COMES BACK
The kitchen, as Ajalia went into it, was full of flying dust and the warm glow of a fire that was just beginning to burn steadily in the large hearth. Fashel had a large broom in her hands, and she was beating at the edges of the room. When Ajalia saw that Fashel was alone, she waved Isacar away; he melted discreetly into the hall.
The kitchen sat in the back left-hand corner of the dragon temple, and within both of its outer walls were large and airy windows. The sky outside was clear and bright; Ajalia watched the dust motes fly like mad insects through the room.
Fashel looked up, and noticed Ajalia. The young woman's face was bright with exertion, and her lips were parted.
"Oh!" Fashel said, looking nervous and pleased. "Hello."
"I didn't know if you would come back," Ajalia said. "I'm glad that you did." Fashel's lips pursed down.
"I had to sneak away," she admitted. "My mistress was not pleased to see me go."
"Isacar tells me that you have set a day for your marriage," Ajalia said. Fashel's face was overcome with blushes.
"Yes," Fashel said.
Ajalia got up, and found rags and a bucket full of water that had been mixed with the poison tree juice. She began to scrub at the table, and great clouds of dirt and steam rose up.
"I don't know when Isacar and I would ever have been able to plan our marriage, if it hadn't been for you," Fashel said frankly. "I told him that I didn't want to cut my hair."
"You could have lived together," Ajalia guessed.
"Yes," Fashel said. "Isacar made enough, working for Tree. But he is not allowed to pay my debts."
Ajalia got down on her hands and knees to scrub the floor. Cleaning in Slavithe, Ajalia thought, was the nicest thing. She didn't have to rub hard for the stains and dirt to lift out of the stone. Clouds of steam left behind lengths of snowy white stone, where Ajalia had rubbed the rag.
"You don't have to help me clean," Fashel added softly, as though she was hoping Ajalia wouldn't hear her.
"I like cleaning," Ajalia said. "And I would get in the way of the boys just now. They are enjoying themselves."
"Isacar is learning more story magic," Fashel said hesitantly. She looked over at Ajalia from where she stood against a counter that was laid in against the wall. Fashel climbed onto the counter, and began to wash the wall up higher.
"How long have you been a servant?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's lips were pressed primly together.
"I have been a servant for three years," Fashel said. "I was sold to my mistress, about a week after my father died."
Efficient, Ajalia told herself. As they scrubbed, Ajalia thought of the fight in the hall of the dragon temple last night, and how the priests had died in a flash of white light.
"Do you know any priests?" Ajalia asked.
"No. There haven't been very many priests for a long time," Fashel said, "and they keep to themselves. Only poor people and fools become priests."
Fashel was scrubbing back and forth over the wall. Ajalia reached below the earth, and picked up a line of blue light. Ajalia saw the colors inside of people's bodies when she looked for them, but she had to focus her mind, and when she touched the cords of power, the sight came to her without any effort at all.
Fashel's colors came immediately into view. Ajalia saw that the colors she had refreshed in the girl's body last night had all been eaten away again.
"Have you gone to see your mother," Ajalia asked, "since I paid you for the necklace?"
"No," Fashel said, frowning.
"Have you seen your sisters since last night?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's lips drew down at the corners, and her eyebrows drew together.
"I have seen no one," Fashel said, "except for my old mistress and her son."
Ajalia's mouth twisted with anger to one side; she reached for more cords of light below the earth, and began to wind them carefully through Fashel's legs and hips. She saw the young woman begin, gradually, to breathe more easily.
"I put some light into you, last night," Ajalia said, frowning as she reached for another color, and bound it tightly into Fashel's ribs. Fashel's eyes brightened as Ajalia worked; the young lady stood up straighter, and her shoulders drew back.
"What do you mean?" Fashel asked. Isacar's young woman's voice was no longer harsh or unfriendly; she sounded kind and happy now. Ajalia thought that the lights were like putting life back into the girl.
"Do you know the story magic?" Ajalia asked. Fashel nodded. "I am taking the same colors that are used in the story magic," Ajalia said, "and winding them through your bones." Fashel laughed, as though Ajalia had told her a fairy story.
"You speak like a child," Fashel said. "That is not real magic."
Ajalia took a pair of blue cords from the sky, and formed them into a firm knot in Fashel's middle. She raised up two long cords of gold, and shaped them together with the blue lines, so that Fashel was the center of a tight meeting of lights from above and below. When Ajalia had put lights into people before this, she had taken isolated fragments of lights from the earth or sky and laid them down into the person. Ajalia had left no intact connection to the colors that ran in the sky and below the earth. Now Ajalia made a permanent flow; Fashel was an epicenter of violent white where the colors mixed, and her chest and arms were full of the twisting blue lights that ran up, in cords of steady clear color, into the sky above. Running through Fashel's legs were gently writhing tendrils of thick gold that extended deep into the earth.
Fashel looked now at Ajalia with strong eyes, and a firm mouth.
"I put lights in you last night," Ajalia told the girl. "They are eaten away today."
"My mistress might have taken them from me," Fashel said matter-of-factly. Ajalia looked at the girl, and Fashel smiled. "She's not a witch," Fashel explained. "She's just old, and she gets cranky. She wanted to buy me as a servant because of the way I smell."
Ajalia blinked rapidly.
"What did you say?" Ajalia asked.
"My smell," Fashel said. "We can't see the lights very well."
"Who can't?" Ajalia asked. Fashel stared at her.
"Women. As children we are beaten when we start to see them. So we learn not to see them. Then, when we are older, we begin to smell the lights instead. I can smell you," she offered, bobbing her head encouragingly. "You are like fresh fire, laid in fair wood." Ajalia, in spite of herself, sniffed a little. Fashel saw, and laughed. "You will never smell it yourself," Fashel said easily. "No one can smell the lights really, but we s
ay that we can."
"That sounds very odd to me," Ajalia said. "It sounds like what you are saying is that you can see the lights."
"Oh, I can't see them," Fashel said quickly, a slight tension coming in around the edges of her eyes and her mouth. "I can't see any lights. I haven't been able to at all. But I think yours might be red. Or they aren't red," Fashel said hurriedly, blushing. She looked sideways at Ajalia. "Can you see the lights?" she asked. Ajalia nodded.
Daniel came in, carrying a basket of bread and long vegetables mixed together.
"Oh, hello," Daniel said to Ajalia. The boy was smiling brightly, and his hair was swept away from his face in the manner of one who has been having adventures. "Here you go," Daniel said cheerfully to Fashel, and put the basket down on the counter. Ajalia was surprised at how much more lively and likable Fashel was, with the live cords of lights running through her body. Daniel was looking appraisingly at Fashel; he turned to Ajalia.
"I like what you've done to Fashel," Daniel told Ajalia. "It's very pretty."
"Thanks," Ajalia said.
Daniel took the rag from Ajalia, and began, in rapid fashion, to finish cleaning up the floor. The boy was like a machine; he swept poison juice onto the stones, and wiped it thoroughly into every crack of the stones until the floor sparkled. The kitchen, as it turned clean, was quite unrecognizable. The wooden shelves, which Fashel had washed before Ajalia had come in, shone out brightly and warmly now against the newly-scrubbed white walls. The floor seemed larger, and much more expansive, now that it was clean, and the large table that filled up much of the room, which was made of the hard yellow wood from the Slavithe trees, gleamed comfortingly in the room.
Ajalia thought of the priests who had expired in flashes of white light as their bodies passed through the blue wall of magic she had made around them. She thought back to the way their bodies had looked, and she was trying to picture their insides, and their colors. The head priest, Thell, and his three minions had been different, she realized.
"Daniel?" Ajalia asked. The boy nodded to show that he was listening, his elbows working like pistons over the rapidly gleaming floor. "Do you know of Thell, the head priest?" Ajalia asked. Fashel, who was scrubbing a corner of the wall above the counter, looked down to listen.