The Magic War (The Eastern Slave Series Book 5)

by Victor Poole

  "Ossa is a witch," Ajalia told him. "I said that to you, earlier. When Coren first came here with Isacar, he was all kinds of reticent. I couldn't get much out of him at all. Finally I gave up, and sent him upstairs, and told Ossa she could do whatever she wanted to him. I hoped, since he had been so used to witches, that she would know how to get under his skin."

  Ajalia laughed at what she had said. Delmar looked sideways at her. They came to the door that led out of the dragon temple, and Ajalia went towards the well that lay to one side of the small pavilion.

  "It's funny, what I said just now," Ajalia told Delmar, "because I wanted Ossa to get under Coren's skin, and I meant that metaphorically. He was not afraid of me at all, or of Isacar. He is not the kind of child to be afraid of torture."

  "Were you thinking of torture?" Delmar asked, looking taken aback. The picture of the young Thief Lord, his hands and forearms dripping with blood, and protesting the barbarism of torture, made Ajalia want to laugh out loud.

  "Why are you so bloody?" she asked him. She drew the bucket up from the well, and gestured for Delmar to hold out his hands. She poured the clear water over his arms. Much of the stained water ran down over the flagstones, and seeped into the cracks that lay around the edges of the pavilion. When most of the blood was gone, and the bucket was empty, Ajalia dipped it back into the well, and lowered it down. "Go and get the long basin from the stable," she told Delmar. He came back with a wooden trough that was about two feet long, and Ajalia filled it with water.

  "Ullar fought back," Delmar said, putting his hands into the trough, and scrubbing at his fingers. "She was vicious. I didn't want to kill her, but she was going to mangle Denai."

  "That dagger I showed you isn't sharp," Ajalia said, thinking of the falcon's dagger that was still in her bag.

  "I know," Delmar said. "I would have liked to have had it. She had a small blade in her clothes. It was ugly." He scrubbed the water up his elbows, and then sighed, and put his hands through his hair. "My clothes are ruined, probably," he added ruefully, looking down at the dark red tunic Ajalia had sewn up the sides.

  "Calles is making you things," Ajalia said.

  "Calles?" Delmar asked. Ajalia waved her hand.

  "Seamstress," Ajalia said. "She's in the little house now, where I used to stay in the attic." Delmar nodded. "Coren was very hard to break," Ajalia told Delmar. "He'd been cut into by the witches. He didn't fear blood, or pain, the way a normal boy would."

  "That sounds kind of yucky," Delmar said, his shoulders giving an involuntary shiver. Ajalia wanted to tell Delmar that he would get used to it, but she didn't.

  "Ossa, it turns out," Ajalia said, "had a mother who drew out curses laid by other witches. Ossa knew how to do it, and she brought up a lot of stuff that Lilleth and the other witches had laid into Coren's skin."

  Delmar stopped moving, and looked around at Ajalia, dumbfounded.

  "All those dark red marks were from that?" he demanded. Ajalia nodded.

  "You should have seen him before," she said. "Ossa said it would be permanent. She couldn't make the curses go away. I put a lot of magic into Coren's body, and then his curses exploded against the walls of the room. He had enormous, gaping black cavities all over his face, and in his arms and chest. The worst," Ajalia said, "were right under his eyes. Your mother carved in the word, 'Mine', in the old Slavithe." Delmar was quiet for a little while after she had said this.

  "That is a very old and ugly curse," Delmar said finally.

  "What does it do?" Ajalia asked. She drew a final bucket of water, and washed clean the wooden trough with part of it, and then she filled the trough up and carried it to Pudge, who was drowsing in the small stables. Pudge let out a sleepy wheeze when she saw Ajalia, and wandered over to lip agreeably at her palm.

  "That is a thrall that means that my mother was very bad," Delmar said finally. He had followed Ajalia to the stable, and was looking down and frowning at Pudge. "It means she has found a way to connect to the old evil, the ancient darkness that our distant ancestors fought."

  "What is the thrall?" Ajalia asked. "What does it do?"

  Delmar was walking slowly back towards the dragon temple, his hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders pulled down at the sides.

  "What is it?" Ajalia asked. "What's wrong?"

  "I didn't realize," Delmar told her, "that it was as bad as that."

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Is Philas still in there?" Delmar asked her. She nodded. "I didn't understand most of what he said, when he was talking to you before," Delmar said. "Is he the true heir to Saroyan?"

  "He said that his father is the fourth king of Saroyan," Ajalia said. "He's a bastard, but has a legitimate claim, due to the timing and circumstances of his birth. His half-brother, he said, will take the throne."

  "Silas is king now," Delmar said. "The fourth king of Saroyan is dead. He died a few years ago, and Silas was crowned last fall."

  "Do the people there like him?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked at her sideways, a shadowy smile on his face.

  "Everyone in Saroyan hates the king," Delmar said. "I'd have thought you would know that by know. The Saroyans always hate their kings. It's almost tradition by now."

  "Why do they hate their kings?" Ajalia asked. Delmar laughed. His voice was much lighter, and almost carefree, but Ajalia could sense a tension below his voice. Delmar's whole body had seemed to enter a higher pitch of readiness. Ajalia was sure Delmar's new anxiety was linked to the carved words she had told him that had been on Coren's face. Delmar drew a breath, and began to explain. He was walking towards the lighted door within the hall, where Philas was sitting bound, and where Leed was lecturing him.

  "Five kings ago," Delmar said, "the oldest son of the king went foul of the law, and had to be executed. People have been pretty angry ever since then."

  "That's a long time to be angry," Ajalia said.

  "Well," Delmar said reasonably. "The king's son, the prince who was killed, was very popular. He was a little like Philas, I think. He was supposed to have gone around with a chip on his shoulder, and he drank far too much."

  "What did he do that got him executed?" Ajalia asked.

  "It was a technicality," Delmar said. "His father was ready to let him off, as the story goes, but there was a middle brother who was jealous, and who pushed for punishment. The courts agreed with the middle son, because he had promised them money, and the father caved to pressure from the courts. The oldest prince was taken under judgment, and then, people say, the second son brought a lot of fishy evidence forward. All the Saroyans, the decent ones, think that the prince was framed, but nothing was ever proven, and it looked pretty bad for the king, and the oldest prince. Anyway, he was executed, and the second son eventually got the throne."

  "What happened after that?" Ajalia asked. "Are the people still mad about that?"

  "No," Delmar said, "but that king's sons were all rotten, and very unpopular. Most of them were stupid, too stupid to rule," he added quickly, "and the third son took the throne. A lot of the people wanted to just dethrone the ruling family entirely, and establish a new king, but the third son had a young son, and the powerful people in Saroyan pretty much kidnapped him from his father, the king, and raised him away from the throne."

  "They wanted to make him into a king they liked," Ajalia guessed.

  "Yes," Delmar said, "and there was a lot of pressure on the king to cooperate, because he knew the people were about ready to kill him, if he didn't. So everything was awful, because the king was bad, but they all said it would get better when the prince took power. They were in agreement with the king, that they'd wait, but the money situation got so bad for everyone, and the crops there failed two summers in a row, and then the king was killed, and his son placed on the throne."

  "You know a lot more about things than I thought you might," Ajalia told Delmar. "This is very helpful," she added quickly. Delmar flashed a smile at her, and went on.

&nbs
p; "Everyone was happy with the new king, and things went well for about fifteen years, but then the new king married, and his wife was a bitch." Delmar said this without flinching, and Ajalia, who had never heard Delmar use any sort of coarse language, looked at him with interest.

  "Look at you," she remarked, without any malice. "You are talking like a grown-up."

  "I always talk like a grown-up," Delmar said with dignity. Ajalia's mouth turned into the squashed lump of a hidden smile, and Delmar elbowed her. "I'll get back at you, if you tease me," he told her.

  "What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded. Delmar only smiled, and a premonitory shiver passed up her spine. "What happened after he married?" she asked. Delmar laughed.

  "The country fell apart," Delmar said. "There was war, and the king was violently deposed. We got involved then," Delmar added. "Tree sent over a whole battalion of men, and the king of Talbos sent two of his leading men-at-arms to command them. Things were friendlier then," Delmar added, "between Slavithe and Talbos. Tree hadn't married the witch yet." Delmar was within several feet of the room where Philas sat bound to a chair. Delmar stopped walking, and folded his arms, his eyes fixed on the light that filled the doorway. "The king who was deposed," Delmar said, "had two sons, and a daughter. The daughter had fled with a nurse into the country, but the two boys were taken by our people, and put through the tests for magical aptitude. It's always been a point of some contention," Delmar told Ajalia, "that our people could do magic, and the people over there couldn't. They often pretend, and have pretended from time immemorial, that their kings were full of magic. We tested the two princes, and neither of them had any magic, but one of them proved to be infested with some dark magic from his mother, and the other was not. The infested prince was destroyed, and his brother was put on the throne. That prince was the fourth king of Saroyan. If what Philas says is true, and I see no reason to doubt him, considering the circumstances, then he is the lost prince."

  "Is there a lost prince?" Ajalia asked, her voice catching with interest.

  "Yes," Delmar said. "They sing songs about it over there. They say that the lost prince is the one who will finally carry magic back into Saroyan."

  "Wait," Ajalia said, "you said that one prince had dark magic, from his mother. Was she a witch?"

  "No," Delmar said. "You don't have to be a witch to touch the darkness."

  "What is the darkness?" Ajalia asked. "And did Saroyan have magic sometime in the past, and then lose it?"

  "I don't know," Delmar said. "No one really knows, I think. They know we have magic. They pay our people to cast spells on their ships, and do deep work in the ocean, when the fish fall low."

  "What did you mean about the darkness?" Ajalia asked, and she was thinking of her own mother, and of the dark shadows that her father had put through her body.

  "There is a very old story," Delmar said, "about an evil power, a serpent, that winds around the earth, and squeezes out the lights. It is said that the serpent swallows up the lights, and that those who are cruel, or who murder, are caught around in the spell of the dark serpent. It is said," Delmar said, "that they worship the darkness."

  "You said she wasn't a witch," Ajalia told Delmar.

  "She wasn't, as far as I know," Delmar said. "But you don't have to know magic to be evil. The serpent reaches out to those who desire it, and if they are utterly lost," Delmar said hesitantly, "it is said that the serpent marks them, in the very old tongue, right beneath their eyes."

  "That was the thrall that your mother put on Coren," Ajalia said.

  "Yes," Delmar said. "I do not think it is the ultimate evil. I do not think my mother was clever enough to know what she did."

  "Why not?" Ajalia demanded. "She marked her own child. She took him to see witches, and she cut out a part of Bain, and stitched a piece of Bain's soul into Coren's body."

  "I thought they attempted that, but it didn't work," Delmar snapped, his eyes flashing.

  "That was how Bain kept vanishing," Ajalia said. "I think that was how it worked. I saw what your mother did, when I put magic into the curses on Coren's body. I saw his soul. I mean, I recognized a piece of Bain. It felt like Bain, and later, Coren admitted it."

  "Tell me everything about this," Delmar said. His voice had become tense again, and his shoulders, which had started to creep into a happier posture, slumped down. He looked both incredibly depressed, and ready to jump into action.

  "There was a big piece of Bain," Ajalia said, "and a missing piece of Coren. The two pieces had been stitched together with red."

  "Is Bain's soul still in Coren?" Delmar asked. He looked as though he meant to sprint away after Denai and Coren, if he didn't like what he heard.

  "No," Ajalia said, and Delmar unspooled involuntarily with relief. Ajalia watched him curiously. "I took it out, and destroyed it," she said.

  "Good," Delmar said. He took a deep breath, and looked around at her. "I've got to speak to Philas," he told her. "I think we'll need to get my grandfather's help as well," he added.

  "Why?" Ajalia asked. "What's going to happen now?"

  "I didn't know that we were dealing with the deepest powers of evil," Delmar said, grimacing. "I don't mean to sound dramatic, but up until now I thought that my mother and the other witches were eating people for a hobby. This is quite serious."

  "Why?" Ajalia asked. "Because of the thrall your mother used?" Delmar nodded.

  "Usually," he said, "in the oldest stories, once the witches start to call on the ultimate evil, one of the black dragons shows up."

  Ajalia remembered the long black worm that had risen up from the floor of the great hall, and she looked over at the place where it had happened. She remembered the other black worm that had strung, like a strangling vine, around the earth, and she felt a coil of turmoil in her gut.

  "Delmar," she said. "I think you should know something that happened the other night." She looked around, and saw that Delmar had already gone into the lighted room beyond. Ajalia stifled a sigh, and followed him.

  Philas was no longer bound; he was standing up, and a long cord of red magic was between his two hands. Philas was looking up at Delmar, with wonder in his eyes, when Ajalia entered the room.

  "I can do magic now," Philas was saying to Delmar. He saw Ajalia come in, but looked back at the Thief Lord. "I wanted to apologize about being an ass," Philas said, blushing a dark red.

  "Yes, yes, you're welcome or something," Delmar said quickly. "I think we're going to move a lot faster than I was planning, on the whole alliance project."

  "Alliance?" Philas asked blankly. He frowned, and Ajalia thought that he was disappointed to have been denied his emotional moment of apology. She imagined Philas weeping softly, bowing on his knees before Delmar, and Delmar magnanimously extending his forgiveness, and she snorted softly. "I don't see what's wrong with an alliance!" Philas told her, his mouth twisting with displeasure. "I want an alliance, too," Philas told Delmar, before Ajalia could explain that she had not been laughing at the idea of an alliance. "I'm going to be king of Saroyan," Philas added, as though he had just remembered that this had been determined during Delmar's absence.

  "Well, of course you are," Delmar said, frowning. Philas's whole face bridled backwards, as though he had again been denied some satisfying emotional experience.

  "I thought you'd be a little surprised," Philas said. Ajalia thought that what Philas really meant was that he had hoped Delmar would be impressed, but that he didn't want to say so.

  "Philas is very good, better than Chad," Leed told Ajalia. "He'll be quite impressive. I'm going to make him a crown of starlight, and with jewels made out of the sun, and from the bottom of the ocean." Leed eyed Philas thoughtfully. "I might make him a stick or something to carry, as well," Leed added.

  "I was thinking we could clear things up in Slavithe," Delmar told Philas, as though the other things had not been said at all, "and then we could go over to Saroyan together, to straighten out your succession to the t
hrone, but Ajalia's just told me that my mother's been in contact with the deepest powers of evil. And if my mother has been," Delmar said grimly, "I'm sure other witches have, as well."

  "What are the deepest powers of evil?" Ajalia asked impatiently. She had almost grown accustomed to the way events seemed to unfold with fantastic and rapid succession in Slavithe, but she was struggling a little with the idea of a worldwide evil. She had done battle with one of the ugly black worms, and defeated it, and it did not seem reasonable to Ajalia that she would be capable, after only a little knowledge of magic, of destroying some otherworldly evil force. She thought it was far more likely that the two black worms were some local evil, or a curse created by the witches themselves, by their accumulated use of the dark cords that Ajalia had seen extending out of the witches' chests. Ajalia herself had touched and used black lights from within the earth, to form the claw over her hand that she had used to cut free blocks of ugly magic in men's bodies, but the blackness Ajalia had gotten from the earth was a healthy, vibrant black, more like the shine of her black horse's coat than like the sluggish, brackish substance that formed the witches' dark cords of power. The witches' power, Ajalia thought, was like the rotten mud from deep within a brackish cesspool, where filth and putrescence lay undisturbed for months, and where any fragment of healthy growth or clear water was absorbed up, and eaten away by the foul-smelling goo.

  "I don't think we have time to explain the powers of darkness," Delmar argued. "I'd rather talk about things on the way."

  "We can't go to Saroyan now," Ajalia said sensibly. "We've hardly settled anything here."

  "Yes," Delmar said urgently, "but evil."

  "Yes," Ajalia said calmly, "and you're the Thief Lord." Delmar stared at Ajalia with something approaching horror in his eyes.

  "But the Thief Lord is supposed to combat evil," Delmar told her.

  "Yes, but you can combat evil tomorrow, or next week," Ajalia said. "No one said you have to go out looking for evil today. Evil will come and find you, probably. No need to go looking for it." Delmar looked around at Philas with disbelief all over his face.