The Magic War (The Eastern Slave Series Book 5)
Page 25
Ajalia had thought, once she had achieved her desire of being face-bearing slave for her master, that she had gotten to the pinnacle of her life. She had known, from long watching, of her master's hunger for the glory of his forbears, and she had seen, in the subtle way in which her master had gone about arranging this first caravan to Slavithe, that he was almost secretly wishing for more than a trade route. By that time, as face-bearing slave, Ajalia had been always privy to her master's transactions, and she had seen for herself, in the quiet glance of his eyes, and in the stillness of his cheeks, that he was thinking of death, and of the birthright of his house.
Ajalia's master had never spoken aloud to her of his intention of coming to Slavithe, and making for himself a sort of private kingdom there. She had read the thousand tiny hints of his thoughts, and when he had spoken to her, to give direction for the negotiation of a steady trade route, she had told him, with the words she used, and with the solemnity of her bearing, that she knew his mind. Their conversation had been brief; he had told her what scope to use, and what she was allowed to offer. She had asked two questions about the details of his desire, and then she had paused, and told him that she hoped to stay for some time in Slavithe. Her master had become very still indeed, and had watched her as closely as a hunting bird watches its prey. He had, after some time in silence, asked her why, and she had told him that he ought to get out of the estate more, and see the world.
"Slavithe is not very far away," she had said, although the desert was harsh, and the journey required some months. "If you make the road of water," she added, "it will only be sitting in a barge, and waiting."
"And what," Ajalia's master had asked, "will I do with myself, when I get to Slavithe?" Ajalia had looked at him, and then she had smiled. Her master, reading her thought, had begun to laugh, and then he had told her to get out of his sight, and to stop heckling an old man with so many elusive dreams.
"You told me to be your dragon," Ajalia had reminded her master. "I suppose you will have to get rid of me, if you do not want to have the future I will make." Her master had grown sober then, and she had left him. She had seen him only once again before the departure; the caravan had been in a bustle, and she had been sent to three neighboring estates to negotiate for silks and thread. Ajalia's master had, in her mind, the most tasteful silks in the East, but for such an enterprising journey, her master had required the caravan to carry a wide selection of colors and patterns. He had said that it did not matter so much that many of the silks were of lighter colors, or of strong patterns that were not in fashion in the cultural centers of Leopath.
"They are practically savages out there," he had said, when he had given directions to her about the trades. "They will enjoy whatever we bring. And I want them to see a wide range of Eastern goods," he had added. "The houses of both Gorgeth and Vella think now of caravans to Slavithe, and I will not have my foresight come to nothing because these savages desire coarse silks more than my fine ones."
In this, Ajalia reflected, her master had been very wise. The Slavithe people had been so unused to fine silks and patterned cloth that, aside from the clumsy white sheath Lilleth had worn to her death, and the shimmering robes of silk that both Yelin and Lim had worn in the streets, Ajalia had yet to see any of the silks worn in public in the white stone streets of Slavithe. Much of the silk had been sold, more than three quarters of what the caravan had carried into Slavithe, before Philas had taken the remainder of the goods into Talbos, but Ajalia had yet to see any widespread, or even occasional use of the fabrics. She hoped to change this soon. She was planning first to outfit Delmar in tailored and imaginative clothes, and to create the look of a rugged man, and a fit leader, and then, gradually, she meant to slide hints of silk into his costumes. She was sure that the Slavithe people were quite unready for a full display of glorious attire in their Thief Lord, but she was equally sure, particularly with the rapidly growing numbers of boys and grown men who were capable of conjuring the lights, and using them freely, that the people of Slavithe would accept the metamorphosis of the official style of dress without much protest. Magical leaders, Ajalia thought, would merit a change from the plain brown cloth that seemed unendingly ubiquitous.
Ajalia unlocked the door to her room, and tried to remember why she had started to think about her master. Dragons, she told herself, and then, with a clogged feeling in her heart, she remembered what Leed had said about the sky angel. Ajalia wanted to stop thinking; she was not sure why, but she felt an impending and stifling doom around the whole idea of the sky angel. She locked the door to the her room after she had gone in, and almost immediately, she began to cry.
She could not have said exactly why she was crying. She decided to pretend that she wasn't crying at all, and she took off her bag, and slid it under the bed. The curtains over the balcony had blown aside a little in the night, and she went to them, and tied together the strips of fabric that hung at the meeting of the two pieces for that purpose. The moonlight was shut out, and the room fell into utter darkness. Ajalia took off her shoes, and she felt, very suddenly, as though she wanted to sleep for at least a week.
Delmar had been wrought up about the black worm she had fought and killed, she thought. When she had said she had destroyed it, his whole face seemed to close off, and then to pass over what she had said. She was sure that he thought this was impossible. She could not think of anything that would excuse his not believing what she said. He could not have thought that she meant she had had a dream about a black snake, or that some witch had seemed like a snake to her, and that she had killed that. She had said, she remembered clearly, that a black worm had risen up in the hall, and that it had had glowing red eyes, and that she had killed it. At least, Ajalia told herself, as she tore at the buckles of her knife harness, and flung it down on the bed, that was what she had meant to say.
Ajalia stripped off her clothes, and then she flopped onto the bed that she had put into this room. It was a nice bed, she thought, just wide enough for her, and made of the fragrant yellow wood that grew in the forest outside the walls of Slavithe. The knife and harness made an uncomfortable lump under her stomach, and she drew out the leather, and pulled her knife from its sheath. She had not slept with her knife in her hand for a very, very long time, but, she reflected, her mouth caught in a tense line of anger, holding her knife made her feel less exposed.
She dropped the leather harness and sheath onto the floor, and tried to think of why she felt so out of sorts. I want Delmar to believe me when I say things, Ajalia told herself, and she sighed, and squirmed under the blanket. She still had not asked anyone how they managed the open windows and balconies when it rained; she was sure that it had to rain sometime; the air outside was growing gradually more chilled, and she was convinced that winter in Slavithe, even if it was very mild, would have to produce some form of precipitation. The whole city is unnatural, Ajalia told herself, and she stared out at the darkness, and tried to talk herself into falling asleep.
The truth was that she was getting far too close to what she wanted; Ajalia had spent her entire life wanting to be someone, and wanting to achieve some notable thing. Her desire to become, and to prove herself someone worth being, had driven her to miraculous efforts as a slave, and she had been aware of this desire, and had exploited it willingly. She had seen how her skills had sharpened over time, and she had felt as though she had earned what she had.
Now, in Slavithe, and amidst the rapidly unfolding conflict over the types of magic, good and bad, and the rules of who could see what, and why, and how witches or anyone else seemed able to infest themselves into another person's soul, Ajalia was beginning to feel adrift. She no longer understood exactly what or who she was. Whenever Ajalia had questioned people about the sky angel before, she had gotten vague answers, or clearly legendary quips. Leed, however, had laid out, in forceful language, the reality of what people here believed about this mythic figure, and Ajalia now felt distinctly out of place.
But, she asked herself, could I be? She thought of how she had looked into the witch, Vinna's, soul, and how she had looked forward, into the paths that lay before Vinna. Ajalia tried to imagine what it would look like, and how it would feel, to look at a whole city like that, and to see a whole conglomeration of souls, and a vast picture of futures stretching out in every direction. She made a picture of an older woman with a peaceful expression on her face, sitting with her eyes closed, and forming a whole image of the city of Slavithe, and of all the people within it. Ajalia tried to see how it would be, to cast forward into the future, and to see herself, or a person like her, arriving in Slavithe, and changing things.
What if, Ajalia asked herself, somehow her master did end up ruling in Slavithe? She did not see how this was possible, but she asked herself if this scenario would qualify as the destruction of Slavithe. She wiggled down in the blankets, and drew them up over her head. The hilt of her knife was clasped hard in her hand, and she pressed the blade flat against the coarse mattress, and listened to her own breath.
"I don't want to be the sky angel," Ajalia whispered in the darkness beneath the blanket. She tried to go to sleep, but the picture of Delmar, his eyes eager, and of her master, stern and unforgiving, played out relentlessly in her mind. She imagined her master confronting Delmar, and seeking to rule in Slavithe, and she tried to imagine herself working to mitigate the disaster this would cause. She thought that she knew her master, and understood him, but, she told herself, she did not know everything. Perhaps her master's deep desire to be someone would change him, she thought. Perhaps, she reflected, he would become harder inside. She thought that if this happened, she would do something about it. The idea of fighting against her master made a tingle of fear curl at the base of her spine. She did not want to be an enemy to her master; she liked him, and respected him. There will be no need to fight with him, she told herself, but something about the words that Leed had said niggled inside of her mind, and she could not quite shake the feeling that she was being overly optimistic.
This is silly, Ajalia told herself. There will be no fight. My master is a good man. She tried to make her body relax, but now she began to think about Delmar. She wondered what his grandfather, the king of Talbos, was like, and she wondered what the king's son-in-law was like. She remembered what someone had told her about the succession. Ajalia tried to think of who had said this to her. Ocher, or Rane, she thought. Her mind was beginning to reel about, cartwheeling from end to end of the expanse of things that she felt responsible for. She thought about Fashel, and about the kitchen. She thought about what would happen tomorrow, and she felt again a great sweep of tears building behind her eyes. She asked herself why she was crying, and then didn't wait for an answer. She buried her face in the pillow, and it was soon wet with her tears. She didn't want Delmar to come and see her, and she didn't want him to stay away, either.
After she had waited for a few minutes, and seen that the tears were not subsiding, she slipped out of the bed, leaving her knife beneath the pillow, and dressed. Her supply of clothes was running extraordinarily low. She had never been extravagant about her own clothing, although she had always invested the time and energy that was needed to supply her with special pockets, or with the folded-over panel in the back of her clothes that allowed her to reach her knife easily, but lately, she thought, her adventures with Delmar had ripped up or stained most of what she owned into shredded bits of dirty rags. She got a plain tunic, the last that she owned, out of her trunk, and dressed in it. She found a belt in the bottom of her trunk, and lashed it around her waist, and then she paced around her room, and tried to think of what she was going to do about sleeping.
She had been unable to sleep before, for years when she had been a slave, but this type of not sleeping was entirely different to what she had experienced before. Now she felt edgy, and full of energy. Before, her not sleeping had been like a slow, dull ache of inability, or unwillingness to close her eyes. She had not wanted to sleep because she had not wanted to have the nightmares that she was sure would come. Now she did not fear nightmares, but she did not want tomorrow to come. Perhaps, she thought, if she stayed awake long enough, she would find some way to untangle the mess of thoughts in her mind, and then she would be able to relax.
She dropped down onto the stone floor of her room, and began, in the darkness, to work at the knots in her muscles. I am not the sky angel, she told herself firmly, levering her arms, and making the blood flow like reluctant fire against her bones. What else? she asked herself. Delmar is no longer acting like a child, she told herself, and she felt her hips beginning to loosen. She had not realized how tense she had become. She rolled on her back, and swung her legs above her head. Delmar's the Thief Lord, she added to the list, and she tried to remember the problems she had not yet accounted for in her maneuvering. Wall, she remembered, was not yet dealt with. Delmar had told her that he had sent someone for Wall, and for Yelin, but the second son of the previous Thief Lord would, Ajalia thought, present his own challenges. She was relieved that Delmar had not shown any obstinate loyalty to his brothers so far; such loyalty, she reflected, would have proven disastrous in the case of Coren, and was likely, if it cropped up with Wall, to handicap the strength of Delmar's fledgling government.
Ajalia had not yet asked Delmar what he had done, insofar as speaking with the powerful men and other vested persons of interest in the city; he had moved with enough assurance, and enough direction to reassure her that he knew quite well much of what had to be done. Ajalia was impressed with how swiftly he had thought of Talbos, and of communicating directly with his grandfather there. She was sure that the king of Talbos was not yet ready to step down from the throne; she had learned, when talking to the men in the quarries, that it was customary for the kings of Talbos to manage the crowning of their heirs before they died. This practice was also common in the East, in the greatest trading houses. Ajalia's master had a bevy of sons, and two of the oldest were being prepared now to take over much of their father's estate in the near future. Ajalia had no interest in working for her master's sons; they were not bad men, but she was particular, and she liked her master much better.
She felt the muscles and bones in her back squeeze against the stone floor, and she began, suddenly, to breathe more deeply. She thought of Coren, and she told herself that she had been on edge, physically, ever since Isacar had carried the boy into the dragon temple. She was not sure if she believed Delmar, when he said that Coren would no longer be a danger. He had seemed too ready to run off and do things, when she had told him of the thrall carvings under Coren's eyes, and then Delmar's urgent energy had dissipated almost at the moment she had explained how the magic had drained away. Ajalia wondered about this ancient evil that he had attributed to the two black worms. On a whim,
Ajalia closed her eyes, and imagined the lights that ran deep beneath the bottom of the dragon temple. She put her fingers into a thick vein of gold, and then she creased her brow in concentration. Her breath deepened, and she felt her shoulders relax. Her whole body seemed to unclench, when she touched the deep lights beneath the earth.
She opened her eyes in the darkness, and looked at the curtain that hung over the balcony. A thin shiver of cold air was trickling in from around the sides of the curtain, and at the very base of the curtain, where it almost met the floor. A line of moonlight came into the room, but the rest of the room was in darkness.
Ajalia closed her eyes, and imagined the whole inside of the earth. Her mind did not quite wrap around the idea of the whole earth. Ajalia sighed, and wiggled her shoul
ders against the hard stones. She dropped her feet, which she had angled up into the air above her head, to the ground, and settled her hips against the floor. I can think of the East, Ajalia told herself, and she imagined the wide avenue of trees that led into her master's silk estate, and of the mountain that loomed north of the fields.
The top of the mountain was often capped with brilliant reams of white snow; only in the warmest weeks of summer did the thick white cap of snow melt, exposing the deep brown stone of the Eastern mountain. There were more mountains in the East, beyond the one that lay near her master's estate, but they were smaller, and lower. Ajalia had seen these lower mountain ranges from a distance, but she had never climbed up the slopes. She had been up the sides of the great mountain, though, and she had helped to shave the thick white wool from the Eastern horses that her master kept there.
Ajalia felt a pang of regret as she thought of the East. Perhaps, she thought, if I had stayed—Ajalia cut herself off. I do not want to go back, she told herself, and a kind of shivering in her heart confirmed what she told herself. She thought of her life as it had been in the slave quarters, and she imagined herself as she had been then. She felt a sharp stab of pity for the girl she had been, and then the woman. She remembered the fear and the pain that had lived in her then, and the thick white scars that had twisted, like ropes of ugly sin, up her arms.
Ajalia sighed, and concentrated again. She pictured the lands in the East, and she sent her mind down, below the surface of the fields and orchards of trees. Ajalia, to her surprise, saw at once a long river of gold and purple lights, running like a river of chaotic and silently-throbbing power beneath the land. Flecks of light pink, like the color of the sky in a burning sunrise, flung up in eddies of the flow, and a deeper layer of royal blue filled up the strata below the river of gold and purple.