The Magic War (The Eastern Slave Series Book 5)

by Victor Poole

  "Three hundred," Delmar put in, "give or take twenty years."

  "You have an opportunity to unify Slavithe and Talbos," Ajalia said. "You can create a real alliance with Saroyan, and you can open up the road in the mountain, and establish open trade. You can eradicate the witches, and reform the priests. Delmar," Ajalia said seriously, "you can fly."

  Delmar, throughout this speech, had grown slowly more and more red in the face. He looked almost apoplectic now.

  "I can do more than fly," Delmar muttered, an abashed smile tugging at his cheeks.

  "Oh really?" Ajalia asked. Delmar lifted the book, and waved it a little in the air.

  "I'm going to keep this one to myself," Delmar said with a smile. "You're going to love what's in it." Delmar held up the book that Ajalia had gotten from Salla, the apparently-innocuous witch. "This is everything basic," Delmar said. "Identifying and disabling witches, reanimating energy that's been damaged, and illuminating things. I know how you lit up the temple now," Delmar said. "It also talks about building things, and creating peaceful relations between the workers of magic. There's more than that," Delmar said, "but it's all fairly basic. Like flying." Ajalia laughed.

  "Why do all of you keep saying that flying is easy?" Ajalia asked.

  "Well, it is," Delmar said. "Is it hard for you?"

  "No," Ajalia said, "but it is flying, you know."

  "So?" Delmar asked, laughing.

  "So we should at least act like it's surprising, or something," Ajalia said.

  "Okay," Delmar said, smiling. "This book is about very simple things, except it also includes flying, which is very impressive."

  "Yes," Ajalia said firmly.

  "This book," Delmar said, raising the book that had been hidden among Tree's things, "is quite different. This book explains," Delmar said, "how Slavithe was made."

  "What do you mean?" Ajalia asked. "I thought you said that the other book said how to build things?"

  "Small things," Delmar said, "like roads." Ajalia did not think that a road was a small thing, but she held her peace. "This book talks about changing the course of water under the earth, and shifting mountains about."

  "Really?" Ajalia asked.

  "Yes," Delmar said. "It could be very destructive, if someone who could do magic used this book in the wrong way."

  "Oh," Ajalia said suddenly. She dug in her bag. "I forgot all about these," Ajalia said. "Your father was using Coren to transport secret codes and messages with his spies in Talbos. Coren told me that the cypher for the letters is in the lining of that book I found." Ajalia took the bundle of letters and papers out of her bag, and passed them to Delmar. "I haven't had a chance to translate any of the documents," she said, "but I'm sure they'll be of more use to you. I hope you'll recognize names of people."

  Delmar flipped open the leather book, and pressed a pair of thin rectangles of stone, like the one that had been in Ajalia's book, out of the lining.

  "Coren said one was a plain translation stone, like mine," Ajalia said. "The other one is the cypher."

  "Thank you," Delmar said, taking the letters. "This will be very useful. I'll read these, before we go to Talbos."

  "Are things settled all right here?" Ajalia asked. Delmar grinned at her.

  "The boys have been working up and down the streets all day," he told her. "They started sometime last night. It was Daniel's idea. They're searching the houses from the streets, and disabling the witches without ever speaking to them. Cross told me that they taught some of the other boys you have when they met them at market, and they've been helping as well. Leed is so good at teaching things," Delmar said, "that the other boys can explain it to each other. The boys all learned the story magic from the priests," Delmar added. "They all know it, so learning to use the story magic on people is a short stretch from what many of them know."

  "One of my boys had told me," Ajalia said, "that none of the boys were able to do much magic yet."

  "Oh, but they've been taught what they should be able to do," Delmar said, "and once another boy connects the lights for them, and they conjure a little light themselves, they're very quick."

  "Good," Ajalia said.

  "The youngest boys can't conjure at all," Delmar said, "because their colors haven't finished growing in."

  "Coren said that," Ajalia said. Delmar glanced at Ajalia.

  "Are you upset about Coren?" he asked. Ajalia sighed, and shrugged.

  "I did not have much hope for Coren," she admitted. "It will be easier for you, this way. He would have had a hard time letting go of the kind of power his mother gave him." Delmar nodded.

  "Thank you for helping him, though," Delmar said. "I don't think anyone had ever shown him they cared about him before you did." Ajalia shrugged. "I think he noticed that you cared," Delmar added.

  "I know he noticed," Ajalia said. "I just wish he hadn't been so far gone. Now," she said briskly, because thinking of Coren was making her feel quite heavy, and she knew that she could not bring the child back to life, "when are we going to go to Talbos and manage the business of the succession?"

  "You know," Delmar said slowly, turning over the papers and letters Ajalia had given him, "I think we could make some of the land habitable, through the mountains, and connect Talbos to Slavithe permanently." He looked up at her. "With magic," he added. "I think I can figure out how they built Slavithe."

  "The buildings, and the springs?" Ajalia asked.

  "Oh, yes," Delmar said. "The white stone buildings, and the city wall, are all constructed with magic. This book," he said, tapping the book that Tree had hidden, "is very useful."

  "So how much time do I have?" Ajalia asked. Delmar smiled at her.

  "Before we go to Talbos?" Delmar asked. Ajalia nodded. Delmar looked down at the documents in his hands, and then he met Ajalia's eyes again. "Give me a week," he said.

  "All right," Ajalia said. "Then I'm going to go and sort out the priests." Delmar laughed. "What is funny?" Ajalia asked.

  "I feel sorry for the priests," Delmar murmured, and he lifted the first of the letters.

  THE END

  of

  The Magic War

  BONUS:

  Chapter One of book 6: The King of Talbos

  THE ROAD TO TALBOS

  Ajalia took Fashel with her, and Philas, when she traveled on the road to Talbos. Delmar was with her, and Chad stayed behind with Card to oversee the last wiping out of the witches. Ajalia spoke to Leed before she left, about what the boys were doing, and Leed explained the process to her.

  "The boys walk down a street," Leed said, looking at Ajalia with piercing eyes. "They pick up a line of light from the ground, and then they look into each house. If there is a witch, the dark cord stands out like a big stain. Then one of the boys grounds the other one, and the grounded one forms a sword out of the light, and cuts straight through the black cord of the witch, and then they cut through her neck."

  "How do you mean, they ground the boy?" Ajalia asked. She had met with Leed after the household had devastated every crumb and morsel of food that Fashel had prepared. Ajalia had seen the kitchen once, after one of Fashel's dinners. The table had been piled with dishes, and the fire had begun to burn very low. Scents of hot food, and steam from pitchers of fruit mash and soups hung yet in the air. Ajalia had found, on her foray into the kitchen after dinner, that Fashel had made a small basket of sweetened morsels. These were round, and crispy at the edges. The centers were drizzled with a fine frosting made of milk mixed with a curious kind of honey. Fashel had told Ajalia that she made the treats to motivate the boys in cleaning up the kitchen for her. The boys, who had been carrying dishes into the kitchen for Fashel, had driven Ajalia out of the kitchen with cries of outrage; they were fearful that Ajalia would take the sweetbread for herself, and she left the room, laughing at the aggression with which the boys fought over who would be allowed to help Fashel clean.

  After the first dinner that all the boys attended, Fashel had gone out again wi
th the jennet, and with five little boys bearing baskets, and she had purchased dinnerware and cooking supplies. Almost immediately, the quality of the food skyrocketed. Ajalia did not know how she had existed before Fashel's food. By the third dinner, even Delmar was rearranging his meetings and business so that he could appear, prompt and eager, at the dinner table that Ajalia had erected in one of the large rooms that lay to the side of the great dragon temple hall.

  The table was made of a slab of black rock from the quarries, and it was propped up at the edges by carved logs that Card had brought in.

  "I bought them from an old man in the quarries," Card told Ajalia, as they both watched the larger boys wrestle the slab of stone onto the four heavy logs. "I am going to set up a little stall in the market for the old man," Card added. "He's very good at what he does." Card glanced at Ajalia, as though doubting if she would be pleased, and Ajalia nodded.

  "How is business with Ocher?" Ajalia asked Card, her eyes on the shouting boys. They were all heaving the stone up at once, and shouting direction and encouragement at each other.

  "He is not a bad man," Card said grudgingly. Ajalia laughed. "I like his new wife," Card added with a smile. Ajalia had not seen much of Clare at all since she had absconded with Ocher to be married. Ajalia had not yet asked Delmar how regular marriages worked in Slavithe. She guessed that Clare and Ocher had undergone something of a shuffled-together ceremony, in order to live together right away without attracting undue notice from the neighbors. "The young lady is often with Ocher," Card told Ajalia, "when I meet with him, and when she speaks, she says sensible things."

  "Good," Ajalia said.

  "Are you upset," Card asked, "that I am beginning my own projects, like with the old wood carver?"

  "Card!" Ajalia said, and she actually was surprised. "You are old enough to be my grandfather." Card's nose wrinkled at this, but Ajalia pressed on. "I do not know why you would ask me this. You are a lovely person. You make the world a better place by being in it. Why would I be selfish enough to begrudge some lovely old woodcarver a market stall? All of you people are very odd, lately," Ajalia added with a frown, and she went to help the boys adjust the legs of the new table. Card watched her go, and he was smiling to himself.

  Delmar had taken up residence in Ajalia's room, and though they were not exactly sleeping together by any stretch of the imagination, no one but Ajalia and Delmar knew that, and the whole rest of the household, as well as everyone else connected to the pair, suspected them of carrying on some manner of embarrassed affair. Ajalia saw the glances that Card and Chad had exchanged, but the boys, and the young ladies, were all too discreet, or too embarrassed, to show any sign of the deep discussions they all had about the new Thief Lord's sleeping arrangements. Ajalia was a little embarrassed around Chad and Card, because they seemed rather coy to her, but she did not mind the others much. Delmar came into the temple, often long past dark, and seemed to subsist on little sleep, because he stayed up most of the night telling Ajalia what he had done during the day, and asking for her advice.

  Ajalia had spent the first two days of the week Delmar had requested visiting, and lighting up with magic, all of the temples in the city. There were seven temples in Slavithe, and when Ajalia had seen the first one, she thought of a rather devious plan. She thought it was devious, at any rate, and she put it into action before she could talk herself out of it. She mixed some of the powerful ocean-blue magic, from the star lights that were invisible in the blue sky, and the red-gold lights that ran in the deepest cracks of the earth. Ajalia filled up the door of the temple with this flashing blue light, and then, when she had done so, she sent the mixed white magic of earth and sky into the walls and ceilings of the temple, so that the white stone walls began to shine.

  She did this to the other temples as well, and when she returned home on the second day, she put barriers over all the windows and doors of the dragon temple, as well as over the top of the wall that enclosed the back yard of the temple.

  The dragon temple was the only temple in the city that had windows, and multiple entrances. Ajalia added a net of the blue magic over the secret gate behind the dragon temple, so that anyone who came into the yard would have to pass through the blue magic.

  She went out on the morning of the third day, and found piles of corpses around the doors of the temples. None of the Slavithe people would come near the temples at all, and she sent a boy to find Cross. When Cross came, Ajalia asked about getting guards to cart away the bodies of the dead priests.

  "Leave them there," Cross said, looking with a wrinkled face at the bodies of the priests.

  "They will start to smell," Ajalia said sensibly.

  "No one is going to touch them for you," Cross said stubbornly.

  "Go and ask Delmar," Ajalia said, and Cross ran away. Later that afternoon, several heavy carts, pulled by white oxen, rolled slowly through the streets, and bore the dead bodies of the priests away to the poison tree. Word of the meeting with the spies of Talbos had spread through the Slavithe guards and the witch hunters, and many of the Slavithe men came boldly to the temples, to step through the blue barriers, and then to boast to each other of their purity. Very few of the guards or witch hunters died who did this. Many of the guards, Ajalia found, were actually witch hunters who were posted on rotation at the two city gates, and she found that very many of the Slavithe men had white brands of their own.

  Several priests in each temple remained holed up inside, and refused to attempt to come out. When they learned of what Ajalia had done, the people of Slavithe set up watches, of their own accord, at the temple entrances, to make sure that no one who was sympathetic to the priests snuck in to supply them with food. After the fourth day, most of the priests in the temples tried to get out. There was little food, and no water inside, and the priests proved to be weak against a siege.

  Several of the boys in the city, not Ajalia's boys, but boys who had been taught the story magic by the priests, kept a running count of the bodies that had been taken away from the temples, and of the priests who they guessed still remained inside. When the last known priest had sprinted, with a terrible shout, at the blue barrier, and expired in a flash of white light, the people gathered around the door let out a riotous cheer, and the body was borne away in a long procession to the poison tree.

  Ajalia found that the city, aside from isolated pockets of witches, and the individual men and women who had either learned or taught themselves to feed on the souls of others, was composed mainly of healthy people who had labored for decades under a terror of the dark magic. Now that the two black worms had been destroyed, the witches seemed quite to have lost their nerve. No more parties of aggressive witches appeared at the dragon temple to make demands. Ajalia was sure that there were priests who had been out of the temples when she had gone to block up the entrances with the purging magic, but when she told Daniel to spread the rumor that she would pay for the bodies of priests, boys and young men began to rove through the city, taking many old men captive by force and carrying them to the temples. Most old men, knowing that they had white brands and pure hearts, cooperated willingly with these gangs of roving youngsters, and walked easily through the blue barriers, and then back out again. The boys greeted these proven old men with shouts of glee; hands were shaken all around, and the old men went peacefully away. Some old men, however, were priests in disguise, or were predators who had been feeding on women and children without being caught, and their souls burned up when they were pushed through the blue barriers by the children.

  Chad was quite shocked when he learned of what Ajalia was encouraging the children of the city to do.

  "This is disastrous!" Chad shouted across the hall to Ajalia, where she was sitting with Calles, and looking over some clothes. Chad's face was bright red; it was apparent that he had been running for some time. "I was going about with the boys," Chad gasped, when he reached Ajalia and Calles. "Hello, Calles," Chad gasped, waving a hand at the seamstress. Calles
smiled at Chad, and said hello. "I was going with the boys, and checking along the old walls up north," Chad gasped, clutching at his side. "There are some apartments up there that the boys didn't know about. We had found some witches, and I was cutting off their powers, and then," Chad said, his eyes growing very wide, "another group of children came in, and they went straight into the houses!"

  Chad stared at Ajalia, and Ajalia stared at Chad.

  "Don't you see?" Chad asked.

  "No," Ajalia said.

  "They said, when I asked them," Chad said, "that you told them you would pay them if they found any priests. They said that they were going around, and seizing on anyone who was over the age of about thirty, and shoving them through the doors to the temples! To see if they would die!" Chad stared at Ajalia.

  "Yes," Ajalia said.

  "Well!" Chad exclaimed, "You didn't tell them to do that, did you?"

  "No," Ajalia said. Chad's expression crumbled into relief. "I told Daniel to tell them to do that. I'm glad they're checking for the last of the priests."

  "But they're killing people!" Chad shouted.

  "They're killing priests," Calles said, "and abusers of magic. Good riddance, I say."

  "But," Chad said again. He looked pleadingly at Ajalia. He looked quite reminiscent of the person he had been when Ajalia had first gone up the stairs in the poor tenement, and knocked at his door. "Killing people is wrong!" Chad said.

  "You're killing the witches," Ajalia pointed out. Chad's whole face crinkled into a look of impatient disgust.

  "I am cutting out the ability of the witches to work ugly, bad magic," Chad said sanctimoniously. "That is not at all the same thing as killing the witches."

  "Have you see what the women are like, after you or the boys cut through their necks with magic?" Ajalia asked. Chad frowned. He clearly had not thought about this.