by Victor Poole
"Don't they just turn good?" he demanded. "We cut off the black cord, so they can't reach out to their victims anymore."
"You're killing witches, Chad," Ajalia said, and she turned back to her conversation with Calles. Chad stared at the two of them for a few minutes, and then wandered a little way down the hall. He came back in a moment, and stood near Ajalia. When she looked up at him expectantly, he took a deep breath.
"Do you think I'm a bad person, if I've been killing witches?" Chad asked. Calles laughed, but Ajalia looked soberly at the young man.
"That depends," Ajalia said.
"On what?" Chad demanded, looking anxious.
"On whether you want to be a good person, or a bad person," Ajalia said.
"Well, of course I want to be a good person," Chad said, as though it was a stupid thing that she had said.
"Then you are doing the right thing," Ajalia told him.
"But how are you sure?" Chad asked quickly. "What if I'm a bad person, like the witches, and I'm just pretending to help because I like killing people?"
"Do you think I'm a bad person?" Ajalia asked. Chad frowned at her.
"Of course you're a good person," Chad said. "You're not a bad person."
"Do you think Esther is a good person?" Ajalia asked. The young witch had been going up and down the streets with the boys, and pointing out to them the houses where the witches had gathered. Esther did not personally know all of the witch hiding-holes in Slavithe, but she knew many of them, and she had some knowledge of still more. Daniel had led up the charge for dismantling the workshops of the witches, and confiscating or destroying their tools and materials. Daniel and his helpers had found many old books, all of which had been like the thick and ornate tomes Delmar had kept for so long. All of these books had been burned.
Daniel and Leed, along with Isacar, and with the assistance of Chad, had broken up all of Ajalia's house boys into pairs, and given them charge of boys from the cleaning crews. Almost all the boys from the cleaning crews had been moved into the dragon temple; the few boys who had been leading the crews, and managing them for Chad, had been put in charge of the long row house where the crew boys all had been living, and which was now a kind of headquarters for the swarms of boys who were appearing almost every hour, eager to join the ranks of Leed's growing army.
Leed was taking on the role of commanding general with absolute aplomb; he ordered the boys about without a hint of irony, and even Isacar and Chad obeyed the boy now as if he had been Ajalia. Isacar, after the first fight Chad had had with him, had begun to settle down, and once Philas and Delmar had joined in with sharp remarks, Isacar had quickly adjusted his attitude, and was now almost docile enough to placate even Chad's sensitive pride.
"Esther is a very nice woman," Chad said, his ears getting red. "I might marry Esther," Chad told Calles swiftly, blushing deeper every moment. Chad glanced over at Ajalia. "Ajalia said she might marry me. She said that Esther might marry me," Chad said quickly, blushing deeper still.
"Who's Esther?" Calles asked Ajalia.
"A former witch," Ajalia said. "The boys are watching her closely. As is Chad," she added raising her eyebrow at the young man, as if to say, why aren't you watching her now?
"Esther has been a valuable source of information," Chad said with dignity, ignoring Ajalia's eyebrow. "I think I am probably an all right person," he said to Ajalia.
"Chad," Ajalia said. "Do you know how many priests I have made to die by now?"
"Lots of dead priests," Chad mumbled. He sighed tumultuously. "Yes, yes, I should go and check on the others now."
"Chad," Ajalia said.
"I don't want to talk about whether I'm a good person or not anymore," Chad said, getting flustered. "I got the point. I'm an okay person. I'll go away now, since I'm just making a fool of myself."
"Chad, sit down," Ajalia said.
"No!" Chad snapped. "I'm no good. I'll go away and be stupid somewhere else." He turned to stomp away, but Ajalia, who had been taking lessons on more powerful magic from Delmar in the nights, raised a hand. Chad floated gently into the air, and drifted cozily into a chair. He got up at once, and Ajalia made his legs lift gently out from under him. Chad floated again down into the chair. "This kind of magic is not fair!" Chad hollered, but he did not try to stand up again. "What do you want?" he asked moodily.
"It's odd to see magic done openly these days," Calles said. The seamstress was sitting back in her chair, and her hands were folded over her stomach as she watched Chad squirm. "But nice," Calles added. "Go back and do as Fashel tells you," she told her daughter, who had just run up from the kitchen.
"But mother, she wants me to scrub the floor!" Calles's daughter protested quietly. The little girl glanced shyly at Ajalia, her eyes wide. Everyone in the city knew now of Ajalia. They called her the sky angel openly now, and they told each other of the evil that Ajalia had driven out of the city. None of the people said anything about the black worms Ajalia had killed, but she had seen the way the people parted around her, and Cross had told her confidentially that Leed had told all of the boys what she had done, and that the boys had told everyone else in the city.
"You go and do as Fashel tells you," Calles said sternly. Calles's daughter, whose lips were squeezed together in an angry fold, turned and stamped away.
"Why do you think that I hate you?" Ajalia asked Chad. Chad, who had been sitting in the chair Ajalia had put him into, and staring angrily at the floor, glanced at her. He scoffed.
"I know you think I'm stupid," Chad said sourly. "You and Card both think I'm stupid."
"You have looked very stupid," Ajalia said truthfully, "in the past. You don't look stupid now."
"But that's awful to say to me," Chad said.
"It's been true," Ajalia said. "Do you know that I hired you in the first place because you looked helpless, and honest?" Chad's sneer grew to epic proportions.
"That's lovely," Chad told Calles. His mouth was angry, but his eyes were sad. "I was stupid-looking first, and now I'm helpless."
"And honest, she says," Calles added peaceably. Chad glared at her. Ajalia saw that Chad had hoped for an ally in Calles.
"Well, this is just great," Chad said. "First my parents don't respect me, and now you don't either. Plus, apparently I work for a murderer!" he added dramatically. Ajalia laughed, and Chad narrowed his eyes. "Well, you do kill people," he said viciously.
"Yes," Ajalia said, "I often do kill people."
"Well, killing people is bad," Chad said. He folded his arms, and looked superior and calm.
"Is it always bad, no matter what?" Ajalia asked.
"Yes," Chad said sternly. "Killing people is wrong. Also," he said, "I don't think cutting off the witches' power kills them."
"Would you cut off Esther like that?" Ajalia asked. Chad's whole mouth pushed out at once.
"No!" he said. He spoke vehemently.
"Why not?" Ajalia asked. She looked over at Calles, to see if the seamstress was distressed at the interruption Chad was making to their talk, but Calles looked as if she was enjoying the exchange thoroughly. Ajalia thought that Calles looked on Chad rather as though she had adopted him as a little brother. Chad, who had become far less useless and helpless ever since he had learned magic, seemed, to Ajalia, to have reached the point at which his moral understanding was stretched to the limit. She thought that his mind was not incapable of reason, but that he had been little exposed to rational thought in his past life. Chad had begun to get used to efficiency and sense in his daily life since he had worked for Ajalia, and alongside Card, but the reality of death, and the depth of actual order being spread throughout the city, seemed to have given Chad quite a shock. The gangs of boys, led often by Ajalia's house boys, or by boys from her cleaning crews, who had been taking the men of the city and thrusting them through the doors of the temples, had not turned wild. Leed and Daniel had set the tone for the house boys, who had imparted a measure of calm to the cleaning crew boys, and those
city boys who joined in the efforts, having heard of the feats of magic being done daily by the boys who lived with Ajalia, did their best to imitate the manners and ways of the boys that Ajalia had trained.
It was a charming sight to see a group of grown men, walking calmly along the street, herded behind by an energetic cluster of young boys, all of whom watched them soberly, if with eagerly-jostling limbs. The hiding priests, and the men who had corrupted the witches' ways for their own use, were usually immediately apparent, because they shouted and tried to run when the boys appeared near them. The hunting boys, whatever the men did, remained quiet and steady, and told each other to act more like that boy Leed. She had seen city boys in the streets practicing Leed's mannerisms, and pretending to fly. She knew the boys had all been talking to each other about the magic lessons Leed had given within the dragon temple. With the blockaded temple entrances, the bands of boys hunting witches, and the gangs of young men and boys rounding up men to be tested by the blue magic, Ajalia thought that the entire city would be free of corrupt witchcraft soon.
"Cutting through the witches' necks with magic is not the same as killing them," Chad said finally, "but I don't want Esther to change."
"So you think the witches change," Ajalia said, "when you cut off their powers, and slice through their necks with magic."
"No," Chad said impatiently. "I mean, yes, they change, but it isn't real."
"What isn't real?" Ajalia asked.
"The magic isn't real," Chad said, blushing. "I mean, it isn't real death."
"How do you know that?" Ajalia asked him. Chad looked flushed, but stubborn.
"Because death is real," Chad said. "Real death, when you die."
"Do you know how the priests die?" Ajalia asked Chad.
"No," he said grudgingly. "How do they die?"
"Their souls are flammable," Ajalia said. "When they go through the blue wall, their insides are so brittle, and so dried up, and so cut away from the actual life in the earth and the sky, that their souls just burn in a white flash. Have you seen them die?" she asked. Chad nodded.
"But the blue wall kills them," Chad argued. "So they do actually die."
"Their souls burn up," Ajalia said.
"But they die!" Chad said angrily. "Why won't you admit that they die?"
"What do you think would happen," Ajalia asked Chad, "if there were powerful witches still in hiding?" Chad looked at Ajalia as though he suspected a trap. His lips moved slowly in thought, and then he spoke hesitantly.
"They would try to kill you, and they would kill Delmar," Chad said.
"The witches would try to take my soul," Ajalia said. "They would try to take Delmar's soul."
"They would try to kill you," Chad said angrily.
"I would not actually die," Ajalia said. "I would get quieter than I am now, and I would stop speaking so frankly about things. My real self would be gone, eaten away by some witch."
"But everyone would be able to see that," Chad said impatiently. Ajalia looked at Chad, and felt as though she could talk all day to him and not get through.
"Well," she said. "Right now I am talking to Calles. I guess if you'd rather stay home, and let the boys finish up with the witches, you could do that."
"I'm not going to stay at home," Chad said, disgruntled. "I just don't think killing the witches' ability to harm others is quite the same thing as killing the priests."
"It's not," Ajalia said. "The priests die." Chad blinked.
"But that is what I have been saying!" he exclaimed. He looked around at Calles. "Can you believe this?" he demanded. "Now she is acting as though she agrees with me!"
"I want you to pretend for a moment that Beryl is still alive," Ajalia said. "You know that she was the witch-caller, when she was alive?"
"Of course I know that," Chad said grumpily. "Anyone knew that."
"But no one knew that she was a witch," Ajalia said.
"Well, of course they didn't know," Chad said with exaggerated patience. "She was the witch-caller. She had to do magic, to catch other witches."
"Yes, and she killed people," Ajalia said.
"No, she didn't," Chad said. Ajalia saw that he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes.
"Do you know," Ajalia said, "I have heard that many witches hope to be able to reanimate a body that is emptied of its soul." Chad stared at her with wary eyes.
"So?" he said. Calles had looked around at Ajalia, and her lips had dropped open a little.
"So the witches," Calles said slowly, "if they were left unchecked, could put someone's soul into a priest's body."
"I think it could be done," Ajalia said. "This is why the priests have all been taken to the poison tree, to be destroyed." Chad's face had grown thoughtful and sober.
"I'd better get back to work," Chad said, and he offered to rise.
"Wait," Ajalia said. Chad looked at her.
"What?" he asked. "You win the argument. I was wrong. The witches have to die, or be cut off, or whatever is happening to them."
"I think that people will start to notice the witches around them," Ajalia told Chad. "They will see their wives, or their sisters, or their daughters being quieter than usual. They will wonder what is wrong." Chad listened intently, and Ajalia saw that he was no longer thinking of whether or not he was a good person. "I want you," Ajalia said, "to go to the house of a witch, and invite her and her family to go to a temple. Ask her to pass through the door of the temple. See what she says, and what her family says."
"You want to establish a precedent," Calles said, her eyes sharp. "You want people to do this to their own families."
"I want to eradicate witchcraft," Ajalia said. "Esther passed through a blue wall of magic, and she lived." Ajalia did not mention Vinna, who had also lived. She had not yet thought of what to do about such a woman as Vinna, if such a witch somehow escaped the trawling purges of the boys.
"But Esther wasn't evil," Chad said quickly. "Well, she isn't evil now," he said, looking at Ajalia.
"No, I don't think she is," Ajalia said. "And Chad," she said. Chad looked at her. "You are not a bad person. And it can be a valuable thing, to be seen as honest and simple. I think that you know this. I think you have pretended to be a little more simple than you are, in order to finagle your way into Esther's affections."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that," Chad said, but he got hurriedly to his feet. "Well, sorry for the interruption," he added, and hurried away.
"Chad is a nice boy," Calles said, watching him retreat quickly through the hall of the dragon temple.
"He is a nice young man," Ajalia said. She did not like the way other people treated Chad, as though he were a little boy. Ajalia saw Chad as a man who was only just beginning to become himself, and she was impatient with the minimization she saw women treat him with. Calles looked sideways at her.
"I think he is quite young," Calles suggested.
"He is running deeper and deeper now that he is beginning to respect himself," Ajalia said. "Now, what about these sleeves?"
When Ajalia had been speaking to Leed, before this, when she had asked him what he meant when he said that the boys grounded each other before they cut through the witches, Leed had sighed, and propped his fists on his hips.
"Well, I had a near miss, the first time," Leed said. He had told her already that what he had read in the slim leather book had given him the idea for the blade of light, and cutting through the witches' power cord and neck. "I was experimenting," Leed said, "and I'd taken another kid out with me. The witch noticed me, just as I was forming up my blade of light, and she almost got the boy next to me. I cut her off just in time, but it made me think of how to be more careful."
"Careful how?" Ajalia asked. Leed had smiled, and then he had explained to her a method of camouflage that he had worked out. One boy would draw up the lights from the earth, and cover the other boy from head to foot. The boy who was covered, or grounded, as Leed called it, would take care of the witch,
and the witch would not notice the attacking energy until it was too late.
"The boys, to a witch, seem like a piece of the street," Leed said with satisfaction. "Some of these boys are very clumsy, but they have all learned about the story magic in the temples, and once one of my men," (for Ajalia had found, to her infinite delight, that Leed referred to her house boys as his men) "hooks them up to the lights, they can form the story magic to make an image of the falcon's dagger. Then they take up that dagger, and use it to cut through the witch's black cord. She goes very limp and quiet after that," Leed said, "and the boys cut through the soul in her neck. The witches all have very thick souls," he added, "almost as though they were made of paste, or dried-up glue."
"I felt that as well," Ajalia said, "when I have fought witches."
Leed regarded her somberly.
"I saw what you did," he said. "I saw you fight with that big black dragon."
"I keep forgetting to ask you," Ajalia said, sighing with relief that Leed had brought this up. She continually thought of the black worms when he was out of the way, and had not been able to ask him before about this. "I am glad that you said that. What are the ancient dragons? Why did Delmar want to kill them? And do other lands have their own evil dragons in the earth?" Ajalia realized, after she had said this, that Leed might not know much about magic, or demons that nestled in the earth beneath faraway places. She was growing quite used to Leed being infallible, and she often forgot that he was not quite eleven years old, and had likely not gained ascendancy over the whole earth yet.
"We are taught that these two black dragons have ruled over the whole earth for all ages," Leed said. "It has been said, farther back than the founding of Slavithe, that they would be destroyed someday, and that the whole world would find peace."
"Do you believe that?" Ajalia asked. "Do you believe that there aren't any more black dragons about?"
"I don't think there are more," Leed said simply. "I think those two were the only ones." Ajalia regarded the boy cautiously. She did not like to expose her thoughts too much to the boy. Leed seemed to know what she was thinking, because he smiled. "You can ask me why I think that," he told her. "My illusions of your omnipotence will not be shattered forever if you ask me questions." Ajalia smiled at him.