by Victor Poole
"Be safe," he said, but what Ajalia heard him say was, "Be kind to yourself." She looked down at him without moving, and then turned away.
"Keep an eye on Chad," she called behind her. Card lifted a hand in acknowledgement that he had heard, and Ajalia rode towards the farther gate.
The dark valley lay beneath a fold of the mountains; she had never been to the farms of the dark valley, but aside from the long quarry road, there were not many places to choose to go on the eastern Slavithe roads. The first road came down the quarry side, and stretched in a long line towards the sea. The narrow Slavithe harbor lay cuddled in a chilly arm of the low hills there; below this, and to the south, was a cold, hard stretch of stone, and within deep folds of these stone valleys were the rich soil and dark skies of the strange farmlands.
Ajalia had asked Card how anything grew in a place where the sun hardly showed. "There's a little sun," he told her, "but the air is thick, and what light there is comes dark."
The road split south from the main quarry road to the harbor, and then ran in three places down to the dark valley. Ajalia turned the black horse down the first road that carved down into the shadowy rock.
A peak of the black mountains rose just below the harbor road; its tip stretched in a great hook into the sky over the fertile farmland. This mountain was similar in appearance to the enormous mountain that lay like a shadow over the land of Talbos; this peak was shorter, and shallower, and had a steep cliff face inside, instead of the gradual valley that petered out beneath the Talbos hooked peak, where lay the king's palace.
Ajalia wanted to see the dark valley for herself, in the daylight. She wanted to be sure that she was not condemning all of those young women to a life of meaningless night. Card had sold the Slavithe girls' debts; Ajalia no longer had a commercial interest in their lives, but she wanted to be sure that they were better off than she had found them.
The black horse trod steadily down the road; she looked up at the sky, where the moon was missing. Stars like glittering darts clustered thickly in between the clouds. Ajalia sighed; she felt suddenly weary. Since she had drawn up the golden cords out of the earth in the forest, and after her skin had healed, she had felt a sort of gradual ripping along her spine. The edges of her ears seemed raw; the air in her nose tingled.
She had adjusted quickly to the life that was in her now; she no longer got tired, in that strange fainting way, and her knees no longer gave out any hint of sinking away. She felt healed. The black maw, the fear, and the terrible memories, hovered now behind her, free and obvious and ever-present.
Ajalia had thought, at first, that the winged death behind her body had been vanquished with the weakness of her body. For two days after the magic and the light had spun into her body, she had been free of the darkness, the empty and destroying mouth that hovered now just behind her neck.
On the third day, Ajalia had woken from sleep in a drenching sweat; her heart had beat like a drum, and she had seen the shadows creep out from their hiding places, and take their places behind her. The darkness followed her now, like a long and unshakable second self. She had waited for it to dissipate; she had told herself that the maw of evil would shake away with time. But the shadow, once it climbed into the space at her back, no longer shifted; it lay like a permanent cloud.
Ajalia rode down into the shadow of the hooked mountain, and she thought now that she would never be free of the frightening memories of her father; he rode within her, and behind her, like a harbinger of ending. He was like the angel of death, or the last rock that tumbled onto the cairn that lay above and behind her.
Ajalia felt as though she were dead, and walking in a dream. She thought that her experiment with the golden lights had somehow revived her body; she no longer fainted, or fell, and her arms did not weep and bleed. Whatever process Delmar had started in her, when he had put the light into her skin, was finished, she thought, and this was as fine as she could ever be.
She rode the black horse down the road; ahead of her was a long row of earthen houses. One of the houses had a single candle lighting the window. Ajalia rode to this house. When she came near the place where the candle threw its weak rays out into the night, she dismounted, and tied her horse to a post and fence that ran along the row of earthen houses.
A sudden wave of fear crept up behind Ajalia. The fear, she thought, was somehow worse than the physical pain. She had thought that her life was bad enough before, when she was tired, and when she slept badly. Now she knew she had been living a life of privilege. The fear was growing in her, coming closer to the surface of her skin. She thought that someday the fear would consume her. She did not know what would happen to her when that day came.
Ajalia went to the door of the earthen house, and knocked on the heavy wooden door.
"Who is it?" a thick masculine voice called.
Ajalia did not know what to say in response. She stood outside the house, and thought of what would not sound odd; she could think of nothing to say. She knocked again. Silence came after her knock; a feeling of being out of place struck her. She began to think of leaving without seeing any of the girls.
The wooden door swung open; it was fixed to a clumsy wood frame with a pair of heavy iron hinges.
"What do you want?" a thick man with a very hard face demanded. Ajalia could barely see in the light from the candle and the stars; the man's face was like roughly shaped metal. Ajalia looked at the man; she did not know what to say. All the things she thought of, about seeing the girls, and looking after their interests, and explaining that she had owned the girls' debts, faded away before the clenched-up scowl of the hard-faced man.
"Is Slavithe that way?" she asked finally, pointing up the road.
"Aye," the man said. His voice was deep and thick; his sound was like a growl. Ajalia looked at the man. The man looked at her as though he was looking past her. Ajalia felt unpleasantly like a stranger to the human race. She felt out of place.
"Did you buy some help?" Ajalia asked. It took her too long to speak; something about the man reminded her of her brother. The man stared at her uncomprehendingly.
"What?" he grunted.
"Did you buy some girls?" Ajalia asked loudly. A light of understanding came into the man's face.
"Argh," he said, rubbing his neck. "Not me," he explained, and pointed towards the cliff of the mountain. "Under there," he said. "Man called Gruff."
"Thank you," Ajalia said. She could smell cold iron, and growing moss. The man shut the wooden door without another word, and Ajalia returned to her horse. She felt oddly empty, and stunned. She untied the black horse's reins with trembling fingers, and hoisted herself into the saddle.
Her brother's voice was sounding loudly in her ears; she shut out the memory, and forced herself to forget the words. She told herself it wasn't really happening. Ajalia wrapped her fingers into the black horse's mane, and twisted until the coarse black hairs pushed painfully into her skin. She watched the black ears bob gently in front of her. She couldn't feel her legs.
The horse had begun to walk when she had gathered up the reins. She let the horse walk where he liked, her fingers tangled in the mane and the long braided leather reins.
She thought of Delmar. Delmar, she thought, would be able to help.
The horse wandered steadily up the road, heading back in the direction that he had come. A tiny corner of Ajalia's brain noted that she was not heading to the cliff, to the man Gruff and the Slavithe girls. She watched the darkness pass before her, and she felt the strangely deadened constriction in her ribs.
At least, she told herself, she was alone this time. And, she added forcefully, at least she was not fainting. She shook her head sharply from side to side; the darkness clung within her, unbudging. She felt coated in a layer of poisonous tar; she felt corrupted inside.
Gradually, the echoes of her brother's voice faded, and the black maw fell back from within her heart. It retreated again, until it floated a hair's breadth away from her
neck. Ajalia felt the evil breathing down her back; she wished it would get back, to the place it had been a month ago. Long ago, she thought, the shadow had followed her at a great distance; now, it was almost a second skin.
Delmar will leave me, she told herself, when he sees the darkness. This thought made her sad, and her sadness welled over her skin like a kind of heavy rain. The emotion was a welcome relief to the cold fear that had lain within her. The sorrow was pressing, and heavy; it felt almost like joy.
Ajalia began to breathe again. She glanced to the side, to the place where the mountain hooked over the valley. She knew that she would return to the city without seeing Nam; she wondered if the girl had found a man out here to prey on.
"I see the worst in everyone," Ajalia told the black horse. He said nothing back to her. She laughed. "Delmar doesn't love me," Ajalia added. The horse whuffled, and shook his mane. "He thinks he does," she said, frowning.
The ride back to the city was uneventful; Ajalia reined in the horse when the tall white gate of Slavithe came into view. She held the horse back; he was restless, lifting his feet and laying them down gently.
"If I did not have you," Ajalia told the horse, "I could take the northern pass." She held the horse for a moment, and sighed. "Oh well," she said, and gave the black horse his head. The horse strode out, his legs quickly flashing over the stone road that lay between Ajalia and the tall gate. She rode off to the side of the road when she was sure the guard had seen her; she wished she had a hood.
She waited, the reins gathered up her her hands, the horse tossing his head up, and mouthing the bit, until one of the guards came cautiously out into the night, his weapon held ready.
"Who's there?" the guard called from the road, the point of his weapon turned towards Ajalia.
"I have a problem," she said. The guard waited.
"Well?" he demanded. Ajalia let the horse step a little forward, until her face came into the light of the guard's torch. When she was sure he could see her, she flicked her fingers into the symbol of the dead falcon; the guard relaxed. "How can I help?" he asked her.
"The Thief Lord is planning to attack the falcon," she told the guard. "I've come back to protect him."
"What's the problem?" the guard asked.
"I told the Thief Lord I would be out of the city for another two days," Ajalia said. She didn't know if Delmar's father would interpret the three days as beginning with this day, or the next. She didn't want to take the chance that he meant to move sooner than later. She had meant to leave Delmar alone; she wanted to see if he could predict danger, and defend himself, but now she meant to make sure. She was beginning to think that Delmar was important to her personally; this idea irritated her.
The guard looked up at Ajalia.
"I'll take your horse," he said. "Wait here." The guard moved back towards the gate. In a few minutes he came back. A long brown cloak was in his hands. "Put this on," the guard said. Ajalia dismounted, and pulled the rough fabric over her head. She adjusted the hood; the cloak concealed her from tip to toe. The cloak reminded her forcibly of the old man she had met in a temple, in her very first days in Slavithe. She had given him money, she remembered, and he had accepted it like a seasoned beggar.
She gave the guard the reins of the black horse, and untied the two packs Calles had given her from the saddle. She felt a wrench of guilt at leaving her saddle behind; she never liked leaving the goatskin saddle with strangers. She often had the feeling that she would never see it again.
The black horse mouthed his bit, and looked curiously at Ajalia.
"I have fine horses from the East," she told the guard, hefting the packs under each arm. "I will give you your choice of them, when my business is done."
"I thank you," the guard said at once. His eyes brightened, and his cheeks grew firm with pleasure. Ajalia had found that many guards of Slavithe hoped for the promise of the dead falcon, but most of them were poor, and were used to being dismissed without pay by those they served specially in Delmar's name.
"The priests wear these," the guard told Ajalia, plucking at the cloak, and moving forward the folds of the hood. "Merchants from Talbos dress this way," he said, "when they come on business."
Ajalia realized suddenly that, aside from the old man in the temple, she had seen such cloaked figures on occasion in the city. She had thought the hoods concealed eccentrics, or the elderly; many old people in Slavithe dressed far too heavily for the weather, and some of them, Ajalia had seen, wore deep hoods.
The guard examined her critically.
"Don't speak to anyone," he said, "and never pay. Priests are meant to beg for their food." Ajalia nodded. The guard pursed his lips at her. "I've heard of you," he said. Ajalia said nothing. "I heard you were come to waken the dead falcon, to make him live," the guard said.
Ajalia watched the guard's eyes; his face was tense, and his mouth drawn over his teeth.
"Is it so?" the guard asked. Ajalia watched his eyes; she bowed her head slightly. He grinned at her. "Godspeed," he said, and stepped aside. Ajalia drew the hood a little farther over her eyes, and passed silently through the narrow door that lay open within the broad white gate. There were two other guards there; their eyes passed over her disinterestedly when they saw her hood and cloak. She walked through the long city streets until she came to the road that lay alongside the house to the side of the dragon temple; she sat against the outer wall of this house, and watched the temple. The night was cold, and dark; the stars seemed stale above her.
DELMAR'S NEW CLOTHES
The Thief Lord did not send his assassins until the third day. Ajalia watched the roads around the temple until finally, in the afternoon on the third day of her vigil, a pair of scruffy men approached. She recognized the sloppy tilt of their shoulders; they were like the slave traders she had met in the long northern roads, slipshod men who cared not what they did to others.
When the two men had passed up the broad stairs into the temple, Ajalia rose without a sound, and followed them, her face a shadow within the depths of the brown hood.
She passed up the stairs and into the long empty hall of the temple. She could see the two men standing idly in the hall, their hands clasped in front of them, their eyes tilted vaguely up at the carvings on the ceiling. She stood to the side of the long front door, and waited. The men did not hear her come in; they stood, and tapped their feet, and rocked on their heels, until Daniel came skidding down the hall. Ajalia slipped her knife into her palm.
"What do you want?" Daniel asked the men brightly. Ajalia watched the two men's backs; she was watching for a stir of movement at the very base of their spines, where the bones met the cradle of the pelvis. She had learned to watch for the birth of violence in the body, long ago, when she had still been at home. It was why she was so fast, and why she won fights. She could see the urge to kill, to strike, before it came up into the muscles.
The men were at rest, their feet flat, their faces turned down with slick smiles at the boy. Ajalia heard Daniel ask the men again what they wanted; they replied to the boy, chuckling over each other, glancing up the hall to where the rooms branched off under high arches, and delicate pillars. She knew they were looking for Delmar; she could see him almost written on their shoulders.
Ajalia licked her lips; she watched Daniel stare up at the men, his jaw working for a moment.
"Hang on," Daniel said finally. His voice floated down the hall towards her, light and soft through the sunlight that filtered through the curious windows in the arches of the high temple windows. Daniel walked away from the two men. He moved slowly, doubtfully. When he came to the long place where the stairs ran up, he paused, and looked back at the two men. The men were watching Daniel; they laughed when they saw him look at them.
Ajalia's breath slowed; she worked her fingers slowly over the hilt of the knife; she was wondering if Delmar would see what the men were. She melted gradually to the side, until her cloaked figure joined to the shadows behind a th
ick pillar. She leaned against the white stone; it was carved all over with thick burbling shapes of roiling animals, and a great twisting dragon with flames in its tail. The stones pressed into her arms, and her ribs; she felt the shift of the gaping maw of anger and fear behind her, and she shivered.
One day, she thought, she was going to give in to that maw, and let it absorb her. She thought it would turn her into a nightshade, a creature of the dark. She dreaded that day, but she could feel the shadow inching towards her, like a cold corpse dragging to her in dead leaves and a chill wind.
Ajalia shivered; the knife was warm in her grip. A feeling of creeping, icy fingers moved up the back of her spine, and into her ribs. She always felt sick, before she killed on purpose.
Delmar came lolloping down the stairs, his feet skipping, like a little child's, over the steps. His hair was flung back with his movement. Daniel did not reappear; Ajalia listened, but could hear no footsteps above. She wondered where the rest of her boys were. Delmar got to the bottom of the stairs, and shook his hair out of his eyes, a brilliant smile on his face.
Ajalia felt a stab of pain in her chest; she loved him, she thought, and stuffed the thought away. He was weak, she reminded herself, and he cared only for himself. She watched Delmar saunter towards the two assassins, his shoulders open, and his arms swinging with innocent charm at his sides. She examined again the backs of the assassins; they had clenched a little; she saw that they were not ready to move, but that their powers were beginning to gather. She could not see at first where they kept their weapons; there were no sheaths at their sides, or bulky spaces in their clothing. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again, and looked at the two men.
She saw the cluster of tension that lay just along their cheeks, on the right side. She followed the chain of tensed muscles; it ran down their necks, and into their right shoulders. They each had a small weapon there, she saw. Now that she had found the place, she could clearly see the way they carried their bodies, tilted just a little to one side, their left hands carried a little open, ready to grasp at the thing they both carried against their chests.