The Thief Lord's Son (The Eastern Slave Series Book 3)

by Victor Poole

  A ball of ice seemed to appear suddenly in Ajalia's center; she did not want to see the Thief Lord's wife, or speak to her. She thought again of her own mother, and of the strange double faces she had somehow never seen.

  "Ocher," she said. He was watching her closely before she had finished saying his name; she took note of his attention, and filed away the fact that he was receptive to her voice. It was a thing, she thought, that would come in useful someday.

  "Yes?" he asked. His eyes were fixed on her, and she thought that she could see his whole soul. She wished, for a moment, that he would have been a man she could trust. She was tired of working in the dark like this, isolated, and without allies.

  "What do you want from me?" she asked him. She meant it, too; sincerity and openness, far more than she showed to anyone, even to Delmar, were in her voice and her whole demeanor. Ocher watched her, and she kept her eyes on the flickering desire in his face, taking note of how far he had let himself go from what he had shown her of himself before. She was sure that he was in a sort of half-waking dream. The moon, she told herself, had hypnotized him. If she met in on the street, or when he was near another Slavithe man, he would have looked through her, or over her head.

  Ocher considered her for a long time; the creases in his beard grew deeper and darker in the moonlight.

  "Do you know," he said slowly, leaning without thinking towards her. She did not move, but watched his body. "Do you know," he repeated, "I am not sure what I want. I feel a sort of desire for life around you. I don't understand it, myself."

  "You want to be free," Ajalia said promptly. Ocher slid back, his eyebrows furrowing.

  "What?" he said, and she saw that he did not understand.

  "Your soul is in chains," she told him, and when she said so, she could almost see the inner composition of his heart. "You were a good man once," she told him suddenly. She could see what he had been, and what he now was. "Go to Talbos," she said.

  "What?" he asked, but his voice wavered.

  "You have been compromised," she told him. "You're too deep in the mire here. You have to start over. Go to Talbos. Offer yourself as a political ally to the king there. He'll take you. You can manage your business from there."

  "I cannot," he said sharply, but she saw him thinking of it.

  "Then prove me wrong," Ajalia said quickly. "Go to the Thief Lord, and be yourself. See if he turns on you." Ocher was watching her as though she were a volatile sun.

  "You cannot say such things," he said slowly.

  "You are far from yourself," Ajalia told him. "The man is a monster, not even worthy the name of a man. See what he has married, and how slavishly he obeys her whims. Free yourself from this madness." She watched his face, and to her delight, she saw the inside of his torso beginning to loosen, and his breath coming gradually freer into his lungs. "You poor man," she murmured, and she could have reached out and stroked his cheek. She did not think he would have been able to restrain himself from caressing her if she touched him, and she kept her hands at her sides.

  Ocher's eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

  "I cannot," he whispered, and she pitied him.

  "You must," she said. He looked at her, his whole body wrought up in one pinch of trembling, and then he snatched up her hand and pressed it to his lips.

  "Goodbye," he muttered, and, standing with a jolt, he walked quickly away into the night.

  Ajalia watched him go, and she told herself that she could have loved Ocher, if he had been a different kind of man. She had no patience for free men who lay themselves down before evil, and closed their eyes to it. She watched the shadows of the leaves dance in the breeze, and she waited for the Thief Lord's wife to come.

  DELMAR'S MOTHER

  Delmar's mother, when she did arrive, brought her two sons in tow. The Thief Lord's wife was robed in a thick white silk wrap that had been cast clumsily around her arms, and over her head. The woman was tall, and though her brown hair was dressed neatly on top of her head, she was somehow ugly in the moonlight. Ajalia thought back to the first time she had encountered this tall woman, and she thought that she had appeared almost beautiful then, and certainly elegant. Somehow, in the intervening time, whatever semblance of attractiveness that the Thief Lord's wife had cultivated had melted like a late frost. Her mouth now was drawn tightly into a line, and her cheeks were pulled sharply back and down. Ajalia could not see much of her eyes, but the cast of the woman's head was haughty and annoyed.

  Ajalia watched the tall woman stalk through the street towards the dragon temple; she came to the foot of the steps, and stopped. Ajalia watched her fold her arms and tap her foot. The Thief Lord's wife glanced back impatiently at the two young men behind her; she waited until they had positioned themselves at either side of her, and then opened her mouth.

  "I want Delmar back," the Thief Lord's wife said.

  "He tells me your name is Lilleth," Ajalia said. She did not stand up. She saw the older woman's eyes narrow, and her lips compress together.

  "You show little respect," Lilleth snapped.

  "You deserve none," Ajalia said in the Eastern tongue. The two boys glanced at each other, and then at their mother.

  "What did she say?" the older boy, Wall, asked his mother.

  "I don't know," Lilleth said impatiently.

  "Why have you brought me your sons?" Ajalia asked in Slavithe. Lilleth examined Ajalia through eyes that cut like razors through the moonlight. Ajalia saw the parade of thoughts that passed swiftly over Lilleth's face; she saw first that the Thief Lord's wife thought her very plain, and then the thought that Ajalia was poorly dressed. The shadow of a smile, full with satisfaction, peeked through the anger that was plainly written on Delmar's mother's features.

  "You aren't much to look at," Lilleth observed.

  "Delmar is gone," Ajalia said. Lilleth's eyes flashed, and then hooded quickly again.

  "Where is he?" she asked imperiously.

  "I don't know," Ajalia said.

  "Did you send him somewhere?" Lilleth asked. She looked about at the inner darkness of the dragon temple, as though she would see Delmar emerge suddenly from the shadows. Ajalia sat silently, and examined the Thief Lord's wife. The white silk was one of the poorer fabrics the caravan had carried in from the East; Ajalia told herself that Yelin was dressing the Thief Lord's wife badly on purpose, and she smiled.

  "I have nicer things than you," Lilleth said suddenly. Ajalia turned her eyes to the two boys. She had seen Wall twice now, and the younger boy she had observed when she had given Lim and Yelin to the Thief Lord as gifts, and again, when she had spoken with him briefly at the door of the Thief Lord's house.

  "You are Coren," Ajalia said. The boy looked at her scornfully, and curled his lip. "You have three sons," Ajalia said to Lilleth. Lilleth's lips parted; her eyes were still combing over the pillars that led into the depths of the dragon temple.

  "Where is Delmar?" she asked again.

  "Dead witch," Ajalia put in. Lilleth blanched as though she had been slapped. She blinked hard, and looked anew at Ajalia.

  "What kind of girl are you?" Lilleth demanded. Her nostrils were taut and white with anger now.

  "Ocher came to see me," Ajalia said. "I think he loves me."

  "Ocher's married," Lilleth said dismissively. "And you're no beauty," she added with a sneer.

  "Delmar wants to marry me," Ajalia said conversationally. Lilleth's face did not move.

  "Well," Lilleth said slowly, "he can't. He's married to me."

  "What does the Thief Lord say to that?" Ajalia asked calmly. She concealed the horror that spilled out in her heart, and lay a blanket of soothing salve over her thudding pulse. The Thief Lord's wife wrinkled her nose; she looked almost bored.

  "Isn't he here somewhere?" she demanded, turning and staring around at the darkened street. Ajalia was thinking of the golden light that Delmar had taken from her spine, and the way he had traded light with her, and called it marriage. Ajalia fe
lt dirty, and unpleasantly alone. She believed what Lilleth said. I will kill Delmar, Ajalia promised herself, when I see him next.

  "He has gone," Ajalia said. "Perhaps he has gone to visit Yelin," she added. Ajalia saw that she had hit upon a nerve; Lilleth's face pinched up into an ugly snarl, and her teeth showed.

  "No," Delmar's mother said simply. "I would know." Ajalia was watching Wall; she smiled.

  "Your second son has been with that slave," Ajalia said. She pointed at Wall's face, and at the way his eyes moved away from her. "You love Yelin," Ajalia told the boy.

  "I don't love anyone," Wall said, but his cheeks had turned dark in the moonlight. Lilleth glanced to her second son, and smiled easily.

  "Wall is loyal," she said proudly, "not like Delmar."

  "But you have not bound yourself to Wall," Ajalia pointed out. "Wall thinks he is free. He has given his body to the Eastern slave." Lilleth glared at Ajalia with hatred in her eyes.

  "You lie," she said.

  "Your mother," Ajalia said to Wall, "does not think you have grown enough to mate. She thinks you are still a baby boy. She thinks you are a child."

  "She does not," Wall said loudly, but his mother spoke at the same time.

  "Of course he's a child," Lilleth said. The mother and son turned simultaneously, and looked at each other. Ajalia could see the foundation of their alliance beginning to crack.

  "Wall is a man," Ajalia said. "He is more man than his father is." Ajalia watched Wall grow a little taller, his shoulders shifting outwards, and his mouth twisting a little into a smile at her words. Lilleth seemed to shrink with fury; she glared at Ajalia as though she could kill her with a glance.

  "Your words mean nothing," Delmar's mother said finally. "You cannot destroy my family."

  "You have no family," Ajalia hissed. "You are a shell of nothing. Your son sleeps with a foreign whore, and your husband wishes he could do the same."

  Lilleth's eyes widened in shock; Ajalia told herself that no one had likely ever spoken to the Thief Lord's wife thus.

  "You will take that back," Lilleth said, "or I will have you destroyed."

  "You cannot," Ajalia told her. "I am under the protection of the new Thief Lord. He commands you to stay your hand, and you are weak before him."

  Lilleth began to laugh; Ajalia, though she longed for the good old days when she had borne only her knife and her wits, reached deep below the earth, and imagined herself grasping two thick cords of blue and red light. She had used the golden lights before, but when she reached below the steps of the dragon temple, she somehow pictured ruby and ocean blue lights. She gripped these in her hands, or imagined the cords lying flush against her palms, and she watched the Thief Lord's wife.

  Lilleth laughed for a little. She laughed as though Ajalia had loosed some spring within her, of mirth that had never been set loose, and when she stopped laughing, and lowered her chin, her eyes were unnaturally dry.

  "Little son," Lilleth said to Coren, "get lost."

  "No, I want to stay," the youngest boy said. Lilleth raised one hand in a violent motion, and Coren dashed away into the night. Ajalia could hear the patter of his clumsy feet as he scrabbled over the white stones.

  "You are a witch," Ajalia told the Thief Lord's wife. "If you are not, you deserve to die like one."

  "Filthy whore," Lilleth spat, and pushed Wall aside.

  "She will go after Yelin, next," Ajalia said to Wall quickly. "Get her out of your father's house, and hide her well." Wall stared at her for a brief second, and then turned and fled.

  "Wall!" Lilleth shrieked. Ajalia could feel the heat of blood rising up against her jaw, and flooding through her shoulders. The knife at her back nestled between her lower ribs like a familiar hand; she wanted it, but thought that the Thief Lord's wife could not be killed so easily. I will break her, Ajalia thought, licking her lips, and she will no longer see herself as a person at all.

  "Wall, come back and help me!" Lilleth cried into the night.

  "He's gone," Ajalia told her, and she thought with relish that the neighbors would all have heard the shrill tones of the Thief Lord's wife. "Your husband is ashamed of you," she added.

  "You cannot hurt me," Lilleth said, suddenly complacent. "And now that you have offended me, you will die."

  Ajalia lifted the cord of blue light, and imagined it whipping, like a cord, against Lilleth's cheek.

  "My mother was just the same as you are," Ajalia said, and she pictured in her mind the red cord, twisting quietly around the tall woman's neck. "She used powers that she could not control," Ajalia said, "and when she crossed me, she lost everything."

  "I am not your mother, you nasty girl," Lilleth spat. Ajalia tugged at the blue and red cords; she pictured them passing together around the tall woman's neck. Ajalia saw for a moment the Thief Lord's wife's spine, like a sickening column of thick, ugly white paste, and she saw that the lights could sever the connection between Lilleth's head and her trunk. For a second, Ajalia hesitated. She questioned herself. Am I in the wrong? Ajalia asked herself, and then, looking within herself, and seeing the riot of pure gold and sheer white, she hardened her jaw. She saw, in an instant, that Delmar's mother was not real; she saw that the tall woman had assembled, throughout her life, an imitation of personhood. You are not real, Ajalia thought, and she severed the sickening column of thick opaque blankness. She felt the blue and the red lights pass simultaneously through Lilleth's neck, and destroy a thick slice of the white column. It could not grow back, Ajalia thought, because it was a strange and artificial construction; it did not flow, like living energy, or grow. It was like a propped-together picture of a soul, and she had cut a great piece of it all into two.

  Nothing happened on the outside; Delmar's mother still stood, with her fists curled up, and her eyebrows tensed. She glared still at Ajalia, but Ajalia saw that she had somehow made herself invulnerable to the tall woman with brown hair. She saw also that Lilleth did not sense the change. Delmar's mother was not a witch, Ajalia thought, but she was less than human. Something inside of the tall woman was missing, Ajalia thought, and she remembered again her own mother, and the long silences that had come between torrents of agitated words. No longer afraid, Ajalia stood up from where she had sat on the white stone steps, and walked slowly around the tall woman with brown hair, examining what she could discern of the shadowy light within Delmar's mother's body.

  "Why did you marry Delmar?" Ajalia asked. She could not have said how the red and blue lights had cut off her fear, but she sensed now that Delmar's mother was strangely powerless. Lilleth stood now like an upset child, or a tantruming girl. Lilleth, Ajalia thought, had noticed no change, and did not even seem to see that Ajalia's fear, and her agitation, were gone. "Why?" Ajalia asked again. She was standing a little behind Delmar's mother's back, and looking at the place where Delmar would have put his hands, if he had performed a ceremony with his mother.

  "So that he would always be mine," Delmar's mother said complacently. "My husband will kill you for me," she added happily. "I will tell him so, and he will cut off your head. I like your silks," Lilleth added, as an afterthought. Ajalia wondered why she had ever feared this woman. She found the place where a golden light glimmered beneath the white silk robes, and she put one hand on the Thief Lord's wife's back. Lilleth turned her head, and smiled at Ajalia, as at a good friend.

  "I will enjoy watching you die," she told Ajalia.

  "I know you would," Ajalia agreed. She pushed at the golden place, and Lilleth gasped and moved away. Ajalia thought that Delmar's mother was like a great malignant cow; she saw that she would be able to manhandle Lilleth, quite as a man would manhandle a sheep. She saw that the tall woman was like an animal, without true awareness of herself.

  "You can't have Delmar," Lilleth said. She no longer sounded angry at all. Now that Ajalia moved with serenity, and assurance, Lilleth seemed to have fallen quite under her spell. "I want him to myself," Lilleth explained. "He's mine."

  "
You can't have Delmar," Ajalia told her, and she twisted a hand into the tall woman's hair. Lilleth whimpered a little, like a dog, and Ajalia pushed her down onto her knees.

  "But I want Delmar," Lilleth explained. Her voice was patient, and calm. She was like a child who seeks to overcome a mother through force of argument.

  "You can't have Delmar," Ajalia repeated, and she imagined a great claw of dark energy forming over her right hand.

  "I want him," Lilleth said. "Mine."

  When Ajalia had formed a complete picture of the claw, with obsidian shining pieces, and cruel, sharp points at the end, she turned her eyes again to the place where she had sensed the ray of golden light.

  "I'm taking Delmar away from you," Ajalia said clearly, and she pictured herself putting her right hand, covered with the shining black claw, deep into Lilleth's back. She lay her palm against the place on the tall woman's back, where the light had shimmered, and Lilleth uttered a great breath, like a sigh. Ajalia cut out the golden light that was Delmar's, and scooped it out. She pressed it into her own side, and released Lilleth's hair.

  "I will cut you out of him, later tonight," Ajalia told his mother. "You have no hold on Delmar now."

  "He'll come back to me," Lilleth said. She sat down on the ground on her bottom, like a great child, and rearranged her hair. "He loves me, you see," she told Ajalia, patting her pins, "because I am his mother."

  "Your clothes don't fit," Ajalia told Lilleth.

  "These are silks from the East," Lilleth told her. "They're very expensive. I look very fine."

  "If you come near me again," Ajalia said, and she bent close to the tall woman's eyes, "I will harm you, and your son Coren."

  Ajalia saw a quick flash of comprehension, just under the surface of Lilleth's eyes.

  "You cannot fool me," Ajalia said very quietly. "I grew up with someone like you."

  Lilleth's eyebrows folded a little, and her lips pushed out into a pout.

  "That is not fair," she complained, and Ajalia saw that now she was talking to the real Lilleth, the Lilleth who had painstakingly constructed the semblance of sanity and a soul.