by Victor Poole
"Have you?" he asked.
"She tried to attack me," Ajalia told Denai, "with a metal stick." Denai's expression cleared at once.
"She has been looking for a body for some time," Denai said. Ajalia nodded.
"That is what I suspected," she said. Denai turned his head, and studied Ajalia.
"How did you learn of Bain?" he asked. Ajalia looked at him, and said nothing at all. "Only a few of us know about the boy," Denai said. "If I hadn't told you, and you—"
"I know very little about Bain," Ajalia said. Denai studied her.
"How can that be true?" he asked.
"Why can't it be true?" Ajalia asked. Denai thought for a while.
"Ullar doesn't understand what happened," he said finally.
"So I couldn't have learned from Ullar," Ajalia said. Denai nodded. She took a deep breath. "I can see him," she said. Denai's eyes remained clouded; he glared at her as though she had said a hard thing.
"You can see who?" he asked.
"I can see Bain," Ajalia said. "He shows himself to me, and pesters me."
Denai's face changed again. He was still standing; the leathers dropped heavily out of his hands. He knelt down on the floor before Ajalia, and looked up at her, as at some god.
"What are you?" Denai whispered.
"It's not me," Ajalia said easily. "Delmar has done something to my knife."
"No," Denai insisted. "You are something new."
"I'm no one," Ajalia said. "But you are from Talbos. I want to know the name of Ocher's wife."
Denai chuckled.
"Her name is Beryl," he said, "and she is one of us."
"I know that," Ajalia said. She felt peevish, suddenly. "You didn't tell me what you are," she complained, "or why you're here."
"We've come to kill the witches," Denai said at once. Ajalia narrowed her eyes.
"Why are you telling me this now?" she demanded. "You were suspicious before."
"If you can see Bain," Denai said, "then you are one of us." Ajalia glared at Denai.
"It is foolish," she said, "to trust so easily."
"You trusted me," Denai pointed out. Ajalia blushed.
"I did not," she said.
"I'm in this room," Denai said. "I was here in this house before Delmar came here." Ajalia's cheeks went dusky red.
"That has nothing to do with you," she said.
"He's starved at home," Denai said. "Beryl told us."
"Is Delmar's mother a witch?" Ajalia demanded. Denai looked at her oddly.
"No," he said slowly. "Why?"
"Why would you tell me Delmar is hungry?" Ajalia asked suddenly. Denai shrugged.
"Rane and I thought you wouldn't know," he said. "They keep it hidden, but they've trained him to come home for food. That's why he never stays out long." Denai looked at her, and she stared at Denai.
"How do you know this?" she asked finally. Denai shrugged.
"His mother brags of her methods to Beryl. We get a lot of our information that way."
"And you've never decided to do anything about it?" Ajalia demanded. Her voice was rising, and she didn't care. Denai looked at her, and his eyebrows lifted.
"What would you like me to do?" he asked. "Go and hand Delmar some sweets?" He looked up at Ajalia. Waves of strong heat were coursing through her back and shoulders; she had never felt so angry before.
"You're supposed to feed people who are hungry," she said.
"And then I can be sold over the seas, or put into the quarries," Denai pointed out. "They've taught him to tell them everything."
"Who?" Ajalia demanded, but she already knew.
"Delmar," Denai said. "He's very obedient. I don't know how he wouldn't be. They've raised him like a dangerous beast, on the edge of death." Ajalia blinked. For some reason, she thought of her own family, and the drafty, tiny house on the wide expanse of meadow. Her heart was throbbing uncomfortably over her ribs.
"You should have done something," she said. A roaring was in her ears. No one did anything for me, she thought, and she tried to hide the words inside her mind. "Someone should have done something," she said, and her voice was hoarse. She put her hands over her face, and leaned her elbows on her knees.
"Are you okay?" Denai asked. She heard him from far away; a mist seemed to be coming over her eyes, and she could not see. I don't want to be here, she told herself; the blood rushing through her neck felt hot, and dangerous. I don't want to be here, she repeated.
"Ajalia," Denai said. He said it with the Slavithe accent, the way Ajalia said her name now when she introduced herself, and the unfamiliar sound of her name made her shudder. She could feel tears lifting into her eyes; her cheeks felt wet.
"I have to go help him," Ajalia muttered. She stood up, and fell down onto the chest. Denai put out a hand, but did not touch her.
"Are you all right?" he asked. She could feel the whole world throbbing and spinning around her in crazy circles. She told herself that she was going to throw up, and she stumbled to her feet and went to the door. Ajalia's eyes were covered over with sparks of light; she could only partly see. She heard Denai speaking behind her, but she didn't hear the words. His voice made a soft murmur to the loud thunder of her heart, and the heavy bellows of her breath. She thought that she would be able to breathe, if she made it outside. The darkness was all around her, and within her. She was made of darkness now. She pictured herself as a creature of night, with darkness and the studded night sky all over her arms and her legs. I want to be dead, she thought, and she stumbled towards the dim moonlight that showed the entrance to the dragon temple.
Denai was following her; she still could not understand the words that he spoke. She wished that she had still the slim leather book; she had hidden it away in the forest, when Delmar had been unconscious. She had not wanted him to read anymore of the book, and she wanted to study it herself. She had thought that she would have settled her house by now, but things, she told herself wildly, kept happening. Stop happening, things, she shouted in her mind, and tried to laugh. She stumbled out into the moonlight, and half-fell down the steps. Denai put his hands on her arms, and guided her around the corner of the street.
She could not see where she was walking to.
"I'm going to help Delmar," she mumbled, but she couldn't feel if the sounds made it out of her mouth. Her tongue was dry. Denai had put an arm around her; he led her to the door of the oblong house, and knocked gently on the door. Ajalia thought that the knocking sound was the loudest thing she had ever heard; she tried to move away from the door, but she fell down against Denai. He half-caught her, but she slid to the ground.
Card opened the door, and his hair made a soft halo behind his face, in the light from within the house. Ajalia heard Denai speaking to Card. She told herself that Card's daughter would be somewhere in the house. She closed her eyes, and tried to go to sleep. She was sitting on the ground when she felt a heavy pair of arms wrap around her waist. She thought that she must be over someone's shoulder. She wished she had her horse. I was all right, she told herself, before this, when I had my horse. She tried to stand up, but she was folded in half over Card's shoulder, and her legs only wiggled faintly. Ajalia pressed her eyes closed, and imagined herself reaching deep below the earth. Her hands slipped away from the cords of power there; her fingers seemed to close with all the force of a baby's grasp. She could not take power from the earth; she felt within herself a kind of deep-seated loathing, a hatred of her life, that stood between herself and the magic in the earth.
I hate magic, she told herself, and then she reminded herself that Delmar was in his father's house, hungry. A surge of violent determination came through her muscles. With a growl like a dragon under water, Ajalia heaved her body away from the grasping arms that held her.
"I'm fine," she gasped, and pushed away from Card. He tightened his grip over her waist, and she took a deep breath, and wiggled limply out from under his arm, like a slithering fish.
"Hey," Card sai
d, but Ajalia had slipped out of the front door, and away into the shadows. Card and Denai were left standing in the darkness, looking after her.
Ajalia moved through the streets, back towards the Thief Lord's house. She had a kind of furious racing sensation bursting through her diaphragm; she told herself that she would pay for this exertion later, and she did not care. She blinked away thick clouds of blurry fog that obscured her sight, and went around another corner. She pressed her back against a wall, and breathed slowly through her nose. She reminded herself that Delmar was hungry; a sinking feeling in her back made her feel faint. Card, she remembered, was somewhere behind her, and Denai. She moved through the night on feet like padding shadows, and when she came to the Thief Lord's house, she went around the corner to the side of the building, where a narrow gap lay just between the white house and the neighboring wall.
The temples in Slavithe were free-standing buildings, but the Thief Lord's house was the only other structure Ajalia had encountered that was all alone in the street. A gap of some inches lay on either side of the building, and the windows and balconies burgeoned out from the white walls like pursed lips.
Ajalia pressed her back hard against the wall of the Thief Lord's house, and put her feet on the structure opposite. She began to walk gradually up the wall, squeezing her back against the Thief Lord's house. Her breath felt like fire; she spread her arms and legs, and crept up towards the upper windows. Her whole body was jammed into the narrow space; she felt as though she were inching upward in laborious increments. An angry slash of puffed, raised flesh began to grow along the sides of her shoulders where she slid along the rocks.
Soon she was several feet above the ground. Her clothes made gentle scraping noises against the white stone. I'll get Delmar out, Ajalia told herself. A little bit of her heart was crumbling away; she was beginning to forget her master's desires in the fervor of her hope for Delmar's recovery from the clutches of his family. I'll kill his father, she thought, and inched upwards. I'll stab him to the heart, Ajalia told herself, and crammed her hips under a window ledge. The windows of the Thief Lord's house were dark and still; this window had a curtain of rough brown cloth. She continued to climb; she had a feeling that Delmar would be somewhere annoyingly hard to reach. She pushed shaking arms against the stone, and worked her legs up the wall. She sat squeezed into the gap, and rested for a moment. Ajalia was beginning to feel dizzy. She looked down, and saw that she was only a little above the first floor. She pressed her fists against the white stone, and worked her way upwards.
I'm going to die up here, Ajalia told herself. She would have smiled, but her cheeks felt like cracked eggs. A long trail of white dust was all along her leggings. She was getting scrapes and bruises all over her knees and shoulders. The space between the houses was narrow; Ajalia told herself to be grateful that the gap was so small; she told herself that if it was any larger, she would tumble straight down and break herself on the stony ground. She heaved herself up, and up. When she thought she could not go any farther, she bit on the inside of her cheeks, and elbowed her way another bit up the wall.
The window on the second story came into view. Ajalia hooked her arm over the window, and heaved herself into the opening. The curtains in this window were gauzy and pale; she pushed her feet against the wall opposite. Her legs felt weak and floppy; she kicked herself into the room, and fell with a loud thump onto the floor.
She tried to remember how dangerous it was to invade a man's house in the middle of the night, but her body was so tired that she lay back on the cold floor with her eyes closed, and rested. I am so tired, she told herself, but her body ached with fear. She heaved herself onto her elbows and knees, and raised her body up. I should really open my eyes, Ajalia told herself, but she didn't. She breathed in and out, and reminded herself that Delmar was hungry. I don't care if he's hungry, she added angrily, but she opened her eyes, and got up on her feet. The room spun around her; she put her hand out, and rested it on an ornate table that lay to her right. She looked about; the room was dark. Ajalia waited for her eyes to adjust. She could see the dim outline of a bed in one corner, and other dark shapes along the walls. The room was empty of life, for which she was grateful. She sat down for a moment against the wall.
Ajalia thought again of her brother; he was looming within her heart, and she could not push him away. Delmar is hungry, she told herself, as if it were a phrase that would jolt her into life again. She kept thinking of Gabriel, her younger brother, and of the way his teeth flashed in the sunlight. He had stayed in the house most of the time, with their mother. Ajalia pushed her palms against her eyes, and opened her mouth. I am breathing in and out, she told herself firmly. No one is here except for me, she added. I'm going to find Delmar, she told herself, and got shakily to her feet. This is not as bad for Delmar as it was for me, she thought, as she looked around the dim room. The window opened out onto a blank stretch of wall; no moonlight came into the room, which was full of vague shapes, and harsh shadows. Ajalia went to the bed, and put a hand into the coverlet. The blanket was stuffed with some soft downy material; it gave beneath her touch like clouds.
The Eastern masters lived clean and simple lives. They sold fine and luxurious silks to all the lands in Leopath, but their own living quarters were bare of comfort. Ajalia traced her finger along the soft down of the blanket, and wondered if Delmar slept on such a bed as this.
She went to the door of the room, and pushed it a little ajar. The hall outside was dark, but a gleam of sliver lamplight shone down at the end. She went out into the hall, and went away from the light. At the corner of the hall she found a staircase, and began to climb. She went up the stairs until she came to a patch of moonlight from a skylight. She stopped, and looked up at the square of light. It had been cut into a ceiling some way above her head. Ajalia continued up the stairs. Her legs felt heavy as logs, and her feet scraped uneasily over the steps. She came to the final landing, and put her hands on her knees. She was determined not to fall over in the Thief Lord's house. It was a miracle, she told herself, that she had not been caught in the state she was in now. She passed up the final stretch of stairs and entered the upper hall. There were three doors here that had lights within. She crept to the first door, and put her ear against the metal surface. She could hear easily what passed inside; the metal hid very little sound. Ajalia would have thought that the Thief Lord would have cared about secrecy; she guessed that he must conduct his delicate business out of the house, if he had delicate business. She began to think that the room on the second floor that she had entered had been Delmar's mother's room. She wondered if couples in Slavithe slept apart, as her parents had done.
Within the room, a drawn-out conversation was passing between a youthful male voice, and the Thief Lord. Ajalia thought that it must have been the Thief Lord's youngest son. Coren's voice was high and agitated.
"And she sent me home," Coren complained loudly.
"Go to bed," the Thief Lord said in a distracted voice.
"But she was going to have a fight, I think, because she was starting to get that look she gets, before she says mean things, and then the other girl told her that Wall was sleeping with Yelin."
"Wall can't sleep with anyone, he's too young," the Thief Lord said. Ajalia heard the shuffle of papers.
"But I told you," Coren said, with exaggerated patience, "I saw him kissing Yelin last week."
"Yelin kisses everyone," the Thief Lord said. Ajalia could just hear the brief scratch of a pen; she pictured the Thief Lord sitting at a desk, and writing out documents.
"Does Yelin kiss you?" Coren demanded loudly. Ajalia moved down the hall towards the second door.
"Of course not," she heard the Thief Lord say, before the sounds of their talk died down into murmurs behind the distant door. Ajalia went to the second door; she could hear nothing at this door. She went to the third door; this door held the quiet sounds of many bodies breathing; she thought that this room would be the servant's
quarters. The buildings in Slavithe were oddly constructed; whereas in the East, and in the wetlands, slaves slept in separate quarters, the rooms in Slavithe houses were laid out in long rectangles, and servants slept wherever there was room for them. The living areas were oddly mixed in the tall white houses. Ajalia went back to the second door, and eased it open. Her hand crept towards the knife on her back, just in case.
SIMON
She saw the inside of the room, and then she saw Delmar. He was sitting on a pile of blankets in one corner, and he had a dry sandwich in one hand. Ajalia went towards him, and took it out of his grip. He clutched it back with fingers like iron, and looked away from her.
"Give that back," he whispered. His ears were a brilliant red.
"Is this your room?" Ajalia asked in a whisper. Delmar nodded.
"Don't tell anyone," he said in a low voice. Ajalia saw him glance to the side, at the place where lay the room where his brother and father sat together. Ajalia looked about the room; it looked like a bare prison cell; there were a few heaps of clothes, and a pile of children's books.
"What is this place?" Ajalia demanded.
"Shh!" Delmar hissed. He half rose out of the nest of blankets, and put a hand on her arm. "You have to be quiet, or they'll hear," he told her. "They don't know that I'm here."
"Come on," Ajalia said, stepping back towards the door. He looked at her with eyes that were bloodshot and sad.
"I can't," he whispered.
"Why not?" she asked. He had a helpless, hopeless look in his eyes.
"I don't know," he whimpered, and sat back down. Ajalia took him by the shoulder and dragged at him.
"Get up," she hissed.
"I can't," he said. He began to cry.
"Why not?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said. Ajalia studied him, and then walked back into the hall. She heard a frantic scrambling, and then Delmar joined her in the darkness. His new clothes looked oddly disheveled, as though they had been tainted by the neglect in the house. "I stole food, like you said," he whispered. Ajalia held up a hand for silence. She led him down the hall towards the first door, and stopped just outside. She raised her fist, and pounded on the metal door. Delmar let out a yelp, and tried to flee. Ajalia had expected this; her fingers shot out, and locked around his wrist. He could have pulled away from her, but a strange weakness was through all his limbs; Ajalia recognized the look in his face; she had felt that way, once, about her father. She pounded on the door again. Delmar writhed under her grasp.