by Victor Poole
"Where's Delmar?" Ajalia asked, as soon as she saw Ocher.
"Don't break my house," Ocher snapped.
"The Thief Lord is on his way," Ajalia said. Ocher moved to close the door on her, but Ajalia slipped like a lick of fire under his arm, and looked around the room. Beryl, she had seen, was on the opposite side of the room, her large arms folded, and a look of pure mutiny on her face. Another man, and two young women, were clustered in the corner. These three were staring at Ajalia curiously. Another man with a surly expression, and dark eyes, was at the end of the room farthest from the door. Ajalia thought that this man must be Beryl's true husband.
"Does Ocher know?" Ajalia asked Beryl, before Ocher could grab her to shove her outside the room. Beryl's eyes were angry and glowering.
"Know what?" Beryl snapped. "Who is this?" Beryl asked Ocher, who was standing helplessly next to Ajalia, looking lost and nonplussed.
"I haven't told the Thief Lord you killed her," Ajalia told Beryl, "but I will when he gets here."
"Killed who?" the surly man snapped at once. Ocher spoke just after him, repeating the same question.
"The Thief Lord's wife," Ajalia said. "She's dead. You knew that already, and hid it from Ocher," she said to Beryl. Beryl's face betrayed her; Ajalia felt the shift that happened in Ocher's body just behind her. She turned to looked at him briefly, and saw that his face was ashen.
"Lilleth is not dead," the surly man said loudly. Ajalia put a hand on Ocher's arm, and the bearded man met her eyes.
"She's already married," Ajalia said in a low voice, nodding at Beryl, and the surly man. "I overheard them. They're using you as cover." Ajalia saw a crease begin to form between Ocher's eyes. She watched him look irresistibly up at his wife, and she saw the abject terror that flashed momentarily in Beryl's eyes. Ajalia smiled. "I'll let you sort that out, then," she said softly, and moved to the end of the room, where the surly man was standing. She had seen that there was a hollow in the wall behind the surly man. She stood and looked at the surly man; he looked determinedly past her, and his eyebrows twitched. Ajalia heard a muted argument swelling behind her; Ocher was trying to use a low voice, but Beryl's heated words were quickly making privacy impossible. Ajalia smiled again, and stepped past the surly man. The surly man backed up, and blocked her.
"Excuse me," Ajalia said.
"No," the surly man said. His eyes were fixed on Beryl's face. Ajalia looked at the surly man. She did not feel like fighting him. She walked back to Ocher, and inserted herself quietly into the argument.
"Pardon me," Ajalia said to Ocher, "but I'd like to extract Delmar, now."
"Fine," Ocher said, without looking up. Ocher's face was flushed; his eyes were bright. Ajalia thought that he was embarrassed.
"Fine is one thing," Ajalia said, and she pointed to the surly man, "but he won't move." Ocher glanced up impatiently at the surly man, and grimaced. "I don't mean to be all up in your business," Ajalia said rationally, "but he's having an affair with your wife."
"I am not!" Beryl shrilled. Something inside of Ajalia snapped. She had felt just as patient as she ever felt, but the sound of Beryl's strident and cresting voice tore something loose in Ajalia's heart. She imagined the ropes of colored light down in the earth beneath the house. She imagined cords of red and gold light, and she pictured herself picking them up in each of her hands. Ajalia was angry; she did not want to take the time to see the lights within Beryl, and she shut out the images that trembled at the edge of her mind. She swept a cord of red through Beryl's chest, and she snapped the opposite cord of gold through the surly man. She did not know what exactly she was doing, but she was angry, and she wanted Delmar. Ajalia felt, without looking, with clumsy fingers of energy through the inner parts of both the surly man and Beryl, until she found matching round pieces of light. Beryl, though Ajalia did not look at her, felt somehow dark, and rotten. Ajalia felt as though she were touching something horrible. Angry words from Ocher, Beryl, and the surly man broke over Ajalia; she heard their voices, but she couldn't distinguish the words. With a feeling like pulling deep weeds up from the bottom of a lake, Ajalia wrenched the matching rounds of light out of Beryl and the surly man, and made them appear, spinning wildly, in the center of the room.
The loud words passed suddenly into silence. Ocher's silence was the loudest of all. Beryl's face metamorphosed into that of a ghost; her eyes were spread enormously wide, and her lips were parted. Ajalia did not turn to look at the surly man, but she listened with her shoulders.
"I don't want to hurt anyone," Ajalia said. Her voice wasn't shaking, but it was hoarse, and she thought she heard an echo behind her words. "I want Delmar, and I want him now," Ajalia said. She looked at Ocher, whose eyes were great, like saucers, and whose cheeks were pale. Ajalia turned towards the surly man, and saw that his face had made the greatest change of all. The surly man looked as though he had encountered a miracle. The surly man no longer looked angry, or even emotional. A kind of peaceful resignation had billowed out from under his neck; he looked almost limp.
"I'm sorry," the surly man said to Ajalia. His voice was entirely different now to what it had been before. His eyes flicked over towards Beryl, and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Delmar's through there," the man said to Ajalia, bowing out of her way, and gesturing into the hollow space. Ajalia stepped into the hollow, and saw that what looked like a shallow depression was actually a cunningly-made passage into a smaller room. She could just see Delmar huddled on a rough bench in one corner.
"Thank you," Ajalia said, and she let go of the spinning lights. With a pop that seemed to come from above and below, the glowing pieces of light that had appeared in the room vanished. Ajalia heard the people in the room take a collective breath as she ducked into the passage, and went to Delmar.
He looked up at her. She saw his eyes, and his mouth, open like a gash. He did not look alive.
"Hello," she said.
"You left me here," Delmar said. His voice was blank and squashed, but his eyes accused her. Ajalia's heart stiffened up. She had pitied him, until he had shown her that he pitied himself.
"Your father's on his way," she told him. She was standing just in front of him with her arms folded. She was itching with impatience; she could hear a faint murmur of voices in the outer room; she was not sure if Ocher would stop Beryl from attacking her. "We have to go now," Ajalia said.
"Why?" Delmar asked. He looked up at her, and his eyes were dry and clear. Ajalia's mouth hardened in anger.
"Look," she said in a clipped voice, "I don't want to help you anymore, but you're not exactly in a condition to leave behind."
"I don't need your help," Delmar muttered, looking down at the floor. Ajalia ignored what he had said.
"Your father is coming here," she said, "and if I don't kill him, he might kill you."
Delmar looked up at her, his face turned down in a frown. Ajalia saw that she had jostled him a little out of his funk.
"He won't kill me," Delmar said.
"He wants to," Ajalia said, "and he'll know about Beryl, now."
"What does Beryl have to do with anything?" Delmar complained. His voice was climbing; Ajalia saw that he had been settled into a sort of cozy martyrdom, and that her words were irritating him into action and thought. She saw that he was annoyed, and she smiled to herself, though her mouth remained in a severe line. Ajalia heard a slight press of cloth behind her; she turned, and saw that the surly man was leaning into the room, watching her.
"What do you want?" Ajalia asked the surly man. He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture.
"They're talking about you, out here," the surly man said.
"Come on," Ajalia snapped at Delmar, and she went out again.
Ocher was standing with his back against the big wooden door. His hand was closed tight over the lock and handle; his other hand was outstretched towards Beryl, with whom he was holding an argument that was swiftly gaining in noise and vehemence. Another time,
Ajalia would have bided her time, and listened to the words they said to each other. She would have dredged meaning out of their phrases, and gathered up pieces of things she could hide in her heart, and mull over. Today, she was impatient. She went to Ocher, and inserted herself between the bearded man and his erstwhile wife. Beryl's face was red and taut; Ajalia saw that the broad woman's shoulders were tensed, and she guessed that Beryl was attempting to flee.
"I have promised Ocher a wife," Ajalia told Beryl.
"I want you," Ocher put in, in impatient tones.
"Yes, but Delmar says he wants me," Ajalia reminded him. Ocher's mouth closed down, and his eyes flashed. He looked at Ajalia, and then at Delmar, who had poked his head just a little out of the inner room. Delmar looked like a disheveled child who has snuck out of bed.
"Well, I say he can't have you," Ocher said loudly.
"Who is this girl?" Beryl shrilled, her mouth stretched wide with displeasure.
"I'm the new Thief Lord's little bird," Ajalia told Beryl. The man and the two young women, who had been standing quietly in the corner, gasped audibly. "Do they need to be here?" Ajalia asked Ocher. The bearded man jerked his head at the three, and opened the door a little. Reluctantly, the man and the two young women left the room. Beryl tried to follow them, but Ocher put a thick arm out to bar her way.
"Not you," Ocher said in a hard voice. He closed the door behind the three who left, and leaned against the wood. "Explain to me," Ocher said to Ajalia.
"What do you want?" Ajalia asked him.
"Well, I want you to marry me," Ocher said.
"She's mine," Delmar said loudly. Ajalia glanced with annoyance at Delmar, who was still hanging partway out of the door, as though he were waiting to be shouted at.
"Who are you?" Ajalia asked the surly man. "Do you have a name?"
"Sure," the surly man said. He, alone, seemed quite cheerful in the secret room. Ajalia was listening to the outside. She had not been able to see any lights from within the darkened house when she had looked for the hidden door, but she was sure the Thief Lord would hear their voices if he came near to the door. She thought of her horse, and wished she had been able to take him somewhere safer. She didn't trust the Thief Lord, or his shifting, happy eyes.
"Do we need to hide in here?" Ajalia asked shortly. Ocher glanced at Beryl, and then looked at the surly man.
"They thought Delmar would try to run," Ocher said hesitantly.
"Is there a way out?" Ajalia asked him. Beryl was watching her with narrowed eyes. "Through that passage in there," Ajalia asked again, when she saw that Ocher did not follow her thought. "Can you get out of the house?"
"No," Ocher said. "It's only for holding."
"Put Beryl there, and let's get out of this room," Ajalia said. She felt enormously angry just now, and she wasn't sure why. She told herself to calm down, but her heart shivered with rage, and chills of feverish temper ran up and down her arms. The surly man moved towards Beryl, who raised her hands and began to berate Ocher loudly. Ajalia stepped past Ocher, and opened the wooden door. She went out into the darkened room, and pulled the door shut behind her. She didn't mind if the others followed her or not; she had half a mind to leave Delmar behind, and to go and get her black horse, and ride away into Talbos tonight.
She could not remember a time when she had felt so impatient as she did now. She wanted to bite things, and shout at someone until her voice was ragged. She went through the room in a circle until she came near the door again; she paused for a moment, and listened. She could hear nothing at all. She smiled, and walked again through the furniture of the darkened room. Scraps of moonlight were falling through the curtained window; the material of the curtains was filmy, and let the light through in filtered patches. Ajalia heard footsteps in the house; she was sure that the Thief Lord would appear soon. She began to look for a lamp.
The wooden door opened, and the surly man slipped out and shut the door behind him. Ajalia heard pieces of shouting when the door was opened. She heard Beryl's voice loudest of all.
"It keeps the sound in fairly well," the surly man said to Ajalia, dropping the heavy curtain over the door. He moved to where Ajalia stood, and lit a pair of lamps.
"What is your name?" Ajalia asked him.
"You don't need to worry about me," the surly man said. He sounded positively cheerful now. Ajalia was not sure why, but she trusted him. He felt like an honest man to her.
"I was sure you were all kinds of sinister," she told him. "I overheard you and Beryl, plotting."
"How did you know the Thief Lord's wife was dead?" the man asked Ajalia. She shrugged. Now that the lamps were lit, she could see a narrow shadow, just behind the hall. She was sure that one of the servant girls who had hidden in the secret room was listening there. The surly man followed her glance. "They won't talk," he said. "They're used to a great deal, here."
"Name?" Ajalia asked. The shadow in the hall grew thicker; she saw now that the Thief Lord was lurking there. The surly man followed her gaze "I can see you there," she called loudly. She saw the shadow freeze, and then slowly detach itself from the deeper shadows beyond. Simon, the Thief Lord, stepped out into the room.
"I saw your horse," the Thief Lord said. Ajalia sat down on the edge of an arm chair, and propped her feet on the seat. She was perched on the thick arm of the chair, and she wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Let us have a long talk," Ajalia said. "I want to know your name," she said towards the surly man, "and I want to know what you are doing in Slavithe," she said to the Thief Lord. The Thief Lord let out a disbelieving guffaw, and the surly man opened his mouth.
"He's here for power," the surly man said.
"Do you know his name?" Ajalia asked the Thief Lord. Irritation was pumping through her veins like a heady drug; she wanted to hit someone hard on the side of the head.
"His name is none of your concern," the Thief Lord said. Ajalia stood abruptly, and went to the secret room. The surly man moved to stop her, but she flung aside the curtain, and pulled the door open. Light and noise streamed out; Beryl was still shouting.
"Ocher," Ajalia called over the noise. Delmar appeared in the open door, and snuck out into the room. He saw his father, and pretended that he hadn't. Ajalia ignored Delmar, and put her face farther into the opening the wooden door made. "Hey," she shouted, "Ocher!"
Ocher appeared from the smaller inner room. He looked harried and disheveled; his eyes were strained.
"What?" he asked, in a stretched voice.
"Come out here, please," Ajalia said. Ocher glanced at the inner room, where it looked as though he had boxed Beryl in, as though she were a rambunctious piece of livestock. Ocher looked back at Ajalia, and then glanced once more at the inner room, where Beryl was bellowing. Ajalia could hear the traces of a strange dialect growing through the passion in Beryl's voice. Ajalia shut out the words; she did not want to hear Beryl.
"Are you coming?" Ajalia asked, annoyance building in her chest. Ocher nodded, and stepped swiftly towards the door. Ajalia moved out of the way for him, and he slipped out and closed the door behind him. Ajalia saw Beryl surge out of the inner chamber, before the heavy wooden door closed. Ocher swiftly moved an external lock into place, and let the curtain fall over the pounding that came faintly from within the hidden room.
Ocher looked around at the room; he saw the Thief Lord standing near the doorway across the way, and Delmar lurking in a corner. The surly man had come to push Ajalia away from the door, but he stood now, his arm half-outstretched, and his face twisted in a mask of doubt.
"It's all right, Rane," Ocher said, his eyes drooping wearily at the closed door. "She'll stay there, for now."
"Did you know they were together?" Ajalia asked Ocher. He glanced swiftly at her, and then at the Thief Lord.
"You know that my Thief Lord is right there, don't you?" Ocher asked Ajalia pointedly.
"Oh, I know," Ajalia said. "I just don't care. Your father's name is Simon," she told
Delmar. Delmar looked up at her, and then back down at the ground. "Well," Ajalia said to the whole room. "Isn't this fun?"
The Thief Lord sidled closer to the center of the room, and began to speak.
"No one wants to hear from you right now," Ajalia told him. Blood was rushing in violent streams below her jaw; she thought that she was going to explode quite suddenly. She told herself that she was glad Bain was not here, at any rate. She glanced at the window, where the curtains lay over the moonlight, and grimaced at the darkness. She wanted it to be daylight again. The nights in Slavithe, she thought, seemed to her to last three times as long as the days.
"Well," Rane said, and looked at Ocher. "I guess I'll be going, then."
"Don't go anywhere," Ajalia snapped. Rane looked at her, and almost laughed. Delmar looked at Rane, and Ajalia thought she saw a kind of pity in Delmar's eyes. "What is that look for?" she demanded of Delmar. He glanced at her, and then at his father.
"Well," Delmar said, in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper, "he doesn't know what you're like."
Ajalia stared at Delmar, and thought about burning the house down. Stone, she reflected, would not take fire well.
"Your wife is dead," Ajalia told the Thief Lord. The Thief Lord jumped, as though he had been jolted with a great shock. His face went red, and then white, and he glared around the room with widened eyes. "Would you like to know who killed her?" Ajalia asked. Simon stared at her.
"You can go home now," Ocher murmured to Rane, but Rane no longer looked interested in leaving the room. Ajalia saw Rane's lips moving gently; she told herself that Rane was going to try to stop her from speaking, and she shifted her weight, feeling the solid knife that lay along her spine move in its case.
"You know Beryl?" Ajalia asked the Thief Lord. The Thief Lord nodded slowly, and glanced at the curtain, behind which lay the secret room. "She's killed your wife tonight," Ajalia said. Delmar looked sharply up at Ajalia, but said nothing. Rane took a step forward, and then stopped. Ocher looked like a statue.