by Victor Poole
"I'm not fool enough to chase after such a being," Rane told Ocher. Ocher blushed.
"She's just Ajalia," Ocher said, through taut lips. His beard trembled over his chin. "Not some mythical being," Ocher said defensively. Rane laughed again, and pointed at Ajalia.
"You stand your ground, child," Rane told Ajalia. "I'll back you against Ocher, any day."
"Why were you sent to watch the Thief Lord?" she asked again, and Rane's face turned somber.
"You don't need to know," Rane said.
"I highly doubt that," Ajalia said.
"Now that he's gone, it doesn't matter," Rane said. He glanced again at Ocher, and Ajalia grimaced.
"You said I wouldn't have to worry about you," she reminded Rane, "but you're acting an awful lot like a person about whom I would worry."
"Not with him here," Rane said in a low voice, and Ajalia saw that he was acutely uncomfortable speaking before Ocher. She leaned back in her chair, and met Ocher's eyes.
"Delmar will be gone for quite some time," Ajalia said to Ocher.
"Yes," Ocher said.
"Would you like to show me how interested and loyal you are?" Ajalia asked. Ocher glanced at Rane, and then nodded, a coarse smile on his cheeks.
"What do you mean?" Rane asked uneasily.
"You think Ocher is a great baby," Ajalia told Rane. "But I trust Ocher."
"She does," Ocher boasted, his voice a little louder than it needed to be. "She brought Delmar here, when she needed help."
"That's true," Ajalia told Rane. "And we have a previous agreement."
"We signed papers together," Ocher said. His voice was stronger, more sure. Ajalia saw that Ocher's back was beginning to smooth down again, and his feeling of displacement was easing away.
"I knew, when I told him about you," Ajalia told Rane, "that he would believe me." Ocher glanced at Ajalia, and then at Rane. "So," she said, "what makes you think that you hold some kind of corner on my trust?" Rane watched her, his face smooth, but Ajalia could sense that he was squirming inside. "Are we going to send you to Talbos, with your wife?" Ajalia asked Rane. "Or are you going to help me?"
"Why do you need help?" Rane asked quickly.
"If you think you can distract me," Ajalia said calmly, "please know that you will have to try much harder than that."
Ocher grinned, and rubbed his hands together.
"I told you she was special," Ocher told Rane. Ajalia looked at Ocher.
"Why were you talking to Rane about me?" she asked. Ocher blushed again.
"I wasn't," he said quietly.
"He was, too," Rane put in. "He told me he found a beautiful woman, and he was going to work on her." Ajalia laughed.
"You are forgiven, then," she told Ocher. "Now," she said to Rane, "why were you interested in the Thief Lord?"
Rane shifted uneasily in his seat.
"I don't like you anymore," he said.
"I told you," Ocher repeated softly, and Rane glanced angrily at the bearded man. Ajalia waited, but Rane's lips remained closed.
A TEMPORARY ARRANGEMENT
"We could throw him in with Beryl," Ajalia suggested to Ocher.
"No, wait," Rane said hurriedly, his eyes going to the source of the muffled banging. "I'll tell you what I was here for." Ajalia sat back, and waited. She wondered if the servants of Ocher were likely to talk, and if so, how many citizens of Slavithe already knew that their Thief Lord was dead. She had replaced her knife in its sheath, and she was sure that Delmar could get himself safely out of the city. She listened to the banging that Rane's wife made, and she waited for the Talbos agent to speak.
"I work for the king of Talbos," Rane said, suppressing a sigh. "Beryl was a handmaid to the princess; Beryl requested particularly to work with me."
"Why?" Ajalia asked. Rane glanced at her, and Ajalia saw annoyance in his eyes.
"Because I was handsomer then," he said peevishly, "and she was ambitious." Ajalia nodded, and Rane directed his gaze towards the floor. The stone, and part of the carpeting, was stained with copious lengths of blood that were black in the night. The lamplight fell over the floor, and cast great shadows; Ajalia moved restlessly in her chair, and thought of her horse.
"Simon was always a little wild," Rane said. "He didn't know of me. I used to work down in the mines, on surveillance. He knew most of the other security men, so the king chose me to go."
"And Beryl?" Ajalia asked. Rane glanced at her, and his face was pinched.
"She'd known him before," he said.
"Slept with him, you mean," Ajalia said. Ocher looked at her, and at Rane.
"Has everyone been with my wife?" he asked, outrage struggling to free itself from the clear laughter in his eyes.
"You don't seem very torn up about any of this," Ajalia pointed out. Ocher shrugged.
"She was never much of a wife," Ocher said.
"Agreed," Rane said fervently. "She came with me. The king marries his pairs, for security. He thinks people will be honorable to each other, if they're married."
"Are they?" Ajalia asked him. Rane looked up at her, and grinned.
"Maybe," he said. "I haven't been married to anyone else."
"I see," Ajalia said. "So you came as a team, and what was your purpose?"
"To make sure Simon never came home," Ocher said. "Isn't that it?" Rane glanced at the bearded man, and nodded.
"The king has control over his son-in-law; he's very decided on the current succession," Rane said.
"And you came here to make sure that Simon never went home, and challenged for the throne?" Ajalia asked.
"Essentially, yes," Rane said.
"Why did you know that?" Ajalia asked Ocher. Ocher shrugged.
"He's talked about going home, before," he said. "He's made plans. They never come to anything, but Beryl's always been strongly in favor of him staying here."
"And you?" she asked Ocher. He smiled.
"I didn't care either way," he said, and Ajalia was sure that he was lying.
"Now," Ajalia said, shifting again, and wishing she were outside, astride her black horse, "what is the way of succession in Slavithe?" Ocher and Rane looked at each other, and Ajalia's heart dropped. "I see," she said. "I'll be going, then." Ocher rose quickly to his feet.
"Why?" he asked.
"If it's as bad as that, I'll need more time," she said frankly.
"Time for what?" Rane asked. He came closer, and Ajalia felt a kind of danger grow beneath her stomach. The two men had been, up to this point, utterly docile, but she could see that they would turn on her, if they did not like what she said.
"Delmar is not in a state to take violent control of Slavithe," she told him. "He isn't ready."
"He'll have to be," Ocher said, glancing at Rane. "They'll go wild, if they haven't got a Thief Lord."
"No, they won't," Ajalia said. Rane's eyes tightened; she saw him watching her closely, and she kept her eyes on his face. She remembered the narrow blade that he had concealed in his clothes; she was sure he would move on her, if he thought she were a danger to his position. "You said I wouldn't have to worry about you," she told Rane. He smiled, but his smile was hard.
"I'm attached to my life as it is," he told her.
"Why does anything about your life need to change?" she asked him lightly.
"Because the Thief Lord is dead, and the city will be in upheaval," Rane said evenly. "If I'm lucky, I'll get across to Saroyan before the riots start."
"The Thief Lord is not dead," Ajalia said. "He took a journey to the East." Ocher laughed, and Rane stared at her in disbelief.
"You cannot be serious," Ocher told Ajalia, but Ajalia saw that his eyes were bright and quick. She saw that he wanted to believe in what she said.
"My master is planning a coup," Ajalia told them both. Rane watched her, his shoulders still, and his hands relaxed. Ajalia knew that kind of posture; it was the way she stood, before she attacked to kill. "Simon knew this," Ajalia told them both. "You know this," she
reminded Ocher.
"I didn't know you told the Thief Lord," Ocher admitted.
"Many people know by now," Ajalia said. "I'm sure Card, my agent, has helped the rumors along." She was sure this was not true, but she could see that Ocher and Rane believed her, and she needed to gain control of the situation before Rane snapped on her. Rane shifted a little to the side; Ajalia kept her body very still.
"Why would you tell him of this?" Rane asked. Ajalia looked at him; she saw the violence building below his legs. She slipped her knife into her palm, and Rane lifted his own blade, his body tensed.
"What are you doing?" Ocher hissed at Rane, but Rane made no reply.
"What is your plan?" Rane asked her, his voice low. Ajalia knew that he would try to kill her, if he did not like her reply. She watched his face, and saw that Rane was from a background like hers. She saw that he had left his childhood home, and found a master he trusted. She saw that he would kill, as she would, to protect what he had for himself.
"Your mother was violent, like mine," Ajalia said slowly. The color drained out of Rane's face, but his hand holding the blade raised up a little.
"Stop," Rane said clearly.
"My mother did not hurt me herself," Ajalia said clearly. "She taught my brother to beat me, and she watched."
Ajalia kept her eyes on Rane, and on the stance he was in. She saw him eyeing her, his face mistrustful, and she saw that the threads of anger that wound around his torso loosened a little.
"What was your father?" Rane asked. Ajalia laughed, and slipped her knife back into its sheath. Ocher looked back and forth between them, his eyebrows knotted into a quizzical sworl. Rane stepped closer to Ajalia, his blade ready, and she stood still.
"You should not trust me," Rane warned her. His breath moved against her cheek; she watched his eyes.
"You are like me," Ajalia told him. "You will not kill where there is no cause." Rane stared at her, and she looked back at him. She thought that she could see a whole panorama of his heart, stretched out in front of her. She saw him, inside and out, and she let him look straight into her eyes. When she was sure he would listen, she spoke again.
"I told the Thief Lord of my master's plans," Ajalia said. "He has seen a fraction of my master's wealth, and he has now journeyed East, to parley with my master. They will reach a settlement together, and then the Thief Lord will return to Slavithe. Or," Ajalia added, as the thought came to her, "he will remain in the East as an honored guest, and the position of Thief Lord will pass to his eldest son."
Ajalia looked at Ocher, and at Rane. Rane glanced at Ocher, who nodded.
"They'd buy that," Ocher admitted.
"What about the Thief Lord's wife?" Rane asked.
"Beryl," Ajalia said plainly, "is unpopular. Beryl is ugly. Beryl was overheard by both you," she said to Rane, "and Ocher, plotting to murder the Thief Lord's wife. The people can see her rave and bellow. She is an agent from the kingdom of Talbos, and a traitor."
"And me?" Rane asked Ajalia, his eyes sharp.
"You changed loyalties," she told him, "as I appear to have done."
Rane breathed in and out, very slowly. He looked at the bloodstains on the floor, and then he looked at Ocher.
"Are you agreeable to this?" Rane asked the bearded man.
"And you want to vanish?" Ocher asked Ajalia.
"I've got to get rid of Delmar," she told him. "He's going to be a wreck after this."
"For how long?" Rane demanded.
"You and I both saw and heard the Thief Lord giving charge to Ocher, to act in his place," Ajalia said. "I will vanish, as my fellow slaves have vanished, and guide the Thief Lord towards the East."
"But really, you'll be out somewhere in the wild, with Delmar," Rane said. Ajalia shrugged.
"Maybe he'll surprise me," she said, "but I think he'll suffer a breakdown after tonight."
"She's right," Ocher said. His face had become sober, and his eyes were thoughtful.
"And you'll be the Thief Lord," Ajalia said. "I'll see about Card working for you now."
"And the wife you promised me?" Ocher asked quickly. Ajalia grinned.
"I'll trade you that wife for the chance to be Thief Lord," she offered. Ocher's face broke into a wide grin, and he laughed.
"You're slippery," he told her, "but I'll take it."
"What about me?" Rane demanded. Ajalia looked at him, and then at Ocher.
"What do you want?" she asked Rane. Rane glanced at Ocher.
"Will you be my second-in-command?" Ocher asked him. "You can answer to the king, still, if you like. She's wanting a link between the cities," he added, tilting his chin at Ajalia.
"Is that true?" Rane asked her. Ajalia stepped closer to the door. She was thinking of Ocher's servants, the man and the two young women, and of the noises they were bound to have heard.
"My master tends to get what he wants," Ajalia said finally. "I doubt that Slavithe, alone, would stand long against his efforts."
"Whose side are you on?" Rane demanded, his eyes flashing.
"My own," Ajalia told him. Rane studied her face, and Ajalia saw him nod.
"Then you are with us," Rane said.
"If you are steady and true," Ajalia said, "I think we will coexist peacefully."
"And if you disagree with me?" Ocher asked. Ajalia laughed.
"I told Card," she said, "that three years was a long time. I do not think Delmar will be broken for that long."
"What if he is?" Ocher demanded. Ajalia went to the door, and stood with her hand against the frame.
"If a boy named Leed comes looking for me," she said to Rane, "will you tell him where I've gone?" Rane nodded, and Ajalia turned to Ocher. "Everything will change when you have Card," she told him. "Rane will keep you from listening to liars, and to Beryl." Ajalia remembered suddenly the premonition of evil that had come to her, when she had put the cord of light through Beryl. "Please don't let Beryl live," she said.
Ocher glanced uneasily at Rane, and then at the secret room, where the muffled pounding had turned to ominous silence.
"Surely Delmar could stay here to recover," Ocher suggested. Rane went to Ajalia, and took her hand.
"I will look after Ocher," Rane said quietly. "And I'll see to it that Beryl is slain."
"I will not be your ally when I return," Ajalia told him. She felt curiously close to Rane; she thought that she had found in him a fragmented reflection of herself.
"What are you saying?" Ocher demanded, moving closer. Rane glanced at Ocher, and smiled.
"The young lady wishes she could stay," Rane told him. Ocher grunted.
"Ajalia isn't a lady," Ocher said. "And she doesn't say things like that."
"Rane cannot stop himself from the cloak and dagger business, anymore than I can," Ajalia said to Ocher. "I might be back soon," she added lightly, and smiled at the bearded man.
"Goodbye," Rane said to Ajalia. She met Rane's eyes, and her mouth almost made a smile.
"I will see you," Ajalia told Ocher, "as soon as I return."
"You'd better," Ocher grumbled. Ajalia went out of the room, and she heard Rane and Ocher speaking in low voices as she passed down the hall and into the front passage. The house seemed lighter than it had when she had come in. She went out of the door, and untied her black horse from the post. The sky seemed clear to her, though it was still dark night; she felt as though she had loosed herself from a great burden. Ajalia told herself that she never had to come back. She told herself that she could take herself off to Talbos, or to the harbor at the end of the quarry road. She thought of taking a ship to Saroyan, and the momentary rush of freedom that had flooded her heart dissipated at once. She realized that she did not want to go to Saroyan. She had expected, when she had first come out of the house, and felt so free, that a great panorama of enjoyment would open out before her. She had anticipated, in the few seconds of release that she had felt, a long period of exploration and relaxation. She would have ridden her horse as far away f
rom Delmar as she could, and then she would have taken a very long nap. I could have been a hermit, she told herself, but the idea seemed flat. She found, to her chagrin, that she wanted Delmar. She mounted her horse, and put his nose towards the gate of the city, beyond which lay the forests and fields, and Delmar's hiding place.
The shackles of responsibility that had slipped momentarily from her shoulders came back in full force; she was acutely aware of the dragon temple that lay nearby, and of the servants that were sleeping inside. She thought of Card, and of Chad. I'm leaving all of them, she told herself, and she tried to feel guilty.
The black horse's hooves clipped sharply along the white road, and Ajalia watched the ornate carvings of the darkened buildings. She wondered where Delmar's brother Wall had ended the evening, and if he had drawn Yelin into hiding with him. She imagined what the market would look like in the morning, when the news of the Thief Lord's absence trickled through the stalls. She was sure that Ocher and Rane would have enough self-preservation to maintain the story of Simon's journey to the East.
As Ajalia neared the main road that ran from the gate to the market, she thought of Denai. She had almost mentioned the horse trader to Ocher, but refrained at the last moment. She had reflected that Denai, as an agent of Talbos, would more than likely want to preserve his cover. Rane, she knew, was aware of Denai's presence in Slavithe. She thought again of Leed, and wished that the boy had appeared again. She found that she missed Leed.
"Where are you going?" Bain demanded. Ajalia suppressed a sigh; she was not surprised to see the boy appear, but she had hoped to escape the city without his interference. She ignored Bain, and turned her horse into the main thoroughfare.
"Hey!" Bain shouted, chasing after her. "I wasn't trying to hurt you, before," he called up at her. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, and she thought of the day she had ridden into Slavithe, at the head of the Eastern caravan. She realized that she had not spoken to anyone in the language of her master for some time, and a pang of homesickness tore at her heart. She did not miss Lim, but she missed being surrounded by slaves who conducted themselves rationally. If she was honest with herself, she also missed the babble of their talk, and the songs they chanted when they worked. Ajalia had not sung, herself, for a very long time now. She thought of Philas, and Bain faded away from her notice. Philas, she thought, would have had ample time to get across to Saroyan. He would dissolve the caravan there, if he had any sense, and charge some one of the young men with the task of bearing the money back to their master in the East. Ajalia could think of three young male slaves from the caravan who would have been desperate for such a chance at promotion and ingratiation within their master's house. Philas would never go East again, and Ajalia was beginning to doubt if she would return East either. Yelin had been transferred to the Thief Lord's wife, who, Ajalia was sure, had died without arranging for Yelin's future. An Eastern slave whose master died without papers was a freed slave. Lim was dead, and if Philas stayed the same as he had been since Ajalia had known him, he would not exert himself to transport all the slaves from the caravan home, only to be met with disgrace and shame. She was sure that Philas would settle in Saroyan somewhere, and with Ajalia's disappearance, any of the ambitious slaves in the caravan would know that to return East with the profits of the caravan would result in immediate promotion and favor. Ajalia was the face-bearing slave no more; she thought it likely that Barat would volunteer for such a journey, in the hopes of taking her place.