by Victor Poole
They moved some distance back into the trees. When they had gone far through the forest, angling towards the farmlands, and moving parallel to the road, the obnoxious cries of the metheros died gradually away. Ajalia kept her eyes on the ground; the horse, now that the sounds were lessened, pricked his ears forward a little.
"I don't understand," Delmar said quietly. "They've never screamed at me before."
"Your mother is showing through," Ajalia said. She had not meant to say this, but her words slipped out before she thought to stop herself. She looked at Delmar, and saw that he was standing and gazing out at the trees. They were in a wide place in the trees where the grass was tamer, and the undergrowth limited itself to clinging vines, and occasional clusters of flowered brush. The trees here had black trunks, and soft white leaves.
"I don't know what you mean by that," Delmar told her. He turned and looked at Ajalia, and she saw that his eyes were haunted. "They've never attacked me."
"You don't look like yourself," Ajalia said.
"That doesn't make any sense," Delmar said. Ajalia tied the black horse to a tree, and laid her bag down on the ground.
"Sit down," she told Delmar. He smiled at her, and shook his head.
"I'm fine," he said. He sounded world-weary.
"Sit down," she said firmly.
"Why?" he asked.
"I can see a piece of your mother inside of you," Ajalia said. Delmar blinked, and smiled again.
"That's impossible," he said.
"I can," Ajalia insisted. "I saw what she was like, before I killed her." Delmar giggled.
"I forgot," he said, merriment in his eyes, and his forehead slick with sweat. "I keep forgetting she's dead. That's funny."
"Delmar, sit down," Ajalia said. He shook his head.
"I'm fine," he said. Ajalia stared at him. Her heart was beginning to thud unpleasantly hard.
"I keep thinking," she told him, "that you will be different this time, that you'll be reasonable. But you're never going to be reasonable, are you?" she asked. Delmar looked away from her. "I've been a fool," Ajalia said. "Good luck getting your books back without me," she added, and went to the horse. She heard a thump.
"I'm sitting down," Delmar said loudly. She laughed, and turned to look at him.
"You are ridiculous," she told him. "Seriously, all I have to do is say that I'm leaving, and suddenly you cooperate?"
"Yes," Delmar said. His eyes were shining in a particular way that made her feel as though he were silently rooting for her to win in this invisible war between her and his mother's control of him.
"I'm going to hurt you," Ajalia warned him. He nodded agreeably.
"I don't care," he said. "You can tear my heart all to pieces."
"No," she said, "I'm going to take that part of your mother out. I think I'm going to hurt you."
"Oh," he said. His forehead creased. He still had bits of fruit and chewed leaves stuck to his cheeks. His clothes were wet in places, and there were sharp, round bite marks on his neck and shoulder. Ajalia wanted to laugh.
"This is ridiculous," she told him. "You are ridiculous. I don't know why I'm helping you." Delmar watched her. He was like a great puppy with shining eyes. She laughed out loud, and he watched her hungrily. "I regret this already," she told him, and went to him. She stood behind where he sat, and put her hand on his back. She looked at the colored lights, and then she hissed, and backed away.
"What?" Delmar asked.
"You're helping her," Ajalia said. "You're letting her stay."
"I am not," Delmar said loudly. "I've never done that." Ajalia's mind was filled with images of the deep rents that scored through Delmar's soul; she had thought, before, that they were where Delmar had tried to cut out his mother's soul.
"What are all the scratch marks?" Ajalia demanded. She went and stood beside the horse. She felt as though she had touched a poisonous thing when her hand had rested against Delmar's back.
"I don't know what you mean," Delmar said.
"You're on your own," Ajalia said. She untied the black horse, and scrambled onto his back. Delmar stood up, and stood with his hands at his sides.
"You were going to help me," he said, and his face was twisted in a strange smile.
"I don't think your mother's dead at all," Ajalia said. "I think she left a piece of herself in you, and now she's still here."
"That's crazy," Delmar said, but Ajalia didn't like the way his eyes slid over her face, and focused on the trees beside her. "My mother is probably dead now," Delmar said, and he sounded like a child reciting a rhyme. Ajalia looked at him, and she could not explain to herself why she could not abandon him. She imagined him wandering through the trees, or standing idly in the streets of Slavithe. She felt as though she were trying to leave a swaddled infant alone in the woods.
"Walk with me," she said, and her voice was terse.
"You wanted to know about Beryl," Delmar said. He stood up, and brushed some of the filth from his clothes.
"My clothes look funny," he said.
"If by funny, you mean disgusting," Ajalia said. Delmar's eyes snapped up to her, and she thought she saw a flicker of life behind his eyes.
"That was mean," he said.
"You're pathetic," she said. His cheeks began to glow red, and his eyes flashed.
"You're being very rude to me," he protested.
"How does someone get the white brand?" Ajalia asked. Delmar walked slowly along beside the black horse. Ajalia rode the horse, and the horse picked his way lazily through the long grass, his nose thrust down into the greenery. Ajalia let the loop of rope hang loose around the black horse's neck; she threaded her fingers through the horse's mane. "How do you get the white brand?" she asked again.
"I don't know," Delmar mumbled, but he sounded as if he did know. Ajalia waited, and then asked again. "You're born with it," Delmar snapped. His tone was angry, and abrupt. "If you don't have the white brand," Delmar said, "you can't touch the magic, or see it." He took a deep breath, and scrubbed at his cheeks with his sleeve. "You can't do any magic, unless you have it."
"You said anyone could reach the magic," Ajalia said, "if they believed in it."
"Well, they could," Delmar said, "I think, if they really tried." He walked through the grass. "It doesn't seem fair," he added.
"But they can't see the magic," Ajalia prompted, "unless they have the white brand?"
Delmar nodded reluctantly. "All the books say so," he said, "and the people say so, too."
"What people?" Ajalia asked. He glanced at her, and she examined the ripped-up state of his soul.
"People like those men," he said, "that you met on the road to Talbos."
"What about the witches?" Ajalia asked. "Why can they touch the magic?" Delmar winced, and she saw him gingerly touching the bite marks in his neck. He glanced up at her, and made a face.
"Because they're evil?" he suggested.
"That doesn't make any sense," Ajalia told him. "And I asked about Ocher, not Beryl." She had not decided where she was going yet; she imagined herself picking her way gradually through the whole length of the forest for days, and she smiled.
"What are you smiling about?" Delmar demanded. Ajalia looked inside of him, and saw that opaque slice of his mother nestled deep against his spine. The piece of white made her skin crawl.
"My mother couldn't do that to me," Ajalia said suddenly.
"Do what?" Delmar asked peevishly. Ajalia watched the early dawn light filter through the trees, and she congratulated herself on her patience thus far. I am being extremely patient with Delmar, Ajalia told herself. She imagined the coursing lights below the ground, and brought one of them up into the horse's legs. The black horse snorted violently, and half-reared. Ajalia laughed, and clung to the arched black neck.
"What did you do?" Delmar asked. He had paused in his walk, and was eyeing the horse suspiciously. The black horse fell with a crash back to the earth; his front hooves thudded heavily into the grass. "
Why is he doing that?" Delmar demanded. He stepped back from the horse, who was thrusting his forefeet up and down into the ground, and tossing his mane.
"My mother couldn't infest me like that," Ajalia said, her legs clasped tightly around the black horse.
"What did you do to that horse?" Delmar repeated. Ajalia laughed at him, and urged the horse forward. The black horse cavorted like a yearling, bending through the trees with a suppleness and a responsiveness to the rope that brought deep satisfaction to Ajalia's heart.
"Tell me about Ocher," Ajalia said with a laugh, turning the black horse so that he carved sideways through the open spaces.
"Are you doing magic on that animal?" Delmar demanded. He looked indignant.
"Why does Ocher want me?" Ajalia asked. "And if the witches are evil, how can they be pure?"
"I don't want to explain any of this to you," Delmar said.
"Because I won't play along with your feelings?" Ajalia asked. Delmar's face turned bright red. "And you're lying to me," she added. "And you're protecting your mother. And," she said, sitting more deeply into the horse's back, and drawing on the rope, "you're trying to pretend that I'm the problem here." The black horse drew his neck down until his chin bumped against his chest. His hooves worked slowly up and down as he pranced in place.
"Stop showing off!" Delmar half-shouted.
"He's happy," Ajalia told him.
"Well, he shouldn't be," Delmar muttered. Ajalia laughed, and Delmar glowered at her. "If I told you the truth about Ocher," he said, "you wouldn't be in such a good mood anymore."
"Oh, good," Ajalia said. "Tell me." Delmar narrowed his eyes, and frowned.
"I don't want to tell you," he said mutinously. Ajalia laughed, and turned the horse into the trees. "Wait!" Delmar said. "I'll tell you things if you stay here."
"No, you won't," Ajalia said. "You'll string me along with half-truths. You've been lying to me the entire time I've known you. You knew your mother wanted to eat my soul. You knew she would want to collect me and my face, when you first saw me in the woods. That's why you followed me. Your mother is a witch, isn't she?" Ajalia asked. "That's why she had all that crusted white inside of her. Bain told me that your mother helped to push his body away from his soul," she added. "That proves she's a witch."
THE END OF LILLETH
Delmar's face had turned deathly white. His mouth opened and closed with the helpless regularity of a gasping fish. Ajalia was turned on the back of the horse, ready to gallop away. She watched Delmar's face contort, and then, with a slight crackle, she saw Delmar's mother's face rise up from the white piece, and float up in front of Delmar's features.
"Ha!" Ajalia hissed, and she slung herself down from the black horse.
"You're being unreasonable," Delmar said, and over his voice was laid the sound of Lilleth.
"I knew it!" Ajalia breathed, and she drew her knife.
"You can't hurt me," said the strange double voice that emanated out of Delmar. The Thief Lord's wife sounded faint, and her words creaked. "Only Delmar can hurt me, and he never will," Delmar said, and Ajalia saw his mother's smile crease his cheeks.
"I'm going to rip you out of that boy," Ajalia said in the thick Eastern tongue, "and then I'm going to grind you to powder."
Delmar was standing still, his face slick with sweat, and his hands opening and closing helplessly at his sides. Ajalia saw his eyes, and she saw that he was locked away in a secret place within his own mind. She had dropped the bag to the ground, and the black horse wandered into the trees, nuzzling through the grass for tender shoots. Ajalia circled slowly around Delmar, and watched his eyes. She saw that Lilleth could not see her clearly. The shadow face of Delmar's mother focused its eyes slowly at the place where Ajalia had stood before she had started to walk around Delmar. Ajalia dashed at Delmar, and knocked him to the ground. She twisted his arms behind his back, and put her knee on one of his wrists.
"You cannot drive me out!" Delmar's voice wheezed. He coughed, and a glimmer of his mother's sound came through. "Delmar belongs to me!" his mother said clearly, and the Thief Lord's wife laughed in triumph.
Ajalia lifted her knife, and pictured long strings of gold and green lifting up from beneath the ground. She imagined the strings of vibrant light wrapping all around the knife, until the blade and hilt were shining like clothed stars. She dropped her real knife in the long grasses, and grasped the hilt of the green and gold weapon of light. The blade of the green and gold knife shimmered in a long, sharp line. She flipped the green and gold knife over, and placed the blade over Delmar's back, where the thick shard of opaque white gleamed. The piece of Delmar's mother shone up at Ajalia like an evil thing; it seemed to radiate a kind of malignant anti-light.
"That's disgusting," Ajalia muttered, and she thrust the blade deep into Delmar's back. The light sank easily through his clothes, which began at once to smoke and hiss. Delmar stiffened, and then gradually relaxed. Ajalia could feel his breath coming shallowly in and out of his lungs. She pressed her free hand down on his hip, and cut all around the ugly white piece with the sharp edge of the light blade.
The shadow face that hovered just above Delmar's features twisted to see Ajalia; she ignored the Thief Lord's wife, and thrust the glowing weapon deeply under the white piece. A strange keening cry began to float out from between the shadow mask's lips; the sound was soft, and weak.
"No, no, no," Delmar's mother crooned, as though she were singing a lullaby. "No, you cannot take me out, this is impossible. I made sure of Delmar," she said, her voice sepulchral and hoarse, "I made sure," she repeated, and Ajalia could smell something incredibly rotten coming out from the thick slab of white. She angled the green and gold knife so that the blank white shard moved up in Delmar; when the white thing protruded a little out of Delmar, she lifted her free hand, and touched the ground.
I'll burn that evil hag into less than dust, Ajalia told herself, and she drew golden light up all around her fingers, and up her wrist. When her skin was coated with golden light, she sent her mind deeper into the earth, until she found a vein of throbbing blackness. She pulled at the blackness, and made a black shield for her face, and a glove for her shimmering hand. She lifted her blackened hand, and grasped the chunk of white. Delmar started to scream when she pulled the white shard a little out of his skin. The shard sent out horrible tiny roots that sank through Delmar's whole being; Ajalia could feel the white piece sinking down again, attempting to settle into Delmar's soul. She angled the green and gold knife, and cut all around the blank white piece again. She tore it out of Delmar. Ajalia threw it aside in the grass, and stood up.
With a hiss, Lilleth's face disappeared. Ajalia went to the hunk of white, and looked down at it.
"Delmar, come here," Ajalia called. Delmar whimpered, and she heard him curl down a little toward the ground. She stalked to him, and gripped him hard by the shoulder. "Stand up," she commanded, and half-lifted him to his feet. She guided him to the white chunk, and pointed at it. "Get the light out of the earth," she directed, "and kill it."
Delmar blinked; his face was coated with thick sweat, and a stench like decaying rot was coming off of his body.
"Where is it?" he gasped, looking anywhere but at the ugly white shard.
"You can see it," Ajalia snapped. "Don't lie to me." Delmar glanced at her, and she saw that she was right. He raised a hand, and a thick bolt of blue light spun down from the sky into his fist.
"And what will I do when I've killed her?" Delmar demanded, his face glowing with the light from the sky that shuddered and flickered on his hand. "Kill myself?" he demanded.
"She's evil," Ajalia told him. "She's a witch. She's destroyed you and fed on you. She stole all your power. Fight back."
"I can't," Delmar said, and Ajalia saw that he meant to kill her, instead. She saw in his face that he saw her now as an enemy; she saw that he felt trapped. She grinned, and let her mind go out towards the black horse. She was glad now that she had played the light from
the earth into the black horse's legs. When she thought of the horse coming back to her, he came, his hooves thudding heavily through the earth. Ajalia saw Delmar start at the crushing sound of her approaching horse; she saw his eyes flash with fear.
"Get that animal away from me," Delmar said.
"What did your mother tell you?" Ajalia asked, reaching out, and taking the horse's dangling rope into her hand. "Did she tell you that you were evil, and that she was keeping you from hurting anyone?" Delmar tried to make a scornful face, but his mouth and his jaw showed Ajalia that she was right. "She lied to you, Delmar," Ajalia said. "She told you that because she wanted magic."
"My mother wasn't a witch," Delmar insisted.
"How do you think the witches get power?" Ajalia shouted at him. "None of them have any power. They use people like you and me to get access. They find someone with the white brand, and they trap them and trick them. Bain had a white brand, didn't he?" she demanded. Delmar's eyes flickered away from her, and his mouth pressed down. "Didn't he?" Ajalia shouted.
"Yes," Delmar admitted.
"He tried to kill me, too," Ajalia said. "Just like you're trying to kill me."
"I am not trying to kill you!" Delmar said, his face aghast.
"Oh, really," Ajalia said, throwing her hands into the air. "Really, you're not going to throw that blue light at me, and try to rip my face off for your mother's collection?" She glared at Delmar, and the black horse pricked his ears at the Thief Lord's son. The black horse nudged Ajalia gently, as if to say, I'll trample the young man for you, if you like. Ajalia scratched at her horse's cheek, and smiled.
"What are you smiling about, you horrible girl?" Delmar shrilled. She felt powerful and invulnerable; she felt massive relief. She knew that she had finally gotten to the bottom of the mystery, of why Delmar had both attracted and repelled her for so long. She could see that he was good, underneath, and that his mother had twisted him into a weapon against himself. She saw that Delmar was frightened, and angry. Ajalia laughed, because she no longer felt crazy; she understood now why Delmar got to her in the way he did.