by Victor Poole
"I will keep my own horse," Ajalia told the slave in the Eastern tongue, and the slave grinned at her. She saw his eyes go to her goatskin saddle, and she grinned back. Ajalia was notorious among the slaves for being particular about her tack.
"It is good to see you again, Ajalia," the slave said in the Eastern tongue, bobbing his head at her, and glancing curiously at Delmar in his finery. Ajalia was sure that gossip was rife among the Eastern slaves who had been left behind, and she wondered a little what they knew of the happenings in Slavithe. The slave led the three horses away, and the guard, who had watched this exchange narrowly, turned his face again to Ajalia, who still sat astride her horse. The rain was drizzling down in a mist, and making a gradual wetness grow against her face and clothes. Delmar seemed impervious to the rain, though the light drizzle made his clothes, which were made of Slavithe fabric in deep rich reds and oranges, stand out vividly.
"You come from a far land," the guard said. "You speak another tongue among yourselves."
"Yes, I am from the East," Ajalia said. The guard's mouth turned down at the corners, and his fellow guards murmured among themselves.
"It is said among us that a destroying figure will come from the East," the guard told Ajalia boldly. "This is a sky angel. A foreign person, who brings destruction, and upset to our land."
"A woman, or a person?" Ajalia asked. She was not combative in any way; her tone was friendly, and open. The guard watched her suspiciously, as if suspecting her of a trick.
"A woman is an angel," the guard said. "She comes from the East, and after she teaches the falcon to live, and gives him wings, she destroys the land."
"I am no sky angel, then," Ajalia said. "I was not born in the East."
"But you speak that other language, and you come from there," the guard argued.
"But I was born far away from the East," Ajalia said, "and as you can see, I have no wings."
"Oh, for goodness sake," Delmar said sourly. "You can fly. They all know you can fly." Ajalia looked around at Delmar. He met her eyes, and he looked embarrassed. "Ocher's been telling everyone about you hovering around in the dragon temple hall, for almost a whole week now," Delmar said. "He claims he didn't see the black dragon, or wings, but he said you flew."
"But don't you know that all of my boys can fly now?" Ajalia asked, looking back to the guard. The guard was staring at her.
"I think you should go back to Slavithe," he said finally. "Wreck your havoc there." Ajalia looked at the guard. Ajalia looked at Delmar. She looked at the rest of the guards, who were growing more sullen by the minute. The rain fell harder.
"I guess my idea wouldn't work then," she said finally. "I was thinking that I could pass your witch-test, and then maybe you wouldn't dislike me so much." The guard stared at her, and then he began to laugh. "What?" Ajalia asked. The other guards were all looking at her, some with disbelief, and others with outright glee in their faces. "What did I do?" Ajalia asked Delmar. He shrugged, and waved a hand helplessly in the air.
"Carry on," Delmar said, sounding both amused and frustrated.
"What?" Ajalia asked the guards, who glanced at each other. Another guard, who looked younger than the others, looked up at her.
"It's embarrassing," the guard said, "and public."
"Okay," Ajalia said. "So have you decided I'm not a threat anymore?" The guards looked at each other again. They seemed to have relaxed a little.
"No," the younger guard admitted. "You're probably still dangerous, but now we think you might be foolish."
"Or stupid?" Ajalia asked.
"Well," the younger guard said, in a voice that told Ajalia that yes, all of the gathered guards now thought she was mentally deficient. She looked around at them all.
"Does that mean you're going to follow me around suspiciously now, or were you planning on killing me when my back was turned?" she asked. "If I do the witch test, will you stop thinking I'm an angel?" The guards looked at each other, and grinned sheepishly.
"The test will not prove whether you are an angel or not," another guard said. "And we can't kill you."
"Why not?" Ajalia asked. She looked at Delmar, who looked very much as though she was causing him discomfort. Ajalia told herself that Delmar seemed to have thought that this journey to Talbos would mean that she was going to hold herself to some unstated standard of dignity. She thought he was acting as though she was supposed to follow his lead, but as he was not actually doing anything about the disgruntled guards, she would rather do something herself. "Are all of you happy with getting wet?" she asked the guards. "Because we could talk about all of this inside the house."
The guards glanced uneasily at each other.
"They don't want to go into the house of foreigners," Delmar told Ajalia. Ajalia laughed. "What are you laughing at?" Delmar asked.
"I was not prepared at all for this," Ajalia said. "I thought you would be far more civilized than the people of Slavithe," she told the guards, "but I see now that your people are ignorant savages. I will go and speak to your king myself. I hope he has sense, where you have none. I'm going up the mountain to the palace," Ajalia told Delmar. "Would you like to come?"
"You can't go up the mountain without us," one of the guards said quickly. He glanced around at his fellows for support. Delmar, who was still looking a little unhappy, took Ajalia's proffered hand, and swung up behind her on the black horse.
"Then you'd better come along behind me," Ajalia told them, "and I hope you can move fast."
"We can't leave them behind," Delmar muttered to Ajalia.
"Speak clearly, Delmar," Ajalia said. "They are extremely uncivil, and you are in the right."
"We're in Talbos now," Delmar whispered, looking down at the disgruntled guards, who looked almost ready to drag Ajalia down from the horse.
"Yes," Ajalia said, "and you are the Thief Lord."
"The Thief Lord has no authority here," the first guard who had spoken to Ajalia said.
"My Thief Lord is the dead falcon," Ajalia told the guards. "He has arisen. I hope you remind yourself of the unity that will soon be between your peoples." The whole group of guards began to shuffle uneasily; Ajalia saw that she had touched on a sore point. "I am willing," she told the guards, "to make one more motion towards civility and reason. If you reject my offer, I will go with my Thief Lord to meet with your king, and I will let him know of the rude reception you have given us."
"No one sees the king until they are sent for," a guard said spitefully.
"Is this man the only fool among you?" Ajalia asked. She was gathering a large handful of magic from below the muddy road. The lights in Tablos seemed wilder, and more vigorous than the lights that ran in the ground in Slavithe. Ajalia wondered if this was because so many people did magic in Slavithe, or if the quality of the land was different here. She wondered if people did not do magic much, or at all, in Talbos. "Are any of the rest of you going to show any sense?" she asked, looking around at each of the guards. All but the youngest guard glowered at her, but Ajalia thought that the youngest man had a gleam of intelligence in his eyes.
"My brothers are full of superstition," this guard said, stepping forward towards her. "I will go with you to the king." The rest of the guards turned on him with angry outcries; Ajalia had been waiting for this. She had seen the gathering muscles in the guards' bodies, and the way their eyes began to grow hard. She thought that they felt threatened, and that they saw her as a challenge. This, Ajalia told herself, is why I don't like dealing with petty functionaries. She whipped lengths of strong magic from the earth around each of the guards' legs, leaving out only the young man, and she made them all stand still. The guards looked stunned, and then angry.
"Ajalia!" Delmar hissed. She looked over at him, and saw that he looked positively mortified. "You can't do things like that! Let go of them!"
"No," Ajalia said. She turned back to the youngest guard. "What is your name?" she asked. The other guards were shouting, and waving their
arms in the air. She had not attempted to control their arms or their spears, but she found that many of the guards had dropped their weapons in their shock. She told herself that they did not seem to be very dangerous guards.
The youngest guard went to the two guards who still clutched to their spears, and wrenched them out of their hands.
"I'm Fenn," the guard said, going to Ajalia, and holding out his hand. The other guards were shouting at Fenn, and spitting with rage. Delmar was frozen with shock behind Ajalia; he seemed to have gone into a kind of social terror. Ajalia was sure that he was almost too horrified to speak. She expected that he would berate her with a stream of words as soon as he had recovered from the political drama he seemed to think she was starting.
Fenn glanced up at Delmar, and then turned back to Ajalia.
"I'm sorry about the others," Fenn told Ajalia. Fenn glanced again at Delmar, and Ajalia thought that she could see what Fenn was thinking. Fenn saw that Delmar was changed, she thought, but that he still deferred to Ajalia in many things. She thought that the people of Talbos must be full of gossip about everything that was happening in Slavithe, and she suspected, from the look in Fenn's eyes, that many of those who had hoped for the rise of the dead falcon were now watching Delmar, to see if he would fulfill the prophecies their people believed in. She was sure, from what the guards had said about the sky angels, that there were myriad differences between the legends followed by the Slavithe and Talbos peoples.
"Is there any message you would like me to convey to those inside the house?" Fenn asked Ajalia. His companions had petered out, and were glaring balefully at Ajalia. Some of the guards had crossed their arms over their chests; she thought that they looked like overgrown babies. As Fenn had finished speaking, the door to the house opened again, and Philas stepped out.
"I heard the shouting," Philas said to Delmar. Philas seemed as though he were avoiding speaking to Ajalia when Delmar was near; this was a new development, and Ajalia wondered if Philas was regretting his earlier listening in, and was trying to make up for it now. "Is there anything I can do?" Philas asked Delmar. Ajalia swallowed the words that rose up to her lips, and waited to see what Delmar would say.
"There's some trouble about Ajalia," Delmar told Philas. "I'm going to take her up to the palace, to explain her to my grandfather and uncle." Ajalia let out a snort. "Not that uncle," Delmar told her. "A different uncle, he manages the guards."
"Oh," Ajalia said. "Sorry for snorting, then."
"No problem," Delmar said politely. He seemed to have recovered some of his aplomb; Ajalia suspected that Philas was giving Delmar some motivation to appear like a competent leader, and Delmar seemed to have adjusted to the idea of going straight up to the palace, which Ajalia was glad about. She had not been looking forward to dragging a reluctant and protesting Delmar all the way up the mountain with her.
"Could you release these people, after we get a few minutes ahead?" Delmar asked Philas. Philas looked with distaste at the frozen legs of the guards. Ajalia had the sense that Philas did not approve of her methods. She got the distinct impression that Philas was telling himself that Fashel, if that young lady could work magic, would never perform such an uncouth act as immobilizing a group of guards.
"Sure," Philas said. "I wanted to show you the house," he told Ajalia shortly, in the Eastern tongue.
"I wanted to see the house," Ajalia replied, in the same language. "They're thinking about killing me. It will have to wait." Philas, when she said this, looked with renewed interest at the stuck legs of the guards.
"Did they actually try to hurt you?" Philas asked in the Eastern tongue.
"They lifted their spears, and told me to go home," Ajalia said. "I mean, they could have said something when I was still at the gate."
"Barbarians," Philas said, the old lines appearing for a moment around the edges of his mouth. He looked for a moment at Ajalia, and she saw a fragment of the old Philas, the Philas who had ridden into Slavithe at the end of the caravan, and had been, for a time, her friend.
"I don't think the king will have a problem with me," Ajalia told Philas in the Eastern tongue.
"Well," Philas said, speaking now in Slavithe. "I will wait to hear from you," he said to Delmar, and Delmar nodded.
"I will walk," Fenn said, and he led the way down the street. Ajalia looked one more time at the group of immobilized guards, who were being drizzled on in the open street, and she directed her horse to follow along behind Fenn.
"I know how to get to the palace," Delmar murmured in Ajalia's ear.
"He'll be a valuable ally," Ajalia told Delmar softly. "He's going to be promoted, and then we'll have someone important on our side."
"How do you know he'll be promoted?" Delmar asked.
"Because he's bringing the Thief Lord and the sky angel straight to the king, and he helped to rescue me from riotous and traitorous guards who wanted to throw me out of the city," Ajalia said quietly. She glanced back, but Delmar looked undecided.
"I think we've had too much good luck," Delmar told her. "I think something awful will happen." Ajalia sighed, but, she told herself, things could be a lot worse.
"Something awful already happened," she said. "I was expected some kind of political savvy, not a host of superstitious thugs." An offended silence emanated from Delmar. Ajalia's black horse caught up to Fenn, who looked up at Ajalia.
"I am sorry about my fellow guards," Fenn said to her. He glanced again at Delmar. "I think it is a good thing that you have come."
"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Why are you glad I have come? Or are you glad that Delmar has come?" Fenn looked as though he were thinking of what to say.
"Both," Fenn said. "It is said that sky angels bring death and destruction, but some things need to die."
"What do you think needs to die in Talbos?" Ajalia asked. Fenn looked up at her, and laughed.
"You have a very fine horse," Fenn said. Ajalia saw that the young guard meant to evade the question.
"I see that you do not want to answer, which tells me," Ajalia said, "that you have strong opinions on this matter."
"I do not know what you mean," Fenn said carefully.
"My horse is very nice," Ajalia agreed. Delmar was still very quiet behind her. "I'm sorry this happened," she told Delmar. "We could have kept your white horse."
"It's all right," Delmar said. "We'll just as soon be there as not, and another horse won't make it any better."
"What's wrong with you?" Ajalia asked, turning to look at Delmar. A sour expression was in his eyes, and he looked rather unhappy. Ajalia was vaguely reminded of the way he had looked when his mother or father had influenced him, and his face had gone blank. "Is it that man up in the palace?" she demanded, and Delmar avoided her eyes.
"Probably," he admitted. Ajalia settled her mouth into a firm line.
"Are you afraid of this Lerond person as well?" Ajalia asked Fenn. Fenn stopped walking entirely, and looked around the street, as if he were afraid of spies. The young guard's face had turned an ugly white color, and his eyes were strained. Ajalia looked about in the street. The rain was beginning to fall in more earnest now, and the horse was thoroughly soaked. The bits of Ajalia's saddle that were exposed to the wet were slick now, and Fenn's hair was plastering close against his skull.
"I do not know what it is like where you are from," Fenn said finally, "but here in Talbos, we do not speak in such a tone of those who live above."
"I see," Ajalia said, and her insides got all hard and clammy.
"I know that tone," Delmar said suddenly. "You're going to do something violent, aren't you?"
"I am not going to do anything violent," Ajalia said indignantly.
"Does she often do violent things?" Fenn asked anxiously. He sounded as though he was reevaluating the wisdom of going with Ajalia and Delmar up to the palace.
"Delmar," Ajalia said, "This Lerond person is clearly a heel. Do you want to go and hide in Slavithe until Lerond comes to harass us there,
or do you want to go up and see your grandfather now?"
"Well," Delmar said. Fenn had begun to walk again, seeing that Ajalia was not stopping, and he hurried to keep beside the black horse. Fenn's face was turned eagerly up to hear what they said; Ajalia thought that the young man had probably never been in the thick of something as exciting as the new Thief Lord and his paramour visiting the king of Talbos for the first time, and Fenn seemed determined to soak up every detail, both for the advancement of his career, and as a store of gossip for the future.
"To be perfectly honest," Ajalia told Delmar, "I will probably go with or without you, because I'm annoyed."
"Of course I'm coming with you," Delmar said. "I thought this trip would not be like this, though," he added.
"What are your trips usually like?" Fenn asked. Ajalia looked at the young man.
"Where else would we go on trips?" she asked Fenn. The young guard blushed, and said that he didn't know.
The road to the palace was long, and the rain fell more and more heavily as the morning grew into the afternoon. The sky was overcast with dark gray clouds that obscured the sun, and though it was only just past noon when they came up the final stretch of road that led towards the mountain palace, the overcast clouds made it seem like the evening.
Ajalia reflected on the long ride that this journey was, indeed, not what she had expected or wanted. She had envisioned a fairly peaceful and pleasant trip. She had looked forward to going to the house that Philas had taken, and looking around at the rooms and furnishings. She had wanted to have a long gossip with the other slaves about the trades they had had, and she had wanted to hear all the news about the caravan that had departed to the East, and the details of whatever drama had been brewing lately in the house. She had missed the bustle and chatter of the Eastern slaves, and her short talk with Philas had made her feel positively homesick for speaking in the Eastern tongue.
Leed had learned enough of the Eastern language to hold a conversation with her, but she had not yet found much time to spend with him on something that was, to her, an extra pleasure in life.