by Victor Poole
Ajalia suddenly remembered how she had pulled the boy Coren against her body, to shield his eyes from the violence of the Slavithe priests in the dragon temple hall, and she remembered vividly how Coren had pressed his hands around her, like a child clinging to its mother. She did not think that Coren had been stealing from her then, but she was not sure. She remembered also how the blue mixed magic had leaked from her fingers into Coren's body, and how the deep scars and marks in his skin had begun to heal.
A turning of anger moved in her gut, and Ajalia glared at the figures that Savage held in the air.
"When the girl hugged her mother, or her father, she would take a little of their light. As the girl grew older, her father would draw away from these caresses, as he would associate them with a feeling of being drained. The girl's mother knew what the girl did, and encouraged her to feed on herself, and on servants, and on other children."
Savage turned his fingers, and the figure of the child, though it was cut off from the light in the air and the earth, grew bright inside with the light that she had taken from the adult figure.
"When the child is old enough," Savage said, "the mother, if she is like your grandmother was, will offer her to the great black dragon, and the dragon will eat away the lights here, and here." Savage pointed with his fingers at the head of the figure, and at the feet. "Once the dragon has eaten away these lights," Savage said, "they do not grow back. They can be replaced by another who is skilled in magic, but they will never grow back on their own. The edges of the soul become hardened, and crusty. The lights are cut off."
"So my mother was offered to the great black dragon, and she was cut off," Delmar said.
"No," Savage said.
"But you said that the child has to be eaten by the dragon," Delmar said.
"Your mother was a lost one, Ajalia says," Savage said. "She was not offered to the dragon by her mother. Your mother found the black dragons on her own, when she was a very small child, and she played with the dragons as though they were puppies." The adult figure vanished above Savage's palm.
Savage called up a scrap of purple light, and made it into the form of a snake. The purple snake was nicer-looking than the worms that Ajalia had destroyed. Ajalia guessed that Savage had never seen the black dragons himself, and that he had heard old stories about the black beasts. The figure of the child bent down to the ground, and the purple snake brought its head up towards the face of the girl. The snake's mouth met the mouth of the child figure, and much of the colored light that the child figure had stolen passed down into the mouth of the snake. When the child figure stood up again, two long pieces of purple were clasped in her hands.
"An exchange takes place," Savage said, sounding weary. "A lost one is a child who has betrayed humankind; it is a child who preys on the weak, and the kind, and takes light from anyone she can deceive into exposing their souls."
Savage made a new adult figure appear above his hand, and the purple snake coiled, below the ground, around the place where the child figure and the adult figure stood. The figure of the child walked boldly up to the figure of the adult, and jammed one of the purple shafts she had taken from the snake into the adult figure's heart. The adult figure dropped to one knee, clasping at its heart, and a great stream of colored lights spilled into the figure of the girl. Scraps of the spilled lights fell to the ground, and the purple snake licked them all up into its mouth.
Ajalia turned, and looked at Delmar. Delmar's face was twisted in a look of disgust, and of anger.
"I have seen her do this," Delmar said quietly. He blinked, and his mouth grew grim, and still. "I have seen her trick people into exposing themselves, and I have seen the look in her eyes when she has succeeded in breaking someone open. I have seen her do this," Delmar said again, looking at Ajalia anxiously, as though he was afraid she would tell him he was wrong. "But how was she different to a witch?" Delmar asked. Ajalia saw that Delmar was very near tears; she could feel the emotion that was trembling in his hand, which was still resting in hers. "Witches eat souls," Delmar said, clearing his throat, and shaking himself a little. "If witches eat souls, and my mother stole lights from inside others, how is she different? Why aren't all of the witches lost?"
"Witches are cut off, but not because they cannot connect," Savage said. The adult figure vanished, and a figure of a witch, with a bright cord of purple extending from her chest, appeared in its stead. "Witches have learned to feed on the souls of others. A lost one steals light, not souls. A witch takes the soul out of a person."
"But I thought that souls were the same thing as the lights," Delmar said, frowning. Ajalia, who had thought that same thing, listened to hear what Savage would say. Savage looked at them both, and smiled.
"I see that you, neither of you, know what you are," Savage said. Mop, who had been following the story magic closely with his own ball of blue light, let the energy sink back into the earth, and the boy sighed, and stretched. He sat down next to the black horse, and the horse nudged him softly with his nose. Savage glanced at the boy, and Ajalia thought that Savage was thinking about the boy's ability to keep secrets.
"I think Mop can keep anything you say to himself," Ajalia said, and Savage looked at her, and nodded.
"You have heard people call Ajalia the sky angel," Savage told Delmar, "and you have heard them call Delmar the fallen falcon," he told Ajalia.
"They've said he is the dead falcon," Ajalia said. Savage nodded.
"They say so in Slavithe," Savage said. "The true saying is the fallen falcon, because the sky angel who was torn down from the sky took with her the magic of the falcon's horse, and the falcon could never again travel up to the sky."
Ajalia thought about this.
"Who was the first sky angel?" Ajalia asked. Savage shook his head.
"No one knows," he said. "It does not matter much, for our story." Ajalia felt a little offended at this. She wanted to ask Savage if she mattered, or if she was merely a useful instrument to the rise of the new falcon. Savage seemed to see Ajalia's eyes cloud over, and he turned towards her. "Have I said something to offend you, mistress?" Savage asked.
"Why doesn't it matter who she was?" Ajalia asked. "Don't you know who the first falcon was?" Savage shook his head, and smiled.
"No one knows," Savage said. "We speak of them by these appellations, but their names are lost forever. We have no records of them. Their names were expunged by those who came after."
"By the people like Simon," Ajalia said grimly.
"Yes," Savage said, "like him, and like the king of Talbos, here. These men, and witches who had sought power, have obscured from us the truth of those who came before. We have passed down to each other the story magic, and we know a little."
"So the sky angel had made the falcon's horse fly," Ajalia said, "and when someone killed her, the wings fell off."
"It is a crude way to say it," Savage said, "but yes, that is so."
"You'll have to put wings on your own horse, then," Ajalia told Delmar, "when we fly to the East."
"Are we going East?" Savage asked, looking quite interested. Ajalia smiled at Savage's assumption that he would come with them, and Savage ignored her smile. "You are heroic beings," Savage told them both. "You are the kinds of people that legends are made of. You are forming the stories now that will be told in five hundred years." Savage looked at Delmar, and then turned to Ajalia. "I think that you see what Delmar will be," Savage said, "but you are one of the same kind. You do not see it," Savage said, "and I suppose I cannot fault you for that. You are both gentle, and humble, and it is good that you are so. If you were not good inside, you would be other than you are, and what you are is quite wonderful."
Ajalia looked at Delmar, who kept his eyes fixed steadily on Savage.
"What if I don't believe you?" Delmar asked.
"I have told you this because you tell me that souls are the same as the lights below the earth," Savage told them. "You both see within others a reflection of you
rselves. The majority of people are not like you. You are not like them. You are different." Delmar looked at Ajalia, and she saw a frown creasing his brow.
"I think we're just the same as everyone else," Ajalia told Savage. "And you're not going to change my mind about it," she added. "You could do the same as we have done, if you wanted to."
"I could not," Savage told her seriously.
"You could," Ajalia said firmly.
"She's right," Delmar said. "Anyone can do what I do." Savage frowned at them both. Finally, he put his free hand up in defeat.
"I will not argue with heroes," Savage said with a smile. "Perhaps you have come to lead us all into a higher way of living. I am, perhaps, wrong. But I will finish what I meant to say. Here is a soul," Savage said, and he made an adult figure appear in his palm, and filled it with three colors that swirled together. "The soul came with the body into the world, and when the body dies, the soul will sink down into the earth. The soul is attached to the body, and is tied to it. The lights in the earth are not tied to any body." Savage made the lights above his palm swirl in a river of color. "They can be picked up by anyone. All of the souls are touched by the light, and all of the light desires to join into the soul."
"I think they're the same," Delmar said stubbornly, "but tell me again about how witches are different to lost ones." Savage looked frustrated, but he did as Delmar asked.
"A witch remains human," Savage said. "She eats the souls of others, and it is a personal attack. She collects personalities, and retains the souls of her victims here, along the chain she keeps in her heart." Savage made the image of a witch, with a victim dangling behind her on a purple string. "When the victim's body gathers more light from the earth and sky," Savage said, "the witch pays a visit, and takes the light that the body has put into the place where the soul should be."
"I told you the lights are the same as the soul," Delmar said. "I think they're the same." Ajalia saw Savage restrain himself with an effort.
"If the victim dies, as occasionally happens," Savage told Delmar, "then the soul of the victim begins to collect lights, in place of the body. The soul lives on, because it was not in the body when the body died."
Ajalia thought of Bain, and of how the boy's body had apparently been burned away by witches, leaving his soul intact.
"Your mother, as a lost one," Savage said, "did not collect souls. She lost her own soul when she was very young. As an adult, she did not know what a soul was, and would not realize that a soul was a thing to collect. She never had her soul, when she was old enough to feel it, or see it. She could not distinguish," Savage added with an edge of irritation in his voice, "between the lights of a soul, and the lights in the earth and sky."
"Why did she lose her soul?" Ajalia asked. Savage glanced at her; she saw that the former priest was growing impatient, and she told herself that he did not know as much about souls as he thought he did. He seemed slightly flustered, as if he was afraid they would ask too many questions, and then discover that he was unable to explain himself adequately. Or perhaps, Ajalia thought, our questions are silly to him.
"The soul of a child draws in colors from the earth and sky," Savage said. "As a baby, and then as a toddler and small child, the body gathers lights, and when the child's colors solidify, when they are a little younger than Mop is now, their soul finishes coming in. But a lost one, by that time, has eaten away their own lights, and they have no soul left. There is no connection to the lights in the earth or sky, and when the soul would normally finish growing in, nothing happens. There is no place for the lights to get in, and the lights are repelled from the flesh of such a child. Your mother grew hungry, and she could only satiate the constant emptiness within her by feeding on the energy of others. She ate at their souls, or ate their inner lights, and she did not distinguish between the two."
Ajalia remembered the first day she had met Lilleth, and how the tall woman's eyes had seemed cold and empty to her; she remembered the curiously bland look in Delmar's mother's whole face, and how her smile had not matched up with her eyes.
"So his mother tried to appear the same as everyone else," Ajalia said. Savage closed up his hand, and the lights vanished.
"Yes," Savage said. "She learned, as she grew, that others were not like her. She was not bound to the black dragons, because to her, they were merely the suppliers of tools she could use to get greater amounts of light from others. The true witches," Savage said, "worship the black dragon, and feed pieces of their victims to him. The priests in Slavithe," Savage added, his mouth turning with disgust, "worship the mate of the black dragon, the female, and they feed themselves to her. They believe they will gain power this way."
"Do they?" Ajalia asked.
"No," Savage said, "but they create puckers in the earth, and they repel the light from all those they touch."
Ajalia remembered how ashamed Ullar had been to admit to Bain's father becoming a priest.
"You will have to do something about the priests in your land," Savage told Delmar seriously, and Delmar sighed, and looked down at the small forest in his hand. Ajalia was still holding her hand below Delmar's; Delmar seemed to have relaxed a little, and his breath was no longer strained.
"What else does Delmar need to know?" Ajalia asked Savage. Savage looked at the small scene of gold and bright-colored light above Delmar's hand.
"Now he must choose to fight the dragons," Savage said.
"I already destroyed the rest of the dragons," Delmar said, closing his hand, and standing up. Savage stood up as well.
"But you have not admitted to the struggle between good and evil," Savage contended. "You see it still as an accident, that your grandfather, the king of Talbos, worked in evil ways, and that your father and mother attempted to sacrifice you to the mouths of the black dragons."
"My father didn't do that," Delmar said. Savage's nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.
"You will not speak of that which you do not know," Savage hissed. "You know nothing of what your father was, or of what he did before you were born."
Savage looked quite wild. Ajalia stood up, and she wondered if she would have to insert herself between Delmar and her new bodyguard. Delmar was watching Savage closely, and his body was very still.
"Tell me," Delmar commanded, and Ajalia remembered that Delmar was going to be king. She continually forgot, and she was reminded of how often she had been caught off guard in Slavithe, by Delmar acting in a commanding fashion. She was so used to Delmar being utterly open to her, and exposed, that she had to shift her mind to remember that, to everyone but her, Delmar was in charge, and rightfully so.
Savage glared at Delmar, and then turned quietly to Ajalia.
"I will remain calmer," Savage said carefully, "if I address my remarks to you."
"I don't want you to remain calm," Delmar said forcefully. "I want to know the truth, and as your king, I command you."
Savage's teeth bared themselves, and his lip turned in a snarl.
"I have attempted to be civil," Savage told Delmar. "I will ask you to remember this, when I say what I will say."
"I will keep in mind your attempt," Delmar said drily. Ajalia wanted to pat them both on the arm, soothingly, and tell them to play nice, but she did not do so.
"When your father lived in Talbos, he was crown prince," Savage spat. "I am a priest. She does not know the order of the priesthood. Do you?" Savage asked Delmar, and his voice was quite rough.
"I do," Delmar said. "You may explain to my wife."
It was the second time that Delmar had said out loud that he thought of Ajalia as his wife, and Ajalia again felt a flurry of comfortable feelings. She found that she liked it when Delmar referred to her as his wife. She wanted him to say that more. She began to think about how soon they could get married, so that everyone in the whole city, and world, would be able to say "Delmar's wife," or "the king's wife." She did not know why the word "wife" was affecting her so, but she felt all sorts
of satisfied and clinging feelings when Delmar said it. Maybe, she thought, it was the tone of voice that he used, which was altogether possessive and confident. Philas, she thought with comfortable satisfaction, had tried to claim her once, and she had wanted to punch him very hard in the nose. Ajalia felt a desire to do something rather different to Delmar, when he did it.
"The priests are meant to teach the children of our city the traditions of our fathers," Savage said to Ajalia. "We are the enforcing guard. Magic is our province, and we are tasked with the finding and punishment of witches. We are not as lenient here," Savage added, "as you are in Slavithe."
Ajalia reflected that Savage had been tied up in a room in the palace, and had not heard any of the gossip about the recent purge in Slavithe. She wondered how he had heard of the blue wall of magic, when he seemed unaware of so many other pieces of news.
"Some time ago," Savage told her, "I, and the priests you saw in the palace, lived openly in the city. We presided over the birth of babies, and healed those who were in danger of becoming lost. When we found a child who was hardened, and could not be reclaimed, we disposed of it."
"You killed children," Ajalia said.
"We disposed of the bodies of those people who had destroyed, of their own volition, their souls, and who preyed without conscience on the lives of others," Savage said in a tight voice. "But if you insist, then yes, we killed children."
Ajalia thought of asking how many children Savage had killed, but then she thought of Lilleth, and of the cold calculation in that woman's eyes, and she held her tongue.
"The late king of Talbos," Savage went on, his face flushing with anger, and his voice tight, and controlled, "when he had banished his eldest son, he began to encroach upon the province of the priests. Our purer brothers have ever lived in the hills, and the wild places," Savage said. "It is quieter there, and they can commune for us with the lights in the sky, and purify the hearts of those such as I."
"Killers," Ajalia said, without judgment.