by Victor Poole
"Why would I think you were a fool?" Ajalia asked. Delmar grinned at her.
"You asked me a long time ago if I believed in magic," Delmar told her, "and I said that I didn't. I do believe in the things I can do, but I don't believe in magic the way people in Talbos believe in magic."
"You mean, you don't believe in a sky god," Ajalia said.
"Well," Delmar said. "I think it is likely that there are people who live in the sky, but I do not think that their king is a god."
Ajalia mulled over this for a few moments. She fixed her attention on the needle between her fingers, and she watched the long seam grow along the side of the disassembled gown. She thought of the day in the forest outside Slavithe, when Delmar had told her about the golden lights, and the witches, and she remembered how she had thought for a moment that he was mad.
"I don't think there are people who live on clouds," Ajalia said finally. Delmar shrugged.
"I don't mind if you believe me," Delmar said. "I just don't want you to think that I'm crazy." Ajalia thought about this.
"Well," she said, "do you have reasons to think that there is a kingdom in the sky, aside from the stories? How do you know that people didn't just make up the kingdom to explain how the first sky angel could fly?"
"Because of magic like the magic that I did on the mountain in Talbos," Delmar said quietly. Ajalia looked at him.
"What kind of magic did you do on the mountain in Talbos?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked at her steadily.
"Have you gone outside lately?" he asked finally.
"No," Ajalia said. "I've been sewing for a few days."
"Come outside with me," Delmar suggested, "and you will see." Ajalia paused, the needle in her hand poised over the garment she was sewing.
"If I go outside," Ajalia said slowly, "I don't think that I will ever finish sewing these clothes." Delmar thought about this. "I think if I step foot outside this house, I will be drawn into another adventure with you," Ajalia said. "Can I finish repairing these things? I promised your aunts I would do this."
Delmar laughed, and turned back to the seam that Ajalia had shown him.
"I will help you, then," Delmar told her.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF TALBOS
"Tell me about the mountain," Ajalia suggested. 'Tell me how it looks now."
"No," Delmar said. He was smiling widely now, as if he had a delicious secret, and he meant to enjoy keeping it for as long as he could. "I want to see your face when you see it," he explained, and he turned back to his seam. "How long do you think it will take us to finish all this?" he asked.
"That depends," Ajalia said.
"On what?" Delmar asked.
"On things," Ajalia said. Delmar blinked at her. He looked confused.
"On what things?" he asked. Ajalia smiled at him.
"It depends on whether or not you want to figure out how to sew with magic," she said. Delmar stared at her, and then a grin began to slide over his cheeks.
"That sounds fun," he admitted.
"But first," Ajalia said, "tell me about the sky angel stories."
"But I want to play with magic with you," Delmar said. Ajalia glanced at him, and saw that he was eager to show off in front of her.
"Then tell me the very efficient and condensed version," she told him. Delmar's lips worked back and forth, and then he finished the seam.
"What do I do now?" Delmar asked. Ajalia took the piece of fabric from him, and tied off the seam.
"Now you tell me stories," Ajalia told him, and she began, swiftly, to sew. Delmar watched her for a moment, and Ajalia thought she could hear him gathering together his thoughts.
"It started with Bakroth, and with Bakroth's wife," Delmar said. "Not many people in Slavithe know anything at all about Bakroth, and here in Talbos they try never to speak of him." Ajalia was glad now that she had not asked Maren about Bakroth founding Talbos.
"Maren told me that Talbos wasn't founded by Bakroth," Ajalia said. Her fingers flew down the seam, and she turned the garment, and finished a hidden knot. She turned the dress, and threaded her needle again.
"You're fast at that," Delmar said, watching her hands.
"Thank you," Ajalia said.
"Did my aunt actually say Bakroth's name?" Delmar asked, sounding impressed.
"No," Ajalia said. "She said that Talbos was founded by a man named Talbos, and that her father was named after that man."
"Maren is really my great aunt," Delmar told Ajalia. "Bakroth had a daughter, and one of his servants ran off with her. Their first child was called Talbos, and when he was a man, he built the palace against the black mountain. Bakroth and his family lived down near the sea, before Bakroth was hunted down, and slain."
"And Jerome killed Bakroth," Ajalia said. She felt mildly irritated at the convoluted way she kept learning about these things. "Does everyone know this?" she added.
"No," Delmar said. "I have borrowed many old books from my father. Not only those books of corrupt magic," Delmar added. "I've read the records that my father inherited from Tree, and the oldest ones give the truth about Bakroth and his brother Jerome. Most of the people believe that Bakroth was a villain, and a wastrel. They are taught by the priests that Bakroth brought the two black dragons into Slavithe."
"How would he have done that?" Ajalia asked.
"Well, he didn't," Delmar said, "but someone did, and Jerome tried to make everyone hate Bakroth." Ajalia thought about this. "I don't know exactly how all of it happened," Delmar said, "but the records are very clear. Bakroth led the slaves to this area of the coast. His wife helped him. Jerome came along because he was family, and he did not cause trouble on the journey. There were many hardships, and Bakroth gained the favor of the sky gods."
"You said he had built the oasis," Ajalia said.
"That is one of the stories, yes," Delmar said, waving his hands, "but there is a lot more than that. They had all kinds of adventures, but the important part, for what I am telling you now, is that they reached this area, and everyone was going to die."
"Because they were starving?" Ajalia asked.
"Yes, and there was no water here. They came near to the ocean, and they could see the water. They had been promised a fruitful land, and a land full of fresh springs. Bakroth had seen visions, and he had told the slaves where they were going. When they came here, and saw only desert, and forbidding black mountains, all of the slaves were ready to kill Bakroth."
"Because they were all going to die," Ajalia said.
"Yes, and Bakroth's wife spoke to the king in the sky, and asked for help to save her husband's life. The records get very vague after this part, but she, or someone like her, ended up flying, and teaching Bakroth to fly, and after some negotiation with the king in the sky, they borrowed a part of the land in the sky." Ajalia looked at Delmar, and tried to understand how borrowing a sky land would work. "The land in the sky is fertile, and beautiful," Delmar told her. "It is supposed to be a perfect place. The king in the sky gave permission for Bakroth and his companion to carry a slice of the sky lands down to the earth, and he helped them to anchor it into the desert. The sky land is full of water, and it has plants and animals that do not appear on the face of the earth. The metheros are animals of the sky, as are the white levorn deer, and many of the birds in the forest around Slavithe. The poison tree is a relic of the sky," Delmar said. "It is a magical tree that, in the sky land, bears shining white fruit, and confers the true sight. The poison tree will not bear fruit on the corrupted face of the earth, but the bark of the tree creates the poison tree juice, which you have seen. When Jerome killed Bakroth, or," Delmar said, frowning, "when Jerome got hold of Bakroth's body, he stripped away the flesh down to the bones, and he hung the skull and bones of Bakroth around the trunk of the poison tree. This corruption made the juice of the poison tree turn black, because the tree was ashamed of what had been done."
Ajalia stopped sewing; she was staring at Delmar, and thinking of the poison tree, and of the
heaps and piles of bones and skulls that she had seen fastened to its trunk and branches.
"Many of the people who know this story," Delmar said, "believe that the only thing anchoring Slavithe now to the earth are the bones that are tied against the poison tree."
"Why do you call it the poison tree?" Ajalia asked. "That seems like a strange name for a beautiful gift from the sky."
"It may be beautiful to you, or to me," Delmar told her, "but to one who is corrupt in his heart, the juice of the tree is like poison. It burns away darkness, and reveals what is true and good. When the poison tree juice is laid against the flesh of a bad man, or a witch, the blackness within them is burned. The juice is poison to them."
"Are you going to take the bones down from the poison tree?" Ajalia asked. She felt sorry now for the tree; she was remembering the massive trunk, and the way the bones had piled in many layers over the bark of the tree. Delmar looked at her, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"This is why they say you are the sky angel," Delmar told her. "Most people, when they heard this story, would be asking how to further secure the poison tree to our land. I believe," Delmar said, "that when the bones are taken away from the tree, the anchors will slip, and Slavithe will begin to turn to vapor, and to rise up into the sky."
"That sounds dangerous for the people who live there," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Delmar said. "You have seen how it does not rain there, and how the plants grow in many colors. The lights that run between this part of the sky land and the earth are beginning to grow dim. When the sky king agreed that Bakroth and his companion could carry off a sliver of his kingdom, and to plant it in the earth, there was a term of years set upon the lending. Bakroth swore that the taking was only to borrow time, so that the slaves would have time to build their own land, and find a way to live in the barren soil."
"So Talbos is the real city," Ajalia said. "I mean, Bakroth meant to come and build Talbos, and Slavithe was supposed to be temporary."
"Yes," Delmar said. "We were never supposed to keep Slavithe for ourselves. Jerome knew about the term of years, and Jerome said that Bakroth was a fool for agreeing to give the land back to the sky king. Jerome wanted to enlist the people into a war against the kingdom in the sky. Jerome believed that the earth was once one with the sky," Delmar said, "and that the sky king had withdrawn with his people, and had taken up into the sky most of the life in the earth. Jerome said that the land up there belonged equally to the people on the earth, and that Bakroth had a duty, with his companion, to help the slaves steal back all of the fertile land in the sky. Bakroth refused, and swore to keep his contract with the sky king. This was the great rift that grew into a feud, and then into war. Bakroth died, and I do not know who killed him, but Jerome got hold of the body, and to spite the sky king, he stripped the bones of Bakroth, and tied them to the trunk of the poison tree."
"That's awful," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Delmar said. Ajalia looked down at her sewing.
"If I tell you what shapes I want," she said, "can you make the fabric join together with magic?" Delmar's eyes sparkled, and he nodded. "Good," Ajalia said. "Then we can finish this, and go out to see what can be done." Ajalia could see that Delmar was burning to ask her what she meant, but he restrained his questions, and stood up in front of her.
"Tell me what you want with that one," he said, and Ajalia held up the dress, and told him.
The pile of finished garments grew quickly, and in less than half an hour, a neatly-folded pile of clothes was on a table in the room.
"I will have to fetch Mop," Ajalia said, "and they will all want to say goodbye to me." Delmar nodded, and Ajalia put her bag over her shoulder, and went to find Mop.
When Ajalia had thanked Delmar's relatives, and said goodbye to everyone, she followed Delmar around the side of the wooden palace, and saw, for the first time, the surface of the great black mountain. The farm of Delmar's family was laid along the back slope of the mountain, and from the back of the wooden house, where the stables and fields lay, a long stretch of farmed land was visible. When Ajalia came around the side of the house, and saw the peak of the black mountain, and the road that they had come in on a week ago, she stopped still, and stared.
"I saw it when it happened," Mop boasted, jumping up and down, and pumping his fists back and forth. Ajalia had found Mop with some of the boy cousins, and they had all been practicing leaping over a set of wooden fences. Mop was still bursting with violent energy; he looked like a marionette who has lost its strings, but retained the wild swing of its limbs. "The green stuff popped up all over, like fast-growing hair," Mop told Ajalia. "A lot of the mountain sank down, too. It was fun."
Ajalia blinked, and stared at the surface of the mountain. The mountain had before been made of naked rock. Scraggling pieces of yellowed weeds had poked, here and there, through cracks of the dark material, but the mountain, overall, had been forbidding and blank. The black surface of the mountain now looked as though it were a fertile and tumbling wilderness.
"When did you do this?" she asked Delmar. Delmar looked both abashed and pleased.
"Last night," he said, "just before sunset."
"But how did you do this?" Ajalia asked again, looking at the dense green growth, and the scraps of young trees that now bristled over the once-black mountain.
She turned to Delmar, and stared at him.
"Have you done anything like this to the city?" she asked. Delmar shook his head. Delmar had brought Ajalia's black horse with him, and she went to her horse, and mounted him.
"Come, Mop," she said, and Delmar strode along beside her on the road. "How did you do this?" she asked Delmar. Delmar smiled, and looked very pleased with himself.
"The beautiful things in Slavithe are not ours," Delmar told her. "They came from the sky, and they do not really belong here. I do not believe what Jerome thought, that there had once been a union of the earth and sky. I think they have always been separate. The sky is different to the earth, and the earth is different to the sky."
"How did you do this?" Ajalia asked again. She heard the burbling of a stream nearby, and saw a narrow twist of water tumbling down the side of the mountain above the road. The water sank into a crevice before the road started, and then emerged again below the road.
"Delmar, did you make that stream go under the road?" Ajalia demanded. Delmar was watching her with delight in his eyes; he began to laugh.
"Yes," he said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. "The biggest problem in Talbos has always been the rain," he told her. "The rains come too often in the winter and fall, and not at all in the spring." Delmar eyed her for a moment. "Would you believe me," he asked slowly, "if I told you that I'm changing the weather patterns over Talbos?"
Ajalia felt as though the rocking of the black horse's stride was shaking pieces of her brain out. She felt overwhelmed, and as though she were in a dream.
"I don't know if I believe you," Ajalia said. "Did you change the weather patterns?" Delmar grinned, and then he raised up his palm, and made a swirling blue picture of a mountain appear.
"Look at this," he said. "Here is the way the wind blows against the mountain, and here is the place where the clouds are growing, here, over the Saroyan plain." Delmar showed her different parts of the little world in his hand, and they glowed pink when he touched them. "I moved things," Delmar told her in a half-whisper. "When I went up into the air, to get the dragon palace, I saw how the air was laid out. It was all in a snarl, and twisted over there, and there were great pieces of energy missing over Talbos. I straightened them all out. It's all quite beautiful and orderly now," Delmar told her, swelling with pride, and putting his magic away again.
"And what about the stream in the mountain?" Ajalia asked, looking behind at the place where the clear water had dropped under the road. Delmar smiled again; he looked like a satiated bird of prey. Ajalia had never seen him look so pleased, or so happy. His face was, she thought, nearly unbeara
bly handsome just now. She was tempted to throw herself down from the horse and take his clothes off. Mop, she told herself, would not be pleased with such an act, and she turned her face away from Delmar. A burning sensation was rising in her gut, and she felt rather warm. "How did you make the water do that?" Ajalia asked. Delmar, who appeared content to drink in her wonder and attention, seemed to have been waiting for her to ask him again.
"There wasn't any stream there before," Delmar told her. "The farms in the valley behind the mountain are all right; there are a couple of great springs there that come up from under the earth, and they run in two large rivers out to the sea. But the land here," he said, gesturing with his whole arm at the city of Talbos that was just coming into sight below them, "and the whole mountain have always been very dry. It's been a great hardship for the people here. There are water runners, between the river and here, and they bring barrels of it into the city. I went under the earth," Delmar confided to her, glancing at Mop, who was still jumping wildly along a little ways behind them. "I looked under the mountain in my mind, and I saw how the water below the earth was formed. There is a great deal of water, underneath Slavithe," he said, "and just like it was in the sky, the energy was tangled. There was far too much water gathered under Slavithe, and bundled into knots there, and there was a great bare space here. I think someone before us tangled it," Delmar told Ajalia in an excited whisper. "I don't know who, but the energy did not look natural. It did not seem as though it had always been that way. I think someone tried to destroy Talbos, a long time ago. I think someone changed the weather patterns, and they took away the water below the earth, to try to starve the people out here. I changed it all," Delmar said. His eyes were shining. "I fixed all of it. There's water here now, and the people are only just finding out this morning."