by Victor Poole
"Beryl is locked up," Ajalia pointed out.
"She won't stay that way," Delmar said easily. "She has pieces of herself in Ocher. He'll do whatever she says." Ajalia stared at Delmar. She reminded herself that he had only gotten his father out of his head a few seconds ago, but her heart and stomach were still roiling, turning over with annoyance at these useful pieces of information that she could have known yesterday, if Delmar had been willing to talk.
"How much time do I have?" Ajalia asked. She was retrieving her bag from Delmar, and pulling out the last Eastern shift she had kept there. It was the last cream-colored garment she had saved; the others had been destroyed in her misadventures in the forest with Delmar, but this one she had kept back, and then hidden in one of her caches, for such an emergency as this. She had not known that this would happen, this situation in particular, but she often laid supplies in wait, out of a sort of sense of premonition. She was determined to always be ready to improvise, if some occasion called for it. She stripped away her tunic; she wore plain Slavithe leggings, and her leather knife harness was clasped around her torso.
Delmar let out an impatient noise, and stared up at the sky.
"You have to stop taking your clothes off suddenly," he said, his mouth caught between a smile and a snarl. "You have to stop," he added, glancing at Ajalia out of the corner of his eye. She was pulling the pale Eastern shift over her head, and combing her fingers through her hair.
"How much time?" she asked again. She fished a tiny tub of black oil from her bag, and quickly painted the Eastern symbol for her master's house on her forehead. She scraped the edge of her blackened thumb under her eyes, and placed a pair of streaks at either corner of her temples. "Delmar," she said. He was staring at her, seemingly transfixed by her hurried motions. "How much time do I have before they come?" she asked again. Delmar wiggled his shoulders.
"I don't know," he said. "They'll have to get out of the city, and come down the road. I don't think they'll cut through the forest to get here."
"How does Beryl track the magic?" Ajalia asked. She put her things away, and wiped her fingers on the edge of the tunic she had removed. She crossed to Delmar, and began to straighten his clothes, and to beat the dirt and leaves from the fabric, and from his head.
"What are you doing?" Delmar demanded. He tried to pull away, but she grabbed his shoulders, and made him hold still. "We have to run away," he told her.
"No," she said. "You're the new Thief Lord. You're going to take power now."
She put her fingers through his hair, and arranged his blond locks. Delmar was watching her with wide eyes.
"I thought," he said, "that Ocher was the new Thief Lord." His eyes followed her eyes as she examined him critically.
"Get on the horse," she told him, and drew her knife.
"What's going on?" Delmar asked again, but he hoisted himself onto the back of the horse. Ajalia went to her discarded tunic, and began to slice it into strips. "Ajalia, explain yourself," he said again. He was beginning to sound irritated.
"Ocher is compromised," Ajalia said, without taking her eyes from her work. She took the strips of coarse brown fabric, and began to tie them into long, knotted pieces. "I told him so," she said, tugging at a knot. "I told him he had compromised himself."
"When do you have time for all of these conversations?" Delmar demanded. "And why don't I know any of these things already?" he added.
"Because you've been compromised," Ajalia said. "Now you're clear."
"What does that mean?" Delmar asked. Ajalia noted again how clear and strong his eyes were, and how free of clouded tension his face had become. She carried the knotted fabric to the black horse, and fashioned a simple bridle around his head. "What are you doing?" Delmar asked again. His voice was calmer; Ajalia remembered how he would have sounded before she had burned his father out of his brain. She thought that he would have shouted, and waved his arms. He would have stormed away in a fit of temper, or looked at her with uncomprehending eyes. Now she felt as though she was speaking to an equal, in temperament and brains. She felt as though she could work beside this Delmar, whom she regarded as the true Delmar.
"I can explain everything I'm doing," Ajalia said, "when there's more time. I have a lot to do."
"But what are you doing?" Delmar asked. She looked at him briefly.
"I'm making you the Thief Lord," she said, and went into the trees. She returned in a moment, carrying several lengths of green and yellow vines that she had cut down from the trees. She held these up, so that Delmar could see them. "Are these all right?" she asked. Delmar blinked, and seemed to vibrate under the pressure of held-in questions for a moment.
"Yes," he said. She cut the vines into strips, and wove them through the makeshift bridle. She untied the rope halter she had fashioned, and slipped it out from under the new cloth headstall.
Delmar watched her work; her fingers were deft and sure as she twisted the leaves and coils of verdure over and around the black horse's face. The black horse stood agreeably, his ears pricked forward in a friendly manner. The horse looked slightly amused, but opened his mouth easily when Ajalia put a twist of fabric between his lips.
"That isn't a very good bit," Delmar said critically. Ajalia pulled the fabric from the bit around the cheek pieces of the headstall, and passed the remainder of the fabric, which had been formed into knotted reins, up to Delmar. She twisted a length of vine around the cloth.
"It's not to use as a real bit, it's only for show," Ajalia said. She gave him the ends of the twisted vine. "Hold this in place," she said, "so it won't unravel."
She coiled the rope into her bag, and looked around at the ground. The remains of the fire were scuffed away, and only fragments of ash could be seen on the ground. Ajalia slung her bag over her shoulder, and straightened her clothes. She put her hands through her hair, and pinned it back with hair pins that she drew from the pocket of her bag.
"Ocher is compromised," Ajalia repeated, when she had finished. She put her knife away in its sheath, and took the horse's new fabric reins below his chin. She led the horse into the woods. "Am I going the right direction to hit the road?" she asked over her shoulder. Delmar nodded. Ajalia wound around the trees, her eyes fixed on the place where the road would appear.
"What am I going to do when they get here?" Delmar asked.
"You'll know what to do," Ajalia said. And if he did not, she thought, she would have an eventful day ahead of her. She was not sure yet what Delmar meant by "they," but she had a picture in her mind of the two men who had spoken to Delmar near the poison tree. She wondered now if there were many witches in Slavithe; Delmar had told her that the old woman, Eccsa's mother, from whom she had acquired the slim leather book, must have been the last witch, but then Ajalia had met the old witch in the tenement, and Bain. Ajalia was sure that there was much more to the magical underbelly of Slavithe than Delmar had been hitherto willing to admit. She was not ready to question him thoroughly yet; she was sure that he would become distracted, if she asked him a lot of questions now, and she preferred for him to be on edge, and guessing. She had not tested him in his newly freshened state, and she did not want to muddy the waters with an involved discussion before the enforcers of the ban on magic, whoever they proved to be, arrived.
"Ocher was compromised," Ajalia told Delmar for the third time. She was watching both for the white slip of the road to appear, and for the movement of approaching bodies. "He is only an interim Thief Lord," she said. "He would have been displaced, when I arrived with you. If Beryl has his ear, as you say, he is likely to put up a different kind of fight to your return."
"I still don't understand," Delmar complained, "why you didn't just wait for me to come back before you arranged all this."
"I think we'll have to rescue Rane," Ajalia said. She thought she could see a glimpse of the road ahead; she glanced back at Delmar, and smiled. He looked regal. His eyes were sharp, and his head was thrown back with an unconscious hauteur. The r
ed gem glimmered in his ear, and his pale hair fell in a dashing and elegant sweep just over his eyes. His hair had been too long, and unkempt, before Ajalia had cut it, but now it was trimmed short in the back, and fell just so about his ears. Delmar looked like a brilliant sort of exotic prince. He was, Ajalia reflected with satisfaction, exactly what a city wanted in a long-awaited heir.
"What are you smiling at?" Delmar asked, noticing her look.
"Follow my lead, when they come," Ajalia said. "You're going to pretend that we've caught your father in a web of corruption and lies." Which, Ajalia reflected, was perfectly true, but she suspected that if she told Delmar so with words, he would want to argue semantics for three hours. She was sure that he still categorized his father, in his mind, as an honorable man. She was also sure that his heart belonged to her, and that his head was screwed on straight finally, but the encounter with the yet-unknown "them" would show her what she had to cope with.
Just as they reached the road, Ajalia saw a fluff of dust, and a flurry of movement, down towards the city.
"Grip the horse with your calves," Ajalia told Delmar. "If he stops walking, give him a little bump with your heels. If you kick him," she warned, "he'll run away with you." She let go of the reins, and moved to walk a little behind where Delmar sat on the horse. The black horse hesitated for a moment when Ajalia released the reins; his ears swiveled back, and he bobbed his head a little to the side. Delmar knocked his legs gingerly against the black horse's flanks; the cloud of dust, accompanied by a distant flutter of noise, grew nearer. The black horse mouthed at the twist of cloth that was between his lips, and stepped forward.
"A little harder than that," Ajalia said. "Keep your eyes forward. He can feel it when you look at me, and then he can't tell what direction you want to go." She glanced at Delmar; his face was turning red. He turned forward, and kicked gently at the horse. The black horse switched his tail, and stepped forward on the road. "Good," Ajalia said quietly.
"How do I stop him?" Delmar asked, his eyes fixed on the approaching clutter of bodies.
"He'll stop on his own, when they come up to us," Ajalia said. She wasn't sure if this was true, but she thought it was likely, and the last thing she wanted was for Delmar to panic. They walked slowly forward, the black horse nodding his head, the green and yellow leaves that Ajalia had twisted around his ears and head bobbing magnificently in the clear morning light that filtered through the overhanging trees. The road was like the scales of a gray fish, covered over in pale, sunlit ovals. Birds twittered in the trees, and the horse's hooves made peaceful crunches against the gravel road. Ajalia reminded herself to ask Delmar in more detail about how the road had been built. Now that she had begun to use the power that ran in shining rivulets below the ground, and now in the sky, she was beginning to think that there was some truth to the stories she had heard about Slavithe having been constructed with magic.
The approaching clatter drew nearer. Ajalia saw now two bodies, seated on short gray horses, riding at a swift clip towards them. She examined the faces of the riders; one of them, she saw, was the same dark-haired man with black eyes and beard who had spoken to Delmar near the poison tree, and who had told him that his mother wanted him. The other man she did not recognize.
The two men's faces were set, and grim. Ajalia watched their eyes as they rode closer, and she knew they recognized Delmar. The two gray horses scrambled near, and were pulled to a halt a little way before Delmar and Ajalia. The black horse tossed his head a little, and came to a halt, his haunches gathering below him, and his hooves moving restlessly on the road. Since Ajalia had put the twist of magic into the black horse's legs, the horse had seemed somehow to grow larger. He was not actually any taller or thicker, but his flesh had filled up, almost to bursting, with life and color. He looked like a dynamo of masculine energy; his neck, which had, when Ajalia had bought him, been held at a crooked slant, was curved now in a powerful bend. She had thought, when she had first glimpsed the black horse, that his crooked back and neck had been caused by overwork, and a poorly-adjusted harness, and she knew now that she had been right. The black horse stood long and straight, his spine slung easily between his shoulders and hips. His coat, which had been sunburnt to a coppery brown when she had purchased him several weeks ago, was not yet as pitch black as Ajalia would like, but it was most definitely dark and shining. The horse's long rest in a stall, and Denai's careful brushing and trimming, had made the black horse beautiful. He was a thoroughly suitable mount for a Thief Lord, and his leggy frame, and the contrast of his dark hide with the vivid green and yellow leaves along with the rough cloth bridle, made Delmar, as he sat upon the long black horse, look like a god of the forest. The two squat horses looked like shaggy children's mounts before the great black horse, and their trappings of plain leather made them look distinctly unspecial. Ajalia, out of the corner of her eye, saw that Delmar noticed this, and sat up a little taller, the twisted vines and cloth held tightly in his hands.
The two men glanced at each other when they had stopped; Ajalia saw that both of them were wondering what to say. She thought that neither of them had ever seen a spectacle like the one she and Delmar presented. Ajalia knew that she looked very like a servant; she had seen Delmar's father walk through Slavithe with Lim trailing behind in the proper Eastern fashion, and Simon had looked uncomfortable and strange with a slave behind him. The former Thief Lord had glanced back often at Lim, and looked ill at ease to have such a stone-faced follower always at his elbow. Ajalia was glad now that she had practiced a little with Delmar. His natural disposition, she thought, was that of a leader, and he sat easily on the black horse, seemingly unconscious of the quiet white figure just behind him.
Ajalia had upon her face the look that had so pleased her first Eastern master. She had been known then as the lucky charm in her master's house, and he had carried her with him to all his important negotiations. She had never been made to say anything, but Ajalia had stood, impassive and still, at her first Eastern master's side, and stared at the men her master traded with. They had often found her stillness, and the solemnity of her stare, unnerving; a few of them had tried to speak to her, and her gaze, which had gone at once, obediently and respectfully towards her master, had built in the traders a belief in her master's trading prowess and wisdom. She turned this face now upon the two Slavithe men, and she saw the dark-eyed man glance at her, and then look back at Delmar where he sat upon the tall black horse.
"Did you make that magic out here?" the dark man asked. Delmar looked at the man, his mouth drawn into a frown.
"Did Beryl send you?" Delmar asked. His voice was clear, strong, and imperious. The dark-eyed man glanced at his companion, and shifted in his seat. "Didn't you leave Beryl locked up?" Delmar asked Ajalia, twisting in his seat.
"Beryl was to be sent to Talbos, guarded, my Lord," Ajalia said clearly. She kept her eyes fixed on the dark-eyed man and his companion. When she was sure they were both looking at her, she turned slowly, and bowed with some state towards Delmar.
"Who let Beryl out of confinement?" Delmar demanded sharply. The dark-eyed man and his companion glanced at each other again, and the second man smiled a little.
"That's not for you to ask, young man," the dark-eyed man's companion said, his chin doubling a little with a patronizing bend of his head.
"My father is dead," Delmar said loudly, "and I am his successor. Who has released Beryl?"
The two men glanced at each other again. The dark-eyed man rode forward a little, and Ajalia saw that he meant to take Delmar into the city by force. The dark-eyed man was cautious, and Ajalia could see him sitting quietly astride his small gray horse, keeping his hands still on the reins. She saw the gathering knot of fire in the dark-eyed man's hips, where he was readying himself to dismount, and to reach for Delmar.
Ajalia reached quickly into the earth, and took up two long red strands of power. She twisted each of the red strands up towards the gray horses' legs. She wound one thi
ck cord around the dark-eyed man's mount, and the other she sent up through the second man's horse's legs. She moved the power up around the legs, and spun the red tendrils around the bellies and necks of the horses.
Almost as soon as she had reached the red cords up to where it touched the gray horses' flesh, both small gray horses threw their heads into the air, and snorted violently. The mount belonging to the dark-eyed man began, laboriously, to pace where he stood, his hooves lifting elegantly up into the air, and then dropping to the ground. The second man's horse began to twist and stifle with agitation, slipping like an angry eel beneath her rider. The gray mare's tail spun in a wringing circle, and her ears were pinned back, like flattened snakes. Her mouth opened in a wide gap, and she looked as though she were attempting to writhe out from under the second man. Ajalia released the red cords of power, and watched them snake down into the earth; part of the light sank into the flanks and legs of both of the horses. The small gray gelding, the horse that the dark-eyed man rode, rose in a low rear, and balanced there, his nostrils widened, and his breath coming out of his lungs as though pumped from a great bellows.
The dark-eyed man looked over at his companion, his mouth turned into a steep frown. Ajalia thought that he sat his gray horse easily, but his companion seemed about to topple from the back of the angry mare.
"Who told you to release Beryl?" Delmar asked again. "She is a spy." The horses had reacted to the power Ajalia had drawn from the earth in only a few seconds, and the dark-eyed man still had his eyes fixed on Delmar, and on the black horse, which stood like a specter of the night in the road.
"You have to come with us, Delmar," the second man said. His voice was tight and thin as he wrestled with the reins of his furious mare. Ajalia saw that the mare was growing more and more disturbed; she looked as though she meant to begin a fight with her rider, and then devour him once she had gotten him off of her back. Ajalia, who had been watching the reactions of the two gray horses for some moments, began to have an idea. She lifted her hand into the air; the second man was entirely consumed in his twisting mare, but the dark-eyed man looked up at her at once. She lifted her fingers silently to her chin, and made the sign there of the dead falcon. The second man was glaring down at his mare, and did not see.