by Victor Poole
"It's only Ajalia," Ocher told Rane sensibly.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Rane demanded, his voice rising. His body was beginning to heave with panicked breath; Ajalia saw that his eyes were darting around the room, looking for an escape.
"Give me your knife," Ajalia said, going to Rane. Rane shrunk away from her, and looked at her as though she were a viper. He shook his head silently, his face full of unspoken terror. Delmar had come close behind Rane, and gripped him surely by the arms. Rane had not heard Delmar approach, and he yelped, and tried to get free.
"You were right," Delmar told Ajalia, "he is a little bit like you."
Delmar, Ajalia saw, was quite as strong when compared to Rane as he was when he had restrained her. Ajalia fished the squat knife from where Rane had pulled it the night before, and she gave it to Delmar. Delmar released Rane, and took the knife with him to the door.
"Why are you helping her?" Rane gasped, his eyes turned in shock to Delmar. Rane looked as though he was beginning to shut down; Ajalia saw that he was having a hard time breathing. Ajalia went towards Ocher, and met that man's eyes. Ocher, she saw, was nervous, but he smiled at her.
"Don't kill me, please," Ocher murmured. Ajalia glanced at Delmar. Delmar was watching her with an open gaze; she saw that he understood what she was doing, and would not become jealous. She had wondered if he would take her actions as some manner of infidelity; she was sure, at any rate, that Delmar would have made a fuss about this yesterday. His personality seemed entirely new; since she had gotten his father drained away from his brain, Delmar had become quite different. Ajalia saw that he thought for himself now, and took action without waiting for her to lead.
Ajalia imagined the golden light she had located below the building; when she closed her hand around it, she saw that the earth beneath the stone foundations was purple and red. She began to wonder what made the different colors all throughout the earth. In some places the lights she had reached for had been blue, she thought, and she remembered the red and blue lights that she had drawn through Lilleth's neck, to cut apart the thick white soul Delmar's mother had made for herself. For a brief moment, Ajalia remembered how she had felt just a little while ago, when she had wished that the magic would not turn out to be as real as it was. She could not imagine feeling that way now. Ajalia felt the thrum of the golden light in her hand, and the now-familiar buzz along her bones made a flush of pleasure rise in her heart. She looked at Ocher. Ever since Delmar had put the golden handprint against her temple, Ajalia had been able to see the white shimmer that lay over Ocher's chest, but now, as she held the golden line in her hand, she studied Ocher's body, and looked for the lights within him. She put her lip between her teeth, and walked around Ocher, looking at his back. Delmar's mother had hidden her chunk of white false soul deep against Delmar's spine, and Ajalia looked now within Ocher. Her heart made an uncomfortable flip against her ribs. Ocher's colors were muted, and strange. Ajalia could see now why she had pitied him.
"Beryl's been feeding on you," Ajalia told Ocher. Ocher blinked, and looked around at her. "Hold still," Ajalia said, putting the hand that was free of the golden light against Ocher's back. She could see that Ocher's lights had once been strong, and vibrant, but he looked now like a faint imprint of what he had once been. Ajalia thought that Ocher's soul looked like small gatherings of rain in a deep footprint. Delmar's soul she had seen, and Delmar's heart was bursting with color and light. Ajalia suspected, now that she was seeing Ocher plain, that Delmar had looked so stupid, and pretended to be so dumb, in order to shield himself from his mother's magic. Beryl, Ajalia told herself, had not been like Lilleth.
"Tell me about the lost people," Ajalia said to Rane, as she released Ocher, and imagined the strong purple cords beneath the building. I don't want purple, Ajalia thought, and she sent her mind along the ground, searching for different colors of light. Along one edge of the building she found a thick wire of green, and she caught it up with a slight murmur of satisfaction. She held down the cord of gold light against Ocher's spine, and the bearded man gave out a pained gasp.
"What are you doing?" he asked. Ajalia ignored him, and raised the green light up to the place where Ocher's lights were the weakest. She had not yet found Beryl's remnants, but she suspected that Ocher was too drained for her to see the difference between Beryl's dark shadows, and Ocher's own diminished lights. Ajalia wanted to put more color into Ocher, to brighten up his own soul, before she began to cut away what shadows were left.
"Tell me about the lost ones," Ajalia said again to Rane, who was sitting uneasily where Delmar had let go of him. Rane was watching Ajalia walk around Ocher with a fascinated disgust in his eyes; he looked as though he felt slightly ill.
"We destroy them, where they are found," Rane said.
"When?" Ajalia asked. She pushed the green cord of light into Ocher's body, and though Ocher did not seem to notice what she had done, she saw his ribs expand more easily, and his body relax. She thought that Ocher had been clenched up tight, like a dried-up plant, and that the lights below the earth acted on him like much-needed water. She sent her mind below the earth, and rooted around until she found a deep blue light. She had to look very deep for this light; Delmar was watching her, Rane's knife in his hand, and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Ajalia did not see Delmar's gaze, but if she had, she would have seen that he was studying what she did, and trying to work out how he was going to learn how to do it himself.
Ajalia lifted the blue light, and inserted it into Ocher's lower back. She heard Ocher let out a sigh.
"When do you destroy the lost ones?" Ajalia asked Rane. She glanced at him, and saw that his eyes were fixed steadily on her hands. She had kept her hand, which was yet folded around the golden light, stuck in against Ocher's spine. She imagined the deep golden lights from within the earth pumping steadily into Ocher's body, and filling him with light and cleansing power. Rane stood up hesitantly, and edged closer to her. Ajalia pressed the blue light into Ocher until the bearded man's own blue lights were replenished, and then she studied Ocher's soul. He had just a tinge of orange, she saw, and she imagined the earth, looking for a red light. She thought that she could mix the golden light in her hand with some red, and match Ocher's tone.
"We kill them as soon as we find them," Rane told her. His eyes were fixed on the place where Ajalia was holding the blue light, and his eyes brightened. "I think I can see something," he said. Ajalia looked at him, and her heart turned over again.
"It's Beryl," Ajalia told him. She could see Rane's colors easily enough; he was a brilliant yellow, with large dashes of purple and vivid green, and tucked within the changes of the colors were three enormous stains of brackish red. Ajalia shivered a little. "Delmar's mother," she told Rane, "came out of him, when I was taking her out." Rane looked disgusted. He turned to Delmar, and asked if this was true. Delmar nodded slowly. "Lilleth's face appeared," Ajalia said, "and spoke to me." Ajalia did not yet want to say that Delmar had been infested with both of his parents; she felt as though Rane was just now beginning to believe that there was something really wrong, and she thought that if she pushed the idea of magical possession too far, while Rane was still carrying thick slabs of Beryl within him, that he would begin to resist again.
"Beryl is a woman," Ajalia said, "and a witch." She looked around at Delmar, who was watching her closely. "Tree said that women could not hold the lights. Didn't he?" she asked Delmar. Delmar nodded. "But I can, so Tree called me a witch," Ajalia said. She could not find a convenient line of red in the ground; she looked impatiently around, and saw that her own body was a riot of vivid red. "Delmar," Ajalia said. His blue eyes were fixed on her; Ajalia felt as though everything she said and did was under enormous scrutiny. She felt as though she were walking on a tightrope.
"Yes," Delmar said, his eyes on her face.
"I need red light," Ajalia said. "I'm going to take some of my own red. Do you have any objection to this?" Ajalia felt Ocher sti
ffen beneath her hand; she did not tell Ocher that sharing part of her color was not the same thing as declaring her undying affection.
"That's fine," Delmar told her. She took a handful of her own red light, and pushed it into the place where Ocher's red had dwindled to a murky shadow. Ajalia made an angry tick with her tongue; she saw Beryl now. The same violent and brackish color of sickly dark red was concealed within Ocher's own diminished color. When Ajalia had put her own red in, to supplement Ocher's, the ugly slab of Beryl's soul stood out at once.
"That's disgusting," Ajalia said, and she imagined the same obsidian claw of black that she had used to get Lilleth out forming over her free hand. The hand holding the golden thread from the earth she still held firmly over Ocher's spine. Now that Ocher's energy was surging back, and his colors were beginning to swirl wildly within his body, Ajalia found that she did not care for Ocher at all. She had thought she liked him, when he had first tried to befriend and court her, but now she saw that she had been speaking to a strange mixture of Beryl and Ocher; Beryl, she saw, had created a sort of false Ocher, an Ocher that would appeal to Ajalia. She did not quite know how to describe it to herself, but as she looked at the slab of dark red matter, and prepared to thrust her black-covered hand in to cut it out, she saw that Beryl had made a cunning trap, and used Ocher as bait. She saw that Ocher's insistence on liking her, and his urgent eyes, and sensitive mouth, had been a front, put into place by Beryl, to soften Ajalia, and to weaken her. Ajalia saw that Beryl had hoped to add her to her impossibly long line of shadowy figures.
"Did Beryl ever speak to you," Ajalia asked Ocher, pressing her claw-covered hand flat against his side, and imagining the black claws cutting deeply around the dark red piece, "about me? Did she ever ask about me?" Ajalia asked.
When Ajalia had cut all around the dark red piece, she put gold light, and then black darkness all over her hand that held the golden cord, and she lifted out the ugly piece of Beryl. Ajalia hissed in disgust, and dropped the thick slab of mottled light onto a table. Ocher looked limp, and weak; he had begun to sweat, and Ajalia saw a sheen of fever growing all along his neck and cheeks. Ajalia shook away the light from her hands, and went straight to Delmar. She folded herself up against his body, and he wrapped his arms around her. Ajalia felt suddenly as though she were going to cry.
"Beryl's horrible," Ajalia told Delmar. She was still facing out towards Rane and Ocher; Delmar had put his arms around her from behind.
"Answer her questions," Delmar told Ocher. "You first. What did Beryl say to you about Ajalia?" he asked. Ajalia pressed herself deeply against Delmar; his energy felt like a calming, soothing pool of familiarity. Ocher, when Ajalia had renewed his colors and light, had proven to be jittery and jarring to her; she wished she could wipe him away from her hands. Ocher was standing in the center of the room, a dazed look in his eyes.
"Beryl?" he said. "Beryl said that she had heard Delmar's new woman was clever, and she wished I would get her to visit so she could meet her." Ajalia blinked at Ocher.
"Beryl said that?" she asked. Ocher glanced at Rane.
"Among other things," Ocher said. Ajalia sighed, and untangled herself from Delmar's arms. He put a hand on her waist, and she knew he was telling her that she didn't have to help Rane, but she squeezed his hand, and went to the spy from Talbos.
"And what about you?" Delmar asked Rane. "When do you destroy the lost ones?" Rane was watching Ajalia suspiciously. Ocher, Ajalia saw, was staring in dismay at the brackish red piece of Beryl's soul that lay on the table.
"Is that my wife?" Ocher asked, pointing at the piece of red. "Is that her?"
"I can see it, too," Delmar said. He looked at Ajalia. "We say that women cannot hold the light," he told her. "We say that it corrupts them, and turns them into witches."
"Well, that's stupid," Ajalia told him. "So this whole time, you thought I was turning into a witch?" Delmar shifted a little against the door, but he looked steadily into her eyes.
"I hoped you wouldn't," he said. Ajalia let out a short laugh. She looked at the slice of Beryl, and then turned to Rane.
"Are you ready?" she asked him. Rane was looking at the space where Beryl's soul lay.
"I can't see it," he said. "I thought I saw some blue light around your fingers," he added.
"Delmar couldn't see anything that I did," Ajalia told him, "before I took his mother out." Rane looked at her, and took a deep breath.
"All right," he said, and Ajalia put a hand on his side, and examined the way that the three pieces of Beryl lay. "We kill them whenever we find them," Rane told her. He sounded nervous. Ajalia thought that he was talking to keep himself from thinking of what she was doing. "When someone is suspected of being a lost one," he said, "they are brought before the king, and the priests, and are given three tests. If they fail two out of the three, they are destroyed."
"What if they are children?" Ajalia asked. Rane twisted, and looked at her.
"Especially children," he said. "The lost ones are not like us. They have not been born through the power of the earth; they are severed, and move like predators among sheep. They are not like us."
Ajalia tried to imagine Lilleth, as she would have been as a child, and she pictured a little girl with long brown hair, and unnaturally still eyes. She imagined a little girl who stole, and then lied without shame. She remembered the way Lilleth had told her that she would get her husband to kill her, and she thought of the little girl as she would have looked, bent over an animal, or a smaller child.
"That's disturbing," Ajalia said.
"The people in Slavithe," Rane said quietly, "do not want to see the truth. The lost ones live openly here, and cause great disruption."
"Did you know that Lilleth was one of these?" Ajalia asked Rane. She had finished putting a renewing surge of color in around the slabs of brackish red, and was assembling the dark claw of energy around her hand. She had not given Rane a cord of gold; she wanted to see what would happen if she cut out the pieces of Beryl without the gold present. She wanted to see if Rane would feel what she did. She suspected that the gold had muffled up Ocher's feelings, and given him a cover of warmth inside.
"I suspected that she might be," Rane said, glancing at Delmar. "I did not know for sure. But if she has worked magic," he said, "she is a lost one."
"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Because she doesn't have a white brand?"
"Because she cannot touch the light in the earth," Rane said. "To get power, she has to steal it from living bodies. This makes her a witch."
"And what kind of witch was Beryl?" Ajalia asked. Rane looked at her, and then looked away. His eyes were ashamed.
"The regular kind," he said.
"How could you not know she was a witch?" Ajalia asked him. "Why didn't you use your tests?" Rane frowned.
"Beryl was the witch-caller," he said. "She had to use the power, in order to track the magic that the witches used."
"So women can use the lights," Ajalia said, "and you just don't want them to." She looked around at Delmar, and at Ocher. Ocher was sitting down, his face in his hands, staring at the slab of ugly red soul. Delmar was still leaning lightly against the metal door, his face turned into a mask of concentration. Ajalia saw now that he was studying her hands, and the bent of her body. She saw that he was trying to figure out how to see as she saw.
"Yes," Delmar said.
"Why?" Ajalia asked.
"Because of Tree," Ocher said. Ajalia cut out the first piece of Beryl. Rane moved with discomfort beneath Ajalia's hand when she sliced below the big piece, and when she coated her hand with power, and lifted the slab away, Rane let out a pained gasp.
"Aah!" he cried, turning away from Ajalia, and looking at the shape her fingers made around the slab. "What is that?" he demanded, his face changing when he saw what she held. "I can see a shadow there," he exclaimed, pointing at the brackish red piece. "What is that?" he demanded, looking at Ajalia. "Did you take out a piece of me?" Ajalia heard, again, a sligh
t echo of Beryl's voice. She laid down the slab in a wooden chair, and turned back towards Rane. Rane backed slowly away from her, his eyes darting nervously around the room.
"Delmar," Ajalia said. She saw that Beryl had awoken within Rane, and that the witch would try to defend herself now. "Hold him for me," Ajalia said. With a crackle, Beryl's face appeared in a red shadow before Rane, her mouth turned in an angry snarl. Beryl's shadowy eyes flicked swiftly around the room, and then settled on Ajalia. A growl of anger left her lips.
"You," Beryl said, glaring hard at Ajalia. Delmar had stepped towards Rane, but Ajalia lifted one hand, and cautioned him to stay back. "You've taken my body, wench," Beryl's voice said, annoyance ascendant in her tones. "But no matter," she said. "I will take yours as a replacement."
Rane lifted his hands; Rane's own face was blank, and dazed. He looked as though he had been struck in the face, and was dizzy. His eyes were unfocused. Rane conjured a swirl of black light; Ajalia saw now that Beryl was drawing the darkness from within the two slabs of reddened soul that yet nestled in Rane. Ajalia slipped her knife into her hand; the surface of the blade was alight with shimmering white. She imagined the lights of the knife forming a blade made only of the bright lightning, and she dropped the metal knife to the floor. She lifted the blade made of light, and drove it through the air in a line towards the first reddened shard. Beryl, Ajalia saw, was not prepared for her to fight back so quickly. The shadowy face widened in surprise, the eyes and mouth opening, and Ajalia's blade of light traveled forward, in a straight line, until it stabbed directly into one of the darkened slabs. Beryl let out a keening screech of pain and anger.
"You horrible child!" Beryl screamed, and Ajalia saw the darkness Rane had conjured fling out towards her, reaching through the air like twisting, violent tentacles. Ajalia ducked to the side, away from the trajectory of the black cords, and she imagined the lighted blade within Rane's body. She imagined herself holding the shimmering hilt of the blade, and twisting it sharply around inside of Rane. The slabs of dark red were sliced into ribbons; they drifted apart, like clouds of seeds in the wind, and as Rane stumbled back against a wall, Beryl's face flickering in and out of view, Ajalia drew cords of light from the sky and from the earth.