by Victor Poole
"How can someone be born wrong?" Ajalia asked the room at large. She didn't know if Daniel would have anything more to tell her than what he had said; her own mother had only ever described her birth as "annoying."
Daniel was staring at the two slabs of Beryl's soul that lay still on the table and chair; he was frowning at these, and looked lost in thought.
"Sorry," Daniel said. "I was looking at those. My mother said that the midwife didn't do any of the spells right, and the sky was missing."
Ajalia had been holding the basket of food in her lap; the heart stone was held still between her knees, and her knife was out. She put her knife away, and laid the block of dirty wood beside her on the table.
"Tell me about the midwife spells," she said to everyone, and began to eat.
Rane and Delmar looked at each other as though they were embarrassed, but Ocher began at once to talk.
"The midwives are allowed to do a little magic," Ocher said, "because the baby might be a boy. They have to see that the lights are put around the child when it is born, so that the baby will be anchored to the earth and sky."
"What if a midwife isn't there?" Ajalia asked. Ocher shrugged.
"Then the parents hope that the mother is healthy, and that the child has a strong spirit. The child can attach, without help, but it is better to be sure."
"Attach to the lights?" Ajalia asked around a mouthful of bread, and Ocher nodded.
"If the child does not latch onto the earth and sky," Ocher explained, "he becomes a lone wanderer, cut off from his people."
"Lost," Ajalia suggested, and Rane nodded.
"It is not the mother's fault," Rane said, "if the child is lost, but it is a great shame. In Talbos, the child who is lost is allowed to grow until she begins to hunt the lights out of others. She cannot get life the usual way," Rane said, and Ajalia knew he was thinking of Lilleth, "because she never attached to the earth and sky, so she takes what she can find in the spirits of those around her."
"And are the lost ones always women?" Ajalia asked. She found a hot roll in the basket; it had been stuffed with a spiced cheese, and a thick slab of meat. Her stomach growled, and she began to eat it.
"No," Rane said, glancing at Delmar, "they can be male or female."
"But it is a greater shame, if it is a boy?" Ajalia asked.
"There is no stigma, in Talbos," Rane told her, glancing with dislike at Ocher, and at Delmar, "against women who see the lights."
"So women can do magic there," Ajalia said. Rane nodded.
"That is part of what fueled the break between us," Ocher said.
"Did you know all of this?" Ajalia asked Delmar. He was sitting with his hands folded, his eyes fixed on the pieces of Beryl's soul. Ajalia saw that he was trying to see them clearly, as Ocher and Rane did, and as Daniel could. A frown of concentration made gentle lines around his mouth and eyes. He looked up at Ajalia.
"I forgot things," he said, "around you." He glanced at Rane. "I think my mother wanted me to," he said, "and my father."
"So you couldn't tell me these things before," Ajalia said, "because you were clouded up inside." Delmar looked as though he didn't want to talk about this in front of the others; he shifted a little, and nodded. Ajalia turned back to Rane.
"What kind of deal did Simon make," she asked, "with Tree and his wife?" She ate more of the food from the basket; she realized now that she had not eaten for a very long time. Rane glanced at Delmar.
"I don't want to tell him," Rane told Ajalia. Rane looked at her, and he looked as though he were attempting to send her some secret message with his eyes. Ajalia waited, and Rane frowned. "You won't be happy about this," Rane told Delmar. Delmar shrugged; he was staring again at the pieces of Beryl. Rane sighed.
"I am older than I look," Rane said. "I was here before Simon came. Back then we were working together, Talbos and Slavithe were," he said, "and the king had agents, like me, to watch Tree, and to see if he was keeping his word."
"You said you were in the quarries," Ajalia said. Rane glanced at her. His eyes kept flickering uneasily towards Ocher, who was watching him with a stern mouth.
"Are we going to do this for long?" Ocher asked suddenly. He looked at Ajalia, and she saw that his eyes were agitated.
"You want to get those witches," Ajalia said, and Ocher nodded. She looked at him. She put the magic coverings back over her hand, and picked up the slab of Beryl that had been inside Ocher. "Come with me," she told Ocher, and went into the inner room, where Tree's blood covered the walls and floor. Delmar leapt to his feet, and followed the bearded man.
Ocher came into the inner doorway, and Ajalia set the brackish red piece down in the center of the floor. She backed up until she was next to Ocher in the door. Delmar was just behind Ajalia.
"Can you take a piece of sky?" Ajalia asked. Ocher nodded, and she saw a vivid flash of blue appear in the bearded man's hand. "Go ahead and kill it," she said, nodding at the piece of Beryl. The slab of ugly color seemed to glint malignantly up at them, as though Beryl were there, and daring them to try to destroy her completely. Ocher's face was screwed up in distaste. He glanced at Ajalia, and then extended his hand towards the piece.
"Do I just—" he said, and Ajalia saw a sharp line of blue light pierce the slab. Delmar let out a soft noise.
"Oh," he said, and looked at Ajalia. "I saw that," he said, "I saw part of that. It was blue," he told Ocher, "and dark red."
The piece of Beryl's soul had exploded, a little like Lilleth's had done, but Beryl's remnants were not dry, like Delmar's mother's had been. The piece made tiny bits of reddish black dust, but they seemed wet, and they did not drift in the air at all, but spattered down on the floor, and then vanished, leaving behind a musty, rotten smell.
"Can I do that with mine?" Rane asked. He had come up behind Ocher and Delmar, and was peering into the room. Ajalia put the coating over her hand, and went to the second slab, the last piece that remained of Beryl. She carried this final piece into the bloody room, and laid it down on the floor.
"That's disgusting," Daniel said. He was still in the outer room, but his eyes were fastened on the door, and Ajalia was sure he could smell the leftover stench that Beryl's soul made.
Ajalia stepped back, and Ocher moved aside for Rane. Ocher's eyes, Ajalia saw, were clear and bright now; Ocher's soul had surged into a wild whorl of movement as soon as the dark piece of Beryl had been destroyed. She looked at Ocher, and she saw that he was now only himself. I like Ocher, she thought, and she wondered how she had ever thought Ocher could love her. Ocher's interest, Ajalia saw now, had been wholly driven by his wife's possession, and by Beryl's desire to collect Ajalia's soul for her long string of shadowy beings. Ajalia liked Delmar more now, because of how clearly she saw Ocher. She saw that Ocher was very different to Delmar, and she saw what Delmar was like because of the comparison. Delmar, Ajalia told herself, was perfect.
Rane drew a long blue spark into his hand, as Ocher had done. She wondered now what Ocher, and Delmar, and Rane felt, when they got power. She always looked, or she had done, to get the cords of light from the sky or the earth. She wondered if the men felt for the power, and if they differentiated between the colors by feel, or if the long lines of power all felt the same to them. Ajalia thought that not seeing the varying colors in the different cords through the earth would make for clumsy magic, or at least ugly magic. She thought that magic ought to be beautiful.
Rane shot power into the slab, and when the piece exploded, he drew an enormous breath.
"Ah," he said, as though a great weight had fallen out of his heart. "Thank you," he said to Ajalia. She nodded, and Ocher went out towards the door.
"I'll send someone," Ocher called to Delmar, "when I know more." Delmar nodded, and Ajalia remembered that Delmar was the Thief Lord now, and that Ocher answered to him. She thought that it would take her a little while to get used to Delmar's new power. Ocher closed the metal door behind him when he went out, and Ajalia returned
to her food.
"Your heart stone is bleeding," Daniel told Ajalia, and he pointed to the dirty old block of wood. Ajalia looked down at the block, and saw that streams of angry dark red, like the lines that had appeared when her knife's point had touched the wood, were pooling out of the block, from the same places. The red was like blood, but she could see that it was magic that had grown thick and sluggish.
"Okay," Ajalia said, looking down at the pool of red that was gathering under the block, and dripping to the floor, "what does that mean?" She looked up at Delmar, who had come into the room, and had followed her gaze.
"I don't see anything," he told her. Rane came near.
"Ew," Rane said, looking at the block.
"Can you see it?" Ajalia asked. Rane nodded.
"What is it?" Delmar asked impatiently.
"There's dark red light," Ajalia said, "coming out of the block. Have you seen this before?" she asked Daniel. The boy shook his head.
"My aunt has a heart stone," Daniel said, "but I've never seen it do anything like that."
"I think I know what's happening," Rane said. Ajalia lifted her basket of food away from the table, and retreated to a new chair. "When Simon came to Slavithe," Rane said cautiously, glancing again at Delmar, "he was very young, a little younger than Wall is now."
"Don't try to spare my feelings," Delmar told Rane. "My father was a monster." Rane studied Delmar's face, and then nodded.
"I was working for Tree's quarry man then," Rane explained. "The position Ocher has now." Rane moved to a chair, and sat down near one of the other baskets of food. The men had eaten the contents of the two other baskets; Ajalia thought that Delmar must not have eaten much, and she put the remainder of her food into his hands. He looked at her, and she glared at him. Delmar smiled, and ate the food. The smell from the blood-stained room was still drifting, like a noxious fog, into the room where they sat. Ajalia remembered suddenly that it had been only the night before that she had gone to rescue Delmar from his father's house, where they did not feed him. She had meant to feed him then. She watched him eat, and a strong feeling of anger rose in her. She told herself that she would get one of her boys, and assign him to Delmar, to bring him food constantly, and to watch that he ate it.
"I was with the quarry man, and with Tree," Rane said, "when Simon first came to meet with the Thief Lord. Simon told Tree that he had been given instructions to arrange a better supply chain through the mountains, but that what he really wanted to do was to fight and kill witches." Rane glanced again at Delmar, who was busy eating his food.
"Do you know a man named Card?" Ajalia asked Rane. Card, she knew, had worked in the quarries when he had been a younger man.
"Yes," Rane said. He looked at Ajalia. "Why?" She shrugged, and waved her hand at him to continue. She wanted to go and ask Card what he knew of Rane, before Rane found out that Card worked for her, and met with him. She wasn't sure why, but she felt as though Card would be more ready to talk without the idea of a meeting with Rane hanging over his head. Maybe, Ajalia told herself, I am being too suspicious about things.
"Well," Rane said, "I wasn't supposed to hear this next part, but at the time, I was running an errand for Tree's wife, and I had just gone into another room."
"You hid, you mean," Ajalia said, "and listened." Rane grimaced at her, but there was a smile under his frown.
"Simon told Tree that he knew he didn't have the white brand, and that he didn't want any power for himself, but that he wanted to help with the killings. He said he'd do anything," Rane said, "that Tree needed, if he could just get involved."
"And what did Tree say?" Ajalia asked. Rane glanced again at Delmar.
"You have to understand," Rane said, "that Tree and his wife only ever had the one daughter, Lilleth, and she was not quite right."
"You mean she was a lost one," Ajalia said.
"Well, yes," Rane said, "but no one was supposed to know. No one talked about it. Everyone was told that she was special, because her mother was teaching her things."
"Her mother was a witch," Ajalia said.
"Yes, she was the first witch-caller," Rane said. Delmar was still chewing over his food; Ajalia wondered if Delmar knew most of this. She couldn't discern, from the peaceful expression on Delmar's face, if any of what Rane said was new to him.
"So, she was a witch," Ajalia said, watching the red shadows drip from the heart stone, and pool on the table and the floor, "and she agreed to hunt the other witches."
"Yes," Rane said. "That was the idea. She was supposed to be training Lilleth to replace her, so that there would be no need for another witch to do the job."
"But Lilleth couldn't do magic," Ajalia said.
"No, she couldn't" Rane said. "And Lilleth was an only child, so there was no heir. Tree told Simon that day that if he went to Lilleth, and if he got her a son, that he would teach him to kill witches."
Ajalia felt a chill down her back; she remembered Tree, and how he had glared at her with a poisonous hatred in his eyes, and she thought of his wife, the witch-caller.
"What was Tree's wife's name?" Ajalia asked.
"Lily," Delmar said. "They named my mother after her," he said.
"I thought that Tree betrayed his wife," Ajalia told Rane, "and killed her with the other witches."
"He did," Rane said, "as soon as Delmar was born."
Ajalia could see that Delmar did know this; he was mulling over the last scraps of food in the basket, and his eyes were full of heavy things.
"Oh," Ajalia said.
"Tree let them be married, after that," Rane said. "The king of Talbos had found out what Simon had done—"
"Because you told him," Ajalia said. Rane looked at her, but he did not deny it.
"Simon was captured after the wedding," Rane said, "and sold as a slave to a man in Saroyan. Lilleth was not happy about it. She sent me," Rane said, "and another man, to buy him back."
"Did you capture him, and sell him in the first place?" Ajalia asked. Rane's mouth was carved down into a frown; he looked lost in memory.
"No," Rane said. "Tree was watching me close after the king learned of the child. He thought I might be an agent for the king, after that."
"And Beryl was in Slavithe?" Ajalia asked.
"She came with me after my report about Simon," Rane said. "She came, and I told everyone that she was my sister, and that she had lived in the quarries. She and Lilleth," he said with a growl, "became great friends."
"And Lilleth taught Beryl everything that Lily had taught her," Ajalia said. "Beryl was not a lost one, so she learned to be a witch."
"She became a witch-caller, like Tree's wife had been," Rane said. "We thought, at first, that Tree had destroyed the last of the witches, but there were more."
"Isacar told us Tree hid some of the witches," Ajalia said.
"He must have," Rane said. "They refused to use the tests here, and without a woman to read the signs of magic, no one could find them."
"No one could find the witches," Ajalia said. Rane nodded. Daniel was standing across from the bleeding heart stone. He had both arms at his sides, and his mouth was fixed in a frown.
THE CLEAR RED STONES
"Tree must have refused the tests all along," Rane said, "because he wanted to keep some witches. He had hidden some of them from the purge. He must have been using them," he said, "to do what he liked in secret."
"You told me that Tree had been lived in by a witch," Ajalia said. "By his wife. And that his substance had been drained."
"Yes," Rane said. "I did not think he would have done it, but it explains his missing brand."
"What do you mean?" Ajalia asked.
"Well," Rane said, "when Tree married his wife—"
"Lily," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Rane said, "when he married her, he lost his white brand. We knew that would happen, because she was a known witch."
"The witches consume the brand first," Delmar put in. "They think it tastes good. Th
en they feed on the rest of your soul."
"And your aunt has a heart stone?" Ajalia asked Daniel. The boy nodded. "So Tree lost his white brand, because his wife ate it," she said.
"Yes," Delmar said.
"But it should have grown back, after she died," Rane said.
"After Tree killed her," Ajalia said. She didn't like it when people made euphemisms to cover their acts, or the acts of others. Rane glanced at her with the wrinkle of a smile in his mouth.
"Yes, Tree killed her," Rane said. "She knew that he might. He should have killed her when he found she was a witch."
"That was before they married?" Ajalia asked. Rane nodded.
"The witches are supposed to be killed when they're found," Rane said, "but it was very bad, back then."
"There were a lot of witches," Delmar told Ajalia, "and they were very powerful. They had been eating up the wealthiest and strongest men in the city for some time, unchecked, and they were close to controlling everything."
"The Thief Lord had no way of finding them," Rane explained. "Before this, in the old days, the witches would eat faces, and hearts."
"You told me that," Ajalia said to Delmar, and he nodded.
"Cannibalism leaves a lot of mess behind, and missing people," Rane said. "You could hunt the old witches, and catch them, if you were clever and patient."
"But the new witches didn't eat people," Ajalia said.
"No," Rane agreed, "not like that. They ate souls."
"They eat the energy inside," Ajalia said. She remembered now what Bain had told her, about his outside being dead, and his spirit being alive. Bain had told her that she was dead inside, and that her body was left alive. She remembered her mother, and her father, and she shivered. She had been eaten, she told herself, in the way that the new witches ate.