The Dead Falcon (The Eastern Slave Series Book 4)

by Victor Poole

  The girl looked up, and saw Ajalia when she was still about ten feet away. Ajalia saw the girl's eyes widen, and her body tense to run. One of the young men who was standing near the girl had a white brand over his chest. Ajalia met the young man's eyes; he saw that she was angled towards the young woman, and he reached out a hand, and took her hard by the arm. The girl looked up in anger at the young man, and tried to wrestle free. Ajalia reached the pair; the people around the young man and the girl scattered discreetly away. Daniel stood to the side of Ajalia, and looked up at the young woman with eyes that were as clear and as hard as the red stones that he carried.

  "You are one of Tree's servants," Ajalia told the young woman. The girl had reddish hair that was twisted in a low knot below her shoulders, and her eyes were a pale green. The girl's mouth was in a tight, angry circle. She glanced with dislike at the young man who held her fast. Ajalia saw that the young woman did not carry a white brand. Curious to learn what the girl would be able to see, Ajalia reached below the earth, to the lights that were becoming now a constant, throbbing presence to her, and lifted an emerald green light into her palm. She made the green light rise in a swirl before her face, and she saw that the green-eyed young woman saw nothing. The young man, however, looked strangely at Ajalia, as though he felt a wave of strong heat passing nearby.

  "I only carry his things," the young lady said to Ajalia, her eyes cold and disdainful. The young man gave her a gentle shake, and the girl glared at him. "She's not really the sky angel," the girl told the young man. "There's no such thing as a sky angel," the girl told Ajalia angrily.

  "I've met with Isacar," Ajalia told the girl. "What is your name?"

  The girl's lips worked furiously, as though she were trying to find some way to conceal her identity. Ajalia saw her eyes go to the young man, and then back to her face. Ajalia let the emerald light sink back into the earth; the young man relaxed, but he looked at her curiously. Ajalia could see that the girl knew Isacar would tell Ajalia what her name was, if she refused to say.

  "Minna," the girl said grudgingly.

  "And what is your counterpart's name?" Ajalia asked. Minna's eyes narrowed ferociously, as though she were furious at being told she was part of a matching set.

  "The other girl's name is Sharo," Minna said. Her whole face was curled up in a sour expression.

  "Show me where Sharo is now," Ajalia told Minna. Daniel stood right beside Ajalia, his basket under one arm, and his hand covering what showed of the red stones. Daniel's eyes were turned on Minna with a kind of worldly patronage, as though he had seen everything there was to see in life now, and was regarding her with kindly patience. Ajalia did not smile at Daniel; she thought he was going to be the most valuable young man in the history of Slavithe. She had a picture in her mind, of Daniel growing up to be a trusted servant of the Thief Lord, and eventually holding much of the city in his power. She smiled at this, and turned a cold eye on Minna, who was glaring resentfully at Daniel. The young man gave Minna another little wiggle.

  "Answer her," the young man said. "I'll help you take Minna," the young man told Ajalia. She saw that his eyes were quite as disdainful as Daniel's when turned to the young woman.

  "You were friendly enough two seconds ago," Minna complained sharply to the young man.

  "You should respect the sky angel," the young man told her harshly. He glanced swiftly at Ajalia, "And she's the Thief Lord's young lady," he said beneath his breath. Ajalia waited, and watched Minna's face grow slowly apoplectic with rage.

  "Fine," Minna snapped at Ajalia. "But don't get me in trouble with Tree when you find out." Minna turned, twisting her arm away from the young man, who grabbed onto her again, and set out into the street with an irritated chuff of breath.

  "What are we going to find out?" Daniel asked Minna. Daniel had never, to Ajalia's knowledge, felt comfortable speaking up in company, but his experience in Tree's apartment seemed to have lent him a kind of boldness; he looked up at Minna without embarrassment now.

  Minna glanced with deep dislike at the boy, and then at Ajalia. Her lips pursed up furiously.

  "I don't want to say," she said stiffly.

  "My name's Levi," the young man said to Ajalia, nodding to her. She lifted her chin a little, to show that she had heard, and followed Minna and the attached Levi through the streets. They were moving through the poorer district soon; they walked through the white streets without interruption. Daniel held his basket of stones, and Levi walked easily beside Minna, his hand held gently around her arm. Minna glanced back at him often, irritation open in her face, and Ajalia followed the pair. When they had gone for some time without speaking, and were drawing near the wall at the edge of the city, they came within sight of the temple that Ajalia had entered when she had first been in the city. She remembered the old man in the brown cloak that had spoken to her there; he had been a priest, she thought.

  Ajalia had entered the temple then from within the market, but they were walking now through the residential district, and Ajalia saw that the temple lay straddled over the narrow dividing wall that separated the market from the houses within the residential district. The temple was larger than she had thought when she'd first seen it; a second entrance, in the middle of the back wall, looked to her like a narrow and mysterious rectangle of darkness. A short set of narrow steps ran up a few feet to the open door; no reflected sunlight fell into the opening, which was all in shadow from the tall wall of the city.

  "She's in there," Minna said sourly, when they had come close to the steps. Minna stopped walking, and folded her arms. "Go on," she said, a kind of vindictive smile smearing over her face. "Go in, if you want to see her," Minna said. She stood as if she had no intention of going further.

  "Take me to see her," Ajalia said. Minna scowled, and then the light of sudden comprehension came into the girl's eyes. Minna began to laugh.

  "You don't know," Minna taunted, and she laughed harder. The young man shook Minna again, and Minna slapped at his hands. "Leave me alone!" Minna snapped. "She's not really the Thief Lord's wife, not if she doesn't know anything about this."

  "No one said we were married," Ajalia told the young woman, whose mouth closed with a snap.

  "What do you mean, you're not married?" Minna demanded. Her eyes went to Levi, and then to Daniel. "You have to be married," Minna said. "That's why they said you did magic."

  "I have my own magic," Ajalia told the girl, which, she told herself, was perfectly true. Minna's eyes formed into slits, and her mouth tightened again.

  "That's impossible," Minna said. Ajalia reached for a cord of ruby light that stretched just below her feet, and put the end of the shining light into Minna's body. The girl's eyes grew wide, and her mouth opened, as if to speak. Ajalia watched with disgust as streams of dark shadows, reddish and green in hue, rushed out of the young woman's mouth and eyes. Ugly slabs of darkness, like rotten piles of packed dirt and wood shavings, removed themselves from Minna's ribs and thighs, and a pool of the same brackish light that had infested Tree's heart stone began to spread out below Minna's feet.

  Ajalia suppressed a sigh; Daniel was staring at the girl as though he were watching a live dissection; his nose was wrinkled, and his eyebrows drew together with disgust. Levi, who was still standing next to Minna with his hand over her arm, did not seem to notice any change.

  Ajalia caught a cord of bright blue light from the sky, and jammed it into the top of Minna's head. The red and the blue lights met in Minna's middle, right around her waist, and a crackling line of white appeared where the two mixed together. The white, which Levi appeared to have noticed, for he drew his hand away from Minna, and looked at her with vague suspicion, spread up and down the girl's body in violent forks, like a gathering storm.

  "Do you think," Daniel said to Ajalia quietly, his eyes fixed on the snapping white light within Minna, "that my colors would turn white, if I had the sky magic?" Ajalia looked down at the little boy.

  "That was the exper
iment that I wanted to try," she told him softly. Daniel met her eyes, and nodded solemnly. Ajalia turned her attention back to Minna, whose arms and hands had lifted a little to each side. Her eyes were opened wide with surprise; the white light was rapidly eating up all of the dark shadows and the brackish light that had spread around her feet. In a moment, the shadows were gone, and all the spreading red matter was gone. The white lighting flashed once more up and down Minna's form, and then the blue light retreated into the sky, and the red cord of light shrank down into the earth. A sudden stillness came around them, and then Ajalia saw, with a blossom like a rose that expands quickly beneath the sun, a bright set of colors grow out in Minna's energy. There was a dusky pink, like the color of a foal's nose, and there were two different kinds of pale blue. Minna turned her green eyes on Ajalia, and the anger and fear that had lain there behind the scorn, had vanished.

  "Sharo has gone to see the priests," Minna said, "to tell them that the Thief Lord is dead."

  SHARO, THE CHILD BRIDE

  Ajalia thought for a moment that Minna was saying Delmar was dead; she remembered then that Simon had, until last night, been the ruling Thief Lord. She had already ceased thinking of Simon as a Thief Lord at all; Delmar held that title in her mind, and she felt as though he always had done.

  "Why does Sharo visit the priests?" Ajalia asked. "And why can't you go into the temple?" Minna blinked.

  "I could now," Minna said simply. She looked at Levi, and the fury was gone from her face. "They won't let tainted people in," Minna said.

  "Who tainted you?" Ajalia asked. Minna's lips folded up a little.

  "I think it was Tree," Minna said, "but no one believes me."

  "Men can't work magic, like witches," Levi said scornfully. "Minna must be protecting a witch," he told Ajalia.

  "Tree was possessed," Ajalia told Levi. "He was inhabited by the soul of his wife. She worked magic through him." And through others, Ajalia thought, remembering the way Beryl's soul had matched Lily's in tone and texture. Levi looked at Ajalia with his mouth a little open. He looked as though he wanted to disagree, and could not find the nerve.

  "I haven't heard of that happening before," Levi said in a quiet voice, as though he hoped no one would hear him.

  "I saw Lily's face come out," Daniel said loudly. "These are the bits of her soul," he added, holding up a fragment of clear red stone.

  Levi frowned at Daniel, as though he wanted to tell him to learn his place, but his eyes went again to Ajalia, and his lips pursed up tightly.

  "We don't talk about the cloud spirits," Levi said to Ajalia, "in front of those who cannot see." Levi looked as though he was trying to tactfully educate Ajalia on etiquette.

  "Daniel has been damaged by a witch," Ajalia told Levi. "He is not without a white brand. And Minna was chewed on by Lily."

  Levi jumped a little when Ajalia said Lily's name; she hid her smile, and watched Levi squirm. "Tree is dead," she added, and Levi looked at her in shock. "He blew himself up with explosives that he got from the mines. He tried to kill me," she added, and Levi looked suddenly very busy.

  "Well," Levi said hurriedly, "I helped you with Minna. Goodbye now," he said, and darted into the street. Ajalia watched Levi run away, and she smiled.

  "Where's he going?" Minna asked. Her voice was no longer sour; she sounded now like a perfectly healthy and normal young woman, instead of the irritated harpy she had resembled before.

  "To gossip," Ajalia said, and she led the way up the narrow stairs. Daniel followed her; Minna remained in the shadowed street, and looked up at Ajalia. When Ajalia paused, and looked back expectantly at her, Minna shrugged helplessly.

  "I can't come in," Minna said. "I'm not allowed."

  "You will be now," Ajalia told her, and she waited for Minna to join them. After a pause, and after glancing with some trepidation at the darkened doorway, Minna came to the foot of the stairs.

  Ajalia went through the dark rectangle that formed the doorway; when she passed within the open doorframe, she felt a silver sheen pass over her skin, and she was reminded forcibly of the silver light that had spread over the window in Tree's apartment, after she had made a net of white light over the opening. She suspected that this doorway had been filled with a similar net, and that such a silver gleam showed that there was some kind of barrier to those who were not desired within. She stood in the darkened temple, and watched Daniel, and then Minna come in through the door. She saw that same silver shimmer pass over their faces. When they had both come in, and stood beside her, she turned, and tried to see into the darkened room.

  "Why is it so dark?" Ajalia asked. A male voice answered her.

  "To prevent those who cannot see," he said. Ajalia turned, and looked into the darkness.

  "I can't see anything," she said.

  "Then you do not belong," the man said. Ajalia felt below the earth; she imagined the temple, and tried feeling with her heart, instead of imagining the cords of light. She wanted to find the magic the way Delmar did, to see what it was like to work with the cords without seeing them. She found a length of strong power, and grasped it in her hand. She looked with her mind, and saw that the cord was a majestic dark blue. Ajalia lifted the blue light above her head, and tried again to see.

  "I came through the door," Ajalia said.

  "The door prevents shadows from entering," the male voice said. "It does not guarantee sight."

  Ajalia felt above her, in the sky, and found a twisting, writhing cord of power. She fused this to the dark blue light from below the earth, and a sheen of crackling white appeared. The temple began, gradually, to glow. Ajalia saw first the dim corners of a medium-sized room, and then she saw an older man. He was wrapped in the same kind of brown cloak that the guard at the gate had given her, when he had told her that they were the clothes the priests wore.

  "Are you a priest?" Ajalia asked. The old man was looking at her with narrowed eyes, as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

  "You cannot mix the lights," the priest said slowly. "It is forbidden."

  Ajalia remembered the time she had been in Slavithe in the first few days, when Calles, the fabric merchant's wife, had told her that it was forbidden for her to marry her now-husband. Ajalia's mouth turned down a little at the corners. She did not like being told that things were forbidden, she realized. She realized that she was learning to see Tree's machinations among the people whenever they told her that something was forbidden, or that it was simply not done.

  "Tree is dead," Ajalia told the priest. She hoped that this news, which she presumed was fairly compelling news to the Slavithe people, would distract the old man from her unconventional powers.

  The old priest narrowed his eyes further, until only tiny gleams remained between his lids, and he lifted his chin. His mouth was pressed up in disapproval.

  "Have you come, only to tell me this?" the priest asked. Ajalia, who still could not see well in the dim room, reached impatiently for more cords of light below the temple floor. She gathered a great bundle of lights, of many colors, and then drew a similar handful of lights from the sky. She twisted all of the cords together, and the rope of mixed power snapped and shivered, white showing powerfully where the different pieces touched. The old priest's eyes widened, and he stared at Ajalia's hands, where the gleams of white light were growing steadily brighter.

  Ajalia mashed the lights from the earth and sky into a large ball, and threw it up into the air. She imagined the roof of the temple above her, and pictured the ball of growing white light hitting the stone at the very top of the temple, and then spreading, like a mesh net, through all of the walls.

  The temple began, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, to shine. The walls glowed, like curious growths deep below in a cave, and then, as the power Ajalia had made spread out evenly through the walls and ceilings of white stone, the walls became bright, like brilliant lamps.

  Ajalia took a deep breath when the room they were in became wholly visible;
she had not realized how tensed her shoulders had been, in the darkness. She looked around at the room she was in, and saw that the walls were carved over with pictures of trees and animals. A grouping of horses was all along one wall, and they grazed between trees that were like those in the forest. Some of the horses looked up into the room, their eyes and ears turned with vivid and life-like expressions towards Ajalia. She felt as though the horses were real. There were deer, and many kinds of birds and small creatures along the other walls. Ajalia saw a group of the screeching metheros gathered in the tops of the trees in one corner.

  She turned her attention back to the priest, who was staring at her in open-mouthed wonder. His eyes went to Daniel, and then to Minna.

  "I've come to see Sharo," Ajalia told the priest, who looked a little as though he would never find utterance again. "Minna told me she was here," Ajalia added. The priest stared at her for a long moment, and then he nodded. Closing his mouth, he turned, and led the way deeper into the temple.

  The temple was lit all throughout now; Ajalia could see each detail of the rooms easily. She glanced back at Minna, and saw that the girl could see what she saw. Daniel, she knew, could see colors, and she was not surprised to see that he was looking with interest at the carvings on the walls.

  "The temples were lit, in the olden days," the priest told Ajalia in a reverent murmur. He did not look up to meet her eyes. He kept his gaze fixed low, on the smooth white floor of the temple. Ajalia could hear distant cries and murmurs spreading through the farther rooms of the temple; she thought that the priests, if the people within the temple were all priests, were wondering at the sudden light that shone steadily from the walls.

  "We have been in darkness for a long time now," the priest added, and his eyes flicked, as though he could not stop himself, towards Ajalia's face. He looked away quickly, and hurried through a narrow hallway that stretched between arched walls and curving openings.