The Dead Falcon (The Eastern Slave Series Book 4)

by Victor Poole

  "My mother taught me," Ossa said quietly, "before she died."

  "When, and how, did she die?" Ajalia asked. Ossa glanced at Sun, and then looked, with hot cheeks, at Ajalia.

  "She was killed for a witch three years ago," Ossa said in a barely audible voice. Sun gasped, and put her hands to her mouth. Sharo and Minna, who could not hear what was being said, looked over at Sun. Calles and Chad were still deep in what appeared to be an engrossing chat. Chad's eyebrows were lifted almost to his forehead; Ajalia thought, from the expressive way he was waving his hands, that he was describing the scene in Gevad's house, when Eccsa's hair had been shorn away with Ajalia's knife.

  "Was your mother a witch?" Ajalia asked Ossa. Ossa's mouth hardened, and her eyes glistened.

  "No," she said firmly.

  "But she practiced magic," Ajalia prompted. Ossa hesitated, her eyes going swiftly around the room, and then she nodded. "Did you encourage Nam to torment my boys?" Ajalia asked, thinking of the dark-haired girl who had been sold to the farms in the dark valley. Ossa shook her head at once.

  "Never," Ossa said, and Ajalia detected a measure of disdain in the girl's voice. "Nam knew nothing," Ossa added decidedly.

  "But you know things," Ajalia prodded. Again, Ossa hesitated, and then nodded. Ajalia drew a deep breath. "I am very busy just now," Ajalia told Ossa. "But I will hold you here in my house, and I will speak to you further. If I find," she warned, "that you are meddling with any people in my house, I will surrender you to the Thief Lord for judgment, and accuse you as a witch."

  Ossa's eyes flashed. She looked again towards Sun, and at Sharo, and then slowly she nodded.

  "I understand," Ossa said.

  "Do not try my patience, Ossa," Ajalia warned, and she added a thin thread of blue to the golden light that she had woven now, like a curving rope, around the dark green of Ossa's soul. The two lights mixed where they touched, and a white crackle rose up from within the girl. Ossa gasped a little, and put a hand to her stomach.

  "What are you doing?" Ossa whispered, her eyebrows drawing close together, and her mouth turning down in a frown.

  "I am doing real magic," Ajalia told the girl. "I think that whatever you have learned is incorrect, and harmful." Ossa looked indignant at this, but she contained her protests.

  "I will wait until I can explain to you what I do, and why," Ossa offered, her eyes cautious.

  "Delmar," Ajalia warned, "will not be as patient or understanding as I am. I would advise you to do as I have said."

  Ossa's lips twitched again, but the thick girl nodded, and turned her eyes towards the floor.

  "Sun," Ajalia said, turning to the other girl.

  "I want to marry Chad," Sun said swiftly. She looked as though she had been thinking of this ever since Ocher had rejected her; her cornflower blue eyes were determined, and bright, and her mouth, though it had turned soft with shock at what she had heard about Ossa, became now quite stiff. "I've thought about it a great deal," Sun said to Ajalia quickly, "and I think I would be just right for him."

  Sun spoke in a low voice, her eyes alternating between Ajalia and Chad, who was still talking with great animation to Calles.

  "Clare bought her way free," Ajalia told Sun. "How will you purchase yourself?" Sun's face fell; she clearly, Ajalia thought, had not thought of this. Ajalia went to Calles, who waved a quieting hand at Chad, and stood up.

  "Minna is quiet and good," Ajalia told Calles. "I cannot promise you any sense or obedience from Sun, and would prefer to keep her at home." Calles looked over at the yellow-haired girl, but she nodded easily.

  "What about Ossa?" Calles asked.

  "Ossa is confined to the house for now," Ajalia said. Calles's eyes flashed, but she did not ask what Ossa had done.

  "I would like that girl as well," Calles said. Ajalia followed her gaze, and saw that she was looking at Sharo. Sharo was staring with ill-concealed annoyance at Chad, who was sitting happily with his chin propped on his fist.

  "She is an awful pain," Ajalia told Calles, and Calles smiled. "Would you mind?" Ajalia asked. Calles looked quite pleased.

  "I have been thinking," Calles told Ajalia, "since the last time we met. I would like to try again."

  "What do you mean?" Ajalia asked.

  "Well, when Clare was so rude," Calles said, lowering her voice. "I do not think I was as strong for myself as I would have liked to have been. I wish I had not cried so much," she said, frowning.

  "She believes she has a grand destiny," Ajalia told Calles, "and she is very rude." Calles's eyes sparkled, and Ajalia could almost see the seamstress licking her lips in anticipation.

  "I would like to practice," Calles told Ajalia. "I want to practice standing up for myself, and being strong." Like you, her eyes said, but she did not say so out loud.

  "Send her back," Ajalia said, "when you are tired of her." Calles smiled with ill-repressed glee, and went to the corner, where Minna and Sharo stood.

  "What about me?" Sun asked. She had been watching this exchange closely. "Why can't I go?" Sun asked.

  Leed came into the room, carrying a bag of food. He brought it to Ajalia, and watched Calles, who was speaking to Minna and Sharo. Sharo looked displeased.

  "Those two are kissing again out there," Leed told Ajalia, and he frowned at Sun.

  "How did you pay for this?" Ajalia asked, looking inside the bag. Leed made a face at her.

  "I have my own money now," Leed told her. "I expect you to give me some money, though," he added quickly, "for taking care of you." Ajalia's lips twitched. Calles said goodbye to Chad, and to Ajalia, and led Minna from the room. When Calles's back was turned, Sharo darted to Ajalia, her mouth in a grim line.

  "This woman thinks I'm a servant," Sharo told Ajalia softly, glancing at the place where Calles had gone.

  "You are a servant," Ajalia told her.

  "I'm not," Sharo said loudly. She lowered her voice, and glanced angrily at Sun, who was staring at her with clear dislike. "I'm important," Sharo told Ajalia.

  Calles appeared at the door. She strode right up to Sharo, and took the dark-haired girl by the arm.

  "You come along with me," Calles said sternly, and Sharo pulled under her grasp, her eyes almost squinting with anger and frustration.

  "The priests own my time," Sharo declared loudly. "You can ask the priests."

  "If they care so much about you," Calles told the girl, "then they will come and find you, and collect you. You're lucky to have a place to stay," she added, pushing the reluctant girl out of the room.

  "But they said I was going to get married," Sharo protested.

  "She thinks Delmar will marry her, because the priests told her so," Sun told Ajalia. Sun looked quite miffed. "I told her that Delmar loved you, but she didn't believe me," Sun added.

  "You have to eat your food," Leed said helpfully to Ajalia. Ajalia glanced at the boy, and then looked at Chad. Chad was sitting back in his chair, his eyes directly lazily at the ceiling, and his mouth working gently. Ajalia thought that Chad was reliving, with relish, the conversation he had just had with Calles.

  "Stay away from everyone," Ajalia told Ossa, "until I speak to you again." Ossa's eyes hardened; she had been, Ajalia saw, looking over at Chad with enterprising sparks in her eyes. "Chad," Ajalia called. Chad jumped, and looked around. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" Ajalia asked. Chad shook his head cheerfully.

  "I've got the boys on a schedule now," Chad said happily. "I'm very proud of myself. The first crew won't get in for another hour at least." Ajalia could not help but smile at the snappy self-satisfaction that Chad held in his eyes.

  "Well, then," Ajalia told Chad, "come along with me, until you go." She did not trust Ossa to leave Chad be, and she thought that that young man had very little ability fight off a determined apprentice witch. She was not ready to send Ossa away to be killed, or imprisoned, and she was not sure what Delmar planned to do with such a young woman as Ossa. Ajalia did not think that the girl merited death. She tho
ught that she would keep a close eye on Ossa for a little while, and think about her. A part of Ajalia suspected that some witches, like Salla, had not collected the souls of other beings. Salla had seemed to be two women, but Ajalia suspected that the younger woman who had appeared within the older one had been some other version of Salla herself. Ajalia hoped that this was so; she did not want to think that all of the women who used magic in Slavithe were dark inside.

  Chad stood up, and followed Ajalia and Leed into the hall. Sun came along after, and Ossa stood, undecided and alone, in the room behind them. Calles, when she had left, had given Delmar's new clothes to Minna to carry. Sun and Ossa still held their bags of sewing things that they had brought downstairs. They had brought the things with them when they came from Calles's house. Ajalia had sent a little money to Calles, when the girls had first stayed there, to outfit the girls with basic tools while they worked in her house, and Calles had sent these things with the girls when Ajalia had collected them again.

  Clare and Ocher were deep in talk when Ajalia came into the hall; their heads were close together, and their faces were bright. Ajalia thought that Ocher looked quite young near Clare, and Clare's face, she thought, had lost its haunted cast. Clare was beginning to glow a little with happiness, and with the possession of Ocher. Ajalia saw that Clare's fingers were enclosed firmly in Ocher's great hand, and she smiled. Delmar will come back in three days, she told herself, and she looked at the late afternoon light that drifted into the hall.

  DELMAR'S LITTLE BROTHER

  "Clare will stay here with you," Ocher said to Ajalia, when he saw her coming, "until I have readied my house." He held out the contracts that Card had brought, and that Ajalia had altered. "We don't need these," he told her, and offered to tear them.

  "No," Ajalia said, holding out her hand. "It is always better," she said, taking the contracts, and looking at them, "to have a record." She saw that Ocher had signed both papers, below the part she had added in. She smiled and folded one of them away into her bag. "I hoped that you would demand copies," she told Ocher, giving back the second sheet. Ocher took it hesitantly, and Ajalia saw that he was aware of the beaming girl beside him.

  "It won't hurt my feelings," Clare told him. "I think it's sweet that you wanted assurance for me." Ocher's fingers closed around the sheet of paper; he looked a little dazed with the perfection of Clare. He glanced at Ajalia, and then at Clare, and Ajalia thought that he was trying to find a way to say goodbye.

  "I'm going to meet Delmar tonight," Ocher told Clare, "about some men. I will come and see you again, when he's gone."

  "Take as long as you need," Clare told him, and she tipped up on her toes, and whispered something in his ear. Ocher blushed crimson, and looked down.

  "I wanted to ask you," Ajalia said, as Ocher began to turn away, "about some things."

  "You said that," Ocher said, and she knew that he had forgotten. Ocher looked around at the crowd of bodies. "You are surrounded," he observed, and Ajalia laughed.

  "Leed," she said, "as you have appointed yourself to be my helper, help me. Keep everyone away from Ossa, and hold this," she said, thrusting the sack of food at him, "for five minutes." Leed narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

  "I will come and get you," Leed warned, "if you take longer than that."

  "Agreed," Ajalia said, and Leed ushered Sun and Chad away. Ajalia watched them go along to the end of the great hall, and she saw Sun looking with some determination at Chad. "I want to know more," Ajalia told Ocher, "about Ullar's children."

  Ocher looked at Ajalia with guarded eyes, and Ajalia saw that he did not understand what she meant. Clare was standing still next to Ocher, and his fingers crept once more around her hand. Ajalia ignored Clare's presence; she and Ocher, Ajalia thought, would work out their own rules for political business, and she was amenable to the girl's being there, if Ocher made no protest.

  "Bain," Ajalia said.

  "What has this Ullar to do with Bain?" Ocher asked. His eyes had grown solemn; Ajalia was reminded of the way he had looked on the night he had come to warn her of Lilleth's coming. He had looked on that night as though the foundation of his heart were slipping; he looked now on sure ground, and though his mouth turned grim, his eyes were not full of despair. Clare, Ajalia thought, was already having a thoroughly wholesome effect on Ocher.

  "She is his mother," Ajalia said. "Or was," she added, "since the boy is now dead."

  "Hal told me," Ocher said, "that Delmar killed the child."

  "With my help," Ajalia agreed. "The boy is dead." Ocher looked at her.

  "I am not used to speaking of such things openly," Ocher told Ajalia. "In the city, we only talk of these things in the temples, or with the Thief Lord." Ajalia waited, her face patient. Ocher sighed. He looked resigned. "I see that things are changing now," Ocher told her with a smile. "Bain was a shadow child."

  "I have been told that the bodies are taken," Ajalia said, "and that the souls are left behind to serve the witches." Ocher nodded.

  "This is so," he said. "We thought we had destroyed the last of them, some time ago, but then Bain proved to be elusive. We were told he was slain," Ocher said, "but then he came back, and then he was slain again. We did not know how he was doing it, but he had found some way to vanish. We could not track his presence accurately, and Beryl—" Ocher shivered involuntarily when he named his late wife. "She was clearly not cooperating with us as fully as we believed. Beryl was my wife," Ocher told Clare, his eyes serious. "I hope you will not mind," he added anxiously, glancing at Ajalia, as though wishing she were not there. "You will hear of her from many people," Ocher told Clare. "That is why I tell you now. I would rather you heard it from me."

  Clare nodded, and stroked Ocher's hand with her fingers.

  "I never loved her," Ocher told her in a low, private voice.

  "She was the witch-caller," Clare said. Ocher nodded. "I have heard of Beryl," Clare said, "but I did not know she was your wife."

  "I should never have agreed to marry her," Ocher told Clare quietly. "It was politics, and—well, you know what the witch-caller is."

  "He tells me that she was the witch-caller because he wants me to know that he did not share a bed with her," Clare told Ajalia. Ocher blushed again, but Clare was unembarrassed. Clare turned to Ocher. "I want her to know how perfect you are," Clare told him, "and show her what care you will take of my feelings. She will worry about this, if she does not know."

  Ajalia felt as though Clare were turning into a new person entirely, from what she had been before. Ajalia saw that Ocher was proving to be quite as good for Clare, as Clare was for Ocher.

  "I am beginning to feel very fond of Clare," Ajalia told Ocher, and Ocher smiled. He looked like a child who shows off a new possession, and is delighted with the admiration of his friends. "How did Bain die?" Ajalia asked Ocher, and Ocher frowned.

  "You were there," Ocher told her. "I would sooner ask you."

  "No, I mean how was his body destroyed?" Ajalia asked. Ocher's eyes showed that he understood; he glanced uneasily at Clare.

  "We do not speak of it openly," Ocher said hesitantly.

  "Yes, yes, you have secret meetings in the temples," Ajalia said, nodding. "Was he burned up somehow?" Ocher stared at her, and she took a deep breath. "I could see him," she explained. She had learned that seeing Bain carried weight with the men of Slavithe who knew about the shadowy boy. "He had scorch marks around his feet," she said. Ocher's face darkened again.

  "He was offered secretly," Ocher said, "in a corrupt imitation of our feasts."

  Ajalia remembered what she had been told by Delmar, and by Chad, about the Feast of Beautiful Things.

  "He was burned in the quarry?" she asked, a cold finger of disgust roiling in her gut. Ocher nodded reluctantly.

  "The witches meet there," he said, "or they used to. It took some time to find their hiding places in the mountains."

  "Did they offer many children?" Ajalia asked, thinking of the poor
families that lived all along the mountains, in the quarries, and near the mines.

  "More than we would like to admit," Ocher told her. "The shadows were wiped out not long ago, but Bain—well, he haunted us for a long time."

  "And his mother?" Ajalia asked.

  "I have never met the woman," Ocher admitted. "Many of the boys that the witches used," he told her, "were orphans, or they were sold to the witches as servants, and the parents never told anyone. It was hard to find the families of such boys, after the boys had been driven out of their bodies."

  "What happened to the bodies?" Ajalia asked. She pictured a heap of blackened corpses somewhere deep in the black mountains, and she wrinkled her mouth in disgust.

  "They were burned up," Ocher said. "It was an ugly thing, when the witches would do it. I saw them once, before a raid," he said. "They store up sunlight in their hands, and they touch the child until his skin and bones are burned away."

  "What about little girls?" Ajalia asked. Ocher looked at her strangely.

  "They do not kill the bodies of girls," he told her. "They feed on the spirits of the little girls, until they are weak, and without wills of their own. The shadow children are all male." Ajalia thought of the little girl with dark hair that had hovered at the door of Tree's apartment, and of the voices below that had egged the girl on.

  "Are there many witches?" Ajalia asked. Ocher looked at her again, and Ajalia saw that he was not willing to answer her honestly.

  "Things will be better now," he told her. "What was your other question?" he asked. "You said you had two," he added with a faint smile.

  "I wanted to know why you had sponsored Tree," Ajalia said slowly. She was thinking of the women she had met in Slavithe, and how the servant girls she had collected had proved so much less interesting to her than the little boys. She wondered now if the girls had all been eaten up inside, and damaged by witches. She guessed that there would be women in Slavithe, and men, who consumed energy, after the manner of witches, without being quite dangerous enough to merit the attention of the law.