by Victor Poole
"Is that what the shadow children often did?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked at her as though he had forgotten she was there. He looked older than he was, and she was sure that he had never spoken of these things to anyone but his mother.
"It doesn't matter if I tell you now," Coren said matter-of-factly. "They'll never use me anymore. They'd probably kill me, if they could," he added with a smile, as though what he thought of amused him.
"The witches?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked at her disdainfully.
"I'm not stupid enough to tell you," he said, and his voice was distant again, and scornful. His eyes went to the floor, and he chewed on his lower lip. "If Delmar is the Thief Lord now," Coren said, and his eyes flicked briefly to Ajalia, as though he were testing her with the phrase, "then he would want to know things."
"Delmar told me he would take care of the witches," Ajalia said. Coren laughed.
"Delmar can't do anything at all about witches," Coren scoffed. "He couldn't even do what I showed you." Coren looked over at Ajalia slyly. "The story magic," Coren prompted. A smile was twitching at the corners of the boy's mouth. "He can't do any magic at all," Coren said. He looked as though he were attempting to goad Ajalia into an argument.
Ajalia sat back in her chair, a peaceful expression on her face. She looked up at the ceiling, and wondered how Leed was getting along with the old book of magic she had given him. Leed had promised to tell her what was in the book, when he'd read it. She had not yet learned to read the old Slavithe, and she had promised to share what she learned of magic with Leed when she could. She remembered what she had heard, about Philas being in Slavithe, and a slight frown creased her cheeks. She did not think it was true; she thought Philas was still in Talbos.
"Aren't you going to ask me about Delmar?" Coren demanded. "Aren't you going to ask me why he can't do any magic?"
Ajalia, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, turned her head slowly from side to side in a negative sign. She could feel Coren staring at her angrily.
"Why not?" Coren demanded. "It's an interesting reason," he added coaxingly. Ajalia drew a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "Are you pretending to go to sleep again?" Coren asked. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked quickly.
Ajalia said nothing.
"I'm not going to sleep here. If you thought I was going to stay here with you, you're wrong. I'm going to go—" Coren broke off, and Ajalia was sure that he had been about to mention Wall again. Coren, she saw, had begun to hesitate before he said again that Wall was going to be the Thief Lord. She had been hurting him consistently, every time he said this, and she was glad to see that Coren was responding to the treatment.
She opened her eyes a little, and looked at Coren. The boy was sitting in his chair, his own arms folded over his chest. His wrists and forearms, where they showed under his long sleeves, were marked up with the deep, horrible black scabs.
"What was your mother's plan for the marks?" Ajalia asked, closing her eyes again. Coren waited for a long time. Finally, as though bursting from a dam, the words flooded out.
"I was really helping her," Coren said, and he sounded angry, and sad. "It wasn't just that she was bored or anything. She was a really great witch. Everyone said so. All the witches," Coren added, as though he had forgotten his earlier reticence about this topic. "Thy would all meet together," he said, "and my mother would take me with her. She would show the others what she had done, and they would all try things, sometimes. They were very pleased with me, because of how quiet I was."
"Did they cut you a lot?" Ajalia asked mildly. She kept her eyes closed. She thought of her father, and of her brother Gabriel, and of the dark shadows that had drifted out of her ribs, when Delmar had shot blue magic at her body. She did not know how her father had learned to do magic. Coren seemed to be thinking over whether or not he wanted to keep talking.
"Well," he said, "most of the others used paint, or ink. A lot of the spells call for blood, but they didn't like using blood. They said it was too much like the old witches."
Ajalia was surprised to hear that the witches had compunctions about cutting and bleeding. Delmar, and others in Slavithe, had told her that the old witches, from many years ago, had eaten parts of their victims, as part of their spells.
"My mother didn't mind, though," Coren said, sounding pleased. "She was stronger than all the others. She put theses here," Coren said, putting his fingers against the two old words that had been cut into his cheeks, just below his eyes. "She put the words in with a knife," Coren said, "and she put the magic underneath. All the other witches were very pleased when the marks faded. They thought the mark would show, if the spell was so strong, but my mother was very good at hiding."
Ajalia remembered Lilleth, and the curious blankness that had been in that woman's eyes. She remembered what Rane had said, about Lilleth being one of the lost ones.
"Did the others know that your mother was different?" Ajalia asked. She did not want to say that Lilleth had been a lost one, cut off from the magic of the earth and sky, if Coren did not already know.
"Different how?" Coren asked. Ajalia saw that the boy did not know about his mother. "They thought she was very clever," Coren said, and Ajalia told herself that the other witches had known, even if Coren hadn't. She had seen the way other Slavithe had parted in the street, and though they had parted in the street for her, Ajalia, after she had been called the sky angel, there had not been the same stiffness in their eyes. The Slavithe people had not looked carefully away from Ajalia, the way she had seen them looking away from Lilleth, when Lilleth had walked in the streets.
"What did your mother say would happen to the marks, and to the magic she put in you?" Ajalia asked. Coren sighed. He sounded tired. Ajalia opened her eyes again, and she saw that the boy, aside from the horrid black marks on his face, had bluish circles under his eyes.
"She was going to take it all back, when Delmar had a child," Coren said. "She told me it wouldn't be long. She was getting things ready for a love spell, before you killed her." Coren shifted his weight. "He just had to father a child, and then my mother would have done a heart-bond, and she would have taken all the magic out of me, and marked the baby."
Ajalia felt a sort of fuzzy white blanket fall over her mind. She felt, for a moment, as though she could say nothing to this. She remembered Lilleth, as she had looked when she had come to the dragon temple, and asked furiously for Delmar.
"Had your mother chosen someone?" Ajalia asked.
"I don't know," Coren said, sounding annoyed. "It didn't really matter who it was. It would have been my turn to be father's favorite, after the baby came."
Ajalia thought it was very strange to talk about a hypothetical baby in this way. She thought about Sharo, and she thought that Delmar's mother had not had a hand in that young lady's selection. Lilleth, Ajalia thought, would have been thinking of someone else to pair with Delmar. Sharo seemed, by what she had told Ajalia, to have been groomed entirely by the priests. Sharo would have said different things, and behaved very differently, if she had been under the influence of Delmar's mother. Ajalia's lips twitched, and she took an inner determination to locate this hypothetical wife, and to get secrets out of her. Ajalia was sure that Lilleth had not been thinking of Yelin, who was from the East, and a slave, besides the fact that the blond slave seemed to have formed an attachment to Wall.
"Did you know that Wall loved Yelin?" Ajalia asked. Coren sneered at her, but his face did not look so unfriendly now. He seemed more normal, the longer he spoke to Ajalia. He seemed to be losing the awful cramped nature he had gained from his long association with his father and mother. Ajalia wondered if the boy could possibly turn out all right in the end, black marks notwithstanding.
"I don't think Wall can love anybody," Coren said. "If he is with Yelin now, he's getting something out of it." Coren sounded matter-of-fact, and almost sensible.
"Are you actually evil," Ajalia asked the boy, "or is that your mother talking through you?" Cor
en stared at her; she had sat up, and was looking at the boy with interest.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Coren demanded, but Ajalia saw in his eyes that he did know exactly what she meant.
"You can stay here until Delmar comes back," Ajalia said, sitting back. "He'll see you then. I don't know if you'll be sent away."
"I won't be sent away!" Coren said indignantly. "I'm the son of the Thief Lord. And Wall—" Coren broke off again, his eyes flashing towards Ajalia. "You don't have to hit me again," he snapped. "I won't go ahead and say it." He sounded angry, but a smile was twisting at the corners of his lips.
"I think you aren't nearly as horrible as you pretend to be," Ajalia told the boy, "but I think you have very bad habits, and I think you will only get one chance."
"One chance at what?" Coren demanded.
"And since you don't want to stay with me, you'll be sent away, probably to Saroyan," Ajalia said. "I'm sure that no one else in Slavithe will want you. They'll drive you out, because of the marks." She gestured at the thick clusters of black that burrowed through the skin on his face and arms. His burned tunic showed scraps of blackened flesh all across his chest.
"I'm not going anywhere," Coren said, his voice rising. "I'm staying right here. Delmar will vouch for me," he said, but his voice wavered a little.
"I'm going to tell you what is going to happen to you," Ajalia said to the boy. "I met a man named Rane the other day." Coren's eyes darkened; she saw that Coren must have known Rane. "Rane was a spy from Talbos," Ajalia said. "He kept your father from killing Delmar the other night. He was quite a smart man. He told me a lot of secrets about magic, and about your grandfather, Tree."
"Why are you saying 'was' like that?" Coren asked guardedly.
"I trusted Rane," Ajalia said, ignoring the question. "I had spoken to him several times, and I knew he understood me a little bit. I thought we would have a long and fruitful relationship."
"Where's Rane gone? What do you mean?" Coren demanded. He sounded as though he didn't particularly care about Rane, but that the particular phrasing Ajalia was using was eating at him.
"He sent for me tonight," Ajalia continued. "I had heard, before he sent, that there was going to be a meeting, and I was not surprised to be sent for. The man who came to fetch me turned out to be a spy from Talbos as well." Ajalia turned towards Coren, who was watching her with interest.
"What happened?" Coren asked.
"Rane is dead now," Ajalia said, as though that was the finish of her story. Coren stared at her.
"Did you just go and kill him?" the boy demanded. "Why would you do that?"
"I didn't say that," Ajalia said. "I said that Rane is dead. Hal has gone to deal with it. Do you know Hal?" she asked. Coren waved an impatient hand, and nodded.
"Of course I know Hal," the boy said with disgust. "Everyone knows Hal, and Valos. They go everywhere together."
"Valos has been banished, I think," Ajalia said. Coren sat up sharply.
"What?" he asked. "Why? What happened?"
Ajalia looked at Coren, and Coren stared at Ajalia. She saw that she was tearing up his ideas of normalcy; she saw that Coren was beginning, a little, to think about his position. This made Ajalia happy. She hoped that Coren would not turn out to be a total loss. She thought, now that the boy no longer glared, and pouted, and sulked in forbidding silence, that there was some chance Coren would turn into a normal boy. Perhaps, she told herself, he would be able to stay with the boys in her cleaning crews, and become a useful person.
"Where's Valos?" Coren asked loudly.
"He wouldn't obey Delmar," Ajalia said. Coren stared at her with a hard expression in his eyes.
"Hal will go and find Valos," Coren said. "Hal will make Delmar be nice to Valos."
"Hal stripped Valos of the protection he had given him, and sent him away. Valos isn't a witch hunter anymore," Ajalia said. She saw that Coren didn't believe her.
"You're making that up," Coren said resentfully. "Hal wouldn't do that. And you don't even know that there are witch hunters," he added spitefully. "And I bet Rane isn't even dead," Coren said. He looked at Ajalia, and Ajalia looked at him.
"I'm going to tell you what's going to happen," Ajalia said. "Then, when you've been sent far away, you can think about what I said, and realize that I was right."
"You aren't right about anything," Coren said quickly. "You just make things up to sound important."
"You're going to see Delmar," Ajalia said, "and you're going to pretend to be a normal boy."
"I'm not a boy," Coren said angrily. "I'm very important."
"Then, after Delmar's had the thought that he might want to keep you around," Ajalia said, "you're going to do something stupid, and Delmar's going to turn on you, and I'm going to have someone carry you away to the harbor. You'll be sold in the Saroyan markets, just like your father was."
Coren had his eyes, like daggers, poised and turned to Ajalia. The boy was wrought up, it seemed, into a pitch of annoyance and aggravation. He looked as though he wanted to swat at Ajalia, and squish her like a bug.
"That's just a story," Coren said. "My father was never a slave."
"Well," Ajalia said, sighing and getting to her feet. "I thought you were going to be sensible. If you're not going to have any brain at all, I'll send you away now."
"You can't sell me," Coren said quickly. "Only Delmar can do that." Ajalia noticed that it was the first time Coren had acknowledged his oldest brother's authority, if only in a glancing way.
"I didn't say I would sell you," Ajalia said. "I said I would send you away."
Coren regarded her suspiciously.
"Send me away where?" he demanded. "You said before that I'd be sent to Saroyan."
"I said if you pretended to be a nice boy for a few days, you'd end up in Saroyan, as a slave," Ajalia said. "If I send you away now, I'll put you out of my house, and have my boys drive you through the streets."
Coren's eyes widened.
"You can't do that!" he said.
"Why not?" she asked, looking at him. She saw his eyes turn to the open doorway, and then back to her. She thought that he was thinking of the window behind him, but that he didn't want to turn while she could see him. "If you're thinking of running away," she said helpfully, "I am quite fast, and I have a knife."
THE SEVEN WITCHES
Coren scowled at her.
"You're a barbarian," Coren told her. Ajalia shrugged.
"I'm more in the right that you are," she said.
"You are not!" Coren shouted. "How could you be in the right about anything? You're only a slave."
"Like your father," Ajalia suggested. Coren's face turned a vicious red.
"My father," Coren said stiffly, "was not a real slave."
"Then you acknowledge that he was a slave," she said. "Simon was sold in the slave markets in Saroyan, just as you will be. Many people," she added, nodding sagely, "like to own the member of a ruling house. It makes them feel exclusive."
Coren had narrowed his eyes. He watched Ajalia, and his lips pushed out.
"You just say these things," Coren said. "You don't ever do anything." Ajalia regarded the boy with calm eyes.
"You aren't worth much effort," she told him. Coren watched her, and she saw that he was gathering himself to run. "You won't make it to the window," she said, and the boy darted up out of his seat. She had seen the way his arms had twisted, just a fraction, towards the window behind him, and she had watched the tension build gradually through his hips. She stood up, and took two long steps to Coren as he was scrambling to get around his chair. She put a hand around his neck, and threw him down to the floor.
Coren scuttled to his feet, his limbs flying in all directions, and she grasped him hard by the hair. Coren let out a squeal of anger, and Ajalia elbowed him hard in the face. When her elbow impacted against his nose, Coren let out a grunt of surprise, and then slumped to the floor in a heap of angry tears. He tried to stand up, to move again towards t
he window, and she circled around him, and kicked him hard in the seat of the pants.
"You are not being fair!" Coren screamed. Ajalia tried to imagine what a fair fight with Coren would look like; she assumed it would involve her cowering before his superior might and intellect, and allowing him to saunter freely from the dragon temple. She had not hit him with any ferocity; she knew that she could have bruised him, but she only hit him hard enough to shock him. She knew what it was to be sold as a slave, and she hoped, without pinning too much faith on the possibility, that Coren would reform himself in some fashion before he became too much of a liability for the new government to bear. Delmar, she knew would be accepted by the people, and Wall, she thought, could be frightened, or driven out to Talbos. She had only seen Wall a few times, but these encounters had given her the impression of a young man without much brain, and without a valiant spirit. Coren, Ajalia thought, was a nasty thing, but he was at least a distinct personality.
Coren sat still on the floor, and looked at her.
"No one hits me," he told Ajalia furiously. She shrugged.
"No one let me know about that rule," she told him. "I want to finish telling you what is going to happen to you."
"I don't want to hear!" Coren said, but he watched her as she went back to her chair, and perched on the arm. Her bag was still slung around her body; she could feel the weight of the white sky stone, and the dagger she was keeping for Delmar. She had wanted a dagger for Delmar to wear; she had told Calles so, when the seamstress had come to see about the new Thief Lord's clothes. The leather of the scabbard was going to have to be replaced, she thought. The dagger was housed in a sheath that was cracked and blackened with age, and there were a pair of buckles on either side of the sheath near the hilt, where the sheath could be fastened to a belt.
Ajalia sat with her feet on the seat of the chair, and looked at Coren, who was sitting still on the floor, his arms drawn up around his legs, and his hair wild where she had pulled at him.
