The Magic War (The Eastern Slave Series Book 5)

by Victor Poole

  As she worked, Ajalia saw the thick black piece of the witches; it had reached the blue wall, and as it touched the shimmering ocean colors, the black cracked, and began to have hairpin fractures spread all up from the blue wall to the tendrils of black that came out from the women's chests. Ajalia realize that the black trunk was going to emit a crackle, as Charm's magic had done, and she hurriedly completed the blue enclosure, and threw it in her mind around the front of the priests, circling them all into a pen of bristling blue. Ocher, she saw, felt the power. He broke off in the midst of a word, and stepped back through the wall of blue. Ocher came at once towards Ajalia; he glanced at the five witches, who, it seemed, were all struggling to gain control of their fractured trunk of black. Ocher came through the blue wall and the net again, and stood once more beside Ajalia.

  "Is the boy all right?" Ocher asked. The priests, when Ocher had broken off, had followed his progress towards Ajalia with their eyes. When the bearded man went to her, and began to confer quietly with her, the priests began to mutter to each other.

  "My brother," Thell called officiously, his voice genial and welcoming. "Perhaps you have business to conduct. Would you like my help?" Thell asked, and he stepped towards the blue light. For the first time, the old priest saw the blue light that Ajalia had put up around all the priests, and the head priest's eyes widened, and then his cheeks grew white. "What is the meaning of this?" Thell demanded, his tone now quiet different than it had been a moment before. "What is the meaning of this?" he shrilled, glancing uneasily at the other priests, who had begun to move, as though like lost sheep, after Ocher. "Stop moving around, you idiots!" Thell shouted violently at the priests.

  The other priests, their faces, and hands, and fronts marked with dark blood, stared around at him, as though he had lost his mind.

  "Ocher must come to us," Thell said hurriedly, and Ajalia saw that the priests did not know that Thell could see the lights. The other three priests who could see were glancing uneasily at the wall of blue; she thought they were looking for a way to escape the enclosure.

  "He has been deeply marked," Ajalia murmured to Ocher. She had not let go of the two blades until she had grasped Coren around the head; she had released the boy while she built the magic for the wall around the priests, but she wrapped her hands around him again, and she felt, once more, the mixed star and earth lights sinking, like burning fire, into the child's bare body.

  Coren had never let go of her; he sighed now, like a sleeping baby, when he felt the heat in her hands going through him again. The black marks on his skin were lighter now; they had smoothed out, and were now like giant red birthmarks, or leftover burns.

  "Ossa got the magic up on the surface, so that it showed," Ajalia told Ocher. "I got it out, after that. He's clean, but very weak now." Ocher nodded, and looked towards the witches.

  "Why are they here?" he asked. His voice did not accuse her at all, and his eyes, as he took the five forms in, were full of distaste, but not of hatred. The five witches, Ajalia saw, had succeed in pushing their black cords again toward the blue wall; this time, the great trunk of black hit the blue lights hard, and a shattering crackle sounded over the whole room, echoing and resounding around the walls and ceiling of the hall. The priests, who had been gathered in a hurried conference with Thell, looked around in alarm.

  "Those witches will curse us!" one of the younger priests shouted. "We must run away!'

  "No! Kill them!" another pair of voices rang out. A part of the group of priests ran towards the witches, their bloodstained weapons raised, and the rest turned towards the entrance of the dragon temple, and began to flee.

  Ocher's eyes were turned to the priests; there was a look of grim satisfaction in his face. Ajalia watched, and she saw the priests charge at the blue enclosure that they could not see. The first priest who hit against the blue wall went up in a buzzing cloud of white light; his body fell to the floor, just as Rane's had done. Ajalia knew when she saw the burst of violent light that he was dead. The other priests were running too quickly; when those behind saw their companion fall, they attempted to twist away. Those at the very back of the group who sought to attack the witches turned, and followed the others who had fled, but the wall of blue light encircled the priests on every hand. Many of the priests hit up against the blue wall, and their souls flashed white. They died, and their fellows, who saw their dead bodies, and attempted to flee another way, hit up against a wall at another end of the enclosure.

  Thell, and the three of his priests who stood in the center of the circle of blue light, as far from the edges as they could stand, screamed at the others to stop running, but in a matter of moments, the others were all dead. The dead bodies of the priests littered the floor like so many empty beetles; their robes spread about them like fragmented skins, and their weapons were flung all about them. Some of them had run against each other's weapons, as they scrambled to flee, and there were new swashes of blood across the white floor. The hall, very suddenly, was silent. Ocher turned to Ajalia, as if the spectacle of the priests destroying themselves against the blue walls had not just occurred, and he smiled at her. It was not exactly the smile of a happy person, so much as it said to her, well, that is done now.

  "The witches came to take Coren away," Ajalia told Ocher. Her arms tightened protectively around the boy, and she heard his breath shudder against her orange gown. Her stomach was growing hot, where his breath rushed against her. Ajalia glanced at the five witches, who were standing now in an awkward grouping, their bodies bound irretrievably together by the hardened and broken-off trunk of the black magic. "They wanted to take him," Ajalia told Ocher, "and to make him into a shadow child."

  Ocher gave a start, and his eyes glowered He turned towards the witches, who were still staring around at him. The five witches had turned after all the priests but Thell and his three were dead; the women's eyes were fixed now on Ocher, and Ajalia.

  "What are you going to do with us?" Vinna asked.

  "I think I will leave you there," Ajalia told her. "You will die when you leave the circle," she said. Ocher looked hard at the witches.

  "You would have killed this boy," he told them, disgust in his voice. Vinna and Jane glanced at each other. Ajalia realized that she had never learned which ones were Fran, Luka, or Esther. She knew that one of these names belonged to the witch who had been killed first.

  "He belongs to us," Jane said. "He is a creature of the darkness. He sold his soul to us. It is our right to take him, and to use him up."

  Ajalia saw Ocher's nose and mouth turn into a mask of anger and disgust.

  "You are no better than they are," he said to the witches, and he took Ajalia by the arm, to lead her and Coren from the net of blue light. Ajalia pulled back. Ocher looked at her.

  "It is not safe for me yet," Ajalia told him. He looked at her, and she saw that he did not understand why, but that he would believe her, if she told him so.

  "Can I take the boy?" he asked. Ajalia nodded, and pushed Coren towards him. "Clare!" Ocher shouted. His soon-to-be-wife came running from the stairs. Clare's cheeks were white, and her eyes were tight around the edges. She came to Ocher, and he passed her the boy, who seemed to have lost all will to move or think for himself. Coren looked back at Ajalia, but Ocher turned the boy's face away from the mangled form of Charm. "Take the child up, away from this," Ocher told Clare, and Ajalia saw fierce love in his face as he spoke to Clare.

  "I will protect him from the other boys," Clare told Ajalia, and took Coren firmly away. Ocher watched Clare take the boy away, and when they had both vanished around the wall that blocked most of the stairs from view, Ocher turned to the three remaining priests.

  "You have to take this magic down," Thell told Ocher. Ocher, as he walked towards the three priests, bent low, and picked up a long and bloodied sword. Thell and his three men stared with shocked eyes at Ocher. Ocher walked through the blazing barrier of blue, the sword held easily at his side. "You can't threaten me!" T
hell shrieked, terror in his eyes and voice. "I have a right to see the Thief Lord! I have power in Slavithe! This is an outrage!"

  The other three priests, glancing swiftly at each other, took Thell by the shoulders, and shoved him bodily into the nearest wall of shimmering blue. Thell died with an unearthly shriek, and his body, which fell to the ground in the middle of one of the enclosing blue walls, began at first to smoke, and then to burn gold and white. The three younger priests raised their hands, and one of them spoke to Ocher.

  "Please, sir," the priest said humbly. "We have no blood on our hands. We desire no fight with you, or with the young lady. If you give us those witches, we will leave."

  "You're going to leave right now," Ocher said, and he raised the bloody sword. The three young men yelled, and backed away. The one farthermost from Ocher tripped, and put out an arm to catch himself. He fell back against the barrier, and a horrifying flash of blood spurted out from his mouth and eyes. An ugly gurgle left the young man's lips, and he slumped to the floor, his whole body pulsing as blood and angry light pumped out of him. He, like Thell, had fallen through the wall so that his chest was placed within the blue light. Many of the priests had been running as they passed through the barrier, and their souls had flashed, and then their bodies had flung away on to the floor, carried by their momentum. Some of the other priests' arms or feet had lain within the wall of beautiful ocean color, but these priests, Ajalia thought, were of some lower grade of soul; they did not seem flammable. Thell was burning quietly, his body consuming in an almost private way. This second priest who had fallen straight through the barrier of light did not burn, but he burbled and struggled, blood and dark fluid pulsing out of him with flashes of iridescent light, until he lay, shriveled and empty, on the floor. The now-dead priest looked, to Ajalia, like a darkened and dried-up fig.

  The last two priests froze, and watched Ocher approach with the uplifted sword.

  "I will not kill you," Ocher told them both in a calm voice, "but you will leave this place, and you will never return to this city." The two priests glanced at each other; Ajalia saw that they both realized they would die if they attempted to leave the blue enclosure.

  The five witches had been holding a conference in whispers; Ajalia heard an enormous crackle. She turned, and saw that they were all leaning forward, pressing the thick black trunk of broken magic against the outer blue wall. The truck of blackness was shivering violently, and dropping pieces of translucent dark rock to the floor. The rocks were just as those that Lily, and the impacting magic from within Coren's thrall curses, had produced. These rocks, as Ajalia saw them in the clear light that streamed from the two glowing pillars, were black, but clear all through. As the five witches leaned harder into the blue wall, trying to break the magic free so that it would no longer bind them all into one body, flashes of agitated lightning began to dance over the surface of the blue wall. Pieces of red-gold, and of the silver from the starlight above, appeared in the ocean blues and clear greens. Ajalia thought again that the wall of mixed light looked like nothing so much as a jewel-bright sea.

  The two young priests snatched up swords; they had not been in the group who had attacked the witches, and they caught up swords now in their hands. Ajalia saw that they meant to fight Ocher. Ocher smiled, and raised his arm. The two young men quailed before him; he was quite twice as large as the two young men put together. The priests' arms were like frail straws. One of the young men dropped his sword and ran. Ajalia saw him leap when he came to the blue wall, and duck his head, as though he hoped to curl into a ball, and get through some tiny gap in the blue lights. With a flash of white light, the young man's soul burned away, and his lifeless body slapped hard against the stone floor, some distance from the enclosure.

  The last priest lifted his sword, and cut at Ocher's chest. Ocher beat aside the young man's sword in one swift movement; the weapon fell with a clang to the floor, and the young man hollered as though he was being stuck through the heart, though Ocher had not touched him yet. The young man backed slowly against the blue wall behind him, and when his shoulders brushed the blue, he yelled, and dashed forward. Ocher grasped the fleeing young man around the arm, and propelled him vigorously through the blue light. With a flash, the last priest was dead.

  The five witches, who had not yet seemed to notice the growing spans of splitting light within the thick blue wall that they leaned against, or to hear the gentle crackles that followed these rims of colored light, gave out a collective cry, and heaved their bodies, which were braced together by the thick cords of ugly black magic, towards the blue wall. Ajalia was sure that the five witches would feel the power of the wall, though they seemed unable to see it at all. Though they seemed blind to the black lines of power that they themselves conjured, Ajalia saw that they were completely aware of how thoroughly their bodies had become trapped together. Ajalia wondered if these witches had often become stuck to each other, when working magic as a group.

  With this final heave of the five witches, the great black trunk of magic splintered into many small clear black stones, which scattered over the floor with the sound of falling glass, and the witches themselves fell forward into the thick wall.

  They all five froze when they impacted the blue light, and their arms stretched convulsively out. They looked as though arcs of bright fire were tracing up and down their spines, and through their ribs. Ajalia could see thick billowing shadows, like those that had leaked out of Delmar, and like those that had fallen away from Minna, piling out of their bodies, and pooling around their legs and feet. Ocher had turned, when the last young priest had expired, and he watched the five witches twitching violently within the wall of blue.

  "I don't think they'll die," Ocher called to Ajalia. Ajalia nodded. She was still standing within the net that curved over her head in a dome, and the thick wall she had built around herself and the witches. "Can you come out yet?" Ocher asked. She shook her head.

  "Something else is coming for me," she told him. She picked the dagger and her knife up from off the floor; their blades were quivering still with the blue magic that she had bound around them, when the witches had first come in.

  "Do you know who it will be?" Ocher asked.

  "I don't think it's going to be a who," Ajalia said slowly. She could feel the trembling coming from far beneath her feet; she felt as though some great force were gathering beneath her, preparing to rise out like an enormous mouth, and attempt to swallow her up.

  "Can I do anything to help?" Ocher asked. Ajalia glanced at him.

  "You don't know where Delmar is, do you?" she asked with a smile. Ocher, who, it seemed, now understood thoroughly why Ajalia had refused to entertain him as a lover, smiled back.

  "He's gone to meet with his grandfather," Ocher told her. "He should come back late tomorrow."

  Pity, Ajalia thought, and she tried to think of what to do. She did not know if she was powerful enough to counter whatever darkness was rising up towards her; she felt as though the earth itself was readying to do battle with her.

  "Can you tell me what the sky angel spells are?" she asked Ocher, flexing her fingers along the hilts of the two blades. She remembered the white stone, flecked with purple, that Isacar had called a sky stone. He had told her that people used it for spells; she wondered if it would protect her at all now.

  The whole hall of the dragon temple gave a tiny shift, and Ocher's eyes widened. He crouched, as though preparing to fight, and looked about.

  "What was that?" Ocher demanded. He looked at Ajalia.

  "Please," she said. "As quick as you can, the sky angel spells." She was not sure if she was a sky angel, or what the sky angel was. She had gathered that there had been a woman in the early days, when Slavithe had been established first by the runaway slaves, and that this woman had held great power. She had also gathered that flying had something to do with it. Flying, she thought, would be an acceptable power to her now that the earth was trembling, and images of deep rents in
the floor opening beneath her were flashing through her mind.

  Ocher looked at her with piercing eyes; something about the way she spoke pushed away the reticence that Ocher would otherwise have had about speaking of the sky angel. Ocher, Ajalia saw, like Hal, had ideas about the modesty of speaking of these things.

  "The sky angel is said to have gathered up the energy in the sky," Ocher said. "It is said that she formed the sky power into great wings, and she could teach horses to fly. Some people say that she herself could fly."

  While Ocher was speaking, before he had finished, Ajalia thought of the cords of blue light that travelling, like chaotic tendrils of roots, through the sky, and she gathered a heap of them into her hands with her mind. Her fingers were still clenched around the hilts of the two blades, but in her mind she saw the clumps of blue light, and she mashed them into bundles, and imagined them shaping into long, elegant wings.

  "Some people say," Ocher said, "that Jerome never went up into the sky at all. Some people say that the sky angel went as a messenger between the earth and sky, and brought news down from the king of the skies. She brought a horse for the falcon, and the horse allowed Jerome to go up and down. No one knows," Ocher added with a frown, "who the falcon was, but all agree that there was a horse, and that the horse could fly."