by Victor Poole
"Are they all dead now?" Daniel asked, looking over at Esther.
"All but this one," Ajalia said. "Have you seen Ocher?" Ajalia looked down at herself, and saw that her skin had returned to its natural tone. She was no longer glowing, or shedding off white light. Her orange gown still held a shimmer, but she didn't look like an avenging angel anymore. Daniel shook his head.
"He came down to help," Daniel said. "I watched for most of it, but when the shaking started, I came to look after the others.
"Good," Ajalia said, and suppressed a sigh. She was beginning to feel spent, and empty. The blue power from the sky was still drooping, like torn butterfly wings, down her back, and Ajalia left it there. She told herself that she would straighten the torn wings out and untangle them from her bones later, after she'd rested. "Where are the others?" she asked, rubbing her free hand over her eyes. The bloodied knife was still in her hand; she glanced down at it, and then thought of cleaning it. Daniel saw her look, and grinned.
"I'll get you something to clean your knife," Daniel said. "Everyone's together in the dancing hall." Daniel turned and ran down the stairs. Esther watched him go.
"You have a little boy," Esther observed. "Is he your son?" Ajalia did not laugh at the witch, who, she saw, was thinking speculatively of Daniel as a replacement for Coren.
"What is wrong with you?" Ajalia demanded. Esther looked surprised.
"Boys are very closely watched in Slavithe," Esther said. "No one can get boys the way they would get boys before. There used to be boys everywhere, but the priests have spread their lies through the city, and the Thief Lord has enacted the protectorate laws for many years now."
"What are the protectorate laws?" Ajalia asked, leading the young witch towards the long bare room where the boys kept their wooden clogs, and the hollow stone ball.
"Everyone who contracts to watch over a boy must put on him the purges," Esther said. "The men do the purges themselves, to keep themselves clean of witchcraft, but the boys must be watched until they are old enough to do the purges themselves."
Ajalia remembered what Delmar had said to Ocher, about doing the purges since he was fifteen. She did not want to ask Esther what the purges were; she would ask Daniel later, she thought. Ajalia entered the long room, and found all of her boys, and Chad, sitting against one wall.
"What are you doing here?" Ajalia asked, coming towards Chad. Chad stared at the bloodstained knife in Ajalia's hand.
"I went home," Chad said, "but Sun ran to find me, after the fighting started. Clare and Daniel went down the stairs with Ocher," the young Slavithe man said. "They wanted to see what the light was from. Sun went down to see what was going on, and then she came out through the back fence to find me. I left the boys with Daila," Chad added. "I didn't think it was safe to leave them all alone."
"Where's Sun now?" Ajalia asked.
"She's with Ossa and Clare," Chad told her. "They took that marked-up boy to a room upstairs. The other boys wanted to fight with him," he added, glancing at Ajalia's house boys, who were sitting against the wall, and conferring with each other quietly, their eyes fixed on Ajalia's bloodstained blade.
Ajalia felt a little as though she had forgotten what day it was, and where she was. She had a feeling of being caught in the center of a wild hurricane of sound and noise. She was thinking of Delmar, and of the one day that had passed, of the three he had named until he returned.
"Can you go and look around for Ocher?" Ajalia asked Chad. "And then come straight back here," she added, glancing at Esther, who was hovering near the door, her eyes fixed on the long row of boys. "I need you for something," Ajalia said. "If you can't find Ocher in about twenty minutes," she added, "come back anyway."
"Okay," Chad said agreeably. "Where's Ocher?" he added.
"I don't know," Ajalia said. "I started glowing, and he shouted and ran away."
"Why were you glowing?" Chad asked, his eyes going wide, and his cheeks lifting with interest.
"Go," Ajalia said. Daniel came in, and Chad, looking reluctant, went out. Daniel brought Ajalia a rag that had been dipped in a little of the poison tree juice; she took the cloth, and rubbed the blood away from the blade and hilt.
"Did you kill someone?" Daniel asked briskly, folding his arms, and looking with proprietary eyes over the gathered boys.
"I killed a witch," Ajalia said, without looking up. She glanced at Esther, who had gone to a far wall in the room, and who seemed to be attempting to be invisible. "Keep an eye on Esther," Ajalia told Daniel, who turned, and stared hard at the young witch.
"Is she a witch?" Daniel asked. Ajalia nodded, and then tucked her knife away into its sheath.
"Boys," Ajalia told the children, who all stopped talking at once, and looked up at her. "You may each ask only one question," she warned, and then began at the end of the cluster of boys.
"I want to know what the dragon looked like," the boy said eagerly.
"It wasn't a dragon," Ajalia said. "It was a black snake, like a fat eel. It had glowing red eyes, and was made of crushed-up white pieces. It was all black until it started to explode."
A rush of murmurs came into the air above the gathered boys, like the hum of large insects in the twilight. She did not ask them how they knew about the great worm; she guessed that Daniel had been watching much of the action from behind the wall, and that he had gone up at intervals to report to the others what was going on. She pictured Daniel running up and down the stairs, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes bright with interest, and relaying news to the other boys.
"How did you kill all those witches?" the second boy asked.
"Can you do any story magic?" Ajalia asked the boy. He nodded, and made an open palm. A bare outline of a blue horse appeared there. It was not a full picture of a horse, and the wings were only made of narrow sparks, but the outline was clearly of a horse. Ajalia opened her own palm, and filled it with blue light from the sky above. She saw that all of the little boys could see the clump of blue. They all murmured loudly again, and their bodies shifted, like small saplings blown in a violent wind.
"She can do the story magic," they whispered to each other, and they stared with respect at Ajalia.
"This is magic from the sky," Ajalia told the boys. "Show me a spark of blue," she told them, and all of the boys lifted up their palms, and little pieces of blue light appeared above their open skin. "I took blue light from the sky," Ajalia told the boys, "and I formed it into a wall. When the witches passed through the light of the wall, they died."
"All except for two," Daniel said importantly. His own piece of blue light was the brightest and biggest spark of all; Ajalia was sure that Daniel had been practicing on the sly ever since he had watched her do magic in Tree's rooms, and since he had gotten his white brand back.
"You told me the boys couldn't do any real magic," Ajalia told Daniel.
"Anyone can make story magic," Daniel said, "as long as they have a brand." Ajalia looked at the boys, and saw that they all wore the white badge of light over their chests. Her head was spinning; she felt as though the rules of the magic in Slavithe were all tumbling around her brain in tiny pieces; she wanted them to stop spinning, and to form one complete picture.
"Come here," Ajalia said to Esther. The short-haired witch looked with some alarm at Ajalia, and then came hesitantly forward. When Esther stood near Ajalia, Ajalia pointed at the witch. "This is Esther," Ajalia told her boys. "She came here to try to take Coren away." A murmur of discontent rose up among the boys when she mentioned Delmar's little brother. She saw that a few of the boys thought Esther should take Coren, and go away with him.
"Why didn't she die with the others?" a boy shouted out. Ajalia turned to the boy.
"She, I think, has not done as many evil things as the others," Ajalia said, "so her soul didn't burn up like theirs did. Do you have more questions," she asked the boys, "or would you like to start practicing magic now?" The boys who had not had their turn to ask a question looked at each
other, their faces tortured. Some of the boys whispered to each other, and one of them spoke up.
"Can we touch your knife?" he asked, and the other boys all nodded and murmured in agreement. Ajalia took the knife she had cleaned from out of its sheath and held it up.
"It is very sharp," she told them. "Don't try the blade. Pass it along, and give it straight back." She gave the knife to Daniel, who looked down at the blade with enormous eyes, and then carried it to the boy at the end of the long huddle. The boys handed the knife, one to the other, and their faces were aglow. They looked as if they were handling some mythical sword from a legend. Ajalia waited until the boys had passed the knife to each other. The last boy stood up, and ran with the knife held flat against his chest to Ajalia. He held it breathlessly out, and she took it solemnly from him, and resheathed it.
Ajalia took the witch by the arm, and shook her gently.
"Esther," Ajalia said, "tell these boys what you want to use them for."
Esther looked around, startled, at Ajalia, and her face was white with fear.
"I don't want to use them for anything," Esther said in a halting voice. Ajalia was sure that the witch thought she was about to be trapped.
"You asked me just now," Ajalia said, "if Daniel was my son. You said that it was hard to get boys now, and that it used to be that you could get them easily."
"Not in my time," Esther said hoarsely. She swallowed, and gulped nervously for air. "Not in my time," she said again, in a clearer voice. "No one can use the boys for magic anymore."
"That isn't true," one of Ajalia's house boys shot at the witch. "I had a big brother who died because of a witch. She ate out his brand, and then he got sick that winter, and died."
"That wasn't one of our witches," Esther said nervously. "We don't eat people."
"You wanted to burn away Coren's body," Ajalia said. "You said it was your right to use him up. You said he was a thrall, and nothing more. You said," Ajalia added, looking at her boys, who were glowering at the witch, "that he had sold his soul to you, and you could do as you liked with him."
Esther was regarding the boys with open terror now. She looked at Ajalia, pleading in her eyes.
"You can't believe the things you hear from these children," Esther said, pallor on her cheeks. "I know they hate witches, but we were trying to protect everyone from the priests. The priests are the ones you should fear!" she added harshly, her eyes brightening as she looked at the huddled boys along the wall.
"The priests are better than you!" Daniel retorted. Ajalia raised her hand for quiet.
"I did not bring Esther up here to argue about the priests," Ajalia said. "I brought her up so that you would have a target to practice with." Esther quailed a little at this, but stood her ground. Ajalia turned to the boys. "All of you, I see, can perform the story magic," Ajalia said. "Can you all see it?" The boys all looked up at her, and nodded. "I want you to make the story magic, and then send the lights into Esther," she said. "You first," she told Daniel, who, in an instant, conjured again a blue spark, and then sent it towards the witch. The blue spark traveled a few inches through the air, and then spluttered into nothing. A couple of the boys laughed, but not maliciously. They sounded delighted at the new magic. "Watch," Ajalia told the boys, and she got a length of gold light from beneath the earth. The boys oohed a little, when they saw the cord of gold. "You can all see this?" she asked the boys. The boys all nodded. Ajalia wondered why so many of the Slavithe were not able to see the magic. Esther was looking hard at the space above Ajalia's hand, but the witch's eyes did not focus on the place where the light was.
"Why can the witch not see?" Ajalia asked. The boys looked at each other. She saw a few of them shrug.
"Maybe she's cut off from the earth and sky," Daniel suggested. He met Ajalia's eyes. "Maybe her choices cut her off from the power," he said. Ajalia looked at the witch, and she saw that the witch was floating a little above the ground. Esther's feet met the ground solidly enough, but the lights within the witch, as Daniel had suggested, stopped several inches before the witch's feet. Ajalia looked at Daniel, and at the other boys, and she saw that their lights ran all the way to the earth. Ajalia looked down at herself, and she saw with some surprise that the silver-blue lights she had found in the quarries were twisted up through the ground, and running around her ankles. I suppose, Ajalia thought, that I am connected to the old sky angel's power now. She was not sure how she felt about this; she had not yet had an opportunity to sit and think about all of the things she had heard about this sky angel. She wanted to sit down, and to get a paper and pen, and draw out a diagram of everything she had learned so far. She wanted to gather a whole host of the Slavithe people into one place, and get all of their words together, so that she could sort through each of their versions of what and who the sky angel was, and how the spells worked. Ajalia hoped that Chad would be able to find Ocher, and to bring him back. She wondered what she had looked like, to have frightened the bearded man so. Ajalia smiled a little to herself; she told herself that Delmar would not have run away from her, if he had seen her glowing white, and speaking with a great and echoing voice.
"We are going to try a new experiment," Ajalia said to the little boys. She saw that many of them, as soon as Daniel had tried to make a spark go towards the witch, had conjured their own sparks, and sent them flying at the witch. None of them had been able to make their lights travel very far, and Esther had begun to regard them, and Ajalia, with something like scorn.
"What you are doing is not magic," Esther interrupted, before Ajalia could speak anymore. "If you are trying to punish me, or to frighten me," the witch said, "you are going to fail. This isn't magic."
"Boys," Ajalia said to the young people, who were all now watching her avidly. "I am going to take some red lights, and some gold lights from down in the ground. If you look at my feet," she said, "and think of the story magic, you will see the colors red and gold."
The boys all turned their faces, and stared hard at Ajalia's feet. She imagined the cords of red and gold that she knew lay below the surface of the dragon temple, and she drew them up near her feet. Many of the boys let out great gasps, and pointed.
"Where is it?" a few of them said, agitation in their voices. "Where are the colors?"
"There, right there!" the others shouted, pointing at Ajalia's feet.
"Think of the story of the falcon," Daniel told the boys who couldn't see. Daniel turned his palm upwards, and the same great golden falcon that Delmar had conjured out on the road to Talbos appeared, in miniature, above Daniel's hand. "You can all see the gold lights," Daniel told the boys. "Now picture those same gold lights, down there," and he pointed at Ajalia's feet. The boys who had not seen stared hard at Daniel's hand. Some of them closed their eyes, and then opened them, and directed their at Ajalia's feet.
"Oh!" one of them said, and shook his neighbor by the arm. "There!" he cried softly. "Right there, and I can see the red lights, too!"
"Make the story of the falcon," Daniel instructed the other boys who could not see. "It will help you to think of the other lights."
While the boys who could not yet see practiced with their hands, and looked between their falcons and the red and gold cords that twined around Ajalia's ankles, Ajalia turned to the rest of the boys.
"I want you to all make red and gold appear," she told the boys, "and I want to you tie this witch down, from the knees, to just below the stone floor."
Esther gave a startle, and twisted away from Ajalia. Ajalia's arm shot out, and she gripped Esther hard by the shoulder.
"You stay," Ajalia growled, and the witch cowered.
"Please don't hurt me," Esther said, and Ajalia knew she was thinking of Vinna's swiftly dead form.
"Daniel," Ajalia said, and she went to the door of the room, leaving Esther standing uncomfortably in front of the group of boys. Ajalia had fourteen house boys, including Daniel, and with Leed now added in, she had fifteen boys who lived in the dragon templ
e.
Daniel followed Ajalia to the open doorway of the room, and waited, his face turned up to her.
"Where's Clare?" Ajalia asked. She lifted her hand to her face, and realized she was still holding the dampened rag that Daniel had brought her, for the blade of the knife. Daniel took the rag from her, and stuffed it into his pocket.
"I told you before," Daniel said, without any cheek, "she's gone upstairs with Sun and that boy."
Ajalia rubbed at her eyes, and tried to wipe away the tiredness that was tugging now at her whole being.
"Give me a quick list," Ajalia said to Daniel, "of all the people who live here." She glanced briefly at Daniel; he regarded her somberly, no trace of a smile on his face.
"You need to go to bed," Daniel told her. She knew he was right, but could not yet bring herself to leave the house in the state it was.
"I will last a little longer," she told him, massaging the skin above her eyebrows. She could hear the boys against the wall, as they conferred with each other, and attempted to send red sparks of light at the witch. Ajalia did not want to explain to Daniel that her mind was beginning to ebb away into whiteness; she did not want him to know how difficult she was finding it to concentrate. "Give me a list," she said again, leaning against the frame of the open doorway.
"My and the kids," Daniel said. "Leed. Sun and Clare. Chad doesn't live here," Daniel added with a frown, "but he'll be back with Ocher, or alone in twenty minutes. Denai has been out for a long time. You sent those other girls with the sewing woman." Daniel thought, his eyebrows creased. "Oh," he added, his face clearing, "and Isacar. He went out to meet his young woman. She was going to collect her things."
Ajalia took a deep breath; she felt as if she was beginning to clear away the blankness in her mind. It must be the magic that I did, she told herself. I'm just tired, she reminded herself, and she thought of the way she had passed through the head of the great black worm.
