by Victor Poole
"What happened when they were slaves?" Ajalia asked. She found it curious that Delmar was speaking so readily of what he had been so reticent of before. The food appeared to have mellowed him; a smile of muted satiety overspread his cheeks, and his chin was tilted up towards the sky.
"Bakroth learned magic," Delmar said, the dreamy look still in his eyes.
"Really?" Philas asked harshly. Ajalia raised her brows.
"You know," she told Philas, "that we're supposed to believe in the guiding spirits of the silk worm trees. Our master makes offerings to his gods," Ajalia told Delmar. "It isn't magic, but it's not exactly reasonable."
"It's traditional," Philas retorted. "There is nothing shameful in honoring the traditions of your fathers."
"Well, what if his traditions are called magic?" Ajalia asked. "Does that make it shameful?"
Philas glared at her with his lips pressed together.
"Probably," he said stiffly.
"Your people believe in intelligent fish who shape the currents of the sea," Delmar said brightly to Philas.
"My people?" Philas demanded.
"Isn't he Saroyan?" Delmar asked Ajalia. Philas spluttered.
"He claims so," Ajalia said.
"See?" Delmar said. "Magic fish aren't any more dignified than cloud spirits. Bakroth," he told Ajalia, "learned to see and speak to the spirits in the sky. There's another world," Delmar said, pointing up at the stars, "up there, in the clouds."
"There aren't any clouds now," Philas said moodily.
"Oh, stop," Ajalia told him. Delmar ignored the interruption.
"The cloud spirits told Barkroth," Delmar continued, "that long, long ago, when the world was formed, Leopath had been a glorious land, bursting with flowers, and fruit, and trees, and everything good. Then, an evil spirit had stolen the life energy out of Leopath, and hidden it in the sky. He, Bakroth, had to go into the sky and battle the evil spirit. When he conquered, he brought the life energy back in his hands, and in his eyes. Bakroth saw then that he would not be able to save Leopath, because the water was dirty, and the people were angry. He went on a long journey, and gathered together all the good people that he could find, and then he took them on a journey through the desert."
"And I suppose he made the oasis spring up, while he was at it," Philas put in sarcastically.
"Oh, yes," Delmar said. "Actually, he did. The people he had gathered—"
"Slaves, I suppose," Philas said.
"Well, yes," Delmar said. "He had almost all slaves, from the north, and the East, and from the far west. They were in the desert, and they had been a long time without water, and they were all going to die. So Bakroth spoke to the water spirits in the sky, and made a bargain with them. If the people dug deep enough down into the sand, the water spirts would cut themselves, and let rain fall down until it filled up the hole that they dug." The three of them rode and walked for a little while in silence. A gentle breeze wandered past their faces; it smelled of green growth, and strange spices. Ajalia supposed that the wind was coming in from the distant farmlands that rimmed around the white city of Slavithe, and carrying the smell of the ripe fruit.
"So what happened?" Ajalia asked.
"They dug the oasis," Delmar said. "They dug so deep that they broke the spirit of the earth, and tears gushed out. All the people who were digging when the water came drowned, because of the force of the water."
Ajalia almost exclaimed out loud, but she caught herself in time. She had been about to say that she had seen a picture of that event in one of Delmar's books. A deep black hole had been painted on part of a page, and violent streams of water, mixed with flailing bodies, had been depicted within the hole. She glanced at Philas; he had not noticed her abrupt movement. Philas, she remembered, did not know of Delmar's books, or of the danger they brought by existing.
"So, no cloud spirits," Philas said drily.
"Oh, no," Delmar said, "you're wrong. The water spirits saw the gushing water, and they were jealous, because they had wanted to fill up the hole, so they gathered together in a big black cloud, and they each cut themselves right through the heart, so that their water fell down in torrents. There was so much rain," Delmar said, "that the whole desert was flooded up to the people's knees for days. When the water sank into the earth, the great water of the oasis remained, and then later, the trees sprang up. Bakroth and his people were gone by then, though," he added. "They left after it started raining."
"Convenient," Philas said.
"Rude," Ajalia told him.
"Not my mother," Philas told her.
"You're embarrassing yourself," Ajalia told him. Philas's face turned orange in the clear moonlight; his mouth clammed up, and his nose wrinkled in anger.
FLIGHT FROM SLAVITHE
"Why did Jerome go along with the other slaves," she asked, "if he was so bad?"
"Well, he didn't really start out bad," Delmar said. "That happened over time, because he wanted to have magic, but he wouldn't keep the rules."
"Oh, now there are rules, wonderful," Philas said with a scowl. "I'll see you at home," he told Ajalia, and urged his horse forward. They had come near the place where Ajalia's knife had been thrown away from the road; she had begun to watch the road carefully, looking for the dip where she had fallen down. She wanted her knife. She watched Philas and the bundled form of Leed, his arms wrapped around Philas's waist, bob down the road and out of sight.
When Philas was gone, she swung her leg over the brown gelding, and dropped to the ground. She handed the reins to Delmar.
"What are you doing?" he asked, as she sat down in the middle of the road and looked around her.
"Looking," she said. "What are the rules of the magic?"
"Well," Delmar said, "you can't be selfish."
"Okay," Ajalia said.
"I mean, you have to move forward," Delmar said. "Your life has to be clean. Or your soul does."
Ajalia stood up, and walked down the road several yards. She sat down again, and examined the way the landscape lay against the edge of the road.
"How do you keep your soul clean?" Ajalia asked.
"Well, you already do that," Delmar said.
"Then why don't I have any magical powers?" Ajalia asked him, smiling.
"Well, you might," Delmar told her. Ajalia laughed.
"Now you're just being silly," she said. She stood up again, and went down the road a few paces. She sat down and glared at the tuft of brush that lay to the side of the road. She stood up, and examined the patch of road. Her fingers opened and closed as she recreated the movement she thought Delmar might have made when he threw her knife.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Finding something," she said, and moved into the moonlit swells. Delmar followed her, the horse trailing along behind him.
"You might have some magic," Delmar said, "but you don't know any of the words."
"Do you have to know words?" she asked.
"It helps," he said.
"What happened when Bakroth came to Slavithe?" Ajalia asked. She stooped to the ground, and put her hands through a prickly bush. "Can you make a light again?" she asked. Delmar shook himself. A kind of shiver passed all up through his body. He glanced uneasily to his right, where the white city lay concealed beyond miles of road.
"Do I have to?" he asked.
"Of course you don't have to," Ajalia said, wrinkling her nose. "Why would you have to?"
"Well, you asked," Delmar explained. Ajalia stared at him.
"No, you don't have to," she said.
"Okay," he said.
"Will you?" she asked.
He looked at her. A strange protruding of his lower lip made her think that he was going to cry.
"Never mind," she said, and crawled to the side, her hands feeling over the ground.
"Are you looking for this?" Delmar asked. He pulled her knife out of the back waist of his pants, and held it out.
"Where did you find that?" she asked, tak
ing it. The hilt was familiar and weighty in her palm; a rush of comfort ran down her spine with the weapon in her hand. She replaced the knife into the sheath on her back, and took the reins from Delmar.
"I went and picked it up, after you fainted," Delmar said. "I thought you'd want it."
"Well," Ajalia said. She looked at Delmar, and Delmar looked at her. His face was beginning to have the dull, hunted look she had seen in his eyes when she had known him in Slavithe.
Ajalia hoisted herself back onto the brown gelding with a groan, and headed back to the road. The knife made a wonderfully comforting nestling movement against her back; she touched her fingers to the hilt.
"What happened when Bakroth came to Slavithe?" Ajalia asked again. Delmar was wandering along behind her, toying with the twine from Leed's string of bread and meats.
"What?" he asked her, looking up. "I guess I wasn't listening," he said. Ajalia halted her horse, and waited for Delmar to catch up.
"You're acting dumb again," she pointed out. "Why are you acting dumb?"
"I'm not," Delmar said vaguely. His fingers plucked at the twine; he unraveled one end, and twisted the pieces around his fingers.
"You are," Ajalia said. "What happened to Bakroth?"
"He moved," Delmar said. "I told you that. He went to Talbos, to the sea."
"Are you afraid of your mother?" Ajalia asked him. Delmar glanced at her swiftly, and then looked away.
"No," he said. "Why would anyone be afraid of their mother?"
Ajalia didn't answer to this. She realized too late that she had begun to build a sort of dream future around the new and improved Delmar, the Delmar she had found on the road, and in Talbos. Now she saw that Delmar melting away, and the old, maddeningly vague Delmar standing before her.
"What is it?" Delmar asked. He had seen her watching him closely.
"Are you going to pretend that none of this ever happened?" Ajalia asked harshly. Delmar shuffled his feet against the road.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"So you're going to go into Slavithe, and help Philas, and avoid talking to me, and pretend we weren't kissing earlier," Ajalia said. She watched Delmar squirm.
"Probably?" he asked. His face was twisted in a mask of misery.
"Why don't you just go live in Talbos?" she demanded.
"I don't know," Delmar exclaimed.
"Come on," Ajalia said. She held out her arm.
"What?" Delmar asked.
"Get on the horse," Ajalia said impatiently. Delmar blinked uncomprehendingly up at her. His fingers were fiddling with the twine.
"Why?" he asked. His voice was listless.
"Just get on," Ajalia snapped. Delmar took her arm, and grabbed the back of the saddle. He hoisted himself onto the horse's back; he settled himself gingerly behind Ajalia. She took his arms, and wrapped them around her waist. When he pulled back, she tugged at his arms.
"You don't know how to ride," she said. "I don't want you to fall off."
"I won't fall off," Delmar muttered. Ajalia could feel the knife on her back pressing against Delmar. She kicked the brown gelding; the horse gathered his legs in a lope, and Delmar's breath caught sharply in his throat. His arms gripped around her waist. Ajalia bit back a laugh, and urged the horse faster over the long winding road. The horse's hooves made a clatter over the stones; his breath huffed noisily, and his mane whipped back in waves.
"Are we going this fast," Delmar gasped, "all the way back?"
"It isn't that far," she told him. He grunted, and clung tightly to her body.
When they came near the gate that led into Slavithe, Ajalia slowed the horse to a walk, and slid down his shoulder to the road. Delmar lifted himself gingerly into the seat of the saddle, and wrapped his hands into the brown mane.
"I didn't like that," Delmar said shakily. The brown gelding shook himself as he strode over the ground; his shoulders and flanks were streaked with sweat.
"You'll live," Ajalia said.
"My legs hurt," Delmar complained.
"You're welcome," she said.
"Why are you being so mean?" he asked her. She looked at him. Her burning eyes failed to wilt him.
"I'm not being mean," Ajalia said shortly. She wanted to get away from Delmar, but she wanted to get Philas and the slaves out of the city more. She told herself that she would never speak to Delmar again, as soon as she had gotten the silks out of Slavithe. She told herself it would be easier later, when Philas was settled in Talbos, and she had only to manage her Slavithe servants.
"Are you going away?" Delmar asked. Ajalia was leading the brown horse down the final hill towards the tall white stone gates. The gates shone like tall pillars of milky white light.
"Are you?" Delmar said again.
Ajalia felt as though her heart was going to burst straight out of the front of her chest. Her body felt too full of sadness for her to process any of it; she was saturated in sorrow.
"You can come and take that old book," she told him. A flutter of anger passed through her chest, and then she was cold again. She wished she had never met Delmar.
"I don't want to take your book," Delmar said. He was watching her with his eyebrows knit together; he looked vexed. "You wouldn't let me see it before," he added.
Ajalia walked towards the great white gates. She had been riding on the crest of adrenaline for hours; now that all of her anxiety was draining away, the aches and pains of her body were surging back like a host of angry ants. She pulled back the sleeve of her left arm; the skin was black and purple with bruising. Ajalia laughed, and examined the other arm.
"What are you laughing about?" Delmar asked. He was still atop the horse; he could not see what she was looking at.
Ajalia had stopped listening to Delmar. He had become a feature of the white city to her, a part of the landscape she had to navigate to reach her goals. Both of her arms were covered in bruises; now that she had seen the color of her skin, she began to feel the dull metallic ache that had been throbbing through her wrists for some time. She had felt this throbbing before, but had ascribed it to her nerves, to the fact that she was tired, and to the strain of getting on top of the horse several times. Now that she knew how awful her arms looked, they hurt a lot worse. She told herself that she was being a sentimental fool, and that the pain was not really as bad as she thought it was.
"Is it your arms?" Delmar asked. Ajalia was not leading the horse; the reins were knotted together at the ends, and they looped over the horse's withers. Delmar's hands were still clustered in the brown gelding's mane. The horse was following along willingly, his brown muzzle nodding agreeably near Ajalia's back. They were drawing near the long white gate.
One of the tall doors of the gate was partially open; as they drew near the opening, Ajalia saw a guard standing at the other side. His eyes turned up towards Delmar, who was sitting on the horse, and then his eyes flicked down towards Ajalia. Ajalia was still wearing the brown Slavithe tunic she had taken from Delmar; her head was bare. Her long black hair tumbled in sharp waves over her shoulders.
Ajalia put her fingers into the sign of the dead falcon, and pressed them to her chin. The guard blinked, and walked away from the opening in the gate. Ajalia brought the horse's reins up over the brown gelding's ears, and led the beast through the gate, and into the city.
As the white walls of the city swallowed her up, Ajalia felt a curious hardening of her senses. She felt muffled. She wished, for a brief moment, that she could turn right around and head back out of the gates, into the clear night air.
The streets were empty and cold; it was past the middle of the night. Ajalia led the brown horse straight to the stable district, and put him into an empty stall in Denai's stable. She pulled the saddle from the horse's back, and replaced it and the bridle in the long row of fasteners where she had seen Denai take them down. The brown gelding had cooled down, but his hide was still streaked, and dried over with sweat. Ajalia pulled the piece of twine from Delmar's hands and tied a
pair of coins around the brown gelding's throat, as payment, and apology for returning the horse in such a state.
"Come on," she told Delmar, and set out for the little house.
When they came to the little house, a hint of light was brushing the edges of the mountains beyond the white city walls. Ajalia opened the door to the little house, and let Delmar go in first. They had not spoken to each other since they had come into the city. Ajalia studiously ignored the way that Delmar's body angled towards her, his blue eyes anxiously watching her movements. She did not understand how she felt, and she did not want to understand. Her whole body was a continuous ebb of discomfort; alternate sensations of heat and cold passed through her muscles. Her eyes itched. Her throat felt tight and dry. She wanted Delmar to say something, and yet she didn't want to hear his voice again for as long as she lived. She was grateful that Philas thought nothing had happened between them; she was reassured that he would not bother her until he was back and settled into Talbos. The sales there would keep his mind occupied, and once he was out of Slavithe, she would be able to focus on her own plans.
The servants were gathered in the main room of the little house; Philas had sent many of them to the warehouses where the saddles and packs were kept. Most of silks had been gathered together into the house already for the trading. The slaves had finished sewing the orders they had for gowns and cloaks while Philas and Ajalia had been to Talbos, and because of the cleansing ritual, Jenna had taken no new orders. The house had been cleaned the week before, and the servants were gathering their personal belongings into their pockets and bags. Ajalia went up the stairs and looked through the rooms until she found Philas.
"Are you ready?" she asked. "The light is growing. We should have left an hour ago."
"I was waiting for you," Philas said, without rancor. He glanced at Delmar, who was still following Ajalia around like a woebegone puppy. "What's wrong with him?" Philas asked Ajalia in the Eastern language. She shrugged.
"Heartbroken, I guess," she said with a smile. Philas snorted. His hands were full of their master's ceremonial robes.
"I won't be able to manage in Talbos without you," he reminded her.
