by Victor Poole
"What?" Ajalia asked.
"There was a flood," Delmar said.
"After the oasis was formed?" she asked. She put the bread into her mouth. She knew now that she would have to get away from Delmar, and convince him, with force if she had to, not to follow her. She could feel that she was too weak to get far on her own; she began to plan for the future. She put the bread and meat into her mouth, and kept a look of polite interest on her face. Delmar was so absorbed in his words that he seemed oblivious to Ajalia's growing uneasiness.
"The oasis was right after they left the other lands," Delmar explained, "after Bakroth had the visions."
"Just tell me about the witches," Ajalia said. "Why kill the witches?"
"They ate people," Delmar said. He looked at her; for the first time since he had begun to talk, Ajalia almost believed him. "The witches thought," Delmar said, "that if they ate the hearts and the faces of their victims, that they would rejuvenate, and have a longer life, and more power over the sky spirits."
"When you say eating people, is that a metaphor?" Ajalia asked.
"Oh, no," Delmar said. "They really ate people. My father killed the granddaughters of those witches. The witches my father killed weren't like that, they didn't eat people, but some of us believe that they used this," Delmar gestured to the leather book in Ajalia's lap, "to develop a neater way, less messy, of consuming souls."
"You think this?" Ajalia asked. A strange cold finger was stirring around in her chest; she began to fear Delmar. He seemed sinister to her now.
"Yes," Delmar said simply. "They hadn't had that book before," he said, nodding to the book that Ajalia held. "We'd kept it from them for centuries."
"We?" Ajalia asked.
"Those like Bakroth," Delmar said. "Like you and me. Like Leed. Those with the white brand."
Ajalia forced herself to chew the bread and meat; it tasted like mud in her mouth. She felt strangely stirred, as though deep rifts of filth were stirring around in her center. She didn't want to hear any more, but Delmar's gaze was powerful, and his chin had turned firm and handsome again. There was something uncanny in the way he looked at her, and at the simplicity with which he spoke. Ajalia thought that if he had not been crazy, she would have followed him to the ends of the earth. The sound of his voice made her hunger for heroic things.
Delmar pulled a thick green fruit, in shape like a flat moon, out of his bag, and cracked the rind open. A soft yellow meat was revealed inside; Ajalia could smell the tang of the juice.
"Do you believe in magic?" Ajalia asked him.
"I know it's real," Delmar said. "Why not the other things?"
"You mean, the spells and the stories," Ajalia said.
"Yes," Delmar said. "I can conjure a little. You saw the lights."
"I did," Ajalia said. "But I have been in a lot of places in Leopath, and there is no magic."
"Not anywhere else, no," Delmar agreed. He watched her.
"Are you insane?" Ajalia asked him. He considered her question.
"I don't think so," he offered.
"And you say this book teaches magic?" she asked, putting her hand on the cover of the leather volume.
"I think so," Delmar said. "I hope so." Ajalia looked at the book. She flipped open the pages and looked at the wild writing.
"Why don't you know more magic?" she asked him.
"The witches destroyed a lot," Delmar said. "Before them, Jerome held a purge. Most of the people who did magic were killed in the wars between Talbos and Slavithe, two hundred years ago. People like me, the people who are left, we don't know how to learn. I've been collecting what I could," he said, "from my father, and from my people in Talbos. Some of the robbers had old manuscripts."
Ajalia thought Delmar had forgotten how much he had pretended not to be significant to the people who lived in the mountains, and the wild rocky places between Talbos and Slavithe; Delmar had been very careful before to distance himself from them, but now he called them "my people."
"You said Jerome had come a long time ago," she said. "Before the East was my East."
"Yes," Delmar said. "A lot has happened."
"How do you know these things?" Ajalia asked.
"Books," he said.
"And why do you believe the books?" she asked. He looked at her, and thought about this.
"I really want to," he said.
"What if none of it is true?" she asked. The bread made a gentle crunching between her hands; she nibbled on a corner of it. Delmar stared at his cracked fruit, his eyebrows creased.
"You know," he said, "I hadn't really thought about that."
"How could you not think about that?" Ajalia demanded.
"Well," Delmar said with a shrug, "believing it makes my life easier."
"Oh," Ajalia said. She thought about the tall white house where the Thief Lord lived with his statuesque wife, the tall woman with the brown hair, and the oddly cold eyes. "What did your father do?" she asked. "To get banished?"
"Um," Delmar said. He blushed. Ajalia watched his face, her interest in this particular secret deepening. She had never seen Delmar register shame before.
"Yes?" Ajalia asked. She sat forward.
Delmar mumbled something incoherently between his teeth.
"What?" Ajalia asked. She moved forward until she was kneeling just in front of Delmar. She gazed upon him expectantly. Delmar cleared his throat.
"He had me," Delmar said. Ajalia raised her eyebrows and waited for more.
"Yes?" she asked expectantly.
"That's it," Delmar said blankly. "That's the horrible thing. He had me."
"So you have a different mother?" Ajalia prompted. Delmar looked shocked; his mouth was turned down in a kind of quizzical bow.
"No," he said. "No, he was supposed to be running supplies for plague victims, and instead he got my mother pregnant with me." Delmar looked at Ajalia earnestly, as though he were expecting her to turn red, and shout at him for being illegitimate. She waited. Delmar's neck reddened; his eyes were trepidatious. His lips were parted a little. He looked so sweet, and so concerned, that Ajalia was overwhelmed with a rush of affection. She leaned forward and kissed him. When she pulled back, she saw that Delmar's face had turned white.
"What did you do that for?" he asked. He looked as though he were about to cry.
"Is that why you aren't in line to be the next Thief Lord?" Ajalia asked.
"No," Delmar said, frowning. "Almost everyone in Slavithe is born out of wedlock. My parents think I'm stupid." He stared at her. "I'm not going to be the Thief Lord because I'm stupid," he repeated. "Even you think I'm stupid." His eyes accused her. She bit back a laugh. "Why do you look happy right now?" he demanded.
Ajalia told herself that Delmar was going to be the Thief Lord if she had anything to say about it, and she kissed him again. He pulled away from her; she saw that he was crying. His nose was red. She touched the wetness on his cheeks. He flinched from her as if from fire.
"I don't understand," Delmar said angrily. "You're supposed to be horrified."
"I said the same thing to you," Ajalia pointed out. "I said you were supposed to be horrified, when I said my mother tried to sell me."
"Well, that wasn't your fault," Delmar said indignantly. "I wouldn't get mad about that."
Ajalia stared at him.
"What?" he asked.
"So it's your fault you were born?" she asked him. He blushed again.
"Well, no," he said, his face a map of confusion. "You're just supposed to like me less."
"I like you more," Ajalia said. She put her arms around his neck.
"Stop liking me," Delmar insisted. He looked extremely uncomfortable. Ajalia laughed at him. His discomfort made her feel powerful. She moved away from him, and rolled onto her back. She knew that the loose cloth of his shirt that she wore made a gentle rise over her breasts.
"What are you doing?" Delmar asked in shocked tones. Ajalia picked up the slim leather book, and opened it.
/> "Will you teach me magic?" she asked, looking at the wild, tangled letters written inside.
"Um," Delmar said. She glanced at him; he was staring away, into the trees.
"You're afraid of me," she told him.
"I am not!" he said, but his jaw quivered.
"Fine," Ajalia said shortly. She turned onto her stomach and put the book where he could see it. "I know that's Bakroth," she said, pointing to the first word on the first page.
Delmar looked at the page, and then he glanced sideways at her.
"Do you want the stone?" he asked her. She looked up at him.
"How do you know about that?" she asked. Delmar shrugged.
"I saw it in your things," he admitted.
"You were snooping," Ajalia told him. "Where's my bag?"
"Up there," Delmar said, pointing at the boughs of the largest tree above them. Ajalia looked up; she had been concerned before with the passage of time, but somehow, just now, Delmar had become more interesting to her than the rest of the world. She wanted him to look at her in the particularly hungry way she had caught him looking at her before; she wanted him to try to kiss her.
"Will you get it for me?" she asked. He rose, and she watched him climb the tree. His arms moved smoothly over the thick folds in the trunk; his hands thrust into the gaps, and his legs propelled him with a practiced motion up the tall tree. Ajalia thought that Delmar must have climbed that tree hundreds of times before. He climbed without looking at the places his hands caught hold of in the bark, and when he had reached a narrow cleft in the tree, he pulled out Ajalia's bag.
Delmar dropped with the bag into the hollow. Ajalia watched the thick fold of Delmar's legs as he caught himself. Delmar stood up warily, and held out the bag.
"I want to kiss you," Ajalia told him, taking it out of his hands.
"You are not supposed to say things like that," he said primly.
"Still want to," she said, digging in the contents of the pouch. She took out the folded orange gown, which was laying over the smaller items, and laid it on the twisted roots of the hollow.
"You aren't going to change your clothes, are you?" Delmar asked nervously.
"No," Ajalia said. She pulled out the stone rectangle, and put the orange gown away inside the bag. Delmar had packed the cream outer robe and the clean scraps of the under shift into the very bottom of the bag; Ajalia saw that he had been through all of her things. She would have minded before, but now she found his curiosity endearing. She took a wooden comb and a length of soft cord from an inner pocket of the bag, and began to comb her hair.
"I like your hair," Delmar told her. She parted her hair to the side, and braided the sharp bangs she wore to imitate her master's image. Ajalia tucked the braid into a larger braid; she tied the end of her hair so it lay flat on one side of her neck.
"My real hair is brown," Ajalia said. "I dye it to match my master's hair. He dyes his as well. Our clan is ebony black, the only true black." She put away the comb, and scrubbed at her cheeks. Flecks of dirt and blood were on her face; she sighed.
"Are there other colors?" Delmar asked.
"All the Eastern clans are different shades of black," Ajalia said. "Philas was with the ochre black family, before master bought him. The clans mix their dyes with the crushed bark and roots of the different silk worm trees." She took a tiny jar of oil from the bag, and worked the substance into her skin. The dirt and blood lifted away; she wiped her face with the hem of Delmar's brown shirt that she wore, and sighed.
"You're very beautiful," Delmar told her. Ajalia laughed. "It's true," he insisted. "You're the most beautiful thing." Ajalia looked to the side, and saw him staring at her wistfully. He looked sad.
"What's wrong?" Ajalia asked him. Delmar shrugged.
"I wish I wasn't useless," he said morosely. Ajalia smiled to herself, and thought of the future. She thought that Delmar would make a fine Thief Lord one day.
"You aren't useless," she told him. "You're perfect."
Delmar regarded her with suspicion. His eyes combed carefully over her face. She could feel him thinking, judging, trying to see what she wanted from him that would prompt her to say such a thing. He opened his mouth, and closed it, and opened it again.
"I'm going to make you Thief Lord," Ajalia told him, "if you're trying to work that part out." She watched his eyes widen, and then narrow.
"I'm not going to be the Thief Lord," Delmar said slowly.
"Well," Ajalia said, putting her things back into the pockets of the bag, and pushing it towards Delmar, "you're almost the Thief Lord already, with the power that you have."
Delmar had a look on his face that showed plainly he thought Ajalia might be raving, the way she had just now thought he was lunatic.
"I don't think you understand what the Thief Lord does," Delmar said finally.
"I understand better than you," Ajalia told him. "You're an innocent baby, and you already have most of the power you need. We'll have to kill your father," she added, as though she were commenting on the weather. Delmar stood abruptly, and gathered up the bag and bundle of clothes he had brought into the hollow. He stood for a moment, undecided, and then put the things down again, and stacked them together with Ajalia'a bag.
"Come on," he said, standing and looking expectantly at Ajalia.
"Where are we going?" she asked demurely, standing up. Her muscles were sore; she could still feel a tingle at the back of her knees. She knew she had frightened Delmar, and she didn't care. She thought it was better for him to start getting used to the idea of his future now, rather than later. Ajalia thought the arguments that grew out of obfuscation were irritating at best; she preferred to avoid the inevitable betrayal Delmar would have felt, and expressed, if she had hidden her purposes.
"You don't love me," Delmar told her tritely.
"No, I don't," she agreed cheerfully. Delmar shot her a look of shallow loathing.
"You're incapable of love," he said dramatically.
"I could not agree more," Ajalia said. Delmar's face drew into a look of firm indignation.
"If you are trying to change my mind," Delmar said stiffly, "by agreeing with me, it will never work."
"Good," Ajalia said. She smoothed Delmar's brown shirt over her body, and saw his eyes flick irresistibly towards her breasts. She pretended not to notice. "Where are we going?" she asked again. She could see that her smooth exterior was rankling under Delmar's skin; he had done an excellent job of behaving in a platonic manner this morning, but Ajalia remembered the way he had touched her the night before; she knew he was drawn to her body with a force like a plant rising towards the sun.
Ajalia felt a strange dollop of sickness in the pit of her stomach. She saw, in an instant, that she was going to fall down again if she went out of the hollow. She bit back a fierce smile; she was sure she would not faint today. The fainting only came from the gaping black maw of darkness that hovered behind her shoulders, and blossomed like instant night out of her lower back. There was no maw behind her now, and the deep dark wall of holding away was firm and unbroken this morning. Ajalia was sure that she could take the risk of her limbs collapsing, and she thought that Delmar would react favorably to such an event, or his body would. Ajalia bit her lip as she thought of Delmar's arms wrapping around her again. She reflected that it was a pity he had secured a new shirt. She missed the way the sunlight glistened over the curve of his chest, and the shadows that fell into his abdomen. Delmar's ribs were rounded and powerful; his shoulders came out of his torso with a proportional wave like mountain waves thrusting out of a wild sea.
Delmar had gone to the edge of the hollow, and lifted himself to the ground. Ajalia watched him, as he stood in the foliage of the forest, and stared up at her. She was on higher ground, standing within the hollow made of twisting tree roots.
"Come on," he said again. Ajalia moved towards the edge of the rising bark.
"If you take me back to Slavithe," she warned, "you will have to carry me." De
lmar grimaced; she saw the tiniest curve of a smile hug his mouth.
"You're fine," he said brusquely. "You're all rested. We'll be fine."
Ajalia eased herself over the lip of the hollow, and slid carefully down to the ground. She had wondered if Delmar would reach out to help her, but he was studying the leaves of a nearby tree with incredible fixation. She smiled. She felt triumphant.
"Are we going to use the hole in the wall again?" she asked conversationally. He shook his head and struck out into the forest.
"We'll take the road," he said, with great decision.
"Won't the gatekeepers think it odd," Ajalia suggested, "that they never saw me leave?" She saw Delmar's shoulders give a little hitch; she saw he had not thought of this.
"Well," he said. "Maybe they won't notice." Ajalia laughed at him. "What?" he demanded defensively. She shook her head.
"It's nothing," she said.
"No, tell me," he said angrily. He came back a little to walk beside her through the trees. Ajalia was picking her way carefully through the undergrowth; she had no desire to fall into a prickly bush, or a rock, if she did fall soon. Her legs felt strong, but she recognized the slim tremors that were passing like shadows down her spine.
"You are the Thief Lord's oldest son," Ajalia told him.
"Yes, but I—" Delmar began. Ajalia cut him off.
"Whatever you may think about it, and whatever your father may say," she said, "you are the eldest."
"My mother," Delmar muttered under his breath. Ajalia continued, undeterred.
"The only way," she said, "for the succession to continue as your parents wish it to, with your brother Wall taking power, is for you to do nothing."
Delmar did not even give her a glance of scorn. He sighed with an exaggerated motion.
"I can't do anything about my parents," he said. "And I'm not going to be the Thief Lord."
"Anyone standing at the gate is going to be watching you," Ajalia said. "They're going to notice who you're with, and if you're with me, some one of them is going to tell the Thief Lord."
