by Victor Poole
THE KING OF TALBOS
Victor Poole
Copyright © 2017 by Victor Poole
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
1 The Road to Talbos
2 Delmar's Reluctance
3 An Amicable Trade
4 Ajalia Warns Fashel
5 Trouble with the Guard
6 Elan and Thorn
7 Fallor's Affliction
8 King Fernos
9 The False King
10 The Shadows Beneath the Mountain
11 The Bound Priests
12 Savage and Coren
13 Ajalia Collects a New Boy
14 The Soul of the Sky God
15 The Lost Ones
16 The Men Discuss Philas
17 Delmar Vows to Change
18 The King's Second Family
19 The Transformation of Talbos
20 The Gray Dragon Palace
21 The Land Bridge
22 The Coronation
THE ROAD TO TALBOS
Ajalia took Fashel with her, and Philas, when she traveled on the road to Talbos. Delmar was with her, and Chad stayed behind with Card to oversee the last wiping out of the witches. Ajalia spoke to Leed before she left, about what the boys were doing, and Leed explained the process to her.
"The boys walk down a street," Leed said, looking at Ajalia with piercing eyes. "They pick up a line of light from the ground, and then they look into each house. If there is a witch, the dark cord stands out like a big stain. Then one of the boys grounds the other one, and the grounded one forms a sword out of the light, and cuts straight through the black cord of the witch, and then they cut through her neck."
"How do you mean, they ground the boy?" Ajalia asked. She had met with Leed after the household had devastated every crumb and morsel of food that Fashel had prepared. Ajalia had seen the kitchen once, after one of Fashel's dinners. The table had been piled with dishes, and the fire had begun to burn very low. Scents of hot food, and steam from pitchers of fruit mash and soups hung yet in the air. Ajalia had found, on her foray into the kitchen after dinner, that Fashel had made a small basket of sweetened morsels. These were round, and crispy at the edges. The centers were drizzled with a fine frosting made of milk mixed with a curious kind of honey. Fashel had told Ajalia that she made the treats to motivate the boys in cleaning up the kitchen for her. The boys, who had been carrying dishes into the kitchen for Fashel, had driven Ajalia out of the kitchen with cries of outrage; they were fearful that Ajalia would take the sweetbread for herself, and she left the room, laughing at the aggression with which the boys fought over who would be allowed to help Fashel clean.
After the first dinner that all the boys attended, Fashel had gone out again with the jennet, and with five little boys bearing baskets, and she had purchased dinnerware and cooking supplies. Almost immediately, the quality of the food skyrocketed. Ajalia did not know how she had existed before Fashel's food. By the third dinner, even Delmar was rearranging his meetings and business so that he could appear, prompt and eager, at the dinner table that Ajalia had erected in one of the large rooms that lay to the side of the great dragon temple hall.
The table was made of a slab of black rock from the quarries, and it was propped up at the edges by carved logs that Card had brought in.
"I bought them from an old man in the quarries," Card told Ajalia, as they both watched the larger boys wrestle the slab of stone onto the four heavy logs. "I am going to set up a little stall in the market for the old man," Card added. "He's very good at what he does." Card glanced at Ajalia, as though doubting if she would be pleased, and Ajalia nodded.
"How is business with Ocher?" Ajalia asked Card, her eyes on the shouting boys. They were all heaving the stone up at once, and shouting direction and encouragement at each other.
"He is not a bad man," Card said grudgingly. Ajalia laughed. "I like his new wife," Card added with a smile. Ajalia had not seen much of Clare at all since she had absconded with Ocher to be married. Ajalia had not yet asked Delmar how regular marriages worked in Slavithe. She guessed that Clare and Ocher had undergone something of a shuffled-together ceremony, in order to live together right away without attracting undue notice from the neighbors. "The young lady is often with Ocher," Card told Ajalia, "when I meet with him, and when she speaks, she says sensible things."
"Good," Ajalia said.
"Are you upset," Card asked, "that I am beginning my own projects, like with the old wood carver?"
"Card!" Ajalia said, and she actually was surprised. "You are old enough to be my grandfather." Card's nose wrinkled at this, but Ajalia pressed on. "I do not know why you would ask me this. You are a lovely person. You make the world a better place by being in it. Why would I be selfish enough to begrudge some lovely old woodcarver a market stall? All of you people are very odd, lately," Ajalia added with a frown, and she went to help the boys adjust the legs of the new table. Card watched her go, and he was smiling to himself.
Delmar had taken up residence in Ajalia's room, and though they were not exactly sleeping together by any stretch of the imagination, no one but Ajalia and Delmar knew that, and the whole rest of the household, as well as everyone else connected to the pair, suspected them of carrying on some manner of embarrassed affair. Ajalia saw the glances that Card and Chad had exchanged, but the boys, and the young ladies, were all too discreet, or too embarrassed, to show any sign of the deep discussions they all had about the new Thief Lord's sleeping arrangements. Ajalia was a little embarrassed around Chad and Card, because they seemed rather coy to her, but she did not mind the others much. Delmar came into the temple, often long past dark, and seemed to subsist on little sleep, because he stayed up most of the night telling Ajalia what he had done during the day, and asking for her advice.
Ajalia had spent the first two days of the week Delmar had requested visiting, and lighting up with magic, all of the temples in the city. There were seven temples in Slavithe, and when Ajalia had seen the first one, she thought of a rather devious plan. She thought it was devious, at any rate, and she put it into action before she could talk herself out of it. She mixed some of the powerful ocean-blue magic, from the star lights that were invisible in the blue sky, and the red-gold lights that ran in the deepest cracks of the earth. Ajalia filled up the door of the temple with this flashing blue light, and then, when she had done so, she sent the mixed white magic of earth and sky into the walls and ceilings of the temple, so that the white stone walls began to shine.
She did this to the other temples as well, and when she returned home on the second day, she put barriers over all the windows and doors of the dragon temple, as well as over the top of the wall that enclosed the back yard of the temple.
The dragon temple was the only temple in the city that had windows, and multiple entrances. Ajalia added a net of the blue magic over the secret gate behind the dragon temple, so that anyone who came into the yard would have to pass through the blue magic.
She went out on the morning of the third day, and found piles of corpses around the doors of the temples. None of the Slavithe people would come near the temples at all, and she sent a boy to find Cross. When Cross came, Ajalia asked about getting guards to cart away the bodies of the dead priests.
"Leave them there," Cross said, looking with a wrinkled face at the bodies of the priests.
"They will start to smell," Ajalia said sensibly.
"No one is going to touch them for you," Cross said stubbornly.
"Go and ask Delmar," Ajalia said, and Cross ran away. Later that afternoon, several heavy carts, pulled by white oxen, rolle
d slowly through the streets, and bore the dead bodies of the priests away to the poison tree. Word of the meeting with the spies of Talbos had spread through the Slavithe guards and the witch hunters, and many of the Slavithe men came boldly to the temples, to step through the blue barriers, and then to boast to each other of their purity. Very few of the guards or witch hunters died who did this. Many of the guards, Ajalia found, were actually witch hunters who were posted on rotation at the two city gates, and she found that very many of the Slavithe men had white brands of their own.
Several priests in each temple remained holed up inside, and refused to attempt to come out. When they learned of what Ajalia had done, the people of Slavithe set up watches, of their own accord, at the temple entrances, to make sure that no one who was sympathetic to the priests snuck in to supply them with food. After the fourth day, most of the priests in the temples tried to get out. There was little food, and no water inside, and the priests proved to be weak against a siege.
Several of the boys in the city, not Ajalia's boys, but boys who had been taught the story magic by the priests, kept a running count of the bodies that had been taken away from the temples, and of the priests who they guessed still remained inside. When the last known priest had sprinted, with a terrible shout, at the blue barrier, and expired in a flash of white light, the people gathered around the door let out a riotous cheer, and the body was borne away in a long procession to the poison tree.
Ajalia found that the city, aside from isolated pockets of witches, and the individual men and women who had either learned or taught themselves to feed on the souls of others, was composed mainly of healthy people who had labored for decades under a terror of the dark magic. Now that the two black worms had been destroyed, the witches seemed quite to have lost their nerve. No more parties of aggressive witches appeared at the dragon temple to make demands. Ajalia was sure that there were priests who had been out of the temples when she had gone to block up the entrances with the purging magic, but when she told Daniel to spread the rumor that she would pay for the bodies of priests, boys and young men began to rove through the city, taking many old men captive by force and carrying them to the temples. Most old men, knowing that they had white brands and pure hearts, cooperated willingly with these gangs of roving youngsters, and walked easily through the blue barriers, and then back out again. The boys greeted these proven old men with shouts of glee; hands were shaken all around, and the old men went peacefully away. Some old men, however, were priests in disguise, or were predators who had been feeding on women and children without being caught, and their souls burned up when they were pushed through the blue barriers by the children.
Chad was quite shocked when he learned of what Ajalia was encouraging the children of the city to do.
"This is disastrous!" Chad shouted across the hall to Ajalia, where she was sitting with Calles, and looking over some clothes. Chad's face was bright red; it was apparent that he had been running for some time. "I was going about with the boys," Chad gasped, when he reached Ajalia and Calles. "Hello, Calles," Chad gasped, waving a hand at the seamstress. Calles smiled at Chad, and said hello. "I was going with the boys, and checking along the old walls up north," Chad gasped, clutching at his side. "There are some apartments up there that the boys didn't know about. We had found some witches, and I was cutting off their powers, and then," Chad said, his eyes growing very wide, "another group of children came in, and they went straight into the houses!"
Chad stared at Ajalia, and Ajalia stared at Chad.
"Don't you see?" Chad asked.
"No," Ajalia said.
"They said, when I asked them," Chad said, "that you told them you would pay them if they found any priests. They said that they were going around, and seizing on anyone who was over the age of about thirty, and shoving them through the doors to the temples! To see if they would die!" Chad stared at Ajalia.
"Yes," Ajalia said.
"Well!" Chad exclaimed, "You didn't tell them to do that, did you?"
"No," Ajalia said. Chad's expression crumbled into relief. "I told Daniel to tell them to do that. I'm glad they're checking for the last of the priests."
"But they're killing people!" Chad shouted.
"They're killing priests," Calles said, "and abusers of magic. Good riddance, I say."
"But," Chad said again. He looked pleadingly at Ajalia. He looked quite reminiscent of the person he had been when Ajalia had first gone up the stairs in the poor tenement, and knocked at his door. "Killing people is wrong!" Chad said.
"You're killing the witches," Ajalia pointed out. Chad's whole face crinkled into a look of impatient disgust.
"I am cutting out the ability of the witches to work ugly, bad magic," Chad said sanctimoniously. "That is not at all the same thing as killing the witches."
"Have you see what the women are like, after you or the boys cut through their necks with magic?" Ajalia asked. Chad frowned. He clearly had not thought about this.
"Don't they just turn good?" he demanded. "We cut off the black cord, so they can't reach out to their victims anymore."
"You're killing witches, Chad," Ajalia said, and she turned back to her conversation with Calles. Chad stared at the two of them for a few minutes, and then wandered a little way down the hall. He came back in a moment, and stood near Ajalia. When she looked up at him expectantly, he took a deep breath.
"Do you think I'm a bad person, if I've been killing witches?" Chad asked. Calles laughed, but Ajalia looked soberly at the young man.
"That depends," Ajalia said.
"On what?" Chad demanded, looking anxious.
"On whether you want to be a good person, or a bad person," Ajalia said.
"Well, of course I want to be a good person," Chad said, as though it was a stupid thing that she had said.
"Then you are doing the right thing," Ajalia told him.
"But how are you sure?" Chad asked quickly. "What if I'm a bad person, like the witches, and I'm just pretending to help because I like killing people?"
"Do you think I'm a bad person?" Ajalia asked. Chad frowned at her.
"Of course you're a good person," Chad said. "You're not a bad person."
"Do you think Esther is a good person?" Ajalia asked. The young witch had been going up and down the streets with the boys, and pointing out to them the houses where the witches had gathered. Esther did not personally know all of the witch hiding-holes in Slavithe, but she knew many of them, and she had some knowledge of still more. Daniel had led up the charge for dismantling the workshops of the witches, and confiscating or destroying their tools and materials. Daniel and his helpers had found many old books, all of which had been like the thick and ornate tomes Delmar had kept for so long. All of these books had been burned.
Daniel and Leed, along with Isacar, and with the assistance of Chad, had broken up all of Ajalia's house boys into pairs, and given them charge of boys from the cleaning crews. Almost all the boys from the cleaning crews had been moved into the dragon temple; the few boys who had been leading the crews, and managing them for Chad, had been put in charge of the long row house where the crew boys all had been living, and which was now a kind of headquarters for the swarms of boys who were appearing almost every hour, eager to join the ranks of Leed's growing army.
Leed was taking on the role of commanding general with absolute aplomb; he ordered the boys about without a hint of irony, and even Isacar and Chad obeyed the boy now as if he had been Ajalia. Isacar, after the first fight Chad had had with him, had begun to settle down, and once Philas and Delmar had joined in with sharp remarks, Isacar had quickly adjusted his attitude, and was now almost docile enough to placate even Chad's sensitive pride.
"Esther is a very nice woman," Chad said, his ears getting red. "I might marry Esther," Chad told Calles swiftly, blushing deeper every moment. Chad glanced over at Ajalia. "Ajalia said she might marry me. She said that Esther might marry me," Chad said quickly, blushing deeper still.
> "Who's Esther?" Calles asked Ajalia.
"A former witch," Ajalia said. "The boys are watching her closely. As is Chad," she added raising her eyebrow at the young man, as if to say, why aren't you watching her now?
"Esther has been a valuable source of information," Chad said with dignity, ignoring Ajalia's eyebrow. "I think I am probably an all right person," he said to Ajalia.
"Chad," Ajalia said. "Do you know how many priests I have made to die by now?"
"Lots of dead priests," Chad mumbled. He sighed tumultuously. "Yes, yes, I should go and check on the others now."
"Chad," Ajalia said.
"I don't want to talk about whether I'm a good person or not anymore," Chad said, getting flustered. "I got the point. I'm an okay person. I'll go away now, since I'm just making a fool of myself."
"Chad, sit down," Ajalia said.
"No!" Chad snapped. "I'm no good. I'll go away and be stupid somewhere else." He turned to stomp away, but Ajalia, who had been taking lessons on more powerful magic from Delmar in the nights, raised a hand. Chad floated gently into the air, and drifted cozily into a chair. He got up at once, and Ajalia made his legs lift gently out from under him. Chad floated again down into the chair. "This kind of magic is not fair!" Chad hollered, but he did not try to stand up again. "What do you want?" he asked moodily.
"It's odd to see magic done openly these days," Calles said. The seamstress was sitting back in her chair, and her hands were folded over her stomach as she watched Chad squirm. "But nice," Calles added. "Go back and do as Fashel tells you," she told her daughter, who had just run up from the kitchen.
"But mother, she wants me to scrub the floor!" Calles's daughter protested quietly. The little girl glanced shyly at Ajalia, her eyes wide. Everyone in the city knew now of Ajalia. They called her the sky angel openly now, and they told each other of the evil that Ajalia had driven out of the city. None of the people said anything about the black worms Ajalia had killed, but she had seen the way the people parted around her, and Cross had told her confidentially that Leed had told all of the boys what she had done, and that the boys had told everyone else in the city.
