by Victor Poole
The dark-eyed man's mouth had already been drawn into a tense line, but it deepened now into a great frown. Ajalia kept her fingers in the sign, and her eyes met the dark-eyed man's gaze steadily. The dark-eyed man's mouth creased down until he looked as though he would never smile again in his life. Finally, he turned to his companion.
"Valos," the dark-eyed man said, "go home. I'll handle this."
"But Ocher said to find the witch," the second man protested, wringing back hard on the reins of his twisting mare.
"There is no witch," the dark-eyed man said angrily. "It's only Delmar. And get control of your horse," he added.
"She's not been like this before," the second man, Valos, replied, pulling back hard on the reins.
"I am the Thief Lord," Delmar told them both. "You answer to me, under the laws of Slavithe. If you have questions about the order of succession, you had better address them to the old man, Tree."
"What if she's a witch?" Valos demanded. "Beryl said it would be a woman."
"Go home," the dark-eyed man hissed, his eyes turned scornfully on the froth that was steadily building around the gray mare's mouth.
"Valos," Delmar said, "if you do not obey Hal, you will be stripped of your position." Valos glared up at Delmar, who was above him; the second man's eyes were tense, and white.
"You have no authority over me, boy," Valos snapped.
"Hal," Delmar said. The black horse was imperious and still; he seemed to have absorbed the tension of the scene, and taken upon himself to lend all the majesty of his appearance to the proceedings. Ajalia had thought before this that black horse could not possible bow his head any deeper against his glistening chest, but she saw now that she had been wrong. The black horse was like a statue; his legs were firm and steadfast against the road, and his ears turned back to Delmar, his muscles bulging, and his long black tail swishing carefully back and forth.
The dark-eyed man, when Delmar spoke his name, let out a bark of annoyance, and leapt off of his grey gelding. The gelding had put his forefeet back down on the ground after his short rear into the air. While the black horse that Delmar rode stood as though planted, the gray gelding's hooves tipped eagerly against the white gravel road, and his stubby neck stretched forward, as though he imagined running away.
Hal, the dark-eyed man, dropped his reins on the road, and the gray gelding stood as if tied, his ears swiveling anxiously to and fro. Hal stomped to where Valos bestrode the agitated gray mare, and hauled the second man forcibly to the ground.
"Valos," Hal said, his voice bursting with annoyance, "for breaking with the ways of our forefathers, and in the name of the true Thief Lord, I strip you of your rank as a witch hunter, and remove from you the protection of my house. You will be of our station no more."
Hal reached a thick fist into the sky; a thin, scraggly bolt of blue light fell down from the sky, and gathered around his fingers. Valos, who seemed to have frozen in shock, jolted now against Hal's grip, and sought to release himself.
"You can't do this," Valos shouted, fighting Hal's firm grip on his shoulder. "He's a boy. The old Thief Lord isn't even dead!"
Hal, without speaking again, put the fistful of blue light against Valos's temple, and the second man's eyes went blank for a moment. He stopped fighting. The gray mare had calmed down almost the moment Valos had slipped from her back. Her legs had stilled, and her neck and face, which were now wet with sweat and foam, dipped in relief to the earth as she stretched out her neck.
Ajalia was watching this exchange with rapid attention. She had suspected that Delmar was hiding things from her, about Slavithe, and about the way his father had run the city. She watched the second man's body drain of energy, and then slump, like an empty shell, against Hal's grip.
"Get back to the city, and pack your things," Hal said, and pushed Valos away. Valos stumbled when he had been released; he walked a little like a drunken man. Without a backwards glance, he walked towards the city, his legs weaving and buckling gently beneath him.
Delmar slung his leg over the black horse, and got to the ground. He went to Hal, and held out his hand.
"Thanks," Delmar said. Hal glared at Delmar.
"I didn't want to do that," Hal said. He sounded defensive, and a little afraid.
"This is my friend, Ajalia," Delmar told Hal. He gestured for Ajalia to come near; she had been busy catching up the black horse's reins, and twisting the cloth into a knot, to hold the vines in place were they had begun to unravel. Delmar had been holding the spun vines in place, and she knotted them now to keep them still.
"Hal," the dark-eyed man said grudgingly to Ajalia. He shook Delmar's hand, and glared mistrustfully at Ajalia.
"You can do magic," Ajalia observed. She put her arms over the black horse's back, and swung herself onto his back. "Let's go," she told Delmar, and nudged the black horse. Hal stood for a moment, confusion in his eyes, and watched Delmar gather the reins of the gray mare Valos had abandoned, and follow Ajalia on foot, leading the horse. Ajalia heard a brief clatter of hooves; she looked back, and saw that Hal had remounted his gray gelding, and was trotting to catch up.
THE END OF BERYL
"What is going on?" Hal demanded, when he came level to Ajalia and Delmar. Ajalia looked at Delmar, who shrugged at her. She thought the shrug meant that Delmar wanted her to take the lead of all explanations for now.
"The Thief Lord is dead," Ajalia said. "Delmar is the new Thief Lord."
"Who are you?" Hal asked. "Why does she know things?" he asked Delmar in a low voice.
"Ajalia is the sky angel," Delmar said. Ajalia looked at Delmar; he had said something of this sky angel before; Rane had called her that name, and claimed that she must be the one. Hal looked up at her now with speculation in his eyes.
"Do you believe there is a sky angel?" Hal asked Delmar, again in a low voice.
"I have seen her," Delmar said. "She is Ajalia. She will lead us." Hal gazed mistrustfully at Ajalia.
"And what do you say?" Hal asked Ajalia. "Do you claim this to be so?"
"I don't know what the sky angel is," Ajalia said truthfully. "No one will tell me. Rane and Ocher, and Delmar as well, think the story is impossible and complicated. But I am going to make Delmar the Thief Lord, and now that his father is dead, we are moving onto the meat of that transaction."
Hal looked at Ajalia, and then at Delmar.
"Oh," he said. He rode beside Delmar; Ajalia was on Delmar's other side.
"I have a question," Ajalia said into the silence that had descended on the three of them. Delmar was on foot, leading the gray mare, and Ajalia and Hal rode on either side him. The gray mare, who now appeared to have undergone a personality transplant, walked with easy, ground-covering strides. Delmar looked at Ajalia; Hal glanced at her, a half-smile on his face.
"Yes?" Delmar said.
"What is the sky angel?" Ajalia asked. Hal began to laugh, and Delmar blushed.
"I'm sure you have more interesting questions than that," Delmar said stuffily. Ajalia laughed at him.
"I see," she said. "Well, then, how can you do magic?" she asked Hal.
"He has the white brand," Delmar explained quickly.
"I know that," Ajalia said. "I meant, how did he learn?" She looked at Hal, and Hal shifted on the back of his gray gelding. The gray gelding had settled as well; he seemed now content to walk quickly enough to keep up with the longer strides of the big black horse, but his ears and his tail were perked up with interest.
"How much does she know?" Hal asked Delmar, again in a low voice.
"Too much, and almost nothing," Delmar said. He tried to speak so Ajalia couldn't hear.
"I don't know why you're still trying to keep secrets from me," Ajalia pointed out. "It makes you look pretty silly. Delmar killed his father this morning," she said conversationally to Hal. "He's still adjusting to the after-effects."
Hal looked as though he had swallowed a very large melon; his face went different colors of purple and wh
ite, and then his eyes, wide and strained, turned to Ajalia.
"What?" Hal asked, his voice level.
"Were you sent out here to capture and kill a witch?" Ajalia asked. Slowly, Hal nodded. "And is it your job to capture and kill any witches that Beryl tells you of?" Ajalia asked. Again, Hal nodded. "And," Ajalia went on, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, where the wide white gates of Slavithe would soon appear, "has it ever occurred to you that Beryl would use this authority to send you on missions motivated by revenge, or lust?"
Hal halted his horse. His face now had turned beet red.
"This woman is not one of us," he said in a strained voice to Delmar. "You'll have to be rid of her."
"She's mine," Delmar insisted. "She is one of us."
"Beryl is a truthful woman," Hal told Ajalia. "Beryl cannot lie."
Delmar's face was twisted in an expression of conflicted pain and fear.
"She did lie," Delmar told Hal.
"That is impossible," Hal told Delmar, his eyes going angrily to Ajalia, and his voice low. "She is laid under the deepest spells."
Ajalia watched Delmar, to see what he would say. She could see from Delmar's eyes that he did not want to talk about this, but she also saw that for the first time Delmar seemed willing to speak for himself, and to say honestly what he had done.
"My mother," Delmar said, and his voice burbled a little, "created one of the spirit children."
They had stopped in the road; Hal was sitting on his gray horse, his face a map of conflicted emotion. Hal looked as though he were being stripped bare of all he held dear; he looked like a man who has killed for what he thought was the right side, and is finding that his side may have been the wrong one all along.
"There are no more of the spirit children," Hal told Delmar. Ajalia was a little ahead of the other two; she was sitting, half-turned on the back of the black horse, and watching Delmar and Hal talk. Delmar was looking up at the dark-eyed man, the reins of the gray mare in his hands. Hal glanced uneasily at Ajalia, and lowered his voice again. "We've been rid of them for years," Hal said.
"Do you remember Bain?" Delmar asked. He looked as though he were speaking from beyond the grave; a kind of haunted misery was in his eyes.
"Yes," Hal said at once. Delmar gestured at Ajalia.
"She found Bain," Delmar said. "Ajalia found him. Bain went to her for help, and Ajalia showed Bain to me."
Ajalia wanted to say that this was not exactly what had happened, but she was loathe to interrupt Delmar. He sounded so caught up in what he said, and seemed to be parting with a piece of his heart with every word. Ajalia wanted to know what he would say next.
"Where is he now?" Hal asked. His body had grown tense; he looked ready to spring into action, and his eyes were flickering around at the shadows of the trees, as though he expected to see Bain rush out from the forest and into the road.
"I destroyed what was left of Bain," Delmar said. "He tried to escape," he added, the words leaving him like rocks being pried away from a cliff face, "and Ajalia helped me to trap him. He would have gotten away," Delmar said, "if Ajalia had not been there."
Hal dismounted his horse again, and dropped the reins, as he had done before. The gray gelding seemed to have grown entirely calm since his earlier cavorting; he was beginning to stand on the road now, much as the black horse did, like a massive statue. The gray horse was small, almost too small for Hal's frame, but his flesh had filled up with color and life, and he seemed much larger than he had before. Hal walked across the road to Ajalia, and knelt down on one knee before the great black horse that she rode.
"I apologize," Hal said, "for my doubt." Hal stood up, and extended a hand to Ajalia. Ajalia took Hal's hand, and they stared at each other for a moment. "You are she," Hal said. "I will obey, in the future," he said, and released Ajalia's hand.
Ajalia was beginning to feel a little irate; she wanted to get Delmar in a corner, and to tease out of him exactly what this sky angel figure was, and why everyone lately was assuming that it was her. She remembered suddenly the look that had been on Denai's face, when she had first asked the horse trader to come live with her in the dragon temple, and she told herself that Denai must have been thinking of this sky angel business then, as well.
"All is forgiven," Ajalia said, and Hal remounted his gray horse. "Now tell me," Ajalia said, "how did you learn to do magic?"
Hal looked at Ajalia, and then at Delmar.
"Why does she not know?" Hal asked.
"I said she knew too much," Delmar muttered. He looked ashamed.
"You know she is the sky angel," Hal said in a sturdy voice. "Why did you keep things from her, when you knew?" Ajalia saw that Delmar's face was torn between anger and doubt; she saw that he was embarrassed.
"Delmar," Ajalia said. Delmar looked at her. "Do you want to tell him about what we've been doing this morning?" Ajalia prompted. Delmar's eyebrows creased; he looked as though he wasn't sure what she meant. He opened his mouth, and then looked at Hal. "Delmar," Ajalia said, and he looked at her again. His eyes were full of a pained pleading. "Hang on," Ajalia said to Hal, and she swung off of her horse, and took Delmar aside, close to the trees. The gray mare followed behind them. The black horse stayed where Ajalia had left him, his eyes fixed curiously on the gray gelding, and his ears tipping to where Ajalia had walked.
"What do you want me to say?" Delmar asked Ajalia, as soon as they were out of earshot.
"I think we can trust Hal," Ajalia told him. Delmar made a dismissive face.
"Of course we can trust him," Delmar said, his cheeks folded in annoyance. "I just don't want to tell him about what happened in the woods."
"Which part of what happened in the woods?" Ajalia asked. She couldn't tell if Delmar meant the white piece of his mother that they had destroyed, or the dark shadows that had bled out of him, from his father's tainted control of his mind.
"The books," Delmar said, his eyes turning to Hal, and his mouth turned down at the corners. "I don't want anyone to know that I had those books," Delmar said. Ajalia almost laughed. She patted Delmar on the arm, and went back to Hal.
"Delmar," she told Hal, "seeks, in a misguided way, to preserve what honorable memory he can of his corrupted father. I do not think," Ajalia added, in a voice that she knew Delmar could hear, "Delmar understands how little loyalty your people had towards Simon."
Hal's eyes, which had cleared as she spoke, were now quite bright. Ajalia had not seen Hal look so cheerful before. She remembered the first time she had seen Hal, when she and Delmar had carried Lim towards the poison tree. Hal had not seen her then, and still did not know that she had been present.
"I understand," Hal told her. He turned to Delmar, who had come up behind Ajalia, and was standing with anxious eyes behind her. "My Lord," Hal said to Delmar, "your father was not loved."
Delmar looked as though he had been smacked between the eyes.
"Why would you say something like that?" Delmar asked. He looked wounded. He turned to Ajalia. "Did you tell him to say that?" he demanded.
"Delmar is trying to protect Simon," Ajalia told Hal. "It is an honorable thing, but not expedient for our purposes."
"What are our purposes?" Delmar demanded. He reminded Ajalia of the way he had looked when he had first come to the dragon temple with Ocher, and had demanded to know why she spoke so frankly to the Thief Lord's man.
"A smooth transition, my Lord," Hal said. "Many of us have been waiting for such a day as this, but a change of power makes the people nervous."
"Hal is right," Ajalia told Delmar. "We don't want riots, and we don't want a lousy market."
"I like her," Hal told Delmar. Ajalia smiled; this was what Ocher had told Delmar, when they had first met, and Delmar looked just about as cranky now as he had then.
"People keep saying that to you," Delmar said to Ajalia beneath his breath. "I don't like it," he added with a frown.
"They're saying it to you," Ajalia said. "Think of it as a compliment." Hal
was grinning at her.
"Ajalia is your name?" Hal asked. "I like you," he told her. "This is going to be fun," he told Delmar. Delmar looked as though he was about to start stomping his feet on the road in temper. He glared wildly at Ajalia, and then at Hal.
"This is not fun!" Delmar exclaimed, his face pink. "This is humiliating. And she says we're going to fight Ocher," Delmar added, turning to Hal eagerly, as though he hoped to form a kind of alliance of negativity against Ajalia.
"She won't need to when Ocher knows about Beryl," Hal said grimly. He turned to Ajalia. "Was Ocher there when you locked Beryl up?" he asked. Ajalia nodded.
"That was before Bain," Delmar said. Hal's eyes clouded; he looked like a grim storm cloud of doom.
"Do you mean to tell me," Hal asked Delmar, "that Ocher doesn't know Bain was still around?" Delmar nodded, and Hal's mouth became like an iron mask. "Come," Hal said shortly, and he turned his gray horse towards the white city of Slavithe.
Ajalia got Delmar onto the gray mare, and remounted her own black horse. She wanted Delmar to learn to ride, and the black horse was enormously impressive, but his black back was bare, and his legs were long and powerful. The gray mare wore a saddle, and knew enough to follow where the gray gelding went; Ajalia was sure that Delmar would not be run off with, on the back of the gray mare. As they rode swiftly towards the walls of the white city, Ajalia glanced often at Delmar. She had begun to form a theory about the horses, and about the magic from below the earth. She thought that the magic made the horses whole in their spirits, and renewed their energy, just as the golden cords had made her whole, and healed the dark circles and hollows that had once been in Delmar's face. She also guessed that the second man, Valos, did not have the white brand, and she thought that the gray mare, when infused with the magic of the earth, found her impure rider intolerable. Now that Delmar was gripping his legs around her sides, the gray mare was as docile and calm as an ancient donkey; her legs flashed out beneath her like pistons, and carried him swiftly along beside the large black horse.
