The Dead Falcon (The Eastern Slave Series Book 4)

by Victor Poole

  "How?" he demanded. Ajalia's mouth worked for a moment. She was standing in front of the closed door. She turned, and went back towards the room full of blood and wreckage.

  "I'm going to stay here," Ajalia announced. "You go and get Delmar, and tell him I want to see him right now, right here."

  "He won't come if you say something like that," Rane scoffed. "You don't know how things work here." Ajalia gave Rane a dead glare. Whatever chance he had hoped to have at her affections, she thought, was quickly being incinerated into tiny bits of crumbling ash.

  "Go," Ajalia said. "If you want me to trust you, and think you are not a sneaking, horrible spy, come back with Delmar," she said. Rane curled his lip at her, and spun around. He stomped out of the rooms, and Ajalia heard his steps on the stairs. She smiled in spite of herself. He would bring Delmar, she thought, and he would come back ready to talk.

  She went into the room that Tree had destroyed, and found a place near the inside door where she could see both rooms at once. She was beginning to suspect that the entire city was going to conspire against her, in hiding what the old man had been, and what his wife had been as well.

  She fetched the old tunic she had found before, in the outer room, and resumed her watching post. She leaned against the frame of the door, and scrubbed the soft fabric over the dirty block of wood. As she worked, she kept an eye on the windows, and on the door that led out to the hall, and the stairs. She began to work out, in her mind, what Rane had told her about Tree, and about the witches.

  Tree, she told herself, had been born without a white brand. She did not know if this was true, but she started with it as an experiment, to see where the idea led her. If Tree, she thought, had never had the white brand, but had been in line to inherit the title of Thief Lord, he would have had ample motivation to locate a witch, and to convince that witch to marry him, in exchange for a thick white disguise, the kind of opaque white soul that Lilleth had worn inside.

  Ajalia changed the picture in her head; she thought of Tree as having a white brand. If he had been one of the branded ones, she thought, and had lost it somehow—she tried to think of how a person could lose their white brand, and she thought at once of Philas, and of his strange dependence on liquor. It was possible, she imagined, for a man to lose his integrity over drink, or avarice, or, and here her mind ground to a halt, over a beautiful woman.

  Now the story she told herself became quite different. Instead of thinking of Tree as a man without a brand, she thought of him as a young man, proud, and in line for the role of Thief Lord. She thought of him as he would have been had he met and desired a beautiful woman. An old witch, she told herself, and she thought of a great beauty, as Yelin was. Ajalia supposed that a witch could make herself appear young, and still have a great string of bodies behind her. Ajalia frowned; she did not know how age worked with witches. Delmar had told her that the old witches, before Tree's time, had married again and again, but those witches, she remembered, he had accused of eating people. Delmar had said that the new witches, the witches of Tree's time, ate souls instead.

  Ajalia sighed. She shifted her shoulders against the frame of the door, and turned over the dirty block of wood. So far, no creeping faces at the windows or door had rewarded her vigilance, but Ajalia was determined to protect the scene of Tree's bloody demise until she had gotten to the bottom of the mysteries that shrouded his and his wife's past. She examined the side of the wooden block that she had been rubbing; a faint black etching was slowly coming into view. The grime on the block was thick, and greasy. It was shifting, very slowly, onto the brown fabric of the tunic. Ajalia thought that it would be easier when she had some water, or if she got some of the watered-down poison tree juice. She turned over the block, and began to rub with a clean corner of the old tunic. Her eyes on the windows, and then on the open door where Rane had departed, she thought again of the old man Tree, and about the witches she had met so far.

  One, she thought, and she pictured the old woman, Eccsa's mother, who had lived almost entirely within the small room at the bottom of Eccsa's house. Lasa, Ajalia thought, had been Eccsa's false name. She tried to think of the old mother's name, and after a moment, it came to her. Salla, Ajalia told herself, had been the name of the first witch she had met. Salla had kept the slim leather book, and had given it to Ajalia before she died. Salla, Ajalia thought, had not been like the other witches she had met. Salla had not had a strange string of bodies behind her, or a black and bubbled cord of darkness running through her heart. Salla, Ajalia remembered, had worn two faces, but they had both seemed like her own. Perhaps Salla, she thought, had been a different kind of witch. Perhaps Salla, Ajalia thought, had not eaten souls at all.

  Two, Ajalia thought, and the first creeping fingertips appeared at the edge of the open window in the old man's room. They must have a ladder, Ajalia told herself. She stooped down, and picked up a fragment of white stone from the floor. She stood, and lobbed this small stone at the face that had just poked up over the edge of the window. A cry, and a sound of slipping limbs, and a crashing fall, rewarded her efforts. Ajalia resumed her rubbing of the dark block of wood, her eyes fixed now on the open door. She glanced back at the window for a moment; she could hear a cluster of people conferring below. A group of them, it seemed, had gotten a ladder, and planned to enter the room. Ajalia turned her attention to the door that led into the hall and down the stairs. Two, she thought, resuming her count of witches, and she pictured the old woman who had rented her the room in the tenement building where Bain and his mother had lived. This old woman, Ajalia knew, had been a proper witch of the evil variety. She had carried an ugly thick cord of black light through her heart, and before Ajalia had killed her, she had seen a line of seven female bodies, of all shapes and ages, stretched along the black cord, like fish strung along a line.

  A little child appeared at the open door. It was a little girl; her eyes were wide, and innocent.

  "Get out," Ajalia called to the child.

  "My mother wants to borrow something," the girl called in to Ajalia. The girl edged one foot into the room. Ajalia stood up from the opening between the rooms, and crossed through the first room to the child. The girl was not older than nine or ten; she had draggled black hair, and big blue eyes.

  Ajalia spun the child around to face the hall, and pushed her out.

  "If you come back in," Ajalia said, going back to her post between the rooms, "I'll hurt you."

  The girl had come straight back to the door, like a fly to honey, and her eyes were hard, though still opened in a position of utter innocence.

  "But my mother wants something," the girl said. Ajalia ignored the girl, and stood with her back against the inner door frame. She watched the window; the noise below had quieted down, and she guessed that the people were planning a new attack. An idea flew into Ajalia's brain; she felt mildly whimsical as she raised one hand, and imagined a blue cord of light in the sky outside. She closed her hand around this line of blue, and then closed her eyes for a moment, and pictured the earth that ran deep below the building's foundation. The black-haired girl was watching her with wide eyes. Ajalia could not see if the girl had a white brand or not; there was a sort of pearly evanescence around the girl's head, and over her heart, but the white shimmer was not there the way it had been on the other white branded ones Ajalia had seen.

  Ajalia twisted a red cord from beneath the earth around the blue cord of power from the sky, and then she added a thick green line from the earth. She imagined the twisted lines of color forming a thick net, and then she threw the gathered power towards the open window where the hand and face had appeared, and she pictured the edges of the colored lights sinking deeply into the stone around the window opening.

  "That's cheating," the little girl told Ajalia. The girl looked extremely annoyed. The child's anger led Ajalia to believe that the people outside were working in concert with the child's parents. She told herself that the curious interlopers thought she would
be distracted by the child, long enough for some of them to get into the room.

  The window that she had filled with power crackled now behind a web of burning white light. The girl's eyes could not see all the way to the covered window, but she could hear the crackle, Ajalia saw, and she had watched Ajalia mix the lights together in her hand. The girl, Ajalia concluded, had some child-sized version of the white brand, and she turned her eyes towards the girl for a moment, examining the pearly light that came out of the child's body.

  "I can come in if I want," the girl said boldly. She took half a step forward. She was not yet inside the room, but Ajalia stooped, and retrieved a thick slab of wood that had broken free of a desk. Ajalia set the wooden block under her left arm, and hefted the slab of wood, ready to chuck it at the little girl. The girl saw what Ajalia meant to do, and she shuffled back a step. Ajalia heard a distant cry from down the stairs; she could not hear what the voice said, but she gathered from the girl's expression that her mother and father were egging her on. Ajalia thought that she heard the phrase, "she won't really hurt you," float up the stairs. The girl met Ajalia's eyes, and Ajalia bared her teeth in a ferocious smile. Ajalia had no patience with obnoxious children; the little boys she had obtained who had been rotten eggs had been sold off to Talbos by Card quickly enough, and the others she had reformed into decent human beings within a few days of her stay with them. Many of the boys had not been around Ajalia much; she had not been able to train them the way she would have liked, because of her time in the woods with Delmar, but she had taken the best of the boys to the dragon temple when she had come back, and these had imparted some measure of calm and decency to the boys who formed Ajalia's cleaning crew. She knew that her own house boys, and the boys from the cleaning crews, got together in the market, when they were sent there on errands, or given free time, and as long as her own house boys brought back no nasty habits from the association, she did nothing to stop them.

  The little girl turned her blue eyes involuntarily towards the second window in the room. Ajalia turned, and focused her eyes on the man's head and shoulders that had appeared there, before heaving the chunk of wood directly at his face.

  THE NEFARIOUS TREE

  The man let out a wild yell; Ajalia saw the look of terror that creased his eyes and mouth before he fell. She turned back to the little girl; the second window was just visible from the door into the hall, and the little girl looked now at Ajalia with something like fear.

  "That wasn't very nice," the girl said in a small voice.

  "Come in and I'll hurt you," Ajalia said. Hooting and shouts were traveling up the stairs towards the little girl; she was glancing uneasily down the stairs at where the others stood. Ajalia could not see the people on the stairs, but she surmised that the girl's parents, as well as other residents of the building, were there. The girl cringed under the barrage of noise that barreled up at her; Ajalia saw that she was afraid to retreat.

  "Will they beat you," Ajalia asked the girl, "if you go down the stairs again?" The girl's eyes flickered down the stairs, and then she met Ajalia's eyes. The girl's eyes went blank, and her face smoothed out. Ajalia frowned. She got the dark block of wood back into her hand, and resumed cleaning it. Two, she reminded herself, and thought once more of the old witch in the tenement. Three, she added, and she pictured Lilleth as she had been in the moonlight, her eyes soft, like a docile cow's. Ajalia had not seen extra bodies behind Lilleth, but she had seen the awful white plaster that had made up the Thief Lord's wife's soul, and she shivered a little in disgust. Lilleth, Ajalia told herself, had put a piece of herself into Delmar, to control him, but she had not, it seemed, sucked the life out of anyone to increase her own power.

  A hubbub was growing in the street below the second window, where the man had fallen. Ajalia heard distant shrieks, and a few angry shouts. A clatter of a long wooden ladder came next.

  "If you come up again," Ajalia bellowed, at the top of her lungs, "I will kill."

  Dead silence filled up the street, and the blood-spattered room. Ajalia heard the muffled noises from a lengthy argument start up below; after a few moments, she heard the wooden ladder scrape away.

  "You're mean," the little girl shouted at Ajalia. Ajalia kept her eyes on the window. She looked at the open door, and saw that the little girl had edged a fraction into the room. Ajalia drew her knife. The little girl shrieked, and the sound that came out of her made it seem as though the whole house would tumble down at the volume and pitch of the scream. As soon as the girl had shrieked so that the sound filled up the rooms where Ajalia held watch, the child turned, and fled down the stairs. Ajalia heard a second argument begin down in the lower levels of the house; she was sure the child's parents were berating her, and then questioning her. Ajalia put the tip of her knife's blade against the grime on the blackened block of wood, and scraped a little of the dirt and grease away. Her knife was still shimmering with scraps of white light; when the dirt had scraped away, and the blade of the magically-imbued knife touched the actual surface of the wood, a deep red spark chased over the etchings in the block.

  Ajalia pulled the knife away in surprise. She lifted the block a little closer, and turned it so that the sunlight from the two windows glinted on the dark etching. Much of the etching was still concealed beneath the dirt, but the red spark had made some of the grime lift away; the wooden block was smoking gently now. The smoke rose up in narrow lines from the dark etching. Ajalia glanced at the second window, and then at the open door. It seemed that the people who had determined to gain access to the room had retreated for a little while.

  Ajalia thought that Delmar must be close, if he was coming. She had not yet decided what she would do, if Rane failed to deliver her message, or if Delmar refused to come. She supposed that she would remain in this room, fending off the citizens of the city, until Ocher, Rane, or Delmar became impatient, and came looking for her. She didn't mind waiting, now that she had the beginnings of a siege to occupy her. She glanced around the room, and saw that the desk, from which she had lifted a broken chunk, was partially shattered against the wall. The wood was thick on the top; Ajalia glanced at the open door, and then went into the room where Tree's blood lay, and lifted the top of the desk. It was heavy, and she quickly heaved it over to the second window, and propped the long slab of wood over the opening of the window. The top of the desk covered all but a few inches of the open window; Ajalia picked up a few small baubles, and fragments of white stone, and balanced them all along the top edge of the desk, so that they would topple down, if anyone pushed at the desk from outside, or tried to work their hands into the gap left in the top part of the window.

  Ajalia went back to her post at the inner door, and looked at the door to the hall. She saw that a few people had gathered there.

  "We don't want a fight," a middle-aged man said cautiously. He edged a little towards the open door. Ajalia strode towards him, her knife finding its way quickly into her palm. The middle-aged man let out a yelp of fear, and scrambled down the hall. Ajalia heard a door slam further down the hall. The remaining neighbors glanced at each other uneasily, and one of them lifted a conciliatory hand.

  "Can I come in, please?" the woman who had lifted her hand asked. "I'm very friendly," she added, "and I won't fight you." Ajalia studied the group of people at the door. She went back to her spot at the inner door, and rubbed at wooden block. She remembered that Tree had called the dark wood a heart stone. She reminded herself to ask Delmar or Rane what a heart stone was. She thought it was clear that the block of wood held some magical properties; she wondered if it had anything to do with the spells Rane had described Tree being laid under by his wife.

  Three, Ajalia began again, her eyes flicking to the open door, and the gap in the window, Lilleth. She turned over the stone. Her knife was still in one hand; she had pressed the wooden block to her stomach with her knife-holding hand, and was scrubbing at the surface with the old tunic.

  "I know what that is," the
woman in the hall volunteered.

  "Why do you know?" Ajalia asked, without looking up. "Are you a witch?" She glanced at the woman, whose face had turned a sickly shade of green. The woman spun, and ran down the stairs. The three neighbors who remained in the hall before the door glanced uneasily at each other, and shifted on their feet.

  "You shouldn't say things like that," another man shouted in to Ajalia.

  "Why?" Ajalia asked, without looking at the man. "Is she a witch?" Stunned silence met her words. Ajalia heard a soft conference begin between the three neighbors. She sighed, and put down the block. She looked one more time at the second window, and at the small fragments of stone and baubles she had laid along the top rim of desk; the items were undisturbed, and Ajalia walked swiftly to the front door. The three neighbors startled back, like frightened deer, and Ajalia shut the metal door in their faces. She examined the lock, and found that she could not fasten it without a key. She looked around the room, and found a heavy shelf built out of wood and stone. She sheathed her knife, and dragged the shelf in front of the closed wooden door. She tested the door; the shelf was awkward, and heavy, and it would not push away easily if the door was forced.

  Ajalia relaxed a little, and went back to the wooden block. She found a seat in the front room, from which she could easily see the second window, and examined the heart stone. Four, Ajalia thought, Beryl. She shuddered as she remembered the seemingly endless stream of bodies that had lain around Beryl. Ajalia had not had time to properly enumerate the shadowy figures, but as she cast her mind now to the picture of Beryl before the door, and the long huddled figures, she thought that there had been at least thirty bodies. Some of them, she had seen, were behind Beryl, within the shadows of the house, and the ugly black cord that spun through their hearts had been like a long, horrible serpent. Beryl, Ajalia thought, presented a new kind of problem. How, she asked herself, had Beryl gotten away with it? She knew that when she touched the golden and varied colored lights within the earth, her vision cleared, and she saw the witch's victims. She did not see how Delmar, or Ocher, or any of the men with the white brand, had not seen at once what Beryl was, and what she had been. Ajalia tried to imagine the way Ocher had lived, in constant proximity with Beryl's evil, and then she thought of Rane. Both men, she thought, must have grown deadened to the constant, haunting sense of something being wrong. She remembered for herself what it had been like, to live under her father's roof, and to be always near her mother, and she pitied Rane. Ocher, she had seen, was wounded by Beryl's behavior, and by her twisted nature, but Ajalia felt more sympathy for Rane, who had been without a home, or an identity of his own. She thought of the Talbos spy, and of how he had been sent with Beryl to Slavithe, and she wondered, for the first time, how Beryl and Lilleth had got on together.