by Victor Poole
"Is your magic clean?" Ajalia asked. Ossa's eyes flashed.
"Witches do magic by stealing from others," the girl said in a cold voice. "I, and those like me, do magic by borrowing of ourselves. There is no shame in my magic."
"Was your mother like you?" Ajalia asked, and she touched a hand to her own cheek. She saw that Ossa knew what she meant. Ajalia was asking if Ossa's mother had been a good witch as well. Ossa, who was watching Ajalia through guarded eyes, nodded. Ossa's cheeks crimped, and she looked down at the boy.
"I haven't been able to get the codes you wanted," Ossa said, "but Wall is hiding in a cave that Simon kept stocked with supplies in the mountains, just north of the city wall."
"I can show you where that is," Leed said, without taking his eyes from Coren.
"You don't know where it is," Coren snapped furiously at Leed. The boy twisted his head to see Leed, and Ajalia saw again, clearly, the grotesque markings on his skin.
"Will those ever fade?" Ajalia asked Ossa. Ossa's mouth curved into a grim look of pleasure.
"Never," Ossa said. She looked down at the boy with disgust. "These are very deep spells, ugly ones," the girl said. "They're designed to taint anyone who does magic on the boy. It's good that you brought him to me," she added. "If you had done magic on him, you would have taken on some of the marks yourself."
"How did you avoid that fate?" Ajalia asked. She crouched near the boy, and examined the many symbols in his skin. Coren met her gaze, and snarled. She thought that he looked like a deranged animal.
"My mother was a healer, for bad spells," Ossa said. "That's how she was caught. She undid things like that," and Ossa gestured at the ugly marks on Coren's face and arms, "and the witches who had laid the spells found out, and laid wait for her. Most thrall spells are not like this," Ossa said, nodding down at Coren. "This is very dark, and it cannot be undone."
"But you could make it show," Ajalia said. Ossa nodded. Ajalia looked down at the boy. "Can he do any harm?" she asked. Ossa made a face, as though she were diagnosing an ill child.
"He could spread the thrall, easily enough," Ossa said. "If he pretended to be sick, or if he made a man angry enough, the man would do magic on him, to punish him."
"And then that man would take on the thrall," Ajalia said. Ossa nodded. "What does the thrall do?"
Ossa looked down at the marks below Coren's eyes. The girl looked weary, as though she expected Ajalia not to believe what she said.
"Those will make a man sterile," she said. "Those cause weakness in the legs, and those will fill the lungs with water very slowly, if they are left alone."
"Why isn't Coren suffering from any of these ailments?" Ajalia asked.
"I hadn't finished," Ossa said, and she went through a long list of aches, pains, and curses. Ajalia saw that the girl had not spoken to anyone of her knowledge of magic. She saw that Ossa was lonely, and sad, and since the girl had performed her task of exposing Coren's secrets so ably, Ajalia listened patiently to everything she said. When Ossa had finished, she took a deep breath. "I think," the girl said hesitantly, "that he will have to be killed."
"Why?" Ajalia asked. Ossa swallowed, and then she glanced over at Leed.
"Because he's awful," Ossa said, "and the marks are everywhere."
"How did you make the marks show?" Ajalia asked. Ossa grimaced.
"It's complicated," Ossa said.
"I'm patient," Ajalia said. She looked at Ossa in the plain silver lamplight, and she saw a look of annoyance cross over the girl's face.
"It would be easier," Ossa explained, "to kill him."
"Show me, please," Ajalia said. She saw that Ossa had never thought deeply about death, or about whether anything about Coren's life could be salvaged. She saw that Ossa did not realize fully that Coren was a person who was just as real to himself as she was. Ajalia thought that Ossa saw Coren as bad, and herself as good, and that it would be difficult for the girl to admit that Coren had any right to life. Ossa was looking doubtfully down at the marred face of the boy, who had turned his eyes, once again, towards the floor.
"Well," Ossa said. She looked at Ajalia. "You might not have any idea of what I'm doing," the girl warned. Ajalia nodded agreeably. Ossa's mouth crimped at the sides again, and then she sniffed in a business-like fashion. "All right," Ossa said. "But it's very difficult, and I don't think you'll notice what happens. Magic is very hard." Ajalia waited, her arms folded patiently over her body. Ossa drew up her sleeves, and took another deep breath.
Ajalia watched Ossa. She could see the lights within the girl's body dimly. Ajalia thought about the cords of light beneath the temple, and she closed her fingers around a length of gleaming green. The deep forest green of Ossa's soul became vivid in Ajalia's sight; she watched as Ossa laboriously drew a thread of dark green from within her heart, and pushed it along in the air until it reached Coren. Ajalia saw Ossa's thread of green light twist gently around the edge of a mark on Coren's face. The green thread did not mix into the mark, or mingle with it, as the lights did when Ajalia mixed the earth and sky lights to make white. The thread wound cautiously around the mark, as though the mark were full of poisonous fluid, and Ossa sought to pick it up without squeezing the mark, and making the poison burst out.
When Ossa's thread had made a long spiral around the outsides of the mark, Ajalia saw Ossa tug back gently on the dark green light, and the mark, which was on Coren's forehead, began to glow with an ominous red light, like the color at the very heart of a fire. Ajalia saw the mark grow taut, as though the fluid within were ready to explode out. The mark looked round and full; Ajalia saw now that all of the marks were like this. Coren's face and arms, and much of his chest, she saw, as she held the light from within the earth, was covered with these filled marks that glimmered with red. The red was not the same light as had been in Lily's face, or in the slabs of Beryl's soul. This red was like the burning red at the heart of hot coals. Ajalia did not think that the color was from any person's soul; she thought that it was condensed sunlight, or fire that had been put into a package of magic, and slipped under Coren's skin.
She remembered what Ocher had told her, about the witches putting sunlight into their hands, and burning away the bodies of the boys they had turned into spirit children.
When Ossa had drawn the heavily-bursting mark as taut as she could without making it open, and spill the evil stuff inside, the thin green thread unswirled gently from around the mark, and Ajalia saw Ossa draw the line of dark green back into herself. The girl let out a sigh; Ajalia saw that Ossa was sweating, and that her forehead was creased with effort.
"Is that how you got each of the marks to show?" Ajalia asked the girl. "Like that?" Ossa glanced at Ajalia, and Ajalia saw that Ossa did not think that Ajalia had seen what she had done with the magic. Ajalia released the cord of green magic that she held, and it sank down into the earth.
"I pulled up the magic to the surface," Ossa explained clearly, as she would to a foreigner, or a small child. "I used myself to make the evil show up. If I pulled too hard at the mark," she added, "then the thrall would have come out, and infected me."
"All right," Ajalia said. She reached into the sky, and the coils of vibrant power in the air were thick and strong. She looked at the cords of power, and she told herself that she would need very powerful magic to combat the curses that were drawn over Coren's body. Ossa watched Ajalia with a frown on her face. Ajalia closed her eyes, and looked deeper, up towards the stars.
"What are you thinking of?" Ossa asked. "You look as though you wanted to try magic yourself."
"I showed you magic," Ajalia told her, without opening her eyes. "I showed you before."
"That was child's magic," Ossa said dismissively. Ajalia imagined a star above in the sky; she thought she could feel cords of twisting magic, silver and bright, curled in a hard knot around the star. She knew she could not be feeling real stars. She told herself that she was finding pieces of magic in the sky. Ajalia sighed, and worked her fingers through the
knot of silver light that she imagined. Maybe my mind, she told herself, can travel up into the sky, and see the magic there.
When she had untangled one piece of the star's magic, so that it dripped out in a loop from the cluster of knots, she put her hand around the silver magic, and felt a glimmer of hard light shining through her chest. Her lungs expanded suddenly; she felt as though she were going to float again, and she opened her eyes.
Don't float, Ajalia told herself sternly. She had no intention of showing Ossa that her body, apparently, was learning to fly. Ajalia reached deep below the earth, to the places where the burning cords of hot gold lay. Many of the times that Ajalia had reached for magic beneath the surface of the ground, she had felt thick cords of colored light running all along below. The deep gold was different to this; the deepest gold was what Ajalia had pulled up the very first time she had done magic, when Delmar had read out to her the instructions for doing earth magic from the slim leather book. That was the magic that Ajalia had used to heal Delmar from the awful sunken darkness that had shown in his face, when he had used too much of his soul on her bleeding arms. This was the light that had healed Ajalia's arms, and made her body new and strong again.
Ajalia found a throbbing cord of gold; she followed it down, until she found a part of the gold that burned with a reddish tint, like the hot coal marks on Coren's skin. Ajalia fixed her mind on this cord of gold. With her free hand, she reached within the cord, and drew out a line of hot red. The red-gold magic was warm in her hand, like a piece of heated metal. Ajalia held the starlight in her right hand, and the molten red-gold in her left. Ossa was looking curiously at Ajalia, a quizzical expression on her face.
"You mustn't try to touch the marks," Ossa told her. "You'll take on all of the taints, if you burst them. The thralls will get into your soul. They'll corrupt you." Ajalia felt the starlight in her right hand; it was like cold metal, and it send sparks of energy through her fingers. The skin of her whole hand tingled. Her left hand, where her fingers closed hard around the hot red-gold from deep under the surface of the earth, grew warm and soothed with the coursing heat within the line of power. Leed's eyes were still fixed steadily on Coren; the boy had taken his charge seriously, Ajalia saw, and she smiled.
"Coren," Ajalia said. She heard that her voice threw off a little echo, as it had in Simon's house, when she had spoken to Rane with the powerful white light within her. The boy's face turned a little more sharply into the ground. "Coren," Ajalia said.
"Mmph," Coren said scornfully. Ajalia nudged at the boy with her foot.
"Look at me when I speak to you," Ajalia said. She could see that the others could hear the strange sound of her words; Ossa was staring at her, and Leed had glanced up for just a moment, before returning his eyes to the bound-up boy. Ajalia's tone was calm, and relaxed.
Ajalia saw Coren go still, and then, as though overcome with curiosity, he looked up at her. Ajalia could see that Coren saw the cords of silver and hot red-gold light that she held in her hands; his eyes fixed on her hands in terror, and his mouth stretched in a great gaping slash of fear. Coren tried to scramble away from her.
The boy's hands and ankles were bound. When Coren began to shuffle away from Ajalia, Leed went behind the boy, and blocked his movement. Coren felt the other boy against his back; he had been shuffling clumsily away, and when he hit up against Leed's legs, he snarled.
"She'll kill me you fool!" Coren said, and Ajalia had never heard before such an awful noise come out of a human body. Coren sounded like a small animal that was moaning and growling deep in its throat, as one of its limbs was torn away by the teeth of a trap. Coren looked as though he had moved beyond fear into a kind of vibrating terror.
"What are you doing?" Ossa asked. "Why do you sound like that?" It was clear that neither Ossa nor Leed could see the glowing cords of light that Ajalia held in her hands. Ajalia had begun to lift her hands together. The whole scene had begun to unfold in only a few seconds; Coren's now-hysterical breathing was pumping loudly through the small stone room.
"Get away from me!" Coren hissed violently at Ajalia, hatred and horror mixing in his eyes. Leed looked up solemnly at Ajalia. Ajalia saw Coren's eyes flick swiftly towards Leed, and then she saw Coren's lips purse together, and one of the ugly symbols over Coren's eyebrow began to grow taut, as though it were going to burst.
Ajalia jammed the red-gold and the silver cords in her hands together. The mixed lights changed instantly into an ocean of blue and turquois green. She moved before she thought, and the mixed blue light, which immediately began to emit a potent crackling, shot out like a bar of lightning into Coren's face.
Coren went stiff, and his back arched violently, as though his body were attempting to snap itself in two. His eyes, which had not had time to change expression before the thick rod of mixed power had impacted in his face, were twisted now in a look of blank agony. An ugly sound of breathing, like the sound of air squeezed violently through a gap in rocks, came from Coren, and a roaring, like trapped wind, filled up the room. The window let out an ugly howling. Leed and Ossa, Ajalia saw, could hear what she heard.
Coren's body began to shine with a burning light. The marks on his face and arms, and the strange writing that clustered in groups over his chest and back, turned a violent red, as though each mark were sending out strong light from within. Ossa gasped, and stumbled back towards the door of the room. Without looking, Ajalia sent another bolt of power from the ocean-colored lights that still clung, like remnants of clear jam, to the spaces between her fingers, towards the door, and the door shimmered briefly in its frame, and let out a strong rattling noise. Ossa moved quickly away from the door, her eyes wide.
Coren was vibrating; the writing all over his skin glowed brighter and brighter, and the boy's body began to vent great stretches of steam. Coren's breath left him in pained gasps; the steam that rose from the glowing red marks, like smoke from a smothered fire, stank terribly.
"You . . . cannot . . ." Coren gasped out, his eye furious, and his mouth stretched open still in a grotesque mask. "Take that magic away," Coren rasped out, his eyes jittering helplessly to Leed, and then to Ajalia. "Please," the boy hissed, his eyes narrowing. "Take it away!" Coren tried to shout, but he had little air, and the words were like shallow coughs. "It's killing me," the boy said, and, still shaking violently, he closed his eyes.
Ajalia gathered the last of the mixed blue lights from her skin, and she put into the blue light a heavy dose of red color from her own soul. The red made the blue lights, which already snapped and coiled like deadly snakes of power, turn a rich and pearly purple color. The snapping and crackling stopped, and the purple magic began instead to emit a steady hum. Ajalia formed the clear purple light into a ball, and tossed it gently into Coren's chest. Coren's eyes were closed, but his arched body made one last heavy shudder, and then dropped down against the floor. The marks all over his skin, which burned brightly over his face, and through his clothes, dimmed a little. Ajalia had a vague premonition.
"Leed," she said, "come here."
LEED TAKES THE OLD BOOK
Ajalia went to the door, and opened it. The magic she had put into the surface of the door throbbed when she touched it, but she could touch it easily. Ajalia pushed Ossa out of the room, and then Leed went out. Ajalia went into the hall, and looked back at the room where Coren lay bound. His red marks were beginning to glow a little brighter. Ajalia quickly scooped up some of the magic from the surface of the door, and flung it in a net at the open window. She saw the magic settle over the opening, and she imagined the net of lights sinking deeply into the stone wall, all around the opening.
Ajalia went out, and closed the door. Ossa was standing with her mouth agape and her eyes wide, staring at Ajalia.
"You can't do things like that," Ossa said in a breathless voice. Leed, who, it seemed, had been standing over Coren for some time, went to the opposite wall in the hall, and sat down to wait. Ajalia was picturing to herself the thick glob
of mixed star and earth's core light that hung about the door; she imagined the blue lights thinning out a little, and spreading in quick threads all through the floors and walls of the room where Coren lay.
"Do you think he's going to blow up?" Leed asked Ajalia. She gave a curt nod, and pictured the lights she had flung at the window spreading wide, making a close net throughout the ceiling. When she sent her mind into the room, and saw tiny threads of the mixed blue magic through the whole structure, and through every part of the white stone room that Coren lay in, she relaxed, and sat down next to Leed to wait. The woven threads of ocean blue, Ajalia was sure, would prevent any dark magic from spreading beyond the room.
"You can't do that kind of magic," Ossa told Ajalia angrily. Her voice was beginning to shake.
"What sort of magic?" Ajalia asked. Ossa glanced suspiciously at Leed, and then lowered her voice.
"Earth magic," Ossa said, "and magic from the sky."
"Why not?" Ajalia asked. Ossa's mouth turned down at the corners.
"Only the priests are allowed to," Ossa murmured. She looked over at Leed again, and the girl's eyebrows were drawn together.
"Oh," Ajalia said. She remembered that the priests were standing outside the dragon temple. She hoped that they had not grown bold, and wandered into the hall. She thought that she would have to go down and see them soon. Ajalia was listening for a crash, and waiting for the lights that she felt in the room to make some change.
"What if he doesn't blow up?" Leed asked. He looked around at Ajalia, who was watching the door. She shrugged. "You told me you'd teach me to do magic," Leed reminded Ajalia. She looked down at the boy beside her. She reached into her bag, and felt for the slim leather book that the witch Salla had given her. Her own book was a little thinner than the book she had found in Coren's stolen bag. She identified her book from the other, and then, without taking it out of her bag, she turned to Ossa.
"Go away," Ajalia told Ossa. Ossa's eyes darkened. The hall was dim, but Ossa still had the lantern clutched in her fist, and the silver light gave a steady stream of illumination to their three faces.
