by Victor Poole
"I don't want to go away," Ossa said stubbornly. Her eyes went to the door of the room where Coren lay. "I helped with that boy," she added.
"I don't trust you," Ajalia said. Ossa frowned. "And I don't trust you for good reasons," Ajalia added. Ossa's frown deepened, and her chin made an angry fold above her neck.
"I want to help with things," Ossa said. Ajalia could see that the girl was hoping to win out by refusing to move from the hall. Ajalia smiled up at Ossa from where she sat next to Leed.
"Ossa," Ajalia said. Ossa's mouth turned sour and angry.
"This isn't fair," Ossa complained.
"You have not treated me with respect," Ajalia told her. "You have kept secrets from me, you have lied, and now you think you are going to protect me from some kind of social error. You are behaving in a stupid manner. You are acting like an ignorant child. Go away."
Ossa's face reddened, and her eyes grew wide with anger.
"This is not fair," Ossa said stiffly, and she walked away with the lantern. Leed watched her go, and then turned to Ajalia in the sudden darkness that filled up the hall where they sat.
"Were you going to give me something?" Leed asked. Ajalia took out her slim leather book, and showed it to Leed. She could not see his eyes clearly, but the edge of his cheek was still. "What's that?" he asked.
"How I learned to do magic," Ajalia said. She held it out to Leed, and he took it. "It's in the old Slavithe," she said. "Don't let anyone know you have it. Read it, and then give it back to me."
Leed nodded, his face turned down to the slim book.
"Do you want me to tell you what's in it, after I read it?" Leed asked shrewdly.
"Yes," Ajalia said. Leed held the book close to his chest.
"Can I go and read it now?" he asked. Ajalia nodded. She took the wooden box out of her bag, and handed it to Leed.
"There's a light inside," she said. "Don't let anyone see that, either."
"Do you want it back, too?" Leed asked. Ajalia nodded.
"If you make friends with Daniel," she said, "he might be able to get you one."
"What is it?" Leed asked, his voice quickening with interest.
"Wait and see," Ajalia said. "Tell Daniel that I told you, so he doesn't think you're sneaking," she added. Leed nodded. "I don't think he likes you," she said.
"I don't want him to like me," Leed said quickly. Ajalia heard in Leed's voice that he was jealous of Daniel. Ajalia said nothing. Leed rolled his lips inside his mouth a little. "I guess he won't get me a light," he said, "if he hates me."
"Probably not," Ajalia agreed. Leed looked up at the door of the room where Coren lay.
"What if he doesn't blow up?" he asked. Ajalia shrugged.
"I'll figure something out," she said. Leed stood up, the book and the wooden box in his hands.
"I'm going to hide upstairs," Leed said. "I'll find you, when I'm finished."
"Don't let anyone see that book," Ajalia said again, "or the light." Leed nodded, and went through the darkness towards the stairs. Ajalia listened to the silence within the room, and she waited. The priests below on the steps pressed in on her mind. She thought about the old Slavithe words that had been inscribed below Coren's eyes. The words were the same as a word she had read on the scrap of leather; the word was written twice, below each of Coren's eyes, and they looked as though they had been carved into his skin with a small knife.
Ajalia shivered, and she thought of Lilleth, and of how Coren's mother had stared up at her in the moonlight with blood seeping out from the cuts Ajalia had made in her chin, and around her eyes. Lilleth had been strangely calm and happy then, which Ajalia had thought had been due to the gap of soul that she had cut out of Coren's mother's neck, but now she thought of the late Thief Lord's dead wife, and she told herself that Lilleth had marked up her own son's cheeks with a knife.
Ajalia heard a muffled bang come from within the room. A rattle of stones, and the low hiss of flung dust, came against the door to the room. Ajalia stood up, and went to the door. She put her ear to the door; she could hear the gasping sound of Coren's breathing. Ajalia opened the door and went in. She left the door open behind her.
Coren was lying on the floor, his arms and legs spread out. The explosion of magic, for it appeared that the many marks in his skin had all erupted violently, had burned through the ropes that had tied Coren's wrists and ankles together. Coren's clothing was smoking gently, and there were burn marks all over his tunic, where the writing had lain against his skin. Coren's breath was leaving him in shrill bursts; he looked like the frail shell of a wizened old man.
Coren's strangely ancient posture reminded Ajalia strongly of Bain, and she thought of the way Bain had looked at her knowingly. Ajalia put her hand out, without thinking, and felt for a cord of the power in the sky. When she touched the sky magic, her vision brightened, and she look at the interior of Coren's body for the first time. His lights were dim, and there were great gaping holes in many places. A great stretch of his colors was missing, and another set of colors, of a different hue and tone, had been stuffed in, and attached clumsily, with scorched stitches of light that were the same coal-red color that had burned around the marks Coren wore.
The marks, Ajalia saw, were all empty now. They hung in Coren's skin like the blackened pits of old scars, ugly and shrunken. The letters below his eyes, that formed the words "Mine" in the ancient Slavithe lanugage, were still clearly visible, and they gave out ugly streams of dark smoke. Ajalia reached within the boy with her mind, and pulled hard at the clumsy red stitches that held the sewn-in piece of foreign soul against Coren's colors.
Coren whimpered, and rolled over on the floor. His eyes were half-closed, and his small body struggled for breath. Ajalia finished pulling out the red stitches; the red color, when it was freed from where it had held snug, gave a strong puff of smoke, and vanished. Coren began to cough, and wisps of ugly steam came out of his mouth. The room smelled of old decay, and rotten flesh. The length of strange color that lay within Coren was heavy, and damp, like a cloth that has been wet too often, and has never thoroughly dried out. Ajalia prodded at the place, and she felt an angry stab that felt very like Bain.
Coren's mother, Ajalia realized, had taken the two boys, Bain and Coren, and cut out a part of each of their souls, and switched them. Ajalia did not know how such a thing would be done, but she was sure that this had happened. She remembered the scraps of Bain that she had kicked over with sand, and she wondered what would happen to Coren, if she took him out there, outside the walls, and looked for the parts of Bain that resembled Coren.
Coren's colors were sharp and yellow; he was like an unripe fruit, or a sour stream of filthy water. There seemed to be flecks of dirt within his lights, and the texture was uneven, and coarse. Most people in whom Ajalia had looked had held transparent lights within themselves; Lilleth had worn a chalky and opaque false soul, and Coren, Ajalia saw, looked like an uncomfortable blend of thick and translucent-colored lights.
Ajalia sighed, and began to assemble once again the layer of gold, and the claw of black over her right hand. The process was easier for her now than it had been; she reached down towards Coren, and lifted away Bain. Coren, who seemed to have entered a partially-deadened state, gave out a screech, and his body curled convulsively into a ball.
"Leave me alone," he rasped, his voice dry and hideous in the moonlight that came in at the little window. The light that Ajalia had thrown at the open window had burned partially away; she looked around, and saw for the first time the clear blue stones that had collected against the rims of the walls, and below the open window. The net she had made, Ajalia thought, must have been hit by the evil magic when it had exploded out of Coren. Ajalia touched one of the clear blue stones; she thought that the stones had been formed by the magic she had put into the walls condensing around the evil magic, and burning it away. She turned to look at the door, the long stretch of Bain still in her hand, and she saw that the magic was gone from arou
nd the door as well. Clusters of gorgeous blue rocks lay in heaps around the door.
The piece of Bain's soul that lay in her protected hand hung down, and it brushed against some of these blue stones, and the piece of soul that touched them gave out a great hiss, and melted away. Ajalia looked down at the soul, and then at the blue stones. The stones that Bain's soul had touched were eaten a little away, as if Bain's colors had acted on them like strong acid. Ajalia moved the affected stones into a small pile, and gradually fed the scrap of soul into the blue rocks. The rocks hissed and bubbled, and a cloud of ugly wet steam rose up where the soul had been.
Ajalia wrinkled her nose at the smell; she stepped back from the place, and watched as the blue stones bubbled, and then formed a small puddle of silver and red-gold light. Ajalia touched the swirled lights; they sucked up into her finger, as if she had been a dry sponge, and the whole puddle of light went into Ajalia's center, and made a small swirl of ocean blue over her heart. Ajalia felt a rush of warmth in her body; she felt somehow as if she had taken into herself a guardian of some kind. She could feel a glow of protective magic in her; she felt stronger now, and more powerful.
"You can't keep that," Coren told her. His voice was low, and angry. Ajalia looked around, and saw that the boy was staring at her.
"You can see the lights," Ajalia said. It was not a question. Coren's face twisted in disgust.
"If you mean I can see magic, sure," the boy said scornfully. He breathed in shakily, and began to sit up. Ajalia stood, and watched the boy carefully. His face and arms were hideously disfigured now; pits of scabbed black covered his cheeks and his forehead. An ugly red length of skin around his neck had appeared, where many of the symbols had been painted close together. Coren looked awful. Many of the signs and letters were unreadable now; they formed clumsy scars and nauseating depressions in his skin.
"You look pretty bad," Ajalia told the boy. "What are the codes for your father's letters?" she added. Coren shot her a disgusted look.
"There are not any codes," Coren spat. "He kept a pair of translating stones in that book I stole. They're tucked into the lining. One of them is a real stone, but the other one has the cypher for the letters."
"I would call a cypher a code," Ajalia told the boy. Coren sneered at her.
"You're a great fool if you think you can find Wall," Coren said. "Wall is going to be the Thief Lord."
Ajalia reached out and slapped Coren hard on the cheek. Her palm made a resounding clap in the little room. Coren looked up at her, stunned. She had moved too quickly for him to draw back; she had told Leed about watching for the beginning of violence, and she had taught herself to move differently than other people did. She had found that it was rare for anyone to see what she meant to do before she did it. Rane had been able to; it was the main thing that had made her feel a kinship to the now-dead spy from Talbos.
Ajalia was sorry that Rane was dead. She told herself that Rane had been all right. She would have preferred to have talked things through with Rane, and found a way to be on the same side with him. She reminded herself to speak to Card about Rane, when she saw Card again. Hal, she reflected in the same thought, was proving to be an annoyance. She told herself that Delmar would sort out Hal well enough, and turned her attention back to Coren.
Coren was regarding her with shock and suspicion.
"You hit me before," he said suddenly, his hand to his cheek, where she had slapped him. "Why did you hit me?" he demanded. Ajalia raised her hand, and the boy fell silent.
"Come with me," Ajalia said. She let Coren go ahead of her, and then she closed the door behind her when she went into the hall. "Daniel!" Ajalia shouted, putting a hand on Coren's shoulder. Coren had gone quiet; now that the evil marks were drained of their power, and the transplanted piece of Bain's soul had been extracted and destroyed, all the boy's fight seemed to have gone out of him. He stood in the hall, and moved when Ajalia pushed at him. She nudged him along the hall, and shouted into the stairwell for Daniel.
Daniel came into sight after a moment, panting for breath.
"I was holding back the priests," Daniel gasped. "They're getting very angry out there."
"That room is full of a mess," Ajalia told Daniel. She turned Coren away, so that the boy couldn't see, and she winked at Daniel. Daniel stared at her, his mouth in a line. "Go and clean up that room." Daniel, who looked a little confused, went obediently to the door of the room and opened it. Ajalia was watching Daniel; she saw his eyes take in the loose piles of clear blue stones.
"Oh," Daniel said. He looked at Ajalia. She held out a hand, and beckoned with her fingers. Daniel grinned. He went into the room, and came back out with a beautiful clear blue stone. He had chosen a lovely specimen; the stone was perfectly round, and had a few clear bubbles just within the center. Coren's back was still turned. Daniel put the blue stone into Ajalia's outstretched hand, and then he went back into the small room. He closed the door behind him, and Ajalia dropped the blue stone into her bag.
"Those rocks don't mean anything," Coren said sourly. "Are you trying to hide them from me?" Ajalia cuffed the boy lightly upside the head, and Coren scowled at her.
"Good people don't hit," Coren said stuffily, but he eyed her warily. "Why are you hitting me?" he demanded.
"Have you often made stones?" Ajalia asked, directing the boy down the steps.
"No," Coren admitted. "My mother did sometimes," he said, "but the stones just melted away. They only last for a few hours."
Ajalia thought that this was not true; she was sure that Coren did not know about how the stones lit up, when they were touched with the lights from the sky or the earth. Ajalia suspected that Lilleth's stones, however she had made them, had been of a vastly inferior grade to the clear stones Daniel was stockpiling. She pushed at Coren's shoulder, and the boy shuffled down the steps in front of her. Ajalia could see the hideous black pits over the back of Coren's neck.
"Why did you help your mother?" Ajalia asked. She was thinking of Wall, who was obnoxious, and of Delmar, who was perfect in every way. She wondered why Coren had turned out so badly, when his brother Wall still resembled a specimen of humanity.
"You shouldn't hit me," Coren told her sternly. "It's wrong to hit."
Ajalia reached out, and put her fingers into Coren's hair. She grasped Coren by the roots of his hair, and pulled up. Coren cried out, but she saw that he didn't dare reach up to touch her hand.
"Stop that!" Coren commanded, his voice angry. Ajalia yanked up, and Coren hissed in pain. "That isn't nice!" Coren said again. He sounded as though he hoped to reform Ajalia's whole moral outlook, by telling her that she wasn't being nice.
"You could have killed Leed," Ajalia observed. She saw Coren's lips curve in an unconscious smile, and she twisted her fingers viciously. Coren yelped, and he turned towards her with a frown on his face. She let go of him, and pushed at his shoulder. Coren went down the steps, rubbing at his hair.
"That is not nice!" Coren told her. "You are not being nice." Ajalia thought of the boy's mother, and of how Lilleth would have looked, leaning over Coren with a knife, the same happy, blank smile on her face that Ajalia had seen her wear. Ajalia wiped her hand firmly on Coren's shoulder; his hair was damp with sweat, and the damp had gotten on her hand. "What are you doing?" Coren demanded. "I'm not a napkin!" he shouted at her.
Ajalia prodded him until they got to the bottom of the stairs; she saw, far across the hall, the huddled shapes of the many priests, swarming like angry hornets around the front pillars of the dragon temple.
"The priests are nice," Coren said hopefully, when he saw the long cloaks on the distant figures in the moonlight. "The priests will help me," the boy added, his voice decidedly optimistic. Ajalia saw the horrible darkness in the pits that marred Coren's face, and she thought that the boy was going to have a rude awakening, when the priests saw the ugly marks. The two words in the old Slavithe that lay beneath Coren's eyes were still visible; many of the symbols over the boy
's skin were unreadable now, but those two words had been fairly large, and they stood out now like vivid sores on his face. Ajalia was sure that the priests would know what those marks meant, or would at least know that a very powerful witch had made them.
Coren no longer needed nudging; he walked quickly towards the priests. Ajalia, who was not sure if the priests would try to kill Coren when they saw his face, sped up to stay behind the boy. When Coren came closer to the priests, they looked up. The hall within the temple was very dark now; there was a swath of moonlight just inside the front part of the hall, but where Coren was, his eyes and face could not be easily seen. There were dark smudges on his skin, but in the darkness the boy looked as though he had been splattered with black mud.
"This lady has been beating me," Coren said brightly to the priests, who had come a little way towards the edge of the moonlight. "I need help," he said. The priests glanced at Ajalia, and then back at the boy. Coren stood still for a moment, looking expectantly at the priest nearest him, and then he stepped impatiently into the moonlight. "I want you to take me away from here," Coren said to the priest. Ajalia saw the priest's eyes turn down sternly towards Coren's face; she saw the priest's eyes widen in horror, and then the priest stumbled back, his lips parting.
The other priests, who had been staring at Ajalia expectantly, looked now at their compatriot, who was stammering with inarticulate rage and fear. She saw that the priests, after they had seen Coren standing in the shadows, had ceased to look at the boy. None of the other priests had yet seen the scarred pits of black that nestled over much of Coren's skin. The boy's clothes were scorched, and filled with holes where the marks had burned through the fabric. The state of his clothes had been invisible in the shadow of the dragon hall, but the holes and burn marks were plain in the moonlight. Some of the ugly black holes in Coren's chest and shoulders showed up beneath the holes in his tunic. The priest who had stumbled back in horror raised his hand, and pointed with his whole arm at Coren. The other priests followed the direction of his arm, and they saw Coren, standing full in the moonlight.
