THE MAGIC WAR

Victor Poole

Copyright © 2017 by Victor Poole

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

1          Coren Unravels

2          The Seven Witches

3          An Army of Priests

4          The Wall of Ocean-Blue

5          The Aftermath of Battle

6          The Contents of the Book

7          Philas Comes Back

8          Chad and Esther

9          The Meeting of the Spies

10        The Treachery of Denai

11        The Lost Prince

12        The End of Coren's Cooperation

13        Philas Undergoes a Purge

14        The Kings of Saroyan

15        Leed Forges Ahead

16        The Black Worm

17        Delmar and Ajalia

18        Fashel is Pursued

19        Ajalia Speaks to Fashel

20        The Succession in Talbos

COREN UNRAVELS

Coren's eyes narrowed a fraction, and the white image of a woman appeared above his open palm.

"Do you want me to tell you the story, too?" he asked. He sounded like an older brother who has been commanded to entertain a baby, and feels too old and important to do so.

"Yes," Ajalia said firmly. Coren let out an exaggerated sigh, and flicked his fingers. The white figure of the woman above his palm raised up her hands at her sides, and put her face towards the sky.

"When our forefathers first came into the desert that is now Slavithe," Coren said, and Ajalia thought she could see his eyes sparkling, in spite of the scorn he had displayed. She told herself that he was delighted to show off to her, however small he told her the magic was that he did. "They were led in the front by a man named Jerome," Coren said. He wrinkled his face, and looked at Ajalia. "Jerome didn't bring anyone here," Coren told Ajalia. "Really it was Bakroth's wife that managed everything, but no one will talk about it, because they're too embarrassed." Ajalia nodded, and reminded herself to ask Delmar more about Bakroth and his wife, when she saw him again. She had a very strong feeling that she would see him before the end of the three days he had named for his absence. She wondered how Hal was managing with the body of Rane, and the violently-glowing house she had lit up with white magic. Ajalia settled herself into her chair, and prepared to listen. She was determined not to interrupt Coren. Coren, she told herself, was proving to be a very valuable source of information. He was so caught up in his own importance, and in his desire to show off in front of her, that Ajalia thought he would reveal more about the secrets of magic than anyone she had asked so far. She hid a smile as she thought of the look of consternation Delmar had made, when he had realized that the slim leather book of magic had been written by Bakroth's wife.

"Jerome was just along for the ride, but Bakroth had gathered all the slaves, and they'd been walking through the desert for weeks and weeks. There were springs back then," Coren said. "Not like now. It wasn't a proper desert."

"Delmar said they were all going to die of thirst," Ajalia said. Coren's face twisted again with impatience.

"Delmar's stupid," he told her. "I said that before," he added with a satisfied smile, and Ajalia waited. "Anyway," the boy said, "they were all tired of traveling, and Jerome's wife said they should just stop already, and build houses, and Jerome said that was a stupid idea, because there was only sand everywhere, and Bakroth wanted to keep on until they reached the sea. That's when the sky angel appeared."

"This doesn't sound like the story that goes with the magic you're showing me," Ajalia said. Coren sighed.

"Of course it isn't," he told her. "This is not the real story," he said, waving his palm, so that the white figure of the woman waved up and down in the air. "This is what all the children learn, when they're doing the lights at first. Everyone has to recite the story magic. It's just stupid, because the real story is better, and no one is allowed to talk about it. Most people don't know the real story," Coren added, with a smug grin, "but I do."

"Why do you know the real story?" Ajalia asked. Coren's face, which was pocked with the hideous black marks from his mother's magic, turned on her impatiently.

"You seem to know everything," he told her. "So why don't you know this?"

"I guess you're just too clever for me," Ajalia said, smiling a little. Coren smiled in spite of himself, and bit his lips.

"That won't work on me," Coren warned her. Ajalia looked at him innocently. "You're trying to be all nice and funny," Coren accused her. "It won't work. My father taught me how to deal with people like you."

"Who are people like me?" Ajalia asked. She was amused in spite of herself. Coren, now that he had been emptied out of dark magic, seemed to her to be almost human. Coren narrowed his eyes, and pursed his lips.

"Foreign spies," Coren said.

"Surely you only have Talbos to deal with," Ajalia said lightly, looking over at the lamp that filled the room with silver light. She thought that she could feel Coren staring intently at her.

"Are you kidding?" Coren asked. Ajalia said nothing. "Anyway," Coren said slowly, "Bakroth's wife was the first sky angel. That's why people think that the falcon must have been Bakroth, because his wife was the sky angel."

Coren closed his fingers, and the white figure vanished. He opened his palm again, and a glowing gold man appeared. The man held a shimmering silver dagger in one hand. Ajalia recognized the dagger; it was the falcon's dagger that Hal had shown her in his magic. She could feel the dagger, in its age-blackened sheath, pressing against her leg within the bag that she carried.

"The falcon went up to the sky, and spoke to the king in the clouds," Coren said. He twisted his fingers, and the golden shape of the man knelt on one knee, and drove the silver dagger into the sands that appeared below his feet. The figure had floated in the air above Coren's hand, but when the golden man knelt down, a length of sand appeared beneath his feet. The silver dagger sunk down into the sand, and a strong burst of tiny sparks fled up into the air where the dagger had struck.

"When he brought the dagger back, that the sky king had given him, the falcon drove the dagger down into the sands of the desert, and the magic in the dagger made the white stone rise up." The golden man disappeared, and from within the length of sand grew long white blocks of stone that lifted up and formed a great city; the white city that floated above Coren's hand was about ten inches long. At the rim of the city was a great white wall. Ajalia recognized the big white gate that lay at the outer edge of the city.

"You didn't really mean that, did you?" Coren demanded. Ajalia knew what the boy meant, but she pretended not to.

"Mean what?" she asked. Coren glared at her. He dropped his hand, and the white city disappeared. "I don't think that was the sky angel story," Ajalia told the boy. Coren's eyebrows lowered over his eyes; the black pits over his eyes moved a little. "Your skin looks really awful," she added mildly.

"You're trying to distract me," Coren said. Ajalia watched him, a benign and friendly expression in her eyes. "You can't trick me like that," Coren added. "I know what you are."

"What am I?" Ajalia asked. Coren frowned.

"You're a spy," he said. "You're trying to take things, and get secrets. That wasn't the story," he added dismissively. "That was only part of the story. I know you want things out of me," Coren said.

"I got what I needed from you," Ajalia told him, and this was true. Now that he had revealed the hiding place of his brother Wall, and told her where the code to translate his father's secret correspondence lay, she was regarding him more as an innocent pastime than as a body of work. She would like to get more useful information out of him, especially about the magic of Slavithe, and the customs the witches kept, but she no longer felt as though Coren held any exclusivity about what she could find out. She could easily grill Ossa to get what she needed, and once Delmar was finished with the emergencies in the government, she would be able to get what she needed about Bakroth and the sky angel from him. She thought this was so, and she regarded Coren with light interest.

"I bet the priests will come back," Coren said suddenly. He looked at the open doorway of the room, as though he expected the priests to appear at any moment. "They're more powerful than you think," Coren added defensively.

"I know what you think," Ajalia told the boy. "You think I'm a spy, and I'm out to get you. But I'm not."

"I never said that," Coren said quickly.

"I'm not out to get you," Ajalia said, settling down into her chair, and closing her eyes again. "I am thinking about what to do with you, though," she said.

"You can't do anything with me," Coren said at once. "I'm going to get someone to help me, and then you'll be in trouble for hurting me." He stared at her angrily. "You'll be in a lot of trouble with Delmar," Coren said. "He'll be really angry when I tell him what you did to me."

"I don't know if you'll be able to leave this place," Ajalia told the boy. "You look like a walking curse." Which, she told herself, was what he had been until this evening. She looked out of the window, and saw that the night was at its deepest and darkest point. She repressed a sigh, and closed her eyes again. She had no intention of leaving Coren alone. She did not trust him alone, and she was more concerned with him running out into the streets of Slavithe and being killed on sight than on any danger he could bring to Delmar's government. The boy looked frightening, and terrible. Ajalia had asked Ossa if the marks would heal, and the thickset girl had told her they would not.

"I will tell everyone what you did to me," Coren said spitefully. His left hand crept up to his cheeks, and he gingerly touched the pits that filled up his face. He traced his fingers over the old Slavithe words that lay beneath both of his eyes, and Ajalia saw a light frown pass over his face. "I'll tell the people that you're a witch," Coren added spitefully.

Ajalia closed her eyes again, and leaned her head back.

"You're a spy," Coren said. "Delmar will believe me."

"Delmar was possessed by his mother," Ajalia said.

"My mother didn't even like Delmar," Coren said at once. Jealous sparks filled his eyes, and his mouth was drawn together into a knot. "My mother would never share herself with him that way," Coren said.

Ajalia sighed, and said nothing.

"I was the only one who was there for my mother," Coren said. "Or for my father. Wall has to be the Thief Lord now," he added mutinously, and Ajalia leaned forward and pinched the boy on the arm. Coren leapt away from her, and ran around a chair. He had been standing in front of her chair ever since she had shown him her knife, and since he had conjured the pictures for her in the air. Coren held on to the back of a chair, and glared at Ajalia. "You have to stop hurting me," Coren told her bossily.

"You have to stop saying things about Wall," Ajalia said. "It's bad for you." Coren watched her.

"Why?" he asked warily.

"Tell me about spies," she said.

"I'll trade you," Coren offered. "I'll tell you about spies, and you tell me about why you keep hitting me."

"You're in no position to trade anything," Ajalia said. "If you go out there, and the people see you by daylight, you're going to get beaten, at the very least. They might kill you."

"No one will hurt me," Coren said doubtfully. "Anyway, you're the only one who hits people," he added.

"I have several young men upstairs, about your age," Ajalia said, her eyes still closed. She was relaxing into the chair, and pretending that she was in her bed. She thought about turning out the lamp, but Coren, she thought, was not old enough yet to sit in the dark and stay put. She was sure that a darkened room would make the boy think of running away.

"So?" Coren demanded.

"Do you think they would try to hit you, if they saw all the marks of bad magic on your skin?" Ajalia asked. She heard Coren thinking this over for a while.

"Boys are nicer than you, I bet," the boy said, but he didn't sound sure. "I think you're just making that up," he said, "about people attacking me. I think they would believe me, when I said it wasn't my fault."

"You said you were going to tell them I did that magic on you," Ajalia reminded Coren. Coren scowled.

"Well they wouldn't believe that," Coren snapped. "You aren't powerful enough to do any real magic. You only know kid stuff."

"Will you tell them that your mother did it, then?" Ajalia asked. Her shoulders and neck were wholly relaxed now; she felt half-asleep as she sat back in the chair. She congratulated herself on her foresight in purchasing comfortable furniture, and sighed with contentment.

"Why are you so happy?" Coren demanded. Without waiting for her to reply, he went on. "They wouldn't care if they knew about my mother doing magic on me," he said. "Lots of people do magic on their kids. It makes their kids stronger."

"Do you feel stronger?" Ajalia asked. Coren glanced at her, annoyance in his eyes.

"I'm different," Coren said. "I'm like an experiment. I helped my mother develop new magic." Coren sounded enormously pleased with himself.

"Is anyone else going to use what your mother learned?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Coren said at once. "It was special magic."

"Do you know how to do the magic?" she asked. Coren regarded her with caution. He moved around the chair, and sat down.

"No," he admitted.

"Your mother is dead now," Ajalia pointed out. "Do you think she taught anyone else her secrets?" Coren, she thought, should be catching on by now to where she was going with this.

"It was really important," Coren said. "Too important to talk about."

"Your whole body is ruined now," Ajalia told the boy. "You're scarred deeply. Your face is never going to look all right again."

"Yes it will," Coren snapped. "My mother told me it would."

Ajalia opened her eyes, and looked over at the boy.

"She told you the marks would go away?" Ajalia asked.

"Of course she didn't," Coren said angrily. "My mother wasn't evil. There were never supposed to be marks at all. The marks don't show," he added impressively, "until the magic drains out."

"So what was going to happen to you?" Ajalia asked. She was genuinely interested now. She had never liked Coren at all, but now she wondered if Lilleth had fed the boy some story about an ultimate destiny. She knew that Lilleth had convinced Delmar of something of that kind, in order to get under his skin.

"My mother was using my body to experiment," Coren said importantly. "She made a new way for the shadow children to survive attacks. We only had Bain, of course," Coren said knowingly, "because they'd killed all the rest when I was a little boy." Coren, who was twelve, nodded his chin wisely as he spoke, as though he were describing the long-ago and carefree days of his youth. "I didn't help very much then," Coren told Ajalia, "because Delmar was my mother's favorite, and Wall was jealous."

Ajalia was sure that Delmar had never been Lilleth's favorite, since Delmar had lived in a bare room, and been kept in a half-starved state by his parents, but she did not challenge Coren.

"When I was older," Coren said, "my mother had been using Wall, but then my father wanted Wall to come with him a lot, so he would be ready to become the Thief Lord when my father died. My mother always said," Coren added quickly, looking around at Ajalia, as though afraid she would hit him again for mentioning his brother Wall and the position of Thief Lord in the same sentence, "that Delmar was not clever enough to be the Thief Lord. It's supposed to be the oldest child, you know," Coren told Ajalia. "No one has ever been rude about it, but we all knew since he was born that Delmar was too stupid to live."

Ajalia did not remind the boy that Delmar had been around for a long time before Coren had been born himself, but she was tempted to.

"Anyway," Coren went on, his voice growing more confident, "Wall had to go around with my father, and then my mother chose me." Coren puffed out his chest, and his eyebrows lifted with satisfaction. "My mother told me," he confided, "that Delmar was never any good for real spells. She couldn't practice on Delmar, because his insides are all wrong. My mother told me that," Coren added, wiggling with satisfaction.

"Did she ever talk about the magic she did try on Delmar?" Ajalia asked, her voice calm and friendly. Coren glanced at her, a crease at one side of his mouth.

"I know what you're doing," Coren told her. "you want to find out what my mother put in Delmar, so you can take it out. But you'll never find it," Coren said. "I helped her," he added proudly. "Delmar never thought about protecting himself against me, the way he did against her. I got my mother in. It was one of my first big pieces of magic." Coren looked like a satisfied inventor. Ajalia thought of the white slab of false soul that she had cut out of Delmar, and that he had exploded with magic from the sky. The piece of soul had burst into a cascade of chalky dust, and the stench from the piece of Delmar's mother had been noxious in the extreme. "I figured out how to protect Bain, too," Coren boasted. He looked sideways at Ajalia. "You tried to threaten me, about Bain," he said, "but I can talk about it now. There's no point in keeping secrets," Coren said with a shrug, "now that all my mother's magic is used up. You shouldn't have gotten the magic out," he added. "It's wasteful. She did a lot of magic on me. I was very special."

Ajalia took in again the enormous cavities of hideous black that filled up Coren's face like the empty leavings of leeches, and she felt her nose form a wrinkle of disgust. The worst places on Coren's face were the double words, "Mine," that lay below his eyes, inscribed in the letters of the old Slavithe. Coren was looking meditatively at the floor, his forehead creased a little.

"We did a lot of good work together," he said. "They couldn't use Bain for ages, because he was the last one. They saved him on purpose, and kept him secret. No one used him at all for a long time. He couldn't run errands, or steal, or anything like that."

"Is that what the shadow children often did?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked at her as though he had forgotten she was there. He looked older than he was, and she was sure that he had never spoken of these things to anyone but his mother.

"It doesn't matter if I tell you now," Coren said matter-of-factly. "They'll never use me anymore. They'd probably kill me, if they could," he added with a smile, as though what he thought of amused him.

"The witches?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked at her disdainfully.

"I'm not stupid enough to tell you," he said, and his voice was distant again, and scornful. His eyes went to the floor, and he chewed on his lower lip. "If Delmar is the Thief Lord now," Coren said, and his eyes flicked briefly to Ajalia, as though he were testing her with the phrase, "then he would want to know things."

"Delmar told me he would take care of the witches," Ajalia said. Coren laughed.

"Delmar can't do anything at all about witches," Coren scoffed. "He couldn't even do what I showed you." Coren looked over at Ajalia slyly. "The story magic," Coren prompted. A smile was twitching at the corners of the boy's mouth. "He can't do any magic at all," Coren said. He looked as though he were attempting to goad Ajalia into an argument.

Ajalia sat back in her chair, a peaceful expression on her face. She looked up at the ceiling, and wondered how Leed was getting along with the old book of magic she had given him. Leed had promised to tell her what was in the book, when he'd read it. She had not yet learned to read the old Slavithe, and she had promised to share what she learned of magic with Leed when she could. She remembered what she had heard, about Philas being in Slavithe, and a slight frown creased her cheeks. She did not think it was true; she thought Philas was still in Talbos.

"Aren't you going to ask me about Delmar?" Coren demanded. "Aren't you going to ask me why he can't do any magic?"

Ajalia, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, turned her head slowly from side to side in a negative sign. She could feel Coren staring at her angrily.

"Why not?" Coren demanded. "It's an interesting reason," he added coaxingly. Ajalia drew a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "Are you pretending to go to sleep again?" Coren asked. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked quickly.

Ajalia said nothing.

"I'm not going to sleep here. If you thought I was going to stay here with you, you're wrong. I'm going to go—" Coren broke off, and Ajalia was sure that he had been about to mention Wall again. Coren, she saw, had begun to hesitate before he said again that Wall was going to be the Thief Lord. She had been hurting him consistently, every time he said this, and she was glad to see that Coren was responding to the treatment.

She opened her eyes a little, and looked at Coren. The boy was sitting in his chair, his own arms folded over his chest. His wrists and forearms, where they showed under his long sleeves, were marked up with the deep, horrible black scabs.

"What was your mother's plan for the marks?" Ajalia asked, closing her eyes again. Coren waited for a long time. Finally, as though bursting from a dam, the words flooded out.

"I was really helping her," Coren said, and he sounded angry, and sad. "It wasn't just that she was bored or anything. She was a really great witch. Everyone said so. All the witches," Coren added, as though he had forgotten his earlier reticence about this topic. "Thy would all meet together," he said, "and my mother would take me with her. She would show the others what she had done, and they would all try things, sometimes. They were very pleased with me, because of how quiet I was."

"Did they cut you a lot?" Ajalia asked mildly. She kept her eyes closed. She thought of her father, and of her brother Gabriel, and of the dark shadows that had drifted out of her ribs, when Delmar had shot blue magic at her body. She did not know how her father had learned to do magic. Coren seemed to be thinking over whether or not he wanted to keep talking.

"Well," he said, "most of the others used paint, or ink. A lot of the spells call for blood, but they didn't like using blood. They said it was too much like the old witches."

Ajalia was surprised to hear that the witches had compunctions about cutting and bleeding. Delmar, and others in Slavithe, had told her that the old witches, from many years ago, had eaten parts of their victims, as part of their spells.

"My mother didn't mind, though," Coren said, sounding pleased. "She was stronger than all the others. She put theses here," Coren said, putting his fingers against the two old words that had been cut into his cheeks, just below his eyes. "She put the words in with a knife," Coren said, "and she put the magic underneath. All the other witches were very pleased when the marks faded. They thought the mark would show, if the spell was so strong, but my mother was very good at hiding."

Ajalia remembered Lilleth, and the curious blankness that had been in that woman's eyes. She remembered what Rane had said, about Lilleth being one of the lost ones.

"Did the others know that your mother was different?" Ajalia asked. She did not want to say that Lilleth had been a lost one, cut off from the magic of the earth and sky, if Coren did not already know.

"Different how?" Coren asked. Ajalia saw that the boy did not know about his mother. "They thought she was very clever," Coren said, and Ajalia told herself that the other witches had known, even if Coren hadn't. She had seen the way other Slavithe had parted in the street, and though they had parted in the street for her, Ajalia, after she had been called the sky angel, there had not been the same stiffness in their eyes. The Slavithe people had not looked carefully away from Ajalia, the way she had seen them looking away from Lilleth, when Lilleth had walked in the streets.

"What did your mother say would happen to the marks, and to the magic she put in you?" Ajalia asked. Coren sighed. He sounded tired. Ajalia opened her eyes again, and she saw that the boy, aside from the horrid black marks on his face, had bluish circles under his eyes.

"She was going to take it all back, when Delmar had a child," Coren said. "She told me it wouldn't be long. She was getting things ready for a love spell, before you killed her." Coren shifted his weight. "He just had to father a child, and then my mother would have done a heart-bond, and she would have taken all the magic out of me, and marked the baby."

Ajalia felt a sort of fuzzy white blanket fall over her mind. She felt, for a moment, as though she could say nothing to this. She remembered Lilleth, as she had looked when she had come to the dragon temple, and asked furiously for Delmar.

"Had your mother chosen someone?" Ajalia asked.

"I don't know," Coren said, sounding annoyed. "It didn't really matter who it was. It would have been my turn to be father's favorite, after the baby came."

Ajalia thought it was very strange to talk about a hypothetical baby in this way. She thought about Sharo, and she thought that Delmar's mother had not had a hand in that young lady's selection. Lilleth, Ajalia thought, would have been thinking of someone else to pair with Delmar. Sharo seemed, by what she had told Ajalia, to have been groomed entirely by the priests. Sharo would have said different things, and behaved very differently, if she had been under the influence of Delmar's mother. Ajalia's lips twitched, and she took an inner determination to locate this hypothetical wife, and to get secrets out of her. Ajalia was sure that Lilleth had not been thinking of Yelin, who was from the East, and a slave, besides the fact that the blond slave seemed to have formed an attachment to Wall.

"Did you know that Wall loved Yelin?" Ajalia asked. Coren sneered at her, but his face did not look so unfriendly now. He seemed more normal, the longer he spoke to Ajalia. He seemed to be losing the awful cramped nature he had gained from his long association with his father and mother. Ajalia wondered if the boy could possibly turn out all right in the end, black marks notwithstanding.

"I don't think Wall can love anybody," Coren said. "If he is with Yelin now, he's getting something out of it." Coren sounded matter-of-fact, and almost sensible.

"Are you actually evil," Ajalia asked the boy, "or is that your mother talking through you?" Coren stared at her; she had sat up, and was looking at the boy with interest.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Coren demanded, but Ajalia saw in his eyes that he did know exactly what she meant.

"You can stay here until Delmar comes back," Ajalia said, sitting back. "He'll see you then. I don't know if you'll be sent away."

"I won't be sent away!" Coren said indignantly. "I'm the son of the Thief Lord. And Wall—" Coren broke off again, his eyes flashing towards Ajalia. "You don't have to hit me again," he snapped. "I won't go ahead and say it." He sounded angry, but a smile was twisting at the corners of his lips.

"I think you aren't nearly as horrible as you pretend to be," Ajalia told the boy, "but I think you have very bad habits, and I think you will only get one chance."

"One chance at what?" Coren demanded.

"And since you don't want to stay with me, you'll be sent away, probably to Saroyan," Ajalia said. "I'm sure that no one else in Slavithe will want you. They'll drive you out, because of the marks." She gestured at the thick clusters of black that burrowed through the skin on his face and arms. His burned tunic showed scraps of blackened flesh all across his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere," Coren said, his voice rising. "I'm staying right here. Delmar will vouch for me," he said, but his voice wavered a little.

"I'm going to tell you what is going to happen to you," Ajalia said to the boy. "I met a man named Rane the other day." Coren's eyes darkened; she saw that Coren must have known Rane. "Rane was a spy from Talbos," Ajalia said. "He kept your father from killing Delmar the other night. He was quite a smart man. He told me a lot of secrets about magic, and about your grandfather, Tree."

"Why are you saying 'was' like that?" Coren asked guardedly.

"I trusted Rane," Ajalia said, ignoring the question. "I had spoken to him several times, and I knew he understood me a little bit. I thought we would have a long and fruitful relationship."

"Where's Rane gone? What do you mean?" Coren demanded. He sounded as though he didn't particularly care about Rane, but that the particular phrasing Ajalia was using was eating at him.

"He sent for me tonight," Ajalia continued. "I had heard, before he sent, that there was going to be a meeting, and I was not surprised to be sent for. The man who came to fetch me turned out to be a spy from Talbos as well." Ajalia turned towards Coren, who was watching her with interest.

"What happened?" Coren asked.

"Rane is dead now," Ajalia said, as though that was the finish of her story. Coren stared at her.

"Did you just go and kill him?" the boy demanded. "Why would you do that?"

"I didn't say that," Ajalia said. "I said that Rane is dead. Hal has gone to deal with it. Do you know Hal?" she asked. Coren waved an impatient hand, and nodded.

"Of course I know Hal," the boy said with disgust. "Everyone knows Hal, and Valos. They go everywhere together."

"Valos has been banished, I think," Ajalia said. Coren sat up sharply.

"What?" he asked. "Why? What happened?"

Ajalia looked at Coren, and Coren stared at Ajalia. She saw that she was tearing up his ideas of normalcy; she saw that Coren was beginning, a little, to think about his position. This made Ajalia happy. She hoped that Coren would not turn out to be a total loss. She thought, now that the boy no longer glared, and pouted, and sulked in forbidding silence, that there was some chance Coren would turn into a normal boy. Perhaps, she told herself, he would be able to stay with the boys in her cleaning crews, and become a useful person.

"Where's Valos?" Coren asked loudly.

"He wouldn't obey Delmar," Ajalia said. Coren stared at her with a hard expression in his eyes.

"Hal will go and find Valos," Coren said. "Hal will make Delmar be nice to Valos."

"Hal stripped Valos of the protection he had given him, and sent him away. Valos isn't a witch hunter anymore," Ajalia said. She saw that Coren didn't believe her.

"You're making that up," Coren said resentfully. "Hal wouldn't do that. And you don't even know that there are witch hunters," he added spitefully. "And I bet Rane isn't even dead," Coren said. He looked at Ajalia, and Ajalia looked at him.

"I'm going to tell you what's going to happen," Ajalia said. "Then, when you've been sent far away, you can think about what I said, and realize that I was right."

"You aren't right about anything," Coren said quickly. "You just make things up to sound important."

"You're going to see Delmar," Ajalia said, "and you're going to pretend to be a normal boy."

"I'm not a boy," Coren said angrily. "I'm very important."

"Then, after Delmar's had the thought that he might want to keep you around," Ajalia said, "you're going to do something stupid, and Delmar's going to turn on you, and I'm going to have someone carry you away to the harbor. You'll be sold in the Saroyan markets, just like your father was."

Coren had his eyes, like daggers, poised and turned to Ajalia. The boy was wrought up, it seemed, into a pitch of annoyance and aggravation. He looked as though he wanted to swat at Ajalia, and squish her like a bug.

"That's just a story," Coren said. "My father was never a slave."

"Well," Ajalia said, sighing and getting to her feet. "I thought you were going to be sensible. If you're not going to have any brain at all, I'll send you away now."

"You can't sell me," Coren said quickly. "Only Delmar can do that." Ajalia noticed that it was the first time Coren had acknowledged his oldest brother's authority, if only in a glancing way.

"I didn't say I would sell you," Ajalia said. "I said I would send you away."

Coren regarded her suspiciously.

"Send me away where?" he demanded. "You said before that I'd be sent to Saroyan."

"I said if you pretended to be a nice boy for a few days, you'd end up in Saroyan, as a slave," Ajalia said. "If I send you away now, I'll put you out of my house, and have my boys drive you through the streets."

Coren's eyes widened.

"You can't do that!" he said.

"Why not?" she asked, looking at him. She saw his eyes turn to the open doorway, and then back to her. She thought that he was thinking of the window behind him, but that he didn't want to turn while she could see him. "If you're thinking of running away," she said helpfully, "I am quite fast, and I have a knife."

THE SEVEN WITCHES

Coren scowled at her.

"You're a barbarian," Coren told her. Ajalia shrugged.

"I'm more in the right that you are," she said.

"You are not!" Coren shouted. "How could you be in the right about anything? You're only a slave."

"Like your father," Ajalia suggested. Coren's face turned a vicious red.

"My father," Coren said stiffly, "was not a real slave."

"Then you acknowledge that he was a slave," she said. "Simon was sold in the slave markets in Saroyan, just as you will be. Many people," she added, nodding sagely, "like to own the member of a ruling house. It makes them feel exclusive."

Coren had narrowed his eyes. He watched Ajalia, and his lips pushed out.

"You just say these things," Coren said. "You don't ever do anything." Ajalia regarded the boy with calm eyes.

"You aren't worth much effort," she told him. Coren watched her, and she saw that he was gathering himself to run. "You won't make it to the window," she said, and the boy darted up out of his seat. She had seen the way his arms had twisted, just a fraction, towards the window behind him, and she had watched the tension build gradually through his hips. She stood up, and took two long steps to Coren as he was scrambling to get around his chair. She put a hand around his neck, and threw him down to the floor.

Coren scuttled to his feet, his limbs flying in all directions, and she grasped him hard by the hair. Coren let out a squeal of anger, and Ajalia elbowed him hard in the face. When her elbow impacted against his nose, Coren let out a grunt of surprise, and then slumped to the floor in a heap of angry tears. He tried to stand up, to move again towards the window, and she circled around him, and kicked him hard in the seat of the pants.

"You are not being fair!" Coren screamed. Ajalia tried to imagine what a fair fight with Coren would look like; she assumed it would involve her cowering before his superior might and intellect, and allowing him to saunter freely from the dragon temple. She had not hit him with any ferocity; she knew that she could have bruised him, but she only hit him hard enough to shock him. She knew what it was to be sold as a slave, and she hoped, without pinning too much faith on the possibility, that Coren would reform himself in some fashion before he became too much of a liability for the new government to bear. Delmar, she knew would be accepted by the people, and Wall, she thought, could be frightened, or driven out to Talbos. She had only seen Wall a few times, but these encounters had given her the impression of a young man without much brain, and without a valiant spirit. Coren, Ajalia thought, was a nasty thing, but he was at least a distinct personality.

Coren sat still on the floor, and looked at her.

"No one hits me," he told Ajalia furiously. She shrugged.

"No one let me know about that rule," she told him. "I want to finish telling you what is going to happen to you."

"I don't want to hear!" Coren said, but he watched her as she went back to her chair, and perched on the arm. Her bag was still slung around her body; she could feel the weight of the white sky stone, and the dagger she was keeping for Delmar. She had wanted a dagger for Delmar to wear; she had told Calles so, when the seamstress had come to see about the new Thief Lord's clothes. The leather of the scabbard was going to have to be replaced, she thought. The dagger was housed in a sheath that was cracked and blackened with age, and there were a pair of buckles on either side of the sheath near the hilt, where the sheath could be fastened to a belt.

Ajalia sat with her feet on the seat of the chair, and looked at Coren, who was sitting still on the floor, his arms drawn up around his legs, and his hair wild where she had pulled at him.

"You're mean," Coren announced.

"If you run now," Ajalia told the boy, "I will beat you until you submit." Coren scoffed.

"What does that mean?" he demanded. "Submit," he said ironically. Ajalia regarded him with a solemn expression on her face. She was thinking of her master in the East, and of the only time she had ever seen him beat a slave.

"It means that I hit you until you beg me to stop," Ajalia said. Coren looked at her with hard eyes.

"That's stupid," Coren said.

"It means that I hurt you in a way that makes you jump when you see me coming," Ajalia said. "And, if you are as hardened as I think you are, it means scars."

She saw Coren's lips tremble a little. His eyes went to the place where he knew she kept her knife.

"You wouldn't really hurt me," he said in a low voice. The grotesque black shapes in his skin looked like an awful infestations of insects.

"Your mother cut you," Ajalia said, "but you have never really been hurt. I would hurt you in a way that you have never been hurt before."

"You're an ugly savage," Coren told her angrily, but his eyes had the light of fear in them.

"If you stay here, but are intolerable," Ajalia continued, "I will call up all of my household boys, and they will drive you out of my house, and they might kick you a great deal. They'll certainly trap you, and attract the attention of many people in the city, and if the people of Slavithe see you in the street in the daylight, you might not live."

"We aren't savages here, like you are," Coren said furiously. "We don't hurt people here in Slavithe."

"They will try to kill you," Ajalia said, "if they see the marks on your skin, and know what they mean."

"No they won't," Coren snapped. "You're just saying that to frighten me. No one would get killed."

"No," Ajalia agreed, "just you. My boys would kick you until you couldn't walk, and the men would stomp on you as well, and many of the women would throw things. Maybe they would take you to the quarry in a great mob, and burn you there." She looked at Coren, who was looking at her doubtfully.

"They wouldn't kill me," Coren said.

"All right," Ajalia said. "You're probably right. After all, when I killed Beryl in the street this morning, and no one put up a fuss about it, that was different to you walking around the city with witchcraft scrawled all over your face and arms." Ajalia looked at Coren, and Coren looked back at Ajalia.

"That's stupid," Coren said. "That's a stupid thing to say. Beryl hasn't got anything to do with my face."

"Which ones did Beryl make?" Ajalia asked, pointing at Coren. Coren got up off the floor, and straightened his burned clothes.

"Tell me about what will happen when I'm a slave," Coren commanded. Ajalia smiled.

"Are you bypassing the beating, then?" she asked in a friendly voice. Coren curled his lip at her.

"You're disgusting," Coren said. He looked around the room. "Where's Delmar?" he asked petulantly. "This is boring, and nothing is happening, and I want to go to bed." Coren looked around, and Ajalia saw that the boy was hungry. She did not think that Coren's mother had withheld food from him, the way she had from Delmar.

"You could go home," Ajalia suggested. Coren sighed.

"All the things will be gone by now," he said, sounding grumpy. "I won't have my bed anymore."

"Why?" Ajalia asked. She had seen the halls and rooms of Simon's empty house, but she had not realized Coren would know that the people of the city would come so promptly to steal his parents' belongings. Coren looked at her with disdain.

"My parents stole things," Coren said. "People would always try to take things from the house, when they visited. Everyone figured it was fair, since my mother wouldn't pay for anything."

Ajalia remembered the first time she had met Lilleth; Delmar's mother had attempted, quite determinedly, to steal the pale cover that the Eastern slaves used to protect the silks from dust.

"I knew people would come to the house," Coren said miserably, "as soon as my father was dead. My mother wouldn't stop them, if they came," he added.

"She's dead, too," Ajalia reminded him. Coren gave a sniff.

"Tell me about being a slave," he commanded her. Ajalia swallowed a smile.

"Are you making up your mind about what to do?" she asked. Coren looked at her seriously.

"Yes," he said. "So far, I can be beaten to a pulp, or chased and stomped on in the street. I want to hear about being a slave."

"You wouldn't like it," Ajalia told him.

"I bet I would," Coren said stoutly.

"Well," Ajalia said, standing up and going to the lamp. "This was fun. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow. If you go out in the city, you'll be attacked. If you stay here, my boys will beat you. Have a good night." She put out the lamp, and the room fell into darkness.

"What am I supposed to do?" Coren complained.

"Whatever you like," Ajalia said.

"I don't want anyone to hurt me," Coren said.

"Then you'd better hide," Ajalia said. "And the priests will have set a watch outside. They'll want to know what I'm up to, and they might try to kill you, if they think they can get away with it."

For the first time, Coren was silent at her words. He seemed to be thinking unhappily of the priests.

"Do you not have anything to say about that?" Ajalia asked. "Aren't you going to tell me that your priests are all kindly and nonviolent men, and that they would never raise a hand to you?"

Ajalia could hear Coren's shallow breathing; she thought that the boy was about to cry.

"The priests are awful," Coren said. He sounded genuinely unhappy. "They wouldn't kill me, I think," he said, "but they'd take me through a silver door, and then I'd be sick."

"The door at the back of the temple?" Ajalia asked.

"Which one?" Coren asked. "The temples are all like that, they all have silver doors." Ajalia thought that her own dragon temple did not have a door covered with silver light; she wondered if the silver required maintenance, or if her own temple was different to the others somehow. "My mother put a piece of her soul in me," Coren said, sniffling a little, "and I would get torn up inside if I went through a silver door." Coren's snuffling breath filled up the darkness, and he rubbed hard at his nose.

"You're a liar," Ajalia told Coren. "I told you you wouldn't last long." The sniffles stopped at once; Ajalia thought she could hear the boy's angry frown.

"You don't do anything right," Coren said bitterly.

"Am I supposed to be weeping over your predicament?" Ajalia asked. She went to the door of the room, and leaned against the frame. She could still get a good bit of sleep in, she told herself, if she went up to bed now. "You don't have a piece of your mother in you," Ajalia added. "There's nothing wrong in you anymore."

"Yes there is," Coren said instantly. "You don't know anything about it." Ajalia was sure that the boy was trying to impress her, or to convince her that he yet held mysteries in his spirit. She had no doubt that there was no remnant of Lilleth in the boy. She thought of Rane, and of how that man had lied to her. She was not ready to leave Coren alone yet; she thought he was nearly to the point of becoming either decidedly useful, or utterly without hope. She thought that the boy was stalling, and trying to get her to become invested in him. Ajalia thought that Coren wanted her to protect him, and to feel motherly things towards him. She wondered if Coren would be like Rane was, if the boy managed to grow into manhood. Something about Rane's quiet duplicity reminded her of Coren, and of Coren's wide and disingenuous eyes.

"Rane burned up," Ajalia said. "He was going to trap me, and tie me up. I think he wanted to use me as leverage against Delmar. I did some magic, and Rane's whole soul caught on fire." Ajalia watched the shadow in the room that was Coren. She could not see his face clearly, but the scars and depressions in his skin made dark smudges in the dim light that came in at the window. "I didn't mean for him to die," Ajalia said.

"Do you know that I'm an orphan?" Coren asked aggressively.

"I don't care what you are," Ajalia said. "You're an awful boy. Now that your mother's magic is emptied out, and the magic of all the other witches is gone, you can go out in the streets. I hope you know," Ajalia said, "that your mother's friends will be looking for you now. I don't think you've realized how angry the other witches will be, and how afraid. They'll know you're with me, by now. There are bound to be witches outside the house. If you leave, they'll take you."

Coren had gone very still, and very quiet.

"I think you know," Ajalia said, "that the witches will kill you, to keep you quiet." Coren said nothing; his silence was different to the sulking way he had refused to speak before. This silence was telling; it was perturbed, and a little gruesome. A new thought occurred to Ajalia, and she turned towards Coren in the darkness. "You have a soul now," she said. "Would they take you, and make you into a shadow child?"

Coren said nothing, but his body was still, and unpleasantly quiet. Ajalia looked at the bare gleam of moonlight that was reflected through the open window.

"Will they try to get you in here?" Ajalia asked. Coren nodded; she saw his head move in the darkness.

"I hadn't thought of them coming for me," Coren said, "but yes, they will. They will want to recover what they can," he said, "from the loss of their spells. Many of them," he said, with an involuntary shudder, "put a lot of effort into me."

"Well," Ajalia said, taking Coren by the arm, and leading him into the shadowy hall, "you have two choices." Their footsteps echoed over the large and empty hall. Coren's eyes were turned nervously towards the length of moonlight that still fell over the entrance hall, between the white pillars.

"What are my choices?" Coren asked. He looked jittery. "I forgot that they would come after me," Coren said. "I was thinking of my mother being there. They wouldn't have dared, if she was still alive."

"She's dead, so that means they'll come for you," Ajalia said. She led Coren into the center of the great hall, and then she sat down on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Coren demanded. Ajalia patted the floor next to her. "I'm not going to sit there," Coren said angrily. "It's all dark in here. You won't even see anyone, if they come."

Ajalia took the blue stone that Daniel had fetched for her, and twisted a length of brilliant light from the earth into the center of the stone. The stone ignited within, and then gave off a strong white gleam. The light from within the stone grew brighter and brighter, until a wide circle of light, about twenty feet in diameter, grew around Ajalia. The sudden, eerie gleam of many eyes appeared in the shadows of the temple.

Ajalia's lips drew together in displeasure; she was irritated that her home had been invaded. She got her knife into her hand, and began to gather lights from deep below the earth. She sent her mind deeper, to the same red-hot seams of gold that she had used, with the silver star lights, to ignite Coren's infected soul with burning blue light. The eyes, which formed a ring around Ajalia and Coren, came a little closer. Ajalia looked about her as she thought up towards the sky; she saw seven pairs of eyes gleaming in the reflected light of her clear blue stone. The blue stone, she saw, gave off a stronger light than the red stone from Lily's soul had done.

"Sit down, please," Ajalia told Coren. The boy sat down with a vigorous thump; Ajalia did not look at his face, but she imagined that the boy was in a paroxysm of terror now. "I only just realized that you would come," Ajalia told the eyes that belonged to the witches, who still stood entirely in darkness. The rim of the white light extended in a gradual glow; beyond the edge of the light was the deep darkness within the dragon temple hall, and in this darkness, circled around Ajalia and Coren like a pack of attacking wolves, were the eyes of the seven witches. "It seems I thought of you just in time," Ajalia added cheerfully. She was thinking of the lights from the stars. She found two small stars, and quickly unwound lengths of shimmering silver light from both of them.

An idea flitted into her head, and she reached her free hand into the bag that hung around her body, and fished out the falcon's dagger. She swept the dagger free of its blackened sheath with a swift downward motion, and then gathered the red-gold and silver starlight cords around the blade of her knife, and the dull edge of the dagger.

"Are you going to say anything to me?" Ajalia said to the witches. She thought she heard two of them murmuring to each other. "I'm not willing to release Coren at this time," Ajalia added. "I haven't finished getting information out of him."

An angry hiss went around the circle of eyes. One of the witches stepped forward, just into the rim of soft white light where the stone's glow dissipated into shadow, and Ajalia saw that the witch's face was broad and keen. This witch glared at Ajalia with hard, determined eyes, but she did not speak.

Ajalia turned in a tight circle slowly, holding her knife and the dagger at her sides. She was busy winding the mixed star and earth light around the two blades; they had begun to shimmer with the same ocean-blue lights they had made before. Ajalia did not look down at the blades, but she could see the iridescent blue shimmering strongly from below the range of her vision. She turned, keeping each of the seven pairs of eyes in view. She knew that the witches would not play fair; she knew they would attack her from behind, if they could. Coren was sitting stock-still beside her. She wondered if he had often sat thus, or if he had held court beside his mother when he had seen these women.

"Is Ullar here, too?" Ajalia asked. The lead witch, who had stepped a little into the light, frowned with displeasure.

"You must stop moving, and speak with me," the witch said loudly. Ajalia had finished putting the cords of light into her blades; she now drew on the cords of light she had gathered, pulling more of the lines down from the sky and up from beneath the earth, and she began to build a strong net around herself and Coren.

"Where's Ullar?" Ajalia said, still turning. She made a tight mesh of the dancing blue light; the net that she made grew up around her waist, and then up to her shoulders. Coren was beside her, within the net. She saw his eyes, as she was turning, and she saw that he was staring at the shimmering blue net with enormous eyes. His mouth was drawn open, and the ugly black marks on his face were shining hard in the light from the blue stone. Ajalia tied off the net of mixed magic above her head, so that she and Coren were enclosed in a dense dome of the flickering blue light. Ajalia took the remainder of the cords she had taken from the earth and sky, and built a second mesh beneath the floor, so that a globe of the blue lights wrapped securely around them both.

"Ullar is not worthy of our ranks," the lead witch said finally. She was watching Ajalia narrowly, and her lips were pinched together. Ajalia could see that the lead witch did not perceive the net of blue mixed magic she had woven; when Ajalia turned, and looked at each of the six other pairs of eyes, she saw that none of the witches looked at the net. Coren, she thought, was the only one present besides herself who could see the beautiful blue light.

"What do you want?" Ajalia asked. She still turned, but her shoulders had relaxed, and her jaw was not so tight. She was sure now that she would have warning of some kind, when the witches attacked her. In the very best case, she thought, they would destroy themselves against the mesh of blue light, and she would be free to kill their bodies without danger. Ajalia was sure that if she set foot outside the blue mesh, or if Coren went out, that the witches would infest her with the horrible black cords of reaching light that she had seen emanate out of Beryl, and out of Lily.

Coren, Ajalia saw, was still, and quiet; he had grown very calm, and was watching the lead witch now with some measure of scorn in his eyes. Ajalia saw that Coren felt safe behind the mesh. She found that Coren's disdain, when it was turned onto a body aside from herself, was oddly satisfying to her. She wanted to egg him on, and to watch him expend some of his bad temper on the witch. Ajalia told herself she was being petty, and she smiled.

"You have come into my house without invitation," Ajalia said. "You must leave now."

"You asked me what I wanted," the lead witch said. "I haven't told you yet."

"You didn't answer when I asked you," Ajalia said. "Go home."

"Not without the boy," the lead witch said coldly.

"This boy?" Ajalia asked, gesturing to Coren. She was still turning carefully, taking in the other six pairs of eyes that gleamed in the darkness.

"Face me to speak to me," the lead witch demanded.

"No," Ajalia said simply, continuing to rotate.

"You're being ridiculous," the lead witch complained. "There is not a reason to be otherwise than civil."

"You entered my home, and threatened me," Ajalia said. "You have not exhibited civility."

"I want that boy," one of the other witches exclaimed. She stepped forward a little. Ajalia did not turn out of her slow circumference to look at this new face; when she had finished her regular rotation, she saw that this witch was shorter, and young than the leader.

"And what is your name?" Ajalia asked mildly, continuing to look steadily out at the others, one after the other. None of the other five had stepped forward yet. The second witch who had stepped into the light gritted her teeth, and clicked her tongue in irritation.

"Don't say your name," the lead witch said hurriedly to the second.

"Jane," Coren said in a bored voice, as though he were reading out from a list, "Pollan, Esther, Vinna, Fran, Charm, and Luka."

The two witches who had stepped into the light froze; Ajalia saw their cheeks, pale with anger, when she turned towards them. The other five witches stepped into the light; Ajalia continued to turn, her hands gripped carefully around the hilt of the dagger, and of her own knife. The falcon's dagger, she thought, would be little help, as it was dull, but she wanted something in her hand, and she knew she would need the shaped blade of light that she had coated around the form of the dagger. Her own knife was exceedingly sharp, and she had made a lighted facsimile of that blade as well. She did not know yet how the witches would attack her, and she held the blades cautiously in her hands. The blue net of light flickered and spun around her, casting a pleasant blue and green glow against the witches' eyes. To Ajalia, it seemed as though she and Coren were encased inside a bubble of clear ocean water. She half expected to see fish darting about in front of her face.

"You should not have told our names," the lead witch hissed threateningly at Coren. Coren glanced up lazily at the witch, and he raised up his palm. The white figure of a woman appeared in the air above his skin. Ajalia saw the lead witch blanch, and flinch away from the white figure.

"When our forefathers came through the desert to the place that is now Slavithe," Coren said in a lazy voice, "they were led in the front by a man named Jerome." A third witch cut him off.

"Coren, shut up!" she snapped. "No one wants to hear from you anymore."

"No one ever wanted to hear from you," another witch threw out. Ajalia turned slowly, and she saw each of the women's faces. The seven witches were all younger than the old witch Ajalia had killed in the tenement; they all looked to be around Ullar's age, or Lilleth's. Each of them, Ajalia thought, looked mature enough in years to have some children of their own. She waved her hands, which held the glowing blue-coated dagger and knife, and gestured towards the lead witch.

"All of you," Ajalia said, "go and stand in a group over there."

"No," the lead witch said at once. "We will stay as we are."

"Coren," Ajalia said to the boy. "Tell me some incriminating secrets about Jane."

"That's her," Coren said immediately, pointing at a fat witch who looked to be about thirty-five years old. She had yellow hair that had been drawn up tightly behind her ears. Ajalia saw, now that they had come into the light, that four of the witches had long hair; two of their heads were shorn close, and one, the lead witch, had hair that seemed to have been short, but was growing out now.

"Congratulations on getting married," Ajalia murmured to the lead witch, and the witch flushed, her eyes narrowing in confusion. The lead witch glanced at the others on either side of her, and turned back to Ajalia. Ajalia saw her raise her hands as Coren spoke. She was sure that the witch's dark tendrils of magic would not be able to reach through the net she had made of star and earth light.

"Jane is married," Coren said, "but she has been selling her daughter to a neighbor for four years."

Jane, the yellow-haired fat witch, let out an inarticulate cry of rage.

"That is a lie!" Jane said, and she sounded like a cow who has been struck through the heart. Ajalia had still her eyes on the lead witch, but she kept Jane within the rim of her vision.

"Which one is that?" Ajalia asked, pointing at the second witch who had come into the light. She was younger than the lead witch, and her hair was dark brown, and very short.

"That's Vinna," Coren drawled out at once. "She's a servant to a rich man near to us here. She has a secret son that she is raising for the witches to use as a shadow boy. They haven't got anyone," Coren added, looking up at Ajalia. "My mother promised to get them a baby, but now she's dead."

"I have no child!" Vinna shouted at Coren. Her voice echoed strangely in the empty hall of the dragon temple; Ajalia thought that her boys would hear. She hoped they would have the sense to stay away from the stairs. She had instructed Daniel to keep the boys upstairs at night, no matter what they heard, after her encounter in the tenement, when the old witch and Ullar had happened to her. Ajalia had put together for herself that Ullar would come back to the dragon temple someday, and she did not want her little boys getting dragged into a brawl with a possible witch. Daniel, she was sure, would want to come and help her, but she did not want to fight off seven witches while she tried to protect her boys at the same time. Stay upstairs, she thought, and she watched the lead witch's black tendrils growing very slowly towards the blue net. These witches, Ajalia thought, were very weak, compared to Lily, and to Beryl.

"You have too," Coren shot back at Vinna. "He's the son of your brother-in-law, and your sister doesn't know. She keeps him with her mother," Coren said. "Her mother doesn't know Vinna's a witch, either."

"How do you know all of this?" Vinna demanded, her eyes filled with rage. Vinna looked as though she were about to start putting steam out through her ears. Coren grimaced at Vinna.

"You think my mother would allow someone like you to do magic without knowing everything about you?" Coren asked scornfully. He looked around at the lead witch, who now had black veins that were five feet long stretching almost to the edge of the blue net. "You won't get at me while I'm with her," Coren told the lead witch, nodding towards Ajalia. "She's much stronger than you." The white figure of a woman was still hanging in the air. Coren watched the lead witch's black tendrils run up against the surface of the blue net, where they bunched up together, like the stalks of a plant pushed against a hard wall. Ajalia saw the lead witch's eyes scrunch together with concentration; she saw that the witch was working very hard to produce the black lengths of magic. Coren's lips twisted in a caustic smile, and he opened his mouth again.

"Jerome was assisted by a figure of a woman, clothed all in white," Coren said, his voice mocking and sure. He no longer sounded afraid, but Ajalia could see a strange tension that ran all up one side of his back; he looked like a boy who pretended to be brave so that he would not feel fear. His body, as he sat on the floor beside where Ajalia stood, and turned slowly, was to her suddenly like a very small child's. Coren had acted so much like an angry young man that she had forgotten how young he still was.

The witches all watched him, and Ajalia turned around again, keeping every witch in her view. Another of the witches had sent black tendrils out toward the blue net; her black tendrils were weaker and smaller than the lead witch's. Ajalia did not relax yet; she was sure that the seven witches could collectively work some kind of mischief, and she had no desire to wring them up to violence until they had exhausted their sense of unity. Coren, she thought, would be able to break the group up.

"The sky angel, as she was called," Coren said, "came down to Jerome, and taught him how to fly."

AN ARMY OF PRIESTS

Coren twisted his fingers, and the white figure raised her hands up, as had happened in the small room off the edge of the main hall. An idea struck Ajalia, and she raised her hands when the small figure of the sky angel did. She saw that three of the witches noticed this similarity; she saw their eyes narrow, and their lips tighten.

"She's not the sky angel," one of the unnamed witches hissed. "She's only a girl, and a foreigner.

"Has your mother given you a barrier?" the lead witch demanded of Coren. Ajalia saw that the lead witch's eyes were fixed furiously on the place where the black tendrils that had extended out of her chest ran up against the blue net. "Is it coming from that lighted stone?" the lead witch demanded. She stepped forward one step, but Ajalia saw that the lead witch's eyes went to the blades in both of her hands, and after the one step, the witch stopped. "Tell me," the witch commanded, her voice hard and cold.

"Tell me about her," Ajalia said to Coren, nodding at the lead witch. The dagger and the knife gleamed sharply in the light from the blue stone. Ajalia could see all of the witches looking at her suspiciously, and at the dagger. She was sure the witches had heard about her killing of Beryl that morning; she was sure that the witches were being cautious now. She knew that mortals were not supposed to be able to kill witches. Lilleth she had gotten by slicing through her neck, and so cutting out her ability to work magic. Ajalia supposed that this was what had happened when she had cut through the ugly blank white of Delmar's mother's soul. Beryl she had cut through as well, with mixed lights. Ajalia was sure that these witches, individually, were weak, but she suspected that they had some way of working together as a group, and she did not want to make a mistake.

Coren glanced at Ajalia, and saw her nod at the lead witch. His lips turned angry, and Ajalia saw that the lead witch was one of those who had inscribed magic in Coren's skin. Coren's fingers were held out still, the white figure of a woman with raised arms sparkling gently over his palm.

"That's Charm," Coren said. The woman's eyes hardened again, when Coren spoke her name. "She thinks she's something special," Coren said angrily. He put his free hand up to his forehead, and showed Ajalia two wide, ugly black marks over his left eyebrow. "She did these," Coren told Ajalia, "and she botched the spells so badly that I was sick for a week. My mother had to undo the magic, and then put the spells in herself before I could start to get better. You're a fraud," Coren told Charm spitefully. "You can't do any proper magic."

Ajalia saw Charm's eyes widen with indignation, and the tendrils of black grew stronger for a moment, and then crackled against the blue net. Charm looked with alarm at the place where the sound had come from. The ends of her black tendrils had broken away, and she now had a long, angry stump of black.

"What was that sound?" Vinna demanded. The other witches fidgeted angrily where they stood, looking at each other, and at Charm. "What was that sound?" Vinna demanded again. Charm looked ashamed.

"It was nothing," Charm said.

"She was trying to take me for herself," Coren said, his mouth curving in a cruel smile. "Charm was going to shut the rest of you out, and have me for her personal thrall."

The other six witches turned, as one, to Charm, who quailed before their collective rage.

"I was not," Charm said. "I was aiming at her!" Charm raised a trembling hand, and pointed to Ajalia.

"All of you get into one group," Ajalia said, "so that I can see you all at once, or I will start to throw things." She saw the seven witches look at the blades she held, and after looking with tense eyes at each other, the seven women gathered before Coren, so that the boy was between them and Ajalia.

"Now we are all in one place," Charm said bossily. "Now you will have to listen to what we say."

"Are there more of you in here?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked up at Ajalia, and shook his head in the negative.

"It's only them," he whispered to her. She saw that Coren was, for the first time, confiding in her. His eyes were much brighter, and more innocent than she had ever seen them before, and his cheeks were no longer hard and cynical. He turned back to the witches, his shoulders bristling with anger and scorn. The witches, Ajalia told herself, might help to turn Coren away from darkness, so that he would choose to cooperate with her. She hoped that this would be so; she did not want Coren to enter the life of chaos and loneliness that lay before him now. She hoped that the boy could be saved from himself, and from what his mother, and these witches, had done to him. She could see the barest glimmer of a real boy, a nice boy, an honest and kind boy, beneath the heaps of tangled spells, and the anger and derision that laced through his whole body.

"You no longer speak for the rest of us," Vinna spat at Charm. She spoke just as Coren had whispered to Ajalia. Ajalia turned, and looked around at the darkness beyond her circle of light again; she had a tingle at the back of her neck that told her the priests had not left. She was not sure if the priests would have seen the witches sneaking into the building, but she did not think that the priests would have much patience with her, if they suspected her of consorting with witches.

"We said we would share the boy between all of us," another witch told Charm sternly.

"You can't keep me out," Charm hissed at the others, her eyes going swiftly to Ajalia. Clearly, the lead witch did not want to argue in front of Ajalia. Ajalia could see that the lead witch, out of all the others, saw how weak they looked, when they fought in front of her. Coren's face was still drawn in an angry sneer.

"You people can't even get along," Coren said. He flicked his fingers and the lighted figure over his palm raised up its arms again. "The sky angel taught Jerome to fly," Coren said, and he closed his fist. The white figure vanished at once, and Coren glared at the witches. Ajalia was still turning slowly, looking over the darkness behind her, and then at the witches before her. The second witch who had begun to conjure the darkness was yet struggling to make more than a few inches of blackness reach out of her chest.

Charm, whose dark vine of magic had reached all the way to the net of dancing blue, now had what seemed to be a dead spear of black coming out of her chest. Ajalia thought that the black magic would have retreated, but the touch against the blue net of mixed magic seemed to have stalled the ability of the black cord to move; she could see Charm frowning a little, and trying to recall the magic she had sent out. She wanted to tell the lead witch that her magic seemed to have been broken, but Ajalia did not think that the witches could see their own power; it looked, as they conjured it, as though they were pressing out a piece of themselves by force of will, and not as though they could see clearly what they were doing.

"Ajalia is the sky angel," Coren told the seven witches. "That means that all of you are doomed," he added, in a matter-of-fact voice.

Just then, a clatter of footsteps came through the darkness. Ajalia, who had been waiting for something of this kind to happen, raised up the dagger in her hand, and shouted out.

"In the name of the Thief Lord, and of the dead falcon!" she bellowed towards the sound. "Stop and explain yourselves!" The witches fell dead silent; Ajalia could see a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked around, and saw that three priests had circled around behind the witches, and were attempting to keep them from escaping.

The footsteps that had been thundering towards Ajalia and Coren stopped; Ajalia thought she heard the quiet conference of voices. Ajalia wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to knock people on the side of the head. She wanted the lights to be on. This thought reminded her that she could, in fact, put light into the hall, and she reached for the colored cords of light just below the temple, and in the sky just above it. She quickly twisted these lights together, and pushed them through two of the columns nearby. A gradual glow of white light began to shed through the darkened hall; in a moment, Ajalia could see a group of about twenty priests, with spears and ugly swords in their hands, gathered behind her, and around the witches. Ajalia and Coren were within the blue net of shining light; just without this net were the seven withes, who had huddled closer to it when they had seen the three priests ringing them in. The other priests, who had been on the opposite side, approaching Ajalia, now spread out in a tight circle, closing in the witches, and Ajalia and Coren.

"Explain yourselves," Ajalia shouted at the priests. She had been annoyed at the witches, and she had known that they came to harm her and Coren, but she was far angrier at the priests than at the witches. To her mind, she had already dealt with the priests. They had come, and presented their case, and she had turned them away. For them to return, and to bring weapons into the dragon temple, was, to Ajalia, tantamount to declaring a personal war on her. She remembered that she had told Delmar and Philas that she meant to start a war. Well, Ajalia told herself, Philas had commented that there would be a war, and she had agreed. She had told Delmar, though, she remembered, that she was going to start a war. Delmar had asked her why, and she had said, "Because I can."

Ajalia smiled at the memory of Delmar's shocked face, and she tightened her grip on her sharp knife. The hilt was a friendly weight in her hand; she hoped that she would not have to kill any priests. The priests, she told herself, were not worth the effort of killing.

The priests, who were led in the front by Thell, looked around at each other, and began, just a little, to mill around, like sheep. Ajalia saw that they had meant to attack in the darkness. She saw that they had wanted to fight without asking questions first. Her jaw tightened in annoyance.

"Didn't I tell you," she snapped at Thell, who had the grace to look a little ashamed of himself, "that I had no interest in being your sky angel?" The lighted columns, which were now casting bright beams of light throughout the hall, had drawn the attention of the witches, who were standing stock still, and staring with amazement at the blazing stone. The seven women seemed to have forgotten their mission in coming to collect Coren; they stared at the lighted stone, and then at each other, and looked like embarrassed schoolgirls. The priests, who, Ajalia reflected, had already seen their silver temple ablaze with light that she had spun through the walls, looked less embarrassed, and more annoyed.

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" Ajalia demanded. She wanted to step outside of the blue net, but in spite of the witches' and the priests' sudden and apparent calm, a tickle at the bottom of her skull told her that they would all gang up on her, and destroy her if they could. She was sure that they would pretend it was an accident. She pictured the priests telling Delmar that they had followed witches to the dragon temple, and that Ajalia had been mixed up in the crossfire as they had exterminated the evil hags in the dark hall. Now that the hall was ablaze with light, neither the witches nor the priests seemed to have any idea of what to do next.

Ajalia picked up Coren by the arm, and pulled the boy to his feet.

"This child," she shouted at them all, "has suffered in your secret war. Look at his face," Ajalia commanded, and the priests, many of whom had not been at the temple before, looked with disgust at the blackened cavities that spread over Coren's face and arms. Ajalia told the boy to take off his torn shirt. Coren glanced at Ajalia, and then pulled his tunic over his head. The priests, as a whole, gasped in disgust when they saw the spreading marks of dry black that spread like evil sores over the boy's whole torso.

"Tell them who did this to you," Ajalia told Coren. Coren looked at her again, and she saw that he was afraid of the priests.

"My mother did this," Coren said. One of the witches broke free of the other seven, and tried to run. Two of the priests jolted at her, and stabbed her through the heart before she could make much headway. Crimson blood spread in a hurried pool around the body; the two priests, flushed and triumphant, held their dripping weapons above the still form of the witch.

"We have destroyed a witch!" Thell announced, and a cheer went up among the other priests. The six remaining witches huddled, their eyes wide with terror, against the edge of the blue net. None of them touched the net; Ajalia was sure they could not see it, but they seem to sense its power near, and not one of them would come within a few inches of the dancing blue lights. Ajalia was sure that Thell, at least, could see the blue net of power. Many of the priests seemed to look straight through it, but Ajalia caught sight of three others, the three who had circled around the witches at first, whose eyes turned back again toward the blue lights, and studied the mesh of mixed magic with curious eyes.

Ajalia felt so angry, and so disgusted, that she thought she might explode. She wished that she could get out safely from behind the net. She knew that the witches would kill her if they could, but she vastly preferred the now-six women, with their sinister expressions, and hateful eyes, to the sanctimonious frowns of the priests.

"They have always been filthy men," Coren told Ajalia under his breath. She saw that his eyes were turned towards the priests, and his face was full of hatred. "My mother said it was our duty to fight them, and to kill them, if we could," the boy said.

Ajalia looked over the wide hall, and she tried to think of what to do. The priests were on edge now that blood had been spilt; they eyed the six witches, and Ajalia saw that the two priests whose weapons now ran with blood were crazed for more. With a tightening of her lips, she sent her mind deep within the earth, and gathered up the thickest cord of red-gold magic that she could put her hand around. Ajalia was beginning to feel as though life was growing more and more chaotic by the minute; she had expected that Coren would have settled down; she had planned on going to bed. I could have been asleep right now, Ajalia told herself, and a surge of anger filled her, as she thought of the stars above, and began to gather threads of silver.

The energy in the hall was strange, and tense. Blood had been spilled, and with the death of the witch had come a wild, ugly energy. The priests, who had, when first the pillars blazed with light, looked about with some chagrin, now raised their eyes with boldness to the six remaining witches. Ajalia could see at once that it would be no good speaking to them. The priests, she saw, were thoroughly under the control of Thell, and Thell, she saw, was the worst kind of man, a man who looks like a good man, and kills like an evil man in the darkness of secrecy.

"Thell is a bad man," Ajalia said in a low voice, just for the witches to hear. the witches, who had been staring in blind terror around at the priests who ringed them, turned a little, and looked back at Ajalia. Ajalia had gathered now sufficient starlight and earth light in her hands, and was mashing the power together. The six witches, who had been thoroughly alarmed by the death of their sister, stared now in shock at the power that Ajalia could see they felt radiated around her. "I am going to protect you from the priests," Ajalia told the six witches. "If you run away from me," she said in a low voice, "I think you will die."

Vinna looked at Ajalia, and Ajalia saw that the brown-haired servant-witch believed her. Vinna put out both of her hands, and grasped the fat blond witch, and another thin witch, one of the witches with short hair, hard around the waists.

"Stay still with me," Vinna hissed at them both, and the short-haired witch reached out, and grasped two other witches hard. Charm was the only witch whom no one reached out to hold. Charm regarded Ajalia suspiciously, and turned with angry lips, and flared nostrils to the other five.

"You will be destroyed by this foreigner, if you trust her," Charm snapped at them. Ajalia began to weave a second, much thicker net of the dancing ocean lights all around herself and Coren, this time enclosing round the witches as well. Thell saw what she was doing, and cried out.

"Get the witches!" Thell screamed, and flung himself forward. Ajalia squeezed out the mass of magic she held in her hands, and formed it into a blank wall all around herself and the withes. Charm, with a snarl of hideous anger, flung herself away from Ajalia, and from the power that radiated like a small blue sun out of her hands. Ajalia knew that Charm could not see the flickering blue lights, but she saw that all of the witches, like Ossa, could feel the movement of the power so near them.

Charm, as she flung herself away, was caught in the flow and ebb of the strong blue magic, and her body was cut all in two. Her physical body was unharmed, and fell with a slap to the floor just outside the blue wall, but her spirit, Ajalia saw, was sliced in half. Just as Ajalia had cut through Lilleth's neck, and severed the connection between that woman's head and shoulders, and just as she had cut off Beryl's head from her shoulders, before stabbing the woman's body through the heart, so now Charm's soul was split in twain, and Ajalia saw her eyes go dim and blank, before her legs gave out, and she fell to the floor. The priests were upon the fallen witch at once, like rabid dogs. Ajalia, without thinking, put her hands out, and smashed Coren's face against her body, so that he would not see.

The blood from the priests' attack splashed violently against the blue wall, and hissed into steam against the mixed star and earth magic. The five remaining witches clung to each other, afraid to move, and gazing with horror at the mangling of Charm's body. Ajalia closed her eyes as soon as the priests moved to attack. She held Coren hard against her orange gown, and she felt the dregs of blue magic that clung still to her hands and fingers sinking, like gossamer threads of fire, into the boy's head where she held him.

Coren, whom she had wanted only to protect from the sight of the priests' barbarism, began to shake, as though he were undergoing some awful shock. Ajalia did not dare release him; she felt the blue magic seeping into his flesh, and she was afraid that if she let go of him, his cheeks would peel away in her hands. A burning sensation seemed to glue her hands to the boy; she felt attached to him. Her soul, she saw, was not going into the boy, but now that her hands were stuck to his head, and his face was smashed against her body, she saw his soul. She had not looked closely at the colored lights inside Coren; she had not wanted to see what was inside of him. She had looked once, when she had cut out the piece of Bain that Lilleth had stitched into her son, but she had not lingered there. Now that her hands held fast to his face, and his body trembled like a leaf in a hurricane, she saw his soul up close, and plain.

Coren's soul was blackened; there were colors, but they were so dark, and so drenched with shadow, that there seemed to be none of the original boy left. He was a person who was a shell full of darkness. Ajalia watched the darkness, and she saw the blackness in Coren seeping towards her hands. When the black reached her skin, it turned white, and then retreated back into the boy's body. His shaking gradually stopped, and the streaming of the shadows continued.

Ajalia felt Coren breathe in deeply against her body; she felt his shoulders lift, as though a great burden was being cut away from his flesh. She felt his skin grow taut and feverish, and then almost at once grow smooth and cool. She felt as if the boy was undergoing a great sickness in the measure of a few seconds. His breath came deeper, and stronger, until his whole torso seemed to be expanding in great sobs of air. He was not crying; he seemed never to have gotten a proper breath before, and was trying now to catch up for his whole life.

The priests, who had mangled Charm's body almost past the recognition of its original human form, backed now away, and ringed the witches. Some of their faces were spread with blood, and their cheeks were hollow, and gruesome with naked bloodlust. Ajalia saw that they had ceased, in their minds, to be human. She did not look around at Thell; she knew that she would be angry if she saw that priest, and she wanted to keep her wits about her. She wondered, briefly, if it was likely that Delmar would show up here tonight. He had said he would be back in three days, and Ajalia was fairly certain that he had meant to take a journey to see his grandfather in Talbos, but she would have liked to have help with Thell.

"What is going on here?" Ocher's deep voice boomed out over the brilliantly-shining hall. Ajalia's heart swelled in relief; she kept Coren grasped close against her body, and turned to see Ocher, who was just coming down the last of the stairs. She remembered now that he had said he would come to visit Clare again. Thank all that is holy, Ajalia told herself, for Ocher.

Coren had wrapped his arms around Ajalia's waist; he clung to her like a baby, and his naked shoulders, where the black marks still shone, were streaked with sweat. His skin, Ajalia saw suddenly, was smoking gently. She had thought at first that the streams of smoke were reflections of the light from the double wall of blue light that stretched all around herself and Coren, but she saw, when she looked down at the boy, that his skin was letting out a noxious black steam. The black marks, she saw, on his shoulders and back, were beginning to shrink.

Thell, who had stayed apart from the bloodbath, stepped forward now towards Ocher. Ocher came farther into the hall; Ajalia saw his eyes, furious and bright, and his cheeks, which were exceedingly hard under his thick brown beard.

"I am very happy to see you, Ocher," Thell said, hurrying forward towards the man. Thell glanced back at Ajalia, and a small smile was on his face. Ajalia was sure that Thell was going to tell Ocher some story about her being a witch, and conspiring with the visiting witches over the boy, Coren. Ajalia felt a settling rage in her heart. She wanted to laugh at Thell. If Ocher fell for Thell's story, she told herself, she would slap the bearded man silly. But, she told herself confidently, Ocher would not believe Thell.

"I came with my brothers," Thell told Ocher, who continued past the priest, and came towards Ajalia in a straight light, "to offer asylum to this poor foreigner, and she not only rebuffed my courtesy, but she threw these witches in my face. The foreign woman conspires with witches!" Thell said excitedly. He was almost running to keep up with Ocher, who was striding quickly through the hall, and had not so much as paused to greet the priest. "We were able to kill two of them," Thell shouted, running beside Ocher, who was walking more quickly still, Ajalia thought, to avoid the priest. "But they fought ferociously," Thell said, his voice a little flat.

Ocher reached Ajalia. The bearded man stepped without pausing into the first thick wall of blue light, and then through the smaller mesh dome of the same blue light. Ocher's soul gave a little flash of white when he stepped through both walls of light, but he did not make any sign that the lights gave him any obstruction. Ocher stopped when he came to Ajalia, and his eyes swept around the hall. He took in the hideous carnage that had been Charm, and the still form of the first witch who had fallen, who was surrounded now by a wide and spreading pool of red blood.

Ocher looked at the boy, who was wrapped still, like a terrorized baby, in Ajalia's arms, and she saw Ocher's mouth go down grimly at the corners. Ocher put a large hand around Ajalia's elbow. His touch was warm, and like the embrace of a friend.

"Are you all right?" Ocher asked her, in a quiet voice. Ajalia met Ocher's eyes, and she wanted to cry with relief. She had been angry, and then she had begun to go numb, when the priests had begun in earnest the tear into Charm's still body.

"They will try to kill the others," Ajalia told Ocher, nodding towards the five witches who clung with white hands to each other within the wall of blue. "I don't know if you can see it," she said, "but I've put a wall up. I don't know if the priests can get through."

"I can feel it," Ocher told her, "but I can't see it. Stay here for a bit," he said, smiling tightly at her, and he released her elbow. Ajalia wanted to sink down to the floor in relief; she had not realized how afraid the sudden blood had made her. She tightened her hold on Coren, whose skin was yet letting out thick clouds of what seemed, to her, to be dark gray smoke. Ocher did not seem able to see the dark clouds; he did not blink, or struggle to see Ajalia, when he looked at her. Coren, who had shaken at first, and then become slick with sweat, hung onto her now as if she had been his only way to stay alive. His arms were like the grasping arms of a newborn child, who clings with surprising might to his mother's finger.

Ocher stepped out towards the witches, who flinched away from him, but huddled still away from the blue wall. Ajalia saw Ocher speak quietly to them, in a voice she could not hear, and she saw Vinna and one of the others reply in shaking voices. They glanced often at her; she saw that the five witches were transfixed with terror. Two of the witches were crying silent tears, while the other three had faces that were as white as if they been drained of all their life. Their eyes were like the eyes of haunted souls. Ocher touched Vinna's arm gingerly, as though reassuring her. Ajalia could not hear what he said. Ocher turned away from the witches, and stepped out towards the priests. He stepped carefully around the scattered and bloodied remains of Charm, and looked imperiously around.

"Come to me," Ocher commanded, in a voice that billowed like fire through the long temple hall, "and hear me speak."

The priests, who had been glancing at each other with eager smiles throughout Ocher's time with Ajalia and with the witches, gathered now, eagerly, their bloodied spears and clumsy swords in their hands. Many of them were covered in blood; they looked as though they had bathed themselves in the body of the dead witch, and their fingers were grotesque with crimson gore. Ajalia was sure, from their faces, that the priests fully expected Ocher to set them loose upon the last five witches, and upon Ajalia herself. She saw them glancing, and licking their bloodied lips, at the witches. She thought she saw a few of the priests casting lewd looks of appraisal at herself and the handsomer of the witches, and she felt a curl of disgust in her gut.

Ocher waited until the priests had gathered into a tight bundle before him; their backs were at an angle to Ajalia, and Ocher was facing the priests, so that he could see both them and Ajalia clearly. Ocher raised his hand into the air, and then looked around for Thell.

"Thell," Ocher commanded. "I need you." Thell, bursting now with importance, and looking as though he had been sure Ocher's previous neglect of him had been a mistake, rushed forward, his brown cloak flapping in the bright light given off by the two pillars that Ajalia had imbued with light.

Thell came and stood beside Ocher.

"Please," Ocher said, nodding his head with elaborate civility. "I desire to see your face clearly, my brother," he said, and Thell, smiling with pleasure, nodded agreeably, mimicking Ocher's motion, and went to stand at the head of the gathering of priests.

Ajalia counted over the priests in their brown and bloodied robes; there were exactly twenty, she found, and the three who could see the shimmering blue lights were gathered at the very front, behind Thell.

"I wish to speak to you now, my brothers," Ocher said loudly. His voice echoed through the chamber. Ajalia looked the stairs, and saw Daniel's face for a moment, before he vanished again around the wall. She was sure that he and Clare, at least, were behind the wall that lay near the stairs, listening to what passed. The five witches, their arms linked around each other as though by holding each other they could stave off death, had begun, very slowly to vibrate. Ajalia watched the witches as Ocher began to speak, and she saw a great wire of black, like the root of a large tree, forming. Each of the five witches had a black vine spreading out from their chests, and growing together into a thick cord. The black lines joined into the thick trunk of black, and spun very slowly towards the wall of blue light that Ajalia had flung up to protect the witches from the priests. Ajalia listened to Ocher speak, and she watched the gradual progress of this length of black. She wanted to see if the witches, together, would be able to overcome the blue light, or if the blue light would trump the power of all five witches.

"My brothers," Ocher said, and Ajalia saw then, as he glanced towards her, that Ocher was trying to catch her eye. She stopped looking at the witches, and stared at Ocher, trying to discern what he wanted. "We have, for many years," Ocher said, "battled the malignant evil of the witches in our midst. I know that you have formed an important part of the barrier against their evil." Ocher looked again at Ajalia, without moving his head. His eyes went to her, and then he frowned, and looked again at the priests. Ajalia tried to think of what she would be wanting, if she had been Ocher, and Ocher had been in her position.

She smiled, and began, for the third time, to gather the red-gold lights from deep within the earth. The first time Ajalia had gathered lights from below the earth, she had not known what she was doing. Delmar had read out from the slim leather book, and she had sent her mind deep into the earth without thinking. The second time, she had reached only for the lights that ran in chaotic streams just below the surface of the ground. Now, as she reached deep, she found that her mind was growing more adept. She could feel the different thicknesses and vibrancies of the lights. Some were weak, or thin, or of colors not suited to her purpose. She went straight down, deep within the bowels of the earth, and when she felt a great, thick cord of the hot gold power, she dug her fingers through it, and carried it whole towards her.

THE WALL OF OCEAN-BLUE

"We have fought together, my brothers," Ocher said, his voice filling up the hall; many of the priests shouted out, or raised their bloodied weapons. "We have spilled the blood of many witches, and each time we have done so, we have kept our city safe."

"Yes! Yes!" the priests shouted, pumping their fists into the air, and glancing with open desire at the five witches who clung to each other near Ajalia. Ajalia wondered why the priests had not thought the five witches would run away; the priests had all gone over to stand near Ocher, and he had seemed to do nothing to reassure the priests that the witches would stay put. It seemed very strange to Ajalia. If she had been one of the priests, she would have left a watch over the witches, before traipsing toward Ocher, and gazing up at him with opened mouths and blood-hungry eyes. Perhaps, she thought, the priests were all stupid, or perhaps they had grown so bold that they thought the witches would not dare to run away.

She had gathered, by now, several winding cords of silver light from the stars above, and she now made a swift weaving of the cords, fitting them together in her mind's eye, and casting them in a curved wall around the back of the priests. She knew that Thell and his three minions would be able to see the wall; she sent it high above them, and deep into the stone behind them, and then put the curving lines around their backs, until they were penned in. She then gathered more of the magic, and began to imagine a great semicircle; she meant to make the last enclosure of the magic in her mind, and then cast it, all at once, around the front of the priests, so that Thell and his three helpers would have no time to escape. The priests' eyes were all fixed eagerly on Ocher; she saw that they were sure he was on their side. He spoke on, retelling the priests' greatest victories, and promising them greater transcendence in the future.

As she worked, Ajalia saw the thick black piece of the witches; it had reached the blue wall, and as it touched the shimmering ocean colors, the black cracked, and began to have hairpin fractures spread all up from the blue wall to the tendrils of black that came out from the women's chests. Ajalia realize that the black trunk was going to emit a crackle, as Charm's magic had done, and she hurriedly completed the blue enclosure, and threw it in her mind around the front of the priests, circling them all into a pen of bristling blue. Ocher, she saw, felt the power. He broke off in the midst of a word, and stepped back through the wall of blue. Ocher came at once towards Ajalia; he glanced at the five witches, who, it seemed, were all struggling to gain control of their fractured trunk of black. Ocher came through the blue wall and the net again, and stood once more beside Ajalia.

"Is the boy all right?" Ocher asked. The priests, when Ocher had broken off, had followed his progress towards Ajalia with their eyes. When the bearded man went to her, and began to confer quietly with her, the priests began to mutter to each other.

"My brother," Thell called officiously, his voice genial and welcoming. "Perhaps you have business to conduct. Would you like my help?" Thell asked, and he stepped towards the blue light. For the first time, the old priest saw the blue light that Ajalia had put up around all the priests, and the head priest's eyes widened, and then his cheeks grew white. "What is the meaning of this?" Thell demanded, his tone now quiet different than it had been a moment before. "What is the meaning of this?" he shrilled, glancing uneasily at the other priests, who had begun to move, as though like lost sheep, after Ocher. "Stop moving around, you idiots!" Thell shouted violently at the priests.

The other priests, their faces, and hands, and fronts marked with dark blood, stared around at him, as though he had lost his mind.

"Ocher must come to us," Thell said hurriedly, and Ajalia saw that the priests did not know that Thell could see the lights. The other three priests who could see were glancing uneasily at the wall of blue; she thought they were looking for a way to escape the enclosure.

"He has been deeply marked," Ajalia murmured to Ocher. She had not let go of the two blades until she had grasped Coren around the head; she had released the boy while she built the magic for the wall around the priests, but she wrapped her hands around him again, and she felt, once more, the mixed star and earth lights sinking, like burning fire, into the child's bare body.

Coren had never let go of her; he sighed now, like a sleeping baby, when he felt the heat in her hands going through him again. The black marks on his skin were lighter now; they had smoothed out, and were now like giant red birthmarks, or leftover burns.

"Ossa got the magic up on the surface, so that it showed," Ajalia told Ocher. "I got it out, after that. He's clean, but very weak now." Ocher nodded, and looked towards the witches.

"Why are they here?" he asked. His voice did not accuse her at all, and his eyes, as he took the five forms in, were full of distaste, but not of hatred. The five witches, Ajalia saw, had succeed in pushing their black cords again toward the blue wall; this time, the great trunk of black hit the blue lights hard, and a shattering crackle sounded over the whole room, echoing and resounding around the walls and ceiling of the hall. The priests, who had been gathered in a hurried conference with Thell, looked around in alarm.

"Those witches will curse us!" one of the younger priests shouted. "We must run away!'

"No! Kill them!" another pair of voices rang out. A part of the group of priests ran towards the witches, their bloodstained weapons raised, and the rest turned towards the entrance of the dragon temple, and began to flee.

Ocher's eyes were turned to the priests; there was a look of grim satisfaction in his face. Ajalia watched, and she saw the priests charge at the blue enclosure that they could not see. The first priest who hit against the blue wall went up in a buzzing cloud of white light; his body fell to the floor, just as Rane's had done. Ajalia knew when she saw the burst of violent light that he was dead. The other priests were running too quickly; when those behind saw their companion fall, they attempted to twist away. Those at the very back of the group who sought to attack the witches turned, and followed the others who had fled, but the wall of blue light encircled the priests on every hand. Many of the priests hit up against the blue wall, and their souls flashed white. They died, and their fellows, who saw their dead bodies, and attempted to flee another way, hit up against a wall at another end of the enclosure.

Thell, and the three of his priests who stood in the center of the circle of blue light, as far from the edges as they could stand, screamed at the others to stop running, but in a matter of moments, the others were all dead. The dead bodies of the priests littered the floor like so many empty beetles; their robes spread about them like fragmented skins, and their weapons were flung all about them. Some of them had run against each other's weapons, as they scrambled to flee, and there were new swashes of blood across the white floor. The hall, very suddenly, was silent. Ocher turned to Ajalia, as if the spectacle of the priests destroying themselves against the blue walls had not just occurred, and he smiled at her. It was not exactly the smile of a happy person, so much as it said to her, well, that is done now.

"The witches came to take Coren away," Ajalia told Ocher. Her arms tightened protectively around the boy, and she heard his breath shudder against her orange gown. Her stomach was growing hot, where his breath rushed against her. Ajalia glanced at the five witches, who were standing now in an awkward grouping, their bodies bound irretrievably together by the hardened and broken-off trunk of the black magic. "They wanted to take him," Ajalia told Ocher, "and to make him into a shadow child."

Ocher gave a start, and his eyes glowered He turned towards the witches, who were still staring around at him. The five witches had turned after all the priests but Thell and his three were dead; the women's eyes were fixed now on Ocher, and Ajalia.

"What are you going to do with us?" Vinna asked.

"I think I will leave you there," Ajalia told her. "You will die when you leave the circle," she said. Ocher looked hard at the witches.

"You would have killed this boy," he told them, disgust in his voice. Vinna and Jane glanced at each other. Ajalia realized that she had never learned which ones were Fran, Luka, or Esther. She knew that one of these names belonged to the witch who had been killed first.

"He belongs to us," Jane said. "He is a creature of the darkness. He sold his soul to us. It is our right to take him, and to use him up."

Ajalia saw Ocher's nose and mouth turn into a mask of anger and disgust.

"You are no better than they are," he said to the witches, and he took Ajalia by the arm, to lead her and Coren from the net of blue light. Ajalia pulled back. Ocher looked at her.

"It is not safe for me yet," Ajalia told him. He looked at her, and she saw that he did not understand why, but that he would believe her, if she told him so.

"Can I take the boy?" he asked. Ajalia nodded, and pushed Coren towards him. "Clare!" Ocher shouted. His soon-to-be-wife came running from the stairs. Clare's cheeks were white, and her eyes were tight around the edges. She came to Ocher, and he passed her the boy, who seemed to have lost all will to move or think for himself. Coren looked back at Ajalia, but Ocher turned the boy's face away from the mangled form of Charm. "Take the child up, away from this," Ocher told Clare, and Ajalia saw fierce love in his face as he spoke to Clare.

"I will protect him from the other boys," Clare told Ajalia, and took Coren firmly away. Ocher watched Clare take the boy away, and when they had both vanished around the wall that blocked most of the stairs from view, Ocher turned to the three remaining priests.

"You have to take this magic down," Thell told Ocher. Ocher, as he walked towards the three priests, bent low, and picked up a long and bloodied sword. Thell and his three men stared with shocked eyes at Ocher. Ocher walked through the blazing barrier of blue, the sword held easily at his side. "You can't threaten me!" Thell shrieked, terror in his eyes and voice. "I have a right to see the Thief Lord! I have power in Slavithe! This is an outrage!"

The other three priests, glancing swiftly at each other, took Thell by the shoulders, and shoved him bodily into the nearest wall of shimmering blue. Thell died with an unearthly shriek, and his body, which fell to the ground in the middle of one of the enclosing blue walls, began at first to smoke, and then to burn gold and white. The three younger priests raised their hands, and one of them spoke to Ocher.

"Please, sir," the priest said humbly. "We have no blood on our hands. We desire no fight with you, or with the young lady. If you give us those witches, we will leave."

"You're going to leave right now," Ocher said, and he raised the bloody sword. The three young men yelled, and backed away. The one farthermost from Ocher tripped, and put out an arm to catch himself. He fell back against the barrier, and a horrifying flash of blood spurted out from his mouth and eyes. An ugly gurgle left the young man's lips, and he slumped to the floor, his whole body pulsing as blood and angry light pumped out of him. He, like Thell, had fallen through the wall so that his chest was placed within the blue light. Many of the priests had been running as they passed through the barrier, and their souls had flashed, and then their bodies had flung away on to the floor, carried by their momentum. Some of the other priests' arms or feet had lain within the wall of beautiful ocean color, but these priests, Ajalia thought, were of some lower grade of soul; they did not seem flammable. Thell was burning quietly, his body consuming in an almost private way. This second priest who had fallen straight through the barrier of light did not burn, but he burbled and struggled, blood and dark fluid pulsing out of him with flashes of iridescent light, until he lay, shriveled and empty, on the floor. The now-dead priest looked, to Ajalia, like a darkened and dried-up fig.

The last two priests froze, and watched Ocher approach with the uplifted sword.

"I will not kill you," Ocher told them both in a calm voice, "but you will leave this place, and you will never return to this city." The two priests glanced at each other; Ajalia saw that they both realized they would die if they attempted to leave the blue enclosure.

The five witches had been holding a conference in whispers; Ajalia heard an enormous crackle. She turned, and saw that they were all leaning forward, pressing the thick black trunk of broken magic against the outer blue wall. The truck of blackness was shivering violently, and dropping pieces of translucent dark rock to the floor. The rocks were just as those that Lily, and the impacting magic from within Coren's thrall curses, had produced. These rocks, as Ajalia saw them in the clear light that streamed from the two glowing pillars, were black, but clear all through. As the five witches leaned harder into the blue wall, trying to break the magic free so that it would no longer bind them all into one body, flashes of agitated lightning began to dance over the surface of the blue wall. Pieces of red-gold, and of the silver from the starlight above, appeared in the ocean blues and clear greens. Ajalia thought again that the wall of mixed light looked like nothing so much as a jewel-bright sea.

The two young priests snatched up swords; they had not been in the group who had attacked the witches, and they caught up swords now in their hands. Ajalia saw that they meant to fight Ocher. Ocher smiled, and raised his arm. The two young men quailed before him; he was quite twice as large as the two young men put together. The priests' arms were like frail straws. One of the young men dropped his sword and ran. Ajalia saw him leap when he came to the blue wall, and duck his head, as though he hoped to curl into a ball, and get through some tiny gap in the blue lights. With a flash of white light, the young man's soul burned away, and his lifeless body slapped hard against the stone floor, some distance from the enclosure.

The last priest lifted his sword, and cut at Ocher's chest. Ocher beat aside the young man's sword in one swift movement; the weapon fell with a clang to the floor, and the young man hollered as though he was being stuck through the heart, though Ocher had not touched him yet. The young man backed slowly against the blue wall behind him, and when his shoulders brushed the blue, he yelled, and dashed forward. Ocher grasped the fleeing young man around the arm, and propelled him vigorously through the blue light. With a flash, the last priest was dead.

The five witches, who had not yet seemed to notice the growing spans of splitting light within the thick blue wall that they leaned against, or to hear the gentle crackles that followed these rims of colored light, gave out a collective cry, and heaved their bodies, which were braced together by the thick cords of ugly black magic, towards the blue wall. Ajalia was sure that the five witches would feel the power of the wall, though they seemed unable to see it at all. Though they seemed blind to the black lines of power that they themselves conjured, Ajalia saw that they were completely aware of how thoroughly their bodies had become trapped together. Ajalia wondered if these witches had often become stuck to each other, when working magic as a group.

With this final heave of the five witches, the great black trunk of magic splintered into many small clear black stones, which scattered over the floor with the sound of falling glass, and the witches themselves fell forward into the thick wall.

They all five froze when they impacted the blue light, and their arms stretched convulsively out. They looked as though arcs of bright fire were tracing up and down their spines, and through their ribs. Ajalia could see thick billowing shadows, like those that had leaked out of Delmar, and like those that had fallen away from Minna, piling out of their bodies, and pooling around their legs and feet. Ocher had turned, when the last young priest had expired, and he watched the five witches twitching violently within the wall of blue.

"I don't think they'll die," Ocher called to Ajalia. Ajalia nodded. She was still standing within the net that curved over her head in a dome, and the thick wall she had built around herself and the witches. "Can you come out yet?" Ocher asked. She shook her head.

"Something else is coming for me," she told him. She picked the dagger and her knife up from off the floor; their blades were quivering still with the blue magic that she had bound around them, when the witches had first come in.

"Do you know who it will be?" Ocher asked.

"I don't think it's going to be a who," Ajalia said slowly. She could feel the trembling coming from far beneath her feet; she felt as though some great force were gathering beneath her, preparing to rise out like an enormous mouth, and attempt to swallow her up.

"Can I do anything to help?" Ocher asked. Ajalia glanced at him.

"You don't know where Delmar is, do you?" she asked with a smile. Ocher, who, it seemed, now understood thoroughly why Ajalia had refused to entertain him as a lover, smiled back.

"He's gone to meet with his grandfather," Ocher told her. "He should come back late tomorrow."

Pity, Ajalia thought, and she tried to think of what to do. She did not know if she was powerful enough to counter whatever darkness was rising up towards her; she felt as though the earth itself was readying to do battle with her.

"Can you tell me what the sky angel spells are?" she asked Ocher, flexing her fingers along the hilts of the two blades. She remembered the white stone, flecked with purple, that Isacar had called a sky stone. He had told her that people used it for spells; she wondered if it would protect her at all now.

The whole hall of the dragon temple gave a tiny shift, and Ocher's eyes widened. He crouched, as though preparing to fight, and looked about.

"What was that?" Ocher demanded. He looked at Ajalia.

"Please," she said. "As quick as you can, the sky angel spells." She was not sure if she was a sky angel, or what the sky angel was. She had gathered that there had been a woman in the early days, when Slavithe had been established first by the runaway slaves, and that this woman had held great power. She had also gathered that flying had something to do with it. Flying, she thought, would be an acceptable power to her now that the earth was trembling, and images of deep rents in the floor opening beneath her were flashing through her mind.

Ocher looked at her with piercing eyes; something about the way she spoke pushed away the reticence that Ocher would otherwise have had about speaking of the sky angel. Ocher, Ajalia saw, like Hal, had ideas about the modesty of speaking of these things.

"The sky angel is said to have gathered up the energy in the sky," Ocher said. "It is said that she formed the sky power into great wings, and she could teach horses to fly. Some people say that she herself could fly."

While Ocher was speaking, before he had finished, Ajalia thought of the cords of blue light that travelling, like chaotic tendrils of roots, through the sky, and she gathered a heap of them into her hands with her mind. Her fingers were still clenched around the hilts of the two blades, but in her mind she saw the clumps of blue light, and she mashed them into bundles, and imagined them shaping into long, elegant wings.

"Some people say," Ocher said, "that Jerome never went up into the sky at all. Some people say that the sky angel went as a messenger between the earth and sky, and brought news down from the king of the skies. She brought a horse for the falcon, and the horse allowed Jerome to go up and down. No one knows," Ocher added with a frown, "who the falcon was, but all agree that there was a horse, and that the horse could fly."

"What happened to the sky angel?" Ajalia asked. She had fashioned two great wings, and she took the roots of the wings, and began to thrust the tendrils of blue into the lights around her shoulders and back. She bit back a gasp, when she thrust the blue sky light into her body; she ignored the sharp pain that the power brought, and wound the tendrils of blue all around her bones, and pulled them in tight spirals around her spine.

"She fell from the sky," Ocher said slowly. "The whole city was gathered together, and they saw her fall. She fell into the quarries," he said. "That is why we celebrate many of our feasts there, in the evenings. We do the offerings in the morning," Ocher said, "but one of the children of the Thief Lord is sent, bearing the offering, to the quarry in the afternoon, and the light of the sun consumes the offering. They say," he said, "that the spirit of the sky angel lingers there, and that she will come forth again, and teach the dead falcon to fly."

The rumbling below Ajalia, deep in the earth, looked to her now, as she worked over the gathered blue light from the sky, like two enormous vines of blackness. She thought that the whole earth was in a long stranglehold of black, like two great eels of pitch black, that whipped hard around the inside of the ground, and squeezed. The heads of the two snake-like creatures were turned now towards her; their bodies were larger than the whole dragon temple. Ajalia thought that she could see two pairs of angry red eyes, like the glowing of malignant coals, and she thought of the way Coren's marks had glowed, before they had exploded. She adjusted her grip on the knife and the dagger, and flexed the two great wings that spread out now above her, like flickering waves of light.

Ocher was staring at her.

"Is there blue around you now?" Ocher asked.

"You know the story magic?" Ajalia asked him. "The kind that children do?" Ocher nodded, his mouth turned in an anxious frown. "Do you know how to do story magic?" she asked him. Ocher nodded again. Ajalia looked at the bearded man, and she thought of the little boys that were upstairs. She wanted to tell Ocher to get the boys out of the temple, to take them somewhere far away, but then one of the black snake shapes darted up towards her, its mouth spread wide, and she drew her wings up, and pumped them down towards the earth.

With a shock of air, and a feeling of falling upwards, Ajalia, surrounded still by the net of blue light, and the thicker wall of the same blue, flew up into the air. The witches, who had been caught in the wall of blue, fell to the floor. Ajalia rose up twenty feet, and the jaws of the angry black twisting writhing snake of darkness snapped on where she had been. Ajalia felt as though her heart was exploding; she had no time to think, and she moved without knowing what she did. She saw the eyes of the evil eel, and she carved her blue wings back, and throttled straight down, her two blades outstretched. She flung down through the air like a falling blue comet, and first the blue wall, and then the net around her impacted on the side of the face of the great ugly beast.

Each barrier of mixed magic emitted a thunderous bang, and exploded against the great beast. Ajalia was sure that Ocher had heard these sounds, because he scrambled back, his face a shock of white terror. Ajalia had extended her arms forward; when the net of blue light exploded against the snake's face, she aimed her blades straight towards one of the glowing red eyes.

Ajalia passed straight through the head of the black snake, and came out, her blades shattering with bright white light, and passing with crackles of doom out of the opposite eye. When she was within the black serpent's head, Ajalia felt herself clustered round with great darkness; the black energy pressed in on every side of her, and it could not, she saw, get into her body. The blue wings she had formed sliced through the head of the snake in great sweeps, making whole pieces of the black snake fall, shattering, to the floor.

The pieces of the snake's head that had been cut away by the wings formed clear black stones, just like the others on the floor. The snake's head was sliced all into ribbons; Ajalia saw that the snake was beginning, from the inside, to implode. Her body, which had resisted the blackness in the snake, had been like when she had touched Coren. When Coren's body, touched by the ocean-blue mixed lights, had begun to vent darkness towards Ajalia's hands, her skin had flashed white, and then the brilliant white had snaked back into Coren's body. Now, when she had been right in the center of the black snake's head, her body had flamed white at the edges, as though she were a sun in human form, and the black of the snake had caught the white, and begun to expand, as though there were endless pieces of silver-white inside the darkness, crushed down into infinitely small particles, and Ajalia made these pieces of light expand to their natural size.

The dragon temple, she thought, was going to fall into pieces when the snake exploded. When she came out through the other side of the snake's head, she dove down to the floor, and ripped away the blue wings as soon as she had landed. Her shoulders ached, and tendrils of shimmering blue remained, hanging out of her back.

She sent her mind deep into the earth, but could find no sign of the second black snake. The dragon temple trembled around Ajalia. The snake's body was shaking like a vibrating line of night above the floor; most of the snake's body was deep in the earth, and Ajalia was sure that the city of Slavithe would be tumbled into pieces, if the movement was not stopped.

The blue wings were held in her hands, which were full of the hilts of her weapons; she dropped the two blades. The falcon's dagger, and her own knife, clanged against the white stone floor of the dragon temple; their blades and hilts were gleaming powerfully, like angry white stars.

Ajalia saw that the two glowing pillars she had imbued with mixed blue power were not going to fall. With the blue wings in her hands, she could sense the quivering of the earth, and the heavy power shaking from the body of the black beast.

She took one of the blue wings, and imagined it spreading thin, like a coating of fine ice, over the whole surface of the snake. She imagined the snake, all through the whole earth, being covered with the blue light, and in a moment, the vibrating ceased.

The explosive white light was still building within the body of the snake, and the dragon temple, which was nearest the snake, and which had its floor and foundation right around the evil black worm, had already been shattered within. Ajalia could feel the stones about to shift.

She took the second blue wing that she had torn from her back, and imagined it forming into threads of power. She pictured the blue threads spreading through every white stone surface in the building. She drew up a handful of colored cords from below the earth, and wound them up through the white stone floors and walls, anchoring the temple to the rocks beneath the earth. Ajalia thought, for the first time, that she could perceive the whole picture of Slavithe, and see the ground just below the earth. Cords of thick power radiated out through the mountains and underneath the city of Slavithe, ending suddenly just where the desert began.

A map, like a small model of the city, was just within Ajalia's heart. She saw that the city lay above a knot of power, and that the power radiated out from within the place where the quarries lay. Ajalia reached for the power from the quarries, and drew two handfuls of the sliver-blue light from there towards her. She added another coating of the magic all around the black snake, and all through the rocks and shimmering springs beneath Slavithe. She put rods of the silver-blue power through the dragon temple walls and ceilings, and she felt, with a soundless groan, the whole building settle firmly down. She knew that the temple would not fall down now. With surprise, she sensed within the walls of the Slavithe temple, and running through the whole city, an infrastructure of the silver-blue light. She thought of what Ocher had told her, about the sky angel falling into the quarry, and she thought that the magic she held now in her hands was that woman's power.

The thick black worm exploded, and white sparks, and flashes of powerful lightning boomed and roared, with a rushing like angry wind, through the casing of blue and blue-silver light that she had put all over the body of the hideous worm. The illumination from the fiery inferno within the snake-shell cast gentle, incandescent light throughout the darkening hall.

The head and front part of the ugly worm had extended about fifteen feet above the white stone floor of the dragon temple. The two glowing eyes, which were the final pieces of the giant snake to remain visible, exploded, and when the red light hit the shell of blue and blue-silver light, a cascade of translucent black stones rattled, like an avalanche, to the floor.

Ajalia heard a whimper of fright. She walked through the temple hall towards the place where Ocher had hidden; she saw his face, and when Ocher saw her coming, he let out an unmanly shriek, and ran away.

"Ocher," Ajalia called out. Her voice sounded strange to herself; it was louder than it should have been, and it boomed through the hall. Ocher vanished in the shadows of the dragon temple. The two pillars that Ajalia had imbued with magic, now that they had been wound through with the silver-blue light from the quarry, began to fade, and the light was soon gone.

Ajalia looked down at her hands; her skin, she saw with surprise, had turned shimmering white, and her arms now resembled the white figure that Coren had conjured above his palm, and which he had called the sky angel. Ajalia looked down at her orange gown, and saw that it had become saturated all through with the magic she had taken and used in the conflict with the great snake.

Ajalia looked again in the earth for the second black worm, but she could not find it. She thought that the second black great eel must have retreated deep within the cracks in the very center of the earth; she did not think it would come at her, now that its counterpart had exploded. The translucent black stones were scattered in heaps over the floor; they lay, shining, and gleaming beautifully, in great drifts against the pillars and walls.

Darkness settled once more in the hall of the dragon temple. If it had not been for the gleam of moonlight reflecting against the many surfaces of the myriad clear stones, and for the gentle glow that came off of Ajalia's own bright skin, she could have thought that nothing at all had happened in the hall. She could not see the dead bodies of the priests and witches anymore.

"Is it over?" Vinna asked, her voice shaking. Ajalia turned in the darkness; she had forgotten about the witches, who had, the last time she had seen, been trapped hideously in the shimmering blue wall of light.

"How many of you are there?" Ajalia asked. She went through the hall to the place where she had cast aside her knife, and the falcon's dagger, using her own glowing skin as illumination. The many clear rocks reflected the light that shed out of her skin, and made the whole hall seem like it was full of faceted eyes where she walked.

"Just me and Vinna," a new voice said.

"Who are you?" Ajalia asked. She did not look around; she wanted to retrieve her knife, and the falcon's dagger, before she paid any attention to the witches.

"I'm Esther," the new voice said.

"Why didn't you die, like the others did?" Ajalia asked. She found her knife, and picked it up. Her bag hung still around her body; Ajalia was glad that her bag fitted so snuggly against her. She thought that she would have lost many of the bag's contents over the floor, when she had been flying up and down, if the bag had not folded tightly over the top. Ajalia slipped her knife back into its case on her back, and she sighed with relief. She hated being without her knife; the knife was like a friend to her. She thought of it as having a particular personality of its own, and she felt extremely kindly towards it. Ajalia pushed the clear stones around with her foot until she found the gleaming blade of the falcon's dagger; she picked up the curved dagger, and held it in her hand as she picked her way across the piles of stones towards the two witches.

Ajalia was able to see their faces when she drew close to them; her skin, which had begun now to fade, was yet casting a gentle glow of white light in a small radius around her. The blue stone that Ajalia had lit when the witches had first come in had been buried up in the translucent black stones; Ajalia could see a faint light where it lay beneath them.

"Why didn't you die?" Ajalia asked again. Esther, she saw, was the other woman with close-cropped hair. Esther glanced nervously at Vinna, and then licked her lips.

"We never did any magic," Esther said, "except for when we did anything as a group. We aren't allowed to," she added, her cheeks darkening with shame.

"Because you are not married?" Ajalia asked. Esther and Vinna looked at each other.

"The other witches didn't like our hair," Vinna said boldly. "They thought we should be punished."

"Can you do magic on your own?" Ajalia asked. "Haven't you ever done magic alone before?"

"No," Esther said at once. She turned to Vinna for support, but when Vinna said nothing, Esther continued. "They would have seen, and known," the shorn woman explained.

"We can tell, when the others have done magic," Vinna said to Ajalia, her tone haughty and annoyed. "We can smell it."

"Why can't witches see the colors?" Ajalia asked.

"I don't know what you mean by that," Vinna said.

"Be nice to her," Esther hissed to Vinna. "She might kill us, too."

"She won't kill us," Vinna said scornfully. Ajalia, who found that she was growing impatient, looked at the young woman, and she saw an echo of Beryl, and of Beryl's determined scowl. Ajalia saw, stretched out, like a premonition laid in the colors of Vinna's soul, what the mature woman would become when she was old. Ajalia looked at Vinna, and she tried to see any hope for Vinna choosing another way. Everywhere that Ajalia looked in the dark-haired servant-witch, she saw darkness ahead of her, and corruption, and the draining out of other people's spirits.

Without a word, and without giving any warning with her body, Ajalia drew her knife from behind her back, and thrust the blade straight into Vinna's heart.

Vinna's eyes widened in the fraction of a second that passed, between the raised gleam of the knife, and the moment when the sharp blade had passed through her skin and muscles to her heart. Vinna let out a dragging, ragged gasp, and then fell straight down to the ground.

Esther, whose eyes were fixed on the bloody blade that Ajalia jerked away from the dying woman, stood very still. Ajalia could feel the fear that roiled on the surface of Esther's body.

"Please don't kill me," Esther said in a small voice, and Ajalia looked at the witch, the knife held hard in her hand. The blood was spreading out from Vinna's body, and Ajalia stepped neatly back. She hated getting blood on her clothes, and the hall was already a mangled mess of bodies and blood. She knew that there was almost bound to be blood on her clothes, but she hoped to be able to salvage the beautiful orange gown that Calles had sewn. Esther was shaking, her breath coming in and out in steady gulps. Ajalia saw that Esther was keeping herself from crying, barely, and that her fists were clenched at her sides.

"How old are you?" Ajalia asked the witch.

"I'm twenty-four," Esther said. Ajalia's mouth made a small movement of interest. The same age as me, Ajalia thought, and she looked at the colored lights that swirled within Esther. "I was the youngest," Esther said hesitantly. "I haven't learned much. Vinna," she said, swallowing hard, "was next youngest to me. She was thirty years old."

"Why didn't you die?" Ajalia asked again. She still held the dripping knife in her hand; the colors in Esther's soul were clear and bright; Ajalia thought that the dark shadows that had pooled around the five witches, when they had hung suspended in the blue wall, had made Esther's heart brighter and newer than it had been.

"The others were more mature," Esther said, her voice still shaking. "They had done things that I haven't done."

"Killed people, you mean," Ajalia said. Esther's eyes widened.

"No," Esther whispered.

"They did," Ajalia told her, nodding at the place where the witches' bodies must lay in a huddled line.

"We didn't kill anyone," Esther said, her eyes anxious. "We had to fight away the priests. We were trying to restore the old ways."

"You were going to kill Coren," Ajalia pointed out.

"No!" Esther said again, her voice a little stronger. Ajalia looked inside the young woman, and tried to see where the lights would lead. Vinna had been composed, in her future, of deepening darkness, but Ajalia saw choices within Esther. Esther, Ajalia thought, would not necessarily become evil. "Coren has sold his soul to us," Esther said confidently. "It is fair game to make full use of a thrall."

"He was a little boy," Ajalia said, anger welling up in her heart. "He was not a thing."

Esther looked at Ajalia, her eyes wide.

"Please don't kill me," she said, and Ajalia wanted to feel sorry for her.

THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE

"Come with me," Ajalia said, and she stepped around the body of Vinna, and went towards the stairs at the very back of the hall. She heard Esther coming along behind her. Ajalia thought of how she was going to clean up the carnage in the hall; she suppressed a sigh, and tried to think of where she had seen graves around Slavithe. The old witch, Salla, had died in Eccsa's house, but Ajalia had left the arrangement of the funeral details to Eccsa. The old witch of the tenement had, Ajalia assumed, been carried off by the Thief Lord's men who had come, and when Ajalia had killed Lilleth, she had put the body into the garbage pit behind the dragon temple.

Ajalia thought, as she began to climb the stairs, that she had gotten beyond the use of the garbage pit now. Twenty bodies of dead priests, she told herself, and six witches. Thell, she remembered, had burned partially away, and Charm had been torn into pieces. Ajalia did not want to ask Esther where the people of Slavithe disposed of their dead bodies. She pictured herself commandeering a long line of carts, and winding through the wide white road towards the trail that led to the poison tree.

When she came to the second floor of the dragon temple, Ajalia called out for Daniel. The boy appeared almost at once, his eyes bright with excitement.

"Are they all dead now?" Daniel asked, looking over at Esther.

"All but this one," Ajalia said. "Have you seen Ocher?" Ajalia looked down at herself, and saw that her skin had returned to its natural tone. She was no longer glowing, or shedding off white light. Her orange gown still held a shimmer, but she didn't look like an avenging angel anymore. Daniel shook his head.

"He came down to help," Daniel said. "I watched for most of it, but when the shaking started, I came to look after the others.

"Good," Ajalia said, and suppressed a sigh. She was beginning to feel spent, and empty. The blue power from the sky was still drooping, like torn butterfly wings, down her back, and Ajalia left it there. She told herself that she would straighten the torn wings out and untangle them from her bones later, after she'd rested. "Where are the others?" she asked, rubbing her free hand over her eyes. The bloodied knife was still in her hand; she glanced down at it, and then thought of cleaning it. Daniel saw her look, and grinned.

"I'll get you something to clean your knife," Daniel said. "Everyone's together in the dancing hall." Daniel turned and ran down the stairs. Esther watched him go.

"You have a little boy," Esther observed. "Is he your son?" Ajalia did not laugh at the witch, who, she saw, was thinking speculatively of Daniel as a replacement for Coren.

"What is wrong with you?" Ajalia demanded. Esther looked surprised.

"Boys are very closely watched in Slavithe," Esther said. "No one can get boys the way they would get boys before. There used to be boys everywhere, but the priests have spread their lies through the city, and the Thief Lord has enacted the protectorate laws for many years now."

"What are the protectorate laws?" Ajalia asked, leading the young witch towards the long bare room where the boys kept their wooden clogs, and the hollow stone ball.

"Everyone who contracts to watch over a boy must put on him the purges," Esther said. "The men do the purges themselves, to keep themselves clean of witchcraft, but the boys must be watched until they are old enough to do the purges themselves."

Ajalia remembered what Delmar had said to Ocher, about doing the purges since he was fifteen. She did not want to ask Esther what the purges were; she would ask Daniel later, she thought. Ajalia entered the long room, and found all of her boys, and Chad, sitting against one wall.

"What are you doing here?" Ajalia asked, coming towards Chad. Chad stared at the bloodstained knife in Ajalia's hand.

"I went home," Chad said, "but Sun ran to find me, after the fighting started. Clare and Daniel went down the stairs with Ocher," the young Slavithe man said. "They wanted to see what the light was from. Sun went down to see what was going on, and then she came out through the back fence to find me. I left the boys with Daila," Chad added. "I didn't think it was safe to leave them all alone."

"Where's Sun now?" Ajalia asked.

"She's with Ossa and Clare," Chad told her. "They took that marked-up boy to a room upstairs. The other boys wanted to fight with him," he added, glancing at Ajalia's house boys, who were sitting against the wall, and conferring with each other quietly, their eyes fixed on Ajalia's bloodstained blade.

Ajalia felt a little as though she had forgotten what day it was, and where she was. She had a feeling of being caught in the center of a wild hurricane of sound and noise. She was thinking of Delmar, and of the one day that had passed, of the three he had named until he returned.

"Can you go and look around for Ocher?" Ajalia asked Chad. "And then come straight back here," she added, glancing at Esther, who was hovering near the door, her eyes fixed on the long row of boys. "I need you for something," Ajalia said. "If you can't find Ocher in about twenty minutes," she added, "come back anyway."

"Okay," Chad said agreeably. "Where's Ocher?" he added.

"I don't know," Ajalia said. "I started glowing, and he shouted and ran away."

"Why were you glowing?" Chad asked, his eyes going wide, and his cheeks lifting with interest.

"Go," Ajalia said. Daniel came in, and Chad, looking reluctant, went out. Daniel brought Ajalia a rag that had been dipped in a little of the poison tree juice; she took the cloth, and rubbed the blood away from the blade and hilt.

"Did you kill someone?" Daniel asked briskly, folding his arms, and looking with proprietary eyes over the gathered boys.

"I killed a witch," Ajalia said, without looking up. She glanced at Esther, who had gone to a far wall in the room, and who seemed to be attempting to be invisible. "Keep an eye on Esther," Ajalia told Daniel, who turned, and stared hard at the young witch.

"Is she a witch?" Daniel asked. Ajalia nodded, and then tucked her knife away into its sheath.

"Boys," Ajalia told the children, who all stopped talking at once, and looked up at her. "You may each ask only one question," she warned, and then began at the end of the cluster of boys.

"I want to know what the dragon looked like," the boy said eagerly.

"It wasn't a dragon," Ajalia said. "It was a black snake, like a fat eel. It had glowing red eyes, and was made of crushed-up white pieces. It was all black until it started to explode."

A rush of murmurs came into the air above the gathered boys, like the hum of large insects in the twilight. She did not ask them how they knew about the great worm; she guessed that Daniel had been watching much of the action from behind the wall, and that he had gone up at intervals to report to the others what was going on. She pictured Daniel running up and down the stairs, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes bright with interest, and relaying news to the other boys.

"How did you kill all those witches?" the second boy asked.

"Can you do any story magic?" Ajalia asked the boy. He nodded, and made an open palm. A bare outline of a blue horse appeared there. It was not a full picture of a horse, and the wings were only made of narrow sparks, but the outline was clearly of a horse. Ajalia opened her own palm, and filled it with blue light from the sky above. She saw that all of the little boys could see the clump of blue. They all murmured loudly again, and their bodies shifted, like small saplings blown in a violent wind.

"She can do the story magic," they whispered to each other, and they stared with respect at Ajalia.

"This is magic from the sky," Ajalia told the boys. "Show me a spark of blue," she told them, and all of the boys lifted up their palms, and little pieces of blue light appeared above their open skin. "I took blue light from the sky," Ajalia told the boys, "and I formed it into a wall. When the witches passed through the light of the wall, they died."

"All except for two," Daniel said importantly. His own piece of blue light was the brightest and biggest spark of all; Ajalia was sure that Daniel had been practicing on the sly ever since he had watched her do magic in Tree's rooms, and since he had gotten his white brand back.

"You told me the boys couldn't do any real magic," Ajalia told Daniel.

"Anyone can make story magic," Daniel said, "as long as they have a brand." Ajalia looked at the boys, and saw that they all wore the white badge of light over their chests. Her head was spinning; she felt as though the rules of the magic in Slavithe were all tumbling around her brain in tiny pieces; she wanted them to stop spinning, and to form one complete picture.

"Come here," Ajalia said to Esther. The short-haired witch looked with some alarm at Ajalia, and then came hesitantly forward. When Esther stood near Ajalia, Ajalia pointed at the witch. "This is Esther," Ajalia told her boys. "She came here to try to take Coren away." A murmur of discontent rose up among the boys when she mentioned Delmar's little brother. She saw that a few of the boys thought Esther should take Coren, and go away with him.

"Why didn't she die with the others?" a boy shouted out. Ajalia turned to the boy.

"She, I think, has not done as many evil things as the others," Ajalia said, "so her soul didn't burn up like theirs did. Do you have more questions," she asked the boys, "or would you like to start practicing magic now?" The boys who had not had their turn to ask a question looked at each other, their faces tortured. Some of the boys whispered to each other, and one of them spoke up.

"Can we touch your knife?" he asked, and the other boys all nodded and murmured in agreement. Ajalia took the knife she had cleaned from out of its sheath and held it up.

"It is very sharp," she told them. "Don't try the blade. Pass it along, and give it straight back." She gave the knife to Daniel, who looked down at the blade with enormous eyes, and then carried it to the boy at the end of the long huddle. The boys handed the knife, one to the other, and their faces were aglow. They looked as if they were handling some mythical sword from a legend. Ajalia waited until the boys had passed the knife to each other. The last boy stood up, and ran with the knife held flat against his chest to Ajalia. He held it breathlessly out, and she took it solemnly from him, and resheathed it.

Ajalia took the witch by the arm, and shook her gently.

"Esther," Ajalia said, "tell these boys what you want to use them for."

Esther looked around, startled, at Ajalia, and her face was white with fear.

"I don't want to use them for anything," Esther said in a halting voice. Ajalia was sure that the witch thought she was about to be trapped.

"You asked me just now," Ajalia said, "if Daniel was my son. You said that it was hard to get boys now, and that it used to be that you could get them easily."

"Not in my time," Esther said hoarsely. She swallowed, and gulped nervously for air. "Not in my time," she said again, in a clearer voice. "No one can use the boys for magic anymore."

"That isn't true," one of Ajalia's house boys shot at the witch. "I had a big brother who died because of a witch. She ate out his brand, and then he got sick that winter, and died."

"That wasn't one of our witches," Esther said nervously. "We don't eat people."

"You wanted to burn away Coren's body," Ajalia said. "You said it was your right to use him up. You said he was a thrall, and nothing more. You said," Ajalia added, looking at her boys, who were glowering at the witch, "that he had sold his soul to you, and you could do as you liked with him."

Esther was regarding the boys with open terror now. She looked at Ajalia, pleading in her eyes.

"You can't believe the things you hear from these children," Esther said, pallor on her cheeks. "I know they hate witches, but we were trying to protect everyone from the priests. The priests are the ones you should fear!" she added harshly, her eyes brightening as she looked at the huddled boys along the wall.

"The priests are better than you!" Daniel retorted. Ajalia raised her hand for quiet.

"I did not bring Esther up here to argue about the priests," Ajalia said. "I brought her up so that you would have a target to practice with." Esther quailed a little at this, but stood her ground. Ajalia turned to the boys. "All of you, I see, can perform the story magic," Ajalia said. "Can you all see it?" The boys all looked up at her, and nodded. "I want you to make the story magic, and then send the lights into Esther," she said. "You first," she told Daniel, who, in an instant, conjured again a blue spark, and then sent it towards the witch. The blue spark traveled a few inches through the air, and then spluttered into nothing. A couple of the boys laughed, but not maliciously. They sounded delighted at the new magic. "Watch," Ajalia told the boys, and she got a length of gold light from beneath the earth. The boys oohed a little, when they saw the cord of gold. "You can all see this?" she asked the boys. The boys all nodded. Ajalia wondered why so many of the Slavithe were not able to see the magic. Esther was looking hard at the space above Ajalia's hand, but the witch's eyes did not focus on the place where the light was.

"Why can the witch not see?" Ajalia asked. The boys looked at each other. She saw a few of them shrug.

"Maybe she's cut off from the earth and sky," Daniel suggested. He met Ajalia's eyes. "Maybe her choices cut her off from the power," he said. Ajalia looked at the witch, and she saw that the witch was floating a little above the ground. Esther's feet met the ground solidly enough, but the lights within the witch, as Daniel had suggested, stopped several inches before the witch's feet. Ajalia looked at Daniel, and at the other boys, and she saw that their lights ran all the way to the earth. Ajalia looked down at herself, and she saw with some surprise that the silver-blue lights she had found in the quarries were twisted up through the ground, and running around her ankles. I suppose, Ajalia thought, that I am connected to the old sky angel's power now. She was not sure how she felt about this; she had not yet had an opportunity to sit and think about all of the things she had heard about this sky angel. She wanted to sit down, and to get a paper and pen, and draw out a diagram of everything she had learned so far. She wanted to gather a whole host of the Slavithe people into one place, and get all of their words together, so that she could sort through each of their versions of what and who the sky angel was, and how the spells worked. Ajalia hoped that Chad would be able to find Ocher, and to bring him back. She wondered what she had looked like, to have frightened the bearded man so. Ajalia smiled a little to herself; she told herself that Delmar would not have run away from her, if he had seen her glowing white, and speaking with a great and echoing voice.

"We are going to try a new experiment," Ajalia said to the little boys. She saw that many of them, as soon as Daniel had tried to make a spark go towards the witch, had conjured their own sparks, and sent them flying at the witch. None of them had been able to make their lights travel very far, and Esther had begun to regard them, and Ajalia, with something like scorn.

"What you are doing is not magic," Esther interrupted, before Ajalia could speak anymore. "If you are trying to punish me, or to frighten me," the witch said, "you are going to fail. This isn't magic."

"Boys," Ajalia said to the young people, who were all now watching her avidly. "I am going to take some red lights, and some gold lights from down in the ground. If you look at my feet," she said, "and think of the story magic, you will see the colors red and gold."

The boys all turned their faces, and stared hard at Ajalia's feet. She imagined the cords of red and gold that she knew lay below the surface of the dragon temple, and she drew them up near her feet. Many of the boys let out great gasps, and pointed.

"Where is it?" a few of them said, agitation in their voices. "Where are the colors?"

"There, right there!" the others shouted, pointing at Ajalia's feet.

"Think of the story of the falcon," Daniel told the boys who couldn't see. Daniel turned his palm upwards, and the same great golden falcon that Delmar had conjured out on the road to Talbos appeared, in miniature, above Daniel's hand. "You can all see the gold lights," Daniel told the boys. "Now picture those same gold lights, down there," and he pointed at Ajalia's feet. The boys who had not seen stared hard at Daniel's hand. Some of them closed their eyes, and then opened them, and directed their at Ajalia's feet.

"Oh!" one of them said, and shook his neighbor by the arm. "There!" he cried softly. "Right there, and I can see the red lights, too!"

"Make the story of the falcon," Daniel instructed the other boys who could not see. "It will help you to think of the other lights."

While the boys who could not yet see practiced with their hands, and looked between their falcons and the red and gold cords that twined around Ajalia's ankles, Ajalia turned to the rest of the boys.

"I want you to all make red and gold appear," she told the boys, "and I want to you tie this witch down, from the knees, to just below the stone floor."

Esther gave a startle, and twisted away from Ajalia. Ajalia's arm shot out, and she gripped Esther hard by the shoulder.

"You stay," Ajalia growled, and the witch cowered.

"Please don't hurt me," Esther said, and Ajalia knew she was thinking of Vinna's swiftly dead form.

"Daniel," Ajalia said, and she went to the door of the room, leaving Esther standing uncomfortably in front of the group of boys. Ajalia had fourteen house boys, including Daniel, and with Leed now added in, she had fifteen boys who lived in the dragon temple.

Daniel followed Ajalia to the open doorway of the room, and waited, his face turned up to her.

"Where's Clare?" Ajalia asked. She lifted her hand to her face, and realized she was still holding the dampened rag that Daniel had brought her, for the blade of the knife. Daniel took the rag from her, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"I told you before," Daniel said, without any cheek, "she's gone upstairs with Sun and that boy."

Ajalia rubbed at her eyes, and tried to wipe away the tiredness that was tugging now at her whole being.

"Give me a quick list," Ajalia said to Daniel, "of all the people who live here." She glanced briefly at Daniel; he regarded her somberly, no trace of a smile on his face.

"You need to go to bed," Daniel told her. She knew he was right, but could not yet bring herself to leave the house in the state it was.

"I will last a little longer," she told him, massaging the skin above her eyebrows. She could hear the boys against the wall, as they conferred with each other, and attempted to send red sparks of light at the witch. Ajalia did not want to explain to Daniel that her mind was beginning to ebb away into whiteness; she did not want him to know how difficult she was finding it to concentrate. "Give me a list," she said again, leaning against the frame of the open doorway.

"My and the kids," Daniel said. "Leed. Sun and Clare. Chad doesn't live here," Daniel added with a frown, "but he'll be back with Ocher, or alone in twenty minutes. Denai has been out for a long time. You sent those other girls with the sewing woman." Daniel thought, his eyebrows creased. "Oh," he added, his face clearing, "and Isacar. He went out to meet his young woman. She was going to collect her things."

Ajalia took a deep breath; she felt as if she was beginning to clear away the blankness in her mind. It must be the magic that I did, she told herself. I'm just tired, she reminded herself, and she thought of the way she had passed through the head of the great black worm.

"Ossa," she said.

"Ossa's gone," Chad said, reappearing in the stairs with Ocher in tow. "She went out to get some ointment," Chad added, "for the little boy."

"That's Coren," Ajalia said, rubbing her shoulders against the frame of the door to loosen the muscles that had knotted up against the blue fragments of wings that still lay down against her back. "He's Delmar's youngest brother."

"I know that," Chad said, looking annoyed. Ajalia was sure that Chad had not realized that this Coren was that same boy until she had said so, but she let it pass.

"You ran away," Ajalia said to Ocher, who looked a little abashed. Ocher glanced at Chad; the bearded man looked as though he was determined not to notice the presence of Daniel.

"I'm sorry," Ocher said, "but you were a little frightening. You had fire coming out of your face."

"Did I?" Ajalia asked, interested.

"Um," Ocher said, "yes." He looked, Ajalia thought, like a little boy who stands in the presence of some powerful being. "I'd like to say," Ocher said, "that I do believe in the sky angel now. And that you are the sky angel." Ocher met her eyes briefly, and Ajalia saw that the man was blushing.

"Thanks," Ajalia said. "I've got the last witch in there," she added, pointing at Esther, who was looking annoyed, and had folded her arms. "I want to keep her alive," Ajalia told Ocher in a low voice, "and I want to teach the boys to work magic on her."

"That sounds like it might be a good idea," Ocher said. "Can they do magic?"

"Show me some story magic," Ajalia told Ocher. Ocher looked at her as though she were insane, but he lifted his palm, and put the picture of a great castle made of clouds into the air. "Now," Ajalia said, sighing, "take that light that you used to make the image, and picture it travelling through the air in a straight line towards that witch's head."

Ocher, again, looked at her as though she were asking him to do some silly thing, but her looked at the white castle, and the lines of the image began, very slowly at first, to drive through the room towards Esther's head, which was turned away from them. Ocher frowned in concentration, and soon the whole white image of the cloud castle was trailing in long, skinny lines towards the young witch's short hair. The white lines of light reached into Esther's head, and the little boys, who had looked up at the white lines when they drew near the witch, let out a collective gasp. Esther's back arched, as though she had been struck with a hammer, and her arms flung out to the sides. A stream of purple sparks burst out of the top of Esther's head, as though some dark plug were being forced out. Ajalia looked at the witch's head, and she saw that a similar cut-off piece was at the top of the witch, just as was at her feet. Ajalia saw that Ocher's lines of white light had wormed from the witch's lights that rested in her head, and gone up, through the empty space, towards the air above. Ajalia saw that Ocher's white threads of light were seeking to reconnect the witch to the power in the sky. The white lines faded away, and Esther's body relaxed. She looked suspiciously at the boys, and her whole face was twisted in dislike and mistrust. Esther rubbed at her temples, and glared around at Ajalia.

The little boys murmured; some of them pointed at Esther's face, and Ajalia heard, from their comments, that some of them were beginning to see the light inside the witch.

"I think I can see her soul," Ocher said, sounding disturbed. He turned to Ajalia. "Does it look like that to you?" he demanded, his mouth drawn into a fierce frown.

"Purple and orange?" Ajalia asked.  Ocher nodded.

"I've never been able to see that," Ocher said, his fingers flashing open and shut. "Can you see it?" he asked Daniel. Daniel nodded. Ocher made a tight line with his lips, and he glared at the witch.

"The story magic," Ajalia told Ocher, "is like what I used to take Beryl out of you." Ocher's face was puckered in stern distaste.

"That power is for children," he told her. "We only let the little boys use the lights. They are punished, if they use then when they are older."

"You could see all of that when you were a boy?" Ajalia asked. Ocher frowned.

"Only in the air, above our palms," he said. "We are taught that it is impossible to see otherwise. If the children do see, they conceal it. It is seen as a weakness."

"Well," Ajalia said. She was not sure what else to say that would not sound condescending and harsh. "I don't know what to do with all the dead bodies downstairs," she said. Ocher smiled at her.

"I will practice with the story magic," Ocher told her humbly, "until I can see and control it, as you do."

"Good," Ajalia said.

"I will take care of the downstairs," Ocher added. The bearded man looked grim, and fierce. "We have not had open wars for many years," he said. "I had hoped it would not come to this."

"Come to what?" Ajalia asked. Ocher looked at her, and she rubbed again at her eyes. She was having difficulty staying awake, and hearing everything that he said to her.

"War," Ocher said. Daniel nudged Ajalia.

"Go to bed," Daniel whispered. "I will see that things are done as you would like."

Ajalia nodded. She could no longer keep her eyelids properly open, and she admitted to herself the futility of doing more now. Her whole body ached, and there was a deep itch all along her shoulder blades.

"You said you had a job for me to do," Chad reminded her helpfully, and Ajalia grinned at him.

"I do," she said. "I have looked inside that witch, and I think I know what she can become. I need your help to babysit her, and keep her from running away. She will try to do magic on you," she warned. "Don't get her on your own. Keep one of my boys with you at all times. You will have to outsource the management of the other boys, in the crews. I want you with Esther now."

"Her name's Esther?" Chad asked curiously.

"Have you got any boys who are a little older, who can work the crews?" Ajalia asked. Chad nodded.

"If we are going to have a war," Chad said eagerly, "they will all pitch in and be very good without me. The boys like fighting," he added, unnecessarily. Ajalia tried to smile, but her cheeks were heavy.

"I will be honest with you, Chad," Ajalia said. "If Esther turns wrong, I will kill her. If she turns out well, I will talk you into marrying her." Chad, to her surprise, did not bridle at this news. He looked around at the short-haired witch, and a thoughtful twist was in his mouth. Chad, Ajalia told herself, was growing up quickly.

"She's a servant," Chad observed. Ajalia waved a hand at him. Ocher was watching this exchange with curious eyes. Ajalia knew that Ocher was thinking of his own marriage, which Ajalia had arranged with Clare. Well, Ajalia told herself, Clare had done most of the arranging, but Ajalia had brought Ocher to the dragon temple, and promised to get him a wife from among her girls.

"If she is not dead soon," Ajalia told Chad, "she will earn her way free by working for Delmar, and exposing the other witches in Slavithe."

"Oh," Chad said. He wandered into the room, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"Chad," Ajalia said, and Chad turned. "Arrange your boys first. You will not be able to let her out of your sight, when you come back." Chad's eyes brightened, and he nodded, and turned to go back down the stairs. "Esther," Ajalia said. Ajalia put an arm out, and stopped Chad in the doorway. The young witch, who had been glaring suspiciously at the boys ever since Ocher had put threads of white light through her head, looked around at Ajalia.

"I don't want you to do magic on me," Esther said clearly. Ajalia saw that Esther thought she was the one who had made her body arch, and her arms spread out.

"I thought you said what I was doing wasn't real magic," Ajalia said. "But that wasn't me. That was Ocher." Esther looked over, and saw the great bearded man for the first time. Ocher had been standing a little in the hall, and was not openly in the doorway. Esther's eyes widened, and her mouth snapped closed. Ajalia thought that she could see the witch taking an inner determination never to speak anymore. "This is Chad," Ajalia told the witch. Chad lifted a hand, and wiggled his fingers in a friendly manner. Esther glowered at Chad. "Chad is going to go and run an errand," Ajalia said, "and then he is going to come back and watch over you. If you turn out to be evil, like Vinna," Ajalia said, "I will see that you die."

Esther's cheeks, which were already pale, drained of whatever color they had held. Ajalia could see that Esther wanted to defend Vinna, and to tell Ajalia that neither she nor Vinna were evil at all, but Ocher seemed to choke back the young witch's desire to speak at all. Esther nodded curtly, and folded her arms.

"Go on," Ajalia said to Chad, and Chad grinned at Ocher, and ran down the stairs.

"I want to know," Ocher said to Ajalia, "what is going on with the glowing house out there." Ajalia blinked a few times before she remembered the old Thief Lord's house, and the walls that she had spread through with white magic.

"Um," Ajalia said, blinking to clear her eyes. "Rane tricked me. He's dead now. He died like the priests did," she added quickly. "I didn't mean for him to die. He and another Talbos spy were trying to trap me in Simon's house. I lit the walls up, and then he died." Ocher was staring at her. "The other man ran away," Ajalia added. "He was disguised as a Slavithe guard."

"These things that you are saying," Ocher said slowly, "you know that they are not real."

"Everything Ajalia says is real," Daniel told Ocher sternly. "You said yourself that her face was on fire." Ocher looked down at the boy, and his mouth doubled into a grimace. "And she was flying," Daniel said quietly. Ajalia saw Daniel's eyes go towards the other boys; she was sure, by his tone, that Daniel had not told the other boys this part of what he had seen. Ajalia thought again that Daniel was quite a useful child.

Ocher looked annoyed. He looked as though he had never believed in fantastical things, and as though his mind was struggling to make these new fantastical things into a shape that his previous thoughts would accept.

"If you take a special silver-blue light from the quarry," Ajalia told Ocher, her mind beginning to reel with exhaustion, "and you wind it through the stone of the walls in Simon's house, the light will fade."

"I don't think I'll be able to do that by myself," Ocher said frankly. Ajalia stared at him; she thought that Ocher was probably right.

"Ajalia has to sleep for a while," Daniel told Ocher. "She can help you later."

Ajalia felt as though she were pressed against a great wall of urgent needs; she was absolutely sure that if she went out with Ocher, into the still-darkened streets of Slavithe, that five new problems would present themselves to her.

"I sent Hal out to handle Rane's body," Ajalia said. "I'll have to see about the glowing building some other time." Ocher opened his mouth to protest, but seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say. "We have a lot of dead bodies downstairs," Ajalia reminded him, and then she remembered the great drifts of clear black stones that the giant worm had left behind. "Daniel," she said sharply, and her boy straightened up at once. "Take half the boys with you," Ajalia said, "and find some baskets, or shovels, or anything else. Take Pudge," she said, thinking of the small jennet who lived behind the temple now, in the small stables there. "Get those boys down into the hall, and gather up the clear black stones. We'll save them. There are a lot of them," she said. "And take only the older boys," she told Daniel. "Anyone you think will be able to stand the sight of death."

Daniel nodded efficiently; she was sure he would understand the importance of the black stones to her. Ajalia had thought, when she had first seen the red stone that gave off brilliant light when touched with the cords of power from the earth or sky, that she wanted an endless supply of the stones. Now, it seemed, she had gotten her wish. Daniel hurried to the long line of boys, who were all still conjuring different colors of sparks, and sending them, with varying rates of success, towards Esther, and gathered out seven of them. They all followed Daniel eagerly out of the room, and down the stairs.

"What stones?" Ocher asked Ajalia.

"The black worm exploded, just as you were running away," Ajalia said, without any unkindness in her voice.

"What black worm?" Ocher asked. Ajalia looked at Ocher, and she felt suddenly so tired that she wanted to cry.

"Daniel saw," Ajalia said. "Will you stay here with the witch, until Chad returns?" Ocher looked hesitant; Ajalia was sure that the bearded man wanted to go down the stairs, to begin arranging the disposal of the dead bodies. Ajalia could see, from the way Ocher looked at her, and at the way his skin strained a little around his eyes, that he was not used to taking orders. She could almost see him biting back the orders that he wanted to give to her. Finally, Ocher smiled.

"I have tried, many times, to outsmart you, Ajalia," Ocher said with a chuckle. "Perhaps sometime I will learn better."

"I hope you don't," Ajalia told him frankly. "I think you could do whatever I have done tonight, if you stopped thinking of the story magic as childish." Ocher frowned at Ajalia; she wished he would go away, but, she reminded herself, Ocher was a valuable ally, and she wanted him to be more valuable still.

"Are you finally flirting with me?" Ocher asked seriously. Ajalia blinked again.

"In what universe is it flirting, to tell you that you are a powerful man, and that I believe you will become more powerful?" Ajalia stared at Ocher, who looked both nonplussed and pleased.

"Clare thinks I am wonderful," Ocher admitted with a shy smile.

"That's because you are wonderful," Ajalia told him. "If you start mindlessly taking instructions from me, you will not gain the power that you can gain, if you try. Please don't stunt yourself in some mistaken attempt to worship my powers. I have no more power," she said firmly, "than any of those boys can have, if they learn to see. You have seen some things. Learn to see more. And please," Ajalia said, "for now, because I am very tired, and because I asked you, watch that witch for me until Chad comes back." She looked at Ocher, and Ocher looked back at her. Ocher smiled.

"I like you, Ajalia," he said, but this time he did not say it as a man who thinks of a woman and wishes her for his wife. "I will do as you have asked," Ocher said, and Ajalia bent her head in thanks. She settled her bag around her body, and went through the dragon temple to her own room. When she got there, and unfastened the door, she found Leed asleep on the floor.

THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

Ajalia blinked at the little boy, who was curled up, fast asleep, on the floor, the slim leather book against his chest. Both the boy's arms were wrapped securely around the book, and the lighted stone was clasped hard in his hand. Ajalia found the wooden box lying to one side of the boy, and she gently untangled Leed's fingers from around the stone. The stone was shining just as brilliantly as it had when she had first touched the cord of power against its clear sides. Ajalia put the shining stone into the wooden box, and fastened the lid. She picked up Leed, and carried him to the bed.

Leed, she thought, must have traveled for a long time to reach her; he was so asleep that his head rocked back against her shoulder, and his mouth dropped a little open. Leed seemed to her now, as he slept, like an innocent baby. He had been abandoned, Ajalia thought, and he was, in a way, still a very small child in his heart. She laid Leed down on the bed, and tucked the blanket around him. She did not try to take the slim leather book out of his arms; she thought she would wake him, if she shifted the book, and the boy grasped the book as though it was a tender comfort to him. Ajalia sighed, and took the bag from around her body. She had put the falcon's dagger back into her bag at some point; the evening, to her, was beginning to seem like an endless montage of stress and magic, and she could not remember when she had done this. She felt at the curved dagger, and at the white stone flecked with purple.

Ajalia went to the door of her room, and locked it securely. She did not marvel much that Leed had gotten into her room; he could have come in through the balcony, she thought. He was lithe and light, and fearless, and she had no doubt that Leed could get into many places, if he was determined. She loosened the buckles of her knife harness, and got a pillow from the bed. She picked up her bag, and arranged herself on the floor near the door, so that her back was against the door, and the balcony was in plain sight. She wrapped her arms around the bag with the precious dagger and the sky stone, and she laid her head down on the pillow and fell asleep almost at once.

Ajalia did not dream of Delmar, but she saw a bright figure, in the shape of a man, riding a shining blue horse with wings. Ajalia told herself, as she slept, that this was the first falcon. The figure was gold, and at the man's waist was a curved dagger that gleamed like a silver star.

Ajalia slept for a long time, and when she woke up, the light of the afternoon sun was streaming through the curtains that covered the balcony. She lay on her back for a long time, feeling the hard stone floor press comfortably against her shoulders, and she remembered that she had never untangled the cords of blue light that she had formed into wings. Ajalia closed her eyes, and imagined the tendrils of blue that she had twisted tightly around her spine and her shoulder blades. Slowly, as if with thick and swollen fingers, she began to untangle the tendrils of blue light. She began to breathe more easily, as she unwound the light, and the whole length of her back relaxed into the floor. Ajalia felt like a comfortable puddle, and she wiggled her shoulders, and sighed.

"You're awake now, aren't you?" Leed asked.

"How long was I out?" Ajalia asked, without opening her eyes.

"It's tomorrow," Leed said. Ajalia looked over, and saw that the boy was sitting on her bed with his legs crossed. The slim leather book was open in his lap.

"Is the book any good?" Ajalia asked, looking up at the ceiling. She told herself that Leed was thinking about rebuking her for putting him on the bed, when he could have slept quite comfortably on the floor himself.

"It's very good," he said finally. "It talks about flying, and doing magic."

"What does it say about flying?" Ajalia asked, rolling onto her hands and knees, and sighing with the ache that spread instantly through her joints. Only a day and a half left, she told herself, before Delmar would come back. Ajalia stretched out on the floor, her cheek flat against the white stone, and finished untangling the wires of blue light from around her bones. When the last tendril of blue had been unwrapped, she relaxed deeply into the floor. She felt as though she had not breathed deeply the whole time the blue had been around her bones, not because it was uncomfortable, but because she was thinking all the time of flying, and of how impossible it should be to have wings on her back.

"It says that there are two ways to fly," Leed said. "Well, three, but I don't count the last one as flying, really."

"What are they?" Ajalia asked, lying flat on her stomach. She put one hand on top of the bag where the dagger and the stone lay, and felt both of the lumps. She was sure that if she left either object alone for long, they would mysteriously disappear, and she would have an awful time trying to get anyone to admit taking them. Some artifacts, Ajalia thought, had a strange quality of seeming to belong to no one, and therefore to anyone who picked them up. Her own master had had three items from the distant past, and he had undergone a nearly endless dance of having them stolen, and retrieving them again, not only from his own slaves, but from fellow traders and their wives and children. People in general did not feel as compunctious, Ajalia thought, about taking items that were so old they had had masses of unrelated owners. Once a thing had been taken on by so many different people, she thought, the thing itself seemed to become, to the masses, an item of public interest. Ajalia was sure that if her own boys saw the dagger or the sky stone, they would be tempted to take them, and she counted her own boys far more honest than the vast majority of people anywhere.

"The first way to fly," Leed said, marking his place with his finger, and turning backwards in the slim leather book, "is to take hold of the cords in the sky, and to climb them, as though they were a tangle of vines in a forest."

Oh, Ajalia thought, and she imagined doing that. It would be easier, she reflected, to climb the sky, than to build wings.

"The second way is to fashion magic into the shape of wings, and then fly with them," Leed said, "and the third way, which I do not think counts as flying, really, is to make wings out of earth and sky magic, and attach them to a horse."

"Does it have to be a horse?" Ajalia asked, thinking of the jennet, and of the great blue yurl that had been sold into the mountains.

"It doesn't say," Leed said, "but all the examples show a horse. The book says that all the horses came down from the sky first. It says they're very sensitive to magic, more than other animals."

"I thought all the animals in Slavithe came down from the sky kingdom," Ajalia said, shifting her weight, and stretching out her legs. Delmar is coming, she told herself, and she smiled as she remembered the way his reddish beard was growing in.

"Well, a lot of them did," Leed said, "but most of them have crossed with animals from here, and their flesh is heavier now. The creatures in the forest are purer, though," Leed said. "The birds and little animals didn't have any domesticated things to mate with."

"The slaves brought animals with them?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Leed said, and he flipped back to his place in the book.

"Tell me the highlights," Ajalia said, looking over at the sunlight that was coming through the balcony curtains. The curtains were partially closed, as she had drawn them the last time she had been in the room, but a slight breeze was coming in, and swinging the curtains a little from side to side.

"Um," Leed said, twisting his mouth, and wiggling on the bed. He frowned down at the book. "The witches are cut off from power, and so they steal what they can reach from children, and from pregnant women and babies."

"All right," Ajalia said, and she was thinking of what Coren had said, about Lilleth trying to make Delmar father a child. Ajalia told herself that she would ask Delmar about this; she hoped he would not know anything about it, but, she thought, she could see how Lilleth would have been able to introduce such a topic in a not-insidious way. She still wanted to find the potential young woman, or women, if there had been multiple prospects, and grill them about details. Ajalia had not enjoyed Sharo's sudden and deeply-rooted possessiveness towards Delmar, and she wanted to do what she could to avoid such a person popping up again without warning.

"The priests do the same thing," Leed said, "but they think it doesn't count as stealing, because they want to fight with the witches."

"Does the book say that?" Ajalia asked. She got up to her feet, and came to the window.

"No," Leed said. "I'm extrapolating."

"What does the book say?" she asked.

"Mostly things you already know, probably," Leed hedged.

"Then go to the beginning," Ajalia told him, "and read it out to me." Leed glared at her from under the fringe of brown hair.

"Really?" he asked suspiciously. "I thought you would run off and do important things."

"If I step foot outside that door," Ajalia told the boy, "I will have endless and draining adventures. Everyone else can have adventures for now. I want to know what that book says." She guessed, rightly, that magic was quickly becoming the centerpiece of her interactions with any and all the Slavithe people, and she was thoroughly fed up with feeling unprepared, and not knowing what was going on, and what powers she could access.

"Well," Leed said doubtfully. "It would probably take a while."

"When did you fall asleep last night?" Ajalia asked him. Leed looked at her.

"I don't know," he admitted. I came here, after the house was quiet. I think I fell asleep when I was reading."

"Some witches came here last night, and tried to attack me," Ajalia said. Leed sat upright, his eyes wide.

"Really?" he asked eagerly. She saw him looking at where her knife was concealed, and she knew he wanted to hear a long story about a fight.

"After the witches showed up," Ajalia continued, "a much larger group of priests attacked, and there was fighting."

"Why did the witches come?" Leed asked eagerly. The book lay half-open in his lap where he had been turning the pages. His face was turned with rapt attention to Ajalia.

"They had been using Coren, Delmar's little brother, as a thrall, and they wanted to collect him. I'd gotten the bad magic out of him, and when they saw that, they wanted to take him and make him a shadow child."

"Oh, no," Leed said, his eyes wide. He looked thoroughly delighted with what Ajalia said. "Did they carry him off?" he asked.

"No," Ajalia said. She began to comb out her hair.

"What happened with the priests?" Leed demanded. Ajalia glanced at the boy. His face was wrought with excitement. She pulled the blanket over the boy's head, and began to change her clothes. "What happened next?" Leed demanded, his voice coming muffled through the cloth.

"The priests wanted to kill the witches. I think they wanted to kill me, as well," Ajalia said. She pulled a clean tunic over her head, and got leggings out of her trunk. Her wardrobe, she reflected sorrowfully, was being rapidly decimated to scraps and rags. The orange gown she had been wearing was not completely ruined, but it was no longer fit to wear. Bits of blood, and discolored places where the magic had passed through the cloth, filled up the beautiful gown. There was a long tear along one side of the leg, and Ajalia could not think of where it had come from. She supposed that she might have rubbed up against something at one point, thought she couldn't think when.

When she had dressed, Ajalia yanked at the blanket, and Leed's tousled head appeared.

"How did you fight off the priests?" Leed asked.

"I put up barriers of magic," Ajalia said, beginning to pack the pockets in the waist of her pants. "Ocher came down, and he distracted the priests for a while. I put up a wall of magic around the priests, and when they tried to cross through it, they all died."

"Really?" Leed asked, sounding both horrified and delighted. He looked down at the book. "Do you think I could kill evil people?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"I wasn't trying to kill them," Ajalia said. "I was mostly making things up."

"But they're dead now," Leed said impressively. A new idea seemed to take hold of him, and his whole body almost vibrated with excitement. "Are they downstairs now?" he asked seriously. Ajalia knew he was about to say, can I go see? A smile tugged at the corners of Ajalia's lips, but she shook her head.

"No," she said. "Ocher's cleared everything up by now."

"But what about the witches?" Leed asked urgently. "Where are they? Are they coming back to fight again?" The boy sounded eager to build a fortress, or to wield a weapon. Ajalia was sure that if she said the witches were returning, Leed would leap to his feet and begin to devise cunning traps and attack plans.

"The witches almost all died when they went through the magic, too," Ajalia said. She knew that Leed had noticed her say "almost." "Two were left," Ajalia said. "I killed one of them." Leed stared at her with big, solemn eyes.

"Why?" he asked.

"I looked inside of her, and I saw a lot of darkness," Ajalia told him.

"Do you see darkness when you look inside of me?" Leed asked her fearlessly. He was not being morbid; Ajalia saw that the boy wanted to know what he was like, and what she thought of him.

"No," Ajalia said.

"What do you see?" Leed pressed.

"I see you," Ajalia said. Leed frowned at her.

"You didn't say anything at all about me," he said, sounding disappointed.

"What is there to say?" Ajalia asked. Leed glared at her, his lips in a tight line.

"I want you to say something nice," Leed said.

"Like what?" she asked. Leed's frown deepened.

"It doesn't count," he said, "if I tell you what to say."

"But what do you wish I would say?" she asked. Leed took a deep breath, and held it. Then he sighed with some disappointment.

"Where's the other witch?" he asked. Ajalia saw that the boy had been used to his uncle, or other adults in his life, telling him who he was, and what he was like. She saw that Leed thought she might have such thoughts, and that he wanted to shape himself into whatever form of boy she wanted most. She would not tell Leed what she saw in him, because she knew that he would stifle himself, and wring himself up into whatever he perceived she wanted. She did not want the boy to do this to himself; she wanted him to be whoever he was. She could see that her refusal to answer caused the boy pain, but she would rather he felt pain now, than that he manipulate himself into being who he thought she wanted him to be. Ajalia had participated in such internal contortions herself, when she had been a small child, and desperate to earn her father's love and approval. She would not willingly engage with such dramatics with Leed now, however much he asked her to.

"The last witch is here," Ajalia said. She saw Leed's face light up; he was thoroughly distracted by this news, and she saw that he wanted to see the witch himself, as if she were a sort of placebo for the dead bodies he had hoped to stare at. "Chad is guarding her," Ajalia said, "and I'm having the boys learn to throw magic at her."

Leed's eyes grew very wide at this.

"You're letting them do magic?" he asked.

"The witch tells me that using cords of power from the sky and earth is not real magic," Ajalia told Leed. Leed scoffed at her.

"That witch doesn't know anything," Leed said. "This book is all about real magic. She talks a little bit about the beginnings of witches," Leed said interestedly, turning to the front part of the book. Ajalia knew that Leed meant Bakroth's wife, who had written this book. "Here," Leed said, pointing at a page. "She said that when you use the lights to harm other people, the lights draw away from you, and if you don't make it right, and restore the light you stole or destroyed, with light from your own soul, that the earth is offended, and the sky god withdraws his approval."

"So if you harm other people, you can't touch the lights in the earth and sky," Ajalia said. Leed nodded.

"She said that there were many people, when Jerome was alive, who had learned to steal lights, and they were starting to call that magic, and say that it wasn't natural to use the real lights at all."

"Bakroth's wife talked of Jerome being alive? Does that mean he was dead later?" Ajalia asked. Leed nodded importantly. Ajalia saw that the boy was thoroughly enjoying his ability to tell her what the book said; she saw that his sense of himself as a person was being shored up, and his opinion of his own validity was rising up.

"Bakroth's wife lived a lot longer than Jerome," Leed said. "This whole part of the book is after Jerome died, and Bakroth's wife came back into Slavithe, and tried to bring the people back into line. It didn't work," Leed added with a frown, "but she left her son behind, when she went back into hiding."

"Her son?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Leed said, nodding. "It says in the very first part that she was with child, and then later on, about here," he said holding a chunk of the pages, "she had the baby, and there are a bunch of spells that are about helping children connect to the lights, and teaching them magic."

"The book tells how to teach magic?" Ajalia asked quickly. Leed nodded. "Have you read the whole book?" she asked. Leed nodded again. "Here," Ajalia said, "give the book to me. You go out now, and find Daniel. Tell him that I said you are going to teach the boys magic. Can you do that?" she asked. Ajalia was supremely anxious to get all of her household boys into a state of preparation; she knew that trouble was brewing in Slavithe; she could feel the undercurrent of conflict that was in the air. She had not been in a hurry yet, because she was sure that the skirmish last night had bought her time. Both priests and witches, she thought, would be tense for several days, trying to judge their positions, and maneuvering to gain favor with Delmar. She did not think they would attack each other, or her, yet, but she knew there would be a fight soon, and she wanted her boys to be able to defend themselves from the invisible evil of the corrupt users of magic in the city. Leed was watching Ajalia shrewdly, and his face was very still.

"Is there going to be another fight?" Leed asked. Ajalia nodded.

"Can you teach the boys," she asked again, "with what you've read?"

"Yes," Leed said slowly. "It's very simple."

"Can you show me some magic?" Ajalia asked. Leed looked at her, and then he raised one hand. A shimmering ball of the ocean-colored blue magic, the magic that Ajalia had mixed from the stars and from the red-gold cords of light deep within the earth, appeared over his hand. Ajalia hissed with pleasure. "Did you learn that from this book?" she asked. Leed looked at her, and nodded. "Have you read the whole thing?" she asked.

"I just have these two pages left," Leed said, "at the end."

"Read them now," Ajalia said. She went to the balcony, and looked out. She felt enormously relieved, both that Leed could do what she had done, and because he said he would be able to teach the other boys. Ajalia felt as though a great weight were slipping now from her mind. She was not yet, she thought, in the clear, but she would be soon, and she was sure that the moment Leed had gone to meet with the other boys, she would feel enormously better. She had not realized until now how anxiously she had felt about her vulnerable boys. She still was not entirely sure why the witches seemed to target young boys in particular, but she was determined that neither the witches, with their dark and hideous scrawls, nor the bloodthirsty priests, with their solemn faces, would get to even one of her boys. Once Leed had taught the house boys, Ajalia thought, she would have the cleaning crew boys sent for, and she would form the dragon temple into a manner of fortress.

She still did not know what these purges were, that the boys and the young men of Slavithe were expected to perform, but she had a sick suspicion that they were wound up somehow in the priests' ugly ways. A picture was forming in her mind, of a society where both men and women preyed on innocent children, all in the name of protecting those children from other evil people. Whatever the purges were, Ajalia thought, they clearly didn't work to catch or prevent witchcraft, and she suspected that they were created to benefit the priests more than the children who were expected to undergo them.

She waited until Leed had closed the book, and then she held out her hand for it. Leed regarded her warily.

"Are you sure you don't want me to tell you more?" he asked. Ajalia watched the boy.

"Are there things I need to know in the next five minutes?" she asked him, Leed thought about this.

"Two things," he said finally. "I think Delmar might be related to Bakroth, and you're probably the sky angel." Ajalia thought about what Leed had said.

"Tell me more," she said. Leed took a deep breath, as though he were about to launch into a diatribe. "Please given me the very short version," Ajalia added quickly. Leed looked as though he was going to be offended, but then a smile broke over his face.

"You wouldn't be able to tell," Leed said, "because you're not from here. But there are some details about Bakroth's son, the baby his wife had in the wilderness, that match up a lot to one of Delmar's famous ancestors."

"Okay," Ajalia said. "And what about the sky angel?"

"Bakroth's wife could see the future," Leed said. "She writes about it in a couple of places. She learned how to use the magic to kind of tunnel forward, to see where things led to."

"All right," Ajalia said, She remembered what she had done when she had looked inside Vinna, and how she had seen many paths that all led into blackness and evil.

"So when the people were all gradually turning away from magic," Leed began. He saw Ajalia nodding impatiently, and he smiled again. "She tried to find out how things would get better," Leed said. "She saw a woman coming from the East, with red and gold in her heart, and Bakroth's wife called her the sky angel."

Ajalia felt a strange tingling at the edges of her heart. She had first looked at herself not long ago, to see the colors of her own spirit, and she had seen a riot of red and warm lights. She felt now as though someone were watching her from far away.

"You have those colors," Leed pointed out, "and you come from the East."

"You can see the colors now?" Ajalia asked quickly. Leed nodded.

"Anyone can," he said, lifting the book. "It says so, here."

"If you see Ocher," Ajalia said to Leed, "tell him how to see the lights."

Leed grinned, and handed the book to Ajalia.

"I'm going to like things now," Leed told her. "If my uncle ever comes after me, I know how to fly away." Ajalia grinned at the boy.

"You've learned how to fly already?" she asked. Leed grimaced.

"Well, I haven't tried it yet," he admitted, "but I will soon. It says how, in the book."

"Gather all of the boys in the house," Ajalia said. "Find Daniel first. I want all of you to find a way to connect Esther back to the earth and sky."

"That's the witch?" Leed asked. Ajalia nodded.

"Don't teach her any magic," Ajalia said, "and tell the other boys not to say anything to her either. I want to see if we can use her as a spy."

Leed's eyes were sparkling now.

"I'll show Ocher, if I see him," Leed said. "And I'll warn the boys about not teaching the witch." Leed ran towards the door of the room.

"And Leed," Ajalia said. Leed paused, and turned. "See what you can get Chad to do, as well," Ajalia said. Leed smiled with an evil smile, and unlocked the door. Ajalia laughed at the look on the boy's face, and watched him go out. She rose up, and went to the door. She hesitated for a moment, and then locked the door again. She went to the desk, and got a sheet of paper. The Slavithe people made excellent paper. Ajalia thought that her master would see to the construction of a large paper mill, if he ever did arrive in Slavithe. She wondered what Barat would tell their master about Slavithe, when he and the other Eastern slaves arrived in the East.

Ajalia was surprised to find that since Delmar had sponsored her, and made her an honorary citizen of Slavithe, she no longer regarded herself as a slave. She was not sure how this had happened in her; she had always seen herself as valuable chattel before this. But the words Delmar had used, and the way he had treated her since then, had given her a kind of second life. She no longer felt like a belonging; she felt like a person, and like her own person. She felt as though she owned herself. Ajalia thought, in the back of her mind, that she would be able to maintain a relationship with her master, if and when he came, by telling him of the customs of Slavithe. Her master had a good understanding of the ways of foreigners; she was almost sure that if she framed her explanation in terms of what the people of Slavithe would accept, and how they saw her now as one of themselves, he would not press her into living openly as a slave. She was not concerned about returning to the East; if her master never journeyed here, she would not return, and if he did, she was far more valuable to him here than she could be anywhere else.

Ajalia began to make a map of names; she wrote down Simon's name, and Lilleth's, and drew lines out to each of their sons. She wrote down herself, and Philas, and then she began to write out, along the edges of the page, all the people she had met or worked with in Slavithe, those who had become a permanent part of her picture of the place. When Ajalia had filled up the page with names, she studied it for a moment, and then turned the page over, and began to plan.

In the filtering afternoon light that sunk low against the balcony curtains, a gentle knock came at Ajalia's door. She tucked away her sheet of paper, and then paused, and picked it up. Tucking the paper into her bag, which she slung once more over her shoulder, she unlocked and opened the door. Isacar was in the hall, looking abashed.

"I didn't want to disturb you," the young man said.

"Tell me about things," Ajalia said, going out of the room, and closing the door behind her. She made a practice never to leave things in her room that she would be upset never to see again. The slim leather book she had put into her bag with the book she had been saving for Delmar; the falcon's dagger, and the sky stone, were in her bag still.

Isacar told her about the state of the house as they walked together towards the stairs. Isacar, Ajalia saw, had gone exploring the dragon temple. He told her that he and his woman, Fashel, had arranged a brief ceremony to be performed later in the week, and that he had given Fashel some of the money that Ajalia had given him, to start setting up the kitchen.

"Tell Fashel she can have Sun, and Clare if she's free," Ajalia told Isacar. "They will help her in the kitchen. I have my boys occupied for now." A smile, like a burst of lightning, passed over Isacar's face.

"I know about the boys," Isacar admitted. He raised his hand, and a tiny gleam of mixed blue, from the star and deep earth lights, appeared there. Ajalia was impressed. "Leed has got everyone practicing," Isacar said, his mouth looking quite pleased.

"What about the witch?" Ajalia asked. They headed down the stairs together. The walls of the staircase had been recently scrubbed, and Ajalia saw now that the barest sheen of gold was beginning to show through the white stone. She had told Daniel to gradually add more of the poison juice to their cleaning fluids, to make the white stone turn golden over time. Isacar caught Ajalia looking, and the young man smiled.

"The boy, Daniel, told me of your plan," Isacar said in a low voice, as though he were speaking of something quite indiscreet. Isacar's eyes were sparkling with fun; Ajalia thought that he had probably never had so much excitement in all his life as he had had in the last several hours, notwithstanding his long employment in the old man Tree's household. "The witch, Esther, is coming along well," Isacar told Ajalia. "Chad learned the magic from Leed first. He insisted, and said it was his right, since you had promised Esther to him, if she lived. The other boys snuck magic while Chad wasn't looking, but Esther is grounded all right now."

"Can Chad do magic now, as well?" Ajalia asked. She was surprised, but pleased.

"He's quite as good as Leed is," Isacar said. Ajalia felt that, while she had slept, the whole household had undergone an upheaval. She could not quite imagine Chad being particularly good at anything, but she looked forward to seeing him now. "Esther seems all right," Isacar said. "She offered to purge the boys properly, and Chad watched her the whole time. That was only a little while ago. No one ever went to bed," Isacar confessed. "A lot of the boys wanted to help with the dead bodies, and then there was the scrubbing."

"Where are the black stones?" Ajalia asked. They had come out of the stairs, and Ajalia went through the back hallway towards the kitchens. Isacar came along with her, oozing efficiency out of his pores.

"Daniel sent a boy out to market, early, for some baskets," Isacar said. "It wasn't enough, and finally Denai went out and brought a cart. He hitched that little animal up to it, and the boys helped him haul the stones into the back. Most of the boys are from the mines," Isacar said quickly, "so they're good at sorting rocks, and shoveling." Ajalia knew that her boys were from the quarries; she had gone and fetched many of them herself from their previous employers, but she listened to Isacar describe how the clear black stones had been sorted by size and quality, and the best stones had been carried upstairs in baskets.

They came near the door to the kitchen, and Ajalia stopped in the hall.

"There are still great heaps of the lesser stones in the back enclosure," Isacar said. "The front hall is clear, now."

"Has Ocher seen to the bodies?" Ajalia asked. "They're gone?"

"Yes," Isacar said. "The floor's been cleaned. I told you that," he said, frowning. Ajalia sighed, her mind on the paper she had been filling with figures and names.

"I heard the first time," Ajalia said. "I wanted to make sure the bodies aren't stacked in a room just off the hall, waiting to be carted away."

"Oh, no," Isacar said, "the bodies are all gone." He glanced over at Ajalia. "Clare's gone, too," he added slyly.

"Have they gone to get married?" Ajalia asked. Isacar could not stop himself from smiling. He nodded

"Good for Clare," Ajalia said. She still felt a flurry of anxiety in the back of her mind; she felt as if she were forgetting something vital. "Coren," she said. "Where's Coren?"

"He's helping the others," Isacar said. Ajalia looked at Isacar in surprise. "I think Coren is trying very hard to fit in," Isacar said. "He's not nearly so sour as he was last night. Leed beat him a little, at first, but Coren wouldn't fight back, and now they seem to get along."

Ajalia imagined the tiny Leed beating with his fists on Coren, who was easily twice his size, and she kept back a smile with difficulty.

"That is surprising," Ajalia said. Isacar looked at her hesitantly.

"I do not wish to speak out of turn," he said, and looked at her meaningfully. Ajalia recognized the look in Isacar's eyes; it was the same look she had given her own master in the past, though she had never been so forward as to speak her mind at such times. She sighed, and prepared to be lectured. Isacar saw the look on her face, and he grinned. "I won't tell you what to do," Isacar said, "but you did hire me, and I'd like to do my job."

Ajalia looked at Isacar, and wondered if the young man was as sensible as she hoped he was.

"Tell me more," she said. Isacar's face looked puffy with repressed advice. Ajalia smiled, and laughed at him. "You are too wise to tell me," she guessed, "but I look ill, and I need sleep, and you would like to send food up to my room and continue to play lord of the temple while I busy myself over higher tasks."

Isacar smiled in spite of himself.

"Well," he said, but he did not seem to be able to think of anything else to say.

"Come on," Ajalia said, and she went into the kitchen.

PHILAS COMES BACK

The kitchen, as Ajalia went into it, was full of flying dust and the warm glow of a fire that was just beginning to burn steadily in the large hearth. Fashel had a large broom in her hands, and she was beating at the edges of the room. When Ajalia saw that Fashel was alone, she waved Isacar away; he melted discreetly into the hall.

The kitchen sat in the back left-hand corner of the dragon temple, and within both of its outer walls were large and airy windows. The sky outside was clear and bright; Ajalia watched the dust motes fly like mad insects through the room.

Fashel looked up, and noticed Ajalia. The young woman's face was bright with exertion, and her lips were parted.

"Oh!" Fashel said, looking nervous and pleased. "Hello."

"I didn't know if you would come back," Ajalia said. "I'm glad that you did." Fashel's lips pursed down.

"I had to sneak away," she admitted. "My mistress was not pleased to see me go."

"Isacar tells me that you have set a day for your marriage," Ajalia said. Fashel's face was overcome with blushes.

"Yes," Fashel said.

Ajalia got up, and found rags and a bucket full of water that had been mixed with the poison tree juice. She began to scrub at the table, and great clouds of dirt and steam rose up.

"I don't know when Isacar and I would ever have been able to plan our marriage, if it hadn't been for you," Fashel said frankly. "I told him that I didn't want to cut my hair."

"You could have lived together," Ajalia guessed.

"Yes," Fashel said. "Isacar made enough, working for Tree. But he is not allowed to pay my debts."

Ajalia got down on her hands and knees to scrub the floor. Cleaning in Slavithe, Ajalia thought, was the nicest thing. She didn't have to rub hard for the stains and dirt to lift out of the stone. Clouds of steam left behind lengths of snowy white stone, where Ajalia had rubbed the rag.

"You don't have to help me clean," Fashel added softly, as though she was hoping Ajalia wouldn't hear her.

"I like cleaning," Ajalia said. "And I would get in the way of the boys just now. They are enjoying themselves."

"Isacar is learning more story magic," Fashel said hesitantly. She looked over at Ajalia from where she stood against a counter that was laid in against the wall. Fashel climbed onto the counter, and began to wash the wall up higher.

"How long have you been a servant?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's lips were pressed primly together.

"I have been a servant for three years," Fashel said. "I was sold to my mistress, about a week after my father died."

Efficient, Ajalia told herself. As they scrubbed, Ajalia thought of the fight in the hall of the dragon temple last night, and how the priests had died in a flash of white light.

"Do you know any priests?" Ajalia asked.

"No. There haven't been very many priests for a long time," Fashel said, "and they keep to themselves. Only poor people and fools become priests."

Fashel was scrubbing back and forth over the wall. Ajalia reached below the earth, and picked up a line of blue light. Ajalia saw the colors inside of people's bodies when she looked for them, but she had to focus her mind, and when she touched the cords of power, the sight came to her without any effort at all.

Fashel's colors came immediately into view. Ajalia saw that the colors she had refreshed in the girl's body last night had all been eaten away again.

"Have you gone to see your mother," Ajalia asked, "since I paid you for the necklace?"

"No," Fashel said, frowning.

"Have you seen your sisters since last night?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's lips drew down at the corners, and her eyebrows drew together.

"I have seen no one," Fashel said, "except for my old mistress and her son."

Ajalia's mouth twisted with anger to one side; she reached for more cords of light below the earth, and began to wind them carefully through Fashel's legs and hips. She saw the young woman begin, gradually, to breathe more easily.

"I put some light into you, last night," Ajalia said, frowning as she reached for another color, and bound it tightly into Fashel's ribs. Fashel's eyes brightened as Ajalia worked; the young lady stood up straighter, and her shoulders drew back.

"What do you mean?" Fashel asked. Isacar's young woman's voice was no longer harsh or unfriendly; she sounded kind and happy now. Ajalia thought that the lights were like putting life back into the girl.

"Do you know the story magic?" Ajalia asked. Fashel nodded. "I am taking the same colors that are used in the story magic," Ajalia said, "and winding them through your bones." Fashel laughed, as though Ajalia had told her a fairy story.

"You speak like a child," Fashel said. "That is not real magic."

Ajalia took a pair of blue cords from the sky, and formed them into a firm knot in Fashel's middle. She raised up two long cords of gold, and shaped them together with the blue lines, so that Fashel was the center of a tight meeting of lights from above and below. When Ajalia had put lights into people before this, she had taken isolated fragments of lights from the earth or sky and laid them down into the person. Ajalia had left no intact connection to the colors that ran in the sky and below the earth. Now Ajalia made a permanent flow; Fashel was an epicenter of violent white where the colors mixed, and her chest and arms were full of the twisting blue lights that ran up, in cords of steady clear color, into the sky above. Running through Fashel's legs were gently writhing tendrils of thick gold that extended deep into the earth.

Fashel looked now at Ajalia with strong eyes, and a firm mouth.

"I put lights in you last night," Ajalia told the girl. "They are eaten away today."

"My mistress might have taken them from me," Fashel said matter-of-factly. Ajalia looked at the girl, and Fashel smiled. "She's not a witch," Fashel explained. "She's just old, and she gets cranky. She wanted to buy me as a servant because of the way I smell."

Ajalia blinked rapidly.

"What did you say?" Ajalia asked.

"My smell," Fashel said. "We can't see the lights very well."

"Who can't?" Ajalia asked. Fashel stared at her.

"Women. As children we are beaten when we start to see them. So we learn not to see them. Then, when we are older, we begin to smell the lights instead. I can smell you," she offered, bobbing her head encouragingly. "You are like fresh fire, laid in fair wood." Ajalia, in spite of herself, sniffed a little. Fashel saw, and laughed. "You will never smell it yourself," Fashel said easily. "No one can smell the lights really, but we say that we can."

"That sounds very odd to me," Ajalia said. "It sounds like what you are saying is that you can see the lights."

"Oh, I can't see them," Fashel said quickly, a slight tension coming in around the edges of her eyes and her mouth. "I can't see any lights. I haven't been able to at all. But I think yours might be red. Or they aren't red," Fashel said hurriedly, blushing. She looked sideways at Ajalia. "Can you see the lights?" she asked. Ajalia nodded.

Daniel came in, carrying a basket of bread and long vegetables mixed together.

"Oh, hello," Daniel said to Ajalia. The boy was smiling brightly, and his hair was swept away from his face in the manner of one who has been having adventures. "Here you go," Daniel said cheerfully to Fashel, and put the basket down on the counter. Ajalia was surprised at how much more lively and likable Fashel was, with the live cords of lights running through her body. Daniel was looking appraisingly at Fashel; he turned to Ajalia.

"I like what you've done to Fashel," Daniel told Ajalia. "It's very pretty."

"Thanks," Ajalia said.

Daniel took the rag from Ajalia, and began, in rapid fashion, to finish cleaning up the floor. The boy was like a machine; he swept poison juice onto the stones, and wiped it thoroughly into every crack of the stones until the floor sparkled. The kitchen, as it turned clean, was quite unrecognizable. The wooden shelves, which Fashel had washed before Ajalia had come in, shone out brightly and warmly now against the newly-scrubbed white walls. The floor seemed larger, and much more expansive, now that it was clean, and the large table that filled up much of the room, which was made of the hard yellow wood from the Slavithe trees, gleamed comfortingly in the room.

Ajalia thought of the priests who had expired in flashes of white light as their bodies passed through the blue wall of magic she had made around them. She thought back to the way their bodies had looked, and she was trying to picture their insides, and their colors. The head priest, Thell, and his three minions had been different, she realized.

"Daniel?" Ajalia asked. The boy nodded to show that he was listening, his elbows working like pistons over the rapidly gleaming floor. "Do you know of Thell, the head priest?" Ajalia asked. Fashel, who was scrubbing a corner of the wall above the counter, looked down to listen.

"Yes," Daniel said at once. "He's dead. I saw him out in the hall. Coren said Thell wanted to kill everyone last night," Daniel added with relish.

"Is Thell a eunuch?" Ajalia asked. Daniel looked up at her with a grin.

"No, he's not," Daniel said. "Or he wasn't," the boy amended. "They don't cut the priests anymore. The old Thief Lord, Delmar's father, said that it was barbaric. But they used to do it when Tree was in charge." Daniel slapped the wet rag against the floor, and rubbed the white stones. "Isacar told me that you were from one of the old families," Daniel told Fashel, working the poison juice into the stones. "He said you're hard to get along with."

Fashel blushed again.

"I bet he didn't say that," Fashel said hotly. Daniel grinned at Ajalia again, and the boy's new white brand glistened sharply over his chest.

"Not in those words," Daniel admitted happily, "but that's what he was thinking." Ajalia looked back and forth between the young woman and the boy.

"What are the old families?" Ajalia asked.

"Corrupt," Daniel said, before Fashel could speak. Fashel glared at the boy, and answered Ajalia with dignity.

"My father was descended directly from Jerome," Fashel said. "He took his responsibilities very seriously." Daniel snorted loudly, and Fashel shot the boy a venomous look. "The rules for families like mine are different," Fashel said. "My father followed many of the old ways, out of respect for his ancestors."

"What she means is that her father had a lot of affairs, and hung out with nasty old priests in exchange for money," Daniel told Ajalia. The boy glanced with tolerant liking at Fashel. "She's probably okay," he told Ajalia, "but her idea of our traditions is not accurate."

Fashel had gone red, and then white in the face throughout this speech.

"This is not true," she said, her voice strained. "My father was a very nice man."

"Isacar told me who your father was," Daniel said. "Everyone knows about him. He's awful. Was," Daniel amended.

"That is not fair!" Fashel said angrily. "My father was not awful at all!"

"He was friends with Thell," Daniel shot back. "I've seen him outside the silver temple. Everyone has. Everyone knows your sisters follow the old traditions, and pretend that it's because they believe. It's the only way not to be persecuted for witchcraft," Daniel told Ajalia. "The old Slavithe way is to keep all the light in the family. People were horrible to each other then. Delmar's going to change all that," he told Fashel. "He's going to put your mother away, or banish her, and your sisters are going to be punished as witches, just like everyone else who does what they do."

Ajalia felt as though she had been dropped into another world; an anxious swirling was building through her chest. She could feel herself starting to shut down. After last night, with the fight in the great hall, she had been tired, but now she began to feel sickened in her mind. She had been sure, when she had done battle with Simon, and beaten away the chunks of corrupt light in Delmar, Rane, and Ocher, that she had found the depth of corruption in Slavithe, but now, she thought, she was finding that she had not even scratched the surface. She turned to leave the kitchen, and when she came into the hall, she found that Philas was approaching.

"What are you doing here?" Ajalia asked sharply. She glanced back at Fashel and Daniel, who had looked around at her, and she went out of sight of the kitchen. "Come into another room," Ajalia told Philas, and Philas followed her back into the dragon temple hall, which she saw had been cleared of bodies, stones, and blood.

Ajalia took Philas into a room that lay off the main hall, and she took up a chair and dragged it to the window. She felt as if she were going to be sick; a deep swirl of anger and regret was pressing in on the edges of her stomach. She felt overwhelmed, and tired, and without any hope for relief. Delmar would know what was wrong with me, Ajalia told herself, and she sat down near the window, and gestured for Philas to sit down.

"What are you doing here?" Ajalia asked again. Philas stood in the center of the room with his arms folded. He was looking suspiciously at Ajalia.

"What happened to your arms?" Philas asked. Ajalia looked blankly down at her inner arms, and she could not think at first of what Philas meant. She had felt utterly refreshed when she had gotten up in the afternoon, but now she was beginning to think that she ought to have stayed locked in her room.

"Um," Ajalia said.

"Your scars," Philas said impatiently. "Where are your scars?" Ajalia looked at Philas, and she wondered what she had ever seen in him. His face, which had begun to look almost handsome when he had been staying in Slavithe, was now haggard and worn. His beard was lank on his cheeks, and there were ugly blue shadows in his skin.

"You've been drinking," Ajalia observed. Philas made a sour face at her.

"I had to get new horses for Barat," Philas said. "I've come to get the money you kept behind."

"No," Ajalia said.

"You kept most of the horses," Philas said. Ajalia had managed all of the horses since Philas and the other slaves had gone to Talbos; she wondered why Philas was being so vague.

"Why didn't you go East with the others?" Ajalia asked him.

"Haven't you sold the horses yet?" Philas demanded.

"You go home," Ajalia told him. "I don't need you here." Philas seemed to hear for the first time what she had said. His eyes darkened.

"You can't tell me to go home," Philas snapped. "I'm in charge now. Even if you're staying here for master, you have to do what I say."

"I've become a naturalized citizen," Ajalia told him. "Technically, in Slavithe, I'm no longer a slave."

Philas stared at her, and his right eyelid twitched.

"That doesn't mean anything," he said automatically.

"It will mean a great deal to master," Ajalia said. "Have you heard about Simon?"

"Who's Simon?" Philas asked sourly. He was looking more and more cranky the longer they talked. She had begun, when he had first appeared in the hall, to think that Philas was going to be reasonable, but now she thought that he had been falling to pieces ever since he had met her for the last time in the forest.

"Philas, why didn't you go East?" Ajalia asked again. He glared at her.

"I don't have to go East," he said. "You're staying here. Therefore, I am also staying here. You need me." Ajalia held back a laugh; she felt almost crazy. She could not believe that Philas was here, in this state, and telling her what to do.

"Philas," Ajalia said patiently. Philas scowled at her.

"Don't try to manage me, Jay," he snapped.

"Don't call me that," Ajalia said calmly. Her knife lay easily against her back; she had never pulled her knife on Philas before, but, she told herself, there was a first time for everything. Philas looked as though he were thinking of taking a step towards her.

"Where's Delmar?" Philas asked warily.

"I can hurt you without asking Delmar for permission," Ajalia told Philas. "And I don't think any of my servants will protect you from me." Philas made a face at her.

"You're being very silly," Philas said. "I'm sure you don't really like Delmar."

"I do," Ajalia said. "And it's none of your business, and you look like a homeless man." Philas bridled a little at this; his chin doubled down, and his mouth curved down into his beard.

"That has nothing to do with anything," Philas said stuffily.

"You will be lucky if master will take you back at all," Ajalia said. "And by the way," she said, thinking of it for the first time, and opening her bag, "what is this?"

She saw Philas take a half-step towards her, and then pause. She knew that he was remembering the slaves that she had marked at home in the East. It had been a long time, but she had a reputation among their master's slaves of a being with whom it was not wise to trifle. Ajalia was sure that Philas was thinking about whether or not she had gone soft.

"What happened to the scars on your arms?" he asked again. His voice had softened a little; she knew that he was telling himself to wear her down a little, and she smiled.

"What is this?" Ajalia asked, drawing out the engraved gold ring, and holding it up. Philas's eyes, which had been doggedly fixed on Ajalia's arms, jumped up to the ring, and Ajalia saw a strange stillness come into his face.

"That isn't anything," Philas said blankly. "I don't know what that is." Ajalia was sure that Philas was lying to her.

"That's too bad," Ajalia said. "I found it mixed up with an old man's things here. I thought it must have come from Saroyan. I wanted to send it back there with the ambassadors." Philas jumped as though he had been prodded with a hot pin.

"What ambassadors?" Philas demanded, his whole expression swirling into a knot of anxiety.

"The ambassadors that Delmar will send to Saroyan from Slavithe," Ajalia said, "explaining the change in regime."

Philas blinked sluggishly; he looked as though his brain had shut off in some desperate act of self-preservation.

"You're just saying that," Philas said. His voice was dull, as if he had checked out of himself, and was now going through the motions of speaking to Ajalia.

"I found some papers in among Lim's things," Ajalia told him. "I think they came from Saroyan as well." Philas's eyes sharpened, and he glared suspiciously at her.

"You're making that up," Philas said slowly.

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Did you misplace some papers from Saroyan?"

"No," Philas said quickly. The shadows in his face were deepening, but his eyes were sobering up. "Where did you find these papers?" he asked her. "I went through all of Lim's things myself." Ajalia smiled. Wouldn't you like to know, her eyebrows said. Philas's lips thinned out and his chin bundled up in annoyance. "Be straight with me, Ajalia," he said.

"Why did you stay back in Talbos?" Ajalia asked. "You know that I don't need your help here." Philas shifted where he stood. He looked as though he regretted coming here.

"Where did you find those two papers?" he asked. Ajalia remembered that she had only told him she had found papers, and that she had not mentioned there being two of them.

"Does master know?" Ajalia asked. Philas regarded her warily.

"Know what?" he asked cautiously.

"That you're hiding from him, and hiding those papers?" Ajalia asked. Philas's mouth went sour.

"Don't play games with me, woman," Philas told her. "I know what you're doing. It won't work on me."

"Then I'm sure Delmar will deal with it. Unless," Ajalia said, "you were planning on catching up with Barat." Philas's mouth and jaw had locked into an angry line. His eyes were bitter, and his neck was slowly going red. He looked as though he wanted to say that she was not being nice to him, but he also seemed to remember that he had been rude to her before she had been rude to him.

"Well," Philas said.

"I also found this," Ajalia said, drawing the small golden dagger with the initials G. E. inscribed on it out of her bag. Philas gave another start; he did not conceal his reaction very well.

"Where did you get that?" Philas asked her, and Ajalia saw that he was trying to keep his voice calm.

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Is it yours?"

Philas glared at her, and she saw a muscle in his jaw working violently up and down.

"If I tell you," he said evenly, "will you give it to me?"

"Will you admit that it's yours?" Ajalia asked. Philas stared hard at her, and then at the dagger.

"No," he said.

"Leed told me you've been drinking heavily," Ajalia remarked. She put the dagger and the ring back into her bag. Philas's eyes followed the progress of the items, and Ajalia knew that he was wondering if he would be able to get away with stealing them from her. "Why did you keep some of the slaves back?" she asked him. "You could have all gone back with Barat."

"Master told me to set up house," Philas said. He looked up at Ajalia. "Didn't he tell you that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Master will be staying with me when he comes," Ajalia said. "If," she added, "he comes."

"Not if he comes to Talbos," Philas said grimly. "I've taken a good house there, and I'm setting up the trade. I can cut a way through the mountains, if you'll come and help me. We could get a straight passage from Talbos to the white road."

"Really?" Ajalia asked, interested. "How would you do this?"

"Well, you would have to help me," Philas said aggressively.

"Why can't you do it yourself?" Ajalia asked. Philas made an irritated face.

"Because I can't stay sober when you aren't around," he said reluctantly. Ajalia smiled at him, but his expression darkened. "I'm serious," Philas complained.

"That would have been a sweet thing to say," Ajalia replied, "if you had not been coming in and acting like you wanted to beat me up." Philas stared at her, and his mouth opened in surprise.

"I wasn't going to attack you!" he said indignantly. Ajalia looked at him, and his face began to glow. "Well, you live in a big house now," he said, looking around at the room.

"Yes," Ajalia said pointedly, "with Delmar." Philas worked his lips back and forth.

"I don't think that's fair," Philas said.

"Are you leaving now, or would you like to tell me who G. E. is?" Ajalia asked. Philas looked furious.

"I came for the money," he told her.

"You have no authority over me," Ajalia said.

"I do, too," he said.

"Lim is dead, and Barat is in charge. I have been in charge of myself ever since you failed to manage your position," Ajalia said clearly. Philas, who was already ruddy with anger and shame, almost began to glow.

"I don't think it's fair to bring any of that up," he muttered.

"Who is G. E., and what does the number 4 represent on the knife?" Ajalia asked.

"The fourth king of Saroyan's initials," Philas said. "Now will you come to Talbos with me?" Ajalia stood up and went out of the room. Philas trailed after her, his mouth in an angry curved line. "You have to answer questions like that," Philas complained. Ajalia asked herself why, since she had met Delmar, other men seemed to think that she was a public dispensary of affection. This sort of thing never used to happen to me, Ajalia said to herself, and it was reasonably true. "Ajalia!" Philas said, hurrying along behind her. The great wide hall of the dragon temple was deserted. "Where are you going?"

Ajalia went and put her head into the kitchen. Daniel was still there, holding an argument with Fashel on the merits of steamed vegetables versus roasted. Daniel looked up from the dripping rag he was holding, and saw Ajalia's face.

"Where is Sun?" Ajalia asked.

"With Coren, upstairs," Daniel said at once. "Try the roof," he added quickly. Ajalia nodded, and pushed Philas out into the back of the hall.

"Stay here for five minutes," Ajalia told him. "Don't go exploring," she warned, meeting his eye. Philas opened his mouth to protest, but he seemed to see that she was serious, and Ajalia thought that her clearly vigorous intent to do things would delay his desire to follow her incessantly. "I will come back," she said, "but if you have gone about on your own, I will be seriously displeased." Philas closed his mouth hard.

"Fine," he said, and folded his arms.

Ajalia went quickly up the stairs, and peeked into the second and third floor halls as she passed. She saw several boys gathered the doorway of a small room on the second floor; she thought that Esther and Chad were in there with the other boys. She came up to the roof, and saw Coren, Ossa, and Sun sitting on pillows. Ossa, Ajalia saw, had obtained the ointment she had gone in search of, for Coren's ugly marks, which had been black and cavernous the night before, and then like spreading red birthmarks after Ajalia's mixed magic had seeped like fire into his skin, were covered now in a slick bluish oil that ameliorated the darkness of the red, and made the boy look like some alien being.

Coren looked up at Ajalia. His eyes were not as angry as they had been, and his cheeks and mouth twisted up into a swift smile. He looked genuinely pleased to see Ajalia, which, Ajalia thought, was a great improvement from before.

"I don't look as bad now," Coren told her. Ajalia thought that Coren was beginning to resemble now her own house boys. She had been sure, last night when she had talked alone with the boy, that he would have to be sent away from Slavithe, but now he seemed purer inside, and not as uncouth and disruptive as he had been. She wondered what Wall would have to say about Coren's transformation, if that young man were ever again in his little brother's vicinity.

"You don't look as bad," Ajalia agreed, and then she looked at Sun. "Are you still anxious to be married?" Ajalia asked the girl. Sun's blue cornflower eyes widened at once.

"Are you going to kill Esther?" Sun asked. Ajalia thought it was clear that the girl had spoken before she thought of what she was saying; Sun looked abashedly around at Ossa, and bit her lip. "I heard that Chad was going to marry Esther," Sun added in a low voice.

"He might," Ajalia said. "I wasn't thinking of Chad."

"Who were you thinking of?" Sun asked anxiously. Ajalia smiled an evil smile.

"Excuse us," she said to Ossa and Coren. "Sun and I have business to discuss." Ossa pulled at Coren's sleeve, and they went swiftly to the stairs. Ajalia saw that someone had found a spare shirt for Coren to put on. He looked now like another of her house boys, who all wore tunics of a dark green. Ajalia had made the boys sew their own simple tunics; the markets in Slavithe were full of good cloth, but the clothes, especially for little boys, was composed entirely of bland brown fabrics.

"Who is it?" Sun asked anxiously, as soon as Ossa and Coren were out of sight.

"I want to warn you," Ajalia told her. "You won't like it, and it's not very legal."

"What is it?" Sun asked, her eyes widening even more. The girl had dressed herself again in one of the simple gowns that Calles had given Ajalia, and her yellow hair was drawn back behind her ears, and pulled into a flattering braid. Sun had sewn a small flower out of scraps of red cloth, and she had attached this flower to a hair pin, and fastened it above her ear. The effect was pleasing, and the girl looked less brittle now.

"You really won't like it," Ajalia told her.

"I want to have things happen, like everyone else," Sun said determinedly. "I want to get married, too."

"I thought you would say that," Ajalia said. "He's waiting downstairs, and I won't let you marry him."

"But you asked me if I still wanted to get married!" Sun said, looking extremely upset. "It isn't fair!" the girl complained. "I was the one who thought of getting married first, and you want everyone to get married but me. I heard about that new girl, Fashel," Sun said mutinously. "She wasn't even one of us, and she's getting married now, too."

"You can't get married yet," Ajalia told her. "We will see how things go."

"So I can marry him later?" Sun asked urgently.

"We will have to see how things go," Ajalia said again. "I told him I would come down in five minutes."

CHAD AND ESTHER

"Well, let's go," Sun said, standing up and patting at her hair and dress.

"I want to warn you," Ajalia said again. "He's a crusty old drunk, and he's a rotten guy sometimes."

"Is he one of your slaves?" Sun asked. "From the East? You said it wasn't legal," she explained, when Ajalia looked at her.

"Did you ever meet Philas?" Ajalia asked. She could not remember which of the Slavithe servant girls had been sent over to the little white house, to help with the sewing of the silks. She could not have said whether Sun had been one of these.

"No," Sun said cautiously. "Is he nice?"

"He is dishonorable, and a liar, and he will trick you into thinking he's a nice man," Ajalia told Sun. "I will not let you marry him, but he is annoying me, and I need someone to distract him a little."

"You want him to stop loving you," Sun said shrewdly.

"He does not love me," Ajalia told her. She began to lead Sun down the stairs, back to where Philas was waiting. "He wants someone outside of himself to be his, somehow," Ajalia said, "and right now there is only me."

"And you have Delmar," Sun said.

"Yes," Ajalia said. "You will not be able to change him, but if you are able to distract him from me, I will find a way to reward you."

"By letting me marry him," Sun said at once.

"No," Ajalia said again. "I don't want you to marry him."

"Then who will I be marrying?" Sun asked querulously.

"I don't know," Ajalia admitted. "Probably not him. I didn't know Esther or Fashel until yesterday. People tend to pop up suddenly." Sun thought about this. They were moving very slowly down the stairs.

"So I might have no one, ever," Sun said. Ajalia shrugged.

"Don't let him kiss you," Ajalia warned, "and if he seems suddenly to change to a good man, it is a trick. If you do a good job, he'll get sober suddenly, and cheerful."

"Is he handsome?" Sun asked.

"He can appear so, when he likes," Ajalia said. "You cannot trust him." She saw that Sun was thinking about this. Ajalia stopped on the stairs, where she was sure Philas would not overhear them talking, and put a hand on the girl's arm. "Clare bought her way free with a secret," she told Sun. Sun's eyes were fixed on Ajalia's face, and her mouth was determined. "Isacar is a man I need, so his importance bought Fashel freedom."

"What about Esther?" Sun asked. Ajalia studied the girl's blue eyes, which were ferocious and full of desire.

"Esther is a good match for Chad," Ajalia said, "and she is older than you."

"What will become of Ossa?" Sun asked quickly.

"Ossa is not yet trustworthy," Ajalia told Sun. Sun processed this.

"And I am trustworthy?" Sun asked, looking hopeful.

"Do not ever let him kiss you," Ajalia warned again. "He will seem to change. He will tell you that you have given him hope. It will all be a lie. If you watch his eyes, he will go limp inside sometimes. That is his weakness for strong drink."

"Why do you want me to do this?" Sun asked Ajalia. Ajalia thought about lying to the girl, and then she breathed in.

"I have not yet seen you exhibit sense, or discretion," Ajalia told Sun. The girl's face darkened a little, but she did not protest. "Your lack of sense limits your usefulness to me. I need a woman who can lie a little, and be wise with her time and her words. Show me that you can do more than look beautiful," Ajalia said, looking over the girl's hair and dress, "and we will see what may become of you."

Sun began to glow a little with pleasure at these words; she hid a smile, and smoothed back her hair.

"I'm ready," Sun said, taking a deep breath, and Ajalia went before her down the stairs. Ajalia turned back one more time.

"He will seem to change," Ajalia told Sun. "I am not thick, and he took me in. Do not trust anything he says or does." Sun met Ajalia's eyes, and then nodded. "And never let him kiss you," Ajalia added, going down the last of the stairs.

Philas was standing in the back of the hall, his arms folded. He was gazing out impatiently at the hall, and at the deep red hangings that lay against two sections of the wall.

"This is a nice house," Philas told Ajalia, when he saw her. "Master will like it."

"Oh, you think so?" Ajalia said. She did not remind Philas that he had told her their master would stay in the house he had taken in Talbos. Ajalia looked at Philas, and Philas glared at the carvings on the wall.

"You're Philas," Sun said, stepping forward, and thrusting out her hand. Philas's eyebrows drew down, and his nose wrinkled.

"Who's this?" he asked Ajalia, glancing at Sun, whose chin barely came up to his shoulders.

"I'm Ajalia's assistant," Sun said. "I help her with problematic people, like you." Sun looked coolly up at Philas, whose eyes began to dance a little.

"Are you serious?" Philas asked, turning to Ajalia. "She helps you?"

"Yes," Ajalia said. She turned to Sun. "See what you can get out of him about the two Saroyan papers, the ring, and the knife," she said to Sun. "And keep him out of the kitchen," she added, glancing at Philas, who scowled at her.

"I came for the money from the sale of the horses," Philas growled. Sun put an efficient hand on Philas's arm, and pushed at him.

"You can't get something for nothing," Sun told him reasonably. "Ajalia is in a bad mood from the big fight last night. Come and sit down with me, and I'll tell you about it."

"No," Philas snapped, drawing his arm away from the girl. "I won't be managed. I want the money," Philas told Ajalia sharply.

"I see what you mean about Philas," Sun told Ajalia, her mouth settling down into grim lines.

"Mean what? What did she tell you about me?" Philas demanded, his eyes flashing, and his gaze turning at once to Sun. Sun smiled a little.

"Come and sit down," Sun suggested. "We will make a trade. If you calm down sufficiently, I will broach the idea of money with my mistress. She will never give you any money right now. She hasn't settled with our new cook." Sun glanced swiftly at Ajalia, who lowered her head a tiny bit in an encouraging nod. Philas watched this exchange, and a brilliant smile of pleasure began to seep out of his face.

"Are you training replacements for us?" Philas demanded. "Are you making a house for master, with servants and all?" His lips were twisting with delight. He regarded Sun now with something like speculation, as though she were a shiny toy that he wanted to prod and examine. "All right," Philas said, and Ajalia saw that already his eyes were less clouded. The darkness in his face had begun to lift. "All right," he said again, without waiting for Ajalia to answer his question. "I'll play along, for now," he added, shooting a glance at Ajalia. "Come, little servant girl, and manage my mood for your mistress." Philas grinned at Ajalia, who did not smile back at him. Sun took Philas again by the arm, and led him towards one of the rooms near the hall that Ajalia had fitted with chairs and tables. Sun's face was still and determined; Ajalia thought that the child looked quite brainy, just now.

Ajalia turned, and went back into the hall, and to the kitchen.

"Fashel," Ajalia said. She saw that she had interrupted another long argument; the kitchen was nearly spotless now, and Fashel was busy examining the basket of food that Daniel had fetched. Fashel looked up at Ajalia's words, and Ajalia saw again how healthy and serene the young woman looked.

Ajalia looked at the bread and vegetables that Daniel had brought. She had replenished the boy's money some time ago, but the house, she thought, was in need of upgraded supplies. She drew the pouch of money from her bag, and she saw Fashel's eyes go at once to the leather sides of the pouch.

"Have you ever managed the food for a large house?" Ajalia asked. Fashel hesitated, and then shook her head in the negative.

"No," the young woman said.

"Fine," Ajalia said. "You have a few days, I hope, before any important visitors arrive. We'll be changing one of the rooms off the big hall," she told Daniel, "into a dining room. Choose the largest one, and take the furniture elsewhere to make room for a long table and chairs." Daniel, who had been detailing the edges of some large open cabinets, dropped his rag in the bucket, and went out of the room.

Fashel's hands were tight and strong over the vegetables; Ajalia was sure that the young woman was nervous.

"I hope you are brave," Ajalia told the young woman. Fashel's eyes, which had been full of trepidation, became confused.

"Why?" Fashel asked.

"Because you are going to get into a lot of trouble, I think, and I might threaten to fire you a few times," Ajalia said. Fashel's expression began to emit some horror.

"Oh," she said.

"Can you cook at all?" Ajalia asked again. She had asked Fashel this the night before, and again, the girl nodded. "Choose two or three things that you make very well," Ajalia said, "and start making only that. Do not become adventurous," Ajalia warned. "Do not do things you have seen others do."

"Why not?" Fashel asked.

"Because fixing food for forty people is not the same as preparing a meal for two or three," Ajalia said. "I expect you to ruin everything for about a week. If, by then, you have not sorted things out, I will find a new cook, and you will do something else for me." All the color drained out of Fashel's face.

"I know I can feed the boys," Fashel said weakly.

"You are working in a great house now," Ajalia told the young woman. "Things will be very different for you here. If you need to, ask Isacar to explain the ways of the house."

"But he has only been here one day longer than me," Fashel protested, her eyes flashing. "I don't see why he is so much better than me. And I have cooked before," she added. "And I worked in a very large house," Fashel added, as if for good measure.

"You worked, as far as I can see," Ajalia said, "as a personal maid. Now you are a cook. And your house before was a private one. Now you are part of a government."

"Yes," Fashel said cautiously. Ajalia took a sum of money from her purse, and handed it to the young woman.

"This is for three days," Ajalia told her. "If you manage badly, all of my boys will hate you, and Denai will grumble. I will not give you extra, if you mismanage this." Fashel took the money with wide and solemn eyes. The young woman could not have been more serious if she had been given some terrible sword to wield in battle. "Delmar will be back, possibly tomorrow, or the next day," Ajalia said. "When you are used to cooking by yourself, I will give you helpers, and more money for extra tools. You have enough money there to buy a knife, and any supplies you need. Ask Daniel for help if you need it."

Ajalia looked at Fashel, who now looked as though she were going to faint. Ajalia smiled at the girl, but Fashel seemed entirely incapable of smiling back.

"Do you understand, a little, now, why it is fair for you to live in my house?" Ajalia asked. Fashel nodded vigorously, and Ajalia patted her arm. "It will be late soon," Ajalia said. "Go out and get what you can for the evening, and for breakfast." Fashel looked out of the open windows, and a gasp of terror left her mouth.

"Sorry, I have to go now," Fashel cried softly, and dashed out of the kitchen and towards the front of the hall. Ajalia watched her go, and then stacked the vegetables back into the basket, and took up the bread in her arms. She went up the stairs, and found the boys, Ossa, Esther, Coren, and Chad all gathered around Leed, who was telling them soberly about the finer points of flying.

Ajalia passed the bread around to the boys, who tore it up and handed it to each other. She had chosen only sensible children out of her group of servants; there were boys who stole, and who teased each other mercilessly in the cleaning crews that Chad managed, but Ajalia found discord irksome, and her houseboys enjoyed their privileged existence quite enough to compensate for any rudeness they might otherwise have indulged in. Ajalia hoped that, given enough time, their manners would become naturally good, and not only put on to please her.

She sat in the back of the group, beside a pair of twins that were part of her household boys, and listened to Leed. Leed looked very like a small professor; he waved his hands to illustrate his points, and sometimes he brought up small scraps of magic from the earth, to form into pictures. Chad, Ajalia saw, was standing easily beside Esther, his arms folded, and one eye turned steadily on the witch. Ajalia saw Chad glance over and see her; he put a hand on Esther's arm, and led her quietly towards the door of the room. Ajalia stood up, and followed the pair of them.

"Esther's all right," Chad told Ajalia, as soon as they had gained the hall. He went with the witch to the stairs, and sat down on the top step. Esther, who seemed quite docile now, sat down below Chad, and he kept his eyes on her. "She's tried a few things, since last night," Chad said, "but now that Leed's told us how to see things, I've caught her every time."

"I told you I wouldn't try anything again," Esther told Chad. She sounded patient and forbearing.

"Not good enough," Chad told her. "I saw what you tried to pull before. I won't believe you've changed until Ajalia gives me the okay. She's been pretty good, though," Chad told Ajalia again, as though Esther were not there. Ajalia thought that Chad was beginning to look quite rugged now. He had always, to her, seemed to have a slightly dopey expression in his eyes, but now he held his shoulders straight across, and his gaze, when he turned it briefly towards Ajalia, was level and strong.

"Have you got your boys sorted out?" Ajalia asked. Chad, his eyes fixed again on Esther, nodded.

"They'll be all right for a few days," Chad said. He looked up at Ajalia, who was standing against the wall of the staircase, and grinned. "Everything will have changed by then, anyway."

"What do you mean?" Ajalia asked. Chad turned his eyes studiously back to the witch, and he was still smiling.

"Well, it wasn't long ago that I was living on my parent's money in a tiny room in a nasty building," Chad said.

"I like our tenement," Ajalia protested.

"Yes," Chad said, "but you like strange things. And I think our landlady was gross. She's dead now," Chad added. "I didn't know if you'd heard." Ajalia nodded. She did not think Chad needed to know that their landlady had been a witch, or that Ajalia had killed her recently. "Anyway," Chad said, "I was living there, and then I came and worked for you, and now I get to guard a real witch." Chad did not sound silly; he sounded quite sensible now. Ajalia could see that he was determined to do a good job of watching Esther, and that he was beginning to take himself quite seriously.

"Someone told me you were quite good at the magic," Ajalia told Chad. "Will you show me?" Chad grinned, and twisted his fingers. A vision of a snarling dragon, like the dragon that was carved over the front of the whole dragon temple, rose up in the air above the stairs. Chad kept his eyes fixed on Esther, and Ajalia saw licks of red and gold from the earth, and shining silver from the sky above, gleaming in the composition of the dragon. The dragon, which shone white where the magic blended together, raised up its head and gave a silent roar, and then spread out its wings, and flung up into the air. When it had risen some five feet, the dragon soared down in a tight loop, and flew straight into Esther's head. The magic of the dragon absorbed straight into the witch's colors, which Ajalia saw now ran seamlessly from Esther's chest into the very top of her head, and Esther let out a gasp.

"That is really very rude, you know," Esther told Chad, who smiled at her.

"She's getting healthier all the time, too," Chad told Ajalia, as if Esther had not spoken. Ether's lips pursed up a little, but Ajalia saw that the young woman was more annoyed than livid. Chad put out a hand, and prodded Esther gently in the arm.

"Stop!" Esther protested, but she was smiling when she said it.

"She used to flinch away, and scream, if I touched her," Chad said. He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial fashion, and Ajalia saw, for the very first time, that Chad did have a sense of humor, and could laugh at himself. "I think," Chad told Ajalia solemnly, his eyes fixed on the witch's face, "that we will have to keep her alive for a very long time."

"It is disgusting to talk about killing me when I am sitting right here," Esther told him in deeply wounded tones.

"She has been trying to get me to pity her this morning," Chad told Ajalia. "I like her. She tried to kiss me last night, but I wasn't having it." Esther's face was red as fire when Chad said this; Ajalia saw consternation and annoyance fill up the witch's face.

"And don't call me a witch," Esther told Chad snippily.

"I didn't call you a witch," Chad said. "You must be thinking of what you call yourself. I think you're a lovely young woman who was led astray, and tempted by nicer clothing. I won't let her go home," Chad told Ajalia, as though he had never spoken to the witch at all. "She's a servant," Chad added, looking over the young woman's short hair, "but I told her that she's a prisoner now."

"Where are you a servant?" Ajalia asked Esther. She remembered that the dead Vinna had worked in a rich man's house, and had had a child, but Coren had never told her anything about Esther. Esther's face clammed up with an obstinate frown; Ajalia saw that the young woman had been almost enjoying herself before, but now she looked positively crabby. Chad watched her for a little while, and then smiled.

"I've asked her a couple of times," Chad told Ajalia. He did not move his fingers, but Ajalia saw streams of mixed white and gold flow around Esther's body, and then run in at her ankles, and twist all around her bones. Ajalia saw that the blank space, where Esther had lacked light in her feet and ankles, was almost filled up now. Esther did not seem able to see what Chad did. Ajalia saw, as with Fashel, the young woman breathe easier. Esther's shoulders relaxed, and her mouth unclenched. Ajalia was sure that Chad noticed this as well. The young man's whole attention was fixed on Esther, and Ajalia saw that he was invested in Esther, and anxious to see that she did not incur Ajalia's wrath. Ajalia had a sudden picture of how Chad would look, anxiously coaching Esther on how to be polite, so that Ajalia would not decide she was evil after all, and give her over to Ocher to be killed. Ajalia smiled. She did not think that Esther would turn evil now. There was a hardness in the young woman's eyes that looked very like the hardness that had been in Sun's eyes. Ajalia was sure that the witch was thinking of what kind of husband Chad would be, and of what she could do with him, once she was freed. Ajalia was not nearly so worried about Esther now that the witch had something right in front of her to focus her ideas on. She thought that the greatest danger for the witch had passed; if Esther had become fixated on being on the right side, or if she had gripped on to the idea of vengeance, Ajalia thought that the young witch would have become obstinate, and provoked the wrath of all those in the house on principle. However, with the distraction of Chad, and the prospect of life with him just before her, Esther seemed too preoccupied to formulate schemes of revenge.

"I don't want to marry Chad," Esther told Ajalia, looking up at her. "I would rather work for you."

"I won't let you marry Chad," Ajalia told her. "I told Chad he might marry you. I didn't tell you that you would marry anyone. Chad belongs to me. I will decide who he marries, and when." Esther gave out a derisive laugh, and looked at Chad to see what that young man would say, but Chad looked somberly at Esther. Esther's laugh cut off.

"You aren't going to let her talk to you like that, are you?" Esther demanded, her cheeks flushing hot. "You own yourself, don't you?" she asked Chad. Ajalia saw that Esther had built up for herself an idea of being in control of the situation; she saw that Chad was interested in her, and his interest had made her feel secure. Ajalia swallowed a smile, and regarded Esther closely. Perhaps, she thought, the witch would prove somewhat recalcitrant after all.

"You're a servant, anyway," Chad told Esther, without a trace of a smile on his face. "Ajalia manages those things. Even if you were free," he added, tilting his head to one side, "I wouldn't touch you until Ajalia told me you were safe."

Esther glared at Chad, and then at Ajalia.

"I thought you were a lot more interesting," the witch told Chad coldly. Chad's lips tugged at the edges; Ajalia saw that he was pleased with Esther.

"I do like her," Chad told Ajalia. "I hope she works out."

"You can't talk about me as if I were a horse or something!" Esther burst out angrily. "You were talking about liking me, and marrying me," she accused Chad, tears of pique starting up into her eyes. Ajalia saw that Esther was quite handsome when she was moved. She saw Chad staring at the witch hungrily, and she saw that Esther was unconscious of the deep interest in Chad's face.

"I only said what Ajalia said," Chad said calmly. Ajalia saw, with surprise and pleasure, that Chad was capable of restraining and concealing the affection that was clearly, to her, burgeoning up in his heart. She told herself that Chad was growing into quite an admirable man, and she thought of what he had been like when she had first met him.

The open space in the wall that opened out onto the back enclosure of the temple was full of drifting twilight; the sun had begun to set a little while ago, and shadows were stretching now across the white stone. Ajalia stood up from where she had been leaning against the wall, and went down the stairs. Esther watched her go, and as soon as she thought Ajalia was out of earshot, she began, hurriedly, to speak to Chad.

"I don't want her to kill me," Esther told Chad in a low voice.

"She won't kill you unless you do something evil," Chad told Esther. Ajalia could imagine the look of indignant consternation that would have crossed over Esther's features now. She went around the corner of the wall, and overheard just a little more.

"How am I supposed to know what she thinks is evil?" Esther hissed at Chad.

"Just don't hurt anyone," Chad said back. "Or do any of your magic. I'll be able to see if you do."

"That's baby stuff," Esther said, but she sounded pleased. "And I'll only do magic if I need to."

Ajalia went down the stairs, and looked around at the darkened hall, and remembered the chaos that had filled this area last night. She went away from the stairs, and towards the place where the great black worm had risen up above the floor. She thought she could hear the quiet murmur of voices from within the room Philas and Sun had gone into. She hoped the girl would heed her words, and fight Philas off if he became clingy.

Ajalia crouched down at the place where the snake-like body of black had twisted up into the great hall, and put her fingers against the floor. She looked at the lights within the earth, and she saw a great tunnel, where the worm had eaten through all the lights in the earth. The cords of magic had been severed in a long line, all the way from the surface of the floor, to deep under the earth, where Ajalia had seen the long black eels twisting around each other, and around the rocks in the earth.

She put her palms flat against the white stone, and began to repair the damage that the worm had made. She drew out pieces of each torn cord of light, and pulled them towards each other, healing the tears that the black monster had made. As she did so, she thought of what she had seen, when the black pair of worms had first come to her attention. She had thought she could see the two of them twisting, like choking vines, all around the insides of the whole world, but when the worm had risen up above the floor, the body, though huge to her, had not been nearly large enough to wrap even around a large mountain. She tied together the split cords of color, and remembered the way the inside of the worm had shattered outwards, and had seemed to be made of endless facets of swallowed light. It was as though, Ajalia thought, the worm had been eating white magic for eons, and burying the good light deep within itself, under a cover of the kind of ugly shadow that formed the cord that had run out of Beryl's chest, and Lily's. Ajalia remembered the long black cords of sticky darkness that had extended out of the chests of the five witches last night, and how the black cords had formed into one long trunk of thick black. She tried to imagine Lilleth standing with the women, and doing magic with them, and she could not picture it.

Delmar will come back tomorrow, Ajalia told herself, or the day after. She sent her mind all along the place where the worm had tunneled, and felt for the cut off lengths of magic.

"What are you doing?" Cross asked her. Ajalia did not look up; she closed her eyes, and concentrated on the inside of the earth.

"How are things going with Delmar?" Ajalia asked the boy. She thought she could hear Cross smiling widely.

"Very well," Cross said. "I've come to get you. They want you for a meeting they're having."

"Did Delmar send you?" Ajalia asked. Cross nodded, and then seemed to realize that she couldn't see him. Her chin was bowed down against her chest, and her palms were pressed flat against the white stone.

"Yes," Cross said. "I'm to bring you back at once."

"How urgent is it?" Ajalia asked, and she was thinking of Philas, who was still talking to Sun.

"Pretty urgent," Cross said. "They're waiting to start until you get there." Philas can wait, Ajalia told herself, and she sighed, and stood up. "What were you doing?" Cross asked her. Ajalia looked at Cross.

"There's a man in that room. He's talking to Sun," Ajalia told Cross. "I want you to watch him, and if he tries to get Sun alone, or if he kisses her, I want you to scream loudly, and kick him hard in the shins."

Cross looked mildly confused, but delighted at these orders.

"I'll have to tell you where Delmar is," Cross told her in business-like fashion. "I was told to lead you there myself." He explained how to find the place, and Ajalia settled her bag against her body and set out. She slipped into a bathhouse on the way, and scrubbed at her hair and face. She had carried her own oil and soap in her bag for some time; the bathhouses in Slavithe were usually stocked with a strong-smelling powder that was ground from great blocks of soap the farmers made, out near the desert. Ajalia had tried this soap once, and then washed herself immediately after with her own Eastern concoctions. She guarded her supplies jealously, and a very little of the contents of her small stone jars went a long way. She thought of getting some of the caravan's things from Philas; she had expected him to correspond with her, when he had gone with the other slaves to Talbos, but his professional ability seemed to have gone up in smoke as soon as he had settled the other slaves in Talbos. She reminded herself to ask Philas how the rest of the trading had gone in Talbos, when she returned from this meeting.

Ajalia went quickly through the streets towards the place Cross had described. She was sure that Fashel would get back to the dragon temple just about now. The market would have closed by now, and the streets, though they still bustled with people, were beginning to hold that frantic, temporary flurry of movement that preceded the quiet of the deep evening.

Ajalia found the place after some time, and she stopped outside to arrange her drying hair. When she had pinned her clean hair in a neat coil over her head, and adjusted her bag, she knocked.

A man she did not recognize answered the door. He looked at her carefully, and then let her in. He led her though a narrow hallway, and into a room that lay beyond a series of metal doors. The room was in the shape of a square, and there were benches of stone built in descending levels. These benches ran in three circles around the room, and each lower bench was set down a little. A skylight had been cut into the ceiling above, and lamps had been hung right around the edges of the opening, so that soft golden light shed down in long rays through the room.

THE MEETING OF THE SPIES

The benches were lined with about fifteen men. Ajalia looked quickly around, and saw that Delmar was against one corner, on the highest bench. He saw her, but made no outward sign. Ajalia was sure that the other men were spies from Talbos; she thought suddenly that she ought to have brought Leed with her.

Denai came forward to her, and held out his hand.

"We thought Rane would be here by now," Denai said with a smile. Ajalia stared at the horse trader blankly. She wanted to ask why he did not know that Rane was dead, but she looked around the room again, and saw the grim faces of the men there. Ajalia crossed through the center ring of light, and climbed over the benches towards Delmar. Some of the spies moved quickly aside for her. When she got to Delmar, she whispered in his ear. Delmar's eyes darkened.

"Didn't Hal tell you?" she asked.

"I went out to Talbos overnight," Delmar murmured to her, meeting her eyes. "I just got back myself."

"Well," Ajalia said. She looked around the room. The man who had led her into the house was standing near the door, his arms folded forbiddingly, and a deep scowl on his face. The other men in the room were all turned in their seats, and staring up at Delmar and Ajalia. "Have you got anything in particular that you wanted to say?" she asked Delmar softly. Delmar shrugged.

"My grandfather will support us," Delmar said. "I don't know if these men will agree with my grandfather or not."

"Do you have any backup plans, if things go sour?" Ajalia murmured. Delmar flashed a grin at her.

"You are my backup plan," he told her. Ajalia repressed a smile, and then went and stood in the lighted circle.

"Well," she said to the men in the room. "Hello."

"We have to wait for Rane to come," one of the spies called out, and the rest of the spies murmured agreement.

"Rane isn't coming," Ajalia said.

"Ether hasn't come, either," another man called. "We have to wait."

"Your friend Ether," Ajalia said to the man who had spoken, "does he disguise himself as a guard?" The spies all looked at Ajalia. A few of them glanced uneasily at each other.

"Yes," the man said.

"Ether came to see me last night," Ajalia said. She turned around the room. "I can't see all of you," she said. "Would you all mind sitting over there? So I can see your faces?"

The men, who seemed to have been banking on the solemnity and dignity of the occasion, looked around at each other and frowned. Delmar jumped up, and went to sit in the middle of the section Ajalia had indicated. Delmar squeezed himself between two large men, and smiled at them both.

"Hello," Delmar said to the two men. "I'm Delmar. What are your names?"

One of the two men smiled, looking unsure of himself, and held out his hand.

"I'm Ben," the man said. His companion, who was glaring with distrust at Delmar, frowned more deeply. "That's Timothy," Ben said. "He isn't a friendly person."

"Good to meet you, Timothy," Delmar said, extending a hand to the scowling man. Timothy looked down at Delmar's hand, and then cautiously took it. The other men in the room had filtered doubtfully towards the benches around Delmar, and settled down again.

"We've got to wait for Rane," another of the spies told Ajalia, when the men had sat down. "He's the most senior among us. He'll have things to say."

"Rane has already had his say," Ajalia said. The men of Talbos shifted, and glanced around at each other.

"What do you mean by that?" one of them shouted.

"My name is Ajalia," Ajalia said. "Hello, nice to meet you all." The men looked balefully at her; she was sure that she was disappointing their expectations for a secret meeting that felt thoroughly dangerous and undercover.

"Where's Rane, then?" Timothy asked. Ajalia nodded to show that she had heard his question, and then she turned to Delmar.

"This is Delmar, your new Thief Lord," Ajalia said, holding out an arm to Delmar. Delmar lifted one hand, and wiggled his fingers at everyone.

"You're doing this all wrong," one of the spies shouted out, his face an ugly red. "And he isn't our Thief Lord."

"Will you be travelling back to Talbos then?" Ajalia asked, her voice friendly. The man who had spoken scowled at her.

"No," he said.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked. The man glanced at his companions, a smile tugging at his lips.

"I live here, in Slavithe. Does she know that we're spies?" he asked the other men around him. "Are you the one we sent for?" he demanded of Ajalia.

"Ajalia is my little bird," Delmar said. "I have sponsored her, and she is managing much of the transition of power. She will be present for any negotiations that concern Talbos, and trade relations."

A murmur went up at these words. Some of the men looked scornfully around at Delmar, as though thinking he was a poor specimen of a man, and others of them looked speculatively at Ajalia.

"Ether came to see me last night," Ajalia said. "He was dressed as a Slavithe guard, and he told me that I was wanted at once by the spies of Talbos." The spies from Talbos glanced unhappily at each other; Ajalia thought that they must recognize this scenario, and have some idea of where her story was going. "Would any of you like to finish my explanation?" she asked them.

"I want to hear what happened," Delmar said instantly. He seemed to be the only one in the room who was not clearly thinking of death.

"Well, if she's here, and Rane and Ether aren't," Ben said reluctantly, "then they're probably dead."

"Ether isn't," Ajalia said. "Ether ran away before it was too late."

"You killed Rane?" Delmar asked, looking discomfited and surprised.

"Is that a problem?" Ajalia asked Delmar, whose lips had turned in a thoughtful frown.

"No, no," Delmar said. "Not much of a problem. My grandfather relied on Rane."

"It wasn't something I wanted to happen," Ajalia said to the group, and to Delmar. "I suspect that Rane wanted to hold me ransom, to get things out of you." Delmar's face wrinkled up at once.

"Well, that was stupid of Rane, then," Delmar said.

The spies moved about, like trees disturbed with wind.

"Is it likely that Ether will come back?" Ajalia asked. The spies all looked at each other, and finally, Denai spoke.

"It is not likely," Denai said. "In the past, our kind have been rewarded for bold actions. If our plots failed, well," he said, his mouth crumpling into a look of distaste, "it is generally better not to be found."

"Why would Rane have thought it advantageous to hold me hostage?" Ajalia asked Denai. Denai, who looked as though he would like to stop being on the spot, looked at the other spies, who avoided his gaze. Denai let out a laugh.

"Everyone is pretty sure that Delmar's in love with you," Denai said, blushing. "Kidnapping spouses has been a fair occurrence in the past, when our cities were in transition."

"That's awful," Ajalia said. "I didn't think Rane was stupid enough to try," she told Delmar, and Delmar shrugged.

"Let's get to business then," Delmar said, and got up from the bench. He joined Ajalia in the circle, and began to account for his trip to see his grandfather, the king of Talbos.

"I don't think many of you will like this news, and I don't expect any of you to believe me," Delmar began, "but the king of Talbos and I have agreed to establish open ambassadors." Delmar looked around at the other men, and at Ajalia. "We talked about expanding the road between us," Delmar said, "and making the mountain roads safe to travel for anyone."

The men of Talbos, Ajalia saw, were not happy with what Delmar had said.

"What about the witches?" Timothy shouted, and many of the others joined in.

"Your city is overrun with evil, and with corruption," another man said in a loud voice. "You cannot bring your kind into our city."

"My grandfather and I agree," Delmar said. "The priests are out of control, and the witches have become bold again. We have decided," Delmar said, glancing at Ajalia, "to enact a purge."

Silence filled up the room. Denai's face was solemn, and the man who had let Ajalia into the house had a snarl of darkness in his eyes.

"You have made purges before," the man who had opened the door argued. "They have never been effective."

"Purges in the past," Delmar said, raising his hands to calm the angry men, "have been instituted by corrupt and evil men. This time will be different." The spies from Talbos glared mistrustfully at Delmar, and at Ajalia, open dislike in their eyes.

"I don't trust you," one of the men said. "I think you'll do as your father has done, and his father before him. You'll protect the worst of the witches, and your priests will spread their evil into our land."

"It will not be so," Delmar said, "but I know you will require some test."

The men gazed at Delmar, and Ajalia took the new Thief Lord by the arm.

"Delmar," she said shortly, and led him into a farther corner of the room. As soon as she had taken Delmar out of the direct light from the lamps, a burst of agitated conversation broke out among the spies. Ajalia did not listen to what they said; she drew Delmar into the shadows, and sat him down.

"What?" Delmar asked her.

"These are not the men to whom you must subject yourself," Ajalia warned him. "You are about to make a great mistake."

"No," Delmar said stubbornly. "They're right. I have to correct my father's mistakes."

"No," Ajalia said. "You are not your father. If you associate yourself with your father, you will never recover the trust of your people. You are not your father. Your father, and Tree, and those that came before them, are the enemy. You are with your people, and with the people of Talbos." And with me, Ajalia thought, but did not say out loud.

"They're going to fight us," Delmar told Ajalia, glancing at the large huddle of spies, who were conferring vigorously with each other.

"Not if they trust me," Ajalia told him. Delmar studied her eyes.

"How will they learn to trust you?" he asked her. Ajalia noticed that Delmar had spoken as if their trusting her was inevitable, and she kept back the smile that rose up to her cheeks. She thought that if she smiled, Delmar would demand to know what she was so happy about, and then there would be an awful temptation, on her end, to kiss him. Ajalia looked around at the spies.

"Do you remember what I told you, after we took care of Lim?" Ajalia asked. Delmar was watching her closely; he nodded.

"Yes," he said.

"You remember that I gave you a story, and then things went well?" she said.

"Well," Delmar said, "you told me what people would think."

"You made people think that had happened, because you were thinking of it," Ajalia said. "I will show you that this is true. Repeat after me."

Delmar smiled a little, and she saw that he did not quite take her seriously, but he looked at the spies, who still had their heads bent together in a group, and then he nodded.

"All right," he said.

"My father was the enemy of Talbos, but he was also the enemy of my people," Ajalia said. "Say that." Delmar frowned a little, but he repeated the words. Ajalia saw a gleam of confidence and assurance come into Delmar's face, when he said it. "We are in a war against evil," Ajalia coached, "and only together will we root out the witches and the priests of Slavithe."

"But the priests aren't all bad," Delmar protested quietly, looking at the spies. Ajalia thought of Thell, and of his three helpers, and of the other priests who had burst into death with ugly flashes of white light.

"Delmar," Ajalia said evenly. Delmar pursed his lips.

"Yes," he said.

"We are in a war against evil," Ajalia repeated. Delmar's mouth was creased at the corners.

"We are in a war against evil," Delmar said impatiently, "and only together will we root out the witches and the priests of Slavithe."

"Good," Ajalia said, slapping Delmar encouragingly on the arm. "Come on." She stood up, and approached the conferring spies.

"But wait!" Delmar cried softly, following her. He looked as though he had missed something important. "I thought you were going to tell me what to say," he said to Ajalia, keeping his voice very low. The spies had seen them coming, and were straightening themselves out now into their seats. Ajalia said nothing, but looked around at the spies, as though they had all gathered for a pleasant luncheon together in the middle of the night. She could just see the gleam of stars in the skylight, shining through the golden light cast by the lamps that hung there. Delmar glared at Ajalia for a moment, and then, seeing that all of the spies were staring at him expectantly, and seeing also that Ajalia seemed unwilling to speak, he frowned. Ajalia noticed again how handsome Delmar looked, particularly when he was angry. His beard had come in thick against his skin in a strong strawberry blond, with thick hints of red along his chin and jaw, and his eyes, as they turned along the collected spies, were imperious and regal.

"Ajalia thinks I ought to be honest with you," Delmar told the spies shortly. "My mother was a secret witch. I'm going to assume that you've heard that, by now," he added with a grimace. Most of the spies chuckled a little, and nodded. "My mother had infested me with a corrupt iteration of a very old spell," Delmar told them. "Well, two spells. Have you got those papers?" he asked Ajalia, and she, guessing what he meant, pulled out the folded scrap of paper, and the length of charred leather. Delmar took the two pieces, which were covered over in ancient Slavithe writing, and handed them to Denai.

Denai, when he looked at the two pieces, and saw the writing there, made an involuntary start, and the other spies stared at him.

"Where did you find these?" Denai demanded. He looked as though Delmar had handed him a disgusting piece of rotted flesh. Denai examined the writing with a look of disdain on his mouth and nose, and then passed them to the spy nearest him.

"Ajalia took those spells from the body of a witch that she killed for me," Delmar said. "I have learned that Tree, the old Thief Lord, was protecting several powerful old witches, and allowing them to feed on his soul, and to prey on the poorest people in the city."

Another murmur of disgust and anger ran through the collected men; they looked now at Ajalia with something more like respect, and she saw that they had not thought her capable of such an act as killing a witch. She wondered how they had explained the public death of Beryl to themselves, if they had supposed her unable to kill witches.

"Beryl," Ajalia murmured in Delmar's ear. He paused, and she saw that he was listening. The eyes of the men in the room were fastened raptly upon her, and on Delmar. "She was a spy as well," Ajalia said privately to Delmar. "If they know you know, they will respect you more." Delmar gave a brief nod, and raised his hands again.

"Ajalia has been of great service to me, in uncovering the duplicity of Tree, and of my mother," Delmar said. "My mother had used some of these spells on me. I believe," Delmar said reluctantly, "that my father knew my mother was a witch, and protected her from detection."

An angry murmur rose up among the spies.

"Simon was of Talbos," one of the men told Delmar. "He was a weak leader, but he would not have countenanced a witch." Ajalia drew out the slim leather book that Coren had stolen, and held it up.

"They were using this," Ajalia said, "to corrupt the true way of magic."

The eyes of the spies were fixed on the book. Delmar, when he saw what Ajalia held, turned pale. She gave him a reassuring glance, and hoped that he would wait for a little. She had not told him that there were two books yet; he likely thought that this book was the one Salla had given her.

"This old book was recovered from among Tree's secret things," Ajalia said. "He had it from Simon, who kept it back from the books he burned."

The mouths of all the spies formed into harsh, angry lines.

"You said he burned the books," Denai said accusingly to one of the other spies; the man Denai spoke to was older, and had a grizzled beard.

"He had done so!" the older man said. "I watched with my own eyes. I helped to collect the books, when Simon was gone witch hunting," the old man said earnestly to Ajalia. "I swear, there were none kept back. I and the others kept a close accounting of the books of magic."

"There were many books that I burned," Delmar said. "You did not get all of them then."

"How many?" the grizzled old spy demanded. Delmar's ears burned, but Ajalia thought that no one but herself had noticed this.

"I recovered and destroyed eighteen books of magic from my father's private library," Delmar said. "Some of these had been kept by the priests."

"What about that one?" Ben called out, pointing to the leather book Ajalia was still holding up.

"This is not a corrupt book," Ajalia said. Ben scoffed, and looked at his fellows for encouragement.

"There are not any good books of magic," Ben said, "only darkness and evil."

Ajalia reached below the ground for a cord of light; she happened upon a length that was a brilliant emerald. When she closed her fingers around the light, she looked at Ben, and saw that two narrow slabs of dusky pink were tucked in among his ribs.

"Delmar," Ajalia said, and Delmar looked at her.

"What is it?" he asked. Ajalia tucked the book away into her bag; she began to form the claw of gold and black around her right hand. She nodded towards Ben.

"He's possessed," Ajalia said.

The spies heard what she said, and they all jolted instantly away from Ben, as though they were afraid of catching a terrible disease. Ben looked eagerly at his fellows.

"What did she say?" Ben demanded. "Did she say I was possessed?" Ajalia looked quickly around through the rows of men.

"Are there any others?" Delmar asked. Ajalia saw that he was thinking of blocking off the door. Ben looked ready to run.

"If this is true," Denai said loudly, "we must try the tests." The other spies agreed loudly, and Ben quailed.

"There is nothing wrong with me at all!" Ben shouted, his face turning a blistering red. "I don't associate with witches!"

"He is possessed," Ajalia said, pointing at Timothy. "And him," she said, indicating the grizzled old man. "The others are all clear," Ajalia told Delmar.

"Who will help me to keep the door?" Delmar asked, and three spies surged to their feet, and went to the door where Ajalia had come in.

"This is absurd," the grizzled man said calmly. "There is nothing at all the matter with us. We ought to try her as a witch," he said, nodding serenely towards Ajalia. The other spies looked between the grizzled man and Ajalia.

"Ajalia is no witch," Delmar said.

"She has a book of magic," Timothy shouted. "Who knows what other secrets she holds?"

Ajalia, who could sense a fight coming on, imagined the cords of blue above her in the air. She had not tried this other way of flying, but Leed had told her she could climb the ropes of magic in the air, and she did not want to spend the time forming wings again, besides which, she told herself, the twisting of blue magic through her spine and shoulder blades had hurt a little.

The cords of twisting blue were above the ceiling of the building; Ajalia imagined herself grasping on to the lowest one. She released the emerald green cord, and reached with her other hand, the hand coated now with gold and black light, and lifted herself off the ground.

The square room fell utterly silent at once. Ajalia took a second cord, above the first, and her feet raised up about five feet over the ground. The room looked quite different to her now. She could see the spies beneath her, staring with terror and wonder in their eyes, and Delmar, whose shoulders were near her feet, was smiling. Ajalia wanted to berate Delmar for not being impressed enough; she was, after all, flying. The opening in the ceiling felt closer to her now. She could feel the glow from the hanging lanterns on her head and cheeks.

Ajalia held herself up in the air for a few seconds, and then lowered herself down to the ground. She dropped to one knee when she let go of the cords, and then stood up carefully. The eyes of all the men of Talbos were fixed on her; they all looked shocked. Timothy stood up, and came down quietly to stand in front of Ajalia.

"Please heal me," Timothy said. Ajalia, without saying another word, turned Timothy around, and thrust her black-clawed hand against his back. She cut out the first dusky pink piece, and drew it out. The men of Talbos all gave a collective gasp of disgust when she dropped it on the floor.

"Call down a spark," Delmar told Timothy, "and shoot it at the piece."

"Story magic?" Timothy said doubtfully, but he raised his palm, and a gleam of gold appeared there. Ajalia was interested to see that all of the spies seemed to easily see the light that Timothy had conjured; it had taken Leed teaching the other boys and Chad from the book, before many of them had been able to see the lights. Timothy sent the spark of gold at the first pinkish slab, and a cloud of awful dust appeared in the air. The other two men Ajalia had pointed out as having infestations came down, and after Ajalia had removed the second pink slab from Timothy, she did the same for the other two spies.

The men in the room watched her solemnly; Ajalia felt as though she were performing some secret operation.

"There you go," she told the last man, the one with the grizzled beard. "I did this for Rane," she added, "and then he tried to attack me. Please restrain yourselves," she told the three men, "if you suddenly feel the urge to kidnap me." Delmar smiled, but the three men did not. When the slabs of leftover light had all been exploded into noxious clouds of dust, Ajalia went to a side of the circle of benches, and sat down. The folded piece of paper and the scrap of leather found their way back to Ajalia, and she replaced them in her bag.

"Beryl was one of you," Delmar said to the gathered men. They all regarded him solemnly, their faces still and sober. "She had been under the close watch of Rane, and he had never known she was a witch."

"You knew Beryl was a witch," one of the men said. "She was the witch-caller."

"She told us that she was not practicing magic," Delmar said. "Or she told my father so. I was not a part of his government then." A couple of the spies tittered at this, and Delmar shot them a glance. They quieted down.

"What are you going to do about the priests?" one of the men demanded. "You haven't got any way to tell which of them are rotten scoundrels, and in league with witches."

"I don't believe that any of the priests are in league with the witches," Ajalia put in. "The priests believe that I am the sky angel. A large group of them came to my home last night, and attempted to carry me off."

She rather suspected that the priests would have killed her as soon as they would have kidnapped her, after they had begun to attack the witches, but she was not overly concerned with semantics at this point.

"Ocher assisted me in distracting the priests," Ajalia said, and as she spoke, she gathered strings of thick lights from the stars above, and from the deep red-gold lights in the earth. "While the priests were looking away, I built a magical fence around them." Ajalia threw up a long wall that cut through the center of the square room. The blue wall was of the same gorgeous ocean color that the mixed magic had been before, and it extended through the room, just behind Ajalia and Delmar. "When the priests attempted to flee," Ajalia said, stepping backwards through the wall, "they passed through the magic, and they perished." The blue wall made a gleam of red and gold when Ajalia stepped through it. She looked through the wall of translucent light at the gathered spies.

"We can make the priests go through such a wall," Delmar said, catching Ajalia's idea, "and any who survive will be all right."

"I made a similar containment of magic around a group of witches," Ajalia said, "and two of the witches lived through it."

"Where are those witches now?" Ben demanded. Ajalia saw Denai staring at her through the thick blue wall, his eyes narrowed in deep thought.

"One of them is in my house, under a close guard," Ajalia said. "The other had great evil in her heart still, and I killed her."

A murmur of agreement went up among the men.

"I think we should all go through that wall," Denai said. He stood up, and came close to the magical barrier. He turned back to the other spies. "Already we have seen," Denai said, "that three of our number had been unknowingly infected by dark magic. I think we must study this old book that Ajalia has found, and learn about these new things."

Denai, his mouth set in a determined line, stepped through the wall of magic. A hideous spark of yellow went up with a crack as soon as he had entered the blue light, but after vibrating for just a moment, and after a copious ooze of darkness left his brain, Denai stepped out on the other side.

"I am alive," Denai said, turning to face the others, and raising his arms. A deathly silence had fallen over all the men.

"How do we know it won't kill us all?" one of the spies demanded. Delmar turned, and stepped through the blue wall as well. There was no flash at all, but the blue wall of magic glowed briefly, as though it had swallowed a sun. Delmar stepped out onto the other side.

"I agree with this man," Delmar said, putting a hand on Denai's shoulder. "Let us all pass the test of the magic. We will conduct our purge this way. Any of us who has become impure will be shown to be so by the impartial magic. Any who desire to avoid the test, will be banished from both Slavithe and from Talbos."

The eleven spies on the other side of the blue wall of magic stared at Delmar, and then at each other.

"I want to pass through this test," one of the three who had gone to guard the door behind Ajalia and Delmar cried out, and he ran down the steps that lay between the benches, and leapt through the wall. A flash of white light filled the room, and his body fell down to the ground. One of the farther spies got up, and went to him.

"He is breathing still," the spy announced. He helped the young man to his feet; a great smile was on the young man's face.

"I think there was something wrong with me," the young man who had leaped through the wall gasped. "I will try again."

The eyes of all in the room were fixed on the young man as he first steadied himself on his friend, and then hobbled carefully back through the wall. This time a surge of yellow, like the color that had been around Denai, came out of the young man's face, and a great spilling shadow descended from his body, and burned away near the bottom of the wall.

"I feel wonderful now," the young man said, standing up on the other side of the wall, and beaming around at the others. "I feel as though my whole insides have been peeled away, and refreshed." The young man no longer looked faint or weak; he came and stood near Denai, grinning with pleasure.

"I want to try as well," another man near the door said. He and his companion came cautiously down into the center circle, and first one, and then the other, passed through the wall. One of them made a brief bubble of red in the wall, and the other was as Delmar, and made no change at all, aside from a surge of intensity within the wall itself.

THE TREACHERY OF DENAI

"I think it is burning away corruption," the man said who had purged no light. He was examining the blue wall thoughtfully. He came through the wall again, and joined Ajalia and Delmar.

"I'd rather you took it down, before I come back," the man said, who had given out a bubble of red light. "I thought it hurt," he told his companions. One by one, and some more hesitantly than others, the Talbos spies came through the blue wall. At the last moment, the man who had asked for the wall to be taken down dashed through as well, and grinned shyly at the others. None of the spies died.

"I vote that we take news of this new magic to our king," the grizzled old man said, and many of the others agreed with him. "We will submit ourselves to this agreement," the old man said to Delmar, extending a hand, and shaking Delmar's hand in a firm grasp. "What you say is fair, and just. Let all the people be tested, and we will rid ourselves at last of these plagues of witches."

"It shall be done," Delmar said, and he shook hands with all of the spies. He came last to Denai, who laughed, and gripped Delmar hard around the shoulders in a hug.

"I remember when you came along with Ajalia to my stables," Denai said, grinning gleefully. "I look forward to our time together in Ajalia's house." Delmar looked around at Ajalia, who shrugged.

"He lives just off the great hall," Ajalia told Delmar. "I thought you knew." Delmar, who looked a little less than pleased about this news, smiled thinly, and bid the group of spies farewell. "I have questions for you," Ajalia told Denai, and he held back. When the other spies had all gone, Ajalia sat down on the lowest bench, and waited for Delmar to join her. Delmar, giving Denai a dirty look, sat right next to Ajalia, and put his arms around her possessively. Ajalia stifled a sigh. Delmar, she reminded herself, had been right about Philas. Perhaps, she reflected, he would also prove to be right about Denai.

"I want to know everything you know about Ullar," Ajalia said, when they had all sat down in the now-empty room. Denai's face turned a little red. "Who is she married to?" she asked Denai.

"Um," Denai said. Ajalia suppressed a sharp feeling of annoyance. Delmar, she told herself, had good instincts.

"When did you marry her?" Ajalia asked.

"I'm not married to her," Denai said quickly, his face beet red.

"Then who is her husband?" Ajalia asked.

"Well," Denai hedged, looking as though he would rather be anywhere but here just now. His eyes went to the door, and his fingers tightened over his knees. Delmar, who had relaxed as soon as Denai had become uncomfortable, laughed now.

"He means to say that they are not married in the way you think of marriage," Delmar told Ajalia. Ajalia began to gather up the magic she had used to form the blue wall, and to untangle the different threads. Some she wrapped around Delmar's ankles, binding him to the earth, and some she laid around the top of his head, as she had seen Chad lay magic into Esther. Delmar, though he did not seem to notice what she did, relaxed, as though he had sunk into a warm pool of water.

"How do I think of marriage?" Ajalia asked.

"Sex," Delmar said, leaning his elbows on the bench behind him, and looking with benign interest at Denai. Delmar glanced at Ajalia. "It's an old trick, to avoid children and financial entanglements," Delmar told her. "People would do this in the old days, when they wanted the security of a connection, but did not love each other."

"They traded energy," Ajalia said, looking at Denai.

"It sounds awful when you say it like that," Denai told Delmar. "She isn't really my wife," he told Ajalia.

"Who is the father of her children?" Ajalia asked.

"Ullar only had one child, long before I met her," Denai said.

"Bain," Ajalia said.

"Yes," Denai said. "She watched other people's children, and called them her own to her neighbors, to save face." Ajalia remembered the first time she had met Ullar, when the middle-aged mother had come to her room in the poor tenement, and had argued with Chad about her children screaming too loudly. She also remembered what Coren had said, about Vinna keeping her small child away so that she could work as a servant without shame.

Ajalia stared at Denai, a patient look in her eyes, and Denai grew gradually flustered.

"I don't know what you're looking at me like that for," Denai said finally. He gestured to the place where, until lately, the blue wall had stretched from one side of the room to the other. "I passed through the test well enough."

"Are you winding magic around in me?" Delmar asked suddenly, turning to Ajalia. Ajalia, who had thought she was getting away with her sparkling lights quite unobserved, jumped.

"Yes," she said.

"It tickles," Delmar said. He turned back to Denai. "Are you spying on Ajalia for your wife?" he asked the horse trader. Denai shifted uncomfortably.

"She isn't my wife," Denai said through only partially open lips.

"For the sake of argument," Ajalia said, her voice friendly, "since you have undergone a form of marriage to the woman, let us say that you are married to her." Denai's lips pressed hard together.

"I didn't know Rane was dead," Delmar said conversationally to Ajalia.

"I was a little bit upset," Ajalia told him. "I liked Rane."

"What are you going to do to me?" Denai asked hesitantly. Ajalia looked at the horse trader.

"I'm going to keep asking until you answer," she replied. "Who was the father of Bain?"

Denai's mouth clamped up, and he looked as if he would never speak again. Delmar turned his full attention on the horse trader, who avoided his eyes.

"Where is Bain's mother?" Delmar asked. "Have you been sneaking around with her?"

"He has," Ajalia told Delmar. "One of my boys had him followed, and they also saw him sneaking away to meet a witch."

Denai's whole face went sickly white.

"That was not a witch," Denai said faintly.

"Old woman, skinny, poor tenement, something about her hair," Ajalia rattled off, watching Denai closely.

"But that was my mother," Denai said weakly, looking back and forth between Ajalia and Delmar. "My mother is not a witch."

"Well, we've heard that before, haven't we?" Delmar asked, looking around at Ajalia. Ajalia wanted to laugh, since it was Delmar himself who had repeatedly claimed that his mother wasn't a witch.

"It is unlikely she is," Ajalia told Delmar, "since Denai went through the magic wall well enough. I still think," she added, "that Ullar is using you. Is she blackmailing you somehow?"

Denai's face changed again, and Ajalia let out a victorious exclamation.

"Ha!" Ajalia said. "Now tell me why you married her," she said. Denai shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I don't want to say," Denai said. "It has nothing to do with my work, or anything." Ajalia waved a hand dismissively.

"I do not care how small the lie is, you have been lying to me, and I want to know the truth."

"I have not been lying to you!" Denai said shrilly. Delmar leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face.

"Ajalia used to do that to me," Delmar told Denai smugly. "Now I just listen to her. You'd better tell her, before she makes you cry."

Ajalia pursed her lips at Delmar, who gave her an unrepentant look, and went back to watching Denai squirm.

"I didn't lie to you," Denai insisted. "You never asked me about Bain, and you didn't—I mean," he faltered. Ajalia was sure that Denai was remembering the time when she had spoken to him about Bain, and he had not told her then that he was tied to the shadow boy's mother.

"You said then," Ajalia said, in a hard voice, "that only a few of you knew about Bain. Who else knew?"

Denai shifted uneasily, and licked his lips. He looked at Delmar, and then at Ajalia. Delmar did not ask Ajalia when she had spoken about Bain before to Denai; Delmar, Ajalia thought, was beginning to take for granted the fact that she often gathered information in, to him, mysterious ways.

"Rane," Denai said in a dry voice, "and Beryl."

"Were you aware," Ajalia asked Denai, "that Beryl probably helped to create Bain?"

"Well, now, of course that makes sense," Denai said. "I didn't know then. Ullar knew, as well, some of it," he said. "Not all of it."

"Is that why you were married to her? So that you could find out anything she knew, or learned?" Ajalia asked. Denai glanced again at Delmar, and then nodded. He looked like a man who is afraid for his life.

"We knew that Bain was trying to communicate with his mother again," Denai said. "He's one of the older shadow children, and one of the more powerful. They had done new things with him, after the others were all destroyed. We didn't know," Denai said, and he took a shuddering breath, "we didn't know how he was managing to vanish like he was." Ajalia looked at Delmar.

"I have Coren, your little brother, in my house," she said. Delmar made a wry face at her.

"I know what his name is," Delmar said. Ajalia shrugged.

"He had a part of Bain's soul stuck into him," Ajalia said, "and a part of him was missing. I'm thinking of going out to where we buried Bain, to see if I can reattach it," she added to Delmar.

Denai was growing interested in what she said; his fear was leaving him now.

"A part of his soul?" Denai asked. "How was it put in?" Ajalia eyed Denai closely. She did not like the eagerness in his voice, or the way that his eyes brightened.

"Denai, are you a witch?" Ajalia asked. Denai laughed, but Delmar was studying the man as well.

"No," Denai said. "Of course I don't do that kind of magic."

"Why would you be so interested in how it was done?" Ajalia asked. Denai shifted again on his bench; his eyes went to Delmar, and Ajalia saw Denai thinking of running towards the door. Just as she opened her mouth to warn Delmar, the horse trader leapt towards the steps, and Delmar, who moved like a cat pouncing from languor, followed him and wrapped great arms around Denai's waist. Denai struggled for a little, and then, when Delmar sat on him, gave up.

"It isn't fair," Denai said with a chortle. "You're too big and heavy for me."

"Are you working with the priests?" Ajalia asked. "Are you trying to create new shadow children for the priests?"

Denai, who had been jocular up to this point, lost all control of himself. Delmar had seen the change in the horse trader's eyes, and Denai saw this, and began to fight like a ferocious animal. Ajalia sat on the bench, and watched Delmar wrap Denai up into an immobile knot. She admired Delmar's muscles as he did this.

"I see you aren't helping me," Delmar gasped, when he had restrained the horse trader thoroughly. He had pinned Denai until the horse trader could hardly move. "It's a pity we don't have any rope," Delmar added.

"Would you like me to get some?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Delmar said, "that's fine." He rearranged his hold on Denai, and then sighed. "Well, that's just disappointing," he said, looking down at Denai's face, which was slowly turning purple as the smaller man attempted to wrestle free.

"That Denai is a horrible person?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Delmar said, "that your magic wall didn't catch him. I had hoped that would be a simple solution to our problems."

"It will still work wonderfully," Ajalia reassured him. Delmar snorted.

"It won't," Delmar said. "Here was Denai, going to happily run off to conspire with the priests, and he went through the wall without any problem."

"But he isn't evil inside," Ajalia argued. "He isn't the source of the problem. If we're going to go around banishing all the stupid people, there won't be anything left of the city. Chad has been foolish," she told Delmar, "in the past, and if he had been in the wrong hands, he would be a terrible nuisance. We don't need to worry about people like Denai doing the actual magic, and if we remove the people who do the magic, we remove almost all of the problem."

Delmar, she saw, was thinking about this.

"I suppose you might be right," he said. "But where does that leave us with this one?" Delmar nodded down at the restrained horse trader.

"I'm right here," Denai said angrily. He grunted, and writhed.

"Where's Ullar now?" Delmar asked. Denai let out a harsh laugh.

"Let me go," Denai said, "and I'll lead you to her."

"He's lying," Ajalia said instantly. "He'll take you into a trap, and the priests will destroy you." Denai glared up at Ajalia, hatred in his eyes.

"You don't understand," Denai said, struggling against Delmar. "She doesn't see how evil the witches are!" Denai shouted at Delmar. "She's keeping one locked up in her house. We have to protect the city from people like her."

"I know where Ullar lives," Ajalia told Delmar. "We might get more information out of her."

"No!' Denai shouted, his skin going white again.

"Well, are you going to tell us anything useful?" Delmar asked. Denai's mouth clammed up. Delmar laughed. "Let's take him to Hal," he told Ajalia. "There's a nice little dungeon in Ocher's house. Then we can go and see the woman."

"Ullar won't tell you anything either," Denai rasped angrily. Delmar dragged the horse trader to his feet, and began to shuffle him along to the door. Ajalia went in front and opened the door, and they went down the long passage, and through the many metal doors, until they came out into the street.

"I don't think people like Denai will be a problem, once we've cleared out the evil ones," Ajalia told Delmar again. "There are weak and stupid people everywhere. The goal, as I see it, is to get Slavithe into a state where it is comparable to any other city in Leopath."

"Talbos isn't like anywhere else, any more than Slavithe is," Delmar told her, heaving Denai along, and frowning.

"Talbos is much healthier than Slavithe," Ajalia said, "and anyway, how do you know where anywhere else is like?" Delmar's lips pushed out, and he lifted Denai up into the air.

"Cooperate, little man," Delmar commanded, and set the horse trader down on his feet. Denai, who had an angry snarl over his face, grumbled as he walked along before Delmar. "I hear things," Delmar told her.

"From whom do you hear things?" Ajalia asked. "From priests? From sailors?"

"From people," Delmar said with dignity.

"From books?" Ajalia asked. Delmar shot her a wounded glance, and didn't say anything else. Denai, in the darkness, began to chuckle.

"What are you laughing at?" Delmar snapped. He had his hands wrapped around Denai's arms, which were held behind the horse trader's back.

"He's trying to distract you," Ajalia interrupted. "He wants to make you emotional, so he can kick you and rush away." Delmar's mouth screwed up into a knot.

"Well, that's rude," he observed, and shuffled the horse trader along in the street. The white streets were almost totally deserted now. Ajalia asked Delmar if he had seen the glowing walls of his father's house. "I heard about the temple," Delmar said. "I've only just gotten back. Was my father's house glowing, as well?" He sounded interested.

"It was last time I saw it," Ajalia said. They were gradually drawing near the place where the shining light would begin to be visible.

"You should let me go," Denai said threateningly.

"Why, so you can run to the priests and complain?" Delmar asked. "Give me a good reason. Make a deal with me. Tell me about Ullar's husband." Denai's lips closed up tight again.

"We can go through his stable tonight as well," Ajalia told Delmar. "I'm sure he has things hidden there."

"What kinds of things?" Delmar asked eagerly.

"I don't know," Ajalia said.

"There's nothing there," Denai snapped.

"And you're a liar," Ajalia said. She thought she could hear the face that Denai was making. "I really thought you were all right," Ajalia told Denai. "I'm disappointed in you. I thought we were going to have a productive relationship. Did you ever ride my black horse?" she asked suddenly.

"No," Denai said mulishly.

"Does that mean that you did, and now you're even more angry, because he was as wonderful as I said he was?" Ajalia asked. Denai was silent for a time.

"No," he said again.

"You know," Ajalia said to Delmar, as they came nearer to the old Thief Lord's house, "I wonder if Rane was angling to be the Thief Lord himself." Denai went very still; Ajalia kept her eyes fixed on him as they walked. Ocher's house was just a little way from the dead Simon's house, and she was watching now for the glow that should have been, by now, visibly bleeding into the air. "What if Rane and Beryl were hoping to supplant Simon," Ajalia asked, "and Denai was the only one who knew of their plot? I really thought Rane was all right as well," Ajalia said. "I guess I'm not as good of a judge of character as I thought." She made sure her tone was light, and mildly regretful. She could see Denai listening carefully to what she said. "Denai was their spy on the priests," Ajalia said, "and Beryl spied on the witches. I bet Rane did know she was doing some things, but he thought it was justified. I bet he went along with you becoming the Thief Lord, because he thought you would be much easier to displace."

"Rane was going to torture you," Denai burst out with, looking at Ajalia. "I told him it wouldn't work," the horse trader added. "I didn't think you'd kill him, though."

Ajalia said nothing. Delmar walked a little more slowly; when they came to Ocher's house, Delmar glanced at Ajalia, and kept walking. They headed down a connecting street, away from the old Thief Lord's house, and the dragon temple that lay behind it. Ajalia wondered if Philas was still in her house, and if Cross had kicked the Eastern slave yet.

"You're wrong about me," Denai said. Denai seemed to have forgotten how secretive he had decided to be. It was as if Ajalia had primed the pump, and the words spilled out of his mouth without him being fully aware of what he said. Ajalia thought that he was like Sharo had been, so full of secrets that he had never confided to anyone, that the barest touch of understanding set off his need to talk.

Delmar, Ajalia saw, was walking carefully behind the horse trader, his hands closed tightly around Denai's wrists, and she saw that Delmar was being sure not to jostle Denai, or to wake him from the confessional state he had fallen into.

"I was just going to watch Ullar," Denai said into the darkness. He looked like a man who is alone, and who talks to himself. "They lost control of Bain, after a little while. That's why I wanted to know how they did it," Denai added. "The priests haven't made any shadow children yet. They are talking of finding a witch, and taking her prisoner, and forcing her to make a child for them, but the priests are so afraid of the witches, and have so little defense against them, that they cannot think of how to start. Thell had the idea," Denai said, and his voice was becoming stronger, and more free, "years and years ago, before I ever got involved. I was only a spy then, and I had nothing to do with this other business. Rane knew about the shadow children, and he told the king of Talbos about them, but when they were all destroyed but Bain, he started to suspect that Beryl was helping the other witches conceal the boy. He started asking her questions, and she told him a very long story about magic, and about the corruption of Delmar's parents. Beryl wanted us to remove the Thief Lord, and Rane thought we would be able to establish a kind of second kingdom, under the dominion of the king of Talbos. Rane had been here, you know," Denai said, "when Simon became the Thief Lord. I think Rane hoped to do something similar."

Ajalia saw that Delmar wanted to ask Denai questions, but she caught his eye when he glanced at her, and she shook her head sharply. Delmar pressed his lips together, and continued to listen.

"I told him that it wouldn't work," Denai said meditatively. "I told him, Ajalia is too clever for you. He didn't think I was right, I guess. I didn't know he was actually going to attack you, though," Denai said, contradicting his earlier statement. He seemed to notice his own discrepancy, because he added, "I thought Rane was just talking, like he did sometimes. He would tell me things, because he thought I wasn't very bright. He would talk through plans, and then only use a part of one. So he told me he had thought of taking you, and hurting you just enough so you would talk, and tell your plan, and then he would be able to take secrets to Delmar about you."

"That's stupid," Delmar said harshly. Ajalia saw that Delmar could not restrain himself, and she smiled. She liked that Delmar found the idea of her being hurt repugnant. Ajalia had not realized until just now how little she was used to other people being angry at the idea of her being hurt.

Denai looked over at Delmar.

"Well, I told Rane that," Denai said. "I told him it was stupid. I told him, if you go and hurt Ajalia, Delmar will kill you. I thought he listened to me then, but I guess he didn't."

"Why are you telling us this now?" Ajalia asked. Denai shrugged.

"If you really are going to go into my stable, you'll find things," he said. "If you take some of them to Ullar, she'll tell you everything."

"Good," Ajalia said. "Come on, Delmar," she said, and turned back towards the dragon temple. Delmar stopped, and looked at her.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Home," Ajalia said.

"But what about imprisoning Denai?" Delmar asked, looking at the horse trader.

"He's given up," Ajalia said. "He realizes now the futility of his position. He won't go to the priests now, will you?" she asked the horse trader. Denai made a face.

"I probably wouldn't have gone in the first place," Denai said.

"That's a lie," Ajalia said. "Think about Chad for a moment," she told Delmar. She saw Delmar thinking of Chad. "Think of how little sense Chad has often exhibited." Delmar frowned, and then nodded. "Is it Chad's fault that his parents are monsters?" Ajalia asked. Delmar shook his head. "Is it really Chad's entire fault that he's been an empty-headed nincompoop for most of his life?" she asked.

"No," Delmar admitted.

"Well," Ajalia said, "Denai has shown himself to be an empty-headed nincompoop, but when it comes down to the actual situation, he has not been evil. He has been foolish," Ajalia said, "and he has been pretty stupid to fight us, but now he's given up. I think we can let him be now."

"But he has to be punished, or something," Delmar said. He sounded annoyed at letting Denai go, and Ajalia thought that Delmar was thinking of the struggle he had had to restrain the horse trader.

"Delmar," Ajalia said. Delmar heard the tone in her voice, and he grimaced.

"You're going to say something humiliating to me," Delmar said. Denai was standing quite still, and watching this exchange with avid attention. Ajalia told herself that Denai had probably never witnessed two people being completely honest with each other before. The experience, she thought, would be beneficial for the horse trader.

Delmar sighed, and lifted his chin.

"Go ahead," he said, sounding resigned.

"You did a lot of very rude and sometimes stupid things to me," Ajalia said, without malice.

"But I never threatened to beat you up," Delmar said quickly. Ajalia leveled a cold eye at Delmar, who had the grace to blush. "Well," Delmar said in a strangled voice, "I didn't mean it, at the time."

Denai had now the look in his face of a child who watches his parents argue over the dinner table. Ajalia thought that she could almost see the horse trader taking notes.

"Do I try to punish you for these things?" Ajalia asked, speaking in as unemotional a way as possible. Delmar's whole mouth was screwed up into a look of deep reluctance and irritation.

"No," Delmar said through gritted teeth. "But you are bringing it up now," he added severely.

"Denai," Ajalia said. Denai jumped a little, and stared at her. "Will you collect Ullar," Ajalia asked the horse trader, "and bring her to the dragon temple, without telling her why she is coming?"

"Yes," Denai said instantly. He struggled against Delmar's restraining hold, but this time he was trying to get away so that he could do Ajalia's bidding.

"And will you organize a thorough report of all your and Rane's doings in Slavithe?" Ajalia asked.

Denai nodded eagerly. He glanced at Delmar, who was watching him through narrowed eyes.

"And will you now give Delmar a complete list of your contacts among the priests, and tell us who the real husband of Ullar is?" Ajalia asked.

"Thell, the priest, is the father of Bain," Denai said, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost faster than he could form them. "Thell has told no one this, but Beryl knew. It is how we have taken leverage over him. Thell and three of his young men have sought to have their own children. They wish to make an army of shadow children."

"Have any of these other priests fathered children?" Ajalia asked. Denai looked at her eagerly, as though she were holding out a life-saving raft.

"No," Denai said. "No woman will entertain a priest. Thell was not a priest when he fathered Bain. He became a priest later, and Ullar has concealed their connection ever since, out of shame."

"What are the names of your other contacts?" Ajalia asked.

"I spoke mostly to Murdo," Denai said. "He was an assistant to Thell, and brother to Ofar, one of the three young men."

"What were the other two young men called?" Ajalia asked. Delmar was watching this exchange as though he thought Denai had become possessed; Ajalia told herself that Delmar, once he got the hang of seeing people's lies for what they were, would become thoroughly adept at this kind of information collection himself.

"Vole and Jash were the other two," Denai said. "May I go?" the horse trader asked, glancing at Delmar. "I will not go to the priests. I will do as you have said."

"Bring Ullar to me," Ajalia said, "and bring proof of Rane's duplicity."

"I will write down the names of all those priests I have seen or spoken to," Denai said, tugging at Delmar.

"Let him go," Ajalia said. Delmar frowned.

"I don't want to let him go," Delmar said.

"Well, think of it this way," Ajalia suggested. "If Denai runs away to the priests, and turns on us, you will be able to hold this over my head forever, and feel right and victorious." Delmar thought about this.

"I think you're manipulating me," Delmar said, but there was a smile in his eyes.

"Yes, I think that I am," Ajalia agreed. "What did you think of my black horse?" she asked Denai. Denai, who had quite overcome his fear, grinned.

"He's a great beast of a horse," Denai said, "but he's the best mover I've ever seen. We will found a new breed with him." Ajalia was smiling, and now Delmar was watching the two of them with a look of mild distaste in the curl of his mouth.

"Are you talking about horses now?" Delmar complained. Denai looked at him.

"Yes," Denai said. "Will you let go of me now?"

"I was very sorry to lose you," Ajalia told Denai. "Don't be stupid again."

"Yes," Denai said, nodding. "Or no, I won't be. Yes, I'm sorry too. Can I please go?" he asked Delmar, who was obstinately holding his wrists, and looking thunderous.

"If you turn on me," Delmar began, his eyes dark.

"Yes, yes," Denai said hurriedly. "You'll kill me, and it will be painful. I know." Delmar's eyes narrowed, but the trace of a smile tugged at his lips.

"Fine," Delmar said. "I hope you're right," he told Ajalia.

"She's always right, aren't you?" Denai said to Ajalia, and then he turned and ran into the darkness. Delmar watched him go, his face struggling between annoyance and pleasure.

"That did not go at all how I thought it would," Delmar admitted finally. Ajalia put her hand into his, and went back towards the dragon temple. "Why was the temple glowing?" he asked. "And my father's house?"

"I put magic in the walls," Ajalia said. "Apparently that makes the white stone light up."

"Oh," Delmar said. His fingers were closed around her hand, and Ajalia, who wanted to stop and kiss Delmar, bit her lips.

"We should have seen the glow of your father's house," Ajalia said. "I could see it from some distance, before."

"Maybe it wears off," Delmar suggested. Ajalia drew the old book out of her bag, and checked to see if it was hers. It was; she put it back in, and got out the other one. "There are two?" Delmar asked, his eyebrows lifting.

"I told them I found it with Tree's things," Ajalia reminded him. She handed the book over, and Delmar, who looked a little bit as though she had handed him his firstborn child, held it tenderly. "Now we both have one," she added, smiling.

"Do you think they're the same?" Delmar asked. He looked as though he didn't dare open the book. "I haven't got anywhere to put it yet," he added, giving it reluctantly back to Ajalia. Ajalia tucked the book into her back, and drew out the dagger. "What is that?" he asked, looking at the blackened sheath.

"I thought for sure you would know," Ajalia said, drawing the blade out of the old sheath. When the white blade was revealed, Delmar stopped stock still in the street.

"Is that the falcon's dagger?" he asked. Ajalia handed it to him. He lifted it reverently, and examined the shimmering bits of light that clung to the blade.

"Can you see the lights in the blade?" Ajalia asked him. Delmar nodded.

"I can see them a little," he said. "Now that I know you can see things, I can see bits, here and there. I think it's a matter of thinking that I can see."

"Leed can show you how to see," Ajalia told him. "Everyone in my house can see the lights now, and work them into magic." Delmar, who had begun to walk, stopped again.

THE LOST PRINCE

"What do you mean?" Delmar demanded. "When did Leed come back?"

"Just the other day," Ajalia said. "He ran away, and his uncle caught him, and beat him. I'm going to get that man," she added thoughtfully.

"How does Leed know how to do magic?" Delmar demanded. He sounded indignant that the boy should know things that he didn't.

"I gave him my old book to read," Ajalia said. "When he'd read it, I had him teach my other boys. Chad is quite good at magic," she added. Delmar looked furious.

"Chad, too?" he asked.

"And Ocher," Ajalia said. "Oh, I don't know if he told you, but Ocher's going to be married soon, to my girl, Clare."

Delmar looked as though his head was slowly imploding. He came along behind Ajalia, his feet moving as if through deep water.

"I was only gone for a couple of days," Delmar said slowly. "And not that much happened to me." He eyed Ajalia suspiciously. "Maybe I will never leave you again."

"The priests came and attacked the dragon temple," Ajalia said helpfully, "and several witches were killed, some by the priests, and some by me. I flew a little. A great ugly black snake showed up, and I killed it. We have magical stones that will glow and give off light now," she said. "I was thinking we could open a sort of business, selling them. I'm not going to let them go, or tell anyone about them, until I hear more about my master's plans. And," she added, glancing at Delmar, who still looked shocked, "Philas has come back to beg for money."

Delmar looked furious again

"He's asking for money because he needed to buy horses for the caravan to return East," Ajalia said, before the diatribe that was clearly brewing in Delmar burst forth. "He's a mess, and he wanted to bully me, but I wasn't having it. Barat, that young man who was working with Denai, and taking care of the yurl, is heading up the caravan, and Philas has kept back a few slaves to set up house in Talbos. Philas is under the impression that master will stay in Talbos, if he comes, though he seemed to be changing his mind when he saw how I live. I have distracted Philas with my girl, Sun, who has instructions not to let him kiss her, but to distract him from mooning after me. I kept Cross with Sun," Ajalia added, "and told him to kick Philas, if Philas got ugly."

Delmar, who had now settled into an indignant silence, said nothing. Ajalia thought back over what had happened since Delmar had gone away.

"Coren is in my house," she said, "oh, and he told me where Wall was hiding with Yelin."

"He'll be at my father's secret cave," Delmar said. "I knew that. I've sent a few men to pick him up."

"Oh," Ajalia said. "Also, I missed you," she said. Delmar made a slight scoffing noise. "I did!" Ajalia said. "Ocher was visiting Clare when the priests attacked, and he came and helped me head them off, but then he was frightened of my magic, and ran away. I wished you had been there," she said. "The witches had come to kidnap Coren. Coren is nice now," she added.

Ajalia thought for a moment.

"Ossa is a witch," she said, "but she says her mother was a good witch, and that she is a good witch as well. I have forbidden her from doing magic on people, but I don't know if she'll listen. And I have a cook now. I hope she'll work out." Ajalia looked sideways at Delmar. Delmar looked somewhat sullen. Ajalia tugged at Delmar's hand, but Delmar said nothing. She pushed herself up against his chin, and kissed him. He was somewhat stony at first, but when she had snuggled up against him, he melted.

"It sounds like everything happened while I was gone," Delmar said. "I don't like things happening while I'm gone."

"I love you," Ajalia said.

"Harumph," Delmar said, but he was no longer glowering. "I suppose that will teach me to go and do important things without you," he said, smiling. He kissed her again. The falcon's dagger was still in his hand, and it pressed a little against Ajalia's side.

"The blade isn't sharp," she told him, "and we'll need to have a new sheath made for it."

"It's wonderful," Delmar said.

"You're wonderful," Ajalia said.

"What are the chances that Philas will have gone away?" Delmar asked. They had drawn near the dragon temple now; Delmar's father's house was as still and dark as all the other buildings surrounding it. Ajalia thought of the night she had climbed the outer wall to rescue Delmar from his horrible parents. It had only been a little while ago, but Ajalia felt as though months had passed between that night and this one.

"We'll have to stay out to meet Denai," Ajalia reminded Delmar. He put an arm around her waist, and snugged her close against his body. There was a deep hunger in the feeling of his arm. "Maybe Denai will not be able to find Ullar right away," she suggested. Delmar growled. She poked him, and he laughed at her.

"Can I hurt Philas, if he's rude?" Delmar murmured. Ajalia pushed at him.

"Only if he tries to corner me again," Ajalia said. Saying this reminded her of Hal, and she frowned. "You know Hal?" she asked.

"Yes," Delmar said.

"Well," Ajalia said. "I don't really want to tell you this, because I think you'll take it the wrong way, but he tried to kiss me. I scared him pretty badly, and I think he needs some guidance in the kissing and courting department."

"Hal did that?" Delmar asked. Ajalia nodded, and Delmar sighed. "I'm sorry," Delmar said. "I'll talk to him."

"Why don't you want to rough Hal up?" Ajalia asked, curious.

"Well," Delmar said, his mouth twisting to the side. "Hal has always been a little lost and sad. Philas is rotten. Hal is pathetic. I'm guessing you got away without being kissed?" Delmar asked, and Ajalia fought back a smile.

"He was crying," she said. "I felt almost sorry for him."

"Now if only Philas would do the same thing," Delmar said, a glint in his eye.

"Hopefully his ardor will have transferred to Sun by now," Ajalia said. "Sun is young and silly, but she wants very badly to be married."

"You weren't going to let her marry Philas!" Delmar exclaimed, sounding thoroughly shocked. Ajalia smiled at the expression on his face.

"No," Ajalia said. "But I want you to be civil with Philas. I have some things I want to get out of him, and if you start a fight, I won't get far." Delmar's mouth creased in annoyance.

"Fine," he said. "But he'd better be civil to me."

"Ocher did all right," Ajalia said, "after Clare got to work on him. He doesn't try to wear me down anymore."

"That's good," Delmar said. "I wish men did not like you quite so much," he added woefully.

"They don't like me," Ajalia said sensibly. "They like to feel important, and things happen around me." Delmar looked at her. "What?" she asked.

"You're very beautiful," he said. "They like you because you're beautiful."

"I have never been called beautiful," Ajalia said firmly. They had come to the dragon temple now. Ajalia handed the sheath to Delmar, and he put it over the blade of the dagger. He glanced at her bag.

"Have you got any other interesting goodies in your bag?" he asked, smiling a little.

"I have this," Ajalia said, pulling out the white stone that was flecked with purple. Delmar made such a great startle when he saw it that Ajalia thought he was going to fall right down the stairs.

"Where did you get a sky stone?" he demanded, taking it from her.

"Apparently Tree had a hoard," Ajalia said. "You heard Isacar say that," she reminded him.

"Yes, but I thought he meant knick-knacks," Delmar said. He turned the white stone over in his hands. "This is very rare," he said.

"I've been keeping it close since I found it," Ajalia said. "I have the feeling someone will steal it, if I'm not right next to it."

A light was burning far down the hall, and shining out into the middle of the hall. Ajalia went towards the light. She saw that someone had taken a lamp, and set it down on the floor just outside one of the open doorways. When she went into the room, she saw Coren sitting with Philas. Philas was smiling, and Coren, Ajalia saw, had wiped the ointment away. His skin was covered with thick red blotches, like toughened scabs.

"Hello," Coren said brightly. He saw Delmar come into the room behind Ajalia, and his face went a little pale. "I have to go," Coren said to Philas, and jumped to his feet. Delmar caught Coren's arm as he was passing out the door.

"Where are you going?" Delmar asked in an even voice. Coren, who looked quite disturbed, glanced at Ajalia.

"To bed?" Coren asked weakly. Delmar pushed his little brother gently into the room, and Coren, looking thoroughly miserable, went to a chair and sat down.

"Hello again," Philas said genially to Delmar. Philas's eyes gave out a gleam when he looked at Ajalia, but he did not say anything to her.

"I am not going to be friendly with you," Delmar told Philas. "You are not a nice man, in my book, and I don't trust you. She says," Delmar added, hooking his thumb at Ajalia, "that she still wants something from you, so I won't throw you out. Yet," Delmar added, and he took the white stone and the dagger and sat down. Ajalia picked up the lamp, and put it on the floor inside the room.

"You two seem to be getting along well," she told Coren. Coren, who looked as though he was being squashed to death by being in a room with Delmar, made a mumbling, burbling noise.

"Are you in awe of my sudden grandeur?" Delmar asked sourly. Coren blushed, and Philas let out a chortle. Delmar shot Philas an angry look, and the slave petered into silence.

"Tell me about the fourth king of Saroyan," Ajalia told Philas. Philas, who looked caught off guard, glanced at Coren.

"I'm not the prince," Philas said.

"I know that," Ajalia said, although she didn't. "I want to know why you want to stay near to Saroyan. What is your secret plan?" Philas, who had been looking thoughtful, grimaced, as though Ajalia had struck a nerve.

"I don't have any secret plan," Philas said quickly. "And anyway, I don't want to be back in Saroyan."

"I didn't say you did," Ajalia said. "I said that you want to be near Saroyan. Why? What information do you have that is so valuable to the fourth king?"

"He's not the king anymore," Philas mumbled unintelligibly.

"What?" Ajalia asked. "Can you understand what he says?" she asked Coren. Coren, who seemed relieved that the attention was off him now, looked around.

"He said that he's not the king anymore," Coren said helpfully.

"So?" Ajalia asked Philas. "Why does that matter?" Philas's skin was glowing dark red in the ruddy lamplight.

"I'll be going now," Philas said, and moved as though to stand up. Delmar conjured a bright spark of gold light, and it twisted across Philas's chest. Philas, who clearly could not see the golden lines of light, hesitated, and then tried again to stand.

"I can't stand up," Philas said, his voice sounding doubtful. Coren was watching the golden ropes that Delmar was now twisting around the arms of the chair, fixing Philas down to the piece of furniture. Delmar sent more rods of gold through the legs of the chair into the floor, and when Philas thrust his whole body against the restraining lines of light, the chair did not budge. "What have you done to me?" Philas demanded, staring down at his wrists, and jerking them helplessly against the bindings.

"Magic," Delmar said. Delmar was sitting in a chair opposite Philas, the white stone and the dagger in his hands. Ajalia thought that Delmar looked like a robber king from an old legend. The dark red tunic she had sewn up the sides clung to his massive frame, and his bearded chin was regal in the lamplight. Coren was watching his older brother with something like dawning admiration in his eyes. Ajalia remembered the way Coren had acted before, and how he had called Delmar stupid on multiple occasions. She told herself that there was no way Coren would be able to think of Delmar as stupid now. Delmar looked dangerous and cunning; he looked powerful.

"Let me up!" Philas shouted, his voice growing brittle with fear. "This is a trick! Let me up!"

"Why don't you tell Ajalia what she wants to know?" Delmar suggested. Philas glared at the young Thief Lord, and hatred was in the lines of his mouth. Ajalia thought that she could see reams of anger and vitriolic speech building up in Philas's mouth. Philas turned to Ajalia, and spoke in the Eastern language.

"Will you tell him to let me go?" Philas asked.

"No," Ajalia said in Slavithe. Philas's eyes darkened even more, and his nostrils flared.

"Where is your loyalty to master? To our house?" Philas demanded, the Eastern words flying out of him like venom.

"I am getting master exactly what he wants," Ajalia said, still speaking in Slavithe. "You, Philas, are obstructing me. Master will see this, if you do not stop."

Philas looked as though he were ready to bite Delmar in two, if he could reach him. The ropes of golden light tightened against Philas, who was rapidly growing inarticulate with rage.

"You really belong to me," Philas hissed at Ajalia in the Eastern tongue. "I loved you before he did." Philas shot an angry glance at Delmar, who was watching him impassively. "He's a fool, and a child," Philas grunted in the Eastern language, wrestling with increasing futility against the lights that he could not see. Delmar, Ajalia thought, looked very much like a man, while Philas, who was squirming wildly under the restraints, looked like a toddler throwing an epic tantrum. Ajalia got up from the door, where she had been leaning against the frame, and crossed to Philas. Philas watched her come towards him, his eyes wild and starting from his face. Ajalia reached below the earth, and into the sky, and mixed a small ball of the ocean blue magic.

"Let me out of this chair, Ajalia," Philas spat in the Eastern tongue. Coren was watching the whole scene with his knees drawn up beneath his chin. He glanced with open interest at Delmar, and Ajalia thought she saw the boy looking jealously at Delmar's rugged beard.

"No," Ajalia said in the Eastern tongue, and she pressed the ball of blue light against Philas's forehead.

Philas went suddenly limp; his eyes vibrated a little, and his tongue pushed helplessly out of his mouth.

"Tell me about the fourth king of Saroyan," Ajalia said in Slavithe. Philas gave a jolt, and then spoke as if in a trance.

"The fourth king of Saroyan was my father," Philas said. He spoke still in the Eastern language. Delmar watched Philas narrowly, and Ajalia saw that he was imitating the shape of the words with his lips. She reminded herself to teach Delmar more of the Eastern tongue. She thought of the slaves staying now in Talbos, and told herself to remember to send for one or two of them later on. If her master did come to Slavithe, Delmar would be well-positioned if he was accustomed to the Eastern way of moving always with servants, and, she thought, he would learn much more of their ways by living with them.

"Are you a prince of Saroyan?" Ajalia asked. Philas shook his head slowly from side to side. He replied in the Eastern tongue, though Ajalia had addressed him in the Slavithe language.

"I am a bastard," Philas said. "I was an embarrassment to the throne. I was sent away as a child. My aunt gave me the ring, and the papers, so that I would be able to show who I was."

"Who sold you?" Ajalia asked. Coren and Delmar, who could only understand Ajalia's half of the conversation, were watching Philas with rapt attention. Delmar's face was a study in fixed concentration; Ajalia wondered if he had given any thought yet to official relations with Saroyan.

"My father had me taken from my mother when I was three," Philas said. Tears were beginning to rise up in his eyes, but none of them spilled out over his lower lids. "I was kept outside the city until I was old enough to take care of myself, and then I was put on a boat." Philas blinked. He seemed to be coming out of the daze that the blue magic had had on his mind. "That's when my aunt gave me the things," Philas said. He was still speaking in the Eastern language, but he looked around at Delmar and Coren suspiciously.

"What about the golden knife?" Ajalia asked. Philas looked up, and met her gaze. He blinked away the wetness in his eyes, and cleared his throat.

"I stole that," Philas said. "It was supposed to go to my half-brother, the real prince. I'm the oldest," Philas said with a grin. "My father had an old flame, and after he was married, and his wife left him, he got together with her. It's a long story. I technically inherit, but half the kingdom was up in arms about the affair. My father was going to marry my mother, you know," he added. He seemed to lose himself in thought after this. Ajalia could see that he was no longer under the influence of the magic.

"Why don't you go home?" Ajalia asked. Philas tried to spread his hands, but the golden lines of light kept his arms still. Philas laughed.

"Your lover has tied me down," Philas said in the Eastern tongue. Delmar was still staring hard at Philas, a look of some fixation in his eyes. Ajalia thought that Delmar was trying to find out, by listening very hard, what Philas was saying. "It's complicated," Philas said, in response to Ajalia's question about him going home.

"What's complicated about it?" Ajalia asked. "You go home, to take power, and then you're the king of Saroyan. What is wrong with that?" Philas looked at her with a look on his face that was reminiscent of the old Philas, the Philas she had worked with, and grown to like.

"Things like this are not so simple as you make them sound," Philas said. Ajalia looked at him, and blinked.

"Delmar did it," she said. She was still speaking in Slavithe, and Delmar looked over at her when she spoke his name. "It took me less than three months to work the entire transition, and I wasn't even thinking about it most of the time." She looked at Delmar, and at Coren. "To be perfectly honest," she said, "most of it took about five days, altogether. I fail to see why you could not do the same, if you are legitimately the last king's son, and the oldest, and your mother was popular with some of the people over there."

Philas's eyes had grown weary. He finally switched into Slavithe. Ajalia thought that Philas had been hoping to wear her out by speaking only in the Eastern tongue, but he looked now quite impatient.

"That's easy enough for you to say," Philas snapped. "He isn't a drunk, or ugly, or too old."

"I'm twenty-six," Delmar said. "People here gave up on me after I turned sixteen." He glanced at Ajalia. "Ten years is a long time to be a pathetic disappointment at everything. Are you talking about making him king?" Delmar asked Ajalia. Ajalia nodded. "I like that idea," Delmar said. There was a twinkle in Delmar's eye, and Ajalia suspected that Delmar liked this plan mostly because it involved Philas living an ocean away from her. Ajalia went to Delmar, and sat down on the arm of his chair. The chairs she had placed in this room were large and cozy; some of the larger rooms held lighter or more delicate chairs, but Ajalia had placed mostly comfortable pieces throughout the smaller rooms that lay on either side of the great hall.

"Coren, go stand at the doorway," Delmar said to his brother. "A man is coming here soon. Tell me when you see him." Coren got to his feet, and wandered to the door.

"I'm a mess," Philas told Ajalia, an angry crease between his eyebrows. "I'm cranky, and I'm rude, and no one likes you, either."

"Everyone told me I was stupid," Delmar said helpfully. "And I like Ajalia very much. I think you're jealous." Delmar's face was turned philosophical. Ajalia thought she could see Philas grinding his teeth.

"It's true that people called Delmar stupid," Coren said, without blushing. Delmar shot his little brother a look, but Coren had turned his face out into the hall.

"My point is," Delmar said, "that you can probably do it. Does everyone hate your half-brother now? Is he king?" Philas wriggled in the chair again, and looked down at the place where the golden line, invisible to him, was crossing over his chest.

"Will you please let me out?" Philas asked. He was smiling, but his voice was hard.

"No," Ajalia said. She settled her weight against Delmar's shoulder, and he looked at her and smiled. This is fun, Delmar's face seemed to say.

"I don't want to talk about this," Philas said. His eyebrows drew down. "How did you get me to talk about it in the first place?" he demanded. Ajalia raised her palm and made a shimmering blue mark in the shape of their master's household sign, the same symbol she had drawn on her forehead before. Philas turned his eyes to the place in the air. "I don't see anything," Philas complained. "Am I supposed to be seeing something?"

Ajalia imagined the blue mark moving through the air, and resting briefly, like a shining blue snake, against her face, where she usually made the mark. Philas's eyes grew wide.

"How are you doing that?" Philas asked.

"Ajalia," Delmar said thoughtfully.

"Mm," she said.

"Do you think, if we purged him of darkness, and reconnected his soul to the earth, that he would grow a white brand?" Delmar was looking with great interest at Philas. Ajalia remembered that Delmar, though he could not always see the colored lights, had been able to see the white brand that stretched over the hearts of those who were pure.

"What's that?" Philas demanded. "What's a white brand?"

"You know," Ajalia said, looking thoughtfully at her fellow Eastern slave, "I tried that with Daniel, a little while ago, and he's got a fine brand of his own now."

"Interesting," Delmar said. Coren raised an arm, and waved at Delmar.

"There's a man here," Coren called. Delmar got to his feet, and handed the white stone and the dagger to Ajalia.

"I'll have to get my own bag, or something," he told her with a smile. Ajalia smiled back, and told herself that she would never, under any circumstances whatsoever, allow Delmar to go about with a bag. Pockets, she told herself, and a good belt.

"Philas," Ajalia said.

"Don't you dare leave me here, Ajalia," Philas said at once, his eyes flashing.

"I have to see this guy about some things," Ajalia said. She fought back a smile; Philas was looking at her with anger and panic in his eyes.

"Jay," Philas said coaxingly.

"Just think," Ajalia said, moving towards the door, "maybe when I come back, you can work on becoming king of Saroyan. And don't call me that," she added.

"Jay!" Philas shouted, jerking his arms and his body up in the chair. The golden lines of light held firm; sweat was beginning to bead at his temples. Ajalia followed Delmar out of the room, and caught Coren around the shoulders. She guessed that Coren wanted to go in and torment Philas, and though she was prepared to leave Philas tied up for a while, she was not willing to subject him, all alone, to the relentless teasing of Coren. Coren, Ajalia told herself, could be alarmingly abrasive when he wanted to be.

Ajalia walked Coren along with her. Delmar was a little ahead, and was walking towards the shadowy figure of Denai, who was standing just within the moonlight. Ajalia wondered again if it ever rained here; she had thought, when she had seen the lush forest, and the fertile farms that stretched all around the western wall of Slavithe, that the climate would be a wet one, but she had yet to experience a since drop of rain while she had lived here.

Behind Denai, and a little to one side, was the lumpy figure of Ullar. Ajalia held on to Coren, and stopped within the darkness of the hall.

"Wait," Ajalia said to Coren. Delmar went forward, and Ajalia saw him speak briefly with Denia. Ullar came hesitantly forward, as Denai gestured back to her, and Delmar spoke to the woman for a little while. Ajalia waited until she saw Ullar slump down into defeated tears, and then she pushed gently at Coren. "Keep your mouth shut," she murmured to the boy, and he nodded.

They went forward, and when Ullar saw Ajalia, the middle-aged woman's face, which was already streaked with devastating tears, went a funny color of green. The moon was only a little visible in the sky; they were all standing in the first part of the dragon temple hall, where the light fell in towards the pillars.

"I didn't want anyone to know," Ullar said, wiping quickly at her tears. "I didn't want anyone to know about him."

"Have you told her that Thell is dead?" Ajalia asked Delmar.

"Thell is dead," Delmar said promptly, as though he had been meaning to say this all along. Ajalia was sure that Delmar had not known this before, but he covered himself very well, and Ullar let out a long and shivering sigh.

"I should not be glad," she said, "but I am. I did not know that he would turn out to be a priest," she told Delmar. "I never would have lived with him before, if I had known. He had a change of heart, soon after we were first together, and he ran off to join the priesthood. Bain was born after that, and when Thell came back to me, and learned of the child, he threatened to take him off, and to grow him into a priest. That is when I took Bain to Beryl."

Ullar looked terrified to be saying this; the woman's cheeks were damp with tears, and covered over with pallor, but her lips, when she spoke again, were firm.

"I did not want my son to be a priest," she told Delmar. "No mother would," she added, glancing to Denai. "Beryl told me that she would keep my son safe. When he was taken by the witches, I thought it was not Beryl. I thought that Beryl was telling the truth. Beryl told me she had placed my son in a quiet house, where it was safe. But she came to me later, and told me that a pair of witches had come, and carried my son away. She told me that they had burned away the flesh of my son. She told me that she, and the others, the witch hunters, would try to catch my son, and destroy him."

Ullar took a shuddering breath, and then she continued.

"When you came," Ullar said to Ajalia, "I thought that you were repeating what some servants have heard. People have gossiped about my son," Ullar said, and she began to cry silent tears again. "They have heard that he is hard to kill. I don't know how. I don't know what the witches did to him. Some time, a couple of years ago, perhaps, Beryl told me that she thought we would be able to save my son. She wanted me to cooperate with them, with her and the witch hunters, and to try to contact Bain. I am sorry," Ullar said. "I am sorry that there is so much to tell. I wish there was less." Ajalia watched, and Delmar folded his arms patiently. Denai was standing quietly in the background. Ajalia saw that the horse trader had a sheaf of papers, and a wrapped bundle in his arms.

Ullar took another shuddering breath, and wiped at her eyes.

"Beryl came, and said that she wanted to help me. She said she wanted to get my son back. Thell had come to see me once, a long time ago. He told me that he knew I had given our son to the witches, and that he would take me to the witch hunters if I didn't help him. I was already working with Beryl, then, of course, so he couldn't do anything. All of the witch hunters, and Beryl, knew that I wasn't a witch. I thought you had heard about my son," Ullar told Ajalia, "and that you were trying to get gossip out of me, or secrets." Ullar glanced at Delmar. "I did not realize that you were with the Thief Lord," Ullar said.

"How did you get with Denai?" Ajalia asked.

"Beryl came to me," Ullar said, "about two years ago. She said that she could help me see my son again, but that I would have to help them as well. Beryl paid my debts, and that is when I started to grow my hair. I married Denai," Ullar said. She glanced at the place where the horse trader stood. "It was one of the old ceremonies," she said, "to bind the spirit. We have never lived together. Denai came to me, and told me what they wanted, and I told him anything that happened. I also," Ullar said hesitantly, "told him about Thell. I felt I had to. Beryl knew, of course, and I explained what Thell had said, and done. I think that Denai went to see Thell sometimes." Ullar glanced doubtfully at Ajalia. "I don't want to be punished," Ullar said. "I thought Beryl was all right. She was the witch-caller, and she was supposed to be straight. You thought she was straight," Ullar added, turning to Denai for support. Denai said nothing, and after a moment, Ullar went on. "I started to hear from my son, only a few days ago," the mother said. "I thought that what Beryl was doing was working. Bain started to leave messages for me, in the air just outside my window. He started to write messages," Ullar said with a shaky laugh, "in scraps of clouds. He told me that he had found someone who could help. I guess he meant you," she added, looking at Ajalia.

"What about the night you came with a metal bar, and followed me?" Ajalia asked. Ullar's face turned quite ashen.

THE END OF COREN'S COOPERATION

"That was not me," Ullar said at once. "That was someone else. I did not follow you."

"She's lying," Ajalia told Delmar. Delmar nodded. "Denai told me you had started to look for a body," Ajalia said. "Why were you looking for a body?" And why did you want my body, she added in her own mind. Ullar glanced with terror at Delmar, and then she looked again at Ajalia.

"I wasn't looking for a body at all," Ullar said hoarsely.

"I think Beryl told her," Denai said, "about what some of the witches believed. They had never reversed the burning process," Denai explained, "but it is supposed to be possible."

"The old books speak of such things," Delmar murmured.

"I was not looking for a body," Ullar said, her voice climbing in panic. "It wasn't me."

"Did Bain tell you to look for me?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Ullar said instantly, shaking her head so vigorously that her hair began to come loose from its pins. "No, that was before Bain could speak to me. I mean, it wasn't me," Ullar said, blushing crimson.

"Is that why you wanted to keep the body of the witch, in the tenement?" Ajalia asked. "Were you hoping to make a new body for Bain?"

"No," Ullar said, her voice so dry that it was like the scrape of bones over stone. "No," she said again. Her eyes darted to Delmar. Ullar looked like a great, unhappy dog. Her nose was quivering with grief, and her cheeks were still wet with tears.

"Denai," Delmar said, and Denai breathed in slowly, and a strange white glow began to form all around his body. Ullar began to glow as well, and Ajalia saw that the middle-aged mother could not move her legs.

"Release me, you fool!" Ullar hissed at Denai, but Denai was watching Delmar calmly.

"I have betrayed my Thief Lord once," Denai said, his voice steady, "I will not do it again." Denai held his bundle and the cluster of papers, and watched Delmar expectantly. Ajalia thought that Denai seemed more acclimated to Slavithe than the other spies had been; he seemed far more loyal to Delmar, and readier to see himself as a man who lived in the city, and had some roots there. The other spies, to Ajalia's mind, were like loose stones rolling along the bottom of a river, knocking against things, and never finding a place to rest.

Ajalia watched Ullar struggle to move, as Philas had struggled to get away from the golden binding lights, and she wondered if Delmar had the power to make a similar glowing bind on her own body. She guessed that the form of marriage Ullar had spoken of was the same trading of golden inner lights that Delmar had undergone with her, and she asked herself what she had gotten herself into. She thought that she would have to grill Delmar thoroughly on the powers imbued by this transaction, once Ullar and Philas had been dealt with.

"I can tell you a lot about Bain," Coren said. He had been standing and watching Ullar's recital with something like scorn on his face. "It isn't at all like she said," Coren said. The boy stared at Ullar, and then looked around at Ajalia. "You won't like it, when you hear," Coren warned. "Or you," he said, looking at Delmar.

"Do you know what he means?" Delmar asked the horse trader. Denai raised his shoulders helplessly.

"What I know is what Ullar has said," Denai said. The man's voice was abrupt, and honest. Ajalia was sure that he was telling the truth.

"Well," Delmar said to his little brother, "go on."

"She'll sell me as a slave, when she knows," Coren said. "She told me she would."

"I said that was a path you could choose," Ajalia said. "I said it was up to you." Coren looked at her, and the hardened curve was at the edges of his lips again. The shadow of the uncouth, sarcastic boy he had been so recently showed behind his eyes.

"You won't like it," Coren said again. "I'd rather be sold now. He wouldn't hate me so much." Coren nodded towards Delmar, whose jaw tightened.

"Tell me what it is," Delmar said. Coren sneered a little. Ajalia saw that the boy was terrified, and was hiding it under the pretense of disdain. Coren's eyes wore a white rim of terror around the edges.

"I warned you," Coren said. "You'll be very upset." Delmar waited, his mouth in a line. Ullar, who was watching Coren suspiciously, made a renewed effort to escape the glowing sphere of white light. Coren looked at the woman. "I'm a fool for telling you," Coren said, "but this is what happened. My mother told me when I was very little that she was going to buy a friend for me." Coren glanced at Delmar. "I was not very old," he said. "She said that she didn't like Delmar anymore, and that she was going to make me into her helper. She said I was going to be very important, and that my father would end up liking me more than the others."

"More than Wall or Delmar?" Ajalia asked. Coren nodded. Coren was addressing most of his speech to her; Ajalia thought that since the great battle that had unfolded in the hall, when she had hidden Coren's eyes from the bloody spectacle, that he had taken a view of her as a sort of surrogate mother. He seemed to think that Ajalia would be more sympathetic to his story than his elder brother would be.

"She took me twice to go and meet Bain," Coren said. "He was a year younger than me, and he was living with his mother then. Ullar claims that Bain was sent away, but I visited their house. They lived in a nicer house then," Coren said. "There was a garden in the back, and a puppy."

Ajalia had seen very few dogs in the city of Slavithe, but she knew that the farmers kept dogs, out in the fertile valley outside the walls.

"Do you know if your mother took you outside the walls?" Ajalia asked. Coren looked at her, and shrugged.

"I don't remember," he admitted. "I remember a garden, and the little dog. She could tell you, though," he added, with a cruel smile. "After the second time, my mother didn't take me there anymore, but she told me that Bain was going to be my new little brother. She started doing spells on me then. I didn't understand what they were, but she gave me things, to keep me quiet, and told me not to tell anyone."

Ajalia could see that Delmar was trying to understand so far why Coren had thought he would be angry at this story. She was glad that Delmar was not interrupting; she thought that it was difficult for Coren to be saying these things, and that he would clam up easily.

She looked around at Ullar, and saw that the middle-aged mother was opening her mouth, and moving her lips soundlessly. Ajalia looked at Denai, and saw that the horse trader was looking with some concentration at Ullar. She suspected that whatever power was allowing Denai to hold Ullar captive was also making it possible for Denai to keep the woman from speaking. Ajalia began to wonder if she would need to talk Delmar into reversing the old form of marriage that he had practiced with her. She did not like the idea of Delmar being able to force her to hold still and not speak. She glanced at Delmar, and wondered if he had any inkling of the thoughts she was thinking. Delmar was still looking at his little brother, and frowning.

"When I got older," Coren continued, "my mother took me with her, to meet with the witches. A lot of the witches were hunted, and died over the years, but my mother was never caught. I didn't know that Beryl was one, too, but she must have helped make Bain."

"Where was Bain kept?" Ajalia asked. Coren's mouth drew down into a frown.

"He lived with his mother for a long time," Coren said, "all the way until they burned his body away. I wasn't there," Coren said, "but they all talked about it. My mother had had an idea that they could take a part of me, and a part of Bain, and switch our souls. They thought they could make Bain immortal."

"What about you?" Ajalia asked. "Was she going to make you immortal?"

"No," Coren said.

"What was she going to do with you?" Delmar asked. Coren looked up at him, and an unreadable expression was in his eyes.

"I don't know," Coren said.

"Does that mean that you do know, and you don't want to talk about it?" Ajalia asked. Coren made a face at her.

"They wanted to kill me, but my mother didn't think it was necessary. They cut out a part of me, and did the first part of the transplant. I got a part of Bain's soul, and he got a part of mine."

"Why did the other witches want to kill you?" Delmar asked. Denai was standing still, his eyes fixed on Ullar, his lips drawn together in concentration. Ullar was twisting a little, trying to break free of the white glow that held her immobile.

"They wanted to do the transfer all at once," Coren said, "but mother thought it was a waste. She wanted my soul still for her experiments. She wanted to see if she could keep my body alive, with both my and Bain's souls inside. She said it was fair to give Bain the use of my body, because he had given up his body, and I would still be there, even if I was in pieces."

"That's awful," Ajalia said. Coren stared at her.

"Anyway," Coren said, "the transfer made me sick, and I couldn't leave the house for a while. This was last year. They hadn't dared try the magic before that, because I hadn't finished getting my soul colors."

"I thought the witches couldn't see the colors," Ajalia said.

"They can't," Coren said sourly, "but they can smell them. The witches say the colors smell brittle, when they haven't come in all the way."

"Fashel told me the women smell the colors because they're beaten if they see them," Ajalia said suddenly. "Is that true?" she asked Delmar. Delmar shrugged.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm not a girl."

"Do you know?" Ajalia asked Denai. Denai looked over at Ajalia, and she thought she saw embarrassment mounting in his cheeks.

"Um," Denai said.

"That means yes," Coren told Ajalia. "Anyway, my colors grew in, and I smelled ripe, so they did the first transfer, and then I was sick. They were going to try another one, before you started messing about with Delmar."

"Is that what your mother called it?" Ajalia asked, amusement lapping at her insides.

"Yes," Coren said, unashamed. "She complained very loudly about how you were turning Delmar into another person. She said he was nice and docile, before you started putting ideas into his head. She thought you were seducing him," Coren said frankly. He looked up at Delmar. "That's why you're going to be angry at me," he said. "You can send me away now."

"I don't care what she thought," Delmar said. "Is there anything else about Ullar?"

"I can't hold her for much longer," Denai said. His voice sounded strained. Delmar nodded, and Coren, who was frowning at his brother, opened his mouth.

"We can fight about mother later," Delmar told Coren. "Is there anything else about Ullar?" Coren glanced with distaste at the woman.

"She came to visit with the witches sometimes," Coren said. "They told her that they wanted another body. They thought, without my mother overhearing, or knowing what they were about, that they would be able to split me and Bain into several pieces. They wanted Ajalia. They said she would taste good. Ullar said," Coren added, "that she would bring the witches Ajalia, and they could eat her, and then use the body to stuff with extra pieces from me, or from Bain. My mother would have found out," Coren told Ullar, who was struggling viciously, and who seemed to be gaining some little headway in her fight to free herself from the gentle shell of white.

"Lies," Ullar gasped. Denai let out a grunt, and Ajalia saw him glaring with intent focus at Ullar, his lips pursed hard together. "The boy is lying about me," Ullar said.

"She'll get free in a minute," Denai told Delmar, who nodded.

"If you're lying to me," Delmar told Coren, "or making up stories, I will beat you, and sell you as a slave. I can get Ajalia to find a horrible situation for me. She knows about that kind of thing."

"The king in the far west is always in the market for royalty," Ajalia said to Delmar, but her eyes were fixed on Coren. "I can't tell if he's lying or not," she added. Delmar nodded, and stepped forward to Ullar. He wrapped his hands around Ullar's arms, and restrained her. Delmar gave Denai a swift nod, and the horse trader let out a gasp, and bent down over his knees, breathing hard, the papers and the bundle clutched in his arms.

Ajalia had a thought, and she patted Coren on the arm.

"I'm going to go and get Esther," Ajalia said. "She'll help us know what the witches were planning." Coren, who had, up to this point, looked utterly cool and scornful, started a little. His eyes jittered.

"I'd rather you didn't," Coren said.

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Because you're lying? You know that if you're telling the truth, Ullar might die."

"No," Coren said nervously. "She'll just go to jail." Ullar, who had been watching this exchange closely, and rotating her jaw, laughed.

"The boy lies," Ullar rasped. "He has always been a liar, like his mother. What I told you was not strictly the truth," Ullar told Delmar, "but the boy lies."

"Then what is the truth?" Delmar asked her. Ullar's mouth clammed up.

"Do you know that Bain is dead?" Ajalia asked her. She was growing tired of this scene; she wanted to get back to Philas. Delmar seemed to notice her look of angst, and he jerked his head towards the inside of the temple.

"Philas," Delmar said softly, and Ajalia nodded. She turned and went away, leaving Coren behind. The boy tried to follow Ajalia, but Delmar barked out his name sharply, and Coren stopped, and looked guiltily around. "You are coming with me," Delmar said, his whole body a fixed point of authority and power. Ajalia saw that the boy would not run. Delmar seemed to have mesmerized him into standing, and waiting to be told what to do. Ajalia went towards the room where Philas was bound. She felt an overwhelming desire to curve away into the darkness, and to steal up to her own bed.

Ajalia found that she had been growing tired throughout the whole of this day; she had felt a kind of trembling behind her eyes for some time, but she had ignored it, and told herself that she would wake up from whatever weariness had her in its grip. She found now, as she approached the place where Philas was, that she wanted to run away. She did not want to get away from Delmar, but she wanted to get away from how she felt. Images of the fight between the priests and the witches had been tugging at her, in the back of her mind, for some time, and her whole skin felt jittery.

She was feeling more and more as if she were walking on the edge of a blade, and she felt that if she took a breath wrong, or closed her eyes for a moment, she would topple down, and all that she had seen done so far in Slavithe would tumble down into nothing. She could see that the city was in a state of intense flux; she saw that the priests were weak now, and that the people would be receptive to a purge, or a magic test, to rid the population of the predators that were hiding in plain sight. Ajalia wanted to take a five-minute break; she wanted to stop talking to people, to anyone except for Delmar, and she wanted to curl up against Delmar's chest and make him hold her. She wanted to hear the beating of his heart, and the quiet sound of his breath, and she wanted the whole rest of the world to go away.

Ajalia tried to look into the future, and to see a time when this quiet could be, but all she could see ahead of her was an endless chain of conversations, of tense struggles, of testing the truth among a whole body of lies, and her whole body ached at the prospect. I want to go back to bed, Ajalia told herself, and she almost laughed.

She pictured to herself what would have happened if she had stayed at home, and not interfered in the doings of the people of Slavithe. Delmar, she thought, would still be huddled, starving and abandoned, in the bare room where his mother had kept him. Delmar's father, and his mother, she thought, would be alive, and practicing their awful corruption on the people of the city. Clare would be moping around in the city with baleful eyes, and Ossa, undetected as a witch, would be working black cords of magic through the hearts of the people. Ossa had claimed to be a good witch, but Ajalia saw in the girl's eyes only harmful meddling. She did not believe in the existence of good witches. It was all well and good, she thought, for witches like Ossa or Salla to tell themselves they were good by never stealing, but it wasn't enough. These good witches, as they termed themselves, still tried to control other people, and to plant deep magic in their hearts.

Ajalia thought of Denai, and she was very glad that the horse trader had come around. She found, now that she had been close to losing him, that she relied on him to form a steady backdrop to the doings in the house.

Ajalia came to the door where Philas was, and she paused. She closed her eyes, and thought through the people in the house. She did not think that Ocher was still here, though, she told herself, Clare might have shown the bearded man the secret gate in the back enclosure. Ajalia was sure, from the ardor with which Ocher had regarded his future wife, that the powerful man would be sneaking into the dragon temple at all hours to steal kisses, until he married Clare, and carried her off to his own house.

She thought of Hal, and wondered what the witch hunter had done with the body of Rane, and with the two men, Tree's front men, that had been held in the prison in Ocher's house. Ajalia was sure that this prison was not the secret room where she had gone to fetch Delmar, after she had taken him from his father's house, and given him to Ocher to hold. That secret room had had no kind of restraint, and very simple locks. Ajalia wondered what a dungeon in a Slavithe house looked like; she had seen no kind of a prison anywhere in Slavithe.

She thought of Coren, and she was sorry that she had been right about him. She had hoped, briefly, that the boy would see the light and growth of the people who lived in the dragon temple, and that he would reflect with soberness on the corruption of his upbringing, but she had thought it extremely unlikely that Coren would have the inner strength to undergo a complete transformation of all his past character and habits in less than one day. She had told the boy that he would be good for a time, and that he would upset Delmar, and become a liability. Ajalia was sorry to have been right. She hoped that Delmar would have the sense to deal harshly with the boy. Ajalia thought that Coren needed exposure to a wider world, and long experience of the world outside his parents' house and city. She wanted the boy to be sold, not because she sought to punish him, but because she thought that life as a slave, and labor at the behest of a motivated owner, was the best chance Coren had to become a normal human. The boy, she saw, had been abused by his mother and father, and by the other witches, almost since he could walk, and she thought that life as a slave, doing the work that another commanded, and enforced, would give the boy experience, and teach him the narrowness, and the evil of his place of origin.

Ajalia did not see slavery, in her own case, as an absolute evil. She herself had been abused as a child, and though she had been exposed to greater abuse in her early days as a slave, moving through the wider world, and seeing a variety of people, places, and living situations, had given her perspective, and taught her to see her own awful family as petty and insignificant beings, in the wider world of people and things. Her family still had been within her skin, and had given her much trouble, but she had been able to see, with her conscious mind, what her family was. She remembered the first time she had encountered a happy set of parents and children, when she had first been a slave. She had been travelling with the trader who first took her on, and near them on the road, for two days of their journey, had been a family who were moving to another city, and until those two days, Ajalia had never known that humans could treat each other with decency and kindness within a family. She had watched the travelling family until her own trader had outstripped them, and she had thought about them for months. There had been a pair of sisters, near in age, and Ajalia had never been able to get out of her mind the image of the mother talking to her two daughters, a look of solicitous affection on her face. Ajalia had worn in her heart, like a talisman, the expression of trust and love that had shone out of the sisters' faces, when they had looked at their mother, and this experience had given Ajalia hope. It had taught her that her mother was not like other mothers, and that her family had not been a functional one.

Coren, Ajalia thought, did not understand how much he was worth to others. Now that the secrets she needed had been gotten out of the boy, she saw that Coren still thought of himself as an essential linchpin, a turning point in the affairs of Slavithe. Ajalia did not believe that everything the boy had told them about Ullar and Bain was true; she did not particularly care what the truth was. She had heard enough, and seen enough herself, to know that both Ullar, and Lilleth, and Bain, and Coren had behaved badly, and were tainted with internal darkness. Once Ajalia was sure of the darkness inside Coren, and once she was sure that he liked to use the darkness, and had no real desire to be filled with light, she had disengaged from the boy. She would no longer seek to protect him, and if Delmar failed to deal effectively with the boy, she would encourage Delmar to deal mercilessly with the child.

Ajalia leaned her temple against the cool surface of the wall, and made a swift litany of those who were within her house. Chad, she remembered, was watching Esther. Chad had surprised Ajalia; she never would have guessed, or dared to hope, that he would turn into the paragon of usefulness that he had seemed to be today. She suspected, and hoped, that the transformation was a permanent one. Chad, she thought, had learned very suddenly to respect himself. Chad saw himself now, she reflected, as a man, and as a capable and effective instrument.

She thought back to the way the dark-haired young man had been when she had first met him, and hired him, and she smiled. Chad was almost unrecognizable now. She thought of Esther, and of the way Chad had worked over the young woman with the lights he had drawn from the earth and sky. She hoped that Esther would choose to be true, and honorable. She knew, or she thought, that Chad would be disappointed if Esther devolved into darkness, but, she told herself, such an event would prove to be a testing ground for Chad's new awesomeness. She would find out then if he was as wonderful as he now seemed, or if it was a temporary flare of effort that he was putting forth in the excitement of the moment. She hoped that Chad would be as wonderfully confident and sure in a time of settled peace, as he was now, in a time of conflict and transition.

She was thoroughly satisfied with Leed, and with Daniel. She had a vision of those two as grown-up young men, and she thought that they, and many of her boys, would be invaluable to Delmar's government, when life settled down, and time passed.

Ajalia yawned, and then she went into the room where Philas was bound.

Philas was sitting back in the chair that was encircled tightly with golden lights. He had stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles, and he was staring thoughtfully at a far wall. He looked over at Ajalia, when she came in, and then settled back into the position he had been in. Ajalia expected Philas to speak to her, but the slave looked as though he had been thinking of what to do, and Ajalia suspected that Philas wanted to gain the upper hand through a determined and prolonged silence.

"Did you like Sun?" Ajalia asked, sitting down, and curling her legs beneath her. Philas sighed, and settled his head more deeply against the back of the chair.

"Did you spend our master's money on this furniture?" Philas asked drily, closing his eyes. Ajalia saw that Philas was trying to rile her up, to put her on the defensive.

"I told Sun that she wasn't allowed to kiss you," Ajalia said. Philas grinned in spite of himself.

"I wouldn't kiss a little girl like that," he said, but Ajalia didn't believe him.

"Are you going to be king?" Ajalia asked. Philas laughed.

"You aren't going to let go of that, are you?" he asked.

"No," Ajalia said. "It would be satisfying to me, to have put two men onto the throne, all in the space of a few months."

"You'd have to come with me," Philas said, watching Ajalia closely, "or I'd never do it."

"Why?" she asked. "So you could trap me into corners, and tell me you were only kissing me to show me how much I really loved you?" Philas's jocular expression wilted.

"That doesn't make any sense," he snapped.

"It makes a lot of sense to you," she said. "That's what you did before, and you thought it was going to work." Philas shifted uncomfortably.

"Let's talk about me being king," Philas said.

"Do you think master would want one of his former slaves to be the ruling monarch of Saroyan?" Ajalia asked. Philas scowled, and Ajalia saw that she had hit on a tender spot. "Is that what Lim was holding over your head?" Ajalia asked. "He found out who you were, and he threatened to tell master?"

"No," Philas said in complaining tones. "He didn't know anything about me. He thought I was blackmailing someone else, and he stole my things."

"The papers, and the knife," Ajalia said. Philas nodded.

"I didn't know he still had them," Philas said. "I tried to get the things back a few times, but Lim convinced me that someone had already stolen them. I didn't think I'd ever get them back again."

"You asked me if I would marry you," Ajalia said suddenly, remembering. "You wanted to know if I would say yes to marrying you, if you were the king of Saroyan." Philas regarded her warily.

"I probably didn't say that," Philas said. His voice was guarded.

PHILAS UNDERGOES A PURGE

"I don't think I would make a very good queen," Ajalia said. She thought with satisfaction of Delmar, and sighed. Delmar, she told herself, is perfect.

"You're only saying that because you want to be Delmar's wife," Philas said bitterly. Ajalia looked at Philas.

"Yes," she said. "I do want to be Delmar's wife." Philas's mouth, which was already turned down in a frown, deepened now into an angry snarl.

"That is not fair," Philas said. "And anyway, why are you sitting here and talking to me, if you only want Delmar?"

"Well," Ajalia said, "you came here, to my house, and told me you wanted money."

"I don't want your money," Philas snapped. "So great, there you go. Let me out of this chair."

"No," Ajalia said.

"Why not?" Philas demanded.

"Because if master comes here, I will have to tell him that I had the real heir to the Saroyan throne all tidily tied up in one of my rooms, and he asked me to let him go, so I did. I would feel embarrassed to say this to master. You are," Ajalia said, "after all, master's property. He paid for you."

"He paid for you as well," Philas growled, his eyes lit up with the fire of indignation.

"Yes," Ajalia said smoothly, "and look at me. Here I am, doing exactly what my master would like me to do."

"You said you'd been adopted by the people of Slavithe," Philas snapped.

"I have been," Ajalia said. "And I'm going to marry the new Thief Lord. And I'm going to remain on cordial terms with master. Did you know that all the people of Slavithe were once slaves? I'm going to turn into a cultural mascot. To master, as I am now, I'm a goldmine." Philas looked as though he were silently gnashing his teeth. Ajalia watched him. She felt much calmer now than she had only a few moments ago. Watching Philas, and his turmoil of emotion, made her feel positively at peace with herself, and with life. She smiled.

"What are you smiling about, you hypocrite?" Philas growled.

"I think master will convince you to be king," Ajalia said. "Anyway, I'm free now, and it's quite nice."

"You aren't free," Philas half-shouted, straining forward out of his chair. "I'm never going to be free, and neither are you."

"Are you upset because you really want to be king, and you think it won't happen?" Ajalia asked. "Is your mother still alive?" Philas settled back into an angry silence. "I would like to meet your mother, I think," Ajalia said. "Is she a nice woman?"

"I don't want to talk about my mother," Philas said, his cheeks reddening in the dusky light from the lamp.

"I think you're blushing," Ajalia told him. "I think she must be a very nice woman, and you're ashamed. Shall we talk about that?"

"Why can't you go away and leave me alone?" Philas howled in despair.

"I can't leave you here," Ajalia told him. "I would find it embarrassing. I don't usually have to tie people up to make them talk to me." She thought of Coren, and of how the boy had been hog-tied when he had first come to the dragon temple.

"Then let me out of this chair," Philas said, smiling a sickly smile, "and I will talk to you then."

"No," Ajalia said. "You're violent."

"I am not!" Philas shouted, his hair wild, and his half-grown beard tangled around his chin.

"You look awful," Ajalia said in a friendly voice. "Do you think you're going to calm down at any point, or is this raging and struggling going to last for days?" Philas glared at her.

"It will last for weeks," Philas growled. Ajalia had an idea; she clapped her hands together.

"I know what I will do," Ajalia said brightly. Philas regarded her suspiciously, a deep line between his eyebrows.

"What?" he asked grudgingly, after she did not continue. Ajalia looked at Philas, her lips twisted to one side.

"I am deciding whether or not I will tell you," she said. "My plan could work out better, if I didn't tell."

"What plan?" Philas asked. He sounded interested in spite of himself, and Ajalia's tone and demeanor, she could see, were softening the angry slave. He was leaning forward as much as he could, and his fingers were no longer grasping vigorously at the empty air. Ajalia realized, for the first time, that she was actually pleasant to be around. She had a picture in her mind suddenly, of what Philas's life must be like, and of how empty and ragged he felt in his heart. She pictured Philas without her, and then she imagined what he actually felt when he was around her, and hearing her make plans, and work deals. She told herself that Philas was bored, and that she was like an engaging show. I am better than liquor, she told herself, and though she was tempted to smile, she turned her attention on Philas as he was now, and thought of how to use her newly discovered power to get him to do what she wanted.

"Ocher was a lot like you, when I first met him," Ajalia said.

"Who's Ocher?" Philas asked resentfully.

"He was the man who managed much of the quarry business for Simon," Ajalia said.

"Who's Simon?" Philas demanded, his eyes darkening. Ajalia saw that he felt very out of the loop. She did not glance at the door, but she wondered what Delmar had decided to do with Coren, and with Ullar. Denai, she thought, would be all right, but then she remembered how Delmar had not trusted the horse trader, and she started to her feet. "Where are you going now?" Philas complained loudly, as Ajalia went to the door, and looked out at the place where Ullar and Denai had been. She could see no one. She crossed quickly through the empty floor, and came at last to the door of Denai's room. She hesitated for a moment. She told herself that Denai would not be there. She told herself that she was too late, and that Delmar would have turned on Denai, and inflicted some punishment on the horse trader. She knocked on the door.

After a moment, when she heard no answer, Ajalia opened the door, and looked inside. The room was dark, but she saw a muffled form on the bed.

"What do you want?" Coren demanded. Ajalia's eyes adjusted, and she saw that the boy was tied up again.

"Where's Delmar?" she asked.

"He's gone out with Denai, to do something to Ullar, I don't know what," Coren said bitterly. "They tied me up again. Denai tied me up," he added with a bitter sneer. "Delmar didn't want to touch me, I guess."

"All right, thank you, sleep well," Ajalia said, and she shut the door on Coren, whom she heard complaining loudly. She thought she heard the phrase, "let me go," but then the boy subsided once again into silence. Ajalia went back to the room where Philas was bound to the comfortable chair.

"At least it's a lovely chair," she told Philas, who glared at her.

"Where did you go?" he asked her, in a voice that was not friendly in the least.

"Checking on Coren," Ajalia said.

"Well, that doesn't mean anything to me," Philas complained. Ajalia was again tempted to laugh, but she reminded herself that civility now could buy a prosperous trade relationship with Saroyan later. She was almost sure now that Philas would become king, in the same way she had decided that Delmar would be the Thief Lord, and whenever Ajalia reached these inner determinations, she found that they came to pass more speedily than not. She was sure, if she did decide to make Philas king, that he would remember very clearly every detail of their exchange tonight. She did not want to needlessly tease or humiliate Philas.

Ajalia looked at Philas for a moment, and she tried to see his future. She could see nothing within him but a swirl of fog. Curious, Ajalia reached below the floor of the dragon temple, and closed one hand around a bright line of red light. As she talked to Philas, she studied his insides.

"Coren is the youngest son of the last Thief Lord," Ajalia said. She told herself that she was buying time, and that if Philas was to be the king, he would have to know these things anyway. She was not sure yet if she wanted to make Philas king, but the idea intrigued her, and made her insides tingle with excitement. She had already thought of binding together Salveith and Talbos into a brace of thriving lands, intertwined with strong ties and heavy trade agreements, but now she thought of adding a third city. Slavithe, Talbos, and Saroyan, she thought, and she very nearly licked her lips. She was only partly thinking of her master now; a large part of her mind was turning over the shape of the future, of her future with Delmar, and thinking of what a fine thing it would be, to have three cities tied closely together into a symbiotic triangle of prosperity. Her master, she thought, would never turn down such a prize, but she herself was turning over the possibilities, and they were manifold and glorious.

"The Thief Lord who was in power when we came in the caravan," Ajalia told Philas, "was named Simon. He was a prince from Talbos. His father, the king of Talbos, banished him when he was a young man, and sold him as a slave to Saroyan." Philas's eyes brightened with interest at this news.

"Really?" he said, and then he seemed to hear how friendly he sounded, and he clamped down his mouth again over his tongue. This time Ajalia did smile, but not in a mocking way.

"Yes," Ajalia said. "Simon was a slave, and the man who was then the Thief Lord in Slavithe, a man named Tree, sent to Saroyan, and bought Simon."

"How did Simon become the Thief Lord?" Philas demanded. Ajalia saw that Philas was forgetting the indignity of his position; Philas was clearly being drawn into the tense interest of the city, which Ajalia herself had begun to lose herself in some time ago. Ajalia settled down in a chair, her fingers tight over the cord of red light, and she began, very slowly, to lift through the lights in Philas's soul, and to sift away the fog of gray that was over his whole being. She could see no colors in Philas; there was only a thick, ugly mass of obscuring gray. She wondered if this was the result of drink, or of Philas's attitude towards himself, and his rough treatment of others. Ajalia thought that perhaps it was a combination of both. Her mouth pattered on, her mind fixed only partially on the recital she gave, as she began to run a light mesh of red color slowly through Philas's soul. The red mesh burned away some of the fog, and revealed a slightly thinner layer of gray beneath it.

"The king of Talbos is Delmar's grandfather," Ajalia told Philas, her eyes fixed on his chest as she spoke. "The king of Talbos was the father of Simon, who is the father to Delmar, and to Coren."

"There are three sons," Philas interrupted. Ajalia nodded without looking away from what she was doing.

"Delmar is the oldest, then there is Wall, who is eighteen, and Coren, whom you have met," she said. "Wall has run away with Yelin, and is hiding in some cave that Delmar and Coren know about. Delmar has sent for him. I imagine Wall and Yelin will appear in my house shortly, guarded." Ajalia shifted her shoulders a little, and sighed. "Tree was the Thief Lord, and he was married to a witch. They really do have magic here," Ajalia added, glancing up at Philas, who grimaced, and wiggled his fingers within the restraints that held his arms down.

"Apparently," Philas said.

"Yes, the magic is real," Ajalia said, looking again at Philas's soul. "It took me a while to come to terms with it, but they do magic here, and there are witches. The witches are evil," she said, "and there are priests who have no power, but who try to hunt and destroy the witches. I am not sure what purpose the priests serve here," she said. "They, I think, teach basic magic to the boy children, and they might teach some traditions, but everyone seems to hate the priests, and the priests can't seem to fight against the witches at all. The Thief Lord has a large body of men under his command, called the witch hunters, and they track and destroy the witches, when they are found."

"Witches," Philas said, sounding a little amused.

"Yes," Ajalia said, nodding. "Witches. I have one in the house now, under close guard. She does not seem to be as bad as the others were. We had a fight here, last night," Ajalia said. "A spy from Talbos came here, and told me that you were in the city. He said I was needed at a meeting with some of the other spies, and one man that I already knew. Anyway, when I came back from that, some witches got into the house, and tried to kidnap Coren."

"Coren is the youngest son," Philas said, as though he were practicing. Ajalia nodded.

"Delmar is the Thief Lord now," she said. "His mother was a witch, and I killed her. His father was corrupt, and now he's dead as well. Anyway, there were witches here last night, and they were followed in by a large group of priests. The priests killed some of the witches, and then Ocher helped me kill the rest of the priests." Philas, who had followed this speech with lowered brows, now looked at her.

"This all sounds very chaotic," he said. Ajalia nodded. "It sounds like a war," Philas added, and Ajalia remembered the time in the woods, when Philas told her that there would be a war.

"Not a war like I expected," Ajalia said. "We aren't going to have that kind of war. It's a war of magic." She had sifted away much of the gray fog from Philas's soul now, and a thin, battered remnant of soul was revealed.

Philas was composed of pure gold, and of iridescent reds and jewel greens, but the colors were exceedingly thin, and only faint gleams of light remained. Ajalia dug into the earth for the lights, but then she stopped.

"Philas," she said.

"Yes," Philas said, looking thoughtful.

"I'm going to see if you are able to do any magic," Ajalia said. "I have tried, before this, to help people get their lost selves back, and it hasn't worked out the way I wanted it do. It did with Delmar," she said quickly, "but he already knows how to reach into himself. I think the others I have done this to have not known how to maintain a strong connection to themselves, so the change has not lasted."

"What are you saying about my lost self?" Philas asked jokingly. "Can you see it?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes, actually," Ajalia replied. "I can see it."

She went to the lamp that lay on the floor near the door, and carried it to a table near the chair where she had been sitting. She drew the table close to her chair, and then sat down again.

"What does my soul look like?" Philas asked, squirming a little, and grinning. Ajalia got the slim leather book, the one she had given to Leed to read, out of her bag, and opened it up. "What's that?" Philas asked her. Ajalia retrieved the translation stone, and began to skim through the book. She was looking not for a particular word or phrase, but for a kind of feeling. She remembered what Leed had told her, and she knew that the book taught how to connect to the lights of the earth and sky.

"It's a book about magic," Ajalia said, turning a page.

"Are you going to teach me how to conjure things?" Philas asked, his lips twitching irreverently.

"Yes," Ajalia said. "I'm going to try that." Philas saw that she was serious, and his own face grew sober.

"Is that what happened to your scars?" he asked, after a brief pause. "Did you magic them away?"

"Yes," Ajalia said, her eyes flicking from the translation stone to the pages of the book. The book was not terrifically long, and she had an idea that what she was looking for would be in the first third of its pages. She found it, after some searching, and began, laboriously, to read aloud. "When you have found a being," she read out, pausing between each word, and checking the change in the letters from old to contemporary Slavithe. Many of the spellings were either the same, or similar enough to be comprehensible, for which Ajalia was profoundly grateful. "Who is detached from the land and sky," she read. "You must first remove the smirches of corruption from the soul. None but a pure heart can find attachment in the colors of the earth."

When Ajalia reached this part, she glanced up at Philas, and looked for further evidence of darkness. She had strained away the dark gray fog, but she looked now for the ugly colored shadows that had been in Delmar, and in the witches, and in Minna. She did not know what these shadows were, but she was sure that they were not pure, or desirable.

"What are you looking at me for?" Philas asked. He sounded a little nervous. He had been listening to her read from the book, and he had grown gradually quieter and more somber. Ajalia remembered the time that Delmar had begun to tell her more about the magic. I thought he was mad, Ajalia remembered, and she smiled. She had the cord of red light twisted around her hand, and the light made a gentle glow against her skin.

"I'm looking for corruption in you," Ajalia said. Philas let out a bark of laughter. Ajalia found the place where the shadows lingered, in between the spaces of Philas's ribs, and she quickly formed a white ball of mixed light, from the sky and earth. Philas, she found, could hear the crackle of the shivering white light. He sat up in alarm.

"What are you doing now?" he demanded.

"Burning out the corruption," Ajalia said, and she sent the crackling ball of white light straight at Philas's ribcage. Philas took in a sharp breath when the magic hit him. He looked as though he was experiencing an awful cramp in his chest.

"Well, that is not comfortable," Philas told her. "Don't do magic on me anymore, okay?" Ajalia mixed another ball, and sent it at Philas's neck, where some of the colored shadows had begun to show. The places where the shadows had lain in between his ribs were glowing brightly now in his soul, and the dark shadows were dripping down towards the floor. "Ow," Philas said, twisting his neck. "Did you do it again?" he demanded. "Stop it," he added. "And also, I don't believe in magic."

"I didn't, either," Ajalia said. She watched more ugly shadows peep up in Philas's hips, and around his spine. She made a face, which Philas clearly noted, because he took in a breath.

"Please don't do more things to me," Philas said. "Why do you look like that?"

"Because there are awful shadows all through your body. They're tucked in around all of your bones. Is that why you drink?" she asked suddenly. She began to gather a length of light from the stars above, and tangle them around her fingers. Philas was watching her warily.

"I drink because I can," he said cautiously, "and because I'm a terrible person, and drinking helps me live with myself."

"I've been learning things about myself," Ajalia said, reaching deep into the earth for the red-gold lights that burned hard and bright. "I've been finding out that I can do things to other people. I can change the way people's souls look."

"That's not possible," Philas said stubbornly. "Souls aren't real."

"Yours is gold," Ajalia said. "Delmar's is kind of like that, but he has a lot more blue and green. You have red in your soul." Philas looked a little shaken by the sincerity in her voice, but he shook his head.

"Magic isn't real," he said. "I'm probably hallucinating."

"Sure," Ajalia said agreeably, and then she sent a thick bolt of blue magic straight at Philas's heart. Philas gasped as though he had been stabbed through the chest; his body arched against the golden lights that bound him to the chair, and his arms strained upwards.

"Oh," he said, in a long, drawn-out breath. His whole body was heaving, as though he had just come up from deep underwater, and Ajalia watched with satisfaction as the dark, colored shadows bled away from Philas. She turned her attention back to the pages of the book, and began to read.

"When the soul is clean," she read slowly, "and the heart is prepared, the subject must desire the mother earth; he must—" here, Ajalia came to a word she did not recognize, and she pored over the translation stone. She put her lower lip between her teeth, and slowly worked out the shape of the unfamiliar word.

Philas was still heaving like a bellows; his eyes were bright, and he looked thoroughly awake.

"That actually felt kind of good," he said brightly, and Ajalia told herself that Philas had been drinking to cover the sensations those shadows had made in his body. She glanced up at him, and saw that the dark, sallow look he had worn into the dragon temple earlier that day was completely gone. Philas looked ten years younger; his complexion was bright, and his eyes were darting around the room eagerly, as if he was looking for something challenging to do.

"Embrasure," Ajalia said cautiously. "He must, um, embrasure the lights of the earth. I'm not exactly sure what that means," Ajalia told Philas. "I would guess that you need to take pieces of your own soul, and wind them down into the gold lights that run deep beneath the earth. That is something like what I did to Delmar, when I healed him."

"Are there lights under the earth?" Philas asked. He looked jittery, as though he were itching to go for a long run. "Are you going to come with me to Saroyan?" he demanded impatiently. "I've decided that I'm going to be king there," he added. "I'm going to try, anyway," he said with a grin. "Hey," Philas said quickly, before Ajalia could speak, "I'm really sorry I was such an ass. I was really awful. There's no excuse for it. I'm sorry. Can I apologize to Delmar, before I go?" he added anxiously. "I'm sorry I'm taking up so much of your time like this. And I'm sorry I lied to you before. I did know that Lim had my stuff. I mean, I was pretty sure he had it, but I could never find it. I'm really sorry, Jay," he said again. A look of genuine pain was coming into his eyes, and growing there, like a deep sorrow. "I'm sorry," Philas said. "Hey, I shouldn't have asked you to come with me. I need to do all that myself. Becoming king, I mean," he explained. He was speaking so rapidly that Ajalia could only stare at him. His words washed over her like an avalanche. "I remember the time that you said I was only chasing after you because you'd met Delmar," he said in a rush. "That was probably true, you know. I mean," he said, looking chagrined, "it is true. I did do that. I always liked you, I mean I like being around you, but I got jealous. I could see you liked somebody. You were kind of glowy, and stuff. Anyway, I was a real jerk, and I'm sorry." Philas stopped, and drew a deep breath. He switched into the Eastern tongue, and his words began to flow more quickly. "I should never have kissed you, or pretended that I was the one who made you glow, and I'm really sorry, and if you like, I'll go away to Saroyan, and I'm going to be king there, and I won't forget that you believed in me, and I'm sorry for drinking so much, and I was kind of rude to Darien and Leed, which was also wrong, and I should have sent Leed back sooner, because he was really useful, and I wanted to keep him away from you because I was jealous, and you don't need to forgive me or anything, because you can be super angry forever and ever, and I will just have to deal with how much you dislike me, because I actually do deserve it." Philas stopped, and took in another long breath. "So I'm sorry," he said. He frowned. "And please don't forgive me for a long time," he added, "because I have to prove that I'm really different, and I don't think I even like myself anymore, so don't do that. Unless you want to. And I do want to speak to Delmar. I'll stay here in this chair and be very quiet," he added quickly, "if you want me to. Oh!" he said, as though a new thought had only just occurred to him. He starting talking again in the Slavithe language. "I'm sorry if you felt like I was pressuring you," he said in Slavithe. "I just wanted to say I was sorry. I can—I mean, I won't speak the East anymore. And don't tell me if you want me to or not, because that is rude of me to even bring it up. Never mind. I'm sorry again. And for that, too. You wanted me to connect to the earth. Are there lights in the earth? Should I do that now?"

Philas looked anxiously at Ajalia, his lips working back and forth. Ajalia, who had been sitting beneath this tirade of words in something like shock, opened her mouth, and then closed it without saying anything. They sat in silence for a few minutes; Ajalia could see that Philas wanted to say a great deal more, but that he was restraining himself for her sake.

"I'll come back," Ajalia said, and she put her leather book back into her bag, and slowly left the room. She walked towards the back of the dragon temple, towards the stairs, and she thought about what Philas had said. She had thought he had changed before, when he had been forced to stop drinking, but that had been before she had learned to see the colors of people's souls. She wondered now if Philas could have transformed so much in the space of a few seconds. Ajalia trusted herself, but she had been duped by Philas before, and she wanted a second opinion. She went up to the second floor, and poked around until she found Leed, who was sleeping just inside her room again. The boy was curled into a tight ball on the floor. Ajalia shook Leed awake. Leed sat up, rubbing his eyes, and stifled a yawn.

"What do you need me for?" Leed asked.

"Come and tell me if Philas is lying to me," Ajalia said softly. Leed's eyes gleamed in the darkness, but he stood up, and followed Ajalia. She locked her door again, and went with the boy to the stairs. "How are you getting in my room?" she asked. Her voice was not angry in the least; she was curious. She did not mind Leed staying in the room; the boy was like a lucky talisman to her, and he had said he didn't like sleeping around other boys. She understood his desire to have a private space.

"I climb down to the balcony from the roof," Leed said. "I climb down on the carving of the dragon's tail." Ajalia nodded. They passed down the stairs, and came into the darkened hall. "What is Philas doing here?" Leed asked. Ajalia had a hard time keeping track of who knew what in the dragon temple; she wanted to get into a calm and steady routine, but she suspected that Slavithe, and consequently, the dragon temple, would be in upheaval for some time yet.

"He came for money, like you said," Ajalia said. "Now we are talking about other things."

"Did you give him the money?" Leed asked with a smile. Ajalia grinned, and said that she hadn't. Leed's smile widened, and he shoved his hands into his ragged pockets.

"I need to get you new clothes," Ajalia observed.

"I can get them myself," Leed said easily. "I'm going with Fashel to market tomorrow."

"Oh," Ajalia said, and smiled. She was reminded, once again, of how much she liked Leed.

"Isacar is going out in the morning," Leed said, "to bring all of your boys to the temple. We're going to make an army." Leed glanced at Ajalia, as if gauging her reaction to this news. Ajalia waited, and said nothing. "We're going to recruit more boys from the city," Leed said, "and rescue the boys that the priests have hidden. Esther told us about them," the boy added. "First we have to get your other boys into shape, the cleaning boys." Ajalia nodded, and Leed seemed to relax. "Daniel thought you'd fuss, but I told him we would need a lot of soldiers who could do magic. We're all practicing a lot," he told her. "Chad's very good at everything. We're going to make a schedule, so that all the new boys will know everything they can. Everyone's going to learn flying, tomorrow."

Ajalia and Leed drew near the door where the light shone out.

"I really hope you don't mind me doing all this," Leed told her seriously. The boy's face was drawn in a somber mask. He looked like a mature general. "I told you that I was going to take care of you, and help you, and I'm going to do as I said. We're posting guards," Leed added, as if he had just remembered. "You can't see any of them," he added with a grin, "and we're all taking shifts. That's part of why we need more boys."

"Tell Fashel tomorrow," Ajalia said, pausing outside the door, "that I'll get more money for food when she needs it. And tell her that when she is ready, I will get some kitchen maids for her." Leed nodded.

"It's very exciting," Leed said seriously, "making things happen, isn't it?"

"Yes," Ajalia said, smiling at him, "it is." She went into the room, and Leed followed her. Philas started to speak, and then seemed to catch himself. He saw Leed, but his expression remained the same.

"I was going to apologize again," Philas told Ajalia, "but I don't want to be rude." He looked at Leed for a minute, and Ajalia saw a cloud of anxiety pass over Philas's brow, similar to the look of pain he had worn when he looked at her. "I hurt you, didn't I?" Philas asked Leed. Leed looked at Philas without saying anything. "He'll never forgive me," Philas told Ajalia. He wiggled under the golden bindings. "I can't reach my clothes," Philas told Leed, "but you can have all of my money, instead of an apology."

Leed's eyes flashed; he went straight to Philas, and then turned, and came back to Ajalia.

"Do you have scissors, or a knife in that bag?" Leed asked Ajalia. She got out the tiny knife she used for sewing, and Leed took it. "Thanks," he said. The boy went to Philas and began, efficiently, to retrieve money from the seams of his clothes.

"I thought you'd figured out where it all was," Philas told Leed. He watched the boy work. "He's fast," Philas told Ajalia. "His eyes are fast. I think he knows more about me now than you do."

"Of course I do," Leed said. "I'm younger, and I wasn't used to you before. Ajalia remembered what you were like before Talbos, so she wouldn't have seen how mean you got inside."

Ajalia saw Philas open his mouth to protest, but then he caught himself again, and looked ashamed. Philas looked up at Ajalia. Leed was moving around him like a miniature tailor, leaving rents and open seams behind him.

"Leed's right, you know," Philas said sorrowfully. "I did get mean."

"I know that," Ajalia said. "Leed thinks he can outstrip me, if he copies things that I say. It won't work," she told the boy again.

"I can try though," Leed said with a grin. "You said you didn't mind."

"I don't want you to wallow in excessive sorrow," Ajalia told Philas. "I want you to become king."

"What's this?" Leed said, pausing over the final seam, and looking around. "King? King of where?" he demanded. Ajalia held back a smile; she was glad she had gone and gotten Leed from upstairs. Leed, she thought, was like a detector for interesting facts. He would dig through Philas with her, and catch anything that she missed.

"The king of Saroyan," Philas said slowly. Leed glared at Philas, and then looked around at Ajalia.

"He's not lying about that," Leed said.

"That's not what I want your help with," Ajalia said. "I want to know if he's lying about changing."

Leed pursed his lips, and looked narrowly at Philas.

"Hang on," Leed said, and finished fishing coins out of Philas's clothes. Leed retreated with his sizeable hoard, and made a swift accounting of what he had found.

"You missed one," Philas told the boy. Philas glanced over at Ajalia. "There are two jewels inside the sole of my shoe," he said. Leed was at his feet at once, and digging at the bottom of Philas's shoes. The boy let out a shout of triumph, and retreated once again, two gleaming emeralds in his hand. Philas looked very much like a dresser with the drawers all pulled out. His clothes were awry, and his skin showed in a few places. The heel of one of his shoes had been twisted open. Philas looked like a ravaged doll.

"That was honest of you," Leed told Philas. "I think he might be all right, now," Leed told Ajalia.

"We'll see," Ajalia told the boy. "Apologize to me again," she told Philas. "Watch him for me," she told Leed. Philas's face went ablaze.

THE KINGS OF SAROYAN

"But," Philas said meekly, his eyes a little rimmed with terror, "Leed doesn't know everything."

"I don't care," Ajalia said. "I don't think you should mind, if you mean that you're sorry." Philas chewed on his lips for a moment, and then he nodded slowly.

"I guess," Philas said hesitantly. He drew a deep breath, and his cheeks were brilliant red.

"I think he is sorry," Leed told Ajalia frankly. "I've never, ever seen Philas blush."

"Philas is an accomplished liar," Ajalia said, without malice. "Hear what he has to say."

"All right," Leed said. "But I think he's all right. I think you're all right," Leed told Philas. Philas looked a tiny bit less terrified now.

"Ajalia met Delmar, and I could see that she liked someone, and I was jealous, because no one ever likes me, and I felt good around Ajalia, and so I tricked her into thinking that the someone she liked was really me. And it was a lousy thing to do," Philas said to Ajalia. "And I'm sorry, and you'll never forgive me, and Delmar is welcome to punch me when he comes back."

"Does Delmar know you did all this?" Leed asked. Ajalia thought this was a little disingenuous of the boy, since he had been around her at the time, and had observed much of the jostling between Delmar and Philas, but she said nothing.

"He knows most of it," Philas said. "I told her I wanted to say I was sorry to him," he added quickly, "and I mean it. I'm sorry for being an ass," he told Ajalia. "I don't think you want an apology," he said to Leed, who interrupted quickly.

"I don't," Leed said fiercely.

"But I hope you can take the money and jewels as payment for me being so rude, and I hope we can move forward now, and you'll give me another chance, even though I don't deserve one." Philas finished this sentence in a great rush, and then he took in a deep breath. "And that's all," he said lamely. Leed turned to Ajalia.

"I don't understand why you needed me," Leed told her. "He's obviously not lying."

"Yes," Ajalia said, "but I want him to learn magic, and if you think he's going to go sour again, we'd better not do that." Leed looked at Philas with renewed interest.

"Oh," Leed said, and Ajalia knew the boy was looking at Philas's soul. "You cleaned him up inside, didn't you?" he asked Ajalia. Ajalia nodded.

"I've put light into people before," she told the boy, "but it seems to wear off on most of them. I want to see what happens if we teach Philas to connect himself."

"To connect to the earth and sky," Leed said, nodding. Ajalia knew the boy understood what she wanted.

"I looked in the book," Ajalia said. "That's why I cleared out the darkness in him first. I got to the part about embrasure." Leed nodded, and stuck the money and jewels into his pockets. He kept one hand there, and Ajalia knew he was holding on tightly to the treasures. Leed went and stood in front of Philas, and began, in a very business-like manner, to speak to him.

"What Ajalia is saying," Leed said, "is that she has a lot of light and color inside. You already know this, since you tried to poach her from Delmar." Philas's lips thinned a little, but he said nothing to contradict what Leed had said. "Because there is so much light inside of Ajalia," Leed said, "she can lend it to people, but the light gets used up over time. It's like water, running through in a stream. If the water is running out of a small pool, and if there is no inlet, the water will all run out." Leed glared importantly at Philas, who was watching him, and listening. "Are you following me here?" Leed demanded. Philas did not smile. Philas nodded meekly. Ajalia frowned. She was impressed. Perhaps, she told herself, Philas would turn out all right. She did not want to think that Philas would turn out all right, because she had thought the same about Coren, and Coren had started to lie again within a day.

Leed began to pace up and down the middle of the room, his fingers still in his pocket, and closed around the things he had taken from Philas.

"So what Ajalia has done," Leed said, "is to remove the obstructions in your stream. You had a lot of obstructions," Leed said, "because of the drinking, and the lying." Philas nodded. His eyes were following Leed as the boy walked up and down the room. "Now," Leed said, "You are very old, and set in your ways." Philas's lips twitched at the edges, when Leed told him that he was very old, but he straightened his face, and listened soberly. "You have established a pattern of lying, and of tricking others, to get things that you want."

Leed stopped walking, and drew his hand out of his pocket. He folded his arms, and looked sternly at Philas.

"You are apologetic now," Leed said, "because you see that what you have done has hurt Ajalia, who is innocent." Ajalia did not feel innocent, but she restrained herself from interrupting. "All you have to do," Leed lectured, "is to use your bad ways for good. For example," Leed said, "Delmar is a liar."

"How do you know that Delmar is a liar?" Ajalia demanded. She did not disagree with Leed, but she did not think that Leed would know that about Delmar. Leed barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. He looked patiently at Ajalia.

"Because he lies," Leed said, as if that explained everything. "Fortunately for Delmar," Leed told Philas, "he has many occasions on which to lie in useful ways. He can lie to spies, or he can mislead his people, and have a stronger government because of it. We're at war right now," Leed said, "but you would never know, because Ajalia is too innocent to realize how many people are going to die, and because Delmar is an excellent liar. You can't see in the streets how fraught everything in Slavithe is right now."

"I don't think I'm innocent," Ajalia put in, but Leed shushed her, waving a hand.

"Philas knows what I mean, don't you Philas?" Leed demanded. Philas, glancing apologetically at Ajalia, nodded. Ajalia's mouth turned into a grim line. I am not innocent, she told herself, and glared at both of them. "So anyway," Leed said, "you are already a liar, and if you don't lie for something good, like becoming king, you'll end up lying for something bad, like sex. Or tricking Ajalia again. And then she'll never forgive you," Leed added, frowning. Philas looked at Ajalia again.

"How am I going to lie, in order to become king?" Philas asked. He looked quite interested now in what Leed was telling him. Ajalia was impressed with Leed's way of speaking. She was sure that if the boy had led off with a lecture about magic, Philas would not have listened so closely, or attended so well.

"You'll do what Ajalia did here," Leed said easily. Leed glanced at Ajalia. "You'll probably have to stay here, in Slavithe, until the war is over," the boy said, "but that will only take a few weeks. We're going to hunt down the witches ourselves," Leed told Ajalia. "I didn't tell you that yet. Don't tell Delmar," he added. "I want to tell him myself. Anyway," he said, resuming his pacing, and looking sidelong at Philas. "You'll have to stay here for a while, and then, once things are settled, and I'm not needed to take care of Ajalia, I'll come to Saroyan with you, and be your helper. Like Ajalia was, for Delmar."

Philas looked both amused and intrigued.

"And what help would you be to me?" Philas asked. He spoke in the voice of a monarch, testing a subject. Ajalia saw for the first time what Philas would be like, as a king. She knew then, when the picture of Philas on a throne, a crown upon his head, and a scepter in his hand, filled up her mind, that he would be king. It was no longer a possibility to her, but a fact.

"I will do for you what Ajalia did for Delmar," Leed said patiently. "I will believe in you, and tell you what is most important, and I will watch the people there, and take care of things. You know that Ajalia killed people, for Delmar," Leed said seriously. "Delmar would never have taken power without her. He was too close to things, and he did not know—well," Leed said, "he still doesn't know how much the people here want him to be the Thief Lord. Ajalia saw that, and made it so."

"And you think people there will want me?" Philas asked. He looked like a child who is asking for love; Ajalia saw, in an instant, a long stretch of the future, and of Leed walking beside Philas as she moved with Delmar, guiding him, and shaping him into a glorious monarch.

"Of course they will," Leed said simply, without any pause. "Anyone would." Philas glanced askance at Ajalia, and smiled a little.

"But I don't think Ajalia wants me to be king," Philas said.

"I brought it up," Ajalia snapped. "And I brought Leed down. You're going to have to teach him to be clever, and to understand things," she told Leed.

"Oh, yes," Leed agreed, frowning at Philas. The boy sighed. "I guess I'll have to find him a wife at some point, won't I?" he asked Ajalia. Ajalia shrugged.

"That won't be hard," she told Leed. "Wait until you get to Saroyan. Interesting women will appear. All you will have to do is talk Philas out of the wrong ones."

"What if I don't want to listen to you?" Philas asked Leed, his eyes narrowing.

"Oh, you'll listen to me," Leed said. Philas looked a little resentful of the boy's confidence. Philas still looked, to Ajalia, like a young child who is checking to see if he is loved. Philas's eyes and face were those of a mature man, but his eyes shone, and his lips quivered just a tiny bit.

"How do you know that?" Philas asked. Ajalia went towards the doorway, and looked out at the entrance of the dragon temple. She wondered how the evening meal had gone, and how Fashel had fared on her first foray in the kitchen. She hoped that Delmar would return soon. She imagined Coren lying down on the bed in Denai's room, and falling asleep in his bonds. She wondered how Coren would fare, if Delmar wanted to sell the boy as a slave.

"Because I'm right," Leed said. "You're only miserable because you really need to be king, and you can feel that in your heart, and anytime you're doing anything other than becoming and being the king, you feel lost and angry. I think that's why you drink so much."

"No one needs to be king," Philas said, frowning. "Some people get into power, because they are born there, or because their friends help them."

"He is not really this stupid," Ajalia told Leed. "Philas is one of the more senior slaves in my master's house. He understands power. I think he is afraid of himself. I think he is afraid that he is actually rotten inside, and that he will spread corruption and evil to his people." Ajalia studied Philas, who was blushing with the attention they were paying him. Ajalia was reminded of the way Chad had stood, turning red with pleasure, when she and Calles had talked of the wardrobe Calles would make for the Thief Lord, and for Chad and the others.

Ajalia thought about Calles, and about the young woman, Sharo, who had thought herself a fitting bride for Delmar. She smiled.

"Can you teach him to connect to the lights?" Ajalia asked Leed. She turned her eyes again to the front of the dragon temple, and watched for Delmar.

"Sure," Leed said. "Do you believe in magic yet?" he demanded. Slowly, and glancing down first at the bonds around his arms and chest that he could not yet see, Philas nodded. "Good," Leed said. As the boy began to speak again, Ajalia saw a pair of shadows slip into the dragon temple. She left the room, and crossed towards them. She was not sure at first that it was Delmar, but when Denai spoke, and the door of his room opened, and then a burst of long light fell out when Denai lit a lamp, she saw the outline of Delmar. He was crossing towards her through the hall, and his hands were wet with blood. Ajalia felt a rush of heat in her chest. She hurried forward.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"The woman fought back at a bad time," Delmar said. "We didn't want to hurt her, but then she got hold of a knife. Denai has an ugly cut on his face, but I'm all right." He raised his hand, a shy smile on his face, and waved his wet fingers. "I don't want to get blood on you," Delmar said.

"There's the well in the back," Ajalia said, leading the way to the back enclosure that lay behind the dragon temple.

"Denai will take Coren out to the harbor," Delmar told her quietly. He glanced back at Denai's open door, where the light spilled out. Ajalia followed his gaze, and saw the light snuff out. A shadow appeared, and then, when Denai came into the thin moonlight, she saw the muffled outline of Coren slung over the horse trader's shoulder. The dripping reins of a bridle hung from Denai's arm, and Ajalia thought that he would carry the boy to the stables, and ride with him to the Slavithe harbor.

Delmar sighed, as though a great weight were lifting from his shoulders.

"It's too bad," Delmar said. "He could have stayed. I can't risk the lies he will tell about me, or about our mother." Ajalia nodded.

"I think he might have been more obedient," she said, "if the black pits in his skin had stayed."

"What black pits?" Delmar asked. Ajalia realized for the first time that Delmar had not returned until after Coren's awful blemishes had transformed, under the power of the mixed blue magic, to deep, smooth marks of red.

"Ossa is a witch," Ajalia told him. "I said that to you, earlier. When Coren first came here with Isacar, he was all kinds of reticent. I couldn't get much out of him at all. Finally I gave up, and sent him upstairs, and told Ossa she could do whatever she wanted to him. I hoped, since he had been so used to witches, that she would know how to get under his skin."

Ajalia laughed at what she had said. Delmar looked sideways at her. They came to the door that led out of the dragon temple, and Ajalia went towards the well that lay to one side of the small pavilion.

"It's funny, what I said just now," Ajalia told Delmar, "because I wanted Ossa to get under Coren's skin, and I meant that metaphorically. He was not afraid of me at all, or of Isacar. He is not the kind of child to be afraid of torture."

"Were you thinking of torture?" Delmar asked, looking taken aback. The picture of the young Thief Lord, his hands and forearms dripping with blood, and protesting the barbarism of torture, made Ajalia want to laugh out loud.

"Why are you so bloody?" she asked him. She drew the bucket up from the well, and gestured for Delmar to hold out his hands. She poured the clear water over his arms. Much of the stained water ran down over the flagstones, and seeped into the cracks that lay around the edges of the pavilion. When most of the blood was gone, and the bucket was empty, Ajalia dipped it back into the well, and lowered it down. "Go and get the long basin from the stable," she told Delmar. He came back with a wooden trough that was about two feet long, and Ajalia filled it with water.

"Ullar fought back," Delmar said, putting his hands into the trough, and scrubbing at his fingers. "She was vicious. I didn't want to kill her, but she was going to mangle Denai."

"That dagger I showed you isn't sharp," Ajalia said, thinking of the falcon's dagger that was still in her bag.

"I know," Delmar said. "I would have liked to have had it. She had a small blade in her clothes. It was ugly." He scrubbed the water up his elbows, and then sighed, and put his hands through his hair. "My clothes are ruined, probably," he added ruefully, looking down at the dark red tunic Ajalia had sewn up the sides.

"Calles is making you things," Ajalia said.

"Calles?" Delmar asked. Ajalia waved her hand.

"Seamstress," Ajalia said. "She's in the little house now, where I used to stay in the attic." Delmar nodded. "Coren was very hard to break," Ajalia told Delmar. "He'd been cut into by the witches. He didn't fear blood, or pain, the way a normal boy would."

"That sounds kind of yucky," Delmar said, his shoulders giving an involuntary shiver. Ajalia wanted to tell Delmar that he would get used to it, but she didn't.

"Ossa, it turns out," Ajalia said, "had a mother who drew out curses laid by other witches. Ossa knew how to do it, and she brought up a lot of stuff that Lilleth and the other witches had laid into Coren's skin."

Delmar stopped moving, and looked around at Ajalia, dumbfounded.

"All those dark red marks were from that?" he demanded. Ajalia nodded.

"You should have seen him before," she said. "Ossa said it would be permanent. She couldn't make the curses go away. I put a lot of magic into Coren's body, and then his curses exploded against the walls of the room. He had enormous, gaping black cavities all over his face, and in his arms and chest. The worst," Ajalia said, "were right under his eyes. Your mother carved in the word, 'Mine', in the old Slavithe." Delmar was quiet for a little while after she had said this.

"That is a very old and ugly curse," Delmar said finally.

"What does it do?" Ajalia asked. She drew a final bucket of water, and washed clean the wooden trough with part of it, and then she filled the trough up and carried it to Pudge, who was drowsing in the small stables. Pudge let out a sleepy wheeze when she saw Ajalia, and wandered over to lip agreeably at her palm.

"That is a thrall that means that my mother was very bad," Delmar said finally. He had followed Ajalia to the stable, and was looking down and frowning at Pudge. "It means she has found a way to connect to the old evil, the ancient darkness that our distant ancestors fought."

"What is the thrall?" Ajalia asked. "What does it do?"

Delmar was walking slowly back towards the dragon temple, his hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders pulled down at the sides.

"What is it?" Ajalia asked. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't realize," Delmar told her, "that it was as bad as that."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Is Philas still in there?" Delmar asked her. She nodded. "I didn't understand most of what he said, when he was talking to you before," Delmar said. "Is he the true heir to Saroyan?"

"He said that his father is the fourth king of Saroyan," Ajalia said. "He's a bastard, but has a legitimate claim, due to the timing and circumstances of his birth. His half-brother, he said, will take the throne."

"Silas is king now," Delmar said. "The fourth king of Saroyan is dead. He died a few years ago, and Silas was crowned last fall."

"Do the people there like him?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked at her sideways, a shadowy smile on his face.

"Everyone in Saroyan hates the king," Delmar said. "I'd have thought you would know that by know. The Saroyans always hate their kings. It's almost tradition by now."

"Why do they hate their kings?" Ajalia asked. Delmar laughed. His voice was much lighter, and almost carefree, but Ajalia could sense a tension below his voice. Delmar's whole body had seemed to enter a higher pitch of readiness. Ajalia was sure Delmar's new anxiety was linked to the carved words she had told him that had been on Coren's face. Delmar drew a breath, and began to explain. He was walking towards the lighted door within the hall, where Philas was sitting bound, and where Leed was lecturing him.

"Five kings ago," Delmar said, "the oldest son of the king went foul of the law, and had to be executed. People have been pretty angry ever since then."

"That's a long time to be angry," Ajalia said.

"Well," Delmar said reasonably. "The king's son, the prince who was killed, was very popular. He was a little like Philas, I think. He was supposed to have gone around with a chip on his shoulder, and he drank far too much."

"What did he do that got him executed?" Ajalia asked.

"It was a technicality," Delmar said. "His father was ready to let him off, as the story goes, but there was a middle brother who was jealous, and who pushed for punishment. The courts agreed with the middle son, because he had promised them money, and the father caved to pressure from the courts. The oldest prince was taken under judgment, and then, people say, the second son brought a lot of fishy evidence forward. All the Saroyans, the decent ones, think that the prince was framed, but nothing was ever proven, and it looked pretty bad for the king, and the oldest prince. Anyway, he was executed, and the second son eventually got the throne."

"What happened after that?" Ajalia asked. "Are the people still mad about that?"

"No," Delmar said, "but that king's sons were all rotten, and very unpopular. Most of them were stupid, too stupid to rule," he added quickly, "and the third son took the throne. A lot of the people wanted to just dethrone the ruling family entirely, and establish a new king, but the third son had a young son, and the powerful people in Saroyan pretty much kidnapped him from his father, the king, and raised him away from the throne."

"They wanted to make him into a king they liked," Ajalia guessed.

"Yes," Delmar said, "and there was a lot of pressure on the king to cooperate, because he knew the people were about ready to kill him, if he didn't. So everything was awful, because the king was bad, but they all said it would get better when the prince took power. They were in agreement with the king, that they'd wait, but the money situation got so bad for everyone, and the crops there failed two summers in a row, and then the king was killed, and his son placed on the throne."

"You know a lot more about things than I thought you might," Ajalia told Delmar. "This is very helpful," she added quickly. Delmar flashed a smile at her, and went on.

"Everyone was happy with the new king, and things went well for about fifteen years, but then the new king married, and his wife was a bitch." Delmar said this without flinching, and Ajalia, who had never heard Delmar use any sort of coarse language, looked at him with interest.

"Look at you," she remarked, without any malice. "You are talking like a grown-up."

"I always talk like a grown-up," Delmar said with dignity. Ajalia's mouth turned into the squashed lump of a hidden smile, and Delmar elbowed her. "I'll get back at you, if you tease me," he told her.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded. Delmar only smiled, and a premonitory shiver passed up her spine. "What happened after he married?" she asked. Delmar laughed.

"The country fell apart," Delmar said. "There was war, and the king was violently deposed. We got involved then," Delmar added. "Tree sent over a whole battalion of men, and the king of Talbos sent two of his leading men-at-arms to command them. Things were friendlier then," Delmar added, "between Slavithe and Talbos. Tree hadn't married the witch yet." Delmar was within several feet of the room where Philas sat bound to a chair. Delmar stopped walking, and folded his arms, his eyes fixed on the light that filled the doorway. "The king who was deposed," Delmar said, "had two sons, and a daughter. The daughter had fled with a nurse into the country, but the two boys were taken by our people, and put through the tests for magical aptitude. It's always been a point of some contention," Delmar told Ajalia, "that our people could do magic, and the people over there couldn't. They often pretend, and have pretended from time immemorial, that their kings were full of magic. We tested the two princes, and neither of them had any magic, but one of them proved to be infested with some dark magic from his mother, and the other was not. The infested prince was destroyed, and his brother was put on the throne. That prince was the fourth king of Saroyan. If what Philas says is true, and I see no reason to doubt him, considering the circumstances, then he is the lost prince."

"Is there a lost prince?" Ajalia asked, her voice catching with interest.

"Yes," Delmar said. "They sing songs about it over there. They say that the lost prince is the one who will finally carry magic back into Saroyan."

"Wait," Ajalia said, "you said that one prince had dark magic, from his mother. Was she a witch?"

"No," Delmar said. "You don't have to be a witch to touch the darkness."

"What is the darkness?" Ajalia asked. "And did Saroyan have magic sometime in the past, and then lose it?"

"I don't know," Delmar said. "No one really knows, I think. They know we have magic. They pay our people to cast spells on their ships, and do deep work in the ocean, when the fish fall low."

"What did you mean about the darkness?" Ajalia asked, and she was thinking of her own mother, and of the dark shadows that her father had put through her body.

"There is a very old story," Delmar said, "about an evil power, a serpent, that winds around the earth, and squeezes out the lights. It is said that the serpent swallows up the lights, and that those who are cruel, or who murder, are caught around in the spell of the dark serpent. It is said," Delmar said, "that they worship the darkness."

"You said she wasn't a witch," Ajalia told Delmar.

"She wasn't, as far as I know," Delmar said. "But you don't have to know magic to be evil. The serpent reaches out to those who desire it, and if they are utterly lost," Delmar said hesitantly, "it is said that the serpent marks them, in the very old tongue, right beneath their eyes."

"That was the thrall that your mother put on Coren," Ajalia said.

"Yes," Delmar said. "I do not think it is the ultimate evil. I do not think my mother was clever enough to know what she did."

"Why not?" Ajalia demanded. "She marked her own child. She took him to see witches, and she cut out a part of Bain, and stitched a piece of Bain's soul into Coren's body."

"I thought they attempted that, but it didn't work," Delmar snapped, his eyes flashing.

"That was how Bain kept vanishing," Ajalia said. "I think that was how it worked. I saw what your mother did, when I put magic into the curses on Coren's body. I saw his soul. I mean, I recognized a piece of Bain. It felt like Bain, and later, Coren admitted it."

"Tell me everything about this," Delmar said. His voice had become tense again, and his shoulders, which had started to creep into a happier posture, slumped down. He looked both incredibly depressed, and ready to jump into action.

"There was a big piece of Bain," Ajalia said, "and a missing piece of Coren. The two pieces had been stitched together with red."

"Is Bain's soul still in Coren?" Delmar asked. He looked as though he meant to sprint away after Denai and Coren, if he didn't like what he heard.

"No," Ajalia said, and Delmar unspooled involuntarily with relief. Ajalia watched him curiously. "I took it out, and destroyed it," she said.

"Good," Delmar said. He took a deep breath, and looked around at her. "I've got to speak to Philas," he told her. "I think we'll need to get my grandfather's help as well," he added.

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "What's going to happen now?"

"I didn't know that we were dealing with the deepest powers of evil," Delmar said, grimacing. "I don't mean to sound dramatic, but up until now I thought that my mother and the other witches were eating people for a hobby. This is quite serious."

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Because of the thrall your mother used?" Delmar nodded.

"Usually," he said, "in the oldest stories, once the witches start to call on the ultimate evil, one of the black dragons shows up."

Ajalia remembered the long black worm that had risen up from the floor of the great hall, and she looked over at the place where it had happened. She remembered the other black worm that had strung, like a strangling vine, around the earth, and she felt a coil of turmoil in her gut.

"Delmar," she said. "I think you should know something that happened the other night." She looked around, and saw that Delmar had already gone into the lighted room beyond. Ajalia stifled a sigh, and followed him.

Philas was no longer bound; he was standing up, and a long cord of red magic was between his two hands. Philas was looking up at Delmar, with wonder in his eyes, when Ajalia entered the room.

"I can do magic now," Philas was saying to Delmar. He saw Ajalia come in, but looked back at the Thief Lord. "I wanted to apologize about being an ass," Philas said, blushing a dark red.

"Yes, yes, you're welcome or something," Delmar said quickly. "I think we're going to move a lot faster than I was planning, on the whole alliance project."

"Alliance?" Philas asked blankly. He frowned, and Ajalia thought that he was disappointed to have been denied his emotional moment of apology. She imagined Philas weeping softly, bowing on his knees before Delmar, and Delmar magnanimously extending his forgiveness, and she snorted softly. "I don't see what's wrong with an alliance!" Philas told her, his mouth twisting with displeasure. "I want an alliance, too," Philas told Delmar, before Ajalia could explain that she had not been laughing at the idea of an alliance. "I'm going to be king of Saroyan," Philas added, as though he had just remembered that this had been determined during Delmar's absence.

"Well, of course you are," Delmar said, frowning. Philas's whole face bridled backwards, as though he had again been denied some satisfying emotional experience.

"I thought you'd be a little surprised," Philas said. Ajalia thought that what Philas really meant was that he had hoped Delmar would be impressed, but that he didn't want to say so.

"Philas is very good, better than Chad," Leed told Ajalia. "He'll be quite impressive. I'm going to make him a crown of starlight, and with jewels made out of the sun, and from the bottom of the ocean." Leed eyed Philas thoughtfully. "I might make him a stick or something to carry, as well," Leed added.

"I was thinking we could clear things up in Slavithe," Delmar told Philas, as though the other things had not been said at all, "and then we could go over to Saroyan together, to straighten out your succession to the throne, but Ajalia's just told me that my mother's been in contact with the deepest powers of evil. And if my mother has been," Delmar said grimly, "I'm sure other witches have, as well."

"What are the deepest powers of evil?" Ajalia asked impatiently. She had almost grown accustomed to the way events seemed to unfold with fantastic and rapid succession in Slavithe, but she was struggling a little with the idea of a worldwide evil. She had done battle with one of the ugly black worms, and defeated it, and it did not seem reasonable to Ajalia that she would be capable, after only a little knowledge of magic, of destroying some otherworldly evil force. She thought it was far more likely that the two black worms were some local evil, or a curse created by the witches themselves, by their accumulated use of the dark cords that Ajalia had seen extending out of the witches' chests. Ajalia herself had touched and used black lights from within the earth, to form the claw over her hand that she had used to cut free blocks of ugly magic in men's bodies, but the blackness Ajalia had gotten from the earth was a healthy, vibrant black, more like the shine of her black horse's coat than like the sluggish, brackish substance that formed the witches' dark cords of power. The witches' power, Ajalia thought, was like the rotten mud from deep within a brackish cesspool, where filth and putrescence lay undisturbed for months, and where any fragment of healthy growth or clear water was absorbed up, and eaten away by the foul-smelling goo.

"I don't think we have time to explain the powers of darkness," Delmar argued. "I'd rather talk about things on the way."

"We can't go to Saroyan now," Ajalia said sensibly. "We've hardly settled anything here."

"Yes," Delmar said urgently, "but evil."

"Yes," Ajalia said calmly, "and you're the Thief Lord." Delmar stared at Ajalia with something approaching horror in his eyes.

"But the Thief Lord is supposed to combat evil," Delmar told her.

"Yes, but you can combat evil tomorrow, or next week," Ajalia said. "No one said you have to go out looking for evil today. Evil will come and find you, probably. No need to go looking for it." Delmar looked around at Philas with disbelief all over his face.

LEED FORGES AHEAD

"Don't you want to go over to Saroyan now?" Delmar demanded.

"No," Philas said. "I want Leed to make me a crown out of magic. And I want to learn how to fly."

"What?!" Delmar said. Ajalia was sure that Delmar was not trying to sound hysterical, but a note of impatience was creeping into everything that he said.

"Ajalia's been right about everything else," Philas told Delmar reasonably. "She might be right about this, too."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, Philas," Ajalia said to her fellow slave.

"You're welcome, Ajalia," Philas said seriously.

"Oh, stop helping her to feel smug," Delmar snapped. "You should not be feeling smug," Delmar told Ajalia sternly. "She doesn't know any of the old stories," Delmar told Leed, and Ajalia saw that Delmar was trying to find someone in the room who was on his side. Leed was looking at Delmar with a crimped-up mouth, and Delmar, after uttering a light grunt of anger, sank into a chair. "On your heads be it," he said ominously to Philas and Leed, "when we're eaten alive by a black dragon later on."

"I've already killed one of them," Ajalia said. "I don't know if the other one will come and bother us yet. I want things settled here before we run off half-prepared across the sea." She saw Philas perk up with interest at what she said. "I'm probably not even coming," Ajalia added, trying to keep the acid from her voice. Philas sunk down a little. "And don't be all droopy about it," she added, "because Delmar tells me they want a magic king, and now you'll learn magic. They can hardly keep you from the throne if you fly into the castle."

Philas grinned with boyish delight.

"She's right, you know," Philas said to Delmar. "I told you she was probably right."

"Is your half-brother, Silas, a failure as much as the other kings were?" Ajalia asked Philas. "Delmar told me about the other kings," she added. Philas grinned, and Ajalia saw that he was thoroughly pleased with the situation.

"I won't go back to drinking now," Philas said. "Leed has promised to maul me, if I think about it. Haven't you, Leed?" Leed, who had sat down, nodded without smiling. "Leed's going to knock me into shape. And yes," Philas added, "Silas is a failure. He's very stuffy, and serious, and he doesn't think very quickly. Only the bureaucrats like him, because he's very quiet in meetings, and they can do what they like to the legislation when he falls asleep."

"He sounds marvelous," Ajalia said.

"Hang on," Delmar said. He was sitting in a chair, and frowning. He reached out one hand, without seeming to think about it, and the cords of thin gold that still lay across Philas's empty chair slithered over the floor, and sank into his hands. Philas watched this happen, his eyes wide.

"I can see all of that," Philas said, sounding utterly satisfied with life. "Isn't it beautiful?" he asked Delmar.

"What?" Delmar asked peevishly. Leed frowned, and Philas looked quizzical. "Did you say," Delmar said to Ajalia, "that you saw a black dragon?"

"It didn't really look like a dragon," Ajalia said. "It was a fat worm with red eyes. It was just a big black worm," Ajalia said. "I killed it. That's what made all those little black stones," she added, looking at Leed.

"Wait," Delmar said, and he looked as though he were experiencing a heart attack.

"They aren't prepared to actually think of you as the sky angel," Leed explained to Ajalia. "They all say you're the sky angel, but they're too weak to realize what that really means."

"What does it mean?" she asked Leed. Leed grinned mirthlessly.

"It means transcendence," Leed said. "And it means the end of Slavithe. I think no one wants to feel uncomfortable with how evil they actually are, so they just say the words, 'sky angel', and then act as though it's a fancy dress part. It's more than that," Leed told Delmar. "You should know about the sky angel prophecies."

"Those are from the old books," Delmar said easily, as if he spoke without thinking. "None of those prophecies are real."

"She will come from the East," Leed said remorselessly, raising one finger into the air. "She will wear red and gold in her heart." Leed raised another finger. Delmar and Philas both opened their mouths to speak, but Leed plowed on, his voice raised in anger. "She will bring the dead falcon to life," Leed said, "and she will reach up to the sky. She will speak a strange tongue, and she will restore the fallen king of Saroyan to his heritage of magic. No one in Slavithe pays any attention to that prophecy," Leed told Ajalia, "because they're snobs, and they only think about themselves, but it's a prophecy that Bakroth's wife made. And also," Leed said sternly, "the sky angel will link together the lands of Slavithe and Talbos, and she will burn away the darkness, and lead us who are pure in heart into the sky kingdom. All of these prophecies are known," Leed told the two men sternly. Leed turned to Ajalia. "They're cowards," Leed said. "The people here in Slavithe, and in Talbos, are all cowards. They are all going to run away, when you fly openly, or they will try to kill you, the way they killed the first sky angel."

"Ocher told me that she fell from the sky," Ajalia said. Leed laughed a harsh laugh.

"That's a stupid way to say that they killed her," Leed said. "She didn't fall. She was going up to the sky kingdom to stay, because the falcon had died, and the people turned against her, and those who could do magic pulled her down, and she died in the quarry." Leed turned with ferocious eyes to Delmar, and to Philas, who looked a little pale before his wrath. "Ajalia is obviously doing all of those things," Leed said. "If she has already fulfilled half the prophecies, why on earth won't she work out the other half? And you two both want to sit there, and play kings in your own lands, and argue about what we should do first. Why don't you just sit still and listen to what Ajalia wants? That would be useful," the boy said forcefully. Delmar was staring at Leed, and his mouth had turned in a tiny smile. Philas was staring at the floor. Ajalia could sense an apology coming from the slave, and she turned to the bastard prince of Saroyan.

"Don't apologize to me anymore," Ajalia said. "Okay?" Philas looked at her, and then he nodded, and stared at the ground, his lips working.

"I will do what Leed said," Delmar said. "What do you want me to do?" He looked earnestly at Ajalia, and Ajalia felt as though she were going to cry, or to laugh. A shaking sigh came out of her lungs, and she rubbed at her temples.

"Your knife needs to be sharpened," Ajalia told Delmar. "You need to get what clothes Calles has finished. You need to have lessons with Leed," she added. "I think you are the only man in the house who can't see the lights clearly. Take care of that now," Ajalia told Leed. "I'm tired. I will see you all after I have calmed down," she said, and she stood up. Leed was at her side in a flash.

"Give me the dagger," Leed said. "I'll get the clothes, and the sharpening done. I'll just get my own knife, now," the boy added, and he grinned at Ajalia. She smiled at him, and gave him the dagger from her bag. "Oh, give me those two books as well," Leed said. "You don't need them. Delmar can read them both, and then he'll know more than anyone." Leed held out his hand, and Ajalia, who felt as though the boy were putting her under a kind of spell of efficiency, handed over the two slim leather books.

"Won't I need to read them?" she asked, feeling a wave of aching sorrow and weariness cascading through her shoulder blades. Now that Leed had said so forcefully what the sky angel was, and had explained why everyone in Slavithe had been so reticent about the legendary figure, she felt quite overwhelmed.

Ajalia had been used, ever since she was a child, to thinking pragmatically of herself as a nobody from nowhere. Even now she did not agree that she was a figure of myth. She thought that she was sensible, and that she was willing to take action where others were not, but she hardly counted this quality in herself worthy of prophecy or hero worship.

She knew she was an excellent slave, and she had built up most of her adult vision of herself along these lines; she found out what her master deeply wanted in his heart, and she made his desires materialize.

Her master had sent her, she thought, to Slavithe, to conquer it, and to deliver it up to him in a neat package under the guise of trade relations. She had readied Slavithe, and had built up a state of affairs in the city that would respond easily to her master's presence, and in the next two weeks she expected to make the city quite a lot more appealing, with a settled government, favorable trade relations with the neighbors in Talbos and Saroyan, and an ultimately peaceable governance of the people.

Once the witches were eliminated and controlled, Ajalia thought, and the priests were put under constraints, or eradicated entirely from the city, and once the laws on marriage were abolished, and the living conditions in the mines and quarries were upgraded and expanded, there was no reason, Ajalia thought, that Slavithe could not grow into a thriving and wealthy jewel city of Leopath.

She was sure that her master would be pleased with what she had done; she was even sure that she could create a peaceful agreement between her master and Delmar, that would ensure a profitable relationship on both their sides. She had no wish to put Slavithe under outside rule, and now that she had seen Delmar becoming the man he would be out from under his parents' control, and the Thief Lord that he would become, she was confident that her master would not seek to wrest control of the city from Delmar. They would be strong allies, she thought, and when the canal road was cut through the center of Leopath, and the journey by barge between the Eastern lands and Slavithe became a reality, her master would be able to come to Slavithe often, and to devise profitable schemes in the desert city to his heart's content.

Ajalia was not concerned with the possibility that her master would seek to wrest the governance of Slavithe from Delmar. If, she thought, for some reason her master changed from the man he had been, she would find a way to defend Delmar from him. She had never fought her master, but she knew him, and once she knew a man thoroughly, she did not wonder if she would be able to overcome him in a conflict of wits. Ajalia had never tested her strength of will, or her ingenuity, against that of her master, but she had chosen to be sold to him precisely because of the kind of man he was. She, in her mind, had eliminated the need for conflict by belonging to the right master in the first place.

Ajalia blinked. Leed was standing in front of her, and Delmar and Philas were glancing at each other. Ajalia thought that Delmar looked a little abashed.

"Won't I need to read these books?" Ajalia asked again, looking at the slim leather volumes in Leed's hands.

"No," Leed said. "You already know what to do. You go away, and do whatever. I'm going to arrange things now." Ajalia could not hold back the smile that rose up into her cheeks at Leed's expression, which was dead serious, and almost grim.

"What happened to Coren?" Ajalia asked Delmar. The idea of Coren being carried off still nagged at her a little; she thought that Delmar had looked ready to rush off after his little brother after he had learned about the visible marks from the curses the witches had laid on the child, but Delmar had since calmed down.

"Denai's taking him away to the harbor to be carted off and sold," Delmar said. He frowned. "I thought I told you that. But I was concerned, after you said that he had part of Bain's soul. If the shadow soul was still in him, I would have to go after Coren, and destroy it, or him."

"Why?" Ajalia asked. She felt more and more tired; her insides seemed to be crushing into piles of dried-up powder. She didn't ever feel any more like she was going to faint; instead she felt charred inside, as though her emotions had burned her up, and made a powdery taste of ash on the edge of her tongue.

"If Bain was using my little brother's soul to appear and disappear, and to escape the witch hunters," Delmar said, "then Coren was infected with the power of the black dragon. But the mark of the beast has been destroyed," he said, "and you said you got out the piece of Bain. Coren can cause little damage now. He is like a vessel that is cracked, or like a lamp without oil. He knows things that make him dangerous here, but he will not be able to work evil far away."

"How do you know that?" Ajalia asked. She was imagining, in the back of her mind, her bed upstairs, and she was thinking of how cozy it would be to curl under the blankets, and hide away from everything. She half-hoped that if she went to sleep, and ignored everything and everyone for a few days, that this business about the sky angel would float away, and never be mentioned to her again. She did not like what Leed had said, about cleansing the city, or the city falling. Her mind skipped over the words that Leed had used, and she could not have said exactly what he had enumerated as the prophesied tasks of the sky angel. Rising to the cloud kingdom had had something to do with it, she thought, and she stifled a sigh. "How do you know?" she asked again. Delmar had only just begun to answer her; Ajalia's mind was racing, and her thoughts careened around her like the scraps of water in a raging river that crashes and cascades down a thick rocky bed.

"He can't reach the darkness," Delmar said. "When the curse is broken, it cannot be reformed. Coren won't be able to do any harm, or touch the darkness anymore. That is why the witches came for him," Delmar added. "They knew that if he was compromised, their work would be lost. If they were using Coren and Bain to reach the evil powers, he was very valuable to them."

"So it is better for him to be sent away," Ajalia said, "so that they don't hunt him down in revenge."

"Delmar will come and tell you all about the black dragon later," Leed told Ajalia. Leed pushed at her. "Go away. I want to be in charge now." Ajalia laughed.

"I thought we were all going to do what I said now," Ajalia reminded Leed.

"Yes, and my job is to make what you say, be," Leed replied. He looked fiercely at Ajalia, and his small mouth was in a carving frown. "You said you were going to calm down. So do that."

Leed stared at Ajalia; he did not look angry, but his eyes were determined.

"I shall be commanded by Leed," Ajalia said drily, and she went to the door of the room. "I lock my door, on principle," Ajalia told Delmar. "Leed told me he was climbing down from the roof. Do you want to try that, or do you want my key?"

"I like climbing," Delmar said. Ajalia thought that Delmar looked quite pleased with the prospect of climbing from the roof of the dragon temple to the balcony of her room. She could see him making pictures of romantic entrances in his mind, and she felt a sudden desire to giggle.

"Philas," Ajalia said, pausing at the door.

"If I ever even think for one moment about climbing into your room, you will castrate me, and then Delmar will beat me to a pulp," Philas said instantly. He looked at Ajalia. "And I know you carry a knife, and I don't think I would live through that. And Leed is going to get me a wife," Philas added, looking rather pleased. Ajalia wanted to tell Philas that he was probably capable of getting his own wife, but she stopped herself. She went out of the room without saying anything else, and walked towards the stairs at the back of the hall. She could see gleams of light from the room behind her, and her body made a long, thick shadow in front of her, from the spilling lamplight that hit her back.

Ajalia, as soon as she was a little away from the room, and from the murmur of voices that was rising inside, felt as though her whole body was beginning to vibrate with stress. She wanted to hide in a hole in the ground. She wanted to go back to yesterday, and fight with the witches and priests. She had not been special, ever, she told herself, and she tried to forget what Leed had said, about the sky angel.

She remembered what Ocher had told her, about the sky angel falling into the quarry, and all the people in the city looking up, and seeing her fall. That must have been long ago, Ajalia thought, and she wondered who the ancestors were who had fought with the black dragons. Ajalia told herself that the two black worms of darkness had been more like clumsy, ugly snakes than like dragons.

She looked up at the back wall of the temple, where the darkness in the hall obscured the dragons carved there, and she thought that the carvings looked like proper dragons. The dragons in the East, or the pictures and legends of dragons, were not like the carvings that filled the walls, and climbed the facades, and twisted around the pillars in the dragon temple.

The Eastern pictures of dragons were fierce, and hard; the dragons were shown with wings that extended out in long and cruel lines, and the faces of the dragons were like vicious snouts, filled with elongated teeth. In the dragon temple, the dragons were friendlier, and had rounder edges. Their teeth were sharp, but they were sharp in the way a tiger's teeth are sharp. The Eastern dragons had teeth like myriad violent needles thrusting out of the mouths of the monsters. Dragons were not supposed to be real; Ajalia's master had told her once that dragons represented, to the merchants in the East, everything that their grand ancestral houses had held in highest esteem.

"We are the dragon," her master had said, tapping himself against the chest. "We find the greatest treasures, and the safest valleys, and we take them, and shape them into homes of great peace and elegance. We shape the world, and in this, we are dragons."

He had told her, when she had still been a child, that she would grow up to be like a dragon someday. Her master had not spent much time with Ajalia when she had still been a child, but he had paid some attention to her, and he had taken her aside once or twice, to speak to her. The other slaves had noticed this attention, and grown jealous, and her master, seeing this, spoke to her only once more. "You have heart, little Ajalia," her master had said. "I can see into your soul, and you will be a fine slave to me someday. I want you to see yourself as I do. You are my dragon. You will go forth, and you will conquer the world. Remember what I say, and keep open your heart to what may come. If you are a good little dragon, you will grow very great indeed someday."

Ajalia had not thought about her master's words for a very long time. She came to the stairs, and began, very slowly, to climb them. She had fixated for weeks on what her master had said, and had studied the senior slaves assiduously. She had learned to negotiate, by studying what those in power did, and when she was first sent on a caravan to another city, she absorbed everything around her with wild wonder. She had thought then that there was no greater happiness in life than to parade through the streets of a foreign place, and to stare at strangers with the imperious painted face she had worn then, as a child.

Ajalia had thought, once she had achieved her desire of being face-bearing slave for her master, that she had gotten to the pinnacle of her life. She had known, from long watching, of her master's hunger for the glory of his forbears, and she had seen, in the subtle way in which her master had gone about arranging this first caravan to Slavithe, that he was almost secretly wishing for more than a trade route. By that time, as face-bearing slave, Ajalia had been always privy to her master's transactions, and she had seen for herself, in the quiet glance of his eyes, and in the stillness of his cheeks, that he was thinking of death, and of the birthright of his house.

Ajalia's master had never spoken aloud to her of his intention of coming to Slavithe, and making for himself a sort of private kingdom there. She had read the thousand tiny hints of his thoughts, and when he had spoken to her, to give direction for the negotiation of a steady trade route, she had told him, with the words she used, and with the solemnity of her bearing, that she knew his mind. Their conversation had been brief; he had told her what scope to use, and what she was allowed to offer. She had asked two questions about the details of his desire, and then she had paused, and told him that she hoped to stay for some time in Slavithe. Her master had become very still indeed, and had watched her as closely as a hunting bird watches its prey. He had, after some time in silence, asked her why, and she had told him that he ought to get out of the estate more, and see the world.

"Slavithe is not very far away," she had said, although the desert was harsh, and the journey required some months. "If you make the road of water," she added, "it will only be sitting in a barge, and waiting."

"And what," Ajalia's master had asked, "will I do with myself, when I get to Slavithe?" Ajalia had looked at him, and then she had smiled. Her master, reading her thought, had begun to laugh, and then he had told her to get out of his sight, and to stop heckling an old man with so many elusive dreams.

"You told me to be your dragon," Ajalia had reminded her master. "I suppose you will have to get rid of me, if you do not want to have the future I will make." Her master had grown sober then, and she had left him. She had seen him only once again before the departure; the caravan had been in a bustle, and she had been sent to three neighboring estates to negotiate for silks and thread. Ajalia's master had, in her mind, the most tasteful silks in the East, but for such an enterprising journey, her master had required the caravan to carry a wide selection of colors and patterns. He had said that it did not matter so much that many of the silks were of lighter colors, or of strong patterns that were not in fashion in the cultural centers of Leopath.

"They are practically savages out there," he had said, when he had given directions to her about the trades. "They will enjoy whatever we bring. And I want them to see a wide range of Eastern goods," he had added. "The houses of both Gorgeth and Vella think now of caravans to Slavithe, and I will not have my foresight come to nothing because these savages desire coarse silks more than my fine ones."

In this, Ajalia reflected, her master had been very wise. The Slavithe people had been so unused to fine silks and patterned cloth that, aside from the clumsy white sheath Lilleth had worn to her death, and the shimmering robes of silk that both Yelin and Lim had worn in the streets, Ajalia had yet to see any of the silks worn in public in the white stone streets of Slavithe. Much of the silk had been sold, more than three quarters of what the caravan had carried into Slavithe, before Philas had taken the remainder of the goods into Talbos, but Ajalia had yet to see any widespread, or even occasional use of the fabrics. She hoped to change this soon. She was planning first to outfit Delmar in tailored and imaginative clothes, and to create the look of a rugged man, and a fit leader, and then, gradually, she meant to slide hints of silk into his costumes. She was sure that the Slavithe people were quite unready for a full display of glorious attire in their Thief Lord, but she was equally sure, particularly with the rapidly growing numbers of boys and grown men who were capable of conjuring the lights, and using them freely, that the people of Slavithe would accept the metamorphosis of the official style of dress without much protest. Magical leaders, Ajalia thought, would merit a change from the plain brown cloth that seemed unendingly ubiquitous.

Ajalia unlocked the door to her room, and tried to remember why she had started to think about her master. Dragons, she told herself, and then, with a clogged feeling in her heart, she remembered what Leed had said about the sky angel. Ajalia wanted to stop thinking; she was not sure why, but she felt an impending and stifling doom around the whole idea of the sky angel. She locked the door to the her room after she had gone in, and almost immediately, she began to cry.

She could not have said exactly why she was crying. She decided to pretend that she wasn't crying at all, and she took off her bag, and slid it under the bed. The curtains over the balcony had blown aside a little in the night, and she went to them, and tied together the strips of fabric that hung at the meeting of the two pieces for that purpose. The moonlight was shut out, and the room fell into utter darkness. Ajalia took off her shoes, and she felt, very suddenly, as though she wanted to sleep for at least a week.

Delmar had been wrought up about the black worm she had fought and killed, she thought. When she had said she had destroyed it, his whole face seemed to close off, and then to pass over what she had said. She was sure that he thought this was impossible. She could not think of anything that would excuse his not believing what she said. He could not have thought that she meant she had had a dream about a black snake, or that some witch had seemed like a snake to her, and that she had killed that. She had said, she remembered clearly, that a black worm had risen up in the hall, and that it had had glowing red eyes, and that she had killed it. At least, Ajalia told herself, as she tore at the buckles of her knife harness, and flung it down on the bed, that was what she had meant to say.

Ajalia stripped off her clothes, and then she flopped onto the bed that she had put into this room. It was a nice bed, she thought, just wide enough for her, and made of the fragrant yellow wood that grew in the forest outside the walls of Slavithe. The knife and harness made an uncomfortable lump under her stomach, and she drew out the leather, and pulled her knife from its sheath. She had not slept with her knife in her hand for a very, very long time, but, she reflected, her mouth caught in a tense line of anger, holding her knife made her feel less exposed.

She dropped the leather harness and sheath onto the floor, and tried to think of why she felt so out of sorts. I want Delmar to believe me when I say things, Ajalia told herself, and she sighed, and squirmed under the blanket. She still had not asked anyone how they managed the open windows and balconies when it rained; she was sure that it had to rain sometime; the air outside was growing gradually more chilled, and she was convinced that winter in Slavithe, even if it was very mild, would have to produce some form of precipitation. The whole city is unnatural, Ajalia told herself, and she stared out at the darkness, and tried to talk herself into falling asleep.

The truth was that she was getting far too close to what she wanted; Ajalia had spent her entire life wanting to be someone, and wanting to achieve some notable thing. Her desire to become, and to prove herself someone worth being, had driven her to miraculous efforts as a slave, and she had been aware of this desire, and had exploited it willingly. She had seen how her skills had sharpened over time, and she had felt as though she had earned what she had.

Now, in Slavithe, and amidst the rapidly unfolding conflict over the types of magic, good and bad, and the rules of who could see what, and why, and how witches or anyone else seemed able to infest themselves into another person's soul, Ajalia was beginning to feel adrift. She no longer understood exactly what or who she was. Whenever Ajalia had questioned people about the sky angel before, she had gotten vague answers, or clearly legendary quips. Leed, however, had laid out, in forceful language, the reality of what people here believed about this mythic figure, and Ajalia now felt distinctly out of place.

A small part of Ajalia wanted to scramble down the stairs, and to argue with Delmar and Leed. She wanted to tell them that she was not the sky angel, and that she was not going to destroy Slavithe, or to carry the pure of heart into the sky. Ajalia found, to her chagrin, that she could quite easily recall what Leed had spoken, when she was angry, and attempting to formulate an argument against what he had said.

But, she asked herself, could I be? She thought of how she had looked into the witch, Vinna's, soul, and how she had looked forward, into the paths that lay before Vinna. Ajalia tried to imagine what it would look like, and how it would feel, to look at a whole city like that, and to see a whole conglomeration of souls, and a vast picture of futures stretching out in every direction. She made a picture of an older woman with a peaceful expression on her face, sitting with her eyes closed, and forming a whole image of the city of Slavithe, and of all the people within it. Ajalia tried to see how it would be, to cast forward into the future, and to see herself, or a person like her, arriving in Slavithe, and changing things.

What if, Ajalia asked herself, somehow her master did end up ruling in Slavithe? She did not see how this was possible, but she asked herself if this scenario would qualify as the destruction of Slavithe. She wiggled down in the blankets, and drew them up over her head. The hilt of her knife was clasped hard in her hand, and she pressed the blade flat against the coarse mattress, and listened to her own breath.

"I don't want to be the sky angel," Ajalia whispered in the darkness beneath the blanket. She tried to go to sleep, but the picture of Delmar, his eyes eager, and of her master, stern and unforgiving, played out relentlessly in her mind. She imagined her master confronting Delmar, and seeking to rule in Slavithe, and she tried to imagine herself working to mitigate the disaster this would cause. She thought that she knew her master, and understood him, but, she told herself, she did not know everything. Perhaps her master's deep desire to be someone would change him, she thought. Perhaps, she reflected, he would become harder inside. She thought that if this happened, she would do something about it. The idea of fighting against her master made a tingle of fear curl at the base of her spine. She did not want to be an enemy to her master; she liked him, and respected him. There will be no need to fight with him, she told herself, but something about the words that Leed had said niggled inside of her mind, and she could not quite shake the feeling that she was being overly optimistic.

This is silly, Ajalia told herself. There will be no fight. My master is a good man. She tried to make her body relax, but now she began to think about Delmar. She wondered what his grandfather, the king of Talbos, was like, and she wondered what the king's son-in-law was like. She remembered what someone had told her about the succession. Ajalia tried to think of who had said this to her. Ocher, or Rane, she thought. Her mind was beginning to reel about, cartwheeling from end to end of the expanse of things that she felt responsible for. She thought about Fashel, and about the kitchen. She thought about what would happen tomorrow, and she felt again a great sweep of tears building behind her eyes. She asked herself why she was crying, and then didn't wait for an answer. She buried her face in the pillow, and it was soon wet with her tears. She didn't want Delmar to come and see her, and she didn't want him to stay away, either.

After she had waited for a few minutes, and seen that the tears were not subsiding, she slipped out of the bed, leaving her knife beneath the pillow, and dressed. Her supply of clothes was running extraordinarily low. She had never been extravagant about her own clothing, although she had always invested the time and energy that was needed to supply her with special pockets, or with the folded-over panel in the back of her clothes that allowed her to reach her knife easily, but lately, she thought, her adventures with Delmar had ripped up or stained most of what she owned into shredded bits of dirty rags. She got a plain tunic, the last that she owned, out of her trunk, and dressed in it. She found a belt in the bottom of her trunk, and lashed it around her waist, and then she paced around her room, and tried to think of what she was going to do about sleeping.

She had been unable to sleep before, for years when she had been a slave, but this type of not sleeping was entirely different to what she had experienced before. Now she felt edgy, and full of energy. Before, her not sleeping had been like a slow, dull ache of inability, or unwillingness to close her eyes. She had not wanted to sleep because she had not wanted to have the nightmares that she was sure would come. Now she did not fear nightmares, but she did not want tomorrow to come. Perhaps, she thought, if she stayed awake long enough, she would find some way to untangle the mess of thoughts in her mind, and then she would be able to relax.

She dropped down onto the stone floor of her room, and began, in the darkness, to work at the knots in her muscles. I am not the sky angel, she told herself firmly, levering her arms, and making the blood flow like reluctant fire against her bones. What else? she asked herself. Delmar is no longer acting like a child, she told herself, and she felt her hips beginning to loosen. She had not realized how tense she had become. She rolled on her back, and swung her legs above her head. Delmar's the Thief Lord, she added to the list, and she tried to remember the problems she had not yet accounted for in her maneuvering. Wall, she remembered, was not yet dealt with. Delmar had told her that he had sent someone for Wall, and for Yelin, but the second son of the previous Thief Lord would, Ajalia thought, present his own challenges. She was relieved that Delmar had not shown any obstinate loyalty to his brothers so far; such loyalty, she reflected, would have proven disastrous in the case of Coren, and was likely, if it cropped up with Wall, to handicap the strength of Delmar's fledgling government.

Ajalia had not yet asked Delmar what he had done, insofar as speaking with the powerful men and other vested persons of interest in the city; he had moved with enough assurance, and enough direction to reassure her that he knew quite well much of what had to be done. Ajalia was impressed with how swiftly he had thought of Talbos, and of communicating directly with his grandfather there. She was sure that the king of Talbos was not yet ready to step down from the throne; she had learned, when talking to the men in the quarries, that it was customary for the kings of Talbos to manage the crowning of their heirs before they died. This practice was also common in the East, in the greatest trading houses. Ajalia's master had a bevy of sons, and two of the oldest were being prepared now to take over much of their father's estate in the near future. Ajalia had no interest in working for her master's sons; they were not bad men, but she was particular, and she liked her master much better.

She felt the muscles and bones in her back squeeze against the stone floor, and she began, suddenly, to breathe more deeply. She thought of Coren, and she told herself that she had been on edge, physically, ever since Isacar had carried the boy into the dragon temple. She was not sure if she believed Delmar, when he said that Coren would no longer be a danger. He had seemed too ready to run off and do things, when she had told him of the thrall carvings under Coren's eyes, and then Delmar's urgent energy had dissipated almost at the moment she had explained how the magic had drained away. Ajalia wondered about this ancient evil that he had attributed to the two black worms. On a whim,

Ajalia closed her eyes, and imagined the lights that ran deep beneath the bottom of the dragon temple. She put her fingers into a thick vein of gold, and then she creased her brow in concentration. Her breath deepened, and she felt her shoulders relax. Her whole body seemed to unclench, when she touched the deep lights beneath the earth.

She opened her eyes in the darkness, and looked at the curtain that hung over the balcony. A thin shiver of cold air was trickling in from around the sides of the curtain, and at the very base of the curtain, where it almost met the floor. A line of moonlight came into the room, but the rest of the room was in darkness.

Ajalia closed her eyes, and imagined the whole inside of the earth. Her mind did not quite wrap around the idea of the whole earth. Ajalia sighed, and wiggled her shoulders against the hard stones. She dropped her feet, which she had angled up into the air above her head, to the ground, and settled her hips against the floor. I can think of the East, Ajalia told herself, and she imagined the wide avenue of trees that led into her master's silk estate, and of the mountain that loomed north of the fields.

The top of the mountain was often capped with brilliant reams of white snow; only in the warmest weeks of summer did the thick white cap of snow melt, exposing the deep brown stone of the Eastern mountain. There were more mountains in the East, beyond the one that lay near her master's estate, but they were smaller, and lower. Ajalia had seen these lower mountain ranges from a distance, but she had never climbed up the slopes. She had been up the sides of the great mountain, though, and she had helped to shave the thick white wool from the Eastern horses that her master kept there.

Ajalia felt a pang of regret as she thought of the East. Perhaps, she thought, if I had stayed—Ajalia cut herself off. I do not want to go back, she told herself, and a kind of shivering in her heart confirmed what she told herself. She thought of her life as it had been in the slave quarters, and she imagined herself as she had been then. She felt a sharp stab of pity for the girl she had been, and then the woman. She remembered the fear and the pain that had lived in her then, and the thick white scars that had twisted, like ropes of ugly sin, up her arms.

Ajalia sighed, and concentrated again. She pictured the lands in the East, and she sent her mind down, below the surface of the fields and orchards of trees. Ajalia, to her surprise, saw at once a long river of gold and purple lights, running like a river of chaotic and silently-throbbing power beneath the land. Flecks of light pink, like the color of the sky in a burning sunrise, flung up in eddies of the flow, and a deeper layer of royal blue filled up the strata below the river of gold and purple.

Ajalia looked below this blue layer, and she saw, with a shock of violent disgust and fear, the tail of the second black worm. The worm's tail lay, like a spiraling cord, around the edges of her master's estate. Ajalia saw, or she felt the images press in around her mind, a rim of burning white just against the border of her master's land.

Ajalia was curious about this rim of white. She did not know if she was imagining these pictures, or if she was really seeing parts of her master's land, and the kind of energy that ran below the ground in the earth. She examined the white light, and saw that tiny threads of light ran from the border of white, into the center of the estate. She followed one of these threads of light, and her mind flashed through a series of images that were from all the places within the lands of her master's estate.

Ajalia saw the orchard where she had watched Lim dig up the secret box that had held the golden knife and the papers from Saroyan. She saw her master's pastures, and the herd of Eastern horses that ran there. She saw the first village, and the road that ran along into the deeper rows of housing for her master's extended family. His children lived in the second, inner row of housing. Ajalia followed the thread of white light inward, and she came at last to her master's house. The white thread grew very thin, and Ajalia had to concentrate to see it. She had followed the white line through many walls of the estate, and when her mind followed the thread straight into the back of her master's house, she saw it wind across the floor, and up into a pair of sandaled feet. Ajalia looked up, and saw her master, sitting in his favorite chair, and looking out at the land that stretched out through the open window. Ajalia looked at her master's soul, and she began, for the third time that night, to cry.

THE BLACK WORM

Her master's soul was crusted over with jewels of white light. A ring of gold lay about his heart, and in his forehead was a blistering ball of the same ocean-blue light that Ajalia had learned to make from the light of the stars and the red-hot gold beneath the earth. Ajalia went back, away from her master, and found the tail of the ugly black worm. Her master, Ajalia saw, was keeping his estate from falling into evil. Her master, she thought, was as good a man as she had thought him.

Ajalia found the buried tail of the black worm, and without thinking first of the wisdom of what she did, she took up a thick band of hot gold, and twisted it around the tail of the black beast. Ajalia held the golden cord just a little away from the tail, so that it did not yet touch the black creature. She found a length of bright red light, and formed it into a sharp spear of energy. She tied the gold cord to the end of the red spear, and then, with the vigor of a farmer slaying a fatted calf, she pierced the red spear straight through the thickest part of the tail, and wound the gold cord around the ugly black body of the worm. The body of the worm, which stretched out southwards from her master's estate, gave a violent twist, and then began to tunnel, with a vigorous shaking, through the earth. Ajalia sent her mind rapidly along with the huge body of the worm, and she cast herself forward, to follow the black form, and to see the head of the worm.

Her mind ran swiftly along the body of the worm, and she saw many different shades and textures of light flashing past where the worm had tunneled deeply under the earth. She thought she saw great waves of an ochre hue, and sweeping eddies of a bucolic teal; she thought that this color of light lay within the heart of the desert that ran in a wide band through the heart of Leopath.

When Ajalia found the head of the worm, she cast her mind upwards, above the earth, to see where she was. She saw the soaring white wall of Slavithe, and a thick wall of trees, and the slim band of white sand that lay between the wall and the forest outside the city. Ajalia saw a curious heap of shadows just beneath the pale sand, and she saw the black worm gaping up, a scarlet tongue licking up out of its opened mouth. The worm looked as though it was attempting to caress the heap of shadows that formed the only remnant of Bain that lived on in the world. She recognized the place; it was the part of the wall where she had walked with the black horse, and where Delmar had destroyed the shadow child, and had sliced, with strings of gold made from his own soul, through the heart of Bain. Ajalia remembered that Coren had been made part of Bain, and again, without thinking, she drew a shaft of pure white sunlight, and blew the remnants of Bain and Coren into smithereens.

Ajalia had never drawn sunlight into her hands before; she had heard Ocher explain that the witches did so, when they sacrificed boys to turn their souls into their minions, but she had never tried to find sunlight for herself. When she had seen the crimson tongue of the black worm twisting caressingly upwards towards the scrappy pile of Bain that was buried under the sand, she had looked instantly about her, for the brightest and most potent-seeming light, and she had seen glimmers of sunlight clinging yet to the leaves of the trees in the forest. It was still the dark of the night; the sun was far away, but the sunlight from the day before clung, like faceted shimmers of dew, to the leaves and the branches of the trees. Ajalia had gathered these bits of sunlight with one motion of her hand; she was angry, and she was gradually learning that her powers grew exponentially when she was angry. She was angry now that this great black worm of darkness was so close to her; she was furious that the tail of the worm had lain so close against the rim of her master's estate. Ajalia was beginning now to feel that her conflict with the two worms, as brief to her as it had seemed, was very personal. She half expected, when she sent the rod of white sun into the scrap of Bain's remains, and saw them blisteringly obliterated, to find the black worm tunneling at once into the bedroom where her physical body lay.

When Ajalia destroyed the last pieces of Bain, and the scrap of Coren that had been intermingled with the shadow boy's life, the black worm, whose red tongue had been reaching out, and prodding mournfully at the shadows, like a mother bear who guards over the dead body of a cub, drew back. The black worm, when the white light shattered outwards, closed its golden-gleaming eyes of red, and Ajalia saw the whole head of the snake shudder.

She knew suddenly, with a premonition that was so sure that she could have bet her life on the outcome, that the black worm was about to dig away, and to vanish from her into some deep seam of the earth. Ajalia knew in her heart that the worm felt it had met too much danger; she saw in the quiver of the great thick body that the worm was moments away from disappearing. She knew somehow that if the worm left now, and she lost it in the depths of the earth, that she could not track it down again. The worm would retreat to some faraway place, and hide away for ages in some impossible shadow, until Ajalia, and all that she touched, had passed away in death from the earth.

Rage was filling Ajalia, and a blinding white indignation at the hurt this black snake had caused. She could not have said what the worm was, or where it and its now-destroyed companion had come from, but the whole energy of the worm smelled like ancient death and decay. The worms were an old evil, she was sure, and the kind of abuse she had suffered at the hands of her parents, and that Delmar had suffered under his mother and father, were all inheritances, Ajalia thought, of the kind of evil this final black worm represented.

She had drawn into her hands the sunlight from the trees to destroy the shadow scraps of Bain, and the mixture of Coren's soul. She raised her hands now straight into the sky, and as she saw the great worm twist in the earth, and turn away from the place where she had sent out the flash of white, she drew viciously at the golden cord that she had thrust through the tail of the snake.

The black worm had not seemed yet to realize that the attack at its tail, and the burst of sunlight so near its head, had come from the same enemy. Ajalia thought that the black worm seemed almost bored with the spear of red light that she now reeled rapidly towards her. She wondered if her master knew of the black worm, and she thought rather that he did not. She thought that her master ascribed the darkness to some generalized evil, or to darkness in the hearts of men. She did not think that such a man as she had seen her master to be, with encrusted gems of glorious light in his soul, could have lived so near to such a snake, and not have pursued it with the intent to destroy it.

The black worm had turned away by a few feet, and Ajalia had drawn tight back on the cord of gold, far off around the tail, when she imagined all the light in all the stars above shooting, like gleaming strings of lightning, down into her hands. At the same time, she thought of the red-gold lights deep beneath the earth, and she felt a shudder in the rocks beneath her as the violently-warm substance flung itself upwards. She threw all the light from the stars, and all the warm energy from the red-gold lights, in a fiery case around the front part of the body of the black worm. She sent long spears of the power, at intervals, into the body of the snake, piercing it fast, and pinning it in place.

The black body, and the heavy thick head, which had just prepared itself to launch forward in flight away from Ajalia, froze. She thought that the black worm looked as though it had been frozen in a shimmering sheet of ocean-blue glass. Coils of silver starlight and red-hot gold twisted up and down the body; Ajalia saw that the greater part of the dragon's body was writhing violently in the sands of the desert. She saw that she had pulled the tail of the great beast towards her, and that the black worm no longer lay coiled around the edges of her master's estate. Ajalia breathed in; a part of her mind could feel the cold stone of the floor where her body lay in her room, but the greater portion of her mind was fixed on the massive, struggling snake.

She saw that the snake was about the width of three horses, put side by side in harness. The head of the worm was flat a little, but it did not have the structure or the contours of a snake's skull. The worm's head was clumsy, and thick, as though it had been shaped swiftly out of moderately dry clay. The head and the first stretch of the snake, all the worm's body that lay under the land of the forest and the farms of Slavithe, was coated in the freezing light of ocean blue. Out in the desert beyond, and in the barren lands between Slavithe and the oasis, the worm's body shook and attempted to escape like a possessed thing. Whipping lengths of sand flung up into the sky, with the height of angry waves in a sea storm. Ajalia thought she could hear the whisper and thunk of huge masses of sand falling back to the surface of the desert. She saw that when she had yanked on the golden cord that was threaded around, and pierced through the thick tail of the evil worm, the worm had begun to draw in its tail, and to coil it deep under the earth. Ajalia saw that the snake could thicken its body, to occupy a shorter space, and that it could also lengthen itself to fill vast distances.

The other worm that she had killed had worn two burning red eyes; Ajalia remembered how she had flown into the air, and thrust her knives, coated with ocean-blue light, through the center of the beast's head. She drew now a part of the mixed blue light from the coating that lay all around the worm, and shaped it into a long javelin that seemed to glow with deadly power.

"You can't kill me," the worm said. Its voice was like the rumbling in the earth. Ajalia felt the distant fling and scrape of the great worms' tail, as it agitated the sands of the desert into an enormous sandstorm. "I am the bane of all the earth," the black worm said. "You cannot destroy me, or even make me shrink. I will grow until I have swallowed up all of the earth. You cannot stop me!"

By this time, Ajalia had formed a long, cruel javelin out of the mixed blue lights. The shaft and tip of the javelin were like shining ocean waters, of every color of blue and deep sea green, and they glittered and shimmered like lengths of dragon scales. Ajalia could feel vibrating power in the javelin. She had formed the weapon after the manner that such things were made in the land of Lianks, out in the northern fringe of Leopath. She had been there once, and the guards of the city, and the armies that were held in readiness against the hordes of barbaric people from the snowy lands across the sea, carried such weapons.

Ajalia grasped the blue javelin in her right hand; with her left, she reached up and grasped a cord of the sky. She realized now that she had thrown her body out, as she had done in the forest near the poison tree, when Delmar had first put his soul into her. He had told her then that he had split up the part of himself that did magic, and that he had shared himself with her in a way that would make her able to do magic.

She remembered the way he had spoken to her before that, when Delmar had accompanied her and Philas on the road to Talbos the first time. Delmar had told her then that she had a white brand. He had said, Ajalia remembered, that it was possible that she could do a little magic. She had laughed at him then. Ajalia let go of what part of her mind held on to the physical body she had left behind on the floor of the room in the dragon temple, and she lifted herself up into the sky with one hand. Her spiritual form was light, and easy to lift up. She took hold of one cord, and then let go and quickly grasped another. Her spirit body seemed to float up like a heavy cloud, or like a gathering of moisture in the air.

Ajalia climbed quickly; she told herself that time had slowed. It had yet been only a few moments since she had seen the black worm licking, like a solicitous mother monster, at the scraps of Bain's remains, and since she had destroyed the scraps. She had now frozen the black worm within the glass-like mixture of star and deep earth light, and now she threw herself at the monster's eyes from her place above in the sky.

Ajalia had not climbed very high up; she was perhaps ten feet up in the air when she stopped, and flung herself straight at the monster, her javelin directed at its closest ugly eye. The other black worm's eyes had been a burning, hellish red, but these creature's eyes had a golden and orange tint, like the top part of flames that lick above the reddish coals.

Ajalia felt a shudder of power, and a shock of crackling light in the javelin, when the tip of it passed into the creature's orange-gold eye. She thought for a moment that the javelin would not be able to pass through; she thought that this inability of the weapon to pierce showed her weakness, or her doubt. She pictured to herself the javelin passing straight through the second black worm's head, and with a hiss, like hot metal being thrust down into water, the blue javelin sank into the worm's eye, and passed through his head.

Ajalia had lost a little of her momentum, and she crawled into the worm's head after the javelin, clutching tightly to it with both hands. The hole in the creature's eye was like a small rent in a thin curtain; once the hole was made, Ajalia could force her way into the rent, and it expanded with the feeling of tearing tissue paper.

Ajalia did not know why the worm was so fragile; she got into its head, and she looked around. Like the other worm, this one seemed to be composed of millions of fragments of compacted white and colored light, as though the ugly snake had swallowed up all manner of people, and of energies, and driven them down into themselves until they shone like refracted diamonds.

Ajalia was sitting right inside the creature's head; she could feel, as at a distance, the worm's hate for her, and also its lust to kill and destroy. At the echo of these sensations, a roil of anger and disgust rose up in Ajalia; she wanted to destroy this thing, and every piece of its black body she wanted to see exploded into such fragments of infinitesimal dust that no trace of the evil worm would ever be found. Ajalia found within herself a hard knot of white anger; she did not know what this was. She did not know if it was herself, or if it was a thing she had made without thinking.

The use of magic, and the manipulation of the lights in the earth, was becoming instinctual to Ajalia. She was beginning to work with the lights without seeing exactly what she did. She saw now this knot of brilliant white, and it was like the sunlight she had gathered in an instant from the leaves of the trees in the forest, and yet she could not have said where this white sunlight had come from.

She thought that her body was beginning to work magic without her mind catching up to what she was doing. She thought about this for a few seconds, and the fact that she was still a little reluctant to admit the reality, and the extent of the magic, made her think that if she was angry enough to split herself into pieces, a spiritual and a physical half, and that if she was upset enough to do this, it was also possible that she was angry enough to work magic without her own knowledge or consent. She felt as though she were becoming disparate pieces; one part of her was made up of her conscious mind, and she had thought, previous to this, that this conscious mind was her real self. Now, as she sat within the worm, and watched the knot of white sunlight growing brighter and more powerful, she found herself compelled to admit that there was another part of her, or perhaps, she reflected, more than one part. Apparently, Ajalia reflected, as she watched the knot of light grow brighter, and then spill outside the edges of her spirit body, she had powers that she had not acknowledged. She told herself, as the white light crept outwards, in a great shining orb, and as it touched against the inner edges of the black worm's skin, that if she would accept the fact of the magic, and, she told herself, if she would become willing to call herself the sky angel, she would be able to work this powerful magic with her conscious mind.

Curiosity got the better of Ajalia's reluctance, and she murmured to herself, "I am the sky angel."

She felt her lips moving, back in the dragon temple, but simultaneously, as she inhabited her spirit body, she felt the knot of light grow swiftly outward, until it was as large as her body. Heat and flashes of power radiated all throughout her muscles and bones; she felt as though she was growing a sun in her heart. Her whole body seemed to shimmer, her spirit body, she thought, and she thought then of her physical body which lay still on the floor of the dragon temple.

For a moment she doubted, and the great black worm gave a shiver, and the blue ocean shell that held the evil thing captive cracked. Ajalia heard the shattering crack, and she knew what it was. Rage crested up in her heart again, anger against all the injustices she had witnessed in her life.

She had been annoyed for most of her life, at the unfairness of everything, but she had mitigated this annoyance to herself. She had told herself that it was no one's particular fault that everything was bad, and that people were clumsy, and stupid, and foolish. She saw the humans around her, and she saw that many of them were too selfish, or too narrow-minded to achieve truly epic evil in and of themselves.

But now that Ajalia saw a target, and an enemy manifested in the body of the ugly black worm, she felt a rage that was like an engulfing storm in her whole being. I am going to destroy you, she thought, and she released all the light that was in the orb of sun that had filled up her whole body. The sunlight spilled out of her; it was as though she had trapped light into a clay vessel, and it was as though she had cracked the vessel open with a hard rock, and the light had leaked out in every direction.

Oh, Ajalia thought, and she saw three things happen, all at the same time. First, the body of the black worm began, with a violent and reaching crash, to explode. The body of the black worm that lay enclosed in the ocean-blue shell began to shiver into clear black rocks, packed hard within the earth, just as the other worm had in the dragon temple, but this time, Ajalia saw also, and this was the second thing, the part of the snake's body that was not encased in blue light was shivering outwards in a tremendous explosion that, she saw, was making the whole earth shiver. An earthquake was shattering apart the sands in the desert. Ajalia was glad now that she had hooked the creature's tail, and drawn it towards her with a violent jerk. She did not know how she had reached all the way across to the real East, but she was sure now that she had not imagined her journey there. Ajalia told herself, and she knew that she was right, that she was not experiencing a metaphorical or symbolic mental journey; she saw the waves of sand cresting up into the air like destructive waves, and she knew that she really had put her mind into the East, and drawn away the tail of the dragon from her master' estate. Ajalia told herself that it was lucky that she had done so; now, as she watched the black worm die, and writhe with increasing violence through the sands of the abandoned desert, she saw that the whole foundation of the earth was shivering into pieces of stone.

She thought at once of Barat, and Darien, and of the other Eastern slaves whom Leed and Philas had told her were journeying back to the East. Ajalia began, quick as thought, to look for them, and she saw them almost at once.

She was glad that Darien was her particular boy, and that he was with the caravan. She was sure that she was able to find the caravan almost instantly because she knew the heart of Darien, and was accustomed to thinking of the shape of his energy. Ajalia thought of a protective white shell, and she made an encasing all around the caravan. She saw a picture of the slaves cower in terror, and the horses rearing at the slashing winds of sand and quaking earth beneath their feet. She formed a white shell, and the earth within the shell began at once to be still. The horses flung their heads, but no longer fought the slaves who held them, and the slaves looked up with terrified wonder at the waves of loose sand that crashed down against the shell of white protection that Ajalia had cast up around them.

This was the third thing that Ajalia saw; she felt, as from a great distance, and she saw, in her own mind, her body within the room of the dragon temple, and her skin was white and red and gold with light. She thought that her body looked like a shell of clay that is bursting from the inside with hot lava. Cracks and seams of hot gold and red light appeared all around the skin of her face, and through her arms, and hands. She could feel, almost behind a curtain of muffling distance, her feet burning, and the joints of her hips rotating slowly, almost as if they were floating in a sea of liquid fire. Ajalia drew a breath; she let go of the picture of the black worm, which was now exploding into stars of white and multicolored lights, and she kept a part of herself protecting the huddle of slaves in the desert, but most of her mind she focused on her body. She wondered if she was dying; she asked herself if this was what dying looking like from the inside, or from the perspective of her mind, and she did not think this was so.

I feel alive, Ajalia told herself, and it was so. The head of the black worm vibrated furiously; the long tail of the dragon contracted, like a drying weed that has been plump with water, and that shrivels in the heat of the sun. The tail of the snake, which had been whipping up the sand in the desert into a whirlwind of sandstorms, shrank into the forest in Slavithe, and darted, like a living thing, up towards the trembling head where Ajalia sat. The body of the worm that had been inside the hard crust of ocean-blue light had already shattered away, all but the head, and the dart-like tail now spun towards the clumsy head.

Ajalia saw the whipping black cord of the tail, and she knew suddenly that the worm was going, in its final moments, to try to kill her, to take her with it into oblivion. Ajalia thought first of throwing herself aside, but then she thought that she would not kill the dragon entirely, if she did so. She was sure that if any part of the black worm remained intact, the black skin would begin again to grow, and within a few generations of evil, the snake would once again be powerful enough to inhabit the stone in the earth, and to wind around the places where good people lived. Ajalia decided that she would not get out of the way. She told herself that she would rather die with the snake, than see it as a tiny, ugly worm, and to know that it would slink away into the shadows, and live to grow again into a monstrosity that would infect the whole earth with evil.

Ajalia called up the gold that was in her physical body, and she made a strong shield out of the gold of her own soul. She recognized the look of the gold; it was the same texture and light as the gold drops that Delmar had called into his hand, when he had sponsored her as a citizen of Slavithe, and the same gold that had rimmed Delmar's tongue, when he had licked at her arms, and opened the old wounds there with magic.

Ajalia had never before called out of herself her own soul; she had promised to sponsor Rane, when she learned how to do this, but he had turned on her, and been destroyed by the white in her soul, before she had done so. She felt a pinching pain within her chest, and in the cavities of her arms, and behind her knees. She felt a kind of aching, sharp needle of agony as she watched dribbles of pure gold assemble, like marching soldiers of dew, and form into a shield before her chest. The rapidly-retracting tail of the shrinking snake slipped like fire towards her, and slapped, with a hiss like fat on a griddle, against the shield of gold she had made for herself.

Ajalia gasped, and was flung at once into her own body in the dragon temple. Before she had finished feeling the filling-up of her muscles and bones, she reached into the earth, and grasped again a cord of deep blue with her fingers. Ajalia turned her mind at once towards the wall, and she saw the place just in time to witness the dragon's shriveled whip of a tail explode in fragments of light, and the head of the worm was burned up completely in the explosion. She saw the orange-gold eyes of the worm blink out, and a great shiver of dark stones coalesce within the sand, like a gorgeous vein of burial stones under the place where she had burned all the remnants of Bain into oblivion.

When Ajalia saw that the dragon was truly gone, and that no scrap of the black skin remained, she cast her mind towards the desert, and saw that the sand that had been flung high into the air had all but drifted back into wild dunes. She retracted the white shell she had made around the Eastern slaves, and then she thought of the white gravel road, and she feared that Darien and Barat would be lost.

Ajalia was sure that the writhing and fighting tail of the dragon had hidden the road beneath mounds of burying sand; she thought that the caravan would be lost, and would never find the buried road at all. She flexed her fingers, and felt the backs of her hands against the cool white stone of the floor where she lay.

Ajalia opened her eyes. She got up, and went to the curtain. She felt enormous aches and pains through her whole body; she thought that the red and gold light that had burned through her flesh had purged away all the death that had seemed to fill her up for as long as she could remember. Her skin and bones felt painfully alive right now. Ever since Ajalia could remember, since she had been a small child in her father's house, near the meadow and the crossroads, in a small town near the center of Leopath, she had felt as though she were not really alive. She had never felt the same as other people; she saw the folk of the village, and the traders and horses that lived nearby, in the next town over, but she was somehow different to the people there. Even the animals, Ajalia thought, had never seemed to regard her as a person.

The horse traders had come seasonally to the town next to Ajalia's home town, and she had loved to look at the horses when her mother had taken her there shopping, but when the child Ajalia had reached out, and attempted to stroke the noses or the cheeks of the horses, as they stood near the edges of the market stalls, the horses would always fling up their heads, and snort in dismissive alarm, as though they were not afraid of her, but afraid of being touched by her hand.

This reaction of the horses had hurt and confused Ajalia for a very long time; she had practiced on the horses that lived in a field near her home, and when she had been about ten or eleven, she had learned to keep away the darkness that always seemed to surge around her like a cloak.

She knew now that her father had infested her with shadows; these shadows, she thought, must have been what the horses objected to, because she could look back at the time she had spent hanging on the fence of the meadow, and consciously pushing back the darkness, and hiding it in her heart. The horses had not liked her much better, but they had stood and submitted their faces to be stroked by her.

When Ajalia had stolen the chestnut mare, and turned away from home, the mare had seemed to shiver away from Ajalia's legs. Ajalia had ridden the horse all right, and the mare had tolerated her seat and directions, but Ajalia had known, with a sorrowful twist in her heart, that the mare did not like her very much. As Ajalia had grown older, she had grown much more sophisticated in her ability to conceal the death that lay always in and around her heart. She had compacted the shadows, and made of them a reverse of what the black worm had shown itself to be. The black worm had taken light, and color, and smashed the pieces of light up so small that they could be coated in shadow, and made to appear wholly black. Ajalia had taken the shadows and the darkness that her family had inflicted upon her, and she had tucked it and folded it up until it lay in a corner of her being, and then she had seeded false life all around the black shadow, to make it seem only like a dark twist in her personality, or like a quirk of her being.

Ajalia remembered now what Bain had told her, when he had haunted her in the dragon temple. The scene came back to her as she stood in the open balcony, and looked out towards the wall, and the desert that lay beyond. She had finished putting Lilleth's body into the garbage pit, and she had just wiped all the blood from the steps and stones of the dragon temple hall, when Bain had come back to tease her again. She remembered how the shadow child had appeared suddenly. He had told her then that his body was dead, and that his spirit lived on. Ajalia, he had said, suffered from the opposite complaint. Bain had told her that her body was alive, but that her spirit was dead.

Ajalia felt now as though the burning fire in her body had resuscitated her spirit; she thought that killing the great black worm had created an excess of energy and heat, and that this overspill of potential life had bled into her soul, and reanimated it. She could not remember a time in her life that she had felt so full of life, of being. Her arms and legs felt solid, and her face, when she turned it into the cold night air, felt the pinch of the breeze against her cheeks. Ajalia felt as though she had been experiencing life at a distance for her whole period of existence; she felt the sting of the chilly air, and the press of the hard stones below her feet, and everything around her was solid, and real, and inescapably wonderful. Ajalia took a deep breath, and thought again of the caravan, and of the white gravel road that she was sure was buried away. She thought hesitantly of the lights beneath the earth, and of the coils of light above in the sky.

Ajalia was reluctant to leave her body again so soon; she was afraid that if she left her physical body behind, something would happen to the marvelous sensations she was feeling just now. She did not want her soul to disconnect from her body again. She determined to try to rescue the road from beneath the sands without leaving her body, and she put her hands on the balcony railing, and closed her eyes. She kept much of her attention fixed on the sensation of the stone beneath her fingers, and she rubbed her thumbs along the smooth white stone.

Ajalia imagined the gravel road that ran from the gates of Slavithe through the forest, and through the fields and orchards that ran through the farmlands of Slavithe. She dipped her mind beneath the road, and saw there the same curious silvery-blue color that she had found before in the quarries, and that she had twisted around the lights in her ankles. It was the light from the previous sky angel, that had been left in the rocks of the quarry, and that Ajalia had put through the lighted columns in the hall of the dragon temple, and the light there had faded. It was the same light she had threaded throughout the walls and ceilings of the dragon temple, to keep them from crumbling, when the first black worm had appeared, and challenged her.

The gravel road was threaded all through with this silvery-blue light. The threads of light looked like long threads of a warp that formed the basis of a weave of cloth; twisted through these silvery-blue threads were endless tiny cords of all different colors of light. Ajalia followed the road until she reached the desert; the sand lay over the surface of the road some distance out from the last fields. Ajalia saw that the white road ran along, surrounded on either side by the thick orange and gold sand, for about fifty yards, and then the white road vanished beneath a vast dune of the sand.

Settling her fingers tightly around the balcony with her left hand, and wiggling her toes against the cool floor of the balcony, Ajalia picked up the long skinny weave of light beneath the road, and shook it.

A tiny tremor shook through the sand just above the road, but the heavy masses of sand that lay in heaps above did not move. Ajalia creased the corners of her mouth, and yanked hard on the woven lights. The lights shifted a little, as though they were a cord that ran beneath a large boulder far away. Ajalia settled her feet against the white stone of the balcony, and she lifted her left hand away from the railing, which was blue in the light of the moon.

Ajalia put both hands around the woven lights beneath the road, and she imagined herself lifting the road high up, above her head. The heaps of sand over the road began, slowly, to shift away. Ajalia frowned. Her eyes were still closed. She reached into the sky, and got great clumps of the cords of light that spun through the air. She pictured these clumps of light forming quickly into wings, and, her shoulders shivering in anticipation, she fastened the ends of the wings around her bones and back. Her scapulae tickled when she spun the ends of the blue wings around them, and her spine itched at the touch of the wings of light. Ajalia felt a strong burning sensation deep in her bones when she twisted the cords of light hard within her body. She drove the wings down hard, and her body shot up, away from the balcony, and into the sky.

Ajalia heard a shout; she opened her eyes, and looked down. Delmar was on the roof. She saw that he had just put his hands on the railing that ran around the edges of the roof, and that he had meant to climb down to the balcony. She turned her attention back to the woven lights of the road, and again grasped the lights in both of her hands. She was about twenty feet above the roof of the dragon temple now; Ajalia drove the blue wings down again, and rose up like a rocket into the sky. The woven lights of the road were clasped hard in her fingers, and the weave grew hot against her skin, as though the road was fighting against the weight of the sand, and dragging against her fingers. Ajalia did not want to fly out over the desert; she wanted to talk to Delmar. She tightened her grip, and once more drove the blue wings down.

Ajalia felt as though she were about to scrape against the clouds. With a groan that she felt rather than heard, she tore up the graveled road from beneath the sand; she saw that the road itself did not move, but she could feel huge piles of sand flying away from it, as if they had been swept to either side by a great gust of torrential wind. In a moment, Ajalia felt the woven lights in her hands grown lighter, and then they were still. She looked along the whole line of the woven lights, and saw that they stretched, in an unrealistically straight line, right to the edge of the vast pool that formed the centerpiece of the oasis that was the central hub of Leopath. Ajalia put down the weave of the road, and she looked along the whole line of the white gravel.

She had often wondered, when the caravan had first been travelling along the almost ridiculously well-maintained gravel road, how it had been built, and what had kept it from being buried under long drifts of sand. The gravel was impossibly pure; near the very edge of the road, the white dust beneath the gravel mixed a little with the rich golden and orange sand, but in the rest of the road, not so much as a speck of orange sand had been mingled with the white gravel. Ajalia had ignored this strange phenomenon for the most part, but now she remembered how odd it had seemed to her, and how she had imagined hundreds of workers laboring over the road. She had wondered how the foundation for the road had been laid so straight, and in the midst of so much sand, but now she saw that the road floated on a bed of woven lights, and that the energy of those lights created a firm bottom for the crushed marble that formed the road.

Great hills and dunes now lay at either side of the road; Ajalia saw, at one place, a strong wind plowing through heaps of sand, and blowing a large dune across the white gravel road, and she fixed her attention on the road, to see what would happen there. The wind blew the sand, and the sand fell against the white gravel surface, and then bounced and slipped to the other side of the white ribbon of crushed stone.

Ajalia drew back her mind into her body; the blue wings were moving up and down in the air, making her hang almost still in the sky, high above the roof of the dragon temple. Ajalia flew down, and landed on the balcony of her room. She saw Delmar's face turned up to her as she descended. As soon as her bare feet touched down on the stone of the balcony, she unwound the tendrils of blue light from the sky that she had twisted hard around her bones, and she felt a sigh of relief building up in her chest. For some reason, the twisting of the blue lights felt painful to her, like a pair of shoes that were too tight, or a dress that fit too snug under the arms. She let go of the wings, and they drifted apart into their former cords, and resumed their places in the sky.

Ajalia heard a scrape above her, and she looked up and saw Delmar climbing down the carved facade of the dragon temple. Ajalia went into her room, and looked about. She went to her bed, and straightened up the things she had flung down when she had gotten undressed earlier. She was acutely aware of the tunic she had put on, and cinched around her waist. She wished she had her other clothes on again, but she did not think it would take Delmar long to climb down to the balcony. She felt suddenly exposed, and went out to meet him. Delmar was just dropping down. Ajalia fought back a sudden temptation to yank on the curtains, and to close off her room from view. She could not have said why, but she felt absurdly silly next to Delmar now.

DELMAR AND AJALIA

"Hello," he said with a smile. Ajalia glared at him. "I came down from the roof, like you said," Delmar said. "Leed's going to do a lot of things with me tomorrow, and with Philas. I saw you flying," he added, and Ajalia saw that Delmar was a little awestruck with her. She felt suddenly angry, and she thought that she felt more angry than she had ever been in her whole life, even more angry than she had been when she had destroyed the second black worm.

"I'm very upset with you," Ajalia told Delmar. Delmar smiled, as though she had told him something pleasant.

"Okay," he said. "Why?" Ajalia's frown deepened.

"You are not allowed to smile, or be joyful when I am angry," she told him. Delmar could not stop himself from laughing. "I mean it!" Ajalia said sternly. Delmar caught her around the waist.

"Will you tell me why you're mad at me?" Delmar asked. His voice was altogether too warm and inviting, Ajalia thought. She wanted to have a fight with Delmar. She wanted him to fight back, and she did not know why.

"I told you I destroyed the black worm," Ajalia told him. "I don't think you believe me." She did not want to tell Delmar about the second worm until she was sure he would actually think she was speaking of something real. She felt shaky enough about her own experience with the black dragon, without adding in a dismissal or a disbelieving look from Delmar.

"Okay," Delmar said easily. "But I do believe you."

"No you don't," Ajalia said. She was not yet willing to extricate herself from Delmar's grip, but she was very aware of how visible they both were on the moonlit balcony. "People can see us, if they're looking," she said shortly, pulling at Delmar.

"But it's very early in the morning," Delmar protested, standing firm. Ajalia saw that he thought the moonlight was quite romantic. She felt utterly soured towards Delmar, and she was angry at him for ruining their first time alone since he had gone away. She had, in the very back of her mind, been making up a wonderful feeling of cozy togetherness that she wanted to have when Delmar came back, and here she was, alone at last with Delmar, and so angry that she could have told him to go away again, and meant it.

"Yes," Ajalia said, "and I've been flying, and you're the Thief Lord, and the dragon temple is very worth spying on."

"Pshaw," Delmar said, but he followed Ajalia into the darkness beyond the curtains. As soon as the flap of the curtain fell down behind him, he wrapped his arms around her, and put his lips against hers in a kiss.

"Well, I am not ready for kissing," Ajalia said angrily, extricating herself efficiently. A wounded silence emanated from Delmar towards her.

"But why?" he asked, a little plaintively.

"If you believed what I said, why would you be making plans to destroy the black worm yourself?" Ajalia asked.

"But there are two," Delmar said weakly. "And they aren't worms," he added, almost under his breath. A new surge of indignation swelled in Ajalia's breast. She had felt, just a moment ago, that she was being a little unfair, but she did not feel so now.

"You're treating me like a liar," Ajalia pointed out.

"I am not!" Delmar said.

"Are too," she said.

"I am not!" Delmar said again. "Why are you being so mean all of a sudden?" he asked, as though he had just realized that she was angry.

"I told you I was angry," she said.

"Yes, but why are you being mean?" Delmar asked, as if the two things were unrelated. Ajalia squelched a desire to yell. Then, she realized that she was angry enough to yell, and she thought about whether or not she wanted to yell. She knew her boys were going to hear her, if she shouted at Delmar.

"I don't know if I'm ready to tell you," Ajalia said. Delmar was invisible in the darkness, but Ajalia could imagine the expression in his eyes.

"Tell me anyway," he suggested.

"You used to act like this a lot," Ajalia pointed out, "before we got your parents out of your system." Delmar seemed to think about this.

"Do you think they're back?" he asked.

"No," Ajalia said, sitting down at her desk in the darkness, "I think you're used to playing dumb to get your way."

"But I'm not trying to get my way right now," Delmar protested. Ajalia bit back a laugh.

"You want to kiss me," she said.

"But you want that, too," he said anxiously. Ajalia didn't say anything. "Don't you?" he demanded, his voice rising a little.

"I did until you were rude about the black worm I told you about," Ajalia said. Silence followed this statement.

"But," Delmar said, and then he didn't say anymore. Ajalia was not sure if he was angry at her, or confused at what she meant. She remembered what Leed had told her and Philas, about Delmar being a liar, and she smiled.

"Leed says that you are a liar," Ajalia said. "He says that you lie for good, and you get away with it because your heart is pure. But I think that you have a very bad habit of lying to me when you're uncomfortable."

"I'm not uncomfortable," Delmar said uncomfortably. Ajalia smiled again. She felt as though she were winning, and Ajalia enjoyed winning very much. She could hear that Delmar was on the defensive.

"I killed the other black dragon, or whatever you called them, just now," Ajalia said in a friendly voice. "That's why I was flying. I was putting the road back together, because the dragon's tail whipped up the sand, and covered up the road to the oasis."

Delmar received this statement in absolute silence. He sounded like a statue. Ajalia felt as though she could have been all alone in her room. She leaned back a little in her chair, and balanced against the desk on the back two legs of the chair. Her chair made a slight creaking noise.

"Are you playing with your chair?" Delmar asked indignantly. Ajalia smiled, and then nodded.

"Yes," she said soberly.

"Why?" Delmar demanded. "Isn't that a very frivolous thing to be doing at a time like this?"

"What kind of a time is this?" Ajalia asked.

"I don't know!" Delmar said vehemently, "but it certainly is not a time for playing with your chair!"

"My boys are going to wake up if you shout," Ajalia pointed out. "Then they are all going to creep to the outside of my door, which is admittedly thin, and then, once we finish arguing and start to do other things, they are going to hear everything."

"What other things?" Delmar said at once. Ajalia almost laughed when she heard the intensity in his voice.

"Oh," she said vaguely, "things."

"You look very nice in that outfit," Delmar added. He did not say it in a way that told her he was trying to butter her up; he seemed utterly unconscious of the timing he had chosen for his compliment.

"Thank you," Ajalia said.

"I haven't seen you wear it before," Delmar said. Ajalia heard him sigh, and then she heard him make a kind of resigned mutter. "What do I have to say so you'll be friends again?" he asked.

"No," Ajalia said.

"What do you mean, no?" he demanded. He sounded a little irate.

"I'm not going to do the work for you," Ajalia said. She did not sound angry at all. Ajalia could almost hear Delmar thinking. She heard the way he was trying figure out what she was getting at, and she could also hear the way he hoped she would let it all go.

"Couldn't I apologize by kissing you?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't enjoy kissing people who think I'm a liar," Ajalia said. Delmar huffed in the darkness. She heard the mattress creak, and she imagined him sitting a little petulantly on the bed.

"Well this is not going at all the way I anticipated," Delmar said. Ajalia laughed, and his silence turned a shade darker. "I don't think you're being very sensitive," he told her.

"Is it sensitive of you to call me a liar?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Delmar said at once, "but I didn't call you a liar, did I?" Ajalia said nothing, and after a very long pause, she heard Delmar sigh again. "Won't you please forgive me?" he asked. He sounded half-hearted.

"Am I supposed to forget that you think I'm a liar, just so you can have your picture back of kissing me romantically?" Ajalia asked. The silence turned now from a shadow of strain to a sort of mutinous anger.

"I didn't ever call you a liar," Delmar said stiffly.

"Did too," Ajalia said.

"Did not!" Delmar cried. He moderated his tone quickly, and Ajalia knew he was thinking of the boys who slept in another room. "Um," he whispered. "What was that you were saying, about what we would do later?" Ajalia stifled a smile. She knew that Delmar could not see her, but she did not want to sound jocular when she responded. She thought that Delmar was being ridiculous about the matter of the black worms, but she did not want to hurt his feelings.

She did not know what to say, and so she said nothing at all.

"Well?" Delmar asked. He sounded anxious again. "I mean," he said, "maybe if you explain why—" he broke off. When he spoke again, his voice was level, and calm. "Will you explain what I did wrong?" he asked. He sounded quite like himself again, and Ajalia thought that he was no longer putting himself up on a pedestal of offended dignity.

"Why did you act the way you did," she asked, "when I said I saw a big black worm rise up in the great hall, and I destroyed it?"

"Well, I don't think it sounds reasonable," Delmar said. He sounded quite reasonable. The corners of Ajalia's mouth drew down.

"So if I say something happened to me," she said, "and you decide that it is not reasonable, you will tell me that it probably didn't happen? What does that mean?" she asked. "Does that mean that I'm crazy, or does it mean that I'm a liar?"

"You're being a little defensive about this," Delmar said. He sounded doubtful. Ajalia settled the chair back onto four legs, and stood up. She knew that Delmar heard the thonking noise that the chair legs made, because the bed creaked a little, as though he had shifted his weight. "I don't think you're a liar," he said.

"You think you can get me to ignore what you did," Ajalia said. "It's not going to work."

"I don't think that," Delmar said quickly.

"Yes you do," Ajalia said. "You want to ignore what I said, and go on a big adventure to hunt down some legendary evil dragons, and kill them, and you want me to go along with it so you can feel important."

"I think that is a terrible thing to say to me," Delmar said finally.

"Why?" Ajalia asked.

"Because it's definitely not true," Delmar said. Ajalia told herself that it probably was true, since Delmar was so vehemently denying it.

"Well," Ajalia said. Delmar seemed spooked at the finality in her tone.

"What do you mean, well?" Delmar demanded.

"I mean, well," Ajalia said.

"But what does that mean?" Delmar asked. He sounded as though he were growing angry again.

"It means I am getting kind of into the mindset of I would like to go to bed now," Ajalia said.

"You don't have to go to bed," Delmar said. "I mean, I would rather you talked to me."

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "So you can lie to me again?"

"I am not lying to you!" Delmar hissed loudly.

"I think you are," Ajalia said. "Does this mean that I'm just wrong, and you're right? Do you always get to be right if I don't agree with you?"

"Of course not!" Delmar said, his voice little more than a whisper. Ajalia stood up, and stretched out her arms. "Are you standing up?" he asked.

"Yes," Ajalia said.

"Can we be friends now?" Delmar asked.

"You are the one who is not being  friendly to me," Ajalia pointed out.

"No," Delmar replied, "you're the one saying I'm lying, and things like that."

"Well," Ajalia said.

"Stop saying that," Delmar said, "please. Stop saying, 'well.' It makes me feel very uncomfortable."

"Is it more important to you that you be comfortable?" Ajalia asked, "Or for me to like you?"

"What does that even mean?" Delmar asked, sounding quite astonished. "You have to like me."

"I have to like you?" Ajalia asked. She kept all of the sarcasm out of her voice; she was quite proud of how calm and friendly her voice sounded. She thought about kissing Delmar, but told herself that he would never change if she went about kissing him when he was behaving like this.

"Yes," Delmar said indignantly. "You have to like me. That's what it means when you love somebody."

"Well, I love you," Ajalia said, "and I don't like you at all right now." Ajalia could see the dislike rippling through the air towards her from Delmar, though she could not see his face.

"But I always like you," Delmar said.

"You don't," Ajalia said. "You admitted before that you don't like me sometimes."

"I don't think I've ever said that," Delmar said. "You must have talked to someone else about this. I always like you a lot." He said this with something very like vengeance and ire dripping from his tone, and Ajalia smiled, though she no longer felt like laughing.

"If you make me angry," Ajalia said, "I will not be nice about this anymore."

"You're already not being nice!" Delmar said. Ajalia went to the door, and swiftly opened it. She did not bother looking for faces; she was sure that most of the household had assembled itself outside her door. She knew that her boys were becoming adept spies, and she guessed that the young women would be intensely curious about her relationship with Delmar. She did not see any faces, but she heard the scuttle of feet, and the impact of many bodies hurtling away down the hall.

Delmar stood up, and came near the door. Ajalia could feel the heat from his body radiating at her.

"Were there people out there?" he asked.

"Everyone, probably," Ajalia said. "Even Ocher, if he's here."

"Why would Ocher be here?" Delmar demanded, sounding outraged.

"Ocher is probably here for the same reason that you are," Ajalia said, closing the door, "although I don't think he and Clare are married yet." She had entirely forgotten what Isacar had said, about Clare going off to get married.

"Clare?" Delmar asked blankly. "Wait," he said, and she imagined him furrowing his brow. "Did you tell me that Ocher was planning to get married?"

"Yes, to Clare," Ajalia said. Delmar thought about this.

"Why is Ocher here?" he asked.

"Kissing, etcetera," Ajalia said. A puritanical silence followed this statement.

"But," Delmar said, sounding shocked.

"Yes?" Ajalia asked.

"Isn't Ocher awfully old?" Delmar asked weakly.

"No, not really," Ajalia said. She saw that Delmar thought of Ocher more as an uncle, or a peer to his dead father, than as a man still quite in his prime. "Clare doesn't think so," Ajalia added.

"Have you seen them together?" Delmar asked. "Like, in the same room? Is it awkward?"

"No," Ajalia said. "And of course I saw them together. I set them up."

"You what?" Delmar asked, sounding utterly appalled. He was silent for a long time, and then Ajalia began to divine that he was reconsidering her moral outlook, seeing as she had no problem making a pair of Ocher and Clare.

"I told you several times that Ocher wanted a wife," Ajalia said, "and that I promised him a wife."

Delmar wandered back to the bed, and sat down again. Ajalia opened the door one more time. This time there were no scuttling feet. "Who's at the end of the hall?" Ajalia called. A very pregnant silence was her answer. "You all know that I carry a knife with me, right?" she asked. This time she heard hurried footsteps, and she smiled. She shut the door, and locked it again. She could tell, from the sort of silence that filled up the room, that Delmar was no longer thinking about kissing her. He was now thoroughly absorbed in the idea of Clare and Ocher making a permanent couple. Ajalia went to the bed, and sat down, too.

"Isn't Ocher really old?" Delmar asked.

"Not very old," Ajalia said.

"But isn't Clare super young?" he asked urgently. Ajalia suppressed a sigh.

"Would it make you feel better," she asked, "if you went and had an interview or something? You could go light a lamp, and find Clare, and you could interrogate her, and ask her to please tell you that she really loves Ocher, and wants to sleep with him."

"I never said anything," Delmar said, his voice lowering into the depths of horror, "about them sleeping together." Ajalia could not help herself. She began to laugh, and when Delmar scooted away from her to sit at the very edge of the bed, she laughed harder. "I don't see anything funny about this," Delmar told Ajalia. She tried to hold in her glee, and failed miserably. "What are you laughing about?" Delmar asked, sound confused, but relieved that she had stopped calling him a liar.

"Why do you think people get married?" Ajalia asked him. She imagined Delmar blinking about this.

"Um," he said, and then he didn't say anymore.

"You were awfully ready to kiss me just a few minutes ago," Ajalia said. Delmar didn't say anything at all. "And I don't think you're nearly as innocent as you pretend to be," she added.

"I never said I was innocent," Delmar said.

"Why shouldn't Clare marry Ocher?" Ajalia asked.

"Let's go back to talking about how I'm calling you a liar," Delmar said. He sounded uncomfortable.

"Okay," Ajalia said, shrugging. "Are you going to believe me about the worms?"

"They aren't worms!" Delmar shouted. He seemed to have reached his ability to be patient and calm.  His voice was wrought up to a pitch of excitement and fervor that she had rarely heard out of him. She was sorely tempted to kiss him, just to see what he would do about it. She thought he might burst into tears, if she did kiss him. "What are you being quiet about now?" he demanded.

"What do you mean?" Ajalia asked. "Why shouldn't I be quiet?"

"You have that thing that you do," Delmar said, sounding agitated, "when you're thinking about doing something to make me feel uncomfortable. You think it's funny."

"I was thinking about kissing you," Ajalia said. "I thought that would make you feel uncomfortable."

"Are you serious?" Delmar asked. He sounded pleased.

"Mm," Ajalia said.

"Do I have to apologize about the lying?" Delmar asked.

"Are you going to do it again?" she asked.

"Well," Delmar said. Ajalia burst into giggles. "What are you laughing about now?" he demanded, but he sounded as though he was trying not to smile.

"Now you are the one saying 'well' to me," she pointed out. They sat in silence for several minutes. Ajalia thought that the sun would soon begin to rise.

"Did you really see the black dragons?" he asked her. "Tonight, and last night?"

"Yes," Ajalia said. "I killed both of them."

"Oh," Delmar said. He sounded disappointed.

"Is this upsetting to you?" Ajalia asked.

"No," Delmar said, but he sounded disappointed. After a few moments, he sighed. "I think I was hoping, if they were real," he said, "to find them myself."

"I didn't really find them," Ajalia said. "At least the first one. I went looking for the second one, I guess."

"Why?" Delmar asked.

"I was angry," Ajalia said. "I wanted to kill something."

"So you went and found the last black dragon and you killed it?" Delmar asked. "Just because you were angry?"

"Yes," Ajalia said. "Is that wrong?" Delmar thought about this for a while.

"I think you must be the sky angel," he said finally. "You're doing an awful lot of epic things lately."

"Does that make me the sky angel?" Ajalia asked.

"Probably," Delmar said. He sounded disappointed again.

"You do realize, don't you," Ajalia asked, "that if I'm the sky angel, you're the falcon who's going to fly, and unify the people, and all those things?"

Delmar thought about this, and then he seemed to cheer up a little. Ajalia felt the mattress rustle as he sat up.

"You're probably right," Delmar said. He sounded quite cheerful. "Can I kiss you now?" he asked.

"Will you say you're sorry first?" Ajalia asked. She was sure that Delmar smiled.

"I'm sorry for acting like you were a liar, and for not believing what you said," Delmar said. He waited, and then added, "and for the other thing."

"What other thing?" Ajalia asked.

"I guess Ocher can be not quite dead yet, if you say he isn't," Delmar said. Ajalia laughed, and then Delmar wrapped her up so tightly that she stopped breathing. "Hello," Delmar said, and Ajalia did not know what to say back. She kissed him, instead.

Isacar, Ajalia found, had the good sense to leave her alone for a very long time the next day. Delmar kissed her for a long time, and a good deal of snuggling was had, but when the sun began to send rays of light, far too soon, in Ajalia's opinion, around the edges of the curtain that hung over the balcony, Delmar, who had been winding his fingers through her hair, extricated himself with a kiss.

"Leed's teaching us how to fly," Delmar whispered, putting his palm against Ajalia's cheek.

"At dawn?" she asked. She felt supremely lazy, and Delmar's kissing, she found was quite an effective soporific. She did not know if she ought to be embarrassed that kissing Delmar was putting her to sleep, instead of stirring her up to more vigorous wakefulness, but she found that being held, and snuggled, and stroked along the head was wonderfully soothing.

"Yes," Delmar said. Delmar sounded thoroughly awake. The dangerous glint had never yet come back into his eye, and Ajalia had felt no sudden urge to dissuade him from any baby-making activities he may or may not be contemplating. Ajalia had strong opinions on the making of babies; she was thoroughly against the use of her body as a child-producing machine. She could imagine a future in which her attitude changed, but the thought of going about the kind of life she had now, and being heavy and slow while she did it, sounded utterly impractical and miserable to her. She could not even imagine what her life would be like if she had a child. She had not yet expressed to Delmar her feelings on this matter, but she told herself that he had been, up to this point, so prudish and reticent on the idea of married life, that she had plenty of time still for such a conversation to occur.

Delmar kissed her again, and then unlocked the door and went out. Ajalia smiled when she thought of the ribbing Delmar would receive from the boys downstairs, and from Chad. Ajalia was sure that Chad, at least, was quite aware of what couples generally got up to when they were alone in a dark room all night. She did not think that Clare or Sun, and certainly not Ossa, would have the gall to speak to Delmar about what may or may not have happened between himself and Ajalia in the dark, but she was sure that Sun would stare, and she thought it likely that Ossa would blush.

Ajalia settled under her blankets, and her fingers met the hilt of her knife. Ajalia had forgotten that she had put it under her pillow; she smiled, and drew it out. Leed, she remembered, had said he would go out and get his own knife, when he got the falcon's dagger sharpened. Ajalia had no fear of the dagger being lost or stolen as long as Leed had it; the boy was quite as wary of thievery as she was, she thought, if not more so. Ajalia had gotten used to minding her things, and kept a running checklist in the back of her mind, but she was sure that Leed was still quite as frantic at the idea of losing valuables as she had once been.

Ajalia sighed, and stretched luxuriously, and thought again of Ossa. She had thought, when she had first seen Ossa helping Card's daughter with the child Dasha, that Ossa would prove to be a valuable ally, and an interesting young woman. Ossa was interesting, Ajalia told herself, but she was not interesting in the way Ajalia had hoped she would be. Ajalia had wanted an efficient young woman, and a young lady with strong sense. Instead, she reflected with a sigh, she had an angry apprentice witch. Ossa, Ajalia thought, would bear watching.

Ajalia had been too occupied with kissing Delmar to ask about the old stories of the black dragons. Ajalia still did not know anything about the ancients, or how they did battle with the two ugly worms. Ajalia did not know where the worms had come from, or how they had started to get into the hearts of those people who did evil. I hope, Ajalia thought, that they cannot grow back somehow. She rolled over in the bed, and told herself that she would get up in a moment, and see after the household. Then Ajalia fell sound asleep.

Isacar, who was doing a great deal of organizing of his own, alongside the efforts of Daniel and Leed, and who had reached an amicable agreement with Daniel concerning their two roles in the house, had posted a guard consisting of the youngest boy of all, who was only five, and directed the child to report any person who ventured down the hall towards Ajalia's room. This boy, who was too young to do any magic, had taken on the role of guard with a passion that was likely only to be ended in death, and he stood like a post for hours at the head of the hallway. When any person went up or down the stairs, the little boy glared at them, and once, when Fashel had come up to ask the boy if Ajalia wanted any food, the little boy sent her away with an angry scolding.

Leed, who had a knack for reading Ajalia's mind, much as Ajalia had learned to read Delmar's, got another boy to sneak up to the roof in the late afternoon, and to lower a basket of food down to the balcony with a rope. Ajalia woke up, feeling groggy and irritated, in the evening, and she discovered the basket because it cast a curious shadow against the curtain. When she went to investigate, and saw the basket of food lying there, she smiled, and thought of Leed. He had promised to look after her, and to see that she ate, and Ajalia felt quite warm and cozy inside as she carried the basket of spoils to her desk, and began to investigate the contents.

FASHEL IS PURSUED

Fashel, she found as she dug into the basket, was quite a good cook. Intoxicating smells rose up from the food, some of which was still a little warm, and Ajalia's mouth watered painfully. She had not eaten regular meals for some time now. The excitement of rescuing Delmar, and of ending the reign of his parents, and then of fighting off the magic factions in the city, and the two black worms beneath the earth, had so absorbed her attention that she had begun to lose track of the passage of time. She had certainly not taken out intervals from her adventures to eat, and Ajalia began, with a very decent appetite, to set this deplorable state of affairs aright.

Fashel had made a whole host of things that resembled pocket-sized fruit pies. The fruit that burst out of the middle of these delectable pastries was not anything Ajalia recognized. Their texture was white and smooth, and their skins were flavorful and tart. Many of these small pies, which were made of a flaky dough, and folded over into rectangles, were quite warm in the centers, and Ajalia ate these first. When she had eaten the fruit tarts, she discovered toasted rounds of some kind of sausage that had been stuffed into a thick white paste, which seemed to be an aromatic cheese, and then enclosed in a fried skin of some bready vegetable.

Ajalia thought that she had never eaten anything so delicious in her entire life. There were two of these sausage wraps, and though they were cool, they were large and filling. A layer of plain cloth, cut like a napkin, had been draped over the bottom of the basket. Ajalia thought at first that the napkin had been covering the bottom of the basket, but when she lifted it up, meaning to shake the crumbs out of it, she found a cluster of rich blue berries, and a thick slice of seasoned and roasted meat.

Ajalia thought, when she had eaten the fruit pies, and devoured the two sausage-stuffed wraps, that Fashel had clearly achieved the pinnacle of what could be achieved with cookery, but when she took a bite of the slab of meat, which was quite enormous, and had been perfectly seasoned from end to end, Ajalia thought that she may as well die now, since there was nothing more for her to look forward to in life. She had this thought, and then she realized that she could never, ever die, because she needed to eat Fashel's food for the rest of her days. Fashel, Ajalia thought, was a gem. Fashel, Ajalia told herself, was a magnificent prize. Fashel, Ajalia told herself, after Delmar, and Leed, and superseding Isacar, was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Ajalia sighed, and carried the berries and the slab of seasoned meat to her bed. She was beginning to get tired. She had an idea of rushing immediately down the stairs, and of throwing money and other precious items at Fashel's face, and commanding her to never, ever leave her household, but Ajalia's increasingly full stomach, and the utter contentment that was spreading rapidly through her whole body, overcame this desire. I can tell Fashel about never leaving, Ajalia told herself, when I wake up.

A niggling doubt at the bottom of her neck gave her a sense of danger. Ajalia stuffed another bite of the seasoned meat into her mouth, and gnawed on it. Whenever she felt that niggling sense, something happened later that showed her she was right. Ajalia sighed, and ate the berries, which turned out to have a subtle, dark flavor, reminiscent of the toasted jam she had eaten in the East. Ajalia ate the rest of the food, and she tried to decide if she wanted to get up or not. On the one hand, she was about as relaxed and happy as she could remember ever being in her life. She knew that if she went back to bed, she would go to sleep and have the most glorious rest of her life. On the other hand, she told herself, if she got up now, and adjusted her clothes, and went down to the kitchen, she would likely prevent some accident of fate that was brewing. Ajalia did not exactly believe in accidents of fate, but she had learned to listen to the doubt that she currently felt, the sense of something being about to happen to Fashel. Ajalia was sure that if she went downstairs now, she would not go back to bed for days. Something, Ajalia told herself, was sure to happen.

She sighed, and then she went and found her shoes, and the last pair of pants that she owned. I have got, Ajalia told herself sternly, to stop ruining all of my clothes. She reminded herself to send a boy to market, or to go herself to buy herself something to wear, and she carried the basket to the door.

Ajalia stopped still before the door. I forgot my knife, she thought, and she turned back, and undressed. She could not believe that she had left her knife behind. Never, as long as she could remember since she had had it, had she left her knife behind. Ajalia strapped her knife harness around her chest, and fastened it. She put her tunic back on, and slung the knife into its sheath. Either I am changing, Ajalia told herself, or else my life is not as dangerous as it used to be. She did not know if there was some other explanation for her sudden carelessness. She picked up the basket, and began to look inside of it for edible crumbs as she went out the door and down the stairs.

The boy jumped up like a rocket when he saw Ajalia open the door. When she walked past the little boy, she saw that his face was bright red; she suspected that he was holding his breath. A fierce and warrior-like expression was on his face, and his tiny fists were clenched into hard balls at his sides. Ajalia reached the stairs, and turned. She reached for a coin from her leather pouch to give to the little boy. She could see clearly that he was standing guard. Ajalia realized, when her hand closed on empty air, that she had left her bag behind, as well.

Ajalia went back into her room, feeling quite out of sorts. She got her bag out from under the bed, and checked inside to see that the sky stone was still inside. Leed had taken the falcon's dagger, and the two leather books from her last night. Ajalia had not seen any lumps in Delmar's shirt; she was sure that Leed still had the books. She had a vision of Delmar sitting in some quiet corner, studying the two slim volumes, as Leed watched over him like a hawk.

Ajalia went out of the room for a second time, and gave her little guardian boy a fat coin.

"You're off duty for now," she told the boy, who nodded sharply, and stared with fixed eyes at the wall opposite. Ajalia, who thought that the boy didn't want to abandon his post while she was in sight, went down the stairs. She went directly to the kitchen, and stepped inside the open door. Philas was in the kitchen, and he was hovering solicitously over Fashel, who was cutting vegetables on the large table.

"Well, hello," Ajalia said. Philas, who had been leaning rather close and whispering into Fashel's ear, jumped, and let out a guilty yelp.

"Hello," Fashel said demurely to Ajalia.

"Is he trying to talk you into something unsavory?" Ajalia asked Fashel. Fashel smiled, and glanced at Philas, who blushed, and retreated to a corner of the kitchen. Ajalia thought that Philas looked very much like a young man who wants to run away, but his jaw was clenched, and he looked quite determined to wait Ajalia out, though his ears turned a magnificent shade of red. Ajalia saw that Philas had made time to straighten his beard, which had been quite uncouth the night before, and the seams of his clothes, which Leed had sliced through, had been deftly repaired.

"Philas is a great flirt," Fashel told Ajalia. "Sun warned me about him. He'll get nowhere with me." Fashel looked determined enough, but her cheeks were also turning a little pink.

"Have you met Isacar?" Ajalia asked Philas. Philas did not make a face at her, but his mouth thinned into a line.

"Yes," Philas said in an even voice, and Ajalia was sure that Philas knew about Fashel's engagement to Isacar.

"Oh," she said. She took the basket to the window at the back of the kitchen, and shook the tiny crumbs out of the basket and the length of cloth.

"I didn't know if I was to put crumbs out there," Fashel said, watching Ajalia. "I need to buy a bucket for odds and ends, but I forgot this morning."

"How did shopping go?" Ajalia asked. She replaced the basket in a corner of the shelf, and leaned against the counter. She was glad she had come downstairs. Ajalia was sure the Philas was up to something with Fashel, and she was determined not to lose her new cook to Philas, who, she knew from personal experience, was a smooth talker.

"Well," Fashel said, blushing with pleasure, "I went out early with two of the boys. Leed wanted to come with me, but he had too much to do, so he gave me a list, and he gave one of the boys some money for things that he needed." Ajalia wanted to know what kinds of items would manifest themselves on a shopping list that Leed drew up, but she restrained herself from asking. Philas, she thought, looked incredibly young just now. She reflected that he may be a much younger age than she had ever suspected. His face had always seemed haggard and drawn. He could be quite handsome, when he was happy, but he had always had bitter lines around his eyes and mouth, and his cheeks had seemed to be dark and hollow to Ajalia, particularly when his beard was full.

Philas now presented a completely different picture to what he had been before. His beard he had trimmed back neatly, and his cheeks seemed to be full and ruddy with life. His eyes had brightened considerably, and his mouth now was curved in a satisfied smile.

Ajalia was not sure if Philas's change was completely due to the magical cleanse she had put him through late last night, or if Leed had managed to inspire in the slave some kind of respect for himself, and some hope and interest in the future. As Ajalia listened to Fashel talk about her purchases in the market that morning, and as Philas stared avidly at Fashel's animated face, Ajalia began to suspect another reason for Philas's good humor. He looked at Fashel in a way that, to Ajalia, was reminiscent of the way that Delmar sometimes stared at her. She wondered if Isacar had noticed that his soon-to-be wife was being pursued by such an insidiously determined force as Philas could be, when he liked. Well, Ajalia told herself, Fashel was not married yet, and could be seen yet as fair game, from the perspective of pure ardor.

"We took out the little jennet," Fashel said, and she continued to chatter over the vegetables, explaining the money she had spent, and the clothes that Leed had directed one of the other boys to buy. Ajalia divided her attention between Fashel and Philas, and thought of what she would do, if Philas meant it. Ajalia could see desire and liking in Philas's face, and his eyes were far more intent than they had ever been when he had fixed them on her. He looked a little like a man possessed; Ajalia was sure that Philas was waiting for her to go away and let him get back to work on Fashel, whom, Ajalia was quite sure, was yet unaware of how seriously Philas meant to continue as he had begun.

Fashel was speaking with no embarrassment; she looked totally without concern for her appearance, or for how Philas was looking at her. Fashel looked utterly charming over the vegetables that she was cutting. Ajalia had looked over the young woman when Isacar had brought her home to the dragon temple, and she had seen that Fashel was a reasonably nice-looking young lady, but now Fashel had undergone a startling transformation. She gestured as she spoke of Pudge, and of how she and the boys had met Denai, and how Denai had told them all about Pudge's heritage and previous ownership. Ajalia was sure that it was the kitchen, and the cooking that was putting a bright flush of pleasure and beauty into Fashel's eyes. Fashel looked quite different than she had; her hair seemed to fall with more grace, and it was tied back efficiently to keep out of Fashel's way. Fashel's hair yesterday had been arranged neatly, in the fashion of a well-bred young lady, but now her hair was slung tidily out of the way, and her sleeves had little dashes of flour all over the edges. She had found or purchased an apron, which was tied neatly around her waist, and she held a knife in one hand. Her fingers were stained with the juice of the vegetables that she cut, and she moved deftly in the kitchen, from table to counter. When she had finished one task, she moved seamlessly on to the next. A small fire was crackling busily in the hearth, and a very large pot was boiling there with ridiculously good smells. When Fashel, who was busily describing the market to Ajalia, and talking through every counter-step that occurred in her negotiation for her purchases, had finished with her vegetables, she swept them into a bowl, and took them tidily to the bubbling pot.

"Stir this," Fashel told Philas, handing him a long wooden spoon. Philas leapt into action with all the promptness of a man doing the behest of his beloved, and Ajalia swallowed a smile. I did right to come downstairs, she told herself, and she tried to decide if she wanted to alert Fashel to the affection that was clearly burgeoning in Philas's heart.

"I didn't want to get the biggest pot," Fashel was telling Ajalia. The young woman emptied out a bag of some coarse yellow flour, and began to build an aromatic dough upon the table. "I didn't know how many people the boys will bring today," Fashel said, "and I don't have quite enough of the halles to make the right texture in soup. That's halles," Fashel added seamlessly, pointing to a long pile of tubers that lay along the opposite counter. "You can put that spoon down, now, thank you," Fashel told Philas, and when Philas came directly to the table, and stood staring at Fashel, the long spoon grasped in his hand, Fashel glanced at him, and make an impatient 'tsk' with her lips. Fashel took the spoon from Philas, and set it down. "Peel those," Fashel commanded, pointing at the pile of tubers, "and only take off the skin. I need all the meat inside."

"Yes," Philas said, and Ajalia was sure that he had to stop himself from adding, "and I love you, Fashel."

Ajalia's smile grew wider.

"Philas," Ajalia said. Fashel, who had opened her mouth to continue her narrative of the day's shopping, snapped her lips closed, and looked at Ajalia.

"Yes," Philas said cautiously. He had taken the knife Fashel had used, and his back was to Ajalia as he began to peel the tubers. Ajalia saw Philas's shoulders grow exceedingly still and quiet; she was quite sure that he was begging her silently not to ruin his plan of slowly seducing the affections of Fashel away from Isacar, and carrying the girl off to Saroyan with him.

"Nothing," Ajalia said, and turned back to Fashel. Fashel, seeing that she once again had Ajalia's attention, launched anew into her story, and Ajalia listened, and watched the heap of dough grow under Fashel's hands.

"I have to get some more wood," Fashel said, interrupting herself. "My fire is not nearly big enough for this bread. The boys have been storing up for me," she added, smiling with pleasure. Ajalia could see that every person in the house had been expressing strong feelings of support for Fashel's cooking; her pleasure and sense of accomplishment was palpable. Fashel went quickly out of the kitchen, and Philas, his hand gripping a half-carved tuber, went at once to Ajalia.

"Please don't scare her off," Philas pleaded, turning pathetic eyes on Ajalia.

"She's my cook," Ajalia pointed out.

"But I think I love her," Philas whispered, his eyes fixed on the place where Fashel would appear in a moment.

"She's getting married in a few days," Ajalia said. Philas's face darkened.

"That idiot doesn't even like her," Philas fumed. His eyebrows looked as though they were going to swallow up his eyes. "He's marrying her to further his career. He told me so. He said that all really efficient men have wives, and so he's talked Fashel into marrying him. She can't do it. She deserves better."

"Have you told Fashel this?" Ajalia asked. She was genuinely curious about this.

"Of course not!" Philas hissed, looking a little deranged. "Do you want to scare her off? I have to get her to like me first!"

"You really love her?" Ajalia asked Philas. Philas looked at her, and he looked almost wounded by her question.

"Do you love Delmar?" Philas asked aggressively. "You only knew him for five minutes when you knew that you loved him. I don't see why I can't fall in love as well as you can!" he said. Philas was keeping his voice very low; he looked still at the place where Fashel would come back, and Ajalia was sure that Philas would dart back to the tubers as soon as the young woman showed herself again.

"I like her cooking," Ajalia said. "I want her to stay here."

"Well, I can't marry her yet," Philas said, as though it was obvious. "I have to go and get my throne, and then I have to make sure I'm not actually a drunk anymore." Ajalia blinked. She remembered the selfish way that Philas had claimed to love her, back when Delmar had first begun to follow Ajalia around, much in the same way that Philas looked now to be following Fashel around.

"Do you really mean any of that?" she asked seriously. Philas looked appalled.

"Fashel is the most important person in the world!" Philas whispered. "She has to have everything all right. I would never marry her unless I was all right first. Or drag her into a war. You ask the stupidest questions sometimes, Jay." Philas looked as though he had lost much respect for Ajalia in the last thirty seconds.

"Well," Ajalia said.

"Promise me you won't say anything," Philas hissed, glancing again at the door. Fashel's footsteps sounded outside, and Philas scurried back to the tubers, and began nonchalantly to peel. Fashel came in, carrying several thick sticks of wood, and began to build up a second fire that had begun to die down in the hearth. The hearth was quite large, and Ajalia noticed now that Fashel had arranged two small fires, one beneath the simmering pot, and one at the far end of the deep hearth.

"So I used everything you gave me," Fashel said, continuing where she had left off in her story, "and the other boys all gave me some coins as well. I told them I'll pay them back as soon as I get more," Fashel added quickly, and she looked askance at Ajalia. "I know you said you wouldn't pay me more for a few days," Fashel said hesitantly. Before she could continue, Ajalia took the fat leather purse out of her bag, and dropped it heavily on the counter.

"Take it all," Ajalia said. "Philas," she added, "I'm going to talk about you. Do you want to stay and hear?" Philas froze. His back was to the women, but Ajalia imagined his face twisting in anticipatory torment. He uttered a strangled noise. "I'm going to take that as a go-ahead, then," Ajalia said. "Fashel, when are you and Isacar getting married?" Philas let out a strangled squeak; Ajalia ignored him, but Fashel frowned, and looked around at Philas.

"What is wrong with Philas?" Fashel asked Ajalia.

"Heartburn, I guess," Ajalia said with a smile. Fashel's eyes darkened.

"My food does not give anyone heartburn," Fashel snapped. Philas, who looked as though he had just seen someone murder a small kitten, turned around. His face was brilliant red, and his hand on the hilt of the knife was shaking.

"Fashel is right," Philas said clearly. "I am not suffering from any ill effects from the food. The food," Philas told Fashel earnestly, "is the best food in the history of the world." Fashel was still frowning, and looking at Philas suspiciously.

"What's going on?" Fashel asked. "Are you two having a secret?"

"Yes," Ajalia said.

"No!" Philas said. He looked pleadingly at Ajalia.

"Philas," Ajalia said.

"No," Philas said hoarsely. He looked as though he was about to cry.

"Philas, she's getting married," Ajalia said sensibly. "If you don't say anything, how is she supposed to find out?"

"Find out what?" Fashel demanded. The young woman was beginning to look a little angry. "What do you mean?" Fashel asked again. She glared around at Philas, who really did begin to cry. Fashel's eyes widened at this. She looked around at Ajalia. "Why is he crying?" Fashel asked Ajalia quietly. Ajalia looked at Philas, and waited. Fashel looked over at Philas, too, and waited. "Well, what is it, Philas?" Fashel asked. Philas did not say anything at all. "Should I go away again, so you two can have secrets?" Fashel demanded, sounding irate.

"No!" Philas yelped. He looked guiltily at Ajalia, and then at Fashel. "It's about Isacar," Philas got out. His voice sounded strangled.

"What about Isacar?" Fashel asked. Fashel sounded annoyed. Her eyes were narrowed. Ajalia began to get the idea that all was not right between Fashel and Isacar. Ajalia heard a harsh note in Fashel's voice when she spoke her betrothed's name.

"I don't want to repeat it," Philas said. "It's horrifying."

"Did Isacar say something about my food?" Fashel demanded. Her eyes were flashing, and color had mounted up into her cheeks. "What did he say this time?" Fashel asked. She sounded angry enough to go on a rampage; Ajalia saw now that Philas had good reason to believe that Fashel's wedding had a chance of being cancelled. She wondered if Philas had known about this tension between the couple before he had spoken; she rather thought that he hadn't known, because he was looking now as if he had stumbled into a forbidden paradise.

"It was an awful lie," Philas said. "He's jealous. Everyone loves you now, and no one but Ajalia likes him." Ajalia stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She did not expect Philas to see any use at all in such a person as Isacar, seeing as that young man held a supreme position in Fashel's life just now.

"What did he say?" Fashel asked. She used a very low, very quiet voice, and Ajalia, though she did not often find other people intimidating, felt a shiver of trepidation pass up her spine. Fashel, Ajalia told herself, was not a young woman to cross. Although, Ajalia thought, if Isacar really had said anything disparaging about Fashel's cooking, the young man was more of a fool than she would had thought possible. Ajalia did not know how anyone could find anything negative at all to say about Fashel's cooking.

"Did Isacar really say something?" Ajalia asked Philas. Philas, who clearly thought that he was gaining some importance in the eyes of Fashel, glared daggers at Ajalia.

"Yes," Philas snapped. "He said something that I will not repeat."

"Tell me," Fashel said in a hard voice.

"I can't repeat it," Philas said. He began to cry again, and Ajalia saw that his tears were quite genuine.

"Why are you crying, Philas?" Ajalia asked. She was dumbfounded. She had never seen Philas like this, and she had known Philas for quite a long time. She was very used to Philas the drunken man, and Philas the cranky and bitter man, and Philas the sarcastic wit, but a Philas of sentiment, and of pathetic tears, she had never encountered. "Why are you crying?" Ajalia asked again. Philas swiped at his eyes, and made an angry exclamation.

"If I tell you what Isacar said to me," Philas said to Fashel, "then you will feel as though I agree with him. I won't say those words," Philas said.

"I won't think it was you who said those things," Fashel said impatiently. "Just tell me what Isacar said.

"Yes, you will," Philas said quickly. He glanced swiftly at Ajalia, and Ajalia was sure that he wanted her to go away.

"No, I won't," Fashel said. "But I will be very angry with both of you if you don't tell me." Philas looked terrified at this thought.

"I don't want you to ever, ever be angry at me," Philas said. He controlled himself, but tears were still seeping down his cheeks.

"Why are you crying?" Fashel shouted in frustration at Philas.

"Because I'm in love with you!" Philas shouted back. He snapped up his mouth as soon as he had said this, and his eyes widened with shock. Philas stared at Fashel for a long moment, and his cheeks had gone utterly pale. He put the knife on the counter, and fled. A stunned silence filled up the kitchen, on Fashel's part, for some time. Ajalia went over to the knife that Philas had dropped, and she picked it up. Ajalia put the knife down again.

"Have you got anything set up for washing hands?" Ajalia asked. Fashel went to a bowl against the wall, and brought it to Ajalia. A mixture of water and a little poison juice was inside; Ajalia dipped her hands in, and rubbed the juice over her skin. The juice, as it had on the night Bain had appeared, felt tingly and pleasant. Ajalia began to peel the tubers, and Fashel replaced the bowl.

"He can't really like me," Fashel said.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked, her eyes fixed on the tuber she was peeling with the knife. Fashel made a light scoffing noise.

"Because," Fashel said. She sounded a little embarrassed. Ajalia turned around, and looked at Fashel.

"Do you like Philas?" Ajalia demanded. Fashel hemmed and hawed a little, and then she began to look annoyed.

"It isn't anyone's business, anyway," Fashel said finally.

"You're right," Ajalia said, and went back to peeling tubers. Ajalia heard the slight pound of Fashel kneading the dough, and she smiled to herself. She remembered how angry she had been for weeks after she had met Delmar for the first time.

"It's easy for you," Fashel said finally. "You have Delmar." Ajalia could not stop herself from laughing. "What is funny about that?" Fashel demanded angrily. "You do!"

"I do now," Ajalia said. "He couldn't even be civil to me until about three days ago." The pounding sound stopped for a while.

"What do you mean?" Fashel asked.

"I mean what I said," Ajalia said, taking up a new tuber. "When I met Delmar, he followed me around and asked me silly questions. He also lied a lot," Ajalia added. Fashel said nothing, and Ajalia turned and looked at her.

"That can't possibly be true," Fashel said doubtfully.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked. She saw Fashel eyeing her cautiously.

"Well, I'm going to marry Isacar," Fashel said carefully.

"Philas told me he wanted to marry me once," Ajalia said, turning back to the counter. After a moment of silence, she heard the dough drop down onto the table, and then Fashel appeared at her elbow. Fashel's hands and wrists were coated with flour and scraps of sticky dough.

"What happened?" Fashel asked.

"With Delmar?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's cheeks reddened.

"No, with Philas," Fashel said boldly. Ajalia met the young woman's eyes briefly.

"You know that he is a slave," Ajalia said.

"Yes," Fashel said. Fashel sounded defensive.

"I've known him for a very long time," Ajalia said. "We've both belonged to my master for many years."

"Okay," Fashel said, "but what happened?" Fashel waited impatiently, and then added, "When he wanted to marry you? And how long ago was this?"

"My boy told me that Philas was just trying to trick me into doing most of his work," Ajalia said. "I think that my boy was right." Fashel thought about this.

"Did you kiss him?" Fashel asked.

"He kissed me a few times," Ajalia said, "before I figured out that he didn't care about me." Ajalia scraped the knife along the coarse yellow meat of the tubers, and peeled away the heavy brown skin.

"And what did Delmar say, when he found out?" Fashel asked in a strained voice. The young woman wandered back to her dough, and began, listlessly, to pound it against the table. The sounds of her fists in the dough made a rhythmic thumping in the comfortable kitchen.

The kitchen was quite a different place now than it had been when Ajalia had helped to clean it; two small fires crackled busily on the hearth, and the walls were white and clean of dust and dirt. Steam, bits of coarse flour, and delicious smells filled up the air in the kitchen, and the two large windows let in a crisp trickle of air. Ajalia thought of the many clear black stones that must be packed in the ground outside the city walls right now. A part of her wanted to go out to the place where Bain had died, to make sure that what she had envisioned had really happened. The stones, she thought, would be proof that the worm had died, and that she had not somehow imagined the encounter.

"Delmar told me what Philas was doing," Ajalia said. "He was angry at Philas, and annoyed."

"Was he mad at you?" Fashel asked.

"No," Ajalia said. "He was angry with Philas for lying to me." Fashel seemed to think about this for a moment.

"So Philas is a liar," Fashel said slowly.

"Yes," Ajalia said. "Although, to be fair," she added, "Delmar has spent a lot of time lying to me as well. He was lying to me yesterday again."

"What does Delmar lie about?" Fashel asked. Ajalia did not answer this question. Fashel seemed to sense that she had crossed a line, because soon she rephrased her question. "Does he ever lie about loving you?" Fashel asked.

"No," Ajalia said. "He has never lied about that."

"Really?" Fashel asked quickly.

"Yep," Ajalia said. Fashel seemed to be lost in thought. Ajalia peeled the tubers, and Fashel shaped the dough into round loaves, and set them aside to rise. She went and stirred the pot of soup, and then came to the place where Ajalia was peeling, and picked up the tubers she had finished. "Aren't we going to cut them up?" Ajalia asked, watching as Fashel took the tubers to the pot, and dropped them in.

"The halles dissolve, and form a thick paste in the soup," Fashel said. She stirred the soup again, and then began to clean the kitchen. Ajalia peeled, and Fashel cleaned, and after some time, Isacar appeared at the door of the kitchen. He did not see Ajalia, and began to speak at once to Fashel.

"Fashel, have you asked for money yet, because I know you used your last bit yesterday, and I don't want you to get behind." Isacar uttered all this in a swift stream of speech. He looked as though he was only ducking into the kitchen for a moment, and was heading somewhere else. "I can lend you more, if you haven't asked," Isacar added. Fashel's face turned into a flame of color.

"I have money," Fashel muttered.

"I just wanted to check," Isacar said. "I'm going out to meet with the other new boys now. We've got a practice room set up in Card's house. Chad told us. We won't be back for dinner."

"Yes, you will," Ajalia said. Isacar blinked, and then he turned quite red as well.

"I didn't know you were here," Isacar said. "I'll bring them back for dinner, then," he said, and then paused, as though doubtful of whether he should turn away.

"Fashel wants to ask you something," Ajalia said. "If she doesn't like to ask you, I'll do it for her."

"Don't!" Fashel whispered urgently at Ajalia.

"Sure, what?" Isacar asked. He stepped into the kitchen and waited, looking terrifically efficient. Fashel burst into tears, and ran out of the room, a wet rag clasped tight in her hand. Isacar looked utterly stunned. He came quickly to Ajalia. "Have I done something indiscreet?" Isacar asked, looking quite disturbed.

"Someone told me that you were disparaging Fashel's food," Ajalia told Isacar. Isacar's mouth turned down at once, as though Ajalia had touched on a very sore point.

"I did not say anything was wrong with it," he told Ajalia. He looked at the tubers she was peeling. "Do you need help with those?" he asked. Ajalia shook her head.

"What did you say about Fashel's food?" Ajalia asked. Isacar sighed, as though he had been talked to death already on this subject.

"I said it was excellent food," Isacar said, "and very plain. I meant it as a compliment, but I think Fashel's taking it to mean she's awful at her new job."

"Well," Ajalia said, "what did you mean when you said it was plain?" She saw Isacar bite his tongue, and breathe in deeply.

"I only meant," Isacar said, "that very wealthy people will expect fussy dishes, when we have big parties. I never said anything against her cooking," Isacar added, looking annoyed. "Fashel cooks very well." Ajalia, who thought that Fashel made dishes worthy of a god, nodded peaceably. "Has Fashel been complaining about me?" Isacar asked.

"No," Ajalia said. "Someone else told her."

"Was it that Philas person?" Isacar demanded. Isacar looked furious. "He has been sneaking around my Fashel," Isacar told Ajalia, "ever since he first saw her in the house." Ajalia did not say anything. Isacar, who no longer looked in a hurry to leave, crossed his arms, and furrowed his brow. "I'm beginning to wonder," Isacar said, "about Fashel."

"What do you mean?" Ajalia asked, keeping her eyes on her tubers. Ajalia put down the knife, and put the other tubers she had already peeled into the pot, and stirred it. While she was doing this, she saw Fashel creep back into the door of the kitchen. Fashel saw Isacar, and Isacar did not see her. Fashel's eyes, which were already pinched and white, widened, and then she turned and went silently away. Ajalia smiled. Fashel, Ajalia thought, was not going to be marrying Isacar.

AJALIA SPEAKS TO FASHEL

"I just think," Isacar said thoughtfully, his eyes on the clean white wall, "that a person of my position should have a very steady partner in life." Ajalia nodded sympathetically, and began to peel the last tubers. She had a generous heaping of the peels pushed against the wall. She did not want to dispose of them until she checked with Fashel, in case the peels of the tubers were going to be saved for some other dish. "Ever since the first meal she cooked," Isacar said, frowning, "and ever since everyone starting cooing over her, she has gotten kind of silly."

"Maybe she is pleased," Ajalia said, "to be doing so well."

"I don't know," Isacar said doubtfully. "She looks very happy with herself. I think this is what she is really like."

"Don't you like Fashel anymore?" Ajalia asked. She was partway determined not to interfere, but the whole situation was intensely interesting to her.

"Oh, I like her all right," Isacar said, as though he was admitting to liking the color blue, "but I just am not sure about her steadiness as a wife."

"Oh," Ajalia said.

"Do you think she would be heartbroken," Isacar asked, "if I told her so?" Ajalia tried very hard not to smile, and failed. "So you think I should tell her so?" Isacar asked, taking Ajalia's smile as confirmation of Fashel's ability to withstand such a conversation. "I'm not saying I won't marry her at all," Isacar added, "but I certainly want to put the wedding off for some time. If she's like this, I'll have to get used to the idea all over again."

"Did you have to get used to the idea the first time around?" Ajalia asked. She picked up the last tuber, and began to peel. Isacar looked surprised at her question.

"Yes, of course," Isacar said. "Marriage is a very serious undertaking. It's an investment of my whole future life."

"Yes, it is," Ajalia agreed.

"I just want to be sure of my intentions, and of what I'm getting into," Isacar said. Ajalia thought that Isacar sounded as though he were talking over a plot of land, and trying to guess if it would produce satisfactory profit when planted.

"Have you ever been in love?" Ajalia asked. Isacar laughed. He saw that she was serious, and his face sobered up at once.

"No," he said.

"Oh," Ajalia said. Isacar studied her expression, which was quite neutral.

"Should I have been in love?" Isacar asked. He sounded like a young man who is making sure to have had all the necessary experiences to move on to a correct state of adulthood.

"It's very risky to marry, where there is no love," Ajalia pointed out. Isacar stared at her.

"Why?" he asked. He did not sound impudent at all, but as though he had never thought of love as a necessary qualifier for marriage.

"Well," Ajalia said, "what will happen if you marry without love, and then discover love later on? Will you give up love, in order to keep the wife and family that you have? Or will you destroy your marriage and family to experience love?"

"But I wouldn't do that to my wife," Isacar said, frowning. "I would keep the wife that I had."

"But if you have no experience of love," Ajalia said, "how do you have any idea how you will act when you are in love?" Isacar thought about this for a while.

"I would do the right thing," Isacar said. "I always do the right thing." Ajalia smiled, and Isacar looked piqued. "Why are you smiling?" he demanded.

"What if following love is the right thing?" she asked him.

"But I wouldn't," Isacar said. Ajalia nodded. "However," Isacar added, "if I feel like Fashel is going to be crying a lot, I won't marry her." Ajalia could not help herself; she began to laugh. She put down the knife, and put the last tuber into the pot. "What?" Isacar demanded. Fashel appeared at the door with very red eyes. She ignored Isacar entirely, and took up the spoon.

"Thank you for putting the halles in," Fashel told Ajalia politely.

"Do you want the peels for anything?" Ajalia asked. Fashel wrinkled her nose.

"They're horrid and sour," Fashel said. "You can use them if you pickle them, but I haven't got any of the supplies, and those peels will turn bad before I can get them. You can throw them out in the pit." Ajalia nodded, and gathered up all of the peels in a bowl. She went out of the kitchen; almost before she was out of earshot, she heard Isacar speaking to Fashel in a low voice. Ajalia smiled, and carried the bowl of peels to the wide garbage pit. She took her time, feeding the peels in one at a time, and watching the black tar-like substance eating up the peels with spits of steam, and gentle bubbles.

Ajalia imagined Isacar talking to Fashel, and Fashel blushing, and giving short answers, and getting more emotional with every moment that passed. Ajalia thought that Isacar was a nice young man, and that he would be thoroughly changed when love struck him. Ajalia was finding that she had a knack for inspiring love in the young people around her. She reflected that Ocher was not precisely a spring chicken, but, she reminded herself, he was still a very young man in his heart. She had not seen Clare for some time; she wondered how that young lady's burgeoning romance with Ocher was faring.

The dragon temple seemed oddly quiet to Ajalia. She knew that Leed and Daniel were bustling about, and that Isacar was too, and Leed had touched on a whole host of plans he was laying for establishing what sounded like a small army, but to Ajalia, in the last two days, the house seemed utterly deserted. Well, she told herself, as she put the last two peels into the pool, and watched them sink slowly into a puff of white steam, not deserted, but certainly very quiet. Ajalia stood up, and walked back towards the door, and the kitchen. She glanced back at the stables, and saw that Pudge was nosing cheerfully in a pile of thick hay. Ajalia went into the back door, and congratulated herself on having competent servants. Her master, she thought, if he came, would be quite pleased.

Ajalia went into the kitchen, and wiped out the bowl she had used with a rag and a little of the poison juice. The traces of juice and flakes of peel smoked gently as they wiped away. Ajalia thought that it was quite nice to have a kitchen with poison juice in it. She looked around at Isacar, who was standing in one corner and glowering silently. Fashel had a flush of triumph on her cheeks, and she was scrubbing the table vigorously.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Isacar asked, when he saw Ajalia coming back. Ajalia nodded, and finished clearing out her bowl. She lay the bowl neatly on the counter, and followed Isacar out of the kitchen. Ajalia was sure that Fashel would let out a deep sigh of relief, as soon as her betrothed was out of the kitchen. Ajalia smiled to herself, and thought again that Fashel was not going to marry Isacar at all. Any affection that had bound the two young people together seemed to have gone up in smoke, and all that seemed to be left was a mutual irritation. They were like two young plants who seemed similar in their early growth, but then became totally different species when their maturity came upon them.

Isacar went out of the kitchen, and into the great hall of the dragon temple. Here, Ajalia saw a slight bustle of movement. She had not looked into the great hall when she had first come down the stairs; her mind had been focused totally on Fashel, and on the kitchen, but now, as she looked around the hall, she saw traces of great activity. A few large piles of stones were against the walls, and some boys were clustered there with baskets, and were sorting the stones into groups by size and clarity of color.

"Where did those new stones come from?" Ajalia asked Isacar, as soon as she saw them.

"Leed told us they were just outside the wall, under the ground near the forest," Isacar said. "He sent out a lot of the boys, and the donkey this morning, and they have been carrying them back here all day." Now how had Leed known, Ajalia asked herself, about the great black worm? She told herself that here, at least, was proof that her battle with the black worm had been real enough. "Most of them have been stored upstairs, with the other stones," Isacar said, "but the poorer specimens, and those with broken edges, have been laid out behind the stables. Leed won't say what the rocks are for," Isacar added, a trace of irritation showing in his eyes, "but he said you wanted them."

"I do want them," Ajalia said, her eyes on the boys, and the stones. She saw in the stones a great mass of potential; they were, to her, a precious resource that would prove enormously valuable later on. She was glad that Daniel and Leed had not shared the glowing properties of the stones with anyone. She knew that Ocher had come into the hall when one of her stones had been lit up, but there had been so much confusion, and disarray, that she did not think Ocher had noticed the stone. By the time he had come down the stairs, Ajalia had lit up the hall by lacing magic through two of the columns, and the light from these columns overwhelmed the brilliant light of the stone.

"May I say something?" Isacar asked. He was watching her with some measure of impatience.

"Yes," Ajalia said. "but first, do you know where Leed is now?" Isacar pointed up at the ceiling; Ajalia looked at where he pointed, and saw a group of about five boys, and Chad, hanging in the air right up near the tall ceiling of the hall, seemingly suspended in nothing. Ajalia was sure, by the way they all hung still near the ceiling, that they had climbed up the cords of power in the air. Leed was a little apart from the others, and was speaking quickly, his hands waving expressively in the air. Ajalia could not hear anything that he said, but she saw the rapt attention with which the other boys followed his words.

Ajalia looked at Isacar, who seemed not at all impressed with these flying children. Chad, she saw, was quite relaxed in the air. He looked as though he were in some state of repose as he listened to Leed lecture.

"Can you fly as well?" Ajalia asked.

"Everyone can fly, except the smallest ones," Isacar said, waving a hand. "We all learned this morning. Delmar is the best."

"Where has Delmar gone?" Ajalia asked. She remembered the feeling of snuggling close to Delmar, and kissing him thoroughly, and she repressed the trace of a blush that threatened to color her cheeks. She gazed at Isacar without embarrassment, and Isacar, who was regarding her avidly, seemed to suspect none of her emotion.

"He's reading some books, I think," Isacar said. "He went out on business after the flying this morning, and was gone for most of the day, but when he came back, Leed gave him books. Cross told me that," Isacar said. "Cross has been following Delmar around."

"I told him to do that," Ajalia said. "Now what do you want to ask me?"

"Do I have to marry Fashel?" Isacar asked. He sounded quite anxious. Before Ajalia could reply, he pressed on. "I know that I got her into your house," Isacar said, "and I didn't want to tell you about her at all, but I have been feeling more and more lately that it's just a mistake. I don't think I care for her very much, and I know she doesn't like me at all." Isacar's face turned a little tart when he said this, as though he was disappointed in Fashel's poor taste.

"How do you know she doesn't like you?" Ajalia asked. Isacar frowned, and Ajalia saw that he was holding back a sneer with great difficulty.

"She told me so," Isacar said, "just now." His voice was level, and Ajalia could see that the young man was attempting to maintain his calm, but she thought she saw a volcano of indignation and hurt pride trembling just under the surface. "And she told me," he added, as though he could not help but air his grievances to someone, "that Philas liked her more than I did, and that was shameful, since she had only just met Philas, and I was supposed to marry her." Isacar's mouth was twisted up into an angry snarl. "And she told me that I don't love her at all," Isacar said moodily.

"Well, do you?" Ajalia asked.

"No!" Isacar snapped, "but it's very poor form for her to say so out loud." Isacar looked out over the hall, and seemed to be thinking of something far away. "Anyway," he added, "this is very embarrassing, and I'm sorry that she's here now, but is there anything I can say or do that will convince you to let me not marry Fashel?"

"I don't want you to marry her," Ajalia said. Isacar's eyes widened. His mouth became first surprised, and then a little angry.

"But you brought her here, or you had me bring her here, because you said there was a fold in my heart, and I wouldn't be good at my job until it was taken care of," Isacar pointed out. "Now Fashel is here, and it turns out I don't want to marry her at all, so now you have someone else to worry about, and that's my fault. I feel awful," Isacar added, though it was plain from his expression that he was more annoyed with Ajalia, than remorseful for his own part in the current situation. Ajalia, who felt the sensitivity of Isacar's position, kept back her smile.

"I understand how you feel," she said.

"No you don't!" Isacar said quickly. His eyes brightened a little; Ajalia saw that Isacar thought that if he got her off balance, and on the defensive, he would not feel so guilty for being the means of Fashel having a job here now. "I feel quite awful about this whole mess," Isacar said.

"No, you don't, Ajalia said calmly. "You're very relieved, and now you think I'm going to be angry at you. Do I look angry?" she asked. Isacar bridled, and then examined her eyes.

"No," he admitted. The curiosity she had aroused in his eyes was squelched at once by his previous determination that she was going to be mad at him. "But you're very good at hiding your emotions," he reasoned. "You might be very upset about the money."

"What money?" Ajalia asked. Isacar's mouth pursed up again. Ajalia thought it was clear that Isacar was following a script he had followed several times through with Tree, and that Isacar was annoyed at the failure of the script to play out predictably with Ajalia.

"The money you will pay Fashel," Isacar said.

"I have not paid any money to Fashel," Ajalia said. "I have given her the funds to purchase food, and she has used them better than any other servant I have been able to find."

"Oh," Isacar said, his forehead wrinkling. "So you aren't paying her yet?"

"No," Ajalia said. "I have given her means to purchase food, and to outfit my kitchen. This is a task that needed to be accomplished," she said casually, and she saw that Isacar was beginning to calm down.

"But won't you have to pay her?" Isacar asked cautiously. "Not that it's any of my business," he added rapidly.

"If I keep her, I suppose Fashel and I will negotiate a price for her services as cook," Ajalia agreed. Isacar now looked completely deflated.

"I thought I'd gotten you entangled," the young man admitted. "I thought if I didn't want to marry her after all, you'd lose your temper, and fire me."

"You are not being fired," Ajalia told Isacar. "I would like to tell you what I want you to do about Fashel."

"What?" Isacar asked eagerly. Ajalia could see that Isacar wanted desperately to know what she wanted; she saw that he would do anything to keep her happy, but that he did not know what to do for her. She saw that he liked working for her, and that he had never worked for an honest person before. She saw that he was afraid of being gotten rid of if he made any mistakes as he attempted to read her mind.

"I want you to tell Fashel that you've decided not to marry her," Ajalia said. "I would like you to use a very calm voice, and to disengage any argument she may try to start. Just tell you you've decided not to marry, and then leave the kitchen. Go and do that now, and then I will tell you the rest of what I want."

Isacar was off like a shot; he vanished at once, and Ajalia folded her arms, and looked up at the flying bodies that hovered at the front end of the hall. She wondered if Leed had found some way to find out what magic was done in all the city; she wondered if Leed had turned off the glowing light within Simon's house. Since Leed, apparently, had become aware of the heap of clear stones that formed the remains of the black worm, Ajalia suspected that the boy was developing along lines similar to those she was following. Ajalia wondered if Delmar would prove to have strange new powers, after he had read the two slim leather books. Since Leed had not read the other one, the new one that Tree had hidden, and that Coren had stolen, Ajalia suspected that this would be the case. She thought it was fitting that Delmar, as the new Thief Lord, should reveal some previously-unknown magical powers to the growing body of those who could work magic.

Ajalia thought about the rest of the city. She had not gone out of the house for a little while now, and she wondered what the rest of the city was up to. She had heard Isacar say that Delmar had gone out on business most of this day; she wondered if he had met with many of the merchants, or the powerful men who managed many of the profitable interests in the city. She reminded herself to ask Delmar about relations with Saroyan. She had never heard of any kind of ambassadors before, though, she thought, if Philas and Leed were going to overtake the political structure in that land, ambassadors would be something of a secondary consideration.

She formed a picture in her mind of Fashel falling slowly in love with Philas, and of Philas turning out to be quite a nice man, after all. She imagined Philas carrying Fashel off in a whirl of promises and flattery, and then she imagined Fashel living as queen in some forbidding palace. Ajalia sighed; she did not want to lose her cook, even if Philas did love her. Ajalia thought that Philas had looked genuinely smitten, though, she told herself, this could have been some after effect of the strong magic Philas had undergone recently. Perhaps, Ajalia thought, being filled up with magic made people more likely to fall in love.

Isacar appeared at her elbow; his face was flushed with triumph, and his eyes were wide.

"I did it," Isacar said in a whisper. "I went in, and I told her that I don't want to marry her."

"What did Fashel have to say?" Ajalia asked. Isacar's eyes widened even farther.

"She started crying again!" Isacar confided, as though Fashel had done some frightening thing. "I was not sure what to do then," Isacar went on, "because I thought she was going to shout at me, but then I just said that I was sorry, but that I was pretty sure about it, and then I went away." Ajalia nodded.

"Stay here for a moment, please," Ajalia told Isacar, and she went towards the kitchen. When she went into the short hall that led to the kitchen doorway, she glanced back. Isacar was bouncing up and down on his heels, looking like a young man who has just fought a great battle with a monster, and who has narrowly avoided death. Ajalia went into the kitchen. She found Fashel draped over a counter, her face in her hands. Ragged sobs were wracking the young woman's body, and her shoulders were heaving convulsively. Ajalia waited for a few moments. Fashel drew a ragged breath, and shoved back her hair, and when she did so, she saw Ajalia. Fashel stood bolt upright, and scrubbed frantically at her face.

"Dinner is almost ready," Fashel said, trying to suppress the shivers that were still bursting up through her tears. Fashel breathed in again, trying to still herself, and blinked hard. "I'm not crying," Fashel added.

"I want you to be my cook," Ajalia told her. "I will pay you quite well. How much do you want me to pay you?" she asked. Fashel stared at her. Fashel's mouth was agape.

"I have to go home," Fashel said hoarsely. "I'm not going to marry Isacar anymore. I don't want to marry him," she added violently. She drew in a great breath. "So I can't live here anymore. I'll have to go. I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to marry Isacar," Ajalia said. "I'd rather you just worked for me as a cook."

Fashel stared at Ajalia. The young woman looked as though she now suspected Ajalia of being a little insane.

"I can't work here anymore," Fashel said clearly, raising her voice a little. "I'm not going to marry Isacar now. We're not getting married."

"Would you be more comfortable if I kicked Isacar out of my house?" Ajalia asked. "He doesn't have to stay here. I have another house down the street, or he could go and live with my cleaning crews."

Fashel's mouth dropped open.

"You only hired me out of charity," Fashel said.

"Well, I didn't know you could cook like that," Ajalia said easily. "Now I want you here more than I want Isacar here. I'm not willing to fire Isacar," Ajalia added, "and you'll probably still have to see him sometimes, but I'll kick him out of the house, if you like."

"But why would you do that?" Fashel demanded. "He was here first."

"Yes, but you cook like a god," Ajalia explained. "You can never, ever work anywhere else. I must have your food all the time. And I need you to cook when I have important guests," Ajalia added, "but mostly I just want to eat your food myself. I think I would never eat again, if you left me."

Fashel looked at Ajalia with a stunned expression on her face.

"You would choose me over Isacar?" Fashel asked in a strangled voice.

"Yes, absolutely," Ajalia said. "How much money do you want?" Fashel blinked rapidly. She breathed in again. She blinked several times, and she put one hand to her hair.

"Um," Fashel said. She looked embarrassed. "I probably don't need very much."

"I think Philas is going to ask you to marry him," Ajalia added with a frown. "Please tell him no. I want your food." Fashel's face, which had already gone through a revolution of emotions, now turned a little pale.

"He doesn't like me, really," Fashel said.

"Philas has been a senior slave in my master's house for many years," Ajalia told Fashel. "I am my master's favorite slave, but Philas is my master's third favorite. Do you know what I mean by that?" Ajalia asked in a friendly voice. Fashel shook her head noiselessly. "It means," Ajalia said, "that when my master wants something, he tells me, and if he wants it done quickly, he asks Philas. My master does not like to wear me out," Ajalia explained. "He saves me up for very large missions. Now do you know what I mean?" Again, Fashel shook her head.

Ajalia hoisted herself onto the counter, and clasped her hands together.

"Do you know that I come from the East, and that I am a slave?" Ajalia asked Fashel. Fashel nodded. "Do you know that Philas also comes from there, and is a member of my master's house?" Fashel, slowly, nodded.

"I hadn't thought of it much," Fashel said, "but yes, I knew he was a slave."

"My master is the leading man in the East," Ajalia explained. "If we followed the old ways there, he would be the king." Ajalia looked at Fashel, who was listening hard. "So like your Thief Lord here," Ajalia said, "but much more powerful, and much more wealthy, and in charge of a whole host of other Thief Lords, who reign over their own lands." Fashel listened to this, and then she nodded. "When I travel," Ajalia said, "I pretend to be my master. I have a beard, and I carry a set of his robes. Philas has them now," Ajalia said, "because I wanted to make Delmar the Thief Lord."

"You can't make someone the Thief Lord," Fashel said at once.

"I did," Ajalia said. "My master sent me here do to something of the kind."

"He can't do things like that!" Fashel said, sounding slightly indignant.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked.

"Because," Fashel said, "he's from somewhere else. That isn't fair."

"Do you know that Simon, Delmar's father, came from Talbos?" Ajalia asked. Fashel's eyes darkened, and her mouth puckered.

"That wasn't fair either," Fashel said.

"And do you know," Ajalia said carefully, "that Philas comes originally from Saroyan?" Fashel looked with interest at Ajalia. Ajalia thought she could see the young woman weighing what she had said.

"No," Fashel said. "I thought you said he was from the East."

"I was not born in the East," Ajalia said. "Neither was Philas." She paused for a moment, watching Fashel think over this, and then continued. "So I am my master's favorite," Ajalia said, "and Philas is third favorite."

"What does it matter if he's third?" Fashel asked.

"It means," Ajalia said, "that Philas is exceptionally good at getting things that he wants." Fashel had gone very still; Ajalia thought now that the girl had an idea of where she was going with this.

"Yes?" Fashel asked.

"And it seems to me," Ajalia said, "that Philas has decided that he wants you." Fashel blushed crimson.

"If he is as important as you say he is," Fashel said, "he will not want me at all."

"He's going to be the king of Saroyan soon," Ajalia said. Fashel thought about this for a moment, and then she laughed.

"There is already a king in Saroyan," Fashel said easily, "and no one here can do anything about things there, anyway."

"Philas is the lost prince," Ajalia said. "He's the bastard prince who was sent away. And now he can do some magic. Leed is going to go over there with him, and manage things."

Fashel's face grew very sober.

"I can't marry Philas," Fashel said seriously. "That is too much of everything for me."

"If Philas wants you," Ajalia said, "you are going to have to think very seriously about whether or not you want Philas."

"Why?" Fashel asked suspiciously.

"Because Philas is very good at getting everything that he wants," Ajalia said.

"Wait," Fashel said, and Ajalia saw that the girl was trying to shut out what she had heard. Ajalia could see a great wave of consuming emotions filling up the girl, and swirling to and fro around her head. Fashel was deeply flattered, Ajalia thought, but she also thought the young woman did not believe what she said, and she saw that Fashel was frightened. "But if you and Philas are slaves," Fashel said, "he can't do anything your master doesn't like."

"Do you think my master would want an obscure slave," Ajalia asked, "or would he like to have a very personal relationship with the king of Saroyan?"

Fashel's face screwed up.

"Well," Fashel said sourly. "I don't think that's fair." Ajalia shrugged. "It isn't fair!" Fashel said. "Why should he like me?"

"Because you're wonderful," Ajalia said. Fashel turned bright red.

"I am not wonderful," Fashel said firmly.

"Yes, you are," Ajalia said.

"I am not!" Fashel said. Tears were starting up into the girl's eyes, and her lower lip was trembling. "You didn't think I was wonderful when I first came to meet you!" Fashel argued, wetness gathering in her eyes.

"Yes, but then I got to know you a little more," Ajalia pointed out. "And," she added, "I had not tried any of your food. I don't know how anyone could not love you, after eating your food."

Fashel burst into loud sobs. She lifted up her apron, and buried her face in the cloth. "I will say two more things," Ajalia said, "and I will leave you in peace."

Fashel snuffled, her face covered in her apron. Ajalia saw the girl nod, to show that she was listening.

THE SUCCESSION IN TALBOS

"Philas is not his real name," Ajalia said. "He refuses to tell me his real name. If you want to know if he is sincere about loving you, ask him what his real name is, and don't let him talk his way out of it. If he tells you his real name," Ajalia said, "then I think he really does love you. And the second thing," Ajalia said, "is that if you do decide to love Philas, and marry him, I command you to train a replacement cook in all of your methods. If you do not do this before you leave me," Ajalia said, "I will declare war on Philas for you. And you should know," Ajalia added, "that I am even better at getting what I want than Philas is. Is that something you can agree to?" Fashel, who had become gradually interested in what Ajalia said, and had appeared, by increments, from behind the apron, now let it fall down around her waist.

"Find out his real name," Fashel repeated, like a child giving the answers in school, "and if he tells me what it is, maybe he does love me. And if I decide to love him," she added, her cheeks going crimson again, "then I have to teach Ossa how to cook decent food."

"Not just decent," Ajalia warned. "Very, very close to as good as yours."

Fashel's lips twisted to one side, and Ajalia saw that she was thinking about this.

"I'll have to start on her right now," Fashel said. She looked at Ajalia with hard eyes. "I don't think Ossa will learn very quickly."

"Good," Ajalia said.

"Have her sent down to me," Fashel said, frowning. She turned towards her rising dough, and then paused. "And I don't care if Isacar stays," she added. Fashel went slowly to the dough, and punched it down. "And I don't know how much money I want," Fashel added suddenly. "I want to think about it. Don't push me for a number, all right?"

"Anything you want," Ajalia said.

She went softly to the kitchen door, and then looked back at Fashel, who was slowly shaping the soft dough into narrow loaves. Ajalia smiled, and went out into the hall where Isacar waited.

"There are no problems," Ajalia told Isacar. "Here are my conditions for you staying." Isacar's eyes widened.

"I thought I was staying already," Isacar said, looking a little put out.

"If you upset my cook," Ajalia told him, "I will put you out into another house. You will work for me, but I will not have you doing anything to hurt Fashel's feelings." Isacar's mouth pursed up, but he nodded.

"All right," he said. Ajalia thought that Isacar looked as though he felt very put upon. "What are the conditions?" he asked. Ajalia was sure that Isacar would never have been so blunt or honest with Tree, but she preferred her people to be honest. When they were broken in, she thought, as her house boys were, they were exceedingly useful, and they did not hold back interesting information out of a sense of displaced discretion.

"Never again say a word, to any person in this house or out of it, about Fashel's cooking. Not even to compliment it," Ajalia said. "It is too late for you. No matter what you say, she will hear disparagement, and she will cry, and I want a peaceful kitchen."

Isacar's lips worked violently from side to side, as though he were restraining himself from commending acidly on Fashel's oversensitive feelings, but he nodded.

"I will never say anything at all about Fashel's food that she makes," Isacar said.

"And," Ajalia added, "if you are not capable of sitting and eating with a totally neutral expression on your face, you will find food somewhere else." Isacar's jaw muscles twitched.

"All right," he said.

"Good," Ajalia said. "Now, is there anything going on that I should know about?" Isacar looked relieved to have moved on from the talk of his relations with his former flame.

"Cross and Daniel are recruiting boys from around the city, and from the quarries," Isacar said. "They have squads of the house boys moving through the city, and disabling any witches that they find."

"How are they doing that?" Ajalia asked. She was impressed, but hid her surprise. Isacar was watching her narrowly.

"Leed told them how," Isacar said.

"Yes, but how did Leed tell them to do it?" Ajalia asked patiently. Isacar took a deep breath, and told her of the method Leed had taught, which was very like what Ajalia did herself, of taking a piece of light from the earth, and then looking for the ugly black cord that came out of the witches' hearts. "What about witches like Ossa, or Esther?" Ajalia asked. Philas came out of one of the rooms down off the middle of the hall, and came slowly towards them. Isacar saw the slave approaching, and Ajalia saw that Isacar was containing himself fairly well. A slight throb appeared in Isacar's temple, but Ajalia only saw it because she was watching for it.

"Leed says that those witches will show up in the second purge," Isacar said, his eyes fixed on Philas's approaching form. Isacar turned to Ajalia. "Leed says this is the first purge, to find the evil ones, and cut off their power."

"Good," Ajalia said.

"I am going now with Leed to break in the new boys, the boys from the city," Isacar explained. "Chad is coming, as well. They're waiting for me," Isacar added, his eyes going to the boys, and Chad, who were still hovering high in the air, and talking. "We are hoping to convince Delmar to make some kind of edict," Isacar said, "about the training of new boys. We want to get all the boys we can."

"I see," Ajalia said. "Go upstairs and find Ossa. Tell her to go learn how to cook from Fashel. Then you may go."

Philas had strolled up to them now, and Isacar, who, Ajalia saw, was beginning to think highly of himself because of the interesting magic that was going on, nodded and hurried towards the stairs.

"He's going to get himself beaten, isn't he?" Philas asked, looking a little like his former self. His eyes were on the place where Isacar had gone.

"He's young," Ajalia said with a shrug, "and his old master was a heel."

"I'll do it for you," Philas said, without any malice. He sighed, and thrust his hands into his pockets. "This is getting to feel quite like home," Philas said, looking around the hall.

"Can you fly, as well?" Ajalia asked.

"Oh, everyone can fly," Philas said with a shrug. "Flying is easy."

"I told Fashel about you," Ajalia said. Philas kept his eyes steady, but his ears darkened a little.

"Oh," he said.

"Do you think I mean that I said you were a drunk?" Ajalia asked, reading the expression in Philas's face, and the sudden deflation in his shoulders.

"Sun already told her that," Philas said sourly. "What else would you say to her?" he asked.

"I said that you're important, and that you get what you want," Ajalia said. "And that you're going to be the king of Saroyan."

"Oh," Philas said, brightening. "Pardon me," he said, and he ducked into the hall that led into the kitchen. Ajalia smiled. She went down the great hall, and began to look casually into the rooms that lay to the side nearest her. She heard a chatter of voices at the front of the hall, and saw that the boys had landed, and were talking together. Chad was drifting gracefully to the floor. Ajalia wondered suddenly where Esther was. One of the boys sprinted over the hall towards her. He slid to a halt in front of her, and looked up at her with shining eyes.

"Leed says he saw you kill the dragon," the boy gasped hurriedly. "Chad says he won over Esther, and she's going to teach us to catch the lesser witches. And Leed wants you to see him after dinner." Ajalia nodded, and the boy ran away again. Isacar came down the stairs, and hurried across the hall to the group of boys. Isacar raised his hand in farewell when he saw Ajalia, and he grinned. Ajalia thought of what Philas had said, about Isacar spoiling for a beating. She had begun to think the same thing herself. She would not actually hit Isacar; that was for little boys, and stupid slaves, but she would humiliate him, if he continued to behave in an uppity manner. Isacar was valuable to her, because of his personality, and his potential, much in the way Chad had been useful to her for so long. Isacar was still very green, and his attitude was jarringly bossy, but, Ajalia thought, he would mellow quickly, and in a few months, if she handled him well, Isacar would be a model of discretion and quiet genius.

Ajalia resumed her casual survey of the rooms at the side of the hall. She looked into one room, and saw that the chairs were askew. It was the same room that Philas had emerged from. Ajalia went in, and began to adjust the furniture.

"What is it now?" she heard Delmar ask impatiently, and she looked around and saw him squeezed into a corner of the room, the two slim leather books in his lap.

"Why are you sitting on the floor?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked up, and his expression cleared.

"Oh, it's you," he said. He stood up, and stretched. "I don't know," he said, looking at the floor. "I'm used to it, I guess. Philas was just here," he added, crossing to a chair, and dropping into it. "He wanted advice about relationships, or something. He was very persistent." Delmar looked quite annoyed. Ajalia smiled. "What?" Delmar asked.

"Philas is falling in love with someone," Ajalia said, looking infernally pleased. Delmar's eyes widened.

"Really?" he asked. He had been glancing down at his books, as though irritated at the interruption, but now he stared at Ajalia with wholehearted attention. "Who?" Delmar demanded.

"Fashel, my new cook," Ajalia said. Delmar's face broke into an evil grin.

"Ha!" Delmar said.

"What are you saying 'ha!' for?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked at her with cunning in his eyes.

"It means that Philas will suffer now," Delmar said with satisfaction. "She's engaged to be married to that other young man."

"He broke it off," Ajalia said. She moved the chairs into place, and arranged the curtain, which had been pulled to one side. "Were you playing with this?" she asked, frowning at the twisted fabric.

"Philas was," Delmar said, turning his attention back to the books in his lap. "He was very emotional." Ajalia smiled again. "Is Philas going to marry that girl now?" Delmar asked, his voice distracted. Ajalia saw that Delmar was once more absorbed into the book he was reading. She tied up the curtain, and then turned and saw that Chad had come to the door of the room.

"I saw you come in here," Chad said apologetically. He glanced at Delmar. "Am I interrupting?" he asked.

"No," Delmar said, waving his hand at Chad. "I'm reading. Come and talk to Ajalia. That will keep her from talking to me about interesting things."

"Is Philas getting married?" Chad asked, coming in and edging towards a chair.

"I thought you were going with the others," Ajalia said. "Isacar said you were." Chad's face darkened.

"Isacar is bossy," Chad said. "I've worked for you a lot longer than he has, but he thinks he's some sort of important person. It's very irritating," Chad told Ajalia.

"Yes, it is," Delmar agreed, without taking his eyes from the page.

"Leed's doing almost everything, and Daniel's making everyone get along," Chad added, "but Isacar talks as though he was the only responsible person around."

"Mm," Delmar agreed.

"I'd like to just smack him, sometimes," Chad said vehemently.

"If Isacar is bossy," Ajalia suggested, "why do you listen to him?" Chad's head moved back, as though Ajalia had hit him in the nose with a feather.

"I don't listen to Isacar," Chad said, but his voice sounded doubtful.

"Maybe Isacar thinks that he's in charge," Ajalia suggested, "because no one tells him that he isn't."

"Hm," Chad said, "you make an interesting point. Well, goodbye," he said, and dashed out of the room. Delmar looked up from his book.

"Where is he going?" Delmar asked.

"To humiliate Isacar," Ajalia said.

"Oh," Delmar said, looking down at the page again. He had one finger laid against the place where he was on the page. "Coren is dead," he added, as though commenting the weather.

"How did he die?" Ajalia asked.

"He just died," Delmar said. He turned the page. "Denai showed up with the body early this morning. He said that he had taken Coren down towards the docks, and several people were around, staring, and when Denai was talking to one of the ship's captains, Coren just crumpled up on the ground, dead."

"That's odd," Ajalia said, but then she remembered her fight with the second black worm. "Oh," Ajalia said.

"What?" Delmar asked, without looking up.

"I told you that I fought with the black dragon. Is that what you called them? Black dragons?" she asked. Delmar nodded. "They looked like worms to me. The second one was just outside the city wall, and it was licking that pile of shadows that used to be Bain. A piece of Coren's soul was mixed into that pile."

"That could have killed him," Delmar said. "Wait," he said, "but what happened to the shadows? They just got licked by the dragon?"

"No," Ajalia said slowly. "I blew them up."

"Oh," Delmar said at once. "Well, that would kill Coren, sure." Ajalia looked at Delmar, who seemed to be taking this conversation well.

"Why would it kill him?" Ajalia asked.

"Because you destroyed a part of his soul," Delmar said, "and because he was bound to serve the evil ones."

"Who are the evil ones?" Ajalia asked. Delmar marked his place again with a finger, and looked up.

"The two dragons," Delmar said. "They are the source of all evil in the world."

"But what does that mean?" Ajalia asked. "I killed both of them, so now is there no more evil?"

"I expect there is still evil," Delmar said reasonably, "but now it isn't being supported by otherworldly forces." Ajalia stared at Delmar.

"Well, isn't that a big deal?" she asked.

"Yes," Delmar said, turning back to his book. Ajalia wanted Delmar to get a little more worked up about this.

"So I single-handedly destroyed the horrible evil in the world, all by myself, and without really meaning to, and you're going to sit and read your book?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Delmar said, looking up again. "Is that okay?" Ajalia blinked.

"I don't know," she said. "Shouldn't we tell everyone?"

"You know how some people don't really believe in a sky angel?" Delmar asked.

"Yes," Ajalia said.

"And now whittle down the people who believe in the actual reality of the evil dragons to you and me, and you have an idea of how many people will believe you," Delmar said.

"Leed knows," Ajalia said defensively. "He went out and got a lot of the stones that came out of the fight."

"What do those stones do?" Delmar asked. Ajalia chewed on the inside of her cheek. She was thinking of the way her master's insides had sparkled with light and condensed gems of colored magic.

"They light up," Ajalia said. "Oh, don't tell anyone."

"Okay," Delmar said. Ajalia watched him read.

"Does it bother you that your little brother is dead?" she asked.

"No," Delmar said. He turned another page. "I am very relieved that I did not have to do anything about him myself."

"You're welcome," Ajalia said. Delmar looked up.

"Oh, are you upset?" he asked. "I didn't mean that I was glad you did something about him. You had to do something about that dragon. I'm sorry." Ajalia told herself that she was being angry for no reason, but she still felt quite angry.

"Where's Wall and Yelin?" she asked. She had a suspicion that Delmar had become efficient, and that she was the last to know about his new and improved personality. For some reason, Ajalia found that this enraged her.

"In prison," Delmar said, without looking up. "Awaiting trial for treason. Do you want Yelin?" he asked, glancing at Ajalia.

"I don't know yet," Ajalia said slowly. Delmar noticed the expression on her face, and he smiled at her.

"What's the matter?" Delmar asked. Ajalia found, once again, that it was difficult to stay angry at Delmar.

"I was mad at you," she complained, "and now I'm not."

"I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded genuinely apologetic.

"You keep being perfect," she explained, "and I keep getting just angry enough to berate you about something, and then you go and fix whatever it was."

"What did I do?" Delmar asked. He did not sound defensive; he sounded curious, and he looked with a measure of adoration at Ajalia.

"You're very good at being the Thief Lord," Ajalia said.

"Thank you," Delmar said. "I know I am." He sounded quite pleased with himself. Ajalia laughed.

"I expected to be holding your hand about things," Ajalia admitted. "I didn't think you'd be competent for a while."

"Oh," Delmar said, "I can see how you would have expected that."

"Yes," Ajalia said. She frowned. "I suppose you've already thought about arranging new trade relations with Saroyan."

"Yes," Delmar said. "I had two meetings about that this morning."

"Has Leed told you about the boys?" Ajalia asked.

"They're forming an army for me," Delmar said, and he very nearly blushed. "I think it's very sweet of them."

Ajalia sat down; she put her chin on her fist, and stared at Delmar.

"What?" he asked.

"You're just perfect," Ajalia said.

"Philas wanted to know how I got you to like me," Delmar told Ajalia with a smile. "I wouldn't tell him, and he nearly cried."

"I feel almost sorry for him," Ajalia said. "I've never seen him like this before, ever."

"I told him that he would have to be persistent, if he really liked her," Delmar said. "And I said that he should try not to lie about things."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The only sound was the soft whisper of Delmar turning the pages of his book. Ajalia watched him read, and she thought about children. She saw that Delmar was nearing the end of his book; only a few thick pages remained.

Ajalia had never wanted children of her own; she was not opposed to the idea of children, but the instability of her life as a slave, and the sheer enormity of motherhood had kept her from thinking with any seriousness of the prospect. Delmar was beginning to make Ajalia feel distinctly sentimental. She thought about her master coming to Slavithe, and about the land of Talbos nearby. She thought about the two black worms, which Delmar had said represented the deepest evil in the world. She guessed that he meant by that, the deepest evil in Slavithe. Ajalia had a hard time believing that she had actually destroyed any worldwide threat when she had exploded the two heavy black worms.

"Delmar," Ajalia said.

"Yes?" Delmar asked. He turned to the last page in the book. Ajalia watched him read. When he had closed the book, and looked up at her, she met his eyes, and frowned. "What is it?" he asked.

"Have you ever thought," she asked, "about becoming the king of Talbos?"

"Well," Delmar said, and Ajalia saw that he had.

"Does that mean yes?" Ajalia asked.

"My grandfather is quite old," Delmar said, "but he is not in ill health at all. He could live for another fifteen years."

"Yes," Ajalia said.

"His oldest daughter, the princess of Talbos, has a husband," Delmar said. He sounded as though he were choosing his words carefully.

"What is wrong with him?" Ajalia asked.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with him," Delmar said cautiously. Ajalia laughed.

"Delmar," Ajalia said bluntly, "either this man is insane, or he is evil. I can't see why else you would have that look on your face when you spoke of him."

"Well," Delmar said, frowning.

"Is he insane?" Ajalia asked.

"Well," Delmar said, his face squishing, as though he would not like to commit himself to such a strong word. "I wouldn't say he is actually crazy."

"So he's evil," Ajalia prompted. Delmar frowned at her, looking slightly irritated.

"There's nothing really wrong with him," Delmar hedged.

"How old is he? What does he look like?" Ajalia asked.

"Um," Delmar said. He looked a little uncomfortable.

"Why does the king put up with him, if he's so awful?" Ajalia asked.

"He's not awful to the king," Delmar said quickly. "He can be very nice, when he wants to be."

"So he's awful to everyone but the king?" Ajalia asked.

"Um," Delmar said again, looking distinctly embarrassed.

"Or he's only rotten to you," Ajalia guessed.

"Well," Delmar said, flushing, "yes."

"Why?" Ajalia asked. "Does he know that you would be a better king of Talbos than he would?"

"Oh, he'll never be king," Delmar said at once. "The princess will be queen. My grandfather is writing a new set of laws. He doesn't like his son-in-law that much."

"Oh," Ajalia said. She felt thoroughly skeptical about the whole scenario. "So he doesn't like you, because he knows you have a better chance of being king than the princess does of being queen?" Delmar turned quite red.

"Well, she is my aunt," Delmar said, as though he felt a little ashamed of what Ajalia  was saying.

"Yes, and you'd be an excellent king of Talbos," Ajalia said. Delmar flushed again, and the corners of his mouth tugged upwards.

"Well," he said, "that's neither here nor there."

"No," Ajalia said. "I think all the people of Talbos are thinking that you'll be king soon. You're a much better age, and you're not married to a dramatic pile of garbage."

Delmar looked at Ajalia, aghast.

"You can't call Lerond a pile of garbage!" Delmar said.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked. "He is, isn't he?" Delmar's lips heaped themselves up into an indeterminate pile.

"Yes," he admitted. His expression turned stern. "But it isn't polite to say so, because he's married to my aunt," Delmar explained.

"Not for long, he isn't," Ajalia said. Delmar stared at Ajalia.

"No," Delmar explained, "you don't seem to understand. My aunt, the princess, is already married to this man."

"I know," Ajalia said, "but your aunt, the princess, is going to drop him like a hot rock as soon as your grandfather, the king, declares you his heir, and crowns you king of Talbos." Delmar blinked several times. "You're going to be in charge, and you don't like Lerond," Ajalia pointed out. "I bet you a whole host of money that your aunt, the princess, is going to ask her father, the king, to change a few laws so that Lerond can be driven straight out of the picture about five minutes after you are elected the heir."

"But," Delmar said, frowning. He was clearly torn between believing Ajalia, who, up to this point had always been right, and believing what his parents had taught him his whole life, which was that he was a feckless loser who would never amount to much.

"Yes?" Ajalia asked. Delmar's mouth was working from side to side.

"But," he said again, and Ajalia could see him struggling to think of a reasonable objection to what she had said.

"Wasn't your father the oldest son?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Delmar admitted.

"And doesn't that make you the oldest son of the oldest son?" Ajalia asked. Delmar grimaced.

"Well, yes," he said, "but."

"But?" Ajalia asked. Delmar looked as though he was ready to spew forth a whole host of reasons, but then he breathed in, and let out a deep sigh.

"You're probably right," Delmar said.

"Right about what?" Ajalia asked. Delmar made an irritated face at her.

"You're probably right that a lot of people in Talbos think that I'll be appointed king," Delmar said. "Especially now that I'm the Thief Lord."

"And you can do magic," Ajalia said. "And you're making the whole dead falcon prophecy come true, which is making the robbers and the rogue priests from Talbos gleeful and cooperative, probably for the first time in five hundred years."

"Three hundred," Delmar put in, "give or take twenty years."

"You have an opportunity to unify Slavithe and Talbos," Ajalia said. "You can create a real alliance with Saroyan, and you can open up the road in the mountain, and establish open trade. You can eradicate the witches, and reform the priests. Delmar," Ajalia said seriously, "you can fly."

Delmar, throughout this speech, had grown slowly more and more red in the face. He looked almost apoplectic now.

"I can do more than fly," Delmar muttered, an abashed smile tugging at his cheeks.

"Oh really?" Ajalia asked. Delmar lifted the book, and waved it a little in the air.

"I'm going to keep this one to myself," Delmar said with a smile. "You're going to love what's in it." Delmar held up the book that Ajalia had gotten from Salla, the apparently-innocuous witch. "This is everything basic," Delmar said. "Identifying and disabling witches, reanimating energy that's been damaged, and illuminating things. I know how you lit up the temple now," Delmar said. "It also talks about building things, and creating peaceful relations between the workers of magic. There's more than that," Delmar said, "but it's all fairly basic. Like flying." Ajalia laughed.

"Why do all of you keep saying that flying is easy?" Ajalia asked.

"Well, it is," Delmar said. "Is it hard for you?"

"No," Ajalia said, "but it is flying, you know."

"So?" Delmar asked, laughing.

"So we should at least act like it's surprising, or something," Ajalia said.

"Okay," Delmar said, smiling. "This book is about very simple things, except it also includes flying, which is very impressive."

"Yes," Ajalia said firmly.

"This book," Delmar said, raising the book that had been hidden among Tree's things, "is quite different. This book explains," Delmar said, "how Slavithe was made."

"What do you mean?" Ajalia asked. "I thought you said that the other book said how to build things?"

"Small things," Delmar said, "like roads." Ajalia did not think that a road was a small thing, but she held her peace. "This book talks about changing the course of water under the earth, and shifting mountains about."

"Really?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Delmar said. "It could be very destructive, if someone who could do magic used this book in the wrong way."

"Oh," Ajalia said suddenly. She dug in her bag. "I forgot all about these," Ajalia said. "Your father was using Coren to transport secret codes and messages with his spies in Talbos. Coren told me that the cypher for the letters is in the lining of that book I found." Ajalia took the bundle of letters and papers out of her bag, and passed them to Delmar. "I haven't had a chance to translate any of the documents," she said, "but I'm sure they'll be of more use to you. I hope you'll recognize names of people."

Delmar flipped open the leather book, and pressed a pair of thin rectangles of stone, like the one that had been in Ajalia's book, out of the lining.

"Coren said one was a plain translation stone, like mine," Ajalia said. "The other one is the cypher."

"Thank you," Delmar said, taking the letters. "This will be very useful. I'll read these, before we go to Talbos."

"Are things settled all right here?" Ajalia asked. Delmar grinned at her.

"The boys have been working up and down the streets all day," he told her. "They started sometime last night. It was Daniel's idea. They're searching the houses from the streets, and disabling the witches without ever speaking to them. Cross told me that they taught some of the other boys you have when they met them at market, and they've been helping as well. Leed is so good at teaching things," Delmar said, "that the other boys can explain it to each other. The boys all learned the story magic from the priests," Delmar added. "They all know it, so learning to use the story magic on people is a short stretch from what many of them know."

"One of my boys had told me," Ajalia said, "that none of the boys were able to do much magic yet."

"Oh, but they've been taught what they should be able to do," Delmar said, "and once another boy connects the lights for them, and they conjure a little light themselves, they're very quick."

"Good," Ajalia said.

"The youngest boys can't conjure at all," Delmar said, "because their colors haven't finished growing in."

"Coren said that," Ajalia said. Delmar glanced at Ajalia.

"Are you upset about Coren?" he asked. Ajalia sighed, and shrugged.

"I did not have much hope for Coren," she admitted. "It will be easier for you, this way. He would have had a hard time letting go of the kind of power his mother gave him." Delmar nodded.

"Thank you for helping him, though," Delmar said. "I don't think anyone had ever shown him they cared about him before you did." Ajalia shrugged. "I think he noticed that you cared," Delmar added.

"I know he noticed," Ajalia said. "I just wish he hadn't been so far gone. Now," she said briskly, because thinking of Coren was making her feel quite heavy, and she knew that she could not bring the child back to life, "when are we going to go to Talbos and manage the business of the succession?"

"You know," Delmar said slowly, turning over the papers and letters Ajalia had given him, "I think we could make some of the land habitable, through the mountains, and connect Talbos to Slavithe permanently." He looked up at her. "With magic," he added. "I think I can figure out how they built Slavithe."

"The buildings, and the springs?" Ajalia asked.

"Oh, yes," Delmar said. "The white stone buildings, and the city wall, are all constructed with magic. This book," he said, tapping the book that Tree had hidden, "is very useful."

"So how much time do I have?" Ajalia asked. Delmar smiled at her.

"Before we go to Talbos?" Delmar asked. Ajalia nodded. Delmar looked down at the documents in his hands, and then he met Ajalia's eyes again. "Give me a week," he said.

"All right," Ajalia said. "Then I'm going to go and sort out the priests." Delmar laughed. "What is funny?" Ajalia asked.

"I feel sorry for the priests," Delmar murmured, and he lifted the first of the letters.

THE END

of

The Magic War

BONUS:

Chapter One of book 6: The King of Talbos

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, rolled 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.

"You go and do as Fashel tells you," Calles said sternly. Calles's daughter, whose lips were squeezed together in an angry fold, turned and stamped away.

"Why do you think that I hate you?" Ajalia asked Chad. Chad, who had been sitting in the chair Ajalia had put him into, and staring angrily at the floor, glanced at her. He scoffed.

"I know you think I'm stupid," Chad said sourly. "You and Card both think I'm stupid."

"You have looked very stupid," Ajalia said truthfully, "in the past. You don't look stupid now."

"But that's awful to say to me," Chad said.

"It's been true," Ajalia said. "Do you know that I hired you in the first place because you looked helpless, and honest?" Chad's sneer grew to epic proportions.

"That's lovely," Chad told Calles. His mouth was angry, but his eyes were sad. "I was stupid-looking first, and now I'm helpless."

"And honest, she says," Calles added peaceably. Chad glared at her. Ajalia saw that Chad had hoped for an ally in Calles.

"Well, this is just great," Chad said. "First my parents don't respect me, and now you don't either. Plus, apparently I work for a murderer!" he added dramatically. Ajalia laughed, and Chad narrowed his eyes. "Well, you do kill people," he said viciously.

"Yes," Ajalia said, "I often do kill people."

"Well, killing people is bad," Chad said. He folded his arms, and looked superior and calm.

"Is it always bad, no matter what?" Ajalia asked.

"Yes," Chad said sternly. "Killing people is wrong. Also," he said, "I don't think cutting off the witches' power kills them."

"Would you cut off Esther like that?" Ajalia asked. Chad's whole mouth pushed out at once.

"No!" he said. He spoke vehemently.

"Why not?" Ajalia asked. She looked over at Calles, to see if the seamstress was distressed at the interruption Chad was making to their talk, but Calles looked as if she was enjoying the exchange thoroughly. Ajalia thought that Calles looked on Chad rather as though she had adopted him as a little brother. Chad, who had become far less useless and helpless ever since he had learned magic, seemed, to Ajalia, to have reached the point at which his moral understanding was stretched to the limit. She thought that his mind was not incapable of reason, but that he had been little exposed to rational thought in his past life. Chad had begun to get used to efficiency and sense in his daily life since he had worked for Ajalia, and alongside Card, but the reality of death, and the depth of actual order being spread throughout the city, seemed to have given Chad quite a shock. The gangs of boys, led often by Ajalia's house boys, or by boys from her cleaning crews, who had been taking the men of the city and thrusting them through the doors of the temples, had not turned wild. Leed and Daniel had set the tone for the house boys, who had imparted a measure of calm to the cleaning crew boys, and those city boys who joined in the efforts, having heard of the feats of magic being done daily by the boys who lived with Ajalia, did their best to imitate the manners and ways of the boys that Ajalia had trained.

It was a charming sight to see a group of grown men, walking calmly along the street, herded behind by an energetic cluster of young boys, all of whom watched them soberly, if with eagerly-jostling limbs. The hiding priests, and the men who had corrupted the witches' ways for their own use, were usually immediately apparent, because they shouted and tried to run when the boys appeared near them. The hunting boys, whatever the men did, remained quiet and steady, and told each other to act more like that boy Leed. She had seen city boys in the streets practicing Leed's mannerisms, and pretending to fly. She knew the boys had all been talking to each other about the magic lessons Leed had given within the dragon temple. With the blockaded temple entrances, the bands of boys hunting witches, and the gangs of young men and boys rounding up men to be tested by the blue magic, Ajalia thought that the entire city would be free of corrupt witchcraft soon.

"Cutting through the witches' necks with magic is not the same as killing them," Chad said finally, "but I don't want Esther to change."

"So you think the witches change," Ajalia said, "when you cut off their powers, and slice through their necks with magic."

"No," Chad said impatiently. "I mean, yes, they change, but it isn't real."

"What isn't real?" Ajalia asked.

"The magic isn't real," Chad said, blushing. "I mean, it isn't real death."

"How do you know that?" Ajalia asked him. Chad looked flushed, but stubborn.

"Because death is real," Chad said. "Real death, when you die."

"Do you know how the priests die?" Ajalia asked Chad.

"No," he said grudgingly. "How do they die?"

"Their souls are flammable," Ajalia said. "When they go through the blue wall, their insides are so brittle, and so dried up, and so cut away from the actual life in the earth and the sky, that their souls just burn in a white flash. Have you seen them die?" she asked. Chad nodded.

"But the blue wall kills them," Chad argued. "So they do actually die."

"Their souls burn up," Ajalia said.

"But they die!" Chad said angrily. "Why won't you admit that they die?"

"What do you think would happen," Ajalia asked Chad, "if there were powerful witches still in hiding?" Chad looked at Ajalia as though he suspected a trap. His lips moved slowly in thought, and then he spoke hesitantly.

"They would try to kill you, and they would kill Delmar," Chad said.

"The witches would try to take my soul," Ajalia said. "They would try to take Delmar's soul."

"They would try to kill you," Chad said angrily.

"I would not actually die," Ajalia said. "I would get quieter than I am now, and I would stop speaking so frankly about things. My real self would be gone, eaten away by some witch."

"But everyone would be able to see that," Chad said impatiently. Ajalia looked at Chad, and felt as though she could talk all day to him and not get through.

"Well," she said. "Right now I am talking to Calles. I guess if you'd rather stay home, and let the boys finish up with the witches, you could do that."

"I'm not going to stay at home," Chad said, disgruntled. "I just don't think killing the witches' ability to harm others is quite the same thing as killing the priests."

"It's not," Ajalia said. "The priests die." Chad blinked.

"But that is what I have been saying!" he exclaimed. He looked around at Calles. "Can you believe this?" he demanded. "Now she is acting as though she agrees with me!"

"I want you to pretend for a moment that Beryl is still alive," Ajalia said. "You know that she was the witch-caller, when she was alive?"

"Of course I know that," Chad said grumpily. "Anyone knew that."

"But no one knew that she was a witch," Ajalia said.

"Well, of course they didn't know," Chad said with exaggerated patience. "She was the witch-caller. She had to do magic, to catch other witches."

"Yes, and she killed people," Ajalia said.

"No, she didn't," Chad said. Ajalia saw that he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes.

"Do you know," Ajalia said, "I have heard that many witches hope to be able to reanimate a body that is emptied of its soul." Chad stared at her with wary eyes.

"So?" he said. Calles had looked around at Ajalia, and her lips had dropped open a little.

"So the witches," Calles said slowly, "if they were left unchecked, could put someone's soul into a priest's body."

"I think it could be done," Ajalia said. "This is why the priests have all been taken to the poison tree, to be destroyed." Chad's face had grown thoughtful and sober.

"I'd better get back to work," Chad said, and he offered to rise.

"Wait," Ajalia said. Chad looked at her.

"What?" he asked. "You win the argument. I was wrong. The witches have to die, or be cut off, or whatever is happening to them."

"I think that people will start to notice the witches around them," Ajalia told Chad. "They will see their wives, or their sisters, or their daughters being quieter than usual. They will wonder what is wrong." Chad listened intently, and Ajalia saw that he was no longer thinking of whether or not he was a good person. "I want you," Ajalia said, "to go to the house of a witch, and invite her and her family to go to a temple. Ask her to pass through the door of the temple. See what she says, and what her family says."

"You want to establish a precedent," Calles said, her eyes sharp. "You want people to do this to their own families."

"I want to eradicate witchcraft," Ajalia said. "Esther passed through a blue wall of magic, and she lived." Ajalia did not mention Vinna, who had also lived. She had not yet thought of what to do about such a woman as Vinna, if such a witch somehow escaped the trawling purges of the boys.

"But Esther wasn't evil," Chad said quickly. "Well, she isn't evil now," he said, looking at Ajalia.

"No, I don't think she is," Ajalia said. "And Chad," she said. Chad looked at her. "You are not a bad person. And it can be a valuable thing, to be seen as honest and simple. I think that you know this. I think you have pretended to be a little more simple than you are, in order to finagle your way into Esther's affections."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that," Chad said, but he got hurriedly to his feet. "Well, sorry for the interruption," he added, and hurried away.

"Chad is a nice boy," Calles said, watching him retreat quickly through the hall of the dragon temple.

"He is a nice young man," Ajalia said. She did not like the way other people treated Chad, as though he were a little boy. Ajalia saw Chad as a man who was only just beginning to become himself, and she was impatient with the minimization she saw women treat him with. Calles looked sideways at her.

"I think he is quite young," Calles suggested.

"He is running deeper and deeper now that he is beginning to respect himself," Ajalia said. "Now, what about these sleeves?"

When Ajalia had been speaking to Leed, before this, when she had asked him what he meant when he said that the boys grounded each other before they cut through the witches, Leed had sighed, and propped his fists on his hips.

"Well, I had a near miss, the first time," Leed said. He had told her already that what he had read in the slim leather book had given him the idea for the blade of light, and cutting through the witches' power cord and neck. "I was experimenting," Leed said, "and I'd taken another kid out with me. The witch noticed me, just as I was forming up my blade of light, and she almost got the boy next to me. I cut her off just in time, but it made me think of how to be more careful."

"Careful how?" Ajalia asked. Leed had smiled, and then he had explained to her a method of camouflage that he had worked out. One boy would draw up the lights from the earth, and cover the other boy from head to foot. The boy who was covered, or grounded, as Leed called it, would take care of the witch, and the witch would not notice the attacking energy until it was too late.

"The boys, to a witch, seem like a piece of the street," Leed said with satisfaction. "Some of these boys are very clumsy, but they have all learned about the story magic in the temples, and once one of my men," (for Ajalia had found, to her infinite delight, that Leed referred to her house boys as his men) "hooks them up to the lights, they can form the story magic to make an image of the falcon's dagger. Then they take up that dagger, and use it to cut through the witch's black cord. She goes very limp and quiet after that," Leed said, "and the boys cut through the soul in her neck. The witches all have very thick souls," he added, "almost as though they were made of paste, or dried-up glue."

"I felt that as well," Ajalia said, "when I have fought witches."

Leed regarded her somberly.

"I saw what you did," he said. "I saw you fight with that big black dragon."

"I keep forgetting to ask you," Ajalia said, sighing with relief that Leed had brought this up. She continually thought of the black worms when he was out of the way, and had not been able to ask him before about this. "I am glad that you said that. What are the ancient dragons? Why did Delmar want to kill them? And do other lands have their own evil dragons in the earth?" Ajalia realized, after she had said this, that Leed might not know much about magic, or demons that nestled in the earth beneath faraway places. She was growing quite used to Leed being infallible, and she often forgot that he was not quite eleven years old, and had likely not gained ascendancy over the whole earth yet.

"We are taught that these two black dragons have ruled over the whole earth for all ages," Leed said. "It has been said, farther back than the founding of Slavithe, that they would be destroyed someday, and that the whole world would find peace."

"Do you believe that?" Ajalia asked. "Do you believe that there aren't any more black dragons about?"

"I don't think there are more," Leed said simply. "I think those two were the only ones." Ajalia regarded the boy cautiously. She did not like to expose her thoughts too much to the boy. Leed seemed to know what she was thinking, because he smiled. "You can ask me why I think that," he told her. "My illusions of your omnipotence will not be shattered forever if you ask me questions." Ajalia smiled at him.

"How do you know they are the only ones?" she asked. "And how did you see me fighting with the black worm?" Ajalia was still struggling to think of the great black shapes as dragons; proper dragons, she thought, were beautiful and fierce, and were not anything like the awful, heavy, clumsy worm shapes that she had blown up with magic.

"The ancestors came from many lands to build Slavithe, and then Talbos," Leed told her. "Some of them even came from across many seas. When Slavithe was formed from the dregs of so many lands, the peoples who formed its population brought with them stories. All of the people from all of the different places believed in different things, but these two dragons were the same. Every people had traditions that said that there are two black dragons, that they wrap over the whole earth, and that one day in the future, a bright storm would wipe away the two dragons, and the fear and dread caused by evil would pass away from the earth. It was said that the earth would rest."

"And do you believe this?" Ajalia asked. Leed shrugged.

"It has been two days since you killed the last dragon," he said, "and you have laid traps for all of the priests. The witches are being hunted, and for the first time since the days of Jerome, there will be peace in Slavithe." This conversation between Ajalia and Leed happened on the second day, in the evening after the last meal. Ajalia had spent the day putting blue barricades of magic over the entrances to the temples; she had told Leed what she had done, and the following morning she would find piles of priestly bodies in the doors of the temples

"I think it is possible, since so many peoples spoke of two black dragons, and spoke of them being destroyed, that the other parts of what they say are true as well," Leed said. He looked at Ajalia. "You asked me how I saw you," Leed said. "I paid attention to what I read in that book you lent me, and I read much of the other one, before I gave it to Delmar. I have not told anyone of what I read, but I have learned to feel the magic when it moves in the earth. I am sure that there are no more dragons," Leed said.

THE EASTERN SLAVE SERIES

The Slave from the East

The White Brand

The Thief Lord's Son

The Dead Falcon

The Magic War

The King of Talbos

The Fall of Slavithe

Into the East

The Kingdom in the Sky

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Victor Poole has a little gray cat and a penchant for sketching. You can read more about him and get updates about more of his books at www.victorpoole.wordpress.com.

Table of Contents

Coren Unravels

The Seven Witches

An Army of Priests

The Wall of Ocean-Blue

The Aftermath of Battle

The Contents of the Book

Philas Comes Back

Chad and Esther

The Meeting of the Spies

The Treachery of Denai

The Lost Prince

The End of Coren's Cooperation

Philas Undergoes a Purge

The Kings of Saroyan

Leed Forges Ahead

The Black Worm

Delmar and Ajalia

Fashel is Pursued

Ajalia Speaks to Fashel

The Succession in Talbos