by S L Farrell
She realized who it must represent in that moment: Cenzi. She had seen images of the god done that way, with his eyes glowing as he cast fire at the Moitidi who opposed him. The puppet-god wasn’t staring at Varina, however, but at the space before her carriage-the space where Karl’s bier moved.
“Sergei?”
Sergei had opened the carriage window and called to one of the gardai on the line, who ran over to him. “Who is doing this?” he asked.
“The Morellis,” the garda answered. “They assembled behind the crowd, and when the bier approached, all of a sudden that thing went up.”
“Well, get it down before-” That was as far as Sergei got.
The puppet-god roared.
The sound and heat of its call washed over her. It lifted the carriage-she heard horses and people alike screaming even as she felt herself rising-and sent Sergei tumbling backward into her. He struck her hard, and then the carriage, lifted in the wind of the puppet-god’s scream, fell back to earth hard.
There must have been more screams and more sound, but she could hear nothing. She was screaming herself; she knew it, felt it in the rawness of her throat, but she heard no sound at all. She could taste blood in her mouth and Sergei was thrashing his limbs as he tried to untangle himself from her, and he was shouting, too. She could see his lips mouthing her name-“Varina! ”-but all she heard was the remnant of the puppet-god’s roar, echoing and echoing.
Then she remembered. “Karl!” she shouted silently, pushing at Sergei and trying to rise from the wreckage of the carriage. She could see the street and horses on their sides, still in their harnesses and thrashing wildly at the ground, and bodies of people here and there.
Especially around the bier.
Which burned and fumed and smoked in the middle of the courtyard.
Niente
The island city Tlaxcala gleamed like white bone on the saphhire waters of Lake Ixtapatl, but Niente didn’t see it. All his attention was on the bronze bowl before him and the water shimmering there.
The scrying bowl. The bowl that held all the possible futures. They swam before his eyes, blotting out reality. He saw war and death. He saw a smoking mountain exploding. He saw a queen on a glowing throne, and a man on another throne. He saw armies crawling over the land, one with banners of blue and gold and the other of black and silver. He saw an army of warriors and nahualli coming against them. Yet beyond that war, down a long, long path, there was hope. There was peace. There was reconciliation. Go to war, and you will find peace. That was what the god Axat seemed to be saying to him. The images surrounded him, warm and gentle, and he basked in their heat…
“Taat Niente?” Father Niente.
The query was accompanied by a touch on his shoulder that broke his concentration, and Niente grudgingly lifted his head from the futures swimming in the bowl’s waters. The emerald light illuminating his face faded with the spell’s passing, and his soul returned to the city with a shudder. He was standing atop the Teocalli Axat, the high, stepped pyramid that was the temple of the moon-god Axat. The Teocalli Axat wasn’t the highest structure in the city-that honor belonged to the Calli Tecuhtli, the House of the King, though the Teocalli Sakal, the sun-god’s temple, was only a few spans lower. Still, from the summit on which Niente stood, all of Tlaxcala was laid out before him: the canals that served as streets glistening straight as spears and crowded with acal, the small, paddled watercraft used for transportation within the island city; the huge plazas bustling with people on their unguessed errands; the market with its thousands of stalls. Beyond the market rose the Calli Tecuhtli, its facade decorated with the bleached skulls of vanquished warriors. Out beyond the city and the lake in which it sat, the great valley was ringed by snow-capped peaks, with a trail of fuming ash wind-smeared across the summit of the volcano Poctlitepetl and its neighboring mountains. The sun had already slid behind the slopes though the western sky was still ablaze, the flanks of the lower clouds touched with the colors of burning while the east was a deep purple in which the first stars glimmered.
The magnificent view from the summit of Teocalli Axat never failed to stir Niente, never failed to make his heart beat harder in his chest. He loved this land. His land. And he was grateful to Axat for giving him hope that it could become the seat of a greater empire yet.
“Taat?” Father.
He turned finally to the young man, panting from his long climb up the steps of the temple, his arms crossed over his chest-Niente’s son. “I hear you, Atl,” he said. “It’s later than I thought. I’m sorry. Did Xaria send you?”
Atl grinned at him. “Na’ Xaria says if you don’t get home soon, she’ll throw your supper to the dogs and you can fight them for it. She also said that you’d be sleeping with the dogs as well.”
Niente smiled in return. The expression pulled at the scars of his face. He knew what that face looked like, knew what his decades of casting Axat’s spells and peering into the scrying bowl had cost him, as it had cost every nahualli who utilized Her power so deeply. His left eye was a white, blind horror, his mouth sagged on that side also, as if his flesh had melted there. Ridged, hard scars furrowed his face and body; his muscles wobbled in sacks of skin as if they had shriveled inside him. He appeared at least two hands of years older than he was.
But none of the other nahualli would dare to challenge him and try to wrest the title of Nahual from him. No. He was the famous Nahual Niente, whose spells had driven the army of the Easterners from their cousins’ land along the coast, who had accompanied Tecuhtli Zolin across the Great Sea to the Easterners’ land, the empire of the Holdings, who had burned their great capital city, and who had warned Tecuhtli Zolin of the consequences of his pride even when the Tecuhtli had refused to listen to him. He was Nahual Niente, who with Tecuhtli Citlali had razed the last Easterners’ fortress in the Hellins-the city of Tobarro-to the ground and ended the Holdings’ occupation of the Hellins forever.
He was Nahual Niente whose fame approached and even exceeded that of the great Mahri.
No, the nahualli were content to let Axat take Niente when She would. They were content to watch his body burn slowly away at her bidding, a little bit each day. The nahualli who might want his title were content to be patient, to wait.
Even his own son, who was also one of the nahualli.
Niente rubbed the golden bracelet around his right forearm: the sigil of the Nahual. Atop the teocalli, the youngest nahualli were lighting the oil cauldrons which would burn all night. They inclined their heads to Niente-“Good evening to you, Nahual Niente!” they cried, and he could almost believe the sincerity in their voices. The cauldrons were already lit on the other teocaltin of the city and atop the Calli Tecuhtli. All over the city, lanterns clawed at the night. Tlaxcala glowed yellow in the darkness of the valley, a city that never slept.
Niente slapped Atl on the shoulder. At two hands of age, his son had an athlete’s body, and though he was trained as a nahualli, he could as easily have entered the warrior caste. “Let’s get home,” Niente said to him. “I’m hungry enough to eat those dogs if they get in the way.”
He threw the water from the bowl onto the stones and wiped the brass with the hem of his robe. He slipped the bowl into its leather pouch and slung it around his neck. The two started down the long, steep staircase, Niente moving carefully and noting that Atl stayed close to his elbow. Had Atl been any other of the nahualli, he might have been insulted, but he was glad for Atl’s attentiveness.
As they descended, Niente saw a young man in the blue garb of the Tecuhtli’s staff hurrying up the stairs toward them-one of the Tecuhtli’s pages. Niente paused, letting the boy approach. The page bowed, prostrate on the narrow stone steps, at Niente’s feet. “Up,” Niente told him. “What’s your message?”
“The Tecuhtli requests your presence, Nahual.”
Niente laughed aloud at that, which startled the boy. “I guess the dogs will be well fed tonight,” he said to Atl. “Tell your Na’ Xaria
that it’s the Tecuhtli’s fault, not mine.”
The Calli Tecuhtli was in the next calpulli, the neighborhoods into which the city was subdivided by the canals and large boulevards. Niente followed the page along the terra cotta flank of one of the aqueducts that provided fresh water to the city-the waters of Lake Ixtapatl being rather brackish-and over one of the many arching bridges of the island city to the plaza before Calli Tecuhtli. Ahead of him, the pyramid of the Calli rose like Poctlitepetl itself, its summit also smoking, not with ash and lava but with the fires of oil cauldrons. The plaza was bustling with people: visitors from the other cities come to see the glory of the capital Tlaxcala; citizens petitioning one or another of the innumerable bureaucrats who actually ran the city; scarred and tattooed High Warriors who served the Tecuhtli. All of them stepped aside before Niente with inclined heads and muttered greetings as he followed the page up the steps. At the third level of the pyramid, the page stopped, leading Niente to a curtained alcove a little way down. He tapped on the call drum outside and lifted the thick, woven tapestry, gesturing to Niente to enter.
The room-the outermost room of the Tecuhtli’s apartments-was lavish. The walls were brightly painted with figures of birds of prey and solemn warriors. Warm woven rugs covered the floor. Citlali sat in a carved wooden chair cushioned with many pillows, a table with several dishes steaming in front of him. “Ah, Nahual Niente. Sit. Eat with me; no doubt poor Xaria has already given up on you for supper.”
The red-dyed tattoo of an eagle, the insignia of the Tecuhtli, seemed to wriggle on Citlali’s wide, shaved head as he spoke. He gestured to a chair set on the other side of the table. “Thank you, Tecuhtli,” Niente told him, sinking into the chair with a sigh. “I’m afraid I forget the time too easily.”
“You look more tired than usual.”
“I am,” Niente admitted. “Axat is a hard taskmaster, and She doesn’t care what happens to Her servant.”
“And what did you see in the scrying bowl today?”
Niente leaned forward and lifted a cover from one of the dishes. He took a flat corn cake and slathered meat on it, folding it over. He gnawed at it hungrily. The battle raging in the waters of the scrying bowl… The strange architecture of the buildings… The enemy in their steel and shields… The blood, the fire, the death… And the long path of peace… And the cost of that Long Path; he knew that also. “I saw enough,” he said as he swallowed, “to guess why you’ve asked me here, Tecuhtli.” He sighed. “I don’t look forward to crossing the Lesser Sea again.”
Citlali laughed, clapping his hands together once. “You guess well,” he said. “I thought it would be enough for me to send the Easterners running back home like a pack of frightened dogs. I thought when I stood on the burning embers of their last fortress here on our cousins’ lands of the Hellins that I’d be satisfied. But I find I’m not. I keep dreaming of their cities and the loss we suffered there. I keep thinking that we haven’t yet paid for the souls of those great warriors and nahualli who died there.”
“More warriors and nahualli will die if you do this, Tecuhtli. Many more.” Even though he had seen the Long Path, no future was certain. He had also seen that there would be peace-for a time-if Citlali stayed here. But not forever. The Holdings would be back, and this time they would bring an army that would be terrifying.
“I know. Yet isn’t that what the true warrior desires?”
“There are still wars to fight here. Not all of our cousins beyond the White-Peak Wall pay tribute to Tlaxcala-you can add their skulls to the rack.”
Citlali nodded as Niente spoke, but his gesture was tempered with a shrug. Niente could see the vision of the scrying bowl in the Tecuhtli’s eyes, glimmering there in his pupils. He could almost hear Axat’s laughter. This is what She wants of you. You want to deny it, but you know it.
“I hear Tecuhtli Zolin in my dream,” Citlali said. “His spirit calls to me from the land of the dead to finish what he started.”
“Zolin is too proud even in death, then,” Niente said, and Citlali barked laughter at that.
“Zolin refused to listen to you, Niente. I’ll listen. If you tell me that Axat says I shouldn’t go, I won’t.”
Niente sat, silently. Do you throw this to me as a test, Axat? he asked, and thought for a moment that he heard the response of Her sinister laughter. “I can’t tell you that, Tecuhtli,” he said.
Citlali laughed again, this time with satisfaction. He clapped his hands together loudly enough in his pleasure that the page outside lifted the flap of the tapestry and peered in momentarily. “I was certain you’d argue against this, Niente,” he roared. “I thought you would warn me of what you saw in the scrying bowl as you did Zolin, and tell me that I was being foolish. I thought you would say that I tempt the gods, and they would strike me down for my arrogance and pride, as they did Zolin.”
Niente smiled, taking another bite of meat as Citlali spoke. No, he would not tell Citlali what he’d seen in the bowl, because Axat had made it clear to him that he must not, not if he wanted the vision of the Long Path to come to fruition. He only bowed his head to the warrior. “I will be at your side, Tecuhtli Citlali, as I was at Zolin’s. I will be your Nahual, and I will look again on the Easterners’ land.”
Citlali rose from his seat-his body was still that of a muscular warrior, but there was the beginning of a paunch around his waist. That explained much of his eagerness to Niente: unlike the Nahual of the nahualli, the Tecuhtli-the highest of the High Warriors-rarely reached old age before a rival arose to challenge and kill him. If Citlali wanted his name to be remembered long after his time, he needed to make his mark on the world.
Ambition: it had killed many of the Tehuantin over the centuries.
“Page!” Citlali called, and the boy slid into the room from outside. “Call the High Warriors-tell them to come here tonight. The Tecuhtli and the Nahual wish to meet with them.” The boy made an obeisance and hurried away. Citlali turned back to Niente, and Niente saw him draw in his stomach self-consciously. “This will be a time of greatness for the Tehuantin,” he said. “Is that what you saw in the bowl, Nahual?”
To that, Niente could nod. “Indeed,” he said. “That is what I saw. Greatness.”
INCARNATIONS
Nico Morel
The blast from the black sand was more powerful and stunning than Nico expected.
The concussion hit his chest like the fist of Cenzi. It fluttered the drapes of the puppet, pummeling the papiermache head so strongly that none of them could hold it upright. The puppet toppled as people screamed and pieces of the Ambassador’s funeral bier began to rain down around them.
“Away!” Nico called to his followers. “Scatter! Quickly!”
The crowd was already fleeing; the gardai were confused and stunned. The Morellis evaporated into the crowd, lost in a few moments. Nico waited a few breaths, staring at the destruction. There were several people down, mostly the Numetodo who had been around the bier-he had no sympathy for death or injuries to them at all. Still, there were onlookers who had been hurt by flying debris. “I’m sorry,” Nico whispered to one of them, a woman bleeding profusely from a cut to the temple. “No one intended for you to be hurt. Cenzi will bless you for the blood you’ve spilled here today, and for your pain.”
He felt Liana tugging at his sleeve. “We have to go,” she said urgently. Nico glanced up. Ambassador ca’Rudka was rising clumsily from the twisted frame of the carriage following the bier; ca’Pallo’s heretic wife Varina was already out, staring in horror at the destruction of the bier. The horses pulling the Kraljica’s carriage had bolted and the driver was trying to bring them to a stop farther down the court, with gardai chasing after them. The blast had knocked the a’teni’s driver from his seat and ended his chant; her carriage had halted untouched well back from the rest.
Nico smiled at that-he hadn’t wished A’Teni ca’Paim any harm.
Where Karl’s body had lain, there was a black hole torn in the sto
ne flags, with debris sprayed for a dozen strides all around. “Thank you, Cenzi,” he prayed, making the sign quickly. “Thank you for permitting me to do Your bidding.” He wondered if Varina would understand the irony of using black sand-the invention of Westlander heretics and recreated by Karl and Varina-against them.
He nodded as Liana tugged at his sleeve again. She was holding the swell of her stomach. “You’re all right?” he asked her, suddenly concerned that she’d been injured.
“I’m fine,” she told him, “but you need to go. Now!”
He shook his head at her. “Go on,” he said to her: calmly, quietly. “I’ll meet you at the house.” She hesitated, and he waved his hand toward her. “Go!” he said again, and this time she obeyed, hurrying away with the waddle of the heavily pregnant.
Nico turned back to the chaos. He watched the gardai from behind a screen of those who had also stayed behind, snared by the sight of all the destruction. He listened to Old Silvernose’s shouting as he tried to organize the rescue. He couldn’t entirely hold back the exultation he felt, though he tried since that was only his own foolish pride tugging at the corners of his mouth. Finally, he walked away slowly, calmly, at peace-as if out for a simple morning stroll.
They could catch him only if Cenzi willed it to be so, and if Cenzi willed such, then Nico would be comfortable with His decision. He was beyond the Kraljica’s or the Archigos’ authority. They could do nothing to him on their own.
So he walked away leisurely, his face solemn. Cenzi held him in His protective hands.
When he reached the safehouse the Morellis had established in Oldtown, a turn of the glass or more later, he entered into an ongoing celebration. Ancel slapped his shoulders; Liana hugged him desperately as the others gathered in the room shouted and grinned.
“A full hand of them dead, that’s what the word on the street is,” Ancel said. “And that bastard ca’Pallo’s body is strewn in bits over the Temple Court for the teni to clean up-that’ll teach the A’Teni to cozy up with the heretics. Too bad the blast spared ca’Pallo’s wife and Old Silvernose.”
