by S L Farrell
“I really feel you should hear it from him, Kraljica,” Talbot said.
Allesandra scowled. “Fine. Send him in to us.”
The door closed and reopened a moment later. Talbot ushered in a bedraggled man, his clothing stained with mud and ash, his face streaked, his eyes sunken in the midst of dark pouches. His hair was white, his hands curled in with huge, knotted knuckles. She guessed him to be five decades old or more, someone who had seen too much work in his time. “Please, sit,” Allesandra told the man immediately, and he sank gratefully into the nearest chair after a sketch of a bow. “Sergei, pour some wine for this poor man. Talbot, see if the cook still has some of the stew from dinner…”
Talbot bowed and left the room. Allesandra stood in front of the man; she heard wine gurgling into a cup, then Sergei’s cane on the floor as he handed the man a goblet. He drank thirstily. “What’s your name,” Allesandra asked the man.
“Martin ce’Mollis, Kraljica.”
“Martin.” Allesandra smiled toward him. “Talbot said you had news.”
The man nodded and swallowed. “I’ve been riding for the last few days after sailing my boat from Karnmor.”
“Karnmor.” She glanced at Sergei. “Then you saw…”
He nodded, then shook his head. “I saw… Kraljica, I live on the northern arm of Karnmor Bay, well out from Karnor. I saw the ships coming in one afternoon-first a storm like nothing I’d seen before, then suddenly they were just there, painted ships attacking our navy in the bay-Westlander ships. I saw them tossing fireballs into the city and our ships there as the sun began to set. I knew someone had to come, had to tell you what was happening. I’m just a fisherman now, but I served in the Garde Civile in my time, so I went to my boat and kept close to the shore and sailed around the northern end of the island in order to make for the mainland. I saw another Westlander warship anchored just off the shore, and a line of lights descending Mt. Karnmor as if people were there and moving down. I anchored where I was sheltered and watched, and the lights came down to the shore, and a small boat came out to the Westlander warship. After that, the warship pulled its anchor and left-I saw out on the horizon there were more ships waiting, Kraljica, more than I could count, and all of them sailed away from Karnmor as if Cenzi were chasing them, as if they knew…”
Martin licked his lips and drank again. “Thank Cenzi that they didn’t pay any attention to me, didn’t see me. I sailed on all night, staying close to shore and finally crossed the channel and landed on the mainland before dawn. There’s a small garrison there, and I was telling the duty offizier what I’d seen just as the sun was rising. Then…”
He stopped. He gulped at the wine again. “Then Mt. Karnmor woke. I watched that awful cloud rising high in the air, felt the thunder hit us like a wall of hard air, and then the ash, so hot it burned the skin where it touched…” He shivered, and Allesandra noticed the reddened and blistered skin of his arms. “They gave me a horse, told me to ride here as fast as I could. Don’t stop, the offizier told me. I didn’t, either, except to steal another horse when the one I was riding died under me. I came here as fast as I could, Kraljica. You had to know, had to know…”
He took another sip; Sergei, wordlessly, refilled his glass. “ They did it,” he said finally. “The Westlanders. They brought their ships there, and their magic made the mountain explode. They knew. They knew it was going to happen-that’s why they went north with their fleet that night. They knew what was going to happen, and-”
Talbot entered with a tray; the man stopped. “Talbot,” Allesandra told him, “take our good friend Martin with you. Feed him, let him bathe, and put him in one of the guest rooms. Send for my healer to make certain he receives any treatment he might need. Martin, you’ve done a great service for the Holdings, and you’ll be rewarded for it. I promise you that.” She smiled again to him, and the man rose from his chair and bowed unsteadily. He let Talbot lead him away.
“The Tehuantin are back…” Sergei breathed the words as the door closed behind them. “This changes everything. Everything.”
Allesandra said nothing. She went back to the window. The sun bathed the horizon in rose and gold.
“There will be panic in the streets as soon as this gets out. And if he’s right, if Mt. Karnmor’s eruption wasn’t simply a coincidence. ..”
The sun spread a column of orange high into the haze as the searing yellow disk slipped behind the buildings of the city. The gilded dome of the Old Temple was silhouetted against the fiery colors. Third Call was sounding from the wind-horns; in a mark of the glass, the light-teni would be walking the city, illuminating the lamps of the Avi a’Parete so that the city was snared in a necklace of light. “I will give it to you,” her vatarh had told her once, referring to Nessantico and those lights. He had failed in that, but she had taken the city and the Holdings for herself. She had the city, had the pearl of lights as her own, had been washed in the light of the Sun Throne.
It was hers, and she had to do what she must to keep it.
“You’ll be going back to Brezno,” she said to Sergei. “There’s a message you need to deliver to my son.”
Varina ca’Pallo
“… And if what he’s saying is true, then I worry about the Holdings in general.” Talbot shook his head as he, the mage Johannes, and Varina walked along the Avi a’Parete. They were walking from the Numetodo House on the South Bank-near what was still called the Archigos’ Temple, even though no Archigos had resided there since the unfortunate Kennis-toward one of the fashionable restaurants near the Pontica a’Brezi Veste. The street had been cleaned vigorously, but Varina could still see ash drifts along the gutters, and the cobblestones had a vaguely gray appearance.
Johannes was shaking his head. “I don’t know of any magic that could cause a volcano to spontaneously erupt, and if they can do that, then…” He seemed to shudder. He pulled his cloak tighter around him. He glanced at Varina, bushy white eyebrows like thunderheads over his dark, hidden eyes. “You know the Tehuantin capabilities better than any of us,” he said. “You’re being awfully quiet, A’Morce, and that’s making me uneasy.”
Varina favored him with a wan smile. “I don’t have better information than either of you,” she said. “Maybe it was simply coincidence, or maybe the man’s mistaken about what he saw.”
Talbot shook his head. “Not all of it. We’ve had other fast-riders coming in who have also seen the Tehuantin fleet. They’re definitely out there and heading toward the A’Sele by all indications. I thought I should tell you, A’Morce, since anything that happens could end up affecting the Numetodo also. The general populace will know in a day or two-this can’t be kept silent…”
His voice trailed off. Varina, who had been walking with her head down-as she nearly always did now, since her balance was sometimes as unstable as someone two decades older-glanced up. They had passed the long northward turn of the Avi, passing a short segment of the original city wall of Nessantico as they approached the Bastida. To their left, several small streets led off to the poorer area of South Bank. A knot of several young men had come out from one of the lanes onto the Avi, directly in front of them. They spread out in a ragged line, blocking their path even though there was more than ample room in the Avi.
“Move aside,” Talbot said to the nearest of them. “Unless you want more trouble than you can handle. You don’t know who you’re accosting.”
“Oh?” the man replied. “It’s nearly Third Call, Vajiki. Shouldn’t you be on your way to Temple? But no, I would have remembered seeing the Kraljica’s aide at Temple, or the dead Ambassador’s wife, or this owl-faced trained monkey you have with you.” He laughed at that, the others joining in. Varina felt her stomach muscles contract at the sound: this was deliberate. They knew who they were confronting.
“Don’t make a mistake here,” Varina said to them, looking from one to another, trying to see in any of their faces reluctance or fear. She saw neither. She glanced around for an uti
lino, for a garda, for anyone who might help, but the eyes of the other people strolling the Avi seemed to be elsewhere. If anyone noticed the confrontation, they ignored it. She had to wonder if that, too, was deliberate.
“Mistake?” the same young man said. He had pox scars mottling his cheeks, and he was missing one of his front teeth. “There’s no mistake. Nico Morel said there would be a sign-and the sign came, as he said it would. But you don’t believe in Cenzi and His signs, do you? You don’t believe that Cenzi speaks through the Absolute One.”
“This isn’t a discussion to have here, Vajiki,” Varina told him. “I would love to discuss it with Nico in person. Tell him that. Tell him that I will meet with him whenever and wherever he wants. But for now-let us pass.”
The pox-cratered man chuckled, the sound echoed by his companions. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think it’s time that the Numetodo were given a lesson.”
As the Morelli spoke, Varina saw his companions sliding around to surround them. “Don’t do this,” Varina said. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
In answer, the pock-faced man brought a cudgel from under his cloak. Raising his hand, he struck at Varina. The stick caught her on the side of the head, knocking her to the pavement before she could even bring her hands up to protect herself. She managed to get her hands up before she hit the cobblestones; the stones scraped and bloodied her palms, but still the impact knocked the breath from her. She felt something (a foot?) strike her side, and she felt more than saw the flash of a spell as Johannes shouted a release word. Talbot was casting a spell also, and so were others. She could taste the ash that her fall had kicked up. Blood was running into Varina’s eyes (had she cut her forehead also, or had the cudgel done that?) She tried to push herself up. Everything was confused, and her head was pounding so hard she could barely remember the release words for the spells that she-like most Numetodo-had prepared for defense. Something had dug hard into her side when she’d gone down: the sparkwheel she carried under her cloak. Blinking away the blood, caught in the tumult of the scuffle, she grabbed for it.
Another spell flashed and Varina smelled the ozone of the discharge as someone-one of the Morellis?-screamed in response. There were more spells going off; at least one of the Morellis must have been teni-trained, she realized. Somewhere distantly, someone was shouting and she heard the shrill of an utilino’s whistle.
Her own breath was the loudest thing in the world.
She had the sparkwheel out now. She cocked the hammer and rubbed at her eyes with her free hand. She saw the pocked-cheek man to her left, his cudgel up and about to come down on Johannes.
“No!” she shouted, and at the same time, her finger convulsed on the trigger.
The report was shrill, the sound echoing from the remnants of the city wall and rebounding, fainter, from the buildings up the Avi; the sparkwheel’s recoil tore her hand up and back, and at the same time, the pocked-face man grunted and fell, the cudgel flying from his hand as an invisible spear seemed to rip flesh, bone, and blood from his face. “Back away!” Varina shouted from her knees to those closest to her. Blinking, she brandished the now-useless sparkwheel, which was trailing smoke and the strange, astringent odor of black sand.
The command was unnecessary. With the weapon’s firing and the sudden, violent death of their leader, the others dropped their weapons and fled. Varina felt Talbot’s arms under her, lifting her up. There were people coming toward them, among them an utilino. “Can you stand, A’Morce? Johannes, she’s been hurt…”
“I’m fine,” she told them. She wiped at the blood again. There were three people laying on the Avi. One of them was groaning and struggling; the other two were eerily still. There was no doubt as to the fate of the pock-cheeked man. Varina turned her gaze quickly away from him. She was still holding the sparkwheel. Talbot noticed it; standing close to her so that the utilino and the others coming toward them could not see, he put it back under her cloak. “Better not to let anyone know,” he whispered. “Let them think we used magic.”
She was too confused, too hurt to argue. Her head was throbbing, and she kept wanting to look at the mangled face of the man she’d killed. “Talbot…” she said, but the world was lurching around her, and she could not stand.
That was the last she remembered for a time.
Niente
“It’s as if the ash has muddied everything, Taat,” Atl said. “I haven’t been able to see well since.” Atl’s voice was weary, his face was drawn, and he sagged in the chair in Niente’s little room on the Yaoyotl as if he’d run all the way across the great island of Tlaxcala.
Niente grunted. The ashfall had been so dense it seemed that the fleet moved through a solid fog. The sky had first turned a strange, sickening yellow before the ash had become so thick that it had turned day to night. Lightning and thunder furiously wrapped the expanding cloud, and the warm ash smelled of burning sulfur. The stuff was so fine and powdery that it had insinuated itself everywhere. Their clothing was full of it; it was in the food stores; it lingered in every pore of the wood despite the efforts of the sailors to clean it away. The sulfurous smell lingered as well, though by now they were all accustomed to it. The ash was also abrasive-one of the Tehuantin craftsmen had collected several pouches of the ash, saying that he could use it as a polishing agent.
And yes, the ash had tainted the purity of the water and the herbs that Niente used for the scrying bowl. Since the ashfall, Niente’s own attempts to glimpse the future had been nearly as clouded and useless as Atl’s.
He hoped they were still on the same path, the same route through the possibilities of the future that could lead to the Long Path he’d glimpsed. The Tehuantin fleet had entered the mouth of the A’Sele without any resistance from the Holdings navy, though he was certain that by now word must have come to Nessantico of what had happened and of the appearance of the Tehuantin ships. If Axat’s vision still held, then they would have linked the eruption of Mt. Karnmor with their arrival.
For now, the wind that touched his nearly bald skull and his ravaged face was cool and smelled of sweet, fresh water rather than salt. They moved through a jarringly monochrome landscape, the distant hills on either side gray when he knew they should have been green and lush. Streams of the finest ash floated by in the currents, heading out to sea and back toward its source. They moved through a landscape touched by death: Niente saw the carcasses floating past: birds, waterfowl, the occasional sheep or cow or dog, even-once or twice-a human body. This close to Karnmor, the devastation had been terrible. There were only a few gulls winging hopefully alongside them, far fewer than Niente remembered from his last visit here.
Atl tossed the water from the scrying bowl over the side of the Yaoyotl. That brought Niente back from reverie. “What did you see?” he asked his son. “Tell me.”
“The images came so fast and they were so dim…” Atl sighed. “I could hardly make them out. But-once I thought I saw you, Taat. You, and a throne that gleamed like sunlight.”
Niente felt himself shiver at that, as if the wind had suddenly turned as cold as the snowy summits of the Knife Edge Mountains. He had seen that moment also, and more. “You saw me?”
“Yes, but only for a breath, then it was gone again.” Atl’s eyebrows rose. “Is this what you’ve seen also, Taat?”
He stood in the hall, surrounded on all sides by the dead of the Tehuantin and the dead of the Easterners. The place stank of death and blood. He saw the Shadowed One-the one who ruled here-but the throne glowed so brightly that he couldn’t see the face of the person who sat on the throne, didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. Niente had his spell-staff in his hand, and it burned with the power of the X’in Ka, so vital that he knew he could have blasted the Shadowed One, could have broken the glowing throne. Yet he held back and didn’t speak the words though he could hear the Tecuhtli screaming at him to do so, to end this.
Behind the Shadowed One an even greater presence rose, one whos
e powers were so fierce that Niente could feel them pulling at him: the Sun Presence. That being held a great sword, and raised it as Niente waited. But the sword did not come down. Instead, the Sun Presence touched the sword and broke it in half as if it were no stronger than a slice of dry bread, giving one part to Niente and keeping the other.
Niente walked away from the throne, the Tecuhtli and the warriors screaming curses at him, calling him a traitor to his own people…
“No,” Niente told Atl. “I’ve not seen that. I think your vision was confused and wrong. It was only the ash speaking, not Axat.”
Atl looked disappointed. “Give me the bowl,” Niente told him, holding out his hand. Atl handed it to him, the brass heavy. “I’ll clean it and purify it myself. We’ll try again, perhaps in a few days. You should rest.”
“Rest?” Atl scoffed. “A few days?” He waved at the fleet around them, at the gray land. “We need Axat’s vision now more than ever, Taat. Tecuhtli Citlali asks you constantly if you’ve seen anything-”
“The ash obscures our vision,” Niente said harshly, cutting him off. “Even for me, but especially for you, who are still learning how to read the bowl. I tell you that we must wait a few days, Atl. If you can’t learn patience, you’ll never learn to read the bowl.”
Atl glared at Niente. “Is this more of your ‘look at me, don’t do what I did’ lecture, Taat? If so, I’ve heard it too many times already.”
“I told you I would teach you to use the bowl, and I will,” Niente answered, but he cradled the bowl possessively to his belly. “You must show me that you’re ready to accept the lessons.”
“There are other nahualli who can teach me.”
“And none of them are Nahual,” Niente answered, more sharply. “None of them have my gift. None of them can show you as well as I can.” Then, afraid of the expression on Atl’s face, as if his son’s face had been carved of stone, he softened his voice. “You will be Nahual one day, Atl. I know this. I’ve seen this. But for that to be, you must listen to me, and obey-not because you’re my son, but because there are still more things you must learn.” He pressed the bowl to him with one hand and reached out toward Atl with the other. “Please,” he said. “I want you to know everything I know and more. But you must trust me.”
