by S L Farrell
“Tell me, Timos,” he said to the man. “You have the skill of letters?”
Ci’Stani looked at him, confused. “Ambassador?”
“You can write? You would sign a confession if I gave it to you?”
A slow nod.
“Good. And with which hand do you write?”
“Why, the right…” ci’Stani began, then stopped. He glanced again at the hammer in Sergei’s hand. “Ambassador, I told you what you wished to know. I told you everything. Everything. I swear it.”
“I know you did, and for Nessantico’s sake, I thank you.” He lifted the hammer. “I require your left hand, Timos. I’m sorry. I truly am.” Sergei wondered if ci’Stani could hear the sincerity in his voice, or if he believed it. He nodded to the garda, who stepped forward and grasped ci’Stani’s left wrist, placing the hand flat against the stone floor. Ci’Stani struggled, his right hand rattling as he tried to pull away. The garda put his knee on the man’s right arm.
“Ambassador. You can’t do this. No!”
“I can’t?” Sergei asked. His voice became more stern, more eager-and the eagerness disgusted him. You can stop this, a still part of him declared. You already have what you need. Stop now, as you say you want to. As you should. But desire shouted louder.
“Oh, I can, ” he told Timos. “I assure you of that. I also assure you that you’ll regret your lack of cooperation, and you will like even less the parts of you I choose to torment if you don’t. Now-Timos, is there anything else you need to tell me?”
Ci’Stani stared, straw bunching around his hand as he tried again to pull it away from the garda, the chains that held his hands together clinking against stone like dull, mournful bells. The garda struck him in the face with an elbow; Sergei heard the nose break and saw blood spray. “You heard the Ambassador,” the garda said. “Keep still, or this will go worse for you.”
The prisoner moaned. His left hand flattened against the stones. Sergei found the screams that followed delightful, and he hated the delight he felt.
MANEUVERS
Niente
There were snares in the water, cables with steel claws that tore at the wooden hulls of the ships, sending cold river water into the holds. The lead ships of the fleet canted over, unbalanced, their masts dipping toward the A’Sele’s surface and sending men screaming into the water…
“I have seen certain victory, Tecuhtli,” Niente told Citlali. The Highest Warrior reclined in a nest of cushions in his cabin. The red eagle of the Tecuhtli on his bald skull seemed to flex its wings as he reached for a goblet of the strong beer on the table before him. His chest was uncovered, and Niente could see that Citlali’s body showed his age: the chest sagging like a woman’s breasts; the muscles of his arm still thick but not as sharply defined as those of other warriors; his belly rounding into a comfortable paunch. The High Warrior Tototl, Citlali’s second-in-command, sat to Citlali’s right, his face impassive.
Tototl’s body was hard and lean. Niente thought that if Tototl challenged Citlali for the title of Tecuhtli, his wager would not be for Citlali, despite the man’s long years of experience. The decline of age struck the warrior caste far harder than it did the nahualli. For the nahualli, experience and age was more often an indication of power and skill.
Niente sat on his own cushions across the low table from Tecuhtli Citlali, his own drink untouched before him. Atl stood behind him, as silent as High Warrior Tototl.
“Certain victory,” Citlali echoed, as if tasting the words.
Niente nodded. “I saw our banner flowing over the city. I saw their defenders fleeing in droves into the land beyond the city walls. I saw the bodies of the defenders on the broken walls. But…” Niente paused. He leaned forward on the table, hoping it would ease the pain of his bowed back and painful joints. “This victory won’t be like Karnmor or Fossano, Tecuhtli, where we overwhelmed them with numbers and surprise. This victory doesn’t come without cost. The Easterners know that we’re here, and the Kraljica has sent troops here to bolster the garrison of the city. I have seen that they have learned the secret of black sand as well, which our spies have also told us. They will use black sand against us. I see victory, yes, but this one will not be an easy one.”
Niente heard Atl stir restlessly behind him. He didn’t dare look back, and he prayed that the boy would remember his place and stay silent. Tecuhtli Citlali frowned slightly at Niente’s admonition. “Were there other paths in your vision, Nahual Niente?” Citlali asked. “A better way for us than this one? Some of the warriors are grumbling that it’s time we leave the ships to the sailors and take to the land, where we can forage for fresh food and meet these Easterners sword to sword, if they dare.”
Niente heard Atl’s intake of breath even as he shook his head. “There were other paths, yes,” he told the Tecuhtli. “But I tell you that they all led to worse outcomes than this. In one, our ships were scattered and destroyed entirely and we couldn’t return home. I saw the path where the warriors took too early to the land, and it was not good-the army of the Easterners awaited us there, and though there was victory for us, it was so costly in the end that it might as well have been defeat.”
Atl’s breath exhaled loudly behind Niente, as if he were about to speak, and Citlali’s gaze drifted up to Niente’s son briefly, as did that of Tototl. But Atl remained silent. Niente hurried to continue.
“Keep to the strategy we have discussed, Tecuhtli, and I promise you the best result. And now,” he said, getting to his feet with difficulty, noting that Atl did not offer to help him, “I should see that the nahualli are all prepared and that the black sand is mixed as it should be, so that we’re ready tomorrow when we reach Villembouchure. We have taken the city once before, under Tecuhtli Zolin. It will be ours again, I promise you. From there, yes, the warriors can remain on land and march on to Nessantico and the prize you seek.”
Citlali beamed. He drank the rest of his beer and slammed the goblet down on the table. “Excellent!” he shouted drunkenly. “Go, then, and do as you need, and I will tell the warriors that we will leave the ships tomorrow.”
They will be doing exactly that. They will have no choice.
Niente bowed his way out of the cabin. He didn’t look at Atl as he moved down the short corridor and up the stairs to the ship’s deck. He blinked in the sunlight, taking in great draughts of the cool, sweet air which no longer tasted or smelled of the ash or of sea salt, only of the land and the river. On either side of them, the land of the Holdings spread out, blurred in his poor, crippled vision-green, lush hills (though still largely grayed with ash); the occasional small villages, most of them abandoned with the news of the oncoming invaders; the sparkling mouths of smaller streams and rivers spilling water into the great river. This was a beautiful land, nearly as beautiful as his own.
The ships of the fleet filled the A’Sele, a long line three or four ships wide that vanished around the sweeping curves of the river. The wind was in their favor, blowing strongly eastward, and the sails billowed and snapped above them, the sailors adjusting the lines as the deck officers called out orders. Under their prows, white water curled and spread out. The Yaoyotl was near the front of the fleet, though there were ships out ahead of her. Niente looked at the high aftdecks and imagined them as he’d seen them in the vision.
“Taat!” Niente felt his son’s hand on his shoulder. He turned, knowing what he had to say and hating it. “Why did you tell the Tecuhtli not to land the troops now? I saw that path in the scrying bowl. You must have seen it, too. That was the best choice of all. I saw an easy victory afterward.”
Niente forced himself to look into his son’s eyes. “Then you misread the vision,” he said, but Atl was already shaking his head in denial.
“No, Taat, it was very clear to me. There was no army waiting for us along the road, as you told Tecuhtli. They expect us to attack from the river, and that’s where they’ve put their strength. I saw them surprised and in disarray. I saw another
quick victory for us. I saw us moving toward their great city with all our strength intact.”
“You saw incorrectly,” Niente persisted, “or you misunderstood what it was you saw.”
Atl was shaking his head. “It was clear, Taat. The mists cleared and I saw the path, as if I were there. Perhaps…” He bit his lower lip quickly, though Niente knew what he wanted to say. Perhaps you were the one who was mistaken.
Niente knew that Atl had seen correctly. Niente’s own vision had the same clarity as Atl’s, and had been no different. But he could not admit that now. For the Long Path to be gained, the Tehuantin forces had to be pared down here or they would overwhelm both Nessantico and the Long Path-if it still existed. Axat, please show me that I’m not wrong in this. Let me see it again, as clearly as I once did. And please, show me that Atl can be spared, as he once was… Niente would still seek to follow the Long Path, but he wasn’t sure if he could sacrifice his son for it. If Axat required that…
“Perhaps?” Niente repeated, making the word a mocking retort. “Do you wish to accuse the Nahual of being unable to read Axat’s visions? Do you believe that you can see what I cannot? Is that what you’re saying, Atl? Do you want to go back to Tecuhtli Citlali and tell him that you, after a bare few days learning the scrying skill, are now my superior, that the decades I have spent poring over the waters are nothing compared to the great power of Atl? Do you wish to tell him to abandon my counsel and take yours? Are you so proud and arrogant?” The words lashed the young man like the snap of a whip. Atl’s eyes narrowed, his lips pressed together in a tight line.
“No,” Atl said at last, though the word was grudging, a mere grunt. “But you should look into the bowl again, Taat. Tonight, before we reach this city.”
“Why?” Niente snapped. “Do you think I’ll see your vision and not my own?”
A shrug.
“I will look,” Niente told him, “but I know what I will see. I’ve already been shown. Go-fetch me the bowl and the powder. I will do this now.”
Atl nodded and hurried off. I know what I will see. He would see what Atl had seen, and he would lie again.
Sergei ca’Rudka
A gray mood had cloaked Sergei at the Bastida, as he rolled up his leather packet of torture devices and left behind the bleeding, moaning wreck of the war-teni ci’Stani. It had wrapped around him tighter that evening, as he prepared for his departure to Brezno. It had pressed down upon him as he’d slept, and his night had been filled with nightmares and horrific visions. In the red visions, it had been his body laying chained in the Bastida, and the cell door had opened, and it was himself who stood before him, who knelt there and crooned a false sympathy and who advanced on him with the instruments of pain. He had screamed himself awake three times, his bedclothes drenched with sweat and wound tightly around him, his heart slamming against the cage of his chest and his lungs heaving. During the last dream, his thrashing had torn the nose from his face; he’d found it lying in the bedding, gleaming in the dim grayness of false dawn.
He’d not been able to go back to sleep. The mood, the sense of despair, had stayed with him. He wasn’t even certain why he went to see Varina again, this time at her house. There was no reason to do so; he’d said what he’d needed to say to her already. But he found that he could not walk into the temple and pray to Cenzi; that somehow seemed wrong. And he had no desire to confess to any of the teni what he had done: the day before, or for years and years now.
It was enough that he knew. It was enough that others suspected.
The mood darkened. It surrounded him. He imagined as he walked that he was pooled in an eternal night, even as the sun glared down on him.
“I talked to Talbot,” Sergei told Varina, pretending nonchalance as he sat in the chair across from her in the sunroom of her house. “He told me that you’ve refused to leave the city, despite his agreeing with my advice.” He tsked as he gazed at Varina, shaking his head. “A’Morce, I am disappointed in you.”
She laughed. “Don’t you go lying to me, Sergei. I’ve known you for far too long now. You never expected me to leave; you just wanted it off your conscience that you’d given me fair warning so you could say ‘I told her so.’ Well, you’ve done that. Your conscience can rest easily.”
His conscience… The words speared him, as if a knife twisted in his gut.
But he ignored the burning. Sergei spread his hands as if he’d been caught stealing a roll from the kitchen. “Obviously, I am entirely transparent to you, Varina. But that doesn’t mean my advice wasn’t sound. And it’s not too late. I’m leaving in just a few turns of the glass myself, and we expect that the Tehuantin may attack Villembouchure at any moment. If Commandant ca’Talin can’t stop their advance there-and I don’t believe that he has the troops or the support to do so, especially since A’Teni ca’Paim had difficulty finding war-teni willing to join him-then the Westlanders will be advancing on Nessantico within the week.”
Varina sighed at that. “I know. I’ve already given my house staff leave and told them to make arrangements to stay with friends or family far to the north or south.” She gestured at the table in front of them on which a pot of tea steeped, surrounded by a small pile of stale cookies. “That’s why my hospitality is so poor, I’m afraid. I scrounged what I could from the kitchen. I’m moving into the Numetodo House for the duration this evening.”
Sergei’s head shook again. He rubbed at his nose, making certain that the glue he’d applied this morning was still holding the metal form tightly to his face. “We’re old, Varina, and we’ve gone through enough trials in our lives. This shouldn’t be our battle any longer.”
“Says the man leaving for Brezno in a few turns.”
The darkness deepened around him. He could not laugh. “I’m required to go-it’s my duty to the Kraljica,” he said. “You don’t have to stay.”
Varina leaned forward, pouring herself more tea. She blew over the hot liquid, her lips pursed so that all the fine lines of her face gathered there. Old… “There’s something else troubling you, Sergei,” she said, sitting back in her chair again and taking a sip. “We’ve already discussed my leaving and we both know the answer. So what is it you really want to say?”
He wondered if he’d been hoping she would notice, that she would ask. And he wondered if he dared answer. “All right. I have a question for you: I want to know what you hold onto. If you don’t believe in Cenzi or any other god, if you don’t believe there’s some higher purpose to things, what do you look to for solace and guidance?”
“That’s a conversation that would take far longer than a few turns of the glass, Sergei,” she answered. “And it’s a strange question for you to ask-or is it that you’re doubting your own faith?”
“I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “I’m… I’m not what the Faith would call a good man, Varina. I have done things…”
She shook her head and set down her cup. Leaning forward, her hand grazed his and fell away again. “Sergei, none of us are perfect. None. We’ve all done things of which we’re ashamed. I have seen you do things that are heroic and brave, also. That should offset a few character flaws.”
He laughed, bitter and dark. “You don’t know,” he told her. “You don’t know what I-” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I should be going…”
“Sergei,” Varina said, and he halted in the midst of reaching for the cane leaning against his chair. “The Numetodo don’t have a single creed or set of beliefs. There are some of us who still believe in gods-even Cenzi, if not the Cenzi of the Faith, but a more absent and uncaring deity. There are others who think there may be some ‘guidance’ to this world, some intelligence that is part of the Second World itself, which gives power to the Ilmodo or Scath Cumhacht or whatever you want to call that energy. But… both Karl and I believed that there were other, and better, explanations for why things are as they are-a truth that the Faith couldn’t offer. Both of us believed th
at death is final, that there was nothing beyond that-I’ve never seen any compelling proof for me to think otherwise, even when-since Karl died-I might have reason to hope for that. I believe in no gods, no afterlife. But… I understand the solace that someone can find in believing there is something greater than us, something that tries to direct us. My parents believed; I was brought up to believe.”
“What changed that for you?”
Varina shrugged. “None of the mythology made sense to me-or, rather, I kept stumbling over the contradictions in the texts. But I continued going to temple for years, more from habit than anything else. Then I heard Karl speak, and I started talking to Mika ci’Gillan, who was A’Morce Numetodo here at that point, and what they were saying fit together for me. It made sense. All those tales from the Toustour were just attempts to explain the way the world was, but here were people saying ‘No, there’s another explanation that doesn’t require divine intervention, only nature itself, and that somehow felt right to me. I found they were right about the Ilmodo, for instance: The Faith insisted that it was only through Cenzi that one could perform magic, yet I could do that-me, who had no training at all from the teni and who no longer believed in Cenzi…”
She paused, and he sat there. He’d heard her words, he could even recall them if he tried, but they didn’t penetrate. They rolled from his body like water. “Sergei,” she continued after a moment, “how can I help you, my friend?”
“You can’t,” he told her. “It’s something only I can do for myself.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He smiled toward her and lifted himself from the chair, pushing hard on the cane’s head. “I glad you don’t. It’s good to know that someone cares.”
“You were always a great friend to both Karl and me, Sergei. That’s something I will never forget. I will always be there if you need me.”
