by S L Farrell
“My Hirzg,” she breathed. “I love Emerin…”
“Ah, him.” Another smile. “I can guarantee his advancement in the Garde. Maybe even set him on the path to be a chevaritt. He would like that, wouldn’t he?”
She knew then that he would accept no answer but yes, and she could not. “I’m your daughter,” she wanted to scream at him, but he would ignore that as well, thinking she was saying it only to stop him. There was an eagerness in his face that she had seen before in men, and it was not a pleasant sight. She tried to pull away from him; his fingers tightened around her arm and started to pull her toward him.
She had no choice. No choice.
She surprised him by letting herself fall into his pull. He laughed, thinking that she was submitting, but her hands had gone to the scabbard at his waist and the ancient leather scabbard there, holding the dagger with the bejeweled pommel. She slipped the weapon from its sheath and brought it up quickly, pressing the double-edged blade against the side of his neck hard enough that he could feel it, that a thin line of blood trickled down from under the dark Firenzcian steel. “Back away,” she told him. “Back away, or I’ll kill you here and now.”
She wondered whether that was at all true, if she would have the resolve to follow through on her threat. It was not what she wanted. She felt tears starting in her eyes, and she blinked hard to clear them, sniffing.
His hands loosened around her. Holding his hands up as if in surrender, he took a step back, but his eyes were laughing and there was a smirk on his lips. She moved with him, keeping the dagger near his throat. “Not a sound either,” she told him. “If you shout or call out, I swear you’ll have a second mouth a moment later.”
“Rhianna…” He said her false name quietly. She was neither Rhianna nor Rochelle now; she was the White Stone. The tears had dried up, and her hand was steady on the knife’s hilt. It felt good in her hand, solid and wellbalanced, a piece as deadly as it was beautiful, the ebony handle ancient and much-handled. She glared at him as he stared at her, his hands still up in mocking surrender. She could see him considering whether to snatch at her knife hand; she wondered if he dared that-he was a soldier as well as the Hirzg, and he had fought many times. Her matarh had told her how brave he was in battle, how good with weapons, how skilled.
If he tried to prove his bravery now, could she kill him? She had attacked the Hirzg; Rochelle knew neither of them could ignore that, going forward. Her decision had changed everything, irrevocably. She wasn’t certain just how, yet.
“I only want to leave,” she told him, hoping that might make him reconsider his options. “I don’t intend to hurt you.”
He nodded, very slowly. The line of blood touched the collar of his bashta, the fabric blooming red. “Rhianna, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s too late now,” she told him. “It’s your fault. You’ve made everything impossible.” Suddenly, she lifted the knife from his neck. “I’m your daughter,” she told him. The words rushed out, and she could not stop them. “I’m Elissa’s daughter. The White Stone’s daughter.”
She knew the words would stun him, that it would take him a few breaths to process what she’d told him. She ran, still clutching the dagger. “Wait!” she heard him call after her, but she didn’t wait. She ran through the palais tents that she knew well, knew far better than Jan himself. She slipped into the space between two of the tents, a wellmasked passage she’d found a few days before. She heard Jan call after her-“Rhianna!”-and his footsteps pursuing her, but she was already gone, already slipping out at the rear of the encampment near the line of trees, already slipping into the cover of the trees with his dagger, Jan’s dagger, in the belt of her tashta.
She was the White Stone, and the White Stone knew better than any how to hide, how to escape pursuit, how to change appearance and name at need, how to blend in.
They would not find her. Not if she wished to remain hidden.
Niente
The desolation was nearly more than Niente could bear. The glare of his son sliced him open to his very bones.
He stood in the central square of Villembouchure, where he had stood once before in victory. The city walls were a tumbled ruin near the water, as were many of the buildings. On the hills outside those walls, the army of the Holdings was in retreat, though the farsighted among the Tehuantin claimed they could see lines of the Easterner warriors on the ridges overlooking the city. They might have retreated, but that retreat had been orderly and measured and they had not gone far.
If this was victory, it was a cold and bitter feast. That was what the Long Path demanded, but it didn’t make it any easier for Niente to stomach.
The Tehuantin warriors, their faces painted with the dark lines of battle and their bodies spattered with the blood of the Easterner defenders, trudged wearily through a gray landscape punctuated with fires and smoke. The city was theirs but it had cost them greatly; it had begun even as they approached. Nearby, Tecuhtli Citlali was huddled with the Tototl and the other High Warriors, his face grim and the glances he cast Niente were venomous.
There were too many bodies on the ground, and too many of them were Tehuantin. Their dead, gaping faces all seemed to accuse Niente. He remembered…
They could see the Easterners on either side of the A’Sele as they approached, just as the walls of Villembouchure tantalizingly appeared beyond the river’s bend. No one but Niente and perhaps Atl realized what the Easterners intended, nor the import of two crude stone buildings that had been erected on either side of the A’Sele.
Niente knew, and he braced himself. As the lead ships came abreast of the buildings, winches whined inside the structures and steel cables lifted menacingly from the brown waters of the river. The cables snagged the hulls of the lead ships. Great snarled hooks on the cable scraped and screeched, tearing gouges into their wooden hulls as the warriors and sailors shouted alarm, ripping planks and seams open so that the cold water rushed in. More cables lifted behind them, clawing at the ships behind.
Niente saw the first ships lift and cant over, stopped and snared to block the river. They took on water rapidly, the mast spars touching the water as men-warriors and sailors-spilled into the river, the lines and sails snarling and tangling in the mast of the nearest ship and bringing them down. The captains of the ships behind, tried to turn, tried to drops sails, tried to avoid colliding with the ships ahead of them in their way, but several could not-including the Yaoyotl, which crashed into the ship ahead of it, masts and spars snagging and breaking. Niente felt the impact, which knocked him from his feet despite his bracing. Through the screams and frantic shouting, through the smoke of fires started as lamps and cook fires were disturbed, he could see the A’Sele clogged with wreckage and disabled ships.
He could also hear the cheers of the Easterners on the shore…
“Taat!” Atl’s call brought him back to the present. His son’s tone was accusatory. He stirred, leaning heavily on his spell-staff, still warm from use. He felt older than the hills around them, older than the channel the river had carved in the land, as tired and ancient as the stones which were the bones of the place.
“Atl,” he answered. “Here I am.”
His son also showed the weariness of the battle, his face drawn and pale, smeared with soot. Atl thrust the end of his spell-staff hard into the ground before Niente. His glare was hard and accusing. “It did not have to be this way,” he said.
“We have won a victory, as I promised Tecuhtli Citlali,” Niente told him. “The path I was shown was true.”
“There was another path,” Atl insisted. “I saw our ships caught. Why didn’t you see that? I saw their troops waiting for us at the shore. Why didn’t you see that also, Taat? Why did you tell me that I’d seen wrong, and why did I believe you?”
“Why didn’t you see that?” Memory assaulted him again.
They lost too many warriors to the river, as the warriors were already dressed in their armor for the coming assault.
The weight dragged down those who fell into the water even if they could swim. The ships that managed to drop sail and anchor in time sent out their small boats to rescue those they could. Everyone could see the Easterner warriors on the walls of the city, so tantalizingly close, and even Niente shuddered, waiting for the fire of their war-teni to come shrieking down on the disabled ships and the helpless warriors and sailors. They were a dead, unmoving target, and the teni-fire would be devastating. The river would become a conflagration, a death trap.
That was what Niente himself would have done, in their place: he would have rained death on the helpless enemy, ripe for the plucking. Impossibly-as Axat had shown him in the bowl’s water-only a very few spells were actually cast, and the nahualli easily turned them.
The ships at the end of the fleet’s long line turned away from the wreckage, sliding toward the shore well below Villembouchure’s walls, and the small boats poured out from the rest of the fleet, the warriors shrieking and pounding their shields as they landed, a furious Tecuhtli Citlali leading the charge. Niente was with him, as was his place, and his spell-staff cast fire toward the walls that shattered them and sent men screaming to their death. The catapults from the closest stable ships tossed their black sand, though much of it fell short.
The gates of the city opened, and the army of the Easterners poured out, then Niente’s world was enmeshed in the chaos of battle, all the plans the Tecuhtli and the High Warriors had devised gone to ash. The fight was brutal and bloody, but they had the advantage of numbers, of magic, and of the black sand.
In the end, they prevailed at great cost, as Niente had known they would.
“Axat showed me that if we had landed the fleet a day’s march from Villembouchure, we could have marched in on them intact-without having our fleet fouled and blocking the A’Sele, without the great losses we sustained there and in the initial attack,” Atl insisted. “Why didn’t you see that in the scrying bowl, Taat?”
“I’m sorry, but you saw wrongly, Atl,” Niente insisted again, hating the lie. But he had no other choice.
Atl was already shaking his head, glancing over toward Tecuhtli Citlali, who was staring in their direction. Atl’s voice was raised and heated, and his gestures were as sharp as a dagger’s edge. “I had one of the metalsmiths make me my own bowl, Taat, since you’re so reluctant to let me borrow yours. In that bowl and in yours also, I saw the same events, and they were clear. Had we landed the fleet earlier, this would have been a far easier victory, and the A’Sele would still be open to us. Your path was the wrong one, and it cost the lives of too many good warriors and sailors and has taken away our water path to the great city. Taat, I’m concerned. I look at you and I see how Axat has crippled your body; I see how weak you’ve become. I wonder…” He gave a huff of exasperation, or perhaps it was only concern. “I wonder if your far-sight has become as poor as your true sight.”
No, Niente wanted to tell him. My future sight has become sharper than ever before, and I can see further down the possibilities that Axat reveals than you can. And that is the problem… But he could say nothing of that to Atl. He wouldn’t understand and he wouldn’t believe. Niente wasn’t entirely certain that he understood it himself.
“What is this?” a gruff voice interrupted: Tecuhtli Citlali. He had come over to them; behind him, Tototl and two others of the High Warriors stared at Niente and Atl impassively. Citlali’s broad head, the red eagle bright against his flesh, turned from one of them to the other. The bamboo ridges of his armor were scratched and scarred from the battle, many of the steel rings set in it missing. “What are you saying to the Nahual, Atl?”
“I was asking Taat if perhaps there hadn’t been a better path for us to take, Tecuhtli,” Atl answered.
“He promised us victory,” Citlali said. “We have that.” He glanced around, his nose wrinkling at the odor of death and smoke. “Though not a pleasant one.”
“Yes, we do,” Atl answered. “But sometimes there is more than one road that can be traveled to the same place, and one might be easier than the other.”
The Tecuhtli’s regard turned back to Niente. “Nahual? What is the young man saying?”
Niente looked more at Atl than at Citlali. “I gave the Tecuhtli advice that led to our victory. If he wishes to follow another path next time, that is his choice. I am the Nahual, and I speak with Axat’s voice, as I always have. I know that Axat has given me true far-sight. I have proved that too many times already, at great cost to myself.” His voice was quavering at the end: an old man’s tired voice. His emptied spell-staff trembled in his hand. Niente stared at his son, and finally the young man’s gaze lowered.
“The Nahual found victory for us,” Atl said. “What else can be said?”
Citlali stared, but Atl kept his own gaze to the ground. Finally, the Tecuhtli coughed up phlegm, spitting on the ground and using his booted heel to grind it in. “Good,” he said. “Then there is no more discussion.” He gestured with his head to the High Warriors and they moved off. Tototl stared for a moment longer, then moved away to join Citlali. Atl lifted his head again, but there was no remorse and no apology in his eyes.
“I hope your victory pleased you, Taat,” he said. The words were thick with sarcasm, and they clung to him as if Atl had spat upon him. He turned and left, stalking away through the blue-gray smoke and the stones and bricks strewn over the square.
Niente sat on the ground, abruptly. The exhaustion rolled over him and he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He huddled with his spell-staff clutched in his hands, and when one of the nahualli came to see if he could help, he simply grunted and sent the man away.
He stared at his wrinkled, ancient hands, and he tried to think of nothing at all.
Sergei ca’Rudka
He found the camp in an uproar. The Hirzg’s new aide, Paulus, gave him the news in a rush. “The White Stone murdered Rance, my predecessor, back at Brezno Palais. We moved to Stag Fall, then out here into this forsaken emptiness, and now Rhianna, who was one of the most trusted servants we had, has stolen a dagger that dates all the way back to Hirzg Karin, taken it from the Hirzg and threatened him with it, and now she’s gone. I’m terribly understaffed as it is, and out here where there’s just nothing, and the Hirzg and Hirzgin are in a terrible upset, and it’s just an impossible situation…”
Sergei soothed the whining man as much as he could-thinking that Paulus wouldn’t last another turn of the glass as aide if it were up to Sergei-and asked that word be sent to the Hirzg that he had arrived.
The journey from Nessantico had been long, made even more tedious by finding that the Hirzg had abandoned Brenzno first for Stag Fall and then the southern border with the army. He’d followed that trail, escorted by a few dozen chevarittai from the north of Firenzcia who were belatedly joining the army.
He’d expected that Jan and Brie would be delighted by the agreement he carried in his diplomatic pouch. Now, he was not quite so certain. Jan, behind his field desk, had a dour look as Sergei entered. Despite that, Sergei caned his way into the tented room and set the pouch on the desk. He opened the lock-noticing how old his hands looked, holding the key-and slid out the rolled parchment inside. “Your treaty, Hirzg Jan,” he said. “Signed by the Kraljica. She has agreed to all the major points and had it read publicly in the temples of Nessantico. All it needs is your signature and the Holdings and the Coalition will be one again.”
Jan stared at it. His finger stroked the seal that held it closed. “Tell me, Sergei,” he said. “Do you think that the past must always haunt the future? Do you think we can ever escape what we did before?”
Sergei frowned. “I’m not certain what the Hirzg is asking, I’m afraid. If you’re referring to your relationship with your matarh.. .”
“We tell ourselves that we’ll make our own history, that we can completely change things. But all we do is continue to weave from the same threads we’ve been using all along.”
Sergei waited, silent. Jan took
a long breath, seeming to stare through Sergei. “The White Stone killed Rance.”
“I heard that from Paulus.”
“You wouldn’t know who hired her, would you, Sergei?”
The accusation buried there was obvious-and startling. Sergei straightened himself as well as he could, pushing against the knob of his cane. In truth, he had complained to Allesandra about Rance’s stubbornness, and had laughingly suggested that if the man slipped down the palais stairs and died, he wouldn’t mourn. He wondered, for a moment, if perhaps Allesandra had hired the White Stone. But he allowed none of that suspicion to show on his face. “Hirzg Jan, I assure you that I had nothing to do with Rance’s death.”
“Rance advised me against this treaty and against any reconciliation with the Holdings,” Jan interrupted, tapping the scroll. His eyes smoldered with a dark fire. “You knew that, and you knew the high regard I had for Rance’s opinion. Perhaps it wasn’t you who hired the Stone, but surely you told Matarh about Rance’s stance. Perhaps she decided to silence the man? Perhaps she would decide to silence me as well, once this treaty is signed-that would relieve her of any obligation to abdicate the throne, wouldn’t it? Did you happen to mention that to her, Sergei?”
Sergei was already shaking his head. “Hirzg, who has been whispering this poison to you? Is it Paulus? Frankly, I don’t think the man’s competent to judge whether his eggs are sufficiently cooked …”
Jan stopped Sergei with a sharp slice of his hand, halfrising from his seat. The field desk shivered with the motion, the scroll rolling across the polished surface. “Not Paulus,” he said. “The man’s a dullard; I know it. I’ll replace him as soon as I can. But I have my reasons for this suspicion, I assure you.”
“Then tell me what they are, so I can refute them. Hirzg Jan, I had nothing to do with Rance’s death. I swear it before Cenzi.”
“And my matarh? You can swear for her also?”
