A Magic of Dawn nc-3

by S L Farrell

  “Or we make him a martyr,” Archigos Karrol retorted, but Sergei answered quickly.

  “No. Nico Morel says that Cenzi is leading him, that Cenzi protects him, that he is the voice of Cenzi. If Cenzi allows him to die, then that gives the lie to everything that Morel claims to be. The Morellis will vanish like a spring snowstorm.”

  “It seems, Ambassador, that you and the Kraljica have but one answer for any problem that faces Nessantico,” Karrol muttered.

  “And it seems, Archigos,” Sergei retorted, “that you have none.”

  “Enough!” Jan snarled. He waved his hand through the rain. A lightning stroke sliced down nearby, and he waited until the thunder passed. “I expect that you, Archigos, are willing to accompany me-so that I don’t lose more war-teni than I already have.” The sour look on Karrol’s face was enough to tell Jan what the Archigos thought of the idea, but the man managed to lift his hands into the sign of Cenzi, and said nothing. His attendants all glanced at each other. “Ambassador, we’re delaying your departure. Tell my matarh to send either Commandant ca’Talin or one of his a’offiziers riding toward us as soon as possible, so we can coordinate with the Holdings’ Garde Civile.”

  “Certainly, Hirzg,” Sergei said. “And I give you my own thanks-you’ll be a fine Kraljiki.” With that, Sergei tapped on the roof of the carriage with his cane. “Driver!” he called out. The driver slapped the reins and the carriage lurched forward, its wheels digging long and deep furrows in the mud. Jan turned back to the Archigos, still dry under his umbrella while the cold rain dripped from the oiled fabric of Jan’s hood.

  “We’re leaving before Second Call, Archigos,” he said. “I would suggest you make yourself ready.”

  “Hirzg Jan, I’d ask you to reconsider. I’m an old man, and I have duties to attend to in Brezno. Perhaps if my staff remains with you. ..” The umbrella shook as his attendants’ eyes widened.

  “I appreciate your frailty, Archigos,” Jan told him, “but perhaps it’s time you go examine your temples in Nessantico, since you need to replace A’Teni ca’Paim, and since once I’m Kraljiki, the seat of the Faith will be returning there.” Archigos Karrol didn’t reply, his eternally-bowed back making it appear that he was examining the muddy hem of his robes of office. “You’re wasting time, Archigos,” Jan told him. “I’ll expect to see your carriage join the train of the army in a half-turn of the glass, without any more complaints or suggestions.”

  With that, Jan spun on his heel. He called out for his horse and weapons, and made his way to where Starkkapitan ca’Damont waited for him.

  Allesandra ca’Vorl

  Allesandra had commandeered a balcony that overlooked the plaza. The Old Temple loomed across the way, though it was difficult to see much in the driving rain and the gloom of the storm. Erik stood behind her and at her shoulder, and his solicitude nagged at her.

  “Really, Allesandra, you should move back from the window. Those are war-teni inside the Old Temple, and you’ve no idea what they can do, especially if they notice that the Kraljica is watching.”

  “I know exactly what war-teni are capable of,” she told him tartly. “Probably better than you, Erik. And I don’t appreciate you talking to me as if I were a child.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but there seemed to be no apology in his voice at all. “I’m just concerned for your safety, my love.”

  “And I’m concerned for the safety of my people,” she answered. “The Garde Kralji isn’t the Garde Civile. Their job is to police Nessantico-they’ve never faced war-teni before, they haven’t faced an armed insurrection in a century and a half, and their Commandant is a prisoner in the place they’re about to assault.”

  “That’s why I suggested that you place me in charge of them,” Erik said. “They need a strong hand guiding them.”

  So I’m not a strong hand, in your estimation? “You’ve never commanded an organized force either,” she reminded him. Truly, the man was becoming tiresome. She was beginning to wonder what she’d seen in him. “I’m the symbol of Nessantico. I rule the Holdings. They deserve to see that I am here, with them. I’d appreciate it if-” She stopped, peering into the rain. “Ah, Varina’s returning… And there’s the signal from A’Offizier ci’Santiago-Morel has refused to negotiate.” Allesandra sighed. She’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, that somehow Varina would be able to negotiate the removal of the Morellis from the temple-she couldn’t see this ending well, no matter how it was resolved. Yet she had no choice. She especially had no choice if Jan were bringing the Firenzcian army here-she had to end this now or she would appear to be extraordinarily weak.

  Talbot had placed two flags on the balcony on which she stood: one a deep blood-red, the other a pale green. Both dripped rain from sodden folds. Allesandra plucked the green flag from its holder and let it fall on the stones of balcony. As if in response, a red star rose from below, arcing high above the plaza. It lingered there for a moment, lending a bloody hue to the gloomy afternoon and hissing audibly in the rain.

  A breath later, triple arcs of flame shot out from nearly directly below the balcony-from the Numetodo. The flames guttered and spat, trailing a noxious smoke, and arrowed away to slam into the front portico of the Old Temple. There were terrible explosions as they hit their target, flashes of white that shook the entire plaza. Allesandra could feel the balcony shudder under her feet. A moment later, a wave of heated air rushed past Allesandra, lifting her hair. Through the rain and the smoke, it was difficult to tell what had happened, but now the gardai of the Garde Kralji were rushing toward the Old Temple from all around the plaza, shouting as they ran. She could see ci’Santiago leading them-whatever she might think of the man’s competence, he was at least brave.

  The gardai were only a quarter of the way across the plaza when the response came from the Old Temple. A dozen fireballs shot from the smoke surrounding the main entrance and from the windows of the buildings attached to the temple. Allesandra heard the Numetodo call out their release words, and all but two of the fireballs from the war-teni sputtered and failed. But those two careened down into the mass of onrushing gardai. Shrill screams rent the storm as they exploded. For a moment, there was chaos in the plaza, the gardai pausing. She could hear ci’Santiago shouting orders as the Numetodo sent their own spells shooting forward toward the Old Temple. The gardai surged forward once more, but choking, acrid smoke was now obscuring the temple plaza, making it difficult to see. Allesandra leaned forward, her hands grasping the rails.

  Almost too late, she saw a globe of fire rushing out of the smoke toward her. She recoiled, throwing herself backward into the room. The fireball crashed against the side of the building, billowing out in a great gout of flame a little below and to the right of the balcony where she’d been standing. The building shook, knocking Erik from his feet. The chandelier in the room swayed madly, the cut-glass ornaments clashing and falling. Chunks of plaster and lathework cascaded down from the ceiling, and two long, gaping cracks snaked from floor to ceiling of the outside wall. Part of the balcony on which she’d been standing fell away.

  She could smell sulfur, and smoke was billowing up from outside. “Allesandra!” Erik was shouting, pulling her to her feet as she coughed in the fetid, choking air, and the gardai who had been in the corridor outside came rushing in, surrounding her with drawn swords. “We have to leave!’

  “Wait!” She staggered to the opening of the balcony, looking out through the shattered doors. The plaza was all a confusion; she could see nothing, though there were flames and explosions around the Old Temple. On the floor below, flames were crawling up the outside of their building.

  “Filthy bastardos!” Erik was shouting gesturing toward the Old Temple. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  She stared at him. He grimaced and subsided. “All right,” she told Erik and the gardai. “I’ve done all I can here. Let’s go.”

  Sergei ca’Rudka

  The rain hammered the roof of the carriage and dripp
ed through every conceivable crevice in the carriage’s roof and sides. Sergei could not imagine how miserable the poor driver must be, huddled on his seat as they made their way ahead of the army on the road.

  Sergei took a half-turn to eat a quick midday meal at one of the inns in Ville Colhelm, just across the border of the Holdings, and to let the current driver attempt to get the worst of the dampness out of his sodden clothing by sitting in front of the tavern’s roaring fire. The new driver he hired didn’t seem particularly thrilled at the idea of long turns of the glass out in the weather.

  Sergei didn’t tarry long. He ate quickly and was back in the carriage with its new driver, jouncing and squelching along the roads made nearly impassable by the horrid weather. By afternoon, the rain had subsided into a persistent, sullen drizzle, the lightning and heaviest rain careening off east and north.

  Sergei tried to sleep in the rocking, lurching coach, and failed. The roof was leaking in the corner where he tried to huddle, and the ruts on the road didn’t seem to match the carriage wheels, so that every time they dropped into them, the carriage springs threatened to throw him off his seat. He wondered whether the driver did that deliberately to make him as miserable as the driver himself undoubtedly was.

  They encountered few people on the road, mostly farmers either sitting on their own heavy and slow plow horses, or with the animal in the traces of an equally heavy and slow wagon laden with goods destined for the markets of the nearest town. Sergei closed his eyes. He yearned to be back in Nessantico, back in his own lush apartments there. Why, he might even visit the Bastida again-surely by this time, Allesandra would have a brace of Morellis ensconced there in the darkness, and he could indulge in the delicious pain…

  “Out of the road, girl!” he heard the driver call. “Are you blind and deaf?”

  Sergei slid aside the curtains of the door in time to see the carriage passing a young woman walking the road. She was drenched, with only a small parcel in her hand and mud up to her knees with stray spatters over her tashta from the carriage wheels. He saw her give the driver’s back an obscene gesture.

  Her face seemed oddly familiar. He’d let the curtain drop and the carriage lurch ahead for a few breaths before it came to him. “Driver!” he called, using the end of his cane to lift the window between them. “Stop a moment.”

  “Vajiki?”

  “That girl. Stop.”

  Sergei thought he heard a sigh from the driver. “She hardly seems comely enough to bother about, Vajiki, and she’s drenched besides. But as you wish…”

  The driver pulled on the reins. Sergei opened the curtains again and put his hand out in the rain, gesturing to the girl. “Come on,” he told her. “Get out of the weather.”

  She hesitated, then walked slowly to the carriage. She stood at the door, looking up at him. “Begging your pardon, Vajiki, but how do I know I can trust you?” she said. If she was taken aback by his false nose, she didn’t seem to react. And that face… The hair is different. Lighter and shorter-and clumsily cut. But those eyes, and that presence…

  “You don’t,” Sergei told her. “I could give you my word, but what would that mean? If I’m someone who meant you harm, I’d just lie about that, too. It’s your choice, lass; you can come in and ride a ways with me, or you can stay out there. If it’s the latter, at least you can’t get any wetter than you already are.”

  She laughed. “Aye to that,” she said. “Ah, well…” She reached up and opened the door of the carriage, stepping onto the footrest there as the carriage sagged under her weight. She dropped into the narrow seat across from him. Water dripped from her hair and the sodden clothes.

  She stared at him as Sergei pulled the door closed and rapped on the roof of the carriage with the knob of his cane. “Let’s go, driver.”

  The driver flicked the reins and called to the horse, and the carriage lurched forward again. The young woman continued to stare. In the dimness of the carriage and with his old eyes, it was difficult to see her features that well, but he knew she could see the silver nose glued to his wrinkled visage. If she was who he thought she was, she said nothing, didn’t acknowledge his name. “Do you make a habit of giving rides to unranked peasants, Vajiki?” she asked.

  “No,” Sergei answered. “Only to those who seem interesting.” She didn’t react to that except to brush rainplastered hair from her forehead. “If we’re going to share this uncomfortable coach, we might as well introduce ourselves,” he said finally. “You are…?”

  “Remy,” she said. “Remy Bantara.” There was the slightest hesitation as she spoke the last name. She’s lying… Sergei suppressed a twitch of satisfaction. She was a better liar than most, extremely skilled at it, which told him that she was also used to doing so. The hesitation was hardly noticeable, but he’d heard too many lies and evasions in his life. She also kept her right hand under the folds of her overcloak, near the top of her boot. He suspected that she had a weapon there-a knife, most likely. That made him wonder-what else might she be hiding? “And you’re Ambassador Sergei ca’Rudka. The Silvernose,” she added.

  “Ah, we’ve met before?”

  She shook her head, spraying droplets of water from the spikes of hair. “No. But I’ve heard of you. Everyone has.”

  And everyone who sees me for the first time does nothing but stare at my nose. Yet you don’t… Sergei smiled at her. “Where are you going, Vajica Bantara?”

  “Nessantico,” she told him. “And you may call me Remy, if you prefer.”

  “That’s a long walk, Remy.”

  “I’m not required to keep a schedule. I will get there when I get there, Ambassador.”

  “You may call me Sergei, if you like. Nessantico, eh? I’m on my way there as well,” he told her. He was certain now. The timbre of her voice, the way she stared intently when she thought she wasn’t being observed, the lack of true subservience in her tone. She’d dyed her hair lighter, and probably cut it herself. This was Rhianna-the girl who Paulus had said that the Hirzg’s people were searching for. Knowing Jan as he did, and hearing the interplay between the Hirzg and Brie, he suspected he knew why. “I’ll be stopping at Passe a’Fiume tonight to sleep and change driver and horse, then on to Nessantico in the morning.” He hesitated. “You’re welcome to accompany me. It’s a far shorter ride than a walk.”

  “And what payment would you be expecting, Amba… Sergei?”

  “Just the pleasure of conversation,” he told her. “As you said, it’s a long way to Nessantico, and lonely.”

  “As I said a moment ago, I’ve heard of you. And some of those tales…” She let her statement trail off into silence. She continued to stare at him.

  “I’m not one to believe tales and gossip, myself,” Sergei told her. “I prefer to discover the truth on my own. Someone who’s strong enough to walk to Nessantico is certainly strong enough to fend off an old man who can barely walk, should he go beyond the bounds of politeness. At the very least, you can certainly outrun me.”

  She laughed again, a genuine, throaty amusement that made him smile in return. Her hand came out from under her tashta: again, a practiced, effortless movement, not that of a frightened young girl in an uncertain situation, but that of someone who was used to such conditions. He began to wonder if there were more to the story of Jan and Rhianna than he thought.

  You could make her talk. You could make her tell you everything.

  The thought was sweet and tempting, but he thrust it away. Instead, he continued to smile. “I can arrange a room for you at the Kraljica’s apartments in Passe a’Fiume,” he said. “I can also assure you that the locks work perfectly well. In exchange, you can tell me your story. Are we agreed?”

  “Only if you tell me yours as well,” she answered. “Yours would be far more interesting, I assure you.”

  “The other person’s tale is always more interesting,” he said. “Frankly, my tale is rather boring. But-we have an agreement, then. So-let’s start. Tell me, why is a yo
ung woman walking to Nessantico in the rain?”

  She looked away then. He could almost hear her thinking. He wondered what she would say, but he was certain that whatever it was would not be the truth.

  “It’s because of my great-vatarh,” she said. “We lived not far outside Ville Colhelm, and he had decided that I had to marry this boy from the farm next to ours-”

  “That’s a lie,” Sergei interrupted. He kept his voice calm. Unperturbed. “I’m sure you’d make it a very entertaining and convincing lie, but it’s a lie nonetheless.”

  Her hand drifted back under her tashta-smoothly, a movement that would have gone unnoticed by most eyes, since at the same time she shifted her position on the seat, placing both legs down as if she were readying herself to move. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I’m not from Ville Colhelm, not from the Holdings at all. I’m from Sesemora, from a town on the Lungosei, but my family is largely from Il Trebbio, and so they were under constant suspicion. The Pjathi’s soldiers came one day, and-”

  Sergei was already shaking his head and she stopped. “Why don’t you tell me your real name,” he asked. “Rhianna, perhaps? Or is that one also a lie?” He saw her gaze dart to the door of the carriage. “Don’t,” he told her. “There’s no need for you to be alarmed. As you said, you know me. I have done terrible things in my lifetime, and there’s nothing you can tell me, I suspect, that will shock me. Whatever you’ve done, whatever’s happened to you, I’ve no intention of holding you. Especially since you have your hand on a knife at the moment, and my only weapon is this cane.” He lifted it, moving deliberately slowly and grimacing as if it pained him to lift his shoulder-he also neglected to mention the blade he could draw from the sheath of the cane at need, or the fact that Varina had enchanted the cane for him: with the release word she had taught him-she claimed-he could kill an attacker instantly. He had never used the release word, since Varina had said that the spell was incredibly costly and she could not (or would not) do it again. “Use it only in dire need,” she had told him. “Only when there is no other option open for you…”