by S L Farrell
He watched the young man drink, gulping down the water. Nico handed the flask back to Sergei, who set it on the table. “Are you going to torture me now?” Nico asked. His beautiful voice was harshened and torn by having worn the silencer for so long. He cleared his throat, and Sergei heard the breath rattling in his lungs-prisoners often became sick here, and many died from the wet lung disease. He wondered if Nico would be one.
“Is that what you think I am, your torturer?” he asked Nico. “Does the thought frighten you? Do you wonder what it will feel like, whether you’ll be able to stand the pain, whether you’ll scream and scream until your throat is raw, when you hear your bones snap, when you see the blood flowing, when you’re forced to watch parts of your body flayed and torn and crushed? Do you wonder if you’ll beg for it to end, that you’ll promise me anything if I would just stop?” He could not entirely keep the eagerness from his voice; he knew Nico heard it.
Nico gulped audibly, his throat moving under the thin scraggly beard. Sergei saw his eyes glance over to the leather roll on his bed. “I know about you, Silvernose,” Nico said. “Everyone does.”
“Do they? What is it they say, I wonder? No, don’t answer. I’ve a question for you instead-how does it feel to know that you’re going to be remembered as someone even more reviled than me? How does it feel to know that, because of your pride and arrogance and misplaced faith, the woman who was carrying your child is dead?”
Sergei saw tears form in Nico’s eyes, saw them grow and fall down his cheeks untouched. “You can’t hurt me more than that,” Nico said, his voice breaking with emotion. “You can’t cause me more pain than I’ve already caused myself.”
“Brave words,” Sergei answered, “even if they’re not true.”
Deliberately, he went over to the roll of leather, leaning his cane against the bed. He bent down as if he were about to open the ties that held it closed, then straightened again. “I met an interesting young woman on the way back to Nessantico,” he said.
Nico scowled. “I’m not interested in your filthy debauchery, ca’Rudka.”
Sergei almost laughed. “There was no ‘debauchery,’ I’m afraid. Not that I wouldn’t have been interested, mind you, especially since I wonder if she might not have shared my, umm, preferences. But there was conversation. Strangely, I saw a mirror of myself in her, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Even worse than the genuine one.” He touched his nose for emphasis. “But I wondered… Can she change herself? Can she avoid becoming what I’ve become, or is that a hopeless task? Are we what Cenzi makes us, or can we change what we’re given? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?”
He bent down again to the leather roll. He pulled on the ties, unknotting them. He paused, fingertips on the old, soft leather, looking back over his shoulder at Nico, who was staring in dread fascination: as they all did, all of them whom he was about to torture.
They all looked. They could not fail to look.
“It’s a question we might discuss, you and I,” Sergei said. “I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.”
With that, he flicked open the leather roll. Inside, cushioned, was a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a bottle of wine. He heard Nico’s gasp of relief and disbelief. “Varina ca’Pallo sent these,” Sergei told him. “You have her to thank for your life.”
“My life?” Sergei heard the breath of hope in his voice, and he nodded.
“She pleaded for you with the Kraljica. As you might have expected, you were to be given first to the Archigos so he could take your hands and your tongue, and then tortured and executed by the Garde Kralji-all in public so the citizens could hear your screams and see the blood. But your life has been spared-by a Numetodo. By a woman you profess to hate. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Why?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Sergei answered. “Had it been my choice, you would already be dead and your body, hands, and tongue would be hanging from the Pontica a’Kralji as a lesson to others. But Varina…” He shrugged. “She loved you, Nico. Both she and Karl would have taken you for their own son, if they’d had the chance. In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
Nico shook his head in denial, but the movement of his head was slow and faint.
Nico Morel
“In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
No. That would never have been. Cenzi wouldn’t have allowed it. He wanted to rage and deny the accusation, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel Cenzi at all; he hadn’t felt Him since he’d watched Liana fall. Cenzi had forsaken him. Nico had spent his time praying as best he could in the midst of his black despair. Save me if that is Your Will. I am in Your Hands. Save me if there is still more that I need to do for You here, or take me to Your Bosom. I am Your servant, I am Your Hand and Your Voice. I am nothing without You… He had once felt so full of Cenzi that it seemed impossible not to be one with Him. Now, he was empty and alone.
Instead, it was Varina who offered to save him, not Cenzi.
He stared at the food and wine atop the leather, which he had been certain contained the instruments of torture that ca’Rudka was rumored to carry with him whenever he visited the Bastida. Sergei was already breaking off a piece of the bread. He handed it to Nico, and his stomach growled loudly in response. The first taste was stunning; the bread might have come from the Second World itself. He had to force himself not to cram all of it into his mouth.
He could feel Sergei watching him as he ate. He saw ca’Rudka pulling the cork on the wine, taking a long swig himself, then handing the bottle to Nico. He swallowed-like the bread, the wine tasted like nectar in his dry, abused mouth.
Reluctantly, he handed the bottle back to Sergei and accepted some of the cheese and another piece of bread.
“Slowly,” Sergei told him. “You’ll be sick if you eat too much and too quickly.”
Nico took a small bite of the cheese. “I could never have been Numetodo,” he told Sergei.
Sergei chuckled dryly, shaking his white-haired, balding head. The silver nose sent light motes scattering around the walls. “You answer too quickly and easily,” he said. “It tells me that either you’re giving no thought to what you’re saying, or that you’ve no idea how much a person’s early life can influence them.”
“I could never not believe in Cenzi,” Nico told him stubbornly. “My faith is too strong. I am too close to Him.”
“Yes, I notice how well He protected you and yours in the Old Temple.”
“Blasphemy,” Nico hissed reflexively.
“I would be careful with insults, were I you,” Sergei said. The man’s voice held a dangerous calmness, and the smile was sharp enough to cut skin. “The Kraljica has given you into my care. I will honor Varina’s desire to keep you alive because she’s my friend, but that leaves open so many possibilities.”
Nico could feel the darkness within the man, like an approaching storm striding forward with legs of lightning and grumbling with thunder. He shuddered at the vision. Cenzi, are You with me again? No, he couldn’t feel the Divine’s presence. He was alone. Abandoned.
“You see,” Sergei was saying, “that’s your problem, Nico. You think everything is preordained. You think that Cenzi always meant for you to be what you are, that He’s still directing your life. You think you would have ended up in the same place no matter what. But I don’t think that’s so. I think no one’s future is preordained at all. I think you could have easily been a Numetodo. In fact, I would wager that by now you’d be the A’Morce of the Numetodo the same way you became Absolute of the Morellis. You do have a gift, Nico.”
“ Cenzi’s Gift,” Nico answered.
“Perhaps,” Sergei said. He took another swig of wine and handed the bottle to Nico, whose throat was ravaged and as dry as the Daritria desert; he took it again gratefully. “I believe in Cenzi, so, yes, I would say the gift came to you from him, but Varina certainly doesn’t, nor did
Karl, and they were both nearly as gifted as you. So maybe we’re both wrong. Maybe Cenzi simply doesn’t interfere quite so directly in people’s lives.”
“If you believe that, then you deny one of the tenets of the Toustour.”
“Or perhaps I don’t believe that Cenzi is cruel enough to have wanted Liana to die and for you never to see your daughter.”
Nico started to answer. The Nico who had been Cenzi’s Voice would have had no trouble. He would have opened his mouth, and Cenzi would have filled him with the answer. His words would have burned and throbbed, and ca’Rudka would have trembled under their power. Now, he only gaped, and no words came. When I saw her fall, my faith fell with her…
“I told you about the young woman I met on the way here-I told her that she still had time to change, to find a path that wouldn’t end where I am,” Sergei said. “I think that’s what Varina believes of you, Nico. She believes in you, in your gift, and she believes you can do better with it than you’ve done.”
“I do what Cenzi demands I do,” Nico answered. “That’s all.”
“I watched a Kraljiki descend into madness, listening to voices he thought he heard,” Sergei answered.
“I’m not mad.”
“Audric didn’t think he was mad either.”
“You can’t compare my relationship to Cenzi with someone who believed a painting was talking to him.”
“I can’t? At least you can see and touch a painting. You can be certain that it’s actually there. You can’t do that with Cenzi.” Sergei picked up the bread, twisted off a piece and placed it in his mouth. “What I see here,” he said, chewing and swallowing, “is that Cenzi has brought you here, but it’s Varina who has spared your child, your life, your hands, and your tongue, and thus your gift: a person who doesn’t believe in Cenzi, but who believes in you.”
Cenzi works through her, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Sergei, groaning, had sat on the bed next to the roll of leather. Nico could see loops and pockets on the inside, all of them empty, though the leather had been imprinted with the shapes of the devices that normally resided there. Ominous dark stains dappled the interior. “Finish what you want of the food and wine, but quickly,” Sergei said. “I have other appointments today, and I’m afraid I have to put this back on.” He lifted the silencer, dangling by a strap from his finger. Nico’s mouth suddenly filled with the memory of the ancient, soiled leather and he nearly vomited. “You should think about this, Nico,” the man continued. “You’ve nothing else to do, after all.”
“You act like you have something to offer me.”
“I do,” Sergei answered easily. “Your life, and whatever comfort you have with it.”
“In exchange for what?”
Sergei groaned again as he rose. “We can start with a declaration from you to the war-teni, telling them that they should return to their duties and give themselves to the authority of the Faith once more.”
“Cenzi told me that they should not fight,” Nico persisted. “He said that the Tehuantin are a punishment for the failure of the Faith, the failure of the Archigos and the a’Teni. How can I deny Cenzi’s very words to me, Ambassador?”
“There are two ways,” Sergei answered. “You can do so of your own will, or I can return here tomorrow with a different gift for you.” Sergei glanced back at the bed, where the empty roll lay. “Either way, you will make that statement. I promise you that. It’s for you to decide how. Either way, I’ll get something I want.” He smiled at Nico. “You see, it’s too late for me to change.”
Sergei lifted the silencer; the buckles on the straps jingled. “I really must go now,” he said, “but I’ll return. Tomorrow. And you can tell me what you’ve decided.”
Jan ca’Ostheim
The vanguard of the army was still a day or more away under the direction of the a’offiziers, but Jan rode ahead of the troops with Archigos Karrol and Starkkapitan ca’Damont, as well as several of the Firenzcian chevarittai.
He’d not been in Nessantico in fifteen years, not since Firenzcia had last come to the Holdings’ aid against the Tehuantin. He’d forgotten how magnificent the city looked. They’d halted on the crest of the last hill along the Avi a’Firenzcia, where they could see Nessantico laid out before them on either side of the glittering expanse of the A’Sele. When he’d last glimpsed Nessantico, it had been cloaked in fire and ruin, nearly destroyed. The city had rebuilt itself anew. The domes of the temples were golden, the white spires of the Kraljica’s Palais seemed to nearly prick the clouds from the Isle a’Kralji, and the city utterly filled the flat hollow that held it. Even tarnished and threatened, the city was magnificent.
“It is a stunning sight, isn’t it, my Hirzg?” Archigos Karrol said. The Archigos, with his bent spine, couldn’t ride a horse, but he’d descended from his carriage to take in the scene, standing on the road next to Jan’s stallion. “But I still prefer Brezno and our terraces.”
Jan wasn’t certain that he entirely agreed. Yes, Brezno had its beauties as a city, and there were vistas on approach that made a traveler stop and gaze, but this… There was a power here, somehow. Maybe it came from the multitudes of people here, thousands more than Brezno held. Maybe it was a product of the long history of the city, which had seen empires rise and fall, which had become the seat of the greatest empire ever seen, at least on this side of the Strettosei. Even Jan felt the tug of it. This will be yours soon enough. All of it… If you can save it now.
“Look,” Starkkapitan ca’Damont said, pointing. “The Avi’s crowded with people at the Eastern Gate. The evacuation’s already begun. The Tehuantin must be close.” He leaned forward on the saddle of his horse, peering down at the vista in front of them. “I wonder if they’re coming from the North Bank, the South, or both. If we can engage them before they reach the city itself, we should. Without the war-teni, especially, we need to keep them from the city.” Ca’Damont cast a venomous glance at Archigos Karrol, but the man seemed to be staring down at the road.
“There will be war-teni from the temples here,” Archigos Karrol said. “You will have the war-teni you need.”
“Let’s hope so,” ca’Damont answered curtly. “But it seems they’d rather follow Morel than you.”
“We’ll find out what the situation is soon enough,” Jan said quickly, interrupting the response that Archigos Karrol started to make. “Archigos, if you’ll return to your carriage, we’ll ride on. If we make good time, we could be within the walls by Third Call.”
As Archigos Karrol, helped by the quartet of his aide tenis, climbed slowly back to his carriage seat, Jan stared westward toward the city, and especially to the Isle a’Kralji and the palais. He wondered if his matarh was there, and how she felt about his impending arrival. He wondered if she both dreaded and looked forward to it all at once, contradictorily.
As he did.
“Let’s go,” he said to the others, waving his hand. “The city awaits us.”
They entered along the Avi a’Firenzcia, proceeding slowly toward the Eastern Gate of the city. The city was beginning to evacuate, the road clogged with people and carts, most of them moving away from Nessantico. The people were largely women with children, along with some elderly men-conspicuously absent were able-bodied men; Jan assumed that the Garde Kralji and Garde Civile were pressing them into service of the defense of the city. The houses and buildings along the Avi became more numerous and set closer to the main road as they approached, until they were moving between tightly-packed houses even though they were still outside the city walls proper. Someone had alerted the authorities; as they moved on, suddenly the citizenry was pausing to stop and cheer, and people were peering at them from windows and balconies, waving their hands and producing battered and ancient banners in the Firenzcian colors of black and silver-banners that had evidently been moldering in chests for years. Jan could see many of them looking eastward along the Avi as if expecting to see the army immediately following them, then lookin
g back to them in puzzlement.
He heard his name being called out, greeting him as if he had already liberated the city. “Hirzg Jan! Hirzg Jan!” The chevarittai with him smiled, but they also closed ranks around him protectively, and they watched the houses and the growing crowds carefully for any signs of trouble.
Too many of them had fought against Holdings troops. Too many of them had felt the enmity of the Holdings to the Coalition. Like Jan, they wondered what the real thoughts were behind the cheers.
By the time they could see the the ancient gates looming ahead of them, the crowds had grown even larger, filling either side of the street. There were people waving from atop the remnants of the old city walls, and every window and balcony was filled. Starkkapitan ca’ Damont leaned over toward Jan. “You’d think the Tehuantin were already running back across the sea.”
Jan shrugged. “I think they’re remembering that when I last brought the army here, we came after the Tehuantin had already taken the city. They’re hoping that this means they’re saved. Though judging by the faces ahead of us, some people are less convinced of that.”
He nodded toward where the blue-and-gold banner of the Holdings waved in the middle of the Avi just under the ramparts of the city gate. One of the group there wore the livery of the Kraljica’s staff; the rest seemed to be a contingent of chevarittai and-judging by the fancy bashtas of two or three-members of the Council of Ca’.
If the citizens were smiling, they were not. They were entirely grim-faced and solemn. Jan found himself somehow disappointed that Allesandra herself wasn’t there, though he knew that-had the Kraljica deigned to visit Brezno-he would have done the same, would have let her come to him.
Jan felt keenly now the loss of his aide Rance, who would have been riding alongside him and who would have been able to identify many of the people waiting for them. “Do you know them?” Jan asked ca’Damont, leaning toward the Starkkapitan. “Is that Matarh’s aide? What’s his name? Talbot ci’Noel or something like that…”
