by S L Farrell
“Yes, Vajica,” Mahri heard a faint voice answer, and there were footsteps and the sound of a door closing from the steam-wrapped scene before him. With the sound, the A’Kralj reached across the table to take the woman’s hand. He started to rise, as if he were about to embrace and kiss her, but she shook her head slightly.
“Not here,” she said in a whisper. “Too many eyes. But we can speak openly, for a moment anyway. The Kraljica?”
“She’s dying,” he said. “If I could keep that dwarf Archigos and that ugly cow of a teni of his away from her, she’d be dead already. I think he’s using the Ilmodo on her, or cu’Seranta is.”
“I’ll make certain that my vatarh knows,” the woman said. “I’m certain that he’d be interested in that.” She shook her head. “Such a strange, sudden thing. Vatarh thinks that the Numetodo had a hand in it.”
“No,” the A’Kralj answered. “They didn’t, though I certainly don’t mind if they pay the price for it.” He smiled, his chin jutting out even further. Mahri heard the slow intake of breath through the Vajica’s nostrils and saw the rising of her eyebrows.
“Justi. .”
The smile grew larger. “Matarh was always insisting that it was time for me to think of heirs and marriage. I will be Kraljiki soon-and I find that I’m now thinking of exactly those two things. Are you, Francesca my love?”
The woman seemed to be looking for escape-left, then right. “Of course, Justi. Of course. But this is so quick. All the careful plans we were making with my vatarh. .”
“. . weren’t necessary,” he answered. “I made my own plans, and I have followed them through. I think Matarh’s portrait should go in the West Hall, where she can see the Kralji’s throne and see me sitting there with you beside me, don’t you think?”
There was a soft knock at the door and the click of the latch. The A’Kralj sat back, releasing Francesca’s hand. Her smile was a frozen gash on her face. “But, of course, I came to ask U’Teni Estraven if he would perform a special ceremony for Matarh,” the A’Kralj said smoothly, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, as Mahri saw the servant approach the table and place a silver tray with tea and cakes between the two before curtsying and backing quickly away. “It would mean so much to her.”
“Certainly,” Francesca answered. She blinked, reflexively moving to serve him tea. “I will mention it to Estraven.” The water in the basin was cooling, and the scene above it was fading, the figures going transparent and their voices failing. “I know he would be most willing. .”
They were gone, suddenly, and the bowl was simply a bowl of lukewarm water. Mahri sighed. Rising, he put the teapot back on the crane.
He picked up the bowl reverently and went to the window, tossing the water out onto the Oldtown alleyway below. He took the bowl back to the table and sat once again, waiting for the teapot to boil. When it did, he poured more water into the bowl and once more dusted the steaming water with the infusion from his pouch.
“Show me,” he said again, and this time the scene that formed was a different place, and new figures appeared. .
Ana cu’Seranta
“You can’t go out, O’Teni,” Watha insisted. “You’re not strong enough. The Archigos said you must rest. He was very emphatic about that.”
“The Archigos isn’t me and doesn’t know how I feel,” Ana insisted.
She shrugged off the hands that attempted to hold her back on the bed and swung her feet down to the floor. She stood. The room threatened to tilt under her, but she took a long breath that stopped the movement. “I need clothes,” she said. “Not my teni-robes. A tashta, perhaps, or something else.”
Watha’s eyes seemed about to burst from her skull. “I can’t-”
“You will,” Ana insisted. “And you’ll do it now. I’ll also need a carriage.”
The young woman seemed terrified. Her matarh, Sunna, came in a moment later, and Ana repeated her request. Sunna conferred with Watha, who left the room with a terrified glance at Ana. Sunna muttered to herself as she rummaged-far too slowly-through trunks and closets to find clothing for Ana. Ana heard the outer door to her apartment open and close before Watha returned to help her matarh; Ana decided that Beida had been sent to inform the Archigos. By the time she’d dressed, the outer door opened again and Beida entered the bedchamber to announce that a carriage was at the door for Ana’s use.
Ana left the apartment, refusing the offer of a quick dinner from Watha, and Sunna’s insistence that someone from the household should accompany her. She wondered if she were being entirely foolish, since the walk down to the carriage exhausted her and she half-stumbled into the seat as the teni-driver held the door open for her. “Your destination, O’Teni?” the young man asked. It was the same driver who had picked her up from her house that day that seemed so long ago now; she knew that he would tell the Archigos everything. He was staring at her, at her lack of green robes.
“Cooper Street, one block from Oldtown Center,” she said to him.
He nodded and closed the door. She felt the carriage sway as he took his seat and heard the beginning of his chant as the wheels began to turn. She leaned back against the cushions, her hand touching the shell under her tashta.
You shouldn’t be doing this. You’re already exhausted and need to rest.
The Archigos will be upset, and thus you risk not only yourself but your family’s well-being. Worse, you endanger your very soul. .
She ignored the nagging voice and closed her eyes, feeling the lurch of the carriage and the sound of the wheels as it passed along the Avi a’Parete.
“We’re here, O’Teni,” the e’teni’s voice said through the leather flap between the carriage and his seat, seemingly only a few moments later, and Ana realized that she’d fallen asleep during the trip. She lifted the curtain at the side of the carriage. They were parked on a street lined with shops, with a tumult of people moving around them. Poking her head out the window, Ana looked around. It was dusk, the sun already gone though the sky was still deep blue and the first stars had yet to appear. Farther up the street, she could glimpse the wide expanse of Oldtown Center, where lamps set on ornate posts around the circumference of the Center waited for the spells of the light-teni to set them ablaze.
Oldtown Center had, a few centuries ago, been the social nexus of Nessantico, a function now given over to the square around the Archigos’ Temple and the newer and grander buildings on the southern bank of the A’Sele. The memory of Oldtown Center’s past was preserved in the tall, ancient buildings that flanked it and in the fountain in the middle with its stained bronze statue of Selida II, posed far larger than life with his war-spear and shield and the writhing body of a subdued Magyarian chieftain raising his hands in mute supplication at his feet: at its height, Oldtown Center had been known as Victory Square.
Now, the buildings that had once housed the offices of the Kralji’s government and the grand apartments of the wealthy were run-down, tired, and ancient. The offices were now street-level shops, the grand residences had been broken up into myriad tiny apartments above the shops teeming with the households of ci’ and ce’ and even unranked families. There was still a vitality to Oldtown Center, but it was unre-fined and raw, just as strong as it had always been but gone darker and potentially more dangerous.
“O’Teni,” the driver called through the flap, his voice audibly tired from the exertion of the drive. “Where did you want to go?”
“This is fine,” she told him. She glanced out again at the signs over the doors. “Just there-Finson the Herbalist. They have a tea infusion that my matarh always made, and I thought it might help the Kraljica.”
She opened the door and stepped out before the driver could dismount.
“Wait here for me,” she told him. He was only a black silhouette against the ultramarine sky. “I shouldn’t be long. Stay here.”
She hurried away even as she heard him protest; she was fairly certain that his instructions from the Archigos
were to remain with her.
She rushed into the shop, a bell chiming as she opened the door. The herbalist-an older man with white eyebrows that curled over deep-set eyes, glanced up from a table near the rear of the store. The store smelled of herbs and the multitude of lit candles holding back the murk.
“What can I do for you, Vajica?” he asked, coming forward to a counter adorned with glass jars stuffed with dried leaves.
Ana placed a siqil on the counter, the the silver profile of the Kraljica on the coin glimmering in the candlelight. “You have a rear door?” Ana asked, her fingers still on the coin.
He was staring at the siqil-more money than he would see in a week’s sales. “Yes, Vajica. Just past there.” He pointed to the darkness at the back of the store without taking his eyes from the coin. “Here, I’ll show you. . ”
Ana shook her head. “I’ll find it,” she said. “Thank you.” She lifted her fingers from the coin and hurried around the counter. The smell of herbs was nearly overpowering, but she found the door and found herself in a narrow alleyway where the stench was more human and far less pleasant. To her right, an opening beckoned, leading to another of the warren of streets around the Center. Faintly, she thought she heard the bell chime on the herbalist’s front door. She pulled the shell necklace from under her clothing and half-ran down the alley and out into the street, letting the rush of the crowds carry her. She circled around Oldtown Center for a time, moving around it and away from where
she’d left the carriage-always looking around her to see if she saw the driver, avoiding the neighborhood utilinos with their staffs, lanterns, and whistles in case they’d been instructed to watch for her-until she heard the chant of the light-teni at their work.
Then she walked into Oldtown Center itself.
The open space was busy, but quickly looking around, Ana saw no one who seemed to be searching for her. No one seemed to notice her at all. She wondered what the driver was doing; whether he was frantically looking for her or whether he’d returned to the Archigos with the admission that he’d lost his charge. In the sky above, the first stars were twinkling, and a group of six e’teni were moving slowly from lamp to lamp, each in turn erupting into cold, bright flame. The crowd-many of them in foreign clothing-cheered with each lamp, giving the sign of Cenzi and following the teni around the perimeter, then to the quartet of lamps around the fountain.
As Ana lurked on the edge of the crowds well away from the teni, she felt someone brush against her side. “O’Teni cu’Seranta?”
She started, taking a quick step away from the man, who raised his hands as if to show he had no weapon. He was no one she knew, dressed in nondescript, plain clothing. “Who are you?”
“My name is Mika,” he said. “The rest of my name you don’t need.
Envoy ci’Vliomani asked me to escort you to where he’s waiting. He said to tell you that the shell is one from the Isle of Paeti, and that he hopes you found it interesting. Will you follow me?”
He started to walk away from the fountain and the crowds, to the west. He didn’t look back. Ana watched him for several strides, until there were several people between them. Biting her lip between her teeth, she followed at last, quickening her steps and weaving among the passersby until she was at his elbow. He didn’t speak, only moved out from the center into the narrow streets leading away and into Oldtown itself. “Where are you taking me?” she asked at last.
He shook his head without looking at her. “Nowhere you would know,” he answered. He stopped then, turning to her. “If that frightens you, then you’re free to return to Oldtown Center. I’m sure the teni would be happy to escort you back to one of the temples. I told Karl you wouldn’t come.”
“Then you were wrong.”
He seemed amused at that. He shrugged and started walking again.
They walked for some time, following streets that twisted and turned until Ana was thoroughly lost. Twice, he ushered her into the mouth of an alleyway or into the shadows between two houses as an utilino passed. They circled around a block where fire-teni were putting out a smoldering house fire. For the most part, the people they passed seemed to be intent on their own business, which in most cases was provided by the numerous taverns.
Oldtown was not an area she knew well; like most South Bank families, hers had rarely ventured over the ponticas to the North Bank except to visit Oldtown Center or the River Markets. Even when they had come here, they kept to the main streets on those excursions, never venturing too far away from the Avi a’Parete. By the time Mika stopped before a door with peeling strips of blue paint clinging stubbornly to the wood, Ana was no longer even certain which way the river lay, and full night had fallen heavily over the claustrophobic streets. Here, there were no bright teni-lights, only dim candles in windows punctuating the darkness-this seemed another city entirely. Mika rapped twice on the door, then a single sharp knock. A small peephole opened and Ana saw an eye peering out. The door opened just wide enough to admit them. Mika entered, and Ana-more hesitantly, with the opening words of a defensive chant on her lips and her hands ready to make the proper motions-followed.
She found herself in a dim foyer. Directly in front of her, steps led up to a second floor and a hallway led farther into the building; a curtained archway hid a room to the right. She could heard voices from somewhere close by. “Where is Envoy ci’Vliomani?” she demanded of Mika, but she was answered from the room to her right.
“Here.” Karl ci’Vliomani moved the curtains aside and stepped from the room. He smiled and bowed to her, his hands remaining at his sides. “Thank you, Mika. We’ll meet you upstairs,” he said, and gestured to the room behind him. “Would you come in, O’Teni? It’s hardly as grand as the Kraljica’s Palais, but it will have to do.” He smiled at her.
“I’m pleased to see you again. Truly. That shell looks far better on you than it did on me.” He smiled again; despite herself, Ana found herself returning the smile. The tension within her eased; she could feel her shoulders relax as she walked through the curtains he held aside for her.
“Water? Wine? Some cakes?” He gestured to a small table in the center of the room holding a refreshment tray.
Her stomach growled, but she shook her head. There were two windows, both heavily curtained. There was a fire in the hearth, but most of the light in the room came from a large glass ball that glowed a strange blue-white. Ana put her hands toward the globe: colder than the room by far. As cold as Ilmodo fire. “I want nothing right now, Vajiki,” she said.
“Here, at least, you could call me Karl.” He smiled again. “If you’d like.”
She’d wondered whether she’d feel that strange pull again, that attraction. Now she knew that she did. You can’t trust that. You don’t know him. “Karl,” she said, looking up from the frigid glow. “Then here, at least, you may call me Ana.”
He bowed again. “I want to apologize for the subterfuge,” he said as she glanced down once more at the light. “I assumed you wouldn’t want the Archigos to know where you were tonight, and I know I certainly don’t, especially after what’s happened with the Kraljica. I can assure you that you weren’t followed.” She heard his voice change, his voice at once serious and sympathetic. “How is the Kraljica, Ana? We’ve heard nothing since the Gschnas but what the news-criers have said.”
“I’m surprised you care.” She placed a hand on the globe; the shadow of it covered the wall behind her. “For all I know, the Numetodo were responsible.”
“If you truly thought we had anything to do with that, you wouldn’t be here.” The remonstrance was gentle. “We might be at odds with the Kraljica and Concenzia, but we would much rather have the Kraljica on the throne than her son.”
“Is that why I’m here, then-you think I’ll provide you with a sympathetic voice within the Faith? I’m afraid you overestimate my influence, Envoy.”
“Karl,” he corrected. “I think you’re here because you’re curious, and I asked you because. .
” He stopped. He walked to the globe, put his own hand on it, and shadows leaped. Ana removed her hand quickly.
“. . because I feel that we share a common interest.”
“And what is that?”
“You want to understand how the world works, as do I.” His hand slid caressingly over the round curve of the globe. “Like how one can use the Scath Cumhacht, the Ilmodo, even in ways that your Divolonte says it shouldn’t or even can’t be used. You understand that, don’t you?”
Ana felt her stomach lurch. She told herself it was the lateness, the exertions with the Kraljica, and the fact that she’d eaten nothing for some hours. He must have seen it also, for his hand was no longer on the globe but under her elbow, and his face was concerned. “O’Teni?
Do you need to sit down?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, forcing a smile. “Just tired. I’ve. . had very little sleep in the last few days.”
“I understand. The Kraljica.” His hand had not left her arm, and she didn’t want to pull away from his touch. “I was doubly sorry that happened as it did. I. . I enjoyed talking with you, and our dance. And I would not wish the Kraljica harm.” His hand did leave her then, and he frowned. “I apologize, Ana. I presume.”
You don’t need to apologize. I appreciate your concern, more than I should. But she didn’t speak her thoughts. “What is it you wanted to show me, Karl? We don’t have much time. The Archigos. .”
“Will be frantically looking for you, no doubt.” He nodded. “You’re right. Come with me, then. We’ll go upstairs to the hall. Things will have started by now.”
The foyer was empty when he pushed aside the curtain, and she followed him up the stairs. The sound of talking grew louder, until she could make out individual voices in the mix. The stairs entered out onto a balcony that circled the floor below, lit brightly by the same cold light that had been in the globe downstairs. “Here, Ana,” Karl said. He was standing at the railing to the balcony, behind a scrim of thin, dark fabric. “Those below can’t see you if you stand behind this, but you’ll be able to see them well enough.” As she started forward, he raised a hand. “You understand the trust I’m showing you, Ana? You’ll see the faces of the Numetodo who live in Nessantico, and that’s knowledge that the Archigos, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca, and Commandant ca’Rudka would find extremely interesting. You will literally hold these people’s lives in your hands. I must have your promise now that you won’t reveal what you see here.”
