by S L Farrell
“I hope you weren’t considering jumping, Vajiki. Now that would be a shame-though a few of this room’s inhabitants have been, ah, disappointed enough in our hospitality to prefer death to confinement.”
Karl glanced back over his shoulder into the small, gloomy cell in which he’d been placed, furnished with a rude chair and desk and a tiny bed of straw ticking. The metal door hung open. He saw the commandant half-seated on the desk with one leg up, the other on the floor.
The man wore his dress uniform, boots polished and gleaming. Behind him, in the corridor past the bars, Karl could see two gardai leaning against the stone walls. A torch guttered in its holder between them.
“Though that wasn’t the case with Chevaritt ca’Gafeldi, as I recall,”
ca’Rudka said to Karl. “His mind became addled after a few months here, and he insisted that he was able to turn into a dove and fly away.
He looked rather silly, flapping his arms all the way down.”
The gardai in the corridor chuckled. Karl said nothing-he could say nothing, not with the cloth-covered metal band that held down his tongue, bound with straps and locked around his head. The chains binding his hands tightly together rattled as he turned fully, though he remained standing on the balcony.
“You should be honored,” ca’Rudka continued, speaking as if they were having a casual conversation over dinner. “This was originally Levo ca’Niomi’s cell, centuries ago. It was thought the lovely view was proper punishment for ca’Niomi-to be able to look out at the city he ruled for three blessedly short days, and to know that he would never walk there again as a free man. He was also a stubborn man; he lived here for thirty years, writing the poetry that would finally overshadow his cruelty. I understand that the Kraljiki who put him here had ca’Niomi displayed on the anniversary of his deposing every year. They chained him, entirely naked, to the balcony so everyone who passed by on the Avi could look up and see him: an object lesson of what happens to those who overstep their place. If you look, I think you can still see the brackets for the chains there on the stones.”
Karl glanced at the rusted loops of metal set at the ledge’s end just before the long fall to the courtyard below where the dragon’s head glared at the Bastida’s gates, and he shivered. He swallowed with difficulty around the tongue gag. “More recently, the Kraljica had her cousin Marcus ca’Gerodi put here for treason, early in her reign,” ca’Rudka said, “but he was neither as long-lived or stubborn as ca’Niomi, nor as artistic. We never had any poetry from poor ca’Gerodi.”
Ca’Rudka sighed, standing. “One-sided conversations are boring, I’m afraid. For both of us. I believe you to be a man of honor, Envoy ci’Vliomani. I would accept your pledge not to use any of your Numetodo tricks and remove your silencer. Your hands, I’m afraid, will have to remain bound, but we could at least talk. Do I have your word?”
Karl nodded as he stepped back into the dank room, unable to keep the gratitude from his eyes. “If you would turn around, Envoy. .” As Karl complied, he heard the jangle of keys, and a click that reverberated through the straps bound tight to his skull. A moment later, ca’Rudka slid the horrid device from Karl’s mouth. Karl sighed gratefully, stretching his jaw and swallowing to rid his mouth of the taste of metal and foul cloth. “I know it’s uncomfortable,” the commandant said. “But it’s a less, shall we say, final option than cutting off your hands and removing your tongue.”
The man managed to say it with a smile, as if they were sharing a joke. Again, the gardai in the corridor chuckled softly. Karl struggled to keep the shock from his face, but the broadening smile on ca’Rudka’s face made him suspect he’d not been successful.
“It’s a preferable alternative, Commandant,” Karl told him. His jaw ached with the movement, and his words were slurred. “I’ll grant you that. Though we Numetodo aren’t the threat to Nessantico that you believe us to be.”
“Ah. You think I’m a monster.”
Karl shook his head. “A monster would have already done those things to me. A monster wouldn’t have. .” He glanced at the gardai in the corridor and lowered his voice to a whisper. “. . tried to warn me to leave the city.”
Another smile. “Ah, yes. A man of discretion, even in these circumstances. You see, I do like you, Envoy. I liked you from the time we talked in the Kraljica’s gardens. It’s rare to find people who are honest about what they believe, and rarer still when they persist in the face of persecution.”
“I didn’t kill the Kraljica, Commandant. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I believe that completely,” ca’Rudka said. “I truly do.”
“Then let me go.”
“What I believe has little impact on what I’m required to do, Envoy,”
the man answered. “Tell me, did you know that painter ci’Recroix?”
“I saw him once or twice, walking in the city,” Karl answered. “I knew he was painting the Kraljica’s portrait, but so did everyone else.”
“Was he a Numetodo?”
Karl shook his head vigorously. “I would have known that, Commandant. The man was very recognizable, and someone of his reputation. .
Well, I would have heard of him even before I came to Nessantico were he one of us. I didn’t. Why do you ask about the painter? If you think that he had something to do with the Kraljica’s death, then why am I here?”
“The A’Kralj ordered your arrest, as well as that of all the Numetodo in the city.”
Karl found his breath caught in his throat. “All. .”
The commandant nodded. “Those we suspect, in any case. They’re here in the Bastida, though not. .” He let his gaze wander around the tiny, dour room. “. . in such palatial conditions as you. All silenced and bound, though-until the Kraljiki tells me what I’m to do.”
Karl grimaced. In the manacles, his fists clenched. “Given that the Kraljiki has already made it clear that he favors ca’Cellibrecca over the Archigos, then we’ll see Brezno repeated, and worse. Will you enjoy that, Commandant? It will be your duty to direct the maimings and executions, after all.”
Ca’Rudka made no answer at first. His eyebrows lifted slightly. “If it comes to that, Envoy ci’Vliomani,” he said finally, “I promise you that your end will be quick.”
Karl could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “That gives me great solace.”
If ca’Rudka heard the sarcasm in Karl’s voice, he didn’t respond to it. “You Numetodo don’t understand what it is to obey,” he answered.
Ca’Rudka said it without heat, without any apparent passion at all.
“You believe what you each please. You’re like wild horses. Despite any power you might have, you’re useless because you don’t understand the bridle and the bit.” The commandant moved to the window of the cell, looking out toward the city. “It’s obedience to a higher authority that created everything you see out there, Envoy. All of it. All of Nessantico, all of the greater Holdings. Without obedience-to Cenzi, to the Divolonte, to the laws of the Kralji, to the rules of society-there’s nothing but chaos.”
“Were you born here, Commandant? In the city, I mean?”
The man glanced back over his shoulder at Karl. “I was,” he said.
“You’ve never been elsewhere?”
“I served in the Garde Civile when I was young. I saw war along the frontier of East Magyaria, when the Cabasan of Daritria crossed the Gereshki with his army in violation of the Treaty of Otavi.” He touched his silver nose. “I lost my real one there, in a stupid quarrel with one of our own men. Afterward, I came back here a chevaritt, with a recommendation from my superiors, and joined the Garde Kralji.”
“You’ve never been to the western borders? Never crossed the Strettosei to Hellin or the Isle of Paeti?” Ca’Rudka shook his head. “If you had,” Karl continued, “you might understand. Ah, the Isle. . There’s not a greener, more lush and more varied country in the world. And there, Commandant, where a dozen cultures have come and gone, we
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understand that ‘different’ isn’t a synonym for ‘wrong.’ There are many ways to learning the truth of how the world works, Commandant. The Concenzia Faith is just one. It’s just not the one, not the only way. I have seen things. .” He stopped, shaking his head. The motion rattled the chains around his hands and caused the guards to glance into the cell again. “You would probably have me flayed for telling you,” he said.
Ca’Rudka had turned back into the room, leaning against the wall by the balcony. “If I wanted to flay you, Vajiki, I would have already done it, and for less provocation. Tell me.”
Karl licked his lips. “My parents lived on the eastern coast of the Isle. They were of the Faith, and they brought me up to believe in Cenzi. They read the Toustour to me; they followed the precepts of the Divolonte. When I became a young man, though, I had the wanderlust and I traveled with a company of traders beyond the Isle to what you call the Westlands, past the green mountains on the borders of Hellin. That trip opened my eyes and my mind. There, out in a flat plain of grasses that stretched like a waving ocean from horizon to horizon, I saw a city that could have easily held three Nessanticos, grand and glorious, with enormous buildings like stepped mountains on top of which their priests held their ceremonies, with buildings of cut stone that gleamed in the sun, while canals glittered with sweet water alongside avenues wider than the Avi. The people there wore clothing of a fabric I’d never seen before, bright and smooth to the touch, a cloth that let the breezes flow through to keep you cool in the heat. And at night-Commandant, the city glowed with mage-fire brighter than the Avi. They used your Ilmodo, too, though they didn’t call it either ‘Ilmodo’ or ‘Scath Cumhacht,’ nor did they worship Cenzi, who they considered just another god among many. But they could shape the
Second World as well as any of the teni. That, Commandant, is when my own faith began to waver.”
“Perhaps it was a test,” ca’Rudka answered without emotion. “One that you failed.”
“That’s what the teni on the Isle told me later.” Karl shrugged.
“The traders I traveled with said that there were even greater cities, farther west and south, all the way to the shore of the Western Sea two hundred days’ or more march from where we were. They said
that they were part of an empire larger, richer, and more powerful than the Holdings. I don’t necessarily believe those stories-I know as well as you that travelers’ tales grow with each telling, and that it’s our nature to make ourselves sound more like great adventurers than simple tourists. But this city. . I saw it with these eyes, and I’ve never seen its like anywhere else. I know this, Commandant: there are more mysteries in this world than the Concenzia Faith will allow you to believe.”
Ca’Rudka smiled indulgently at the long speech. “Sometimes, to young eyes, the small looks larger than it is. I would think that if such a great empire exists beyond the Hellin Mountains, we would have met its armies or at least its envoys when we came to the Hellins. I may not have been there myself, but I met the Governor of the Hellins when he was last in Nessantico, and he said that the natives there were little more than savages.”
“He sees them with the wrong eyes, then,” Karl answered. “Like looking through the stained glass of the temple, he doesn’t see the true colors beyond.”
“And you do? I find that rather arrogant, Envoy ci’Vliomani. It surprises me to find that quality in you.”
“We all have colored glass through which we view the world, Commandant,” Karl answered. “Our society and our upbringing and our
experiences place the glass before us, with the Numetodo no less than the Concenzia Faith. I don’t deny that. But I think we Numetodo have more shades of color from which to choose and that, as a result, we are closer to the truth.”
Ca’Rudka laughed again, though this time the guards remained quiet. “You are a fascinating creature, Envoy ci’Vliomani.” He took a long breath. “I enjoy listening to you, and no doubt we’ll have ample opportunity to continue our conversation. But for now. .” He picked up the silencer from the table, its metal buckles jangling. The taste of foul leather filled Karl’s mouth, just seeing it.
“Commandant, I will give you my word. .”
“And I would accept it,” ca’Rudka answered before Karl finished.
The silencer swayed in his hand. “The Kraljiki will want a confession from the Kraljica’s assassin. Are you prepared to give that to him, Envoy?”
“I can’t confess to what I didn’t do,” Karl answered, and ca’Rudka smiled at that, with the indulgent expression of an adult listening to a young child.
“Can’t?” he said. “I’m afraid that happens all the time here in the Bastida, Envoy. I think you might be surprised what a person would be willing to admit under the right encouragement. Why, give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I could find something in them to have him hanged.”
Karl’s breath vanished. He felt suddenly cold. “Open your mouth, Envoy,” ca’Rudka said. “I promise you that I’ll be back tomorrow, and each day until the Kraljiki tells me what I must do with you, and as long as you give me your word, I’ll take the silencer from you so we can talk more. I will cherish those times, truly. Now. . I need you to open your mouth, or I will have the gardai come in and put on the silencer in their own fashion. Which would you prefer?”
There was nothing but despair in Karl’s heart now. He knew he would die here, and he knew that there was nothing he could do except make that death as painless as possible. Karl opened his mouth and allowed ca’Rudka to buckle the device to his head. He felt tears forming as ca’Rudka stepped behind him to tighten the straps, and he forced them back, blinking hard.
Sergei ca’Rudka
“Commandant, I wish to see Karl ci’Vliomani.”
Sergei straightened the inkwell on his desk, arranging the quills in their holder. Then he looked again at the young woman in front of him, wearing the green robes of the teni. “I find that I’m surprised you would make such a request, O’Teni cu’Seranta, especially given that you were with the Numetodo when I arrested him.” He raised his eyebrows. “I doubt that the Archigos would be pleased to find you here after that coincidence.”
“As it turns out, I’m here on the Archigos’ business.” The slight hesitation and the way she averted her eyes before she spoke was enough to tell Sergei that she wasn’t telling the truth-lies in all their shades and forms were something he knew intimately, and the o’teni was hardly a facile liar.
“I see,” he answered. He rubbed the cold metal of his nose. “The stamina of our Archigos never fails to amaze me, especially on a day such as today, when there must a hundred details to which he must attend for the Kraljica’s funeral and for the procession this evening. You have a letter for me, perhaps, outlining this ‘business’ on which he has sent you?” She shook her head. Her gaze wandered somewhere past him, to the bare stone walls behind. “Ah, I see. An unfortunate gaffe on his part. The Archigos must understand after all his years here in Nessantico how the gears of the Holdings are milled from paper and greased with ink. But perhaps if you could tell me about this. .” He paused deliberately. “. . business.”
His hands were folded on his desk and she stared at them. Perhaps she was expecting to see blood there. She hadn’t prepared the lie; she startled with the last word, like a dove surprised on a windowsill. “I. . the Archigos. . we know Envoy ci’Vliomani had wished to meet the Kraljica. . and. . and. .”
“O’Teni.” Sergei lifted a hand and she lapsed into a flushed silence.
“We needn’t pretend. Not here. The Bastida is not a place for posturing.
The two of you are lovers?”
The flush crept higher on her neck. “No,” she said quickly. That was the truth, he could tell, though he could guess the rest: ci’Vliomani was attractive enough, intelligent enough, and given her unremarkable features and the rank of her family before her recent elevation, he doubted that she had been much p
ursued by suitors in the past. He could imagine the attraction ci’Vliomani might have for her; he could also imagine that she would be an easy mark for a seduction, if ci’Vliomani had wanted to use her. He’d glimpsed her fear for ci’Vliomani’s fate in the apartment when he’d arrested the man, heard it in the urgent whispers they’d exchanged as he took ci’Vliomani away. If they weren’t lovers, there was still a bond between them. He hoped, for her sake, that the bond ran both ways.
She was attracted to the lure of the foreign, the alien, the forbidden. He knew that. He felt it himself. He understood. So he smiled at the young woman.
“No,” he repeated, just to watch the flush bloom again in her cheeks.
“Then what is your interest in him?”
“He. .” She swallowed. Her eyes found his face and wandered away again. Then she took a long breath in through her nose and stared hard at him. “He is a friend. I don’t believe that those who possess a true faith have anything to fear from learning about other ways. We won’t bring the Numetodo back to the Faith through torment and death, Commandant. We will bring them back through
understanding.”
She spoke with such passion and earnestness that Sergei leaned back in his chair and patted his hands together softly. “Bravo, O’Teni. Well said-though that doesn’t appear to be a position most of the
a’teni or the A’Kralj would take, nor even the Archigos himself. And unfortunately. .” He spread his hands wide. “. . those are the masters I serve.”
He could see the fear in her face, could nearly taste it in the air, sweet. “Envoy ci’Vliomani. . Is he. .”
“He is bound and silenced, as he must be so that he doesn’t misuse the Ilmodo. But otherwise, he is well-treated and in good health.” He saw her relax slightly. “Thus far,” he added, and the pallid fear returned to her. “You understand that I can make no promises.”
“If it would be possible. . if I could see him, Commandant. .”
