by S L Farrell
She licked at dry lips. “I would be grateful, and perhaps such a favor could be returned to you.”
“You offer me a bribe, O’Teni?” he asked, smiling to gentle the blow.
She said nothing. Did nothing.
He nodded, finally. “You will be part of the Kraljica’s final procession this evening?” She nodded in mute answer. “As I will be. Afterward, I could perhaps accompany you when you take your leave. The Archigos would understand that I might have questions for you regarding Envoy ci’Vliomani. If I happened to escort you here, neither the Archigos nor the A’Kralj would be surprised, and perhaps I might be persuaded to let you see Envoy ci’Vliomani for a few moments. As a. . favor.”
“I would be in your debt, Commandant.”
“Yes,” he answered solemnly. “You would indeed, O’Teni cu’Seranta.”
He saw the way she drew back a step with his statement, and the furtive, reflexive manner in which she tightened her robes around her. The sight gave him a small satisfaction. “Tonight, then.”
She nodded and drew the hood over her head. As she reached the door, he called out to her. “We both believe Envoy ci’Vliomani is innocent, O’Teni. But what we believe may be of no matter.”
Mahri
The massive twin heads of two ancient Kraljiki, set on either side of Nortegate, gleamed eerily with teni-fire. At night, their features were illuminated from within the hollow stone so that they appeared almost demonic, but rather than facing out as they usually did, glaring at any potential invaders, the e’teni tending them had used the power of the Ilmodo to turn the heavy sculptures inward so that the great, scowling visages glared eastward: toward the oncoming procession of the Kraljica as it paraded slowly along the gleaming Avi a’Parete toward the Pontica Kralji and the Isle A’Kralj, where the final ceremony would be held. They seemed angry, perhaps furious that the Kraljica had been taken from the city in the midst of the celebration of her Jubilee.
The procession coiled along the Avi like a thick, gilded snake caught in the famous teni-lights of the city, which gleamed in doubled brilliance tonight. First came a phalanx of the Garde Kralji in their dress uniforms, led by Commandant ca’Rudka. Their stern, forbidding faces cleared the crowds from the Avi, pushing any errant pedestrians back into the onlookers who lined the Avi and clogged the openings to the side streets. More of the Garde Kralji, in standard uniform and bearing pole arms, marched slowly on either side of the Avi, herding the crowds and watching for any signs of disturbance.
Given the reputation of the Garde Kralji for cruelty and thoroughness, it was hardly surprising that there were none.
Then came the chevarittai of the city, astride their horses and in their field armor, polished and gleaming. In the midst of them was a lone, riderless white horse, shielded by their lances and their swords.
The chevarittai paraded by, grim-faced and solemn, the hooves of their destriers loud on the cobblestones of the Avi.
Then came the Sun Throne from which the Kraljica had ruled for her five decades, floating effortlessly above the stones through the effort of several chanting teni who paced with it, the eternal light inside the crystalline facets alive and gleaming a sober, sullen ultramarine, as if the throne itself understood the import of the moment.
Two-dozen court musicians paced behind the throne, dressed in bone-white, their horns and pipes inflicting an endless dirge on the onlookers that echoed belatedly from the buildings on either side.
The Archigos’ carriage followed the musicians at a judicious distance from the cacophony, bearing the Archigos as well as several of the older (and less mobile) a’teni currently in residence in Nessantico, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca among them.
Behind the Archigos was a long double line of green-robed a’teni and u’teni, all of them chanting, their hands moving in the patterns of spells. In the air above them flickered images of the Kraljica as she had been when she was alive: not solid illusions, but wispy ghosts shimmering in the air, far larger than life and looming over the mourners in the street below.
The Kraljica’s carriage was next. She had been placed in a glass coffin, and a quartet of chanting teni stood at each corner, molding the Ilmodo so that the carriage itself could not be seen and the Kraljica’s coffin appeared to float in a golden, smoky glow that smelled of trumpet flowers and anise, and from which came the sound of high voices singing a choral lament. A shower of trumpet flower petals rained from the cloud under the coffin, carpeting the Avi and those in the front ranks of the onlookers in fragrant yellow.
The A’Kralj’s carriage wheels crushed the trumpet flower petals underneath. Directly behind his matarh’s coffin and flanked by a stern border of Garde Kralji, all of whom stared intently at the onlookers, the A’Kralj sat alone and solemn, wrapped in thick furs, his face covered with a golden mourning mask on the cheeks of which were set twin, tear-shaped rubies, though his fingers were conspicuously bare of ornamentation. His carriage was not teni-driven, but pulled by a trio of horses in a four-horse harness.
Finally, the ca’-and-cu’ families themselves followed in careful order of their social rank, dressed in ostentatious white and with heads re-spectfully bowed. A squadron of the Garde Civile from the local garrison protected them from the commoners who closed in after the procession passed, filling the Avi again.
All of Nessantico, it seemed, had turned out to watch the Kraljica’s final procession around the ring of the Avi: young, old, from the ca’ all the way down to the ce’ and the unregistered. Many of them held lighted candles, so that it seemed that the stars had fallen from the sky to land here. For the vast majority of them, the Kraljica had been the only ruler of Nessantico they’d known, all their lives. As Kralji went, hers had been a quiet reign, especially for the last few decades. Now they watched her last promenade through the city that had been her home, and they wondered what the future might bring.
Mahri wondered that as well. He watched from the inner side of the avenue, near the flanks of the Registry building. Even among the packed crowds in Oldtown, Mahri was left in his own space. The masses of people around him sighed but left him alone, a dark mote in the teni-lit brilliance of the funeral procession.
Mahri had watched the slow, solemn procession pass the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli some time ago, and he had hurried through the maze of Oldtown to see it again here at Nortegate. He had wanted to make certain of something.
As the dirge of the court musicians began to fade, the Archigos’ carriage passed into Nortegate Square. Alongside the Archigos’ carriage walked several of his staff, among them O’Teni cu’Seranta. It was her that Mahri leaned forward to see.
He’d prepared the spell before he’d come here, after images of O’Teni cu’Seranta dominated several of the auguries he’d performed.
He spoke a guttural word (causing those nearest him to glance over at the strange sound), and made a motion as if shooing away a persistent fly. He could see the X’in Ka-what the teni called the Ilmodo and the Numetodo called Scath Cumhacht-twisting in response, though he knew the movement was invisible to anyone else there. That was his gift, that he could see it: tendrils of energy, like the wavering of sunlight above a still lake, wrapped around the Archigos’ carriage. No one there reacted. But O’Teni cu’Seranta. .
Her head was down as if praying. He thought for a moment that nothing would happen, then he saw her glance up, slowly, though her eyes were bright and suspicious and her fingers reflexively curled as if she wanted to make a warding. It was enough; he released the spell, let it evaporate as if it had never been there. Her reaction had been slug-gish; he’d hoped for a more immediate and stronger response, but it was possible she had been lost in her prayers for the Kraljica and her grief, distracted by the noise and the crowds.
But she had felt him. She was able to sense the very movements of the X’in Ka, not simply manipulate it. He knew that much; it was more than the Numetodo ci’Vliomani could do. She was still glancing around, as if searching for the source
of the energy she had felt. He pushed back into the shadows of the Registry so she wouldn’t see him.
Perhaps it could be her. Perhaps. If circumstance didn’t interfere. If the gods smiled. If he was interpreting the images in the augury-bowl correctly. If he wasn’t simply wrong. .
There were too many ifs. .
But perhaps. .
The Archigos’ carriage and O’Teni cu’Seranta had passed him now, moving on toward the Pontica Kralji and the final ceremony. The sculptured heads flanking the Nortegate swiveled as the Kraljica passed, their fiery gazes tracking the carriage that held her body. The coffin still floated in its golden cloud-the teni creating the illusion replaced as the effort of the spell became too exhausting. The four there now were not the four Mahri had seen when the procession passed the Pontica a’Breze Nippoli, and already he could sense the weakness in the X’in Ka-they were flagging and would soon be relieved themselves.
The teni were so weak.
The heads stared at the Kraljica and also caught Mahri in their fiery scowl, as if they were chastising him for his arrogance. He turned his back to them, striding away from the Avi and ignoring the comments of the crowd as he pushed through them. A block south of the Avi, the crowds had vanished and the sound of chanting and music faded, replaced by the familiar clamor of Oldtown.
If he reached the Pontica Kralji before the Kraljica’s procession, he could cross over to the Isle and watch the passing of the Kraljica into history.
He wondered how quickly the new Kraljiki might follow her.
Ana cu’Seranta
The tower stank of mold and urine and fear, and the torches set in their sconces accentuated the darkness rather than banishing it. The long climb left the muscles in her leg aching, but she wasn’t going to give the commandant the satisfaction of her pain.
Ana’s heart sank when Karl turned at the sound of footsteps outside his cell and she saw his chained hands and the awful device clamped around his head. The commandant nodded to the garda outside the door, who took the keys from his belt and opened the cell door. “You may go eat your supper, E’Garda,” ca’Rudka said, inclining his head toward the spiral stone staircase. The man saluted and hurried away. The commandant stepped aside and gestured to Ana to enter; he followed behind her.
“Envoy ci’Vliomani, I’ve brought someone to see you. I assume I have your word as before not to use the Ilmodo?”
A nod. The commandant moved behind Karl and took the silencer from his head. Karl grimaced and drew his sleeve over his saliva-slick mouth. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said to Ana, and she thought or a moment that he was truly angry. “But I’m glad you did,” he added.
“I could see the flames of the Kraljica’s pyre from here.” He nodded toward the open shutters of the balcony, where flickering yellow still touched the stones. “You were there?”
Ana nodded. “I watched the A’Kralj take the scepter and ring from her hands. The Archigos lit the pyre with the Ilmodo. The heat was almost too much to bear. I’ve never felt a fire so intense. .” She stopped, realizing that she was talking only to keep away the silence. She heard the clatter of metal against metal and saw the commandant holding a set of heavy cuffs, the thick rings of metal opened.
“I would leave the two of you alone to talk,” he said, “but I’d be failing in my duty if I did so without making certain you can’t use the Ilmodo, O’Teni cu’Seranta.”
“I will give you my word, Commandant,” Ana told him. She was looking more at the manacles than at him.
“And I would take it, except that if you were to break your word and help the Envoy to escape, then I would be the one sitting in this cell. As I’ve already told the Envoy, I know the Bastida all too well, and I have made enemies in my career who would no doubt take great delight in my pain. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take. So. .” He smiled, jingling the manacles. “I will accept your word, O’Teni, but I will also have your hands bound while you’re here so that I know your word will be kept. I’ll give you my word that I’ll return in a turn of the glass to release you. That is, if my word is something you’re willing to accept. . ”
He raised his eyebrows, proffering the manacles. Reluctantly, Ana extended her hands to him. The steel was lined with leather, with dark stains that Ana tried to ignore. The shackles pinched her skin as the commandant pressed the halves around her wrists and locked them together. The harsh click of the lock sent panic rushing through her: he could keep her here; he could take her to one of the cells in the Bastida and do whatever he wished to her-torture her, rape her, kill her.
He must have sensed her growing panic. He stepped back. “My word is law here, O’Teni, and I don’t make promises that I won’t keep,” he told her. “One turn of the glass, and I will take these away from you.”
Ana nodded. The commandant glanced from her to Karl. “And I trust your word as well, Envoy,” he said. With that, he left the cell, locking the door behind him. They heard his footsteps on the stairs.
“Ana,” Karl said, bringing her gaze away from the locked and barred door. “I had nothing to do with the Kraljica’s death. Nothing. I swear to you.”
“I believe you,” she told him. “Only Cenzi knows why, but I do.”
“How are you? Does the Archigos know you were with me when I was arrested?”
“The commandant told him, I’m certain. He seems mostly, I don’t know, disappointed. Dejected. But he has more important issues.”
“And you? Have you been able to find the Scath Cumhacht, the Ilmodo, as you did before?”
She could only shake her head, not trusting her voice. “I’m sorry,”
he told her. She felt his bound hands touch hers. Their fingers linked. “I wish I could show you,” he said quietly. “I wish I could teach you.”
“I wish that, too,” she told him. His head bent toward her. His lips brushed her hair, her forehead. She remembered her vatarh doing the same to her: at night, in the darkness. With her vatarh, she had trembled and turned her face away. With him, she had endured the embrace and the touch. With him, she had felt nothing but ice and fear.
It was not what she felt now. She lifted up her face to meet Karl’s.
She felt the trembling of her lips against his as they touched. She closed her eyes, feeling only the kiss. Only the kiss.
She drew away from him. “Ana?” he asked.
“Don’t say anything,” she told him. Her hands still held his. She leaned her head against his shoulder. She felt him start to move to put his arms around her, but there was only the clanking of chains and a muttered curse. “It’s all fallen apart,” she said. “Everything I thought I had. Everything I might have wanted.”
“I’m so sorry, Ana.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I. . I lost my faith.”
“I did once, too,” he told her, his breath warm on her ear. “And I found a new one. A better one.”
“I glad you could,” she told him. “I can’t.”
He stepped back from her then, though he would not let go of her hands. Iron clinked unmusically in response. “You have to have faith in yourself first,” he told her, and she made a scoffing noise as she turned her head. The yellow light of the Kraljica’s funeral prowled the stones of the tower. She released his hands and went to the opening to the balcony. Vertigo swept over her momentarily as
she looked at the shelf of stone and the long fall below. She clung to the side of the balcony, staring out rather than down. The Avi was a circlet of glowing pearls around the city, and the waters of the A’Sele glittered and reflected the teni-lights. The Kraljica’s-no, the Kraljiki’s-palais on the Isle was brilliant, all the windows alive with teni-lights or candelabras, and the gilded roofs of the temples shimmered in their own radiance. Between the Old Temple and the Palais, the embers of the Kraljica’s pyre still threw tongues of flame and whirling sparks at the stars.
Out there, the teni worked: keeping Nessantico alive and vital.
Nessantico held back the night, refusing to allow it dominion. Like your faith once did for you, she thought.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Karl said behind her. She nodded.
“My vatarh. .” She started to tell him about how he’d said he could see the city at night from afar, and stopped herself. She didn’t want to talk about her vatarh. He was dead, as far as she was concerned. “Tell me about you,” she told him. “Tell me more about the Numetodo. Please. Let’s sit here, where we can look out at the city. .”
She asked him because she didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk.
She only wanted to sit next to him, to feel his warmth on her side, and listen to his voice. The words didn’t matter, only his presence.
She wondered if he realized that.
They sat, and he talked, and she half-listened, her own thoughts
crashing against themselves in her head so loudly that they nearly drowned out his voice.
Bonds
Jan ca’Vorl
From the wooded crown of the rise, the army spread out along the valley like a horde of black ants on the march. Dust enveloped them in a tan, hazy cloak as they trudged along the rutted, boot-stamped dirt of the Avi a’Firenzcia. The western horizon promised rain, and their banners hung limp in a breezeless air, stained with the same tan that caked the boots of the foot soldiers and packed the hooves of the cheverittai’s horses. Faintly, Jan could hear the sound of the drummers beating cadence.
Jan watched as a single rider broke off from the main force and galloped toward the ridge where he, Starkkapitan ca’Staunton, Allesandra, and Markell were watching. Markell gestured to one of the starkkapitan’s offiziers, standing with their own horses judiciously downhill from the group above. An offizier saluted and mounted, intercepting the rider; they exchanged words and a packet. The offizier gestured back up the hill. “Your pardon, my Hirzg,” Markell said. Nudging the side of his horse with his bootheels, he rode down and spoke for a few minutes with the rider before returning to the ridge.
