by S L Farrell
“We’re stronger now,” she said to both of them. “We no longer have half of our army fighting a war across the sea.” She tried to say it with confidence, but even she could hear the uncertain quaver in her voice.
“And the Tehuantin, from all reports, are also stronger—they’ve brought easily three times the ships they had before,” Sergei answered. “Between Karnmor and Fossano, they’ve already destroyed most of our navy. Kraljica, if I thought that Commandant ca’Talin could defeat the Tehuantin alone, I would counsel you to ignore the Hïrzg’s counteroffer. But I can’t do that, not in good conscience. Not as a loyal subject of the Sun Throne, who wishes nothing more than the Holdings’ success. I wish I were wrong in this, but I fear that I’m not.” She wasn’t looking at him. She didn’t wish to see his face. “And I think that you know it as well,” he finished.
She continued to stare out at the palais grounds. She could feel her fists clenched at her waist, as if she’d eaten bad shellfish and was trying to quell a rebellious stomach. The damnable man was right; the Garde Civile would fight courageously and well, but in the end, they would fall. And Jan, as he had before, was in position to sweep in and clean up the mess. If he wanted the Sun Throne, he could have it in mere months; all he need do was wait and do nothing until Nessantico was taken and Allesandra herself dead or fled.
“Don’t listen to him,” Erik was saying. “You should be Kraljica for the rest of your life. This offer; it is an insult.”
“Insult or not,” she told the air, “I have no choice.” She turned to the two men. “Sergei, you will have Talbot draft the agreement; I will sign it this afternoon. A’Téni ca’Paim will read the proclamation at service tomorrow. We’ll also send it by fast-rider to Brezno; you will follow as soon as you can, and you will remain with the Hïrzg as my representative until he arrives here in Nessantico with his army.”
She watched Erik’s face as she spoke. She saw the anger he tried to hide. She suspected it was not rage at the decision, but a fear that he might not have what he wanted. Which one of us is using the other? She told herself that she had no answer to that question, but a voice deeper inside laughed at that evasion. You don’t just want to admit the truth . . .
“Why are you both still sitting there?” she barked at the two men. “We’re done here.”
With that, she waved her hand and turned back to the landscape outside once again. She listened as they bowed and hurried away, Sergei’s cane tapping at the marble flags. She stared at the isle and at the buildings of Nessantico, and they no longer seemed hers alone.
Varina ca’Pallo
“HOW HAVE YOU BEEN RECOVERING?” Sergei asked her. “You certainly look well, like you’re a decade younger than you are.”
Sergei had come to the Numetodo House, and Johannes had escorted him down to Varina’s workroom. Varina saw him eyeing the sparkwheel prototype she had set in a vise, pointing at the straw dummy at the far end of the room. This version of the sparkwheel had a significantly longer barrel; she had wondered whether that might improve the accuracy of the shot. Varina flipped a sheet over the apparatus as she laughed at the blatant compliment. “I have to believe that your eyes are failing in your old age then, Sergei. But thank you for the lie.”
“Karl saw your beauty, as I do—though it took him longer than it should have.”
She managed to smile at that, remembering. In the midst of the war, in the midst of death and terror, there had been Karl, and that had made it all bearable. Yet now it seemed those times were to return, and Karl was gone. She didn’t know how she was going to live through another war and more battles.
She wasn’t certain she wanted to.
“The Morellis are becoming more than a simple nuisance, I’m afraid,” Sergei was saying. “Unfortunately, I need to leave the city again, so I can’t join the hunt for Morel himself. However, I’ll make certain that Commandant cu’Ingres understands the importance both the Kraljica and I place on tracking down the man. You were lucky that you were with your people. I understand it was your magic that killed one of them—I hope that you’re not too upset by that. You truly had no choice.” She thought that his gaze was strangely intense on her as he said the last, as if he were watching her for a reaction. She wondered what he’d heard, what he suspected. She forced herself not to look at the covered sparkwheel.
Not magic. Something more dangerous.
“I regret that it came to that,” she told him, truthfully. “If I could have avoided it, I would have. But . . .” She lifted a shoulder. Over her warped reflection in his nose, Sergei’s gaze flicked to the sheet on the table and back again. He leaned heavily on his cane, his back bowed.
“You wouldn’t be who you are if you didn’t feel that way,” Sergei said, “but I assure you that no one blames you in the slightest. The man brought his death upon himself. He has no one to blame but himself and his actions, and—you’ll pardon my saying this here—Cénzi will give him the eternal punishment he deserves.”
“Mentioning Cénzi in the Numetodo House seems almost sacrilegious.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” he answered, chuckling. “I’ll admit I was surprised to find you here. I called at your house, and your house servant said that you’d been working here for the last several days and often staying overnight. I worry about you, Varina, especially after what you’ve been through.”
“A few aches and pains is all,” she told him, “and I had those in plenty before the attack. It comes with age, you know.”
“As we both know.” His gaze went back to the covered apparatus again. “Varina, I think you should leave Nessantico. Go north, perhaps. Maybe go to Il Trebbio. Or even go visit Karl’s homeland. I hear the Isle of Paeti is gorgeous.”
“You think it’s going to be that bad, Sergei?”
His fingers tightened around the knob of his cane. His tongue licked his upper lip. “Yes,” he said. “And no. When Jan brings the Firenzcian army, we should prevail, but that still won’t be without loss and it won’t be without hardship, and it may be that the battle will take place here again, in Nessantico. I hope not, but if the Tehuantin ships move quickly . . .” He nodded, as if he were agreeing with a new thought he’d had. “I think it would be best if you were gone from here.”
“If the battle does come here, then here is where I’m needed.”
He glanced at the sheet again with that. “Talbot could be A’Morce Numetodo for the time being. He can lead and direct them. Unless . . . Unless there is something that only you can do.”
“You’re not very subtle, Sergei.”
“And you’re not very good at keeping secrets, Varina.”
She stared at him blandly. “The Numetodo don’t keep secrets. We want knowledge to flourish. I gave the formula for black sand to you and the Kraljica, if you remember. Freely.”
“Yes, you did. And Nico Morel stole some and used it against you.”
Varina flushed at the memory. “It’s ignorance and secrecy that causes problems with the world,” she said. “Not knowledge.”
“What causes problems is what people do with the knowledge.”
“Strange how often it’s the ca’-and-cu’ who always say that. It’s underneath half the platitudes I hear from the rich: they feel that the lower ranks should be kept uneducated and ignorant.”
Sergei’s eyebrows rose at that. “What strange philosophies have you been listening to, Varina? Next I know, you’ll be claiming that the peasants should enjoy everything that the ca’-and-cu’ have.”
“I grew up in a ce’ family,” she answered. “I know what it’s like to be on the bottom of society.”
“And now you’re ca’, and you also know that it’s possible to be rewarded for your hard work and your intelligence. You’re an example of what every unranked and ce’ person can aspire to accomplish.”
“Possible, perhaps,” she said, “but I would argue that I am the exception rather than the rule, and that there are many unranked and ce’ who deserve
better, and ca’-andcu’ who deserve less.”
Sergei lifted a hand. “No doubt. But who is to determine which? We have to leave that to Cénzi—ah, sorry. There I go again—or, as I suppose you would say, to an accident of fate.” He chuckled again. “And this is an argument neither of us will win, and I’ve no desire to leave you in a poorer mood than I found you. Varina, promise me that you’ll consider leaving the city.”
“I will consider it,” she told him. She didn’t tell him that she had already considered it and made up her mind. Instead, she smiled and put her own hands atop his. Her hands were like his: knobby and wrinkled, the flesh loose on the bones; the hands of an ancient. “Come,” she told him. “Let’s go upstairs where it’s more comfortable, and we can continue our talk over tea and scones.”
Gently, she ushered him from the workroom, locking the door behind them.
Nico Morel
THEY SNUGGLED TOGETHER IN THE BED, and Nico kissed the slope of Liana’s shoulder, tasting the salt of her sweat. Her arms and her legs clutched him tightly, as if she wanted to hold him there forever, though he was held back by the surprising mound of her stomach. He laughed, stroking her hair and staring into her eyes. They were the color of rich earth after a rain, and he could see his own thin, bearded face reflected in them.
For a moment, his vision blurred and darkened, and it was as though there were a third person in the room with them: small and frail, a heart that could be heard above the pounding of his heart and Liana’s, and he thought he saw a form drifting away from them, leaving the room: a child’s form. A girl. He could feel the cold heat that he associated with Cénzi at the same moment. He closed his eyes, opened them again.
“Nico?” Liana asked him. She sounded worried. “You were so far away . . .”
Her arms had loosened around him. He tried to smile at her. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .”
“What did you see?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Or rather, I don’t know.” He stroked Liana’s abdomen. “I thought I saw . . . her.”
“Her?”
Nico gave a small nod. “Her.” He tried to smile, but found it difficult. Something about the brief vision bothered him. Why was the child leaving? Why did she vanish? Why did he not see either himself or Liana in the vision?
“A girl.”
Liana was suddenly weeping, but it was a cry of joy. She flung herself at him, her arms going around his neck as she kissed him. “A girl. Are you happy?” she asked. “Is that what you wanted?”
“No,” he said, then laughed at the face she made. “I mean, it doesn’t matter at all to me. Son or a daughter. All that matters is that the child is ours.” He gestured at the shabby room around them, another in the sequence of houses they’d fled to in Oldtown. “I have so little to offer you,” he said, and now it was Liana who laughed.
“Do you think that’s of any consequence to me?” she told him. “If you do, then Cénzi didn’t tell you everything.” Her arms gathered him to her again. “You offer me all that I want. I want you to be happy. I want us to be happy,” she whispered into his ear. “That’s all.”
“And I am,” he told her. “Liana, we should marry. I will ask Ancel—”
She surprised him then. “No,” she told him, shaking her head. Her hair drifted around her shoulders with the motion. “We should not.”
“Liana?”
She leaned back slightly, still holding him. Her gaze was serious and unblinking. “I know you love me, Nico. I know because you would never lie—not to me, not to anyone. You’ve no guile in you at all. I’m content with your love. And it may be that the Absolute—especially if he becomes what I believe Cénzi intends him to become—may need to marry someone for reasons other than love. He may have to do as the Archigi have done before, and marry to keep the Faith safe.”
He was shaking his head, but he could hear Cénzi inside his head: a deep, low approval, and he knew that she was right. Marriage could wait; it made no difference to his commitment to Liana or their child.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said to her, and she laughed.
“Perhaps not, but you have me, Nico, and I don’t intend to let you go.”
There were a half dozen of the war-téni of Nessantico gathered in the room, as well as a double-handful of the other téni from the city’s three temples. Most of them were young, most of them were e’téni, though a few, especially among the war-téni, had the rank of o’téni. Nico surveyed their faces as he entered the room behind Ancel and Liana. His arm was around Liana’s waist protectively; he saw some of them notice that and smile, as if they were pleased to see that the Absolute of the Morellis, Cénzi’s Voice, the Sword of the Divolonté, was as human as them, that he could love someone and produce an heir.
Nico kissed Liana’s cheek and smiled at her as she and Ancel moved to the side of the crowded room—the largest of three small rooms in their current refuge in Oldtown. The place stank of mold and rat feces, and the boards creaked and groaned under their weight, but Cénzi had told him that none of the Garde Kralji would find them here for now, so it must do. Nico gave them all the sign of Cénzi, which they returned.
They bowed their heads to him as well, every one. Nico nodded at that. He could feel Cénzi’s presence: a heat in the core of his body and a fire in his voice.
“Cénzi has told me that I can trust you,” he said without preamble. “He has shown me the heart of each one of you, and I know you. You have taken a great risk tonight to be here, and He knows this and blesses each of you for your devotion, and I appreciate it as well. I know that you hold the Toustour and the Divolonté to be the true Word of Cénzi. I know that you feel, as I do, that leaders of the Faith have lost their way. Archigos Karrol, A’Téni ca’Paim: they have abandoned Cénzi for the secular world, listening too much to Kraljica Allesandra and Hïrzg Jan and too little to the Great Voice. I tell you . . .”
Nico paused, looking at each of them in turn, holding their gazes. He could sense Cénzi’s power building inside him. He let it do so, let the energy sear the words he would say. They emerged from his mouth as if he were spitting red coals and fire. The words raged in the tiny, dingy room; it wreathed them with Cénzi’s anger. “Cénzi said He would give us a sign, and He has sent us an unmistakable one. He has shown us in fire, in ash, and in blood how angry He is with the Faith. It was not enough that the Faith has coddled the unbelievers, the Numetodo, who deny Him entirely. No. Now He has sent the Tehuantin, heathens who worship a false god, to punish us for having fallen away from Him. There is but one way to save us. To cool Cénzi’s displeasure and to end His punishment, we must take our Faith back. We must take back the Faith for Cénzi, and for the people who truly believe. We must take it back now!”
Nico paused, gathering the energy once again. They were listening to him, rapt in the power of Cénzi’s words. Nico drew himself up, He raised his hands and his face to the bowed ceiling. He let Cénzi take his voice fully. “It is time,” he roared. “It is time to rise up and throw off the Archigos and a’téni who refuse to follow Cénzi’s path.”
The command snapped their heads up, pulled them from their seats. For a moment, it was chaos in the room, with dozens of voices contending as Liana and Ancel tried to calm them. It was only when Nico raised his hands that quiet returned. Nico pointed to one of the war-téni, the slashes of an o’teni on his green robes. “You,” he said. “Tell me why your face is so full of fear.”
The war-téni rubbed a hand through short, dark hair. He glanced around at the others before answering. “Absolute,” the man answered. “You ask us to go against the oaths we have all taken as téni—the oaths that we made to Cénzi.”
“I know that oath. I have taken it myself,” Nico answered. “I pledged to obey the Archigos and to follow the Toustour and Divolonté, as did you. That is why I no longer use the Ilmodo even though Cénzi’s Gift burns within me. But listen to me now: it is the Archigos and the a’téni who listen to him who have brok
en their oaths, for they make it impossible for us to both obey them and obey the Toustour and Divolonté. If the Archigos, with his orders, demands that we break with the Toustour and Divolonté, which come to us through Cénzi, then it is our duty—as téni and by the oath we’ve all taken—to refuse to obey them.”
The o’téni was nodding before Nico finished speaking, and he turned to the others. “Do any of you have more objections? Come, let us hear them.”
One of the e’téni lifted a tentative hand, and Nico gestured to him. “Absolute, there are those who say that you only wish to be Archigos yourself.”
Nico smiled at that, clapping his hands together. “I wish to serve the Faith however Cénzi demands that I serve it. If Cénzi would one day bring me to the Archigos’ throne, then I would be a poor servant if I refused Him. But I’d also be a poor servant if I let pride and desire govern my actions.” He pointed to the téni, then let his finger sweep over all of them. “I would tell you, all of you, that you should watch me as I watch the Archigos, and if you see me ever, ever acting in my own interests rather than those of the Faith, then you should raise your voices against me. Do you wish to do that now? Do you?”
They were silent. Nico let the quiet reign, listening to the sounds of their breaths, the noise their feet made on the rough boards under their feet. Finally, he gave them the sign of Cénzi again. “I thank you,” he said. “And Cénzi thanks you. Now—listen to me. Here is what we must do . . .”
Rochelle Botelli
