A Magic of Dawn

by S L Farrell

  She turned slightly and stroked the soft petals of the sunrise flower once again. Varina watched the bloom bend and spring up again under the Kraljica’s hand. “It’s simple enough. I can’t fight war-téni without magic of my own; you’re the A’Morce Numetodo. If I no longer have the Faith as my ally, if I can’t trust the téni there, then my only hope is to turn to the only rival to them—the Numetodo: your magic, your knowledge, your black sand. And whatever else you have that would change the equation.”

  Varina glanced at her desk, on which a weeping violet drooped small, purple flowers like bloody tears. Below the plant, in the drawer of the desk, was her sparkwheel. “Kraljica, we’ve been friends for a long time now . . .”

  “We have,” Allesandra answered. “Which is the other reason I’ve come to you. I ask for friendship’s sake, too. You know what Morel asks—no, demands—of us?”

  Varina shook his head. Allesandra took a scroll from her pocket, and what she read to Varina stunned her to the core. Her hand trembled at her throat and she wished, at least momentarily, that the shock would sweep over her and take her, that she could join Karl in the sweet oblivion of death. She glanced again at the desk, at the weeping violet and the drawer. It seemed that she could smell the weapon there, the scent of burnt black sand.

  The odor of violence and death.

  “He can’t be serious,” she said. “He can’t really expect you to accept those terms. That’s madness.”

  “Nico Morel is mad,” Allesandra answered. “And he believes that Cénzi will make this happen.” She rose from her seat, and she moved into the sunlight streaming through the window, Varina could see the age in her face: the wrinkles, the sagging of her chin, the gray that was beginning to show in the hair. For a moment, Varina saw Allesandra as she might look in another decade. Then the sun slid over her face and left her in shadow again, and the moment was gone. Varina started to rise with her, but Allesandra waved to her to keep her seat.

  “No, don’t get up. Varina, I can’t wait, as some in the Garde Civile have advised me. I have to take care of this quickly, because I fear that Commandant ca’Talin won’t be able to hold back the Tehuantin, and I can’t have this distraction while trying to fight a greater enemy. I tell you again—I need your help. Nessantico needs our help. I need the Numetodo, and I promise you that if you give me the aid I ask for, then the Numetodo will never have to fear persecution within the Holdings ever again. Will you help?”

  She knew how Karl would have answered. She could almost hear his voice. I know you love Nico, but he’s not the child that we knew. He’s changed, and he’s been terribly damaged, and he’s dangerous. He’s brought this upon himself. “Yes,” she told Allesandra. “I’ll have to talk to the others, but I’m certain they’ll agree. I’ll arrange with Talbot to coordinate things.”

  Allesandra nodded. Her face seemed to relax. “Thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret this, Varina. I promise.”

  Varina pushed herself up from her seat, and Allesandra embraced her gently. “Thank you,” she heard the Kraljica whisper again. Allesandra’s lips brushed Varina’s cheeks momentarily, and the Kraljica turned to leave.

  The wake of her passage smelled of flowers and damp earth.

  Jan ca’Ostheim

  WHEN JAN READ SERGEI THE CONTENTS of the missive from his matarh, the Silvernose didn’t seem startled at all, which told Jan that Sergei already suspected what it said.

  “Morel thinks that he has divine guidance,” Sergei said, rubbing—as he too often did—at the metallic nose glued to his ravaged, wrinkled face. “When one truly believes that Cénzi has set you on a course, you have no limitations. It’s a lesson many of the Kralji have had to learn. Now it’s Allesandra’s turn.”

  They were gathered at the table in the dining “room” of the palais tents. Hïrzgin Brie was there, as was Starkkapitän ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol, who had come down from Brezno. Jan had invited Ambassador ca’Rudka to join them, not only because of the communique from Nessantico, but also because he enjoyed watching Sergei annoy both the starkkapitän and the Archigos.

  “You speak like a Numetodo,” Archigos Karrol said to the man, but Sergei shook his head slowly, his jowls wobbling with the motion.

  “I believe in Cénzi, Archigos, as firmly as do you,” the Ambassador said, and Jan thought he heard a strange sadness in the man’s voice, almost a regret. “I know that I will go to Him when I die, and the soul shredders will weigh me before Him. I believe.” Then he seemed to shiver, and his gaze wandered away from the Archigos and found Jan’s. “It’s not faith that’s the problem, Hïrzg Jan, only blind fanaticism. Morel insists that there is only one true path, and that’s his. Therefore, all the rest of us are wrong. The greater problem is that you have too many téni within the Faith who agree with Morel rather than you.”

  Archigos Karrol spluttered at that. He lifted his bent head against the resistance of his curved spine. His long, white beard waggled; his brown-spotted fist banged at the table, rattling crockery. “I am the authority within the Faith, not this damned Morel. He’s already doomed himself by using the Ilmodo against my direct orders. His hands and tongue are forfeit for that, and his life is mine for the death of poor A’Téni ca’Paim.”

  Jan heard Sergei sniff, saw his eyes, now enveloped in tired folds of skin, widen slightly. “Yes, we in Nessantico saw how well the war-téni obeyed A’Téni ca’Paim, whose authority derives from yours, Archigos. I wonder, if you order the war-téni of Firenczia to move against Morel, will you get the same obedience?”

  The Archigos’ bald skull was pale against the angry flush of his face. He scowled, turning his head sidewise to glare at Sergei. “My war-téni will do as I tell them to do,” he said. Spittle flew with the comment; he didn’t seem to notice. He looked over to Jan. “Hïrzg, Hïrzgin, I find that my appetite has left me, and I need to speak with the téni here to give them the news about A’Téni ca’Paim and arrange for services in her memory. If you’ll forgive me . . .”

  Without waiting for an answer, he gave the sign of Cénzi and pushed away from the table. Two o’téni in attendance rushed to help him. They handed him his staff and he shuffled away, his head facing the carpeted ground as he padded from the tent.

  “I apologize, Hïrzg, Hïrzgin,” Sergei said after the servant had closed the tent flaps—painted in trompe-l’oeil fashion as a massive, carved wooden double set of doors—behind the Archigos. “I only told him the truth.”

  “The truth is often unappetizing,” Brie answered. She glanced at Jan with that, a quick, sharp look. “I’m surprised any of us can eat at the moment.” Jan set down the knife he was using to cut the slice of roast on his plate. Brie smiled at him blandly. “I’d have the servants take that away,” she said, “but there are so few of our private staff left here. I wonder what keeps driving them away?”

  Jan returned the same meaningless smile to his wife.

  Sergei didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange. He stirred in his seat. “Archigos Karrol is deceiving himself if he doesn’t think that there are téni who are sympathetic to the Morellis—especially among the war-téni.”

  “Our war-téni are here,” Starkkapitän ca’Damont interjected. “They’re actively working with me.”

  “They’re here now,” Sergei answered. “But will they be tomorrow, or the day after? The news from Nessantico is just now arriving, and if it was Morel who asked the war-téni to stand down, as he claims, then perhaps that request is only just reaching them.”

  “Sometimes, Ambassador,” ca’Damont retorted, “I believe you’re like an old black crow, with nothing but bad news and gloom to relate. You stink of the prisons you like so much.”

  Jan looked over sharply at ca’Damont with the crude remark, but Sergei lifted a hand, shaking his gray head slightly. “You’ll be happy to know, Starkkapitän, that you’re hardly alone in that opinion,” Sergei told him. “But then, I’m a crow who over the years has dined on the remains of many victim
s who failed to listen to me or who said I was mistaken. I never take much satisfaction in that sort of meal, but it’s one I suspect I’ll continue to enjoy. Perhaps soon.”

  The man’s fork scraped along his plate. Brie snickered nasally. Jan hurried into the conversational gap. “Villembouchure has already fallen, Ambassador. Nessantico will fall, too—again—if Firenzcia doesn’t come to her aid. Do you agree with that?”

  Sergei nodded. “I do. Emphatically. Commandant ca’Talin is an excellent leader and I have nothing but respect for his martial skills, but he doesn’t have the resources he needs.”

  “Why should I provide them?” Jan asked. “Why shouldn’t I let the Tehuantin flail against Matarh’s Garde Civile? Even if they do take the city, they’ll be so wounded in the process that I could take them with half the army I have here, and take the Sun Throne for myself—without waiting, without this treaty she’s sent. The Tehuantin will likely even take care of the Morelli problem. That’s what Starkkapitän ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol are advising me to do.” From down the table, ca’Damont grunted assent. “Why shouldn’t I follow their advice, Ambassador?”

  Sergei sat silent for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his nose. “Because you’re a better man than I am, Hïrzg,” he said. “If it were Brezno facing invasion, and Kraljica Allesandra were considering whether to come to your aid, I might give her the same advice the Starkkapitän and Archigos are giving you now. Remain aloof; let the invaders wear themselves out first, then go in and take everything for yourself afterward. But I know her as well as I know you. She wouldn’t take that advice from me, any more than you will. She would come to your aid, if circumstances were that dire.”

  “You’re awfully confident in your assessment.”

  “I’m the Crow. I’m Old Silvernose,” Sergei answered with a wry, gap-toothed smile. “And I know that you, Hïrzg, even if you were willing to abandon your matarh entirely, you don’t care to inherit a broken empire and a broken city, so ruined that repairing it will make Firenzcia herself a pauper nation. Nessantico holds your heritage, as it does the heritage of everyone in the Holdings or in the Coalition. It is too precious a jewel to simply cast away.”

  The man was warped and twisted. His predilections were odious. But Jan knew of no one alive who knew the intrigues of the nations so well—and the man had once saved his life, as well as his matarh’s. And, in this, he was right.

  Jan nodded. With Sergei’s words, the decision had come to him, falling into place and erasing all the doubts. “That is why I will sign the treaty,” he told them. “I will take Matarh’s offer, and we will ride to Nessantico—if only to preserve the empire that will one day be mine.”

  ILLUMINATIONS

  Niente

  Rochelle Botelli

  Varina ca’Pallo

  Jan ca’Ostheim

  Allesandra ca’Vörl

  Sergei ca’Rudka

  Nico Morel

  Brie ca’Ostheim

  Varina ca’Pallo

  Niente

  Niente

  CITLALI WAS NOT ONE TO HIDE HIS ANGER and displeasure. Niente suspected that was true of all Tecuhtli—when everyone is below you in stature, there’s no need to conceal your feelings.

  Citlali’s face was nearly as ruddy as the eagle tattooed on his bald skull. Even the black, geometric lines of the warrior across his body were dimmed. Behind him, the well-muscled form of the High Warrior Tototl loomed. Citlali pointed at Niente as he entered the tent. “You’ve lied to me,” he said without preamble.

  Niente grasped his spell-staff tightly, feeling the power of X’in Ka trapped within it, and wondering if he would need to use that today. He forced his bowed back to straighten as best he could. He ignored the screaming of his muscles and the urge to sit down. He lifted his face to Citlali and Tototl, let them see the scarred and withered horror that his use of the scrying bowl and the deep enchantments made in the name of the Tecuhtli over the years had made of him, how he aged far more than his years in the service of the Tehuantin. His blind and white left eye stared at Citlali. “Tecuhtli, I have never—”

  “Your own son tells me this,” Citlali interrupted. That, Niente realized, explained why Atl had avoided him this morning, remaining far down the army’s column from the Tecuhtli and Nahual’s escorts. “He says that he also has the gift of Axat’s far-sight,” Citlali continued, “and he insists that your path at Villembouchure nearly led us to disaster. No, be silent!” he roared as Niente started to protest. “Atl said that had we followed the path that Axat showed him, we would not have needed to leave our fleet blocked and tangled in the A’Sele, that we wouldn’t have had the losses we had in the river or at Villembouchure. He says we could have gained an easy victory there, and have sailed with the fleet on up the A’Sele to Nessantico.”

  “And after that?” Niente asked, almost afraid to voice the question. “What did he see past that point?” If Atl could glimpse the twisting paths of the future that far ahead, there was nothing he could do. He would fail in his task, now, and the future he’d seen would slip away entirely.

  Tototl’s face was impassive, but Citlali shrugged. “Atl said that Axat granted him no glimpse of the future past that point. Still, an easy victory at Villembouchure, not having to abandon the river for the road . . .”

  The army of the Tehuantin had taken all they could from the ships, the deep channel they needed hopelessly blocked by the wreckage of the lead vessels of the fleet, the A’Sele effectively barricaded by their own wrecked, halfsunken ships. Now it was the army who carried everything on their backs, or on groaning, scavenged carts pulled by stolen horses and donkeys. Where the wind could have carried them on the backs of the ships without effort, now they were obliged to walk the long miles to Nessantico, to arrive later, to endure the constant attacks of the defenders who would sneak toward their lines, shower them with arrows or attack them with black sand and vanish again.

  Niente understood Citlali’s foul temper.

  “If Atl could see nothing beyond Villembouchure, that is the issue,” he told Citlali and Tototl, and that statement deepened the scowl on the Tecuhtli’s face. “Atl does have Axat’s gift. And I forgive him for coming to you—it was his duty to tell you what he’s seen, Tecuhtli, and I’m pleased that he understands his responsibility. But his far-sight isn’t as deep as mine, and that’s where he’s mistaken. As he admits, he doesn’t see far into the mist. Yes, there was another path that would lead to victory, one that seemed easier and better. But had I advised you to follow it and had you taken that advice, it would have led to our destruction later. We would never have taken Nessantico.”

  Citlali narrowed his eyes, the wings of the eagle moving in concert, and Niente hurried to continue his explanation—to give Citlali the lie he’d prepared against this. His voice was quavering; that only seemed to lend verisimilitude to the tale: the worried Taat explaining the mistakes of the inexperienced son. “In a few days, the remnants of the Easterners’ own fleet would have caught us—from both behind and forward. We would have been snared in their trap, and our army would have drowned in the A’Sele without being able to fight. That was the fate that awaited us, Tecuhtli Citlali. Now . . .” Niente lifted his hands. “Now our ships hamper those coming up the A’Sele in pursuit and the rest of the fleet can turn to handle them; with our army on the road, the rest of their ships can do nothing to us. This is the way of victory, Tecuhtli, as I told you. I never promised that it would be an easy path, or is it that the High Warriors are now afraid of the Easterners?”

  The last was a calculated risk—the Nahual should be outraged that his skill was being questioned. There should be anger in response to anger, and if he could blind Citlali by the accusation, then perhaps the lie might be accepted easily.

  “Afraid?” The roar was the response Niente had expected; the flush deepened on Citlali’s face, as well as on the face of Tototl. Tototl’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, ready to hew Niente’s head
from his shoulders should the Tecuhtli order his death. Niente grasped his spell-staff tighter.

  This was one of the futures he’d glimpsed, and in it, his life was exceedingly short from this point . . .

  But Citlali laughed, suddenly and abruptly, and Tototl’s fingers loosened on his sword hilt. “Afraid?” Citlali roared again, but this time there was no fury in his words, only a deep amusement. “After the dead Easterners I’ve already left behind me?” He laughed again, and Tototl laughed with him, though Niente saw him gauging Citlali closely—Tototl would undoubtedly be the next Tecuhtli, if they all lived long enough. “You promise me that you see me in their great city, Nahual Niente?” he asked. “You promise me that you see our banner flying over their gates?”

  “I promise you that, Tecuhtli Citlali,” Niente told him. His hand had loosened from his staff, and he let his head droop and his spine sag.

  “You need to speak with your son, Nahual,” Citlali said. “A son should believe his Taat, and a nahualli should believe his Nahual.”

  “I will do that, Tecuhtli.” I will, because this was far too dangerous a moment . . . Niente bowed to the Tecuhtli and the High Warriors. “I will indeed.”

  When he returned to his own tent, Niente pulled the scrying bowl from his pack. He filled it with fresh water, took the scrying powders from the pouch at his belt and sprinkled them over the surface once it had stilled. He chanted over the bowl, the ancient words of the X’in Ka coming unbidden as he called upon Axat, praying to Her to show him again the paths that might be. The water hissed, and the emerald light burst from somewhere in the depths, the mist rising above the water. He leaned over the bowl, opening his eyes . . .

  There was the great city, with its odd spires and domes, and there was the fire of spells and black sand trailing smoke in a grim sky. He was outside the walls with the rest of the nahualli, and like the rest of them, he was exhausted. They couldn’t hold back the assault. A fireball screamed down from above them, and though Niente raised his spell-staff to block it, there was nothing there. The fire descended like a shrieking carrion bird, and it slammed into him, and in that future, even with the Tehuantin razing Nessantico to the ground, in the mists beyond that time he also saw the pyramids of Tlaxcala tumbled in smoke and ruin and the eagle banners cast down, with Easterners walking amidst the rubble . . .