A Magic of Dawn (15 page)
Authors: S. L. Farrell
“It doesn’t have to be yours alone.”
“Yes, it does,” Niente said, and the words came out more sharply than he’d intended, snapping Atl’s head back as if he’d been slapped. The young man’s eyes were slitted, and he shot a glance of raw fury at Niente for a moment before turning his head slightly to stare deliberately out toward the bay.
“Take care of him,”
Xaria had told him before they left.
“He loves you, he respects you, and he admires you. He wants so much to make you proud of him—and I worry that he’ll do something foolish in the effort . . .”
“Take care of him,”
Xaria had told him before they left.
“He loves you, he respects you, and he admires you. He wants so much to make you proud of him—and I worry that he’ll do something foolish in the effort . . .”
Xaria didn’t understand. Neither did Atl, and he could tell neither of them. He couldn’t allow Atl to use the scrying spells, not because of the cost of them—though that was signficant—but because he knew that Atl had the Gift as he did, and he could not let Atl see what he saw in the bowl. He could not. If Atl saw what he saw, Niente could lose the Long Path. Axat’s glimpses of the future were fickle, and easily changed. “I’m sorry,” he said to Atl. “But it’s important.”
“I’m certain it is,” Atl said, “because the Nahual is always right, isn’t he?” With that, Atl gave a mocking obeisance to Niente and stalked away toward the other nahualli even as Niente stretched out his arm toward him. Niente blinked; through his remaining eye, he saw Atl stride into the group.
He could feel them all, staring back up the hill toward him and wondering: wondering if Atl would soon challenge his Taat as Nahual, wondering if perhaps they should do it first.
Their gazes were appraising and challenging and without any mercy or sympathy at all.
F
ROM THE STREET, SERGEI WATCHED Commandant cu’Ingres’ squad crowd around the door of the shabby, rundown building in Oldtown in the gray dawn. The stench of the butcheries up the street filled their nostrils. There were four men at the front, another three around the rear door, and two each in the space between the house and its neighbors. There was also a quartet of war-téni lent to them by A’Téni ca’Paim—they huddled around the front door, already beginning chants of warding.
ROM THE STREET, SERGEI WATCHED Commandant cu’Ingres’ squad crowd around the door of the shabby, rundown building in Oldtown in the gray dawn. The stench of the butcheries up the street filled their nostrils. There were four men at the front, another three around the rear door, and two each in the space between the house and its neighbors. There was also a quartet of war-téni lent to them by A’Téni ca’Paim—they huddled around the front door, already beginning chants of warding.
The morning was chilly, and Sergei wrapped his cloak tighter around his shoulders. The street was empty—there was an utilino stationed at the nearest crossroads to stop people from entering, and crowds had gathered behind them to watch. Those neighbors who had noticed the Garde Kralji moving in stayed judiciously in their houses. Sergei could see the occasional flicker of a face at the curtains, though there’d been no movement at the house they were about to enter.
That twisted his lips into a frown. The tip had come from a good informant, and had been “verified” by the interrogation of two suspected Morelli sympathizers in the Bastida. Sergei was hopeful that this sweep would catch Nico Morel. Yet . . .
“Now!” cu’Ingres shouted, waving his hand. One of the war-teni gestured, and the door of the house exploded into slivers of wood, accompanied by a loud boom and dark smoke. The Garde Kralji rushed inside, brandishing swords and shouting for anyone inside to surrender.
Sergei heard their calls go unanswered. He scowled and started across the street, his cane tapping on the cobblestones—Commandant cu’Ingres following at Sergei’s measured, careful pace—even as the o’offizier in charge of the squad came to the door, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Ambassador, Commandant,” he said, standing aside as Sergei entered the house, his knees cracking as he stepped up onto the raised threshold. He could hear gardai searching the rooms upstairs, their boots loud on the floorboards above. “There doesn’t appear to be anyone here.”
“No. They knew we were coming,” Sergei said. The room in which he stood was sparsely furnished: a table whose scarred surface a square of stained linen did little to conceal; a few rickety chairs with wicker seats in need of recaning. It seemed that if the Morellis had lived here, they hardly lived in luxury. He went to the hearth in the outer room and crouched down, groaning as his legs protested. He held his hand out over the ash: he could feel heat still radiating up from the coals underneath. He stood again. “They were here only last night. Someone warned them.”
He scratched at the skin near his false right nostril. On the mantel above the hearth, there was only a neatlyfolded piece of parchment; lettering looped over the front and Sergei leaned in closer to read it: his own name, written in an elegant, careful script. He snorted laughter through his metal nose.
“Ambassador?” Cu’Ingres was peering over Sergei’s shoulder. “Ah,” he said. “Then our informant was right.”
“Right about the location. Wrong with the timing,” Sergei said. He plucked the paper from the mantel and opened the stiff parchment.
Sergei—I’m sorry to have missed you. Cénzi tells me that someday you and I must talk. But not today. Not until I’ve accomplished the tasks He has given to me. I would like to think that perhaps now you’ll see that I am only doing His work, but I suspect your eyes, like those of the Kraljica and the A’Téni, are blinded. I’m sorry for that, and I will pray for Cénzi to give you sight.
It was signed simply “Nico.”
It was signed simply “Nico.”
“We won’t find anything here,” Sergei told cu’Ingres. “Have your men search the place thoroughly in case they’ve missed something important, but they won’t have. The Morellis have an informant of their own, either in the Garde Kralji or—more likely—within the Faith. We’ve missed them.”
He poked at the ash in the fireplace with the tip of his cane until he saw glowing red. He let the note drift from his hand onto the coals. The edges of the paper darkened, lines of red crawling over it before it burst into flame. “I won’t let this happen a second time,” he said: to cu’Ingres, to the paper, to the ghost of Nico.
The paper went to dry ash, fragments of it lifting and rising up the flue. Sergei shrugged his cloak around his shoulders. He slammed his cane hard once on the floor of the house, and left.
“We’ll be successful next time,” Sergei said. “I promise you that.”
He watched Varina shrug in the light streaming in between the lace curtains of the window. The patterns of the lace speckled her face and shoulders with dappled light and put her eyes in deep shadow. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” she said, “but part of me is glad Nico escaped you, Sergei. I think Karl would have felt the same.”
The teapot on the table between them clattered as Sergei adjusted himself in the chair. “Your compassion is admirable, and is what makes everyone—including Karl—love you.”
“But?” Varina put down her teacup. Lace-shadow crawled across the back of her hands.
Now it was Sergei who lifted his shoulders. “Compassion isn’t always good for the State.”
“Would you have said that back when the Numetodo were called heretics and condemned to death?” Varina retorted softly. She looked out to the curtained window and back again. “Would you have said that when Kraljiki Audric and the Council of Ca’ named
you
a traitor?”
you
a traitor?”
Sergei put his hands up in front of him as if to stop an onslaught. He remembered the time he’d spent in the Bastida after Audric’s condemnation of him all too well: how frightened he’d been that what he’d done to many others would now be done to him, and how it had been Karl and Varina who had saved him from that fate, at the risk of their own lives and freedom. “I yield,” he said. “The lady has taken the field.”
Varina almost smiled at that. The expression was momentary, but Sergei grinned in response—it was the first time he’d seen her show a trace of amusement since Karl’s final illness. He reached out and patted her hand; the skin sagging around his bones made her hands look youthful by comparison. “The boy’s had a hard life,” she said. “Snatched away from his poor matarh by that horrid madwoman, the White Stone. What kind of life could the boy have had? We have no idea what horrors he might have experienced with her.”
“I agree, we can’t know that. However, he’s no longer a boy but a man who must be responsible for his actions,” Sergei said, then lifted his hands again as he saw Varina start to answer. “I know, I know. ‘The child shapes the man.’ I know the saying, and yes, there’s truth to it, but still . . .” He shook his head. “Nico Morel isn’t the boy we knew, Varina, no matter how much you’d like that to be true. His last action killed five of your friends and injured many others.”
“I know,” she answered sadly. “And I’m not saying he should have no punishment for that. Nor do I think him the monster you’d make him out to be, even after what he’s said, even after what he did to—” She stopped there. He heard the catch in her voice and saw the moisture gather in her eyes, and he knew what she wouldn’t say. Varina sniffed and gathered herself. “But
compassion
. . . You’re wrong about that, Sergei. You’re wrong about what I’m feeling. A dog gone mad can’t be blamed for its madness, but it still must be dealt with for the good of all. I understand that, Sergei. But if the dog is
mine,
then it’s my duty to deal with him. Mine.”
compassion
. . . You’re wrong about that, Sergei. You’re wrong about what I’m feeling. A dog gone mad can’t be blamed for its madness, but it still must be dealt with for the good of all. I understand that, Sergei. But if the dog is
mine,
then it’s my duty to deal with him. Mine.”
Her voice was fervent, and Sergei wondered at the urgency he heard there.
“Just promise me that if you hear from Nico, for any reason, that you’ll tell Commandant cu’Ingres immediately,” he said. “He’s promised to watch over you while I’m in Brezno, but I worry about the Morellis, especially after Karl’s funeral. Cénzi knows what they’re capable of doing. Dealing with him yourself would be risky. From what Archigos ca’Paim has told me, his skills with the Ilmodo are positively frightening, if he would choose to use them. Promise me you’ll be cautious. Promise me that you won’t make any effort to contact him. This particular mad dog threatens everyone in the city; let the city deal with him.”
Another smile, this one far fainter than the last. “You sound like Karl now. I’ve always believed that caution was overrated,” she said, and the smile broadened suddenly. “And you, Sergei—you’ll be careful yourself?”
“Hïrzg Jan, though it probably shows his lack of judgment, seems to like me despite the frigid relationship between him and his matarh,” Sergei told her. “And in any case, I’m only the messenger for Kraljica Allesandra.”
And sometimes the messenger is blamed when the message isn’t the one they want to hear . . .
Sergei smiled even as the doubt crept into his mind. Jan wouldn’t like Allesandra’s message, that was certain. He suspected that Allesandra was going to dislike Jan’s reply just as much.
And sometimes the messenger is blamed when the message isn’t the one they want to hear . . .
Sergei smiled even as the doubt crept into his mind. Jan wouldn’t like Allesandra’s message, that was certain. He suspected that Allesandra was going to dislike Jan’s reply just as much.
You’re getting too old for this . . .
That thought kept rising to the surface, more and more. He
was
tired, and the thought of several days in a carriage on the road and the pounding his body would take from that, and the discomfort of the inns and strange beds along the way . . .
That thought kept rising to the surface, more and more. He
was
tired, and the thought of several days in a carriage on the road and the pounding his body would take from that, and the discomfort of the inns and strange beds along the way . . .
Too old . . .
“Take care of yourself, Varina,” he said. “Be careful, and please remember what I said about Nico.” Grimacing, Sergei pushed his chair back and rose. He took up his cane, leaning against the table. Varina rose with him, going to him and hugging him. One-handed, he returned the gesture.
“And you take care of yourself,” she told him. “And watch yourself with the court ladies, Ambassador. I hear that in Brezno, they aren’t as . . . discreet as we are here.”
It won’t be ladies of the court with whom I consort . . .
“I’m afraid that when they look on me, the court ladies wish to do nothing more than flee the room,” he told her, touching his nose. He pressed her tightly once more, then released her. “I’ll call on you again as soon as I return. I promise.”
“I’m afraid that when they look on me, the court ladies wish to do nothing more than flee the room,” he told her, touching his nose. He pressed her tightly once more, then released her. “I’ll call on you again as soon as I return. I promise.”
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