A Magic of Dawn (22 page)
Authors: S. L. Farrell
Ancel’s eyes widened and he bowed low to Nico with the sign. “The scroll . . . Here it is.” He held out the paper to Nico, but Nico smiled at his friend and shook his head.
“I won’t need it. Cénzi will give me words.”
Another bow. Nico went to the podium as the crowd redoubled their noise. He lifted his hands, his eyes closed as he looked to the sky. He could feel the sun on his face, could feel the crowd’s adulation strike him like a physical blow. “For you, Cénzi,” he whispered. “For you.”
He opened his eyes, and gestured to them to be quiet. Slowly, they obeyed. “Cénzi blesses you all today,” he said, and he heard Cénzi enter his voice, heard it sound loud and booming over the park like an a’téni using the Ilmodo to amplify his Admonition, yet Nico had created no such spell. No, this was Cénzi’s presence, warping the Second World around his words so that everyone could hear him.
“I have prayed, my people,” he said, “and I have listened, and I have heard Cénzi’s Voice.” His last phrase was a roar that lashed the audience and seemed to sway the very trees of the park, and the people roared back at him wordlessly. “The time is coming, He has told me, when we must make a choice, when we must decide if we follow His path or that of weak humans. The time is coming—and it is coming soon, my friends, very soon—when we must show Him that we have heard His words and that we will obey them. The words are there for us. We hear them in the Toustour and the Divolonté. We have heard them read in the Admonitions in the temples. We have heard them in prophets and through the téni, but . . .” He paused momentarily, closing his eyes and lifting his face again. “The end times approach us. They come slowly, unstoppable. The téni of the Faith no longer hear Cénzi’s words. Oh, they say them, but they don’t
hear
them, they don’t
feel t
hem. The words of the Toustour and the Divolonté should strike you like the very fist of Cénzi. They tear at your soul and rebuild it anew, if you let them. I tell you: this is what we need now. We need to open ourselves to Cénzi and let Him make us into his spear!”
hear
them, they don’t
feel t
hem. The words of the Toustour and the Divolonté should strike you like the very fist of Cénzi. They tear at your soul and rebuild it anew, if you let them. I tell you: this is what we need now. We need to open ourselves to Cénzi and let Him make us into his spear!”
The words were fire in his mouth. The heat of them blasted the people before him, and they again shouted their affirmation. “Tell us, Absolute One!” someone shouted, and they all took up the chant. “Tell us! Tell us!”
Nico listened to them for several breaths, his chest heaving from the effort of speaking. He lifted his hands finally and they went silent again. In the hush, in the quiet, he began to speak, and though his voice was but a whisper, they could all hear him. He could hear his voice rebounding from the temple walls on the far side of the park.
“Cénzi has told me that we can no longer tolerate the heretics among us. We can no longer even tolerate those who wear the green robes but who fail to hear Him when He speaks. The Archigos and his a’téni speak with false tongues. We can no longer tolerate those whom this world has blessed with power and money but who do not see that those blessings derive from Cénzi, not themselves. He has told me this: He will give us a sign. He will bring fire and destruction. He will bring death and darkness. He will demonstrate to us our folly so that we may all see it, and when He does . . .”
Another pause. He enunciated each of the next words clearly. Slowly. Each in its own breath. “We. Must. Respond.”
They shouted, they applauded, they raised their hands. But Nico, looking over them, could see at the rear of the crowd Garde Kralji in their uniforms, squadrons of them pouring into Temple Park. “The sign is coming!” he shouted. “We will know it soon! I promise you this because He has promised it to me. But, look—” he pointed then to the Garde Kralji, “—there are those who want to prevent you from hearing my words. They would stop me from speaking Truth, because Truth is their enemy. Look!”
The crowd turned. They saw the Garde Kralji and they shouted. As the gardai pressed forward, trying to reach the stage, the crowd pushed back. The gardai, armed with batons, responded. Some of the crowd went down under the assault. One of the e’téni in the crowd unleashed a spell: a blast of fire that went howling into the ranks of the gardai.
Suddenly, it was chaos—many in the crowd pushing through the new gap in the gardai’s ranks. Batons rose and fell, and there was now open fighting in the park. Utilino whistles shrilled, and the Ilmodo was now being wielded against the crowd. A controlled blast of wind hit near the front of the stage, sending the closest onlookers sprawling onto the dirt and grass of the park, as well as blowing Nico backward into Ancel. “Absolute!” Ancel shouted above the din of the fray. “We must leave! Now!”
Nico stared outward. There was nothing he could do here, and Cénzi was silent in his head. “They don’t listen to me,” he said. “This is unnecessary. The Faithful should not be fighting each other.”
More gardai were coming into the park, some of these in the uniform of the Garde Civile, and armed with swords and spears rather than batons. He saw bloodied heads. Nico started toward the front of the stage, but Ancel took his arm. Liana had clambered on stage now, along with several others of his inner circle, and they were all around him. “You will see!” Nico shouted toward the crowd, but his voice was only his voice now, and if they heard, they paid him little attention. He was exhausted, as tired as if he’d been using the Ilmodo. He sagged in the hands of his people and they hurried him to the rear of the stage and down the steps. “We’re done here,” Ancel told them. “Now we must protect the Absolute One and get him away. Quickly.”
Nico took Liana’s hand as his followers closed ranks around him, and they fled into the depths of Temple Park toward the maze of the Oldtown streets.
P
IERRE’S WORKSHOP WAS IN THE REAR GARDEN of the Numetodo House grounds on South Bank. It stank of iron, oil, wood, and varnish, as well as Pierre’s unfinished sausage, which sat half-eaten on a side table in the cluttered room. Every work surface was filled; no wood showed on any of the tabletops. Instruments and strange devices sat around in various stages of assembly. Varina could only guess at what half of them might be. The room was lit by sun streaming in from several ivy-fringed skylights; the sheets of light illuminated air that was full of wood dust: Pierre was sanding a board set in a vise on one of the tables.
IERRE’S WORKSHOP WAS IN THE REAR GARDEN of the Numetodo House grounds on South Bank. It stank of iron, oil, wood, and varnish, as well as Pierre’s unfinished sausage, which sat half-eaten on a side table in the cluttered room. Every work surface was filled; no wood showed on any of the tabletops. Instruments and strange devices sat around in various stages of assembly. Varina could only guess at what half of them might be. The room was lit by sun streaming in from several ivy-fringed skylights; the sheets of light illuminated air that was full of wood dust: Pierre was sanding a board set in a vise on one of the tables.
“A’Morce,” he said, suddenly noticing her standing at the door. He dropped the sanding block in a flurry of bright motes. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
As she entered, Pierre plucked up a half-dozen wood chisels from the seat of a chair, and shooed away the cat that had been curled in their midst. He gestured for Varina to sit, as the cat hissed in irritation and went under the nearest table to lick her paws and sulk.
“I understand the Morellis caused a full-scale riot in Temple Park yesterday,” Pierre said. “At least a dozen dead, from what I heard, but that bastard Morel escaped.”
Varina nodded silently. The complex guilt gnawed at her her again: for having let Nico live when she could have killed him; for allowing herself to think she could be his judge and executioner; for having failed Karl; for still having maternal feelings for Nico after all these years; for thinking that there was something about the young man that was redeemable; for the strange sympathy she found she had for him.
For what she was about to do now.
Karl, is this what I should do? Is this what you’d have done as A’Morce?
The grief washed over her again at the thoughts and she had to turn away from Pierre for a moment. Everyone had warned her it would be this way: that the mourning would ebb away only slowly, that for a long time she’d suddenly remember Karl and the sorrow would take her again.
The grief washed over her again at the thoughts and she had to turn away from Pierre for a moment. Everyone had warned her it would be this way: that the mourning would ebb away only slowly, that for a long time she’d suddenly remember Karl and the sorrow would take her again.
Pierre must have thought she’d caught a speck of dust in her eye. “Morel said there’d be a sign from Cénzi.” he continued. “Something about fire and destruction and death, from what I hear.” He sniffed. “If that’s all prophecy is, well, then any of us could make a living as a prophet. There’s enough fire and death and destruction in any given year for a double handful of vague prophecies like that. You’d think that if Cénzi were really as powerful as Morel seems to think, then he’d make such signs unmistakable and his prophecies more specific—why, if he told me the sun would rise in the west tomorrow and it did,
that
might just convince me to turn to the Faith.” He grinned at his own joke.
that
might just convince me to turn to the Faith.” He grinned at his own joke.
Varina smiled politely. She wiped at her eyes quickly.
Pierre seemed to take the smile as encouragement. “What bothers me,” he said, “is that there were evidently quite a lot of people listening to them, and some of them were téni, too, if you can believe it. I tell you, the troubles for the Numetodo may be ready to start again.”
“Nico can be quite charming and convincing,” Varina said. “He has quite a presence.”
And if I’d had any doubt of those reports, then meeting him again confirmed them.
And if I’d had any doubt of those reports, then meeting him again confirmed them.
Pierre shrugged. “From what I heard, the crowd actually resisted the Garde Kralji when they showed up and allowed the
bastardo
to escape. There’s going to be blood between the Morellis and us Numetodos, A’Morce. Mark my words on that—and call me a prophet, too.” He grinned again, then shrugged. “But forgive me, A’Morce, for rattling on. I take it you had a chance to try the device I made for you. Did it work? Did it survive the experiment?”
bastardo
to escape. There’s going to be blood between the Morellis and us Numetodos, A’Morce. Mark my words on that—and call me a prophet, too.” He grinned again, then shrugged. “But forgive me, A’Morce, for rattling on. I take it you had a chance to try the device I made for you. Did it work? Did it survive the experiment?”
“It did,” she told him; he nodded, and she saw a fierce satisfaction slip over his face. “I was very pleased with it,” she continued. “That’s why I’m here. I want more of them. Several hands of them, in fact.”
Now his eyebrows climbed his thin face. He absently brushed sawdust from the front of his bashta. His gaze skittered about the workroom. “Several hands of them,” he muttered, almost inaudibly. “A’Morce, all the work I have here to do . . . The requests from the other Numetodo for instruments and devices for their studies . . . I don’t know how I could possibly . . .” He lifted his hands; she could see the scars and calluses on them.
“Hire yourself some competent apprentices,” she told him. “I will pay their wages myself, whatever you feel is fair. Buy the material you need and bill it to me. The devices needn’t be as . . .” She stopped and smiled at him. “. . .beautifully crafted as the one you made for me. Good solid workmanship would suffice. Have them work under your supervision; you can even have them help you with your other work at need. I don’t care. But I want the devices soon—within a month, and as many as you can make.” She took a breath that shuddered. “Pierre, this is necessary for the protection of all Numetodo.”
“A’Morce, I haven’t heard—”
“That’s because I’ve said nothing to anyone else. And you shouldn’t either. I can count on your discretion, I trust?”
The eyebrows climbed higher. “Of course, A’Morce. Of course. Only . . .”
“Yes?”
Pierre shook his head. “Nothing, A’Morce.” He brushed at his thighs, raising a cloud of dust that billowed into the nearest light shaft. “I will do as you ask, and I hope you’ll be pleased with the results.”
“Good,” she said. “Thank you, Pierre. I’ll stop by next Draiordi and see what progress you’ve made.” She rose from her seat, shrugging her overcloak over her tashta. “I hope that I’m wrong and that none of this is necessary,” she told him. “That’s actually what would please me the most. But I doubt that I will have that pleasure.”
C
OMMANDANT TELO CU’INGRES of the Garde Kralji and Commandant Eleric ca’Talin of the Garde Civile both stood at uneasy attention before the Sun Throne. The courtiers and the public had been sent from the room, and the usual monthly Council meeting had been cut short. The Council of Ca’ sat to the throne’s right, but other than the servants against the walls waiting to jump to any request, there was no one else there to witness Allesandra’s displeasure at their reports.
OMMANDANT TELO CU’INGRES of the Garde Kralji and Commandant Eleric ca’Talin of the Garde Civile both stood at uneasy attention before the Sun Throne. The courtiers and the public had been sent from the room, and the usual monthly Council meeting had been cut short. The Council of Ca’ sat to the throne’s right, but other than the servants against the walls waiting to jump to any request, there was no one else there to witness Allesandra’s displeasure at their reports.
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