A Magic of Nightfall (22 page)

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Authors: S. L. Farrell

BOOK: A Magic of Nightfall
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He was afraid that was all she was going to say. “And . . . ?”
She smiled. “I’ve decided that I don’t wish to be Hïrzgin. I think Cénzi has other plans for me.”
He searched her face, looking for a lie there. He couldn’t imagine being able to say that himself if he’d been in her position, if his birth-right had been stolen from him that way. Yet he saw nothing in her expression to gainsay what she’d said. “That’s good,” he said.
The trace of a smile touched her lips. “Why is that good?”
“Because I like Onczio Fynn,” he said.
Frost in summer, the smile dissolved. “Jan, one of the traits I love about you is that you’re willing to trust the people you care about. I don’t want you to lose that. But you need to be careful with Fynn.”
“You really don’t know him yourself, Matarh. You’ve said that.”
“I have. And I don’t. But neither do you, not after a few days with him. He has a vile temper. He may be generous to those he feels are his allies, but if he suspects you’re against him . . .”
“I think you’re overstating things,” he interrupted. “He’s been nothing but kind to me, and he doesn’t think
you’re
on his side. Be fair, Matarh.”
“I am,” she answered. “More than you know. What would you say if I said he’d threatened you?”
“I wouldn’t believe it,” Jan answered reflexively, then realized that he might be calling his matarh a liar. “Unless you’ve heard that yourself, from Fynn’s own lips.” He cocked his head at her. “Have you, Matarh?”
She was already shaking her head. “No,” she answered. “I haven’t. Still—promise me you’ll be careful with him.”
“Of course I will,” he told her, and was rewarded with the return of her smile.
“Good,” she said. “Now will you pass me that plate of rétes? I’ve been dying to try them . . .”
Sergei ca’Rudka
T
HE NEWS WAS not good.
The communiqué—the latest report on the continuing battles in the Hellins—had come by fast-ship from Munereo, over the Strettosei to the great island of Karnmor, over the Nostrosei that lay between Karnmor and the mainland to the city of Fossano, then by rider along the A’Sele to Villembouchure, and from there to Nessantico. With favorable winds and riders who didn’t care about how hard they rode their horses, the paper had been two weeks in arriving. The casualty figures alone made Sergei shake his head dolefully. He handed the paper to Archigos Kenne; the older man peered at it myopically, holding it so close to his face that Sergei couldn’t see his expression.
“You’ll note, Archigos, that we now control nothing of the Hellins beyond the area immediately around Munereo, with an arm along the sea extending northward toward Tobarro,” Sergei said impatiently as Kenne labored over Commandant ca’Sibelli’s tiny, cramped handwriting. “Sending out A’Offizier ca’Matin and his battalion to confront the Westlander army was a mistake, in my estimation, but it’s one that’s already been made and paid for by now, I suspect. I hope ca’Matin is still alive; he’s one of the few good offiziers we have there. I think it would have been better had ca’Sibelli pulled back into defensive positions against this latest offensive, rather than trying to push the Westlanders back, but ca’Sibelli was never one for defense. We’ve already lost the Lake Malik area. I suspect we’re going to lose Munereo next.”
“You showed this to Audric? You told him what you just told me?” Kenne’s eyes appeared over the edge of the thick yellow paper, then vanished again. Sergei could hear the man muttering aloud to himself as he read.
“I did. He said: ‘Commandant Ca’Sibelli is doing exactly what I would have him do. It’s as I said—he needs more troops.’ ” Sergei paused. He glanced around the Archigos’ office. There was no one else there, but he lowered his voice anyway; one never knew who might be listening at doors. “We argued; I thought he might die in front of me, he was coughing and breathing so badly. He kept looking past me to Kraljica Marguerite’s portrait, and he was saying . . .” Sergei hesitated again, not certain how much he wanted to share with Kenne. “. . . disturbing things. He insists on calling the Council of Ca’ together and demanding that he be given autonomy as Kraljiki. He wants my title stripped from me; he wants no Regent in Nessantico.”
It sounded so emotionless, stated so flatly. Sergei had seen what Kenne could not: the way the shouting distorted Audric’s features, the red flush that crept up from the boy’s neck to cover his cheeks, the flecks of saliva flying from his mouth, the eyes wide and haunted.
 
“I am Kraljiki!” Audric shouted at Sergei, his arms flailing. “You will do as I tell you to do, Regent, or I will have you thrown into the Bastida!” The last words had been screams, each one shouted in its own breath. Audric’s hysterics caused the hall gardai as well Audric’s domestiques de chambre, Marlon and Seaton, to open the bedchamber’s doors to peer in. Sergei waved them all away, and the doors closed again. Audric’s gaze went past Sergei and up, and Sergei glanced over his shoulder. The room was fiery, far too hot for Sergei’s comfort, the flames in the great fireplace illuminating the portrait of Marguerite above the mantel. Audric was staring at her, his lips moving wordlessly.
“This report, Audric, is conclusive evidence that—”
“You will address me with the proper respect, Regent, or I will have you flogged in the palais square.”
Sergei allowed himself a breath, forcing down the retort that threatened to spill out. “Kraljiki, this report shows that the Hellins may well be lost already. Ca’Matin is the best offizier we have there—frankly, I trust his judgment more than Commandant ca’Sibelli’s. If he has failed to stop the Westlanders—”
“
Then the wrath of Nessantico will fall fully upon them,
”
Audric shrieked, then fell back in a fit of coughing . . .
 
The rest of the conversation had gone no better.
“It may not be genuine madness, Sergei. Perhaps his illness, or a fever . . .” Kenne began.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sergei interrupted. “Illness or simple lunacy; there’s no difference if he can’t be cured. Kenne, I intend to go to the Council of Ca’ myself, and request that they declare Audric incompetent.”
Kenne laid the paper down at that. Sergei could see the trembling in the man’s fingers, could hear it in the rustling the paper made. He pursed his lips as if tasting something sour. “Some of them will think that you’re attempting to grab power yourself, Sergei, that this is nothing more than you trying to place yourself on the Sun Throne. It’s what Audric will tell them, I suspect. It’s certainly what
I’d
tell them in his place. I can see Sigourney believing the same.”
“Is that what you think, Kenne? Surely you know me better than that.” Sergei scoffed, shaking his head and pacing in front of the Archigos.
I don’t want to be Kraljiki. What I want is worse than you or any of them think, and if you knew, you’d all refuse to help me. . . .
“No, Sergei. Not in the least,” Kenne said hurriedly. Too fast, entirely. The man would not look at him, telling Sergei that there was doubt in Kenne’s mind also. That was bad; if Kenne wondered at Sergei’s intentions, then the Council of Ca’ would have no trouble at all imagining the worst. “This is just all . . . so distressing,” the Archigos continued. “I don’t know what to think. To declare a Kraljiki incompetent . . .” He shook his head, his fingers tapping the report. “He’s still just a boy, after all. A young man. Young men often say things that perhaps they shouldn’t, or become more excited than they should, and when that boy is not only ca’ but has been the A’Kralj and is now Kraljiki, well . . .”
“This isn’t about youth and privilege, Kenne. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear what I heard or see what I witnessed. You’ve seen hints of it the last few times you’ve been with him, but this . . . What I am hearing from Audric now is true madness. And a mad Kraljiki will affect the Faith also.”
 
“I will take all the war-téni and send them to the Hellins,” the boy shrilled. “All of them. All that the Faith can give me . . .”
 
“I know you believe that, Sergei.”
“But?”
Hands as shriveled as drying grapes lifted from the desk and fell back again. The Archigos’ gaze seemed to reach as high as Sergei’s nose, only to see his distorted reflection there and drop back again. “I know you care only for Nessantico, Sergei. I know you have the interests of the Kralji and the Faith in mind.” Sergei stared at Kenne, silent. Waiting. “But,” Kenne continued finally, “perhaps someone with Ana’s, umm, ‘abilities’ might still be found, and we might bring the boy back from the brink. Sergei, no Kraljiki has ever been removed by the Council of Ca’. Ever. This is a step you can’t take lightly. This is a step that I fear will fail and doom you.”
“Believe me, I understand the risks,” Sergei told him. He rose from his chair and took the report from Kenne’s desk. “The war in the Hellins drains us of money and lives, Kenne, and it forces us to look the wrong way. The longer the war there continues, the more dangerous it becomes to the Holdings. Audric is convinced that the Hellins war will be the triumph of Nessantico. It won’t. It will be our downfall.”
“I know that’s what you believe.”
Sergei couldn’t entirely keep his irritation at the old man’s waffling from his voice. “It’s what I
know
. What I must know from you, Kenne, is whether I will have your support.”
A headshake. “I want to give you that,” Kenne told him. “I do. But I must pray first, Sergei. You say you believe. I want to believe also, and I look to Cénzi to help me. Let me pray. Let me think. Tomorrow . . . I will talk to you tomorrow. Or by Draiordi at the latest . . .”
Useless. This is useless . . .
Sergei bowed, smiled falsely, and gave the Archigos the sign of Cénzi. “I will pray for you myself, Archigos, that Cénzi speaks to you soon.”
And He had better. He had better or Nessantico might find itself crushed between the stones of the East and the West.
Sergei plucked the communiqué from Kenne’s desk. He went to the hearth of the Archigos’ office and let the paper flutter onto the flames there. He watched the paper darken, curl, smoke, and finally ignite
He imagined the city doing the same.
Nico Morel
N
ICO HAD NEVER FOLLOWED Talis before. Nico’s matarh worked at the tavern around the corner and down the alley from their rooms. If Talis worked, it wasn’t as other men did in their neighborhood: keeping a shop; working as an apprentice to some master; acting as a simple laborer, perhaps in the grainery mills where the massive grinding wheels were driven by the chants of e-téni, or in the fiery smelters outside the old city walls, the furnaces blazing with Ilmodo fires and the chanting of differently skilled e’téni—who in return for their labors took a portion of the profits for the Concénzia Faith.
Nico had heard his matarh or others in Oldtown complain bitterly about that, how the Faith kept its hands in the pockets of every major industry in the city. The gossip gave Nico strange thoughts: he would imagine long green-sleeved hands snaking out from the temples to pluck coins from the purses of the populace. He wondered why the téni needed to do that, when his matarh and everyone else put coins into the baskets every Cénzidi when they went to the temple. If Nico had that many coins, he could buy a palais on South Bank to live in with Matarh and Talis.
Talis . . .
Nico was playing kick-the-frog in the street with some of the other boys. He was winning: he’d kicked the straw-stuffed sack that was the frog into the puddle three times already, but his friend Jordis had managed it only once and the others not at all. Nico was good at kick-the-frog. Sometimes, when he was playing, he’d feel this strange coldness go through him and he could almost
see
the frog going into the puddle, and when he kicked it then, the frog would go
splash
right into the water.
He’d plucked the soaked frog from the puddle for the fourth time when he saw Talis come out of their door and start walking up the street. Nico kicked the frog to Jordis and the others. “I’ll be back,” he said, and ran after Talis.
Since he’d seen Talis with his brass bowl, he’d been watching his vatarh carefully, whenever he could. He’d seen and heard strange things when Talis thought he was asleep, even when his matarh was asleep, too. Talis would chant and move his hands the way the téni did, usually with his walking stick set in front of him. When he did that, Nico could feel the frigid tendrils in the air until the walking stick seemed to suck them in.
It was very strange, but the words—they almost sounded like the dream-words Nico sometimes heard, and he wanted to know more.
At first, he intended to simply catch up to Talis and ask him where he was going, but when Talis turned at the first intersection, striding fast as if he were intent on some destination and his walking stick tapping on the cobblestones, Nico decided to drop back and just watch him. He wasn’t sure what made him do that, but with the determined way that Talis was walking, he thought his vatarh might be annoyed if Nico suddenly tugged at his bashta.
Talis was walking so quickly that Nico nearly had to run to keep up with him. A few times, as Talis turned left or right along the twisted jumble of streets, Nico nearly lost him, and the farther they went on the more frightened Nico became—he no longer knew where he was. He didn’t even know which way home might be, turned around by the winding, curving streets of Oldtown.

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