A Magic of Nightfall (75 page)

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Authors: S. L. Farrell

BOOK: A Magic of Nightfall
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The young man nodded. “I understand that,” he said. “I truly do. Someday, I will find out who hired the White Stone to kill my Onczio Fynn, and I will kill that person myself and the White Stone with him. I liked Fynn. He was a good friend to me as well as a relative, and he taught me a lot in the short time I knew him. I wish he’d been alive long enough to teach me more about . . .” He stopped, shaking his head.
“There’s no book learning one can do to be a leader, Hïrzg,” Sergei told Jan. “You learn by doing, and you hope you don’t make too many mistakes in the process. As to revenge: well, as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that the pleasure one gets from actually achieving the act never matches that of the anticipation. I’ve also learned that sometimes one must forgo revenge entirely for the sake of a larger goal. Kraljica Marguerite knew that better than anyone; that’s why she was such a good ruler.” He smiled. “Even if your great-vatarh would disagree strongly.”
“You knew them both.”
Sergei couldn’t quite tell if that were statement or question, but he nodded. “I did, and I had great respect for both of them, the old Hïrzg Jan included.”
“Matarh hated him, I think.”
“She had good reason, if she did,” Sergei answered. “But he was her vatarh, and I think she loved him also.”
“Is that possible?”
“We’re strange beasts, Hïrzg. We’re capable of holding two conflicting feelings in our heads at the same time. Water and fire, both together.”
“Matarh says you used to torture people.”
He waited a long time to answer that. Jan said nothing, continuing to ride alongside him. “It was my duty at one time, when I was in command of the Bastida.”
“She says the rumors were that you enjoyed it. Is that part of what you were talking about—the ability to hold two conflicting feelings in your head?”
Sergei pursed his lips. He rubbed again at his nose. He looked ahead of them, not at the young man. “Yes,” he answered finally, the single word bringing back all the memories of the Bastida: the darkness, the pain, the blood. The pleasure.
“Matarh is, or
was
, anyway, Archigos Semini’s lover. Did you know that, Regent?”
“I suspected it, yes.”
“Even though she loves him, she was willing to sacrifice him and hand him over for judgment as U’Téni Petros asked. She’d made that decision; she told me so herself when she came back from the parley. ‘Let his sins be paid back in lives saved,’ she told me. There wasn’t a tear in her eye or a trace of regret in her voice. The Archigos . . . he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know how close he was to being a prisoner. For all I know, the two of them may even still . . .” He stopped. Shrugged.
“Water and fire, Hïrzg,” Sergei said.
Jan nodded. “Matarh said that you love Nessantico above us all. Yet you ride with us, you saved Matarh and me in Passe a’Fiume, and you would put Matarh on the Sun Throne.”
“I would, because I’m convinced that would be best for Nessantico. I want to see the Holdings restored, with Firenzcia once again its strong right arm.” Sergei paused. They could see the first outliers of Carrefour before them in the road, the tops of the buildings rising beyond the trees. “Is that also what you want, Hïrzg?”
Sergei watched the young man. He was looking away, over the long line of the army stretched along the road. “I love my matarh,” he answered.
“That’s not what I asked, Hïrzg.”
Jan nodded, still gazing at the armored snake of his army. “No, it’s not, is it?” he answered.
The Battle Begun: Karl Vliomani
“
Y
OU CAN STILL LEAVE via some of the streets to the east of the Nortegate,” Karl told Serafina. “You’ll have to be careful and you’ll have to go quickly, but if you have Varina with you, you and Nico would have protection.”
Karl saw Serafina and Varina already shaking their heads before he finished. “I’m not leaving without Talis,” Serafina said. Nico was sitting on her lap as they sat around the table in the main room of Serafina’s apartment. They had finished a dinner of bread, cheese, and water, though the bread had been stale, the cheese moldy, and the water clouded. They’d eaten it all, though, not knowing when there might be more food.
With the army of the Tehuantin at the western edges of the city and their ships holding the A’Sele, with the army of Firenzcia threatening from the east, Nessantico was panicked. Wild, fantastic rumors about the sack of Karnor and Villembouchure ran through the city, growing darker, grimmer, and more violent with each retelling. The Westlanders, if the stories could be believed, were nothing less than demons spawned by the Moitidi themselves, devoted to rape, torture, and mutilation. The shelves of the stores were nearly bare; the mills had no flour for the bakeries, and there were no carts coming into the markets from the fields outside the city. Even the Avi a’Parete was dark tonight—the light-téni hadn’t made their usual rounds; worse, a fog had crawled over the city from the west, thick and cold. The city trembled in darkness, waiting for the inevitable strike to come. “I thought I’d lost both Talis and Nico once; I’m not doing that again,” Serafina continued.
“He
can’t
leave,” Karl persisted. “He’s male and young enough to be pressed into service with the Garde Civile. They’d snatch him before you got halfway to the Avi. And with the Archigos in the Bastida . . . well, the Garde Kralji almost certainly have our descriptions and are already out looking for us. Two women with a young boy—you’d be safe enough, I think. But with Talis and me . . .”
“I’m not leaving without him,” Serafina persisted. Her voice shook and the hand around Nico’s waist trembled, but her lips pressed firmly together.
“Half the city’s
already
left—those who can. The rumors about Karnor and Villembouchure . . . all that could happen here.”
A shrug.
Varina was smiling grimly. Her hand touched his knee under the table. “You’ve lost this argument, Karl,” she said. “With both of us. We’re here. We’re staying, whatever that means.”
Karl looked at Talis, who had been sitting silently on his side of the table. He’d been strangely quiet for the last day and more, since the news had come of the Archigos’ imprisonment, and he spent much time with the scrying bowl. Karl wondered what the man was thinking behind that solemn face. Talis shrugged. “I agree with Karl,” he said to Serafina. “I would rather have you and Nico safe.”
Varina took Karl’s hand, standing. “Come with me,” she told him. “Let Sera and Talis talk this out on their own. We will, too.”
Karl followed Varina into the other room. She closed the door behind them, so that they could only hear the low murmur of voices in conversation. “She loves him,” Varina said. She was still leaning against the door, looking at Karl.
“Yes,” he protested, “and that’s exactly the reason he wants her to leave: because he doesn’t want to lose the people he loves.”
“And that’s exactly the reason she
won’t
go, because she couldn’t bear not knowing what happened to him.” She crossed her arms under her breasts. “It’s exactly the reason I won’t go either.”
“Varina . . .”
“Karl, shut up,” she told him. She pushed away from the wall, going to him. Her arms went around him, her lips sought his. There was a desperation in her embrace, in the violence of her kiss. He could hear the sob in her throat, and his hand went to her face to find her cheeks wet. He tried to pull away from her, to ask what was wrong, but she wouldn’t let him. She brought his head back down to hers. Her weight bore him down to the straw-filled mattress on the floor. Then, for a time, he forgot everything.
Afterward, he kissed her, holding her tightly, relishing her warmth. “I love you, Karl,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ve given up pretending anything else.”
He didn’t answer. He wanted to. He wanted to say the words back to her. They filled his throat but stuck there. He felt that if he said them, he’d be betraying Ana and everything she’d meant to him.
“Find someone else,
she’d told him, long ago.
“Go back to your wife, if you like. Or if you fall in love with someone new, that would be fine with me, too. I’d be happy for you because I can’t be what you want me to be, Karl.”
“I . . .” he began, then stopped. They both heard it at the same time, a whistling shriek and a low growl like thunder, followed almost immediately by others, and the wind-horns on the temples beginning to sound an alarm. Karl rolled away from her. “What is that?” Karl asked, but he suspected that he knew already. They both dressed quickly and rushed into the other room.
“It’s begun,” Talis told them as they entered. He was standing by the door. The door faced south, and from the direction of the A’Sele, they could all see an orange-yellow glow over the rooftops, illuminating the fog that blocked their vision. “Fire,” Talis said. “The nahualli are hurling black sand into the city close to the A’Sele.”
The wind-horns were shrilling, and there were muffled shouts and cries coming from the fog.
Talis closed the door. “It’s too late now,” he said. “Too late.”
The Battle Begun: Sigourney ca’Ludovici
F
ROM THE TOP FLOOR of the Kraljica’s Palais, leaning on the crutch that compensated for her missing leg, Sigourney could gaze over the intervening rooftops and the waters of the A’Sele to the North Bank, where the campfires of the Westlanders burned on the outskirts of the city. There, too, she knew, the army of the Garde Civile was arrayed, with Aleron ca’Gerodi now acting as commandant. He, at least, was confident in the ability of the chevarittai and Garde Civile to deal with the dual threats to the city, even if no one else was. Ca’Gerodi had been in battle before, at least—and of the chevarittai left to her, he was best suited to be commandant, since ca’Mazzak had removed Aubri cu’Ulcai from consideration. That had been a mistake, Sigourney was certain; one she could understand, yes, given his rebellion, but also one that might have cost Nessantico more than she could afford.
Sigourney’s body hurt greatly tonight, and she took a long swallow from the goblet of
cuore della volpe
and placed it on the windowsill.
Sigourney had been confident, too. She had been confident they would deal with these Westlander rabble and destroy them. Then they would look to the east and deal with Allesandra and her pup, and make them see the folly of this breach of their treaty. Yes, she had been confident.
It seemed like ages ago.
But she had seen the strange fog spill from the Westlander encampment to envelop Oldtown and the Garde Civile. Then, a bare turn of the glass later, great blossoms of orange fire bloomed on the North Bank, and she had watched them suddenly arc high into the air in several directions, some falling into the fog where her army waited, and others. . . .
The A’Sele’s water rippled with the fire’s reflection as the blossoms—screeching and wailing—rose as if flung by angry Moitidi. She saw the answer of the war-téni: pale blue lightning that reached up toward the blossoms. Several of them reached the blossoms at the top of their arcs: where they touched, a new, brief sun burst into life and the sound of thunder rolled over the city. But there were too many of the fire-blooms and the answer of the war-téni had come too late. Most of the fireballs fell: onto the Holdings’ warships on the river, into the maze of Oldtown, and onto the Isle a’Kralji itself. And where they fell, they exploded in a gout of bright, loud fury.
She watched one in particular: the arc lifted higher than the others, and she could see the terrifying line of it—coming directly toward her. She stared, frozen by dual fascination and dread, feeling (as it plummeted down, as it grew larger with each instant), her body remembering the shock and horror of the moment that Kraljiki Audric had been killed. She wondered if this would hurt as much.
But no . . . she could see the line of sparks it trailed, now slipping slightly to her right. The fireball slammed into the palais’ northern wing, spraying thick fire over the facade and into the gardens below. She felt the entire structure shudder with the impact, so strongly that she had to hold onto the frame of the window to keep from falling. Her knuckles tightened around the bar of the crutch. There were screams and shouts from all around the grounds. Nessantico’s night was once more banished—not from the famous lamps of the light-téni, but by an inferno. Even from her window, Sigourney thought she could feel its heat.
Servants rushed into the room. “Kraljica! You must come with us! Hurry!”
“I’m not leaving here,” she told them.
“You must! The fire!”
“Then don’t waste your time here—go help put it out,” she told them. “Summon the fire-téni from the temples. Go. Go!”
She waved her free hand at them—her scarred, battered body protesting at the violence of the movement—and they scattered. The wind-horns were sounding now in the temples, the alarm taken up all around the city. Sigourney looked down and saw the palais staff hurrying toward the burning wing. Smoke curled around the side of the palais and burned in her remaining eye. She blinked as the eye teared, and drank the remainder of the herbalist’s concoction.
“Look at me!” she shrilled to the night and the Westlander forces hidden in the fog. “I have given up too much to be here. You will not move me. You will not.”

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