A Magic Of Nightfall Part 32

She stared back at him. "Ah, that is finally fear you see in the lines of her face. You've done well, Audric."

"Abundantly so, Kraljiki," Sigourney answered. "Abundantly."

Varina ci'Pallo.

"THAT'SIT...With the chant, think of the fibers of the wood opening like you're pushing aside a curtain."

Varina spoke quietly and encouragingly to Karl as he chanted the spell-words, staring at the walking stick he held in his right hand while his left made the necessary motions. She could see the grain of the wood shivering and parting, strangely and disconcertingly malleable. She could see the effort he was using to create the spell; Karl was panting and sweating as hard as if he'd run the entire circuit of the Avi a'Parete.

"Now-this bit is trickier-hold it apart while you place inside it the spell you've already prepared," Varina told him. He didn't glance back at her; she knew he didn't dare look away from the staff: the wood would snap back together or the stick would shatter entirely-there were still splinters in Karl's fingers from previous attempts. "Go on," she continued. "You should be able to feel the light spell you prepared. I always feel it like a tiny ball of energy in your head, ready to burst. Imagine it moving from your mind and sliding into the s.p.a.ce you've just made on the walking stick. Imagine it nestled in there. Carefully. Good. Good. And . . . Let everything go!"

Karl ended the chant, let his hand fall to his side. The gap in the wood clapped together again, a sound like two boards slamming together, and the walking stick was whole and undamaged in his hand, as if nothing had happened to it at all. Karl sagged against the back of the chair in which he was sitting. He wiped at his brow with the sleeve of his bashta as Varina laughed, clapping her hands together once. He sat there for what seemed to be several marks of the gla.s.s, trying to catch his breath.

"You did it that time," she said.

"I certainly hope so."

"You want to try it to make sure? Just hold the stick and speak the release word."

"After all that trouble?" he told her. "I think I'll just believe you for now." He sighed, letting his head drop back and closing his eyes. "By Cenzi, that was hard. No wonder Mahri looked the way he did."

She laughed again at that, but she could hear a certain, unwilling bitterness in the sound. Her fingers touched her own face, tracing the lines that hadn't been visible a year ago. She buried her worry in words. "It's a matter of finding the right word and gestures to move the energy, only you have to hold both the spell and the object being spelled at the same time-that's what makes it difficult. From what we know of the Westlanders, they attribute the power to one of their own G.o.ds, as the teni do here, but it's just a matter of the right chant, the right movements. Science, not faith. The advantage is that once you've done the task, it's the object that holds the spell, not you, and as long as the object is of good craftsmanship in the first place and isn't broken afterward, it could conceivably hold the spell indefinitely, I suspect. Still . . ." Fingers drifted over the lines of her face again, brushed back graying, dry hair. "It's a d.a.m.ned expensive way to do things, if you ask me."

"I can understand that," Karl told her. "I feel entirely drained."

He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. Not yet. She smiled again. She reached out as if to pat his hand, but drew back at the last moment. That was part of the uncomfortable dance they'd been doing for days now.

They were ten days back in Nessantico. They'd returned to the city with Serafina, who had taken up residence in her old rooms. She invited Varina and Karl to stay with her, an offer they'd accepted-the old Numetodo haunts were undoubtedly being watched by Garde Kralji, and they'd seen none of the Numetodo in Oldtown at all. They'd scoured the neighborhood with Serafina, asking about Nico, but no one remembered seeing the boy, certainly not after the day they'd helped the Regent escape the Bastida. If Nico had indeed returned to Nessantico, as Varina had been certain he had, he seemed to have somehow vanished; if Talis were still in the city, he remained hidden as well.

And for Varina . . . after their awkward conversation in Ville Paisli, she didn't seem to know quite how to act around Karl. Her admission that she had wanted more of him than friendship . . . Why did she say that to him? He looked at her strangely now, as if he were thinking back on all the interactions they'd had over the years and reinterpreting them, casting their conversations in the light of this revelation and wondering.

Why did you tell him? Why did you admit it?

Her hand retreated from his. He started to reach over to her. "Varina . . ."

"I'm back!" The call came as the door to the room opened and Serafina came in. She carried a cloth bag from which a long loaf of bread protruded. Varina saw Serafina glance at them strangely before she walked over to the table and placed the bag there. She lifted out the loaf of bread, then a half-round of cheese and a paper bag of marsh-berries. They watched her, not speaking, and she sighed and shook her head.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I don't know what you mean," Varina said. She wondered whether Serafina had seen them working the magic, but she was shaking her head with a half-smile.

"The two of you," she said, glancing from Varina to Karl. "It's obvious enough that you're not married, no matter what you told my sister back in Ville Paisli. But it's also obvious there's something between the two of you, and that neither of you are sure what to do about it. I understand; that's the way it was with Talis and me at first. I'd been hurt too much by a previous lover who didn't care about me but only himself, and I thought that was the way it was going to be with everyone. But Talis . . . he was a good man. He cared about me, and when Nico came, he was a good vatarh as well. But the d.a.m.ned Numetodo . . ." She bit her lower lip as Varina looked at Karl and raised an eyebrow.

"The Numetodo?" Karl asked.

"Talis said the Amba.s.sador tried to kill him; that's why he sent me and Nico away-because he thought the Numetodo would come after him, and since the Amba.s.sador was friendly with Regent ca'Rudka, that the Garde Kralji would be after him as well. I guess that's nothing he has to worry about now," she added with a wry smile. "The Kraljiki seems to like the Regent and Amba.s.sador less than Talis."

"Talis hasn't contacted you?" Karl persisted.

Serafina shook her head. "He will, when he thinks it's safe. He'll know I'm here soon, if he doesn't already. Maybe he's found Nico, too." She sighed, and Varina saw her blink away tears. She put her hand on Serafina's shoulder in comfort as the woman sniffed and brushed the tears away. "Anyway," she said, "I was saying that I've watched the two of you circling each other like you're promenading around the Avi a'Parete, and . . . well, I was glad when I finally let myself admit that I was in love with Talis. It was the best thing I'd done in a long time. That's all."

She smiled, and patted Varina's hand, still on her shoulder. "I'm going to walk to the butcher's and see what he has. Then I'm going to look for Nico around Temple Park; he always liked to go there."

"I'll come with you," Varina said, but Serafina shook her head.

"No," she told them. "I'd like to be on my own for a bit. I'll be home before Third Call, and we can make a supper then."

She smiled at them again, picked up her cloth bag, and left the rooms again. They heard the snick of the lock behind her. Varina could feel Karl staring at her. "What are we going to do if we find Talis, Karl?" she asked. "Or if she finds Nico? She loves Talis, and Nico would recognize both of us. What do we do then?"

"I don't know," Karl told her. "I don't know anything anymore."

Varina nodded at that, and the silence between them slowly lengthened. She could feel the weight of it, wrapping around them like the greasy chains of a Bastida cell. Varina puttered with the bread and cheese, putting them in a woven basket.

"Varina," Karl said finally, and she stopped. "Serafina's right. It's just . . ." His fingers tapped the walking stick. "I still hurt whenever I think about Ana," he said. "She . . ."

"I know," Varina told him. "I saw . . ." she began, then dropped her gaze to the table. "A few times, on the street, I saw the grandes horizontales you hired to . . ." Her gaze came back up. "To me, they all looked like her: the same coloring, the same build."

He dropped his gaze, guiltily. "Varina-"

"No," she told him, interrupting. "I understood. I did. But it still hurt, because you didn't see me, when that's . . ." She closed her mouth, pressed her lips tightly together. She wouldn't say the rest. She wouldn't.

Karl lifted his hands, let them drop back to the table. "Serafina's right. Because of my obsession, I missed what was right in front of my nose. I was stupid. Worse, I was cruel, and that's something I never wanted to be. Not to you, Varina. Never to you. You've always been someone I admired and trusted. I always thought of you as a friend. And now . . . I don't know if . . ."

"I don't know either," she told him. Go on, she heard a voice inside her say. Go on. Say it. "Karl, we can both continue to wonder. Or-"

She let the word hang there, as bright in his mind as spell-fire.

He held out his hand to her.

She took it.

Eneas cu'Kinnear.

SECOND CeNZIDI. The day he was to meet with the Kraljiki.

This is your time, your moment. This day, I will take you up into Me and hold you, and you will be forever happy and at ease. Today . . .

"Thank you, Cenzi," Eneas whispered gratefully. "Thank you. I am your servant, your vessel."

He had taken the ground niter, charcoal, and sulfur; mixing them carefully together with stale urine as Cenzi had directed him to do, until he had created the black sand of the Westlanders. He placed the cakes of black sand into a leather satchel, which he draped over his uniform. He had rehea.r.s.ed in his mind the spell of fire Cenzi had given him until he knew the gestures and the chant and could do the simple spell in the s.p.a.ce of a few breaths. Yes, this would demonstrate to the Kraljiki what the Westlanders could do. It would make Nessantico realize how important and how dangerous this war had become.

Then, finally, he tidied the room, so that it would look neat for those who would come to look at it afterward.

As he walked to the Kraljiki's palais for his audience, he let himself take in the sights of Nessantico, absorbing everything the city he loved so much had to offer. He strolled along the North Bank of the Isle a'Kralji from his rooms, gazing fondly at the gated towers of the Pontica Mordei and watching a flatboat piled high with crates slide under its stonework span. The A'Sele gleamed in sunlight, wavelets sparking and dancing. Couples sat with linked arms on the gra.s.sy bank, lost in the presence of each other. A quartet of e'teni hurried past him on their way to some task, their green robes swaying around their ankles and the faint smell of incense trailing after them. Eneas could hear the chaotic, eternal voice of the city, the sound of thousands of voices speaking at once.

He pa.s.sed the Old Temple, gazing upward at the impossible dome the artisan Brunelli was constructing, the largest in the world-if it didn't collapse under the terrible weight of the masonry. He frowned once, at the sight of a street performer who was juggling b.a.l.l.s that he had set aglow with a spell-that was Numetodo work, not done with the prayers of a teni, and it bothered Eneas to see such a thing done publicly, without any of the onlookers being upset by it.

Archigos Ana allowed the people to lose sight of truth and faith. She coddled the Numetodo and allowed their heresy to spread-and that's why the Holdings and the Faith are now split in two and broken. I have sent the Westlanders as a sign and a warning. Today, you will bring them a final warning for Me.

The voice spoke low and sinister in his head. Karl made the sign of Cenzi, scowling at the juggler and the audience around him before walking on.

The Kraljiki's Palais was white and gold against a sky that looked painted. Eneas had been to the palais once before, as an e'offizier aide accompanying his a'offizier to a meeting with the Council of Ca', but this would be the first time that he would actually be before the Sun Throne. He gave his Lettre a'Approche to the garda at the side gates, who scanned it, ran a finger across the embossed seal, and saluted Eneas. "You are expected, O'Offizier cu'Kinnear," he said, gesturing. A servant boy came running, in the gold-and-blue livery of the Kraljiki's staff. Eneas followed the boy across sculpted, polished grounds set with topiaries and flower gardens, with several ca'-and-cu' courtiers strolling the white-pebbled walkways. Eneas' guide took him through a side door and into the palais itself, and down a corridor of pale pink marble, the floor burnished to a high sheen and teni-lamps set every few strides, though there was enough light coming through the windows at either end that the lamps were unlit. "Wait here, O'Offizier," the boy said, pausing at a door where two gardai were standing at attention. "The public reception is nearly over. I'll see if the Kraljiki is ready to meet with you." The gardai opened the door and the boy slipped inside. Eneas glimpsed the crowd of supplicants and heard the quiet hush of whispered conversations; faintly, someone was talking more loudly: a boy's voice, hoa.r.s.e and broken with coughs. He thought he saw the Sun Throne, bright against the shuttered half-twilight of the hall beyond. The door closed again before he could see more.

"How goes the war, O'Offizier?" one of the door gardai asked. "Everyone's been waiting for a fast-ship from the h.e.l.lins, but it hasn't come."

"It won't come," Eneas told him.

The two gardai glanced at each other. "O'Offizier?"

"It won't come," Eneas repeated. "Cenzi has already told me that."

Another glance. Eneas saw a quick roll of eyes. "Oh, Cenzi told you. I see."

"You don't talk to Cenzi, E'Offizier?" Eneas asked the man. "Then I pity you."

The door opened again and cut off any rejoinder the man might have made. It wasn't the boy, but an older man, his livery marked with the Kraljiki's insignia. "I'm Marlon," he said. "The Kraljiki's ready for you. Follow me."

The gardai held the doors open for Eneas to pa.s.s through. The hall was still crowded, cl.u.s.tered with ca'-and-cu' and those lucky enough to have their names placed on the Second Cenzidi list of supplicants. They watched Eneas enter behind Marlon, their faces reflecting mingled curiosity and resentment as it became apparent that he was being taken directly to the Sun Throne.

The windows of the hall had been partially shuttered, so that the room was both dim and sweltering. At the far end of the hall, the Sun Throne shimmered with a sun-yellow glow, outlining the form of a young man. Eneas had known that Kraljiki Audric was young, but still his appearance startled him. He seemed small for his years, barrel-chested but otherwise thin, his cheeks sunken and the hollows of his eyes dark. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but the boy looked more feverish than warm.

One of the Council of Ca' stood at his left hand: an older woman with obviously-dyed black hair who stared at him with the predatory eyes of a hawk, though Eneas didn't recognize her. A portrait of Kraljica Marguerite was set at Audric's right hand. The impact of the painting was stunning: Eneas had never seen anything so lifelike and solid-more of a presence than the woman on the other side of the throne. Eneas could imagine the Kraljica staring at him as he came near, and the feeling was not a pleasant one. It made him want to cradle the pouch he carried; it made him want to turn and flee.

You cannot. I will not let you. Cenzi roared in his head, and Eneas shook his head like a dog trying to rid himself of fleas.

The Kraljiki cleared his throat as Eneas approached, a liquid sound. He coughed once, and Eneas heard phlegm rattling in the boy's lungs. His mouth hung half-open, and he clutched a lace cloth spotted with blood in his right hand. "O'Offizier cu'Kinnear," the Kraljiki said as Eneas came to the dais and bowed. "I understand from Archigos Kenne that you have come from the war in the h.e.l.lins with news for us." The Kraljiki spoke haltingly and slowly, pausing often for breath and occasionally stifling a cough with the handkerchief. "We have heard of your fine record in the Garde Civile, and we salute you for your service to the throne. And I am happy to tell you that I have signed your Lettre a'Chevaritt, effective immediately."

Eneas bowed again. "Kraljiki, I am humbled, and I praise Cenzi, who makes all things possible."

"Yes," the Kraljiki answered. "We have also heard of your great devotion to the Faith, and that you once considered a career as a teni. The Holdings are pleased that you chose a martial career instead."

"I continue to serve Cenzi, either way," Eneas told him, inclining his head.

The Kraljiki, looking bored, seemingly listening to someone else. He glanced over at the painting of Marguerite and nodded. "Yes," he said. "I would think so." Eneas wasn't certain whether Audric had addressed him or not. He hesitated, and Audric's attention came back to him. "Your news, O'Offizier? What of the h.e.l.lins? We've heard nothing for over a month now."

"I have brought you something," Eneas told the Krlajiki. He patted the leather case: gently, almost a caress. He took the strap from around his head and held the pouch out toward Audric. "If I may approach . . . ?"

Audric nodded, and Eneas stepped up onto the platform of the Sun Throne. Closer now, he noticed the smell of sickness lingering around the Kraljiki: the odor of corruption, a foulness of breath. He pretended not to notice, handing the pouch to Audric, who put it on his lap. The Kraljiki peered inside, putting his hand inside to feel what was there. "Bricks of sand?" he asked, his forehead creased with puzzlement. His nose wrinkled at the smell. "Dark earth?"

"No," Eneas told him softly. "Let me show you . . ."

With the voice of Cenzi calling in his head, he began the chant: quickly, his hands darting. From the corner of his vision, he saw the woman at the Kraljiki's left startle, then step away from the throne. He heard someone behind him in the audience shout. Audric's mouth opened as if he were about to speak.

Fierce fire bloomed between Eneas' hands. He leaned forward, held it over the open lips of the pouch, and let it fall.

Cenzi roared His pleasure. The world exploded into eternal light and sound.

The White Stone.

SHE WATCHED Talis over the next few days.

She found that she couldn't simply return Nico to the man and let the boy go. The voices from the stone taunted her for her concern. Fynn especially was derisive and bitter. "You want a family? So now the a.s.sa.s.sin is going to care about others? The murderer has found love now that she has a b.a.s.t.a.r.do in her womb?" He cackled merrily. "You've become a fool, woman. Look at what my family has done to me! The child you carry will happily betray you the same way one day. Family!" He laughed again, the others joining in with him, a mocking chorus.

"Shut up!" she told them all, causing people on the street around her to glance at her. She scowled back at them. She hugged her stomach protectively, startled-as she always was-by the swelling curve in what had once been an athletic, flat abdomen. Already, she sensed the fluttering of movement there: Jan's child. Her child. "You don't know. You can't know."

When she thought of her child, born and alive, it was always a girl but with some of Nico's features, too, as if they were strange siblings. "I took the boy in when he needed someone," she told the voices. "I'm responsible for him now. I made that choice."

They snorted derision. They howled.

She had watched Talis' rooms since she left Nico there. She'd abandoned the rooms she'd taken, and had rented a room above Talis' own, though she was careful not to let Nico see her enter or leave the building. She had bored a hole in the floor so she could both watch and listen to them below . And she did so, ready to act if she heard Talis mistreating Nico in any way, ready to appear as the White Stone to take the man's life, furious and vengeful. But she had heard nothing to make her fear for Nico.

Not directly, anyway.

She already knew from Nico that the Numetodo had been hunting Talis. She knew that he was a Westlander and a user of their magic, and the Holdings was at war with the Westlanders in the h.e.l.lins. That would be a danger for Nico, all by itself. So she watched.

On the second Cenzidi of the month, she trailed them when Nico took Talis to her old rooms, watching from the shadows of the alley across the way as they emerged again with Nico shaking his head in confusion, his arms waving as he spoke to Talis. That afternoon, through the borehole, she heard them talking below. "I don't understand," Nico said. "That's where Elle lived, Talis. Really. I was there."

"I believe you, Nico," Talis replied. "But she's not there now." She could hear the concern in the man's voice. She imagined him rubbing at the healing cuts on his neck as he spoke. She heard the unspoken commentary underneath: She's dangerous. She might have killed me.

"I liked Elle," Nico said. "She was nice to me."

"I'm glad she was. I'm glad she brought you to me. But . . ."

Whatever his objection, he kept it to himself. She smiled at that. "But she's mad," the voices said. "And the madness is growing."

She clutched at the stone in its pouch as if she could strangle the voices with the white pressure of her fingers.

She didn't want to hear any more. She would continue to watch, yes, but for now it seemed that Nico was safe with Talis. She slipped out of her own room quietly, hurrying down the stairs and out the rear door of the building. She moved quickly through the streets of Oldtown, away from the main areas and into its twisted bowels where narrow streets curved and snarled and the buildings were dark, ancient, and small. She listened to her own thoughts, to the voices inside her head, to the conversation around her. "Matarh!" she heard a child's voice cry, and for a moment she thought it was Nico. She turned with a smile, her arms open to embrace him.

It wasn't Nico. It was some other child, nearly the same age. "Matarh," the boy cried again, and a young woman rushed from the door of a nearby building, gathering up the child in her arms, the boy's feet dangling as she hugged him.