A Magic Of Nightfall Part 43

"Just as Sergei wants what's best for Nessantico, I want what's best for Firenzcia," he answered. Then, before she could form a response: "All I ever wanted from you was your love, Matarh."

His words stung like a slap across the face, so hard that it started tears in her eyes. "I do love you, Jan," she told him. "More than you can understand."

He glared at her: a stranger's face. No, his namesake's face, as she imagined it all during her captivity in Nessantico, when he refused to pay the ransom for her. "Shut up, Matarh. You've taught me well. You've shown me that aspirations and drive are more important than love. I talked to Archigos Semini. I told him how you'd been willing to sacrifice him to be Kraljica. He told me something in return: that he had plotted to a.s.sa.s.sinate Fynn. For you, Matarh. All for you. He told me that you knew, that day I saved Fynn, that the attack would come. You used him-your lover-to make me a hero, to make me the Hirzg. The rest, I can figure out myself. I wonder, Matarh, who hired the White Stone-but I have an excellent guess." She felt her face coloring, and she looked away. "Then that oh-so-n.o.ble gesture of yours," he continued, "stepping down in favor of me: you never wanted to be Hirzg. You always wanted more. You didn't want what was best for me, but what was best for you. I was your second child, the lesser one, Matarh. Ambition was always your firstborn."

The breath left her. She sat there, tears damp on her cheeks, as Jan pushed away from the table and stood. "Jan . . ." she said, lifting her arms to him, but he shook his head. He looked down on her and for a moment she thought she saw his face soften.

But he turned and walked away into the night.

Niente.

THEY USED WHAT LITTLE of the black sand they had left to hurl into the city again that night. Otherwise, Niente ordered the nahualli to rest and restore their spell-staffs for the next day's battle. He had lost ten more of the nahualli during the battle, most of them late in the day as Zolin tried unsuccessfully to take the closest of the bridges over the river. The energy in their spell-staffs had been entirely gone, and there was no time to rest and replenish them. The nahualli-as Niente had ordered-tried to retreat behind the lines as soon as their power was exhausted, but some were cut down by Nessantican swords, unable to defend themselves. Niente didn't know how many of the warriors had been lost. They'd been cast back by a desperate charge of the chevarittai, and Zolin-at Niente's insistence, afraid that they would lose still more of the nahualli-had finally called a halt to their advance.

They were too few . . . both nahualli and warriors. But Zolin didn't see that, or didn't care, or was so caught up in his own vision that it overrode that of his own eyes. "Tomorrow," he said to Niente, to Citlali and Mazatl. "Tomorrow all of the city will be ours. All of it." Niente didn't know if that was to be true or not, and he was too exhausted to care.

After the last of the fireb.a.l.l.s had been catapulted into the city, Niente went to his own tent. There, alone, he held the scrying bowl in his hands: afraid to cast the spell, afraid that he would only see the same vision, afraid of the exhaustion and pain casting the spell would cost him. He tried to remember the faces of his wife, of his children: he could bring them up in his mind, but that only made the longing worse. He wondered how they were, how they'd changed, if they missed him as he missed them.

He wondered if he would ever know.

He put the bowl away.

Sleep that night was fitful and unrestful. Nightmares intruded; he saw his wife dead, saw his children hurt and injured, saw himself fighting, fighting, trying to run but unable to do more than walk while demons draped in blue and gold swarmed around him. He tried to imagine his wife's face before him, her mouth half-open as he leaned in to kiss her . . . and her face was blank and featureless, a mask. Unable to escape the dreams, he eventually paced the encampment, listening to the sounds of the warriors resting, gazing at the strange shapes of the buildings around them. As he pa.s.sed one building, he heard his name called out. "Niente."

He recognized the voice. "Citlali."

The High Warrior was leaning against the doorway of the building. Behind him, a candle gleamed in the darkness. "You can't sleep?" Citlali asked.

Niente shook his head. "I don't dare. Too many dreams," he told the man. "You?"

Citlali's black-swirled face creased into a smile. "Too few," he said. "I would like to see our home and my family again, even if in my sleep."

"That won't happen if-" Niente bit off the comment, angry at himself. If he'd been less sleep-addled, he'd have said nothing at all.

"If Tecuhtli Zolin has his way?" Citlali ventured. "I've thought the same, Nahual. You needn't look so distressed." The smile widened to a grin, and he glanced from side to side, as if looking to see that no one was listening. "And let me answer the other question you won't ask. No. I won't challenge the Tecuhtli. Look at how far he's taken us, Nahual-all the way across the sea to the great home of the Easterners. That is true greatness, Nahual. Greatness. I am proud to have been able to help him."

"Even if it means you'll never see home and family again?"

His shoulders lifted. "I am a warrior. If that's Sakal's will . . ." His shoulders fell again. "I don't need a scrying bowl, Nahual. I have no interest in the future, only the now. It's a beautiful evening, I am alive, and I am seeing a place that I never thought I would see and that few Tehuantin have ever glimpsed. How can one not take pleasure in that?"

Niente could only nod. He bid Citlali a good night and left the warrior to his reverie. For his own part, he returned to his own quarters and performed the rituals to place spells in his stave once more. Then, entirely drained from the effort, he took to his bed and let the nightmares wash over him again.

And the next day, the nightmares came true.

At dawn, Tecuhtli Zolin led them deeper into the city, and they fought street by street toward the wide main boulevard. The battle was a mirror of the one the day before: again, the initial push sent the weary Nessanticans retreating backward; by the time Sakat's eye was well up in the sky, they had reached the boulevard, where Zolin quickly regrouped them and began marching them south.

There, the Nessanticans had gathered: around the market where they'd finally stopped the Tehuantin advance yesterday, and around the bridge leading to the island. Out in the A'Sele, Zolin had ordered the ships to advance toward the army; the ships of the Nessanticans had moved to stop them, and there was another battle taking place there, one whose outcome Niente could only guess at, though many of the warships of both sides were afire. There was no retreat possible there anymore-there were too few ships left for them all to return home.

"Nahual!" From his horse, Zolin jabbed a finger toward Niente. "You will take your nahualli with you and follow me. We have the main street, now we must have the bridge. Citlali! To me!"

Zolin quickly placed the warriors in position. Citlali and Zolin would attack the piers of the bridge from the boulevard, directly into the heart of the Nessantican forces; Mazatl would wait until the a.s.sault was underway, then strike from the west flank through the River Market. Several double-hands of warriors would also begin an attack to the north immediately, pushing the other way along the ring boulevard so that the Nessanticans could not concentrate their attention on the bridgehead-not without possibly losing the easternmost bridge to the great island. Zolin sent the diversionary warriors on, then waited for the sun's shadow to move a finger's length before waving his hand and leading them east and a little north to the boulevard, where he set them into position. They could see the Nessanticans: a wall of bristling shields across the boulevard, a scant few hundred strides from them.

There was no black sand and no time to make any more even if they had the raw materials. This time, the archers began the a.s.sault with a barrage that rained down on the shields of the Nessanticans without doing a great deal of damage. The war-teni sent their fireb.a.l.l.s screaming toward them, and Niente-with the other nahualli-raised their spell-staffs quickly. The warding spells crackled outward, a nearly visible pulse in the air. Most of the fireb.a.l.l.s were deflected; they fell into the buildings to either side, setting them afire. But there were too many of them, and not enough nahualli. The war-spells crashed down on the a.s.sembled warriors; where that happened, men screamed, their bodies twisted and charred. Those who could do so fled, terribly injured from the burns of the viscous fire. Those who could not, died. One fireball fell close enough to Niente that he could feel the heat of it, like a smithy's furnace opening in front of him. The heat washed over his face, scouring and drying. Zolin felt it also; he glanced back at the scene as his horse reared up in fright. Zolin shouted: "Forward! Now!" He brought his mount under control and kicked him into a gallop. The High Warriors on their horses followed him and the infantry surged forward as well. Niente was pulled along in the wave.

The wave crashed against the shields painted blue and gold, and impaled itself on their spears. In the roaring chaos, Niente saw Zolin's horse go down, a spear tearing deep into the creature's chest, but Zolin himself was lost in the press of soldiers and Niente couldn't see what happened to him.

There were swords and fighting all around him, and Niente could think only of himself, of taking out as many Nessanticans as he could. He pointed his spell-staff, speaking the release word over and over, and lightning crackled from the tip, hissing and bucking as it plunged into the ranks in front of Niente. A hole opened in the shield wall as Niente released another spell, and another-the flashes sending dozens of men to the ground. Warriors, shrieking and howling, plunged into the gap with swords waving. The wall began to give, then it collapsed entirely. Niente again was pushed along with the tide, and he saw close by the towers that marked the bridge entrance.

To his right, there was a cacophony of shouts: Mazatl's warriors striking at the flank. Horns shrilled deep in the Nessantican ranks. Niente could see a banner waving there and a cl.u.s.ter of chevarittai on their horses. Suddenly, the banner was moving away to the south over the bridge, the chevarittai with it. He could see the realization on the faces of the enemy soldiers in front of him. He could see the way their swords dropped momentarily, the lines weakening visibly. Arrows no longer rained down, the war-teni no longer cast fireb.a.l.l.s over Niente's head to fall into the rear of their ranks. They were moving steadily forward: the warriors, the nahualli, and now Niente could see Zolin again, bloodied and injured but on his feet, his sword cleaving the soldiers who dared to stand before him. Citlali was alongside him, his face grim and eager.

They were on the bridge now. It was theirs. The river moved sluggishly below them, and bodies fell from the rails to splash into its waters.

The Tehuantin roared. They sang as they killed, and Niente sang with them.

Varina ci'Pallo.

THE STREETS OF OLDTOWN were awash with panicked citizens, most of them running eastward away from the approaching Westlander forces and the battles along the Avi a'Parete. They could all hear the sounds: the shouts reverberating down the lanes, the cries, the screams, the constant din of the wind-horns shrilling alarm from the temples. The smoke of the fires was smeared across the sky, filthy rags sometimes obscuring the sun, and the smell of fire and carnage was thick in the air.

Varina found herself staying close to Karl for most of the day. She would smile at him, nervous and uncertain, and he would give her the same smile back. "Promise me," she said finally. They were alone in one of the rooms; Talis, Serafina, and Nico were in the other.

"Promise you what?"

"That whatever happens, it happens to us both. Save a last spell for us, and I'll do the same."

"It's not going to be that bad," he told her. "Talis . . . he's one of them, after all."

She nodded at that, as uncomforted by that fact as he was.

Late in the day, the smell of smoke became stronger. From the windows of their rooms, they could see thick, greasy smoke boiling up from the houses a street over to the west, with flames occasionally shooting up through the black. Ash was drifting down like gray snow. Karl imagined he could almost feel the heat. They went into the front room with the others.

"Everything's burning," Nico said. He looked more excited than concerned, but the adults all looked at each other worriedly. The faint crackling of the flames was audible in the silence.

"You're right, Nico," Varina said to him, glancing at Serafina. "I'm afraid the fire-teni are too busy elsewhere to do anything about this." Varina's gaze shifted from Serafina to Karl. Varina knew what he was thinking-it was what was on all of their minds: Can we stay here? Do we need to leave?

Less than a turn of the gla.s.s or more later, they all heard a loud commotion welling up from the west on the street outside. Varina opened the door to peer out. Not far down the street, a mob of several dozen people prowled the lane-not soldiers, not Westlanders, but those who lived in Oldtown. They were shouting, rushing from house to house and breaking in through doors and windows-she could hear the screams and cries of those inside as the mob pushed its way inside each house. They were looting, carrying out anything that appeared to be valuable: she could see some of them clutching stolen items as they marched; what else they were doing in those houses, she could only guess at. There were fires already burning in three or four houses farther down the street. The mob was shouting, screaming-"Take what you want! The city's lost! Rise up! Rise up!"

Karl and Talis pushed past Varina toward the street as the mob continued its slow, chaotic progress toward them. Someone at the front noticed them and pointed, and several clots of looters surged toward them. "Stop this!" Karl called, and they mocked him, shouting back at him and shaking old or improvised weapons. Karl glanced at Talis, shaking his head. He lifted his hands, gesturing, and light blossomed between his hands. Alongside him, Talis had raised his staff, tapping it once on the pavement stones: a lightning bolt arrowed up from the k.n.o.b toward the smoke-wrapped sky.

The mob stopped. Without a word, they scattered in a strange silence, scurrying in any direction as long as it was away from them. A few breaths later, the street was empty. "Well, that went rather well," Karl said. He and Talis turned, and Varina saw their mouths drop open as they gaped.

Varina had cast her own spell even as Karl had cast his. She'd shaped the air around her with a sculptor's touch, drawing upon it as a canvas and placing on it an image from her mind. She knew what Karl and Talis saw, looming behind them higher than any of the houses.

"A dragon!" Nico, in Serafina's arms, shouted from the doorway of the house in delight. Karl laughed, clapping his hands, and Varina grinned. "Can you make it spit fire and fly?" Nico asked, and Varina shook her head at the boy.

"It can't do anything. It just looks ferocious," she told him. For a moment, the danger was forgotten, but then reality collapsed back around them as Varina let the spell go. The dragon vanished in a fume of green, smoky ribbons that the wind hurried away. The looters might be gone, but nothing had changed. They'd be back, soon enough, and the nearby fires still raged unchecked. The city was still under a.s.sault.

"Karl," Varina said, "we can't stay here."

Karl looked once at Talis, saw the man nod slightly. "You're right," he said. "It's time. Let's gather what we need." He clapped Talis on the shoulder and started toward the door.

Across the street, Varina saw a lone older woman-a beggar, from the look of her clothing. She was staring toward their house. As Varina noticed her, the woman seemed to nod, then hurried away into the dark, narrow s.p.a.ce between the houses and was gone.

Sigourney ca'Ludovici.

THEY PUT HER in the Old Temple.

Commandant ca'Gerodi came fleeing back from the debacle at the Pontica Kralji, bellowing as he charged into the Old Temple to where Sigourney sat on the Sun Throne, telling her she and the Council of Ca' must take what they could and flee immediately by the Pontica a'Brezi Veste to the South Bank and out of the city.

Sigourney refused. "Let the Council go if they must," she said. "I am staying."

"I can't protect you, Kraljica," ca'Gerodi told her. "They are coming, at any moment."

"I'm not abandoning my city and my charge," she responded coldly. "I will stay."

In the end, her staff had taken what they could of the remaining treasures of the palais and fled the Isle a'Kralji. It was the same everywhere in Nessantico: in the vast Archigos' Temple on the South Bank, at the Grand Libreria with its precious, irreplaceable vellum scrolls and books; at the Theatre a'Kralji and the Musee a'Artisans. Councillor ca'Mazzak and the rest of the Council had vanished as well. Fleeing south, the only direction still open to them . . .

Sigourney remained on the Sun Throne in the Old Temple, in the sunlight coming through the ruined, charred dome. Before she allowed the court herbalist to leave, she ordered him to prepare a special goblet of cuore della volpe, which now sat on the arm of the Sun Throne next to her. She wore a long, cerulean tashta with a yellow overcloak, hiding the fact that there was no leg below her right knee. She had the servants place a jeweled patch over the hole where her right eye had been, and apply egg powder to her face to hide the worst of the scars.

She waited on the ancient seat of Nessantico. Waited for the inevitable.

Outside, she could hear the battle raging: the shouting of men, the clashing of arms, the roar of war-teni spells. Smoke drifted overhead, dulling the sunlight. An elite guard of Garde Kralji was arrayed before her, their chain mail rustling as they shifted nervously, swords in hand and facing the doors to the temple. Commandant ca'Gerodi had left her a turn of the gla.s.s earlier. "I won't see you again, Kraljica," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I know," she told him. "I know. And I am sorry, too."

She waited.

When the doors burst open, the gardai in front of her stiffened and started to rush forward. "No," she told them. "Hold! Wait!" Several Westlander warriors entered the temple; with them was another man, this one without the tattoos of the warriors and carrying a burnished wooden staff: one of their spellcasters. They stopped, peering down the long aisle of the nave to where Sigourney was seated in a dusty shaft of sunlight. "Do any of you speak our language?" she called out.

"I do," the spellcaster said. His words were slurred and heavily accented, but understandable. "A little."

"Good," she said. "I am Kraljica Sigourney ca'Ludovici, ruler of this land. Who are you?"

The man whispered for a moment to the warrior alongside him, with the image of a red hawk or eagle inscribed over his bare skull. "I am Niente," the spellcaster answered. "I am the Nahual. And this," he said, gesturing to the warrior to whom he'd spoken, "is the leader of the Tehuantin, Tecuhtli Zolin. He demands your surrender, Kraljica."

"He can demand whatever he likes," Sigourney told him. She lifted a hand from the arm of the Sun Throne, the signet ring of the Kralji glinting on her hand as she touched the golden band of a crown set in her gray, coa.r.s.e hair. The sun was warm on her, and she glanced upward to the charred ruins of the dome supports. "He won't have that."

Again the spellcaster spoke to the warrior, who uttered a laugh that echoed in the temple. He spoke words in a tongue that sounded at once strange and yet oddly familiar. Where had she heard words like that before? "Tecuhtli Zolin says that if the Kraljica wishes to challenge him, he is willing to meet that challenge. He will loan her his own sword if she doesn't have one of her own. Otherwise, he will order his warriors to take you prisoner. He leaves the choice to you."

She shook her head. "I know how you treat prisoners," she told him. "And you haven't looked at all the choices I have." The spellcaster appeared confused as Sigourney took the goblet from the arm of the Sun Throne and downed the bitter concoction in one long draught. "I hope you enjoy the city while you hold it," she told him. She raised the goblet to them, then let it fall ringing to the tiles. Her leg was already losing sensation as she leaned back on the throne. The paralysis rose quickly upward: her thighs, her hips, her midsection. Her heart. The sunlight in the room seemed to be dimming. "This is my throne," she told them, "and while I live, I will not give it up."

She laughed then. Her voice sounded strange and breathy and weak. She tried to force out the next words. "And I choose my own time." She tried to take a breath, but her lungs would not move. She opened her mouth, but there was no air for words.

She smiled at them as the sun went dark and Nessantico vanished from her sight.

Karl Vliomani.

"WHERE DO YOU SUGGEST we go?" Talis asked.

"East," Karl suggested. "To the Firenzcians. Sergei might be there."

"We could go west," Talis countered. "To my people."

"Your people have set fire to Nessantico," Varina told him. "They kill. They rape. They plunder."

"And your people don't?" Talis snapped back at her. "You haven't been to the h.e.l.lins, have you? Or have you forgotten what started this confrontation in the first place?" He glared at Varina, who held his gaze, unblinking.

"Stop it, both of you," Karl told them. "We don't have time to waste on this. Talis, moving west means trying to get through the worst of the fires, and the south doesn't appear all that much better. We have to think of the boy, especially; it's too dangerous."

"And going toward the Firenzcians isn't?" Talis countered.

"I'd say it's less so."

Serafina touched Talis' shoulder. "I think he's right, love," she said. "Please . . ."

Talis scowled, then shrugged. "Fine," he said. "But it's on your head, Numetodo, if this turns out badly."

They quickly gathered what they could carry. The smell of smoke was overpowering now and ash was falling steadily on the rooftops, their edges glistening with wavering fire. They couldn't see the sun at all, though it had to be high in the sky. The street outside was still deserted; those who could flee had already done so; those who were staying were hunkered down in the buildings. They moved quickly down the lane to the first intersection and turned east.

As they reached the larger streets, they encountered crowds again. Swarms of them were looting the stores, breaking down the doors and ripping off the shutters and carrying out whatever they could. They glared defiantly at the group as they pa.s.sed with their prizes, defying anyone to try to stop them or to protest. A squad of four utilino appeared, shrilling on their whistles, but beyond that they made no attempt to restore order; they pointed their sticks and yelled warning, but scurried quickly away when the nearest looters turned to confront them.

Karl and the others moved after them.

Some time later, they'd gone several blocks, far enough that the ash from the fires was no longer coating their shoulders and hair. They were nearing Oldtown Center; Karl could glimpse the open square not far ahead, where the winding lane opened suddenly into it: there was the statue of Henri VI with his sword upraised, standing in sunlight. The crowds had vanished again. They might have been hurrying through a deserted city. As they approached the end of the street, Karl stopped them: pressed against the flank of the nearest building, they watched a squadron of Garde Civile rushing south across the open plaza near the fountain of Selida, led by a trio of mounted chevarittai. Many of the soldiers were visibly wounded, limping as they half-ran across the plaza.

"They're retreating," Varina whispered. "Have we lost the city, then?"