by S L Farrell
Rochelle smiled at Jan but he was no longer looking in her direction and now he was past her, striding down the main aisle of the temple toward the quire where Archigos Karrol was already waiting. He was bowing to the ca’-andcu’ in the pews toward the front.
Rochelle imagined herself walking with him. Imagined the applause breaking over her. Imagined that Jan was tousling her hair rather than that of Elissa.
“That was my name: when I knew him, when we were lovers. That’s the name I’d taken at the time-Elissa. He named his firstborn after me. He did…”
The family-the family that might have been, should have been hers-was distant now, sliding into the empty seats before the High Lectern at the front of the temple, under the dome and the painted figures gazing down on the assembly from their frescoes. The e-teni at the rear of the temple were chanting, the energy of the Ilmodo closing the massive bronze doors, and Rochelle let herself drop from her perch to the floor. Moving lithely and quietly, she slipped outside before the doors closed.
She hurried into the older and poorer sections of the city where she lived. That was another piece of advice from her matarh: “Living among the rich makes you too visible. That was the mistake I made with your vatarh…” She heard the temple wind-horns sounding Second Call and the end of the Day of Return blessing as she moved deeper into the narrow and twisted lanes that curled around the hills of Brezno, hurrying because she was late to an appointment.
Someone wanted to hire the White Stone: Josef cu’Kella, who belonged to a rising family that seemed to have its hands in several businesses within the city. She wondered what excuse the man had used to avoid being at the temple this morning.
He should be waiting already outside the Blue Wisp, a tavern on Straight Lane-aptly named, for it arrowed up the steep slope of Hirzgai Hill, on which sat the ruins of the first palais, burned and abandoned three centuries ago. The Blue Wisp was located halfway up the hill; she’d chosen it because she could approach it from either the top or bottom of the lane, giving her a good line of sight to determine if it were safe to approach or whether she should walk on past; in the last week since she’d completed the contract for the goltschlager ci’Braun, the utilinos and the Garde Brezno had been asking questions, carrying out strange raids, and taking certain women into custody throughout the city: women who nearly always were the age her matarh would have been if she were still alive, women who had the same general build and complexion as her matarh. It was obvious to Rochelle that they were hunting the White Stone. It was possible that cu’Kella was the bait in a trap meant to capture her.
She wondered, again, if she should be meeting the man at all, even if he was no more than a potential client. He was cu’, which meant that she could charge him handsomely for her services, but matarh had long ago warned her that the White Stone could perform two or, at the most, three contracts in a city before she would have to move on. She wanted to stay in Brezno, now that she’d seen Jan. She wanted to know more about him, wanted to know him better. Wanted to meet him. It would be best if she let the White Stone stay idle; she had coins enough in her purse.
But the truth was that she didn’t want to stay idle. There was an excitement to being the White Stone, to the hunt and the eventual kill.
One more contract. That would be all.
She could see cu’Kella already, wearing-as he’d been told-a red bashta and a hat with a blue feather in it. He looked uncomfortable, scanning everyone who passed as he stood shuffling outside the tavern’s door. Rochelle glanced to either side of the street; no utilino, no gardai of the Garde Brezno; no one standing close by pretending to be doing something else where they could easily watch the man. That didn’t mean there weren’t gardai hiding in the nearby buildings and watching, but so far everything seemed safe and normal. Rochelle continued to walk toward the man, deliberately not looking at him as she approached, pretending to be interested in the wares in the shop windows. In her peripheral vision, she saw him glance at her appraisingly, then look away again. She passed behind him, putting her hand on the hilt of the knife under her cloak. “Walk with me, Vajiki cu’Kella,” she whispered as she passed. She continued to walk on up the lane, slowly.
The man started visibly. Then he stirred, turning to walk alongside her. “Are you…?”
“I’m the one you’re waiting for,” she told him. She glanced behind: no one emerged from any of the buildings around them; no utilino whistled alarm, no squad of Garde Brezno appeared. Rochelle relaxed slightly, though she continued to watch to see if they were followed-the side streets off Straight Lane were tangled and many, and she felt she could lose pursuers there easily at need. She kept the hand on her knife hilt, in case cu’Kella himself tried to attack her, but his hands were visible and he didn’t appear to have a sword.
“What is your name?” the man asked her.
She laughed at that. “You don’t need my name, Vajiki. We’re not conducting business, and even if we were, it’s of the type where names aren’t needed. It’s enough that I know yours, and it’s not me, after all, you want to talk to.”
“So you’re not… Of course not, you’re so young…”
“No, I’m not the one you’d like to hire,” she said firmly. “I know how to contact her, if that’s what you want. That’s all. But even I don’t know what she looks like, or who she might be.” He stopped, and she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Keep walking, Vajiki, unless you’ve changed your mind.”
He seemed to shiver, then took a step to fall in alongside her again. “Good,” Rochelle said. “So tell me, who is it?”
“Who is it?” cu’Kella asked dully, then shook himself again. “Oh, that. I’d rather not say. Only to… the person you’re contacting for me.”
They were at one of the cross streets, and Rochelle paused. “Then we’re done,” Rochelle told him. “Good day, Vajiki.” She started to turn left, away from the lane.
“No, wait!” he called after her, and she paused, allowing herself a small smile. So typical. She started walking up Straight Lane again, saying nothing, and cu’Kella hurried after her, close to her elbow. “I
… I’ll tell you. It’s Rance ci’Lawli.”
She could not entirely keep the surprise from her voice. “Ci’Lawli? The Hirzg’s chief aide?”
A nod. “The same.”
You shouldn’t do this. To kill someone so close to the Hirzg. Yet
… It would necessitate her being near or in the palais, where she would have to be in proximity to her vatarh and his family… Something pulled at her inside, made her burn with a yearning she couldn’t quite define. “Why ci’Lawli?”
A sniff. “As you said, Vajica, there’s no need for names here, nor for tales. I’ll tell the Whi-” He stopped. “The person you know. If she cares.”
Rochelle shrugged. “As you wish.” She took cu’Kella’s arm, as if they were lovers strolling the lane, pulling him close to her. She whispered into his ear: a location, a day, and an amount of money in gold solas.
He pulled away from her. “So much?” he said.
“So much,” she answered. “Be there with the solas if you’re interested, Vajiki,” she told him, “and you’ll meet her.”
Varina ca’Pallo
She knew she shouldn’t have done this, knew that Sergei would be irritated when he found out-and she knew he would find out. She just hoped it would be afterward, when it was too late.
One of the gardai assigned to watch her at Sergei’s request had let slip the address of the house in the Oldtown district raided by the Garde Kralji. She made certain that her errands the next day took her past that house, and she called out to the carriage driver to halt. The garda (who was not the one who had given her the address) looked concerned when she opened the carriage door and descended. “Vajica ca’Pallo, I don’t advise…”
“Then don’t,” she told him, interrupting him. The raising of his eyebrows at the rebuke might have pleased someone else; it only made Varina feel g
uilty, but she continued, trying to soften her tone. “I only want to see this place where the Morellis lived. Just a glimpse; you can come with me if you must.”
“The Commandant will have my neck for this.”
“I’ll tell the Commandant I gave you no choice.”
The garda looked unconvinced, but he preceded Varina to the door of the house. She allowed him to enter first. She thought she could feel eyes watching them, staring at her from somewhere. Without trying to hide the motion, she took a small box from under her cloak: finely-crafted, carved from oak, and varnished to perfection, a master’s work. She placed the box on the sill of the window nearest the door, feeling the cold chill of the Scath Cumhacht clinging to the wood. Then, quickly, she followed the garda into the house.
She spent little time there, since she’d already done what she’d come to do. Still, she tried to imagine Nico here, tried to imagine his voice and his presence in the rooms, or sleeping in one of the beds. There were religious icons of the Faith everywhere in the house, and someone with a fair artistic hand had painted the cracked globe of Cenzi on the side wall of one of the bedrooms, while from the opposite wall leered the demonic forms of the demigod Moitidi, misshapen and twisted parodies of humanity. Varina shivered, looked at them, wondering how someone could stand to sleep here, with their leering, grinning expressions and clawed hands. Even the garda shook his head, looking at them. “They have a strange view of the Faith, these Morellis,” he said. His fingers were curled around the pommel of his sword, as if he was afraid that one of the painted figures might leap out at him. “They say that Archigos Karrol has some sympathy for them, though I swear I don’t understand it.”
“I don’t either,” Varina told him. “I can’t imagine the Nico I knew…” She stopped. “I’m ready to go,” she told him.
“Good,” the garda answered, too quickly. “That painting makes the hairs stand on the back of my neck. It’s an ugly thing.”
They left quickly, the garda closing the door behind them. Varina kept herself carefully between the man and the windowsill where the box sat, making sure that he wouldn’t see it. The carriage’s driver was on her staff; he would say nothing.
The garda opened the carriage door for her; she stepped in as the garda closed the door behind her and pulled himself up to sit next to the driver. The small hatch above her head lifted and she saw the driver’s face looking down at her. “To the house,” she told him; he nodded and let the hatch close again. The carriage lurched into motion.
Varina looked out as they drove off. She could see the box on the windowsill, the varnish on the golden wood gleaming in the afternoon sun.
“The Kraljica and Ambassador ca’Rudka would be terrifically disappointed in you.” They were the first words he said to her, smiling as he spoke.
In her mind, Nico had to some extent remained the child she’d known. Yes, she knew the boy had grown into manhood in the intervening fifteen years. She’d followed his career when he’d suddenly reemerged so unexpectedly as a rising teni in the Archigos’ Temple in Brezno, an acolyte whose skills with the Ilmodo, whose charisma and power of personality impressed all who met him. She-as well as Karl-had tried to reach out to him then: through letters, and when those went unanswered, through Sergei via his frequent travels to Brezno. Sergei had managed to talk to him there, but Nico had made it obvious that he had no interest in contacting either Karl or Varina. “He said this,” Sergei told them on his return. “‘Tell the two heretics that they are anathema to me. They mock Cenzi, and therefore they mock me. Tell them that when they see the errors of their beliefs, then perhaps we might have something to say to each other. Until then, they are dead to me, as dead as if they were already in their graves with their souls writhing with the torment of the soul shredders.’ And he laughed then,” Sergei continued. “As if he found the thought amusing.”
Despite the disappointment, Varina had continued to follow his career. She had been worried when he and his followers had directly challenged the authority of the Archigos and Nico had been defrocked as a teni and forbidden to use the Ilmodo ever again on pain of the loss of his hands and tongue.
Then Nico had left Brezno, wandering for a time and continuing to preach his harsh interpretation of the Toustour and the Divolonte-the sacred texts of the Concenzia Faith-until he had finally come to Nessantico. Now he stood in front of her, and she could still see the boy’s round face that she remembered in the thin, ascetic, and bearded visage in front of her, with his smoldering, burning gaze.
“The Kraljica and Ambassador ca’Rudka would be terrifically disappointed in you.” All those years, all that time, and this was how he began. She could feel the heavy weight of the sparkwheel in the pouch on her belt.
“Why would they be disappointed?” she asked. She gestured around at the Oldtown tavern in which they were sitting. Around them, the patrons were talking among themselves and drinking. A group of musicians were tuning their instruments in a corner. The noise lent them privacy in their booth. Nico sat across from her, his hands folded together on the scratched and rough wooden surface of the table between them, almost as if he were praying. He wore black, making his pale face seem almost spectral in comparison, even with the dim lighting of the tavern and the single candle on the table. “Because there aren’t any gardai here to try to trap you?” she said to him. “Do you think I hate you that much, Nico? I don’t. I don’t hate you at all. Neither did Karl.”
“Then why the elaborate setup?” he asked. “Leaving an enchanted box… I have to admit that was clever and certainly got my attention, though my friend Ancel didn’t heed the warning not to open it. He told me that he thought his hands were going to blister, the wood became so hot.” Nico shook his head, tsking as if scolding a child. “You really should be more careful with the gift Cenzi has given you, Varina.”
She took a long breath. “You killed people, Nico. My friends and my peers. Karl was already dead; you couldn’t hurt him anymore. But the others-they were people, with husbands and wives and children. And you took their lives.”
“Ah. That.” He frowned momentarily. “It says in the Toustour that ‘… if they fight you, then slay them; such is the reward of the unbelievers. Fight with them until there is no persecution, and the only religion is that of Cenzi.’ I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused the families of those who died. I truly am, and I’ve prayed to Cenzi for them.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, and nascent tears shimmered at the bottom of his eyes. He closed his eyes then, his head tilting upward as if he were listening to an unseen voice from above. Then his chin came down again, and when his eyes opened, they were dust-dry. “But am I sorry that a few Numetodo have gone on to be judged by Cenzi for their heresy? No, I’m not.”
“The Toustour also says ‘… O humankind! We created you and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, not that ye may despise each other.’ ”
Nico’s mouth twisted in a vestige of a smile. “I wouldn’t expect a Numetodo to quote from a text in which she doesn’t believe.”
“I believe-like any Numetodo-that knowledge is what will ultimately lead to understanding. That includes knowing those who consider you to be an enemy, and knowing what they believe and why they believe it. I’ve read the Toustour, all of it, and the Divolonte as well, and I’ve had long and interesting talks with Archigos Ana, Archigos Kenne, and A’Teni ca’Paim.”
“You’ve read the Toustour, but you’ve evidently failed to see the truth in it.”
“Anyone can write a book. I’m a Numetodo. I need evidence. I need incontrovertible proof. I need to see hypotheses tested and the results reproduced. Then I can allow myself to believe.” Varina sighed. “But neither one of us is going to convince the other, are we?”
“No.” He spread his hands, palm up, on the table. “Though I must admit that you Numetodo can occasionally be useful: the Tehuantin black sand, for instance. It’s rather ironic, if you reflect on it: had I and my people been permitte
d to use the Ilmodo, then I wouldn’t have needed to use black sand and your friends would likely still be alive. The Ilmodo, at least, can be a precise weapon.”
Varina flushed at that, and her hand caressed the stock of the cocked and loaded sparkwheel in her belt-pouch.
“So why am I here, Varina,” he continued, “if you’re not planning to hand me over to the Garde Kralji and have me thrown into the Bastida?”
“I wanted to see you again, Nico,” she told him. Her finger curled around the metal guard of the trigger. “I wanted to hear you.” The cold metal tongue on her finger warmed quickly at her touch. “Because I needed to know…” Just a tightening of a muscle. That’s all it would take.
“… if I’m the monster that the Faith makes me out to be?” he finished for her. It would be so easy: under the table, slip the sparkwheel out and point the open metal tube toward Nico; pull the trigger mechanism to spin the wheel and set the sparks aflame to touch the black sand in the enclosed pan. A single breath later, and… The holes in the armor; what would this do to an unprotected body? “No one thinks of himself as a monster,” Nico was saying. “Other people may deem what a person does as evil, but they think that they are doing what they must do to correct the wrongs they perceive. I’m no different. No, I’m not a monster.” He gave her a smile, and his face and eyes lit up in a way that reminded her of the old Nico, the child. “Neither are you, Varina. No matter what you might be thinking of doing to me.”
Her finger uncurled. She brought her hand out from the pouch. “Nico…”
“Varina,” he said before she could gather her chaotic thoughts, “you tried to do what you thought best for me during the Sack of Nessantico. I appreciate that, and I will be forever grateful to you for your efforts, even if you don’t realize that you were following the will of Cenzi. When I pray to Cenzi, I ask Him for forgiveness for both you and Karl. I pray that He will lift the blindness from your eyes so that you may see His glory and come to Him. But…” He slid from the booth and stood alongside her. His hand touched her shoulder once and slid away. His eyes were full of a quiet sadness. “We are on opposite sides in this. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. There can be no reconciliation for us, I’m afraid. For what you did, I will always love you. Because you, too, are Cenzi’s creation, I will always love you. And because of the path you’ve chosen, I must always be your enemy.” His sadness on his face deepened. “And it’s far easier to hate an enemy you don’t know than the one you do. So good-bye, Varina.”