by S L Farrell
It was difficult to maintain the smile, knowing that had he ever needed to betray her or Karl’s friendship to save himself, he would have done so without hesitation. But he managed it. “I will never forget either,” he told her. “And I will come to you first, if I need help.”
“Good,” she said, rising with him. She embraced him, and he closed his eyes, trying to feel her affection and her trust. But there was nothing. Everything was empty and cold. There was no heat, even in the glare of the sun. “Stay safe,” she told him. “You are one of the few true friends I have left. I can’t afford to lose you. I’ll worry about you the entire time you’re gone.”
“And I will worry for you,” he told her, “because you’re here.”
Bowing his head to her, he shuffled from the sunroom.
He wanted her to call after him: to stop him from leaving, to force him to confess it all, to spill out the poison inside him so that perhaps, having to confront it, he could come to understand it.
But she did not.
Nico Morel
The crowd began to gather well before First Call, as if the day were one of the High Days where attendance at temple was required of all the Faithful. In the cold hours before dawn, they came to the plaza outside the Old Temple on the Isle a’Kralji: a few hands of people at first, milling near the temple entrance, then small groups of others. They were young and old, many of them-from the tattered and worn appearance of their dress and the state of their hair and teeth-the ce’-and-ci’ or even the unranked dregs of Oldtown, though there were a few better-dressed folk scattered among them, and the occasional green flash of teni-robes.
They gathered as the eastern sky began to turn pale mist-gray and then a tentative orange. By the time the sky beyond the black silhouette of cu’Brunelli’s famous dome had gone to golden hues and the teni responsible for sounding the wind-horns had clambered up the long stairs to their station, gaping in surprise at the crowded, shadowed plaza far below, the crowd had grown to a few hundred.
That was when Nico arrived, huddled in the midst of his close Morelli companions. Liana held to him as if she were afraid she might lose him in the crush, her arm around his waist-she had insisted on coming, even though Nico had urged her to remain behind. He knew that by now someone must have alerted A’Teni ca’Paim about the odd gathering outside the temple, but none of the higher teni appeared to be watching from the doors or windows of the OldTemple. In fact, except for the gathering of the Morellis and their sympathizers, everything seemed strangely, almost eerily quiet. Those of the Faith who were coming into the plaza for the regular First Call service stopped, puzzled at the gathering and uncertain whether they should continue forward or not.
Nico grinned. Cenzi had told him it would be like this. He had prayed; he had spent turn after turn of the glass on his knees asking for insight before he had met with those of the Faith who believed in him, and finally the vision had come: Cenzi had told Nico that they would be betrayed, that a confession would be wrung from one of them too weak to resist, that the Garde Kralji and A’Teni ca’Paim would know what had been planned.
And that knowledge was enough. It was enough.
Liana pressed close to Nico, and now Ancel also approached him. “We’re ready?” Nico asked, and Ancel nodded, tight-lipped. He could feel their trepidation as they walked out into the square: twenty or so of his disciples-those closest to Nico, those who had been with him since the early days in Brezno when the Faith had first embraced, then rejected him. Around them, a buzz of excitement was growing as people recognized him. Nico could hear the whispers: “Look, it’s the Absolute
… It’s him…” Then the chant began to rise: “Nico! Nico! Nico!” It was a pulse, a beat, a rhythm. Even the wind-horns, beginning their mournful announcement of First Call could not drown out that call. “Nico! Nico! Nico!” It pounded against the walls of the Old Temple and rebounded from the gilded dome, spearing into the dawn sky.
As if summoned by the call, the Garde Kralji appeared, emerging from the temple and from the buildings attached to it, squads appearing at the street entrances, surrounding the crowds: the gardai in their uniforms, their pikes ready; the utilino, with their cudgels and-undoubtedly-spells prepared to control the crowd. Those of the Faithful who had come for the service realized that something violent was about to happen-most of them scrambled through the lines of the gardai and away. Commandant cu’Ingres and A’Teni ca’Paim appeared at the balcony above the main doors of the temple: at cu’Ingres’ gesture, an aide sounded a trumpet, shrill and high above the continuing drone of the wind-horns, while two gardai on the balcony waved signal flags.
The Garde Kralji began to advance, closing the circle around the Morellis. Nico nodded to one of the teni with them: the woman gestured and chanted, and light burst high over the plaza, sending long shadows scurrying over the stone flags and over the people there. The gardai and utilino paused. Even the wind-horns’ moaning sagged and failed.
From around the plaza, outside the ring of the Garde Kralji, several people now emerged from the street entrances or the buildings, most of them green-robed: teni of the Faith, yes, but teni who knew Nico for what he was: Cenzi’s prophet, Cenzi’s Absolute. Many of them were war-teni, the war-teni who had vanished at the time of A’Teni ca’Paim’s call to join Commandant ca’Talin and the Garde Civile to defend Villembouchure. Nico could see-above the columned entrance to the temple-A’Teni ca’Paim pointing and gesturing to Commandant cu’Ingres as she realized what was happening. Cu’Ingres turned desperately to his aides, and the trumpet sounded a new, frenzied call as the signal flags waved frantically.
They were too late. The war-teni of the Morellis had already begun their chants, and now they gestured. Fire and smoke bloomed in the dawn light, arcing up and then falling into the ranks of the gardai, exploding as if the wrath of Cenzi Himself was falling on the wretched Moitidi who had disobeyed Him. There were screams and shouts from everywhere around the plaza as gelatinous flame fell among the gardai, clinging to their clothes and skin as it burned: teni-fire of the worst kind. The Garde Kralji normally dealt with crowd control and small groups; unlike the Garde Civile, they were unused to large-scale organized battles, and now their ranks fell apart entirely as they scrambled for safety away from the flames. “Now!” Nico shouted, and again the teni sent a spear of white light to explode above the plaza. “To the temple!” Nico shouted, and his voice was louder than the screams, louder than the trumpet, louder than than the wind-horns. His voice echoed like booming thunder from the buildings around the plaza. “We will take back what belongs to the true Faithful!”
His disciples surged forward toward the main gates, and the others who had come at his summons moved with them. The gardai at the temple entrance lowered their pikes, but the attackers were too many: the crowd slipped past them or struck down their weapons. The gates were wrenched open with a metallic shriek. Inside, Nico could glimpse the gilded-and-frescoed walls; the ornately-carved columns bearing the immense weight of the arched, distant roof; the rows and rows of burnished pews; the brazier burning with the scent of strong incense; the massive, impossible dome, painted with the images of Cenzi struggling with the Moitidi, the quire and High Lectern far underneath, seemingly tiny against the massive space. Nico breathed it in-this holy space, this reverent palais built to honor Cenzi which not even the heathen fire of the Westlanders could entirely destroy.
This place was sacred. This place was history incarnate, and here he would begin to make his own history.
His disciples had moved aside, none of them entering yet. The crowd stood at his back. Out in the plaza, the soldiers writhed in pain or lay dead or had fled.
Nico took a step. Another. He crossed the threshold of the place he had been forbidden to enter again as teni, and as he did so, he let his cloak slide from his shoulders to the ground, revealing the green robes of a teni underneath.
He would take back his title and his rights. He would be teni again, as Cenzi had
told him to be.
The interior of the temple seemed brighter than the dawn outside, the flames of the braziers around the sides of the space sending heat and light shimmering up the fluted walls and gleaming in the polished marble of the floor. He stood ensconced in gold and warm browns, breathing an air spiced and fragrant and achingly familiar. He lifted his head looking up to the dome far above at the end of the long aisle.
There were people moving there, scurrying under the beauty of the fresco like mice: a group of teni, with the green-trimmed golden robes of A’Teni ca’Paim just behind them, Commandant cu’Ingres at her side and gardai spreading out along the walls to either side. Nico could hear someone behind him-Liana, he thought-beginning a chant, and he held up a hand.
“Hold!” he said. “There is no danger here for the Faithful. There’s no danger here for me.” With the temple’s fine, legendary acoustics, he could hear his words whispering to the farthest corners.
“How dare you!” The words sliced harsh and bitter through the temple. A’Teni ca’Paim stepped forward on the raised steps of the quire, standing next to the prow of the High Lectern as if she were about to ascend and give a stern Admonition to the assembled Morellis. “How dare you step into the temple wearing the robes that were taken from you by the Archigos himself? How dare you come into this holy place after you’ve just murdered dozens outside? You are damned in the sight of Cenzi, Nico Morel, and I will have your tongue and your hands for this outrage!”
“My tongue and hands?” Nico responded. His voice sounded deep and rich after the shrill, breathless outcry of the older woman. “My tongue speaks the words of Cenzi Himself, A’Teni, and my hands hold His affection. They are not yours to have. They will never be yours.” He advanced down the aisle toward her, still talking. He could see the gardai along the walls, armed with bows, and he saw them fit arrows to their strings. He smiled. “I have listened to Him,” Nico said, “and He has told me that the time has come for me to reclaim my place, and that if you, A’Teni, or Archigos Karrol himself, will not see the truth of what I say, then He will cause you to curse your blindness and wail as the soul shredders tear your imperfect souls from your bodies.”
“You threaten me?” ca’Paim sputtered. “Here in my own temple, in front of Commandant cu’Ingres and my staff? You’re a fool as well as a heretic.”
“I don’t threaten,” Nico told her, still walking forward. He could hear the creaking of leather bowstrings under tension. His voice was calm. His voice was kind. His voice held a full measure of sympathy and understanding. “I give you a last chance, A’Teni, a chance to see the error of your thinking, to go to your knees and give the sign of Cenzi and ask Him for forgiveness.”
Nico thought for a moment that she had heard Cenzi in his voice, that she-finally, belatedly-understood. A’Teni ca’Paim said nothing. She stood there, her mouth open, and Nico saw her body trembling as if she were possessed of a fever. Her face lifted for a moment to cu’Brunelli’s dome above her, to the images painted there. Under the heavy, gold-threaded robes, her legs seemed to give way, to bend, and Nico thought that she would go to her knees there.
But the trembling ceased, and she stood straight again. “No,” she said aloud. “I will not.”
Nico sighed sadly. “I’m genuinely sorry for that,” he said. He lifted his hands. He began to chant.
“No!” ca’Paim, and this time it was a shout. “You are forbidden to use the Ilmodo. Stop him!” she said to cu’Ingres, and the Commandant gestured. Bowstrings sang their deathsong, and Nico heard Liana cry out in fear.
But it was already too late. Nico gestured, full of Cenzi’s power, and the arrows went to fire and ash before they could touch him. A wave-visible in the air-rippled outward from him in a great arc to the front and sides, and what it touched, it destroyed. Pews lifted and were hurled as if by a hurricane wind, slamming against walls and gardai alike. The plaster on the walls cracked, the fire in the braziers guttered and nearly failed.
And on the quire, the teni attendants, A’Teni ca’Paim, and Commandant cu’Ingres were also tossed and thrown. Nico saw ca’Paim’s body hit first the railing at the back of the quire, breaking it into splinters, then a sickening, dull clunk as her head collided with one of the columns. Her body slumped to the floor; blood smeared all the way down the column.
The spell passed, vanishing as if it had never been there, and Nico shivered for a moment in the cold and normal exhaustion of spell-casting. The interior of the temple was silent except for the moaning of injured gardai and teni. Cu’Ingres was trying to regain his feet, though from the way he cradled his left arm, it must have been broken. Ca’Paim did not move at all, and Nico knew then that she never would, nor would several of the gardai and teni. His eyesight wavered with tears: such a tragic, but necessary, waste… “May the soul shredders be kind to you,” he whispered toward ca’Paim’s body. “I forgive you your blindness.”
Liana came up to stand alongside him, her arms supporting him as the weariness of using the Ilmodo this strongly trembled his legs, and he could hear the others entering as well. Nico looked at Ancel and pointed to the Commandant. “Take him,” he said, “and bind his wounds. Have the healers among us look at him and the others.” He spat directions to the others. “Liana, make certain that the main doors are barricaded and barred. Tell our people to use whatever they can. You, and you-clear the plaza of our Faithful and get the the war-teni inside. You three-secure the rest of the doors into the temple once everyone’s inside. Everyone else, let’s clean up this place and make it a fit House for Cenzi again…”
He watched as his followers began to move. Then Nico sank to his knees and clasped his hands to his forehead in the sign of Cenzi, and he prayed.
The first step back had been taken. Now would come the rest of the journey.
Brie ca’Ostheim
“Rhianna, I wanted to talk with you…”
Rhianna put the quartet of tashtas she was carrying on the bed, smoothing the fabric of wrinkles-she and the domestiques de chambre had been tasked by Paulus with packing Brie’s clothing and essentials for the trip to the army’s encampment, and several trunks were scattered about the room, half-filled. The two other servants-older women who kept the Hirzgin’s bedchamber and attended to her needs there-continued to work after curtsying once to Brie. They pretended to ignore her presence with the long practice of servants at being invisible when required.
“What did you want, Hirzgin?” the young woman asked, brushing her hands on her apron and tucking a strand of her black hair behind an ear. She seemed guileless enough, but Brie had been watching Jan and Rhianna whenever the two were in the same room with her, and there was no doubt in her mind that Rhianna was certainly someone that her husband would bed if the opportunity presented itself. But she was relatively convinced it hadn’t happened yet. There was a skittishness to Rhianna whenever Jan was around, and she always kept herself a careful arm’s length from him. She didn’t act like someone who was already on intimate terms with him. Still, it was familiar, this dance; Brie had seen it too many times before: sometimes with servants, sometimes with one of the court ladies. Yet this time it was different, too. Rhianna didn’t seem as eager as the others to be caught, and that both pleased and worried Brie. She wondered what it was that Rhianna would want from Jan in return for the pleasures of her body, if she prized the gift so highly.
“I’ve been considering whether I should have you remain with the children here at Stag Fall,” Brie told her. She watched Rhianna’s face carefully. Yes, there was the hint of a frown, even though she tried to disguise it by wiping her brow with a sleeve.
“Paulus said that I would be going with the staff to the encampment,” she answered, and Brie smiled at her.
“Yes,” she said. “I know. But you’re so good with the children, Rhianna. Elissa especially likes you, and the nursemaids will have their hands full.”
Rhianna’s face was impassive. Carved from stone. The domestiques de c
hambre kept their heads down, intent on their own tasks: invisible. Brie knew that they had heard this conversation played out in one form or another before as well. “Whatever the Hirzgin wishes, of course,” Rhianna said, but the response was slow in coming and toneless.
“Unless, of course,” Brie continued, “the Hirzg would rather you were with us.”
Rhianna’s head came up, her eyes widened, and Brie felt the sickness tighten in her stomach. Such a strange look: fear and anticipation all at once, as if she doesn’t know what she wants… Brie kept the well-practiced smile on her face.
With Mavel cu’Kella, with the servants Maria and Greta, with the other women she’d known about, the decision would have been easy. Had Rhianna been like one of them, Brie would have her remain here, then dismiss her on her return. When lovers became too close to Jan, too bound up with him, they became a danger to Brie as well. With Rhianna, it wasn’t clear yet what was going to happen. Perhaps that’s better. If I sent her away, then Jan would just find someone else: someone I might not know about for too long. At least with Rhianna, I know who to watch, and I can always end it. She’s just one of the unranked, after all…
Brie nodded, as if to herself. “I’ll talk with the Hirzg,” she told Rhianna. “I’ll ask him what he thinks.”
The girl nodded. “I’ll…” She cut off whatever it was she might have said. “I should finish the packing in the meantime,” she said.
“Yes,” Brie told her. “I’ll leave you to that.”
She wouldn’t talk to Jan. She would allow the girl to come along as Paulus had wished. And she would watch.
She would watch very carefully.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
A Offizier Pierre Ci’Santiago was obviously uncomfortable with the news he brought to Allesandra. Under curls of raven-black hair matted and unruly from the pressure of his uniform cap, now twisting in his hands, ci’Santiago’s gaze kept sliding away from Allesandra’s face like feet on slick ice. A glance toward the windows, then off to the painting of Kraljica Marguerite in its place over the mantel. Ci’Santiago seemed to shudder momentarily at the sight of Marguerite, perhaps remembering the madness of Kraljiki Audric years ago. “The Commandant has been captured by the Morellis.” Back to her, his eyes widening, then away again. “We’re not certain of his condition, but the body of A’Teni ca’Paim as well as those of several other teni and gardai were delivered to us.” Back, and this time moving down to his own feet. “The war-teni who had failed to ride with the Garde Civile force you sent to Villembouchure were there. All of them, when it was thought that they had fled the city rather than serve. Neither Commandant cu’Ingres nor A’Teni ca’Paim could have foreseen that.”