A Magic of Twilight nc-1

by S L Farrell

  And the Kraljica, next to Justi, gave a strangled cry. He looked over to see her fall.

  Ana cu’Seranta

  “Matarh, I think Vajiki ci’Recroix suffers from a sudden modesty regarding his painting skills. Perhaps o’Teni cu’Seranta

  might take his duties. .” The A’Kralj glanced over the back of his chair toward her and smiled. It was a polished, artificial smile, and it held no warmth. Ana found herself recoiling from it.

  Yes. Ana, if you would,” she heard the Kraljica say, and she wanted to refuse but then the Archigos nodded, his gaze solemn, and she forced herself to bow in agreement. She could feel the stares of the crowd on her as she moved into the brilliant pool of light around the painting. Her breath was caught high in her throat; she thought she might faint, but she forced herself to take a deep, long breath. She saw Envoy ci’Vliomani standing well behind the Kraljica, Archigos, and A’Kralj, at the railing of the half-landing at the edge of the hall. He lifted a hand to her, shaking his head. She wondered at that as she performed the deep curtsy that etiquette required. She put her hand on the soft cloth that draped the canvas.

  She tugged, and the shroud fell away like a dark cloud. Ana gasped.

  She would have sworn that she saw the image underneath shift in that instant, as if the figure had been startled at the sudden movement, that its eyes stared at her own for an instant before turning away to look at the three people seated before it.

  She heard the crowd gasp at the same time. . and she felt. . she felt. .

  Ana wasn’t sure what it was. The sense was like a winter river rushing through her as she stood there next to the painting, a river that flowed from the Kraljica in her chair toward the painting itself, a cold so intense that it burned, and the invisible waters were loud with a wail that was the voice of the Kraljica herself.

  Ana saw the Kraljica start to rise in her chair, her face distraught and terrified, then just as suddenly she crumpled and fell forward. Her head made a terrible hollow sound as it struck the tiles. Her dress, still alive with teni-illumination, pooled around her.

  For a moment, everything was frozen in tableau. Ana could see them all: The A’Kralj, motionless except for his head turned toward his matarh; the Archigos lurching forward in his chair, his stubby feet dangling; Renard, behind the Kraljica’s chair, his hand reaching helplessly and far too late for her; the commandant’s face stern and terrifying, glaring at the crowd as if searching for someone; Envoy ci’Vliomani, at the rear of the crowd, turning away. Then everything moved again. Renard shoved the throne-chair aside and rushed toward the Kraljica as the A’Kralj slid to his knees beside her; the Archigos pushed away from his seat, a chant on his lips; the commandant drew his sword as the crowd pushed inward; Karl ci’Vliomani vanished in the sea of movement.

  Ana rushed away from the painting herself to huddle next to the Kraljica.

  “Back!” she heard the commandant shout. “Everyone move back!”

  But they were still pressing forward, drawn by the commotion, and the Archigos lifted his hand, still chanting. She felt the ripple of power flow outward from him, a shimmering of air that pushed past her without touching but then hardened into a wall that shoved back at the crowd, holding them.

  The A’Kralj had lifted his matarh in his arms; Ana could see her breathing, gasping as he pushed himself up, and she felt relief- she isn’t dead. “Renard!” the A’Kralj shouted. “Call for the healer. Bring him to the Kraljica’s rooms. Now!” Renard bowed and hurried off.

  “Archigos. .”

  “I will clear the way,” the Archigos said, and Ana felt the invisible wall shift. A path began to open before them. She could hear the commandant shouting orders to his staff, and the crowd roar was deafening.

  “Ana, come with us.”

  She followed the Archigos, going ahead of the A’Kralj. They moved

  quickly from the hall, out a side door and across a corridor to another door. Servants scurried ahead of them. The door opened into a staircase and they went up a quick two flights, and Ana found herself finally in the corridors of the Kraljica’s private apartment. More servants appeared, opening the doors and ushering them into the Kraljica’s bedchamber, where the A’Kralj laid the Kraljica down on her bed. “Matarh,” he said, “can you hear me?”

  A faint nod. The Kraljica’s eyes flickered open, showing mostly the whites of her eyes traced with red veins. “I felt. . my heart was tearing out of me. . my head splitting. .” Her voice was a husk, barely audible. “So tired. .”

  “Where’s that healer?” the A’Kralj said, his voice loud and his face flushed. He went to the door. “Renard!” he shouted.

  “A’Kralj,” the Archigos said. His voice was weary and trembling, but Justi spun around, his eyes blazing. “The commandant will need you downstairs, to reassure the guests.”

  The A’Kralj glanced at the bed. “If my matarh is in danger. .”

  “She’s resting now,” the Archigos said, soothingly. “You have your duty to perform. The ca’-and-cu’ will be in an uproar, and they need your leadership at this moment. Your matarh needs it.”

  Ana saw the A’Kralj’s lips press together. The flush in his face lessened, though his gaze stayed on the bed. “Yes,” he said. “But. .”

  “Let me care for her,” the Archigos said. “We will handle this.

  There’s nothing you can do here, but downstairs there is. The commandant will need orders from you as the A’Kralj-and as the acting Kraljiki for as long as the Kraljica remains incapacitated. I will send for you immediately if there is any change here.”

  The A’Kralj nodded. He rushed out the door. The Archigos looked at the servants who were in the room, getting bedding, pouring water, uncovering the banked fire in the hearth. An e’teni on the palais staff chanted to put light in a lamp; another started the blades of a fan cir-culating to move the stale air. “Leave us,” the Archigos said to all of them. “Now.” They bowed and hurried from the room, closing the door behind them.

  The Archigos was staring down at the still figure on the bed, at the frail chest rising and falling shallowly.

  “Archigos,” Ana said. The man glanced over at her, and the severe look in his eyes frightened her. “When the painting was uncovered, I felt something. .”

  “We don’t have time for this,” the Archigos told her. “Renard might come here, or the A’Kralj might return. Come here, Ana. Stand by the bed.”

  She knew what he wanted of her. “Archigos, I shouldn’t. . The Divolonte. .”

  “I rule Concenzia, child, and I know what the Divolonte says and

  I know it was written by the a’teni and not by Cenzi Himself. I also believe that Cenzi does not gift people needlessly. Now-do what you can for her, and do it quickly. Go on; we’re alone here.”

  Ana approached the bed. She looked down at the Kraljica, so pale in her resplendent costume. She seemed nearly dead already, her breath so shallow that it barely touched her chest, her cheeks hollow and sunken.

  “You know what to do,” the Archigos said. “Pray to Cenzi, Ana.”

  She did. She took a long, shuddering breath. She closed her eyes and took one of the Kraljica’s hands in her own. The chant came to her, unbidden, rising from the place that she thought of as the core of her belief, far inside her. Her lips moved with the words that shaped the power that emerged with them, the Ilmodo. Her hands lifted from the Kraljica’s, molding the growing power. She formed the Ilmodo so that it could coil from her heart into her hands, and from there into the Kraljica. It was warm, this power, like a liquid sun, and when it touched the old woman on the bed, Ana found herself caught in the Kraljica’s mind, also. She could hear her, crying and weeping in an interior darkness. She let more of the Ilmodo rush from her so that it entered the Kraljica. .

  . . but this was not as it was before. Then, the Ilmodo had filled Ana’s matarh as if she had been a empty vessel, moving through her like blood. The cup of her matarh’s body had held the Ilmodo like a goblet, a
nd it had strengthened her.

  But that didn’t happen with the Kraljica. The Ilmodo moved into her and out again as if she were a bowl with a hole bored through the bottom, and Ana could feel the Kraljica’s life force rushing through that same hole, draining away from her. The flow was compelling; Ana found herself falling with it, unbidden, caught in the white-foamed rush that went into and through the Kraljica-and she knew where it was taking her even as she fought to hold herself back. The Ilmodo was being torn from her, away and down, down to the hall far below where the painting stood. The spell within the painting sucked greedily at her, clawed at her, ripped the Ilmodo’s energy away. She fought against the incantation, pulling herself back and concentrating on the Kraljica, on the connection that bound her to the painting. She struggled to control the Ilmodo, to use it to close the rent in the Kraljica’s spirit and seal it off. The resistance was terrible; it was as if she were physically struggling with someone, someone easily as strong as her and bent on taking her down.

  Ana gasped. She felt as if she were shouting her chant into a gale, but for a moment she felt that she was winning. Her Ilmodo brightened, and she could hear the Kraljica’s voice- I’m here, Ana. . I feel you. .

  — but then she was tossed aside before she could reach for that voice.

  Tossed aside and out.

  She was back in the room, holding the Kraljica’s hand. Her hair was damp with perspiration; she was breathing as heavily as if she’d run here from the Archigos’ Temple. She could feel the weariness gathering, the payment for her spell.

  “Archigos. .”

  “I know,” he said. “I felt it. The Ilmodo moving.”

  Ana nodded. “The Kraljica. . It’s the painting that’s killing her. I think this ci’Recroix somehow. .” She didn’t finish the thought as the Archigos nodded.

  “I suspect we’ll find that Vajiki ci’Recroix has left the city in a hurry,” he said.

  “I should have known, Archigos,” Ana said. She forced herself to stay awake against the compulsion to give in to the exhaustion. “When we were here last, I looked at the painting. I thought I felt something like a teni-spell then within it, but I thought it was how the painter made his figures so true. I thought it was something he did unconsciously, without even knowing he was doing it, like I did with healing headaches as a child. I should have told you. If I had, perhaps. .” She stopped, her hand over her mouth. “I’ve slowed it, but I don’t think I can heal her. There must be someone else, some other way. .”

  “I doubt it,” the Archigos answered. He stirred and started toward the door, the graveclothes he wore fluttering as he moved. “I’ll call the commandant and have him take the painting and bring it here. If we burn it, perhaps. .”

  “No!” Ana interrupted. She panted from the effort of the shout, the weariness calling to her to succumb. “She’s bound to the painting.

  If you destroy the painting, you destroy her.”

  “You’re certain of that, Ana?”

  Ana shook her head. Her breath wheezed from her lungs. “I can’t be certain. But I felt the connection. Too much of the Kraljica is already there, captured. Sever the bond between her and the painting, and she will have nothing left.”

  The room was darkening around the Archigos. Ana saw him as if he were standing at the end of a long tunnel, outlined in aching light.

  “All I could do was lessen the draining from the Kraljica to the spell in the painting,” she continued, “but I couldn’t close it completely. Even if I could, I think we need to keep the connection open so that perhaps we could bring her back.” The explanation took all of her breath. “It’s like she’s bleeding from a wound, Archigos, only inside.”

  Ana moved her gaze from the Archigos back to the Kraljica; the turning of her head made her nauseous and disoriented: like a child who’d been twirling around and around, then suddenly stops. The

  room tilted and she staggered. “Ana!” she heard the Archigos call as she clutched at a post of the Kraljica’s bed, but his voice seemed to come from somewhere far outside, and now the room was spinning in earthquake madness and the fire in the hearth erupted from its bed, and the heat and the flames and the sound bore her down and carried her away.

  Maneuvers

  Jan ca’Vorl

  “. . you always have to be aware of your ground. Having to charge uphill is a tremendous disadvantage.”

  “Though we had to do exactly that at Lake Cresci on the Escarpment,” Jan interjected. “It was a tremendous slog, but the tactic worked because they weren’t expecting it of us.”

  O’Offizier ci’Arndt seemed to levitate to his feet and salute at the appearance of the Hirzg, with Vajica Mara accompanying him. Allesandra jumped from her seat at the table where her toy soldiers were set and rushed to Jan. “Vatarh! Georgi has been teaching me. He says I’d make an excellent Starkkapitan.” The young offizier blushed at that, still holding his salute.

  “Take your ease, O’Offizier,” Jan told him. “I appreciate the time you’re taking with Allesandra, and she enjoys your company.”

  “Thank you, Hirzg. She learns quickly, truly.”

  Jan smiled at him. The young man-he couldn’t be much more than twenty-was good-looking enough, and he could see the proprie-

  tary way Allesandra regarded him. He wondered if he’d be well-advised to send the o’offizier away soon; sometimes, Allesandra acted distressingly older than her actual age, and there was no way that a ci’, no matter how good an offizier he might be, would be a suitable infatuation for the Hirzg’s daughter.

  Mara was looking at him, too, and that amused Jan. “You may go, O’Offizier,” he told ci’Arndt. “I’ll relieve you here.”

  The young man saluted again and left the tent. Jan sat next to Allesandra and glanced up at Mara. “You should probably be returning to the Hirzgin, Mara,” he said. “There are proprieties we still need to observe.” He took her hand and kissed her upturned palm.

  Mara smiled at him and at Allesandra. “I understand, my Hirzg,”

  she said as she curtsied. She left the tent in a flurry of perfume and swaying, brightly-colored cloth.

  “Mara is much nicer than Matarh,” Allesandra ventured as Jan watched Mara depart, his gaze leaving her reluctantly.

  “I can understand how you would feel that way, Allesandra,” Jan told her, returning his attention to her. He glanced at the soldiers in their array on the table, tousling his daughter’s hair idly. “Allesandra, I would like to talk to you.”

  “You sound so serious, Vatarh.”

  “I am,” he told her. He went to the opening of the tent and glanced out-Markell had placed guards just far enough away to be out of earshot, and Jan smiled. The sunlight would betray anyone who tried to sneak up close enough to the rear to listen. He went back inside and sat again. “Allesandra, you were right when you said that I shouldn’t marry Mara, even if I could. She is. .” He stopped, choosing his words carefully. “. . someone whose company I enjoy, but she is not my equal, nor yours, nor even your matarh’s. She gives me what she can, and in turn I can give her some little favors now and then. I know you understand.

  She and I are. .” He paused, and Allesandra hurried into the gap with a smile.

  “Like me and Georgi, Vatarh?”

  Jan laughed aloud at that. “You’re too perceptive, my little bird,” he said. “Allesandra, even if your brother Toma had survived the Southern Fever, I think you would be the one I named as my heir.”

  Allesandra grinned, though there was sadness lurking there.

  She pushed back at the curls around her forehead. “I do miss Toma, Vatarh.”

  “I do too,” Jan told her. “Very much. But I look at you-” he glanced again at the miniature armies laid out on the table, at the placement of the archers and war-teni, the infantry and the chevarittai “-and I know that you, more than Toma ever did, think as I do. And you’re growing older faster than I can believe, my darling. So. . I need to speak to you as Hirzg to A’Hirzg
, because things will happen very soon.”

  “What things?” Her round face twisted, as if she wasn’t certain whether she should be pleased or upset.

  “Nothing I can tell you yet, though you’ll know when they happen.”

  He plucked one of the soldiers from the table: an infantryman with his sword raised in mid-strike. “If your enemy were looking for a threat coming from another direction, and you were the starkkapitan with your army placed ready to move, what do you think your Georgi would tell you to do?”

  “He would say to attack quickly, before they could react,” Allesandra answered, and Jan chuckled again.

  “He would be right,” Jan said. “That is exactly what I would do.” He set the soldier back down on the table. “Exactly.”

  Ana cu’Seranta

  Ana rubbed the paper between her fingers. A small package had come to her apartments the morning after the terrible events of the Gschnas, the seal on the stiff wrapping paper still attached, with a clamshell insignia pressed into the red wax. Inside the tiny box had been a stone clamshell like the one Vajiki ci’Vliomani had shown her the night before, only this one was suspended from a fine silver chain.

  Also inside was the folded note she held now. Despite her sadness, she’d smiled momentarily, remembering the ball and Envoy ci’Vliomani, their conversation and their dancing, but the pleasure of the memory was obliterated the next moment by guilt. How could she feel anything but sadness from the Gschnas after what had happened to the Kraljica?

  Still. .

  She wondered whether someone had opened the package: she

  could have done it herself easily with a touch of the Ilmodo magic. She wondered whether Archigos Dhosti had seen the short message:

  You must know that I had nothing to do with what happened last night.

  That is the truth. If you would like to know more, meet me at Oldtown Center just after the lamps have been lit. Wear the shell over your clothing.