A Magic of Twilight nc-1

by S L Farrell

  Ana’s hand went to her neck, but the stone shell wasn’t there, only Cenzi’s globe. “Karl. .” she husked.

  “Ci’Vliomani’s vanished,” Kenne told her. “The Bastida’s in an uproar. But ca’Cellibrecca’s come to bring the Archigos before the Guardians of the Faith and the Conclave. Take what you can and flee, Ana.

  They’ll be coming for us next. They’re already coming. We don’t have much time at all.”

  “Flee? To where?” Ana was rooted where she was. She stammered, wild thoughts chasing themselves in her head. You could go to the Kraljiki.

  Surely this is a mistake. He promised you. You gave him your body. “I need to talk to the Archigos.”

  “You can’t.” Kenne’s hands gripped her shoulders. His face was very close to hers. “You can’t, Ana,” he repeated, softly. “They’ve taken the Archigos by now, or maybe he’s somehow managed to get away. Either way, he’s gone. He’s given us a little time to save ourselves, and that’s what we have to do.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To friends I know. Out of the city. I can’t take you with me, Ana; it’s dangerous enough for them to take me in. You’ll have to find your own way-but whatever you do and wherever you go, you have to

  do it now.” He released her. Over his shoulder, Ana saw Watha press her hands to her mouth and flee from the room. “I’m leaving, Ana. I promised the Archigos that I would warn you, and I have. Get out of here. Take only what you can grab. They’ll be coming for you at any moment.”

  Ana had no answer. Kenne gave her Cenzi’s sign, touched her shoulder again gently, and left. She listened to his hurrying footsteps.

  Somewhere in her apartments, someone was screaming in a high, thin voice. The sound jolted Ana from stasis. She ran to her room, shedding the green robe of the teni as she went. She dressed hurriedly in a plain tashta, and stuffed a carpetbag with some of her old clothing and a purse with a handful of silver siqils and a few gold solas. She could think of nothing else to take; everything in the apartment had been there when it had been given to her.

  She left, taking the stairs to the rear of the apartment. None of her servants were to be seen. The thud of the wooden door seemed final, like a hammer nailing closed the lid of a coffin. At the bottom of the stairs, she opened the street door slightly and glanced out. The entrance led onto one of the smaller side streets to the east of the temple plaza; only a cat prowling in the central gutter for food looked at her as she slipped out and started walking quickly away. She could hear the sound of some great commotion in the plaza: shouts and loud cries, and at the end of the street she saw people running in that direction. The low, shuddering, and mournful wind-horns in the temple domes began to sound at the same moment, making Ana shiver. It was still a good two turns of the glass before Third Call, yet someone had set the teni to sounding them.

  The sound frightened her, the spectral wail slithering around her.

  She turned her back, fleeing from it.

  As she half-ran, the bag bouncing against her legs, she wondered where she was going. Not to her old house; she could not involve Matarh in this.

  Mahri. . The name came to her as she hurried through the streets toward the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli, watching for the Garde and ready to duck into a doorway if she caught a glimpse of green robes or any familiar faces. All that insane talk of his being Karl, and yet. .

  There was nowhere else she knew to go. She would go to Oldtown.

  Its narrow, twisted streets would be as good a place to hide as any.

  12 Rue a’Jeunesse was a narrow, thin, two-story building with a gloomy front courtyard. The building was wedged between larger structures on either side, which seemed to be all that held the flimsy, ancient structure together. A tavern occupied the lower floor; a set of rickety stairs led up over a narrow porch to an outside door on the second floor. Ana spoke a prayer of protection as she climbed the steps, a simple warding spell, but the touch of the Ilmodo comforted her.

  As her foot touched the landing at the top of the stairs, the door opened. “Hurry!” a voice whispered, and in the candlelit darkness beyond, she glimpsed Mahri holding the door open for her.

  “How did you know?”

  “He knew. He felt you use the Ilmodo,” Mahri husked in reply. “Get inside-before someone sees you who shouldn’t.”

  She wondered who the “he” was that Mahri referred to, but she slid past him (a scent of old clothes and sweat) and into the room. Another person stood there in the shabby, tiny room. Ana gave a cry of delight; without thought, she dropped her bag to the floor and went to him, folding him into her arms. “Karl!”

  The man chuckled grimly, and he did not hug her in return. “You mistake the wrapping for the gift,” he said. “Envoy ci’Vliomani is there.”

  He pointed to Mahri. “At least for the moment,” he added.

  Ana stepped back. Mahri-or was it truly Karl? — had shut the door and was slouched against it, the scars on his face yellowed in the light of the candles, his single eye gleaming under the black hood of his cloak.

  “I told you,” he said. “Mahri, can we do this now? Not that I’m not grateful to you. .”

  Karl- Mahri? — sniffed. “This will take a few minutes, and it will leave you disoriented. We’ll both need to rest afterward.” He took a long breath. “Sit there,” he said, pointing to a chair near the window.

  “Be very still.”

  Karl closed his eyes; the cloaked figure of Mahri went to the chair.

  Karl’s hands moved; he began to chant in a language that Ana did not know, though the cadence and accent were both strangely similar to the language of the Ilmodo. Karl’s body began to glow a sickly yellow-green, and fingers of that light slipped away from him, like an ink droplet spreading through water, moving toward Mahri. When it touched

  him, his scar-distorted mouth opened and he moaned.

  Karl spoke a final word and spread his hands wide. The light flared.

  Mahri moaned again and slumped sideways to the floor; Karl’s knees buckled and he went down, Ana rushing forward to catch him before he fell completely.

  “Karl. .”

  His eyes opened. “Ana,” he said. A hand came up to feel his own face. “It’s me. I’m back. .”

  Mahri

  “You didn’t care for my body? I’m disappointed.”

  Ana and Karl’s head turned toward him. He’d managed to rise to his feet, though the weariness dragged on him as if an anvil were laced around his shoulders. All the old pains were there; after a few days in ci’Vliomani’s younger and far healthier body, he could imagine the relief the man must be feeling at his release.

  You could have stayed. .

  He almost smiled at the thought. That would have been more of a sacrifice than ci’Vliomani could have realized. “Thank you,” ci’Vliomani said now. “I thought. .”

  “I know what you thought,” Mahri told him. “And you’d have been wrong. I’ve no use for your form. I actually prefer this one.” Mahri could see the disbelief pull at Ci’Vliomani’s face, but otherwise the man said nothing. “After all,” Mahri continued, “I’m not being hunted by the Garde Kralji for having escaped the Bastida. They were going to kill you. The order came from the Kraljiki.”

  “No,” the woman said, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t have. He promised me. . I. .” She stopped.

  “Yes,” Mahri said. He knew what caused her shoulders to slump, the tears to start in her eyes. The Capitaine had told him the rumors. “The teni who came to see you, who kept asking about you? She’s the Kraljiki’s mistress now, I hear. Just another of the grande horizontales. I can’t say that I blame her-her future’s better with the Kraljiki than you, eh?”

  Mahri also suspected what the woman thought she was trading for her body. He hoped that ci’Vliomani would be able to appreciate that when he learned what she’d done. “The Kraljiki lied,” Mahri said to her gently. “I suspect he’s very well-skilled at that. You’re not the only one h
e’s deceived.” He stopped. “A moment. .”

  There was a soft knock at the door. Ci’Vliomani stared, and cu’Seranta began to chant a spell, but Mahri shook his head to the o’teni. He went to the door, and spoke to the man there-one of the beggars who formed his information network. When he closed the door, he took a long breath before turning back to them.

  “The news is worse than I had thought,” he told them. “The Archigos is dead.”

  Cu’Seranta stifled a cry with her hands. She closed her eyes and made the sign of Cenzi. “How?” she asked.

  “He fell from his balcony at his residence. Jumped, some say. Or was pushed, according to others. A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca was seen at the same balcony immediately afterward, it seems. The news is all over the city. The Conclave A’Teni has convened in emergency session already; ca’Cellibrecca has been named acting Archigos until all the a’teni have been informed and a formal vote can be taken-they will meet here in a month.”

  “And ca’Cellibrecca will be Archigos in fact at that time,” ci’Vliomani said.

  “He has the backing of the Kraljiki,” Mahri answered calmly.

  Ci’Vliomani snorted his derision. “And his daughter shares the Kraljiki’s bed.” Mahri saw cu’Seranta startle at that, turning to stare at the Numetodo.

  “You knew that?” she asked him.

  Ci’Vliomani nodded, pointing to Mahri. “He showed us,” ci’Vliomani said. “While the Kraljica was alive, we might have been able to use the information. Once she died. .” He sighed. “With ca’Cellibrecca as Archigos, he’ll marry her. She’s the obvious choice.”

  Mahri saw cu’Seranta’s face color, and she went silent. Yes, she was seduced, or allowed herself to be seduced, by the Kraljiki also. And ci’Vliomani. . that frown tells me he’s suspicious as well.

  “There’s more news, and worse,” Mahri told them. “It would seem that several of the Archigos’ staff fled just before his death. They are suspected of gross violations of the Divolonte, as well as complicity in the Archigos’ death.”

  “That’s not true!” cu’Seranta shouted, and Karl shook his head toward her, a finger near his lips in caution.

  “True or not,” Mahri continued, “the Garde Kralji and the Garde Civile have been told to find those teni who were on the former Archigos’ staff and bring them before the Guardians to be judged.”

  “I can’t stay here, then,” cu’Seranta said. Weariness and fear whitened her face. “I have to find somewhere else.”

  “This is as good a place as any,” Mahri told her. “No one can come here that I don’t allow, and there are things I can teach you.” He included ci’Vliomani in his nod. “That I can teach both of you.”

  He saw the disbelief, the uncertainty in both of them. It amused him. He took a long breath, letting his shoulders rise and his chest fill, letting himself settle fully into his familiar body once more. “But that’s for later,” he said to them. “For now, we all need food, and then some rest. The world outside will take care of itself. . ”

  Skirmishes

  Jan ca’Vorl

  “The battle was a complete rout.” Starkkapitan ca’Staunton’s nostrils flared, his chest filled, and his chin lifted as he spoke.

  A’Offizier cu’Linnett, accompanying his immediate superior, smelled faintly of fire and ash; when Jan glanced at cu’Linnett, the offizier was staring intently toward the rear of the tent, looking not at the starkkapitan but the array of toy soldiers Allesandra had laid out on the rug, in preparation for a session with Georgi ci’Arndt. She’d stopped playing with them to listen to the starkkapitan’s report.

  “There were approximately five hundred troops of the Garde Civile holding the border above the Ville Colhem,” ca’Staunton continued,

  “and they broke across the River Clario bridge in the first turn of the glass. They saw A’Offizier cu’Linnett’s division and ran like frightened house beetles with their offiziers screaming at them to hold ranks. When the first barrage from the war-teni came, even the offiziers and the few chevarittai with them fled.”

  Jan glanced again at the offizier, still staring intently at Allesandra’s soldiers. “I understand that A’Offizier cu’Linnett commanded the engaging troops?”

  “He did, my Hirzg.”

  Jan nodded. “How many casualties?” he asked the starkkapitan. He was seated behind his field desk, the thin panels of which were adorned with painted images of his great-vatarh and namesake, the Hirzg Jan ca’Silanta, fighting the bamboo-armored hordes of East Magyaria. Jan folded his hands on his lap.

  “Of our troops, very few, my Hirzg. A’Offizier cu’Linnett was able to effectively use his war-teni and archers and thus inflicted most of the damage from a distance.”

  “How very convenient,” Jan commented drolly. “And for the Nessantico Garde Civile?”

  “At least a hundred and fifty dead, perhaps two hundred.”

  “So three hundred escaped. Perhaps more. Is that what you’re saying to me, Starkkapitan?”

  Jan heard Markell, standing just behind his chair, suck in a breath.

  Allesandra snickered. Ca’Staunton seemed to notice the tone of Jan’s voice for the first time. His chest deflated as he exhaled, his chin dropped, and his shoulders drooped. “My Hirzg-” he began, but Jan

  cut him off, abruptly.

  “I wonder, Starkkapitan. . Did I fail to make myself clear when I gave you my orders? Because I distinctly remember saying to you, after we captured the Kraljiki’s spies, that it was vital- vital-for Nessantico to remain unaware that we have crossed the border. I recall telling you that I wanted Ville Colhelm and any Garde Civile posted there surrounded before we initiated any engagement, so that none could escape to take word back to the Kraljiki in Nessantico. Are you saying, Starkkapitan, that three hundred or more troops are now running toward that city with the news that Firenzcia’s army is on its way-troops that include offiziers and chevarittai; troops we will most assuredly meet again, perhaps before the gates of Nessantico?”

  Cu’Linnett stared ever harder at Allesandra’s toy soldiers in their painted silver and black, his hands clasped behind his back. Starkkapitan ca’Staunton visibly paled. “My Hirzg, it was of course my intention to do exactly as you’d ordered. The third division had already been sent to cross the Clario well below Ville Colhelm, but we came upon the Garde Civile troops unexpectedly and A’Offizier cu’Linnett had no choice but to engage immediately. There was no time to coordinate the attack.”

  “A’Offizier,” Jan snapped, and cu’Linnett’s head threatened to snap entirely from his neck as he jerked his head around to meet Jan’s gaze.

  “You had no vanguard scouting the terrain ahead of your forces? You were surprised by the Garde Civile? They initiated the contact?”

  “No, my Hirzg,” the man answered. His voice was firm and solid, and Jan caught the hint of a frown when his eyes flicked over toward ca’Staunton. “The starkkapitan was perhaps somewhat unclear in his assessment of our situation. Our vanguard reported to me that a force of perhaps a half a thousand Garde Civile held the bridge across the Clario at Ville Colhelm, under the command of A’Offizier and Chevaritt Elia ca’Montmorte.”

  “I know ca’Montmorte,” Jan said. “One of the few competent chevarittai, in my opinion. What did you do when that report came to you, A’Offizier?”

  “I immediately sent runners to the starkkapitan with the news.”

  “Ah,” Jan said. “As you should have. And the starkkapitan’s response?”

  Allesandra’s toy soldiers clinked dully as her hand swept over them, striking down a battalion. Cu’Linnett stiffened his gaze, keeping his eyes only on Jan. “I was ordered to engage the enemy since we had a far superior force. I obeyed those orders. I sent my war-teni ahead along the path of the Avi, supported by archers and infantry, and had two squadrons of chevarittai flank the Garde Civile east and west along the Clario to attempt to contain the enemy. Unfortunately, the Clario isn’t fordable at that point, so the
Garde Civile’s forces were able to retreat across the bridge once their offiziers realized they they were outflanked and badly outnumbered-the starkkapitan had specifically ordered that the bridge was not to be destroyed.”

  “And ca’Montmorte?”

  “He ordered the retreat, and was among those holding the bridge.

  He retreated himself only when it was obvious that he had lost. I pursued Chevaritt ca’Montmorte through Ville Colhelm but felt that to go farther would leave my men too exposed and isolated from our main forces. I called a halt, and remained in Ville Colhelm to hold the bridge and the town. Perhaps I should have questioned the starkkapitan’s orders or asked for clarification on how he wished me to proceed, but I did not. If that was wrong, my Hirzg, any blame is entirely mine and not that of my offiziers or men.”

  “So you take the entire responsibility for your tactics, A’Offizier?”

  Jan could see the man swallow. “I do, my Hirzg. Given the suddenness of the attack and the lay of the land, I did what I thought best.”

  “You performed your duty admirably. An offizier must always obey his superior, and I admire your willingness to accept responsibility for your actions.” Jan nodded to the man, who relaxed visibly. Allesandra began setting up her soldiers again. Jan turned his attention back to ca’Staunton. “A lesson the starkkapitan himself should have learned,” he added.

  Ca’Staunton reddened further. “My Hirzg, that’s unfair,” he answered, his jowls flapping as he spoke. “I have always endeavored to follow your orders to the best of my ability.”

  “It’s your ability that is in question,” Jan snapped back at him. “But not any longer. Markell?”

  Markell stepped forward then, standing to the side of Jan’s chair. He withdrew a scroll from the single side drawer of the table and handed it to ca’Staunton. His voice was formal and unemotional. “Ahren

  ca’Staunton, you have been found guilty of treason by the Court of Chevarittai Firenzcia for deliberate disobedience of the orders from your Hirzg, and for endangering Firenzcia, her people, and the Hirzg with your actions. Your titles of chevaritt and starkkapitan are hereby revoked. The Court’s judgment is that you deserve to be executed for your crime, and that punishment is to be carried out immediately. The Court’s order has been reviewed and signed by the Hirzg; his seal is af-fixed, as you see.”