by Aidan Harte
But before the Apprentice had recovered his equanimity, the Doctor dived at him, and the young man sidestepped just as the Doctor had hoped he would—he hadn’t been going for the man. His precipitous fall over the edge of the tower was halted suddenly as the cape snapped taut, and the Doctor climbed back up until he reached the strangling Apprentice and then let himself fall again, still holding the cape. The Apprentice’s face slammed into stone, and the Doctor scrambled up over the unconscious body and sat down hard, breathing strenuously, and mumbled, “Thanks, Cat.”
The Twelfth Legion pushed until they were out of range of Rasenna’s wall. With that danger out of the way, it was easier to sustain order, though Pedro did all he could to disrupt it by flooding the remaining canals.
Levi’s horse had been killed, and Yuri’s too, and now they fought side by side, trying to hold the hard-pressed line together. Both were conscious what a disaster a true rout would be.
“Levi,” cried Yuri, “look!”
And the bandieratori of Rasenna came marching from the gate, spinning their flags like reapers at harvest. This was no mad charge; instead they assembled three rows deep and advanced steadily, each row spinning flags in a different rhythm. The motion all together was like an approaching wave, unbreakable and unstoppable.
“Madonna!” Levi whooped. “Our Contessa came through!”
When the last rope he had to cut twitched, the Doctor leaped to his feet and shouted, “Come on!”
A sudden tightness in his chest made him gasp, and he glanced down. An arrowhead stuck out from his chest, and as he watched, it was joined by another. He turned just as the Third Apprentice fired again.
The Doctor caught the arrow and roared, “Come fight like a man!”
The boy shook his head and calmly nocked another arrow.
“You don’t die easy, do you, Doctor Bardini?” said a strangled voice behind him.
The Doctor turned and watched helplessly as the Second Apprentice cut the cord, then cast the transmitter from the tower. He heard the impact it made just as another arrow struck his back. He lurched toward the side of the tower.
When the boy drew closer to deliver the killing shot, the Second Apprentice hissed at him, “Torbidda, why are you still here? It’s coming! Go. I’ll follow if I can. If I can’t, it doesn’t matter.”
“What about the First Apprentice? If the Contessa’s not here, she must be on the bridge.”
“I’ll help him, but don’t worry about us. Our time is over. You know what to do.”
“Yes.”
“Say it!”
“We are but vessels,” said the boy, and without a backward glance scrambled away on the rope.
Giovanni double-checked the readings and realized that the transmitter had stopped. He looked over his shoulder at Tower Bardini.
“Captain Giovanni,” said a tuneless voice. The First Apprentice was leaning against the Lion, watching him with a smile.
“My Lord,” he said, maneuvering himself in front of the machine as the man in red approached.
“I see you don’t lack for conviction anymore.”
“I’m a Rasenneisi now. They don’t come lukewarm.” Giovanni swung a fist, but the man in red slapped it and him aside in one easy motion. Giovanni’s head struck the balustrade. He didn’t get up.
The First Apprentice examined the apparatus Giovanni had failed to conceal. Professional interest satisfied, he unplugged the Whistler and shattered it on the stones.
“Looks like rain,” he said wistfully.
Sofia and Mule raced toward the river, first topside and then twisting through the alleys. The sounds of battle outside the walls, the clash of metal and the screams of the dying, filled the air, but the streets were eerily empty. Every man, woman, and child of Rasenna was either defending the walls or outside them, having joined the battle.
Even as the Hawk’s Company rallied, the legion’s rear ranks were forced to turn once more and defend themselves against this second assault. Even veterans had never faced fighters or tactics like these: not men but a wall of dancing color, and the sounds attacking their ears were not war cries but a hypnotic whoopwhoopwhoop of spinning flags. Without warning the rhythm would get faster, and a bandieratoro would burst though the red and gold to attack, then vanish behind the color again, leaving only cries of agony as the flags slowed to a soothing whoopwhoopwhoop.
And for the first time in two decades, squeezed between condottieri and bandieratori, the strength of a Concordian legion broke.
On Tower Bardini, the Second Apprentice touched his cheek as a raindrop stuck. The water mingled with the bloody claw marks. “Perfect. We’ll all be wet soon. Can you hear the rumble, Doctor? Can you feel it?”
The Doctor groaned.
“I pray you will excuse me. I must assist my colleague.” The young man leaned his weight on the Doctor’s neck and pressed down. “But don’t worry. You won’t miss a thing. I’ll leave you here, where you can see it coming.”
The Doctor looked down on the bridge, and something familiar caught his eye: a banner he hadn’t seen for twenty years.
Madonna, they could win this fight yet!
He grabbed and twisted the Apprentice’s foot until it cracked, then pushed himself up with a roar and wrapped his arms around the man. “You won’t steal her again!”
But it was like trying to grasp water: the Apprentice twisted in his grasp until he had only a weak one-arm choke hold. It wasn’t enough. Laughing as he did it, the Apprentice stabbed down and stabbed again, but as the dagger sank into the Doctor’s flank, as his blood spilled, still he held on. An Apprentice could fight, but the Doctor could suffer.
“You can’t stop me, old fool. You can barely stand,” the youth said mockingly.
The Doctor took a step back into empty air, dragging the Apprentice with him. The air howled as it passed by, and the workshop rooftop hurtled toward them, the Apprentice struggling like a demon while the Doctor held him tightly, eyes closed, still as the world moved. They crashed through slate and into the boards an army had trained upon, spilling blood together on the wood shavings, the Second Apprentice’s robes turning red at last.
The Doctor smiled. It was an inelegant death and yet a good one.
When Sofia and Mule reached Piazza Luna, the rain was falling more heavily. It was still early, but it was getting dark, and it wasn’t the storm clouds. Sofia did not notice the body covered in a golden shroud; her attention was solely on the bridge, where he was waiting. And the question: If a Wave was coming, why was he here?
They reached the original Lion and stopped there. On the far side of the bridge, Giovanni lay prone while the First Apprentice stood looking down at the gap, waiting.
“Stay back, Sofia,” said Mule, rushing forward.
“Mule, no!”
He went in swinging. The man in red waited calmly and when Mule came near ducked under his banner swing, lunged forward, grabbed his head, and turned it backward.
Sophia heard, “CracKKkkk!” and Mule dropped without a cry.
“Mule!” she sobbed.
The First Apprentice turned to face her. “You’ll join him soon enough, Contessa.” He frowned. “That’s not the banner you stole from us.”
“Rasenna has a new banner.”
“Then we’ll take that too. Why did you come back? To be reunited with your lover? Haven’t you figured out yet that he lied?”
“I know.”
“You know nothing, child.” He laughed his off-key laugh. “He fooled everyone, even himself. There are currents intersecting here that you can’t possibly fathom.”
“You’re afraid of it, aren’t you?”
The man in red dropped all pretense of a smile. “You think the Art Banderia can defeat our Water Style? It didn’t help your friend.” He kicked Mule’s corpse and glanced back toward Tower Bardini.
“The thunder you hear means it didn’t help your Master either.”
She dropped her flag. “I had more than
one Master. Did you come to talk or to fight?”
Giovanni, woken by the rumble, hobbled over to the machine in a daze. He heard a crunch and looked down at the glass fragments beneath his feet.
Then he saw on the far side of the bridge—
“Sofia?”
It was true, then, everything Lucia had told him. Sofia was alive, and he could tell her all the things he’d been too afraid to: the truth, his name.
Iscanno
Giovanni looked down at the river and saw a buio standing there.
Wind is coming.
With a scream of hate, the First Apprentice attacked. Sofia did nothing. She saw the Darkness and the First Apprentice for what they were: one. She was tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of being afraid. The Reverend Mother had said only faith was necessary, and she had been willing to die for it. Was she that strong?
Sofia let go of a lifetime’s training that told her to strike first and watched him and watched herself.
This is fear, this is hate. Regard it steadily.
Sofia could feel the adrenaline surging though her body, into her heart, her limbs, bone and muscle.
The surge slowed, her heartbeat slowed. Time melted away. She did not dodge or strike; she breathed. The Apprentice’s scream and his body slowed in space together, and then—
Stopped.
In the pit, the Dark Ancient screamed as it was burned by a fire brighter than a thousand suns. Sofia saw the Source and was covered by—
Light.
She had never been this deep before. Measurements such as seconds and centuries were meaningless in this place; here she was outside Time. The future became the past: both a gray memory to be observed with not too much interest; neither could ever be as important again. She felt as if she had been keeping one eye closed her whole life and now she had suddenly opened it.
And there was something else: the thing that the First Apprentice had spoken of with dread, that something was about to happen here and it was something good. Nature was pregnant with a wonderful idea—it was so obvious. How had she ignored it her whole life?
Exhale. The last of the mist swirled lazily in the air, thicker in patches, catching the crisp golden light and turning into curious shapes, spirals, letters. Was this magic all around me all the time? Why did I never see it? Inhale.
The mist quickened and raindrops fell freely and the scream grew shrill once more and all again was movement—
Sofia was not where she had been a moment ago.
“How—?” the First Apprentice gasped.
“I told you I was through answering your questions.”
The answer was beyond words: the First Apprentice was a Student of Water Style and she, though only a moment had passed, was now a Master. The blows hurtling toward her were a distraction, easily parried. When he threw another punch, Sofia caught his hand and twisted it effortlessly, and his wrist was broken.
He didn’t pause, so Sofia batted his other hand away and then kicked him under the chin, knocking him back toward the gap. He would have fallen through had she not caught his collar and held it.
“Sofia!” Giovanni shouted, limping toward them.
The Apprentice gagged and whispered, a manic gleam of hope in his eyes. “Contessa, you know his name—why don’t you kill him? He lied to you.”
“Not about love.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Faith,” she said.
“Ah,” he said, now understanding the battle was lost. “I too have faith. I shall tell my Master your name.” He ripped his collar from her grip.
The river recognized the voice of the one it hated most of all and was waiting at the surface to drag him under.
Giovanni looked back and saw the buio seeping onto the bridge, following him.
“Stay away from her.”
Cannot stay in Dryworld. Must leave, Iscanno.
“Stop calling me that! My name’s Bernoulli!”
“It can’t be!” Sofia gasped.
Giovanni turned to face her. “It is, Sofia. I’m so very sorry—I wanted to tell you so many times—”
“No. Giovanni, you don’t understand: you’re not a Bernoulli—you’re one of them! A buio!”
“What? No, I’m as human as you.”
Sofia walked toward him. “Give me your hand.”
Suddenly they were in another time, another place, immersed in the same vision.
“Where are we, Giovanni?”
“. . . Gubbio . . .”
A boy came out of a Concordian tent and looked about. His eyes were as sharp as knives. Snow drifted in the cold gray air as if reluctant to touch the earth of this awful place. The tent was pitched beside a steep bank leading to a rapidly flowing river, the water leaping and surging as it flowed up and over an incline.
In the middle of the rapids were towers, freshly smashed. There were other remnants, lying in piles and pits, and carrion birds and wild dogs squabbled lazily, though they had no need to fight. There was enough for all.
The boy’s tent was more elaborate than the others and stood apart.
His work was private.
He was and was not Giovanni—he was younger, of course, but the difference was more profound than that.
His apron was covered in blood, his hands and face too, yet he looked as pleased as a well-fed cat. He even walked differently, with a self-confident strut. Shooing away a crow with a blood-caked beak, he crouched by a basin and washed himself. He cupped the water in his hands and frowned at the reflection he saw. Someone—something—was behind him, and he turned to face it.
He had no time to scream. Enveloped in the buio, he struggled noiselessly, the blood washing off his skin as he drowned. Now moving more slowly, the buio faced the river again and the body was expelled with a gush of bloody water and rolled down the bank to the river.
“You killed him.”
“I don’t know how to say it, I—we—were angry. I had forgotten it till now. I was reborn that day . . .”
The buio tried to get back to the river but found each step heavier. Blood was in it now, filling it, finding the places where veins would be, where a heart would beat.
“I was changed, but I arose the same.”
“You were punished for it? Why? He was the same as his grandfather, a murderer.”
“They—we—do not kill in anger. Bernoulli made us kill. I remember it now. Our Law is Water will be Water but shall not kill. My punishment—our punishment—was to live a murderer’s life.”
Sofia let go, and the vision ended. The buio surrounded them, waiting. The rumble was amplified to a tooth-rattling roar now. It was midday but dark as late evening, and the rain was pelting down.
“Whoever—whatever—you are, I love you.”
The other buio were sinking into puddles and flowing back into the river.
Wind coming. Must join it, Iscanno.
“No!” Giovanni said.
Cannot fight it— part of it.
When they were gone, he felt it too: the pull of the Wave. It was like a thousand hooks pulling at the smallest part of his essence, and it was almost upon them.
“Why don’t you run, Sofia?”
Sofia said, “There’s nowhere to go, and I’m not afraid anymore.”
She kissed him.
“Why are you smiling?” he said.
“Because you can’t die,” Sofia said.
“I won’t live without you. I was put here to stop this. Time is different for us; we knew the Wave was coming even before Concord thought of sending it. Sofia, something wonderful is going to be born here; they’ve been waiting for it—all History has been waiting—”
“What?”
“It wasn’t an accident that I became—this, who I am. I’m here for a reason.”
They looked to the west simultaneously. The Wave had not yet peaked; when it reached the walls, it would scatter them like straw. It was several times broader than the river, wide enough to flood the tow
n and contato together. As it came closer to the bridge, the Hate grew, a crescendoing scream.
On the walls and on the battlefield beyond them, they saw it too and knew it would sweep them all away—Concordians, condottieri, and Rasenneisi—all together.
Every atom of Giovanni’s being screamed to join it, but he did not. Now that he finally understood the cost, he knew what was necessary.
“Go, Giovanni. It’s too late! It’ll pull you apart.”
“I won’t let Bernoulli win.”
“I can feel what you feel—and Madonna, it hurts! You can’t fight it! You’re part of it.”
The signal peaked, and the Wave climbed to breaking point, swollen with loathing for Men and their weakness, their cruelty, their lies. The wind died, and every flag dropped. The shadow covered the trembling towers of Rasenna. On the battlefield, Concordian and Rasenneisi alike cried out to the Virgin for succor.
Giovanni pulled away from Sofia and faced it. He raised his hand and pushed, pushed, against the river. Raindrops hung in the air, waiting to fall. The river did not flow. The Wave did not break. Love was stronger.
On the walls, outside them, everyone looked about in wonder, all asking the same question: How were they still alive?
Like a tower collapsing, the Wave fell back into the river, and the rain that hung waiting to fall dropped—all of it. The towers shook with the impact.
The Baptistery bells chimed, and every Rasenneisi cheered, all but one. Giovanni had pushed the river. Sofia watched as that power pushed back on him alone.
“I’ll always be with you,” he said, reaching out.
Before her hand touched his, he was scattered into a cloud of mist.
“Giovanni!”
The mist hung in the air, holding a man’s shape for a moment, and then passed away on the wind.
“No cause for tears, Contessa.” Isabella reached for her hand. “He’s with you forever now.”
But Sofia picked up the Herod’s Sword he had left behind and looked on the river and cried anyway. The rain, liberated now, danced on the surface of the Irenicon. Water was water.