A Magic of Dawn

by S L Farrell

  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 téni 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 Cénzi, 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 téni 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 Divolonté—the sacred texts of the Concénzia 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 Cénzi 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 Cénzi.’ I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused the families of those who died. I truly am, and I’ve prayed to Cénzi 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 Cénzi 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 Divolonté as well, and I’ve had long and interesting talks with Archigos Ana, Archigos Kenne, and A’Téni 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 permitted 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 Cénzi. When I pray to Cénzi, 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 Cénzi’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.”

  He gave her, without any apparent irony, the sign of Cénzi and turned his back to her. The mad dog . . . You could take care of it now. She clenched her right hand into a fist; she tried to hear Karl’s voice, but there was nothing. Nico began to walk away slowly.

  Now, or it will be too late . . .

  Varina sat unmoving in her seat, staring at the black cloth of his back as he made his way through the tavern patrons to the door.

  Nico opened the door and left. From somewhere in the street, she heard the barking of a dog. It seemed to mock her.

  PROGRESSIONS

  Niente

  Sergei ca’Rudka

  Nico Morel

  Varina ca’Pallo

  Allesandra ca’Vörl

  Rochelle Botelli

  Varina ca’Pallo

  Jan ca’Ostheim

  Brie ca’Ostheim

  Niente

  Niente

  THE SEA WAS CALM, and the nahualli that Niente had set to bring the winds were working their spell-staffs hard, the prows of the ships carving long trails of white water. Niente gazed out from the aftcastle of the Yaoyotl, which had begun life as a Holdings warship before its capture fifteen years ago. The Yaoyotl had made this crossing once before, when Tecuhtli Zolin had made his foolish and fatal invasion of the Holdings. Now, it was cruising eastward once again, this time accompanied by over three hundred ships of the Tehuantin navy, three times the number Zolin had used, with an army aboard the size of that which had crushed the Holdings forces in Munereo and the other cities of their cousins’ land on the shore of the Eastern Sea. Niente could look out over the rails of the Yaoyotl and see the sails, like a flock of great white sea birds covering the ocean.

  The sight was formidable. When the Easterners saw it approaching, they would tremble and quake. Niente knew this to be the truth; he had seen it in Axat’s visions in his scrying bowl. He saw it again now, as he brought his gaze down to the brass bowl in front of him. He had dusted it with the magical powder, and he had used the power of the X’in Ka to open the path-sight. Now, he peered into the green-lit mists, with his son at his side and his attendant nahualli watching him carefully. In the mists, scenes flitted by him: he saw the great island of Karnmor sending a great fume of smoke and ash into the sky as the ground trembled and the sea itself writhed in torment. He saw the great Tehuantin fleet ascending the mouth of the River A’Sele, saw their armies crawling the shore, saw the walls of Nessantico and its army arrayed there.

  But he frowned slightly as he stared; before, the scenes had the hard-edged clarity of reality. Now, they were smudged and slightly indistinct, as if he were seeing them more with his own eyes than with Axat’s help. It troubled him.

  Where is the Long Path? Why do You hide it from me, Axat?

  No, there it was . . . Once again, he saw the dead Tecuhtli and the dead Nahual, and beyond them, the Long Path. But it, too, was no longer as clear as it had been. Interfering visions slid past between him and the path, as if Axat were saying that movements were afoot that had twisted and snarled the threads of the future. Niente peered more closely, trying to see if he could still find the way to the Long Path. He moved backward in time, saw the myriad possibilities unfolding . . .

  He could feel his son Atl close to his shoulder, staring into the scrying bowl and holding his breath as if afraid that it would pierce the mists and destroy the vision. Niente knew what came next; he also knew that he could not let Atl see it. Niente exhaled sharply, the green mist swaying, and grasped the bowl. With an abrupt motion he sent the water cascading over the rail and into the sea, hissing coldly. At the same time, Niente felt the weariness of the spell strike him, causing him to stagger as he stood there. Atl’s arm went around his waist, holding him up.

  He took a long breath, setting the scrying bowl back on the table. He straightened, and Atl’s hand dropped away from him. “Clean this,” he said to the closest of his attendants; the man scurried forward and took the brass bowl, bowing his head to Niente and hurrying off. “I will rest now,” he told the others, “and talk to Tecuhtli Citlali afterward. There was nothing new in the vision.”

  They bowed. He could sense them watching him: was he weaker than he had been? Were the lines carved deeper in his face, were his features more twisted and deformed than before, his eyes more whitened with cataracts? Was this the time to challenge him, to become Nahual myself? That’s what they were thinking, all of them.

  Perhaps his son no less than any of the others.

  He could not let that happen. Not yet. Not until he had fulfilled the vision he’d glimpsed in the bowl. He forced himself to stand as upright as his curved spine allowed, to smile his twisted smile, and to pretend that his body hurt no more than was usual for a man his age.

  The nahualli, with polite protestations, began to drift away to their other tasks.

  “You stopped the vision before it was finished,” Atl said quietly.

  “There was nothing more to see.”

  “How do you know that, Taat? Haven’t you told me that Axat sometimes changes the vision, that the actions of those in the vision can alter the futures, that you must always watch for changes so as to keep to the best path?”

  “There was nothing more,” Niente said again. He could see the skepticism in his son’s face, and the suspicion as well. He forced anger into his voice, as if it were twenty years ago and Atl had broken a bowl in the house. “Or are you ready to challenge me as Nahual yourself? If you are, then ready your spell-staff.” Niente grasped for his own, leaning against the table on the aftcastle, the knobbed end polished with decades of use, the carved figures dancing underneath his fingers. He leaned on the spell-staff as if it were a cane, letting it support his weight.

  Atl shook his head, obviously not willing to let go of the argument. “Taat, I have the gift of far-sight also. You know that. You can fool most of the other nahualli, but not me. You’ve seen something that you don’t want me to see. What is it? Do you see your death, the way you did that of Techutli Zolin and Talis? Is that what it is?”

  Niente wondered whether that was fear or anticipation he heard in Atl’s voice. “No,” Niente told him, hoping the young man couldn’t hear the lie. “You’re mistaken, Atl. You haven’t learned the far-sight yet enough to know.”

  “Because you won’t let me. ‘Look at me,’ you always say. ‘The cost is too high.’ Well, Taat, Axat has given me the gift, and it would be an insult to Her not to use it. Or are you afraid that I will want to be Nahual in your place?”

  The salt wind ruffled Atl’s long, dark hair; the canvas above them boomed and snapped. The captain of the Yaoyotl called out orders and sailors hurried to their tasks. “You will be Nahual,” he told Atl. “One day. I’m certain of that.” I’ve seen that . . . He thought the words but would not say them for fear that saying them would change the future. “Axat has gifted you, yes. And I’ve . . . I’ve been a poor taat and a poor Nahual for not teaching you all I know. Maybe, maybe I’ve been a bit jealous of your gift.” He saw Atl’s face soften at that: another lie, for there was no jealousy within him, only a slow dread, but he knew the words would convince Atl. “I would like to start to make up for that, Atl. Now: this evening after I’ve talked to Tecuhtli Citlali. Come to my cabin when they bring me my supper, and I will begin to show you. Will that do?”

  In answer, Atl hugged Niente fiercely. Niente felt him kiss
the top of his bald head. He released him just as suddenly, and Niente saw him smiling. “I will be there,” Atl said. He started to turn, then stopped. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Niente nodded, and gave his own lopsided smile in return, but there was no passion in it, no joy.

  He wondered how long he could keep Axat’s vision secret. He wondered—if Atl came to realize what that vision meant—if he would be able to achieve that vision at all.

  Sergei ca’Rudka

  THE FIELDS ALONG THE AVI A’FIRENZCIA were bright with the tents of the Coalition army. “On maneuvers,” the aide from the Brezno Palais staff who escorted Sergei from the border to Brezno told him, but both of them knew what it really was: a mustering and a direct threat. A communique had come to Sergei from Il Trebbio before he’d crossed the border, informing him of the incursion of a battalion under control of Starkkapitän ca’Damont into Il Trebbio territory. The battalion had withdrawn, but it had obviously been probing to see what response it might provoke.

  And now this massing of troops near the border of Nessantico . . .

  Jan, what are you up to? Do you really want to poke at the Holdings with this stick?

  Sergei knew already, as his cane tapped along the marbled flags of Brezno Palais on his way into his meeting with Hïrzg Jan, how it would end. The strap of a small diplomatic pouch was looped over his shoulder, and he had gained enough skill over the years to have opened the sealed letter inside and read what Allesandra had written there. The Hïrzg’s aide Rance ci’Lawli bowed as Sergei approached the outer reception room of the Hïrzg’s apartments. His face was pleasant, but underneath, there was a disdain: Sergei knew that Rance was one of those advising the Hïrzg to keep the Coalition intact and to refuse any compromise with the Holdings. “The Hïrzg is just inside,” Rance said, “but he begs the Ambassador’s indulgence, as he’s with the Hïrzgin and his children. A mark of the glass . . .”