A Magic of Dawn

by S L Farrell

  “That depends entirely on my matarh,” Jan answered.

  “And it depends on the Coalition not provoking her in the meantime,” Sergei responded. He nodded, and bowed to the two of them. “I’m away, then. I’ll send a response by fast-courier as soon as I’ve spoken with Kraljica Allesandra. Give my love to the children, and may Cénzi bless both of you.”

  He bowed again and left the room as Rochelle continued to pile dirty dishes on the tray. “I’ll go see to the children,” Brie said to Jan. “Are you coming, my dear?”

  “In a few moments,” he told her.

  “Oh.” The strange, dead inflection of the single word made Rochelle glance up from her work, but Brie was already walking toward the entrance to the inner chambers, her back to Rochelle. She bent down to her work again, the dishes clattering softly as she stacked them.

  “You’re new on the staff.”

  It took a moment for Rochelle to realize that Jan had addressed her. She saw him gazing at her from the other side of the table. She curtsied quickly, her head down, as she’d seen the other servants do in his presence. “Yes, my Hïrzg,” she answered, not looking up at him. “I was hired only a week ago.”

  “Then you’ve obviously impressed Rance, if he’s put you on palais staff. What’s your name?”

  “Rhianna Berkell.”

  “Rhianna Berkell,” he repeated, as if tasting the name. “That has a pretty sound. Well, Rhianna, if you do well here, you might find yourself one day with a ce’ before your name. Rance himself was ce’Lawli only two years ago, and now he’s ci’Lawli. He’ll almost certainly be cu’Lawli one day. We reward those who serve us well.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She curtsied again. “I should get these back to the kitchen . . .”

  “Look at me,” he said—he said it gently, softly, and she lifted up her face. Their eyes met, and his gaze remained on her face. “You remind me of . . .” He stopped. His regard seemed to drift away for a moment, as if he were lost in memory. “. . . someone I knew.”

  He reached out, the fingertips of his right hand stroking her cheek—the touch, she thought, of a vatarh. She dropped her gaze quickly, but she could still feel the touch of his fingertips on her skin for long breaths afterward. “The tray, my Hïrzg,” she said.

  “Ah, yes. That. Certainly. Thank you, Rhianna. I appreciate it.”

  She lifted the tray and stepped toward the servants’ door. She could feel his gaze on her back as she pushed the door open with her hip. She didn’t dare look back, afraid that if she did, she would blurt out the secret, that she would call him by the name she longed to use.

  Vatarh . . .

  She could not do that. Not now.

  Not yet.

  Varina ca’Pallo

  SHE’D SET UP THE DEMONSTRATION in the main hall of the Numetodo House. There were two hands of the long-standing Numetodo there with her: among them Pierre Gabrelli, who was grinning, already knowing what Varina intended to show; the Kraljica’s chief aide Talbot ci’Noel; Johannes ce’Agrippa, perhaps the most skilled of the Numetodo’s magicians, whose study of magical forms pushed the boundaries of Karl and Varina’s own discoveries; Niels ce’Sedgwick, whose interest was not in any magic at all, but in the rocks of the earth and what they spoke of the history of the land; Leovic ce’Darci, whose graceful drawings of buildings and engineering marvels were not only a delight, but were beginning to change Nessantico’s skyline; Nicolau Petros, who studied the stars and their movements with a device based on the one Karl had seen the Tehuantin spy Mahri use; Albertus Paracel, the scribe and librarian who was creating an already-monumental compilation of all knowledge gained from Numetodo research and experimentation. All of them were essential to the primary task of the Numetodo—to understand how the world worked without the veil of superstition and religion, to use reason and logic to fathom the mysteries that surrounded them.

  They were those Nico Morel and his ilk found so terribly threatening.

  There were a few who were missing, though—those that Nico had already killed, those who had actually been closest to Karl and her. She could do nothing for them except mourn their and Karl’s aching absence.

  Varina had continued her own experiments with the sparkwheel. She’d refined the mixture of black sand and the shape and composition of the lead bullet the device delivered; she had Pierre create a few new experimental pieces as well. Each day, she saw the frightening potential of the sparkwheel more clearly. Each day, she was more convinced that this device could change the very sinews and fiber of the society in which they lived.

  She wondered, sometimes, if this was really something she wanted to unleash.

  “You can’t hide knowledge.” That was what Karl had said, many times over the decades. “Knowledge refuses to be hidden. If you try to bury it, it will only find a way to reveal itself to others.”

  Fine. Then she wouldn’t hide it.

  “Thank you for coming,” Varina said to the assembly. “You’re all familiar with black sand. You all know the terrible destruction it can cause when ignited in large amounts. My experiments recently have been with far smaller amounts than those used in war, and with no use of magic to set it off at all. And . . .” She stopped, stepping to the table she’d set up, covered in a black cloth. Several strides away, a ripe sweetfruit had been set up on a stand in front of an upended oaken table serving as a backstop: a fruit the size of a man’s head, enclosed in its marbled, yellow-and-green tough rind. A head as hard as a sweetfruit—it was an old saying in the Holdings. She could see everyone looking at the setup curiously. “Well, it’s easier to simply demonstrate,” she said to them.

  She nodded to Pierre, who flicked the cover from the table. Pierre’s original sparkwheel sat there, gleaming and beautiful, already primed and ready. Varina plucked it up without a word, cocked it, and aimed at the sweetfruit.

  She pulled the trigger.

  The sparkwheel clicked. The black sand in the pan flashed and flared; the sparkwheel bucked in her hand with a loud report. At the end of the room, the sweetfruit seemed to explode, spattered chunks falling to the floor as the broken remnant jumped in its stand. In the silence that followed, they could hear the bright red juice of the shattered sweetfruit dripping to the floor.

  The symbolism, as Varina had expected, was lost on none of them.

  “No magic?” Talbot muttered. “None?”

  Varina shook her head. The report of the sparkwheel still rang in her ears; a thin line of white smoke curled from the muzzle. “No magic,” she said. “A few pinches of black sand, a lead pellet, and Pierre’s craftsmanship. And it’s repeatable. Back away . . .” She called out to the others, some of whom had gone to examine the broken sweetfruit or the oaken planks behind it, where the pellet was embedded. She reloaded—the work of a few breaths—cocked the sparkwheel and fired it again. This time the rest of the sweetfruit collapsed entirely and the stand fell backward. Varina put the sparkwheel back on the table.

  “Pierre has made a sparkwheel for each of you here,” she said, “and I will teach you how to use it.”

  “A’Morce, this . . .” Talbot said. He was looking at the ruined sweetfruit on the floor. “Why?”

  “I’m afraid that the Numetodo are about to be under attack again,” Varina said. “With these, you don’t need skill with a blade, physical strength, or magic to defend yourself. All you need do is aim the device and pull the trigger. I’m afraid we will need all the protection we can arrange.”

  Leovic had gone to the table. He was turning the sparkwheel in his hands, examining the mechanism. Varina could already see his mind at work. He glanced at her. “It’s warm,” he commented. “What if that were a garda in armor?”

  “He would fare little better than the sweetfruit,” she told him. “I can show you, if you’d like.”

  Muscles bunched in Leovic’s jaw, as if he were holding back the reply he wanted to make. “Any competent craftsman could make something like this,” he said finally. “If no
t as ornate as Pierre’s creation. And learning to use it?”

  “I can show all of you in a few marks of the glass,” Varina answered.

  “You can give us all the potential to kill someone from strides away, even if they were in armor?” That was Johannes, his voice hushed and almost reverential.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “You truly want to release this power?”

  “It’s already been released,” she answered. “That power was loosed when the Tehuantin created the black sand. If we destroyed the sparkwheels right now and never said anything about them again, someone else would come to the same realization I did and make them again. You all know Karl’s . . .” At the mention of his name, her voice choked and broke. She swallowed hard, apologetically. Talbot nodded to her in sympathy. “. . . Karl’s saying that knowledge can’t be hidden. Even those of the Faith have a saying for it: ‘Once the Moitidi has been created, there can be no Unmaking.’ This is no different.”

  “Still, A’Morce . . .” That was Niels, shaking his gray, long locks. “The possibilities . . .”

  “I can imagine them as well as any of you here,” Varina answered. “Believe me, they’ve haunted my dreams since Karl’s funeral and the Morellis’ murder of our people. But I can also imagine what might happen if we don’t have all the resources available to protect ourselves. And that scares me more.”

  She nodded to Pierre, who brought out a long box from the side of the hall. He set it down by the table and opened it. Inside, steel and wood gleamed. “There’s a sparkwheel there for each of you,” Varina said. “Take one, and a vial of the black sand, and a packet of the paper cartridges, and I will show you how to use them . . .”

  Jan ca’Ostheim

  “THE YOUNG WOMAN on our personal staff named Rhianna,” Jan said to Rance. “What do we know about her?”

  The aide raised a single eyebrow. He had just brought in Jan’s daily calendar of meetings, going over the plans for the day—it was, as always of late, too crowded and full. It was one of those days when Jan felt the weight of his responsibilities; it was one of those days that he felt old before his time; it was one of the days when he felt restless and trapped.

  But the young woman . . . He had thought of her more than once since their encounter, and he found himself looking for her when he entered a room. There was often a faint smile on her face whenever she saw him, though she never broke propriety, never tried to approach him or talk to him, but concentrated on her work and left when it was finished.

  He liked that. She knew her place. It boded well.

  “She’s from Sesemora,” Rance told him, “though she has very little of the awful accent, thankfully. She had excellent references from the ca’Ceila and ca’Nemora families. She takes direction well and works hard. I could use a dozen more servants who perform as well as she does. And,” he added, “she’s not difficult to look at, as I’m sure the Hïrzg has noticed.”

  “I had, in fact,” Jan said. This was a dance that he and Rance had performed more than once over the years, and they both knew the steps.

  “Would the Hïrzg prefer that I assign her to your personal quarters?”

  “That might be good. She seems an excellent fit.”

  “Then I’ll do that,” Rance said. “I’ve heard whispers that the Hïrzgin thought Felicia was rather short with her last week; Rhianna might make a good replacement. I’ll have the change made today.”

  Jan shrugged. “Whatever you think best, Rance. It’s your staff to run. I’ll leave it to you. Now, is there something we can do about the audience with the A’Gyula? Perhaps the Hïrzgin could see him. He’s such a tedious boor . . .”

  “Good night, children . . .” Jan kissed each of them in turn: Elissa, Kriege, Caelor, and little Eria. He nodded to the nursemaid, and she began to shepherd the children out of the room. Elissa hung behind stubbornly, a fierce scowl on her face. “I should be allowed to be at the ball tonight,” she said. “I’m not even the least bit sleepy, Vatarh.”

  “Next year,” he told her.

  “Next year isn’t until forever,” she answered, with an emphatic stamp of her foot.

  Jan heard Brie snicker. He was sitting in the chair at Brie’s bedroom desk. She stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. She wore only her shift, her hair unpinned and her jewelry on the dressing table. Jan could smell the perfume she’d just applied as she leaned down close to his ear. “She’s your daughter,” Brie whispered. “I hear you in her voice.”

  Jan smiled. He gestured to Elissa to come to him. She did so, with a dramatic pout on her face. “If I say that you can attend the ball, then I’m going to have Kriege saying he should be allowed to be there, too.”

  “Kriege’s only nine,” Elissa answered. “He’s practically a baby. I’m eleven. Nearly twelve.”

  Jan felt Brie’s fingers tighten on his shoulder. He grinned. “I know,” he told her. “I’ll tell you what. If you go with the others now, I’ll have the nursemaid get you up and dressed in a turn of the glass, and you can come down to the ball for a bit. But you mustn’t let your brothers know.”

  Elissa beamed and clapped her hands once together, then dropped them to her sides, putting a comically solemn look on her face. “Yes, Vatarh,” she said loudly, for the benefit of her brothers, still in the doorway with the maid. “I’ll just go on to bed, then.” Impulsively, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, then her matarh’s. “Goodnight, Vatarh, Matarh.”

  She pattered off with her siblings. Jan watched them leave, a helpless smile on his face. “If we were artists, we could not have created anything more beautiful than our children,” Brie said.

  “I would agree,” Jan said. He turned in the chair to face her, his hands going to her hips—he could see the years and the costs of bearing the children in her body: she was no longer the slim, smooth beauty he’d married. Her body had widened and thickened over the years, lines had invaded her face, and the skin under her chin sagged. Her stomach was paunched, her breasts larger and heavier.

  He had changed as well, he knew, but change was easier to see in others. He stroked the well-rounded flanks of her body, and she smiled down at him, pressing closer to him. “There’s still time,” she said. “I could have that new girl—what’s her name? Rhianna?—help me dress quickly. If you’d like . . .”

  She leaned down. Her lips were still soft, still yielding, and after a moment he lost himself in the kiss. Her hands cupped his head, brought him up standing without breaking the embrace, then hugged him fiercely. As one, as if in a slow, passionate dance, they moved to the bed. Brie fell onto its cool softness and he allowed her to pull him down on top of her. He kissed her this time, a kiss that was harder and more insistent, and her hands moved lower on his body as he lifted the hem of her shift.

  Afterward, they lay together in the tangled sheets. She smiled at Jan, her hand caressing his cheeks and brushing the hair back from his face, and he traced the line of her breasts, circling the aureoles with a forefinger and watching the sensitive skin respond. “That was nice,” he said to her.

  “Yes.” She kissed him again—only a brush of lips this time. “Perhaps we’ll have created something new again.”

  “Perhaps,” he told her, and he smiled though in truth he felt nothing at the thought. Children he had—those he could acknowledge and those he didn’t know at all, fathered on the occasional paramour who had to be sent away with a pouch of gold solas as a memory. Like Mavel cu’Kella.

  “Sergei should be back in Nessantico today or tomorrow,” she said.

  He laughed. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking. The children . . . It might be nice if they knew their great-matarh. Really knew her.”

  Jan grunted wordlessly. His hand stopped moving, resting on her abdomen.

  “Do you think she’ll agree to what you asked? Do you think Sergei can convince her to name you A’Kralj?”

  “I don’t know,” he
answered. “Besides, Rance would tell me that’s what I want anyway, that it’s not good for Brezno.” That was no more than the truth. He didn’t know. Part of him agreed with Rance and wanted her to refuse, so that he would have an excuse to move against her. And part of him . . . Yes, part of him hoped she would agree, hoped that they might reconcile.

  He just wasn’t sure which part was the stronger.

  “The choice is Matarh’s,” he said. “It’s out of my hands now. I’ve made the offer; she can take it or not.”

  “I hope she does,” Brie said. “It’s time. A family should not be so estranged.” She kissed him again, and rolled away from him. She glanced at the large sand-clock on the desk. “You should go back to your own room and get dressed,” she said. “We don’t have much time. I’ll call the hall attendant to fetch Rhianna and send someone to help you . . .”

  She slid her shift and robe over her body and padded toward the hall door. Jan watched her, then pulled on his own clothes as she opened the door and called out softly to the hall servant there. Jan stood; Brie came back and hugged him.

  There was a soft knock on the door. “Go on,” Brie told him. He went to the rear door that led to his own bedroom but stood there with his hand on the knob. Rhianna opened the door and slipped into the room. She curtsied to Brie.

  “You wish help dressing, Hïrzgin?” she said. She noticed Jan at his door; he thought she smiled faintly then in his direction, but she returned her attention quickly to Brie and didn’t look toward him again. “Here, let me get these under-lacings for you . . .”

  He opened the door and left the bedroom. He smiled, though he wasn’t certain why.

  Brie ca’Ostheim

  “YOU WISH HELP DRESSING, Hïrzgin?” Rhianna said. Brie saw Rhianna’s gaze slide quickly to Jan, then just as rapidly return. She didn’t look at Jan again, though Brie felt Jan hanging in the room behind her. “Here, let me get these under-lacings for you . . .”