by S L Farrell
“You can’t blame them, my friend. Anyone with more sense than loyalty would leave.”
“I know, but how am I supposed to run the palais without people?” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Listen to me. I’ve just been chased halfway across Nessantico by the Tehuantin; I’ve managed to survive spells and arrows and swords, and I’m worrying about whether the beds are made and meals are served.”
“It’s your job.”
“It doesn’t feel important, given the circumstances. By Cénzi, I’m exhausted.”
“You can sleep later. We can both sleep later. Come with me.”
“Where?”
Sergei rubbed at his nose. “You know where the black sand for the Garde Kralji is kept? You have the keys to that storeroom?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then come along.”
A turn of the glass later, he and Talbot approached the Pontica a’Brezi Veste with several bundles of black sand carried by gardai. Brie greeted them; she glanced at their burdens, and she cocked her head. “I thought that the Kraljica said that the ponticas were to be left intact,” she said.
Sergei glanced up at the roof of the palais, at the balconies studding the southern wall. No one was there. “I’ve managed to convince the Kraljica that we may need to take the bridges down if our attack tomorrow doesn’t go well. We’re to set the black sand on the supports around this side, so that we can set them off at need. That’s all.”
Brie nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. I’ll get the sparkwheelers to help,” she said.
Another turn of the glass, and Sergei and Talbot, with the rest of the black sand, came to the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli. Sergei gave the offizier in charge of the Garde Kralji there the same tale that he’d given Brie. As he’d done at the previous bridge, he supervised the placement of the black sand packets, making certain that they were linked together with black sand-infused oiled cotton ropes so that touching off the length of fuse would cause all the packets to explode at once.
Sergei held the fuse, hefting it in his hand; a lantern burned at his feet in the grass of the riverbank. “We’re done here,” he told Talbot. “Now—go tell everyone to stand back.”
Sergei could not see Talbot’s face as he stood farther up the embankment, the moon almost directly behind him. “Stand back? Sergei, have you gone insane? The Kraljica gave specific orders—”
Sergei leaned down. He tucked his cane under his arm, picked up the lantern and opened the glass front, holding the fuse cord in his other hand. “When a tooth goes bad, you don’t have a choice but to pluck it out,” he said to Talbot. “If you leave it in, it just causes you more pain and misery, and eventually rots all the rest.”
“You can’t do this,” Talbot protested. “The Kraljica said—”
“The Kraljica and I disagree. Be honest, Talbot: do you think we can take back the South Bank from the Westlanders tomorrow? The best defense for the Isle and the entire city is to take down the ponticas and leave the Westlanders stranded.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” Talbot told him.
Sergei grinned up at him, lifting the lantern. “At the moment, it appears that it is,” he answered. He touched the end of the fuse cord to the flame. It hissed and sparked, and fire began to crawl along its length. Sergei dropped the fuse and began to hurry up the riverbank as fast as he could, using his cane for leverage.
“Cénzi’s balls,” Talbot cursed; he stared for a breath as if considering hurrying down the bank after the fuse, then waved to the gardai at the bridge’s abutments. “Back!” he shouted to them. “Get away from the bridge! Take cover!” He half-slid down the embankment and grabbed Sergei’s arm, hauling him up. Together, they fled as the fuse cord hissed and sputtered and the blue glow of its fire slid toward the bridge.
The blast nearly lifted Sergei off his feet. The concussion slammed into him like a falling wall; he could feel the heat scorching his back, and the sound . . . He could hear timbers snapping as rocks and planking slammed into the ground around them, falling like a hard, dangerous rain. Sergei and Talbot cowered, covering their heads. When it had ended, his ears still ringing, Sergei turned. The bridge had collapsed, the span sloping into the waters of the A’Sele midway across. The stubs of piling and pillars rose from the water like broken teeth.
Sergei grinned. “They won’t be coming across there soon,” he said. “All these men stationed here can get some rest. Now, let’s finish the job . . .”
Talbot was shaking his head. “Sorry, Sergei, I can’t let you. You lied to me. You disobeyed the Kraljica’s direct orders.”
“I’m trying to save the damned city,” Sergei retorted.
“It’s not your damned city.”
Ah, but it is . . . He knew Talbot realized the worth of what he’d done. He knew Talbot actually agreed with him. “Talbot, you know I’m right.”
“What I know doesn’t matter,” Talbot told him. “I’m the Kraljica’s aide, not the Kraljiki. Damn you to the soul shredders, Sergei . . .” He shook his head, glaring at the ruins of the bridge. The Garde Brezno were sidling closer to the edge, staring at the wreckage. Shouts and lanterns were hurrying toward them. “Allesandra’s going to be furious.”
“She’ll be more furious when we take down the other pontica,” Sergei answered, “but she also won’t be able to undo that.” But Talbot wasn’t going to admit that Sergei was right. He knew it before Talbot responded, knew it from the way the aide’s thin face closed up.
“That’s not going to happen,” Talbot said. He looked at the people running toward them. “Sergei, you can still survive this: admit that you disobeyed her and set the black sand packets, but that you were doing it in case we had to retreat tomorrow and there was no other way to stop the Tehuantin from crossing over to the Isle and onto the North Bank. You can tell her that this was an accident; your lamp set off the fuse. She won’t believe you; she’ll be terribly angry at what you’ve done, but she won’t be able to prove anything. I’ll back you that far, Sergei. But no further. The other bridge stays up.”
“Talbot . . .”
“No,” Talbot said firmly, interrupting Sergei. “It’s either that, or I tell her exactly what happened here and that you intended this all along. She’ll have you executed as a traitor then, Sergei, and I wouldn’t blame her. Which is it to be? You decide.”
Talbot was right. Sergei knew that, knew Allesandra well enough to realize that even if she understood his reasoning, he’d gone beyond the bounds of what she could forgive if she knew the whole truth. Dead, he could do nothing for the city. Dead, he could do nothing more to atone for all he’d done over his life. Dead, he couldn’t take down the other bridge.
“All right,” he told Talbot. “I’ll take your offer.”
She’d followed Nico back into the maze of Oldtown, to another nondescript house in another nondescript narrow lane. There was nobody there, nobody came to Nico’s knock. The door had been locked, but that was no issue—not to Rochelle. She’d picked the lock and they’d gone in. Nico had nearly immediately told her that he needed to pray. She told him that both of them needed to eat—but there had been nothing in the house. She’d gone foraging, finding stale bread in an abandoned bakery, and moldy cheese elsewhere. She’d taken water from the nearest well. When she returned to the house, Nico was in the front room on his knees. He’d paid no attention when she tried to get him to eat, when she tried to force some water between his cracked and bruised lips, when she’d jostled and yelled at him to try to get his attention.
Her brother was lost, mumbling half-intelligible prayers to Cénzi and unresponsive. He ignored her, as if he no longer cared or even knew that she was there. She could get no reaction from him at all. He seemed to be in a trance.
Fine. She was used to madness. She’d dealt with it long enough with their matarh.
She slept a little on the floor next to him, but couldn’t sleep long. She found herself awake in the dark with Nico still pr
aying next to her. By now, she thought, it must be only a few turns before close to First Call. “Nico? Nico—talk to me.”
There was no answer. He was in the same position he’d been in for turn upon turn. So, Nico had abandoned her, too—well, she was used to being alone, to making her own decisions. She couldn’t help Nico, couldn’t go wherever it was he was, but there were still things she could do, that she was supposed to do. She touched the hilt of the knife she’d stolen from her vatarh, stroking the bejeweled hilt.
Promise me you will do what I couldn’t do. Promise me . . .
“I will,” she told her matarh’s ghost. “I will.”
She went back to Nico, kneeling on the bare wooden floor. His legs must have long ago lost any feeling. His hands were clasped in the sign of Cénzi, his head bowed down toward them, his eyes closed. She could hear him mumbling. “Nico?” she said, touching his shoulder. “Nico, I need you to answer me.”
He did not. The mumbling continued, unabated. She hugged him once. “Then pray for me,” she told him. “Pray for both of us.”
There was no sign he’d heard. She stood, watching him, then finally left the room. She closed the door behind her, and went out into the streets of Oldtown. In the early morning, the streets were dark and deserted. Most of the inhabitants, those who could, had fled eastward out of the city. There were strange flashes in the sky to the west, accompanied by distant thunder, and southward, clouds of smoke were touched underneath with the glow of fires.
South. Rochelle went that way, sliding easily through the shadows cast by the moon.
She had no idea how long it was before she came to the Pontica Kralji, linking the North Bank to the Isle. There were no gardai on the bridge, no traffic at all. The moon was setting and the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, extinguishing the stars at the zenith. The waters of the A’Sele roiled around the pilings, dark and mysterious. The smell of burning wood mingled with the scent of mud and river water.
Something bright flared in the sky ahead of her, trailing sparks and painting the currents of the A’Sele with its bright reflections. The apparition brightened and swelled, descending rapidly. She saw it fall, felt the impact through the soles of her boots, saw the fire of the explosion. Someone shrieked distantly in pain and alarm and the smell of burning grew stronger, overlaid now with a sulfurous stench. Another fireball shrieked into the southern sky; this one exploded high above the Isle, sending black shadows racing.
A rider appeared from the Isle a’Kralji end of the pontica, galloping over the bridge toward her, his cloak billowing behind. Rochelle shrank back against the bridge supports; the rider hurtled past her without a glance, turning sharply left toward the River Market. She could see the leather pouch around his body: a fast-rider carrying a message.
That meant that the Kraljica was most likely on the Isle. Allesandra. Her great-matarh. Her matarh’s voice seemed to whisper in her ears: “Promise me . . .”
Another fireball played false sun, this one also slamming to earth somewhere on the Isle. She could hear the wind-horns of the Old Temple growling a low alarm.
Rochelle ran across the pontica, half-expecting someone to shout after her, or perhaps for an arrow to find her. Nothing happened. She was on the Avi a’Parete on the Isle. All about her were the Isle’s grand buildings, dominated here by the Kraljica’s Palais, directly ahead on the left. She slid to her left, following a street dominated by government buildings. Farther south, she could hear activity: horns calling, people shouting, She turned the corner, moving southward again; ahead, she could see people far down the street. She hurried to the wall surrounding the palais. A servants’ door was set there to one side. She knocked on it, waited, knocked again. No one answered. She crouched down and took out her lockpick kit. A few breaths later, she pushed the door open and slipped inside the grounds.
She found herself standing in the gardens of the palais. The scent of flowers was strong, and she could hear a fountain trickling water nearby. There was no one in the gardens at all, and few of the palais windows were lit.
Another fireball lifted its bright head over the far wall of the palais grounds. It seemed to be heading directly toward her and the palais, but at the last moment when it seemed to be about to strike the palais itself, it shattered into a thousand fragments, each hissing and glowing as they fell—a counter-spell must have found it. She wondered how many fires the sparks would set, and whether the fire-téni would come to put them out.
Rochelle ran to the nearest palais door. Locked: again, she took out the picks, manipulating them until she heard the snick of the mechanism opening. She opened the door just enough to slide inside.
She found herself in what must have been the servants’ corridor: a plain narrow hallway with cross-corridors opening off to either side and a large door at the end. If this was like Brezno Palais, as she expected it would be, then most of these doors would be unlocked. The servants needed to have access to all parts of the palais to serve their masters and mistresses, and to do so in the most unobtrusive manner possible. Doubtless, the palais was honeycombed with such passages.
But the back corridors of Brezno Palais had also been a bustle of activity. This one was silent, and Rochelle found that strange. She moved quickly to the main door, easing the door open a crack. She glimpsed one of the main public hallways of the palais; she could also hear voices. There were several people walking hurriedly away from another room just farther down. One of the men she recognized immediately: Sergei ca’Rudka, the silver nose gleaming on his wrinkled, pasty face, his cane tapping an erratic rhythm on the tiles. The woman alongside him was talking, in a hurried and angry voice. “. . . don’t care what you were thinking or what your reasons were. I’m furious with you, Sergei. Absolutely furious. And Talbot; why in Cénzi’s name didn’t you check with me? You knew I’d ordered the ponticas to stay up.”
“I must apologize profusely, Kraljica,” Sergei said, though Rochelle thought he sounded more pleased than apologetic. So that was the Kraljica. Great-matarh, I’m here for you . . . But not now. Not yet. There were too many people around her: Sergei, the one called Talbot, as well as a quartet of gardai.
“Your ‘accident’—if that’s what it really was—may have jeopardized our chance to assault the Tehuantin on the South Bank. Now there’s only one route over, so . . .”
Their voices drifted into unintelligibility as they walked down the corridor. Rochelle risked opening the door wider. There were two gardai stationed at the door from where the group had come. Rochelle ducked back into the servants’ corridor. She took the corridor that led off in the direction of the room with the gardai, counting her steps to judge when she’d walked the distance. There was another door a few strides farther down the corridor. She opened that door.
She found herself in the Hall of the Sun Throne. The crystalline mass of the Sun Throne itself dominated the hall on its dais. Fine. This would do: the Kraljica must come back here in time, and Rochelle could fulfill her promise.
She saw a flash of light through the high windows of the hall, and the palais itself shook as thunder grumbled. She could smell woodsmoke and the windows of the palais were alight with a dawn of flame.
Rochelle settled herself in to wait.
Niente dusted the water in the scrying bowl with the orange powder and chanted the spell to open his mind to Axat. The green mist began to rise, and he bent his head over the bowl.
They were encamped in the city itself, with warriors securing the streets and plundering the houses and buildings there—for food and supplies, had been Tototl’s orders, but Niente was certain that many of the warriors were also taking whatever treasures they could carry. Others had been set to building a catapult, and Niente had tasked the nahualli with enchanting the bags of black sand that the catapult would hurl onto the island so that they would explode upon impact. The chanting of the nahualli and the hammering of the warrior engineers filled the wide boulevard outside the fortress prison at the ri
ver’s edge. From the gates of the edifice, the skull of a horrible, many-toothed creature leered down at Niente—almost as if it could be the head of the winged serpent that flew on the Tecuhtli’s banner. That, Niente thought, was nearly an irony. Axat’s Eye had risen, and it seemed to watch Niente as he performed the ritual, watched him as intently as did Tototl.
The visions came quickly, rushing toward him almost too fast for him to see, the paths of the future twisting and intertwining. Niente could still see victory along the clearest, closest path, but now it was a victory won at terrible cost. There were changes wrought on the landscape, powers rising that hadn’t been glimpsed before, or that had been hinted at only in wisps of possibilities: the king of black-and-silver; the old woman who smelled of black sand; the young man with the wild, strange power. That last one . . . He was the most difficult of all for Niente to see, wrapped in mist and mystery. Around him, all the possible paths of the future seemed to be coiled. Niente wanted to stay with this one, but the mists kept pushing him away no matter how hard he tried.
In the mist, Niente could also feel Atl, so close that he almost thought that his son was standing beside him, peering into his bowl at the same time. Here. He tried to cast his thoughts toward Atl. See what I see. Let me find the Long Path, and hope you see it also . . .
But there was no response. He couldn’t show Atl what he had seen, nor could he see what Atl saw. In the mist, they stayed separate.
“Will they take down the other bridge?” Tototl asked. “If they do that . . .”
“If they do that, then we can’t get across to help Tecuhtli Citlali. I know. Now let me look . . .”
He’d already seen that: in the primary path, the Easterners inexplicably never destroyed either bridge. He didn’t understand that. With the bridges up, Tototl would win through to the Isle, though at terrible cost. The strange black sand weapons that the Easterners wielded would take down far too many warriors before they could, inevitably, overwhelm them. They would reach Citlali and still crush the Easterners between them, but this was no longer the overwhelming victory that Niente had seen in Tlaxcala. Everything had changed.