S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“This way, O’Teni cu’Seranta,” Savi said. She stumbled over the title, and her face reddened. “The Archigos is awaiting you and your family.”

“ ‘O’Teni cu’Seranta.’ ” Tomas chuckled as the acolyte led them toward a side door of the temple. “That has a wonderful sound, doesn’t it, Ana?”

“Yes, Vatarh,” Ana admitted, watching Sala as she turned and started to walk toward the temple, wishing he sounded more pleased for her and less for himself. “But I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

“Oh, you will. And more. I’m certain of it. One day soon it will be U’Teni ca’Seranta. This is Cenzi’s will; this is our reward for the trials He sent us. I always knew it would come.”

Ana nodded at her vatarh’s confidence, though she knew that Tomas’ certainty was new and fragile. True, Cenzi had sent trials enough to their family: the deaths of her two younger siblings to Red Pox six years before, followed closely by the loss of Ana’s older brother Louis the next year, serving with the Garde Civile in one of the border skirmishes with Tennshah. Then Vatarh, a mid-level bureaucrat within the Department of Provincial Commerce, had been assigned to the town of Montbataille only to have his position eliminated within six months.

Since then, he had held a variety of positions within the Nessantico government, each of them of less status and lower compensation as Abi and Tomas were forced to squander their savings and rely on the largesse of the cu’Seranta relatives to avoid the shame of becoming ci’Seranta or worse.

Ana thought the nadir had come four years ago when Abi had been stricken. That had seemed the final blow. Her apprenticeship to the Concenzia Faith had been her vatarh’s desperate attempt to sal-vage something from the unrelenting downward spiral of the family’s fortunes.

The healers had all said that her matarh would die, and Ana had watched her fail. When Ana was little, she had often put her hands on her matarh’s temples when she complained of headaches, and there were always words in her mind that she could say, words that would take away the pain. You always played at being a teni. . She had, and Ana knew now that it was the early manifestation of her Gift, an instinctive use of the Ilmodo.

It was also wrong. The Divolonte, the laws and regulations of Concenzia, explicitly said so. ‘To heal with the Ilmodo is to thwart the will of Cenzi,’ the teni thundered in their Admonitions from the High Lectern in the temple. Ana, always devout, had stopped as soon as she realized what she was doing.

But. .

She couldn’t watch her matarh die. After the last healer Vatarh had hired left in defeat, Ana finally put her hands on her matarh again and spoke the words that came-carefully, tentatively, letting the Ilmodo ease the pain, letting Ana bring her back from the death spiral she was in, but not all the way back: because that would be too visible and too dangerous. Ana parceled out the relief, feeling guilty both for her misuse of the Ilmodo and because she didn’t use it as fully as she might.

Then came the true shame. The worst of it all. Her vatarh. . First it was just words and hugs, then he came to her for the more intimate comforts that Abi had once given him. Too young and too immature and too trusting, Ana had endured his long, careful seduction, knowing that if she told anyone, the shame would destroy the family utterly, that it would be her matarh who would suffer most of all. .

“O’Teni? Through here. .” Savi had led them to a set of gilded wooden doors. The panels were carved with a representation of Cenzi’s ascension to the Second World-the elongated figure of the god being lifted up toward the clouds while below an immense fissure yawned in the globe below, where Cenzi had fallen in his struggle with the Moitidi, His children. Ana stroked the polished wood as Savi pulled open the doors. Beyond was a small, simple chapel which might have held fifty people at the most, lit by candles set in silver candelabra swaying on chains from the high ceiling. Ana could smell incense burning in a brazier, then motion caught her eye near the altar covered with fine damask at the far end of the chapel. The Archigos stepped up onto the altar dais, supported by a young male o’teni who towered over him. The Archigos gestured to them as Savi closed the chapel door, remaining behind in the corridor. Ana glanced around; there was no one else in the chapel.

“Are you disappointed, O’Teni?” the Archigos asked, his voice reverberating from the stone surfaces around them. “I know that the official ceremony was better attended with all the families and all the a’teni. . ”

“No, Archigos,” Ana answered. She remembered A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca’s stern, unforgiving face staring at her, and the way the others had looked at her as if she were a puzzle they had to solve. She was pleased none of them were there now. “I’m sorry. I’m. . very happy tonight.”

“Then please come forward and sit-there are chairs for all of you here in front. This is your vatarh and matarh?”

“Yes, Archigos.” Ana introduced her parents, Tomas going forward to kneel before the Archigos with clasped hands, playing-as he always did-the devout follower. The Archigos came forward to put his own gnarled and small hands around her vatarh’s.

“I thank you for sending us your daughter,” the Archigos said. “Vajiki cu’Seranta, I’ve arranged for the Concenzia treasury to transfer five thousand solas to your family’s account against Ana’s future services to the Faith. I assume that will be sufficient?” Ana could see Vatarh’s eyebrows lift and his mouth drop. She sucked in her own breath in surprise as well-the families of the acolytes in her class had been given a tenth of that sum.

“Oh, yes, Archigos. That is quite. .” Tomas stopped. She wondered what he’d intended to say. His mouth closed and he swallowed.

“. .adequate for the moment,” he finished. Ana could see him toting up accounts in his head.

The Archigos had noticed the internal greed as well, Ana realized.

He favored her vatarh with a dismissive smile. “One of my clerks will be outside when you leave, Vajiki,” the Archigos said. “She will have papers for you to sign that will complete the transfer. You’ll note that you will also be giving up the family’s right to either select or approve a husband for Ana: she now belongs to Concenzia and can make her own choice freely. You will have no voice in that, nor will you receive any further dowry for her.”

Her vatarh frowned at that. “Archigos, we had expected to advance the family through Ana’s marriage.”

“Then perhaps a thousand solas will suffice, if you prefer to retain those rights. It doesn’t matter to me. My secretary, O’Teni Kenne ci’Fionta, is right here.” The Archigos nodded to the teni who was standing next to him. “Kenne, would you be so kind as to tell the clerks to make that change in the contract. . ”

Vatarh’s eyes widened again and he hurried to answer as the o’teni bowed and started down the aisle of the chapel. “No, Archigos,” he answered. “I think the agreement will be sufficient as is.”

“Ah,” the Archigos said. Kenne, with a slight smile, returned to the Archigos’ side. To Ana, the Archigos seemed to be smothering laughter.

“Then let us begin. .”

The ceremony was brief. Afterward, O’Teni ci’Fionta handed the Archigos the green robes that would be Ana’s attire from this time forward. The Archigos uttered a blessing over the robes, then handed one set to Ana. “If you would put this on,” he said. “You may go behind the screens there at the side of the altar.”

The robes felt strange against her skin; softer than she’d expected from the times U’Teni cu’Dosteau’s robes had brushed against her. She touched the slashes at the shoulders of the robe: yes, they were those of an o’teni, and on the left shoulder was sewn the broken-globe crest of the Archigos. Taking off her tashta and putting on the robes, she realized that she was also severing herself from her old life and putting on a new one. She would not be returning to her family’s home this evening, but retiring to a new apartment here in the temple complex.