S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

It’s not just what they’d do to me; it’s what would happen to them.”

That’s why it’s all the more important that we meet with O’Teni cu’Seranta. The Archigos isn’t A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca, and maybe she can make the Archigos hear us. I came here to plead the case for tolerance with the Kraljica; if she’s gone, then I’ll go to Concenzia again and-” Karl stopped. The door to the tavern opened, flooding the room with light. There were growls and curses from the patrons until the figure outlined there shut the door again. Karl had shaded his eyes, though it hadn’t helped much: wild splotches of color chased each other over his field of vision, and he thought he saw, impossibly, a glint of metal in the middle of the man’s face. Through the welter of afterimages, the figure looked around, then fixed on them, striding up to their table.

“Cenzi’s balls,” Mika cursed, his chair scraping and falling backward as he rose, his hand going to the knife on his belt. There was an answering ring of steel as the figure drew a sword from his scabbard. Even before Karl could react, Mika was pressed back to the wall with the point at his throat. In the attacker’s other hand, a knife blade flashed, pointed at Karl.

The intruder’s nose was silver.

Ca’Rudka clucked twice scoldingly at Karl, who started to speak as his hand lifted. “I really wouldn’t do that,” he said, and the point of his sword pressed harder against Mika’s throat, dimpling the skin. Mika lifted his chin, his mouth open, his eyes wide and frightened. “He’ll be dead before you can finish, Envoy. I’m faster than your spell, I promise you.”

“Commandant,” Karl said, swallowing the release word that was in his own throat and forcing himself to remain still. The point of ca’Rudka’s knife gleamed a few inches from his chest; his sword remained at Mika’s throat. The pressure of the unreleased spell made Karl grimace. His head pounded. “I apologize for my friend. Here in Oldtown, a little paranoia is a survival tactic, as I’m sure you realize.”

There was a commotion at the door; he heard several other people enter and the sound of their drawn weapons, but he didn’t dare look away. He thought he glimpsed blue and gold in his peripheral vision.

“Commandant?” he tip of ca’Rudka’s sword withdrew slightly, leaving behind a mark that drooled blood. Mika touched his fingertip to the tiny wound and looked at the smear of red, his eyes still saucered.

“Mika.” Karl caught his friend’s gaze and nodded his head toward the chair he’d overturned. “Sit down, and don’t move your hands- either to your knife or to make a spell. Commandant, will you take a chair with us? Can I order you a pint of ale? The local brew isn’t quite up to the Isle’s standards, but. .” Slowly, deliberately, Karl sat back down in his own chair. He put his hands on the table where ca’Rudka could see them.

He saw ca’Rudka’s tight-lipped smile through his clearing vision.

The commandant was still watching Mika, though now he lowered the knife that had threatened Karl. After a breath, the tip of his thin saber dropped and he sheathed both weapons. He waved to the men at the door-Garde Kralji-and they bowed and retreated, though they left the door open. No one in the tavern objected this time.

Ca’Rudka took a chair from the nearest table and turned it backward before he sat-Karl realized suddenly that it was a fighter’s move: there was no back to block him if he decided to stand and retreat suddenly or to draw his sword again, and the chair itself would be easy to pick up as a defensive shield. Across the table, Mika sat gingerly, rubbing at the wound on his neck. “Too early in the day for ale,” ca’Rudka answered easily, as if conversing with old friends. “It’s not good for digestion.”

“Nor would be sitting in a cell in the Bastida, I suspect,” Karl answered. “Is that where I’m bound, Commandant?”

“Have you done something deserving of such punishment, Envoy?”

Ca’Rudka folded his arms on the chair’s back and leaned forward, the smile still playing on his lips. “Or perhaps you hired someone to do it for you?”

“I had nothing to do with the Kraljica’s collapse, Commandant.

Nothing. Nor did any Numetodo. This is not what any of us wanted.

Quite the opposite.”

Ca’Rudka stared at him for a breath, silent. At last, he gave a faint nod. “Yet the Archigos tells me that the Kraljica was attacked with a spell, Envoy, and not a spell like those the teni use. The rumors I hear of the Numetodo. .”

“. . are much exaggerated,” Karl told him. “You just saw that demonstrated a moment ago, Commandant. If we were as powerful as people seem to believe, we would have burned your body to a cinder in the instant you drew your sword or turned you into a clucking chicken. Or we’d have hidden our presence so well that you wouldn’t have known where we sat drinking. Seeing that I could do none of those things, then I doubt that I have the ability to harm the Kraljica.”

“This is my city, Envoy. It’s my business to know certain people within it and where I might find them. But let’s not be disingenuous.

We both know that the Numetodo play with the Ilmodo, despite the in-terdiction against such meddling in the Divolonte. Or are you claiming that the Numetodo attack on the Archigos was just a parlor trick?”

“Everyone also saw how easily a mere acolyte turned that fool’s spell, Commandant. If I’d used the Scath Cumhacht at the Gschnas, I would have been seen and heard doing so and the Archigos or A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca or any of the other dozens of teni there would have noticed it, don’t you think? And if we had the ability to plant a triggered spell that powerful, I assure you I wouldn’t have made myself so visible in the crowd.”

“No, I doubt you would have,” ca’Rudka answered. “Which is why you’re not headed for the Bastida already. But I think you understand why I would need to ask, and to watch your face as you answered.” The smile tightened and faded. Karl could see his distorted reflection in the polished nostrils of the commandant’s nose. “I consider myself a good judge of character, Envoy. I find that I like you. I do. You’re unfortunate in your choice of companions-” that with a glance at Mika, “-and your loyalties are suspect, but I like you. I’d hate to see you, well, suffer for your choices.”

“I would say we are in agreement with that final sentiment, Commandant. So how might I avoid that?”

Ca’Rudka’s hand curled and lifted. Drifted down again. “It may be that you can’t, Envoy. So much is in flux at the moment. I’m only a tool in the hand of the Kraljica, after all-or the Kraljiki, should the A’Kralj take the throne-and I do what they ask me to do.”

“Even if innocents are hurt.”

The smile returned. “I find that, like those who give me my orders, I don’t really care whether a few innocents suffer as long as Nessantico herself is protected.”

“The way innocents were butchered in Brezno?” Mika interjected.

“Did their blood and their torment protect Nessantico? Are the Holdings and Concenzia better for the display of their tortured bodies?”

Ca’Rudka didn’t answer, only flicked his gaze over to Mika for a moment before returning his attention to Karl. “I would suggest, Envoy, that you leave Nessantico now. Your diplomatic mission is over at this point. Leave as soon as you can. Today.” With an abrupt and lithe movement, ca’Rudka stood, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“I can’t,” Karl told him. “I have my own orders that I have to fulfill.

You can understand that, Commandant.”

A nod. “I can. Then I’ve done all I can do for you, Envoy. I can’t protect you. The rest is in the hands of Cenzi.”