S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

Ce’Nimoni frowned, brows lowering over meadow-bright eyes.

“Commandant, the body. .?”

“Bury it, burn it, let it rot-whatever Chevaritt ca’Nephri bids you to do with it. I don’t care. I’ve learned all I can from it.” With that, Sergei hoisted himself astride the gray, who nickered nervously and flared his nostrils as if the smell on Sergei’s clothes bothered him. Sergei pulled at the reins and leaned forward to pat the gray’s neck to calm him. “You did well,” he told ce’Nimoni. “When the Gardes a’Liste looks at the Roll of names next, I know they will consider your service here. I will convey your cooperation and your quick intervention here to Chevaritt ca’Nephri, and the Kraljiki.”

The retainer bowed and clasped hands to forehead. Again, Sergei

caught a glimpse of that self-satisfied grin on the man’s face. And I may yet see if I can find an excuse to give you a tour of the Bastida, he added silently.

Then he gestured to O’Offizier ce’Falla, and they rode east and north toward Nessantico.

Estraven ca’Cellibrecca

“cu’Belli! Where are you?”

There was no answer. Estraven stared at the trio of gray, lichen-spotted plinths leaning against each other a stone’s throw from the Avi a’Firenzcia, the road bordering the River Clario. In the mist-ing drizzle, they appeared particularly dark and foreboding, as if they’d been set down by the Moitidi’s children in the First Age. “Cenzi’s piss,”

Estraven muttered and slapped the reins of his horse, then quickly gave the sign of Cenzi and whispered a quick prayer for forgiveness at his blasphemy. His horse shook its soggy mane and nickered, the ears flicking as if it had heard something. Estraven shifted anxiously in his saddle. “Cu’Belli!” he called again.

Their little troupe-Estraven, the trader cu’Belli, two e’teni from A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca’s staff, and four men whose job it was to handle the pack animals cu’Belli brought with him-had crossed the border

yesterday into Firenzcia, passing through the guard station set up across the Avi at the border town of Ville Colhelm. They were three days from Nessantico, and Estraven was regretting ever having agreed to his marriage-vatarh’s request. At the least, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca could have allowed him to bring his own staff, but the A’Teni had insisted that they remain behind at the temple on the Isle A’Kralji so they could attend to the Kraljica’s funeral ceremonies.

“When you get to Brezno, my own people will be waiting for you,” ca’Cellibrecca had said. “As I told you, Cu’Belli is a crude man in many ways, but he’s also a loyal one. He’ll make certain that you’re comfortable, if only because that’s what he’ll want himself.”

Estraven had to agree with his marriage-vatarh’s assessment of “crude.” The man was certainly that. His vision of “comfortable” seemed to consist mostly of whether the inn’s kegs were full of good ale and that the barmaids were comely and seducible. He’d drunk and whored the night away in each village they’d stayed in. Estraven had stayed in his room in disgust, forcing the e-teni to do the same, spend-ing his time writing letters to Francesca and to his o’teni aides at the Old Temple back in Nessantico.

It would all be worth it one day. One day he would be A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca himself, stationed in one of the great cities of the Holdings. He would work with his marriage-vatarh, who would be Archigos Orlandi, and together they would create a Concenzia Faith stronger than it had ever been, unassailable and more powerful even than the Kralji and the rulers of the other lands of the Holdings. They would be the founders of a new order firmly rooted in the words of the Toustour and the law of the Divolonte.

A better world than this one. Which wasn’t at the moment hard for Estraven to believe at all. Nearly any world would be better than this one. Estraven’s clothes were soaked, and he was fairly certain he’d picked up a horrible infestation of lice from one of those lonely beds.

They’d spent the previous night at one of Ville Colhelm’s many inns, with cu’Belli imperiously telling the innkeeper that “A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca of Brezno will pay for your best rooms.” In the morning, one of the chambermaids had delivered a note from cu’Belli. Business to conduct. Will meet you at standing stones beyond the village midmorning. Estraven wondered just what business cu’Belli might be conducting that was so urgent and what her name might be, but the maid knew nothing beyond the fact that “the fat Vajiki and his companions had left not long after dawn, along with the two teni. Without any sleep at all, Vajiki. They were up all night, in the tavern and. .” She’d blushed then, smiling and closing her mouth on the rest of the tale. “They said to tell you to wait for them at the stones. The stableboy can tell you where they are.”

Now it seemed cu’Belli’s “business” had kept him longer than expected. The sun was hidden behind scudding clouds and the fine rain misted Estraven’s woolen cloak, but it was midmorning. Had to be. Estraven glanced in annoyance at the zenith, blinking into the drops of rain. He sneezed. “Damn the man,” he said.

Estraven gave the sign of Cenzi, then began to whisper a quick chant, his hands moving in the wet air: a warming chant. He felt the surge of blessed heat wash over him as he finished the spell and he sighed gratefully-one of the quicker and more useful of the little chants that any teni was taught to do, and one most teni tried to work surreptitiously when trapped in long ceremonies on cold winter mornings in the temples, especially since the spell taxed its caster very little. At least he wouldn’t catch his death of illness out here in the cursed weather.

He thought he heard the snap of a branch from the trees beyond the standing stones, and he straightened in his saddle, turning his head.

“Cu’Belli?” he called. “Come, man. We’ve wasted half the day already.

We’re still a good two days’ ride from Brezno.”

This time an answer came in the sinister thwang of bowstrings.

Estraven grunted in surprise and shock as an arrow whistled past his left ear; an instant later he fell backward from his horse’s saddle as a trio of feathered shafts sprouted from his cloak: two in his chest, the other in his right shoulder, the shock of their impact sending him to the ground. Spattered with mud, blinking in the rainfall, he looked down at the arrows in surprise, confused by their impossible appearance, touching the dark feathers of their fletching even as he saw the blood beginning to spread out from the wounds. He tried to rise, managing to struggle up on his knees. Strangely, he felt little pain, only a great tightness in his chest.

This was a dream. This was a sign from Cenzi. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

“I’m here as promised, U’Teni,” Estraven heard cu’Belli’s voice call out, and the portly man stepped from behind one of the moss-flecked stones. His quartet of companions were with him, and they held bows with new arrows nocked to the strings. There was another man with him as well, dressed in the uniform of Firenzcia’s army.

“Treachery!” Estraven tried to call, but his voice was garbled and he spat blood. “Help!” He started to chant, tried to force his hands to move in a new spell, one that would smash cu’Belli and gain him time to get back on his horse and ride away, but cu’Belli gestured quickly and the bows came up and the bowstrings sang their note of death, and Estraven was slammed backward again into the rain and into the mud of Firenzcia and into whatever afterlife awaited him.

Ana cu’Seranta