S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“I didn’t want to be part of it.”

“I know you didn’t, but it was Cenzi’s decision to give you this burden, and you must carry it.”

“How?” she asked. “How, when even the simplest spells are hard for me?”

“The gift is still with you, Ana. Regain your faith, and the rest will return.”

“The Numetodo. . I saw them, Archigos. They can do things with the Ilmodo that we can’t, not with all our belief. They create their spells beforehand, and cast them later with a single word and gesture; none of us can do that. Ka-Envoy ci’Vliomani told me he could show me how, that anyone who can find the Second World could do it. He said using the Ilmodo has nothing to do with faith or with Cenzi at all. I saw them cast spells, Archigos, without calling on Cenzi at all.”

“And you wondered how Cenzi could allow that, didn’t you? And afterward, what happened?”

She ducked her head again. She gave the sign of Cenzi, an involuntary motion. “Since then, I haven’t been able to use the Ilmodo. Not as I once did.”

He reached over to her; she didn’t flinch this time as he touched her cheek, her neck. “Look at me, Ana,” he said, his fingers under her chin as if she were a child, and her head slowly lifted. “I’ve seen this before, with other teni who came into contact with the Numetodo and also found their belief shaken. This is nothing new, and it’s nothing permanent. Now you know what happens when faith falters. It’s a test that Cenzi has set to you. Cenzi has done this so you see His power, and so you return to Him even stronger than before. That’s all that’s required of you: you must truly believe in Him.”

“But the Numetodo don’t believe in Cenzi at all, and what I saw. . None of them had any teni-training. .”

“Trickery and misdirection,” he told her. “I know. I was once in a circus, and I saw ‘magic’ there, too.” He closed his eyes and spoke a harsh, sibilant word, lifting his fisted hand at the same time. He opened his eyes and his fist; there, dangling from his fingers, was a fine silver chain from which hung a shell of stone.

Ana gasped, her hand at the collar of her robes as if searching for something hidden underneath. “Trickery,” Dhosti told her again. “And hands that have been trained to deceive. I took your necklace, yes, but not with magic and not with the Ilmodo. It’s amazing how you never really lose the skill. You shouldn’t believe your eyes so much, Ana, but your soul.” He held out the chain to her, letting the chain pour into her palm over the shell. “That’s not a symbol that a teni should wear. Let me give you a better one.”

He reached around his own neck and removed the broken-globe pendant he wore, cast in gold and set with jewels. He offered it to her.

“Keep the shell the Envoy gave you,” he told her. “Let it remind you of what you saw with the Numetodo. But wear this instead, close to your heart.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“I insist.”

She closed her hand around the stone shell, then placed the chain in the pocket of her robe. She took the pendant with Cenzi’s symbol from Dhosti and placed it around her neck. The globe gleamed on

green cloth in the valley between her breasts.

Dhosti smiled. “Now, that looks far better on you than on me,” he said. He sighed. “Now, let’s talk about your luncheon with the Kraljiki.

There’s something you should tell him-it will be a gift from you to him. We don’t have much time. . ”

Orlandi ca’Cellibrecca

“Those who would bring down the Concenzia Faith are utterly without bounds and without remorse, and they would bring down Nessantico herself,” Orlandi thundered from the High Lectern of the Old Temple: Estraven’s temple. The teni who had served U’Teni Estraven were there, solemn in their green robes in the front rows, and the ca’-and-cu’ who had come to the service were arrayed in their finery behind them. Francesca sat with the family to Orlandi’s left, all of them in white mourning, Francesca’s face covered with a heavy veil so that her features were hidden. The Archigos was there as well, seated with his whore in the balcony to the right. Orlandi glared up at the dwarf, his thick, graying eyebrows lowered.

Orlandi gestured again at the casket before the altar where Estraven ca’Cellibrecca lay, the coffin closed because of the deteriorated condition of the body. “Look there,” Orlandi railed. His voice was in fine form this morning, blessed by Cenzi in this significant moment, roaring low like deep thunder throughout the temple. “The enemies of the state and of the Faith have struck down another of our finest, the husband of my own daughter, someone who may have one day worn the robes of the Archigos.”

There hadn’t been a chance of that, Orlandi knew. Estraven had been a competent follower, but that was all. Still, Orlandi saw ca’Millac’s lips purse at the comment, and that was pleasure enough. Orlandi gathered himself, drawing in a long breath. Help me with this, Cenzi. Help me to make them understand Your will. “It should be obvious to anyone with true faith that we have tolerated those who mock Cenzi long enough.

It should be obvious to anyone with true faith that the only course we have is to destroy them before they destroy us. The Divolonte says it:

‘When threatened, protect yourself and do not fear to use the sword, for Cenzi alone will judge those who are sent to Him.’ Well, we know who struck down Estraven. We know, yet they go unpunished. I say that it is time for such tolerance to end. I say that it is time that we follow the Divolonte that is derived from Cenzi’s law. I say it is time for the Faith to show its full strength and its full fury. I say we find those who scorn us and we strike !”

With the last word, he lifted his hand high and brought it down again hard, striking the lectern with his fist. The sound of the blow echoed through the Old Temple, and he heard the susurration of assent roll through the audience. It took all his will to resist looking up at the Archigos with a smile of triumph. Now he leaned forward on the lectern and lowered his voice; he saw the congregation lean forward to hear him.

“Listen,” he said to them in a near-whisper. “Listen.” He paused, holding a hand to his ear. “If we listen to our hearts and our prayers, we will hear Estraven ca’Cellibrecca and Kraljica Marguerite, both of them calling to us from the arms of Cenzi and Vucta. Listen: they call out with the voices of all those who have been murdered over the years.

They cry for justice. And we must. .” He paused, looking from the congregation to the casket, to Francesca and the family, and back again to the people crowding the Old Temple. He let his voice roar once more. “We must listen to their pleas and give Estraven and Kraljica Marguerite what they ask for. If we do nothing, if we refuse to hear them, then it will be Cenzi’s wrath that we will face next. I will not let that happen. This must be the task for all of us: do not let that happen .”

There was no applause, not here in the sacred space below the painted vault, but he knew they yearned to shout and clap their hands.

He could feel it. Orlandi pressed his lips together, looking at them and nodding once, slowly. Then he left the lectern, and the u’teni leading the service called out the recitatives as the choir began to sing from the loft.

Orlandi took his seat next to Francesca. He took her hand into his lap.

“You should have seen the Archigos, Vatarh,” Francesca whispered to him, leaning on his shoulder. “I thought the man was going to collapse right there, his face was so red.”