S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

At the mention of Mahri’s name, the walking stick trembled in Talis’ hands and the muscles of his jaw tightened. “You knew Mahri?”

“I did,” Karl told him. “I knew him very well. And I know he wasn’t here for the good of Nessantico. And you’re not either. Sera, I’m sorry. I know you love this man. But you need to understand what he is. He’s an enemy of the Holdings, far more so than any Numetodo.”

“She knows what I am,” Talis grunted. “Sera, I haven’t changed. I do love you; I love Nico, too. I found him and I was bringing him back to you. If you hadn’t been here, I would have gone next to Ville Paisli to find you. I’m not the monster they’re painting me to be.” He scowled at Karl and Varina. “If I were, I wouldn’t have waited; I’d have attacked the Ambassador without worrying about whether you and Nico were in the way. Sera, please. Move aside.”

Instead, still holding Nico, she turned back to Karl and Varina, stepping between them and Talis. “I know Talis,” she said. “I believe him when he says he didn’t kill the Archigos. If you want to talk to him, well, he’s here.” She paused, stroking Nico’s head. “I trusted the two of you. Now I’m asking you to trust me.”

Karl glanced again at Varina. Her hands had dropped to her side. She nodded, a bare movement of her head, and Karl let his own hands drop down as well.

“All right,” he said. “Tell him to put that stick of his aside, and we can talk.”

The temple at Brezno was smaller than the Archigos’ Temple in Nessantico, and not as venerable and sacred a place as the Old Temple on the Isle a’Kralji (or with as impressive a dome). But Brezno’s dome and several of its famous frescoes had been painted by the great Firenzcian artist cu’Goslar, and they were stunning. Cu’Goslar’s oddly-elongated figures loomed and twisted over the supplicants at the temple, draped in gauzy clothing or sometimes nothing at all: Cenzi, yes, was prominent, but there were also those of Firenzcia who had been important to the Faith. There was Gareth ca’Lang, the first a’teni of Brezno, his sword lashed to his handless arm as he fought his hopeless battle against the heretics of the Karinthia Sect; there was Pewitt the Hopeless, the Moitidi swarming around him, tearing and ripping the flesh from his living body, mocking the man by consuming his body as he watched in torment; there was Ursanne ca’Sankt, the great martyr who many thought would have been Archigos had she lived, desperately trying to fend off her Tennshah rapists, from which unwilling union would come the great Firenzcian Starkkapitan Adalwulf, who would later drive off the Tennshah from their settlements around Lake Firenz.

Jan was surrounded by history and swaddled in faith-driven fury. It seemed appropriate. His reconciliation with the realization that his matarh intended to vie for the Sun Throne had been a struggle as titanic as any of those depicted here, it had seemed to him. He’d confronted her after his long talk with Sergei ca’Rudka. But in the end, he had told her that he understood, even if he didn’t approve. Jan wasn’t certain if that was the truth or that after their several turns of argument, the statement at least let him get some sleep, but she had accepted it.

Jan had accompanied Allesandra to the temple at Archigos Semini’s request, and he stared upward at the dome as they waited for him. “I remember the first time I saw these paintings,” he said, trying to fill the awkward silence. “They scared me; I thought they were ghosts. I could imagine them moving, and coming down from the painting to chase me…” He laughed; it seemed that he had laughed far too little since the events that had ended with him as Hirzg. “Now I think they’re just overdramatic, and not all that well-painted.”

“Don’t tell Semini that,” his matarh said to him. “He loves cu’Goslar… Ah, there he is.”

Semini was striding quickly toward them from behind the High Lectern on the quire. Midway between Second and Third Call, the temple was mostly deserted, and the gardai who had quietly entered before Jan and Allesandra now stood silently several strides away, having emptied the main chamber of all straggling visitors. They were as alone as it seemed possible for him to be lately.

“My Hirzg,” Semini boomed, his voice reverberating from the dome above as he gave the sign of Cenzi to Jan. “And A’Hirzg.” Jan saw him smile at her-Semini seemed almost ready to take her hand, though that would have been a terrible breach of etiquette. But he stopped a careful few steps from her, closer than perhaps he should be, but not so close as to be extraordinarily obvious. Some of the irritation returned to Jan-he could hardly blame his matarh for pursuing an affair when his vatarh had betrayed her so many times. Yet the knowledge bothered him. The vision of the two of them together, their bodies entwined as his had been with Elissa… No-he shivered, shaking away the vision.

“Thank you both for coming,” Semini continued, still looking more at Allesandra than Jan. “As I said, a message has been delivered to me, with-I’m told-an identical message for the Hirzg. I have it here.”

He handed Jan a sealed, rolled parchment, watching as Jan examined the stamp in the blue wax-the mailed fist that was Nessantico’s sigil since Kraljiki Justi’s time. Jan unfurled the paper and scanned the inked words there with a rising fury. He could almost hear his Onczio Fynn’s voice rising inside him-he knew how Fynn would have reacted to this. Silently, his lips pressed tightly together, he handed the parchment to Allesandra; he heard her draw in her breath almost immediately. Wordlessly, she handed the scroll back to Jan.

“How dare he talk to us this way?” Jan spat. He opened his hands, letting the paper fall to the marble-tiled floor. The word “dare” echoed in the chamber long after he’d finished. It seemed to stir the gardai, who shifted nervously. “He talks to us as if Nessantico still ruled Firenzcia. ‘Return the former Regent to us in a month, or we will take decisive action to recover him.’ How dare he make such threats?” Another echo. “Let him try-we’ll crush him.”

He glanced upward at the dome. Ghosts… None of them would tolerate this; I can’t either. This is a slap in the face.

“Jan, I understand your feelings; believe me, I have the same reaction,” his matarh said.

“ ‘But…?’ ” Jan spat angrily, turning to her. “Is that what you’re about to say, Matarh? ‘But…’ What possible ‘But’ could there be?”

Strangely, she smiled. “My dear, you sound like Fynn, or perhaps Vatarh. I’ve heard them both roar just like that when they thought themselves insulted.”

Her amusement served only to increase his irritation. He glanced past Semini to the mural behind the High Lectern, at the bloody strips of Pewitt’s flesh clutched in the clawed hands of the Moitidi, trying to stifle his annoyance.

“The ‘But,’ my son, is what we’ve been considering,” she continued. “Perhaps this is just the opportunity we needed. The excuse to act.”

“The excuse?” he began. For a moment, he felt much younger, a child again. “Oh,” he said. That word did not echo at all. It floated in the air between them, lost in the great expanse of the temple. He looked down at the paper half-unrolled over the marble tiles, the suspicion growing in him. “Strange that a message like this would lead to exactly the situation you wanted, Matarh. A bald provocation against us by Nessantico. What wonderful timing.” He raised his eyebrows toward her.

She was shaking her head in denial. “I knew nothing of this until now,” she told him. “I had nothing to do with it. The message is genuine. Ask the Archigos.”