S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

“You have that gift from your gods?” Kenne asked Talis. His eyebrows lifted, and he glanced at Karl.

“Mahri claimed to do the same,” Karl said. That also made Nico pay attention; he remembered hearing Talis mention that name before. “Not that it did him much good in the end.”

“It’s not the future that Axat grants us glimpses of, but all the possibilities that exist. The glimpses of potential futures aren’t easy to read, though it was said that Mahri could use the talent better than anyone before or since. And yes, it seems to have failed him in the end.” A brief, quick smile passed over his face. “Perhaps it was the proximity to your Cenzi.”

Kenne chuckled; Nico liked the sound-it made him like this man. The cold was wrapping around his arms now, though his hands had stopped dancing.

“You’re willing to help us-” Archigos Kenne spread his arms to include Karl and Varina, and the rest of the city outside the balcony, “-when that means you may be helping defeat the forces of your own people?”

“Yes,” Talis said, “because Axat tells me that in doing so, I will be helping my people.”

The cold was freezing Nico’s arms and it was becoming heavy. He didn’t know what to do with it, but he was shivering with the effort of holding it, and the pain almost made him want to cry out. “Sometimes your enemy becomes your ally,” Varina was saying to the Archigos. “I know-”

“Nico!” His matarh’s voice was a near shout. “What are you doing?” Nico jumped as his matarh clutched his shoulder, and the cold went flying away from him. As it fled, the energy sparkled and flared, like a stream of blue fire. It went shooting straight out from him, slashing between Talis and the Archigos and arrowing directly toward the cracked globe sculpture in that corner of the room. Nico sobbed-frightened both by the feeling of release and sheer terror at what he’d just released. Varina, standing a few strides away from the Archigos, gestured once and spoke a single, harsh word; at the motion, Nico saw the line of blue fire curve and turn, arcing away from the sculpture, spitting sapphire sparks over the polished desk and then hissing away out through the open doors of the balcony and out. High above the plaza, the fire gathered, then burst: an ice-blue globe that flashed like frozen lightning. With the explosion came a roll of ear-splitting thunder, echoing from the walls of the buildings flanking the plaza. Nico could feel the windows shake and rattle in their frames, and he heard glass breaking distantly.

“Nico!” His matarh had wrapped her arms around him. “Nico…” she said again, more softly this time. Her arms tightened around him, and he wasn’t sure if it was intended to be an embrace or a stranglehold. They were all staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” Nico told them. “I didn’t mean to…”

He started to cry.

“ I’m sorry,” Nico said. His lower lip was trembling and he barely got the next words out before his shoulders started to shake from sobbing. “I didn’t mean to…”

Serafina was staring at them over the boy’s shoulder as she held him, her eyes wide and terrified. Outside in the plaza, they could hear faint shouts as passersby searched for the source of the thundering brilliance. Karl could hear Varina sigh with relief behind him. “If he’d been a hand’s breadth to one side or the other…” Karl said.

“He wasn’t,” Varina answered. She crouched down in front of him, nodding to Serafina. “It’s all right, Nico,” she told him. “No one was hurt. It’s all right.” She looked back over her shoulder to Karl. “It’s all right,” she repeated. The boy sniffled, rubbing his sleeve over his nose and eyes.

Karl let go a breath. He smiled: at Varina, at Nico, at Serafina. “Yes,” he said. “It’s all right, thanks to Varina. Talis, did you know

…?”

“I suspected, but…” He was holding his spell-staff, looking at it bemusedly as if it were a glass suddenly emptied. “I know now. Archigos, are you…?”

Kenne waved a hand as if in dismissal, but Karl could see the man’s chest still heaving. “I’m fine,” Kenne said. “And impressed. Your son’s one of the few natural talents I’ve known. Archigos Dhosti had been one, and Ana, too. With training, well…”

“ I will train him.” Talis’ answer was wrapped in a scowl. He clutched the spell-staff tightly. “This is Axat’s gift, not Cenzi’s.”

“Of course,” Kenne told him, but his gaze stayed on Nico. “Don’t worry,” he told the boy. “No one here is angry with you. Do you understand that?” Nico nodded, still sniffling.

“If I’d known about this, I’d have been far more careful when I first approached you,” Karl told Talis. “But since no harm’s been done

… We still have plans and contingencies to make. Archigos, is Petros prepared to make the offer we’ve talked about to Firenzcia?”

Kenne nodded, more hesitantly than Karl liked, but at least it was a nod. In truth, he’d been afraid that Kenne might not have followed through, especially given the undeniable danger into which it placed Petros. “He is.” The Archigos’ voice quavered a little-fear combined with age, Karl decided. “In fact, he should have done so by now.”

“Good,” Karl told him. He patted Kenne on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” he told the Archigos. “And he’ll be back with you soon. Now, for his part, Talis will bring the supplies from Uly’s rooms here to the temple tomorrow, and we can begin to prepare the black sand for the demonstration. That should show this Tecuhtli of the Westlanders that attacking the city would be foolish. We can prevent hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths.”

The Archigos’ carriage was a ruse-four of Kenne’s servants clambered into that vehicle when it pulled up to the rear entrance of the building, while Karl and the others hurried down a back stair toward a little-used side servants’ door. None of them knew whether the subterfuge was necessary; Karl hoped not; if it was, then none of the contingencies for which they’d prepared might come to fruition.

They started to hurry away from the plaza, moving toward the Avi. Kenne had given them enough money to hire one of the carriages there to take them back to Oldtown. As they moved toward the street, they saw three separate squadrons of Garde Kralji hurrying across the Archigos’ Plaza. “Wait a moment,” Karl said. Talis, Serafina, and Nico were already on the Avi, looking for a carriage for hire; Varina, a little ahead of him, paused. As Karl hesitated on the edge of the plaza, he and Varina watched two of squadrons rush into the building from which they’d just come; the other entering the Archigos’ Temple.

Their weapons were drawn, steel shining in the lights of the lamps.

“Karl? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, Varina. I think I should go back. Take the others. I’ll-”

“No,” Varina told him firmly. She came back to him, lacing her arm into his. “No, Karl. Not this time. Even disguised, your face is too recognizable to the Garde Kralji, and there are too many of them anyway. You don’t know why they’re there; it may be nothing. It’s probably nothing. And if it’s not…” She bit at her lower lip. Her eyes pleaded with him. “You need to let the Archigos take care of this himself. Come with me. Please.”

“But if things have gone wrong-”

“If things have gone wrong, you can’t change it now. We can’t change it. All that would happen is that you’d be lost, too.” Her arm tightened on his. “Please, Karl. Let’s go. If there is a problem, we can help Kenne more by staying alive than by being thrown in the Bastida with him. We got Sergei out; we could do the same again if we had to. Karl…” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “If you’re going back,” she told him, “then I’m going with you. But that’s the wrong decision. I know it.”