S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

Sometimes he thought that he was composed entirely of lies and deceptions, that if you took those away from him, he’d be nothing but a ghost.

“Know?” Karl repeated. “The way you knew when you threw me into the Bastida years ago? The way you knew that I and the Numetodo must have had something to do with Kraljica Marguerite’s death?”

Sergei rubbed at the silver nose as he scowled at the memory. “I was following Kraljiki Justi’s orders at the time. You know that. And you’ll note that you’re still alive when Justi would have preferred you dead. Give me credit for that. Karl, the stakes here are far too high for guesses, or for hotheads barging into the Ambassador of the Coalition’s office and threatening him. If your guess is right, and Hirzg Fynn was responsible for this act, the only thing you’ve accomplished is to give him warning of our suspicions. You and Varina actually used Numetodo spells?” He tsked aloud, shaking his head. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him outright.”

“I wanted to,” Karl said. For a moment, the lines around his mouth tightened, and his eyes glittered in the sunlight. “But I thought of Ana…” The glittering in his eyes increased. He wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his bashta.

For a moment, Sergei felt genuine pity and empathy for the man. Archigos Ana he had respected, because there was no other choice. Ana never let anyone get too close to her, even those-like Karl-who might have wished that. Sergei knew this because he had watched Karl over the years, watched him because it was his duty to know the predilections and interests of those prominent in the Holdings. He knew Karl frequently engaged the services of the more expensive and discreet grandes horizontales within the city, and-interestingly to Sergei-each of those women whom Karl favored bore a physical resemblance to the Archigos, changing over the decades as Ana had changed herself. It took little intuition to guess why that might be.

Karl… Sergei liked the man, as much as he ever allowed himself to like anyone. He nodded to the Numetodo. “I’m glad Ana’s ghost held back your hand, or otherwise, I might have had no choice. Karl, you have to drop this. Promise me. Let those under me work the investigation. I will tell you anything I find.” That was another lie, of course. Sergei already knew details about the assassination that he had no intention of sharing with Karl; there were suspicions in his mind that he would not voice.

In the darkness of the Bastida, he’d had the gardai leave him alone with the man, an employee of the trader Gairdi, who regularly ran between Nessantico and Brezno. He’d heard the delicious whimper as he unrolled the canvas strip with its grim tools laced inside, and Sergei had smiled at the prisoner. “Tell me the truth,” he’d said, “and perhaps we’ll need none of this.” That, too, had been a lie, but the man had jumped at the opportunity, babbling in a quick, high voice. The screams, when they’d come later, had been exquisite.

There were some vices in him that had become stronger with age, not weaker. “Promise me,” Sergei said again.

Karl hesitated. His gaze skittered away from Sergei to the garden below, and Sergei followed it. There, a gardener dug his finger into soil so wet and rich it appeared black and plucked another weed. The worker tossed the tangle of leaves and roots into the canvas bag slung over his shoulder. Sergei nodded: the necessary work that kept the garden beautiful required death, too.

“I promise, Sergei.” Sergei, trapped in the image, looked back to find Karl smiling wanly at him.

Yet… There was something Karl wasn’t saying, some information he was withholding. Sergei could see it. He nodded as if he believed the man and decided that he would have cu’Falla put someone to watching Karl, with orders to learn what the man knew as well as to prevent the Paetian Ambassador from making a critical mistake-especially one that might interfere with Sergei’s own intentions.

Ana was dead. While she lived, a strong and firm presence guiding the Faith, Sergei hadn’t been willing to move the way he contemplated moving now. But with her dead, with the far weaker and uncertain Kenne elected to the Archigos’ throne, with Kraljiki Audric so ill and frail and young…

Everything had changed.

“Good,” Sergei said, returning Karl’s smile warmly. “This has been hard for all of us, but especially for you, my good friend. Now, let’s have some of this tea before it gets cold, and nibble on the biscuits. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten for a few days, from the look of you. Haven’t Varina and Mika been watching after you…?”

That evening, a turn of the glass after the wind-horns sounded Third Call, Sergei sat with the new Archigos Kenne on the viewing balcony of the temple on the South Bank, watching the daily Ceremony of the Light. For two centuries and more now, the teni of the Concenzia Faith had come from the temple in the evening and-with the gift of the Ilmodo-set ablaze the lamps that banished night from the city. For all his life, Sergei had witnessed the daily rite. The gilded, crystal-globed teni-lamps were placed at five-stride intervals along the grand Avi a’Parete, the wide ring boulevard encircling the oldest sections of the city. Until late into the night, the lamps hurled their challenge to the moon and stars, proclaiming Nessantico’s greatness.

To Sergei, this was the ceremony that defined Nessantico to the populace. This was the ceremony that proclaimed Cenzi’s support of the Kralji and of the Concenzia Faith, a ceremony that had existed unchanged for generations-until Archigos Ana’s time. Now it meant less, when there were people walking the street who could produce light themselves: without calling on Cenzi, without the training of a teni. Ana’s acceptance of the Numetodo heresy had lessened the Faith, in Sergei’s opinion, and had forced the people’s view of it to change.

Change. Sergei disliked change. Change meant instability, and instability meant conflict.

Change meant that everything must be reevaluated. Ana… Sergei had never been particularly close to the woman, but in his role as Commandant of the Garde Civile, then as Regent, he had certainly worked in tandem with her. Whatever her personal faults, she had been strong and Sergei admired strength. It was only her presence on the Archigos’ throne that had kept Justi’s reign as Kraljiki from being a complete catastrophe. For that alone, he would always be grateful to her memory.

But now Kenne was Archigos. Sergei genuinely liked Kenne as a person. He enjoyed the man’s company and his friendship. But Kenne would not be the Archigos that Ana had been. Could not be, for he lacked the steel inside. Sergei understood why the Concord A’Teni chose him-because none of the other a’teni wanted the title, the responsibility, or the conflicts that came with the Archigos’ throne and staff, and they especially feared it now. Kenne was no one’s enemy, and, most especially, Kenne was old. Kenne was frail. He would not hold Cenzi’s staff for many years… and maybe when he died, it would be a less turbulent time.

The Concord had acted out of their own self-preservation, and so the Concord had given the Faith a poor Archigos.

Sergei wondered if Kenne would ever forgive him for what that meant.

The two men stood as the light-teni emerged in their long processional line from the great main doors directly below them. Sergei could hear the sonorous melody of the choir finishing the evening devotions in the temple’s main chapel, the sound echoing plaintively throughout the square as the doors opened. The sun had just set, though the clouded western sky was still a furious swirl of reds and oranges. In the glow, the teni turned and gave their Archigos the sign of Cenzi, and Kenne blessed them with the same sign.