S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

“Stay with us, Varina,” he said, glancing back at her. “We’re almost there.”

They managed only a few strides when a group of a half dozen armed gardai rushed into the corridor from the intersection ahead of them. “There! It’s the Regent!” one of the garda called, and their leader-the slashes of his office on his uniform-turned. Karl knew the man, though the man was looking more at Sergei than him.

“I’m sorry, Sergei,” Commandant cu’Falla said, and then his gaze moved to Karl and Varina. “Ambassador, I’m afraid you and your companion have made a very bad mistake here. I’ll see that she gets proper treatment for her wound. Sergei, put down your weapon. It’s over.”

“I might say the same to you, Aris,” Karl said. “After all, you know what a Numetodo can do.”

“And if you had spells left to you, you would already have used them,” cu’Falla answered. “Or have I missed my guess?”

There was movement in the corridor behind the gardai; a figure in the torchlit dimness. Karl managed to smile. He held his hands wide. He could see some of the garda behind cu’Falla flinch, as if expecting the burst of a spell. “No,” he told cu’Falla. “You’ve not missed your guess. Not for me.”

The commandant nodded. “Then I’d suggest we make this easy for all of us,” he said.

“I agree,” Karl said. He looked past cu’Falla and the gardai, and the commandant started to turn his head. The spell hit them then: the air around the gardai flickered and snarled with lightnings. With cries of surprise and pain, they crumpled to the stone flags, the lightnings still crawling over their bodies, snapping and snarling. Behind them, Mika stood with hands extended. His body sagged as his hands dropped. “Regent,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. Now, if you’ll all hurry…”

Varina half-stumbled forward. She picked up cu’Falla’s sword in her good hand and held the point at the commandant’s throat. She looked at Karl. “He knows you,” she said, blood streaking her cheek where she’d brushed her hands across her pale, drawn face. “He spoke your name.”

“No.” The response came from Sergei. He moved as if to take Varina’s wrist, but she shook her head and pressed the sword forward, dimpling the flesh and drawing a point of red. Sergei looked at Karl. “He’s my friend. If you do this, I won’t go with you. I’ll stay here. You’ll have wasted everything.”

Varina was staring at Karl, waiting. He shook his head to Varina, and she shrugged, letting the sword drop with a loud clatter to the flags. She swayed, then caught herself. “We’re wasting time, then,” she said.

Stepping past the prone bodies of the gardai, they ran.

Necalli had been the Tecuhtli since before Niente had been born. He knew the names of previous Tecuhtli, but only because his parents had spoken of them. It had been Necalli whose name was always roared at the Solstice ceremonies in the Sun Temples; it was Necalli who had sent the famous Mahri to the East after his visions had foretold the rise of the Easterners of the Holdings. It was Necalli who had responded to their cousins’ pleas for help after the commandant of the Easterners had begun reprisals against those who lived beyond the coastal mountains. It was Necalli who had raised Niente up to become the new Nahual above all the other spellcasters, many of whom were older than Niente and were jealous of his quick rise. It was Necalli who had agreed to allow Niente to use the deep enchantments of the X’in Ka to snare the Holdings offizier’s mind and send him back to the Easterners’ great city as a weapon.

That spell had cost Niente more than he had anticipated, wasting his muscles so that he still could not stand for long without needing to sit again. The effort had drained him so that the face that looked back at him from the water of his scrying bowl was lined and drawn like that of a person years older than him. He had paid the cost, as Mahri had many times in his days, but Niente would hate to see that sacrifice wasted.

Now he was wondering what the sacrifice had been for. “Strike the head from the beast, and it can no longer hurt you,” Necalli had said. It was what Necalli had sent Mahri to do, but it seemed that the beast had instead consumed Mahri. Niente worried that this might be his own fate as well.

Most importantly, it was Necalli who had been the center of the Tehuantin world in the lifetime of most of those here. Niente could not imagine his world without Tecuhtli Necalli. All warriors must die, and the Tecuhtli not least among them. Yet Necalli had outlived all the sporadic challenges to his reign. Niente wished he could imagine him outliving this one as well.

But he had little hope.

Niente stood in the crowd lining the flanks of the Amalian Valley’s green bowl, the easternmost of the sacred places of Sakal and Axat, his back against one of the carved stone plinths of the ball court and his hands folded over the knob of his spell-staff. He stared down into the shadowed courtyard itself. Below them, Tecuhtli Necalli stood in his armor, a gleaming sword curving sunward from his aged but untrembling hand as he faced Zolin, a High Warrior of the Tehuantin forces and the son of Necalli’s dead brother. Tecuhtli Necalli’s face was dark with the tattoos of his rank, swirling around the features of his face as an eternal, fierce mask, but he was an old man now, his back bent forward, his hair stringy and white. Zolin, in contrast, was a chiseled, perfect image of a warrior.

The challenge had surprised everyone. Citlali, a High Warrior himself, was standing near Niente, and he snorted at the sight below them, as Necalli and Zolin began to slowly circle each other, as the warriors gathered around the court began to chant rhythmically, pounding the butts of their spears on the stones in time. The sound was like the hammer blows of Sakal when He carved the world from the shell of the Great Turtle. “Necalli goes back to the gods today,” Citlali said. “May they be ready to receive the old buzzard.”

“Why?” Niente asked. “Why did Zolin challenge his uncle? Tecuhtli Necalli hasn’t lost a battle to the Easterners; rather, he’s pushed them back toward the Inner Sea. The Garde Civile of the Holdings hasn’t penetrated our own borders yet at all. The Tecuhtli might be old, but he’s still a master of strategy.”

“Zolin says the Tecuhtli has become timid in his dotage,” Citlali answered. His own face was swirled with black lines dotted with searing blue circles. “He dances with the Easterners, but he hesitates to destroy them. He’s become cautious and too careful. Zolin has no fear. Zolin will sweep the Easterners from our cousins’ land entirely. He’ll attack rather than merely defend.”

“If he wins the challenge,” Niente said.

“No one’s stronger than Zolin. Certainly not Necalli-look, his muscles sag like an old woman’s.”

“Must strength always defeat experience?” Niente asked him, and Citlali laughed.

“You’re the Nahual,” Citlali said. “One day one of your nahualli will come to you and demand challenge, and maybe you’ll learn the answer to that yourself. Tell me, Niente, are you afraid that because you were Necalli’s Nahual that your status will change when Zolin becomes Tecuhtli?”

Niente had learned long ago that one never showed fear to a High Warrior. The Scarred Ones already considered the nahualli to be little more than a weapon given human form, and they had nothing but contempt for those they considered weak. Niente forced a grin to his face. “Not if Zolin has a brain to go with his strength.”

Citlali snorted another laugh. “Oh, he has that,” he said. “He learned from Necalli himself. Now it’s time for the student to supplant the master, the son to replace his father’s brother.” Niente could feel Citlali staring carefully at Niente, his gaze sliding up and down his body. “You’ve been tired lately, and those are new lines on your face. You should be careful yourself, Niente. Necalli has used you badly, as he did Mahri. It’s a shame.”