S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

In the end, Zolin had won over the High Warriors, and Niente had no choice but to tell the nahualli that their task was not yet done. He’d almost been surprised that none of the nahualli had risen up to challenge him for Nahual as a result.

The quarters of the former captain were below in the ship’s aftcastle, and that was where Tecuhtli Zolin had taken up residence. The Easterner furniture had been tossed overboard, to be replaced by the more familiar geometric lines and patterns of their own styles. The room was ablaze with reds and browns, the colors of blood and earth. The smell of incense wrinkled Niente’s nose as he entered, the techutli’s servants prostrating themselves on the rugs tossed over the wooden planks.

Tecuhtli Zolin reclined in a chair carved from a single block of green rock, cushioned by pillows and blankets. His face and torso, like those of all soldiers, was tattooed with swirls of dashes and curling lines: a record of their prowess in battle and their rank. His head was shaved as always and now adorned with the sprawling red tattoo of the eagle. The High Warriors Citlali and Mazatl had been speaking to him in low tones, but broke off their conversation as Niente entered. Their marked, grim faces turned to him.

“Ah, Nahual Niente,” Tecuhtli Zolin said, gesturing. Niente strode across the room to the throne and dropped to his knees. “Get up, get up. Tell me, what do the gods say?”

Niente shook his head as he rose to his feet. He could feel the appraising stares of the High Warriors on him. “I’m sorry, Tecuhtli, but the motion of the ship… it disturbs the waters. I saw a battle and a city afire at the edge of a sea, and your banner flying above it, but the rest-I saw nothing of the Easterner I sent back to this Kraljiki. I saw nothing of their great city.”

“Ah, but the banner and a city afire… that can only speak of victory. As to your Easterner-” Zolin exhaled a scoff and then spat on the floor, “-that was old Necalli’s strategy, and not even the great Mahri had been able to make it work.”

Niente flushed at the mention, irritated at Zolin’s dismissal of Mahri, whose gifts with the X’in Ka were legendary. Mahri had evidently failed, yes, but it must have been because some force with the Easterners had been even stronger. Niente bowed his head more to hide his face than in submission. “It must be as you say, Tecuhtli.”

Zolin laughed at that. “Come now, Niente. Don’t be so modest. Why, you are a far-seer and a nahualli the like of which we haven’t seen since Mahri. Better, since Mahri failed to stop the Easterners from invading our lands and those of our cousins. Necalli was a fool who wasted valuable resources. He wasted you as well-all the effort you put into that Easterner. But now…” A broad smile spread over Zolin’s face. “I have thrown the Easterners back to one unimportant town on our cousins’ land-with the help of your advice and your skill-and now we go to plunder the Easterners as they once plundered our cousins of the Eastern Sea.” He waved a hand. “I will chop the head from this Eastern serpent myself, and I will make certain that it never grows a new one.” His hand sliced downward. Zolin grinned, but the two High Warriors’ faces were stoic and unmoving.

Niente wondered which one of them might one day challenge Zolin if this expedition failed, as Niente feared it would.

Niente shared the dour attitude of Citlali and Mazatl. Zolin was no different than many of those outside the nahualli. They all thought his gift was a simple thing: peer into the water and let the moon-goddess Axat send the future spinning past your eyes. They didn’t understand that Axat’s visions were confusing and sometimes dim, that what swam in the sacred water were only possibilities, and that those possibilities could be altered and shifted and even averted by other’s abilities. Mahri-whose skills, it was said, had surpassed any nahualli’s-had discovered how fickle Axat could be: Mahri’s death had been one of the first visions Niente had ever seen in a scrying bowl; it had been that vision that had demonstrated to Niente’s mentors how fully Axat and Sakal had blessed him. Talis, who Tecuhtli Necalli had sent to Nessantico, had since confirmed Niente’s vision: Mahri had failed and been killed.

Those without the gift thought that it must be wonderful to wield the power of Axat and Sakal, of moon and sun. They didn’t see how using the gift stole strength and vitality; how it disfigured and twisted those who used it. Already Niente could look into the bronze mirror in his room and see the deep lines in his face, lines that no one of his age should yet bear. He could see how his mouth sagged, how his left eye wept constantly and was now whitened with a spell-cloud, how his hair was thinning and marbled with silver strands. He could feel the constant ache in his joints that would one day turn into obsidian knives of agony. Niente had never met Mahri, but he had glimpsed the man’s face in the scrying bowl, and it terrified him that one day he, too, would see people turning away rather than look on him, and he would hear the cries of frightened children as he passed.

And he knew that Tecuhtli Zolin might be pleased now with him, but that the Tecuhtli’s pleasure was fragile, and could vanish as quickly as mist in sunlight. A battle lost… That was all it would take, and Tecuhtli Zolin would be looking for a new Nahual to be at his side.

“I pray to Axat that you will slay the Eastern serpent,” he told Zolin. “But I-”

He stopped, hearing a call from the deck. “Land…” someone was shouting. “The Easterner coast…”

Zolin’s grin grew wider. “Good,” he said to his High Warriors, to Niente. “It’s time to see a city burn and watch our banners floating over their land.” He rose to his feet, gesturing away the servants who rushed to help. “Come,” the Tecuhtli said. “Let’s see this land together with our own eyes, before we take it.”

“ Well?” Karl asked Varina as she returned to the room. Varina shrugged off her overcloak and sank down on a chair. “She’s Nico’s matarh, that’s certain,” Varina said. “I told her that I’d heard her son had run away, and that when we stayed in Nessantico, I saw a boy on Crescent Street. Her eyes widened at that, and she told me that was where she’d lived until last month. When I described the boy and the house, she started sobbing. It was all I could do to stop her from rushing back to Nessantico tonight.”

“And Talis?”

“Talis is the boy’s vatarh, and she’s in love with him, Karl,” Varina said. “That much was also obvious; in fact, I suspect she’s with child by him again, the way she hugs her body when she talks about him. Your encounter with him scared him enough that he sent her and Nico away from the city-I think he thought you’d have the Garde Kralji after him. She’s been waiting here hoping he’ll come for her, hoping that Nico would return as well.” Varina leaned her head back and closed her eyes, sighing. “She’s not going to betray Talis to get Nico back, Karl. Honestly, I didn’t even broach that possibility with her. Frankly, I’m certain she’s in her room now packing, getting ready to leave tomorrow for Nessantico, hoping to find Nico there. She’s been grieving and frantic ever since he left.” She opened her eyes again, looking at him. “It’s what I’d do, in her place. I’m sorry-I know what you wanted me to do, but… I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t hold her child hostage against her giving us Talis, not when we don’t actually know where Nico is. I’m sorry. I know you suspect that Talis may be the one who killed Ana, and you have good reasons for those suspicions, but this…”