S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

His disciples surged forward toward the main gates, and the others who had come at his summons moved with them. The gardai at the temple entrance lowered their pikes, but the attackers were too many: the crowd slipped past them or struck down their weapons. The gates were wrenched open with a metallic shriek. Inside, Nico could glimpse the gilded-and-frescoed walls; the ornately-carved columns bearing the immense weight of the arched, distant roof; the rows and rows of burnished pews; the brazier burning with the scent of strong incense; the massive, impossible dome, painted with the images of Cenzi struggling with the Moitidi, the quire and High Lectern far underneath, seemingly tiny against the massive space. Nico breathed it in-this holy space, this reverent palais built to honor Cenzi which not even the heathen fire of the Westlanders could entirely destroy.

This place was sacred. This place was history incarnate, and here he would begin to make his own history.

His disciples had moved aside, none of them entering yet. The crowd stood at his back. Out in the plaza, the soldiers writhed in pain or lay dead or had fled.

Nico took a step. Another. He crossed the threshold of the place he had been forbidden to enter again as teni, and as he did so, he let his cloak slide from his shoulders to the ground, revealing the green robes of a teni underneath.

He would take back his title and his rights. He would be teni again, as Cenzi had told him to be.

The interior of the temple seemed brighter than the dawn outside, the flames of the braziers around the sides of the space sending heat and light shimmering up the fluted walls and gleaming in the polished marble of the floor. He stood ensconced in gold and warm browns, breathing an air spiced and fragrant and achingly familiar. He lifted his head looking up to the dome far above at the end of the long aisle.

There were people moving there, scurrying under the beauty of the fresco like mice: a group of teni, with the green-trimmed golden robes of A’Teni ca’Paim just behind them, Commandant cu’Ingres at her side and gardai spreading out along the walls to either side. Nico could hear someone behind him-Liana, he thought-beginning a chant, and he held up a hand.

“Hold!” he said. “There is no danger here for the Faithful. There’s no danger here for me.” With the temple’s fine, legendary acoustics, he could hear his words whispering to the farthest corners.

“How dare you!” The words sliced harsh and bitter through the temple. A’Teni ca’Paim stepped forward on the raised steps of the quire, standing next to the prow of the High Lectern as if she were about to ascend and give a stern Admonition to the assembled Morellis. “How dare you step into the temple wearing the robes that were taken from you by the Archigos himself? How dare you come into this holy place after you’ve just murdered dozens outside? You are damned in the sight of Cenzi, Nico Morel, and I will have your tongue and your hands for this outrage!”

“My tongue and hands?” Nico responded. His voice sounded deep and rich after the shrill, breathless outcry of the older woman. “My tongue speaks the words of Cenzi Himself, A’Teni, and my hands hold His affection. They are not yours to have. They will never be yours.” He advanced down the aisle toward her, still talking. He could see the gardai along the walls, armed with bows, and he saw them fit arrows to their strings. He smiled. “I have listened to Him,” Nico said, “and He has told me that the time has come for me to reclaim my place, and that if you, A’Teni, or Archigos Karrol himself, will not see the truth of what I say, then He will cause you to curse your blindness and wail as the soul shredders tear your imperfect souls from your bodies.”

“You threaten me?” ca’Paim sputtered. “Here in my own temple, in front of Commandant cu’Ingres and my staff? You’re a fool as well as a heretic.”

“I don’t threaten,” Nico told her, still walking forward. He could hear the creaking of leather bowstrings under tension. His voice was calm. His voice was kind. His voice held a full measure of sympathy and understanding. “I give you a last chance, A’Teni, a chance to see the error of your thinking, to go to your knees and give the sign of Cenzi and ask Him for forgiveness.”

Nico thought for a moment that she had heard Cenzi in his voice, that she-finally, belatedly-understood. A’Teni ca’Paim said nothing. She stood there, her mouth open, and Nico saw her body trembling as if she were possessed of a fever. Her face lifted for a moment to cu’Brunelli’s dome above her, to the images painted there. Under the heavy, gold-threaded robes, her legs seemed to give way, to bend, and Nico thought that she would go to her knees there.

But the trembling ceased, and she stood straight again. “No,” she said aloud. “I will not.”

Nico sighed sadly. “I’m genuinely sorry for that,” he said. He lifted his hands. He began to chant.

“No!” ca’Paim, and this time it was a shout. “You are forbidden to use the Ilmodo. Stop him!” she said to cu’Ingres, and the Commandant gestured. Bowstrings sang their deathsong, and Nico heard Liana cry out in fear.

But it was already too late. Nico gestured, full of Cenzi’s power, and the arrows went to fire and ash before they could touch him. A wave-visible in the air-rippled outward from him in a great arc to the front and sides, and what it touched, it destroyed. Pews lifted and were hurled as if by a hurricane wind, slamming against walls and gardai alike. The plaster on the walls cracked, the fire in the braziers guttered and nearly failed.

And on the quire, the teni attendants, A’Teni ca’Paim, and Commandant cu’Ingres were also tossed and thrown. Nico saw ca’Paim’s body hit first the railing at the back of the quire, breaking it into splinters, then a sickening, dull clunk as her head collided with one of the columns. Her body slumped to the floor; blood smeared all the way down the column.

The spell passed, vanishing as if it had never been there, and Nico shivered for a moment in the cold and normal exhaustion of spell-casting. The interior of the temple was silent except for the moaning of injured gardai and teni. Cu’Ingres was trying to regain his feet, though from the way he cradled his left arm, it must have been broken. Ca’Paim did not move at all, and Nico knew then that she never would, nor would several of the gardai and teni. His eyesight wavered with tears: such a tragic, but necessary, waste… “May the soul shredders be kind to you,” he whispered toward ca’Paim’s body. “I forgive you your blindness.”

Liana came up to stand alongside him, her arms supporting him as the weariness of using the Ilmodo this strongly trembled his legs, and he could hear the others entering as well. Nico looked at Ancel and pointed to the Commandant. “Take him,” he said, “and bind his wounds. Have the healers among us look at him and the others.” He spat directions to the others. “Liana, make certain that the main doors are barricaded and barred. Tell our people to use whatever they can. You, and you-clear the plaza of our Faithful and get the the war-teni inside. You three-secure the rest of the doors into the temple once everyone’s inside. Everyone else, let’s clean up this place and make it a fit House for Cenzi again…”

He watched as his followers began to move. Then Nico sank to his knees and clasped his hands to his forehead in the sign of Cenzi, and he prayed.

The first step back had been taken. Now would come the rest of the journey.

“Rhianna, I wanted to talk with you…”

Rhianna put the quartet of tashtas she was carrying on the bed, smoothing the fabric of wrinkles-she and the domestiques de chambre had been tasked by Paulus with packing Brie’s clothing and essentials for the trip to the army’s encampment, and several trunks were scattered about the room, half-filled. The two other servants-older women who kept the Hirzgin’s bedchamber and attended to her needs there-continued to work after curtsying once to Brie. They pretended to ignore her presence with the long practice of servants at being invisible when required.