S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

“So you say. I say it’s your own despair that is coloring the visions. You’ve told me yourself, Taat-you’ve said that the far-seer’s mood can shape Axat’s vision. This is what’s happened to you.”

“I’ve seen what happens if we fall here, Atl. If we fall, then I’ve seen West and East eventually reconcile. I’ve seen ships going back and forth between our lands with goods. I’ve seen a generation of peace.”

“Peace forever?” Atl scoffed. “There’s no such thing, Taat. Never has been, never will. How do you know that this lovely future of yours doesn’t just lead to an even greater war and even more death for the Tehuantin? You don’t-I see it in your face. You could be sacrificing all our warriors and nahualli here for nothing. Don’t you see that?”

Niente wanted to shake his head. He wanted to rage and deny what Atl had said. Back in Tlaxcala the vision had been so clear, so certain, so definite. But now… He hadn’t seen it so clearly since they’d left their own land, and what he saw now was wrapped in doubt and uncertainty, with only tantalizing, mocking glimpses of the future he’d seen. Now, he found he wasn’t so certain.

Can you do this? Are you willing to kill Atl for a possibility?

Only the tip of the sun was visible over the trees on the horizon. The sky in the east was already purple, with the evening star that was the gate to the afterlife already visible. The eye of Axat would be peering over the rim of the world soon.

“Go, and prepare yourself,” he told Atl. “There isn’t much time.”

All the hope in Atl’s face collapsed. He clamped his lips together and nodded, then turned on the balls of his toes and strode away. Niente watched him go. When he could no longer see Atl, he reached into his pouch and pulled out his scrying bowl.

He knew that the lesser nahualli would be watching. “Bring me clean water,” he called out loudly into the evening. “Quickly!”

Shewasn’t certain why she did this. She only knew that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t. “I know Nico deserves death for what he’s done,” she told Allesandra. She glanced quickly at Erik ca’Vikej, seated in a chair just behind the Kraljica; she didn’t like the man’s presence, but Allesandra had made no move to ask him to leave. Varina was seated herself, with an untouched plate of pastries and a steaming cup on the table next to her. “But I’m asking that you spare him. I ask it for our friendship, Allesandra.”

Allesandra was pacing, not looking at Varina. She passed in front of the fireplace, glancing up at the portrait of Kraljica Marguerite that was placed there, then going to the balcony. Varina could see the vista outside. The dome of the Old Temple rose above the intervening buildings on the Isle a’Kralji, and she could see the streaks of soot from the fires still marring the gilded curves. It would be months, perhaps a year or more, before the Old Temple could be restored and the damage to it repaired. But the memories… Those could never be erased.

“I don’t understand,” Allesandra said. “Morel has condemned himself. He knew the consequences of his actions and he went ahead with them. There were hands upon hands of people killed, Varina. We lost A’Teni ca’Paim, and Commandant cu’Ingres has been gravely injured. You were nearly killed yourself.”

“And so were the Kraljica and I,” ca’Vikej interjected. When Allesandra turned-with what Varina thought was an odd glare-he shrugged. “It’s only the truth,” he said.

“In any case, there’s not only my judgment involved, but that of the Faith,” Allesandra continued. Her gaze stayed on ca’Vikej for several moment before returning to her contemplation of the scene outside the balcony. “They will insist on his hands and tongue for using the Ilmodo, and his life for A’Teni ca’Paim. The citizens of Nessantico will also insist on his life for the lives of our own that he’s killed.”

“Many of those same citizens supported him when he talked about the Faith, when he said that the Faith should be less about accumulating wealth to itself and more about helping its people, when he said that the teni should pay more attention to the Toustour and less to their purses.”

Allesandra’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “And those same citizens also cheered when he talked about how the Faith shouldn’t tolerate heretics, or are you forgetting that?”

Varina shook her head. “No, I’m not. It’s just… I don’t want to give up on Nico. He’s been gifted with a great power, and I hate to see that wasted.”

“He’s not the sweet child you remember, Varina. He’s using that great power against you. And me.”

“I know that. But I also want to believe that he’s not the person he should have become. Given the right-or wrong-circumstances, any of us could end up the way he has. And his abilities…” Varina shook her head slowly. “I’ve never, never, seen someone do what he’s doing. It’s as if he just reaches into the Second World with his mind and pulls out the power, without any spell at all. If nothing else, that’s worthy of study.” Varina lifted the cup of tea at her side from the saucer, then set it down again without taking a sip. The sound of porcelain on porcelain was loud in the room. “I’m not asking you to release him. He deserves punishment. I’m asking that you don’t kill him.”

Ca’Vikej snorted. “The bastardo might prefer a quick death to a life in the Bastida. Cenzi knows I would.”

“Erik, please!” Allesandra snapped, and ca’Vikej’s eyes narrowed, his mouth closing. He pushed himself up from the chair and gave Allesandra a mockingly low bow, as if he were a petitioner before her.

“I should go,” he said. “I have a meeting with the Ambassador from Namarro in a turn.” As he passed Varina, he leaned down and whispered: “If you want, I can make certain he dies quickly. Believe me, that would be a blessing.” He smiled at Varina and patted her shoulder as if she were an old friend as he left.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure what it was that I saw in him,” Allesandra said after he left. “Was it ever that way with you and Karl?”

“With Karl, the problem was getting him to see me in the first place,” Varina told her. “But no, I never had second thoughts about him. I knew he was the one.”

“I envy you that, then. I’ve never had that luxury. Well, only once, when I was very young…” She seemed to drift off into reverie for a moment, then Varina saw her shiver as if a cold breeze had touched her. “I’m told by the gardai that the Numetodo were critical to the success of the assault. I’m also told by Talbot that you used some… interesting devices-weapons that used black sand and yet could be carried in one’s hand. They were very effective against the war-teni, he said. You called them ‘sparkwheels,’ I believe he said.”

That brought back the memory of Liana: of the young woman falling backward after Talbot shot her with his sparkwheel, of the terrible hole gouged in her chest and the gurgling rattle of her last breaths, of Nico’s scream at seeing her fall and the madness and inconsolable grief that took him then, of the young woman dying in Varina’s arms as Varina and a healer cut her child from her womb. They were images that Varina desperately wanted to wipe from her memory, like chalk from a board. But they could not be erased, would not be erased. She was afraid they would haunt her for the rest of her life.

She would also remember pulling the trigger of her own sparkwheel with Nico’s body right there in front of her, and the misfire of the weapon. You were willing to kill him yourself…

“Talbot tells me that you developed the weapon,” Allesandra was saying. “Is this what you’ve been hiding yourself away working on since Karl passed?”