S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

…”

The baby was crying now, and the wet nurse came forward, untying the blouse of her tashta and taking the baby in her arms. “What is going on?” Elle was saying, but then…

… then the memory shifted. It no longer possessed the soft haze of recollection. Everything was sharp-edged and too brightly colored, the way it was when Cenzi gave him a vision. It was no longer Elle on the childbirth bed but Varina, and she opened her arms. Nico cuddled himself happily in her arms. She stroked his hair. “You saved her life,” Varina said. “It was you.”

“I prayed to Cenzi,” he told her. “It was Him.”

“No,” Varina/Elle answered softly, her hands stroking his back. “It was you, Nico. You alone. You reached into the Second World and took its power, which doesn’t come from Cenzi or any other god but just is. You are able to tap that. Rochelle owes you her life. She will always owe you that.”

“Rochelle? Is that going to be her name?”

“Yes. It was my own matarh’s name,” Varina/Elle said, “and I will teach her all I know, and one day she might give you back what you gave her.”

The woman who was both Elle and not-Elle hugged him hard, and Nico hugged her back, but now there was only empty air there. He opened his eyes.

The sun had risen, and now he heard the wind-horns sounding First Call, as sunlight crawled reluctantly down the black tower of the Bastida a’Drago toward the opening of his cell. He wanted, suddenly, to look outside, to see the rising light. He tried to get to his feet, but they were as stiff and unyielding as stone, and when he tried to move them, the pain made him scream behind the gag of the silencer. He couldn’t stand. Instead, he dragged himself forward on his chained hands, crawling to the opening that led to the small open ledge in the tower. He pulled himself up on the railing there, moaning with the sharp prickling in his legs as life returned to them. He stared out at the morning. A mist had risen from the A’Sele, and the Avi a’Parete outside the gates of the Bastida was beginning to fill with people walking to temple or to early morning errands.

One figure snared his gaze… A woman was standing near the Bastida gates, underneath the leering grin of the dragon’s head. She wasn’t moving, but staring at the Bastida, and at the tower in which he was held. Even at the distance, there was something about her, something familiar. “Rochelle…?” he breathed. He didn’t know if he was dreaming, or if it was even possible; he’d not seen her in years. But those features…

He tried to pull himself upright on the ledge, but his hand slipped on the rail, his legs couldn’t hold him, and he fell. He pulled himself up again, hating that he couldn’t shout her name. But he could wave, he could make her see him…

She wasn’t there. She’d vanished. He scanned the Avi for some sign of her-there, could that be her, hurrying away north over the Pontica?-but he couldn’t be certain and he couldn’t shout after her. The figure vanished into the crowds and distance.

He let himself fall again on the ledge.

Was it her, Cenzi? Did you send her to me?

It wasn’t Cenzi who answered. Instead, he thought he heard the soft laughter of Varina.

“How long has he been this way?”

The garda at Nico’s cell shrugged at Sergei’s question. His gaze kept dropping to the roll of leather under Sergei’s arm. “All night,” he said. “He started praying when you left; he won’t drink, won’t eat. Just prays.”

“Open the door,” Sergei told the man, “and come inside with me. I may need your help.”

The garda nodded. There might have been the flicker of a smile on his lips as he took the ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the cell, pushing the door open. He stepped inside and gestured toward Nico. “You want me to drag him back inside?”

Sergei shook his head as he stepped into the cell, sliding past the garda. “Nico?” he called.

Nico didn’t respond.

He was kneeling on the ledge of the tower, the sun throwing a long shadow from his huddled form across the cell. Sergei could see that he’d soiled his bashta sometime in the night. “Nico?” he called again, and again there was no response. Moving carefully over the filthy straw on the stone floor, placing the roll of leather on his bed, Sergei stepped around Nico’s body until he could see his face. His eyes were closed, but his chest heaved with his breaths. His hands were clasped together, and his mouth was moving around the silencer as if he were praying. “Nico!” he said, more loudly this time, stepping into the sunlight so that his shadow covered Nico.

The eyes opened sluggishly, and Nico squinted up at Sergei through slitted, pouched eyes. “You look terrible,” Sergei told him.

Nico gave a strangled laugh around the gag.

“Let me take the silencer off. You’ll promise not to try to use the Ilmodo?”

Nico gave a slow nod, and Sergei unbuckled the straps of the device and lifted it from Nico’s head. Nico coughed and swallowed hard, wiping awkwardly at his face with chained hands and the sleeve of his bashta. “Thank you,” he said. His gaze fixed on the leather roll, on the garda standing silently near the door with an eager grin on his face. “Why is it that I think there’s no food this time? Do you want to hear me scream? Is that it?”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Sergei told him. “It’s not… not what I want. Not from you. But we need the war-teni and they listen to you.”

“And you think that you can torture me into cooperation.” Slowly, he stood, rubbing at his legs and grimacing.

Sergei shrugged. “I don’t think it. I know it. I’ve done it many times.”

“Ah, dear Silvernose. You enjoy that, don’t you, forcing someone to do what they don’t want to do?” Strangely, he was still smiling. “You enjoy their pain.”

Sergei didn’t answer. He went to the bed, untied the strings. He pushed at the end of the roll, letting it open. The garda chuckled as he did so. His instruments were all there, the ones he’d collected and cared for over the long years, the ones he’d used so many times, with so many prisoners. He knew Nico was looking at them also; he knew the thrill of fear that would be surging through Nico’s body as he imagined those devices twisting and tearing and gouging his flesh. Nico would already be feeling the pain, before Sergei even plucked the first tool from its loop.

Can this be the time that it changes?

But it couldn’t be, not if he wanted to save Nessantico.

Not this time.

But Nico wasn’t staring at the array of instruments with fear just as the myriad others had. He regarded them with a steady gaze, and only then looked slowly back to Sergei. His cracked and battered lips still twitched with a smile, and through the purpling bruises on his face, his eyes were unafraid. Has the boy gone mad entirely? “Which first?” Nico asked him. “That one?” He pointed to a clawed pincer. “Or that one?” His finger moved, to the brass hammer. “You like that one especially, don’t you?”

“Will you sign the document?” Sergei asked. “Will you stand before the Old Temple and recant? Will you tell the war-teni that they must serve?”

“Cenzi gave me a vision tonight,” Nico said conversationally, making Sergei’s eyes narrow at the evasion. “I prayed for turn after turn, and He wouldn’t answer me. When He finally did, it was strange, and I’m still not sure that I understood. Varina was there. And my sister.”

“Nico,” Sergei said softly, gently, as if speaking to a child. “Listen to me. There’s no other way for you. I must have your recantation. I must have it for Nessantico. I must have it to save lives and for the good of all here. Tell me that you’ll recant and none of this has to happen. Tell me.”