A Magic of Nightfall (79 page)

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Authors: S. L. Farrell

BOOK: A Magic of Nightfall
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Karl and Talis pushed past Varina toward the street as the mob continued its slow, chaotic progress toward them. Someone at the front noticed them and pointed, and several clots of looters surged toward them. “Stop this!” Karl called, and they mocked him, shouting back at him and shaking old or improvised weapons. Karl glanced at Talis, shaking his head. He lifted his hands, gesturing, and light blossomed between his hands. Alongside him, Talis had raised his staff, tapping it once on the pavement stones: a lightning bolt arrowed up from the knob toward the smoke-wrapped sky.
The mob stopped. Without a word, they scattered in a strange silence, scurrying in any direction as long as it was away from them. A few breaths later, the street was empty. “Well, that went rather well,” Karl said. He and Talis turned, and Varina saw their mouths drop open as they gaped.
Varina had cast her own spell even as Karl had cast his. She’d shaped the air around her with a sculptor’s touch, drawing upon it as a canvas and placing on it an image from her mind. She knew what Karl and Talis saw, looming behind them higher than any of the houses.
“A dragon!” Nico, in Serafina’s arms, shouted from the doorway of the house in delight. Karl laughed, clapping his hands, and Varina grinned. “Can you make it spit fire and fly?” Nico asked, and Varina shook her head at the boy.
“It can’t
do
anything. It just
looks
ferocious,” she told him. For a moment, the danger was forgotten, but then reality collapsed back around them as Varina let the spell go. The dragon vanished in a fume of green, smoky ribbons that the wind hurried away. The looters might be gone, but nothing had changed. They’d be back, soon enough, and the nearby fires still raged unchecked. The city was still under assault.
“Karl,” Varina said, “we can’t stay here.”
Karl looked once at Talis, saw the man nod slightly. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s time. Let’s gather what we need.” He clapped Talis on the shoulder and started toward the door.
Across the street, Varina saw a lone older woman—a beggar, from the look of her clothing. She was staring toward their house. As Varina noticed her, the woman seemed to nod, then hurried away into the dark, narrow space between the houses and was gone.
Sigourney ca’Ludovici
T
HEY PUT HER in the Old Temple.
Commandant ca’Gerodi came fleeing back from the debacle at the Pontica Kralji, bellowing as he charged into the Old Temple to where Sigourney sat on the Sun Throne, telling her she and the Council of Ca’ must take what they could and flee immediately by the Pontica a’Brezi Veste to the South Bank and out of the city.
Sigourney refused. “Let the Council go if they must,” she said. “I am staying.”
“I can’t protect you, Kraljica,” ca’Gerodi told her. “They are coming, at any moment.”
“I’m not abandoning my city and my charge,” she responded coldly. “I will stay.”
In the end, her staff had taken what they could of the remaining treasures of the palais and fled the Isle a’Kralji. It was the same everywhere in Nessantico: in the vast Archigos’ Temple on the South Bank, at the Grand Libreria with its precious, irreplaceable vellum scrolls and books; at the Theatre a’Kralji and the Museé a’Artisans. Councillor ca’Mazzak and the rest of the Council had vanished as well. Fleeing south, the only direction still open to them . . .
Sigourney remained on the Sun Throne in the Old Temple, in the sunlight coming through the ruined, charred dome. Before she allowed the court herbalist to leave, she ordered him to prepare a special goblet of
cuore della volpe
, which now sat on the arm of the Sun Throne next to her. She wore a long, cerulean tashta with a yellow overcloak, hiding the fact that there was no leg below her right knee. She had the servants place a jeweled patch over the hole where her right eye had been, and apply egg powder to her face to hide the worst of the scars.
She waited on the ancient seat of Nessantico. Waited for the inevitable.
Outside, she could hear the battle raging: the shouting of men, the clashing of arms, the roar of war-téni spells. Smoke drifted overhead, dulling the sunlight. An elite guard of Garde Kralji was arrayed before her, their chain mail rustling as they shifted nervously, swords in hand and facing the doors to the temple. Commandant ca’Gerodi had left her a turn of the glass earlier. “I won’t see you again, Kraljica,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” she told him. “I know. And I am sorry, too.”
She waited.
When the doors burst open, the gardai in front of her stiffened and started to rush forward. “No,” she told them. “Hold! Wait!” Several Westlander warriors entered the temple; with them was another man, this one without the tattoos of the warriors and carrying a burnished wooden staff: one of their spellcasters. They stopped, peering down the long aisle of the nave to where Sigourney was seated in a dusty shaft of sunlight. “Do any of you speak our language?” she called out.
“I do,” the spellcaster said. His words were slurred and heavily accented, but understandable. “A little.”
“Good,” she said. “I am Kraljica Sigourney ca’Ludovici, ruler of this land. Who are you?”
The man whispered for a moment to the warrior alongside him, with the image of a red hawk or eagle inscribed over his bare skull. “I am Niente,” the spellcaster answered. “I am the Nahual. And this,” he said, gesturing to the warrior to whom he’d spoken, “is the leader of the Tehuantin, Tecuhtli Zolin. He demands your surrender, Kraljica.”
“He can demand whatever he likes,” Sigourney told him. She lifted a hand from the arm of the Sun Throne, the signet ring of the Kralji glinting on her hand as she touched the golden band of a crown set in her gray, coarse hair. The sun was warm on her, and she glanced upward to the charred ruins of the dome supports. “He won’t have that.”
Again the spellcaster spoke to the warrior, who uttered a laugh that echoed in the temple. He spoke words in a tongue that sounded at once strange and yet oddly familiar. Where had she heard words like that before? “Tecuhtli Zolin says that if the Kraljica wishes to challenge him, he is willing to meet that challenge. He will loan her his own sword if she doesn’t have one of her own. Otherwise, he will order his warriors to take you prisoner. He leaves the choice to you.”
She shook her head. “I know how you treat prisoners,” she told him. “And you haven’t looked at all the choices I have.” The spellcaster appeared confused as Sigourney took the goblet from the arm of the Sun Throne and downed the bitter concoction in one long draught. “I hope you enjoy the city while you hold it,” she told him. She raised the goblet to them, then let it fall ringing to the tiles. Her leg was already losing sensation as she leaned back on the throne. The paralysis rose quickly upward: her thighs, her hips, her midsection. Her heart. The sunlight in the room seemed to be dimming. “This is
my
throne,” she told them, “and while I live, I will not give it up.”
She laughed then. Her voice sounded strange and breathy and weak. She tried to force out the next words. “And I choose my own time.” She tried to take a breath, but her lungs would not move. She opened her mouth, but there was no air for words.
She smiled at them as the sun went dark and Nessantico vanished from her sight.
Karl Vliomani
“
W
HERE DO YOU SUGGEST we go?” Talis asked.
“East,” Karl suggested. “To the Firenzcians. Sergei might be there.”
“We could go west,” Talis countered. “To my people.”
“Your people have set fire to Nessantico,” Varina told him. “They kill. They rape. They plunder.”
“And your people don’t?” Talis snapped back at her. “You haven’t been to the Hellins, have you? Or have you forgotten what started this confrontation in the first place?” He glared at Varina, who held his gaze, unblinking.
“Stop it, both of you,” Karl told them. “We don’t have time to waste on this. Talis, moving west means trying to get through the worst of the fires, and the south doesn’t appear all that much better. We have to think of the boy, especially; it’s too dangerous.”
“And going toward the Firenzcians
isn’t
?” Talis countered.
“I’d say it’s less so.”
Serafina touched Talis’ shoulder. “I think he’s right, love,” she said. “Please . . .”
Talis scowled, then shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “But it’s on your head, Numetodo, if this turns out badly.”
They quickly gathered what they could carry. The smell of smoke was overpowering now and ash was falling steadily on the rooftops, their edges glistening with wavering fire. They couldn’t see the sun at all, though it had to be high in the sky. The street outside was still deserted; those who could flee had already done so; those who were staying were hunkered down in the buildings. They moved quickly down the lane to the first intersection and turned east.
As they reached the larger streets, they encountered crowds again. Swarms of them were looting the stores, breaking down the doors and ripping off the shutters and carrying out whatever they could. They glared defiantly at the group as they passed with their prizes, defying anyone to try to stop them or to protest. A squad of four utilino appeared, shrilling on their whistles, but beyond that they made no attempt to restore order; they pointed their sticks and yelled warning, but scurried quickly away when the nearest looters turned to confront them.
Karl and the others moved after them.
Some time later, they’d gone several blocks, far enough that the ash from the fires was no longer coating their shoulders and hair. They were nearing Oldtown Center; Karl could glimpse the open square not far ahead, where the winding lane opened suddenly into it: there was the statue of Henri VI with his sword upraised, standing in sunlight. The crowds had vanished again. They might have been hurrying through a deserted city. As they approached the end of the street, Karl stopped them: pressed against the flank of the nearest building, they watched a squadron of Garde Civile rushing south across the open plaza near the fountain of Selida, led by a trio of mounted chevarittai. Many of the soldiers were visibly wounded, limping as they half-ran across the plaza.
“They’re retreating,” Varina whispered. “Have we lost the city, then?”
Karl could give no answer to that, though he suspected the truth. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s hurry . . .”
They started across the plaza as the Garde Civile disappeared into the opening of a street to the south. They had reached the end of the eastering shadow of Henri VI, nearly across Oldtown Center, when they saw what the soldiers had been fleeing from.
A noisy mass of painted men swarmed into the plaza from the north. From the distance, Karl could see that they were well armed: swords, spears, arrows. Their faces were swirled with dark lines as Uly’s had been; their bodies were protected with bamboo armor. They hadn’t yet seen Karl’s little group, or if they had, they’d already judged them to be inconsequential. The Westerlanders moved out into the open ground: at least thirty or more of them. “Move!” Karl hissed. “Quickly!” They could easily reach one of the side streets leading into Oldtown Center and lose themselves before the Westlanders could reach them. Karl, taking Varina’s hand, started to run.
He realized after a few steps that they were alone. Talis remained standing in the statue’s shadow. He had Serafina’s hand, and Nico’s. “Talis!”
Talis shook his head. “No,” he said loudly.
“Talis, Sergei went to Firenzcia. We can follow him. You don’t have anything you can use to bargain with these people. Not anymore. You’re endangering Serafina and Nico.”
Talis smiled at Karl and Varina. “Ah, but I
do
have a bargaining chip—Uly’s black sand. Remember? It’s still there.”
Karl felt Varina’s hand tighten on his arm. He remembered: Uly, the casks of ingredients in his rooms, waiting to be mixed . . . “You can’t. To give them
that
. . . .”
“These are
my
people,” Talis said. “I thank you for all you’ve done for Sera and Nico, but these are my people, the people I know, and it’s time for me to go back to them. You go on to yours.” He waved to the soldiers, shouting something in a language that Karl could not understand. “Go on,” he said to Karl. “Go on while you have the chance.”
“At least let us take Serafina and Nico with us,” Varina called to him, but Talis shook his head.
“They’re my family and they stay with me. Go, Karl. Or stay. But make your choice.” Serafina looked at them, her face panicked and uncertain. Nico stared, wide-eyed but seemingly calm.
Several painted warriors were coming at a run now. Talis raised his spell-staff. Light blossomed from it, coruscating and banishing the shadow of Henri VI. “Karl?” Varina’s hand was raised; he could feel the energy of the Second World gathering around her.
“There are too many of them,” he told her.
“We can’t leave them. Can’t leave Nico.”
“We don’t have a choice,” he answered.
Karl took Varina’s hand, and they ran.
Nico Morel
N
ICO COULDN’T UNDERSTAND what Talis was saying as the painted soldiers approached them. He could hear the uncertainty in his vatarh’s voice and the way he was speaking louder and faster, holding the magical walking stick in front of him like a cudgel. His matarh clutched Nico so fiercely that he could barely breathe as the strange men surrounded them, impossibly large and frightening and smelling of blood and death.

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