“Yes,” he said. “But. .”
“Let me care for her,” the Archigos said. “We will handle this.
There’s nothing you can do here, but downstairs there is. The commandant will need orders from you as the A’Kralj-and as the acting Kraljiki for as long as the Kraljica remains incapacitated. I will send for you immediately if there is any change here.”
The A’Kralj nodded. He rushed out the door. The Archigos looked at the servants who were in the room, getting bedding, pouring water, uncovering the banked fire in the hearth. An e’teni on the palais staff chanted to put light in a lamp; another started the blades of a fan cir-culating to move the stale air. “Leave us,” the Archigos said to all of them. “Now.” They bowed and hurried from the room, closing the door behind them.
The Archigos was staring down at the still figure on the bed, at the frail chest rising and falling shallowly.
“Archigos,” Ana said. The man glanced over at her, and the severe look in his eyes frightened her. “When the painting was uncovered, I felt something. .”
“We don’t have time for this,” the Archigos told her. “Renard might come here, or the A’Kralj might return. Come here, Ana. Stand by the bed.”
She knew what he wanted of her. “Archigos, I shouldn’t. . The Divolonte. .”
“I rule Concenzia, child, and I know what the Divolonte says and
I know it was written by the a’teni and not by Cenzi Himself. I also believe that Cenzi does not gift people needlessly. Now-do what you can for her, and do it quickly. Go on; we’re alone here.”
Ana approached the bed. She looked down at the Kraljica, so pale in her resplendent costume. She seemed nearly dead already, her breath so shallow that it barely touched her chest, her cheeks hollow and sunken.
“You know what to do,” the Archigos said. “Pray to Cenzi, Ana.”
She did. She took a long, shuddering breath. She closed her eyes and took one of the Kraljica’s hands in her own. The chant came to her, unbidden, rising from the place that she thought of as the core of her belief, far inside her. Her lips moved with the words that shaped the power that emerged with them, the Ilmodo. Her hands lifted from the Kraljica’s, molding the growing power. She formed the Ilmodo so that it could coil from her heart into her hands, and from there into the Kraljica. It was warm, this power, like a liquid sun, and when it touched the old woman on the bed, Ana found herself caught in the Kraljica’s mind, also. She could hear her, crying and weeping in an interior darkness. She let more of the Ilmodo rush from her so that it entered the Kraljica. .
. . but this was not as it was before. Then, the Ilmodo had filled Ana’s matarh as if she had been a empty vessel, moving through her like blood. The cup of her matarh’s body had held the Ilmodo like a goblet, and it had strengthened her.
But that didn’t happen with the Kraljica. The Ilmodo moved into her and out again as if she were a bowl with a hole bored through the bottom, and Ana could feel the Kraljica’s life force rushing through that same hole, draining away from her. The flow was compelling; Ana found herself falling with it, unbidden, caught in the white- foamed rush that went into and through the Kraljica-and she knew where it was taking her even as she fought to hold herself back. The Ilmodo was being torn from her, away and down, down to the hall far below where the painting stood. The spell within the painting sucked greedily at her, clawed at her, ripped the Ilmodo’s energy away. She fought against the incantation, pulling herself back and concentrating on the Kraljica, on the connection that bound her to the painting. She struggled to control the Ilmodo, to use it to close the rent in the Kraljica’s spirit and seal it off. The resistance was terrible; it was as if she were physically struggling with someone, someone easily as strong as her and bent on taking her down.
Ana gasped. She felt as if she were shouting her chant into a gale, but for a moment she felt that she was winning. Her Ilmodo brightened, and she could hear the Kraljica’s voice-
— but then she was tossed aside before she could reach for that voice.
Tossed aside and out.
She was back in the room, holding the Kraljica’s hand. Her hair was damp with perspiration; she was breathing as heavily as if she’d run here from the Archigos’ Temple. She could feel the weariness gathering, the payment for her spell.
“Archigos. .”
“I know,” he said. “I felt it. The Ilmodo moving.”
Ana nodded. “The Kraljica. . It’s the painting that’s killing her. I think this ci’Recroix somehow. .” She didn’t finish the thought as the Archigos nodded.
“I suspect we’ll find that Vajiki ci’Recroix has left the city in a hurry,” he said.
“I should have known, Archigos,” Ana said. She forced herself to stay awake against the compulsion to give in to the exhaustion. “When we were here last, I looked at the painting. I thought I felt something like a teni-spell then within it, but I thought it was how the painter made his figures so true. I thought it was something he did unconsciously, without even knowing he was doing it, like I did with healing headaches as a child. I should have told you. If I had, perhaps. .” She stopped, her hand over her mouth. “I’ve slowed it, but I don’t think I can heal her. There must be someone else, some other way. .”
“I doubt it,” the Archigos answered. He stirred and started toward the door, the graveclothes he wore fluttering as he moved. “I’ll call the commandant and have him take the painting and bring it here. If we burn it, perhaps. .”
“No!” Ana interrupted. She panted from the effort of the shout, the weariness calling to her to succumb. “She’s bound to the painting.
If you destroy the painting, you destroy
“You’re certain of that, Ana?”
Ana shook her head. Her breath wheezed from her lungs. “I can’t be certain. But I felt the connection. Too much of the Kraljica is already there, captured. Sever the bond between her and the painting, and she will have nothing left.”
The room was darkening around the Archigos. Ana saw him as if he were standing at the end of a long tunnel, outlined in aching light.
“All I could do was lessen the draining from the Kraljica to the spell in the painting,” she continued, “but I couldn’t close it completely. Even if I could, I think we need to keep the connection open so that perhaps we could bring her back.” The explanation took all of her breath. “It’s like she’s bleeding from a wound, Archigos, only inside.”
Ana moved her gaze from the Archigos back to the Kraljica; the turning of her head made her nauseous and disoriented: like a child who’d been twirling around and around, then suddenly stops. The
room tilted and she staggered. “Ana!” she heard the Archigos call as she clutched at a post of the Kraljica’s bed, but his voice seemed to come from somewhere far outside, and now the room was spinning in earthquake madness and the fire in the hearth erupted from its bed, and the heat and the flames and the sound bore her down and carried her away.
Maneuvers
Jan ca’Vorl
“. . you always have to be aware of your ground. Having to charge uphill is a tremendous disadvantage.”
“Though we had to do exactly that at Lake Cresci on the Escarpment,” Jan interjected. “It was a tremendous slog, but the tactic worked because they weren’t expecting it of us.”
O’Offizier ci’Arndt seemed to levitate to his feet and salute at the appearance of the Hirzg, with Vajica Mara accompanying him. Allesandra jumped from her seat at the table where her toy soldiers were set and rushed to Jan. “Vatarh! Georgi has been teaching me. He says I’d make an excellent Starkkapitan.” The young offizier blushed at that, still holding his salute.
“Take your ease, O’Offizier,” Jan told him. “I appreciate the time you’re taking with Allesandra, and she enjoys your company.”
