A Magic of Twilight

Moitidi, who they were convinced was the only god, She would watch me use the Ilmodo-it was my task to light the temple every night-and she’d ask me to show her how I did it. I told her what I’d always been told myself: that it was impossible, that to use the Ilmodo required much training and a deep faith, that it wasn’t something that those not blessed by Cenzi could do, that the sorcerers and witches who claimed to be able to use magic were liars and abominations who had been seduced by the Moitidi who survived Cenzi’s purge. She nodded and said she understood, but she was listening to me and watching me, and one night I saw her. She was using the Chant of Light, and there was cold fire between her hands as she spoke, and I knew then, even as I called for the a’teni, even as I betrayed her, that what I been taught was wrong. There were those who could shape the Ilmodo without believing in Cenzi, and that. . that shook the very foundations of my faith and tore them down.”

He went silent again for a time, then licked his lips and began again.

“They cut off her hands and took out her tongue as the Divolonte requires, so that she could never use the Ilmodo again. I watched as they tortured her, trying to convince myself that I’d done what Cenzi had wanted me to do, but my faith. . my faith was already shaken, already failing. But every night, I could still light the temple, even though the words to Cenzi meant nothing to me, even though I doubted my faith and my beliefs. I told myself that Cenzi was showing His mercy, that He wanted me to come back to Him and that was why I could still shape the Ilmodo, but my faith continued to fail, until I found I didn’t believe at all. I left, finally, because I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy and the lies I spoke every day. I left, and Cenzi has punished me ever since.”

The man’s voice was a bare whisper when he said that, and he glanced at the canvas before Edouard. “You’ve the Gift,” the old man had said. He touched Edouard’s head, then his hands. “You’re using the Ilmodo even though you don’t know it. It flows from you out onto the canvas. Not many can do that.”

“Show me what you showed Arial,” Edouard had said suddenly. “Show me the truth.”

The ancient had protested and argued, but in the end he’d agreed. He’d taught Eduoard how to open the place inside so that he could feel the Ilmodo, and Edouard in turn had learned that his Gift was indeed special. The old teni was dead when Edouard left, but the painting, the old man’s portrait. .

It was the best painting he’d ever done. The face that stared out from the canvas was so genuine, so compelling. .

The old man was dead, but it was not the last time that Edouard would see him or hear him. Oh, no, not the last time at all.

Edouard let the Ilmodo flow uninterrupted: out from his fingers, through the charcoal stick to the paper, and from there radiating out to the bird. He could see the bird in his mind, snared in the radiance of the Ilmodo. He could feel its heart fluttering and its shivering body, and he let that pass through him onto the paper.

He heard the soft fall of the bird onto the grass, and opened his eyes to see its perfect form captured on the paper.

“It’s gorgeous, as I would expect.” He heard the voice from behind him, the man’s approach masked by the sound of the breezes in the willows and the rush of the A’Sele.

“Vajiki,” Edouard said, placing the sketchpad on the grass next to the bird. “I was beginning to wonder if you would come.”

“Exactly as promised,” the man said. Edouard didn’t know his name; he’d first approached Edouard when he was painting a commissioned portrait in a chateau near Prajnoli. Even his face was common and unremarkable, his hair a nondescript brown, though the eyes had irises of the most saturated grass-green. But the money he’d offered had staggered Edouard-enough that Edouard would never have to touch a brush again, not unless it was what he wanted.

Maybe then they’ll leave me alone: the voices of those I’ve taken. .

He hoped it would be true. They haunted him at night-the faces of those he’d painted, those he’d killed. They came in his nightmares, tormenting him. They were still alive, all of them, alive in his head.

He didn’t know who the man worked for, nor how they had discovered the “gift” he bore-though he wondered if it weren’t Chevaritt ca’Nephri, since it was his chateau that overlooked the river nearby.

Whoever it was, Edouard didn’t know how they’d arranged to have him paint the Kraljica. He knew very little beyond the fact that his purse was far heavier when the green-eyed man had left, and that it would be much heavier again today.

That was enough to know.

“You have my final payment?” he asked the man.

“The Kraljica’s not dead,” the man answered.

Edouard shook his head. “That’s not possible. I finished the painting. I tied her spirit to it.”

“She’s been stricken, but she lingers,” the man said. “That’s not what you promised, Vajiki. It’s not what was wanted by my employer.”

Edouard was still shaking his head. There was no explanation for it, and he was frightened. Panic surged through him as he tried to fashion an excuse. “Sometimes. . sometimes it takes a few days, Vajiki. Perhaps a week, even. But she will die; they always die.” He licked his lips, staring at the man’s eyes of spring grass and hoping he saw belief there.

It wouldn’t matter once he was paid. He could disappear forever then, and even if the Kraljica somehow lived. . He forced his voice to sound angry. “You still owe me the solas you promised. Where are they?”

“I have them,” the man said. “You’re certain she’ll die?”

Edouard poked the body of the bird with the toe of his boot. “Yes.

I’m certain.”

The man nodded, staring down at the bird and the sketch. “Then let’s give you your reward. I have a horse right over here.” He waved a hand toward a path leading to a stand of trees farther up the bank, and Edouard stooped to pick up his sketchbook. The man gestured again, and Edouard stepped in front of him.

Edouard heard the sound, but failed to understand its significance until it was too late. He had a moment to contemplate the strange feeling as the blade entered his body from behind and thrust entirely through him. Strangely, there was very little pain. He stood there, im-paled, staring at the blood marbling the steel of the long blade that emerged from just under his rib cage. He tried to breathe, and coughed instead, and blood sprayed from his mouth. The blade was withdrawn in a sudden, ripping movement and he fell to his knees.

The world seemed to move as if underwater. He could see the fluttering pages of his sketchbook as it fell from his hands. He could hear the birds in the trees and the crystalline water and even the hush of the clouds sliding across the sky. The colors were impossibly bright and unreal, as if painted with pigments mixed by Cenzi Himself.

The weapon sliced at him again, a blow to the side of the neck this time, and he toppled. He fell to the ground, eyes open, and the grass was an emerald like the man’s eyes and a ruby river flowed between the blades. He could see the dove’s body, only a stride away, and he reached out his hand to touch it, but his arm refused to move.

Something golden-a shell? — flashed in front of him, and he felt his head lifted and a cold chain placed around his ruined neck.

“Here’s your reward, painter,” the man’s voice said, and there was laughter in the gathering darkness, the laughter of all those he’d painted, and their faces came to him and carried him far away as he tried in vain to scream.

Ana cu’Seranta

The Kraljica was a husk wrapped in white linen. For a moment, Ana wasn’t certain she was breathing at all, but then her breath stuttered and the folds of the linen lifted with a breath. A sour odor hung in the air despite perfumed candles that provided the only light in the draped and shuttered room. Renard ushered them into the room, obviously weary from having stood vigil over the Kraljica during the night. A healer was there with his assortment of medicines and instruments, and a trio of servants were emptying bedpans, keeping the fire lit in the hearth, or changing the leeches placed on the Kraljica’s body under the direction of the healer.

The Archigos ordered them all out of the room except Renard.