A Magic of Twilight

She nodded and drew the hood over her head. As she reached the door, he called out to her. “We both believe Envoy ci’Vliomani is innocent, O’Teni. But what we believe may be of no matter.”

Mahri

The massive twin heads of two ancient Kraljiki, set on either side of Nortegate, gleamed eerily with teni-fire. At night, their features were illuminated from within the hollow stone so that they appeared almost demonic, but rather than facing out as they usually did, glaring at any potential invaders, the e’teni tending them had used the power of the Ilmodo to turn the heavy sculptures inward so that the great, scowling visages glared eastward: toward the oncoming procession of the Kraljica as it paraded slowly along the gleaming Avi a’Parete toward the Pontica Kralji and the Isle A’Kralj, where the final ceremony would be held. They seemed angry, perhaps furious that the Kraljica had been taken from the city in the midst of the celebration of her Jubilee.

The procession coiled along the Avi like a thick, gilded snake caught in the famous teni-lights of the city, which gleamed in doubled brilliance tonight. First came a phalanx of the Garde Kralji in their dress uniforms, led by Commandant ca’Rudka. Their stern, forbidding faces cleared the crowds from the Avi, pushing any errant pedestrians back into the onlookers who lined the Avi and clogged the openings to the side streets. More of the Garde Kralji, in standard uniform and bearing pole arms, marched slowly on either side of the Avi, herding the crowds and watching for any signs of disturbance.

Given the reputation of the Garde Kralji for cruelty and thoroughness, it was hardly surprising that there were none.

Then came the chevarittai of the city, astride their horses and in their field armor, polished and gleaming. In the midst of them was a lone, riderless white horse, shielded by their lances and their swords.

The chevarittai paraded by, grim-faced and solemn, the hooves of their destriers loud on the cobblestones of the Avi.

Then came the Sun Throne from which the Kraljica had ruled for her five decades, floating effortlessly above the stones through the effort of several chanting teni who paced with it, the eternal light inside the crystalline facets alive and gleaming a sober, sullen ultramarine, as if the throne itself understood the import of the moment.

Two-dozen court musicians paced behind the throne, dressed in bone-white, their horns and pipes inflicting an endless dirge on the onlookers that echoed belatedly from the buildings on either side.

The Archigos’ carriage followed the musicians at a judicious distance from the cacophony, bearing the Archigos as well as several of the older (and less mobile) a’teni currently in residence in Nessantico, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca among them.

Behind the Archigos was a long double line of green-robed a’teni and u’teni, all of them chanting, their hands moving in the patterns of spells. In the air above them flickered images of the Kraljica as she had been when she was alive: not solid illusions, but wispy ghosts shimmering in the air, far larger than life and looming over the mourners in the street below.

The Kraljica’s carriage was next. She had been placed in a glass coffin, and a quartet of chanting teni stood at each corner, molding the Ilmodo so that the carriage itself could not be seen and the Kraljica’s coffin appeared to float in a golden, smoky glow that smelled of trumpet flowers and anise, and from which came the sound of high voices singing a choral lament. A shower of trumpet flower petals rained from the cloud under the coffin, carpeting the Avi and those in the front ranks of the onlookers in fragrant yellow.

The A’Kralj’s carriage wheels crushed the trumpet flower petals underneath. Directly behind his matarh’s coffin and flanked by a stern border of Garde Kralji, all of whom stared intently at the onlookers, the A’Kralj sat alone and solemn, wrapped in thick furs, his face covered with a golden mourning mask on the cheeks of which were set twin, tear-shaped rubies, though his fingers were conspicuously bare of ornamentation. His carriage was not teni-driven, but pulled by a trio of horses in a four-horse harness.

Finally, the ca’-and-cu’ families themselves followed in careful order of their social rank, dressed in ostentatious white and with heads re-spectfully bowed. A squadron of the Garde Civile from the local garrison protected them from the commoners who closed in after the procession passed, filling the Avi again.

All of Nessantico, it seemed, had turned out to watch the Kraljica’s final procession around the ring of the Avi: young, old, from the ca’ all the way down to the ce’ and the unregistered. Many of them held lighted candles, so that it seemed that the stars had fallen from the sky to land here. For the vast majority of them, the Kraljica had been the only ruler of Nessantico they’d known, all their lives. As Kralji went, hers had been a quiet reign, especially for the last few decades. Now they watched her last promenade through the city that had been her home, and they wondered what the future might bring.

Mahri wondered that as well. He watched from the inner side of the avenue, near the flanks of the Registry building. Even among the packed crowds in Oldtown, Mahri was left in his own space. The masses of people around him sighed but left him alone, a dark mote in the teni-lit brilliance of the funeral procession.

Mahri had watched the slow, solemn procession pass the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli some time ago, and he had hurried through the maze of Oldtown to see it again here at Nortegate. He had wanted to make certain of something.

As the dirge of the court musicians began to fade, the Archigos’ carriage passed into Nortegate Square. Alongside the Archigos’ carriage walked several of his staff, among them O’Teni cu’Seranta. It was her that Mahri leaned forward to see.

He’d prepared the spell before he’d come here, after images of O’Teni cu’Seranta dominated several of the auguries he’d performed.

He spoke a guttural word (causing those nearest him to glance over at the strange sound), and made a motion as if shooing away a persistent fly. He could see the X’in Ka-what the teni called the Ilmodo and the Numetodo called Scath Cumhacht-twisting in response, though he knew the movement was invisible to anyone else there. That was his gift, that he could see it: tendrils of energy, like the wavering of sunlight above a still lake, wrapped around the Archigos’ carriage. No one there reacted. But O’Teni cu’Seranta. .

Her head was down as if praying. He thought for a moment that nothing would happen, then he saw her glance up, slowly, though her eyes were bright and suspicious and her fingers reflexively curled as if she wanted to make a warding. It was enough; he released the spell, let it evaporate as if it had never been there. Her reaction had been slug-gish; he’d hoped for a more immediate and stronger response, but it was possible she had been lost in her prayers for the Kraljica and her grief, distracted by the noise and the crowds.

But she had felt him. She was able to sense the very movements of the X’in Ka, not simply manipulate it. He knew that much; it was more than the Numetodo ci’Vliomani could do. She was still glancing around, as if searching for the source of the energy she had felt. He pushed back into the shadows of the Registry so she wouldn’t see him.

Perhaps it could be her. Perhaps. If circumstance didn’t interfere. If the gods smiled. If he was interpreting the images in the augury-bowl correctly. If he wasn’t simply wrong. .

There were too many ifs. .

But perhaps. .

The Archigos’ carriage and O’Teni cu’Seranta had passed him now, moving on toward the Pontica Kralji and the final ceremony. The sculptured heads flanking the Nortegate swiveled as the Kraljica passed, their fiery gazes tracking the carriage that held her body. The coffin still floated in its golden cloud-the teni creating the illusion replaced as the effort of the spell became too exhausting. The four there now were not the four Mahri had seen when the procession passed the Pontica a’Breze Nippoli, and already he could sense the weakness in the X’in Ka- they were flagging and would soon be relieved themselves.

The teni were so weak.

The heads stared at the Kraljica and also caught Mahri in their fiery scowl, as if they were chastising him for his arrogance. He turned his back to them, striding away from the Avi and ignoring the comments of the crowd as he pushed through them. A block south of the Avi, the crowds had vanished and the sound of chanting and music faded, replaced by the familiar clamor of Oldtown.

If he reached the Pontica Kralji before the Kraljica’s procession, he could cross over to the Isle and watch the passing of the Kraljica into history.

He wondered how quickly the new Kraljiki might follow her.