rewarded for my services. I would expect to be permanently awarded the title of commandant of
the Garde Civile and to retain my title as Chevaritt of Nessantico, and I will return the Garde Civile to what it once was: the true strong right arm of the Kraljiki. As commandant,
The muscles in the Kraljiki’s face relaxed. He smiled also, a careful gesture, and Sergei relaxed.
“I take it you have specific tactics to go with this strategy of yours, Commandant?”
“I do.”
The Kraljiki nodded. He walked over to his dressing table; the Hirzg’s sword had been placed there. The Kraljiki picked it up and pulled it halfway from its scabbard. He turned the blade, examining it closely in the light of the candles. He nodded, as if satisfied. “I’ll credit the bastard with knowing his steel,” he said. “This is a weapon that cries out to be used.” He shoved the blade back into the scabbard, then tossed both sword and scabbard toward Sergei. Sergei caught it one-handed. “A pity. I’d have enjoyed using the sword, but I think you should keep it, Commandant. Use the Hirzg’s gift against him-I will take my pleasure in the irony.”
Sergei bowed. “I’ll do that, Kraljiki.” Sergei took off his own sword and placed it on the table alongside the maps. “You may still yet need a blade, my Kraljiki,” Sergei said. “It’s not the equal of the Hirzg’s, but it will serve.”
The Kraljiki nodded again and took the proffered weapon. “I’m certain it will. Now, Commandant, let’s go over these tactics of yours in detail, and we’ll see where we might be in agreement.”
Sergei leaned over the maps as the Kraljiki came to stand beside him. “The Hirzg will be expecting us to send troops south along the Avi to guard against a Firenzcian crossing,” he said, his fingertip moving along the curves of the river. “My thought is that you and those of the court can ride out with them dressed as common soldiers. Once you’re well south of Passe a’Fiume, you can continue on to Nessantico unseen.
The Hirzg will assume you’re still here, which is what we want him to believe. Then, once you’re back in Nessantico. .”
Justi ca’Mazzak
The city shuddered with the news that the parley had failed, and that it was likely that Passe a’Fiume was already under siege.
The city had merely been worried before; now it was truly frightened, a feeling heightened as Kraljiki Justi trebled the conscription squads, as the Garde Kralji patrolled the gates of the city so that none could leave without travel documents bearing the seal of the Kraljiki, as couriers carrying urgent orders from the Kraljiki went out from the city in all directions, as the encampment of the Garde Civile outside the walls continued to swell. The farmlands around Nessantico were scoured as if by a ravenous plague of locusts, all the food carried back to the city: if there was to be war, then there would be as little as possible for the Hirzg’s troops to plunder as they moved toward Nessantico.
Agents of the Garde Kralji also moved through Oldtown, asking blunt questions about the Numetodo and especially about the former O’Teni Ana cu’Seranta and the once. Envoy Karl ci’Vliomani. Several of those questioned were taken away and did not return, though the Pontica remained devoid of new bodies to join the skeletal remains of the Numetodo already gibbeted there.
Worst of all was the news that the Archigos had betrayed the Kraljiki.
The Kraljiki ordered those teni who had been closest to ca’Cellibrecca at the Archigos’ Temple placed under arrest. A’Tenis ca’Marvolli, ca’Xana, ca’Miccord, and ca’Seiffel-those who had most vocally supported ca’Cellibrecca in the last few years-found themselves in residence in the Bastida, and the remaining a’teni were required to sign a declaration of obedience to the Kraljiki with their lives forfeit should they recant. Now truly headless, Concenzia reeled; the already erratic service of the teni in the city became even more stretched and ineffective.
Nessantico throbbed and quaked with fear, and Justi watched it from the colorful windows of the Hall of the Sun Throne in the Grande Palais. If he looked east more often than any other direction with a face strained with concern, he could hardly be blamed.
“They loved their Kraljica. They only
Justi scowled and gave a guttural curse at the words. He tried to turn and draw his sword-Sergei’s sword- from his scabbard, but he found it strangely difficult, as if the air had hardened around him. He stopped with the blade half-drawn.
He gaped.
The beggar known as Mahri was standing a few paces from him, on the dais where Justi stood near the Sun Throne. He could see the one-eyed, disfigured face under the cowl, splashed with color from the stained glass. But it wasn’t the man’s face that stopped Justi: the room behind the beggar was. .
Servants were standing as if frozen while hurrying to their tasks. Silence wrapped all of them; the air was dead and still when a moment ago it had stirred with the breezes from the open balconies. It was as if he were looking at a painting of the throne room, with he and Mahri somehow inhabiting the canvas.
It reminded him uncomfortably of ci’Recroix.
“Mad Mahri. . So you’re one of the Numetodo,” Justi said. His hand remained on his sword hilt. He wondered if he could draw it quickly enough in this half-solid air.
Mahri shook his head. He gave a grotesque smile marred by the white scars on his face. “No Numetodo could do this,” he said, waving his hand at the motionless crowd around them. “And I can’t continue it for very long, so I won’t waste it with conversation, Kraljiki. You are looking for Ana cu’Seranta and Karl ci’Vliomani. I know where they are.”
“And what do you want in return?” Justi asked. His own voice sounded hollow, as if the very air around them didn’t want to move to allow the words to leave his mouth. His fingers loosened slightly on the sword hilt.
“I want nothing you can give me,” Mahri answered.
“Wealth, then. A thousand solas. .”
Mahri laughed. “Keep your money. Just have your Garde Kralji at Oldtown Center tomorrow at a turn of the glass after First Call. Look for me; both of those you seek will be with me. Your people will have to move quickly and with force; the o’teni especially is dangerous if she has the chance to use the Ilmodo.” The air was shimmering between them; the figures around the room started to move. “After First Call, Oldtown Center,” Mahri repeated.
The air flashed, as if lightning had struck between them, and Justi’s sword seemed to leap from the scabbard of its own volition. The world seemed to jolt. Justi blinked involuntarily. When he could see again, the people around the room were once again in motion and the room was loud with their conversations. The courtiers were staring at him, standing beside the Sun Throne with his sword held threateningly in front of him.
The fly droned past him. Justi watched it strike a glass pane caught in strips of black lead, bounce back angrily, then find the opening between the windows and escape into the sunlight.
Ana cu’Seranta
Mahri had promised them that they would be safe. There was no reason not to believe him.
After the fire in the tavern, they had moved to another set of rooms deep in Oldtown, then a few days later to yet another. For Ana, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She went through the days wrapped in a dark fog. Karl tried to lift her from the depression; as he had promised, he began to teach her some of Numetodo spells. She found that some of the words were similar to the words she used herself, and she found that she could begin to learn to hold the spell in her head. It was a strange feeling, to have the Ilmodo contained and confined in her mind, an insistent presence that rattled against the spell-cage that restrained it, aching to be released.
