On the way to those rooms, Honori would pass the alleyway where the Stone waited now. The Stone could already hear the footsteps in the cool night air. “Honori cu’Belgradi,” the Stone called as the figure of the man passed by the opening of the alley. Honori stopped, his face cautious, then eagerly interested as the Stone stepped into the light of the teni-lamps of the street.
“You know me?” cu’Belgradi asked, and the Stone smiled gently.
“I do. And I would know you better, my friend. You and I, we have a business arrangement to make.”
“How do you mean?” cu’Belgradi asked as the Stone stepped closer to him. So easy… Only a step away. A knife thrust’s distance apart, and cu’Belgradi tilted his head quizzically.
“Like this,” the Stone answered, looking around the street and seeing no one watching, and clapping cu’Belgradi on the shoulder as if the man were a long-lost friend. At the same time the hand holding the poisoned blade drove hard up under the man’s rib cage and twisted it up into the heart. Cu’Belgradi made a strangled, blood-choked cry, and the body was suddenly heavy against the Stone’s athletic build. The Stone half-dragged, half-carried the dying cu’Belgradi into the alleyway, laying the body quickly on the ground. Cu’Belgradi’s eyes were open, and the Stone dug into a cloak pocket and brought out two stones: both white in the dimness of the alley, though one was smooth and polished as if from much handling. The stones were placed on cu’Belgradi’s open eyes, the Stone pressing them down into the sockets. The one on the left eye the Stone left there; the gleaming, white, and smooth one over the right eye-the eye of the ego, the eye that held the image of the face it saw in its last moment-that one the Stone picked up again and placed back in a leather pouch around the Stone’s neck.
“And now I have you, forever,” the apparition known as the White Stone whispered.
A breath later, there was no one left alive in the alley, only a corpse with a white pebble over its left eye: a contract fulfilled.
PERMUTATIONS
Audric ca’Dakwi
This was one of the bad nights.
Every individual breath was a struggle. Audric had to force the old, useless air from his lungs, and his chest ached with every inhalation, yet he was never able to bring in enough air. He sat up in his bed; he felt that if he lay down he might suffocate. The palais healers bustled around him, looks of deep concern on their faces-if only for fear of what might happen to them if he died under their care-but Audric paid them little attention except when they tried to get him to take a sip of a potion or to inhale some sour grasssmoke. His arms were tracked with fresh scabs; the healers had nearly bled him dry and another one of them was making a new cut, but Audric didn’t even flinch. Seaton and Marlon, Audric’s domestiques de chambre , rushed in and out of the bedroom, fetching whatever the healers requested of them.
All of Audric’s attention went to his war for breath. His world had shrunk down to the battle of each inhalation, of trying to suck enough air in his lungs to stay conscious. The edges of his vision had darkened; he could only see what was directly in front of him. He felt little but the eternal pain in his chest.
He focused on the portrait of Kraljica Marguerite set over the fireplace mantel at the foot of his bed. His great-matarh stared back at him, her painted face utterly realistic, as if the gilded frame were a window behind which the Kraljica was sitting. He swore he saw her move slightly against the backdrop of the Sun Throne, that the painted Sun Throne itself flickered with the light of the Ilmodo as the real one did whenever he sat on it.
Archigos Ana had never given more than a sour glance at the portrait, which always seemed to snare the gaze of other visitors to Audric’s bedroom. Once, Audric had asked the Archigos why she paid the masterpiece so little attention. She had only shaken her head. “There’s far too much of your great-matarh in that painting,” she said. “It hurts me to see her trapped there.” She frowned then. “But your vatarh loved the picture, for his own reasons.”
Marguerite regarded Audric now with her appraising, piercing stare. He waited for the attack to pass. It would pass; it always had in the past. It must pass. He prayed to Cenzi for that, his mouth moving silently: that the invisible giant sitting astride his chest and crushing his lungs would slowly rise and lumber off, and he’d be able to breathe easier again.
It would happen. It must happen.
His great-matarh seemed to nod at that, as if she agreed.
Staring at the painting, Audric heard more than saw Regent ca’Rudka push into the room, scattering the healers as he leaned over the bed, waving away the sourgrass smoke drifting from the censers. “Get those out of here,” he snarled. “Archigos Ana said the smoke makes the Kraljiki’s breathing worse, not better. And take yourselves out of here as well.” The healers scattered with mutterings, bloody fingers, and the clinking of vials, leaving the Regent alone with Audric. No, not alone… There was someone else with him. Reluctantly, Audric took his gaze from the painting and squinted into the darkness.
The effort made him groan.
“Archigos… Kenne…” Each word came out in its own separate breath accompanied by a rattling wheeze; he could do no better than that.
“Kraljiki,” the Archigos said. “Please don’t move. I’ve come to pray with you.” Audric saw Archigos Kenne glance concernedly at the Regent. “Archigos Ana had a… special relationship with Cenzi that I’m afraid few teni can match, but I will do what I can. Lie back as comfortably as you can. Close your eyes and think of nothing but your breathing. Focus only on that…”
His breath was racing, gasping. He could feel his heart lurching against the confines of his ribs. He could take only the smallest sip of precious air. Audric closed his eyes as the Archigos began to pray. Archigos Ana, when she came to him, would pray also, and she would gently place her hands on his chest. It was as if he could feel her inside him. He could hear her voice in his head and feel the power of the Ilmodo burning in his chest, searing away the blockages and allowing him to breathe fully again. She wrapped him in that interior heat, her voice chanting and yet at the same time speaking in his head. “You’ll be fine, Audric. Cenzi is with you now, and He will make you better again. Just breathe slowly: nice long breaths. Yes, that’s it…” Within a few minutes, he would be breathing naturally and easily once again, an ease that at first lasted months, but more recently only a few weeks.
Now, with Kenne, Audric heard the man’s half-whispered prayers only with his ears. There was nothing inside at all. There was no warmth spreading throughout his chest. These were only the prayers of an old man, outside him and spoken in a quavering voice. There was no sense of the Ilmodo, no tingling of Cenzi’s power-or perhaps there was, but it was so faint that Audric could barely feel it. Maybe there was warmth, perhaps the painful bellows of his lungs were moving slightly easier. Audric tried to take a deeper breath, but the effort sent him into spasmodic, dry coughing that made him hunch over on the bed. His eyes opened, and Marguerite frowned in her painting. He saw that fine droplets of blood had sprayed the blanket.
“You must fight this, Audric. If you die, our line dies, and with it our dream of Nessantico and the Holdings…” He saw Marguerite’s painted lips move, heard the voice that he had always imagined she would have. “You must fight this. I will help you… ”
Sergei had moved quickly to his side; he felt the Regent’s strong hand on his back, heard him call sharply to Marlon. A cloth dipped in cool water was passed to him. Audric took it gratefully, touching the fabric to his lips. He could taste the sweetness of the water. And yes, he could breathe somewhat better. “Thank you, Regent,” he said. “I’m much… better now… Archigos.” His own voice sounded distant and dull, as if someone were half-covering his ears. It was Marguerite’s voice that was clearest.
“Listen to me, Audric. I will help you. Listen to your great-matarh…”
Archigos Kenne nodded but Audric could see the doubt in the man’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Kraljiki. Archigos Ana… I know she could do much more for you.”
Audric reached out to touch the man’s hand. Kenne’s skin was cool against his own, and dry as old paper. “I will be fine,” he told the man. “I think… I have found the way.”
The portrait of Marguerite smiled her lopsided smile at him, and he smiled back.
“There is too much for you to do to die…”
“There is too much for me to do to die,” he said to her, to them. It was both promise and threat.
