Varina ci’Pallo
In the days when she’d first joined the Numetodo, when she’d been a lowly initiate into their society and first met Mika and Karl, the Numetodo House had been a shabby house in the midst of Oldtown, masked by the squalor and filth of the buildings around it.
Now, the Numetodo House was a fine building on the South Bank, with a garden and burnished grounds out front and gates bordering the Ave a’Parete-a gift from Archigos Ana and (more reluctantly) Kraljiki Justi for their aid in ending the Firenzcian siege of the city in 521. Their more spacious and lush accommodations helped to make the Numetodo more acceptable to the ca’-and-cu’, but it had also made them more visible. In the past, the Numemtodo met in secret, and most members kept their affiliation a secret. No more. Varina had no doubt that all those who entered through the gates were noted by the utilino and Garde Kralji who constantly patrolled the Avi, and that information was funneled to the commandant-and from him to Sergei ca’Rudka, the Council of Ca’, and the Kraljiki.
The Numetodo were known-which was fine as long as their beliefs were tolerated. But with the death of Ana, Varina was no longer certain how long that might be the case. Her fears drove her back to her research…
Despite the paranoid rumors among the conservative Faithful, the bulk of the Numetodo research had nothing to do with magic at all: they were experimenting in physics and biology; they were creating beautiful and elegant mathematical theorems; they were delving into medicine; they were exploring alchemy; they were examining dusty tomes and digging at ancient sites to recreate history. But for Varina, it was magic that fascinated. What especially intrigued her was how the Faith, the Numetodo, and the Westlanders approached casting spells.
The Numetodo had long ago proved-despite the angry and sometimes violent denial of the Faith-that the energy of the Second World didn’t require belief in any god at all. Call it the “Ilmodo” or the “Scath Cumhacht” or the “X’in Ka.” It didn’t matter. That realization had dissolved whatever remnants of faith Varina had when she first came to the Numetodo.
“Knowledge and understanding can be shaped by reason and logic alone; it’s just not easy or simple. People created gods to explain the world so we didn’t have the responsibility to figure things out ourselves.” She’d heard Karl say that in a lecture he’d given, years ago when she was first considering joining the Numetodo. “Magic is no more a religious manifestation than the fact that an object dropped from your hand is going to fall to the ground.”
Yes, the teni of the Faith and the Westlanders both used chants and hand motions to create the spell’s framework, yet each of them had a different underlying “belief” which allowed them to harness the energy of magic. What the Numetodo realized was that the chants and hand motions used by spellcasters were only a “formula.” A recipe. Nothing more. Speaking this sequence of syllables with that set of motions would net this result.
But the Westlanders… Varina hadn’t met Mahri the Mad, but Karl and Ana had, and the tales of the Westlander nahualli from the Hellins had only verified what Karl and Ana had said of Mahri. The nahualli were able to place their spells within objects, which could then be triggered later by a word, or a gesture, or an action. Neither the teni nor the Numetodo could do that. The Westlander spellcasters called on their own gods for spells, as the teni did with theirs, but Varina was certain that Westlander gods were as imaginary and unnecessary as Cenzi and his Moitidi.
If she could learn the Westlanders’ methods, if she could find the formula of just the right words and hand movements to place the Scath Cumhacht inside an inanimate object, then she could begin to duplicate what Mahri had been able to do. She’d been working on that, off and on, for a few years now. Worry drove Varina more than ever now: over what Ana’s death meant to the Numetodo; over Karl’s deep grief, which tore at Varina as much as her own.
If she couldn’t understand why people would do such horrible things to each other, she would at least try to understand this.
She was in a nearly bare room in the lower levels of the House. On the table in front of her was a glass ball she’d purchased from a vendor in the River Market, sitting in a nest of cloth so it wouldn’t roll. The ball had been inexpertly made; a curtain of small air bubbles ran though the center of it, the glass around them discolored and brown, but Varina didn’t care-it had been cheap. Varina chanted, her hands moving: a simple, easy light spell, one of the first tricks taught to a Numetodo initiate. Weaving a light spell was effortless, but pushing it inside the glass- that was far, far more difficult. It was like pushing a hair through a stone wall. She could feel fatigue draining her strength. She ignored it, concentrating on the glass ball in front of her, trying to imagine the power of the Scath Cumhacht moving into the glass in the same way she would have placed it inside her own mind, visualizing the potential light deposited around those bubbles deep inside the glass, placing the release word there with it as a trigger.
The spell ended; she opened her eyes. Her muscles were trembling, as if she’d run for leagues or been lifting heavy weights for a turn of the glass. She had to force herself to remain standing. The ball was sitting on the table, and Varina allowed herself a small smile. Now, if-
The ball began to vibrate, untouched. Varina took a step back as it rang like a glass goblet struck by a knife, there was a coruscation of brilliant yellow light, and the globe shattered. She felt a shard hit her upraised arm and she cried out.
“Are you all right?” She heard the voice behind her at the doorway: Mika. The Numetodo leader walked quickly into the room, shaking his balding head and rubbing at the close stubble on his chin. “You’re bleeding, and you look like you haven’t slept in a week.” He pulled a chair over to the table and helped her sit down.
Varina lifted her arm-it felt as heavy as one of the marble blocks of the Kraljiki’s Palais-and examined the cut in her foream. It was long but not deep, and Varina pulled a sliver of glass from the wound, grimacing. A thin line of blood ran down the arm toward her hand; she ignored it. “Damn it.” Varina closed her eyes, then opened them again with an effort to look at the table: the globe had broken nearly in half along the curtain of bubbles, and the cloth on which it had been set was littered with glass fragments. “I was so close.”
“I was watching,” Mika said. He glanced at the shattered globe. “I thought you’d finally done it.”
“I thought so, too.” Varina shook her head. “But I’m too tired to try again.”
“Just as well,” Mika said. “I came down to tell you: Karl’s back at his own apartments.”
Varina cocked her head quizzically. “I thought he was staying with you and Alia and the kids for the time being.”
Mika shrugged. “Said he was fine, that he needed to get back to his own life. Needed to get back to Numetodo affairs and his work as Ambassador.”
“You don’t sound like you believe that.”
“I think…” Mika pressed his thin lips together. “Those are excuses. He’s hurt and he’s angry, and I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I think he needs someone with him, to talk with him if he wants to talk, to make sure he’s okay and that he doesn’t do anything foolish. Ana’s death has hit him harder than he’ll admit.”
Mika went silent, and Varina felt that he was waiting for her to respond. But it was hard to just hold her head up. Blood dripped from her finger to the floor; the severed halves of the glass globe glinted accusingly at her in the lamplight. “I guess I could send Karoli or Lauren over,” Mika said into the silence.
“I’ll go,” Varina said. “Just give me a few minutes. I have to clean up.”
Mika grinned. “Let me help you,” he said.
Jan ca’Vorl
Jan liked Fynn. He wasn’t sure how his matarh would feel about that.
Matarh had told him how she’d never known Fynn, how he’d been born only a few months after Archigos Ana had kidnapped her from Hirzg Jan’s tent on the battlefield. When he was a child, Jan hadn’t understood all the implications of that; now, he thought that he finally began to understand the dynamics of the relationship between older sister and younger brother, twisted and distorted by their vatarh’s vanity and pride. He could understand how
