Cenzi would give a sign to us, and He has done so. He has given us an unmistakable and grim sign. The end times are coming, if the Faithful will not listen! What you see around you is the death of thousands, all of them martyrs so that we of the Faith might see the error of our current path, so we might see what awaits the world if we fail to heed Cenzi. I weep for each of those who have died. I weep because it had to come to this. I weep because you would not listen. I weep because you could not follow Cenzi’s words without His needing to give us this terrible punishment. I weep that we still have so much of His work to do. I weep that even as the ash coats Nessantico, those who rule her still do not see the truth of what we say.”
He paused. In the audience, he could hear them coughing. “I know why you have come here,” he said. “But I tell you that you already know what you must do. It’s here in your hearts.” He touched his own chest, the words a fire in his throat burning away the taste of ash. “It’s in your souls, that Cenzi already holds. All you need to do is listen, and feel, and be open to Him. As Cenzi has been fierce in His sign, so we must be fierce in our response.”
He paused, and his next words shredded the air like black claws. “It is time!” he roared to them. “That is what I have to tell you. It is our time. Now! It will be His time, or He will bring death down upon all of us! Now-go and show them!”
He pointed southward, toward the Isle a’Kralj, toward the Old Temple, toward the Kraljica’s Palais, toward the South Bank with the houses of the ca’-and-cu’. They roared with him. He could feel Cenzi’s touch depart, leaving him weary and his legs again weak. But the clouds parted momentarily, releasing a shaft of blue moonlight that painted the crowd and illuminated their faces. “It’s another sign!” someone cried within the crowd, and they all began shouting. The crowd surged away from the house and away.
Nico leaned against one of the supports of the porch, not caring that the ash stained his face, as he watched them move away. “Should we go with them, Absolute?” Ancel asked. “If that is what Cenzi wants of us…”
“No,” he told them. “We must stay hidden a while yet-but soon. Soon.” He looked up; the clouds had closed once again over the moon and the street seemed darker than before, the shouting of the crowd fading in the distance.
“Tonight, there’s something else we must do.”
Sergei ca’Rudka
Commandant Talos Cu’ingres gestured harshly at his offiziers. “You, take your squad to the River Market; I need you and you to use your men to control the Avi so that the fire-teni can get in and do their work. The rest of you, get your people to push the mob back up the Avi away from the Pontica-join up with the gardai coming in from the north if you can. Once we push them away from the Avi, they’ll break up in the smaller streets where we can control them. Use whatever force is necessary. Now, go! Go!”
The offiziers bowed and hurried away from the Garde Kralji command center hastily set up on the North Bank at the Pontica Kralji. It was a few turns before dawn, though time was nearly impossible to gauge in this gloom. Sergei-listening from inside his carriage, opened the door and went over to where cu’Ingres stood, leaning over a table with a map of the city spread out on it, his staff placing markers as messengers hurried in with the latest reports. Beyond, well up the Avi, Sergei could see fires sending black smoke coiling up to join the gray ash clouds. Everyone, cu’Ingres included, looked as if they’d been rolling in a fireplace.
“I heard about the mob,” Sergei said. “I thought I’d see if I could be of assistance.”
“Ambassador,” cu’Ingres said wearily. “I appreciate the offer, and I’m sure I can benefit from your experience. However, I think we finally have the fires and the mob under control. There’s no longer any danger to the Isle or the South Bank.” He nodded to the glow of the conflagrations. “The fire-teni from the Old Temple are making some progress with that, though sometimes I think it would serve them right if they ended up burning Oldtown to the ground.”
“The Morellis?”
Cu’Ingres nodded. “I had a report of a crowd gathering at a house, supposedly where Nico Morel was hiding. I had one of my a’offiziers and his people heading to the area to investigate, but then they were set upon by a mob that was moving toward the Avi and the Isle. They were setting fires and looting as they went-shouting about signs and the end of days and the usual Morelli garbage. Morel had worked them up into a frenzy about all this, though Morel himself and the people close to him weren’t with them.” He kicked at the drifts of ash on the street. “It’s been a shit of a day, if you don’t mind my saying so. First all the problems with the ash, then this.”
Sergei clapped the man on the back. “You’ve done well, Talos, and I’ll let the Kraljica know that. Casualties?”
“Nothing serious, thank Cenzi. A few injuries from thrown rocks and the skirmishes with the mob: bloodied heads and broken bones, the usual. A few of the fire-teni have been overcome with smoke and exhaustion; that’s only going to get worse until these fires are under control, but A’Teni ca’Paim is sending more teni to help. There were a few of the Morellis killed in the skirmish and several injured. We have several hands of prisoners.”
“Prisoners. Ah.” Sergei found himself stirring with the familiar old passion at that. “Where are they?”
He thought that cu’Ingres hesitated a breath too long before replying. Then he inclined his head toward the northern end of the bridge. “Over there. I was going to have them transported to the Bastida as soon as I had enough gardai to spare.”
“They should be able to tell us where Morel is now,” Sergei said.
“I’m sure they can,” cu’Ingres answered blandly. “I’m sure they will.”
“Carry on, Talos,” Sergei told him, “but have a full squad of gardai ready to leave within a mark.”
A salute. “As you wish, Ambassador.”
Sergei saluted the man and moved painfully toward the bridge. He found the prisoners easily, seated on the ashsmeared cobbles near the bridge and ringed by sullen gardai. The o’offizier in charge saluted as Sergei approached, stepping aside so that Sergei could look at the captured rioters. Some of them glared back at him, others simply stared with heads down at the pavement. “I need to know where Nico Morel is,” he told them. “I know at least some of you know. I need one of you to tell me.”
There was no answer. The closest of them to him-an e’teni, his green robes of office torn and stained with ash and soot, blood smeared across his face-scowled and spat in Sergei’s direction. The man’s hands were bound- so he could not use a spell to escape or attack the gardai. “We won’t tell you, Silvernose,” he said. “None of us will. We won’t betray him.”
Sergei smiled gently toward the man. “Oh, one of you will. Willingly. And you’re going to help me. Take him,” he said to the e’offizier. “Bring him over here.”
Sergei stepped back, waving his cane to the driver of his carriage, who slapped the reins on the horse and came clattering over to where Sergei stood. “I need rope,” Sergei said, and one of the gardai ran to fetch a length. “Tie his feet also,” he said, pointing to the teni and knowing that all the prisoners were watching. When the gardai had finished binding the feet as they had his hands, Sergei had them lash a short length of rope from the man’s hands to the back of the carriage. The e’teni watched, his eyes widening.
Sergei tapped the cobbles of the Avi at his feet with the brass ferrule of his cane, and the teni glanced down. “These stones… These are the very soul of Nessantico. The Avi wraps the city in its embrace-and as you know as a teni, defines the city with its lamps. The people who made the Avi did so with care and with a love for their work. Look at these cobbles; they were carved from the granite of hills south of here and brought to the city by the wagonload, and placed carefully. It took sweat and labor and care, but they did it. They did it not only because they were paid, but because they love this city.” The teni was staring at him; both prisoners and gardai were listening to him. “But… These stones, ancient as they are, remain rough and hard. Eternal-like this city and the Holdings, I like to think. Why, these stones are so stern and unforgiving that I must have a wheelwright replace the rims of my carriage’s wheels twice a year, and they’re made of steel. Can you imagine what these stones would do to mere flesh if, let us say, someone were dragged over them like the wheels of this fine carriage? Why, it would tear and rip and flay the skin from that person, break his bones, and pull him apart, piece by piece. That would be an unpleasant and horrible death. Don’t you agree, e’teni?”
The man’s mouth had opened as he realized what Sergei was saying. Sergei could feel the man’s fear; he could taste it, and he savored the sweet spice of it. “Ambassador,” the man stuttered. He held out his bound hands
