her trust. But there was nothing. Everything was empty and cold. There was no heat, even in the glare of the sun. “Stay safe,” she told him. “You are one of the few true friends I have left. I can’t afford to lose you. I’ll worry about you the entire time you’re gone.”
“And I will worry for you,” he told her, “because you’re here.”
Bowing his head to her, he shuffled from the sunroom.
He wanted her to call after him: to stop him from leaving, to force him to confess it all, to spill out the poison inside him so that perhaps, having to confront it, he could come to understand it.
But she did not.
Nico Morel
The crowd began to gather well before First Call, as if the day were one of the High Days where attendance at temple was required of all the Faithful. In the cold hours before dawn, they came to the plaza outside the Old Temple on the Isle a’Kralji: a few hands of people at first, milling near the temple entrance, then small groups of others. They were young and old, many of them-from the tattered and worn appearance of their dress and the state of their hair and teeth-the ce’-and-ci’ or even the unranked dregs of Oldtown, though there were a few better- dressed folk scattered among them, and the occasional green flash of teni-robes.
They gathered as the eastern sky began to turn pale mist-gray and then a tentative orange. By the time the sky beyond the black silhouette of cu’Brunelli’s famous dome had gone to golden hues and the teni responsible for sounding the wind-horns had clambered up the long stairs to their station, gaping in surprise at the crowded, shadowed plaza far below, the crowd had grown to a few hundred.
That was when Nico arrived, huddled in the midst of his close Morelli companions. Liana held to him as if she were afraid she might lose him in the crush, her arm around his waist-she had insisted on coming, even though Nico had urged her to remain behind. He knew that by now someone must have alerted A’Teni ca’Paim about the odd gathering outside the temple, but none of the higher teni appeared to be watching from the doors or windows of the OldTemple. In fact, except for the gathering of the Morellis and their sympathizers, everything seemed strangely, almost eerily quiet. Those of the Faith who were coming into the plaza for the regular First Call service stopped, puzzled at the gathering and uncertain whether they should continue forward or not.
Nico grinned. Cenzi had told him it would be like this. He had prayed; he had spent turn after turn of the glass on his knees asking for insight before he had met with those of the Faith who believed in him, and finally the vision had come: Cenzi had told Nico that they would be betrayed, that a confession would be wrung from one of them too weak to resist, that the Garde Kralji and A’Teni ca’Paim would know what had been planned.
And that knowledge was enough. It was enough.
Liana pressed close to Nico, and now Ancel also approached him. “We’re ready?” Nico asked, and Ancel nodded, tight-lipped. He could feel their trepidation as they walked out into the square: twenty or so of his disciples-those closest to Nico, those who had been with him since the early days in Brezno when the Faith had first embraced, then rejected him. Around them, a buzz of excitement was growing as people recognized him. Nico could hear the whispers: “Look, it’s the Absolute
… It’s him…” Then the chant began to rise: “Nico! Nico! Nico!” It was a pulse, a beat, a rhythm. Even the wind-horns, beginning their mournful announcement of First Call could not drown out that call. “Nico! Nico! Nico!” It pounded against the walls of the Old Temple and rebounded from the gilded dome, spearing into the dawn sky.
As if summoned by the call, the Garde Kralji appeared, emerging from the temple and from the buildings attached to it, squads appearing at the street entrances, surrounding the crowds: the gardai in their uniforms, their pikes ready; the utilino, with their cudgels and-undoubtedly-spells prepared to control the crowd. Those of the Faithful who had come for the service realized that something violent was about to happen-most of them scrambled through the lines of the gardai and away. Commandant cu’Ingres and A’Teni ca’Paim appeared at the balcony above the main doors of the temple: at cu’Ingres’ gesture, an aide sounded a trumpet, shrill and high above the continuing drone of the wind-horns, while two gardai on the balcony waved signal flags.
The Garde Kralji began to advance, closing the circle around the Morellis. Nico nodded to one of the teni with them: the woman gestured and chanted, and light burst high over the plaza, sending long shadows scurrying over the stone flags and over the people there. The gardai and utilino paused. Even the wind-horns’ moaning sagged and failed.
From around the plaza, outside the ring of the Garde Kralji, several people now emerged from the street entrances or the buildings, most of them green-robed: teni of the Faith, yes, but teni who knew Nico for what he was: Cenzi’s prophet, Cenzi’s Absolute. Many of them were war-teni, the war-teni who had vanished at the time of A’Teni ca’Paim’s call to join Commandant ca’Talin and the Garde Civile to defend Villembouchure. Nico could see- above the columned entrance to the temple-A’Teni ca’Paim pointing and gesturing to Commandant cu’Ingres as she realized what was happening. Cu’Ingres turned desperately to his aides, and the trumpet sounded a new, frenzied call as the signal flags waved frantically.
They were too late. The war-teni of the Morellis had already begun their chants, and now they gestured. Fire and smoke bloomed in the dawn light, arcing up and then falling into the ranks of the gardai, exploding as if the wrath of Cenzi Himself was falling on the wretched Moitidi who had disobeyed Him. There were screams and shouts from everywhere around the plaza as gelatinous flame fell among the gardai, clinging to their clothes and skin as it burned: teni-fire of the worst kind. The Garde Kralji normally dealt with crowd control and small groups; unlike the Garde Civile, they were unused to large-scale organized battles, and now their ranks fell apart entirely as they scrambled for safety away from the flames. “Now!” Nico shouted, and again the teni sent a spear of white light to explode above the plaza. “To the temple!” Nico shouted, and his voice was louder than the screams, louder than the trumpet, louder than than the wind-horns. His voice echoed like booming thunder from the buildings around the plaza. “We will take back what belongs to the true Faithful!”
His disciples surged forward toward the main gates, and the others who had come at his summons moved with them. The gardai at the temple entrance lowered their pikes, but the attackers were too many: the crowd slipped past them or struck down their weapons. The gates were wrenched open with a metallic shriek. Inside, Nico could glimpse the gilded-and-frescoed walls; the ornately-carved columns bearing the immense weight of the arched, distant roof; the rows and rows of burnished pews; the brazier burning with the scent of strong incense; the massive, impossible dome, painted with the images of Cenzi struggling with the Moitidi, the quire and High Lectern far underneath, seemingly tiny against the massive space. Nico breathed it in-this holy space, this reverent palais built to honor Cenzi which not even the heathen fire of the Westlanders could entirely destroy.
This place was sacred. This place was history incarnate, and here he would begin to make his own history.
His disciples had moved aside, none of them entering yet. The crowd stood at his back. Out in the plaza, the soldiers writhed in pain or lay dead or had fled.
Nico took a step. Another. He crossed the threshold of the place he had been forbidden to enter again as teni, and as he did so, he let his cloak slide from his shoulders to the ground, revealing the green robes of a teni underneath.
He would take back his title and his rights. He would be teni again, as Cenzi had told him to be.
The interior of the temple seemed brighter than the dawn outside, the flames of the braziers around the sides of the space sending heat and light shimmering up the fluted walls and gleaming in the polished marble of the floor. He stood ensconced in gold and warm browns, breathing an air spiced and fragrant and achingly familiar. He lifted his head looking up to the dome far above at the end of the long aisle.
There were people moving there, scurrying under the beauty of the fresco like mice: a group of teni, with the green-trimmed golden robes of A’Teni ca’Paim just behind them, Commandant cu’Ingres at her side and gardai spreading out along the walls to either side. Nico could hear someone behind him-Liana, he thought-beginning a chant, and he held up a hand.
“Hold!” he said. “There is no danger here for the Faithful. There’s no danger here for me.” With the temple’s fine, legendary acoustics, he could hear his words whispering to the farthest corners.
“How dare you!” The words sliced harsh and bitter through the temple. A’Teni ca’Paim stepped forward on
