A Magic of Twilight

Encounters

Ana cu’Seranta

“IT’s so good to see you, Vaji… I mean, O’Teni Ana.” Sala

blushed, her head down. “After we heard about what you did for

the Archigos, and how he rewarded you. . well, we were so happy for you. You look very good in the green, I must say.”

“Thank you, Sala,” Ana said. She glanced around the entrance-way. The walls of the house had been freshly painted; she could smell the oils. A cabinet of carved wood with blue glass stood in what had been an empty corner, two huge ceramic pots frothed with greenery and flowers on either side of the doors, and she glimpsed a woman she didn’t recognize in servant’s drab clothing in the kitchen hallway. “How is Matarh? Is she still. .?”

“Oh, she’s nearly recovered, though still a bit weak. She’s in the garden out back. Would you like me to run and fetch her for you?”

“No, I’ll go back there myself in a moment. I just wanted to retrieve a few things from my rooms.” She took a few more steps into the house.

The stairs had been carpeted with a runner that looked Magyarian, with diagonal patterns of orange and green. The air was aromatic with a spicy incense.

“I’ll go tell her to expect you, then. Wait until you see the garden.

Vajiki cu’Seranta has brought in all sorts of workers in the last several days, though sometimes they seem to be everywhere underfoot…”

Sala bowed, and gestured at the stairs. “We have three new servants for the house, including a woman who’s taken over the cooking duties from Tari. But your rooms have been left just as they were. I wouldn’t let anyone in there. I told them they weren’t to be touched until you’d been here.”

“Thank you, Sala. I appreciate that.”

Again, a shy blush and a duck of the head. “I’ll go tell your matarh now.” She rushed away. Ana went up the stairs, marveling at the touch of the banisters, which seemed freshly varnished and polished. The house had been so drab and shabby for the last several years, and now …

“I thought I heard your voice.”

Ana’s hand tightened on the railing at the top of the stairs. “Vatarh.

I thought you’d be. . gone at this time of day.” She turned. He was standing at the bottom of the flight, a smile on his face: the forced smile he always wore around her. He bounded swiftly up the steps, the smile fixed, the fine bashta he wore flowing around him. Ana found herself backing away, looking from side to side. Everything was different-the hallway that had once been bare was crowded with furniture. Her shin collided with the side of a plush chair. “We all have demons in the night. .”

She heard the Archigos’ voice, and she took in a breath, drawing herself up as her vatarh reached the top of the stairs, his hands extended toward her as if he expected her to come to him.

“I’ve quit my job, since I expect to be offered a better one by the Kraljica soon,” he was saying to her. “You see all I’ve done here already?

For you, Ana. So you could be proud of our family again. So you and I-”

“I’ve been paid for, Vatarh,” she said, interrupting him. “You don’t own me anymore. I owe you nothing.”

“Ana!” He recoiled as if in horror. “You make me sound like a monster. You know how much you mean to me. I. . I love you, my little bird. You know that. All this. .” He was walking toward her again, the smile returning tentatively. “They’re just things. I would rather have you here still with us, Ana. With me.”

“I came to get my belongings from my rooms, Vatarh. That’s all.”

“Then let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” She turned away, rushing to her room and closing the door behind her. She stood there, letting her heartbeat slow and her breath sink back into her lungs. Finally, she pushed away from the door, moving from the antechamber into her old bedroom.

She went to a chest at the foot of the bed, pulling out a few clothes and a wooden box that held a few mementos.

She heard the click of the outer door. “Sala?” she called out, but she knew who it was, knew from the sound of the breathing and the heaviness of the tread on the carpets. “Get out of here, Vatarh,” she told him, rising. He was standing in the door of her bedroom, filling it.

His expression was at once sad and eager.

She realized that she’d dropped the clothes and the box and clasped her hands together before her. She’d prayed in this room before, after the other times he’d come to her, masked in night and shielded by a daughter’s respect for her vatarh, when he’d held her and told her how frightened he was for Matarh and how much he missed her and how difficult times were for their family, how all they had was each other and how they had to help each other and how she could help him now.

And the embraces changed with his breathing, and then, finally one night, when even her tears didn’t stop him, his hands slipping under her nightclothes. .

And afterward, after her vatarh’s tears and apologies and explanations, after he’d left her in the darkness, and she’d allowed her own tears to come while she’d prayed. She had prayed as she shaped Cenzi’s Gift and used it inside herself even though she knew that to be wrong-if Cenzi desired more punishment for her, then she should have allowed the possible consequences to happen.

But she couldn’t, not when she had the power to prevent them.

As she had the power now. .

She prayed now, chanting the words of Ilmodo-speech, and as she spoke she felt the Second World open with her plea to Cenzi. She stopped the chant long enough to reply. “I gave you Matarh back, Vatarh, and the Archigos has paid you handsomely-far more than any dowry you could have received for me. Stay away from me.”

“Ana. .” He took a step toward her, his lips twitching with a faint smile under his mustache. “You don’t understand. What we did, you and I. . It was your fault as much as mine.”

His words sent white-hot fury surging through her. “My fault?” she shouted at him. “It wasn’t me who came into my room at night. It wasn’t me who touched. .”

Her vatarh’s eyes widened at her vehemence. “Ana, listen. I’m sorry.

You need to understand-”

She was chanting, not listening to him at all. The Ilmodo opened to her, and she took it. Light shimmered between her clasped hands, so intense that it passed through and illuminated her skin, the shadows of bones dark against orange-red flesh. Knife-edged shadows surged and flowed around the room. She could see him looking at her hands, could see his throat pulse as he did so. Holding the Ilmodo, fully formed, she could speak again. “I do understand, Vatarh. I’m the only one who can.

And I’m telling you to stay away. For your own good, stay away from me.”

“You’re my daughter. You’ll always be my daughter,” he answered.

“What we did. . I did. . well, we shouldn’t have. I was wrong, terribly wrong, and I’ve already asked you to forgive me. To forget it.” Each sentence was another step. He was close enough that he could touch her now. He was watching her face, only her face. Her prayers were already answered; she held Cenzi’s power in her hands and it ached to be released, screaming so loudly in her blood that its pounding rhythm nearly drowned out her vatarh’s words. If he touched her, if his hands moved toward her. .

They did. His fingers stroked her cheek, touched the tears that she hadn’t realized were there.

“No,” she said, very quietly. “You don’t touch me. You don’t ever touch me again.” She opened her hands.

The concussion hammered at her chest, the roar deafened her, the burst of light sent her vision tumbling away. Faintly, she thought she heard her vatarh scream.

Her head spun and she thought she might lose consciousness. She fought to stand upright, blinking to clear away the blotches of purple afterimages. Her vatarh lay crumpled against the wall near the door, the plaster cracked around him. Ana wondered whether she might have killed him, but his chest rose and his eyes opened even as she looked at him: she’d flung the spell aside at the last moment.

It was her bed, the bed where she’d borne his suffocating weight on top of her, that had taken the direct force of the spell’s impact; it lay shattered, black, and nearly unrecognizable, the bedposts splintered.

All the furniture in the room was overturned and damaged, the wall where the headboard had rested broken all the way through the mortared stones to reveal the sunlight outside. Shards of mirrored glass glittered in the wreckage near where her dresser had stood; her vatarh’s cheek trailed blood where a flying piece had cut him.

Sala came running in, stopping at the doorway to look in horror at the wreckage of the room, at Ana’s vatarh slumped dazedly on the floor.

“O’Teni Ana. . what. .?” Ana forced herself to stay upright though the edges of her vision were closing in. Just get to the carriage. That’s all you have to do, then you can let go.

“Tell Matarh I can’t stay, Sala,” Ana said. “Let her know that I’ll send a carriage for her tomorrow after Second Call so we can talk. So I can explain.” She looked at her vatarh, his eyelids fluttering as he groaned and stirred. “I won’t come back while you’re here, Vatarh. I won’t ever see you again willingly. If you ever try, you won’t survive the attempt.”

Ana reached down to the floor for her clothes and the memento box and picked them up, clutching them to her. Then she walked past the dumbstruck Sala and out of the house. She managed to make it to the carriage waiting outside before the darkness closed around her.

Karl ci’Vliomani

The stench made Karl’s stomach lurch hard enough that he could taste the garlic from the pasta he’d eaten a few turns of the glass ago. Here on the banks of the A’Sele near the Pontica Kralji, the open sewers of Oldtown and-across the river-those of the Isle A’Kralji emptied into the water. Adding to the noxious smells were the slaughterhouses, tanneries, and dyers which clogged the riverbank all the way to the River Market, each of them dumping their own wastes in the water.

The air was foul, and the rocks along the riverbank and the piers of the Pontica Kralji were snagged with wriggling trailers of slime and filth.

Karl could see the skeletal, rotting carcass of a pig in the water a few arms’ lengths from them, the eyeless and lipless skull leering at him.

“No one drinks from the A’Sele anymore, at least not here in the city, and not anywhere close to Nessantico downriver,” Mika said, as if he’d overheard Karl’s thoughts. “The old folk will talk about how in their own grandparents’ time the A’Sele ran clean and sweet, and you could dip a cup in and quench your thirst, but not anymore. That’s why everyone goes to the fountains for their water, or they drink only wine or ale, and they don’t eat any fish unless they were caught east of the Fens.”

His gaze went up then to the ramparts of the Pontica Kralji, the longest of the bridges over the A’Sele. They’d both seen the small, black iron cage that had been suspended from a post there, and the corpse that was stuffed inside it: Dhaspi ce’Coeni’s body. The chain groaned and protested as the cage swung in the breeze. The crows had found the display quickly; there was a crowd of them pecking at Dhaspi’s remains through the bars. They could see people passing over the bridge stopping to look at the gibbeted body. Two painted signs had been attached to the cage. Assassin, one said. Numetodo was written on the other. Ce’Coeni’s hands were nailed to that sign, and there was a bare nail above the hands where his tongue had once been-the crows had taken that.

“Poor stupid bastard,” Karl muttered.

They both looked away, deliberately. Mika picked up a stone from the mud and tossed it into the river, where it splashed brownly and vanished, then looked at his hand, grimaced, and wiped it on his cloak.

Mika was wearing a perfumed cloth over his nose and mouth; Karl wished he’d taken the same precaution. “I doubt the river’s been truly clean for centuries, not with Nessantico straddling it forever,” Mika said. “I heard that the Kraljica had swans brought in for the Jubilee all the way from Sforzia. She thought they’d look nice swimming around the Isle A’Kralji. They took one look at the A’Sele, sniffed in disgust, and took off for home.”

Karl grunted at the image. “I can believe that,” he told Mika. “Right now, I’m tempted to do the same.”

“I’ve been here for, oh, almost seven years now, Karl. They can make the city look brilliant and wonderful with their teni-lights, with their dances and their clothes and their great buildings. They can make certain that the Avi a’Parete is swept and clean so the ca’-and-cu’ can promenade and be seen; they can build temples and palaces that prick the very clouds with their towers, but they can’t hide this.

Look over there. .” Mika pointed to the nearest slaughterhouse where Karl glimpsed cloth the color of spring grass through the twilight of an open door. “Do you see the teni? There are dozens and dozens of e’teni assigned-probably as punishment, I’d think-to cleanse the filth from the sewers and the slaughterhouses with their Ilmodo skills, but it’s not anywhere near enough. It would take an army of them working all day, every day, to keep up with the garbage this city spews out, and the place grows bigger each year. Cenzi knows what Nessantico would be like without the teni-and each year there are more people for the teni to clean up after. I don’t even want to imagine Nessantico a generation forward.” Mika lifted his kerchief and spat on the ground. “Even the Kraljica must shit and piss, and it smells no better than mine or yours.”

Karl laughed despite the filth, despite the grim reminder on the Pontica above them. “Now there’s an image I don’t care to retain.”

Mika sniffed and pressed his kerchief against his nose. “It’s true, still. All those grand ca’-and-cu’ sit and look at Oldtown from their lovely houses on the Isle or South Bank and grumble about how disgusting and filthy it is, but they’re no different. Even the grandest chateau has its privies.”

“If you’re going to start spouting cliches, then let’s do it where we can drink and eat as well. Where’s this Mahri? I thought he asked to meet us?”

“I’m here.” With the word, a portion of the stained Pontica seemed to detach itself from an arched support, and Mahri stepped out from the shadows under the bridge, directly under Dhaspi’s gibbet. Karl shivered at the sight of the man’s ravaged face under the black cowl, hoping that Mahri didn’t notice the quick revulsion.

“You live up to your reputation,” Karl said.

“And what is that?” The man’s voice was as broken as his face, a hissing and grumbling issuing from a misshapen maw. If the expression on his twisted lips was a smile, it couldn’t be read; the raw and exposed socket of the missing left eye seemed to glare. The breath from his mouth smelled nearly as bad as the riverbank itself.

“That you’re a ghost who appears anywhere there’s trouble.”

That seemed to amuse Mahri. He turned his head, glancing back

and up over his shoulder at the caged body surrounded by crows. Something approaching a cackle emanated from his mouth, and a thick tongue prowled the edges of his few teeth as he looked back to them.

“Ah, the Numetodo are indeed trouble, aren’t they, Envoy?”

“That’s not our intention,” Karl said. “Why did you want to meet with me, Mahri? You told Mika it was important.” Karl had been reluctant to agree to the rendezvous, but Mika had persisted. “They may call him Mad Mahri, but I’ve also heard them say that Mahri knows things that no one else knows, that nothing happens here without his somehow knowing about it first. It may be a waste of time, but. .”

Again, the cackle. “Ah, so impatient. That’s not a good quality for someone trying to gain the Kraljica’s sympathy. Patience is a virtue she possesses in abundance, and one she expects from those who petition her. I would expect that someone trying to negotiate with her must understand that.”

Karl pushed down the rising annoyance. He saw Mika glance at him and shrug. “I’ll remember that advice,” he said. “It’s true enough, considering how long I’ve been here.” He waited, his boots squelching noisily in the mud as he shifted his weight. Mahri waited also, until frustration at the man’s silence threatened to make Karl snort in derision and stalk away. He was ready to do exactly that when Mahri spoke again.

“I came to offer an alliance.”

“An alliance?” Karl couldn’t keep the scornful chuckle from his voice. “I’m afraid that I wasn’t aware that you represented anyone.”

Mahri lifted a single shoulder. “You mean to say that you can’t imagine an alliance with a common beggar? I see the Numetodo aren’t so much different from the ca’-and-cu’, Envoy. I hear the same disdain and scorn in your voice that I hear from those who worship Cenzi.”

Karl glanced at Mika, who rolled his eyes. Again, he took a breath and pushed down his irritation. “I’m sorry for that, Mahri. You’re right, and I would ask you not to judge all Numetodo by my poor example.”

He could hear Mika snicker under his breath.

“Ah, now that is spoken more like a diplomat, even if you mean nothing of it. Good.” The beggar pulled his tattered clothing around himself as if cold; on one hand, Karl glimpsed a thick silver seal ring.

The insignia carved in it was unfamiliar, and it was certainly not a ring a beggar would wear. He stole it or found it. He’ll have sold it by evening for a drink. “Those I represent have some of the same interests as the Numetodo, Vajiki. We, too, see the world changing, and we want to ensure that we have a place in it.”

“And who is it that you. . represent?” Karl couldn’t avoid the hesitation, nor the faint smile that accompanied it.

“I’m not prepared to reveal that yet.”

“That makes it difficult for me to assess whether this proposed alliance between us would be advantageous.”

“I’m prepared to make it worthwhile to you. What I can offer you now is knowledge. Other than the ca’Ludovici line, which of the ca’

families is most dangerous to you?”

Karl felt the scowl that tightened the muscles of his face. “That doesn’t require any thought at all,” Karl answered. “It’s the ca’Cellibrecca family, with A’Teni Orlandi ca’Cellibrecca the worst among them. No Numetodo is going to forget what he did in Brezno; the skeletons are still gibbeted on the town walls.”

“A’Teni Orlandi’s daughter Francesca, here in Nessantico, holds her vatarh’s beliefs just as strongly,” Mahri said.

“If that’s the knowledge you have to offer, then I’m afraid I have to tell you that we’re well aware of that. I’ve met the woman at the court. She’s made it quite clear where she stands, as has her husband U’Teni Estraven in his admonitions from the High Lectern. Estraven comes from the ca’Seurfoi family, after all, and his vatarh is Commandant of the Garde Brezno-the blood of the Numetodo killed there are on the commandant’s hands as well as those of A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca and Hirzg Jan.”

Mahri was nodding. “Do you know this, Envoy? From what I hear, there’s no love between Estraven and Francesca. Their relationship is simply what it was intended to be-a political marriage: A’Teni

ca’Cellibrecca’s reward to his commandant’s family for long and loyal service. That’s all. But Francesca is in love, Envoy. She is the A’Kralj’s paramour.”

The announcement sent a lightning bolt shock coursing through Karl. If the A’Kralj was indeed making Estraven ca’Cellibrecca a cuck-old, and if the A’Kralj shared Francesca’s beliefs as well as her bed. .

Karl shivered. He could imagine a dozen scenarios of what might happen, and none were pleasant. For the Numetodo, they could each make Brezno seem like a summer’s dance as soon as Justi took the Sun Throne as Kraljiki.

“Cenzi’s balls,” Mika cursed softly, and Karl knew his friend’s thoughts had traveled along the same lines as his own.

“You can prove this?” Karl asked, though his heart knew that Mahri had spoken the truth. He could feel it in the dread that burned in his stomach. He could hear it in the groan of the gibbet’s chains.

“If I do, will I have your ear, Envoy ci’Vliomani? Will you want to talk further with me?”

A glance at Mika. A quick nod. “Yes.”

“Good,” Mahri answered. His hand came from under his clothing again, this time with a scrap of grimy paper on which Karl could see a scribbled address. “Be here tonight, an hour after Third Call. I’ll meet you there. Just you. Alone.”

With that, Mahri turned and began walking back toward the Pontica. He stopped halfway and looked back at them. “What you smell

here is the true odor of the city,” he said. “Without the perfumes and the grand houses, the jewelry and the clothing. This is the city stripped of its pretensions. And we all, eventually, end up like your friend above us.” Mahri pointed, and Karl and Mika followed the gesture to the cage holding Dhaspi’s body.

When they looked down again, Mahri was gone.

Dhosti ca’Millac

Clawed feet clicked on the tiled floor; a hissing, malevolent

breath scented the air with the foul odor of carrion, and the heat from the creature’s body made him sweat. Dhosti’s eyes opened in the darkness.

He could feel the demon creeping closer to him as he lay there, but he couldn’t move. The muscles in his body were locked and frozen. sweat beaded his forehead as he felt the long, taloned hands of the beast clutch at the covers. Then the bed shifted as the thing slowly crawled up the short length of his body.

The creature hissed and burbled and chuckled. Dhosti heard and felt it more than he saw it, but there were two flaring red points of light in the room: the beast’s eyes. The creature climbed over him until it was sitting perched on his chest, as heavy as a chest of lead ingots and growing heavier, pressing down on him until he couldn’t breathe, until his rib cage threatened to burst and the bed’s frame to collapse under the demon’s massive weight. “Cenzi sent me,”

the creature spat as Dhosti struggled to pull air into his lungs. “He sent me to punish you. .”

“Archigos, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca is in the outer chamber. Archigos?”

Dhosti started and blinked. The pressure on his chest eased as the memory of the nightmare faded. His stubby hands were clenched atop the papers on his desk. The bright colors of his invitation to the Gschnas glittered between his fists. He took a breath and unclenched them; the joints ached and protested. “Thank you, Kenne. Give me a few minutes, then send the a’teni in. Oh, and Kenne. . wait long enough to annoy the man, would you?”

Kenne grinned at that. “With much pleasure, Archigos.”

As Kenne closed the door, Dhosti groaned as he stretched and stood up on the stool in front of his chair. His entire body was sore, and flames seemed to shoot from his curved upper spine as he tried to straighten.

The effort barely lifted his chin above his chest. “Once, you could have flung yourself into a double somersault from the desk and landed on your feet.” He shook his head as the thought stirred memories of his days as a performer: the crowds, the applause, the sheer joyful vigor of those moments of seeming flight. “And you didn’t talk to yourself then, either. . ” He stepped carefully down from the stool, supporting himself with a hand on the desk, and took his cane in his hand. He hobbled painfully to the ornate throne on a dais at the other end of the long room. A few hard chairs faced it from the floor. He glanced up at the fractured globe of Cenzi carved in the wooden back of the throne, at the varnished, contorted bodies of the Moitidi clustered around the globe. “Cenzi sent me. He sent me to punish you. .”

“You didn’t have to bother,” he told the memory. “I’m punished enough in this old body. You could at least let me sleep.”

Groaning, he pulled himself up onto the dais and then onto the padded seat. Like his desk chair, the back of the throne had been modified by a local carpenter to accommodate his bowed spine; Dhosti sighed as he sat back in its comfortable embrace. The chair itself had served as the throne for every Archigos for three hundred years now, since the time of Archigos Kalima III. Although there was little of Kalima’s throne left, pieces of the original wood were always incorporated into the throne as it was refurbished or altered for each new Archigos. He sat on long history.

Dhosti found himself nearly dozing again when Kenne’s knock finally came at the door and A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca entered in a swirl of green robes trimmed with intricate arabesques of golden thread.

“Orlandi, please come in and sit,” he said, waving a stunted arm at the seats in front of the throne. “I trust that Kenne has given you something to drink or eat while you were waiting? Kenne, if you’d see that we’re not disturbed. .”

Ca’Cellibrecca grunted a monosyllabic reply as Kenne nodded and closed the door. He clasped his hands on his staff and raised it to his forehead, but his obeisance wasn’t to Dhosti but to the globe of Cenzi above him. “I’ve heard what your new pet o’teni did this morning,”

the man said without preamble as he brought his hands down and the door closed. He sat, the joints of the chair groaning under him. Double chins wobbled as he spoke. Where Dhosti seemed to be shrinking into himself as he aged, ca’Cellibrecca was growing larger. Everything about him was ponderous, his stentorian manner of speaking no less than his girth. “Seems she used the Ilmodo to put a rather large hole in the wall of her vatarh’s house. Given some of the other rumors I’ve heard, I wonder if you haven’t chosen to give your Marque to someone best suited to be a war-teni. Here in Nessantico, she seems to be a wild sword.”

“No one was seriously injured, Orlandi.”

“Not this time. But I understand her vatarh was injured, and the neighbors are understandably terrified. What of next time?”

“There will be no next time. It’s over.”

“Can you guarantee that, Dhosti? Let’s talk frankly here, at least.

When O’Teni cu’Seranta’s matarh suddenly recovers from Southern Fever into full health, I have to wonder whether it was Cenzi’s Will or someone who has ignored the Divolonte.”

“Are you making an accusation, Orlandi? I was there, after all.

Should I call a Council of Examination together so I can give them my witness?”

Ca’Cellibrecca gave the slightest shake of his head; his eyes, already masked under the weight of their eyelids, narrowed to slits. “Not at the moment.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

Dhosti thought he saw the flicker of a smile on ca’Cellibrecca’s lips.

The man’s hands spread wide before coming back to rest in his green-clothed lap. “You know me, Dhosti. I follow the Divolonte. Always.

Strictly. I expect those to whom I attend to do the same.”

“I know,” Dhosti answered quietly. “Your devotion has been quite. . visible.”

Again, the smile came and his eyes widened slightly. “I do what is necessary. As the Archigos should as well.”

“Then perhaps it’s fortunate that the Concord A’Teni named me Archigos and not you.”

The smile vanished. The eyes slitted again. In his lap, the a’teni’s fingers tightened into his palms. “ ‘Tell your enemy that he offends you before you strike, for he may not understand what it is he does,’ ” he quoted.

“I know the quote,” Dhosti said, nodding. He pretended nonchalance, but the tea he’d had this morning burned again in his throat. His spine ached even against the padded throne back, but he knew if he moved, he would groan at the pain it would cause, and he didn’t want ca’Cellibrecca to hear that. He forced himself to remain still. Dhosti knew that he could not afford to make the mistake of underestimating ca’Cellibrecca’s influence among the other a’teni. If the man was going to quote that verse of the Divolonte to him, then Dhosti needed to make certain that he still had the support he believed he had. “Let me finish it for you. ‘. . but if he does not change afterward, then make your blow quick and strong, and don’t hold back your fury.’ It’s come to that? Do I offend you so greatly, Orlandi?”

“It’s not me you offend but the entire Faith, Dhosti. I’ve made no secret of my feelings on that, and I tell it to your face now. Cenzi blessed you and brought you to your position. I’ve seen how well you used to craft the Ilmodo and I know that, at least at one time, Cenzi smiled on you. I’ve even admitted how much I admire your intellect and your skill. But in this time especially, when Concenzia needs to remain with the Toustour and the Divolonte, I see you falling away from those tenets or ignoring them. You’ve become soft, Dhosti.”

“We believe the same things. We simply interpret the Divolonte differently, Orlandi. That’s all. The Toustour is the word of Cenzi and we agree on that; the Divolonte, however, is only a set of laws fallible people have created to interpret the path the Toustour shows us.”

Ca’Cellibrecca’s head was shaking before Dhosti had finished. “No,”

he answered before Dhosti’s voice had even faded. “There are no interpretations of the Divolonte any more than there are of the Toustour. There is only the truth, right there in the words Cenzi has given us. You convinced the Kraljica that she could coddle the Numetodo and even listen to their entreaties when they, in fact, threaten everything we believe in-that was bad enough. And now you allow this protegee of yours to flaunt the Divolonte as well. I tell you, Archigos, that your arrogance is visible and I’m not the only one who sees it. While you have been sitting there doing nothing, there are those within Concenzia who are less patient and more faithful, and we have more power than you think.”

Dhosti again feigned nonchalance. He suspected it fooled neither of them. “What is it that you want me to do?”

“What you should have done all along. The Kraljica listens to you.

Advise her that this tolerance of the Numetodo must stop. Tell her to use the laws that are already in place that she ignores. Stop giving audiences and diplomatic privileges to the delegates the Numetodo sent to Nessantico from Paeti or Graubundi. Send this grotesque ‘Envoy’

ci’Vliomani away, or better yet, toss him in the Bastida. The Numetodo threaten our society and all that we believe, and their presence will tear the Holdings and the Concenzia Faith apart. The Numetodo are a pes-tilence. One doesn’t rid oneself of a swarm of rats by inviting them into your house. You capture them and you eliminate them.”

The man’s words sent a shudder through Dhosti’s contorted body.

“You sound so certain of yourself, Orlandi.”

“I am. As you should be. I pray to Cenzi every day for His guidance. And I’m not alone, Archigos. Talk to A’Teni ca’Xana of Malacki, A’Teni ca’Miccord of Kishkoros, A’Teni ca’Seiffel of Karnmor. Do you want me to keep going, Dhosti? You know I can.”

This is my fault. Dhosti sighed. I was sleeping here too long, and I’ve let this poison fester until it may be too late to stop it. Cenzi, forgive me. I was a poor servant to You. “Then you must do what you must do, Orlandi.

Summon a Council of Examination against me if you can get the votes of enough of the a’teni. That’s also in the Divolonte.”

Orlandi rose from his chair. Again he clasped hands over his staff and lifted it toward the throne. “I’ve done what I needed to do, Archigos. I’ve given you my warning, and I hope you can reflect on it, pray to Cenzi for guidance, and change. I see you leading the Faith to the very precipice, and it’s not only my inclination but my solemn duty to do all and everything I can to change that course.”

“I consider myself adequately warned, A’Teni.”

“Good.” Ca’Cellibrecca began to turn to leave, then hesitated.

“We’ve never been friends, Archigos. Neither one of us would pretend that. But I want you to understand that I only want what is best for Concenzia. That’s my sole concern.”

“As it’s mine,” Dhosti answered.

A nod. Heavily, ca’Cellibrecca made his way to the door and tapped on it with the head of his staff. Kenne opened the doors, glancing sympathetically toward Dhosti as the a’teni passed him. “Can I get you anything, Archigos?”

Dhosti shook his head and Kenne closed the doors again.

“Cenzi sent me. He sent me to punish you. .” He could feel the crush-ing weight of the demon on his chest and he could not take a breath.

“I don’t care. Take me,” he said aloud to Cenzi, to the demon, but the weight was already lifting and he could breathe again.

“Tell me that I’m right,” he said to the air. “Is that too much to ask?”

But there was no answer.

Ana cu’Seranta

“Matarh! I’m so glad you’ve come.”

Abini-her eyes wide as she looked all around her-entered the reception room of Ana’s apartment behind Watha, who nodded to Ana and shut the door again. Ana took her matarh’s hand, led her to the soft brocade of the couch before the fire, and sat beside her. “You’re looking so well, the way I remember you. I’ve missed you so much, Matarh. Do you remember? — while you were sick, I used to come to see you every morning before I had to go to the Old Temple for classes. We prayed together, and I’d talk to you. Do you remember that at all?”

Abini was shaking her head, either in answer to Ana or because of what she saw around her. “Ana, this is all yours. .?”

“Yes,” Ana told her. “The Archigos gave this apartment to me. And it’s yours as well, Matarh, if you ever want to stay here with me.”

That brought Abini’s gaze back to Ana with a quick, sharp movement of her head. “Why?” she asked. “Why would I want to stay here, Ana? Is that why-” She closed her mouth abruptly.

Ana sighed, taking her matarh’s hands again. “What happened yesterday with Vatarh was a mistake, Matarh. I let myself get too angry, and I shouldn’t have.”

“How could you possibly become so angry with your vatarh that you

would use the Ilmodo against him?”

Ana shook her head. She had spent the night restlessly, unable to sleep, wondering what she should say to her matarh. In the end, after much reflection and prayer, she had decided to say nothing. Perhaps Vatarh will change now that Matarh’s well again. Maybe he will be the person I used to love. Perhaps he was right and we should both forget what happened.

The decision still didn’t feel right; it left a burning in her stomach, but to confess. .

Ana took a long breath. “We argued, Matarh. Why doesn’t matter.

Let’s not talk about it. Let’s enjoy our time together, now that we can once again.” Ana rose quickly from the couch, not wanting her matarh to see what was in her face. “I’ll ask Sunna to brew some tea, and she makes wonderful sweet biscuits.”

“Not talk about it? You nearly destroyed our-my-house, Ana, and the gossip from the neighbors-” She stopped again, putting her hands to her lips, and Ana sank down beside her again.

“Matarh, you’ve been sick so long. I was terribly afraid that I was going to lose you.” So much so that I made certain I wouldn’t, even against the rules of the Faith. But that was something she couldn’t say, either.

“Please. You’re better now, and that’s what’s important. We have so much to talk about. Have you started going out yet? I’m certain that I could get you an invitation to the Gschnas: at the Grande Palais, Matarh. Would you like that? The Gschnas at the Palais itself, instead of some old hall filled with ci’ and ce’.”

“Why were you arguing with your vatarh?” Abini persisted. “I heard you, all the way in the garden.”

“Matarh. .” I don’t want to say it. I don’t know how to even begin.

“Tell me.”

Ana looked at her matarh’s face, saw the suspicion in it. She could feel her lower lip trembling, could feel the tears burning in her eyes. Her matarh’s features swam before her, and she wiped angrily at the betrayal of her eyes. “Please, Matarh. .”

“Tell me,” she repeated.

And so she did. Slowly. Haltingly. Feeling the shame and the guilt and the pain all over again. Her matarh sat there, listening, her head shaking more with each word until Abini finally spread her hands wide apart angrily and rose from the couch. “No!” her matarh shouted, the word echoing in the room. “You’re making this up. You’re lying. Your vatarh wouldn’t do that, Ana. Not Tomas. I don’t believe it and I won’t hear it. I won’t. It’s. . it’s evil. Tomas is a good man and he’s done all he could to provide for us, even with everything that Cenzi gave us to bear. How can you be so cruel to make those accusations-do you know the sacrifices Tomas made to get you accepted as an acolyte, to pay for all your instruction so you could wear those green robes and live in this luxury? Where is your gratitude, child? Oh, why did Cenzi bring me back to this. .?”

She began to sob, uncontrollably, and Ana, crying in sympathy and her own pain, went to her, trying to take her matarh in her arms and accomplish with an embrace what she could not do with words. But Abini recoiled, pushing her away with an inarticulate cry and a wild, angry gaze. She ran from the room as Sunna opened the door. The servant watched Abini rush past her and down the hall toward the outer doors.

“O’Teni?”

Ana forced herself to speak through the tears that choked her throat. “Go with her,” she said to Sunna. “Make certain she gets home safely.”

Jan ca’Vorl

“Will he die quickly, Vatarh?” Allesandra asked.

“I don’t know, Allesandra. Probably.”

Alongside Jan, the Hirzgin stirred. “This is not something our daughter needs to see, my Hirzg,” Greta said. One hand rubbed the welling arc of her belly. The Hirzg and Hirzgin, accompanied by several members of the court, stood on a viewing platform erected just outside the tent-palace. Starkkapitan Ahren Ca’Staunton, commander of the Firenzcian army, and U’Teni Semini cu’Kohnle, head of the war-teni, were at Jan’s left hand. Mara stood discreetly to his right on the other side of Greta, just slightly behind the Hirzgin so that she could make eye contact with Jan without Greta noticing, though Jan was certain that their occasional exchanges of smiles didn’t escape the rest of the court.

Below them, in the meadow lined by the army’s tent-city, a soldier, stripped to the waist with his back and chest displaying the bloodied stripes of a flogging, was bound with his arms behind him to a large post. A line of six archers had been placed facing him, an o’offizier to their side; the remainder of the troops stood in silent ranks around the meadow. Markell stood near the post, overseeing the proceedings.

Allesandra’s maidservant Naniaj started forward to take the girl away, but Jan shook his head and raised a finger. The woman stopped in mid-step.

“She’s only eleven. She’s too young,” the Hirzgin insisted again, making Jan scowl. Everything Greta said made him frown. Just the sound of her thin voice or the sight of her plain, long face with its forward-canted ca’Ludovici jaw or the prominent reminder of her fecundity was enough to make him grind his teeth. She knew her duty as wife, and performed it as if it were exactly that-and no more often than she must. The lack of regular intimacy between them hardly bothered Jan, nor did it prevent him from seeking that intimacy elsewhere, as a few bastard children scattered around Firenzcia testified. Perhaps Mara might end up producing another, if the midwife’s potions failed to work. “Please, my Hirzg, let Naniaj take her inside. .”

“Vatarh, if I’m to lead the army one day as Hirzgin, then I need to understand this,” Allesandra pleaded. Jan laughed, a roar of delight and amusement that spread out from him to Mara, to the Starkkapitan and U’Teni cu’Kohnle, then to the other courtiers like the ripples from a stone dropped in a pond. He stroked her hair, pressing her to his side possessively. Only the Hirzgin was frowning. Mara’s gaze twinkled at him over Greta’s shoulder as the Hirzgin glared at him.

“You see, wife,” he said. “The child knows what she must learn. She stays.”

“Hirzg. .” Greta began, but Jan glanced at her sharply.

“I said she will stay,” he repeated, the words sharp and cutting this time. “If you don’t care to witness this yourself in your condition, Hirzgin, it would frankly please us very much if you removed yourself.”

Greta’s mouth closed at that, her teeth clacking together as she turned away from him and waddled away from the platform. Mara gave the barest of nods to Jan, and then moved to follow the Hirzgin with the rest of her whispering, reluctant entourage. He heard Allesandra chuckle once, softly.

Below, the man was firmly lashed to the post, and Markell and the o’offizier with him stepped well back. Markell gestured; the archers placed arrows to bowstrings and drew them back with a creaking of

leather and wood. The bound man moaned. “What did he do, Vatarh?”

Allesandra asked.

“He’s a Numetodo,” Jan told her. “And he was stupidly vocal about his beliefs. Belief in Cenzi and the rewards that await the brave when they die are what sustains our troops, my darling. Without their faith, they will have no hope, and this fool tried to take that away from them with his words. I want them all to see what happens to those without faith.” At Jan’s left side, U’Teni cu’Kohnle nodded sternly in agreement with his words.

“Why are there six archers there, Vatarh? Wouldn’t just one be able to kill him?”

“All six will let loose their arrows at the starkkapitan’s command,”

Jan told her patiently. “That way, each of the archers can believe that it wasn’t their arrow that took the life of a fellow soldier. It helps them-

it’s difficult for a soldier to kill one of their own, even when that person has betrayed them and his oaths.”

Allesandra nodded solemnly at that. “I understand, Vatarh.”

“Hirzg, we’re ready,” Markell called up to Jan.

“Excellent,” Jan said. He stepped forward with Allesandra. He raised his voice, speaking loudly so that the bound man could hear him.

“Would you pray now?” he asked the man, whose head was turned up toward them. His pupils were large, frightened and bloodshot. Blood drooled from his mouth and nostrils. “Would you plead for Cenzi to save you? Would you ask that His hand move through mine?”

The man’s thick tongue slid over bruised lips. Sudden hope filled those desperate eyes. “Yes,” he managed to say, the voice barely audible.

“I do pray, Hirzg. I’m. . so sorry. I was wrong. . I renounce it all. .”

“What do you think, Allesandra?” Jan asked his daughter, who was

pressed to the railing of the platform, standing on tiptoes so that she could look down over the top. She looked up at him.

“I think a person in his position would say whatever they need to say to save themselves, Vatarh,” she answered.

Jan laughed again. “Indeed. They most certainly would.” He called

out to the court, to the soldiers watching. “Did you hear that?” he proclaimed. “Wisdom comes from the young.” He waved to the starkkapitan. “You may proceed, Starkkapitan ca’Staunton,” he said.

The Numetodo moaned and shrieked. He cursed and thrashed uselessly against the ropes holding him. Starkkapitan ca’Staunton gave the sign of Cenzi to Jan, then to U’Teni cu’Kohnle, and stepped forward.

He lifted his arm and the sextet of archers pulled their bows back to full draw, the leather-wrapped wood creaking ominously. His hand dropped as the Numetodo screamed and the bows sang. The Numetodo’s scream was cut off abruptly with the solid, dull stutter of arrowheads impacting flesh.

Jan saw Allesandra stare as the man slumped against the post, six arrows piercing his body, blood running down from the new wounds

to join that of the crusted old ones from his flogging. She stared at the patterns of the blood, at the rounded ball of the man’s head. The man’s mouth yawned open.

The offiziers barked orders to the troops and they began to file away.

Several men hurried forward to cut the executed man down and take away the body. Markell spoke briefly to the group of archers, clapping each of them on the back.

U’Teni cu’Kohnle nodded silently, as if the death of the Numetodo had particularly pleased him.

“I think, Vatarh,” Allesandra said very quietly, as the courtiers chattered excitedly around and behind Jan, “that all the soldiers and the court will remember this very well. I know I will.” He looked down at her, and the expression on her face was what he’d hoped to see. There was a pleased contemplation there, her head nodding faintly as if in satisfaction at a well-accomplished task. “I don’t think they will listen to the Numetodo anymore, Vatarh. They’ll only listen to you. . and to A’Teni Orlandi, too.”

He snorted at that, and U’Teni cu’Kohnle glanced over to them before he went to join Starkkapitan ca’Staunton. Jan had not let his daughter witness A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca’s reprisals against the Numetodo in Brezno, but she’d known about them, peppering him and the others with insistent questions. And, like the rest of them, she had seen the bodies gibbeted on the walls afterward; there had been no way to prevent that. “Yes. I think it will have that effect.”

“When A’Teni Orlandi is Archigos, will you divorce Matarh?”

“You wouldn’t want me to take your matarh away from you, would you?”

Allesandra seemed to ignore the question. Her gaze left him, looking down once again at the soldiers disposing of the mess on the grounds. The courtiers had moved politely away from the conversation, pretending that they weren’t trying to listen as they engaged in their own conversations. “I like Mara, Vatarh. She’s very nice to me, better than Matarh is, but you won’t marry her, will you, Vatarh? I think you should marry someone more important, who will help you get what you want.”

“And what would you know of Mara?” he asked her.

She gave him a look of exaggerated scorn, her mouth pursed, her

head shaking so that the soft curls around her cheeks swayed. “I’m eleven and I’m not stupid, Vatarh. And I don’t have to pretend I don’t see things, like Matarh does.”

Jan hugged her to him, and her arms clasped around his waist. He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, my dear. You’ll be a fine Hirzgin when the time comes.”

She turned her face up to smile at him. “I know,” she said. “You will teach me, Vatarh, and I’ll learn everything from you. You’ll see.”

He kissed her again.

“I’m looking forward to going to Nessantico for the Kraljica’s Jubilee, Vatarh,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to see Nessantico.”

Jan smiled at that. “Oh, we’ll be going there, Allesandra,” he answered. “Soon enough.”

Ana cu’Seranta

“Your problem, Ana, is that your abilities make you too visible.”

“I’m sorry, Archigos.”

The dwarf chuckled. “I didn’t say that to reprimand you. Simply being with me makes you visible, also, and doing what I ask you to do also makes you visible. Most often, it’s not possible for a person to hide their power. You shouldn’t hide it. I’m telling you this so that you know: those people who are against me or against the Kraljica will perceive you in the same light they cast on me. You need to be aware of that fact, and prepare for it.”

“I. . I think I understand, Archigos.”

In truth, she wasn’t entirely certain what he was warning her against.

They were in a teni-driven closed coach, traveling toward the Pontica a’Brezi Veste and the Grande Palais on the Isle A’Kralji, the coach’s springs complaining metallically as they bounced over the cobbles on the bridge’s approach. The Archigos sat on velvet cushions across from her; she huddled against the side of the coach. The last few days had not gone well: the incident with her vatarh, then the visit with her matarh, which had left her emotionally drained. Her servants Beida, Sunna, and Watha had all been solicitous and comforting, but she also suspected that everything that was said or done in her apartments was being reported back to the Archigos. As if he’d overheard her thoughts, the Archigos took a long breath through his nose and smiled at her.

“Your matarh. . She understood what you told her?”

“No,” Ana answered. “She doesn’t want to believe me.”

“Give her time,” the Archigos said. “She heard what you said, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. She’ll be thinking it over and she’ll be asking questions of those around her; she may already realize it’s true.

She’ll listen. She’ll believe. In time.”

The Archigos’ figure swam in Ana’s suddenly-starting tears, and she turned her head away from him, pretending to look out the window of the carriage. She heard the rustle of cloth, then felt the dwarf’s hand touch hers. She drew her hand back with a hiss, and his withdrew. Neither of them said anything else for the duration of the trip.

Renard escorted them to the Kraljica’s inner apartments rather than to the Hall of the Sun Throne, passing through the knotted clusters of courtiers and supplicants. Ana could feel their appraising glances on her even as they bowed and brought clenched hands to their foreheads, but they were quickly past them as Renard conducted them down a long hall to where a duo of servants waited to open the doors for them.

The Kraljica was in the outer chamber, holding up a cloth draped over a canvas set on an easel. She let the cloth drop as they entered and Renard announced them. “How well has ci’Recroix captured you,

Kraljica?” the Archigos asked. “May we see?”

“No.” The refusal came perhaps too loudly and quickly, and the Kraljica frowned. “I’m sorry, Dhosti. That sounded harsh. It’s just that ci’Recroix doesn’t want anyone looking at the painting yet. It’s not done.

But I figure that since it’s me he’s portraying, I have some privileges.”

“Of course you do, Marguerite,” the Archigos answered. Ana saw that his glance went to the jars of paints, oils, and pigments on the table near the canvas, the jar of brushes and the smell in the room, and then to a large painting of a peasant family hung over the massive fireplace in the room. Ana found herself startled, looking at the painting: it was as if she were staring through a window into a cottage room. The figures seemed nearly alive, so vivid that she expected them to breathe and talk. “I thought ci’Recroix was painting you in the Hall.”

“I haven’t been feeling well lately, I’m afraid, and so he’s been working in here.” The Kraljica walked across the room toward the fire crackling in the hearth, and Ana saw the slow caution in her steps, the way her body stooped visibly, and the heaviness with which she leaned on the filigreed, silver-chased ebony cane she carried-not the way she’d appeared even a few days ago. She had shriveled, she was collapsing in on herself. She coughed, and the cough was full of liquid. Her face was pale, the skin of her arms so translucent that Ana could see the tracery of veins underneath. She seemed to have aged suddenly, the years she had held back so well for so long crashing down on her. Her voice trembled. The Kraljica stared up at the painting over the hearth, standing before the fire as if she were absorbing its heat. “I’ll be fine by the Gschnas. You’re coming, of course?” she said to the Archigos, turning with evident reluctance away from her examination of the painting.

“And you, Ana? Have you been to the Gschnas Ball before?”

“Never to the one here in the palace, Kraljica,” Ana told her.

“We’ve always gone to one of the other halls when we’ve gone at all.

Once, though, four years ago, the A’Kralj made an appearance where my family was celebrating. I remember that.”

“I should introduce the two of you,” the Kraljica said. She cocked her head in Ana’s direction. “In fact, I’ll make certain of it.”

“Don’t go making plans for her, Kraljica,” the Archigos said. “Ana’s still getting used to being one of the teni. I chose her for the Faith and I don’t want you planning to steal her from me for your own purposes.”

The Kraljica sniffed at that as Ana felt her cheeks redden. “I’ll do what’s best for the Holdings, no matter what you might say.” Again, she glanced at Ana. “Dhosti, let’s talk. Ana will wait here; Renard, you’ll get her whatever she’d like. This business with Hirzg ca’Vorl is troubling me. I wish I were more certain of his intentions. . ”

With a final glance at the painting on the wall, Marguerite shuffled away from the fire toward a set of doors on the far wall. Ana caught a glimpse of another room beyond, with velveted red wallpaper, heavy sconces, and heavier furniture. The Archigos lifted a shoulder to Ana and followed.

“O’Teni?” Ana turned at Renard’s voice. He seemed nearly as old as the Kraljica, and the years seemed to have sucked him as dry as a length of smoked meat. He picked up a chair sitting next to the painter’s jar-littered desk and placed it between the hearth and the doors through which the Archigos and the Kraljica had vanished. “You’ll be most comfortable if you sit exactly there,” he said, with an odd emphasis in his voice. The chair he’d taken looked neither particularly comfortable nor well-placed; it certainly was less appealing than the cushioned, padded leather chair set before the fire. “Please sit here, O’Teni cu’Seranta,” he said again. “I’ll bring you tea and something to eat.” With that, he gave her the sign of Cenzi accompanied by a slight bow and left the room.

Ana hesitated. She glanced from the painting on the wall, where the family seemed to stare back at her, to the draped canvas. The painting, she knew, must be one of ci’Recroix’s, and that made her all the more tempted to lift the cover from the portrait of the Kraljica, to see what was there.

Ana touched the drapery, letting the paint-stained folds move between her fingers, but remembering the Kraljica’s admonition, she didn’t lift it. Instead, she went to the chair Renard had placed against the wall, and realized immediately why he’d placed it there. Through the wall, she could hear the voices from the room beyond, faint and muffled, but understandable if she remained still and quiet.

“What’s all this about ca’Cellibrecca?” the Kraljica was saying. “I expect you to take care of your own house, Dhosti. I’ve enough trouble with my own concerns with the damned Hirzg. I don’t need to worry about Concenzia as well.”

“I think both issues are intertwined,” the Archigos answered. “As A’Teni of Brezno, Ca’Cellibrecca speaks to Firenzcia, and I know that he has had ongoing communications with the Hirzg. One of my contacts in the ca’Cellibrecca’s staff at Ile Verte was able to see one of those communiques and send a partial copy to me-the letter was in code. I have people working on deciphering it, but the very fact that ca’Cellibrecca would see a necessity for such subterfuge speaks volumes. Marguerite, I believe that A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca and the Hirzg have already formed an alliance. I know what ca’Cellibrecca wants-what he did in Brezno had the cooperation of the Hirzg, and he makes no apology for it. As to the Hirzg and why he would ally with ca’Cellibrecca, well, you know what the Hirzg might desire.”

Ana could almost hear the Kraljica’s frown. “I’m afraid you’re right, Dhosti. Greta. . the Hirzgin. . tells me that much of Firenzcia’s army is ‘on maneuvers’ south of Brezno near the River Clario, and the Hirzg has called down most of the divisions that were stationed on the Tennshah border. Still, the maneuvers are scheduled to end in a handful of days-the Hirzgin assures me that she is confident that despite the Hirzg’s statements, she and Hirzg Jan will be in Nessantico for the final week of the Jubilee. She says she is insisting on it. That’s why the maneuvers were set near the Clario-so they could travel down the river afterward.”

“Convenient,” the Archigos said. “For river travel, or to send the army into Nessantico.”

“You don’t really think. .?” There was silence for a few moments, then Ana heard the Kraljica’s voice again. “Perhaps you’re simply too suspicious, Dhosti. The Holdings have always depended on Firenzcia’s troops as necessary support for the Garde Civile and the chevarittai, and we expect the Hirzg to keep them in readiness. And before you start lecturing me again, I know my history. Hirzg Falwin’s Insurrection was long ago, and only the Hirzg’s own personal division took part in that; the bulk of the Firenzcian troops remained loyal to Kraljiki Henri and refused to fight for the Hirzg. It would be no different now; I don’t think the troops would fight against the Garde Civile, nor do I believe that the Hirzg’s war-teni would obey ca’Cellibrecca’s orders over yours.”

There was a long pause before the Archigos responded. “I hope you’re right. Marguerite, I’ve learned that the same go-between ca’Cellibrecca employed with Hirzg ca’Vorl has also met with your son.

And-you’ve often told me to speak frankly in private with you, and so I hope you forgive me-the A’Kralj has made no secret of his own attitude toward the Numetodo. And he’s becoming increasingly impatient to sit on the Sun Throne.”

Ana heard the Kraljica’s intake of breath, like an angry teakettle, but it was interrupted as Renard knocked on the door of the outer chamber, and he and two servants entered to place tea and and cakes and tarts on the table near the fire. “Your chair is. . comfortable?”

Renard asked Ana, with a faint smile.

“Perfectly,” Ana told him. “And well-placed.”

“I thought it might be.” The man’s rheum-glazed eyes flicked over to the draped portrait of the Kraljica as if he were checking to see if the covering had been disturbed. He evidently realized she’d seen his attention. “I worry about the Kraljica,” he said. “This painter demands too much of her time, and she’s not been well since he started his work.

Yet she indulges him. .” He stopped, brushing imaginary lint from his sleeves. “But that doesn’t concern you, and I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Have some tea, O’Teni. And the cakes are delicious.”

Renard clapped his hands, and the servants finished placing the trays and vanished. Renard gave Ana another bow and followed them.

Ana hadn’t eaten since before Second Call: her stomach rumbled at the sight of the desserts and the tea smelled delicious, and the draped painting still beckoned to her, but she didn’t move, not wanting to miss the conversation in the next room.

“. . you know,” the Kraljica was saying. “My son will do as I tell him to do.”

“While you’re alive, he will.” Ana’s eyes widened with the Archigos’ blunt statement.

“You go too far, Dhosti.” Annoyance sharpened the words.

“To the contrary, Marguerite. Look at me. Any day, Cenzi could call me to Him. That’s simply reality. Ana-she’s the future, as is A’Kralj Justi.” Ana sat up in the chair at the mention of her name, pressing her head back against the wall. “You and I. . We’re the present, ready to become the past all too soon. We both have been perhaps too comfortable in our positions for the last many years, and we both have enemies who are willing to rush Cenzi’s call.”

“Three decades, Dhosti. It’s been thirty years and more since the last time the Garde Civile had to fight more than a border skirmish or a minor uprising.”

“And that’s your legacy as the Genera a’Pace, and the sobriquet is well-deserved. People will call this time the Age of Marguerite, and future generations will always look back on it with longing. But the time is short for your age. Not even you can defy Cenzi and time.”

“Justi could continue it.” The Archigos said nothing. The silence loomed like a thunderhead. “He can,” the Kraljica said at last. “He will.”

“I hope so, Kraljica. I sincerely pray that you’re right.”

“And your new protegee?” the Kraljica said. “At least Justi was brought up to be Kraljiki. He’s been groomed for it for decades. That one’s just a pup, unproven and inexperienced. And potentially dangerous, from what I hear. You think she can continue your legacy, Dhosti?”

“I don’t know,” Ana heard the Archigos answer. She could feel her stomach burning, and the heat in her face. “I’d hoped that I’d have time to find out for certain.”

“She’ll break like an untempered sword.”

“She might. Or not.”

Ana heard footsteps in the room, and she lurched upright guiltily and stood in front of the fireplace as if she’d been there all along studying ci’Recroix’s painting. The door remained closed. The rustic mother in the painting above the mantel smiled sadly at her. Ana could see the imperfections in her face, the pockmarks on her cheeks, the lines that besieged the corners of her mouth, the smudge of soot on her forehead.

Ana forced herself to look away from the painting. She glanced at the door to the other room, which remained closed. She walked slowly toward the canvas on its easel. Again, she touched the cloth and this time let her fingers close around the folds.

She lifted it.

And nearly dropped it again.

She was staring into the Kraljica’s face and the woman was gazing back. The painting was obviously unfinished, but already it was startling. The face, in particular, seemed perfectly three-dimensional and rounded, so realistic in its portrayal that Ana felt herself reaching forward with an index finger to touch the surface of the canvas.

With the touch, she dropped the covering with a gasp.

In the instant her fingertip grazed the canvas, she thought she’d

felt warmth like that of a living face, and she would have sworn that she heard a voice, a distant call just on the edge of recognition. But all the sensations were gone as swiftly as they had come. Ana took several steps back from the painting, cradling her hand to her green robes and staring at the telltale hint of pigment on her forefinger.

The door opened, and the Archigos and Kraljica emerged. “. . understand each other,” the Kraljica was saying. The paint is still drying; that’s why it was warm. And I heard the Kraljica’s voice as they approached the door. . Ana smiled at them: as if she’d been waiting patiently, as if she’d overheard nothing they’d said.

“Renard’s brought some refreshments,” she said to them. “Would either of you care for tea?”

Karl ci’Vliomani

“Hsst! Here-quickly!”

Karl had come to the address on the note Mahri had given him-a street that was barely more than an alleyway in the snarled

depths of Oldtown. Only a few people were about, none of them near him. Mahri’s voice came from a shadowed archway. His hand beckoned from the slit of the door. Karl moved toward the door, and it opened wide enough to allow him entry before closing again.

He could smell the beggar as his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness: mildew, soiled clothing, rotting teeth. Then he heard the click of the door shutting, and light flooded the room. Mahri spoke a word that Karl did not understand, and light streamed from Mahri’s hand: in his cupped palm, a glass orb gleamed with light so bright that Karl shielded his eyes. The light itself was intense, but it illuminated only a globe around them; the rest of the room was dark, and the light-impossibly-cast no shadows. In the harsh, bluish illumination Karl could see Mahri’s face, the torn, ravaged, and scarred landscape that the cowl usually masked. He took a step backward, away from Mahri and outside the globe of light, and night returned, shot through with afterimages of remembered glare. The effect was startling. He couldn’t see Mahri at all, nor the globe of light. They were. . gone.

He stepped forward again to where Mahri had been standing. . and sunlight dawned once more, caught in Mahri’s hand.

Karl shook his head, stunned. The quickness of the spell didn’t startle him; that was a Numetodo trick, after all, one that the teni couldn’t match with their slow chants. But the spell itself. . “That’s. . Well, that’s truly marvelous, Mahri. You’re a teni, then, or were once?”

Mahri laughed at that, a dry and strangled chuckling. “No. Not a teni.”

Karl frowned. “A Numetodo? If so, then-”

Mahri interrupted Karl before he could finish the statement. “Could you do this, Envoy, you or any Numetodo you know?”

“No,” Karl admitted. “My own skills are. . more limited. I’ve still much to learn before I would claim to have mastered the Scath Cumhacht. But I’ve known a few who, back in Paeti. .” He stopped. “No, I don’t think they could have done that, either.”

Mahri nodded. “I’m not Numetodo. But let us say that I have sympathy for your cause. And one doesn’t master the Ilmodo or the Scath Cumhacht or whatever you wish to call it. It always, in the end, masters you.” From outside, there was the sound of carriage wheels and hooves on cobblestones. Mahri tightened his fingers around the globe, and the light it cast dimmed appreciably. “Follow me,” Mahri told Karl. “Stay close to me or you’ll lose the light-the stairs are steep and narrow.”

Staying close to the man’s back, Karl shuffled behind Mahri to an archway, then along a short corridor. The interior of the building was shabby and rundown, with walls broken and rat-holed. He heard the slithering of the creatures in the walls as they passed. At the end of the corridor was a staircase, as steep and narrow as Mahri had advertised; they ascended, then turned into a room directly above the one he’d entered on the ground floor. A feral cat streaked along the wall and out a window as they came in. Mahri extinguished the light entirely, thrusting the globe somewhere in his tattered robes. “Come here, Envoy,” he said.

In the dim light from the quartered moon, Karl could see Mahri beckoning to him from alongside a window with the shutters half-open.

A chair was set just to one side, where someone could watch the street but not be noticed. Karl went to the window and glanced down. A covered, four-person carriage had stopped on the street below at the house next to theirs. Two lanterns mounted on the sides pooled light on the street. The driver had dismounted from his seat and gone to the carriage doors. “Vajica Francesca ca’Cellibrecca-you would know her face?” Karl nodded. “Then watch. You’ll only have a moment.”

The driver opened the carriage doors, and Karl leaned forward, squinting into the night. “That’s not her,” he said as the driver helped down a woman, plainly dressed, and thinner and decidedly shorter than Vajica ca’Cellibrecca, but the woman immediately turned back to the carriage, and he realized she was a servant. Another woman, with an ornate feathered hat and a fur draped around her shoulders, took the driver’s hand and descended from the carriage. As she reached the street and the two women began to hurry toward the door of the house next door, she lifted her face up to the buildings and the dim light of the carriage lamps slid over her features.

“Yes. That’s the Vajica,” Karl said.

“I know,” Mahri answered. “Now get comfortable and wait a bit.

The A’Kralj will come.”

Karl watched the women enter the house as the carriage that had brought them drove off again, then turned back toward the beggar.

“How soon. .” he began, then realized that he was talking to no one.

Mahri wasn’t in the room.

“Mahri?” There was no answer. Karl sighed, sat in the chair by the window and waited.

There was little to watch. The lane, off the main streets, had little traffic, locals walking from their apartments to unknown destinations or appointments, or returning with a sack of greens or a long loaf of bread. Very occasionally, a hired carriage would pass, but none stopped.

He could smell woodsmoke nearby and heard the whistle of an utilino shrilling alarm and saw a wan glow on the bottoms of the clouds from a few blocks away. He hoped the fire-teni were close by to put out the blaze-Oldtown feared fire more than anything. Some time later, the glow subsided; maybe half a turn of the glass, maybe more: the fire-teni had arrived and snuffed out the blaze. Karl was nearly ready to give up his vigil when he saw a man dressed in a dark cloak hurrying down the street. Something about the man’s gait and bearing struck him; when the man stopped across from the house, he pushed the cowl back from his head. There was no mistaking the thrusting chin nor the fine features of his face-Karl had seen them in paintings and glimpsed them a few times at public ceremonies in the city: it was the A’Kralj. Karl leaned forward to watch him go to the door of the house. He didn’t knock-the door opened as he approached and he went in.

“They meet three times a week.” Karl jumped at the sound of Mahri’s voice, turning to see the man standing a bare stride from him. “Always the same days, always the same time, always for the same length of time. The A’Kralj has his matarh’s habit of punctuality and ritual. One might suspect that the A’Kralj performs the same acts in the same way each time as well. Nessantico runs on routine, after all.”

“You might warn a person before you sneak up on them.”

“And spoil the mystery?” Karl thought a grim smile creased Mahri’s scarred, distorted mouth, but it might have been a trick of the shadows.

“If I were you, I’d be wondering what Nessantico might be like if A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca became Archigos and the A’Kralj was suddenly Kraljiki Justi III.”

“I don’t have to wonder,” Karl told him. He rose from the chair.

“You should. There are worse options.”

“Such as?”

“What if it weren’t Kraljiki Justi who ruled Nessantico, but someone who had once been Hirzg? Brezno is ca’Cellibrecca’s seat of power, after all.”

“Then why would ca’Cellibrecca’s daughter be tying herself to the A’Kralj?”

“An intelligent man makes plans for every possible scenario. Whatever you may think of A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca, don’t make the mistake of thinking him or Hirzg Jan stupid.”

“And your plans, Mahri? What might they be?” Karl glanced out of the window toward the street again, empty now except for an utilino strolling south toward Oldtown Center. “I’ll grant that you’re more than you seem and I won’t make the mistake of mocking you again. But I still don’t know what you have to offer me-or what I might offer you.

I’m here representing what’s at best a loose coalition of minor kinglets whose lands are smaller than some of the Kraljica’s personal estates, all huddled just outside the Holding’s current borders. I don’t control an army; I don’t even have much influence on those to whom I report. I’m a minor dignitary who hasn’t yet managed to steal even a moment of the Kraljica’s time despite persistent efforts and-I must say-some substantial bribes.”

“You’ve neglected to mention that you sit at the top of a network of Numetodo here in the city and throughout the Holdings. You control Mika ce’Gilan, who in turn is part of the top cell here in the city. I’ve been watching him for some time now. The unfortunate ce’Coeni was just a member of one of the lower cells-the one you know as Boli’s cell, wasn’t it-though I’m certain that he wasn’t acting on your orders.”

His training allowed Karl to show nothing to Mahri of what he was thinking. How does he know all this? I have to tell Mika that we have a bad leak in our organization. . “You’re constructing a conspiracy by the Numetodo where there’s nothing, Mahri,” Karl said. “I’m sure Commandant ca’Rudka would be impressed by your analysis, but I’m not. We Numetodo can’t even agree on what we believe ourselves,

much less cooperate well enough to organize. We have people who still have some lingering belief in Cenzi, however different from the Concenzia; we have those who worship some of the Moitidi in various forms; we have others who believe that there may be no gods at all, that everything in the world can be explained without the need for a god’s intervention. We’d like the freedom to search for our own truths without being persecuted by the Concenzia Faith or the Kraljica’s minions. We’re not a threat to the Holdings or Concenzia as long as they’re not a threat to us. Beyond that, I don’t care who rules the Holdings. That’s all I’m here to ask for, and I’m just what I appear to be. Nothing more.”

“So am I,” Mahri answered blandly. “As much as you.”

Karl decided to ignore that. “If the A’Kralj worries you, then why not kill him? You know where he is and from what I’ve seen, you’d have no problem getting to him. Get rid of the man.”

“Death doesn’t kill beliefs,” Mahri said. “It only gives those beliefs more strength. A philosophy is not a person-if it’s a truly vital way of thinking, the death of its founder only feeds its growth. That’s the mistake ca’Cellibrecca and Hirzg Jan would make. It would be a shame if the Numetodo did the same.”

“Then what kills a belief, if not the death of those who believe?”

Mahri didn’t answer. Under the shadowed cowl, the man’s single eye stared back at Karl. “Ah, that is the question, isn’t it?”