A Magic of Nightfall (8 page)

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Authors: S. L. Farrell

BOOK: A Magic of Nightfall
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She wanted to cry at the news, in sadness for someone who had treated her well and fairly when there had been no compulsion for her to do so. But she could not. Not here. Not in front of people who hated the woman. Here, she had to pretend.
Later. Later I can mourn her properly. . . .
“I expected somewhat more reaction from you, Sister,” Fynn said. “After all, that abomination of a woman and the one-legged pretender kept you captive. Vatarh cursed whenever anyone spoke her name; said she was no better than a witch.”
Fynn was watching her, and they both knew what he was leaving out of his comment: that Hïrzg Jan could have ransomed her at any time during those years, that had he done so it was likely that the golden band would be on her head, not Fynn’s.
“You won’t be here half a year,” Ana had told Allesandra in those first months. “Kraljiki Justi has set a fair ransom, and your vatarh will pay it. Soon . . .”
But, for whatever reasons, Hïrzg Jan had not.
Allesandra made her face a mask.
You won’t cry. You won’t let them see the grief.
It wasn’t difficult; it was what she did often enough, and it served her well most of the time. She knew what the ca’-and-cu’ called her behind her back:
the Stone Bitch
. “Ana ca’Seranta’s death is important. I appreciate Archigos Semini bringing us the news, and we should—we must—decide what it means for Firenzcia,” she said, “but we won’t know the full implications for weeks yet. And right now Vatarh is waiting for us. I suggest we see to him first.”
 
The Tombs of the Hïrzgai were catacombs below Brezno Palais, not the lower levels of the newer private estate outside the city known as Stag Fall, built in Hïrzg Karin’s time. A long, wide stairway led down to the Tombs, a crust of niter coating the sweating walls and growing like white pustules on the faces in the murals painted there two centuries before and restored a dozen times since: the damp always won over pigments. A chill, nearly fetid air rose from below, as if warning them that the realm of the dead was approaching. The torches alight in their sconces held back the darkness but rendered the shadows of the occasional side passage blacker and more mysterious in contrast. A dozen generations of the Hïrzgai awaited them below, with their various spouses and many of their direct offspring. Allesandra’s older brother Toma had been interred here when Allesandra was but a baby, and her matarh Greta had lain alongside him for nineteen years now. In time, Allesandra herself might join her family, though an eternity spent next to Matarh Greta was not a pleasant thought.
The procession moved in stately silence down the staircase: in front the e’téni with lanterns lit by green téni-fire, then Hïrzg Fynn accompanied by Archigos Semini and Francesca, and Allesandra and Jan a few steps behind them, followed by a final group of servants and e’téni. As they approached the intricately-carved entranceway to the tombs, decorated with bas-reliefs of the historical accomplishments of the Hïrzgai, Allesandra could hear whisperings and the rustling of cloth and an occasional cough or sneeze: the ca’-and-cu’ who had been invited to witness the ceremony. These were the elite of Firenzcia, most of them relatives of Fynn and Allesandra: families who were intertwined and intermarried with their own, or those who had served for decades with Hïrzg Jan.
Torchlight and téni light together slid over the coiled bodies of fantastic creatures carved on the walls, the stern features of carved Hïrzgai and the broken bodies of enemies at their feet. The Chevarittai of the Red Lancers came to attention, their lances (the blades masked in scarlet cloth) clashing against polished dress armor. The other ca’-and-cu’ bowed low and the whispers faded to silence as the new Hïrzg entered the large chamber. Allesandra could see their glances slide from Fynn to her, and to Jan as well. Jan noticed the attention; she felt him stiffen at her side with an intake of breath. She nodded to them—the slightest movement of her head, the faintest hint of a smile.
Look at her, as cold as this chamber . . .
It was what they would be thinking, some of them.
She’s no doubt pleased to see old Jan dead after he left her with the Kraljiki and the false Archigos for so long. She probably wishes Fynn were there with him so she could be the Hïrzgin.
None of them knew her. None of them knew what her true thoughts were. For that matter, she wasn’t entirely certain she knew them herself. She was still reeling from the news about Ana, and if she showed signs of grief, it was for her, not her vatarh.
The casket containing the remains of Hïrzg Jan sat near the entrance to his interment chamber, next to the huge round stone that would seal off the niche. The coffin was draped in a tapestry cloth that depicted his victory over the T’Sha at Lake Cresci. There was nothing celebrating Passe a’Fiume or Jan’s bold, foolish attack on Nessantico a decade before: those days when Allesandra had ridden with him, when she’d watched her vatarh adoringly, when he’d promised to give her the city of Nessantico.
Instead, Nessantico had snatched her from him and given Fynn the place at her vatarh’s right hand.
Fynn saluted the lancers, who relaxed their stances. “I would like to thank everyone for being here,” he said. “I know Vatarh is looking down from the arms of Cénzi, appreciating this tribute to him. And I also know that he would forgive us for not lingering here when warm fires and food await us above.” Fynn received quiet laughter at that, and he smiled. “Archigos, if you would . . .”
Semini moved quickly forward with the téni and gave his blessing over the casket. He motioned Allesandra and Jan forward as the téni began to chant the benediction. They went to the casket, bowed, then placed their hands on the tapestry. “I wish you’d had more chance to know him,” she whispered to Jan as the téni chanted, putting her hand atop his. “He wasn’t always as angry and brusque as he was in his later years.”
“You’ve told me that,” he said. “Several times. But it’s still not the memory of him I’ll take with me, is it?” She glanced at her son; he was frowning down at the casket.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she told him.
“I’ve no doubt about it, Matarh.”
Allesandra suppressed the retort she might have made; she would say nothing here. People were already glancing at them curiously, wondering what secrets they might be whispering and at the sharp edge in her son’s voice. She lifted her hand and stepped back, allowing Fynn to approach.
She wondered what her brother thought as he stood there, his hand on the casket and his head bowed.
After a few minutes, Fynn also stepped away. He nodded to the lancers; four of them came forward to take the casket. Their faces were somber as they lifted the coffin and slid it forward into the niche that awaited it. Stone grated on wood, the sound echoing. The four stepped back, and another quartet put their shoulders to the sealing stone, which groaned and resisted as it turned slowly. The massive wheel of rock advanced along a groove carved in the floor toward the deep cut into which it would settle and rest. The stone was carved with the glyphs of Old Firenzcian, a language spoken only by scholars now, as thick as a man’s arm, and standing half again a man’s height. As the great wheel reached the end of the groove and dropped into the cut where it was supposed to rest, there came a tremendous cracking sound. A fissure shot through its carved face and the top third of the stone toppled. Allesandra knew she must have screamed a warning, but it was over before any of them could move or react. The mass of the stone crushed one of the lancers entirely underneath it and smashed the legs of another as it fell to the ground.
The pinned lancer’s screams were piercing and shrill as thick blood ran from underneath the stone.
This is a sign . . .
She couldn’t stop the thought—as the remainder of the lancers rushed forward, as ca’-and-cu’, téni, and servants hurried to help or stared frozen in horror at the rear of the chamber. Jan was among those trying desperately to lift the burial stone, and Fynn was shouting useless orders into the chaos.
Vatarh did this. Somehow he did this. He does not rest easily. . . .
Enéas cu’Kinnear
H
E WAS GOING to die here in the Hellins.
That feeling of an awful destiny washed over Enéas as he stood with the Holdings forces on the crest of a hill not far outside Munereo, as they watched the strangely-shaped banners of the Westlanders approaching from the direction of Lake Malik, as he heard the war-téni begin chanting in preparation for battle. A’Offizier Meric ca’Matin was with him, as well as the other offiziers of the battalion and several pages ready to run messages between the companies. The cornets and flags were set to relay orders. A hundred strides down the slope, the ranks of the Holdings army were arrayed, restless and nervous.
Enéas had been in a half dozen battles and countless skirmishes and confrontations in the last several years. This sense of impending doom was something he’d never felt before. He could feel sweat rolling down his face under the thick iron helmet, and it was not just the sun that caused the perspiration. He wanted to shout denial to the sky, but he could not. Not here. Not in front of his troops. Instead, he bowed his head and he prayed.
Oh, Great Cénzi, why do You send this premonition to me? What are You saying to me?
Enéas was an o’offizier with the Garde Civile of the Holdings. His commander in the field, A’Offizier ca’Matin, had told him only yesterday that he had put in the recommendation that Enéas be made Chevaritt, that the document was already on its way across the Strettosei to Nessantico. His vatarh would be proud—twenty-five years ago, Enéas’ vatarh had served with the Regent ca’Rudka at Passe a’Fiume and been badly burned, losing both an arm and an eye during that horrible siege. The Garde Civile had given him the citation and the pension he was due, and though their family had been raised from ce’Kinnear to ci’Kinnear as a result, his vatarh had always talked about how he could have become one of the chevarittai if he hadn’t been injured, how those aspirations had been taken from him by the Firenzcian téni-fire that had disfigured him and ended his career.
Enéas had never wanted to be either chevaritt or offizier. He would have preferred that his career path was that of a téni in the Concénzia Faith rather than the one he’d found in the Garde Civile. He’d felt the calling of Cénzi ever since he’d been a young boy; indeed, he’d petitioned his parents to send him to the temple as an acolyte. But his vatarh had insisted on the martial road.
“We’re just ci’, my son, and barely that,”
he’d said.
“Our family doesn’t have the solas to send you to the téni. That’s for the ca’-and-cu’ who can afford it. You’ll join the Garde, as I did. You’ll do as I did. . . .”
Enéas had done better than his vatarh. “Falsoténi,” his men dubbed him for his piousness, for his strict attention to the rules of the Divolonté, for his insistence that the men under his command attend the rites at the Munereo Temple on the proper Days of Observance. But they also claimed that Cénzi Himself protected Enéas—and through Enéas, themselves. In the Battle of the Mounds near Lake Malik, as an e’offizier in his second real battle, he’d been the only surviving offizier of his company as they were ripped apart by a far superior Westlander force. He’d managed to surprise the Westlanders by feigning retreat, then marching the remnants of his troops through marshland to attack the enemy from a flank unprotected by their nahualli—the terrifying spellcasters of the Westlanders, the ones who called the Ilmodo the
X’in Ka
.
Heretics, they were. False téni worshiping false gods. The thought of the nahualli enraged Enéas.
Enéas had managed to inflict severe losses on the Westlander flank and to hold the ground until reinforcements arrived. As a reward for his actions, he’d been promoted to o’offizier; a few months later, after the Campaign of the Deep Fens, A’Offizer ca’Matin had told him the Gardes a’Liste had raised their family to cu’.
When his tour was over a year from now, after his return to Nessantico, Enéas had promised Cénzi that he would resign from the Garde Civile and offer himself for training as téni, even though he would be much older than the usual acolytes. He was certain that this was what Cénzi wanted of him.
The Hellins War had been good for Enéas, though not for the Holdings.
At least, it had been so until this shadow came. This chill in his spine.
It’s not a premonition. It’s just fear. . . .
He’d felt fear before. Every soldier felt fear unless he were an utter fool, but it had never touched him like this. Fear rattled the bones in your flesh; fear made the blood sing in your ears. Fear turned your bowels to foul brown water. Fear set your weapon to shaking in your hand. But Enéas didn’t tremble, his stomach was settled, and the tip of his sword didn’t waver in his grasp.
This wasn’t fear—or not any kind he’d experienced before. That worried him most of all.
What is that you send me, Cénzi? Tell me, so that I may serve You as you wish. . . .
“O’Offizier cu’Kinnear!” A’Offizier ca’Matin barked, and Enéas shook his head to dispel the thoughts. He saluted his superior offizier, who was already astride his destrier. “I need you to drive your men into their right flank; push them into the valley for the war-téni to handle. We shouldn’t have their nahualli to worry about; the outriders have said they’re still back near the Tecuhtli at Lake Malik. Understood?”

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