Varina ca’Pallo
SHE KNEW SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS, knew that
Sergei would be irritated when he found out—and she knew he would
find out. She just hoped it would be afterward, when it was too
late.
One of the gardai
assigned to watch her at Sergei’s request had let slip the address
of the house in the Oldtown district raided by the Garde Kralji.
She made certain that her errands the next day took her past that
house, and she called out to the carriage driver to halt. The garda
(who was not the one who had given her the address) looked
concerned when she opened the carriage door and descended. “Vajica
ca’Pallo, I don’t advise . . .”
“Then don’t,” she
told him, interrupting him. The raising of his eyebrows at the
rebuke might have pleased someone else; it only made Varina feel
guilty, but she continued, trying to soften her tone. “I only want
to see this place where the Morellis lived. Just a glimpse; you can
come with me if you must.”
“The Commandant will
have my neck for this.”
“I’ll tell the
Commandant I gave you no choice.”
The garda looked
unconvinced, but he preceded Varina to the door of the house. She
allowed him to enter first. She thought she could feel eyes
watching them, staring at her from somewhere. Without trying to
hide the motion, she took a small box from under her cloak:
finely-crafted, carved from oak, and varnished to perfection, a
master’s work. She placed the box on the sill of the window nearest
the door, feeling the cold chill of the Scáth Cumhacht clinging to
the wood. Then, quickly, she followed the garda into the
house.
She spent little time
there, since she’d already done what she’d come to do. Still, she
tried to imagine Nico here, tried to imagine his voice and his
presence in the rooms, or sleeping in one of the beds. There were
religious icons of the Faith everywhere in the house, and someone
with a fair artistic hand had painted the cracked globe of Cénzi on
the side wall of one of the bedrooms, while from the opposite wall
leered the demonic forms of the demigod Moitidi, misshapen and
twisted parodies of humanity. Varina shivered, looked at them,
wondering how someone could stand to sleep here, with their
leering, grinning expressions and clawed hands. Even the garda
shook his head, looking at them. “They have a strange view of the
Faith, these Morellis,” he said. His fingers were curled around the
pommel of his sword, as if he was afraid that one of the painted
figures might leap out at him. “They say that Archigos Karrol has
some sympathy for them, though I swear I don’t understand
it.”
“I don’t either,”
Varina told him. “I can’t imagine the Nico I knew . . .” She
stopped. “I’m ready to go,” she told him.
“Good,” the garda
answered, too quickly. “That painting makes the hairs stand on the
back of my neck. It’s an ugly thing.”
They left quickly,
the garda closing the door behind them. Varina kept herself
carefully between the man and the windowsill where the box sat,
making sure that he wouldn’t see it. The carriage’s driver was on
her staff; he would say nothing.
The garda opened the
carriage door for her; she stepped in as the garda closed the door
behind her and pulled himself up to sit next to the driver. The
small hatch above her head lifted and she saw the driver’s face
looking down at her. “To the house,” she told him; he nodded and
let the hatch close again. The carriage lurched into
motion.
Varina looked out as
they drove off. She could see the box on the windowsill, the
varnish on the golden wood gleaming in the afternoon
sun.
“The Kraljica and
Ambassador ca’Rudka would be terrifically disappointed in you.”
They were the first words he said to her, smiling as he
spoke.
In her mind, Nico had
to some extent remained the child she’d known. Yes, she knew the
boy had grown into manhood in the intervening fifteen years. She’d
followed his career when he’d suddenly reemerged so unexpectedly as
a rising téni in the Archigos’ Temple in Brezno, an acolyte whose
skills with the Ilmodo, whose charisma and power of personality
impressed all who met him. She—as well as Karl—had tried to reach
out to him then: through letters, and when those went unanswered,
through Sergei via his frequent travels to Brezno. Sergei had
managed to talk to him there, but Nico had made it obvious that he
had no interest in contacting either Karl or Varina. “He said
this,” Sergei told them on his return. “‘Tell the two heretics that
they are anathema to me. They mock Cénzi, and therefore they mock
me. Tell them that when they see the errors of their beliefs, then
perhaps we might have something to say to each other. Until then,
they are dead to me, as dead as if they were already in their
graves with their souls writhing with the torment of the soul
shredders.’ And he laughed then,” Sergei continued. “As if he found
the thought amusing.”
Despite the
disappointment, Varina had continued to follow his career. She had
been worried when he and his followers had directly challenged the
authority of the Archigos and Nico had been defrocked as a téni and
forbidden to use the Ilmodo ever again on pain of the loss of his
hands and tongue.
Then Nico had left
Brezno, wandering for a time and continuing to preach his harsh
interpretation of the Toustour and the Divolonté—the sacred texts
of the Concénzia Faith—until he had finally come to Nessantico. Now
he stood in front of her, and she could still see the boy’s round
face that she remembered in the thin, ascetic, and bearded visage
in front of her, with his smoldering, burning gaze.
“The Kraljica and Ambassador ca’Rudka would be
terrifically disappointed in you.” All those years, all that
time, and this was how he began. She could feel the heavy weight of
the sparkwheel in the pouch on her belt.
“Why would they be
disappointed?” she asked. She gestured around at the Oldtown tavern
in which they were sitting. Around them, the patrons were talking
among themselves and drinking. A group of musicians were tuning
their instruments in a corner. The noise lent them privacy in their
booth. Nico sat across from her, his hands folded together on the
scratched and rough wooden surface of the table between them,
almost as if he were praying. He wore black, making his pale face
seem almost spectral in comparison, even with the dim lighting of
the tavern and the single candle on the table. “Because there
aren’t any gardai here to try to trap you?” she said to him. “Do
you think I hate you that much, Nico? I don’t. I don’t hate you at
all. Neither did Karl.”
“Then why the
elaborate setup?” he asked. “Leaving an enchanted box . . . I have
to admit that was clever and certainly got my attention, though my
friend Ancel didn’t heed the warning not to open it. He told me
that he thought his hands were going to blister, the wood became so
hot.” Nico shook his head, tsking as if
scolding a child. “You really should be more careful with the gift
Cénzi has given you, Varina.”
She took a long
breath. “You killed people, Nico. My
friends and my peers. Karl was already dead; you couldn’t hurt him
anymore. But the others—they were people, with husbands and wives and children. And
you took their lives.”
“Ah. That.” He
frowned momentarily. “It says in the Toustour that ‘. . . if they
fight you, then slay them; such is the reward of the unbelievers.
Fight with them until there is no persecution, and the only
religion is that of Cénzi.’ I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused the
families of those who died. I truly am, and I’ve prayed to Cénzi
for them.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, and nascent tears
shimmered at the bottom of his eyes. He closed his eyes then, his
head tilting upward as if he were listening to an unseen voice from
above. Then his chin came down again, and when his eyes opened,
they were dust-dry. “But am I sorry that a few Numetodo have gone
on to be judged by Cénzi for their heresy? No, I’m
not.”
“The Toustour also
says ‘. . .O humankind! We created you and made you into nations
and tribes that you may know each other, not that ye may despise
each other.’ ”
Nico’s mouth twisted
in a vestige of a smile. “I wouldn’t expect a Numetodo to quote
from a text in which she doesn’t believe.”
“I believe—like any
Numetodo—that knowledge is what will ultimately lead to
understanding. That includes knowing those who consider you to be
an enemy, and knowing what they believe and why they believe it.
I’ve read the Toustour, all of it, and the Divolonté as well, and
I’ve had long and interesting talks with Archigos Ana, Archigos
Kenne, and A’Téni ca’Paim.”
“You’ve read the
Toustour, but you’ve evidently failed to see the truth in
it.”
“Anyone can write a
book. I’m a Numetodo. I need evidence. I need incontrovertible
proof. I need to see hypotheses tested and the results reproduced.
Then I can allow myself to believe.” Varina sighed. “But neither
one of us is going to convince the other, are we?”
“No.” He spread his
hands, palm up, on the table. “Though I must admit that you
Numetodo can occasionally be useful: the Tehuantin black sand, for
instance. It’s rather ironic, if you reflect on it: had I and my
people been permitted to use the Ilmodo, then I wouldn’t have
needed to use black sand and your friends would likely still be
alive. The Ilmodo, at least, can be a precise weapon.”
Varina flushed at
that, and her hand caressed the stock of the cocked and loaded
sparkwheel in her belt-pouch.
“So why am I here,
Varina,” he continued, “if you’re not planning to hand me over to
the Garde Kralji and have me thrown into the Bastida?”
“I wanted to see you
again, Nico,” she told him. Her finger curled around the metal
guard of the trigger. “I wanted to hear you.” The cold metal tongue
on her finger warmed quickly at her touch. “Because I needed to
know . . .” Just a tightening of a muscle.
That’s all it would take.
“. . . if I’m the
monster that the Faith makes me out to be?” he finished for her.
It would be so easy: under the table,
slip the sparkwheel out and point the open metal tube toward Nico;
pull the trigger mechanism to spin the wheel and set the sparks
aflame to touch the black sand in the enclosed pan. A single breath
later, and . . . The holes in the armor; what
would this do to an unprotected body? “No one thinks of
himself as a monster,” Nico was saying. “Other people may deem what
a person does as evil, but they think
that they are doing what they must do to correct the wrongs they
perceive. I’m no different. No, I’m not a monster.” He gave her a
smile, and his face and eyes lit up in a way that reminded her of
the old Nico, the child. “Neither are you, Varina. No matter what
you might be thinking of doing to me.”
Her finger uncurled.
She brought her hand out from the pouch. “Nico . . .”
“Varina,” he said
before she could gather her chaotic thoughts, “you tried to do what
you thought best for me during the Sack of Nessantico. I appreciate
that, and I will be forever grateful to you for your efforts, even
if you don’t realize that you were following the will of Cénzi.
When I pray to Cénzi, I ask Him for forgiveness for both you and
Karl. I pray that He will lift the blindness from your eyes so that
you may see His glory and come to Him. But . . .” He slid from the
booth and stood alongside her. His hand touched her shoulder once
and slid away. His eyes were full of a quiet sadness. “We are on
opposite sides in this. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. There can
be no reconciliation for us, I’m afraid. For what you did, I will
always love you. Because you, too, are Cénzi’s creation, I will
always love you. And because of the path you’ve chosen, I must
always be your enemy.” His sadness on his face deepened. “And it’s
far easier to hate an enemy you don’t know than the one you do. So
good-bye, Varina.”
He gave her, without
any apparent irony, the sign of Cénzi and turned his back to
her. The mad dog . . . You could take care of
it now. She clenched her right hand into a fist; she tried
to hear Karl’s voice, but there was nothing. Nico began to walk
away slowly.
Now, or it will be too late . . .
Varina sat unmoving
in her seat, staring at the black cloth of his back as he made his
way through the tavern patrons to the door.
Nico opened the door
and left. From somewhere in the street, she heard the barking of a
dog. It seemed to mock her.