Varina ca’Pallo
“.
. . AND IF WHAT HE’S SAYING IS TRUE, then I worry about the
Holdings in general.” Talbot shook his head as he, the mage
Johannes, and Varina walked along the Avi a’Parete. They were
walking from the Numetodo House on the South Bank—near what was
still called the Archigos’ Temple, even though no Archigos had
resided there since the unfortunate Kennis—toward one of the
fashionable restaurants near the Pontica a’Brezi Veste. The street
had been cleaned vigorously, but Varina could still see ash drifts
along the gutters, and the cobblestones had a vaguely gray
appearance.
Johannes was shaking
his head. “I don’t know of any magic that could cause a volcano to
spontaneously erupt, and if they can do that, then . . .” He seemed to shudder. He pulled
his cloak tighter around him. He glanced at Varina, bushy white
eyebrows like thunderheads over his dark, hidden eyes. “You know
the Tehuantin capabilities better than any of us,” he said. “You’re
being awfully quiet, A’Morce, and that’s making me
uneasy.”
Varina favored him
with a wan smile. “I don’t have better information than either of
you,” she said. “Maybe it was simply coincidence, or maybe the
man’s mistaken about what he saw.”
Talbot shook his
head. “Not all of it. We’ve had other fast-riders coming in who
have also seen the Tehuantin fleet. They’re definitely out there
and heading toward the A’Sele by all indications. I thought I
should tell you, A’Morce, since anything that happens could end up
affecting the Numetodo also. The general populace will know in a
day or two—this can’t be kept silent . . .”
His voice trailed
off. Varina, who had been walking with her head down—as she nearly
always did now, since her balance was sometimes as unstable as
someone two decades older—glanced up. They had passed the long
northward turn of the Avi, passing a short segment of the original
city wall of Nessantico as they approached the Bastida. To their
left, several small streets led off to the poorer area of South
Bank. A knot of several young men had come out from one of the
lanes onto the Avi, directly in front of them. They spread out in a
ragged line, blocking their path even though there was more than
ample room in the Avi.
“Move aside,” Talbot
said to the nearest of them. “Unless you want more trouble than you
can handle. You don’t know who you’re accosting.”
“Oh?” the man
replied. “It’s nearly Third Call, Vajiki. Shouldn’t you be on your
way to Temple? But no, I would have remembered seeing the
Kraljica’s aide at Temple, or the dead Ambassador’s wife, or this
owl-faced trained monkey you have with you.” He laughed at that,
the others joining in. Varina felt her stomach muscles contract at
the sound: this was deliberate. They knew who they were
confronting.
“Don’t make a mistake
here,” Varina said to them, looking from one to another, trying to
see in any of their faces reluctance or fear. She saw neither. She
glanced around for an utilino, for a garda, for anyone who might
help, but the eyes of the other people strolling the Avi seemed to
be elsewhere. If anyone noticed the confrontation, they ignored it.
She had to wonder if that, too, was deliberate.
“Mistake?” the same
young man said. He had pox scars mottling his cheeks, and he was
missing one of his front teeth. “There’s no mistake. Nico Morel
said there would be a sign—and the sign came, as he said it would.
But you don’t believe in Cénzi and His signs, do you? You don’t
believe that Cénzi speaks through the Absolute One.”
“This isn’t a
discussion to have here, Vajiki,” Varina told him. “I would love to
discuss it with Nico in person. Tell him that. Tell him that I will
meet with him whenever and wherever he wants. But for now—let us
pass.”
The pox-cratered man
chuckled, the sound echoed by his companions. “I don’t think so,”
he said. “I think it’s time that the Numetodo were given a
lesson.”
As the Morelli spoke,
Varina saw his companions sliding around to surround them. “Don’t
do this,” Varina said. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
In answer, the
pock-faced man brought a cudgel from under his cloak. Raising his
hand, he struck at Varina. The stick caught her on the side of the
head, knocking her to the pavement before she could even bring her
hands up to protect herself. She managed to get her hands up before
she hit the cobblestones; the stones scraped and bloodied her
palms, but still the impact knocked the breath from her. She felt
something (a foot?) strike her side, and she felt more than saw the
flash of a spell as Johannes shouted a release word. Talbot was
casting a spell also, and so were others. She could taste the ash
that her fall had kicked up. Blood was running into Varina’s eyes
(had she cut her forehead also, or had the cudgel done that?) She
tried to push herself up. Everything was confused, and her head was
pounding so hard she could barely remember the release words for
the spells that she—like most Numetodo—had prepared for defense.
Something had dug hard into her side when she’d gone down: the
sparkwheel she carried under her cloak. Blinking away the blood,
caught in the tumult of the scuffle, she grabbed for
it.
Another spell flashed
and Varina smelled the ozone of the discharge as someone—one of the
Morellis?—screamed in response. There were more spells going off;
at least one of the Morellis must have been téni-trained, she
realized. Somewhere distantly, someone was shouting and she heard
the shrill of an utilino’s whistle.
Her own breath was
the loudest thing in the world.
She had the
sparkwheel out now. She cocked the hammer and rubbed at her eyes
with her free hand. She saw the pocked-cheek man to her left, his
cudgel up and about to come down on Johannes.
“No!” she shouted,
and at the same time, her finger convulsed on the
trigger.
The report was
shrill, the sound echoing from the remnants of the city wall and
rebounding, fainter, from the buildings up the Avi; the
sparkwheel’s recoil tore her hand up and back, and at the same
time, the pocked-face man grunted and fell, the cudgel flying from
his hand as an invisible spear seemed to rip flesh, bone, and blood
from his face. “Back away!” Varina shouted from her knees to those
closest to her. Blinking, she brandished the now-useless
sparkwheel, which was trailing smoke and the strange, astringent
odor of black sand.
The command was
unnecessary. With the weapon’s firing and the sudden, violent death
of their leader, the others dropped their weapons and fled. Varina
felt Talbot’s arms under her, lifting her up. There were people
coming toward them, among them an utilino. “Can you stand, A’Morce?
Johannes, she’s been hurt . . .”
“I’m fine,” she told
them. She wiped at the blood again. There were three people laying
on the Avi. One of them was groaning and struggling; the other two
were eerily still. There was no doubt as to the fate of the
pock-cheeked man. Varina turned her gaze quickly away from him. She
was still holding the sparkwheel. Talbot noticed it; standing close
to her so that the utilino and the others coming toward them could
not see, he put it back under her cloak. “Better not to let anyone
know,” he whispered. “Let them think we used magic.”
She was too confused,
too hurt to argue. Her head was throbbing, and she kept wanting to
look at the mangled face of the man she’d killed. “Talbot . . .”
she said, but the world was lurching around her, and she could not
stand.
That was the last she
remembered for a time.
