Nico Morel
THE CROWD BEGAN TO GATHER well before First Call, as
if the day were one of the High Days where attendance at temple was
required of all the Faithful. In the cold hours before dawn, they
came to the plaza outside the Old Temple on the Isle a’Kralji: a
few hands of people at first, milling near the temple entrance,
then small groups of others. They were young and old, many of
them—from the tattered and worn appearance of their dress and the
state of their hair and teeth—the ce’-and-ci’ or even the unranked
dregs of Oldtown, though there were a few better-dressed folk
scattered among them, and the occasional green flash of
téni-robes.
They gathered as the
eastern sky began to turn pale mist-gray and then a tentative
orange. By the time the sky beyond the black silhouette of
cu’Brunelli’s famous dome had gone to golden hues and the téni
responsible for sounding the wind-horns had clambered up the long
stairs to their station, gaping in surprise at the crowded,
shadowed plaza far below, the crowd had grown to a few
hundred.
That was when Nico
arrived, huddled in the midst of his close Morelli companions.
Liana held to him as if she were afraid she might lose him in the
crush, her arm around his waist—she had insisted on coming, even
though Nico had urged her to remain behind. He knew that by now
someone must have alerted A’Téni ca’Paim about the odd gathering
outside the temple, but none of the higher téni appeared to be
watching from the doors or windows of the OldTemple. In fact,
except for the gathering of the Morellis and their sympathizers,
everything seemed strangely, almost eerily quiet. Those of the
Faith who were coming into the plaza for the regular First Call
service stopped, puzzled at the gathering and uncertain whether
they should continue forward or not.
Nico grinned. Cénzi
had told him it would be like this. He had prayed; he had spent
turn after turn of the glass on his knees asking for insight before
he had met with those of the Faith who believed in him, and finally
the vision had come: Cénzi had told Nico that they would be
betrayed, that a confession would be wrung from one of them too
weak to resist, that the Garde Kralji and A’Téni ca’Paim would know
what had been planned.
And that knowledge
was enough. It was enough.
Liana pressed close
to Nico, and now Ancel also approached him. “We’re ready?” Nico
asked, and Ancel nodded, tight-lipped. He could feel their
trepidation as they walked out into the square: twenty or so of his
disciples—those closest to Nico, those who had been with him since
the early days in Brezno when the Faith had first embraced, then
rejected him. Around them, a buzz of excitement was growing as
people recognized him. Nico could hear the whispers: “Look, it’s
the Absolute . . . It’s him . . .” Then the chant began to rise:
“Nico! Nico! Nico!” It was a pulse, a
beat, a rhythm. Even the wind-horns, beginning their mournful
announcement of First Call could not drown out that call.
“Nico! Nico! Nico!” It pounded against
the walls of the Old Temple and rebounded from the gilded dome,
spearing into the dawn sky.
As if summoned by the
call, the Garde Kralji appeared, emerging from the temple and from
the buildings attached to it, squads appearing at the street
entrances, surrounding the crowds: the gardai in their uniforms,
their pikes ready; the utilino, with their cudgels
and—undoubtedly—spells prepared to control the crowd. Those of the
Faithful who had come for the service realized that something
violent was about to happen—most of them scrambled through the
lines of the gardai and away. Commandant cu’Ingres and A’Téni
ca’Paim appeared at the balcony above the main doors of the temple:
at cu’Ingres’ gesture, an aide sounded a trumpet, shrill and high
above the continuing drone of the wind-horns, while two gardai on
the balcony waved signal flags.
The Garde Kralji
began to advance, closing the circle around the Morellis. Nico
nodded to one of the téni with them: the woman gestured and
chanted, and light burst high over the plaza, sending long shadows
scurrying over the stone flags and over the people there. The
gardai and utilino paused. Even the wind-horns’ moaning sagged and
failed.
From around the
plaza, outside the ring of the Garde Kralji, several people now
emerged from the street entrances or the buildings, most of them
green-robed: téni of the Faith, yes, but téni who knew Nico for
what he was: Cénzi’s prophet, Cénzi’s Absolute. Many of them were
war-téni, the war-téni who had vanished at the time of A’Teni
ca’Paim’s call to join Commandant ca’Talin and the Garde Civile to
defend Villembouchure. Nico could see—above the columned entrance
to the temple—A’Téni ca’Paim pointing and gesturing to Commandant
cu’Ingres as she realized what was happening. Cu’Ingres turned
desperately to his aides, and the trumpet sounded a new, frenzied
call as the signal flags waved frantically.
They were too late.
The war-téni of the Morellis had already begun their chants, and
now they gestured. Fire and smoke bloomed in the dawn light, arcing
up and then falling into the ranks of the gardai, exploding as if
the wrath of Cénzi Himself was falling on the wretched Moitidi who
had disobeyed Him. There were screams and shouts from everywhere
around the plaza as gelatinous flame fell among the gardai,
clinging to their clothes and skin as it burned: téni-fire of the
worst kind. The Garde Kralji normally dealt with crowd control and
small groups; unlike the Garde Civile, they were unused to
large-scale organized battles, and now their ranks fell apart
entirely as they scrambled for safety away from the flames. “Now!”
Nico shouted, and again the téni sent a spear of white light to
explode above the plaza. “To the temple!” Nico shouted, and his
voice was louder than the screams, louder than the trumpet, louder
than than the wind-horns. His voice echoed like booming thunder
from the buildings around the plaza. “We will take back what
belongs to the true Faithful!”
His disciples surged
forward toward the main gates, and the others who had come at his
summons moved with them. The gardai at the temple entrance lowered
their pikes, but the attackers were too many: the crowd slipped
past them or struck down their weapons. The gates were wrenched
open with a metallic shriek. Inside, Nico could glimpse the
gilded-and-frescoed walls; the ornately-carved columns bearing the
immense weight of the arched, distant roof; the rows and rows of
burnished pews; the brazier burning with the scent of strong
incense; the massive, impossible dome, painted with the images of
Cénzi struggling with the Moitidi, the quire and High Lectern far
underneath, seemingly tiny against the massive space. Nico breathed
it in—this holy space, this reverent palais built to honor Cénzi
which not even the heathen fire of the Westlanders could entirely
destroy.
This place was
sacred. This place was history incarnate, and here he would begin
to make his own history.
His disciples had
moved aside, none of them entering yet. The crowd stood at his
back. Out in the plaza, the soldiers writhed in pain or lay dead or
had fled.
Nico took a step.
Another. He crossed the threshold of the place he had been
forbidden to enter again as téni, and as he did so, he let his
cloak slide from his shoulders to the ground, revealing the green
robes of a téni underneath.
He would take back
his title and his rights. He would be téni again, as Cénzi had told
him to be.
The interior of the
temple seemed brighter than the dawn outside, the flames of the
braziers around the sides of the space sending heat and light
shimmering up the fluted walls and gleaming in the polished marble
of the floor. He stood ensconced in gold and warm browns, breathing
an air spiced and fragrant and achingly familiar. He lifted his
head looking up to the dome far above at the end of the long
aisle.
There were people
moving there, scurrying under the beauty of the fresco like mice: a
group of téni, with the green-trimmed golden robes of A’Téni
ca’Paim just behind them, Commandant cu’Ingres at her side and
gardai spreading out along the walls to either side. Nico could
hear someone behind him—Liana, he thought—beginning a chant, and he
held up a hand.
“Hold!” he said.
“There is no danger here for the Faithful. There’s no danger here
for me.” With the temple’s fine, legendary acoustics, he could hear
his words whispering to the farthest corners.
“How dare you!” The words sliced harsh and bitter
through the temple. A’Téni ca’Paim stepped forward on the raised
steps of the quire, standing next to the prow of the High Lectern
as if she were about to ascend and give a stern Admonition to the
assembled Morellis. “How dare you step into the temple wearing the
robes that were taken from you by the Archigos himself? How dare
you come into this holy place after you’ve just murdered dozens
outside? You are damned in the sight of
Cénzi, Nico Morel, and I will have your tongue and your hands for
this outrage!”
“My tongue and
hands?” Nico responded. His voice sounded deep and rich after the
shrill, breathless outcry of the older woman. “My tongue speaks the
words of Cénzi Himself, A’Téni, and my hands hold His affection.
They are not yours to have. They will never be yours.” He advanced
down the aisle toward her, still talking. He could see the gardai
along the walls, armed with bows, and he saw them fit arrows to
their strings. He smiled. “I have listened to Him,” Nico said, “and
He has told me that the time has come for me to reclaim my place,
and that if you, A’Téni, or Archigos Karrol himself, will not see
the truth of what I say, then He will cause you to curse your
blindness and wail as the soul shredders tear your imperfect souls
from your bodies.”
“You threaten me?” ca’Paim sputtered. “Here in my own
temple, in front of Commandant cu’Ingres and my staff? You’re a
fool as well as a heretic.”
“I don’t threaten,”
Nico told her, still walking forward. He could hear the creaking of
leather bowstrings under tension. His voice was calm. His voice was
kind. His voice held a full measure of sympathy and understanding.
“I give you a last chance, A’Téni, a chance to see the error of
your thinking, to go to your knees and give the sign of Cénzi and
ask Him for forgiveness.”
Nico thought for a
moment that she had heard Cénzi in his voice, that she—finally,
belatedly—understood. A’Téni ca’Paim said nothing. She stood there,
her mouth open, and Nico saw her body trembling as if she were
possessed of a fever. Her face lifted for a moment to cu’Brunelli’s
dome above her, to the images painted there. Under the heavy,
gold-threaded robes, her legs seemed to give way, to bend, and Nico
thought that she would go to her knees
there.
But the trembling
ceased, and she stood straight again. “No,” she said aloud. “I will
not.”
Nico sighed sadly.
“I’m genuinely sorry for that,” he said. He lifted his hands. He
began to chant.
“No!” ca’Paim, and
this time it was a shout. “You are forbidden to use the Ilmodo. Stop him!” she said to
cu’Ingres, and the Commandant gestured. Bowstrings sang their
deathsong, and Nico heard Liana cry out in fear.
But it was already
too late. Nico gestured, full of Cénzi’s power, and the arrows went
to fire and ash before they could touch him. A wave—visible in the
air—rippled outward from him in a great arc to the front and sides,
and what it touched, it destroyed. Pews lifted and were hurled as
if by a hurricane wind, slamming against walls and gardai alike.
The plaster on the walls cracked, the fire in the braziers guttered
and nearly failed.
And on the quire, the
téni attendants, A’Téni ca’Paim, and Commandant cu’Ingres were also
tossed and thrown. Nico saw ca’Paim’s body hit first the railing at
the back of the quire, breaking it into splinters, then a
sickening, dull clunk as her head
collided with one of the columns. Her body slumped to the floor;
blood smeared all the way down the column.
The spell passed,
vanishing as if it had never been there, and Nico shivered for a
moment in the cold and normal exhaustion of spell-casting. The
interior of the temple was silent except for the moaning of injured
gardai and téni. Cu’Ingres was trying to regain his feet, though
from the way he cradled his left arm, it must have been broken.
Ca’Paim did not move at all, and Nico knew then that she never
would, nor would several of the gardai and téni. His eyesight
wavered with tears: such a tragic, but necessary, waste . . . “May
the soul shredders be kind to you,” he whispered toward ca’Paim’s
body. “I forgive you your blindness.”
Liana came up to
stand alongside him, her arms supporting him as the weariness of
using the Ilmodo this strongly trembled his legs, and he could hear
the others entering as well. Nico looked at Ancel and pointed to
the Commandant. “Take him,” he said, “and bind his wounds. Have the
healers among us look at him and the others.” He spat directions to
the others. “Liana, make certain that the main doors are barricaded
and barred. Tell our people to use whatever they can. You, and
you—clear the plaza of our Faithful and get the the war-téni
inside. You three—secure the rest of the doors into the temple once
everyone’s inside. Everyone else, let’s clean up this place and
make it a fit House for Cénzi again . . .”
He watched as his
followers began to move. Then Nico sank to his knees and clasped
his hands to his forehead in the sign of Cénzi, and he
prayed.
The first step back
had been taken. Now would come the rest of the
journey.
