A Magic of Dawn

Varina ca’Pallo

The day of the funeral was appropriately gloomy. Heavy, slumbering clouds sagged low in a leaden sky, flailing at Nessantico with occasional spatters of chilling rain. The ceremony in the Old Temple had been interminable, with various dignitaries spouting eulogies praising Karl. Even the Kraljica had stood up and delivered a speech. Varina had heard little of it, honestly. All their lovely, ornate phrases had run together into meaningless noise.

She sat in the first pew with Sergei and the Kraljica surrounding her, and she stared at the bier on which Karl’s body lay. She felt dead herself, inside. All the oiled and polished words of admiration might as well have been spoken in some foreign language. They did not touch her. She stared at Karl’s body. He looked wrong, as if the corpse was some poor waxen sculpture laying there. Perhaps Karl was standing elsewhere in the temple, laughing at what was being said about him. Sergei leaned over toward her at one point and whispered something into her ear. She didn’t hear him; she just nodded and he eventually leaned away again.

There was a mourning mask on her lap: a white, expressionless face of thin porcelain, the closed lips too red, the open eyeholes shimmed with wisps of black fabric, a black lace veil glued to the top and draped over the front. The mask was mounted on a long stick so she could fold her hands on her lap and still have the mask cover her face if she felt the need to be private. The mask seemed too much effort to lift, and it seemed wholly inadequate to cover her grief.

The murals of the newly-rebuilt Great Dome of cu’Brunelli had been draped with silken curtains: all the images of Cenzi and the Moitidi hidden because a Numetodo-a heretic, a horrible unbeliever-lay beneath them. She realized that without really seeing it. The sacred vessels and embroidered cloths had been removed from the altar on the quire, even the bas-reliefs carved on the thick buttresses had been veiled.

She should have been amused, noting that. Karl would have been, certainly. She was amused, somewhere distantly. She felt as if “Varina” were somewhere outside, observing this dull, wooden simulacrum of herself.

Varina realized that the people were standing around her, that several of the Numetodo had moved to their positions alongside the bier. The plan was for the bier to move in procession through the streets around the Old Temple to the outer courtyard of the Kraljica’s Palais, where the pyre awaited the body. It was a relatively short distance of about two and a half blocks in the Isle a’Kralji-far, far shorter than the grand processions for Kraljica Marguerite or Kraljiki Justi, which had followed nearly the entire circle of Avi a’Parete around the city.

Nessantico was still careful about celebrating the Numetodo too much.

She would watch his body be consumed by the flames, and afterward

Varina didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to contemplate the rest of the day, returning to the Ambassador’s residence on the South Bank where Karl’s ghost would haunt every corner and every memory, where she would constantly be reminded of the loss she had suffered.

She would never sleep next to him again. She would never hold him again. Never talk to him. She felt emptied of everything important, felt dead herself. Someone could cut off her hands or drive a knife into her heart and she would feel nothing.

Nothing.

She was standing with the others. She realized that belatedly, wondering whether she had risen herself or whether someone had helped her up. She didn’t remember. She blinked, heavily. The bier with Karl’s body, resting with hands folded atop his fine white bashta and the green sash of Paeti, was passing her; she shuffled out directly behind it with the others following. Sergei remained at her side, his silver-tipped cane tapping on the flags, his silver-tipped face gazing sternly forward; Kraljica Allesandra and A’Teni ca’Paim were directly behind them, then the various ca’and-’cu’ of the city, the diplomatic representatives living in Nessantico, and finally those of the Numetodo.

The doors of the Old Temple were pushed open. Even under the dreary sky, the light made Varina narrow her eyes. She could taste rain in the air, and the flags of the plaza were damp. The curious had come out as well: they crowded behind the ranks of Garde Kralji and utilino who were keeping a wide corridor open for the invited mourners to pass through. Varina could feel their stares on her, and she lifted the mourning mask to her face, closing out the world.

The carriages were there, waiting, along with the flatbedded funeral wagon drawn by three white horses in a four-horse harness, the left front space glaringly vacant. Behind the funeral wagon were two of the Kraljiki’s carriages drawn by black horses, one carriage for Varina and Sergei, who would ride with her; the other for the Kraljica Allesandra. A’Teni ca’Paim’s carriage was next, without horses, only a driver-teni in white mourning robes sitting on the seat, ready to turn the wheels with the power of the Ilmodo. The remainder of the mourners would walk behind-those who wished to follow the procession to the pyre. Many would not, Varina knew-they had already been seen, which was primarily why they were here: so the Kraljica and A’Teni ca’Paim noticed their faces and knew they had performed their social duty and paid their respects.

A servant opened the gilded door of the carriage for her and proffered a hand to help her up. She felt the suspension dip under her weight, then dip again as she settled into the plush leather seat and Sergei put his weight on the step and ducked to enter. She let the mourning mask fall back into her lap. He smiled gently at her as he settled into the seat with a groan while the attendant closed and latched the door.

“How are you doing, my dear?” he asked. He groaned again as he shifted position on the seat. She heard his knee crack as he flexed it.

For a moment, she heard nothing but nonsense syllables. It took her a breath to process the question and have it make sense. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m glad you’re here with me. Karl… Karl would have appreciated it.”

He leaned forward and touched her knee with a thin hand momentarily-the gesture of a confidant. Shadows slid over his silver nose, around the much-wrinkled face. “He was a good friend to me, Varina. Both of you have been. The two of you literally saved my life, and I will never forget that. Never.”

She nodded. “That debt, one way or another, was paid and repaid between you and Karl. You needn’t worry.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Sergei answered, and she pondered that remark before letting it waft away like the rest. Unimportant. The carriage lurched, one of the horses snorting, and they began to move. She could hear the steel-rimmed wheels clattering on the uneven paving stones of Old Temple Court. She sat silently, neither looking at Sergei nor at the view outside, but inside her own head, where Karl’s face still lived. She wondered if she would begin to forget the familiar lines, the crinkled smile, and his eyes. She wondered if he would fade, and one day when she tried to conjure up his face she’d be unable to do so.

She heard voices outside the carriage, but she paid them no attention. Sergei, however, had straightened in his seat across from her and moved the curtains aside with a hand, his silver nose pressed against the wavy glass there. Past him, she could see the lines of onlookers beyond the gardai, and beyond them…

A huge person had appeared: a giant dressed in green, his head larger than the carriage in which they rode and his shoulders as wide as three men abreast, clad in an imitation of teni-robes and his eyes glowing with a red fire that sent shadows racing out toward the carriage from the people between them. The chanting voices seemed to come from that direction, and she realized that it wasn’t a person but some sort of gigantic puppet, manipulated from below by poles. It bobbed and weaved over the heads of the onlookers, who were turning now toward it rather than the funeral procession.

She realized who it must represent in that moment: Cenzi. She had seen images of the god done that way, with his eyes glowing as he cast fire at the Moitidi who opposed him. The puppet-god wasn’t staring at Varina, however, but at the space before her carriage-the space where Karl’s bier moved.

“Sergei?”

Sergei had opened the carriage window and called to one of the gardai on the line, who ran over to him. “Who is doing this?” he asked.

“The Morellis,” the garda answered. “They assembled behind the crowd, and when the bier approached, all of a sudden that thing went up.”

“Well, get it down before-” That was as far as Sergei got.

The puppet-god roared.

The sound and heat of its call washed over her. It lifted the carriage-she heard horses and people alike screaming even as she felt herself rising-and sent Sergei tumbling backward into her. He struck her hard, and then the carriage, lifted in the wind of the puppet-god’s scream, fell back to earth hard.

There must have been more screams and more sound, but she could hear nothing. She was screaming herself; she knew it, felt it in the rawness of her throat, but she heard no sound at all. She could taste blood in her mouth and Sergei was thrashing his limbs as he tried to untangle himself from her, and he was shouting, too. She could see his lips mouthing her name-“Varina! ”-but all she heard was the remnant of the puppet-god’s roar, echoing and echoing.

Then she remembered. “Karl!” she shouted silently, pushing at Sergei and trying to rise from the wreckage of the carriage. She could see the street and horses on their sides, still in their harnesses and thrashing wildly at the ground, and bodies of people here and there.

Especially around the bier.

Which burned and fumed and smoked in the middle of the courtyard.