A Magic of Dawn

Sergei ca’Rudka

A gray mood had cloaked Sergei at the Bastida, as he rolled up his leather packet of torture devices and left behind the bleeding, moaning wreck of the war-teni ci’Stani. It had wrapped around him tighter that evening, as he prepared for his departure to Brezno. It had pressed down upon him as he’d slept, and his night had been filled with nightmares and horrific visions. In the red visions, it had been his body laying chained in the Bastida, and the cell door had opened, and it was himself who stood before him, who knelt there and crooned a false sympathy and who advanced on him with the instruments of pain. He had screamed himself awake three times, his bedclothes drenched with sweat and wound tightly around him, his heart slamming against the cage of his chest and his lungs heaving. During the last dream, his thrashing had torn the nose from his face; he’d found it lying in the bedding, gleaming in the dim grayness of false dawn.

He’d not been able to go back to sleep. The mood, the sense of despair, had stayed with him. He wasn’t even certain why he went to see Varina again, this time at her house. There was no reason to do so; he’d said what he’d needed to say to her already. But he found that he could not walk into the temple and pray to Cenzi; that somehow seemed wrong. And he had no desire to confess to any of the teni what he had done: the day before, or for years and years now.

It was enough that he knew. It was enough that others suspected.

The mood darkened. It surrounded him. He imagined as he walked that he was pooled in an eternal night, even as the sun glared down on him.

“I talked to Talbot,” Sergei told Varina, pretending nonchalance as he sat in the chair across from her in the sunroom of her house. “He told me that you’ve refused to leave the city, despite his agreeing with my advice.” He tsked as he gazed at Varina, shaking his head. “A’Morce, I am disappointed in you.”

She laughed. “Don’t you go lying to me, Sergei. I’ve known you for far too long now. You never expected me to leave; you just wanted it off your conscience that you’d given me fair warning so you could say ‘I told her so.’ Well, you’ve done that. Your conscience can rest easily.”

His conscience… The words speared him, as if a knife twisted in his gut.

But he ignored the burning. Sergei spread his hands as if he’d been caught stealing a roll from the kitchen. “Obviously, I am entirely transparent to you, Varina. But that doesn’t mean my advice wasn’t sound. And it’s not too late. I’m leaving in just a few turns of the glass myself, and we expect that the Tehuantin may attack Villembouchure at any moment. If Commandant ca’Talin can’t stop their advance there-and I don’t believe that he has the troops or the support to do so, especially since A’Teni ca’Paim had difficulty finding war-teni willing to join him-then the Westlanders will be advancing on Nessantico within the week.”

Varina sighed at that. “I know. I’ve already given my house staff leave and told them to make arrangements to stay with friends or family far to the north or south.” She gestured at the table in front of them on which a pot of tea steeped, surrounded by a small pile of stale cookies. “That’s why my hospitality is so poor, I’m afraid. I scrounged what I could from the kitchen. I’m moving into the Numetodo House for the duration this evening.”

Sergei’s head shook again. He rubbed at his nose, making certain that the glue he’d applied this morning was still holding the metal form tightly to his face. “We’re old, Varina, and we’ve gone through enough trials in our lives. This shouldn’t be our battle any longer.”

“Says the man leaving for Brezno in a few turns.”

The darkness deepened around him. He could not laugh. “I’m required to go-it’s my duty to the Kraljica,” he said. “You don’t have to stay.”

Varina leaned forward, pouring herself more tea. She blew over the hot liquid, her lips pursed so that all the fine lines of her face gathered there. Old… “There’s something else troubling you, Sergei,” she said, sitting back in her chair again and taking a sip. “We’ve already discussed my leaving and we both know the answer. So what is it you really want to say?”

He wondered if he’d been hoping she would notice, that she would ask. And he wondered if he dared answer. “All right. I have a question for you: I want to know what you hold onto. If you don’t believe in Cenzi or any other god, if you don’t believe there’s some higher purpose to things, what do you look to for solace and guidance?”

“That’s a conversation that would take far longer than a few turns of the glass, Sergei,” she answered. “And it’s a strange question for you to ask-or is it that you’re doubting your own faith?”

“I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “I’m… I’m not what the Faith would call a good man, Varina. I have done things…”

She shook her head and set down her cup. Leaning forward, her hand grazed his and fell away again. “Sergei, none of us are perfect. None. We’ve all done things of which we’re ashamed. I have seen you do things that are heroic and brave, also. That should offset a few character flaws.”

He laughed, bitter and dark. “You don’t know,” he told her. “You don’t know what I-” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I should be going…”

“Sergei,” Varina said, and he halted in the midst of reaching for the cane leaning against his chair. “The Numetodo don’t have a single creed or set of beliefs. There are some of us who still believe in gods-even Cenzi, if not the Cenzi of the Faith, but a more absent and uncaring deity. There are others who think there may be some ‘guidance’ to this world, some intelligence that is part of the Second World itself, which gives power to the Ilmodo or Scath Cumhacht or whatever you want to call that energy. But… both Karl and I believed that there were other, and better, explanations for why things are as they are-a truth that the Faith couldn’t offer. Both of us believed that death is final, that there was nothing beyond that-I’ve never seen any compelling proof for me to think otherwise, even when-since Karl died-I might have reason to hope for that. I believe in no gods, no afterlife. But… I understand the solace that someone can find in believing there is something greater than us, something that tries to direct us. My parents believed; I was brought up to believe.”

“What changed that for you?”

Varina shrugged. “None of the mythology made sense to me-or, rather, I kept stumbling over the contradictions in the texts. But I continued going to temple for years, more from habit than anything else. Then I heard Karl speak, and I started talking to Mika ci’Gillan, who was A’Morce Numetodo here at that point, and what they were saying fit together for me. It made sense. All those tales from the Toustour were just attempts to explain the way the world was, but here were people saying ‘No, there’s another explanation that doesn’t require divine intervention, only nature itself, and that somehow felt right to me. I found they were right about the Ilmodo, for instance: The Faith insisted that it was only through Cenzi that one could perform magic, yet I could do that-me, who had no training at all from the teni and who no longer believed in Cenzi…”

She paused, and he sat there. He’d heard her words, he could even recall them if he tried, but they didn’t penetrate. They rolled from his body like water. “Sergei,” she continued after a moment, “how can I help you, my friend?”

“You can’t,” he told her. “It’s something only I can do for myself.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He smiled toward her and lifted himself from the chair, pushing hard on the cane’s head. “I glad you don’t. It’s good to know that someone cares.”

“You were always a great friend to both Karl and me, Sergei. That’s something I will never forget. I will always be there if you need me.”

It was difficult to maintain the smile, knowing that had he ever needed to betray her or Karl’s friendship to save himself, he would have done so without hesitation. But he managed it. “I will never forget either,” he told her. “And I will come to you first, if I need help.”

“Good,” she said, rising with him. She embraced him, and he closed his eyes, trying to feel her affection and her trust. But there was nothing. Everything was empty and cold. There was no heat, even in the glare of the sun. “Stay safe,” she told him. “You are one of the few true friends I have left. I can’t afford to lose you. I’ll worry about you the entire time you’re gone.”

“And I will worry for you,” he told her, “because you’re here.”

Bowing his head to her, he shuffled from the sunroom.

He wanted her to call after him: to stop him from leaving, to force him to confess it all, to spill out the poison inside him so that perhaps, having to confront it, he could come to understand it.

But she did not.