A Magic of Dawn

Nico Morel

“In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”

No. That would never have been. Cenzi wouldn’t have allowed it. He wanted to rage and deny the accusation, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel Cenzi at all; he hadn’t felt Him since he’d watched Liana fall. Cenzi had forsaken him. Nico had spent his time praying as best he could in the midst of his black despair. Save me if that is Your Will. I am in Your Hands. Save me if there is still more that I need to do for You here, or take me to Your Bosom. I am Your servant, I am Your Hand and Your Voice. I am nothing without You… He had once felt so full of Cenzi that it seemed impossible not to be one with Him. Now, he was empty and alone.

Instead, it was Varina who offered to save him, not Cenzi.

He stared at the food and wine atop the leather, which he had been certain contained the instruments of torture that ca’Rudka was rumored to carry with him whenever he visited the Bastida. Sergei was already breaking off a piece of the bread. He handed it to Nico, and his stomach growled loudly in response. The first taste was stunning; the bread might have come from the Second World itself. He had to force himself not to cram all of it into his mouth.

He could feel Sergei watching him as he ate. He saw ca’Rudka pulling the cork on the wine, taking a long swig himself, then handing the bottle to Nico. He swallowed-like the bread, the wine tasted like nectar in his dry, abused mouth.

Reluctantly, he handed the bottle back to Sergei and accepted some of the cheese and another piece of bread.

“Slowly,” Sergei told him. “You’ll be sick if you eat too much and too quickly.”

Nico took a small bite of the cheese. “I could never have been Numetodo,” he told Sergei.

Sergei chuckled dryly, shaking his white-haired, balding head. The silver nose sent light motes scattering around the walls. “You answer too quickly and easily,” he said. “It tells me that either you’re giving no thought to what you’re saying, or that you’ve no idea how much a person’s early life can influence them.”

“I could never not believe in Cenzi,” Nico told him stubbornly. “My faith is too strong. I am too close to Him.”

“Yes, I notice how well He protected you and yours in the Old Temple.”

“Blasphemy,” Nico hissed reflexively.

“I would be careful with insults, were I you,” Sergei said. The man’s voice held a dangerous calmness, and the smile was sharp enough to cut skin. “The Kraljica has given you into my care. I will honor Varina’s desire to keep you alive because she’s my friend, but that leaves open so many possibilities.”

Nico could feel the darkness within the man, like an approaching storm striding forward with legs of lightning and grumbling with thunder. He shuddered at the vision. Cenzi, are You with me again? No, he couldn’t feel the Divine’s presence. He was alone. Abandoned.

“You see,” Sergei was saying, “that’s your problem, Nico. You think everything is preordained. You think that Cenzi always meant for you to be what you are, that He’s still directing your life. You think you would have ended up in the same place no matter what. But I don’t think that’s so. I think no one’s future is preordained at all. I think you could have easily been a Numetodo. In fact, I would wager that by now you’d be the A’Morce of the Numetodo the same way you became Absolute of the Morellis. You do have a gift, Nico.”

“ Cenzi’s Gift,” Nico answered.

“Perhaps,” Sergei said. He took another swig of wine and handed the bottle to Nico, whose throat was ravaged and as dry as the Daritria desert; he took it again gratefully. “I believe in Cenzi, so, yes, I would say the gift came to you from him, but Varina certainly doesn’t, nor did Karl, and they were both nearly as gifted as you. So maybe we’re both wrong. Maybe Cenzi simply doesn’t interfere quite so directly in people’s lives.”

“If you believe that, then you deny one of the tenets of the Toustour.”

“Or perhaps I don’t believe that Cenzi is cruel enough to have wanted Liana to die and for you never to see your daughter.”

Nico started to answer. The Nico who had been Cenzi’s Voice would have had no trouble. He would have opened his mouth, and Cenzi would have filled him with the answer. His words would have burned and throbbed, and ca’Rudka would have trembled under their power. Now, he only gaped, and no words came. When I saw her fall, my faith fell with her…

“I told you about the young woman I met on the way here-I told her that she still had time to change, to find a path that wouldn’t end where I am,” Sergei said. “I think that’s what Varina believes of you, Nico. She believes in you, in your gift, and she believes you can do better with it than you’ve done.”

“I do what Cenzi demands I do,” Nico answered. “That’s all.”

“I watched a Kraljiki descend into madness, listening to voices he thought he heard,” Sergei answered.

“I’m not mad.”

“Audric didn’t think he was mad either.”

“You can’t compare my relationship to Cenzi with someone who believed a painting was talking to him.”

“I can’t? At least you can see and touch a painting. You can be certain that it’s actually there. You can’t do that with Cenzi.” Sergei picked up the bread, twisted off a piece and placed it in his mouth. “What I see here,” he said, chewing and swallowing, “is that Cenzi has brought you here, but it’s Varina who has spared your child, your life, your hands, and your tongue, and thus your gift: a person who doesn’t believe in Cenzi, but who believes in you.”

Cenzi works through her, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Sergei, groaning, had sat on the bed next to the roll of leather. Nico could see loops and pockets on the inside, all of them empty, though the leather had been imprinted with the shapes of the devices that normally resided there. Ominous dark stains dappled the interior. “Finish what you want of the food and wine, but quickly,” Sergei said. “I have other appointments today, and I’m afraid I have to put this back on.” He lifted the silencer, dangling by a strap from his finger. Nico’s mouth suddenly filled with the memory of the ancient, soiled leather and he nearly vomited. “You should think about this, Nico,” the man continued. “You’ve nothing else to do, after all.”

“You act like you have something to offer me.”

“I do,” Sergei answered easily. “Your life, and whatever comfort you have with it.”

“In exchange for what?”

Sergei groaned again as he rose. “We can start with a declaration from you to the war-teni, telling them that they should return to their duties and give themselves to the authority of the Faith once more.”

“Cenzi told me that they should not fight,” Nico persisted. “He said that the Tehuantin are a punishment for the failure of the Faith, the failure of the Archigos and the a’Teni. How can I deny Cenzi’s very words to me, Ambassador?”

“There are two ways,” Sergei answered. “You can do so of your own will, or I can return here tomorrow with a different gift for you.” Sergei glanced back at the bed, where the empty roll lay. “Either way, you will make that statement. I promise you that. It’s for you to decide how. Either way, I’ll get something I want.” He smiled at Nico. “You see, it’s too late for me to change.”

Sergei lifted the silencer; the buckles on the straps jingled. “I really must go now,” he said, “but I’ll return. Tomorrow. And you can tell me what you’ve decided.”