A Magic of Dawn

Sergei ca’Rudka

“How long has he been this way?”

The garda at Nico’s cell shrugged at Sergei’s question. His gaze kept dropping to the roll of leather under Sergei’s arm. “All night,” he said. “He started praying when you left; he won’t drink, won’t eat. Just prays.”

“Open the door,” Sergei told the man, “and come inside with me. I may need your help.”

The garda nodded. There might have been the flicker of a smile on his lips as he took the ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the cell, pushing the door open. He stepped inside and gestured toward Nico. “You want me to drag him back inside?”

Sergei shook his head as he stepped into the cell, sliding past the garda. “Nico?” he called.

Nico didn’t respond.

He was kneeling on the ledge of the tower, the sun throwing a long shadow from his huddled form across the cell. Sergei could see that he’d soiled his bashta sometime in the night. “Nico?” he called again, and again there was no response. Moving carefully over the filthy straw on the stone floor, placing the roll of leather on his bed, Sergei stepped around Nico’s body until he could see his face. His eyes were closed, but his chest heaved with his breaths. His hands were clasped together, and his mouth was moving around the silencer as if he were praying. “Nico!” he said, more loudly this time, stepping into the sunlight so that his shadow covered Nico.

The eyes opened sluggishly, and Nico squinted up at Sergei through slitted, pouched eyes. “You look terrible,” Sergei told him.

Nico gave a strangled laugh around the gag.

“Let me take the silencer off. You’ll promise not to try to use the Ilmodo?”

Nico gave a slow nod, and Sergei unbuckled the straps of the device and lifted it from Nico’s head. Nico coughed and swallowed hard, wiping awkwardly at his face with chained hands and the sleeve of his bashta. “Thank you,” he said. His gaze fixed on the leather roll, on the garda standing silently near the door with an eager grin on his face. “Why is it that I think there’s no food this time? Do you want to hear me scream? Is that it?”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Sergei told him. “It’s not… not what I want. Not from you. But we need the war-teni and they listen to you.”

“And you think that you can torture me into cooperation.” Slowly, he stood, rubbing at his legs and grimacing.

Sergei shrugged. “I don’t think it. I know it. I’ve done it many times.”

“Ah, dear Silvernose. You enjoy that, don’t you, forcing someone to do what they don’t want to do?” Strangely, he was still smiling. “You enjoy their pain.”

Sergei didn’t answer. He went to the bed, untied the strings. He pushed at the end of the roll, letting it open. The garda chuckled as he did so. His instruments were all there, the ones he’d collected and cared for over the long years, the ones he’d used so many times, with so many prisoners. He knew Nico was looking at them also; he knew the thrill of fear that would be surging through Nico’s body as he imagined those devices twisting and tearing and gouging his flesh. Nico would already be feeling the pain, before Sergei even plucked the first tool from its loop.

Can this be the time that it changes?

But it couldn’t be, not if he wanted to save Nessantico.

Not this time.

But Nico wasn’t staring at the array of instruments with fear just as the myriad others had. He regarded them with a steady gaze, and only then looked slowly back to Sergei. His cracked and battered lips still twitched with a smile, and through the purpling bruises on his face, his eyes were unafraid. Has the boy gone mad entirely? “Which first?” Nico asked him. “That one?” He pointed to a clawed pincer. “Or that one?” His finger moved, to the brass hammer. “You like that one especially, don’t you?”

“Will you sign the document?” Sergei asked. “Will you stand before the Old Temple and recant? Will you tell the war-teni that they must serve?”

“Cenzi gave me a vision tonight,” Nico said conversationally, making Sergei’s eyes narrow at the evasion. “I prayed for turn after turn, and He wouldn’t answer me. When He finally did, it was strange, and I’m still not sure that I understood. Varina was there. And my sister.”

“Nico,” Sergei said softly, gently, as if speaking to a child. “Listen to me. There’s no other way for you. I must have your recantation. I must have it for Nessantico. I must have it to save lives and for the good of all here. Tell me that you’ll recant and none of this has to happen. Tell me.”

“Varina told me that I still had the Gift, that it hadn’t been taken from me.”

“Nico…”

He raised his manacled hands. “You said Varina saved my life.”

“She did.”

“Tell me, my friend Silvernose, do you think she saved me for this?” He gestured at the bed and the instruments there. The chains clinked dully with the motion.

“It’s for Varina’s sake that I haven’t already forced you,” Sergei told him. “It’s for her that I still won’t-as long as you swear to me and Cenzi that you’ll recant. But you make one mistake, Nico-it’s not Varina who has spared your life, but the Kraljica at Varina’s request. The Kraljica will let you live if you confess your mistake; she has given me the charge to force that from you if you refuse, and if you still will not…” Sergei lifted his hands. He plucked the brass hammer from its loop and fitted the handle to it. “If you will not-then after I am finished with you, you’ll be handed over to the Archigos. I guarantee you that you’ll find no compassion there.”

“You and I both believe in Cenzi, Ambassador. We both believe that His will should be followed.”

“I don’t believe Cenzi talks to me,” Sergei answered. He tapped the battered end of the brass hammer in one palm. “I do the best I can, but I’m only a weak human being. I do what I think is best for Cenzi, but most especially what I think is best for Nessantico.”

Nico nodded. He turned his back to Sergei and shuffled gingerly to the ledge of the cell. He stood there looking out. “I could let myself fall,” he said to the air. “It would all be over in a few breaths.”

“Others have done that,” Sergei said. “If you do, I’ll produce a signed confession from you and have it read aloud in the plaza. It won’t be as effective, but it might suffice.”

Nico smiled over his shoulder. Sergei thought then that he would do it. There was nothing he could do to stop Nico; by the time he reached the young man, his body would already be broken on the stones of the courtyard below; even if he did, Sergei no longer had the strength to hold him back-they might both end up falling.

But Nico didn’t fall. He took a long breath, looking out over the city. “I thought I saw my sister out there,” he told Sergei. “Varina and my sister, and poor dead Liana, whose only sin was that she loved me and followed me-that’s what Cenzi gives me when I pray to Him.”

He looked back at Sergei, and his face was bleak. “All I wanted-all I ever wanted-was to serve Him, in gratitude for the Gift He has given me.”

“Then serve Him, and admit that you were wrong.”

“How do you do that?” Nico asked. “How do you suddenly change what you’ve done for years? How?”

Sergei came forward to stand next to him. He remembered this ledge; all the stones he’d come to know so well in the time he’d been held here himself. Nico was crying, twin tears leaving a clean path on his grimy cheeks. “I don’t know how,” he told Nico. “I only know that you have to start with one step.”

He was still holding the brass hammer. He lifted it, showing it to Nico. “Put your hands on the railing there,” he told Nico sternly. “Do it!” The garda started forward to force Nico’s cooperation, but Sergei gestured to him to stay back.

Nico, his hands trembling in their chains, placed them flat on the weathered, chipped stone, his fingers splayed out. Sergei lifted the hammer. He could imagine the brass head coming down, crushing flesh and bone, and the sweet, sweet cry of agony that Nico would make and the pleasure that would surge through him with it.

… and he let the hammer fall from his hands, tumbling over the edge of the balcony to clatter loudly on the flagstones below. Chips of stone flew, the wooden handle splintered into two pieces; the hammer leaving a deep gouge in the stone The gardai stationed at the gates jumped, startled, looking back at the courtyard.

“Come with me,” Sergei told Nico. “We’re going to the Old Temple. I think you have something to say.”

Nico lifted his hands. He stared at them wonderingly and clenched them into fists.

He nodded.