A Magic of Dawn

Niente

For the last few days, the Easterners had harassed their forces, nipping at the outlying flanks like angry dogs, then pulling back without ever fully engaging. Niente wondered at the tactics-the Easterners still held the high ground while most of their own warriors were concentrated along the road and the fields alongside it, in the valleys of this land. Niente knew that if Citlali had been the Easterner general, he would have rained down storms of arrows on them, would have hurled spells from the heavens toward them, would have sent wave upon wave of soldiers down from the hills. He would have forced decisive battle on them while he held the advantage of the land.

But the Easterners would only sometimes use their archers as the warriors moved through the passes. They sent out only small groups of riders who would try to pick off squads who had strayed from the main body of the army. They only rarely used their spellcasters.

Perhaps Atl had been right. Perhaps the best path was that leading to a victory here. Perhaps they could achieve such a devastating blow to their empire that they could never force the horrible retaliation that Niente had glimpsed in the scrying bowl.

Perhaps.

Niente trudged with the rest of the nahualli in the train of Nahual Atl. His feet ached, his legs trembled with exhaustion whenever they stopped, and he wondered if he could keep up even this slow pace until they reached the city. As Nahual, he had ridden and rarely walked, but now… The other nahualli mostly ignored him, as if he were invisible. When he’d been Nahual, they’d been eager to seek him out, to ask his advice, to listen to what he had to say. No longer. Now he watched them fawn over his son as they once had him. He watched Atl bask in their adoration. He saw the jealousy in their hearts, and the appraisal in their eyes as they searched him for any weakness that they might exploit.

They measured themselves against Atl as they had once done against Niente, to see if they might become Nahual themselves.

“Taat!” He heard Atl call him, and he quickened his pace as they walked, moving through the nahualli to where his son rode-on the horse Niente had once ridden himself-a careful six paces behind Tecuhtli Citlali in the middle of the train.

“Nahual,” Niente said, and found that he found himself secretly pleased to see the pain in his son’s eyes at the use of the title. “What is it you need?”

“Did you use the scrying bowl last night?”

Niente shook his head. He’d not used the bowl since he’d abdicated his title. He could still feel its weight in the leather bag sung over his shoulder. Atl’s lips pursed at the answer. Niente thought that Atl already looked visibly older than before they’d left their own country: the cost of using the far-sight. In time-too little time-he would look as haggard and ancient and scarred as Niente did now. His face would be a horror, a constant reminder of the power of Axat’s grip. One day he would realize that all Niente’s warnings had been true.

Niente hoped that he wasn’t alive to see that day.

“I can see little in my own bowl,” Atl said, his voice a whisper that only the two of them could hear. “Everything is confused. There are so many images, so many contradictions. And Tecuhtli Citlali keeps asking what I think of his strategies.”

Again, Niente felt a guilty stab of satisfaction. “Do you still see victory for us?”

A nod. “I do. Yet…”

“Yet?”

An uncomfortable shrug. He looked forward, not at Niente. “I was so sure, Taat. Right after Karnmor, I could nearly touch it, everything was so clear. Yet since then, a mist has begun to overlay everything, there are shadows moving in the future and forces I can’t quite see. It’s become worse since, well, since you stepped down.”

“I know,” Niente told him. “I felt the forces and the changes, too.”

Atl looked back at Niente, and lifted his right arm slightly, so that the golden bracelet of the Nahual shone briefly. “This isn’t what I wanted, Taat. I would rather you were still wearing this, and that is the truth. It was only… I know what I had seen in the bowl, and it wasn’t what you said was there.”

“I know that also.”

“Could you have killed me, had we fought as the Tecuhtli wanted?”

Niente nodded. “Yes.” His answer was certain and quick. Yes, he was still stronger than his son with the X’in Ka. Even now. He was sure of that. “But… I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t kill my own son so I could continue to call myself Nahual. I couldn’t.”

Atl didn’t answer, seeming to ponder that. “I need your help, Taat. You were Nahual for so long. I need your advice, your counsel, your skill.”

“You have it,” he told Atl, and for the first time in days, he smiled. Slowly, Atl returned the gesture.

“Good,” Atl said. “Then tonight when we stop, we will both use our scrying bowls, and we will talk with each other about what we see, and that way I will give Tecuhtli Citlali the best advice I can. Will you do that with me, Taat?”

Niente patted his son’s leg. “I will.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. You!” Atl called out to one of the nahualli. “Go and find a horse for the Uchben Nahual. I need to speak to him and borrow from his wisdom, and he should not be walking. Hurry!” Uchben Nahual- the Old Nahual.

He could be that. He could serve that way.

If that was the role Axat had given him, he would perform it.