A Magic of Nightfall

The White Stone

She was across the lane from them when Talis went up to the building and knocked on the door, holding Nico. She heard the cry from Serafina-“Nico! Oh, Nico!”-and she watched the woman gather up Nico in her arms… and she also saw Talis stiffen as if in alarm, raising the walking stick he always carried as if he were about to strike someone with it, gesturing with his free hand as if he wanted Serafina and Nico to leave.

She hurried across the lane, her hand on one of the throwing knifes hidden in her tashta. She caught some broken, loud conversation as she did so.

“… just go! Now!… the Numetodo Ambassador… tried to kill me…”

“… knew where Nico was, and you didn’t go to him?… ”

There was more, but the voices were yammering in her head, and she couldn’t distinguish the real ones from the ones inside her head. The door closed behind Talis, and she took the opportunity to slip into the narrow space between the buildings. There, she pressed against the wall next to one of the shuttered windows. She could hear the muffled conversation-clearly enough to realize that she didn’t need to intervene. Not yet. There was talk of the assassination of Archigos Ana, (“That cold witch deserved to die for what she did to my family,” Fynn screeched), of something called black sand that could kill (and all the voices of her victims clamored in her head at that- “Death! Death! Yes, bring more of them here to us!” -so loudly she had to scream silently at them to stop), of a man named Uly (“That name. ..” Fynn said “I know that name…”).

When it was apparent that Talis and Nico would be staying here, she slipped away again, returning to her apartment and gathering up the things she had there. That evening, after three or four stops, she had rented a new apartment, one street south of Nico’s matarh’s rooms: there, from the window, she could see the door of Nico’s rooms through the space between the buildings.

For days, she watched. She would slip at night between the houses and listen to them. She followed them whenever they left, especially if Nico was with them. For days, she watched: the trips to Oldtown Market, the attempts to find Uly. She’d already found the man herself, living in squalid rooms on Bell Lane near the Oldtown Market. She found the foreigner strange and loathsome-not a man who cared about the cleanliness of his rooms or the filth ground into his clothes. He was brusque and rude with the customers to whom he sold potions, usually in the tavern below his rooms: the Red Swan. He was often drunk, and he was a poor drunk. He could be violent as well; certainly he was rough with the prostitutes he hired, enough that most of the women working the streets around the Market avoided him.

For days, she watched.

She was surprised, one day, to see Nico accompanying Varina and Karl to the market-generally, that was something that Serafina wouldn’t allow. But she also knew that the market visits were by now routine, that with each passing day the group had less expectation that they would ever find Uly, and she knew that Varina and Serafina had become close friends, that Nico seemed to think of the Numetodo woman almost as a beloved tantzia. She followed the trio closely, winding her way through the throngs about the stalls, close enough to almost listen to them but never so near that one of them might notice her. She saw them talk to a farmer in his stall, saw him point and the three of them hurry away, with Varina looking suddenly worried. Karl went up to a woman with a yellow tashta-a woman that she recognized as one of Uly’s customers.

A hard knot of worry twisted in her stomach-or perhaps it was the child growing there. The voices muttered. “She will tell him… You’ll have to intervene…” She put her hand to the white stone in its pouch around her neck, pressing hard as if she could stop the voices with her touch.

Had Karl started to go after Uly with Nico, she would have stopped them. She wouldn’t let them endanger Nico. She wouldn’t.

But Karl sent Varina and Nico away. She followed the two long enough to know that they were actually returning to their rooms, then she turned quickly back, hurrying through the streets toward the Red Swan. On the way, she plucked a small, flat, and pale stone from the street.

She saw Karl enter the tavern and followed after him. Uly was there, sitting at his usual table and-also as usual-half-drunk. Karl saw him as well, but he was at the bar, ordering a pint. As she watched, Karl pushed away from the bar and went to Uly’s table. She couldn’t hear their conversation, but not long afterward, Uly finished his ale and stood up, Karl following him toward the door.

“You know what will happen.” Fynn cackled in her head. “What are you going to do about it?”

She moved. She interposed herself between Karl and the door, bumping into him deliberately. “Beg pardon, Vajiki,” she said to him. She took his hand and placed the stone she picked up into his palm. “For luck,” she said. “You must keep it, and it will bring you good fortune, Vajiki. You make sure now. Keep it.”

She hoped he would do that, because she couldn’t help him if he didn’t. Had he given it back to her, or dropped it, or tossed it away, she would have been helpless. “The White Stone can’t kill without the ritual now,” the voices chorused mockingly. “Weak. Stupid.”

But Karl didn’t do any of those things. She had hidden herself as she left the tavern, and a few breaths later, Karl and Uly emerged. Uly led Karl away from the tavern, and she followed carefully. In any case, Uly appeared to be either too intoxicated or too uninterested in seeing if anyone was watching. She saw him push Karl into an alley, and she ran quietly forward.

When she reached the intersection, Karl was already down, and it was apparent that Uly intended to beat the Numetodo to death. “You’re a fool, Ambassador ca’Vliomani,” she heard Uly snarl. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

She moved then, the White Stone again, grim and serious. Uly glanced up at the sound of her approach, but her kick was already on its way, smashing into his kneecap so that the man crumpled with a groan, and then her doubled fists hit the side of his head, taking him down to the pavement unconscious.

Quickly, she tore away Uly’s bashta, then went to the moaning, half-conscious Karl. She wrapped the torn cloth around his head, then slid her favorite knife from its sheath and pressed it against his neck. “Stay still and you won’t be hurt,” she told him, pitching her voice low. “Take off the hood and you’ll die. Nod if you understand.”

His head bobbed once, and she left him for Uly. She slapped the man’s face to wake him, watching his eyes widen as he saw her, and she showed him the knife blade before jabbing it sharply into the tattooed flesh of his neck. She placed her boot on the man’s broken kneecap. “He’s seen you. You can’t let him live now,” the voices clamored, and she bid them to be quiet.

“Answer me if you want to live,” she told him. She felt his hands start to lift and she shook her head at him, driving the tip of the blade into his neck, close to the throbbing, thick vein there. His eyes widened further. “You killed Archigos Ana, didn’t you? You made the black sand.”

“No,” the man began, but she shoved the blade in further with the lie. “All right, all right.” He leaned away from her as much as he could. “Yes, I helped kill her. With the black sand. But it wasn’t my idea. I just gave the man the stuff and told him how to use it. I didn’t know what he intended to do with it.” Again she pressed harder with the knife. “Ouch! Damn it, it’s the truth!”

“Who?” she asked him. She knew Karl would be listening; she would give him the information he wanted, as long as it meant Nico would still be safe.

“You have to kill this one. You must.”

“I don’t know-” Uly was saying, and she ignored the voice to draw the knife’s blade slightly toward herself, opening a cut. Warm blood dripped down his neck. “Ow! By Axat! Stop! He told me his name was Gairdi ci’Tomisi, but I don’t know if that’s his real name or not. Paid me well-that’s all I knew or cared about.”

The man tried to push her away, and she put more weight on his shattered knee. He panted with the pain. “Please. Please stop.”

“Then tell me more about this man,” she said. “Quickly.”

“Sounded like ca’-and-cu’, the way he talked. Firenzcian, maybe, by the accent. Said he had ‘orders’ from Brezno, in any case. That’s all I know. I made the stuff, gave it to him, and he left. I was as surprised as anyone when the Archigos was killed.”

“You can’t stay here. You have to leave or someone will come and see you.”

The voices were right. She pressed her lips together. With a single, savage motion, she plunged the knife deeply into the man’s throat and slashed it from right to left. Hot blood spurted, and the man died in a gurgle of wet breath. Quickly now, she pulled the pouch from under her now gory tashta and opened it, placing the precious white stone on the man’s open right eye. Then she went to Karl, rummaged quickly in his pocket and found the stone she’d given him. That she placed on Uly’s left eye. She sheathed her blade, waited a breath, then took her stone from his right eye.

She could hear Uly’s voice already, wailing in a language she didn’t understand.

She placed the stone in the pouch again. She glanced down once at Karl, who was straining under the cloth, listening desperately.

She ran. She ran-staying to shadows and lonely back ways because of her blood-spattered tashta-ran to find Nico, to know that he was still safe.