A Magic of Nightfall

BLOODSHED
Kenne ca’Fionta

Kenne stood on the balcony outside his private office, gazing down on the temple plaza. Below him, teni in their green robes mingled with the normal throngs as they hurried to escape the drizzle seeping from low, gray clouds. The weather seemed to weigh down the wings of the pigeons in their cooing huddles; as people hurried past, the birds would scurry away, heads bobbing, but not take flight.

The foul, miserable day matched Kenne’s mood.

He was a dead man if he made the wrong move, and he wasn’t sure how to avoid that fate.

Even if he avoided physical death, he was dead within the Faith. He could already feel the vultures beginning to gather: in the whispers of everyone from the lowliest e’teni to the subtext of the messages he received from the a’teni in their cities. When will we have another Conclave? they asked. There are urgent matters that we must all discuss. How should we respond to the news from Nessantico? What is the Archigos’ thought on these matters?

The subtext was always below the innocent questions. It had begun even when he’d been elevated to Archigos after poor Ana’s assassination. The chorus had grown louder and more constant since Kraljiki Audric’s death and the news of the Westlander invasion. The messages came every day by courier: from Fossano, from Prajnoli, from Chivasso and Belcanto and An Uaimth, from Kasama and Quibela and Wolhusen. We don’t trust your leadership. Someone else needs to be Archigos. That’s what they said underneath the polite, indirect words they wrote. You should be removed from Cenzi’s Throne.

Worst of all, he found that he agreed with them. I never wanted this, he wanted to write back to them. I never asked to sit in Ana’s place. I would have much preferred that someone else take this task from me. He had told Ana herself this long years ago, after he’d returned to Nessantico to become A’Teni of Nessantico under her, after the Firenzcian army had been dispersed. “You were here before I was,” she’d said to him, looking almost embarrassed to be sitting behind the desk that they both remembered Archigos Dhosti using. “By rights, you should be here and not me, my friend.”

He had laughed at that, shaking his head. “Archigos Dhosti told me, long ago, that I was an excellent follower. He was right, too. I follow very well. But I don’t lead. I don’t have whatever it is you have, Ana. Dhosti saw those qualities in you, too-you can lead. You’re strong, you’re talented, and you have a strength of will that’s amazing. That’s why he made you his o’teni. Had he lived, he would have groomed you for this anyway. Me…” Another headshake. “I was destined to be what I am. No more. And I’m quite content to have it that way.”

She had protested, politely, but they both knew that-inside-she agreed with him. With Dhosti.

Yet Cenzi had thrust this on him late in life, and Kenne could only wonder whether that had been some kind of cosmic joke.

The a’teni of the Faith were one danger to Kenne, and the new Kraljica was another. She was in pain-she would be in pain for the rest of her life, almost certainly. She had been thrust into a terrible crisis with the loss of the Hellins, the assassination of Audric, and now the invasion of the Holdings itself by the Westlanders. There was Firenzcia on her other side, no longer an ally but another enemy at her back. She would be trying to consolidate her position. She would be trying desperately to simply survive as Kraljica, and to do that, she would be looking for people with strength who could support her and she would be casting aside those she thought too weak to be of help-because weakness in her allies was as much a danger as the Westlanders or Firenzcians.

Kenne knew that Sigourney’s opinion of him was perhaps even less high than that of the a’teni. She would be maneuvering to have him replaced, and quickly. Knowing the history of the Kralji in Nessantico, Kenne could not rule out that her solution would be his own assassination and replacement by someone more suitable for her. It had happened to Archigi before Kenne when they had come into conflict with the political rulers of the Holdings: such an Archigos might die under mysterious circumstances. One had only to look back to Archigos Dhosti himself, after all.

Kenne stared down at the plaza below, where Dhosti’s broken body had once sprawled, the blood flowing between the cobbles. He wondered if one day soon it might be his body being tossed over the railing to fall, flailing desperately, to the ground below.

“Archigos?”

Kenne shivered at the call. He turned slowly, expecting to see Petros standing there. But it wasn’t. It was, instead, a ghost.

“I know,” the ghost said, and the voice’s accent confirmed his suspicions. “You didn’t expect to see me again. Frankly, neither did I. Sorry to startle you, Archigos. Petros was kind enough to let me in.”

“Karl…” Kenne stepped back into the room, going around the desk to embrace the Numetodo. “Look at you-your beard shaved, your hair dyed and cut like some unranked person, and those horrible clothes. I wouldn’t have recognized you… but I suppose that’s the idea, isn’t it? I thought, after you helped Sergei escape, that you’d have fled the city.” He shook his head. “These are dark times,” he said wearily, the depression washing over him again. “Terrible times. But-I forget myself. You look tired and hungry. Can I have Petros bring something?”

But Karl was already shaking his head. “No, Archigos. There isn’t time, and I shouldn’t stay here longer than necessary. I… I need a favor.”

“If it’s within my power,” Kenne told him, and had to quash the thought that followed: as weak as my power is, I’m afraid…

“It is, I hope,” Karl said. “Please, Archigos, sit. This may take some time. I know, at least I think I know, who killed Ana.”

Kenne listened to Karl’s tale with growing dread, suspicion, and horror. By the end he was sitting in his chair behind his desk, shaking his head.

“A man named Gairdi ci’Tomisi, you say?” Kenne said finally. The name had shocked him; he wondered what else he had not known. “A Firenzcian? He did this with help from Westlander magic?”

“Firenzcian, yes,” Karl stated. “But you must understand that there was no magic involved. No-this black sand isn’t of your Cenzi’s making, nor that of the Westlander gods, either. It’s not magical, not of the Second World-just the product of a person’s imagination and logic.” Karl tapped his head. “And that makes it even more dangerous. Look…”

Karl took a small pouch from the pocket of his grimy and tattered bashta, spilling a dark, granular powder on the blotter of Kenne’s desk. Kenne prodded it with a curious finger. “Uly had a stash of this in his rooms; I bribed the innkeeper to let me in. Uly had the ingredients there in his rooms so we know what they are. Varina thinks she can reproduce this mixture even if Talis won’t help us. Sitting there like that, the black sand’s innocent enough, but put a flame to it, and…” Karl’s voice trailed off, and he looked away. Kenne knew what the man was remembering; he remembered it, too, all too well.

“What can I do?” Kenne asked him. He stared down at his soiled desk.

“See if you can find out more about this Gairdi ci’Tomisi that Uly mentioned.”

Kenne looked at him bleakly. “I know him. At least I think I do. He’s a trader with Writs of Passage from both Brezno and Nessantico, and goes back and forth over the border. We-both Ana and I-have used him. We thought… we thought he was our man, our spy. He carried messages from us to the teni within the Brezno Temple that we thought we could trust, and brought back their messages to us about Archigos Semini. Now…” Kenne looked up at the Numetodo. “If he was actually a dual agent, in the employ of Semini ca’Cellibrecca…”

“… Then it was ca’Cellibrecca who ordered Ana killed,” Karl finished for him. His jaw shut audibly.

Kenne felt the remnants of his lunch rise into his throat. He swallowed hard against the bile. Yes, he believed ca’Cellibrecca would be capable of murder-after all, the man had been a war-teni for most of his life. He had no doubt killed hundreds of soldiers with the mage-fire. But he wouldn’t have killed Ana without a reason. Kenne was afraid that he knew exactly what the reason might be: that ca’Cellibrecca expected the person placed in Ana’s stead would be weak, and that he might exploit that weakness to reunite the Faith again-with ca’Cellibrecca as Archigos in Nessantico as well as Brezno.

Because he knew it would be me. He’s probably already speaking to the Kraljica, making his overtures.

“Archigos?” Kenne took a long breath before looking up at Karl. “No Numetodo killed Audric,” Karl declared. “No Numetodo killed Ana. That killed them both.” Karl gestured at the black sand on Kenne’s desk. “That makes me think that the same person is responsible for both murders.”

It seemed a reasonable assumption to Kenne, but he’d been wrong about so much that he no longer trusted his own reasoning. “What… what do you want me to do?” Kenne lifted his hands from the desk, a fingertip dark with the powder he’d touched. “How can I help?”

“See what more you can find out,” Karl told him. “See if Semini really did this-if he did, I want to make the man pay. But Varin.. .” He stopped. “I mean, Ana wouldn’t want me to do anything until I knew, knew for certain. Can you help me with that?” Karl pointed again to the drift of black sand on Kenne’s blotter. “You know what that is, don’t you?” the Numetodo asked. Kenne could only shake his head.

“That’s the ashes of magic, Archigos,” Karl said. “That’s what magic looks like when it’s dead.”

Kenne glanced down again. It felt like he was looking at his own remains.