A Magic of Nightfall

Sergei ca’Rudka

His August presence, the Kraljiki Audric, hunched in his padded, elevated seat alongside Sergei, coughing so desperately that Sergei leaned over to the boy. “Do you need some of the healer’s draught, Kraljiki? I’ll have one of the attendants bring it over…” He started to gesture, but Audric caught his arm.

“Wait, Sergei. This will pass.” Audric said it in three breaths. Wait, Sergei (breath) This will (breath) pass… Just the effort of grabbing Sergei’s arm visibly tired the boy.

Sergei rubbed at the polished surface of the false nose glued to his face, his original nose lost long decades ago in a youthful sword fight. “Would you prefer to return to the palais, Kraljiki?” Sergei asked. “The smoke from the censers and the incense can’t be good for your lungs, and the Archigos will understand. In any case, she’ll be over to see you as soon as she’s finished here.”

“We’ll stay, Sergei. This is where I should be.” We’ll stay (breath) Sergei (cough breath cough). This is (breath) where I (breath) should be…

Sergei nodded. In that, the boy was right. The two were seated in the royal balcony of the Archigos’ Temple, on the South Bank of the River A’Sele in Nessantico. Below, the main floor of the temple was packed with worshipers for the Day of Return. Archigos Ana stood with several of the a’teni in the quire of the Temple, her hair-streaked with bright, gray-white strands at the temples-gleaming in the glow of the teni lamps, her strong, fierce voice reciting the lines from the Toustour. The Day of Return was the Spring solstice ceremony, preparing the faithful for the eventual return of Cenzi to the world He had created. It was the duty of Kraljiki Audric to attend, which was why the temple was crowded to its very sides with the chevarittai, with the ca’-and-cu’, with those lesser-ranked families who could cram into the remaining space, all of them there to catch a glimpse of the young Kraljiki and perhaps to also catch his eye: for a request, for a petition, or perhaps because he was not yet officially betrothed to anyone despite the persistent rumors that the Regent intended to make arrangements soon with one of the great families of the Holdings.

They also would have noted the Kraljiki’s deep, barking coughs punctuating the Archigos’ reading. Even Archigos Ana stopped once in the midst of her recitation to glance up with concern and sympathy toward their balcony. She nodded almost imperceptibly to Sergei, and he knew that she would hurry to the palais after the ceremony. Sergei leaned over again, whispering into the boy’s ear. “The Archigos has promised to come by after we’re done here and pray for you. She always helps you, I know. You can endure this, knowing you’ll feel better soon.”

Audric nodded wide-eyed, muffling another cough with a perfumed handkerchief. Sergei wondered if Audric knew-as Sergei did-that the reason the Archigos’ “prayers” helped him so dramatically was because, against the laws of the Divolonte that governed the Concenzia Faith, Ana used her skills with the magic of the Ilmodo to heal Audric’s ravaged lungs. This was something she had done since soon after Audric’s birth, when it was apparent that the boy’s life was in jeopardy. She had done much the same for Audric’s great-matarh, the much-lamented Kraljica Marguerite, in her last days, keeping her alive when without intervention she would have died.

It had been a month since Archigos Ana’s last visit for that purpose; it was obvious that the illness in the boy was returning once more: as it always, inevitably, did. Audric folded the handkerchief and put it back in his bashta; Sergei saw flecks of red caught in the linen. He said nothing, but decided he would send word to Ana that they would instead meet her immediately after the service, in her chambers here. The boy needed attention quickly.

Sergei sat back in his chair as Archigos Ana strode toward the High Lectern for her Admonition to the gathering, as the choir in their loft began a Darkmavis hymn. The ca’-and-cu’ stirred in their finery. Sergei could see Karl ca’Vliomani standing near the side of the Temple, lifting his hand to Sergei in acknowledgment-ca’Vliomani, the Ambassador of the Isle of Paeti and of the Numetodo Sect, wasn’t a believer but Sergei knew that the Ambassador and Archigos Ana had been, if not actual lovers, then friends and confidants since before the Battle of the Fens twenty-four years ago. During that battle, the young Archigos Ana had used both the Numetodo and her own magic to snatch A’Hirzg Allesandra of Firenzcia from her vatarh and hold her as hostage against the Hirzg’s retreat. The plan had worked, though Firenzcia and her neighboring countries had seceded from the Holdings in the wake of the hostilities to form the Firenzcian Coalition.

Sergei found himself wondering, again, whether Ana’s defeat of the Firenzcian forces had truly been the triumph they had all thought it to be, whether it might not have been better for the Holdings had Hirzg Jan taken the city and become Kraljiki. Had that occurred, both Ana and Sergei himself would be dead, but in all probability there would be only the Holdings and no rival Coalition. There would be only one Concenzia Faith. Had that occurred, then the new Kraljiki could have dealt with the Westlanders’ uprising in the Hellins fully, with all the resources of the Garde Civile and without having to worry about what might happen to the east.

Had that occurred, then Justi the One-Legged Fool would never have become Kraljiki and Audric never his heir, and Nessantico would be flourishing, not languishing.

Sergei, frankly, had never expected Archigos Ana to be able to retain her title-she had been too young and naive, but the fire of the Battle of the Fens had tempered the steel within her. She had proved stronger than any of the a’teni who might have tried to take her place, stronger than her rival Archigos in Brezno, and certainly stronger than Kraljiki Justi, who had believed he could control the Faith through her.

In the end, Justi had been able to dominate nothing: not Ana, not the Faith, not the Holdings. While Ana showed herself to be surprisingly successful as Archigos, Justi had been a catastrophe as Kraljiki.

Justi the One-Legged squandered in two decades what it had taken his matarh and the Kralji before her more than five centuries to create, and we are left to pay for his incompetence with both the Holdings and the Faith sundered into East and West factions. And now the troubles in the Hellins compound the issue while we have a boy on the Sun Throne who may not live to sire an heir himself.

Sergei sighed, closing his eyes as he listened to the choir. He would go to the Bastida tomorrow morning, and he would assuage his worries with pain. He’d find solace in screams. Yes, that would be good. The ending chords floated glistening in his mind, and he heard the Archigos step onto the stairs of the High Lectern.

Sergei would remember the next moment for the remainder of his life.

There was a ferocious, impossible light-as if Cenzi had sent a lightning bolt from the heavens through the gilded dome above. The harsh glare penetrated Sergei’s closed eyelids; a thunder roared in his ears and the concussion pounded at his chest. Instinctively, Sergei hurled himself over Audric, knocking the boy to the floor of the balcony and covering the Kraljiki’s body with his own. His aging joints protested at the sudden movement and the abuse. He could hear Audric gasping for breath; he could also hear the screams and wails from below, pierced by Karl ca’Vliomani’s stricken, horrified shout ringing above them all: “Ana! Ana! Nooooooo!”

“Kraljiki! Regent!” Hands pulled at Sergei, lifting him-a quartet of the Garde Kralji, whose job it was to protect the Kraljiki and the Regent. Dust clouded the air inside the temple and Sergei blinked against the grit, barely able to breathe himself. He could hear the desperate coughing of Audric. The temple stank of sulfur and brimstone.

“You, and you-escort the Kraljiki from here and back to the palais immediately,” Sergei said, jabbing his fingers at the gardai. “You two, come with me.”

Sergei hurried down the forward stairs of the balcony, flanked by the gardai with swords drawn pushing aside those who were in their way. People were screaming and yelling, and he could hear the moans and shrill cries of the wounded. Sergei was forced to limp, his right knee sore and swelling rapidly; it took him far too long to navigate the stairs, clutching at the railing with each step. Below, everything was confusion.

“Regent! Here!” Aris cu’Falla, the Commandant of the Garde Kralji, gestured over heads to Sergei as gardai pushed at the crowds. The din of pain and grief was enormous, and Sergei noted many bloodied faces and arms. The front of the temple was littered with cracked stone and splintered wood; he glimpsed several bodies in the rubble.

One of the bodies wore the Archigos’ robes. Sergei’s breath left him, to be replaced by a cold, icy rage. “Commandant, what happened here?”

Cu’Falla shook his head. “I don’t know, Regent. Not yet. I was watching the ceremony from near the rear of the temple. When the Archigos came to the High Lectern… I’ve never seen anything like that, Regent. It was a spell of some sort, almost certainly, but like something a war-teni would do. The flash, the noise, the stone and wood and…” He frowned. “… other things flying everywhere. The blast seems to have come from underneath the High Lectern. There are at least half a dozen dead, and far more injured, some of them badly.

Groaning at the pain in his knee, the Regent crouched next to Ana’s body. Her face was nearly unrecognizable, the lower half of her body and her right arm entirely gone. He knew immediately that she was dead, that there was no hope here. An odd black dust coated the floor around her. Sergei turned his head away to see Karl ca’Vliomani being held back by the gardai, his face panicked, his bashta coated with dust. Sergei pushed himself slowly to his feet again, grimacing as his knees cracked. “Cover her and the other bodies,” he told cu’Falla. “Clear the temple of everyone but the teni and gardai. Send for Commandant cu’Ulcai of the Garde Civile if you need more help.” He released a long, shuddering breath. “And let the Ambassador through to me.”

Cu’Falla nodded and called out orders. Ca’Vliomani immediately darted toward Ana’s body, and Sergei moved to intercept him. “No,” he told Karl, clutching his shoulders. “She’s gone, Karl. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing.”

He felt the man sag, heard him sob once. “Sergei, I have to see her. Please. I have to know.” His eyes were stricken, and he looked suddenly decades older. His Paeti accent, which the Ambassador had never lost despite his years in Nessantico, was stronger now than ever.

“No, you don’t, my friend,” Sergei persisted. “Please listen to me. You don’t want this to be the last image you have of her. You don’t want that. Truly. I say that for your own sake.”

Ca’Vliomani started to weep, then, and Sergei held him as the gardai moved around them, as teni of the temple-silent in their shock and horror-went to tend to the wounded and the dead, as the dark dust settled around and on them, as the roar of the spell echoed eternally in Sergei’s ears.

He didn’t think he would ever forget that sound, and he wondered what it heralded: for himself, for Audric, for the Concenzia Faith, for Nessantico.