Varina ci’Pallo
IN THE DAYS WHEN SHE’D first joined the Numetodo,
when she’d been a lowly initiate into their society and first met
Mika and Karl, the Numetodo House had been a shabby house in the
midst of Oldtown, masked by the squalor and filth of the buildings
around it.
Now, the Numetodo
House was a fine building on the South Bank, with a garden and
burnished grounds out front and gates bordering the Ave a’Parete—a
gift from Archigos Ana and (more reluctantly) Kraljiki Justi for
their aid in ending the Firenzcian siege of the city in 521. Their
more spacious and lush accommodations helped to make the Numetodo
more acceptable to the ca’-and-cu’, but it had also made them more
visible. In the past, the Numemtodo met in secret, and most members
kept their affiliation a secret. No more. Varina had no doubt that
all those who entered through the gates were noted by the utilino
and Garde Kralji who constantly patrolled the Avi, and that
information was funneled to the commandant—and from him to Sergei
ca’Rudka, the Council of Ca’, and the Kraljiki.
The Numetodo were
known—which was fine as long as their beliefs were tolerated. But
with the death of Ana, Varina was no longer certain how long that
might be the case. Her fears drove her back to her research. . .
.
Despite the paranoid
rumors among the conservative Faithful, the bulk of the Numetodo
research had nothing to do with magic at all: they were
experimenting in physics and biology; they were creating beautiful
and elegant mathematical theorems; they were delving into medicine;
they were exploring alchemy; they were examining dusty tomes and
digging at ancient sites to recreate history. But for Varina, it
was magic that fascinated. What especially intrigued her was how
the Faith, the Numetodo, and the Westlanders approached casting
spells.
The Numetodo had long
ago proved—despite the angry and sometimes violent denial of the
Faith—that the energy of the Second World didn’t require belief in
any god at all. Call it the “Ilmodo” or the “Scáth Cumhacht” or the
“X’in Ka.” It didn’t matter. That realization had dissolved
whatever remnants of faith Varina had when she first came to the
Numetodo.
“Knowledge and
understanding can be shaped by reason and logic alone; it’s just
not easy or simple. People created gods to explain the world so we
didn’t have the responsibility to figure things out ourselves.”
She’d heard Karl say that in a lecture he’d given, years ago when
she was first considering joining the Numetodo. “Magic is no more a
religious manifestation than the fact that an object dropped from
your hand is going to fall to the ground.”
Yes, the téni of the
Faith and the Westlanders both used chants and hand motions to
create the spell’s framework, yet each of them had a different
underlying “belief” which allowed them to harness the energy of
magic. What the Numetodo realized was that the chants and hand
motions used by spellcasters were only a “formula.” A recipe.
Nothing more. Speaking this sequence of
syllables with that set of motions
would net this result.
But the Westlanders .
. . Varina hadn’t met Mahri the Mad, but Karl and Ana had, and the
tales of the Westlander nahualli from the Hellins had only verified
what Karl and Ana had said of Mahri. The nahualli were able to
place their spells within objects,
which could then be triggered later by a word, or a gesture, or an
action. Neither the téni nor the Numetodo could do that. The
Westlander spellcasters called on their own gods for spells, as the
téni did with theirs, but Varina was certain that Westlander gods
were as imaginary and unnecessary as Cénzi and his
Moitidi.
If she could learn
the Westlanders’ methods, if she could find the formula of just the
right words and hand movements to place the Scáth Cumhacht inside
an inanimate object, then she could begin to duplicate what Mahri
had been able to do. She’d been working on that, off and on, for a
few years now. Worry drove Varina more than ever now: over what
Ana’s death meant to the Numetodo; over Karl’s deep grief, which
tore at Varina as much as her own.
If she couldn’t
understand why people would do such horrible things to each other,
she would at least try to understand this.
She was in a nearly
bare room in the lower levels of the House. On the table in front
of her was a glass ball she’d purchased from a vendor in the River
Market, sitting in a nest of cloth so it wouldn’t roll. The ball
had been inexpertly made; a curtain of small air bubbles ran though
the center of it, the glass around them discolored and brown, but
Varina didn’t care—it had been cheap. Varina chanted, her hands
moving: a simple, easy light spell, one of the first tricks taught
to a Numetodo initiate. Weaving a light spell was effortless, but
pushing it inside the glass—that was far, far more difficult. It
was like pushing a hair through a stone wall. She could feel
fatigue draining her strength. She ignored it, concentrating on the
glass ball in front of her, trying to imagine the power of the
Scáth Cumhacht moving into the glass in the same way she would have
placed it inside her own mind, visualizing the potential light
deposited around those bubbles deep inside the glass, placing the
release word there with it as a trigger.
The spell ended; she
opened her eyes. Her muscles were trembling, as if she’d run for
leagues or been lifting heavy weights for a turn of the glass. She
had to force herself to remain standing. The ball was sitting on
the table, and Varina allowed herself a small smile. Now,
if—
The ball began to
vibrate, untouched. Varina took a step back as it rang like a glass
goblet struck by a knife, there was a coruscation of brilliant
yellow light, and the globe shattered. She felt a shard hit her
upraised arm and she cried out.
“Are you all right?”
She heard the voice behind her at the doorway: Mika. The Numetodo
leader walked quickly into the room, shaking his balding head and
rubbing at the close stubble on his chin. “You’re bleeding, and you
look like you haven’t slept in a week.” He pulled a chair over to
the table and helped her sit down.
Varina lifted her
arm—it felt as heavy as one of the marble blocks of the Kraljiki’s
Palais—and examined the cut in her foream. It was long but not
deep, and Varina pulled a sliver of glass from the wound,
grimacing. A thin line of blood ran down the arm toward her hand;
she ignored it. “Damn it.” Varina closed her eyes, then opened them
again with an effort to look at the table: the globe had broken
nearly in half along the curtain of bubbles, and the cloth on which
it had been set was littered with glass fragments. “I was so
close.”
“I was watching,”
Mika said. He glanced at the shattered globe. “I thought you’d
finally done it.”
“I thought so, too.”
Varina shook her head. “But I’m too tired to try
again.”
“Just as well,” Mika
said. “I came down to tell you: Karl’s back at his own
apartments.”
Varina cocked her
head quizzically. “I thought he was staying with you and Alia and
the kids for the time being.”
Mika shrugged. “Said
he was fine, that he needed to get back to his own life. Needed to
get back to Numetodo affairs and his work as
Ambassador.”
“You don’t sound like
you believe that.”
“I think . . .” Mika
pressed his thin lips together. “Those are excuses. He’s hurt and
he’s angry, and I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I think he
needs someone with him, to talk with him if he wants to talk, to
make sure he’s okay and that he doesn’t do anything foolish. Ana’s
death has hit him harder than he’ll admit.”
Mika went silent, and
Varina felt that he was waiting for her to respond. But it was hard
to just hold her head up. Blood dripped from her finger to the
floor; the severed halves of the glass globe glinted accusingly at
her in the lamplight. “I guess I could send Karoli or Lauren over,”
Mika said into the silence.
“I’ll go,” Varina
said. “Just give me a few minutes. I have to clean
up.”
Mika grinned. “Let me
help you,” he said.