Nico Morel
“HE’S JUST A BOY, KARL. An innocent child. Don’t you
dare hurt him.”
Nico heard Varina’s
voice through the locked door as he huddled against the wooden wall
in the pile of blankets. He heard a male voice reply—Karl? he
wondered—but the voice was too low, and Nico couldn’t make out all
the words through the wooden door separating them, only the phrase
“. . . what I have to do.” Then the door opened, and Nico flung an
arm over his eyes against the light coming from the other room. A
shadow lurked in the doorway and came over to him, bootsteps loud
on the creaking floorboards. Nico blinked up at the man; a glimpse
of graying hair and a well-trimmed beard, and soft eyes that belied
the grim line of the mouth under the mustache. The man’s bashta was
fine and clean, the cloth shining and soft when it brushed against
Nico’s skin as the man knelt in front of him. One of the
ca’-and-cu’, Nico decided.
“I don’t know
nothing,” Nico said again, wearily, before the man could speak.
He’d said the words too many times already, in as many variations
as his tired mind could summon. The woman—Varina—had asked him over
and over again about Talis: if he knew where Talis was living now,
how Talis was connected to him and his matarh, whether he knew
where Talis was from or what he did, and where Talis had learned to
use the Ilmodo (except that Varina sometimes used another word for
‘Ilmodo,’ which sounded like Scawth something or other). Nico
hadn’t told them anything because he knew Talis wouldn’t want that.
They wanted to hurt Talis; Nico was certain of that.
The man cupped his
hand in front of Nico and spoke a strange word like the ones that
Talis sometimes chanted when he was doing magic. Nico could feel
the cold of the Ilmodo close to him, the hair on his forearms
standing up as a ball of soft, yellow light appeared, like a ball
of flame sitting on the man’s upturned palm. In the light, Nico
could see the face clearly, and he gasped.
He knew that face. This was the man who had attacked
Talis in the street: Ambassador ca’Vliomani, the Numetodo. Nico
hissed and pressed his back against the wall, as if he could melt
completely through the wood and out to freedom. He wanted the cold
anger to fill him again, but he was so tired and frightened that he
couldn’t summon up the feeling.
“Ah, so you
do recognize me,” the man said. “I
thought you might. I certainly recognize you, Nico.” He had an
accent, but not the same one Talis had. This accent lilted and
swirled, coming from deeper in the throat and not through the nose.
He left out the “h’ in thought, saying it as “tot.” The ambassador
lowered his hand to the floor and the ball of light rolled
sluggishly from his hand to gutter against the floorboard. The long
shadow of the man shifted on the walls.
“Are you going to
hurt me?” Nico’s voice sounded tiny and nearly lost to his own
ears: a husk, a whisper of breeze.
The man didn’t
answer. Not directly. “The last time I saw you, Nico, I was nearly
killed by the man with you. What was his name? Talis?” Nico was
shaking his head, but the man smiled against his denial. “I really
need to talk to Talis, Nico,” the man continued. “And I’ll bet
you’d like to talk to him also.”
“You’re mad at him,”
Nico said. “You’ll try to hurt him.”
“I’m not mad at him,”
the Ambassador replied. “I know that’s hard for you to believe, but
it’s true. There are things I need to ask him, urgent and important
things, and he didn’t give me a chance. That’s all. We had a . . .
a misunderstanding.”
“You
promise?”
The man didn’t reply,
but reached into a pouch tied to his side, unwrapped something in
waxed paper, and held it out toward Nico. Nico flinched back away
for a moment, then leaned forward again when the man continued to
hold out his hand: there in the palm was a plump date drizzled with
honey and dotted with diced sweetnut. Nico’s mouth watered; Varina
had fed him bread and cheese and given him water, but he was still
a little hungry after his long walk from Ville Paisli, and the
sight of the date made his mouth water helplessly. “Go on, Nico,
take it,” the man said. “I brought it just for you.”
Hesitantly, Nico
reached for the candied fruit. When his fingers touched the loud,
crinkled paper, he snatched the date from the man’s hand as quickly
as he could. He stuffed it whole into his mouth, and the smoky
sweetness of the honey rolled on his tongue, blending with the tart
bite of the date. The man continued to smile, watching him. He
thought the man’s face didn’t look so angry now, and there was a
kindness in the wrinkles around his eyes.
“You know, I have
great-children who are about your age,” the man said to Nico. “A
little younger, but not much. You’d like them, I think, if you met
them. They live on the Isle of Paeti. Do you know where that
is?”
Nico nodded. Matarh
had shown him a map of the Holdings, and pointed to the countries
and made him learn them.
“Paeti’s a long way
from here,” the man said. “But I’d like to go back there one day.
What about you, Nico? Were you born here in
Nessantico?”
Another nod. Nico
licked his lips, tasting the sticky remnants of the
honey.
“What about your
matarh? Where’s she from?”
“Here.” The word came
out half-strangled. The lingering taste of the date had turned
bitter. He cleared his throat.
“Ah . . .” The man
seemed to consider that for a moment, his gaze drifting momentarily
away from Nico. He saw movement at the doorway and saw Varina
leaning there. The man and Varina glanced at each other, and
something in the way they looked made Nico think that they were a
couple like Talis and his matarh. “And your vatarh? Is Talis from
here?”
Nico started to shake
his head, then stopped. Talis wouldn’t want Nico talking about him.
What happened has to be a secret . . .
That’s what Talis had said. He’d trusted Nico.
“He’s from the
Westlands beyond the Hellins, isn’t he?” Karl persisted. “He’s one
of the ones that call themselves Tehuantin. Nico, you know that the
Holdings is at war with the Westlanders, don’t you? You understand
that?”
A nod. Nico didn’t
dare open his mouth. He’d never heard that one word: Tehuantin. It
sounded like a word Talis might say, though, just the sound of it.
He could hear it, in Talis’ accent.
“Where’s your matarh,
Nico? We should take you back to her, but you need to tell us where
she is.”
“She’s with my
tantzia,” Nico said. “She’s a long way from here. I . . . left
her.” He didn’t want to tell the Ambassador about his cousins and
the way they’d treated him. But thinking of that made him think of
his matarh, and he suddenly wanted more than anything to be with
her. He could feel tears starting in his eyes, and he wiped at them
almost angrily, not wanting to let the Ambassador see. Varina moved
from the doorway to crouch beside him. Her arms went around him,
and it felt almost as good as having Matarh hug him.
“Is Talis with your
matarh?” Karl asked.
That seemed safe
enough to answer. He didn’t want the Ambassador going to Matarh,
and if the man knew that Talis wasn’t there, well, he’d leave her
alone. “No,” he said. He sniffed. “Karl, enough,” Varina
said.
He ignored her.
“Where’s Talis now, Nico?”
“I don’t know.” When
ca’Vliomani just crouched there, not saying anything, Nico lifted a
shoulder. “I don’t. I really don’t.”
Ca’Vliomani cocked
his head as he looked at Nico. He cupped a hand around Nico’s chin
and lifted his head until Nico was forced to stare in his
unblinking eyes. He heard Varina draw in her breath above him.
“That’s the truth?”
Nico nodded
vigorously. The man stared a few minutes longer, then let his hand
drop away. He and Varina glanced at each other again. To Nico, it
seemed as if they were talking without saying anything.
Ca’Vliomani’s fingers stroked his beard, scowling as if
dissatisfied. His voice sounded lighter and less ominous now. “What
are you doing in Oldtown, Nico? Why aren’t you with your
matarh?”
That was too
complicated to answer. Nico shook his head against the welter of
possible answers. He wasn’t certain himself now why he was here. “I
thought maybe . . .” The tears were threatening again and he
stopped to take a breath. “I thought maybe Talis might still be
where we used to live.”
“He’s not.” It was
Varina who answered. Her hand stroked his back. “We’ve been
watching.”
“Well, he saw you,
then,” Nico said confidently. “Talis is smart. He would see you
watching and he wouldn’t go there.”
“He wouldn’t have
seen me,” Varina answered, but Nico didn’t believe that. He wiped
at his eyes again.
“Do you have family
here?” ca’Vliomani asked. “Someone to look after you?”
“Just Talis,” Nico
answered. “That’s all.”
Ca’Vliomani sighed
and stood up with a groan, his knees cracking with the effort.
“Then we’ll have to let Talis know that you’re staying with us, and
maybe we’ll both get what we want, eh?”