Karl Vliomani
“I’M SORRY,” Nico said. His lower lip was trembling
and he barely got the next words out before his shoulders started
to shake from sobbing. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
Serafina was staring
at them over the boy’s shoulder as she held him, her eyes wide and
terrified. Outside in the plaza, they could hear faint shouts as
passersby searched for the source of the thundering brilliance.
Karl could hear Varina sigh with relief behind him. “If he’d been a
hand’s breadth to one side or the other . . .” Karl
said.
“He wasn’t,” Varina
answered. She crouched down in front of him, nodding to Serafina.
“It’s all right, Nico,” she told him. “No one was hurt. It’s all
right.” She looked back over her shoulder to Karl. “It’s all
right,” she repeated. The boy sniffled, rubbing his sleeve over his
nose and eyes.
Karl let go a breath.
He smiled: at Varina, at Nico, at Serafina. “Yes,” he said. “It’s
all right, thanks to Varina. Talis, did you know . . .
?”
“I suspected, but . .
.” He was holding his spell-staff, looking at it bemusedly as if it
were a glass suddenly emptied. “I know now. Archigos, are you . . . ?”
Kenne waved a hand as
if in dismissal, but Karl could see the man’s chest still heaving.
“I’m fine,” Kenne said. “And impressed. Your son’s one of the few
natural talents I’ve known. Archigos Dhosti had been one, and Ana,
too. With training, well . . .”
“I will train him.” Talis’ answer was wrapped in a
scowl. He clutched the spell-staff tightly. “This is Axat’s gift,
not Cénzi’s.”
“Of course,” Kenne
told him, but his gaze stayed on Nico. “Don’t worry,” he told the
boy. “No one here is angry with you. Do you understand that?” Nico
nodded, still sniffling.
“If I’d known about
this, I’d have been far more careful when I first approached you,”
Karl told Talis. “But since no harm’s been done . . . We still have
plans and contingencies to make. Archigos, is Petros prepared to
make the offer we’ve talked about to Firenzcia?”
Kenne nodded, more
hesitantly than Karl liked, but at least it was a nod. In truth, he’d been afraid that Kenne
might not have followed through, especially given the undeniable
danger into which it placed Petros. “He is.” The Archigos’ voice
quavered a little—fear combined with age, Karl decided. “In fact,
he should have done so by now.”
“Good,” Karl told
him. He patted Kenne on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” he told the
Archigos. “And he’ll be back with you soon. Now, for his part,
Talis will bring the supplies from Uly’s rooms here to the temple
tomorrow, and we can begin to prepare the black sand for the
demonstration. That should show this Tecuhtli of the Westlanders
that attacking the city would be foolish. We can prevent hundreds,
if not thousands, of deaths.”
The Archigos’
carriage was a ruse—four of Kenne’s servants clambered into that
vehicle when it pulled up to the rear entrance of the building,
while Karl and the others hurried down a back stair toward a
little-used side servants’ door. None of them knew whether the
subterfuge was necessary; Karl hoped not; if it was, then none of
the contingencies for which they’d prepared might come to
fruition.
They started to hurry
away from the plaza, moving toward the Avi. Kenne had given them
enough money to hire one of the carriages there to take them back
to Oldtown. As they moved toward the street, they saw three
separate squadrons of Garde Kralji hurrying across the Archigos’
Plaza. “Wait a moment,” Karl said. Talis, Serafina, and Nico were
already on the Avi, looking for a carriage for hire; Varina, a
little ahead of him, paused. As Karl hesitated on the edge of the
plaza, he and Varina watched two of squadrons rush into the
building from which they’d just come; the other entering the
Archigos’ Temple.
Their weapons were
drawn, steel shining in the lights of the lamps.
“Karl? What’s
happening?”
“I don’t know,
Varina. I think I should go back. Take the others.
I’ll—”
“No,” Varina told him
firmly. She came back to him, lacing her arm into his. “No, Karl.
Not this time. Even disguised, your face is too recognizable to the
Garde Kralji, and there are too many of them anyway. You don’t know
why they’re there; it may be nothing. It’s probably nothing. And if it’s not . . .” She bit at
her lower lip. Her eyes pleaded with him. “You need to let the
Archigos take care of this himself. Come with me.
Please.”
“But if things have
gone wrong—”
“If things have gone
wrong, you can’t change it now. We
can’t change it. All that would happen is that you’d be lost, too.”
Her arm tightened on his. “Please, Karl. Let’s go. If there
is a problem, we can help Kenne more by
staying alive than by being thrown in the Bastida with him. We got
Sergei out; we could do the same again if we had to. Karl . . .”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “If you’re going back,”
she told him, “then I’m going with you. But that’s the wrong
decision. I know it.”
He stared at the
buildings, wishing he could see Kenne’s balcony from here.
Everything was quiet; people still walked in the plaza as if
nothing were happening. But he knew. He knew.
And he also knew that
Varina was right. He could change nothing. He looked over his
shoulder. Talis had waved down a carriage; he was looking back at
them curiously. A woman—dressed strangely poorly for this part of
the city—scuttled past them from the direction of the plaza. As she
passed, she seemed to stumble and brush against Karl. “Sorry,
Vajiki,” the woman muttered. Her voice . . . it seemed vaguely
familiar, but the woman kept the cowl of her tashta up and her head
down. He caught a glimpse of dirty brown hair. “It’s going to be a
bad night. A bad night. You really should hurry home. . .
.”
She scurried quickly
past them.
Karl stared after the
woman, who vanished around the other side of the waiting carriage.
Talis was waving at them. It was then that Karl remembered where
he’d heard that voice.
Karl didn’t believe
in either coincidence or omens.
“All right,” he told
Varina. “We’re leaving.”