Nico witnessed it as if he drifted above the battlefield in the cold arms of his prayers, staring down at the scene. He was a bird, a falcon, drifting on the cold wind. He could see the banner of Commandant ca’Talin, and farther north, those of the Starkkapitan and the Hirzg. They were all flying back toward the city, the foremost of them already in the streets near the Avi a’Certendi, the westernmost limb of the sprawling city.
He drifted above it all, watching…
… and he saw her: Varina. She was exhausted, being pulled along by two other Numetodo heretics; the three of them dangerously separated from the main mass of the Garde Civile. The mounted warriors were close by, only a few strides away and the grim foot-soldiers of the Tehuantin weren’t far behind them. They were going to be overrun and killed. All too soon.
Why do you show me this, Cenzi? Why do you show me the heretic so clearly?
As he watched Varina, he felt the cold wrap its arms even tighter around him. He was falling, tumbling down toward Varina as he saw the warriors on the warhorses rushing at her, as her companions turned to hurl futile spells toward the attackers, as they surrounded her.
Then he was there, on the ground and standing not far from Varina. He heard her gasp and call his name-“Nico?”-but there was so much energy here that he could barely hear for the buzzing of it. The Second World seemed to gape open in the sky above him, a cold fire, the frigid power of the Ilmodo pouring down. He could feel them all pulling at the energy above him: the war-teni, the heretics, the spellcasters of the Tehuantin, even those across the A’Sele in the city. He could feel the power stored in the spell-sticks of the Tehuantin, in the minds of the Numetodo.
All of them channeled the Ilmodo from the Second World where Cenzi still lived.
Nico felt vast. He could stretch out his fingers and touch the threads of all of their connections to the Ilmodo; he could pull on them, take them for himself…
So he did.
It wasn’t a conscious movement. He acted as if someone else had control of his body, without volition. He heard himself saying words he couldn’t comprehend, felt his hands moving in patterns he had never used before. Cenzi? But if it was Cenzi, there was no answer.
He shouted the final words, made the final gesture. He snatched the cords of power that tied the Westlanders to the Second World, but he left that of the teni and even the Numetodo alone. He stood on the battlefield with his arms wide, and the Second World took him as it never had before.
He had never felt so full of the power of the Ilmodo. It filled him, burning and too dangerous to handle for more than a breath. He took it all in, breathed in the gift of Cenzi, and exhaled it again, shouting.
What do I do with this? he asked Cenzi, and he heard the answer:
Do what you should do…
The wave of energy pulsed out from him, radiating westward and north along the line of battle. Where it touched, the Tehuantin were thrown back, flung wildly backward into their own ranks. They toppled like game pieces swept aside by an angry hand.
The warrior riders about to slay Varina and her companions were taken in the storm, both steeds and riders hurled away. “Go!” Nico told them. “This is Cenzi’s Gift!” His voice was that of Cenzi; it roared, a thunder that could be heard all along the lines. “Go!”
And it was over. The threads of power snapped; the Second World shut with a deep thunder. A terrible exhaustion filled him, so overpowering that he couldn’t stand. His legs gave way, and he collapsed into cold darkness.
“Let them come across,” Tototl said. “Once they’re in the boulevard, they’ll be easy targets and we’ll hit them from all sides at once.”
The tactic had worked initially. The Easterners used their spells as the sun rose; Niente told the nahualli to let them waste their energy even though they could have easily countered them all with the spells in their spell-staffs. The warriors drew back, abandoning the catapult. Niente waited on his horse next to Tototl, just down the first major cross street of the great boulevard. Their archers sent volleys into the sky; an ancient nahualli Easterner riding in a carriage showed his strength and sent the arrows flying harmlessly away. The Tecuhtli of the Easterners-the woman clad in steel-escorted her warriors across.
They heard the rush of warriors who were hidden near the river and in the courtyard of where the monster’s skull was set, but Tototl raised his hand as the warriors behind them pressed forward, eager to join the battle. “Wait,” he said. “Not yet.”
Through the gaps between the buildings, Niente glimpsed the Easterners pressing farther up the street, the woman, strangely, leading them into the courtyard from which the warriors had come. He wondered at that for a moment, then the answer came: the terrible shrill chatter of the black sand weapons, sounding eerily like the eagle claws used in the sacrifice of captives. They heard the screams that followed, and saw the warriors falling like maize being harvested. The warriors grumbled now behind Tototl, wanting revenge for the fallen, and still he held them back. The Easterner Tecuhtli called out, and their warriors poured back into the boulevard, pushing back the remnants of the warriors in the boulevard.
“Now!” Tototl cried, and they surged out into the fray. Tototl charged directly toward the woman, snatching the riding spear from its holder on his saddle, his sword still sheathed. Niente tried to follow him. The Easterner spellcaster in the carriage, clad in green and gold and older than Niente, was chanting, his hands moving in familiar patterns. Niente could feel the power gathering around him, and so Niente raised his spell-staff, shouting a release word. The X’in Ka shot from the staff, a sun-blast that enveloped the spellcaster in blue flame. The man screamed, the blast covering carriage and rider.
So slow. The Easterner way of magic was so slow.
Niente saw Tototl’s spear skewer the Easterner Tecuhtli like a haunch of meat. The High Warrior leaped down from his horse with the spear still grasped in his hands, wrenching the helpless woman down from her horse to the cobblestones. Tototl shouted in triumph. Niente heard the impact as the woman’s body hit the ground.
He could feel their spellcasters readying spells, could hear the woman commanding the terrible eagle claws shouting orders to her people, a long brown braid swaying from underneath her helm. Niente raised his spell-staff ready to take down the braided woman-to his mind, she was the most dangerous of their enemies.
He shouted the release word, but in that same moment, a terrible force pulled at him, at all the nahualli. The frigid air of the X’in Ka swirled over them, above them, and it swept away his spell-and he knew: he had seen this, though he had not believed it possible.
The misted man, the hidden one-he had made his decision. He had acted.
The Long Path was open.
Niente gasped. This was a raw force he had never felt before.
An invisible vortex sat over them, like the hungry mouth of a fierce tornado, and it sucked at the energy locked in Niente’s staff, in all of their spell-staffs, ripping away the power stored there and leaving their staffs as empty as if they’d cast all the spells they’d so laboriously placed within them the previous night. It was not only the nahualli that felt it: he could see everyone pause and look about, glancing upward, searching for something they could not see. Tototl had ripped the spear from the body of the Tecuhtli; he stood over her, the spear poised to strike again, and he, too, hesitated.