As the sun set on their second day on the road to Zaragoza, Lorenzo watched the tiny black line of the northern mountains with an eager eye. The loss of his journal had been as personally devastating as it was politically terrifying, and the appearance of the Mazigh refugees had been as unexpected as it was annoying, but now… now I’m on the road. All of the anxiety and anger and fear seemed so far away, so unimportant. Every hour brought him closer to the mountains, closer to the stone.
Ariel’s stone. Our stone. The skyfire stone. A piece of heaven fallen to earth. A holy relic that burns like molten gold and sings like a hundred thousand choirs of angels.
It was out there. It was real. And when he brought it back to the world and showed it to the quailing hearts of Espani men and women, they would remember who and what they were, and what God meant them to be, and a bright new future would be born.
It will.
It has to.
They had made good time from Alovera, even without the horse that the Italian woman had disappeared on. The sky had glowered at them throughout the day, but withheld its icy sleet and hail and snow, keeping the roads firm and clear all the way to Algora. When they arrived in the village it had taken a bit of effort to find enough beds for nine people and accommodations for four horses and a giant bird, but shortly after sunset everyone was settled either at the inn by the main road or a large farmhouse just up the lane. Qhora had suggested that the foreigners stay at the farm, farther out of sight and thus less likely to attract attention from anyone until long after they had left the next morning. And that left him, his wife, and his students to enjoy the quiet little inn. Qhora seemed to particularly enjoy the enormous fireplace.
Supper was still nearly an hour away, but no one was in the mood to do anything productive. The boys were in their rooms, probably sleeping if history was any indication. Lorenzo appreciated their ability to fall asleep at a moment’s notice at almost any time, in any place, in any position. It was something he himself had learned in the army and had often wished his wife had picked up as well. There were quite a few mornings when she woke up not entirely prepared to face the day with a smile. And sometimes she liked to tell him about it.
“I guess I should go check on Atoq,” Qhora said from her seat by the fire. A small mountain of blankets hid her from view, from her shoulders down to her feet. She sighed quietly. She didn’t move.
“I’ll take care of it,” Lorenzo said.
“Are you sure? You shouldn’t have to go back out there for me.” Qhora glanced at him with wide, dark eyes. She still didn’t move.
He smiled. “You’re getting a little too good at this routine.”
She smiled back. “I said that I would try to be more of a proper Espani lady. So I thought it only appropriate to learn how to cajole and manipulate you as any Espani lady would.”
Lorenzo chuckled as he stood up. “Full marks for execution and style. Bravo.”
“Are you really going to find Atoq, or shall I?”
“Neither,” he said with a frown. “After all, we’re a respectable Espani couple. We’ll make the boys do it. Gaspar! Enrique!”
After a moment he heard a door creak and several tired feet thumped in the back hallway. The two boys emerged with hair standing at strange angles but otherwise looking alert. “Yes, Don Lorenzo?”
“I need you two to go out and take a quick circuit around the village to look for Atoq.” Lorenzo saw the boys’ faces fall a bit. “It’s not that bad. Just do one lap around the village and call for him every few minutes. He’s nearby. Even if you don’t see him, he’ll hear you and know where we are. That’s all. Now go on. Supper will be soon.”
Gaspar and Enrique nodded and went back to their room for their coats and boots, and a minute later they shuffled through the room again and out the front door.
Lorenzo settled back into his seat and resumed scratching and scribbling at his loose pages of notes. Last night he had begun reconstructing his maps and directions from memory as best he could and during the day’s ride he had remembered a few more details. Sister Ariel had conducted numerous interviews with witnesses across the northern provinces in her attempts to identify the angle of the stone’s plummet from the sky to better estimate its exact position. He was trying to recall those interviews now. Reports and descriptions from the townsmen of Zaragoza, the farmers outside Huesca, and miners near Bielsa.
It fell above the tree line.
It crossed from the east to the northwest.
It fell in summer.
Some details were certain. Others weren’t. And as much as that uncertainty troubled him, it comforted him more. Every missing detail was an obstacle to Faleiro and Magellan. Each conflicting report was a reason to think that the military wasn’t going to go looking for the stone any time soon. And even if they had his notes, he still had the source. He had Ariel.
It has to be near Yesero. It has to be.
He was startled out of his work by the innkeeper’s wife setting the table for supper and making small talk with Qhora. Alonso and Hector shuffled out of their room looking equally disheveled and ravenous, exhausted by the road and yet mysteriously invigorated by the prospect of food.
Lorenzo glanced at the door. How long have the other boys been gone? How long should it take them to come back? And when exactly should I be concerned?
To his immense relief, the door opened at just that moment and Gaspar appeared in the entrance. Lorenzo set his papers aside and crossed over to the table as he said, “Were you able to find Atoq?”
“Don Lorenzo.” Gaspar hurried toward him. “He’s got Enrique. I didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have our swords. I’m sorry, I was stupid.”
“Wait, stop. Where is Enrique?” Lorenzo grabbed the boy’s shoulders and tried to lock eyes with him. He was terrified and breathless, shaking as much from the cold as from fright.
“At the bottom of the hill, by the covered bridge we crossed. He’s holding him. He wants to see you. Right now.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He sounded Italian.”
“Was it the boy I dueled? Silvio de Medici?”
“No. Someone else. Someone older.”
Lorenzo pushed Gaspar aside and dashed to his room for his coat and gloves. With his espada belted over his hip, the hidalgo strode back across the common room. “Alonso, Hector, get your swords and protect the door. Qhora, stay back there by the fire. Gaspar, stay by her.”
“I’ll come with you,” Hector said. The young diestro was not as tall as Alonso, but he had shown more confidence and aggression in his lessons, if not as much skill.
For a moment, Lorenzo considered it. “No, everyone stay here. I’ll deal with the Italian.” He managed a smile. “Won’t be a minute. Keep supper warm for us.”
Outside he found that night had fully fallen and ten thousand stars burned overhead with a chilling white light. The village sat in silence, wrapped and swaddled beneath its blankets of snow and ice that glowed with reflected starlight. Lorenzo moved quickly down the road, the frozen mud crunching and snapping beneath his boots. He wanted to run, but he knew better.
Only moments after leaving the inn he could see the dark shape of the covered bridge at the bottom of the hill. There were no lights, no fires or torches or candles to betray where the Italian and his captive might be. All he could see were the silvery snow drifts, the gleaming icicles, and the black shadows oozing around the edges of the trees and rocks.
Halfway down the hill, he saw the first flicker of movement, a waver of shadow-within-shadow inside the covered bridge. And as he reached the level bank at the entrance to the bridge, he could see clearly through it to the bright snow on the far bank, and against that blue-white slope there stood two black figures.
“Enrique!” Lorenzo continued forward. He could see everything now, certainly well enough to know that there were no other men hiding behind the skeletal trees or the knee-high rocks along the creek’s edge. They were alone. “Enrique!”
“Yes,” the boy answered softly. “It’s me.”
The two figures on the bridge parted abruptly and Lorenzo stood in the open starlight as the smaller person walked out of the shadows toward him. Enrique tilted his head back to reveal the thin black streams of blood on his cheeks where a slender blade had sliced his hairless skin. Lorenzo didn’t need to see them closely to know they would leave long, ugly scars. He caught the youth’s arms. “Are you all right?”
Enrique nodded and croaked, “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“We were just walking along and he stepped out of nowhere,” the young man said, his eyes level with his teacher’s shoulder. “He grabbed me and started yelling at Gaspar about getting you. I tried to get away, and he cut me.” He looked up slowly and gently touched his jaw, his fingers nowhere near the long gashes. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“You’ll be fine. I’ve never known a diestro who didn’t have a few scars.”
“You don’t.” His lip was trembling.
Lorenzo winced. Oh, yes I do, just not where you can see them. “Can you get back to the inn on your own?”
Enrique nodded and shuffled on. Over the scuffing of his student’s boots on the fragile ice, Lorenzo heard him sob and sniff.
The hidalgo watched him get halfway up the hill before turning his full attention back to the figure on the bridge. “I’ll spare you the sermon about hurting that boy. Anyone depraved enough to maim an unarmed opponent isn’t worth the effort. I’ll leave that to God. Who are you and what do you want with me?”
A short bark of a laugh echoed out from the covered bridge. The voice that spoke flowed like wine and honey carrying the posh accent of Roman nobility. “Oh, my. You really are a delusional zealot, aren’t you, Don Lorenzo? Sermons and God, souls and ghosts. I wasn’t sure whether I should believe the stories, but I can see now they’re all true. How disappointing.”
For a moment, a burning flare of rage and hate erupted in Lorenzo’s belly. It startled him. The sudden desire to carve a man into bloody pieces. The impulse to scream obscenities. It was so close to the surface. He knew he had only to touch his sword to unleash those dark passions. It would only take a moment, the briefest of lapses, the briefest of indulgences.
No, that’s all in the past now, and besides, murdering this man won’t heal Enrique’s wounds.
He exhaled and managed a smile. “You know my name! It’s terribly civilized of you to go to the trouble, what with the stalking and the night-time dramatics. Or am I so well-known in Italia these days that everyone there recognizes my face? I’m flattered. Really. But I’m sorry to say I have no idea who you are. Is there a name, or shall I just pick some barnyard animal to call you? Chicken, cow, dog, pig?”
The man paced forward slowly into the starlight. His lined face was no longer young, but he was far from middle-aged. A well-sculpted mustache swept across his upper lip and a sinister tuft of beard pointed down from his chin. A long, heavy coat concealed the shape of his body, but Lorenzo guessed from the angles of his face and his movements that the man was rather lean. His eyes stared out in an expression of intense study and yet also mild amusement. He nodded curtly and said, “Salvator Fabris, at your service.”
Lorenzo willed himself to stand very still. A moment ago he had been supremely confident that no matter what was about to happen, he would walk away from the encounter unharmed. Now that confidence was gone. The name alone was enough to cast dark doubts over his own abilities. Fabris’s reputation wasn’t merely one of skill or excellence, but casual ruthlessness and viciousness, and suddenly the long cuts on Enrique’s face seemed a mercy.
The one story that Lorenzo had long associated with this man was of an honor duel. Years ago, some wealthy Roman hired the young Fabris to fend off an angry Sicilian. The Sicilian unleashed a dozen Espani diestros to search the Roman’s home for a certain misplaced daughter, but Fabris had met them on the lawn and defeated all twelve of them in rapid succession. Later that day, the Sicilian had received the bodies of his champions, but not his daughter.
It was the sort of story meant for drunken embellishment. After all, there were no witnesses. There was no reason to believe it was true. Maybe it was only one diestro. Maybe Fabris hadn’t fought alone. Maybe. But for years, Lorenzo had allowed that story to worm its way into the mythology of this man, and now as he stood a dozen paces from Fabris, he couldn’t escape his irrational certainty that the entire story was absolutely true.
Lorenzo cleared his throat. “What do you want with me?”
“What do I want? Oh no, signore, you misunderstand. I want nothing. You, on the other hand, appear to want a great deal. You must have been quite pleased with yourself when that bloated swine Faleiro came to offer you my job.” Fabris rested one hand on the elaborate swept hilt of his rapier.
“I suppose it’s possible that I might have been pleased if he had offered me your job, but he left before we had a chance to speak.” Lorenzo rested his own gloved hand on his espada. He knew the Italian blade was just a little longer and lighter, and that small difference might be all that was needed to defeat him. “I was, however, a bit put out to find that your friend Faleiro helped himself to a little book of mine that I would very much like returned.”
“Ah yes! Funny you should mention that. Faleiro mentioned it, too. Just before I killed him.” Fabris held up the small leather-bound journal. “Fascinating story, this. Your handwriting leaves something to be desired, but your drawing is really quite excellent. I particularly liked your maps.”
Lorenzo blinked. Faleiro’s dead. My book is in this man’s hand. It never reached Magellan. No one knows about the stone after all. It’s over. The skyfire stone is safe! For a moment, all his concerns about Fabris were swept away by a cleansing wave of relief. He smiled and nodded. “Thank you. I was very proud of the maps. May I have it back now?” He held out his empty gloved hand.
“Oh, I think not. You see, I just couldn’t put it down. I read the entire book last night, and I found one part in the middle especially interesting. Your heroic journey through the jungles of the New World. The priests, the soldiers, and the stone. The otherworldly stone. Boiling soldiers alive in their armor. Very interesting reading, indeed.”
Lorenzo frowned. “This stone is a gift, a life-giving gift, an inspiration, a clue to the broader nature of the universe. It is not a weapon.”
“Oh, my dear Lorenzo. Of course it’s a weapon,” Fabris said. “It’s the most powerful weapon I’ve ever heard of. If these stones can boil a river, they’ll make short work of a city harbor. Carthage comes to mind. They have a lovely harbor full of things I wouldn’t mind boiling or burning.”
“Yes, I’m sure Rome would find all sorts of horrible things to do with the stone if they had it, which they don’t, and they won’t.” Lorenzo flexed his hand to work some blood into his fingers. “May I have my book back now, please?”
“No,” Fabris said airily. “Tell me about the Mazighs. Are you working with them to build a weapon around the stone? Or were you just planning to use that little airship of theirs to fly over the mountains to find the stone?”
“The Mazighs?” Lorenzo shrugged. “They’re just old friends from out of town. Visiting. For the holidays.”
Fabris nodded and shrugged back. “Perhaps. Although, I must say they didn’t appear to be visiting for the holidays when Admiral Magellan and I were watching them circle above the harbor in Valencia.”
“Magellan?” Lorenzo glanced about at the shadows again, looking for the regiment of soldiers that must surely have accompanied Fabris.
“Yes. Technically, I’m here at the Admiral’s request. He’d like the Mazighs dead and asked me to see to the matter personally. A bit simple for a man of my talents, but far be it from me to refuse an order from the man paying my rather obscene salary.”
“But the Mazighs aren’t soldiers or spies. They’re just travelers. There’s no reason to kill them.”
Fabris nodded. “If you say so. I can always ask them myself after I kill you and your extremely unimpressive students.”
“Honestly?” Lorenzo curled his fingers around his sword hilt. “Why would you kill me? A complete stranger who has never done you any wrong, whom you’ve never even met before? You would murder me and then murder those poor innocent people? That’s what you want to do with your life?”
“Honestly? Yes.” Salvator drew his blade, the steel singing softly as it came free of its sheathe. “Although, I’ll also happily kill you to get my hands on this skyfire stone of yours. Italia has her share of enemies and problems. The Hellans, the Eranians, the Numidians, and oh yes, you Espani. In fact, your dear Admiral Magellan has quite a nice little boat in Valencia that I very much want to destroy. Your stone will be invaluable to my efforts. Your poor Espana fell in the New World and I intend to see that it remains fallen.”
It’s just talk, he’s all talk. Lorenzo whipped his espada out into the starlight, slicing through the chill air in a sharp and precise movement. “Is this how you earned your reputation? By hiding in the dark and making grandiose threats?”
Fabris chuckled. “Not at all. I earned my reputation by killing men, better men than you. And also by serving my country and my king. I don’t make the mistake of dividing my service between masters. The church can buy its own swords if it needs them. As it often does.”
What now? He isn’t afraid of me, he won’t back down. And I can’t let him leave with my journal either. I have to fight him. And I have to beat him. Lorenzo said, “You’re a small man with small ideals. You kill people for money. Do you understand how pathetic and common that makes you?”
“I am the Supreme Knight of the Order of Seven Hearts.” Salvator strode forward onto the road, the hard mud cracking beneath his boots. “Have you heard of it?”
“I heard my stomach growl just now. I really need to get back for supper, if you don’t mind. So I can stab you a few times before I go, or not. It’s up to you, really. But I do need my journal back now, if you please.”
Fabris glared and quick-stepped into position, his blade raised. Lorenzo presented his sword in a mirror-stance. For a moment, neither man moved. Then Salvator lunged and Lorenzo shuffled back, swatting his blade away. As they studied one another, the hidalgo reached back with his left hand to pull his heavy coattails up and away from his legs, and then he slashed at the Italian’s arm. Salvator parried and stabbed at Lorenzo’s belly, but the hidalgo sidestepped the attack, grabbed the Italian’s sword arm, and drove his fist into the older man’s face.
Salvator stumbled back as a trickle of blood darkened his moustache. “What the hell was that? Are you a diestro or just some street brawler?”
“Who’s to say?” Lorenzo smiled. “I tend to do whatever feels right, in the moment.”
The Italian flash-stepped forward and unleashed a furious rain of slashes and thrusts at Lorenzo’s head, neck, and chest, and for several breathless moments it was all the diestro could do to parry and block them. Each flick of Salvator’s blade was aimed at some vital organ, at something Lorenzo knew he could not live happily without. And as he danced backward up the frozen road, grimly holding his defensive lines and angles, the story of the twelve dead diestros loomed up in his imagination.
Salvator threw a quick thrust at his shoulder and Lorenzo leapt forward to ram his elbow into the Italian’s stomach. He straightened up sharply and clapped the man’s head between his right elbow and his empty left hand. Salvator pulled back, slashing wildly with his right hand while clutching his bleeding ear with his left. His teeth flashed in a terrible snarling rictus. “God damn you, Quesada, fight like a man!”
“Meaning what, exactly? You’d prefer that I fence with open trousers?”
Salvator raced forward, slicing at Lorenzo’s legs with his blade flashing in the starlight. The hidalgo quick-stepped back, slapping away the few slashes that actually came near his feet, but he felt the slope of the road behind him steepening and when his retreating heel fell into a frozen wheel rut in the mud, he looked down to check his footing.
The rapier sliced through his right sleeve and seared the flesh of his sword arm even as he tried to parry. Lorenzo fell over the frozen wheel rut as he clamped his left hand over the cut. Fabris struck again and the hidalgo watched his espada fly across the road and clatter against the frozen face of a snow drift. The cold of the road beneath him stabbed up through his heavy coat to sting his legs and back as the Italian stood over him, his rapier hanging at his side.
Fabris exhaled, his breath dancing and swirling in the cold night air. “And where is your God now, Don Lorenzo?”
Lorenzo shrugged. “Everywhere, nowhere. Same as always. He hasn’t written lately. Some people are beginning to worry, actually.”
Salvator snorted as he pointed his sword at the hidalgo’s throat. “And what does a man of God think at a moment like this? Do you curse your lord and savior for abandoning you, for spurning your devotion? Or do you cling to your sad faith right to the last moment, praying for the heavens to open and a host of angels to save your worthless skin?”
Lorenzo shook his head slowly. God was the last thing on his mind. He kept picturing Qhora sitting by the fire, waiting for him to come home alive. And his students waiting for him to come striding through the door to tell them all was well. And poor Enrique with his cheeks weeping dark blood. And even the foreigners who had trusted him to lead them all to safety.
But mostly Qhora. Tiny, beautiful Qhora. As powerful and fearless as she was fragile and lonely. And with him dead, she would be utterly alone.
If only. Lorenzo winced. If only we had had a child, this might not be so horrible. At least I would have fulfilled the Mother’s commandment, and left someone behind with Qhora.
He said, “No, not at all. I just-” A movement in the shadows off to the right behind the Italian caught Lorenzo’s eye. “-I just find myself feeling very grateful. Grateful for all I’ve been given. For my life, my health, my friends. And for cats.”
“Cats?” Salvator frowned.
“Yes.” Lorenzo smiled faintly. “I’m feeling profoundly grateful for cats right now.”
Behind the Italian, Atoq padded softly across the covered bridge, his massive body weighing heavily on the old, frozen planks. The wood creaked and groaned with his every step. Salvator stepped back from the hidalgo to look over his shoulder at the enormous beast walking toward him. Atoq’s claws clicked on the ice and his long white fangs shone in the starlight as he emerged from the bridge and proceeded up the road.
“What the hell is that?” Salvator pointed his rapier at the saber-toothed monster.
Lorenzo stood up slowly, still clutching his right arm. “Call it fate. Call it luck. Call it a heavenly host. My wife calls him Atoq.”
Eight hundred pounds of carnivorous flesh and fang thumped up the road toward the two men. Atoq’s eyes flashed in the starlight, two bright silver coins in the dark. The cat ran a long black tongue around his mouth as he came alongside Lorenzo and butted his huge head against the hidalgo’s leg. He swung his head up on his massive, powerful neck to stare at the Italian, and then he sneezed.
“You fight with your fists and with animals. So much for Espani chivalry.” Salvator lowered his weapon and hid it behind the bulk of his coats, his eyes never leaving the cat.
“I’d rather never fight at all,” Lorenzo said as he retrieved his espada from the ground, wiped the snow and ice from the blade, and slipped it away inside his coat. “Killing you won’t make my life any better. And sending you away alive and angry will probably make my life slightly worse, sooner or later. Is there anything I could say or do that would settle this matter between us?”
“I’d be happy to leave your worthless students and your ugly wife in peace,” Salvator said. “Simply give me the skyfire stone and your Mazigh friends.”
“No.” Lorenzo shook his head. “A bit of advice, then. Atoq here will be in the village with us, and on the road with us, and everywhere we go. He knows your scent now. If you should ever meet him alone, he will kill you. And it won’t be a quick death.”
Salvator nodded. “I believe you.”
“My book. Now.”
Salvator tossed the leather-bound journal to him, and then the Italian melted back into the shadows and only the soft crunching of his footfalls on the crumbling ice betrayed his crossing back over the bridge to the far side of the creek.
Lorenzo knelt down beside his furred savior and looked into his bright eyes. “Atoq, give us a roar. A big one. Roar? Rawwww?” He pointed across the creek.
The great cat swung his head toward the bridge and roared a deep, throaty roar that sounded like thunder and fire crashing down a mountain side. And from across the creek, Lorenzo heard a man stumble in the snow, and swear.
The hidalgo smiled and began trudging up the road with huge cat padding softly at his side. His injured arm burned and stung, but the cold was already working its numbing magic on the pain. He wrapped his fingers around the familiar leather cover of his little journal, and he reached the inn with a bright smile on his face.
I won. I beat him.
Sort of.