The Emperor's knife

by Mazarkis Williams

  He finished the cut.

  For a moment there was nothing, only the thickening of the silence into something too heavy to bear. Sarmin stood. His knees ached. He could sense an approach. He felt it rising from unknown and unknowable depths, fast, then faster still, rushing at him. The hair prickled on his neck, the chill touch of anticipation reached down to the small of his back. “No!” He spun, whirling, his knife held ready.

  It hit.

  The room rocked, then held still. Sarmin fell to the bed, clutching his blade. A pattern spread across the walls, the pattern he’d copied, but larger and more complex, deeper, carved in slashes from which a light bled, like that of dying suns, painting him with glowing symbols laid one atop the next. It lifted him. He stood transfixed, pinned, skinned in bloodlit patterning. His knife fell from a hand that seethed with alien geometries.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eyul picked up his Knife, sheathed it and followed Amalya, his heart still beating a coward’s rhythm. She reached the top before him and turned a circle before the red sky. He wondered at her calm and grace. He cleared the top step and automatically checked for safety; the shadows grew long, but he saw no threats in them.

  “Look,” Amalya said, pointing, “a wizards’ Tower. This city is laid out like ours.”

  “There’s the palace,” he agreed. Were there silhouettes moving through the dusk of the courtyard? His hand closed around his Knife’s hilt.

  “This would be Stonecutters’ Row.” She turned to her left.

  “This city has no river, though. And look-” She pointed westwards. “The large building, there-is that the tomb our emperor is building? It’s in the right place.”

  “No, that’s something else.” Eyul had seen such a construction before, though Amalya was probably too young to remember; Emperor Beyon’s great-grandfather had torn down all the temples to the Mogyrk faith and destroyed the heresy of the One God in Cerana. He couldn’t remember if there had been a temple exactly like this one. It was square in shape and as large as three courtyards. Its tower rose into a point towards the heavens, as did each of its windows. He strained to see more, but the sun lingered on the horizon, cloaking the building in shadow.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing good,” he said.

  They stood and watched, and the sun sank beyond the dunes. Myriad shapes lit up around the temple: triangle, line, half-moon. Eyul couldn’t count them all; they were without number or end, with more appearing, forming a bright net around the dark building. Beside him, Amalya drew in her breath. The shapes lingered for a moment, prolonging the crimson light of day’s end, before sinking into the sand and stone, disappearing like rain.

  A tingling spread between Eyul’s fingers and the twisted hilt of the emperor’s Knife. “That’s where we need to go.”

  Amalya turned towards the stairs without a word. They made their way down, stepping over the sandy remains of the demon that had worn Pelar’s face. The street outside had fallen into a purplish gloom, but Eyul still felt uncomfortably hot. He passed Amalya his waterskin. “Be ready to duck into one of these buildings,” he warned her. “Who knows how many of those creatures are loose?”

  She said nothing as she took a drink from the skin and passed it back.

  “This way,” he said, leading her around one turn and then another. He kept his ears open for the telltale sound of shifting sands, but no more demon princes appeared and after a few minutes they were close enough to see the dark tip of the temple’s tower. The next street would be under its shadow.

  Amalya slowed to a stop. “I feel something,” she said.

  “Power?” He paused, still on the balls of his feet and ready to move on, but when she didn’t stir he settled his heels in the sand.

  “Yes, power. But it’s all wrong. I can’t go in there.”

  “But I have to go in there.” As he said the words, Eyul knew it to be the truth. “I don’t think we should separate.”

  “I can’t go in there. I just can’t. Try to understand-would you go into a place of-” Amalya’s voice rose and broke off.

  Eyul frowned. “A place of what?”

  Amalya didn’t respond, but cringed away, folding her arms over her chest.

  “I don’t get to choose.” He drew his Knife and looked up at the Mogyrk steeple.

  Amalya took a step backwards, raising one arm protectively over her face, and it hit him like a sword in his gut: she didn’t trust him-and not only that, she thought he was capable of slitting her throat, right here, under the rising moon, for no other reason than her refusal to go into the temple.

  And he could; in another situation, he would. The thought sank through him.

  “Oh, by Herzu,” he swore, turning his back on her. His feet felt heavy, but he walked on with determination. What is this power, that allows me to leave a woman alone in a nest of demons? He felt childish and cruel, but he discarded the idea of turning back. He was certain the answer to their escape was here, in the dark Mogyrk temple. He would come back for her-by then she would be scared enough to welcome his return.

  He stopped just before turning the corner that would take him out of sight as a more familiar feeling washed through him: self-disgust. If he made her wait, made her wonder if he was coming back, she would despise him even more, and rightly so. He reached out and tapped the building to his left. “Get up on this roof so I can see you,” he called out. “If something happens, scream for me. I will come.”

  He walked on, the sweat on his skin feeling clammy in the cooling air. When he looked back, he could see Amalya’s white robes shining in the starlight.

  She had no power against a sand-demon. He would have to hurry.

  The temple’s face rose before him, three storeys of carved stone. The One God of the Mogyrk faith looked down from his place above the mammoth door. The god who had been destroyed by his enemies, as Eyul understood it. A frail god of flesh, whose followers preached weakness, yet behaved savagely.

  In the Cerantic pantheon there was a place for charity and love, and also a place for justice and righteousness. The empire could not have survived without the favour of its many gods. Therefore, with the Mogyrk madness defeated, Tahal’s grandfather had wiped the empire clean of its monotheism. He brought down the Mogyrk temples and killed the worshippers. The religion persisted elsewhere, to the north and east, especially among the Yrkmen; but no more of their priests came to the empire.

  The courtyard’s chill pressed into Eyul’s skin as he approached the entrance, Knife in hand. His foot slipped, banging against the stone on the sand-covered steps. The temple’s door was of heavy wood, but the latch looked simple enough. He pressed his back against the cold stone for leverage and pushed, and the door opened enough for him to pass through. He could see nothing inside but darkness. Judging by the blast of air that hit his face, it was even colder inside.

  He passed under the arch of the entryway and stepped into the wintry space. The arches had some sort of significance for the Mogyrk, he recalled. There were three in all: one at the entrance, one in the centre of the aisle and one over the altar. His Knife glowed with blue fire, giving him enough light to see. As Eyul passed under the central arch, his feet went numb with cold; the floor felt like ice rather than ancient stone. On either side benches stretched away into blackness. A thousand souls could worship in this vast space.

  The cold grew harder, deeper. A man could not live in such a place; Eyul knew it would kill him. And then a sound, the first sound, like the scratching of a blade across wood, just a short scratch, but somehow more: somehow it was also a door opening. In his hand the emperor’s Knife glowed more brightly, and twitched as if it were the scratching blade, as if it had made the final cut.

  Eyul felt rather than heard the anger run through the church, through floor and wall. For a heartbeat, pattern-symbols flared. Something had changed. Somewhere a door had opened against the will of the pattern.

  Twenty paces from the narrow altar, Eyul hea
rd footsteps mirroring his own: as he approached so did another, from the opposite direction. When he paused, the other paused. Ten paces from the altar, he made out the shape of a man, heavy, broad-shouldered, though this man moved forwards as an invalid. Eyul recognised that painful, arthritic step and he fell to his knees. They seemed to freeze, instantly.

  “Emperor Tahal.” Without hesitation he pressed his hands and forehead to the glacial stone.

  More steps. “Rise, child.” The deep voice that sounded as if it were wrapped in rough cloth-this, too, he remembered.

  Eyul rose, more slowly now, as the cold settled in his limbs and numbed his wound. He met the eyes of the Old Emperor, Beyon’s father.

  Emperor Tahal smiled. “Do you know how evil is destroyed?” he asked.

  “With righteousness, Your Majesty.”

  Emperor Tahal’s smile widened. “Think, boy: how is evil destroyed?” “Thoroughly. Leaving no trace.”

  “There is always a trace.” Emperor Tahal moved his hand in an arc, encompassing the huge temple in which they stood.

  “The Mogyrk God? Is that who made the cursed?” Eyul frowned. “How did your ghost come to be here, Your Majesty?”

  “A door opened for me, and I came.” The emperor leaned forwards. “ Think, boy. Think of the Carriers. How is evil destroyed?”

  Cold fingers traced Eyul’s spine. His lips were so numb that it was difficult to speak. “With the emperor’s Knife.”

  The Old Emperor laughed. He tilted his head back and roared.

  “The Knife,” he repeated. “The Knife, Eyul.”

  Eyul’s arm, half-frozen, was as slow to respond as his tongue, but at last he promised, “I will send you back to paradise, Your Majesty.” His blade hit true as always, but it didn’t freeze, as he had expected; instead, his hand burned with its heat, and its blue fire turned crimson. It took all his effort not to drop the Knife, and more to sheathe it again. He turned and started a slow run for the exit, feeling the building shake under his feet.

  In the distance, Amalya screamed.

  Eyul slid out through the doorway and stumbled down the steps. As he hit the ground he felt the last remnants of the day’s heat burning through the soles of his shoes. “Amalya!” he shouted, searching the night until he found her on a roof, a glimmer of white surrounded by shadows. The building beneath her was shaking.

  The city gave another judder and Amalya stumbled forwards. Eyul found his feet and broke into a jog, then a run, pushing through the leaden cold that pervaded his limbs still. “Don’t move!” he shouted.

  One more step and she would fall. The city shuddered again, and her robe blurred forwards. He forced himself into a sprint. The shadows around her resolved themselves into children’s shapes. Amalya lifted her arm, fingers clenched, as if to raise her elemental, but she had no power here. Eyul plunged into a narrow street, taking a short cut, and momentarily lost sight of her.

  The earth heaved, almost throwing him to the ground, and the windows that had been waist-high fell low by his ankles. The city was sinking. He rounded a corner and saw her again. No time, no time to run up the steps Amalya teetered at the edge of the roof. Black sand swirled about her. She made a motion as if to kneel, and then began to fall…

  “No!” he shouted.

  She twisted in the air and for a moment Eyul was reminded of a feather in the wind, but then she landed hard on her right side.

  Two seconds later he lifted her in his arms. If I had been faster… His burned hand exploded with agony and as he fell to his knees the city sank another few feet. He saw blood in the sand. His leg wound had reopened. He couldn’t carry her.

  “Can you walk?” He set Amalya’s feet on the ground. She clutched her right arm, raw and bloody, and gave a weak nod.

  The demons’ black sand had stripped the skin from it before she fell.

  “Come on, then.” He stood, wincing himself, and they picked their way through the dark streets, trying to retrace their steps. Where short walls had been, the sand ran down in channels; if he took a wrong step, they would sink, too. The half-buried buildings all looked alike. He chose a route, guessed, guessed again.

  “This way,” said Amalya, turning. Tears of pain ran down her face. Probably some ribs had been broken.

  He followed-she was right, they were only fifty feet from the high wall-but then Amalya fell, screaming as the sand scoured her wound.

  “We’re close.” He tried to help her up, but she pushed him off and stood by herself.

  Two steps, and she’d fallen again. “Mirra!” she cried.

  Eyul lifted her, ignoring the blood soaking through his trousers, and stumbled to the wall, which was only four feet high now. He pushed Amalya over onto the other side and she fell without grace, hitting the sand with a cry.

  He’d have to lift himself over. He pressed down on the top of the wall with both hands, but his muscles failed at last. His body had given him up. He couldn’t climb-he would wait for the wall to sink. He crumpled to the sand.

  “Move, Eyul. Get up,” Amalya whispered to him.

  “In a moment,” he promised.

  “Get up,” she whispered again, more insistent this time. She sounded so very young all of a sudden. “Get up, Eyul. Now!” And then, louder, deeper, “Now, or you’ll sink with the city.”

  He stood, and the sand moved beneath his feet. The wall stood just three feet high, but all he could see of Amalya was a bit of robe and her sandalled feet. He climbed over the stone easily enough now-why had it seemed so difficult?

  Amalya lay crumpled against the wall on the other side. Her eyes were closed. Eyul gathered her up. She was quiet now, and her head lolled against his shoulder. Twenty yards away, to his left, he could see their tents, shining in the moonlight.

  Chapter Twelve

  "Why are we going the long way?” Mesema fanned herself with her sleeve.

  “The road follows the mountain range,” said Banreh. While Mesema was restless, he was utterly still. He sat with his eyes closed, sweat soaking the collar of his shirt. “It seems long, but in the end it will be faster than going over the sand.”

  The Cerani had begun to hurry. At first they’d travelled the road only at night, but lately they set out while the sun still simmered low in the sky. Two hours had passed since they had climbed into the carriage, and Mesema was counting the burning seconds until nightfall.

  Eldra made a little noise as the carriage rocked. “Why isn’t there any wind?” There was no answer to that. Without opening his eyes, Banreh said,

  “Let’s begin another lesson. This time about the weather.”

  “I wish I could swim in a mountain stream,” Eldra said in Cerantic. “That was very good.” Banreh smiled. “That’s not easy to say.” Mesema shot him a look, but he still had his eyes closed. Not to be outdone by a Red Hoof, she bent her tongue around the rough Cerantic words. “Windreaders can tolerate any weather without pain.” She used simpler grammar than Eldra, but she knew her accent was better.

  Banreh cracked open one eye to give her a look of disapproval. “I want to learn how to say something to Arigu,” said Eldra. She smiled and shifted on the hard seat. “How do I say, ‘I enjoy your manhood very much’?”

  Mesema looked out of the window while Banreh told her. He was as calm as ever. She felt like kicking him.

  “What about, “Cerani are very good riders’?”

  “Stop,” said Mesema.

  Eldra giggled. “You’re just jealous. These men don’t want you.”

  “There are no men here,” Mesema said, “only Cerani.”

  “Banreh’s a man.” Eldra put a hand on Banreh’s good leg and squeezed. “Have you forgotten him already, Princess?”

  Mesema turned away to the window, to the rock wall of the mountains. She would dash herself against them if she could.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said to Eldra.

  “ You are,” Eldra said. “This is a strong man, a fine man, but because of his leg you thin
k he is a woman.”

  “I-I didn’t-” Mesema hung her head out of the window and let the desert air dry the tears from her eyes.

  Banreh kept silent.

  Mesema looked up at the purplish rock of the mountains and the clouds that shrouded their peaks. There were Felting people up there in the cool, green valleys: Rockfighters and River People. She would never see them now. Her life would be sand, heat, and silk. In the spring, when her mother packed the wool into the stretcher, she would be idle, dipping her feet in the palace fountain. How strange, never to make felt again.

  A flicker, and she saw it, or him; a man stepped back into the shadow of a dune. She watched him as the carriage passed. He kept his face turned her way, but it held no interest, nor fear. She felt a tingle along her arms when she remembered where she’d seen eyes like that before. When they had pulled her dead brother from his horse and lain him out on the ground, his face had held the same look.

  The man grew small with distance before she could gather herself. “Banreh,” she whispered at last, “there’s a man watching us.”

  “Probably just a bandit. They wouldn’t dare attack this caravan, not with so many imperial guards.”

  “A bandit?” She didn’t know how to explain his eyes, so she said, “I don’t know.”

  “Let me see.” Banreh moved to the window and she pointed. The dune was too far away now, its shadows hard to discern.

  “I can’t see him. But we passed him all right, didn’t we?”

  “I suppose so.” The man’s gaze had her shaking still. She hugged herself and leaned away from the window.

  The time passed; the sun lowered in the sky. Eldra sang little songs to herself about the strange god of her people. The tunes were not of the Felting folk; the rises and falls held the sounds of some distant place. When Eldra finished singing, she pulled a shawl from under her seat and wrapped it around her shoulders.