Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken

by Mazarkis Williams

  ‘She was not of the palace, Dinar. Her law is not our law.’

  Dinar frowned, but he lowered the book. So bulky was he that it looked a toy in his hands. ‘I have another question, Your Majesty, if you would entertain it.’

  ‘Make it quick. I am on my way to the Tower.’

  ‘When should I expect the prisoner?’ A smile of anticipation danced over the priest’s lips.

  Sarmin realised the full nature of his command in the private audience chamber. In the palace, no question was merely asked. There would be blood first, the removal of flesh, exquisite pain designed for Herzu’s pleasure. He stepped away from the scent of Mirra’s flowers, ashamed for Her to hear. ‘You will have him when I send him to you.’ If I send him.

  Dinar’s dark eyes flickered. ‘At that time I will be pleased to give him over to Herzu. He is one our god will cherish, though imperfect.’ With a slight bow he retreated.

  Sharing the palace with Herzu’s high priest required constant balance. Sarmin must be careful not to appear weak, to give the man everything he wanted, but neither must he leave him with nothing. Dinar had influence over at least half the court and must be kept content. Sarmin was not ready for a confrontation, covert or otherwise. Yet giving over anything to Dinar – the Megra’s soul, Banreh’s body – felt unnatural. He glanced down at Govnan, shrunken and silent at his side.

  ‘Such is the way of the empire,’ said Govnan, as if Sarmin had spoken his thoughts aloud.

  ‘We shall see.’ They began their slow walk, neither of them blessed with easy movement. Here the walls bore not mosaics or tapestries, but subtle carvings best seen in shadow. Pomegra studied her books, Ghesh stood upon a star and Keleb’s finger pointed in judgement. Around them all spun the mass of the universe – planets, waters and suns rendered in white marble, with no mind to scale. Beneath two clashing suns stood a bench for the comfort of worshippers journeying from temple to temple; there sat Nessaket, pale and gaunt. She should not look so; she should look well, and her child should be with her. His brother.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, stopping, ‘you should not be walking about.’

  ‘We must speak.’ Nessaket tapped the stone at her side. He noticed the veins that stood out upon her hand, the wrinkles at her wrist. When Sarmin settled beside her, she said, ‘You must not give the prisoner to Dinar.’

  ‘Are you here to plead his case?’

  ‘Not in the least. It is only that Dinar will take too long to kill him, and he must die.’

  Sarmin watched and listened.

  ‘Arigu is not here – not yet – and without him the White Hats grow restive. They long to have their honour restored. The longer you keep the chief alive, the harder it will be to assure their loyalty to you.’

  ‘General Lurish—’

  ‘General Lurish is a blustering old man. He cannot hold them to you. Only the public execution of the traitor will seal their faith.’

  Sarmin watched Govnan pretending to study the marble. ‘Only Banreh knows where this duke might be hiding.’

  ‘You are not afraid of the desert,’ said Nessaket, leaning forwards, her dark hair falling over his arm. ‘The desert made Uthman into a conqueror. The desert made ours the strongest empire in the world – and you lead it. This duke is a northerner who knows nothing of the sand. You will find him.’

  Sarmin laid a hand on her arm. It was true: all of this was his – the bench where they sat, the temple wing, the city, the whole empire, and all the history that came with it. And yet he was not so certain he commanded the desert as well. Mogyrk remained powerful there.

  Nessaket pushed his hand away. ‘Now go.’

  Sarmin stood and motioned to the high mage. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us see what is so important at the Tower.’

  *

  Sarmin ran his fingers along the length of the crack. ‘What does it mean?’ he asked, more of himself than the high mage. The rock-sworn had felt a pull on his elemental when he touched it, but this was not the emptiness of the Great Storm. The Storm took more than magic – it took colour and memories. It hollowed. He remembered the question Mesema had asked of him. ‘Govnan, how long do you think it will be before the Storm reaches the Blessing?’

  Govnan laid a hand upon the wall and patted it, as if it were his child. ‘We don’t know that it will be altered by the storm, Magnificence. It was given us by Meksha Herself – a literal blessing. What is Mogyrk against Her?’

  ‘I thought that fire was Her realm.’

  ‘She gave us this Tower, Your Majesty, and the ability to command all four elements. She commands Her fiery mountain, it’s true – but there She might find not only rock and flame, but the winds upon its peaks and the water that runs down its surface.’

  Sarmin considered this. ‘We know that rock turns to dust in the emptiness. The wind stops, the fire dies. Why would water be different?’

  ‘Earthly elements are nothing against the Storm – but what of elements from another plane?’

  The young mage Moreth spoke. ‘To learn such things, High Mage, we would require an unbound elemental spirit.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Govnan, ‘since the bound are corrupted by our earthly bodies.’ He sighed. ‘In this world Meksha reigns over the elements. Over the years I spent with Ashanagur I felt a strong connection to Her. I felt Her power singing in the stones, beating in my heart, running in my fingers whenever I drew a rune upon the air.’ Govnan leaned on his staff, tracing the crack with his gaze. ‘Do you think Her power remains with us now?’

  ‘I cannot sense such things,’ Sarmin said, disliking that it was true. ‘Can you no longer sense Her?’ He was reminded that he had taken Ashanagur from the high mage, and for the first time wondered whether that had been the wisest course.

  Govnan shook his head and directed them across the lowest floor of the Tower, a dark circular space, his staff tapping against the streaked marble beneath their feet. ‘Come. I have prepared a journey for us.’ He lifted a hand and the tip of his index finger began to glow, faintly at first, then with a rosy redness that showed the shadow of his bones through his old flesh. Perhaps some ember remained of the elemental fire once trapped within him. The glow increased and finally it shone with an incandescence that made Sarmin look away and threw their shadows black upon the walls. He wondered then what fed the fire now Ashanagur had gone.

  ‘This is the key,’ Govnan said, and he started to trace runes into the air. His writing hung before them, as if he had cut through the fabric of the world into some bright place beyond. The archways changed in the moment Govnan set his last rune into the air. One opened now onto a white and endless sky. Opposite that entrance, natural bedrock replaced the tower’s stones, granite shot through with glistening black veins. The third archway opened into blue depths, dark and unrevealing, a wall of water undulating across the entrance in defiance of reason. And opposite that archway fire rimmed a gateway into the hottest of Herzu’s hells, an inferno landscape of molten lakes and trees of flame beneath a sun so large and close it left no room for sky.

  ‘Doorways into the elemental realms,’ said Govnan placing a hand on Moreth’s shoulder. No heat came from the flames, no sound or sensation from the other portals.

  ‘Why are we here, High Mage?’ Yet Sarmin stepped forwards.

  Govnan pointed into the burning arch with a steady hand. ‘I need to go back, to revisit Lord Ashanagur in the City of Brass.’ Something flickered past the archway, something fast and large and trailing strands of fire like burning hair. ‘He will tell us something of Meksha.’

  Sarmin took another step. The place mesmerised him; every part of it was suffused with the fascination that burns in a dancing flame. ‘Will he?’

  ‘Yes. Come.’ Govnan entered the realm of fire, and Sarmin followed.

  No heat burned him; no smoke filled his lungs. Those were the by-products of combustion in his own world. Here all was pure flame, and he walked on it and through it. It licked his skin, touched his hair, slid again
st his lips in seductive caress.

  Govnan led on without pause, seeming to know his way through intersecting rivers of liquid fire, blue and orange. At last he stopped near a vast expanse of molten rock, golden in colour but reflecting the sun’s crimson across its rippling surface. Beyond it stood a great city, its walls shimmering with heat.

  ‘The City of Brass,’ said Sarmin.

  ‘And the Lake of Fire, Lord Ashanagur’s home,’ Govnan replied, swinging his cane in a circular motion towards the centre of the lake. In seconds a pillar of flame rose from the depths. From it rose a churning ball, streaked with black and green, fire dancing along a surface twice Sarmin’s height. It pulsed before the mammoth sun, spitting showers of sparks down into the liquid metal, before moving towards them, dragging behind it tendrils of white flame.

  In Sarmin’s tower room it had taken the form of a fiery man. Now Sarmin understood Ashanagur was no man.

  ‘Ashanagur,’ said Govnan, his voice regaining some of the timbre Sarmin had thought lost to age.

  The spirit’s voice hissed and crackled. ‘You have returned, High Mage, old Flesh-and-bone. And you, who gave me my freedom. And this.’ It darted towards Moreth, who flinched. ‘Is this my payment for the crime of trespass?’

  ‘No. I plan to offer you something greater than one man.’

  ‘What could be greater than a life?’

  ‘Freedom.’

  Ashanagur rose up towards the great sun before swooping towards them again. ‘I have my freedom. Not one fire-sworn remains in your world.’

  ‘I could bind you, right now.’

  ‘You are frail. You diminish in the way of your kind, old Flesh-and-bone.’

  ‘I am stronger than I ever was.’ Govnan drew a rune upon the air and Ashanagur shrank away. ‘But I did not come to bind you. I came to ask a question.’

  Ashanagur drifted, fire spitting from its form, until it had reached the centre of the lake. There it remained, pulsing black and green, its colours reflected in the molten rock. Sarmin thought it would return to the depths, but in time it spun back towards them, trailing orange fire, until at last it settled before Sarmin. Even the white flame that trailed away from it was longer than Sarmin was tall. ‘I owe this one a favour,’ said Ashanagur. ‘I will answer the question for it.’

  ‘Very well.’ Govnan paused a moment, then asked, ‘It is about Meksha.’

  ‘I rule this plane, not some god of flesh!’

  ‘Indeed, She could not power the heat of Her mountain without help from one so great as you.’

  Ashanagur gave a quick spin. ‘She does require my help.’

  ‘As She always has, from the beginning?’ Govnan inched towards the question of Meksha’s strength, but Ashanagur dismissed him with a bright shimmer.

  ‘What is the beginning? She always has been in the Tower, as have I.’

  ‘One more,’ said Sarmin, stepping forwards, the toes of his slippers nearly in the rippling lake. ‘One more.’

  Ashanagur darted at him, stopping only a hair’s width from his face. ‘For you,’ it said.

  ‘Have you seen the emptiness of the Great Storm?’

  ‘I have. It does not see me, just as you do not see it – Mogyrk blinded the Tower.’

  ‘How did Mogyrk blind the Tower?’

  Ashanagur rose high above him and was silent. But at last it said, ‘Both of you creep around the same question.’ It hovered over Moreth, its tendrils caressing his face and shoulders as the rock-sworn cringed in horror. ‘You may ask it, if I may have this one as payment.’

  ‘No.’ Sarmin pulled Moreth away from the flames. ‘I thank you, Lord Ashanagur.’ He turned and walked a path of blue flame, his mind on Ashanagur’s words, his feet cutting a path from memory. It does not see me. The pattern lied, but perhaps it could also be lied to – or tricked. Without his ability to see patterns, Sarmin lacked the skill to try. But it all had something to do with Meksha and the crack in the wall. To his surprise he passed through the gate and found himself standing once more at the base of the Tower, Moreth and Govnan beside him. Compared to the plane of fire, this world was drab and grey. He blinked, unable for the moment to differentiate wall from stair.

  ‘Your sight will improve in time, Your Majesty,’ said Govnan.

  Sarmin barely acknowledged the high mage. ‘I must go,’ he said, starting towards the stairs and the sword-sons at the top. ‘I have much to do.’

  16

  Farid

  Farid woke from a dream. In it Adam stood over him, carving a pattern-shape into his cheeks, so when he opened his eyes he rubbed at his face and looked about the room until he was sure he was alone. Unable to return to sleep he stood and walked to the wall. He trailed his fingers over the design engraved there, following the lines with his eyes, trying to sense which felt unfinished or broken. He still had no sense of what the design might achieve when it was finished; the outlines of the shapes gave him no sense of their purpose. And yet, as with a cart half-empty, he longed to fill in the rest of it.

  The baby began to wail in the house next door and he hissed with impatience. The noise made it difficult to concentrate.

  You can leave any time you wish. That was what Adam had said to him, and since then he had been given no more food. He had come to believe – to hope – that the unfinished pattern was his escape route.

  Whatever Adam thought, he was not going to help the man once he was free.

  He was going at this all wrong. He was looking too closely. He stood away from it, the candle clutched in one hand. It was a question of balance, of full and empty spaces together. He looked until his eyes unfocused, shutting out the noise, the heat, the pain of his empty stomach. Just see.

  He approached the wall again and placed the candle on the floor. He made a line with his fingernail in the soft wood, then another. Yes. Then, quicker, a circle here, a half-moon, line, two mirrored crescents, until he was working feverishly, using both hands. Sweat dripped down his back and thirst dried his tongue, but he did not pause. Hours passed, or minutes. Splinters tore at the flesh of his fingertips, marking the wall with blood. He knew what this design would do. It would reach into the grains and whorls of the wood, snake into the very fibres of the tree-flesh, and rip them asunder. The wall would cease to be. He made the last stroke and the scored lines disappeared, replaced by curves and angles of soft blue light. The design floated before his eyes, and behind it was the wall, whole, unscarred. He pulled—

  —and stumbled into the night-time of the next room, coughing up the dust in his throat. This space was empty save for a table with a knife upon it. He knew as well as he knew the look of his own hands that Adam had put the weapon there for him. He lifted it and listened for the guards. He knew they had clubs and swords, but would they use them? After a moment he decided, yes, they would. Adam wanted him to escape; they could not merely let him go – even if they only played at fighting, he was weak with hunger and untrained with the knife.

  And so he set to the next wall. The baby cried on the other side of it. No matter – he would run past the mother and the screaming child and then he would be in the Maze. That held its own dangers, but at least he was armed and that would be enough to keep most people at bay. He thrilled with each stroke of the weapon. Joy filled him, knowing where each shape belonged, sensing exactly where a line should stop, like a musician with his instrument. As a boy he had been given a broken harp and he had taken great joy in the meagre sound of it. This was far better.

  He did not hear the guards or Adam as he worked. He thought of the pretty, cruel guard who first had held him. He would not mind fighting that one. Farid scored the last line, and pulled.

  Darkness.

  He stumbled and fell, sneezing; the baby screamed and someone coughed. He sat up, wiping snot from his nose. He could not see anything. His candle had been burnt down to a nub and must have flickered out at last. After a minute the baby quieted and he heard a girl whisper, ‘Where does that lead?’

&nbs
p; ‘What?’ He sat up, looking into the blackness.

  ‘The hole you made. I can smell fresh air. Does it lead to the street?’

  ‘No. It’s another house. Don’t go in there.’ He regretted opening the hole if it meant those men would now come through and cause trouble for her.

  The girl was quiet a time, then said, ‘I need to find a way out of here.’

  You too? Farid wiped sawdust from his face. ‘I can’t see you. Where are you?’

  ‘In the corner.’

  He strained, but saw nothing. ‘Why don’t you have a light?’

  ‘I don’t need light.’ So she was blind. ‘You must be careful. He’s downstairs.’ The way she said it gave him pause. The house where he had been held was small. It made sense the Mogyrks might occupy all of the houses in this row. And if Adam were on the first floor … He gripped the knife in his hand.

  ‘He pretends to be nice,’ she said. ‘When I first saw him I thought he was so kind – the sort of man you could really believe might bring you into a better place.’

  ‘Where’s your family?’ he asked. ‘Is there somebody who is looking for you? I can send them word.’

  He did not expect her to laugh, but she did. ‘You would not believe me.’

  ‘I’ll tell the Blue Shields about you,’ he said. The confidence was more for himself than for her; he still had to get past whoever waited downstairs. ‘No: I’ll bring you with me.’ He opened the door a crack and peeked out. A narrow landing led to a flight of stairs. No guard stood at this level. He crept out and paused on the first step, listening. He heard nothing, but Adam could be crouching there, waiting to pounce once he came into view.

  He took another step, and another. No alarm was raised, from this house or the other, but now he heard murmurs and froze. There were two men, maybe three. He could not fight his way out. He would need to be clever. He returned to the girl’s room and lifted her baby’s cradle. ‘Are you ready to leave? Tonight?’