He liked her metaphor, from another place where the sun did not beat down, where clouds changed the light and brought cool rain. But he must tell her the truth. ‘That was not my brother.’
She looked at their joined hands, some thoughts warring within her, but then she looked up at him again and her eyes were clear as she spoke in a voice so low only Govnan, standing beside them, might hear it. ‘Your mother believes he is. The high mage believes he is.’
‘Some spell … some trickery …’ Just as the pattern had created a false Beyon, so had it created this false Daveed. He looked to Azeem, squeezing Mesema’s hands in his as he spoke. ‘The Blue Shields accomplish nothing in the Maze. Tell Herran to send his Grey Cloaks. Every house will be searched. My brother will be found.’
‘Very well, Magnificence.’ Azeem dipped a quill in his inkpot, his calm as cold and distant as mountain snow.
Mesema stared into his eyes. ‘My husband, if you find later that this child truly is Daveed, then only harm can come of this. The people of the Maze already suffer poverty and Mogyrk attacks and now they will find assassins among them.’
Startled, Sarmin glanced around the room. She had corrected him in court, where all must take him to be infallible – but his concern was for her, not himself. To his relief he saw that only the trusted high mage could have heard her. ‘I will not find that he is truly Daveed.’ As for the rest of what she had said, it reminded him of Grada’s warning. Do not make them hate you.
Mesema pressed on, in a lower voice. ‘May I speak of another issue that may have some bearing on the Mogyrk situation?’
‘You may always speak to me!’ He glanced up at Govnan, who made a show of creating distance – but not enough. He meant to listen. With annoyance Sarmin turned back to his wife.
She cleared her throat. ‘I am working to find proof that General Arigu betrayed my people during the Fryth war.’
He listened, though he knew it did not matter what new betrayal Arigu had committed. If the general ever returned, Sarmin would sit him in a place of honour, not disgrace. Arigu was the White Hat Army’s favourite general, and he needed the White Hats, especially now. In laying out their gambit Chief Banreh and Duke Didryk appeared to understand that, while Mesema, with her guileless expression, did not.
‘Arigu took Felting slaves, in violation of our ancient agreement.’ Her eyes spoke of urgency. ‘They are here, somewhere in the palace compound, or nearby. Once I find them, we can prove—’
The sharp thing inside Sarmin twisted. First she had not believed him about the boy and now she had sneaked away to Banreh. He cut across her with a harsh tone. ‘You spoke to the prisoner?’
She lifted her chin. ‘He is my countryman, and chief of my people.’
Sarmin glanced again at Govnan. ‘You cannot think I will set him free, whatever you discover, especially now.’ In fact the chief would die, and Sarmin did not know how to tell her.
‘Not free, my husband,’ she said, ‘only out of the dungeon. There is no limit to how many of your men you may send with him when you answer the duke’s call. You can send the whole White Hat Army if you wish.’
‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘and you know it, for I have put them to search for my brother, and soon enough Yrkmir will be at our walls. This Didryk might be in league with our ancient enemy and hoping to ambush our men. He could be behind these marketplace attacks, and more.’ And yet Sarmin longed to meet this duke as a man in the desert thirsts for water.
‘The duke wishes to help us.’
‘Do you know anything beyond the words of the traitor?’ It was hard enough to quench his own longing; he could not quench hers as well. He dropped her hands.
She looked aside. ‘Arigu took Felting slaves, Sarmin.’
‘There were no Felting slaves. There have been no slaves at all.’ He glanced at his Code, abandoned on the table.
‘They are here somewhere, my husband, and I will find them. I—’ Her voice rose, and Sarmin glanced at Azeem, wondering how much he had heard of that last part.
‘Yrkmir comes, Mesema,’ Sarmin warned, ‘and these slaves will not matter after that. We must look to protecting our family.’
She stood, her blue eyes hard with condemnation, and he met them without apology.
Govnan stepped forwards, smoothing his beard with a veined hand. ‘If I may interrupt, Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘perhaps young Farid can be sent to this duke, with a small contingent? We may manage to retrieve Arigu. If they fail, and we lose them …’
Govnan meant to say the loss of Farid would not be great; but Sarmin was not sure that was true. While he might not have the talent to enter another realm and command its spirits, the Tower had no other mage who could work patterns.
A decision of empire, made on the great invisible scales, watched by heaven but weighted by men. Such decisions might leave one boy locked in a room and his brothers murdered, or kill thousands in the outer colony of another empire. A decision to weigh one life against many, and many against one: Beyon had gone mad with it and tipped the scales to excess, as if he would never feel a loss. But the death of his sword-son Ta-Sann had shown Sarmin the difficulties of Beyon’s way. It was not easy to send men into death.
But if the duke had some knowledge of Adam’s plans, if he knew where Daveed might be kept … his grief twisted him again. For his brother he would spend lives; for his brother he would take the chance. ‘Very well,’ he told Govnan. ‘But we must act quickly. I cannot have half the army searching the desert for days. I will question Banreh myself.’
‘I will prepare young Farid for his trip.’ Govnan moved towards the side door.
Sarmin stood and spoke to Mesema, leaning in, voice low. ‘Your chief will tell me what I need to know. If he will not tell me, then he will tell Dinar. You cannot return to him – do you understand?’
She backed away. ‘I wanted only to do the right thing.’
‘The right thing is for Cerana to survive.’
‘But what is it that will be surviving, Your Majesty?’ He noted her formal tone, her physical distance. ‘I should get to Nessaket. She will need blankets and toys for – for the child.’
She had not said your brother – because he was not. Sarmin knew it, because he felt no love for the child. ‘There are slaves—’ He recalled Chief Banreh’s accusation, and stopped.
‘I must go.’ She turned and walked from him, her silks fluttering, her guards clustering around her.
‘Azeem,’ Sarmin said, watching her go, ‘tell General Lurish we have need of a mediocre captain and six dozen average men.’ If this duke lured Sarmin’s soldiers into a trap, they would not be his best ones.
Azeem hesitated only a moment. ‘I was just on my way to speak to him, Magnificence.’ He bowed and retreated.
Sarmin sat on the steps of the dais, surrounded by his nameless guards. What plan Austere Adam hoped to set in motion by sending the wrong child he could not fathom, nor why the Mogyrks had attacked with a pattern more foul than Sarmin could ever have imagined when Helmar lived. Each day the Great Storm crept closer to the Blessing; after that it would stand at the northern walls. The pale sickness would be upon Nooria soon enough, draining his citizens of colour and life until they were empty enough for the djinn to ride – if an earthquake or Yrkmir did not destroy them first. All of this while Govnan’s Tower stood cracked, its mages few, and Mogyrk’s Scar stood in the east. There had to be a solution; there was always a path through to preserving his empire, though it might be hidden. But this time there would be no messages from the past, no priestess or old woman to offer wisdom, no demons and angels to guide him.
The harpist chose that moment to begin plucking at his strings, a cacophony of twangs and vibrating sounds that served only to bring Sarmin’s hands to his ears. ‘Who let him in? Get him out!’ The series of clumsy notes came to an abrupt end, leaving a final orphaned chord hanging on the air. The sword-sons led the musician from the room and Sarmin followed after him. It was time to
face Chief Banreh.
22
Sarmin
The Blue Shield guard opened Banreh’s dark cell and Sarmin entered, leaving his men in the corridor. They stared through the bars, weapons ready. Mesema had been here before him and he looked around, seeing what she had seen – dirty stones, a slop-bucket, a ragged pallet on the floor with the chief stretched out on it – and wondering what she had made of it. Seeing the emperor and all his sword-sons, the prisoner struggled to a stand, levering himself with a hand against the wall rather than using his damaged leg. When at last the man was standing straight and they were staring at one another, Sarmin motioned to the Blue Shield, who said, ‘You did not touch the floor, prisoner.’
At that Banreh lowered himself and made an awkward obeisance. Sarmin waited a minute, then another, the other man’s obvious discomfort giving him a strange satisfaction. His dislike for the chief unsettled him. With Kavic, he had thought they could be friends; he had felt a fondness for the Fryth man that an emperor is not meant to feel. It had not been allowed in the end: Kavic had fallen victim to the games of empire. Over the last months Sarmin had wondered if there were other men in the world who might become his friends. Banreh, though, would never be one of them. He held some part of Mesema that Sarmin could not reach, and he could not forget that.
‘Rise,’ he said at last, and watched the chief go through the difficulty of standing for a second time. He waited. In the throne room he had learned his silence disquietened those who sought to deceive him. It gave them time to sweat, to wonder what he knew, to imagine punishments to come.
‘Banreh,’ he said, discarding the honorific, ‘you will tell me where to find Duke Didryk.’
‘I cannot tell you, for I do not know, Your Majesty.’
Sarmin drew out the time between questions, watching the man’s drawn face. The chief felt pain from all the falling and rising, that was certain; but it was nothing compared to what Dinar could do. ‘I am confused, Windreader. You came to court to make an offer, and yet you give us no way to fulfil that offer.’
Banreh glanced at the men in the corridor, every one of them tall and gleaming with muscle, each with a wide hachirah at his belt. ‘It is my understanding, Your Majesty, that one cannot correct the emperor, for he is never wrong.’
‘That is true.’
‘And so I find myself unable to explain, Your Majesty.’
Anger drove Sarmin’s words. ‘Are we playing games now, Banreh? For I think you are losing. I cannot think this is what you planned.’ He gestured to the stone walls. ‘You would have been better off staying in the Grass.’
‘Duke Didryk sent me as a messenger, Your Majesty. A messenger is protected by certain protocols.’
‘You are a messenger who has killed a great many Cerani.’
‘That number has grown with time and the telling. More died fighting the Fryth or in the desert than ever by my hand.’
Sarmin gripped the hilt of Tuvaini’s dacarba. ‘Nevertheless.’
Banreh lowered his shoulders as if defeated.
‘Tell me your plan, or you will end on Herzu’s table.’
The chief lifted his hands palm up, the Cerani gesture of honesty, but it looked false to Sarmin, too practised, too easily won. He was all guile and verbal tricks, utterly unlike Mesema.
‘Your Majesty, Duke Didryk knows he has few choices. He offers to train your mages in exchange for clemency. That is the beginning and the end of his plan.’
‘And your plan?’
Banreh held his palms out once again. ‘Only to help my people.’
‘Like Mesema?’ He imagined her standing at the bars, within this man’s reach. Had he touched her? Sarmin pulled Tuvaini’s ruby-hilted weapon from his belt. When he killed Helmar, his dead brothers had shown him where to find a man’s heart. He imagined running the steel between Banreh’s ribs, feeling the warm blood run over his hand. Would he find it then, whatever was in him that Mesema loved?
The chief stood motionless, his eyes on the blade, and Sarmin lowered the weapon. That was not the man he wished to be.
By inches Banreh raised his left hand, careful not to excite the wrath of Sarmin’s guards, and turned it out, exposing the wrist. On it Sarmin saw a diamond pattern circled with stars, and he knew what it was without asking. He and Grada had been linked by pattern-marks when she Carried him into the city and the desert: their thoughts had been shared that way during the long weeks when Helmar Pattern Master ruled Nooria.
‘I do not know where the duke is,’ said Banreh, ‘but I can find him. With this.’
Sarmin put away his dacarba, surprised to feel relief more than anything else. Banreh would go into the desert. He would not be killed – not yet. The day when Mesema would hear of Banreh’s death at his hands or his word had been moved into the future. ‘Can the duke hear us?’ he asked, drawn in by the unfamiliar shapes.
‘No. He knows only where I am, and whether I am alive.’
‘Well, Chief,’ Sarmin said, turning away, ‘you shall live a bit longer. Do not become accustomed to it.’
23
Farid
Govnan laid a fifth parchment before Farid. Each was covered with an inked pattern different to the last. ‘This was transcribed from a spell cast by Yrkmir invaders in the time of the great defeat,’ the high mage said, ‘when Helmar was taken from the palace.’
‘I told you, I don’t recognise any of these.’ Farid slid back his chair and looked out of the window. They sat in an airy room near the top of the Tower, with a view spreading over the courtyard and the north quarter of Nooria. Between the Tower walls and the Worship Gate stretched long streets of houses and temples that crushed up against the Blessing, their dark alleys crisscrossing like the nets his sister once made with twine. The Blessing continued north, beyond the walls, towards the mountains. Farid had never been so high up. He felt like a bird soaring over the landscape and looking down – except that far in the distance, part of the northlands were obscured from his sight; they were greyish, as if covered by mist. He squinted and tried to see what was there, but his gaze kept sliding away from it like oil from water.
When Emperor Beyon’s tomb had collapsed, he had heard strange rumours about what had been inside: a nothingness, an impenetrable nothingness impossible to look at. And Govnan continued to glance out the window, his eyes returning again and again to the same spot.
With an uneasy feeling Farid turned back to the parchments. All of these patterns were much more complicated than those he had learned in Adam’s cramped house.
Govnan was sending him to the desert, to a Fryth pattern mage. Farid knew the mage had offered to train him, but if he was anything like Adam, he expected to learn very little. Why the lofty Tower was showing interest in these witch-marks eluded him. Perhaps the Tower was sending him only because he was already stained by Mogyrk’s hand. The thought sparked anger – it was not his fault he had seen the pattern that day in the marketplace.
The high mage pointed at one of the shapes with a claw-like hand. ‘What does this shape mean?’
Farid folded his arms over his chest. ‘I don’t know what it means.’
‘Marke Kavic suggested that each of these formations names something. Water, bird, wool – is it like that?’ Govnan shifted the parchments. ‘If I could just learn the key to these patterns …’
Farid pointed at an elongated diamond near the centre. ‘That one I know: Hiss-nick,’ he said. ‘Adam only gave me the Fryth words.’
Govnan wrote down the word and placed a smaller parchment before him. This one was not so aged, and the design on it was thickly inked. ‘What about this?’
Farid turned it in his fingers. The shapes tickled his memory. ‘Where did this come from?’ he asked.
‘It was on our prisoner’s wrist.’
Farid turned it from left to right, but that was not the problem. He needed a mirror. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s only half of something.’
‘You are co
rrect. It is a binding. But what are its properties?’
Farid stared, then shook his head. ‘Maybe the Fryth mage will teach me.’ He meant it sarcastically, but Govnan nodded in his patient way.
‘How many symbols did Adam teach you?’
Farid could take no more of sitting. He stood and paced to the end of the table, feeling his new robes swirl around his feet. He felt naked in them, with the air brushing against his skin with every movement. He thought for a moment, then said, ‘Fifty-two, and I guess that wasn’t even a tenth of them.’ When Govnan frowned, he said, ‘I never wanted to learn these evil things. I still don’t. But words are not the key.’
‘What is the key?’
Farid turned it over in his mind. Finally he picked up one of the complicated designs drawn by the ancient Yrkmen. ‘It’s the way they work together,’ he said, running a finger along a line of triangles. ‘No single part can hold the spell – they need to work together.’
‘Words have no meaning, then?’ asked Govnan, frustrated, but Farid kept his eyes on the parchment. He had been looking at it wrong. These symbols were not meant to rest on a flat plane. Instead they ordered themselves above and below, forwards and backwards, into the storied ages of Nooria itself. The parchment set his fingers tingling and a longing to imitate the pattern on the stones around him almost overcame him, the need to surround himself with gleaming lines and interlocking shapes.
Feeling disgusted with himself, he dropped it.
Govnan took it as resignation and sighed. ‘We do not have much time, but you may visit your father. My mages usually have no family contact, but since you have lived in Nooria …’
Farid sighed with relief. ‘So he knows I’m alive.’ He picked up another parchment, and itched to draw its pattern.
‘Of course he does,’ said Govnan, ‘he has been enquiring every hour if he may see you. He is in the courtyard.’
Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken Page 13