CHAPTER NINE
SARMIN
At lanterns’ turning Sarmin returned to his tower room, legs aching with each step. Mesema had earned her rest, guarded by six sword-sons and the Little Mother. The perfumed lords had been settled into luxurious guest rooms, where they still might convene over trays of wine, whispering of their ambitions. Azeem sat at his desk, as always, sorting through the business of the day. It seemed the man never slept. But Sarmin must.
He retreated to his own room, the place that he knew the best, where his friends had once waited for him to find them. He settled onto the ropes of his old bed and within moments the tide of the Many rose and took him from his own shore, giving his body over to another. And like each time before Sarmin found himself drowning, sinking in the lightless ocean between memory and dreams.
He woke with a start, a sudden convulsion of limbs beneath a coarse blanket. The space around him lay night-blind and silent. He listened, hard, ears straining to manufacture hints from the currents of quietness flowing over, around, and through. Nothing. No noise had woken him, rather the absence of sound, the loss of something so familiar as to be unnoticed until it stopped. No bleating of goats, complaining even in their sleep, no dry susurration of breeze among the palms. Only as Sarmin tried to rise did he remember this was memory. Another man’s memory. And that man had kept still, listening, thinking. Wiser than Sarmin perhaps.
In time though the man reached Sarmin’s conclusion. He rolled from beneath his blanket, hands finding the floor deep with sand and drawing back in surprise. With more caution he reached out again, and came up into a crouch. He stretched out, above and to the side, finding the wall of a tent. A sigh of relief-quickly sucked back as the camel hair came apart under his fingers. A great piece of the tent side collapsed in, tearing from the rest under its own weight, as if rotted. Through the ragged hole above him Sarmin saw the blaze of stars, clustering in multitudes, gathering into the milky river of heaven dividing the sky as the Blessing divided Cerana.
The man crawled to the tent flap. Aharab, his name burst like a bubble at the back of Sarmin’s mind. Aharab’s fingers trembled on the ties securing the flap. He could have stood and looked out through the hole, but something felt wrong with the hole. Everything felt wrong about it. In the starlight the woven camel hair around the edges of the ragged opening looked silver-grey and it almost seemed as if the hole were growing, fraying into dust at the edges.
At last the ties were undone and Aharab leaned out. Sarmin half-expected a scimitar to descend and bring the memory to a sharp conclusion. Instead the sight of a sand-choked oasis awash with moonlight checked Aharab.
“No!” Sarmin felt the man’s lips frame the word, the feeling not unfamiliar, he had been carried before, by the Many and then by Grada alone, but this was memory. Aharab bore no patterns. The pattern waited for him in his future. “Matarai? Jana?” Anxious cries, unreturned.
Half the oasis lay drowned in pale moonlit dunes, palms emerging from their lower slopes. Two ridges of sand braced the waterhole itself, giving way to the hard-baked and stone-scattered ground of the outer wastes. Aharab hurried barefoot towards the dunes, stopping short of the shifting sand. Two guy ropes ran from wooden pegs in the hardpan to be swallowed by the edge of the nearest dune. It looked every bit as if the desert itself had surged forward in the night, devouring everything in its path, tree and tent, goats, even the oasis itself.
“There was no storm!” Aharab stamped in protest and spun back towards his tent. Whatever decay got into the walls had now spread, the tent collapsed, kept aloft here and there by leaning poles, and unknown objects, pots and pans perhaps, draped in the fragmenting remnants of the densely woven camel hair fabric. And revealed by the collapse, a second tent behind, a ten-pole pavilion, black in the moonlight.
For a moment Aharab stood still. The silence wrapped him. The air held no scent but dry. Even as Aharab watched, a spot of grey appeared among the tent’s black, spreading out like a drop of water soaking into hardpan, ripples on oasis waters… like fire.
“Al-Tari! Al-Tari!” Sarmin had no desire to get closer but Aharab’s memory sent him straight towards the tent at a run.
Perhaps Al-Tari was a sound sleeper, for no answer came. The night swallowed Aharab’s shouts and the grey spot grew, the changed cloth becoming weak, pieces falling away, unweaving themselves as they dropped so that only silver hairs reached the ground, brittle like sticks burned all to ash yet holding their shape.
“Al-Tari!” Aharab stopped two yards from the tent’s dark porch, his shout loud enough to wake every djinn in the deep desert.
The grey edge of a second diseased area passed into view over the ridge of the tent. Without warning the back half fell in on itself, a pole, maybe two, breaking with that dull noise that comes from snapping wood half-eaten by dry mite.
Aharab turned and turned again, an older memory painting itself over the sand, their arrival, with the boy, Jana, herding the goats ahead, switch hand idle now as the scent of water led them. The camels followed at the rear, muttering disdain and belching, nine of them, four belonging to Matarai, three to him, two to Al-Tari and his son, each with its load swaying on high, tight-folded tents, pressed dates, urns of cooking oil, deflated waterskins, and most precious, the salt-blocks stacked and wrapped, white gold to the cities strung like pearls along the Blessing. The memory shredded, vivid greens swallowed by pale sand. Back where he had seen the ropes of a buried tent, a dune slumped forward, a noiseless avalanche flowing over one of the last palms.
“Al-Tari!” And with that last shout the tent folded in on itself, grey sections falling to powder.
“Dear Mirra, save us!” Silence. The cold of the desert night and silence. Where were the goats, the camels? “Where-” Something rose among the folds of Al-Tari’s tent and stole any other words from Aharab’s mouth. The shapeless form writhed and struggled. Aharab took a step back, the nightcold running like a blade along his spine. “Mirra!”
Tent fabric tore and fell, and stepping from it came Al-Tari’s boy, Tomra, grey with dust. Aharab struggled to speak and failed. The boy walked forward, dust rising around each footstep. Aharab took a step back for each step of Tomra’s approach, retreating across the hardpan, away from the desert, away from the oasis, away from the child.
Tomra held a hand out, dust sifting from his fingers. Where the pale dust left him, the flesh beneath lay more pale still. Duty and compassion made Sarmin want to go to the boy, even if Aharab’s memory screamed that this was no longer Tomra, not all of him.
“W-what are you?” Still Aharab fell back. A djinn had entered the child, surely, for he didn’t move like Tomra but like an old man forgetting how to walk.
The boy opened his mouth, his lips moved, but nothing came save the hiss of sand over sand.
“What are you?” Aharab screamed the words.
The hiss again and a single reply. “Hollow.”
Sarmin’s desire to help the boy came of duty but the thanks he gave when Aharab turned and ran sprang from older and more primal source.
“I have brought you something, Magnificence.”
Sarmin stumbled back over smooth tile, terror echoing in his throat and limbs. Tomra! Tomra? But the desert had disappeared, replaced by painted walls and a high, cushioned bench. He turned around in the reception room, empty now, but still fragranced by fish and perfume. How did I get here? Sarmin’s hand wavered, and light from his lantern danced across a woman’s face. A priestess’ face. Not hollow. She moved forwards, jangling with charms and bracelets, arms wrapped about a clay urn, then crouched to place it on the tiled floor. Her loosely-tied robes opened to show where necklaces swayed between her breasts.
Sarmin watched her, allowing his breathing to slow, his heart to resume a normal rhythm. Aharab was fading but this too could be a dream.
— She is of Meksha. A young woman’s voice rose from his mind’s depths, awed and respectful. Meksha’s temple perched against the rocks of the Ko
fka mountains, a place where the blood of the earth rose burning from the fractured rock. If she were truly here then she had come a long way. The earth beneath Sarmin’s feet was long dead, cold against his slippers.
He cleared his throat. “What have you brought me, priestess of Meksha?”
“Magnificence, I have come from the temple deep in the mountains where fires melt and rocks flow, water burns and air chokes. I come from the place where Meksha sings, at the heart of the world where all things are possible and all things can be seen.” She spoke in a low voice, gravelled by smoke, as she made a slow circuit of the urn. Her golden toe-rings glimmered in the lantern light. “Meksha bid me bring you this,” she said, “It will help you through the coming storm.”
— An emperor does not wait for an answer! An outraged voice, one he had not heard before, but familiar all the same.
“What is in the urn?” he said, folding his arms behind his back with a frown.
“Something that goes beyond the bickering of armies and the struggle for a throne,” she answered, beginning another circle. Her hair had been drawn into a complex arrangement and he found himself struck by the pattern it made from pins and twists. “Hundreds of years ago Meksha granted magic to Uthmann for the founding of the Tower. And so it was Meksha’s priests who tutored Helmar Pattern Master when he was held here, like you, my emperor, against an uncertain future, as grain buried in clay urns, sealed against the threat of failed harvests.” She met his gaze. “These are the records of those times.”
Sarmin looked into her eyes. The Pattern Master had written marks upon the skin of thousands, making each person a small part of his grand design. Together they had been the Many. The pattern was broken, the Pattern Master dead, but the Many had left its mark on the empire. On the emperor, too. He touched a finger to his forehead. To open the urn would be to find another brother, the one who had been hidden away, forgotten, as he had been. They had both been held in the same tower room, hundreds of years apart. He hoped this was not a dream. “Open it.”
The priestess bent over the urn, her necklaces swinging forwards and clicking like teeth. “It does not open, Magnificence. It is sealed by signs and magic.”
“Then how-”
She smiled. “I do not know. But if Helmar sealed it, you, Magnificence, can surely open it.”
Sarmin did not know whether challenge or faith lay beneath her words but it was the stout urn and its handled lid that commanded his attention. “You are dismissed,” he said, and listened as the clacking of her beads grew faint. Sarmin had killed the Helmar, Pattern Master but a different Helmar was hiding inside of this clay. No, not hidden. Forgotten. He pulled on the handle, but as he expected the lid was sealed tight. A puzzle to open. The Many moved inside Sarmin, jostling against one another.
— Don’t open it-the horsegirl is-it was cakes and lemon slices and I ate them, oh I ate them-don’t-I had a comb, it was silver with mother-of-pearl-
— Silence, all of you!
Sarmin woke in his room beside the unbroken calligraphy, the cold desert air on his cheeks. Had he been dreaming, then, of both Aharab and the priestess? But the urn was at his side, its seal intact. Not dreams, then. He touched the blue ink on the wall, fingers against dry paper. “Is that who was coming? The priestess?” he asked.
Silence.
He would look in his Book of Histories. The middle book, neither large nor small, containing little of knives or instruction, had always been his least favourite. Written in a tiny font and beginning with a long geneaology, it described Cerana from Uthmann’s time, when Meksha had been the patron of the land, gifting Nooria with the Tower. It ended with the trimphant story of Satreth the Reclaimer and his victory over Yrkmir. Over the course of long nights Sarmin had inked in his own additions-his father’s name, Beyon’s name, the births and deaths of his young brothers-and just recently, he had pulled the book from the dust and written at a bottom of one page Daveed, son of Tuvaini, and Pelar, son of Sarmin.
It was for that book that he reached now, hoping to find some reference to priests of Meksha tutoring a young prince. Helmar was not included in the histories, he knew that already-but perhaps some remnant had been left behind, some mention of a boy and his priest.
But Histories lay open on the floor, its leather cover loose and twisted, the pages cut to shreds. “No!” Sarmin knelt by the ruined book, grieving as for a friend. His least favourite, yes, but one of his only companions during Beyon’s reign. The destruction was complete; each page dagger-cut and punctured, the words bending and disappearing into the wounds. Such rage had guided that blade that even now Sarmin could feel it, emanating from the book like a scent or a memory. With trembling fingers he searched for the last geneaology page, where he had entered the name of his son and new brother.
Gone.
“Ta-Sann!” he cried, “Ta-Sann, who has been in my room!” But even as he spoke he suspected something else, a darker possibility, the truth of how he had found himself in the reception room with no memory of having walked there, of the manner in which he had returned. As the sword-son entered he knew what the man would say, that guards were posted at the stairwell door and the door to the Ways could not be opened without the emperor’s own key. That nobody had been here. Nobody, but himself.
CHAPTER TEN
SARMIN
“The peace envoy approaches,” Sarmin said, “Arigu remains in Fryth, hostage against his safety.” He felt wholly himself now, during the day when the Many were quiet. Safe.
Govnan nodded in his iron chair. The room lay bare, black with old char, with no seat other than the high mage’s. When Govnan had offered it Sarmin had refused, but now his legs ached and even the knobbed metal chair started to look inviting. An emperor does not change his mind though, or show weakness. Foolish requirements to be sure but even here, with no audience save the old mage and General Lurish, they must be observed.
“Discuss? They will be told!” The general snorted into his dark beard. “Arigu had them on the point of his sword, I hear.” Older, higher born, more traditional, Lurish demonstrated unexpected support for his fellow general, perhaps just a soldier’s respect for the genius with which Arigu prosecuted his campaigns. That or pride in the army of the White Hat, a weapon that had once been his to wield.
“A peace founded on being told will not last, general.” Sarmin turned to meet the man’s gaze, fierce under grey brows. Although stooped by years Lurish loomed above him. Having to look up like this reminded Sarmin of the benefits of a dais, and a throne. Still, an emperor who ruled only from his throne was an emperor who might be forgotten when the great doors closed. An emperor who walked where he willed, be it the Tower or the War Room of the White and Blue, could be less easily circumvented.
“What do we need with a lasting peace?” Lurish chewed as he spoke, as if trying to swallow an unpalatable truth. “Cerana has armies that could take the world for you, Magnificence. Perhaps this is not the time. Perhaps it would be better if these victories did not have Tuvani’s hand behind them, but if you would issue such orders yourself in the next season all Cerana would know the glory to be yours. I would take our legions and finish what Arigu-”
“Your orders are peace, general, must I pin them to your chest?” “Magnificence, our strength-”
“Your strength didn’t keep my brother on his throne. Your strength did not hold when Helmar walked into the palace, into the throne room. A stranger from the desert was all any knew of the man and yet he walked in alone.”
“His tricks, Magnificence, magic-”
“Who taught him that magic?” Sarmin gave the general no time to dig-in or regroup. “He learned his trade in Yrkmir, and he learned it there because our strength did not stand against the incursion. The Yrkmen soldiers marched through this palace burning as they went, their priests carrying the one god before them, chanting their prayers. In Nooria! In my palace!”
“Three hundred years ago!” Lurish protested.
�
��They were repelled in time.” Govnan said it from his iron chair. An observation with none of Lurish’s heat. He looked lost in the folds of his robe, thick cloth, not velvet but something tougher and dyed to a deep scarlet.
“And yet we have Mogyrk priests creeping back to Nooria, preaching in the shadows, hidden churches in the greatest of our cities,” Sarmin said. Azeem had spoken to him of these churches, filling the streets with spies and saboteurs. He had read to Sarmin from the histories; cities falling at the mere approach of Yrkmen armies, their rulers overthrown by the mob, storming their gates with torch and rope. “The Parigols poisoned wells, Govnan; the Yrkmen poison minds.”
“The Longing has left the people hungry for salvation; they want to belong.” Govnan said. “Some find more solace in the one god than in Mirra or Herzu or any of their children.” He shifted in his chair, eyes bright and dark, watching Sarmin.
“Yes,” said Sarmin. Grada had spoken of the Longing, of how freedom from the Many had left her hollow. “And that too flowed from Yrkmir.” And his dream? The emptiness in the desert?
“Find the churches, burn the priests, sack the cities of Yrkmir and our people would know this Mogyrk for a grinning idol and nothing more.” Lurish shook his fist as if held a sword, as if he imagined the blood even now. The copper disks, overlapping across his chest, rattled.
“Have you seen an austere write patterns, General Lurish?” Sarmin asked.
“Sand mages cannot stand against steel, magnificence.”
“There is no sand in Yrkmir,” Sarmin said. “And these are not sand mages with tricks of dust and light.”
Govnan raised himself from his chair with a suppressed groan. Since Sarmin parted him from his elemental the high-mage had grown ancient and frail. Still sharp though, sharper perhaps. “Have you seen an austere write patterns, my emperor?”
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