Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken

by Mazarkis Williams

  Govnan took one last look around. Nothing but death waited here, and all of it beyond the reach of man or elemental. ‘Lead us there,’ he said. He followed the man, his robe sticky with blood and rubbing against his knees. ‘Excellent work, soldier,’ he said, though he had no idea if that were true. He wanted only to put something kind into his day. The soldier stood a little straighter as he walked.

  The coffee house nestled in a small courtyard off the street. Silken tent-cloth protected customers from the hot sun during the day, but it made the evening dark. Frightened and grieving residents clustered around candles at the wooden tables, guarded by impassive Blue Hats. The aroma of coffee hung over everyone, a scent Govnan usually disliked, but today he welcomed anything that could overpower the stench of the marketplace.

  He eased himself into a seat, facing a man with a long beard and a copper ring on his finger. His clothes were of poor quality, but clean. ‘Blessings of the day. I am High Mage Govnan. What is your name, sir?’

  ‘High Mage?’ the man said, his voice sounding hollow. He did not raise his eyes to look. ‘My lord …’

  ‘I am no lord, just an old man wanting to know what happened in the marketplace.’ As Govnan spoke, Moreth took his station behind his chair, casting a shadow over the table.

  ‘We all saw it,’ the man said, turning his ring in a circle. ‘It was right after Farid left his stall.’

  Govnan waited, but the man only twisted his ring. A woman’s sob punctuated the silence.

  ‘They just fell,’ said the light-eyed girl at the next table, her gaze falling somewhere beyond Govnan. ‘I was buying a pomegranate from Thera, and it exploded in my hand. It felt hot. I heard a dripping … and then I saw her. She just … wasn’t.’

  ‘Did she fall and then die, or …’ Govnan cleared his throat, ‘did she die and then fall?’

  ‘They fell apart first,’ said the man with the ring. Several nodded their assent.

  ‘And this Farid, who you say left the marketplace – do you think he had something to do with it?’

  ‘Not Farid, no!’ An old man with a goat’s beard stood and tried to pace, but was blocked by chairs. ‘He saw something. That’s why they took him.’

  ‘They took him? Who is “they”?’

  ‘This is what happened,’ said the old man, adopting a patient tone, though he looked anything but. ‘I saw Farid leave his stall and crouch down on the street. I thought he’d dropped a coin. Then Thera and the others just … they just died. When I looked up, I saw two men dragging Farid away.’

  ‘Not guardsmen?’

  ‘No, but one of them was Cerani. The other was dark-haired and pale. Strong.’

  Govnan frowned. Pale sounded like the north. ‘Did they say anything?’

  The old man waggled his head. ‘Nah.’

  ‘And where were you standing, that you could see both the marketplace and the street?’

  The old man gave him a puzzled look. ‘I was in the marketplace.’

  The others nodded. ‘We all were,’ said the woman.

  ‘So not everyone in the marketplace died.’ Govnan twisted his staff against the stone floor. Had the dead been targeted? But how?

  ‘Only the ones …’ The old man trailed off. Govnan looked at him, but nothing more was forthcoming.

  ‘We were all part of the Many,’ said the woman, lifting up her sleeve to show faint scars, faded now with time: moon, circle, triangle. ‘Every one of us who lived. Not them, though. Those that died had been spared – if that’s what you can call it now.’

  A hush fell over the group as Govnan studied her skin. Though the pattern had once been blue, it was a green glow that illuminated her scars now, flickering, growing brighter—

  He dropped her arm and looked up. Light shone through the silken roof.

  ‘Torches,’ said Moreth, putting a protective arm out to Govnan. The high mage stepped away from the rock-sworn. Fire did not frighten him.

  A voice called down to them, muffled by the fabric, ‘Taste what your gods Meksha and Herzu have to offer!’ Govnan caught the stink of kerosene before the night exploded with orange light and heat.

  The witnesses screamed and ran in confusion, smoke billowing in their wake, but Govnan stood firm. The runes he needed were simple enough to form, rough commands that had been Ashanagur’s. His fingers moved to the task, splitting the air with radiance, each stroke bringing more intensity until the runes shone lightning-white, stretching their thready fingers into the air. The fire shrank away from them, towards the edges of the courtyard.

  Again he commanded with the language of the efreet. Trails of light reached out to embrace the flames and the fire withdrew, leaving an empty space where the silk covering had been. Govnan looked up to the rooftops.

  Moreth was already kneeling, hand to the ground. ‘Three men running,’ he said, ‘jumping down … on the street now.’ He closed his eyes, concentrating. His fingers sank into the stone floor as if it were sand. Behind them, a woman exclaimed in horror. ‘Tripped them,’ he said, his voice growing deeper, becoming the stone-spirit’s. ‘I grow around them now.’

  Govnan bent over the rock-sworn, holding tight to his staff, speaking low enough that the witnesses who remained could not hear. ‘Have you killed them?’

  Moreth – Rorswan – shuddered with pleasure.

  So they were dead.

  ‘Moreth!’

  Moreth withdrew his hand from the stone and shook himself as if waking. ‘One got away,’ he said. ‘His feet stopped touching the stone just as Rorswan—’ He turned to the Blue Shields. ‘They are three streets down, by the statue of Keleb. One of them climbed onto a cart or a ladder … Hurry!’

  The men ran without questions.

  ‘It is useless,’ Govnan muttered. ‘Two are dead, the other gone. Come. Let us see what Rorswan has wrought.’

  By the time they reached the statue of Keleb, Govnan’s feet ached so that each step was an agony. He leaned on his staff, out of breath. Moreth glanced at him every few minutes, concern on his face. Govnan held back his impatience. The boy had only the barest control over his bound spirit, and yet he thought the high mage weak. He missed his children, Amalya and Mura, whom he had raised from childhood. Emperor Tahal had once told him that daughters were his greatest joy, and sending them away to be married his greatest sorrow. Though Govnan had no daughters of his own, the girls he had taken as children and trained in the Tower had indeed given him years of happiness. Now they were gone, and the grief rattled in his old bones.

  The god of wisdom rose before them, carved from cold marble that looked every inch living flesh. His mouth was fierce, and one hand raised to the sky: Keleb’s passion was not for war or revenge; those He left for lesser gods. Keleb’s carved eyes were turned towards the palace, and He commanded those within it to adjudicate with balance and foresight. In His hands He held the books of law that even the emperor could not supersede. And at His feet, bloodstained stones told a story of death.

  Govnan looked around the tiny square. ‘And so we do not even have the bodies.’

  Moreth sat on the edge of Keleb’s pedestal and put his head in his hands. ‘It would appear that Rorswan has claimed them.’

  ‘It would appear? You do not remember?’

  ‘I do remember. It was just …’

  Govnan knew: the ecstasy the spirits felt when they took a life was contagious. It could overwhelm a mage if he was not careful. ‘You must be in control at all times.’

  ‘I am.’ Anger covered for shame on the mage’s face. ‘If I were not, I would be stone.’

  Govnan considered Moreth: the future of the Tower. At Moreth’s age Govnan had stood side by side with Kobar, Ansalom and others, wielding fire and earth against wildings from the west. He had stood at the heights of the Tower and summoned spirits of flame to do his bidding, and aided Kobar to build wonders of gem and stone. In those days the Tower had been filled with sworn mages, and bards had sung of their feats far beyond the mountains and
the sea. But it was not Moreth’s fault their power was waning; that had begun long ago – and Moreth had come to them after the pattern-sickness, already a man grown. His training had been both rushed and darkened by Govnan’s grief. While most mages trained from childhood, Moreth had accomplished much in one year. It was the best that anybody could have done.

  He put a comforting hand on the rock-sworn’s shoulder. ‘Come. It is time for me to report to the emperor.’

  6

  Sarmin

  ‘You are certain?’ said Sarmin, sitting down behind his desk in his new, soft room decorated with tassels and bright pillows. His old room held nothing for him now, not since the Megra had drawn the last of its patterns away, and not since he had lost the ability to see them. Govnan and Notheen stood side by side before his desk, one small and hunched, the other tall and straight. The desert headman stood so still one might think him a stone, while the high mage seemed to shimmer, like the flame he had once held within him.

  Govnan bowed his head. ‘Yes, Magnificence. Both strikes were at Mogyrk hands.’

  ‘What of this fruit-seller? Did he assist them?’

  ‘By all accounts he was no more than a fruit-seller, and a devout follower of our gods.’

  Odd. Sarmin wondered whether these attacks came from Austere Adam, still hiding somewhere in the city, or if they heralded the arrival of Yrkmir as Hazran had suggested. He turned to Notheen. ‘What news of the desert? Does our enemy approach?’

  Notheen took some time to speak, his eyes distant as stars. ‘No enemy has been seen, Magnificence, but nothing passes through the sand without a ripple. My people speak of something great that moves through the empty spaces.’

  All of the desert was an empty space to Sarmin. He riffled through old parchments, Helmar’s writings. None of it made sense to him now. Kavic had been able to read the symbols, and he might have taught him, but Kavic had died. Helmar was gone, as were his Many. Of those who knew the pattern, only the Megra remained. ‘I must speak with the Megra.’

  ‘She is ill, Magnificence. I would hurry.’ Sorrow pulled Govnan’s face.

  Sarmin pushed the thought aside; he had no time to linger on the pain of losing the Megra. ‘And what of the sickness that creeps from Migido?’

  ‘It does appear that the use of the pattern accelerates its growth.’ Govnan cleared his throat. ‘My wind-sworn Hashi reports the pattern attack in the marketplace has widened the void by one hundred feet. It now stands within a mile of the Blessing.’

  Sarmin met his gaze. After a moment Govnan looked away. ‘But it is still several miles from the north wall. We are exploring new methods to slow it.’

  Govnan’s experiments had thus far gone nowhere. The wound coming from Migido threatened them now, but it was a pinprick in the world compared to the great scar left by the death of the Mogyrk god; he imagined that void as a night sky without any stars, enormous and heavy, too much to hold in one man’s mind. If Sarmin could not heal that wound, there would be nothing left of his great city.

  ‘Thank you, Govnan, Notheen. You are dismissed.’ The high mage looked about to speak, but he bowed his head and retreated. Notheen glided after him, his midnight robes whispering against the rug.

  Sarmin stared at his hands. With these hands he had invaded the Pattern Master’s work, opened Helmar’s butterfly-stone and healed a god’s wound. But he had been drained by it. He could do no more as a mage, only as an emperor. He stood and left his room.

  Sword-sons trailed him as he walked to the women’s wing. He did not know their names; he had not asked and did not mean to. He missed Ta-Sann. All the time he had been alone in his tower room he had never suffered a loss. Now that he was out of it, there had been too many.

  The women’s corridor stretched before him, plain and white. Here, concubines did not display themselves against colourful mosaics for his inspection. They had their own rooms, and knew that he would not visit them. His time with Jenni had been a mistake, a trick played by the pattern. He stood in the empty corridor and knocked on Mesema’s door. Her servant Tarub pulled it open, and set to trembling at the sight of him.

  ‘Leave us.’ He was greeted by more plain white walls, glaring in the sun from the window-screen. Against the harshness Mesema appeared ever softer, her skin limned with light as she stretched across the bed, hair lit by honeyed fire. Sarmin knew she was no beauty by the standards of the palace, but she moved him nonetheless. Pelar slept beside her on a purple blanket, his eyelashes thick against his cheeks, and she played with his curls as she sang a Felting song. Though music did not move him, Sarmin paused to listen to her voice.

  Mesema raised herself on one elbow and smiled; the line of her body beneath a thin layer of silk set his skin buzzing, but his mind explored it no further. Since the pale sickness had struck they had been no more than friends. He sat on the edge of the bed and touched Pelar’s chubby foot. He was so healthy now that it was difficult to believe he had almost been drained of life.

  Pelar was his son in every way that mattered. Though he had come from the joining of Mesema with his brother Beyon, he loved the boy with all his being. It was not so unusual in Mesema’s culture to raise a boy this way; grass-children, they were called: the children a wife had given birth to before marrying her husband. He leaned over Pelar and smelled the baby-scent of him, soap and milk, and something sweeter. Daveed’s face rose in his mind, in that moment sharper and more real than the boy who lay before him, and he feared the memory might cut him.

  ‘Don’t wake him up,’ whispered Mesema, ‘I just got him to be quiet.’

  ‘Not even for a moment?’ He longed to see the boy smile, to wash Daveed from his mind’s eye.

  ‘If you can answer me a riddle,’ she answered, ‘perhaps I will let you rouse him.’

  ‘All right.’

  She sat up against the white cushions, slowly, so as not to jostle the baby. ‘The wound is spreading from Migido, is it not?’

  So far this was not a riddle.

  ‘And soon it will pass over the Blessing.’

  Again she was correct. He began to see the nature of her question. ‘So you want to know whether our river will turn to dust,’ he said.

  She looked at him.

  Govnan had told him there was only one mile to go before the Storm reached the Blessing. Then they would know for certain. ‘I do not know,’ he said, though his suspicions were dark.

  That did not sit well with his wife. ‘The river …’ She drew her knees up to her chin.

  Sarmin leaned forwards, trying to find words of comfort. Nooria had wells that led to underground aquifers; there were glaciers in the mountains … but in truth it he did not know if the city could survive without the Blessing. It was time to send her away. In the end all he could conjure was, ‘Mesema.’

  She blushed and bit her lip. ‘So she told you.’

  ‘Who? No, this isn’t about anything like that.’ He saw relief in her shoulders and wondered; she knew he did not care about the issues of the women’s wing. ‘This is also about Migido – and the attack. Govnan is sure it was Mogyrk. Yrkmir approaches.’

  ‘Our scouts have seen the Yrkman army?’

  ‘No … only, Notheen believes it is true.’ They move through the empty spaces. He thought about those words. Of course the desert was not an empty place to Notheen: it was his home, crisscrossed by his people, lived in and loved. The headman had meant something else. ‘In any case, it has become too dangerous here. It is time to send you two away, to my mother’s people in the southern forests.’

  She wrapped her arms around her knees, and he longed to hold her as she held herself. ‘I understand why you ask. Once I thought nothing would be too dangerous for me, but now I know that I was wrong.’

  He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So you will go.’

  ‘No. I will not.’ She met his gaze with her sky-blue eyes. ‘You know I will never leave you, not if there is a fight to be had. You promised we would work together.’

>   ‘This isn’t a game of cards!’ He stood and paced to her window. ‘My mother must also go.’

  ‘She never will, not without Daveed.’ A slither of fabric as she left the bed. ‘Nor will I. Your Majesty.’

  ‘The skill that allowed me to best the Pattern Master has left me. I cannot fight for Daveed as I wish.’ He gripped the carved wood of the window-screen. ‘I cannot fight at all.’

  ‘Hush,’ she said, as if she were speaking to Pelar. ‘Listen. The pattern lies. Do you not think it can also lie through its absence?’

  ‘It is not hiding; it is gone. And so must you be, or—’ Or I will lose you. He could not say the last aloud. They did not speak to one another with such emotion.

  She touched his shoulder and he turned to look down into her eyes, wide now with growing sadness. ‘You are a fine emperor without magic,’ she said, ‘and I will not leave you.’

  ‘But Pelar must.’

  She blinked back tears. ‘Yes, Pelar must.’

  ‘We will send him on with his nursemaids and guards. Gods willing, we will see him again.’ Sarmin stood, leaned over the bed and gathered the babe to his chest. Pelar stirred in his silk wrappings. His mouth was small and round, like Mesema’s, but his dark hair and honeyed skin spoke of Beyon. The pattern had failed to capture Beyon; it had taken his memories and formed a cruel shell of what he had been. The true legacy of Sarmin’s brother lay in his arms, so small a bundle to matter so very much. ‘Here is the true emperor,’ Sarmin said, watching the rise and fall of his little chest.

  Mesema glanced towards the door and whispered, ‘Do not say such things, my husband.’

  ‘Sometimes I must speak the truth.’ It was impossible at court – complicated even with Mesema.

  Mesema said nothing, only stared at Pelar with grief in her eyes.

  Sarmin placed a kiss on Pelar’s forehead. ‘What shall we do then, you and I?’

  For once Mesema did not have an answer. Instead, she wrapped a bejewelled hand around his elbow and leaned over to give Pelar a slow kiss on the cheek. So the three of them stood, in an embrace of sorts, breathing in the baby’s scent, in the plain white room: his family, surrounded by a deafening blankness. An emptiness. The idea took his breath and he stepped away, Pelar still in his arms. Mesema’s hand dropped down to her side and her eyes fell into shadow though the room was sunny.