Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken

by Mazarkis Williams

  The Felting lived in the cradle of the mountains; the tribe had long suffered their complaints. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘that was an earthquake.’

  18

  Farid

  The Blue Shields led Farid across the Tower courtyard. Every citizen of Nooria was accustomed to its tallest structure rising over them as if to pierce the sky, and to the wailing of the wizards as they cast their runes under the moon, but Farid had never understood the true size of the Tower compound. Here was more space than lay between the Blessing and the fruit market, or from the market to his home – his entire range of movement for most of his life – and it was filled with statues of Meksha in various destructive poses, unsettling to look upon at night, with only lantern-fire to define them in a play of orange and shadow.

  The soldiers looked at one another and shuddered.

  The walk from the gate to the Tower door was not so long, and a female mage answered the call of the bell-pull, pushing open thick brass doors the size of a flatboat without any apparent strain. Her eyes held the open spaces of the sky, and black hair puffed around her face like dark clouds. She gestured at them with long, delicate fingers not decorated by any chains or rings. ‘Who calls upon the Tower?’ She looked from one to the next. ‘Who interrupts our work?’ Farid looked at his feet before she turned her haunting face to his.

  The old soldier – Naru – bowed. It was he who had insisted on leaving Rushes behind – the Tower was no place for a child, he had said, so now she waited at the guardhouse, the squirming babe in her arms, for Farid’s return. She would not tell the soldiers anything, for the only people she trusted were at the palace. It sounded like madness, but then here he was, at the Tower. Grand destinations did not seem so impossible any longer.

  ‘I come here with questions of magic that are beyond the Blue Shields to answer,’ said Naru, his gaze still on the stones by his feet.

  ‘All such questions are beyond the Blue Shields to answer,’ the mage replied. A breeze lifted the bottom of her robes, revealing fine sandals tied with beaded copper.

  ‘This man,’ said Naru, indicating Farid, ‘was held captive by Mogyrks, and saw much of their workings.’

  Farid forced himself to raise his head and meet the mage’s eyes. She watched him wordlessly, her eyes taking him deep into a realm of sky. Something moved within her, a creature of air and storm, and he felt its breath on his face, cold and curious. They stood in silence for such a long time the soldiers began to look at one another and make small noises in their throats. The mage paid them no mind, and turned to Naru only when she was satisfied. ‘I will take him from here. I am Mura.’

  Naru put an arm out in front of Farid. ‘I must bring him back to the guard-post. He has information—’

  ‘I told you where to find the Mogyrk’s house,’ said Farid, looking beyond the mage to where he could see a long, well-lit gallery lined with statues. ‘What else could I tell you?’ The Tower pulled at him and he longed to enter it, to draw his patterns among its stones and curves.

  ‘But what do we do with the girl?’

  Farid looked to the mage. ‘I escaped with a girl and the child she cares for. Can she not come here?’

  ‘Bring this girl. I will make a judgement then.’ Mura beckoned to Farid, and Naru dropped his arm and allowed him to pass. Farid knew the old guard had not expected him to be welcomed into the Tower. The Blue Shields turned and walked back towards the gate, whispering amongst themselves.

  Farid took a final step that lifted him over the Tower threshold, bracing himself to see spirits strange and wondrous, men riding carpets or djinn standing upon piles of gold, but his feet met only stone and the corridor lay plain before him. Mura smiled at his confusion and pointed at the doors. They closed of their own accord, and Farid examined them, searching for a lever or spring.

  ‘Yomawa.’ She offered no more, leaving him to wonder whether she had uttered an incantation or spoken to him in another language. He followed her through the gallery lined with statues, uncomfortable that he had been left alone with a woman of higher class. He did not wish to mar her reputation, and so he slowed to inspect the carvings, keeping a respectful distance between them. The artist had rendered the men and women so perfectly he could see their teeth, the fingernails on their hands, each hair upon their heads.

  ‘These were our rock-sworn,’ she said, touching the last. ‘This was High Mage Kobar.’

  He drew back in alarm. ‘These were alive?’

  ‘These were our mages. Their spirits claimed them, as all spirits will.’ She spoke without sadness.

  She led him to a curving marble staircase and began the climb, her steps light and quick, and he followed, careful not to watch her from behind and to keep space between them. At the first landing she spoke again. ‘I too was a prisoner of the Mogyrks, taken in Fryth. Only recently did he let me go.’

  ‘Why did he let you go?’ Farid asked, hoping to understand why Adam had let him and Rushes escape. Perhaps Mura’s tale would offer a clue.

  ‘He hoped that I would bring a message of his good intent, but I cannot.’

  Farid thought about that a moment. Adam had not been bent towards helping, unless you counted the collection of souls for his god. ‘Your captor did not have good intent?’

  She said nothing for several steps. ‘I do not know,’ she said at last, ‘and I will not say he did and become a traitor. Who held you?’

  ‘His name was Adam.’

  She halted at the next landing; at first he believed her out of breath, but when she turned he saw it was Adam’s name that had shocked her.

  ‘My captor the Duke of Fryth spoke of this Adam,’ she said. ‘He is an austere, and ranks high in the Mogyrk church.’

  Farid held a hand to his mouth, suddenly realising the extent of the danger he had been in.

  ‘Come,’ she said, and resumed their upwards journey with more haste.

  When at last they reached the high mage’s level, Farid leaned against the stair rails, catching his breath, though the mage looked as fresh as she had when first she opened the door. She looked at him, her eyes shifting with various shades of blue. ‘My name is Mura,’ she said, though she had already named herself in front of the soldiers.

  ‘I am Farid.’ He wondered if there was an honorific for mages. He had never heard of one, but it did not feel right to address a woman of such prestige with her given name.

  ‘Wait here, Farid. I will call you when the high mage is ready.’

  He stood on the landing, his feet rooted to the ancient marble, worn by thousands of shoes and the passage of long years. This was no merchants’ guild with wooden chairs to wait upon. Here one stood in respect, even to the stones themselves, and he, a mere fruit-seller, would give that respect willingly. He saw no one, felt no magical presence, and yet something in the stone itself spoke of its terrible power.

  Below him came the heavy and regular thump of boots on marble: another mage was climbing the stairs, this one a muscled man, like a soldier. After a minute he stood beside Farid, revealing grey eyes veined like granite and dusty, pale skin. In a mournful voice he said, ‘The crack has grown larger.’

  ‘I see. I’m very sorry.’ Farid did not know what else to say.

  The rock-sworn mage passed by, continuing upwards, his progress slow and steady. Just as his steps retreated into the distance above, Mura emerged and beckoned. ‘High Mage Govnan will see you now.’

  Farid followed her into another bare space, this one long and narrow, a window at the far end open to the night. Lanterns lit up lengths of blackened stone; a great fire had once burned here, leaving nothing but stains and the stink of char. In the centre a rusting iron chair curled its back like a great claw over the old man who sat within. Beneath a shock of white hair Farid saw a face crossed by wrinkles, punctuated by a large nose and two sharp brown eyes. He knew the great high mage carried fire, but he did not see it in the old man’s gaze as he had seen the air in Mura’s – but still there was
a potency in Govnan that filled the air between them.

  ‘So,’ said the high mage, balancing a staff on the arms of the chair, and Farid might have thought him someone’s uncle or grandfather, but for the terror creeping up his spine.

  Mura spoke, each word brushing against him like a breeze. ‘This is Farid, who escaped the Mogyrks and their austere, Adam.’

  ‘I see.’ Govnan looked from one to the other and waited.

  Farid spoke nervously into the silence. ‘Last night, High Mage, there was too much fighting and the soldiers could not get to the austere. Today they will capture him, Keleb willing.’

  The high mage turned the staff in his fingers. ‘I do not expect so. He has had many hours to find another hiding place. But tell us of Adam and his dealings.’

  ‘He has a lot of men to do his bidding. As for himself, he’s strong and acts like he’s about to jump at you – but he never did.’ Farid remembered Adam’s catlike stances as he spoke. ‘He liked telling me that we’re all going to die, but whether he meant from a catastrophe or his own doing, I couldn’t tell. He wants to save our souls for his god.’

  ‘And did he say what he wanted with you?’

  Shame slowed Farid’s words. ‘He said I was special. He showed me shapes and gave me their names, and I confess to working patterns. It was an evil thing, but it was the only way I could escape.’

  Mura turned to him in surprise. She had spoken earlier of treachery, and now she must look on him with hatred.

  ‘He thinks I’m going to help him – but I’m not, I swear it, High Mage! The pattern killed my mother.’

  A long silence fell upon the room, and fear took root in Farid. Likely there was a harsh and eternal punishment for wielding the pattern. At last Govnan stirred and pointed towards him with the staff. Farid flinched, expecting lightning and heat to shoot from it, but the high mage only spoke. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Yes, High Mage,’ he said, but then stopped. He might not get another chance to help Rushes before he expired in a pillar of flame and became nothing more than one of these dark spots on the floor. The girl was still waiting for him at the guardhouse. ‘But first, if I may, your Eminence, there was a blind girl with me. Her name was Rushes, and she had a baby with her. She needs help getting to the palace where her family lives. They must be servants, or— I’m a humble man, and I know I have no right to call upon your ai—’

  The high mage had stood and was halfway across the room before Farid had even finished the word. ‘Where?’ he demanded, the fire at last showing itself in his passion, ‘where is the child?’

  Mura cleared her throat. ‘I asked the Blue Shields to bring them here, High Mage.’

  At that moment a bell rang out in the heights of the Tower, and Govnan’s eyes rose to the ceiling, beyond which, Farid imagined, hung the great bell, worked by the rope outside the brass doors.

  ‘Go and get him,’ he instructed Mura, his eyes sharp and bright. ‘Go and get the prince and bring him to me.’

  The prince—? But Farid had no time to ask, for no sooner had the high mage spoken than the Tower shuddered and swayed as if rocked by a great wind and Govnan stumbled and fell. His staff rolled across the room and came to rest under the window.

  ‘Mura! Moreth!’ the high mage cried, ‘all of you, get out of the Tower at once! The crack has widened!’

  Farid looked at the curved stone wall in fear. The big mage had said the great Tower was cracked – could it really be so damaged that it would begin to fall?

  Mura answered his thoughts in the negative. ‘No,’ she said, picking up the high mage’s staff and looking out the window. ‘No, the whole city has been rocked.’

  Farid helped Govnan to stand and together they walked to the window. The Tower overlooked all, and from where he stood, Farid could see the empty courtyard and beyond it, the dark city spreading south towards the palace, lit here and there by torchlight, illuminating a piece of a wall, the curve of a turret, the edge of a guardhouse. He could not make out what Mura had seen; perhaps her bound spirit offered extra sight.

  The high mage looked out into the night and gave a heavy sigh, though whether it was from relief or sorrow Farid could not tell. ‘Mura,’ said Govnan.

  ‘Yes, high mage?’

  ‘The bell has rung. Please go downstairs and let the young prince inside.’

  19

  Sarmin

  The council table sat in a corner of the throne room, overlooked by most petitioners and unused on most days. Nobody knew its age. Its grain revealed the wood’s origins in the southern forests, but it had grown dark over the intervening years, time, lantern-smoke, ink and the hands of hundreds of men having marked it day by day. The table never would be sanded down and polished, though it showed dull and old against the bright cushions and fixtures of the room. Those scratches and dents upon the surface had been made by the great leaders of old, generals who had defeated powerful armies and priests who had called down the favour of the gods. They gave the men who settled around the table today a sense of purpose and distinction. General Hazran, with white hair surrounding a kind face, took his chair, while his opposite in the White Hat Army settled beside him, anxious and sharp. General Lurish glanced at the vacant chair meant for his second, General Arigu. High Priest Dinar, his eyes cold, sat across from Assar, High Priest of Mirra, whose fingernails were black with soil. Herran, head of the Grey Service, his face shadowed beneath his hood, took his place next to the silent, far-seeing desert headman Notheen. Above them stood Azeem at his writing-stand, hand poised over his stack of parchments. High Mage Govnan had not yet arrived.

  ‘Report, Lord High Vizier.’ Sarmin watched the men’s faces as Azeem spoke.

  ‘The palace engineers have finished their assessment. The greatest damage is in the main hall, where the ceiling cracked and fell fifty feet to the floor. Those mosaics have been destroyed, but many of the tiles can be recovered. The staircase leading from the Great Hall to the second level is no longer safe for use. The west wing, where the scribes and money-counters are currently housed, shifted on its foundations. In the other wings there is naught but minor damage to the plaster.’

  ‘And what of the city?’ asked Lurish, leaning forwards.

  Sarmin already knew the answer to that. From high on Qalamin’s Deck he had seen the devastation, the jagged paths of collapsed roofs reaching from the Blessing, where bridge-stones poked their heads from the surface, up into the Holies where noblemen stood stunned in the wreckage of their gardens. It continued down into the twisting alleys of the Maze, now filled with rubble and broken bodies, and all the way south to the Low Gate. The lines of destruction came to a sudden stop just short of the outer walls.

  He had not yet been told how many were dead.

  ‘There is extensive damage,’ Azeem answered.

  The men muttered among themselves until Hazran’s voice rose and silenced the others. ‘But was this an attack?’

  ‘I have invited one of our palace scholars to speak on the possible cause.’ Azeem gestured to the guards and a balding man in worn velvet hurried down the silk runner with such haste Sarmin feared he might trip.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ The scholar knelt and touched his head to the floor.

  Azeem said, ‘This is the palace scholar Rahim. He studies rocks and the earth.’ He made it sound a simple thing, but Sarmin sensed a lifetime of study could never encompass all the things there were to learn about stone. He wondered what other scholars the palace contained, and the worlds they explored on his behalf.

  ‘Rise,’ Sarmin said, curious. ‘What news have you, Rahim?’

  ‘Not news, Your Majesty, only the yield of my long studies. I have read of earthquakes in many other lands, and those studies have allowed me to collect information on them, as a doctor might collect symptoms of an illness he has never himself witnessed.’

  ‘Then what is your diagnosis, Scholar Rahim?’

  Rahim frowned and rubbed an ink-stained hand through his hair. ‘Just
as a doctor can never be certain, neither can I, Magnificence. However this quake seems to presage a volcanic eruption.’

  ‘What volcano?’ asked Assar, looking from general to priest in confusion.

  ‘He speaks of Meksha’s holy mountain!’ Lurish jerked up in his seat.

  Rahim made a devout gesture. ‘My readings indicate Her mountain has not erupted since before the founding of Nooria, General. But these’ – he produced three shiny black stones from his pocket – ‘these can be found around the Blessing, Majesty, and they show us that it has erupted in the past.’

  Sarmin took one of the smooth-faced stones and turned it in his hand. Its sharp edges put him in mind of the jewelled dacarba on his belt. ‘Meksha’s mountain is a long journey from Nooria.’

  ‘It is, Magnificence – but we may nevertheless feel its effects.’ Rahim frowned. ‘There is much disagreement in the scholars’ wing, but some of us believe that an offering of sulphur and bitumen, poured into the mouth of the volcano, may calm its great fires.’

  Sarmin returned the stone to the scholar. ‘And you, Scholar Rahim? Do you agree?’

  ‘I do not, Your Majesty.’ Silence fell around the room.

  ‘Well then, Rahim,’ said Hazran, ‘how long do we have?’

  ‘Days, weeks, months – our estimates vary. If you would like to see—’

  Lurish made a noise of disgust. ‘We would be better off rolling dice, Magnificence!’

  Sarmin ignored him. Gesturing to Rahim he said, ‘You are dismissed.’

  As the scholar retreated, Hazran said, ‘I want to hear from someone who does not spend all his days among books and dust. What say you, Dinar?’

  Dinar’s ruthless face turned Sarmin’s way. ‘I say Meksha has abandoned us. Uthman conquered this empire and earned Her blessing. Now we have become weak and She withdraws.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Your Majesty.’