She leaned over the smashed pottery and and he kissed her, once, twice, and more, heat demanding he hold her, run his hands along her skin.
Mesema pulled back and smiled, colour in her cheeks. “Will you stay a bit longer?”
“I…” In the distance, a baby cried. Pelar? The child was Beyon’s, given to Mesema hours before his death—a final gift, the promise of another person to love, but the memory cooled Sarmin’s passion. The pile at her feet drew his eye. He longed to explore those burnt scraps, dry, rolled-up scrolls, and ragged books. Perhaps he would stay and explore Helmar’s secrets with her —Sarmin and Mesema, as Sarmin and Grada once had explored the desert.
But Mesema raised her hands, blue eyes knowing, and pushed. “Go. Read.”
Whenever he left Mesema Sarmin had a falling sensation. The feeling of an opportunity missed, a chance passed by, just fluttering out of his grasp. He gathered his documents and made his way to the corridor.
Dust hung in the air, motes made golden by the last rays of this day’s sun. Sarmin held one of Helmar’s scrolls, listening all the while to the rising voices.
—he should not—I worked the fields, I always—the horsegirl is filth, she smells of—I’m lost!—I would hit him until he understood—the child is the foremost—he will kill him!—the desert is where hope dies—
Perhaps Helmar had known how to free the Many. Perhaps the answer lay in these old parchments brought by the priestess. Her predecessor had visited the palace centuries ago, when Helmar was just a boy, held in the lonely room. The Tower had seen his potential, as they had seen Sarmin’s. They thought he might swear to earth and fire both, the first to do so in forever, and called the priests of Meksha to his training. The scrolls contained their story as much as his.
The priests wrote of Helmar’s testing, of the fits he had as a child, the way he spoke in other languages and had visions—and the patterns he saw, even before the Yrkmen took him. The scrolls the priestess brought were nearly all fragments, some so brittle from age and fire that they crumbled when he tried to read them. His mind wandered to Grada. He had set her on the path of the concubines; if they were part of a larger scheme then he would know it, and he trusted nobody else with the task. And it was well to send her from Azeem, from the old men, away from their glares and their judgement. As busy as they were forcing Marke Kavic wait upon their pleasure, as much as they occupied themselves with drawing up demands to go with the peace, they would still have made time to disapprove of Grada.
Ta-Sann, sword-son, entered and fell into his obeisance, muscles rippling as he moved. “Master Herran requests an audience, Your Majesty.” —Kill him. One of the Many spoke.
Sarmin put down the scroll and eased up from the bed. His joints ached just from the short walks he had taken today. A lifetime in a tower room had not prepared him to journey the breadth and width of the larger palace. “Send him away, Ta-Sann.”
The empire needs a Knife , the old assassin would say for the seventh time. Not only because of war: Helmar was not the first heir to surface from the confusion of our history and neither will he be the last. Any man armed with old writings, ambition and time could be a danger to you if he sets to digging among the lost lines and bastard lines. You need a Knife. The master assassin had brought several candidates before him in recent months, but Sarmin had little interest in such matters; with a knife comes the pressure to use it.
In any event he would continue with knives the same way he had begun, on the day Tuvaini had opened a new door for him—he would not be given one, but he would choose his own and take it. Herran’s men had been calm and deadly, suited to their duties, but none had fitted, none carried that mix of tragedy and strength that in the end allowed Sarmin to forgive Eyul, even for his brothers. Eyul, like the holy weapon itself, had carried his scars and the insults of time. The hand that held that Knife must have known many tasks, must have touched life and been touched by it. It was not enough that they be a killer and no more.
Sarmin touched the Knife at his hip. It was always at his hip. Without it no-one could be the Knife. The power rested with Sarmin, and Sarmin alone.
The Many rose in Sarmin’s mind, flooding his ears with their voices. “TaSann…” Ta-Sann would know what to do. He fell back on the bed, his legs no longer doing what he willed, his eyes seeing beyond the constellations on the ceiling.
— It’s in the desert—help me—the girl—I had a tortoiseshell brush, where has it gone?—he is going to kill the—all those pretty girls gone to waste—
The voices rose as sand in a storm, burying his sight, and he knew no more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GRADA
Grada dreamed many dreams, some of them her own. Nightmare followed nightmare, taking her so far from her flesh that she thought she would never wake again, but always the spike of her pain anchored her and drew her back. Once through the slits of eyes glued shut with sleep she saw an old man loom over her, an ancient with a bald and wrinkled pate, two teeth only standing in his gums, huddled together as if for comfort. That was no dream, she smelled his breath and could never have imagined a stench so foul.
She tries to wake. Tries to wake. Tries to wait silent in the dark as the sleeper passes by on bare feet. This is the many-windowed house, the pale moonlit house high on the Rock among the Holies, on the street that joins the shrine of Herzu to that of Mirra. She can’t recall the name of the street—perhaps they named it “life” for what other path do we walk between birth and death?
The sleeper is gone, tugged along his path by dreams of his own. He? He had a man’s smell to him. It is enough. She is not here for him in any case. The ones she has come for will be guarded, they will be in their beds on the third floor. Grada moves on, trailing fingers along the wall, counting each doorway against the map she carries in her mind. Five she must give to the knife today. Five. But more than five will die, no matter how careful she is.
She finds the stairs and starts to climb the spiral of them. Moonlight whispers down from tiny windows in a high dome. She treads at the very edge of each step. These are marble, they will not creak, but old habits die hard. A frown as she wonders where that old habit came from. A pause as she remembers rickety ladders of bamboo lashed together with hide strips. Creeping up them, desperate not to wake him…
Wake who? She shakes the question off and continues up the stair. Her foot hurts, twinges of pain from her big toe, bruised… broken? Some accident early in the day. If she has to run, those chasing her will die.
She passes the second floor. More steps. A deeper shadow ahead, one could imagine it a man. She lifts her knife, not pausing or slowing, nothing so undoes surprise as hesitation. She needs to place hand and blade with precision, to kill quickly and to silence any exclamation. He is already leaning against the wall, so he won’t collapse in a clatter.
Even at the last as he turns his head she doesn’t quicken her pace. The palm of her hand flat to his mouth, pushing his head back against the wall, wet lips and bristles on her skin. The point of her knife is planted and pressed home, slicing through flesh, biting through a rib bone, finding the heart.
She pins him to the wall, a faint rattle of keys as he slides to the floor, spluttering beneath her hand, legs twitching as they stretch out before him. He surges up, arching, his breath escaping in a tortured hiss, then slumps. Grada wipes her hand on his cloak. Tugs out the knife. He sits at the base of the wall, legs out before him, head bowed over his chest.
Murder. Many voices whisper the word within her head. Murder. Some approve.
Grada pauses, listens. Nothing. The knife weighs heavy in her hand and for a moment she can hardly keep from letting it drop. There’s a sour taste in her mouth, hard to swallow—the taste of guilt.
“Good. Spit it out.” An old man’s voice, as edged and as sour as the taste she’s trying to get rid of. “Better out than in my old mother used to say.”
“Nobody cares about your mother, Anx, just bring her round.
A nasal voice, not familiar, not Rorrin’s.
Grada realised her eyes were screwed shut, and opened them. The daylight surprised her and she squinted against it. Her mouth wanted to ask where she was, but she refused to let it. Sitting on a bed across the room a dark haired man, dim and blurred in her vision, linen strips about his forehead and across his nose.
“Meere?” she said.
“There she is.” Meere lay back on his pillows. “I should know better by now than to be surprised by a girl from the Maze. Anx, go get Rorrin. No telling what this one will do when she finds her legs.”
“Bastard.” Grada drew a deep breath, preparing to sit up, and instead found herself gasping as white agony lanced her ribs. The door creaked and Anx left.
“I suppose I am,” he said. “But I’ve a broken nose and battered skull to pay me back for it.”
“The caravan? The slave women?” The room grew more distant, Meere’s nasal tones more faint.
“Herzu! You don’t give up do you, girl? The caravan was followed, until it was unloaded. Its cargo will have been followed too, but it’s just a precaution. I know where they’re bound.”
“Where?”
“Take it easy, Maze-girl.”
“I said where!” Through the slits of her eyes the room looked a thousand miles away, revolving as it fled from her.
The creak of the door. “Grada.” Rorrin’s voice.
“Where?” She spat again but taste of guilt wouldn’t leave her mouth.
“The Holies. They will have been taken up to the Holies.” So distant she could hardly catch the words. “I know which house.”
“She will sleep now.” The ancient’s voice. “Natural sleep. The coma is broken. And see, the wound is clean and stitched.”
Grada slept again despite the pain of her wound. Anx’s drugs still had a hold of her and pulled her down the moment she gave up the fight. She dreamed of the house on the Holies, of a butterfly broken in her hands, of a hole in the desert where the sands ran out for everyone.
“Herzu!” And she jolted upright, wrapped in sweat, cursing a second time for the sharp agony lancing from her side. Evening had invaded the room. Anx stirred in the corner, resembling a discarded robe more than a man. Grada slipped her legs from the covers and set bare feet to the dusty floor. All of her felt heavy. All of her felt sore. Her nakedness dismayed her. Had the old man undressed her? She snatched her robe from the stool it draped and shrugged it on, brushing at the crusted blood around the slit Meere’s knife made.
“You should stay in bed.” The discarded robes stirred again and spoke.
“I have things to do.” Grada patted around for her pack. She winced as she slung it around her shoulder. She slipped her sandals on.
“Mirra helps those who help themselves.” Anx lisped on each ess, two teeth not being enough to put an edge on his words. “You need to rest.”
Grada suspected the old man was right but she made for the door. “Are you going to stop me?”
Anx laughed, an old woman’s cackle, and settled back. “I’ll rest for you. Tell Rorrin I put up a fight, will you?”
Grada answered with a grunt.
“On the stand by the door.” Anx flapped a thin arm at it. “Meere left it for you.”
“I want nothing of his.” But she looked anyhow. A long knife lay on the wicker stand, not a street knife intended for honest butchery and set instead to butcher men, but a dacarba fashioned for war, a triple-bladed spike. She set her fingers to the hilt, rough with the skin of river shark, a large jewel set as the pommel. Jade perhaps, it was hard to tell in the half-light. “An emperor should have this. It will only get me killed.” A scabbard and belt dangled from a nail in the wall.
“Meere said you wouldn’t take it.” She could hear the shrug in the old man’s voice.
“Meere should be half as clever as he thinks he is.” She closed her hand around the hilt and snatched up the belt.
Grada ducked through the doorway, followed a corridor to the sound of the street, buckling the knife-belt beneath her robes as she went. An arch took her into an alley narrower than the corridor, at the end she heaved on a door of ancient driftwood until it juddered across the dirt floor, and without a backwards glance she stepped out into the flow of the Maze.
The folk of the Maze can smell weakness, blood too. Grada let neither show, shifting her pack to hide the stain on her robe. Shadow had merged with shadow, stirred by the street traffic into a pervading gloom, broken here and there by a lamp set back from a trade window, yellow flames drinking rock oil through short wicks. She wanted to go to the Holies, to the house Meere spoke of, to follow the charge Sarmin had set upon her. In a deep pocket her hand turned the disk he’d given her, over and over, fingers slick on the obsidian, feeling out his features.
“Mother of—” A pothole made her stumble, fresh pain bringing the curse, the agony on pain’s heels taking her breath. She had seen the long stair from river to rock; she would collapse before she made it half way up. Perhaps even the bridge would defeat her. “Another day.”
Grada leaned back against a wall. They say in the Maze a wall can be your best friend. Noorians passed before her, bound in their purpose, each a mystery to the other. A man glanced her way, eyes haunted, a hunger in him. The gloom took him. There had been a time when every One knew the Many, all secrets and sorrows shared until they grew too thin for care. Grada bit her lip, as if more pain might sharpen away the Longing. For her it had been a more gentle step away from the Many, taken first into Sarmin’s pattern, sharing with him in thought and desire, before being abandoned to herself once more, a second step. For most it had been one quick expulsion, a second birth of sorts, spat from the warmth and safety of the Many into the world again, raw and naked against the night.
Grada sniffed and set off once more. Not everything that felt right was right. The smokers in their dens love the poppy as it eats them from within. Even here in the Maze, thick with the stink of smoke and sewage, she caught the sweet tang of poppy-sap. How much more of it must have been borne down the Blessing since the Longing came, hidden in bales of cotton, barrels of grain, how many more meadows sown in the mountain valleys out past empire to satisfy the need?
She passed urchins seeking friends for their sisters, half a penny master, half a penny, clean and young. Hawkers, their tiered sticks swaying with quail, roast starling, rats tied by their tails and smoked over rosewood, old women clutching trays, “Sesame twists. Dried rose and besna nut. Ants in honey.”
Three men of the Arak spilled from an alley to join the larger way, their skin tarred black in the way of their tribe, the stink of oil in their hair. A snatch of their laughter and the hustle of the Maze swirled them away. Somewhere close by a shriek, sharp and terminal. She moved on. “…dead god…”
Grada could have missed it in the muttering river of the Maze, could have misheard, but the phrase snagged her, drew her gaze across the street to a corner where two women met, cowled and veiled. She chose one and followed as they split. She selected the one that carried a small string bag of limes, the other had a heavier load and logic put her on a homeward course. Grada’s woman showed no flesh save her hand where it clutched the bag, the fingers had the gnarled look of a woman turning old, or a twenty year old who spends twelve hours a day washing other people’s clothes at the river.
Grada followed, pausing now and then to wave off flies and to keep her distance. In the Maze narrow alleys kept the heat of the day, the flies quieted with dusk but rose in buzzing clouds when provoked. Some climes suffered flies of the stinging kind, or that suck the blood. In Nooria the flies stabbed.
The woman stopped once to inspect a stall. She showed no signs of guilty conscience, no sign that she was engaged in sedition. The finding of a Mogyrk church in Nooria had never been hard nor easy. The church buildings themselves were plentiful but had served new purposes for so long that the people around them no longer remembered what they had been. Two years ago she might have been
inside of one and never recognised it for what it was. But since the loss of the Many the Longing had drawn Noorians into all manner of new pursuits, new ways to fill the void inside, and the Mogyrk priests had answered their call. Now statues of their dead god shone behind silk-draped altars, and the people of Nooria drifted in and out of their doors, in secret, out of sight of the royal guard.
Grada’s mark grew furtive, quickening her pace, throwing glances left and right, but never behind, never where Grada walked, openly following her. The woman veered into the narrow gap between two buildings, gone. Grada passed by, turned at the corner and came back, taking the same path. The gap proved so narrow that Grada had to draw her shoulders together.
“The second austere…” She strained to hear more, but only the buzzing of flies met her ears.
The alley ended in a high wall and a low heap of refuse, so pungent it drew tears to Grada’s eyes. A doorway veiled in beaded strings gave to the left just before the heap and Grada pushed on through. Incense sticks smoked in niches to either side of the entrance, filling the corridor beyond with a haze that gave battle to the reek from outside. The low drone of prayer came from somewhere up ahead. Grada patted through her robes for the dagger at her hip then descended a stair and through a second curtain to enter a low basement, the bead strings streaming from her shoulders, clicking one against the next.
Six or seven people knelt on the dirt floor, lamps in niches affording enough light to avoid tripping over the worshippers. A man stood by the entrance, swaddled in sand robes, but said nothing. Grada moved to kneel beside the woman and her limes. She bit down hard on the gasp that wanted to escape. Something warm and liquid tricked down her ribs below her wound. She hoped it was only sweat.
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