The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Sixteen

Eyul dreamed of the young princes. He dreamed of blood running across shining tiles, reflected in a child’s dead eyes. In his dreams, the young Beyon spoke to him in the courtyard, though in life he had not.

“Why are we always here?” the child Beyon asked him once. “We are not here. It is a dream.” Eyul closed his eyes to shut away the

blood. “I am ill, and so I am always dreaming.”

“I’m tired of this dream,” said little Beyon. “I’m tired of dreaming altogether.” “I’m sorry, my friend; I will try to wake.”

It took days. When at last he opened his eyes, Eyul could make out the

blurry faces and hands of those who tended him. As day passed dry thirsty day, he dreamed less and moved about more. Soon he was able to see to his own needs in the morning, so that by the time the female nomad arrived with his tea he had shaved and bathed in the sand. A man could not remain an invalid too long in this harsh land. He wondered if they’d have killed one of their own as helpless as he had been.

Eyul decided he was ready, though he was not sure of the days; at least six had passed since the woman first brought him tea. He dressed in a fresh linen tunic and waited for her, sitting cross-legged on the ground. After a time she pushed aside the tent flap and entered, tray in hand. The light of the desert shot through his eyes, leaving a spiderweb after-image. He covered his face, but the sun had already driven its nails deep. Through the pounding in his head he could hear the woman pouring tea, respectfully ignoring his weaknesses. From prior experience Eyul knew she didn’t speak Cerantic, but she understood one word, and he gritted it out through his teeth: “Hermit.”

“Arapikah.” Coming. He uncovered his eyes and tried to meet her gaze, but her face remained blurred.

He tried a second word—“Amalya?”—but the woman shook her head and moved towards the flap.

This time Eyul turned his face away.

He took a swig of the strong, dark tea and let the dimness of the tent soothe his pain. He would have to depend on his tongue today. His words would come out blunt and transparent, but there was nothing to be done about that. Tuvaini was the master of words, knowing when to thrust, when to parry, and when to leave himself open, while Eyul was the Knife, always pointing.

He protected his eyes and looked away as the flap shifted once more.

“Eyul,” the hermit said, as if praising a dog. He was not what Eyul had been expecting. Ten years ago, the hermit had been thin and wasted, with a beard grown past his knees. Then, as now, he’d worn nothing but a loincloth. But this man was more muscular and cast a heavier shadow. He was older than Eyul by at least a quarter of a century, but the way he sank into a squat, with no stiffness or hesitation, spoke of a man far younger. Eyul squinted past the hermit to where shadows played against the fabric of the tent. Two nomads, standing guard.

The hermit smiled. “I suppose you are anxious to get back to your master. Time is running out. Will you make that deal?”

Time is running out for you, perhaps. “Amalya carries a Star of Cerana. She’s not mine to barter.”

“I see.” The hermit ran a finger across his mouth. “Is she Beyon’s, then, or the vizier’s, or do you mean she is her own person?”

“I mean she is not mine.”

“And that’s the essence of it.” The hermit’s eyes were all that Eyul could make out of his face, and they were so coppery bright that it hurt to look at them.

Eyul thrust his fist into the sand. “I want to see her. If she’s agreeable, then I’ll make the deal.”

“I have anticipated you.” The hermit’s eyes turned to the flap. “Arapiki!”

Eyul turned his head to the side again as the desert sun filled the opening, making a show of reaching for his empty knife belt. Island-pepper tickled his nose, and beneath that, blood. Amalya. She settled on her knees between them. Again he wondered how long he’d lain drugged and blind in the tent. Amalya’s generous curves had gone to angles. One arm lay inside a sling. He searched, but her eyes remained in shadow.

He would not leave her here.

The hermit watched both of them. “It doesn’t matter who asked the question you carry. I have the answer, and I need this wizard. Will you trade, Eyul of Nooria, son of Klemet, Fifty-third Knife-Sworn?”

Eyul turned to Amalya. He couldn’t make out her expression. “What say you, Amalya of the Tower, of the Islands?”

Movement, as if she wet her tongue in preparation to speak, but in the end Amalya only nodded. Eyul watched her for a long moment, but heard nothing beyond the wind against the sides of the tent.

“I have to hear you say it, Amalya.” He didn’t speak to her the way he wanted to, because the hermit was there, listening. His words felt rough, sand against skin.

“I want to help the emperor,” she said at last. She kept her head bowed.

Eyul turned to the old man. “No.”

The hermit’s white teeth showed in a smile. “Then you have come here for nothing. What will your master say?”

“I need only my Knife.” Eyul smiled, relaxed now with the rightness of his decision and the presence of Amalya beside him.

“Then I will propose another deal.” The hermit turned and said something through the cloth of the tent. In that brief moment of privacy, Eyul turned to Amalya, hoping for a sign, a word, or a look. But she remained motionless, her head bent low. The hermit turned back to face him. “Your Knife is on its way. It’s… an interesting blade.”

Eyul held his silence until two nomads entered, carrying his Knife between them like a temple offering. They laid it on the mat by the empty teacup and withdrew without a word, just as Beyon’s slaves would have done. Eyul picked it up, remembering how it had burned his hand in the ruined city. A warmth rushed up his arm. Out on the sands, someone sighed with happiness, a long, low breath.

Here in the tent, though, work remained. Eyul pointed the tip at the old man, sighting down the blade, and grinned when the hermit drew back slightly.

“My payment for Amalya will be a sacrifice,” Eyul said, “but you must tell me whom to kill.”

The hermit threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, my child,” he said, still chuckling. “How I wish you had been born to noble blood. You are wasted as an assassin. Of course it is all nonsense, the idea of royal blood, noble blood. Power is a different thing. But it matters to a foolish mind and keeps you from where you should be. And on the matter of where people should be—” He turned to Amalya. “My dear, this is now between me and your friend. Please wait in your chamber.”

Amalya rolled to her feet, showing more strength than Eyul expected, and walked to the tent flap. Just before she passed through, she looked at Eyul and moved her chin back and forth by less than finger’s width. No, she was telling him, but she didn’t want the hermit to see. He jerked his head away, avoiding the sun, knowing how she might interpret it, knowing that, too, would be something true.

When the tent flap fell shut the hermit said, “Amalya is comfortably installed in the caves. You remember how many there are—the Cliffs of Sight have been occupied since before the time of memory. We live among the ancients’ paintings, their offerings to the gods, even their old sandals, and yet the ancients themselves have been swallowed by time.”

“Whom shall I kill?” Eyul asked again, full of doubt now that Amalya had said no. Nomads outside the tent spoke in whispers, too low for him to hear.

The hermit continued instead of answering, “It makes a person wonder. Who were these lords, and did they accept the offerings of the cave-dwellers? It makes a person think about our own gods and goddesses, does it not? Are our offerings, even those of our emperor, in vain? I tell you, I have searched for the truth all these years, and I believe I have found it.” The hermit drew his fingers through the sand, scoring it with parallel lines. “I know how to please heaven and make our empire the strongest in the world.”

“Then you should go to the emperor,” said Eyul.

“Did you go to the emperor and tell him of your journey, Eyul?”

Eyul put his Knife into its sheath, where it belonged. The tent seemed quieter all of a sudden.

The hermit smiled. “I didn’t think so. You were wise. You and I both know Beyon cannot be trusted.”

“Who, then? Tuvaini?”

“Danger surrounds the palace, and Tuvaini plays a game.”

Eyul relaxed, now on familiar ground. “Then let us speak of the danger.”

“Govnan is a danger,” said the hermit. “Govnan of the Tower stands between heaven and the throne.”

“Are you saying that Govnan has put the marks on Beyon? That he—? That Beyon can be saved?” The hermit knew already—the hermit always knew.

The hermit laughed. “You choose interesting words, Eyul. There is more than one way to be saved. But with Govnan gone, there is hope.”

Govnan ruled the Tower, and the Tower shielded the emperor. Each mage was chosen as a child and raised to understand his or her role as a guardian of the throne. How could an enemy arise from the Tower?

Eyul hid his confusion from the hermit. “Then Govnan will be killed.”

The hermit hesitated only a moment then gave the answer that Eyul had travelled so far to hear. “What it means for the pattern to take an emperor is that a new emperor must be found. Kill or cure—but cure quickly; once the pattern has him he will be dead or gone, beyond your help either way. With Govnan removed there is hope for Beyon. His blood is fierce blood, difficult to write upon.” The hermit stood and walked towards the door flap. “Your camels will be ready in a sand’s turning. Feel free to go and find your friend.”

Eyul sat a while in his tent, rotating the teacup in its saucer. Could it be true that Govnan was involved with the pattern-curse? Would Amalya ever believe such a thing?

There were things going on here that he did not understand, but he knew from working with Tuvaini that it wasn’t good to show too much thinking. He wouldn’t put Amalya’s freedom in jeopardy by lingering here. He placed the cup upside down on the saucer and fastened his belt around his waist. He found the bandage that had covered his eyes and wrapped it around his head just twice, blocking the worst of the light but leaving him able to see his path.

Outside, the vague forms of pilgrims rose from the bright sand and the sound of soft voices and different accents filled the air. On his previous visit there had been blond-haired folk from the north, Cerani, Islanders like Amalya, and even men from the west, their hair neither black nor blond, though he couldn’t see such detail today. He didn’t linger, but hurried up the stone path and entered the first narrow opening he found.

Darkness swallowed him. He unwrapped his bandages and listened to the cave. Far ahead, low voices murmurred in reverent tones. He took a tentative step and kicked something hard and light. It rolled a short distance before hitting the wall, and he stopped again. The objects in the cave, dark against black, gained shape. He turned in a slow circle, trying to get his bearings.

He had kicked an old jug, the kind made for oil or honey, but its round belly had long since broken open, losing its contents. Long ago someone had placed it beneath a painting on the rock wall, together with other now-mouldering objects. He leaned in towards the painting and made out a woman, outlined in red and brown, with both hands held up to the sky. She looked rather like Mirra, and he remembered the hermit’s words: what had become of these ancient worshippers? He picked up the old jug and replaced it beneath the goddess. Do not take from the gods what is theirs.

He heard a shuffling on his left and twisted towards the sound, one hand at the ready by his sheath.

Eyul smelled fire, and Island herbs. Amalya, clothed in white, from her robes to the bandages around her arm, cut out from the darkness like a star. He willed his feet to stillness. “How… how is your arm?” he asked, rooting his shoes into the rock.

“Better.” Amalya turned to the painting. “The hermit makes a great deal of these.”

“I respect the gods,” said Eyul, “but it doesn’t do to think overmuch about them.” Tuvaini’s words. “Why does he frighten you so?”

She swallowed. “Do you think he believes in them?” She looked sideways at him, more at his shoes than his face.

“If anything, this shows that Mirra has ruled these lands for more than an age.”

She touched the painting, drew her fingers across the figure’s bare breasts. “I thought this was Pomegra, mother of the wise.”

“As I said, it is not prudent to think too much about them.”

“It makes you uneasy.” She turned towards him, and he remembered holding her up on the camel, and the feel of her hair against his chin. “It makes me uneasy, too.”

“The gods should make anyone uneasy.” The cave came alive with orange light as the sunset spilled its color over the cliff face.

Amalya drew closer. “I didn’t mean the gods. I meant choosing. You’re a man who follows orders, but now that you’ve had a choice—” She grabbed his left hand, and for a moment he couldn’t move for the feel of her soft palm squeezing his knuckles.

“You’re wrong.” He stepped back, and she wrapped her hand around her bandaged arm instead. “Choosing was easy.”

“You bargain with death too readily,” she said. “We need to be careful.”

He could have told her then about Govnan, but instead he moved deeper into the cave, avoiding the sun’s light. Amalya stood where he’d left her. She was brave. She wouldn’t be frightened for long.

She took a breath and asked, “When do we leave?”

“They are readying our camels now.”

“And who—?”

“Later.”

Her fingers worried at her bandages. “Eyul… Thank you.” That was what he needed to hear. He turned his eyes towards the darkness.

Sarmin lay on his bed. Moon-glow from the Sayakarva window picked out a corner here, an edge there, enough to hint at the room. Sarmin filled in what he couldn’t see from memory. Hints and memory, mortared with faith, the raw materials from which a man might construct a palace, or a prison, or both.

When the pattern-magic had washed over Sarmin, dreams had swept him away: strange dreams, where he saw with eyes that were not his own. In their wake he felt burned-out, empty, and sleep would not come.

Sarmin closed his eyes and again the pattern hung before him, an afterimage in red and green. The longer he kept them shut, the tighter the focus became—and more: he felt the Many. He felt them crowd about him like old ghosts, and their silence pressed on him. They drew closer still, standing beside him, whispering in his ears, flickering at the edge of vision.

The Many murmured in the darkest recesses of his mind, a multitude of distant voices, one laid over the next, and overlaid again. He felt the Many as a burden on his shoulders, scores of them, hundreds, maybe even thousands. He carried them all.

Without warning the pattern flared, and once more a dream took him in its jaws. Sarmin moved through the hollow of a mountain. Light showed at the end of his path, the bright colours of sunset. He lowered himself from the cave-mouth, balancing his feet on a narrow, rocky ledge. Below him a big man and a dark-skinned woman stood by a pair of camels, their heads bent close together as they talked. The man wore cloth around his eyes. Sarmin watched them mount and move away from him. Their camels were sluggish and loud.

Sarmin realised that, like the Many, he too was an observer, watching from behind eyes he didn’t own. Carried.

Sarmin didn’t recognise the sleeve that covered his arm, but he recognised what emerged as the cuff slid back along his wrist: triangle, half-moon, diamond within square, square within diamond—

“The pattern!” Again the voice that was not his spoke his words, softly, and with the accent of the low-born. In answer, whispers rose around him, like sand lifting before the storm.

All see what one sees. All know what one knows. All want what one wants. All live what one lives. This the pattern. This the price.

And then through it all came a clear voice, cool as a river in a desert: “Is there a stranger here? One who is not the Many?” It was a man’s voice, redolent with age and wisdom and power. The Pattern Master had found him. “I have felt you, stranger. You opened a door that should have remained closed.”

Sarmin held silent.

“Show yourself!” The command brooked no refusal.

Sarmin shrank into himself, imagining himself a dot, a mere speck amid the bulk of a dune.

“Beyon? Is it you? Have you joined us at last?” the Pattern Master asked.

Sarmin heard amusement bubbling beneath the words. He fought back the outrage that rose in him, as hot as it was unexpected.

“Hide, then.” The slightest ripple of anger swirled in the current of the voice. “You serve me, no matter what you think you choose. The pattern will be complete: one pattern, one future. There will be one to whom all will bow.”

Sarmin kept his peace, silent and hidden among the multitude. More than anything, the lack of imagination in the Pattern Master’s ambitions irked him. If I were Master I’d want… Sarmin wondered what he would want. He needed more than bended knees, less than that, too… Many patterns. That’s what I’d want, many patterns.

A sound came behind him: pilgrims on their way to worship. He crept down the ledge and dropped to the sand, running into the shadow of a rock.

Amalya lifted the ladle from the stew and motioned towards Eyul, who sprang to service. She’d done everything with one arm except pour the water from the well, and he had been waiting for a chance to help. He put a bowl on a rock beside her and held it steady while she poured, then did the same with the second bowl.

When both were filled he handed her one and squatted down to eat. “Smells delicious.”

She gathered her next bite. He could see that she smiled.

“It’s nice to have a full night between us and the cliffs.” Amalya nodded as she chewed, bent over her next spoonful.

She moved her bandaged arm freely, and there was no sign of the fever that had plagued her.

But she remained gaunt; Eyul could make out the sharpness in her cheekbones and the hollow of her throat. She looked up, and Eyul busied himself with his stew. He felt a fool, to be staring. Part of him wished this trip to be over; it was far easier to follow Tuvaini through dark corridors, listening to his thoughts on everything from warcraft to the supremacy of coastal olive oil…

Easier, but less interesting, perhaps.

She was still watching him, not moving, her hand on her knee. “I trust you, Knife-Sworn.”

Eyul put down his spoon and spent a few seconds balancing his bowl between two curved rocks next to the fire. It gave him some time, but he still couldn’t think of a response other than, “Pardon?”

“At one time you frightened me. But not any more.”

“Now the hermit frightens you.” He focused on the flames, her flames. Her magic.

“I feel great power in the hermit, though he can’t do the simplest tasks of a Tower mage,” she said. “I don’t understand it, and it frightens me. Metrishet hides from him.”

“Metrishet?”

“My fire.”

Eyul had heard hints about the elementals, that they had personalities and thoughts of their own. “Does he— Does it think?”

“Yes, he thinks, and he communicates.” A dark look crossed her face. “He does not like our world.”

Amalya carried something alive inside her, while Eyul carried only ghosts. Did Metrishet resent Amalya? Did the elemental beg for his freedom the way his ghosts begged for justice? He cleared his throat, looking for a way to frame his next words. “The hermit says he can help Beyon against the Carriers.”

She took another bite, then said, “That would take a great deal of power, to stop the disease from spreading.” Clearly she knew nothing of Beyon’s markings; the words held no special meaning for her.

“Would it? Perhaps it just takes some learning. He has old texts, documents, things that aren’t available to everyone.”

“Could be.” Amalya leaned over her bowl, her brows drawing together in thought.

Eyul picked up his food and said nothing for a time. He didn’t know how to broach the subject of Govnan. Amalya herself had told him to find the centre and use his Knife. The hermit had shown him the centre. And yet, when he opened his mouth to speak of Govnan, no words came forth.

Guilt filled him. Amalya had told him she trusted him, and yet he kept silent. Eyul put aside his bowl again. So many of his victims he knew nothing about. What use was it, when drawing a blade across a man’s throat, to know his likes and dislikes? To know who had loved him, and who had trusted him? And yet he couldn’t resist. “What about Govnan?” he asked.

It was Amalya’s turn to be confused. “Pardon?”

“You trust me—what about Govnan?”

“Of course I trust him.” She put her empty bowl next to his half-full one. “We both serve Beyon.”

“The mages serve the empire,” he said, thinking of Tuvaini.

“People sometimes differ on what that entails.” She drew in her breath. “Beyon is the empire.”

“All right,” he said, taking the bowls and standing up.

“What do you think the empire is?” she asked. “The buildings? The army? The scribes?”

“No, you’re right.” He took a handful of sand and poured it into her empty bowl. “We both belong to Beyon.”

“The Tower belongs to Beyon,” she said, “and Govnan is the Tower.”

“All right,” he said again, not sure why he was unable to say more. He scrubbed the bowls, watching her outline against the sky, and she watched him, not speaking, until at last she crawled into her tent.

Eyul could feel the morning’s heat on his shoulders, weighing him down, the burden of another day. He missed working for Tahal, who had been sure and fair. He had never struggled with doubts under Tahal. He’d been a strong emperor, never weak, until the very end, and even then Tahal had taken steps to ensure the empire would remain whole. The deaths of his boys ensured a unified palace and a unified army…

And yet, what was good for the empire had been poison for Eyul. Tahal had loved him, and Tahal had destroyed him. He’d given Eyul the Knife, knowing what was to come. He had doomed him—

No; before Tahal there had been Herran, and before him Halim, and before that, Eyul himself. He had been chosen for his nature.

He threw the bowls to the sand and looked at his tent. The nightmares waited for him there. He did not wish for sleep, nor did he wish to wait here for the full light of the sun.

A sandcat appeared over the crest of the dune, its lithe body slinking towards him. Dawn gleamed along its yellow hide. A good hunter, it could overwhelm its prey in seconds—as could he. The animal watched him, its head low, its green eyes shining in the rising sun.

Eyul met its gaze, his shoulders falling in relief. “I am tired of hunting, my friend. If you want me, I am here.”

“No.”

Eyul was startled—had the whisper come from Amalya? The cat took one step towards him, then turned away, drawn perhaps by an easier kill beyond the dune. A flick of its paws, and it disappeared from sight. It was only then that Eyul felt his fingers on the hilt of his Knife, ready to draw. Not so ready to die then after all.

He unbuckled his belt. The leather, worn as it was, felt rough in his hands. He laid it out, checking it from buckle to pointed end. The Knife looked small, powerless in its sheath, the metal of the hilt twisting dark against the lighter color of the dune. A gusting wind kicked sand against Eyul’s back, tiny needles pricking his neck, and he stretched, feeling light without his weapon.

Wrapping the bandage around his eyes, he counted fifteen steps to Amalya’s tent. He dropped to his knees and scratched lightly at the flap.

A rustle, and then her voice came, velvety with sleep. “Eyul?”

“When we met, you asked me how I became an assassin.” She was silent, but he felt her listening on the other side of the cloth.

“There was a man—a cruel man. Jarek. I spent many days with him, weeks, maybe months.”

“He taught you to kill?”

The simplicity of her question caught him off-guard. “No—no, at the time I was just a boy lifting purses.” He remembered hiding in a doorway, slipping after his mark, the soft feel of leather against his fingers, and the shouts, the chase.

“The guards said I’d lose my hand, but first they put me in Jarek’s cell.” For a moment he felt Jarek’s breath on his neck, heard the shouts of the guards taking bets. When will the boy scream? Eyul cleared his throat. “He didn’t know how to kill, at least, not on purpose.”

“I see.”

He drew his fingers through the sand, as he’d seen the hermit do, and closed his eyes against the morning light. “One day—I remember it was a cold day—they passed a sword through the bars to me. They said if I killed Jarek, they’d let me go. A visitor came and watched me try. He was young, well-dressed.” No bets were taken that day, in deference to the visitor with green robes and serious eyes.

Halim had always been serious. Each turn of the blade, every thrust and step, could save or end your life, he’d said. In training there had been no cause for levity. In the end, Halim had been a better teacher than an assassin. He’d died when Eyul’s beard was still new and soft on his cheeks. Halim never knew grey hairs or creaking joints, but he had known regret. The one thing he never taught Eyul was how to live with it.

“Eyul?” Amalya’s voice brought him to the present.

He shook off the memories. “I couldn’t, even after all the things he’d done to me… When he was on the floor, pleading for his life, I couldn’t do it. I had to tell the jailers to take my hand after all.”

“But they didn’t.”

“No.” His right hand went to his hip, searching for the familiar Knife, and found nothing there. “It was a test. The assassins look for mercy in their young recruits. Then they show us how death itself is a mercy.”

She reached out to him then, soft fingers on his wrist. “It can’t have been easy for you.”

Eyul thought of Beyon and his dead brothers; Prince Sarmin in his room, longing for death; a young Island girl, leaving her family for ever… “It’s not easy for any of us.”

“No, so it isn’t,” she said with a sigh. “It isn’t.”

Eyul drew a breath. “Amalya,” he said, “the hermit wants—”

“No.” Her hand tightened, fingers digging into his skin. “You don’t have to tell me,” she whispered, her voice so soft he had to press his forehead to the tent flap to hear her. “I don’t want to know. But I beg you, as we are Beyon’s instruments, to tell the emperor first.”

So it was Beyon who gave her the Star.

“Beyon doesn’t like to speak to me,” he said.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.” He wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed. He felt relieved to have the decision taken out of his hands, but something nagged at him.

The white fabric shifted. He could feel the heat of her breath against his nose. “Eyul,” she murmured, “it means a great deal to me that you made a promise to the hermit. But I’m afraid it’s too much.”

“Let me worry about that.”

A silence. “If you say so.”

“Thank you, Amalya.” He drew his hand away and stood up.

“Eyul?” She raised her voice now. He imagined her, inside, turning her face towards him. He imagined the sun lighting her features.

“Yes?”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

Metrishet. The desert grew hot around him. He stood, the light driving long nails through his eyes. He watched her tent so long that he wondered if she still listened. “I’ll see you at nightfall.”

She answered. “At nightfall, then.”

He climbed into his tent at last, leaving his Knife in the sand. Today he would not sleep as an assassin.