The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Thirty-Four

Eyul watched the horsewoman sleep. Pale, she was. He could see the blue veins running beneath the skin of her throat. He wanted to press his finger there, to feel the life he’d become so expert at cutting away.

Blood crusted her garments, though it was not her own—not yet, though she would suffer soon enough for taking their side. Men died when they lost; women were punished. It would be so easy to pull the blade over that white flesh, to let her bleed out peacefully in the cool light of day. He put a hand on his Knife. The whispers writhed around the hilt, buzzing at his fingertips.

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

He turned away from her and leaned against the far wall. Since Amalya, he had lost his way. He had killed something in himself where he thought nothing still lived, and with it went all sense of balance, until only the whispers held him now, dead children keeping him true to his oaths.

It smarted where she’d cut him, a long, shallow slice. He hadn’t seen her dacarba—she’d surprised him. Something about that reminded him of Amalya.

The sun crept across the floor, lighting Mirra’s face in the mosaic of ceramic, stone and glass; Her features came alive in golden hues, a burst of glory before the dark of evening. Eyul grew impatient for Beyon’s return, for the time when he could go and hunt Govnan.

The horsewoman stirred and woke, studying the floor a while before sitting up and scanning the room. She looked soft and childlike in sleep, but awake, her face took on angles and edges. At last she looked in his direction and her eyes widened, but she didn’t scream.

“I fell asleep?”

He spoke in a low voice, emulating Tuvaini’s soothing tone. “We must keep our voices down. They are looking for us.” “Who is looking for us?”

“Well,” he said, letting humour colour his words, “just about everyone.”

He reached into his robes and she tensed. “Food.” He produced the bread and cheese he’d lifted from the soldiers’ hall, wrapped in a piece of old linen. He stepped forwards and put it on the floor, a man’s length from where she sat.

She slid across the tiles on her knees and reached for the bundle. “His Magnificence will return soon, heaven bless him,” he said, although in fact he didn’t know where Beyon was; he’d slipped away before dawn to wander the secret ways. It worried Eyul that Beyon could be cut down by a few Blue Shields while he waited here.

No. Govnan would die first, and then Beyon could be saved. He told himself it was so.

Eyul retreated to listen at the door, wrapping the linen about his eyes before stepping out of the shadow. Soldiers’ boots or assassins’ slippers would signal the same thing. Then, if she wanted it, he would open that white throat.

The horsewoman consumed everything in the napkin and then picked up the crumbs with her fingers. She wasn’t dainty. Eyul could imagine Beyon liking that about her.

“My name is Mesema.” She stood, facing him, one hand on the crusted blood of her gown.

“I am Eyul, son of Klemet, Fifty-third Knife-Sworn.”

“Knife-Sworn? An assassin?”

“Yes.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed: more scared than she looked, then. “Where are we?”

“This was once the women’s wing.”

She looked around again. “It’s less grand than the one I’m in. Was in.” She took a step forwards. “Why did you cover your eyes? Are you injured?”

More than you know. “The light hurts my eyes, that’s all.”

“Beyon’s wives— Did you—? Have they been killed?”

She knew; she saw it in him, that he could have done it—that he would have done it, if things were different. Again she reminded him of Amalya. “No. I did not—and only I can kill a royal. They will still be alive.” He watched her consider this. This was no naïve young girl, nor any wild savage. She might manage what lay ahead better than he’d thought.

“One of the soldiers killed Hadassi.” Mesema watched the floor, as if she could see it there.

“No!” Eyul half-drew his Knife. For an instant he felt foolish, as if murder were a small crime when set against murder by the wrong person. The whispers coiled around his fingers again as the Felting woman turned towards the door.

“He comes.”

“He comes.”

“He comes.”

Mesema’s stomach rolled when Beyon crashed into the room; his presence washed over her like music with all the wrong notes, or a room full of men fighting. He was not like Sarmin, and certainly not like Banreh. He walked straight over to her.

“Are you well?”

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. Purple triangles asserted themselves against the honey color of his cheeks and her finger itched, wanting to reach for them, but she dug her nails into her palms instead. It had been days since she’d seen Beyon, but she was always aware of him, aware of his marks and his memories. Beyon embodied everything she feared in the palace, including herself. The vision still pressed against her mind. Do not forget that you chose to stay, foolish girl. She looked through the window-screen. Down in the courtyard, white-hatted soldiers were hammering three stakes into bases.

“My lady, you should keep clear of the window.” Eyul spoke from where he still knelt on the floor, his head to the tiles.

Mesema didn’t realise at first that the old assassin was speaking to her. She stepped back.

“Oh, get up, Eyul.” Beyon barely glanced at the man. “I brought you some clean clothes, Zabrina.” He held out a swathe of ocean-colored silk. “At least, I believe these tiny scraps to be clothes.”

The emperor does not deal with such matters. That’s what Lana had said— but then, Beyon wasn’t the emperor any longer.

“Thank you.” She grabbed the cloth by its corner to avoid touching his hand. His wife’s blood still crusted her fingernails. “I’m sorry…’

“Not your fault.” Confusion flickered over his features. Mesema gathered the clothes and shifted on her feet.

Beyon snorted, turning to the window. “We stand within an entire wing of the palace. You don’t have to change in front of me.” He fell silent a moment, watching Arigu’s men. “What— What are they doing?”

“I don’t know.” She held her new clothes against her chest like a doll, or a shield. She thought about Atia, Marren and Chiassa. Three women. Three stakes.

“Come away from the window, Your Majesty, lest you are seen.” The assassin again. He stretched his wounded leg, glancing at Mesema.

I stabbed him. Will I stab Beyon next?

Beyon hit a hand against the window-screen. “Eyul.” He used a different voice now, lower—colder, the voice he’d used in the tent, looking at Banreh. “They have my wives.”

Instead of responding to the emperor, Eyul turned to Mesema. His eyes were still hidden by the cloth and she wondered what he looked at, and what he saw. “You should go and change now,” he said in a kind voice that didn’t feel kind, a voice that had steel behind it. “In another room.”

Mesema nodded. The goddess tiled into the floor stared at her, eyes glowing. She knew it was a goddess because there was no man pictured with her.

Eyul pulled a bit of silk from inside his robes. Then he produced Sarmin’s three-sided dagger and wrapped it up like a baby. “Don’t forget your knife.” Mesema shook her head at the knife, but he thrust it at her a second time. Beyon stood motionless at the window, his back to her. Resigned, she accepted Eyul’s offering. She walked slowly down the corridor and picked a plain white room. This had obviously been the women’s wing in a more austere time. A bench spanned the length of three windows. They were not open windows, nor glass, nor screened with wood like the one in the other room: these windows were fitted with a translucent stone that gleamed with yellow light. She had seen jagged bits of the same stone in Sarmin’s room. A small word had been carved into the very bottom, but Banreh had never taught her to read or write Cerantic words, or any words, for that matter.

Mesema wondered what Eyul was going to do about Atia, Chiassa and Marren. He put her in mind of her father, somehow, though her father was neither so strong nor so cold. Her father would try to rescue them, but if he couldn’t, and they were going to be in pain… She closed her eyes against the light.

The first scream rose from the courtyard.

Nessaket bowed her forehead to the green and white rug when Tuvaini entered. She had centred herself so that the leaf pattern appeared to generate from her emerald-colored skirt. Her spine curved prettily to where her head lay against the silk, a poison flower on a golden stalk.

“Rise and face me, Empire Mother, mother to dead sons.” Nessaket sat back on her heels, but kept her eyes cast down, and it angered him. She had always been ready to meet his eye, to speak before spoken to; now she chose to feign humility.

“Speak,” he commanded.

“I expected you last night, Your Majesty, but you did not come to me.” “I was occupied with matters of empire.” In fact he had watched the shadows glide across his wall, but there was no need to tell her that.

She kept her eyes down, calling back the girl she had been, but she was no longer that girl, and he was no longer the frightened, lonely boy in the shadow of Tahal’s robes.

“Did you sleep well without me, Empire Mother Nessaket?” Her shoulders tensed with his words, but she soon found her balance. “I did not, Your Majesty. I have grown accustomed to your arms about me.”

He paced around her one way, and then the other. He reminded himself of Beyon. He understood so much more about his cousin now. “We all make sacrifices.”

“I know about sacrifice, Your Majesty.”

Something in her tone made him turn to face her.

She shifted her knees. A strand of gleaming black hair fell over her chest.

“Tahal used to say that the empire does not give itself freely. That those who want it must pay for it.”

“In restless nights?”

Her voice grew strong, steely. “I have given more than restless nights, Your Majesty.”

The faces of her young boys passed behind his eyes. “You knew the price.”

“No price is truly known until it is paid.”

Stillness fell over Tuvaini like funereal silk. “And you would teach me this?”

“I have only kept you to your bargain: no wife but myself, no children but mine.”

And there it was. Herzu laid a hand upon his shoulder, his claws sinking deep. “Lapella could bear no children!”

“And Sarmin was harmless to you.” She spoke in such a quiet voice that if Tuvaini had so much as brushed his slippers against the carpet, he would not have heard it. But he was standing still, and so the words reached him.

Revenge? For Sarmin? He had no idea Nessaket had felt any affection for her second son. Tuvaini knew his madness kept her from visiting him more than once or twice a year. She never spoke of him, with love, or anything else. In Herzu’s temple she had agreed to pass him over for the throne, and she must have known what that entailed. She, after all, had seen the last succession, seen the bodies of those boys in the courtyard.

And yet her eyes grew wet and she looked away.

Could Sarmin have been her favorite? That mad, pacing prince who talked to himself for hours? The one who did not himself care whether he lived or died? Tuvaini recalled his wild eyes, the hair dark against his forehead, the lips that curled into a mocking snarl. “Better run, Vizier,” Sarmin had said to him.

It is bad luck to kill the mad.

“Rise, Empire Mother, and leave me.” Tuvaini settled into his couch. It was much softer than the throne.

She stood with effort, the stiffness of her legs betraying her age. He took no satisfaction in that—indeed, he might yet find some sympathy for her, rediscover his feelings for her in their shared loss and grief. Somewhere inside, he thought he wanted that for them. He held out hope for that. But not today.

She paused, straightening the skirt around her thighs. “Your Majesty, if I may, I have other news.”

He waved a hand. “Out with it, then.” It struck him once again how much he sounded like Beyon.

“I am with child.”

An heir. He had expected to feel joy, but instead his mouth went dry. He rubbed his tongue against his palate before saying, “We shall have to arrange a ceremony, then. A marriage.” They had discussed this; it would be a different ceremony from the usual. Normally a priest of Mirra performed a quick joining of hands in the women’s quarters, moments before consummation. The emperor and his new wife were the only required witnesses. Tuvaini’s wedding would show the court and the empire his new way of doing things: one wife, one heir. It would be large, and public. Already his mind went to the complications, to the concerns of his generals, the disapproval of the priests, the resentment of the nobility in the provinces. Would their wives also expect a new order? Would he cause unrest in every home in the empire?

“I will be queen.” Nessaket interrupted his thoughts. She had the steel to remind him, even now.

“Leave me,” he repeated, and she left, silent and graceful as a snake. Tuvaini watched the sun glide across the calligraphy on the walls. Sometimes, in the birth of morning or the fall of night, he thought he saw faces there, hidden in the swirls and hooks of ink.

He heard Beyon’s wives begin screaming in the courtyard. He didn’t care to wonder what method of torture Arigu’s men had devised.

Mesema searched her body for new marks. Finding nothing, she scraped the blood from her sandals with Sarmin’s dagger. She heard another scream and fell back against the wall as if struck.

After a moment she began her struggle with the silk, forcing the tiny bit of blue-green to cover her as modestly as possible. Her hands shook, making it difficult to fold and tie the slippery fabric.

Chiassa wailed, high-pitched and long, filling the room where Mesema stood as if she were inside it. A cry of fear, not pain, terror, as they approached her. Chiassa, with the golden curls and the funny way of speaking. Mesema sat on the bench and covered her ears. Why didn’t I say yes to Banreh? If she hadn’t moved away from him, if Eyul hadn’t been able to grab her, she might be crossing the sands already.

No. The only difference is that Banreh would have fought, and been killed. She was where she belonged. If she were to help Beyon and Sarmin and honour her promise to Eldra, she belonged in the palace, not running away. And she should be with Beyon, not hiding in another room. She rebound her dagger and tucked it into the edge of her skirt before opening the door.

Beyon paced the room, his hands pulling at his black hair. “Something must be done, Eyul—this is intolerable!”

“That is what they want you to feel, Your Majesty. There are twenty of

Arigu’s men in that courtyard, ten of them archers. They want to draw us out, kill us both.” Eyul leaned against the wall, in shadow, his voice calm. Another scream pierced the air and Beyon flinched. After a moment Mesema realised that she too was standing with her fists clenched tight. Eyul’s cloth-bound head turned her way and she shivered. The emperor’s Knife must not be broken, Sarmin had said. Was Eyul the Knife? She could not imagine breaking that man.

Beyon quickened his pace. “I cannot leave them there to suffer,” he said. “That would be the act of a cowardly man—a cowardlyemperor.”

Another scream.

“Eyul!”

“You must keep your voice down, Your Majesty.”

Mesema touched Beyon’s arm, but he shook her off. “How dare you command me! I am to stand here and watch them die?”

The thought wormed through Mesema’s mind, and though she tried to press her tongue down, force her lips closed, it emerged as a whisper. “You could kill them.”

Eyul stood straighter from the wall, his bound eyes turning towards hers. Beyon turned to her also. “What?”

From the window came a low moan. Marren’s low voice, Marren of the red hair and the jade bracelets. Marren of the sharp eyes.

Mesema swallowed and found her voice. “You—You could kill them. Now. Stop— stop their suffering.” Her lips felt numb. Her own words sank through her like sharp needles. It was she who had thought of this and not the emperor. Not the callous, cruel emperor who now turned to the window, regret expressing itself in his mouth, in the set of his shoulders.

“Do it,” he said.

Eyul took up position before the window. The sun-dazzled courtyard was a mass of blurs, shapes drawn together in confusion, just as the women’s voices joined together in agony. He had known he would not be able to see, not during the day. He drew his Knife and placed it on the sill. Then he retrieved his bow and notched the string on one end.

“Mesema,” he said to the woman, the woman who had shown Beyon what Eyul could not, “take the emperor into the secret ways.” He braced the tip of the bow against his foot. “Find somewhere to hide.”

Beyon’s voice rumbled behind him. “I will stay here. It was my decision, and I will take responsibility.”

It was the first time Beyon had ever expressed such a sentiment, and though it might have been welcome at some time in the past, it was not welcome today. Eyul bent the wood over his thigh and fitted the string in place. “I do my work alone. It has always been that way.”

“Come, Beyon,” said Mesema, but the emperor stepped forwards.

“Eyul—”

“It will be painless,” Eyul promised. Laughter from the Knife.

“Can you keep that promise, Knife-Sworn?”

“It will be painless,” Eyul said again.

“We’ll wait in my tomb, then.” Beyon allowed the woman to lead him away.

Eyul breathed a sigh of relief as he checked the tension in the bowstring. His tomb is a strange choice, but wise. He turned to the Knife again, tapping it with one finger. “There,” he murmured. “You’ve helped me before.”

A rustling, and then, “You have to kill them.”

“Yes.”

“The soldiers are too many and you have little time.”

Three women. Three women to add to my list. “I know this.” He examined his arrows, chose the first one.

“You are the emperor’s Knife.”

“I know this also. Where do I point my bow?”

Another voice, younger. “You end both the innocent and the damned, but you are not damned.”

“Good. Now tell me where to shoot.” He would bring mercy to these women, then find Govnan and kill him. He should have sent Beyon farther away; the tomb was too exposed, too dangerous, but they were not yet ready to move to the desert. The voices were right: there was not enough time. Killing Govnan might buy a little more.

“You bring peace. You send souls to paradise. You give an end both swift and kind. Few in this world have one strong enough to offer mercy in their final moments.”

“You mock me.”

“Never.” A pause. “To your right… down. Down. Now.” Eyul let the arrow fly.

“Right through the heart.” Satisfaction.

Eyul strung a second arrow. “Again.” He could hear shouts below him, white figures running across the diamond pattern.

“Hurry.”

“Left, down. No, up. Now!”

Eyul reached for the third and last arrow.

“Be glad you cannot see what the soldiers have done to them, assassin. Be glad that it is not yet time for you to uncover your eyes.”

“It will be night soon enough.” He heard men running on the floor beneath him, thundering towards the stairs.

“That is not what I meant… Now!”

Eyul released the string and slung the bow across his back. Do not think about those women. Do not think about Amalya. Keep moving.He sheathed the Knife and turned for the secret ways.

“An excellent shot. Govnan looks impressed.”

Eyul paused, his hand on the hidden door. The soldiers’ boots echoed on the stairs, seconds away. “He saw?”

“He watched you from the prince’s tower.”

Anticipation drew Eyul’s breath. At last he would have his moment with Govnan, to avenge Amalya and to open the way for the hermit to fight the pattern-curse. He slipped into the ways just before the soldiers entered the room behind him.

Eyul uncovered his eyes and ran through the dark, not as quickly as he might have before. The cut made by the horse-woman slowed him down, but he was still fast enough to stay ahead of any would-be pursuers. He knew every drop and chasm in the darkness, and when to take extra care where another man might meet a surprising end. And there were other men; the secret ways had become much less secret of late. He had seen, at various times, Carriers, soldiers, and even Old Wives sneaking along the dark paths to unknown destinations, though they did not see him, or hear him.

Eyul did not pause in his rush towards Govnan, though when he found him, he would wait, he would savour it. But he would find him first.

Halfway there he decided not to enter through the prince’s room. The prince, according to Tuvaini, was insane, unpredictable—he might warn Govnan, or interfere in some other way, and Eyul did not relish the idea of killing Beyon’s last brother. He would use the door near the tower, at the bottom of the stairs, and wait for Govnan there.

At last he stood unobserved before a wooden door. This one required an arrow shaft. He pushed one in as quietly as he could and gave it a twist, though he needn’t have been so careful: the door screeched open on rusty hinges. He kept to the darkness a few minutes longer, waiting to see if anyone was reacting to the sound, but he heard nothing. He wrapped his eyes against the low light and moved out of the hidden ways.

He moved into the shadows behind the curving stairs of the prince’s tower. He heard footsteps above him, coming down. The old man was taking the steps carefully, but that didn’t mean his elemental would be slow. Eyul looked at the soot-blackened walls, the ash on the floor. Govnan was more dangerous than Amalya had been, but that did not concern him. Govnan would die.

Eyul wished it were night. He wanted to be able to witness the disappointment on Govnan’s face when he realised he’d been caught. The fear when the Knife stopped his heart.

“Do you wish to see?”

Eyul fingered the twisted hilt. “Of course I wish to see, but I can’t.” He kept his voice below a whisper lest the old man hear him.

“But you can. You have clung too long to darkness when the Knife cuts both ways.”

Eyul listened for Govnan.

“You are the emperor’s Knife.”

“You repeat yourself.” Somewhere above him, the high mage coughed. Had he heard? Eyul drew the Knife from its hilt.

“You end both the innocent and the damned, but you are not yourself damned.”

A child giggled. “I am Pelar, who died at your hand.”

“I am Asham, who died at your hand.”

“I am Fadil, who died at your hand.” The youngest of them all.

Eyul fell back against the wall, tears filling his eyes. Of course they were—he had known that—he must have known. “Why do you help me?” He moved his lips more than spoke, but the Knife heard him nevertheless.

“You are the emperor’s Knife. Only you can shed royal blood without damnation.”

“You said that.” Had they?

Silence.

Govnan drew closer.

Asham, the eldest, said, “You must see. You are not damned; you are the Knife. You cut both ways and you cut me. But I will help you.”

“I will help you,” said Pelar.

“I will help you,” said Fadil.

“We don’t want the Master to use you,” said Asham.

Eyul’s fingers tensed on the Knife. “Govnan.” A thought more than a word.

Silence.

At last Eyul saw the flaw that had been invisible to him before: Govnan was not the enemy. He had accepted what he was told without thinking of another possibility. But he was learning. Amalya’s trust had not been misplaced.

“You can see.” Pelar’s joyous voice.

“You will not be broken,” Fadil said.

Eyul reached for his linen wrappings, then hesitated. Amalya? “The Pattern Master took her before you did. She is not with us.” “They are coming.” Fadil, serious.

“Very close.” Asham.

Eyul freed his eyes and blinked away his tears. He was ready. The sun’s dying light trickled through the unseen windows high above him. Standing at the bottom of Sarmin’s tower, Eyul was able to pick out every crack, every pebble on the stair, every grain in the ash-cloud that billowed under Govnan’s approaching feet. He saw everything, and it caused him no pain. He stepped out into the light.

The high mage came around the last curve and peered down just as heavy boots sounded in the corridor. Eyul motioned to him and mouthed “Carriers.” Govnan had burned the tower; he was powerful. Together they could overwhelm the patterned men. But the old man crept back up the stairs and out of sight. Strange.

Five Carriers entered and spread out from the base of the stairs to the wall. Though they still wore the clean blue uniforms of the royal guard with burnished pins of rank on their collars, the marks had taken their sense of decorum. Three had discarded their hats; on two they sat askew, the feathers dragging like those of dead birds. The pattern drew parallel lines across their cheeks and noses and marked their chins with triangles of deep blue.

Their faces looked identical now, but they had once been their own men. One, Eyul recalled, had been a joker who spent his free nights playing dice; another had been in love with a kitchen girl, always finding an excuse to stop by the ovens when he should be on patrol. The one in the middle had been a Beyon loyalist. Eyul had told him about the emperor’s meeting place in Mirra’s garden—but he did not have time to ponder the implications of that right now, because all five had drawn their long hachirahs and were moving forwards. Eyul kept light on his feet, watching their movements, waiting for his opening. The Knife felt warm in his hand.

“Hello,” he said, “I bring peace.”

They did not react, other than to step towards him again, their eyes blank and unfocused, their weapons ready. An assassin must be fast and clean. Above all, fast. He ducked beneath the swinging of two swords, slit the first from hip to shoulder, and cut the second Carrier’s hamstring. Economy of motion, an absence of fear. These are the first pillars of the Grey Path. He rolled away, ignoring the pain as a blade scraped against his chest, and used his feet to knock the fifth one down. Now the Carriers were between him and Govnan.

One of the Carriers spoke, his voice flat. “Where is the high mage, assassin?”

Eyul smiled. “How would I know?” If Govnan had no defence against the Carriers, then he would protect him: he would do it for Amalya, for Beyon, for the empire. He would do it because that was his purpose. Blood seeped from his wound and over his ribs, soaking his shirt. The wound the horsewoman had given him stung like a hot needle.

Four moved forward as one. The last was dragging his leg behind him, and Eyul made a dervish spin to the far right, slitting that Carrier’s throat before he could swing his heavy blade. Be fast, keep close. Knife-work is intimate. The fifth was getting up from the floor; barely pausing, Eyul kicked him again, sending him sprawling on his stomach, and dived backwards, out of range of a hachirah. He was dancing to a tune no one else could hear. This was a game he played well. No dead princes, no mage-girl, just Eyul and a sharp edge with death behind it.

They were better fighters now than they had been as guards, but it didn’t matter. Move fast; their boots and heavy blades make them slow.Before the Carrier could raise his sword to swing again Eyul had launched himself forwards and to the left, landing on the prone man’s back and hearing the snap of bone. He ignored his own pain—getting old; pain is for later. He leaped clear and turned to face the Carriers again. Two were left on their feet.

The one on Eyul’s right charged him, hachirah held high. The other, lame, pulled himself forward with some effort. Foolish. Perhaps the person guiding them had grown impatient. Eyul rolled below the slice the first made through the air and got to his feet so close that he could smell the Carrier’s stale breath. His head struck the man’s chin as he rose to his feet. Teeth snapped together, and part of the Carrier’s tongue fell clear. Knife scraped bone as Eyul stabbed him in the heart.

The last Carrier wrapped an arm around Eyul’s neck, lost his balance and pulled them both to the floor. Eyul held the Knife firmly as he fell. The twisted metal of the hilt was easy to grip, despite the blood. He lay on top, the Carrier cutting off his breath from behind.

Eyul twisted in the Carrier’s grip, found the man’s ribs and stabbed down. Immediately he could breathe again. He rolled over to the last, the one with the broken ribs, and slit his throat.

Only then did he notice that the Knife had been silent. He looked over at the stairs and found Govnan looking down at him. “You didn’t use your fire,” he said, neither accusation nor question.

Govnan smiled. “Prince Sarmin separated me from Ashanagur.”

The mad prince? Eyul stood and sheathed his Knife, surprise taking his words.

Govnan descended the last few steps. “Ashanagur was always able to sense flesh,” he said, “and though he is gone, it appears he has left that echo of himself with me.” He looked out, beyond the archway. “There are more coming.”

“Let’s get to the ways.” Eyul moved to the secret door. He twisted an arrow shaft in the hole to release the catch and together they entered the darkness, tracing their way from memory.

“They are all around,” said Govnan in a low voice, “closing in. They think I have the power to get in their way.”

“You don’t?” Eyul’s thoughts turned to Tahal in the church, to Amalya in her tent. Had all hope been lost? Had it all been for nothing? That didn’t feel right—it couldn’t be right.

“I don’t.” Eyul felt the man’s robes brush against his arm and caught the scents of char and sulphur. “But Prince Sarmin does. His magic is older than anything the Tower can access.”

So, Tuvaini, you missed something in all your scheming. The mad prince, Tuvaini had called him; useless. He had been wrong. The spark in the line of emperors that had begun with Uthman the Conqueror lived on in his descendants. Would the power that vanquished a continent be enough to defeat the pattern?

Eyul tried to conjure an image of the prince. He remembered Sarmin as a young man, quiet and bookish. Tuvaini had described him very differently.

“The magic in your Knife is similar to his, incorporated in metal.” Govnan touched the hilt of the Knife and Eyul jerked away. Another man’s hand on the Knife felt like a violation. Could Govnan hear the dead princes? He thought about them and their brother Sarmin.

Govnan led the way up thin, crumbling stairs. “What were you doing there, at the bottom of the burned-out tower?” he asked.

Eyul tested each step before giving it his full weight. “I was going to kill you.”

“But you saved me instead.” Govnan reached the landing and turned to face him, the darkness of the ways concealing his expression. “You did kill Amalya, though?”

“Not by choice.” Eyul felt momentarily dizzy and pressed a hand against his tunic, sticky with blood.

Nothing more was said as they crossed bridges and ascended more stairs; Eyul heard only Govnan’s laboured breathing ahead of him and the distant sound of boots. He moved with care. He’d never been to the Tower through the ways and he was unfamiliar with the treacherous twists and narrow bridges in his path. For the first time the smell of rot that rose from the chasm filled him with nausea.

“They can’t enter the Tower, can they?” That made sense to Eyul: in all the years of the pattern-curse, not one mage had been marked or killed by a Carrier—not until Amalya left the Tower’s protections.

“No. Not yet.”

They traversed the blackness in silence. At last the high mage stopped and said, “This is the last stair. Beyond it is one more bridge, then the door to the Tower.”

Eyul heard the sound of metal touching metal and caught the stink of lamp-oil. There was a sizzle, then the old man’s face was lit in shades of red. In the play of flame and shadow, Eyul remembered Metrishet and felt lightheaded.

Govnan replaced the lamp on the wall. “There are Carriers ahead and behind.”

“I will clear your way,” Eyul said, steadying himself on his feet.

“They think I am the one who works the old magics.” Govnan met Eyul’s eyes, and Eyul understood what was left unspoken: They don’t know Prince Sarmin is alive.

Eyul would keep the secret. He would defend Govnan as if everything depended upon it, as if no one else mattered. He fingered the hilt of his Knife and spoke silently to the young brothers. “I could use your help.”

The Knife was silent a moment, and then Eyul heard Asham say, “We will help. It is almost the end.”

“The end of what?”

“The end of us.”

In the low light Eyul could see a crowd of Carriers, eight of them, standing at the foot of the bridge. Four held hachirahs. Two had daggers, and the others clutched makeshift weapons: a lamp-pole, a sack filled with something heavy—rocks, perhaps. Eyul felt his own blood sticky against his stomach.

Make it good, Knife-Sworn.

Eyul ran at them like a bull, and the first Carriers fell into the dark.

“Good,” said Asham.

That’s two. Eyul steadied on his feet and gripped his Knife.

Govnan had left for the Tower long before, leaving a burlap bag full of bread, dried meat, and olives. It was Sarmin’s first food since Ink and Paper stopped coming, but he was not hungry. The screaming women in the courtyard had brought back the memory of little Kashim, both his cries and the terrible silence that followed. They had brought back his loss and his pain and his futile anger. And just as on that terrible night so many years ago, Eyul the assassin had done the killing. Govnan had called it a mercy, but Sarmin would not hear it. He knew the truth. It is always wrong.

He leaned back against the pillows and felt the blood sinking into the courtyard tiles. And there was more: somewhere below him a battle had been fought, and the blood of many pooled into one. Govnan? He reached out with his mind, tried to guess who had died, but he could not.

Everywhere blood fell he gathered it to him. There was too much, far too much, and yet not enough to make his own design, to write his own will into blood and pictures and oppose the Master.

An anticipatory silence had fallen over the Carriers. The Master’s hand drew their threads taut. He altered his pattern, tightening and twisting the threads until Sarmin felt the breath rush out of him. The spaces and ways he travelled stretched and narrowed; there was nowhere to hide. Sarmin lay trapped, a fish in the Master’s net—unless and until he could step out of it and into his own design.

He thought he would lose this game. He had seen the Master’s work. He had copied it, passed through it, admired its beauty. But now, when he was so close, and the need so strong, he doubted that he could create such a masterpiece of his own. He needed to learn more about the writing of a red pattern, a blood pattern. Grada’s desert journey would help, if enough time remained. Perhaps in that Mogyrk church Grada would find the key.

The pattern writhed around its axis, the centre, where the Master sat spinning his web. They were approaching the endgame. The Master’s power was overwhelming; his plan was without fault. Except that he hadn’t seen Sarmin. And the emperor’s Knife remained unbroken. There was hope. A hidden piece could spoil the Push.

Sarmin opened his eyes and searched for the hidden ones in the wall. “Will he find me, Zanasta, before I make my own pattern?” The moonlight slid over the calligraphy, a soft hand silencing any mouths that might respond. “Aherim?”

Silence. They had turned their backs on him. He was friendless in his soft prison.

“Grada?”

Grada followed the road from Gemeth west along the banks of the River Blessing, passing rice fields and reed beds, villages, river ports, and the holiest of temples at the Anwar Quays. She had walked twenty miles on the first day, twenty-five the second. Days passed, and she kept on. The dust coated her legs to the knee and her skin looked almost as pale as Sarmin’s. She thought of the prince often as she walked, and when she lay beside the road at night, wrapped in her cloak, she thought of nothing else.

“Grada?”

“Sarmin? Are you with me?” She huddled deeper into her cloak and coiled in the sand.

“Always. We are two and one. It is like the Many.”

Grada shuddered. “It is not like the Many. The Many was—”

It was rape.

. “The Many… You know when the blowfly bites you and lays its eggs under your skin, and you have to let the maggots grow and crawl around inside you before it’s safe to cut them out?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, the Many was like being bitten by a thousand blowflies, but knowing you’ll never get the maggots out, no matter how big they get.”

Sarmin felt the crawling of blowfly maggots. He had never been bitten, but Grada’s memories were there in his head and on his tongue as he lay on his bed fifty miles away in Nooria.

“I’m sorry.”

“But this—” Grada shaped the thought in bright colours, “the two of us, together, it’s… grapes and honey, flowers, cool water.”

“Better.” Sarmin put a smile on her lips.

“Better.”

Eyul thrust out his leg and sent the fourth Carrier spinning into darkness. Asham’s voice murmured, giving warning and advice, a soft and weary comfort in Eyul’s bloody work. He could hear Govnan behind him, his breath quick. Eyul ducked under the bag of rocks and rolled to the side, coming to the very edge of the platform, almost losing himself in the chasm. He pushed himself up again, and his Knife sliced the artery it sought.

As he turned to the sixth Carrier, he heard the twang of a bow.