The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Forty

Sarmin had known of the Pattern Master’s arrival before word came from Govnan. He knew it by the pricking of his thumbs, and by the ache in his bones. Govnan’s voice came on the wind, blowing into the tower room. The Tower had tested the Pattern Master’s blood and found his story to be true.

Sarmin shivered. This was a violation. Four lifetimes ago, the Pattern Master had paced this same room. He had been named Helmar then, second son of the Reclaimer’s heir, spared the Knife by the Tower because of his latent talents and secured—preserved—against an uncertain future.

Sarmin had wasted away for fifteen years; young Helmar had spent only his childhood here, for in Yrkmir’s final incursion the palace had been sacked and the boy prince taken. Records of his existence had been lost to all but the mages. Until now.

Sarmin wondered what had become of the men who took Helmar. He wondered what had passed from them to the stolen prince. What did they make of you, Helmar? What did you learn in the cold mountain lands to bring back to the desert? How are you not yet dead?

“He is like me.” Sarmin didn’t want to speak aloud, but the words needed space. He didn’t want to talk to an empty room, or to Eyul’s unconscious form. When you speak to no one, madness comes tapping at your door. “He is me—a me who was given a chance. A me who crossed the threshold and went outside once more.”

He reached under his pillow for the dacarba, the knife he’d taken from Tuvaini. It felt so long ago that he had set his hand upon the hilt and pulled it free. His fingers found only silk and for a panicked moment he scrabbled to find the knife, then he relaxed. Mesema had it. He had given it to her when she left him.

When she left him. She was Beyon’s now. And Grada was gone, too, picking her way along the edges of the desert. He had sent her away. Now he was alone. Not even the angels and demons spoke to him.

“When did you find the pattern, Helmar?” Sarmin lay back and rested his head on the coolness of a pillow. “When did you begin the Many? What number of lives have you sewn into your plans?”

Sarmin thought of the pattern, marked across his brother’s chest, spreading like a cancer, consuming him. He thought of the child who had spent so many empty days in this very room. Did you watch the Sayakarva window, and imagine what you would see if it ever opened?

“I should be angry, too,” he said. “I should want to make them all my toys, to play with, and to break. You have a right, Helmar.” He thought of Pelar and his ball, of his brothers, almost blurred together now as memories frayed with time. “You have a right.”

Beyon whispered in her ear.

Mesema stirred against the silks, noticing his arm no longer cradled her head. Her legs were twisted together, instead of between his. No matter; she was hungry and tired and she wanted to dream about her mother’s spiced lamb in a pot. She curled up, but Beyon would not stop whispering, gripping her shoulder tight and pulling her from her mother’s longhouse.

“—can’t keep him out. He is here—”

“What?” Through her eyelids she could sense the light of day. She didn’t hear anyone else in the room. Her bladder felt heavy. She stirred some more, remembering the night past, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. Dirini had told her much of what to expect of men, but she hadn’t expected Beyon. She had been advised that her first time would be unpleasant, but Beyon had been patient and considerate. She would not have guessed that of him when they had first met in the desert.

He continued to speak. She pulled silk over her nakedness as she listened. His voice sounded strained, as if part of him didn’t want to talk any more. “—the Pattern Master. I can hear him talking to me—”

Something cold slithered in Mesema’s stomach and she fell still, barely breathing. She didn’t want to open her eyes.

“I won’t make it to Sarmin, Zabrina.”

We should have gone yesterday. Last night.

“The Pattern Master is strong; I can feel him. Find Sarmin—I can tell they don’t know about him—”

“But we were all going to fight together.” She could still taste the salt of his skin, feel the wetness between her legs where he had been inside her. “You’re the emperor.” Perhaps the father of my child.

“Not any more.” He released her shoulder. “In the secret ways, go straight until you reach the double bridge. Then climb the stairs, turn right and cross two more bridges. Use your dagger to open the door.”

“Listen. You said that your men wait in the desert, in the hidden spot where the zabrina flowers. We can go—”

“Repeat the path to Sarmin’s room to me.”

She let a sob escape, then repeated his directions. “Straight to the double bridge, all the way up, right, two bridges. Use the dagger.”

“Good.” She felt his lips on her forehead, warm and soft. Alive. “I’m glad I met you, Mesema Windreader.”

Silence.

“Beyon?” She kept her eyes shut tight. “Your Majesty?”

Now she opened them, and watched the sunlight play on Beyon’s halfcarved face upon the ceiling. He had turned the lid again, opened it so that she could get out and leave him behind. “Beyon. Listen. Listen.”

She heard a liquid sound that did not belong in this place of stone and silk.

“Beyon.” She did not want to look, but she had to.

Beyon lay at the other end of the tomb, one hand covering the gash in his throat. Blood pulsed over his robes and soaked into the silk that lay across their marble bed. The ruby-hilted dagger dropped from his other hand. He tried to wave her off, but it was as if his arm had grown too heavy. As their eyes met, his lost their focus and grew dark: Carrier eyes. Dead eyes.

“Beyon!” Tears wet her cheeks. There was so much blood, more blood than had come from Jakar or Eldra. It ran through the valleys in the silk and pooled around her knees. Even knowing it was too late to save him, she put her hands to his throat, pressing down, trying to keep the blood from leaving him. The pattern spiralled around her skin, climbing to her elbows, purple, red and blue—

She fell into it.

A roar filled her ears, grand and terrifying, like the sound of a flood coming down the mountain.

The Tower— Govnan— Find another way— Kitchens and hot bread— It hurts too much, so much— I was pretty, I had a lover— No way in, continue digging, always— The Tower— Beyon is gone— Find another way— My little girl ran there, among the— So much blood— The horsegirl—

Mesema reached out for a way back to Beyon’s tomb, to find some thread to pull herself from the river of voices, but the current took her, careless of her strength, dragging her under and through the darkness, passing her from eye to eye, body to body, seeing corridor, desert, river, alley, and church. She tossed through a cascade of lives, searching for a set of words or images she could put together into a pattern that made sense. And then she heard a cool, amused voice, rising above the incoherence to address her.

“You have lost control, visitor. With Beyon’s sacrifice my power has become too much for you at last. Come to me now and show yourself.”

She drifted, gathering the bits of herself together as the images paraded past her eyes.

The speaker became angry. “You can no longer hide from me, Govnan. My Carriers will find a way into your Tower. They will tear it down from the inside.”

He is guessing! He does not know who I—

“Not Govnan, then?”

Mesema was shocked into silence, afraid to think lest the Master hear her.

“It matters not.” The Master affected boredom, but she sensed something wrong in him—something had not gone to his plan. She did not allow her mind to reflect on what that might be. “Your self will soon disappear within us. You will take your form and your place as the design requires.”

“No,” she said, surprising herself, “I do not belong in your pattern.” “A girl!” The Master laughed.

“What did you mean, Beyon’s sacrifice?” she asked. “How did you make Beyon climb in his tomb and kill himself?”

“I didn’t. He did that because it had to happen, because the pattern required it.”

“But the pattern is yours.”

A pause. The Master’s attention was briefly elsewhere. “I wanted a girlmage, but she was taken from me. One more hides in the Tower. But you are not that one, I think.”

“I am not a mage.”

“Tell me, girl-not-a-mage, how do you plan to defy me?”

Talking with the Pattern Master allowed her to filter the other voices from her mind. Now she concentrated on finding her way out. The hare’s path. So long ago, as she stood on the fence of her father’s sheep-pen, the Hidden God had shown her the path through the Many. It began with an arc and two intersecting circles. The pattern’s shapes, so terribly familiar to her eyes, could not be seen here, but she felt them brush against her mind like spiderwebs.

“I will defy you by living.” She felt her way along the strings, finding the form she sought. Like a path in a maze, it might not lead where she wished; she might have to search again, and again. But each one came with an image, the view from the Carrier who held it. She discarded all the unfamiliar scenes, hoping Carriers in a specific area were somehow linked. Alley. Sewer… No. Corridor. Yes. She felt out, hoping for two parallel lines. And then, quickly, as she would ride Tumble through the Hair Streams, knowing her way, gaining speed, she turned at a circle, nearly done, and directly through a diamond, sensing that Carrier’s surprise, seeing the memories that rose in his mind, unbidden. I had a son. He was— That man stood in the secret ways. Yes. And then she released the strings, disappearing into the web as the hare had hidden itself in the grass. This was the hardest part, letting go. Believing.

She had the sensation of falling, and once again she looked up at Beyon’s half-finished face set in the vaulted ceiling. She felt his blood against her back, cold and sticky. How long have I been lost? She wiggled her fingers.

“You have betrayed yourself,” said the Master, bringing back the conversation she had almost forgotten, “by speaking of our late, great emperor. I know where you are.” She felt him leave her, a rough, scraping sensation, like a knife withdrawing from a wound.

She jumped up and gathered a sheet around her nakedness. The markings still covered her skin from fingertips to elbows. Beyon lay before her, his skin grey, his head tilted back, and all around him glistened the pattern— half-moon, crescent, triangle, star, two lines, circle—all in shades of red, shimmering in the unstained silk and lighting the rubies of Sarmin’s dagger. She grabbed the blade, found the bundle of food and drink, and stood over him. “Goodbye, Beyon.” A fierce memory of him, golden, vital, clutched her, but Beyon had gone beyond blood and broken flesh. Nothing held her to his remains.

She climbed over the side to where the pattern spread across the tiles and ran for the secret ways.

Sarmin felt it, the spilling of blood, the rushing loss of life, the death of his last brother. “Beyon!” he cried, rousing the assassin from his deathlike sleep. “He is gone, then, the emperor.” Eyul’s voice creaked. He did not open his eyes.

“My brother!” Sarmin tore at his hair, hit his forehead against the wall.

Eyul spoke again. “You are the emperor now. The Knife… evil. You must find the centre…” Eyul, near-dead, trailed off. He was as still as everything else in Sarmin’s room.

“Do not speak to me of evil! I know what evil is!” Where is Mesema? Is she hurt? “My friend needs help—the empire needs help, and I am stuck in this room.”

Eyul didn’t answer.

Grada is just one person. The Master commands a multitude. He could feel the pattern closing around him, suffocating him. It would not be long before the Master found him. With a groan he fled from the Master, from his tower room, from Eyul’s pain and Beyon’s death, from his failings and inabilities… He ran, and he found Grada.

Grada saw the vultures late on the sixth day of her journey: a distant spiralling of birds, black dots against the wideness of the sky. She watched them as she drew closer. So many. How many were dead, to summon such a host? The vultures circled and descended, and more flew in to take their place in the air. Circle first, once, twice, then descend in a third loop. A pattern.

The watchtowers of Migido came into view, black against the red eye of the setting sun. Grada walked on, her feet sore, her mouth dry, and an acid weight in her stomach.

No smoke. Sarmin had joined her, though his mind darkened with grief. Who had died? He did not say.

There should always be smoke, for cooking, for firing clay, for all the things a town needs. The shadows of Migido reached towards her, but no smoke rose from its chimneys, no lights shone from the windows. There were no beggars, no children, no dogs. Those were the outer layers of any town…

Grada reached the first house. It was dark, the door ajar.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded thin.

Don’t go in. Her thought, and Sarmin’s.

She walked on, along the deserted street. A soft wind rustled the leaves of fig trees as she passed. Her feet shuffled in the sand that rippled here and there over the cobbles.

The twilight thickened. The heat of the day ran from her as the sun’s glow died in the west.

Silence.

“You should go around,” Sarmin said. No more pain, I can’t—

“I don’t want to see.” The horror of it crawled on Grada’s cooling skin. She didn’t want to see what the vultures were feasting upon, but she had to.

She moved towards the main square, the rough stone catching at her robes as she edged along the side of a building.

“I came through Migido when I was a little girl—my mother and I were on our way to Nooria. I remember a festival, and dancing. An old lady was kind to me.” She approached the building’s corner slowly, one hand brushing over the stonework.

“You should go around…” Sarmin wavered. They both treasured kindnesses. They both held a store of such precious moments, and returned to them, time and again. Please, you should go around.

“I—” Grada spoke out loud, not meaning to, and a dark explosion burst before her in a great rushing and screeching. Grada screamed too—

Vultures. They are just vultures.

Somewhere in his distant room, Sarmin had shouted in terror. Grada stepped around the corner, and more vultures launched themselves

skywards, squawking their annoyance. They would return at first light. The gloom hid all detail. Grada could see the town square, clear of stalls.

One camel pulled at the tether holding him to a post, but no people. It looked for a moment as though a caravan had been unloaded with the sacks laid carelessly here and there.

“No.” Sarmin took it in through her eyes, and his dread and grief fell on her so hard that her legs sagged beneath her. She felt him try to turn away.

“There is—” His voice broke. “There is a pattern to it.”

And Grada saw it: the pattern to the bodies. The vultures had disturbed it a little, leaving a spill of entrails here, an arm yanked out there. A small child had been dragged from her position, and half a baby had been left in the open, where the birds had been clustered.

Half a baby? She felt Sarmin choking; he had seen death only twice before now. Once it had been at a distance, and the other had been a Carrierdream.

All of a sudden the stench hit Grada, and she bent double, retching. It was as if she’d forgotten to breathe before now.

So many?

She wiped her mouth and straightened, looking around. She couldn’t leave them and she feared to walk among them.

“Why?” she asked aloud. Twice a hundred corpses lay before her, arranged in a tiled pattern of square and triangle that spread out to form a circle, a mandala, like a stylised flower from a mosaic.

“The Grand Pattern needed it.” Across a hundred miles she could feel the tears roll down his face.

“I don’t understand!”

Sarmin showed her the Pattern Master’s design, how it pierced the world, how it spanned years and miles.

“It needs to be anchored.” His voice was slow now, like a litany. “The pattern needs to be anchored in the world if it is to stand; for it to endure things must be done, acts undertaken, moments that must fall just so. The patterns on the Carriers’ skin are part of it, and so is this.

“And there is more.” Other deaths, other patterns on sand, on grass, in blood. Even Sarmin’s brothers, the last one falling just today—the source of his great sadness—all to anchor the Grand Pattern, all to give it foundation.

All so a lost prince could return in triumph.

Sarmin’s anger rose, and the hairs on Grada’s neck stood on end. She felt it grow, a quiet storm at first, within him, within her, and the beating of her heart became a drum, a pounding on the walls of her chest.

“Oh Helmar!” She backed away from the square, a snarl on her lips. “Oh Helmar.”

This cannot stand. Her thought, and Sarmin’s.

“How can it be stopped?”

“A magic of many parts.”

“Tell me,” Grada said, as she turned and fled from the square. She reached the road and began her trek through the encroaching sands,

circling around the dead town. “Tell me, Sarmin.”

“A magic of many parts,” he repeated, and his thoughts filled her, golden and complex. “Blood against blood. I’ve been gathering the pieces, and you’ve shown me nearly everything I need.”

“How can—? It isn’t possible.”

“I will try—and you, Grada, you must find the Mogyrk church.” He sent images, vague directions based on what others had told him. “That is the source of his power. I need to see it.”

“Then I shall go.” A new determination rose within her and she returned to the town. She made her way to the camel. The memories she carried would show her how to ride it.

Sarmin listened: there it was again, a scraping on the other side of the secret door. He remembered when he heard the noise for the first time, so many weeks ago, when Tuvaini came through, bringing with him the promise and horror of the outside world. Then Beyon came. He felt Beyon’s loss as a physical pain. He squeezed shut his eyes and gritted his teeth.

And then Mesema. And what happened to Mesema? The idea that she might be somewhere in the palace, afraid and alone, drove him close to madness. He was stuck here, and she…

He stood and passed Eyul’s crumpled form on the bed. He’d put some wine into the man’s mouth a little while ago, but he wasn’t sure if it had been swallowed. He crossed the soft carpet to the hidden door and tapped, as a servant might.

“Hello? Is someone there?” He thought it safe to speak; an assassin wouldn’t be fumbling with the switch.

Someone whispered, and he put his ear against the stone.

“Sarmin! It’s me!”

Joy bloomed in him. “Mesema!” My bride! “There’s a catch—Tuvaini told me once. You have to put a dagger in it, or a dacarba, right up to the hilt.”

“I have your knife.” After a minute something clicked and the wall swung wide. It amazed Sarmin, every time. Mesema ran in, looking wild as a legend, with a silken sheet wrapped around her, her hair hanging in tangles, and blood streaked across her cheeks. She held his dacarba in her right hand.

“Beyon’s dead.”

“I know.”

“He took his own life to keep from joining the pattern.”

Sarmin sat on his bed. He hadn’t expected that—an assassin, he’d thought, or maybe some Carriers—but to take his own life, as a final act of bravery… He felt the tears come once again and wiped them away. “But it can’t be. After he died, the pattern was stronger.”

“Yes.” The way Mesema thrust out her chin told him that she hadn’t changed her mind about fighting. “His blood raised a pattern all around him. The Pattern Master—” Her bravery was short-lived. She looked past him to the assassin and gave a little cry.

Sarmin watched her face, how the lines grew longer when she was worried. “I’ve been giving him wine,” he told her. “Do you have any healing?”

“A little.” She crossed to the bed, and as she pulled up Eyul’s shirt Sarmin’s gaze fell with shock upon her arms. Red and blue pattern-marks spiralled from her wrist to her elbow, each shape part of the Master’s plan, each line drawing them closer to the endgame. She raised a hand over the assassin’s wound, but hesitated to touch it. “This will kill him.”

“I think so.”

“You were hurt—who healed you?”

“Govnan, but I have no way to call him.” He felt it a lack in himself that he could not call on the mages, that he must wait and hope that they called to him upon the wind. And he felt a lack in himself that he could not reassure her.

Mesema took a breath and leaned over the assassin, reaching out to stroke his hair. “Poor man. Lucky he’s not conscious, he can’t feel the pain.”

Sarmin wasn’t so sure of that, but he didn’t say so. Her marks drew his eye and he wanted to touch them, study them, even now. “He killed my brothers.”

“Yes.” She looked away, her face troubled. “I know.”

“It’s good to see you.”

“Is it?” She fell against him then, and he felt her tears against his skin. “It’s good to see you, too.” They stood that way for some time, lit by the evening sun burning through the broken window, her breath tickling his neck, his hands feeling the warmth of her skin beneath the thin sheet. In all the years in this room only Grada had come this close, and that had been in a killing embrace. “The Carriers almost found me,” she said. “I crouched in the dark and watched them run into the tomb to kill me.”

“But you got to me,” he said.

“I did.”

She stepped away from him, and immediately he wanted her back again. “Sarmin, if I carried Beyon’s child, would you still like me?”

A child! Someone else to love. He thought of Beyon’s eyes, the way he had laughed, his strong and powerful voice. He remembered trailing behind Beyon in the halls, his brothers around him, a laughing huddle, but always behind, struggling to keep close enough to see Beyon disappear around the next corner or beyond a door. Don’t leave me, he would always think. Don’t leave me. “Yes,” he breathed, “oh, yes.” He paused. There would be no secrets from his bride. “But I love Grada, too.”

She looked up at him. “That’s all right. I love Banreh.” He smiled and took her hand.