The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Forty-One

Tuvaini tied his robes and stepped into his silken slippers. It was the fourth day of the rule of Helmar the Restorer. Azeem waited before him, as he always had, not yet marked, though the guards at the door showed stripes across the backs of their hands. He could not speak of anything with them there.

Tuvaini was now Prince Tuvaini, the descendant of the Son of Heaven, the heir to the throne. He was not entirely sure why Helmar had allowed that, or why he’d left him unmarked, so far at least. He wished for company, perhaps. He had left Nessaket free of the pattern as well, and Tuvaini was glad of it, for the sake of the child—if there really was a child. He could never be sure with Nessaket.

He slipped on his rings and bracelets, thinking of the sea. The sea came to his mind often now. With Lapella gone, all connection to his homeland had been lost. He had also lost the throne, and that was truly gone. Even if he did inherit after Helmar, this was not the city he loved, the empire he loved: thousands were already dead, and the rest were marked and silent. This was the centre of a doomed empire. It had begun its slow decline with Beyon, but Helmar’s work was quicker.

He felt a lump rising in his throat, but feigned a cough instead. “Let us go to the temple.” Helmar had no interest in Cerani gods, so Herzu’s temple might be safe from Carrier eyes.

Azeem led the way. Travelling the corridors no longer held any pleasure for Tuvaini. It had begun with Lapella’s death, a vague distaste for the mosaics and tapestries that showed the way from one grand room to another, but with Helmar’s ascendance distaste had solidified to aversion, and now Tuvaini longed for the simple whitewashed walls and the natural flower gardens of his old home. He approached the temple of Herzu with relief, for the dark and ugliness felt more true.

Nessaket waited on a bench, her hair shining and straight as ever, shoulders stiff. He took his place beside her and gazed up at the golden effigy of their patron god. Azeem settled further back, near the corridor, ready to alert them should anyone else enter.

“I wait for you every day,” Nessaket said.

“I have been quite busy, as you might expect.”

“The last time a new emperor took the throne, the wives of the old emperor died.”

“Ah, but you are not yet my wife.”

She fell silent, fiddling with the sapphire charm around her neck. “We should be grateful.”

“Should we?”

“Let me be frank. When one considers our treachery, this is one of the best possible outcomes. You are still an heir, and we are both unmarked.”

“I see your point.” He did not feel grateful.

“I want to come to the throne room today.”

“Your best plan is to stay unnoticed.”

She tugged at her necklace. “I am no ordinary woman, to wait in a gilded room!”

“He is no ordinary man—you think to charm him, to dazzle him with your beauty? I would guess him immune to such tactics. This is no game.”

“As you said, I am not your wife yet, and you cannot command me.”

“Your life is yours to waste, but our child—” Truly, the last thing I have to lose.

“Our child’s life depends on what we are able to do next, and that depends on knowing everything we can know about him—including whether he can be swayed by a woman!”

She thinks to betray me. She will marry the hermit if she can. Tuvaini looked once more at the god-statue towering over them in the dark. “Do as you will. I care not.” The lie felt sour on his lips as he left the temple and made his way to the throne room.

Mesema crept along the kitchen corridors. Wearing a coarse sack and with her hair pulled back, she could pass for a toilet-keeper or offal-bearer. She left the marks on her arms exposed—all the servants bore marks now, and she would look suspicious without them. She held in her hand a bucket full of water. Cheese, bread, and dried fruits were hidden inside her rough clothes, secured within a filthy linen sash.

The disguise had been Sarmin’s idea; he had told her how Grada had sneaked out of the palace after he freed her, dressed in clothes from the Maze and carrying a bucket of slops, so when the last of Govnan’s food had been eaten, she had ripped a hole in the bag and pulled it over her head.

Now Mesema moved quickly, acting as if her filthy business couldn’t wait. A soldier approached, his eyes blank and unfocused, and she bent her head, hiding her own eyes, her heart racing. She nearly screamed when his arm brushed her shoulder, but then he moved on, turning into another corridor. Even in the Pattern Master’s new order, the ones who dealt in blood and shit were not fit to be acknowledged.

She was frightened, but thirst and hunger were driving her even more. Govnan sent word on the air that he could not leave the Tower, surrounded as it was by Carriers. Sarmin could not leave his room, though he would not tell her why. Eyul, the expert at sneaking, could not move at all. And so it fell to her to find food and water. She climbed a staircase and paused, sending her senses out for a moment. She hadn’t yet learned to stop searching for Beyon with her moon-mark. Then she continued on, up the tower stairs, to her prince. At the door she rapped twice, quickly, then paused, then gave a third rap.

Sarmin opened the door and smiled. “That was fast.”

She laid the food out on his pattern-carved table, then rushed over to Eyul. His lips were peeling and his tongue was thrust out between his front teeth. She dipped a ladle in the bucket and dribbled some water in his mouth.

Sarmin chewed on a piece of bread. “I have to join Grada now.”

Mesema nodded, though his times with Grada unsettled her. He stared at nothing, and sometimes talked out loud, even of intimate things. She picked up some food and started nibbling some cheese.

Sarmin sat on the bed and went into his trance. When he joined Grada, a peaceful look came over his face.

Mesema looked at Eyul instead. She couldn’t understand what held him here—he should be dead with those injuries, but instead he still suffered. He was rarely lucid; when they were open, his fever-bright eyes watched Sarmin. But now he looked at her and his cracked lips moved.

She moved in closer, to hear his whisper.

“How is evil destroyed?” Broken ghosts of words from an over-dry tongue. The stench of his suppurating wound stung her eyes.

He spoke again. “Only with the emperor’s Knife.” He took one deep, rattling breath, then fell quiet. She put a hand lightly on his chest, but just when she thought he had stopped, he took another ragged breath. This was the end. She sat on the bed and held his hand, remembering a lullaby her mother used to sing to her. She found the notes, putting into it her own grief, her own hope, and her own love. His mouth curled into something close to a smile, and she thought he was comforted.

Grada stopped on the leeward side of the dune and clambered from her camel. The trip had gone well, overall. She’d seen no bandits, nor Carriers. She’d found all the waterholes as she followed the common path—it made sense to stay on that road, since others who went from waterhole to waterhole had also seen the church.

And she saw it now. “My Prince,” she called. She climbed to the top of the dune and lay down just behind the crest. The church rose high on the other side; if anyone was standing in that tall white point they would see her. No one shouted a warning or came after her, so she raised her head to take a better look.

All lay quiet, save for the wind blowing sand across the white stone. She could see nothing through the narrow windows, and the door was shut tight. “Grada.” Sarmin filled her mind. She could hear a woman singing. Strange.

“Should I go in, my Prince?”

I don’t want you to go in. Sarmin’s thought. “I think you should.” Grada took a deep breath and stood.

“His pattern has more than one centre, but this is an important one, a centre of his faith, of his vision. The tomb where my brother died—that’s another centre. When he joins them, when his bridge is complete, his power in the palace will be total.”

“How do I break it?” As Grada skittered down the dune, sand spilled under her sandals.

“I’m not sure. We need to look inside.”

The door was taller than it had looked from a distance. It rose to twice her height and came to a sharp point at the top. She smelled myrrh and candles. She’d been to a temple of Mirra once and it had been filled with the same scent. The hasp lifted without resistance, and she pushed the door open.

A long, vaulted hall lay before her, picked out in harsh relief of light and shadow. Everywhere lay the pieces of men and women, nomads from the look of their clothes. Here was a leg; there, a red-stained hand. She gagged, but the resin-smell of the incense helped her keep her stomach. A blood-writ pattern covered the floor and the walls, gleaming where the sun found it, and in the centre, an old man pulled himself up from a chair and straightened his legs beneath him, waiting to greet her. She crossed the hall, stepping over limbs, trying not to meet the glassy stares of the severed heads. Fear made her hands tremble, but no terrors seized her, only sorrow for the dead. She knew the Pattern Master, as he knew her: he had written his story across her and through her in his own hand.

The sweat ran cold between her breasts and the scar across her back ached as if Govnan had never worked his magic there. She stopped when she came close enough to speak.

The man’s white hair fell in greasy locks to his shoulders. A milky film clouded his eyes, and his head made little jerks, turning to the side every few seconds as if slapped. But his mouth curled in a snarl, and he spoke as a younger man would: “You are marked, but no longer one of mine.”

This can’t be, thought Sarmin. He’s supposed to be in the palace.

Grada answered the old man. “I’m not a Carrier any more.”

“Interesting. What are you doing here?”

“I’m curious about the pattern.”

“More interesting.” The old man snorted. “Lucky for you I don’t need another body for my church.” He reached for her, and in a flash of red she felt her pattern-marks writhe upon her skin, like fire ants crawling, attempting to rearrange themselves, to undo what Sarmin had done for her and more. Just as quickly she felt Sarmin changing them back, keeping her to herself, holding himself within her.

The old man gave a grunt of exasperation. “Who freed you?” Grada drew her knife and tried to slash at him, but her arm did not reach far enough. She stepped closer, but it was still the same: she could not reach him, no matter how close he appeared.

But whatever barrier had stood between them dissolved when he grabbed her knife-arm with icy fingers. He twisted and her hand went numb, the blade dropping to the stone floor. He ignored her cries and pressed a finger to one of her marks, a red triangle suspended over blue, and instantly she felt him inside her, rifling through her past as a thief would a drawer. She felt the gorge rising in her throat and could not stop it. She heaved, and vomit trickled down her lips and chin. She saw herself enter Sarmin’s chamber, his brief fight, and the dagger going into his chest. Then she saw him play with her marks, fixing her. The Master watched, and as he dug his fingernails into her arm his mouth was open and drooling.

“This is what I missed,” he hissed. “Prince Sarmin is alive.” He pressed his finger on another mark. “No matter. We will kill him again.”

No! Sarmin’s thought, or hers? It didn’t matter. She kicked out at his weak legs and was satisfied when he lost his balance and released her. She dived for her knife.

The Master laughed, rolling on the floor with the dead. “You can’t kill me.”

I am faster than he is, and his body is old. She backed away. “Maybe not, but I can wreck your design.” She stepped over a severed arm and kicked it to the side. He did not laugh this time. Rage twisted his wet mouth as she reached down and grabbed the severed head of a woman with long, dark hair. She tossed it behind her.

“Stop that!”

“Why are there no Carriers here? Did you believe we would not think to come?” Sarmin’s words were carried from the palace and over the desert to her mouth.

“There are no Carriers here because I don’t need them.” He found his legs once again and stood tall.

Grada saw a hand and kicked it away. She rubbed her sandal over the blood-design beneath. “You are old and weak.”

“This body is old, but I am not weak. But maybe it’s time for a switch. Perhaps I won’t kill Prince Sarmin; maybe I should take his body instead.”

Rage made her strong. She lifted a dripping torso and heaved it across the room. He had taken her body, forced her to do things… She screamed, a mindless, bloody shout, remembering the soldiers she had thrown into the chasm; remembering lying over Sarmin, pressing the knife between his ribs. She would not let the Pattern Master take Sarmin’s body; she would not let him make Sarmin do those things. She ran at him, her dagger held in front of her, taking him off guard, and the blade found a home between his ribs as his legs collapsed beneath him for a second time. He fell, laughter bubbling with the blood in his mouth.

“Good girl,” he said, “But you can’t kill me. I am Carried.” And as his blood hit the stone floor, the pattern around him glowed with new life.