The Emperors Knife (17 page)

Did she? Mesema lost her grip on the tiny thread she'd been following in her mind. “No.”

“Well, then. Keep your thoughts close.”

Mesema twisted her hands together. “I understand. Banreh, where did that church come from?”

He looked puzzled for a moment. “I suppose it was behind a dune and then the wind moved the sand…” He stopped, then said, “I have to tell you something.”

She waited, watching Banreh massage his hip with one hand. He paused overlong, his eyes still cast down.
Something bad, then.

“Tell me,” she said at last.

He looked at her. “The emperor doesn't know you're coming. Until he dies, you must keep your betrothal a secret.”

“But I'm to go to the palace!”

“No, we will wait in the city.”

“For him to die?”

Banreh sighed, and said, “Yes.”

Mesema took a breath. She'd known it would be hard, coming to the desert and living among the Cerani, but she hadn't expected treachery. She stepped forwards, putting a trembling hand on Banreh's shoulder. “Banreh—Arigu doesn't mean to kill the emperor, does he?”

“No, the emperor is already dying.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “But why keep it a secret? Imagine, if you married someone and my father didn't know…” Mesema caught her breath. “My father was deceived.”

“Not exactly.”

“My father was deceived, and Arigu's only warning us now because it's too late for us to turn back.” She spoke, though her throat felt hollowed by sand.

Banreh kept silent, staring at the church in the distance.

“Arigu has been disloyal, Banreh, and caught us up in his game. I don't like it. I don't like it at all.”

“As you say, it is too late for us to turn back.”

She couldn't read his voice. “Is that why Eldra is here? In case we make a run for it and get lost in the desert? So she can be the Felting bride if I run? We look alike.” Mesema gathered her hair in both hands and pulled.

Banreh hung his head. “When the emperor dies, you will be a queen, as Arigu promised, and your father will be satisfied.”

“And the war can go on, because nothing is more important. Not even this pattern that kills.”

Banreh looked over his shoulder at the packed horses and the waiting soldiers. “Come. It is time for us to move to a new camp.”

Mesema wiped at a tear and turned her back on Banreh. The dunes stretched out before her, their valleys offering shadow and secrecy. Without thought she started running, between one dune and the next, the sand shifting under her slippers, until her legs were shaking with effort. At last she fell against a soft, shadowed slope, gasping for breath. The sand cushioned her back and coiled around her feet like a rug. She was well hidden from the soldiers, and the pattern.

Mesema closed her eyes and listened for Banreh's uneven gait. When he came around her side of the dune she said, “You will never let me run away from it, will you, Lame Banreh?”

“When Arigu chose you, your great-uncle looked into the grass.”

Mesema made a snort of disbelief. She didn't open her eyes. She didn't want to see his face.

“The wind showed us the future. You are to create a new leader, and with him, more glory than we have ever seen.”

“Glory that comes from fighting?” Mesema sighed. “You have used your honeyed tongue on me once already, Lame Banreh. I listen more cautiously now.”

“Then hear this.” But he said nothing for a time.

Mesema kept her eyes closed, listening to the falling of the sand.

“Mesema,” he said at last, “I would not let you go unless I believed it.”

“Go to Nooria?”

“I meant, go away from me.”

A sob escaped her, but she caught the second one and held it. “If you don't hold me right now,” she said, “I will never forgive you, Banreh.”

Movement, and she felt his arms around her, the damp of his sweat and the roughness of his tunic. She laid her head against his chest. “This is the last time,” she said. “I will be braver in the future.”

He said nothing, only smoothing her hair.

“Damn my great-uncle and damn the grass,” she said after a time.

His voice fell soft against her ear. “It's time to go.”

“Yes.” She stirred against him.

He kissed her where her hair met her forehead. His lips were soft, but the touch of them burned her.

“Don't.” She opened her eyes and stood up, arranging her hair with her hands. The feel of him radiated through her, even now that the sun bled its full heat into the air. It would have to last. She took a breath and felt the hot air fill her lungs.

The high, pointed tower of the church peeked over the ridge of a dune. She shivered, remembering what Arigu had said about his dead soldiers. She couldn't fathom how the deadly shapes related to Eldra's religion. Perhaps the church worked like a sword: a power, to be used by good and evil alike. Mesema understood swords, and she could only grow to understand them better as time passed. But if the god was a sword, the pattern was something else again. Where a sword cut and laid bare, the pattern bound and kept hidden. Much like Arigu.

She didn't trust Arigu. Worse, something kept her from saying so. Instead she turned to Banreh, motioning towards where she knew the Cerani general waited, putting aside the thudding in her stomach. “Let us leave this place,” she said.

“I think there is someone behind the Carriers,” Tuvaini said. “A man.”

Lapella made no indication that she had heard him. She lay across the bed, turned away on her side, her smooth curves bare for his inspection.

He ran a finger along her hip. He knew she listened. Lapella would always listen to him. “And those who fall ill hear his voice and become his creatures.”

She moved, a slow, oiled motion, turning her face to the pillow, her hip to the bed.

Tuvaini watched her, watched the lantern gleam on her skin. He knew she held tight to his words. She thought he was giving something to her, sharing secrets, making a bond.

“He has touched the emperor, this man.”

Lapella stiffened at that, her fingers knotting in the sheets, then she drew a deep breath and relaxed.

“He plans for the day he will speak and Beyon will follow his will.” Tuvaini pictured Beyon's face. He wondered when the light in the emperor's eyes would die. The Carriers were already preparing the ground for their advance, buying favors within the palace walls, even from Tuvaini himself.

Lapella moved to receive him, though still she did not speak, even as she lifted herself.

Tuvaini thought of the enemy's purchases. Entry through the Red Hall to kill the emperor's Knife. Access to Prince Sarmin, through the secret ways. Tuvaini had sold them both when the price offered exceeded their value. Though the first time, with Eyul, he hadn't known the target.

Lapella sighed beneath him and he twisted his fingers within her hair, pulling her head back.

The man behind the Carriers—the enemy—he might walk the palace even now. He had failed once already, and he would fail again.

There had been a moment when Eyul had been locked in combat with one of the Carriers, a moment when it had seemed their intention had changed. The Carrier pretending to attack Tuvaini hadn't moved to finish Eyul, though Eyul was injured; instead, it ran. Eyul lived. Beyon and Sarmin lived also, occupied with the prince's wild bride.

Tuvaini need only wait for his moment.

The enemy had failed, and he would fail again. A wild bride, with wild ways.

He would fail again.

Tuvaini, spent, pushed Lapella from him. Sweat ran across his ribs. “He buys favors, but he doesn't know what he has paid.”

Lapella lay silent, gleaming, soft motion in her hips.

He could hear her breathing now. “He will take Beyon, but I hold the keys to Beyon. And when I choose, Beyon will be undone.”

“What then?”

At last she speaks.

“The empire will be great once more.” A strong empire would defeat the curse at last. Once the Pattern Master showed his hand Tuvaini would strike, and the Cerani would no longer live in fear of his design. They would reach for magnificence, as they had in the Reclaimer's time. There would be art and song, and trade to be had. The light of heaven would fall once again upon the throne.

Lapella rolled to face him. Already he wanted her again: her ripe curves, her dark curls, the faint scars of the wounds that made her his, the way she bit her lip when their eyes met. She ran a finger down his cheek and a lump came to his throat, surprising him. “I'm afraid for you,” she said.

He rolled over and entered her once more, pinning her hands against the pillows. This time would be even better. He liked to see himself in her eyes. “Worry for the Carriers and their Master.”

Chapter Sixteen

E
yul 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?”