The Emperors Knife (47 page)

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.

Chapter Forty-Two

“N
o!” Sarmin leaped to his feet. Mesema looked up from where she sat on the bed with Eyul's hand cradled in her own.

“I can't beat him! I thought a pattern in blood… but that's
his
path. I can't do those things—we would just drown each other in gore! His pattern is too strong, and we've only made it stronger!” From tomb to church, Helmar to Beyon, the Grand Pattern had found its final anchor.

“Eyul is dead,” she said, her voice quiet.

Sarmin looked at the old assassin. “I think he would be glad for it.” Some sad note echoed inside him.

With Eyul dead, the last flaw in the pattern was removed. The design was both terrible and perfect; Sarmin could see it without closing his eyes. He felt himself drawn to its beauty, even knowing it meant the end. “The Pattern Master will use my body,” he said.

Mesema drew the dacarba from her sash and folded Eyul's hands about the ruby-hilt. “Wherever the assassin has gone, let him go armed.” She fell silent for a time, thinking or praying.

Sarmin looked at the assassin and wondered if he had joined Mirra or Herzu, or gone somewhere else entirely. His eyes scanned the walls, wishing that the hidden ones would show themselves again.

Mesema stirred. “We should leave this room. We have waited here too long as it is, and they will find us.”

“I can't leave this room.” It hurt to say it.

“So we will stay here with Eyul?” Her voice lowered, perhaps out of politeness to the corpse. “It is very hot.”

“I can't leave,” he said again.

“Why is that? You never told me why.”

He hesitated.
Will she believe me? Will she know I am mad?
But he knew he had to tell her:
Only the truth for my princess.
“You see the gods in the ceiling, but there are also angels. And demons, on the wall.”

Her head turned towards the wall, blue eyes searching.

“They prophesy for me. They told me you were coming. They told me all about you. They warn me about things, too, but of late, they are quiet.”

Mesema walked to the wall, drew her hand across it. “That's why you don't leave? Because they are your family?”

He marvelled at her insight. “No—I mean, yes, but it's really because they prophesied that I would never leave. They told me I would die in this room. And when I tried to leave, tried to get to you, I… couldn't.”

She stood back and squinted at the wall, her hands on her hips. “There is a pattern here.”

“Yes. Can you see them? It is easier as the sun sets, when—”

Mesema picked up a chair, the one Tuvaini had sat in during his last visit. It was a narrow piece, with roses carved into the back and along the legs. Sarmin had never found it comfortable, which was why he'd made Tuvaini sit in it. She raised it over her head and crashed it against the wall. Paper split and plaster crumbled.
Zanasta!
Half his face vanished into a puff of white powder. Mesema stumbled back and picked up the chair again, hitting Aherim. The room filled with a fog of plaster dust.
Again.

Sarmin started coughing.

Mesema could barely lift the chair now; she gripped it firmly and took runs at the wall instead. And she killed them all, angels and demons alike, and the dust settled over Eyul like a shroud.

Sarmin looked at the devastation. The faces were gone, their patterns, gone—not because of a magical working, not because of bloodshed, but because of a chair.

“Let's go,” Mesema said, throwing the chair aside.

“They told me I would die here.” Sarmin shook his head, dust falling from it.

Mesema shrugged. “Maybe you will. But nobody said you had to wait here to find out.” She held up Eyul's Knife. “How is evil destroyed? With the emperor's Knife.”

This
was what Eyul had tried to tell him. He took the twisted hilt in his hand. This was his gift from Eyul and from his father. This was all he had, now. This, Grada, and Mesema. As he followed her he thought he heard his brothers cheering.

“I am very disappointed,” said the Pattern Master.

Tuvaini held his sigh and fingered his empty dacarba-sheath. He still wore it, to remind himself of everything he had given up. “What has disappointed you, Your Majesty?”

The Pattern Master appeared to have gained something in the last few minutes; he looked stronger and younger. He had about him what Tuvaini's mother called “the glow of children.” He leaned forwards now in his throne, glaring. “Prince Sarmin is alive.”