Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken (2 page)

‘But I’m not one of you. I am a citizen of Nooria.’

‘And yet you see the marks.’

‘So you said. What does it matter?’ Farid could not imagine what deal these Mogyrks might propose; he could not imagine why he still lived. It must have been they who attacked the marketplace, they who had killed everyone inside. Muad: he remembered the boy’s name now.
Muad
.

‘The patterns that lay a ward or an attack cannot be seen once they are set – not by anyone with normal eyes. You are blessed by Mogyrk to see them,’ said Adam, looking up at him from his position on the floor, sure and calm, though Farid towered over him. ‘The marks protect and strengthen those who are holy and hide from those who are not.’

Farid had seen plenty of marks when the pattern ruled Nooria, when his mother had suffered and died, when Helmar had controlled half the city and sent the other half into hiding. ‘I’m not holy. I’m a fruit-seller. My father is coming upriver tomorrow with another load. He’ll be expecting me to meet him.’

Adam continued as if Farid had not spoken, ‘You are Cerani, but He has chosen from Nooria before. It is not for me to say why. You can see the pattern-marks.’

‘Again, what does it matter?’ He wanted to punch the man. ‘What do you want?’

Adam looked up at him with eyes of the clearest blue. ‘You saw those pattern-marks. That means you can also use them.’

Mesema unrolled a map of Nooria, laid it over the table engraved with the whole of Cerana and squinted. Nessaket had warned her that reading would take its toll on her eyesight, but maybe it was only the darkness of the library that made the lines swim under her gaze. The cartodome harboured a surprising number of shadows. She pushed the table towards the only window, where sunlight spilled in through the open screens.

‘Majesty! Please, allow us.’ Willa took one corner of the table and Tarub the other.

‘So you say with every turn of the glass. If it were up to the two of you, I would do nothing but sit in the bath all day until someone thought to take me out of it.’

Tarub giggled as she set the table down under the window, then raised a hand to dispel the dust that danced in the sun like fireflies. Fewer hands cleaned the palace these days. Between the slave rebellion and the pale sickness, Azeem estimated they had lost a third of their workers, but Sarmin had put a hold on the buying and selling of slaves while he focused on a new code for their treatment. Mesema was never sure that words on parchment could truly alter the way of things. She remembered hurrying past under the resentful glares of her father’s Red Hoof captives, the hatred that guided their every word and
posture. Even as a child she had understood they wanted to be free. Nessaket’s injury and the kidnapping of Sarmin’s brother Daveed had grown from such a legacy, and she was not certain Sarmin’s code would bring it to any resolution.

Tarub and Willa showed no such concerns. Azeem said their happiness to serve came from being taken as children, that they knew no other life. He too, had once been a slave, and he thought it the way of things. For centuries slaves had kept the empire running and few who lived in it could imagine it any other way. Yet something in her said they must start to do just that.

Tarub broke into her thoughts and pointed out the window, up into the sky. ‘Smoke, Your Majesty!’ Dark plumes rose in the distance, drifting on the air. This had become the sign of unrest in the city as Mogyrk saboteurs took flame to guard posts and temples. Usually it stayed inside the Maze, but this smoke came very near, its ash drifting over the walls of the palace compound.

‘That is the Festival of Meksha,’ said Willa, always the sensible one. ‘What you see are the smoke and ashes from the offerings, Your Majesty.’

‘Oh.’ Mesema had not been to a festival since she left the grass, but the celebration of a volcano-goddess did not appeal. One last glance out of the window, then she turned to her task, pulling five marble pieces from her belt, the kind used by soldiers to mark enemies on the field. One she placed over Beyon’s tomb, once fallen to dust, and then repaired by Sarmin; this represented one of the blood-works Helmar Pattern Master had made to anchor his great spell. He had tricked Beyon into taking his own life and then used his blood to power the symbols hidden there.

She pushed the memory away and put a second piece along the river to the north, at the town of Migido, where Helmar had murdered the inhabitants and set their bodies into his design. Both the tomb and Migido had turned into great wounds, tainted by the death of the Mogyrk god and leaching colour and life from all they touched. Sarmin had healed the tomb, but still the emptiness in Migido crept ever south and east, towards Nooria and the river the Cerani called the Blessing.

The refugees from Migido had a name for it, borrowed from the nomads: the Great Storm.

Mesema took a deep breath. They had some time; the Storm in all its forms still remained distant. She placed a third marker to the northwest. The desert headman Notheen had spoken of a void in the reaches of the desert. That could be where Helmar’s church had been – the church she had seen when first she came here, where she had learned a path through the pattern. Later Grada had killed the true body of the Pattern Master there.

She clicked the last two markers together in her palm. Five: that was always the number of Helmar’s pattern; always groups of five carried out the Pattern Master’s deeds. Five wounds: one healed and four remaining; four mouths to open and release the Storm, and nothing to stop them. In the eastern desert she placed a marker. This was where the Mogyrk god had died, and the scar he had left was larger than any wound made by Helmar. The eastern desert lay harsh and barren between Nooria and its farthest province; those who wished to travel in between sailed from the south rather than braving the sands. The eastern gate, called the Dawn Gate, but more widely known as the Dry Gate, had fallen into disuse and was now sealed.

She had placed four markers so far. The last she held in her palm, a mystery.

Sarmin said the pattern-skill had left him, that when he looked at a thing, the thing was all he saw – not the designs that made it what it was. ‘The pattern is a lie that is also true,’ he had said. Mesema felt she was just on the edge of understanding it. She had told many lies that felt true, such as framing a thought that was just beyond her, or telling a story the way she wished it had truly happened. The story she told herself today was that the Great Storm could be stopped with figures and a map.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Tarub, her eyes cast humbly aside, ‘perhaps Pelar is hungry.’

‘He is sleeping.’ If she entered the room her son would know it and never rest until she held him in her arms. She smiled to think of his stubborn nature. He took after Beyon and her father both. Best to leave him in peace. Mesema traced the River Blessing on the map. It began in the mountains, ran past the fields that provided them with fruit and grain and down into the city of Nooria. She frowned, tracing the distance from the caravanserai of Migido to the river. The void had turned Beyon’s tomb to dust; what might it do to Nooria’s precious water?

‘Perhaps the Empire Mother seeks you for a game of Tiles, Majesty,’ said Willa.

Mesema doubted it. Nessaket’s injury had left her in great pain, and bouts of dizziness kept her bedridden much of the time. When she was able to visit Mesema, she carried her grief for Daveed along with her, bringing the shadow of his loss to all corners. Mesema would have done anything to fix the Empire Mother’s pain, but she was powerless as anyone when it came to that. The royal guards and assassins still searched for Austere Adam and his followers, hoping Daveed was in their care, but in truth the babe could be as far away as Yrkmir. Sarmin
spoke little of it, but she saw in the shadows of his eyes that it pained him too.

Mesema made a jest, hoping to lighten the mood. ‘You think my work is not ladylike and hope to distract me from it.’

Willa leaned forwards, her expression serious. ‘Everything you do is most ladylike, my Empress. It cannot be otherwise.’

‘Hm.’ Mesema felt a rush of air over her skin and went still, one finger still poised over the blue line on the map. It had been long months since she had seen a message in the wind. The Hidden God did not live in the desert and must travel long miles to give her sight, but she watched and hoped as the breeze became a gust, carrying sand and ashes from Meksha’s fires into the room. The map lifted from the table. For a moment it twisted, caught in the current, then landed on the floor, ashes circling it like bees around a hive. Their movements gained structure and purpose, finally gathering over the western quarter of the mapped city and forming a bright blue circle over the Holies. Then the wind blew again and scattered them to all four corners of the room.

‘Did you see that?’ asked Mesema, scrambling on her knees after the map.

‘Your Majesty! You must let me—’

But Mesema already had it in her hand, seeking the building the pattern had indicated. ‘Here.’ She tapped the depiction of a large rectangular estate up on the Great Plateau. ‘That’s the place. Tarub,’ she said, standing and brushing off her knees, ‘I need servant’s garb and a pouch of water and—’ She thought what normal townsfolk might carry. ‘A veil.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said Tarub, bowing. ‘But … why?’

‘Because I am going into the city.’

Mesema had known how to exit the palace by the Ways or servants’ halls since the time she and Sarmin had hidden together in his room, but she had never before done it. She did not approach the Elephant Gate and its high teak doors but chose one of plain iron, used by slaves and delivery men, well-guarded nevertheless. She pulled the veil tight over her face as she stepped through. With her other hand she held tight to a bag of soiled linens, but nobody asked her business and she breathed a sigh of relief. A few feet outside the great walls she halted, heart beating fast.

No wife of the emperor was to travel unaccompanied. Her bodyguards and chaperones ensured her safety, chasteness and good behaviour. The women of the palace were never to set feet outside of it, lest they become sullied by the eyes of the common people. By the rules of the court she had already committed a crime. Tarub and Willa had cried and begged her to stay, and wisdom should have made her listen, but the Hidden God had pointed and she would follow.

And yet she paused, thinking of Sarmin. At this moment he was in his throne room, listening to petitions great and small, the lords and generals gathered around him like wolves. To keep their jaws from his flesh he required strength, and he
gathered it from knowing she and Pelar were safe. Her absence could be devastating. Like all those born under the Scorpion’s tail she had acted first and thought later. Mesema turned back, but one of the guards at the gate shook his fist at her, saying, ‘Stop lurking, you lazy get!’ and she backed away. If he recognised her, it would be bad for him, for her and for Sarmin. After tossing her bag into a doorway she hurried down the palace road, a gentle slope that later turned into a steep incline approaching the river. The palace stood high above the city, overtopping all but the Tower.

The heat surprised her; this was the same sun that hung over the palace, but out here it reflected off the street and walls, bringing a sweat to her skin that soaked her robes. She walked along paths she had long watched from Nessaket’s garden, jostled by petitioners, scribes, tailors and money-counters. All were dressed in fine cloth, and the stones lay white and sparkling in the full day; but she would be walking on, through roads that were not so clean.

When she first arrived in Nooria, the air had smelled like char. Later she learned it had been the Carriers, turning to ash under the patient eyes of Blue Shields. Now as she left the palace compound the stench of rotting vegetables caught her nose and, as she walked further away, a urine-stink caught in her throat.

A marketplace set up along the road brought more welcome scents: roasting meat, incense and cloves. Colourful fabric stretched from stall to stall, protecting customers from the harsh sun and casting a blue and yellow design over the street-stones. Mesema hurried across them as if the pattern chased her still. She recognised the young Tower mage Moreth buying a pastry from an old woman and she prayed to the Hidden
God his gaze would not turn her way. To her relief his attention remained on his food; he waved the treat below his nose, smiling, as he turned back to the Tower. The common folk backed away from him, drawing circles with their fingers in the way of Mirra.

The house she sought would be on the other side of the Blessing, so she let her nose lead towards the smell of fish. She had often looked down upon the river, but from above it looked thin, a blue ribbon winding through a dry city. In fact it was wide enough for thirty pole-barges to float abreast, and for its high, arched bridges to hold hundreds of people, some standing still and watching the boats, others hurrying about their business. She took a lower path along the water, following the progress of the nearest barge, watching its poles push deep into the silt, their movements rippling along the Blessing’s surface.

The next bridge loomed over her, an intricate work of red stone and copper, carvings of past emperors decorating each pointed arch. She climbed the steps to cross, dodging out of the way of one white-haired man carrying a sack of rice and another rolling a barrel; he clicked his tongue at her in irritation. Once on the other side she had a choice to climb the nine hundred great steps to the Holies, or to walk around the great rock to the western slope – not visible from the palace, but shown on maps to be a gentle, winding road to the great houses at the top. She had examined her route from the top of the palace before leaving, and she was glad of it, for the map was proving inexact. Now she embarked on a path her eyes had not explored, but upon turning west she saw with relief the carriage-road that led ever upwards towards the better neighbourhoods. This, the map had shown true.

She wondered whether Austere Adam might be in the house at the top of the plateau, hiding Daveed from the palace. Why else would the Hidden God have shown it to her? Nessaket admitted she had underestimated the Mogyrk priest, thinking him no more than a zealot, when in fact he had managed to organise a rebellion right under the noses of the palace guard. Mesema would have to think of a lie that would gain her entry to the great house. Though Austere Adam had great influence, she had fought the Pattern Master and watched Pelar struggle against the pale sickness; he did not frighten her. Sarmin would not think her actions wise; she knew this. Perhaps it was better he did not know.