Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken (29 page)

‘We do not have the time,’ said Grada, but she followed him when he went to investigate.

Even as he moved closer he was dreading what he might find, for he was no healer – he had been a mage for only six days.

Inside the doorway a woman was lying on her back, staring at the sky. She was not dead – not yet, at least – but had succumbed to a strange illness that drained all her colour. Her hair had turned white, as had her skin, which was nearly translucent under the sun. Blue veins tracked the curve of her cheeks like pattern-lines.

The woman moved her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came forth.

Grada took a step back. ‘It’s the pale sickness,’ she said. ‘I have not seen this for some time.’ When Farid moved away too she added, ‘It is not caught from person to person, else everyone in the city would have died months ago.’

Farid looked from one end of the street to the other: there
must be a temple of Mirra somewhere nearby. He did not wish to stay near the emptiness for any longer than necessary, but he could not just leave this woman on the ground. ‘We need to take her—’

Before he had finished his sentence the pale woman arose, moving as if pulled by strings. She turned her face his way and a dreadful smile cracked her lips. Her eyes, which had been white, now shone icy-blue.

‘A djinn,’ said Grada, drawing a knife from her belt. ‘The djinn take the empty bodies. Get back.’

He obeyed at once, pressing himself against the opposite wall, and Grada faced the pale woman, slightly crouched, her strange, twisted knife at the ready. The woman laughed, a high, keening noise, and swiped at her with a claw-like hand. Grada ducked, then swung – and frowned when the knife made only a shallow cut. He got the impression she did not miss her mark very often.

‘Stay back,’ she repeated, though he had no wish to get involved in this fight.

Farid watched in horror. The pale woman passed in and out of the sunlight swinging at Grada, and in the barrier between light and dark he made out a shimmer over her shoulders, a ghostly shape that was arching its back and crooning in ecstasy. ‘Higher, Grada,’ he murmured, not believing his eyes. ‘The djinn is above her.’

The pale woman turned his way, fury in her eyes, and with a high shriek she rushed at him, brandishing clawed fingernails, her teeth bared.

Grada took aim and threw the knife over the woman’s head. The blade caught in the air, scintillating with blue light, the djinn’s form writhing around it. Grada grabbed the knife by the
hilt and pulled upwards, slitting open the transparent creature. No blood fell to the ground, but a darkness showed along the edges of the cut as if she had sliced through to some lightless place beyond. The pale woman crumpled to the ground.

Farid blinked: the darkness was gone. Grada bent to pick her knife from the stone, then stood and looked towards the end of the alley. He followed her gaze and saw more colourless people, their mouths twisted into sadistic grins, their fingers curved forwards.

Grada backed up, pulling him with her. ‘Come; this way,’ she murmured, and they started moving eastwards now, away from the river and the bridges – and away from the Holies, where they had meant to go.

They reached another corner and took their bearings. Grada turned, but Farid pulled at her arm. ‘Not north,’ he said, ‘please.’ No sooner had he spoken than he saw three more people who had been emptied: a man in clothes so ragged they hung off him in shreds, a pale Blue Shield and a young boy, all cackling, their own wills gone now, their bodies subject to the pleasures of the djinn who rode them. Grada pushed Farid back beneath a wooden stairway and ran to meet the attack.

The ragged man swung at Grada first, the soldier right behind him and both cawing with delight. Grada dodged out of their way, then jumped as the boy ran at her, pulling out her knife and spinning, cutting through the ragged man’s neck. He fell in a spray of scarlet, his djinn detached now, rendered powerless, its face contorted with rage in the shadows where Farid could see it.

Grada backed off, glancing at the street behind, giving herself space.

The boy whooped and got on all fours like a sand-cat. His eyes
had turned bright blue, like the pale woman’s before him, but a crack ran down his irises, as if they were made of glass and had been broken. The boy ran at Grada at the same time the soldier took another swing; she crouched and extended her arm and her knife glowed blue as the boy slid limply to the stones. Without stopping, she pulled up on the soldier’s leg, tripping him. When he fell she slid her blade through his ribs. Throughout the fight she moved with economy and precision, her body, which had once looked ungainly to him, now moving in a smooth dance.

Grada stood and examined her arms and stomach, as if looking for a wound.

‘Are you well?’ called Farid. He felt ashamed to have been hiding while the woman fought, though her skill was the greater. He stepped out from where she had shoved him.

Grada nodded, holding a finger to her lips.

He looked down the street and saw them, fifteen or twenty pale men and women. ‘How—?’ But he stopped, the question unasked. He knew that the ‘how’ never counted for anything. When his mother had died there was no understanding how blue marks could have taken her. There was no understanding this either.

Grada took his arm and pulled him up the street, further north, and he stumbled. Her callused hand was hard enough over his forearm to make a bruise. ‘I can’t fight all of them,’ she said, her voice urgent. ‘We’ll need to hide.’ They passed tall buildings, a shrine to Ghesh and a plaza with marble benches. As they approached the Worship Gate he stalled, the hair rising on his arms. ‘Over here,’ she said, and gestured to a small building designed for storing crates and barrels that came south on the Blessing – little used of late.

But they did not go inside. Instead, she hoisted herself up to the roof and held down a hand for him. It was only when he’d scrambled up on the roof next to her that he realised they were the only people on this street who had not been emptied of colour and mind. Everyone else had fled.

The pale folk came at the storage shed, their mouths wide, their eyes fierce with unwholesome pleasure. The first three riders Grada dispatched with throwing daggers, her aim as remarkable as it was deadly. That done, she patted herself as if looking for further weapons. ‘I don’t have my bow,’ she said. Her voice always held that same tone of regret, no matter the situation.

‘I can do nothing,’ he said, ashamed again, but his eyes caught smoke and he pointed. ‘Look.’

The fire had attracted the eyes of the pale folk too and now they lost interest in Grada and Farid. They turned from the building and headed towards the flames as if drawn by the warmth and colour.

‘What is it?’ asked Farid, but Grada only shook her head.

A ball of blue flame hit one of the pale women. She shrieked and flung open her arms as the blaze rose up to consume her.

Only now did Farid realise the fire was not an accidental one, a spill of flame from hearth or candle that shifted as the wind carried it. No, this fire was moving deliberately, with purpose. An emptied man was taken next, the outline of his body lost in a bolt of yellow shot with blue – and then another went, and the next, each figure dissolving in an impossible tide of heat.

And behind the wall of heat was a man. Fire roiled from him like water from a fountain; it licked against his skin and spread blue fingers beneath his feet. White-hot flame shot from his fingers and tendrils of light played over his gleaming scalp.
Over each shoulder was spinning a ball of flame both terrible and lovely to behold; it was black cracked with crimson on his right and on his left, blue streaked with the brightest orange.

Behind him followed a woman made of liquid brass, her hair yellow fire, heat shimmering from her nakedness. Wherever they stepped the stones turned red-hot beneath their feet. On either side of the street buildings crackled and caught, then roared into white-hot infernos. The man kept on towards the wall and the Worship Gate, consuming one pale person after another, until at last he sent a wave of liquid flame sizzling over the stones and the road lay empty and char-black.

It was then the fire-mage turned their way, his coal-bright eyes searching, his hand raised to take them in a pillar of flame.

Grada pulled him back behind the peak of the roof, but Farid could not look away, for he recognised Govnan, taken by his magic, caught in a world of power and destruction. He had a sense of how sweet that might taste, and he wondered if the high mage would soon be consumed himself, just like those statues at the base of the Tower.

But after a moment the high mage lowered his hand and turned away to continue his march to the wall. So he had recognised them; somewhere inside the living flame, Govnan remained.

Govnan reached the Worship Gate and held out a hand to the chain. Red-hot metal ran down the iron bars, which warped and gave under the intense heat.

‘He is going to stop the Storm,’ said Farid.

‘Time to leave,’ said Grada, pulling him down on the far side of the structure, ‘before we burn too.’

Farid’s feet hit the street-stones, warm beneath his shoes, and he kicked at them, wondering at the heat. The Tower of
Cerana was indeed powerful. A great honour had been bestowed on him along with these uncomfortable robes. He smiled and tightened his belt before letting Grada pull him along again. He would find a way to make himself useful. Those ancient patterns were the key.

Farid ran his fingers along the brass surface of the Tower door. Everything seemed malleable now, destructible – even the Tower. The thought both shocked and excited him. He rang the bell.

Mura opened the door and when she saw him, her mouth curled into a sad smile. ‘You came back.’ She waved him through into the statue-lined corridor.

This time he studied the rocky faces with more interest and respect. ‘Tell me about Kobar.’

‘Pratnetun took him a few years ago.’ She ran a finger down the former high mage’s shoulder. ‘Moreth reminds me of him: slow to action, slow to thought, but steady. He missed very little.’

Farid studied Kobar’s face. He looked as if he might have been kind. ‘And Govnan?’

‘You are so solemn.’ She bowed her head. ‘Is he dead, then?’

‘No. I saw him at the north wall, trailing spirits of fire. You might have seen the smoke from one of the high windows.’

‘I did.’ Her eyes went past him to the door and it swung closed.

Farid raised his hand, intending to touch her shoulder, but then he thought better of it.

Mura turned for the stairs, saying, ‘He will give his life to stop the Storm.’

‘He is nearly there. He had reached the wall when I saw him.’

‘The Storm is further away than it appears.’ She took a breath. ‘It is so large that it becomes difficult to gauge its distance. But you must be tired. Your bed does not look slept in.’

‘I don’t want to sleep.’ He followed after her, taking the steps at a jog. ‘I want to look at the patterns Govnan was showing me.’

‘You have done too much,’ she said. ‘You’ve been out in the desert and the palace, and then into the city, and now, instead of sleeping you want to look at patterns.’

‘I forgot that I did so much,’ he admitted.

‘You will sleep first.’ She continued up the stairs and before long Farid’s legs were aching and he had to slow his pace. Mura was right: he did need to sleep. At last she opened the door to his high, stone-walled room with its narrow window overlooking the river. Days ago the river had been crowded with boats; now he could see only one raft, filled with desperate citizens fleeing south.

‘It is for the best,’ Mura said, peering past his elbow. ‘They will be safer in the southern province.’

He turned, blushing, for Mura stood between him and his bed and she had no chaperone. ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to think that you—’

She gave a brief smile. ‘In the Tower we are not men and women but comrades and fellow mages. As children, Hashi and I slept in the same room.’

He had not been raised that way, and he wondered whether he could live among women without noticing them. He looked again at Mura and that quick glance told him he could not. ‘Hashi?’ He had met only Moreth and Mura so far.

‘He’s not here any more.’ She walked out into the corridor, then turned back. ‘He went south too. Sleep well.’ With that she closed his door and was gone.

Farid sat on the edge of his bed. He could not help but admit he was tired, but the patterns called to him. Govnan had shown them to him so briefly but still he remembered them, their depth and their complexity. He lay on his back and watched the ceiling. A vision of Mura rose in his mind, teasing him, but he pushed it away. ‘Stupid,’ he told himself. They were meant to be comrades, like two soldiers on the wall – and soldiers they would be if Govnan died. The business of the Tower would be left to Mura, Moreth and himself. He could not even guess what Tower business might be besides what Govnan already endeavoured.

He dreamed of gleaming pattern-shapes and a road lit in bright lines. He walked over white stones, never tiring, as the sun blazed down over a hushed and sparkling world. He travelled as far as he could, never reaching the end, and when he woke, crumpled against a wall in Govnan’s library, he opened his eyes to an arcane geometry. Across the floor and upon every wall half-moons, circles and diamonds blinked and spun, each piece leading into the next, every one in its place. He stood and stumbled, catching himself on a chair and then wincing, because his fingers had been rubbed raw. He examined his hands in the light of the pattern and saw blood.

‘I made this,’ he said, looking around at the pattern. ‘I made you.’

A shimmer passed through the linked shapes of the pattern. He wondered what it might do if he
pulled
it.

‘Or was it Adam?’ he asked of the wall.

It did not answer.

Sarmin waited on his throne. The great doors had opened for Azeem and the duke, and they walked along the silk runner now, preparing for their obeisance, but he was impatient. Protections were not going into place swiftly enough, while Yrkmir seemed to be picking up speed. They had attacked the temple of Meksha, the patron goddess of Cerana. Mura and Moreth had already reported the results of their investigation to him, but there had been nothing to describe besides destruction. What could Tower mages, born into the elements, understand of pattern-work? What could a Cerani understand of a Yrkman’s mindless destruction? He watched the duke fall into his obeisance and wondered what kind of man persisted in his faith despite evidence of such evil. But then he remembered what Dinar had been doing in the temple of Herzu.