Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken (40 page)

Only Sarmin valued her for who she was.

The stairs were difficult for Nessaket, but the guards offered their assistance, and at last Mesema steered the Empire Mother into her bedchamber and sat her down upon a bench.

‘It is over for me,’ Nessaket said.

‘All you need is sleep,’ Mesema said, plumping the cushions.

‘I did not mean that I would die,’ said Nessaket, sounding more like herself. ‘Only that I am finished with the palace. I am finished with its whispers and its daggers and its love of war. Once I wanted it all for myself, but I am done with that. It no longer has value for me. After I have rested I will sail south with Daveed.’

Mesema straightened and looked out the window. There was no view of the Blessing from here; for that she would need to go back to the garden over the old women’s wing. ‘What was he like?’ she asked. ‘The first austere?’

‘Like every other man,’ Nessaket said. ‘Will you come with me?’

Mesema turned the question over in her mind. To be with Pelar, to find safety in the forests of the south … but how long would that safety last? How long before the emptiness of Mogyrk sought them there?

‘No,’ she said. ‘My place is with Sarmin.’ There would be no pika seeds for her. She would fight by his side as before.

Nessaket nodded, leaned back and closed her eyes.

Mesema passed High Priest Assar as she left the room. He gave her a curt nod as he hurried in to attend the Empire Mother. Mesema made her way back towards the throne room, then stopped at the Great Hall and turned towards the temple wing. If they were all to die here, then she would see Banreh one last time.

No one stopped her as she walked through the curtain of vines. Behind it he lay as before, except that his wounds looked less severe, his breathing was less ragged. She crossed to him and ran a finger down his cheek. He was still so handsome; his face could still make a traitor of her. But when he opened his eyes she stepped away. ‘Your son is safe.’

‘Thank the Hidden God.’ He moved to sit upright, but thought better of it and settled back against his pillow. ‘Mesema – listen. Didryk will bring this place down. We have a plan. Afterwards he and I and you and the boy – we will go north. We will be free.’

‘You are already free: Sarmin has made it so. But Ykrmir stands outside the walls. How did you plan to escape them?’

‘Didryk,’ he said, as if remembering.

She gave a sad laugh. ‘Only Sarmin thinks things through properly. You should thank him, when this is all over.’

He looked at her then – truly looked at her. ‘So you will not come with me?’

‘No,’ she said, resisting the temptation to touch his face one last time, to feel his lips against hers. She had made her choice long ago, when Beyon still lived. ‘My place is not with you, not any more. Goodbye, Banreh.’

The scent of roses followed her from the temple.

Farid ran to the wall, all the way from the Tower courtyard, after finding himself on his back in the early morning light. Govnan’s fires in the north were gone. Moreth was no longer with him. Mura had never returned. He guessed the fighting must have begun, and as he drew closer to the Storm Gate he knew he was right. He heard no sword-work, no swinging of maces and chains as in the old stories, but archers moved along the wall, firing their bows, their officers behind them shouting orders. Catapults were loaded and fired and soldiers ran back and forth, relaying messages between their superiors. Farid slowed and watched the unusual activity; he had grown used to an empty city. The wounded sat with their backs against the western wall, cradling their injuries, and he saw Duke Didryk among the physicians.

He did not speak to the duke – he no longer needed his lessons since Meksha had blessed him. Now he understood patterns the way he needed to, down to the heart of them, and he could turn them to his will. But he also recognised their uselessness in the face of what was truly important: his love for his father, loyalty, the trust of his fellow mages. He climbed the steps and found the mages crouched beside a barrel full of arrows. In front of the wall was the Yrkman army, a sea of
men and sharp metal, all blond heads and red coats, each one of them bent on getting through the wall.

Moreth held his hands to the stone, his eyes closed. Mura held her hands before her, sending a contrary wind against their archers – but only the ones before the Storm Gate. They did not have enough mages to cover the whole of the battlefield – surely Yrkmir could see that and would take advantage?

The fire-spirits he had seen with Govnan in the north quarter were now gathered into a tight circle, struggling against invisible bonds, surrounded by the charred bodies they had managed to consume before the Yrkmen trapped them. Farid had an idea what to do about that, but first he had to ensure the safety of the Storm Gate.

He ducked down before he became a target himself and Mura, sensing him, touched his arm.

‘Look,’ she said, and Farid raised his head again. An arc of Yrkmen soldiers approached with their shields out, protecting a group of austeres aiming for the wall. They raised their shields higher and higher again to protect the pattern-workers from the arrows and stones being thrown at them, and now Moreth joined in the effort, sweeping sand up into their faces and causing the ground to shift beneath their feet. The rock-sworn did not use as much force as he could have, fearful of losing control of his spirit. But if they made a hole in the stone, then Rorswan could repair it. Five Yrkmen soldiers fell and three austeres with them – but the remainder reached the thick wall. Farid did not try to see beyond the shields at the pattern-workers’ fingers. He knew what pattern they would shape.

‘Moreth,’ he said, crouching next to the rock-sworn who was still covered in dust.

‘I will make sure the wall remains whole.’ Moreth spoke in Rorswan’s voice.

Farid laid his own hand on the stone. He could sense the shapes the austeres were drawing and he found that by concentrating, he could break their lines even as they were still being formed. He spread his senses out across the entire western wall and felt them all – a dozen patterns, two dozen of them – and lifted the shapes from their webs.

He felt all of the patterns that were laid out in front of him: warding patterns, patterns to call water and patterns intended for destruction should the Cerani army leave the city and attack them on the sands. Farid concentrated on the wards first, twisting their shapes and dragging lines out of their structures, stripping them of meaning.

Though he focused on the wards, other things sparkled at the edge of his awareness, greater things, and in a breathless rush his sight expanded out to them. He saw the whole city: the life rising from its soldiers, the magic in the charms and prayer-beads they carried, and the power in Meksha’s river and well. The wall itself held ancient wards and spells that he could not fathom, even with the power that had been given to him. They twisted and pulsed around the very stones and he knew that Cerana was more powerful than he could ever have believed. Just as the first austere could not have destroyed the Tower without his help, so the Yrkmen could not break through the wall with a simple pattern designed to powder stone.

Beyond the wall he felt the souls that pulsed in every Yrkman, their fears and doubts, their loyalties and brave impulses. Every one of them was as loved and connected to the world as the men who stood on the wall – and that was the evil of this war, of Yrkmir, and of Cerana too.

His senses faded when he turned his mind north, as if a fog had cut them off, and when he turned he saw the Storm bearing down on them, a blank wall as high as the mountains, as if that part of the world had been erased. It had grown so large that he had failed to see it, like the sky. He reached out for the emptiness and tried to sense something in it that he could alter, but he found nothing. It was as if he were blind.

A pattern moved towards him from inside the city – a line, a direction, a stream of dark shapes and letters meant to command – and he recognised the same spell that had been used against him in the Tower. He knew this mage and his madness, and knew his bent towards chaos. It diverged upon the wall, splitting into five, rising up through the stone and winding around the legs of White Hats, sinuous and malevolent. In the space of a moment the soldiers had turned and begun firing at their fellow Cerani. The struggles were short but deadly, and Farid felt the lives go out, five, six, seven. A solemn minute later, the White Hat bodies were thrown over the wall.

Farid watched in horror. He had been luckier when the pattern had taken his body.

‘Mogyrk spells,’ said the man next to him, a captain, by his insignia.

Farid could still feel the edge of the pattern-command, sharp and full of harm, cutting through the soldiers’ will. Now he knew how to find the man who had cast it – but there was something he must do first. He glanced at the battle – the Yrkmen had lost their wards and red-robed austeres were struggling to replace them under a hail of stones and arrows. But they were undeterred, as were their archers, focused on their duty.

Farid sensed the pattern that trapped Govnan’s fire-spirits, its signs and strokes, and knew it to be the same kind of barrier
that the high mage had used against the Storm. The spirits could not sense it and therefore could not break it. He wondered if that was what had kept Meksha’s well hidden for so many years. He saved the pattern to his memory before twisting it, lifting the lines from their places in the sand and freeing the efreet.

At once a green and violet fireball spun into a group of Yrkmen archers and they screamed as the conflagration exploded outwards, consuming them. Farid stared in shock: those men had died because of him. He felt the light of their lives leave the world. Four more efreet followed the first, three moving quickly and the other slow, taking a human form. The fire moved among austeres, swordsmen and archers – it did not matter; it took them all, one and then the next, and the next, and he stood in horror, careless of the arrows aimed towards the wall, towards him. He had seen that a bound mage felt pleasure in his spirit’s kill, but he felt only sickness.

The Yrkmen began to run in confusion, but only in the confined area before the gate. The battle was larger than that, spreading beyond Farid’s view. He would have to leave the rest of it to the soldiers who were trained to battle, greater in number and less sensitive to death. He turned away from the fighting and followed the line of pattern-casting. He would find the mage who had destroyed the Tower.

Their carriages rumbled along the streets, bumping over stones and against wall in their rush, barely slowing for the turns, then rushing onwards again. Sarmin rode in the first; his remaining sword-sons were in the second. Grada sat opposite him in the gloom, still clenching Adam’s arm. Since he had been released from the prison she had not let go of him, as if given only half a second the man would betray them. Adam looked comfortable nevertheless, leaning back in his seat with a resigned air. Sarmin squinted at him in the dim light. He saw in the austere a willingness to cause harm, but only to satisfy the zealotry that outweighed every other trait in him.

‘I hope that through my cooperation, you will see the greatness and mercy of Mogyrk before it is too late,’ Adam said to him.

Sarmin did not reply.

The carriage slowed and Grada poked her head out, looking for danger. In a moment she drew back inside and said, ‘It’s Farid, the pattern mage.’

‘Farid? What is he doing here?’ So he had found his way out of the well.

Grada opened the door and the young mage peered in, saw the emperor and began to kneel on the road. Sarmin waved a hand. ‘Speak.’

‘I am following the trail of pattern-work,’ said Farid.

‘And so are we. We will fight this man and end this battle,’ said Sarmin, projecting more confidence than he felt. Both Didryk and Adam had said the first austere knew secrets no other pattern mage had access to – but so had Helmar, and he had beaten Helmar. Farid climbed in beside him and the carriage continued towards the southern quarter, where middling merchants kept fine houses. Sarmin checked the street and hit the carriage roof. ‘Stop – stop,’ he ordered. The horses were making too much noise. They would walk the rest of the way. Grada climbed out first, checking the road for dangers, and the sword-sons had surrounded Sarmin’s carriage before he had even placed a hand on the door. Adam climbed out last, struggling without the use of his hands.

‘Untie him,’ Sarmin ordered, and Grada obeyed without comment.

They moved forwards, Grada and the sword-sons listening while he, the mage and the austere used a different sense, reaching out for pattern-work, for its movement and colour, until they came to the wall enclosing a square three-storey house.

‘In there,’ Sarmin hissed.

Farid came to a sudden stop. ‘No …’ He looked down at the street, and Sarmin saw rising to the surface glowing triangles, circles and lines in shades of blue and yellow. In seconds a glimmering circle the length of three men had encompassed them all.

‘How could he hide such a pattern from us?’ he asked as Farid knelt down, his eyes fixed on the bright shapes.

‘The first austere holds Mogyrk’s secrets,’ said Adam in a
monotone: words he had likely memorised long ago and now repeated by rote. But Sarmin watched him with concern, wondering whether he might yet betray them.

Farid breathed out, and the pattern’s triangles drifted away like petals on the wind.

Sarmin had never seen it done before, the breaking of a pattern, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The first austere’s designs were not unstoppable.

‘Look,’ said Grada. Through the gate was a courtyard surrounded by high walls, with a statue of Mirra in the centre. It looked empty, but he blinked and made out a hint of movement. The first austere, dressed in a mix of dull colours, had camouflaged himself against the stones like a moth. Now he stepped before them and Sarmin’s vision resolved, showing a muscular, grey-haired man just past his prime. He had expected another austere like Harrol, white and chilling.