Mazarkis Williams - The Emperor's knife

Only one rider lacked a white hat, a man with golden hair and pale skin. He wore a loose-fitting, colorful tunic. He turned and looked in Grada’s direction as he passed, but his gaze went past her, to the dunes beyond. She could not read it.

She felt the spark of Sarmin’s interest. “That one. He reminds me of someone.”

The girl. Grada said nothing, but kept her eyes on the blond man. It stung when Sarmin hid his thoughts from her.

“They go north,” Sarmin said at last, returning to her with confidence, “to the Wastes. Stay out of their way and they will not bother you.” And then, softer, apologetically, “Thank you for showing me.”

“Of course, my Prince.”

He withdrew, and she continued across the sands. For the first time she felt alone.

Sarmin must have slept, because when he opened his eyes his lamp had burned out and a man was calling his name.

“My Prince.”

Sarmin felt under his pillow. The dacarba was still gone.

“Prince Sarmin.”

Sarmin opened his eyes. He recognised the man sitting on his bed from his travels in Carrier-dreams. Iron hair, strong arms-but the eyes were different. They were softer than he remembered. He sat up in his bed. “You’re the assassin Eyul. You killed my brothers.” For an instant Sarmin saw him clearly through the years, through the broken window and across the palace yard, Kashim at his feet with the blood spreading, looking up, returning his stare, unreadable.

Eyul hunched over, one hand on his abdomen, his face drawn and pale. He said, “I am… the emperor’s Knife. I brought them peace.”

“And now you bring this peace to me?”

Eyul shook his head. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded between the red fingers on his belly.

Sarmin could sense the blood now, feel it resonating with the courtyard and the soldiers’ halls, and with his own blood, drying on his bed. “You’re injured.” He took no joy in it, and that surprised him.

“Shot through the gut.” The assassin grimaced. “Took me… a long while to get here. The Knife wanted to come to you.”

“My knife?” But the dagger Eyul drew was of dull metal with a twisted, bloodstained hilt. Sarmin pulled back from it.

“Can… you hear them…? Pelar and Asham-?” Eyul wobbled against the bedpost. He took Sarmin’s right hand and pressed the ugly weapon into his palm. “No damnation,” he whispered.

In the instant of that first touch Sarmin felt the blood throb in his veins, in the palace, in the ways, the yards, the Maze, all the spilled blood pulsing to his design, ready to flow in new patterns. He felt the wrongness and the rightness of it, like impossible decisions: kill the one for the many, the many for the one.

Sarmin pushed back his covers and stood, the knife in his hand. “There was a time I’d have relished this moment. I’d have slit your throat and still not felt the debt repaid. But you didn’t take my brothers from me-neither did my father, not really. You are the emperor’s Knife, the sharp edge of his decisions. And the emperor is the empire, the voice of its will…’

Eyul’s head lolled, his attention turned inwards, to his blood and pain.

Sarmin frowned. “Lie back. You’re hurt.” He examined Eyul’s wound. “I have no skill in medicine. I can take things apart… making is harder, mending more so, I imagine.” Sarmin took Eyul’s hand and settled beside him. “I would call Govnan if I could. He might be able to help.” The assassin looked old, older even than when he had woken Sarmin just moments before. Age wrinkled around his eyes; a thin string of drool crept from the corner of his mouth. Sarmin held his hand. It’s not good to be alone. He spoke in a quiet voice, like the old mothers to small children. “It was the empire, you see, the empire that protects us all. There must be sacrifices. On the Settu board you cannot make the Push without losing pieces. The Pattern Master understands this. I understand it now.”

Eyul raised his head and smiled. “The Knife,” he said.

“Yes, I have it.”

“No damnation… but I am sorry, nonetheless.” Sarmin felt sure the man was dying. “Grada!”

He found her in her travels, sand between her toes, sun hot on her back. “My Prince.”

“There is a man dying here. What should I do?”

She showed him images: her father, her sister, her neighbour. Life in the Maze was fleeting and desperate. If hunger or disease didn’t catch you, then likely the violence would. She had sat by many deathbeds, helped dig a dozen holes. He cried for her.

“Hold his hand,” she said, “speak of Mirra.”

“I would have taken her fishing.” Eyul spoke in whispers, his eyes fixed on the ceiling gods, not seeing.

Sarmin pulled him close.

“It’s not right-” Eyul’s words came with his breath, “-the things they make us do.”

And they sat together and Sarmin held the assassin as he once held his brother, and spoke of Mirra.

Mesema dreamed of riding Tumble. She crashed through the tall wheat and took the sharp turns by the riverbed that only her father’s best Riders would attempt. She galloped back up the hill and jumped the sheep fence, scaring the animals and the Red Hoof thralls in the pen. She raced along the mountain road, avoiding the mud and waterfalls of spring, until she had a view of the plains stretching beyond her father’s lands and into the realms of the traders-who-walked.

The wind blew, raising dust from twenty thousand horses and fifty thousand feet. She saw Windreader, Black Horse, Blue River, Flat Earth, even Red Hoof ribbons raised aloft on spears. The Cerani marched beside them, breastplates bright in the sun, their lines straight, their shoulders proud. The enemy poured down to meet them from the eastern mountains, descending on strange shaggy mounts, so many that she couldn’t see the stone beneath their feet. The enemy’s cloaks made a pattern of shifting colours and light, unmistakable once recognised, not the Pattern Master’s design, but threatening nonetheless. It spread over the grass and reached beneath the feet of her father’s men. Mesema tried to shout a warning, but her mouth would not open.

“Mesema.” Someone shook her shoulder. “Mesema, dawn approaches.”

“I’m awake,” she said, sitting up and opening her eyes. Her voice sounded loud, and she realised Beyon had been whispering.

“You had a bad dream.” He fiddled with a bundle under his arm. “I got blankets and food.”

“You shouldn’t have gone. It’s dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous to stay here. In fact, I was thinking we should hide in the tomb until nightfall.”

“We are in the tomb.”

He motioned behind him. “I meant in the tomb. It has airholes-we can close the lid. That way if anyone comes in here they won’t see us.”

Mesema looked with horror at the sarcophagus. The lid had been turned diagonally to its base, as if someone had put something inside it, or taken something out. “I think we should go back to the ways, find Sarmin.”

“At nightfall.” He paused. “The ways are full of Carriers.”

“They didn’t catch you.”

“I know. I can hear them.”

“How long have you been able to hear them?”

He bit his lip. “For a few hours.”

Mesema looked again at Beyon’s tomb. She wondered if Carrier voices could influence him, compel him, without his knowing. She shook her head. “How does it make a difference if we find Sarmin by day or by night? We should go now.”

“I’m tired,” he said, and she wondered if he meant something beyond sleep. “I need to rest.”

Mesema wanted Sarmin more than anything in that moment, his soft voice, his kind face. The way he could look at something difficult and give it a name, change it. Mesema glanced at Beyon. She knew he was different from the night before, but she couldn’t say how. “All right, we’ll rest. And then, if the coast is clear, we’ll go straight to Sarmin.”