Mazarkis Williams - The Emperor's knife

“Your heir,” he said. “If it is true, then I am still your heir.”

“How fortunate, then, that you have no brothers.” The Pattern Master smiled and advanced on the throne.

Sarmin had known of the Pattern Master’s arrival before word came from Govnan. He knew it by the pricking of his thumbs, and by the ache in his bones. Govnan’s voice came on the wind, blowing into the tower room. The Tower had tested the Pattern Master’s blood and found his story to be true.

Sarmin shivered. This was a violation. Four lifetimes ago, the Pattern Master had paced this same room. He had been named Helmar then, second son of the Reclaimer’s heir, spared the Knife by the Tower because of his latent talents and secured- preserved -against an uncertain future.

Sarmin had wasted away for fifteen years; young Helmar had spent only his childhood here, for in Yrkmir’s final incursion the palace had been sacked and the boy prince taken. Records of his existence had been lost to all but the mages. Until now.

Sarmin wondered what had become of the men who took Helmar. He wondered what had passed from them to the stolen prince. What did they make of you, Helmar? What did you learn in the cold mountain lands to bring back to the desert? How are you not yet dead?

“He is like me.” Sarmin didn’t want to speak aloud, but the words needed space. He didn’t want to talk to an empty room, or to Eyul’s unconscious form. When you speak to no one, madness comes tapping at your door. “He is me-a me who was given a chance. A me who crossed the threshold and went outside once more.”

He reached under his pillow for the dacarba, the knife he’d taken from Tuvaini. It felt so long ago that he had set his hand upon the hilt and pulled it free. His fingers found only silk and for a panicked moment he scrabbled to find the knife, then he relaxed. Mesema had it. He had given it to her when she left him.

When she left him. She was Beyon’s now. And Grada was gone, too, picking her way along the edges of the desert. He had sent her away. Now he was alone. Not even the angels and demons spoke to him.

“When did you find the pattern, Helmar?” Sarmin lay back and rested his head on the coolness of a pillow. “When did you begin the Many? What number of lives have you sewn into your plans?”

Sarmin thought of the pattern, marked across his brother’s chest, spreading like a cancer, consuming him. He thought of the child who had spent so many empty days in this very room. Did you watch the Sayakarva window, and imagine what you would see if it ever opened?

“I should be angry, too,” he said. “I should want to make them all my toys, to play with, and to break. You have a right, Helmar.” He thought of Pelar and his ball, of his brothers, almost blurred together now as memories frayed with time. “You have a right.”

Beyon whispered in her ear.

Mesema stirred against the silks, noticing his arm no longer cradled her head. Her legs were twisted together, instead of between his. No matter; she was hungry and tired and she wanted to dream about her mother’s spiced lamb in a pot. She curled up, but Beyon would not stop whispering, gripping her shoulder tight and pulling her from her mother’s longhouse.

“-can’t keep him out. He is here-”

“What?” Through her eyelids she could sense the light of day. She didn’t hear anyone else in the room. Her bladder felt heavy. She stirred some more, remembering the night past, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. Dirini had told her much of what to expect of men, but she hadn’t expected Beyon. She had been advised that her first time would be unpleasant, but Beyon had been patient and considerate. She would not have guessed that of him when they had first met in the desert.

He continued to speak. She pulled silk over her nakedness as she listened. His voice sounded strained, as if part of him didn’t want to talk any more. “-the Pattern Master. I can hear him talking to me-”

Something cold slithered in Mesema’s stomach and she fell still, barely breathing. She didn’t want to open her eyes.

“I won’t make it to Sarmin, Zabrina.”

We should have gone yesterday. Last night.

“The Pattern Master is strong; I can feel him. Find Sarmin-I can tell they don’t know about him-”

“But we were all going to fight together.” She could still taste the salt of his skin, feel the wetness between her legs where he had been inside her. “You’re the emperor.” Perhaps the father of my child.

“Not any more.” He released her shoulder. “In the secret ways, go straight until you reach the double bridge. Then climb the stairs, turn right and cross two more bridges. Use your dagger to open the door.”

“Listen. You said that your men wait in the desert, in the hidden spot where the zabrina flowers. We can go-”

“Repeat the path to Sarmin’s room to me.”

She let a sob escape, then repeated his directions. “Straight to the double bridge, all the way up, right, two bridges. Use the dagger.”

“Good.” She felt his lips on her forehead, warm and soft. Alive. “I’m glad I met you, Mesema Windreader.”

Silence.

“Beyon?” She kept her eyes shut tight. “Your Majesty?”

Now she opened them, and watched the sunlight play on Beyon’s halfcarved face upon the ceiling. He had turned the lid again, opened it so that she could get out and leave him behind. “Beyon. Listen. Listen. ”

She heard a liquid sound that did not belong in this place of stone and silk.

“ Beyon. ” She did not want to look, but she had to.

Beyon lay at the other end of the tomb, one hand covering the gash in his throat. Blood pulsed over his robes and soaked into the silk that lay across their marble bed. The ruby-hilted dagger dropped from his other hand. He tried to wave her off, but it was as if his arm had grown too heavy. As their eyes met, his lost their focus and grew dark: Carrier eyes. Dead eyes.

“Beyon!” Tears wet her cheeks. There was so much blood, more blood than had come from Jakar or Eldra. It ran through the valleys in the silk and pooled around her knees. Even knowing it was too late to save him, she put her hands to his throat, pressing down, trying to keep the blood from leaving him. The pattern spiralled around her skin, climbing to her elbows, purple, red and blue She fell into it.

A roar filled her ears, grand and terrifying, like the sound of a flood coming down the mountain.

The Tower- Govnan- Find another way- Kitchens and hot bread- It hurts too much, so much- I was pretty, I had a lover- No way in, continue digging, always- The Tower- Beyon is gone- Find another wayMy little girl ran there, among the- So much blood- The horsegirl Mesema reached out for a way back to Beyon’s tomb, to find some thread to pull herself from the river of voices, but the current took her, careless of her strength, dragging her under and through the darkness, passing her from eye to eye, body to body, seeing corridor, desert, river, alley, and church. She tossed through a cascade of lives, searching for a set of words or images she could put together into a pattern that made sense. And then she heard a cool, amused voice, rising above the incoherence to address her.

“You have lost control, visitor. With Beyon’s sacrifice my power has become too much for you at last. Come to me now and show yourself.”

She drifted, gathering the bits of herself together as the images paraded past her eyes.

The speaker became angry. “You can no longer hide from me, Govnan. My Carriers will find a way into your Tower. They will tear it down from the inside.”

He is guessing! He does not know who I “Not Govnan, then?”

Mesema was shocked into silence, afraid to think lest the Master hear her.