Mazarkis Williams - The Emperor's knife

“It matters not.” The Master affected boredom, but she sensed something wrong in him-something had not gone to his plan. She did not allow her mind to reflect on what that might be. “Your self will soon disappear within us. You will take your form and your place as the design requires.”

“No,” she said, surprising herself, “I do not belong in your pattern.” “A girl!” The Master laughed.

“What did you mean, Beyon’s sacrifice?” she asked. “How did you make Beyon climb in his tomb and kill himself?”

“I didn’t. He did that because it had to happen, because the pattern required it.”

“But the pattern is yours.”

A pause. The Master’s attention was briefly elsewhere. “I wanted a girlmage, but she was taken from me. One more hides in the Tower. But you are not that one, I think.”

“I am not a mage.”

“Tell me, girl-not-a-mage, how do you plan to defy me?”

Talking with the Pattern Master allowed her to filter the other voices from her mind. Now she concentrated on finding her way out. The hare’s path. So long ago, as she stood on the fence of her father’s sheep-pen, the Hidden God had shown her the path through the Many. It began with an arc and two intersecting circles. The pattern’s shapes, so terribly familiar to her eyes, could not be seen here, but she felt them brush against her mind like spiderwebs.

“I will defy you by living.” She felt her way along the strings, finding the form she sought. Like a path in a maze, it might not lead where she wished; she might have to search again, and again. But each one came with an image, the view from the Carrier who held it. She discarded all the unfamiliar scenes, hoping Carriers in a specific area were somehow linked. Alley. Sewer… No. Corridor. Yes. She felt out, hoping for two parallel lines. And then, quickly, as she would ride Tumble through the Hair Streams, knowing her way, gaining speed, she turned at a circle, nearly done, and directly through a diamond, sensing that Carrier’s surprise, seeing the memories that rose in his mind, unbidden. I had a son. He was- That man stood in the secret ways. Yes. And then she released the strings, disappearing into the web as the hare had hidden itself in the grass. This was the hardest part, letting go. Believing.

She had the sensation of falling, and once again she looked up at Beyon’s half-finished face set in the vaulted ceiling. She felt his blood against her back, cold and sticky. How long have I been lost?

She wiggled her fingers.

“You have betrayed yourself,” said the Master, bringing back the conversation she had almost forgotten, “by speaking of our late, great emperor. I know where you are.” She felt him leave her, a rough, scraping sensation, like a knife withdrawing from a wound.

She jumped up and gathered a sheet around her nakedness. The markings still covered her skin from fingertips to elbows. Beyon lay before her, his skin grey, his head tilted back, and all around him glistened the pattern- half-moon, crescent, triangle, star, two lines, circle-all in shades of red, shimmering in the unstained silk and lighting the rubies of Sarmin’s dagger. She grabbed the blade, found the bundle of food and drink, and stood over him. “Goodbye, Beyon.” A fierce memory of him, golden, vital, clutched her, but Beyon had gone beyond blood and broken flesh. Nothing held her to his remains.

She climbed over the side to where the pattern spread across the tiles and ran for the secret ways.

Sarmin felt it, the spilling of blood, the rushing loss of life, the death of his last brother. “Beyon!” he cried, rousing the assassin from his deathlike sleep. “He is gone, then, the emperor.” Eyul’s voice creaked. He did not open his eyes.

“My brother!” Sarmin tore at his hair, hit his forehead against the wall.

Eyul spoke again. “You are the emperor now. The Knife… evil. You must find the centre…” Eyul, near-dead, trailed off. He was as still as everything else in Sarmin’s room.

“Do not speak to me of evil! I know what evil is!” Where is Mesema? Is she hurt? “My friend needs help-the empire needs help, and I am stuck in this room.”

Eyul didn’t answer.

Grada is just one person. The Master commands a multitude. He could feel the pattern closing around him, suffocating him. It would not be long before the Master found him. With a groan he fled from the Master, from his tower room, from Eyul’s pain and Beyon’s death, from his failings and inabilities… He ran, and he found Grada.

Grada saw the vultures late on the sixth day of her journey: a distant spiralling of birds, black dots against the wideness of the sky. She watched them as she drew closer. So many. How many were dead, to summon such a host? The vultures circled and descended, and more flew in to take their place in the air. Circle first, once, twice, then descend in a third loop. A pattern.

The watchtowers of Migido came into view, black against the red eye of the setting sun. Grada walked on, her feet sore, her mouth dry, and an acid weight in her stomach.

No smoke. Sarmin had joined her, though his mind darkened with grief. Who had died? He did not say.

There should always be smoke, for cooking, for firing clay, for all the things a town needs. The shadows of Migido reached towards her, but no smoke rose from its chimneys, no lights shone from the windows. There were no beggars, no children, no dogs. Those were the outer layers of any town…

Grada reached the first house. It was dark, the door ajar.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded thin.

Don’t go in. Her thought, and Sarmin’s.

She walked on, along the deserted street. A soft wind rustled the leaves of fig trees as she passed. Her feet shuffled in the sand that rippled here and there over the cobbles.

The twilight thickened. The heat of the day ran from her as the sun’s glow died in the west.

Silence.

“You should go around,” Sarmin said. No more pain, I can’t “I don’t want to see.” The horror of it crawled on Grada’s cooling skin. She didn’t want to see what the vultures were feasting upon, but she had to.

She moved towards the main square, the rough stone catching at her robes as she edged along the side of a building.

“I came through Migido when I was a little girl-my mother and I were on our way to Nooria. I remember a festival, and dancing. An old lady was kind to me.” She approached the building’s corner slowly, one hand brushing over the stonework.

“You should go around…” Sarmin wavered. They both treasured kindnesses. They both held a store of such precious moments, and returned to them, time and again. Please, you should go around.

“I-” Grada spoke out loud, not meaning to, and a dark explosion burst before her in a great rushing and screeching. Grada screamed too Vultures. They are just vultures.

Somewhere in his distant room, Sarmin had shouted in terror. Grada stepped around the corner, and more vultures launched themselves skywards, squawking their annoyance. They would return at first light. The gloom hid all detail. Grada could see the town square, clear of stalls.

One camel pulled at the tether holding him to a post, but no people. It looked for a moment as though a caravan had been unloaded with the sacks laid carelessly here and there.

“No.” Sarmin took it in through her eyes, and his dread and grief fell on her so hard that her legs sagged beneath her. She felt him try to turn away.

“There is-” His voice broke. “There is a pattern to it.”

And Grada saw it: the pattern to the bodies. The vultures had disturbed it a little, leaving a spill of entrails here, an arm yanked out there. A small child had been dragged from her position, and half a baby had been left in the open, where the birds had been clustered.