The Tower Broken(109)

The pattern he had drawn along the walls fluttered and dimmed; the floor undulated with dark warning. He pulled his legs further up onto the chair. Had Moreth lost control? Would Rorswan eat him? But this was no rock-spirit. Black threads twined across the stone, adding obsidian pattern-shapes as it moved: triangle, oval, square. It gleamed with an oily resonance, creeping towards him, its tendrils testing the legs of his chair. He climbed onto the table and looked around at the rest of the furniture. He could go no higher.

The pattern picked up speed, sensing him now, rushing across the seat of the chair and reaching out over the table’s surface. He edged away from it, concentrating on the shapes, on pulling them tight as the duke had taught him, but they seemed to slide out of his grasp, wiggling away from his intent like slippery fish. It touched the wood of the table and now it moved towards him in unhurried fashion, as if its wielder knew he had nowhere to go, until at last it hooked around his ankle. He hissed when it burned his skin. He could feel it winding up his leg and encircling his torso; it was cold now, colder than river water.

His sight went dim. His body relaxed from its fearful pose and his legs slipped from the table. These were not his movements; these were not his feet walking out of the door. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me go.’

I cannot. There is work we must do. The voice whispered to him like a lover.

‘Who are you?’

I am the voice of Mogyrk. I am death and life. I am the promise of rebirth.

He moved down the stairs now, his steps sure and confident, his robes no longer a concern.

The traitor Didryk freed you from your fate, but I cannot allow that.

He reached the bottom of the stair and passed the rock-sworn statues.

Here my enemies lie already vanquished. But it is not finished. Not yet.

‘You can’t.’ He hoped the doors might offer a challenge to his captor, but his body was made to heave against it until the left-hand one stood far enough open that he could slip through. Ahead of him he could see the destructive pattern in the courtyard, its shapes twisted, its lines closed. It was all ready to be fixed and pulled loose. The guards, standing along the walls, would not think he was casting a pattern; he would look as if he was out for an evening stroll.

‘No!’ he shouted, but no sound came from him.

The voice laughed and he felt a pull.

Farid came to himself in the courtyard. ‘No,’ he whispered. He looked up at the curved wall of the Tower. Lights flashed up and down its length as ancient wards built into the stone were triggered. Farid felt sure the pattern mage had failed – but then he saw the stone shift, dust rolling from its edges. ‘No!’ He reached for the other pattern, the one in the library. All he knew about that one was that it reached back in time, forwards and backwards. If it could stop this … He reached out with his mind and pulled that pattern too.

He heard the laughter again, fading into the distance. Thank you.

He had only accelerated the destruction. The smooth wall of the Tower crumbled downwards, its many windows collapsing like closing eyes. Moreth was in there, at the bottom, too far to warn, too late to save. The dust washed over Farid like a sandstorm and he scrambled backwards, coughing. A rumble sounded deep in the earth and the courtyard shook. But it was not just the courtyard; the whole city was shaking, reacting to the destruction of the Tower. The highest stones dissolved as they fell, transforming into a white cloud that hovered in the air, and the domed metal roof hit the courtyard floor with a great ringing crack. The bell separated from it and with a dull clang, fell over its collapsed ropes. The lintel around the great brass doors ran away like sand, and the doors fell into the dust without a sound.

All fell silent.

‘Moreth!’ Farid scrambled to the edge of where the Tower had been, but it was too dark to see anything. All the torches that had been lit inside had been snuffed out by the weight of the powdered stone.

‘Moreth!’ The same spell had been cast in the temple of Meksha, and the people inside it had suffocated. He scooped up the dust with his fingers, all the while knowing his efforts were futile.

‘Moreth!’ The Blue Shields ran towards him, shouting for ropes, shovels, wagons—

Farid had blamed the rock-sworn for the death of those two thieves – and now he had killed Moreth. Now he knew what it was like to lose his will to another. They were the same, he and the mage, but it was too late to admit that in any way that mattered. He knelt by the pit of the ruined Tower and held his head in his hands. Time stayed still. He had been playing with the patterns as his sister once played with twine, even knowing they could destroy and kill – for they had killed his mother.