The Tower Broken(14)

Govnan bowed his head. ‘Yes, Magnificence. Both strikes were at Mogyrk hands.’

‘What of this fruit-seller? Did he assist them?’

‘By all accounts he was no more than a fruit-seller, and a devout follower of our gods.’

Odd. Sarmin wondered whether these attacks came from Austere Adam, still hiding somewhere in the city, or if they heralded the arrival of Yrkmir as Hazran had suggested. He turned to Notheen. ‘What news of the desert? Does our enemy approach?’

Notheen took some time to speak, his eyes distant as stars. ‘No enemy has been seen, Magnificence, but nothing passes through the sand without a ripple. My people speak of something great that moves through the empty spaces.’

All of the desert was an empty space to Sarmin. He riffled through old parchments, Helmar’s writings. None of it made sense to him now. Kavic had been able to read the symbols, and he might have taught him, but Kavic had died. Helmar was gone, as were his Many. Of those who knew the pattern, only the Megra remained. ‘I must speak with the Megra.’

‘She is ill, Magnificence. I would hurry.’ Sorrow pulled Govnan’s face.

Sarmin pushed the thought aside; he had no time to linger on the pain of losing the Megra. ‘And what of the sickness that creeps from Migido?’

‘It does appear that the use of the pattern accelerates its growth.’ Govnan cleared his throat. ‘My wind-sworn Hashi reports the pattern attack in the marketplace has widened the void by one hundred feet. It now stands within a mile of the Blessing.’

Sarmin met his gaze. After a moment Govnan looked away. ‘But it is still several miles from the north wall. We are exploring new methods to slow it.’

Govnan’s experiments had thus far gone nowhere. The wound coming from Migido threatened them now, but it was a pinprick in the world compared to the great scar left by the death of the Mogyrk god; he imagined that void as a night sky without any stars, enormous and heavy, too much to hold in one man’s mind. If Sarmin could not heal that wound, there would be nothing left of his great city.

‘Thank you, Govnan, Notheen. You are dismissed.’ The high mage looked about to speak, but he bowed his head and retreated. Notheen glided after him, his midnight robes whispering against the rug.

Sarmin stared at his hands. With these hands he had invaded the Pattern Master’s work, opened Helmar’s butterfly-stone and healed a god’s wound. But he had been drained by it. He could do no more as a mage, only as an emperor. He stood and left his room.

Sword-sons trailed him as he walked to the women’s wing. He did not know their names; he had not asked and did not mean to. He missed Ta-Sann. All the time he had been alone in his tower room he had never suffered a loss. Now that he was out of it, there had been too many.

The women’s corridor stretched before him, plain and white. Here, concubines did not display themselves against colourful mosaics for his inspection. They had their own rooms, and knew that he would not visit them. His time with Jenni had been a mistake, a trick played by the pattern. He stood in the empty corridor and knocked on Mesema’s door. Her servant Tarub pulled it open, and set to trembling at the sight of him.

‘Leave us.’ He was greeted by more plain white walls, glaring in the sun from the window-screen. Against the harshness Mesema appeared ever softer, her skin limned with light as she stretched across the bed, hair lit by honeyed fire. Sarmin knew she was no beauty by the standards of the palace, but she moved him nonetheless. Pelar slept beside her on a purple blanket, his eyelashes thick against his cheeks, and she played with his curls as she sang a Felting song. Though music did not move him, Sarmin paused to listen to her voice.

Mesema raised herself on one elbow and smiled; the line of her body beneath a thin layer of silk set his skin buzzing, but his mind explored it no further. Since the pale sickness had struck they had been no more than friends. He sat on the edge of the bed and touched Pelar’s chubby foot. He was so healthy now that it was difficult to believe he had almost been drained of life.

Pelar was his son in every way that mattered. Though he had come from the joining of Mesema with his brother Beyon, he loved the boy with all his being. It was not so unusual in Mesema’s culture to raise a boy this way; grass-children, they were called: the children a wife had given birth to before marrying her husband. He leaned over Pelar and smelled the baby-scent of him, soap and milk, and something sweeter. Daveed’s face rose in his mind, in that moment sharper and more real than the boy who lay before him, and he feared the memory might cut him.

‘Don’t wake him up,’ whispered Mesema, ‘I just got him to be quiet.’