The Tower Broken(17)

In the light of the candle he could now see another pattern scratched into the wall. He stood to look, but soon realised great spaces had been left empty, as if the carver had been interrupted. He held the paper up to it: these shapes formed a different spell. The finished one drew his eye, the lines having found their natural ends, the shapes having reached a pleasing balance.

Before she grew too old for such things, Farid’s sister used to take their father’s twine and wind it between her hands, her fingers spinning a complicated web. He would tease her by pulling on the lines, watching the empty spaces shrink and expand at his will, creating tension in her fingers until at last she cursed him and pulled free, leaving the twine a slack pile upon the floor. He ran his fingertips along the ink, remembering the feel of the rough string.

Adam had shown him some of these characters: shack-nuth, hiss-nick. Nonsense.

And yet, this design spoke of water to him. It waited somewhere in this collection of shapes and threads, caught like dew on a spider’s web. He needed only to free it. He found the line he needed and pulled.

The pattern flashed, crescents and half-moons painting the ceiling in blue light, and a fiery glow wound his hands and arms in a design that reached further than the one in plain ink. It retreated into smaller and smaller lines upon his skin, so deep he thought he might fall into it, and a memory came to him of leaping off Asham Asherak’s great bridge at full dark, the water an unknown black beneath him and the warm stone under his toes, before the light bled away, shimmering one last time in the distant reaches of the pattern before leaving him alone, bereft in the tiny room.

Water soaked the centre of the paper, spreading outwards. The pitcher! It was too late, but he caught some of it in his hands and slurped, ran his wet hands over his face and neck, then settled against the wall, his heart beating fast. What had he done? The light, the water … he ran a cool finger against his lips. He had used the pattern, the tool of the enemy, the poison that had killed his mother, and what he felt was … joy.





8



Mesema


The men of the council spoke of the city as Tower and wall, palace and temple, landmarks of power that reflected their own standing in the world. Yet from where Mesema stood in Siri’s rooftop garden, the city might have been two great hands cupping the life-giving river. Without the Blessing, there would be no Nooria, no palace, no great Cerani empire. It carved a path from the mountains to the southern province and fed the crops that in turn fed the city. From the roof of the palace the river looked like a wide blue ribbon laid between domed roofs and sand-coloured streets – but Sarmin had given her a great treasure: a tube, with glass on either end, that made all things look closer. It had been a gift from the astrologers of Kesh; now Mesema held it to her eye.

Three small fishing boats in flaking paint made their slow way downriver, pushed through the shallow passage by twelve royal guards disguised as polemen. She tried holding the astrologers’ device even closer, but it did not further improve her view. Somewhere under stained tarpaulins her son Pelar was hidden, with his nursemaids and the wind mage Hashi. They would pass through the Low Gate to the south and continue towards the coast.

A flatboat passed by, going north towards the grain markets, its men too busy with the contrary flow to pay the royal hideaways any mind. But if Pelar should cry out, ask for his mother … She took a step towards the edge and imagined leaping from the roof garden, running down those narrow streets and swimming to the boats, imagined the look on his face when she gathered him in her arms. It was not too late to bring him back.

But she stayed where she was. After her trip into the city she knew her instincts were not to be trusted.

She and Sarmin had said their goodbyes in the private audience chamber, then handed Pelar to his nursemaid. He had been jolly, not knowing what was to come. At some point, on the road or in the boats, he must have realised she was not there, and it crushed her to think of it. But it would not have been wise to follow the prince and his entourage to the Blessing; they were travelling in secret, in boats secured from merchants fleeing Migido. It would not do for refugees of the Great Storm to learn their emperor was sending his own son south while they remained here with the god’s wound inching forwards, ever closer to Nooria. Even so, she longed for one last good-bye.

The sun came around the mages’ Tower and lit the river in shades of green. She turned the glass away from the boats; she had lost the strength to watch them go. Nor could she bear to see the Holies, where Grada had killed three men to defend her, and she jerked the glass away when its view landed there. Instead she traced the water’s path north beyond the Worship Gate, so called because it faced Meksha’s mountain. It had been barred, and travel north of the city had been forbidden. The Great Storm presented too great a danger.