The Tower Broken(3)

Tarub and Willa showed no such concerns. Azeem said their happiness to serve came from being taken as children, that they knew no other life. He too, had once been a slave, and he thought it the way of things. For centuries slaves had kept the empire running and few who lived in it could imagine it any other way. Yet something in her said they must start to do just that.

Tarub broke into her thoughts and pointed out the window, up into the sky. ‘Smoke, Your Majesty!’ Dark plumes rose in the distance, drifting on the air. This had become the sign of unrest in the city as Mogyrk saboteurs took flame to guard posts and temples. Usually it stayed inside the Maze, but this smoke came very near, its ash drifting over the walls of the palace compound.

‘That is the Festival of Meksha,’ said Willa, always the sensible one. ‘What you see are the smoke and ashes from the offerings, Your Majesty.’

‘Oh.’ Mesema had not been to a festival since she left the grass, but the celebration of a volcano-goddess did not appeal. One last glance out of the window, then she turned to her task, pulling five marble pieces from her belt, the kind used by soldiers to mark enemies on the field. One she placed over Beyon’s tomb, once fallen to dust, and then repaired by Sarmin; this represented one of the blood-works Helmar Pattern Master had made to anchor his great spell. He had tricked Beyon into taking his own life and then used his blood to power the symbols hidden there.

She pushed the memory away and put a second piece along the river to the north, at the town of Migido, where Helmar had murdered the inhabitants and set their bodies into his design. Both the tomb and Migido had turned into great wounds, tainted by the death of the Mogyrk god and leaching colour and life from all they touched. Sarmin had healed the tomb, but still the emptiness in Migido crept ever south and east, towards Nooria and the river the Cerani called the Blessing.

The refugees from Migido had a name for it, borrowed from the nomads: the Great Storm.

Mesema took a deep breath. They had some time; the Storm in all its forms still remained distant. She placed a third marker to the northwest. The desert headman Notheen had spoken of a void in the reaches of the desert. That could be where Helmar’s church had been – the church she had seen when first she came here, where she had learned a path through the pattern. Later Grada had killed the true body of the Pattern Master there.

She clicked the last two markers together in her palm. Five: that was always the number of Helmar’s pattern; always groups of five carried out the Pattern Master’s deeds. Five wounds: one healed and four remaining; four mouths to open and release the Storm, and nothing to stop them. In the eastern desert she placed a marker. This was where the Mogyrk god had died, and the scar he had left was larger than any wound made by Helmar. The eastern desert lay harsh and barren between Nooria and its farthest province; those who wished to travel in between sailed from the south rather than braving the sands. The eastern gate, called the Dawn Gate, but more widely known as the Dry Gate, had fallen into disuse and was now sealed.

She had placed four markers so far. The last she held in her palm, a mystery.

Sarmin said the pattern-skill had left him, that when he looked at a thing, the thing was all he saw – not the designs that made it what it was. ‘The pattern is a lie that is also true,’ he had said. Mesema felt she was just on the edge of understanding it. She had told many lies that felt true, such as framing a thought that was just beyond her, or telling a story the way she wished it had truly happened. The story she told herself today was that the Great Storm could be stopped with figures and a map.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Tarub, her eyes cast humbly aside, ‘perhaps Pelar is hungry.’

‘He is sleeping.’ If she entered the room her son would know it and never rest until she held him in her arms. She smiled to think of his stubborn nature. He took after Beyon and her father both. Best to leave him in peace. Mesema traced the River Blessing on the map. It began in the mountains, ran past the fields that provided them with fruit and grain and down into the city of Nooria. She frowned, tracing the distance from the caravanserai of Migido to the river. The void had turned Beyon’s tomb to dust; what might it do to Nooria’s precious water?

‘Perhaps the Empire Mother seeks you for a game of Tiles, Majesty,’ said Willa.

Mesema doubted it. Nessaket’s injury had left her in great pain, and bouts of dizziness kept her bedridden much of the time. When she was able to visit Mesema, she carried her grief for Daveed along with her, bringing the shadow of his loss to all corners. Mesema would have done anything to fix the Empire Mother’s pain, but she was powerless as anyone when it came to that. The royal guards and assassins still searched for Austere Adam and his followers, hoping Daveed was in their care, but in truth the babe could be as far away as Yrkmir. Sarmin spoke little of it, but she saw in the shadows of his eyes that it pained him too.