The Tower Broken(50)

Feeling disgusted with himself, he dropped it.

Govnan took it as resignation and sighed. ‘We do not have much time, but you may visit your father. My mages usually have no family contact, but since you have lived in Nooria …’

Farid sighed with relief. ‘So he knows I’m alive.’ He picked up another parchment, and itched to draw its pattern.

‘Of course he does,’ said Govnan, ‘he has been enquiring every hour if he may see you. He is in the courtyard.’

Farid wanted to run towards his father, but he could not tear his eyes from the patterns. He touched one of the symbols with two fingers. ‘Fire, I think.’ Shack-nuth. He could give the old man that much. Before leaving he walked to the black basin where Govnan had built a sacrificial fire to Meksha. ‘Shack-nuth,’ he said, but the flames did not alter. Of course it would not be so simple.

Mage Mura opened the door behind him. A breeze followed her into the room, brushing against Farid’s cheeks, and he turned. She looked at him and the parchments with curiosity, and he looked back with no less. ‘Captain Ziggur is ready now,’ she said, and Govnan sighed.

‘We are out of time,’ he said. ‘Hurry and say goodbye to your father.’

Farid leaned closer to the old man. ‘Can Mura – can she fly?’

Govnan put a hand on his shoulder and gave a nostalgic smile. ‘No, my son,’ he said, ‘nobody can.’

‘What if she held more than one spirit? Could they lift her then?’

‘Well, that has been done,’ said Govnan, ‘during the glorious past of our Tower. Controlling an elemental is a matter of will, and two are infinitely more difficult to control than one. In the time of Uthman and his descendants, we had many mages commanding two or more. But not today.’

‘Oh,’ said Farid with disappointment. ‘I thought one day I might fly, or swim in the ocean, like they do in the old tales.’

‘So did I, Farid,’ Govnan said. ‘So did I.’ He gave Farid’s shoulder a pat and then pushed him on. ‘Hurry, now; they are waiting for you.’

In the courtyard Farid met Captain Ziggur, a gruff man in his later years of soldiery who believed him a mage and treated him with deference he had not earned. Dozens of people stood around the statues, mostly soldiers, too many to greet, and so he did not – but he soon heard his father’s voice.

‘Farid!’

He turned and saw him, a plainly dressed man with rich brown eyes. ‘Farid,’ his father said again, holding his big hands in front of him as if in prayer.

‘Father.’ He smiled. ‘I am so glad to see you.’

His father looked away humbly, as if he were in the presence of a noble or a wealthy merchant. ‘I’m overjoyed you’re alive. I know you have great things to do – Tower things – but perhaps we’ll see each other again when you return. Sir.’

‘Father, you don’t have to—’

But his father had bowed and turned away, leaving him shaken. Why did his father treat him like a stranger? His mother had died of the pattern-sickness – had he now lost his father too, because of the pattern? He hoped his sister would not shrink from him as well – and he started to wonder who Adam had lost during his long years as an austere. Had he become so alone, so emptied of love, that Mogyrk had filled every part of him?

Captain Ziggur spoke to him and handed him the reins of a horse, but Farid barely heard his words. He had gone from fruit-seller to Tower mage in a matter of days and perhaps he would be dead in a few more – but he would die as Farid, not as some mage his father did not know.

‘Father!’ he called, and the older man turned, showing his eyes at last, hope registering in the dark depths of them.

‘I will be back.’

*

Farid wobbled on his horse. The Blue Shields had given him an old mare, slow and gentle, but even so, staying seated took effort. The sun beat down on his unfamiliar mage’s robes and put a thirst in his throat. The soldiers had asked him what sort of mage he was – whether he commanded rock or water, fire or air – to position him in their force for the greatest advantage. He had looked at them in frustration, until he finally remembered the word he was seeking was ‘novice’, which meant he was useless to the soldiers, who put him in the centre like a child. That left him in a foul mood, and he found himself wishing he were back in the comfort of the Tower, examining old patterns.

The train did not move with speed, for the horse chief they were following had not been given a mount. The heat was taking its toll as he limped through the sand in his chains, and his fair skin burned red in the desert sun. From the soldiers’ talk Farid gathered this chief had been responsible for the White Hat defeat. Though the Whites and Blues had an ancient rivalry, they joined together in hatred of their enemies. At midday, when they ate and rested, sheltered from the sun, these soldiers of the Shield boasted how they would knife their captive before sunset – but afterwards, they mounted and continued as they had begun, with the yellow-haired man in front, stumbling westwards between the dunes.