The Tower Broken(53)

In the growing dark Didryk’s eyes took on the colour of night and his pale skin stood out against the dunes. ‘You were with Second Austere Adam,’ he said.

Farid swallowed. He hated the thought of anyone overhearing that. ‘Yes,’ he muttered, and flinched when the duke raised a hand, but he meant only to touch a finger against Farid’s forehead.

‘Can you feel it?’ he asked.

Farid grabbed at his reins. ‘Your finger? Of course I can.’

‘No; what Adam did.’ Didryk tilted his head in question. After a moment he said, ‘You do not know.’

Farid remembered Adam’s words: You will help me. His stomach twisted. ‘No. What is it?’

‘I cannot tell.’ Didryk frowned. ‘Adam is good at disguising his marks. I think the word in your language is sneaky. He is neither a good teacher nor a good man.’

‘He taught you.’

‘No,’ said the duke, with a shake of his head, ‘I taught myself. I read the old books I found hidden away in the library. He whipped me for it, but I kept on.’

‘Because you needed to know,’ said Farid. He understood that desire.

‘Yes.’ They rode on in silence for a time until at last the duke added, ‘But the pattern is not everything it promises. Its offerings are weak – it’s all shadows in the mirror. And it lies.’

‘In the marketplace its offerings were not weak. It was not a lie that those people died.’

Didryk turned to him, his face stern. ‘I will not be teaching you how to do that. Such things were never meant to be.’ With that his horse began to pull ahead.

‘Why?’ Farid awkwardly kicked his mare, struggling to keep up. ‘Adam taught me only two patterns. Will you teach me more?’

‘What did he teach you?’

‘How to call water, and how to destroy wood.’

Didryk slowed his horse and looked back at Farid. ‘You learned them both? Already?’

‘I did.’

‘Those are the only patterns most austeres need. They take most students years to master.’

‘Water and wood is all that I need?’

‘Student,’ said Didryk, and Farid realised he had not introduced himself. ‘Student, you now have the ability to call and to destroy. That is all that is taught, besides warding, which anybody could do and I will teach you soon. All you need is to learn the correct symbols.’

Those are the only two patterns most austeres need. It could not be that easy. It was not that easy. Farid lost control over the mare again and fell behind, and the nearby soldiers laughed at him. His cheeks red, he slowed even more and let them all pass. The duke had underestimated him. He was no scribe, to copy the same patterns over and over, replacing only the symbols inside. The patterns Govnan had shown him delved deep into time and history. The pattern could do more than call and destroy – the pattern could create, destroy, rearrange – and he would learn it. If the duke would not help him, he needed to go back to the Tower and teach himself.





24



Sarmin


‘The Great Storm has grown, Magnificence, as we feared.’

Sarmin sat in his room, eyes on the wall, hoping to make out a pattern – a face, anything – from the curves of paint and play of light from the lanterns. To find his brother he required power, not the mundane sort he wielded with his spies and soldiers, but the arcane power he had lost to the god’s wound.

Govnan sat down across from him. ‘I saw it from the Tower today and there can be no mistaking it. It darkens the sky and earth and crowds the mountains behind it from sight. We have a day, maybe less, before it reaches the Blessing, and three before it reaches the north walls of Nooria.’ He shifted. ‘Magnificence?’

‘And the crack?’ Sarmin asked at last, not shifting his gaze from among the brush-strokes. ‘The crack in the Tower?’

‘It widens.’

Azeem cleared his throat. Sarmin had forgotten him. ‘Our citizens flee south. There are so many leaving through the Low Gate that a carriage can barely move once it passes Asherak Bridge.’

What had once been Asherak Bridge, Sarmin thought to himself, and now consisted of rubble sticking up from the water, threatening the hulls of the barges and other vessels plying the Blessing.

Azeem continued, ‘In better news, the scouts have not seen any signs of troops from Yrkmir.’

‘They are coming, nonetheless.’ Through the empty spaces. What did that mean? He would need to ask Notheen when next he saw him. Sarmin turned away from the wall; he would not be a pattern mage this night, nor any other. Govnan hunched in his chair, watching him with bright eyes, while Azeem stood to his left. The grand vizier held no parchments or ledgers; his elegant hands were folded over his robes.