‘Or true air,’ put in Mura, but Govnan waved her off.
‘Let us speak of fire first.’
Mura folded her arms before her. Farid looked at Meksha’s sacrificial flame which was burning in its black basin. ‘The goddess’ fire?’ he asked.
‘No, fire from beyond our plane.’
‘The elements that are bound by this plane crumble,’ said Moreth in a mournful voice. ‘I raised many walls when Emperor Beyon’s tomb was dissolving, but the emptiness ate every one of them. Hashi threw wind at the void, but it died and went still. Fire grew cold and flickered out. We know this.’
‘But what about an unbound elemental, as you mentioned before, when we spoke with the emperor?’ Govnan leaned forwards. His eyes sparkled in the sunlight from the window.
Mura leaned in too. ‘How could we bring an unbound elemental into this plane? It would be bent on destruction, nothing more.’
Govnan tapped the Shack-nuth symbol on the table. ‘There may be something here.’
‘You would use the pattern?’ Farid asked, surprised. Surely that was anathema to the Tower?
The high mage smiled. ‘I cannot say yet. There are so many possibilities – too many, perhaps. But this is exciting news, is it not?’ He studied Farid’s face. ‘You look exhausted. When was the last time you slept?’
Farid remembered his dark closet room. Had he really not slept since escaping Adam? He should be more tired, shouldn’t he? ‘I don’t know.’
‘Then sleep.’ Govnan waved him off with an imperious hand. ‘I will not have a mage stumbling around making errors because he is too tired to think.’
‘I wanted to look at the patterns—’
‘Now,’ said Govnan, his eyes narrowing in fury.
Farid backed off. This was the high mage, not his father; he would not test him. He bowed and withdrew.
In his little Tower room he found a pitcher of water and a silver mug, which he could not help but touch. This would have paid two years’ rent for his little room above the market. He held it up to his face and watched the distorted reflection. He looked like a monster. He held it this way and that, looking at his forehead, but he could see no sign of any pattern there. Didryk had said the austere was sneaky. He put the mug down with a clang and threw himself onto the bed, where he tossed and turned sleeplessly.
Images of patterns and the Storm would not leave his mind, and at last he rose and settled himself against the window. His room faced south, towards the Low Gate, where the citizens were gathering to escape the city. The crowd looked like just a moving blur from this far distance, a more colourful stream than the river beside it. Farid focused on the Blessing. His father might be poling his little boat south at this very moment, taking himself to a safe place. He hoped so.
Do I belong here? Farid played with the belt of his mage’s robe and thought about Austere Adam, the pattern, Duke Didryk and the Great Storm. He was, it appeared, the only Cerani who could see the pattern-marks, the only pattern-worker whose loyalty to the emperor was unquestioned.
Yes.
28
Didryk
‘Here is your room, Duke.’ Azeem held the door open for Didryk. The grand vizier was long-limbed and lean, and he looked always to be in complete control, moving with a grace that spoke either of serenity or of long practise. ‘Is there anything else I or my staff may do for you before I take my leave?’
Didryk crossed the room and looked out the window. It faced a courtyard full of flowers similar to his own in Fryth and he closed his eyes a moment, for he would never see that one again. For an age his land had been caught between the wolf of Yrkmir and the lion of Cerana, and it had finally found ruin on the teeth of both – and yet his will for revenge had begun to falter. The emperor had made a grand and generous gesture towards his faith.
He reminded himself that no such generosity had been shown to Banreh. Didryk could feel his friend below him, in some dark place, his pain echoing in their shared marks. For most healers such a connection was useful; it told them what patterns were needed; but on this night it was torture. Their bond was stronger than usual and he attributed that to the closeness of Mogyrk in the east. He leaned out, studying the wings and doors in his view, wondering, Where are you?
They had been through much, he and Banreh. Together they had uncovered Arigu’s dishonesty, realising the impersonal cruelty of the empire from which he came and pushing it aside. They had put their trust in each other, and for a long while they had won. But there could be no saving his friend now. Every day he thought of the Cerani invasion of his lands and the destruction that came after and wished that he could have saved just one person – his cousin’s wife, his own sister, any loyal friend. But he had not, and could not in the palace either; he could only follow the plan they had made. That was all that remained for either of them. He looked down on the courtyard, so far from his home, and told himself he could not turn from his purpose.