‘If he is not in this world then how can he help you? Mirra tends the wounded. Herzu aids our warriors. Meksha lights our fires and keeps us warm on desert nights. But your god leaves you to your own workings. Alone.’
Didryk remembered it was his turn and moved a tile at random. ‘He gave us all the tools we needed when He left us, and He waits for us, in the place between life and death, a bridge to the light and peace on the other side.’ Through habit he described it as he had been taught.
‘You mean that he is not alive and also not dead? That sounds like …’ Azeem’s dark fingers lingered over a tile, then he changed his mind and moved another.
Didryk wondered why he still cared about a game he had clearly won.
‘An abomination?’ Didryk finished Azeem’s question. He looked at the vizier’s brown skin and eyes. ‘The first austere is an abomination too.’
Azeem thought it a joke and smiled before motioning for Didryk to take his turn.
Didryk chose a soldier and said, ‘You are not from Cerana.’
‘I was taken from the Islands.’
‘A slave?’ Didryk looked up in shock. ‘You are a slave?’
‘I earned my freedom and rose far under Emperor Tuvaini, heaven and stars be with him now.’ He looked pointedly at the board – it was Didryk’s turn once again – but Didryk leaned back in his chair. ‘On your Island, do you have the same gods as Cerana?’
‘I learned of the true gods after I came here.’
‘So you have changed your mind once before,’ said Didryk.
Azeem smiled and made his Push. ‘I did not change my mind. I knew the greatest empire in the world must know the truth of it. Surely to reap so many benefits from heaven, Cerana must have the gods’ favour. Who can live in the middle of the desert without the help of the gods?’ Azeem’s emperor caught the priest, the priest collapsed the Tower, and the Tower pushed all of Didryk’s pieces from the board.
Didryk gulped the remainder of his wine and remembered what Banreh had said of Settu. ‘In this game both sides are Cerana, and so Cerana always wins.’
‘There is no foe that could win,’ said Azeem, rising. ‘The Felt with their horses? Yrkmen with their austeres? Westerners with their ships? Each have but one tile to play.’
‘Is that what your emperor thinks? That no foe can beat him?’
Azeem’s friendly smile hardened. His gaze flickered over the fallen tiles. ‘Perhaps you are tired from your long journey.’
‘That is the second excuse you have made for me.’ Didryk stood, and Azeem was forced to raise his chin to keep eye-contact, though his gaze was no less steely for the difference in height.
‘Will I have to make another,’ Azeem said, ‘or may I shortly return and bring you to your private audience with the emperor, heaven bless him?’
Didryk rubbed at the sand on his neck. ‘I will be ready.’
Azeem made a small bow, swept past Krys and Indri and disappeared into the rich colours of the hall.
‘He was not so bad,’ Indri commented. Krys punched his arm.
Didryk returned to the window. The day was nearing its end at last, and the air was growing cool. He lifted his head and let it brush his cheeks. Below him, blossoms were waving in the breeze like flags and his heart twinged, remembering his home.
Soon he would meet with the Emperor of Cerana, and somehow he must gain his trust. Something told him it would be harder to gain Azeem’s. Whoever had laid the pattern in the marketplace had both helped and hindered him, increasing the emperor’s desperation and at the same time reminding Cerana how dangerous the pattern could be. Yrkmir – but if they were here already, why did the first austere not order a full-on attack?
Servants arrived carrying a wide vessel filled with water and rose petals; when Didryk dipped his hand in, its warmth surprised him. He washed and shaved and ran wet fingers through his hair. After that he felt hungry at last and took a few bites of cheese, all he had time for before Azeem returned. He followed the vizier down gilded and over-decorated halls to the private apartments of the emperor, listening to a list of yet more rules and protocols, agreeing to all restrictions and demands.
29
Sarmin
Sarmin paced his room, twenty by thirty, twenty by thirty. Azeem did not arrive with the books he had requested, nor did Mesema take the notion to visit. He sat at his desk; a scroll lay there and idly he rolled it back and forth over the rosewood surface, thinking about Duke Didryk. He could not discard the idea that the duke had some deeper plan, some deception, in mind. And yet down to his bones Sarmin knew that he must try to repair that brief, broken friendship between Fryth and Cerana, to reach out, as he had done to Marke Kavic, and welcome another son of the cold mountains into the desert.