The Tower Broken(89)

At last he reached the top, where Ne-Seth opened the door to him, letting him know the room was safe. He stepped in and looked about at the dusty carpet, the ruined walls, bare of gods, and the bed-ropes now hanging slack. Didryk followed him in, looking around curiously, and he shut the latch.

‘This is where I was imprisoned during the time of my brother’s rule. On the night of my father’s death they brought me here, and from this window I saw my other brothers die in the courtyard.’ He stood at the still-bare window lined with pieces of jagged alabaster. Grada had broken this window more than a year ago, but he never had it repaired.

Didryk said nothing, just listened as Sarmin kept talking.

This was his moment to Push and hope the tiles fell in his favour. There was no more time. ‘When my brother died, my cousin Tuvaini became emperor and after him, Helmar, the Pattern Master. It was he I killed to take the throne for myself.’ Sarmin turned to face the duke. ‘But this was my room: it was where I was formed, where I became Sarmin the Saviour, where I first met my bride. And here I remained until the demands of the palace forced me elsewhere. It was here I spoke with your cousin Marke Kavic, and hoped to become his friend. But he died before those hopes could grow into truth.’

Didryk blinked. ‘Azeem said that my cousin fell to the pale sickness that swept your palace.’

‘Kavic was murdered,’ said Sarmin, and the duke made a noise in his throat, his hand held open at his side as if readying for the touch of a weapon. Sarmin continued, ‘I thought that by killing Helmar I had vanquished the pattern, but it was not so. It used my hand to kill your cousin, and it opened a wound in the city that threatened to destroy us all.’

‘You … killed my cousin?’

‘Not me. One of the Many.’ My false brother.

Didryk let out a breath and seemed to waver, his right hand still hovering near his empty sword-sheath, the left pressed over his heart. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I do not wish to lie to you. Because I want you to understand the dangers we have faced – the dangers we still face. Yrkmir approaches, but we are threatened by much more now. I stretch out my hand to you in friendship, knowing that you may bite.’ He held out Tuvaini’s dacarba, hilt-first: an offering. ‘If you are going to bite, then bite now.’

Didryk took the weapon. First he laid it in his palm, then he flipped it in the air and caught it with a fighter’s expertise. ‘For a long time I have dreamed of carving open the Cerani emperor,’ he said, his blue eyes far away. ‘When my austeres were tortured to death, I imagined this. When my city burned, I imagined this.’

Sarmin stepped up to him and pushed his chest against the three-sided tip of the blade. He looked up at Didryk. ‘I must fix the god’s wounds. They spread through my empire like open sores. I must find Austere Adam and those he has taken from me. I must hold off Yrkmir, protect the Tower and create a lasting peace so that my people – my wife, my son – may live. And to do so I must put all of my tiles on the board right now and make my Push. If I cannot succeed, if you will not help me, I might as well die, and at your hand as any.’

Didryk held the weapon against Sarmin’s chest, his gaze on the place where the metal pressed against skin. ‘This is not what I had planned.’

Sarmin did not move, did not back away from the sharp end of the blade. ‘What did you plan, Duke? You have all those people tethered to you – what would you have had them do? Was that attack in the throne room yours?’

Didryk looked into his eyes. ‘It was not. My plan was to destroy your city after you had destroyed Yrkmir,’ he said. ‘I would have had your people tear down every brick and stone with their bare hands.’

‘As Yrkmir did to Fryth after the defeat of the Iron Duke.’ It made sense. ‘Your cousin Kavic told me. Here in this room.’

‘Did he?’ Didryk’s breath whispered against Sarmin’s face. Sarmin nodded, and Didryk lowered the dacarba. ‘As soon as I met you, I knew – if you had been like Arigu, I never would have hesitated, but once I met you I knew that I would – hesitate.’ He flipped the dacarba, grasped it by the blade and held it out to Sarmin hilt-first. ‘Your turn.’

‘I would not kill you.’ Sarmin tucked the blade into its sheath. ‘I will not even pretend to that.’

Didryk fell to his knees, his hands over his eyes.

‘Will you help me?’ asked Sarmin.

‘Will you release Chief Banreh?’

‘I cannot – but he will remain alive for now; Arigu and I are in agreement on that.’