Knife Sworn (10 page)

But
Histories
lay open on the floor, its leather cover loose and twisted, the pages cut to shreds. “No!” Sarmin knelt by the ruined book, grieving as for a friend. His least favourite, yes, but one of his only companions during Beyon’s reign. The destruction was complete; each page dagger-cut and punctured, the words bending and disappearing into the wounds. Such rage had guided that blade that even now Sarmin could feel it, emanating from the book like a scent or a memory. With trembling fingers he searched for the last geneaology page, where he had entered the name of his son and new brother.

Gone.

“Ta-Sann!” he cried, “Ta-Sann, who has been in my room!” But even as he spoke he suspected something else, a darker possibility, the truth of how he had found himself in the reception room with no memory of having walked there, of the manner in which he had returned. As the sword-son entered he knew what the man would say, that guards were posted at the stairwell door and the door to the Ways could not be opened without the emperor’s own key. That nobody had been here. Nobody, but himself.

CHAPTER TEN

Govnan nodded in his iron chair. The room lay bare, black with old char, with no seat other than the high mage’s. When Govnan had offered it Sarmin had refused, but now his legs ached and even the knobbed metal chair started to look inviting. An emperor does not change his mind though, or show weakness. Foolish requirements to be sure but even here, with no audience save the old mage and General Lurish, they must be observed.

“Discuss? They will be told!” The general snorted into his dark beard. “Arigu had them on the point of his sword, I hear.” Older, higher born, more traditional, Lurish demonstrated unexpected support for his fellow general, perhaps just a soldier’s respect for the genius with which Arigu prosecuted his campaigns. That or pride in the army of the White Hat, a weapon that had once been his to wield.

“A peace founded on being told will not last, general.” Sarmin turned to meet the man’s gaze, fierce under grey brows. Although stooped by years Lurish loomed above him. Having to look up like this reminded Sarmin of the benefits of a dais, and a throne. Still, an emperor who ruled only from his throne was an emperor who might be forgotten when the great doors closed. An emperor who walked where he willed, be it the Tower or the War Room of the White and Blue, could be less easily circumvented.

“What do we need with a lasting peace?” Lurish chewed as he spoke, as if trying to swallow an unpalatable truth. “Cerana has armies that could take the world for you, Magnificence. Perhaps this is not the time. Perhaps it would be better if these victories did not have Tuvani’s hand behind them, but if you would issue such orders yourself in the next season all Cerana would know the glory to be yours. I would take our legions and finish what Arigu—”

“Your orders are peace, general, must I pin them to your chest?” “Magnificence, our strength—”

“Your strength didn’t keep my brother on his throne. Your strength did not hold when Helmar walked into the palace, into the throne room. A stranger from the desert was all any knew of the man and yet he walked in alone.”

“His tricks, Magnificence, magic—”

“Who taught him that magic?” Sarmin gave the general no time to dig-in or regroup. “He learned his trade in Yrkmir, and he learned it there because our strength did not stand against the incursion. The Yrkmen soldiers marched through this palace burning as they went, their priests carrying the one god before them, chanting their prayers. In Nooria! In my palace!”

“Three hundred years ago!” Lurish protested.

“They were repelled in time.” Govnan said it from his iron chair. An observation with none of Lurish’s heat. He looked lost in the folds of his robe, thick cloth, not velvet but something tougher and dyed to a deep scarlet.

“And yet we have Mogyrk priests creeping back to Nooria, preaching in the shadows, hidden churches in the greatest of our cities,” Sarmin said. Azeem had spoken to him of these churches, filling the streets with spies and saboteurs. He had read to Sarmin from the histories; cities falling at the mere approach of Yrkmen armies, their rulers overthrown by the mob, storming their gates with torch and rope. “The Parigols poisoned wells, Govnan; the Yrkmen poison minds.”

“The Longing has left the people hungry for salvation; they want to belong.” Govnan said. “Some find more solace in the one god than in Mirra or Herzu or any of their children.” He shifted in his chair, eyes bright and dark, watching Sarmin.

“Yes,” said Sarmin. Grada had spoken of the Longing, of how freedom from the Many had left her hollow. “And that too flowed from Yrkmir.” And his dream? The emptiness in the desert?

“Find the churches, burn the priests, sack the cities of Yrkmir and our people would know this Mogyrk for a grinning idol and nothing more.” Lurish shook his fist as if held a sword, as if he imagined the blood even now. The copper disks, overlapping across his chest, rattled.

“Have you seen an austere write patterns, General Lurish?” Sarmin asked.

“Sand mages cannot stand against steel, magnificence.”

“There is no sand in Yrkmir,” Sarmin said. “And these are not sand mages with tricks of dust and light.”

Govnan raised himself from his chair with a suppressed groan. Since Sarmin parted him from his elemental the high-mage had grown ancient and frail. Still sharp though, sharper perhaps. “Have
you
seen an austere write patterns, my emperor?”

“I—” Sarmin frowned. An image came to him, a man in red, hair white, feet bare, hands empty. Mountains rose about him, mountains such as could never exist, huge beyond imagining. Surely between sky and ground no space sufficient for such enormity existed.

“Emperor Sarmin?” Govnan reached his side before Lurish, unexpected strength in the clawed hands offering support, a shiver in them too, as if he were cold despite the heat.

“I—” He could not speak of the Many he held within his flesh. The council would count it sickness, Helmar’s taint. Already he lacked information others thought he had, was forced to listen carefully for the answers to his missing time.

But he gained memories in recompense for those he did not have, unasked, uninvited: the vision rose again to cover his sight. On the slopes high above the red-robe something moved—a goat? Too large, but as quick, as sure-footed. A man with leather shield, leaping between rocks, diving for the shelter of a crag. With one finger the red-robe traced a symbol, part of a pattern, flicked out before him, quick as quick. Dry bones clattered across the rocks. Dry bones, rags, and a leather shield. Dust hung in the air. “I have heard that they can turn a man’s flesh to dust,” Sarmin said as they helped him into Govnan’s chair.

“Hearing and seeing are different things, my emperor,” Lurish said. “Tales grow in the telling. If the Yrkmen have such power why are they not here, ruling over us?”

A good question to which Sarmin had no good answer. At last he said, “It may be that they were waiting for an invitation. Our war on Fryth may be that invitation.”

Lurish snorted, then remembering himself, bowed low. He spoke facing the flagstones. “No Yrkman has stood with the men of Fryth. They have pulled back at every turn, or simply failed to come to their aid. I tell you that they are weak, Magnificence. An old nation senile before its time, rotten at the core.”

The
Book of War
directs that when pressed an army that must fall back must not
only
fall back. Locked in his high room Sarmin had studied that book longer than any general. He knew the work better than the men who wrote it. Always counter-attack.

“I came seeking the high-mage’s wisdom. Why are you here, General Lurish? What are the dry secrets of the Tower to a man of action?” Sarmin struck from a new direction.

Govnan coughed. “I sent word to request the general’s presence, Sarmin. I have something to show him and a request to make.”

“Show me,” Sarmin said.

Govnan bowed as if he had expected no other answer. “There will be steps. I could call on Moreth to help you?”

Sarmin nodded. Better to admit his frailty than to break his neck tumbling down the stairs. Govnan drew a small black stone from pockets on either side of his robe and clacked them together. Moreth entered the room seconds later, a dark and thick-limbed man in the greys of a rock-sworn acolyte. He looked strong enough to carry Sarmin and Govnan both. In the end though he walked the narrow stair a step behind Sarmin, supporting him by elbow and wrist.

They came to the end of the winding stair where Ta-Sann and the sword sons waited. “Perhaps you should wear this, Your Majesty,” Govnan said, offering a dark, hooded cloak that Sarmin pulled up to shadow his face. They left the tower compound and came by gate and plaza to a narrow street, where market-sellers packed their goods and guardsmen told their jokes under the darkening sky. Sarmin marvelled at their freedom and easy ways, but he knew each one had some hurt they nursed in the darkness, some secret they kept from the light. The Many had taught him that.

Hashi the wind-mage joined them on the street, his eyes on the roofs of buildings, watching for assassins and spies. They turned down one street and then another, Sarmin flanked by three mages, Govnan, Hashi and Moreth, the last with a hand still on his elbow. In time he knew they headed for Beyon’s tomb.

Sarmin had visited Beyon’s tomb only once. Beyon had not been there. Perhaps his bones lay inside but they held no meaning. The tomb had been the last anchor point of Helmar’s grand pattern and it echoed still with the impersonal malice of that design. Sometimes it worried Sarmin that Pelar had been conceived there, the timing dictated by old wives among the Felt, so Mesema said. An intersection of plans in time and in space. Plans whispered to the Windreaders by their hidden god, and plans laid across centuries by the Pattern Master. What changes might be wrought in the new seed of a child by such a conjunction? It had never been something Sarmin chose to dwell on.

The long walk soon took its toll on Sarmin, sapping his strength, leaving him sweating in his silks, and robbing some of his urgency. They came to the tomb through older portions of the city where the streets wore their years more plainly, the sword-sons always choosing to steer Sarmin along unexpected paths against the dangers of predictability. The emperor’s swift passage amid his tight knot of bodyguard dropped more than a few jaws and provided enough fuel to keep the gossips busy for weeks to come. When they reached the tomb he felt regret to be leaving the open air and sky of the streets, being among ordinary people, the many who lived under his rule.

The chamber rang with the echoes of many feet, from marble floor to vaulted ceiling, as Sarmin and his guard marched in. The austere lines of the room contrasted the intricacy of the tomb itself, pierced screens of whitest alabaster surrounding the heavy marble box on all sides, set back two yards to allow a slow private circuit. The decoration tended to fish and fruit, strange choices which Sarmin felt would have found little favour with his brother. Beyon had planned the structure but died within it before its completion. In the confusion that followed, the artisans set to finish the work had let their own aesthetic guide them. Sarmin had been unconcerned. Beyon lived in him and in Pelar, not in cold stone. Azeem had even brought plans before him for his own tomb. Sarmin had waved them away. “Let the next emperor do with my remains as he sees fit. I’m sure you have more pressing matters to put before me, vizier?”

A polite cough brought Sarmin from his recollections. His feet had led him to the arched entrance through the screens. Notheen waited there, the lean nomad towering above Govnan.

“High mage?” Sarmin tilted his head in question.

Govnan said nothing but looked away, through the arch. The sepulchre beyond, in which Mesema had once hidden for a night with Beyon, had almost gone. It looked as if it had melted away like a block of butter with a hot coal placed at its centre. The stonework towered at the four corners, eaten away elsewhere, and in the midst of it all a blankness, the colour of forever, blinding the eye. Sarmin couldn’t say if it were grey or white, perhaps black. The emptiness of it filled his mind and drowned out the screams of the Many as they hid behind his thoughts.

“Do not look too long, my emperor.” Govnan’s words came from a distance.

“It takes, my emperor.” Notheen, still further away. “It will hollow you.”

Sarmin tore his gaze from the space within Beyon’s tomb. Hours seemed to pass as he shook its bonds, days.

“My emperor?” And at last he looked away, meeting Govan’s eyes, dark with concern.

“What
is
that?” Sarmin stepped away, not wanting to look, not wanting his back to it.

“Nothing, my emperor.” Govnan bowed his head. “There is nothing there. That’s all my magic can tell me. Notheen’s people know more of this.”

Sarmin took a step closer to the nomad, veiled, hung about with white as if he rode the desert rather than walked the corridors of a palace. “Tell me.”

“This is of the desert.” Notheen waved towards the tomb. “This is the unwriting that grows in the dead heart of the sands, beyond even the djinn. It spreads from the secret.”

“What secret?” Sarmin remembered his dream, the pale boy, the tent falling into dust.
An emptiness that devours.

Notheen bowed his head. Sarmin pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead, forcing back a growing terror. The two of them stood alike now, the high mage and the nomad headman, neither meeting his gaze. The faintest of sounds injected itself into the silence—the sound of trickling sand.

“What secret,” Sarmin repeated. “You knew from the moment you spoke of it that I would require explanation.”

“May we speak alone, my emperor?” Notheen let the words slip quietly to the floor.

“We are alone!” Sarmin looked about, exasperated.