weak.”
“This body is old, but I am not weak. But maybe it’s time for a switch. Perhaps I won’t kill Prince Sarmin; maybe I should take his body instead.”
Rage made her strong. She lifted a dripping torso and heaved it across the room. He had taken her body, forced her to do things… She screamed, a mindless, bloody shout, remembering the soldiers she had thrown into the chasm; remembering lying over Sarmin, pressing the knife between his ribs. She would not let the Pattern Master take Sarmin’s body; she would not let him make Sarmin do those things. She ran at him, her dagger held in front of her, taking him off guard, and the blade found a home between his ribs as his legs collapsed beneath him for a second time. He fell, laughter bubbling with the blood in his mouth.
“Good girl,” he said, “But you can’t kill me. I am Carried.” And as his blood hit the stone floor, the pattern around him glowed with new life.
Chapter Forty-Two
'No!” Sarmin leaped to his feet. Mesema looked up from where she sat on the bed with Eyul’s hand cradled in her own.
“I can’t beat him! I thought a pattern in blood… but that’s his path. I can’t do those things-we would just drown each other in gore! His pattern is too strong, and we’ve only made it stronger!” From tomb to church, Helmar to Beyon, the Grand Pattern had found its final anchor.
“Eyul is dead,” she said, her voice quiet.
Sarmin looked at the old assassin. “I think he would be glad for it.” Some sad note echoed inside him.
With Eyul dead, the last flaw in the pattern was removed. The design was both terrible and perfect; Sarmin could see it without closing his eyes. He felt himself drawn to its beauty, even knowing it meant the end. “The Pattern Master will use my body,” he said.
Mesema drew the dacarba from her sash and folded Eyul’s hands about the ruby-hilt. “Wherever the assassin has gone, let him go armed.” She fell silent for a time, thinking or praying.
Sarmin looked at the assassin and wondered if he had joined Mirra or Herzu, or gone somewhere else entirely. His eyes scanned the walls, wishing that the hidden ones would show themselves again.
Mesema stirred. “We should leave this room. We have waited here too long as it is, and they will find us.”
“I can’t leave this room.” It hurt to say it.
“So we will stay here with Eyul?” Her voice lowered, perhaps out of politeness to the corpse. “It is very hot.”
“I can’t leave,” he said again.
“Why is that? You never told me why.”
He hesitated. Will she believe me? Will she know I am mad? But he knew he had to tell her: Only the truth for my princess. “You see the gods in the ceiling, but there are also angels. And demons, on the wall.” Her head turned towards the wall, blue eyes searching.
“They prophesy for me. They told me you were coming. They told me all about you. They warn me about things, too, but of late, they are quiet.”
Mesema walked to the wall, drew her hand across it. “That’s why you don’t leave? Because they are your family?”
He marvelled at her insight. “No-I mean, yes, but it’s really because they prophesied that I would never leave. They told me I would die in this room. And when I tried to leave, tried to get to you, I… couldn’t.”
She stood back and squinted at the wall, her hands on her hips. “There is a pattern here.”
“Yes. Can you see them? It is easier as the sun sets, when-”
Mesema picked up a chair, the one Tuvaini had sat in during his last visit. It was a narrow piece, with roses carved into the back and along the legs. Sarmin had never found it comfortable, which was why he’d made Tuvaini sit in it. She raised it over her head and crashed it against the wall. Paper split and plaster crumbled. Zanasta! Half his face vanished into a puff of white powder. Mesema stumbled back and picked up the chair again, hitting Aherim. The room filled with a fog of plaster dust. Again.
Sarmin started coughing.
Mesema could barely lift the chair now; she gripped it firmly and took runs at the wall instead. And she killed them all, angels and demons alike, and the dust settled over Eyul like a shroud.
Sarmin looked at the devastation. The faces were gone, their patterns, gone-not because of a magical working, not because of bloodshed, but because of a chair.
“Let’s go,” Mesema said, throwing the chair aside.
“They told me I would die here.” Sarmin shook his head, dust falling from it.
Mesema shrugged. “Maybe you will. But nobody said you had to wait here to find out.” She held up Eyul’s Knife. “How is evil destroyed? With the emperor’s Knife.”
This was what Eyul had tried to tell him. He took the twisted hilt in his hand. This was his gift from Eyul and from his father. This was all he had, now. This, Grada, and Mesema. As he followed her he thought he heard his brothers cheering.
“I am very disappointed,” said the Pattern Master.
Tuvaini held his sigh and fingered his empty dacarba-sheath. He still wore it, to remind himself of everything he had given up. “What has disappointed you, Your Majesty?”
The Pattern Master appeared to have gained something in the last few minutes; he looked stronger and younger. He had about him what Tuvaini’s mother called “the glow of children.” He leaned forwards now in his throne, glaring. “Prince Sarmin is alive.”
“Impossible!” On the other side of the throne, Nessaket nearly jumped.
“I was assured of his death before I arrived here-and yet it appears you failed.”
“Govnan said-” Too late, Tuvaini realised his mistake. Govnan.
Of course. The old man had protected his precious mage-born. Tuvaini spoke with bitterness. “He is most likely taking refuge at the Tower with the High Mage.”
“I think not.” The Pattern Master stood and paced to the edge of the dais. He was so like Beyon that Tuvaini caught his breath. “There is enough in the prince’s old room to keep him there.”
Tuvaini found that ridiculous. He had spoken to the prince-he knew that the prince wanted nothing more than to leave that soft prison. But he remained silent.
Five Carriers entered the room and silently approached the throne. They always came in groups of five. They stood near Helmar, still saying nothing. It unnerved Tuvaini that they did not require speech to communicate. It made it difficult to spy; he felt crippled, robbed of a sense.
One of the Carriers handed Helmar a bundle the size of a loaf of bread. Helmar held it to his forehead in concentration. Then he threw it down and cursed in his Yrkman way, “Devil’s hells! That’s not the one.” Tuvaini felt a thrill of pleasure at the Master’s frustration.
The Master kicked the bundle over to Tuvaini. “The assassin is dead. They say this belongs to you. You didn’t happen to kill Eyul and take his Knife?”
“No.” Tuvaini unwrapped his gift. Inside the dirty linen lay his own dacarba, its bejewelled settings now crusted with blood. Eyul. He had been Tuvaini’s faithful companion for many years, and despite his betrayal he still missed the man, his direct way of talking, his quiet observations. Now he would never see him again. “Where did you find this?” he asked.
“In Sarmin’s room.” Helmar tapped his chin absently.
“Sarmin is dead.” And nothing has changed.
“No.”
Tuvaini sheathed his dacarba, feeling a burst of excitement. His weapon felt good on his hip. Sarmin might be alive, and the Knife was missing; he didn’t know why that made Helmar angry, but it was enough that it did. He glanced at Nessaket, who stared ahead, shaking. Helmar had not objected to her presence, but her behaviour now was strange. She would make it difficult for Tuvaini to decide what to do next.
