intentions, trembling at the mercy of the wind. “You’re not my brother. Beyon was…” And what was Beyon? Brave, cruel, generous, unforgiving, as twisted in his way as Sarmin by the heritage they shared, deformed by the weight of expectation.
I was what, traitor?
“More than this!” It came to Sarmin clear and whole, an understanding surfacing from unseen depths. “Beyon was more than this.” He had believed the Pattern Master’s work of symbols, of intricate and infinite complexity, captured all that a man was or could be. But he was wrong. The pattern stole part of a man, and Sarmin had returned that part to the afflicted, but it couldn’t take all a man was, it couldn’t hold all a man is. The pattern could record ambition, sketch memories, but the depths of a man couldn’t be spelled out in symbols, no matter how many or how layered. Love couldn’t be held in a code of circles in circles, in the blue and the red. What controlled him now was a crude caricature of Beyon, ambition, pride, duty, but not the essence of the man-not the love.
The pattern was a lie.
Fall, damn you!
Sarmin’s foot shuddered, aching to obey. He wondered if Beyon’s pattern would have any hold over him at all if at least some small part of him didn’t also want to take one more step.
A single sharp cry rang out behind them, from Pelar, a sound that had no place in any child’s throat. Sarmin turned, pushed by two wills. Pelar lay naked save for his cloth, having kicked off his wrapping. Sarmin dropped to his knee beside the boy. His skin held the white of plaster dust, his thin limbs lay limp.
“No!” Sarmin reached for his son, and as he did Pelar’s eyes flicked open. Sarmin’s hand stopped, inches from the boy. He had seen those eyes before, in his dream of the desert, where a child had stood from the crumbling remains of trader’s tent, white dust bleeding from him. He had the same eyes, the colour of forever, empty, holding only nothingness.
Pelar’s wrappings held a worn and faded look, the colours faint, cloth paper-thin. He watched Sarmin without expression, without blinking. A shadow fell across them both: Ta-Marn come to guard his emperor.
“Oh, my son.” Sarmin smiled for the boy, his eyes blurring. He knew now that the man in his memory would never have run from that child in the tent if it had been his own boy standing there. He reached for Pelar and in his head the pattern that was not Beyon screamed for him to run. Pain ate into Sarmin’s hands as he gathered Pelar from the flagstones. He held Pelar to his chest and his purple silks went pale where the boy touched them, fragile, tearing as he moved. Each touch ached, and inside Sarmin the Many faded, unwritten by what flowed from Pelar. He stood, finding his son at once both frighteningly light and almost too heavy to be borne.
“Go ahead, Ta-Marn. Fetch high mage Govnan, fetch all the mages of the tower, every priest, tell the empress. My son will not be taken.”
“My emperor.” Ta-Marn bowed, and straightened, frowning. “I should carry the prince. He is harming you.”
“Go!” Sarmin shouted. Then more softly, returning his gaze to the empty child. “Love is hard to capture, harder to unwrite. I will manage.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Sarmin had come at night, cold-faced, surrounded by his swordsons.
“What do you want?” she had asked, edging in front of the cradle, looking at the pointed swords and blank faces of the emperor’s guard. Saying nothing he pushed her aside and took her son, took his softness and his curling hair and the way he laughed when he saw something new.
“Where are you taking him?” she asked, her mouth numb with fear, clutching at Sarmin’s arm. Later she would remember that, not being able to let go of his arm, as if she were sinking into sand and Sarmin her only rope. At last his sword-sons pulled her away.
Nessaket had felt such fear only once before, on the night Tahal died- and it hollowed her again. She fell to the floor, pleading with Mirra-but this was Herzu’s work. And then, a miracle: Ta-Sann returned her boy. The sword-son simply laid him in her arms and left the room without a word. She remained on the floor, holding her son, wondering what intervention from god or man had saved him.
And then she heard a scream. At first she did not move. Screams were not uncommon these days. The women’s hall was filled with ghosts, spies, and the strange illness that crept along the halls, paling one girl and then another. But the scream came again and Nessaket recognized Mesema’s voice. She stood, feeling the ache in her legs from hours on the floor, and made a sling from a piece of silk. Slipping Daveed inside she went to her door and cracked it open, peeking out. A slave girl stood there, a new one, peering down the hall. She looked frightened.
“What is it, girl?” What more could happen?
“Something happened in the empress’ room, Your Majesty. The emperor is there, and…” The slave scrambled aside as Nessaket moved forwards, her feet sure and quick on the path to the Tree Room, her thankfulness for Daveed’s health transformed into anger. So her older son’s night was not finished. She would know the cause his strange behaviour, learn why he had taken her boy. In her fury she imagined even the ghosts slipping out of her way like fog.
A single lantern lit Mesema’s room, giving the tree-paintings a sinister look, tall giants waiting to crush everyone below. The empress stood by a pillowed bench, tearing at her hair, dark kohl running in long streaks down her face. “This was you!” she screamed at her husband the emperor, “This was you!”
Both of them circled the bed, or what was on it: Pelar, pale, withered, hair gone white. Like Gala, Irisa, and all the others. But where Pelar lay the covers began to fade and crumble, as if they were a hundred years old instead of newly made. “Mirra save him!” Nessaket brought a hand to her mouth. She had never wanted him born, had wished he was a girl, but to see him like this…
We should have fled, after Dreshka died. Too late, too late.
Sarmin had done this to him. He had taken both the boys this night, and Pelar… She looked at her emperor son, who spoke in an even voice, his eyes distant. “This is the nothingness, the illness that devours,” said Sarmin.
“Don’t tell me what it is!” cried Mesema. “You fix it!” She rushed forwards, meaning to pick up the boy. “You fix it!”
Sarmin held out a hand. “Carefully.” Mesema’s hands slowed, and she gathered Pelar as if he were made of the most delicate glass, hissing as if it hurt her hands. “My sweet boy,” she said, “my darling boy.”
“I will make him well,” Sarmin said, “I will fix it.” The last he said more quietly: a promise to himself, or an edict.
Mesema said nothing. Nessaket wondered if he truly had the power to cure the boy. She watched Mesema’s arms and the child within them, fearing he would break if held too tightly.
Sarmin left the room, his sword-sons trailing him, gone without another word. He would leave the room bereft, no Pelar cooing in his cradle, no sweet smell from his skin. Only a colourless shell remained of the child. Nessaket chased after Sarmin, treasuring the feel of her own healthy baby, the weight of him in his sling. “I would have a word with my son the emperor,” she said.
Sarmin stopped and turned, his gaze far away, his mind on patterns and magic.
“Why did you take the boys? Where did you take them? Why would you do such a thing to Pelar?” As she spoke his eyes copper eyes cleared, focusing on her own, so that she knew he listened.
He laid a hand on her shoulder, an intimate gesture from a man she had not touched in years. “It was Beyon.”
“What?” She took a step backwards. Had he learned that Beyon was Pelar’s father? Would that make him kill the boy?
“It was Beyon,” he said again, his eyes growing distant once again. “Rising up from the Many.” He turned towards the great room, his sword-sons behind him.
Or had Sarmin gone mad-was it the Cotora family curse come upon them? With no real answer from her son
