CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FARID

Grada had left Farid before the great doors of the Tower. He knew she expected him to be able to make his own way from here, but in truth he did not know whether to ring the bell or try to pull at the brass knobs. He was, after all, wearing the robes of a mage—but the doors were heavy and likely required real magic to open, and he had none of that. He turned back towards the unusual woman, only to see her disappear through the arched gate. He had never met a female like her, one who spoke frankly and carried herself more like a warrior than anything else.

The courtyard lay empty around him, his only company some slimy green pools and the statues of Meksha, and he felt as if the Tower’s patron goddess was watching him with stony eyes, judging his worthiness. He ran his fingers along the brass surface of the door. If he knew the picture for metal, he could melt his way through … That made him smile, and when he turned back to look at Meksha’s unmoving face he felt more proud than embarrassed. He rang the bell.

Mura answered with a smile. “You’re home.”

He would not have called it “home,” though they had given him a room with a bed and a table. Home was his dingy apartment above the fruit market. Home was his father’s boat, with the barrels of fruit he carried up the river. But more and more he was feeling that patterns were also his home: he longed to study their forms, to draw them with his fingers, to feel the delight of pulling the essence of a thing from a network of lines and shapes. And if patterns were his home, then perhaps the Tower was too. His father had believed it.

“Well, are you coming in?” Mura turned and walked away from him, between the lines of rock-sworn mage statues. “Govnan has some wonderful news, and some ideas of how to—” she stopped. “First, have you seen the Great Storm, to the north?” She was already halfway up the first flight of stairs and she turned to wave her hand at the brass portals.

Farid jogged after her to avoid them closing on him. “I’ve seen it—if you mean the greyness.”

“It’s grown. To the northwest it now takes up the whole horizon, like a real storm.” She paused, her hands on the railing, her eyes far away, focused on a memory of a different place. Then she met his gaze with a directness that shocked him. “But this storm doesn’t pass. It doesn’t let the sun through. It just creeps closer.”

Farid frowned. “I thought you said you had good news.”

“Yes. Come.” She turned back and ran up the stairs again and at last they reached the library. Mura threw the door wide. Inside, Govnan and Moreth were standing, looking over some parchments.

A tingling ran over Farid’s skin: he could see some of those parchments had patterns written on them.

As they entered, Govnan looked up, his eyes bright, and beckoned them forwards. “Ah! Here he is. Did everything go well in the desert, then? Take a look.”

Farid hurried to his side and identified the symbol in Govnan’s hands. Shack-nuth. ‘Tire.” He felt disappointed. They had been over this before.

“Do you know the one for water?”

Farid nodded. A quill lay on the table next to a pot of ink, so he found himself a blank piece of parchment and drew the symbol with bold, angry strokes. He wanted to see the ancient patterns Govnan had shown him before, though it made him ashamed, for he could not forget how his mother had died.

“Here is the good news,” said Govnan, “and since you were not here, I will tell it again. The Great Storm has been approaching the Blessing for some time, and that has been a great concern to us, for all it touches turns to dust. We would not last long in the desert without the Blessing to feed and carry our crops.”

Farid fell back in a chair and stared at the high mage. How could he not have known such threats existed? He had never even guessed at them … His hands curled into fists and he took a deep breath. “And now?”

“Now the day has come, and we find the river is indeed a blessing.” Govnan handed him a brass tube with pieces of glass at each end. “Use the spyglass and look. The Storm touches the river, but it does not consume the water, and this tells us there is a way to stop the Storm from growing, even if we cannot heal it.”

Farid stood and walked to the window. He held the glass to his eye, found the Blessing and followed it north past the Worship Gate, to where it rushed through the farmlands on its way down from the mountains. And then he saw it: a blank wall on the western side of the river, and behind that a colourless void that extended as far as the spyglass could reach, covering the world from sand to sky. It made his stomach turn and he had to look away.

But on the eastern side, all was as it ever had been. A strip of green led into the lushness of the pomegranate groves, dissolving into brush further east, and at last ended in the dunes, the start of Cerana’s harshest desert. “I understand,” he murmured. The Blessing was acting as a barrier against the Storm. “Is it possible to direct the river across the path of the Storm from east to west?” he asked, “as the farmers do in the fields?”

“There is no time for that,” said Govnan, “but I am not without hope. If pure water—the water of the gods—can stop it, what of true fire?”

“Or true air,” put in Mura, but Govnan waved her off. “Let us speak of fire first.”

Mura folded her arms before her. Farid looked at Meksha’s sacrificial flame which was burning in its black basin. “The goddess’ fire?” he asked.

“No, fire from beyond our plane.”

“The elements that are bound by this plane crumble,” said Moreth in a mournful voice. “I raised many walls when Emperor Beyon’s tomb was dissolving, but the emptiness ate every one of them. Hashi threw wind at the void, but it died and went still. Fire grew cold and flickered out. We know this.”

“But what about an unbound elemental, as you mentioned before, when we spoke with the emperor?” Govnan leaned forwards. His eyes sparkled in the sunlight from the window.

Mura leaned in too. “How could we bring an unbound elemental into this plane? It would be bent on destruction, nothing more.”

Govnan tapped the Shack-nuth symbol on the table. “There may be something here.”

“You would use the pattern?” Farid asked, surprised. Surely that was anathema to the Tower?

The high mage smiled. “I cannot say yet. There are so many possibilities—too many, perhaps. But this is exciting news, is it not?” He studied Farid’s face. “You look exhausted. When was the last time you slept?”

Farid remembered his dark closet room. Had he really not slept since escaping Adam? He should be more tired, shouldn’t he? “I don’t know.”

“Then sleep.” Govnan waved him off with an imperious hand. “I will not have a mage stumbling around making errors because he is too tired to think.”

“I wanted to look at the patterns—”

“Now,” said Govnan, his eyes narrowing in fury.

Farid backed off. This was the high mage, not his father; he would not test him. He bowed and withdrew.

In his little Tower room he found a pitcher of water and a silver mug, which he could not help but touch. This would have paid two years’ rent for his little room above the market. He held it up to his face and watched the distorted reflection. He looked like a monster. He held it this way and that, looking at his forehead, but he could see no sign of any pattern there. Didryk had said the austere was sneaky. He put the mug down with a clang and threw himself onto the bed, where he tossed and turned sleeplessly.

Images of patterns and the Storm would not leave his mind, and at last he rose and settled himself against the window. His room faced south, towards the Low Gate, where the citizens were gathering to escape the city. The crowd looked like just a moving blur from this far distance, a more colourful stream than the river beside it. Farid focused on the Blessing. His father might be poling his little boat south at this very moment, taking himself to a safe place. He hoped so.

Do I belong here? Farid played with the belt of his mage’s robe and thought about Austere Adam, the pattern, Duke Didryk, and the Great Storm. He was, it appeared, the only Cerani who could see the pattern-marks, the only pattern-worker whose loyalty to the emperor was unquestioned.

Yes.