“I should be angry, too,” he said. “I should want to make them all my toys, to play with, and to break. You have a right, Helmar.” He thought of Pelar and his ball, of his brothers, almost blurred together now as memories frayed with time. “You have a right.”
Beyon whispered in her ear.
Mesema stirred against the silks, noticing his arm no longer cradled her head. Her legs were twisted together, instead of between his. No matter; she was hungry and tired and she wanted to dream about her mother’s spiced lamb in a pot. She curled up, but Beyon would not stop whispering, gripping her shoulder tight and pulling her from her mother’s longhouse.
“-can’t keep him out. He is here-”
“What?” Through her eyelids she could sense the light of day. She didn’t hear anyone else in the room. Her bladder felt heavy. She stirred some more, remembering the night past, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. Dirini had told her much of what to expect of men, but she hadn’t expected Beyon. She had been advised that her first time would be unpleasant, but Beyon had been patient and considerate. She would not have guessed that of him when they had first met in the desert.
He continued to speak. She pulled silk over her nakedness as she listened. His voice sounded strained, as if part of him didn’t want to talk any more. “-the Pattern Master. I can hear him talking to me-”
Something cold slithered in Mesema’s stomach and she fell still, barely breathing. She didn’t want to open her eyes.
“I won’t make it to Sarmin, Zabrina.”
We should have gone yesterday. Last night.
“The Pattern Master is strong; I can feel him. Find Sarmin-I can tell they don’t know about him-”
“But we were all going to fight together.” She could still taste the salt of his skin, feel the wetness between her legs where he had been inside her. “You’re the emperor.” Perhaps the father of my child.
“Not any more.” He released her shoulder. “In the secret ways, go straight until you reach the double bridge. Then climb the stairs, turn right and cross two more bridges. Use your dagger to open the door.”
“Listen. You said that your men wait in the desert, in the hidden spot where the zabrina flowers. We can go-”
“Repeat the path to Sarmin’s room to me.”
She let a sob escape, then repeated his directions. “Straight to the double bridge, all the way up, right, two bridges. Use the dagger.”
“Good.” She felt his lips on her forehead, warm and soft. Alive. “I’m glad I met you, Mesema Windreader.”
Silence.
“Beyon?” She kept her eyes shut tight. “Your Majesty?”
Now she opened them, and watched the sunlight play on Beyon’s halfcarved face upon the ceiling. He had turned the lid again, opened it so that she could get out and leave him behind. “Beyon. Listen. Listen. ”
She heard a liquid sound that did not belong in this place of stone and silk.
“ Beyon. ” She did not want to look, but she had to.
Beyon lay at the other end of the tomb, one hand covering the gash in his throat. Blood pulsed over his robes and soaked into the silk that lay across their marble bed. The ruby-hilted dagger dropped from his other hand. He tried to wave her off, but it was as if his arm had grown too heavy. As their eyes met, his lost their focus and grew dark: Carrier eyes. Dead eyes.
“Beyon!” Tears wet her cheeks. There was so much blood, more blood than had come from Jakar or Eldra. It ran through the valleys in the silk and pooled around her knees. Even knowing it was too late to save him, she put her hands to his throat, pressing down, trying to keep the blood from leaving him. The pattern spiralled around her skin, climbing to her elbows, purple, red and blue She fell into it.
A roar filled her ears, grand and terrifying, like the sound of a flood coming down the mountain.
The Tower- Govnan- Find another way- Kitchens and hot bread- It hurts too much, so much- I was pretty, I had a lover- No way in, continue digging, always- The Tower- Beyon is gone- Find another wayMy little girl ran there, among the- So much blood- The horsegirl Mesema reached out for a way back to Beyon’s tomb, to find some thread to pull herself from the river of voices, but the current took her, careless of her strength, dragging her under and through the darkness, passing her from eye to eye, body to body, seeing corridor, desert, river, alley, and church. She tossed through a cascade of lives, searching for a set of words or images she could put together into a pattern that made sense. And then she heard a cool, amused voice, rising above the incoherence to address her.
“You have lost control, visitor. With Beyon’s sacrifice my power has become too much for you at last. Come to me now and show yourself.”
She drifted, gathering the bits of herself together as the images paraded past her eyes.
The speaker became angry. “You can no longer hide from me, Govnan. My Carriers will find a way into your Tower. They will tear it down from the inside.”
He is guessing! He does not know who I “Not Govnan, then?”
Mesema was shocked into silence, afraid to think lest the Master hear her.
“It matters not.” The Master affected boredom, but she sensed something wrong in him-something had not gone to his plan. She did not allow her mind to reflect on what that might be. “Your self will soon disappear within us. You will take your form and your place as the design requires.”
“No,” she said, surprising herself, “I do not belong in your pattern.” “A girl!” The Master laughed.
“What did you mean, Beyon’s sacrifice?” she asked. “How did you make Beyon climb in his tomb and kill himself?”
“I didn’t. He did that because it had to happen, because the pattern required it.”
“But the pattern is yours.”
A pause. The Master’s attention was briefly elsewhere. “I wanted a girlmage, but she was taken from me. One more hides in the Tower. But you are not that one, I think.”
“I am not a mage.”
“Tell me, girl-not-a-mage, how do you plan to defy me?”
Talking with the Pattern Master allowed her to filter the other voices from her mind. Now she concentrated on finding her way out. The hare’s path. So long ago, as she stood on the fence of her father’s sheep-pen, the Hidden God had shown her the path through the Many. It began with an arc and two intersecting circles. The pattern’s shapes, so terribly familiar to her eyes, could not be seen here, but she felt them brush against her mind like spiderwebs.
“I will defy you by living.” She felt her way along the strings, finding the form she sought. Like a path in a maze, it might not lead where she wished; she might have to search again, and again. But each one came with an image, the view from the Carrier who held it. She discarded all the unfamiliar scenes, hoping Carriers in a specific area were somehow linked. Alley. Sewer… No. Corridor. Yes. She felt out, hoping for two parallel lines. And then, quickly, as she would ride Tumble through the Hair Streams, knowing her way, gaining speed, she turned at a circle, nearly done, and directly through a diamond, sensing that Carrier’s surprise, seeing the memories that rose in his mind, unbidden. I had a son. He was- That man stood in the secret ways. Yes. And then she released the strings, disappearing into the web as the hare had hidden itself in the grass. This was the hardest part, letting go. Believing.
She had the sensation of falling, and once again she looked up at Beyon’s half-finished face set in the vaulted ceiling. She felt his blood against her back, cold and sticky. How long have I been lost?
She wiggled her fingers.
“You have betrayed yourself,” said the Master, bringing back the conversation she had almost forgotten, “by speaking of our late, great emperor. I know where you are.” She felt him leave her, a rough, scraping sensation, like a knife withdrawing from a wound.