Tower & Knife 03 - The Tower Broken by Mazarkis Williams Page A

felt around him, shifting on the breeze, belied those words – but he would say them nonetheless.
    Adam rose from his crouch. Sand trickled away from his feet, slithering down the dune the soldiers were struggling to climb. ‘How could he be dead when we may still draw our patterns? It is that attitude which killed your people. Now look at you, so full of rage, and there is no comfort for you, Didryk.’
    ‘Mogyrk offers no comfort.’ The apostate words caught in his throat.
    ‘You cannot take on both Yrkmir and Cerana without our God. If I may offer a former student some advice, leave. Now. Go to the west.’
    ‘And the Great Storm?’
    Adam held his arms wide. ‘It is destined to sweep Cerana from this world. We must save whom we can before that happens. Will you help me do that?’
    ‘Do you think Cerana will satisfy the Storm, appease the Scar? That the God’s wounds will not look north?’ Didryk shook his head. ‘It is foretold He will take all of us into death with Him.’
    ‘You never understood the teachings of Mogyrk – you did not care enough to learn.’
    ‘You have no idea what I care about,’ Didryk said.
    ‘Perhaps you are right. My old student would not have killed those souls in the marketplace before they had a chance to be saved.’
    Didryk covered his confusion by focusing on the pile of sand Adam had left on the dune. If neither he nor Adam had laid that pattern, then there was another austere. ‘Yrkmir must be very close.’
    Adam backed away. ‘There are souls to save before they get here. Don’t lay another pattern.’ He slid downwards, putting the dune between himself and the soldiers, then called out, ‘You need a new outer ward. I have broken the one you set.’
    Didryk cursed to himself and waved his soldiers back down to the camp. ‘The prisoner!’ he shouted, and his men began moving as he ran headlong down the steep incline and pounded across the sand, sweat flying from his skin. He pushed aside the tent-flap. Arigu sat in the centre, a cup held by both hands, surrounded by Fryth guardsmen.
    The general took in the relief on his face and laughed. ‘Make no mistake, Duke. I will be free soon enough.’
    ‘But not today,’ said Didryk, ‘blessed Mogyrk, not today.’

11

Sarmin
    In sketches and tapestries, the Tower appeared as a spike in the great city, casting a shadow on the domes below it, commanding a view far into the distance, all the way to its enemies. While it was the highest structure in Nooria, it overtopped the towers of the palace by only one storey, and its view might have swept the dunes, but it never advanced the mages’ sight across the sea to icy Yrkmir. The legend of the Tower and its reality had grown even more distant in recent times. The stories told of a legion of mages, immortal and unconquerable, commanding all four elements. Now there were just three mages, one for rock, two for wind, and an old man who was their teacher.
    Govnan met him at the first landing, looking flustered for the first time since Sarmin had met him. ‘Have you come to interview Mage Mura, Magnificence?’
    ‘I came to see the Megra,’ said Sarmin, pausing for breath, ‘but I will speak with Mura, in time.’ He would need to learn from her what this duke could do, get a sense of whether his offer was in earnest. He dared not hope. All of him stirred at the idea of regaining his pattern-sight – though that was not part of the deal.
    Relief broke over the high mage’s face. ‘Of course. I will lead you to her room.’ After that he fell silent. They continued toclimb, and Sarmin considered the carvings that lined the walls. They were not on the traditional themes of war and victory, but rather, showed men and women in poses of intense concentration and purpose. The carvings outnumbered the mages in the Tower by a factor of ten; that was why Sarmin must leave Mura’s discipline to Govnan. They could not lose another mage. She had defended the traitor, but with the