hesitation.
Something in that stung him. “You love him? Beyon?” An ache opened in Sarmin’s chest, a hollowness. She was to be mine: the horsegirl brought from the grass clans. She had been his only gift in a million lonely years. Beyon’s now.
But she shook her head, her eyes fixed on the broken window. “Not him.”
Someone else, then. “The— The Master will come soon,” he said. “The pattern is almost made.” And I will die in this room.
“What will you do?” Again her eyes settled on his.
“What can I do?” Sarmin asked. “I don’t think I can stop him—I’m sure I can’t.”
She looked at him, waiting.
“I do have a kind of magic,” Sarmin admitted. “I can see the Pattern Master’s plans. I can see how much power he has, how he holds everything in his hands. He scares me.”
“You can see his plans, and you say that you can remove his marks.” Mesema held up her index finger. “Doesn’t that mean you can stop him?”
“I’m like an eagle that can fly over the city and see it whole. Then I can squawk about it to the mice who see only the walls around them.”
“And the marks?”
“I can change only one person at a time. There are too many.”
“Beyon—”
“I can’t help him.” He spat out the truth like a bitter pit. The Master had known it when he told Sarmin there was no hope. “I would have to remove Govnan’s protections, and the Master is always watching, waiting for that to happen.” He saw now that he had almost opened the way for the Master. Mesema had saved Beyon by raising his memories; it was her voice Sarmin had heard that night. Can she use patterns, then, as I can, as the Master can? He looked at her again. How did mages identify one another? The High Mage travelled the empire every few years, searching for children with talent. How young were they? Younger than Mesema, surely. Once identified, they spent the rest of their lives with the Tower.
Sarmin felt a sudden panic. He’d worried Beyon would take her, or the pattern, but he hadn’t thought of Govnan. Govnan had already taken Grada away. He might take Mesema, too, and still call Sarmin fortunate. He made fists in the covers. If I could leave here…
“What would he do then?” Mesema asked her question as she studied the calligraphy on the wall.
Did she see the faces hidden there? “Govnan?” If I could leave here, then I would give orders to these old men instead of taking them.
“The Pattern Master.”
Sarmin reached back in his mind to their previous conversation. “I think the Master would be happy to see Beyon dead. Once he hoped to control the emperor, but now he has waited too long, and I sense he is a vengeful man.”
“A vengeful man makes mistakes,” Mesema said. Her words sounded wise, but Sarmin couldn’t imagine the Pattern Master making a mistake. The only fault he could think of was one of omission: if there was something the Master didn’t see or couldn’t see…
“Listen. I’ve seen the pattern,” Mesema said, “in grass, and in sand. A hare ran through it in secret paths.”
Sarmin said, “I’ve seen the pattern, too. I’ve run through it, lived in it. But it doesn’t help. His pattern is perfect.” As are you.
“You’re sure?” She pinched her lips together.
Sarmin winced. Remembering the flaw made his stomach turn, like nails on chalkboard. The emperor’s Knife. The pattern—the whole pattern—was not drawn on parchment, or written on Carrier skin; it was bigger than that. The whole pattern was written through everything and everyone.
Except the Knife. Only the Knife remained as a taunt to the Master, inside the pattern, yet not part of it.
“First he must break the emperor’s Knife. Then it will be perfect.”
“Beyon’s knife? But surely—”
“Not Beyon’s knife, not the one he carries, anyway—it’s more than that, much more. The Knife is both holy and unholy.” She turned to him, her eyes flashing with a new idea.
“Sarmin, listen. In the desert, the pattern led us to a church of the Mogyrk One God.”
One god, one pattern, one way. He looked past her lovely face to the gods on the ceiling. Many gods for many choices: could this be what the Master was missing?
Mesema touched his hand, calling him back. “Do you think the Pattern Master believes in the One God?”
He spoke, trying to make his consonants soft and his vowels hard, as she did, “I don’t know. Surely it is how