sting of the old cut across his palm.
Sarmin’s carved pattern contained what he had seen on Beyon’s skin, but it reached out across the underside of the overturned desk to cover as much space again. He’d filled in the remainder as he would complete a circle twothirds drawn, or fill in a mouth missing from the sketch of a face.
He sat back against his bed and rested his eyes on the more familiar intricacies of the walls. He’d long ago discovered all the watchers dwelling in the scroll and swirl of the decoration. Some of the faces he’d not found for the longest time, even after years of gazing, whole days spent staring, lost in the depths from daybreak to sunset, floating on strange and distant seas. He’d found them all before he’d grown his beard, though, the angels and the devils both. The wisest and most fearsome dwelt deepest in the patterning, hidden in plain sight, written in the most subtle twists. They had watched him grow, advised him, kept him sane.
Sarmin sought out the grim-faced angel whose gimlet eyes stared from the calligraphic convolutions above the Sayakarva window. “What will happen, Aherim?” He took up his knife again. “Should I complete it?”
Aherim held his peace. Sarmin frowned. The gods might watch in silence, but he expected answers from their minions at least. Aherim seldom missed a chance to offer advice if asked.
Sarmin set knifepoint to wood.
“It will be a stone dropped into a deep pool. No pattern can be made whole without a ripple.”
He stared at Aherim. “Someone will notice? Who? Tell me who.”
Silence. Sarmin felt unnerved. “I will ask Him.” It was not a threat to be made idly, but surely one that would coax Aherim to speak further.
Sarmin waited. He pursed his lips. He had found Him last of all: Zanasta, eldest of the devils, speaker for the dark gods. He showed only as the light failed and grazed the east wall at its shallowest angle. Even then Sarmin had to unfocus his eyes to reveal Him.
“Tell me of the Felting girl. The bride Mother has chosen.” There was time to kill before sunset.
“She comes.” Aherim spoke again at last, his voice the dry whisper of fingers on silk.
“Is she pretty? Is she kind? Does she smell good?” Sarmin sat up and leaned forwards.
“She is sad, she is strong, she smells of horses.” Aherim fell silent. He only ever answered three questions, and generally not the ones Sarmin asked.
“She is riding to me. That’s why she smells of horse.” Sarmin picked up his dacarba and sighted down the blades at one of Aherim’s faces. “But why is she sad? Perhaps they have told her bad things about me. Maybe I’m ugly. Or is she worried that she will have to stay in this room with me? Maybe she will miss her horse.”
Sarmin remembered camels, though not with fondness. His father had horses, but the princes were never allowed among them. “They kick worse than camels,” he remembered a groom telling him. Still, he liked the way they looked. Perhaps a horse would be a good pet.
“I will make her happy, Aherim.” Sarmin tilted the knife so that light danced along the blade’s edges. “I will…” He tried to think how he might entertain her. When they came at all, people came to him with a purpose. He couldn’t recall a time when someone had come to his room simply to speak, simply to be with him. “Perhaps I will not make her happy, Aherim. Maybe I will share her sorrow. I will listen and hear of her life in the sandless wastes.”
Eyul took one uncertain step, then another. Under his feet a thin layer of sand covered something solid: old stone, undisturbed by the passage of time or the magic that brought it to the surface. Amalya kept by his side, moving so close her sleeve rubbed against his. Eyul touched her elbow with his fingers and they each took another step forwards.
“Nothing could be alive in here,” she whispered.
Neither of them wanted to test that idea too quickly. They took two more small steps. Sandstone houses lined the road. Square gaps in the walls showed where carved window-screens once had been mounted. Eyul could see nothing but darkness through them. Like Carriers’ eyes, they watched their guests with quiet malevolence.
The sun was sinking towards the west, but still it blazed with heat. They wandered, separate from their shade and water. Eyul’s leg ached with every