The Emperors Knife by Mazarkis Williams Page A

repeating.
    He hurried out under a pink and orange sky. Amalya crouched by the remains of the fire, watching the lines at her feet.
    â€œAmalya.”
    â€œIt’s a pattern,” she said, staring at the shapes around her, diamond, half-moon, triangle, circle, square. “He has found us.”
    â€œWho has?” Eyul’s fingers tightened on his Knife hilt. He didn’t remember drawing it; his hands had made the decision.
    â€œThe enemy.”
    â€œI thought you said we were safe.” Eyul stood scuffing at the lines of the pattern. They reformed as the sand fell.
    â€œI thought we were,” Amalya said. “My master told me he would hide us.” She sounded defeated.
    The pattern centred on the next dune, almost two hundred yards away. The heart was formed by interlocking diamonds arrayed around a six-pointed star. From each point, a design more complex than any palace carpet swept out across the slopes.
    Eyul gasped as an electric tingle ran through him. Amalya gave a low moan and struggled to her feet at his side.
    â€œThe pattern is complete,” she said.
    The sands started to move. The entire facing dune began to flow, from the centre of the pattern, shifting with impossible speed, like water racing across a marble floor. He saw the tops of pillars first, then stone roofs, then archways from which the sand flooded, emptying long-buried halls. Within moments a lost city lay revealed before them, temple, tower and tomb.

    Sarmin scored a line across the wood. One more stroke and the pattern would be complete. In his mind’s eye he saw again the symbol-geometry emblazoned across his brother’s chest, blood-red and blood-blue. He laid his dacarba on the floor and stretched his hands, noticing the ache in his thumb, the blister on his forefinger, and the 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 two-thirds 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.
    â€œIt 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.
    â€œTell me of the Felting girl. The bride Mother has chosen.” There was time to kill before