Free Knife Sworn by Mazarkis Williams Page A

wives’ looms no doubt. He wore his face bare, veil pinned back perhaps for the first time in years, his cheeks stained dark by the dyes his people prized in their cloth.
    “The desert is an ocean, my emperor, wider and more deep. Where the storms gather, the dunes over-top your tower of mages. I would be honoured to show you these places. Even to the Cliffs of Sight.”
    Sarmin had seen the Cliffs marked, in the cartodome on one of the maps set in many colours of stone into the tops of marble tables. On those maps the desert accounted for more than half his empire, though not one in a thousand of his people dwelled there. The Cliffs of Sight lay on the margins.
    Even the cartogramme, where each hill and stream bore a legend, offered no name for the desert, and in the centre amid the sandstone used to indicate the margins, only the plain white marble of the table, suggesting nothing. “What of the interior, Headman? Do I rule there too?” The blank whiteness of the map-table filled his mind and for a moment the whispers of the Many rose to cover Notheen’s reply.
    “…survive. That place is not for men, my emperor. It is an emptiness that devours.” The Headman bowed and took a half-step back, as if he had no more to say.
    Honnecka pressed close enough to make the sword-sons loosen their daggers. He cleared his throat, a deep unhealthy sound. Flanking him to the left a man of similar girth, his belly hitched up in bands of scarlet silk, rings on each of his fat olive fingers, many set with gems as large as eyeballs, a discordant display of wealth that owed nothing to beauty or balance. To the right a warrior in plates of fire-bronze, each stamped with the eagle of Highrock. His beard reached almost to his chest, showing hints of red in the dark curls.
    “Satrap Honnecka,” Sarmin said. “And…” Azeem’s schooling failed him. “Prince Jomla of Westla.” He indicated the man in silks and rings. The name Sarmin remembered. Grown fat off river trade and a monopoly on caravans out of Hedrin, richest of the West ports. “And General Merkel from the Fort of Ax in Jalan Hills.” Of this one Sarmin knew nothing. “Magnificence.” The General bowed at the waist. Not a general with Cerani legions under his command, but less ornamental than many of his fellow Faces. Azeem called them Faces, the men named as generals and called to the palace so that nations with only a generation or two under the Cerani yoke could save face and name themselves allies and protectorates rather than mere outlying regions of the empire.
    “General Merkel.” Sarmin made a smile for the man. “You’ve come a long way. There can hardly have been time for news of the empress’ condition to reach the north-marches and for you to journey south from Highrock. You must have left immediately!”
    “Indeed I would have, Magnificence, but I had already embarked on the ride before any such tidings reached us.” The light gleamed from one plate of armour then the next as he shifted.
    “What then set you on so long a journey, General?”
    “War, Magnificence.” Merkel’s hand slipped towards the ruby-set hilt of his blunted sword, and then away as the sword-sons tensed. “The White Hat army—with its glorious men-at-arms and the fabled horsemen, the battle-strength of the plains—all passed within a spyglass’ view of Fort Ax on their way to the grass. They shouted out the name of Emperor Tuvaini as they carved a red path to Mondrath. And this man at their head, Arigu, told us they were to press on into Yrkmir lands.”
    “And so you came to petition my cousin Tuvaini? Seeking what?” Sarmin asked. Merkel must have heard of the imminent peace, and with his ambitions nearly frustrated he would attempt to carve some benefit from it.
    Prince Jomla watched them with fascination, switching his allegiance as each spoke, as though he watched the ball in a game of slap, his cheeks wobbling each time he turned his head.
    “As you know,