The Mountain's Call

by Caitlin Brennan

  “I’ll ask,” the Master said. “You go.”

  Kerrec bowed. He barely glanced at Valeria. “Come,” he said.

  Chapter Nine

  Valeria was glad to be out of the Master’s study, but in the hallway she stopped short. Kerrec was nearly to the stair before he realized that she was not trotting obediently behind him. He halted and turned.

  “Listen,” she said. “Do what he said. Don’t waste time. I’ve failed. Just let me go. I’ll slip out quietly and not bother anyone.”

  Kerrec seemed honestly surprised. “What makes you think you’ve failed?”

  “Haven’t I? I was woolgathering when I was supposed to be answering questions. Isn’t discipline paramount? Didn’t men die yesterday because they had none?”

  Kerrec drew in a breath. He was probably praying for patience. “Come with me,” he said. “This isn’t a thing to be shouted down hallways.”

  She could hardly argue with that. He turned again, and she followed him down the stair. The courtyard was occupied by a group of riders on white stallions, but they were absorbed in their exercises.

  Kerrec stopped under the colonnade. Over his shoulder she could see the horses transcribing patterns that seemed random but struck her with a deep resonance. Every dance, even the most casual, was keyed to the rhythm of the world.

  She had to tear herself away from the pattern and focus on Kerrec. Even he was different. He was brimming with magic. It gleamed along his edges and coiled in his eyes.

  He was a master of the art. His discipline was impeccable. His mastery…

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  She had not meant to say it aloud. She braced for his reprimand, but he barely even frowned. “There is no greater beauty,” he said, “and you can see it. Do you really believe you’ve failed?”

  “You pulled me out of the testing,” she said.

  “Because you were done with it.” He fixed her with a steady silver stare. “You passed. You saw through to the pattern. The rest will be plagued with simplicity until they either do the same or fail. You have no need for that. There is one thing we must still determine, and one last test which you’ll share with the rest of the Called. Otherwise there’s nothing to discover.”

  She bit her lip. There was another thing, but he knew it already. If he was not going to mention it, then she certainly was not about to.

  “What—” she said. She brought her voice under control. “What do you need to determine?”

  “One thing,” he said. “Come.”

  Valeria stood under the gallery in the Hall of the Dance. The bay Lady was with her. A groom had brought the mare after Kerrec left Valeria there with a simple order: “Stand and watch.”

  The Lady was neither saddled nor bridled. She was there as Valeria was, to watch. She was also standing guard, though against what, she did not see fit to tell Valeria.

  As endless as that day had seemed, it was still short of noon. The morning exercises went on in the hall as they did in the riding courts. Somewhat to Valeria’s surprise, the horses in the hall when she came were not the oldest and most powerful of the stallions but the young ones, still dark or dappled, who were just learning the ways of the Dance.

  They worked in fours and eights. Sometimes there were a dozen in the hall, more often eight. While Valeria stood beside the Lady, watching and wondering what she was supposed to see, four left and four came in. Kerrec rode one of them.

  Kerrec was even more beautiful on horseback than she remembered. Here in the heart of his magic, he had no need to hide what he was. He could show himself for a master.

  On foot he was infuriating. She could not decide whether to hate him or simply despise him. As she stood in the hall, she decided that she was in love.

  The others rode well, and it was lovely to watch them. Kerrec was perceptibly better.

  Out of nowhere in particular, Valeria remembered one of the questions that Kerrec had asked shortly before she stopped listening. “What are the levels of mastery within the school?”

  She could see the tablet in front of her and the stylus digging into the wax, writing the answers.

  First, mastery of animals. That was the simplest, and came in childhood. The Called were always masters of beasts, although few of the order of Beastmasters were actually Called. When the Called came to the school, if they passed the testing, they learned the first of the arts, the art of riding horses.

  Second, mastery of men. Through the power of the stallions they learned to rule and guide. They could be princes and kings if their law allowed it, but the stallions cared nothing for such things. Men who cared too much were released from the school. Hunger for power had no place on the Mountain.

  Third, mastery of the elements. Earth and air, fire and water, yielded to them as beasts and men had. The stallions were like a burning glass, concentrating their power. They were great mages, those riders who rose so high.

  Fourth and highest, mastery of time and the Dance. Few riders ever reached this eminence. Master Nikos was one. Kerrec was another. These, in union with the stallions, could walk in the past and foresee the future. Tradition had it that once in a great while, in the cusp of destiny, one of them could shift the tides of time and make them run according to his will.

  Valeria watched the young stallions move in their simple patterns. They were not raising great powers. They were students as she was, and only a few of them would come to the great Dance.

  They were dancing a pattern that almost made sense. It had the emperor in it, and the young woman who must be the emperor’s heir, and the taller, fairer young man who looked both like and unlike them. Valeria glimpsed another face, which at first she thought was Euan Rohe’s, but this was older and harsher. It was his father’s, maybe.

  The landscape of her vision was dark, lit with fire. A stone loomed against the stars, standing alone on a barren hilltop. Robed figures gathered in a circle around it. She smelled blood, strong and cloying, and the sweet stink of death.

  A tattered thing flapped in the wind, wound around the top of the stone. It was a banner, a legionary standard with its device of sun and moon. Then she realized that there was something inside it. A man’s body was wrapped in the standard. His hands and feet were spiked to the stone. Blood dripped slowly, glistening in starlight.

  Sunlight stabbed her skull. The Hall of the Dance was full of it. The bay Lady stood between her and the darkness.

  The young stallions were still dancing, but Valeria could not stomach any more of it. Although she had been told to stand and watch, she had done as much of that as she could. She needed the sky, and the unclouded daylight.

  The Lady knelt. Valeria dragged her leg over the broad back. The bay mare rose in a smooth motion and carried her out.

  Valeria lay on the grass. The sky went on forever. She heard the mare grazing close by, and felt the rhythmic beat of hooves on the earth as in each court, the stallions danced.

  That rhythm ruled the world. The stars sang it. It sent the moon through its phases. The sun rose and set within it.

  It was as powerful as anything that was, and yet it was unspeakably fragile. In an instant it could shatter, falling into darkness and silence.

  “Something wants to destroy you,” she said to Kerrec.

  She did not particularly care where he was. He could hear her, she knew that.

  As it happened, he was sitting on the grass beside her, almost under the bay mare’s belly. “We’ve always had enemies,” he said.

  “I know. I’ve heard stories. The Red Magicians. The cult of the Nameless. Half the nobles in the court of any given reign.”

  He snorted. “More than half in this reign. We’re superannuated, they declare. Our powers have eroded, if they ever actually existed. We’re a worthless collection of mountebanks on fat white ponies.”

  She sat up and stared at him. “They actually say that?”

  “That and worse,” he said. “I don’t suppose you were ever test
ed for the Augurs’ College.”

  “That would be Paulus,” she said.

  “Of course it would be,” said Kerrec. As usual, she could not tell what he was thinking. He masked himself too well.

  She could see why he might, if he was seeing and feeling such things as she had since she came here. She was only a child, untrained and hopelessly confused. It must be overwhelming to be a master.

  He stood and reached down, pulling her to her feet. The earth was unsteady under her, but his hand was strong. As soon as she could stand on her own, he let her go. “Your testing is done until tomorrow,” he said. “Apart from your duties in the stable, your time is yours to do with as you please.”

  “What if I want to go back with the others?”

  “You could do that,” he said. “It’s not necessary.”

  “I think it might be,” she said.

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “As you please,” he said.

  But she did not leave quite yet. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

  “You know we did.”

  She hardly knew what she knew, but she nodded. “Is it that overwhelming for you? Or is it worse?”

  He offered no answer. She had not expected one. That, like so much else in this place, was for her to discover.

  The rest of the Called were still in the schoolroom answering questions of deliberately infuriating simplicity. Valeria slipped in as quietly as she could, found a desk and a set of blank tablets, and let herself drown in words.

  They were only words. She made sure of that. She had had enough magic to last her for a while.

  Chapter Ten

  The School of War occupied the northeastern corner of the fortress. It had its own gates and its own staff of guards and servants, even its own stables. There were no white gods there, only ordinary horses, and precious few stallions.

  The hostages had been delighted to discover that once they were admitted to the school, they were no longer treated like battle captives. They were students like all the others. They shared a room in the dormitory, with as much freedom to come and go as any of the offspring of imperial nobles and rich merchants for whom this place was an entry into officers’ rank in the emperor’s armies.

  “Remember,” Euan Rohe had told his kinsmen before they came here. “They want to civilize us, which means carve us into puppets. Let them teach us everything that we can learn—the better to use it against them when the Great War comes.”

  They were good men, his kinsmen. Every one was a member of his own warband, sworn to him by oaths of blood and stone. The arrogant imperials had made no effort to select princes of opposing tribes, or even to discover what enmities there might be among their enemies. That, the One God willing, would be their undoing.

  The lessons so far were ghastly enough. It was beneath a prince’s dignity to play the slave to a stable full of hairy, farting beasts, but if the war demanded it, then he would do it. The riding was painful but slightly less insulting. As for the handful of hours each morning in a box of a room with tablet and stylus, learning to read and write the imperial language…

  “We didn’t come here for that,” Gavin said in disgust. “These scratchings on wax stain our souls.”

  “They help our cause,” Euan said. “They’re not the runes that only priests can touch and live. These will gain us knowledge we might never have had otherwise. They give us power.”

  “They give us corruption,” Gavin muttered, but under Euan’s glare he subsided. He submitted to instruction, and learned his letters, although he flatly refused to form them into his name. He knew better than to snare his soul.

  Euan did not tell these loyal kinsmen that he already knew how to read. His father had insisted that he be taught. The old man was wise when he was sober, and he could see farther than most.

  Letters, for a while, would be Euan’s secret. He pretended to struggle as the others did, and watched and waited.

  He did not have to wait long. The message came through one of the grooms, a pallid young creature with a perpetually startled expression. He looked flat astonished now, but he spoke the words he had been given without a slip or a stammer.

  “Tomorrow as the sun touches noon,” was Euan’s answer. “Outside the walls. Follow the trail I set.”

  The boy bowed. He did not argue, as the recipient of the message almost certainly would.

  He would come to the summons. He would not be able to help himself.

  Euan Rohe walked openly out of the School of War, testing for once and for all the limits of his position there. No one gave him a second glance. He stood outside the high grey walls and took a long breath. It was not free air, but it was as close as he would come until this game was over.

  Hunter’s instincts came back quickly in spite of more than a year in cities or under imperial guard. Euan took in the lie of the land, chose his track, and set about leaving a trail that another hunter could follow.

  The place that Euan found was pleasant, a clearing in the forest that robed the Mountain’s knees. The great stands of trees were almost bare of undergrowth, but the clearing was carpeted with grass and flowers.

  When he first came there, he had thought the flowers much thicker than they were. Then as he walked onto the grass, all the white blossoms took flight. They were butterflies.

  He sat in the midst of them and sipped water from the bottle he had brought with him. It was still cold from the stream farther down the Mountain. He had a bit of bread in his bag, and cheese and dried apples, but he was not hungry yet.

  The one he waited for arrived just after the sun touched the point of noon. He made no secret of his passage through the trees. That was deliberate, and might be construed as an insult.

  Euan stayed where he was, propped on his elbow in the grass, with the water bottle in his hand. The other man rode on horseback. His mount was white, but it was not one of the gods from the school. Euan was interested to discover that he could tell the difference.

  The man on the horse was small and dark and sharp-featured for a Caletanni, but he was too tall and fair to be an imperial. He looked like what he was, half-blood, with his brown hair and freckled skin. He wore his hair in a long plait, which was considered quite daring in the imperial city, but he went clean-shaven. He was not daring enough to affect the full fashion.

  “Prince,” Euan greeted him.

  “Prince,” he replied, swinging down off the horse with grace that few Caletanni could match. He tied up the reins and left the beast to graze, and came to stand over Euan.

  “Good of you to come alone,” Euan said. “Or is there an army on the other side of the hill?”

  “No army,” said the prince from Aurelia. He had a suitably imperial name, but the one he claimed in front of Euan was Gothard. “There is a company of guards not far from here. Do I need to summon them?”

  “Not yet,” said Euan. He gestured expansively. “Come, sit. Be free of my hall.”

  Gothard was not amused. “None of this is yours,” he said, “even after you’ve won the war. Remember the bargain. Aurelia’s throne belongs to me.”

  Euan smiled his most exasperating smile. “I won’t forget,” he said.

  Gothard made no secret of his doubts, but he refrained from putting them into words. He said instead, “So. You’re in the school. How goes it? Have you found a rider yet?”

  “Maybe,” said Euan. “It’s only the third day since I came here. Do all your caravans march at a snail’s pace?”

  “Only when time is of the essence,” Gothard said sourly. “Gods. You should have been there a month ago. Tomorrow is the Midsummer Dance. It’s a bare three months until the Great Dance.”

  Euan did not comment on the pagan oath. It was a habit, one could suppose, from living with imperials. “I’m well aware of the time,” he said. His voice shifted to the half-chant of an imperial schoolboy’s recitation. “We have to be in Aurelia on the autumn equinox, when the emperor celebrates his feas
t of renewal, four eights of years on the throne of this empire. The white gods will leave the Mountain for that, as they have not done in a hundred years, and dance in the court of the palace. That will open the gates of time and allow us—the One God willing—to impose our will on what will be. Then the emperor will die and his heir be disposed of, and a new reign will come to Aurelia.”

  “If it can be so simple and so tidy,” said Gothard, clearly annoyed by the mockery, “we’ll thank every god there is, whether he be One or many.”

  “I’ll do my part,” Euan said with studied patience. “I’ll find the rider who can be persuaded—one way or another—to subvert the Dance. You have enough to do. You’ve no need to fret over that.”

  “None of it is worth a clipped farthing if you fail.”

  “There now,” drawled Euan. “I wouldn’t say that. If we can’t control the Dance once it’s away from the Mountain’s power, we can certainly corrupt it. We’ll have our war, one way or the other.”

  “There will be war,” said Gothard, “but who will win it? The Dance can determine that—but only a rider can rule the Dance.”

  “It will be done,” Euan said. “And then you will have your part to do, and so will others. In the end, we’ll win the war.”

  “I envy you your surety,” Gothard said.

  Euan smiled sunnily. “I’m a raving barbarian and you’re an effete imperial. Of course I’m a blind optimist. You’ll be my voice of reason, my wise philosopher.”

  Truly Gothard had no humor. He was fast reaching the limits of his temper. Euan waited to see if he would say something ill-advised, but instead he froze.

  Euan heard it a moment after he did. A hoof chinked softly against rock. A bit jingled even more softly.

  Gothard’s grey horse had been standing still, head down and hind foot cocked, asleep. At the sound of another horse’s passing, he threw up his head.

  Gothard drew a complex symbol in the air. Euan saw the shape of it limned in dark light. His skin prickled.