The Mountain's Call

by Caitlin Brennan

  Briana closed her mouth carefully.

  “To be sure he’s been looking after them,” said Maariyah, “on both sides of the border. In Aurelia, too, says my brother-in-law. Did you know he’s been here since the day before yesterday?”

  Briana had not, but it was hardly surprising. “He was to return by tomorrow,” she said with studied coolness. “Is it significant that he’s early? Rude, of course, not to pay his respects to his family, but I’m sure he meant to do it before the Dance.”

  “I think you should speak to my brother-in-law,” Maariyah said.

  Briana suppressed a sigh. “I have to go to my father. That can’t wait. Can your kinsman be here before noon?”

  “He’s been on night duty,” Maariyah said. “We can rouse him early.”

  “Good,” Briana said. “Have him here before the noon bells ring.”

  Demetria had the emperor barely under control. He was up, bathed and dressed. When Briana came in, he was all too obviously bent on going out to perform the day’s duties. “No one must know,” he said with an air of having repeated himself a great deal more than once. “I must go on as I always do, or this battle is lost.”

  “It’s perfectly acceptable for an emperor to seclude himself before a rite as vitally important as this,” Briana said from the door. “Leave the lesser obligations to your ministers, and put off the greater ones. There’s nothing that can’t wait.”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “Both of us can’t disappear at once. That’s even more suspicious than my appearing to be less than my usual self. Which, I promise you, I will do my best to avoid.”

  “You need to rest,” she said, “and recover if you can. You can’t do that if you’re going yet another round with the war council and the council of ministers. Not to mention—”

  “If we’re to have any hope of seeing the Dance to its completion, I have to be seen, and I have to appear to be strong.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “I think it may be better to seem weak. Let them think they succeeded.”

  “They did,” he pointed out with a distinct edge of irony.

  “They wanted you dead or worse,” she said. “Kerrec told me something, Father. He said, ‘The Dance is the antidote.’ He couldn’t tell me more, but surely he would know.”

  “And they would not?”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “If that particular poison were known to be countered by the Dance, why would they use it? It’s all very well to bleed away your magic, but what good is it if the Dance—the thing they want most to disrupt—can bring it back again? They want you weak and out of play. If they think you’re well under the akasha’s influence, they may grow overconfident and betray themselves. Then we can trap them.”

  “How? With what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I will. Just give me time.”

  He frowned and rubbed his forehead as if it ached. He was a little stiffer and more upright than usual. He was in pain, and not altogether successful in hiding it.

  “Father,” she said, “let me make your excuses to the councils. I’ll come back after—maybe even with the proof you were asking for.”

  Her words alone, even those words, would not have done it, but he had gone pale. Briana and Demetria between them tipped him off his feet and carried him off to bed. It was a mark of his weakness that he did not blast them both for their presumption.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  On the morning after Sabata came back to the lodge, its inhabitants prepared to leave it. In thirteen days the Dance would begin. They had to be in Aurelia well before that, to do what must be done.

  Gothard had left with his guards two days ago, riding ahead of the rest to Aurelia. The only imperials left apart from Valeria were Mestre Olivet and his attendants. Everyone else was Caletanni.

  Something had happened in the night. They all had an air of exaltation, of purpose raised from the mundane to the extraordinary. It radiated from Euan when he came to fetch Valeria. He had two of his men with him, who set about packing what belongings she was presumed to have.

  She felt heavy, drugged. She put on the clothes that were laid out for her, ate what was put in front of her, and went where she was told.

  Sabata was with the horses outside the lodge, his silver coat gleaming in the early-morning light. She had half hoped he would not be, but he of all creatures must be a part of this. He tolerated the common animal that waited to carry her, and the remounts in a string behind. They were mares, which maybe was intentional, and maybe softened his resistance.

  If someone had been that perceptive, she doubted it was Mestre Olivet. He had lost the gift of understanding horses. It also appeared that he had lost the art of riding them. He was waiting in a litter balanced between two horses, a rather impractical and precarious contraption for some of the roads they would be riding on, but no one remarked on it. The rest of them went on horseback like sensible people.

  They rode fast, even with the litter to drag them down. Time was short. Urgency lashed them on. The gods were with them, giving them clear skies and balmy weather, and no rain in the valleys or snow in the passes. The Caletanni sang as they rode, war-chants and hymns to their god.

  The easygoing men she had known were gone, as if the lightness in them had been burned away. They were like tempered blades. There was a hard gleam on them, and a deadly edge.

  When she looked at Euan out of the corner of her eye, she saw the red wolf running lightly through the wood. He was wild and dangerous and completely alien. He made her insides melt.

  That first night, when they stopped for a late and hasty camp, Valeria knew better than to leave the tent that was pitched for her. That did not stop her from doing it. She waited until the camp was quiet, when the cookfires were put out and all but the sentries had gone to bed. Only she had a tent, and Mestre Olivet. The rest were asleep under the stars.

  She moved as soft as wind and fog, gliding through the sleeping men. Sabata was standing guard on the edge of the camp. She could see him gleaming in the moonlight.

  He passed no judgment. The infidelity of riding another horse was unbearable, but he did not care what she did with a man.

  Euan had rolled himself in his blanket not far from Sabata. The others avoided the stallion, but Euan was inclined to face down his fear. That meant that he was separated from the rest by a small but significant distance.

  It was convenient, although she could not be sure it was intentional. She let him see her as she crossed the empty space. He did not move, but the rhythm of his breathing quickened.

  She slipped beneath his blanket. Under the cloak that wrapped her, she was naked. The air was sharp with frost, but she was hardly aware of it. The heat in her was stronger than any earthly chill.

  She unfastened his breeks and took him inside her. They made love without a sound. It was fast and fierce, with little tenderness. This was not a tender night.

  At the end of it she lifted herself over him. His face was pale in the moonlight, his eyes colorless. She half expected them to gleam like a wolf’s, but they drank the darkness as human eyes should.

  She kissed them until they closed. He lay as if waiting for her to do what she would. She rose, wrapped herself in her cloak and slipped away.

  Valeria had thought she would fall over in her tent and sleep like the dead, but the night was full of dreams. Memory of Euan’s body blurred and faded into another body altogether, smooth olive skin and supple limbs and swift, controlled strength. She knew she was dreaming, and yet it was vividly real. She could feel Kerrec beside her, a breathing warmth, with a scent of horses and crushed grass.

  Even in her dream she wondered at the serenity of it. Patterns were coming together beneath the surface of things. War was brewing, not only the emperor’s war on the barbarians but war within the empire. Death and slaughter were as close as the blanket over her. And yet she dreamed of a lover—and not the one with whom she had lain in the night.

  “That
one’s dangerous,” Conory said.

  They were riding out of camp the next morning. Euan and Conory had taken the rear. Valeria rode ahead on the bay mare, with the white god just ahead, flickering in and out of the mist.

  Conory was not talking about the stallion. His eyes were on Valeria’s back. She rode as they all did on the Mountain, as if she were part of the horse. No one else in this company could come close to that.

  Euan shifted in the saddle. Conory’s glance saw all too much. “She’s a witch,” he said. “She’s got you under her spell.”

  “All women are witches,” Euan said.

  “Not like that one. At home they’d give her to the One.”

  “Not here,” Euan said. “We need her. We’ve precious little hope of carrying this off without her.”

  “I don’t trust her,” Conory said.

  “I do,” said Euan. “We’re the only ones who can give her what she wants. She’ll do what it takes—you’ll see.”

  “I do hope so,” said Conory.

  “Jealous, cousin?”

  Conory bared his teeth. “Not hardly, cousin. She’s not got her pincers in me.”

  “Maybe I’ve got mine in her,” Euan said.

  “You’d better hope so,” said Conory, “because there’s no treachery worse than a woman’s—and worst of all is the woman in your bed.”

  Euan refused to be provoked. Later, when this was over, he would thrash Conory, and soundly.

  Conory knew it. He laughed at it. “If I’m alive and whole to be thrashed, I’ll thank you for it. You watch her, brother. And mind you do it with what you’ve got above your neck, not below.”

  Euan cuffed him for that. He swayed aside. The horse veered under the sudden shift of weight, stumbled and shied at a bird that erupted from under its feet.

  Conory laughed as he fell, and laughed as he hauled himself back up, too, to the taunts and cheerful jeers of the rest of the warband. Even Valeria let go a smile, though maybe only Euan saw it.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Aurelia was larger than Valeria could ever have imagined. They came to it late the seventh day after they left the lodge, riding in with the last of the day’s crowds.

  So many people were coming to the city for the emperor’s festival that she suspected a Caletanni warband would barely draw a glance, but they were cautious even so. They wore coats and trousers in the imperial style, with horsemen’s cloaks and hoods that covered their faces. There were no weapons visible, and their pack train, with the remounts, had stopped in the town that stood at the head of the gorge above the city. They rode the last stage fast and light, taking on the appearance of a noble in a litter with his mounted escort.

  Valeria rode in the middle of them. She was trying, not at all successfully, to keep from gaping at the sights. The sight and smell of the sea along the wide curve of the harbor, the immensity of the walls and towers, the gates of all sizes and shapes and degrees of splendor, left her speechless. The patterns that ran through them, the innumerable strains of magic that had been worked in this place for a thousand years, dizzied her with their complexity. She had to fight free of them and force her eyes to see as ordinary people saw, or she would not be able to see at all.

  There were so many houses, so many people. She had never conceived of so many in one place, living on top of one another in towers that rose four and five and six stories, looming up against the sunset sky.

  Sabata was thrown even more off balance than she was. He had found the school intolerable when he first came to it, with its walls shutting out the free air. This was a hundred, a thousand times worse.

  She slipped from the mare’s back to his. She needed to be as close as that, to wrap her arms and legs around him. His neck was rigid. Small shocks ran through his body. His back had coiled and his gait slowed and suspended until he was dancing almost in place.

  He was perilously close to the trapped rage that had nearly brought down the school. She stroked him long and slow, and crooned in his ear.

  The others had drawn in dangerously close. She could not spare any of herself to warn them. Somewhat late but just in time, she heard Euan’s voice. “Back off a bit. One kick from that and you’ll go straight over the moon.”

  It should have been Mestre Olivet who said it, but he rode in his litter well ahead of them, a distance that widened as Sabata minced and fretted his way through the city.

  After a while, the stallion quieted enough to walk instead of prancing. He was not calm, not even slightly, but he had brought himself under control.

  Valeria slid to the ground but kept her arm over his back, walking beside him. He heaved a sigh and blew out sharply, and let go the tension, although he kept a close eye and ear on the city that closed him in.

  From what she overheard, they were taking less traveled ways, trying to be unobtrusive. If those were what passed for deserted, the rest of the city must be one vast crush of people. Past the gate and the first square, they had to go two by two, and then in single file, pushing through crowds and sidestepping shops and taverns that overflowed into the street.

  Sabata was not the only one to find this place overwhelming. The Caletanni were slower to lose their composure, but the deeper they penetrated into the city, the more ruffled they became. They were growling in their own language, some of which she could puzzle out, although she could not tell which of the speakers was which.

  “Your fault for getting separated from the old blowhard.”

  “No, his for running away from us. What’s his trouble? You’d think he was afraid of the white nag.”

  “The nag or the witch who commands it.”

  “Wasn’t there supposed to be a guide? I thought his lordship was sending someone to show us the best way in.”

  “Not that I heard.”

  “Well, I did. We were supposed to meet a man in his lordship’s livery outside the walls, and he was supposed to help us avoid the public streets. So why did we—”

  “I was following the old bastard. What were you doing?”

  “Sitting on my thumbs.” That was Euan. “Damn this place! It’s enough to fog any man’s wits.”

  “You do know where we’re going, I hope,” one of the others said.

  “More or less,” said Euan. “It should be up the hill and around the corner there, unless they’ve moved it since the last time I was here.”

  “This is the old bastard’s fault. If he’s got us lost or led us into a trap, I swear—”

  “Save it until you’re sure,” Euan said. “Now be quiet. We don’t need people taking more notice of us than they already have.”

  The growling barely subsided, but there were no longer any words in it.

  They ascended the hill with dragging, frustrating slowness, pushing against the current of people. A long wall ran along the summit, with another running down on the left hand. There were gates in the left-hand wall but none in the one ahead. They turned right as the road bent, and found themselves looking out across a wide-open square.

  The square’s center was a garden, a startling outburst of green in the expanse of stone. The high walls of houses looked out on it, some with towers, some without. At the far end was the dome of a temple, sheathed with gold so bright it hurt Valeria’s eyes.

  Euan let go his breath in a strikingly horselike snort. “By the One! They did move it. But I know where we need to go.”

  “Where is this?” Valeria asked.

  Euan’s eyes were cold, but as they rested on her they warmed. “That’s the back of the palace yonder,” he said, cocking a shoulder at the long row of towers on the right, “and the dome is the temple of Sun and Moon, from the back—there’s a much bigger square in front, where all the processions go. And over there, with the low grey tower, that’s where the riders are.”

  “And the Hall of the Dance?” said Valeria.

  “You can’t see that from here,” he answered. “It’s on the other side of the palace. There’s a tunnel in between
, they say, so the stallions don’t have to show themselves to unsanctified eyes until they come out for the Dance.”

  Valeria nodded and lowered her eyes. She did not want them to see how she marked where everything was, or how she kept on doing it as they rode along the edge of the square in the dimming light and turned down another street between two featureless walls. One wall was made of white stone and the other of rose-colored bricks.

  There were fewer people here, though still more than she had ever seen in one place. They were all intent on getting themselves home before dark. A good number of them carried lamps or torches, unlit as yet but ready for nightfall.

  Euan seemed sure of where he was going, which was well as the light dimmed. Servants came out to light lamps beside the gates and doors, and people in the streets lit their lamps and torches. A soft glow spread over the city, turning it to a tapestry of black and gold.

  There were no taverns along this way, no shops to close up for the night. Companies in silk and gold swept grandly past, going to or from the pursuits of princes. Some were mounted, many in litters. Now and then a gilded carriage rattled and clattered on the paving.

  Sabata’s mood was like a storm building. Each passing carriage sent him closer to the edge. He was glowing like the moon. All too soon, he would throw off sparks.

  Valeria caught his mane and swung herself onto his back again. He twitched under her, but then he sighed faintly. His light dimmed somewhat.

  Just as she was about to warn Euan that if he did not find what he was looking for soon, she would not be answerable for the consequences, he slowed his horse and then halted. The door to which he turned was unlit.

  The house might have been deserted, but Valeria’s skin shivered. Carefully she lowered her wards, just enough to gasp and slam them up again. She would never forget the smell and taste of Gothard’s magic. This place was thick with it.

  His presence coiled inside the walls like a worm in an oak gall. Euan raised his hand to hammer on the gate, but before he could move, it opened soundlessly. No porter was visible. Witch lights hovered within.