The Mountain's Call

by Caitlin Brennan

  She had to sit down rather abruptly. Petra nuzzled her hair. She wrapped her arms around his big solid head and let him pull her back to her feet.

  Kerrec had recovered somewhat from his fit of the wallows. Their father was scrupulously avoiding comment. When both of his offspring were more or less composed, he said, “We have a trap to lay—one that, we can hope, will succeed where the other failed. I propose we lay it soon, and as solidly as we can. A master stone will challenge us severely—the more so for that the only intact power among the three of us, daughter, is yours.”

  “And his,” Kerrec said, rubbing Petra’s neck.

  Briana’s brows rose. The stallion appeared to offer no objection.

  That was an ally to reckon with—if he would help them. If he could be trusted.

  It was preposterous to think of mistrusting one of the white gods, and yet Briana dared not avoid the thought. There was a Great One in Gothard’s house, apparently by choice, and a Great One here who had permitted his rider to be tortured into ruin. Only the gods knew the truth of any of it.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “Have we all wallowed enough?” the emperor inquired acidly. “Shall we talk our way through the Dance, or shall we do what we can to keep it from being destroyed?”

  Kerrec could not hear that voice without his hackles rising. It was an old and visceral thing, and he could not help it. He was rather pleased that he kept his mouth shut, and that he swung his leg over Petra’s neck and slid to the ground without either falling on his face or strangling his father.

  Artorius would never look directly at him, as if he subscribed to the superstition that it was bad luck to meet a dead man’s eyes. It was Kerrec’s misfortune to feel all too much like a living one, bruised to the bone and half torn apart, measuring his life in numerous small pains.

  That was wallowing, as the emperor had said. “Think,” said Artorius. “Focus. We know what’s coming. Here is what we will do to stop it.”

  Kerrec refrained from pointing out that it was rather unlikely they would do any such thing. Briana held her tongue as well. Artorius told them succinctly what they would do and when and how.

  That, first of all, was to rest and gather what strength they had. Kerrec had rested more than enough since he came back to Aurelia, but his body and mind were both weaker than he liked. If he was going to be in any state to face the Dance, he had to be strong.

  Artorius left them to it. Kerrec hoped the emperor would take his own advice. They were a poor army for such a war, but they were all there was.

  Kerrec dreamed of stones. He saw them cut and set in rings, or built into towers, or carved into images that shifted and blurred and changed in the way of dreams. He saw a finger of rock standing in a barren circle, and blood running down it. He saw a wheel of fire hung on an iron chain, cradled in Gothard’s hands.

  The memory of the master stone followed Kerrec into waking. What it meant, or whether it meant anything at all, he did not know. It hovered in the back of his mind while he gathered himself to face the day.

  Every morning now he took the count of the scattered fragments of his self, and pulled them together as best he could. Every day there were fewer fragments, and he was closer to whole. But he was a long way from healed.

  While he collected himself, the usual servant brought his breakfast. The boy was a mute, and painfully shy. He loved to look at Petra but never dared touch him, even when Kerrec invited him to do as he pleased.

  Today he seemed almost brave enough to lay a hand on the broad white shoulder while Petra nibbled the hay that the boy had brought before he fed Kerrec. He might have gone further, but Kerrec was not there to see. He was suddenly, oddly restless. Danger was coming, or the prospect of danger.

  He considered the servant’s tabard that had served him so well before, but chose instead to be a shadow and a breath of air. It was wonderfully easy to do, but it was completely impossible to explain how he did it. How did he breathe? Or sit a horse?

  Everything was quiet in Briana’s rooms. She was having her morning bath, attended by other, lesser maids than Maariyah.

  Kerrec made his way to the outermost of her rooms. There were voices outside. One must be the guard. The other was young, haughty and hauntingly familiar. It was arguing heatedly, insisting that its owner be admitted, because he was the heir’s kinsman and his message was urgent.

  “She has many kinsmen,” the guard said.

  “How many of those are riders?” the young man demanded.

  Kerrec had opened the door before his mind knew what his body was doing. “Let him in,” he said.

  The guard saluted with a clashing of metal. The boy looked as if he had seen a ghost.

  That was all too common these days. Kerrec leveled a glare at him. “Get in,” he said.

  His name quivered through the mists in Kerrec’s brain. Paulus, that was it. Paulus went as mute as the servant in the garden, which was not at all a common condition for him, and did as he was told.

  Once they were inside with the door safely shut and the guard back at his post, Paulus found his voice. “First Rider! You’re supposed to be—”

  “Dead? Gone?”

  “On the Mountain,” Paulus said. “She said—”

  “She?”

  Kerrec did not know what he would have done then—probably throttled the boy. But Briana was there, and she had taken stock swiftly and thoroughly. “Put him down,” she said to Kerrec.

  Kerrec let go Paulus’ throat. He had hardly been aware of laying hold of it, let alone heaving the boy up until his long legs dangled helplessly.

  Once Paulus was back on his feet again, he stood staring at Kerrec, eyeing him as if he were a stallion of uncertain temper and unpredictable habits. Since that was rather an accurate assessment, Kerrec could hardly blame him.

  “Come with me,” Briana said to them both. The snap of command brought both of them sharply erect.

  She led them to the garden, since it was the most easily secured and least public place in her wing of the palace. Petra was finishing his breakfast while the mute servant brushed out his tail. The boy started and would have fled, but Briana said much more gently than she had to either of her kinsmen, “Stay.”

  He went back to his brushing, darting wary glances at the men, especially Kerrec. Petra ignored them all.

  “Cousin,” Briana said to Paulus once he was settled with a cup of chilled fruit nectar and honey to soothe his throat. What he was was obvious, even if she had not known that Duke Gallio’s eldest grandson was Called. He wore the grey coat and breeches of a rider-candidate, and his boots were made for riding. “Your new station becomes you.”

  He started to bow, clearly remembered that riders did not do such a thing to any human creature, and settled for a stiff dip of the chin instead. “Thank you, cousin,” he said. His voice was a fraction rougher than it had been before Kerrec interfered with it.

  Kerrec had had enough of courtly niceties. “What brings you here? When did you see her? Have you gone over to the enemy as well?”

  Paulus opened his mouth, but Briana said, “Tell it in order. And no interruptions,” she said with a sharp glance at Kerrec.

  That was bloody difficult, but it was a form of discipline. Kerrec had sore need of discipline these days. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood, and fought down the murderous rage that rose in him at the thought of her—the enemy, the traitor.

  Paulus obeyed Briana, but he kept darting glances at Kerrec. If that was pity, Kerrec would kill him. It seemed more like shock, which was marginally more bearable.

  “I take it you know about the woman who was Called in the spring,” he said. Briana nodded. He took a deep breath and went on. “You must know the rest of it, too, if the First Rider is here. He was supposed to have gone to the Mountain. He was also supposed to have been nearly dead.”

  “I am dead,” Kerrec said.

  Briana quelled him with a glare. Paulus concealed his expression behind his
cup. When he had composed himself enough to go on, he said, “She came to warn us. The Dance is in danger. The prince Marcellus, who is calling himself Gothard, is behind it.”

  “She warned you?” Briana asked him. “She was admitted to the Master?”

  Paulus wriggled like a much younger child than he was. “No,” he said. “She never got that far.”

  “You’ve spoken to the Master yourself?”

  That made him even more uncomfortable. “I can’t get near him, either. No one can. She found me looking after the stallions. She’s with the enemy, I’m sure of that. ‘I traded myself for Kerrec’s life,’ she said. But she did try to warn us.”

  “She never traded anything for me,” Kerrec said.

  Briana ignored him. “That was dangerous for her,” she said to Paulus, “to come to you with what she had to say.”

  “Not if it was another trap,” Kerrec said. “She’s in bed with a barbarian. Who knows what the two of them have plotted against us?”

  Briana turned her back on him. “Do you think she can be trusted?” she asked Paulus.

  “I don’t know,” Paulus said, and that was not easy for him at all. “She let us all think she was a man, to go through the testing, but she was always straightforward except for that. Mind you I can’t abide her—that power of hers is against nature, damn it—but I can’t hate her, either. I think she’s as honorable as a woman can be. How honorable that is, I don’t know.”

  Briana’s expression was wry. “That’s a fine, diplomatic answer,” she said. “If she made a bargain to save her teacher’s life—”

  “She swore herself to the enemy,” Kerrec said fiercely. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No,” said Briana bluntly, acknowledging him at last. “It’s not. If she’s their weapon against the Dance, and her heart isn’t with them, that gives us hope.”

  “Plots within plots,” Kerrec muttered. “Wheels within wheels. When I went to the Mountain, I escaped from that. Now I’m trapped in a nightmare of it.”

  “No more than the rest of us,” Briana said. “Get over yourself, brother. Even if she is in bed with the enemy, that doesn’t mean she’s sold her soul, too. A woman does what she must—like anyone else, male or female. You’re alive because of her. She may still save us all.”

  “She’ll save herself,” Kerrec said, spitting the words, “and to the darkness with anyone else.”

  “With all due respect,” said Paulus, “I don’t think she’s our enemy. I think she’s honestly trapped, and she wants us to win, even if it destroys her.”

  Kerrec’s lip curled. “She’s seduced even you, hasn’t she?”

  “That’s enough,” Briana said, sharp as the cut of a whip. “Stop flailing and think. Is there any way we can get to her, to see what she can do from inside the plot?”

  “Not after yesterday,” Kerrec said with dark satisfaction. It struck him with a slight pang to see how her face went stiff, but not enough to stop him. “If our brother’s house was warded before, it will be sealed up solid now. He may not know you were part of the attack, but he knows that someone wants him disposed of.”

  “Even so,” said Briana, “maybe Petra—”

  “Petra is not talking to me,” Kerrec said sullenly. “He’s besotted with her. They all are. And that should trouble you, little sister. She can corrupt even the gods.”

  “I think you need a dose of your famous discipline,” she said. “When you’re capable of thinking rationally, tell us. Meanwhile, we’ll carry on without you.”

  Kerrec did not want to be rational. Whenever he thought of Valeria, he saw her lying in the barbarian’s arms, plotting against the empire. “My memory may be in ruins,” he said, “but one thing I remember. In the Book of Changes it says, ‘One shall come who will both save and destroy the world.’ It binds that mortal spirit to a Great One and foretells the end of everything. Even if she saves the Dance, there’s still the world to shatter.”

  “If that’s the truth,” Briana said, “we’ll deal with her as she deserves. Until then, I intend to reserve judgment.”

  “You do that,” Kerrec said nastily. “Then we’ll all go down together, all properly reserved and suitably judged.”

  Paulus cleared his throat. Not many would dare interfere with a royal squabble, but Duke Gallio’s grandson had his fair share of crazy courage. “Highness,” he said, again with that odd dip of the chin. “First Rider. I shouldn’t be here, and now I’ve delivered my message, I’d best go back where I belong. The Master and the riders, when they come out, will be very glad to hear that you’ve been found alive and—more or less—well.”

  Mostly less, Kerrec thought, but he kept it to himself. He was done with wallowing, if not with hating the woman who—the traitor who—

  Enough. He stayed with Petra while Briana saw Paulus to the door. Petra was as opaque as he always was when it came to Valeria.

  No one, Kerrec noticed, had said anything of his riding in the Dance. He had not dared to think of it himself. But with all that he had heard, his mind persisted in turning toward it.

  That, like the rest of his thoughts, he refrained from expressing aloud. He was maimed in mind and magic. He had had none of the days of seclusion and gathering of power that were ordained by ritual. And yet, in four days, maybe…

  For today he would let it go. Tomorrow or the next day, he would think of it again. Then on the day of the Dance, who knew? Something might come of it.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Enough,” said Valeria, “and enough.”

  Gothard had made sure that she rode Sabata each morning, by bullying Olivet into standing by while she did it. That had worked well enough for the first three days, but by the fourth, Valeria was not the only one in revolt. Sabata had come out of his stable in one of his choicer moods.

  He was not rebellious, exactly, but neither was he inclined to do as any human told him, even Valeria. The weather was no help. The sun had not shone in days, and the air was cold, with a blustery wind blowing, smelling strongly of salt and the sea. It was a wind to get any horse’s back up, and Sabata needed precious little excuse.

  “God or no,” she said to Olivet, who was sitting in the shelter of the stable door, making strong inroads on a jar of wine, “he is still a horse, and that horse is not in the mood to work.”

  Olivet rolled a bloodshot eye at her. He had been drinking deeper each day, and beginning earlier. “Gothard says ride,” he said. “Gothard is the master of us all. Or should I say, Gothard’s stone is our master. Did you know that stone can master stallion? Nor did I. I had rather thought it would be the reverse.”

  “I don’t suppose you can unmake it,” Valeria said. It was meant to be flippant, but it did not come out lightly at all.

  Olivet blinked. “Unmake stone? Cause stone not to be?”

  “Well? Can you?”

  He swayed on the stool. “Ride,” he said. “His Royal Highness, who hopes to be His Imperial Majesty, says ride. Therefore, ride.”

  Valeria eyed Sabata. He eyed her in return. His back hunched and his forefoot pawed restlessly. “Run,” she said, struck by wild impulse. “Run!”

  He ran, but not where she wanted him to go. He circled the grassy court, head and tail high, bucking and blowing. Walls and wards only held him because he let them. He refused to escape.

  Olivet snored against the stable wall. The empty jar was loose in his hand. Valeria worked it gently free and laid it beside his foot.

  She eyed the walls, up and past the flying form of the stallion. “I’m sorry,” she said, maybe to Olivet, maybe to Sabata, maybe even to Gothard. “I can’t do it. I gave my word, but I can’t. Even if you hunt down Kerrec and kill him, I can’t be what you need me to be.”

  Sabata finished his run, roared to a halt, spun and set his nose lightly in her hand. He was hungry. He had nothing to say about the rest.

  While she fed him, she did her best to think clearly. It might be more reasonable to wait until night, b
ut Gothard or his guards would expect an escape then. If she walked out in broad daylight, she might actually get away with it.

  She left Sabata with his head in the manger and no higher ambition than to keep it there until the last of the hay was gone. “So stay,” she said with a snap of frustration. “Stuff your face. I don’t care.”

  He never turned an ear. She restrained herself, barely, from slamming the door behind her. By the time she reached the outer gate of the palace, she was at least outwardly calm. She had nothing with her but the clothes on her back and the magic inside her.

  The guards looked her over as she walked past, but although she braced for the slam of a spear across her path, neither of them moved. She walked out into the street, just as spits of rain began to fall.

  A figure detached itself from the wall. Euan Rohe smiled brightly at her. “Going exploring?” he asked.

  As she looked up at that too-familiar face, she knew the meaning of despair. She was not going to get out of this as she had got out of her mother’s root cellar. Her path was set. It led to the Dance, no matter what she did or how she struggled.

  Her body did not want to acknowledge that. It leaped toward him, darted sideways and bolted down the street.

  Euan caught her with humiliating ease. The force of her speed spun him half-around, but his grip was too strong to break.

  That did not stop her from trying. He grunted when she caught him in the ribs, and eluded the knee in the groin. With a dizzying heave, he slung her over his shoulder and carried her back inside.

  He dropped her onto her bed. She lay breathing hard, with tears of frustrated rage streaming down her face.

  “Dear heart,” he said, “I can’t blame you for trying. But there’s only one way out of this.”

  “Two,” she said.

  “Well, yes. We can all die. I prefer to think we’ll all be kings.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I did it?”

  “I know why you did it.” He sat beside her and smoothed her hair out of her face. His touch was a caress. “It’s hard to change a world. There’s yourself to change first, and all your old fears to burn away.”