Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  His child. His son. No one could mistake it. There was no sign of his mother in him except for a certain air, a deep and inborn calm. He was long-limbed and rangy like a young wolf, and his eyes were wolf eyes, amber-gold and slanting in the long planes of his face.

  He was royal-clan Calletani, like his father and grandfather and all their fathers before them. The One himself had marked him for what he was.

  He stood straight beside his grandmother. There was no fear in him, only curiosity. His eyes were wide, taking in everything.

  When those eyes fell on Euan, they brightened. He pulled free from his grandmother, who was just beginning to bow in front of the king, and sprang into Euan’s arms.

  Euan was as startled as everyone else. The child was heavier than he looked, and strong.

  “No need to guess whose litter that cub came from,” someone said.

  Euan readied a glare to sweep across the hall, but the child laughed. His mirth was rang out in the silence. Euan swung him onto his shoulder and said so they all could hear, “You guessed right. I’m claiming him. He’s my blood and bone, the wolf-cub of the Calletani. I name him Conor, and bid you all name him likewise.”

  The name ran around the room in a low roll of sound. Conor…Conor…Conor.

  Euan looked up into the boy’s face. His head was tilted. He was listening hard. When the sound of his name had died down, he nodded. “That’s my name,” he said. “My name is Conor.”

  “That was well done,” Gothard said.

  Conor was back among the women again. The night’s meal had turned into a celebration, welcoming a new man-child to the clan. Euan staggered out of it, aswim with the last of the wine, to find Gothard squatting in front of the jakes.

  He or someone had made a cage of gold wire for the starstone and hung it around his neck. It swung as he rocked, drinking darkness out of the air. “Well done,” he repeated. “Oh, so well done. Show the people you’ve got what a king needs—balls and gall and enough sense to get yourself an heir before it’s too late.”

  “I’m glad you approve,” Euan said. He made no effort to sound as if he meant it.

  “I only wonder,” Gothard said, rocking and smiling, with the starstone swinging and swinging, “seeing how strongly all the people resist the very idea of magic, how you managed to beget a child who fairly crackles with it.”

  Euan had no memory of movement. One moment he was standing on one leg, wondering if he should piss in the bastard’s face to relieve himself and shut him up. The next, his hand was locked around Gothard’s throat.

  The stone did not blast him. He found that interesting.

  He spoke very carefully, enunciating each word. “My son is not a mage.”

  “You know he is,” Gothard said.

  Euan’s fingers tightened. Gothard turned a gratifying shade of crimson. “Whatever you think he is,” Euan said, “or think you may turn him into, you will keep your claws off him. If I find even the slightest hint that you have touched him or burdened him with so much as a word, I will flay you alive and bathe you in salt.”

  He saw how Gothard’s eyes flickered. His own stayed fixed on that purpling face. “Don’t think your stone will save you. It was mine first. It remembers. And so should you. Hands and magic off my son. Do you understand?”

  Gothard’s eyes had begun to bulge. It was a pity, Euan thought, that he needed a stone mage to exploit the full power of the stone. This was the only one he was likely to get. Gothard had to go on breathing—as much as Euan might wish otherwise.

  He let Gothard go. Gothard fell over, gagging and choking, wheezing for breath. Euan left him to it.

  He could feel Gothard’s eyes on his back as he went into the jakes. The hate in them was strong enough to make his skin twitch.

  He shrugged it off. As long as they needed each other, there would be no killing on either side, and no Unmaking, either. After that, the One would provide. It would give Euan great pleasure to finish what he had begun.

  Six

  The Mountain was singing. It was a deep song, far below the edge of hearing, but it thrummed in Valeria’s bones. When she looked up from the shelter of the citadel toward that jagged peak, gleaming white against the piercing blue of the sky, and heard the great sound that came out of it, she knew a profound and almost unbearable joy.

  The Mountain was locked in snow. Winter, like the claws of grief and irretrievable loss, gripped the school as if it would never let go. Yet the sun was just a fraction stronger and the air just a whisper warmer. And the Mountain sent out the Call.

  It was strange to hear it and know what it was and feel the power of it, but to be no part of it. She had been Called a year before, and now the Mountain had her. This new compulsion, renewed every spring for a thousand years, was meant for someone else. Many someones, she hoped. The school needed as many new riders as the gods would deign to send.

  When the first of the Called came in, she was schooling Sabata in the riding court nearest the southward gate. It was the first day in months that anyone had been able to ride under the sky. The grass around the edges of the court was just beginning to show a glimmer of green.

  The raked sand of the arena was a little damp from the winter’s rains, but Sabata moved lightly on it. He liked its softness and its slight springiness.

  In fact he was moving a little too lightly. He was fresh and not particularly obedient, and there was a twitch in his back that warned her to be alert.

  Sabata was a god and a Great One, but he was also a stallion, and spring was in his blood. He could smell the mares on the other side of the school, in the School of War. If he had had his way, he would have gone courting and won himself a band of them.

  “You have a high opinion of yourself,” she said as he tried for the dozenth time to veer off toward the gate. He had not succeeded yet, but he was determined to keep trying. Discipline was the last thing he wanted to think about just then.

  “Discipline is the first virtue of a rider,” Valeria said.

  Sabata shook his head and snorted. There was a distinct hump in his back under the saddle. He was not a rider, and very glad he was of it, too.

  Just as he left the ground, a stranger’s startled face blurred past her. It was only an instant’s distraction, but that was enough for Sabata. He exploded in more directions than she could count.

  It was a long way to the ground. She had ample time to tuck and roll. She also had time to contemplate the virtue of discipline, and to be struck by the humor of it all.

  She tumbled to a halt with a mouthful of sand and a collection of entirely new bruises, and no breath for the laughter that was trying to bubble out of her.

  Two faces stared down at her. One was long and silver-white and gratifyingly embarrassed. The other was oval and brown and incontestably human.

  “Rider?” the boy said. “Are you dying?”

  She did not want to sit up. She wanted to lie in the sand and count her bones and try not to think about how it would feel when she moved. Still, there was Sabata, belatedly appalled at what he had done to his rider, and this child whom she had never seen before, whose eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.

  She sat up very carefully. Her head stayed on her shoulders. All the parts of her moved more or less as they should. Nothing was broken, even the arm that still ached when she moved it just so. There was a ringing in her ears, but that was the Mountain.

  It was also the boy who had startled her into falling off her stallion. He was so full of the Call that she was amazed he could walk and talk.

  He was otherwise perfectly ordinary, with a smooth, olive-skinned face and big dark eyes and curly black hair. His clothes were plain and had seen a great deal of use. He looked as if he had been traveling for days without enough to eat.

  “You’re not dying,” he said. He sounded relieved. He held out a grubby hand.

  She let him pull her to her feet. He was stronger than he looked. “How did you get here?” she asked him.
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  “I walked through the gate,” he said.

  “Nobody met you?”

  He shook his head. “There were people, but nobody said anything. I kept walking until I came here.” His eyes turned to Sabata and melted—there was no other word for it. “Is he—is that—”

  “That is Sabata,” Valeria said.

  The boy’s hand stretched out as if he could not help himself. Valeria made no effort to stop him. Sabata did not move away, either, which was interesting. No one could lay a hand on Sabata unless he wanted it—and mostly he did not.

  He suffered this child to stroke his neck and find the particular spot in the middle and rub it until his lip stretched and began to quiver. The boy was enthralled. “Beautiful,” he said dreamily. “So beautiful.”

  “He certainly thinks so,” Valeria said. “We have exercises to finish. If you can wait, I’ll show you where to go.”

  “Oh, yes,” the boy said. “I can wait. You’ll let me watch?”

  “I won’t be falling off again,” Valeria said firmly. She lowered a glare at Sabata. “Here, sir.”

  Sabata had had his fill of defiance for the day. He came to her hand and stood perfectly still for her to mount. That was not as graceful as usual—some of her bruises were in difficult places—but she managed.

  All the while she rode, the boy watched, rapt. He was not only full of the Call. He was full of magic. He had control over it—not like one of last year’s Called, whom she still remembered with pain. This one would not give way to temper and lash out with killing force.

  It was not the best ride she had ever had. She was stiff and sore, and Sabata was trying a little too hard. She finished on as good a note as she could, then with the boy trailing blissfully behind, took Sabata to his stable.

  Some of the stallions were in their stalls, sleeping or chewing drowsily on bits of hay. Most were out with their riders in various of the halls and riding courts, or enjoying an hour’s liberty in one of the paddocks. By that time Valeria had learned that the boy’s name was Lucius, that he came from a town not far from the Mountain, and that he was a journeyman of the order of Oneiromancers.

  He was helping Valeria take off Sabata’s saddle and bridle and brush out the stallion’s moon-colored coat. She paused as he told her what he was, staring at him over the broad pale back. “You’re a dream-mage? What are you doing here?”

  “I dreamed that I was Called,” he said.

  “Obviously,” said Valeria. “Mages have been Called from other orders before. But just Beastmasters, I thought, and the occasional Augur. I didn’t think—”

  “I didn’t, either,” he said, “but here I am. Like you. Is a woman supposed to be a rider?”

  “No,” said Valeria.

  “Well,” said Lucius, “there you are.”

  He seemed to think that her existence explained his. She did not see what that had to do with it, but she was disinclined just then to argue. She went on with what she had been doing, frowning slightly.

  When Sabata was clean and brushed and content with a manger full of hay, and the saddle and bridle were cleaned and put away, Valeria took the visibly reluctant Lucius to the rider-candidates’ dormitory.

  He was not the only one there after all. Two more had come in while he was basking in Sabata’s presence. They both wore the uniform of the legions, and they were older than Valeria would have thought a rider-candidate could be. One must have been well up in his twenties.

  First Rider Andres, who had taken charge of the rider-candidates in her year, as well, had them in hand. He raised a brow at Lucius’s escort, but he did not say anything in front of the candidates except, “Three on the first day. That’s a good number.”

  “Let’s hope it’s an omen,” Valeria said. The legionaries were staring at her as if they not only knew who and what she was, they were in awe of her.

  That was not comfortable. She could call it a strategic retreat, or she could regard it as a rout. Either way, she escaped those wide eyes and worshipful faces.

  Valeria came to bed late. There had been lessons in history and politics and various facets of the horse magic, and a session in the library that had run through dinner. Then she had gone with a handful of riders to raid the kitchens. By the time she left the last of them at his door, the hour was well on its way toward midnight.

  The lamp by the bed was lit, its flame trimmed low. The fire was banked in the hearth, but it shed just enough heat to take the edge off the chill.

  Kerrec was in bed and apparently asleep. All she could see of him was a heap of blankets.

  She dropped her clothes, shuddering as cold air touched her skin, and slid in beside him. His back was turned to her, his face to the wall. She pressed herself softly against him and kissed his nape where the black curls were clipped short.

  He lay perfectly still. Her hand ran down his side, tracing the familiar gaps and ridges of scars. They were all healed now, the deep pain gone, and some had begun to fade.

  She let her touch bring a little more healing, a little more warmth. He should have roused then and turned, but he never moved.

  She sighed inaudibly. She had been full of things to tell him, but he was obviously determined not to wake.

  Well, she thought, he worked hard these days—harder than she. He was the only First Rider left from the time before—that was what everyone called it now. Before the Great Dance that had ended with six riders dead and the empire’s fate so nearly turned toward destruction. It was only six months ago, just half a year, but it divided the world.

  He had been the youngest. Now he was the chief of the First Riders. The others were all new to their office, and none too ready for it, either. They were doing well enough now, all things considered, but it had been a bitter winter. The school still mourned its dead, and would mourn them for a long while yet.

  Much more than lives had been lost in that Dance. Strong magic and great art were gone, the province of masters who had devoted decades to the mastery of the stallion magic. Nothing but time could bring that back—if it could be brought back. Some of what was gone might never be recovered.

  Valeria laid her cheek on Kerrec’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She wanted to hold him tight, but she knew better than to try that. He had paid a high price to be here, alive and safe. The scars on his body were the least of it. His heart and soul had been taken apart and were still healing slowly. His magic…

  It was mending. He was strong. He worked harder than anyone and tested himself more sternly. He was thriving.

  She had to believe that. They had done no more than sleep in each other’s arms—or he in hers, if she was going to be exact—for weeks. Months? She did not remember, probably because she did not want to.

  She was still here. That was enough. He was first among the First. He could order her out and she would have to go, because she had sworn herself to a rider’s discipline, and obedience was part of it.

  He had done no such thing. He wanted her here, even if he did not want her the way he had in the autumn and through the early winter, night after night. The memory of those nights could still warm her.

  They would come back. He was tired, that was all.

  So was she. She should sleep. She had another long day tomorrow, and long days after that.

  A rider’s discipline could accomplish this as well as anything else. She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. After a while, she succeeded.

  Seven

  Kerrec lay motionless. Valeria was at last and mercifully asleep.

  Her dream brushed the edges of his awareness. It was a dim thing, tinged with unease, but the white power of the stallions surrounded it. They guarded her even in dreams.

  She could never know how much he wanted to turn and take her in his arms and kiss her until she was dizzy. But if he did that, he would have to open himself to her, and she would know.

  She could not know. No one could. They had to believe that he was whole. He had to be. He could not aff
ord to be broken.

  During the day he could hold himself together. Much of what he did required no magic, or could be done with what little he had. He could still ride—that much had not left him. He could teach others to ride, and through the movements see the patterns that shaped the world.

  The nights were another matter. He had to sleep, but in sleep were dreams.

  At first he had been able to keep them at bay, even change them. His stallion had helped him. As winter went on, the dreams had grown worse.

  Now he did not even need to sleep to hear that voice whispering and whispering, or to see the featureless mask of a Brother of Pain. Sometimes there was a stranger’s face behind it. More often there was one he knew all too well.

  He never dreamed, awake or asleep, of the body’s pain. That had been terrible enough when it happened, and the scars would be with him until he died, but it was not his body that the Brother of Pain had set out to break. He had been commanded to break Kerrec’s mind and destroy his soul.

  He had had to leave the task unfinished, but by then it was too far along to stop. What had been carried out of that place which Kerrec still could barely remember, had been the shattered remnants of a man.

  The shards had begun to mend themselves. Kerrec’s magic had grown again, slowly but surely. He had dared to hope that he would get his old self back.

  Then the healing had stopped and the edges of his spirit had begun to unravel. It was as if the Brother of Pain had reached out from the other side of the dream world and set his hooks in Kerrec’s soul again, even deeper than before.

  Every night now, the whisper was louder, echoing inside his skull. What use is a dead prince in a living world? What purpose is there in this magic that you pride yourself in? What is order, discipline, art and mastery, but empty show? The world is no better for it. Too often it is worse. Give it up. Let it go. Set yourself free.