Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  “Magic is like that,” Briana said. “It never lets you rest.”

  “Even you?”

  “My magic is the empire.”

  Briana said it simply, but it meant more than Valeria could easily grasp. Briana tucked up her feet and curled in the big carved chair, watching the dance of the flames. If Valeria opened her eyes just so, she could the patterns there. She wondered if Briana could.

  Briana had been Called. That was not the name she gave it, but it was the truth. It was a different Call than Valeria’s or Kerrec’s. The empire was in it somehow.

  One of the logs in the fire collapsed on itself, sending up a shower of sparks. The patterns broke and fell into confusion. Valeria’s sigh turned into a yawn.

  She did not get up and go to bed just yet. “You’re resting here,” she said.

  Briana smiled. “Better than I ever have. I could love this life. This place—these people. The stallions. To ride Petra, it was…” She trailed off.

  “But you can’t stay,” Valeria said, “can you?”

  Briana shook her head. She did not seem terribly sad, but her smile had died. “The Call takes you away from whatever order of magic you might have been sworn to before. The empire takes me away from everything. I was born for it. I belong to it.”

  “Your brother—” Valeria began.

  “My brother was born for the Mountain,” Briana said. “Even when he was a child, he’d run away from his duties to be with the horses. I ran away from lessons to hide behind my father’s chair and listen to councils.”

  “Even lessons with horses?”

  Briana’s lips twitched. “Well. Not those. But everything else. I’d bring one of my books sometimes and do my lessons during the dull parts.”

  That made Valeria laugh. “Your father knew, didn’t he?”

  “Of course he knew,” said Briana with the flash of a grin. “He never said a word—except years later, when he named me his heir. Then he said, ‘You’ve studied for this all your life. Now be what you knew you would be.’” She went somber suddenly. “I didn’t know. Not that my brother would be Called and the office would come to me. But the gods knew.”

  “The gods make me tired,” Valeria said, yawning hugely. “Here, you take the bed. I’ll take the cot in the—”

  “Nonsense,” Briana said, and would not hear of taking the larger bed even when Valeria pointed out that she had slept on the servant’s cot for most of last year. “Then I’ll be perfectly comfortable in it. Go on, you’re out on your feet.”

  Valeria gave way. She was too tired to fight over it. Briana went off yawning, radiating a quiet happiness that made Valeria smile in spite of herself.

  The bed was too large without Kerrec in it. Valeria lay on his side, hugging the pillow to herself and breathing deep.

  It smelled of herbs and sunlight. She groaned. The servants had been there while Valeria was out, changing the sheets. There was not even his scent to wrap around her and help her sleep.

  She did not want to dream of someone else tonight. She wanted Kerrec.

  She had a wild thought of finding him in the First Riders’ hall. But she knew better than to try that. The riders scrupulously ignored certain facts of Valeria’s existence, one of which was that she did not sleep in the servant’s room in Kerrec’s quarters. There were no laws against it, since there had never been a woman rider, but there were proprieties—and those took a dim view of what the two of them were to each other.

  Mostly she did not care. Now, in the middle of the candidates’ testing, she found she did. The testing was more important than her comfort.

  If she wanted to be honest, tonight was no lonelier than the past few months of nights had been. It was colder without his warmth beside her, but his heart and mind had been elsewhere for longer than she had wanted to accept.

  Twelve

  The first two days of testing went on apart from the rest of the school. Valeria realized as the first day began that she was knotted tight.

  There was no eruption of magic from the quarter of the citadel where the testing was being done. No word came of any candidate hurt or killed. The disaster of her year, when three of her group of eight died—one by magic, two put to death for causing it—had not happened again. As far as she could tell, the testing was going on without trouble.

  It was maddening not to know what they were doing behind those walls. No one was supposed to know but the candidates and the riders who tested them. It was a mystery.

  It was building up to something. What it was kept eluding Valeria, slipping into the core of her, hiding behind the Unmaking.

  Sometimes she almost had it. Then it slithered away. It made her think of blind wriggling worms and flyblown corpses.

  She almost would rather have the Unmaking than that. There was no one she could tell, because if she told, then she would have to confess the rest of it. Even Kerrec could not know what was inside her. No one could know.

  All she could do was watch and wait and be ready for whatever came.

  The last day of the testing, the one day that was open to the world, dawned clear and bright. “It’s never rained on a testing day,” Iliya said at breakfast. “Not in a thousand years.”

  “Legend and exaggeration,” Paulus said with his customary sourness.

  Iliya mimed outrage. “You doubt the gods?”

  Paulus snarled into his porridge. Iliya grinned and declared victory.

  Their banter was familiar and somehow poignant. Valeria ate distractedly. She could feel the power rising under her, the Mountain preparing to complete what it had begun. That other thing, the thing she could not speak of, had gone quiet—which did not reassure her at all.

  The testing ground was crowded already when Valeria came to it. Long rows of benches were set up along the sides of the arena, adding to the tiers of stone seats that had been built into the walls. The riders’ tiers still had room and there were chairs left in the nobles’ box, but people were standing everywhere else.

  Briana could have claimed a cushioned chair in the nobles’ box high above the eastward end, but she settled between Valeria and Batu on the lowest tier of the north side, with her feet brushing the edge of the raked sand.

  Valeria took a deep breath. Countless patterns were coming together here. All the candidates, their families, the riders, the people who lived in the citadel and served the Schools of Peace and War, the stallions in whose name it all existed, the Ladies who were greater than gods, were part of this.

  Every year for a thousand years, that had been true. It was truer this year, because there were so many Called. Some of the riders looked as if their heads ached. The stronger they were, the more they must be able to see.

  Kerrec was not there yet. He was in charge of the candidates, along with the rest of the First and Second Riders. They would watch from the sidelines, making sure those who failed were taken care of and those who succeeded knew what to do.

  The testing was devastatingly simple. For this many candidates, three eights of stallions entered in procession, saddled and bridled but unburdened by riders. The candidates came in three eights at a time.

  Each candidate chose a stallion, which was a test in itself, then did his best to mount and ride. If he got as far as that, the nature of the ride itself was a test and a reckoning. The worst simply sat there, with the stallion motionless under them. The best were offered a few of the movements that, with training, would evolve into the Dance of Time.

  It was a long testing—so long that they paused twice for water and refreshment. The stallions were merciless in their winnowing. By midday, twenty candidates had managed to ride their chosen stallions through some fraction of the movements. Three times that number had failed.

  Many of those who passed were older, and nearly all were mages of other orders. The rest failed in various ways—failed to choose, failed to mount, failed to understand that to ride one of the white gods, there had to be complete humility. No man could master a g
od, but he could become that god’s partner in the Dance.

  Some of them left on stretchers. Others limped or walked away, but were not followed or rebuked. The Call itself was a great honor. Failure was no dishonor.

  It was painful for Valeria to watch them. She could not look at Kerrec at all or let herself be aware of him. Her skin felt raw and her throat was aching. Her heart kept trying to pound its way out of her chest.

  She clung for support to the stallions’ calm. They knew exactly what they were doing.

  As noon passed and the sun tilted toward the west, ten more received the gods’ approval. The eleventh made Valeria sit up. It was the boy who had found her the day she went off Sabata. Lucius, that was his name. He looked rather small and very young, but Petra chose him and carried him well, dancing for him as the stallions had danced for few others.

  The more elaborate the dance, the stronger the power. Valeria knew that. The stallion who had carried her in her testing had been a Great One like Petra and Sabata. He had danced for her a part of the Great Dance.

  Lucius did not get that, but what he got was enough for a murmur of delight and a long ripple of applause. He slid to the ground and staggered, a feeling Valeria remembered well. His grin spread from ear to ear.

  He was the last. Valeria remembered, too, when she was last, how the crowd had erupted, and how the riders had overwhelmed everyone who passed the test, laughing and shouting.

  Today they seemed stunned by the length of it. All thirty-one new rider-candidates hung about in the arena, blinking and wondering what to do next. The stallions stood in a double line like a guard of honor, but they were not guarding the candidates.

  They were waiting for something. Valeria could feel it coming. It was like a storm rising, but the air was clear and the sky cloudless blue. The white cone of the Mountain rose serenely above the eastward wall.

  She lowered her eyes from it to the gate through which the stallions had entered, long hours ago. There was a horse standing in it.

  It was not one of the stallions. They were all greys—shades of white or silver or dapple or grey. This was a sturdy, cobby creature like them, saddled and bridled as they were, but its color was rich deep red, its mane and tail and legs to the knee glossy black.

  A distant part of Valeria named the color. Bay. There was a star on the broad forehead between the dark intelligent eyes.

  Valeria rose and bowed low, all the way to the sand.

  The bay Lady walked slowly into the arena. The sand was pocked with hoofprints. Her big black hooves dug deeper and yet danced lighter than any of the stallions’. She was lighter in the leg and slimmer in the neck, as a mare should be, but her quarters were deep and broad and she moved with soft power.

  There was not a sound in that whole place. All patterns had gathered to her. Every eye was on her.

  She knew it, but unlike the stallions, she did not care. Mortal foolishness was not her concern—and to her mind, awe was foolish. So was the thought that rang in the ether, that nothing like this had happened in all the years of the testing. The Ladies never came down from the Mountain. They never troubled themselves with these mortal games.

  This Lady had troubled herself with parts of Valeria’s testing. Now it seemed she had another testing to perform. The candidates were all standing, staring, not knowing what to do.

  The riders who watched over them were in no better state. Valeria saw Kerrec near the end of the line, doing and saying nothing. His face wore no expression.

  She wondered if she should move, once she had straightened from her deep bow. But the Lady’s glance told her to be still.

  She bent her head. The gods were incalculable. That was a commonplace of priestly doctrine—and rider doctrine, too.

  The Lady came straight toward her, then veered slightly to stand in front of Briana.

  Briana had been silent through the whole testing, watching as they all did, the good and the bad. She looked up when the Lady stopped. Her face was blank but her eyes were wide and bright.

  She could refuse. She was given that gift.

  She stepped onto the sand. The Lady turned as each stallion had done in the choosing, inviting a candidate to mount.

  Briana hesitated. For an instant Valeria thought she would refuse after all. But then she took the reins in her hand and caught a hank of black mane just at the withers and set her foot in the stirrup. She mounted gracefully—of course she would. She had been riding since before she could walk.

  The stallions had danced. The Lady Danced. It was a dance of cadence and of modulated paces, step by step and movement by movement. It carried Briana through the curves and swooping lines of one of the great patterns, the pattern that foretold a certainty.

  What that certainty was, the Lady did not say. There were no Augurs there to interpret it. No one had expected the testing of the Called to turn into a Great Dance.

  Valeria felt the pattern in the streams of magic that ran through her body. She knew better than to try to impose understanding on it. That would come when it was ready.

  The last movement of the Dance, the exuberant coda after the singing power of the trot in place, was a leap higher than a man’s head, body level with the earth she had scorned, and a sudden, flashing kick that made the air gasp. If any man had stood there, his skull would have burst.

  Valeria knew that for a clear and terrible truth. She had seen it happen.

  There was nothing but air today. This was pure delight, the joy of a god in the living flesh. Briana laughed, a whoop of joy.

  The Lady came back to earth again, dancing into stillness, snorting lightly. That was laughter, too. She had changed the world in ways that no mortal was prepared to understand. Her mirth rippled through Valeria’s blood and bones.

  It was like a draft of strong wine. Valeria reeled, but she was grinning.

  On the Lady’s back, Briana was grinning, too. No one else was. All the men were blank, stunned. None of them understood. It was beyond them.

  Briana dismounted as the candidates had, dizzily, clinging for steadiness to the Lady’s neck. The Lady did not seem to mind. Her nostrils fluttered. She was whickering as a mare does to her foal.

  The sound was so tender and yet so imperious that Valeria found her eyes stinging with tears. It was meant for her, too, in its way—and for all of them, whether or not they could understand.

  Thirteen

  The uproar this year was less pronounced than it had been when Valeria, having become champion of the testing, was unmasked as a woman.

  Briana had never pretended to be anything but what she was. What exactly that was at the moment, no one knew, but Master Nikos decreed that the matter would be decided tomorrow. Today the Called would celebrate their elevation to rider-candidates. There would be no further distractions.

  Master Nikos had learned a great deal in the past year. They all had.

  Valeria had spent her own feast of celebration in Kerrec’s study, cleaning and tidying. She had every intention of doing the same again, but Briana insisted that they both go. “I would really rather be in the stable,” she said as they shared a bath and put on festival clothes, “but this is duty. The stable—and the Lady—will be there in the morning.”

  “You believe that?” Valeria asked.

  Briana nodded. “She promised.”

  “Then it is true,” Valeria said.

  “All of it,” said Briana. She was standing perfectly straight, not moving except to speak. Her maids had come down from the tower to dress her properly, which looked like a great ordeal.

  No doubt she was used to it. Valeria, quickly and comfortably dressed in the grey coat and doeskin breeches of a rider-candidate, perched on a stool and watched. It was fascinating, the transformation of a stablehand into an imperial princess.

  Briana’s gown was very simple compared to some Valeria had seen in the emperor’s court, but it was made of silk that shimmered now gold, now scarlet. She wore a collar of gold set with bloodred st
ones, and a net of gold and rubies confined the coiled mass of her hair.

  Valeria sighed faintly. She never had cared for clothes and pretty things the way her sisters did, but there was something about silk.

  Her fingers smoothed the wool of her coat. She had earned it with blood and tears. She would never trade it for anything. But she could be tempted—almost—by that beautiful gown.

  Briana was still Briana, even in imperial splendor. She refused to mince down the corridors and across the courtyards like a court lady. She strode out with a swish and swirl of skirts, which would probably have given her maids the vapors.

  It made for a grand entrance. The dining hall was full, but the diners’ cheer seemed rather subdued. Briana’s arrival changed that. They all stood up without prompting and applauded as she made her way to the front of the room.

  The high platform had a long table set up on it, with all the new riders sitting there. The nobles were seated just below and to the right of the head table—across from the riders, whose table ran along the wall to the left. Briana would have gone to the nobles’ table, but the rider-candidates came down in a mob and carried her up to join them.

  They carried Valeria, too, over her vigorous protests. She could not stop them. There were too many and too determined.

  When they set her on the platform, she finally got the words out. “I don’t belong here! This isn’t my year.”

  “You were cheated of it last year,” Lucius said. He was the ringleader and proud of it. “We’re giving it to you now.”

  One of the others pressed a cup into her hands. It looked and felt very old, a broad shallow chalice of silver engraved with intertwining figures of men on horses. The same image was carved on the arch of the great gate of the citadel. She wondered, rather distantly, which of them had come first.

  There was wine in the cup. “Drink!” the rider-candidates said in chorus. “Drink! Drink! Drink!”

  She looked down from the high table at the riders below. None of them had moved to stop this. Kerrec was not even looking at her. His head was bent and his hands wrapped around a cup, as if something fascinating swam inside it.