Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  “And you will Unmake it?”

  Gothard’s eyes had gone as dark as the starstone. “If that grace is given me.”

  Euan shivered. Whether or not Gothard wanted the priest’s life, he had the priest’s spirit. However whole and even fair his body was, his soul was a twisted thing.

  Euan was glad to leave him to his stones and his dreams. Euan’s dreams were cleaner, and he lived his life in the sunlight. The dark was necessary and the Unmaking inevitable, but he did not court it.

  The kings of the five tribes were duly appreciative of their six fine cattle apiece—a proper number, if the Ard Ri had twice as many. The Calletani still had the victor’s share, and the horses, too, but that was not mentioned.

  Better yet for Euan’s dwindling patience, the glory of that raid incited other young men to try their hand at tormenting the imperials. The boldest did not stop at stealing cattle and robbing supply trains, which in any case were guarded to the hilt since Euan had shown them the error of their ways. They raided in force, and they raided well beyond the river, striking at towns and villages and despoiling fields and herds.

  There were skirmishes—more heated the longer the raids went on. Some could honestly be called battles.

  The emperor stayed in his fort at Tragante, warded by magics so strong they made Euan’s teeth ache even from across the river. His legions went out to deal with the raids, spreading themselves gratifyingly thin.

  But the Ard Ri did nothing about it. He stayed in his war camp half a day’s march from the river, just as the emperor stayed in his fort. As far as Euan could see, he debated minute points of clan law with his elders, celebrated rites of the One with his priests, and amused himself by wrestling with one or more of his burly and muscle-proud warriors. Actual war, or a battle that would settle it all, seemed the furthest thing from his mind.

  Half a month after Euan’s raid, envoys came from the emperor. Euan had been out burning corn and barley in fields farther down the river than anyone else had gone—there was a distinct advantage in having horses—but he came back shortly before the imperials arrived in camp. He was washing off the stink of horse and salving his blisters from the saddle when they rode in.

  There were two of them, with half a dozen mounted guards. One looked like an old soldier, with the scars to prove it. The other was a weathered-looking brown person in clothes too plain for a noble, who kept to the rear like a servant.

  The soldier was ordinary enough, all things considered. The brown man was rotten with magic.

  If that was not a spy, then Euan was an imperial noble. He cast about for Gothard, but there was no sign of him. Euan put himself in order as quickly as he could and strode off toward the council circle.

  As he had expected, the soldier-envoy was sparring in words with the high king and his elders. The brown man was his interpreter.

  Euan paid little attention to the words—they were being translated accurately, which somewhat surprised him, but there was nothing in them worth listening to. The emperor wanted surrender and withdrawal—the Ard Ri wanted the same. The emperor wanted the raids to stop. The Ard Ri pretended that he had never heard of such a thing. It was all a dance, as empty and pretty as one of the warriors’ dances around the fire of an evening.

  Euan watched the brown man. He seemed engrossed in translating orotund Aurelian phrases into serviceable Erisian, but there was a crackle and reek of magic all around him.

  The high king’s priests might have done something about it, but they seemed unaware of the spy under their noses. Euan leaned toward Strahan who had followed him to the council circle. “Find Gothard,” he said under his breath. “Do it quickly.”

  Strahan raised his brows but did as he was told. Euan worked his way up nearer to the embassy, though so much magic so close made him want to sneeze.

  The kings of the Prytani and the Galliceni made room for him. He smiled and bent his head to them. They did the same in return. And that was right and proper among kings.

  Gothard did not appear, nor did Strahan come back. Euan was trapped among the other kings, listening to words that meant nothing and watching a mage against whom he could do nothing.

  There was no easy escape and no one else he could send to find Gothard if Strahan had not managed it. All Euan could do was keep the brown man in sight and try not to look as impatient as he felt.

  If this dance went on, there would be gifts and dinner and a celebration in the envoys’ honor. Euan steeled himself to endure it.

  But the Ard Ri surprised him. It did not matter particularly at which step in the dance they were. He rose, looming over the imperials, and roared, “Enough!”

  The brown man stopped speaking. The soldier snapped to attention. His guards’ hands clapped to their belts, where the scabbards were empty—reminding them that their weapons were in barbarian hands. For safekeeping, of course.

  The Ard Ri glared down from his considerable height. “I’ve heard enough,” he said. “Whatever you came here for, it wasn’t to treat for anything we would want or care to take. I’ll give you bread because honor calls for it, but then you’ll be on your way. You can tell your emperor we don’t traffic in empty words here. When we speak, our words are to the point.”

  “And that point is?” the brown man inquired—not even pretending to speak for the other.

  “War,” said the Ard Ri. “Our raiding parties are doing a great deal of damage. They’ll only get worse the longer they go on. Give us these lands and a presence in your court and we’ll consider settling for that—for this year. Otherwise, we’ll take them, with everything else that we can get our hands on.”

  “I thank you for your honesty,” the brown man said. “Of course we’ll give you nothing that is ours. You can try to take it. If you do, we will destroy you.”

  The high king laughed, booming over the crowd that had gathered. “Oh, no! Destruction is our province. Now take your bread and go. You have safe-conduct to the river—but after that, I can promise nothing.”

  The envoys retreated rapidly, ducking the hard loaves that were flung at their heads. Euan hoped they understood how lucky they were. They could have lost those heads.

  He caught himself indulging in a fit of grudging respect for the Ard Ri. The man was not nearly such a fool as he seemed.

  He still had not seen the brown man for what he was. No one had. Maybe Euan was seeing things—or smelling them.

  His gut knew better. As soon as he could, which was not nearly as soon as he would have liked, he escaped.

  The only place Euan could get a moment to himself was in his tent—and his warband came and went there almost as freely as he did. He uncovered the seeing-stone hastily, focused as best he could, and ordered it to show him Gothard.

  It showed him nothing—blankness, without even a sheen of lamplight on the polished stone. Either the stone had failed or Gothard was invisible to it.

  As a test, and for curiosity, he thought of the brown man. And there he was, riding down the mountain track from the camp. His fellow envoy looked ruffled and furious, but he was smiling. There was a net of magic on him, so dense and so varied that he looked as if he were wrapped in a mantle of silver and crystal.

  He had got what he came for. What it was, Euan could not imagine. He hoped to hell that Gothard could.

  Twenty

  Euan’s hunt for his uncomfortable ally stopped short at the tent’s flap, where people were already crowding to demand the king’s attention. There were disputes to settle, rations to allot, the loot from the latest raids to dispense, and conversations that he could not avoid, with people who simply wanted the king to talk to them. He had to indulge them, because a king’s power rested in the loyalty of his followers—and followers stayed loyal only if the king appeared to value them. If he brushed them off, they would remember. Eventually they would wonder if the tribe would be better off with a different king.

  The day was well along and the day’s meal over before he could escape. I
n the long golden twilight, Euan shed his weight of kingly gold and put on plain and tattered breeks and a much-worn plaid. Then, as just one more rangy redheaded Calletani fighting man, he set about scouring the camp for its lone and renegade stone mage.

  He did not entertain the notion that Gothard had made a run for it. He was somewhere in the high king’s war camp—out of sight of Euan’s stone, but Euan could feel him. It was like a splinter under a fingernail, a constant, nagging discomfort.

  For lack of greater inspiration, Euan tracked that sense of jabbing annoyance. He followed it through half the camp, then back again almost to where he had started.

  The priests of the Calletani had their own circle of tents and rough-built huts, set apart near a dark grove of spruce and pine. The rest of the camp spread out over a long level below a steep wooded hill, but this part of it clung to the first sharp ascent. There were no guards there and no visible protections, but even the camp dogs stayed away.

  Euan would have much preferred to do the same, but Gothard was up there—in the highest and least accessible hut, of course. It was older than anything else in this camp, and must have been a herdsman’s hut or a hunter’s blind in its day. Now it had a pair of priests sitting in front of it like figures carved in bone.

  One was blind and the other had a withered arm. The blind one said, “You took your time.”

  “When it comes to Gothard, I usually do.” Euan held his breath as he strode past them. He still caught a whiff of their inimitable stink, but not quite enough to gag him.

  The inside of the hut, surprisingly, was no more malodorous than it should be. It smelled of age and damp earth and well-worn wool. There were no furnishings apart from a battered bench and a low table. There was a loaf of bread on the table, untouched, and a jar of imperial wine with the seal intact. A lamp burned beside them, casting a dim light through the hut.

  Gothard crouched in the corner farthest from the door. His arms were over his head. He was shuddering as if with cold, though the night was breathlessly warm.

  Euan was not fool enough to touch him. He squatted just out of reach and said quietly, “Gothard.”

  It took several repetitions before Gothard’s arms lowered. His face was greenish white. “I’m not ready,” he said.

  The words were clear, at least. Euan supposed they meant something.

  “I’ve been playing,” said Gothard, “with the stone. Learning its ways. Discovering its powers. Trying a working or two. The Mountain is stone, you know. Its roots go down to the source of magic. Its crown touches heaven. A starstone, the Mountain, a broken rider…it’s as easy as flying for a bird. Which made me think I knew more than I did.”

  Still Euan waited. Talk of magic always made his skin crawl. What he gleaned from this was little enough, though it seemed Gothard had been torturing his brother again—using the stone this time instead of a Brother of Pain.

  That was hardly surprising. Gothard’s hatred of his elder brother was equaled only by his hatred of their father. “What happened?” Euan asked. “Is he fighting back?”

  “Gods, no,” Gothard said. He seemed astonished that anyone could think such a thing. “He’s dancing sweetly to my tune. You’ll see what comes of that. You’ll like it.”

  “Will I?”

  Gothard squinted at him. “You’re really here.”

  “What,” said Euan, “you thought you were imagining me?”

  “I couldn’t tell,” Gothard said. “I have to be careful. That’s the trouble with magic. If you don’t control it, it controls you. This kind of magic—magic that Unmakes—is worst of all. That’s why your priests ban it for anyone but themselves, and raise your clansmen to fear and hate it. They worship the Unmaking. Their god is the Unmade.”

  Euan did not want to hear of magic and priests together. He cut it off. “What have you done? Have you put the rest of us in danger?”

  “You’re already in danger. You’re waging a war.”

  “Answer the question,” Euan said.

  Gothard’s glance was pure poison. No wonder he wanted to be emperor, Euan thought. It drove him mad to be told what to do.

  Little did he know. Kings and emperors were more truly slaves to obedience than any of their subjects.

  He did, eventually, answer the question. Nastily, snappishly, but concisely and, for once, to the point. “I tried to touch the heart of the stone. That’s where its strongest magic lies. That’s also where it’s most strongly bound to the Unmaking. I wasn’t ready.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing,” Gothard said, a little too quickly.

  “There is something,” Euan said, cursing the very existence of mages, and especially this one.

  “That man,” said Gothard. “The one who came with the embassy. The brown man. His name is Pretorius. Master Pretorius. He’s a master of several magics.”

  Euan clamped his hands between his knees to keep from throttling this bloody fool. “What did you do? Did you betray us? What did you sell us for?”

  “I did not turn traitor,” Gothard said through clenched teeth. “There is something you don’t understand. No one is a master of more than one magic—except Pretorius. He’s a freak of nature. When he came, I was in the stone. I—or it—wanted to taste his power. Which I could have done, and easily, if I had been ready. And now he knows there is a mage among the people.”

  “How bad is that?” Euan demanded. “Does he know it’s you?”

  “Probably,” said Gothard. “It’s the logical conclusion. Although—” he brightened slightly “—as far as any of them knows, I’m broken and all but powerless. I’m hardly a threat to them.”

  “You may not be,” Euan said, “but the starstone is.”

  “He doesn’t know about that,” Gothard said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I got out before he could have sensed it,” Gothard said.

  “And that’s why you’re cowering in a corner, gibbering and crying?”

  “I was not—” Gothard broke off. “My head aches like fury. I almost lost myself. What’s down there—what’s at the heart of the stone—you may worship it and want to become it. I want to use it. But I’m not ready.”

  “When will you be?”

  “I don’t know,” Gothard said, biting off the words.

  “Let’s hope it’s soon. You’re lucky the Ard Ri isn’t a man of action. Anyone else would have led us into battle long ago.”

  “You might have won,” Gothard pointed out.

  “I want to win resoundingly,” Euan said. “No emperor left to challenge either of us. No army to stand in our way. A clear path to the heart of Aurelia.”

  Gothard eyed him in grudging respect. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “I’ll take what I can get—but the more I can get, the better.”

  Slowly Gothard unfolded. “You’re as bracing as a slap in the face.”

  “As long as it works,” Euan said. “Are you sure this master mage didn’t detect the stone?”

  “Nothing is certain in this world.”

  “He was spying, wasn’t he? Was he looking for you?”

  “He may have been,” Gothard said. “If the emperor’s mages have caught wind of the stone, they’d have sent him to see what’s here.”

  “He looked satisfied when he left,” said Euan. “Whatever he found, it seems he’d been looking for it.”

  “He didn’t find the stone,” Gothard said. “I would know.”

  “Then you had better discover what he did find.”

  “Maybe all he found was that the high king has no intention of offering a real battle.”

  The expression Euan had seen in the seeing-stone had not been that kind of satisfaction, but then as he never failed to insist, he was not a mage. What did he know of what mages wanted when they went spying in the enemy’s camp?

  “Find out what he was looking for,” Euan said, not caring how peremptory he sounded. “And eat something. You’re starting to
look as bad as the priests.”

  He left Gothard to obey or not, whatever he chose. Euan needed a short night’s sleep. Then, he thought, he would gather as many of the people as would go, and see what the legions would do if they raided in waves farther up the river than any of them had gone before. Enough of that, for long enough, and the emperor would have to come out of his hole—and so would the Ard Ri.

  Twenty-One

  If Kerrec sank any deeper into self-loathing, he would slit his own throat. And yet, in spite of everything, he did not want to die. He had not wanted that even when he was being taken apart down to the core of his magic.

  Maybe that was cowardice. He found it difficult to care.

  And now he was riding out of the school in the grey light before sunrise, creeping away like one of the Called who had failed his testing. There had been no farewells, not from any of the riders and not from Valeria.

  That hurt more than he had thought it would. He might have eluded the riders to spare pain on both sides, but Valeria was there to see Briana off. She acted as if Kerrec did not exist.

  He could hardly blame her. He had treated her abominably, then left her to salvage the disaster he had made of the Dance. She had done it with poise and grace that woke him to awe—and he had said not one word of thanks.

  He said nothing now, either, as he mounted Petra and Briana settled in the bay Lady’s saddle. There was nothing to say. He was too broken a thing for Valeria. Now she knew it, and her disgust was palpable.

  Briana and Valeria exchanged one last embrace. The Lady pawed impatiently. Valeria drew back. The guards took their places around their lady and her brother and her retinue of maids and clerks. The small pack train was ready, and the gate was open.

  Kerrec did not look back, no matter how strong the temptation. He might never see this place again, that was true, but it was shrouded in mist and the Mountain was hidden. There was nothing to see.

  It was a familiar road he traveled, through country empty of towns or villages, on bridges across deep gorges and through forests of trees so tall they seemed to touch the sky. Maybe he was deluding himself, but the farther he rode from the Mountain, the less shattered he felt.