She slid a glance at him. “You really aren’t pathetic, you know. Even when you try, you only manage to look constipated.”
She was baiting him. He showed her his teeth and said, “What did you think I was going to do? I have no talent for idling. I’m not particularly decorative.”
“The female half of the world might disagree with that,” she said. “I thought you might rest. And read. And consult with mages and find ways to heal yourself. If you want to do that in Riders’ Hall, I’ll arrange it.”
“I would like to attend councils,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
Of course she would ask that. Fortunately he had an answer ready. “Patterns are my gift,” he said. “The interplay of factions, the strategies of princes, may help restore it.”
She thought about that. He held his breath—because if she asked too many questions, she might discover what he was really up to. Then she nodded. “We can use you, that’s true. But I want you to promise me something.”
He raised a brow.
“Promise you won’t overstretch yourself. You’re here to heal, not make yourself worse.”
“I want to heal,” he said, and that was the honest truth. “I want to be whole.”
“You will be,” said Briana.
He did not want to think, tonight, that they both might be wishing for the impossible. Every day he fought for a little more strength, a little more wholeness. And every day, he gained—but never as much as he wanted or needed. To be himself again, to have all his arts and powers back—he dreamed of it, night after night, when he was not dreaming of the man who had destroyed him.
Gothard. Now more than ever, his brother’s name made his stomach knot and his heart beat faster. Gothard had wanted him dead—but not easily and, by all the gods, not quickly.
Kerrec wanted Gothard…what? Dead? Not necessarily. Destroyed would do. Shattered as Kerrec had been, with his magic all in shards.
It was not mere revenge, he told himself. This was a worse threat to the empire than any barbarian horde. In dreams while he slept or in campfires along the road, he had seen over and over again what Gothard would do if he was not stopped. Kerrec supposed he was obsessed—but if that obsession kept the empire from being Unmade, then he would continue to indulge it.
Riders’ Hall was a fortress on the outside, grey and forbidding, but the inside was surprisingly pleasant. There were two riding courts with perfectly raked sand from the harbor, a stable between them with large and airy stalls, a hall painted and carved in the ornate fashion of three hundred years ago, and suites of rooms in different styles from soldier-simple to royally elaborate.
Briana had sent a full staff of servants, including a stableman. Half a dozen of her own horses were in the stable, to keep Petra and the Lady company. Everything that Kerrec might need was there or could be had for the asking.
He had grown out of such luxury. He chose the simplest suite with the narrowest and hardest bed, and considered sending the servants back to his sister—but there was something to be said for a clean and well-run hall. For now, he let them be.
The servants knew who he was. They were much too well trained to make a fuss, but they bowed a little lower and were a little more attentive than they might have been for a First Rider who had not been born an imperial heir.
Briana left him with them. She had an empire waiting.
He felt oddly empty without her. She had been so close for so many days, and now he was alone.
That was a weakness. He thought seriously about shutting himself in his rooms, with the servants on the other side of the door. But that was a kind of weakness, too. He had to put all of that aside.
He went to the stable instead. Briana had sent mares—none of them in foal. They were all, he happened to notice, nicely matched to Petra, if the stallion had been inclined to act on it.
They were also of good age and more than adequate training. “Our lady trained them herself,” the stableman said.
His name was Quintus. Something about him made Kerrec think he had been Called but had failed the testing. It was the way he moved around the horses, and the way he paid homage to the Great Ones without making a show of it.
If he had failed, it had not left him bitter. It seemed he was one of those for whom it was enough to have been Called. No matter what became of them, they had that.
Kerrec felt himself begin to relax. Here was one of his own kind, even if the stallions had sent him away. Kerrec would not have thought it could matter so much. Riders, it seemed, were herd animals—much as their stallions were.
There were horses to feed and stalls to clean. Quintus was not too terribly appalled when Kerrec fetched a pitchfork and went to work.
Here was healing. Here was rest, better than sleep. When every stall was spotless, every horse eating sweet hay and drinking clean water, Kerrec sent Quintus to bed. “I’ll stay awhile,” he said.
Quintus hesitated, but after a moment he shrugged and did as he was told.
Kerrec slipped into Petra’s stall. The stallion was deep in earthly contentment. Kerrec sat in the clean straw, leaning against the wall, and watched Petra eat.
He closed his eyes for just a moment. When he opened them, the stable was dark but for the soft moonlight glow that always came off the stallions. Petra was down, curled like a foal, sound asleep.
Kerrec slid over toward him and lay with his back to that large and breathing warmth. Deep inside him, something that had been clenched tight was beginning to unfold. It was like a flower—or a spell of healing waking again from too long a sleep.
In the morning Kerrec woke in a circle of strangers. He was lying on the bed in his room, not in Petra’s stall. He had no memory of moving from one to the other.
The strangers were both men and women. They were all wearing robes or uniforms or badges of magical orders—no two alike, and none below the rank of master.
Some he recognized. Others he knew by reputation. They were all studying him as if he had been one of the Augurs’ prodigies. A two-headed calf, maybe, or a fly with a man’s head.
“It’s masterful work,” said the Master Healer. The old man Kerrec remembered was dead. This was a much younger woman with a much less soothing presence. She reminded him of Valeria—a bracing tonic rather than a honeyed syrup. She frowned not at Kerrec but through him. “Each of the larger patterns is cracked at the base. All the rest have crumbled in response. Really, it’s beautifully done.”
“If you see beauty in destruction,” the Chief Augur said. Him, Kerrec had known since childhood. He was taller and thinner and greyer than ever. “Look below the patterns. Something else is there, something that mends from the roots.”
“Ingenious,” said the chief of the Wisewomen. “Inspired. To use so simple a working in so very effective a way—that’s mastery. Where is the mage who did it? Why are we here, if he’s been so well looked after already?”
“Because it wasn’t enough,” Kerrec said.
No one seemed startled that the object of their fascination could speak. “It should have been,” the Wisewoman said. “The Mountain’s interference blocked it, but now that’s been removed, it should be free to work again. There’s nothing else that needs to be done, apart from rest and time and maybe—” she rapped him lightly on the forehead “—a little acceptance.”
“So?” said Kerrec. “I should just submit?”
“It’s better to bend than to break,” the Healer said. “You should learn to bend. You’ll be stronger for it.”
“I am already broken,” Kerrec said—stiffly, yes.
“Don’t wallow in it,” she said.
He was cursed with acid-tongued women. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the Chief Augur said, “There is healing that can be done, and workings to soothe the soul. Surely, Master Healer, you can see to that?”
“He has to heal himself,” the Healer said, but added rather grudgingly, “although there are ways to make it less difficul
t—if he will accept them.”
“He will,” said the Chief Augur.
That was high-handed of him. Kerrec held his tongue. He had had enough of all these mages. If he kept quiet and provoked them no further, maybe they would go away.
It took rather longer than his patience would have liked, but in the end they let him be. He lay for a while, counting the familiar fragments of himself and marking those that were no longer quite so fragmentary.
The deepest part of him, the part that held his plans and visions, was safe. None of the mages had touched it. Once he was sure of that, he allowed himself a moment’s profound and shuddering relief before he rose to face the day.
Breakfast, a blessed hour with Petra, a regency council. People had been warned. Not too many were shocked to see the late prince sitting across the table from the princess regent. A few even seemed to find it gratifying, or at least fitting.
Kerrec paid little attention to the words they spoke. He listened to the rhythm of their voices and watched their faces, following the patterns of alliance and hostility. Those were complicated, but if he sat quiet and relaxed almost into a doze, they took shape as easily as the exercises he had ridden with Petra that morning.
He was almost sorry when the council ended. What could have been an exercise in tedium and frustration had turned out to be rather a pleasure. He had learned nothing specific, but he was fairly certain that none of them knew what Gothard was up to or even where he was. The conspiracies that surrounded them had no stink of him, though more than one was caught in a net of barbarian alliances.
Kerrec took his time standing up while the others dispersed. He was still deep enough in the patterns to see who left with whom—and who did not want to be seen leaving together, but their patterns converged once they were out of sight.
He was the last person left in the room, except Briana. She was watching him, waiting for something. An explosion? A collapse?
“Watch Cornelius and Maelgon,” he said. “They’re up to something. I caught a whiff of old graves—like the barbarian priests.”
Briana raised her brows. “So. You weren’t asleep.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “You can trust Gallio, and the Chief Augur is loyal. The rest will shift where the wind blows. At least one and probably more of them has ties with the tribes.”
“Can you tell which?”
“No,” he said, “but by tomorrow, probably yes.”
“And you were afraid you wouldn’t be useful,” she said. “How did you do it?”
“I wasn’t doing anything,” he said. “I was just listening.”
“Just listening.” She shook her head. “Is this something a rider learns as soon as he passes the testing?”
“Not quite so soon,” he said. “It’s not a rider-candidate’s skill, but it’s simple enough. Any Third Rider can do it.”
She took her time answering that. “Do you know,” she said, “no one ever really thinks about what riders do. You ride—everyone knows that. And there’s the Dance. But there’s so much more to it. Have you ever thought that it’s a waste to keep so much art and so much magic locked up on the Mountain?”
“It’s all focused on the Dance,” he said.
“Yes, but should it be? What you did today goes beyond magic. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“You do it yourself,” he said. “It’s just patterns. Everything has a pattern—a shape in space and time. We’re trained to see it, that’s all. Eventually we learn to control it.”
“You see?” she said. “That’s what I mean. You can see things in a way no one else can. As you heal, you’ll be able to do more than that. And you’re not the only one. There’s a whole school full of mages like you.”
“The gods are on the Mountain,” he said. “That’s the heart of our power. Some of us can leave, yes, but if too many of us go, our powers might be dissipated or our training corrupted. Then we’ll be no better than that mountebank Olivet.”
“The gods don’t want you to stay as you’ve always been,” she said. “Maybe this is part of what you’re meant to do.”
More protests came flooding, but he let them go unspoken. He was thinking like one of the riders he had always despised, looking backward instead of forward. He needed to see what Briana saw. She was a rider, too, as no rider had ever been, chosen by one of the Ladies.
It was hard. It made his head ache. Better if he chose not to think. Just as he taught his young riders—Don’t think. Be.
He did not remember if he said anything more to Briana. There was too much on his mind. He left the council chamber, walking for the sake of walking, up stairs and down corridors and across courtyards and through glittering halls.
He was not thinking. He was letting the patterns flow over him.
A white wall rose up in front of him. Petra blew warm breath in his face. He grasped mane and swung astride.
People gaped at the sight of a rider on a white stallion, pacing calmly through the palace halls. Kerrec stared them down. If more riders lived away from the Mountain, this would be a common sight.
Maybe Briana was right. Maybe it should be. Time would tell—time and the gods.
Twenty-Four
The last time Valeria saw the royal city of Aurelia, she could not wait to get out of it. She had survived the broken Dance and saved the world. She was going home to the Mountain.
She would still much rather have been in the school, living the life she loved. But she had to do this. She paused on the long hill outside the city, looking down across the sweeping curve of the harbor, and breathed the smell of the sea.
It smelled like sorrow. Sabata pawed impatiently. He hated cities. The sooner he was in this one, the nearer he was to getting out.
Stallion logic could make a human’s head hurt. Valeria let him trot briskly down the hill into the stream of traffic that flowed through the northern gate. There were other riders, mounted on mules and donkeys as well as horses, riding on the turf that edged the paved road. On the paving, wagons and carriages rattled past, while foot traffic kept to the narrow ribbons of smoothed stone between the paving and the greenway.
Valeria had forgotten how crowded that road was. There were so many people and animals. Sabata’s presence was pulsing inside her. She had to keep him calm, which meant calming herself, or no one could answer for the consequences.
That gave her a focus. She fixed on it instead of the crowds and tumult around her.
Sabata settled slowly. The city drew closer. The endless confusion of patterns washed over her. She let them drown her.
They washed her up in a place she remembered rather too well. There was the back of the palace and the back of the Temple of the Sun and Moon, and the front of the riders’ house in Aurelia.
There were people in Riders’ Hall, servants and guards—and Petra and the Lady like a white fire in its heart.
Valeria nodded to herself. That made sense. Riders needed their own place, and room for the horses.
The servants recognized her. Either they had served in this house during the Great Dance or they had seen the Dance itself. They knew better than to bow too deeply, but their awe made her skin itch.
Kerrec was not there. “He attends council every day, lady,” the chief of servants said. “He usually comes back a little after noon.”
It was midmorning now. Valeria thought of going to find him, but it was much more tempting to let the servants offer her a bath and clean clothes and her choice of rooms to rest in.
“Show me his,” she said.
They were good servants. They asked no questions. She considered the dark and chilly rooms and the bed that was barely wide enough for one, and suppressed a sigh.
Still, it was a bed. She was tired and overwrought. She sent the servants away and lay down.
After five days in Aurelia, Kerrec had fallen into a pattern of his own. Every night he worked through the long dark hours, finding the patterns of his magic and then rebuil
ding them one by one. Every day he rode Petra and, as the days passed, one and another of the mares—though never the Lady. He attended councils. He received occasional guests.
Those were courtiers looking to curry favor, or would-be enemies spying out the prospects. In the past few days, there had been young men, nobles all, wondering if the First Rider would condescend to teach them some of his art.
He might not have known about those if he had not happened to wander into the stable at midafternoon on his second day in Riders’ Hall and found Quintus upbraiding a pair of wide-eyed boys. “This is not a riding academy. The First Rider is a mage and a master. He does not stoop to teach lessons to children.”
“Do I not?” Kerrec asked.
His voice was as mild as he could make it, but Quintus blanched. For a moment Kerrec thought he would faint. “Sir! I apologize for these insolent boys. They seem to think—”
“What, that I can teach them to ride?” Kerrec looked them up and down. They seemed presentable enough, and not excessively overdressed. The taller seemed thoroughly cowed, but the smaller and maybe younger kept drifting off toward the Lady.
She was amused. She let the child stroke her nose and smooth her forelock.
That told Kerrec a great deal. “Saddle the roan and the chestnut,” he said to Quintus. To the boys he said, “You two can sit a horse, I suppose.”
Their eyes were wider than ever. They were both speechless.
So was Quintus, but for another reason altogether. “My friend,” Kerrec said. “Take the magic away and all that’s left is a riding master.”
Quintus was still outraged, but he was also obedient. He went to fetch the mares Kerrec had chosen.
He took the boys with him. They might be noblemen, but they could learn to saddle a horse.
Kerrec found himself smiling. It was an effort to put on a stern face when the boys presented themselves to him with horses saddled and bridled and ready to ride.
Song of Unmaking Page 15
