Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  “I know,” Euan said. “I saw.”

  Gothard’s expression was blank.

  “I saw it in the stone you gave me,” Euan said. “The emperor has left Tragante. He’s headed toward us. The high king has finally exhausted the hunting around his camp and decided to move it—this way. They’re both getting ready to cross the river. I expect they’ll meet in the middle.”

  “Not if we attack first,” Gothard said. “All the raids have taken a toll. Their supply lines are much longer than they used to be. That means the payroll caravans are slower, too—and while armies may march on their stomachs, they stay in the ranks on their purses. If there’s not a real battle soon, morale will be low enough and the men hungry enough that the commanders will be hard put to keep their men in fighting form.”

  “If that’s the case,” Euan said, “we shouldn’t be pushing for a fast attack. We should be dragging our feet even more.”

  Gothard shook his head. “That’s why he has to attack soon. His men won’t stand for much more lying about. We’ve kept our men fit with all these raids. He’s had his garrisons dealing with those while his fighting legions cool their heels in a fort.”

  “Very well,” Euan said. “Point taken. How soon can you be ready?”

  “A few more days,” said Gothard. “Time enough for the rest of the people to get here and for the emperor to set up a new camp. Then you’ll have your battle.”

  “I hope so,” Euan said.

  “Have faith,” Gothard said. The mockery in his tone set Euan’s teeth on edge.

  Gothard stood, brushing crumbs from his breeks—an insufferably effete and imperial gesture. He smiled down at Euan. “You really don’t know what you captured, do you?”

  “Not one but two sons of the commander of the Corinia,” Euan said. “At least four sworn enemies of the riders on the Mountain, including one who is probably going to become a priest if you don’t use him up first. Several fairly close relatives of the emperor, and therefore you.” He looked into Gothard’s gratifyingly startled face. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”

  “Evidently not.” Gothard saluted him. “Hail the king of the people.”

  “Just make sure I stay king,” Euan said. “And help me win that battle.”

  “As the One wishes,” Gothard said.

  Thirty

  Valeria had not been sleeping well. The longer she stayed in Aurelia, the stranger she felt. The Unmaking was working loose from the bonds she set on it, new ones as much as the old.

  The truth was becoming all too clear. The Mountain had been keeping the Unmaking under control in the same way it had suppressed the healing spell in Kerrec. For him that had been a dangerous thing. For her, she was beginning to realize, it had been a godsend.

  The days were not so bad. She had more than enough to keep her busy. At night, alone in her bed, she heard the Unmaking whispering, tempting her to set it free.

  At first she thought it was only that she had left the Mountain’s protection, but as the days wore on, she knew there was something else. Something in the city was calling to the void in the heart of her.

  Kerrec’s young students, whom he had gradually and none too subtly shifted over to her, whispered among themselves of a new order or power or even cult among the nobles. They only named it once, the first day when she overheard them, but that was enough. Tigellus had a smell of it on him, though she could not find it inside him.

  The Unmaking was in Aurelia. It did not have the power it had among the barbarians, the taste of blood and iron and raw pain, but it was distinct and growing stronger.

  It was clear by then that if Kerrec had his way, she would never set foot outside of Riders’ Hall. She read her books and rode Sabata and instructed her pupils. After that she was to go back to the books, but she deliberately left them lying.

  What she was going to do might not be possible at all. But she had to try. The Unmaking inside her was her secret and her shame. The Unmaking in the city was a deadly dangerous thing.

  Valeria had thought she would need time and persistence to get through the armies of clerks and servants to the princess regent, but it seemed there was some power in her name. As soon as she spoke it, doors opened and guards withdrew.

  They remembered her from the year before. She remembered most of them, some by name. They led her straight through to the regent.

  She had chosen her time well. Briana was resting between duties, sitting in the garden that Valeria remembered best, with a book in her lap and a young man playing softly on a lute. With a slight shock, Valeria recognized him. Vincentius, so gawky on a horse, had a beautiful elegance in court dress with a lute in his lap.

  Valeria almost backed away, but Briana had seen her. The regent’s smile was as warm as ever, and her delight was clearly not feigned. “Valeria! Did my brother finally give you my message?”

  “Not a word,” Valeria said, relaxing in spite of herself. Briana was Briana, no matter where she was or what she was doing. “I’m playing truant now—I’m supposed to be reading about the War for the Lilies.”

  Briana sighed without losing her smile. “That man,” she said. “Does he want an essay, too?”

  “In detail,” Valeria said. “With analysis of the riders’ part in the resolution of the conflict. By tomorrow morning.”

  “You’ll be up late,” Briana observed. “Here, sit. Do you know my cousin Vincentius?”

  Vincentius scrambled to his feet and bowed, looking more like the awkward boy Valeria knew. “I know her,” he said. “She was torturing us this afternoon. She tortures us very well. We ache for hours.”

  “It gets better,” Valeria said.

  “Then you’ll just work us harder,” said Vincentius. He bowed again. “Cousin. Rider. Until tomorrow.”

  Valeria thought Briana might call him back, but it seemed he had caught a signal Valeria missed. He left as cheerfully as he did everything else—with just a hint of a limp.

  “I suppose you sent him to your brother,” Valeria said when he was gone.

  “Along with two of his cousins and three other likely young things,” Briana said with no sign of repentance. “He plays the lute well, doesn’t he?”

  “Much better than he rides,” Valeria said, “though he is trying. The horses like him. He’s clumsy, but his heart is good.”

  “He’ll grow into himself,” Briana said. “Then he’ll remember what he learned. His father is one of my father’s strongest allies in the court—but he’s dubious about the continued usefulness of the school. He’s one of those who think that while it may not need to be shut down, it does need to be different.”

  “Is that what you think?” Valeria asked.

  “You know what I think,” said Briana. “We may not want it to change, but it’s going to have to. Either we do what we can to influence the change—or it will be made for us. And that may not be anything that we would want to happen.”

  “I know,” Valeria said, dropping to the chair beside Briana. She was tired suddenly, not just from a long day and an aching heart, but from everything.

  She pulled herself together as best she could. This was her opening, and she had to take it. “If you’ve been talking to Vincentius, you must know about the new fashion. All those children’s older brothers and some of their fathers and uncles are obsessed with it.”

  “I know,” Briana said. “Why do you think I chose those particular boys? Their families are all supposedly loyal to the emperor. But this thing that’s come into the city is eating away at the young and impressionable. We thought we had got rid of it when the Great Dance was over, but it’s been seeping in like acid. You saved the Dance, as little as anyone wants to remember it, but what you saved it from is still here. It’s more subtle, that’s all.”

  “You know more than I do, then,” said Valeria. “You don’t need me crying the alarm.”

  “Oh, no,” Briana said. “You see differently than we do here. I want to know what you see. What brought you
to me tonight?”

  “I wanted to see you,” Valeria said.

  She could stop there, turn aside, talk of little things. Probably she should. She had kept this secret for most of a year. It was not a threat—yet. Not the way the cult of Unmaking was.

  Briana needed to know. A secret kept too long had betrayed Kerrec and nearly cost more lives than his. Valeria would not make the same mistake.

  This could be a worse mistake. She swallowed hard. Speaking, shaping the words, was a conscious effort. “I need to tell you something. Will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  “Unless it affects the empire’s safety,” Briana said, “yes.”

  Valeria looked down at her hands. She had a powerful desire to meet Briana’s eyes, but if she did, she would not be able to go on. She could circumvent the binding, she thought—she hoped. Though the tightness in her throat made her wonder.

  Briana waited patiently. She was not going to stop Valeria, but neither would she help her.

  Valeria had the wards in place and the words prepared. She had done both very carefully. While she spoke, she had to turn her mind slantwise and focus on something altogether unrelated—the scent of roses in the garden and the way the leaves of the aspens above the wall trembled in the wind off the sea. Her lips moved and her voice spoke, but she was separated from it.

  “You remember last year when I pretended to be on the enemy’s side, to save Kerrec and because that was the only way to save the Dance. One of the things I had to do…wasn’t pretense. Mestre Olivet made me learn the first spell of Unmaking. Or rather, I didn’t exactly learn. The words were there in the book. I looked at them, and they were in me. Then—later—there was the second spell. I fought that one off, I thought. I think. I don’t know. What I do know…it’s inside me. It’s down deep and warded with everything I have, but it’s there.”

  Valeria’s voice tumbled to a halt. Her awareness drifted out past the rose arbor. She hovered for a moment, perfectly balanced between the two halves of herself.

  If she let go, they would never come back together. The Unmaking yawned between them.

  She shut her eyes in body and spirit and leaped. There was an instant of pure breathlessness, of complete despair. Then the light came back.

  She was in her body again. She felt strange and shaky and almost transparent, but she was real.

  Briana’s eyes rested on her. They were narrowed slightly as if in thought. Valeria could feel the cool brush of her magic. It was hard—almost too hard—but Valeria kept herself as open as she dared. She let Briana go where even Kerrec had never gone.

  Briana saw what Valeria had been trying not to look at for nearly a year. She stiffened, but otherwise her face did not change. She drew back carefully.

  “I should have told someone,” Valeria said in silence that had grown too large to bear. “But I couldn’t—there was no way—”

  “You and Kerrec,” Briana said, “are damnably alike. Neither one of you can stand to show weakness. And you both keep secrets that eat you alive.”

  Valeria could hardly argue with that. It made her flinch, but it was true. “What would you have us do? Drive the riders into a worse panic than they’re in already? I’m hard enough for them to stomach without this.”

  “True,” said Briana. “Still, to live with that every day—”

  “Mostly I try to forget it’s there. There’s nothing anyone can do for it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I asked the Ladies,” Valeria said. “Ask yours. She’ll tell you. She won’t touch it. None of them will.”

  “You can talk to all of them, can’t you?”

  Valeria frowned. That was a change of subject. She could hardly say she was sorry, but it caught her off balance. “Yes. I can. I’m a rider. That’s what we do.”

  “I don’t think so,” Briana said. “You never asked anyone, did you? I can talk to the Lady, and Petra and I understand each other. Kerrec talks to Petra. When I look inside each of the other riders, I see one of the gods standing guard. You have a whole herd. Sabata’s closest, but there’s Petra and my Lady and Icarra and Oda and a whole ring of them—dozens at least—all around you. That’s why you can master all the stallions. They’re all inside you.”

  “Surely the Master—” Valeria began.

  “He has Icarra. That’s all. No one else has all of them.”

  Valeria blinked. “Am I stupid, because I never knew? I just thought I was stronger. Not that—”

  “Not stupid,” Briana said firmly. “They’re all as stiff-necked as you are. They never even thought to look, did they? They never asked how you can do what you do.”

  “I thought they knew.”

  “So did they.” Briana shook her head. “They are so complacent—so sure they know all there is to know about the gods and the Mountain. But they don’t know anything at all.”

  Valeria did not mean to laugh, but she was too startled to stop herself. “That’s my lament!”

  “It should be everyone’s. It’s too true for comfort.” Briana was not laughing with Valeria. “You are alive, sane, and not Unmade because of what’s in you. The gods are protecting you.”

  “If you see that,” Valeria said, “can you also see a way out of it for me?”

  “I wish I could,” Briana said. “I can ask among the mages. It won’t betray you—there’s enough of this cult in the city that I’m very much afraid there will be others. Without your strength or your protections, they’ll be in terrible danger.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, too,” Valeria said. “If they’ve got hold of these spells, and they don’t know or care what can happen to them in the working, it’s not just their lives and souls we need to fear for. The Great Dance was supposed to be Unmade. Do you understand what that means?”

  Briana shivered. “I think I do.”

  “I’m sure they do not—or they would never touch it.”

  “Maybe,” said Briana. “Maybe not. The young nobles see a dark glory in oblivion, and joy in annihilation. The world is a foul and corrupted place. They’ll take it down with them into nothingness.”

  “They’re insane,” Valeria said.

  “Most are just fools,” Briana said. “A few are what I would call evil. I’ll be watching them—and so will the orders of mages. Anything that can be done to keep them safe, we will do.”

  Valeria looked at Briana in amazement. “I thought you’d be talking of keeping the empire safe. These people are betraying it and threatening you. And you want to protect them.”

  “They’re my people,” Briana said. “They don’t know what they’re doing. To them it’s just a fashion, the latest way to throw their elders into fits.”

  “You’re too understanding for me,” Valeria said.

  “I’m practical. If we protect them, we protect ourselves. If we watch them, they’ll lead us to the real enemy.”

  “You know who that is. It’s the tribes. This is their religion. There must be priests in the city. They were here to break the Dance. Who’s to say they didn’t stay?”

  “I’m sure some of them did,” Briana said. “We’ll be hunting.”

  “You weren’t before?”

  “I wasn’t sure. You’ve confirmed what I suspected—this isn’t just young men’s foolery. This is dangerous.”

  “I hope I came to you in time,” Valeria said.

  “Don’t fret,” said Briana. “Go and sleep. You’ve done a great thing. It took a great deal of courage. Leave the rest to me.”

  Valeria was not used to that at all. She was the one people left things to. But she had had it forced on her. She did not want it. Briana was born for it.

  It was almost a relief to let it go. If she could have let the Unmaking go, too, she would have been completely content.

  Thirty-One

  Sleep was not any easier to find once Valeria confessed her long and terrible secret to Briana. She had more than enough troubles to keep her awake. Missing Kerrec
was by no means the least of it.

  When she did sleep, she dreamed of her family. She could not see exactly what they were doing, just their faces while they did it. In part of the dream, she was outside in the village, during a festival, maybe, or on market day. But mostly she was in her father’s house, watching her father and mother and brothers and sisters live lives that were no part of hers.

  She dreamed of her brothers in the legions, too, Rodry more often than Lucius. She had been Rodry’s favorite since he was a small boy and she was a newborn and, he often insisted, excessively irritable baby.

  Last of all, as often before, she dreamed of Euan Rohe—but this time he was not making love to her. He was riding a bloodred stallion across the wrack of a battlefield. She had never seen him ride so well in the waking world.

  When she looked into Euan’s eyes, she saw no one she knew. When she looked into the stallion’s eyes, she saw the Unmaking.

  She woke with a hammering heart. It was still dark beyond the windows, but the air had a taste of morning. As she breathed it in, the dream fled, but the mood of it lingered. She felt vaguely uneasy, restless and out of sorts.

  There was something beneath the dream. A quiver of magic. An absence that was not Unmaking. That was…

  Petra was not in the stable. Sabata was. He let Valeria see what he had seen, Kerrec in traveling clothes with full saddlebags.

  She said a word her brothers in the legion would have slapped her silly for even thinking. In one blinding flash of Sabata’s sight, she saw everything Kerrec had been hiding from her. Why he had let himself be sent to Aurelia. What he had been doing in those long nights while she lay awake, feeling him nearby and perceptibly warded.

  He was going after Gothard.

  The patterns unfolded in front of her. They led her back to her rooms for her traveling bag, then to the kitchens for whatever the cooks had left from the day’s meals. With a full water-skin and a bag full of bread and cheese and fruit, she made her way back to the stable.