Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  Rodry turned back to Valeria. “So it’s true? You really did get the Call?”

  She nodded. “I passed the tests. I’m a rider-candidate. Or I was.”

  Kerrec stirred on his bench. Valeria ignored him. So did Rodry. He was shaking his head. “Mother must have been livid.”

  “She locked me in the root cellar,” Valeria said.

  “I heard,” said Rodry. “I went back on leave for Caia’s wedding. The stories were wild and getting wilder. Caia was not amused.”

  “I don’t imagine she was,” Valeria said dryly. “What are you doing here? Are you with the garrison in the fort?”

  “We were out on a mission,” Rodry said. “We’re stationed nearer the border. And you?”

  “We have a mission, too,” Valeria said. Kerrec was simmering to a boil, but she carried on, driven by dreams and lifelong trust. “We’re hunting a traitor—an imperial prince, a mage. He tried to kill the emperor. Now we think he’s up to even worse.”

  Rodry took his time digesting that. While he did it, the inn girl brought beer and a bowl of spiced lamb. He ate and drank methodically, still pondering.

  After a while he said, “That wouldn’t be the traitor who made a disaster of the emperor’s festival, would it?”

  “That would be the one,” Valeria said.

  Rodry frowned as if he was trying to reconcile the sister he remembered with whatever Valeria had turned into. It seemed he managed. He always had been quick-witted.

  “There is a rumor,” he said. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “They say there’s an imperial renegade among the princes of the Calletani. He’s their kin, it’s said, and speaks their language like one of them, but he was raised in the empire.”

  “Have you heard a name?” Valeria asked.

  Rodry shook his head. “The rumors call him Brenin—but that could be a title. It means prince.”

  “That would be my brother,” Kerrec said. His voice was low, hardly more than a growl. “Where is he? Do you know?”

  “Somewhere among the Calletani,” said Rodry, blinking slightly at who, and what, Kerrec must be if he was the traitor’s brother. “That’s as much as we’ve heard. We have found the hunting camp of the tribe—it moves constantly and sometimes vanishes altogether, but we know where it is and more or less where it goes. It’s likely he’s there.”

  “Gothard would not be able to resist the lure of royalty,” Kerrec said. “Can you guide us to this camp?”

  “Both of you?” Rodry asked. “It’s bloody dangerous.”

  “So I told her,” said Kerrec sourly. “It didn’t stop her. Nothing on this earth can. So—can you?”

  “I’m not sure—” said Rodry.

  “It’s dangerous for him, too,” Valeria pointed out to Kerrec. “If he’s caught and recognized for what he is, you know what will happen to him.”

  “To all of us,” Kerrec said. “We won’t be caught.”

  “If you say so, First Rider,” Rodry said. Valeria listened for mockery, but she could not find any.

  Rodry was in awe. Rodry had never been in awe of anything. Valeria kicked him under the table.

  He never noticed. He was leaning toward Kerrec. “Any good scout can get you into the Calletani hunting runs. Though if you’re really determined to get this traitor out and bring him to justice, you’d probably do better to head downriver to the emperor’s camp. The best scouts are there, and mages, too. Not,” he added hastily, “that you aren’t a great mage, sir, but these are seekers and spies by profession. If you talk to them—”

  “Not the emperor,” Kerrec said almost as coldly as if it had been Valeria saying it and not Rodry. “We’ll cross the river as near here as we can. Will you guide us? Can you get leave?”

  “I can try,” Rodry said. “We’re on alert, and no one’s allowed leave. But for you, First Rider—”

  “Take us to your commander,” said Kerrec. “I’ll see what I can do to persuade him.”

  Rodry nodded. His eyes were shining. “I’ll gladly take you there, sir.”

  Thirty-Three

  Valeria wanted to knock their heads together. Kerrec was full of noble revenge. Rodry was brimful of hero-worship. There was no grain of sense in either of them.

  Rodry went off to his lodgings. Kerrec went up to their cupboard of a room.

  Valeria was hard on his heels. Once they were in the room and the door was shut, she backed him into a corner. “What were you thinking?” she demanded. “What in the world was in your head?”

  He barely blinked. His nostrils had thinned and his eyes gone pale, but that was more likely to be anger than alarm. “We need a guide across the river. An imperial scout is a godsend.”

  “That imperial scout is my brother,” Valeria said. “If you get him killed, you won’t just have me to face. You’ll have my mother.”

  “I won’t get him killed,” said Kerrec with teeth-gritted patience. “Can’t you see the magic in him? He has the seeker’s power. We’ll ward him and he’ll help us hunt. We’ll find the traitor and do what we must before the tribes know we’re there.”

  “You had better hope so,” she said grimly.

  “You’ll make sure of it if I won’t,” Kerrec said.

  “And if that fails? Even if the tribes don’t find us, your brother certainly will.”

  He tossed his head like an impatient stallion—so rare a gesture it made her stare. “My brother thinks I’m still on the Mountain. I’ve done everything I can to foster that impression. If he’s looking for anyone, he’ll be looking for my father’s mages. We’re as safe as we can be—but we don’t know the country we’re going into, and we don’t have time to learn. Wouldn’t you rather have a guide we can trust?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The gods sent him,” said Kerrec. “You’d see that if you would look.”

  “I see it,” she said. “I wish I didn’t.”

  That night it was she who went to sleep in a cold fury and Kerrec who seemed determined to suffer whatever mood she happened to inflict on him. No doubt he thought it was fair. Blasted man.

  Whatever dreams came to her in the night, they left her before morning. Kerrec was up when she woke, perched cross-legged on the narrow bed, with a bowl of gently steaming water and his razor and his silver mirror.

  She washed sketchily in the second bowl that he had all too thoughtfully ordered for her, then pulled on her clothes and left him to be as fastidious as he liked.

  Rodry waited in the room below. He was maddeningly bright-eyed and eager. “Good morning! I’ve ordered breakfast. I hope he likes barley porridge and cream. They have berries, too. I wheedled the girl into letting us have a bowlful.”

  “You sound as if you’re in love,” Valeria said. She sat down gingerly. Why her head should ache when she had barely drunk a cup of wine, she could not imagine.

  Rodry filled a mug from the pot on the table. The scent of herb tea tickled her nostrils. It was sharp with alien spices, and it cleared her head wonderfully.

  “It really is real, isn’t it?” Rodry said. “You and the Mountain. The riders.”

  “You didn’t believe it before?”

  “It’s not very believable,” he said.

  The girl brought breakfast. There were three bowls of porridge and a pitcher of cream still fresh from the cow, and a bowl of bright red berries and a warm loaf of bread and sweet butter, and links of sausages, and eggs cooked hard in the shell.

  It was a feast. It arrived just as Kerrec came down, freshly shaved and meticulously clean as always. He barely acknowledged the bounty, but sat between Valeria and Rodry and reached for porridge and cream.

  Rodry’s expression was pure bliss. Oh yes, thought Valeria. He was in love—with a myth and a dream. He would wake to the snarling reality soon enough.

  When they had eaten all they could hold and gone to claim the stallions, Rodry stopped in the stable door. His expression was rapt. His hand crept out.

  Petra was neare
r and by nature more gracious than Sabata. He allowed the stranger to stroke his neck and whisper in his ear.

  Petra’s eye rolled toward Valeria. This was not a stranger, it said. This was her kin. Did she not see the magic that he had?

  Kerrec had asked the same infuriating question. Yes, she saw it. She had always seen it. It was not rider’s magic. If Rodry had been a girl, he would have done well as a wisewoman.

  Magic was magic, Sabata opined, thrusting out his nose for his share of adulation. Rodry was happy to give it.

  Valeria was not going to win this fight. Even the stallions were against her.

  She saddled and bridled Sabata in grim silence, taking some small pleasure in seeing how shocked Rodry was that the great First Rider groomed and saddled his own horse. Dreams and legends, it seemed, should come equipped with flocks of servants.

  Rodry’s own horse, an impatient and somewhat headstrong grey gelding, was pawing and stamping in the courtyard. At sight of the stallions, he went perfectly still. He was not as besotted as Rodry, but he was wise enough to bow before the white gods.

  Except for the wary slant of Sabata’s ear, the stallions ignored him. Rodry mounted with more skill than Valeria had expected. Someone had taught him to ride, and not too badly either.

  They left Valeria Victrix at sunrise of a morning that was already promising to be hot. Rodry was clearly torn between wanting to trail behind adoringly and leading them as a scout should. A sharp blow between the shoulderblades from his sister and Sabata’s teeth in his gelding’s rump sent him skittering none too elegantly ahead.

  They settled soon enough. Rodry was a practical person. Hero-worship only carried him so far. Then he had to be himself again.

  By midmorning Rodry had coaxed Valeria into telling the whole story of her journey from the village of Imbria to the Mountain, and then a good part of her life since. She slid past the precise way in which she had met Kerrec—it would do her brother no good to hear how close she had come to rape—and Kerrec’s story was not hers to tell. But there was more than enough else to keep Rodry occupied.

  He was full of questions, and each answer bred more questions. Valeria did not mind answering them at all, but she had to say, “I never knew you were interested in horse mages.”

  He looked down at his gelding’s mane, fussing with it for a while before he said, “I used to dream about becoming a rider. I listened to all the stories. When I went to fetch you from the market, I’d stay out of sight as long as I could, so I could hear everything. I grew out of the dream, but I never stopped listening.”

  “Maybe—” Valeria began. Maybe he would be another one of the late Called, she meant to say. But she could see the patterns around him and the magic in him, and he was not a rider. He was a seeker and a scout and a bit of a healer. The horse magic had passed him by.

  Instead she said, “Maybe you had a touch of foresight, and you were seeing me. You do ride well. I didn’t know you could do that, either.”

  “It’s a different world out here,” he said. “Back in Imbria I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to be home.”

  Valeria nodded. “You can go home,” she said. “We’re not supposed to. Once we pass the testing, that’s the end of the old world. Our whole life after that is the school and the art. If we have titles or wealth or power, we give them up. Everything comes down to one name that we choose, and the magic that Called us.”

  “That’s hard,” Rodry said.

  “I don’t miss home,” she said quickly. “I’m where I belong. Though sometimes…”

  “Blood’s strong,” he said. He lowered his voice. His glance flicked toward Kerrec, then away. “That’s why he won’t go to the emperor, isn’t it? And why he’s—you know. Dead.”

  Valeria regarded him in admiration. “You’re quick,” she said. “It took me forever to realize who he was. Not that he helped at all. He’s the most closemouthed rider on the Mountain—and believe me, for that contest, there’s a large field.”

  “I can see why,” said Rodry. “What you gave up—marrying that boy from the mill, birthing babies and brewing simples and being a power in the village—was never enough for you. He had everything, and he walked away from it. I’d keep quiet about it, too, if it happened to me.”

  “You couldn’t be quiet if you tried,” said Valeria. “You don’t have an arrogant bone in your body, either.”

  His brows went up. “He’s not arrogant. He’s just…what he has to be.”

  “You don’t know him,” Valeria said darkly.

  “Probably not,” said Rodry, unperturbed. He urged his gelding ahead. Valeria followed, and Kerrec lagged somewhat behind. Gods knew what was in his head. For once, Valeria did not care.

  Rodry’s cohort was camped beside the river. It had been there for long enough to put up a palisade and begin building a stone fort.

  The riders came in with a flock of sheep and cattle, lending a hand with herding them. Rodry was more than a little appalled that the stallions would stoop to such a thing, but Sabata loved to play drover, and Petra took considerable pleasure in it himself.

  “They’re still horses,” Valeria said when Rodry’s shock started to get the better of him.

  That did not help much, but it stopped his sputter of protest. They clattered and rumbled and blatted and bellowed through the gate into the fort, where the herds crowded into pens and the drovers stopped to breathe.

  The heat was stifling. Even the stallions were sweating, dark skin showing through the wet white coats. Kerrec looked cool and barely ruffled and disgustingly clean.

  He dismounted with casual grace. “Water,” he said without lifting his voice. “For the horses.”

  Water came in buckets, with legionaries carrying it. Valeria wondered when she would learn that art. Or was it something one was born to?

  Sabata was glad to drink. So was Valeria. The water was clean and cool—not river water, Rodry said. There was a spring up in back of the fort, which was why it had been built precisely here.

  The garrison drank from the spring but bathed in the river under the walls, with men on guard above. For guests there was a bath in the guest barracks, which happened to be within sight of the stable, and food and drink if they would take it.

  Rodry left them there, promising to come back as soon as he could. It was still full daylight, and hot. A breeze stirred in the room, cooling it wonderfully.

  Valeria eyed Kerrec. One of her first lessons was unwinding in her head. Control of elements—that was the art of the Second Rider. But he had lost so much. And yet, these past few days…

  He was getting it back. Was he aware of it? There was no telling. There never was, with Kerrec.

  She was not about to challenge him now and lose this lovely breeze. She lay on one of the bunks that lined the walls. It was hard, but she had lain on worse.

  Kerrec would not look at her. She had her breeches on, but she had not laced up her shirt. Never mind that he had seen her naked more times than she could count—and she him. Somehow they had become strangers all over again.

  That was not her fault. She stayed where she was, lying on her back, whether it tormented him or not. He sat on a bunk as far from her as he could go, tucked up his feet and folded his hands and seemed to go to sleep.

  She could feel him. He was more than awake. His magic shimmered in the room. All the patterns in it wove around him.

  She never could completely hate him. Not the way he sat a horse, and not now, in the midst of such magic. It was beautiful.

  The master stone must be doing it, but it felt like Kerrec. This was horse magic, pattern magic. There was only a faint hint of the stone magic.

  When Rodry came, he seemed a part of it somehow. These were the patterns they were to follow out of the room and into the heart of the fort.

  Thirty-Four

  The cohort’s commander was young. Valeria had not expected that. He was younger than Rodry—who was only five years older than Valeria�
��and painfully aware of his position.

  He was also excruciatingly aware of Kerrec’s, both as First Rider and emperor’s son. He scrambled up from his worktable when Rodry brought them into his office, scattering pens and parchment. “Highness! Sir. This is an honor.”

  “Tribune,” said Kerrec. “Thank you for seeing us. We won’t keep you long.”

  “No,” the commander said. “Oh, no, sir. Take as long as you like.”

  “This will be brief,” Kerrec said, gentle but firm. “We need to borrow your scout to guide us across the river.”

  The commander stiffened. His face paled a shade or two. “Ah,” he said. “I see. Is there anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?”

  “Thank you,” said Kerrec, “no.”

  “Well,” said the commander. “That—well. There are orders, you see—just this morning. No one is to cross the river until the emperor issues the counterorder.”

  Valeria felt the chill in the hot, still air. So, it seemed, did the young tribune. His face went even paler.

  “Surely,” said Kerrec mildly, “you can make an exception.”

  The commander shook his head. His expression was miserable, but there was no yielding in it. “Sir, I’m sorry. This comes direct from the emperor’s hand. Look, see.” He riffled among the papers on the table, plucking out one from which hung a pendant seal.

  Valeria had never seen such a thing. Kerrec obviously had. His lips thinned. “Does it say how long?”

  “No, sir,” the tribune said. “Just that the crossings are closed and all forces are to stay on this side of the river, on penalty of being caught and hanged as a spy. Even if you know the way, sir, I can’t let you cross.”

  “I have to cross,” Kerrec said.

  The commander’s misery deepened. “You can’t, sir. Truly, I am sorry. Maybe if you go to the emperor—”

  “I am not going to the emperor,” Kerrec said through gritted teeth. He drew a breath. “Your pardon, tribune. Of course you can’t disobey orders. I’m at fault for even thinking to ask.”