Song of Unmaking

by Caitlin Brennan

  He was warm and comfortably heavy in Euan’s arms. Euan was oddly reluctant to surrender him to his grandmother. A child of his age belonged with the women, learning to behave properly and be obedient to his betters, but surely one night would not undo his training.

  Conor offered no objection to being taken to his father’s rooms instead of his grandmother’s. Euan thought he might be asleep, until Euan paused in front of his door. Conor raised his head from Euan’s shoulder and said, “Don’t go in there.”

  Euan stopped with his hand on the latch. “What’s wrong? Did you put a snake in my bed?”

  Conor shook his head. “Just don’t go in.”

  Euan frowned. Children had odd fancies. He sniffed, but there was no stink of magic around the door. He opened it and paused, senses alert.

  The room was dim and quiet. Only one lamp burned in the cluster by the bed. Two broad-shouldered shadows lurked by the wall—but they were only empty armor and legionary standards long since won.

  Someday Euan would bring in new trophies to outshine the old. These were dusty and faded, like the glory they recalled.

  Conor’s arms were tight around his neck. Euan’s own grip tightened on the child. With an effort he pried Conor loose and set him on his feet. “A warrior is brave,” he said, “and he’s never afraid of the dark.”

  “It’s not the dark,” Conor said. He pointed with his chin toward the far corner.

  There was a tall chest there, another piece of imperial loot, in which Euan kept his war cloaks and plaids and a few oddments. One of those oddments, which Euan would have liked to forget, was a small box lined with silk, in which he had hidden the seeing-stone Gothard had made for him.

  He had not looked into it since well before the battle. Maybe he should have—then he might have seen the horse mages coming. But his love for magic had grown even less the longer his alliance with Gothard went on. He had used what Gothard had, hoping to win the war—and he nearly had—but he had decided that for his own self, magic was a foul and deadly thing.

  He should have dropped the stone in the river when he could. Why he had kept it, he did not know. Maybe because a wise man never discarded a weapon.

  Conor could not know it was there. Euan had told no one. But he was staring at the chest as if it held a venomous snake.

  He tugged at his father’s hand. “Let’s go see Amma. She has honey sweets, remember?”

  Euan would have been happy to be diverted, but now his hackles were up. “Stay here,” he said, lifting Conor and setting him back on his feet near the door.

  He did not stop to see what the boy did. If he ran to his grandmother, so much the better. Euan approached the chest carefully, feeling a little ridiculous—a king of the people, stalking a wooden box.

  He opened it slowly. The rich smell of cedar wafted out. His clothes were tidily folded. There was no viper nested in them, and the cedar kept moths at bay.

  He moved to shut the door and turn, meaning to say, “You see? There’s nothing there.” But his hand persisted in reaching under the pile of folded wool to the small hard lump of the box. It was purely his imagination, but his fingers stung when he touched it.

  His hand snapped back. He gritted his teeth and reached in again. This time there was nothing to shock him.

  The box was Calletani, carved with twining shapes that were both pleasant and intriguing to the touch. The thing inside buzzed like a nest of bees.

  It was all Euan could do not to fling it across the room. He set it down hard. He meant to slam the door, but again, his hand did something other than what he commanded. It dropped the box.

  The lid fell open. The stone slid out, lying on the bright plaid. It looked like the maw of Unmaking.

  He stepped back sharply and nearly fell. Conor was directly behind him. He swung the boy into his arms and kept on backing up.

  More than the stone was humming now. Conor was shaking in time with it. “Stop,” Euan said fiercely. “Stop that.”

  “Can’t.” Conor’s voice was breathless.

  Euan’s back struck the door. He slid along it, reaching behind himself for the latch.

  The humming stopped. Conor gasped, then went limp.

  Two men were standing in the room. They were stark white and staring like apparitions of the dead. One of them sucked in a breath and collapsed. The other looked around him, blinking eyes that had swallowed oblivion, and smiled.

  Conor gasped again and cried out. Euan held him as close as he could without choking the breath out of him.

  Gothard’s smile widened. “I see I have you both to thank for bringing me safely home.”

  “I’ve told you before,” Euan said low in his throat. “I’ll tell you again. Hands off my son.”

  “Believe me, cousin,” Gothard said, “I wouldn’t dream of harming him.”

  Euan tossed that off as the lying nonsense it was. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

  At Gothard’s feet, his yellow dog twitched and rolled onto his face, raising himself to his knees. The boy looked even madder than Euan remembered.

  His eyes rolled. Had they been that pale before? Now they were almost white. They might be blind, though when they came to rest on Euan, they stayed. “We came through the gate,” he said. “The maw of the Unmaking.”

  Euan had thought him mute. Clearly not. He spoke the language of the people rather well, which was not surprising considering his face and coloring. He must, like Gothard, be some imperial nobleman’s by-blow on a captive woman.

  “He means the stone,” Gothard said. “What, did you think I’d run for it on foot after the last time? I’ve learned a little since. Not to put all my power in one stone, and to leave myself a way out. It was good of you to keep my gate. I was afraid you’d lose it.”

  “I wish to the One I had,” Euan said bitterly. “You’re a curse on all our tribe.”

  “Am I? Are you starving? Hunted? Stripped of your young men? How many of the Calletani did you lose?”

  Euan’s teeth clicked together.

  “Indeed,” said Gothard as if Euan had managed an answer. “How long has it been? It is spring yet?”

  “Not nearly,” Euan said, though his throat wanted to close. “It’s the dark of the year.”

  “Earlier than I wanted,” Gothard said as if to himself, “though it will do. I’ll be taking this stone, if you don’t mind.”

  “Where?” Euan demanded. “Where are you taking it?”

  “That depends,” said Gothard. “We still have a bargain. Unless you’re already high king? Is the Ard Ri still alive?”

  “He died after the battle,” Euan answered. He considered not doing it, but that would serve no purpose. This was still his ally, he could suppose—though what he felt for Gothard was rapidly changing from dislike to outright hatred.

  “So, a kingmaking in the spring,” Gothard said. “Meanwhile, there are plans to make—things to do. I take it the legions didn’t press the advantage too hard, since you’re here and not in a prison in Aurelia. How much tribute have they demanded? Are you intending to pay it?”

  “There’s been nothing,” Euan said. “There’s a legion camped at Oxos still, but it’s just standing guard. No one’s come to take our surrender.”

  “Excellent,” said Gothard, rubbing his hands together.

  If Euan’s arms had not been full of a very quiet but blessedly alert Conor, he would have gutted Gothard where he stood. It would have done the people a great service.

  Gothard was watching him, still half smiling, as if he could follow every turn of Euan’s thoughts. He no longer looked dead. He merely looked as if he had not seen the sunlight in months. He must be feeding on air—or on the power of the stone—because Euan had deliberately not offered him either food or drink.

  “Do think,” said Gothard. “Not too hard now, but let it grow in you. What is the real power of the empire? Not its legions. Not its merchants, either, or even its mages. Where is the empire’s heart?�
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  Euan shook his head. “I’m not going to listen to you. Go down to the hall, claim the vagrant’s portion, then leave. I don’t care where you go as long as you swear on that stone to stay away from my people.”

  “First your son, then your people,” Gothard said with an exaggerated sigh. “You’re a very proper tribesman. And here I’d been thinking there was more to you. Don’t you want to break the Aurelian empire?”

  “The Aurelian empire is succeeding rather well in breaking us,” Euan said.

  “Yes, and why? Or rather, who? Who has blocked us at every turn? Who lost us the battle when we had it won?”

  “We had it won,” Euan said sharply. “You had already failed.”

  “I let the starstone break,” Gothard said, “because I was done with it. What I set in motion should have swallowed the whole army. Who stopped it? Answer me that.”

  Euan refused. Gothard said it for him. “We thought that if we broke the emperor’s Dance, we could change the future and give ourselves the victory. We were half-right. It wasn’t the Dance we needed to break. It was the dancers.”

  “You’re going to take on the Mountain.” The words escaped before Euan could catch them. “That’s insane. No man can—”

  “I already have,” Gothard said. “The Mountain is stone. That’s my power, cousin. Stone, and Unmaking. It only takes a little—that’s the beauty of it. A little magic, a tiny working, and it grows. It’s growing already. If we Unmake the Mountain, how long will the empire last? Will you wager on it?”

  He was as seductive as pure evil always was. And yet, Euan thought, he could be right.

  The empire was built on magic. Take away the magic and what was left? A federation of warring states—that was what they taught in the School of War on the Mountain. They were rather proud of it.

  With the emperor dead and a young and untried woman in his place, a war won but at no small cost, and the horse mages themselves weakened by the attack on the Dance, Aurelia was not in much better state than the tribes. If there was a way to weaken it further…

  “It won’t all happen in a day,” Gothard said, “or in a year, or maybe even ten years. But each step brings us closer to the victory. So far we’ve lost on the face of it—but they’ve fared worse. We’ll win in the end. Their gods are strong, but the One is stronger. That’s always been so. It always will be.”

  Euan looked at him, hating him but hearing every word. Conor was silent in Euan’s arms. What he made of this, only the One knew.

  In the end it was very simple. A man needed sons. Sons needed places of their own, realms to rule and people to follow them. What better inheritance for this child than an empire?

  “We still have a bargain,” Euan said.

  Gothard bowed to him in the imperial fashion. “Your hand on it, my lord king?”

  Euan snarled at him. “You have my word. That’s enough.”

  “Surely,” said Gothard. Maybe there was anger deep in those eyes. Maybe it was merely mockery.

  Whatever he thought of it, it was done. Euan turned his back on his dearly hated but inescapable ally. His son needed rest, and so did he. He had another war to plan—another stroke against the people’s ancient enemy.

  This time, the One willing, he would win it. Then…

  Time enough to ponder the rest once he had his victory. He shifted Conor in his arms, settling the child more comfortably, and left Gothard to his plotting.

  SONG OF UNMAKING

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4897-1

  Copyright © 2005 by Judith Tarr

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