Shattered Dance

by Caitlin Brennan

  It said a great deal for his strength that he barely swayed under the onslaught. After the first shock, he stood steady and took it in. He did not stop or interrupt it until it was done. Then he stood silent, letting it unwind again behind the silver stillness of his eyes.

  Valeria waited as he had, though with less monumental patience. He was a master. She was not even a journeyman. She was still inclined to fidget.

  After a long while he said, “The boy would have been wiser to go to my sister.”

  “He didn’t think it worthwhile to try,” Valeria said. “She’s the empress, after all. He’ll never get through all her guards and mages.”

  “Someone should,” Kerrec said. “They’ve conjured a priest of the barbarians’ god—and from what the boy saw of him, he’s even worse than the usual run of them. We’re weaker than we were when his kind broke the Dance. My sister’s hold on court and council is still tenuous. Even forewarned and forearmed, she’s more vulnerable than my father was. She’s all too clear a target.”

  “I’m sure she knows that,” Valeria said. “Can you relay this message to her?”

  “I can try,” he said, “but she’s warded by mages of every order in Aurelia. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.”

  “You are if you ask the stallions to help.”

  He arched a brow at her. “I? Why not you?”

  “You’re her brother,” Valeria said, “and much more skilled in this kind of magic than I am. I’m just learning it. It’s not so hard face to face, but across so much distance…what if I fail?”

  “I doubt you would,” Kerrec said, “with the stallions behind you.”

  “You’re still better at it,” she said.

  He pondered that for a moment before he said, “I’ll do it.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “When I’m ready.”

  The urgency in her wanted to protest, but she had laid this on him. She could hardly object to the way he chose to do it.

  He smiled, all too well aware of her thoughts. His finger brushed her cheek. “It won’t be more than a few hours,” he said.

  “That’s what you said about us.”

  He had the grace not to laugh at her. “Before that, then.”

  That did not satisfy her. “What if those few hours make the difference?”

  “They won’t,” he said. “I can feel the patterns beginning to shift, but they won’t break tonight. It takes time to do what I think they’re going to try. They’ll need more than a day or two to set it in motion.”

  “What—how can you know—”

  “If you know where to look, you can see.”

  She scowled at him. Sometimes he forced her to remember that he was more than a horse mage. He had been born to rule this empire, but the Call had come instead and taken him away.

  Kerrec had died to that part of himself—with precious little regret. Then his father had died in truth and given him the gift that each emperor gave his successor. All the magic of Aurelia had come to fill him.

  It had healed Kerrec’s wounds and restored the full measure of his magic. It had also made him intensely aware of the land and its people.

  His sister Briana had it, too. For her it was the inevitable consequence of the emperor’s death. She was the heir. The land and its magic belonged to her.

  It was not something that needed to be divided or diminished in order to be shared. The emperor had meant it for both reconciliation and healing, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe Artorius had foreseen that the empire would need both his children.

  Kerrec seemed wrapped in a deep calm. His kiss was light but potent, like the passage of a flame. “Soon,” he said.

  Voices erupted outside. Hooves thudded on the sand of the stableyard. Riders were bringing stallions in to be groomed and saddled for afternoon exercises.

  Valeria stepped back quickly. There was no need for guilt—if everyone had not already known what was happening, Grania would have been fairly strong proof. But it had been too long. She was out of practice.

  Kerrec laughed at her, but he did not try to stop her. She was halfway down the aisle by the time the foremost rider slid back the door and let the sun into the stable.

  Kerrec was more troubled than he wanted Valeria to know. He would have liked to shake the boy who, instead of taking what he knew to the empress like a sensible citizen, reached all the way to the Mountain and inflicted his anxieties on Valeria. Was there no one closer at hand to vex with them?

  That could be a trap in itself. Valeria was notorious among mages. She was the first woman ever to be Called to the Mountain and a bitter enemy of Aurelia’s enemies. She had twice thwarted assaults on the empire and its rulers. In certain quarters she was well hated.

  Kerrec was even less beloved, though the brother who had hated him beyond reason or sanity was dead, destroyed by his own magic. There were still men enough, both imperial and barbarian, who would gladly have seen Kerrec dead or worse.

  This kind of thinking was best done in the back of the mind, from the back of a horse. He saddled one of the young stallions, a spirited but gentle soul named Alea.

  The horse was more than pleased to be led into one of the lesser courts, where no one else happened to be riding at that hour. Kerrec had been of two minds as to whether to bring the stallion with him to Aurelia, but as he smoothed the mane on the heavy arched neck, he caught a distinct air of wistfulness. Alea wanted to see the world beyond the Mountain.

  “So you shall,” Kerrec said with sudden decision. He gathered the reins and sprang into the saddle, settling lightly on the broad back.

  Alea was young—he had come down off the Mountain two years before, in the same herd that had bred Valeria’s fiery Sabata—and although he was talented, he had much to learn before he mastered his art. Kerrec took a deep and simple pleasure in these uncomplicated exercises. They soothed his spirit and concentrated his mind.

  As he rode each precise circle and undulating curve, shifting pace from walk to trot to canter and back again, he began to perceive another riding court in a different city. The horse under him was a little shorter and notably broader. The neck that arched in front of him was narrower and lighter, and the mane was not smoky grey but jet-black. The little ears that curved at the end of it were red brown, the color called bay.

  Kerrec kept his grip on the unexpected working. He bent his will until his awareness separated from that other rider, so that he seemed to ride side by side with his sister. Alea bowed to Kerrec’s sister’s mount, the bay Lady who alone of all the mothers of gods had chosen a mortal rider and left the Mountain.

  They were riding the same patterns. That was not a coincidence. Each bend and turn brought them into harmony.

  Briana smiled at her brother. “Good afternoon,” she said as serenely as if they had not been riding this paired dance across eighty leagues of mountain and plain.

  Kerrec acknowledged her with an inclination of the head. With the Lady leading, the pattern was growing more complex, though still simple enough for Kerrec’s young stallion. In its curves and figures was the vision Maurus had given Valeria.

  Briana’s expression did not change. She had taken it in, Kerrec did not doubt that, but she showed no sign of what she was thinking.

  He would not ask, either. He had done what was necessary. The empress knew what Maurus had seen. It was for her to decide what to do about it.

  The ride went on, which somewhat surprised him. It was a Dance, a doorway through fate and time, though there was no ritual and no formal occasion and no flock of Augurs to interpret it. To a Lady, all those things were inconsequential.

  She had chosen to Dance now for reasons that might have little to do with Kerrec’s message. The only wise course was to ride the Dance and ask no questions. Answers would come when, or if, the Lady pleased.

  These patterns seemed harmless and sunlit, but Maurus’ vision underlay all of them. A priest of the One God, a cabal of idle and disaffected nobles, an
altar of sacrifice that had seen long and bloody use—all that was clear enough, one would think. Yet another conspiracy raised itself against the empire, or more likely this was an offshoot of older and failed conspiracies.

  But the priest had said something that would not let Kerrec go. The creature had mocked the circle that summoned him. Something beyond them had brought him there—some great power in Aurelia, strong enough to conjure evil out of air.

  That made Kerrec’s back tighten. He caught himself before he passed that stiffness to Alea. The stallion did not deserve it, and the Dance assuredly did not need it.

  Tomorrow Kerrec would ride to Aurelia. Whatever was going to happen there, he would do his best to be ready for it. So would his sister. So would everyone else whom either of them was able to warn.

  Meanwhile he rode the Dance, taking its patterns inside him, committing them to memory. They might be useful or they might not. The gods knew. It was not for a mortal, even a master mage, to judge—though he might come to conclusions of his own, given time and space to think about it.

  Chapter Nine

  “You’re sure of this?”

  Valeria paused in tightening Sabata’s girth. The rest of the caravan was still forming in the pale dawn light. The question did not surprise her, but the one who asked it did.

  Master Nikos held the rein of a stallion nearly as majestically ancient as Valeria’s Oda, who waited patiently in the line of stallions who would go riderless on this first day of the journey. Valeria acknowledged Master and stallion with a nod of respect. “I am sure,” she said.

  The Master glanced at the cluster of people beyond Valeria. Morag was already in her cart with the nurse beside her. Grania, having eaten a hearty breakfast, was peacefully asleep.

  “They’ll be safe,” Valeria said. “My mother may be only a village wisewoman, but she’s a strong mage.”

  “Your mother is not ‘only’ anything,” the Master said. “I don’t fear for her or even the child. It’s you I’m thinking of.”

  “I’m not weak,” Valeria said. “If I’m even slightly tired, I’ll ride in the wagon. My mother has already delivered the lecture, sir.”

  Master Nikos’ lips quirked. “Of course she has. My apologies. We’re overly protective of you, I know. For all the grief we’ve laid on you, you are precious to us.”

  Valeria almost smiled. Her eyes were trying to go misty—a last remnant of the easy tears of pregnancy. “I know that, sir,” she said. “I won’t do anything foolish. I promise.”

  He patted her hand a little awkwardly—such gestures were foreign to him—and led his stallion on past toward the head of the caravan.

  Valeria finished tightening the girth with a little too much help from Sabata. He was losing patience. He could never understand why caravans took so long to move. If he had had any say in it, they would have been gone an hour ago.

  Valeria slapped his questing nose aside and swung into the saddle. He nipped at her foot, but he did not swing his hindquarters or try to buck. He knew better.

  His flash of temper made her laugh. She was still grinning when Kerrec rode up beside her. He grinned back and stole a kiss.

  “You’re in a fine mood this morning,” she said.

  “So are you.” He let the reins fall on Petra’s neck and turned to scan the faces of the riders who had come out to see them off. Everyone was there, from the youngest rider-candidate to the First Riders who would stay behind to welcome the Called and dance the Midsummer Dance.

  Valeria’s eyes lingered on each face. All of her yearmates were staying behind to continue their studies, along with the rest of the recently Called. She caught herself committing them to memory, as if she never expected to see them again.

  She shook herself before she fell any deeper into foolishness. She was only going away for a season or two. The Mountain was still home and always would be, however far she traveled.

  Still, this was a new thing she and Kerrec were doing. No one could be sure what would come of it. Then there was Maurus’ message. She was not fool enough to think that because armies had been defeated and mages destroyed, others would not spring up to take their place.

  For today she would focus on her increasingly fractious stallion and her still recovering body and try not to wallow too much in the last sight of the school that she would enjoy until at least the coming of winter. The caravan was beginning to move. The sun was up and the night’s mist was blowing away. It was a glorious morning, a fine day to be riding to the imperial city.

  Morag kept a careful eye on her daughter. Valeria, like most young things, suffered from delusions of invincibility. She was still recovering from a hard birth—harder than she or her otherwise perceptive lover seemed to understand.

  If Morag had had any hope of being listened to, she would have kept Valeria in the wagon from the start. But Valeria was a rider. She had to ride—it was as vital to her as breathing. So, it seemed, was her insistence on riding the wildest of her three mounts.

  God or no, the beast was being an idiot. Morag let him know it in no uncertain terms.

  She was somewhat gratified that he deigned to notice. He still jigged and danced, but he stopped plunging and flinging himself about. After a while he settled even more, until he was walking more or less quietly, with only an occasional toss of the head or lash of the tail.

  Valeria was still riding with that upright and beautiful carriage which distinguished the riders of the school, but Morag could see the subtle stiffness in her shoulders. Just as Morag decided to comment on it, Valeria swung her mount in toward the wagon and stepped from his back to the wagon’s bed.

  It was prettily done. Morag acknowledged it with a sniff. Valeria was a little pale but otherwise well enough.

  The tension left Morag’s own shoulders as Valeria made herself comfortable amid the bags and bundles that Morag had agreed to carry for the riders. The nurse, who was no fool, handed the baby over to her mother.

  Valeria did not melt as some women did in the presence of their offspring. Her affection was a fiercer thing. She cradled the small blanket-wrapped body in her lap, head tilted slightly, and watched the child sleep.

  Morag was growing drowsy herself. The wagon’s rocking and the clopping of hooves and the slowly rising warmth of the mountain summer were incitement to sleep.

  She had little need to guide the mule. The caravan surrounded her with protections as strong as she could manage herself. It was full of mages, after all.

  They were quiet about it, but they were on guard. Very little would get past them unless they let it. They had learned that lesson all too well.

  Morag slid into a doze. She kept her awareness of the road and the caravan and the magic that surrounded it, but her consciousness slipped free.

  It wandered for a while, drifting into Imbria and passing by her husband and children who were there. That was a pleasant dream, and it made her smile.

  Gradually the dream darkened. It came on like a summer storm, a wall of cloud rolling in from the east. There was no clear vision in it, only formless darkness and the howl of wind.

  A tower rose on a bleak hilltop like one of the old forgotten fortresses in her native Eriu. Wind and rain battered it. Lightning struck it and cast it down.

  In the ruins where it had been, the earth opened like a mouth. The heart of it was nothingness.

  That nothingness swallowed everything. Earth and sky vanished. There was nothing left but oblivion.

  Valeria gulped air. In her dream there had been nothing to breathe, nothing to see, nothing at all except the Unmaking.

  She lay in her nest of bundles and bags. Dappled sunlight shifted over her. Her daughter stirred in her arms.

  She welcomed every bit of it—even the knot in her back and the whimper that turned to a wail as Grania woke to pangs of hunger. In Valeria’s dream, it had all gone. The Unmaking had taken everything.

  She surrendered Grania to the nurse and sat up in the wagon bed, rocking with it
as it descended a long slope.

  From the driver’s seat, her mother looked over her shoulder. Morag’s green eyes were unusually dark.

  “You saw, too,” Valeria said. The words slipped out of her, too quick to catch.

  Morag’s nod was hardly more than a flicker of the eyelids.

  “That’s not good,” Valeria said. “If it’s as strong as this, this close to the Mountain…”

  “Maybe you should turn back,” said Morag.

  “We can’t do that.”

  “But if the Mountain can protect you—”

  “Who will protect the empress?”

  “Doesn’t she have every order of mages at her command?”

  “Not against this.”

  Morag turned on the bench, leaving the mule to find its own way. “What about the baby, then?”

  Valeria’s glance leaped to the bundle in the nurse’s arms. Her face flushed. She had not thought that far at all.

  “I’m not a good mother, am I?” she said. “I love her. I’d kill anyone who laid a hand on her. But there’s so much more to the world than that one thing.”

  “There is,” Morag said in a tone that gave nothing away.

  “She doesn’t come first,” Valeria said. “You knew it before I did.”

  “I know you,” Morag said. “You’re not meant for the small and homely things.”

  That was the truth. Valeria had not expected it to hurt quite so much. All the dreams she had had while she carried Grania, the things she had imagined that she would do, beginning with the simple human task of feeding her, had melted as soon as Grania saw the daylight. The agony of bearing her and the torment of the Unmaking had come too thoroughly between them.

  Valeria shook her head, sharp and short. She was making excuses.

  The truth was much simpler. Valeria was born this way. No amount of wishing could change her.

  Grania had finished nursing. Portia’s eyes asked and her arms stretched out, offering her to Valeria.