Shattered Dance

by Caitlin Brennan

He endured her scrutiny without evident discomfort. If anything it seemed to amuse him.

  “Master Nikos will never give permission,” Valeria said.

  “Can you know that until you ask?”

  “Why would he? My training has been interrupted enough as it is.”

  “Ask him,” said Pretorius.

  Valeria eyed him in deep suspicion. He met it with a bland face. He was not going to give way.

  She did not trust him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he offered something that she was terribly tempted to take. She wanted to be useful. She needed to be away from Kerrec. This gave her everything she needed—if her Master would consent to it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was dark before Valeria got up the nerve to approach Master Nikos. He had been busy with the Dance, then at the wedding feast after it. That ended at sundown when the bride and groom were carried off to bed and the rest of the guests dispersed into the night.

  She more than half hoped he would be asleep when she came to his door, but there was a light shining under it and the wards were not secured. It was open to any rider or servant who needed him.

  Damn the man. He knew she was there. She must be sprawled all over the patterns that he more than any had the power to see.

  Even then she almost turned and ran, but Master Pretorius’ voice was still ringing in her ears. The temptation was worse the harder she tried not to think about it. If she accepted the mage’s offer, she would get away from the city and the empire, cross the river and enter a country she had heard of in endless tales but barely seen. Above all, she would be doing something useful—as far away from Kerrec as possible.

  She knocked softly at the door. “Come,” said the voice within.

  She slid the latch and stepped into the warmth of lamplight. Master Nikos sat on a couch with faded crimson cushions, reading a book.

  He looked up. His face was tired but his eyes were clear. “Valeria,” he said.

  “Master,” said Valeria. She had had a speech prepared, but now she was here, it had drained out of her head.

  “I spoke with Pretorius this evening,” Master Nikos said. “He told me he made you an offer.”

  Valeria realized she was gaping. She shut her mouth with a snap. “You know Pretorius?”

  “Before he was the master of three magics, he was the emperor’s courier to the Mountain. In those days he could almost ride.”

  Valeria’s lips twitched. “And now?”

  “He has since acknowledged his limitations.”

  “I didn’t think he had any.”

  “Neither did he,” said Nikos, “when he was young.” He closed his book and laid it aside. “Will you go?”

  “That’s not for me to say, is it?”

  Nikos paused, studying her. She looked in his eyes for pity, but she did not find it. What she did find was understanding, and something else that kept eluding her. Sadness? Something remarkably like guilt?

  What had Nikos done but allow Kerrec to do what they all knew he had to do? It was not his fault. It was not Kerrec’s either, or even Briana’s.

  “You need time to knit your heart together,” Nikos said. “It breaks anew every day that you stay here.”

  That was the pure and unflinching truth. Valeria could find no words to say.

  Nikos had his fair share still. “I’ve given you to Pretorius for the length of the summer—until the coronation. Your lessons will continue. Pretorius has a certain facility with our magic, and he knows the books we study.”

  At last Valeria scraped together the wits to speak. “But my riding—the stallions—” And, she thought, her daughter—but that was no business of his.

  “Have you ever honestly learned the art from a human teacher?”

  Valeria bit her tongue.

  Nikos nodded as if she had spoken. “I doubt you are capable of letting that go, even if the stallions would let you. You’ll lose nothing and possibly gain much by doing this.”

  “And you? What do you gain?”

  “Goodwill,” he answered, “and proof that we do indeed mean to take ourselves out into the world.”

  “Kerrec isn’t proof enough?”

  Nikos fixed her with a clear, hard stare. It was strangely compassionate. “Do you want to stay?”

  She hated it when he changed direction like that. “No! I want to go. But I feel as if I shouldn’t. There is just so much—”

  “You have my blessing,” Nikos said. “Learn all you can. Pretorius has a great deal to teach you, if you will listen.”

  “Then I’m supposed to bring it back to you?”

  “You’re not a spy,” said Nikos.

  Valeria bit her lip. She had spoken out of turn. It was kind of him not to rebuke her.

  “Go now,” he said, “and rest. The caravan leaves in the morning.”

  “That soon?”

  He bent his head.

  Valeria hesitated. There was something he was not telling her. She could feel it like a shadow around the edges of everything he had said.

  Was he so glad to be rid of her? She almost asked, but her courage failed.

  It failed in every way—because it was easier, in the end, to follow orders than to stay and face Kerrec and, all too soon, her mother and the daughter she barely knew. She took the opening he offered and fled.

  Sabata would not have stayed behind even if Valeria had meant to leave him. When she came to saddle him, she found all three stallions waiting. Sabata was saddled and bridled. The others wore their traveling halters.

  “I’ve packed their gear and sent the chests to the caravan,” Quintus said. He subjected Sabata’s bridle to a last, swift inspection. “I’m sure I can trust you to keep it all in order, since there won’t be anyone to help.”

  “It was good of you to do that,” Valeria said, “but I wasn’t planning to—”

  “They are,” Quintus said, tilting his head toward the stallions.

  Three pairs of calm dark eyes stared back at Valeria. Three perfectly innocent faces waited for her to get over her foolishness and get them all to the caravan before it left the city.

  “The school can’t spare all three of you,” Valeria said. “Oda at least, if you would—”

  Oda was older than most horses ever lived to be. He shook his shimmering white mane and turned his back on her, trotting purposefully toward the stable door.

  He was going. She could follow or not as she pleased.

  There was no arguing with gods. Valeria reached to take Sabata’s rein from Quintus’ hand.

  He held it for a moment, looking straight into her face—remarkable boldness for a man so painfully shy of women. His weathered cheeks were several shades darker than usual, but he held his gaze steady as he said, “Take care of yourself, rider.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Valeria said.

  “Do better than that if you can,” said Quintus.

  Valeria frowned, but as with Nikos, she shied away from pressing too hard. She did not want to be maneuvered out of doing this. Whatever the outcome, she had to do it. It might be the only way through the darkness that shadowed every path.

  The Unmaking was close. It hid in every shadow. Even the morning light seemed dimmer than she remembered.

  It had been coming on since a priest of the One stepped out of air into a hidden chamber, but for the first time Valeria was consciously aware of it. The priest’s coming had opened a gate. His attack on Briana had flung it wide. Now something was in the world that should not be—not if the sun was to keep on shining.

  Was the Master sending Valeria away to protect her? If he was, he had a strange way of doing it. She was going to the heart of the One’s country, among that nameless, shapeless power’s own people.

  There must be something Nikos expected her to do. If he had wanted her to know what it was, he would have told her. Riders never told anyone anything if they could teach through example.

  She had lessons to learn, then, and those lessons were in t
he east. If she healed a little in the learning, she reckoned Nikos would be satisfied.

  She paused in the light of early morning, with the first birdsong lilting in her ears. The bit jingled as Sabata champed it. She set her foot in the stirrup and sprang astride.

  Even as she hung in the air above his back, he surged into motion, rocking her into the saddle. The other two stallions were already pulling ahead.

  It was a fine morning and would be hot when the sun was up. There was hardly anyone in the streets between Riders’ Hall and the east gate where the caravan waited. Those few who were abroad were too fuddled or too preoccupied to notice the passage of a rider with three white horses.

  The stallions were doing what they often did away from their own places, dimming the light and making themselves look common. They did that very well. Oda appeared as an old, swaybacked nag and Marina plodded dully, his big round hooves echoing on the cobbles. Sabata never had played the game well—he was too vain—but he managed to keep his head down and his gait as lackluster as it could bear to be.

  Even as slowly as they seemed to move, they passed through the city remarkably quickly. The sun was still not up when they reached the court in front of the gate where the caravan was taking shape.

  The embassy was only a part of it. There was a long train of mules and carts, a small army of guards and near the middle, a company of men on horseback. They did not look like guards, but they had a certain air of quiet about them that told Valeria they knew what fighting was and were not afraid of it.

  In the middle of those was Master Pretorius on a horse as carefully unremarkable as he was. Valeria looked for the rest of the lords who must be riding with him, but he was the only one.

  He caught her eye and grinned. “Ah! There you are. Come here.”

  Valeria thought briefly of pretending she had not heard, then insinuating herself into another part of the caravan. But three white horses, even in their mortal disguises, were difficult to hide. With a mental sigh, she made her way toward the mage.

  Midway, she met an obstacle. Two of the mules had taken exception to their places in the line. They registered those objections loudly and at length. The rest of the line milled and scrambled to escape the flying heels.

  After some moments, Oda slipped his halter, stepped onto the battleground and snaked out his neck. The nearer mule was the larger—a great dray mule a solid foot taller than Oda. The stallion clamped teeth in the mule’s nape, bunched his body and heaved.

  The mule flew end over end, bowling over its erstwhile adversary and tumbling in a heap against the city wall. It lay stunned, but Valeria could feel the life in it still. There was no harm done except to its dignity.

  Oda trod delicately out of the circle and back to Sabata’s side. The astonished silence broke as the caravan came back to itself. After a moment, no one seemed to remember what he had seen.

  Oda’s nonchalance was palpable. He had gone back to looking like a farmer’s nag, with lower lip slack and back sagging.

  Master Pretorius’ amusement washed over Valeria. “See? You’ve made yourself useful already.”

  “Any Beastmaster could have done that,” Valeria said.

  “Not with such an able assistant,” said Pretorius. “I foresee we’ll be blessed to have you with us. Now come, the caravan master has asked to make your acquaintance.”

  Valeria knew the courtesy of caravans. She made no objection when Pretorius led her away from the guards—two of whom fell quietly in behind—and along the line of the caravan toward the man who oversaw it all.

  As she drew closer, she started slightly. He was a smallish man, slight and wiry, with a luxuriant black beard and an intricate pattern of lines and curves tattooed on his cheeks and forehead. Her start was not for the strangeness but for the familiarity. Her yearmate Iliya bore such patterns, the marks of a prince from the desert tribes.

  If Iliya was a prince, this must be a king. His patterns were dizzyingly complex. They reminded Valeria of the map of a Dance that the Augurs drew as they interpreted its turns and pauses.

  Apparently this lord of the desert was accustomed to being read like a book. Pretorius’ introduction had ended some moments since, but he waited politely for Valeria to come back from wherever her mind had gone.

  “Please,” she said, “pardon me. I think one of your kinsmen is my friend.”

  A wide white smile parted the black beard. “My cousin! Yes. He went to the Mountain and never came back. He passed the testing, then?”

  “He passed it well and honorably,” Valeria said.

  The caravan master clapped his hands. “Ah! Splendid! Once we’re on the road, you’ll have to tell me everything.”

  “I’ll be glad to,” said Valeria.

  His smile flashed once again. He bowed with graceful extravagance. “Later, then,” he said.

  “That was well done,” said Pretorius as they returned to the middle of the caravan. “Rashad would do his duty in any case, but if he’s well disposed toward us, our way will be easier.”

  That should have been obvious, Valeria thought. Aloud she said, “Has anyone ever read the patterns on his face?”

  Pretorius’ brow twitched upward. “His kinsmen have, I’m sure. They’re marks of royalty—but you knew that, yes?”

  “I know what they’re supposed to signify,” she said. “Has no one seen what they really mean?”

  “Why? What do you see?”

  Valeria shivered in the rising heat. “I’m not an Augur. I ride patterns. I don’t interpret them.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Her teeth clicked together. “Tell me you see them, too.”

  “I’m not a horse mage,” Pretorius said.

  “You are an Augur,” she said, “and a Dreamweaver and an Astrologer. All of your arts and skills are focused on reading patterns and foretelling the future. What do you read in that man’s face?”

  “Royalty,” said Pretorius, but he paused. After a while he added, “I see uncertainty. A shadow fallen across our path. A Dance of death.”

  He seemed to be seeing it for the first time as he spoke. When he stopped, he looked narrowly at Valeria. “How in the gods’ name did a death Dance weave itself into the clan marks on a tribesman’s face?”

  “I was hoping you knew,” said Valeria.

  He spread his hands, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “His clan bred a horse mage. Maybe lesser talents were born in it, too, not strong enough to answer the Call but strong enough to see the patterns of a Dance.”

  “But to carve them on a kinsman’s face? Why would he do that?”

  “To be read, I would suppose,” Pretorius said.

  Valeria had to admit the logic of that. She found herself almost pitying the man who had been so beset with visions that he had had to record them in living flesh. The living flesh did not appear troubled—which meant that it was likely the caravan master did not know what he carried.

  She was not about to enlighten him. He could rest in his innocence, content with the knowledge that he was blessed with clan marks of exceptional beauty and intricacy.

  While her mind wandered, time had been passing. The gate was open and the sun was up. She took up the reins with a sense of almost shameful relief.

  The caravan began to move, slowly at first as caravans always did. Once it was through the gate and on the open road, it would find its pace.

  She deliberately did not look back. This was Kerrec’s city. It would never be hers. She had been foolish to think it could be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “It’s done,” Gothard said, straightening from the black stone with which he had been scrying. His head came just short of the summit of the stone hut he had claimed for his own. He yawned and stretched and twisted his neck until it cracked.

  Euan Rohe winced at the sound. Not only was he cramped and squeezed into this tiny box of a hut, he had had no sleep the night before. A warband from one of the eastern clans had come in to the hunt
ing camp, requiring a proper welcome from the new high king. They had brought with them a vat of what they called ice wine, which tasted innocuous but had a kick like an imperial mule.

  As far as Euan knew, Gothard never drank. He never ate, either. Maybe he really was a ghost walking among the living and feeding on their souls.

  Euan shook off the horror of the thought. “You’ve done it? She’s dead?”

  Gothard frowned slightly. “Better than dead. While she lives, she’ll never bear a child.”

  “She’s still alive,” said Euan. “The stroke failed, then.”

  “It went somewhat awry,” Gothard admitted, “but it’s not a failure. There’s still the law of the empire. She hasn’t been crowned and she can’t produce an heir. Her right to rule is open to challenge.”

  “You think they’ll choose you, after all you’ve done?”

  “They’re slaves to the law,” said Gothard. “In law, if the heir is incapable of producing an heir, a scion of the direct line may claim his place.”

  “You have a brother,” Euan pointed out.

  He had done it in part to watch Gothard’s eyes go flat—not a laudable thing, but one took one’s pleasures where one could. “In law,” Gothard said in a voice as flat as his eyes, “a rider cannot claim any place outside of the Mountain.”

  “I wonder,” said Euan. But he had to concede that if ever a man lacked imperial ambition, it was the First Rider Kerrec. He could have been emperor, but he had thrown it away for the white stallions.

  “Aurelia is mine,” Gothard said, “and I will do whatever I have to do in order to take it.”

  “So you always have,” Euan said with careful lack of expression.

  He left Gothard’s hut in an odd mood. Mention of the Aurelian Empire could do that to a man of the people.

  The war that had failed so devastatingly last summer would leave scars for generations. Euan saw it in the dearth of young men among so many of the clans, and the women and children left alone for any man to take—if a man was left to take them. A terrible number of them had died in the winter.