The Mountain's Call

by Caitlin Brennan

  “I thank you for that,” she said.

  The Chief Augur bowed to her in respect that seemed genuine. “Highness,” he said, “never forget that we are your servants. Never hesitate to ask of us whatever you must. After we are your father’s, we are yours—and before either of you, we belong to the empire.”

  Briana’s throat was tight. She had been bred to receive homage, but there was a depth to this that she had not felt before.

  Her father was not going to die and leave her to rule a crumbling empire. The Dance was not going to shatter. If she had to hold it together with her own life and soul, she would.

  Maybe the last portent applied to her after all. She found, contemplating it, that she was not afraid. Whatever she was meant to do, she would do it. That was what she was for.

  Demetria’s sword flicked out, quick as a snake. Artorius’ blade flashed to the riposte. Demetria struck again, again, again. At each stroke he beat her back.

  Briana held her breath. She would have Demetria’s neck—but not until that ell of polished steel was safely sheathed. Her father was remarkably fast on his feet for a man with a wound in the side that even yet was bleeding magic. He began to fall back before Demetria’s determined attack.

  Just as Briana was about to call a halt, he came alive. His blade was a blur.

  He seemed almost cool, but sweat ran down Demetria’s face. She retreated a step, two, three, four. The sword flew out of her hand.

  She stood grinning. He grinned back.

  Briana could not decide which of them to throttle first. Even while she glared at them, she had to admit that her father looked well—if she ignored the fact that his magic had shrunk from a roaring flame to a barely visible ember.

  “Father—” she began.

  “Briana,” he said. He saluted her with his blade and sheathed it with a flourish. “Before you kill your servant, do consider that she was only following orders.”

  “Orders to do what? Put you out of your misery?”

  “Precisely,” he said. “Did you notice? The poison is fading. The stronger my blood flows, the weaker the akasha becomes.”

  “You can’t spend the next six days playing at soldiers,” she said.

  “No?” He was in an odd mood, as if he had drunk a little too much wine. Loss of blood made one light-headed. Maybe loss of magic could do the same.

  She had been going to tell him about everything—the rash of omens, the plan to trap Gothard—but what could he do, after all? He was entertaining himself perfectly well. He seemed safe. After she was done, if the gods favored her, he would be safer still. She might even stop the attack on the Dance. She was a key, the Augur had said. He had not said anything of the emperor.

  “If you won’t rest,” Briana said, “at least stop grinning and eat something. Maybe even call in a healer, if—”

  “No healers,” he said. “What are they saying in court? Are the whiners as loud as usual?”

  Her breath came a bit short. She made herself answer lightly, and not as if she were trying to hide anything. “Louder. But the rumors are more harmless than you might expect. No one is talking about knives and poison. We’re safe for a while.”

  That pleased him, and had the virtue of being true. His servants brought food, which he insisted that she share. She choked down as much as she could, and escaped before he could grow suspicious. Demetria was eyeing her oddly, but her father seemed content to believe that she had only come to assure herself that he was well.

  Maariyah had seen that Briana’s messages were delivered. The burden was on Tullus the guardsman to lay the trap and set it to be sprung.

  Briana was the bait. She had debated between summoning her brother into her presence, which would be in accord with protocol but might make him suspicious, and calling on him in his own house, which would take the fight to his territory.

  In the end she decided to go to him. It had the advantage of surprise, and she could claim precedent. She had been in his house often as a child, though more seldom as she grew older, after Ambrosius became Kerrec and went to the Mountain. Gothard never had forgiven either her or their father for taking away the heirship—as if he had ever had a right to it.

  Now she knew just how badly he had wanted it, and just how much he was willing to pay to get it. It saddened her above and beyond the anger. He was her brother, and he had turned against his own blood.

  She put the sadness aside until she could afford to indulge in it. With Maariyah and a pair of guards, both of whom were mages with a gift for raising wards, she set off on foot toward Gothard’s house.

  The guard at the gate was one of Tullus’ men. He greeted Briana with the signal they had agreed on, a flick of the fingers at his belt. She arched her brow and tilted her chin. He bowed her through the gate.

  Gothard was at home, as Tullus had assured her that he would be. Briana was not admitted at once to his presence, but she had expected that. She settled as comfortably as she could in the anteroom to which his servants directed her, smoothing the skirts she had put on for the occasion.

  She ran her hand surreptitiously down her leg to her ankle. One of her daggers was strapped securely, within fast reach. The other, under her voluminous sleeve, slipped into her hand at a flex of the wrist, and then back smoothly into its sheath.

  She had no stone in which to focus her magic, but that could be a strength rather than a weakness. Her power was woven through her flesh and bone. It could not be separated from her unless she died.

  She slowed her breathing and drew her power into herself. Fear was far away. So was the earth of this empire from which she drew most of her strength. In this place of stone, Gothard had focused the bulk of his magic.

  She held herself steady by force of will. The house lay on the earth. She only had to find it through cracks in the stones. Then she could ground herself.

  A shock ran through her. There was a white god inside these walls. Once she was aware of him, she could feel him as strongly as the heat of sunlight on her skin. At first she thought him trapped, but there was nothing either caged or desperate about him. He hated walls, that came through very strongly, but he chose to enclose himself in them.

  He was the anchor she needed. All of her family were bound to the stallions, although Kerrec was the first imperial heir to be Called as a rider. She rested briefly in the comfort of the god’s presence, not thinking too hard about what it meant or what he must mean by it.

  Someone was standing in the door of the anteroom. With difficulty she forced her awareness back to the mortal world. The person in the doorway was so powerful that she was surprised and somewhat disappointed to realize that it was a human creature and not the stallion.

  It was a woman, quite young, and dressed like a rider. Her hair was cut short, curling on her neck. Her face was a narrow oval, too strong for prettiness, but rather striking in its beauty. If a man was not looking too closely or expecting too much, he might take it for a boy’s.

  So this was the traitor, Briana thought. Of course she would be that young, if she had only been Called that spring, but it was a little surprising even so. Her magic was so strong and so sure of itself, so much like a stallion’s, that Briana felt a little dizzy seeing it in this young girl’s body.

  She could sense no corruption in it. That interested her. She opened her mouth to speak, but the girl had started and half spun. Before Briana could blink, she was gone. In her place stood one of Gothard’s servants. “My lord will see you now,” he said.

  Briana steadied herself with a deep breath, and wrenched her mind away from the puzzle of the girl who had been Called. Every part of her must be clear and focused. She stood, shook out her skirts and followed the servant.

  Chapter Forty

  Gothard was praying at the shrine of the ancestors in the central court of his house. The images there all wore imperial faces and the imperial diadem. Briana had a similar shrine in her wing of the palace, but she paid tribute to her mother’s family
as well, a scattering of ducal coronets and a legionary standard or two.

  Barbarians did not offer respect to their ancestors. They had one god and only one, and he was a powerfully jealous divinity.

  She waited while Gothard finished his devotions. Her head was bowed and her eyes lowered in apparent respect. Under her lashes she confirmed what her magical senses told her, that there were guards all around the courtyard. Two were visible, over on the eastern side. The rest were hidden in shadows and behind pillars of the colonnade.

  All of those pillars were warded, as was the paving underfoot, but the sky was open overhead. There was no better place in this house for the trap the guards had laid.

  Briana’s heart was beating hard. She made herself breathe slowly. Gothard was taking his time, which was a not particularly subtle insult. He knew perfectly well that because it was a sacred ritual—dedicated to her own ancestors as well as his—she could not object to his conduct.

  The guards had begun to move, slipping down along the colonnade. Briana willed the tension out of her body. Gothard seemed oblivious. His wards and protections were quiet.

  Even with the warning she had had, the attack caught her by surprise. They came in from all sides, fast and silent. A thrown spear clipped Gothard’s shoulder and sent him sprawling. In almost the same instant, a heavy weight struck Briana from behind.

  Her brother’s body broke her fall. She lay dazed, struggling to clear her head. The stone was close—she could feel it. She scrambled as if in panic. He twisted under her. He was wheezing, gasping for breath.

  Her fingers brushed the stone. It burned like fire. By instinct she recoiled.

  Hard hands gripped her, hauling her away. She could not see Gothard. The stones underfoot had begun to hum. The man who gripped her heaved her up off them. “Sorry, Highness,” he muttered in her ear.

  There was a melee in front of the shrine, with Gothard at the bottom of it. If the spear had wounded or stunned him, he seemed to have recovered damnably quickly.

  Briana struggled against the too-helpful fool who held her. She could hardly breathe. Her magic was floundering. The sky fed it, but the stones swallowed it. Gothard was growing stronger.

  She wrenched free. The hum all around her rose to a shriek. One of the guards had Gothard’s ring. His shout of triumph was barely audible.

  This was all falling to pieces. Briana scraped her strength together as best she could. The structure of wards that should have risen around her was a ramshackle thing, full of gaps and threadbare patches.

  The guard with the ring lurched toward her. He was charring as he walked, from the hand inward. His teeth were set, his face a mask that reminded her incongruously of the Chief Augur.

  She had a pouch of warded silk in a pocket of her skirts. He had burned to bone and then to ash before she could draw it out. She dropped painfully to her knees. The ring lay, gleaming darkly, in the heap of nothingness that had been a man.

  The wards were not falling. They should have broken as soon as the ring left her brother’s hand. Which meant—

  Briana flung herself flat. The blast roared over her. Men’s bodies fell broken.

  The ring gleamed just out of reach. It had been far better bait than she had been.

  Gothard stood above her. She braced for the killing stroke, but he stretched out a hand and pulled her up. She could find no wrath in his face, not at her. She could have sworn that what she saw there was genuine concern. “Sister,” he said. “By the gods. Are you hurt?”

  She gaped like an idiot. Of all things she could have expected from this lethally clever man, this was the most improbable. He had laid a trap for the trap—but it seemed he had no inkling of her part in it.

  Her silence made him frown, and not—again amazingly—in anger. He swung her up in his arms, grunting only slightly, and carried her away from all the dead and dying.

  She tried to escape. Maariyah was there. Tullus. Two of her own guards. She could not—

  He was too strong. Now that the deception of the ring was gone, she felt the greater power it had hidden. It hung on a chain under his shirt, and it was nearly as wide as her palm. It was a master stone, a Great One of its kind, that ruled gods knew how many lesser stones. If she had known, if any of them had known, the actual source of his magic, they would never have tried anything so foolhardy as an ambush in his own house.

  “My maid,” she said. “My guards. I have to—”

  “They’ll be seen to,” Gothard said. That was more his usual tone, sharp and a little impatient. He carried her out of the light and into stifling dimness.

  Gothard’s servants looked after Briana, soothing her aching head with cool cloths and plying her with cups and bowls of this concoction or that. She trusted none of them, and turned them all away.

  Gothard had gone out to deal with the carnage. He came back just before she could make her escape, wearing a scowl that he barely wiped from his face before he greeted her.

  She had been holding her breath, but it seemed he still did not guess what she had been to the conspiracy. “They’re all dead,” he said. “Your maid, your guards—all of them. I’m sorry.”

  Briana made no effort to stop the cry that welled up in her. Her fault, her fault. Because she had planned too poorly. Because she had underestimated her brother’s intelligence. Because—

  Gothard never had been much use around weeping women. Discomfort made him snappish. “Stop it! Stop that. I’ll do my best to find out who is behind this. Did anyone suggest you come here at this particular time?”

  She stared at him, unable to shake her head, let alone speak a word.

  He looked ready to slap her. “Never mind. I’ll make sure you’re delivered safely home. We’ll see each other at the Dance, yes?”

  At that she could nod, numbly.

  He softened a little, enough to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I don’t think this was aimed at you,” he said. “You’ll be safe once you’re home again.”

  “My maid—” she began.

  “I’ll have the bodies of your people sent back with due honor. But you should go now. I can’t promise there won’t be another attack. If that was a feint—”

  She could hardly say it had not been.

  “Go now,” he said. “Go quickly. My guards will escort you. If you’re wise, you’ll stay in the palace until after the Dance. Keep your wits about you and be watchful. If I’ve been attacked, you yourself may be in danger.”

  Her jaw was locked too tight for an answer. In any case he had not expected one. His opinion of her had never been very high, but he would be sure now that she was an idiot.

  Maariyah’s body lay with those of Briana’s two guards in one of the anterooms of the heir’s palace. There had been no way to ask for Tullus’ body as well. Briana would have to honor him as best she could through the spirits of the others who had died with him.

  The embalmers had been summoned. Briana sat with the dead and waited. This was her penance, and her failure.

  The tears were burned out of her. When you fail, her father had taught her, learn from it. It was a hard lesson tonight.

  She heard both her father and her brother behind her. They had not come in together and were not perceptibly pleased to find that they had had the same thought, but for once they laid aside their private war. Kerrec came up beside her and knelt as she was kneeling. Artorius remained standing behind her.

  “Our brother has a master stone,” Briana said.

  “I know,” said Kerrec. “You should have suspected. He’s been keeping a Great One imprisoned in wards.”

  “The Great One chooses to be imprisoned,” Briana said.

  “Even so,” her brother said.

  Her fists had clenched. They were aching, but she could not unclench them. “There is nothing that either of you can say that I have not said to myself. I did everything badly. I acted too quickly, studied too poorly, cost the lives of loyal people through my errors of judgment.”

>   “You did,” said her father. “You also came out alive and unsuspected.”

  “That was luck,” she said bitterly. “I should have—”

  “Whatever you should have done,” Artorius said, “we now know more precisely what we face. Were you able to see the stone?”

  “No,” she said, still bitter. “He kept it hidden.”

  “No matter,” Kerrec said. “It’s clear enough what its powers are.”

  He would have said more, but the embalmers had come. One moment he was there. The next, she was staring at empty space.

  The embalmers were a sect of healer priests, devotees of the moon’s dark. They were all women, and all masked, with soft slow movements and supple gestures. Their order was sworn to silence.

  They bowed low to her and lower to her father, and indicated in their subtle way that there were rites they should perform here before the dead were taken away.

  Briana paused, looking down into faces that she would never see again in this life. She laid runes of blessing on the guards’ foreheads, but on Maariyah’s she laid a kiss. Her eyes had filled with tears.

  Her father’s arm circled her shoulders, drawing her away. He drew her all the way to the garden, where Kerrec was sitting on Petra’s back, looking as if he had been carved in stone.

  “I didn’t know horse mages worked the spells of mist and shadow,” Briana said.

  “We don’t,” said Kerrec. “I have no idea how I did that. I needed to be invisible, and to be gone. Therefore I was.”

  He was scowling. His fingers were knotted in Petra’s mane, and his back was stiff. “I don’t—like—not knowing what I did. Or how. Or where the knowledge came from. I am—I was—disciplined. I knew all the ranks and divisions of my power. My mind was a thing of order and beauty. Now—”

  Petra shook his head and snorted wetly, then turned and nipped his rider’s leg. Kerrec’s look of pure affront startled Briana into laughter that was half tears. When affront turned to outrage, she lost any power to stop laughing.