скачать книгу бесплатно
It was a long way to the ground. She had ample time to tuck and roll. She also had time to contemplate the virtue of discipline, and to be struck by the humor of it all.
She tumbled to a halt with a mouthful of sand and a collection of entirely new bruises, and no breath for the laughter that was trying to bubble out of her.
Two faces stared down at her. One was long and silver-white and gratifyingly embarrassed. The other was oval and brown and incontestably human.
“Rider?” the boy said. “Are you dying?”
She did not want to sit up. She wanted to lie in the sand and count her bones and try not to think about how it would feel when she moved. Still, there was Sabata, belatedly appalled at what he had done to his rider, and this child whom she had never seen before, whose eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.
She sat up very carefully. Her head stayed on her shoulders. All the parts of her moved more or less as they should. Nothing was broken, even the arm that still ached when she moved it just so. There was a ringing in her ears, but that was the Mountain.
It was also the boy who had startled her into falling off her stallion. He was so full of the Call that she was amazed he could walk and talk.
He was otherwise perfectly ordinary, with a smooth, olive-skinned face and big dark eyes and curly black hair. His clothes were plain and had seen a great deal of use. He looked as if he had been traveling for days without enough to eat.
“You’re not dying,” he said. He sounded relieved. He held out a grubby hand.
She let him pull her to her feet. He was stronger than he looked. “How did you get here?” she asked him.
“I walked through the gate,” he said.
“Nobody met you?”
He shook his head. “There were people, but nobody said anything. I kept walking until I came here.” His eyes turned to Sabata and melted—there was no other word for it. “Is he—is that—”
“That is Sabata,” Valeria said.
The boy’s hand stretched out as if he could not help himself. Valeria made no effort to stop him. Sabata did not move away, either, which was interesting. No one could lay a hand on Sabata unless he wanted it—and mostly he did not.
He suffered this child to stroke his neck and find the particular spot in the middle and rub it until his lip stretched and began to quiver. The boy was enthralled. “Beautiful,” he said dreamily. “So beautiful.”
“He certainly thinks so,” Valeria said. “We have exercises to finish. If you can wait, I’ll show you where to go.”
“Oh, yes,” the boy said. “I can wait. You’ll let me watch?”
“I won’t be falling off again,” Valeria said firmly. She lowered a glare at Sabata. “Here, sir.”
Sabata had had his fill of defiance for the day. He came to her hand and stood perfectly still for her to mount. That was not as graceful as usual—some of her bruises were in difficult places—but she managed.
All the while she rode, the boy watched, rapt. He was not only full of the Call. He was full of magic. He had control over it—not like one of last year’s Called, whom she still remembered with pain. This one would not give way to temper and lash out with killing force.
It was not the best ride she had ever had. She was stiff and sore, and Sabata was trying a little too hard. She finished on as good a note as she could, then with the boy trailing blissfully behind, took Sabata to his stable.
Some of the stallions were in their stalls, sleeping or chewing drowsily on bits of hay. Most were out with their riders in various of the halls and riding courts, or enjoying an hour’s liberty in one of the paddocks. By that time Valeria had learned that the boy’s name was Lucius, that he came from a town not far from the Mountain, and that he was a journeyman of the order of Oneiromancers.
He was helping Valeria take off Sabata’s saddle and bridle and brush out the stallion’s moon-colored coat. She paused as he told her what he was, staring at him over the broad pale back. “You’re a dream-mage? What are you doing here?”
“I dreamed that I was Called,” he said.
“Obviously,” said Valeria. “Mages have been Called from other orders before. But just Beastmasters, I thought, and the occasional Augur. I didn’t think—”
“I didn’t, either,” he said, “but here I am. Like you. Is a woman supposed to be a rider?”
“No,” said Valeria.
“Well,” said Lucius, “there you are.”
He seemed to think that her existence explained his. She did not see what that had to do with it, but she was disinclined just then to argue. She went on with what she had been doing, frowning slightly.
When Sabata was clean and brushed and content with a manger full of hay, and the saddle and bridle were cleaned and put away, Valeria took the visibly reluctant Lucius to the rider-candidates’ dormitory.
He was not the only one there after all. Two more had come in while he was basking in Sabata’s presence. They both wore the uniform of the legions, and they were older than Valeria would have thought a rider-candidate could be. One must have been well up in his twenties.
First Rider Andres, who had taken charge of the rider-candidates in her year, as well, had them in hand. He raised a brow at Lucius’s escort, but he did not say anything in front of the candidates except, “Three on the first day. That’s a good number.”
“Let’s hope it’s an omen,” Valeria said. The legionaries were staring at her as if they not only knew who and what she was, they were in awe of her.
That was not comfortable. She could call it a strategic retreat, or she could regard it as a rout. Either way, she escaped those wide eyes and worshipful faces.
Valeria came to bed late. There had been lessons in history and politics and various facets of the horse magic, and a session in the library that had run through dinner. Then she had gone with a handful of riders to raid the kitchens. By the time she left the last of them at his door, the hour was well on its way toward midnight.
The lamp by the bed was lit, its flame trimmed low. The fire was banked in the hearth, but it shed just enough heat to take the edge off the chill.
Kerrec was in bed and apparently asleep. All she could see of him was a heap of blankets.
She dropped her clothes, shuddering as cold air touched her skin, and slid in beside him. His back was turned to her, his face to the wall. She pressed herself softly against him and kissed his nape where the black curls were clipped short.
He lay perfectly still. Her hand ran down his side, tracing the familiar gaps and ridges of scars. They were all healed now, the deep pain gone, and some had begun to fade.
She let her touch bring a little more healing, a little more warmth. He should have roused then and turned, but he never moved.
She sighed inaudibly. She had been full of things to tell him, but he was obviously determined not to wake.
Well, she thought, he worked hard these days—harder than she. He was the only First Rider left from the time before—that was what everyone called it now. Before the Great Dance that had ended with six riders dead and the empire’s fate so nearly turned toward destruction. It was only six months ago, just half a year, but it divided the world.
He had been the youngest. Now he was the chief of the First Riders. The others were all new to their office, and none too ready for it, either. They were doing well enough now, all things considered, but it had been a bitter winter. The school still mourned its dead, and would mourn them for a long while yet.
Much more than lives had been lost in that Dance. Strong magic and great art were gone, the province of masters who had devoted decades to the mastery of the stallion magic. Nothing but time could bring that back—if it could be brought back. Some of what was gone might never be recovered.
Valeria laid her cheek on Kerrec’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She wanted to hold him tight, but she knew better than to try that. He had paid a high price to be here, alive and safe. The scars on his body were the least of it. His heart and soul had been taken apart and were still healing slowly. His magic…
It was mending. He was strong. He worked harder than anyone and tested himself more sternly. He was thriving.
She had to believe that. They had done no more than sleep in each other’s arms—or he in hers, if she was going to be exact—for weeks. Months? She did not remember, probably because she did not want to.
She was still here. That was enough. He was first among the First. He could order her out and she would have to go, because she had sworn herself to a rider’s discipline, and obedience was part of it.
He had done no such thing. He wanted her here, even if he did not want her the way he had in the autumn and through the early winter, night after night. The memory of those nights could still warm her.
They would come back. He was tired, that was all.
So was she. She should sleep. She had another long day tomorrow, and long days after that.
A rider’s discipline could accomplish this as well as anything else. She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. After a while, she succeeded.
Seven
Kerrec lay motionless. Valeria was at last and mercifully asleep.
Her dream brushed the edges of his awareness. It was a dim thing, tinged with unease, but the white power of the stallions surrounded it. They guarded her even in dreams.
She could never know how much he wanted to turn and take her in his arms and kiss her until she was dizzy. But if he did that, he would have to open himself to her, and she would know.
She could not know. No one could. They had to believe that he was whole. He had to be. He could not afford to be broken.
During the day he could hold himself together. Much of what he did required no magic, or could be done with what little he had. He could still ride—that much had not left him. He could teach others to ride, and through the movements see the patterns that shaped the world.
The nights were another matter. He had to sleep, but in sleep were dreams.
At first he had been able to keep them at bay, even change them. His stallion had helped him. As winter went on, the dreams had grown worse.
Now he did not even need to sleep to hear that voice whispering and whispering, or to see the featureless mask of a Brother of Pain. Sometimes there was a stranger’s face behind it. More often there was one he knew all too well.
He never dreamed, awake or asleep, of the body’s pain. That had been terrible enough when it happened, and the scars would be with him until he died, but it was not his body that the Brother of Pain had set out to break. He had been commanded to break Kerrec’s mind and destroy his soul.
He had had to leave the task unfinished, but by then it was too far along to stop. What had been carried out of that place which Kerrec still could barely remember, had been the shattered remnants of a man.
The shards had begun to mend themselves. Kerrec’s magic had grown again, slowly but surely. He had dared to hope that he would get his old self back.
Then the healing had stopped and the edges of his spirit had begun to unravel. It was as if the Brother of Pain had reached out from the other side of the dream world and set his hooks in Kerrec’s soul again, even deeper than before.
Every night now, the whisper was louder, echoing inside his skull. What use is a dead prince in a living world? What purpose is there in this magic that you pride yourself in? What is order, discipline, art and mastery, but empty show? The world is no better for it. Too often it is worse. Give it up. Let it go. Set yourself free.
Every night he struggled to remember what he had been before. He had been a master of his art, endowed with magic of great power and beauty. His discipline had been impeccable. He had mastered the world’s patterns and could bend them to his will.
That was gone. The whole glorious edifice had fallen into ruin. All that was left was a confusion of shards, grinding on one another like shattered bone.
Very carefully he eased out of Valeria’s arms. It hurt to leave her—but it hurt more to stay. She was everything that he had been and more.
It was not envy that he felt. It was grief. He should have been her match, not a broken thing that she could only pity.
He was unprepared for the wave of sheer, raw rage that surged through him. The rage had a source—a name.
Gothard.
He could name the red blackness that laired in the pit of his stomach, too. It was hate. Gothard had done this to him. Gothard had given the Brother of Pain his orders. Gothard’s malice and spite had broken Kerrec’s mind and shattered his magic.
Gothard his brother, Gothard the half-blood, had nothing but loathing for his brother and sister who were legitimate as he was not, and for his father who had sired him on a hostage. He wanted them all dead—and he had come damnably close to succeeding.
He had escaped defeat and fled from the reckoning. No one, even mages, had been able to find him. But Kerrec knew where he was. He was in Kerrec’s mind, taking it apart fragment by fragment.
Somewhere, in the flesh, he was waiting. Kerrec had no doubt that he was preparing a new assault on everything and every person who had ever dealt him a slight, real or imagined. Gothard would not give up until they were all destroyed.
With shaking hands, Kerrec pulled on breeches and coat and boots. It was halfway between midnight and dawn. The school was asleep. Even the cooks had not yet awakened to begin the day’s baking.
In the stillness of the deep night, the Call grated on his raw edges. He had enough power, just, to shut it out.
He went to the one place where he could find something resembling peace. The stallions slept in their stable, each of them shining faintly, so that the stone-vaulted hall with its rows of stalls glowed as if with moonlight.
Petra’s stall was midway down the eastern aisle, between the young Great One Sabata and the Master’s gentle, ram-nosed Icarra. Kerrec’s friend and teacher cocked an ear as he slipped into the stall, but did not otherwise interrupt his dream.
Kerrec lay on the straw in the shelter of those heavy-boned white legs. Petra lowered his head. His breath ruffled Kerrec’s hair. He sighed and sank deeper into sleep.
Even here, Kerrec could not sleep, but it did not matter. He was safe. He drew into a knot and closed his eyes, letting pain and self-pity drain away. All that was left behind was quiet, and blessed emptiness.
Valeria knew that she was dreaming. Even so, it was strikingly real.
She was sitting at dinner in her mother’s house. They were all there, all her family, her three sisters and her brothers Niall and Garin, and even Rodry and Lucius who had gone off to join the legions. The younger ones looked exactly as they had the last time she saw them, almost a year ago to the day.
She was wearing rider’s clothes. Her sister Caia curled her lip at the grey wool tunic and close-cut leather breeches. Caia was dressed for a wedding in a dress so stiff with embroidery that it could have stood up on its own. There were flowers in her hair, autumn flowers, purple and gold and white.
She glowered at Valeria. “How could you run away like that? Don’t you realize how it looked? You ruined my wedding!”
“There now,” their mother said in her most quelling tone. “That will be enough of that. You had a perfectly acceptable wedding.”
Caia’s sense of injury was too great even to yield to Morag’s displeasure. “It was a solid month late, and half the cousins couldn’t come because they had to get in the harvest. And all anyone could talk about was her.” Her finger stabbed toward Valeria. “It should have been my day. Why did she have to go and spoil it?”
“I didn’t mean—” Valeria began.
“You never do,” said Caia, “but you always do.”
That made sense in Caia’s view of the world. Valeria found that her eyes were stinging with tears.
Rodry cuffed Valeria lightly, but still hard enough to make her ears ring. “Don’t mind her,” he said. “She’s just jealous because her lover is a live smith instead of a dead imperial heir. That’s how girls are, you know. Princes, even dead, are better than anything else.”
“Kerrec is not dead,” Valeria said.
“Prince Ambrosius lies in his tomb,” said Rodry. “It’s empty, of course. But who notices that?”
“That was his father,” Valeria tried to explain, “being furious that his heir was Called to the Mountain instead of the throne. He declared him dead and stopped acknowledging his existence until there was no other choice. Isn’t that what Mother has done to me? I’ll be amazed if she’s done anything else.”
“Mother knows you’re alive,” Rodry said. “She’s not happy about it, but you can hardly expect her to be. She had a life all planned for you, too.”
“So did the gods,” said Valeria. “Even Mother isn’t strong enough to stand in their way.”
“Don’t tell her that,” her brother said, not quite laughing. He bent toward her and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”
She frowned. “What—”
