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Three

Euan Rohe walked into his father’s dun a handful of days before the dark of the year. A bitter rain was falling, but the west was clear, a thin line of pale blue beneath the lowering cloud.

The dun was older than the Calletani, a walled fort of rammed earth and weatherworn stone. The wall enclosed a half-ruined tower and a clutter of round houses built like the traveling tents of the people. The king’s house was built around the tower, with his hall in the center. All of it sat on a low hill that rose abruptly out of a long roll of downs.

In milder seasons it was a vast expanse of grass and heather shot through with the silver lines of rivers. Now it was a wilderness of ice and drifted snow, whipped with wind and sleet.

Gothard could have brought them there on the backs of dragons, or conjured chariots out of the air around the starstone. It was Euan who had insisted on taking the hard way on foot over the mountains and through the forests into the heartlands of the Calletani. It was a long road and grueling, but it was honest.

It had also given Gothard ample time to learn the ways and powers of the stone. Euan had no objection to the provender it brought, either the game that walked into his snares or the wine that appeared in his cup. It kept them both alive and walking. It protected them against either discovery or attack, and smoothed their way as much as Euan’s scruples would allow.

“You’re as stubborn as the damned horse-gods,” Gothard had muttered one evening, while a blizzard howled outside the sphere of light and warmth that he had conjured from the stone. “They won’t fly, either. The harder their worshippers struggle, the happier they are.”

“That’s the way of gods,” Euan said.

Gothard had snarled at that, but Euan refused to change his mind. Magic was a dangerous temptation. He would use it if he had to, but he refused to become dependent on it.

They walked, therefore, and Gothard played with the stone, working petty magics and small evils that made him titter to himself when he thought Euan was asleep. Gothard had never been what Euan would call sane, but since he had gotten hold of the starstone, he had been growing steadily worse. He was not quite howling mad, but he was on his way there.

He had been talking to himself for two days when they passed the gates of the dun—a long ramble that Euan had stopped paying attention to within the first hour. Part of him listened for signs of immediate threat, but it all seemed to be focused on the riders and their fat white horse-gods, Gothard’s dearly loathed brother, his even more dearly loathed father, and occasionally the sister whom he direly underestimated. Gothard, in true imperial style, had convinced himself that the females of his kind had neither strength nor intelligence.

At last, under the low and heavy lintel of Dun Eidyn’s gate, he stopped his babbling. There were no guards at the gate, and only a single sentry snoring on the wall above. The two wanderers went not only unchallenged but unnoticed.

Euan resolved to do something about that at his earliest opportunity. Winter it might be, but armies could still march and raiding parties rampage through unprotected camps and ill-guarded duns.

There was no one abroad within the walls. Smoke curled from the roofs of the round houses, and lights glimmered beneath doors and through cracks in shuttered windows. Even the dogs had taken shelter against the storm, which with the coming of dark had changed to sleet.

The door to the king’s house was unbarred, and also unguarded. The guard who should have been there was inside with the rest, in the warmth and the smoky firelight of the hall, finishing the last of the day’s meal and passing jars of wine and skins of ale and mead. The songs had begun, the vaunting that would bring each warrior to his feet with the tale of his own exploits and those of his ancestors for as far back as the rest would let him go.

Euan stood in the shadow of the doorway, letting it sweep over him. Five years he had been away, fighting his father’s war and living as a hostage among the Aurelians. He needed time to believe that he was back at last—and to see what had become of his people in the time since he was gone.

He recognized many of the faces, though some had gone grey and not a few had gained new scars or lost an eye or a limb. Too many were missing, and a surprising number were new—young, most of those. They had been in the children’s house when Euan left, or had come to the tribe as hostages or in marriage alliances.

There were more than he remembered. They filled the circle of the hall, overflowing to the edges. There were more shields and weapons hung on the walls, and a good number of those were bright and new, not yet darkened with smoke or age.

He had feared to find a weakened clan and a faltering people, but these were strong. They were eating well for the dead of winter—the remains of an ox turned on the spit in the center, and the head of a wild boar stood on a spear beside the high seat. The king was wearing its hide for a mantle over a profusion of plaids and a clashing array of golden ornaments.

The old man was gaunt and the heavy plaits of his hair and mustaches had gone snow-white, but his back was still straight and his hand was steady as he drank from a skull-cup. The pale bone was bound with gold and set with chunks of river amber, and the wine inside was as red as blood. It was imperial wine—drinking defiance, the king liked to call it.

He was arrogant enough to leave his dun unguarded and his doors unbarred. Some downy-cheeked stranger was chanting, badly, the lay of a battle Euan himself had fought in. People were already hooting and pounding the tables to make him stop.

Euan raised his voice above the din, drawling the words as if he had all the time in the world. “Now, now, that’s not such a bad vaunt for a stripling. He’s even got his father killing three generals, and there were only two that I remember—and I killed them both. Look, that’s old Aegidius’s skull my father’s drinking from, and there’s the nick where I split it, too.”

While he spoke, he moved out into the light. He knew what he looked like, wrapped in rags and filthy tatters, with ice melting and dripping from his matted beard. He allowed a grin to split it, flashing it over them all, until it came to rest on his father’s face.

It was expressionless, a schooled and royal mask, but the yellow wolf-eyes were glittering. Euan met them steadily. “Good evening, Father,” he said.

The hall had gone silent except for the crackling of flames on the hearth. No one even breathed. Out of the corner of his eye Euan caught the flick of fingers. Someone was trying to expel him as if he were a ghost or a night spirit.

That made him want to laugh, but he held the laughter inside. He had played his hand. The next move was his father’s.

Niall the king studied him for a long while. Euan knew better than to think that slowness was the wine fuddling the old man’s brain. Niall was clearer-headed with a bellyful of wine than most men were cold sober.

At last he said, “So. You made it back. Took you long enough.” He filled the late General Aegidius’s skull to the brim and held it out. “This will warm your bones.”

That was a great honor. Euan bent his head to acknowledge it, but he did not leave the door quite yet. “I brought you a gift,” he said.

He held his breath. Gothard might choose to be difficult—it would be like him. But he came forward at Euan’s gesture.

He was even more rough and wild a figure than Euan, with his mad eyes and his pale, set face. He stank of magic, so strong it caught at the back of Euan’s throat.

“Uncle,” Gothard said in his mincing imperial accent. “I’m pleased to see you well.”

The king did not look pleased, but neither would Euan have said he was displeased. The bastard son of the Aurelian emperor and a Calletani princess was a potent hostage—even without the starstone.

Niall would have to know about that, but not in front of the whole royal clan.

Maybe he caught a whiff of it. Anyone with a nose could. His eyebrows rose, but he asked no questions.

“Nephew,” he said. He beckoned to the servant who stood closest. “Take him, feed him. Give him what he wants to drink.”

Gothard had been disposed of, and he could not fail to know it. Euan did not find it reassuring that he bowed to the king and let the servant take him to a lower table—not terribly low, but not the king’s table, either. A flare of temper would have been more honest, and a blast of magic would have been almost comforting.

Now Euan would have to watch him as well as the rest of them. But then, that had been true from the moment Gothard shed the skin of his magical protection and stood up in the camp he had failed to save. Gothard was no more or less untrustworthy than he had ever been.

For Euan there was a place beside his father and the best cut of the ox that remained. Tomorrow he would be looking out for daggers in the back, but tonight he was the prince again, the king’s heir. He was home.

Four

Euan woke in bed with no memory of having been brought there. He had lasted through four cups of the strong, sweet wine and uncounted rounds of bragging from the king’s warband. They were courting him—eyeing the king’s age and his youth, and reckoning the odds.

The wine was still in him, making his head pound, but he grinned at the heavy beams of the ceiling. He was in the tower, in one of the rooms above the hall—he recognized the carving. Rough shapes of men and beasts ran in a skein along the beam. Like the tower, they were older than his people. He had known them since he was a child.

His face felt different. His hand found a cleanly shaven chin and tidily trimmed mustaches. The rest of him was clean, too, and the knots and mats were out of his hair.

He sat up. He was still bone-thin—no miracles there—but months of crusted dirt were blessedly gone. He was dressed in finely woven breeks, green checked with blue in a weave and a pattern that he knew. The same pattern in rougher and heavier wool marked the blanket that covered him. There was a heavy torque around his neck, and rings swung in his ears and clasped his arms and wrists. He was right royally attired, and every ornament was soft and heavy gold.

He hardly needed to look toward the door to know who stood there, waiting for him to notice her. She was nearly as old as his father, but where age lay on Niall like hoarfrost, on Murna his first wife and queen, it was hardly more than a kiss of autumn chill. Her hair had darkened a bit with the years, but it was still as much gold as red. Her skin was milk-white, her features carved clean, almost too strong for beauty. They were all the more beautiful for that.

She looked like a certain imperial woman—not the coloring, the One God knew, but the shape and cast of her face and the keenness of her moss-green eyes as they studied him. It startled him to realize how like Valeria she was.

Well, he thought, at least his taste was consistent. He let the smile escape. “Mother! You haven’t changed a bit.”

“I would hope not,” she said. “Whereas you—what have you been living on? Grass and rainwater?”

“Near enough,” he said. “I’m home now. You can feed me up to your heart’s content.”

She frowned slightly. “Are you? Are you really home?”

“For good and all,” he said. “I’ll tell you stories when there’s time. I’ve seen the white gods’ Dance, Mother. I’ve brought an empire to its knees. It got up again, staggering and stumbling, but it was a good beginning.”

“All men love to brag,” she said.

“Ah,” said Euan, “but my brags are all true.”

“I’m sure,” she said as if to dismiss his foolishness, but her eyes were smiling. “There’s breakfast when you’re ready. After that, your father will see you. Something about a gift, he said.”

Euan nodded. “You’ll be there for that?”

“Should I be?”

He shrugged. “If it amuses you.”

“It might.”

She left him with a smile to keep him warm, and a parcel that proved to be a shirt and a plaid and a pair of new boots, soft doeskin cut to fit his feet exactly. Someone must have been stitching all night long.

It was bliss to dress in clean clothes, warm and well made and without a rip or a tear to let the wind in. There were weapons, too, the bone-handled dagger that every man of the Calletani carried, the long bow and the heavy boar-spear and the lighter throwing spear and the double-headed axe, and the great sword that was as long as a well-grown child was tall.

He left all but the dagger in their places. The day was dark as he went out, but the sun was well up—somewhere on the other side of the clouds. Last night’s glimmer of clear sky had been a taunt. Snow was falling thick and hard, and wind howled around the tower.

It could howl all it liked. Euan was safe out of its reach.

There was food in the hall, barley bread and the remains of last night’s roast, with a barrel of ale to wash it down. Euan ate and drank just enough to settle his stomach. If he had been playing the game properly, he would have lingered for an hour, bantering with the clansmen who were up and about, but he was still half in the long dream of flight. His feet carried him to the room where the king slept and rested and held private audiences.

It was the same room he remembered. Just before he went away, the trophies of two legions had been brought there. They were still standing against the wall. The armor of the generals, their shields and the standards with their golden wreaths and remembrances of old battles, gleamed as if they had been taken only yesterday.

They struck Euan strangely. For most of five years he had lived in the empire, surrounded by guards in armor very like that. Seeing them, he understood, at last, that he had escaped. He was free.

Maybe it was only a different kind of bondage. His father was sitting in the general’s chair that he had taken with the rest of the trophies. Away from the clan and its eyes and whispers, Niall allowed himself to feel his age. He slumped as if with exhaustion, and his face was drawn and haggard.

He straightened somewhat as Euan came through the door. The gladness in his eyes was quickly hooded.

That might have been simply because other guests had arrived before Euan. Two priests of the One stood in front of the king. Gothard perched on a stool, more or less between them.

Euan tried to breathe shallowly. No matter their age or rank, priests always stank of clotted blood and old graves. These were an old one and a young one, as far as he could tell. They stripped themselves of every scrap of hair, even to the eyelashes—or their rites did it for them—and they were as gaunt as the king and far less clean. Bathing for them was a sin.

The one who might have been older also might have been of high rank. He wore a necklace of infants’ skulls, and armlets pieced together of tiny finger bones. The other’s face and body were ridged with scars, so many and so close together that there was no telling what he had looked like before. Only his hands and feet were untouched, and those were smooth and seemed young. He was very holy, to have offered himself up for so much pain.

Euan’s mother was not in evidence, but there was a curtain behind his father, with a whisper of movement in it. She was there, watching and listening.

He breathed out slowly. Gothard grinned. He had been washed and shaved and made presentable, just as Euan had. Oddly, in breeks and plaid and with his chin shaven but his mustaches left to grow, he looked more like an imperial rather than less. In that country he was taller and fairer and blunter-featured than the rest of his kin. Here, he was a smallish dark man with a sharp, long-nosed face, playing at being one of the Calletani.

He seemed to be enjoying the game. “Don’t worry, cousin,” he said. “I’ve told them all about it. You don’t have to say a thing.”

“Really?” said Euan. “About what?”

“Why,” said Gothard, opening his hand to reveal the starstone, “this.” He flipped it into the air, then caught it, laughing as the priests flinched. “I know you thought we should bring it on gradually, but I think it’s better to have it out in the open. All the better—and sooner—to get where we want to go.”

“And where is that?” Euan inquired.

Gothard’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re going to play stupid? I told them who found it, too. You’re a great giver of gifts, cousin. The stone to me, and me—with the stone—to your father. Your people will love you for it.”

“They’ll love me more when I help them conquer Aurelia,” Euan said. “You are going to do that, yes? You won’t renege?”

“I’ll keep my word,” said Gothard, “as long as you keep yours.”

“We are all men of our word,” the king said. “Tell us again, nephew, what a starstone can do for us besides be an omen for the war.”

“It’s a very good omen,” Gothard said. “So is the fact that it came into the hands of a stone mage. The One is looking after you, uncle. This is going to win your war for you.”

“I hope we can believe that,” said Niall.

“Look,” said Gothard. He held the stone in his cupped hands. It never seemed heavy when he held it, but it was getting darker—Euan did not think he was imagining it. It looked like a piece of sky behind the stars, or a lump of nothingness.

Things were moving in it. They were not shapes—if anything they were shapeless—but they had volition. There was intelligence in them. They groped toward anything that had light or form, and devoured it.

The priests had gone perfectly still. Euan had seen fear before. He was a fighting man. He had caused it more times than he could count. But to see fear in the eyes of priests, who by their nature feared nothing, even death itself—that gave him pause.

Gothard smiled. The movements of the dark things were reflected in his face. His eyelids were lowered. His eyes were almost sleepy. He had an oddly sated look. “Yes,” he said softly. “Oh, yes.”

The stone stirred in his hands. Euan’s eye was not quite fast enough to follow what it did. It did not move, exactly. It reached.

The younger priest had no time to recoil. Formlessness coiled around him. When he opened his mouth to scream, it poured down his throat.

It ate him from the inside out. There was pain—Euan could have no doubt of that. The eyes were the last to go, and the horror in them would haunt him until he died.

When the last of the priest was gone, the thing that had consumed him flowed back into the stone. Gothard’s hands that held it were unharmed. His smile was as bright as ever. “Well?” he said. “Do you like it? We can do it to a whole army if we like, or the whole world. Or just the generals. You only have to choose.”

“The greatest gift of the One is oblivion,” Niall said. “Would you give such a gift to our enemies?”

“Would you give such a gift to your people?”

“It’s a strong thing,” the king said, “and it’s victory. It’s also magic. We don’t traffic with magic here.”

“Even if it will win the war?”

“Some victories are not worth winning.” Niall bent his head slightly. The remaining priest stiffened, but he laid a hand on Gothard’s shoulder.

Euan watched Gothard consider blasting them both. Then evidently he decided to humor them. He let the priest raise him to his feet and lead him away.

For a long while after he was gone, Euan had nothing to say. Niall seemed even more stooped and haggard than he had when Euan came in.

At last the king said, “That’s a troublesome gift you’ve given me.”

“You’re refusing it?”

Niall drew a deep breath. It rasped in ways that Euan did not like. “I’d be a fool to do that. But I don’t have to let it turn on me, either.”

“You know we’re going to have to use him,” Euan said. “Every time the Aurelians have raised armies against us, we’ve won a few skirmishes, even taken out a legion or two—then they’ve won the war. We can out-fight and out-maneuver them, but when they bring in their mages, we have no defense.”

“We have the One,” Niall said. “He exacts a price, but he protects us.”

“The price is damnably high,” said Euan.

“He takes blood and pain and leaves our souls to find their own oblivion. This thing will take them all—down to the last glimmer of existence.”

“Isn’t that what we want?” Euan demanded. “Isn’t the Unmaking our dearest prayer?”

“Not if magic brings it,” his father said. “I thank you for the gift of our kinsman. As a hostage he has considerable worth. For the rest…the One will decide. It’s beyond the likes of me.”

“You are the king of the people,” Euan said. “Nothing should be beyond you.”

“You think so?” said Niall. He seemed amused rather than angry. “You’re young. You have strong dreams. When I’m gone, you’ll take the people where they need to go. Until then, this is my place and this is my decision—however cowardly it may seem to you.”

“Never cowardly,” Euan said. “Whatever else you are, you could never be that.”

Niall shrugged. “I’m what I am. Go now, amuse yourself. It’s a long time until spring.”

Not so long, Euan thought, to get ready for a war that had been brewing since long before either them was born—the war that would bring Aurelia down. But he kept his thoughts to himself. The winter was long enough and he had a great deal of strength to recover. He could forget his worries for a while, and simply let himself be.

But first he had a thing he must do. The women’s rooms were away behind the men’s, well apart from the hall. They were much smaller and darker and more crowded, and they opened on either the kitchens or the long room where the looms stood, threaded with the plaids and war cloaks of the clan.

His mother’s room lay on the other side of the weavers’ hall. He had to walk through the rows of weavers at their looms, aware of their stares and whispers. He was a man in women’s country. He had to pay the toll accordingly.

She was not in the room, but he had not expected her to be. The bed was narrow and a little short, but it was warm and soft. He lay on it and drew up his knees. The smell of her wrapped around him, the clean scent of herbs with an undertone of musk and smoke.

He did not exactly fall asleep. He was aware of the room around him and the voices of women outside, rising over the clacking of the looms.

Still, he was not exactly awake, either. The bed had grown much wider. Someone else was lying with her back to him. Her breathing was deep and regular as if she slept, but her shoulders were tight.

Her skin was smooth, like cream, and more golden than white. Her hair was blue-black, cropped into curls. He ran his hand from her nape down the track of her spine to the sweet curve of her buttocks. She never moved, but her breathing caught.

He followed his hand with kisses. She was breathing more rapidly now. He willed her to turn and look into his face. Her name was on his lips, shaped without sound. Valeria.