It was maddening not to know what they were doing behind those walls. No one was supposed to know but the candidates and the riders who tested them. It was a mystery.
It was building up to something. What it was kept eluding Valeria, slipping into the core of her, hiding behind the Unmaking.
Sometimes she almost had it. Then it slithered away. It made her think of blind wriggling worms and flyblown corpses.
She almost would rather have the Unmaking than that. There was no one she could tell, because if she told, then she would have to confess the rest of it. Even Kerrec could not know what was inside her. No one could know.
All she could do was watch and wait and be ready for whatever came.
The last day of the testing, the one day that was open to the world, dawned clear and bright. “It’s never rained on a testing day,” Iliya said at breakfast. “Not in a thousand years.”
“Legend and exaggeration,” Paulus said with his customary sourness.
Iliya mimed outrage. “You doubt the gods?”
Paulus snarled into his porridge. Iliya grinned and declared victory.
Their banter was familiar and somehow poignant. Valeria ate distractedly. She could feel the power rising under her, the Mountain preparing to complete what it had begun. That other thing, the thing she could not speak of, had gone quiet—which did not reassure her at all.
The testing ground was crowded already when Valeria came to it. Long rows of benches were set up along the sides of the arena, adding to the tiers of stone seats that had been built into the walls. The riders’ tiers still had room and there were chairs left in the nobles’ box, but people were standing everywhere else.
Briana could have claimed a cushioned chair in the nobles’ box high above the eastward end, but she settled between Valeria and Batu on the lowest tier of the north side, with her feet brushing the edge of the raked sand.
Valeria took a deep breath. Countless patterns were coming together here. All the candidates, their families, the riders, the people who lived in the citadel and served the Schools of Peace and War, the stallions in whose name it all existed, the Ladies who were greater than gods, were part of this.
Every year for a thousand years, that had been true. It was truer this year, because there were so many Called. Some of the riders looked as if their heads ached. The stronger they were, the more they must be able to see.
Kerrec was not there yet. He was in charge of the candidates, along with the rest of the First and Second Riders. They would watch from the sidelines, making sure those who failed were taken care of and those who succeeded knew what to do.
The testing was devastatingly simple. For this many candidates, three eights of stallions entered in procession, saddled and bridled but unburdened by riders. The candidates came in three eights at a time.
Each candidate chose a stallion, which was a test in itself, then did his best to mount and ride. If he got as far as that, the nature of the ride itself was a test and a reckoning. The worst simply sat there, with the stallion motionless under them. The best were offered a few of the movements that, with training, would evolve into the Dance of Time.
It was a long testing—so long that they paused twice for water and refreshment. The stallions were merciless in their winnowing. By midday, twenty candidates had managed to ride their chosen stallions through some fraction of the movements. Three times that number had failed.
Many of those who passed were older, and nearly all were mages of other orders. The rest failed in various ways—failed to choose, failed to mount, failed to understand that to ride one of the white gods, there had to be complete humility. No man could master a god, but he could become that god’s partner in the Dance.
Some of them left on stretchers. Others limped or walked away, but were not followed or rebuked. The Call itself was a great honor. Failure was no dishonor.
It was painful for Valeria to watch them. She could not look at Kerrec at all or let herself be aware of him. Her skin felt raw and her throat was aching. Her heart kept trying to pound its way out of her chest.
She clung for support to the stallions’ calm. They knew exactly what they were doing.
As noon passed and the sun tilted toward the west, ten more received the gods’ approval. The eleventh made Valeria sit up. It was the boy who had found her the day she went off Sabata. Lucius, that was his name. He looked rather small and very young, but Petra chose him and carried him well, dancing for him as the stallions had danced for few others.
The more elaborate the dance, the stronger the power. Valeria knew that. The stallion who had carried her in her testing had been a Great One like Petra and Sabata. He had danced for her a part of the Great Dance.
Lucius did not get that, but what he got was enough for a murmur of delight and a long ripple of applause. He slid to the ground and staggered, a feeling Valeria remembered well. His grin spread from ear to ear.
He was the last. Valeria remembered, too, when she was last, how the crowd had erupted, and how the riders had overwhelmed everyone who passed the test, laughing and shouting.
Today they seemed stunned by the length of it. All thirty-one new rider-candidates hung about in the arena, blinking and wondering what to do next. The stallions stood in a double line like a guard of honor, but they were not guarding the candidates.
They were waiting for something. Valeria could feel it coming. It was like a storm rising, but the air was clear and the sky cloudless blue. The white cone of the Mountain rose serenely above the eastward wall.
She lowered her eyes from it to the gate through which the stallions had entered, long hours ago. There was a horse standing in it.
It was not one of the stallions. They were all greys—shades of white or silver or dapple or grey. This was a sturdy, cobby creature like them, saddled and bridled as they were, but its color was rich deep red, its mane and tail and legs to the knee glossy black.
A distant part of Valeria named the color. Bay. There was a star on the broad forehead between the dark intelligent eyes.
Valeria rose and bowed low, all the way to the sand.
The bay Lady walked slowly into the arena. The sand was pocked with hoofprints. Her big black hooves dug deeper and yet danced lighter than any of the stallions’. She was lighter in the leg and slimmer in the neck, as a mare should be, but her quarters were deep and broad and she moved with soft power.
There was not a sound in that whole place. All patterns had gathered to her. Every eye was on her.
She knew it, but unlike the stallions, she did not care. Mortal foolishness was not her concern—and to her mind, awe was foolish. So was the thought that rang in the ether, that nothing like this had happened in all the years of the testing. The Ladies never came down from the Mountain. They never troubled themselves with these mortal games.
This Lady had troubled herself with parts of Valeria’s testing. Now it seemed she had another testing to perform. The candidates were all standing, staring, not knowing what to do.
The riders who watched over them were in no better state. Valeria saw Kerrec near the end of the line, doing and saying nothing. His face wore no expression.
She wondered if she should move, once she had straightened from her deep bow. But the Lady’s glance told her to be still.
She bent her head. The gods were incalculable. That was a commonplace of priestly doctrine—and rider doctrine, too.
The Lady came straight toward her, then veered slightly to stand in front of Briana.
Briana