Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

The instant slipped away. The dance unraveled. Cynara stood in the center of the arena, washed in applause and cheers.

Egil needed to go back. He had to try to see. The answer was there.

But Cynara had had enough. People were offering other mounts—horses trained with exquisite skill and artistry. Part of Egil wanted to grasp at them all, but the part that shared its soul with Cynara said, Wait.

Egil did not want to wait. But he trusted no one else as he trusted Cynara, and for today, she was done. What riding he did after that was marvelous in itself, but he never went back to the place where the answers were. He never even came close.

The Queen’s sources had been right. Whatever was happening here, it had something to do with the school. Whether it was dangerous—he hoped not, but he was afraid that it might be worse than that. Very much worse.

Heralds’ training instructed him to share his thoughts with his intern, but he was not entirely sure what they were yet. She was already suspicious, and that was a good thing. No need to swell that suspicion until he had something solid to tell her.

That night he went to bed early and woke even earlier than before, but this time nothing happened. The stars stayed in their places, except for a handful that fell in a shower of silent silver rain. Meteors were a wonder in their own right, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The next few days were among the most pleasant he could remember. To be among horsemen all day, every day, sharing what he knew and learning so much more, was his personal dream of heaven.

Bronwen did not share his obsession with the art of riding. Once she had won the awe of all the students with her bright hair and her splendid mount, she grew quickly bored. By the second morning, she demanded leave to explore the valley.

Egil granted it. Cynara would make sure Rohanan stayed in contact, and there were always students willing, not to mention eager, to play escort. At the very least, she would keep herself occupied—and if she did find anything, Rohanan had orders to report it instantly.

Cynara would enforce those orders. Meanwhile, Egil was free to indulge himself. He was aware always, of course, that he had a mission, and that everything he did should aim toward that end.

After a handful of days, Egil began to wonder what had happened to the moon. It should have been new when they arrived in Osgard, but that was days ago. And yet every night was the dark of the moon. No thin sliver of new moon appeared to wax night by night toward the full.

No one else seemed to notice. He detected no signs of a spell; everyone was normal, and the horses were unperturbed. Yet the sky at night was crowded with stars, and the moon never rose at all.

The following morning, Egil was up hours earlier than usual. By full light he had Cynara saddled and ready to ride.

The arena in which he usually rode was already occupied. That was a minor inconvenience: there were other arenas, and most of those were empty. But he paused to watch, because there were eight riders—a quadrille—and one of them was Larissa on a fine black stallion.

Cynara was happy enough to have her reins looped up and be turned loose to graze for a few moments more before she went to work. As Egil watched, Godric paused beside him, halter in hand, on his way to fetch the first training candidate of the day.

“This is the new quadrille,” Godric said in Egil’s ear. “They’ll perform it in public at midsummer, when the local gentry come to see what we’re up to this year. That’s when the new students arrive, and the young horses, too. It’s a great event all around.”

Egil nodded. Others had mentioned that as well. It was still the better part of a month away, and while he was loving this interlude, he was practical enough to acknowledge that by then he should be back in the Collegium.

All the more reason to absorb what he could, while he could. The quadrille was a courtly dance of riders and horses, usually set to music, though there was no musician here to set the rhythm. Larissa and seven of her best young riders on matched blacks transcribed a series of intertwining figures, moving in a smooth skein that Egil knew from experience was anything but easy to achieve.

His admiration gave way to a peculiar uneasiness. It was rather like the sensation that had brought him to Osgard, and rather like a voice singing just perceptibly off key. It was a lovely, an ingenious quadrille, beautifully ridden, and there was something deeply wrong with it.

:Do you feel it, too?: he asked Cynara.

She had already lifted her head to watch the dance. Her nostrils flared; she shuddered, a ripple of the skin over her whole body. The sight of it made Egil’s own skin crawl.

:Tell them to stop,: she said.

He had never felt what he sensed in her just then. She was calm—she fought for that. Just how hard, he could see in the rigidity of her neck and the perfect stillness of her posture.