The air grew thinner as he went even higher, making his lungs ache and his head spin, slowing him down. It was cold now, so cold. He was nearly there, though. Just a little further. And then he could stop Josarian.
Suddenly the ground split open before him. The crack widened into a huge rent before he could leap across it. Wisps of steam arose from the earth's wound, clotting swiftly into a column of thick yellow smoke. The poisonous miasma choked him, forcing him backwards.
"Dar!" He had stopped praying to the goddess the night he killed Armian, but he addressed Her now. "I will stop him!"
The black interior of the earth melted into bright red. The lava smelled like blood and was hotter than fire. It pushed apart the crack, widening the gulf between him and Josarian. The skin-charring heat drove him further back. Molten rocks began spurting into the air, chunks of yellow and orange fire leaping out at him, driving him back down the slope which he had just climbed.
"Dar!" he shouted. "You'll have to kill me first if You want him!"
But he was only a man, and She was a goddess. His swords, his training, and his skills were useless again Her. Even his courage meant nothing in the face of Her power. Yellow smoke poured out of the fresh wound in the mountain, its acrid scent stinging his nostrils. It filled his throat, choking him, strangling him.
"Josarian..." he rasped.
Tansen coughed, his chest burning. The pain and lack of air drove him to his knees. He struggled against Dar, but She was stronger. He had finally found a greater opponent.
He gasped for air, unable to move or breathe, his eyes watering until he couldn't see. And he knew his destiny had caught up with him at last. He would fail.
He suddenly thought of her. He'd never see her again. The intensity of his sorrow shocked him, sweeping through him without warning.
"Mira..."
Mirabar, the demon girl, plunging through the waters of Kandahar in a ball of fire to face Kiloran himself...
He heard the rumble of the volcano overhead. Dar was gloating as She destroyed him.
"No..."
The bitter gall of his defeat burned his chest and sucked away his strength. He would fail. Dar would finally have Her revenge on him. Josarian would perish. The rebellion would crumble. Dar had wanted him to die knowing this.
Tansen tried to push himself to his feet. The ground crumbled away beneath his hand. A chunk of molten rock set his sleeve on fire and scorched his arm. Head spinning wildly, he fell backwards as he tried to get away from the clinging pain. Far above him, at the summit of the mountain, Dar rumbled victoriously, having vanquished Her foe.
Every sensation faded into insignificance under the onslaught of Dar's summons. Josarian could feel the hot, smooth rock baking the soles of his feet. He could hear the ecstatic wailing of the zanareen. His body quivered in the exquisite heat rising from the lava lake directly below him. His naked flesh shivered against the scintillating chill sweeping across the mountaintop.
Yet all these sensations were as nothing compared to the soul-shaking power of Her ardent call. The zanareen had kept him isolated for days, alternately sweating beside a small lava pool then immersing himself in an icy stream. He had fasted according to their traditions, consuming nothing except the mind-spinning tisanes Jalan brought him. Hunger, cold, heat, pain... They meant nothing to him anymore. For days, he had felt nothing except this intense longing, yet they had kept him from Her.
Day and night, he heard nothing but Her beckoning. Never asleep or fully awake, he felt nothing but the insistent pull of Her yearning. There was no hunger in him except his consuming need for Her. He could almost smell Her on his skin, taste Her on his tongue. Fire and brimstone, lava and heat, earth and sky...
Man and goddess, joining as one.
They had waited until now to let him go to Her—waited until they were sure he thought of nothing else, remembered nothing else, knew no need, desire, or ambition other than embracing Dar. As long as he remembered or cherished any portion or particle of his life, She would not have him, for She was a jealous goddess. Only now, when he knew nothing but this craving, remembered nothing of his life before coming to Her, only now was he worthy. Only now would She accept him.
He raised his arms overhead, surrendering to Her. She rumbled and roared in triumph, reaching out to him, welcoming him. Her heat rose from the lava lake to wrap around him, caressing him, coaxing him forward. Head reeling, heart pounding, he gave himself up and went to Her. He arched his back luxuriantly, then soared forward into space, tumbling into Her embrace. At the last moment, he heard a distant screeching, so faint that it was lost in the fiery thunder of Dar's passion.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A scream—a terrible screech—pierced Tansen's senses. His eyes rolled wildly, sending the world spinning as he jerked into awareness.
Pain. He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut against it. Then, taking short, heavy breaths—desperately gulping at the thin air—he glanced down at his right arm. A few charred wisps were all that was left of his sleeve. The flesh was reddened and sore but only the crease of his elbow was burned badly enough to have started blistering. There was blood in his eyes again; the cut on his forehead was bleeding copiously as a result of his passing out so that he lay with his head downhill.
He sat up and started coughing, his abused lungs trying to expel the deadly fumes he had inhaled.
Slowly gathering strength, Tansen rose to his feet. He looked around, dazed and bewildered. At first, he could find no sign of the cataclysm that had nearly killed him. Shivering with cold beneath his cloak, he scrambled back up the hillside until he found the crack in the earth. It had been as wide as the Idalar River when he fell unconscious. Now it was no wider than his hand, and it was slowly oozing together, closing completely as he watched. After a few moments, only a glowing, gooey trace of red was left to mark the fissure, like the clotting blood of a minor cut.
"Dar," he whispered.
Why didn't You kill me?
The answer was obvious. She wanted him alive. She had a purpose for him. Whatever it was, She would make it known to him in Her own time. Meanwhile... he had a feeling he knew whose scream had awoken him, as well as what had made her scream.
Josarian has jumped.
Tansen started hauling his aching body up the side of the mountain, shivering with cold, feeling light-headed and thirsty. His sense of urgency was gone.
Josarian has jumped.
His lungs were heaving hard by the time he reached the crowd of spectators. Hundreds of shallaheen huddled together against the cold, carrying hearty provisions of food and water. They saw his swords. They saw the brand on his chest, which was exposed by the singed and tattered rags of his tunic. They murmured his name, knowing his legend. And they told him what he already knew.
Josarian has jumped. My brother is dead.
The rebellion... No, he couldn't even think about that now.
My brother is dead.
They offered him food, water, and wine. He accepted only the water, then asked for Mirabar.
"Where is she?" His lungs ached so, he could hardly force the words out. "Where's Mirabar?"
They directed him past hundreds of resolutely chanting zanareen, glassy-eyed fanatics who ignored him, never taking their gazes off the Fires of Dar.
Tansen spotted her at last. She stood at the rim of the volcano, poised as if she, too, intended to jump.
Over my dead body.
His feet felt as if someone had weighted them down. Every step took concentration. The freezing air burned his lungs. He was shaking hard with cold by the time he reached Mirabar's side.
"Mira..." He sounded as if someone had just tried to strangle him.
She turned to him slowly. Her eyes were glassy, too. Unfocused. Dazed. There was dark circles under them. Her cheeks were hollow, and her neck was shadowed. Her skin was almost as pale as the snow, but two spots of hot, red color stained her cheeks. She was shivering as hard as he was and panti
ng as if she'd just plunged through the waters of Kandahar again.
Mirabar didn't look surprised to see him, nor did she seem to notice his bloodied, ragged condition. She looked as if she barely recognized him and had to struggle to recall his name.
"Tansen..." she whispered at last. "He jumped."
My brother is dead.
The next words out of his mouth were not the ones he'd intended to say. They shocked him, but she seemed to expect them: "Why didn't you stop him? Why?"
She didn't answer. Didn't look away. Just returned his gaze, breathing hard.
He snapped. He seized her shoulders and shook her. A woman. A tiny little thing. He shook her with every ounce of strength he had left and snarled, "How could you have let him do it?"
Her head tilted back. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. A terrible sound started deep in her chest, rose up through her throat, and burst from her mouth in a horrible, grief-stricken howl. Fine-boned hands came up to clutch her demon-red hair.
"Nooooo!" she screamed.
She yanked away from him. Afraid that she would stumble into the volcano, he reached for her. She tore herself out of his grasp, then fell to her knees, keening with misery.
It would have been a lot easier if she had just set him on fire. The sound of her grief, unleashed by his own cruelty, was worse than the cut of a shir. He sank to his knees, too, and tried to put his arms around her.
"Mirabar..."
"No, no, no!"
"I'm sorry."
"The visions... the dreams..." she gasped, sobbing and gulping air. "The Calling... Calidar..."
"Shhh... I'm sorry. I didn't mea—"
"Calidar told him... She sent him here. He would not listen... I thought it was the will of the Otherworld!"
"Shhh."
Her whole body convulsed, then she heaved violently, again and again. Dry choking sounds wracked her throat. Nothing came up, though, not even spittle.
Through the fog of his pain, exhaustion, and grief, he finally realized that in addition to being upset, she was very, very sick. Her skin was burning up, and those violent shivers were from fever as much as from the cold. He'd seen this once before. Some bodies, no matter how strong, couldn't adjust to being this high up. She would die if she stayed here much longer.
"We have to leave," he said.
"Nooooo..." She wept harder.
He didn't try to soothe her this time. He knew she'd be irrational until he could get some water into her body and find a warm place for her to lie down. It needed to be further down the mountain, though, because her main problem was the lack of air. She wouldn't improve until she could breathe again.
His exhausted, aching muscles screamed in protest as he stood up and lifted her into his arms. His burned arm felt like the flesh was being torn from it. Mirabar was petite and she'd lost weight up here, but she was still a solid shallah girl—woman—and his own weakness would make this downhill trip a gruesome expedition. They wouldn't go far. Just until they got below the snow line. He knew he could go no further than that today.
She struggled weakly in his arms, hurting him. His trembling legs betrayed him and he stumbled. They fell to the ground together.
A fierce roar, the birthing screams of a goddess, suddenly filled the air. Mirabar lifted her head, trying to peer into the caldera. His pain forgotten in the terror of the moment, Tansen tangled his fingers in her red curls and dragged her head beneath his shoulder as the sky howled and the earth trembled. He flung his leg out and rolled on top of Mirabar, shielding her—though he didn't know from what direction the threat came.
Heaven and earth seemed to collide. The sky all around them turned orange. The clouds themselves seemed to catch fire. The ground heaved like the waves of the ocean.
"Dar!" Mirabar cried. Senses drowning in the roar of the goddess, Tansen could barely hear Mirabar's voice, so close to his ear, as she shouted, "Let me go! It's Dar!"
He wouldn't let go of her, though. Dar already had Josarian. He wouldn't let Her have Mirabar, too. She'd have to take him first, and She had already proved that She didn't want him yet.
Lava shot straight up from the volcano, spinning high into the air, then falling back into the caldera. Tansen lifted his head and stared in wonder. He had seen Dar's explosions before, during his boyhood, but he had never seen anything like this. This was no series of violent eruptions spewing destruction over the mountain and across the land. Lava gushed sky-high as smoothly, regularly, and gracefully as the water in Shaljir's finest fountains. At its peak, the thick, red-hot flow blossomed into a thousand slender, glowing strands that fell gracefully back to their source. A billion tiny drops of molten lava flew in all directions, but they threatened no one, not even those cowering nearby.
Mirabar's eyes glowed yellow with religious fervor as she stared at the spectacle.
"Is that..." Tansen cleared his throat. "Is that Dar?"
"I don't... know..."
A ball of fire erupted from the top of the lava fountain. It flew straight at Tansen and Mirabar. If this was Dar, then She had evidently just changed Her mind and wanted Her revenge now. Tansen folded Mirabar back beneath him, practically smothering her, and flung an arm over his head, suddenly a little less ready to die than he had supposed.
The ball of flame landed so close to them it nearly set Mirabar's cloak on fire. Tansen rolled away from it, clutching the woman protectively, ready to defend her from the goddess she was struggling to see as he pressed her face into his shoulder.
"It's him," she cried. "Don't you see? It's—"
Someone started screaming in exultation, jumping up and down and pointing into the flames. Heart quickening with hope, Tansen rose to his knees and stared into the heat of the fire.
"Josarian?"
A shape slowly solidified in the leaping flames. It might be a man's body, crouched down on one knee, poised as if about to rise. It wasn't Josarian, though. It glowed as if made of the hottest coals.
"It's him," Mirabar breathed, gasping for air, tugging on Tansen as she tried to rise to her feet.
The flames started sizzling and smoking, gradually fading the way ordinary fire did when there was no wood left to fuel it. As the fire died, the glowing shape within it became more distinct. Tansen's heart nearly stopped when the thing moved, but he didn't back away. Mirabar said that creature was Josarian, and Tansen would not flee from his brother, no matter what he had become. Moving as slowly and painfully as a very old man, the shape in the fire pushed itself off the ground and rose to its full height. It stood there glowing, radiating heat and power, as the flames all around it withered and died.
Then the figure, too, started changing. The fiery glow, so similar to Mirabar's eyes, was fading, cooling, and sliding away to reveal the body of an ordinary man. Moment by moment, familiar parts of him appeared beneath the glowing sheathe which had covered him: the gleaming dark hair; the sun-browned flesh; the two scars left by Valdani swords; the marks on his palms.
He was breathing hard, and his naked body was drenched in sweat. His eyes were closed, his expression unapproachable. He seemed to be focused on some inner vision. Tansen stepped forward, but Mirabar clutched at him, stopping him. The tightness of her grip warned him not to speak or disturb Josarian.
The zanareen went wild, screaming, cheering, flinging themselves against each other. The shallaheen were shouting Josarian's name, crying out their triumph at the coming of the Firebringer.
The Firebringer.
It was true. It was Josarian. He had done it!
The volcano's furious activity subsided, until nothing was left of the fire and fury which had consumed both earth and sky only moments ago. Dar's voice was once again only an unsteady murmur in the caldera. Everything at Darshon again looked as it had always looked.
Except that the Firebringer is among us now.
"He is come!" Jalan cried, leading a swarm of wild-eyed men toward Josarian.
"Don't let them disturb him," Mirabar
said quickly.
Obeying her, for these events were far more of her realm than his, Tansen unsheathed both his swords and jumped between Jalan's people and Josarian.
"He is the Awaited One!" Jalan cried. "We are his servants! You cannot keep us from him!"
"I know. Just give him a few moments," Tansen said, secretly fearing that Josarian might need a whole lot longer than that.
"Tan..."
Tansen whirled instantly, recognizing the voice. Only minutes ago, he had believed he would never hear it again. "I'm here."
Josarian's eyes opened at last. Tansen had feared what he would see there, but this was the same familiar gaze he knew, the same ingenuous brown eyes he had looked into more than a thousand times. Josarian's expression was exhausted and dazed, but... this was unquestionably still the face of his brother. Relief coursed through him.
After a long, amazed moment of silence, Tansen asked, "How... How do you feel?"
The wind whipped across Darshon. Josarian shivered, frowned, and said, "I'm cold."
Mirabar struggled to her feet. "Here. Take this." She tried to remove one of her cloaks, a voluminous garment which Tansen recognized as Josarian's, but her arms were as weak as a baby's.
Tansen sheathed his swords, went to her, removed the cloak, and helped her back down to the ground before she fell down. The zanareen and shallaheen watched the three of them, whispering, murmuring, but wary of interfering.
"I guess the scriptures are a little vague about what happens next," Tansen surmised. His burned arm was smarting again, howling against all the recent abuse it had endured.
Josarian blinked and looked at him more alertly now, focusing his gaze. "Tansen." A slow, tired grin stole across his features. Astonishingly, he started to laugh. "Tan!"
In Legend Born Page 57