Even better, they would damage Kiloran. He couldn't fight Josarian's loyalists all by himself. He needed the Society.
"Dulien," Baran said kindly, reveling in the sweet taste of ripening vengeance, "would you like me to speak to Tansen for you?"
Dulien hesitated only a moment before condemning himself to certain death. "Yes."
"What'll we do with him?" Zarien asked Tansen while wrapping a fresh wound on his bloodfather's arm.
"Not too tight," Tansen instructed, his long hair gleaming blackly under the ash-streaked light of the setting sun.
"It's still bleeding a lot."
"Let me see." Tansen frowned at the messy gash. "Put pressure on it for a bit, then wrap it when the bleeding has slowed."
Zarien put pressure on the wound, then repeated, "What'll we do with him?" He looked across the encampment at Toren Ronall, who sat drinking a large quantity of volcano ale and gazing blankly into an enchanted Guardian fire, where someone cooked the evening meal.
"I'm not sure," Tansen admitted.
"He says he won't go back to Shaljir. Won't go back to the torena."
"I know. I was going to send him there with the next courier, but I don't think we can trust him not to run away."
"It seems strange, since you're trying to save his life."
Tansen shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure he wants to live."
"Also the lives of other Valdani," Zarien added.
"That seems to be the only way we'll influence him." Tansen gazed at the drunken toren for another moment. "But I think he's past listening to sensible conversation today. We'll have to try again tomorrow, before he starts drinking... Which, I've noticed, means we'll have to catch him very early in the day."
"It's the right thing to do, father." Zarien still felt sick when he remembered those heads decorating the gates of Shaljir.
"Saving Valdani lives." Tansen sighed. "Josarian would enjoy the irony. His sense of humor was easily tickled."
After a long moment of silence, during which Tansen was undoubtedly brooding about the Firebringer's death, Zarien asked, "Do you think the toren loves Jalilar?"
"No."
"But he's upset about the baby?"
"Not as upset as Emelen is," Tansen admitted.
"But... but you think they'll..."
Tansen shrugged. "Emelen and Jalilar love each other. They could work this out, I'm sure, if..."
"If she weren't carrying the toren's child."
"Emelen is struggling hard with the idea that he'll be father to another man's child." His gaze caught Zarien's as he added, "It's nothing like a bloodvow, Zarien. Emelen didn't choose this. When I look at you, I see my son. But that baby... Emelen's afraid he'll always see Ronall's child when he looks at it."
"Yes. I suppose choosing a child is different from..."
"From your wife announcing that she's having one that isn't yours," Tansen concluded.
"Or from another woman announcing she's marrying a man to have his?" Zarien guessed, thinking of the sirana.
"I knew you would say that," Tansen said wearily. "Let's leave her out of this, shall we?"
"Of course, father," Zarien said politely.
He ignored the suspicious glance Tansen sent him. His bloodfather didn't show it, not to anyone, not even to him; but losing Mirabar to Baran had wounded him badly. And Zarien found it hard to see Tansen bear a wound he couldn't bind for him. So he poked and prodded, thinking that maybe they'd both feel better if Tansen would at least talk to him about it...
Zarien sighed and shrugged off the thought, knowing it was futile. Tansen did not have a confiding nature. There was so much, Zarien was coming to realize, that his father might never tell him. Including what haunted his dreams at night. Yes, Tansen's nightmares came to him even more often than did Zarien's nightmares about his dead sea-bound family.
"Will Jalilar and Emelen be safe there?" Zarien asked now, turning his thoughts away from those painful memories, away from the consuming hatred he felt for the goddess Sharifar.
"In Sanctuary?" Tansen replied. "Of course."
Tansen had instructed Jalilar and Emelen to remain together in that remote little Sanctuary of the Sisterhood. It was more imperative than ever, he insisted, that the Firebringer's sister remain in a secure place. Emelen would stay there to provide for her... and to try to repair their damaged marriage. Tansen would give them some time alone together, and then he would send men to guard the Sanctuary and watch over Jalilar, as well someone named Sister Basimar to tend her in her pregnancy while Emelen returned to the fighting—as he would have to do. He was needed.
Meanwhile, Tansen and Zarien returned to their encampment with Ronall in tow. Zarien had never met anyone quite like the toren and wasn't sure what to make of him. Tansen seemed to alternately pity and despise the man.
"It seems strange that Torena Elelar married him," Zarien mused.
"Strange beyond words," Tansen agreed, his tone dry.
Somewhere between the Sanctuary and camp, the three of them had stumbled upon a battle. Ronall seemed scared and confused. Tansen had left Zarien with him and joined in the fighting. Shallaheen loyal to the waterlord Kariman were attacking a village loyal to the Firebringer. Zarien, hiding on a ledge overlooking the village, had watched his father. Tansen was like a different man when he fought, almost like some sort of sorcerer: faster, stronger, sharper than all other men; deadlier, more ruthless; less susceptible to pain.
He didn't understand how Tansen could view all that killing, all that violence, as his "work."
Zarien was learning that there were things about being a great warrior which he had never considered before coming ashore to find the father chosen for him by destiny and the gods.
"There," he said to Tansen, "the bleeding has slowed." Living with Tansen, he was becoming adept at binding battle wounds, and this one now presented no challenge to him.
"How's your nose?" Tansen asked.
It still hurt, but he knew Tansen disapproved of the way he had interfered between Emelen and Ronall, so he said, "Fine."
Suddenly Tansen stiffened. "There She goes again."
Zarien looked up at the dramatically streaked sky, painted in the colors and shadows of Dar's frequent fury. In the distance, where the strange, never-ending display of violent lightning and whirling, colored clouds continued to dance around the peak of Mount Darshon, a shower of fiery sparks flew out of the caldera. He knew they must be enormous boulders of fire, up close. "All those pilgrims at Darshon..."
"No one seems to understand why they go there. All the stories of people dying in showers of burning rock, explosions of deadly gases, avalanches during the earthquakes... And still people keeping going." Tansen's voice was pensive. "What does She want from us? Why does She call them to Her?"
"And why them and not us?"
"Oh, she knows I wouldn't listen." Tansen paused, then added more seriously, "And She knows I wouldn't let you go."
Zarien nodded, knowing that was true. At his repeated urging, Tansen had finally related to him the tale of how he had ascended Mount Darshon to try to stop Josarian from leaping into the volcano to become the Firebringer—or rather, as Tansen believed at the time, to certain death.
Yes, father, you would fight Dar Herself again for what you wanted.
Zarien took extra care with the bandage he was tying off, as if his attentions could protect his reckless bloodfather from the goddess's wrath. Then, when his task was done, he asked the question that had been on his mind for some time now: "This baby of Jalilar's... You think it's the one, don't you?"
Tansen didn't seem surprised. "The Firebringer's sister bearing a child, Mirabar in search of a child foretold in her visions..."
"But a Valdan's child?" Zarien asked doubtfully.
In the volcano-tinted light of the setting sun, Zarien could see his father's repugnance, but Tansen shrugged and said, "What if it was meant to be this way? If the new Yahrdan is part-Valdani, then maybe the Valdani won't a
ttack us when their wars on the mainland are over."
"Their wars will never be over," Zarien said with certainty. "That's just how they are."
"We can't count on that, son. And fighting them again... It would be so costly, even if we won again." He looked across the encampment at Ronall and said, "If we could satisfy them by recognizing a Yahrdan with some of their blood in his veins, maybe we could have peace with them for the rest of our lives."
"He seems a very peculiar choice for..."
Tansen's mouth quirked. "I know," he admitted wryly.
"So how can you determine if Jalilar's child is the one?"
"Luckily, that's not my problem. I've sent word to Mirabar."
"Ah. It's her problem."
"She gets the visions," said his father. "I just do the fighting."
"Tansen!"
They both turned as Pyron, who had been with them ever since seeing Mirabar safely to Belitar after her marriage, approached them. "Sentries have spotted a runner."
"Ah! Good."
Tansen had been expecting a runner from Shaljir for several days now and had been worrying that the man might have been ambushed. It was happening more and more frequently.
As the runner approached, Zarien smiled, recognizing him. "Teyaban!" It was Elelar's servant, whom he had met in Shaljir.
The young man grinned. "Zarien! Still tattooed, I see."
Zarien rolled his eyes. "They don't wash off, you know."
Teyaban's gaze swept the camp. His eyes widened when he spotted Ronall. "Toren!" He crossed his fists and bowed his head, showing more respect to Ronall than anyone else here had thought of doing. "I'm relieved to see you. We have long wondered what happened to you."
Ronall gazed up at him blearily. "Do I know you?"
Tansen rubbed his forehead and said to Teyaban, "We have managed to find the toren, but we're having some difficulty convincing him to return to the torena. Perhaps if you could advise her—"
"But I can't, siran," Teyaban said.
Tansen went still. "Why not?"
"I don't know where the torena is."
"What?" Tansen snapped.
"No one does."
"What?"
Teyaban explained why Elelar had left Shaljir. "Anyhow, your friend Radyan was able to find out which Sanctuary the torena was sent to... To be honest, he's got more than a passing interest in her maid. You remember Faradar, don't you? After Radyan first arrived in Shaljir on your orders, he saw her, and the two of them just—"
"Get to the point," Tansen ordered.
"Oh. Yes. Well, Radyan found out that the torena left Sanctuary. Without telling anyone where she went."
"Let me make sure I understand you. Elelar has disappeared?"
"Yes."
"There's been no word from her?"
"None," said Teyaban.
"And no word of a Society abduction?"
"No, siran. She left Sanctuary with her servants—including Faradar, which really disappointed Radyan—of her own free will, traveling at a sedate pace. The Sisters there had no idea she wasn't supposed to leave, so they didn't think anything of it."
Tansen's face darkened, but his expression revealed little. "Did she say anything or leave any message?"
"Only that no one was to worry about her, she knew what she was doing."
Tansen folded his arms across his chest and looked over at Toren Ronall. "I don't suppose you have any idea where she might have gone?"
Ronall shrugged indifferently and took another drink.
"No," Tansen said, "of course not."
Zarien realized what this meant. "We, uh, we can't send him back to her if we don't know where she is, can we?"
"We'll find out," Tansen said grimly.
"And until we do?"
"I suppose we'll have to keep him with us." And even Tansen couldn't hide his distress over this situation.
"Where might she have gone, father?"
"Almost anywhere," Tansen acknowledged. "But I'm very much afraid..."
"Yes?"
"That she's gone to court destiny."
Mirabar heard chanting. Trilling. Ululating. A bewildering mixture of voices filled with passion and fervor, the ghostly praise-singing of exultant worshippers...
Lava moved through the veins of the earth, flowing somewhere beneath Mirabar's feet, making the ground tremble with Dar's blood, Dar's breath, Dar's life...
She was burning up in the heat. Calling on all her power to protect herself from immolation as Dar's will forged the future of Her people...
Mirabar inhaled deadly fumes as sudden flames erupted out of the glowing ooze of the lava spilling forth from the world's womb to flow over her...
A woman was screaming. Screaming for help. For mercy. Screaming in pain, in terror. Mirabar waded through the lava. Oh, how it burned! The agony was unbearable, but the screams pulled her on, beckoning her to help whoever was crying out to her.
Mirabar heard the wailing before she saw the baby...
My baby?
No... Mirabar's baby was an enchanted chill in her womb, trying to help shield her from this all-consuming heat.
Who was the woman screaming in such agony and terror? It must be her baby, her birthing screams, her destiny come to pass...
Then Mirabar saw him, cloaked in his mother's blood. The infant's orange eyes and red hair glowed like all the Fires of Dar. He seemed at home in the liquid flame which engulfed him in the hot flow of Dar's birth throes...
He is coming... Welcome him, welcome him...
The passionate trilling and chanting filled Mirabar's head, as the rumbling roar echoed all around her...
Now she heard heavy groaning. Felt something cold and hard against her cheek. Against her shoulder. Her palm...
"Sirana?"
"How long as she been like this?"
The damp stone floors of Belitar. Her own groans of pain.
"Stay away from her!"
"She is my wife, you know."
Najdan's and Baran's voices. Najdan's sharp with worry. Baran's detached and reasonable.
"Really," Baran said, "it's amazing that no superstitious shallaheen ever killed her during one of these fits." After a brief pause, he added, "Or bloodthirsty assassins."
"I told you not to touch her."
"Put your shir away," Baran said wearily. "And help me get her off the floor and into her bed."
"Don't—"
"Can't you see she's coming around?"
Mirabar tried to speak, but only wordless grunts came out of her mouth. She heard Velikar's voice, and possibly Haydar's. Then Baran ordered someone to bring her some wine.
She tried again. "When..." When did you get back?
He evidently understood what she wanted to ask. "Just now. Yes, came home to find you writhing and screaming on the floor. Does this mean you've missed me?"
She didn't bother trying to answer.
There was a lot of fussing for a while, during which time she pulled her senses together and became capable of sensible speech. It took some urging, but once she was alert and self-possessed, the others agreed to leave her alone in her bedchamber with her newly-arrived husband. While she drank her wine and composed herself, Baran told her a little about his recent travels. She already knew about Wyldon's death, as she told him, but the rest of Dulien's comments were very interesting.
"You can get a message right away to Tansen about Dulien," Mirabar said, when he had concluded his account of his meeting with the other waterlord. "A runner has recently arrived from Tansen, so we can send him straight back."
"What news did he bring?" When she hesitated, he prodded, "Mirabar?"
"The Firebringer's sister is pregnant."
His brows rose. "Oh?"
"And the father..."
"Yes?"
"A Valdan."
"Rape?"
She shook her head. "Um. Torena Elelar's husband."
Baran burst out laughing.
Mirabar sighed, having expec
ted that.
"Please," he said, "oh, please, tell me that a Valdan's bastard is the prophesied Yahrdan. Don't disappoint me by saying it's only—"
"I don't know. It's... it's certainly possible." The Firebringer's sister—yes, very possible.
"So are the Valdani the thing you most long to destroy?"
The question made her feel ill. "I don't..." She started wringing her hands... then looked down at them and immediately stopped, wondering when she had developed that habit. "I scarcely even think about them since they surrendered."
"Oh. Well, how do you get along with the Firebringer's sister?"
"Jalilar? Fine," she said. "I hardly know her."
Baran glanced at the moldy gift from the Olvara, which was sitting on a small table near the bed upon which Mirabar lay. "Don't you feel tempted to cheat and look at it now?"
"Not really." Seeing his skeptical expression, she explained, "If I'm not ready, and I misuse it or misunderstand it, whatever it is..."
He shrugged. "As you wish."
Since his own men would tell him anyhow, she admitted, "We had a visitor while you were away."
"Cheylan."
"Oh." So they already had told him.
"I assume he didn't come here just to congratulate you on marrying well?"
"He brought news from Dalishar." The visions in the night sky continued to help the Guardians convince people to oppose the Society. "And from the east." Verlon had found Semeon, the fire-eyed Guardian child, before Cheylan had—and Verlon had slaughtered him, along with his entire Guardian circle.
So Semeon wasn't the one. He couldn't have been the one. Mirabar prayed hard that he wasn't the one... And reminded herself often that her visions wouldn't be full of fire and promise, of warning and portent, if the young Yahrdan was already dead at the behest of a waterlord.
Cheylan seemed weighed down by the burden of the boy's death, by his failure to protect him. The two of them had talked a long time. He had seemed particularly taken aback by what she told him about her reasons for marrying Baran—and so disappointed by her married status that she'd found his protestations... well, a little embarrassing. She hadn't realized the extent of Cheylan's hopes for the two of them together, and she found herself obliged to make him understand that she could never give him what he wanted. Mirabar would have guarded the secret of Baran's illness in any case, since it was among the things her husband didn't want her discussing with anyone; but she was particularly careful to ensure that Cheylan had no idea that she expected to be a young widow. She didn't want to give him any reason to hope for a future with her.
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