The Destroyer Goddess

by Laura Resnick

  "No." Tansen hesitated, then slowly said, "In fact, it's very important that you never go anywhere alone anymore. Not for any reason."

  "There are some things I prefer to do alone," Zarien said with a pointed look. Seeing how strangely distressed his bloodfather now seemed, he prodded, "What's bothering you?"

  Tansen started pacing. Zarien watched with interest, wondering what could make Tansen, of all people... yes, fidget.

  "All right," Tansen said at last, coming to a decision. "It's better if you know this. You're old enough to know this." He looked at Zarien and added, as if trying to convince himself, "It's dangerous for you not to know this."

  "Are you going to get to the point?" Zarien inquired.

  Tansen took a deep breath. "I've learned that Kiloran is looking for you."

  "Me?"

  Tansen's face darkened. "Because you're my son."

  "Oh." Zarien's heart started pounding.

  Kiloran is looking for you.

  He suddenly felt a little sick.

  Tansen's expression twisted into something truly awful. "He wants you because... because he knows nothing would hurt me as much as his hurting you."

  In truth, the news frightened Zarien terribly. But he could tell it frightened Tansen even more, so he said, "I'm always with you, so you can stop whoever comes for—"

  "But you're not always with me. And since Toren Ronall is not an adequate protector—"

  "Maybe I should come to your battles with you."

  "No. That would be too dangerous—for both of us. And with Ealian gone now..." Tansen looked down, studying his dusty, worn boots. He had sent the elderly Guardian away to perform other duties. "I'll need to leave another Guardian with you from now on. Maybe two. Or three."

  Zarien tried to think like a man, ashamed that Tansen found him such a liability. "They're needed more in battle."

  "It's only temporary. Until..."

  "Until what?" Zarien demanded, full of foreboding now.

  "Maybe... we should separate," Tansen said slowly.

  Zarien felt his stomach drop. "You want me to go?"

  "I want to find some place safe for you."

  "I don't want to—"

  "Just for a while."

  "No." Being on the dryland—now and forever—was difficult enough to adjust to. Being all alone, without Tansen... "No."

  "We need to think about it," Tansen insisted.

  "What makes you think I'd be harder to find just because I wouldn't be with you?" Zarien protested, his panic overwhelming his desire to stop being a burden to Tansen. "Kiloran can find me anywhere if he—"

  "I've been considering Belitar," Tansen admitted. "Kiloran would probably find out where you were, but he couldn't reach you there."

  "Belitar?" A haunted ruin inhabited by the sirana, her pet assassin, and her notoriously crazy husband. "No!"

  "Sanctuary, then."

  "I don't want to go to Sanctuary." He heard how querulous he sounded, but he was past caring.

  "Then maybe if you went back to sea for a wh—"

  "No!" Zarien hadn't meant to shout. He made an awkward gesture. "I'm never going to sea again."

  "Zarien—"

  "I want to stay with you," he said stubbornly.

  Tansen took him by the shoulders. His lean face looked dark and restless as he said, "I'm afraid he'll find you and kill you if you stay with me."

  "You can protect—"

  "I couldn't protect Josarian from him." Tansen's voice was rough and full of self-condemnation.

  Zarien would not show tears. He would not. "Don't make me go," he said, trying to control his voice. "Please, don't."

  Attempting to appease him without promising anything, Tansen said, "We'll think of something."

  "I won't go back to sea," Zarien warned him. "I won't."

  "Someday," Tansen said gently, "you will."

  "No!" Bitterness and a burning sense of betrayal flooded him with rage all over again. "No. I am done with the sea! With Sharifar!"

  "Zarien." Tansen brought the rare sternness into his tone which was a sign that he was insisting Zarien heed him. "Listen to me. I know what it is to be hunted by Kiloran. When I was your age..." Tansen's face changed and he stopped speaking.

  "What?" Zarien prodded.

  "Nothing."

  "When you were my a—"

  "Never mind."

  Zarien wondered what the strange expression on Tansen's face meant, but he was more interested in his own problem. "Are you going to make me go away?" he demanded.

  "I don't..." Tansen rubbed a hand across his face and admitted, "I don't know."

  "You won't... trick me? Just leave me behind somewhere and not come back?"

  Tansen's expression changed again, and this time Zarien understood what he saw there. "No."

  To his surprise, Tansen embraced him. Holding him in a grip so fierce it hurt, his bloodfather promised, "No, I won't just leave you. Not ever."

  Zarien closed his eyes and let himself be hugged.

  The zanareen gained new recruits faster than they ever had before, as religious fervor swept across the land. The rages of the destroyer goddess, the frequency of the violent earthquakes, the inexplicable displays of color and fury at the summit of Darshon... These were all portents that drove men as mad as their raging thirst. They abandoned their homes, their families, their livelihoods. They turned their backs on everything they owned, everyone they knew, everything they had once been. Some threw themselves into battle against the Society under such suicidal circumstances that they became legends upon their deaths. Others went to Darshon, like so many people these days, to praise Dar, seek Her favor, beg for Her mercy, and endure whatever She chose to inflict on Her people.

  Many of Sileria's abandoned women joined the Sisterhood and began tending the wounded, the thirsty, the dying. Sanctuary was safe for them in these chaotic times, and many Sanctuaries needed fresh recruits, having been drained of their women by Dar, who continued Calling Her worshippers to Darshon in a frenzy of divine hunger for praise, for worship, for sacrifice.

  Whole villages were destroyed in the earthquakes, and many lives were lost. The waterlords began claiming they could protect the people from Dar, as they had protected themselves from Her for a thousand years. But Sileria must turn to them, and away from the Guardians, away from the Firebringer's memory, to earn the protection of the Society and reap the benefits of its mercy.

  The Guardians, meanwhile, promised a golden age for anyone who served Dar now, and eternal punishment for anyone who sided with the Honored Society.

  "Look how Dar rages against Kiloran's murder of the Firebringer! The waterlords are lying when they say they can protect you from Her! You'd be fools to think She won't cherish and reward you as they never could." Ealian, the elderly Guardian from Zilar, honed his gift for oration, inspiring loyalists and gaining converts wherever he went, obeying Tansen's orders to spread courage throughout Sileria. "The volcano will rest when every waterlord is dead or has fled Sileria, and not before! Loyalty to the Society now will mean centuries of earthquakes and eruptions as Dar fights to reclaim Her nation from them!"

  Villages and clans which had been aggressively attacking their enemies now lost their convictions and started descending into internal chaos and bitter family disputes as all of Sileria confronted the darkest questions of their destiny.

  Could the Honored Society protect people from the destroyer goddess?

  Could Dar protect them from Kiloran and the waterlords?

  Individuals once loyal to the Society began to fear the goddess even more than they feared the waterlords, and so they switched their allegiance to the Firebringer's loyalists. Other people now turned their backs on the Guardians in search of an end to their terrible thirst, seeking the cold comfort of the waterlords who promised protection from the raging volcano and the ash-darkened skies.

  If Kariman would water their fields, if Gulstan would let their streams flow so their sheep could drin
k, if Kiloran would open the mines of Alizar so that they could work honorably to earn money in place of the drought-withered crops that would not feed them this year, then they would defy Dar for the waterlords.

  If Dar would fulfill the promises of the visions at Dalishar, if Mirabar would proclaim the identity of the ruler she had foretold in fiery prophecy, if someone could explain why Dar had let the Firebringer die, then Her people would defy the waterlords for Her.

  Shallaheen began abandoning the most severely drought-stricken villages. Lann, who was still fighting Meriten's attempts to gain control of the Shaljir River and the territory all around Zilar, was surprised when his wife arrived in Zilar one day without warning. She had walked all the way from Islanar, where no one would return until the rains finally came. The wells were dry, the livestock bloated and dead, the crops brown and stunted, the larders empty. There was nothing in Islanar's central fountain now except volcanic dust. Many people had died there—including, Lann's wife informed him with haunted eyes, their youngest daughter. Lann, always volatile and unashamed of it, broke down and wept like a child in front of his men. His wife and surviving daughters chose to remain in Zilar with him, despite the state of siege which existed throughout the whole district.

  When Tansen defeated yet another waterlord and freed the water in his territory, more people rallied to his cause... And more were slaughtered for this very reason when the Society struck out to demonstrate the price for betrayal and the terrible penalty for disobedience.

  Iyadar, the pretty young Guardian whom Tansen had first met in Zilar, was captured by Kariman and tortured to death. Her maimed, headless body was hung upside down at the gates of Adalian to warn the city of how much more they would suffer if they continued resisting Kariman's influence.

  Tansen never knew who did it, but some loyalist then cut open Iyadar's belly, pulled out the young woman's entrails, and used them to make a gruesome jashar that hung over her body thereafter: Free water for all.

  No, there would be no compromise, no peace in Sileria until one side or the other was completely vanquished forever.

  Mirabar retched violently, again and again, while Haydar held her head over a basin. After her stomach was as empty as it could get, Haydar said to her, "You should eat something now."

  Mirabar glared speechlessly at her.

  Sister Velikar, who watched the proceedings with ghoulish interest, said, "I'll make her a tisane."

  Mirabar shuddered. "Oh, no, you won't."

  Baran entered what passed for the sun-room at Belitar. He looked even worse than Mirabar felt, his cheekbones starkly sharp in his thin, pain-lined face. Taking in the scene, he frowned. "What's going on?"

  "You did this to me, you bastard!" Mirabar said furiously, feeling too weak to set him on fire as he deserved.

  Baran's eyebrows rose. "I beg your—"

  "Women in her condition," Haydar explained, "have these little moods."

  "My condition is that I'm dying because of what you did to me," Mirabar snarled at Baran, pleased to have someone upon whom to vent her temper.

  "That remark," he pointed out, his red-rimmed eyes looking smudged and sunken, "is in rather bad taste, under the circumstances."

  Mirabar groaned and sank into a chair. "Why didn't anyone warn me I would feel this way?"

  Baran looked at the other two women. "Is she going to be in this mood right up until she delivers the brat?"

  "No, no," Haydar assured him.

  "Probably," Velikar replied.

  Haydar frowned at the Sister. "The sirana is just adjusting to her condition. She will soon improve."

  "Will I?" Mirabar whimpered.

  Haydar returned to her original theme: "You should eat a little something."

  Mirabar's hand covered her mouth and she murmured feebly, "Dar have mercy." She glared at Baran when he laughed. "Did you come in here for any reason other than to make my life even more miserable than it already is?"

  He held up a parchment he was carrying. "I have a message for you."

  Her heart pounded hard for a moment, but then she realized Tansen wouldn't have written to her. He couldn't. "Who is it from?"

  Baran's gaze swept the other two women as he said, "Would you excuse us?"

  Haydar nodded and left the room. Velikar needed some nudging, but she finally went, too.

  "Who is it from?" Mirabar repeated.

  "Torena Elelar."

  Her eyes flew wide open. She sat bolt upright, forgetting about her nausea, her headache, and the mood swings that had plagued her since the night Baran had given her the child which now bathed her womb in cool enchantment.

  "Elelar?" she repeated incredulously.

  "Yes." He watched her with interest.

  "Elelar." The chilly magic of a waterlord was nothing compared to the cold hatred that suddenly flooded her. Elelar. "What does she want?"

  "I'm not sure." Baran glanced down at the letter. "Knowing that I'm now your husband, and that I can read, she writes asking me to tell you where she is—"

  "I don't care where she is," Mirabar said querulously.

  "—and that she is ready."

  "Ready for what?" she snapped.

  He shrugged and read directly from the letter. "'Tell Mirabar that I have made my peace with Dar and am ready.'"

  "Ready for what?" Mirabar repeated irritably.

  "She also asks me to keep Kiloran from interfering."

  "Interfering with what?"

  "Apparently the torena's habitual obliqueness is wasted on you in this instance." Baran lifted one brow and added, "As I suspect it usually is, my dear."

  Mirabar scowled. "What's it to me if she's made her peace with..." She trailed off, feeling strange as memories flooded her.

  "You really hate her, don't you?" he observed with interest.

  "I..." The chill was fading, being replaced by a wave of crippling heat.

  "Is it just because she convinced Zimran to betray Josarian and lead him into a Valdani ambush? Or is there more?"

  "With her, there is always more," Mirabar choked out, barely able to hear her husband above the roaring in her ears.

  Protect what you most long to destroy.

  "Mirabar?"

  "No," she gasped, shaking her head. "Oh, no."

  "Made her peace with Dar and is ready..." Baran mused. "Did you two ever discuss some sort of plan?"

  "No," she repeated, but not in answer to him.

  There was no death she had ever longed for more than Elelar's, and no one she had ever hated as much. Elelar was the one person in the world whom she had personally longed to murder, so much so that she saw a terrifying reflection of her own potential in Baran's vengeful madness, his wasted life, and his corrupted use of his great power.

  She held her hands up to her reeling head as the fiery heat of visionary knowledge poured through her. "I tried to make... make Tansen do it..."

  "Do what?"

  Kill her. Kill Elelar. "I thought it would make him stop..." Stop loving Elelar. Stop caring for her. "Maybe prove..." Prove that he didn't? "After Josarian died, all I wanted was..."

  "Vengeance," Baran guessed.

  "Yes. Even for things Elelar..." She shook her head. "Wasn't really responsible for." Such as Tansen's feelings, Mirabar's sense of failure, and Dar's betrayal of the Firebringer.

  Why did You let him die, Dar. Why?

  "I wanted to save Josarian," she muttered. "I wanted to understand Dar. And to be the only woman Tansen... cared for."

  "Ah."

  She met Baran's dark gaze and, for just a moment, saw the decent man he used to be, long ago. The man who understood—even sympathized with—things like love and human frailty.

  "So it's Elelar," Baran murmured.

  She glared at him. "What's Elelar?"

  "'Protect what you most long to destroy.'"

  Mirabar shook her head. "No."

  Baran started to look amused. "Oh, yes. It's so obvious, I'd have realized it the moment the Olvara
said it, if you and I were, er, better acquainted."

  "No," Mirabar repeated.

  "What I don't understand is why you didn't realize it." He sighed, clearly enjoying himself now. "No, actually, I suppose I do understand. No one knows better than me how bloodlust clouds the mind. But now that you know what you must do—"

  "No!" she shouted.

  His voice oozed with commiseration as he said, "Vengeance isn't any easier to give up just because your spouse thinks it's unworthy of you, is it?"

  "I really detest you," she hissed.

  "It's part of what keeps our marriage lively," he assured her.

  "I'm going to be sick again," Mirabar threatened.

  "Very likely," he agreed.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, constantly aware of the cool glow in her belly, and said, "I can't... I can't do it..."

  "Protect Elelar?"

  "Dar can't ask that of me," she moaned, indulging in her emotionalism.

  "While you're moaning and whining—"

  "Go away," she said crankily.

  "—perhaps you could find time to consider the relevant question here."

  "The relevant question?" She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, share it with me, siran."

  "Protect her from what?"

  Mirabar stared at the empty space he left behind after he departed the chamber, his amused chuckles floating through the damp air as he abandoned her to her turmoil.

  Baran was right, she knew. Nonetheless, a different question flooded her thoughts and consumed her energy.

  Why Elelar? Dar have mercy on me, why her?

  Pilgrims streamed into the permanent encampment atop Mount Dalishar. They came in search of visions, of courage, of inspiration and leadership—and of Dalishar's unensorcelled water supply, as their villages withered and died beneath the burning sun and ash-clouded sky.

  Yorin, still in charge at Dalishar, had grown so used to the visions which appeared in the night sky there that he sometimes slept through them now. Then one night, an assassin who had come to Dalishar in disguise murdered Yorin in his sleep.

  Tansen sent Pyron to take over Yorin's post—after giving him strict instructions to improve security at the sacred site. According to Pyron's somewhat hysterical first report after that, the battle for Alizar had been a more peaceful experience than dealing with the thirsty, frightened, and confused throng that daily flooded Mount Dalishar.