"No idea at all?"
"I think..." She nodded. "I think it must be in the east, where Cheylan grew up. Close to the volcano."
"It'll be a difficult journey now."
"I know."
He placed a hand over her womb, delighting in the cool power he could sense there. "Take good care of her."
She covered his hand with her own. "We will take care of each other, as Dar intended."
"This child," Baran whispered to her, "is very powerful already. I can feel her when I'm this close to you. Trust her."
She nodded.
He was surprised by the sudden impulse to be, if only for a moment, a good husband again... as he sent his wife off to perhaps the most dangerous task in Sileria, short of storming Kiloran's lair at Kandahar. So he thought of the most tender thing he could say. "May the wind be at your back."
Mirabar gave him a puzzled look.
Baran shrugged as he realized, "That may have been an unwise blessing. It was the last thing my wife ever said to me. The day I left our home at Kandahar, thinking I'd soon see her again."
She frowned slightly. "It sounds like something Zarien would say."
"Who?"
"Tansen's son. He's sea-born."
"Really?" That surprised him. A shallah and a sea-born boy. "So was my wife."
"Then..." Mirabar held his gaze for a moment. "Then I hope I take her blessing with me."
Elelar heard trilling, chanting, feverish ululating in the distance. The night was aglow with the fiery light of the restless volcano. The exalted praise-singing of Dar's worshippers, who populated the slopes of Darshon, filled the air all around Elelar.
She smelled sulfur and brimstone, the powerful odors of the angry goddess. It was both heady and nauseating, somehow seductive and menacing all at once. The belly of the mountain rumbled so loudly Elelar could hardly hear herself think.
Cheylan had insisted they abandon their mounts before dark, and Elelar hadn't objected. The animals were jumpy and unpredictable by then, at the foot of Darshon, where the ground seemed to move with Dar's poisonous breathing and hot bleeding, where the sky was on fire with Otherworldly smoke and steam, where the destroyer goddess groaned and screamed at will.
Cheylan had been receptive to Elelar's subtle overtures since yesterday, but he was still not noticeably more communicative. Now that she was so afraid she could hardly speak, Elelar accepted the hand he offered her as he helped her over a bed of crumbling pumice. She asked him, "Are we climbing to the summit. Are we... going up there?"
Up there. Where half-mad, mystically-summoned pilgrims ascended when Dar Called them. Where some were dying in calamitous eruptions of smoke, boiling mud, and deadly fumes. Where others survived to sing wildly, day and night, in praise of Dar.
"No," Cheylan said. "We're not going up there."
"I don't have to... jump into the volcano?" she asked, hearing her voice falter.
The ground suddenly shook again, and Elelar flinched as the volcano roared overhead. The trilling of Dar's faithful swelled to an ear-shattering pitch as the rumbling slowly faded.
"No," Cheylan said.
Elelar looked at him blankly. "No..."
"No, you don't have to jump," he explained, his expression kind and sympathetic.
"What do I have to do?" she demanded.
He gazed at her with longing. Even with tenderness. "Please, Elelar. Just come with me."
"Where are we going?"
This was all so strange, and she was afraid. So afraid now.
"We're nearly there," he promised.
"Where?"
"You'll see."
"But—"
Elelar gasped as the ground started trembling again. She stumbled and fell away from Cheylan.
A volcanic vent opened and started spewing yellow smoke at her.
"Cheylan!" She was separated from him by the glowing, billowing smoke. "Chey..." Elelar starting coughing violently, then fell back, realizing that she mustn't inhale this deadly vapor.
"Cheyl..."
Elelar fell to her knees, choking harder as the smoke wrapped itself around her. Her eyes watered. The ground shook harder. She couldn't see Cheylan. Couldn't hear his voice. She felt dizzy and sick, confused and weak. The violent praise-singing filled her ears.
Why didn't Cheylan help her? Where were all those mad praise singers when she needed them? Why didn't anyone try to...
This is it, she realized, clutching her throat as she fell face down onto the pumice and ash, her head swimming with bright lights and black oblivion.
I thought there would be more to it than this...
But no. Dar wanted her dead carcass to rot on the slopes of Darshon, forgotten and ignored.
There would be no glory for the woman who had betrayed the Firebringer.
Wondering how Cheylan knew, and whether Mirabar had really foreseen this, Elelar surrendered.
I am coming, Dar. I am coming at last.
Josarian was finally avenged.
Mirabar passed through so many stages of self-condemnation, despair, disbelief, and dread that she felt numb by the time she reached Elelar's estate. Even the bandits which had attacked her the night before, mistaking her for a torena due to the disguise she wore, had been unable to stir a healthy level of terror in her. She felt almost detached as she frightened them away with spears of fire. Even the sight of Najdan killing one of them failed to affect her the way such violence usually did.
Not even Mirabar's numb, exhausted condition, however, could mitigate the jarring shock she got upon being welcomed into Elelar's home to discover Torena Chasimar in residence there.
"A Valdan?" Mirabar blurted rudely to Elelar's maid, Faradar, who escorted her into a grand reception room. "Here?"
Torena Chasimar twisted her hands, her eyes bulging as she gazed at Mirabar and murmured, "Half-Valdan."
"Here?" Mirabar repeated to Faradar. "In Elelar's home?"
She knew that Elelar, who had married one Valdan and slept with numerous others, hated them with an obsessive passion.
"It's a long story, sirana," Faradar said, looking positively haggard.
"And probably a very interesting one," Mirabar replied, tempted. "But, unfortunately, I haven't got time to hear it." She tore off the hot black wig she wore, along with the headdress Haydar had woven for her. Faradar took the wig and headdress from her, absently murmuring something about having them brushed before Mirabar left again. Torena Chasimar gasped and fell back a step as Mirabar's lava-red hair tumbled down around her shoulders.
"It's true!" Chasimar blurted, gawking at her undisguised appearance.
Mirabar's gaze dropped to the woman's bulging belly. "Darfire, is everyone in Sileria breeding?"
Chasimar covered her womb with her hands, as if fearing Mirabar's fiery gaze could penetrate her flesh to disturb the child she carried.
Too tired to think before she spoke, Mirabar frowned and asked, "Is it Zimran's?"
Chasimar made a strange gurgling sound. Faradar snorted, brought a hand up to her mouth, and started coughing.
"It's my late husband's!" Chasimar's tone was outraged.
Mirabar eyed her skeptically. "It was a reasonable qu—"
"Sirana," Najdan prodded from behind Mirabar.
Mirabar cleared her throat. "Yes. Excuse me. I apologize. Never mind." She looked at Faradar, "Where is Torena Elelar?"
Faradar's uneasy expression shifted into dark dread. "You don't know?"
Najdan came forward as he said, "Cheylan has taken her, hasn't he?"
Torena Chasimar edged backwards, her frankly stupid face alarmed as she stared at the assassin. "She left with him."
"Where did they go?" Najdan asked tersely.
"Well..." Chasimar looked at Faradar.
Najdan looked at Faradar, too. "Well?"
The maid shook her head. "He and the torena spoke alone and then left without telling me."
"They weren't alone," Chasimar protested. "I was with them."
<
br /> Mirabar guessed from Faradar's expression that she considered that roughly the same thing as being alone, only much noisier.
Najdan turned back to Torena Chasimar. "What did Cheylan say?"
"Um..."
"Speak up," he snapped.
Chasimar flinched and backed up again. Tears welled up in her cow-like eyes. Mirabar sighed in exasperation.
Faradar stepped forward and said, "The torena left me instructions which indicate that... she did not expect to return."
"What?" Chasimar said, clearly surprised.
Mirabar, who wouldn't have confided in Chasimar either, asked Faradar, "What else?"
"I did not initiate pursuit, because her letter to me indicated that her death—"
"Her death?" Chasimar cried.
"—was necessary for the good of Sileria."
Mirabar frowned. "She thought she was going to die?"
Faradar nodded. "She wrote that someday you or Tansen might explain it to me, and she..." The maid glanced at Torena Chasimar, then continued, "She hoped I, who knew her so well, would understand."
"Understand what?" Chasimar whined. "I don't understand!"
"Unfortunately," Mirabar said, "neither do I."
Faradar asked faintly, "You didn't send Cheylan?"
"Actually," Mirabar admitted, "I did."
"Then—"
"I told him to bring her to Belitar," Mirabar continued. "He has not done so. We must assume that Cheylan is now... acting in his own interest, not ours. Not hers."
Faradar's expression reflected suppressed panic. "So you don't know where he has taken her?"
"No."
"Or why?"
"Oh, I know why," Mirabar said. "And we've got to get her back."
Chasimar ventured, "But Elelar seemed to know..."
They all turned to look at her.
The silly woman stopped speaking and simply stared back at them.
"Know what?" Najdan prodded.
"Know why Cheylan had come," the torena said shrilly.
"Go on," Najdan ordered.
"She had been expecting him—"
"She had?" Mirabar blurted.
"And was not surprised when he said you had sent him."
"'Tell Mirabar I have made my peace with Dar and am ready...'" Mirabar turned to Najdan. "That's why she went with him. She thought..."
"That it was Dar's will that you kill her?" Faradar asked in bewilderment. "Why?"
"It doesn't matter," Mirabar said, surprised that Elelar, of all people, evidently felt guilty about betraying Josarian—guilty enough that she was, it seemed, willing to be executed for her sins.
She knew Tansen wouldn't do it, but she thought I would.
Was it only because she knew how Mirabar hated her and wanted her dead? Or was it because she had misinterpreted something the Olvar, who had the gift of prophecy, had said to her? No one knew better than Mirabar how hard prophecy was to understand.
"Sirana," Faradar began, "what did the torena believe—"
"It is Dar's will that I protect her, not kill her," Mirabar said tersely. "We've got to find her."
"What else did Cheylan say?" Najdan asked Chasimar. When she just looked blank-faced, he added, "Did he say where he was taking her?"
Chasimar's face cleared. "Oh, yes!"
"Where?" Najdan's voice was getting brusque with impatience.
"To her destiny," Chasimar said.
"That's all?" Mirabar asked.
"Um..."
"Is he going to kill her?" Faradar asked.
"He seemed so nice!" Chasimar protested.
"He won't kill her right away," Mirabar said. "Not... for at least nine months, I suppose."
"Sirana, are you saying..." Faradar looked stunned.
"Nine months?" Chasimar looked bewildered.
Mirabar sank into a chair, finally convinced beyond all doubt that Cheylan had betrayed her. It was a deep wound, but she had no time to nurse it.
"We'll keep heading east," she said to Najdan. "That's all I can think of. That's where this place in my visions must be."
Najdan noted her wilting condition and told Faradar, "The sirana requires refreshment and a place to rest."
Mirabar protested, "No, we should—"
"Yes," Najdan interrupted. "You must think of the child."
Mirabar absently spread one hand over the cool glow in her belly, feeling confused and tired.
"Oh, are you expecting, too?" Chasimar asked with girlish interest.
"Yes, but we don't have time—"
"In that case, sirana," Faradar said, "Najdan is right. You will only weaken yourself if you do not attend to your needs now, and the torena needs you too much for you to do that."
Mirabar rubbed her throbbing temples.
Protect what you most long to destroy.
She nodded. "Yes," she decided. "You're right. I need to rest a bit."
"We'll leave after you've eaten and rested," Faradar said.
"We?" Mirabar blinked at her.
"The torena will need me, too, if she's..." Faradar smoothed the dusty headdress in her hands and concluded, "If she's alive."
Mirabar met Najdan's gaze for a moment. Then she said to Faradar, "Yes. It would be best if we had someone with us who can tend the torena when we find her." Dar only knew what condition Elelar would be in if Cheylan... was this determined to father the child she was destined to bear.
Mirabar shuddered, very grateful that fate had put her in Baran's bed rather than Cheylan's.
"I'll show you to a bedchamber, sirana," Faradar said, "and then prepare for our departure."
"And while you eat and rest, sirana...." Najdan eyed Torena Chasimar with cold determination, "I will make this woman repeat to me every single word Cheylan said while he was here."
Chasimar looked as if she might swoon.
Chapter Sixteen
Dar is my goddess and the queen
of sacred darkness and light.
—Zanar Prayer
"What in the Fires is happening here?" Ronall asked as their two-masted vessel approached a vast cluster of bobbing boats moored just off Sileria's eastern coast.
Due east of Gamalan, Tansen thought, looking up at the looming cliffs beyond which lay the mountains where he had been born and the humble village where he had been a child.
He wanted to tell Zarien. He wanted to point out to his son the summits that he recognized and take him to explore the coves where he had once smuggled Kintish contraband with his grandfather. He'd like to show him the abandoned ruins of Gamalan and tell him stories of the clan which had lived and died there.
However, there was no time for such indulgences now. And even if there were... relations were currently, oh, a little strained between Tansen and his son.
Zarien had been apprehensive ever since boarding this boat. The boy had watched Tansen with relentless suspicion, day and night, as if expecting him to transform into the sea king and sneak off with Sharifar the moment Zarien looked away. Tansen tried very hard to be patient and reassuring, but after almost two straight days and nights of the boy's dark, unwavering, vaguely hostile stare... Tansen lost his temper in a flare of exasperation that made the boat they were on seem even smaller than it really was.
Oh, yes. Much, much smaller.
After that, Tansen suspected Zarien's obsessive fear that Sharifar would claim him was replaced by a heartfelt desire to push him overboard.
Meanwhile, the sea-born family who were giving them transport stared as hard at Zarien as Zarien had been staring at Tansen. Or, rather, they stared at the tattoos that identified Zarien as sea-bound. Zarien was distressed by it, which in turn distressed Tansen—who suggested to the family that they stop it. And since he was already feeling irritable from the quarrel with his son, the advice came out sharply enough to ensure that the family now also probably wanted to throw him overboard. In addition, far from being grateful, Zarien was embarrassed by Tansen's interference, and so they fought about that,
too.
The boy had been sulking ever since, which got on Tansen's nerves; and his irritability, in turn, only made Zarien sulk more. All the tension inspired Ronall to drink even more than usual; then the toren spent a lot of time with his head hanging over the side of the boat while his stomach rejected almost every drop of liquor he put into it.
If this journey didn't end very soon, Tansen wouldn't really mind being pushed overboard.
He was also in no mood to humor Zarien's moods now that the fate of eastern Sileria—and probably the outcome of the entire war—depended on whatever Tansen did next. He knew that being snappish with his son wasn't helping either of them, but he couldn't seem to help himself.
Darfire, I wish Josarian were here.
Now Ronall, who was very nearly sober despite his persistent efforts to get drunk, looked at the vast cluster of bobbing boats they were sailing toward. "This must be what everyone has been talking about. All those east-bound sea-born folk. Just... sitting here, waiting around for something." The toren shuddered and added, "Such as an eruption, perhaps?"
"Always the optimist," Tansen said sourly.
Ronall took a long swig of fire brandy, closed his eyes, and immediately looked queasy. "I can't decide if I'm more afraid to go ashore or to stay on this damn boat."
"You're not coming ashore," Tansen informed him.
Ronall eyed him with suspicion.
"Not yet," Tansen added.
"You're worried about what's happening..." Ronall waved vaguely at the looming Lironi cliffs. "There."
Tansen nodded. "It's possible the eastern clans will blame me for what's happened."
"Why?"
"I'm the one who ordered Kiman shah Moynari to unite with the Lironi. With Jagodan."
"So, with the smooth logic for which shallaheen are famous," Ronall surmised, sober enough for irony, "the Lironi may decide it's your fault that Kiman seduced Jagodan's wife."
"Maybe," Tansen admitted gloomily.
"And even if they don't, Kiman's own clan may decide that it's your fault he got involved with Jagodan, his murderer, in the first place?"
"Yes, that's possible, too. Or the Marendari—the clan of Jagodan's wife—may decide it's my fault that Kiman ever met and then seduced Viramar." He thought back to the day he and Kiman had spoken in the Kintish temple at Zilar, and now he supposed he knew what it was about Kiman that had vaguely reminded of Zimran: the inability to keep his hands off another man's woman. And, like Zimran, Kiman had evidently appealed to women—enough to make them override good judgment and marital vows.
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