Later today, the members of the Alliance who had set up a temporary government here would meet with a large group of Guardians, as well as with Radyan and other available leaders of the loyalists, to start determining who would govern the country while Gaborian was too young to do so.
Mirabar would stay for the first few meetings, but then she and Najdan would have to leave for Belitar. She didn't know when Tansen would arrive there, and she didn't want him to have to wait for her.
Ronall walked along the shore of the Bay of Shaljir, accepting the prayers, blessings, and praise of the sea-born folk. Some of these people had seen his rebirth and had sailed here alongside the Lascari. Others were only just now learning that he was the sea king.
He had been acknowledged at Santorell Palace as the new Yahrdan's father, and he had commenced the work of convincing Silerians here, as well as in the east, to start living in peace with the Valdani among them. However, he had no interest in remaining at Santorell Palace now to watch the Alliance, the loyalists, and the Guardians all haggle over who would rule—and how—until Gaborian came of age. Yes, Ronall cared about what happened on land, and he would teach the sea-born to care, too, to become part of Sileria so they could serve her—and serve Gaborian. But the details of how the landfolk allotted power hadn't interested him even when he'd been one of them.
He was eager to go back to sea now. Tonight. Where he would again slip overboard and embrace her.
The sea breeze ruffled his hair, and he tasted salt on his tongue. The square-sailed boats of the sea-born folk rippled in the changing wind as another rainstorm blew down from the mountains. Water lapped at the shore, and he listened to the sea-born dialect being spoken all around him, realizing that he'd need to learn it.
"Will you agree to be tattooed, siran?" Linyan asked him, obviously feeling a little footsore as he walked beside Ronall on the dryland. "We would like to mark you as the sea king."
Ronall considered this. "Does it hurt?"
Linyan laughed, as if Ronall were joking. Ah, well.
This was his life now. And it was a good one.
Baran found it amusing that Tansen clearly felt awkward about arriving at Belitar before Mirabar did. Enjoying himself, Baran did his best to make the shatai as uncomfortable as possible. Starting with nearly drowning him in the moat.
"I'm so sorry about that," Baran apologized as Tansen, drenched and dripping, was escorted into his study. "I haven't been feeling my best lately, you know."
Scowling, Tansen replied tersely, "I hear you're dying. My condolences."
"Oh, dear, you're just soaked, aren't you?"
"Where's Mirabar?" Tansen demanded.
"In Shaljir. I've had a letter from her. She mentioned you might be arriving, though I had no idea you'd impose on us quite so soon."
Haydar entered the damp study with a blanket for Tansen, which Baran found disappointing. Then she returned with refreshments for Tansen and stayed to ask questions about Najdan, whom Mirabar had neglected to mention in the letter which Derlen the Guardian wrote to Baran at her request.
"That will be all, Haydar," Baran said after a while, growing bored with the subject of Najdan's health.
She protested, "But I also wanted to ask about—"
"Leave the room, Haydar," Baran said pleasantly, "or I'll kill you."
She left the room.
Baran confided to Tansen, "I find her a little annoying."
Tansen dripped on the furniture and maintained a stoically blank expression.
"So I take it Verlon is dead?" Baran asked.
Tansen briefly looked as if he thought this might be a trick question, then he nodded. "While we attacked Verlon, the Lironi and their allies engaged Verlon's remaining friends elsewhere, in a number of decisive battles. The Guardians who were with me kept Verlon busy with an attack on the streams crisscrossing his land," he said. "Then we invaded his estate, and more Guardians set the house on fire while we fought his men. He couldn't douse the fire, and so he came outside."
"Where you killed him," Baran surmised.
"And when I left the east a few days ago, the remaining waterlords and assassins there were being hunted down and killed, or else fleeing Sileria."
"So the Honored Society is shattered in the east," Baran murmured.
"Yes. They're finished. Now we just have to finish our work here."
"Have you heard the latest news about Gulstan and Kariman?" When Tansen shook his head, Baran told him what had happened while he'd been in the east. "Then, with Gulstan depleted after having finally destroyed Kariman, your friends overran Gulstan's remaining territory and killed him." He paused. "So your plan worked. Er, I assume it was your plan, from the start?"
"Yes," Tansen admitted, his face remarkably inexpressive.
"I thought so. It had your touch. I could never understand why neither Gulstan nor Kariman realized that. Well, no, I'm lying," he confessed. "I always thought they were fools, and I'd have been astonished if they were shrewd enough to realize that you murdered Geriden and planted gossip, all in an effort to get them to destroy each other. Oh, Kiloran probably suspected. But those two? No. They just did what you wanted them to do." He clucked his tongue. "It's really rather sad, if considered from a certain point of view."
Tansen drank the tisane Haydar had given him and said nothing. What a dull fellow. What in the world did he and Mirabar find to talk about when they weren't plotting the deaths of their enemies?
"The letter which my wife sent from Shaljir," Baran said, choosing the marital phrase deliberately, "also mentioned the extraordinary birth of Torena Elelar's baby. We live in such interesting times." When Tansen didn't respond, he added, "Pilgrims have been passing through here with the same story, too. Returning from their sojourn on Mount Darshon. Their accounts are a trifle incoherent, but very enlivening."
"Has Mirabar told you anything else?"
"Should she have?"
After the slightest hesitation, Tansen said, "She's bringing my son here with her."
"Ah, the sea-born boy."
"She told you?"
"That she was bringing him here? No. As your increasingly burdened host, may I ask why?"
Tansen was silent for a long moment, and Baran found himself wondering what was going on behind that habitually controlled face. Palpable tension entered the room, without any obvious source. To Baran's surprise, he began to feel anxious. No, this was no ordinary man, he noted. Despite Tansen's lack of sorcery, no one should ever make the mistake of assuming he was without power of his own.
The shatai finally spoke. "My sea-born bloodson, Zarien, is Alcinar's child."
Baran fell back against his chair as if he'd been kicked in the chest. His mind jumped wildly from one thought to the next, then settled on protesting, "She wasn't pregnant."
"The last time you saw her? No. She wasn't."
Baran felt his mouth hanging open stupidly as he stared at Tansen. His blood roared in his ears as he realized what the other man was saying. "You're telling me... No."
"Kiloran sired a child on her. Zarien. We only learned this... very recently."
"Alcinar." Kiloran raping her, forcing her, doing whatever he wanted to her... And then... "She got pregnant?" he whispered weakly, feeling tears gather in his eyes.
"And she escaped," Tansen said. "Mirabar thinks it was the child in her womb that enabled her to leave Kandahar. Alcinar thought you were dead, so she went to the Lascari for help."
"It was true, then," Baran muttered. "What Kiloran wrote to me after I married Mirabar."
"Yes. Alcinar ran away. Alive."
A terrible, cruel hope washed through him. "Is she still alive?" he pleaded.
"No. I'm sorry."
It took a moment for Baran to find his voice again. "How did she die?" When Tansen hesitated, he snapped, "Tell me or I'll kill you."
Tansen sighed. "She drowned herself after the baby was born."
"Alcinar... No..." Baran groaned, grief-stricken, and
slowly bent over in his chair, weeping now. "I would have cared for her... I was still trying to free her... Noooo..."
He was shaking, horrified anew, as if it had happened yesterday rather than fifteen years ago. Hatred and the thirst for revenge burned icily inside him. Sorrow and despair made him weak and wild.
He heard Vinn shout, "Siran!" There was a scuffle and the sound of something clattering to the ground. Then Vinn demanded breathlessly, "What have you done to Baran?"
"I've brought news," Tansen said quietly.
There was a pause before Vinn asked, "Has something happened to the sirana? To the child she carries?"
"No," Tansen replied.
Baran lifted his head and looked at them. Tansen, without unsheathing his swords, had disarmed Vinn and now held him in what must be a painful position, judging by the grimace on Vinn's face.
"Siran, what's wrong?"
"My wife... My first wife..." Baran sighed and wiped his eyes. "Had a child before she died." Vinn's face brightened momentarily. "No," Baran said, forestalling the question. "Kiloran's child."
Vinn's expression changed to one of dark understanding. "Where is the child now?"
"On his way here, by now, I think," Tansen said, releasing Vinn.
"He's Tansen's sea-born bloodson. A Lascari. As Alcinar was." Baran sighed. "Lascari... It was a name we never even said aloud again after she chose me and they shunned her. We married and came to the mountains, where she'd never see or hear the sea again, never be reminded..." He was still shaking. "Kiloran's son."
"He's my son now," Tansen said firmly. "But Kiloran has learned the truth."
"How?"
"He wanted to know more about Zarien. Maybe because he's my son. Maybe because it bothered Kiloran that there was another Lascari on land. So Searlon interrogated Zarien's grandfather—"
"Linyan."
Tansen nodded. "Yes."
"I knew him. I sailed as his passenger when I was a merchant. That's how I met Alcinar. She was his daughter. Linyan didn't like transporting landfolk, but he liked the profits." Remembering those days, Baran added, "I can't say I'm sorry to hear that Searlon got a hold of him. Intolerant, bigoted old—"
Tansen interrupted, "The point is, as a result of Searlon's interrogation, Kiloran knows who Zarien really is and wants him back."
No one but Kiloran could inspire the mindless panic that seized Baran now. "I won't let him have Alcinar's child!"
"And I won't let him have my son." Tansen paused. "So you and I finally have something in common."
"Mirabar should have brought him straight to Belitar," Baran said frantically. "She shouldn't stall in Shaljir."
"Searlon was the one looking for him, and Najdan has killed Searlon. Kiloran has no way of knowing Zarien is in Shaljir now, and I don't believe he'd expect it. We have time." He met Baran's eyes and added, "But I will feel much better once he's here."
"He'll be safe here," Baran promised. "I swear I will keep him safe... as I could not keep her safe."
"So that's something else we have in common," Tansen said without sympathy. "We each lost the woman we loved to a waterlord."
"But you'll get yours back," Baran said bitterly. "I'll be dead before my own daughter is born."
"At least you will see Alcinar's son." After a moment, Tansen added, "He's a fine boy. And... he has the gift." When Baran stared at him, he elaborated, "Water magic."
"We must never let Kiloran have him," Baran said, feeling sick—and not sure whether it was because of his illness or the raw emotions coursing through him. "Kiloran will corrupt him. I know. He corrupted me."
"Zarien," Tansen said, "is not corruptible."
Baran snorted. "You don't understand what water magic can do to a person. You don't know what Kiloran can do to the mind."
"Oh, yes, I do," Tansen replied grimly.
"Let the water be in you, that you may be in the water," Kiloran said to Zarien. "Answer when it whispers, so it will answer when you whisper."
Concentrating fiercely, the boy closed his eyes and spread his tattooed hands towards the deep pool of water which currently sat in the center of the floor of Kiloran's great hall.
"Let it seduce you," Kiloran said, "that it will be seduced by you, too."
The boy had tremendous natural talent, and he had come here at an age when he was ripe to develop it. With the arrival of this lone young man, Kiloran felt the burden of age melt away from his spirit as renewed ambition and vigor flooded him. Even the sorrow of Searlon's death—a terrible loss which Zarien had reported to him—couldn't discourage Kiloran now that his heir was here with him. And Najdan... Yes, taking revenge on Najdan was yet one more reason to survive and triumph, whether he did it himself or through his son. Meanwhile, based on Zarien's vague explanations of what had happened in the east, he also knew that Cheylan was dead. That was one more enemy eliminated, and Kiloran was glad.
"Love the water," Kiloran taught Zarien, "so that it can love you in return."
This was where a waterlord gave his heart of stone. To this. To the pure chill of power that rewarded his talent beyond anything Dar could ever offer. This great gift drank a man's heart like wine, and he never missed what lesser men thought of as love.
"And when the water loves you," Kiloran told his son, "then you will own it and do with it as you will."
They had been working on this lesson for a long time, and the boy's skin gleamed with the sweat of exertion. He was breathing hard, his arms trembling... and then suddenly the pool of water bubbled.
"Yes," Kiloran encouraged. "Don't lose focus now."
"Focus on the tas..." Zarien murmured, blinking as his concentration suddenly broke.
"What?" Kiloran snapped.
"Nothing," Zarien said, resuming his work. "Nothing."
The bubbling water started to churn, turning itself over and over in response to the boy's will. Cold steam rose from it, dancing uncertainly in response to Zarien's inexperienced and ungainly power.
"Yes." Kiloran inhaled. "Now bring it under your will. Can you feel it responding? Can you grasp it in your senses and do with it as you please?"
Breathing hard, Zarien stared unwaveringly at the water... which began to grow still, solidify, and resolve itself into the crystal-hard floor of the room.
"Excellent!" Kiloran said, very pleased. Dyshon had apprenticed for more than a year without demonstrating the ability Zarien was revealing after only a few days. "This is very promising!"
"I'm glad you're pleased, father."
"And are you pleased?"
"Of course."
Kiloran examined the floor. It was bumpy, and some of it was not as solid as it should be, but this was nonetheless a very good first effort. He turned to Zarien and saw how tired the boy looked. Yes, that was natural. Kiloran thought back to the distant past when he had begun learning to command his power and remembered how draining the work had been at first.
"That's enough for today," he announced.
Zarien looked relieved. "I am... a little tired."
Kiloran went to sit in the gold-encrusted chair of shells where he normally received visitors. Zarien now wandered idly around the room, looking at the collection of beautiful objects which came from all over the three corners of the world, as well as the mementos that Kiloran kept here of victories won, allies lost, and lessons learned. He would give the boy Alcinar's bracelet, which he had kept here for so long, but he no longer had it, having used it as bait to enable Dyshon to kill Wyldon.
"You did not make all of these shir," Zarien guessed, studying the display of wavy-edged daggers on one watery wall.
"No," Kiloran agreed. "I took those from the bodies of my enemies."
"But there are also shir here which look like yours."
"They are. I keep these to honor valuable men I've lost. And to remind me of past mistakes." He paused before pointing to a particularly beautiful shir and saying, "That one was Armian's."
Suddenly transfixed, Zarien reached o
ut to it. Perhaps he felt the vicious cold emanating from it, because he stopped himself just before touching it. "What's it doing here?"
"Tansen returned it to me when I rescinded the bloodvow and joined the rebellion."
"Tansen kept it for a long time, then?" Zarien's voice was very soft.
"Nine years."
"He never keeps them," Zarien murmured, frowning at the shir. "Well, maybe just for a little while, if he needs them for a plan. But he doesn't ever..." He continued staring at it, then asked, "Why do you think he kept it?"
"Out of guilt? For combat? As a trophy?" Kiloran shrugged. "One rarely knows, with Tansen." He watched the pensive boy, wondering what he was thinking. "Armian was Harlon's son—a great waterlord who died many years ago—and Armian had the same gifts which you possess. Tansen, as you must know, hates water magic and wants every waterlord in Sileria dead." Kiloran knew that the young could be very sentimental, so he added for good measure, "He would have killed you, Zarien. Surely you know that?"
"Yes, father," Zarien replied.
"There can be no other way, not for Tansen. He murdered his own father, and he'd have murdered his son. You must never doubt that."
"No, father."
"I imagine you were fond of him, but you must never trust him. As long as he lives, he is a terrible danger to you."
Zarien turned his back, ostensibly studying more of the displays along the walls. But Kiloran felt his tension as he turned to a new subject and asked, "After you joined the rebellion... Why did you kill Josarian? He was the Firebringer."
Fire, the old Guardian woman had promised him.
Kiloran ignored the intrusive memory. "Josarian killed my son, Srijan."
"But you had already tried to kill Josarian, hadn't you?"
The boy was bold. It was an important quality, so Kiloran didn't try to discourage it. "Josarian challenged me. Publicly as well as privately. Tried to give me orders. Told me how to run the Honored Society. He interfered in our business and opposed our plans. He became my enemy, and so I had to treat him as one." His son turned to face him as he said, "This is an important lesson, Zarien, so remember it well: Pardon one offense, and you encourage the commission of many."
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