"I..." Zarien again looked at Armian's shir, his brow furrowed.
"Permit rudeness, and you're offered insolence next. Permit insolence, and opposition follows. And opposition..." Kiloran waited for Zarien to meet his gaze again. "That we cannot allow."
"Never?" Zarien asked.
"Never," Kiloran confirmed.
"But is it right to make people go thirsty just because—"
"If you want to be one of us," Kiloran told him, "you cannot be one of them. And you, Zarien, are one of us. Your gifts have determined your choice for you."
"My gifts," the boy murmured.
"Our destiny," Kiloran taught him, "is to be obeyed. Demanding obedience is the source of the Society's power."
"But the Society is all but finish—"
"You and I are just beginning," Kiloran assured him.
"Why must it be this w—"
"What do the waterlords seek when they withhold water?" Kiloran prodded.
Zarien hesitated before replying, "They seek obedience."
Kiloran nodded, pleased. "Now do you understand?"
"Yes, father, now I understand."
Mirabar and Najdan traveled through territory that was increasingly coming under the loyalists' complete control. They pushed themselves hard to return to Belitar in haste now that they'd left Shaljir.
When they encountered some Guardians traveling from the sacred caves of Mount Dalishar to Shaljir, where they would join in celebrating the birth of the Yahrdan, Mirabar was shocked by what they told her.
"The visions are continuing at Mount Dalishar?" Mirabar asked in astonishment, certain she must have misunderstood.
"Golden eyes in the sky at night," one of them confirmed.
"Or sometimes a fist," another added.
"And a voice. 'He is coming.'"
"But he is already here," Mirabar protested. "I don't understand."
"We saw this again just two nights ago, sirana."
By then, Gaborian had already arrived in Shaljir.
"Perhaps, sirana," another of the Guardians said, "it's Dar's way of assuring the people that Gaborian is indeed the one? The pilgrims at Darshon witnessed the birth, but the pilgrims at Mount Dalishar did not. So Dar may feel they need encouragement."
"Perhaps," Mirabar said, frowning in puzzlement.
"Sirana," Najdan called from his position on a rocky ledge, where he kept watch for the approach of strangers. "If we want to reach Belitar by sundown, we must press on."
She agreed, took her leave of the Guardians bound for Shaljir, and waited for Najdan to help her mount her horse.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I don't know," she admitted.
It soon began raining again, which made their progress slower than they would have liked. It was nearly dark by the time they reached Belitar. Baran must have been advised of their arrival, since the moat hardened for their crossing as soon as they reached it. As they entered the main hall of their damp, crumbling home, Haydar flung herself at Najdan.
Mirabar assumed Baran was, as usual, in his study, so she headed in that direction. She stopped in surprise, though, when Tansen emerged from that room.
How can I tell him? What do I say?
She was so distressed that it took her a moment to realize that he looked tense, furious, and... scared. Yes, Tansen looked scared.
"Baran's just received a letter from Kiloran," he said without greeting her or acknowledging Najdan.
A chill seized Mirabar. She knew what he would say next.
"He's got Zarien."
They began forming their plan that same night, then explored possible problems and new solutions the next day as they prepared for battle.
"This was his contingency plan. And it's a good one, you must admit," Baran said to Tansen. "A son, an heir, someone to carry on Kiloran's battle for years to come. Even better, a weapon—one exquisitely crafted to hurt you and affect your judgment. And as for me..." They were in the waterlord's study, examining a detailed map which Najdan had made of Kiloran's territory and of Kandahar itself. "Kiloran thinks I'd never attack, now that I know he's got Alcinar's child. He thinks I'd be too afraid of the boy getting killed. Maybe he even thinks this news will crush me. Distract me. Make me too irrational to do anything to interfere with his plans."
"Will it?" Tansen asked grimly, studying Baran's haggard, thin, pain-lined face and the wild glitter in his feverish eyes.
"I would rather Alcinar's son died," Baran said coldly, "than become what Kiloran will turn him into. What Kiloran turned me into."
Tansen seized Baran by the front of his expensive tunic and flung him hard enough against a damp wall to get his full attention. He ignored Mirabar's cry of protest and took Baran's throat in his hand.
"Zarien is my son," he reminded Baran. "If he dies, I will kill you and every single one of your assassins. Do I make myself clear?"
"Tansen," Mirabar admonished.
Baran wheezed with laughter. "The amusing thing," he choked out, "is that Kiloran undoubtedly thinks you're the one who'll be willing to kill the boy. Perhaps even determined to kill him. Kiloran has never understood love, after all, and everyone knows how much you hate waterlords."
"Zarien's not a waterlord," Tansen growled. "He will never be one of you. If I thought for a moment that he would be... Yes, I'd kill him. But he's better than you! He's strong enough to have this gift without letting it twist him into what the rest of you became."
"Oh, and is that why he ran away and sought out Kiloran the moment he knew what he was, what he could become if guided by a master?" Baran prodded nastily.
"He ran away because he was scared and confused," Tansen insisted, pressing harder on Baran's throat in his anger at himself, in his knowledge of what his instinctive rejection had driven Zarien to do. "He went to Kiloran because he believed he had to. And because..."
"Because," Najdan said quietly from across the room, "he is a very willful boy."
"Yes," Tansen admitted. "He is."
Baran said to him, "This physical violence is unnecessary, ill-mannered, and—dare I mention?—very unwise." The fountain started bubbling menacingly behind Tansen.
"Stop this right now or I'll set you both on fire," Mirabar warned them.
Realizing he was wasting time and losing focus, Tansen released Baran, who sank weakly into a nearby chair.
"You're lucky Vinn didn't see that," Baran said. "He'd kill you for such disrespect. Well, he'd try, anyhow—and then just think of what a mess we'd have on the carpet."
The assassin was busy preparing Baran's men for an assault on Kandahar. Tansen had already sent messages to Lann in Zilar and to Pyron at Dalishar with detailed instructions to organize as many people as possible for an invasion of Kiloran's territory, an assault which must work in coordination with the attack on Kandahar itself. The rest of the Society was dead, fleeing, or in shambles. Most of Sileria was coming under the loyalists' control. Now, Tansen knew, the time was right to make a direct, all-out attack on Kiloran. Their losses might be terrible, but if they defeated him, then the war would effectively be over at last.
The complication was that there was one person inside of Kandahar who mustn't be harmed under any circumstances. One person who must be taken away alive from Kiloran, by any means available, and the sooner the better.
"I will go into Kiloran's palace," Tansen told Baran. "Alone. I will not have one of your men panic and gut my son."
Baran replied, "I feel compelled to point out that Kiloran will certainly kill anyone who enters his—"
"And you," Tansen ordered, "will distract Kiloran so I can get the boy out safely."
"I'm not as strong as I was," Baran said. "I may not be able to fight Kiloran long enough to—"
"Would you really sacrifice Alcinar's son?" Tansen snapped, loathing this mercurial wizard. "Is that what you want for her bloodline?"
Baran slumped in his chair and looked suddenly older. "I should have been his father."
Baran glared at him. "I have always found your company unpleasant."
"Give me time to get Zarien out of Kandahar." The waterlords had taught Tansen to be ruthless, so he added, "Since you didn't save Alcinar from Kiloran, saving her son's life does seem to me to be the very least you might do for her now."
"Damn you," Baran growled.
"If we're leaving tomorrow," Mirabar said to Baran, obviously trying to end their argument, "you will need to rest now."
"First," the waterlord said, "I would like to take my leave of the Olvara. I daresay she will miss me when I'm gone."
Mirabar looked stricken as she stared at him.
She cares, Tansen thought. She actually cares about him.
It hurt. He once again understood how much his feelings for Elelar must have hurt her.
Mirabar was visibly upset as she escorted her husband out of the study.
Baran thinks he won't be coming back to Belitar.
Tansen wouldn't miss him, but he did find this pessimism disturbing. If a waterlord of Baran's experience and still- formidable power didn't expect to survive a direct assault on Kiloran...
What chance does a shatai have?
And how likely was it that he could last long enough to get Zarien away from Kiloran?
Focus on the task at hand.
"Najdan," he said to the assassin, "I still have more questions about Kandahar."
"Of course." Najdan came over to the table upon which lay the map he'd drawn and began discussing details of the attack with him. They were surprised by Mirabar's return.
"Velikar is accompanying Baran down to the caverns," she said. "I wanted to talk with you while there's time."
Tansen nodded and gave her his attention.
"Have you thought..." She folded her hands. Cleared her throat. Unfolded her hands.
"What?" he prodded.
"What will you do if Zarien doesn't want to come with you?"
"I'll bring him out anyhow."
"I mean... if he resists." Mirabar took a breath and said, "Tansen, what will you do if he tries to kill you?"
"He won't."
"What makes you so sure? He has already run away and gone to Kiloran. Who knows—"
"I know," he said. "I know Zarien. I know his heart. He is not a killer."
"Since the moment he arrived at Kandahar," she persisted, "Kiloran has been turning him against you."
"Kiloran has been trying to make him afraid of me. But he can't convince him to kill me."
"Zarien is powerful, and probably already learning how to use his p—"
"He won't use it to kill." Tansen shook his head. "He doesn't have that in him."
"Is that what Armian thought, before you killed him?"
The silence was tense and cold.
"I always had it in me," Tansen said at last. "Zarien doesn't—"
"Isn't that what Armian thought? I know, Tansen. I've Called him. I've felt the surprise he felt. Not just that you could kill him, but that you could kill at all!"
"Zarien's a better person than I was, Mirabar. He's never dreamed of becoming an assassin. He's never admired killing or wanted to be in the Society. He hates violence."
"Tansen," she pleaded, "what if he's changing? You changed. What if you don't know him as well as you think you do? What if you've seen only what you want to see?"
"I'm not that—"
"Aren't you?" she challenged. "You've been with him all this time and never suspected he had water magic, even though you now realize there were many signs, right from the start."
He said dismissively, "Oh, even you didn't suspect—"
"I hardly know him! You lived with him as his father. You didn't see it because you didn't want to see it!"
"That doesn't—"
"And now you don't want to see this."
"There's nothing to see!" he shouted.
They stared at each other in consternation, their fast, angry breathing competing with the sound of the tinkling fountain.
"This bickering," Najdan said, "is pointless."
"This bickering," Mirabar snapped, "may mean the difference between life and death for Tansen."
"You're wrong," Tansen told her.
"I hope so. But what if I'm not?"
"The sirana may or may not be wrong," Najdan said to Tansen. "We cannot learn the truth in advance. Therefore, I would suggest that you be very careful when you approach Zarien. It's undeniable that you have not yet learned everything about him which there is to know."
"I know this," Tansen said firmly. "He won't hurt me."
Najdan and Mirabar looked at each other. Both of them looked worried.
"Father!"
Armian didn't respond. They were on the dark cliffs east of Adalian. The long rains had finally come.
Tansen knew he should do it now.
"Father," he said again.
Fast, please Dar, let it be fast. Let him not suffer. I can't bear to make him suffer...
It was Tansen's weakness, Armian said, this distaste for suffering.
Father!
"Do you know what you're doing?" Josarian asked.
Tansen insisted. "It's not in him to hurt me. It's not!"
"You wouldn't believe this was in him either, would you?" Josarian lifted his tunic and revealed the silvery scar of a shir wound healed by water magic. "You refused to see it. What else are you refusing to see?"
"No! You're wrong!"
He saw Armian's silhouette faintly outlined against the tormented coastal sky... then realized it was himself.
"Be careful!" he warned the man as the boy prepared to betray him.
"It's too late," Josarian said sadly. "He won't listen. You know he won't."
"Father!"
Tansen looked over his shoulder in response to Zarien's cry.
The boy struck out. The blow connected, reverberating through Tansen's soul. He fell to his knees.
Tansen froze, like a statue, when he saw his son standing above him on that windswept cliff.
"Zarien?" he said incredulously.
No! No! No!
"Tansen?" Armian said.
"Forgive me, father," Tansen whispered.
"How could you do it?" Zarien asked him angrily. "Am I next?"
"I can't hurt you," Tansen told him. "I could never hurt you."
"Does he know?" Josarian asked.
"I don't know," Tansen admitted. "I thought so, but... I've made mistakes."
"You always do."
"I want him to know."
"Then you have no choice, do you?"
"I have no choice," Tansen agreed, as the rain fell all around them.
"Tansen?" Armian repeated in that shocked, disbelieving voice, that voice so rich with betrayal, so wounded by treachery...
"Father..."
"Father!"
Tansen awoke with a pounding heart and quivering limbs. Breathing fast, he sat up and held his pounding head in his hands. Rain drummed hard on the crumbling roof of Belitar and pattered noisily on the moat outside his window.
"Zarien..."
The damp bedchamber seemed to close in on him as he took harsh gulps of air.
Did Zarien have nightmares about him now, he wondered?
Oh, Dar, how did we come to this?
Step by step, he realized wearily, as all journeys were made.
Had he been a bad father? He had tried so hard... and he had been one so briefly...
No. He would not accept the ache of unbearable loss that threatened to eat his heart. He was still a father. He would show Zarien he loved him and would never hurt him. And he would get his son back, or die trying.
In the end, it was the only choice he could make.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
May there be one thing in your life for
which it is worth giving up everything else.
—Kintish Proverb
Tonight the past and the future came together in the present. The tragedy of wasted lives, the waste of squandered talents, the enmity that ran stronger in their blood than love, the love which they had twisted into something too destructive to survive.
Fire and water, water and fire...
The bloodlust of a people which they must learn to stop quenching. The vengeance that could no longer be their whole way of life. The passion for betrayal which they must stop indulging.
Tansen had promised the loyalists they would end the war here. Now. With this battle. He had brought them to the edge of Kiloran's territory from all over western Sileria. Quietly, so as not to alert Kiloran. Swiftly, because every day that Zarien remained at Kandahar tormented him. And he had brought them in great numbers, because now Kiloran was cornered and desperate, and therefore more deadly than ever.
Next to Mirabar, Baran was spitting up blood in the dark while Velikar held his shoulders.
"Can you do this?" Mirabar asked Baran, frowning with grim concern. The journey from Belitar had nearly finished him. She didn't see how he could confront Kiloran now.
"I suppose I have lived only to do this," he assured her weakly. "Stop fussing, Velikar."
"Drink this," the Sister growled at him as he sat back, breathing hard. She handed him a waterskin filled with one of her tisanes.
Right after dusk, Tansen's advance scouts had invaded the territory from all directions and started killing Kiloran's sentries. Now the Guardians were waiting for him to order them to commence the next part of the plan.
"Baran," Mirabar said, feeling her eyes mist as she tried to say goodbye to him. "If you and I don't meet again—"
"Oh, don't get sentimental now," he grumbled. "I was just starting to get used to you disapproving of everything I say and do."
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