The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

"Sorry," Tansen muttered as Zarien struggled out of the garment while trying to keep his hold on the warrior. "Get you another. Promise."

  Zarien used his small stolen knife to tear up his stolen homespun tunic and fashion an adequate dressing for the wound. Tansen was silent throughout the bandaging process, his sunken eyes closed, his breathing fast and shallow. Zarien let him rest for a few moments while he went to retrieve Tansen's satchel and his own stahra, which was still lying where he had dropped it earlier. When he returned with the metal-tipped oar, he thought for a terrible moment that the unmoving warrior was dead, so still was he as he leaned against a boulder.

  "Siran?" Zarien used the shallah term of respect which had become common throughout Silerian culture.

  "Not dead yet," was the weary reply.

  But soon, perhaps. I'd better ask before he dies, Zarien decided. "Where's Josarian?"

  Tansen's eyes snapped open. "Why?"

  "I must find him."

  "Why?" Tansen repeated.

  "I'll explain later."

  "Then I'll answer you later."

  Zarien stared at him with a touch of exasperation. "You really are a shallah. Not Kint or a toren, as some say—"

  "And you're sea-born, aren't you?" Tansen still looked exhausted, but more alert now. "Those tattoos, that stahra..."

  "Yes." Zarien supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Tansen knew what the weapon was called. A great warrior like him probably even knew how to use one. "I am Lascari." He hesitated, then added more honestly, "Or I used to be."

  "Why are you looking for Josarian?"

  Be patient. He guards Josarian's back. Of course he won't simply tell you where he is.

  "The sea-born need him," Zarien began.

  "Everyone needs him."

  "It's complicated."

  "I believe you."

  "I have to find him," Zarien said. "My life depends on it."

  Tansen lowered his head. "You're in trouble, then."

  "What do you mean?"

  Tansen didn't answer for a moment. When he lifted his head again, his face looked terrible. Haunted. Grief-stricken. "Josarian is dead."

  Zarien felt it like a blow. "What?"

  "Two nights ago. At the Zilar River."

  "Dead?"

  "Dead."

  "You're sure?" Zarien asked.

  "I was there."

  "What happened?" When there was no reply, Zarien blurted, "How could you let him die?"

  Pale from blood loss, Tansen seemed to go even whiter.

  Zarien faltered. "I'm sorry. I didn't... didn't mean—"

  "Go back to the sea, boy."

  "I can't."

  "He's dead."

  "Then there must be another—"

  "There's nothing for you here," Tansen said flatly.

  "There must be!"

  "Shhh..." Tansen lifted his head. He seemed to be listening for something. Zarien froze. More assassins? After a moment, Tansen shook his head. "We can't stay here and argue about it now." He winced, pressed a hand over the bandaged wound, and said, "You've helped me. That will be enough for them, if they come."

  "Yes, we must hurry," Zarien dreaded the prospect of facing more assassins when Tansen couldn't even stand up by himself. "And night is coming."

  "Night is always coming," the legendary warrior replied.

  "Siran?" Tansen said softly.

  Armian awoke with a start. His gaze flashed around the cave, glowing dimly in the lantern light, until he saw Tansen. "Tan? I... I thought there was a woman here..."

  "There is." Tansen gestured to the Sister who lay sleeping in a far corner of the cave. "I brought her yesterday. She will stay until she's sure you will recover."

  Armian inhaled, tensing and flexing his muscles. "I will," he said with certainty. "I feel much better."

  "She says you are very strong."

  "You're very strong, too." Armian studied him in the flickering light for a moment. "Not many boys could do all you've done for me."

  Tansen felt his face glow with pleasure at the compliment, but he shrugged it off like a man. "You have been away from the mountains for too long. Here, I am not special."

  Armian smiled. "Then Sileria's mountains must be a remarkable place."

  "Yes, siran. The only place. No other place matters." Armian's smile emboldened Tansen to add, "It's good that you have come home, siran. We have waited so long."

  "For what?"

  "For you."

  "Because I'm Harlon's son?"

  How could he not know? "Because you're the Firebringer."

  Armian grinned. "You seem like a bright lad, Tansen. You don't really believe that, do you?"

  Tansen stared at him in shock. "Of course I do." An incredible thought occurred to him. "Don't you?"

  "No."

  "Then you... you aren't going to Mount Darshon to—"

  "No."

  "—embrace Dar?"

  "Throw myself into the volcano?"

  "Yes."

  Armian laughed. "No. Why would I do such a crazy thing?"

  "Because you're the—"

  "No, I'm not." Armian shook his head, still grinning. "I know the story—and that's all it is, Tansen. A story. Probably made up by some hungry peasants who'd smoked a little too much Kintish dreamweed one night, hundreds of years ago."

  Tansen stared at the Firebringer, so strong, so powerful, so brave. The Firebringer... who evidently had no intention of proving his identity in Dar's embrace.

  Armian's expression was almost kind as he continued, "Men must solve their own problems, Tansen, rather than dreaming of someone who do it for them."

  "Yes, a man like you, siran, but..."

  "And the man you will be, too, son," Armian said.

  Sometime after sundown, they found a shallow cave where they could spend the night. Zarien explored it with shrinking horror, since he had learned by now that such places often harbored all manner of land creatures, from the disgusting to the genuinely dangerous: bats, worms, mice, rats, snakes, mountain lions... And, he supposed, bandits, rebels, Guardians, and assassins, too.

  I miss the sea, he thought for the thousandth time as he limped back to Tansen on aching feet and said, "It will do."

  Tansen was leaning heavily on the stahra. Zarien didn't really mind this undignified use of the honored weapon, since he himself had taken to using it as a staff ever since coming ashore. Besides, this was Tansen. So Zarien wouldn't protest about the stahra even if he did mind.

  He led Tansen into the cave and tried to help him lower himself to the ground. The warrior's skin was hot and dry, his limbs weak and limp as he tumbled to the cave floor in a sudden collapse, nearly taking Zarien with him.

  This is bad.

  "I'll get water," Zarien said. There was no reply. "Siran?" Still no reply. Tansen was unconscious again.

  Zarien found a waterskin in Tansen's satchel, as he had hoped. He left the cave and stumbled through the dark, tripping over rocks, vines, plants, and tree roots. On a bright twin-moon night like this, he'd be fine at sea. On land, though, with its constant obstacles and strange surprises, he stumbled and strayed, no more capable than a drunken toren letting a pleasure yacht run straight into a reef.

  He tried not to dwell on the fears that threatened to consume him. Josarian was dead, and Tansen seemed barely alive. Zarien's own life hung on a fragile bargain struck with Sharifar. His search for the goddess's mate, the truth about his birth, the destiny of the sea-born... the weight of it all pressed down upon him in the mysterious night world of the dryland.

  Water, he thought, focusing on the first task he must accomplish before he could confront the overwhelming problems that lay beyond it. He was thirsty, too, now. I want water.

  He heard it then, trickling softly down the mountainside. Water. A comforting musical sound amidst all the unfamiliar ones which crowded the night on land. He approached it, tripping several more times and once nearly walking into a sapling. He smelled it now, too, the soft scent of
sweetwater, so different from the salty tang of the Middle Sea. Different, too, from the loamy smell of the north-flowing Sirinakara River, the great southern waterway that splintered into a thousand swamps, brackish lagoons, and streams on its way to the Middle Sea.

  He found the water trickling down from above through a crack in an overhanging ledge. Consumed by his own thirst, he stood beneath it and opened his mouth, letting it run down his parched throat. Clear, cold, sweet.

  When he had drunk enough to quench the worst of his thirst, he let the water run over his head, his shoulders, his back. He washed the dried blood off his hands, then drank some more. Finally, he filled the waterskin and brought it back to the cave.

  Tansen was still unconscious. He didn't respond when Zarien tried to wake him. Zarien removed Tansen's ruined tunic, tore up a sleeve, soaked part of it in water, and forced it into the unconscious warrior's mouth. His mother... Palomar had once done this when Morven was very sick and too weak to drink.

  Zarien wondered briefly if Morven was Palomar's and Sorin's real son. He hoped so. He didn't want his little brother to feel the shame and betrayal he'd felt ever since coming alive in Sharifar's embrace. For the rest of his life, Zarien would bear the tattoos identifying him as a sea-bound Lascari born to Palomar and Sorin—and it would never be true.

  Immersed in the cave's darkness, he placed his hand on Tansen's throat and waited. It seemed a long time before he finally felt it move reflexively, swallowing the bit of liquid trickling from the cloth to the back of Tansen's throat.

  Encouraged, Zarien poured more water onto the cloth. It soaked through into Tansen's mouth and, eventually, his throat moved again.

  It took a long time to empty the waterskin this way. Zarien's back was stiff by the time he stopped bending over Tansen's prone body and, after taking the rag out of the warrior's mouth, left the cave to get more water. He wouldn't try to clean Tansen's wounds before morning, since he couldn't see them in the dark cave and didn't dare risk building fire. Even if he managed to do it right, it could be spotted by any assassins searching for them.

  He returned to the cave again. "Siran?" No reply. He crouched and felt for the bandage he had bound to Tansen's side. It was wet. Blood must still be flowing from the wound.

  "The winds carry me," Zarien murmured in despair. Maybe the stories were wrong. It seemed this man could indeed be killed, after all, and might even be dead by morning.

  He turned away, wondering what else to do for the warrior right now, when a strange rumbling sound made him pause.

  "What is..." The ground started trembling. "What is that?"

  The rumbling turned into a grating roar. The ground started shaking in earnest. The whole cave seemed to be moving, like a small oarboat on the back of a dragonfish.

  Rocks started falling from overhead. Zarien flung himself across Tansen. He heard a pained groan as his weight assailed the wounded body, but the warrior remained limp beneath him.

  Zarien shouted in fear as the cave floor heaved wildly and its walls shook around him. The rumbling roar was pierced by a great thundering crash in the distance that seemed to echo through his own veins.

  Terror consumed him. The ground roiled like rough seas. Rocks tumbled down on him as he tried to shield Tansen. The furious roar of the angry earth deafened him to the painful thundering of his own heart.

  And Dar moved the mountains in Her fury.

  Chapter Six

  Make no vows or promises in the dark.

  Always wait until dawn.

  —Najdan the Assassin

  Mirabar had not been asleep when the earthquake began, so she was slightly—but only slightly—less disoriented by it than everyone else atop Mount Dalishar.

  She had been through a few tremors in her lifetime—a span of barely twenty years, she guessed, though she didn't know for certain. Tonight's quake was far worse, though. It felt as if the ground was being pulled out from under her. The walls of Dalishar's six multi-chambered caves shook. The simple belongings of the forty or fifty rebels living up here tumbled around as if thrown by unseen hands. A terrible roaring filled the air, like the world screaming in its death throes.

  And in the distance, Mount Darshon gave a terrible, thundering crack of rage.

  Mirabar fled from the cave where she was spending the night, dragging Sister Rahilar with her as she escaped the shelter which had now become a potential deathtrap. When they reached the open ground outside their cave, she saw that everyone else at Dalishar was doing the same. The sentries were shouting wildly to alert everyone—As if anyone could sleep through this!—as people poured out of the caves, confused, armed, and frightened.

  No, it's not Kiloran, not yet. Just an earthquake.

  That was bad enough, she realized, as another violent tremor threw her to the hard ground. Kiloran wouldn't have to kill them all if Dar did it for him. And Dar was furious with them, for Sileria had killed the Firebringer.

  Kiloran. Elelar. The Valdani. They killed him, Dar, not me. And You let it happen. So stop this!

  Mirabar tried to rise from the ground, furious at her goddess, even as the ground continued shaking.

  "Sirana! Stay down, sirana!"

  She didn't know whose voice she heard shouting in the chaos, but she knew it was directed at her. Sirana, they called her now, a term of the highest respect. Her, an illiterate shallah, a clanless orphan who'd grown up wild in the mountains. She had survived like an animal and barely been able to speak like a human child when first found by Tashinar, the Guardian who caught and tamed her all those years ago. The sick old woman was her mentor and the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother.

  She prayed fervently that the earthquake wasn't this bad at Mount Niran, where Tashinar was tonight. Mirabar and Sister Rahilar clutched each other in fear, huddled on the ground, and tried to protect their heads from falling rocks.

  Please Dar, shield Tashinar, shield her.

  She only realized that the terrible rumbling which filled her senses was finally fading away when she heard the rasping sound of Rahilar's breath. Mirabar cautiously lifted her head.

  "It is over, sirana?" Rahilar asked, her voice high and thready with terror.

  Mirabar waited another moment. "Yes, it's over."

  "Sirana! Sirana!"

  She knew that voice. "I'm here!" she called. "I'm fine!"

  Hard, callused hands hauled her off the ground a moment later. She saw the black clothes of an assassin, the yellow beads woven into the red jashar, the harshly lined face and long black hair—now showing some gray—of her protector. His shir trembled slightly, as it always did in response to her presence. She supposed Najdan had grown used to that by now.

  He released her quickly, showing a shallah's respect for a woman's sanctity and a servant's respect for the sirana's dignity.

  "You are not hurt?" Najdan asked, his gaze traveling over her with proprietary concern. She knew he regarded her safety as his destined duty. If she came to harm, it stained his honor. The habits and values absorbed during his twenty years as Kiloran's trusted assassin remained with him, and now he applied them to the young Guardian to whom he had pledged his loyalty, the prophetess for whom he had betrayed his master.

  "I'm fine." She was shaking, but unhurt.

  Najdan's breath was coming fast, and his face gleamed with the sweat of fear. He was a brave man, but no one liked earthquakes. Least of all shallaheen, whose villages were perched so precariously on Sileria's steep mountain slopes and high cliffs. Now Najdan would be worried, she knew, about his mistress, Haydar, whom he had left in the mountain Sanctuary of Sister Basimar. Haydar would be safe from Kiloran's vengeance there, but earthquakes didn't respect Sanctuary the way the Society did.

  Mirabar was even more worried about Tansen. "He should have been here by now," she said, scarcely aware that she spoke aloud.

  "He was wounded, sirana. He must be making the journey slowly," Najdan answered without needing to ask whom she meant. "He will surely be here tomorro
w." He paused. "Today?" He shrugged and settled on, "After sunrise." He bent over and politely helped Sister Rahilar to her feet. She was shaking, too, but not, Dar be thanked, weeping or complaining.

  "Sister!" A shallah rebel named Galian, known for always fighting with two yahr, came running over to where the three of them stood. "Sis—" He stopped when he saw Mirabar, crossed his fists over his chest and bowed his head respectfully. "You are unhurt, sirana?"

  "Yes," she replied, still unaccustomed to how much her life had changed. Her fiery red hair and flame-bright eyes had once, not long ago, made the shallaheen shun her, fear her, even violently drive her from their villages. Now most of them treated her with the deference usually paid only to a torena. Or a waterlord. "Do you need the Sister for something?"

  "Lann slept through the earthquake and—"

  "He what?"

  Galian grinned. "And he was hit by some falling rocks inside the cave. I don't think it's very serious, but that thick skull of his is bleeding."

  "I will see to him," Rahilar said. "Bring any other wounded there, too, and I will tend them."

  "Yes, Sister."

  "We should remember not to leave Lann on sentry duty," Mirabar said to Najdan as the other two hurried away.

  "It would perhaps be unwise," he agreed dryly.

  Mirabar walked to the edge of the clearing and stood atop a sharp cliff left on Dalishar's craggy face long ago, presumably by a night even more violent than this one. She looked out across the dark expanse of Sileria and could see many mountains outlined by the rich light of the two full moons.

  In the distance was Mount Darshon, so high and vast, its snow-capped peak so bold and bright, she could see it even from here on a twin-moon night like this. Lightning flashed around the mountain's snowy summit in uneven intervals. Mirabar fell back a step as flame shot into the night, piercing the clouds that shone palely in the harsh flashes of light flickering above Darshon.

  "Dar is angry," Najdan guessed.

  "Then Dar should have protected him," Mirabar replied bitterly.

  "Josarian chose his way, sirana. As I have chosen mine. As you have chosen yours."