The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  "Now we must wait only to see what Tansen's choice will be."

  "He said he would execute the torena."

  "So die all who betray Josarian," Mirabar quoted softly, remembering. It was the death sentence of anyone who betrayed the Firebringer, the Silerian peasant who had struck out from his humble mountain village to change the world.

  "Yes, and Torena Elelar did betray him." Najdan paused and added, "As I betrayed Kiloran."

  "Revenge is Kiloran's strength," Mirabar said, "whereas Elelar is Tansen's weakness." She hated the knowledge of that more than she should.

  Najdan smiled. An assassin's smile. "Mercy is his weakness."

  Mirabar turned away, chilled by him, as she sometimes was, despite trusting him with her life. "Then may he be ruthless where that woman is concerned."

  "If he isn't, sirana, it would be a simple matter for me to assassinate her myself."

  "No."

  "I have never killed a woman," he said, tactfully avoiding mention of the time he had tried to kill Mirabar, "and I would rather not, as it is not honorable. But if you wish—"

  "No," she repeated, in a tone that prohibited argument.

  "Ah. Must it be done," Najdan asked, "or must he do it?"

  "It must be done," she replied. "And he must do it."

  "Then let us hope that he already has, sirana, as he vowed."

  "Let us hope that he is still alive." She shivered, though the night was only pleasantly cool, and returned to the thought that had kept her wide awake before the start of the earthquake. "He should have been here by now."

  "Give him another day, sirana," Najdan advised. "He is very hard to kill, you know."

  "Yes," she agreed. "That much is true."

  Mirabar rubbed her forehead. Now that the thundering chaos of the earthquake was fading into memory, the ever-present song of Dalishar was returning to haunt her. The six caves up here were sacred to the Guardians of the Otherworld, claimed by the sect centuries ago. Guardian power here remained so strong that the waterlords had never challenged their supremacy at Dalishar. Sacred fires, blown into life long ago and left burning ever since—woodless, enchanted, mystically linked to the Otherworld—kept the caves perpetually bright, day and night.

  Fresh springs kept Dalishar well supplied with water year round, even at the height of the dry season. The caves were decorated with strange paintings, older than memory, left by a race of peaceful water wizards called the Beyah-Olvari, the first inhabitants of Sileria. Most people thought they were extinct, but Mirabar knew otherwise. She had never seen one, but she knew the well-guarded secret, as did Tansen: Though few in number, the Beyah-Olvari still existed, small blue-skinned beings, a dying race living in ancient tunnels below Shaljir. This mountaintop, like all of Sileria, had once belonged to them.

  The Otherworld was very close up here, separated from this world only by a thin veil eternally pierced by the sacred fires of Dalishar. Shades of the dead called through the night to Mirabar now, their silent voices echoing around her, making her head ache. After a few days at Dalishar, she became so exhausted from the twin realities of this world and the Other one that it was hard to function, difficult to concentrate.

  But she was safe from Kiloran at Dalishar, and so Tansen had insisted she come and await him here. It was not far from Chandar and the ruined villa where Elelar had been living in recent months, ever since Tansen and Zimran risked their lives to break her out of prison in Shaljir. Torena Elelar had been caught spying on her Valdani lover, Imperial Advisor Borell, and giving information to the Silerian rebels; she had been beaten, raped, imprisoned, and condemned to death by that same man.

  Mirabar hated Elelar, but even she had to admit that the woman was no coward. The torena was part of the Alliance, a rebel group which had existed since long before Josarian's birth, and she had devoted her whole life to ridding Sileria of the Valdani. Unfortunately, she was also willing to betray anyone—Josarian, Tansen, anyone—to achieve this goal. Long ago, she had betrayed Tansen to Kiloran. Now that Josarian was dead, Mirabar was the only other person left alive who knew why: Tansen killed Armian, and Elelar told Kiloran to ensure that he would not blame the Alliance for his comrade's death.

  When the Valdani finally realized they were losing the war against Josarian in Sileria, they met in secret with the aristocratic leaders of the Alliance—which had been largely ineffectual before Josarian commenced the rebellion and united Sileria against its conquerors—and demanded Josarian's death in exchange for Valdani withdrawal from Sileria. For reasons which Mirabar would never ever understand, Elelar had not only agreed, she had personally plotted Josarian's murder. She seduced his cousin Zimran—who always thought with an organ very distant from his brain—and convinced him to lead Josarian into an Outlooker ambush.

  As much as Mirabar loathed Elelar, she also knew the torena wasn't stupid, so it bewildered her that she hadn't suspected what any fool should have guessed—that Kiloran was behind the plan all along. He had alerted the Valdani that the Alliance could be convinced to betray Josarian, and he had convinced the Alliance that his own enmity ensured that Josarian ought to be sacrificed to save Sileria. The shrewd old waterlord had undoubtedly counted on Elelar's mingled arrogance and fanaticism to lead her straight to the well of betrayal which he had secretly chosen for her.

  But Kiloran, who valued and richly rewarded loyalty, hadn't suspected that, during the course of the costly war with Valdania, Najdan's loyalty had switched from him to Mirabar. Najdan abandoned his master and betrayed Kiloran's plans to Tansen and Mirabar, who were Josarian's sword and shield, thus condemning himself to a bloodvow from the waterlord.

  Thanks to Najdan's warning, they had found Josarian in time to save him from the Outlooker ambush. Although letting Josarian be murdered by the Valdani would have been the tidiest solution for Kiloran, the waterlord had foreseen the possibility of failure, and so he had another plan, a far more horrible scheme, in reserve: the White Dragon.

  So Elelar hadn't really killed Josarian. But she had tried. She had betrayed him. Had she not done so....

  Would he be alive now?

  Probably not, for Kiloran had set his final trap well. But that changed nothing. Vengeance must now be swift and merciless. This was Sileria, where mercy was indeed a weakness, compassion was dangerous, and forgiveness was a fool's delusion. Elelar must pay for what she had done.

  If Tansen hasn't killed her, as he promised that night, then I will do it, Mirabar vowed. And I will never forgive him.

  As for Kiloran.... Mirabar shuddered as she remembered the White Dragon rising out of the Zilar River. Unstoppable. Unkillable. Kiloran's hideous, voracious offspring, its water-born form dripping death in icy droplets that burned the flesh. The memory of Josarian's dying screams filled Mirabar's head, competing with the clamoring music of the Otherworld. How Tansen had wept afterwards. Covered in blood—including that of Zimran, whom he had killed that night—covered in bruises, in burns, in cuts and abrasions, swaying from the re-opened shir wound at his side, panting from his fruitless battle against the White Dragon... Tansen had wept like a child for the bloodbrother he couldn't save.

  "Are you cold, sirana?"

  Mirabar flinched, having forgotten that Najdan was there. "What?"

  "You're shivering."

  "Oh. I..."

  "I believe it is safe to return to your cave now," he said.

  "No, I don't..."

  "I will move any fallen rocks, and then you will lie down."

  Mirabar knew that tone. The assassin could bicker like an overprotective mother if she resisted once he had decided what was best for her. So she said, "As you wish."

  She was following him into the mouth of the cave when she heard the Beckoning.

  Come to me...

  Mirabar was tired. She was grieving. But she well knew the penalty of resisting the Beckoner. If the Otherworld sometimes clamored inside her head, the Beckoner could thunder until her knees gave way from the force of his w
ill.

  Come...

  Najdan sensed her hesitation. "Sirana?"

  "Go," she said, staring into the dark wilderness which bordered this cave. "I'll lie down later."

  "But—"

  "It's the Beckoner."

  Najdan froze, then crossed his fists, bowed his head, and quietly retreated. This, after all, was what made her the sirana for whom he had betrayed Kiloran: the gift of prophecy.

  The strange visitant whom Mirabar called the Beckoner—for lack of a more accurate notion of what he was—had opened the gates of destiny to a young Guardian initiate one night on the slopes of Mount Niran, and she had helped Josarian change the world. She saw the Beckoner again now, as she had many times since that first night: the ghostly shape of a strong man with flame-red hair and fire-gold eyes, his skin glowing with the light of the Otherworld, his feet never touching the ground. Not a shade of the dead. A god, perhaps? She didn't know. She only knew that whether or not she liked it—and she often didn't like it—she served Dar and Sileria through the prophecies given to her by the Beckoner.

  His lava-rich coloring was rare, as rare as her own. In all her life, she'd never seen another person with hair like hers, and only one other with eyes like hers: Cheylan, a toren turned Guardian, whose kisses she well remembered and whose stunning secret she couldn't forget…

  Come to me... the Beckoner urged in the seductive silence of her vision, driving all thoughts of Cheylan from her head. He glowed like the clouds above Darshon tonight as he floated into the forest beyond the sacred caves.

  You must come...

  That much was true, Mirabar knew. She had been chosen, and she had no choice. She had tried to resist before, and it was not permitted. Was it only last night that she had refused the Beckoner while she grieved over Josarian's death, betrayed by all she had wrought? But he had not allowed it. He had forced her to bend to his will. Again.

  "Our work is not yet done," she said, following him, repeating what she had learned from him in the previous vision. "The new Yahrdan is coming..."

  "Sirana?"

  She heard a puzzled voice behind her, someone who wasn't familiar with her strange fits and visions, someone who had never seen her wander into the dark wilderness muttering like a madwoman, had never seen her suddenly fall to the ground when tormented by unseen forces.

  Then she heard Najdan's voice: "Leave her."

  "But..."

  Their voices faded from Mirabar's senses as she followed the Beckoner into the fragile borderlands between this world and the Other one.

  "The Yahrdan," she said, using the title of the traditional ruler of Sileria.

  There hadn't been a Yahrdan here since the death of Daurion, a thousand years ago, the Guardian and great warrior who had ruled this island nation with a fist of iron in a velvet glove before being betrayed by Marjan, the very first waterlord. Marjan was the Guardian who had unraveled the secrets of water magic encoded in the cave paintings which the Beyah-Olvari had left all over Sileria. He had betrayed Daurion and thereby weakened Sileria for the Moorlander Conquest. Marjan invented the shir, turned men into assassins, demanded tribute in exchange for water from the rivers and lakes he controlled... As much as the Valdani, Marjan had created the world into which Mirabar had been born.

  "The new Yahrdan," she repeated into the darkness that danced around her, blotting out the gossamer trees, the caves, the ground, the moon-bright sky. "How will I know him?"

  The ground disappeared beneath her feet, and she fell into the swimming emptiness of the Beckoner's domain. A hollow world beyond life and death, a region where the past and the future collided, where will was power and flesh was nothing.

  Hot sparks ignited in the murky void and something liquid trickled musically past Mirabar's senses. Fire and water: the two elements which ruled Sileria. Incompatible, forever apart, forever at odds.

  The sparks fell into the liquid, and the two substances united, becoming one, becoming something new, something which grew. Now fire whirled around her, strange blue flames of incandescent water, a burning liquid that scorched and froze her at once.

  Fire and water, water and fire...

  "No," she protested, "we are enemies. Now and forever."

  He comes, he comes... Welcome him.

  "Who? The Yahrdan?"

  Fire and water, water and fire...

  "Are you saying he's a waterlord?" she asked in horror.

  Her whirling nest of blue fire became a cradle. The birthing screams of the world surrounded her, roared across space and time, filled her head. The agony of childbirth, strange and yet strangely familiar, seized her body, the pain causing her to double over as her screams blended with those that echoed around her. A river of fire poured out of her womb, turning into a flow of icy water that chilled and burned all at once.

  Only when the pain finally faded did she understand.

  "Am I looking for a child?"

  A child of fire...

  "Yes?"

  A child of water...

  "No!"

  Blue fire pierced her like a spear. She screamed in agony. "Siran!" she cried, her eyes streaming lava as she pleaded for mercy. "Please, don't!"

  A child of sorrow...

  Mirabar gasped for breath, choking on a sudden, terrible sadness. Her heart wailed inside her chest, broken and empty. "Whose... sorrow is this?" she asked weakly. But grief was her only answer, longing her only comfort.

  She fell through the stars, inhaling the watery blue fire all around her, drowning in it as it burned her throat and flooded her lungs. Tears of lava continued to flow down her cheeks. She caught them with her fingers and saw them turn into diamonds, glittering stones like those mined at Alizar. They gleamed beautifully for a moment, then turned into water so cold she gasped and dropped them. They coalesced around her and turned into a circle of fire, glorious flames rising through the dark.

  He is coming!

  "How will I know him?" she asked again.

  Prepare the way.

  "What must I do?"

  Shield him...

  "How?" she asked bitterly. "I couldn't shield Josarian."

  The night exploded like an eruption of Mount Darshon, showers of lava consuming her flesh. The ground pushed upward against her falling body, surging toward the tumbling sky, birth and death twining together in the heaving soil beneath her, in the liquid fire flowing through her veins and the deadly water glittering on her skin.

  "How will I know him?" she cried.

  Before she lost consciousness, she felt the answer sliding along her skin, filling her hands, whispering in her ears. She felt it and knew it was there, but she couldn't understand it.

  A frustrated sob escaped her before her vision went black and she returned to her world, empty and helpless in the night.

  Najdan waited until dawn to search for the sirana.

  He didn't fear the darkness. An enemy who awaited him in the dark could see no better than he could, after all. He didn't fear the assassins undoubtedly plotting his death right now, perhaps even haunting the slopes of Dalishar at this very moment. He had survived too long as an assassin to fear another of his kind.

  He feared very few things, since there wasn't much that he, who had served Kiloran for twenty years, hadn't already faced and survived. But he feared whatever it was the sirana so often confronted in her strange visions. And because she did not shrink from it—from something powerful beyond his experience, strange beyond his understanding—he served her, as she served this thing that ruled her destiny.

  She was a prophetess, cursed and gifted with visions which had helped change the world. Najdan had little interest in the toils and struggles of the shallaheen, sheep whom his former master had always herded with ease, and he himself had not seen Josarian's transformation at Mount Darshon. He had, however, seen this small, impoverished girl, without family or clan or influence, face Kiloran and win his respect. Najdan had seen her win the respect, even earn the fear, of many of the Society's
waterlords and assassins. She had initially faced Najdan himself as an enemy and, after a few misunderstandings during which he had tried to kill her, she had won his respect, too—and, eventually, his devotion.

  Najdan knew a hundred ways to kill a man, and at least as many ways to force him to submit and obey. He had pledged his life and skills to the Society long ago, so he knew little of the Guardians or their religion. Until Mirabar, in fact, he had only known them as enemies to be killed whenever possible. He hadn't prayed to Dar in many years; the Society discouraged devotion to Her. He had consecrated his life to serving Kiloran, who had rewarded him richly, ensuring that he would never go hungry again.

  Loyalty was basic to his nature, and he hadn't wanted to betray Kiloran. But his master had forced him to choose—by ordering him to kill Mirabar. Najdan would have accepted Kiloran's plan to kill Josarian, because Josarian had murdered the waterlord's only son, Srijan; and spilled blood called for vengeance. But Najdan couldn't kill Mirabar. That was the push that had shoved him into the strange and unstable land of betrayal.

  He was not an educated man like Searlon, Kiloran's most favored assassin. He wasn't worldly, like Tansen, who had traveled far and wide during the nine years he'd spent in exile for some crime against Kiloran which neither man had ever revealed. And he didn't possess the gifts of leadership and imagination which had made people follow Josarian even before he'd become the Firebringer. Apart from being very good at killing, Najdan supposed he wasn't special at all. However, he could certainly recognize those who were, and he had built a worthy life by using his skills to serve them. In the course of many years spent among Sileria's most powerful wizards, Najdan had never known anyone as special as Mirabar. So when Kiloran had forced him to choose between them, he had known what the choice must be.

  Kiloran's power was extraordinary—still the greatest in Sileria, perhaps in the whole world. But Najdan could not kill this lone girl who faced the torment of gods in the darkness without flinching and who consecrated her life to the service of something Najdan didn't understand but knew could change the world.