"No." Armian clapped him on the head, a playful blow of admonishment. "What did I tell you before?"
"Um..."
"Never destroy a useful tool."
"Oh! Yes, I remember." He frowned. "How is the Alliance useful?"
"I'm not sure yet, but they're bound to be. Money, contacts, networks, influence." Armian shrugged. "Kiloran will know. And he will keep them in their place."
An important matter continued to trouble Tansen. "After we find Kiloran...."
"Yes?"
"Will we go to Darshon?"
Armian sighed. "You're not still thinking about that, are you?"
"Father, surely your destiny—"
"Is too bright to throw away by jumping into the damned volcano."
"Then what will you do?"
"I'll fight a war," said Armian.
"To get rid of the Valdani."
"Yes."
"But—"
"And then I'll become Kiloran's heir."
I'm his son, Tansen thought, it's my duty to say this. "That doesn't seem fitting, father. You're the Fire—"
"Kiloran will teach me everything he knows," Armian said, looking a little exasperated by now. "Including water magic."
"You'll become a waterlord?"
"I'm Harlon's son."
"Waterlords' sons don't always... The gift doesn't always go from father to son."
"Let's just hope it has in my case."
"Are there any signs that you h—"
"No." Armian shrugged. "But I've never been in Sileria before, and I've never met a waterlord who might teach me. So there's never been any way of knowing."
"If you don't—"
"If I don't master water magic, then it will be very hard to rule Sileria."
A waterlord ruling Sileria.
It was not the same thing as the Firebringer.
It was not the same.
Tansen had never seen a woman like Elelar, had never known the painful, tongue-tied yearning that overwhelmed him in her presence. He didn't know how to control the lust which swept through him when she brushed past him or stood so close that he could feel the heat of her skin.
He had also never before experienced the acute embarrassment he felt over her amusement at his rustic habits or his clumsy infatuation. For the first time in his life, he was embarrassed that he was poor, illiterate, and ignorant. Her pity humiliated him and her impatience shamed him.
He was a shallah and she was a torena. Even worse, he was still just a boy, and she was already a woman.
"She's a lovely girl," Armian said one day, following Tansen's gaze as it followed the torena, who was departing from a private meeting with them.
"I suppose so," Tansen said with a show of indifference.
"I believe that even in Sileria," Armian said dryly, "women are moved by compliments, gifts, and acts of gallantry."
Tansen glanced suspiciously at him. "Oh?"
"So if you want to win the girl's affection—"
"I didn't say that."
Armian sighed. "Never mind."
After a few moments, Tansen ventured, "Acts of gallantry?"
"Show her the courtesies a woman likes."
"The courtesies a woman likes," he repeated blankly.
"For example, perhaps if you let her precede you through a doorway, rather than always going ahead of her—"
"But a man must always go first through a door! To protect a woman from the danger that may lie on the other side."
Armian frowned. "Yes, there are differences between the shallaheen and the toreni which..." He shook his head. "Perhaps compliments would be a better thing to focus on."
"Compliments," Tansen said without enthusiasm, morosely considering how tongue-tied Elelar's presence made him.
"A young woman like the torena..." Armian thought it over. "She will be indifferent to comments about her beauty, but compliments about her mind will flatter her."
Tansen took his father's advice to heart and tried to compliment the torena's intelligence when next they met. But he was a clumsy peasant, lacking the polished manners of Elelar's kind, and his awkward passion made his words sound foolish. She seemed more amused than flattered, and he quickly retreated into mortified silence. After that, he brusquely rejected Armian's encouragement in this matter.
"Well," Armian said philosophically, "she's a torena, after all, so I suppose things are best left as they are. And you're both still young enough that the age difference matters a great deal."
"Won't it always?" Tansen muttered.
Armian smiled kindly. "No. In the ways that matter, she won't always be older. However, she will always be a torena."
"And I will always be a shallah."
"No. You will be more than that someday. Much more."
Smarting under the pain of hopeless love, what happened "someday" hardly seemed to matter, but Tansen obediently replied, "Yes, father."
Chapter Fourteen
Who will be brave and stand with me?
—Daurion, the Last Yahrdan
Sleep eluded Tansen, so by the time dawn's amber glow finally kissed the sky above Mount Dalishar, he had been practicing forms and drills, with and without his swords, for some time. Sister Rahilar's dressing on his wounded palm ensured that it didn't disable him, though it was starting to throb again, and her disgusting blood broth seemed to have set him on the road to recovery. He was slower than usual and tired more easily, but with the life-threatening wound at his side completely healed, he was at least strong enough today for action and would, he knew, soon be fully recovered.
The mysteriously healed wound was just one of many concerns he must deal with today, and not the most pressing one. This morning, while a coil of dark smoke rose menacingly out of distant Darshon's caldera, he must take the first real steps in the necessary feat he had dreaded since Josarian's death: taking his bloodbrother's place.
After the rebels were all awake and the morning chores were done, Tansen called for everyone's attention. Only he, Najdan, and Mirabar knew the truth about Elelar. But eight of these men had been with Tansen when he saved Josarian from the ambush that Zimran had led him into, so Tansen had no doubt that the news of Zimran's betrayal had already been discussed at Dalishar and would soon spread across Sileria.
Looking at nearly fifty attentive faces now, he began with a judicious half-truth. "As most of you know, I discovered that Zimran planned to betray Josarian to the Outlookers."
Galian, a shallah from Garabar who always fought with two yahr, asked, "Why did he do it?"
The disgusted reply came from Radyan, a young man from Illan whose intelligence Tansen had learned to appreciate: "Probably for the money the Valdani must have promised him."
"That," Lann said morosely, "seems likely." He had known Zimran well, having grown up with him and Josarian. "He always wanted more money, lots of money. I suppose his... his friendship with Torena Elelar beguiled him into believing she'd leave her Valdani husband permanently for him if he had wealth worthy of her position." Lann shook his head sadly. "As if a torena would favor a shallah for long."
"And presumably the Outlookers offered him a pardon," Tansen added. His blood simmered with guilt while his mind coolly noted that his lies would satisfy these men. "However, as you know, Zimran failed."
"Because of you," Lann proclaimed.
"But Kiloran succeeded," Tansen continued.
Sister Rahilar started crying. Lann's eyes misted in his dark, bearded face. Even Yorin, a notoriously tough one-eyed shallah, looked as if he was fighting back tears.
Tansen had thought about his next move a great deal and had decided that the harshest words must come from him. If not, then he would wind up defending his plans against criticism. And Armian had taught Tansen that a defensive fight was almost always a doomed one.
Always attack, and never hesitate.
"Now," he told the rebels at Dalishar, "we are caught between Josarian's enemies, between the Valdani and the Society, between
Advisor Kaynall in Shaljir and Kiloran in our own mountains." The rebels' gazes were sharp and unblinking. "Now we face the worst odds, the hardest tasks, the heaviest fighting." The air was thick with tension. "Here, between the sword and the wall, between fire and water, between the past and the future," he said, praying for some of Josarian's charisma, "we must make our choice and, having made it, never waver from it."
He saw Zarien's young face, festive with sea-born tattoos, and suddenly felt the weight of the boy's expectations. "Now, here, today," Tansen said, "we must decide: Do we stand and fight, or do we surrender and submit?"
Lann's voice was hoarse with emotion: "Stand and fight!"
"At least pretend to think it over," Radyan suggested dryly.
"Josarian must be avenged!" Yorin cried.
"Do you know what that means?" Tansen challenged him.
"I know what it means," Radyan said. "I'm from Illan. I grew up on the banks of the Idalar River."
"If you want to surrender," Yorin snapped, "then there's no room for you at Dalishar."
Radyan sighed. "I didn't say I wanted to surrender. I'm saying you'd better be damned sure you know what you're getting into before you charge off in a blaze of vengeful glory."
"He's right," Tansen agreed. "To avenge Josarian is to challenge Kiloran. To challenge Kiloran is to oppose the Society. And that," he said, remembering so well how he had learned it, "they will not allow."
"War against the Society?" asked Pyron, who had lost both of his brothers in the mines of Alizar under Valdani rule.
"War against the Society," Tansen confirmed.
This stopped their debate, and fear showed on their faces. This, they knew, was an even madder dream than Josarian's rebellion against Valdania.
"War against the masters of water and the assassins who kill for them," Tansen said.
"But..." Radyan studied him with a puzzled frown. "What about the Valdani? What about the siege of Shaljir?"
He gambled everything on Elelar now. The future of Sileria, the rest of his life, and the lives of Sileria's people. He counted on the torena, who had proven time and time again that she could talk men into doing the unthinkable and sacrificing the unimaginable.
"There will be no siege of Shaljir," Tansen announced.
"What?" Lann blurted.
"We move against the Society now," he said. "Immediately. Starting today."
"And Shaljir?" Yorin demanded, his sole eye glinting angrily. "We just leave it to the Valdani, to the roshaheen who've killed so many of us?"
"We can't afford to lose time and men taking Shaljir," Tansen said. "Not now. Not after what's happened. Kiloran's already killed Josarian, and he'll use every moment from now on to extend and consolidate his power. Do you want to die freeing Shaljir for him? Because if we expend our energy now on the siege of Shaljir, this nation will belong to him. We'll be giving it to him."
"But if we leave the Valdani in Shaljir..." Galian shrugged, his two yahr clicking lightly against each other in his jashar as he did so.
"The Alliance has been deep in negotiations with the Valdani." That much, at least, was true. "Kaynall is on the verge of surrendering Shaljir. And since the Alliance includes members of the Society, I've made arrangements for Searlon to help Torena Elelar convince Advisor Kaynall to abandon Sileria at last."
"Searlon?" Pyron asked incredulously.
"Yes," Tansen confirmed. "He will speak on behalf of Kiloran. We are all still agreed that we want our mutual enemies out of our country."
But this was Sileria, so the enemies of their enemies weren't necessarily their friends. There was always enough hatred to go around in Sileria.
"Ahhh." Radyan thought it over. "In other words, you mean to let the Society free Shaljir for us?" When Tansen nodded, he grinned and said, "I like that plan."
It's got to work. Please, Dar, for their sakes, it's got to work.
"Will it work?" Galian asked.
"Yes," Tansen said.
"You seem very sure," Yorin noted.
"Which brings us back to the decision we must make today," he said. "Do we make war on the Society for our freedom, or do we give up now?"
There was a long, uneasy silence. He let them have it. He saw the look on Zarien's face and knew the lad thought he was losing. He wondered how much of the debate, all in shallah, Zarien was able to follow.
"When I was a boy," Tansen said at last, "people whispered Kiloran's name, afraid to say it aloud. My village paid tribute every year to an eastern waterlord who was killed by Outlookers years later. Between what we gave him and what we gave the Valdani, there was nothing left for us. We lived in hunger and hardship." He paused and added, "And so did all of you.
"Sometimes the Outlookers came into our village, taking what they wanted, abusing our men, insulting our women, and terrifying the children. Sometimes assassins came, and they did the same thing." His gaze swept the crowd. "And they did it in your villages, too.
"When Harlon the waterlord made his stand against the Valdani forty years ago, some Outlookers died and some assassins died. But mostly, thousands of us died.
"When the Firebringer came to free us from the Valdani, when he gave men a choice about their destinies and a nation to be proud of, who opposed him? Who thwarted him? Who betrayed and killed him?" Tansen's blood roared in his ears. His voice grew louder with each word of condemnation. "When it became Dar's will that we should be free, that we should fulfill prophecy and regain the lost glory of Sileria, who cared more about their own power than about the will of the goddess or the fate of this country?"
"Avenge Josarian!" Yorin shouted, leaping to his feet and waving his stolen Valdani sword in the air. "Avenge him!"
"You know what the Society can do to you if we oppose them," Tansen continued. "You know the lakes they can turn into crystal, the rivers they can stop from flowing, the wells they can make so cold your hands will fall off if you touch the water."
"Avenge Josarian!" Lann bellowed.
"You know they can pull a lake up over your heads to drown you, reach out to cover your faces with suffocating masks of water, and strangle you with liquid tentacles stronger than a man's arms."
"Kiloran must die!"
"I've seen the White Dragon," Tansen warned them. "And now I know that it's not a legend. Kiloran killed the Firebringer—"
"Avenge the Firebringer!"
"—and will be harder to defeat than the Valdani, who are only men."
"We fought the Valdani!" Galian shouted. "We drove them all the way back to Shaljir!"
"I may not survive this war," Tansen said. "You may not survive. We will suffer."
"And we will end the suffering!" Lann vowed.
"Dar demands vengeance!" Pyron cried. "My brothers didn't die at Alizar so that a waterlord could reap the wealth of the mines!"
This is it. Make it good.
"You will decide what you must," Tansen said. "But I made my choice the night Kiloran murdered the Firebringer. My choice was made the night he betrayed Dar, Sileria, and our destiny!"
"So was mine!" Lann declared.
"I am Josarian's bloodbrother!" Their love for Josarian made them cheer Tansen now. "And I will defeat Kiloran or die trying!"
The wild enthusiasm which met this pledge left him in no doubt of their decision. They would go to war against the waterlords. They would fight.
They were Silerians and they understood vengeance. Craved it. Lived for it.
No, it wasn't the future he wanted, the creed by which he believed Sileria could survive and thrive. But it was the first step along the way.
They seized him now and hoisted him up on their shoulders. Josarian had always let such outpourings of emotion flow over him naturally, easy with the crowd's enthusiasm, accepting the adulation which, in private, had made him wryly humble. Tansen hated it now, felt embarrassed and awkward. But he knew that his feelings were irrelevant and mustn't be allowed to destroy the wave of faith that had to carry these men through bloodshe
d, terror, and loss before finally taking them to a safe shore.
He was the Firebringer's brother and, as such, knew he was a symbol in which they needed to believe. Like Josarian himself, he couldn't be just a man in the eyes of the people he must lead.
Josarian, however, had at least had a bloodbrother with whom he could enjoy the ease of being just a man. Whereas Tansen...
He suddenly saw a flash of fiery hair gleaming under the sun and felt his heart quiver.
She had come back.
Mirabar.
Whereas Tansen... Ah, yes, Tansen always had women to remind him that he was just a man.
The Lironi were fighting Verlon the waterlord, opposing the power he'd always held in the east, and rebelling against his attempt to claim the port city of Liron.
It was extraordinary news, and Mirabar couldn't have made the announcement to the rebels at a better moment. They were so fired with ambition, in fact, that Tansen had his hands full trying to keep them here long enough to issue orders. The people loyal to Josarian's memory couldn't defy and defeat the Honored Society without strategy and tactics, after all.
Mirabar said nothing about Elelar, and she didn't contradict the story that Zimran had acted alone. She said only, in response to curses the rebels pronounced on Zimran's memory, "But Kiloran is the one who killed Josarian, and that's all that matters now. Kiloran is the enemy we must fight."
That was when Tansen knew that however much she might hate him for not killing Elelar (and Zarien was right, it really did look like hatred), she wasn't going to confuse their cause with her private grievances. He supposed he should have expected that. Mirabar always put Sileria first. Strangely, it was the one thing she had in common with Elelar.
"Where are the zanareen?" he asked Mirabar now, holding council in the golden sunshine with her, Lann, Najdan, and Cheylan. Zarien was currently in one of the caves, where Rahilar again tended his bloody, blistered feet. When she was done with that, the Sister would finish brewing up the pot of black dye which Tansen had requested first thing that morning.
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