The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  He saw that she meant it. She, who had helped him see what the waterlords and the assassins really were—she, who had unknowingly revealed his terrible duty to him—she thought he was wrong. Elelar hated the Valdani with such blind passion, that she thought Kiloran and Armian would be better masters of Sileria and was willing to help them steal the nation from its own people.

  "You're wrong," he said desperately, but he knew she wouldn't listen to an illiterate peasant boy from Gamalan. "You're so wrong."

  "What's that?" She was suddenly alert, looking past him, down at the cove.

  He followed her gaze, turning to peer through the murky night. Now he saw it: a Moorlander vessel, its lanterns blazing in the dark, drifting into the cove.

  "They're here," she said, her voice calmer.

  "They'll send an oarboat ashore. They'll find the body."

  "Not if I can prevent it," Elelar said with sudden determination.

  "Torena, no!"

  She shook off his restraining hand. "I'm going to salvage this proposed alliance with the Moorlanders." Her voice was hard as she added, "The only way you can stop me is by killing me, too. Now get out of my way."

  She tried to move past him. Tansen doubted that she could find her way safely down to the beach in time to meet the Moorlanders; but he couldn't risk it. He had never handled a woman roughly in his life, but now he came to a sudden decision and grabbed the torena.

  She shrieked a protest—perhaps afraid he really would kill her—as he bore her to the ground with a knee planted in her back. He tore the sodden silk scarf away from her shoulders and used it to bind her wrists together behind her back. Then he rose, hoisted her over his shoulder, and carried her away from the site of Armian's death like a sack of grain. He didn't release her until dawn, when he knew there'd be no chance at all of her contacting the Moorlander ship.

  While untying her wrists, he explained that he would escort her safely back to Shaljir.

  "I'm not going to Shaljir." Her voice was hoarse, but still livid with fury.

  "Where shall I take you then?"

  "I'm going back to Kiloran. To tell him what you've done. To tell him that I tried to stop you and that the Alliance had no part in this insanity." Elelar glared at him with anger which had only grown hotter with the passage of hours. "I will not let one bloodthirsty peasant destroy what my grandfather has spent his whole life building."

  "Elelar..." He heard the pleading in his voice and hated it.

  "What do the shallaheen call someone like you?" she prodded. "Sriliah?"

  Traitor. The very worst thing one Silerian could call another.

  He stared at her in dumbfounded silence as she rose to her feet and declared, "Kiloran will swear a bloodvow against you, and I will celebrate on the day I learn of your death."

  "But you..." He made a helpless gesture. "You showed me the way. It was—"

  "Don't you dare try to blame this on me." Elelar gave him one last look as she said, "You've destroyed everything, and I will pray to Dar to punish you as you deserve."

  Tansen watched her stalk away from him, knowing she would soon find the coastal road if she kept going in that direction.

  She'd probably find Kiloran before long, too.

  A bloodvow. From Kiloran himself.

  He knew he'd never survive it. No one could survive that. And he had no doubt about how relentless Kiloran would be, given what Tansen had done.

  A bloodvow.

  What could he do? Even fleeing to the farthest corner of Sileria wouldn't save him. Not with Kiloran determined to kill him.

  The early morning wind shifted. He caught a whiff of sea air.

  The sea.

  He had never been to sea. If truth be known, he was afraid of the sea and found the notion of entrusting his life to a boat more than a little frightening. He had never been out of Sileria in his life.

  Tansen trembled as he realized what he was contemplating.

  A bloodvow lasted for nine years, and then it must be honorably withdrawn if the enemy had not been killed during all that time. This rule was part of a centuries-old code of conduct established by the waterlords to help keep the Society from tearing itself apart with the same unquenchable lust for vengeance that regularly destroyed clans like Tansen's.

  He had no chance of surviving Kiloran's wrath for nine years in Sileria, but if he went away now... and only came back when the nine years were over...

  His family was dead, his clan decimated, his village destroyed. He had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. No one would miss him once he was gone, just as no one would care if Kiloran killed him.

  He might die on a faulty boat crossing the Middle Sea. He might starve, lost and alone, in some foreign land. He might be imprisoned or killed by whatever manner of men lived on the mainland... But he had to try. His only other choice was to cower in hiding until Society assassins cornered and killed him, as they inevitably would.

  Tansen wasn't ready to die. He was only fifteen, and he wanted to live. So he had to try. He would flee Sileria and try to survive on the mainland. And if he lived... Then someday he would come home.

  Tears misted his eyes. He blinked them back. His boyhood was over. It had ended in the night, on a rainy, windswept cliff. Now he must be a man.

  Nine years. Perhaps it will not seem such a long time.

  He wrapped Armian's shir in the finely painted scarf he had used to bind Elelar's wrists, then rose to his feet and began his journey. By nightfall, he reached the port of Adalian. The next day, offering to work for his passage, he boarded a ship bound for the port city of Kashala in the Kintish Kingdoms, where his new life would begin.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  If you feel like a man of stature,

  try giving orders to another man's dog.

  —Valdani Proverb

  Tansen climbed slowly out of the dark well of his dreams. Groping for escape from his memories, he wandered in the land between sleep and waking.

  A strange snuffling sound finally roused him. Something cold and wet prodded him, startling him. Swimming blindly away from the past, he opened one eye.

  A pair of soulful eyes, glinting faintly as they reflected a stray beam of moonlight, met his gaze in the dark room where he had been sleeping. He blinked, opened both eyes now, and focused on a hairy face wearing an eager expression.

  "Oh. Hello," he said without enthusiasm.

  Pleased that Tansen wasn't wasting the night in sleep like everyone else, the dog licked his face.

  "Go away," he ordered.

  The dog wagged its tail, then started poking him and snuffling around him again, evidently convinced he didn't mind.

  Tansen sighed. Sister Shannibar, whose Sanctuary he was sleeping in on the outskirts of Zilar, loved animals and kept several here. Sister Norimar, who shared the Sanctuary with Shannibar, detested them. Although the two women had renounced violence upon joining the Sisterhood, Tansen—who'd only been here a few hours—had already seen them come close to exchanging blows over this difference of opinion. However, he doubted Norimar would be around long. The way she flirted with his men suggested she'd soon find herself a second husband and abandon the Sisterhood. He supposed she had taken her vows when grief over her first husband's death was still fresh and she hadn't considered how unsuited to the life of a Sister she was.

  Fortunately, Norimar was none of his concern. Unfortunately, Shannibar's dog wasn't going to let him go back to sleep. It was running around the room almost frantically now, sniffing and snuffling, occasionally whining... and regularly returning to his side to poke him with its cold nose.

  Tiring of this, Tansen rolled to his feet. Just as well, he supposed. His dreams were far from restful.

  The Sanctuary was a large one, built to accommodate guests seeking shelter or safety, so he and his men were able to sleep inside tonight. Not wanting the dog to wake Zarien, who was still young enough to need a lot of sleep—not to mention a lot of food—Tansen urged the dog to follow him
out of the room and into the common area of the Sanctuary.

  Only a few moments later, though, the animal's whining and scratching became so insistent that Tansen began to worry it soon wake everyone in the Sanctuary. When it pestered an equally restless cat, the cat responded with a show of bad temper that made the dog bark. Tansen decided to take the dog outside before everyone else's night was ruined, too.

  Outside, the waning moons still glowed with a faint orange-red color, but the stars were visible for the first time in recent nights.

  "Who let the dog out?" a woman demanded, startling him for a moment before he recognized Mirabar's voice coming from near the enormous old fig tree that dominated the Sanctuary's garden.

  "I did," he replied, his heart tugging him in her direction. "Is he bothering you?"

  "She," Mirabar corrected dryly.

  He saw the fiery glow of her eyes now, blazing out of the dark shadows. As she stepped forward, the faint moonlight shimmered along the thick red curls that fell past her shoulders. She had washed and changed into clean clothes, pale homespun which emphasized the golden color of her skin even at night.

  "She?" he repeated. "Oh. Well, she's... restless."

  Tansen heard the distraction in his voice as he stared at Mirabar and wondered if she noticed it. He was glad that he had washed and changed, too, after coming here from the temple. He hadn't liked her seeing him covered in blood yet again.

  Always more blood, it seemed. The blood of his family, his friends, his enemies. Would there ever be an end to it?

  "She woke me," Mirabar said, and he welcomed the intrusion on his thoughts. "She's so noisy and pushy."

  "That nose." Tansen smiled.

  Mirabar smiled back, pleasing him. "It's startling in the middle of the night, isn't it?"

  He grinned. "I think Sister Shannibar spoils her."

  "Clearly. Anyhow, she kept pestering me even after I gave her some food. So I came outside. I don't know what she wants, and Shannibar..." Mirabar's gesture suggested exasperation. "Shannibar sleeps like a log."

  "And you wouldn't want to wake Norimar to tend the dog."

  A puff of laughter escaped her. "Definitely not."

  Together, they watched the dog running around the yard with the same agitation she had shown inside. Finally, Tansen noted, "Animals are often restless before an earthquake."

  Mirabar shivered and rubbed her arms, taking a seat on a stone bench near the well. "That's all we need now."

  He joined her on the bench, close enough to smell her warm, clean scent; far enough away to be courteous. Almost as if she were an ordinary woman and he an ordinary man come to court her.

  But they weren't. They were what Dar and destiny had made them, and nothing between them would ever be so simple or normal, he knew. Especially not in these strange times.

  "Today I heard some stories," he prompted. "About clouds of colored smoke dancing above Mount Darshon, visible even at night."

  "You haven't seen it?" She answered her own question by adding, "No, of course you wouldn't, not if you haven't been high up since you left Dalishar."

  Tansen asked her to tell him about it, happy to sit in the dark and listen to her soft, earthy voice speaking the mountain dialect of his innocent youth—in her case, with the inflection that reflected her upbringing in western rather than eastern Sileria. When she finished her description of the lightning and colored clouds swirling around Darshon's peak, he knew she was awaiting his reaction; but he could only think to ask her opinion about it.

  "I don't know." Mirabar sighed. "I've asked many of the other Guardians in Zilar."

  "Have they seen it?"

  She nodded. "Some came from high in the mountains, from summits where they saw it as recently as two nights ago."

  "So it's continuing," he mused.

  "Yes. But no one has any more useful ideas than I do."

  "What are your ideas?"

  "Only that something is beginning. Something..." She shrugged. "Something we have never seen before."

  "Pyron says that, for the second time, everyone at Dalishar saw a vision: golden eyes in the night sky," said Tansen. "And they felt as if they heard a phrase—"

  "'He is coming.'"

  "Yes."

  "I asked the other Guardians," Mirabar said. "But the vision has appeared only at Dalishar. No one elsewhere has seen it."

  The dog came up to them, whining for comfort. Tansen absently stroked its head while he considered Mirabar's words. "There were quite a lot of Guardians today," he said after a while. "More than I had expected."

  "Some of the ones I spoke with told me they saw portents in the circle of fire. Shades of the dead guiding them here."

  "Do they know why?" he asked.

  "They think it was to join your bloodvow, and to hear us promise them a new ruler. They want to support him, to help him." Mirabar lowered her head. "So I... I haven't told them everything."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Fire and water, water and fire... A child of fire, a child of water, a child of sorrow..." She made an abrupt sound of frustration. "Until I know more, unless I can reassure the Guardians... I don't think it would be wise to tell all I know."

  "They might be afraid you're seeing a waterlord in our future," he guessed.

  "And if I can't guarantee that I'm not—"

  "Are you?"

  "I don't know."

  "The, uh, the Beckoner," he began hesitantly.

  "Yes?"

  "Have you asked him if it's a waterlord? I mean... can you ask the Beckoner questions?"

  "I ask him questions all the time," she said wearily. "I am seldom answered."

  "And he hasn't answered you about this?"

  She shook her head. "No."

  "Is he..." Tansen wasn't sure he wanted to open this subject, but he went ahead anyhow. "Is he like Armian?"

  "Like Armian?" she repeated blankly.

  "You've said that Armian wasn't like other shades. Because he spoke directly to us, rather than through you. Because after I gave Armian's shir back to Kiloran as a peace-offering, you were still able to Call Armian even without it."

  "Only for a little while," she reminded him. "Only during the days when we needed Armian to convince some of the waterlords to join the rebellion. It was special and strange, yes, but it was nothing like this."

  "How is this different?" he asked, wanting to understand, to know her secret world better.

  "Well, for one thing, I don't Call the Beckoner, he Calls me. Which is something shades don't do. Ever."

  "Oh."

  "He doesn't just speak to me. He can create..." Mirabar paused as she searched for the right words. "Not just visions, images which I see. He can create sensations. He can cause me physical pain."

  "He causes you pain?" Tansen didn't like that.

  "Yes." As if relieved to speak about it to someone, she rushed on, "He can also make me feel powerful emotions that aren't my own: shame, sorrow, bitterness, love, courage..."

  "Why does he do it?"

  "To make me understand." Tansen was captivated by Mirabar's vibrancy as she tried to explain her mystical experiences to him. "So that I can recognize who I'm sent to seek or what I'm meant to achieve. So that I can accept the urgency and the importance of things which seem... well, incomprehensible at first, even outrageous." She added reflectively, "Perhaps the Beckoner knows I must be driven to the edge of madness sometimes so that I'll have the will to do what I must." Mirabar's posture slumped and her voice, when she spoke again, was weary. "But it's so hard, sometimes, because no one but me has ever seen him. For a long time, many of the Guardians in my circle were even convinced that these visitations were a sign that I was going mad—or possessed by evil."

  "So no one knows who... what..." He trailed off, feeling inadequate. These were matters far outside of a shatai's realm.

  "What the Beckoner's nature is?" she supplied.

  "Yes."

  "No." Her voice sounded hollow. "No one knows.
No one can tell me or help me."

  Tansen thought about how lonely living with these visions must be for her. "Could the Beckoner be a manifestation of Dar?"

  She shrugged. "Why would Dar manifest Herself as a man?"

  "Could he be some sort of god, though?"

  "He could be," she said. "I don't think he's a sorcerer, and I'm positive he's not a shade, but..." Mirabar sighed, weary and confused. "I've thought about it and thought about it until my heads reels, and I don't know. I just don't know."

  Her voice broke in doubt and frustration. Tansen wanted to comfort her, to reach out and stroke her hair, take her in his arms. But after the things they had said to each other at Dalishar, he wasn't sure she would find that as comforting as he would. And a good man, his grandfather had taught him, didn't use a woman for what would please him unless she'd made it clear that it would please her, too.

  Tansen had always tried to be a good man. He had failed many times, but he didn't want to keep failing with Mirabar. Not anymore.

  Wanting to distract her, and unable to resist at least some contact, he reached out and lightly touched her left hand, the one he had cut with his engraved Kintish blade today. "Does it hurt?"

  "Hmm?" As he had hoped, the question coaxed her attention away from the thoughts that tormented her. She looked down now at the fresh bandage on her fine-boned hand. "Oh, that." She shrugged with a shallah woman's contempt for pain. "Not really."

  "You did very well today."

  "So did you," she replied. "You were good with the people."

  "Josarian was good with people. I'm good with weapons." He had left his swords inside, though. Now that the Valdani had surrendered, he and Mirabar were safe here. Kiloran had circumvented custom once in the past by arranging for Outlookers to ambush Josarian in Sanctuary. But no Silerian would violate centuries of custom by attacking an enemy on Sanctuary grounds, so Tansen could relax his vigilance tonight.

  "No, you've improved," Mirabar said. "You were very good with the crowd today. You gave them what they wanted and knew how to get what we wanted."

  It pleased him, because he hoped it was true—and because she had bothered to notice and troubled to say so.