Where in the Fires am I?
This setting was beyond his comprehension. With monumental effort, he rose to his feet. The accomplishment left him shaking and swaying, but he didn't fall down. With slow, painstaking steps, he turned in a complete circle, looking for something familiar, something to stir his memory.
Nothing.
He didn't even know which way to walk. Here he was, shaking, weak, sweating, dizzy, nauseated, and badly in need of a drink... And he was lost in the middle of nowhere. Why, in the name of the Three, had he left the city? And when?
How much had he had last night? What had he had?
I can't keep doing this, he thought, I'm going to get myself killed if this keeps up.
"Killed?" he said aloud.
Memory came flooding back. Ronall sank to his knees under its weight. The violent scene which had erupted out of his argument with Elelar blurred in his mind with so many other similar events in their marriage... Except this one was worse.
I pray to Dar every night that you'll die.
When Elelar publicly flaunted her affair with Advisor Borell, when she turned Ronall away from her bed, when she regarded him with open contempt...
If the mob kills you...
When Ronall learned of Elelar's duplicity on behalf of the rebellion, when she openly admitted to marrying him for the benefit of the Alliance, when she escaped from prison and made no effort to contact him, when he rotted in prison in her stead, begging his guards for liquor, dreamweed, anything...
...I'll throw open the doors of the house and offer a reward!
Somehow, none of those injuries and wounds, bad as they were, hurt as much as Elelar's shrieking prayer that the mob which had killed his parents should now kill Ronall. Nothing had ever hurt like hearing her long for his death.
Yes, they had been fighting, tempers high; but he knew she wouldn't later regret her words. She meant it. If he wouldn't leave Sileria and thereby free her from their marriage, then she wanted him dead.
Why wouldn't she, after all, considering the kind of husband he was?
Not that she had been an ideal wife.
He had been so wounded, so hurt, so appalled...
Or maybe it was fear, he acknowledged. After what had happened to his parents, he knew his own death could come at any moment. He couldn't leave Sileria. But how could he stay, either?
Ronall and the many other Silerian-born Valdani were living with their backs to the wall now. After what had happened in Shaljir, it was only a matter of time before people began gleefully slaughtering every Valdan left in Sileria.
No, Elelar's wish for his violent death was not an idle one. Darfire, she could even arrange it, if she wanted to. Who would even care now if a drunken half-caste Valdan were slaughtered by the mob? In the absence of Outlooker protection, who would shield Ronall or seek justice for his murder? He had cronies and companions, but no real friends, no one who would mourn his death or risk their own safety for him. Only his parents had cared, and perhaps only because it had been their duty. And now that they were gone, dead, murdered by a Silerian mob...
Three have mercy, they had killed his mother! His silly, contented, vapid Silerian mother who had never harmed anyone, even if she had habitually neglected everyone. They'd slaughtered her with raging violence in her own home, brutally punishing her for the sin of marrying a Valdan.
And his father... Implacable, demanding, and usually absent. Ronall's father had always been a stranger to him, a familiar face, a cool gaze, and time-worn gestures concealing a largely unknown character. Perhaps the bravest thing Ronall had ever done in his life was go to his eternally disappointed father and ask him to save Elelar's life after Borell had her imprisoned on charges of treason.
The heavy weight in Ronall's chest now was proof of all the things he had secretly, foolishly hoped for; all the things which had been bludgeoned to death by a bloodthirsty mob in Shaljir. His father would never look upon him with approval, let alone warmth, now. They would never get to know each other, never cease to be strangers. His mother would never look at him instead of past him. Never praise him instead of make excuses for him. His parents would never see a grandchild from him, one with Elelar's intelligence and beauty, one with...
Grandchild. The heir he and Elelar had never gotten.
It was just as well, really.
If his parents' violent deaths left a heavy weight of grief pressing on him, then the death of his marriage...
No. He was a fool—his marriage had died the day it had begun, a stillborn thing which he had been too unfit to bring forth. It was a bitter harvest that left him starving.
The end of his marriage last night, which he supposed was a more accurate description than its "death"... Yes, the end of his marriage was a mortal wound. He was bleeding to death. The pain was excruciating. It left him... Yes, it left him ready to die.
Get out! Get out! Get out!
Ah, yes, now he remembered. Well, a little, anyhow.
Ronall had ridden through the streets of Shaljir, but he couldn't find anyone to kill him. Then he had decided to flee the city, to get as far away from Elelar as he could. He couldn't bear to look into her eyes, not ever again, not after what he had see in them that night. He wanted to die. He was ready... but he needed someone else to do it for him. Even in this, the final act of his life—and his only worthwhile achievement—he would be a helpless coward.
He'd had some vague notion that if no one in the city would kill him, then surely the mountain rebels would. He had no idea how he'd gotten through the city gates. Either the Outlookers were no longer guarding them, or else they couldn't be bothered to stop a drunken toren from riding out to his well-deserved death.
He had no idea how far he had come, nor where he was now. The morning sun was blazing down with offensive cheeriness on a place he'd never seen before. Dar, he needed a drink! He was just starting to wonder what had happened to the damn horse, because he really didn't want to set out on foot, when he heard its nervous whinny somewhere in the grove. It was just close enough to make his head reel painfully from the high-pitched sound, and just far enough away to make his search for it a sweat-producing ordeal.
His heart filled briefly with hope when he saw a stone structure. But as he approached it, he realized it was just an empty hut, the sort of place where lowlanders slept during harvest time, when they were in the fields and groves from sunrise to sundown. This hut looked particularly dilapidated. The roof had caved in and there were big cracks in the walls, as if an earthquake...
A chill swept over him. Yes, an earthquake. There had been another one, hadn't there? Was that when he had fallen off the gelding? He thought so, but he wasn't sure. He just remembered the animalistic terror he had shared with the horse while the world shook and roared around them. Dar was angry and meant to make Sileria know the cost of offending Her.
Ronall was trembling and panting with fatigue as he came up to Elelar's grazing gelding and took its reins in hand. Patient and well-trained—no showy stallion for his practical wife—it evidently recognized his unwashed and liquor-soaked scent and decided to tolerate him until someone better came along. With tremendous effort, Ronall hauled himself into the saddle. He held the gelding still for a moment, concentrating on not retching again. Then, when he thought he could stand it, he slackened his hold on the horse's mouth and let it move forward.
Presumably there was some sort of road or trail around here. They'd stumble across it sooner or later. And they'd follow it deep into the mountains. Ronall had no intention of returning to Shaljir. There was nothing for him there now. Nothing for him anywhere.
Somewhere in those mountains were thousands of angry rebels slavering for more Valdani blood. Somewhere, sooner or later, someone would oblige Elelar by killing him.
Meanwhile, he wanted a drink.
He had, of course, neglected to bring any money with him. It didn't matter. He wore a ring he could sell. It was worth a veritable fortune by the miserable
standards of the shallaheen. That would keep him in liquor for a while. If need be, he could sell the horse, too. And his boots.
He didn't care. He didn't intend to live long, after all. There was nothing left for him. Not anywhere.
It was a dark place full of light, a bright place shadowed by darkness. A vast cavern, heavy yet airy, immense yet encroaching.
Fire and water were all around Cheylan. The churning lava of the restless volcano extended its reach to this forgotten place, dripping into the water which flowed through strange tunnels lit by eerie glowing shapes. Each time lava touched water, angry hissing filled the air and steam rose to obscure his vision.
Some of the phosphorescent lumps on the walls and ceilings were plants, but not all. Some of them had long spindly legs, some had no legs at all, and some had a thousand tiny legs.
When Cheylan moved past them, they all scurried away, as frightened as any helpless creature was in the presence of a stronger one. Born to this secret, long-forgotten, underground world of fire and water, they were strangers to the sun. These crawling little glowing creatures had never seen daylight or breathed any air other than the hot, dank, ancient miasma that filled these steamy tunnels beneath the coastal mountain range north of Liron.
Fire and water...
He heard lava rumbling somewhere deep in the belly of the world. The walls of this strange sanctuary trembled, but they held. They always would. Cheylan was sure of it. Since the first time he had stumbled across this secret stronghold years ago, while fleeing from his grandfather's deadly wrath, he had known it was a sacred place, eternally protected by Dar. Blessed by the twin powers of fire and water which ruled Sileria. Sanctified for him and him alone.
Water and fire...
This was his place, his domain, the cradle of his destiny. He had always believed that Dar had created it for him; and now that Mirabar had seen it in her visions, he was sure of it. He had kept silent, not yet sure he should trust her with this secret. But he had recognized his private kingdom in her confused words, in her breathless description that night at Dalishar.
Something great would happen here. His destiny was indeed unfolding. Josarian had freed Sileria and then died, leaving the way open for his successor. Cheylan had been the Firebringer's willing servant, always believing that his own fate would be revealed to him if he was patient and shrewd. He had realized, of course, that no one else could rule Sileria while Josarian lived. The Firebringer was so beloved, there was no question of whom the people would choose to lead them if they won the war against the Valdani.
Cheylan had minded this far less than he imagined Kiloran did. The waterlord lived for absolute power and demanded total obedience. Cheylan had spent some time with Kiloran during the rebellion, and he had quickly recognized that the old wizard didn't know how to compromise, let alone cooperate. In Kiloran's world, there was his way and no other. He was intelligent, cunning, and immensely powerful, but he was inflexible. That was his weakness. He couldn't share power with the Firebringer, couldn't share Sileria with anyone. Consequently, he could never be anyone's ally; only an enemy. He could never be an asset; only a threat. And threats, like enemies, had to be eliminated.
It was inevitable that Kiloran turned on Josarian, and inescapable that Josarian—and now Tansen—felt it essential to destroy Kiloran. Cheylan, whose life had taught him the value of compromise, not to mention subterfuge, might have found his true destiny under the Firebringer's rule of Sileria; but he had, of course, privately hoped for more. Josarian, although beloved of Dar and survivor of the volcano's sacred embrace, was nonetheless a mere shallah. Neither a toren nor a sorcerer. Whereas Cheylan was both, though he had been born to a world where his unique qualities had, so far, cost him more than they had earned him.
Cheylan had known that if anyone could kill the Firebringer, it would be Kiloran. Since murdering Josarian would have terrible repercussions, Cheylan had never intended to try. Cooperating with the Firebringer was far better than killing him. However, living to see Josarian dead and Kiloran blamed for his murder was best of all.
Whether this was Dar's way of opening the door to Cheylan's destiny, or merely luck, he was grateful. Now the future was at hand.
A child of sorrow...
Cheylan had spent so much of his life alone, shunned, and unwanted, that he always found the darkly glowing solitude of these rumbling water-and-fire filled tunnels soothing rather than frightening.
Some of the walls here bore the mysterious paintings of the Beyah-Olvari, that long-extinct race of water wizards who had inhabited Sileria, according to Verlon, eons ago. The paintings were eerily beautiful, graceful in a disturbingly inhuman way; but Cheylan found it hard to believe they revealed the secrets of water magic. They seemed too abstract, too symbolic. He certainly couldn't interpret them, and he found it improbable that Marjan, the very first waterlord, had managed it. Silerians loved their legends, but Cheylan suspected that a more practical explanation, or even dumb luck, accounted for Marjan's resurrection of the ancient magic which he had used to destroy Daurion, scatter the Guardians, and change Sileria forever.
A child of fire...
Lava oozed through the walls, coming in slow trickles now rather than in the hesitant droplets that usually festooned these tunnels. It was another sign of Dar's restive passion, Her increasing activity. Eastern Sileria was in turmoil, her people panicking, her air thick with tension. While fighting raged between the Lironi and the Society, with heavy losses punishing the great clan of the east for their disobedience to Verlon, the volcano was never silent or still now. The ground trembled almost daily all around Darshon, quivering in response to Her fiery will, Her hot blood, even when it didn't shake in a genuine earthquake.
Some people were evacuating their homes and villages, already fleeing in fear from the colored columns of shifting smoke and dancing lightning surrounding the caldera day and night now. Meanwhile, others were attracted to Darshon by this same spectacle. Some of the zanareen claimed Dar was summoning them again for a mysterious purpose. Other sects and factions were coming to Her, too, risking death to approach the tempestuous volcano. Some brought offerings to soothe the goddess, including bones of the dead which had survived the sacred fires of their funeral pyres.
Cheylan didn't flee when Dar rumbled, and he didn't bring Her puny offerings. He knew She wanted what only he could offer, what he alone had been born for. And he was ready. Honed by hardship and shaped by bitter experience, he knew his time had finally come. Lava trickled over him now, coming from the domed ceiling of the tunnels. It blessed him, consecrating his life to Dar's divine plan.
Born to this magic, shaped for this power, Cheylan seized a trickle of lava and pulled it through the air like a ribbon of glowing silk. He raised it overhead like a banner and swore, in his heart, to fulfill his destiny. Dar and Verlon had made him what he was, who he was. The goddess had given him gifts, and his bloodthirsty grandfather had taught him others. There was no one in Sileria like Cheylan. No one in the three corners of the world who was his equal.
A child of water...
He walked across the surface of the water flowing through these tunnels. His feet sank slightly into its resilient coolness with each step, the water supporting his weight as he commanded it to, responding to his power, his will, his sorcery. Just as Verlon had taught him, long ago, before they had become enemies.
Fire and water, water and fire...
Who else in Sileria could command the two? Who, in all the world, besides Cheylan had mastered both elements? Cheylan floated past more of the faded, ancient paintings of the Beyah-Olvari, letting the current carry him as he stood still on the flowing water's surface. Even Marjan, a Guardian who unlocked the mysteries of the dead Beyah-Olvari and learned their magic, hadn't been this great a sorcerer. He had given up fire for water, turning his back on one sorcery in favor of another. Since that time, everyone in Sileria believed that only one power or the other was possible, never both together.
Fire and water, competing for ascendancy in Sileria for a thousand years. Forever apart, forever at odds. Now all of Sileria, even Mirabar, believed that one must finally vanquish the other.
There would always be water magic in Sileria, just as there would always be fire magic. Nothing could change that. Not even the passion of Silerians' hatred for each other.
He is coming.
Only Cheylan could unite fire and water. Only he understood them both. Only he could challenge them both and defend against them both.
Only he could be the one Mirabar awaited, the one she saw in her visions.
Protect what you most long to destroy.
There were still things he didn't understand. Factors he couldn't yet control. Was the Society meant to be destroyed by Tansen, or to come under Cheylan's influence? Should he kill Verlon now, or try to win back his grandfather's trust and use him as an ally until he no longer needed him? Could Tansen really eliminate Kiloran for him? And if not, how should he deal with Kiloran?
Or, he wondered, was that particular message even about the Society? The Beckoner spoke to Mirabar, after all. And Cheylan thought he knew whom Mirabar herself most longed to destroy; he just couldn't guess why it mattered one way or the other.
The one thing he remained convinced of, however, was that Mirabar's visions were leading him in the right direction. He needed her. He recognized that. And he didn't like leaving her in the company of Tansen, who had the potential to wield more influence over her than did anyone but Dar Herself.
The shatai, fortunately, was rather inept at handling women. But Cheylan had nonetheless been concerned by the sharp two-edged blade of Mirabar's anger at Tansen. Love tended to look so much like hatred. She was the sort of woman whose devotion, once fixed, would be steadfast. That was an advantage if Cheylan could win her soon, but a serious problem if he couldn't. She was too powerful, too important, for him to let another man have her—least of all Tansen, who learned too quickly, thought too clearly, and might even, it seemed, soon become a demi-god if the sea-born boy had his way.
The White Dragon Page 39