The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  "I wish someone could take that thing away from him," said Radyan.

  Tansen grinned. "Actually you can, but..."

  "But I'd have to kill him first." While they watched, Galian forgot he was holding the deadly shir and nearly poked the Guardian in the eye while they argued. "Which I may soon be willing to do," Radyan added.

  "Oh, well. At least it may be useful in our attack." Tansen shrugged. "Najdan says one of the brothers made it."

  "I really can't stand this any longer." Radyan left Tansen's side, walked up to Galian, and seized him by the shoulder. "Come talk with me and Tansen."

  "But I—"

  "Make your apologies and come."

  "But—"

  "Now, Galian."

  They were all on a bluff overlooking the Shaljir River, which flowed smoothly past the town of Zilar. The water's innocent surface revealed nothing of the sorcery that ruled it. The bustle of activity continued throughout the town, and people were especially busy at the water's edge. If the plan Tansen had made with the Guardians failed to destroy Abidan and Liadon, then Zilar would need all the water it could store. If his plan succeeded, then they could safeguard the stored water against a future shortage, in case other waterlords captured the river.

  Tansen's gaze swept the riverside and sought Zarien. Although not much of a walker, the boy was certainly a hard worker. Throughout their stay in Zilar, he had invested tireless effort in harvesting and storing water, evidently even enjoying the work. Tansen supposed that after feeling out of his element for so long on the dryland, it was a pleasure for him to find something he was good at. Tansen well remembered how bewildered and inept he himself had felt during his first few months in the Kintish Kingdoms, after fleeing Sileria as a boy, and he supposed Zarien was experiencing similar frustrations.

  While Tansen watched Zarien working at the water's edge, he heard Radyan's irritable voice as he returned to Tansen's side with Galian. "How anyone who handles two yahr so well could possibly be so clumsy with—"

  "The shir is a new weapon," Galian protested. "And new weapons take time—"

  "Exactly! So why would you practice with it in a busy, crowded—"

  "Oh, just ask Tansen. New weapons—"

  "Tansen!"

  Galian and Radyan stopped arguing as Yorin approached at a run.

  "What is it?" Tansen asked.

  Yorin's scarred face was troubled. "It's bad news."

  "What?" Radyan prompted.

  "Word has come from Cavasar," Yorin said. "The people there have declared their loyalty to Kiloran. They will not join us."

  Tansen rubbed his neck and tried to view this disappointing news in perspective. "I expected this. He holds the city, after all."

  "Yes, if any place is completely at Kiloran's mercy..." Radyan sighed and looked away.

  Galian said, "Let's just hope Shaljir is tired of paying tribute."

  "Liron is resisting Verlon," Tansen reminded them.

  "No word yet from Adalian," Yorin said.

  Tansen's gaze sought out Zarien again. "Maybe if we could get the sea-born to declare themselves on our side..."

  "Shaljir is what matters most now," Radyan insisted. "If you can—"

  "Something's wrong," Tansen said suddenly, his gaze still fixed on Zarien.

  The boy waved his tattooed arms and shouted at people to get away from the water. He dragged several men back from the river's edge. Tansen could faintly hear him urging people on the main dock to get back, run, go.

  Radyan drew in a sharp breath. "What in the Fires..."

  Suddenly the whole river started churning, foaming and bubbling as if animated by a thousand different currents.

  "It's them," Galian breathed. "The waterlords."

  "Get away from the river!" Tansen's voice attracted the attention of many people, but not that of the sea-born boy he was shouting at. Zarien was still near the water, his energy being spent in yelling frantic instructions to a well-dressed fat man—a merchant, by the look of him—who stood on the dock, staring transfixed at the violently churning water.

  "Zarien!" Tansen shouted. "Get away!"

  Tansen scrambled down the bluff, pushing his way through the people rushing toward him as they escaped the waterside.

  A torrent of water crashed into the dock. It collapsed. The horrified screams of Zilar's panicking citizens assaulted Tansen's ears as the fat merchant fell into the heaving, roiling water.

  "Zarien!" Tansen saw what the boy meant to do and shouted, "No!"

  Zarien dived in after the merchant.

  Tansen lost his footing and slid into two women climbing up the embankment. He tumbled over them, fell against some rocks, felt something jagged bite into his shoulder and cheek, then scrambled to his feet and continued his frantic descent to the river's edge.

  His heart pounded with terror as his eyes scanned the foaming, turbulent water.

  "Zarien! Zarien!"

  Tansen almost jumped in, but reason prevailed. He was a competent swimmer at best. He'd be of no help to the boy in the water.

  He glanced around frantically, searching the water for Zarien, searching the ground for the stahra. Sharifar wouldn't let the boy die, surely she wouldn't.

  He found the enchanted oar, seized it, and searched the churning river again for some sign of Zarien.

  There!

  Zarien was holding the fat merchant around the neck and trying to keep his own head above water.

  "Zarien!"

  If you let him die, Sharifar, I will never come to sea. Never.

  Tansen threw the oar like a spear. It landed close to Zarien... but the unpredictable bubbling water carried it away from him. Tansen didn't think he even saw it.

  He looked around for something else. Something he could throw to Zarien. Something the boy could grab... He spotted an ordinary oar, one that lay beside a small dugout lying on the embankment.

  Tansen seized it, estimated how far he needed to throw it, and... And stopped when he realized how much closer to the riverbank Zarien was getting with each strong stroke of his free arm, each powerful kick of his legs.

  Darfire. He's not drowning.

  Almost numb with surprise, Tansen leaned over and extended the oar as Zarien neared shore. The boy saw it, seized it, and let Tansen pull him up onto the bank. Then he turned and started hauling the fat merchant out of the water.

  "Help," Zarien croaked. "He's even heavier than he looks."

  When they had pulled the merchant to safety, Zarien leaned over, braced his hands on his knees, and panted, "That was hard." He sounded absurdly surprised.

  Tansen resisted the urge to hit him. "What did you think you were doing?" he demanded.

  Zarien squinted up at him. "What's wrong now?"

  "You could have been killed!"

  Zarien looked at Tansen, looked at the roiling water, and looked back at Tansen. "By that?" He sounded almost contemptuous.

  "Dar give me patience," Tansen muttered.

  "The sea-born," Zarien informed him, "do not drown in a little foamy river water." He glanced down at the merchant and added, "But landfolk do."

  The merchant was choking and wheezing. "Thank... Thank..."

  "He's thanking you," Tansen pointed out.

  Zarien was staring at Tansen. "You're bleeding."

  He glanced down at his arm and saw a gash. "Oh."

  "Your face, too."

  The words made him realize that his cheek was stinging. He touched it. His fingers came away smeared with blood. "I fell," he said wearily.

  "You should be more care—"

  "Don't even say it."

  Zarien sighed. "Never mind."

  Tansen shook his head. "I don't know whether to praise you for saving his life or beat you for scaring me t—"

  "Something's wrong," Zarien said, staring at the water.

  "Of course something's—"

  "No, something else," Zarien said. "The water is doing something."

  "Yes, it's doing something
—"

  "Something else, something new," Zarien persisted.

  "Get back," Tansen ordered. "Let's get away from it." He kicked the gurgling, disoriented merchant. "Get up! We're not carrying you."

  "Where's my stahra?" Zarien asked. "I'm sure it was right here when I dived in."

  "Uh, sorry about that." Tansen seized his arm and started dragging him up the embankment, once again aware of the terrified screams of the crowd. "I threw it in the river."

  "You threw it in the river?" Zarien repeated incredulously.

  "I thought it would save you."

  "I didn't need saving!"

  "Which is presumably why it didn't save you."

  Zarien shook off his grasp and turned back to the river. "I'm not leaving without my stahra!"

  "No!"

  Tansen grabbed for him. Zarien pulled away. And slipped. He went tumbling downhill, dragging Tansen with him. They careened into the merchant... who fell backwards into the river.

  "Dar curse you and all your..." Tansen's voice faded as he realized the merchant wasn't sinking. He lay atop the surface of the water... which was now silent, still, smooth, and glowing eerily in the dying sunlight.

  "That's really interesting." Zarien stretched out one leg and cautiously tapped the surface with the toe of his new boot. Then he turned a puzzled gaze on Tansen. "It's as hard as rock."

  The merchant started praying. Tansen resisted the urge to kick him again.

  Zarien stepped onto the river and started walking across it, awkwardly slipping on its glassy surface every few steps.

  "What are you doing?" Tansen demanded, gritting his teeth as he followed the boy.

  "Looking for my stahra." He looked over his shoulder at Tansen. "If it's embedded in this stuff..."

  "Then we'll let Sharifar worry about how to get it out," Tansen snapped. "Zarien, I'm ordering you, get out of..." He slipped. "Off of... Away from—"

  "There it is!"

  Tansen looked to where the boy was pointing. Sure enough, an object which could only be the stahra lay downriver, resting atop the crystal-hard water.

  "All right," Tansen said. "I'll get the damned stahra. You do as you're told, for once, and get away from the river."

  "I'll get it."

  "Now, Zarien."

  The boy's expression was one of long-suffering tolerance. "Very well." His tone indicated that he was merely humoring Tansen. He turned and started stumbling and skidding his way back to the riverbank.

  Tansen scowled and went after the stahra, well aware of what a stupid risk he was taking for the boy's damned oar. The crystallization of the river seemed to be the waterlords' final act here, but Tansen knew better than to take chances with water magic. He should be up on the bluff with the rest of the town, cowering at a sensible distance; not sliding around on the surface of Abidan's and Liadon's enchanted river, practically inviting them to kill him.

  Really, it was amazing that Zarien's parents, in a totally understandable and forgivable fit of exasperation, hadn't ever thrown him overboard and sailed away as fast as they could.

  After Tansen retrieved the stahra and returned to the riverbank, he wasn't at all surprised, alas, to find the boy right there, rather than up on the bluff where he ought to be. Tansen was feeling the after-effects of the sort of emotional panic he never indulged in, and he found he was just too tired to keep snapping at Zarien.

  Maybe a boy's true passage into manhood, Tansen reflected wryly, occurred when his parents ran out of the strength to keep trying to govern him.

  Zarien was studying the hard, shiny, unmoving surface of the water with amazed fascination. He took the stahra from Tansen and used it to poke at the river several times. When Tansen failed to admonish him, he was emboldened to step onto its surface again.

  However, once he started drumming on it with the sturdy heels of his new boots, Tansen said, "Must you?"

  "It's incredible!" Zarien bent over and touched the hard surface. "How do they do that?"

  "That's what everyone in Sileria would like to know." Tansen gazed out across what had been a river only minutes ago. "It's the source of all their power over us."

  Zarien's head jerked up, his expression sobering as he met Tansen's eyes. "This is it, isn't it?"

  "This is the beginning." Tansen nodded. "They know by now about the bloodfeud we've sworn against them. And they're punishing us." Perhaps the assassin who had escaped Najdan's pursuit told Abidan and Liadon, but not necessarily. Anyone could have alerted them. Tansen's declaration of war had been very public, and word would be spreading fast.

  Zarien looked down at the river again. "No one can drink this. No one can... use this now."

  "Exactly."

  "That's terrible." The boy looked up at the bluff, where hundreds of people were gathering to stare in fear and dismay at the river. They had known this could happen, but it horrified them, even so. "All those people..."

  "This is why we have to fight the Society, Zarien."

  Zarien nodded. "Yes."

  "No one should be allowed to do this to us. No one should hold this kind of power over us. No one should rule us through the threat of doing this to us whenever we fail to obey, to please, to submit."

  The young face was thoughtful. "Yes, now I understand."

  "I hope you do." Tansen looked up at the crowd gathered on the bluff. He saw their frightened, appalled faces and murmured, "I hope everyone in Sileria does."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When you turn your back on a friend,

  he will plant a knife in it.

  —Silerian Proverb

  Emeldar was an ordinary shallah village. Precariously perched near the summit of a craggy mountain in western Sileria, it had a main square of modest size. Its streets were narrow and ancient, its dwellings mostly made of stone quarried from the mountain itself. The traditional sacred lava stone and the fire-scarred offering-ground were at the edge of the village, where there was a cherished, if distant, view of Mount Darshon.

  The only remarkable thing about this village, which so much like hundreds of other villages in Sileria, was that it was the birthplace of the Firebringer.

  Here in Emeldar, Josarian was born, grew to manhood, fell in love, and married. It was here that his wife died in the unfortunate horrors of childbirth. It was here that he mourned her and, in his despondency, allowed himself to be coaxed into his cousin Zimran's modestly profitable smuggling trade; and it was not far from here that he was caught by Outlookers one night.

  In the normal course of events, Josarian and Zimran would have been arrested and sentenced to a year or two in the mines of Alizar. But a single moment of bad judgment—and to this day, no one could really say whose—had changed the world. If Josarian had not tried to warn his cousin before the Outlookers caught Zimran, too; if the Outlookers had not lost their heads and started beating Josarian for his impetuous warning; if Josarian had not fought back and killed two of them...

  Well, actually, everything would probably have turned out the same, anyhow. He wasn't the Firebringer because he had killed a couple of Outlookers and become an outlaw that night. He was the Firebringer because Dar chose him.

  Even Kiloran, who had turned his back upon Dar long ago, understood and accepted this.

  Now, as Kiloran entered the main square of Emeldar for the first time, he could only marvel that such an extraordinary man had come from such an ordinary place. They had been mortal enemies, and Kiloran had tried to kill him more than once, true; but Kiloran did not believe in undervaluing a man (or woman) just because of enmity. Josarian had indeed been extraordinary—even before becoming the Firebringer.

  Kiloran had reached an age when travel was more of a trial than a pleasure, so he wasn't pleased about having to come to Emeldar, but the journey was necessary. Having secured the loyalty of Cavasar, now he needed to ensure that Baran wouldn't be a problem—as he could be, if he chose.

  As Kiloran's even-tempered gelding approached the main fountain, he r
eined him in. He had never doubted the tale of how Josarian had ruined his village's water supply to destroy the Outlooker forces sent here against him, but now he scented the water for himself.

  Poison. It was indeed true. A waterlord could recognize tainted water instantly, though the Outlookers had drunk it like thirsty goats.

  Fortunately, this wasn't a problem. Kiloran had five assassins with him, all of them mounted on horses which had, until recently, belonged to the Outlookers in Cavasar. He saw no point in expending the energy needed to cure the entire water supply, especially since the Emeldari were now his blood enemies, but he could cleanse enough of it to keep his men and horses watered for the duration of their stay in Emeldar. Considering what a dreary little village this was, he hoped that the visit would be a short one.

  Kiloran sent one of his men in search of a comfortable place for him to stay, if such accommodation was possible in Josarian's deserted birthplace. Another of the men took charge of the horses, and two more began transferring water from the main fountain to a large bone-dry trough. When there was enough of it in there for the horses, Kiloran would extract the poison so they could drink. Meanwhile, Searlon drew enough water to quench the men's thirst.

  "If you please, siran," Searlon said, presenting the bucket to Kiloran for him to cure the water.

  While pondering the ramifications of Dar's latest dramatic activities in the distant volcano, Kiloran held his hand over the broad-rimmed bucket and felt the water inside it respond to his will. The colored pillars of smoke, sky-reaching bolts of flame, and angry lightning dancing all around the summit of Darshon concerned him now. He did not hate the goddess, and he refused to fear Her. He could not, however, afford to ignore Her.

  Despite the coming of the Firebringer, Kiloran remained convinced that the zanareen were essentially mad and unreliable, so he didn't intend to count on their noisy proclamations about the strange new events at Darshon. If anyone could sensibly interpret this unprecedented display of Dar's, he supposed it would be the Guardians. So he had recently made arrangements to have several of them captured, in the hope that at least one of them could be made to talk.

  After only a few moments, a silvery mist arose from the bucket of water beneath Kiloran's palm. The poison hissed into the air, the water rejecting it as he commanded.